Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Another Kennedy Runs For President, Florida Stops ESG

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Another Kennedy Runs For President, Florida Stops ESG · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:09
  Five minutes after great to be with you this morning. It's the third hour
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  of the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I am Preston. That's Grant Allen
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  Show forty nine twenty five. As we make our way towards show five thousands
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  sometime this year, God willing. It's all according to his good humor.
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  But we appreciate you joining us seriously. Thank you for making time. And
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  we are joined by the guy that we have grown very fond of around here
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  on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. He's the executive editor at the Heartland
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  Institute executive editor as well for ensuring the op eds and the publications, and
• 0:54
  he also is the director of Socialism Research Center at the Heartland Institute. Justin
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  Haskins, Hello, sir, how are you. I'm doing great? How
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  are you? I'm good? I just I want to get your take on
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  this. Grant and I have been talking about the decision of Robert F.
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  Kennedy Junior to enter the FRAY. I made this statement that he is an
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  old school liberal, not necessarily an illiberal of today, and that he would
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  be someone that I could actually find some common ground to work with on some
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  issues. What's your appraisal about him. Yeah, I mean, I think
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  to some degree that's true. I don't know everything about his platform, and
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  I'm sure there are many things with which you and I would not agree with
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  him, yep. But I don't get the sense that he is an authoritarian
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  by any stretch of the imagination. And I don't get the sense that his
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  ultimate goal in life is to dramatically expand the size of government to the point
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  where they control every aspect of how we live. And so I would say
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  that makes him extremely moderate for today's Democratic Party, And I think that that
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  would be great if he were you know, at least if they had a
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  conversation with it. But I think they're they're rigging the rules so that there
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  really isn't going to be an actual competition between these two. So how do
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  you how so how are they rigging the rules? Well, they're ensuring that
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  the primaries that Joe Biden will will likely do well in are are going to
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  come first. That's that's one of the biggest things they're trying to do.
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  The State of New Hampshire is trying very hard to make sure that doesn't happen.
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  But I don't think that they're gonna I don't know if they're going to
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  be successful on that. I think it's gonna be very tough for them to
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  pull that off. And then, in addition to that, just the nature
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  of primaries, both in the Democratic and Republican primaries. This would be true.
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  It just the way that delegates work and super delegates and all this stuff,
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  it dramatically favors someone who is in a kumbent president. Just the nature
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  of the of the party, And of course the media, which isn't part
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  of the primary process officially, but it might as well be. The media
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  is never going to allow this man to get enough airtime to ever win an
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  election. And I don't think they'll have any debates either. So all of
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  the all of that, I mean combined, I just don't see how it
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  will be a fair fight. I'm curious. I know you are far more
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  of a well known across a wide swath of this country with your appearances with
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  Glenn Beck on Fox News and so forth. But away from that, have
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  you ever had a conversation with a person in private that you know or knew
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  his name or her name that actually believes Joe Biden is doing a great job
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  as president. Oh no, Preston, No, I've never met anyone.
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  Truly, I've never met anyone. I know many liberals people are surprised by
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  that. But actually most of the people in my personal life are actually left
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  leaning people, some of them very left leaning people. And um, I
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  don't know any of them who think that Joe Biden is doing a good job.
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  In fact, they often make fun of Joe Biden. But they But
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  but if put up against the Republican they'll they'll vote for anyone. They'll vote
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  for someone who's you know, living out the plot of Weekend at Bernie's like,
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  they'll they'll do that, They'll vote for him again. So I you
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  know, it's sad, but I think that, um, they have the
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  media and academia and Hollywood. They have so demonized the Republican Party, and
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  they have so demonized conservatives generally that there are many people who it really doesn't
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  even matter who the candidate is for the Democrats, they will never ever in
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  a million years, voter for a Republican. And you need a candidate who
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  can break through that and reach people on the other side. That's really really
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  hard to do, but it's not impossible. I use that word earlier.
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  It's not impossible, but it's very, very difficult two decades of doing morning
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  drive radio differently doing it his way like old Blue Eyes, except he has
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  a little more hair. The Morning Show with Preston Scott Justin Haskins with us
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  from the Heartland Institute, and you were just talking about the need to communicate
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  and reach to the other side. I'm struck by the fact justin that,
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  whether it's some of the Prager You videos or campus reform back in the day,
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  when you get to talking to people just calmly explaining, you know why
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  good guys with guns are needed to stop bad guys with guns and whatever the
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  issue might be, and you make the points, people go away going,
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  wow, I guess I need to reconsider my position. We need to communicate.
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  Yeah. The funny so, as part of the Socialism Research Center,
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  you know, a lot of what we've done is directed towards younger people,
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  and we've had lots and lots and lots of conversations with very concerned parents and
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  people who are just concerned citizens about what's going on with America's youth. And
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  the thing that the sort of spark of hope that I want to give everyone
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  who's a parent out there are older person is just concerned about the rise of
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  socialism with younger people, and left wing thinking is that the more you talk
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  to younger people about these ideas, the more you realize it is not deep
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  seated. They really don't. They believe these things without having ever thought of
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  them, because that's all they've ever been told in many cases, and really
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  most ideology just comes down to, well, the other side must be racist,
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  or the other side must be home phobic, or the other side must
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  be sexist, and they really haven't thought about the issues very much at all.
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  And when you actually start citing data and you start talking to them calmly
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  and you talk about compassionate ideas within conservatism, they change real quick. The
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  demeanor change is very very fast, and so it's really disturbing what has happened,
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  no doubt about it. And if we don't do something as conservative people,
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  then our country will be lost, to be sure, but younger people
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  are not dying in the world socialists. Most of them can't even define what
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  socialism is. It's just they're believing it because that's all they're getting day after
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  day after day from the establishment. I'm curious what your thoughts are as we
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  are hearing about this negotiation inside the Beltway between the President and the House on
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  the budget. What's the practical ragmatic position to take on all of that.
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  We can't keep going into debt, but we seemingly are. Yeah. I
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  mean, to be totally honest, it just seems like this cycle is never
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  going to end until the negotiation results in firm rules that are permanent going forward.
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  The problem is, whatever rules you have about reducing spending over time or
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  something, the Democrats will come in when they have power next with the Democratic
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  president, and they will get rid of all those rules. And I would
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  almost rather see Republicans spend their capital and their time, their political capital trying
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  to convince Americans that we need like a constitutional amendment to control spending, that
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  we can ask you that or something. Justin I was just going to ask
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  you. This circles back to the Convention of States because one of their issues,
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  one of the main issues that's on every on all the legislative bills that
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  have been passed to support a constitutional Convention of States, is a balanced budget
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  amendment. Right. In fact, most of the few there's a lot of
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  different ways to call for an Article five convention of states for a new amendment,
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  but the most popular one that's been passed in the most number of states
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  specifically calls for it to only deal with or for it to be one of
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  the topics that term limits and the balanced budget. Yeah, exactly, And
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  so they're they're really actually not that far away from calling an Article five convention,
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  which is really interesting. An Article five is a way for states,
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  for those that don't know, to pass a constitutional amendment or to start that
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  process without having Congress involved in the process at all, at least at the
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  beginning. So can that be done? Yeah, it's actually not that far
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  away. They really don't need that many more states to do it. I
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  don't have the count in front of me, but it's not inconceivable that they
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  could do it. If all the red states did it, you wouldn't need
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  too many blue states to go along. The problem is that Republicans spend all
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  their time congressional cycle after congressional cycle, fighting battles over things that are short
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  term. They're not long term thinkers, and Democrats are long term. The
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  bar Left in particular is long term. They're long term thinkers and that's what
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  we need to start doing. WLA on your phone with the iHeart Radio app
• 10:31
  and on hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home, Xbox and Sonos.
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  Yes, and I Hearts Radio station. Justin Haskins with me from the Heartland
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  Institute. Justin before we move on, got a listener question. Would love
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  to know why there is an an annual or buy an you will vote on
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  holding a Convention of the States on the same date. Pin states down these
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  legislatures, pin them down, make them vote on the same day every two
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  years. We've had folks on with Convention of States. But I just I
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  think it's force feeding right now. You're trying to force people to do something
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  that elected people don't want to do. They don't want to leave it open
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  to the people. Yeah. Well, that's an interesting suggestion. I could
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  understand why someone would would think that that would work. The problem with that,
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  logistically is that the way states operate, it's completely different in every state.
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  The way that they their calendar, the legislative calendar is different. In
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  some states they don't even take up non budgetary issues every year. Some states
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  are only in session for a few months, some are in sessional year.
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  The way they do committees, all this stuff is completely different, so coordinating
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  something like that would be almost impossible. And to your point, yeah,
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  it's just not Look state lawmakers. There are a lot of really good ones.
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  Okay, the average state lawmaker is better than the average federal lawmaker in
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  terms of wanting to do the right thing, no doubt about that. But
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  there's still a ton of state lawmakers that don't want to do the right thing.
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  And leadership in particular tends to be in a lot of states establishment types
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  that are just trying to get ahead, trying to move up to Congress or
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  trying to move up to the White House or whatever, and you need massive
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  support from the public to move along something that's controversial. And that's why Florida
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  has been so successful is because you've had Rhonda Santis and other people sort of
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  leading the charge on these things in Florida and building momentum behind it and using
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  the bully pulpit to do or important things. But in other states, the
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  Republican leadership doesn't want to do it, so it doesn't happen, and the
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  average person is not calling for a Convention of states. Most people, even
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  on the right, don't know what it is. So that's part of the
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  problem too. There needs to be a huge grassroots for it, and that
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  would mean the media would need to be heavily involved in a lot of them
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  don't even know what it is. So there's just so many issues with that.
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  It's a great idea in theory. It's just how can we make you
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  know, how do we get the media and the public and everybody on the
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  same page. It's just so difficult. Tell me this. You you mentioned
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  Florida. Of course ESG has passed the state legislature. Your thoughts, Yeah,
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  the anti ESG legislation is what you're talking about. Is it's a huge,
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  but the most comprehensive bill that has ever been passed and in the United
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  States of America has passed in Florida. Recently, Ronda Santas has signed it
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  into law. We've talked about it before, but it's it's just an absolutely
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  incredible bill. What it does is protects individuals from financial institutions imposing social credit
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  scores and ESG and other things on them and their families, as well as
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  small businesses, as medium sized businesses, big businesses. They're all being protected
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  in the state of Florida from financial institutions using that social credit scoring system against
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  them. That's the backbone of the great reset, the ESG scores, and
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  so this is a huge, huge thing. It also makes it very difficult
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  for local governments and state agencies actually impossible in some cases to use ESG in
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  order to when they're getting contracts government contracts, or when they're issuing bonds,
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  or they're doing investments and all of that, so that your money as a
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  taxpayer is not going to promote ESG causes. So this is there has never
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  been a bill like this. Well there's been bills like this, but they
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  have never been passed anywhere. They haven't survived exactly. Leadership is usually the
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  one that tries to kill it. So is are other states now, I
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  mean, are you hearing from people that are you know, in positions of
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  authority in state legislatures that now look at Florida and are looking at this bill
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  saying, okay, now we've got a blueprint. Yeah. I mean,
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  there's no doubt that there are lots of state lawmakers on the ground who've been
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  wanting this going back to early last year January of last year, but it
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  just couldn't there was just too much pushback from big leaders, establishment types,
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  etc. And we are getting it does seem like the rumblings are that things
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  are going to change a lot of the legislative sessions are actually wrapping up this
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  year for states, so we won't find out until next year in many cases
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  whether that's going to happen, but I think that it will because it's so
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  much easier to sell the idea of a legislation that is sort of new ideas
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  new legislation when it's already been passed someplace, especially a prominent place, especially
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  with the support of someone who's probably going to be running for president. It's
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  just a much easier sell. What these state lawmakers have been told in other
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  places is that some of this stuff is illegal and it's unconstitutional, or it's
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  anti business, or it's all kinds of things that I just think are not
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  true at all, but that's what they've been told. And so now that
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  there's a use case, there's a good chance that this is going to catch
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  on elsewhere.