Matt Salmon on Proven Records for a Strong Future
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I keep forgetting the name all the time. Breaking Battlegrounds. Today we are honored to have Matt Salmon, former congressman. He is running for governor of Arizona, top tier candidate, and been a major part in making Arizona what it is today. Welcome, Matt. Hey, thanks a lot. And Matt, welcome. Happy Donut Day. What's your favorite donut? Uh,

Probably Bavarian cream. Yeah, that's a good choice. You know, can you trust a person who doesn't like donuts? I mean, that's really the most important question today. Everybody loves donuts. Yeah, I have never met a person who doesn't like donuts. I like Bear's Claws, too. Bear's Claws are great. A good maple bar from a good donut place is really good as well. Good stuff. We're going to play a clip here real quick on your commercial that's out now. Great. And let's talk about the border a little bit. Jeremy, go ahead.

Joe Biden and the radical Democrats in Washington have created a border crisis. Their liberal open border policies threaten Arizona families. I'm Matt Salmon, and I'm tough on illegal immigration. If Washington won't secure our border, Arizona will. I'll start with 24/7 support for law enforcement along the entire border, and more funding for helicopters and technology to crack down on the drug cartels. It's time to secure our border and enforce our immigration laws.

It's a great commercial. I've actually shared it with probably a dozen or two people. And I always get these commercials because I donate and they say, what did you think? And they said, well, it seems like realistic. It's like a realistic plan. That's the comment that got back to me. I liked it and he seemed realistic. Tell us about how you would implement this realistic plan to people I've shared it with. So first off, when I get elected governor, on day one, I'm going to declare a state of emergency at the border.

I'm going to call a special session of the state legislature and I'm going to ask for several things. First and foremost, I'm going to ask them for $200 million and $140 million of that is going to be to send 1,200 armed National Guard to the border.

And it's patterned after what happened during the George Bush years. And they actually did achieve functional security on the border. And then I'm going to take 50 million and give it to our border sheriffs. I was just with Mark Daniels yesterday in Cochise County and telling him about this. And he's very excited about it.

give them the money so that they can actually get the resources they need within their sheriff's department to be able to arrest and incarcerate people that break state laws. And I'm going to ask the state legislature to beef up our criminal trespass laws. Lastly, I'm going to ask the state legislature to formally designate, at least on a statewide basis, and hopefully we'll get this done at the national level too because I'm going to use the bully pulpit to do so, to designate the cartels as a terrorist organization.

Don't you find it, look, so you've served in Congress, was it 10 or 12 years? You did two stints. 12 years. 12 years. No, 10 years. 10 years, sorry. Thank you. Okay. You've watched this now over two decades. Yeah.

Is Washington fixable or is this stuff that we just have to do in the states? I mean, it seems like it's really not. They want to punt on all the tough issues. And, you know, when we were there before Chuck during the 90s, we were apoplectic about the spending and the spending is nobody's even talking about it anymore.

I mean, it's disgusting. And when you look at hyperinflation that we're facing right now, it's all traceable back to what's going on with the spending in Washington, D.C. and the printing of more money by the Federal Reserve. So it's easy to understand why it's happening. But I don't think Washington's ever going to change. And that's why I decided to run for governor, because I think that it's going to have to happen one state at a time. And, you know, I was one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus. I want to do the same thing with governors.

I want to start a Freedom Caucus of governors that are willing to lock arms and stand up to the federal government because it's not only standing up and doing what the federal government is not doing in terms of border security, but standing up and fighting against them when they pass laws that we believe are unconstitutional. You know, Biden is talking about new gun laws.

confiscation laws. And if I'm governor when that happens, basically to say it's not going to be enforced in the state of Arizona. It will not be enforced in the state of Arizona. We're a Second Amendment sanctuary state.

And I believe that some of the other governors like Ron DeSantis, who was my closest friend this last time around when I served in Congress, and Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma, Kristi Noem, South Dakota, Greg Abbott, Texas. I think there's a nucleus of people there that are willing to stand up and fight back when it comes to the Ninth and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which our founding fathers envisioned the seat of real power in government is the people.

And the government that's closest to people is the states. You know, we always look at when we're elected officials, we say, who is somebody you look up to or somebody you want to model yourself after? And what you'd hope if it's elected Governor Matt Salmon, the people say, I want to govern like Matt Salmon. Right. But that being said, we're not there yet. Who are some governors that you see? It's easy. Ron DeSantis. And what do you like what he's doing? I like the fact that he's pushing back against.

some of the woke garbage that is so easily adopted, not just by the liberals, but by the business community. And, you know, like how he handled Disney. I loved it. He just basically said, OK, fine, you're welcome to take whatever ideology you want, but we're going to take your tax, the tax benefits that we gave you away. I love how he plays hardball. He did the same thing with the cruise industry when they started wanting to do the vaccine passports.

I love how he handled the COVID issue far better. Kristi Noem right up there as well. But the way that they did not allow or they did not force the business to close. They didn't let it happen. And then Johns Hopkins did a study on the incidence of COVID death in states that stayed open and states that closed down like Gavin Newsom. And the states that stayed open didn't have any worse incidence of COVID death. So I like the way he handled the schools, everything. I'm a big fan of Rob.

He and I actually introduced an amendment to the Constitution together which was very straightforward. It just said Congress has to live under the same laws it passes on to everybody else. And what was the result of that vote?

We never even got a vote, which is really, really frustrating. And that's what I'm saying. You know, whether it's balancing a balanced budget amendment, which is absolutely required, or whether it's term limits, which I support 100 percent, it's never going to happen in Washington, D.C. They're never going to get control, I think, of the spending. They will never –

I try as I might, you know, this border security stuff that we've been talking about for years and years and years. It's just Congress is not going to get it done. It has to happen at the state level. Absolutely. Let's talk about inflation for a minute. So I actually came across something today that on that was it.

October 29th, last year, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that $2.8 trillion in spending proposals will likely push down inflation. Okay? Oh, brother. She's never taken an economics class. No, it's amazing. And she's our Treasury Secretary. And then today, they had a Washington Post article where they said now the debate in the White House is more, well, how do we spin it? Not what the policy is to make it different. How do we spin it? That's an honest conversation we're having in the White House. Okay.

I think one thing that frustrates me when you have people vote for governor or, you know, for example, I always see statements...

We'll use Twitter because we know most people are insane on Twitter, but they go and they question Secretary of State candidates. What are you going to do about immigration? Well, they can't do anything. It has nothing to do with their office. But they're all talking about it. They all talk about it, but it's not their office, right? No, it's not their office. So let's talk about inflation for a minute. This is really a federal money problem in a lot of ways. Plus, there's other features, right? When there's supply economics, things of that nature. What can a governor really do to help immigrants?

in this area. It's not that you're going to be able to cure it, because we have high inflation in Arizona right now. So what would Governor Salmon do? I think there's a few things that can be done. I think that we can do everything that we can to try to make housing more affordable. And it's a supply and demand issue. We have a shortage of houses right now in the state of Arizona. We're sitting on 9.2 million acres of state trust land.

And so I think we can be a lot more aggressive in how we use that state trust land. And most of the money, 85% of it, goes toward education. And we can reduce our reliance on other things because, as you know, I want to get rid of the income tax. Right. And I pledged to do that over my first four years. Corporate or personal? Both. Both. Okay. Okay.

I want to get rid of income tax in this state. I've never been a fan. I was a fair tax guy back during when Bill Archer, many, many years ago. But I've always really had a real problem with the income tax. And it goes back to what Ronald Reagan said. He said that we tax what we want less of.

We subsidize what we want more of. And do we really want less work, investment, entrepreneurialism? I don't think so. And I think that if we got rid of our income tax in Arizona, we would be beating off the right kind of business with a stick.

And I'm a supply-sider. People are always asking, well, how are you going to pay for that? Well, wait a minute. Come on. You make it sound like the economic system is totally predicated on spending. It's not. That's the Keynesian philosophy, and I don't subscribe to that. I'm an Austrian guy, thank you very much. And Atlas did shrug. So I truly do believe that...

when it comes to income tax. If we didn't have it, there'd be better high-paying jobs. And it also mitigates some of the costs of inflation with people that they don't have to pay an income tax.

What do you see the role of the governor in bringing together both parties from the aisle and getting issues? It's like housing. Or water. Yeah, water. And I want to get into water because it's probably the number one priority in this state that no one really wants to talk about because it's a little boring to you or water doesn't turn on, right? Right. But let's talk about housing and then let's go to water. Right.

How do we do that? I think most people have a misperception of what housing, low-income housing is. Can you explain what you would do and why this would make a difference in some people? For one thing, what I wouldn't do is rent control. And I'm not going to put the heavy hand on government. I do believe in a free market system. And again, I think in Arizona, when it comes to the cost of housing, I think we can mitigate that by providing more opportunity for houses and land.

through our state trust land. So I think that's an opportunity. I also have heard some really innovative ideas. I was in Yuma

And the Yuma School District was telling me that they are actually built, they have a large swath of land there in Yuma that they own as a school district and they're going to dedicate it for housing. And they're going to work with a private investor to come in and build housing. Not all of it will be affordable housing, but a lot of those units will be set aside for teachers, brand new teachers. And I think some of those innovative ideas are actually really good.

And I think that we ought to support them. We've got about a minute left before the break here. What is the difference you saw in Congress between your first stand of six years and your second stand of six years? Because you had a good gap in between. Night and day. What changed? Night and day. It just became so much more adversarial. So for one thing, you know, we had a lot more blue dog Democrats when I served in the 90s.

There were no blue dog Democrats almost. I mean, you had the Bill Orton's back then and they're they they're gone. They're gone. They're completely gone. And and so it is hyper partisan. That's one thing. And Obama, you know, who was supposed to be the great uniter and unifier, ended up being a

becoming the great divider and race relations got worse under his leadership instead of better. And then the other thing, you know, with his policies, remember how frustrated a lot of us were during the Bill Clinton years. I was nostalgic for Bill Clinton when I got, you know, serving with Barack Obama because he was horrible and he was arrogant and he saw no use in a separation of powers. He basically thought he was elected king and

And that was really frustrating. And then the other thing is our leaders were gutless. Yeah. I mean, totally gutless. I'm saying our Republican leaders were totally gutless. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with former Congressman Matt Salmon, who's running for governor of Arizona. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're here today with former Congressman Matt Salmon, who's running for governor of Arizona. Matt, quickly tell them, where can they find you on Twitter, Facebook, website? Where can they find you and look you up? In some very obscure part of the web. The digital world. Yeah. What's your website? My website is mattsalmon4az.com. And it's not the number four, it's the word four, F-O-R, mattsalmon4az.com.

And you can also find them on Twitter and Facebook fans. Oh, yeah. Just use your search engine, okay? That's right. We're not going to help you out here on that. Okay. Let's talk about an issue that's very important in Arizona, water. Yes, sir. We live in a desert. We do. And we're getting less precipitation up in the northern states.

Or there's problems with the Colorado River, problems with Lake Powell, yada, yada. What do we do? Problems with California. Problems with California. And the fact that they let a bunch of their water that melts from the Sierras. Go into the ocean. Go into the ocean to save a stupid little fish called the snail darter. There's a lot of problems. So tell us a plan. What does a Matt Salmon governor do? So I think it's going to take an investment by the state. I mean, that's one of the things, you know, Ducey and the state of the state talked about. Talked about a billion over the next five years. I think that's a good down payment.

because we're going to have to find new sources of water. And I think we need to do a lot stronger partnership with places like Israel, who really has it right. By the way, they recycle or retreat 85% of their potable water in Israel. And that's one of the things that we're going to have to really, really look at doing in Arizona. It's one of the cheapest ways. It's far cheaper than desalination to retreat water. And a lot of the municipalities are doing some of it. We're going to have to do a lot more.

I think the desal idea is a good one for a long-term solution, but it's five to ten years away. And there's no agreement yet with Mexico. They're talking about a desal plant on the Sea of Cortez and then not piping the water to Arizona because that would be incredibly expensive. But

letting Mexico keep that desal water that we're a partner with them on that plant, and then us getting about 200,000 acre feet of their Colorado River water allocation coming through to us. So that's a really innovative idea, and I like it. 200,000 acre feet. How many people does that...

help out. That's just a small down payment. Yeah. I mean, we're talking millions and millions of acre feet. And we're going to need to pull out all the stops. We also have an aquifer in Arizona that's really full of water. It's called the Harquihala Aquifer, but it's briny and it's going to have to be treated as well. We would have to build infrastructure from there to get it to other parts of the state that need the water.

Israel has perfected, oh, by the way, 72% of the water use in Arizona is agriculture.

And so finding much more efficient drip systems than the way we irrigate right now is going to be really important. Israel has perfected this to a fine science, and that's something that we need to look at partnering with them on. But in the final analysis, I think conservation is going to have to be part of it.

There's no easy way out for us. It's going to have to be all hands on deck and all of the above. And it's going to cost money. It's going to cost money. People understand that. Because when you look at new infrastructure, when you look at desal plants, when you look at retreating water and treatment plants, all of that's going to cost money. And so, yeah, it's going to take a big investment by the state. But if we don't get it right, it's going to paralyze our economy so it

Even though it's not a sexy issue that a lot of people want to talk about right now, it is one of the issues, one of the most important issues that we face as a state. We better get it right. And Chuck, while we're at it, that's why it's really, really important to elect somebody as governor, as CEO of the state that actually has some background and knowledge and skill set to get these kinds of things done. Because understanding.

Unlike a lot of other jobs, you know, where you're a CEO of a corporation, you can't just bark out orders and everybody just falls into line. When you're working in a separation of powers situation where you need the legislature to appropriate the dollars, you need the legislature to pass the changes in the laws to get these things done, whether it's dealing with the border, whether it's dealing with water, whether it's dealing with our schools.

You're going to need a governor that knows how to deal with that system and knows how to get it done. And also somebody that has a background of accomplishment, conservative accomplishment, and not just rhetoric.

All the candidates running for governor are using pretty much the same talking points, but the devil is in the details, and it's also in the person's ability to actually get it done. And I have a record, as long as my arm, on public service in a conservative way, fighting upstream, sorry about the pun, against the establishment, and getting things done, conservative ideas done. And

So that's a big difference between me and the other candidates. Well, two questions, and I want to go to that. First of all, what has surprised you? Since you announced for governor, what has surprised you about this campaign? Has there been a surprise? Yeah, there's probably been a couple of surprises. I didn't think that in Arizona the voters would be so willing to allow somebody to just out and out buy an election. You know, I see a lot of money going on the TV. And you know what? I'm...

I don't have a rich spouse that can pay for my election. I'm having to go out and convince people in my ideas and have them contribute. And, you know, I don't have a million dollars a week to put out there on media. It's kind of surprised me because I'm campaigning the old-fashioned way, a lot of shoe leather, a lot of mileage on the vehicle, and going out and meeting people, looking eye to eye. But, you know, I don't have a rich spouse that can pay for my election.

You can't reach the masses that way. And in today's social media world, you've got to be out there in a strong media presence. And so I think it shocked me how willing people are. I'll call people on phone banks. I'm calling people and saying, hey, this is Matt Salmon. Really? You're the candidate? You're calling me personally? I say, yeah, I'd like to see if you have any questions. Oh, no, I'll just watch your ads.

Really? I hear that all the time. It's like, really? You have the candidate on the phone. You can actually ask me questions. So how has the vote, how has, so you've run Republican primaries before. How has the Republican voter changed from the first time you ran for Congress to

to today? What have you noticed? What's the difference between that voter then 20 years ago and now today? I think that the difference is social media has had a great impact and where people can make any allegation they want about a person and not have to back it up. How gullible sometimes people are. Short attention spans, it seems like. Yeah, they see something in social media and it's like, even though most Republicans are so distrusting of the media, you know, the lying media,

They sometimes suck up this stuff hook, line, and sinker that's on social media without even a question. Well, I find something. A prominent Republican the other day was telling a colleague, I really like Chuck, but he's just moderate. Right. There's nothing moderate about me. And I've heard the same said about you. And I've asked people. I said, well, how?

What was your definition of a moderate? You know, it's really interesting because I just pulled out an old article from The Hill where they were saying that Matt Salmon is one of the few people that is just constantly fighting against the establishment.

And now you're it. Now you're it, buddy. And I did. And I took out John Boehner. I was one of the few people that went in and said, we got the votes to take you out as speaker. And it's like, and I term limited myself and actually kept my promise. It's like, excuse me? And every scorecard that's out there, you know, on the conservative side, the ACU, American Conservative Union, the CPAC guys, they gave me 100%. It's like,

Wait a minute. If that's moderate, then what is conservative? And maybe it has to do with just throwing bombs and saying things that you can't back up. I think it does now. I think you're I think if you throw a bomb, no matter whether you can back it up or say or explain to people how you're going to do it.

You know, as long as you say it, then you must be you must be a really strong conservative. And it blows me away how people kind of hook, line and sinker, how a candidate that has never done a conservative thing in her life. I've never seen her at a pro gun rally. Right. Never seen her at a pro life rally. And now it's like, oh, you know, because she throws out these bombs, she must be conservative. This is Chuck Warren breaking battlegrounds with Matt Salmon. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're here today with former Congressman Matt Salmon, now running for governor in Arizona. We got a primary in two months, basically. Early voting starts early July. Let's talk about something that has just really shocked the nation lately. It's not only these mass shootings, which I believe are technically with three or four more people are shot, but the schools. You have kids. I have kids. It's a war. Parents...

You hate to say things are worse nightmares, a trite statement, but I think when you send your kid to school, you expect them to come back and their big gripe of the day is so-and-so was mean to them, right? And right now we're saying... Or the teacher didn't care. Give me a grade. Yeah, didn't give me a good grade. What do we, as governor, what would you do to make our schools safer? Well, first of all, I think that

We've got to make sure that the way that the schools are configured, that there is, you know, one way in and that it's locked and that there are multiple ways out if kids have to do a mass exodus. We also, I believe, need a school resource officer in every school, every school. I want to make sure as governor that that happens.

so that you don't have to wait after 9-1-1 for any period of time, but there's people right there on campus. The other thing that I'm talking about though, Chuck, is a conservative solution. After 9-11,

What did we do? We ended up training pilots to make sure that if they wanted to arm themselves and be able to protect the people on the plane, they could do so. And we did that, and it's been incredibly successful. I've talked to a lot of pilots that have gone through the program, and it's

very, very good training. In some ways, some of the best training that's offered. And Ohio is just about to pass a law that allows teachers to go through some very specific training on first aid, on tactical training, weapons use, and allowing teachers to be able to protect the students as well, which I think we should be doing. And it's a program called Faster

That's the nonprofit that actually started in Ohio. But Mike DeWine, the governor of Ohio, is about to sign this. I was talking about this a couple weeks ago. And I do believe that it's incredibly important. I was just in Sierra Vista yesterday. And the sheriff there, Sheriff Mark Daniels, is really doing a phenomenal job. But he talked about a program they started there called Alice.

and it's a program where they actually train the kids not to just be victims. And one of the problems is that when an active shooter comes into a school, the kids all kind of congregate into a central place, and then they're just sitting ducks. But they've taught these kids through Alice to do things, like throw things, not just to be victims, like sitting ducks waiting to be shot.

And I think it's all of those kinds of things that we're going to have to employ. But we're going to have to look at some solutions that actually work. And I think having teachers that are willing to go through intensive training and be certified should be allowed to have weapons and protect those kids.

Florida has a red flag law. I think that surprises most conservatives. It has a red flag law. It happened before DeSantis. It was Scott. It happened with Rick Scott. They've said they've implemented

implemented 9,000 times. Where are you on that? I don't support it. And what would be your reasoning if someone asked you? My reasoning is it's too easy then to say, well, this person, you know, who may be a little ADD or, you know, where are you going to draw the line? I mean, I think when you're talking about somebody's constitutional rights,

under the Second Amendment, you have to be very, very careful about that. And yes, there should be a way for people that make threatening remarks and have histories of mental illness to be able to intervene with them ahead of time to try to avert a situation from actually occurring. I've talked to parents

you know, as a congressman that have seriously mentally ill children that have to end up sleeping with one eye open because they're afraid they're going to kill, they're going to get killed by their kid. And I think the court system needs some reformation to make sure that people who have a tendency to be violent, that we can deal with them ahead of the curve and not just wait for some cataclysmic event to occur. We have one minute left here.

Tell people why they should vote for Matt Salmon, and when you get into office, what are the first two or three things you're going to do your first year? Well, they should vote for Matt Salmon because I actually am not—let me just say it this way. How many of you out there have been lied to by a candidate?

And everybody chuckles when I say that. And then I ask, what's the best predictor of what somebody is going to do? And invariably they'll say what they've done. Take a look at my opponent's backgrounds and take a look at mine. I've been fighting in the trenches for conservative causes my whole life, and I haven't bended one iota. And if you want somebody that's actually going to not just talk the talk, but actually walk the walk, I'm your guy.

So I'm asking for your vote. As I mentioned before, on day one, my top priority is securing the border and doing everything we can in this state, since the federal government is not doing its job in securing the border, getting a handle on our school system, and also making sure that our streets are safe. Matt Salmon, thank you for joining us today. Visit mattsalmonforarizona.com. That's it. I got it. And the final, but thanks a lot, Matt. Appreciate it. All right.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam is out today. My co-host for this segment is our previous guest, former Congressman Matt Samuels, running for governor. We have on the line now for our last segment, Albert Eisenberg.

He's a political strategist and principal of a messaging agency called Blue State Red, based in Philly in Charleston, South Carolina. And he has written and appeared for Fox News, Real Clear Politics, National Review, Washington Examiner, Philadelphia Inquirer. He was the youngest op-ed columnist and only conservative at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Albert, welcome to the show.

Hey, how are you? Good, thank you. So we're bringing you on today to talk about your article yesterday in Real Clear Politics that the title was Harvard Won't Say If It Supports Diversity of Thought. So Harvard, as everybody knows, when you talk, if anybody had a kid and said, I got accepted at Harvard, you're proud, right? I mean, this is the creme de la creme.

But we have a situation there with the professor, and I want you to give a little background on the story and what you found out in your research about what's happening and how it really shows Harvard is not a diversity leader. They want people to be pigeonholed on one thought process. So go ahead.

Hey, yeah. You know, I think a lot of your listeners will be familiar with the overall trend line of the story, but this one's particularly outrageous, both because of the professor in mind, who happens to be black, raised in the project, and really had a really pure American dream story, becoming a tenured professor at Harvard, becoming the youngest recipient and the first black recipient of the Clark Prize, which is a prize for economists, among other accolades, and then

I think Roland Fryer, his research on race and socioeconomics and the impact of things like the acting white phenomenon and race involved with police shootings really ended up upsetting the apple cart at Harvard.

So between 2007, where he becomes the second youngest professor tenured at Harvard, the youngest black professor tenured at Harvard, and 2016, when his police report shooting police shooting report is published, which he called the most surprising findings of his life.

uh, Roland Fryer did this research finding that police use of force might be higher with, uh, black suspects, but there are actual, uh, fatal shootings with higher with white perpetrators. Um, that it was surprising. It ended up really upsetting the apple cart at Harvard because he was challenging a lot of political, um, niceties and going directly into the research. So Harvard, they,

Basically, what ensues is a kangaroo court in 2018 and 2019 where a former research assistant comes forward with allegations of sexual impropriety from prior. The vast majority of those are dismissed, although several of them are upheld by a neutral investigating committee, which said, you know,

You shouldn't have been texting this research assistant sort of sexual, come on, but that's nothing groundbreaking from people in power. And the committee recommends training, sensitivity training. And instead, Harvard said, we're going to shut down all of your research. We're going to bar you from the classroom for two years.

We're going to put people in charge of your research who are publicly outspoken and being against, you know, your findings and view as a person. And they even considered revoking it, which has happened since the civil war. So,

It was a story of shutting somebody up and muzzling them, which is now in 2022 kind of taking light because of a documentary film that was made earlier this year by Rob Mons and because Glenn Lowry and Barry White are sharing the story. And I was proud to be able to share the story in Real Clear Politics yesterday as well. And if you'll allow me to rant for just one more second, what was particularly shocking to me is I emailed Harvard and asked them for comments.

gave them the opportunity to respond to all the points that I understood as far as the fact of the story and asked them whether they support intellectual diversity on their campus. And they not only ignored several requests for comment, they actually wrote me back and said that they were refusing to comment. So to me, that's something Harvard will not say if it supports intellectual diversity. Well, let's talk about some of the groundbreaking research he's done. You talked a little bit about the police shootings. He's done some other things as well. It has to do with education.

Tell us a little bit more about what he's done. I mean, what we have here is a gentleman who is a – he's the American dream story that we all say we want. And then he's also a gentleman that does groundbreaking research because he asks questions about it. So, for example, what was the thing – it's a thing where they're saying –

that you're less popular if you get A's, right? If you get B's and so forth. He's done research like that that shows that if you're a young black student, you become less popular if you're an A student. They say you're trying to imitate other cultures.

And so they had shown studies, I guess. I watched the film this morning. They had shown they had studies. I said, well, that's not true. As they ask them, they ask the students, are you popular? And his response was, well, that's like asking a 14 year old boy if he's having sex. Of course he is. Right. They all lie or they think they're doing something. And so he went instead, asked, say, well, tell me who your three best friends are.

And he really dived deeper questions, which I wish polling would do more actually in elections, right? It's not this surface type thing. And find out, no, once they get to the ache territory, their popularity drops quite a bit. What other research has he done?

Yeah, that was true for black students especially. So the phenomenon that you're talking about is related to the quote-unquote acting white, which if you are a progressive in the socioeconomics or sociology field, your reasoning that there are gaps in achievement among black students versus white students is obviously because of white supremacy, because of underinvestment in schools, and a handful of other progressive chivalrous.

And what Fryer finds, he does a regression and says that there is a social cost in certain black communities and certain urban areas to achieving in school, which if you're a black parent, is something you really want to know about because it's a cultural issue and it's keeping your kids back.

So muzzling Friar from publishing research like this actually is punishing the least advantaged people in the country, which I think is really important to note. Then we have the police shooting data where Friar finds that the use of force, deadly use of force is actually higher for non-Black suspects, although he also finds that lower level use of force are higher for Black suspects. So kind of contradictory data, but does not at all go towards

go towards the conclusion that police are just sort of aimlessly shooting unarmed black men, which is what you're supposed to say if you're a professor at Harvard. And he did a lot of other research on charter schools, why certain success academy in the

doing so well in Harlem, where you have a vast majority of, you know, lower income, mostly black, some Hispanic kids who are actually outperforming suburban white kids. And he finds that there are certain commonalities between

to how those schools perform, those charter schools perform, such as aggressive personnel management, which means firing bad teachers. So that is obviously going to upset a certain leg of the liberal left and the Democratic constituency, because they're all teachers union supporters, and their answers always give the teachers unions more money. So there was a lot more research, and there was more research in the works that America and the people who really need, you

you know, compelling solutions to our social problems would have found useful, but it was shut down by Harvard.

So Professor Fryer, so people don't know, he was also MacArthur Genius Fellowship honoree status for Time Magazine. He's a Clark Medal, making him the first African-American to win it. I mean, his accolades are amazing. What happens to him now? I mean, he's a tenure, so they really can't fire him. I guess they can, but that's a process. But they basically have handcuffed him, lack of a better word, to doing anything research that's groundbreaking. They've taken away his lab, his research budget.

What are his options? Does he simply go out and find another university? Does he come to somewhere like ASU? Hopefully ASU would let someone like this in. What does he do?

Well, hopefully, and I'd love to hear from your co-host on what he thinks of, you know, whether AFU would let him in, because I know that there are sort of conservative or free-thinking institutions within the Arizona education system. But the options are few at Harvard. He has the sword of Damocles hanging over his head at this point because the people supervising him now, after two years' suspension and shutting down all of his research, he's back in the classroom, and the person directly supervising him

is somebody who said she wanted to revoke his tenure, which never happens with professors. I mean, it hadn't happened at Harvard since the Civil War. So there are very few options for people who are trying to advance in their careers and maintain careers if they're willing to sort of

actually look at facts and research and not just, you know, echo progressive talking points dumbly if they're in the academy, unless conservative, you know, and free-thinking people fund and found new institutions or donors and professors and students and parents speak up at the existing institutions and actually put some pressure on them to protect diversity of thought.

We're with Albert Eisenberg. He has joined us today. He wrote a great article yesterday for Real Clear Politics about, and the title was simply Harvard Won't Say It That Supports Diversity of Thought. You can find that on our website and our social media pages. Former Congressman Salmon has worked at ASU. Yep. How would that situation be handled there? Is it any different?

You know, when they do these witch hunts, what's really sad to me is that, you know, during the time of Anthony Fauci and all the liberals were saying we need to do our activities and our policies based on science, everything. That was the mantra. And here you've got a professor that's actually using science.

and data to analyze issues and problems to come up with answers. Which is what you're supposed to do. Exactly what you're supposed to do in the educational realm. And our educational system, I taught actually at ASU too, and I started out the class, it was on public policy and the Constitution. And I would tell the kids at the very beginning of the class,

I'm unlike most of your other professors I am NOT going to grade you on what you believe I'm going to grade you on how you defend what you believe how did they respond to that it was great I mean at the very beginning of this semester it's kind of funny Chuck because at the beginning of the semester I would kind of ask the kids where they fell on the political continuum and most kids predictably were on the left side of the equation at the end of my class far more were on the right side of the equation because

the policies that we conservatives espouse are based on human nature and they're based on common sense. And I think you, you're always kind of led to the right conclusions, excuse the pun on right. But, uh, but I, I, I truly do believe that, you know, in today's society, the Trump card and, and it just, it's so frustrating is to throw down these allegations of, uh, you know, of, uh, sexual, uh, you know, uh,

sexual propositioning or using your status to try to hurt someone through that methodology. But it's really, really, that's the trump card. And then once that allegation is thrown out, remember the Supreme Court nominations, both with Clarence Thomas as well as the most recent one. But the sad thing is there's almost no defense

You're tried and convicted all in the same sentence when somebody comes out with any unsubstantiated allegations like that. But I'd like to believe there are universities, and I believe that at a place like ASU, somebody like that would be incredibly welcome because Reason Magazine puts out a report card every year on the –

opportunity for the freest thinking universities. And I'm really proud ASU made that. That's fantastic. The top 10 every year. And I think that's what

I think as conservatives sometimes where we try to stifle liberal thought, that's wrong too. It's absolutely 100%. We should be allowing all kinds of thought across this political spectrum to be exposed to these kids, and then they should determine for themselves what they want to follow. We're with Albert Eisenberg. Albert, when you went in and did this story, we all go on to things to preconceive notions. People who say they don't are lying, okay? So you went and preconceived notions. Is there anything that surprised you about this as you did your research and wrote this article?

Sure. I think that's a good point. I mean, you know, I am sort of a classical liberal current conservative and I, you know, wanted Harvard to tell me that they care about diversity of thought. And I was gobsmacked that they refused comment. I mean, that's the first thing that surprised me is, you know, you have a press office. Just send something boilerplate. I mean, it's all over their website. We're here for free inquiry. We are the, you know, leading institution. They didn't send me a thing and they wouldn't defend it.

And that, to me, is a surprise and a public move on their part. So I think people need to be very well aware of that. I would say one thing that's important, or it's not surprising, but it's a little disappointing. I think people get caught up in the personalities involved. And one thing we have to remember is Fryer's research is important, not because Fryer is important, and he is. But he's had an amazing career, and he's been very blessed. His research is supposed to help the least among us figure out our system.

and most complex social problems. So when conservatives, when people are defending Friar, we need to always include who is Harvard choosing? They're choosing, you know, upper middle class progressives and their values over the needs of impoverished children. Thank you. This is Albert Eisenberg. We appreciate you joining us. We'll hope you'll join us again sometime. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be with you next week. Have a great weekend, folks. Let darkness go.

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