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Principle Versus Political Reality - The "Big, Beautiful Bill" · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the third hour of the Morning show with Preston
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Scotch and one of friends. I'm Preston. He is Jose.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: It's great to be with you back on the air
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: after just a little extra day off yesterday. I've got
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: my brother in law and sister in law and their
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: kids in town and we were just having some fun
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: yesterday hanging out, and so it's good to be back
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: with you. And we are joined by a dear friend
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of the show. He is a prolific writer, commentator. He's
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a fellow at the Heartland Institute. He's authored books with
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Glenn Beck and he is justin Hapskin's How are you, sir?
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I'm doing very well. How are you?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We were just talking about the Karreein Jean Pierre book
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Independent to Look Inside a Broken White House Outside the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Party Lines. Clearly you're going to be buying this book, right.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: This is the first I'm hearing that it exists. To
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: be totally honest with you, I can't believe that anybody
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: is going to buy this book except for maybe her
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: maybe her mom. That's probably an.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, could there be a more blatant marketing ploy
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to try to get people in the middle and the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: right to buy a book than to say independent to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: cause us to think that she's somehow now just seen
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the light.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I don't even know if you could call it that,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: to be totally honest, A desperate cash strab might be
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: a better description. I mean, it's these people who were
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: involved in the Biden administration are going to go down
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: in history as not only being part of one of
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: the worst administrations this country has ever had in its
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: entire history, but also people who unethically, immorally, possibly illegally
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: hid the fact that the President of the United States
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: was essentially out of his mind for at least the
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: last year of his presidency, probably a couple of years,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and that they didn't tell anyone, and that they not
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: only not totally one, but I mean, they were actively
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: running this guy for president again for four more years.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So they're trying to clean up their their image here.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: They're trying to make it seem like they're actually good guys,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: they didn't know anything, and that they were trying really
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: hard to, you know, be just servants for the country
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and all that crap. But I don't think anybody is
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: buying it. I think anyone who was involved in that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: administration is going to be tarnished forever, and I think
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: that that's perfectly fair and reasonable.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Justin is it a waste of time for Congress, I e.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: The Republicans in Congress to try to find out who was,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: in fact calling the shots. I believed that when Barack
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Obama announced he was staying in Washington, that he was
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: gonna that he was authoring the undermining of the Trump administration.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: The first time around, I believe it was the Obiden administration.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I think Obama was running things. But ultimately, is it
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: important for us to know?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I think it is important for us to know. I
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: think it is important to know who the president of
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: the United States really is in any given period of time.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: So I think politically it's not helpful at all. I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: don't think it will buy you any votes. I don't
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: think it's going to be something that we should spend
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: massive amounts of resources on or anything like that. But
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: do I think that there should be you know, a
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: small handful of people in Congress that take this on
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: and say, we're going to find out what happened here,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: what people knew, if there was lying, if there was fraud.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: We're executive orders being signed without the president even knowing
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: what he was doing. You know, they're crimes committed, where
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: they're felonies committed. I mean, these are things that we
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: really do need to know. And frankly, this is sort
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: of the thing that Congress is the best at. In
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: a way, they're not very good at actually passing laws,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but they are good at investigating things and drumming them
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: up and making it into a big issue. So I
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: think this is something that they should pursue.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Last week on the program, I shared that I had
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a interaction little chat with my sister via text. My
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: sister leans well left, and she said, what do you
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: think of this Musk Trump battle? And I said, they're
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: both right and they're both wrong. Justin Haskins with me
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: from the Heartland Institute. Justin, I've kind of distilled it
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to this that this is really a battle between what
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: is principled and then coming against what is political reality.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: What is your take on the big beautiful bill and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: where it falls short and where we are in the process.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I think you're one hundred percent right about that. I mean,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: after the twenty twenty four election results came in, one
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: of the big takeaways from it really that didn't get
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: enough attention was that Republicans really didn't win all that
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: many seats in the House, and they won the Senate,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: but you know, not overwhelmingly, not like you know, Barack
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Obama in two thousand and eight or something like that.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And so when you have these tight margins in the
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: House and in the Senate, and you don't have sixty
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: votes in the Senate, which is extremely rare these days,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: it's really really hard to get anything through Congress without
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: loading it up with all kinds of stuff that you
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: really don't want to put in it if you're a principal.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So from a practical standpoint, it's almost impossible to get
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: anything like this past without out watering it down in
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: some ways or whatever. What the Big Beautiful Bill does
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: very well is it has certain key issues, key priorities
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: that are in there for sure, like border funding for example, know,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: like making sure that we have border security. Finally, they're there,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: and you know, they're a variety of other things as
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: well that I think are good in it. And those
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: things come at the expense of a lot of bad things.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: But the idea that you could actually pass a bill
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: through Congress that meaningfully cuts government spending over the long
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: run and fixes our national debt crisis, which I think
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: is a huge catastrophe. I'm really I'm not one of
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: these people that thinks, oh that death doesn't matter. No,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: it really matters, I think. But and so Elon Musk
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: is right, but they're not going to But but they
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: were never going to fix it, and I think that
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: was the mistake Elon Musk made was believing that they
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: actually would do that when they they never had the
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: votes in the past, when Republicans have had the vote,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: they didn't do it. So it's just it's just, uh yeah,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I think Elon Musk on principle is one hundred percent right.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: We are heading for a catastrophe because of our debt
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: and what it's going to do to our currency and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: what it already is doing to our currency. But they
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: were never going to be able to fix it. And
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: so Trump has two choices. Either he puts his full
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: weight in support behind the things he can get done,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: or nothing gets done and he stands on principle and
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: nothing happens. So I think Trump, being who he is,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: is always going to take the path of let's get
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: something done, even if it isn't perfect, and I think
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk should should try to understand that.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Do we take anything positive out of I read some
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: comments by US Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, who, by
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the way, I'm growing an affection for him because he's
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: just so much fun to listen to. But he said, look,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: there are things that we've got to make better, and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: we've got to make some cuts and adjustments to this
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and we're going to hopefully, I think he put it
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: this way, hopefully everyone takes their meds and we get
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it done. Do you take any from that?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I think there's going to be well. I mean, I
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: do think there are people who are trying to make
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: it better, and I think that through the process of
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: negotiating in the Senate especially, I think it will get better.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: But ultimately there's going to be a lot of bad
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: stuff in it. That's just the reality of the situation.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: There's going to be some crony isn't in it. There's
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: going to be way too much government spending in it,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: and that's just not something that can be totally fixed, unfortunately.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: And our choice is either we get none of the
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: priorities of you know that we want done or that
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: we you know, at least get something done. And it
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: isn't going to be perfect, and we're going to have
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: this spending issue. That spending issue is going to be
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: there probably no matter what. So I feel like we've
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: got to at least accomplish something big here and then
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: we try to go back to the table at some
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: point and deal with the spending issue. But this was
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: never going to be the way that that was going
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: to happen.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Because I love to make sure that even if I
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: have ruined your outlook on a number of things, that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I leave you all feeling at least a little bit better.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: For example, I might say your breath stinks, but I
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: bet the garlic pasta was really good, you know, I
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: mean something like that. And so, justin we've just talked
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: about the horrible things that are buried inside the big
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: beautiful bill, let's remind everybody the things that are in fact,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: vitally important that have to get across the finish line.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: What matters most.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the biggest well, there are a lot
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: of really important things. I mentioned the border security in
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: a previous segment. I think that's absolutely massive, huge part
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: of this bill. There are some really good things related
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to welfare reform and sort of entitlement reform not in
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: TITLEM over a welfare reform that require work requirements and
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: things like that that have been stripped out of there before,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: and I think that's really important stuff for the long
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: run health of those programs. I think economically, probably the
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: most important thing in it is that it makes permanent
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for individual tax cuts,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: those are all set to expire at the end of
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: the year, which means everybody in this country just about
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: is going to get a tax increase. We're going to
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: get a tax hike, one of the largest tax hikes
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: in the history of this country for personal income tact is.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: If they don't pass this law, they're set to expire,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: so they have to get that done. That's a huge, huge,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: huge issue because if they don't accomplish that, then we
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: are going to see, you know, an economic crashed potentially
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: over something like that. People's lives are going to be ruined.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So I think those for me are the biggest things.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Those are the most important things. There are a million
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: other smaller things in there, adding more ice agents, which
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I think we can all agree now is probably important
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: border patrol and ice agents. Yeah, you know, it helping
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: you know, get rid of the sort of the Green
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: New Deal crap that was in there. Are those ridiculous
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: tax credits and things that were put in there by
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden and the Democrats, massive waste of money, helping
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: to increase domestic energy production, which is going to lead
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to all kinds of economic growth in this country. That's
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a huge win for people. Lots of jobs are going
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: to be creative for that. I think that's massive. So
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: all sorts of great things in it, no question about
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: that at all. But it's going to come at a cost.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And we all just have to accept that. That's the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: way things work in Congress. And frankly, we shouldn't need
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: bills like this in Congress. Decisions ultimately should be made
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: at the state level for most things, and I would
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: love for this country to get to a point in
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: time where that's how we deal with public policy. We
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: don't have big, beautiful bills. We have states making the
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: vast majority of the decisions, and the federal government basically
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: stays out of the way. And until we get to
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: that period of time, I think we're always going to
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: have huge problems anytime we try to get something good
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: past in Congress.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: How important is the posturing that we should begin seeing
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in about six months or so for who Donald Trump's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: successor could be.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think, honestly, this is a this is a
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: question for after the midterm elections, because what's going to
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: happen is the midterms are going to be I think
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: very bad for the Republicans. Do you and I do yes?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And the reason I believe that is because it's not
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: because of anything the Republicans are doing necessarily, It's because
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the history of midterm elections following a presidential election victory
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: for a particular party, when that person's party, the president
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: is in power in Congress, almost always that person loses
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: the next midterm election the party does.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: But if I were to, if I were to make
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the argument to you, the reason for that, at least
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: on the Republican side, is they don't effectively message right now.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: They should be saying, here's where we are, but here's
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: what we could do. If we had sixty seats in
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the Senate and a control of the House beyond a
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: few seats, we could get this done and just go
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: right back through the agenda that Donald Trump ran on.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I think that's probably true, but they won't do that.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: So I think, like I've given up on that's that's
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: not going to happen. And really, when you think about it,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a problem for both Republicans and Democrats.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: If you go back to the nineteen seventies, go back
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: to the nineteen seventies, there's only been two times when
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a president was in office and his party was running
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Congress and then they had a midterm election and that
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: party maintained control of Congress. One time was Jimmy Carter,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: believe it or not, and that was back during a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: stretch when Democrats always won Congress they were in charge
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: for like fifty years. And then the other time was
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and two, right after nine to eleven,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and the Republicans maintained control of Congress. Then every other
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: time Republican or Democrat, they lose in the midterm election,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: and I think that I think it would be really
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: really hard to break that trend, especially in a situation
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: like we have right now where you have a really
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: tight margin in the House. So Republicans, I think are
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: really good shape for the Senate, but I think almost
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: certainly they're going to lose the house. No and so no, no,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: it's gonna happen. But it is just I'm sorry. I
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: know you said you wanted to leave everybody on a
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: good note, and I did the opposite of that.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm a realist. I want people to hear what
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: people think about these things, and you are a very
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: respected mind on this show, sir.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: This is why we need to get everything done that
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: we possibly can now and not hope that it will
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: have an opportunity to do that in the future. We
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: may not. We probably won't. History says it's not likely.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: So we got to get something good done right now
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: or the opportunities are going to disappear soon and we'll
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: have accomplished nothing.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. I just want to keep prodding
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the Grand Old Party to learn how to message, and
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: they might win enough hearts and minds to get another
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: swing at this. But you're probably right, but I won't
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: admit it.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: But you know what, sometime remind me and I will
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: bring up this incredible letter that was sent around privately,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: I think in the Nixon administration, where basically they were
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: saying the same thing that you were just saying back
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: then that Republicans have a messaging problem and we can't
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: We're really struggling to fix it. If we can just
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: fix it, we'll keep we'll win more elections. And they
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: still haven't done it.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Sweet lord, now I'm really depressed, all right, justin thank you, sir.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Time as always, Thanks Preston, take care.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Justin Haskins with US Nixon, the Nixon administration, they were right,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: So am I so is justin twenty eight past the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: hour