Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 7/10/25 Dan McKnight on the Long but Worthwhile Fight to Pass Defend The Guard

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

Scott brought Dan McKnight back on the show to discuss the ongoing effort to pass Defend The Guard bills in state legislatures across the country. McKnight explains what the legislation is, gives an update on where progress is being made in different states and details the increasingly desperate moves the Defense Department has been making to stop it. Discussed on the show: DefendTheGuard.us BringOurTroopsHome.us Dan McKnight is the founder and Chairman of Idahoans to Bring Our Troops Home. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, three years active duty with the U.S. Army and ten years with the Idaho Army National Guard, including a one-year deployment to Afghanistan in 2006. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Incorporated; Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, and author of Provote, how Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. Sign up for the podcast feed at Scotthorton.org or Scott Horton Show.com. I've got more than 6,000 interviews in the archive. for you there going back to 2003 and follow me on all the video sites and x at scott horton show all right you guys on the line i've got the great dan mcnight again he is from bring our troops home dot us and defend the guard dot us welcome back how you doing thanks god how you

doing i'm doing great man good to have you on what's defend the guard i never heard of that before defend the guard i'll explain it to you because you've never heard it before it's a piece of state-based legislation um sponsored by our organization and bring our troops home that takes one half of the United States combined military fighting force and puts a stop check in place at the state level that keeps them from going to undeclared wars without a declaration of war from Congress.

And as you know, Congress hasn't done that in over 80 years. So it's a fight that we've taken to the state, state-based legislation that says that the governor and the legislatures of the state of Texas or Arizona or Idaho will not release their National Guard troops, their militia into federal service if the purpose is to fight overseas

wars that haven't been declared by Congress. It's just a pause in time where the governor gets to flex on the federal government for just a minute and make Congress do their job. Yeah. All right. Well, so what skin do you have in this game here, Dan? Oh, good question. I'm a 13-year veteran in the United States military.

I was in the United States Marine Corps, the U.S. Army, and I deployed to Afghanistan in 2005 to 2007 as a member of the Idaho Army National Guard. And when I was there, I had my eyes woken up to the imperialistic nature of what we were doing. We didn't have a clear mission. I was tired of seeing my friends get blown off the battlefield and came home as a dissident. An angry veteran came home, frustrated with my government,

wondering what the heck we could do to stop these endless undeclared wars with no mission, no purpose, all the way around the world that had no direct threat on the United States. And one of my best friends got called back for his seventh combat mission as the National Guardsman. And that was about the time when this really weird book, a fool's errand came out and hit the market

and it all kind of lined up with an orange man coming down an escalator and talking about ending these stupid wars all these things kind of happened at the same time and I decided

it was time for me to stand up as a veteran and do something to help my friends out and the universal line and we started this organization and bring our troops home and we've been fighting for it ever since.

Man, that's great. And I love the fact that I'm an asterisk in this story. It's a great one. Not just an asterisk, Scott. I just got in remarried. And a friend handed me the book on the way to our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic.

And I had no idea who you were. I didn't even know what a libertarian was. And they said, hey, you should read this book. And I'm laying on a beach chair, a lounger in the Dominican Republic. My beautiful brides asleep next to me. I'm drinking umbrella drinks, picking my feet up and reading this book and screaming at it. I'm so angry that the things that you're saying are what's been living in my head for 10 years. And when I came home, I read that book cover to cover in about four days and you know it's it's not an easy read and uh came home and i was fired up i was fired up to do something and we went we just went to war after that yeah man that's really great and listen it's um it's a powerful cliche as old and outdated as it is right of um tom cruise uh born on the 4th of july

in the story of ron kovic and he was a great anti-war guy wounded over there and uh came home and did everything he could to try to stop the war. It's a true story that they made that movie out of, Oliver Stone movie. But the problem, of course, with Ron Kovic is he became a hippie. And he moved, like, I don't know how many clicks to the left. And so I think that really cost him more than half his argument, right? But that's a mistake that, I mean, obviously, you're just understanding economics. So that's not going to happen to you, whatever, you know, values that, that, you know,

led you to be a patriot and join the service in the first place. So the same ones that you still hold just now with this, I would say, smarter anti-war view. And to me, that's everything, right? That you guys are essentially Republicans and libertarians as well as combat vets of this era, not of the Vietnam War era, but you guys are my age or less went over there and fought in these things and have, as you describe your own firsthand experience in them. And so to me, that's really something to believe in and especially when i had to spend 20 years being told hey if you weren't in the service over there then you have to shut up and you can't have anything to say about only the guys who fought over there have anything to say about it so now i'm like oh yeah well now you have to

shut up and listen to dan tell him dan go get him you know it's funny you say that because when when uh born the fourth of july came out i was young kid working at blockbuster video and wouldn't even watch the movie i refused to watch it because uh you know the uh the old reagan is you know, I smell hippies, you know, I bought into this thing that the hippies were just anti-American and, you know, we respected their service that came home from Vietnam, but when they turned hippie, it was almost like they turned against the United States. And when I got called to go to Afghanistan, we were at Fort Hood, Texas training, we were so bought into it. Me and seven of my buddies bought a used GMC Van Dura, 1998 Vandura, and we packed into that van

weekend before we left for Afghanistan. And we said, we're going to go tell President Bush that we're going to win this war for him. And we drove to Crawford, Texas. Texas, found his ranch, pulled right up to the front gates in this old 1987 GMC Van Dura, and we all got out and asked if we could speak to the president as Crawford Ranch, and of course we didn't. But we were so disillusioned that we were just American Patriots. We were going to win this war for America and apple pie and baseball and George W. Bush. And man, if I was in Crawford, Texas today, I think my reaction would be just a little bit different.

There is nothing in my heart. There is no soft spot for that man anywhere because my eyes been open up to, you know, you you know, that he fought a war, sent Americans to die so that he could finish his daddy's bidding. And that he's just a pawn on this global empire scheme. And he lied us into a war in Iraq. And my friends died because of it. And George W. Bush is, he is not an American in my book. Yeah, I'm with you there.

And look, he lied us in Afghanistan too, and especially into staying all those years. And so there was a mission to be accomplished there, building up the Afghanistan. national army and all that when they had to have known all along this wasn't going to work well you know at one point in the war um you've read the afghanistan papers uh from from the sigar report he didn't even know who was commanding general in afghanistan was he had no idea who was in charge of the war in afghanistan that's not a leader folks man that's amazing i had missed that god dang uh all right well so now let's talk about what we're doing about this here because this does along with, again, the kind of Ron Paulian nature of what you guys are doing here, the little

our Republican nature of what you're doing, using, working with the state governments to have them assert their prerogative and their priority over their own guard forces, which, for example, are here to protect people from flooding or forest fires, these things that are real problems in our country perennially, including just recently a couple of hundred killed here in Texas by flash flooding. Not that a bunch of sandbags are going to do anything about that in the crisis, but it reinforces the point that that's why people join the National Guard is when the local cops and firefighters aren't enough for a terrible crisis, whether a natural disaster or, God forbid, a riot

burning a city down or something like that. Otherwise, your job is to do a little bit of training and beer drink. twice a month, right? Like, that's the job. That's what people sign up, believe in, isn't it? I'm going to push back on that a little bit, Scott. Okay, go ahead. And not to be insulting in any way,

but I joined the National Guard because I've pride in my homeland. I wanted to defend America. I wanted to be the barrel-chested, corn-fed Midwestern American man that defended the homeland. And the National Guard was a way to do it because I already served on active duty.

I wanted to start a family. I wanted to go to college. And so the general person, perception in society was that the National Guard was this sandbag, forest fire, flooding force that drank beer on the weekends and we're weekend warriors. But I'll tell you, I served in the Marine Corps, the active Army and the Idaho Army National Guard. And of those three, no one was more equipped, prepared or professional and ready to fight a war than the National Guard. And here's why. Every single time they put their uniform on, it may be once

a month and two weeks in the summer, but every time that uniform goes on, it's for one. purpose to train to protect America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Every single time. So every piece of equipment we have, every minute we spend training, is meant to protect America. Now, the mission to protect America may be from natural disasters. It may be from insurrections and riots and all those things, but it also may be from an invading force. And so I always like to caution people that the National Guard is not less than the active duty military. And in fact, it's the only branch of the military besides the Navy that has a constitutional mandate to even exist and uh so when when people always say you know didn't you sign up to fill sandbags sure

that's part of that was part of what i signed up for but i went through all the weapons training and the combat and training and the hand-to-hand combatives and all the other stuff all the hell weeks and everything we did wasn't to fill sandbags it was to build this resolute desire to protect my homeland against whatever the threat was yeah although i mean when you're signing up for the u.s army versus when you're signing up for the national guard there's some difference in i guess the idea would be as you just said you could protect America from invasion if it was ever coming but you don't really join the national guard thinking that you're going to be an expeditionary force that you're sort of the secondary army reserve which is how you're treated in the terror

war era right right yeah that's that that's actually right and they've actually tried to shift that mentality from the recruiting standpoint and to kind of bastardize the uh enlistment of national guard but when you sign up for the national guard you swear two oaths you literally swear in twice once to the United States of America, once to your state. And it's always in the back of your mind that you know that you could be called into active duty service to protect America to fight in a war. But we expect as guardsmen and as citizens of this country

that if we're going to go to war, we're going to follow the legal structure to get us there. And the declaration of war from Congress would be what would be needed to call forth the National Guard. And that's our point is that, hey, if there's a war to be fought, and a war to be won on America's actual real interests, call me, call us.

let's do it, but let's do it with the right authority. Nobody wants to go to war except for maybe the young, you know, headstrong 18-year-old males that are looking for a fight around every corner, but that's why we have wise civilian control in charge of our military. That's why we vested that power in Congress to slow that drumbeat, to before we send our young men and women off to fight and die, that we at least give it the consideration in a vote. But, yeah, as a National Guardsman, you do fight,

you do side up knowing that that is a potential, but you're right, there is a different mentality that you are there to protect your state first and when certain circumstances arise, then the nation. So that was what me and Tucker were talking about in the interview last week was how the guard were just used and abused by Donald Rumsfeld. He left the regular army sitting on their ass in Korea and Germany,

but he used you guys from the Idaho National Guard to go and fill in their place in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And I think this was part of your story in Afghanistan, right, was that somehow y'all were treated. as lesser reserves and a lower priority compared to the regular army when you're fighting just as hard as them yep we were there we were we were national guardsmen that were attached to the 10th mountain division that's an army division and the 82nd airborne army division and neither one of them wanted responsibility for us although we were the ones providing air support and air cover for

them and when my guys uniforms were thread barren torn and their boots were worn out and they had no eye protection and their body armor was starting to fail nobody wanted to help us because we were just the guardsman go to your state get help from your state you're not going to get it from us and that was the beginning of my dissidents was when i grabbed a satellite phone and climbed to the top of a mountain and called my governor and said governor shit ain't right you got to do something you got to help us out because we've got idahoans over here that are struggling to get basic life-saving supplies and where is he now well that was that was governor jim rish and he's now the chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations he's been in charge of usa id for six to the last eight

years and he's the one that keeps doing everything he can to fund every war every skirmish his latest is uh funding the cocoa wars in the congo um he's there's never been a war that jim rish didn't love man all right now brass tax what exactly are we meaning you doing about it dan yep so uh our organization bring our troops home and the veterans that are a part of it we are fighting in over 30 states right now 30 states have our legislation to the Guard in some former fashion, moving through the legislative process, man, we are running into roadblocks everywhere, as you can imagine. Every time we show up to testify about the bill in a legislative hearing, it's myself

and a couple other veterans, some have beards, maybe some have a little bit longer hair, but we show up to tell our stories. And then sitting across the table from us is generally one or two people with one or two stars on the caller, a general from the National Guard Bureau telling the state legislatures that if they pass this unreasonable legislation, then we're going to lose money. Won't be able to fund our training, and we won't be able to protect the states.

And so we're running into this massive resistance, but guess what, Scott, we're chipping away at it. And we're chipping away, and we've actually passed the New Hampshire House. We've passed the Virginia House of Delegates, 99 to zero, full bipartisan support. We've passed the Idaho Senate. We've passed the Arizona Senate three times.

And we were posed, our poison ready to put it on the governor's desk in Arizona this year, but it got blocked in the House by one Republican-America First legislator, Speaker of the House, Steve Montenegro. He used his position as the chair as the Speaker of the House to block the legislation. In fact, demonstrated absolute lack of leadership. He couldn't even pass a budget through the House and stonewalled our bill until the time ran out. We were ready to put it on the desk of the governor.

We had the votes in the House to do it. And one man, one man stopped it from happening. And he needs to feel the repercussions of his own action. And hadn't he promised you that he would support it? Steve Montenegro has never taken an official position on it. However, he did tell his caucus in the House that he would support whatever bills they pushed forward. And none of the bills out of the Republican caucus moved at all, not a single one. So they passed Katie Hobbs's $700 million.

I think it was funding of paying parents to stay home and take care of their developmentally disabled children. And then they passed the budget six months late. That was it. That's all they did in Arizona this year. no border security no election fraud investigations no funding for wildfires nothing um so steve montenegro needs to he needs to be removed and now do you think you had the votes if he had let it go to the floor there we did we had the votes we had two or three vote majority a margin we had a little bit of room to lose one or two people and and there was a handful of of principled old school

classical liberal democrats that are still there that aren't the crazy weird ones that we probably could have pulled over as well. But yeah, it was going to the governor's desk. We knew it. We've worked harder in Arizona than anywhere else in the country. And it was ready to go. And we'll be back next year. And this representative Montenegro,

did anyone explain why he hates American veterans so much? Why he hates America so much? When we called his office, we have a phone banking organization and our volunteers that help with us. And they would call Montenegro's office and speak to his aides. and ask that question, why is an America-first Republican conservative Speaker of the House

aligning with cartel, Katie Hobbs, and the Democrats, and carrying out the Democrats' vision of America last, and their response was shoulder shrug. What are you going to do about it? What are going to do? He's the Speaker of the House. He's more powerful than you. Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Montenegro, but the Speaker of the House is just a position and it's temporary. I'm an American citizen. I'm a veteran. That doesn't go away. And we're going to use our influence, and we're coming for it we're coming for you we you you did nothing to advance uh an america first agenda in arizona you have no position being the speaker of the house yeah so we're going after him you know what man i'm glad that you brought that up because that reminds me of a whole other kind

of uh area of conversation i don't think we've ever really talked about in an interview before is um your right-hand man a podna in this thing Diego Rivera uh he's of course of austinite and a good friend of mine we spent a lot of time hanging out and talking about things and one thing that i know about him is that his temper is about as short as mine he's got no patience at all for politics and yet that's his only job is dealing with these people in their capital buildings oh somehow he does it but how he does it is he stopped trying to convince anyone right he stopped trying to persuade anyone or reason with anyone because it just doesn't work and what he decided instead was he would just let them know we have the numbers to ruin your life you want to fight

let's fight that's it you can either play ball or you can get wrecked and if you know with a group like defend the guard and bring our troops home behind the movement with talk radio audiences unanimous in their, you know, assent, then, like, this can be done, right? Like, you guys have every reason to be an unstoppable force, and you just need a little bit more of a leg up, a few more members to be able to claim, you know, we have this many numbers in our group to be able to prove we can turn out this many people to oppose you in your next primary. You think you're afraid of the Israel lobby.

Try messing with the veterans of the United States of America who are. we're lining up behind this thing and it's a good one man it's a it's a Diego you know he's he's not just a veteran we're talking he's an army ranger combat experienced army ranger and uh he understands tactic he understands um how to fight from from the from the high ground and he's the one that that keeps us focused on don't fight in dc he's the one that always reminds us we're not fighting in dc we are not fighting congress we're not doing it because can't win a fight in a swamp You can win a fight from the favorable ground in Phoenix, or the high ground in Boise, Idaho, where we have the advantage, where we're closer to the legislators who make the

decisions than we are to anybody in Washington, D.C., and if you want to piss off your state rep because he voted wrong, go to church, you're going to see him there. You know, when you're in the line dropping your kids off at school, you're going to bump into him, remind him every time you see them that we're coming for him, and then he finds somebody willing to do it in your primarium, you make him spend their time and their capital and their reputation defending their actions, they hate it. And Diego is the master of applying that pressure in the right spot. He's the opposite of Tickle Me Elmo.

Yeah. Yeah, no, you're so lucky to have him. And we all are to have him, you know, lead in as the tip of this spear, particularly. And I just appreciate the negative attitude. I just like the whole thing. And I, I luckily have not put myself through the torture of trying to deal with these people other than I show up and testify when you guys ask me to. but otherwise, boy, just give me a microphone to complain into

and let this be Dan and Diego's job, you know what I mean? So I can't imagine, like, the torture of having to deal with these people. But I can totally relate with his idea that, like, well, I'm not wasting any time on any particular representative. Everything is very short and sweet and to the point. You can either work with me or you're my enemy and you're going to pay the price. That's it. Let it be known and then on to the next one. That sounds right to me, you know?

you know why he doesn't bother educating legislators and trying to teach them and get them to see the light here's why everybody in your family every everybody has a member of their family who believes something polar opposite than you politically have you ever tried to convince a family member to change their position how'd that go right you've probably never done it right if you can't convince your own family to change positions and see things your way what makes you think you're going to convince a stranger who's got an ego problem to see things your way it's not going to happen so we don't waste time educating um legislators we find people that are lined with us we make them our champions we feed them we back them up we go to war for them we help write their

speeches we give them positive press we do all the things that people that are naturally aligned with us we help them and anybody that gets in their way we become the cudgel for them when we let them swing a club and then we go to we go to battle for rago is the master of it hey y'all i've been working on the audio book of my new book provoked how washington started the new cold war with russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. I've now finished and posted part three of the audio book to my substack and Patreon at Scott Horton Show.com

and patreon.com slash Scott Horton Show. So that finishes all of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. I know there's still a long way to go, but just these first two chapters are almost 10 hours of audio to get you started. I promise I'm doing the rest as fast as I can. Get the audiobook of Provoked first.

Subscribe at Scotthorton Show.com or patreon.com slash Scott Horton's show. Hey y'all, here's how you can support those who support this show and stay awake while you're doing things. Moondose artisan coffees. Moondoseartisan coffees.com. Get it, Starbucks supports the war party.

Moondos is with us. And it's really good. Get the Scott Horton Show blend. Just click the link in the right-hand margin at scotthornton.org. Hey, guys, I had some wasps in my house. so I shot them to death with my trusty bug assault 3.0 model with the improved salt reservoir and bar safety. I don't have a deal with them,

but the show does earn a kickback every time you get a bug assault or anything else you buy from Amazon.com by way of the link in the right-hand margin on the front page at Scott Horton.org, so keep that in mind. And don't worry about the mess. Your wife will clean it up. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. all of them world war one world war two korea vietnam iraq war one syria afghanistan iraq war two libya syria yemen

all of them but now you can get the e-book all the war lies by me for free just sign up the email list at the bottom of the page at scott horton dot org or go to scott horton dot org slash subscribe get all the war lies by me for free and then you'll never have to believe them again yeah and then so reason that i bring that up is because the point being that this is really a mission for other veterans to believe in you know what i mean like um everybody can host a new podcast and everybody can you know do you know whatever kind of new social media thing that they're doing or complain on tic talk or drop out of society and just become a drunk or i don't know or like hey, here we got Sergeant McKnight is on a mission, dude. Follow him, dude. He knows what to do.

And then, and you guys are getting it done. So it's not a matter of like, okay, well, I see how y'all's heart is in the right place, but I don't really see the mileage in it. They're like, no, here's the mileage in it, man. We can get this thing through if we got, as you said, through all those houses and all those sentence that you've already got it through. All I got to do is get those to line up in one state, have enough pressure on the governor to sign it. once or even have a real fight over whether he's going to sign it or not and real headlines about that and honestly i don't know if we ever talked about this um and i could be wrong i don't know but i think like if a president wanted to start a war and started threatening a governor you better give me those damn troops that like the law ain't going to mean much that day and politics and power are going to win however it would still be a fight they would have to have at the very least and it's a

fight worth having now that of course this is the way this should be the law in all 50 states who could object to it if james madison was here he'd be like well yeah i mean that's the law in the constitution is that congress has to declare war so why should washington have access to these troops without declaring war you know it makes no sense and and again and you said this but let's stipulate again particularly this law is about overseas combat deployments only It does not affect the president's ability to nationalize troops here or to even send y'all abroad to train or to train others overseas just to fight overseas. And so it's a very narrow carve out, but the important one. Yeah, and the great thing about it is, Scott, is that the law is already written in such a way that the National Guard cannot be activated to fight in undeclared wars.

It's already in the law. They're just ignoring it. This law is just a clarification of Title 10, Section 12301, if anybody really wants to nerd out about it. But it's in there. It says the president can call forth the National Guard for five or six very specific reasons. And the first one says to fight in wars overseas or foreign wars that have been declared properly by Congress. It says it in the law. And they just don't do it.

They don't live by it because the last section of that code says or for any other reason the president deems necessary for a national threat or whatever. And that's the generic clause that we're trying to close the loophole on. Yeah. And but that's such an important point, man. I don't think I realized that. They're like, yeah, Article 1, Section 8, but the Constitution says a lot of things. And apparently that doesn't matter that much. But you're like, yeah, no, in the federal law itself, too, in the code implementing and controlling the president's jurisdiction over the guard, says it right there.

All you're doing, as you're saying, closing the loop, in other words, that's the federal law. Now you're just trying to get the state law to match it. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And it's funny. And almost every state constitution, the law, the state constitution, the state. Constitution even outlines the same thing that the National Guard is for the benefit and the use of

the states under the command and control of the governor unless activated by the president or Congress for one of the enumerated powers. It's in almost every state constitution. So you're right, the Constitution says that that should be good enough, but we live in this altruistic society where the Constitution is just a thing. It doesn't really mean anything to most people. It's the law and the code and the administrative state that means things. Well, even the law and the administrative state have said that this is the way it's supposed to be done and it's still ignored and so now we have to put we have to make a legislative prohibition we're going to make the legislature say no governor you do not even have the authority you don't have the authority to make this a judgment call the law

says it requires this and that's that's what we need that's the only way to do it yeah and now so a few months back the conversation was about how the incoming secretary of defense pxeth had endorsed this movement and this law and uh there's a real question i think of whether these military officials that were coming and opposing you and the movement in these state hearings, whether they were insubordinate against the wishes of their civilian commander, the Secretary of Defense there. So is there any news, any update? Has he commented since then?

Is there anything specific to know about the current Secretary of Defense in his position? I'll lay out the timeline that we have it so far, you know, in January of 2024, Pete Heggseth, while he was a Fox News host, came out and did a story on Defend the Guard in New Hampshire after it just passed the house. And he said, as a National Guard officer, this is great. This is the way the law should be. There's no reason that the National Guard should be used for these conflicts.

They exist for the defense of the United States. And he endorsed it on Fox News. When he got nominated to become Secretary of Defense in December of 2024, I went to West Palm, Florida, and met with him, had a private dinner. And we talked about Defend the Guard. reaffirmed his support of Defend the Guard and asked at that time, what can I do to help? And he was facing, I'm sure you remember this, he was facing a very unlikely confirmation. We didn't think he was actually to get confirmed.

And we agreed to stand down and be quiet while he was going through the confirmation process. And then once he was confirmed, he would come out and help us with a letter of support. Well, he got confirmed. And next thing you know, he's wrapped up in all kinds of controversies and firing some of our friends. I know Dan Caldwell and the likes and now he's engaged in wars all over the place and he's so busy we can't get back into his office. But the last statement we have from him is that he supports defend the guard. He talks about it in his books, that he supports the concept of enumerated powers and proper declarations of war. So we're still working on it.

But here's the thing. There was this wise man testified in Wyoming. This man was from Austin, Texas. His name Scott Horton and testified in Wyoming and said to the generals in the room, Hey, generals, your boss has said he supports the bill. You might wanna check in because you might be insubordinate. And it was one of the greatest moments of legislative hearings that we've ever had

when you called the generals out as being insubordinate and the room went silent, crickets. It's one of my favorite moments. And it needed to be done. And I don't think anybody could have done it the way you did it. And so I haven't a chance to thank you for that, but thank you for doing that because that's,

it's a very, very lonely position to take when you are there testifying against these war heroes with stars on their collar and a ribbon full of medals and awards and decorations. And they're telling the people in the room that I'm the authority because I have these on my collar. And we're just there just, now we're just civilians, maybe with a little bit of veteran experience.

And going up against them is, it's lonely. And so when we have guys like you that join the fight, man, it's nothing, nothing bolsters confidence like having brothers there with you. Yeah, well, I'm having, to do it. And look, they've never been superior officers to me. So I owe them no deference whatsoever. And nor to you either. And I think, you know, a good way to put it might be that, like, you see all the shiny medals on their shirt. All that means is that I fought a war for them. Right. None of these guys have ever heard a shot fired in anger. None of them.

Or they wouldn't have all those medals. They wouldn't be officers of their rank. That's right. And I find it almost, I find it very offensive, actually, with that they show up in their uniform. First of all, it's probably violates the Hatch Act, which is a law that says military members cannot engage in the political process in uniform, right? Or speaking as a direct representative of the military. It's not allowed. Now, Adjutant generals, they have a little bit of a carve-out

and a little bit of leniency where they're allowed to do those things because they're appointed by the governor and they are a political cabinet appointment. But when they show up and they use those medals that represent sacrifice, valor, dedication, heroism, things that we hold very sacred. When they use those as a prop to give themselves grobby toss in front of elected officials, I find it offensive.

And when I see a purple heart or a bronze star on one of those chests, I always have to ask myself, what does that mean? Where did you get a bronze star or silver star for valor? Where did you get that? What did you do to earn it? Because Lindsey Graham has one, and he was an Air Force attorney. How did he get a silver star with valor? I don't even know what they mean.

If you're a general with those kind of awards, were you on a boat? crossing the river in the middle of the night in a snowstorm leading the troops? No, you weren't. You were in an office somewhere watching a TV screen, demanding men to go die or kill. Yeah. And yeah, I agree with you, man. It's pretty audacious of them to go, you know, try to lord that authority.

That's really your authority that they're usurping from you, your moral authority to speak on these issues. And then they're claiming to be the risk taker that you and your guys actually are in order to, you know, let the politicians hide behind them or hide behind that justification that, oh, well, the guy in the uniform said all this fancy stuff, I better bow down. And it's actually been quite an experience. I've testified in, I don't know, eight or ten of these things by now, you know, either live or by Zoom.

And it is pretty interesting to hear just, you know, the run-of-the-mill state representative and hear them talk about this issue in their just sort of colloquial language, which is that we civilians better defer to the military men. I have heard them say that so many times where it's like, well, you don't even, that doesn't even sound funny ringing in your ear, does it? Like, you don't even know how odd that is for a Republican to say. when what's a republic about it if that's the mantra and and that's the point of view here you might as well just you know let the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff sit in the chair behind the resolute desk

that's exactly right and we actually use that principle and you know that's the scott horton role right we attack the right from the right and we talked to republican legislators about that very thing how can you allow members of the executive branch and that's where the adjutant general in the military lies it's in the executive branch how can you allow them to come into your house house into the people's house and dictate legislation. Their job is to enforce the laws that are passed by the legislature, signed by the governor. Their job is not to affect legislation or to influence it or to opine on it. They can offer expert opinion on how they would apply the law, but they have no place

in offering opinion on how the law should be applied or what the ramifications of the law should be, only how to execute the law. That's the only input they should have. And when a proud, conservative American, Republican, extreme right-wing legislature says, we should defer to the military on this. What's the point of even having a legislature then? You don't need to be there anymore. We're going to hang your height on the side of our barn and we're going to go find somebody new.

Yeah. And, you know, it really portrays to you can just see that what they're really saying is that they're afraid and they're ignorant, right? They don't really have the intellectual or moral fortitude to stand up for even if, they thought that you guys were right and they wanted to do the right thing. They're like, yeah, but if I get an argument with a general about it or if I get an argument with another politician about it, I'm not going to be able to hold my own. Yeah. Right. A great example of that is Representative Rick Eldridge in Tennessee who might exemplify

that that flawed character that you're talking about right there, but and then multiplies it. He was that an actual sponsor to defend the guard. He was one of the sponsors. We had 13 in Tennessee and he was one of the sponsors enjoyed all of the praise and the accolades he received from the veteran community for taking a proud stance as a sponsor of to defend the guard. And then when the rubber hit the road and we were in Tennessee trying to pass it out of committee, as the sponsor, he voted against his own bill.

He sat there on the dais with the committee shaking like a leaf. I mean, shaking because the general was in the room with his uniform with all the medals and the general looked right at him. And that Rick Eldridge, he had a training base in his district, looked right at him. And he says, if we pass this bill,

that base gets closed. and Rick Eldridge. We have to defer to the military. We have to. As a proud American, I'm going to vote against my own bill. It's the most principled thing I can do. No, that's not principle, Rick. Principle is what we're going to do to you next.

That's principle. Yeah. And it's just like to be a horrible bigot about it, these are the kinds of economics you would expect from a Democrat. They're like, oh, yeah, no, we can't close down a bank. because that's losing something when no closing down a base is how you save money and let taxpayers keep their own money and invested in their own future and keep your hand out of my pocket how many military bases how many National Guard bases do we really need in Tennessee you know they already

got half the airport in Nashville or whatever let them train out back you know right here and I guess this is, I shouldn't mix these politics with those, but there's a huge National Guard base in basically downtown Austin, between 45th Street and 35th Street in Austin, Texas, Camp Mabry, when the Comanche and the Apache have been gone for almost 200 years now. They've been, you know, cleansed from this part of Texas. And so, and this is some prime real estate, man. This is some zillion dollar real estate. they could just as easy move that thing somewhere else you get and i shouldn't be coming out i don't mean to say anything contrary to the guard here right when i'm on a separate mission trying to support it

but it does seem like it's sort of a symptom of the self-interested nature of this system where how come they didn't relinquish that property decades ago why are they still there at all why why should a dissident like me be left to complain about it when obviously the natural thing would be as the outskirts of austin move further and further and further out that our national guard base also could move further out you know your defense force would move to the outer perimeter yeah it's like right on mopeck right downtown or just short of downtown yeah mabry they didn't just not turn that back over to the people or to the state they designated as a national monument or National Historic Preservation something or other.

So they can't get rid of it. They can't do anything with it now. It's there for ever. And it will always be there. But even if the threat wasn't offensive that they were going to close a base and it wasn't transparent, we could see right through it, even if none of that was true,

when was the last time the federal government closed down anything voluntarily? They're not going to close these bases down because they can't afford the political capital to do it. No U.S. representative or U.S. senator would allow the federal government to take the national guard. from their own state and leave their state in peril

during actual emergencies or natural disasters, it's not going to happen. It's a paper dragon. We know it's just an empty threat, but when you start threatening people with money, it becomes very personal to them. And I take absolute responsibility for this problem. Idaho Senator, where I live,

Dirk Kempthorn in the 90s, he passed one piece of legislation when he was a U.S. Senator. It was called the no unfunded mandates law. And he passed a bill that seemed conservative. seemed conservative. The federal government can't tell the states what to do unless they give them the money to do it. And the federal government said, aha, if we give you the money, we can tell you what to do. And so they flipped it on its head. And that's where we're at now. That's why the states

are suck into the tit of the federal government. And we have almost a billion dollars in my tiny little state of Idaho from the federal government every year that we're beholden to them. And we have to do exactly what they say. We saw it during coronavirus. You know, we see it with the National Guard. We see it with the management of our own federal lands. our 43% of my state is not even my state the federal government owns and we can't even access it so i take personal responsibilities in idahoan for that and it's one of the things that we'll rectify after we work ourselves out of a job with defend the guard there you go yeah well first things first and i think we can all only hold you whatever what's the population of idaho one 1.9

yeah okay one uh we hold you one uh two millionth responsible yeah we're about be the third congressman though in 2030 though so we're excited to join the ranks of Nebraska awesome you should be that congressman dan you could be that congressman you know what all right i was going to let you go but no i'm not oh boy hey man you did a couple of days filling in as a state rep up there first of all how in the hell does that work and second of all yeah you know you want to be in the u.s house of representatives come on man fight me i want you there. That's what I really meant to say, but I think maybe you could see the possibility of, like, wouldn't it be fun if you were a Ron Paul up there?

Yeah. Can you imagine Dan McKnight and Tom Massey running around Lincoln are? Yes, I can. Yes. Dan will, I'm going to put it out here. Dan is not going to be in the United States Congress. Dan will not be in any elected position other than my precinct committeeman position that I'm currently elected to. And you know when a politician says I am not seeking higher office, it means one thing. They're seeking higher office, but not me. Not doing it. So how did it happen? How did I end up in the state legislature sitting in? Well, I backed and I helped get elected a 38-year Navy veteran into the Idaho legislature. And in a four-way primary with three

established Republicans running against this man, Ted Hill. Nobody knew Ted. He didn't even live in Idaho yet. He was still active duty Navy. He was getting ready to retire and move home. And we ran a ghost campaign with Ted Hill is our guy. And we beat those three other establishment Republicans using the principles that Diego talks about, how to mobilize the grassroots and all those things. And so when he had to step out and go finish a last month of his career before he could fully retire, he asked me to sit in for him for a couple days. And I got to make motions and votes on the floor of the House of Representatives. And I called in artillery from our support group onto the Idaho House while I was there.

there and tried to push my bill through and learned real fast. I got called into the speaker's office and told, I need to be more professional when I'm on the floor. So that's how it happened. And that was the only taste I would ever want of being in that. That's not, that's not for me. I know, man. It's a hell of a sacrifice to ask of anyone.

I say this to everybody I like. You ought to go do that. But it's very nice of you to say, but I love my wife too much. and it's not good for us now could you imagine living in washington nope you only get to exist the one time unless you're a hindoo or something so right but i'll tell you i do have the right guy that's going to we're going to put in that seat though we've got the guy he's one of us okay you want to talk about that or we're going to hold our fire there i'm a hold my fire but in the next six months we're going to see him burst onto the scene you're going to like him a lot

you're going to know him soon you'll know who he is good times All right, veterans and everybody else to listen up to Dan tell you how you can support the Defend the Guard movement. That's right. We want to take two things from you. I want to take five minutes from your lunch break once a week. I want to take five bucks out of your pocket. If I can do those two things, you'll help our organization. First, go to www.defendtheguard.us.org slash phone bank. If you give us five minutes a week during the legislative session, not even all year long,

just during the legislative session, which is January, January through April, generally. Diego will teach you how to make five phone calls on your lunch break that will do more to move the needle on this than anything you're currently doing. It's more than holding a sign on an overpass or protesting a no king's rally or any, five phone calls once a week. I promise you'll do more than most of the population. Come on, Dan, does that really work? Absolutely. We change votes in real time, and Diego's got the receipts. We whip every committee before we start bugging them to find out where people sit and where they stand and where they're going to vote and we identify who the nose are and we start putting

pressure on them. We have hundreds of volunteers that call their offices until they break and we watch it happen all the time. We flip votes in real time. While votes are happening on the floor, we're flipping committee members to our side of the column. So five minutes once a week during the legislative session, www. Defend the Guard.us4 slash phone bank. And then if you click the donate tab and become one of the

members of our organization. I'd love to get 25 bucks out of you every month, but if I get five bucks out of you, it would help fuel this effort. I have three people on our staff that get paid. I'm not one of them. This is an all volunteer effort. In order to get to from three to four people, I need some more monthly donors. And those are the two biggest things you could do to help. And from there, you'll get our emails. If you do either of those things, you'll get our emails every week telling you updates, keeping you informed. Hunter, our communications director, brilliant writer, keeps us on focus. You're not going to get an email from us about anything except this effort. About defend the guard and US foreign policy with the military. We're not going to

flood your inbox with social issues, border issues, tax issues. It's just not our fight. We stay laser focused. So if you'll do those two things and then third one would be drag a friend with you, bring somebody with you and do the same thing and promise you, we are going to change the needle. And this is the only way, the only way that people are going to be able to restrain the empire. All right. Now, what if somebody wanted to do more and they thought they had the experience either in the military or dealing with legislatures or both where they would want to maybe show up and testify with you guys in favor of this legislation in the various states as you do? Who would they contact for that? Yep, same thing. Defendtheguard.us. At the bottom, there's a contact

sheet where you can put your information in and ask any question you want. And if you say, I want to be involved in Arkansas flipping my legislature. I want to be involved in Oklahoma to testify as a witness. At the bottom of Defendtheguard.us, you can put your information in there and write anything in there you want, it'll come directly to us. Or you can click on your state on the map on our homepage and find your bill sponsor in your state and gets in contact with them and support them. Because if we don't back up our sponsors, they won't be sponsors for long. Yeah, very well put. All right, you guys, that is the great Dan McKnight. Sergeant McKnight, your new leader, your new mission to defend the guard. It's defend the guard.us and bring our troops home.us. Thank you so much

for your time, man. You bet, Scott. Thanks for having me back. Thanks for listening to Scott Horton show, which can be heard on APS radio news at Scott Horton.org, Scott Horton show.com, and the Libertarian Institute at libertarian institute.org.