conference continuing through most of the day today. if you missed any of what vice president pence had to say, you will be able to watch it on c-span.org. the search bar on our home page. we will also re-air his remarks tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. coming up next, live coverage of the john batchelor radio program from the stage. later, we will have conversations with senator ted cruz, education secretary betsy devos, and labor secretary alex acosta. trump's sonsident eric trump to read tomorrow, we will have president trump speaking to the gathering after "washington journal." comments fromave kellyanne conway and fcc chair ai.. high a -- ajit p [general chatter] [general chatter] >> you heard vice president pence mention the reverend billy graham who passed away yesterday at the age of 99. officepeaker paul ryan's announced plans for a memorial at the capitol. speaker ryan said in a statement, "the late reverend billy graham will be brought to the capitol, where he will lie in on in the rotunda until march 1. members of the public can pay respects to the late reverend. further information and other guidance will be issued in the coming days." upon the arrival of the casket, how speaker ryan and senate majority leader mitch connell -- mitch mcconnell will take part in a bicameral service. [general chatter] [general chatter] at cpac -- [general chatter] >> it appears we are a moment away from the start of the john batchelor radio program. that is up next. we will show you a portion of the conversation from this morning's washington journal about millennials in the conservative movement. cpac is getting underway this morning. cap at phillips is on your screen and he is the develop up -- director of campus at least. the purposeus about of you being at cpac. nonpartisan nonprofit organization, whose main goal is to train the next-generation of conservative activists. getting people ready to join the whatever itocess, is, anyone who wants to learn the tools of the trade. we offer getting involved in campaigns, social media, we offer media training, public speaking training. one of our main focuses is campuses where we help to roll the conservative on campuses. we try to help it thrive there. anyone is welcome to come to one of our schools, you will get the same training. >> you are a couple of years yourself out of liberty university when you started doing this professionally. how did you find the sort of standards set of rules of what is currently underway? when i was in college, quite conservative university. i was surrounded by people who thought like me. i had a good base of conservative activists that i was able to grow with. talking to my friends around the country that there was a need for a network of young conservatives that were willing to help one another and growth of movement on college campuses very after college, i got involved with leadership institute. who did notstudents have the experience that i had, to give them the tools and resources to help their get -- get there opinions out there. people who lack of are helping empower students. students go to college not sure what they mean politically. they don't ever have a chance, many times they are indoctrinated on college campuses. let's get the conversation going, so you can make up your own mind. about thetalking millennials and the conservative movement with cabot phillips. if you are between the ages of 18 and 34, we welcome your tweets at c-span. you talked about going to school at liberty, most similar ideas. you mentioned this in your opening statement, welcoming people with different views. do you feel like capitol hill is an area where people are accepting of conservative ideas? >> with the administration ,hange, a little bit of a wave a more noticeable conservative presence in d.c.. on campuses, they all , whyve one thing in common , it is necessary because there is a lack of a conservative presence. liberals oftentimes they have their views reinforced in the classroom by liberal professors, by the media, by hollywood, and conservative students feel like there is no place for them. we are necessary to come in and help give students the resources they need, and give a voice to them. it is ok to be young and conservative. it is ok to disagree with your professors and your peers. we feel it is necessary to empower them. trying to shine a light on the lack of discourse that is going on in college campuses. full -- phone call from homestead, california. i heard the young man say that if the likes to talk to andle who is like you think believe what they believe, my question is, can you be and liberal at the same time? can you take all the good things -- conservatism? >> it's important that you do not put yourself in a box. i think it's important that people have discussions and not put yourself in a box. our organization does encourage discussion. -- manyon -- i like conservative students are not like-mindedy people. it makes you become stronger. conversations are being held at camp -- campus. liberal kind of just lecture. increase ofced an pitching a conservative ideas all caps. , andr than having a debate let people make up their own mind. the main thing we see from students is to shut the ideas down because they make students politically uncomfortable or make them feel nervous or unsafe. our organization is trying to get people to realize that even though an idea mate make you feel uncomfortable, they shouldn't be shut down. you are not going to learn how , toruly become an adult shut down someone just because you disagree with them. that is wrong on whatever side it is. it is more the left that is doing it. it's important not to surround yourself by people you agree with you to break up that echo-chamber. >> let's go to our millennial -- and hear from and in reston, virginia. .aller: i'm here having been raised conservative , i don't think it was a lack of conservative viewpoints are more education on watch -- , and somech party did things that don't jive with the millennial generation. theycurious why you assume are being influenced to go to the left and making informed decisions. maybe those ideas just fit better with the values and morals of the millennial generation. question kind of brings up the point i am making. the sort of ideas that people disagree with, if you agree with condoningyou are hate. that's part of the problem that we see. they just want to say that anyone who disagrees is wrong. you bring up the pressure that -- much of that comes from peers and society. it does come in the classroom. where case after case professors are using their positions more as a pope and -- pulpit. every week i am on a different campus. students say i am afraid to speak out in my class. a i have this bias as to write against donald trump. i don't want to share my opinion because the professor will know what i think. even students who are physically threatened for holding views, and i think that is wrong. it starts with professors in the administration beginning to allow the last to be a place of discussions. the professors may not even realize they are stifling discussion by injecting their own personal bias. everyone needs to take a hard look at what they are teaching in their classes. if they are using a marketplace of ideas and if they are not willing to look at it, and if they are not empowering the students, people should know what is going on on the campuses. we are trying to empower the students to make a difference on their campuses. what was your background? i grew up in a conservative household. the main thing for me growing up , deeply even jellico person. i attendy adult life church readily. that is a big factor for me. i wouldn't say that my own personal politics were big for .e inave been an intern washington, d.c.. of a lack of conservative leadership was around me. it's not about me, my goal is not to promote any one person. my motivation is for the students who feel they don't have a voice, and to give them an opportunity. there are students feel nobody has their back. if you come forward, there are other people who will go along with you. my story is similar to a lot of people. ♪ bachelor -- john bachelor. we are on the border with maryland, actually i am a little lost. i am pleased to welcome my guess. this is sebastian gorka of fox news. our topic is the strength of the republican party here at the beginning of 2018, a midterm election year. always keen on measuring ourselves. we begin, lists, with the economy. in these last days we have had polls showing that the american people despite the efforts of the paulson crowd, now enjoy the tax cut in 2017. the fact joins with the observation from all metrics independent that the markets have turned very positive on the future of the united states. what supports this being sustained? what is the significance to you and how do you connect that to the republican party russian mark >> >> the most telling public comes out is that 51% approve of a tax cut that cuts taxes for 85% of the country. the most amazing and the democrats have done is convincing americans that they were not going to see their taxes go down and this was a bill they would hate. it is a remarkable accomplishment. americans are beginning to warm up to this. we have a booming economy. this is speeding that economy, as if the lightning of regulation that has been put in place by the white house. very formidable add-ons to an already growing economy. the growth rate this year is expected to be anywhere from 3% to three -- 3.5%. that is sustainable because for we first time in eight years have businesses investing in america. i think that is something that is incredibly formative for the next couple of years. prior to -- productivity has , under obama businesses were worried about higher taxes that no one spent money on capital goods. have sort of a virtuous circle. enormous confidence, the latest reading from small business owners, a record high level of confidence in the economy. , theyime ever to invest responded to a survey. these are remarkable readings of the economy, and i think the gop, the reason there polling is getting that are is because people are increasingly comfortable and optimistic about the economy. >> your state of michigan is one of the three's dates that surprised the election. do you see it on main street, in detroit, a improving economy? >> the reason that people start to like the tax bill is because they understand that happiness begins, what president trump did is allowing people to keep their own money, to make their own investments to allow businesses , it hast in people allowed the economy to grow and continue to grow. macomb county is especially critical to the success of the -- in 2018. 2615 >> does it see a stronger economy? later in thiser manufacturing states. it isan is happy when making things and be productive. idea to get jobs back in the midwest and get confidence in the economic recovery. it isn't just the wall street or the dow jones. and to sell a few cars in detroit. >> i am calling on you to help us understand how washington doesn't get this. you are here all the time and have observed this from the white house and now from fox news. this is common sense to us. dennis --deaf?n why is it that getting to the lobbyists. >> the gop establishment audience and the democrats. the gop is starting to understand that this president was only accidentally the gop candidate. he is nothing to the swamp. they are starting to understand that he will fight the gop establishment because of it. democrats, i have no answer for you. -- america great again is a great slogan. what does it mean? i tell everybody, with the president really like and i said the president wants all americans to be safe and to prosper, whether or not you -- voted forhim him. whether you voted for hillary or irrelevant to him. it is safety and prosperity which is not a conservative concept. >> what are you going to argue against? we don't want prosperity and safety? >> secular stagnation. where did it go? summers convince the major voices in new york that we would go with 2% forever and the idea of 3% and 4% was a fairytale. >> he is still out there writing off its -- op-eds. the labor ties into the productivity issue. labor will not be a problem and lead to booming wages. climb.re beginning to the issue again is productivity. if you don't invest in new plants and equipment, you will a climbing productivity number and then labor becomes a constraint. theirre look back over shoulder saying, here is what we fail to grow the economy. we want this failure to be understood as something that cannot be reversed. it is being reversed, and i think it is the greatest thing that this administration has going for it. >> you are a recovering politician so i hope -- i want you to help us understand. how is this being treated by your colleagues on the hill, mr. job tax.ed are they hearing this good news? or are they regretful of what they have done? >> i don't they regret it. when people are out there getting employed and are working and doing things they don't have time to go to town halls and throw chairs at you. so what you have to do is especially to the people listening to the show, make sure your members know you appreciate what they are doing. pelosi,, and you want to see them go back. what do the democrats have? economically as a policy, not a talk -- not a talking point to go beyond 3% growth. that theynd 2% growth talk about in the new york times. what a they going to offer you to make things better than they are. republicans are working out plans to make things even better. against theame out economy. flatabout a line that fell with millenia spirit the millennial generation is all about the startup ventures, a lot of them being big economy. that was one of the worst move she made during the campaign. >> this is the john batchelor show, we are at cpac 2018. we are talking about the republican parties. it is peace and prosperity. the next conversation is about isis. this is the john batchelor show. the cpac 2018. i am doing this radio show on stage, but i am dealing with people who are very happy and measuring theth strength of the republican party. peace and prosperity is what elected i in 1956. they spent the first half of the 20th century dealing with the new deal. in the second half, peace and prosperity. this is a hard question. days, andlooking for what happened to isis? is we have a new present -- president who has seem to compress them within six months. i must give credit where credit is due. president trump's military which allows them to do their job. secondly, we have the best military in the world. when you let them do their job they will crush our enemies. lastly, and harrisburg credit is due. steve bannon as the chief -- i want a bumper sticker for the next three months and it should say i want no more physical caliphate. group -- we have to obliterate it. do, did the of armed forces in three months took back and destroyed the caliphate. that is why we are safer with one caveat. don't disappear. they are looking for for tile ground elsewhere, probably africa, but we will deal with them there. leadership brings results. the national security question also deals with our allies in europe. nato, geriatric state until long cay president trump. in new yorkse whether they're paying attention or not. pressure onputting nato to respond and putting pressure on his countries to respond. often the fact that we don't talk about it means that it is going better. >> maybe. i think that the president had a very realistic and common sense approach to our relationship with nato. don't we all need to do our fair share. those words are popular on the left until it came to this discussion. it seems to me that one president trump came out and at some length berated our nato allies for not living up to their agreement to spend 2% of gdp on armaments and defense, i thought he was reasonable. i think most americans saying -- say yes we are shouldering too much of the responsibility. germany, which has a huge trade surplus is incredibly wealthy country. it is still not paying 2% on their own defense. most people are thinking, washer that be? -- why should that be? think being pulling out of the nato agreement is on the horizon but i think he expects them to live up to their nato agreement. moscow and beijing are threats to the american people. do the american people know it? just as it was at the beginning of the 20th century, today. american and her allies believe that liberty undergird prosperity. therefore, the race is between the u.s. and her alice and comment -- communists in authoritarian countries for the future of other countries to see where they are going. the president understands by making america great again it is not just a self-indulgent project. freeow the world what a people can't achieve and inspire them to get on board and show that the future belongs. president has started an initiative to create a coalition. india, japan and the united states. that creation is entirely a product of the trump administration. in thed not exist previous administration. they had an unknown relationship with china. a threat,e it as hence we lost major pieces of the chelsea tennessee to china's aggression. -- south chinese sea to china's aggression. they say that candidates don't realize the enormity of what they are getting into until that first day after the inauguration and they get the full daily briefing. , the presidentu attitude to china changed as soon as he became a president because he had a very businessman like attitude. he now understands thanks to the briefings that there is only one strategic threat american -- america faces. gdp is smaller than california. the only one we face is china. already,at war with us with its economic and political warfare. look at what australia has gone through with the purchasing of politicians with chinese cash. these are facts. the president has turned the world around not only american understanding inside the administration, but our friends in the asia-pacific region tolize, we don't have to go china connecticut, but we won't -- do theiro john plan. the statediscussing of the republican party and 2018. it's not something you will see in the washington post or new york times. that the strength of republican party depends on dealing with a current event that is not transparent, generally understood as russia gate. we will be right back. this is the john batchelor show. >> we are discussing the strength of her republican party. we talked the economy and the tax cuts and the growth that was denied by the previous administration. disappeared from a conversation, russia and china , nochallenged directly longer is there diplomacy around the edges. subject that comes up all the time and i want to deal with it here. it is called russia gate. my opinion, it is the product of an allegation by the hillary clinton campaign and the dnc to accuse a candidate for the presidency, candidate elect of colluding with our enemies. colluding for money, colluding because of blackmore. it is a fantastic at false accusations based on rubbish called the steele dossier. we have today a special counsel doing his business as if he is going to discover the secret door to his conspiracy. i want to begin with you,liz, opinion, is your this a washington matter that only washington can understand? it makes no sense to us in new york. the idea that in some fashion there is going to be a that tears donald trump from the presidency and restores the kingdom. >> i think the rest of the country is wondering what is going on. this investigation has been going on for almost a year, and there is no evidence that anyone in the trump campaign or administration colluded with russia in any way. , america's attention span, but people are tuned out of the spirit now what is happening and i think this is a tragedy, our fbi and law enforcement and the justice department are under a serious cloud. it looks like if there was collusion, the collusion was between democrats running for office and the fbi. that to me is a horrible revelation and i think that is going with this whole investigation of how this warrant was obtained. october 21, 2016. as a recovering politician i asked for your help here to understand how this is viewed on capitol hill. for the republicans, it is a distraction and annoying, always to lose up to these headlines. on the other hand, it is good for committees to have the fate of the nation turn on the next testimony. how do politicians cynically and, since wise -- common sense wife think about this? just watch adam schiff on tv. fairness, i don't think many of you and watch those stations. the good thing about this is, and i believe from what we will continue to seek him out, the police powers of the state and the intelligence agencies weaponize against people's political opponents for partisan gains. that is a betrayal of the open of the united states. lucky very look like -- that devin nunes and others do not --. i am very glad you mentioned chairman inez -- nunes. collects dustod colleagues with him. today we enjoy the information that we get from the house intelligence committee. we look forward to more. ands a very strong confident chairman of the house intelligence committee and we are very lucky to have an. the memo, theom hot memo of the house majority intelligent. what we see in that letter to the department of justice making a criminal referral on christopher steel. we see the outlines of bad actors. not only democrats, but were part of the previous administration. we understand that we need the fbi, and the department of justice, and we need the executive branch to work. the outline suggests we will spend an nightmare ahead of the spirit can washington handle this? can we protect the american people and provide for -- and seekor prosperity out the bad actors who are aligned in the documents? >> if you have a serious illness, sometimes you have to take the chemo. scandal dam all the -- down, last year or during the end of the presidential election, we had one candidate and her party basically by in illegal surveillance against the member of the other candidates team. that happened in america. got permission from the judge to spy on another american in a way that was illegal. that is political police. you are not allowed to spy on somebody for political reasons. that is something we have to get to the bottom of my having the contact you have an knowing the people on the show, the individuals who are exercising their oversight duties. it is clear that this is the beginning. beyond the steele dossier, which is an outrage to begin with, there is a larger scandal that will be on earth. when you have a you and --assador requested or requesting unmasking of u.s. citizens, that the obama administration. we have to get to the bottom of it, whatever the cost. is very high.z, if i understand the scale of this, we are talking about the major leaders of the previous administration. that point ito would be very disruptive. i do wonder if there is an appetite to carry it to its final conclusion. i hope so. these people miss behaved. it's time they were called out. [applause] i also want to see the media cover this story. they have assiduously avoided covering this story. that is bad news. it has to be fixed. hominem on anyone who speaks out for the revelations about the steele dossier. how do politicians hear that, when their persons are attacked, their families are threatened, their movement is limited because they are seeking to find the fact that there is -- that there is responsibility. what happens? >> know, in the case of nunes and others. you have an elected official that understands the oath, and they will get to the bottom of this. had askedhe noise and devon has said you know you were youe to the target the more get the flak. the more they try to intimidate others, that tells you they cannot defend the indefensible. so they attack the messenger. that is what you are continuing to see. there is no defense for what they did, the people who are investigate as made the determination when they took that oath that these were the things they would get to the bottom of it, because it is wrong. >> i want to emphasize this. we are very early into this process. those who want to rush this are uninformed and those who know what's going on or have an understanding, this will take much longer than this election cycle. this, impeachment. for heavens sake. seeing, --emocratic democratic theme. i hold you responsible for washington. platformou have no you clutch in desperation. it's the let's impeach him. if they go down that avenue they have no idea who they are dealing with. the idea of impeaching donald trump, this is a man who never gives up. he will be outflanking them on twitter every day, and they will go down for the parity that they are. it is desperation. i think that's right and i also think are is some enthusiasm gap. the 5 -- the last wants to see impeachment. on the right it is generally the case that the income the party loses seats in the house. this is a very motivating issue. arepe everyone in this room going to remember that this impeachment threat is out there and it is a good reason to give money and go vote and syrup your neighbors and get them to vote also. dust used her up your neighbors and get them to vote also. the democrats have their claim and winning the majority of the house of representatives. my observation is that will reelect donald trump by 400 electoral votes. fundamentally, i hate to give them advice, fortunately they will ignore it. when you look at it, we went through this when george bush was president. and when obama was president. obamarying to give constructive criticism to make things better for the american people. the way americans view real life is, you are a democrat you may hate donald trey -- donald trump. what does that do for me? it's not keeping me safe and secure or getting my kids in college. if you want to hate him that's fine. what are you doing for me? >> this is the john batchelor show. we are discussing the strength of the republican party. the strength of the republican party for our children, that money is -- millennials. i am on stage with my guests, discussing the themes for the republicans. now we look to the future, the millennials. those of us who have children who are millennials, we understand that we are dad and mom and therefore it's ok. we think about what they are i want toemember, start with you,liz. you have elderly millennials and also bridging the gap you can see the millennials around you in new york. we are told that millennials are keen on barack obama and the democratic party. the millennials by now, my children, they all have 401(k)s. the idea of me in 19 is the nine having a 401(k), i would have been drowned out. is that going to bring them back to common sense >>? is guessching moment what, you lower taxes and light in the regulatory urban, -- after eight years of living in their parents to is an incredibly exciting thing. this is a positive kind of dialogue. they all learn from their economics professors, but they did not learn about the laffer curve. a good time for them to learn a great deal about how it works. listening and living it. >> my children are millennials. look at the internet. we hear all the things about -- about twitter, if you look at the ben shapiro's at pearson's, these are all powerful conservatives and it is not a message of hatred. we have an interesting moment where the conservative moment is trying to define what trumpism is. millennials are doing it without reading national review, without reading the op-ed pages of the washington times. videocast's go to a every day. this is a fight, you have to fight every 20 years. we won this, 1999. we are fighting the same thing in africa. -- the laffer curve. bookould be in every text in america but it isn't. >> said he is, the millennials. they care about social issues. are there social issues that the republican party need to be more responsive to? >> you are underestimating millennials. i have to watch millennials, what you see in the studies are the positions stack of especially on economic issues, they are created. they tend to be more libertarian than anything outs. as to pro-life we continue to it grow. eventually we will get there. when you look at the millennials the worst thing you want to do is look at them like millennials. it is an individual. you put it forward to the individual. irish catholicn democrat and mother moderate republican. but when i saw reagan i saw what worked. for the millennials who live in a. betime when they come to heard and shaping their own destinies are not going to want the government to run their lives for them in the long run. reality will set in and you , the cats in 1776 got it right. my generation did it, and they will too. we don't have hollywood or television, we don't have the washington post or the new york times. still they will listen to us? has 48 milliont twitter followers. that's just what are -- that's just twitter. everybody younger than 40 has no idea who i am. watch other millennials doing three-minute podcasts every day. those people like the common sense attitude of the present. the president is a patriot and a pragmatist. it cannot be denied and even millennials see that. age group, these are americans and let's treat them as individuals. [applause] thism going to wrap this -- wrap this up. thank you for coming on stage. it is easier when you do it on the telephone. it is a pleasure to sit with you. it is kind of like television except we don't have formatted linux -- four minute bites. fabius, for coming from michigan. .- thaddeus this is the john batchelor show at cpac 28 teen -- 2018. [applause] ♪ >> live coverage of cpac continues in just a moment. next will be a discussion on foreign policy and conversations on capitalism, republican prospects in november, we will hear remarks from senator ted alexand labor secretary acosta. tonight at six, eric trump, president trump son. if you miss any coverage you can see it on our website, c-span.com. vice president pence spoke earlier today at cpac. you can see his remarks like at 8:00 eastern. tomorrow the coverage will continue, president trump will be speaking after washington journal at about 10:00 eastern. we will hear from counselor pai, the conway, ajit president's effect on economics and cyber threats. all that coming up in our coverage of cpac. politico, we will get on to that story right after this. hope that america likes justice. me -- today i -- i am a conservative. why not? it is an honor for me to add my friends -- french voice. honor ourve come to friendship. -- ourn long before islands -- is a request for freedom. france was the first country to recognize your independence. [applause] french blood was spilled on american soil but our friendship begins. , we are centuries later once again standing side-by-side for freedom. this freedom is a gift. freedom of speech, freedom of conscience. ,fter 1500 years of existence it is the french, we will fight for our independence. free to choose our policies whether it is military, immigration, our freedom is now in the hands of the european union. union is an liability that looks only to the , without people, without roots and civilization. is in the process of killing nations come i live in a country of the laws are imposed by the eu. let me be clear. hearnot offended when i the president say america first. [applause] i want america first for the american people. i want british first for the british people and i want france first for the french people. [ [applause] that is why i fight for french diplomacy to keep its unique role, to act as a bridge between the east and the west. history has allowed us to form privileged ties with russia, asia, and the middle east. we must be able to keep the ability to decide for ourselves, our military, and the medic decisions. complementary.re like you, like you, if we want to make a change, we must be focused on the interest in the global markets. we cannot accept a model that creates slaves in developing nations and unemployed in western countries. [applause] the model proposed by the eu. -- confident that the people all i want is the survival of my nation, to be able to pass on alsonly my heritage, but my --. [applause] the young french generation is not encouraged to connect and love. they are brain frost -- brainwashed with guilt and shame of their country. the result is the development of an islamic society in france. ofer 40 years disintegration, islamic lobbies -- to thed france little niece of islam. only theerrorism is --. this is not the france that our grandparents caught for -- fought for. how did we get here? [applause] how did we get here, because the eu and french coalition members forgot one crucial point -- to open oneself to the outside, you must have a solid core. to remain, you have and to share, you must have something to offer. without nations and without family, belief of the common good, natural law, and duality disappears as the rain of alien as an continues -- reign of alienism continues. today, even children have now become merchandise. -- wee we have the right here we have the right to rent a woman's womb, to deprive a child of a mother and father. a child is not a right. we do not want this atomized world of individuals without gender, without father, without mother, and without nation. [applause] so what do we want then? finally, just like you, we want our country back. i came here to tell you that there is a youth ready for this fight in europe today. applause]d and you, who believe in hard work, that the flag means something, who want to defend individual freedom and private [inaudible] want want to protect -- as youth, we want to protect our parents and humanity. [applause] youth, theerican french youth is the heir of a great nation. to whom which is given, much is expected. our fight cannot only take place in elections, we need to convey our ideal for the media, security, and the education. that is why i have launched a school of political science, with the goal to train the leaders of tomorrow. the skills to be of interest to their people. the challenge is immense, but the last few years have shown the one thing -- never underestimate the people. [applause] only a [inaudible] regularly u.k., and of course, the election of president trump brought facts. when the people are given the opportunity to take their country back, they will see it eize it.it -- sie her actions and your talents, you have to put conservatives back on the top of the political agenda. let us build on what you have achieved here so that on both sides of the atlantic, a conservative agenda may prevail. i finished with a quote that i like very much, a quote that sums up conservative modernity, "tradition is not the warship of ashes, but the presentation of fire. you let the spark, it is now up to us to feed the conservative flame in our country." the franco-american friendship. thank you. [applause] ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen is the biggest threat to the u.s.? a, china, b, russia, c, rogue states, or d, all of the above. please welcome our panel from the -- our panel. [applause] ♪ >> i hope we don't have five minutes. ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for having us, and a special thank you to our wonderful analysts here -- panelists here. i will try to his because little as possible, because we have so much expertise here. i am grateful for the acu and all of the hard-working staff who made this happen. when matt first asked me to moderate, i said how dare you? no, moderate a panel, not moderate your views. [laughter] i said ok, i can do that. what are the largest threats to the united aids? is it right -- united states? china,adical islam, russia, rogue actors, or secret answer d, e, f, all of the above. we have answered the question there. we have such a wonderful panel here with us, ambassador john bolton, who really -- [applause] such a personal hero of mine. the man who, i'm sure, so many hope and look forward to hearing a lot more from in policy areas over the next few years. i hope i have not overstepped any line there, but i say it often and probably. institutedson, hoover and claremont institute fellow, russia expert, and we will start with ariel, because i know the media need their russia fix. so we will get onto that. jasper, probably one of the greatest people out there at the moment. [applause] dr. jasper and his organization, he spends his time fighting the shary elements -- sharia elements that are not just taking a hold all across the world, but right here in the united states too. believe me, it is happening, and on the frontlines fighting radical islam. someone like myself, who was born into a muslim family and --ided it was not me, i dos th my cap to dr. jasper for doing what he does. thank you for doing what you do. [applause] let's start with ariel, ladies first. the media has to have their russia fix. the question i would ask from the start is now we have heard about these indictments, we have heard about the meddling for some time. evidence.ollusion if you find any under your seats, let us know. we can hand it off to the press. you, arial, what is the strategic threat that have the likesnd of cnn become complicit with doing what we know some russians , state actors didn't want to do, which is disrupt american democracy -- did want to do, which is disrupt american democracy? >> that is a really loaded question. what i would like to start with is the post-cold war era we are inhabiting. during the cold war, we were in a bipolar world in terms of how we viewed our national security issues. we are not afforded that simplest is luxury anymore, i would argue. in russia, we are starting to see, at least under the offices of putin, are trying to capture the former greatness associated with the soviet union. we are seeing that as being the justification for forays into the middle east, increased tensions in asia, and violating the sovereign integrity of the of ukraine. when we talk about russia's ambitions, it is to recapture greatness. in clinton's mind, there is no such thing as a week russia. for russia to exist -- putin's mind, there is no such thing as a weak russia. for russia to exist, she must be great. hold awill always special place in our hearts for how we view it through the prism of national security. i also believe that russia is in a very unique situation, in where they have -- she has never really had a history of hearing to individual rights. everything is done for the sake of the state of russia, and that asdefined quite a bit national security policy. so what does this mean for the united states? we have to approach our russia with-- our relationship russia very carefully in not she is not our primary foe, and it is not that she is a non-actor. we need to be very cognizant of -- footprint that is provision is trying to expand across the globe, and be highly aware of that -- putin is trying to expand across the globe, and be highly aware of that. as far as the expansion, that is part of core russia. we talked about this earlier , aime, this organization 2008 propaganda arm that started in russia. placed across the growth to disseminate the kremlin's narrative and win over the hearts and minds of people in various countries to make them except russians of privacy -- which russian supremacy, is very bizarre. and something else they like to do is convince people that their current government is incompetent. if we look at the state of our media right now, there is an element in which the constant criticism and critique -- criticism is healthy, but at what point does it become are we establishing the idea that the u.s. government is incompetent? to me, that is a very dangerous notion. there is a point at which convinces him -- criticism becomes unhealthy and subversive in some ways. when russian nationals engaged in the troll farms and the dissemination of propaganda, --y really did sort of their hope was to subvert and create chaos. that has been the mission of this propaganda arm for the past 10 years, and decade before that. russians are experts in information warfare. >> i thought you were talking about cnn for a moment. >> a longer answer, but yeah. >> i want to bring you in on this. we can expand into russia and the middle east and dr. jasper, feel free to ignore me, i'm just want to--, but if you jump in at anytime, jump in. >> i think the mueller indictment last friday is a very important opportunity for the trump administration in dealing with russia in its areas threat manifestations. wasink the president rightly concerned politically that the endless drumbeat of the russianhat the information campaign was to support trump for president, for trump, against hillary, that there was so much of it that people would come logically, if incorrectly, to the conclusion that the trump campaign manager be colluding with russia. you could not have that much of a campaign without knowing trump campaign involvement. the mueller indictment, while it is far from the last word, let's be very clear, there is a lot we do not know -- but in this 100 paragraphs of explanation, eliminates at least as far as we know both of those elements. there is no allegation of collusion by the trump campaign or anybody else, and it is clear from the indictment that the russian effort is an attack on sowconstitution, to mistrust of our institutions, to grow the public faith in our electoral process, and that it supports or opposes candidates as a means to that end, not the end in itself. i would hope that the president, with this political leeway that the indictment gives -- contrary to what the media are saying, but in reality -- can now stay in a very forthcoming way about russian interference in our politics what he has started to do about the russian presence in the middle east, what he has started to do about russian interference in central and eastern europe. the president should say no foreign power, no foreign power messes with american elections. nobody around the world challenges the american constitution. i tell you this -- i think we ought to retaliate for the russian cyber attacks on our election process. i think the retaliation should not be proportionate, i think it should be decidedly disproportionate. i think this is to create deterrence so that neither the russians or anybody else think about trying it again. i think that is the right policy, and here is the right politics for the president -- in any debate between conservatives and liberals over who will defend the constitution best, who do you think will win that debate? [applause] >> opera jasper? >> one of the things we miss, if you look at the choices we had in this panel, russia, china, rogue states, you missed that the pot's doing this is radical irring this is radical islam. every country that has a muslim majority population is going twough this battle between evil factions. one is -- between two forms of fascism. both are not our allies, there has to be third choices, and we now have a president in the white house, parties controlling congress that are no longer wasting all of our time in figuring out what the diagnosis theocratic islam. islam is a medical problem. why don't we get along with the business with fixing the problem and looking for solutions? i am the son of syrian immigrants who were patriotic americans because we embraced american freedom, the ability to practice our faith more freely than we could in any so-called muslim country, but they were american patriot because they rejected soviet imperialism in syria and the earliest 20th -- in the early as 20 -- early 20th century. we not taking sides in syria or iran. the greatest protection from americans that -- american threats coming from iran's nuclear program would be a revolution, and where is american policy in taking sides on people in the streets? tweetingresident trump out a few days after the revolution started, tweeting out support for the people in the streets, something president obama never did. we need to follow through with that and convene a whole government strategy where the greatest threat of the 21st entry is political islam, theocratic islam. we need to convene a commission on radical islam is him that has a whole government strategy through the state department, pentagon, homeland security, where we look at immigration through the lens of not letting letting -- of not islamists come in in, but those that support america values -- american values. we will not support sunni they might bee our short-term friends, but they are the founding fathers of isis ideology. to be careful. if we do not come together as a nation, and especially as a conservative movement and realize what ideas we and for -- not just we are against terrorism, communism, islamism, but what are we for? we can do that if we can beat a commissioner to begin to shift xis from combating violent extremism to combating violent islamism. tell your congressmen and women, we need to shift from cve to cvi. a there was once upon a time whiteboard in the white house that had a lot of points on it. one of those points was the prescription of the muslim brotherhood as a terrorist organization. members of the administration will be watching this and reflecting on what is what do we i hope, have to say as a panel about the fact that there is no prescription of the muslim brotherhood yet? i think that is a simple thing to get down, and is a core campaign promise. would you start us off on that? >> i would have put the brotherhood on the list of foreign terrorist organizations on january 20, 2017, and i do not think there is any question about this. too often, our diplomats fall whether it idea that is the irish republican army or any kind of terrorist group you mention, there is a humanitarian wing of hezbollah and the political wing of hezbollah, the military wing. likewise with the muslim brotherhood. motivatedorganization by one ideology, and that is the fundamental issue here. to understand that the obama administration did not, as president trump does, what we are fighting is not a concept like violence. we are filing -- fighting a radical ideology that grows out islam, political islam, call it what you will. that ideology to test -- the s westernetest civilization, america in particular. we do not a college -- if we do not acknowledge what we are fighting, we will never prevail. >> i am not sure how much daylight there is between me and the ambassador. i would knew once it and say if you globally declare the muslim brotherhood a terror organization, you are going to find what about al jazeera, which is staffed with mostly muslim brotherhood? does that become a terrorist satellite? may be? you have the egyptian brotherhood, the central nuclear cancer cell of the global muslim brotherhood, which should be labeled a terrorist organization. hamas already is. ideologues in london, the muslim brotherhood has an office there. in america, we do not have religious parties, so the muslim brotherhood never put a flag or office down, but there are a lot of believers in islam is him -- islamism. the american brotherhood is an ideology. in the east, they do not carry cards, and there are many supporters of the brotherhood who do not carry cards, but you know they are brotherhood types of the islamist ideology. just like when we were fighting the cold war, we understood the communist already was not our ally, or a place to go to for help in fighting the soviets, but we did not shut them down. we allow them the freedom to speak out so we could monitor them, and realized they were a threat in precursors two significant threats -- to significant threats, but we did not shut them down. as long as these organizations are not advocating terror and violence, it is easy to monitor as opposed tound when you push them above ground. dictatorships are classics example -- classic examples of this. >> arial, we have not yet touched on china, and i hope you will give us some insight into china. up andesident xi gets gives his speeches, he is not talking about here is how we plan to defeat america, or here is how we plan to dominate the world. he is declaring we have already done it. when we have this conversation about what the greatest threat to america is, the chinese think they have already won. right. i will combine what i was going to respond and answer your question. is,ink our biggest threat for right now, radical islamic ideology, as opposed to a nationstate. primarily because an ideology can go through several different iterations, and when you think or suppose it might have been welsh or stomped out in 1 -- or stomped outed in one region of the world, it pops up somewhere else. it transcends borders and does not require a lot of funding. with how ideology spreads on social media, you can use all kinds of platforms that do not need any monetary backing behind it. it makes messages very acceptable. for instance, one of the greatest issues they are having -- the window, or connection between isis and europe for quite a bit of time from 2015 and 2016 was russia. quite a lot of isis videos and recruitment videos were being done in russian. it is alarming, and it is one of those ways in which ideology does not need to belong to a nationstate, it can attract followers from around the globe. that is what makes a tremendously dangerous and why i zhudi 100%.with china has a better relationship with the u.s. and russia then the u.s. and russia have with each other. its power is groaning, russia's power is waning, and we are seeing a greater eurasian alliance as opposed to russia trying to join itself with europe, as has been the primary attends that -- attempt to has made. i think ambassador bolton will have more to say about that. china is doing its best to walk a fine line between maintaining a status and as anic powerhouse -- economic powerhouse in the coming decades. we will see what the result will be. i think that china is in a very unique decision. i'm curious to see where it goes forward from here. it is the largest country, population wise, in the world. >> the chinese are declaring victory, and what they perceive as a long war here. but the north korean stuff -- i do not think the media has truly recognized that president trump, in a lot of ways via twitter, managed to shut down little rocket man, or bring him to the table. have the chinese one, and what do you think is lacking in the recognition about what this president has done on the international stage? >> on the china questions, we have suffered as a country for several decades by operating under the assumption that prevails in the business community, the u.s. government, in academia that china is engaged in a peaceful rise, that is one buzz phrase, and that it simply seeks to take its place, it's rightful place in the community of nations. and we simply have to accept this. that is one possible scenario for china, but it is not the only scenario. the idea that it is going to become a responsible stakeholder, another buzz phrase , in the international system -- there is only one possible outcome. the real pattern of chinese behavior is incredibly aggressive and assertive. they are building bases on rocks fs in the -- ree south china sea that are only three inches above water. they are mapping to see that of the indian ocean, and they are not doing it to find fish. they want to know where they can put their submarines when they develop an undersea fleet. -- this is avery very aggressive development, we will talk more about it, but what we require is a comprehensive american strategy. the president has raised the issues of chinese violations and their obligations under international trade agreements, piracy and intellectual property, discrimination against foreign investors and business people in china, that is an important aspect, but we need a political-military strategy as well. we even need what we had in the cold war, a language. all of these issues are together. china wants to know how we will depends on how they behave across the board. convincedtrump has both north korea and china that barack obama is no longer president, which is the single most important thing that he could do. [applause] but make no mistake, as cia director mike pompeo said recently, north korea is, within a handful of months -- is phrase to dropg the capability thermonuclear weapons on any american city they want. the trump administration has very hard decisions to make in the near future. if china believes what they have set for 25 years, which is they do not want north korea to have nuclear weapons, now is the time for them to act. they do not act and act just positively, -- it will tell you a lot. >> a lot of these different responses that state dictators would have to america come on the heels of how they perceive us. it is time, and has president trump has begun to do, secretary mattis has done with almost the complete decimation of isis. the realize nation that america has to be reckoned with, and that reckoning, that reckoning means -- how many of you think that means with isis gone, that radical islamic threat will go away? nobody. thehave earned one -- turkish president radicalizing his population, the saudi's still pushing -- maybe they are marginalizing brotherhood ideology, but pakistan, interaction islamism, all over the world, islamism is still thriving and we are not on the offense. we need to start realizing that not military, we will not win this militarily. take liberty and freedom on the offense in an information war, just like the russians have done here, the islamists and immigrants have here, weeals need to have an offense for countering violent islamism, not just extremism. [applause] we had more time. iran, venezuela, north korea, we could have touched on so many things. i would like to thank our panelists for laying out the core national security threats for the united states. thank you for all being here and supporting. thank you to our panel. [applause] ♪ >> deep state bureaucrats who want to depose euro and agenda behind closed doors and in secrecy. judicial watch wants to protect the rule of law and the constitution. follow us on youtube now. do not wanticians you to know what they are up to. secret trust funds, emails, and --. judicial watch is your watchdog in washington dc, shining a light of transparency on our nations capital. follow us for the latest updates. >> don't you agree that we need voter id and clean election rolls? your judicial watch is in federal court right now, fighting to make sure your elections will be fair and honest. follow us on instagram. ♪ >> you can be told to run, or you can choose to run. one just goes through the motions, the other has purpose, meaning, freedom. what about your health care? , going being told through the motions, or are you choosing something better? liberty health share has a purpose. it unites people to share in the burden of health care. a true community that cares for you in your time of need. free from interference and constrained. -- constraint. it is time to exercise your purpose, exercise your meaning. it is time to exercise your freedom. liberty health share. >> we are coming together at a crucial time in our nation's history. stridesis making great towards freedom and liberty, but she also confronts determined foes and faces enormous challenges -- challenges that strike directly at the core principles that all of us here hold so dear. enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values, and national security. across america and the world, we see where liberalism has left it it'stating mark -- devastating mark -- and homes, schools, communities, and in capitals. that is why our work is so important, and it is what the heritage foundation is all about. at heritage, we are not a push against the left, we are a battleship. we are determined for america to renew graces -- greatness and renew the fight against liberalism. that is why i am proud to serve as the heritage foundation's president, and why i am proud to join you at cpac in the fight for the greatest nation on earth. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, a conversation with the honorable interviewed by the president of hillsdale college, dr. larry artan. ♪ >> is that your favorite song? >> i did not pick it. andello, if you are here you think that america is important, you probably think the greatest man in america is donald trump. a very high on the list after him would be his white house counsel, don began, who is doing some of the most interesting and important things in the administration. we will begin by letting him tell us what the white house counsel is. mr. mcgahn: the counsel to the president is an appointed position, directly answerable to the president. it is not a career spot. i am appointed by president trump. the white house counsel's office has existed since 1943. it is the primary legal advisor to the president, where i advised the president on a range from constitutional law, executive power, whether or not we can go to war, judicial selection, administrative law, government law that the president has to encounter on a day-to-day basis. >> and that involves you and just about everything. mr. mcgahn: unfortunately, yes. >> hard for you to say that i didn't do it. one of the best things about the trump administration has been the number of judges that got confirmed and the quality of health. -- quality of them. what do you have to do with that? mr. mcgahn: i am the primary advisor to the president on that, and try to keep giving the president and vice. my best advice and counsel on who he should nominate. under the constitution, the with thenomination is president, expressly in the constitution. but he cannot just appoint justices. he has to go through the senate. with the vice consent of the senate, he can appoint judges. it is a time-consuming process. the one who handles the senate contacts, mostly. it is not the sort of thing the president can merely do on his own. it is a team effort between the president and the senate, and i am the one that has to walk into the oval office and advise the president on various recommendations. he makes every decision, he is very engaged in it. he ran on the idea of the judicial branch needing some help. he has delivered on those promises, and i am happy to be the person that is most involved at the staff level. what do you look for in a judge? mr. mcgahn: the president looks for people with excellent credentials, the temperaments, but what the president likes are folks who have demonstrated some short of courage or ability to stand strong in the face of adversity. people who know that when you get on the bench, they will not change and turn it to someone else. [applause] -- into someone else. [applause] mr. mcgahn: what i do in my analysis is look for those qualities that i know the president wants, and we look or things that a person's background that demonstrate they have the commitment to the notion of the rule of law, living iney are standards that are set forth, preferably in legislation, and whether they will give that full measure, or will they be inclined to create the law on their own? will they stand strong in the face of public criticism, or will they respond to the editorial pages, or will daily -- they read the law as written? you can get a sense of the person about how strong they will be and how not -- how strong they won't be. they look good on paper, but in practice you get the sense they will not follow through. other folks look good on paper, but they have some fortitude. the president looks for folks who, not surprisingly, have demonstrated the ability to stand strong, as he has his whole life. he looks for folks that he can relate to in that way. are two things happening, and i wonder if they are coincidental. there is a major effort in the trump administration, coherent and strategic and articulated to try and do something about reining in the regulatory state, and just as gorsuch is an expert -- justice gorsuch is the next part on those areas -- is an expert on those areas in the chevron doctrine. mr. mcgahn: it is part of a larger plan, i suppose. justice gorsuch will be a tremendous justice. it has been an honor to get to know him in the process, and the presidents of electing him to be on the supreme court. what stood out in his record was his track record on speaking about administrative law. you mentioned chevron, some people have heard this idea of chevron deference. it is a reference to a supreme court case from 1984, which is the case often cited by courts to give deference to unelected agencies, determinations as to what the law is. in other words, it is a statute in theory, and do the stand consistent or not with the statute. the courts are increasingly preferential with unelected agencies. the legislature under article one of the constitution, not in and an elected agency had -- unelected agency head. judge gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion on the idea of chevron, whether it was constitutional. a well-written opinion cited by many. it was his standout opinion at the 10th circuit. his view was that courts ought not defer to unelected agency heads. it is records to say with the law is, the legislature to pass the law, the courts to enforce the law. what resonated with the president was that he was a person with impeccable credentials, wonderful character, great man, but frankly stuck his neck out on an issue that anyone else would fear may hurt their chances of promotion to the higher court. but judge gorsuch is not that kind of person. he is leading the vanguard on this. you see this catching on more and more. there was a time not long ago where no one really spoke of administrative law or administrative state, or whatever one wants to college, and now you see more legal conferences on this, the federalist society have their lawyers conference last year, and the whole topic was a ministry law -- administrative law. the president has a great handle on curbing the unelected from the idea of overregulation. if you look at the amount of regulation we have had passed the amount of, regulations in the 1960's was maybe this much, and now it feels warehouses of things -- filled warehouses of things. one needs to say enough is enough. other judicial piece, judges -- one of the things we interview on is the view on administrative law. the president is nominating a have somepeople who experience, if not expertise, in dealing with the government, particularly in a regulatory apparatus. this is different than judicial .election the president is looking for a well-rounded, holistic person who ever stands -- understands so they are the flipside of the same coin. dr. arnn: one would have a hugee in this, because article one starts out "all the legislative thats herein granted," and is interesting, because article two about the president and article three do not have that word, "all." most of the laws in america are made in the bureaucracy. the number of laws passed by congress and the last 100 years has not really changed. that is what makes big government possible. can be donethink about that? what can congress do and what can the executive branch do? with congress, this is not something that happened overnight. this has been happening for decades and decades and decades. you cannot get any particular room for congress, but there is safety in numbers, i suppose. overtime,appened is congress has passed broad sweeping statutes that are not particularly detailed. they give broad power to administrative agencies, the epa, for example, was told to make the air and the water clean. there is not a lot of detail on that, which leaves the bureaucracy to fashion what would otherwise be thought of as legislation. congress used to legislate more. they do not seem to legislate much anymore. they tend to do broader statutes towards regulatory power. this goes back to woodrow wilson, probably before the idea of having unelected experts make the big decisions, getting politics out of the political decisions. it is not the way it is supposed to work in our country. you have elected representatives to pass the laws and you are accountable, -- who are accountable. this is dry stuff, i know, thank you for the applause -- start out -- shout out to stage left. [applause] the first thing, congress can legislate and focus on the meaning of the word. i ran a federal agency once upon a time, and i met with another agency head who came to have lunch with me and run -- get tips on running agencies. known what she had she knew running in congress, she would have changed your view on legislation. congress debates various micro-changes in language and ,ight each other to a draw merely to take the decision and shifted to an unaccountable, unelected branch. it is kind of its own branch of government now. those decisions tend to trend to the left. when the legislator -- nts, the gapsumnt are getting it -- getting filled a way that is not conducive to liberty. -- to conduct oversight on how it's legislation is actually working out. they ought to do that. it is counterintuitive for the office of the president to encourage the congress to do oversight, but they ought to do that. they ought to roll up their sleeves and see how this works out, not just do this sort of oversight that gets headlines, but gets the oversight into the nitty-gritty of how the laws are being implemented. or are a number of statutes that have been on the books for years and years, and they continue to proceed a page without much in the way of review. periodically, congress should take a hard look at these pieces of legislation and see they are working as intended. chances are they are not. the third thing congress can do all due respect, read the constitution and realize that there are -- [applause] there are powers that belong to the congress and the congress only. they are enumerated powers. the executive branch does not have enumerated powers. incutive authority is vested the president. that makes my job a little more challenging. we do not have a list of enumerated powers that i can look to when i want to advise the president on what he can or cannot do. congress sometimes wants to do executive kind of things, judicial things, judges seem to want to fill in gaps and write a is, but what congress can do try to join us in an effort to try and reframe who does what, in a way, more consistent with the original meaning of the constitution. there are three branches for a reason. the president is committed to this, he ran on this. when president trump was a candidate, he talked about judicial selection. this was a shorthand for the idea of rule of law and getting us back to basics. he did it very effectively, and that is what he is doing. there is so much going on than you do not read about in the mainstream media on this, but there is so much good work going on to restore us back to the condo mental -- fundamentals. and bring accountability to the people, precisely the kind of people that elected president trump to do what he is doing now. dr. arnn: it is remarkable, remarkable to me. there is a promise that you will repeal two regulations for everyone passed, the ratio is better than that. mr. mcgahn: way better, yes. that is how president trump does things. he overshoots. he overshoots the expectation. dr. arnn: an executive order, the president wanted this out of the gate, and one of the things i do is help draft these executive orders. i am a scribe in the back room, writing this up. the executive orders specifically on regulatory review and fundamental change. wasof the aspects of this the idea of 241. the executive order direct executive branch agencies when it comes to making regulations, for every new regulation you need to remove two from the books. so you do not have this constant piling up a regulations on top of regulations. numbers one some this. the ratio is 22-1, so it has been wildly successful. we are very proud of that. there was a number of regulations passed in the last year or two of the previous ,dministration quite hastily and a lot of what has been removed from the books are those regulations. so that is just beginning. there is also something called the congressional review act, which congress has used for the first time in this first year of the administration. there have been a couple of examples where they have done this, but this is a law that allows congress to essentially veto regulations. cede that power, they have to have a final say. congress struck a number of regulations, and we hope that they continue to do that. executivemes from an order, and it shows how much the president is committed to cutting through the red tape and getting back to the more familiar structure that our founders and previous generations had, one that we can rely on. we have to think close, but congratulations and thank you. a fabulous year. mr. mcgahn: thank you. [applause] >♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, a conversation with secretary alex with the heritage foundation. ♪ >> hello, is everybody back from lunch? everyone excited about the afternoon? [applause] job. i'm delighted to be here with a good friend. ofboth had the pleasure serving in the previous administration together, and now i get to call you mr. secretary. you need to know a little bit, because i think it is so impressive. not only harvard law, but harvard undergrad? i'm impressed, are you? was goingent said he to surround himself with some of america's best and brightest, and boy, did he ever. parents were refugees from communist cuba. you actually were a clerk for alito? >> yes. >> impressive. to the president did not let us down with the best and brightest. let's start with what the secretary of labor does? then we will get into the meat of it. sec. acosta: when i described department of labor, i put it into three buckets. first, we enforce the laws. we have workplace laws, workplace safety laws, we make sure the labor laws are followed , and that is incredibly important. that is a law enforcement function. the second part that is really important, the department of labor, we have a workforce education component. i know that secretary devos is speaking later today, and she and i work very closely together, because she is that the department of education, i am at the department of labor, but it is our jobs to provide workforce education to the men and women that are working. we want to make sure they are not just ready for today's jobs, but for tomorrow's jobs. we are constantly up skilling. the third part is we set the labor policy for the united states, and that is much broader than a lot of folks realize. for example, employee benefits. the health care that one receives from employers, retirement benefits, all of that comes under the department of labor. >> big job. let's talk about crumbs for a minute. [applause] crumbs inalk about the form of tax cuts that brought us more jobs, higher wages, employee bonuses -- [applause] >> thank you for the part that you played in that, and we would like to think that at the heritage foundation, we play in a small part in helping to develop that policy and shepherded through -- shepherd it through. how important do you think tax reform is to creating jobs in this country? sec. acosta: i would ask that question to the more than 4 million americans that have thus andreceived a bonus increase in their retirement savings -- 4 million americans and counting. >> here, here. sec. acosta: that is a lot of folks out there, and they are not crumbs. the checks look at that people received in december and all the way through, who could call that crumbs other than someone who is totally out of touch with the rest of america? but this also goes to something that is so important -- look at this economy. become ae, it has trump economy. if you look at the unemployment rate, the lowest in 17 years, 4.1%, and the federal reserve is saying it is going to go even lower. a little over a year ago, they said 3% growth cannot happen. all the experts out there said 3% growth is never going to happen. well, we are just about at 3% growth and are continuing to grow. , the second lowest since 1973.ms >> hear, hear. sec. acosta: and here is why they are the second lowest. because the lowest level was just last month. so that tells you how great this economy is doing. in the last panel, we heard a bit about deregulation and the fantastic job that this administration is doing. i know you had some interesting views on deregulation -- it is not just about cost, it is also about -- sec. acosta: liberty. let me talk about this a little bit. nou heard from mr. mcgha that 22-1, 20 two regulations have been taken off the books for every regulation -- 22 regulations have been taken off the books for every regulation put on. and the way the government looks at regulations and a lot of folks in washington look at regulations, they say what is the cost versus the benefit? monetize it. that is important, because we do not want to impose costs on the american workforce and the american people. but i think that is only part of the question. washington likes to measure. they like to say we have taken burden,llion dollars in and that is really important to measure and easy to measure. but here is the question i would ask all of you -- what is the cost in terms of liberty? and that is a lot harder to talk about, because that is harder talk about because that is qualitative. you need to make judgments. ultimately, one of the things that makes america great is freedom, is liberty. we should not be regulated unless there is a real need for that regulation. [applause] sen. acosta thank you. i think it is so important that we talk about the regulation in the context of liberty. let's offer freedom to the people to do as they believe it is right unless there is a real reason not to do that. [applause] >> hear, hear. so glad you are in that job. let's talk for a minute about the regulation -- deregulation. to president has asked you look at how to lower the cost of health care. have some -- you innovative ideas. can you share that? sen. acosta: i am very excited about a proposal reported and we ask the public to comment and we comments from all individuals and this is what this proposal is about. , a differentre standard applies to what is called the large group market, the corporations, than to small businesses and sole proprietors. graterusinesses have a -- greater regulatory burden. i ask, why would we put more of a burden on the small business than on the big corporation but that is what congress did. is a problem because there are 11 million americans and their families working for small businesses or for themselves that do not get health care from their employer. they do not have that option. what this proposal would do is it would create what is called a small business health plan by an association -- or an association health plan. by the way, someone who is working for themselves from home ebaynning an etsy, marketplace would qualify for this proposal. [applause] sole proprietors, it would say they have the freedom to band together to create a large association and that large association can access the market just like a big corporation. this is about leveling the playing field. why should small businesses have greater regulation than the large corporations? it is transformative. those 11 million folks, they are to not haveorced health care look to the individual market or the exchanges. that is expensive. more choice, for more people at a more affordable rate. that is what that is about. [applause] as the mom of a small businesswoman, thank you, thank you. one of the things of the president said was one of his top priorities was bringing jobs back to america. the folks out there and the one toatching at home know, what is your part of that and what are you doing to bring those jobs back home? sen. acosta: we are working incredibly hard to bring those job to america and creation. 2.6 million net jobs since the election. 2.6 million more americans are working. [applause] i've heard it said, this is not about president trump, this is a continuation of what was happening. you know the areas that have grown them -- the most? manufacturing and construction. this is all about what president trump is doing to energize our economy and to create jobs. something we are doing at the department of labor is we are working to provide workforce education. jobhese jobs are created, creators want to hire more americans, but some americans are not getting the skills they need from our education system so we need to hold higher education accountable. when he just say, are you graduating the students, are you graduating them with the right job in the right skills, and to those skills lead to family sustaining jobs? we also need to say, there are a lot of options out there -- i individuals to follow their ce -- allow of choi individuals to follow their career path of choice. college, that may be graduation, another, it may be a certificate. it should be a family sustaining job. >> excellent. [applause] in my preparation for our time together this afternoon, i learned a new term for it it was -- a new term. it was called a "gig" economy. is?you explain what a gig sen. acosta: if you are a .usician, you take on a gig but i like to call it the nomy becauseial enco we have so many americans out there that have used technology to start their small businesses that have been empowered to do what they want and to design their own working environment. that manuber driver to or woman that runs an ebay marketplace from their home, these are entrepreneurs and they are what make america great. hear.r, we have not changed our labor laws in decades. these are the individuals that do not have access to health care because health care does not think about them. these are the individuals that do not easily fall within the employer/employee structure. one of the reasons i am so excited about this health care proposal is not only that it is going to make health care more affordable and more excess of , but-- and more accessible it is going to knowledge to our economy is full of entrepreneurs -- and more accessible, but it is going to acknowledge our economy is full of entrepreneurs. the small businesswoman, small an needs to be treated on the same level as the corporations. >> i want the american people to know who you are. i want them to understand why someone would commit their lives to coming in, going through what you had to go through in the nomination process, why do you do it? why did you commit your life to public service? have always had a deep commitment to public service. i had the privilege -- we actually worked together in president george w. bush's administration. i found that the felling and to be here as a member president trump's cabinet is an incredible honor for me. more importantly, i feel really good about what i do. this proposal to offer health e, non-government health care to 11 million americans and their families changes lives. it gives them options. individuals that are thinking, do i start my own business, do i leave my employer and do what i dreamed of but maybe i cannot because i cannot get health care, maybe now they can do it. that makes me feel really good about what i do. i want to go one step deeper. i had a thought a few weeks ago. i was at the state of the union. i walked in, and i had the privilege of sitting in the second row. that my parents came here as refugees, nothing on them, they had been in high school, they married young, they went right to work -- college was not a possibility for them. rowhere i am in the second in the house of representatives as the president of the united states delivers the the stay of the union. [applause] >> wow. not abouta: this is me. replicated story is thousands and thousands of times across america at different levels. because that is what makes this merit,special -- opportunity, freedom. that is what makes this nation unique and great. that is something we need to protect. hear.r, [applause] that is why -- sen. acosta: that is why despite all of the noise and the ed,binations of chang despite all of that noise, these are incredible opportunities. for a short period of time, we are powered -- we are empowered to be defenders of that liberty and that is something really, really special. >> indeed, it is. secretary acosta.com on behalf of everyone here, we want to thank you for your service to this country and to think the kids on the project and the kid who was the son of refugees can make it to this stage, do we love this country are what? [applause] >> thank you. sen. acosta: thank you very much. >> ladies and gentlemen, finding hope and a father's loss, a conversation with eric boeing and sabrina schaeffer. [applause] eric: wow, thank you all for coming out. this is an important topic. love you, too. sabrina: there is a full room. an important topic and i have to tell you, i was a little nervous when they called and asked if i would talk to you about this. i have three children and i said, i do not know if i can do this. we are here to hear about your son eric. eric: the me throw a couple of ambers out -- let me throw couple of numbers out. you are nervous because of the topic. i've become an accidental experts in the topic of opioid overdoses and i did not want to be here. i did not think i would be standing on the stage talking to you about this. of this past8th year, my wife and and i were driving home from dinner and we got that phone call that every parent dreads and it was a young hysterical and said call kayla right away. i called and she was crying. i member the first thing out of my mind is, is he alive? .nd she said, no my wife was driving and she spilled onto the roadway, i picked her up, and we sat, and we went to this area that i cannot explain. as a parent, you worry about that call, but is deeper and darker than you can ever imagine. so i become in the last six have done as much as i can to bring the opioid crisis to the front. 175 people per day die from opioid overdoses. .anted 75 per day -- 175 people per day or 54,000 last year were died from the water or something in the meat speem, we would be nding billions upon billions of dollars making sure it stopped. i've become an opioid axona -- accidental expert. i spoke to president trump. in the deep, dark times that my wife and i were having, we were going to sit down for the thanksgiving dinner -- there was an empty chair. we are walking over to the table and the phone rang. it was president trump who said, eric, no one should have to lose a child and we are thinking of you. very, very important that he did that. [applause] eric: he has been great. he showed empathy and compassion so i used as an opportunity to say, mr. president, can i come talk to you about this. and i have. i've gone to the white house couple of times as a volunteer. the word needs to get out. they are doing a great job. they have some initiatives they are starting. but they can do more. we can always do more. supplye focusing on the side so a lot of the pills that are coming in legally or illegally are coming in from china -- sabrina: by mail? eric: by mail and the supply side so there is a lot coming in. the demand side -- we really needed to talk to kids about how dangerous these drugs are. when you said you are nervous -- i go on to twitter and i use my twitter as a meeting point for people who are touched by the opioid crisis and there are literally millions. i've had 2000 people put stories up on my twitter. here is something that is -- to hundred thousand people puts -- put stories up my twitter. " -- itt my kid syndrome is dangerous. a stard people say i had athlete, or the prom queen, are --mpting, really popular opioid's killed, they do not care if you're black, white, gay, straight, they do not care. it is an unbiased killer of our kids. america,e under 50 in the most likely reason you're going to die accidentally is from opioid. sabrina: those stats are terrifying. -- one receptin misperception is that they have all had surgeries or chronic pain but stories are different. eric: it is both. -- a of young athletes young woman who was a soccer who blew heard me out to end prescribed opioids and overdose. on september 8ed , it was a very unbelievable timing for us. roner came back and said he had passed from xanax and fentanyl. college campus is across the country, there are people anding, and buying xanax giving prescriptions to other people. alced -- laced with fentanyl. it is both. -- pain addiction relief that returns to addiction that ends up killing some people because they will take too much or mix with the wrong drugs, or sometimes they are buying stuff from the street. atches that contain too much of something. those are true accidental deaths. sabrina: a lot of people are doing?g what can we be a holy discussion on the war on drugs, is is all about the health care system -- there are a lot of great innovations to bring drugs that are nonaddictive so what should our goal be in the next 12 months? eric: it is really one of those were you need all of the above. i'm going to put it out there. i lost a son. i heard last week that purdue pharmaceuticals said that they're going to cut their sales in half. at first glance, that sounds a good idea. as i dig deeper into this, second glance -- why is there a massive salesforce to sell a pain reliever? pharmaceutical company have a massive salesforce to put -- it feels like a push. they are pushing the pain reliever on to the health care system versus eight pull -- versus a pull. it did not compute to me. the next question is, are they the only ones doing it? there is a middle level as well that may be getting involved. i think the system has to be examined. the good news is that president trump has pushed for more awareness and more funding and the budget saw $6 billion over the next two years for increased opioid awareness. sabrina: it is a start. i have three children, not quite have the age of your son, but what do you tell someone like myself or my husband are our friends who are thinking -- my oldest is 10. eric: what i've learned on my ids are account, k being targeted younger and younger so it is not college-age anymore. now it is middle school age. have the conversations with your kids. use me as an example. sophomore at the university of colorado. he had a great freshman year. very social, lot of friends, there was nothing that gave us the impression that i would be on the stage right now. i will tell you one thing, and the last couple of weeks before his death, his personality changed or manically. dramatically. he was a colorado, marijuana is legal, and he would say, dad, i got this. it until he did not have it. in the last few weeks, the personality change was so dramatic, read the sign and do not have the "not my kid syndrome", have the conversation. that is a great place to end an everyone in this room is sorry for your loss. [applause] eric: thank you. sabrina: thank you. >> you are not afraid of the irs. h is fighting the irs over the illegal targeting of americans for their political beliefs. be sure to follow us on twitter. when he to follow the rule of law and immigration. against law is in court politicians who want to break the rules to protect illegal aliens. we want to protect you. follow us on youtube, now. forgotten hillary clinton. judicial watch expose the hillary clinton scandal and we are holding are holding her accountable the same laws and rules we are expect to follow. follow us on facebook. ♪ >> the american inventor, protected by the united states patent. an exclusive right to one's ideas. and intellectual property, from inspiration to innovation, america led the world. until now. >> today i am burning my patent along with my colleagues. >> the patent rights is a broken promise. >> u.s. patent protection strength is under attack. our leadership initiative in the world is dropped from first to 12th. >> it is an attack on the american dream. >> you can be anything except for an inventor. >> our ideas are being taken away from us now. >> it is in the constitution, protecting the rights of inventors. investors no longer trust our patent system. they tech companies are lobbying to make it easier to steal. >> you cannot do anything about it. >> the administrative state this overriding our constitutional court system. it is invalidating patents at an alarming rate. >> the congress created an out-of-control tribunal. >> leading experts are speaking out about why are weakening patent system is destroying american innovation. >> to take that away to destroy liberty. the shredding of the united states patent system. >> is our country dies. -- if the united states patent system dies, our country dies. industryerican steel decimated by cheap steel from china. wiped out by subsidized companies in asia. now the airline industry is under threat. carriers are getting tens of millions in government subsidies and putting one point 2 million jobs at risk. entire industries wiped out. it is happened before and it can happen again. thank you to president trump, u.s. airline workers are counting on you. >> later than gentlemen, our next segment is "breaking bad: what it takes to rise above circumstances." please welcome andrew bamberg, governor jeff, and your host greta. [applause] >> good afternoon. very happy to be here at to moderate this that it was panel about a very distressing issue -- an issue that is bipartisan. it affects republicans, democrats, independents, everybody and my panelists -- i want to get started right away. this really is a problem we all need to think about and talk about. let's start with lieutenant governor of ohio, why is this topic important to you? why do you want to talk about this one? >> this is an issue that impacts every family. it has impacted my family. i've also seen it in the state of ohio. i've talked to parents who have lost loved ones. i have talked people who are suffering in the crisis that it is the addiction issue, and it has touched everything the person i've come across. we need good leaders they will stand up and provide real solutions to give hope and help and healing to so many individuals today that are suffering. greta: andrew, governor -- government cannot solve every problem. what do you see as the role of government in this crisis which is nationwide and a health epidemic? andrew: thank you, greta. i just have the say how thankful i am to be back at cpac. [applause] >> this is a critical issue. as a conservative, this is a really important issue. working for president trump who campaigned vigorously on this issue in states that have been devastated by this epidemic, helps us understand why it is an issue. you are right. legitimate role in tackling certain issues. we love living in a free society where government does not do everything, but the government has to do important things well. this is an area where government has really failed. that is something president trump talked about as a candidate and has lead on in this last year. he is talked about the need for states and localities, medical professionals, law enforcement to come together to address this crisis. itta: if you're easy come would've been solved a long time ago. like north korea, north korea would been solved decades ago. six the 4000 people died and to -- 64,000 people died in to give you reference, car accidents do not compress much. governor, what strategy or what new ideas are what can be done? of all, thank you for having me because there's in a bipartisan issue. as a governor, we are all dealing with it. the question is what are you doing about it? this is an easy one to solve. most people do not say that. if we have the courage. why are we in this mess? why are we on a stage were you just heard from eric about his son, the lieutenant governor is dealing with this challenge with both of her sons, wire we all in this mess? why we lost more folks to oak theopioid addiction in year 2000 and we lost in world war ii and vietnam combined? what changed? in the 1990's, we approved oxycontin. we told the public health care professionals and the fda, we have got the first non-addictive painkiller and we all were so rejoice all. .- rejoiceful it turns out they were wrong and not only were they wrong, they pleaded guilty to lying to the fda. 85% of the folks addicted to heroin start with fda approved pills that you pick up in your drugstore. the question is, what is the solution? my view is, if governors like me do criminal justice reform, we build out treatment, we all do the same things, but it is after folks have become addicted. this is the worst disease to have that one can contract in terms of the fight, the struggle, what does your family, what it does to your lives. my answer is a simple one, there are two things we can do. number one, the fda should revisit the decision they made about passing out painkillers like candy now that we have liedted that they got [applause] to in the first place. we had in just like tobacco, we have got governors like me, journey generals, lieutenant governors all over , we are all mayors suing the folks who put us in this message try to get the money for treatment and changes in behavior. why do we do it we did with tobacco and get them all in a room, the president of the united states, president trump has the ability to be the winner on this. president obama mess this one up when he reduced the burden of --of for the pill mill folks that is where folksy a lot of these pills. the obama administration reduce -- raised the burden of proof so the enforcers would have to get them to plead guilty before they can stop the trucks from moving to the pill mills. there is no one in my view that knows more about this issue than john cole who happens to be here. sorry john, to pick you up, but just stand up. this guy got tobacco in a room years ago -- ,too, i mightme add. he is my husband. >> he can put them in a room and say, do not come out of the room until you settle this. to stopme for taxpayers paying for treatment, you guys got to pay. you are not coming out of the room until you do. [applause] greta: i have a two-part question for you, one is, the great thing about this is we can talk and discuss the what extent do you agree or disagree with governor as we are trying to come up with solutions? before we get to that, i get so many tweets saying people are in not take away my pain pills and we do the key people awa -- we do need to keep people out of pain. there is atart with conservative solution to this end i believe that the government has a role to play but the government is not the solution. we do need, rants of care and we to make it available to citizens living in addiction. as you said toad health and recovery. there is a role for government to play. it is to incentivize the private sector to build out the type of care that is necessary to restore lives. but we also have to foster and encourage looking for alternative ways to treat pain. as patients, we should not accept that these addictive pain pills is the best we can do. and living in pain today, i would recommend that open up the opportunity for these alternative ways to treat pain and not just accept this is the best i can do is a pain pill. greta: before these opioids came on the scene in the mid to late 1990's, people have pain. was there inadequate pain management or do we have something that helped them that was not quite as addictive? >> my understanding based on what i have read -- and you probably know as much about this as anybody, andrew, but when pain as aed treating vital sign, it also to our medical community now being judged and rated based on how well they were treating pain yet pain is subjective. if i came in and said, greta, how is your pain -- greta: 10. >> right? to treat you and you are going to evaluate me. it all started when i look back at history -- it started to shift at that point. government had a role to play there. they said we are going to treat pain like a vital sign. it is not measurable. we created this crisis. me give you another statistic which i find quite stunning. between 2006, and 2016, out-of-state drug companies shipped almost 21 million opioid to pharmacies and wilmington, west virginia that had a population of 2900. andrew, that does not seem right to me. >> thats right. i want to follow up on a point the governor made about law enforcement. saw a president and then attorney general -- [applause] >> who are vigorously enforcing the law and that starts with enforcing the law against companies who are broken the law, criminal investigations, it'll investigations as well, but also going after people on the streets were pushing drugs and are in our communities are it the last administration -- pushing drugs and are in our communities. the last administration said it is ok to do drugs. we need to encourage our people not to go down the road of addiction. myself and most of the people in this room had family members who have struggled with addiction and needed treatment. a man spoke passionately last year when i his own family, he saw his older brother dealing with out the holism -- with a that people do not start down the road of drugs that is so hard to come back from. the best thing we can do is a that preventsion people from starting to use drugs. greta: that is of course one of the biggest problems. if you are at the point where you need treatment and some people need treatment, you're already lost your job, your , you have been terrible pain to your friends -- every body. beginningstart at the realizing with a deal with those? how do got pain pills -- we start at the beginning so we do not have this whole universe of people? >> let's back up a second because everything being said here is true except that we are that in to point out most issues that i face of the governor, and i'm sure all governors face this, when asked to get the details of policy, gets a little more gray. this one is black and white. neerica did not have someo dying every 15 minutes before we approved oxycontin. these are the facts. we passed it out like candy, these are the facts. we now have thousands of thousands good people dying every year from this disease. why would we not -- if the fda who live had the folks and said, sorry, we do not tell you the truth, why would we not simply say, we got that information. -- bad information. our health care that., let's undo let's have the folks who lied and created this disease pay for the treatment and the prevention should be, stop passing it out like candy. let's start where we began. [applause] i always think the power of the government or the white house -- it is so incredibly potent in terms of helping solve things but it is often times depended on the political parties working together because there are so many political interests involved. together?two work do you have new ideas that you could ask him for help on. >> absolutely. >> killing our kids is a bipartisan problem. nobody says, this is a good idea. let's get as many folks as we can addicted to the stuff for it >> the problem is, the lieutenant governor goes to the white house and asks for the white house to help. you both come from states where this is been a scourge -- you seem like you want to work together. i'm a republican and a conservative and one of the challenges we face in this country as we know where it is coming from for it is coming from x -- where it is coming from. i would say, build the law. i'm a conservative -- build the wall. i'm a conservative republican. you may not agree with that, but i bet we could get on the same page. point, we have seen the skyrocketing of overdose deaths just the last few years. our country has been suffering from the scourge of drug use for the last several decades but the reason is because over death death -- overdose death in the last few years has gone up fentanyl.ly due to they are bringing fe ntanyl in from china or mexico. the trump administration is working day and night to keep these drugs out and that is why we have to build the wall, increase our border security, provide only security the technical resources they need -- it has got to stop. >> can i make a quick point? >> my point is this. we have always had drug problems in america. we all have different views on how to solve it. but here's winds change on this one. have to change this one. they are getting those from the corner drugstore. docan wade do both -- can we both? i think a president trump has a unique ability and you had your job at the white house to be the president who solves this problem because a bipartisan consensus -- we want to stop the dying in tragedy. the biggest victims of this disease are the kids of the addicts. governor, that is the most heart ripping thing you can experience. greta: what do you see as the biggest impediment? >> a supply and demand issue so we have got to get off of our streets. greta: as the white house help you are not? >> it is both. it is a federal and state problem. we need to keep the drugs off of our streets. when you to hold drug dealers accountable. these guys that are killing kids and throw them in jail. greta: what about the and oneutical industry both sides of the aisle, how do you fight that issue? >> what we have done in ohio is allave issued -- i am not for regulations, not a government regulation person, but this is a public safety issue -- we have issued regulations where you can only prescribe a pain pill for acute pain for seven days if you are an adult, five days if you are a child. greta: best not federal -- >> know that his state. --no, that is state. >> we recognize that state -- every problem is not a federal problem. problem, the federal government needs to have a response to. states right now are being smart and innovative and passing legislation that bans prescriptions in certain amounts, and that is great. is worst thing we could have the federal government to pass laws that are uniform across the country -- we have seen this happen in health care, time and time again, with good intentions federal government passes a law, and congress can never go back and fix those. as limited government conservatives, we should encourage our state leaders to pass these laws. to theit brings us back power of the white house, the power of the oval office is to get everyone in one room. every state -- governor? i'll let you have the last word. >> let's for a minute put our hearts aside and use our math. it cost me $25,000 to treat someone after they have become addicted. it cost you $25,000 as a taxpayer every time someone gets addicted to these substances. it is a huge cost to taxpayers. with have gotten industry, -- if we have got an industry, which we do -- and we have got the making billions of dollars is of this disease that killing people, i think the white house has the unique opportunity to replay the , get the folks in a room, close the door, because this lawyers will run this thing like asbestos forever. gettingabout taxpayers paid for the building are paying now for a disease that was created by lies to the fda. let's make that happen and i think president trump would be a hero if he facilitated that process. very: panel, thank you much. this is a problem that affects all of us. huge service to the country. >> thank you, greta. [applause] ♪ 30 joke gentlemen, itand is time for a conversation with senator ted cruz, interviewed by the federalist, been dominance -- ben domaninch. [applause] >> all right. hello, cpac. love feedback. -- cpac. [applause] >> i want to thank you for taking the opportunity to talk to us. i know you are a big fan of the simpsons. >> we are immediately starting with the policy. >> i believe you can learn about the policy by using the simpson's. for instance, when homer and lisa were having a conversation about the gun violence. guns arents out that used for protecting your family and making sure that king of england does not push you around. responses, it is actually a relic of the revolutionary war area, does not mean anything anymore. what do you think? >> i think the democrats of a party of lisa simpson and the republicans are happily the part -- party of homer, bart, maggie, marge. [laughter] left today says the kingdom of england does not going to come around and push us for there is no threats from tyranny. we do not have the kind of threats whether in the old west or something like that that we experience anymore. why cannot somebody do some thing for the children? that is essentially what we saw last night on cnn and what we have seen in the conversation about the guns. night's cnnlast infomercial? >> it was quite an effective one. >> it is an amazing thing and it is tiresome. every time you see a horrific crime, people in the media and democratic politicians try to to advancetill -- their agenda. secondgenda is to strip amendment rights. candideinstein was very saying, "if i can say mr. america give me your guns, i will. " that is where they want to end up. it is profoundly unconstitutional but it also does not work. person who saw the shooting in parkland, it is horrifying. if you are a parent, it is nothing more horrific than imagining some madman hurting k ids. what can we do to stop this sort of mass crime? that is a good conversation to have. is always,answer always strip the second amendment rights for law-abiding citizens. haveu look where cities the highest gun control laws, they also have the highest murder and crime rates. you want to see crime take off? this arm law-abiding --disarm law-abiding citizens. on the flipside, if you want to stop crimes, target violent criminals. going after them like a town of bricks and putting them in jail -- that is what we need to be doing. [applause] >> i am not on twitter right now but i do wonder if the five started, chris, has tweeted whether you are afraid to come on his talk show. >> i'm quite certain in the history of the universe, nobody has ever been afraid of chris,. [laughter] you.do want to ask proposed a banas or re-categorization of bump s teachers also those who choose to carrier have a military background, etc., there are more than 60 million americans with a concealed carry permit, they are to -- they ought to be about to carry in the classroom. what do you think? >> i think it makes perfect sense that if teachers want to exercise their right to keep arms, it will only make schools safer. i do not think you should make teachers do that, but if a teacher is comfortable, that is a good thing. [applause] there is a lot we can be doing. this pattern plays out. we are in washington, law politicians want to do something. whenever something bad happens, there is an urge to do something but there's very little focus on what the something is. when i was elected in 2012, i saw the horrific shooting in newtown, connecticut. it was horrifying. republicans were falling all over themselves scared and you had chuck schumer and democrats saying, now we are going to pass massive gun control legislation. i was a brand-new senator and happily led the fight against that but we did not beat it with nothing, i offered legislation that was known as the grass -cruzrs -- grassly legislation. it targeted bad guys. -cruzhool funding, grassly at $300 million for school safety funding. the obama administration of cut millions of dollars from school safety. democrats but harry reid and the democrats y-cruz so id grassl did not pass. if that had been there, that ulted in an armed police officer at the parkland high school and intercepting that madman and stopping before he murdered those teens. [applause] >> this is a question not so much about guns as government competence. one of the lines we use a lot in the federalists is considered the possibility that we are led by idiots. >> more than a possibility. [laughter] moment about for a our nation's law enforcement particularly the fbi. , clear,ultiple reports convincing things that should have been looked at my local law enforcement and by the fbi that should have triggered a response before this happened. did we have a basic competence problem with anything agencies and how can we solve it? were a lot of red flags in the row a lot of warning signs. there were calls after calls and reports after reports in both local law enforcement and the fbi failed to act on the information. law enforcement has a hard job. we have seen in terrorist attacks in the past when there's a lot of information on the front end. i will give you an example. a few month ago, texas suffered murder inss sutherland springs. it is the worst church shooting in the history of the country. i was down the day after the shooting. i stood in the sanctuary. the centuries not much bigger than this stage. that madman fired over 450 rounds, yet shattered glass, shattered wood, your church pews overturned, the most horrific thing i've ever seen. if you look at sutherland springs, say how can that stop from happening. it was illegal for him to buy a gun -- he was convicted felon and the end domestic violence conviction, both of those make it illegal. why's that he had those weapons? because the air force under president obama did not report his conviction to the database. you cannot run a background check. legislation iruz introduced would have directed attorney general to make sure they report criminal convictions, get them in the database, and only that, when the shooter and sutherland went to buy his gun, he lied on it twice. both of those lies were crimes. those are separate felonies. the department of justice did not prosecute felons and fugitives who lied on their forms and try to illegally by guns. 2010, 48,000 felons and fugitives try to illegally by guns. the obama administration prosecuted 44 of them. what did grassley-cruz do? it created a gun crime task force in the doj, it said that you are prosecute or put him in jail. that laud been on the books, the conviction would have been in the database and the women prosecuted and in federal prison -- he would have been in the database and prosecuted in federal prison. we can stop this by going after criminals. [applause] >> the new york times this past week had a piece about people who were squeezed by all gone again -- by obamacare. one of the things they were talking about were, on the one hand, we have these people who cannot afford the premiums because they are making too much money to be on medicaid and then we have these people on medicaid who are forced to go to the equivalent of nick riviera. [laughter] >> what can be done in the circumstance to actually provide some relief to the families given be done to provide relief for these families given that apparently the republican promise about repealing and replacing obamacare is not something they are interested in living up to. have been more maddening than seeing republicans come up short on obamacare. 2017, asack at conservatives, we have a lot to be gratified for. when we started the year with republican president and republican majorities in both houses, i think the four big ,riorities were tax reform regulatory reform, obamacare, and judges. tax reform was phenomenal, we have seen over 4 million people getting pay raises, the economy is moving forward in an unambiguous way. regulatory reform has been of one of the greatest successes of the trump administration. legislation in texas, i hear every day from small business owners who are hiring, that is another tremendous success. obamacare remains the biggest unfinished commitment. but it is worth noting two things. we were appealed the obamacare individual mandate as a part of tax reform. [applause] deal.s a big , ik in october of last year and a handful of conservatives began urging the senate as part of tax reform, let's take out the obamacare individual mandate. when we started we had maybe a half-dozen senators are agreed with us, most of the republicans, their response was we tried with obamacare, let's tax reform vibrating obamacare into it. but we made the case, both publicly and privately, the individual mandate, every year the irs fines about 6.5 million people because they cannot afford health insurance. roughly one million of those in texas, roughly 80% or and $80,000 -- earn $50,000 year over last. working twongle mom jobs, you're not even making $25,000 year. you cannot afford health insurance because premiums have skyrocketed and to add insult injury the irs finds you. led bill clinton to call obamacare one of the craziest things in the world. it is about the only time i ever agreed with bill clinton, other than about hillary. [applause] i am going to get in trouble for that one. repealing the individual mandate provides real tax relief to the 6.5 million people getting fined by the irs but we need to go back at it and i'm committed to continuing to roll up my sleeves and working to get 50 republicans together on the same page and honor our promise and repeal the disaster that is obamacare. [applause] clinton did want to go to wisconsin and she did not listen to them then. most talented politician in a generation. when it comes to looking at the state of the conservative movement after the first year of this president, one of the things i'm curious about is how much conservatism is healthy versus sick. the real hit i heard from a lot of people, many of whom might be here today, against president trump before he became president was he was going to reduce conservatism to the smallest portion. he is not going to be governing that way. you might even use sideshow bob's tagline when he was foring for mayor, you long a coldhearted republican to lower taxes, brutalized criminals, and rule you like a king. sen. cruz: do not blame me, i voted for kodos. ben: why do you think it is turned out like that and do you think conservatism is healthier now? sen. cruz: i think truth is eternal. i think freedom is always right. seen in 2017 is on substance, the record of delivering has been remarkable. [applause] sen. cruz: there were long periods last year, in the summertime, the spring, where -- areus were frustrated the clown suit call themselves republicans going to manage to get their act together and do anything? it was unclear if the answer was yes or no. if we fail that would've been one of the most heartbreaking missed opportunities of our lifetime. looke end of the year, you at the tax reform bill, you look at the individual mandate, neil gorsuch is a home run. [applause] confirmed 12 federal court of appeals judges, the most in the first year of a presidency in history. barack obama had four, we had 12. for all of us that cherish the constitution and the bill of rights, the fundamental liberties of an american, judges are front and center. one of the great victories as part of the tax reform bill was an amendment i introduced expanding college 500 29 savings plans so you can also save for k-12 education. the most fundamental school choice legislation that has ever passed. when you walk down the halls of , reporters in every inundate you and their questions are never about substance. tweets andcomment on i have nothing to say on the comment of the day or the scandal does your -- on the scandal du jour. if you want to talk about judges or the second amendment, i'm happy to talk about any substance, but i'm not going to worry about the political circus that is washington. i think the american people are happy with the results we are getting and we need to keep producing those results. [applause] ben: i think there is an interesting experience that i am sure a lot of people in this audience have had, particularly the younger people, those who are going to college and are surrounded by a lot of people who might not agree with them. it is very difficult in this day and age to live a boldly as someone who is a conservative, a libertarian, who believes in liberty and the founding within the public square. if you could, it gives some folks to those folks who were in the audience you have to endure the slings and arrows of all the people around them. i know you had to endure them yourself when you are at princeton, tell us more about what you think helped you in that environment. cpac and whatove i love the most about it is all of the young people. cpac is about young people. why is it that so many young people come to cpac. cpac is about liberty. i call young people generation freedom. resonates, to everyone who is it some college was run by a bunch of 60's hippies who are imposing some draconian speech code -- [applause] let me say to all of the young people. speak the truth, spread the fire of liberty. what young person with any sense once to live with big government, with washington controlling everything about you? his liberty,bout we think you should have the right to decide, you should be able to choose what school you go to, what dr. you have, what health care you have, the internet should be free. no taxes, no regulation. that is the message that resonates with young people. freedom works. [applause] thank you, everyone. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, a conversation with beck -- with betsy devos. >> ladies and gentlemen, if i could have your attention a moment please before we get started. i would like to ask that we observe a moment of silence in honor of and in memory of the students and the teachers and all of the families impacted in parkland, florida. if you will please join me. thank you. seated.u, please be that was a sobering way to start a very important that -- a very important panel and i want to thank you for that. before we get started, i wanted to let the audience know why i am so extraordinarily honored to be here. if you are not noticed, we already did secretary acosta. do remember that? i have known you 25 or 30 years. one of the things i know about , our secretary of is that she is an , one i haveoman admired and loved and it -- and respected for some many years. from the minute i knew her, what is at the heart and soul of this woman is to provide equal educational opportunities for the kids in this country, that is the very essence of who she is. we want to thank you. thank you. [applause] let me start off with a softball. knowing who you are, knowing your passion and your commitment and everything about you, there are many things you could be doing with your life right now. why did you decide to do this? sec. devos: thank you, kay. let me begin by thanking you for your kind words. there are many other things you could be doing with your life right now. i think we both are in the places we are for a time like this, we have opportunity to help make change and bring greater opportunity. in my case, i have been an advocate for all kids for over 30 years for the opportunity to have a great future and the great education, but an equal opportunity for all children and that has fueled my passion for many years and is even a greater passion now. kay: one of the things i am fond of saying is that some people have school choice, the wealthy, the connected, and the elected. they have it. what are you doing at the department to assure that all should -- that all students have that opportunity? sec. devos: we are carrying out the duties of the department and right now, in the k-12 world, that includes the implementation of the every student succeeds act, which if states take the opportunities afforded them will bring act, it many more opportunities and much more flexibility for schools to meet students needs and to address the needs of individual students. in complement to that, i -- most to advocate education policy happens at the have level and many states taken significant steps off her parents and empower parents with more choices for their children's education. i'm encouraging states to double down on that and for those who have not yet taken those steps to do so. an opportunity also from the federal level to partner with states in that regard. there is also opportunity at the federal level to look at areas where the federal government is directly involved and specifically around military connected families. i know for a fact there are more than one third of military families, active duty military families, that have school aged children. their decisions about where they go or where they do not go or whether they continue to serve hinge heavily on the opportunities they have for their children's education. i think we have an opportunity in that regard to empower them with more of those choices. i know educational disparities are something that is very important to you and we see it everywhere from k-12 and college. could you talk for a little bit about some of the policies of the past that got us to this point. how did we get here? sec. devos: there have been a by of policies that have load education into specific we have block grant programs that afford low income families the opportunity to choose a preschool for their grantsand we have pell and g.i. bills that afford students to choose places at the higher education level and yet when we get to the k-12 world, those things are not ubiquitous in k-12 education. i believe there is a strong argument to be made that all the sameshould have kind of power and the same kind of choices and the same kind of opportunities that i had for my many of us inhat this room have and have had. we should empower them to make those choices through various mechanisms and means but make quality ofhild's education is not going to be based on where you are living or your family income. kay: i have heard it said that some of our elected officials public ones that live in housing and send their kids to private school. they live in governors mansions and sometimes in the white house and they have school choice. poor families do not. , when wen, we hear talk about vouchers, they talk almost exclusively in terms of sending your kids to private schools. is that really the definition? what else should we take into consideration? talk about when we school choice, most often people go to a voucher, which is a mechanism, there are many mechanisms to give parents and students opportunity to choose. there are scholarships, educational savings accounts, there are virtual schools, there are blended learning schools, there are charter public schools, and there are probably some methodology not even yet discovered. those are just mechanisms. i think the core issue is that we need to embrace, as a country, education freedom. that allows us to think more broadly about what education should be. the opportunity to learn in different ways, we all know that -- i have four grown children. they're all different individuals and they learn differently. everyone who has more than one child knows that kids are different. system thatook at a long has forced kids into a one-size-fits-all approach and create environments where new creative approaches are able to come in and be tried and afford families different options and different places for their children to learn as they can best do. we always want to support our military. this audience here is strong in support of our military. [applause] one of the things we have been working on at the heritage foundation is education savings account for military dependents. can you talk about that a little bit and explained to our audience what it is and how it would help? sec. devos: there are so many active duty families today who are making decisions about how they advance within the military or where they are going to live based onve opportunities and education opportunities for their children. i think we have an opportunity to change that dynamic for them to tapow them the chance into education savings accounts, which would allow them to take the funding that would go for their child's education at whatever the assigned school is and use it to customize their kids education. maybe they take classes at the local traditional school to which they are assigned, maybe they take a couple of online classes, maybe they take another couple of classes at a charter school or a combination that will work for that child. to afford these families that kind of flexibility to meet their students needs where they are and where they are moving. we know they are so mobile, generally, that it is difficult for those kids, moving from base to base to base or city to city to city to have continuity in their education. and education savings account would afford them a much different dynamic and approach to enable them to get their education in the way that best works for them. if they do not use it all up in one year, in general forward in that savings account to be used for future years. our military families deserve that, what do you think? [applause] we know it is a popular idea for them at over 70% of them supporting it. kay: freedom of choice in education is vital but so is freedom of expression. some of us are so concerned about what we are seeing in some of our public schools and some of our higher education institution in terms of, particularly conservatives having their freedom of expression curtailed. what is the administration doing about that? sec. devos: this is a timely and serious issue that i think that we have to address from a multitude of angles. we have seen more and more examples on college campuses in recent years of shutting down free and open expression and debate around ideas. my experience of going to college was it was a place where i could test out some of the things i was taught as i was raised, i could entertain new thoughts and ideas and it is and should be a place where we explore other opinions and ideas. become more and more a place for those opinions, or that possibility is more and more controlled. we have to continue to exercise a foundational part of our in the firstding amendment, and this administration is committed to upholding those freedoms of expression and exchange of ideas and we will be continuing to advance this notion that the fights is in the battle of ideas and let us talk about them and share our perspective but do so in a way to alternative views and other perspectives without censorship and without fear of not being able to defend them. good ideas are always going to win. we know that, don't we? [applause] never ceases to amaze me that the left has a part of their mantra, diverse city, and they want diversity everywhere except in the area of opinions and ideas. [applause] kay: i think they're mostly afraid of the fact that they know our ideas are better. [applause] how many college students to we have out here? a lot. we know you're doing a lot at the department of education. can you explain to some of our audience out here, what are you focusing on in the department for college students. education isigher an important part of the role of the department of education. i said it often before. for too many decades, we have had a focus on the notion that to be successful, you need to go to a four your college or university. today we know there are a multitude of pathways that students can take and there are many opportunities beyond high school for further education and job with aningful, future beyond opportunities to -- with education opportunities to continue education. the president has been very eloquent on this multiple times. ,e have to focus on the fact and help students understand from a much earlier age, what some of these other pathways and opportunities are. you heard from secretary acosta earlier, he chaired the task force i am also serving on that is focused on elevating and increasing the opportunities around apprenticeships. i think this is an important avenue and needs to be celebrated and honored, and all , all ofportunities those opportunities need to be respected and encouraged. students can pursue a wide range of options beyond a four your college or university -- beyond college or university and we will see more as this administration partners with industry and local business to meet the growing needs they are -- 6 million jobs that going unfilled today that require further education beyond high school, but are going unfilled because there is a mismatch in skills. kay: let me tell you something about your secretary of education. one of my favorite descriptions of maggie thatcher is she was an iron fist in a velvet glove. that is how i see this lady right here. [applause] we know how difficult it is every day in that job. are appreciative to the president for picking the best people possible to serve in his , and we know that every day you get up and you come to work and you do a fabulous job for the american people. are we winning? sec. devos: absolutely we are winning. absolutely. [applause] this notion of education freedom people, no matter where you come from, can relate inand embrace for 150 years the k-12 world, we have relied on a system that treated education as a factory or an industrial approach. it is time now to ask the questions we have not been wanting to ask for many years. we have an opportunity to think much more holistic way about learning and what the role of education is. starting from the youngest of ages, where we know that young children absorb the world around them at such a tremendous rate. launching them into their formative years in the k-12 world, where if every parent and every child had the opportunity to choose a school or a learning environment that worked for that , if finding after a year that that particular school was not the right fit, to be able to make another choice. inwould see a dynamism education that we have not seen in over 100 years. the demand for this continues to no matter what party or demographic group, you look at this from, the support for education freedom and choice in education is broad and wide. i encourage everyone in this room to raise your voices around this very important subject. education and the children and the students that are served through education represent 100% of our future. future to invest in our and do so in a way that is going andncourage the creativity the entrepreneurial activity and the thinking that is going to , theour country forward likes of which we have not seen before. has ane here who is, who future, in our nation's i think it is important you raise your voices in support of empowering students and empowering parents with a multitude of choices and pathways to a future that is right for him or her. i am so thankful for the opportunity to be here with you all and to serve you in this capacity. i look forward to working together shoulder to shoulder with you to advance our nations future through the education of today's young people. [applause] secretary devos, thank you for your love of and commitment to this country. thank you for taking on the failure factories that exist in ,ur cities around the country thank you for your love of children and your desire to make sure they have the best education possible, and thank you president trump for bringing us someone as wonderful as secretary devos for such an important job. thank you. sec. devos: thank you all. [applause] [video clip] the american steel industry -- now the airline industry is under threat. are at risk, entire industries wiped out. it has happened before, it could happen again. u.s. airline workers are counting on you. , or yoube told to run can choose to run. both get you moving, yet one just goes through the motions. the other has purpose, meaning, freedom. what about your health care? are you being told, going through the motions? or are you choosing something better? liberty health share has a purpose. it unites people to share in the burden of health care. a true community that cares for you in your time of need. free from interference and constraint, it gives you back the power of freedom. it is time to exercise your purpose, time to exercise your meaning. it is time to exercise your freedom. liberty health share. inventor,rican protected by the united states patent, and exclusive right to one's ideas, inventions, and intellectual property, from inspiration to innovation, america led the world. until now. >> today i'm burning my patent along with my colleagues. >> the patent right is a useless piece of paper. >> our leadership position in the world has dropped from first to 12th place. >> the attack on the patent system is an attack on the american dream. >> you can be anything, except an inventor. >> it is in the state constitutional, protecting the rights of inventors. >> inventors to longer trust our patent system. when they steal it, there's nothing you can do about it. the administrative state is overriding our constitutional court system and overriding patents at an alarming rate. >> congress created an administrative tribunal. >> leaders are speaking out in a new film on why our weakening patent system is destroying american innovation. >> to take that away is to destroy liberty, not just for the inventor but for you and me as well. >> the shredding of the united states patent system. >> if our patent system dies, our country dies. ladies and gentlemen, our next panel is entitled kim -iversity -- how college campuses are turning into reeducation camps. please welcome charlie kirk and katie pavlik. >> hello, cpac. nice to be a place i'm not getting protested. >> usually antifa follows me around. i thought we should have walked out to rocket man. katie: you see the title of our program, we are going to talk about college campuses. first, charles, i want you to talk about who you are. i am the founder of turning point usa. i've a couple people here and there. student nationwide activist movement focused on free enterprise, smaller government, we believe america is the greatest country in the history of the world and the constitution is the greatest political document ever written and we believe free enterprise is the most assured way to lift the most people out of poverty. though should not be controversial things to say at a college campus, unfortunately they now require trigger warnings and micro-aggression safe spaces when you start talking about american exceptionalism. it goes to the core of the fight we are in on college campuses. of westernhe future civilization will be decided on college and high school campuses. it is a cultural issue. are we going to be a country that can tolerate different ideas? a countryng to be that allows the discourse of free speech to exist and that is at the heart and soul of the issue. katie: speaking on the heart and soul of the issue, the debate gets framed in terms of left and right and republican and democrat, but what you specifically focus on are the principles that have made america the greatest country in the world. when you talk to students on college campuses, if they are not conservatives, of what conservativism is and what the constitution is? young people are told the conservatives are bigoted, racist, and homophobic and that liberals are the party of freedom, it is the exact opposite during the liberals like to say we are the pro-choice ones. forthink it is ok pro-choice or guns or health insurance across state lines? they do not believe in freedom at all, and it is our opportunity as an organization to say we are the defenders of freedom and liberty. you are the conformists. you are the anti-freedom individuals. you believe in one solutions. we are the ones fighting for individual choice. because of that we see opportunity. you will hear from someone soon, a personal hero of mine, ben shapiro, who is amazing. [applause] we had him speak at our conference in december, when he spoke i thought it was elvis coming. katie: i've never seen elvis and ben shapiro in the same room. charlie: you heard it here first. here is the core of the issue. college campuses have become a place where they want everyone to look different but think the same. they want everyone to look different but think the same. is a idea of diverse city skin color and ethnic diversity, which is fine. that is easy. it is the intellectual, ideological diversity, that is where maturity happens, that his rehab to have to hear things that challenge your viewpoint. you have an education system that is so dominated by neo-marxists and postmodernists, you have an education system that is spitting out leftist on a moton's no capacity to think. the left have-- feelings, we have logic and perspective and an understanding of where our ideas come from and that is the core of the issue. [applause] philosophically, when you try to get your message across, which you have, thousands of students come to your conferences, your people wearing shirts with socialism sucks and the bernie sanders logo, how do you explain from a philosophical level how the constitutional -- how the constitution is so important for young people? katie: -- no mistake,e socialism is the worst idea of the 20th century, we must defeat it, it is a danger to humanity. we will never back down from our anti-socialist stance. it comes down to key questions. where do you think rights come from? from somenk they come government bureaucrat or politician or do you think your rights come from a higher being? once you're able to answer some of these fundamental questions, then you can have an ideological construct of what you believe politically. we have bad philosophy in our country and that leads to bad politics. the left philosophy is quite simple. there is no such thing as absolute truth. whoever suffers the most much -- whoever suffers the most must win, i called the oppression olympics. how can we create you into the optimum level of victimhood? who wins, it is whoever suffers the most. it should be the opposite. katie: they make everyone suffer equally. charlie: the story of western civilization is overcoming victimhood great the left wants the opposite. had somethingt've bad happen to you 100 years ago, therefore people should feel sorry for you. here is the issue. if you do not trust government, why would you want to make government bigger? not trustsay i do government, why would you want to give more money and make it bigger and give up more of your life to that government? katie: we are to bring out a couple more panelists, but i want to talk about the offense of. the bads hear about things happening on college campuses, it is clearly a liberal monopoly, conservatives are making headway. i've never been more optimistic for the future of this country. college campuses are filling up lecture halls and are great organizations. you look at ben schapiro, the most downloaded podcast on itunes, jordan peterson who has -- he this unbelievable is unbelievable. there is curiosity for these issues and it is a byproduct of the left. it is in on it -- it is an unintended consequence -- the neo-marxist does not believe in dialogue, they believe in stifling the other opinion. we still live in the semblance of a free society and that has paved the way for what i believe is going to be the greatest conservative revolution in american history that is led by young people that is for a principled approach to defend western civilization, to say it is ok to hear something you disagree with, just because you are offended does not mean you're right, we need to hear challenges that -- we need to hear ideas that will challenge our viewpoint. the left is unhappy people, they hate this country, they do not want to defend what made it great, i look at the diversity and the intellectual capacity of the conservative group met dutch of the conservative movement versus young leftist and i say bring it on. they are going to lose and we are going to win. katie: we are going to bring out the rest of our panelists saved in here from what the conservative movement is doing on-campus. we have grant from the young american freedom foundation. , the chairman of the cr sc. are they coming? come on down. marcus from the steamboat institute. and stephen from the leadership institute. charlie: all right. katie: i am so outnumbered. i am the one lucky gal today. i want to start by allowing each of you to introduce yourselves. this panel is so diverse. let's start from the left and go to the right. last year i served as the student body president at the university of colorado boulder. we got rid of free speech zones throughout the entire state. [applause] to help am just working leaders across the country do the same things and i'm excited to be here and on the panel. stephen and i work at the leadership institute. there we go. the leadership institute try every single day to train as many conservative and liberty minded people as possible and we do it in all 50 states and are doing our best to equip you with the skills necessary to succeed. you have to learn how to win and will make it happen. katie: to the right side. i am chandler and i'm the national chairman of the college republican committee. we have any college republicans in the house? we are now celebrating our 125th anniversary this year and we are paving the way for the next generation. grant, i'm the national chairman of young americans for freedom. [applause] i have the distinct honor to represent hundreds of you in this audience today. it yourself a round of applause. every day oning our college campuses for free enterprise, limited government, traditional american values, and a strong national defense. i've the honor to work with each and everyone of you after seven years of activism, both in high school and college at the university of michigan. looking forward to the panel. katie: we will pick up where you left off. you take conservative speakers and get them on campus. i am one of the people they try to get on campus that takes a lot of effort, not because of me, but because of the administration and students. we hear about all these controversies with the security fees and the protesting. --you want to know how to halladay looks when you're trying to bring ben schapiro to campus, walk them through what that looks like. michigan university of and in my high school as well, i have posted over 14 conservative speakers. i see this all of the time. over the four years at the university of michigan, things at first were not easy. things were hard. we worried about protesters, we worried about hecklers. things have gotten better. this is why it is so important for conservative students to be active on their college campuses to make a difference. at the university of michigan, for our debates, the dean of our liberal arts school moderated that and now the university of michigan is supporting our events with tens of thousands of dollars. there making sure our events are secure, and none of this would've happened without what we are doing on-campus. this is what you should do, too. [applause] >> i am lucky. other campuses across the country are not so lucky. at the university of minnesota, there is an event with ben schapiro this monday, but you know what the university of minnesota is saying? they are saying your ideas are so odious to us we are going to put you on a part of campus that is not easily accessible to public transportation. katie: boo. >> we will do it at a time when most students are not able to attend. we sent a demand letter and if they do not agree to our demands we will see them in court. [applause] katie: awesome. marcus, i want to come down the aisle to you. you are a student at uc boulder, student body president? >> last year. katie: how did you get in that position? >> having good people around you and a message that resonates with students. one of our platform was wasoring -- whether that how to bring a starbucks or pizza hut to campus or speaking on their behalf at the state capital. represent the boulder students but the entire student body of the public education system. i want you to expand on that because we see these free speech zones and they are really just places located on campus for people who cannot hear ideas they are uncomfortable with. talk about that process. >> free speech zones are misleading. it sounds like a space you can go that is a bastion of free speech. in reality is a tiny place on campus located on the far side where it is not convenient for students to get to and that is the only place that students or community members can engage in spontaneous expressions of activity. i know groups that are sitting on stage, turning point usa has a poster that says that, we believe the first amendment should apply to every square inch of the united states of america. [applause] >> we started the process off to get rid of free speech stones by having a student government resolution, one line made the university mad. said that the first amendment of the united states constitution shall plot every square inch of the university of colorado at boulder. thatwas a strong statement the students passed unanimously and it was able to then carried to the state capital to get rid of them once and for all. katie: that brings accountability. when you have the first amendment and every inch of a classroom it brings accountability to professors. i was at the university of arizona i was on a radio station and i would talk about all the things professors were saying in class and my parents do not think i was going to graduate. i urge you guys do that and bring transparency to your classrooms. speaking of journalism, exposing the campus environment, you a contributor at campus reform. talk to us about some of the stories, the most outrageous stories you have to write? instituteleadership we exposed liberal bias on college campuses across the entire country. there was a great plethora of crazy instances that are happening. they had a liberal fight were trainingey leftists and progressives to learn how to fight and they specifically do not allow republican and conservative students into this fight club. katie: can you define fight club? >> the first rule is you do not talk about fight club. classes a series of where they were bringing in instructors, teaching them how to fight so they could be the next antifa or the next by any means necessary. it happens all the way from middle barry to berkeley. there was one recently where a jesuit catholic university would to allow steven crowder speak on their college campus, this is a man who was pro-life and profamily and the supposedly catholic school will not allow him to speak. ridiculous. katie: that is crazy. chandler, we will go to you. is being a republican on campus tough? >> it is not -- it is not easy to be a college republican. free speech is not a republican issue or a democrat issue, it is an american issue. it is an issue every single american should support. on-campus campus we are starting to see that on the left and our friends on the left understand that. i think the republican party should be the party of free speech because i sure as we start advocating for free speech on our campus, we will win the argument. on that, youlow-up do a little bit different work than these guys do, how do you connect conservative students on campus to the political process outside the boundaries of college campuses? >> our core mission is to grow the republican party. we cannot win elections if we do not win young voters. we need to get all of our friends back in our communities and back on campus to work on republican campaigns, get involved, and vote republican. katie: i want to go back to you, charlie. it all comes back to the principles of free speech and talking about uncomfortable things like the second amendment on college campuses. how do you take that message and package it for a millennial and younger generation. our education system has put feelings above thinking. i see it on television a lot, they say how do you feel about an issue. i do not care about how people feel about anything. feelings are relevant. i care about how you think about things. i have never made a good decision when i'm angry. i never make a decision when i am sad. i do make good decisions when i think. critical thinking is something that is being removed from our universities, and this idea of free speech, the most intolerant people in the world are those that preach tolerance, especially on college campuses. they are the first ones to shout down a speaker. they're the first one to pull a fire alarm when they hear something they disagree with. age, the education says you hear something you disagree with, you are offended, you must resort to silencing that person. disagreement must mean silencing. that is the basis of western civilization. we hear things all the time. the university has become the least diverse place in america and that is what all these champions of freedom are doing so effectively and that is why the conservative movement is going to win. katie: i want you to expand on that a little bit in terms of the hostility toward different ideas and the thing you have to do just are present another side of an argument. people shouldink know, and you have experience in this is well, after you go to a college campus and you give a speech, regardless of the chaos before hand, you always have students who come up and say i did not agree with you when i walked in the door, and i still do not agree with you, but i understand where you're coming from, or the more positive result is they say they have changed their mind about a certain topic. can you talk about the importance of that and how you can make a lot of change when it comes to presenting uncomfortable ideas to the left? >> i think universities are destroying themselves. their ideas they are indoctrinating the students with are the ideas the students are then using to wreak destruction on these universities that we see at berkeley. is in the university's interest to change the way they approach and embrace the diversity of ideas. that is what i've been doing on campus. one example, i have had people chanting the f word outside my this was after the university of michigan issued this new pronoun policy. have you guys heard of this? only 38, 58 pronouns that you see on facebook, it is unlimited your it it was a blank box. i started a hashtag campaign and i and sorted into my box his majesty. my professors have to call me his majesty every day in class. katie: i love it. that is so great. [applause] get me wrong, this is not out of disrespect, this is because the policy is insane. i received tons of pushback. i heard from a lot of people on the left coming out and supporting me. that is why it is so important for students to stand out for what they believe in on campus. when you stand up for what you believe in, people will follow you. you are the ones that are going to change our campuses, you are the ones that are going to lead to lawsuits if there are problems. we are here to help defend you and we have your back. i encourage all of you to go out there and fight the good fight. katie: absolutely. [applause] chandler, the thing about education is there are adults collegeder adults and students, they are making decisions legislatively for college campuses. elections are very important. how do you get college students involved in elections that have affects on what they get to do? we have to bridge the gap between why elections are important and how it will impact young people on campus. there is a gap there that gap. party was founded on the free marketplace of ideas. as soon as we have that debate on campus, we can win young voters and convince them the republican party, the party of freedom for all people, of equal opportunity, is the party for young voters. ms. pavlich: i want to touch on the freedom of opportunity for all people aspect. it is not easy for you to be a conservative at all, but can you talk about how conservatives who are not white manage the accusations of being an uncle tom were being a pitch for your trainer --e -- the but trey -- betrayer of you were race?- your mr. rowe: it has to be a conversation. the most important thing you to do is ask them a question. are you making more money right now, and do you enjoy being able to speak? do you appreciate freedom of speech? what you are doing is -- the idea of freedom of speech, instead of if you have a big you want to plant the seed of liberty in their minds, and then we can push them to the right way and get them to join. ms. pavlich: planting the seed of liberty. i like that a lot. marcus, to follow up. you are still a student. i am fascinated that you were the student audie president. it is very difficult to get into that. it is also a monopoly of liberal thought. any student thinking about running, what advice do you have for them? mr. fotenos: i think every student will agree a lot of the professors are punks at the end of the day. they are not teaching anything. hou -- powers, they do not value reason and truth. the vast majority of them are. , how do wen i have operate in an environment where they do not value reason? i do not have the perfect answer for that. strong, --is getting strong student leaders elected in student government positions. if you work hard in your campaign, you can end up victories. also working with governors across the country to get more solid students appointed to the regions -- regents board. they have the ability to fire faculty. operating in an environment that does not have any value on reason, we need to figure out what -- has been doing for so long, take their tactics and take over the administration. fight back. >> i think it is so important we had conservative college students running for these positions just like marcus, because you control millions of student fees in dollars. it is so important we are being the guide of those fees and hopefully lowering them. have a liberal student body president, they say we could just use $2 more. ms. pavlich: we have only about five minutes left, so we won't go through a lightning round. the majority of young people claim they prefer socialism over capitalism. when you get into details about what that means, they are against it. how do you combat that areative, and adults donating to colleges across the country who want to get more involved with young people want to know what they can do. how can they help each of you and what you are doing on campuses to further their cause? we have a project called it gpa redistribution project. every spring we encourage our chairs to create a video and ask students, would you like to take your a and give it to the student who is earning all c's? you know what the answer is. that is the value of students learning free enterprise. if you are not a student, it is so important to encourage any young person you know to get involved. it is also important to support us any way. you can go to our website, yaf.org, because now we have a battle with the university of california berkeley which yaf is currently suing for not allowing and culture or david hurwitz to speak on campus. ms. pavlich: and the department of justice is backing them up. three minutes left. we need to direct the premise that the left is going out there. as soon as we accept their premise, we're going to lose. we need to be a movement that is for positive solutions for our country, not against solutions. the republican party should not be the anti-democratic party, we should be a party for solutions that will make the lives of american people better in the future. as soon as we start to win that fight on campus, we will start to build the next generation of republican voters, which are so crucial to winning future elections and supporting republican candidates. >> you're almost modern does not need your money unless you went to hillsdale. the universities are underfunded. endowments for tech radical leftists from any point retribution or oversight for the board of regents. we should tax the endowments. we should go after the money -- and every organization up here has 1% of the money that conservatives give to the problem each year, which is higher education, it would make a heck of a lot of difference. do not give your money the higher education. they will put that money directly to the destruction of western civilization. do not give money to those schools. even to the solution, not the problem. ms. pavlich: absolutely. we will go to you first. >> i will keep it quick. a lot of times professors teach, whatever their viewpoints is, a lot of the times it is pro-socialism as if it is the only true. i talked to students watching to stand up to these cowards who are professors and speak truth. talk about the pros of capitalism, you might have some repercussions, but there are a lot of resources out there. --ning point you as a is turning point usa is a -- >> one of the best things we are doing now is the leadership institute's normandy coalition, which is a group comprised of many in this room and on this stage. they are taking offense of strategies to college texas. 862017, we hosted conservative and liberty-minded students on 350 campuses because we know if liberal professors and school administrations will not spread the message, we will. ms. pavlich: gentle men, thank you very much. en, have an awesome cpac. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the editor in chief of the daily wire, ben shapiro. mr. shapiro: thank you. well, so here we are. i did nota place think we would be at any time soon. the republicans control the house, the senate, and the president is donald j. trump. which i am pretty sure not a lot of people saw coming, including many people on that election. i will tell you what i did not see coming. i did not think president trump would be giving us some of the most conservative governance in my lifetime, and he actually has. i'm talking about fantastic news. supreme court justice neil gorsuch. i have been talking about the historically good tax plan. i am talking about the end of the mandate. moving tombassy jerusalem. most of all, president trump brought us one really fantastic thing. clinton is not and will never be president of the united states. applause]d >> lock her up! mr. shapiro: why bother? she is already in a jail of her own making in new york. hillary clinton was the worst candidate, it was because something bigger is happening. the media does not see its, hollywood does not see it, the universities do not see. here is the secret to conservatives 16 -- success in 2016 and beyond -- the era of political correctness is over. [applause] political correctness is dying a slow, painful, bloody, agonizing death, and all i can say is, hell, yeah. political correctness has been a blight on society for decades. uniting through truth, the left has offered feelings, in ice luge that if something is wrong with your life, it is something else's fault, and if you do not have that to backup, if you cannot point to discrimination or cruelty, we are supposed to believe you, because if we do anything, it would be challenging your truth. and that is political correctness in the nutshell, my truth over the truth. there is no such thing as my treat. there is the truth. there is just the truth. ofng americans, we are sick postmodern garbage. sacrificee subject -- truth, we are contribute to the downfall of the greatest civilization in the history of mankind. the entire premise of democracy is background matter less than what we share. a commitment to our common ability to think beyond, to walk in somebody else's shoes. america is about reason. it always was. america is about the proposition that human beings are capable of rising above their station, of exercising their free will, of being free people. america was based on the idea that good ideas win in the end. if we share our to the value of truth, we might be able to pursue it. that the left has fought for decades. -litical correctness is there - their -- p.c. wasinally forwarding attitudes that did support the revolution. politically correct is like social justice. social justice means not justice. politically correct means not correct. when leftists in america picked up -- [applause] america pickedn on the movement, they insisted their goal was not to silence, it was to open up a new visit of viewpoints. america was so racist, so bigoted, so home effective -- homophobic, that -- so the other way to allow members to speak was to shut everything -- everybody up who offended members of those groups. pc was supposed to make us free. the intellectual jackboots showed up. the demised subgroups became taboo. truth went out the window. victim groups replaced actual victims. language shifted to accommodate feelings of those groups. for years the pc culture grew stronger. at at the time of the obama presidency, pc was not just dominant, it had morphed into something unstoppable. advocates have pc have claimed that certain groups in america were recognized, which is true. these present -- they used to prevent -- present evidence that effect. under obama, the new pc said you did not even need evidence of victimization to shut other people up. just had to claim you were victimized, and it was our job to give you the benefit of the doubt. a new form of pc was born. we were talking about the pc of white privilege, which is nonsense. and trigger warnings, which is the worst nonsense. about group is identity. if you are white and male, it is your perspective as a white male. if you are gay and black, your perspective is as a gay black person. according to the left, there is a hierarchy. ae white male perspective is perspective of privilege. nevermind that the average house come -- household income in your estate is asian. you have been one of victimized her's. one of the victimized -- you have been one of was -- you have been one of the victimizers. that is a micro-aggression. it is not just you offended somebody. aggressed then. these aggressions required trigger warnings. these pristine bubbles were nobody disagrees with you and you could feel warm inside. this pc culture took over the university system. it took over the mainstream media. pc culture met universities again to censor speakers to ban them from campuses. that is why when i was invited by the young american foundation, they called out the sheriff and threatened to arrest me if i set foot on campus. i asked him are you going to rest me -- to arrest me if i stay here? he said yes. ucla, berkeley, university of minnesota, university of connecticut, it is why charles murray was physically assaulted at middlebury. brett is a bernie sanders supported. it is why the left tried to shut down mainstream conservative -- infinite -- university strength that the -- universities drank the kool-aid of pc. there are some good people in the media. too many folks in the media are actually just advocates of --tism, nasca reasoning masquerading as objective truth tellers. [applause] folks who have bought into pc culture, maybe worse than it is at the university level. these are the people who refuse to use the term illegal immigrants who describe it to cross the border illegally. these are the people who say if a man is a biological man if he is a woman. -- he is not. he is a dude. [applause] objective facts do not disappear because your subjective feelings wish they would. these are the people who scream peace. [applause] you want to know who the biggest star in america? the it is these folks claiming their objectivity while they push their agenda. who say --he people if you do not agree with their gone confiscation seems. five years ago i was talking with mr. morgan about this. and i kissed him of standing on the graves of the children of sandy hook to promote their political agenda. the media have not learned one thing. they have gotten worse. ,he media are lying about you they are lying about me, they are intentionally dividing the country to promulgate a gun-control agenda. is saying this is a room filled with young conservative people. raise your hand, if you care about the kids who are killed in parkland?-- razor hand if you want to pervert -- preserve the second amendment rights? [applause] when you sit there and stand there and you suggest that we do not care about dead children because we do not mirror what you want us to think, that is because you're acting like file human beings. -- vile human beings. it is disgusting to suggest that we do not care about children who died. as you who are standing in the way of progress. for those folks in the media in the room, there is something we have dunning -- done. there are studies that suggest one of the ways mass shootings become more common is if you show their names and faces on television. we do not do that. i challenge you in the media. gun-control?nd you want to stop mass shootings? put your ratings behind your morality. and yet these folks in the media do not understand when trump criticizes the media, why the cha --ative media cheer. guys.not like you these are the guys who remind us that america is a restless till a racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic country while they take home their pretty large paychecks while living in the freest country in world history of all the while claiming they are objective truth tellers. and why? because of trump. from holloway. hollywood is a place were nobody to the right of karl marx and get a job or anyone who voted for president trump who hides for fear of losing their crew. it is where it is impossible to make a movie about evil jihadists. hollywood,ing about these purveyors of pc, where deepban families -- relationships. where women are molested every day by powerful man, and where those same men talk about our lack of moral decency. these folks, hollywood, universities, many of them in the media, these are the purveyors of political correctness. we americans are by nature polite. we follow rules. we care about not offending other people. we want people to feel respected. we like each other for the most part, and are not that interested in kicking -- picking off our neighbors. maybe it was the specter of the president e nice thing -- nottingham -- -- nodding -- something news and chucking. maybe it was a culture that taught every traditional value to be overcome. maybe we got frustrated with allies. the people said enough. we said enough. we said you do not get to lie about america. i will not want about america if it makes you feel better if i do. he said you do not -- do not get to tell little boys they can turn into little girls. do not get to slander members of our police departments across the country by calling them racists about any evidence. -- without any evidence. get the claim against all available evidence that women are paid less for the same work. you do not get to this just that stealing money from some and giving it to others makes you a moral human being. it does not. it makes you the reverse. and we said most of all you do not get to shut us up. what changed? americans realized we were being turned into weaklings. older americans realize their to play theught victim instead of thinking for themselves. everyone in this room is capable of success. it is a free country. everyone in america is capable of success if they follow basic job, graduate high school. if they do things -- those things, they won't not -- they will not be filled with poverty in america. women, men, black, hispanic americans, millions of americans, thinking as individuals, saying i can do what i want, i can see what i want, and if you do not like that, you can go to hell. now, the institutions do not like it spirit universities try to quash lectures. conservatives are fighting back and they're winning. the media keep try to play the same game. --one who refuses their pc and is not working. the polls are not affecting their wishes. the people in middle america are the problem, and the people on the coasts are the cultural vanguards. more and more americans are alienated from self appointed cultural arbiters. political correctness is dying. that is not the end of the store. the error of pc may be over, but it can come back. in 1996, clinton said that the era of the government was over. at the time the national debt was $5.2 trillion. today it is $21 trillion. bad ideas you not die. they fade away temporarily. politicalay to ensure correctness continues to lose is if we tell the truth, uses abrasiveness, not meanness, the false attacks on institutions. we have to tell the truth. [applause] this is the hard part. we cannot become tribal. the easiest thing is to do is to attack people who are for pc. area hammer, and the media the nail, and that great. when trump complains that anything negative ever said about that is not true, or when the president says there were good people marching in charlottesville, that is not him waging an effective war against easy. it is nonsense. it is immoral. and it's -- and it helps those who push pc. when we do not tell the truth, it allows the pc promulgated to pretend they are the ones who are truth tellers, and they are not. pc is about lies. we can never let the pc left masquerade as a truth tellers, which means we must always tell the truth. every time we lie, we let them off the hook. we cannot fight the lies with more lies. politicalfight correctness by claiming victimhood. when they lie, let's call about. let's not say stupid things just for this take -- for the sake of melting snow flakes. need hotcakes to melt snowflakes. a little bit of truth doesn't protect. our job is just about facts, which is easy. make sure they are true. there's nothing wrong with poking fun at the left. make sure what you say can be backed up with evidence. we do not need to offend them. they are nearly offended by everything anyway, up to and including you breathing sometimes. we need to show they are liars and we are the truth tellers, and that means telling the truth about editing. that means when our side fails, we have to call it out. it means when people on our own sidelight, we have to stand by the truth. left versus right matters more than right versus wrong. if we want to build bridges, if we want to emerge the tories, if we want to end political practice and rebuild on the foundation our forefathers fought and bled and died for, we need to stand with decency and with truth, and we can do it. that means it is time to study up. my mentor used to tell people to walk toward the fire. arrowsot have to fear of because all those things bounce off the truth. we do not have to charge -- worry about charges because facts are not racist, and neither are we. these are just facts. the facts are your shield. decency is your sword. no more subjective feelings trumping objective facts. no more signs the perspectives because they make feel people that about themselves. if we stick with truth and decency, we will win because the human soul yearns for truth and response to decency. he will win because america was built on decency, and we will win because we sure as hell cannot afford to lose. thank you very much. >> ben shapiro. you have heard from some of the greatest conservatives our country has. what happens tomorrow? the president of the united states. security will open the doors at 6:00 a.m. so please come early. you have heard some great conservatives today. you also heard from some liberals. earlier today i talked about how what capitalism is, that we need to be able to preserve our own rights and our interests. you heard a liberal talk about how companies need to pay. that is food for thought. this whole conference is about ideas, and we should not be afraid of our ideas. please enjoy your breakout panels now. they begin very shortly. you can look at your product -- your programs to see you where you need to go. i look forward to tomorrow with you and the president of the united states. thank you, all. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this afternoon's program. we ask you to gather your personal items and be prepared for upcoming events. enjoy the breakout events, and we will see you tomorrow. the conservative political action conference heard from members of president trump's cabinet, as well as ted cruz. they talked about free speech on college campuses. some of the sessions focused on gun violence in schools. there is president trump's meeting today with state and local education officials. president trump: good morning, everybody. hi. how are you? hello, everybody. good to see you. nice to see you. sit down, please.

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