The Daily Signal - #451: This Popular Lawmaker Explains How to Talk About Conservatism With Next Generation

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

"Young people are looking for a deeper conversation than just red-meat talking points," says Rep. Dan Crenshaw in an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal. The popular Texas Republican, who was elected to the House in 2018, has already made waves, appearing on "Saturday Night Live" last fall. "There is a generational gap ... and I'm trying to close that gap," says Crenshaw, a veteran.We also cover these stories:•Democratic leaders say they’ve reached preliminary agreement with President Trump to spend $2 trillion on an infrastructure bill.•The streets of Venezuela erupted in clashes as interim president Juan Guaido announced the “final phase” of an uprising against the country’s socialist dictator, Nicolas Maduro.•As the border crisis continues, President Trump is changing the rules surrounding asylum.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, May 1st. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Dan Crenshaw represents a new generation of Republicans in Congress. The former Navy SEAL served in Afghanistan and now represents Texas' second congressional district. Today, our executive editor, Rob Lewy, sits down with Crenshaw to discuss his time in office so far and his notable social media habits, which are putting him in front of more and more young people. Plus, Avengers is breaking records at the box office. We'll have John Cooper and Thalia Rampersad on for analysis. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes to help us grow.

Now on to our top news. Well, in a surprise development, Democratic leaders say they've reached a preliminary agreement with President Trump to spend $2 trillion on an infrastructure bill. Democrats met with the president on Tuesday to discuss the issue. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a very, very good start. and said there was goodwill on both sides. But he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cautioned that they hadn't agreed on how to pay for the bill. Some Democrats have urged raising new revenues, but Republicans have balked at that. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday,

the common denominator, no matter what the subject the Democrats bring up, is a tax increase. On infrastructure, they'll only agree to something unless they're able to raise taxes. The Trump administration is looking to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, reports in New York Times, writing that, quote, the White House directed national security and diplomatic officials to find a way to place sanctions on the group after a White House visit on April 9th by President Abdel Fata LCC of Egypt, for whom the Brotherhood represents a source of political opposition, end quote. White House press secretary Sarah Huckavy Sanders reportedly confirmed that the White House was looking into it, saying, quote, the president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern, and this designation is working its way through the internal process, end quote.

If the Muslim Brotherhood was labeled as terrorists, it would result in sanctions and other actions for those affiliated with the group. Well, the streets of Venezuela erupted in clashes on Tuesday, as interim president Juan Guido announced the final phase of an uprising against the country's socialist dictator, Nicholas Maduro. Thousands took to the streets to protest Maduro, and troops loyal to him responded with force, firing into the crowd and wounding seven. Guido appeared in a video with military troops in which he called on the rest of the military to join his effort to remove Maduro. He said, quote, today as president in charge of Venezuela, the legitimate commander of the armed forces, I summon all the soldiers, all the men and women, the military family, to join us in this struggle. He went on to say, I am with the main military units of our armed forces, starting the final phase of Operation Liberty. People of Venezuela, we will go to the street with the armed forces to continue taking the streets until we consolidate the end of usurpation, which is already irreversible, end quote.

Maduro responded on Twitter, saying he had steel nerves and that his commanders remained loyal to the people. Guido has been recognized as president by 54 countries, including the United States. National Security Advisor John Bolton spoke to the issue on Tuesday. I think from the perspective of the humanitarian crisis that we face in Venezuela, I hope this is enough to tip Maduro out of power because it's only when he and his fellow kleptocrats who have plundered the Venezuelan economy for the last 20 years are removed from power, that we can put the Venezuelan economy back on its feet for the benefit of the people. The sooner Maduro is gone, the sooner.

is the possibility of justice and real economic growth for the Venezuelan people. As the border crisis continues, President Trump is changing the rules surrounding asylum, with an eye to avoiding the number of asylum seekers who disappear in the U.S. and don't show up to later court dates. The White House announced changes, including, quote, streamline the court proceedings for aliens who pass initial fear determinations, adjudicate all asylum applications and immigration courts within 100,000. 80 days of filing, require fees for asylum applications and work permit applications, bar aliens who have entered or attempted to enter the country illegally from receiving

provisional work permits prior to being approved for relief, and immediately revoke the work authorization of aliens who receive final removal orders. Rod Rosenstein submitted his resignation as Deputy Attorney General on Monday, saying he'll leave the Justice Department in two weeks. Rosenstein's time at the Justice Department was full of drama. He oversaw the Mueller investigation after then Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. In his resignation letter, he said to the president, quote, I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve, for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations, and for the goals you set in your inaugural address, patriotism, unity, safety, education, and prosperity, because a nation

exist to serve its citizens, end quote. Wow, someone admitted publicly that President Trump is funny. Okay, well, as the Democrat subpoenas continue, President Trump is trying to protect his financial information by suing two banks he uses, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, so they won't release his and his family's information to House investigators. Quote, the subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the president and his family, and a ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.

No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one. That's what Trump's lawyers will Concevoy, Patrick Strawbridge, and Mark McKaysey write. Meanwhile, Democratic reps Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters, who were behind the subpoenas, said in a statement, this lawsuit is not designed to succeed. It is only designed to put off meaningful accountability as long as possible. Up next, Rob sits down with Congressman Dan Crenshaw. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court.

We're joined at the Daily Signal by Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas. Congressman, good to be with you. Great to be with you guys. What I want to begin by just asking you what has been like to serve in Congress these past few months. Obviously, a lot of news coming out of Washington. What's it like to be a freshman coming to the House? It's a little bit like combat just with less honesty. You know, that's what it's like. I didn't come into this naive. I didn't come into this with any idealistic expectations. I know how Congress is supposed to work. And it's supposed to be somewhat dysfunctional. It's not supposed to be easy to get representatives from 50 different states to come together and agree on really substantive issues. It never has been easy. But it is divisive.

There's a lot of games being played, a lot of virtue signaling happening that I think is unfortunate and just really gets in the way of, you know, it's fine if we don't agree and we don't get things done, but let's at least have a real debate about those things. And that's what's lacking, unfortunately. It doesn't appear to happen in committee. Most of the bills that we've seen come to the floor don't really go through any kind of committee product. They don't really go through a debate in any real way that normal Americans would think it would. And it's unfortunate because the result is really nothing gets done. I mean, you're seeing bills come out of the House that have no chance getting through the Senate, and they know that. So what's the point? You know, a lot of Democrats ran saying that they wanted to run

to get things done, and they don't care about party. And you hear that kind of rhetoric. all the time from the more moderate Democrats. But in practice, it turns out not to be true at all. They have no intention of working with us. You have such a remarkable story in your own life. Tell us why you chose to run for Congress. Well, I never wanted to leave the military, so I got to back up a few steps to help people understand

how this came to be. I was wounded in 2012, and I ended up leaving the military in 2016. So for those four years, I was fighting the DOD pretty hard to not leave. I wanted a medical waiver, wanted to keep deploying, and I did go overseas. these couple more times, actually back to the Middle East and in Korea, which I just had to be medically retired late 2016, and I wanted to stay in public service. And I went to the Harvard Kennedy School. I did my master's there with an eye, so to speak, on some kind of public service,

probably national security related. And I almost went that direction. And then Ted Poe, Congressman Ted Poe, announced retirement in my district. And we just decided overnight to go for it. Because in the end, it's about impact. How many different policies can you impact? You can go into the policy world per se, but you're very narrowly focused on something if you're doing that. And a lot of people, that's what they want to do.

I cared about a lot of different issues, and I want to make an impact on all those issues. And in order to make that impact, you need to be in public office. You need to be an elected official. So we went for it, and we knew why we were running. It was running because I wanted to give conservatives a future, because I worry about that quite a bit, especially with our generation.

And that was the message we told people, and it worked. Let's talk about some of those issues that you want to have an impact on. You know, obviously being from Texas, immigration is a big issue. I know you've talked about spending, healthcare. What are some of the top, if you could pick three of the top issues that you're really focused on in Congress. What are your priorities? My priorities campaigning have remained the same. It's flooding issues in Houston, so this is not national issues necessarily,

but this is a very big issue for Houston, which what does that translate into in a more national conversation? It's infrastructure. It's maybe the way we do disaster relief funding. So these are not really partisan issues, luckily. At least there's one thing that Democrats and Republicans generally agree on is we want to streamline that system and build out our infrastructure to be better prepared for natural disasters. And there's some very specific things in Houston that we need to do. So that's a big focus. Border security is a huge focus. That was something we ran on, of course. You know, Rio Grande Valley in Texas is the number one crossing area for illegal immigrants right now. And it's only getting worse.

I mean, on the southern border, we're seeing up 3,000 illegal crossings a day. Those are just the apprehensions, by the way, and Border Patrol generally estimates that they maybe catch one and three. So you can triple that number. And this is crisis-level numbers. We can't possibly sustain this. This is fundamentally about whether it's fair to cut in front of the line. And I think that's how conservatives need to make this argument. I think we've been making the argument a very poor way for the last couple of years,

and I think that's why we've effectively lost this debate, unfortunately. And our argument needs to be this. This is unsustainable. We can't afford it. We can't absorb this many people at one time. We can't afford it in our school systems or our hospitals or our court and law enforcement costs. And it's not fair. It's not moral to legal immigrants.

We should want to have legal immigrants. And if we want to have a conversation about even raising quotas for legal immigration, let's have that debate. That's a fair debate to have it usually is. And there's a lot of good arguments to suggest we need better skilled workers coming into this country in the medium skill and high skill ranges. But instead of having those debates, we have Democrats simply want to. I mean, at this point, cynically, I have to suggest that they simply want people coming across. Because every argument they give me only leads to that conclusion. I didn't always believe that.

but after seeing this debate play out, I unfortunately do. So we've got to get a handle over on our immigration system, and that includes physical infrastructure. It includes reforming our asylum process and how we go through that. That would have an immediate effect. We need to implement that as soon as possible. Aside from those two issues, I'm on Budget Committee,

so I'm concerned greatly about the debt and what causes that debt. The debates that happen in Congress right now I would surprise most people here in all of your viewers, but we actually debate what causes the debt. So Democrats think it's tax cuts. We think it's spending. And I think we have all the numbers on our side to suggest that it's mandatory spending

that truly drives the debt and it's health care costs and Social Security and whatnot because that's 70% of our spending. They think that history began two years ago and that the tax cuts created a giant debt. It's just fundamentally false on a mathematical level and a conceptual level. But that's the debate we have. So that's what we're fighting out. Well, thank you for fighting on those issues. I want to go back to immigration for a moment because you told a story recently on Sebastian Gorka's radio program about an 18-year-old woman who came to you.

And I was hoping that you could share that experience with our listeners because it profoundly impacted me in terms of the way I think about it. And I'm not sure that people necessarily recognize the scope of the problem. Can you share? So I want to, before I tell that story, let's give everybody the framework of how to understand that story. And it is this. Our immigration system incentivizes you to bring a child across. Don't bring a child across. If you're a single adult, there's a good chance we can quickly adjudicate you and deport you.

Our system works okay for single adults. It doesn't work okay when you having a child with you. Our system breaks down at that point. That's where catch and release happens. This truth catches on eventually. And everybody realizes that they should bring children. across. Okay, what if you don't have an actual child? Well, then they find a child. Okay, so now it results in child trafficking, and Border Patrol will see the same kids recycled with different

adults on the border all the time. And again, it goes back to also it's fundamentally immoral and unfair to be able to use this loophole to cut in front of the line. But it incentivizes child trafficking in pretty terrible ways. And trafficking, and who are they paying? It's the drug cartels. They have operational control of the border. Okay, so that's the framework. And so this this particular woman, she was saved by a nonprofit organization that does sting operations and works with law enforcement actually saves these kids all around the world. Actually, it's really incredible what they do. And it brought her in to tell her story.

And she was 18, but she was brought to the United States when she was 13. She was told by these traffickers that they would give her a better life, you know, make her a princess in the United States. She didn't have a great home life in Mexico. and they get her across at their third try. This is the first two times they were turned back. Third time, as she talks about it, they could just walk across. And then again, it's like a wall seems so simplistic and so medieval, as the Democrats like to say. But it does work.

If there's a wall there, you won't just walk across. And maybe you'll go where there's no wall, but you'll get caught by Border Patrol. And they can at least distinguish, because they have methods of doing this. Okay, are you really apparent or are you not? and they will separate them if they believe that they're being trafficked. But when there's nothing there, traffickers can just walk these children across, and then they send her to New York, and for five years, she was basically raped every single day as a slave. And eventually she was able to devise a plan to escape and put those traffickers in jail.

And I think that court or that case is ongoing. But it's just heartbreaking to hear that. And what the people of good intentions don't want to believe is that our system incentivizes it, and that their good intentions directly incentivize this terrible, terrible behavior. And it's the saddest story you can imagine. It is a tragic story. I thank you for sharing it with us, though, so we can better understand the consequences of what's going on. You spoke earlier about the importance of the future of conservatism,

and you yourself have been able to serve as an inspiration, I think, for a lot of young people. I mean, you have prolific social media accounts, and your message spreads virally in many different ways. What is it about that that you think has caught on, particularly with younger people? Young people are looking for a deeper conversation than just red meat talking points.

That should be very obvious. They want to know why you believe what you believe. And I think too many conservatives have gotten too comfortable, just spewing the talking points. Limited government and constitutionalism, great. What does that mean? Where did it come from? Young people are hungry to hear that.

And so I like to talk about the cultural narratives that lead to the constitutional principles that we had. And young people are willing to hear that. They want to feel like they're informed. They want to feel like they're getting a little bit more of information than the usual talking about. points. They want to be independent-minded, okay? And they'll say this often, right? And most people still identify as independents and, you know, they have their mantras of fiscally conservative,

socially liberal. That's what they're comfortable in right now. And so, which gives us an opening, you know, it gives us an opening to talk to them. And we just have to do it. And we have to do it in their language also. So there is a generational gap, I think, and I'm trying to close that gap. And so it's easy for me to talk to people in their 20s because I'm, I'm close to their age. I grew up with them. So it's not a lot more complicated than just engaging and going to college campuses and high schools and simply engaging and helping people understand why you came to believe what you believe. That is huge because maybe they'll find something they can relate with. So it's telling a story.

Well, and one of the ways that you did engage and relate to people was through Saturday Night Live, of course. So Saturday Night Live, for those who might not know, although I'm sure many do, poke fun of you in an episode. And then a week later, you chose to show up and go on. Take us back to that moment and why you decided to do it the way you did. Well, it was a perfect opportunity. You know, because they went far enough to make everybody outraged, but they didn't go.

It was also clear that it was a bit of a misstep. And so we can have space for those moments. missteps. And, you know, that's where we get confused sometimes in the public debate, because I'll get slammed because I'll criticize somebody and they'll say, I thought you were forgiving. I'm like, well, no, they meant it. I mean, I still criticize words. What I don't do is criticize the intent or character of somebody. And that's the place we need to get to. And it was, it was not clear that they, that they, you know, that they truly want to do attack my character. I mean, you could argue they did. But they just called.

us gross people and then list us. But, you know, was I really offended by it? Was the question, do I, is it even possible for me to be offended? I mean, you should hear the kind of jokes that we tell in the SEAL teams. It's not, these go far beyond any normal, any normal sense of humor. We have very thick skin. And so I just wanted to take that moment to say, we don't always have to be offended. We can say it was wrong. We can say, you know, you shouldn't have said that. It wasn't even funny, but I don't have to be outrage. I don't have to be a victim. And that was the place I was trying to get to.

And it just ended up being a lot of fun. And it gets to another way to reach people, and this is the more shallow. So I gave you the deeper answer before. And the more shallow answer is just be fun and cool. Yeah. That's it. And then you will reach a lot of people that way. If they can see something of themselves in you, then they might want to hear some of the deeper

ideas that you have. And we forget about how important that is to engage in pop culture. Absolutely. It's so important. I want to ask you finally, you yourself have certainly gained a lot of attention as a Republican member of Congress, but there are those on the other side of the aisle who have gained a lot of attention as well. Alexandria Acacia Cortez, Ilhan Omar. What's it like to be in that class with some of these other people who, almost on a daily basis, it seems, are front and center in the headlines? At first it was sort of funny. Now it's getting worse. I mean, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been. just the truth that's becoming more divisive as they seem to get angrier and angrier and angrier almost everything that comes out of their mouth is really taking shots at somebody, oftentimes

me. I'm not sure where to go from there. It's just getting to this point where I think I'm, you know, try to ignore them as much as possible, you know, unless they're saying something that I think truly needs to be addressed. But, you know, what's it like? Geez, it's interesting. A lot of this plays out in the public sphere. It doesn't really play out behind closed doors. Again, we don't really get to debate each other on the House floor or in a committee,

even if we're in the same committee. And like, Omar and I are in budget committee. But during a hearing, you know, she'll only show up when she's asking questions and, you know, and vice versa. We're always, all of us are coming in and out. There is not this debate that happens. Like, you almost wish there was, and maybe a lot of people think there is, but there often isn't. And people need to understand that.

You're more debating the people giving witness testimony. So the only time that we actually interact is on social media, because there isn't another opportunity to really do it. And this is a debate of ideas. You know, people can be upset about that, but it's kind of our job to go up there. publicly debate ideas and do your best not to do out-hominum attacks, all right? And I never have. We get out-hominant attacks all the time, but it is, you know, because what's the single line if they disagree with you are a racist, big at home of it, right?

So, and that's the wrong way to debate, and I think that undermines their argument in the long run, and we just have to keep debating ideas, telling people why we have the right ideas, and stand strong on that. Well, thank you for keeping the focus on ideas. Thanks for also sharing the insider's perspective as a new member of Congress. We appreciate you being with The Daily Signal. Thank you. Great to be with you.

Congressman Dan Crenshaw, everyone. Thank you very much. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. We interrupt this broadcast to explicitly let us. let our listeners know that from here on out for the rest of the show, we are now entering into a deep discussion about the highly anticipated finale in the Marvel Comics universe.

That's right, we're giving our hot takes on Avengers Endgame. We take the Russo Brothers, the directors of the film's plea very seriously to not spoil the endgame. So consider this your final warning that major endgame spoilers are on their way. All right, you've been warned on with the show. Okay, and we've already had Daniel Davis exit because he is not seeing the movie and does not want spoilers. I haven't seen it, and I don't really care. So, joining us, who you just heard, is Delia Rampersad. She is a producer at the Heritage Foundation and The Daily Signal and one of our

favorite pop culture critics on this podcast. And one of our less favorite guests on this podcast, John Cooper is here. He handles media relations on foreign policy for the Heritage Foundation. Okay, so both of you have seen the movie. John, let's start with you. What did you think about it? Yeah, I'm so excited to talk about this movie. Okay, this is very nerdy guys. Sorry. But all right, go on, John. Yeah, last time we were in here, we were talking about Captain Marvel, which was just awful.

And this time, we're at the complete other end of the spectrum, at least for me, in terms of how I felt about this movie and how I enjoyed this movie. Lots of, lots of things there. But it was a great, it was a pitch-perfect ending to this entire saga that Marvel has put together over the last 11th. years and 22 films now and and it just hit all the right notes it was a lot of great fan service but it was also just a great film to watch um they the russo brothers really went all out to deliver a good story and a good follow up to infinity war um so they did that really well but then they also wrapped up all these uh especially a core avenger storylines and character arcs just phenomenally and uh you know i walked out of the theater kind of thinking what in the world did i just watch

And then as time has gone on the last 48 hours, that feeling has just continued to grow as opposed to get less intense. So it was just a phenomenal, phenomenal film. That word keeps coming out because it's true. It's how I feel. Yeah. Just so you guys know, John is literally grinning ear to ear right now.

I really am. All right. Thalia, who has a more normal expression, what did you think? So I would just want to say, like a film that makes $1.2 billion, I think is what the number is now, is completely worth. talking about it, which we had, I wish we had more time to talk about it, Kate. But to give you guys

the short rundown, so let's talk about the opening scene. We pick up where we left off, essentially with Avengers Infinity War, which was released, I think it was April 27, 2018. So almost exactly a year to the date, we are picking up from where Thanos has snapped his fingers. He's wiped out 50% of the population, including 50% of the Avengers. But what was missing from Avengers Infinity War was the Hawkeye storyline. So that, That's essentially where we are dropped into in the opening scene of endgame. And I'm personally not a massive Hawkeye fan, but for all the Hawkeye fans, I could hear people in the audience like, oh, yes, I'm so excited because they didn't know what happened and how

the Thanos snap affected his life. And essentially what it is is he's having an outing with his family and he turns around and instantaneously they're all gone. And so now he has skin in the game and he needs to bring his family back. So that alone set the stage for an incredible movie, as John pointed out. And to say this is a narrative and logistical masterpiece by the Russo Brothers is an understatement. It's around Act 2 where the characters decide that they're going to go back into time to retrieve all of the Infinity War simultaneously.

And in order to do that, they essentially go back in time, which puts the viewers back into the old movies, depending on where the Infinity Stone was. And that alone, to collaborate between what actually happened in the film to what was going on in Endgame was awesome to see play out. And it really showed that I know reading some of the fun facts behind the movies, as I do as a total nerd for these films, I learned that the Russo Brothers filmed Endgame back to back from Infinity Wars. So in terms of production, that makes a lot of sense because they needed to maintain the narrative and keep it essentially flowing the way we would understand it as fans. So that alone was awesome. Also, one other major point, I want to make sure that people know that the four cornerstone characters, I'm so excited. Our Ant Man, Captain America, Iron Man, and Hawkeye.

So, yes, all of your favorite Avengers are in this film, but the way the plot keeps moving forward is through those four characters. Okay, so back up a little. You guys have talked about how much you love it. Obviously, this film was something you guys both enjoyed a lot. But for someone like me who's only seen a couple of Avengers films, you know, the insane popularity, this movie, you know, the huge record sales, you know, theater sold out is sort of baffling. So you guys have stuck through like 20-some films. How is this giving you catharsis or been emotionally relatable or why is this meaningful? Yeah.

It's a great question. And, you know, for me, it's a very personal thing for me because the first, you know, I got into this from the very beginning and, you know, have, have. been a fan of these, these stories for a long time. And even, you know, in 2008, when the first Iron Man came out, when nobody expected this to become what it has become, you had this great standalone story with Tony Stark and becoming Iron Man and everything.

And in the last 11 years, we've seen not only his character develop and grow and experience all these things, but then all these other characters have come into the story as well. And, you know, from the pre-existing comic storylines, you know, this whole saga has followed roughly, you know,

one of the main sagas in the comic book line. And in endgame, you see, it's like a culmination of the last 11 years of all of those characters and everything that they've gone through. And you kind of feel like you've gone through it with them because you've sat there. And for someone like me who I care very much about story, like I love story and I love being able to be drawn into a good story and feeling with those characters and empathizing with those characters, whatever. And Marvel did that really well.

in the overwhelming majority of their movies. And so that, I think, is what elevates this experience overall, not just because, oh, they've got so many great set pieces and such great effects or whatever. You know, those are certainly true most of the time and certainly is true in endgame. But they also tie in more connecting at the heart level. Like you see Tony's completion of his character arc

and you see the completion of Captain America's story arc and character arc. Not to mention several of the other, especially the Corps Avengers, you know, the Corps Six. And that just, they just handle it so well. So it connects with you on a very basic emotional level in addition to blowing you away. And there's so many great callbacks in the film that remind you of movies that came out four, five, six, seven years ago. And one in particular being in the third act of the film, there's a very iconic moment when Captain America, is staring down Thanos, and he's staring down this massive army that's just about to destroy the planet, basically. And all of a sudden, you know, he's standing there.

His shield is broken. He's on his last legs. And then he hears some static in his ear, and he hears Sam Wilson, you know, the Falcon, who had been snapped away by Thanos in Infinity War. And he just hears in his ear on your left, which is the very opening line to Captain America Winter Soldier when he is running by Sam on the mall. downtown, you know, and he keeps running by him because he's so fast. And we get that line played over again with Sam saying it to cap this time. And then it just goes crazy because all the Avengers then show up.

So just stuff like that. So see, folks, this is why you need to watch this multiple times because that story that John just told about Captain America, I totally missed. And I'm just dumbfound and sitting here listening to it again and saying, oh my gosh, that's amazing. So the big pull on my heartstrings was Iron Man's storyline, especially because they completed it in this film. And everyone has their favorite Avengers. Mine is specifically Iron Man. Captain America might be the first Avenger, but Iron Man is the OG Avenger, the original gangster,

for those unfamiliar with the term Kate specifically. Yeah, I didn't know what OG meant. No apologies, no shame. So basically, as a number... I see you're writing it down right now. Yeah, taking notes. As a number one fan, I loved the way Iron Man's story played out. So major spoiler, this is the last film for Iron Man because Tony Stark takes one for the team massively and accepts his fate, which I love the exchange between him and Doctor Strange when he lets him know what's going to happen. And as a first time viewer, I didn't know what was going to happen. I did not expect him to die in that moment. But the fact that he did was so apropos and it was painful and I was blubbering, but it was

perfect. It was the perfect ending. And especially because to John's story about Captain America, the way they ended Ironman's story was his last line was, I am Iron Man, which is the last line he says in the first Iron Man film, which reveals to all of the world that he is indeed Iron Man. So to see that truly come to a complete circle was amazing. And the way they paid homage to him at the end with the funeral was just beautiful. Tony Stark was able to have a family and pepper pots let him go so gracefully and gently, even though she was broken inside, it was so heart-wrenching and it really pulled on the heartstrings.

But it was incredible. So that was truly my favorite storyline. throughout the entire film. Yeah, there were a couple of great just to pay, if nothing else. Like, Bravo, Robert Downey Jr., you have made cinematic history the last 11 years. And when Pepper, you know, comes to his side, the people by his side when he, when he dies are war machine, you know, Colonel Rhodes, Pepper and Spider-Ban. And I think that's really appropriate. And the two of them, you know, Spider-Man and Rodi, they both say they have a couple of quick lines. but then the last person there with him, you know, face to face is Pepper.

And she tells him, you know, one of the last things she tells him is you can rest now. And that's just a really, it just pounds your heart because you know Tony has struggled with this, not only in the film, because that had been a line earlier in the film about, you know, I want to go to sleep, but do you think you'll actually rest, you know? Not to mention the rest of the movies where he's been burdened with, you know, protecting humanity with this gift that he has. and Pepper telling him as he's passing away, you know, it's okay, Tony, you can rest now.

Oh, man. Okay, really crazy stuff and really, really, really impactful. But, yeah, Thalia is 100% spot on with how they handled Iron Man and also, too, with how they handled Cap. His kind of sign-off and his surrendering of the shield on his terms and passing it on to a new generation to a new cap in America. Really excited for that. That's going to be great.

But the two, in my mind, the two most core of it, They handled their exit and their finale, their character art conclusion really, really well. Okay. Well, we've got two big thumbs up from John and Thaliyah. So if you've seen it, please share your thoughts with us. That'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud. And please leave us a review without spoilers or a five-star rating in iTunes to help us grow. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.