The Megyn Kelly Show - Scott Walker on Taking on Unions, Leftward Drift in Schools, and the GOP in 2024 | Ep. 91

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Scott Walker, former governor of Wisconsin and President of the Young Americas Foundation, to talk about the leftward drift in American schools (and fighting back against it), the patriotic optimism of Ronald Reagan, taking on unions (and winning), the GOP in 2024, preparing then VP Pence to debate now VP Harris, the cultural shift in American institutions, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, we've got Scott Walker, former two-term governor of the great state of Wisconsin, and former presidential candidate as well. And now he is on a new and also important mission, running the Young America's Foundation. He is the president of this group, YAF, as it's known. And he's taking it on with gusto and dividing and sort of directing, I should say, this group to take on the crazy culture on college campuses and try to get a conservative or even just sane, patriotic message out to these students to fight back against the

anti-Americanism we're seeing, the Marxism that we're seeing, the division of people on the basis of skin color, on the basis of what their gender is, on the basis of whether they're a male-female couple or a female-female couple, et cetera. And we'll get into what he's found so far because some cases have been unearthed that are troubling and what his plan is, because you know this is not an easy mission. Plus we're gonna ask him about

how did he take on the unions and win? Those same unions that are keeping half of the country's schools closed, at least full or part-time from in-person learning. How did he do it? And is there a roadmap there for how others can do it so our kids can get back in the classroom? So he'll be with us in one second, but first, this. Scott Walker, how are you? I'm outstanding. Great to be with you. Oh, it's great to have you. Great to catch up.

I've been watching what you've been doing and cheering you on, as you know. And to me, it has particular relevance because I'm dear friends with this guy named Mark Joseph, who is currently in the middle of wrapping his movie, Reagan, in which Dennis Quaid plays Reagan. And I know that's a personal hero of yours as well. I can't wait until the movie comes out. And you know what's weird is some buzz about this movie is, is it going to get distribution? Are people going to distribute a movie about the very controversial Ronald Reagan? I mean, how messed up is that? You're right. One of the icons of the 20th century, when you think about all the changes, not just here in the United States, but around the world. I had the pleasure, in fact,

when we were doing the little video for the long game proposal, we did it the first week of February, right around Ronald Reagan's birthday, ironically. And Mark was out at the Reagan Ranch about the same time. So I stuck around an extra day, saw Dennis, saw Penelope Ann Smith, or Penelope Ann Miller, excuse me, and a few of the other folks on the crew because they were filming some of the last shots of the movie, which are at the Reagan Ranch itself. So pretty amazing.

But yeah, he was totally worried about it. We're thinking we're going to try and do with our students little mini premieres all across the country where we get students on campuses out and try and get them to get tickets or give them tickets to go out and see this incredible movie about this spectacular man. I want to help you. I've seen just a bit here and there and actually interviewed Dennis out there at the Reagan Ranch when they were just starting the filming. But it's to me, it's like like people who are involved in Young American Foundation, is it Americans or America?

Young America's Foundation, Deb. All right, so people who are involved in that, which sort of is one of the few outlets for budding conservatives, or even just non-liberal thinkers, I'd say at this point, they know about Reagan and they love Reagan. And it's not that he was a flawless man, who among us is. It's just that not only was he a true blue conservative when it came to policy, he was the best cheerleader for America we've had in several generations now. That's the thing that even if you love Trump, I think,

you know, I missed that. I missed having a strong leader who could articulate why America is special, why it's the greatest country ever formed, why it's worth defending. We haven't had that since the 1980s. And it's a real loss. And I think it's it's damaging it, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, if you love the country, not having a strong spokesperson is damaging. Yeah, it was such a night and day difference. I try to tell young people all the time what it was like. I was a kid in the late 1970s. In fact, I was 12 when Ronald Reagan ran for president. And I tried to explain to them, it's hard to even imagine. Obviously, we had some bad years back. It just so happened that when Barack Obama was president, but it was not just his doing.

Of course, there was a major recession, all sorts of problems. But I remind young people about the 70s. And you think about not only the oil embargo, the gas lines, the malaise, but just this sense we knew Kevin Herman, the youngest hostage held in Iran, was from Oak Creek, Wisconsin. In fact, still in all of these. He's in Wausau, North Central Wisconsin now. But I remember having a yellow ribbon in front of our house around our big tree for all of those 444 days. It was just, we felt so defeated. And when Reagan came in, you're right, he wasn't just a conservative.

He was an optimist. I mean, that was what I think was drawing him more than anything, was just that incredible sense of optimism. It's one of the neat things about going to the ranch. You see this guy who was a movie star, a governor, a president, hung out with world leaders. And as you know, having been there, it's this small little ranch house, about as simple as could be. But I said that ultimately explains his frugality that started in the Midwest during the Great Depression and never changed who he was. But at the same time, the ranch embodied his belief in freedom, this eternal optimism in the American people, these big, wide open spaces that I think in many ways personified his sense of, you know, America was boundless in our opportunities. And you're exactly right. Donald Trump was a great president on policy. He did amazing things, things I never dreamed were possible

in terms of strict policy. But in terms of setting the stage for the future, Ronald Reagan during his time, and I think even today, his words still reverberate with those of us trying to make the case about that shining city on the hill that we still aspire to be. And you know, what's crazy is his speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, is still alive and well, thank goodness, and could be used by a smart politician looking to sound like Ronald Reagan. So far, not really. She hasn't been. But here's just an example. We pulled a great soundbite of him speaking about, you know, sort of seeing buds of the problem we're now experiencing, this anti-Americanism within our own country, this unwillingness to understand how special this country is. Back in, I'm not sure what the date of

this was, but it was obviously the 1980s. Oh, it was from his last address from the Oval Office, which would have been, I guess, 87, 88. Okay, here it is. An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught very directly what it means to be an American. And we absorbed almost in the air a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father

down the street who fought in Korea, or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that too through the mid-60s. But now we're about to enter the 90s, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture,

well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't re-institutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, and freedom is special and rare. It's fragile. It needs production. Yeah, it needs protection. This is, you cited this in talking about your mission now and why you really want to take up this cause. You want to take up the mantle of making well-grounded patriotism our style again, of doing a better job of getting across that America is freedom and it's special and it's fragile and it needs protection. Yeah, just such powerful words.

We've invoked that time and time again. That was his last address in the Oval Office. Hard to believe 32 years ago, January of 1989, he was so prophetic because as I talked about, remember how bad things were in the 70s before he came in? He comes in, literally his policies help turn this country around, not only in terms of restoring a sense

of being proud to be Americans, but the economy, unprecedented economic growth at the time, all these other good things. He could have clearly slapped himself on the back and said, way to go. But beyond just celebrating what had been accomplished during those two terms, he sent out this very real warning. He said, freedom is fragile. It's special. You have to protect it. He, in the past, prior to just that address, had often said that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. You don't get it passed on to you through the bloodstream. You literally have to stand up and fight for it and defend it and then pass it on to the next generation to do the same thing. And so I thought in that address, he also gave us a

charge to do more to teach American history and to be involved in shared civic ritual. Megan, I don't know about you, but I remember growing up, he alluded to the guy down the block from Korea. I actually had a guy that lived down the block who went to our church, who was my assistant scoutmaster when I was in Boy Scouts, who was a World War I and a World War II veteran. His name was Claire Condon. And he would take all of us kids out every year on Memorial Day, on Veterans Day and Flag Day in this small little town we grew up in. And we'd put all the scouts and Cub Scouts would put flags on the tombs of all the veterans, their tombstones all throughout this small little cemetery we had.

And it was things like that that taught you that when you stand for the flag when it comes by in a parade or you sing the national anthem and you put your hand over your heart, that wasn't because you're Republican or Democrat. That was because you're American. And when Mark Cuban, a few months ago, was talking about not playing the national anthem, it made me think back to that warning and that charge that Reagan gave and how prophetic he was that if we don't take these things seriously, we don't teach American history and have a greater emphasis on civic ritual, we'll fall trapped to falling away and not remembering anymore what those things were about. Those things with the flag weren't just about a flag. They were about shared values that were as clear as the threads in the flag itself bound together. They bound us together as Americans. And sadly, I see too much in our culture that wants to pit one group of people versus another instead of

finding ways to have those shared rituals and bring us in traditions and bring us together as a country. So what happened? I mean, when you look at him making, you know, sort of sounding this warning 32 years ago, he's seeing the beginnings of what we're living right now. Things did not go the way he wanted them to. And I'm, I look around sometimes at this generation today that, you know, is, is very, they sound anti-American in their rhetoric. They say this experiment is over. It's failed. We need to start an generation. This is supposed to be the generation that saw our country, our ideals attacked. We stood up for ourselves and went back and fought against the guys who caused it in Afghanistan. The Iraq war, I think, is generally considered to be a massive mistake, but shouldn't have created a bunch of America haters inside of our borders. So what happened between then and now? Well, a number of things. One, for this

generation, particularly for my kids are 25 and 26, So they're the tail end of the millennial, literally the very end of that. A lot of people blame millennials. And there's certainly a lot of things to blame that you can attribute to that. But in some ways, kind of like Reagan's warning, I don't blame just them. I blame their parents, which includes my generation and those a bit older than me. Because as Reagan talked about, we didn't, you know, those parents going into the 90s did reinstitutionalize this belief in the American dream and what that means and entails. Certainly, it goes back in many ways back decades ago. What we see today, not only in our college campuses, in our schools, but in our culture, even in the censorship in many ways from big tech, all that didn't start overnight. It goes back, in many regards, way, way back, but you can specifically tie much of this to even Saul Alinsky's work back in the 1960s, where they had this long-term view.

They weren't just engaged in the battles of the moment. They were looking far into the future. Remember in the 80s, Bill Bennett warning about this, that if the left had a clear plan to take over education, higher education, communications, Hollywood, all the fundamental means of getting information out to people, and if they controlled that, his warning was even back then when he was serving for Reagan, was that they at some day would dominate. And that's where we're at today. Bill Bennett, then education secretary for Reagan, yes? Yeah. He very much was concerned about that. Spilled it. I remember talking to him a couple of years ago about that, about how I wished,

I loved, obviously, when our kids were little, we'd read the book of virtues, which I thought was great, but I wish that warning that he gave as well, specific to those fundamental areas, wish it did not come true, but he, like others, kind of spelled it, this is where they're headed. Now, the optimist in me that still comes from Reagan. I'm a conservative not only because of my parents and my upbringing, but without a doubt, coming of age during Ronald Reagan's presidency. But I also like to think of myself as an American optimist. And I look at how things are stacked really against a conservative or even a middle to right point of view, so radically towards the left with even the earliest videos that kids see these days

to school, to textbooks, to curriculum, to certainly left-wing professors, but increasingly more than them, activists on campuses, to all the push in social media and Hollywood and everything else. It's amazing to me that there are any kids left that aren't socialists. And so I just think if we talk, if we find a way, it's why cancel culture is so prevalent, because people on the left don't want our ideas to even get a chance. They don't even want us to get a hearing. What we find in the polling is both fearful, both frustrating, scary, whatever term you want to use for young people. But at the same time, there is a glimmer of hope. The fearful part, of course, is the socialism. You go up and down the list of left

wing ideas. Not only do so-called progressives, but even other more reasonable students buy into a lot of these lies of the left. But what's interesting is it all boils down, in many cases, to young people, the fairness. And if you peel away, I'll give you a good example. People, young people, not surprisingly, say, oh, we should have the government should should take care of my student loan debt. But if you say to them as a follow up, do you think that taxpayers who never went to college should have to pay for that? Suddenly the number drops dramatically because they get the sense of fairness. But in a vacuum, if it's just about, yeah, I want the government, some random person is going to pay for this. So one of the things I think we've failed at is conservatives

are really good. We're good at telling, speaking and talking from our head. Liberals think and talk from their heart. We shouldn't concede the logic of our mind, but we should tell it in ways that are emotional. Why should the left own the issue of fairness? I think the things we talk about can be fundamentally fair, but we're so reluctant to get beyond just the logic, the facts, that we sometimes don't add the emotional component that not should substitute for facts, but augment and I think reinforce our point of view. Do you think I know that you're you got your eye on education and try to you're trying to help students, trying to help teachers, professors fight back against this far left bent that we're seeing grow faster, get even worse than it's not just liberalism.

It's not progressivism. I wish it were that that that'd be so much easier to deal with. This crazy woke ideology is just downright dangerous. And that's that's what you're fighting against. But do you think that battle is winnable on a cultural level outside of the education? I can see how the fight could be launched in the education arena, but how do you take back, as Reagan was saying, television, movies, sports are gone now,

corporate America and its messaging. Look how many corporations are now signing on to say Georgia's terrible because of its voting law, right? Like how, I have been thinking up until now that reasonable people, they just need to create their own lane. You can't we're not going to turn CNN into what it used to be. We're not going to be able to wrest control of Hollywood from these virtue signaling producers and try to get some more patriotic films in there.

You just got to create new lanes. But what do you think? Are we exceeding the fight too easily? Well, we are not fighting. And we've got to fight on every level. Some people say, oh, this area is gone. Education is gone. Higher education is gone. Hollywood is gone. Media is gone. No, I think we can't concede anything. I think part of the problem we've had in the last couple of decades, because again, I go back thinking about even when I was in college, the professors were overwhelmingly liberal, but you could still have a discussion. I still have professors today, many of whom are retired from teaching, but who, you know, still disagree with me, but they still like to say I was one of their students because we had good discussion. We had good debates. Probably doesn't

hurt that they can now say they taught someone who was once a governor. But, you know, we could have those kind of debates. You don't have those anymore. And then it went into the 90s with political correctness, where that started to change things. As you alluded to, today it's just outright cancel. And so we've got to change that. Part of that means getting a stronger presence in terms of just simple things like invoking the First Amendment, winning in the court of public opinion for sure, but when needed,

winning in the court of law, particularly in schools and campuses, but elsewhere, that are a voice out. But I think for too long, too many conservatives slash Republicans, not that every Republican's a conservative, but too many right of center, particularly those in office, have just conceded the language. Well, they'll modify their language in hopes that somehow that will just pacify some in the media and some in the left. No, you need to call it out. You've given a good example this week or the last couple of weeks with Georgia. Not only is it hypocritical that Major League Baseball pulls the All-Star game from a state that just passed new legislation that obviously requires voter identification and has a certain period of time for early voting, but they move it, obviously, to Colorado, a state that has voter identification requirements and less time to vote early. So absolute hypocrisy. I added to that the oddity, of course, I knew it well, having signed the voter ID law in Wisconsin, but the DNC, the Democrats held their national convention in Milwaukee last year, abbreviated

as it was because of COVID, but they picked Milwaukee knowing full well that a decade ago, I signed a very strict photo ID requirement, and our early voting is only 14 days. So one, you can point out the hypocrisy of this, the contradiction, the big lie in all this, but I think more important than that, lost in that as well as beyond just their double standard, it's the fact that photo ID makes sense. Just the inherent idea in and of itself that overwhelmingly Americans believe it. Every poll shows it, not only amongst Republican or even independent, but even a majority of Democrat identified voters think photo ID makes sense. And at least I think Rasmussen's poll showed that 69 percent, I think another poll was over 70 percent of black voters think it makes sense. So sometimes we get caught up not only in

pointing out the hypocrisy of the woke warriors on the radical left, but when we complain about the hypocrisy, we don't do enough to actually explain to people why the original idea, which in this case was about voter integrity, made sense to begin with. And it does. And we shouldn't concede that or any other issue like it. But it's very hard to get the message out when the that group controls all forms of information, you know, the papers, the magazines, the online sites, the the television news, all of the messaging, for example, on Georgia has been racist, racist, racist. Companies pulling Jim Crow 2.0 right from the president on down. And yes, the conservative ecosphere has an alternate narrative. And we'll point out the facts that you just raised.

But man, it's very hard to get to anyone who's not consuming conservative media with the truth. No, there's no doubt about it. In fact, that's, again, part of the long game, which applies not just to education, but to everything we're doing in culture and media and communications. We've got to look at this as not just the battle of this moment. Really, two ways that too many of us look at it. One, people just throw up their hands and give up or say, I'm just not going to view this anymore.

And not engaging in society and culture, I don't think is a good option for us because we've still got to compete to get the few. And I think there are more than we think minds that are open to at least hearing more than what they're hearing, but we've got to find a way to get into that. Or the others who just want to try and correct it now, as opposed to saying, no, this is probably going to take more than, well, it's certainly going to take more than a news cycle. It probably takes at least through a couple of presidential cycles. It's not going to take a hundred years, but I'm just confident, just as the left did systematically moving the bar, that we need to have, and that's part of our long game plan, a longer strategy, not just for young people, but for society as a whole, to how we get back

to a more conservative, realistic view of the world, which, again, like I said before, in the polling, not that everything's about polling, there is hope even amongst this current youngest generation that when you explain to them ideas over, you know, once you follow up and you say not just, you know, what do you think about this issue or that issue, but then you give them more information, they are willing to digest it. view and one view only. It's why even in the last year, racism, racial conflict has jumped to the top of the list on almost every poll, particularly amongst younger people, although society in general. I think that's part of a larger plan, frankly, that goes back to, again, you think decades ago, Marxists tried to infiltrate the United States and they weren't successful. Why? Because our society is not based on class, that you can be born into the most poor family in your community and still rise up and do whatever you want, that the class you're born into doesn't limit

your potential in life. We're all given God-given freedoms, and we take those freedoms and opportunities here in America and apply them, and with hard work, determination, and maybe a little bit of luck, we can succeed in almost anything. That's why Marxism failed. Now, I think they're coming back with another swing and trying to impose Marxism based on race and gender and sex. It's why you've seen for years BLM, which they're self-admitted. There's three founders, although I guess one of the images I just saw the other day is one of the founders, at least, buying a pretty amazing mansion. So apparently that's taking a page out of Castro or Chavez or others where promised power to the people, but in the end, the people live

in poverty while the elite few hoard all the power and the riches of that. Exactly. She's got four houses, four houses worth $3.2 million. So, you know, capitalism, as it turns out, is working out okay for her. It's working out just fine. Exactly. Bernie Sanders is the same. He's got three houses. Yeah. And now you have even people within BLM coming out and saying, this is BS and we need an accounting of where the money's gone. And of the 90 million dollars they've taken in, you know, it looks like three went someplace, you know, to support her lifestyle. This this person who thinks that America is terrible and, you know, capitalism sucks.

Coming up after this break, we're going to talk to Governor Walker about what they discovered out of Ames, Iowa, right in the heartland of America when it comes to BLM's teachings. And I mean straight out of the BLM manifesto, a week of indoctrination of children in Iowa. We're not talking about Manhattan, folks, or San Fran. In Iowa. And what's going to be done about it. Not just in Iowa, but elsewhere. Stay tuned. It's so hard to break through.

And not only does the media not let it happen and Hollywood not let it happen, but as you well know, the education system, not only are they not teaching patriotism or even straight civics anymore, you get punished. So many students come forward and say, if I write a paper that is anything other than in the progressive voice, I'll get punished. I'll get downgraded. And there was an example of this in the news recently, not even just a downgrade, Scott. It was,

the guy was suspended. He was essentially kicked out of UVA med school. Did you hear about this guy? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. suspended. He was essentially kicked out of the NBA med school. Did you hear about this guy? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. His name is Kiran Bhattacharya. And it happened in 2018, where he went to a panel discussion on the subject of microaggressions, which is just like, that's made up offense. When I can't see an explicit offense, I'm just going to make one up. Something in your words offended me. I don't know what it was. And he didn't really appreciate the definition of a microaggression offered by the presenter, an assistant dean there named Beverly Cowell Adams, and sort of stood up and said, can I ask you about your definition?

You know, do I have to be a victim of a marginalized group in order to be a victim of a microaggression? Is that what you're telling me? And she was like, no, it's not a requirement. And then he kind of confronted her and said, well, you said earlier it would be a requirement. And it was a polite exchange. He didn't back down. After it was over, another professor filed a, quote, professionalism concern card, which is an accusation of that he violated university policy by being, quote, antagonistic toward the panel.

Now, you might just laugh this off and say, oh, God, you know, grow a spine. No, no, no, no. The whole academic standards committee met to discuss the concern card. They sent him a reminder in writing that he needed to show respect for faculty members and express himself appropriately, which he 100% did. He wasn't even close to the line. They wanted him to get counseling, this med student, for saying, I don't think you're defining that term correctly. I want to challenge you on it. Then they said he had to be evaluated by psychological services

before he came back to classes. And they ultimately suspended this guy and ordered him to leave campus. It's insane. They ordered him off campus. So to his credit, he filed a lawsuit and he's winning. They tried to get it kicked, and the judge declined to dismiss it on their motion to dismiss. So he's doing what he should do, which is, if you can't, you know, fight them in the school, you take them to court, as they used to say on the People's Court. And that line is the most promising line we have right now, I think, for fighting back against this lunacy. Oh, there's no doubt about it. We had a good example. We've talked about this in a long game, but we we really trying to expand what we're doing.

But we had a good example of why I have worked with Alliance Defending Freedom. Similar situation. This case, it wasn't just a student. It was students wanted to bring in this case, Ben Shapiro to University of California, Berkeley. So UC Berkeley prides himself in free speech, but they really don't. So what did they do? They put up these just ridiculous barriers saying you couldn't have the speech after three in the afternoon. You couldn't advertise. And oh, by the way, they were going to charge the students, I think it was about three times the security fees that they charged a similar group on the left to have one of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, so someone who obviously does require necessarily security.

So we helped them go to court over this. We ultimately won more than winning the court battle was getting them to rescind their policy. But this is the sort of nonsense they're involved in. The only way you can win in many of these cases is to win, to invoke the First Amendment, to invoke the Constitution, to win in the court of law. And once you do, then that gives us the larger opportunity to win in the court of public opinion. But it is a huge warning, I think, for not just students, but for anyone. These, the sort of things you were talking about with the med school student are the sort of things we have historically seen in communist-run countries that we see today even in socialist countries. And it's, you know, if our children in particular are so sheltered from this, they don't realize what's at stake.

We just had, back a couple months ago, our first conference of the year in person, full capacity in Miami, Florida. We went to Florida, obviously, because thanks to Ron DeSantos, who, by the way, I think is the best current governor in America. Thanks to him, the state was open. But we went to Miami in particular because we brought a number of speakers in who could talk about their family's experience coming from Cuba to the United States, or in one case, it was someone coming from Cuba to the United States, or in one case, it was someone coming from Venezuela to the United States. Boy, that's that passion. The logic was still there with the head, but they could tell from the heart. And I just think that whether it's on campus, whether it's in the media, whether it's in social media, the more we can find people to personally

tell those riveting stories, the more we can point out just how unfair situations like this student had, it matches the logic, but then it puts in place real emotion, real people. And I just got to believe in a fair and a just world. There's going to be, particularly amongst young people, enough people that go, that's just not fair. That's not right. It's what I experienced years ago when we had all the protesters in Wisconsin. The big mistake, if I look back, that I made early on in my tenure when all the protesters came out was I was governor, because back then they, too, cut funding for education because of the budget problems they had. The only difference was the last hired was the first fired. Seniority played the role. And even though this young teacher was named the outstanding new English teacher of the Year in the entire state. She was one of the first people laid off.

When I told that story, people went, well, that's not fair. I said, that's what I'm trying to fix. So the more we can tell stories that back up our logic, the better off we're going to be. Well, and I definitely want to talk to you about Wisconsin and the fight against the unions, because I know you say you fought and won. You know how to do it. And that is true. I remember covering you wall to wall back in 2011 when this was happening and you taking on the unions and beating them. I mean, at every turn you beat them, which sadly is pretty rare. And I think people are kind of ticked off at unions right now, especially the teachers unions in these states where they refuse

to let the teachers go back into the classroom. So I want to get to that. But I do want to ask you in terms of the campuses, one of the things you guys are now going to try to do at YAF is try to get more sort of chapters, I guess, open on more college campuses so that what? So that young students have an open, acceptable alternative to all the dogma that's being spoon-fed them, right? Because like, right now, they don't really see, a lot of people don't even see a meaningful alternative to what's being spoon-fed them and told them is the only way of being an acceptable, decent,

moral human being. They can get more people on campus who are acceptable, decent, moral human beings saying, hey, we've chosen a different way. We think a different way. Could you at least listen to us? I mean, that could be half the battle. A hundred percent right. Yeah. The whole strategy of the left, even beyond just cancel culture, is to marginalize, to minimize. It's exactly what they tried to do us years ago. I know I'll touch on the details, but with even trying to surround us with protests and that is to make you feel isolated, to make you feel alone, that whatever sense you think you have, you try to convince people that, no, they're alone, they're outcasts, they're outliers. That's the epitome of all this. And so we're on about 2,000 campuses where we

support students right now, but there's over 4,000. I want to be in all of them. That's part of our long game. We want to be not only in undergraduate campuses. I think there's tremendous opportunity to reach out to young people who are getting associate degrees at two-year campuses. I think it's not only about being in college with membership and chapters and gatherings. It's bringing more speakers in. It's fighting First Amendment battles, not only for our chapters and our speakers, but for any conservative, rational voice that wants to go on campus. I want to partner with ADF and others and say we'll go anywhere, anytime, anyhow to defend the rights of students to speak up and speakers to speak up on campus. I think part of it's going beyond just college into not just high school, but even middle school and even as early as elementary school, helping parents counter so much of this curriculum that's focused on hating America.

You know, today's time, you know, that today's teachers, even if they don't buy into this, the curriculum they get, the stuff that they're handed. I even saw this with my son, Matt's 26. I remember years ago, he had a great AP government teacher. She was super. She tried to be fair. You go in her classroom, there were Republican and Democrat signs. She'd bring speakers in from every different angle. But one day he brought home an assignment and his textbook actually told, was about how Ronald Reagan's tax cuts brought about the deficits of the 1980s. Well, of course, it's hogwash. That's ridiculous. That's just not accurate. The tax cuts in the 80s, both in 81 and 86, actually saw increased revenue as the economy grew to the federal government. It was the spending

of Tip O'Neill and the others in the Congress that brought on the deficits. But here, this poor teacher had a textbook that said something different. So I went and got a different book off my shelf and gave it to my son. But most parents, most teachers don't have the resources, don't have the ability, or even amongst teachers, many of them feel somehow that they too are alienated if they don't go with the liberal dogma. So it's part of letting students, educators, parents, and others know that they're not alone. What did you guys, because you've already now been trying to reach out to parents at the local level, at the elementary school level, and say, let us know if you see something

problematic. And I know something happened in Iowa along those lines. Tell us what happened. And tell us what you plan on doing about it. Is it just a matter of exposing it, like shaming the school out of behaving in this way, or could it lead to litigation that you guys are going to help in? Well, in many cases, it varies. But for example, folks have their own tips. I'll give you an example of one that came from this, but yaf.org slash tips is a tip line we have. It's amazing. You'd be overwhelmed. Your listeners would, we could talk for a hundred hours on all the ridiculous things that come up with, like the young men we were talking about before, or professors who say, if you're pro-life and you speak out on campus, you're going to get kicked out of the class or segregated housing for

resident advisors and dorms and just different graduates. So all these crazy things. But one of these came up at Iowa State, a tip from a student about the local school district, so not the college, the local government-run school district for Black History Month. The first week they partnered with BLM, that should be the warning right there, for something that had nothing to do with Black history, everything to do with liberal indoctrination. And they did a week of action that started in preschool and went to 12th grade. And for preschoolers and kindergartners, they literally had coloring pages of transgender characters. And the kids were told as part of that, that they could pick where they wanted to be a

boy or girl or something in between. Now, this is just the kind of ridiculousness beyond just that issue itself. What in the world are they teaching, you know, kindergartners who should be learning how to play nice with each other and maybe count and do the alphabet. This just shows you how warped these situations are, not in San Francisco or New York, but this is in Ames, Iowa. So part of our pushback to your question was, yeah, we exposed it. We didn't just put it out there publicly. We went into Iowa. We got people on talk radio talking about it.

We've been at the local media as well as the national. We reached out to ministers and clergy. I let Kim Reynolds know and Joni Ernst know and Chuck Grassley and others know so that they could put the pressure on to have them pull back from that to stop it from spreading elsewhere to pull back in that district. And then talk about it nationally because we figured if they're doing it in Ames, Iowa, it's coming to your local school district next because it's not just limited to one place. So part of its exposure and where necessary, it's helping parents counter not just that particular curriculum,

but particularly all the stuff that's about hating America, about misleading people about our founders. Last week was Thomas Jefferson's birthday. That's just a good example where you get people who just totally distort what the founders of this country did and what they believed in. It doesn't mean they were perfect. I mean, I'd say all the time, the last person I know who's perfect hasn't walked on the earth in about 2000 years. So for the rest of us, we've got a long ways to go, but they did have amazing ideas that are still relevant today. We should be grateful that there were people willing to risk literally their lives, not just their livelihood or their political ventures, but their lives for the freedoms that we have today.

Not a day of getting bashed on Twitter. I think it's easy to suck that up if they could go through what they went through. But I like this idea of these lawmakers, this lawmaker network, you know, governors, former lawmakers and senators and so on to sort of get the word out. Like if you could get that kind of thing going, where it's a network of lawmakers who are willing to fight these battles and draw attention to this nonsense, that that would be very helpful. I want to just piggyback on what you said. This is from what you guys exposed. I'm looking at the article in front of me for the for the week of action. Again, as you point out, this is for Black History Month. This stuff has absolutely nothing to do with black history. And this is what the week of action,

the lesson plan to prescribe different topics, readings and activities. Reading now. Monday, students will learn about restorative justice, empathy and loving engagement. Tuesday, lesson on diversity and globalism with students urged to read Afro Latinx books and then audit their classroom library to judge diversity and learn how they are impacted or privileged within the black global family. statement, which specifically says they want to dismantle the nuclear family and be more queer affirming.

And they want more of that and transgender families than they do want traditional male, female families. And then we get to Thursday where they say, we're going to talk about the disruption of the nuclear family. And space is free from ageism, black families, free from patriarchal practices, plus black villages. And then Friday, you complete it with something centering black women and femmes, completed with I love myself affirmation chant. And of course, the footnote is, unless I am white.

It's just- It's unbelievable. It's crazy. But see, this is their next test. Before it was, like I said, before it was, you know, they wanted to pit one against each other in economic class-based, about or sometimes make even some of the most ridiculous references is somehow means for the R word. And you can see why students, parents, even teachers, other educators are afraid to question these things because who wants to be called a racist or a sexist or a transphobic or homophobic or whatever, you know, Neanderthal. But that's the whole strategy. It's so disappointing because I can remember some of my best teachers were people that years later I learned were not politically at all aligned with me,

but were people who challenged me, who made me think critically, who didn't shove things down my throat, but rather made me think about what I thought about. And any of those sorts of teachers, not just conservative teachers and conservative professors, but just ones who don't want to be dogmatic, who just want to teach something objective, are so villainized these days that you can see why this stuff just slides through and rarely a hand goes up the challenge because people don't want to be on the front end of, you know, that sort of attack, but we have to. And I found some of the best ways to attack it is not just head on, you know, in terms of speaking out aggressively, but just questioning. The other day when the CDC director came out and said, you know, that racism is now

a public health issue, you know, To me, the easy question was how? The response will be, well, there's all this data about underserved populations. There is, but that doesn't explain why is that racism. Is there a doctor somewhere that's purposely not serving people because of the color of their skin? That would be racism. Now, there are other factors. And what I worry about is that someone who is formally involved in public policy is when you invoke racism all the time, as an example, then the other things that really are causes that need to be addressed largely get glossed over because everybody's over here looking at how much they can react to whatever racism is or isn't, as opposed

to saying, well, what are the other costs, economic, societal, family structure, you name it. Those are all things that play into many of these situations, but people don't want to talk about those because those are harder to deal with than just saying. I mean, Black Lives Matter is an anti-American organization. It's very clear. You know, lowercase Black Lives Matter is a totally different thing than the movement than, than, than the actual group Black Lives Matter, which is run by this, you know, so-called Marxist center, three point two million dollar four homes. And and people need to be OK saying that they actually do want to dismantle the nuclear family. They actually their rhetoric is extremely racist, extremely racist. And I don't support them. And I think if you look at the polls, a large majority of Republicans do not support Black

Lives Matter. And I think people need to be more bold about saying, I don't support that group. I don't support that group. It's OK to say that. You don't have to donate your money to them. It's a very fraught mission. It's not about black lives. It's about an agenda of dismantling systems that we happen to love here in the country, namely capitalism and a nuclear family that has two parents and is loving.

Doesn't mean you can't have an alternative version that we can also support and love. But one doesn't have to be displaced. Right. It's like that's the last thing we need is to start demonizing nuclear families with a male and a female parent, which particularly when the science. Yeah, particularly when the science overwhelming. In fact, Brookings Institute years ago, I invoked this often when I was governor. Brookings Institute or Brookings Institution, which is by no means nothing close to a conservative think tank. Yeah, fairly left of center. But but they put out an interesting report that we often refer to as the success sequence, where they showed the overwhelming data that people who graduate from school, by school I just mean graduating through high school, get a job and then wait until they're married and over 20 to have children, the data overwhelmingly shows that in over 98% of the time, those people never live a day going forward in poverty. It just shows you there's a clear and concise recipe. If you want a blueprint of how to get out of poverty, it's graduate, get a job, and then wait until you're married and over a reasonable age to have children. If people did that, and again,

people say, oh, that's preaching, that's morals. Oh, yeah, it is. There is a fair amount of morality in there. It's things our parents and our pastors and clergy and others have been saying for decades, not just because it's something biblical, but because it actually works. And to your point is, for things that make sense, we've got to stop ignoring things like that just because we think we're going to get some pushback. It doesn't mean that, as you alluded to, there aren't legitimate cases where people have been successful, where people have been, for example, single parents have done a phenomenal job. I give a hat tip to a lot of single moms who've done remarkable things with their kids. But the science that that overwhelmingly shows us

that people are better off if they go through this sequence. And that runs flat out contrary to what BL're two lesbian women who are married and have four kids together. And they're amazing parents. You could ask for no better. They have no wish to dismantle any nuclear, they don't want to end or just discourage or in any way judge or diminish male female unions. They want to be accepted and people to recognize that they too are amazing parents. Most sane people totally get that, that they're not out there and they wouldn't support people out there saying, dismantle, dismantle the preexisting nuclear family, replace it with something else. And that you'll get pushback from the mainstream media that that's even a goal of Black Lives Matter, even though it's in their mission statement. They've now since scrubbed their website. But as you point out, it was in the papers released in Ames, Iowa. Like it's it's absolutely part of their mission statement.

Up next with Scott Walker, we're going to talk about 2024. Does he think Trump will run again? Does he think Biden will run again? Does he think Biden will run again? And will he run again? And now it's time for another edition of From the Archives. That's a feature where we look back at our library and bring you a little taste of something you may have missed. For today, we are going back to October and episode 15. I love that we got the brilliant Chloe Valdore on early and we should have her on again because she's, she's just, she's the answer to so many of our problems. It was a totally refreshing

conversation. She's amazing. And if you haven't heard it, you need to. Now, Chloe runs a practice called the theory of enchantment. Just let that, just let that hang. The theory of enchantment just makes you want to know more, doesn't it? This provides a whole new spin on anti-racism versus what the typical woke leftist world puts out there. Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, she's the opposite of them. And we heard that after our episode, she got a whole lot of new interest in theory of enchantment, which we love. That's fantastic. But the conversation we had at the time is still very timely, especially with all that's happening in Minnesota over the past week and beyond and the media coverage of it. And so here is just a small clip on spiritual impoverishment. I read what you've said about wokeness, you know, this wokeness craze. And you said one of the things you think is driving it is there's sort of a lack of purpose going on for some folks now and that people while they

may be materially enriched, maybe maybe not these days. They're spiritually impoverished. How is spiritual impoverishment leading to wokeness? Yeah, so I think that there's a great deal of alienation that we're forced to contend with. And I don't think there's anyone, I don't think anyone is like at fault, per se. Again, I think it's a crisis of modernity. a challenge that has really affected everyone in the country from the left to the right. And what's unfortunately going on, I think, is people on the reactionary right and people on the woke left are suffering from alienation, but are oftentimes implementing policies, implementing solutions that actually perpetuate alienation even more in the name of trying to stop it. And this includes otherizing people. And this is something that we as human beings have always done. This is like the, we tend to think in either or ways of thinking, especially when we think our security or safety is under threat, whether perceived or real. And so we're prone to start thinking in those very

shortcut, reductive ways. But the challenge here, I think, and this speaks to the spiritual issue, is to create solutions that take away that sense of alienation, that bring back that sense of community, again, that bring back that sense of reconciliation and the beloved community, as Dr. King spoke of. And this requires that we sort of rewire our brains and rewire our, how we choose to be in relationship with each other, which to me, again, begins with being in a healthy relationship with yourself. And this is even more of an issue because of COVID, because we're neurobiologically wired for connection and we're experiencing long periods of isolation and disconnection.

And so we have to work overtime to really keep ourselves in check and make sure that we take the steps that we can take to foster connection with one another. Chloe has actual solutions and a way of bridging divides in this country without further alienating everybody. So go back, check out that full episode. You won't be sorry. And we will keep bringing you more clips from the archives. And now back to former Governor Scott Walker. But first, this. the strength of these unions the way they pressure lawmakers and win especially in blue states like

my new york and our our legislators and governors tend to just bow down to them give them what they want and that's one of the reasons why i just had friend a dinner with my close friends last night um new york city schools are still not in session full time for tons of kids. My friend's son, who's a middle schooler, he's about he's 13, goes to school one day a week still for four hours on that one day. That's it. It's totally unacceptable. There's a 0% transmission rate in schools where they will not send the teachers back in to these public schools, no matter how much data they have. When I saw you making news on the YAF stuff, I was like, I want to talk to him because you're one of the few people, Chris Christie is another, who has taken on unions and won.

Just to refresh the audience's memory, because we have a lot of young listeners who probably babes in the cradle back in 2011. Yeah, hopefully they weren't worrying about it back then. Yeah. No, let's hope not. But you, I remember covering this on a day-to-day basis. And I, you, you cracked down on these unions because you had done it already in several of your sort of state lawmaker positions where you, you fixed your budget. You took a budget deficit. It was like three point five million when you were at the lower state level. And then when you became governor was three point six billion budget deficit. And in both cases, you turn it into a surplus and you got

very realistic about how to bring back jobs, how to cut taxes, but how to get rid of these deficits and create surpluses so you know how to do it. And one of the things you could hard look at was unions. So in a nutshell, tell us what you did with the Wisconsin unions that caused you so much trouble knowing that you ultimately won. Yeah, the easiest way to explain it is we took the power out of the hands of the big government special interests, which are the big government union bosses, and put it firmly into the hands of the hardworking taxpayers. More specifically, what I mean by that is having been not only a state lawmaker, but a local, what's called a county executive at the time, I knew in those

years when we faced our own budget challenges because of lost state aid and the economy, that the only real way to balance the state budget, if you weren't going to raise taxes, which I was not going to, not just because I said I wasn't going to, but because it would have been like a wet blanket on economic recovery. I wasn't going to cut billions of dollars from Medicaid because while I wanted to reform it, I wasn't going to hurt seniors and kids and families. And I wasn't going to lay off 15,000 employees, even though I want a smaller government, You don't get there through random pink slips. So if you look at all the options, I knew the only way to balance that $3.6 billion gap you just mentioned was you had to reduce the amount of money that flew from the flip side of that was the only way you could offset that without just devastating cuts and layoffs at the local and school district level was to give us tools that many of us had asked for for decades. Under collective bargaining, even simple things, not just paying pension and health care contributions, but, for example, most schools before I did this had to buy their health insurance from a company that just happened to be connected to the teachers' union. Once we got rid of it and they could bid it out, many of those districts saved millions of dollars just by bidding out their health insurance on the market and saving money that could go back into the classroom. So what we did was get rid of collective bargaining as they knew it. We took the power and put it into the hands of not just the state, but really the local officials, meaning

the taxpayers were in charge. They elect someone to a school board, city council, county board. They now can make decisions, not just about budgets. But the last thing I'll just say on this that tied into long-term, the biggest benefit beyond just the money, is we got rid of seniority and tenure so that in doing so, schools can now hire based on merit. They can pay based on performance. They can put the best and the brightest in the classroom and keep them there. I remember earlier this past year when the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, who politically she and I wouldn't be aligned on much, but on this we were. She wanted to reopen the Chicago schools. The unions basically told her what she could do with it. I said at the time, if she was in Wisconsin instead of Illinois, her schools would have been

open last fall when she wanted to, just like the Catholic and the other faith-based schools were open last year completely successfully. And that's what's at stake here. Anyone who's watched this knows even the CDC under Biden has acknowledged that students and staff are safe to go back. It's the union bosses that have blocked them from doing it. And my response was simple. You're not an essential worker if you can't show up when it's essential. And I think most teachers, not most union bosses, most teachers actually did

and still do want to go off to school because they're sick and tired of Zoom. They want to be in the classroom with their kids. Can you explain that? Can you explain why is there such a gulf or at least perceived gulf between the way the teachers feel and what they want and what these union representatives are demanding and get? Well, because the unions are set up, particularly public sector unions. The private sector, it's a little bit different because they actually, particularly in states like mine, where you have a right to choose public or private. So the private sector ones actually have to offer something of value, trending or otherwise. But typically in the public sector, it's why even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I got fact-checked, put a fact on this, but it's 100% right, FDR opposed public sector unions, which will be a

shock even to some of your listeners, because his view was who you're protecting yourself from yourself. The public is the government. But with the power that unions have, the union bosses, particularly in the government arena, is it's concentrating and protecting the weakest link. So the people who want to be a part of the union, overwhelming are the people who don't want you to ever make a reasonable concession, who don't want to have anything based on merit, who don't want to give up any benefits or anything else. It's the great teachers uh the great

public employees the good public servants that were willing to make concessions i'll give you an example not with a teacher but years before i was governor when i was the county executive democrats controlled everything in the state government recession they had to cut because they didn't have enough tax revenue they They cut money to local government schools, counties, cities. I'm the county executive. It's the middle of the year. The budget's already been set. So I offer to do 35-hour work weeks for four weeks spread out, one a month for four months. And I include myself. I said, I'll take the pay reduction for a 35-hour work week. I've been offered to do it at the end of the week on a Friday afternoon for any non-essential workers. They could go home, at least get a longer weekend out of it, but that would be my way to avoid

layoffs. Seemed like a pretty rational, reasonable discussion. The unions basically told me to take a long walk off a short pier. They actually said much worse than that. And I remember people coming to me crying with new workers, typically young parents who'd say, what am I going to do being laid off? And their co-workers would say, I'd gladly do a 35-hour work week. Why can't we do it? I'd say, go talk to your union steward. It was the union contracts that blocked that. So what we did in Wisconsin and others did variations, nobody went as far as we did, was just take that power away from those union bosses and put it back in the hands of the people we elect to run our local governments. And it's been transformational, not only in terms of

saving $13 billion since then for the local taxpayers. But more importantly, now those people can run things the way they want to. And for all the hype about how awful it was going to be to education, Wisconsin still continues to have some of the best ACT scores in the country and some of the highest graduation rates. So the proof was in the pudding. It actually works. Well, you saw the failure to unionize that Amazon shop down in Alabama. And that was I mean, that was that was really interesting, right?

Because it was like they needed I think it was they needed something like fifteen hundred plus votes in favor of the union. Instead, there was almost eighteen hundred votes against. And the people down there and it was a largely black uh like plant and the employees were saying number one we did not believe the nonsense this is about blm because that's what the union organizers trying to say everything's about blm now they were like we did not believe that um and this isn't a black white thing and then they said number two amazon gives us good benefits and high pay comparatively starting at 15 bucks an hour opportunities to advance and we don't we don't think we're gonna do any better i think the democrats don't understand how it happened like

but what do you mean you know it's largely black employees they're supposed to be with me the union is going to make your life better but it gave me hope that people are starting to see through some of this rhetoric and this, I don't know, group think of like, the democratic way is the best way you will join the union, you will support BLM or you're a bad person. You know, here you've got a bunch of minority employees in the Deep South saying, no, when it shows that what I was saying earlier about young people, give people the facts. If there's a way to even come close to matching the radical rhetoric on the other side, if you give people the facts, I have far more faith in the American public than I think a lot of people do, including a lot on our side of the equation. Because I think if you give people

the facts, they're going to gravitate that way. But we've got to find new and unique ways. We can't just run into brick walls with the ways we've been talking about it and not make adjustments to how we communicate. I think in this instance, it didn't hurt that Amazon's obviously got a pretty expansive opportunity to provide their own side of the story. Although I did find a little bit ironic, I don't know if you did, that they were all about making sure the ballots were legitimate and making sure that they could verify signatures and things like that. But they didn't think that's a big deal in Georgia and elsewhere when it comes to actually voting. But that aside, I think the same thing in California when you had this nonsense where they were going to clamp down on Uber and Lyft and other rideshare, those are good examples of

where we've got to, particularly with the younger generation, we've got to spell out what's at stake in things that matter to them. And, you know, California trying to say that, you know, change the franchise law so that every single person, you know, can unionize an Uber. Well, that would that would get rid of things that Uber and Lyft that young people rely on. So there are, I think, glimmers of hope at the end of the sun, light at the end of the tunnel. We just got to find better ways to communicate. OK, so I watched you as you took on the unions and won back in 2011. I covered you when you were governor of Wisconsin for many years.

Now you're no longer governor of Wisconsin, but I also covered you when you were running for president. And in the end, of course, Trump got the nomination and then won the presidency. So, but you're a young man, you're 53 years old. You could have a long political future ahead of you. I mean, we just elected a man who's 77 years old as president. So what do you think about 2024 when it comes to your own hat in that ring and when it comes to the Republican Party in general next time around? Well, I joke about this, but there's truth to this. I'm a quarter century younger than Joe Biden. So I figured he and to a certain extent, even Trump have kind of changed. Yeah. Isn't that funny how you express that? A quarter century, literally younger than Joe Biden. So I don't think I'd wait that long if I ever did run. But in the context of there's plenty of time, the reason

I'm here, and this isn't just being magnanimous, but part of the reason why I'm at Young America's Foundation is I look at a state like mine in Wisconsin and realize if we don't do something to make inroads, particularly with the younger generation of voters, a person like me, a conservative like me, male or female, doesn't matter who it is, is not going to carry a state like Wisconsin for any time into the foreseeable future. And if you can't carry Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, we're out in the woods, out in the wilderness by ourselves for quite some time when it comes to electoral politics, at least on the national level. And so what I'm doing here isn't just about a feel-good thing to get more conservative voices in the

campus. It actually has, I think, a link into the future in terms of whether or not the values we care about are even going to be articulated in the halls of our federal government, at least at the majority level. In terms of 2024, I think it's wide open. Again, as you know, I mean, everything, the multi-million dollar question is whether or not Donald Trump chooses to run again. I think if he does, it would be almost nothing's impossible. His the nomination in 2024. And then a lot depends on where Biden and Harris and the rest of the team are at that point. My gut tells me, though, that I don't think Donald Trump runs again. I think particularly if he finds some leverage in terms of whether it's his own cable news network or some sort of social media platform, some way of influencing and can ultimately be a kingmaker, not just in the presidential, but in terms of still having influence with all the grief.

Obviously, this is a guy who spent all but four years of his life in the private sector. He might just enjoy that. And if he's not running, then I think it's wide open. Conventional wisdom. Who do you think the frontrunner is? Well, conventional wisdom, two of my former colleagues, former governors when I was in office, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, obviously in the polling, if you just do random shows up. And I still think they'll both be formidable, particularly if Trump's not in. But I also would rule out, you know, there's a lot of senators out there, many of whom are friends of mine, but because he's done not only an effective job in keeping the economy open, but he got his particularly seniors and vulnerable people vaccinated very quickly. His health numbers are very strong compared to other states.

And as you've talked about, as we've all seen, specifically with the target from CBS whether it's him or someone like him, I think that's the kind of leader people, at least right of center, are going to want to take on Joe Biden. Do you think it will be Biden again? Well, particularly a guy who's run three times. I mean, this is, you know, people forget we talk about Reagan. When I was at the Reagan Ranch Center a decade ago, just coming off the big protest in the beginning of my recall, came out to speak. There was a brand new exhibit in the center that was a video exhibit up on the wall, not too far from where the Jeep was that Reagan took Gorbachev around on. But this was probably the most important one for me at the time, being under all this pressure and attacks in the media and elsewhere. It was Reagan, and it showed all Sam Donaldson, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, even politicians like,

ironically, Joe Biden and John Kerry and others attacking him at the time for standing up and doing what he was doing. Obviously, years later, public opinion gravitated, rightfully so, to what a great president he was. But it reminded me, seeing Joe Biden, that this is a guy who's been at this forever. This is a guy who wanted to run in the 80s and then again when Barack Obama was running and now. So I don't see him freely giving power up. I think he wants to hang on to this as long as he can. And frankly, the performance that Harris has given, I helped Mike Pence prepare for the debates four years ago and again this year. And I got to tell you, I was surprisingly shocked as to how poorly Harris was in the debates. And since then, I mean, why would you put someone in charge of the border and then never have anything get close to it?

I just think, you know, it's a horrible. By the way, why would you have open borders but close schools? There's just a lot of crazy things going on in the world today. But I think Biden still runs, assuming his health. And I know people joke about this, but I just personally hope nothing happens to his health because I think that's a horrible thing for a country to go through if something bad did happen. But I think he doesn't give it up. Something is happening to his health, right? I mean, it's very obvious that there's some cognitive decline there and there's a debate around just how bad it is.

But there's no doubt it's happening. I mean, you saw this. I joke that like if I got to sit down with him, my first question would be now, Mr. President, there's a building. It has five sides. It's right in the middle of Washington, D.C. What is the name of that building? I'll give you A, B, and C, right?

And then I'd say, and there's a guy inside that building who runs the Defense Department. It's Lloyd, rhymes with Boston. Come on, you can do it. Because he couldn't remember that Secretary of Defense. He couldn't remember the word Pentagon. I mean, these are real problems, and they're not going to get better as he goes from 77 to 81. So realistically, he may be forced not to run. And I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I think the Democrats are in a lot of trouble if Kamala Harris is their nominee. I mean, I just think there's a reason why she didn't make it through the primaries. And people worry about her being radical. Yeah, she had the voting record that

Newsweek showed was further to the left than Bernie Sanders in 2019. But worse off for them than that is just, well, we saw it when she was talking about some serious topics. She has this bizarre tendency to laugh at the most un you know, unopportune time. Yeah. So it's just very unusual. Let's not forget, as somebody who helped prepare Mike Pence for that debate, you must have been turned off by the, Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking. I'm speaking. Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking.

Like once, fine. Twice, all right. Over and over and over throughout the night. And it's obviously a tactic and you just look small well the other thing we knew from watching and having talked to some of our senate colleagues this was interesting you'll appreciate this from a legal standpoint of your background we knew from what happened in kavanaugh there was a point in the kavanaugh hearings where obviously she was on, she was on office, she was going to be aggressive, but where she asked Justice Kavanaugh about someone at a firm where he had

been and thought it was like one of these aha moments. And he just asked, well, who are you talking about? I know several people at that firm. And she clearly had not been briefed beyond that one line of attack and so kind of stumbled. And so we knew going into that debate, if she was questioned about something that she wasn't prepared for, she was not really not capable of handling that. And everybody thought going in, they remembered the summer before when Biden and her had gone at it over the bus. And she delivered that very, very well. As a prosecutor, she slowed down. That's something people don't get. But prosecutors, when they're making a point in front of a jury, they're good at it, will slow down so that the jury clearly gets

it. She had been very effective at that, but that was a line she was prepared for going in. That wasn't something that just came off the top of her head. That's right. When she's questioned, she really has some very specific challenges. And, you know, she's lucky right now. She gets next to no scrutiny. But I think you're right. If somehow, for whatever reason, she was elevated, that would be a real problem, not just for her, but for the far left.

They've got to be a little concerned about their odds there. As you point out, she didn't even make it to the primary. So it's, you know, what are the odds now? It's not exactly the vice president doesn't usually make a lot of news or get a lot of get beaten up an awful lot in the press. But as soon as she has to stick her neck back out there, if she in fact has to be the nominee, it's not it's not going to go well. We're going to be back to where we were. Anyway, listen, I'm excited about what you guys are doing. I think I love young America's foundation. I met them when I went out to the Reagan ranch, a bunch of kids from them. And some of the leaders there was very impressed. And I think this is an important, like we have, we need more of these

groups, not fewer, and we need more people, whether you're a Republican or conservative or not just standing up for reason. That's what this group is doing. I say, go get them. And I, for one, would like to see your hat back in the mix in 2024. I think you were always an honest, ethical guy who told it like it was and stood by your positions, whether they were controversial or not. And that's really admirable, especially in today's day and age. Well, I appreciate that. I don't know if it'll be 24, but maybe someday. Although I got the title of president now, so it's a lot easier to do this job and getting this job as president. You just got to convince your board to go along with that than a couple hundred million voters.

And everybody loves you. It's not nearly as polarizing as when you're president of the United States. Read my social media, which I stopped doing about 10 years ago. Best advice for any candidate is don't read the comments on social media. There are people who hate me, that's for sure. But that's all right. They're the kind of people that I'm not too worried about. But ultimately, we're hopeful at the long game. In fact, if any of your listeners want, I'll send them a free copy.

They just go to yaf.org slash long game and we'll send them a free copy and see what we're up to. yaf.org slash long game. And we'll send them a free copy and see what we're up to. YAF.org slash long game. Love it. Thank you. Great to speak with you. Good to be with you too. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. Do it now so that you will not miss our next show. We are taking on climate change and where we are in that battle. You hear a lot of rhetoric on this in the mainstream press and what's real, right? Like I'm a mother. I don't want to leave my kids in earth. That's a disaster that we just didn't take care of and sort of pass that baton. But how bad is it? Because you sometimes get the feeling you're getting pushed into

bad information corners by people who have an agenda. What's Bill Gates saying? What's Joe Biden saying? What's John Kerry saying? And what's the truth? Because those things may not necessarily be aligned. That's next show. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.