Speaker 1: We are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist and
your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge. As always,
you can email the show at radio at the Federalist
dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make
sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of
course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Marjorie dan Felzer, president of Susan B.
Anthony ProLife America, and we talk about the fight for
life in another critical election year. Marjorie, thank you so
much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Matt, thank you so much for having me. You're my
favorite sharpa.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. You know what, I've had some problems
in the SHERPA union lately, and that makes me feel
very good.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a good vote getter, so I'm going to
work on that.
Speaker 1: You sure are, And in fact, let's start out there
about how good of a vote getter you are, because
you definitely were in twenty twenty four. And let's face it,
Marjorie and you folks have been doing a great job
on that, not just representing the values of the pro
life movement, but also moving politicians and moving voters. As
I understand it, you're going to spend quite a bit
of money doing just that in this midterm election.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's true.
Speaker 3: And when I say I'm a great vote getter, what
I really mean is not me at all. It's all
these incredible grassroots cancers.
Speaker 2: And true believers the ground who.
Speaker 3: Go door to door day in, day out, wisconstant cold
Arizona heat, no matter what it is, They're going to
the right people, meaning the people that are either haven't voted,
who normally vote, who are persuadable.
Speaker 2: They're just a great, incredible team.
Speaker 3: And we've been doing this plus a whole lot of
other voter interactions through all sorts of other means since
twenty fourteen. So so for over a decade we've been
able to really kind of hone our skills in and really.
Speaker 2: Perfect something that was really important.
Speaker 3: And if you would just allow me to kind of
express how important this gap was in the pro life
movement for so many years, for decades, as we fought
all the wonderful education arms, the pieces of the movement
that brought me in were all robust and an attractive
but there needed to be something that would leverage all
of that, all of that wisdom, all of that passion
into elections. And so we've been very blessed to be
part of that and very much part of leading the
voter aspect and really closing the gap in battlegrounds for.
Speaker 2: Pro life candidates all over the country for a while.
Speaker 3: Now we're headed into midterm really quickly after that it
will feel it presidential. In this cycle, we'll spend about
eighty million dollars in Senate and gubernatorial battlegrounds and house
battlegrounds across the country.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of resources. It's not just the money,
of course, it's putting people on the ground, and that's
a big battle as well. Let me ask you this,
though a lot of folks in the pro life movement
voted for Donald Trump for the better part of the
last ten years. He is his name is not on
the ballot, His policies, his agenda certainly is on the ballot,
But how do you motivate particularly the low propensity voters,
the voters that don't come out very often, if at all,
to come out during a mid term, and we all
know the numbers on what happens to the party in
power during midterm elections.
Speaker 3: I think we all know that with this president there
are incredible strengths, historic changes that have occurred. And then
also because no one simple, certainly Donald Trump, there's also
some difficulties.
Speaker 2: So I'll explain what I mean by that.
Speaker 3: Yes, as you say, without the president at the top
of the ticket in a midterm, and this one in particular,
is very difficult for folks who are primarily were primarily
motivated by him and his personality.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: When there is a dearth of density, then you've got
to work all the harder to make sure that voters
are seeing what's at stake, that the contrast will still
be there even when the candidates themselves are different.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And so, and that is certainly the case this time.
And the other aspect of the difficulty that I refer to, however,
is that adding to that problem of intensity that is
endemic to a non presidential year is the UH is
the inaction on abortion drugs in the country, and that
there's only one UH. And I mean it in a
very specific way, and I mean it on the part
of the administration that for for the core and important
and indispensable piece that the pro life movement is in
winning tough races. It's a demotivator. It's the lack of
intensity when there's a lack of movement on that. Now,
I say that in the context obviously of us being
in a historic moment because of the actions of this
president when he was elected in twenty sixteen, for the
first time, we would not be talking about strong pro
life states passing laws twenty of them that are now
being undermined by these drugs. So we created a great possibility,
a great opportunity. But now that incredible success is being
directly threatened by the flow of abortion drugs with absolutely
no oversight, almost completely unregulated in pro life states and everywhere,
thereby really robbing the sovereignty of those states to pass
around the laws to the extent that there is a
spike in the abortion rate in this country since the
Dods decision, not a decline. So back to your point,
when you see that happening, and this is something that
the pro life and you know, it's not just the
pro life movement, it's voters who care. They're slowly becoming
aware of this, and as they become aware of it,
it's it's a problem. It's always a problem for the
unborn child, when hundreds of thousands of more are dying.
It's always a problem for the women who are being
coerced and pimped and trafficked and tricked into taking these
pills that are unregulated, which anybody can buy. But there's
also a political consequence at the polls, and it really
is not a small one.
Speaker 1: It is a shame. It's an absolute shame, and it
has absolutely undercut Dobs. I mean, I remember talking to
you before the twenty twenty four election and we talked
about you were in Iowa at that time, and obviously
the first in the nation caucus state. Lots of candidates,
publican candidates kicking the tires right time, at least voters
are kicking the tires on them, And we talked about
that moment and the Dobbs decision came down and the
sense of just rejoicing that you experienced along with your staff,
and it was just the culmination of such a long fight.
Do how do you feel about what these abortion drugs
and the proliferation of them has done to that moment
has done to Dobbs in particular, and as you mentioned,
what is that done to voters and their willingness to
head to the polls in twenty.
Speaker 3: Six Yeah, I think, like many human rights movements that
take a very long time to culminate, in a moment
like that, there is an exhaustion working so hard, and
then there's also at that jubilation, there's an exhale that
I think many people experienced and they were kind of
looking for that moment where they could finally just not
have to pay attention much anymore.
Speaker 2: And and that is what we experience.
Speaker 3: And with that exhale and with that lack of attention,
it was there was a sneaking in under Biden under
a COVID, under the COVID policy that Biden put out
a complete you know, uh trashing of the rules throughund
the abortion drug. And it you know, within two years,
within two years, it or less than two years.
Speaker 2: It robbed the victory. And what is the victory. Yeah,
there's dubulation. It's children. It is a child.
Speaker 3: It's also a mother that didn't didn't expect what she
would experience with the abortion drug, which is a horror
in her own home with her bathroom being her abortion center,
which she will live in and often has seen, and
then flush down the child down the toilet because.
Speaker 2: Because what else, what are you gonna do? You know?
Speaker 3: And so anyway, but the these the ribbing of that
success has real human consequences.
Speaker 2: It takes a human toll.
Speaker 3: The political toll now is the kind of reinvigorating of
the movement once again to see you got to preserve
not only preserve this victory, which would entail rules around
the regulation to stop it going through the mail. That
that is the big, big deal. Require a doctor visit
so you know what gestation, at what gestational age your
child is. No, if you have an ectopic pregnancy, no.
Speaker 2: All sorts of the reason.
Speaker 3: That's the reason you go to a doctor when you're pregnant,
even if you're gonna abort the child, you should at
least know any health contraindications. So none of that is happening.
Restore the that Now. We just had a press.
Speaker 2: Conference with Josh Holly yesterday two days ago.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that call in his legislation is to is
to take away the approval of the abortion drug completely
that the FDA.
Speaker 2: Laid upon us.
Speaker 3: So but at a minimum, at a minimum, restoring in
person dispensing would save hundreds of thousands of lives and
just as many women who experienced the horrors of this
abortion drug.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to play a little bit of that
audio from that press conference. Senator Hawley had spoken introduced you,
and you had some very interesting things to say about
the legislation and where we stand in the pro life
movement in this battle. Let's hear a little bit of
that audio here.
Speaker 3: It is an outrage that these women standing here and
all across the country, and men who love women have
been co opted into It is termed a feminist movement
that has absolutely abandoned women. Instead, they are absolutely attached
to the institution of abortion over the lives of women,
and it is.
Speaker 2: Time to be heard.
Speaker 3: It is time for these women's stories, their real lives,
to be heard and made manifest in legislation that would
stop the madness. We searched and worked for fifty years
to have the handcuffs taken off of the people so
that we could pass laws.
Speaker 2: To save lives. Twenty states acted courageously.
Speaker 3: To fight for justice and love for children, and justice
and love for.
Speaker 2: Their mothers, and then what happened.
Speaker 3: The pills unattached to any care flooded into all those
states and everywhere. So Gavin Newsom is determining policy in
pro life states. I think we all know what that means.
No justice for women, no justice for babies.
Speaker 1: This is a powerful bill, but given the state of
things and given the I don't know how else to
describe it. The intransigens at the FDA, where do you
think all of this is going well?
Speaker 3: It is in and transigence at the FDA, it is
as well under RFK Secretary Kennedy, but it ultimately is
in the White House. And at the White House it
is ultimately the President who has decided the abortion drug.
Speaker 2: The abortion issue is a loser.
Speaker 3: A lot of other human rights movements have heard that
from their leaders. This one is particularly painful, especially because
the words at the March for Life say from Vice
President Vance and the words from the President are beautiful words,
They're compelling words. They don't communicate this is anything other
than a human rights movement. So the common nation of compelling, motivate,
beautiful words and zero action is callousness towards the issue,
which is very hard to see now. I always say that,
and I don't say this to for any other reason
than to acknowledge reality, and that is that we wouldn't
be here with Roe returned.
Speaker 2: If it weren't for this present.
Speaker 3: But it particularly feels particularly cruel that once the door
is open, that, because of the allowance of these abortion
drugs to go into pro life states, that the door
is slam shut once again, and slam shut in a
way that produces a back alley style worse than a
back alley abortion that abortion activists have always threatened.
Speaker 2: This one is hard. This one is truly hard.
Speaker 3: So I what we what we make of it?
Speaker 2: What I think we ought to be thinking about is.
Speaker 3: What do we want in our future candidates? First of all,
how do we motivate demotivate pro lifers. Everyone has more
than one issue we care about, but this is a
fundamental one and it's a.
Speaker 2: Big demotivator to hear that it really matters. But I'm
going to do nothing. And so how do we motivate? Well,
I'll tell you how.
Speaker 3: And it is that who we are helping are a
great group of heroes. The senators that we're helping, the
governors that we're helping. In battlegrounds, the House battlegrounds where
we're fighting. We're fighting for people who are very strong advocates.
And while there's difficulty in the administration right now and
at the White House, we have incredible champions in the
House and the Senate, and so that makes it that
makes it not easy because it's about how do you
get the word to every voter, which is what we're doing.
It means there's a contrast, and a contrast is a
gift that you must have in politics in order to
motivate anybody to vote.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not naive. I understand the laws rounding interstate commerce.
In this case, interstate commerce means murder. There's no other
way around that. I understand those realities, and you know
the push and pull of all of that. But what
happened to states' rights? You know, after Dobbs, you had
a number of states that put in significant restrictions on abortion,
and they had, according to the decision, every right in
the world to do that. When you have abortion drugs
coming in by the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands
into these these states, what does that do to the
you know, the constitutional separation of powers between the federal
and the state government.
Speaker 3: It means that Gavin Newsom is in charge of the
laws of Alabama and South Carolina and Georgia and every
other date that has a pro life law. It means
that his pushing of those pills into those pro life states,
his insistence against the people and the and the duly
elected people of those states, his insistence that he knows
better than the voters of each of those states, is.
Speaker 2: A direct violation of the Constitution.
Speaker 3: It is you have an outlawed in your state and
then sent in by other states. Clearly is a question
of how this gets fixed, not whether it's there are
the like I said, in the Senate and the House,
they're incredible. Their majority of the Senators and the one
hundred and seventy five members of the House have have petitioned, begged, cajoled,
screamed out the FDA for help in this area. The
country's attorneys general from all of these almost all of
these states have done the same. Louisiana has sued the
f D A two for its initial approval of the
drug because of the harms to women in those states,
and also, of course because their laws.
Speaker 2: Are being undermined.
Speaker 3: So on every level, a constitutional level, a policy level,
a human level, let's just say arrogance level. Gavin Newsom
kind a direct message to the UH to the Attorney
General of Louisiana when she's suing the State of California,
and it was not not written in letters. He really said,
g f U, Well the g f Y, Yeah, g
f Y, which I am I going to say out loud,
which he tweeted at the State of Louisiana through the
through the person of Liz Muriel, their incredible general, like
this is what I think.
Speaker 2: So that kind of.
Speaker 3: Arrogance, that kind of arrogance, and and what it must
not must not be put up with.
Speaker 2: It just it just is an insane moment.
Speaker 3: The only reason that a lot of people don't know
about it is because the administration will not talk about it,
but the others will.
Speaker 1: Well, we got to talk about it. I mean, I
know that SBA is definitely talking about it, and we
have this forum to talk about it. Understandably, you can see,
you can feel the frustration out there. It is absolutely
palpable in the movement. And well, first and foremost, let's
be clear on the record, Gavin Newsom is an absolute
creepy for many reasons, but he seems to be the
front runner for Democrats in twenty twenty eight the presidential campaign.
But listen, there are a lot of evils in the
world today. It is breathtaking and demoralizing how many evils
there are in the world today. But I can't think
of anything more evil than what Gavin Newsom and JB.
Pritzker and other blue state abortion on demand governors have
done with abortion tourism since Dobbs. We're going to go
over some numbers on sentiments right now, but that has
got to hit people, doesn't it. Even people who are
you know, kind of look warm on the subject.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just the sheer arrogance.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think people who are lukewarm or undecided or and
then the as you mentioned, the polling is really changing
all this, they at least are ambivalent. They're not thinking
you are stealing women's healthcare, their ability to get antibiotics
and I am outraging and I'm going to send antibiotics
into your state.
Speaker 2: I don't care what you say. Clearly there is a
cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 3: They're not thinking through what most Americans are, which is,
you know, this is a This is at a minimum,
a difficult moral issue with which I've got to grapple.
Are there two people? Are there two patients? What is
that thing that's happening in an abortion?
Speaker 2: What is it? What is that thing?
Speaker 3: That's what people are are are asking even more poignantly
since Dobbs than they ever were before. And yet Gavin
Newsom and Kathy Hochel and all these others hopeel of
being the governor of New York. They are like the well,
I would say Gavin Newsom especially, he's like the arrogance
student government president that doesn't hear and never looks you
in your face. He's looking beyond you, not seeing anybody
in the crowd. He just sees a crowd, not any
individuals in the crowd. And he's gonna with his arrogance
and will overstep he and I believe that that is
who he is, certainly on this and many other things.
You know, he's hoping to moderate on a few things,
to be a little bit more attractive, to be the
front runner, and maybe he'll succeed on this one.
Speaker 2: He won't. He can't. The base won't let him.
Speaker 3: And is he walking into exactly what happened in the
last presidential which was put all your chips on just
the abortion issue.
Speaker 2: Don't talk about anything. This is the only thing happening. Uh.
And then and.
Speaker 3: Then lose because you've over you've over evaluated what it
can do for your uh beyond your base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be extremely fatal given all that is
happening in the world today and the many concerns that
Americans have, both at home and obviously abroad.
Speaker 4: We are officially in a market. Riptide with Iran.
Speaker 5: Who watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.
Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
the economy and how it affects your wallet.
Speaker 4: If you have a good portfolio with good companies, just
get out of the way. Don't guess what's going to
happen tomorrow. Do not fight the riptide.
Speaker 5: Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,
it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 4: Be informed.
Speaker 5: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Marjorie Danenfelzer, President of Susan B
Anthony Pro Life America. On the fight for life in
another critical election year. Yeah, it is amazing to see
that you have people so just absolutely callous to these
life issues that see, no, have no compunction about abortion
all the way up to the time of birth in
so many of these cases. I mean, that's exactly what
they support. Maybe it's because they're SAT score weren't so high,
you know, you know, but there are there are a
lot of people who like yours truly, that didn't get
such great SAT and ACT scores. But we can see
what a life is, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think sometimes it's the overthinking that's the problem.
Speaker 2: It's the smarty pants that or the people who are
so sophisticated.
Speaker 3: That they're gonna use their arrogance, like the eugenics movement
that started the abortion movement.
Speaker 2: You know, we are so smart. We want more people.
Speaker 3: Like us, and we want fewer people like those people.
They don't think like me, they don't look like me.
Speaker 2: They're from other places.
Speaker 3: They're taking up space where I'd like to be, and
I'm kind of sick of them, and they're kind of yucky.
Speaker 2: Those are not.
Speaker 3: The words they use, but that's the that's the unsophisticated
way to describe the in crowd, the sophisticated crowd, like
the like thinkers. In the like minded that were Margaret Sanger,
who started the head of the eugenics movement, who started
playing parenthood and was very clear that there were certain
acceptable and unacceptable people. This is in a straight line
legacy Gavin Newsom and Hotel in the heads of the
Democratic Party in general. I think that I wonder sometimes
that the Vice gript the Democratic.
Speaker 2: Party has on the thinking on this topic.
Speaker 3: With their candidates that if it just relaxed a tiny bit,
allowed moral conscience to flourish, just a tad then they
would actually do much better because at least they could say,
and I'm not their advisor, but at least they could say.
Speaker 2: Well, let's don't make people pay for it.
Speaker 3: At least people are grappling with this morally, and while
there is an affordability crisis, maybe we shouldn't make them
pay for abortions through their tax dollars. That seems reasonable. Also,
it seems reasonable then unless you're saving the life of
the mother or some other horrible thing, maybe we shouldn't
abortions in the last two trimesters, or maybe the last
trimester I mean, these are.
Speaker 2: Things that real human beings.
Speaker 3: Democrats, independence, Republicans, non political people at all. That's what
they're actually thinking. And Democrats are not allowed to move
and ioda ever since Obama. Even under Clinton it was
slightly marginally different, at least in his language.
Speaker 2: But now no way. So don't tell him that that
would be a great strategy.
Speaker 3: For them to win the presidency if they get somebody
other than Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 1: That's true, but I don't think we run any risk
of that. They quite frankly, because it's true. Yeah, And
here's why, Marjorie, Because not just Democrats, but people who
we're all we all fail, we all come.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure about this now. Listen, I've been around
the block a time or two at fifty plus here
and talk to your wife. Yeah, well she will tell you.
He will give you a list of all of my failings.
But that's but see, that's the thing is that you know,
if you have to think about as Democrats would have to,
would have to wrestle with this moral issue, if they
if they let any of that light come in, that's right,
it would break, It would start to melt, the callous
around the heart.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly what. I'm sorry, go ahead, Matt, I don't mean.
Speaker 1: No, no, but that's but that's what I see. And
I guess you know, your battle is the same no
matter what at Susan b. Anthony, and that is to
change hearts and minds, to go out there and and
really have conversations with people. But I look at the
latest Pew numbers, and you know, you have to deal
with the realities. According to the latest polling, the numbers
are slightly down, but still about sixty percent of US
adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
And that is a battle that never ends.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, in that same poll, yeah, that that
is true, and the way poles are written always matters.
Speaker 2: But if that that role number also.
Speaker 3: Matters, I'm not going to dismiss it. But in that
same poll, seventy six percent of Americans thought that there
should be some limits, right, And so that's what it
means to take somebody where they are in the fight
for the heart and fight for laws, and you start somewhere.
You know, as much as many of us want to
have it all, we have to start somewhere because not
everybody agrees with us. That's what we get taught when
mar in kindergarten, you even on something so important. Again,
every other human rights movement understood this, and I think
that's what you do.
Speaker 2: So you you try to gain.
Speaker 3: You go where you make a law where consensus is,
where it's clear that consensus is. And then when that happens,
people's I mean as a comfort to the cause, I
can say, then the yarn in the sweater starts to
pull and you're like, well, why did I think that
I shouldn't pay for that while I could pay for
somebody else's antibiotic? Well, because it's different, Well how is
it different?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: That's the kind of conversation that democrats won't allow. And
when you ever see a debate, doesn't matter who it is,
one of their consultants, one of their candidates, and one
of their actives are, they won't have the conversation about
what abortion is, what is that that is being taken out?
What is it that is when they lose, And that's
why they won't go there. They'll always just repeat there.
They're good at block and tackle, you know, oh, not
going to go there. That's what cognitive dissonance really is.
That's literally what their brains either can't or won't go
there and won't allow it to integrate. So I anyway,
I think I think that's different from most people. And
you know, the seventy five percent of the people who
are really grappling with us who want seventy six percent
of the people who want some restrictions, what are those restrictions,
Let's talk about those.
Speaker 2: That's where you start.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think that's critically important in this election year.
So I guess that that's that's what I'd like to know.
You know, you talked about the eighty million dollars. That's
a lot into the changing of hearts and minds and
motivating people to get out and vote. How do you
do that in particular? What's the what's the ground game,
what's the strategy?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Well, first I'll wax a little cinnament about how amazing
these people on the ground are. I've never seen anything
like it. It's the closest thing we have to taking
this to the public square. Because it is door to door.
These conversations are more than you might think. You're there
to do your job to gain a vote. To draw
a contrast, for instance, almost the numbers of people who
think that you shouldn't aboord a baby when a child
feels pain or out the roof, and they tend that
has been over the years, the thing that has really
been the greatest contrast, meaning our candidates believe that you
should you should at least do that. So that's like
twelve to fifteen weeks or so, is when a baby
starts to feel pain, contrasted with the other candidate who
wants it up to the end, also wants you to
pay for it.
Speaker 2: Both of those issues are very strong issues.
Speaker 3: They don't go away because they keep getting debated and
voted on over and over, including in this Congress.
Speaker 2: So that.
Speaker 3: But there's also the human element, of course, in any
of these conversations, it's the most deeply human conversation you
could have, is about human life. And so very often
you're going to find these incredible people who are going
door to door having a conversation with women who've had
abortions but never talked about them. Now they're leaning, they're
either leaning towards us, or they're already with us, that's
but might not vote. So that's who we're generally talking to.
But many of us have had terrible experiences and some
people that are experiencing raw pain.
Speaker 2: So I mean that is not the number one job.
Speaker 3: But I do really profoundly believe that the Spirit is
at these homes. When two or three are gathered together
in his name, He's there too. You know, it's not
a religious visit. It's not you know, Mormon's coming to
visit and get you to go to church. It's about
a vote. But there's a lot going on there. And otherwise,
to answer your question, we communicate in all ways via mail.
Speaker 2: People still read their mail.
Speaker 3: Actually there's last mail now, so some people actually do
read their mail.
Speaker 2: We do through.
Speaker 3: Texts, which everybody hates, but everybody reads, especially when it
gets close to the election. So every form and digital ads.
So you've got the visual conversation in addition to the
written conversation, in addition to the human conversation, kind of
the surround sound idea of how you communicate with a voter,
and that will happen in the Senate battlegrounds, a lot
of house battlegrounds and some gugnatorial battlegrounds. And one thing
we haven't talked about, but you and I do a lot,
and that is about the importance of Iowa and South Carolina.
We've got a lot going on there for this election,
but as everyone knows, Iowa and South Carolina are vital
for twenty twenty eight and who our president is moving
out of twenty twenty eight or the nominee is, and
hopefully president is the linchpin for the pro life movement
in the future in terms of our ability to pass
laws that will save lives and protect the laws that
are already in effect.
Speaker 1: Is it a matter of getting using the technology as well? Uh,
text messages? And I guess as you mentioned, it's it's
finding people where where they are, wherever, wherever they're communicating,
wherever they whatever technology or whatever means of communication they're using,
this effort is targeting them.
Speaker 3: Is that where you want to be? And so they
and so what whatever kind of community. All those communication
methods that I that I mentioned are all saved within
our with our system. Everybody who's going to door has
a tablet and they they the person at the door
knows they're going to write down what they've said.
Speaker 2: They have this conversation.
Speaker 3: You know where they've landed, You find you if they
are willing, they say who they plan to vote for.
Speaker 2: Then you make sure they vote.
Speaker 3: You follow up, here's your absentee ballot information, and then
have you voted?
Speaker 2: And then you nag like a mama, did you vote?
Speaker 3: Did you vote? Until that you know that they voted,
because we do know when they vote, because that's look,
that's public information. Whether somebody has voted, you can't know
how they voted, right if you can know that they voted.
And so then you move on to the next person.
That times ten and a half million, So that's a
lot ten and a half million voters in all those battlegrounds.
Speaker 2: Ten and a half million.
Speaker 3: Uh and again those Senate Health Dounatorial battlegrounds, and so
it's a lot, and it's a massive network. Uh and uh,
I'm I just have to say when I say things
like that, because I'm sitting at home right now with
a broken foot. This is where the pro I this
is where this this is where this organization began, was
in my home and where it was really me.
Speaker 2: And there's only one reason that it succeeded, and it
is the truth.
Speaker 3: At the part of this battle, and and and a
lot of people that had a lot more talent than I,
but the ability to grow and expand with technology and
human interaction and persuasion.
Speaker 2: Is that's just.
Speaker 3: That is just what a human rights movement is.
Speaker 2: And uh and we're we're in the middle of that.
Speaker 3: I really think we'll look back, maybe not you and me,
maybe our grandchildren and say, wow, that that was that
was something I was proud to live through. And I'm
proud I was on the right side of it.
Speaker 1: Well, part of it is working through pain literally, as
you noted in your case, but you are you are, like,
you know, it's it's March Madness time.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, and you know Duke is the
only candidate out there.
Speaker 1: Well that's that's that's what I hear. I know some
Wolverine fans who might disagree, and this Wisconsin Badger fan
might have something to say about long long shots and clues,
but oh, you know, this time of the year, you
got to play through the pain.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: You've had a long season, but the battles has just begun,
and you know you're kind of like that, you know, well.
Speaker 6: Player, yeah, well, you know, I'm being honest, like, I
have never been more excited than I am about the
presidential twenty twenty eight campaign.
Speaker 3: That must make some people just feel tired to hear that,
but not me, because because it has so much potential
to absolutely steer the direction of this country on this
one issue that is the right, the first right that
anyone will ever have, is the right to live. And
who the president is will be the person who establishes
the legacy of the Dobbs decision. The post row era,
it either just kind of fizzled out and states kind
of did stuff, and then it got undermined with bills
and stuff, and then everybody kind of forgot about the issue,
which nobody will ever forget about it, but it'll just
kind of feedback.
Speaker 2: I don't believe the movement will allow that.
Speaker 3: But what what I think can happen because of the
how riveting this issue, how true it is, how central
it is, is that we will have a presidential candidate.
They're going to have to prove it to the Iowa
and South Carolina voters, but we will have a candidate
who will be a national pro life leader. I believe
that will be true. I believe in the people who
are running that they well, let me just say this,
I think that they will know that they're going to
need to be that person in order to win the nomination.
And that is for anybody who loves the gifts that
the founders gave us to influence and change deeply fundamentally
wrong things.
Speaker 2: That's the best. That's one of the best gifts you
can ever have.
Speaker 3: Iowa, of course, is the first of all, and I
know you're proud of that, and by uh. And so
without two of the three primary states, without winning two
out of those three, you you simply can't get You
can't win the nominations. So being a will we are,
we are and will be in Iowa South Carolina.
Speaker 2: For quite some time.
Speaker 1: It is critical to get off to a good start.
And that's why you have so many of these candidates
basically taking up residents in Iowa for the better part
of eighteen months. Yeah, you'll be you will be here
often as well.
Speaker 2: I know that for sure, only because they are right exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And of course the Democrats have absolutely
given up on Iowa, but the Republicans holding firms. So
that's going to be a huge part of this as
it has been for a long time. Are you at
all concerned back to kind of where we started, that
we're going to have some pro life voters this year
taking it out on Trump, you know, basically taking it
out on Trump through candidates on you know, on the ballot,
Republican candidates, Conservative candidates on the ballot who just did
not step up. More so for the right to life fight.
Speaker 2: It's a moment to stand up if you didn't stand up. Yes,
it's a problem, I think.
Speaker 3: And our polling has showed that we did a big
national signal poll in over sampled Iowa in South Carolina,
and what we see is that weakening on this issue,
specific ones like the hot amendment, like the abortion drug
weakening on it makes thirty two percent of the people
less likely to vote period, thirty four percent less likely
to volunteer. But you know, huge numbers like seventy and
over think this is important, an important part, and very
influential in their vote and whether they vote in the
next election.
Speaker 2: So the answer to that is yes, I have no
doubt about that. That's a problem. Where I have great
faith though.
Speaker 3: Is this intensity of this move to make sure and
the work I'm specifically doing to make sure that voters
know actually what they're voting on. They're not voting on
who's the president in twenty four they're voting on who
will be their senator, who will be their governor, who
will be the lynchpin House member in their state, to
either keep the slim margin in the House, to keep
the pro life majority in the Senate, and most importantly
on pro life laws immediately, who will your governor be?
Speaker 2: That is what it will be about.
Speaker 3: And it takes that constant communication, which people say they hate,
but then most people don't seem to know what's going
on until the very last minute, that constant communication about
the contrast between the candidates, and that is what if
you don't start way out like we have done already,
you're competing with so much that the message might not
get through.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a problem.
Speaker 3: Yes we have the power to kind of pierce through
that problem to reality, which is who are you actually
voting on?
Speaker 1: So a final question for you as we look ahead
and November will be here, as you know, before we
know it. Yeah, it's it just that's the way it is.
And there is a very as we know, a very
slim window of opportunity for anything substantial to get done
in Washington, d C. Before we hit campaign season. But
what happens if Conservatives lose the House, of what happens
if they also, by chance lose the Senate in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to go from March madness to Halloween's surprise, right,
you know Halloween there's always some big thing that put
somebody puts out there on a candidate and nobody has
a chance to respond. So in that space of time
it'll all get determined and and there's a lot in between.
But as you as you say, the bottom line will
be on that day.
Speaker 2: And if we you know, we've got what.
Speaker 3: A one vote margin in the House, and we're historically
in a tough place, meaning we've got a sitting president
who's a Republican, and it's a Republican majority. People are
voting any disgruntlement and around the edges kind of mitigates
against the Republicans. So, I mean, it will take a
lot of work, and so that will be tough if
we lose either if we lose the House, we lose
the best speaker we've ever had.
Speaker 2: In Mike Johnson.
Speaker 3: Hands down, There's never been another speaker, believe it or not,
I have been here since Tip O'Neil really an incredible man,
a great human being. That politics is not near the
first reason that he's involved in all of this, And
I think anybody who knows about him or knows him
knows that that loss in itself, him as an advocate
and him at the center of policies would be huge
for life.
Speaker 2: To lose him as the speaker.
Speaker 3: And as a backstop for every whatever the administration weakens something.
We need the House to be strong and to make
up for it and to press. If there's a problem
on the High Amendment, you know, the keeping taxpayer footing
out of abortion, which the House has a lot to
do with, it'd be a big problem. Nobody wants to
pay for abortion through their taxes. In the Senate, of
course equally important in the overall battle everything for what
bills get sent to the president. But also because in
that space of years there will be many judges confirmed.
We don't know what level. It could be, as high
as a Supreme Court. So really the consequences are not
medium for a midterm. They're still and they're still very strong,
and taken in conjunction with who the next president is
will determine whether the president that we hope is. We
don't know literally who he is, but hopefully he is
a good, strong pro life president, whether he'll have a
team or not, an ability to do anything or not.
And I think a lot of people who are listening
here are like, oh, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: We get and then we don't get.
Speaker 3: To do anything, And that really misses a lot and missus.
Our disappointment should not outshadow two things.
Speaker 2: One is the.
Speaker 3: Opportunity to make an enormous difference on life and on
other policies too, and that what a really great, strong
president who's compelling with the leader of the country but
also in the House and sidate what they could do.
And it also misses the point what the Democrats will
do and the life issue. I can tell you first up,
they have no problem legislating on this on a federal level.
They will absolutely press if they've got the House, Senate
and presidency immediately they will pass a law that will
strike down every pro life protection in every state across
the country, even medium level ones in states like you know,
like Virginia or Illinois. You know, just kind of tiny
little things that you take for granted. So it'd be
absolute on this issue in many others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can set your watch by it. Just like
you can set your watch that if Democrats get the
House back, they're going to impeach Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Yes, because that's.
Speaker 2: What they do, what they did, will spend all their
time doing that.
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly. And I have to tell you, you put
me in the way back machine talking about Tip O'Neill,
and I want to tell you the old speaker back
in the nineteen eighties. I wonder what he would think
of his party today. I just I think about those things.
Speaker 3: It would make his head spin. I think he must
be spinning in his grave over over one thing we
all know, anybody who ever knew of him, was his civility,
Like he fought hard, but he was not a mean
human being. And then also his party was mostly pro life,
including him a lot of the time, and all the
appropriations chairmen, all the couple were pro life. Allowed that
to flourish because he believed it was a matter of conscience.
So he would hate what he sees on this right now.
Speaker 1: I think it would turn his hair black. You know,
he had that big quiff hair, you know, so the silver.
Speaker 2: Fox I know, Oh, I know, he was very likable,
he really was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Well, the fight is critical as you mentioned, it
is foundational. It is the first of the promises of
the Declaration of Independence. As we celebrate two hundred and
fifty years life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And
you can't have the other two without the foundation of
life and a country that has the moral fortitude to
protect it. Thanks to my guest today, Marjorie Danenfelzer, president
of Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America, listening to another
edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior
elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the
fray