The Ricochet Podcast - Country on the Wire

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

The GOP primary is basically dunzo. Time to look ahead towards the general election, the future of the Republican Party, even on to the generations that will take it over one day. To do so our merry Ricochet gang is joined by Governor Scott Walker, now the president of Young America's Foundation.Peter, James and the Reverend Dr. Long also cut into the razor wire debate.

They're all just, they've all just put their manhood in a, in a blind trust. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylex, and today we talk to former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker about the YAF. And what is that? Well, let's have ourselves a podcast. It's unfortunate that there is a governor in Texas, Governor Abbott, who has politicized this issue of what's happening on the border. And it's not making people's lives safer. It's actually making it harder for law enforcement at the border to do their job.

There's really only one person in America not doing their job, and that's the president of the United States, who's not enforcing immigration laws. America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 676. I'm James Lilacs, here in Minnesota, cloudy, foggy, drizzly, but yet the day is ever brightened by the thought of Ricochet.com, a beacon in the night. Well, it is your place for the most stimulating conversations and community on the web, and you ought to go there, and you ought to join. You ought to see what all the fuss is about. You know, if 676 episodes didn't do it, maybe 677 will. But in the meantime, Rob Long and Peter Robinson, the august founders, the men whose visages are chiseled on a rock somewhere, thanking them for their contribution to internet

dialogue, are with us. Peter in California, Rob in New York. Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you, James. Thank you, James. It's been nice to be here. Always good to be here as well. But, you know, equidistant between you two and the coasts is Texas, and Texas is having a bit of a, oh, I don't know, equidistant between you two and the coasts is Texas, and Texas is having a bit of a, oh, I don't know, start of the Civil War, perhaps. That's what people are saying, because we have Texas governor versus the federal government over the issue as to whether or not Texas can do the audacious thing, the obviously illegal against the statutes of the Statue of

Liberty, putting razor wire on the border to keep people from doing their God-given right to come in whenever they want and do whatever they please. How do you think this is going to play out? Well, the politics of it, first of all, legally, the legal question, I have to say, I don't quite grasp. The governor of Texas claims that he has declared an invasion and that the state under the Constitution has the right to defend itself. On the other hand, we do have a civil war that we fought and I just, I have to go into this or at least listen to somebody who actually knows what he's talking about. Bill Barr perhaps, somebody with a legal background to sort out the legal issues. The politics of it are, as far as I'm concerned, terrific. The governor of Texas is doing something about the border, and now Joe Biden is saying, no, no, no, you have to open that border up. It just puts into unmistakably clear light exactly where everybody stands. We now have governors of, as I recall, the latest figures, 25 or 26 states have signed statements supporting Governor Abbott. So we've got an issue

extremely clearly squared up before the public in which Republicans and the state of Texas are clearly in the right. And the Biden administration is now being shown for exactly what it really, truly wants, which is to appease the left and its own party by establishing open borders. Well, we'll see if Wisconsin is one of those states that actually signed that thing. We, by some coincidence, would like to now go to Scott Walker, 45th Governor of Wisconsin and President of the Young America's Foundation. Mr. Walker, welcome. I'm over here in Minneapolis at the moment. There's no razor wire betwixt Minnesota and Wisconsin, even though there's a cold peace that exists between us. I see behind you, you have a crawl on the video screen that says, The Long Game, which is what

it seems the right is going to have to play. Primary's over, right? It's done. Tell us where you think the party is going to go short-term and long-term. And you got about four minutes for both those questions. No, the primary's been over for some time. It was just a matter of going through the formality. Obviously, Governor DeSantis, big shot, was having to perform well in Iowa and didn't come close. And Nikki Haley, both of these people are friends of mine. I think DeSantis did a fabulous job as governor of Florida. Nikki Haley was a strong ambassador to the United Nations. But neither of them, I mean, Nikki Haley had to perform in New Hampshire.

She had to have a win or at least an extremely close second, didn't have that. And when she gets to North Carolina, all the numbers show it's going to be a big win for President Trump there. So it is done. I think the reason not only in the primary, but arguably looking ahead to the long game in November, why it's going to be competitive. Voters in the primary, and I would argue voters in swing states like mine in Wisconsin, have had it with politicians who say all the right things, who say it just the right way or very appealing, but then go to Washington and completely melt down and don't do what they say they're going to do. And they're willing to take a president, or in this case, a former president, potentially future president, who doesn't always talk or tweet the way we do, particularly in the Midwest, but who delivers, who gets things done. And as I pointed out in the Washington Times this week in my column, I think people are willing to

take a little bit of political chaos in return for some economic stability and some national security stability, both with the economy and, as we were just talking about, with the invasion that we really do see happening on our southern border. Governor, you ran for president and your campaign lasted, your formal campaign, I assume you were planning it for months beforehand. Your formal campaign lasted a couple of months before you decided to withdraw from the race. How does a candidate decide that it's over? What's your advice for Nikki Haley? And also, is there an argument? I sort of think there is. So maybe you're going to have to argue with me a little bit about it. But is there an argument that by staying in the race,

she forces Trump to become a better candidate to do what Trump most needs to do, which is to learn how to appeal to the very people to whom Nikki Haley is appealing. Independents, old fashioned Republicans. Let's say, I don't know, I don't want to sound as though I'm insulting anybody, but Bush Republicans, let's say George H.W. Bush Republicans, Donald Trump has to unify his party to have any chance. He's got a lock on the base. That's clear. But he also seems to have a ceiling in the 40s. You cannot get elected president without bringing in more people. So the question is, how did you decide? What should she decide? And is there an argument that she makes him better by staying in for a few more primaries? Well, a couple things. One, I say this jokingly,

but it's largely accurate as well. I got out before I got a nickname, so I was one of the smart ones. I was in that second debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. CNN did the debate. And in three hours, I got about two questions. And at that point, I realized, even though I was polling up there, not too far behind then candidate Trump, former Governor Jeb Bush, and I were right there in the center. You know, it was they did it by polling. People in politics at the time were shocked that we got out. But I just looked and I said, unless I stand up side of my head and do something really radical at the next debate, it was all about Donald Trump. I would argue, I contend, I think many of the national media were

doing that because they thought Donald Trump was the only candidate who couldn't beat Hillary Clinton. So that was a bit of their fascination of propping him up, giving him more time, and in part because he was good for ratings then as he is now. But in the end, obviously, he showed them that he, as well as the rest of us, probably could have defeated Hillary Clinton because of the disdain out there for her. I got out because I thought there needs to be a positive conservative alternative because remember at the time, I didn't know what to expect out of Donald Trump. I heard what he was saying, but he'd never been elected. We didn't really know what kind of a track record. I remember Chuck Todd a few years ago in 2020 tried to call me out on that and say that how could I possibly then support Donald Trump after

having said that? Well, because I was wrong. I didn't know what to expect. Even though I don't often agree with his tone or some of his tweets, the reality was, in terms of substance, I mean, the guy was stellar. He put tremendous jurists on the federal court, both the Supreme Court but the other levels. He reigned in regulations. He cut taxes. He put more money back in the hand of the American people. On so many issues, with a few exceptions, but fairly rare. This was someone I like substantively.

In fact, in a weird sort of way, people are shocked to hear this. Obviously, style was very different, but he got many of the same sorts of things done that Ronald Reagan talked about generations before. So I liked that. But how I got out was I just realized this is where the media was going. I could see where things were headed and said, I just realized this is where the media was going. I could see where things were headed and said, I'm not going to waste the money of my supporters trying to drag things out any further, which really is the key Nikki Haley question. I like Nikki Haley. She

and I were governors together. As I said, I thought she was a good ambassador. But she really has to decide, you know, where does this end? Because, you know, if you're looking at people who are investors saying before New Hampshire, there were many who thought maybe, just maybe a New Hampshire win, the breakthrough, and you'd have a change. That's not going to happen. She may be able to make a case on some issues here or there. So I think she needs to think long and hard about, you know, what's her endgame. And then your last point about make it or better. Normally, in a normal cycle, which this is anything but, I think that's a fairly solid argument. But I would say the reverse is the case now. And give me a minute to explain that.

I think Donald Trump, when he's in the primaries, Donald Trump's a fighter. Right or wrong, he's a fighter. And so if you're in his way, he's going to attack you. He's going to attack anyone associated with you. The sooner he's the nominee and no one else is running, the more he can turn his attacks towards Joe Biden. I think that one part in particular starts to bring the rest of the tent together that doesn't want Joe Biden to be president, even if they're not all big fans of Donald Trump focusing on what the contrast is and the last thing I would just say on that beyond just Nikki Haley's decision is Donald Trump to wins got to be more like the Donald Trump fighter in 2016 and

less like the one in 2020 what I mean by that is in 2016, he was the guy fighting for the men and women of America who felt forgotten. We saw this about a year ago in East Palestine, Ohio, when Joe Biden was in Europe, Pete Buttigieg was nowhere to be found. Donald Trump showed up at that train derailment and said, you're not forgotten. He brought in supplies, he brought in water,

he did things that really made them feel connected. That's the guy that won in 2016. If in turn, though, he talks about other Republicans or he talks about the 2020 election, I think that's the guy who lost the last cycle. So for him to win in Wisconsin and a handful of battleground states, voters have to see him as a fighter for them, not as someone who fights for the sake of it. Okay, you have, I've got one more question. I asked your advice for Nikki Haley. You were too polite to say, get out, but it seems as though that is about what your advice comes to. Now your advice for Trump and for the Republican Party generally, and let me give a piece of your background that often gets overlooked. You did remarkable things as a Republican governor in a state

where it's a close call between the Republicans and the Democrats, but what often gets overlooked is that your political career began in Milwaukee. And Milwaukee is a still, even now, a largely blue collar and an overwhelmingly Democratic town. You figured something out. You figured out how to do what Donald Trump claims to do, which is you appeal to the, what do we want to say, the Truman Democrat or the Reagan Democrat, some of the decent, working, patriotic people who want their schools to work, who want businesses to hire. All right. Can Trump do what you did in Milwaukee? He lost Milwaukee to Biden. What do you think? I'm using Milwaukee as a test case because it's good human beings who tend to vote Democratic. And they're exactly the kind of people that Trump needs to win in

order to do what he has to do to truly govern, which is carry the Senate and carry the House and send a big message to everybody, including the media, that he has built a governing coalition. Yes, I can. Yeah, the key is he's got to do that in a way that not only appeals to them, but doesn't turn off the suburbs at the same time. Because part of the key to the difference between 2020 and 2016 was that because of his tone and the contrast of voters somehow thinking that Joe Biden might be reasonable, but it was that one-two punch. The suburbs still went Republican, but they were somewhat deflated. I think he can make both with traditional blue-collar voters, which are

historically in the south side of Milwaukee. Those are people that were my bread and butter when I was elected. When I won won people thought i could never win first republican maybe only republican there to win i won with reagan democrats tommy thompson democrats and i i would say one other voting block i picked up on were people who voted for ross perot uh in that 92 election didn't like bill clinton because they thought he was a draft dodger but thought george herbert walker bush was a decent guy but too much country club republican uh those people wanted a blue collar kind of look out for everybody who felt forgotten. I think that's actually an area that Donald Trump does well if he's focused. I've told him this repeatedly,

he's wasting his time if he's attacking particularly other Republicans, but just in general, if he's attacking people personally, where he does well, and not only with those blue collar voters, but where he doesn't lose suburban voters, if he's taking on the establishment, if he's taking on the problems of Washington, if he's saying, I don't mind stirring the pot, I'll take those people on, I'm standing in the way to defend everyday hardworking people like you, if he does that, he can win. Forget about the last election. Don't look backwards. Elections are always about the future. If he can have the discipline to do that, I also told him the best payback for whatever he thinks

happened to him in the last election is to win the next one. That's more important than trying to litigate the last one. Darrell Bock So I know James wants to come in, but you use the word, or Rob wants to come in, you use the word discipline. Okay, here we go. Here we go, Governor. Let me just tell you a tale of two victory speeches, Donald Trump in Iowa. I think he spoke for about 20 minutes. He spent the first 10 minutes doing exactly what I'm sure you did over and over again as governor. You call out the people who helped out. You mention people by name.

You say thank you to this person and thank you to that person. Come on up here on the stage and take a round of applause. That sounded like a politician who wanted to win. And then he goes on in the next 10 minutes and talks about the importance of unifying the country. Thanks, Ron and Nikki, for running good solid. Oh, my goodness. I thought to myself, Donald Trump has decided to act presidential. This guy is not intent on vengeance.

This guy is intent on winning. Eight days later, victory speech in New Hampshire, nasty, divisive, insulting, the sneering comment to Nikki Haley, insulting the dress she wore. Oh my goodness, my wife almost came out of her skin when she was sitting on the sofa next to me, heard that. Which one of these guys are we going to end up with? And isn't it legitimate for all of us to say, wait a minute, he's a 78-year-old man. He's been in politics for a good long time now.

If he hasn't got just the rudimentary political discipline by now, what are we buying here? Oh, there's no doubt about it. And those are the two I say. That's the difference between the 2016 and the 2020. I see. The 2016 was the Iowa speech. The 2020 was the New Hampshire speech. There needs to be enough people who talk to him, family, friends, confidants, others out there that need to repeatedly.

And part of this, someone once told me from New York years ago, is, you know, part of his instincts having been in Manhattan real estate is, if you attack me, I punch back twice as hard and then move on. He doesn't view it oftentimes as personal long after it's done. But at that moment, like you say, it stings. And in politics, that sting, you know, you do enough of those and you start to break apart your winning coalition. He needs to folk, every day someone needs to tell him, you can win, but here are the things you need to do. Now, I tell people, we're never going to make him into a Ronald Reagan. We're not going to make him into the happy warrior. What we have to do is take what we have,

and what we have with him that can win, that I actually think is a good thing, is that fighter. I'm willing to fight the establishment. I'm willing to fight the problems in Washington. I'm willing to take on the things that other politicians won't do, and I will follow through with them. That's the guy who won in 2016. But if he gets into these individual battles or anything else, for him, the best thing he could do is just keep saying that. And then, in fact, if I was coaching him, as I helped previous vice presidential candidates, if I was coaching him, as I helped previous vice presidential candidates, if I was coaching him in the debates, I'd say those simple things and

defer the rest of my time to Joe Biden, because the more people hear Joe Biden speak, the less likely they are to vote to him. You know, I was just with a little bit ago a group of students that are here at our headquarters for training from Young America's Foundation. And I was talking to a number of them from swing states across the country. And I told them to their surprise, we just did a national poll and found the number one issue of college students isn't what you think it is. Certainly isn't what the media talks about. It's the economy. So even college students are feeling the pain that so many other Americans are out there. If Donald Trump reminds people what things were like before Joe Biden and where he can take them going forward and then pins the tail on the donkey, figuratively and literally, I guess, in this case to Joe Biden, that's a winning combination. But it's like you say, it's that discipline that sometimes gets drawn off the mark.

Governor, thank you for joining us. Man, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said, you know, if Donald Trump were just, dude, if Donald Trump were just holding, I'd be as rich as Donald Trump says he is. That's how rich I would be. But let me just push back on it a little bit. I'll tell you why I've been run out of the Republican Party by Donald Trump. He told me he didn't want me. I don't think he did any of those things you said he did.

I think Obama built more wall on the border than Donald Trump did. I think he blew it in renegotiating a trade pact he didn't need to with Mexico and Canada. Basically gave us the same thing. Trade deficit went up, by the way. I think he blew it going head to head with china trade deficit with china went up by the way and i don't think he drained the swamp i think he gave the swamp over during covid and he shut down the government and the economy without a thought to the plan there i think he's a weak man and i think he's a weak leader and i think the world is very serious place and um i think

he has failed and the idea that the republican party is in a suicide pact now and it's going to tie its future to this man who has shown himself to be unfit when it really mattered in covid really mattered he did he blew it um and we're going to hope that at 78 years old, a man who has never changed one iota is going to change. I think that's insanity. How am I wrong? Well, well, I mean, those sorts of arguments are the ones that I think a lot of supporters of Ron DeSantis, who I think was a fabulous governor, would be had he been the nominee and outstanding president. Like the very things you talked about, at least many of them are things they wish DeSantis or fabulous governor would be had he been the nominee and outstanding president. The very things you talked about, at least many of them, are things they wish DeSantis or Nikki Haley or some of the other candidates would have made more forcefully and would have connected

with throughout the campaign. The reality is, for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is the perception of voters about what they have versus what they might get uh it set down that path so you're going to have a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump Donald Trump unlike the past choice where he'll be a one-term and a really important decision he's going to make is who is his running mate because that person not only will be vice president but could very well be queued up to be the front runner in in the next election in 2028 which really will ultimately be the the future not just of the party but of of america in that regard but i think most people look at this not only on the right but but many swing voters and

say you know i hear from so many voters who told me they were either swing moderate voters or even some lifelong Republicans who said they couldn't take it anymore with Donald Trump and voted for Biden, who now tell me they're either voting for Trump if he's a nominee, or as many tell me, they're just not going to vote at all. Well, isn't that what happened in Wisconsin in 2020? 23,000 people were the difference. that could be the winning margin yeah i mean 20 000 people in wisconsin um voted for i mean he won about 20 000 votes right it's a high wire act whatever you go go for but a high wire act in 2016 i mean you know i'm eliminating the popular vote from this because we're all republicans here we understand it's electoral college right but it's a you know it's a high wire act um what is it about conservatives and i consider myself a conservative but not a republican what is about conservatives that they see in this high wire act uh that's worth giving up their

principles for i just i'm just baffled by it i mean i cannot imagine and i'm you know everybody listening to podcasts already knows i cannot imagine i And I'm everybody listens podcast already knows. I cannot imagine I'm going to vote for this man. I can't possibly bring myself to do that. But I'm still conservative. He's not. That's my issue. He's not. Well, and again, that's where I think when you look just purely looking at the numbers here, it's why in a state like Wisconsin, I would argue in Georgia, in Michigan, where those two states just had polls put out by the Atlanta and Detroit papers respectively,

who showed amazingly former President Trump having an eight-point lead in Pennsylvania, in Nevada, in Arizona. You've got a handful of states via the Electoral College who elect arguably the next president. And in those states, I think more than anything, voters have had it with Joe Biden. It's kind of the inverse of what we saw in 2016, where people had it with Hillary Clinton and then voted for Donald Trump. In the case of 2020, you had to flip the other way where a lot of swing voters and even some Republicans didn't like the tone, the style, the substance in some cases. Well, tone, style, and substance is all you got.

Reasonable, but now they don't. Now they say I talk to voters all the time who say, I'll take the chaos again in return for not having Joe Biden messing things up in the federal government. Sorry, Mr. Walker, we know that national reconciliation is possible just by evidence, by the fact that I was supporting the Packers. I was rooting for the Packers after this year. So I know that we can get past some of our big schisms here in the country, but it requires having a set of ideals that are passed on to the next generation, which I take it that your foundation is all about. Now, when you mentioned that you talk to the young people and they're concerned about the economy,

I imagine if you talk to young people of a leftist bent, they too are concerned about the economy. But their solution you talk to young people of a leftist bent, they too are concerned about the economy. But their solution is to nationalize everything, to socialize everything, and to embrace it all into the big loving arms of Uncle Sam. We need a cadre of people to march through the institutions, as the Maoists used to say, in order to bring about free enterprise notions, notions of political individual liberty and so forth. Tell us more about your foundation and how you hope to train the young minds of tomorrow to do the right thing. Yeah. YAF.org. If you're a student under attack, we've got your back. If you're a parent or grandparent joining us here today,

we'd love to send one of your kids or grandkids to one of our conferences, be it at the Reagan Ranch out in California, the Ronald Reagan Boy at home in Dixon in Virginia or Washington, or even some of our regional conferences, like one that sounds pretty nice these days in Orlando, Wisconsin, excuse me, in Orlando, Florida, which is coming up in February. We do conferences. We have the largest conservative lecture series in the nation, helping out students on some 2,000 campuses. And then we broadcast this. So YAF TV on YouTube now has 1.6 million subscribers. And last year we surpassed 1.2 billion views with great names like Ben Shapiro and many others out there talking about those very conservative principles. We're not exclusively a Reagan institution, but we very much are proud to be aligned with them, not just because of those

historic presidential properties, but because we talk, we're not political, we're a non-profit, but certainly right of center. And we talk about things that Reagan cared about, the free enterprise, individual liberties, strong national defense, traditional American values are so important. And you're right. There's a lot of folks out there who think, you know, buy into Bernie Sanders, free everything. We like to say we're for free things as well. We're for free enterprise, freedom of religion, freedom of association, most importantly, freedom. And I think, you know, for young people, the bad rub that this generation gets is that, you know, they're all crazy. They're all radicals. They all buy into this. But I tell them there's nothing wrong with young voters. I'm not afraid of them. I'm afraid of

young voters who only hear one side of the story. And sadly, on too many campuses, they're only hearing one side of the story. If given a chance, I'll give you a quick example of that. And sadly, on too many campuses, they're only hearing one side of the story. If given a chance, I'll give you a quick example of that. So Stanford, one of the places I spoke at right before COVID a few years ago, I was not present at time. I was just a speaker there. But YAF, YF, had organized the event with the College Republicans on campus. I came and spoke, was used to some protesters because I had many at my own state, but it was a great event, great Q&A, great opportunity to engage with the students. But of the three students who organized, two of the three very normal backgrounds, but one said,

oh, both my parents are Democrats, but I'm a conservative. And it was because he'd been exposed to conservative thoughts in high school. He was one of the rare few that got that. And when he got to Stanford, he was a full-blooded conservative. He understood that true freedom and opportunity don't come from the clumsy hand of the government. They come from empowering people through the dignity that comes from hard work. And that's a great story. But what makes it really powerful, you guys appreciate, John's mother just happens to be susan rice so john rice cameron is a full-blooded conservative he's now graduated works in finance but to me he's a great conservative he is that he went straight to wall street right yeah and that's great stories like that are great the job that we have and i'm sure the yAF is conscious of this, is changing a culture that is now just sort of automatically leans left in its language and its attitudes and its positions and the rest of it.

And that's a big job. I mean, again, I mentioned the words that are marching behind you, the long game. not just putting people in finance, but putting people in positions where they're able to shape and inform the culture in a way that is more, that is friendlier to freedom. Let's just put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Part of our long game plan, knowing the left has done this for decades, it was enhanced with Saul Linsky's efforts, you know, the march through higher education. These days, I argue, if you shut down a college campus, it would do more to stop the spread of communism than that of COVID. But it is one of those where higher education, we've got programs to help the few, but there are some, not just conservative professors and educators, even in 12th and senior, dealing with high school and middle school students.

There's not only conservative educators, there's many that are just quietly out there trying to be objective. And so providing support to them is part of our long-game proposal. We have a journalism center that tries to teach fact-based, objective, truth-seeking journalism. That's good. Let me stop you right there. That's the thing, the journalism part. Because the language matters, and the crop of journalists that is coming in today if you survey them you will find that they are opposed to the idea of objectivity because objectivity treats both sides as if they're the same you know uh that is critical and you know newspapers where i work i'm here at the star tribune um we aren't exactly the most going concern. But when it comes to online journalism and when people get on the internet, I would say don't concentrate on putting people in the newspapers. Concentrate on putting people into positions where their TikToks can get

to kids, because that's going to be the more effective information distribution platform in the future than the old dead you know, dead tree newspaper. Absolutely. In fact, most of our placements now increasingly are on digital media outlets, and it's why we put such a focus on our YouTube channels, on broadcasting our lectures and our conferences, and really perfecting a form. I give credit to Ben Shapiro for doing this. When he speaks on a campus for us, about half of his time or more is taking questions. And of that, he allows anyone who disagrees with him to raise their hand and go to the front of the line. Why that's powerful is, one, it's just good TV or good YouTube in this case

because of that engagement. But the other part is both in person, but particularly online, I believe this generation more than anything, it's two key things. They like authenticity with that kind of exchange does not pre-packaged format, but real live interaction, friction. But then and Ben and others speak for us do this well, like Reagan would have just, you know, polite, but simple and aggressive replies, explaining the truth, the counter to the radical nonsense they've been hearing on campus. So authenticity is part of it. The other part is fairness. The left does a good job of commandeering that, but as conservatives, we should embrace the concept of fairness.

I don't care what you look like, where you come from. I don't care whether you're black or white, rich or poor, young or old. I don't care whether you were born in America or you legally came here from somewhere else. I want everyone to have the same freedoms and same opportunities that were passed on to me by prior generations. We talk about those core things, not only to Americans in general, but even young people. They get into that. They're not hearing that. And we've got to espouse that, as you said, on formats like TikTok and YouTube and others, which are really, at least for this generation, the places they're getting their information. Yeah, I mean, Governor, I think that's a really powerful point.

I mean, universities used to be a place you went to to hear ideas and arguments you had never heard before. Like you went to the college and you came back and your head was all turned around and you were filled with ideas. And now you go to college to never hear ideas that might challenge the way you think so i guess my question is i mean whenever i'm talking about especially educate institutions in general with conservatives there's really two camps there's one that says we got to go in and reform we got to go in reform right that you know to go in and reform, right? That, you know, people argue, even in the media right now, well, you know what? The LA Times wouldn't be in such trouble if they had a few conservatives writing for it, right? It wasn't such a monoculture. And the other part, the other half of that conservative conversation is always, to hell with them. To hell with Harvard,

Princeton, Yale. To hell with the LA Times. Let them sink. Let them die. We've got to build our own. What side are you on? I'm a missionary. I believe the missionary mindset in this movement that we're so under attack, not only in higher ed, in social media and traditional media outlets, that we have to have the mindset of a missionary that we're going to go out and spread the word. We've got the truth on our side. We shouldn't be afraid to go anywhere and everywhere. It's why, you know, we fought a lawsuit and won at the University of California, Berkeley. It's why we're in the Ivy League schools or the University of Wisconsin-Madison or anywhere else out there. We'll fight in every campus anywhere across the nation. We have YAF chapters, for example, at Hillsdale or Liberty or other places like that. God bless them.

That's more about. Really? But I need, you know, I need a voice in all these more radicalized campuses as well as, you know, in places like TikTok. I'm not personally on TikTok. I think there's real problems with the CCP and connection to TikTok. But YAF has got a voice on tiktok because we're going to go where they're at and until there are young people out there that haven't heard the truth or that we've all we covered them all well well then maybe we can retreat but right now

our only chance for success is to go on their territory and make breakthroughs we can't just sit back and do it all by speaking to the choir. I'm just sorry. I kept thinking about the YAF chapter at Hillsdale. That must be the easiest post ever. It's like being one of those Mormon missionaries. You get assigned to Salt Lake City. You say, oh, okay, we can kind of take it easy here. I know Peter wants to jump in before I get. How tough is it?

Or I guess I should say the other way around. I should say, how brave are they right now? 2024 college campus, young American freedom member. What are they looking at? How tough is it going to be for them? Oh, the abuse, the pushback. We were just talking to a massive hall full of them earlier, and they're just so inspiring because they're so courageous. I was talking to Jasmine Jordan, who heads up the chapter University of Iowa. When she brought a speaker on this past semester, they've had multiple speakers. But she brought someone in, and the left was so unhinged that they put out 30,000 marbles on the steps that go into this auditorium.

Oh, you're kidding. I said it's proof positive the left has lost their marbles. But it's just, you know, these are the things they do. It's the hatred, the pushback. You know, it doesn't matter what they're talking about. It's all the same tactics. You're racist, you're sexist, you're transphobic, you're whatever. Jasmine's a good example.

She's been called a white supremacist. Jasmine's a black woman. I mean, it's just it's incredible the stuff that they push back on. But it's part of the reason why we have these conferences isn't that we're necessarily converting kids at these to think more conservative ideas. It's that these students come and they realize, hey, I'm not alone. There actually are other people like me because the left's winning strategy. And it's true in elections as well is to make those of us who are conservative feel like we're alone uh thankfully uh there's more of us than you'd think

even on college campuses the university of wisconsin at madison it is a great public institution but uh every time there's a you see the electoral electoral map in Wisconsin, Madison is voting for the other side and I'm at, and it's publicly funded. I mean, as governor, you were the guy who was writing, signing the bills that funded that darned place. Um, I don't know, at some point, I'd like to hear you address the essay question, my life with the people who ran the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Man, to have the state government and the university centered in the same otherwise beautiful town was just a lot. But, well, I mean, if you want to take a couple, we now got Ron DeSantis, and as governor, he appointed Chris Ruffo to the board of trustees of a small college down in Florida, the state institution, and the trustees of the University

of Florida have just brought in Ben Sasse. I mean, it feels as though the slowest, most insulated market in the world, which is the market for higher education in the United States at prestigious institutions, such as the University of Wisconsin, is finally beginning to respond. Is it? Yeah, I think there's hope. But again, it's that long game that you see back there. It's not just a couple quick wins. You know, when I was governor, we put on regents that put in place enforceable measures to protect free speech, because like many campuses even today, you'll see heckler's vetoes where, you know, protesters can come up and shut down a conservative

speaker, or sometimes even with the blessing of the administration as we saw with the stanford law school issue but that's great but that's still not enough i i say we got to take it a step further if there's any regret i had as governor we did the free speech stuff we should have gone much much further i love pointing out on college campuses and with boards and trustees and regents that you know the the faculty and others will claim academic freedom but i i love to point out the counter that if you truly believe in diversity how about diversity of thought you know why is most arts and sciences programs and most of our Ivy League schools either have little or none, in some cases, of the people on their faculty who are even remotely right of style. That's the trouble with your institutions, with your foundation's name.

I hate to say it. Because to a lot of kids today, Americans, nationalistic freedom, freedom to do bad things. You need to call yourself the foundation of world citizen diversity. That will bring them in. When I was in college, a friend of mine had a Soviet dissident that he wanted everybody to know how bad the USSR was in the college. And of course, they didn't believe that it was the case. So he called it the nuclear freeze movement in the Soviet Union. And we packed the auditorium with people who were there eager to hear about what it was and of course the dissident got up and said

there is no nuclear freeze movement and will not be until russia is free and sat down to great you know to the applause of all the uh you know the dps so yeah we're at a point on campus where if you say young americans for freedom people recoil like a vampire to garlic because those concepts are questionable and sus. Good luck is all I can say from all of us. And our thanks as well for joining us. And let's Rob add one more thing with which he wanted to. Thank you. Thank you for coming and great work with the YAF.

Give us that website address again through which they can see all of your social media and your youtubes and the rest of it it is why yaf.org and yftv is our youtube and all the other stuff is right there right on our website in terms of social media either way i we're talking to we're talking to a former governor of considerable accomplishment who could himself be sitting on boards and working on Wall Street. YAF is a labor of love for Scott Walker. Actually, Governor, I sort of asked around when you took the job, and everybody said, no, no, no, no, this is full-time for him. This is really what he

is doing with his life. So, thank you. And also, in the future, you know, the Reagan Library is nice, Florida is nice, but so is Rhinelander in the summer. Have a conference there, you know, and I'd be happy to show up and speak, just a couple hours. Scott Walker, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Governor. Bye bye. Before we we went to the governor, we were talking about Texas and Rob did not have the chance to chime in on how he believes the the razor wire debate is going to shake itself out. Razor wire debate. I love that. Oh, yeah, that's good good way to put it. You know, I have no idea how it's going to shake out. I mean, I guess I understand the constitutional argument, right, that the federal government is supposed to guard the border of the federation of states that we have. And it's derelict in that, right? So I guess I understand the constitutional argument, if that's what it is. I just, I don't understand the constitutional argument, if that's what it is. I just, I don't understand the logic.

I just don't, you know, sometimes you try to think, you know, it's that old, you know, thing, the godfather and the godfather that Michael Corleone says to Tom Hagen. He goes, Dad, Pop always taught me to try to think the way the other side thinks. Think the way the people around you, your competitors, think. Like, I don't know what they're thinking in the Democratic Party. What are they thinking? I mean, it's funny because I remember years ago. This is how old I am. I remember years ago, a Colorado congressman named Tom Tancredo ran for president.

And he ran for president. This is maybe 90 2000 maybe 2004 but i think 2000 and it was on the illegal immigration issue that's what his big issue was immigration and i knew a lot of people in public and party then who said yeah he's right about that but like you know we do these focus groups in these polls and nobody cares there's just no interest in this this is just not something that people care about uh and then you know 2004 rolled around 2008 rolled around that's just not something people really care about and they would show you it's not something people care about 2012 rolled around same thing it's hard for me to believe that there's a person paying attention in politics on any side who thinks that this is something to ignore

i understand the idea of saber rattling if i was a democrat i'd be you know screaming bloody murder about it and then try to pass something this is sort of useless and toothless right um you know kind of like when republicans talk about the environment they don't really care about it but like pass something right but the idea of going to court so that you can you don't so that whoever is protecting the border must not do that seems um insane just baffling to me like i just don't get even the politics of it and um i i i uh i can't imagine that the you know the normal american person somewhere there in the middle there somewhere um doesn't look at this and think wait well what else are you supposed to be doing if not

protecting the borders of the united states this seems bananas to me. And I just don't know who's in that meeting. Like, is there anybody in that meeting in the clown car that the Biden administration sent? Well, wait, wait a minute. We can't actually, we got to do something. Okay. These aren't smart people. These aren't brilliant people who are crafting behind these doors, the eventual replacement of all Americans with people from the other part of the world. They're generally mediocre, banal minds who are looking at optics and saying, you know, I feel bad about the fact that there's razor wire and you could have some family that just wants to improve their lot in life and the kids get their dress stuck on the razor wire. That's horrible. It shouldn't happen.

I know somebody who was as rock-ribbed and conservative as they come down in Arizona, who was driving around and saw a whole bunch of people, families, whatnot, standing on a corner looking for jobs or hands out or the rest of it. And she just said, you know, oh, I feel so bad. We should just let them all in. And she's as, you know, as hardcore conservative. But at that moment, there was a swelling in the breast of fellow feeling and empathy for these people. And how can we not? How can we not? We've got so much. It's so unfair. And so that's, I swear that's what motivates a lot of empathy for these people, and how can we not? How can we not? We've got so much, it's so unfair. And so, that's, I swear that's what motivates a lot of these people. At the same time, you may ask,

what are they thinking when they have judges who will say, well, you know what, I know it's your seventh attempt for carjacking with a pistol, and you're a felon, but I'm going to give you one more chance. What are they thinking? They're thinking that the empathy and the realization of what these people have been through and disparities and equities and the rest of it.

It's not a smart, calculated gamble. I think that they're acting with their hearts in the stupidest possible way. Because the end result is what you see now in Chicago and in New York, where you have places that are full hotels bursting to the gunwales with all of these illegal scooters out front. The guys are door dashing here. I mean, you know about this, Rob, right? And the money that has to be spent. So we're going to get to the point eventually where the people who are citizens of these cities will say, wait a minute, hold on.

You've got to house all these people. You're going to actually, they're going to build housing at some point to house the people who are not citizens. And in order order to do so they will take money from the people who live in those cities and give it to them for because because because of the wonderful things yeah right it's such a bananas thing and you have that i mean in new york city it was like this uh this electric moment when people saw for they saw the actual choice being made we're going to close a school to house illegal immigrants it's such a bizarrely stark choice it's like if you if you had said to somebody you know five years ago 10 years ago 20 years ago this is what's going to happen they'd

say oh come on come on i know i mean you know you guys and your crazy fantasies isn't that gonna happen and it did and the and but what's strange to me also is this this weird misunderstanding of the way look i mean i think we are the most generous i mean i did a show on it's on fox nation it's called um six uh history of the world in six classes by the way it's great you should go look at it it's really a lot of fun. The host was Dan Aykroyd. Dan Aykroyd, famous comedian guy. He's Canadian.

We talked about their couple history of the world, six classes, and six kind of drinks. Beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, soda. The soda part was essentially no vodka yeah yeah right okay okay got it and he said um he said something like you know i think he was he was uh we were toasting at the end of the show he goes said and we have to raise a glass

to um to united states of america good for him the most generous nation on earth he said a couple times canadian right um and that is true it is absolutely true and of course the other the other guy said it's jim belushi somebody who else was like we're nodding like you know we rarely hear that but it's true so i i guess i agree with you there probably are some people who look at those hordes on the border and think oh you know what do we do but there's still got to be a process right it's still got to be a process, right? There's still got to be a procedure. You still have to have some kind of, like, you know, crowd control, which they don't have,

a policy that's clearly identified, which they don't have. And it just seems to me that, like, look, I understand that Biden is in earlier, mid, or late stages of dementia but right that doesn't mean everybody else gets to be that way like somebody's got to be you know driving driving the bus here and to not even show an interest in busy work seems to me crazy yeah the person driving the bus is actually not a citizen because we're giving them licenses now peter you wanted to say something no no i mean all this is absolutely fascinating to me i mean even if you kind of i'd be very happy to explode and be angry and i can do that because sort of participate in the actual pop participate in the politics of this thing but if i take a step or two back it really is just fascinating because it

raises two questions rob has already raised one of them. Well, actually, Rob has implicitly raised both of them, but who is making the decisions? We know that Joe Biden, throughout his political life, which I believe has ended, he's just not in charge. He's spending three-day weekends at home in Delaware to rest up and who knows what kind of transfer, I don't know, but he's not in charge. And we know he's not in charge because throughout his career, he understood that he had to champion the ordinary working Democrat, exactly the kinds of people that Scott Walker was talking about in Milwaukee. When Joe Biden was sentient, he understood that was his base. And those people are as upset about open borders as we are.

So there's some, the people around him, somebody around him has made a political calculation that it is less damaging to his reelection prospects to leave the borders open than it would be to begin to close them. And that is because they have a sophisticated or think they have a sophisticated understanding of their supporters, and their supporters include the Squad, AOC, Rashid, whatever her name is, and a hard, we call it the the progressive left it's actually a very hard left that really does want open borders and they have decided they've made a political calculation that as messy as this is they need that piece of their base that's the first thing

and and i can understand the department of justice you get those lawyers over there they get a state acting in defiance and they feel they can't help themselves they got to go to court against it but here's so here's my my next question which i put to you two guys i can't think of us of a bigger story in the country right now than this story you have a governor of what is texas the second most populous state in the country now, engaging in an act of open defiance against the President of the United States. You have the governors of 24, maybe up to 25 other states signing statements in support of him. You have this thing headed to the courts. It's the most politically explosive issue immigration and i have been scrolling down the site of the new york times online at this hour not a single word about it right one they

are pretending it doesn't exist or they're making an editorial judgment in the newsroom it's not news that's what I can sort of understand. Somebody around Biden, I can sort of understand the political, I think they're wrong about the political calculations, but I think I understand the political calculations. I do not understand the journalistic decision here. Well, I have two possibilities here. One is I don't understand the political calculation. For some reason, I'm more nervous, or I get more disquieted when people, not when people espouse ideas or politics or policies different from mine, but when people in politics are bad at politics. It's like I kind of want the police to at least give me some lip mean yeah yeah um but i think what they want i think it's what happens when you're a you're a bad teacher or headmaster and you see rule breaking going on and you can't do

anything to stop it so you look away you got to look away from what the governor's doing because you can't stop it because even people who disagree with the gut with the governor of texas you end up saying things well on a constitutional level it's probably not a good idea which is not a full throat it's not the same thing as saying open the borders right and i feel like the probably what's going to happen the smart move i mean maybe they'll do it politically for the biden administration to get out of this is simply to ignore it because you cannot stop it and if you try to stop it all you'll do is remind people that you have a but you have one national leader who has a border policy which is border security and you have another national leader a federal leader who has

no policy that he will articulate except let chaos reign and um that is not a winning formula um and i think what they want to do is they kind of want to you know shrug and dance and tap dance their way through this problem and hope that we all move on to something else but the governor of texas to his great credit is not letting him do that and he's going to probably his argument is you want you want me to stop doing this come and stop me come and stop me i mean i think you've got the governor of texas saying come and stop me although he's doing it in a more elegant i mean i have been watching him on television. I think Greg Abbott is – he sounds in control. He sounds calm.

He sounds rational. His statement was constitutionally reasoned. He's got 25 other governors supporting him. That's happening on the southern border of Texas. Up north, we have the mayor of New York saying to the Biden administration, help, I can't handle this. We've got the mayor of Chicago making noises that there are troubles in Chicago. But you have the democratically elected mayor of New York, an African-American man, saying, help, I can't handle this. And then you've got Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives,

saying, I don't know what they're cooking up over in the Senate, but if it comes to our chamber and it doesn't address the wall, we will, excuse me, doesn't address the border in some really serious way, we will not pass it. And that means you don't get your aid for Ukraine and you don't get your aid for Ukraine and you don't get your aid for Israel. Now, there are good questions about whether that's the right way to go. But this thing, I've never seen, can I say never? Well, not that I can remember at the moment anyway, seen an issue teed up in this way where the two sides are so stark in every regard, north, south, dramatic images at the border, New York Times refusing to acknowledge that it's even taking place. What? Nothing to

see here. Move along, move along. It's teed up across the country. And into this strides the figure, the beloved to Rob Long figure of Donald J. Trump saying, I want a wall and you want open borders. That's a pretty simple message. And it's a pretty powerful one. these guys don't even understand how to how the game is these guys whoever is around biden they have no idea i don't know i mean i'm almost willing to say it's because they're so coddled they're such members of the the elite that they've been back and forth to wall street they have no idea what's happening in the rest of the country they don't even know it'll be interesting to see how it'll be interesting to see how donald trump builds a wall, because I think he had four years before to sort of craft how he was going to do it. Didn't quite get around to it there, though. So maybe this time he'll do a little bit more out of the gate. Actually, to tell you the truth, I don't believe he'll do any more in the second term than he did in the first.

Right. I agree. This is revenge tour. To hear Scott Walker talk about how he fights for, and he's a fighter. I don't want to end the, no, I just don't want to end the podcast on that sort of a divisive note. I really don't. I am good for him. And I hope somebody talks to him about the background that he uses when he's doing those video calls because the the top of the capitol was coming up in this point behind him and it almost made him look like a cone head to go back to the dan akroyd thing but he's not from france he's from wisconsin anyway we

thank him for being along and i would like to note that rob long who was um calling him governor the whole time i thought we were against the sort of permanent honorifics. Are we not? I am, but you know, I like him, so I get it. It's all completely... Well, Rob is headed to Divinity School, and he's laying the predicate for forcing us to refer to him as the Reverend Doctor.

The Reverend Doctor. You think I'm insufferable now. Just wait. Okay. All right. St. Anselm in the making.

We'll talk to you then. Listen, everybody go, listen, go, go to ricochet.com. Check the link out for Bob, for Rob's new show.

I'm going to watch it starting at lunch. I forgot about it and I can't wait. And also while you're there, join Ricochet and you get access to the member feed, which is just so much fun. And also, we'll see you at the diner later coming up this week and all the other places in the Ricochet Audio Network. And that about wraps it up. Gentlemen, it's been fun, and we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0.

Next week, fellas. Next week. Ricochet. Join the conversation.