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to our YouTube channel now. We've

1:28

got, coming up later, former Georgia Lt.

1:30

Governor Jeff Duncan. What

1:53

we've been asking all the anti-Trump Republicans to do forever

1:55

now. He actually endorsed Joe Biden in an op-ed in

1:57

the Atlanta Journal of Constitutional. We'll talk to him about

1:59

that. Bad that first. Somebody.

2:02

The Beat a little punched by four years. My.

2:04

Friend Elizabeth Noom inches Assistant Secretary

2:06

of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism threat

2:08

prevention in the Trump Administration To

2:10

that with a new book Kingdom

2:12

of Rage, The Rise of Christian

2:14

Extremism and The Perfect A Piece

2:16

Elizabeth Newman Luxembourg Podcast Ten As

2:18

Sales Signs The that that? yeah,

2:20

I don't go. For the head.

2:22

This book is in some ways can bike

2:24

academic in a deep assessment of extremism and

2:26

and I learned a lot of interesting facts

2:29

to that I don't want to get into

2:31

the meat. But. I didn't do

2:33

a little emotional reading the opening and

2:35

kind of remembering the journey, those crazy

2:37

days and twenty twenty that you took

2:39

the speaking out And so I just

2:41

thought, maybe he said for listeners who

2:43

don't know about that. Tell.

2:45

Them about what was happening with you and

2:47

your inside the Trump White House and decided

2:50

that you need to do something. Yeah,

2:52

I did not go into the Trump

2:55

Administration it willingly or or or with

2:57

excitement to. I had been asked a

2:59

couple of times, said now and then.

3:01

Somebody called just a few days before

3:03

integration and said it's crazy I don't

3:06

like interest. There's some national security stuff

3:08

going down that I can't tell you

3:10

about, but I need help. Please comment.

3:13

I. Went into security and counterterrorism after.

3:16

Nine Eleven. So when you get a call like that,

3:18

you. I felt compelled to go in.

3:20

And it was crazy. And it was.

3:22

There were so severe national security concerns

3:24

going on and I a proud. It's

3:27

what I was able to do and

3:29

which mostly was try to hold some

3:31

the guard rails as long as we

3:33

could at bay. Late Twenty Nineteen Twenty

3:35

Twenty the writing was on the wall.

3:37

I was going to get pushed out.

3:39

I. Wanted to get out and when

3:41

I finally was able to leaves I

3:44

had this is like to bed right

3:46

and kids were home and we're doing

3:48

is trying to figure out how to

3:51

do home schooling it online and it's

3:53

exhausted and like. I found

3:55

myself. At. A small. group

3:57

online bible said he with people that i

4:00

had met 10 years prior and

4:02

we were just all catching up since none

4:04

of us could leave our house and we

4:06

were just sharing what was going on in our

4:08

life. We were all across the country at that point and

4:10

we all have kids. Anyway, I

4:12

was telling them about life in the

4:15

Trump administration and their jaws were

4:17

hitting the floor and they were like, Elizabeth, you

4:19

have to say something. I'm like, no, why

4:21

would anybody listen? Nobody listens. Plenty

4:23

of people have spoken out. They're like, we

4:26

don't see that. We don't see this chaos. We don't see

4:28

this danger and somebody needs

4:31

to say something. And around this time

4:33

we had the George Floyd protests. We

4:35

had Ford deploying to protect

4:37

monuments and we had DHS deploying

4:39

to Portland to protect supposedly a

4:42

courthouse, but we were sending special

4:44

forces border patrol into an

4:46

American city and we, there were videos coming

4:49

out of like people getting thrown in unmarked

4:51

bands and it just was like, oh my

4:53

gosh, what has happened? I left three months

4:56

ago and the entire thing has fallen apart.

4:58

This is not, and this is what a

5:00

second term would be. Like there would be no

5:02

adults in the room to say, no, Mr.

5:04

President, you can't do that. That's illegal or

5:06

that's unconstitutional. It would just be

5:09

utter chaos. And that's when I started asking

5:11

around, how can I help? And I eventually

5:13

met you and you were like, you were

5:17

like, you, this is what you're going to do. You're going

5:19

to do this video. I'm like, no, no, no, that does

5:21

not sound like something I want to do. But

5:24

I distinctly remember you were

5:26

on the phone very, was

5:28

in the room with me and you guys

5:30

were like talking me through. I was so

5:32

nervous. I was so nervous.

5:36

Just looking at you right now, actually, you just

5:38

have like the weight of the world off your

5:40

shoulders, just like you know, like your whole like

5:42

your skin tone and everything. I knew it looks

5:44

beautiful in the video too, but I just, it

5:46

is a different, it is a lighter Elizabeth, which

5:48

I appreciate. And here's the thing. It was meaningful.

5:50

And so I was happy that I got to

5:52

meet you and Olivia and those that did the

5:55

RVAD videos, but it was meaningful to me. And

5:57

I didn't want to push people to be uncomfortable, but

5:59

we all. also did one when the election, you

6:01

know, we wanted people to speak out. So you have

6:03

to walk that line very well, I thought, because you

6:06

guys kept telling me, like, if you don't want

6:08

to put the video out up until

6:10

it drops, you can you can back out. And I

6:12

needed that space. I needed this space to be able

6:14

to be like, I think I'm going to

6:16

do this. And I was genuine about that. Yeah.

6:18

But the moment it dropped,

6:20

I felt I felt so relieved. Like,

6:23

oh, I could speak truth. It was

6:25

an amazing experience to just be like, I'm

6:28

going to tell the truth now. And especially

6:30

after three years of having to

6:33

like, be subversive and hide and like

6:35

trying to be respectful of the office of

6:37

the presidency, but also trying to like, make

6:39

sure that, you know,

6:42

the backstabbing and the, you know, illegal

6:44

stuff, stop, it was such a

6:46

night and day experience. Well, I

6:48

want to send this little clip to other people now

6:50

about the big relief of telling the truth and I'm

6:52

gonna feel good. It's true, I feel the same way.

6:54

I felt the same way. My

6:57

question is, like, why are you

6:59

so lonely? I always feel like sometimes when

7:01

reporters call me, like, it seems like

7:03

a little dig of you, but it's not intended to be

7:05

right? Because I just I'm always saying to them, I'm like,

7:08

it is insane. Like, there's this huge

7:10

sprawling administration and apparatus with a lot

7:13

of people who felt the way you

7:15

did, which you know, let's let's be honest.

7:18

It's you. It's Olivia Troy,

7:20

you know, it's Miles. It's like, and

7:23

you are kind of like, you're like mid level

7:25

people, like really, like, you know, there's just people

7:27

that are doing good work, important work, but like,

7:30

not the prime time folks, you know, not

7:32

the brand names. That's right. And

7:34

then we get to January 6. And it's Cassidy

7:37

and Sarah Matthews, who are like,

7:40

lower level people even like again, and that's not

7:42

an insult to them. I'm just saying, it's important

7:44

to say that just because like, so

7:46

many people let you all down. Like, why?

7:49

Like, why were you so alone out there?

7:51

Do you think why weren't there more people?

7:54

I really think the closer you got to the

7:56

president to one of two things happened, you

7:58

either were just so beaten. zone and

8:00

threatened. The mafia culture

8:03

around Trump is real. I all have

8:06

people in my life that were

8:08

threatened, those kind of implied physical

8:10

threats, but also more so financial

8:13

threats like, we'll make sure you

8:15

never work again. And so

8:17

I think there's legitimate fear

8:20

that gets instilled. And then I think

8:22

the other thing is just they felt

8:25

so beaten down and almost complicit, the

8:27

closer you got to him that I kind

8:29

of wonder if that's why we haven't seen more

8:32

of them come out. And the other thing

8:34

that happened is that people actually

8:36

got gaslit. They kind of bought

8:38

into his mo and his ideology

8:41

and kind of just changed. Like

8:43

they weren't are not the same people that walked in

8:45

in 2017. You saw that personally, like

8:48

people. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

8:50

Yeah. You're like, Oh, gosh, like what

8:52

what happened? You are deeply

8:55

deceived, deeply changed.

8:57

And like that, that probably hurt the

8:59

most because at the beginning, whether

9:03

it was right or not, like there was a number of

9:05

us that walked in together and we're like, okay, we're going

9:07

to hold the line. Believed in the

9:10

Constitution. He was elected by the people. So

9:12

he has the right to institute his agenda.

9:15

We're going to help him do that in

9:17

a way that is good government in a

9:19

way that is legal and constitutional. That was

9:21

our approach. And over time,

9:23

you started to realize he could care less

9:26

about the legal and the constitutional. They didn't

9:28

care about good governing. And so then you're just

9:30

kind of trying to hold on for dear life. But but

9:33

some of those people really bought

9:35

into legal what's

9:37

really legal? Oh, the deep state they're

9:39

holding us back. And so yeah, some

9:41

people changed. And that was hard to

9:43

watch. One more on the song into

9:45

the book. For people who had missed it, or don't

9:47

remember, I do want to just play a little bit

9:50

of the video that you put out in 2020. Hi,

9:52

I'm Elizabeth Newman. I

9:54

am first and foremost, a follower of

9:57

Jesus Christ. I'm a wife and

9:59

a proud mom. I voted for

10:01

Trump in 2016 primarily because of

10:03

the pro-life issue. I served in

10:05

the Trump administration at the Department

10:07

of Homeland Security and became the

10:09

assistant secretary for counter-terrorism and threat

10:11

prevention. In my role as

10:14

assistant secretary for counter-terrorism, we looked at

10:16

emerging threats, including the rowing

10:18

threat from domestic terrorists. And over the period

10:20

of 2017 to 2018, we started to see

10:23

that rise of the white supremacist agenda.

10:28

I and my leadership at the Department

10:30

of Homeland Security were very clear that

10:32

we found the ideology

10:34

behind white nationalism, white supremacy to

10:37

be a rowing threat. A very

10:39

common refrain that I was asked

10:41

was, does the president's rhetoric make

10:43

your job harder? And

10:45

the answer is yes. The president's

10:47

actions and his language are in

10:49

fact recent. I do not think

10:51

that we can afford four

10:53

more years of President Trump. We

10:56

are less safe today because of his

10:58

leadership. We will continue to be less safe

11:00

as long as he is in control. And

11:03

this year I'll be voting for Joe Biden. So

11:06

you talked about how good you felt after that. And

11:08

you spoke out on two clear things, which

11:11

was his mismanagement of COVID, which you kind of

11:13

watched on the outside-ish. I guess that was happening

11:15

as you were being pushed out. I mean, I

11:17

was there in the room for at least three months.

11:19

It was so poorly managed. It

11:22

was shocking. And

11:24

then tying into the book the

11:26

domestic terror threat, right? And

11:28

how you were seeing

11:30

at DHS the rise

11:32

of right-wing extremism and the threat. And

11:35

it'd be one thing to talk just about the

11:38

lack of seriousness with which they took that threat

11:40

and they did take it on seriously.

11:43

But in addition to that, the president

11:45

himself was exacerbating it. And that was

11:47

something that you were very

11:49

clear-eyed about in that video that then

11:51

just comes to fruition seven months later.

11:53

I mean, did you feel like, well,

11:55

obviously this was going to happen or

11:57

were you like, this was my worst?

12:00

nightmares coming to life? Or

12:02

how'd you feel about that? When you're in

12:04

the field, you are always pretty

12:07

hesitant to try to make predictions, right?

12:09

Like, kind of built into

12:11

you don't want to exaggerate the threat, you don't want

12:13

to fear monger. But I very much

12:15

felt especially as COVID set in, like

12:17

the factors that we were dealing with

12:19

were a powder keg that

12:21

we're just waiting for the

12:24

right spark. And I knew

12:27

post election that some

12:29

bad stuff was manifesting. I don't

12:32

think even in my wildest dreams, I imagined

12:34

a January 6 scenario because I just assumed

12:36

the security apparatus would do their job. That

12:39

to me was the big shock that Trump

12:41

had so effectively beaten

12:43

down the security apparatus

12:45

within the executive branch, that even though

12:48

people detected that something bad was going

12:50

to happen, gave a little bit of

12:52

warning to Capitol Police, like none

12:55

of the normal things that we would

12:57

have done in an adult run administration

12:59

seemed to happen. There was no pre

13:01

planning, there was no phone calls between

13:03

DHS and Capitol Police and the FBI.

13:06

I mean, it just is shocking to

13:08

me that we were so under prepared for

13:10

January 6. So that

13:13

was probably the thing that I didn't foresee. I

13:16

foresaw people getting mobilized,

13:18

the Mike Flynn types of Steve Bannon

13:20

types, you know, stirring the pot, so

13:23

to speak, I didn't foresee that we

13:25

would be so weak on the security side

13:27

that you wouldn't be able to keep things

13:29

in check. What a horrible day. So

13:32

you wrote this book Kingdom of Rage.

13:34

And, you know, you could have written

13:36

a bunch of different kinds of books, right? I'm sure

13:38

you talked about different kinds of books with people, it

13:40

could have written a gossipy book, could

13:42

have written a book about,

13:44

you know, threats, right?

13:46

I had a lesson this is a little bit about

13:48

that, but you know, something that's a little scarier. But

13:51

you know, the subtitle of this was the rise of

13:53

Christian extremism and the path back to peace. And it

13:55

seemed like you really wanted to take a meticulous

13:58

approach to understanding

14:00

the problem and trying to find solutions.

14:02

Like why did you land on that

14:04

as what you wanted to do once

14:06

the dust had settled from 2020? So

14:10

I was in Washington DC on 9-11. I

14:13

have this distinct memory of driving home

14:15

that day. My car

14:18

was packed, tiny little like hatchback

14:20

car. And in the

14:22

rear view mirror, I see the Capitol. There

14:24

are still planes in the sky. And I'm wondering,

14:26

is the Capitol gonna be there tomorrow? Like we

14:29

were scared to death. We didn't

14:31

know what was happening. The information- What

14:33

was your job then again, remind me? I

14:35

worked at HUD. I was working on the Faith-Based

14:37

and Community Initiative in the George W. Bush

14:39

administration. And I

14:41

just remember so

14:43

vividly the chaos and the fear of

14:46

that day. And in the days that

14:48

followed, just made a commitment that

14:50

I would do whatever it took. Like I was a

14:52

political appointee, so it's not like I had any skills

14:55

to offer at that time. It just was like, you

14:57

want me to answer a phone? I will go answer

14:59

a phone if it's gonna make our country safer. And

15:02

I eventually ended up working at the White House and the

15:04

Homeland Security Council for some super amazing

15:06

smart people who trained me. And I

15:08

kind of stayed in the field

15:10

after that. And flash

15:13

forward to January 6th, here

15:15

we are. And the Capitol actually is

15:17

attacked, but it's not by

15:19

radical Islamist, jihadist. It's

15:22

by Christians. It's my faith. They

15:25

had video of people praying on outside

15:27

of the Capitol. There was prayer inside

15:29

the Senate galley. There

15:31

are pictures of people holding

15:34

posters with Bible verses, people

15:36

holding crosses, like Christian symbolism

15:38

and Christian language was

15:41

throughout that day.

15:44

And that was just

15:46

gut punching to me that

15:49

I had spent 20 years protecting our

15:51

country from the threats over there. And

15:54

the threat was actually here. And

15:56

I kind of felt like, look, at post 9-11,

15:58

we asked the Muslim people, community, moderate

16:00

Muslims, please speak out, please explain

16:02

how your faith does not justify violence.

16:05

And I kind of felt like

16:07

the obligation to the Christian

16:09

community is the same. We need to

16:11

be very clear that our faith

16:13

does not justify violence. It's actually

16:15

counter to violence. It says if

16:17

you were attacked, you actually turn the other

16:19

cheek. And that's kind of the driver

16:21

behind the book is I wanted to

16:24

help my community understand how we got

16:26

here because so many people were puzzled.

16:28

So many people are

16:30

confused why like our churches

16:33

have fractured, our families have

16:35

fractured. Like how did this happen

16:37

to us? And then what

16:40

can we do about it? How can we

16:42

rebuild and get back to the basics of

16:44

the way of Jesus? Some

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know, on the one hand, you're

17:50

writing about the radicalization pipeline, right

17:53

and how individuals get radicalized and

17:55

this, you know, bowling alone

17:57

and scrolling alone element to it about how

17:59

to disconnected we are, have the

18:01

loss of church as part of

18:03

that. My church, it's not all of it, but

18:05

church is one of these spaces where people did

18:08

find community, found meaning. So we have

18:10

the loss of church impacting

18:12

radicalization. We also

18:14

have the remaining church impacting

18:16

radicalization, right, because you

18:18

have the pastors and the religious leaders

18:20

and the politicians that are

18:23

now inciting and exacerbating radicalism.

18:26

How do you untie that knot, right?

18:29

On the one hand, we need these spaces

18:31

for people. On the other hand, a lot of

18:33

the existing spaces are making

18:35

things worse. Yeah, so I

18:38

spend chapters five and six trying to

18:40

untangle all of the different drivers because

18:43

radicalization is complex, it's not linear. And

18:46

usually there's personality factors involved.

18:48

There's often trauma in somebody's

18:50

background that makes them more

18:52

susceptible to being radicalized. So

18:54

there's a ton of factors that go

18:56

into why somebody radicalizes. But we've

18:58

also experienced group radicalization, right? Like

19:01

a group of people that

19:03

are experiencing humiliation, they're being

19:05

told they need to be

19:07

scared, they're feeling like a

19:09

loss of power and significance. And

19:11

as a group, their answer to

19:14

that is an extremist solution, which

19:16

I define extremism as when you

19:18

perceive a threat to your group

19:20

success or survival and hostile action

19:22

is necessary. It's that hostile action

19:24

piece that really separates what might

19:26

otherwise just be the norm in

19:28

our politics. The other side's bad,

19:30

my side's good, but it's

19:32

when you go to, okay, voting's not

19:34

enough, contributing to a candidate's

19:37

not enough. I need to go threaten

19:39

somebody. I need to harass and intimidate. Oh, I

19:41

might even need to commit an act of violence

19:43

here. That's when you move

19:45

into extremism as a pretty

19:48

sizable population of our

19:50

country. I think the numbers depends on the

19:52

survey, but 30 to 40% of adults and

19:56

then the United States have said

19:58

that they believe some time. Sometimes violence

20:00

is necessary to achieve their

20:03

political aim. I mean, that is like

20:06

shockingly large numbers that we do not

20:08

have the security apparatus to be able

20:10

to protect against. Now, most of those

20:12

are not actually going to go do

20:14

something. But if you

20:16

look at what's happened in particular to

20:18

that Christian and conservative community, we've

20:21

spent the last few decades. I mean, your

20:23

book kind of traces this too. We spent

20:25

the last few decades in

20:27

a media ecosphere that just

20:29

tells us all the reasons why the

20:32

other side hates us, all the reasons

20:34

why we should be fearful

20:36

of what the other side is going to do

20:38

to us. And then

20:40

it becomes really easy for a

20:42

Trump-like figure or other influencers to

20:45

step in and say, you know what

20:47

we got to do? I mean, we might have to fight.

20:49

We might have to take our country back by force. So

20:52

it didn't start with Trump. We've

20:54

been saturating in this. You don't take

20:56

your country back with weakness or you take it

20:58

back with strength. What is the

21:00

off-ramp just within the Christian nationalist group? And there are

21:02

strains of this that are not really just within the

21:04

Christian nationalist. I talked about this a little bit with

21:07

Peter Wehner last week. What is

21:09

the off-ramp we can provide these people?

21:11

Because to me, it's not like, oh,

21:13

Christianity is bad or America is

21:16

bad. They're going to recoil

21:18

at that. How can we

21:20

move it to a more productive

21:22

place without undermining their identity? I

21:25

love that question. So a couple of things.

21:27

One, Christian nationalism is a spectrum. When

21:30

you look at the polls that say, oh, we have

21:32

this many Christian nationalists in the country, I think most

21:34

of them are on the lower end of the spectrum.

21:36

And that's more of a concern for their faith, for

21:38

their soul. It's not necessarily a security concern. What's

21:40

the dumb Marjorie Taylor Greene version? Yeah.

21:43

Where she's like, I'm a Christian and I like America.

21:45

So I'm a Christian nationalist. I mean, she's terrible. But

21:48

some people actually believe that. Right. Exactly.

21:52

They're not thinking about it more deeply than that. But there is a

21:54

strain and it is growing that are

21:56

looking to try to force

21:58

Christian morals values. There are

22:00

certain values of Christianity, like all

22:03

people are created equal in the eyes

22:05

of God and worthy of dignity and

22:07

respect. That's like a... Love your neighbor

22:09

as yourself. That's fine. You can project

22:11

that on people. We should definitely... The

22:13

Constitution reflects many of those values. I'm

22:16

not saying get rid of that, but there

22:18

are certain Christian nationalists that are

22:20

like, oh, you know what we should do is

22:22

we should require prayer in schools again, and we're going to

22:24

pass a law to do so. And we've already

22:26

debated that as a country, and the

22:28

Supreme Court's already decided that. So it's

22:30

that kind of thing that

22:32

starts to get into this, I'm going

22:34

to force my religion on you that

22:37

I think is concerning. The real concerning

22:39

stuff is that there are a couple

22:41

of influencers out there who are writing

22:44

the ideological and supposedly theological

22:46

justification for violence. That makes

22:48

me very concerned because when

22:51

you start to have that

22:53

underpinning, supposedly academic underpinning for

22:55

why violence is justified, you could

22:58

have a small group of people move towards

23:00

a more violent approach to Christian nationalism.

23:03

So that's the thing that we want to stop,

23:05

right? We want to prevent people from moving into

23:07

that. And the way that you prevent people from

23:09

moving into that is you need

23:11

to understand what's driving them there in the first place. And

23:13

it's fear, and it's a sense

23:15

of humiliation, a group humiliation. And we need

23:17

to... There's two things that I prescribe

23:19

from a Christian community standpoint. We need

23:21

to get back to teaching what Jesus

23:24

taught us, which is you

23:26

are going to be persecuted. That

23:28

is the way of Jesus. Jesus was persecuted and

23:30

he promises we will have trials like he did.

23:32

And he gives us a way in which we

23:34

walk through those trials. And that way is not

23:36

through the sword. It is not by fighting

23:38

back. So we need to recaticize our

23:40

people into the basics of what

23:42

the faith actually teaches, which is

23:44

not what Lauren Boebert suggested that,

23:46

oh, Jesus only had an AR-15, then

23:49

Pilate wouldn't crucify them. You're like, the

23:52

reason he came was to be crucified.

23:54

Do you actually not understand the faith?

23:56

It wasn't because he couldn't defend himself.

23:58

So... There's

24:00

like, hey, let's get back to the

24:02

basics of what our faith teaches. And

24:05

that is a protective factor. That reduces

24:07

the number of people that could be

24:09

open to that extremist ideology. I

24:11

think the other thing the community broader,

24:13

this Christians as well as non-Christians need

24:15

to just be able to say like,

24:18

we can disagree and we can disagree

24:20

vehemently. Violence is not the answer. Period

24:24

hard stuff. We also need to reestablish

24:26

norms. And I think COVID just did

24:28

deep damage for us and how we

24:30

treat each other with lack

24:33

of respect and lack of kindness. And just

24:35

going back to the basics, it sounds like

24:37

we're going to kindergarten again, but we

24:40

treat each other with civility and you reestablish

24:42

that norm and you take away the option

24:44

of that lower end of the hostile action

24:46

spectrum that, you know, what I'm going to

24:48

do is go bully and harass somebody because

24:50

I don't like them. Or I

24:52

think they're tampering with my election. No, go have

24:54

a conversation with them. Steven

24:57

Ricker, you mentioned him, like he's

24:59

great. Like if you have questions

25:01

about your elections in Arizona, go

25:03

ask Steven. Like he has great

25:05

answers and he will totally like

25:07

take you seriously and be happy

25:09

to walk you through why the

25:11

election is secure. So rather than

25:13

like trying to bully and harass

25:15

our way into our ideology, like

25:17

why not just have a conversation

25:19

instead? And we need to reestablish those

25:21

norms. One more thing on

25:23

the book that you say pretty clearly, which

25:26

is I think notable given that

25:28

you come from the right and these are

25:30

your people, is that you do see right

25:32

wing extremism as more dangerous in this country

25:35

right now. I want you to talk about

25:37

why that is one, but two,

25:39

I don't want to create

25:41

a false equivalency or anything, but I'm seeing

25:43

some of the same mindset on the left

25:45

when it comes to targeting Jews. There's

25:48

certain things about getting stuck

25:50

in an information silo where

25:52

you're hearing everything

25:55

about how the other side is evil. So

25:57

there's little more legitimacy. There's

26:00

a lot of layers to this, so you want

26:03

to create a nuanced conversation, but I'm curious why

26:05

you think it's more dangerous and what you assess

26:08

as the threats on the left. Are you

26:10

seeing any echoes? What concerns you? What doesn't concern

26:12

you? Yeah. So the

26:14

data shows us going back to

26:16

the 1990s that more plot attacks

26:18

and deaths have come from groups

26:20

that are categorized as right-wing violent extremists,

26:23

primarily white power movements and

26:25

militia movements. And you

26:27

hear a counterterrorism person say, that's where

26:29

the greater threat is. It's because the

26:31

data tells us that. We're not saying

26:33

that today, this moment, we can somehow

26:35

tell you what the threat is. We're

26:38

always looking at the data to say,

26:40

historically speaking, this is where the greater

26:42

threat comes from. Now, the why behind

26:44

that, that's a little more murky. Some

26:46

of it deals its personality factors. The right

26:48

tends to be much more organized than

26:50

the far left, which like the far

26:52

left value system is, I don't

26:54

want anybody in charge. They're very,

26:56

you know, think about what anarchists stand for.

26:59

So it's actually harder for them to be

27:01

more organized and harder for them to therefore

27:03

conduct. We're seeing it with

27:05

the demands from the groups on the campus.

27:07

You know, we need dental dams. You know,

27:10

we need like, no, no, there's

27:12

a lot of weirdness happening. Right. The

27:14

other thing is the far left tends to destroy property.

27:16

You'll see them in riots, that kind of thing. It's

27:18

not a premeditated type of attack. Usually.

27:21

We have a significant

27:23

set of far left terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s,

27:25

the weather underground, which

27:28

has roots at Columbia. Like, so there

27:30

are a number of us that are

27:32

looking at what's happening on college campuses

27:34

today and are concerned that maybe we're

27:36

seeing a resurgence. It is

27:38

pretty normal when you have one pendulum

27:40

swing this way that the other side kind of reacts and

27:43

you start to see the pendulum swing the other way. So

27:45

it is something to be concerned about. The

27:47

reason I wrote this book was because my

27:50

side is responsible for more

27:52

deaths and destruction than the other side. And

27:54

I kind of feel like it's a responsibility To

27:57

clean our own house, so to speak. I'm

27:59

not saying you. Can't be aware of and

28:01

concern about the other side that let's clean up

28:03

or own house before we fear monger. About the

28:05

anti fat and far left terrorism. Him

28:08

into Okay, we're in a temperate really close.

28:10

since you're in there in the first round

28:12

you can have a loose at the top,

28:15

but your biggest concerns about a Trump a

28:17

two point now administration. Is

28:19

really hard to go there but I

28:21

think there's a lot of focus on

28:23

Donald Trump as president and I think

28:26

for miss saying it's the greater damage

28:28

that will occur is he's gonna bring

28:30

in people like Task The Towel and

28:32

Stephen Miller and require now and let

28:34

them do whatever they want. He does

28:37

it actually liked to govern. He doesn't

28:39

like the job of the president so

28:41

you will have nobody at the top.

28:43

No adult slept in the room because

28:45

nobody will be allowed. If you are

28:48

going to tell. The President Now you're

28:50

not allowed to go work for hims

28:52

so there's no not going to be

28:54

anybody that actually has a nice have

28:56

said knowledge of how to do things

28:58

well, how to keep our country safe.

29:00

See, you're gonna have this free for

29:02

all and Stephen Miller gonna reinstitute everything

29:05

that they tried to do and we're

29:07

told is born allowed to do. He

29:09

will just go forth and do it

29:11

and you will end up with significant

29:13

national security concerns happening overseas that we

29:15

will not effectively be able to respond

29:17

to. So as. I worry

29:19

about. An infringement on our

29:22

rights here. In America, But even

29:24

more so, I'm concerned about not

29:26

being able. To stand up to Russia,

29:28

that is. Nuclear saber rattling this

29:30

week and has interests and doing a

29:32

pretty significant damage in Europe. For an

29:35

Iran continues to they would love to

29:37

be able to take us out. Lake

29:39

is a dangerous world and you need

29:41

smart confident people are no the wall

29:43

keeping us safe and he will not

29:45

allow any of those people to to

29:47

do that job so it will be

29:50

a very dangerous second term if he

29:52

is reelected. Him. on

29:54

also concerned about a very dangerous and

29:56

or regnum the matter who wins and

29:58

so and i'll be back Yeah, about

30:00

that in the fall, you know once

30:02

that's a little bit more acute Elizabeth

30:04

Newman, man, okay You're in

30:06

Denver now. You're my hometown. Yes Any

30:10

nuggets gear we do talk about the game We're

30:15

not gonna talk about the game but I might send you a hat or something

30:18

Oh, that would be fun. I would love that

30:20

my kids have a bunch of stuff I tend

30:22

to not get the sports gear, but my husband

30:24

loves hats So if you send me a hat

30:27

he will be very proud of me to have

30:29

a hat Okay, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get

30:31

on that and we're in Denver for you and

30:33

for listening June 21st Maybe boulder actually we haven't

30:35

figured it out yet. So june 21st. I'm a

30:37

bork live event So I want you to come

30:39

I will hang out in person That would be

30:41

great. We'll get everybody the dps tells on that

30:43

soon. Keep an eye on the bork.com/events if you're

30:45

a listener Elizabeth Newman, I appreciate you so so

30:47

much. You have no idea. Thank you. Thank you

30:49

for everything You've been doing you see that I

30:51

wrote about you guys in the acknowledgments. I

30:53

did and I got a little verclint So, um,

30:55

I appreciate it very much you guys changed my

30:57

life and i'm so grateful for you I'm so

31:00

grateful for you kingdom of rage is the book

31:02

the rise of christian extremism and the path back

31:04

to peace up next Former georgia

31:06

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31:08

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32:11

right, we are back with former Georgia Lieutenant

32:13

Governor Jeff Duncan. He had a book out

32:15

GOP 2.0. I don't know. We're

32:18

pretty far away from GOP 2.0, but hope

32:20

springs eternal, they say, in baseball, right, Jeff

32:22

Duncan? Unfortunately, I think my experience in

32:25

baseball has been if you lose enough, you finally

32:27

figure out how to win again. And

32:29

I think that's the spot we're at as Republicans.

32:31

We're facing a dismal season, and

32:33

it doesn't look like we've got our best players

32:35

on the field right now as Republicans. There you

32:38

go. Look at the baseball. You're a triple A.

32:40

You're a triple A, man. Yeah, I'll rub it

32:42

in a little bit. I spent six years beating

32:44

it through the minor leagues, but I loved every

32:46

minute of it except for Fridays when it was

32:48

payday. That's not rubbing it in, man. I got

32:50

cut from the sophomore basketball team in high school.

32:53

Okay, so you made it a lot further than

32:55

I did. You're not bad. I mentioned at the

32:57

top in yesterday's Atlanta Journal Constitution, and here's the

32:59

nuts of it. You wrote, unlike

33:01

Trump, I've belonged to the GOP my entire

33:03

life. This November, I'm voting

33:05

for a decent person I disagree with

33:08

on policy over a criminal defendant without

33:10

a moral compass. To me,

33:12

I kind of feel like this should

33:14

not be like that bold of a

33:16

statement, that you're going to vote against

33:18

a criminal defendant without a moral compass.

33:20

But unfortunately, you're standing out in this

33:22

regard. Try to explain to me

33:24

why you think that is. Why aren't there other

33:27

folks that are echoing this

33:29

sentiment from the former Republican elected

33:32

class? Yeah, let me set the table by

33:34

saying, it feels like my new

33:36

motto is, honesty is the new crazy. Just

33:38

saying the honest, calling honest

33:40

balls and strikes seems to get the most attention

33:43

these days. But yeah, look, Donald

33:45

Trump has infiltrated the Republican Party as a

33:47

fake Republican. There's nothing that he's

33:49

really done. He's certainly a broken clock's right

33:51

twice a day, and he stumbled into a

33:53

few conservative policies and whatnot. But

33:55

at the end of the day, he started this

33:57

process not as a Republican. nothing

34:00

that we look at going forward is Donald

34:02

Trump being our future. I think we almost

34:04

all agree on that, but I think the

34:06

problem that we face is folks feel like

34:08

we're victims of gravity and our

34:10

best chance to win is to

34:12

get Donald Trump there. But our best chance

34:14

to barely lose, again, is Donald Trump. If

34:17

you really honestly evaluate all these elections, whether

34:19

he's on the ballot or not, if he's a proxy

34:22

to the ballot, I mean, we were supposed to have

34:24

this massive majority in the House, it didn't happen. He

34:26

was supposed to win in 2020, it didn't happen. Time

34:29

and time again, it continues to poke its head up. Donald

34:32

Trump isn't enough to win, and we just haven't seemed to

34:34

want to take our medicine because it doesn't taste very good,

34:36

right? You got to do things like I just did. I

34:38

mean, I'm getting certainly a lot of positive out of boys

34:40

from folks that are really seeing this through the same lens

34:42

I am, and I'm also getting a lot of really good

34:45

friends who are Republicans, like, how could you do this? It's

34:48

one of those parenting moments. It's like you care about your

34:50

kids so much, you just feel like they need to take

34:52

their medicine today instead of waiting a week for the infection

34:54

to get worse. For people who are listening who might not

34:56

be as familiar with you, I was

34:58

always kind of a rhino. All right, that guy

35:00

was always pretty moderate Republican, wasn't quite as big

35:02

of a jump for me. That's

35:04

not really true for you. In your

35:06

book, you're a traditionally conservative Republican. You

35:09

are not really an ever jumper at

35:11

all. Through 2016 and 2020, you

35:14

supported him, and then you're there in Georgia on

35:16

the front lines when all the

35:18

craziness is happening. So just explain

35:20

to me, Douglas, what your worldview is, what

35:23

you want out of politics, and why you

35:25

found yourself still sticking with him through 2020.

35:28

I think that there are a lot of people that also did

35:30

that. I think it's important to hear from people who stuck with

35:32

him through 2020 who are changing

35:34

now because we're going to need people who are

35:36

going on the same journey that you are. As

35:38

I mentioned a minute ago, I'm conservative, but I'm not

35:41

crazy or angry. I think the biggest hijack of all

35:43

that Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party is

35:46

taking our tone and tenor. In my book,

35:48

I write about this notion called my pet

35:50

project, policy, empathy, and tone. I'm

35:52

confident in conservative policies. I'm confident that

35:54

in this election cycle, we could walk

35:57

into most moderates and

35:59

independents. houses and talk to them

36:01

about conservative strategies around budgeting and foreign policy

36:03

and border control and all of these ideas

36:06

that are really, really big ideas. But do

36:08

it in a way that talks about the

36:10

policy, uses empathy just to

36:12

understand the other sides take and use

36:14

a tone that encourages them to keep

36:17

showing up and supporting you. Donald Trump

36:19

has hijacked our tone so bad and

36:21

just turned people into, unfortunately, paper tigers,

36:24

social media warriors, and they're just full

36:26

of, you know, you know what, and

36:28

here, when they sit around the water cooler.

36:30

And it's just distorted this fact that, you know, I

36:33

think Ronald Reagan got it right when he said, you know, with

36:35

the 80% of the time, what are you a friend and ally,

36:37

not a 20% trader. That's

36:39

what we've lost. And that's what Donald Trump it's all

36:41

in. And it's unfortunate, but

36:44

I do think we can get we can get back there. I

36:46

want America to get addicted again

36:48

to conservative policies, but not this

36:51

just visceral, vile approach to it. Yeah,

36:53

I wonder, though, has it

36:55

given you any thought about whether

36:57

there's some underlying issues that were

36:59

there that Trump exposed? And I

37:02

remember we talked a while

37:04

back a couple years ago, we talked about a moment in

37:06

your office where you're kind of looking

37:08

out at the protesters and

37:10

realizing that these were people that were essentially on

37:13

your side on our side and kind of had

37:15

a moment of clarity. And I just sort of

37:17

wonder, there's just the degree to which people have

37:19

gone along with this make you think, man, I

37:21

don't know, maybe I wasn't. Maybe I'm not actually

37:23

on the same team as these people. Yeah,

37:25

that moment that we talked about is just so

37:27

vivid in my mind. I mean, I was sitting

37:29

in my office at the Capitol, you know, post 2020

37:32

election, and there's

37:34

armed guards with, you

37:36

know, automatic weapons outside my office,

37:38

making sure that Republicans now not

37:40

any sort of, you know, like

37:42

foreign militia, militia, but Republicans don't

37:45

attack the Capitol, because we wouldn't

37:47

admit that the 2020 election was

37:49

rigged, because actually, it wasn't. And

37:52

we knew that all the proof. I

37:54

think that the takeaway now, you know, a few

37:56

years removed is just how vile and visceral Donald

37:58

Trump has turned the Republican Party on

38:01

its head on because up until

38:03

that point, I was a rock solid conservative

38:05

in their eyes, right? I was championing the

38:07

heartbeat bill. I was championing other conservative policies.

38:10

Brian Kemp and I were budgeting. We had

38:12

billions of dollars in our state savings account

38:14

unlike the federal government, unlike all of these

38:17

other left leaning

38:19

spending policies and pathways. But

38:21

yet on one issue, because Donald Trump said the election

38:23

was rigged, they just walked off the plank with them.

38:26

Death threats started showing up, you know, all of

38:28

that. It's not the Republican Party that's

38:30

going to actually do anything. It's just going to

38:32

be a bunch of bluster. And look, I

38:35

think we have to be very specific about calling out

38:37

Donald Trump on being a fake Republican, even down to

38:39

the point where these documents are out there. I mean,

38:41

how is he different than Hillary Clinton? She

38:44

accepted defeat. So

38:46

that's one way they're different. Yeah, well, yeah.

38:49

But as far as the documents go, I mean,

38:51

it's Republicans spent billions of gallons of ink trying

38:54

to express themselves that she was out, you know,

38:56

stealing state secrets and blah, blah, blah. You know,

38:58

Donald Trump's got two problems on his hands. Yes,

39:00

he's got all these other cases, but the two

39:02

problems on the documents cases, one, he had them.

39:05

Okay, let's go figure out what he should have

39:07

had, what he shouldn't have had. That's probably a

39:09

complicated riddle. But then the unpack, what

39:11

he didn't disclose, what he tried to hide,

39:13

what he tried to coerce. I mean, that

39:15

is, that's probably the other way is different

39:17

than Hillary. Yeah, that's the big, big issue.

39:19

But yet, I mean, I just

39:22

can't imagine us putting our stamp of approval

39:24

as Republicans, but we are. I'm acknowledging that.

39:26

But that's, you know, part of my calculus

39:28

here is let's just take our medicine as

39:30

quick as we can. Let's work with

39:33

trying to have Republican majorities in Congress. Let's

39:35

try to work with the Biden administration as

39:37

much as possible to bring them back into

39:39

the fold on immigration and foreign

39:41

policy and inflationary levers that we can,

39:43

we can additionally pull. Let's

39:45

work with them as much as we can over the four

39:48

years and then take our medicine and go do something different.

39:50

I'm interested about that, about the Biden administration,

39:53

because I feel like, you know, maybe you

39:55

have a freedom to call balls and strikes a little

39:57

bit more than some others since you've kind of made

39:59

the But I don't know,

40:01

I look at the Biden administration, there are things they've done

40:03

that I've disagreed with, of course. I think

40:06

there have been a lot of ways where he's resisted some

40:08

of the stuff from the far left. They're

40:10

not doing the Green New Deal. They didn't try to expand the

40:12

Supreme Court. You know, a lot

40:14

of the protesters out there on campus,

40:16

everybody's upset about are shouting fuck Joe

40:19

Biden right alongside the MAGA protesters. I

40:21

got, you know, he hasn't given in

40:23

to them. So in a lot of

40:25

ways, I think he's resisted some of the worst impulses of the

40:28

left. And yet I never hear anybody on

40:30

the right give him any credit for that. What

40:32

do you think? Are there any positive elements to

40:34

your Biden endorsement or is it all anti-Trump? No,

40:37

no, it's certainly not anti-Trump. I mean, I believe

40:40

him walking into the room.

40:42

I believe him trying to build consensus. I think

40:45

he's getting better. I think it started off as

40:47

a serious hat tip to the far left when

40:49

he first came into office. I

40:51

do see a migration towards the

40:54

middle, slightly small steps-ish. And

40:56

I think that part of this is a messaging issue. This

40:59

election is going to come down to the suburbs.

41:01

I live in the suburbs, right? I live in

41:03

suburb America, 40 miles north of Atlanta. The

41:07

suburbs are doing pretty well right

41:09

now across America, right? I mean, everyone's house is

41:11

probably worth more than it's ever been worth or

41:13

401ks are doing well. Whatever

41:16

small business they work for or own is probably doing

41:18

well. But there's all kinds

41:20

of other components of the economy that are.

41:22

I've been told it's American carnage out there,

41:25

Lieutenant Governor. I've been told that the suburbs

41:27

are being eradicated by these policies and that

41:29

they're building multifamily homes out there and things

41:32

are going to shit. Yeah, there are multifamily

41:35

homes coming because I live in

41:37

Forsyth County, Georgia. It's growing exponentially

41:39

because we have the lowest property taxes of any metro

41:41

county. We have the lowest crime rate and the best

41:43

public schools. That's really the recipe to win. My

41:46

first job in politics was the state rep for

41:48

this area. So I know those stats a little

41:50

bit well. But to me, that's what we should

41:52

get back to trying to win these elections on

41:54

these policies. I mean, we had

41:56

a very legitimate argument against the Biden administration

41:58

on their initial immigration. efforts, right? It

42:00

was awful, right? We were watching this and it

42:03

all came down to a sounding board where,

42:05

you know, Joe Biden just basically said, we're going to do

42:07

this thing a lot different than Donald Trump. And word got

42:09

out to South America that we were going to do things

42:11

different than Donald Trump. And so they started to flood the

42:13

border and overwhelm the resources. So then

42:15

we finally message enough and gallivant enough

42:18

and put pressure and get

42:20

the Biden administration through the Langford legislation.

42:22

And then we balk at it because Donald Trump says, why are

42:24

we going to give these guys a win? Why

42:26

would we dare take this issue off the table? We

42:29

need to dig in and not support this effort, where

42:31

we should have been mature enough to take the deal

42:33

and then remind everybody in America

42:35

that deal happened because we kept constant steady

42:37

pressure on doing the right thing. And

42:40

you apply that over and over and over

42:42

and over again, we have micro sized our

42:45

aiming on these issues that literally go hour

42:47

by hour by hour and they're not doing

42:49

anything. I agree with

42:51

that. I agree that conservatives deserve some

42:54

credit for agitating for more action on

42:56

the border. It's gotten out of control.

42:59

I think David from is very good on this. He's like, if

43:02

liberals aren't going to control the border, then conservatives are and

43:04

I think a lot of liberals aren't going to like what

43:06

they want to do. I also think though,

43:08

it's true, the Democrats were all going

43:10

to vote for that. There's this vision of

43:12

the Democratic Party that gets put out among

43:14

some, I assume in Georgia, some of the

43:16

swing voters that Joe Biden's enough to get,

43:18

there's a vision of the Democrats that they're

43:20

extreme. They're open borders. It's like John Lennon

43:23

over there. The

43:25

Democrats were all going to vote for that deal.

43:27

So, you know, maybe it took some pressure or

43:29

sure, but don't they get some credit? Doesn't it

43:32

show that there's some pragmatism happening with Biden and

43:34

that you can work with them? Isn't that something,

43:36

a case that you can maybe make to people

43:38

like you in Georgia that don't love Donald Trump,

43:40

that are worried about the far left? That's

43:43

certainly what my hope is between now and November or

43:45

whatever the election is fourth, is to

43:47

be able to inject opinions, not

43:49

because they're Republican opinions, but because they're common

43:51

sense conservative ideas that help navigate this country

43:54

in a better direction. I want

43:56

my president to win. I want my president

43:58

to be effective, regardless of whether they're a Republican,

44:00

a Democrat, an independent. We all

44:02

should want that, right? That really is what America is

44:04

all about. If we look in the rear view mirror,

44:07

history's not gonna be kind to

44:09

somebody of the character, lack of character of

44:11

Donald Trump. This is easy stuff if

44:14

you're just mature enough to step away from that moment

44:16

in time of the next tweet or the

44:18

next X or whatever you call it these days. I'm not

44:20

hip enough to know this. But history's

44:22

not gonna be kind to Donald Trump. The quicker

44:24

we purge this, and look, if it means

44:26

working with the other team, so be it. Let's do it, and

44:28

let's do it well. I

44:30

know that you're kind of worried about what the

44:33

Donald Trump party means to the future of conservatism

44:35

and the GOP, but just on a policy level

44:37

or on a governance level, maybe not on a

44:39

political level. What's the thing that would worry you

44:42

most about another Trump term? I

44:44

think the reckless foreign policy. These

44:46

times are real. As I watch the

44:49

news play out, yes, we've got these domestic

44:51

issues, and I think we have massive economic

44:53

cracks showing just because both Joe Biden and

44:56

Donald Trump recklessly spent $8 trillion

44:58

on Donald Trump's side and $9

45:00

trillion in growing on Joe Biden's side. But I think at

45:02

the end of the day, the way he recklessly operates

45:05

with foreign policy is a huge danger,

45:07

and not just to the image and

45:09

the reputation of America, but to our

45:11

soldiers and to our very lives. We

45:14

certainly know what the ramifications of foreign policy

45:16

gaffes are. It then becomes economic, it then

45:18

becomes trade related. Look, this guy has

45:20

made no mystery of what he's going to do day one

45:23

when he gets in there. He's going

45:25

to be a reckless dictator that simply gravitates towards

45:27

being 1% more powerful than

45:30

he did everyday in his office. And to me, this country's too

45:32

important. The future of my three kids is too important. To

45:34

just give the keys to somebody like that, just because they

45:36

have an R next to their name. And by the way,

45:38

it's a fake R. It's written with a pencil, it's not

45:40

written with a sharp F. I appreciate that.

45:42

You mentioned at the top, the social

45:45

kind of fallout for you. I

45:47

am curious. What are the things like? I mean, I assume

45:49

you had a poker club or something, a group

45:51

of former Republican state reps you used to hang

45:53

out with. Are you taking the heat? I know

45:55

you said that I think your wife was maybe

45:57

one time half older than a grocery store. What's

46:00

the social fallout then for you? It's

46:02

probably a lot less than what most folks would think.

46:04

It's probably 10 to one, right? 10 to one now,

46:06

you know, early on in the 2020 election, it

46:09

was the inverse of that. But look, I think

46:11

most folks realized, look, we need a better pathway

46:13

forward. We do need a better direction.

46:16

But yeah, there's certainly some blowback. I mean, I

46:18

posted a picture of me and my wife with

46:20

my son on his last baseball game last night.

46:22

And my wife reminded me this morning to go

46:24

delete all the comments off of it, just because

46:26

people playing, you know, mindless games of intimidation and

46:29

whatnot. But look, it is what it is. I'm

46:31

truly driven by the fact that doing the right thing

46:34

will never be the wrong thing. And the right thing

46:36

is not Donald Trump. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.

46:38

Sometimes I feel like some of these guys get excuses.

46:40

I think there are threats that are real. Obviously, we

46:42

just talked to Elizabeth Newman, domestic terror threat expert. There

46:44

are threats that are real, so I'm not undermining that.

46:46

But a lot of people I think have used as

46:48

an excuse to not speak out, you know, because they're

46:50

not up for the blowback. Okay, I want to end

46:52

on one fun thing, if you don't mind. All right,

46:54

let's do it. There's an alternate life for you.

46:56

There's an alternate world for you where you don't

47:00

say what you think is true, and you

47:03

just go along with the nonsense, and you end

47:05

up on Newsmax with Eric Boling. And I want

47:07

to play a little clip from Eric Boling last

47:09

night with Kristy Knope. I've also written

47:11

a couple of books, and I know how the process works.

47:13

You write some chapters. You don't write the whole book at

47:15

once. You write a chapter or two. You

47:17

send it to the editors, and they edit. They

47:19

read it. They add. They subtract.

47:22

And here's my question. The editor, the

47:24

editor, was she possibly a plant,

47:26

a liberal plant? Because I'm

47:28

not sure either one of these stories, the dog

47:30

story, the North Korea story, seems

47:33

like the Kristy Knope I know. No,

47:36

the buck always stops with me. I

47:38

take my own responsibility. Good

47:40

for you, Kristy. That's good. There

47:42

we go. That's the alternate life you could

47:44

have been leading. Going on Newsmax, you

47:47

know, hypothesizing about liberal plants

47:49

inside the publishing industry. This

47:52

is what's happened to us. Yeah,

47:54

yeah, yeah. My

47:56

stock line is, look, I didn't run for office again because it's

47:58

hard to show up to work and only. until 70% of the truth.

48:01

In that scenario, it feels like you're only

48:04

showing up and maybe telling 10% of the

48:06

truth. That'd be a little hard to look

48:08

in the mirror. That's good. All right,

48:10

hey, before I lose you, actually, one more thing, you at least

48:12

would approach, I think, about third party stuff. There

48:15

are a lot of people out there, conservatives, moderates, who

48:17

say, maybe not this election, but maybe the right path

48:19

and the Republican Party is so broken, maybe third party

48:21

is an option. How did

48:23

you look at the third party possibility

48:25

this time and how do you assess

48:27

that in the future? Certainly, there's 70%

48:29

of America that doesn't like the menu

48:31

Biden or Trump and so that there's

48:33

never been this kind of

48:35

polling information before. And I seriously

48:37

looked at it. I mean, I really thought there

48:40

was gonna be an opportunity and there is, but

48:42

the system is not geared for a third party.

48:44

I mean, how do you raise a billion dollars

48:46

in a matter of weeks or months, maybe at

48:48

best? How do you convince

48:51

70 or 80 million people to get to know

48:53

somebody who's relatively a no-namer on the national scene?

48:55

It just would be too hard to break the

48:57

strings of gravity. But in a perfect world, it

49:00

would be a great setup, have a Republican president,

49:02

have a Democrat vice president walk in and stabilize

49:04

the system for four years and then see what

49:06

happens. My guess is America would get addicted to

49:08

that type of leadership. Yeah, I'm

49:11

kind of with you. I think I'd have

49:13

to maybe be a celebrity and it would

49:15

probably not have to be Donald Trump on

49:17

the ballot, just he's too at the polarization

49:19

of it. Makes it too hard. Anyway, Lieutenant

49:21

Governor Jeff Duncan, thank you so much for

49:23

coming on the Bullard Podcast. I appreciate your

49:25

leadership and I just wanna repeat. I think

49:27

that it's so, so important. I'm burned, man.

49:29

I've been against Trump for nine years and

49:31

I was always a right now. So

49:33

important of conservatives, of principals,

49:35

who are speaking out and

49:37

saying, hey, we can survive

49:39

four years of policies we disagree with. We

49:41

might not be able to survive four years

49:43

of Donald Trump. I thank you for doing

49:45

that. I appreciate you very much. Please come

49:47

back soon. Absolutely. Jeff Duncan, enjoy suburban Georgia,

49:49

baseball tournaments, parenting. It's a good life. It's

49:52

a good life out there, people. He's got

49:54

a good life. You can do it too.

49:56

You're a Republican that knows the right thing. You

49:58

can do it too. It's doing great.

50:00

Thank you very much for coming on the board

50:02

podcast. We'll be back tomorrow with friend of the

50:04

pod. See you then Oh

51:00

Oh Right

51:50

The whole podcast is produced by katie

51:52

cooper with audio engineering and editing by

51:55

jason broth Some

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