TRIGGERnometry - Meet the Man Behind Project 2025 - Kevin Roberts

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Kevin Roberts is an American historian and political strategist who serves as the president of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. SPONSOR. Augusta Precious Metals: Protect Your Retirement with Physical Gold. Rated #1. Click to learn more: https://bit.ly/triggergold SPONSOR: Manscaped. Get 20% Off PLUS Free Shipping with the code TRIGGER at https://manscaped.com SPONSOR 👉 Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast for daily breakdowns of U.S. politics - wherever you get your podcasts. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Introduction 06:25 How Do You Prevent Throwing The Baby Out With The Bath Water? 12:36 What Is Natural Law? 16:12 Making The Federal Government Less Powerful 24:56 The Restoration Of The American Dream 34:03 The Radicalisation Of Young Men 40:31 How Will Trump Bring Back Industry? 49:15 January 6th 50:03 Immigration 59:02 The Differences Between Project 2025 And The Trump Administration 01:02:06 Deportations And Due Process 01:08:51 What's The Greatest Challenge For Heritage And The Trump Administration? 01:10:22 Effect Of Tariffs 01:11:44 The Challenges For Trump 01:00:00 What's The Thing We're Not Talking About That We Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the election. What are the key divergences between the Trump administration now and where you'd like it to be? I'm pausing because there really is very little, if anything. The thing I'm most excited about, it's the greatest measure of success for this administration, the restoration of the American dream. As a Christian, that must worry you as well. It doesn't. What should worry me?

Are you worried that people are getting wrongly deported from this country and held in maximum security? No, I haven't seen any evidence that any of that crew was wrongly deported. We're in the middle of the Second American Revolution, and it will be bloodless if the left allows it to be. The right window treatments change everything, your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000. five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install,

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with code podcast at checkout. That's time number four, learning.com. Start today with month-to-month access and no long-term commitment. Dr. Kevin Roberts, thank you so much for coming on. Man, that's an honor to be here. Thanks. Thanks for having us at the Heritage Foundation. That's kind of what we want to talk with you about,

because the Heritage Foundation, obviously, well-known in America in conservative circles, not well-known internationally, particularly, until a few weeks before the last election, at which point Project 2025 became a huge international story, as this terrible dark thing that was happening in the background of Donald Trump's election campaign, he distanced themselves from it. But you and your team are the people behind that policy document, 900 pages. And what we want to do is actually just find out what it is that you guys want. What's your agenda? What is the objective with the Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation more broadly?

Our agenda behind everything that we do is to revitalize self-governance. first and foremost for Americans, but also for everyone in the world, right? We know that every human is imprinted with freedom and self-governance. And so to cut to it, we're proud of our work with Project 2025. We understood, as I told the president at the time, that that had become unfairly sort of a political albatross that he needed to distance himself from, which was also honest because our project transcends any particular presidential campaign. But what President Trump is trying to achieve and what we were trying to achieve with Project 2025 is the same thing. And that is the dismantling of the administrative state. And so during the political season, when the other side, the radical left, had nothing that they could run on, they were grasping for straws, ultimately, even politically, turning that into an out-trost didn't work. President Trump won. Here we are sitting here. Heritage is flourishing. The 109 other groups that were part of it are flourishing. Why? Because President Trump and Vice President fans have the courage. They've got the spine to actually implement this idea that you can dismantle

the administrative state, not just for merely saving money, but to give the American people their rights back. And it's a glorious time to be in the United States. Well, yeah, you look excited. You look excited. I suppose the question that I think represents the fair concern of people on the center and the center left about that kind of worldview is, like, I'm all for dismantling the administrative state. I think the bureaucracies in Western countries have become so bloated, so unaccountable, that that's a necessary thing. I think that the fear that people, have is that it's not a project about dismantling the administrative state, but rather wielding it for your own purposes. That's the concern that people have. Is there any truth to this that you

would quite like to use the power of the state to implement the things that you care about? Not really. I'll be clear. We pride ourselves in heritage and not evading questions, so the not really is not an evasion. The two things. The first is the real impetus for Project 2025, really for the work that we've done since 1980 and advising presidents on policies and personnel, is to dismantle for the sake of power. But the second thing is, if I were to steal man the argument of thoughtful people on the center left, maybe I could understand the concern that it also would lead to a particular conservative administration wielding the power of the state. But if we were to agree to that at Heritage, it would be with this proviso that happened

within the moral and legal limits of the president's authority. What's unusual is that we finally have a president who's willing to do that. We finally have a group of conservative governors, like Ron DeSantis, who are willing to do that. And for our friends on the center left, they haven't seen that. And so what's fair about that concern isn't really the substance itself, as much as the contrast that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are in actually using power, that they properly have. And why are you so against big government? Because this is something that gets spoken about again and again,

particularly in right-wing circles. What is it about big government that you think needs to be dismantled? The history shows, certainly in the United States, I think across the world, that the larger government becomes, the more power that it accrues to itself and centralizes, the less freedom and self-governance people have. I think it's really important to make a distinction.

and I often make this distinction here in the United States that heritage is a conservative, not a libertarian entity, which is to say, to be just a little sarcastic about our libertarian friends, we're not anti-government, we want government to exist, we understand that it serves a role. In other words, government needs to be right-sized from our vantage point. The United States federal government,

when President Trump took office, had nearly two and a half million federal employees. It's the largest it's ever been. It's the most expensive it's ever been. You also have the benefit, by the way, of saving money when you reduce the size of government. But the real reason to do so is because government is doing the job

that individuals and mediating institutions of civil society ought to be doing. But the other thing is legally, constitutionally, within our system, this unofficial fourth branch of government, the administrative state through the executive branch, is actually doing the function that Congress has, which is to make laws. So our biggest problem with centralized government,

in addition to taking some of the power away from the people, is that it quite literally is doing rulemaking. It is doing lawmaking. That's properly the role of the United States Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats, to be fair, are responsible for giving away this power from Congress to the executive branch. What President Trump is doing,

what we've been working on at Heritage, is to actually offer a corrective to what has been a 60, 70-year project of doing the work of the people. And, Kevin, how do you ensure that you don't throw the baby out with a bathwater because it's very easy to be evangelical about this and go small government slash this, slash this. But we all know that actually there are government departments that do a lot of good and are in fact highly necessary.

The private sector simply can't do it. There are a few. So let's keep in mind that there's a hell of a lot more bathwater than there is baby. And we've only gotten started with getting rid of all of the excesses. The federal government could probably be half its size. probably smaller, but to be fair to your very fair question, sometimes what people on the center or center left will say, well, what about the scientists? What about the people who are really academically credentialed and they're doing important research? It speaks to the fair point about this

regarding competence. Well, we want competent people in government. So while there might be a difference of opinion about how many departments need to exist, those that the American people agree ought to continue to exist, ought to have very competent people. They ought to have experts. It's just that there needs to be a lot fewer of them. And so what we see the current administration doing is actually eliminating a lot of positions. They might be filled with very good people, but those particular positions in a variety of departments, we talk about the education department, for example, simply should not be done by a bureaucrat in Washington. So let me just posit that every one of those people who's done those jobs is a good person. I'm actually very happy to posit that. We wish them no ill.

It's not appropriate for the federal government to assess the American people attacks, take that money, bring it to Washington, and then send it back to the states and local governments, and then tell us that somehow they're going to improve education. So much so that after spending trillions of dollars on the education department since its creation in 1979, all we have to show for it, is that 25% of the money that the education department collects goes to the classroom. And therefore, at best, at best, all the education department has done is keep American education mediocre. If you take that approach and you go department by department, even in situations where you're not eliminating the entire department, which is what the Trump administration wants

to do with education, you're eliminating certain agencies. I think over four, five, 10 years that you're going to right-size this government. I was going to say, look, when it comes to the Department of Education, I was a teacher for 12 years, so I know a little bit about it, obviously not in the American system, but you have a very real problem in this country. You have a 79% literacy rate. The UK, by comparison, has a 99%.

And when you consider that it's the richest country in the world, there is something desperately wrong going on. It's a real travesty. I'm a fifth-generation teacher, and as I tell people, I only went to public schools, a government-funded schools. As a conservative, I think it's the most noble promise of the American, which is that in spite of all of the pluralism in this country, diversity of every kind,

we guarantee, or at least make the promise, that every American infant when he or she is born is going to have access to what should be the finest education in the world. We're not delivering on that promise. And we're not delivering on that promise because we have an outdated system. And I think that's really moving even from the education department specifically, but using it as an instructive example, that's really what the Trump administration is trying to do. which is to say this federal government, which maybe serve the people well in the 1970s or 80s, even if you agree with that, it really does have to be updated into the 21st century.

And I think that the more time goes on when the American people see that education is likely to improve as a result of these reforms, that the sky isn't going to fall because you're going to eliminate a certain program in another department, and that these people who've been working for the federal government, find jobs in private industry, the more the American people will realize the truth of that statement. And Kevin, to what extent is everything you're doing infused with the religious dimension? Because the one thing we become aware more and more of as we spend more time is how vast the chasmism on that issue between Europe and America, everything here can be traced back to religion, it feels like to us. There's only many, many, many things.

Well, everything in life can. Of course you would say that. But in terms of the politics of it, you know, what is the religious element of your agenda here at the Heuser Foundation? In a strictly political sense, zero. That is to say, in terms of the policies that are being formulated, the legal briefs that we help with, the laws that we help draft, these are secular entities. But the larger points, sort of the little bit of jesting that we just had, is that, and as Americans, we understand. understand this well, for whatever reason, the context in which we operate is because of our understanding of freedom, that God imprinted on each of our souls that we desire to be free. The beautiful thing about the United States, with its religious pluralism, is that we prioritize no particular religious tradition over another. But I think maybe what is one of the big

contrasts between the United States and Europe broadly is that we're very comfortable speaking about faith in religion and public. And perhaps that's why that leads to some people drawing the conclusion that someone working on politics and policy who also is very comfortable talking about faith must therefore have a religious agenda, like a precise religious agenda. See, it's interesting point, but I think that's true.

I think the reason that it comes across that way is many issues that are settled issues in Europe are highly contested here. Such as. Such as abortion, such as the criminalization of porn. which I understand is one of the items on Project 2025, right? That's not really a debate we're having in Europe in anything like the same way. And that's because there's a very strong Christian religious right here,

which sees those issues as critical, and because there's a very strong non-religious left that takes those issues in the opposite direction to another extreme, some of us would argue. So I guess what I'm asking is, to what extent are some of the policies like on abortion, like on pornography, etc. are driven by that as opposed to a kind of, you know, just brought a political view. Respectfully, you're making a logical assertion that isn't based on facts. Oh, sure. Tell me more. Very respectfully. On abortion and on criminalizing access to porn

for people under 18, both of those claims are being made from natural law. So as long as we can agree that natural law exists. And although some people on the radical left say that that's sort of a religious trope, it's not philosophically. Sorry, sorry to interrupt. I don't understand the term natural law. The understanding that we all have as human beings that certain things are right and certain things are wrong without necessarily having to step into a church for some pastor to tell you. Just a very basic understanding. And so just to use the example on the work that we're doing with other organizations to eliminate the access to pornography by state legislatures through their action. That is because of sociological research that shows the harm to young people when they have

access to pornography. Can I also make an argument based on Christianity? Sure. But my point is that that work that we're doing, our motivation to do that work, doesn't originate with some Christian agenda we have in politics. And you think it's bad based on the evidence, as you're right. That is correct. And the same thing can be said for abortion, although certainly one of the reasons that abortion is a controversy in the United States is because of the vibrancy of many people of faith who are also willing to be active in politics.

I don't deny that point. What I'm trying to clarify is that it doesn't necessarily follow that because the United States has a bunch of Christians, that therefore, when they're working on abortion or they're working on age verification, for pornography that it's exclusively because of their faith. There is great sociological evidence on both of those cases that shows that we ought to be working on. Do you have at least $50,000 in your 401k or another retirement account? If so, listen up.

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to impose your view of those issues among others on their entire country. as by the way they have done for some time. Well, that would be inaccurate. At Heritage, in fact, our big projects in the long term, if we're revitalizing self-governance, is to make the federal government a lot less powerful, to really remember and revitalize the tradition of federalism in this country.

And so the federal government needs to be doing a lot fewer things than it's been doing, and states need to do that. There are exceptions to that, sure. I mean, goes back to your earlier question about, what's the proper role in scope of the government, how many of these agencies need to exist. But ultimately, a success here in Washington would be not just limiting the size of the federal government, but sending so much of those roles back to state legislation.

Sure, but I guess I think you know what I'm getting at, or maybe I'm not communicating clearly. I think I'm just acting as a kind of like translator for the two big tribes in America as best I can, perhaps, or maybe. And I'm trying not to be obtuse. Yes. I know you're not. I'm really grateful for that. What I'm really getting at is the left, these are generalizations, but the left says abortion is a human right because it's about women's autonomy, among other reasons. Therefore, at the federal level, we must make sure

that it's available everywhere. And that got recently overturned and it got sent back to the States. Their fear is, you want to do the opposite of that, which is come in and say, human life is a human right. Therefore, at the federal level, we must crack down this. So we're not going to tolerate California having the abortion laws that it has. We're going to tell them how to live their lives. That's the concern. And is that a legitimate concern for people, do you think? I think philosophically, it's a fair representation. And what I mean by that is two parts of this. The first is what's feasible in politics right now is that states will do what you just described with abortion. And we believe that states should be doing that. It's very clear from the

Dobbs decision that states should be doing that. The second part is that we're not going to become a fully pro-life country, which to be really emphatic about, we do aspire to be in the United States. We aspire to a country where there are no abortions. That's not going to happen because of political action or policy action. We believe that what's the solution to that is so far upstream of politics and policy. It's in our personal decisions, the culture more broadly, perhaps from a revitalization of religion. It's just so separate from the political moment right now that I really mean it when I say that that really shouldn't be a concern. I mean, the feasibility of doing that at the federal level right now is literally zero.

It can be true that that's the situation, and it can also be true that those of us who would like to end abortion recognize this may be a hundred-year problem. for us to reach hearts and minds. And for Americans to wake up one day and say that just individually, this isn't something that we want to do. We do aspire to that, but it's separate from the political square. And just correct me if I'm wrong, one of the policies of the Heritage Foundation is that you want abortion capped at three-month term. So you don't want it going to nine months, for example, which I believe is in New York and L.A. and California. That's correct. And so if to talk about what we think is feasible in the policy moment at the state level, the so-called 15-week protection or limit is something that I think a lot of states can pass. At Heritage, we would want that to be even more restrictive because keep in mind, we do believe that that life begins at conception. But probably for the next five or 10 years, that 15-week limit is what we're going to be dealing.

Okay. What would you mean by more restrictive, Kevin? Ideally, we would think that we would make it six weeks. Six weeks? Like the bill in Florida. Okay, why six weeks? Because we believe that not only is that a human life, but actually that human being's life is viable outside the six weeks. The difference between six weeks and 15 weeks is millions of lives.

And so we want to protect as many lives as we can. And so we've been very supportive of the bill that was passed in Florida. Florida, a few other states, which are six-week bills. Okay. And there's also a drug that you want banned, and you want contraceptions banned that get transmitted via the post, or get sent via the post. Is that correct? We're very concerned about the abortion pills negative effects, health effects on women.

Okay. And so I would like to think that there would be people who are proponents of the right to abortion, who also recognize, if you look at the data, that the damaging effects by some women who use that are serious enough that there needs to be further review. Okay. So you think that there needs to be further review on it? We're opposed to the bill, but we think at the very least that there ought to be an intellectually honest conversation about the effects, the damaging effects on women who use it. Kevin, why do you think the left in this country is so passionate about protecting what they would call the right to have an abortion?

I think, with all due respect to people with whom I disagree, mean nothing personal to them, that there is this philosophical evolution of hyper-individualism in which you realize that representing their position best as I can, that your quote-unquote rights have nothing to do with the people you will bring into the world, your own children. And that has become at the same time that we've seen a decline in religiosity in the United States, especially among certain segments of people who are left of center. And I mean, all of this respectfully, although I disagree with them, not a coincidence. And so I think that therefore abortion or protecting abortion rights becomes almost a quasi-religion for some people on that side. And perhaps that's fine. I disagree with the

position, but that's why when we were talking earlier about what's feasible and not feasible politically or in terms of policy right now, I said that I think that it's important. Remember that fixing the abortion problem is going to be something so far upstream of the political square. This is something that will have to be a matter of hearts and minds for people. because it is such a deeply held position. It's very different than any other kind of public policy that I'm aware of. So this isn't something that's going to be imposed from the top down? That's infeasible right now.

What are you excited about? The administrative state, look, I don't know many people who are center, center, right, who are not excited about the dismantling of administrative state. Now, look, I think we saw it with the nuclear engineers, and, you know, there's going to be some things. It's going to be a bumpy road, and things will have to be corrected when things move this fast, that tends to happen. What about the nuclear engineers?

Nuclear engineers are something. There were people who were in charge of the nuclear codes that got sack, fired, and then they had to be rehired back. Is this not a real thing? It's possible. There's so much stuff flying around now. I don't know what to believe, really. Well, I'm not, you're certainly being honest in representing what you've read.

I'm just not sure that what you read is accurate. Okay. I think it's fair to say from everything we know about rapid change that happens at scale, that it's not always going to be universally exactly the way that you might want it to happen and mistakes will get made. Is that fair? Sort of like the creation of the education department, which actually has created a situation that in some schools in this country, zero students. Zero students are proficient in math and reading and forth. I will steal your argument even more for you.

I will say that when you're removing a campaign, cancerous tumor. Fair. You are also potentially able to do damage that you don't intend. Potentially. Right. And we know that that can happen. Right. So administrative state aside, what else are you excited about that is happening or is going to happen over the next three and a half years? The thing I'm most excited about. I mean, and I'm light years more excited about than even the administrative state. It's the greatest measure of success for this administration. The restoration of the American dream. And I know that maybe that sounds trite, maybe it sounds political. I really don't meet it either way.

I mean it just as an American citizen, as a husband and father of four kids. I was really concerned in the last year or two when Heritage was doing focus groups of people across the political spectrum, but especially people who were center or center left. We're trying to figure out not just how to speak with them about issues, you know, for the sake of political wins. much more importantly, because remember we're a think tank, trying to understand them. Why is it that abortion is so important to you? Why is it that other issues are? The most common threat was a depressing one, and it was that the American dream is dead. And liberal people is real quick.

Liberal people, conservative people, people in the center, black men, Hispanic women. For the most radical leftist person who hates what heritage does, I want them to believe the American dream is alive. And the reason is that it means that economic prosperity is possible. It means that education success is possible. Different people define that different ways. What's your definition of the American dream? I'll finish that thought if I may, and then I'll answer you that question. What Trump and Vance are doing with this pace of change is showing the American people that

it's possible, not just to right-size government, but that we can do that for the purpose of all of us or a majority of us waking up when we're not. day and saying the American dream is alive. We may still vote differently, but we're at least going to believe that it's alive. That's a good thing. It's healthy for civil society. I believe the American dream, to answer your question, is a belief that anything is possible in the greatest country in the world. Sorry. And anything is possible because of the opportunities created with government out of the way, but most importantly because civil society is healthy, because my neighbors who may have different political signs in their yards,

have no problem with me succeeding as a conservative, nor I for them as liberals, and that every American child can wake up and say, I have access to a great education. What I do with is up to me. I have access to create a business to be successful professionally, but that I also understand that I owe this country and, of all other countries, the United Kingdom, a great debt. And I want to pay that back. And look, what you say is enormously inspirational, and there's a part of me as a British person that feels deeply uncomfortable. That wasn't my intention.

You're up big tones. But when I hear the words, anything is possible, the cynic in me goes, really, what do you mean by that? I saw you twitch when I said. Yeah, I did. I did. I can't help it. You know, we don't have dreams in the United Kingdom. Well, we want to help you restore this.

I get your question. What I mean by that is that if someone takes initiative and whether through education or business, there's nothing in the system. There's nothing structurally that will stand in the way of that person's initiative and sustained work ethic allowing them to succeed. And in that situation, really anything is possible.

We've had presidents in this country. You think about Andrew Jackson, orphaned. He taught himself the law. He had no reason to ever expect that he would be president of the United States. Or there are modern examples of young men and women, for whatever reason, you'd think they have no reason to be aspirational, but they're going to be very successful. I understand outside the United States, this sounds like poppycock. But it is the heart of the American dream. I completely agree with you.

And one of the reasons that I'm actually genuinely worried about America, cards on the table, I love America, I love coming here, I always learn many things I love the American people. But I see as well that there's a sadness here because I walk around. And we are pretty decent salaries. And I'm walking around it and I'm going into supermarkets. I'm going into coffee shops. I'm going into sandwich stores.

And I'm thinking to myself, How does the average American afford this? This is insane the prices. Yeah, and what's interesting with your focusing on that, for most Americans, the American dream is rooted in economic prosperity. Absolutely. And that's why, in addition to what has been, I think a generation-long malaise among Americans, it's very sad that it, I think this concern really reached a fever pitch around the presidential election of 2024 because of inflation. and the costs that you see going around. And the reality is that we haven't been able to fix that yet. I mean, I think Trump and Vance are well in their way. But if you are newly married and you're trying to buy a home, say, near where we're sitting in northern Virginia, it's highly unlikely you're going to be able to do that.

And so in that case, both spouses are college educated. They've got great jobs. Maybe they work on Capitol Hill. Heck, maybe they work in Heritage where we pay as much as we can. People make good salaries. They still can't save enough to make the requisite down payment on a mortgage that's going to have a higher interest rate.

And fixing that is essential for us restoring the American dream. And it's not going to be able to be done in just a few months. So how do you fix that is the question? Because to me, we can talk about abortion. We can talk about all these other things, pornography, which I completely agree with you, by the way. I don't think anybody under the age of 18 should be able to access it. To me, this is the key question.

for our times, not just for your society, but also for us in Europe and across the world. Yeah, I agree entirely. And I can tell you that that is President Trump's zealous focus. It's, you know, the other issues that come up, he almost, while he may agree or disagree, the focus is on what you just described because it's something that touches every one of us, regardless of what we think about age verification on porn or abortion. And so the way you fix it is start by doing what the Trump administration is doing, by beginning to cut it. the cost of government. Government spending isn't the sole factor in inflation, but it is a driving factor in it. And so this is a really important step. The second thing is that we have to understand

that so many of our public policies, and this is where Congress will come in, actually eliminate some of the factors that allow us to be more financially stable. We have six or seven different disincentives and our safety net programs toward being married. We know from politically objective, nonpartisan sociological research, that the way you achieve success, that's what my friend Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia, calls the success sequence, is to go to college, to get married, have children, and the research, the correlation between those steps,

and then being able to provide some money to afford home is really strong, but you've got to be able to start controlling some of the external costs that come from government. Yeah, in particular building new homes. Oh, it's vital. Yeah. And so what is Trump, going to do with that? Well, the single most important

thing that he can do, the lever that's most powerful that he firmly has both hands on is the expensive government. Now, as it relates to starting new homes, we'll see what the Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Scott Turner, has in mind. At Heritage, we want as much of that to be from private enterprise

as possible, but I can tell you from, this sounds like an anecdotal example, but I think it's something that is endemic across the United States. when I was living and working in Austin, Texas, before I came to Heritage, we were trying to figure out at the think tank that I was leading then how we could begin to improve the homelessness problem. And to do so in a way that acknowledged that as a conservative's, proper role of government to help homeless people. But how can you start integrating into that potential solution,

private investment, so that some of these men and women, if they're able to, could get a part-time job and then a full-time job, or trying to put them on the success sequence cycle. What stood in the way of that, I was actually surprised to see was a rule created by housing and urban development where you couldn't do that, where those organizations, those nonprofit organizations, whether they were organizations of faith or not, simply couldn't have that role. Something as simple as that, which I understand could come from rulemaking change by the HUD secretary, could be really helpful. And then our, our theory of change it, heritage is, you go tell that story and then you try to scale it. Kevin, one of the concerns that I think a lot of people have across the West, and it's true in

America too, is that partly as a result of the death of what you guys call the American dream or upward mobility or whatever you want to call it, is that young men in particular becoming very radicalized. And so I think a lot of older conservatives think they're moving back to conservatism. And there is an extreme tinge to some of that. that's going on. Do you get a sense of that and do you have any thoughts on how that might be addressed? I think I'll follow your question, but what specifically would be an example of radicalized, just so I answer your question. So anecdotally speaking to a lot of younger people, they're less about small government. There is an anger and a punitive desire there that it's like, we have been

denied what we are owed. We have been denied the American dream and we're going to punish the people who denied it to us. Follow you entirely. Thank you. The, uh, That actually goes back to your earlier question that, as we were trying to steal man the argument of friends on the center left about conservatives being in power and using federal government, one of the concerns we have at Heritage is that our side not fall under the trap you just described. That is to say, if in fact, as we believe 100% of Heritage, that the motivation for the project of dismantling the administrative state is to right-size the federal government, that we remember that you're not. not right-sizing the federal government if you then, in turn, use it as a cudgel against the radical left. Secondly, if we're going to end the weaponization of the Department of Justice against those of us who are political conservatives, you don't end that by using it as a weapon against the radical left. It is a real dynamic inside the broader center-right movement

that there are some younger folks, not many, who are so frustrated with good reason that they want to figuratively, figuratively, burn it all down. I mean, that's the phrase, right? And so at Heritage, what we try to do, using data, hopefully using some persuasiveness, is show that actually you can begin restoring the American dream.

You can make the center-right policy project effective again, but you're going to need time. But it's a race against time, just to be really blunt. That's a race against time because these same, very thoughtful, normal, non-violent people who just say, let's, go, you know, take it out against politically, against our political opponents aren't living the American dream. They're having a hard time finding home. So I have great empathy for them,

but I also believe that that explains why President Trump is moving so quickly. Because he recognizes it's a desperate situation. For some people, they see it as a desperate situation. I'm really optimistic about all of this, though. And so acknowledging the reality, being candid about that, I mean as a way of saying, yes, we get it. And for the first time, some of these folks who are, you know, as you say, are radicalized. They're actually very normal people, are saying, okay, I like the pace that Trump is taking because I can see for the first time in my life, we're not sending tens of thousands of American soldiers to some far-flung empire-building place. We're actually focused on our domestic politics, and I think that's healthy.

Yeah, I think one of the things that actually will give more and more people belief in this administration is if they can fulfill Trump's promise of bringing back industry to the U.S. I think there is a good argument to make that's the single most important thing that would make people more hopeful. Yeah, because if you look at a lot of the problems that the U.S. is facing, it's like in our country of the U.K., it's deindustrialization. It's communities that were built around a factory, a plant, a mine, whatever it may be. that then subsequently closed due to most of the time globalization, and they had the literal heart ripped out of their community. I think it's really well said. It's the J.D. Vance story, right?

It's the story of so many millions of Americans and Brits. And it's also why immigration, particularly illegal immigration, but even immigration writ large has to be part, or reforming that, has to be part of this conversation. Because what these same very thoughtful fellow Americans are saying is, I don't even have access to the American dream in the community where I grew up because of these policies, because of globalization, and the response they've gotten, not just from the left, but also from the political right for two generations is, well, move. And what they're saying is we like our community. We want to see our community revitalized. And I think what J.D. Vance in particular has brought to the table is a reminder for all of us, myself included. We at Heritage Included. That's the appropriate approach to this. And it may not be that in every single one of those communities, we're going to be able to put policy and capital together and revitalize them. But just doing that to the heart of the excellent point that both of you are making is really important, not just politically, but also in reality. Look, grooming isn't just about looking good.

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Manscaped. Trim your chesticles with the besticles. They're still making a say that, aren't they? It's never worked once. Anyway, Manscaped. So how are you going to, how is Heritage going to make, that happen or support Trump's vision and helping that happen? Is it tariffs? Is it putting pressure on companies? Is it saying to companies come over here, you're going to get favorable tax discounts,

etc., etc.? A lot of factors there, but I'll key in on those that are most prominent in the news. Let's take tariffs, for example. Probably for most people to understand why a right of center public policy organization's initial response to tariffs would be friendly skepticism, because we can of age, this organization came of age, I as a conservative came of age at a time when tariff was a four-letter word. You think about the age of Reagan. But then what has happened is that we, through our research, we have come to understand, as President Trump has shown, that, in fact, we don't live in a free market. We would like to. That's an aspirational vision. But what I mean by that is Americans are paying far more in tariffs to other countries

than we have assessed on others. And so the bottom line is that we that one part of this is President Trump's emphasis on reciprocal tariffs, which we think is going to lead to private investment, reindustrializing more American communities. And then where there's a real national security concern, like with steel, we think there are huge opportunities there. And as conservatives, not libertarians at Heritage, we rather like that. We, as I remind people, part of the history of our movement isn't just Edmund Burke, but also Alexander Hamilton, our first Treasury Secretary. who's really the godfather of using tariffs in an appropriate way. And so to sum up here, I'm much more optimistic now than I was two or three years ago about the role of tariffs in this. Because two or three years ago, we were trying to figure out an heritage. Well, exactly what do you mean when you say that you're going to impose tariffs?

And in this case, in a very limited way, I think that the usage of them will be successful. And what do you think is going to happen with the left over the next few years? it seems like, first of all, Donald Trump is not hugely popular. He's just one, but he has a lot of popularity, but he's not hugely popular. But the Democrats, I mean, they're on the floor, right? Their brand is completely toxic.

We interviewed Charlemagne de Gardre recently, the most American name, by the way, for anybody. It's amazing. And, you know, he was talking about the fact that he voted for Kamala Harris, but the Democrat brand is terrible. They're losers, were his exact words, right? But the Democratic brand is so bad that it even makes the good candidates suck.

And why is it bad? Why has it got as bad as it has? Because they're losers. It's just that simple. They're losers. They lost. Like, they lost, and they lost. They didn't just lose an election.

They lost the people. They lost broad swaths of their base, you know, whether it's Latinos, whether it's, you know, black people. Like, you know, they lost a large part of their base. even white women. It's just like, yo, they lost a large part of their base because nobody's buying what it is that they're selling. And I think one of the biggest reasons for that

is simply because they don't understand what's going on with everyday working class people. We see people burning down Tesla's every now and again. So how is that going to develop? Do you think you're going to face an increasingly violent resistance or do you think they're going to regroup and start to see sense in terms of some of the things you're talking about? I think we'll see both, and I think that'll be chronological, so let me explain.

I've spent a lot of time not just thinking, but speaking about this. And in fact, last year said that we're in the middle of the Second American Revolution, and it will be bloodless if the left allows it to be. And they purposefully distorted that to make it sound as if I was calling for violence when quite the opposite, I was saying, no, our plans for dismantling the administrative state, reforming how government works, are so easy and not. nonviolent, but that's such a threat to their power that there would be some segments of the left, not all liberals for sure, but some segments of the left that would respond in violence. And that is

precisely what's happened. And so if you look at the destruction of Teslas, you look at some explicit calls for violence. One member of Congress in the last two weeks said, quote, unquote, we are at war. You see exactly what's happening. The radical left, and why I insist on using that term for some of the left of center movement in the United States, are the descendants of the Jacobins of the French Revolution. And this story for them will end only one way in a political sense, and that is they're going to at least call for more violence or disruption, whatever they want to call it.

But we're already seeing it, literally. Obviously, we all lament that. Having said that, that's going to become really unpopular, more unpopular than it is now, because they're going to draw the connection that, in fact, the more they are violent, they're going to lead to the popularity of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who are very normal guys restoring normalcy to the United States. And so at some point, I don't know that it will be for our

midterm elections in 2026. I don't even know if it's going to be in time for the presidential election of 2028. I think you're going to see a revitalization of the center left left of this country. I hesitate to give them political advice, but they need to find not just political candid, a standard bearer, but a group of those who could be governors, members of Congress, who talk about the American dream, about how their policies can lead to a revitalization of that, no talk about violence to state the obvious, and actually even very little talk about how, as they would put it, deplorable Donald Trump is, but more about the positive nature of their vision is sort of like one of my political heroes, who was on the political left, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

you go back if the left can go back to Moynihan who was thoughtful and winsome a lot of fun to be around they can find a man or woman who does that I think that they're back in business politically but the problem for them right now is that the real violent crowd which is a minority of them I want to be really clear it is a minority of them but they're getting all the news they're creating a lot of damage a lot of us who are political conservatives have to adjust our daily lives as a result that's going to get worse before it gets better it's a good point. And also, I don't think the left, and I could use this term broadly, either in my country or in your country, did enough to condemn the riots, the vandalism,

the abuse, the intimidation, and the bullying tactics. I couldn't agree more. And I, really, I have fewer and fewer really left of center of friends. I'm happy to be friends with them, but they don't like what I do for a living. But I say, I mention that, because I'm, really do mean this respectfully and in the spirit of civility, the more they can be focused on condemning what is nonsense. They're really quick to condemn nonsense on the right as we are at Heritage. That they apply that to the left, the sooner they will see political success. But I actually think their political situation, the number of seats they have in Congress, the number of governorships they control, will decrease until and unless they're willing to do that. The good

news, though, is the majority of left of center Americans are very peaceful, nonviolent people. They just need to be focused on that. And the policy vision they have, I might disagree with, but I would defend as much as anyone else their right to articulate. And you said you're quick to condemn the nonsense on the right. What is the nonsense on the right that needs condemning? Well, if there were violent protests on the right, we would condemn it at Heritage. So my point is that this is something that should be condemned in the spirit of civil. period. Anything else beyond that? Nothing else comes to mind. If there's something on your mind, I'm happy to answer the question. I'm just trying to think. I'm just making a general point that

there's a consistency in how we operate. Yes. Yeah. I guess what I'm asking is what is it that you do condemn? Well, the reason I said what I did is because it's so apparent that a hundred percent, very close to 100 percent of the violence we're seeing as a result of politics today is on the left. If there were some kooky person on the right, and note the singular there, this is how uncommon it is, who was making death threats on someone on the left, we would condemn that. It's really important to understand that it seems to be systemic on the left. Yes, I actually do agree with you on that. I guess the obvious question would be something like January 6th, which whether you think that was an insurrection, which I don't. It was not.

It was a riot, right? I wouldn't even go that far. So what would you say it was? I think doors opened and all but five or six of the people there were nonviolent. The knuckleheads who went beyond that needed to be put in prison. And I said that at the time. But it was not an insurrection or a riot. It actually was very peaceful.

Interesting. So if a bunch of leftist protesters entered the Capitol building, some of whom were violent, but the majority were not, would you... If everything were the same except that they were left, I would say exactly the same thing. the five or six who were knuckleheads who were instigating violence should be in prison, and those who are there peacefully should be treated as such. Fair enough. Okay.

Kevin, there's one thing that I really want to talk to you about, which is immigration, and that was a central component of Project 2025, and for good reason, because it was a central, it was one of the most important topics during the election. So what is your vision for immigration into this country? Because immigration has always been, like you said, a part of the American dream. There be a hell of a lot less immigration in the near term. We have the highest percentage of non-native-born people in the United States in our history, which is really saying something. That claim or desire that is to reduce immigration in the near term can be true, and it can also be true, as it is, that I and heritage are very pro-immigrant.

In fact, all of these folks are human persons. We're all equal in the eyes of God. Sorry for the religious references. I want to be on brand. But I do mean it, all kidding aside. It's very important to posit that. But we have not just a policy problem and not just an economic problem, which is the least of my concerns, we have a civil society problem. Where the very thing that causes someone, understandably, to want to move to the United States legally or illegally, is being undermined by not just the illegal immigration, but the sheer scale of immigration over the last.

four years. By that, this is what I mean, that there is a certain pace at which, a certain number of people any society can absorb and integrate into our society. I don't have to explain this to the two of you, you understand well. And so what we're saying at Heritage is let's take some interlude from this huge number, even of legal immigration, and let's be sure that we can assimilate and integrate honoring Native cultures. I'd be the first to argue for that. But also to be able to restore the American dream and address some of these other policy issues. Unless we do that, we're going to have a real, not just political, but I think social and cultural tenderbox here, that will constantly fester, sort of like a cancer on the American dream. And so ultimately,

if we had our druthers at Heritage, we would suspend the most immigration for a year or two, let this society absorb those folks who have come in. We're not going to be able to deport all of those who came here illegally, although I wish that we could. And once we get to that particular point, two years, five years down the road, we ought to have an immigration system that honors merit, that we don't have some lottery system that benefits first and foremost the American people because the immigrants who are coming in fill a skill set, a gap in the skill set that Americans otherwise would. And let's have an honest conversation about that. And then at that point, let's be sure that it's really easy to immigrate here, not necessarily for the sake of a whole

bunch of people coming in, but for the sake of someone who has the merit, who has been approved, can get here very quickly. It's, I find this conversation fascinating because I'm looking at the MAGA 2.0, and this is a talking point from MAGA, the first MAGA. But what is very interesting is this, this puts you in direct conflict with Elon Musk, and for one of a better way putting it, the tech right. So I get, my question is, how is, how is. Trump going to be able to navigate that? Because whilst Elon's clan might be smaller, they are no less

influential. Yeah, you're 100% right. I love Elon and my own new tech bros. It's been very interesting for me in a good way to get to know these guys. And I really respect them. But there's a political conflict there. Our vision for what needs to happen with immigration is broadly defined or generally speaking different than theirs. President Trump, I'm unsure about the details. to be honest, about how he's going to navigate it. But one thing I have learned about President Trump is that he's sort of the master navigator. And I think what we would recommend is that you take this step by step. And I think that everyone would agree that there needs to be a suspension, certainly in the numbers of immigrants who are coming here for the purpose of taking stock. The second thing

I would recommend is that we adopt more of a state-based immigration model where there are some countries, Australia and Canada, use a provincial system. Obviously, the federal government reigns supreme, but we can create room in federal policy for states. I'm thinking in particular now of California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, hugely dependent upon farm workers. And we revitalize the old Brissarro program of the 1950s and 60s, basically a guest worker program. There's a real racist part of that. We don't want to revitalize to state the obvious. But I think that's where, at least in the near-term and medium-term, there's not only good policy, but there's a political win there that keeps this coalition together. I have a great interest, and not just politically, but also in

terms of policy in keeping this coalition of more traditional conservatives aligned with Elon and the tech bros, they offer a lot to us, not just politically. And then I think we get to the 28 presidential election, and we have a family conversation in the Republican primary. Well, this is what I was going to ask you because I might totally, as I say, with humility, ignorant sense of this is that Donald Trump can't hold all of this together. There seems to be a great understanding among everybody now that he's the leader and you have to get behind him if you're going to get anything done. When he's not there, then this is what I keep asking a lot of people privately. I mean, there's an obvious tension there that I see coming. And I wonder how that's going to be resolved.

Again, I know you want me to have answers to everything. Well, we ask questions for answers, yeah. As a historian and not a soothsayer, I'm better about the past. But to try to answer, I think what's going to happen is along the lines of what I just mentioned regarding immigration, the force of President Trump's personality and his success as a policy leader. Forget the politics. We'll keep the coalition together. but I'm more convinced than most people I know that in 2028,

even if, which would be perfectly fine with me, make me very happy if the vice president is our nominee, that doesn't mean that there isn't going to be this policy conversation, right? And so who the Republican nominee for president is is a related but still separate question from these policy issues like immigration that create some real tension. And I would always want the tension to be. minimize so that there can be political success. But if we continue to sort of kick the can down the road on what we want as conservatives for immigration, we're just going to continue to cause some

of these problems to fester. Well, this is why I asked, because correct me if I'm wrong, but my sense of the American consensus on immigration is everyone's against illegal immigration, generalization. Most people are pro-legal immigration, actually. That's true. My experience is the position you've described as a minority position even on the right in this country. Would you say that's a fair assessment? There's certainly fewer people. I don't want to be pedantic here.

There are fewer people who do, but what is interesting is that in the last five years, there are more conservatives now than there used to be who would articulate what I mentioned about, even legal immigration. Sorry, let me just finish this thought. So I guess, I suppose ultimately,

this will all come down to the economic component of this, right? If the economy grows and does well, I think most people probably won't go to your position on legal immigration, even as concerned as they are about illegal immigration. So if President Trump can close the border and deliver a real economic growth and the American dream, that conversation will probably fall away slightly. I think that's right. And certainly conservatives, I think about friends in Texas, for example, who are people who hate the legal immigration. They might even agree with me up to a point about at least having a suspension in legal immigration, especially if we can have a good guest worker program. They would say, let's have a real national conversation. But if we have an economy that's doing well,

I think the political moment goes away and there will be something else that's that's sort of garnering the attention. But even still, I and all of us at Heritage will still be saying that there needs to be once and for all a modern update to our immigration system that answers the hard question about how many people legally should be coming into this country in any given year. And for us, while the economy is an obvious consideration, it's not the primary one. The first consideration is what is the right number of people and where they're from you can assimilate into the society, not just for us, but for them as well. It's actually rooted in our respect for them as well. And on that subject, since we're exploring kind of differences within the right, I'm curious, what are the, Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the election, but at the same time, quite a lot of people involved in drafting it were in his first administration and are now in his current administration.

So it's not like these are completely divergent ideas even remotely. They're very... Or part of the same movement. Yes. But what are the key divergences between the Trump administration now and where you'd like it to be? be? What are they not doing that you'd like them to be doing? I'm pausing because there really is very little, if anything. I talked about tariffs. I think the messaging on tariffs by the administration has gotten

more consistent in the last two weeks. That was one thing we were encouraging them to do. If the focus is on reciprocal tariffs and on China in particular, that I think that's good. I've not, I've thought that the rhetoric about the rhetoric about it. Canada is at the very least politically unhelpful, especially for those of us who would like to see Pierre Polyev be the prime minister. So, you know, but even then I'm sort of trying to answer your question by grasping for some difference. We have such great agreement with what the president and vice president are doing. And we're very fond of our independence and heritage that we would state otherwise as friends. But on national security and foreign policy, you may know,

although some of your audience would have no reason to know that Heritage has led the way on the reset of that in Washington for conservative foreign policy, which is to say that we need to be prioritizers or restrainers, that we can better achieve Reagan's mantra of peace through strength if, in fact, we attend to domestic issues first and then be very selective about where we get involved abroad. President Trump and Vice President Vance, I think, are implementing that beautifully. We look forward to seeing the good consequences, say, regarding the deindustrialization of communities, but that's a long-term project. No disagreement there.

If you're part of the trigonometry audience, chances are you're not just interested in politics. You're properly dialed in. You ask questions, you challenge assumptions, and you don't settle for one side of the story. That's why the NPR Politics Podcasts is a great listen. The team covers Washington with real depth, and right now they're unpacking the first 100 days of travel.

Trump's presidency. What's changed? What stayed the same? And what's coming down the track? They take one topic per day. Immigration, trade, executive power, and boil it down in under 15 minutes. It's focused, well produced and always clear,

even when the news cycle isn't. If you're serious about understanding the political landscape, the NPR Politics Podcasts is well worth your time. Listen now to the NPR Politics Podcasts. Only from NPR. wherever you get your podcasts. And Kevin, I want to go back to immigration, but I want to go back to illegal immigration.

Now, we can all agree that there's illegal immigration, the number should be zero. The open borders are ridiculous, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, I've been following a story about Tren de Aragua, which is the Venezuelan gang, being deported, fine. But then what you see is there have been cases and people have spoken about it. Now, I don't know the veracity of these cases, of people being deported wrongly.

And then when you find out where a lot of these gang members or alleged gang members end up, they end up in a maximum security unit in El Salvador, which is an authoritarian country, to be honest. A part of me starts getting really worried, and I'll posit to you that as a Christian, that must worry you as well. It doesn't. What should worry me? Are you worried that people were getting wrongly deported from this country and held in maximum security? No, I haven't seen any evidence that any of that crew was wrongly deported. The only thing that I've seen is that maybe five or six of them weren't as far along in the legal proceedings, but they were rounded up with other members of Trenda Aragua because they are members of that gang.

I think the story France is referring to, and again, I come back to this point. The mainstream media destroyed their credibility so much. I don't know what to do. And I'm trying to answer your question. Yeah, yeah. There was a real dissonance. So there's a story in Time magazine about a gay barber who got swept up in all of this. It comes back to our conversation when you're cutting out the cancer, you might grab too much healthy tissue. I'm unaware of the story because I don't read time.

Yeah. Okay. Right. Okay. That, I mean, that's fair enough. I guess, so let's broaden the question out more. I mean, how do you ensure that the people that you get to leave this country, forcibly, which there should be, if you come to this country illegally, you should be allowed to, you should be, you should be deported. If you cause, if you commit crimes as a foreign national, you should be deported. I'm in agreement with all of this.

But how do we make sure, again, going back to the term, we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and we don't get rid of people in this country who are actually positive, a force for good and will become good citizen? Without due process. Without due process. The wonderful borders are of the Trump administration, Tom Homan, who's a good friend personally and also a former heritage colleague, has a number 300,000 felons, criminals.

And what makes his job difficult about making sure we're only deporting those criminals, at least for now, is because there are too many law enforcement officials in this country who violate their oath, who hide those people from him. And so the reason I think the time example is unhelpful, frankly, is because even if that were true, and I'm just denying that it is, that's one case. And we've got 299,600 bastards who need to be sent back to El Salvador. They need to be in maximum security prison, and that's glorious.

So, in other words, the answer to your question is we need law enforcement officials, sheriffs, some of whom, frankly, are so left of center, they actually harm public safety in their communities to do their damn jobs. And then it's easy to ensure we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This is infuriating to me. Not your questions.

Very fair questions. But the situation that we even have to have this conversation in the civilized world. And if you're Tom Homan, your frustration is incalculable because this is such common sense.

But again, it's the institutional left that's standing in the way of people actually doing their jobs and restoring public safety for the average American. Well, look, we have the same issue in the UK. And so your anger or your passion is.

Your anger about this issue is something that we all share. But I can only speak for our country. I'm not a citizen in the United States. But I would want our government to not deport people without due process. And if there are news reports, I understand your question of veracity that suggest otherwise. I would want that to be looked into to make sure that a random person doesn't accidentally, up in another country in a maximum security prison. Do you share that concern? I can agree with that as a hypothetical. Yes. But I don't want what I still would argue is

an incorrect story to get in the way. But why are you saying it's incorrect if you haven't read it? I work with the smartest immigration people outside of the Trump administration, and they've not brought that to my attention. And they would have if it were. But do we believe in due process and heritage? Sure, I'm not denying that. I'm denying the wisdom of fixating on a question fixating on a questionable story when we got 300,000 people who are criminals who need to go back well i think that what we are doing here is focusing on both at the same time i think that's a fair i think that's a fair characterization of our questions no no i i think we laid out our concerns about illegal immigration into our country and into you i think it's a travesty that people are

as a legal immigrant to the uk i think it's a travesty that people are violating the laws coming in many of them are committing crimes. We've had reports in the UK that demonstrate very clearly that contrary to what all the left-wing media have claimed for decades now, these people are much more likely to commit crime, especially sexual crime. We have all the data on that.

So we share all of those concerns, but I think we also want people to be treated fairly, particularly if they're not criminals. That's kind of what we have. I know that the three of us agree. Yeah. And I'm a little sorry to be argumentative, although I think it was really important for this reason.

Yeah. This is your show. You'll ask your questions. I'm telling you that the far bigger story is that we have sheriffs of some of the largest cities and counties in this country who are preventing the Trump administration from even finding these some of these 300,000. That's crazy. And it shouldn't be happening. That just needs to be part of this conversation.

Well, it is. It is now. But I guess what I'm just getting to is if it turns out that the, this guy was deported without due process, you'd want that to be looked at and reversed immediately. We believe in due process. Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Because I guess what we're trying to get here is there needs to be solutions to problems. And look, there's always going to be, you know, a little bit of collateral damage either way. But with a society like the United States or like ours,

we need to make the process as fair as possible. So moving forward, What do you think is going to be the greatest challenge now, for heritage and for America? Communication. I think that almost all of these policy decisions that President Trump is leading and that we support because we've been researching them, analyzing them for so long, are currently popular. Some are a little more controversial than others, but they're currently popular. But what I've learned about politics and policy is that conservatives, starting with me, often forget we have to keep closing the sale, so to speak. And so communication toward not just

the conservative base, but to the American people more broadly, about why we're doing this, how we're doing it, sort of goes back to the conversation thread we had about due process and immigration. That is always very difficult when you're in government. And I think it's especially difficult for conservative reformers because they fix something or they initiate the fixing of something and they move on to the next thing. President Trump's really good about the communication, but I think that's a challenge. Not just for him, but for those of us on the outside,

because what we're trying to do, the ultimate project is correct 75 years of government overreach. And to say that it's an opportunity-rich environment as an understatement, everything needs to be improved. And in that, sometimes maybe the electorate can see political chaos rather than see the real, what I think has been precision

in almost all of these cases. of implementing a plan. Absolutely, because the implementation of tariffs is going to me that the economy is going to become more unstable. It may. I mean, to be honest, while three years ago, I would have agreed with that emphatically.

It may or it may not, depending on how they're implementing, and we're also testing some assumptions that may no longer be the case in the 2020s. I don't think it's necessarily the case that there's even going to be more than a few more weeks of the stock market. being up and down. We actually could see real economic growth in the United States this year.

It's interesting. The point you make, Kevin, sorry to jump in France. It's so true because a lot of people ask me, like, what do you think is going to happen? I'm like, I think we're in the world of, I don't know. I think we're in the world of let's see at this point. Both good and bad, right? Right. Well, we will find out. I suppose the core of this, what you're saying is the short-term disruption of major change can be very off-putting to people who Who watch the news, basically, right? Oh, absolutely. And on that point, I mean, the news is so absurd. And that's really 100% of my pushing back in a couple of these threads.

It's not about your questions, which are fair, but that we have to be careful not to base our assessment of what's going to happen on what very politically oriented media outlets are saying. And one of the great challenges that Trump faces is he's inherited a world from Obama, which has become ever more unstable. We look at horrific events like October 7th, the Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Where's heritage's position on this? Is it strictly America first, we withdraw, or do you see America's being more proactive

on the world stage? In the middle. So we use, and hopefully this is a helpful metaphor, we say that at Heritage were neither hawks nor doves. We are owls. which is to say, wise enough to know you pay attention to your own nest, you know, in this case, domestic politics. But you're always scanning very actively where in the interest of the United States, first and foremost, but then secondarily, allies and friends, you may have to be involved. What we have drawn a bright red line in the sand on is any of the neo-conservative interventionism that we saw 15, 20, 25 years ago.

And for a couple of years in Washington, we took some slings and arrows about that. And now it is just so gratifying, vindicating, dare I say, to see the entire, almost the entire political right be there with us because Trump and Vance are so good on this. But ultimately, that means the United States, when it decides to engage, whether through economic sanctions or, God forbid, the Declaration of War by our Congress, that it is really legitimate. the strategy is really clear. The United States, I think, is going to continue to be involved in Europe. I know that's a concern of European friends. But the best advice that I can give to our European friends from a friend is pull your weight. Pull your weight, not just with what you're doing with your percentage of GDP spent on defense,

but pull your weight in understanding that the United States has a much bigger adversary in the Far East than it's ever had in the case of the Chinese Communist Party. and more of our attention has to go to mitigating that, not just in that region, but in Africa and Latin America. Ultimately, the bottom line, I think there's still a lot more agreement on foreign policy on the center right than there seems to be. But if the project is going to be that the United States has to be involved everywhere with all kinds of money, spending $260 million on Ukraine, for example, Heritage will be opposed. And why will you be opposed to that? Because let me present the counter argument, which is, if you let Putin continue to take land, he's effectively going to destabilize large portions of that

part of Europe. There are countries, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, amongst others who are getting very, very concerned about Putin's advances. Surely isn't it the American responsibility, coupled with Europe, to say to Putin, who is a bully, enough is enough? Yeah, Putin's an evil bully. And what he has done in Ukraine is, absurd and tragic. And yet, the answer to that question is twofold. Number one, the war was never winnable for the Ukrainians. We've said that, I limit that, by the way. We've said that for three years at Heritage. We specialize in the truth. And what we've been told by heads of state in Europe, by our own former president, was that it was winnable. America sends money. We're going to be able

to fix this. We'd argued at Heritage, you need to be sending billions of dollars of weapons before he invades as a deterrent, because then you would be accepting. extending the Trump peace dividend from his first term. And it's, therefore, no coincidence that you needed Donald Trump back in office for Putin to at least be willing to have a conversation about peace. But the second reason is, if the Europeans were so convinced of this, why did the Germans and other Europeans continue to buy natural gas from Russia when they were telling the American people that we should send more of our treasure there and even be open to our American men and women going there? The hypocrisy has got to be settled before you ask the United States to go fix that.

History has told us never trusted Germans. Fair. Final note of agreement. I agree with you guys. I enjoy the banter. Well, thanks so much for coming on. We're going to go to Substack where our audience get to ask you their questions. But before we do, the last question we always finish on is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

Sports. You guys talk about sports all the time. You can't go anywhere in this. country without 10 screens showing you every sport. It hadn't come up in our conversation. That's true. That's true. And why? Because we talked about really important topics and issues, and y'all are the best. So thanks for tolerating my banter with you. But I think one of the secrets here is in the United

States and everywhere is to remember those things that make a smile. And whether it's sports, whether it's family or friends, having a pint, doing more of that and maybe spending 10% less time, even for us at Heritage, following the news. In other words, being human is something that we're trying to do in our work as well. All right. Head on over to Substack, where we ask Kevin your questions. Don't watch 10% less of trigonometry. I've noticed that cultures with a shared faith often stick together more.

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