Siding with Iran Is Insane, Hollywood’s Wake-Up Call, and the Path Forward for America
01:21:32 Share

Support American jobs while standing up for your values. OldGloryDepot.com brings you conservative pride on premium, made-in-USA gear. Don't settle. Wear your patriotism proudly. Visit OldGloryDepot.com today. I say this every election cycle, and I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2025.

If you're running for office, the first thing on your to-do list should be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.vote domain from godaddy.com, you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today.

Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam Stone is on a well-deserved vacation in the Rocky Mountain West here with Kylie, and Shay is here to help and pitch in today. Our first guest is Andrew Fox. He is a former soldier who served three tours in Afghanistan and now works as a research fellow focused on the Middle East and authoritarian threats. You can find his work on X at Mr. Andrew Fox and also Substack. Welcome, Andrew.

Thank you very much. Great to be here. So today's your birthday, and I immediately thought of a question I want to ask you. After three tours in Afghanistan, do birthdays take a little more significance to you now?

They do, especially as I now share my birthday with my son. So it's a very special day for both of us, which is rather lovely. But yeah, it's always a pleasure to have those extra trips around the sun. Well, that's fantastic. So you wrote a great piece. This is why you're here. I found it and sent it to Kylie, and you were kind enough to come on. You wrote a piece called The Moronic Obscenity of Siding with Iran. You know...

So we have social media and we have a six-digit following. And, you know, Kyla and I talk about this once a week, things we post online.

that people like, people that just sort of ignore it, right? So if I do anything with numbers, it just sort of makes their eyes roll, even long-form content or articles. But if I put something on Iran or China, they go off. But I also understand our audience is right of center. So you always used to think there's one thing that Americans can agree on, and Iran always brings out their irritation on our following. You wouldn't think there's people supporting Iran on this.

And it's weird. It's weird. It's insane. Yeah, it's insane. And, you know, I think it shows a lack of understanding of what Iran actually is.

I mean, you can criticize Israel all day long without having to decide that this is a football game. And if you don't support Team A, you have to support Team B. Right. You know, and I think Israel have had a very challenging 20 months and they've done some things really, really well and some things that they've not got quite so right. But Iran have run a 46-year campaign against everything that people, particularly left of center, believe in.

you know, freedom, equality, human rights, you name it. You know, this is a country that stands against all these things and actually executes people and gouges out the eyes of people who stand up for these things in Iran itself. So to see people on the streets of London or New York or any big city in the West, you know, supporting Iran and even holding up banners of the Ayatollah is just absolute insanity to me. You know, I think also what frustrates me is

You don't have to say, I like what Israel is doing in Gaza, but therefore I have to like Iran. It's odd that they think they have to lump those in. Yeah, it's the weird sort of – looking at it like it's some kind of football game, some sort of college football game where, you know, if you hate – I don't know if you hate –

team that you support, the team that is your local rival, then you must support the other side. I call it the Star Warsification of warfare as well, where people kind of assume that the smaller guy, like the rebel, is always the good guy. We've seen a lot of that over the last two years or so as well, where people just assume that because somebody is pushing against somebody bigger, they must be the good guy in the conflict.

Jeremy, let me ask you something. You served in Iraq, I believe, and you guys were our largest coalition partner in Iraq. So I assume you lost friends to Iranian IEDs or other ways of influence. How does it feel for British people?

citizens as well to side with Iran for someone who has lost people to Iran and also for your own government to repeatedly not to side with Iran necessarily but to have a policy of appeasement toward Iran to just get along yeah it's concerning you know I never served in Iraq but I did lose friends in Iraq and also I did a tour in Afghanistan with the Green Berets I was with your army for six months

And we were doing helicopter interdictions down in the desert in the south of Helmand province. And we were intercepting Iranian explosives all the time coming across the desert from Iran into Afghanistan. So, you know, I think sometimes it's politicians. I understand that there is politics to play. And I understand in the UK that the government is worried about certain sections of their electorate who have been very off-put by the UK's support for Israel in the past.

But there comes a moment, I think, where politics have to move to one side. And, you know, any leader worth their salt needs to say this is wrong. And I morally take a stand against it. And whilst we do have politicians, certainly in Western Europe, who are obsessed with de-escalation and obsessed with the kind of diplomacy is the only route.

to achieving policy outcomes. And that's partly because we're stung by the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, where we didn't get the outcomes that we wanted. But, you know, we have to accept that war is not a bug within international relations. It's a feature. It's always going to be there. And there are times and there are wars that need to be fought. And we have to have that moral clarity when we do that to say we are fighting these bad people for this reason. And that is the end of the matter. And there should be no room for moral equivocation over it.

You wrote another piece called Ceasefire for Now, talking about – it's a temporary ceasefire. Trump calls it the 12-day war. I always love how he is quick to tag things with a name, which make it easy to remember. What are your thoughts on this ceasefire? My two cents are –

I think Iran behaves itself for the next three years while Trump's in office. And then I think they pop up again. That's my two cents. So will the Trump administration and will our allies like England be really watching them to make sure they can't rebuild, you know, or pursue their nuclear weapons? What are your thoughts on the ceasefire? Because it is temporary. There's no permanency here. Yeah, I agree completely. And like you say, I think

As a sort of minimum time frame, it's going to be the duration of Trump's remainder of time in the White House. But the Iranian regime is not going to change its philosophy or underlying religious basis because Donald Trump told them to. You know, this is a part of the world where people traditionally take a very long game. And it's one of those kind of disadvantages of democracy that we work in electoral cycles with.

where these dictatorships can just think in terms of generations because they know they don't have an electorate to answer to. And I can see, you know, Iran trying to rebuild in secrets. Even today, the Israelis admitted that they know there is 60% enriched uranium floating around Iran still. And of course, that's a very difficult target to strike because the second you hit it, you cause a radioactive fallout, which is no good for anyone. And I don't think it's something we should be doing, frankly.

The people of Iran are as much victims of the regime as anyone else are and we don't want to make their lives any harder than it needs to be. But on the flip side, I think Israel is certainly going to continue these kind of subversive activities within Iran itself to try and see if maybe regime change is an option. There's a long way to go. We didn't see any of the warnings and indicators that we would look for in regime change over the last 12, 14 days.

But I think the regime is fragile. The regime does have vulnerabilities. And if Israel, with support from the West, can emphasize those vulnerabilities and give support to the people of Iran as they try and work a way to overthrow the mullahs, then that's the way forward. And of course, in terms of monitoring what they're doing, I'm sure the Israelis will be watching them with a laser focus.

We had Thomas Groban from the Wall Street Journal a couple years ago. He's on the show often. And he made a point about the Ukraine-Russian war. I asked him the question. So how does this end? And his comment was, someone has to win. Now, as a gentleman who's been three tours in Afghanistan, a man who's been carrying a rifle for a living for a while, do you believe that's true regarding this? That, you know, right now, all we've done is sort of take, I mean...

Iran obviously was inflicted. They were punished. They were set back to some degree. I think we can agree on that. But does the Iran menace stop until it's defeated? I mean, can you negotiate a way with it that they'll join civilized world and be normal human beings over there? No, I don't think the war is over until the regime falls. I think they will always keep fighting.

Their insane religious philosophy where they think the Mahdi is going to come back as soon as the state of Israel falls and that's that's the focus of everything they do is this belief in the Mahdi returning and that's not going to stop. So the only answer is regime change in Iran, but it's how we do it so that we don't repeat the mistakes that we've seen around the Middle East over the last 20 years where we create a vortex and then somebody even worse or a situation even worse develops.

And that's the real trick here. And it's going to take time. There's no quick solution. And I think when we look at this, victory and defeat aren't necessarily helpful terms. I think of it in terms of achieving strategic goals or not achieving strategic goals. And at the moment, the strategic goal of regime change in Iran is not completed, and it needs to be. So you're in England, correct?

Well, right now I'm in Ireland. So we see in America on TV, especially in social media, you see all these protesters in favor of Gaza and Iran and so forth. Would you say that the United Kingdom is more in favor of Iran and the Palestinians than Israel? Or is it just simply loud voices saying,

dominating the news. If I may also follow up on that, we see a lot of what Chuck is mentioning in London and among the recent immigrant population. How much is that predominant among the non-recent immigrant population, those who have traced their ancestry back to England and especially out of London?

I think we see a lot of people, both white and from immigrant populations, on the protests in London. But I do think it is the noisy fringe who make themselves heard disproportionately, very much as it is in America. And actually, I think if you asked 90% of people in the UK what they thought of this, they probably don't care.

They probably think it's sad that the kids have died in Gaza and isn't that awful. But, you know, these people have mortgages to pay and children to get to school and they don't have time to obsess over yet another war in the Middle East because it's not as if we've been short of those over the last 20 years. So I think really it's the it's the extreme fringes who are making the most noise.

but it has created a very toxic atmosphere in London particularly but I don't live in London I live outside of London and you never see any mention of it frankly when you're out in public it's a very unusual thing to see

You know, it's one of those things you see in America, too. If you're a lefty, you love protesting. You're very radical about even how you conduct politics. But if you're conservative, you're more cautious, low voltage about politics. You're not going to go to every rally. Well, Andrew made the best point, which makes him one of the smartest guests we've had on, is that people have lives.

They have mortgages. They have kids they've got to take to soccer. They've got a life to do. So Andrew, as we're wrapping up here, tell our folks how they follow you and how they reach you and so forth. Yeah, for sure. So if you care about the deep thinking, Substack is the place to go. That's Mr. Andrew Fox on Substack. If you want jokes and hot takes, it's X, which is Mr. Andrew Fox.

Or my website is andrewfox.online. Quickly, what show are you binging right now? What show are you binging right now? Any show on streaming you're binging? Ray Donovan. Ray Donovan. Isn't Ray Donovan great? Have you been through the whole thing yet? Yeah, I'm loving it. We're on series three. Love it. Oh, wait till the end. Andrew Fox, thank you for joining us. We hope to join us again sometime in the future. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back. All right. Imagine this. You're running for president. Yes, president. Yes, president.

What's the first thing you need? Well, besides the million dollar fundraising, you need to secure your web domain. You need your name, .vote. Easy to remember, straight to the point, and a direct link to your campaign. No, but seriously, whether you're getting out to vote or convincing people that yes, you can fix the potholes on Main Street, a .vote domain helps you stand out. It's not just a website, it's a call to action.

Head over to GoDaddy.com or Name.com, type in your name .vote and boom, you're ready to make a lasting impact. Get started today with your .vote web address.

Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

digital security, and total freedom. And if you use the code BATTLEGROUND at checkout, you get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month of service after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit 4freedommobile.com to learn more.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're going to get right off to it. Our first guest of the segment is Chris Fenton. He is a film producer, USC professor, go Trojans, and author of Feeding the Dragon. He recently wrote a piece, which is how we discovered him, on Real Clear Politics, why this lifelong Democrat voted for Trump. And you can find him on X at The Dragon Feeder. It's a cool name. Welcome, Chris.

Hey, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure and I'm excited to meet you both over video. Well, so I want to start the first thing. You just finished wrapping up a film in North Carolina called Bad Counselors. And since we're all good capitalists here at the station, tell us a little bit about it so you can earn a buck. I understand a lot of money is going to summer camps and so forth, but tell us about the movie. Promote it.

Oh yeah, well we actually made a deal with Sticker Mule, which is an e-comm platform to sell merchandise and all the profits from that are going towards sending underprivileged kids to summer camp. I don't know if any of you guys have gone to summer camp. Oh, it's great. Yeah.

I spent three years in the mountains of North Carolina back when I was a kid, and we actually shot this film in North Carolina, and we're doing some of it in Nashville, too. It's essentially a fish-out-of-water comedy starring two young stars coming off of sort of the Disney and Amazon platforms, and we have guys like Chris Klein in there that you would recognize from American Pie and Missy Pyle, etc.,

And what's great about this movie is that we decided when we started this company, Loam Entertainment, that we're really going to try to create American-made content for all Americans. So this movie has got something for everyone. There's no political bias in it whatsoever. It's just a feel-good piece of entertainment. It's going to come to theaters in 2026. It's called Bad Counselors.

Briefly, before we get into your article, I was watching a video clip on you. Was it ABC or CBS? ABC, yeah. ABC about the film industry and why we're shooting so much overseas. And, you know, Vancouver seems to be a hot spot and then Eastern Europe. And explain to people basically why is that happening? Because we all just think as we shot in L.A., as God intended it to do. What's going on there?

Yeah, the real problem is you have a bunch of different factors that come into play. Number one is you have these federal incentive programs or these national incentive programs across the world that are drawing our productions there because they're providing huge rebates, huge subsidies

huge economies of scale in order to bring these massive $200 million plus productions to these countries. They're building sound stages, they're giving us all kinds of breaks in order to get the access to those sound stages.

They've trained crews and above the line personnel. Actually, we did that and created our own competition around the world. And they're taking advantage of that because we can actually shoot movies for a real efficient price.

On top of that, we have big currency issues where, for instance, you get $1.38 in Canada versus $1 here. Or you have various other places like South Africa where their currency is quite a bit weaker even compared to Canada. So you can shoot all over the world. We're trying to figure out a way to combine

with these state incentives, right? North Carolina has a 25% rebate that helps keep productions here in the United States of America. If we can do a federal program that would help complement that and bring these, um,

around the world back to a scale that we can start to evaluate and keep these movies here and keep the television programming here. It's not just about California. It's really about the United States. So let me ask you this quick question. I don't want to go on. You said a 25% rebate. Explain to our audience what does that mean? That's just like tax credits. What does a 25% rebate mean for you?

Yeah. So the goal for North Carolina is for us to employ people there in the state. Right. If we employ, say, five million dollars worth of salaries, we would get a 25 percent rebate on that five million dollars spend that would then go into keeping costs down for the budget.

The reason that we like that is obviously we can make we can spend five million dollars, but actually get back, you know, one point two five or whatever that number is. It's a little early in the morning. It's very it's very smart for us in Hollywood. Now, the big issue for the US is.

Does this pay off? Right. And if you look at it from the Trump perspective of trying to maintain manufacturing here in the United States of America, making a movie is the same thing as making shoes or automobiles. It's the same factor that he's trying to protect, which is American jobs, American labor and this ability to control our economy in a more production capacity.

Thank you for the explanation. Did you ever watch the show Dirty Rock with Alec Baldwin? Of course, yeah. Remember the one where they had the tax credits from Connecticut for the horror movie and it was by the Tourism Council and they felt the murder was not a good reflection of Connecticut values? Yeah.

Well, by the way, when we would do things in China, for instance, we were heavily patrolled to make sure anything in China was perfect. Yeah, why not? All right. So we got about three minutes left in this segment and we'll go over the next one as well. But you wrote this article on Real Clear Politics, why this lifelong Democrat voted for Trump. And I'm sure you got disinvited to a lot of Christmas parties when you put this out. Tell me about it.

Yeah, it was. Well, my business is heavy leaning left. And I've been a Democrat my whole life. And quite frankly, I feel like I'm the same political principled person that I have been my whole life. I just feel like the party has gone way left, too far left for me.

And if I looked at essentially the two candidates that were available to vote on, I really felt like Donald Trump was the better of the two. And quite frankly, there were a lot of things that I agreed with him on that felt pretty democratic over the last 20 years. So our last 200 years, I should say. So, yeah, I'm proud.

Probably I'm going to have to change my affiliation registration card out here in California. I got to get around to doing that. But I do feel like we made the right decision, a lot of us who did this. And I came out of essentially the closet to say that I did it. I know a lot of others over private dinners have told me the same. And I think we're feeling a little more protected in saying it out loud. Just a minute here, Sheik. Let me ask you this. I don't understand why it's so left-wing.

I mean, you are truly an emeritocracy in Hollywood. I mean, everybody there gets started, starves. They're sleeping on the couch most of the time unless they're son of Hollywood royalty or something. Why is it so left when it's such a capitalistic system? I mean, you make money when it makes money, right? You struggle to get where you're at. I mean, it's all these principles of the American dream. You work hard, you can achieve something. So it's always boggled me. Why is that?

Yeah, I mean, it is art, but it's the commerce comes first. You can't keep these studios open if you're not making money. So capitalism and the ability to essentially find investors to invest in these very expensive forms of content is crucial. And you could argue,

I don't know if that's Republican or Democrat. It's probably center and very American overall. And protecting free speech and protecting the rights of artists to essentially express their opinions through their content. That's a huge sort of pro-America type of stance, too. So I don't know how it veered that far. And I, you know, I'm not here to criticize anybody about it. I'm just saying that's the way I feel. And it was the right decision for me.

Chris, how can people find you as we take a break here real quick? Where do they find you on social media? Yeah, I'm at the Dragon Feeder on Twitter. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram. And I'm actually going to try a couple of Twitter spaces this weekend because my daughter and wife are out of town. So I might have a little bit of time to get vocal out there and hear some opinions. Folks, we're with Chris Fenton. We'll be right back to carry on our conversation. This is Breaking Battlegrounds.

Old Glory Depot isn't just a website. It's a movement. Featuring unapologetically conservative shirts and gear, we're proud to deliver 100% American-made products. From premium materials to bold designs, every purchase supports American jobs and celebrates our country. Show your pride, support your values, and shop oldglorydepot.com because patriotism never goes out of style.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're going to continue our conversation with Chris Fenton. He is a producer. He is a professor. He is an author. He is an investor. He is a fighter. We'll talk some other time when we come back on about your fights with Wall Street. That's a big good – in fact, you should do a movie on that. Let me ask you this. So when you come out with an article like this, and like you said, I think Trump does have a lot of old-school Democrat principles in what he does.

Does it hurt business? I mean, have you felt the ramifications of that? You know, honestly, the part that hurt business the most was writing my book in 2020. About China? About China? That hurt business? Yeah.

Yeah. So that wasn't a business issue with China. It's actually here in Hollywood where people were afraid to speak up about some of the issues that our reckless form of capitalism was creating between the two countries. So that was a bigger one. I think, you know, I felt...

Like there's plenty of people that are closet Trump supporters in this town. And I said it from the heart. I wasn't criticizing anybody that voted opposite me. I just said, here are the issues that were important to me. This is why I voted for him. You can disagree all you want because that's American. But let's just be civil about it and have the discourse that makes us Americans and makes us remember that we're all citizens of this country.

So tell me quickly here more about your book. I remember it coming up. I remember people talking about it, which is always a good sign for a book when they're talking about it. What has changed since you wrote the book about China and the U.S. relations?

Well, the biggest thing that happened was over since the book came out through COVID and to today, Hollywood, which I was talking about, was going to happen to them. We lost a major market in China. We had as much as 80 percent of every dollar that came into that market fell.

10, 15 years ago, and now we're down to about 5%. We taught them how to fish in order to sell them fish, and now they catch their own fish. And I warned that the same thing was going to happen with every other industry. And we're starting to see that more and more. In fact, the automotive business has been extremely vocal about it. Nike has been extremely vocal about it. There's all kinds of competitors, whether you're an

auto BYD that's now kicking Tesla's butt to Li Ning and Anta that's, you know, the fiercest competitor to Nike. We created those companies. We taught them process. We swapped IP and tech in order to get that access to the market. And now it's killing us. What do you think the United States should do about China, especially on a business level?

Well, the biggest thing we got to remember is we don't want to go to war with China. Correct. Nor does China want to go to war with us. So we want to avoid kinetic conflict. We have to come to grips with the fact that I don't think Xi, nor most experts, is going anywhere. When you have a propaganda system that only has one form of news and information for its masses, they think the system works for them. They're not going to overthrow Xi.

China's not going anywhere either. They're becoming a huge awakened dragon. Right. So we need to realize that we're never going to agree them with. I call them Fenton's five forces. We're not going to agree with them on national security issues, politics or human rights issues. But we can work with them culturally and commercially. All we got to do is put patriotism before capitalism.

I want to go – we have about one minute left here, but you wrote another piece called A Secure Border and Aggressive Tariffs Go Together. Why do they go together?

well the fact is all borders do is is protect essentially cheap labor from coming in and taking labor away labor opportunities away from the american worker offshoring um and the way that that we were essentially moving our manufacturing complex offshore was to source that cheap labor a different way so you either bring in the cheap labor

or you go source it in other markets. So it's the exact same thing. We're just trying to protect American workers from that phenomenon that has really decimated our middle class. Well, you and I are both old enough that that used to be a premier policy of the Democrats.

Their premier policy all the way up to, I would say, probably 2012 or so. Yeah, it's very recent that this has changed. Yeah, no, I mean, I remember Gephardt and everybody just saying, this is what you need to do. The New York mayor's race. Do you think the gentleman who is now the Democrat nominee, do you think he reflects the Democratic Party of the people you know?

It definitely doesn't. I mean, I can see why he surged the way he did. I mean, we have massive inequality issues here that are, quite frankly, occurring because we decimated the middle class. Right.

was a major influence in all of this and influencing under 40-year-old voters to vote for him. That's amazing. Well, Chris Fenton, thank you so much for joining us. And tell folks again where they can reach you and follow you and get your wisdom. Yeah, and I'll keep circulating you guys. Your show is fantastic. Thank you. I listen to that on Apple. Thank you. And folks, remember, he's got a movie coming out, Bad Counselors. We want to support American-made films, so get off your hiney, go buy some popcorn and watch that movie. Chris? Chris?

Enjoy the surf today, buddy. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Thank you. Bye-bye. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back. In today's digital world, standing out is more important than ever. Whether you're running for office, leading a cause, or hosting a vote for the cutest pet in town, you need a web domain that's simple, memorable, and action-oriented. You need a .vote web domain. It's clear, impactful, and establishes a lasting presence for your campaign.

Don't wait. Head to GoDaddy.com or Name.com, type in your name.vote, and get started today. Because after all, every pet deserves a web address that's as special as they are.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our next guest is Sarah Hunt. She is the president of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, and she focuses on climate advocacy, technology, and democracy, crafting solutions to some of our nation's toughest challenges. Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you for having me. So tell us about the Rainey Center first, and who is this Mr. Joseph Rainey?

The Rainey Center is a think tank and leadership community of conservative federal, state, and local elected officials. I founded the Rainey Center in 2018, so we just had our seventh year anniversary. I went full-time in June of 2018. Very exciting. The Rainey Center works to advance freedom, equality, and a more perfect union where the American dream is for everyone.

That is our core mission and something we believe in deeply. And as part of that mission, we help cultivate emerging national leaders who participate in our leadership development program. These are the elected officials and policymakers with whom we work.

And it's wonderful. I'm actually here in Arizona. We have a conference this week where we're bringing several of them from around the country here to connect and discuss important policy issues. Joseph Rainey himself is an extraordinary American hero. I had seed funding to found the Rainey Center, and I wanted to name it after an American of no...

that represented what we wanted to achieve, you know, the American dream being for everyone, you know, this country being for everyone and freedom and equality being so important. And also these emerging national leaders that we were already working with. And he was born enslaved in South Carolina. He and his father worked as barbers to essentially buy the family out of enslavement.

He founded a business. He was a merchant, did that in Bermuda because that was easier to do there than it was in the deep south for an African-American in those days. And after the Civil War, he came back. You know, he'd made his money and he decided to do public service. He ran for South Carolina legislature. He ran for Congress. He won. He became the first African-American to serve in the U.S. House.

and just had an extraordinary career. How long did he serve in the House? He served, I think, four terms. That's remarkable. Yeah. I can't imagine the conversations he had back then in Congress for eight years. Well, what's interesting, too, is that

Because of segregation, he couldn't live near the Capitol. So he had to commute in something like 20 miles every time he had to go to Congress to vote. But he did it out of public service. And what an extraordinary sacrifice. And I heard his story.

And I thought, wow, this is an incredible American. And I was shocked to discover nothing was named after him, not even in elementary school anywhere. Why do you think that is? I mean, that's a remarkable accomplishment. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You know, there's a lot of things from Reconstruction that we have forgotten. Now he's got a foundation. Now he's got the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy. Congress passed a resolution saying,

In his honor, Jim Clyburn and Tim Scott did it together to honor the 150th anniversary of his seating. They named the post office in his hometown, Georgetown, South Carolina, after him. South Carolina recently did a resolution in his honor. And there's even a...

in the U.S. Capitol named after him now, the Joseph Rainey room. I tease the lobbyists for our C4. I say, do your other clients have rooms in the Capitol named after them? No. Which is a joke because obviously it's named after Joseph Rainey. We're just part of his legacy. Yeah.

We wanted to honor a great American in naming the organization. His legacy is so much more than that and so much more than our work, and we certainly don't own it. His legacy, like our work, is for all Americans. It belongs to all of us. His inspiring life journey of service and industry. What an American story. So you talked about people fulfilling the American dream, and I saw a poll this morning actually saying,

where a majority of Americans think the American dream is out of reach. What would you tell somebody who's 26 and said, well, American dream is a folklore. It doesn't exist for me. How would you define it and what would you tell them? First of all, thank you for the plug for the poll. We do polling at the Rainey Center. We have an in-house pollster. And last year we decided we would start polling annually where Americans felt about the American dream because that's part of our mission.

It is unfortunate that so many Americans...

are in a state of malaise about the country, the morale. The poll was done last fall right before the election, so morale was low. I'm interested what the changes are this year. Probably for young males it's up a little bit based on polling I see now. I think it is. Women are pretty depressed. Yes. Especially white women. And also military recruitment is up, which suggests to me that... Yes. Which would be primarily young men, although hats off to all of the great women who serve. Yes.

So it's probably up. But what would you define? What would you tell? What is the American dream? The American dream is this idea and this promise that if you work hard, you'll be given a fair shake.

to get ahead and build a quality of life for you and not just for you but intergenerationally in your family. And there's so much in the modern sense that that encompasses such as home ownership, the ability to start a business and that we have a

legal system in a society that helps enable that, that things are going to be fair, that regardless of your gender, race, religion, or background, you will have a fair shake in society to fulfill your human potential. I mean, to me, that's the American dream. And what I would tell a young person now is stop doom-scrolling.

Yes, yes, yes. Stop doom scrolling, get out there and meet people and work hard. Well, you saw the doom scrolling with the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. And, you know, it's all World War III, World War III, World War III. And then if you talk to anybody who was not involved on Twitter, and Twitter is the main culprit of this, obviously, how do you feel about it? Oh, it needed to be done. I think this is a good thing for the world. And it was interesting versus that versus Twitter. Right.

Like, oh my gosh, we're ending World War III. Millions of Americans will die. Yada, yada, yada. One of my favorite things that I do is I get a print newspaper. Yeah, I love them. And what's great about it is...

You're seeing how somebody else has sorted it. An algorithm hasn't sorted it, although heaven only knows what they're doing when they're laying out newspapers. Right, right, right. But it allows you to go through and read things without immediate commentary from other humans, which I think is helpful.

I, you know, if you looked at experts and what they said about it, even experts who've maybe been critical of the president in the past, most of them thought it was a well-executed strike that achieved the outcome so far that hopefully we wanted, which is peace, a tentative peace in the Middle East. Brett McGurk, who is a top counterterrorism expert who served in

Several presidents of both parties said that he thought it was well done and was what needed to be done. I don't claim to be a counterterrorism expert, so I'm not going to comment further. Well, you probably have more qualifications than most of the people on Twitter commenting on it. Well, I'm on X2, so I don't know. So you are an expert. Put it in your bio, terrorism expert. I'm an expert in counterterrorism, vaccines, China, Russia.

Higher education, Medicaid, anything hot. I'm an expert. Let me bring up something you are an expert on. So the tax credits and the big, beautiful bill for green energy.

I am, this show is, regarding energy, you just do it all. You become the best on all of it, right? I mean, you don't rely on one. I mean, it's silly to say we're going to lessen this, but I think you do it all. A lot of this new energy stuff has to be subsidized to begin with. It's the way it works because it's new. Right. But tell me why, what is your position on them talking about eliminating these green credits in the big, beautiful bill?

I have a multifaceted position, which I will distill down. But what I would say, ultimately, I'm aligned with you. We need everything. We're in an AI arms race, predominantly with China. We're in an electricity war. AI takes a lot of electricity. We've all seen the statistics that probably studies Google is funding that say Google searches take 10 times less electricity than an AI search, than a Grok search or a chat TPT search. But...

It's the military and the intelligence aspects of all of this that are very important. And we cannot afford to lose to China. And they are deploying all kinds of electricity so they can develop AI. And we need to do that, too. And we need to address permitting. We need to honestly check our preferences at the door. There's no such thing.

As conservative or liberal energy. It's an electron. And we all use it. And we all use it. And if it came from, if it is reliable and affordable, if it came from a solar panel or it came from a nuclear plant or it came from a clean coal plant, that's great. We are in an energy crisis in terms of the AI arms race. We need it all.

And historically, we've always provided tax incentives and support to energy. And you know why we do it. It's for national security and quality of life, because for our national defense and for the quality of life of the American people. And so people in this beautiful state of Arizona don't die of heat stroke. You know, they need to be able to afford their air conditioning. You've all seen the stories here in Arizona of an older person whose electricity got turned off and then they died in a heat wave.

It happens, I think, at least once a year we see that. And it's tragic. So we need affordable, reliable electricity for human quality of life and health here, but also for our national defense. And it's so fundamental to the economy and our security. We have subsidized oil and gas for over 100 years. Guess what? I'm fine with that. We subsidized, made massive investments in fracking technology through the DOE.

Which people don't realize. Yeah. And how long did we subsidize that to get that technology, which has been a game changer for the United States? A geopolitical and security game changer. I want to say they started the research and started subsidizing it at DOE in the 80s. And it wasn't until the early 2000s that we really saw the benefit. One of the things they say about energy innovation, you know, it's hardware. This is not software as a service. This is actual technology.

This is, I like to say, I believe in science. I believe in material science. This is material science. This is electrons. And you need patient money. And the reason, unlike many other areas, the reason the government needs to intervene is

Is national security. Is the economy. Everything in our economy depends on affordable, reliable energy. So what is in the tax – looking at some of these credits for green, what should Congress not take out? What credit should they not take out?

get rid of that they're considering? So look, I'm a we need it all person. Sure. I don't think one of the things they're doing that I think I disagree with is they're treating different types of energy differently. Yeah, sure. I think they should pick a date, a date certain that applies to all forms of energy that are receiving these tax credits and say, this is the date, this is the tiered phase out.

It's important to everyone. We understand that businesses made reasonable investments made on this. We're not going to shove people off a cliff. There's a couple of them. I mean, there's one of them for hydrogen, which expires at the end of this year, which is going to bankrupt businesses and people who've made investments. If you gave them one more year, it might not. And that's a technology that has a long way to go but could be instrumental in so many ways. Yeah. And we could be a real leader in that. Absolutely. Especially geologic hydrogen.

I think – so I think they should – look, I don't think we should necessarily have these tax credits forever. We have a national deficit. You and I have discussed this before. It's alarming. But it's not going to help the national deficit if we are yanking the rug out from under energy companies right now in this war with China over the AI arms race. Well, our national debt –

A big part of it, at least half, is going to have to be eliminated through growth. Yes. And we can be a major exporter of growth through energy. And that's happened. No one 25 years ago would have thought the U.S. would be a net exporter of hydrocarbons, and we are. Yeah. So that's something people need to realize, that this part of this –

retiring some, not all, this national debt is through growth, economic growth. You can't do economic growth without energy. We can export energy because Europe's not going to do it. Nope, we're not. And this is why I look at it and say, hey, oh, EV tax credits, that's a pretty mature industry. Do we really need them? No. Phase those out. And even phase out some of these others, but

Give companies a reasonable year or two or three. First of all, it's not just their reasonable investment expectations based on what the government did.

It's also permitting. That's something we have to address. You can hire people. You can start the process, but you can't get your permits to build things quickly. It takes too long. Sarah, how do people find you at the Rainey Center? You can find us at raineycenter.org. You can also visit raineyfreedom.org for our C4's latest updates. Russ Walker, another great friend of yours, is our C4 executive director.

or I'm on X and other social media as at Sarah Ehunt 01, or you can find the Rainey Center's account at Rainey Center. Folks, stay with us. Sarah will be on the bonus portion for the podcast. Again, thanks for joining us. Visit BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. Have a darn good weekend. I say this every election cycle, and I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2025.

If you're running for office, the first thing on your to-do list should be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.vote domain from GoDaddy.com, you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, the bonus edition of the podcast. We're back with this continuing our conversation with Sarah Hunt. She is the president of the Joseph Rady Center for Public Policy. It's a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, though she's from New Mexico originally, and her pop's still out there in New York.

Of course, always we have the lovely Kylie Kipper in the room with us today. Always in here. Always. Always. She lives in here. I feel right at home. I'm a desert rat. Yes, you should. Yes, you should. We're in an energy race with China. Is that a fair assessment? Yes. So what does – if we do not extend some of these tax credits for green – and like you said, I agree with you on the EVs. We're down that road. They don't need any more. Belly up and do it right or not, right? Right.

What does that mean for us if we start limiting some of these green credits in our race with China, which is obviously, I think they're the leader in EV cars now, are they not? They are. Yeah, so what does that mean? Tell our audience.

First of all, I want to say it's not just green, right? It's not just wind and solar. It's nuclear. It's hydrogen. It's hydropower. It's geothermal. There's an amazing geothermal facility just north of here in southern Utah. So bring up two things. Explain to our audience this. So talk about what this means for nuclear because most Republicans are like, I want nuclear, okay? So what do these tax breaks mean, these tax credits for nuclear? Because nuclear is expensive to build. Yes. Last time I checked, it's expensive. It is.

It makes it easier to build nuclear. It makes it less expensive to build nuclear. How so? So the way that these tax incentives work is they are essentially refundable. So when you are building your project, if you're pre-revenue, you can then sell the tax credits to

to people that have tax obligations, and then you get revenue that way. It's a way to raise non-dilutive funding to build the project and to get it done. So would this be a make or break if you wanted to build a nuclear facility? Yes, in some cases it is. Yeah. If they're not tied to Microsoft or Amazon or something, right? Yeah. That's a whole separate fun world.

And what's really interesting is the Senate bill and even the House bill, the House bill carves out nuclear. And the Senate bill treats nuclear, geothermal, and hydro differently from other, like hydrogen or wind or solar. But I'm...

I'm in the true all of the above category. I like to joke. I say, I don't think the government should pick winners and losers. It should just pick winners. Right? But we also, when we talk about... Sounds like a mother on every sports team. Exactly. And, you know, perfect for the Gen Z generation, the participation trophy. But...

When we talk about the tax credits and we talk about phasing them out, being fiscally responsible, we also shouldn't pick losers, especially not when we're in an AI arms race with China, which is an electricity war. We saw what just happened both in Iran and Russia, where drones were involved. That's all. Guess what? That's all AI. And it takes a lot of energy. It takes really good batteries to have...

have that kind of capability. We cannot afford from a kinetic perspective, much less a non-kinetic cyber warfare perspective, to not have the energy that we need to globally dominate in the AI arms race. And we need every single electron right now. One of the interesting facts is, and a variety of factors go into this, but right now,

What's ready to immediately deploy to the grid is solar plus batteries. There's more solar in the interconnection queue being held up by regulations and red tape right now than we have currently. It's built. It's ready to go onto the grid than we have currently deployed in the entire country.

So that's ready to... That's incredible. And we need all of that. We need it. And it's going to take longer to get nuclear plants built. Even right now, Chuck, did you know that it takes four and a half to five years to get a natural gas turbine because we can't manufacture them quickly enough? This is why the manufacturing tax credit needs to be dealt with appropriately too, because we've got to start making more of these things in the US. You can get...

a Birkin from your sales associate at Hermes faster than you can get a natural gas turbine. So if you wanted to build a good, traditional, conservative natural gas fired plant, you

then it's easier to get a Birkin. That's amazing. Because of the wait list for the turbine. So when you talk about phasing tax credits out, and there are incentives for clean coal, for clean fossil, for carbon capture, you have to think about those other factors. And there are already projects that are in process trying to get permits. They've ordered the wind turbine. They're not going to be able to be placed in service within two or three years.

Do I agree it's fiscally responsible to phase some of this out and make sure that when we're making investments, it's really an energy that is going to be affordable and reliable? Yes. But we need to do it in such a way that doesn't needlessly bankrupt businesses who've made reasonable investments. Give them a year or two at least. Right.

Because this was the law. And then two, let's not kneecap ourselves against China. China is deploying solar left and right. They're also deploying coal left and right. They're taking the everything approach. And they will supplement and subsidize absolutely everything. And we cannot afford to fall behind. You know, there's a national security imperative here, as well as a quality of life imperative here.

everyone in Arizona or the swamp of D.C., both are very hot places, appreciates. I like to joke and say I'm a woman of a certain age. I now think air conditioning is a human right. It is. Absolutely. I am appalled when we go places with no air conditioning. I'm like, what do you do here? How much? You just got back from Europe from a wedding. Was there air conditioning in the hotel and so forth? Yes, yeah, yeah. They had there, but it was a five-star hotel. But no, there's a lot of places in Europe. I mean, there's still a lot of homes that

in the San Diego area that were built in the 80s that don't have air conditioning. Well, when I visit my parents in Washington, they have air because we're from Arizona. So that was a normal thing for us to look for when purchasing a home. But other people do not have air. When they were renting, there was no air. It was you open the window. So when they have a 90 degree day, they think they're all dying. It's what's happening in Britain all the time, right? It's like 80 degrees. We're dying, right? Unfortunately, sometimes people do die. I know. Because it's so hot. Yeah.

Yeah. Kyla, you were talking about your privacy. Yes. When I was doing some research on you in the Rainey Center, I read a stat that said 80% of Americans' home surveillance records, home surveillance, just want to put that out there, is stored in China's data centers. Which is insane. We're so worried about China. We're talking about TikTok, but we're letting them store our home data? I was worried like ADT was watching me. I wasn't worried about it.

I don't even think about that. It's pretty. So, yeah, your home video. So what can we do? Your camera footage is over there. So we're worried about TikTok. Yeah.

We should be, yes. But we're not worried about 80% of Kylie's photos are in China? We should be. I'm concerned they're going to start stealing footage of my cats to make cat videos because my cats are adorable. And yes, it is alarming. And part of the problem is it's hard to build things here. But guess what? We're Americans. The answer is build, baby, build. And when we're allowed to do it, when the government's not getting in the way...

We do it. And we've got lots of wide open spaces to put data centers. We just need the power. We need energy to support these data centers to bring home as much of our data as possible as soon as possible. You know, this is, again, energy is always a national security issue. But given the energy intensive needs of artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence warfare alone,

We need a lot more. And it applies to this data storage issue. Well, that's scary and concerning. That is scary. I'm surprised we're not dealing with that as well.

Now we are. We're talking about it. We're talking about it. And I get it. I'm not I don't want to knock any of the companies that have to do that. They don't have the service here. Right. We have you know, this is something that President Trump is absolutely right about. We have offshored way too much. Yes. Way too much. Just on the just for the benefit of an extra couple percent profit.

generally, or more. And it looks like it's a Pyrrhic profit. We learned this during COVID. This drove it home, the supply chain crises during COVID. We couldn't get medicine because we don't make it here. We couldn't get all kinds of things. We couldn't get PPE because we don't make enough of it here. Yeah.

Let's go back as we're wrapping up our interview. Let's talk about the American dream. I want to go over some numbers of your polling here and then like to get your take on it. So 66% of American voters believe that the American dream has become less attainable. 20% of American voters believe that they have achieved the American dream and 26% believe their family has. So basically two thirds do not believe they have or will receive, you know, get the American dream.

40% of American voters say the American dream is out of reach, with young people most likely to agree. Would you say that latter number is why we have so many people under 30 saying they're socialists now, though they really don't know what it is?

I mean, is that part of why you're seeing that? I'm not a physician. I can't diagnose. I'm not qualified. People with... Yeah, I can't make diagnoses. That was a bad joke. Forgive me. I'm apologizing to my comms director right there. I think...

You know, one of the things that's really affecting young people is housing costs. Yes. And you wrote an op-ed about it in the Desert News with my dear friend Amelia Powers. So why don't you tell us about that?

Well, you know, I lived in Utah for three years during the pandemic because I'm a Mountain West girl and I loved it. And housing is very expensive there. It's a fast growing state and we're surrounded by mountains. So. And that's a good point to make. Folks, when you live in. So they have what's called the Wasatch Fronts, where you think Salt Lake goes to Provo up to Ogden, if you know anything about it. But it's basically between two mountains. It's basically like a Tupperware bowl in a lot of ways. So there is limit. I mean, I live in I have a place in Holiday, Utah. Yeah.

I mean, unless you're knocking down something, you're not getting a lot. No. Housing prices are very expensive, and that's affecting young people across the nation. One key component of the American dream is homeownership. Polling and our culture shows that time and time again. And what do we have now? We have 7% interest rates.

We have very unaffordable housing in Utah. And the subject of this op-ed is I want to say like 47% of Utah County is owned by the federal government. And it's not national parks. No. It's not wilderness areas. And that's what Mike Lee is trying to do. And he is getting his clock cleaned on it. Unfairly. And that is why Amelia and I decided to write this op-ed because the facts do matter.

And the land that his bill is trying to make eligible for sale, it's not Yellowstone, right? It's not Bryce Canyon. It's not Zion. It is checkerboard land that's adjacent to current development in places where the federal government owns way too much land out west. And we could build more housing in Utah, in Utah County, on land that is not environmentally sensitive. You've seen it. It's dirt and dust.

Well, I remember when I worked in Congress in the 90s, the Sierra Club would talk about public lands and they sent a picture basically of Lake Tahoe or Yosemite or Yellowstone. And it's not like all the sagebrush out west. It's flat and it's ugly. It's not like New Mexico. So how do we – so the public lands is one point of it. What's the other point of reducing the cost of the housing and getting more built? Right.

You know, permitting reform is part of that. Zoning reform is part of that. Which is all liberal chaos they've created. And now they complain about the cost of housing that they've made so expensive. And honestly, maybe bringing back some of the incentives for first-time homebuyers that they did after the first financial crisis, where they give you an $8,000 tax deduction or tax credit for your down payment.

I think I would support that, especially since we're in a transition time. When you enact good policy, it takes a while for it to take effect. It would also be great, I think, if the...

The federal government and the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates a little bit. The economy is doing well. I'm not entirely sure what's going on there. I do know that the president and Mr. Powell have some disagreement. Hopefully they can work that out. But the American people need relief and it's going to take a number of things. And what Senator Lee is doing on public lands is terrific.

Some of my friends in the conservative conservation movement don't agree with me on it, but I would encourage them all to really read the language and to see what he's actually doing. There is a democratic process and procedure. It requires lands to be nominated for sale by local communities, to be reviewed by state-level officials before they can be sold. And obviously communities are not going to nominate land that is important to their tourism.

for example. So, you know, read the language and get the facts for yourself. Again, look, X is fun and Facebook is fun and Instagram is fun. We just took some great conservative African-American influencers to Milford, Utah, I think population 7,500 in all of Beaver County, to visit a geothermal rig and a wind farm and then a solar utility scale solar installation that's

on Tammy. She's a county commissioner down there, her family ranch. And they loved it. You know, great. They made some great videos. Social media is fun, but definitely put your thinking cap on. Pick up a book, people. Yeah. And even when, even if you look at my tweets, I encourage people, you know, fact check me, think about it. I'm not always right, although I endeavor to be accurate.

And I think, you know, Amelia and I decided that we needed to do this because there was just so much false information about this legislation. As we sign off here, we're coming to the 4th of July next week. And, you know, it's the actual Independence Day, much to our progressive chagrin. What would Joseph Rainey think about America today, do you think?

I think that he, like many of us, would have mixed feelings. I think he would look and see that it is an unprecedented time of opportunity for all Americans of every background and demographic. And I think he would be incredibly proud of how far we've come as a country in terms of being fair and having civil rights for everyone and opportunity for everyone compared to when he was alive.

I also think he would be saddened by the fact that some of the polarization that he witnessed with the Civil War or the fact that, you know, honestly, a bunch of racists rigged his last election. That's why he didn't get reelected. I think he'd be saddened to see that we have that kind of deep political divide and distrust in our government. And I think he would be wondering about what do we do to help trust one another more and

What would, you know, sometimes you learn of people like him. And I love to sit in a room with a bunch of people who think America's best days are behind us. What do you think he would tell them? I don't know what he would tell them. But I do know that his life was the story of someone who was born enslaved and who became one of the most powerful people in the country, a member of the United States House of Representatives. And

I've had successes and failures and challenges and victories in my life. And what matters is looking forward. And just based on his resilience and his life story, I would guess that he might say that too. Don't get hung up on what's holding you back. Don't get hung up on your failures. Don't get hung up on your circumstances. Learn from them and do what you can to look forward. Just think about what you have to do to do the next right thing.

to help your family and your community. And he gave his life to that. And he, I mean, people, I think they tried to burn down his house. Oh, I'm sure. His family was threatened. Probably more than once. Absolutely. And through all of that, he continued to serve and do what he thought was right. And I hope that in my life, like him, I can continue to do that. And I think that's what he would tell people. Our best days are only behind us if we allow them to be.

Exactly. And I think maybe one way he would probably say the American dream is still real is that, as you said, we all have our failures. We all have our successes. But your failures in America are not a lifetime ban. It's not a lifetime sentence. And so you're allowed to get up.

dust off your pants and get at it again. And I think that's something that probably I wish we had more voices like that in the past, telling people like, yeah, times get scary. Yeah. But this is the American dream where you can go pursue it. And if you fall down, you get back up. And you know what, there's gonna be a lot of people cheering you. Just don't go to Twitter. Yeah, they might not cheer you on Twitter. And I think he would be

marvel and proud and think what great justice it is that we have two African-American Supreme Court justices. We have record African-Americans in the House and the Senate. The minority leader... Senator Tim Scott. Senator Tim Scott, Representative Hakeem Jeffries is the minority leader. We had an African-American president. I'm not saying that we don't have a long way to go in terms of making sure society is fair and provides equal opportunity to everyone.

But I think that from his vantage where he was in the 1860s and 70s, that he would be really proud that we've managed to come this far. Maybe a little disappointed we haven't come farther. Like, why didn't you do more? But I think that's pretty extraordinary. And I think it's something that all Americans should be proud of. Well, Sarah Hunt, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. We are the podcast portion of our show, Breaking Battlegrounds. We want to thank Sarah for coming on from the Rainey Center.

We're going to get to Kylie's Corner, fan favorite. But first, we have Shay back in the studio. Shay, since the strike...

from the Trump administration on the three nuclear facilities. What is the communication you've received from associates, family, friends in Iran about the war? Or is it 12-day war we call it or 11-day war? What is it? 12-day. 12-day war? The 12-day war, yeah. You know, I joke that the war created, returned people to COVID. Everybody went back to, extended families, be together, locked in the house. Right.

Except that this was a very happy COVID. During COVID, every time you heard that someone died, you would be upset. Now you would be very happy. Oh, he died too. Great. Communications was cut off for quite a few days. So you had to, you could not FaceTime people anymore. By the way, you did see the article in the Telegraph because they cut off power, how much the...

The pro-Scottish resistance tweets died like it went dark. So all these cyber farms are just doing malicious stuff all the time. Well, that's something we should at some point – some other point to talk about. It's a real serious issue. But anyway, what are their feelings about what happened? Yeah, so it was a blackout. I would get calls from different people in different houses all together, and I would be put on speakerphone just going through –

What's the rundown of the news over the past 24 hours? And on speakerphone, every time I mentioned, like, they hit this target and everybody in the back starts clapping, I love Israel, go to the Yahoo. And this guy was killed. Great, we love it. And this is what's happening in the background. Everybody's celebrating. All is this. But the regime's not gone. So now they're still under this evil regime.

You know, there is a saying I love. This is from a Russian czarist in 1907 warning about the coming revolution. By the way, there are other shows on Talk Radio quoting a 1907 czarist. But continue. The quote is, as a ruled regime perishes, not because of the strength of its enemies, but the uselessness of its defenders. Right.

Interesting. And, you know, Iranians hate the regime, but the regime has enough people with guns to kill as many as it takes. It's always going to work that way, right? Yeah. As much as people think America is on the verge of collapse sometimes, like…

Dude, there's 365 million guns. They ain't collapsing anywhere, right? It's just, you know. So, yeah, well, it's interesting to see. I hope for the best I ran. You know, we had a guest on earlier and we talked about the old Thomas Grove quote, which he's backtracked a little bit on, but I'm going to stick to it because I think it makes sense. You know, it's over when someone wins.

And it doesn't win until this regime is gone. And I don't know how that happens unless the people – unless we start funneling illegally into the country guns and weapons and things that there becomes a real true civil war. You know, we as Americans have a problem. This is bipartisan that we're not interested in winning anymore. No, no, no. If you think about everything since Vietnam, every war of those would have won. You just said we're just going for your unconditional surrender.

If you had done that, you would never hear America's static or stuck in the mud, right? That there's a stalemate. There's no stalemate with America. If we want you gone, you're gone. But we try to play by these rules. And I think we need to restart stussing. If we're going to go into something, we just simply say, we're coming and you're gone. You have made that decision yourself. You know, we've been in several wars and other competitions since Vietnam. Mm-hmm.

How many times have you heard the stated objective to be when you ask, what are your objectives with this country? We want to contain China. We want to do this. We want to turn a corner. How many times have you heard, we want to win? Never. Never. And I blame Democrats because they never like to win. All right. Well, Jeremy, T is up for Kylie's Corner here, the fan favorite.

So come and take a spin.

I'm listening. I like the harmony. Thank you. Thank you. All right, what do you got for us this week? You're back. I'm back. And what happened while you were gone? I know, I know. The huge thing was... The thing is Reed. Yeah, Karen Reed was found not guilty. I do laugh that...

The people who did the documentary are just like, eh, we're done. My mom actually texted me a link to the X account when I found out. And so I was in Italy and I announced it to the table. I was like, oh my gosh, guys, Karen Reed is found not guilty. And the table next to us was like, you know Karen Reed? We're from Massachusetts. And I was like, tell us more. And they said,

In quote, there's four of them. She is innocent because there is not one law enforcement agency in Massachusetts that's not corrupt. You know, look, we're actually our firm has ran back the blue to support cops. Yes, I'm very pro. We're very pro police. Massachusetts is another story. But there are some law enforcement agencies in this great country of ours and throughout the world that really need to clean up their act.

Yes. And I think it sounds like the wonderful state of Massachusetts is one of those states. Well, because the state of Massachusetts basically has no – like everyone has been in office since the 80s. Like the attorney general, everyone there has – Well, this is a perfect example. There was a great politician our friend Tim Mooney knows, and he was a lobbyist, and he was involved with Carter and Roy – you know, Tip O'Neill. And he said he stopped drinking, so Tim went to have dinner with him, and he had like four beers.

And he goes, I thought you said you stopped drinking. He goes, I have. It's just beer. And I just think that's how they do everything out there, just splitting hairs, right? They're not serious about it. No, no. But a couple things that the jurors had said because my mom and I got in a little tiff about this because she thinks she's guilty. Oh, your mom thinks she's guilty? Oh, yeah. She said –

In quotes, she's like, OJ was also found not guilty. Well, you know, if you were a Democrat family, you would be banned from Thanksgiving for differing from your parents. Yes, but she did not believe in participation trophies. So we are not. But juror number 12 said, I went in leaning towards guilty, but after reviewing over 200 pieces of evidence, I did not find one thing I was looking for.

Juror number 11 said, at first, I thought Karen Weed was actually maybe guilty of manslaughter. But after weeks passed, I realized there was just too many holes that couldn't be filled. And there was nothing that put her on the scene besides dropping him off. I am 100% convinced she was not responsible. Juror number 4 said, I don't believe an SUV collided with John O'Keefe. So I don't believe she actually did it. I can't say if there's a cover-up or not. All I know is there's too many holes in the investigation. There's a couple more that said this. So...

The real people that failed this family is the investigation and these officers that failed to even – they'll never have an answer because of this investigation. So the question is then are they incompetent or complicit?

Maybe both. Yeah, I guess they're not mutually exclusive, are they? No. You can be incompetent and complicit. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, she's off. I think it's a little bit of both. Yes. She's off. She's done. And she's a – We'll see what she does next. She's probably working on another movie. Let's be real. She's a folk hero. I mean – I think she's enjoying it. Mackenzie Semerat, who doesn't follow a lot of this stuff, she was all on this. She was justice for Karen. Justice for Gary, just like my dog. Yeah.

But yeah, I have other things to talk about today. So this one actually happened in Arizona and it has to do with children, which is really scary. But four fifth grade girls, so four fifth grade girls, they're 10 and 11, plotted to kill a classmate.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. So they assigned roles to each other. One would bring the knife. One would do the stabbing. One would keep watch. And then the other would write the note because their idea was to lure this kid into the bathroom, stab him to death, and then make it look like he took his own life. And was it girls who were doing this? These are four girls.

that are 10 and 11 years old. Wow. And they even figured out that they needed to avoid the fingerprints on the knife. So they had planned to wear gloves, all of them.

I have to say, I give them credit for being good capitalists and delivering division of labor. Delegation stories. Yeah. And the girls all said there was just a joke, right? Well, so three of them actually, they said felt remorse and felt sorry, but one of them thought it was funny and was laughing it off and did not see any issue with the situation.

So what's happening to them? Well, surprise police have said since sharing this information, it actually got too much attention. And because it's minors, they're not going to share any more details about this incident or what happens moving forward. The school said that they were suspended and now they most likely will be expelled. But at that moment, they were not expelled. They should be expelled. Absolutely. And the school district come out, said you all four cannot go to the same school.

Yeah. They should split them up. Yeah. I mean, what is wrong with you? I mean, even a joke. I mean, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Say they were joking, which I don't believe. Yeah. How old are they again? 10 and 11. What the hell? Yeah, there was...

Can I make a point? There was a great sociologist who once said… Is this another Czarist from 1907? Almost. But this is actually… You know, the sociologist said in America when minors or young people commit a crime, people say poor their parents. In France, they curse at the parents and stone them.

Well, yes, because there was also a licensed therapist that said they don't come up with this on their own. Kids don't think violently on their own. No. They are taught this. They certainly don't think about gloves and fingerprints and suicide notes either. Well, is that entertainment and social media too though? I hate to blame the parents on all this. But the parents are just being too loosey-goosey what they're watching at home? Probably, yeah.

I can't see the kids watching crime procedural shows at 10 and 11. I mean, so it's got to be social media or TikTok and stuff, right? I will say I watched a lot of Criminal Minds growing up. Like so much so like I have scared myself now. Like I can't watch Criminal Minds. So my son, who's now 22, we watched a CSI one night. And the murderer in the show was hiding in the ceiling. Oh, yeah. I've seen ones like that. He slept.

with us for days. I mean, he was petrified. My mom the other day was like, my air went out and she's like, where's your attic? I'm like, I didn't know I had an attic. And then in my brain, I go, oh my God, I didn't know I had an attic. Is someone living in there? Well, there's a story. The woman broke up with her boyfriend that found out he'd been living in the attic for four years. He was jumping down and eating the food during the day. And she was like back, she was home from work and like threw off the routine and he was showering.

Yes, I do know that one. All right. Do you have anything else for us today? In Florida, Operation Dragon Eye commenced or happened, I guess. It was from June 1st to June 15th, and they rescued 60 children and arrested nine people.

You know, 60 missing children. And they were and they were trafficking and kidnapping the kids. See, that just needs to be death penalty. Yeah, there's no plea. I'm telling you, if you do it once to 10 people, you'll stop seeing this. Yeah. Let's do it quickly. Just. Yeah. No, we don't. Yeah. But it was the most successful child recovery operation in history. Those kids forever, though.

Yes, they are offering. They have taken different steps and they're offering. They've built actual facilities for them to rehabilitate, talk to counselors, give them a place to live until they're able to leave, which is something different that they haven't done before because the kids were between 9 and 17. Well, one thing I want to talk about quickly before we close the show for the week. So the Wall Street Journal had an article, stress generation Z spends less. And I think

This communist we just, the Democrats just elected as their candidate in New York is a result of things are so pricey now that, you know, look, people will do anything for money. They say they won't, but a supermajority will, right? How difficult for both of you, because you're both Generation Z, right? I'm millennial. You're millennial. I'm a millennial. Okay. Sir. Okay, but millennial, how hard is it for your friends in the White House?

Yeah, it's very hard. Especially if they're not married. They can't do it. You and I were at the Rainey Center Conference, and I was talking to Amelia Gardner, who's a commissioner in Utah County, and she was talking about how she had this difficulty buying a house. I mean, the woman has $800,000 in IRA, and she's making good money as a county commissioner, her husband makes money, and they're making a return on grant a year, and just how hard it was.

I think – and I don't know how this is done and we may want to explore it. I think, for example, I think a big way you can take care of this is people have the ability to get a home and this is what I think. I think you should only require 2% down for first-time homebuyers. But you have to have a 2720 credit score or above, nothing below, none of the sub stuff, and that they had to have full-time employment for three years. And I think then you say we're going to take the risk on you.

Because I do think that those – 2% means you still have some money down. It's not time equity, but you have 2% down, right? But I think by saying you have a 720 credit score or above and that you've had a full-time employment for three years, I mean that tells me that person is probably going to pay his or her bill. I would agree. You know –

In the 1990s, one of the initiatives by partisan was to increase homeownership by federal subsidizing. And we got a crash. We got the crash. And the problem is that it worked immediately. But on the long run, it increased the price of housing significantly. So it actually has been counted. You got to do something, though. And I know there's all these financial people say just rent.

we are younger. Who wants to stay in a rented home? You want to own a spot. You want to paint it how you want to paint it. You want to put the barbecue, you want to put a barbecue and renters should have rights, what you can do or not do for the home. Right. I mean, they, it's their home. So something's got to be done on that. Um,

I also think one thing I'm seeing as well is when I bought my first home, I literally had a contract and I cut the lawn with a hand mower for apartment complexes for two years. And I saved up the $20,000 needed, right? And I'll see a lot of these Generation Z people willing to do that extra work. And that's something you got to pick up on. I, you know, my

My son's 22. He's quite the entrepreneur. He's doing great. And, you know, we talk about success. And I said, look, if you just work hard at everybody else, you're going to be successful because it's not a high bar from other people. I will say, but my friends who own homes are all people who they have two incomes. They might have a side job also doing party planning or what that is, but they have –

two to three incomes working and then I'm sure investments as well. They're very responsible but those are, but the ones who only have one income are, it's hard. They do not have a home. It's hard. They rent, so. Well,

Well, folks, thanks for joining us for Breaking Battlegrounds this week. You can always follow us and visit us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We also want to mention that we have released a news aggregator next week, BreakingBattleground.News. You can get all the news for the day. Plus, we're going to have on it a screen where they'll have news conferences from executive agencies and Congress.

And on behalf of myself, Shea, who's visiting with us today, thank you, Shea, and for the czarist quote, Kylie, Jeremy, our guest, you can reach us wherever you get your podcasts. Have a fantastic week.