The Dan Bongino Show - The 2026 Midterms Preview, with Ned Ryun | Episode 195

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Ned Ryun is the founder and CEO of American Majority, a conservative organization that trains candidates and activists. He joins VINCE in this special episode to look ahead to the 2026 midterms and what he thinks the GOP needs to do to win. Watch VINCE Live on Rumble - Mon-Fri 10AM ET ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://rumble.com/vince Learn more about American Majority: https://americanmajority.org/ Sponsors: Patriot Mobile - https://Patriotmobile.com/Vince Birch Gold - Text VINCE to the number 989898 Helix Sleep - https://helixsleep.com/vince Bon Charge - https://boncharge.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everybody, welcome to Vince. So good to have you with us. It's Christmas week. I hope you're getting a chance to spend some time with the ones you loved. It's really such a wonderful time of year. So glad to have you spend some time with us. I've got a big show for you today. Obviously, we're closing out 2025 and we're looking ahead to what 2026 has in store for us, including how are we going to win these midterms? I'll discuss all of that coming up with our friend Ned Ryan, who joins us on this special edition of Vince. I'm glad you're here. too. But first, you should know we have a great sponsor called Patriot Mobile. And they've got a limited time offer for you right now. And that offer is running out. The year's running out. And so is this offer. You have a once in a year chance to get a free smartphone just for switching to America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. It's a brand new phone, absolutely free. Only while supplies last. For over 12 years now, Patriot Mobile has been defending faith, family, and freedom while giving you the same or better premium coverage. on all three major U.S. networks. Unlimited data, mobile hotspots, international roaming. You know

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Right now to claim your free info kit on gold. That's Vince to 9-9-8-9-9-8. Protect your future today with Birch Gold. message and data rates apply well here we go we've got christmas any moment now and we also have 2026 any moment now as 2026 is arriving it is worth thinking about what do we need to do to win it and there are a few better on this subject than ned ryan he's the founder of american majority and he joins us now ned merry christmas to you good to have have you with us on the show today, sir.

Yeah, same to you. Merry Christmas, Vince, and great to be with you. Ned, I, I, you know, it's funny. We've all become so accustomed to seeing you through the years, seeing you on television, seeing all over the place, talking about politics. Where did you come from? Where did Ned Ryan cover? You came out of nowhere. You're like talking to President Trump all the time. You're working all the angles. You're trying to figure out what's going on in politics, trying to help us win for the country. Where'd you come from, Ned? Still out of Kansas. Came from Kansas. My dad was. in the House from 1996, 2006.

Obviously, the older generations will recognize the name Jim Ryan, three-time Olympian, world record hold in the mile. I'll tell you a quick story. He was running the Olympic torch through his hometown of Wichita, 1996, and at that point, Bob Dole was running for president. Sam Brownback was vacating the second congressional district in Kansas to run for that Senate seat. And all of a sudden, about three weeks before deadline,

Republicans were kind of scrambling as to who would be a strong candidate, for the second congressional district. So Congressman Todd T. Hart and his chief of staff, Matchlap, came over to my dad after the torch carrying event and said, hey, Jim Ryan, how you doing? Great. Have you ever thought about running for Congress? And my dad had said, I made two pledges in life. I'd never be a track and field coach, and I'd never run for public office. But on the way home, he and my mom were talking about it, prayed about it, talked with us. Three weeks later, he files to run for office. he comes into Congress, he's there for five terms.

I came back to D.C. in 2000, thinking, I'm going to try out D.C. for a year or two. Here we are 25 years later. Married, four kids, had quite the adventure along the way, started multiple nonprofits, obviously do the commentary as you refer to, do a whole host of things, but it's been quite the ride. I would like to think of myself, Vince, even though I've been in the D.C. area for a very long time, I'm an insider with the outsider's perspective. Yes. Know a lot of how the town works, whether it's Congress, whether it's the White House.

And I would like to think I've been as pretty consistent. As consistent as imperfect human beings can be over the last couple decades in regards to what we need to do to be successful. So an insider with an outsider's perspective, that's definitely what I think of you as. Thank you. In other words, a guy who knows what's going on in the inside, but has a MAGA focus on like how can we achieve the things. that Donald Trump was elected for in the first place. Right. How did you arrive at those opinions?

In other words, like, how did you resist the gravitational pull of sort of the sclerotic, corrupt establishment Republican forces in D.C.? You know, it's interesting you bring that up. I was thinking about a piece. I used to write for the American Spectator and wrote a piece. I want to say this was back in 2011 about Americanism, that we were in pursuit of Americanism, not republicanism, not corporatism, obviously not democratism

but what does it mean to truly represent and prioritize the American people it was something that I'd always I'd been thinking about for a very long time and then all of a sudden this guy named Donald Trump started talking about it about four years later I'm like at first I the thing that's funny Vince when this brash billionaire from Manhattan

started talking came down those escalators it didn't click with me initially that this might have been the guy I was writing about that would be in pursuit of Americanism what does it mean to have a government of by and the people that every day actually prioritizes the American people, which I think in many ways encapsulates America first. It clicked with me in February of 2016 around the Virginia primaries that this might be the guy I've been looking for. But when you're in D.C. and you're

looking at how it's operating on the inside again, my dad, his last year was 2006 in the House. He was voted the most conservative member of Congress that year. I think it was congressional quarterly that voted him that, voted him that, I think, honor. I really look at my dad as being really an example for me where if you come into D.C. with your principles firmly in place and you do not waver on those principles, but use them as the lens by which you view everything that you're experiencing and having to deal with, you have the ability to take strong stands, be able to make as many of the right decisions. Again, we're all imperfect. We all make mistakes, but be able to make a lot of those right decisions. But I will say this, though, there are a lot of temptations. to a lot of money, to change your views on life. So I think you have to go in and realize, yeah, there's going to be hard decisions that have to be made. You're not going to make as much money.

That's fine. But the ultimate goal is, how do we actually, for me, how do you actually restore representative government in this country? How do you restore the republic? How do you actually start to break apart that administrative state? So a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about writing about for a very long time, But I think a lot of it's due to my dad's influence, but also just just that insider's perspective in watching this and going, this has nothing to do with how we were actually founded. How do we get back to that?

Yeah, no, that's super important. You got to be raised right. You got to raise your kids right. You got to implant in them a sense of right and wrong. And hopefully when they're out in the world and they're doing their thing, they're constantly reflecting on that moral compass, you know? And as much as anything, Vince, it was not only things, the conversations that I had with my dad, but it was an example. it was an example by I'll share a quick story it was 2003 the whole medicare part d situation in which the white house really wanted that and i would remind people again republican white house really wanted medicare part d and there were about two dozen Republicans in the house that said absolutely not we don't think this is the right thing the incredible pressure that was put on my dad not only calls from the president while he was overseas uh visits down to the white house for them to basically have their arms twisted by dick cheney and then then that night of the vote literally basically being promised anything and everything they wanted

if they would just give that vote to the president because that's what they wanted leading into the 2004 reelection. Watching that and knowing the incredible pressure that was put on him and him being able to do the right thing and incredible pressure. I'm understating all the pressure that took place and him being able to do the right thing in those situations. I find it pretty all inspiring, but also just one of those examples we're like, yep, he could do it. I can do it too. Yeah. Amazing. So this gets to a question I've wanted to ask you for a while, and I'll ask you here. How often do you speak to President Trump? Because I feel like I've often either in conversations with you, interviews with you, you've mentioned, you know, I was talking to the

president. I told them to do this or I suggested doing this. And so how often do you get a chance to talk to the president? Can you even count the number of times you've had chats with the guy? I try to be strategic about it, Vince. There are times where I feel like it's very necessary for me to insert myself into the conversation. So, as well, listen, he'll call me after TV hits. I love it. I even told him the last time he calls, like, sir, I love when you call. And it's obviously a great privilege that you would call me.

You don't have to. I'm with you, right? I'm with you. I've been with you pretty much almost day one, not quite, but almost. And I try to be pretty strategic about events. I wanted to go in a couple weeks ago and have a conversation with him about what I thought the midterms were about. And it's not about running against socialism. It's not about foreign policy wins.

Though I have to tell you, very impressed by his approach on foreign policy where I think it's been absolutely the right approach, whether it's dealing with Iran. I love the resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere. But that's not going to win the midterms for him. it's about affordability and health care. And so I wanted to have that conversation because, you know, I'm in Virginia. I watched this disaster of a gubernatorial race here in Virginia where Winston Sears never once really mentioned what her economic plan was when half the electorate in Virginia said

the number one issue for us is the economy. She didn't even mention it. She lost that demographic. Again, half of the entire voting demographic in Virginia by 27 points. I'm sorry. I mean, I just want to reflect on this just because the implications it has for politics everywhere else. but in Virginia specifically, given that you and I both know it so well.

Winston Sears ran a lazy campaign. Terrible. Winston Sears, she didn't even like really get out that much. She just three campaign managers, very poorly run. Listen, I'm all for not having boys and girls bathrooms or boys competing against girls and sports. But even on that issue, she wasn't aggressive. She showed up to one school board meeting. It wasn't like she was out on the road all the time on that issue.

She could have actually gotten a lot of support there, but she just, she just did. didn't. Even like the easy stuff, she didn't. And it just reminded me like, you can get all the policies right. You can be totally right. But if you don't put the work in, you're not going to get the win. You know what I have found? Again, I'm involved, pretty involved in politics, helping identify and then obviously consulting with and encouraging endorsements and working with candidates along the way. I have noticed a very consistent pattern among people that lose. They don't view their campaign as a full-time job. When you run for office, and I will say this to anybody that's listening that's thinking about running for office, if you do not view the

campaign as at least six days a week and at least 12 hours a day for those six days a week, don't even bother. Don't even think about running for office. This is a full-time job in which you are constantly either on the road speaking or you're constantly raising money. And if you can't commit to that. Please don't waste my time or anybody else's time because there was a lot of money wasted in Virginia. When someone made it very clear, she was not that interested in running a hard campaign, went through three campaign managers. And at the end of the day, not only sank her own campaign, but everybody else, including pretty devastating losses in the House of Delegates. So there were mistakes made events. There were also things a little bit outside of her control,

just to add a little bit of fairness at the end. The government, shutdown absolutely hurt winsome. I thought she was going to lose by five to seven. 30 days, 35 days out, the bottom dropped out on her campaign. And you can look at the government shutdown about 20% of the voters in Virginia were either directly impacted or had a family member directly impacted by the government shutdown. Right. 20%, one of every five of that demographic, Abigail Spanberger won at 88 to 12. So there were some things outside of control. It's a terrible campaign. It's a blue state in real life. It's a lot of government. workers, no question about that at all, but still in a world where one of the candidates running

for attorney general was a murderous psychopath and the other was Jason Mierrez with a good record as the incumbent. There's no excuse for Jason Mierrez losing, but Winston Sears proved to be a drag on him. So it's just the whole thing is just like it's just sad to see. But there was a there were a lot of people who looked at what happened in Virginia and in some of these other races around the country and they instantly, as they always do, they instantly turn them into, well, this tells us what the midterms are going to be like, this is a huge bellwether for the midterms. Give me your sense right now, Ned, of how you think, what are, how is our, what does our hand look like going into the midterms right now? How are we faring at this moment? So I want to make a couple of points really

quick. Virginia, there's about a quarter million, we don't do partisan registration here, but there's about a quarter million more Democrats than Republicans inside of Virginia. So you're playing, you were playing a stacked, a rigged game, a stack deck. New Jersey, I think it's 600 to 800,000 more Democrats registered than Republicans, again, rigged gang. So when people say we should draw, you know, take lessons from 25 and apply them to 26, you can't really. But the lesson that I was trying to really wanted to communicate to President Trump was this. And I think it's the most important lesson coming out of Virginia. In tough economic times, brought on by Biden, just so we're clear, brought on by Biden administration for the last four years, still coming out of it,

people need to hear the message of we get it we know that you're still having you know you're suffering economically and on the affordability cost of living from we have a plan and we are going to fix this for you so having to address at least address that issue something winsom didn't do that trump and his team are starting to do which i love i mean jd's out there best it's out there trump's even talking about it now in which i think they're having a meaningful conversation with the American people saying we acknowledge that this is an issue. We didn't cause it. We are going to fix it. And I think you're seeing a lot of his policies. The underlying trends that I'm looking at, I think people need to feel it by the summer, next summer of 26. I think you're going to see

people starting to feel it in the grocery prices. They're already starting to feel a little bit in the gas prices. But again, the point I made to Trump and to others, keep domestic energy production cranked up already increased by a million barrels of oil a day since he came into office can we get it to two million because you and i both know this and i feel like i'm stating the obvious if we can drive down the cost of energy it drives down the cost of gas it drives down the cost of transportation for groceries and other goods is going to have that ripple effect through the economy so i think that's going to be a huge issue so now directly to the midterms i'll be honest if they were held right now we'd lose uh i

really do believe that, Vince. The good news is, I think by the time we hit in November of 26, there's going to be a couple things that are working in our favor. Not only, I think we're going to be in a better place on the economic affordability issue. I think we're going to be a pretty good place structurally. And by that, I mean, we're going to win the redistricting wars. I think we're going to be plus nine, plus 11. Indiana was extremely disappointing. I hope all the state senators get primary, by the way. Also, King Savage should be dealt with, who's the consultant that brought that about who by the way just in case anybody missed this cam savage is also senator todd young's consultant i'd like to have a conversation about him getting a primary challenge in

2028 that all to say i think we're going to be plus nine on the redistricting and then people should be aware of louisiana versus calais the case in front of the supreme court that would weaken section two of the of the 1965 voting rights act that would allow us to do even more redistricting especially in the southern part of the country I've heard six seats at a minimum all the way up to 19, I would say another six seats. So maybe we have 13 to 15 seats that are in our column by the time we hit the midterms. That's a good thing. The other thing that I think is also going to have an impact on the midterms is people investing in the right numbers before the elections.

I'm a huge believer in this fence. We need to spend a lot more time and money on voter registration and generating ballots among mid-low propensity Republicans. is something we did very successfully in 2024 with American Majority Action. We need to redouble our efforts in targeted House districts because 2026 to me is really about the House. I feel good about the Senate map. The House is going to be a just absolute dogfight. But, you know, Trump's going to be out there doing rallies.

Elon Musk is back in the fold. You know, Trump's not only going to have to be. Spending money. Rallies are going to be great, but Trump's going to have to spend probably three, maybe 400 million out of MAGA, Inc. I know other big donors are thinking about making significant investments. So structurally an investment, we need to make sure we're working on the right numbers and then fully fund these efforts in really tight House districts.

So I'm not overly bullish, but there's a hint of bullishness about me in regards to the House elections next November. So it's remarkable the extent to which the map is rigged for Democrats right now. Totally. Because when you talk about if the election were held today, we would lose Democrats win the House. I think that's right, but it's not because they earned votes. It's because they have ill-gotten seats. The way the maps are drawn are just to their advantage. And there's all these illegals that are living in the country that they use the census. I will talk about that with

you in a moment because I know you know a lot about this subject. But they've used the census and concealed the number of illegals within it in order to pad the number of congressional seats that they have, even though they don't deserve them at all. So there's clearly election rigging going on. But here's my big picture about going into 2025, what we have in. front of us. We've got America 250. I think people are under appreciating how big the patriotic celebration of the country is going to be this next year and the role that Donald Trump is going to play as master of ceremonies. We've got a big midterm convention coming. Unusual, never done before. President Trump is going to do it to try and turn this into a presidential election. The White

House, Susie Wiles and the president want to make this a referendum on Trump. Normally, it's the party out of power that's trying to do that. Instead, this time is the party in power because low propensity voters, you just mentioned, they show up when Trump's name is on the ballot. And then finally, as we get to the midterms, my prayer and my expectation, I want to see if this is yours too, is that a lot of the Republican infighting that we are seeing at the moment, much of which is sort of a proxy fight for the presidential election in 2028. There's a lot of like, I don't really like JD. I prefer Ted Cruz, but nobody really wants to say that. So they're all fighting about other things to pretend it's about something else. And I think as we get closer to the

terms some of the some of the BS is going to slip away at least for a little bit because people are going to realize as we get closer what the stakes are so my expectation is unity patriotism a trump referendum and then cartoonish candidates on the other side if jasmine crockett is the actually the nominee in texas or if you get more characters like afton bane who just ran in tennessee running all across the board for the democrats who by the way have a rock bottom approval rating Their approval rating sucks. It's awful. If that's the case going into the midterms, I'm not blackpilling on this information.

No, I think you made a couple good points there. One, let's not underestimate their ability to implode and, you know, light themselves on fire. I mean, they have historically low approval ratings, Democrats do. I think you made an interesting point, too, that I want to highlight to people. I've been in politics again a long time. Not too long ago, it was we hoped for low turnout, elections because that's how we would win, completely changed under Trump. Trump brings out the mid to low propensity voters and we have to have high turnout elections to

win. When Trump's on the ballot, that's a dynamic we see. And the thing that guys like me are trying to solve for the midterms, how do you make those mid to low propensities more reliable voters? Well, if you can get them to request a ballot, Vince, which is not easy and it costs you money. But if you can get them to request a ballot, we can turn anyone that requests a ballot that's a mid to low propensity voter into about an 80% chance that they'll vote in that next election. And so when I talk about the underlying numbers, this is a key part to us being successful in the midterms for Trump, like Trump only voters or mid to low props, actually becoming more consistent and turning up in 26. So I love the theme that Susie and Trump are saying

this is going to be a referendum on Trump and the success. We haven't even talked about his legislative successes, his policy agenda and the triumphs this year, which have been significant. But yeah, let's put him front and center because this really is about are we going to take it all the way to a meaningful conclusion with the Trump second term and really having a lot more policy wins. You can't do that without the House. Okay. Let's talk about more of this in just a moment with Ned Ryan. The midterms are huge. And Ned is going to be right at the center of helping us get some big victories, I think. So more ahead with Ned Ryan. But first, I got to tell you,

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don't miss this massive chance to save big on your favorite bone charge products. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. All right. Hey, so, so Ned, legislative wins, legislative wins for the president of the United States. I got to say, underappreciated right now. The White House knows this because we just heard from the president give this big address this past week that the big, beautiful law, people need to say law.

I don't know why people aren't saying law. It's the big beautiful law. The Big Beautiful Law has done a million different things, and a lot of which people don't even realize how good it is. So not only is it cutting taxes on tips and cutting taxes of Social Security and overtime, it's also like zeroing out taxes on silencers, which by the way, I'm obviously very familiar with because I've been telling the audience, I've been purchasing one. And so like there's all sorts of things that this bill does, builds a wall, 10,000 new ICE agents, I mean, a lot. do you think that the average American will be able to feel the effects of this thing going into the midterms? I'm hopeful that second to third quarter, they're going to feel it. You know, again, I just want to go through a few of the highlights, though, for me.

First of all, tax cuts permanent. I mean, that's a huge deal. First of all, it was self-preservation. If Republicans had not done that massive tax increase, might have even triggered a recession going into the midterms. You could have written off the House, maybe the Senate. So that was a huge part of it. You got to make the tax cuts permanent. You mentioned border security, $175 billion for border security, funding for another

701 miles of border wall. That to me is massive events because of the structural changes that the Trump administration is putting in place because obviously that mass invasion under Biden, you put in structural things like a physical wall is going to be harder to do some of these things if and when because at some point we'll probably lose political power just knowing how history works. you're going to make it that much harder for them to do what they did the last four years under Biden. 1.4 million illegals off of Medicaid defunded the Green New Deal. I mean, think about how devastating that would have been for our economy if some of these things were left in place.

Can you imagine, as we come to the end of 2025, if we were actually closing out the year in the first year of Kamala Harris as president, the absolute devastation. So I want to remind people, there's so many good things that are happening, but consider the flip side. dear god i i tell people all the time when they ask what's what's trump's biggest triumph the fact that he won and he stopped the hemorrhaging and he stopped the bleeding and we actually got adults back in the white house i mean that to me it's like people need to understand if we had continued the trend under biden how with kamala harris how devastating that would have been but also look at the domestic energy production i mentioned earlier another million barrels of oil a day huge massive you think about also, I think there's been two million

illegals that have either self-deported or been deported in the first 250 days of the first year. I mean, the first two million are probably the easiest ones, just to be fair, but we're on a good path towards getting into these mass deportations because I'll tell you this, Vincent, I did tell Trump this when I talked to him last time, the future of this country, the future success rises or falls

off mass deportations being successful. Also, the future of the Republican Party rises or falls off mass deportation. being successful. I totally agree with you. I have a, I can smell it in the air, though. There's something I'm nervous about related to that and also related to prosecuting people like James Comey

and accountability, which is I have a feeling that Republicans in Washington are going to try and shy away from those issues going into the midterms because to them, they're ugly. These are ugly issues. It's ugly to deport people. It's ugly to prosecute people.

And they don't even bother to talk about how justified it is. Of course, it's justified to deport somebody who's here illegally. Of course it's justified to prosecute someone who broke our laws. But there's a revulsion to doing tough things. There's an aversion to doing tough things. And if it's like, oh, that looks, that look, that's the kind of thing the media could spin against me. So I'm not going to do it at all. That's the thing I worry about that.

No, you're absolutely right. You can always bank on most Republicans in D.C. Lacking a spine, lacking a backbone, wanting to do the hard things. You know, Trump has instilled a lot of that backbone into Republicans in his first term and obviously in his second term. But I want to make this point, and I think you're right, Vince, too many times Republicans, they're careerists. We just want to come and have a good career.

We want to be in charge, but we don't want to do too much that might rock the boat. And then after a nice career, either in Congress or some big think tank, we'll go on and do something else in life. The left, when they get political power, by God, we are going to fundamentally change everything. We're going to use the law as a political weapon to crush our political enemies. If you get in our way and try and stop our grand vision for our total transformation of this country. And Republicans are sitting and going, ooh, that's, we don't want to do that. That'd be dirty.

We either figure out what time it is or you can write the republic off. And this is what frustrates me. Republicans, Trump knows what to do. with political power. Most Republicans don't know what to do with political power. And this is one of my biggest frustrations having been here for a very long time. Republicans when given political power by the voters don't know what to do with it. In fact, Vince, find it kind of icky to use the political power that was actually given to them by the voters. Trump, I've been given political power to actually implement an agenda and I'm going to use that political power to actually do that. If Republicans don't

figure out how to use political power to actually achieve all of these things, which, by the way, mass deportations was absolutely on the ballot in 2024 and one of the reasons that Trump won, if you can't get on board with that and don't know how to use political power, why on earth, would the American people give you political power in the future? A number of these Republicans in Congress do think that they can outlast Trump, that Trump is going to go away and that their world is going to go back to one where the American people are not paying attention, not that interested. They get to be called a senator or a congressman. They get all the trappings of power. And their lives will be very comfortable again. And they won't have to deal

with all of this constant oversight by the American people. So what happens? So what happens? Do you think they're right? Do you think they're right? Is the world going back to the way it used to be? I can't. If we do, we'll lose. And I mean that. I, not only lose politically, we'll lose the country. If we allow a snap back to the old Republican, corporatism, this slow surrender, basically kind of uniparty approach of. We don't want to do that too fast. We'll just kind of tap the brakes so we don't go too far down that path too quickly.

We'll lose. And it'll be devastating for the future of this country and for the future of our children, grandchildren. This is why I go back to the midterms being a critical part to where we go. after the midterms in 28 and 2030. There's two points I want to make. The RNC finance chair this year for this election cycle is J.D. Vance. If JD can be successful in raising the kind of money that's necessary

and helping point everybody in the right direction to successfully hold the house, I think he goes on a very good trajectory towards being the 2028 nominee, which I'm all for. I'm sorry, in really blunt terms, can you explain what an RNC finance chair does? What does that mean? He controls all of the money and where it's going. Right. Well, he's out there meeting. He's raising all of the money necessary to be successful in the midterms. In many ways, you take that burden upon you. You're not only doing the bulk of the fundraising to make sure the RNC is getting the funds necessary to then disperse them to the right places. Yeah, in a lot of ways, there's a lot of responsibility on J.D. Vance's shoulders for how well the midterms go or don't go. I would also add Trump throwing in $300 million from MAGA, Inc. would go a long way towards making us successful. But J.D. being successful as the RNC. finance chair and the fundraising and then making sure that those resources are spent in the right places. That's a huge burden. But he's he's taking it upon himself. And that's why that's a two

part for him is what is. This is the question I have, which is like he's obviously you use the vice president to raise money. That makes sense. Right. Right. So there's a fundraising component. Donors love meeting the vice president. Right. They open their checkbooks. But the other side of is the dispersal of the money, like deciding which races you apply it to is J.D. get involved in that kind thing. As far as I know he will be, there's also other people like James Blair, Deputy White House Chief of Staff is obviously going to be involved in a lot of political decisions. Trump's obviously hugely involved. Susie's hugely involved. So it's more of a team. Like he's not going to sit there and dictate JD. He's not going to be like, I want this race, this. No, it's a team effort,

but he is a critical part of it. And if we win in the midterms, I think he's going to be on a really good trajectory to be the heir apparent to America first. And I think he'd be a fantastic standard bear for America first. But I think you're right. I mean, this to me, when people were wondering back in the summer of 2024, you know, oh, we're just going to outlast Trump. Let's see who he picks for VP. And then all of a sudden he picks at the time a 39-year-old Senator out of Ohio. It felt to me like he pushed all of his chips into the middle of the table and said, yeah, you think you're going to outlast America first. I just picked a 39-year-old VP. He's not going anywhere anytime soon. So I looked at Trump kind of making that.

bet in 24. And I'm not saying he's going to be like he wants to wait until the midterms before he gets behind somebody for 2028. But it really felt significant to me because there are a lot of people in DC like, oh, we're just getting out last Trump. A little hard to out last Trump when you're dealing with somebody that young like JD if he can be the nominee. And it reminds me, it goes back to something you said earlier in this conversation. President Trump resisted like you were talking about. He resisted donor pressure to compromise his values on that pick. Exactly. So there was a lot of money. There was a lot of money that was being directed towards all sorts of other running mates.

J.D. was not the guy with coming with a bunch of big donors to support him. J.D. was coming with a vision that was America first. It was about making America. Great again, joining the Trump agenda. That's what it was about. He had a limited but mighty group of backers who were saying, this is the guy. You need him. President Trump, you're right. He gambled because he was going to get.

He was going against the entire establishment within his party, including, by the way, the current establishment that loves him. He was going against all of him. He chose JD. Can I say one last thing, too, on this front of if the Republican establishment thinks that somehow they're going to be successful in the future by somehow outlasting Trump and we snap back to the old way of doing things, you know, how many people walk away from voting Republican in the future, it's significant.

Trump has brought in a new coalition of voters that are not. not there because of the Republican Party. They're there because of Trump and America first. And I think the biggest thing that Trump has to figure out if he wants this movement to be long term, obviously a young heir apparent, but also helping make that transition for getting these voters more involved in saying, you voted for me, but you also voted for the agenda, for this agenda to be fully successful. And it's not going to be successful in a year, two or four years or six years, but to be

long term successful, you have to engage more with the next heir parent and push this movement forward. And so I think that's going to be a challenge for Trump over the next few years of how does he hand the torch in many ways to the next standard bearer, but then also galvanize that base to understand you have to stay engaged. And if you don't engage, it's going to be a snap back to the old ways of doing things, and we're going to lose. Yeah.

No, I'm glad you're in the fight, Ned Ryan. And I always appreciate all of our conversations. They've just been wonderful. Before I let you go, it is obviously Christmas. And I do want to know about your Christmas prayers, actually. I want to know what you're praying for this year. As you're sitting at your dinner table for Christmas, what is at the top of your list?

What are the things you're praying about? You know, I always, so I have four kids for their future. Obviously, I think a lot of things that I do now in many ways. If I can be successful, I want them to have a successful, bright future. Um, you know, it's one of those things that you, you feel very deeply about and you realize there's a lot of things at stake their future could be very different, um, if we're not careful. It, it inspires me, it also drives me. You know, I pray for Trump all the time. Um, and I tell him that, uh, pray for him for wisdom, um, for success. And, and I do, you know,

beyond family and, and, and our elected officials, the future that, country. I mean, it's, I'm hopeful, Vince, there are no guarantees in life. This will not, this, this, this, any success will have in the future is not guaranteed. Praying for wisdom for myself, um, determination, perseverance. You know, it's one of those things where I know that God is in control. I know he is. I think it's required of me to be faithful, uh, in doing what he's placed in front of me, that I would have the courage and the ability and the determination to continue on. It gets a little tiring at times. So there's a whole host of things. Great question, by the way. Great question. If our faith does not drive us in all that we do, I'm not sure

what we're doing. We have a lot of blessings, and I always pray to be worthy of them. Exactly. For sure. Ned Ryan, Merry Christmas to you. Thank you for coming on with me today. Same to you, Vince. Thank you. Great to see you, Ned Ryan. Great to have him with us. Merry Christmas to you. It's been such a wonderful year. So nice to have you with us all year along. We, of course, the guys have the holidays off, thankfully. Everyone finally gets to take a break. I'm so happy about that.

But we'll be back with you live on January 5th. A brand new year, a big one. We've got a big fight ahead of us. I can't wait to stand shoulder to shoulder with you as we continue. All ahead on Vince. BADY HADY HADY HADY HADS