The Daily Signal - Heaping Scorn on Illiterate Fearmongers with Dr. Kevin Roberts

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

After two weeks of regurgitated conspiracy theories about Project 2025, Dr. Kevin Roberts of The Heritage Foundation joins Tony Kinnett to obliterate the weakest theories about a document fearmongers didn't read. It may not be enough to distract from the media nightmare of Biden's collapsing administration, but it will be enough to make you laugh. 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 July 12, 2024. I'm Tony Kinnett. Today, we dive into the myths, legends, and strange claims about Project 2025. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Dr. Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation after this. As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas. Bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not a non-executive.

enough to just defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go on offense. Conservative principles are ideas that work, individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation, my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action. My podcast, The Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you. And I want to ensure freedom for the next generation. Find the Kevin Roberts Show, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Tony Kennett, and I'm sure you've heard all of the nonsense about Project 2025. Of course,

that's all many are hearing about over on the legacy media because that's all they have to talk about. Certainly can't discuss all of the things that they have colluded in hiding over the last couple of years. So, you know, if we're going to talk about the conspiracy theories, the tin foil around Project 2025, we're going to go to the source. And we're going to bring on Dr. Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation. Sir, good evening. Thanks for having me, Tony. Love your show. Love everything you do. And it's a pleasure to be with you. So let's dig right into some of the basics. I mean, there's some good stuff here. I mean, as a former teacher and you as a former teacher, we love it when people make some kind of claims because we expect a source to back it up. You know, that's how we used to grade our kids' papers. You know, where's your source?

Where's the text for it? And I got out the big honkin mandate for leadership, and I looked through some of the claims, and I hope that, you know, go through them, you know, because media matters is going to be watching this later. And so we ought to help them out and do a little fact-checking ourselves. Does Project 2025 ban all Muslims from coming into the country? Absolutely not. That's one of many lies that the left has perpetrated against this project. This is, as you know, Tony so well, just a simple, although certainly broad-scale policy document,

that the next president of the United States, probably and hopefully President Trump, will be able to choose from if he so chooses. And I think that's what's driven the left crazy and why they're distorting everything, including the point that you mentioned. I think that's pretty accurate. Again, having read through the document, I can't find anything based on that claim that's been shared by everyone up to and including the Associated Press, who also claims that the conservative groups have drawn up a plan being Project 2025

to dismantle the U.S. government and replace it with Trump's vision. Is that what Project 2025 does? Does it dismantle the entire U.S. government? What it does is provide a corrective, which is a wildly popular idea, to the concentration of power in D.C. among unelected bureaucrats. So if it's dismantling anything, it's dismantling the monopoly on power, that the left has. And keep in mind, whether it's the Associated Press or Media Matters or MSNBC or the Biden-Harris administration, these are all the same people who for the last three and a half

years have been telling us that the economy's fine, that, in fact, inflation on groceries and rent and gas has not gone up. And in fact, that even President Biden is competent and capable. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, well, sir. I know this is just so terrible. Are you telling me that the parties that are making these claims, amid the worst crisis their party has faced in 47 years aren't trustworthy? I know that this comes as a shock, Tony, to you and to your audience, but the answer to that is yes. And we ought to have a little fun with this moment. Obviously, it's very serious.

The president's health is serious. Of course. National security. This is serious business. But for those of us who do public policy every day or in the media every day as you are, sometimes the best way to deal with the left is just to laugh at their ability. absurdity. And I think all of the mischaracterizations about Project 2025 while serious and dumb and evil ultimately point to the fact that the left has nothing to run on and we ought to celebrate

this moment and look forward to hopefully a very short time from now, they're being out of power. It really is incredible that the response to this, again, this campaign against Project 2025, the Grand Russia Collusion 6.0 or whatever conspiracy that you want to call it, that no one's really taking it seriously, based on the few scant recent polls that I've seen from independence around the country and the few areas of pockets of undecided voters that there are left. And again, one former teacher to another, you and I remember heaping scorn on silly behavior, not because, you know, there was a moment where behavior demanded to be ignored or was trivial, but I personally think that there is indeed a time referencing the book of Jonah

when the Lord looked down at Jonah throwing a fit and said, doest thou well to be angry? And I get the same kind of feelings in this particular instance. For example, the Biden, excuse me, Joe Biden.com slash project 2025, just living rent-free in the heads of the left-leaning establishment here. He says that Trump allies 920-page plans, to give Trump more power over your daily life. And then a lot of other claims.

I've also seen this plan mentions Trump just hundreds of times. Tell me, was this plan crafted just for Donald Trump? Absolutely not. Obviously, if President Trump wins, which we're hoping that he does from a policy standpoint, given his track record in his first term as president, then he's the boss. He gets to choose if he uses this plan. But this is a plan that has been updated every four years since,

Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. And what's great about this plan is that it covers every policy issue. It is involved over 110 conservative organizations. And it's been candidate agnostic because that's how we have to operate as a nonpartisan nonprofit. We're unabashedly conservative in terms of our ideology and philosophy, as you know, but we're not beholden to any party or to any candidate. Literally, Tony, we have offered briefings on Project 2025 over the last 18 months. to every major candidate for the presidency on both sides of the aisle. And I think to sum up here about the importance of this, what has driven the left crazy is that the political center right has never been this organized.

We've never been this unified. And if we look at President Trump's official Agenda 47, which is excellent, or the Republican Party's platform, which at least in political terms, I think, is very effective and excellent. President Trump had a direct hand in that. or if you look at the priorities of Project 2025, the overlap on that VIN diagram or all of the priority issues

that the American people care about. We're totally over the target on the center right in the United States. And I think that's what's got the left running scared. We ought to sound like. On with Dr. Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation. Just going through a few of these wilder claims, I know that you've been going on in a lot of shows.

People have been taking a lot of your perspective on the media frenzy, least the generated media frenzy over Project 2025. Just as a quick point here, because again, just opening up the book and seeing what's inside, the claim that Trump has mentioned hundreds of times. Looking through, it seems that every time Trump is mentioned in this book, it's just citing precedent under prior administrations. Obama's mentioned in here.

Bush is mentioned in here. Clinton, Reagan. For example, on page 495, it says that the Department of Health and Human Services should restore, and then it talks about several guidelines. is just a conservative policy suggestion. And right underneath, it says in 2020, the Trump administration's OCR published regulations, it's just citing precedents. And then underneath, it also cites the Biden administration.

So it looks like that whole thing about, oh, this is a custom handwritten book for Trump. It mentions them all the time. Just a bunch of precedents cited to me. So, man, I tell you what, I'm not really finding any substance in the fearmongering yet. And look, I love a good amount of left-leaning fear. as much as the next guy. It's really funny to read. For example, that Project 2025 apparently allows Trump to kill black people.

I did skim this pretty efficiently. Haven't read it through. I don't find anything about that in there. I feel like perhaps someone would have noticed that before now. Yeah. I mean, that's just atrocious that someone would even suggest that. But it shows you the extent to which the left is lying about this project. It isn't just that they've taken a policy idea and slightly mischaracterized it unintentionally.

It isn't just that they've made an outright lie about a policy prescription. Like they've claimed that Project 2025 wants to raise the retirement age for Social Security. Neither of those things are discussed in there, either the retirement age about Social Security or Social Security much at all. But it's that they've actually taken really atrocious concepts like doing harm to particular groups of people and touted, that Project 2025 is doing that. But this is the lesson that I learned, Tony, over many years, not just in public policy, but on being on a couple of faculties. The left is always going to distort, but they're also always going to overplay their hand. And there's been a silver lining in all of this distortion or as a result of all of this distortion. And it is that thousands, hundreds of thousands,

if not millions of Americans have heard about Project 2025. They've gone to the website. They've read this myths versus fax product that we put out, and they realize, gosh, this all makes a lot of sense to us. This is a really good idea. So I think ultimately that this will become a non-story, which has been all the time. The conservative movement always stands ready to serve any president, by the way. President Biden called and said, you know, I want to talk to you about some of the reforms mentioned in the project. Of course, we would say yes. The likelihood of that is zero because of him. But the point is, we stand ready to serve the next president of the United States. He will choose his personnel and his policies.

I suspect there will be a lot of overlap there. And I think that we can start being more optimistic about the future of the country as a result. I love the take that it's just shocking to people that the Heritage Foundation would assist in producing a menu of policy proposals that are conservative. It's shocking, isn't it? The Gall. Oh, gosh. The Heritage Foundation? I actually did get, by the way, an individual who's a friend of mine I grew up with now.

He actually lives out west. But at the time we grew up, he didn't really care for politics. And he did what you said. He ended up looking up project 2025 and ended up looking through some of the proposals. And he shot me a text and he says, Tony, after reading this, I think I might be a conservative. So just well done to the left. Appreciate all of the red pilling. And by all means, I look forward to seeing people.

people need to read more of the papers, of the research, of the data that is crafted in a menu. You don't have to take all of them. I'm not asking you to. I mean, I think you should because they're good policy proposals. But I don't know. I think we are finally seeing, as you said, an overplaying of the hand that is resulting in more people getting engaged in the system, which is necessary for the survival of this country. It's a republic if you can keep it, right? Man, that is the most important thing from teacher to teacher, and I know your audience appreciates it, that the policies in Project 2025 are important, but the most important objective of Project 2025 is to bring policy substance to our political discourse. We are very grateful for heroic leaders, especially President Trump, who's made so many sacrifices for this country when most of us might have folded in light of the persecution of the left. but in addition to those leaders, we also have to have a policy menu that they may choose to choose from.

And this is a great reflection, Project 2025, that is, of where the conservative movement is in terms of that policy substance, but also in terms of standing ready to serve, not just a particular leader, but even more importantly than that, the thing that binds us together, which is our belief in spite of all of its warts in the goodness and in the bright future of the United States of America. Oh, man, it's hard. It's hard not to smile after hearing that, just to be pretty frank. Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, look forward to seeing you next week at the Republican National Convention. We'll be heading up and doing the show from there. Thanks, Tony. See you there. And that'll do it for today's episode.

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