Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Deplorables Guide To Making America Great Again 20170327

Welcome to the Heritage Foundation. We welcome those who are joining us in the heritage. Org website and those who will be viewing us on cspan a book tv in the future. Also welcoming a group called the liberty bells here with us today. Very shy and retiring. For those watching online we remind you that youre welcome to send questions or comments speaking emailing the speaker and we will post the program on the homepage following the presentation for everyones future reference as well. We have copies of the book available for signing and purchase afterwards. Leaving our discussion is becky norton who serves as the Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow. She serves as chairman of the conservative action program, advocates for the heritage ethics and advances energy and resources policy in general. She is also an active board member of the policy organizations she previously serves for external relations and most recently let our restore america project, prior to joining she served as secretary of Natural Resources for the commonwealth of virginia as she served numerous positions in the Reagan White House and at the department of justice and interior. Please join me in welcoming becky. [applause] let me add my words of welcome. Each one of you have braved this cold day in washington, d. C. Im sure this program will be replayed many times. Sometime in the dog days of august being run nobodys going to b believe that i was 15 with the windchill factor of nine when we came together to visit with todd. Were delighted to have todd here at the Heritage Foundation. Its not his first visit but some people ask why you would have a book event on the deplorable guy of making America Great again when you are research and education foundation. Well, the main reason is because todd talks about in his book the importance of having people be involved. Hes going to go into more detail about all of this. Let me just say an educated consumer is the best citizen. Because we are research and education foundation, we do research on the issues that will come before the congress and state legislators in upcoming years. In order to be an effective deplorable, you have to be knowledgeable about the issues were going to be dealing with in our country in the upcoming days and months. As you all know, heritage is based on key principles, individual freedom is the keep principle. The three and a price system. What solves the problems, the needs, the wishes of the american citizens, the Free Enterprise system does. Constitutional governance, wouldnt it be nice to get back to constitutional governance, laws. Traditional values, it is very important when you think about Economic Freedom that you think about what goes in to making Economic Freedom work. Will things that happened within a family, values that you learned about in a family, integrity and hard work, respect and the importance traditional values like religious freedom, the freedom to live life according to what you believe these kind of Cultural Values are enormously important to have Economic Freedom prosper in our country and world. Then a Strong National defense. I mention this because when you hear from todd today you will hear a lot about things american citizen should do and why they need to engage in the battles. My point is that the Heritage Foundation agrees with this and believes that we can be helpful to you and to all of those watching this and reading todds book becoming forms. Be knowledgeable so that you know what you believe and why you believe it. Why are you fighting for these things that todd is going to talk to us about. Then you can go out and make the voice heard in a way that will command respect and the elected leaders will follow the advice of the deplorable school. Todd is here with fox news rad radio, most everyone in america has heard of todd. Hes often on fox news and foxbusiness. The fair and balanced channels. Is the author of four books in his latest one the deplorable sky to making America Great again is what brings them to our podium today. Please welcome todd. Thank you very much. It is an honor to be here at the Heritage Foundation and i have to say Heritage Foundation, you have indeed stayed the course and have been a beacon of light of the conservative movement. I do to want to thank you for coming out on this cold day. Its colder in washington, d. C. Than in new york city where i came from you so thank you for braving the elements as you came out. Before i get into the heart of my remarks i encourage you to follow me and we can make beautiful teats tweets together at todd starnes. I want to share with you about my background before we get into the text of my comments of this afternoon. Im originally from memphis, tennessee. Im also a christian man and my faith labors everything i do in life. One of those people that president obama was talking about who clings to his guns and clings to his religion. Im one of the folks that Hillary Clinton called the deplorable. I am i am not bitter, i am blessed. I live in Brooklyn New York among the indigenous liberal population there, not too far from Hillary Clintons campaign headquarters. I felt that to truly understand the american liberal i needed to live in their natural habitat. Its like being out on a Mission Field because among other things they dont serve too much sweet tea and that not of the woods. I want to tell you about the book before we get any further. A lot of people say when did you start writing the book because it came out a few months ago we actually started working on the project immediately after the election. In hindsight i should have acknowledged mrs. Clinton in my book for giving me the title, the deplorables guide to making America Great again was interesting because we had another title in the event and it was called we are doomed to america, youre dying to the apocalypse. Fortunately we didnt have to worry about that book. Its an amazing place. My neighborhood is populated with a large of vegetarian restaurants and yoga shops and farm to table restaurants. The ones in brooklyn only serve organic eggs harvested by amish midwives. It really is farm to table. This and the only member of the National Rifle association in the zip code. Many view members and the National Rifle assistant you know you get about a pound male month and you also get a really great looking ball cap. Its a blackball cap with the gold letters nra. In my neighborhood on the weekends right outside the local market, all of the liberal avenue us to see groups lineup and are looking for money. You have the planned parenthood, the cream peace and human rights and so on and so forth. And the pita people are the worst. Theyre very aggressive. So is heading to the market and Something Interesting happened. When those liberal groups saw the nra ball cap it was like moses parting the red sea. Except for the pita woman. She caught me coming out i was getting ready to spark a poke but because i was from the south and thats what we do. She stopped me and i had my pork but she says search you love animals and i said only if their deep fry. So they never bothered me after that. So it is what it is so i believe that faith and freedom go handinhand. That concept and idea goes back to the idea of the very founding of our great nation. I tell a story in the book about anand man named oliver hart who is a member of the baptist association. He was the pastor of a church in South Carolina before the founding of our nation. The First Baptist church of charleston. So in charleston its not the First Baptist church is that the ohio state university. Pastor hart was an incredibly effective communicator. He was preaching confidence about freedom and liberty from the pulpit he was a powerful communicator and that restart Founding Fathers. Those that were organizing the army to fight the british to secure freedom and they had an idea. Theyre having trouble in those days trying to round up enough farmers and citizens to fight the british so they dispatched pastor hart into the upstate of the carolinas along with several other ministers. Their job was to recruit an army to fight for freedom. I thought i was interesting that when it came time to fighting for freedom our Founding Fathers came to the church house for help. I believe that is a lesson that we could draw from today in these very difficult days in our nation. For the past eight years we have been told that we are the problem that we are not a christian nation that we are not an exceptional nation. Our traditions and values have been ridiculed and marginalized. We have been mocked by hollywood and dismissed by the academics. We have been bullied and belittled by the sex and gender gender revolutionaries. All that changed on election day with a man who promised to defend religious liberty. The man who promised to make America Great again. I must confess that donald trump was not my first, second, or third choice in the republican primaries. But on election day, he was the only choice. I do believe that Hillary Clintons comments about the basket of deplorables, i believe that was the turning point in the election. It wasnt necessarily the were deplorable. You might remember that moment she speaking to a gathering in new york city and she talked about the homophobic and seen a phobic. She talked about how half of donald Trump Supporters were basket of deplorables. It wasnt that word that i think oster the election. I think it it was the word youre redeemable. She was telling us that people who believe in traditional American Values, people who believe in american sovereignty and people who believe in securing our border, that our belief system is so egregious that we are beyond redemption. I think a lot of people woke up and said wait a second. Something is not right. I believe that was the moment, the turning point that put donald trump in the white house. Many conservatives understood what was at stake on election day. The Supreme Court on the lower courts were in danger of being lost for generations im willing to take the president at his word when he says he is going to defend religious liberty and put conservatives on the courts. Im going to take him at his word. I believe that hes taking steps at the right direction in these early days of his administration. Im encouraged by people like neil gorsuch, but i do have some questions about judge neil gorsuch. Im interested to see how the confirmation hearings will proceed. U. S. Client concern . Republicans have a bad track record when it comes to putting judges on the bench. The democrats dont have this problem. They put a liberal up there and here she stays liberal. The republicans, not sure what happens there gavels go wobbly. You might remember when president eisenhower was asked about some of his worst decisions in his presidency. He said the two worst decisions he made were sitting on the Supreme Court. So im cautiously optimistic but we all have to play a part in holding our president elected leaders accountable when it comes to these decisions. Anything that is pleasing her conservatives we face a very grim landscape of the plane. Over the next few moments i want to share with you the concerns i have regarding the state of American Values and religious liberty. The first is the military. Under the Obama Administration the greatest fighting force on the planet was turned into a petri dish. Just the other day i received an email from an officer at the air force base in san antonio. You may have seen my column on the story. The email told airmen to stop using offensive words and phrases. Among the words and phrases were things like a boy and girl, and colonial. The list goes on and on. There is a training briefing a few years ago that i reported on. Officers were told that the biggest threats of domestic terrorism were not coming from al qaeda or hamas, but coming from roman catholics and evangelical. Why is it they were teaching these young and impressionable men and women thats whats happening on the local First United Methodist Church is a kin to what al qaeda is up to. Another military labeled the American Family association as domestic groups. I have high hopes that general bad dogmatics will rule out the antichristian inside the pentagon. I believe he will do that quickly and i hope so. We have also seen issues involving radical islam and we have seen in our Public School system where islam has been given accommodation christianity has been marginalized. Quite frankly they have been turned into Indoctrination Centers for the left. I believe in a say this in the book that our Public Schools are being used against us. Not all will and not all teachers are bad, there is enough bad schools that is causing a big problem in the country. Weve seen a massive shift in such a short amount of time of whats happening our Public School system. Whats happening our University Campuses that are safe spaces among the perpetually offended generation. The issue of religious liberty is a key component of our book. Religious liberty is the first freedom and i contend that if youre able to chip away and marginalize and diminish religious liberty, first freedom in every other freedom we have is in jeopardy. Just look at the evidence. A study out last year shows 40 of millennials not believe there should be limitation placed on free speech. Look at the attacks. Of those of us who cling to our guidance. And the attempts to take our guns away. Again, i believe that once you go after religious liberty, Everything Else is up for grabs. I wrote a story and ive been following it for quite some time involving the sweet grandmother in washington state. I know we have covered heard on fox news and i write about her in my book. She could be a member of the literary society. She is a sweet, precious grandma and she inherited her father shot from her mother. One day some longtime customers came in and asked if she would provide flowers for their upcoming samesex marriage. She pulled them aside and is gentle and graceful as a whitehaired grandmother could do, she class there hansen told these two young man why she could not do that. She said that it would violate her religious beliefs. Then she provided these young men with several other florist around town who would do a wonderful job with their marriage ceremony. As we know, that was not good enough. You see, in washington state, they expect full and complete compliance. She was brought up on several charges of discrimination. To set an example they decided instead of just going after her business they would go after her personally. So this woman, she loses the court battle she will not only lose her business, she will also lose her home and life savings. Every single thing she had she will lose. This case has been petition to the Supreme Court, again that explains why it is so important that we put conservative justices on the bench. I asked her, and i said why did you just provide the flowers . Nobody would know. Space. She told me over the telephone, i think she was wagging her finger at me. She said young man, who would you rather obey . God or the government . Thats a question many people around this great country have been asked themselves these days. The list of people like her go on and on. Im reminded of a story a few months ago from grand rapids michigan, the vanderbilt family. They own a Meatpacking Company. One day the usda meat inspectors came for a visit. There in the break room and saw religious materials on the counter. One of the usda inspectors became offended by this materials and they summoned to the owner to his office. Can you imagine some of the a government agent summoning up owner to his own office. They told him you would either remove those materials because they are offensive to us or we will remove our meat inspectors. If you know anything about meatpacking business which i did not i have been educated on, if you remove the meat inspectors, the usda inspectors, they have to shut down the business. Fortyfive people wouldve been put out of work. So mr. Vanderbilt did as he was ordered and remove the materials. He has filed a formal complaint. This is why groups Like Alliance defending freedom in the American Family association urging President Trump to sign an executive order protecting religious liberty. Protecting people like the flower shop owner in the Meatpacking Company order. President reagan, my favorite president , i was in Junior High School when he was president. He said freedom is just one generation away from extinction. Last year we came close, very close. Franklin told me for the book that we are at a moral tipping point. I believe that god saw fit to give us a second chance. One of the reason is because of this next generation coming up. A generation of young men and women who are unashamed to stand up for freedom and liberty. I want to tell you about the stories that i write about in the book. I have hope in america because of a young man named connor brewer. Hes a football player, his teammates decided to protest the National Anthem by remaining inside the locker room. Connor chose to stand alone on the sidelines. He did so is his teammates were cowered in their safe space inside the locker room. I have hope in america because of young man in fayetteville, north carolina. His father serving our nation at this moment. Alex was in class and his liberal teacher wanted to explain to him about freedom of expression so the teacher tried to set an American Flag on fire in the classroom. But the teacher could not get the later to work. And discuss she threw old glory onto the floor. And then can started to stomp on old glory. Young alex, 16yearold patriot rushed to the front of the classroom and snatch the flag off the ground and ran out of the classroom so that the flag would no longer be desecrated by that schoolteacher. He refused to stand by and do nothing has the flag was desecrated. I have hope in our nation because of young cheerleader in madison, mississippi. It wasnt long ago that a federal judge appointed to the bench by president obama told the School District that if they engaged in anything remotely religious they would be five to 10000 per violation. It just so happened that the hat High School Marching band was during a performance of how great thou out. Now, im originally from the south and thats a popular hem in the church that i attend. Im sure the principal was coming up the number people in the marching band and was afraid that he was going to have to multiply that number by 10000. That is a lot of cookie sales. So he called the kids to the front office and said kids, sorry but you not going to be able to play that song. You not going to be able to perform at halftime routine. And i want to pause for a moment and say this, once again it illustrates the importance of not just the Supreme Court, but the lower courts as well. This is a lower court ruling. Well, friday night Football Game came in it was a hot, humid night mississippi. As the players walked off the field at halftime a very strange and unsettled hush fell over the stadium. No one quite know what to do. There were no marching bands. Suddenly, young lady started singing a familiar song. And one by one people in the cell stands began to sing along with her. Before too long the entire stadium rose to their feet in defiance of their governments and saying, how great thou art. So the question i pose in the book is this, who among us will stand, who among us will stand with the good people of madison, mississippi . The liberals may try to silence our voices, they may try to bully us into submission. But we cannot be silent. We must not be silent. They took a stand for religious liberty and the great state of mississippi, i believe it spreading like wildfire across the fruited plain. This is a quote often been attributed to dietrich, silence in the face of evil is evil itself. God will not hold us guilt, not to speak is to speak not tack to stacked. I believe this is a moment for every freedom loving patriot in america. The time has come for all to stand together and with one voice declare that we are one nation under god. In closing, theres a scene in a wonderful film called we were soldiers. It tells the story of the battle of the valley. A swift kick with his boot. You cant take pictures from down there, thats what he said. Well, that old reporter looked up at the Sergeant Major and he looked back at him and tossed him right. The reporter rejected a weapon and said it was a noncombatant. The Sergeant Major said these words. Theres no such thing today. The cultural bullets are flying and the enemies of freedom are advancing. The time has come for all of us to stand. We are freedoms last line of defense. So hold it high and white double aim of freedom burn bright for all the world to see. Its time for every gun toting bible toting to stand for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because we have something worth defending. We have a heritage built on a firm foundation. So i hope that our prayer on this day and every day moving forward with the our great nation will once again be the shining city on a hill. Thank you all very much. We have time for questions, so if you have a question please raise your right hand. We have microphones and we would like for you to wait and then stand up and introduce yourself to everyone here and ask your questions. I want to say you have allies, so you are not alone. Other states do feel excited by the news of the confirmation in washington, and i have to say that i was not necessarily a High School Junior in those days, but i was a young child listening to Radio Free Europe and voice america which is funded by the cia and Ronald Reagan and i was waiting for the moment to see the americans smashing the wall and liberating 400 million eastern europeans and youve done that. The American People should know that we are grateful that america has done tremendous things for people that love freedom in that part of the world so thank you for that message. One question, do you think that there is an element of the era that is pride in the comments that made her blind to the electoral process and if it has been detrimental, did she learn anything from barack obama and the way that he approached the electorate . Ive often wondered what she thinks about when she is wondering the woods wearing those hemp sweaters. I dont think she has and here is the reason why. In her heart of hearts i dont think she believes what she said, and a good many liberals who think like her new as well which could blame why we have seen such violence and hostility in the streets and the aftermath of the election. So i dont think she regrets anything. I think she doubled down on what she said. One of the things i appreciate i was reading this on the heritage. Org website. He didnt believe that we should be the policeman of the world but he did believe we had a obligation of americans to stand alongside the people of the world who want to be free and i completely agree with that so thank you for that question. We have a question over here. With more commentary do you have regarding the situation you mentioned regarding the court system and what might still happen with that . Thank you for asking that. The Supreme Court ruled against her so the only option at this point would be if the Supreme Court in washington takes up her case and if they decline to do so, that would mean she would have to pay those fines and quite frankly i think it would send a chilling message to people who again have devout religious beliefs and do not want to violate those beliefs so we will pay close attention to that story to see what happens but i think this will have ramifications for every person of faith in america. This is a fairly literary looking group. People ask how did i come out writing books. When i agree with as a kid in the deep south, i grew up in a storytelling culture part of the hyperbole i grew up reading the works of the Great Southern humorist and i dont know if any of you folks know her but if you read erma on the on the bus he would learn to run really fast. I also love to read and discreet people out but id love to read the liberal humorist. Two of my favorites were molly ivins didnt agree with what she had to say that she was funny when she wrote about things and she was progun. You get your carry and conceal as soon as you come out of the hospital. The other one was kind of Going Old School but if i was always amazed at how he could just turn satire on its head in washington and i would pay and a lodge to one of the him in my chapters ie book. Another question yes, right here. Hello, sir. I come from wyoming and just in december i attended the wyoming Supreme Court hearing for justice or for the judge ruth neeley and last week fox news reported this among others he was publicly censored by the Supreme Court and several months ago had been asked a hypothetical question by a reporter what she would do if asked to perform a gay ceremony and in the future she would do something similar to the florist and referred them to others who could so even though shed ever been asked to perform a marriage, publicly censored. The attorneys demand she be removed from the bench which they did not do, but this is just another example of a battle that has been lost at the local level. I think that conservatives have done very well and in the states where the traditional conservatives have not one, have we ignored some of the states we should be winning like wyoming and others . That is an excellent question. Shes a good lutheran lady. They do get potluck good potluch those baptists. You raise an interesting point because there is a local component to this. A lot of folks think its sexy when you talk about fighting for American Values. We have to take back washington. Well, by that point it is too late and that is the thrust of the book is that its all about being active and engaged on the local level. One of the areas in particular we talk about is the Public School system and we encourage folks to run for the school board, get involved in the local textbook committees and find out what they are teaching our kids from a practical standpoint folks say i dont have any kids, unlike the liberty belts we dont have any grandkids. You are a taxpayer and your money is paying for the nonsense in that Public Schools and youve got to get involved. Some people say we have soccer, dance, whatever. It doesnt matter, you have to prioritize. Its great to have a soccer team did whats the point. Youve got to prioritize. Another thing we encourage folks to do in the book is take personal responsibility for teaching your child about american history. Dont rely on the schools to do that. There may be some great history teachers out there but quite frankly some of them are teaching common core and that concerns me greatly so teach your kids and grandkids about the Founding Fathers, teach them about the constitution. Take that responsibility personally in your home. A question down here. Texting . Just kidding. Thank you for your comments. I work here at the Heritage Foundation and i came all the way from the fifth floor to see you. That is a long trip. I was reading a book over the weekend talked about jim crow tm crow law and after the civil war blackandwhite were hiring each other, living together writing the same and to prevent that, the state governments had to pass jim crow laws on the issues of government stepping in to tell businesses how they could operate. Isnt that kind of the same thing they are describing in washington where the state is telling the person how they can do business in who the and who o business with . That is a form of that, yes. What struck me about the situation in michigan as they were telling a privately owned Business Owner that he owns his own business and what kind of reading material he could have. What does a church pamphlet have to do with whether or not to the beef is good. I think in the Obama Administration years we saw a gross overreach and what is happening in the local towns and communities. Its important for folks to know their rights under the constitution. And in my generation we just dont know how far been overreach the government has overreached. Thank you for that question. [inaudible] going back to the case for a moment, i hope the Supreme Court does take it but if she would lose the case and would have to pay the fines, who does that go to, does it go to the government government . Who benefits from the decision if it is a bad decision . To answer your question i dont know what fines have been levied against her but they would receive some of that money. You might remember from the organ where the christian mom and pop bakery or in were in ar situation forced to pay those fines. Here is the challenge i write about in the book. When you go through Something Like that kind their kids got death threats. They want to destroy these people. I was reading about north carolinas former governor. He is unemployed and cant get a job as people dont want to hire him because he stood up and said men who identify as women cant use the bathroom with little girls and now he cant get a job. There is a militant strain that they want to destroy. We have to stand alongside these people. When they turne turn the cameraf into the lights off people go back to the newsroom and still have lives to live. We have to stand alongside them and let them know they are not alone because it can be scary for people taking a stand. One more thing, people like those in michigan, they didnt go looking for a fight, the fight came to them and that is a scary thing because one day they could be knocking on your door so think about that. We have time for a few more questions. Yes maam. [inaudible] could you comment on the university situation . Some of it seems like it is beyond help and it seems there is no end in sight for what we can do. That is a good point. A. The universities are almost beyond help. Some of the stuff going on in the campuses i didnt know such things existed. We learned in then just stopped giving. They do understand the bank statement. One way to go against this is to start withholding money and donations. The other part of it is to encourage young people to consider going to schools that do believe in the constitution and do believe in free speech and in the nation. There are a number of these schools like hillsdale and a number of christian universities and colleges, so there are lots of other opportunity alternatives, but the sad reality is yes im guilty of sitting back and laughing and chuckling at the kid is better coping with donald trump being elected president of the cold reality is they are about to be kicked out into the general population with the rest of us. Thats a scary thing to think about. So we have to figure out a way to get back to the basics. One thing i did propose any fox news commentary is any School University that doesnt defend free speech we ought to yank the federal tax money, period. One more question back here. D. You think anything can be done about the freedom about the very popular veto . Expand just a little bit on what youre talking about. My apologies. 55 people a year coming and start speaking and announcing and cant be heard. I am stubborn enough to keep on talking. Thats the sad part about this is that the average american liberal is not very polite, and i think we need to have a little bit of civility in our conversations. They can try to shout you down but im still going to keep talking. We have to be willing to stand up to that kind of stuff and call it what it is. They had the situation at berkeley they were beating up folks and it caused mayhem and they vandalized a building named after Martin Luther king junior for goodness sake. So, these folks are just bullies and i think a lot of them watch msnbc but we will just keep that between you, me and the folks at cspan. Im going to ask one final question. In your book you have a chapter on the rise of radical islam and i know that this is often discussed in the context of terrorism and so forth. One of the points you make in marching orders is that americans should understand islam. Im wondering if you giv gave ay guidance in your book on how americans can learn to better understand islam or can they contact you and get some material from you about this . Thats going to be an important issue and the problem is when they are teaching islam in our Public Schools, they are teaching a distorted view. A book i wrote several years ago called dispatches from a better america i rehashed and interviewed a muslim scholar has done with the Orange County register and he said that the goal was to basically infiltrate the Public School system so they can become the academic advisors and textbooks that write about or write the lessons the boys and girls will learn about islam, and that man is now one of those advisers. Someone called it a form of stealth jihad that is underway. So i do recommend a couple things. Number one is anything written by joel rosenberg. Many of you have read his novels but hes also a very astute man when it comes to these issues. He has a brandnew as of today just came out oit just came outm a survey regarding how americans view islam and i would encourage you to read that. There is another one written by a man named erwin. Hes just recently retired as the pastor in chicago and hes written several books regarding islam, so those were two resources for you to take a look at. But its very important to understand islam and also the rise of radical islam across the globe according to the survey that just came out, an overwhelming majority of americans believe that there is going to be some sort of an attack on the homeland including a biological weapon. That is a great fear according to this new survey so its important to understand what we are facing and dealing with. A final plaintiff occurred at the end of each chapter we provide what we call marching orders, these are things you can do, very practical things you can do in your homes and communities and churches to claim those wonderful values and traditions that our country was founded upon. Doing that i believe we will make America Great again for future generations but understand this is something we have to do with every generation. Remember what Ronald Reagan said. Every generation has the responsibility to move the flame further. Thank you all very much. [applause] i want to encourage you to get a copy of the book and for more research on some of the topics discussed please be sure to go to heritage. Org. Thank you for visiting us today. Have a great afternoon