They're all just they've all just put their manhood in a been a blind trust,
not what your country can do for you and what you can do for
your country. Mister garbachofw Tear Down This Wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with
Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilyax and today we talked to former
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker about the YAF and what is that. Well, let's
ever use as a podcast. It's unfortunate that there is a governor in Texas,
Governor Abbott, who has politicized this issue of what's happening on the border,
and it's not making people's life safer. It's actually making a harder for
law enforcement at the border to do their job. There's really only one person
in America not doing their job, and that's the President of the United States
who's not enforcing immigration laws. America is a nation that can be defined in
a single word. How's going to put him to put? Excuse me?
Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number six hundred and seventy. I'm
James Lylex. Here in Minnesota, cloudy, foggy, Drusie, but yet
the day is ever brightened by the thought of ricochet dot com a beacon in
the night. Well, it is your place with the most stimulating conversations and
community on the web, and you had to go there, and you had
to join. You got to see what all the fuss is about. You
know. I six hundred and seventy six episodes didn't do it. Maybe six
hundred and seventy seven will. But in the meantime, Rob Long and Peter
Robinson, the August founders, the man whose visages are chiseled on a rock
somewhere thanking them for their contribution to Internet dialogue, are with us. Peter
in California, Rob in New York. Gentlemen, welcome, Thank you,
James, Thank you, James, I Suspenice to be here. Always good
to be here as well. But you know, equidistance between you two and
the coasts is Texas, and Texas is having a bit of a oh,
I don't know, start of the civil war. Perhaps that's what people are
saying, because we have Texas government governor versus the federal government over the issue
as to whether or not Texas can do the audacious thing, the obviously illegal
against the state of the Statue of liberty, putting razor wire on the border
to keep people from doing the god given right to come in whenever they want
and do whatever they please. How do you think this is going to play
out well? The politics of it? First of all, legally, the
legal question, I have to say, I don't quite grasp. The governor
of Texas claims that he has declared an invasion and that the state, under
the Constitution, is the right to defend itself. On the other hand,
we do have a civil war that we fought, and I just I have
to go into this, or at least listen to somebody who actually knows what
he's talking about, Bill Barr, perhaps somebody with a legal background, to
sort out the legal issues. The politics of it are, as far as
I'm concerned, terrific. The governor of Texas is doing something about the border,
and now job what Biden is saying, no, no, no,
you have to open that border up. It just puts into un stakably clear
light exactly where everybody stands. We now have governors of As, I recall
the latest figures, twenty five or twenty six states have signed statements supporting Governor
Abbott. So we've got an issue extremely clearly squared up before the public in
which Republicans and the state of Texas are clearly in the right, and the
Biden administration is now being shown for exactly what it really truly wants, which
is to appease the left in its own party by establishing open borders. Well,
we'll see if Wisconsin is one of those states that actually signed that thing.
We buy some coincidence. Would like to now go to Scott Walker,
forty fifth governor of Wisconsin and president of the Young America's Foundation. Autist Walker,
Welcome, I'm over here in Minneapolis at the moment. There's no razor
wire betwixt Minnesota and Wisconsin, even though there's a cold piece that exists between
us and I see I see behind you. You have a crawl on the
video screen that says the long game, which is what it seems the right
is going to have to play. Primary is over right, it's done.
Tell us where you think the party is going to go short term and long
term, and you got about four minutes for the both those questions. Now,
the primary has been over for some time. It was just a matter
of going through the formality. Obviously, Governor Santis, big shot was having
to perform well in Iowa and didn't come close. And Nicki Haley, both
of these people are friends of mine. I think Desanta's to the fabulous job
is grown in Florida. Nicky Haley was a strong ambassador United Nations, but
neither of them. I mean Nicki Haley had to perform in New Hampshire.
She had to have a win or at least an extremely close second. Didn't
have that. And when she gets to North Carolina, all the numbers show
it's going to be a big win for President Trump there, so it is
done. I think the reason, not only in the primary but arguably looking
ahead to the long game in November, why it's to be competitive voters in
the primary, and I would argue voters in swing states like Minor Wisconsin have
had it with politicians who say all the right things, who say it just
the right way or very appealing, but then go to Washington and completely melt
down and don't do what they say they're going to do. And they're willing
to take a president or in this case of former presidents, potentially future president
who doesn't always talk or tweak the way we do, particularly in the Midwest,
but who delivers, who gets things done, And as I point out
in the Washington Times this week in my column, I think people are willing
to take a little bit of political costs in return for some economic stability and
some national security stability, both with the economy and as we were just talking
about with the invasion that we really do see happening on our son boarder.
Governor. You ran for president and your campaign lasted your formal campaign. I
assume you were planning it for months beforehand. You're formal campaign lasted a couple
of months before you decided to withdraw from the race. How does a candidate
decide that it's over. What's your advice for Nicki Haley? And also,
is there an argument I sort of think there is, so maybe you're gonna
have to argue with me a little bit about it. But is there an
argument that by staying in the race, she forces Trump to become a better
candidate to do what Trump most needs to do, which is to learn how
to appeal to the very people to whom Nicki Haley is appealing, independents,
old fashioned Republicans. Let's say, I don't know. I don't want to
sound as though I'm insulting any bit but Bush Republicans. Let's say, George
H. W. Bush Republicans. Donald Trump has to unify his party to
have any chance. He's got a lock on the base, that's clear,
but he also seems to have a ceiling in the forties. You cannot get
elected president without bringing in more people. So the question is advice, did
you decide? What should she decide? And is there an argument that she
makes him better by staying in for a few more primaries? Well, a
couple things. One, I say this juocantly, but it's largely acurate as
well. I got out before I got a nickname, so I was one
of the smarts. But here I was in that second debate at the Ronald
Reagan Presidential Library Museum. CNN did the debate and in three hours I got
about two questions, and at that point I realized, even though I was
pulling up there not too far behind then candidate Trump, former Governor Jeb Bush,
and I were right there in the center. You know it was they
did it by polling. People in politics at the time were shocked that we
got out. But I just looked and I said, unless I you know,
stand up side of my head and do something really radical. At the
next debate. It was all about Donald Trump, I would argue, I
contend time. I think many of the national media were doing that because they
thought Donald Trump was the only can who couldn't beat Hillary Clinton. So that
was a bit of their fascination of propping him up, giving him more time,
and in part because he was good for ratings then as he is now.
But in the end, obviously he showed them that he as well as
the rest of us, probably could have defeated Hillary Clinton because of the disdain
out there for I got out because I thought there needs to be a positive
conservative alternative because we're in Earth. At the time, I didn't know what
to expect out of Donald Trump. I heard what he was saying, but
he'd never been elected. We didn't really know what kind of a track record.
I remember Check Todd a few years ago in twenty twenty tried to call
me out on that and say that how could I possibly then support Donald Trump
after having said that? Well, because I was wrong. I didn't know
what to expect. Even though I don't often agree with his tone or some
of his tweets, the reality was in terms of substance. I mean,
the guy was stellar. He put tremendous jurist on the Federal Court, both
in the Supreme Court. At the other levels, he reigned in regulations,
he cut taxes, he put more money back in the and the American people
on so many issues, with a few exceptions, but fairly rare. This
was someone I like substantively, in fact, in a weird sort of way.
People trick to hear this. Obviously style substant our style was very different,
but he got many of the same sorts of things done that Ronald Reagan
talked about generations before. So I like that. But how I got out
was I just realized this is where the media was going. I could see
where things were headed and said, I'm not going to waste the money of
my supporters trying to drag things out any further, Which really is the key
Nicki Haley question. I like Nicki Haley. She and I were governors together.
As I said, I thought she was a good ambassador. But she
really has to decide, you know, how where does this end? Because
you know, if you're looking at people or investors saying before New Hampshire,
there were many who thought maybe just maybe a New Hampshire way to breakthrough,
and you'd have a change that's not going to happen. She may be able
to make a case and some issues here or there, So I think she
needs to think long and hard about what's her end game. And then your
last point about making her better normally in a normal cycle, which this is
anything. But I think that's a fairly solid argument. But I would say
the reverse is the case now, and give me a minute to explain that.
I think Donald Trump, when he is in the primaries, Donald Trump's
a fighter, right or wrong, he's a fighter, and so if you're
in his way, he's going to attack you. He's going to attack anyone
associated with you. The sooner he's the nominee and no one else is running,
the more he can turn his attacks towards Joe Biden. I think that
one part in particular starts to bring the rest of the tent together that doesn't
want Joe Biden to be president, even if they're not all big fans of
Donald Trump, focusing on what the contrast is, and the last thing I
would just say on that, beyond just Niki Haley's decision is Donald Trump to
win has got to be more like the Donald Trump fighter in twenty sixteen and
less like the one in twenty twenty. What I mean by that is,
in twenty sixteen, he was the guy fighting for the men and women of
America who felt forgotten. We saw this about a year ago in East Palaceine,
Ohio, and Joe Biden was in Europe. Pete Buotachet was nowhere to
be found. Donald Trump showed up at that train to room and said,
you're not forgotten. He brought in supplies, he brought in water, he
did things that really made them feel connected. That's the guy that won in
twenty sixteen. If, in turn, though he talks about other Republicans where
he talks about the twenty twenty election, I think that's the guy who lost
in the last cycle. So for him to win in Wisconsin and a handful
of battleground states, voters have to see him as a fighter for them,
not as someone who fights for the sake of fight. Okay, you have,
I've got one more question. I asked your advice for Nikki Haley.
You were too polite to say get out, but it seems as though that
is about what your advice comes to for Trump and for the Republican Party generally.
And let me give a piece of your background that often gets overlooked.
You did remarkable things as a Republican governor in a state where it's a close
call between the Republicans and the Democrats. But what often gets overlooked is that
your political career began in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee is a still even now,
a largely blue collar and an overwhelmingly Democratic town. You figured something out.
You figured out how to do what Donald Trump claims to do, which is
you appeal to the what do we want to say, the Truman Democrat or
the Reagan Democrat, some of the decent, working, patriotic people who want
their schools to work, who want businesses to hire. All right, can
Trump do what you did in Milwaukee? Can he pull he lost millwa Halaukeey
to Biden? What do you think? I'm using Milwaukee as a test case
because it's it's good human beings who tend to vote Democratic, and they're exactly
the kind of people the Trump needs to win in order to do what he
has to do to truly govern, which is carry the Senate and carry the
House and send a big message to everybody, including the media, that he
has built a governing coalition. The key, yeah, the key is he's
got to do that in a way that not only appeals to them, but
doesn't turn off the suburbs at the same time, because part of the key
to the difference between twenty twenty and twenty sixteen was that because of his tone
and the contrast of voters somehow thinking that Joe Biden might be reasonable, but
it was that one two punch. The suburbs somewhat Republican, but they were
somewhat deflated. I think again they it's both with traditional blue collar voters,
which are historically in the South side of Milwaukee. Those are people that were
mind bread and butter. When I won, people thought I could never win
first Republican maybe only Republican there to win. I won with Reagan Democrats,
Tommy Thompson Democrats. And I would say one other voting block I picked up
on where people who voted for Ross pro in that ninety two election didn't like
Bill Clinton because they thought he was a draft dodger, but thought George Herbert
Walker Bush was a decent guy, but too much country club Republican. Those
people wanted a blue collar kind of lookout for you know, everybody who felt
forgot. I think that's actually an area that Donald Trump does well if he's
focused. I've told him this repeated. He's wasting his time if he's attacking
particularly other Republicans, but just in general. If he's attacking people personally where
he does well, and not only with those blue collar voters, but where
he doesn't lose suburban voters. If he's taking on the establishment, if he's
taking on the problems of Washington, if he's saying, I don't mind stirring
the pot, I'll take those people on. I'm standing in a way to
defend every day, hard working people like you be doaes that he can win.
Forget about the last election, don't look backwards. Elections are always about
the future. If he can have the discipline to do that. I also
told him the best payback for whatever he thinks happened to him in the last
election is to win the next one. That's more important than trying to litigate
the last one. So I know James wants to come in, but you
used the word or Rob wants to come in, you use the word discipline.
Okay, here we go here we go, Governor. Let me just
tell you a tale of two victory speeches, Donald Trump and Iowa. I
think he spoke for about twenty minutes. He spent the first ten minutes doing
exactly what I'm sure you did over and over again as governor. You call
out the people who helped out. You mentioned people by name. You say
thank you to this person, and thank you to that person. Come on
up here on the stage and take around of applause. You helps it.
That sounded like a politician who wanted to win. And then he goes on
in the next ten minutes and talks about the importance of unifying the country.
Thanks Ron and Nicky for running good salid. Oh my goodness, I thought
to myself, Donald Trump has decided to act presidential. This guy is not
intent on vengeance. This guy is intent on winning. Eight days later,
victory speech in New Hampshire, nasty, divisive, insulting, this sneering comment
to Nicki Haley, insulting the dress she wore. Oh my goodness, my
wife almost came out of her skin when she's sitting on the sofa next to
me heard that. Which one of these guys are we going to end up
with and do. Isn't it legitimate for all of us to say, wait
a minute, he's a seventy eight year old man. He's been in politics
for a good long time now. If he hasn't got just the rudimentary political
discipline, by now, what are we buying here? Oh, there's no
doubt about it. And those are the two I say. That's the difference
between the twenty sixteen and the twenty twenty. The twenty sixteen was the Iowa
speech. The twenty twenty was the New Hampshire speech. There needs to be
enough people who talk to them, family, friends, confidence, others out
there that need to repeatedly. And part of this, someone once told me
from New York years ago, is, you know, part of his instincts,
having been in Manhattan real estate, is if you attack me, I
punched back twice as hard and then move on. He doesn't view it oftentimes
as personal long after it's done. But at that moment, like you say,
it stings, and in politics that sting, you know, you do
enough of those and you start to break apart your winning coalition. He needs
the folk. Every day, someone needs to tell them you can win.
But here are the things you need to do now. I tell people,
we're never going to make him into a round regul We're not going to make
him into the happy warrior. What we have to do is take what we
have and what we have with them that that hand win that I actually think
is a good thing, is that fighter. I'm willing to fight the establishment,
willing to fight the problems in Washington. I'm willing to take on the
things that other politicians won't do, and I will follow through with them.
That's the guy who won in twenty sixteen. But if he gets into these
individual battles or anything else for him, the best thing he could do is
just say keep saying that. And then, in fact, if I was
coaching him, as I hoped previous vice presidential candidates, if I was coaching
him in the debates, I'd say those simple things and defer the rest of
my time to Joe Biden. Because the more people here Joe Biden speak them,
less likely they are to vote to him. You know, I was
just with a little bit ago a group of students that are here at our
headquarters for training from Young America's Foundation, and I was talking to you know,
a number of them from swing states across the country, and I told
them, to their surprise, we just did a national poll and found the
number one issue of college students isn't what you think it is. Certainly isn't
what the media talks about. It's the economy. So even college students are
feeling the pain that so many other Americans are out there. If Donald Trump
reminds people of what things were like before Joe Biden and where you can take
them going forward, and then pens the tale on the donkey figuratively and literally,
I guess in this case to Joe Biden, that's a winning combination.
But it's like you say, it's that discipline that sometimes gets drawn off the
mark. Governor. Thank you for joining us. Man. If I had
a dollar for every time somebody said, you know, if Donald Trump could
just due Donald Trump could just hold him, I'd be as rich as Donald
Trump says he is. That's how rich I would be. But but let
me just push back on it a little bit. I'll tell you why.
I'll tell why I've been run out of the publican party by Donald Trump.
He told me he didn't want me. I don't think he did any of
those things you said he did. I think Obama built more wall on the
border than Donald Trump did. I think he blew it in a renegotiating a
trade pack he didn't to with Mexico and Canada basically gave us the same thing.
Trade deficit went up, by the way. I think he blew it
going head to head with China. Trade deficit with China went up by the
way. And I don't think he drained the swamp. I think he gave
the swamp over during COVID, and he shut down the government and the economy
without a thought to the plan there. I think he's a weak man,
and I think he's a weak leader, and I think the world is a
very serious place, and I think he has failed. And the idea that
the Republican Party is in a suicide pact now and it's going to tie its
future to this man who has shown himself to be unfit. When it really
mattered in COVID really mattered, he blew it. And we're going to hope
that at seventy eight years old, a man who has never changed one iote
is going to change. I think that's insanity. How am I wrong?
Well, well, I in those sorts of arguments are the ones that I
think a lot of supporters are run to. Sad Is, who I think
was a fabulous governor would be had he been the nominee and outstanding president.
The very things you talked of, at least many of them, are things
they wish DeSantis or Nikki Haley or some of the other candidates would have made
more Forciblly and would have connected with throughout the campaign. The reality is for
a number of reasons, but not the least of which is the perception of
voters about what they have versus what they might get. Is set down that
pass. So you're going to have a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, unlike the past choice where he'll be a one term and
a really important decision he's going to make is who is his running mate,
because that person not only will be vice president, but could very well be
queued up to be the front runner in the next election in twenty twenty eight,
which really will ultimately be the future not just of the party but of
America in that regard. But I think most people look at this, not
only on the right, but manly swing voters and say, you know,
I hear from so many voters who told me they were either swing moderate voters
or even some lifelong Republicans who said they couldn't take it anymore of Donald Trump
and voted for Biden, who now tell me they're either voting for Trump if
he's a nominee, or as many told me, they're just not going to
vote at all. Is that what happened wis Consin in twenty twenty, twenty
three thousand people were the difference that could be the winning margin. Yeah,
I mean twenty thousand people in Wisconsin voted for Bid. I mean he won
by twenty thousand votes. Right. It's a high wire iract, whatever you
go go for, but a high wire act in twenty sixteen. I mean,
I'm eliminating the popular vote from this. Because we're all Republicans here.
We understand selectro calls, right, but it's a high wire act. What
is it about conservatives? I consider myself a conservative, but not a Republican.
What are about conservatives that they see in this high wire act that's worth
giving up their principles for? I just I'm just baffled by it. I
mean, I cannot imagine everybody listens podcast already knows cannot imagine I'm going to
vote for this man. I can't possibly bring myself to do that. But
I'm still conservative. He's not that's my issue. He's not well. And
again that's where I think when you look just purely looking at the numbers here,
it's way in a state like Wisconsin, I would argue in Georgia,
in Michigan, where those two states just had polls put out by the Atlanta
and the Troy papers, respectively, who showed amazingly former president of having an
eight point lead in Pennsylvania, in Nevada, in Arizona. You've got a
handful of states via the electoral College who elect argue with the next president.
And in those states, I think, more than anything, voters have had
it with Joe Biden. It's kind of the inverse of what we saw in
twenty sixteen, where people have had it with Hillary Clinton and then voted for
Donald Trump. And the case of twenty twenty, you had to flip the
other way where a lot of swing voters and even some Republicans didn't like the
tone, the style, the substance. In some cases, tone, style
and substances, all you got easible but now they don't they Now they say
I talked to voters all the time who say I'll take the chaos again in
return for not having Joe Biden messing things up in the federal government. Sorry,
mister Walker. We know that national reconciliation is possible, just by evidence,
by the fact that I was supporting the Packers. I was rooting for
the packers after this year. So I know that we can get past some
of our big schisms here in the country. But it requires having a set
of ideals that are passed on to the next generation, which I take it
that your foundation is all about. Now, when you mentioned that you talk
to the young people and they're concerned about the economy, imagine if you talk
to young people of a leftist bend, they too are concerned about the economy.
But their solution is to nationalize everything, to socialize everything, and to
embrace it all into the big loving arms of Uncle Sam. We need a
cadre of people to march through the institutions, as the Moist used to say,
in order to bring about free enterprise, notions, notions of political individual
liberty, and so forth. Tell us more about your foundation and how you
hope to train the young minds of tomorrow to do the right thing. Yeah,
YAF dot org. If you're a student under attack, we've got your
back. Your parent and grandparent joining us here today. We love to send
one of your kids or grandkids to one of our conferences, beat at the
Reagan Ranch out in California, the Ronald Reagan boy at Home and Dixon in
Virginia and Washington, or even some of our regional conferences like one that sounds
pretty nice these days in Orlando, Wisconsin coming up, Actually in Atlanta,
Florida, which is coming up. And we do conferences. We have the
largest conservative lecture series in the nation, helping out students in some two thousand
campuses, and then we broadcast this so YAFTV on YouTube now has one point
six million subscribers and last year we should pass one point two billion views,
with great names like Ben Shapiro and many others out there talking about those very
conservative principles. We're not exclusively a Reagan institution, but we very much are
proud to be aligned with him, not just because of those historic presidential properties,
but because we talk that we're not political, we're a nonprofit, but
certainly right of center, and we talk about things that Reagan cared about,
free enterprise, individual liberties, strong national defense, traditional American values are so
important. And you're right, there's a lot of folks out there who think,
you know, buying to Bernie Sanders free everything. We like to say
we're for free things as well. We're for free enterprise, freedom, religion,
freedom, association, importantly freedom. And I think, you know,
for young people, the bad rub that this generation gets is that you know,
they're all crazy, that all radicals, they all buy into this.
But I tell them there's nothing wrong with young voters. I'm not afraid of
them. I'm afraid of young voters. We only hear one side of the
story, and sadly, on too many campuses, they're only hearing one side
of the story. If given a chance, I'll give you a quick example
then. So Stamford one of the places I spoke at right before COVID a
few years ago. I was not present at time, I was just a
speaker there, but Yaffiff had organized the event with the college Republicans on campus.
I came and spoke was used to some protesters because I hadn't many in
my own state, but it was a great event, great great q and
a great, great opportunity to engage with the students. But of the three
students who organized, and two of the three very normal backgrounds, but once
said, oh, both my parents are Democrats, but I'm a conservative.
It it was because he'd been exposed to consider the thoughts in high school.
He's one of the rare few that got that. And when he got to
Stanford he was a full blood of conserve. He understood that true freedom and
opportunity don't come from the clumsy hand of the government. They come from empowering
people through the dignity that comes from hard work. And that's a great story.
But what makes it really powerful, you guys appreciate John's mother just happens
to be Susan Rice. So John Rice Cameron is a full blood. He's
now graduated, works in finance. But to me, he's a great pretty
so conservative he is that he went straight to Wallstown, right, Yeah,
And that's great. Stories like that are great. The job that we have,
and I'm sure the YF is conscious of this, is changing a culture
that is now just sort of automatically leans left and its language and its attitudes
and its positions and the rest of it. And that's that's a big job.
I mean again, I mentioned the words that are marching behind you the
long game. Doesn't that record not just putting people in finance, but putting
people in positions where they're able to shape and inform the culture in a way
that is more that is friendly or to freedom. Let's just put it that
way. Yeah, yeah, part of our long game plan. Knowing the
left has done this for decades, it was enhanced with Saul Lensky's efforts,
you know, the march through higher education these days argue if you shut down
a college campus, it would do more to stop the spread of communism than
that of COVID. But it is one of those where higher education we've got
programs to help the few. But there are some not just conservative professors and
educators, even in twelve and senior dealing with high school and middle school students.
There's not only conservative educators. There's many of their just quietly out there
trying to be objective, and so providing support to them is part of our
long game proposal. We have a journalism center that tries to teach fact based,
you know, objective, true seeking journalism. That's good. Let me
stop you right there. That's that's the thing, the journalism part, because
the language matters, and the crop of journalists that is coming in today,
if you survey them, you will find that they are opposed to the idea
of objectivity because objectivity treats both sides as if they're the same. You know,
that is critical. And you know, newspapers where I work come here
at the Star Tribune, we aren't exactly the most going concern. But when
it comes to online journalism and internet, you know, and when people get
on the Internet, I would say, don't concentrate on putting people in the
newspapers. Concentrate on putting people into positions where their tiktoks can get to kids,
because that's going to be the more effective information distribution platform in the future
than the old just you know, dead Tree newspaper. Absolutely. In fact,
most of our placements now increasingly are on digital media outlets, and it's
why we put such a focus on on our YouTube channels, on broadcasting our
lectures and our conferences and really perfecting a form. I give credit to Bench
Shapiro for doing this. When he speaks on a campus for us, about
half of his time or more is taking questions of that. He allows anyone
who disagrees with him to raise their hand and go to the front of the
lawn. Why that's powerful is it's just good TV or good YouTube in this
case because of that engagement. But the other part is both in person but
particularly online. I believe this generation more thing. It's two key things.
They like authenticity with that kind of echange does not pre package format, but
real live interaction friction. But then and Ben and others speak for us,
do this well like Reagan would have just you know, polite but simple and
aggressive replies, you know, explaining the truth, the counter to the radical
nonsense. They've been here on campus. So authenticity is part of it.
The other Bard's fairness. You know, the left does a good job of
common doing that, but as conservatives, we should embrace the concept of fairness.
You know, I don't care what you look like where you come from.
I don't care you're black or white, rich or poor, younger old.
I don't care whether you were born in America or you legally came here
from somewhere else. I want everyone to have the same freedoms and same opportunities
that were passed on to me by prior generations. We talk about those core
things, not only to Americas in general, but even young people. They
get into that not hearing that, and we've got to expouse that, as
you said, on formats like TikTok and YouTube and others, which are really
at least for this generation, the places they're getting in information. Yeah,
I mean, Governor, I think that's a really powerful point. I mean,
universities used to be a place you went to hear ideas and arguments you
had never heard before. Like you went to the college and you came back
and your head was all turned around and you were filled with ideas. And
now you go to college to never hear ideas that might challenge the way you
think. So I guess my question is that, I mean, whenever I'm
talking about, especially at ed institutions in general, with conservatives, there's really
two camps. There's one that says we've got to go in and reform.
We've got to go in reform right that. You know, people argue,
even in the media right now, Well, you know what, the La
Times wouldn't be in such trouble with they had a few conservatives writing for it.
Right, it wasn't so such a monoculture. And the other part,
the other half of that conservative conversation is always to hell with them, to
hell with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, to hell with the La Times,
let them sink, let them die. We got to build our own.
What side of you on? I'm a missionary. I believe missionary mindset in
this movement that we're cell under attack now on higher ed in social media and
traditional media outlets, that we have to have the mindset of a missionary,
that we're going to go out and spread the word. We've got the truth
on our side. We shouldn't be afraid to go anywhere and everywhere. It's
why, you know, we fought a lawsuit in one at the University of
California, Berkeley. It's why we're in the Ivy League schools, or the
University Wisconsin Madison or anywhere else out there. We'll fight in every campus anywhere
across the nation. We have YAFF chapters, uh for example, at Hillsdale
or Liberty or other places like that. God bless them. That's more about
really, but I need, you know, I need a voice. And
all these more radicalized campuses as well as you know, in places like TikTok.
I'm not personally on TikTok. I think there's real problems with the CCP
and connection with TikTok. But Yaff has got a voice on TikTok because we're
going to go where they're at. And until there are young people out there
that haven't heard the truth or that we've all we covered them all, well
well then maybe we can retreat. But right now our only chance for success
is to go on their territory and make breakthrough. We can't just sit back
and do it all by speaking to the choir. You know, I'm just
sorry. I kept thinking about the the yafft chapter at the Hillsdale. That
must be the easiest post ever. It's like being one of those Mormon missionaries
you get assigned to Salt Lake City. Yeah, okay, we can kind
of take it easy here. How I mean, just because I know Peter
wants to jump in before I how tough is it? Or I guess I
should say the other way round. I said, how brave are they right
now? Twenty twenty four college campus, young American Freedom member? What are
you looking at? How tough is it going to be for them? Oh,
the abuse, the pushback. We were just talking to a massive hall
full of them earlier, and they're just so inspiring because they're so courageous.
I was talking to Jasmine Jordan, who heads up the chapter University of Iowa,
when she brought a speaker on this past semester. They've had multiple speakers,
but she brought someone in and the left was so unhinged that they put
out thirty thousand marbles on the steps that go into this auditorium. Oh nodding
that. I said, it's proof positive the left has lost their marbles.
But it's just, you know, these are the things they do. It's
the hatred, the pushback. You know, it doesn't matter what they're talking
about, it's all the same tactics. You're racist, you're sexist, you're
transphobic, or whatever. Jazz's a good example. She'd been called a white
supremists, Jasmin's a black woman. I mean, it's it's incredible the stuff
that they push back on. But it's part of the reason why we have
these conferences. Isn't that we're necessarily converting kids at these to think more consertive
ideas. It's that these students come and they realize, hey, I'm not
alone. There actually are other people like me. Because the left's winning strategy,
and it's true in elections as well, is to make those of us
who are conservative feel like we're alone. Thankfully, there's more of us than
you'd think, even on college campuses. The University of Wisconsin at Madison,
it is a great public institution, but every time you see the electoral map
in Wisconsin, Madison is voting for the other side and I'm and it's publicly
funded. I mean, as governor, you're the guy who was right assigning
the bills that funded that darned place. I don't know. At some point
I'd like to hear you address the essay question my life with the act,
my life with the people who ran out, who ran the University of Wisconsin
and Madison man to have the state government and the university centered in the same
otherwise beautiful town was just a lot. But well, I mean, if
you want to take a couple of sets, we've now got Rhonda Santis and
the As governor, he appointed Chris Rufo to the board of trustees of a
small college down Florida, the state institution, and the trustees of the University
of Florida have just brought in Ben sass. I mean, it feels as
though the slowest most insulated market in the world, which is the market for
higher education in the United States, at prestigious institutions such as the University of
Wisconsin. He's finally beginning to respond, Is it is it? Yeah?
I think it is, hope. But again, it's that long game that
you see back there. It's not just a couple of quick wins. You
know, when I was governor, we put on regions that put in place
inforcable measures to protect free speech because like many campuses even today, you'll see
Heckler's vetos where you know, protests can come up and shut down a conservative
speaker or sometimes even with the blessing of the administration, as we saw with
the Stanford Law School issue. But that's great, but that's still not enough.
I say, we got to take it a step further. If there's
any regret I had as governor we did the free speech stuff, we should
have gone much much further. I love pointing out on college campuses and with
boards and trustees and regents that you know, the faculty and others will claim
academic freedom. But I love to point out the counter that if you truly
believe in diversity, how about diversity have thought? You know why is most
arts and sciences programs in most of our iley schools either have little or none
in some cases of the people on their faculty who are even remotely right of
Stalin. That's the trouble with your institutions, with your foundation's name. I
hate to say it because to a lot of kids, a lot of kids
today Americans eh nationalistic freedom, freedom to do bad things. You need to
call yourself the foundation of world citizen diversity, and that will bring them in.
When I was in college, a friend of mine had a Soviet dissident
that he wanted he wanted everybody to know how bad the USSR was in the
college, and of course they didn't believe that those case, so he called
it the nuclear freeze movement in the Soviet Union, and we packed the auditorium
with people who were there eager to hear about what it was. And of
course the dissident got up and said, there is no nuclear freeze movement and
will not be until Russia is free, and sat down to great you know,
to the applause of all the the dps. So yeah, we're at
a point on campus where if you say young Americans for Freedom, people recoil
like a like a vampire to garlic because you because those concepts are are questionable
and sus uh good luck is all like you say, is from all of
us, and and our thanks as well for joining us. Unless Rob had
one more thing with which he wanted to do, thank you, Thank you
for coming and great work with YAF. Give us that website address again through
which they can see all of your social media and your youtubes and the rest
of it. It is why YAF dot o RG and y F tv is
our YouTube and all the other stuff is right there on our website terms of
social media. Well, by the way, I we're talking to, we're
talking to a former governor of considerable accomplishment, who could himself be sitting on
boards and working on Wall Street. YAF is a labor of love for Scott
Walker, and he actually governor. I don't know. I sort of asked
around when you took the job, and everybody said no, no, no,
no, this is full time for him. This is really what he
is doing with his life. So thank you. And also in the future.
You know, the Reagan Library is nice. Florida is nice, but
so is Ryan Lander in the summer. Dude, you know you have a
conference, have a conference there, you know, and I'd be happy to
show up and speak just a couple of just a couple of hours. Scott
Walker, thank you so much, thank you, thank you, Governor.
Bye. Before we, uh, we went to the governor, we were
talking about Texas and Rob did not have the chance to chime in on how
he believes the razor wire debate is going to shake itself out. Razor wire
debate. I love that. Oh yeah, that's good. That's great to
put. You know, I have no idea how to shake out. I
mean, I guess I understand the constitutional argument, right that the federal government
is supposed to guard the border of the Federation of States that we have and
it's derelict in that right. So I guess I understand the constitutional argument.
I mean, if that's what it is, I just I don't understand the
logic. I just don't. You know, sometimes you try to think it's
that old, you know thing, the Godfather and the Godfather that Michael Corleone
says to Tom Hagen. He goes. Dad Pop always taught me to try
to think the way the other sides thinks, think the way that people around
here, your competitors think. Like I don't know what they're thinking in the
Democratic Party, what are they thinking. I mean, it's funny because I
remember years ago. I'm just how old I am. I remember years ago
Colorado Democrat, Colorado congressman named Tomton Tankrado ran for president, and he ran
for president Desions maybe ninety two thousand, maybe two thousand and four, I
think two thousand and It was on the illegal immigration issue. That's what his
big issue was immigration. And I knew a lot of people in the Publican
party then who said, yeah, he's right about that. But like you
know, we do these focus groups in these polls and nobody cares. There's
just no interest in this. This is just not something that people care about.
And then you know, twenty thousand and four rolled around, two thousand
and eight rolled around, this is not something people really care about, and
they would show you not so many people care about. Twenty twelve rolled around,
same thing. It's hard for me to believe that there's a person paying
attention in politics on any side who thinks that this is something to ignore.
I understand the idea of saber rattling. If I was a Democrat, I'd
be you know, screaming bloody murder about it and then try to pass something
This is sort of useless and toothless, right, you know, kind of
like when Republicans talk about the environment, they don't really care about it,
but to pass something, right. But the idea of going to court so
that you can you don't, so whoever is protective board must not do that
seems insane, just baffling to me, Like I just don't get even the
politics of it. And I can't imagine that the you know, the normal
American person somewhere there in the middle there somewhere doesn't look at this and think,
we, well, what else are you supposed to be doing if not
protecting the borders of the United States. This seems bananas to me. And
I just don't know who's in that meeting, Like, who is there anybody
in that meeting in the in the in the clown car that's the Biden administration
saying well, wa wait, wait a minute, we can't actually we got
to do something. Okay, these aren't smart people, These aren't brilliant people
who are crafting behind these doors the eventual replacement of all Americans with people from
the other part of the world. They're generally mediocre, banal minds who are
looking at optics and saying, you know, I feel bad about the fact
that there's razor wire and you could have some family that just wants to improve
their lot in life and the kids get their dress stuck on the razor wire.
That's horrible. It shouldn't happen. I know somebody who was as ribbon
conservatives that they come down in Arizona, who was driving around and saw a
whole bunch of people, families whatnot, standing on a corner looking for jobs
or hands out of the rest of it, and she just said, you
know, oh, I feel so bad. We should just let them all
in, right, And she's as you know, as hardcore concern, But
at that moment, there was a swelling in the breast of fellow feeling and
empathy for these people, and how can we not, how can we not?
We've got so much it's not so unfair. And so that's I swear,
that's what motivates a lot of these people. At the same time,
you may ask what are they thinking when they have judges who will say,
well, you know what, I know, it's your seventh attempt for carjacking
with a with a with a pistol and you're a felon, but I'm gonna
give you one more chance. What are they thinking? They're thinking that the
empathy and thea of what these people have been through and disparities and equities and
the rest of it, and they're not it's not a smart, calculated gamble.
I think I think that they're acting with their hearts in the in the
stupid space the way, because the end result is what you see now in
Chicago in New York, where you have places that are full, the hotels
bursting into the gun wales with all of these illegal scooters out front. The
guys are door dashing here. Yeah, I mean you know about this rob
right and the money that has to be spent. So we're going to get
to the point eventually where the people who are citizens of these cities will say,
wait a minute, hold on, you've got to house all these people.
You're going to actually they're going to build housing at some point to house
the people who are not citizens, and in order to do so they will
take money from the people who live in those cities and give it to them
for because because it's because of the wonderful things. Yeah right, it's such
a bananas thing. You have that in a New York City. It was
like this, this electric moment when people saw for they saw the actual choice
being made. We're going to close a school to house illegal immergrants. It's
such a bizarrely stark choice. It's like if you if you had said to
somebody, you know, five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years
ago, this is going to happen. They say, come on, come
on, I know, I mean, you know you guys, and you're
crazy. Fantasies is not gonna happen. And they had it did and the
and the and. But's what's strange to me also, is this this weird
misunderstanding of the way. Look, I mean, I think we are the
most general I mean, I did a show on it's on Fox Nation.
It's called six History of the World and the Six Classes. By the way,
it's great. You should go look at it. It's really a lot
of fun. And uh. The host was Dan Ackroyd. Dan Akroyd,
famous comedian guy and he's Canadian, and and he would we talked about their
couple couple uh is history of the World, six classes, and and and
and six kind of drakes so so beer, wine, spirits, coffee,
tea, soda and in the soda part was essentially kind of a vodka.
Yeah, right, drinking and he said he said something like you know,
I think he was he was, uh. We were toasting at the end
of the show, and he goes said, and we have to raise a
glass too to United States of America. Good for the most the most generous
nation on earth. He said it a couple of times Canadian, right,
And that is true. It is absolutely true, and worse the other guys,
says Jim Belution. Somebody eftery who else was like, we're noding,
Like, you know, we rarely hear that, but it's true. So
I guess I agree with you. There probably are some people who look at
those hordes in the border and think, oh, you know, what do
we do? But there's still got to be a process, right, It's
still got to be a procedure. You still have to have some kind of
like you know, crowd control, which they don't have a policy. That's
that's uh, that's clearly identified, which they don't have, and it just
seems to me that like that's what that's. Look. I understand that Biden
is is is uh is in earlier, mid or late stages of dementia,
but that doesn't mean everybody else gets to be that way. Like somebody's got
to be you know, dry a driving the bus here, and to not
even show interest in busy work seems to be crazy. Yeah, the person
driving the bus is actually not a citizen because you're giving them licenses. Now,
Peter, you wanted to say something, No, no, I mean
all this is absolutely fascinating to me. I mean, even if you kind
of I'd be very happy to explode and be angry. And I can do
that because I sort of participate in the actual participate in the politics of this
thing. But if I take a step or two back, it really is
just fascinating because it raises two questions. Rob has already raised one of them.
Well, actually Rob has implicitly raised both of them. Who is making
the decisions? We know that Joe Biden, throughout his political life, which
I believe has ended, he's just not in charge. He's spending three three
day weekends at home in Delaware to rest up, and who knows what kind
of transfer. I don't know, but he's not in charge. And we
know he's not in charge because throughout his career he understood that he had to
champion the ordinary working Democrats, exactly the kinds of people that Scott Walker was
talking about in Milwaukee. When Joe Biden was sentient, he understood that was
his base. And those people are as upset about open borders as we are.
So there's some the people around him, somebody around him has made a
political calculation that it is less damaging to his reelection prospects to leave the borders
open than it would be to begin to close them. And that is because
they have a sophisticated or think they have a sophisticated understanding of their supporters.
And their supporters include the squad aoc Rashid, whatever her name is, and
a hard we call it the progressive left. It's actually very hard left that
really does want open borders. And they have decided they've made a political calculation
that as messy as this is, they need that piece of their base.
That's the first thing. And I can understand the Department of justice. You
get those lawyers over there, they get a state acting in defiance, and
they feel they can't help themselves. They've got to go to court against it.
But here's my next question, which I put to you two guys.
I can't think of a bigger story in the country right now than this story.
You have a governor of what is Texas, the second most populous state
in the country, now engaging in an act of open defiance against the president
of the United States. You have the governors of twenty four, maybe up
to twenty five other states signing statements in support of him. You have this
thing headed to the courts. It's the most politically explosive issue immigration. And
I have been scrolling down the site of The New York Times online at this
hour. Not a single word about it. One They are pretending it doesn't
exist, or they're making it a datorial judgment in the room's newsroom. It's
not news. That's what I can sort of understand. The somebody around Biden.
I can sort of understand the political I think they're wrong about the political
calculations, But I think I understand the political calculations. I do not understand
the journalistic decision here. Well, I'm let me. I have two possibilities
here. One is I don't understand the political calculation when for some reason I'm
more nervous or I get more disquieted when people espouse not when people espouse ideas
or politics or policies different from mine, but when they when people in politics
are bad at politics, it's like I kind of want them at least to
you know what I mean. Yeah, but I think what they want.
I think it's what happens when you're a you're a bad teacher or headmaster,
and you see rule breaking going on, and you can't do anything to stop
it, so you look away. You got to look away from what the
governor's doing because you can't stop it. Because even people who disagree with the
with the governor of Texas, you end up saying things, well, on
a constitutional level, it's probably not a good idea, which is not a
full throat It's not the same thing as saying over the borders, right.
And I feel like the probably what's going to happen the smart move, I
mean, maybe they'll do it politically. For the Bide administration to get out
of this is simply to ignore it. Because you cannot stop it, and
if you try to stop it, all you'll do is remind people that you
have But you have one national leader who has a border policy, which is
border security, and you have another national leader, federal leader, who has
no policy that he will articulate except let chaos reign. And that is not
a winning formula. And I think what they want to do is they kind
of want to, you know, shrug and dance and tap dance their way
through this problem and hope that we all move on to something else. But
the governor of Texas, to his great credit, is not letting him do
that, and he's going to probably his argument is you want you want me
to stop doing this, come and stop me. Come and stop me.
I mean, I thinking you've got the governor of Texas saying come and stop
me, although he's doing it in a more ill elegant I mean, I
actually been watching him on television. I think Greig Abbott is he sounds in
control, he sounds calm, he sounds rational, his statement was constitutionally reasoned.
He's got twenty five other governors supporting him. That's happening on the southern
border of Texas up north we have the Mayor of New York saying to the
Biden administration, help, I can't handle this. We've got the mayor of
Chicago making noises that there are troubles in Chicago. But you have the democratically
elected mayor of New York, an African American man, saying help, I
can't handle this. And then you've got Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House
of Representatives, saying, I don't know what they're cooking up over in the
Senate, but if it comes to our chamber and it doesn't address the wall,
we will, excuse me, doesn't address the border in some really serious
way, we will not pass it. And that means you don't get your
aid for Ukraine and you don't get your aid for Israel. Now that's by
there are good questions about whether that's the right way to go. But this
thing, I've never seen, I can I say never, well, not
that I can remember at the moment, anyway, seen an issue teed up
in this way where the two sides are so stark in every regard North South
dramatic images at the border. New York Times refusing to acknowledge that it's even
taking place. What nothing to see here. Move along, move a law.
How the Congress it's teed up across the country. And into this strides
the figure the beloved to Rob Long figure of Donald J. Trump saying I
want a wall and you want open borders. That's a pretty simple message,
and it's a pretty powerful one. I okay, so now I've talked myself
right into Rob's position, which is, these guys don't even understand how how
the game is. These guys whoever is around Biden, they have no idea.
I don't know. I mean, I'm almost willing to say it's because
they're so coddled. There's such members of the elite that they've been back and
forth to Wall Street. They have no idea what's happening in the rest of
the country. It'll be interesting to see how It'll be interesting to see how
Donald Trump builds a wall, because I think he had four years before to
sort of craft how he was going to do it and didn't quite get around
to it there though, So maybe this time he'll do a little bit more
out of the gate. Actually, to tell you the truth, I don't
believe he'll do any more in a second term. They needed in the first,
right, this is Revenge Tour Dan to hear Scott Walker talk about how
he fights for and he's a fighter. I don't want to end that,
No, I just don't want to end the podcast on that sort of division.
We don't. I'm good for him, and I hope somebody talks to
him about the background that he uses when he's doing those video calls, because
the top of the Capitol was coming up in this point behind him, and
it almost made him look like a conehead to go back to the Dyanackroyd thing.
But he's not from France, He's from Wisconsin. Anyway, We thank
you for for being along. And I would like to note that Rob Long,
who was calling him governor the whole time, I thought we were against
the sort of permanent honorifics or we are we are? We I am?
But you know I like him, so I get it. You know,
it's all completely well. Rob is headed Divinity School, and he's laying the
predicate for forcing us to refer to him as the Reverend doctor the reverence the
Reverend doctor Lloyd. Oh you think I'm insufferable? Now just wait, okay,
all right, sat Anne Selman, the making we'll talk to you.
Then listen, everybody, Go listen. Go go to ricochet dot com check
the link out for Rob's new show. I'm going to watch it starting at
lunch. I forgot about it and I can't wait. And also, while
you're there, join Ricoshet and you get access to the member feed, which
is just so much fun. And also we'll see you at the diner later
coming up this week and all the other places in the Ricochet Audio network.
And that about wraps it up. Gentlemen, It's been fun and we'll see
everybody in the comment said Ricochet four point zero. Next week, Fellas,
next week Ricochet Join the conversation