Nights sleep and welcome back to day two of our National Conservative student conference. [ cheers and applause ] for those of you who dont know me, i am the cofounder and co chairman at the university of georgia and i am looking forward to a great weekend with all of you guys, but this morning i have the great honor and privilege to introduce den prager. I am a huge fan of mr. Pragers work for two reasons. Number one, without his show i would not have found this distinct organization, Young Americas Foundation which ive had the privilege to intern for this summer and number two, because i believe mr. Prager provides something very important, something very unique and something lacking for most of our policy discourse today, thats moral clarity. Dennis prager is the host of the widely popular andic finfluentil talk show the Dennis Prager show, he can also be seen regularly on cnn and fox news. In addition, his daily radio show, mr. Prager lktures frequently on various topics from religion to politics. He is also a prolific commentator, writing a weekly column that appears in town hall. Com, National Review among other places. His writings have also been featured in the Weekly Standard and the wall street journal. Mr. Prager is the auth of of six books, the nine questions people ask about judaism, which is an introduction to judaism in the world, number two, the jews, the reason for antisemitism, happiness is a serious problem, still the best hope, why the world needs American Values to triumph which i highly recommend, and the Ten Commandments still the best moral code. Mr. Prager has produced three films and is currently in the process of producing the fourth, no safe spaces which hell be producing with filmmaker and comedian adam corolla. He is at the school of International Affairs where he did graduate he has taught russian and jewish history at Brooklyn College and president Ronald Reagan appointed him to the u. S. Delegation to the vienna review conference on the hellinski accords. He also received an honorary doctorate at pepperdine university, he periodically conducts orchestras and has introduced hundreds of thousands of people to classical music. In 2011 mr. Prager cofounded Prager University with his producer allen esturn, which is an institution of Higher Learning with a unique difference. All of the courses are five minutes long. The courses is still the best ideas of the best minds in the world and cover the disciplines of political science, history, philosophy and religion, economics and psychology and the faculty includes paul johnson, george gilder, Arthur Brooks and peter craft and many others. And by the end of the year, i am pleased to report, prager, you will have over 400 million views. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dennis Prager. [ applause ] thank you, ross, for the kind words. Introducing is not like the university of colorado in boulder many years ago. A young woman, a student there introduced me and she announced and this was the first time she was ever publicly speaking which became apparent momentarily, and so she read all she had to do, really, was read from this script thats provided, but she was quite nervous, and it said that the actual words were the Los Angeles Times said that mr. Prager is preoccupied with good and evil, and she read it the Los Angeles Times said that mr. Prayinger is preoccupied with doing evil, and i remember my first thought was how does shegg evil, and i remember my first thought was how does she know . Be that as it may it is good to be here despite the fact it is 6 00 a. M. For me. I came in from california last night. [ cheering ] hey, if thats an achievement in your eyes, im in good shape. Thats really great. By the way, just by clapping, how many of you have seen two or more videos of Prager University . [ cheers and applause ] okay. All right. Thats very important to me, as you well know. So i really take this seriously or i wouldnt cross the country and then im going back today because i consider this so significant. So i thought, what can i talk to you about in the 45 minutesplus questions that i have . You know what . Im going to not talk about politics as such. Well talk about what i like to call on my radio show, the ultimate issue. So im going to give you it all has political ramifications, but i would like to give you about five or six points of ideas that have animated my life and that ive learned in a much longer life than yours and so here they go. Its not in order of importance, theyre all very important, and i can give you another six and another six and another six and another six because its the purpose of adults to tell young people what theyve learned, otherwise, whats the proof to getting older . Theres proof to that. Say youre 20. Every one of you knows how much more you know about life than you did at 15. So double that. How much more will you know at 40 . So theres certain inevitability, but not entirely because there are people who get older and stay stupid and i dont mean to put them down. Well, actually, i do. Theres something wrong in not growing, but thats another subject. Number one, and oddly enough, it might be it might be the most important single thing because if you dont know this, i dont think wisdom is possible. Thats how much weight i place on this realization, and i know that if you dont agree, it it will be painful to hear, but youre not snowflakes. So im prepared to Say Something that you may not have thought about or even thought about and come to a different conclusion and that is people are not basically good. If you dont know that, i do not believe wisdom is possible, and i do not believe it is possible to make a better world. It is the great myth of the postenlightenment western secular world that human nature is good. Human nature is not good. Its not evil. If it was purely evil no good would be done. Of course, there are good people. In fact, my life has been dedicated to the question how do you make good people . There is no more important question in society. Every other question is secondary to the question of how do you make people good because we dont start out good. People who tell me babies are good have it wrong. Babies are innocent, but theyre not good. No baby has altruism. Gee, you know, ive been puking and crapping and peeing for the last week. My parents really need some time together. So im just going to stop crying tonight. Let them go out and enjoy each other and then ill resume crying when they get back. This does not occur to a baby. By the way, if we were not completely selfabsorbed as a baby we wouldnt survive. I am not antibaby, just for a record. I was a baby and i had a good image of myself as a baby, so this is not an issue. Please understand there is not good. There is no parent who i ever met who looked at their kid and said you share too much. Any of you ever told that by your parents . You just share too much. Learn to be more selfish. It doesnt happen. How many times did your parents say to you, say thank you . Was it 4,000 . 10,000 . Why didnt it work once . If were basically good, oh, of course, i should say thank you, but youre not basically good so you have to be told over and over the unbelievably elementary moral decency of thanking someone for doing something good for you. Even that doesnt come naturally. It is the grand lie of the secular world since the enlightenment that people are basically good and so much damage has been done by that. For example, one of the biggest is do you blame people for the evil they do or do you blame external sources . If a person rapes, murders, mugs, embezzles, robs a store, burns down a store, do you say they have done evil or they are victims of bad parenting, of racism, of poverty . Thats what i was taught. Poverty causes crime. Who believes poverty causes crime. People who believe people are good so they dont blame the criminal, they blame poverty. The first time i heard poverty causes crime i knew it was wrong because i thought of my grandparents who were in new york during the depression not just the depression, but unemployed. They were quintessentially poor, and then i thought how come my grandfather never mugged anybody . No. Isnt that a logical question . If poverty causes crime my grandfather should have been a criminal but he wasnt because he had religion. Because he believed that there was a god who says do not steal. Thats why. Theres a big reason, but we because we believe this id yosi that people are basically good, we have dispensed with religious morality. Oh, i dont need the Ten Commandments. I am so good. People dont need to be told by a god. Its mucked. We have 400 million views a year at Prager University videos. You know the ones that get the most mocked . Not on health care, not on taxes and we get a lot of criticism on those. The ones that say god is necessary this drives people crazy because we live in utterly secular world which believes god can be dispensed with morally and exist earnly and so on. Ill get to that in the next topic. One more thing, i dont excuse adultses who believe people are basically good. I excuse kids because its a nice fantasy and kids believe in fantasies, but for an÷o adult t know the human record and to argue people are basically good, do they not know about the utter universality of slavery just as an example. Utterly universal and there is not a society ney history that we know of that did not have slavery. If people were basically good why would it have been ubiquitous. Not to mention torture, rape and murder and to say that after world war ii people are basically good . You really have to suspend judgment. Its Wishful Thinking and for one final thing. I dont even wish it, and ill tell you why, because i know that people arent basically good. I am so happy every time i meet a good person. Im never disappointed when i meet a bad person. I dont expect much from humans. Therefore when i meet a good person, you know what . Ive always said you know what my biggest hobby is good people collecting. Thats what i do. I collect good people and its one of the reasons for my energy and my happiness in life. Number two, the necessity of god. Necessity. I am not talking about existence. This is not a talk right now about whether or not god exists. I do believe god exists. Thats a separate issue. I am now people can argue whether or not god exists and what is not arguable is whether god is necessary. There is a piece in todays on eye think the guy wrote it knowing im going to speak to you. Im going to write them a note and thank them for publishing this. Some professor wrote a piece today, i dont know, i think hes a physicist. I didnt check. He studies the universe and realizes that everything ends, theres no intrinsic meaning to the universe. Its all meaningless, you better make up something or youll go crazy. Thats what exist earnism is. How are you doing you meaningless bunch of molecules. You cant do that. Its too painful. People make up meanings, career, love, family, kids, travel, hobbies, otherwise theyll go nuts and by the way, all of that is great. Im totally into all of those things, but its made up, in fact, without a god. It is a material universe. All of that is real is matter and therefore life is ultimately meaningless. If you deny that, you are fooling yourself. Maybe its good to fool yourself so that you have a happier day, but, in fact, thats the case. Even if god doesnt exist. Im not talking about existence. Im talking about necessity. No god, no ultimate meaning. No god, everything ends when we die. Everything. There is no afterlife. You see no one you have loved. Everything that has been done, youve done will be forgotten. Theres probably no one or maybe three people in this room who could even name a greatgreat grandparent let alone knows a damn thing about them so dont give me this nonsense we live on through the memories of our loved ones, except our loved ones also die. So the memories of you die. You couldnt name three people who lived in the 13th century who just in name you couldnt do. Lets be honest, its all forgotten. Everything you do, its gone. Its a puff, but if there is a god, its not all over. Now you can say thats Wishful Thinking, too. Fine, i told you, invite me back for just gods existence talk. This is not a gods existence talk. Its a god necessity talk. Only if there is a god is there ultimate purpose to life. Only if there is a god does death want end everything. Only ifg6m there is a god is t ultimate justice. People who smashed babies heads in world war ii, if there is no god, they simply slinked into the population in which they lived and Nothing Happened to them and nothing is done for the baby. Its all over. Tough, kid. Thats the way the cookie kr crumbles. Thats the secular view of ultimate justice. Thats the way the cookie crumbles, but if there is a god there is ultimate justice. Theres a big difference if there is a god or not and if there is a good to there is absolute and objective morality. Evil exists. Actually evil. Just like two and two is four, murder is wrong. Without god, all ethics are subjective. Thats just the way it is. It doesnt mean you cant be a good atheist. There are kind atheists and there are despicable religious people, thats a given, but it has nothing to do with the point. The point is good and evil do not exist objectively if there is no god. See the video that we put out, if there is no god why is murder wrong. Not why, is murder wrong. There was an aimlessness, you know whats the first Secular Society ney Human History . Western europe is the first Godless Society in the history of the world and if the left has its way in the United States we will follow because they look at europe as a model. And let me tell you, you know what the biggest problem in europe is . And there are a lot of problems in europe, but i think the biggest one is the big b boredom. Because ultimately they dont believe in their nations and they dont believe in a religion. They believe in more free hours not to work. Thats what has become the great crusade in europe. How can i work fewer hours. Number three. Race is irrelevant. Irrelevant. If you believe race matters, youre a racist. By definition. That is the definition of racism. That the color of your skin determines something about you. We live in the antithesis of the liberalism that i grew up with. Leftism is antiliberal. If you understand that, you know 50 of what you need to know about leftism. Leftism has nothing in common with liberalism. I grew up a liberal. How could i not . Im a jew from new york. So obviously, i grew up as a liberal. On my birth certificate it had liberal. It was the single most important item on the birth certificate. This is so i understand that. As a liberal, i understood to be race blind is the ideal. Character matters, not skin color. The left is the first the american and the western left is the first ideology since the nazis to say race is important. Im not comparing them to nazis. Nazis are uniquely evil. Im merely stating a fact and not an opinion. Between naziism and con temp leftism, no one held race as important. No one. Only racists, neonazis and now the Washington Post New York Times and every college you go to, they believe race is important. The university of california has issued a list of microaggressions. You all know what microaggressions are, right . Here is an example of a racist microaggression, a Statement People make thinking its nice, but its really, get it, racist. If you say there is only one race, the human race. You are a racist according to the leftwing leaders of the university of california. Check it, folks. Check it. My credibility rides on every comment i make. I know that. Im very careful before god and man never to exaggerate. That is listed as a statement of racism to say there is only one race, the human race. So you are saturated in an utterly racist environment at almost any university you attend with black dorms and hispanic graduations. Thats all pure racism. No liberal in American History would have counted. If you had told john f. Kennedy that harvard will have a separate graduation for blacks, he would have said it is not possible because its a liberal institution and he was right. Liberal institutions dont have black graduations. Leftist institutions have black graduations. [ applause ] number four, and i guess what im doug is slaughtering a lot of sacred cows. I didnt think of the talk as such, but its really what i guess its come to. Feminism has done a lot of damage [ applause ] people always ask me, hasnt it done some good . Of course, its done some good. Can you name anything that has not done any good . Its an absurd question, did it do any good . We dont judge people or ideas by did it do any good . We judge them on the sum total. Is the sum total good or not good . The sum total of feminism has been a moral and personal disaster for the society, but it has done some good. First of all, any decent human knows or must know humans are equal. Theres no egalitarian difference between men and women. It is so obvious that i dont know, i dont think i was a particularly quote, unquote, progressive. I grew up in a normal home and the idea that my father was more valuable than my mother as a human being would have struck me as a moron that only a moron would say that or that in general, men are more important than women. It there were people who believed it in history, i know that, but so its a given that that is wrong, but beyond that what feminism has done has hurt people terribly. Its women and its hurt men. I ask every wanot every, almt every 25 years of age or younger sometimes theyre 32 and they look 25, but theyre not insulted when i tell them, oh, i thought you were 25. Anyway, i really do. I ask a waitress, a flight attendant, somebody im sitting next to on the plane, and i talk to strangers. One of my favorite things in life, one of my top ten things, if i dont make people in the elevator laugh i feel i have failed my day. This is my nature. So if shes a woman under 25 i ask this question. Listen, theres no right or wrong answer so just be honest with me and heres the question and every women here should consider this. If you could be guaranteed a great career or a great marriage which guarantee would you take . Now, remember, if you take guarantee a it doesnt mean b cannot happen. It just means only one of them is guaranteed. Okay, this is not rocket science, so i explain that and here is what happens. A lot of women a lot of young women will think a great deal. Wow i never thought of that which in and of itself blows my mind. You never thought of that . What the hell is more important than that . You never thought whats more important to me in the final analysis, a great career or a great marriage . What have you been thinking about if thats not what youve been thinking about . Have you health care . Has that been on your mind all that time . Thats quite you do belong in washington, but i i i dont get it. I havent thought about it. Im just amazed that never would have been an answer to your grandmothers. Never or greatgrandmother or greatgreat grandmother or greatgreatgreat grandmother next to eve and that you answer great career which is about 50 of the time, great career. So let me tell you something, doing a talk show with millions of listeners and doing a talk show for 35 years, and i talk about these things just as much as i do as whats happening in the news and so its been fascinating, all of the women in their 50s and older who have called in, and ive said, if you pursued a career rather than marriage and youve had a successful career if you didnt have a successful career, obviously, it wont apply, call me and tell me how you look back on this issue, and recordings of these women should really be played for every young woman. The truth is i make a good sixfigure income, and im a very successful ceo at a company, and i did i bought the feminist line when i was in college and i vigorously pursued a guy and i could find a guy if he comes around, if i meet the right guy. I have a comment about the men, too, if the women think im picking on you. Im not picking on you. Im helping you. They just feel so they had a very successful day at the office. Theyre a ceo and they go back to their home and theres no family. Theres no man, theres no kids. Of course, someone would say, i dont need a man to have kids which is is part of a big problem in society. It is. Its a very serious problem and not that there arent wonderful single mothers, but its a very bad idea to think i dont need to get married. I can have kids without a man, yes, its physically possible, but its no comparison. If it happens and you cant help it through divorce, through widowhood, breakup, whatever it is. Okay, i understand, but to plan on that is not a wise thing. Its not career does not do and this is what you will never be told because this is the biggest problem of feminism. It taught that men and women are basically the same which is as big a lie as people are basically good. We are not basically the same. We are profoundly different, and i hate to use lie. Lie is really as bad a word as i could use before an be obscenit and i try to say mistake, error, but i say lie because it was deliberately done. We know now their brains are different. Were profoundly different, but feminism taught were the same and it sold a terrible bill of goods to women. Oh, just like men can get so much meaning out of life from a career, so could i, but most women are not built that way. Some women are as driven for career through a life as men are, but most are not. Thats not their nature. It just isnt, which is a good thing. You dont want both driven by the exact same thing. Its probably not the way it was designed. I think by god, if you like evolution, and im not saying evolution didnt occur. All im saying is i dont believe it designed everything about us which is what is currently taught to you, the evolutionary explanation for bubble gum. Why did we love bubble gum, we can see it was better. These that chewed bubble gum in the final analysis and survived longer. There is an evolutionary explanation for everything. Were not basically the same. Were very different. Sexually, girls in my generation, i remember, and ill be im very open. I decided very early in my life to hide virtually nothing and let the chips fall where they may. It has been advantageous. Its not always easy, but when i was in college and graduate School Feminism was in its heyday. Just total heyday. Late 60s, early 70s, and i remember that the idea became quite popular among girls my age that, hey, we can have sex just as meaninglessly as men can, and i thought, wow does god love me or what . Men have been waiting to hear that for 26,000 years. And i was born into the first generation that believed that because ive always been very morally concerned and i never wanted to fool anyone or use anybody, but if women were now saying, hey, its wonderful having relations without any meaning who am i going to argue with them . And so thats what that was what happened, and i and i knew its not true. Its not true, but that was what people believed, and thats why there are so many more women in college who were depressed than men. This is from the New York Times which hails feminism. How many more women are suffering from depression in college and this is a big part of the reason because they dont im not saying there are no women. Im talking generalizations like seatbelts save lives. Can you point to a person who died because they wore a seat belt . Yes, some people died, and they cant get out of the belt and they burned alive in a fire, but overwhelmingly seat belts save lives. Overwhelmingly, sex is not the same thing for both sexes. Thats just the way it is, but youre not if youre told that, you know, the person who tells you that probably cant even get tenure or even hired as a teacher out of college. So these are things to think about, and i only had sons. Its just the way it works. My father had two sons, i have two sons, my son has two sons. Its a twoson world that i come from, but if i had a daughter i would tell her, if you meet a wonderful guy at 21 or 20, dont let him go. Great guys dont grow on trees, okay . And to the guys, you wont grow up until you marry. Now that may not matter to most guys your age. They dont want to grow up. Growing up, hey, im from the baby boomer generation. The ultimate peter pans. My generation said dont trust anyone over 30. They didnt want to grow up. It really bothered a lot of my generation. Growing up, thats a horror. They couldnt the thought just frightened them. Thats why they never wanted to be called mister by kids. They wanted to be called by their first name by kids because they wanted to be on the kids level. I dont want to be regarded as an adult. And so thats thats what happened. You want to grow up . Get married. You meet a great girl. By the way, let me tell you guys, utter nonsense, statistically and logically, ill get married as soon as im financially stable. Why cant you become financially stable along with a wife . I dont quite understand . Is she a burden on your financial stablity . Do you know every piece of data show that men who marry make more money not less because they dont spend as much time at sports bars where the earnings the earnings potential is minimal. Oh, i now have a wife and maybe kids will be coming. I have to support somebody. Thats great. You grow up that way. There isnt a human alive who i have ever met even if they had a horrible divorce who denies that marriage made them better. Marriage grew them up. Thats just a rule of life because until then the biggest preoccupation of your life is you, and you dont grow up when you are the center of your life. There are many wonderful single people. Im not an idiot, i know that, who devote their lives even to helps others and thats beautiful, but thats a macro on the microlevel, marriage makes you a man or a woman. Until then, by and large, youre a girl or afc boy. Thats the truth, ruth, but whos going to tell you that . Your professor of gender studies . [ laughter ] what am i up to . Lets see, one, two, three, four, five, right . Okay. This is this is say biggie. Behavior is everything, feelings are nothing. How you feel [ applause ] how you feel is important to the following human beings. You, your mother and your therapist. There are 7 billion other people in the world, not one of whom cares about your feelings. All of whom care about your behavior, okay . If the waiter or waitress is in a bad mood because something sad happened in their day, i feel for them, but i dont care. I expect nice behavior as if its a great day for that waiter or waitress. That is the way life works. I wrote a book on happiness. It is selling now since 1999 rather well because it this is one of its points. You should act this is my whole thesis not my whole, but it is the biggest part of my thesis on happiness. Act happy even if you do not feel it because, a, you owe to everyone in your life not to inflict a bad mood on them. Inflicts bad moods is like inflicting bad body odor. You shower every day not because it is medically necessary but so that you can offer a Sweet Smelling body and a Sweet Smelling mouth through toothbrushing to all those you meet. Thats the reason. Just as you brush away bad breath, you have to brush away bad moods. Thats the way it is. You have no right to inflict your bad mood on anyone in your life, not your coworker, your roommate, friend, wife, parents, children. Children who grew up with unhappy parents should all have a mem wor that is required reading by other people, the burden it is to be married to a chronically unhappy person. These are things that are not spoken about. Everybody has sadness in their life. If you live, you have sadness. Thats the way it is. But for most people, it is absolutely true. Life is filled. Now for some more than others, obviously. Not everybody suffers equally. But everybody has pain. It is not possible to go through life without pain. So the question is, how do you deal with it . And it cant be on the basis of mood. You owe it. There is a moral obligation. Thats how i teach happiness on my show. I have an hour on happiness every week also since 1999. I tell people you have a moral obligation to everyone in your life to act as happy as possible. So when i talk to people, especially young people like you, i get very common questions, so ill try to answer it now and we can have new questions afterwards. And that is, well, thats inauthentic, but i always find an interesting argument. It is inauthentic to act happy if you arent happy. Since when is authenticity so great . Bad breath is authentic. Thats my whole point. Okay . I wont even tell you what else is authentic because i dont want to get gross. But there is a lot that is authentic that you cover up. Its not an end in itself. You are not false by acting happy, you dont have to say to someone, are you happy . You can totally say, hey, listen, i know i come across as happy because i owe it to people, but i have a lot of pain in my life. You dont have to hide how you feel. You have to act differently than you feel. I learned this in fourth grade in orthodox ju dish school where half the day is in he brew and half day is in english secular studies so, i was emersed in the studies until 18. Boys are obligated to ritual laws, so he says, boy, it is time for the afternoon prayer. And i walked over to him because i always talked. I never had disrespect. I always had audacity and i very sincerely walked over and said, forgive me, im not in the mood for the afternoon prayer. And ill never forget. It is the only memory i have from fourth grade is the ran bys reaction. If i had said, abba dabba, he would have reacted differently. He knew you are obligated. There is an obligation. You do it. So he thought and he thought. He looked up. He stroked his beard and he said dennis is not in the mood for the afternoon prayer . So what . The man changed my life with that response. All of a sudden, my mood was insignificant. My behavior was everything. This is life changing, life changing. Im not in the mood is irrelevant. You do what is right. Then you get in the mood. Act, actions affect mood more than mood should ever be allowed to affect actions. Act happy, youll be happy. Thats how it works. I am a total behaviorist. Act x, youll feel x. This is a big deal because in our society it is a big deal because so many people are told their mood and feelings are what matter. I feel. I feel. I feel. So what . Its like the when my older son was two this actually happened in a park in l. A. A fiveyearold boy came over and threw him on the ground, just like that, just terrible bully kid came over. The mother saw what her son did, ran over to him and said, honey, whats troubling you . Honey, whats troubling you . Who cares . What troubles me is that you threw down a little kid. You are in big trouble, man. Youre in big trouble. You dont do that. But she was preoccupied because she possibly went to graduate school because thats where you learn to be stupid. I mean that. If a person has a phd in the social sciences, i assume theyre not nice. There are some exceptions, but not many. The more you attend college, the greater the level of your nonwisdom. Its a sad fact. That woman no woman in history did that. Mothers who saw their child throw down a toddler, smacked the kid, spanked the kid, grabbed the kid, yelled at the kid, punished the kid, but did not say, whats troubling you . You have to learn something that injuries and foolish, and it is learned at college. Where else . How do you feel . Everything is how do you act. By the way, there is a left right difference on this. The left is tremendous occupied with feelings. Thats why what is the keyword in policy for the left . Compassion. Compassion is a feeling. Compassion has nothing to do with wisdom. Compassion is a feeling. If you dont ever have compassion, you are a monster. We all know that. But compassion is not a way to make policy. Compassion is a feeling. So you have compassion for people. You raise the minimum raise to 15. However, more people are thrown out of work and more businesses go out of business. But it doesnt matter because you meant well. For the left meaning well is everything. Thats why they call conservatives bad names. Sexist, intolerance, biggoted because they know they are pure. So if you oppose pure people, you are impure. Thats the reason they have one word dismissals for conservative positions. They dont argue with us. They dismiss us. [ applause ] that is the way [ applause ] that is the way they preserve their selfimage as wonderful people. I feel good about myself. And i will end with this, so i guess its number seven. Six. The selfesteem movement is another bad idea. And i can prove it to you in a minute. And then i want to take your questions. Here it goes. First id like you to think of any adult, an aunt, uncle, a parent, a friend of your parents, any adult in your life that you admire for their goodness, for their kindness, for their nobility. I trust you have someone like that. Im not sure you do. But i trust you do. And id like you to ask them one question. When you were a kid, did you have high selfesteem . I am willing to bed, and i am not a gambler, i am willing to bet 99 of those responses will be, are you kidding . I didnt have high selfesteem as a kid. You know who had high selfesteem, though . Guess. This will shock you. Murders. One of the leading criminal noll gists in the country, and hes written books on this. Ive had him on my show. He lives in a sense his work is with violent criminals. They have the highest selfesteem that he has ever encountered in any other person in the country. Okay . Selfesteem is another stupid, dangerous idea that our dear fellow members of the left came up with, and they do have high selfesteem because they think theyre wonderful, and, therefore, their opponents are sexist, racist and biggoted. Dont raise your kids with high selfesteem. Raise them with earned selfesteem. When i saw that my kid got a trophy after his team came in last in baseball, i couldnt believe it. And i remember asking him, david, your team came in last. Why did you get a trophy. And with utter sincerity, he said, for playing. You get a trophy for playing . Thats mind boggling. Do you get a trophy for breathing . There should be. Should be a breathing trophy. It would be as meaningful as a playing trophy. This is part of the nonsense. You have grown up in a sea of nonsense. And i have tried to show you how to get out of that sea. Thank you very, very much. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. 23 of you did not stand, and id like to see you afterwards. Okay. By the way, i do want to remind all of you who dont know, we put out a video every week. We have well have a half a billion views this year, and its changing minds. Thats what we want to do. So if you want the depth you dont get at college five minutes at a time, please go on the list to be notified every week of a video. Okay. Should we alternate here, please. Say where youre from. My name is hayden. And my question is, in a recent column you mentioned you believe america is in a second civil war. Can you expand on that . Yeah. I was thinking of speaking on that today, but i really didnt want to do pure politics with you. Thats not pure politics either. So i did write a column. I have a syndicated column. I wrote it a few weeks ago. Your next speaker was kind enough to mention it a number of times on tv, Newt Gingrich and it is that were in a second civil war. Its not over slavery, obviously. But the difference is between and thank god it is thus farrelltively nonviolent and i pray it continues, but the differences between left and right are not bridgeable. The left basically has contempt for the american experiment. It does. Thats why barack obama said five days before he was elected in 2008 in five days we will fundamentally transform the United States of america. The left has wanted, since its inception, to fundamentally transform the United States of america. And the right doesnt want to fundamentally transform it. Improve it, fine. But the basic ideas, which are found on every coin, what i call the american trinity, liberty, in god we trust, they want to undo all of them. They want to substitute equality for liberty. They want to make the society as godless as possible and in god we trust. And they believe in multiculturism. They believe from many many, that we should be celebrating our ethnic routes rather than our american identity that we share. And thats i mean, on any issue, i could show you the unbridgeable divide, but you are fooling yourself if you think there is some happy middle. There isnt. Either the left wins as it is in western europe and transforms it, or they lose and we retain the original american ideals of limited government, liberty, of just this alone. The american ideal is i take care of me. My first obligation is to take care of myself. My second is to take care of my family. My third is to take care of my community. The left believes i have no obligation to take care of myself. The society will take care of me. That is so fundamental a difference as to be unbridgeable. That is the way europeans think. I will be taken care of. I breathe. Therefore, i am taken care of. That is the left wing ideal. I am not mocking. I am describing. From birth to death, see the film they showed at the Democratic Convention years ago. I was there at the convention of a prototypical american female and how the government takes care of her and her child her entire life. There is no husband. There is no father, nothing. She is taken care of by the state. Thats the left wing dream. The right wing or American Dream is i take care of me and then of you. And in the rarest of instances, when that cannot suffice, the state must step in. Everyone on the right acknowledges that. Thank you. Yep. My name is doil. Im from georgia. Even though the republicans are a part of the proisrael party, they keep losing to jewish voters. What do you suggest republicans to win a greater share of the jewish vote . There is nothing that i there is really nothing im very involved in jewish life. Have been any whole life. The tragedy in jewish life is the abandonment of the source of values. By the way, this is true for vast numbers of christians. Christians who leave christianity and take on left wings substitutes, the secular isms. Theyre substitute secular religions. I dont know i dont know there is really nothing. The jews have to work on themselves. I dont know, really, what conservatives can do. It is so obvious who is better for israel, for example, but increasing numbers of jews dont give a damn about israel. They went to universities that crap on israel and they embody that attitude. So arguing the left isnt good for israel anywhere on earth will mean nothing because their leftists before theyre pro israel. Theyre leftist before theyre jews or they equate them. Just as many mainstream protestants do and tragically to a large extent, to a dominant extent, the pope of the Catholic Church does. This is not a uniquely jewish problem. Good morning. My name is nathaniel. I go to ohio State University. Handhold the mike. Can you hear me now . Yes. Awesome. So you joked earlier that liberal was printed on your birth certificate. And i understand that the parties have evolved somewhat since then, but what marked your transition in such an outspoken conservative. I am still a liberal. Thats why im called a conservative. Every single one of them is now held by conservatives like race blind. Race blind was a liberal belief, fundamental liberal belief. The left has taken over the words liberal, but thats a hijacking. The left has nothing in common with liberalism on any issue. Fdr, was he a liberal . Its before my time, but we are allowed to read history. And fdr constantly spoke about the battle to save western civilization. He even said often christian civilization. President trump went to warsaw, said that we have to fight to preserve western civilization and do you know what the New York Times, the Washington Post and the entire left side . It was a dog whistle to white supremist supremists. That was universally believed on the left. That to say we need to preserve western civilization is a code word for white racism. If you understand left has nothing to do with liberal, everything becomes much clearer in the United States. [ applause ] we have time for one more . Thank you. Do you really know or you knew i was hunting for an answer . Okay, fine. Yes . Someone on the staff said to refer to you as denny p. , so thats what im going to do move forward. Earlier you mentioned the act as if you are happy and it will help you become happy. And a lot of the people in this room that i have talked to spoke about how theyre in high school they were kind of introduced to politics by atheism and they find faith again. Do you believe thats a way to find faith is acting as if you have it until it becomes a part of your identity . Did somebody set you up because i couldnt have asked for a better last question. Yes, everything in life is a choice. Abraham lincoln, who could have been clhronically depressed. He lost his beloved sons. His whole country was tearing itself apart in a civil war. Everything was shattered in his life and lincoln said, we are as happy as we decide to be. You decide everything. I decided at a given point i would live as if there is a god. No one can prove it to me. No one can disprove it. But the extenial, emotional, communal, moral benefits of a religious life so dwarf the swallowness of a secular life that i made that choice. It was a greatest choice i ever made. Ill end on telling you where i made the choice. In graduate school at columbia university. You can look it up how i found god on the internet. Everything about me and everything not about me is on the internet. But you could check out that article. And this is what happened. It sounds like i made it up, and i swear before god this is how it happened. I was Walking Around columbia, and i was totally confused. I was being taught by intelligent people. And i knew i was being taught mostly nonsense. I was taught men and women are basically the same. I was taught that the United States and the soviet union were equally responsible for the cold war. It was just one foolish idea after another by very bright people. And so all of a sudden, and it is the only time i ever had an e epipha epiphany. But i had an e pifny, a realization of momentous significance. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, a phrase that i had said as a child in first and second grade every day in my religious classes, we said this phrase from the psalms. It was just part of the wrote prayer, which means wisdom begins with fear of god. And that was it. And i realized, of course there is no wisdom at columbia. There is no god at columbia. I have 15yearolds call my show and they have more wisdom than my professors at columbia did. They dont have more knowledge. But they have more wisdom. And there is only one reason. I always ask them, are you religious . Are you growing up in a religious home . And every single case of this 13yearold, 15yearold who sounds wise, yes. Thats where i got my wisdom, from my torra, from the first five books of the bible and the rest of the bible. But the bible is regarded as dribble by your universities. Lincoln died. There was a look on his night table and he didnt go to church often. It is the bible. Everything has changed in that sense for the worse. So, yes, i made that decision and aside from deciding to mary the woman i married to, it was the best decision i ever made. Thank you for having me. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thanks a million. Thank you. All right. Lets all give him one more round of applause. [ applause ] good morning, everyone. Were going to roll right on with our program. If you are just tuning in, i would like to welcome you to the 39th annual National Conservative student conference here in washington, d. C. Im a rising junior in college at pennsylvania. It has been my honor to intern at the Reagan Ranch Center in california. So i would like to introduce our next speaker, governor george all listen. He served the commonwealth of virginia for over two decades. Beginning in 1982 he held the same seat as jefferson until he decided to the house of representatives. In 1994 he took the helm as governor and brought forth sweeping reforms and transformed virginia into a National Model for economic development, opinion lick safety and educational accountabilities. Governor allen was able to gain bipartisan support on criminal justice, welfare, to standards of learning and beyond. When elected to the senate in the year 200, he continued to advocate policies in the field of technology and progress, vowing to keep us, the word leader in innovation. In 2002, senator allen was unanimously elected adds chairman of the National Republican senate committee. Under his leadership, republicans expanded their congressional majority up to 55 seats in the senate, a gain of four seats. Today, George Allens strategies, a Business Consulting firm that focuses on technology enterprises, advances positive ideas for american jobs and promotes increased freedom, opportunity and competition in the development of their Plentiful Energy resources. Governor allen holds a bachelors degree with distinction in history and a law degree. He now serves on the reagan ranch and is a reagan ranch president ial scholar. He resides in mount vernon with his wife suzanne and they are the parents of three wonderful children. Please welcome governor george allen. [ applause ] well, conservative students, collars, leaders, patriots, all, good morning good morning. It is great to be with all of all. Thank you for that kind and generous introduction. We dont live in mount vernon. We live near mount vernon. No one lives there since George Washington and martha left. But it is great to be with all of you and welcome you here to washington, d. C. , the nations capital, but most importantly to the Young Americas Foundation, National Conservative students conference. I know there is students from all across the United States and a lot of colleges and universities represented here. What i like best is youre selfdetermined, selfmotivated to learn, to be bolstered with information and ideas to improve their own lives and the lives of the people in the communities and states in which you reside. Its good to see you at this conference for a variety of reasons. It is a historic time. But it is one where i know president ron robinson of the Young Americas Foundation. Ron are you out here . There you are. Deep center field. Ron robinson is just a fantastic president of the Young Americas Foundation. And what they do is with the Young Americas Foundation just fantastic. There is no Better Organization focussed on young people. All of you are the future of our country and making sure that you understand those foundational principles, whether theyre George Washingtons Thomas Jefferson or the modern day political hero Ronald Reagan. And it is beyond just the United States. Earlier this year, the Young Americas Foundation was helping some freedom loving people in bulgaria put up a monument for Ronald Reagan in the capital of bulgaria. These folks worked 9, 10 years to get the approval. Ronald reagan, along with Margaret Thatcher, stood up to the soviet union, called it the evil empire. By that strong unified resolve led by Ronald Reagan, ultimately the iron curtain and the berlin wall did fall. There is tens of millions of people from the agree yatic to the baltic sea that are tasting that sweet nectar of liberty because of Ronald Reagans leadership and the folks in bulgaria who were behind that Iron Curtain Associated that and put up a monument to it, and i got to represent the Young Americas Foundation speaking at that dedication of a beautiful monument in a prominent place and the interesting thing, not only is it a great likeness of Ronald Reagan, is Ronald Reagan had the clinched jaw, optimistic ey eyes, but hes looking to where the capital is. I said hes looking to make sure that with this freedom you use it wisely, to improve opportunities for the people. Thats what id like to talk about here in this speech today, is kind of a report card on this historic opportunity we have for a conservative action. This conference is one really at a great time because the opportunity for conservative action in washington really has never been better. When Ronald Reagan got a hot of things threw, he had to get through a democrat controlled Democratic Party controlled house of representatives. We now in fact, how many of you all voted in the election last year . Okay. And you voted for house members and Senate Members as well, right . Of course you did. We have a proFree Enterprise president. Hes a successful business man. He likes to be competitive. He wants to put America First. Theoretically we have a conservative republican majority in the senate and house of representatives. Now, when we have actually seen these changes, how many of you all expect to see action on these conservative promises and reforms . Raise your hands. Everyone did. And keeping promises, folks, is just the basic, its at the minimum what youd expect out of elected leaders. You should run on ideas. Some of you all will run some day for office. I suggest and encourage you to run on ideas and reforms, not just some sort of thing red versus blue. Motivate people for ideas, for changes for improvements in whatever level of government you may be serving. And people expect our elected representatives in the midst of a campaign to say what they mean, mean what they say and if they are given that honor and responsibility of serving in government, keep your word. Thats the essence of anything in business or in governance in a free society. And, in fact, when you do run, and i found this, whether running for the house of delegates or congress or senate or governor, always run on ideas. And when youre running for an executive office, you can set the agenda much easier then when you are in the legislative branch. You can say this is what ill vote for, here is what im for. All of that you could actually get through with a democratic controlled legislature because you ran on those ideas. It was only one time, really, that the legislative branches in recent history have set the agenda. And the next speaker, Newt Gingrich did that. In 199 they had their contract with america and the legislative branch took over the agenda, which is really, really unique in a variety of ways. But the point is, things need to be measured. There needs to be accountability. What gets measured gets better. No one watching a basketball game and tries to guess what the score is. There is accountability to it, and there needs to be accou accountability such like in business, criminal justice, welfare reform, sports and there needs to be in government. Following what professor prager said, as conservatives, what do we believe in . We believe in freedom, individual liberty. As long as youre not harming someone else, leave people free. We dont need nanny government telling us how much of a soft i dont drink soft drinks but i dont think the government should say heres the number of ounces you can get in a soft drink. Unless you are harming someone else, leave people alone. The other part of freedom is personal responsibility. You take responsible for your actions, for your decisions, and we believe there should be an equal opportunity for everyone to succeed to the best of their own ability and eng knewty. A business that gains more customers is because customers think they have a good service or a good product, rather than the government telling them who wins and who loses. Lets apply these principals of accountability to our elected federal Public Servants. And i have kept a list since earlier in this year. The speech i gave in australia on heres the this is early on. Here are the top ten areas of conservative action. And so i want to give a grade here. You all as College Students are accustomed to grades after first semesters. You can look at this as the first six months. It is first semester grades in this opportunity for conservative action on jobs, american competitive, opportunity and security. Here is my top ten keep promise issues. Number one, repeal and replace obamacare. [ applause ] number two, tax reform, corporate and individual. Number three, Regulatory Reform. Number four, Productive Energy policies. Five, empowering the states as designed by our foundation and founders. Number six, judges. Number seven, support for veterans and a Strong National defense. Number eight, support Law Enforcement, law and order issues. Number nine, a promise on America First and number ten, which is overarching to everything, jobs and the economy. So were going to have a question and answer time, and so well open it up for any other ideas or issues youd like to bring up. On repealing and replacing obamacare, americans want and expect more competition, more choice and more Affordable Health insurance. We at least expected the repeal of the individual and businessman date. That is not personal responsibility to have the government telling you you have to buy a product. It is a shame that that narrowly lost, but that has been so harmful to Small Businesses that if you have over 50 employees, then you have to provide Health Insurance. So what have Small Businesses done . They have stunted their growth. And for their employees, they made a lot of them parttime so theyre working less than 29 hours a week. So its been really harmful for working men and women and Small Businesses with that. As conservatives, we want individuals and Small Businesses to ban together, to be in a larger risk pool, and then they will larger leverage to negotiate for larger Health Insurance rates. The other thing, our Health Savings accounts where individuals own their own accounts and can take it with them from job to job, thats personal responsibility that we ought to be pushing much more than actually nothing. I also think that the states ought to be given greater latitude. And medicate is part state money, part federal money. Let the states have more latitude, including a work requirement for those ablebodied without responsibilities. Medicaid is health care welfare. And why not have a work requirement . Now, so what has happened so far . Zero. There is a lot of frustration, a lot of disappointment. I will give the grade. Ill be lenient and give the grade an i, incomplete. Far from complete, but there is still time. Number two, corporate and individual tax reform. Heres where Congress Needs to learn from Ronald Reagan. The last significant tax reform, Corporate Tax reform was done by Ronald Reagan in 1986. The less son was have a broader base and lower rates. Alabama student here asked me, what about this idea of the tax break for a contributions to political campaigns . I said, of all the things you want tax reform, you dont want to have encouragement everybody talks about draining the swamp. So you can have tax reform by making it more complicated, by giving a tax break for donations to politicians . No. That is not the way to go, not that he was for it. He simply asked me that question on it. The point is is what Congress Needs to do is help President Trump. He made a promise at 15 . The international average of taxes on corp. Ralorations is 2. The u. S. Has the highest at 35 , plus you have to add on the taxes that are imposed on states, on businesses that are incorporated. To help him keep his promises, there ought to be fewer deductions, less credits and less simple tax rate. Specifically, we also ought to go to territorial system of taxation, have robust capital recovery. Tax rates need to be passed through to individuals. A lot of businesses are pass through corporations. And bringing back profits overseas. If you do all of that, an analysis by the National Association of manufacturers indicates that a package that includes what i just said are these important elements, that would create 6. 5 million new jobs in the United States over the next ten years. Thats jobs for you and people in your age cohort in making america much more competitive again and a great place to invest and produce and create jobs. And if they standstill in fact, anyone standing still i had posters when i was governors, a pack of horses running and under it it said either make dust or eat dust. Well, standing still on tax reform has us falling further behind because we have the highest taxes imposed on business in the world. We cannot, cannot squander this opportunity. Its got to get done this year to make the expectations that everyone has for growth and jobs. Number three, well, the grade on that, incomplete. Obviously they havent done it yet, but they can. Regulatory reform. This is a big issue that President Trump understands. He understands that from being in real estate development. I think he also heard from a lot of businesses and the cost of compliance with regulations. A lot of folks talk about taxes. The cost of regulations are really high. Average business is about 9,000 per employee per year. For Manufacturing Business because we like to see things made in the usa, it is about 18,000 per employee per year to comply with federal regulations. For small manufacturers, those with less than 50 employees who dont have the economy as a scale, their cost is over 34,000 per year per employee to comply with those regulations. I think that the president , and i think also congress recognizes that in our republic, policies ought to be made by elected representatives, not unelected, unaccountable burr cats. The president has acted. Congress has acted, for example, on the longstalled keystone pipeline, bringing energy from our good friends and neighbors in canada to the u. S. As well as the dakota pipeline. All of us want clean water, clean air, clean land. There can be reasonable review. Weve got to look at all these mountains and layers of regulation. I did this while i was governor. We reviewed every regulation in virginia to determine the purpose and if the purpose was worthwhile, is there a better way, less burdensome way of doing it . I know this can be done because after four years of review while i was governor, we either repealed or amended 71 of the regulations in virginia. And, so, when people say President Trump is too ambiti s ambitious, no. It can be done and i think his goals are great in eliminating a lot of things. In fact, the congress with the Congressional Review Act is doing a great job in stopping and turning back a lot of job killing anticompetitive regulations. A lot of them were rushed through in the last part of the obama administration. I think theyre doing great and im going to grade them an a there. Productive energy, number four. Trump digs coal. Do you remember seeing those signs. He also digs american oil and natural gas. There is a reason that Energy Literate voters in west virginia, pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, wisconsin and as jessica generpoints out how the range in minnesota voted for trump. These are union voters but they understand that mining and energy means jobs. There was a bum ster sticker i liked seeing. And it said earth first. Well mine other planets later. Thats the attitude in mining country. Glad you got it. Because American Energy meaning high paying jobs. Obviously in mining but also for all the equipment and transportation thats involved in it. Its key to mining communities. Thats a tremendous source of revenue for mining communities, for their schools and services, for farmers and landowners who have surface rights. If there is fracking or mining going on the sub surface mineral rights, they get revenues from it. So it is helping farmers and forest try owners as well. American energy meaning manufacturing competitive. Because of the creativity of the Free Enterprise system and the innovation that has come from hydraulic fracking, we have a tremendous abundance. Were number one in the world when it comes to Energy Resources thanks to coal, oil and natural gas. That is a feed stock for making a variety of products. Companies are now investing in the u. S. Because that natural gas source is the biggest cost, more than labor costs in their operations. And, in fact, electricity is the biggest cost, for example, for a data center is electricity and having affordable reliable electricity. There is literally tens of billions of dollars being invested in the United States and tens of thousands of good paying jobs because of this natural gas boom and American Energy resources more broadly. The other thing just on a basic t ect. American energy means more affordable fuel, obviously. More affordable food. More affordable lek tris tichlt all of that matters to a household and makes our country more competitive, a better quality of life. It helps balance a trade. We dont have to import as much. We can export. Revenues, revenues to the government without raising taxes, trillions of dollars. It is a National Security issue as well with lekwified natural gas, we can share that now that we have so much with our allies and friends in, say, europe so theyre not a capture of liquefied notch ral gas to south korea, twie wan or other countries. Thats a key National Security issue. The grade on energy, im going to give them an a with a potential with an a plus. Number five, states empowered as designed by founders. In health care, education, medicaid, infrastructure and so forth. I think Vice President pence clearly as a former governor understands this. But i dont think theyre actually solving challenges with the states yet. They should be doing it. You would think that the states would prefer fewer dictates from the federals in washington. They dont seem to be doing it right now. There is a potential. Although, republican governors are not necessarily onus conservative. But i think there is a big area of opportunity that is being missed. The grade there on the states is incomplete. Six, which is judges. This is a big issue. The Supreme Court, great domination of justice gor sit. She appears to be an outstanding Supreme Court justice. People say why do you care . Because laws ought to be made by representatives of the people, not judges appointed for life. We like judges who dont impose who actually apply the law, rather than invent the law. And its important that we dont have judges making decisions on political agendas. And protect our constitutional rights. And a variety of those rights and also make sure that if there is an excessive usurp pags of the rights and prerogatives of the people, they will reign in burr rocksy when the federal government is exceeding their authority. So i also think they did a great job in saying to be just a majority vote for nomination of justices of the Supreme Court. So as far as the grade on judges and justices, grade a. Outstanding and potential if they keep this up a plus through the term of President Trump. Number seven, support of veterans, National Defense, security, obviously is a paramount responsibility in the constitution for the federal government. I think that theyre on a good start bringing accountability to Veterans Administration and veterans care. President trump is ending the sequester, which is so harmless to our military readiness. There is tough challenges in iran, north korea, russia, china as well as the islamic states and other tor errorist groups. We need allies. I like what Vice President pence said. We need to work with nato, with japan, with south korea and others and we need a united effort, not just on defense, but also on sanctions. Were the only country doing sanctions, it doesnt have the same effect if you dont have others with us. There is a bunch of things i could say on that. Right now on National Defense and veterans, id give whats going on in washington a b, and they can do better. But they are doing very well and much improved over where it was previously. Number eight, support for police officers. The Trump Administration said they will, and they are supporting Law Enforcement officers, which i think is really great. [ applause ] theyre not trying to take away our natural right of selfdefense as well. [ applause ] theyre doing great i think on cracking down on violent gangs, illegal immigration is lower because the enforcement of existing law. There can be some more things done for legal guess work, but overall im going to give the effort on supporting Law Enforcement and the law an a grade in washington. The american first America First priority is american jobs, competitive, security and sovereignty. Again, unlike the left, who defer to the United Nations and considered climate the greatest threat to america, you know, they criticize President Trump for saying America First. Well, what mayor, what representative, what governor would not look at their own county, city or state or Country First . Do you think the president of france cares about malaysia before he cares about france . Or do you think the president of malaysia cares about france more than the people of malaysia . Of course not. You naturally want to take care of your own Country First. And i think that President Trump is really to be commended for withdrawing from the socalled paris climate accord. There was just hysterical cat walling about his principled exit and keeping his promise with that flawed paris accord. The United States is going to continue to be a leader in innovation and technology to remove smog or acid rain while still using our Energy Resources, which makes it more affordable and better for families and biss in our country. Why would we want to seed our jobs, our competitive advantages and sovereignty to these entities with contrived schemes that would hinder our quality of life . President trump ought to be commended for keeping his Campaign Promise to the American People, free creative americans dont need to be run by some other country or some other entity. It is a great decision, number one, for american jobs and competitiveness. It is a great idea, secondly, for our governt sovereignty. And number three, why would we be sending millions, if not billions of dollars to some un climate fund, slush fund, to some other country . It makes no sense. So i think anybody who this president ial decision, i think the president , from those of us who are freedom loving americans, the president ought to be cheered for standing up for american first and our american competitive and sovereignty. [ applause ] there is there is more work to be done on trade agreements and open access to foreign markets for made in usa manufactured and agricultural and forrestry products. Finally, jobs and the economy, there is a lot of optimism on this issue, on jobs in the economy, the manufacturers are optimist optimistic. You look at the stock market, which tries to forecast the future of stock markets. It has been doing great since the election. There is a lot of opt miimisopt. But i think because of the Regulatory Reform, the Energy Policies and so forth, i think thats really good and i think its going to help. Im going to give the grade right now, because we still need to turbo charge our economy with Corporate Tax reform and tax reform as well as the health care issue. I give the grade a b. More can be done, but it is on the right trajectory and its certainly better than it was previously. Overall, four as, one b plus, and two incompletes. The one thing i hope they will do in washington as they try to solve some of these issues is do talk to the governors of the states. Because the states are the laboratories of innovation. When i was governor, we were constantly fighting the Clinton Administration. It was great when Newt Gingrich came in as speaker because we were working with him. On welfare reform, we got a waiver to do the welfare reform in virginia when the welfare roles were cut in half and we measured success by how many people are living selfreliant lives. The next Year Congress was actually able to pass welfare reform on the national level. So i would encourage governors, not just to bleep for more money, but ideas and control of their own sovereignty and destiny of their own states. The states of the United States where you have lower taxes, prompter permits, reasonable regulations, right to work laws, Affordable Energy and a skilled, capable workforce, those are the states that are growing. And if some state does something good, other governors will want to emulate it. And i think thats a really important approach. And if some states doesnt do well, theyll say, gosh, we dont want to do that. Did you see what they did in new york . My goodness, thats a disaster. We would never want to do that in texas, tennessee, virginia or arizona or california. Imagine that as an example of whatnot to do with it. So im going to open this up to you all to hear your voices. I even to the best of your knowledge y encourage you to make sure your voices are heard. You are voters. Youre motivated. Make sure that your ideas are heard. Make sure elected officials, Public Servants at the local, state and federal level understand that youre watching and there is accountability. Use social media. Just think of social media and facebook. Facebook if all the friends on facebook for countries with over a billion, be the Third Largest country in the world. And, in fact, were talking about the bully pulpit that the president has. He uses social media. He also the bully pulpit and a bully twitter account. He understands it. It is important to use social media. People are looking to that more and more rather than newspapers. Newspapers are dying. The reason theyre dying is people recognize you can get fast information for free on the internet. So why pay for it . But recognize that the opposition has been and will continue to be vicious, loud, violent, disruptive and very often intolerance, especially those of you on College Campuses know that. So the battle ahead will be those, like you all, will stay strong, will stay smart and positive. Stay positive for freedom and opportunity for all our fellow american citizens. With that, let me open it up to your comments and ideas. Thank yall. [ applause ] thank you for coming and speaking with us today. Im from the university of arkansas. Go hogs. So i believe that the 17 lt amendment is one of the most misguided amendments undermining the intentions of the Founding Fathers by essentially establishing two houses of representatives. With your services in the senate and as a governor, i just wanted to know if you believe the direct election of senators instead of the appointment by the state legislatures has severely undermined the representation of states in d. C. And inhibited the leg raytive process. Good question. You have listened to my former governor on that who served the same time i did as governor. Everything you say is generally true. However, you have to have a sense of reality. The idea that you are going to repeal the 17th amendment and take away from people the right to select their senators and give it to politicians, state legislators and i understand what the founders meant and their ideas because as you heard me say several times the states are essential in our system. But the reality of all things that were going to be able to try to do with the constitutional amendment, i just dont see taking away the rights of citizens to giving it to sta legislators will happen. I think theres constitutional amendments such as requirement of balanced budget, giving the president line item veto authority, say a Taxpayer Protection aspect, or even term limits for members of congress and the senate. Those are the sort of constitutional amendments that i think have the best chance of passing with a lot of public support. But i think the fact that anybody brings up the 17th amendment is good because they realize, you know, our system was to represent the states and guard those prerogatives because government closest to the people is most likely to reflect their values and their views rather than the distant centralized government. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Governor allen, thank you very much for your time today in coming out and speaking to this group. Great to be with you. Im a rising senior at hills dale college in the great state of michigan. My question for you is with respect to one of the most controversial topics at hills dale among the student body, the drug issue. What should the Trump Administration, in particular the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, as well as the governors of the several states do to address the drug crime issue in the United States today. Well, i could go on endlessly on what they ought to do. You ought to crack down on obviously, drug dealers and so forth. Are you referring to the concept of either legalization or decriminalization of, say, marijuana . I dont think anybody the problem with the opioids is a major, major problem. I dont think theres anybody saying lets legalize heroin and morphine and opioids, and thats a problem that needs to get solved more than just Law Enforcements important but also doctors and those prescribing some of these highly addictive opioids and that is a problem, including in many of the areas of appalachia and rural areas from the northeast to the south and out west. Now, are you talking, though, about legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana . Writ large, sir, yes. Writ large . Well, i think thats an issue for the states. You know, theres an image that, oh, gosh, theres so many people in prison who had a marijuana joint. I know in virginia where we cracked down on violent felons, thats simply not the case. Thats an image. I think that to some extent, you can watch what happens in the experiments, so to speak, in colorado, oregon, and Washington State where they have legalized marijuana. Which is different than decriminalization. And lets see what happens to their society with that approach, and i think the states can experiment. I dont think that, again, somebody who uses a small amount of marijuana ought to have, you know, major felony or anything with it. Thats more of a decriminalization, but i think legalization, im not necessarily im not for that. Let me take a poll here. Does everyone understand the difference between criminalization and legalization . Of course you do. Youre smart. All right. This is on cspan. How many here are were going to have three choices, keep the laws as they are, legalization, keep it as it is, decriminalization, which means lower penalties, or legalization, which means its no crime whatsoever. How many are for keeping it the laws as they are . Okay. Thats about a quarter. How many are for decriminalization . Thats about another 20 or so. How many are for legalization . Huh. All right. This is not very scientific, but it may be kind of a plurality for legalization, decriminalization. Youre all split kind of like everyone else. But its important to hear what you think. So, i think it ought to reflect the people in the states and let the states examine. But on some of these low schedules. But these highly addictive drugs, i think you need to crack down on those purveying them and also the legal abuse of prescriptions and any of these drug gangs. So much crime is related to drugs, its either theyre souped up on drugs when they assault or rape someone, or theyre stealing to pay for their drug addiction. And then you have the gangs and their turf battles with it as well. So, its a major problem with crime. Now, again, theres differentiations in different types of drugs. Thank you for your probing question and poll results from Hillsdale College. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Hi. My name is emir. I go to Washington State university. My question was i could ask you a question, but go ahead. My question was that we see this slogan throughout the campaign of drain the swamp, and i wanted to know what those words mean to you and because you gave a bit of a report card, what would you grade trumps performance so far or the administrations performance so far on draining the swamp . All right. Draining the swamp, i should ask this. I mean, when yall voted last fall, and im not going to ask people, because this is not a partisan group but i think, i mean, the main thing people wanted to see in a Trump Administration is they were sick and tired of the establishment. Experience was a negative throughout the nomination battle, you know, if you had experience, my goodness, youre part of the problem, and i was originally for im not going to get into i was for a certain senator from florida. But ultimately, its the choice in elections and i said im going to go for the successful businessman who has good ideas on taxes, energy, regulations and justice appointments rather than somebody who is, you know, obviously far left and will appoint the wrong type of justice, wants Higher Energy i mean, wants to keep energy in the ground, and well have higher taxes and for regulations. So people voted for change, and i do think there has been change. I think the main area where the president has been able to drain 9 Regulatory Reform area. Thats something he can do but some of the some of them are with congress, with that Congressional Review Act. And so i think hes i give him id say a b so far. Good start with it, and you know, theres constant changes. One thing with President Trump, and ive known him since the days of the usfl, which none of yall have ever heard of. My father was with the chicago blitz, he had the new jersey generals. And a startup, again, you know, upstart league challenging the established nfl. Donald trump has a businessman of some strategys not working, hes going to change it. And so hes making changes. Hes making changes in his own team. And i think those changes, i think he should listen the kellys. Kelleyanne conway, great selection in his campaign, along with mike pence. I think those are the two best decisions. Im glad kelleyannes still there. Im glad mike pence is there and i think general kelly will get an order and discipline and understanding this is how a team operates and you dont publicly ever criticize teammates or players. And i think theyll get their message coordinated as well, and i think theyre doing a pretty good job so far, and will continue to drain the swafmp an hopefully make America Great again. That is the goal. Those changes are happening. But understand the other sides going to be bad, but our own team needs to keep their promises and work with the president to help him keep those promises for america. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir . Good morning, governor. And thank you for joining us. My name is Kevin Oconnor and im a rising sophomore at emery riddle in daytona beach, florida. No state income taxes in florida. No, thank god. I was wondering if you could share your insights as to why congress is still failing to pass real meaningful legislation and revamp the va and take better care of our veterans. Well, they actually tried to do some things previously. Your senator, marco rubio, was one of the leaders in that, and i think what the president is doing they have fired some people. Theyre bringing some accountability for those who have not properly served our veterans and the promises we made to our veterans for health care, for their service and risking their lives and health for our protecting our freedom. So i think hes making some changes. I do think the concept of choice, where veterans dont necessarily have to go to a Veterans Administration hospital but go to a private doctor or hospital thats closer to where they reside, i think theyre making progress in that regard, so i think theyre thats why i gave it a b. I threw veterans in with military readiness as well, but i think theyre making some changes there. More can be done. Theyve only taken but the steps theyve taken are in the right direction, and i think theyll make some even more so, we can say, hey, what theyve done with the va, thats an a grade. Theyre keeping their promises with it. One of the other things to understand is and keeping your promises, you have to persuade the legislature. The other key thing is appointing the right personnel. Personnel is policy. And its important that the president have people to effectuate his Campaign Promises and in some areas, i think so many of his appointments are outstanding, epa, interior, energy, agriculture, education, just really great appointees. The fella hes got in there is a holdover from the previous administration. He, i think, knows the va. I just want to see him work a little bit harder to effectuate the president s promises that he made that fired up a lot of veterans in virginia and all across the country. Thank you for your question. Thank you very much. Yes, maam. Good morning, governor. Thank you for your time. My name is amanda mosbey from Liberty University and i would like your opinion on the elimination of taxation on income, wealth, and wages, and switching to a taxation on consumption instead. Im a im opposed, first of all, to the border adjustment tax, which would add 20 to any product being imported or component part. To me, thats that would make a Dollar General store a 1. 20 store or family 1. 20 or so forth. So, the only way that you can go to a consumption tax, great question, is if you repealed the 16th amendment, which allowed the federal government to impose an income tax because my worry will be, theyll say, this is regressive, this, that, and the other and youll end up with a sales tax and an income tax. If you look at states, again, which actually have to make decisions and balance budgets and they cant print their own currency like the federal government does. States without an income tax like florida or tennessee or texas, wyoming, washington, nevada, maybe in alaska, they end up with high sales taxes. Then the states that have income taxes and they generally, their sales taxes are less. Then you have the wonderful anomaly of california which has, you know, high income taxes, high sales taxes, and everything else. And theyre just testing how much people can tolerate the beautiful weather and beaches and so forth. Im from california. But i think youd end up with both unless you repealed the 16th amendment. So, i would if you get a flatter what i was saying on income taxes, a broader base, flatter with lower rates income tax, that is a prescription that brought growth after Ronald Reagans efforts in 1986 and now we need to revisit it, because we now have, through the years, the highest taxes on incorporated businesses in the world, which hardly makes it good for consumers or american competitiveness. But thank you, and go flames. Thank you. Yes, sir, i guess youre last. Yes, sir. Cleanup hitter. What sport do you play. Wrestling. First thank you for coming out here. My names jordan. Ill be attending the Virginia Military institute this year. Good for you. Youre going to be a r. A. T. This year. Yes, sir. Last moments of enjoying life. Yes, sir. Thats great. Congratulations ongoing to the institute. Thank you, sir. My question is, with your perspective as a former governor, how do you feel other governors should react when colleges in their states openly allow for the suppression of freedom of speech of students on campus. Oh, boy, good question. Well, look. Particularly now, Liberty University is a private university. It is perfectly named. Liberty. Because they do have greater liberty there, and i think great tolerance for a variety of expressions and viewpoints. I think any State University, if a State University is restricting someones First Amendment rights, their expression of views, so long as theyre not being violent, obviously, if theyre inciting violence or Something Like that, thats different. But someone just coming on a State University campus, i think a governor, because i dont know how every state operates but most state have board of visitors or boards of trustees, board of directors and they get state taxpayer money and in my view, you should not restrict First Amendment freedom of religion, freedom of expression, rights on College Campuses. So if a State University or college were restricting someone, as a governor, i would say let them in there and make sure if theres going to be any counterprotests, demonstrations, make sure theres campus police, maybe have the local sheriff or even the state police come in to make sure that people have that freedom of expression. And just granted, they can have autonomy. Nonetheless, people have First Amendment rights and i just think the university of virginia, you know, Thomas Jefferson, you know, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, the bill of rights that all came out of the virginia declaration of rights, College Campuses ought to be, of all places, where people have freedom to express their views and inquiry and question and subjected to crossexamination, it should be College Campuses. They should not be places of intolerance, of people have to have a very narrow mindset of how to think. People have freedom in this country. And we should only be limited by our own imagination, including on College Campuses. Thank you. I guess youre the last question. Pat sent me up here. Im sorry. More of your time. Who sent you up here . General ballen tine . Oh, battpat. Youll know pat coyle and general ballantyne during this week. My names grant wolf. Im from dallas, texas. Another state with no state income tax. Thats correct. And its wonderful. I wanted to ask you im going to ask a question but im going to say this. If america had texass policies, do you realize how much more prosperous we would be . No income taxes, they love oil and gas, they love cattle, ranching, cando spirit, theyre leaders in technology. You look at where the top cities, top six cities for young people, three of them are in texas, austin, san antonio, and dallas, which would include, i assume, fort worth. Houstons number 11 because oil prices are down. Texas is a prime example of and great universities, tremendous universities. Guys, the Community Colleges in fort worth have 70,000. They have to have Student Housing for Community Colleges because students from overseas are coming in. So, you know, if you want to look at how to do things right, ever since Davie Crockett lost his race for congress in east tennessee and said, yall can go to hell, im going to texas, and made a stand, he lost at the alamo, but everyone remembers the alamo. The lesson of the alamo is against centralized government. It also talks about controlling the border so you dont have all these tennesseeans and virginians and folks coming in. But the big lesson of the alamo is not because everybody remembers it and is inspired by it. Its not how long you live, its what you do with your time here on earth. And so theres a lot to be learned from texas, from the beginning of their independence until today. Go ahead. I yield the floor to texas. Well, you know, just quickly, its very true. I hail from california, and i made my exit. You escaped. We have freedom of travel. I actually was born in california too and decided to take my stand in virginia. There you go. I wanted to ask you about the Republican Congress following up on a little bit a question that was asked earlier but more generally, it seems that theres a conservative consensus, regardless of what the polling is, in america that change needs to be made and that people keep looking to the Republican Party. Why is it that the Republican Party does not seem to be acting on the consensus of the people, and do you have faith in a conservative consensus in the congress that they can accomplish conservative policy . Well, thats kind of the point of my whole report card. I think they have, in several areas, on regulatory form, advancing Productive Energy policies, judges, which is a really thats third branch of government. I think theres been success there. I think theres been good success in in at least getting the right way on a Strong National defense. We were talking about the veterans as well. I think theyre doing the right way and law and order, and i think on the on jobs and the economy. The big the big areas that theyre missing so far, where i give them incomplete, is obviously replace and repeal obamacare, and theres a narrow loss. And it was three. And to me, you look at folks who voted just two years ago, and they voted differently than they voted two years ago, and to me, they called it that skinny option, you know, getting rid of the individual mandate and so forth, why cant you do that. Its abhorrent that the government would tell someone you have to buy insurance. So and then the tax reform. But lets see what they lets see how they go forward at the end of this year. Thats when that will be their final grade. The first year is really important, by the way, in any presidency. You got to gallop with a loose cinch. You just cannot waste time so a lot needs to get done this year because next year, they have the excuse, its an election year. So, i think that theres a conservative consensus. The main point is, gosh darn it, you got elected, saying youre going to do a, b, c, and d. Youve done c and d and e and f and g but how about a and b . And i think it can get done, but the point is, keep pressure on them. Say, we expect you to act. If theyre near acting, dont take a recess. Everyone else in the countrys working in august, so can you. Youll have to miss a parade or you might miss a picnic or whatever, but get the job done. Thats what theyre elected to do. So, im optimistic. I understand how people are frustrated and disappointed. I share that disappointment on this recent bad taste in our mouth with the failure of the senate to get 50 votes or 51 votes with the Vice President on it. But then you just need to keep pushing on it and the American People need to say, we elected you to get something done. Do your job. Keep your promises. And if they do, obviously, that will help. It will help the American People where more jobs, where opportunities, and a variety of ways, not just in the Health Insurance area but obviously the Corporate Tax reform is just crucial for the competitiveness and prosperity of people of your age and people of all ages in our country. So, they can do it. And since they got elected, thats what im saying, run on an agenda, keep your promises. Its really not that hard. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. With that, i guess thats the last one. Thank all of yall. Thanks for your questions. Thanks for participating in an impromptu poll. Most of all, thank you all for understanding history. You understand the patriotism of history and i hope youll do like patriots have done, no matter the challenge in the future, no matter the issue, no matter the decision, always choose to stand strong for freedom. Good morning, everyone. Please allow me to introduce to you Newt Gingrich and welcome to Young Americas Foundations 39th National Conservative conference. This program is one of many the Foundation Hosts across the country. Young Americas Foundation is at the forefront of promoting conservative ideas on College Campuses through its renowned campus lecture programs hosting speakers such as Newt Gingrich who you will hear from momentarily among others. Young Americas Foundation is also credited with saving president Ronald Reagans beloved ranch. There, students can learn from Ronald Reagans values the tenets of conservatism. And now allow me to introduce Newt Gingrich. Newt gingrich is well known as the architect of the contract with america that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 but capturing the majority in the u. S. House of representatives for the first time in 40 years. He disrupted the status quo by moving power out of washington and back to the American People. Under his leadership, Congress Passed welfare reform, the first balanced budget in a generation, and the first tax cut in 16 years. In addition, the congress restored funding to strengthen defense and intelligence capabilities, an action later lauded by the bipartisan 9 11 commission. From may 2011 to may 2012, Newt Gingrich was a candidate for the republican nomination for president of the United States, winning the South Carolina and the georgia primaries. The campaign was especially notable for its innovative policy agenda, its effort to bring new coalitions into the republican fold, and for newts debate performances. Gingrich was first elected to congress in 1978 where he served the sixth district of georgia for 20 years. In 1995, he was elected speaker of the u. S. House of representatives where he served until 1999. The Washington Times has called him the indispensable leader and Time Magazine in naming him man of the year for 1995 said, leaders make things possible. Exceptional leaders make them inevitable. Newt gingrich belongs in the category of the exceptional. He received his bachelors degree from Emory University and masters and doctorate in modern european history from tulane university. Before his election to congress, he taught history and environmental studies at west Georgia College for eight years. Gingrich resides in mclane, virginia, with his wife. Please join me in welcoming speaker Newt Gingrich. Cu[ thank you all very much, and i appreciate very much the Young Americas Foundation allowing me to come and share some ideas with you. Let me first of all just explain, i had a nosebleed last friday and they had to cauterize a vein up in my nose so i decided i could either come and look stupid or i could cancel and im hoping that you thought it was better for me to come and look stupid. So anyway. But im a big fan of Young Americas Foundation. Its very important that Young Conservatives have an opportunity to share ideas, to grow, and to develop and to create the leadership of the future, and im delighted that you would take time out of your summer to come here and be part of this. And i was thinking about exactly what to talk to you about, and i it occurred to me. Let me ask you a sort of question and get your opinion. How many of you thinking of this as a halftime report, okay . Were about seven months into the trump republican house, Republican Senate system. How many of you think that its been a successful first seven months, worth continuing on the same track . Okay. How many of you think that we have to have a dramatically better second half in getting legislation passed and in getting things done . I want to start there, because einstein once said that doing more of what youre already doing and expecting a different outcome is a sign of insanity, and i think its really important to understand, there are some places where trump has been very impactful. You look at the first Supreme Court justice just by itself having a conservative justice instead of a liberal or radical justice may have justified the whole president ial campaign. But if you look at and if you look at deregulation, it has already been remarkable, and its ironic that the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Large Networks cant bring themselves to cover it, but in fact, for example, theyve been repealing 16 regulations for every new regulations. Now, they started out saying they wanted to do two for one. Theyre at 16 to 1. One of the bills we passed when i was speaker allows congress to go back and review regulations passed in the last six months of an administration, and what people, i think, on the left didnt understand was, if the Congress Repeals the regulation and the president signs it, that then becomes law and you cant change it by executive order. So, theyre going to be about 3300 pages of regulations that cannot be reimposed by executive order. Youd actually have to pass a law to reimpose them, and the odds are very high that the left will never be able to do it, so the estimate is already that the trump system has saved billions and billions of dollars in private sector and local government and other regulatory costs by continuing to repeal this. So thats the zone, i think, they can claim some real success in. I think on immigration, if you look at the dramatic drop in the number of people crossing our southern border, it is theres been sort of a psychological wall built long before a physical wall, and its had a direct impact. If you look at the job that attorney general Jeff Sessions and others have done in picking up people on ms13, which is the largest Single Organization of gangs in the u. S. , it has been a remarkable shift in where we were to a new pattern. So there are things that are working well. The legislative side is not working as well, although in some areas, if you look, for example, at the Veterans Administration, they have now successfully passed on a bipartisan basis reform of the administration of the va on a scale that nobody thought possible three years ago, so you do see a different tone setting in. But on things like repealing obamacare, they fell short. And i do two newsletters a week at gingrich productions that are free if you want to go to gingrich productions and sign up for them. The one that will come out tomorrow is basically entitled 16 to 1 and i want to use this as a starting point of where we are. People were very angry at three republicans for not voting yes. Now, in one case, susan collins, she has total integrity because she voted no back in the past and she has consistently said she doesnt think its possible to repeal obamacare the way it is. The other two, murkowski and mccain, said they were going to repeal obamacare, and then voted no. So, people are really angry. The point of my article is to say there were 16 democrats who voted no for each of the three republicans. So, the no vote was 48 democrats and 3 republicans. But because of the psychology of the Republican Party, we skip the 48 and focus on the 3. Which, by the way, doesnt affect them at all because none of those three senators can be influenced. You can yell at them all week. Trust me. Nothing that will happen in american politics is comparable to the years john mccain spent in a vietnam prison camp. So, trying to intimidate john mccain is just a dead loser. And murkowskis case, she lost a primary, she won as an independent on a writein vote. I mean, these are people who have been down and then in a sense, thats what you want. You want senators who are independent. You want senators who you have to convince youre right, not intimidate. And i think part of what happens to us sometimes is we get in a frenzy, and we decide that everything we say about the constitution and everything we say as conservatives is nice, but i want this one thing done. And then we get into sort of temper tantrum politics. If i dont get the one thing i want, im going throw a temper tantrum. And i want to suggest to you a couple of observations. Some of this is in my newsletter coming out tomorrow. The Founding Fathers designed the constitution to avoid dictatorship. They thought about this very long and very hard. And they were afraid that the mob would turn into a dictatorship because theyd studied particularly greek history where places like athens had already destroyed themselves by the rise of mobs. And so they consciously created a republic, not a democracy by plebocite because they wanted to slow down and calm down popular passion, and they wanted people to have to work their way through, and so they deliberately followed a theory by montescue, a french theoretician, about division of power. So some power is in the Supreme Court. Some power is in the house, which gets elected every two years. Some power is in the senate, which gets elected every six years. Some power is in the white house, which gets elected every four years, and its designed to have huge amounts of friction. So the Founding Fathers would say, were designing a machine so inefficient that no dictator can make it work. Well, they were so brilliant at doing this, that we can barely get it to work voluntarily. And so we get frustrated. We start yelling at each other. Now, ive been at this a very long time. My dad was a career soldier. And in august of 1958, while we were stationed in europe, i decided that countries can die and the leadership matters. I had actually been in france when the french fourth republic was killed by the paratroopers who came back from algeria and brought charles de galle back who created the fifth republic, the longestserving nonmonarchy in french history and i had seen a government die while i was living in their country, a little bit of what youre seeing happen, for example, in venezuela right now. And so i decided i would try to do three things. I would try to figure out what does america have to do to survive, what does how would you explain it to the American People so they would let you do it, and how would you implement it if they gave you permission. Because to take an idea, explain it so people say yes, you still have to implement it. Or its just an idea. So, ive spent now, since 1958, trying to on a very narrow track. Its been most of my life trying to understand those three things. And so i want to talk to you about that for a couple minutes, because im troubled by the lack of historical depth in our elected officials. It may be partly because we have too many lawyers. But i think its very important to think about the history of how things operate. And i was very fortunate. I ran for congress in 74 during watergate and i lost, got 48. 5 . I came back and ran for congress in georgia with jimmy carter at the head of the democratic ticket and lost in 76. I got 48. 3 . I came back and run a third time and i finally won. I came to washington at a time when the Republican Party had not had control of the house for 24 years. And i said, being fairly simpleminded, wouldnt it be good if we had a plan to get to be a majority. And the head of the campaign committee, congressman van der vak of michigan said, that is a great idea. Why dont you chair the committee. So we created a committee to become a majority. Now, part of what i want to share with you, not to scare you off, but just to give you a feel for history. We worked actively, almost every single day, to become a majority. We lost in 80, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, and 92. After 16 years, we won in 94 with a contract with america, and we shocked everybody. When the news media if you go back and look at the video clips, as late as monday night, theyre saying, well, the republicans will gain some seats, but of course its impossible for them to become a majority. And then we picked up 53 seats. We also picked up the senate. We picked up governorships, and for the first time in 40 years, we became a majority. We then had to operate so that our base would decide we were doing the right thing, because the hardest election wasnt becoming a majority. We had done that in 1946 and 1952. We had not won reelection in the house as a majority since 1928. So, we were trying to do something nobody had done in 68 years. And so we thought very long and very hard about how to do it. Now, as it turned out, once we won in 94, we kept the majority for 12 years, and we laid a big enough base that we came back after four years, so we went from a 40year period where the democrats controlled the house to us having now had control of the house vastly more than the democrats since 1994, and if we can get through next year, well keep the house for a long time. So what i want to do for a couple of minutes is share with you a couple of lessons i learned over the years, because i was very fortunate. I came in just before Ronald Reagan won. I was part of the 78 and 80 campaigns where supply side economics was developed. I worked with jack kemp and art laffer and others to develop supplyside economics and campaign, we convinced reagan to run on tax cuts and then i had the great opportunity to work with president reagan for eight years as a member of congress and much of what we did in the 90s in the contract with america period was standing on reagans shoulders so theres certain patterns. And for all of you who want to learn this business, its important to remember that Ronald Reagan was an fdr democrat. He was not a regular republican. He was somebody who had voted for fdr. He actually cut a radio commercial for hubert humphrey. After 48 he became a republican but he had a long background of anything like a democrat and that was important because the two parties were culturally very different, and its still true. Part of the republican weakness goes back to a prereagan republicanism that assumes its a minority. Now, reagan always assumed we were a majority. And think about it. If you think youre the minority, and youve had this experience yourself in your own life, if you think youre in the minority, you sort of hunker down and you dont particularly think you can stand up to the other side because theyre the majority. On the other hand, if you think youre the majority, then youre expansive and positive and outgoing and youre happy because after all, youre a majority. So part of what reagan did is he radiated a confidence of being the majority. And he had learned something. Im going to give you a couple of reading assignments in addition, i see a number of you have understanding trump which should be the first book you read. Youll notice, by the way, its not called predicting trump because i dont think its possible to predict trump. I cant tell you what trump will do tomorrow morning because trump cant tell you what trump will do tomorrow morning. I think it is possible to understand him, so thats why i wrote the book. And i do think he is a remarkable figure and i do think that he is at least as big a change in the pattern of history as reagan was. And maybe bigger. And i think in many ways, he resembles Andrew Jackson and is worth thinking of in terms of the level of distrupruption tha Andrew Jackson made. I tell people, trump is onethird Andrew Jackson for disruption, onethird Theodore Roosevelt for energy and onethird p. T. Pardbarnum for salesmanship and if you think of a blend of those three people, you get a sense of how trump operates. One of the books you should get, shortly after reading understanding trump is by tom evans. Its called the education of Ronald Reagan. Now, the reason it matters, its a very small book, but the reason it matters is evans goes back and looks at the eight years that reagan works for General Electric. And General Electric had a very sophisticated Education Program for their employees, and the reason was that they had seven unions, two of them were communists, and five of them were very, very left wing, and they knew they couldnt negotiate with the leaders of the unions because they were hard core, committed left wingers. But they could educate the members about economic reality so that they would not vote for a strike. And so they built a very elaborate Education Program, and they wanted a happy, positive celebrity to be the front face of the program. So they hired reagan, who was at the end of his movie career, and reagan spent eight years criss crossing the country, giving speeches, largely to bluecollar workers, taking questions and then getting photo ops and having pictures with people. Reagan was in a period in his life where he wouldnt fly in an airplane. Hed had a really bad flight in 1946, and he did not fly again until 1965. So he always went by train. And so the guy who had hired him, the Vice President of General Electric, was giving him all these conservative economic books, things like hiyek and others so you have an image of reagan riding around the country, reading books and speaking to bluecollar workers so by the time he ran for governor, hed already had eight years of training. The key thing reagan learned, which other republicans have never learned the key also to the contract is you have to move the American People. So, look at this whole mess with obamacare. For seven months, the focus has been on the congress. But in the end, the congress isnt the key. The key is the American People. If we had spent as much time educating the American People and communicating with the American People, and then writing a bill which reflected what the American People told us, we would have passed obamacares repeal with a bipartisan majority. Because people back home would have said, yeah, i want this new, better bill. Were going to face the same challenge with the upcoming tax cuts. The tax cuts have to be designed so theyre understandable by the American People. And they have to be designed so the American People, upon understanding them, go, i want that. Now, if you write the right tax cut bill, then millions of people are going to go to their congressman and their senator and theyre going to say, i want you to vote for this bill. And i worked on this in 1981 with reagan when he had his great tax cut, which was a huge tax cut. And its pretty straightforward. We can go out and say to people, would you like more money in your pocket . And almost overwhelmingly, they said, yes. We said, well, would you call your congressman or your senator and ask them to vote for this. We carried onethird of the democrats in the house. Not because they had become reaganits, not because they were ideologically conservative, but because they couldnt go back to town Hall Meetings and explain a no vote. So, part of this thing weve got to remember, and the Republican Party has to learn is, power really does come from the people. That means you have to communicate with the people. The reagan line was that his job was to shine the light on the American People so they would turn up the heat on congress. And it was a very effective model. And so i think we have to have an attitude that were going to explain what were doing with such clarity that the American People want us to do it. Second, you need to develop what we when i started this long journey, remember i said it took 16 years, you need to develop an attitude of cheerful persistence. Selfgovernment is really hard. It is the hardest thing humans do other than fight a civil war. Its harder than running a business. Its harder than a regular war. Because selfgovernment is as tumultuous, chaotic, very difficult process, and it always has been. Which means if youre going to be effective at it, youve got to adopt an attitude that its okay, that its frustrating. Its okay that we disagree with each other. Remember, this is a process by which 315 Million People come together. They come all sorts of backgrounds, all sort of interests, all sorts of ideologies, and they come together. And they dont necessarily agree. In many ways, it is a civil war fought with ballots rather than bullets and fought with ideas, rather than artillery. But its a real conflict. People have really deep differences. Yall know this in the campuses youre on. And so part of it is to just be cheerfully persistent and if something doesnt work this week, you go, gee, i wonder what we should have learned and you go back and try it again. Now, reagan became an active anticommunist in 1946 because he was the head of the screen actors build, he was the president , and he went out and had drinks one evening with a guy who was a genuine stalinist. Who said to him, yes, not only am i a communist, but when we take over, were either going to lock you up or shoot you and reagan went home and realized this guy was sincere. He was a genuine, hard core communist. So reagan began studying why did this guy believe this stuff. And the more he studied, the more anticommunist he became. Well, the soviet empire doesnt disappear until 1991. So, for 45 years, reagan was an active anticommunist and there were periods when, frankly, did not look like we were winning. But he just cheerfully gave speeches, talked about it, worked on it. Reagan proposes welfare reform. In 1966, running for governor. We passed it 30 years later in 1996, most successful single conservative reform of your lifetime. People went to work. Their salaries went up. More children left poverty in the last four years of the Clinton Administration than any time in American History. Because their parents got jobs and did better. We just had the same experience in maine where there was a reform for the s. N. A. P. Card and ablebodied adults that did not have children had to go to work. Of the 14,000 that were on the program, 13,000 left the program, got a job and their average income went up 116 . So, these ideas come along, but it took 30 years, and as i think governor allen told you, he was one of the pioneers in the early 90s implementing this. Governor thompson of wisconsin, governor engler in michigan, we brought them in once we took power and collectively, we were able to write a very dramatic welfare reform bill based on their practical experience at the state level. So part of what you have to have is a sense of patience that over time, if you have the right idea, you can get there. Your generation is going to have enormous opportunities. Were on the edge of a revolution on how you get into space, the rise of reusable vehicles by people like elon musk and jeff bezel is going to bring down the cost of going into space by at least a factor of ten and maybe more. And nobodys thought about what does that mean in terms of, for example, your ability to be an astronaut. They wont even be astronauts at that point. Theyll be passengers and i think that may start as early as next year or the year after, making it easy for normal, everyday people to start experiencing near space and then a couple years later experiencing near orbit and by the end of the 20s, going to mars and to the moon. This is a huge breakthrough, despite the government. Its not being driven by nasa. Nasa, if anything, has hindered the process of getting there. Youre going to see enormous breakthroughs in health care. Regenerative medicine where we take your cells to grow ewhat you need. So, instead of kidney dialysis, youll grow a new kidney. All of this stuff is coming down the road very, very rapidly and will be available. Breakthroughs in brain science, which will enable us to deal both with alzheimers and autism and parkinsons but also deal with schizophrenia and with other kinds of mental illnesses. All of these things are about to happen. One of the tests is, can we rethink our Education System so people learn the jobs of the future, they dont learn the jobs of the past, and can we avoid government regulation so we can keep inventing things. Remember, the Wright Brothers in the five years before they flew, had 500 failures. Think about that. Imagine if they had been a government program. After about failure number three, theyd have been fired. But they did it as a personal hobby, and because it was a personal hobby, they were cheap. The this was in thenyear dollars but the estimate was that it cost them 1 per flight. So, they would leave dayton, ohio, get on a train, go down to kitty hawk in north carolina, which has the best uplift of wind in the United States. Something i learned, by the way, by going to the u. S. Weather service. So, the government did play a role. And they would try to figure out how to fly. And one of the things the second thing i want you to read is an essay you can get if you google it called iyi intellectual yet idiot. Its actually in the book, understanding trump, at the back of the book. It was by the man who wrote the black swan. Its a very simple model. His argument is that at least 40 of the people who run the government are intellectuals yet idiots, in the sense that they can they do really well on tests and they do really well at writing essays but they dont know anything. So they could write a brilliant essay on how to change a tire, but if you had a flat tire, theyd have no clue how to actually change the tire, but the essay would read really well and i think thats actually true, by the way. I think a lot of our problem today is we have people who sound really smart but dont know anything. So, the Wright Brothers, much like donald trump, and ill tell you a story about trump along the same line in just a minute Wright Brothers had this simple model. Theyd get up in the morning, have coffee, they would try to fly. Now, they knew they werent succeeding. Because they werent flying. This is bold. This is out at the edge. They did not have some vast theoretical model. They didnt have some great apparatus. They just knew the plane wasnt flying. And theyd go back and say, well, lets try something else. Finally, to show you how complicated and how this goes back to cheerful persistence. On december 17, 1903, a saturday, they get up in the morning, fix coffee. The first four times, they fail. The fifth time, it flies shoertr than the wingspan of a boeing 747 at a speed slow enough that one brother ran alongside it to make sure it didnt flip over and kill the other brother. But it had flown. And they understood theyd had proof of concept. Five years later, they flew around the island of manhattan for over an hour and over 1. 5 Million People saw an airplane for the first time. Now, thats what an Entrepreneurial Society is like. And thats what were at the edge of, and if we can avoid government and by the way, part of government is lobbyists. I wrote a book a few years ago called breakout and the sub title was pie neaoneers of the future and Prison Guards of the past. Theres a new device that allows you to use your own computer to give yourself an eye exam. In almost every state, its been outlawed by the lobbyist for the optometrists and the opticians. Because they see it as a direct threat to right now, if you want to get an and ill have you wear contact lens, but its a general rule, if you have order new contact lens, you have to go in for an eye exam to get them to then order you the new lens. Now, the National Association says for professional reasons, you should do it every two years. But for practical reason of ordering your contacts, you have to do it every year. This would replace half of those exams. And therefore, it would cut into the income of the optometrists and the opticians and so they just have their lobbyists go and work the state legislature and theyre outlawed. It would be like the stagecoach having outlawed the airplane because they wanted to make sure you had no competition. So this is a part of what your generation is going to face. The number of opportunities are going to be unbelievable. But as i said, in terms of iyi, youll notice that the Wright Brothers were very practical. They could tell they werent flying. And they knew they had to change things. By the way, the smithsonian got it remember i said they spent 500. The smithsonian got a 50,000 grant from congress, was so smart that they knew that they could build a really sophisticated airplane, got an extraordinarily powerful engine from germany, adopted exactly the opposite strategy from the Wright Brothers. The Wright Brothers wanted the lightest possible engine, which allowed them to have the lightest possible frame, because they understood that the heavier you are, the harder it is to fly. Now, i know this is bold and out on the edge, but most of you, ill bet, if i said to you, do you think light or heavy works better would have said light if youre trying to fly. The smithsonian gets a very powerful, remarkable engine with the most advanced metallurgy available in 1903. That means they have to have a really heavy frame or the engine will tear it apart. So they build an airplane thats really heavy and theyre so confident in their arrogance that they decide theyre not going to go to some far away place like kitty hawk, north carolina. Theyre going to take it right down here to alexandria. Theyre going to put it on a boat and theyre going to launch it with a catapult, almost like modern aircraft carriers because they know its going to fly the first time. The Wright Brothers failed 500 times. Now, the number one characteristic, if you launch an airplane from a boat, is if it doesnt fly, where does it go . Goes in the river. Which means you have no idea what didnt work because the current of the river tore the plane apart. So, the, you know, being confident in their arrogance, they invited the news media to come and cover this first flight, and you can read the articles. The smithsonian was so angry at the Wright Brothers for having invented flight that they did not the Wright Brothers did not give them the airplane which is now in the air and space museum until 1937. Because the smithsonian was enraged. How could they they didnt have a ph. D. They didnt have a government grant. They didnt represent official bureaucracy. They were just two bicycle mechanics who were smart. How dare they invent the future. And thats one of the challenges for your generation is to go back and realize, when youre dealing with somebody whos an intellectual yet idiot, dont pay them respect. Dont be intimidated. I would argue that the Congressional Budget Office is the perfect manifestation in washington of intellectual yet idiot. It is im writing a paper on this right now called maganomics and the deep state economic establishment. They are dedicated to models that dont work, and they are consistently wrong. And yet powerful politicians and powerful news media will say, oh, the independent Congressional Budget Office. No, they said, the independent but unbelievably stupid, i would understand it. Because theyre consistently wrong. Instead, the Congress Allows the Congressional Budget Office to do the scoring, which tells the congress what theyre allowed to do, even though they know the scoring is stupid. Now, this is an example of intellectual yet idiot at work and it goes on every week in this city. Now, let me give you one of the reasons i decided i really like trump is the skating rink. Have any of you ever been there, by the way . Its in new york in central park. No one . The well, a hand went like this. Okay. Thats the yes, i was there, but i dont want people to know who i am. So, the skating rink in 1980 broke. In the tradition of iyi, intellectual yet idiot, we knew it broke because it couldnt make ice. And a skating rink with no ice is pretty stupid. Im right out on the edge here. This is why people think im a radical. You know. I do have a ph. D. I could use bigger words, but like trump, i think being clear and plain is useful. So for six years, the city of new york tried to fix the rink. They spent 13 million in 6 years. They went to a firm in florida that had a stunningly elegant environmentally perfect remarkably advanced system, whose only disadvantage was it didnt work. And trump, whose apartment looks out over central park, finally got pissed off and he began making fun of mayor koch in the news media. You cant make fun of ice in an ice skating rink . Finally koch got really angry. This is a long chapter in his book on the art of the deal. And so, koch says, all right. Were going give you 3. 06 months. Youre so smart, fix it. Now, the reason i decided i was really intrigued with trump is the next part of the chapter. He says, now that the mayor had challenged me, i realized i had to get it fixed or he was going to hue military miliate me in p. And i realized i didnt know anything about fixing ice rinks. So i thought to myself, who does ice rinks . And i thought, canadians. I mean, i love this. I love this idea. This guy spends months making fun of the mayor in the news media, has no idea what hes going to do. And then he applies common sense. And so he said, find me the firm that makes the National Hockey league ice skating rinks because they probably know what theyre doing. They fly in from canada. They go look at the rink. They come to see him and they say, this is so stupid, its doing. They fly in from canada, they go look at the rink, they come to see him and they say, this is so stupid its embarrassing. They fix it in three months for 2. 5 million. Take the extra half million and put it in a trust fund for the rink today, which becomes the trump skating rink. Of course he has to put his name on it. But he fixes it, right . If you can fix it, im for you. Well, what i liked about the story is, first of all, the obviousness. Its broken. Second, the common sense, go to somebody who knows what theyre doing. And go wherever they are. So he brings in canadians. And it turns out they knew what they were doing. So if you can go through life and take the cheerful persistence and common sense of the Wright Brothers, and the cheerful persistence and common sense of trump and apply that attitude, you will lead to a revolution. We will cut through so much red tape, so much think about how many courses you take that in all honesty you know are being taught by an intellectual yet idiot . How many of you had one professor that fits that model . I wont ask you to name names because, you know. So, i believe were at the edge of a great extraordinary explosion of energy. I believe we are likely to be the most dynamic country in the world once again. I think that despite some of the confusion, i think trump is actually the right person because hes breaking the norm. And i would much rather have somebody who occasionally does stupid tweets and is breaking up the norm than having somebody who is elegant and smooth that doesnt have a clue. So i got in a little bit of trouble, by the way, because Hillary Clinton is going to write this book, which i think is called, what happened . And i tweeted the other day, my close friend and attorney randy evans is the guy who came up with the idea of having a book called understanding trump. He wrote, you have to write understanding trump. Nobody understands trump and the title will sell the book. Later we decided to do a book inside the title but still. So he called me the other day and said, you have to tweet that youre going to write, understanding what happened. Now im going to get this wrong, theres a phrase, its not man speak but what is the phrase when man yeah. So i suddenly send out these tweets saying this is an example of mansplaining. I didnt understand it because, a, im too old for this. And then were just going to get it over in phase one. And i usually say things like, isis wants to cut over your head. If you can get over that, well talk about microaggressions. But it occurred to me, you know, theres something profoundly wrong about that model. Im not suggesting that Hillary Clinton doesnt understand what happened because shes a female. Im suggesting that Hillary Clinton doesnt understand what happened because shes a unique human being who has rejected reality her entire life and who [ applause ] im about to teach a series that were going to put online about the whole idea of defending america against really stupid left wing ideas. I think this is an example. I spent my whole life surrounded by women. I went on the view one day and said this is normal. All the women and me. My aunts were around, my mother and grandmother, my whole life has been like that, my two daughters, so nobodys ever talked about womansplaining. So i didnt know what mansplaining was. But in this particular case, it has nothing to do with her sex. It has to do with the fact that she doesnt get it. That as a unique human being. Im treasuring her as a unique human being, okay . Im saying that this is not since al gore have we seen somebody who is this out of touch with reality. And if you its not me. If you have not read it, i have two last points and then ill take questions. Theres a terrific book written and called shattered that was written by two liberal reporters who had clearly gotten a contract to cover the Clinton Campaign and explain why she shattered the Glass Ceiling. At 8 00 on election night, they were going to win, get a leftwing court and continue to impose radical values and everything would be fine. And at 11 00 that night, they had donald j. Trump. The whiplash of that threehour change was so enormous that most have still not recovered. They are still crazed and still running around going, this cant be true. And every time trump tweets something they twitch and get up in the morning and go, oh, many i god, hes still president. I cannot take this anymore. These two reporters were quite clever and realized about 11 00 at night they better write a new book because the book about how she shattered the Glass Ceiling wasnt going to work. So they wrote a book about why did she lose . Its a brilliant book. And it says, the day after the election, she had come up with a reason she had lost. It was comeys press conference of the russians. And all of her senior staff, who were the people who lost the election are going, thats right, oh, yeah, that was them. They did it. You should be really mad at them because they did it. You shouldnt be mad at us because you pay us a lot of money but it was them, they are idiots. Its a fascinating book. So im looking forward i think it was a mistake for her to try to write a book to explain what happened. Because its either going to come across as whiny or really angry. But its not going to come across as a calm dispassionate, you know, i grew up very young and never did quite get it. And bill always had me confused. And, you know, and if obama hadnt been president in the first time, i would have been president but he beat me. Ever since i got beat in 08 i have never quite recovered. It is her version of the 27step program or something. Anyway, but how many of you would be intrigued by a book called understanding what happened . Now, the other option ive got is im thinking about writing a book called understanding the swamp. What do you think of that, is that a better title . Yeah. Can i have at least one chapter on hillary . I cant resist. Maybe ill do a chapter on hillary and al, split the chapter. Anyway, last book, there is a remarkable small book by claire berlinski, city of berlin with an ski after it. Shes an american novelist, and its called there is no alternative why Margaret Thatcher matters. I recommend it to you, trump is more a threat than reagan. Reagan was a huge threat to communism in moscow but no threat to communism in stamford. Trump is a mortal threat to the left. Not because hes a hardline conservative, but because hes antipolitically correct and antileft. Hes antistupid and you know, i know theyre sort of sin no synonyms. And hes deeply passionately proamerican. And if youre a true leftwinger, you start twitching when somebody is proamerican. Hes only one step away from a fascist dictatorship. If you like the american flag, who knows what values you may like. Thats a sweeping overview. I think we can take questions if anybody wants to. [ applause ] good morning, speaker gingrich. Thank you for joining us today. Im a rising freshman at hil Hillsdale College and ive actually read that book by mr. Thomas evans on the education of reagan. And i know in the book it said that reagan saw his time as g. E. As his apprenticeship for the presidency and the author attributes to a lot of the education of reagan at that time. Do you see him educating leaders like President Trump but also the common worker, the blue class men and women who need that basic education of economics . No, i actually dont. Thats a good point. There almost aught to be an Institute Led by the chamber of commerce or something. Bolwair was the Vice President for vice relations. Thats one of our great weaknesses today, we dont teach the basics, people dont learn the basics. And probably, if we did have a bolwair, it would have to be on social media. Thank you. Yes, maam. Hi, my name is Sarah Montgomery and i go to the university of georgia. And when im not going to the university of georgia, i live in georgia 6, so youre in my district. You spoke about the private sector and how President Trump is effective in the Public Sector. But you acknowledged a difference between the Public Sector and the private sector slow and inefficient. By necessity and design slow and inefficient. So why do you think someone can change the inherit design of the Public Sector . Its a very good question. I draw a real distinction. There are three parts to that. First, this is one where trump has not learned as fast as i thought he would, but the whole process of dealing with the legislative branch. Which is why design cumbersome and difficult. Theyre independently elected. And i think there hes had a challenge because it didnt fit his models. I think the second role of the president is the bully pulpit, as Theodore Roosevelt called it. If you look at consumer confidence, you look at ceo confidence, a whole range of things. People are beginning to function a little differently than they did in the obama era. I think in the third area, you can have executive Branch Agencies that are very fast and very effective. They usually have to be smaller than they currently are. But at their peak, we do on occasion have systems that have very effective. That requires real management and real drive. And the current era, it requires profoundly changing the regulatory problems that inhibit our ability to manage the government. I think trump probably, given the quality of his cabinet which is really quite remarkable if you look at his total cabinet, it may be the most competent since eisenhower. And so i think they are having effect. At the va, Veterans Administrations, having a real effect. And i think youre going to find a lot of places. Energy, zinke and interior, these are really competent people. Hello, mr. Speaker. Im from the university of texas at austin. I had a question about civility in politics for you. Before this conference, i was looking and you can fill a library with the amount of academic literature on how you apparently destroyed civility in politics. Theres tons of thousands of books on it. And i was just curious as to your opinion. Are we really living in a more uncivil time both at the legislative level and at the personal level or is it just the media wondering abound trying to find narratives. First of all, the academics who believe i destroyed civility are almost all democrats who thought it was deeply inappropriate that we won. And they can because they thought it was perfectly civil if tip oneill as speaker said that Ronald Reagan had ice water in his veins. That was a sign of civility because after all hes a good irish guy and couldnt possibly be negative. Second, i tried to remind everybody. Hamilton is about the Vice President of the United States shooting the secretary of the treasury. Now, thats uncivil. We have not had a major cabinet officer shot by the Vice President in modern times. So when people say to me, oh, civilitys really declining. Compared to what . Third, ill bet 90 of you talk privately with the vulgarity with which your grandparents would be stunned by. Because its the common culture. I mean, we live in the age of the kardashians. And so this is part of this is part of why trump won. I mean, trump was the one guy on stage who got it. It didnt matter how much of a thug he was. This was reality tv. And people had decided they were used to reality tv and this came this became a version of survivor. You know. I was once asked by bill oreilly why the republican candidates werent attacking trump as the frontrunner. I said look, trump is like the grizzly bear in the revenant. You get him awake, he comes over, he bites on your face. He sits on you for a while. Everybody else stares. Not me. No, no, no, no. You know. I do this a little bit in understanding trump. He brilliantly understood that instead of attacking, he would brand. So his most dangerous opponent at the beginning of the cycle was jeb bush who raised 108 million. Branding always had to involve something which is fundamentally true. Whereas attacking doesnt have to involve anything thats true. Just you can smear people. But branding doesnt work with a smear. So he turned and he said, you know, im really worried about jeb. I mean, hes so low energy. And all a sudden, that fit what people were watching. And by the third or fourth debate, jeb was running in new hampshire. Now, physically, running in new hampshire. Now, i dont know how many of you ever been to new hampshire. But new hampshires not a state where people grow up thinking, yes, what i what is a commander in chief who puts on his running shorts and runs through my town to prove that hes high energy. People just thought it was weird. I mean, you know. So i think when you talk about civility, watergate occurred before i was a national figure. Wasnt very civil. People chanted lots of nasty things during the antiwar movement. Wasnt particularly you know, watch forest gump. You know, so anyway, okay. Thank you very much. Yes . Hello, mr. Speaker. My names Benjamin Schrader from texas a m university. I want to ask a really simple question. What inspired you to get involved in politics . Terror. I think, i mean, watch whats happening right now in venezuela. Look whats happening in syria. All it takes is a generation of truly incompetent politicians to destroy your country. And when i was a kid, i watched the french fourth republic collapse. I watched the cold war with the soviets which was very real. I thought, you know, a handful of people have to spend their lifetime trying to figure out how to survive. So i did it as an act of duty. I was going to be either a pail tolgs or a zoo director. But i really did come to a conclusion this is so real. And nothing ive seen in my lifetime has convinced me otherwise. If you watch the remarkable collapse of venezuela. And the human pain involved. Remarkable collapse of syria. You have to think you need the kind of leadership to avoid that. Hi, mr. Speaker. Im jamie hahn from kennesaw State University. My question has to do with reagans ability to move people. Largely thats because he was so well known already. So how would you suggest being able to move an apathetic student body of your peers . Oh, i think i think student body . Yeah. Id say two things. Cheerful persistence. You try something out. If it doesnt work, you try something else. And making lots of noise. Large part of my career was a function of being sufficiently outrageous that people noticed me. And, again, trump is a perfect example. This is a guy who was so noisy in the 80s that by 1989, he was on the cover of Time Magazine and oprah was asking him if he was going to run for president. He describes this. He wrote two really good books. One is the art of the deal. Which he wrote as a young man on the way up in the 80s. The other is the art of the comeback which he wrote in the 90s when he almost went broke. Theyre both interesting. The art of the comeback is in some ways psychologically more revealing. But one of the points he makes is that shear noise matters. When he first decided they were going to build trump tower, they were taking down an old smaller building. And it had two really interesting art deco pieces on the front of the building, which he wanted to give announced he wanted to give to the metropolitan museum of art. But the engineers then came in and said, thats going to cost you a half million dollars. Back then, he didnt have very much money. He was just starting his career. So he decided then just take them down, destroy them. At which point new york media went crazy. You know, trump breaks his word. But in every article, they said, while building his fabulous new extraordinary building. And he says he realized after a couple weeks all the negative publicity was driving home the fact that trump tower was going to be a great building. So he was quite comfortable with it. If you watch trump, he operates on a theory of sheer noise. I would argue the same things true in your school. You use social media, you use twitter, you use facebook, snapchat. You find a variety of ways of communicating. By brute reputation you build a following. And one morning you must be somebody because enough people are following you. They wouldnt be following you if you werent somebody. Therefore you are somebody, even if you arent anybody. And welcome to modern america. Thank you all, very, very much. [ applause ] Andrew Desiderio covers congress for the daily
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