Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 8/15/24 Liam McCollum on Why Donald Trump and His Supporters Should Back Defend the Guard

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

Scott interviews Liam McCollum about his article arguing that Trump should endorse Defend the Guard and his recent lobbying activities related to the bill. He and Scott also talk about the property strategy for passing legislation like this in today’s political climate. Discussed on the show: BringOurTroopsHome.us “Donald Trump Should Endorse the ‘Defend the Guard’ Act” (Libertarian Institute) Video of Tim Sheehy Liam McCollum is a student at the University of Montana’s School of Law. He is a Mises Institute Apprentice, and was previously a Hazlitt Apprentice at the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also involved in the Montana Libertarian Party, the Libertarian Party Mises Caucus. Listen to his podcast and follow him on Twitter @MLiamMcCollum This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; 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

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Okay, guys, online, I've got Liam McCollum, and he was an apprentice at the Mises Institute, and it has a fellow at Fee with Dan Sanchez, who's now with us at the Libertarian Institute as well. And he wrote this thing that we run over at the Institute called Donald Trump Should Endorse the Defend the Guard Act. Well, you know, Liam, that's what I think, too. Please tell us all about this piece. Yes, so I have been working for or working. alongside the Bring Our Troops Home guys, our friends over at that great organization. Highly recommend everyone check out their website at Bring Our Troopshome.us.

But our friends, Dan McKnight and Diego Rivera and I have been championing this in Montana where I lobbied for this last legislative session here. And something that we came across all the time were these establishment Republicans who were saying, I mean, really, they're neocons, but they were trying to stall this bill. They would bring generals in and threaten to pull funding if we pass this bill. And for those who don't know what it is, it is a state-based legislation that would prohibit the National Guard from being deployed to foreign wars overseas if Congress

has not first declared war. And so we kept getting roadblocks, and I was thinking, well, why not try to use influence to persuade the top guy. And being that Donald Trump is kind of the lead of the face of the America First Movement right now, I decided to write this article calling on him to endorse the legislation so that all of these Republicans would have to confront that and argue against him. And with your help, I actually got a bunch of people to sign on to it. So it's a public letter that has your name signed, along with Dan McNights, Ron Paul's, Joe Kent, Dave Smith, the Being Libertarian guys. We have Dave DeCamp, Clint Russell, Joe Sheehan, my friend at the Human

Reaction podcast that I just partnered with, the red-headed libertarian, and then a bunch of Republican legislators at the state level, like big names like Wendy Rogers, you know, candidates like T.J. Roberts out of Kentucky. Great guy. And then Anthony Sabatini. And there's just way too many names to list here, but I highly recommend go looking at this list. It's a list of great people. But basically, they all signed on to this letter where we say that, you know, Donald Trump is running on this America first platform. He's trying to appeal to both libertarians, Republicans, and, you know, independence and his platform is to seal the border and prevent World War 3. And in my case is that this legislation is a way for us to do that. And if he wants to lean

into this America first vision, and if he wants to bring people over from the libertarian wing, this is an effective way for him to actually accomplish his policy goals and persuade people, maybe to support him in the long run yeah absolutely and um you know especially when the opposition on the democratic side and i don't just mean kamala harris but the entire regime against him right now deserves to be punished so bad and so many libertarians feel that way he should know that it's worth his time to try to do something that we like. And that might really win a lot of people off of the fence and into his camp. Absolutely.

Yeah. You know, when we introduce... It's not like he's a Bush. Like, there's nothing that a Bush could do to ever get our support, right? Exactly. But he's really not them. He really is a rogue. But that's not quite good enough for us either, though.

He's got to really do the right thing. and this is a very right thing that he could do. Yeah. Well, I think he is sort of demonstrated by showing up to the Libertarian Party convention that he is trying to run a populist campaign and he has this populist energy behind him. And I think America first as a slogan is sort of like this unfilled box. It has yet to be defined.

And I kind of hope that, you know, he's interested in surrounding himself with libertarians and people who want to, you know, ground that populist energy in principle, rather than like, you know, Nick Fuentes, Groypers who want, you know, to define America first, how they want to. I think, I think libertarians should present themselves in front of Donald Trump as like, hey, like, if you really want to be America first, this is how you do it. And the point about Democrats here is really important. When we introduce this bill in Montana, only two Democrats voted for this bill in the House. The majority of Republicans voted for this bill.

And so it really is a problem and I guess like our benefit that only the Republicans support this bill. And I think you've argued for this before that the only way we're going to have a real effective anti-war movement in this country is if the right half of America is behind it because it's people who in the military who are in the military who, you know, they're fighting in these wars and most of them are right wing. And so when they come back and they look at these Democrats in the face and they say that they've been, you know, they're broken from these wars and that these wars do not benefit the United States. And when they point out the fact that the National Guard has this perception of being weekend warriors, there's this perception of them that they, you know, when they're, when they go to their recruiters, they get told that they'll be training like once a month.

and then they'll have, you know, they'll be able to do whatever on the side and live their life. But really, they make up the fighting force of the military. They were 45% of the global, the fighting force in the global war on terror. And they made up 20% of the casualties in the global war on terror. So, so when these guys show up in a room and they, they tell Democrats that they're not behind their war, I think that that's how we're going to be most effective. And so I think I'm kind of reaching to the top and trying to get Donald Trump, the guy behind the whole populist energy right now to put his name behind it too. And I have some good news for you. Over the weekend, I went to the Trump rally and I went with our Senate libertarian

candidate here in Montana, Sid Dowd. And I met with the Republican candidate that's running against him. And he had the opportunity to meet with Trump. And I personally, hand-delivered this letter to Tim Sheehe, who is the candidate running in Montana, the Republican. And he endorsed it right there in front of me, but the great news is that the following day, he was at a campaign stop in Montana and the sponsor of the bill, who, funny enough, is my, he was my high school civics teacher that got me introduced all of these ideas. is the sponsor of the bill, Lee Deming, confronted Tim Shehee and said, hey, I just want to know, do you support this bill?

And we got him on record in front of 60 witnesses. There are 60 other people in the room and a bunch of friendly legislators to the bill. And he defended the bill like wholeheartedly. He gave one of the best defenses of it ever. And if he gets elected, he'll be the second U.S. senator to support this bill officially. So that is good news that has immediately come out of releasing this letter. That's great. So now what about Trump?

I know he ain't going to read it, but can you get it to someone who's going to talk to him about it? Do you know what to do? Yeah. So we have sent it to his campaign. I've worked with Angela McArdle to send it to his campaign. I also told Tim Shehee, the candidate, that we really want Trump behind it. And, you know, I think there's this interesting phenomenon going on right now where we're really in a unique time in American politics with the media moment we're in and

with this populist energy and with how effective voices like your own and and Dave Smith's and Ron Pauls have been like if you go on Twitter, Ron Paul is trending all the time now. Kyle Rittenhouse said that he was going to endorse Ron Paul over Donald Trump and all of Twitter blew up at him. And so I think there's there's really an opportunity here where we had him at our convention. we have significant leverage with local races like the Senate race. And, you know, what I told Tim Sheehe and what I would tell to the campaign and what we've expressed is like, we can't guarantee that the party itself will endorse you guys.

Like, just like we told Trump in D.C. when he attended the Libertarian Party Convention, we're not going to guarantee that you're going to get the Libertarian Party nomination, even though you ask for it. We're not going to guarantee that the Libertarian Party would endorse you. But what I can guarantee you is talking points that can convince libertarians at large to go your direction. And what I write in this article is that I believe that libertarians generally, the libertarian movement, might be persuaded by Donald Trump if he gets behind this bill. Because, you know, I think a lot of libertarians do understand that libertarians aren't going to get elected, that Chase Oliver, the presidential candidate will not. be elected in November. So a lot of them are maybe open to voting for a Trump presidency. I don't,

I think they have a lot of criticisms of his first term. But, you know, I think there's also, he made a lot of concessions to libertarians at the convention. He said he was going to free Ross Ulbricht, which would be awesome. He said that he was going to put a libertarian party member in his cabinet, which would be awesome. But what I say is that is all contingent on him, getting elected and him not changing his mind. As soon as he gets elected, incentives change for him. He might change his mind and he might just shut the door on us. But what I say is an endorsement of this state legislation is actually something that he could do right now that would be immediately effective, that is low-hanging fruit that would instantly put this legislation over the map

or put it on the map and push the bill over the finish line in states like Montana. I mean, if I could go to these establishment Republicans and say, well, are you going to defy Trump? Are you really going to oppose this bill? It would be really effective. So I'm basically just saying like Donald Trump, like this might be more important, a more important promise or pledge or endorsement than anything else you've said because it actually would have effect. And I think a lot of libertarians are sort of disillusioned with the federal level at all. You know, it's not. loss on us that if we don't believe that if Donald Trump gets in there, he's going to like abolish the deep state or whatever and all the endless wars. I think a lot of libertarians are

focused on a decentralized strategy and we put more stock in that. So if he can, if he can get behind this bill, which is essentially a 10th Amendment bill, I think it could win over a lot of libertarians to his side. Yeah, I do too. And especially this year, you know, a lot of libertarians come from the right and lean right and just don't want to get behind the current candidate for various culture war reasons and not just well whatever not even to get into it but point is that again there's a lot to detest about the liberal side this time same as always but worse i mean we've got a proxy war with russia going on right on their border for god's sake border nothing inside their country right now.

The Democrats are, you know, driving us toward global. You can't call it suicide, right? It's them doing it to the rest of us. Somebody's got to call a break on this thing. And I don't know if I could ever bring myself to support Trump after what he already did. I don't know. But like, and I don't know if I'm the target audience, but it would be nice if

he thought appease and the likes of me and people who agree with me about these issues was worth it for the margin you know what I mean that like man and it is

look when you say that this is consistent that this is you know being voted for by Republicans in state houses across the country I mean that's all you need to know

right there this is a patriotic constitutional conservative thing to do or these people wouldn't be able to touch it with a 10-foot pole. This ain't communism, man. This isn't the, you know, free Mumia protest. These are, in many cases, veterans of the wars serving in these state houses, passing

this legislation and trying desperately to get it through both houses. And there have been some real successes kind of halfway, you know, you get through a house here and a Senate there and this kind of thing. But that should be all that Trump and his. people need to know is that this is a Republican initiative and it's a constitutional one it's you know based in in the root of the structure of America's security forces the way the power is supposed to be delineated so um and it's a great talking point it'd be a great fight to get in he needs the attention you know and he could really you know I'm sure he divides some

veterans on this but I bet most veterans would support it if this became like a national issue and veterans all were talking about is this something they support or not I bet they would they love what Ron Paul had to say you know when he ran both times yeah well and I think part of the reason that Tim Shehee endorsed this legislation literally the day after I gave him this public letter is you know I'm a radical libertarian I went I went to him uh you you know, like I told him that's exactly who I am. And I said, I can't promise you that I'm going to support you in November, but I can give you all the libertarian talking points.

And I challenge you to be more libertarian than our, our candidate, please, please do that. And, but I, I don't think that that's really what convinced him. I think it's that the next day, literally the next day, he's in a room full of Republicans. And, and Trump supporters asked him point blank, do you support this bill? And, you know, he's, he, I think that's what confirmed in him that, this is a populist America first right wing policy and in other words the wind was blowing right there in the room a group of guys sitting there demanding a positive response yes and i had gone over all the talking points with him the day before by giving him this letter and and i think you know

he used all of them in the video and i i highly recommend everyone go to my twitter feed at emilyam mccullum and check it out because it's sort of impressive and i was extremely surprised by his his answer as well i mean it's like based in constitutional principles and history and uh it sounds like he's known about this bill for months and and supported it um when i would have imagined that he he opposed it so uh hopefully this is just the beginning and hopefully we can we can pass it along to um or he can pass it along to people with influence yeah and look i mean We should always check and make sure we're right about things, but this really sounds right to me. America first.

So what you're saying is the National Guard. We all were told our whole lives their job was protecting or like digging for earthquake victims or sandbagging the river or the creek before it floods downtown or rescuing people when there's a forest fire that these. These guys should stay home and defend America first. Since we have no actual violent enemies, it's natural disasters mostly. Occasionally there's a riot that the local police cause that the National Guard has to put down, like in L.A. in 1991. But otherwise, oh, or all of the place in 2020. Sorry, I'm an old guy, but yeah, that was the other day. so something like that but usually it's natural disasters

whatever that's what most people join the guard under those pretences and then also you look at the wars that they've been sent to like Iraq and Afghanistan where they're basically just used as reserves for the regular army only they're treated like red-headed stepchildren and not given all the equipment and all of everything that they need to fight like the regular army gets and the rest of it man who could argue with this

and after a generation of war that everybody regrets if you remind them poke a guy with a stick and ask him hey what do you think about Iraq War II in Afghanistan now and anybody in this country will tell you yeah oops at least

or worse you know so I don't know man I just think it's such a great bill and I bet you if we get past in one state I mean obviously as you're saying we could get Donald Trump to talk about it, that'd be huge. But if we just get a pass in one state and really make a controversy out of it, where

everybody knows about it? Did you know about this thing? Defend the Guard where it's like at every water cooler, like they say, you know what I mean? Word on the street. Man, it would be huge. It'd be so huge. Like, you look at the way veterans get, you know, together in agreement and with power

when it comes to something like stolen valor. Did you see the latest that Walt said There I was In the dark of night on the tarmac In Afghanistan at the Bogger Mayor Base Oh you were huh Like yeah you never even went there Like guy look

I think that's absolutely pathetic and crazy Ridiculous that somebody would do that But actual veterans who fought in the wars They really don't like that You know what I mean They get really like They can be very well organized and animated over a thing, get really the broad population of American veterans to know about

this bill and to rally around this bill. And it's unstoppable. Yeah. Well, and this is the time to do it, too. I mean, you mentioned the fact that it appears that the war in Ukraine is now bleeding into Russia. And, you know, this bill is important to prevent our guard from being sent to a future war. But there are wars going on right now. that our guardsmen are being sent to that are ongoing and unconstitutional and sort of quagmires and we're just there they're just being used as sitting ducks to justify further interventions in other countries and i don't know if you saw about oregon national guard troops were sent to uh iraq and syria i believe last week yeah um a few weeks ago

to georgia national guard soldiers were killed in iraq um they say in non combat incidents um but the same month, Iraqi or National Guard troops in Iraq were fired upon because of the war in Israel right now. And so earlier in the year, National Guard troops, I believe from Arizona, were injured in a drone strike that killed three other U.S. troops. And this was on the Jordan-S. border. So this is a very real thing that, you know, we need to address right now. It's not like this hypothetical policy that would have an effect for a future war. It's more than that. And you mentioned the fact that guardsmen are supposed to be here to protect our country.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in New Orleans, 3,000 Louisiana guardsmen were overseas in Iraq. And there are many examples like this, you know, there were Florida National Guardsmen training Ukrainians when there was hurricanes landing in Florida. So, and I tried to be really intellectually honest in this article and tried to present this from a conservative perspective as well. And I say, you know, there's a SPAC going on at the southern border right now where the Texas government was trying to use. the National Guard to erect a border essentially to stop what they perceive to be an invasion at the southern border. And I'm trying to appeal to them from their perspective that if you believe that the federal government shouldn't be sending National Guardsmen to Syria and Iraq and instead should

be at the southern border to prevent an invasion, I mean, this is what the National Guard was for. constitutionally, the militia historically was used to prevent invasions, to prevent insurrections and to enforce the laws of the union. They were meant, they were only meant to be federalized for those three distinct purposes. Outside of that, the states would use them as a militia. And so if they want to use their National Guard to prevent people from crossing the border illegally, I think that they should support the Defund the Guard Act. So I present this from both the libertarian perspective and the conservative perspective. Yeah. Hey, y'all, let me tell you

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It's Scott Horton's show.substack.com. And if you do that, you'll get the interviews a day before everybody else. But not only that, they'll be free of commercials. How do you like that? Pretty good, huh? Scott Horton's show.substack.com. Hey, y'all, Libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton's show and Libertarian Institute, shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top lobstas designs as well.

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Instead of saying, oh, no, this is the Republican position. Let's oppose it. You guys ought to look at this like, hey, finally, the Republicans have got good on foreign policy. Now we can use them to vote for our anti-war stuff too, and we can make real alliances. We'll help them with this, and they can help us with that. You guys can end wars and take care of veterans together. Come on. It's good politics, man.

Do it. And then they don't. They're like, you're a right-winger and I hate you or whatever, which is not even true. but they don't know, but like I'm maybe I'm not the right guy to talk to them but like that's how it needs to be. They need to hear it from someone who like is really on their side that they know and trust

to say, hey, this is a great opportunity for us that we like finally got the right to abandon they're just all macho, tough guy, you know, George Bush supporting kind of, you know, attitudes and get with this. is defend America First. That's another thing. People don't say defend enough,

but that's, you know, the America, it was the America First Committee, but like, that's the book by Garrett Garrett, is Defend America First. I think people might misunderstand that it just means

be a selfish jerk of a country, but it doesn't mean that. It means leave the world to hell alone. Defend your country and have a decent respect for other countries that can handle their own problems without us intervening all the time and ended up making ourselves the bad guy,

you know yeah yeah well i mean i i definitely agree with you and and i know not everyone likes rfk on the left and he's he seems to be appealing more to the libertarian right these days but hopefully the fact that he just endorsed this uh i believe a week ago convinces him or convinces some leftists um he by the way that libertarians and they were in conversation with him about this and and libertarians were able to get RFK to endorse it. So this is kind of a part of the same movement of people. So that's another victory. But I do think for whatever reason, this is extremely popular on the right right now.

I don't know if you saw, but in your state, Texas, an overwhelming 84% of registered Republicans out of like, I think it was 1.8 million voters said they support this legislation. in a resolution. It was like an internal poll that the GOP sent out on the ballot. And Vivek Ramoswamy has endorsed this. Tulsi Gabbard has endorsed this. Paul Gossar, a congressman from Arizona, Rand Paul, and then all the other people I mentioned earlier are behind this. So I think it's really a unique time for us to try to build bridges in a populist sense and hopefully some more leftists will come our direction especially as they're the ones who are more concerned about the humanitarian problems in Gaza and Israel and we can we can maybe say look do you want national guardsmen to

go fight in a war in a future war in Iran that that might be an opportunity for us to to pitch this to Democrats in the future yeah very well said and I don't know what I can do other than you know this show maybe somebody listened this show wants to kind of take up the left half of this effort you know like it's uh the defend the guard movement has been you know uh especially spearheaded by bring our troops home dot us which is a ron paulian libertarian conservative type organization and all that and as we talked about it's been led by right wingers but it be really great if we could have especially liberals and leftists can be really great at turnout when it comes to it if they decide a thing so what if we have

republicans who are like overwhelmingly in support somewhere and we're having real trouble with the democrats but then through our democratic friend liberal allies we can actually turn out hundreds of people to come to the thing to support it from the left and tell all the Democrats. No, no, no, you got this wrong. We like this. We support this. We agree with them on this. They agree with us on this. Let's do it. You know, that's how it's got to be, right? It's got to be their own people and in big numbers to let them know. Like you're just saying about that meeting the other day. He's in a room full of these guys saying, well, do you support it or not? And he's like, yeah, of course I do. You know what I mean? Same thing. That's what's got to happen to them, you know?

Yeah. I mean, I think like if anyone has a similar situation where there's like, you know, a popular Republican running against a libertarian. And if you're in the libertarian party, try to do the same strategy. And if, you know, the Democrats are the leading party in your state and you have a libertarian who is a potential spoiler or try to go to them and say, hey, endorse this bill. And, you know, maybe, you know, like we can talk some things out about policy and you might be able to convince some libertarians. I think this strategy works at the local level. And, you know, I'm hoping to approach my Democrat Senator John Tester with this legislation to see if he'll endorse it now that his opponent has John Tester. He tries to frame himself as being pro-veteran and he's all about reforming the VA, but it's like you're trying to fix this socialist health care system instead of striking at the root and trying to stop these endless wars so our guardsmen don't come back broken.

so i think that's kind of how you can you can message it to to democrats yeah um man well um you're certainly right that it does not work uh there's nothing that can be done with the democrats on the national level but certainly in the state houses those people are a lot closer to their voters and can feel that pressure a lot more directly there so um that's certainly good and i absolutely agree that the Libertarian Party and the Libertary membership need to understand that truly winning ain't everything it's perfectly great

it might even be good enough to be the goal to have a good ass 4% you can terrify the crap out of the Republicans and or the Democrats depending on the race that's the margin of victory that ain't the margin of error that's the margin of winning or losing and so

the real benefit of having the LP you know there's not like I guess there is sort of with the Constitution Party is like sort of the more conservative Christian party in a way but like not really I mean the LP is way bigger than that

I don't know if the Constitution Party is even really around anymore like for all the different factions on the right which I'm being very general in my language here. I know it's not exactly right there, but you understand what I mean. We're capitalists and gun owner types. That of all the factions on the right,

we have our own party. So screw you guys. There's no reason for us to show up for you, unless you give us a real good reason. Otherwise, our buddy is running for your same seat. We're going to vote for him, dude. I'm the one who asked him to get on. on the ballot for Christ's sake. Why would I vote for you, dude? So, so then that's the thing is

they should understand. Like, oh, okay, well, wait a minute. If I can be good on enough of the right things, maybe I can make a deal with these people. And then libertarians got to understand that like, yeah, that's right. We need to be able to say, yes, we will make a deal with you. And it can't be like, oh, you got to make some vague promise to us about guns, which you're already good on. Right? You got to do something impressive. And do, you. something for peace. How about that? You know? And then, yeah, we'll stay home. I'll take my name

right off the ballot. I'll tell my supporters, forget me. This Republican is good this year. And we'll see how that goes. You know what I mean? And especially if we did that consistently because there are a lot of places where libertarians get a consistent you know, three to five percent

of the vote and that's enough to use as a cudgel big time. And not just to show up and protest generally, but to pick specific things to demand concessions on you know yeah I mean the the fact that we have Tim She he's endorsement now I mean it like that is that is massive like we we are going to be able to bring that to these Republican legislators next year and say look at what he said and and so that is like a very very like concrete goal that the Libertarian Party can

achieve if they if they implement this strategy nationwide and you know like David Nolan and Rothbard when they founded the LP, they kind of envisioned that the party would be like the sole of the right, that they would be uncompromising and that they would not have electability as their primary focus, they would have the message and the ideas as their primary focus. And as such, they would hope to move the Republican Party toward them being that the Libertarian Party is like one of their competitors. and because they do consistently get 2% to 4% or whatever of the vote.

And I just think this last weekend and this letter kind of demonstrates the potential and the fact that they were even willing to show up to our convention demonstrates the potential. Like if we could get the Overton window between the GOP and the LP to be Vivek Ramoswamy to Dave Smith, like I, you know, I think that's a win. And so we should really try to do it and not be partisans in our own right and be concerned about getting libertarians elected. We should we should be concerned about promoting the message. Yeah. Well, and the actual policies getting the things done for sure.

And I mean, building up the party, you have to have a party to wield. You know what I mean? You can't extort without your own population. But that can be part of the sales pitch. to me you know people always say about voting third party like why would i vote for a third party when you're going to lose and i'm going to vote i think the one side is way worse than the other so i'm going to vote for the other right not you but then this is an answer to that because man even if we don't win if you and your buddies can help get us to five percent then we can really beat the crap out of them

and force them to be better in order to get us next time. This is the power that we have to wield. So if you really agree with a libertarian type agenda, this is a great reason to vote for the LP, is so that we can say to the Republicans, boy, we got

8% in your Senate race last time. I bet that hurt like a bitch, didn't it? Well, so you want to do business or not, right? And come from a position of strength, man. Yeah, well, and I've been trying to tell Republicans that, look, you don't even have to see the value in the Libertarian Party as being like, oh, we're going to elect a candidate at the state level or at the national level anytime soon. It's just that if you're dissatisfied with your internal GOP, you can be a member of the party. You can be a dues paying member to try to make this a vehicle, like an actual force that can that can force your actual party in the right direction. So I would highly recommend that and what I've been telling people in Montana is, like,

like be a, be a member of both the LP and the GOP, if you can, if the law is permitted. And, uh, you know, if, if the candidate, if you set the bar too high and the candidate doesn't, uh, doesn't meet your expectations, then, you know, part of the strategy is that sometimes you do run against them and you demonstrate your power and you say, uh, no, you didn't oppose war with Iran. Uh, you, you, we didn't, we didn't believe that you were going to do it. Um, and you didn't commit to not spending foreign. and all of these countries when our own country is, you know, dying. And if Republicans see the value in that and having an institution that essentially serves

as a pack but has more than just the carrot, it also has the stick, then they should join the LP. I think that that's a value of the LP is that we, like, did you see how Donald Trump treated the project 2025 people at the Heritage Foundation? Yeah, just completely threw him under the rug, and it's like part of the reason he comes to our convention and he mocks us for continually getting 2% of the vote or not having big crowds or whatever is because like it's funny and I laughed, but like what he's telling you is that he desperately needs that 2%. And so that is power that you can wield. Yeah, and, you know, it was unfortunate the way the whole social psychology of the construct of the dang thing was, he should not have brought. his pro-Trump faction people.

Right. And when he did, I should have thought of this. I told Dave, because Dave got up there and gave his great little thing before he went up there. I would have advised Dave to say to them, hey, don't start chanting Trump, Trump, Trump. Because then everyone else in here, who he's actually here to speak to, they're going to start yelling. and the Fed and blah, blah, blah, and the whole thing is going to be stupid. Y'all are going to have a big chant fight.

But we don't want to have a chant fight. You are going to ruin your own guy's speech. Yeah. Okay? So just can it? Be happy that you get a chance to hear him. See if he can impress the rest of us. That's what he's here for. He's trying to win over us libertarians.

So don't you start shouting like a bunch of monkeys in the back and forcing us to turn against you and against your guy right and so nobody told them that so they went trump trump trump the whole time so the libertarians went free ross free ross and the fed and the fed the fed the whole time and made total jackasses out of themselves yeah and and his own guys made total jackasses out of him and he's standing there and he didn't know what to say or what to do the libertarians are treating him with no respect whatsoever they're not even listening to him try to state his case and he made the best case he could

for like he even started off with boy if I went to libertarian before I am now after the FBI came after me the way they did and everything I'm starting to see you guys saw the story that should have got a real round of applause man that like yes see the stage sucks man they crush

people dude it ain't fair Don that's right buddy and it was just the energy was off the scene was just a bad scene it's too bad it should have been I don't know a meeting between him and some people who'd be who try to talk to him or something like that but like trying to talk to that audience at that time was not going to work and they all just

wanted to prove how trumpy and they weren't and whatever you know it was bad but i think i think we do see the potential of what could have happened and and and the potential of this strategy and and how great angela has uh done as the lp chair the fact that the fact that the fact that trump and the fact that RFK, the fact that Vivek even felt the need to come to our convention or felt welcome or, you know, Thomas Massey, like Thomas Massey was saying that previous LP chairs were completely unwilling to have conversations with him. And it's like, why wouldn't we be trying to warm up to the most libertarian congressman in D.C.? So I do think there's so much potential. And I really hope that both sides see the potential in just having a dialogue. because like, you know, like Dave's been going on Tucker Carlson's show, Dave's been going on Candace Owens' show. So there is a lot, there is potential here for a populist alliance. And like I said, in the beginning of this, you know, I would really hope that libertarians get to define America first after Trump leaves, not not these Nick Fuentes supporters or not Tom Cotton who's saying

that America first means peace through strength and you know Trump was avoiding war by being the first person to send weapons packages to Ukraine like like we have you said like in this moment this this bill is very important because like just how bad Democrats are but this alliance is also very important just because of how much these neocons want to be in Trump's administration and and if we can help at least be another voice in the room to where where it's You know, like I have, maybe this is like naive optimism, but I do have some belief that Trump hates war. You know, he's, he's out there. He said that, uh, Bush lied us into Iraq, you know, and even when he's like celebrating the Abraham Accords, like he'll go, yeah, you know, we're,

but we're friends with Iran and, you know, we don't want to be enemies with them. And so there's, there's part of me that just hopes his like end and his goal is peace and that he just needs alternative perspectives. And so that's, that's what I hope is. He listens to people like us, not Tom Cotton. Yeah. No, I think that's right. And look, everything is on the line, too. And he understands that, you know, since he's been gone, Biden got us into a real ugly proxy war with Russia here has raised the stake so high.

And something that Trump has talked about for a long time, is it? He had an uncle who was a professor at MIT, who I guess sat him down when he was a boy and explained to him about hydrogen bombs. so unlike most people who don't really know anything about it he knows a thing about it and was taught by his scientist uncle to truly fear the power of nuclear war so in a way where it's just more abstract to to most people who never really looked that deeply into it he's like he's talked about it a few times like how really scary it is

you know Tulsi Gabbard is the same way too they're like man you think this couldn't happen this could happen our responsibility now is turning down the temperature on all this stuff and you know just as you say like you know i wouldn't go as far as say he hates war but like he certainly has a bias of skepticism against this kind of adventurism far better than you have among the democrats and like with harris and all i can do i can do is just picture her at a desk going oh like where their palms up like shrugging what do i do jake sullivan which is sort of like keeping biden right it's just you have the committee of sullivan and blinking in charge but that's

not good you know i don't know man i i mean like any alternative to a foreign policy that wants to go to war with china russia and iran at the same time like i'm i am open to hearing trump out like that's kind of where i'm well and see that's the thing though is like that you'll find most to that in the Republican Party even more than the Democratic Party. The Democrats are softer on Iran and they're probably a little softer on China. I mean, they're horrible on China and Biden's been absolutely horrible on it. But people like Cotton and the Republican War Party are the worst. Well, like with Lindsey Graham's new resolution authorizing war against Iran, like this has to be like the thing that Liberty turned screaming from the roof, I'm saying, like, we have to avoid this.

Well, in fact, yeah, like, during this presidential campaign, like, the Iran issue and then Defend the Guard is another. We could really, like, try to force Trump to choose. Whose side are you on when it comes to this America First stuff? You're really going to let Bill Crystal's guide, Tom Cotton, tell you that America First means same old Lindsey Graham, W. Bush, foreign policy. Or are you going to really do what you said and bring our troops home and enough of this? you know yeah well i mean he said he said i think this was in a state of the union address that good nations do not fight endless wars and if he if he believes that he should listen to us and pass the defend the guard act or endorse the defend the guard act and hope that it passes

in every state yeah yeah okay so everybody the article is donald trump should endorse the defend the guard act it's at the libertarian institute um by leaum mccallum and is this getting reposted elsewhere Defendtheguard.us and so forth? I believe it has been shared around by Bring Our Troops Home. They put it out in a newsletter, and I'm looking to have it republished in other places, but nowhere yet. Okay, great. Well, yeah, you know what? You should submit it to, well, it's hard because it's not original anymore, but, well, certainly get it on all the libertarian sites you can't.

I bet maybe the O.C. Register would run it. Okay. I'll hook you up with Sal there. he's a great guy um okay great well thank you lamb appreciate you man yep thank you the scott horton show anti-war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 fm in l a psradyo dot com antiwar dot com scott horton dot org and libertarian institute dot org