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The Hoff Interviews John Dennis of the Liberty Caucus · Conversations With the Hoff

• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: Pull up a chair.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Lean in close.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: Got a question.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful day on the Grand Strand.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Conversations with the Hoff.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Steve Hoffman, your host, and with me in the studio today is the executive producer of Liberty Crack Media, Tripp Detmering.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everybody.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: We also have a special call-in guest today, Mr.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: John Dennis.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Mr.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Dennis is the chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a listener to my previous podcast, you're probably wondering how I can use the words Republican and Liberty in the same sentence.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I think after this podcast, you'll learn that there really are Republicans who are committed to the principles of limited government, individual, and economic freedom.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: John Dennis serves as the chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a national organization dedicated to advancing individual rights, limited government, and free market within the Republican Party.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: This is his second term as the RLC chairman, and he's been on the board of the RLC since 2015.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was born in New Jersey, Jersey City, New Jersey, earned his bachelor's degree from Fordham University, and currently resides in San Francisco with his wife, Heather, and one daughter.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: He's a self-described Ron Paul Republican.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: He's known for his libertarian-leaning positions, including support for legalized marijuana, opposing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, supporting gay marriage, advocating for dramatically reducing federal spending, calling for phasing out the income tax, repealing the Patriot Act, and auditing the Federal Reserve.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, kind of sounds kind of libertarian to me.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: These positions place him firmly within the liberty movement wing of the GOP, aligning with the Republican Liberty Caucus's mission.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: He ran for Congress in 2010 against Nancy Pelosi.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: You'll know what it's all about when you when we pass the bill, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And gained national attention for a viral online ad featuring Nancy Pelosi, look-alike, as the wicked witch of the West, which he defeats using a bucket labeled Freedom.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's been active in California GOP politics, serving as the chairman of the San Francisco GOP from 2019 to 2025, and he's currently serving on the board for his second term on the board of the California Republican Party.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So welcome to the show, John.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for having me.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I thought we'd start off today if maybe you could tell us a little bit about the mission of the Republican Liberty Caucus and how it was founded.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh the mission of the Republican Liberty Caucus is to advance the ideas that upon which the country was founded, uh, specifically within the the uh the Republican Party, uh but also within the the electorate uh in general.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of the general idea that the Republican Party used to be the party of of of liberty.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: We used to be the party that uh you know Robert Taft and Howard Buffett and uh and we you know we we held positions that were in line with the founding principles uh of the country.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: But now I don't know what we represent.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're you know, we we've certainly switched in the you know in the Trump years to something other than that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, so we we we certainly have you know uh an important mission and uh you know one that's uh really relevant to where we stand today.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably why you're called the conscience of the Republican Party, because you go back to the old Republican Party uh platforms and principles.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well we try.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I think I think a number of organizations consider themselves the conscience of the Republican Party, I think the California, the Republican Assembly, but there's some other groups that that might consider themselves to be that.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if we're talking about the uh the real founding principles, what the you know, what the the founders wanted for the country, I'd say that the uh in that regard, there's no question that the Republican Liberty Caucus is in fact the uh the conscience of the party.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, from my research, originally the principles of the Republican Party were limited government, free enterprise, personal liberty, and responsibility.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of makes you wonder what what they're all about today.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and I mean, you know, there's because we've, you know, because the country's drifted from you know from those those principles, uh, you know, the parties sort of reacted to the reality of the situation, but uh I think in some ways reacted uh you know badly uh in and gone in a kind of a different direction.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the the the if you listen to Donald Trump interviews going back used to the 80s when they were when he was just a you know Playboy billionaire running around New York, um his uh he was very political, it's in his blood, uh he's really gifted uh with his with his own sense of of of uh politics.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um his thrust has always been that we are and it really offended him personally, that the country's being taken advantage of by uh by other countries, by the leaders of other countries.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's super competitive, he doesn't want to see his country uh being uh being taken advantage of.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's it's it's a worthy uh discussion.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um I think what he sort of ignored uh and where he's missed it is uh where the Tea Party was just before he got involved in politics.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the Tea Party was at, well, okay, we may have some problems with our international trade and international relations on the one hand, but the real problem that we we suffered from, what put us in those bad positions on those trade deals was the internal threat that that's presented by Washington, by Washington, that has you know expanded well beyond uh its constitutional constraints, and uh which is uh you know, I think gently I can say has uh suffered from overreach.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, so as the as the Trump era begins to wind down here in the next year or so, uh hopefully the uh you know the the the Republican Party can sort of filter back to its roots and sort of understand that that the that the real threat to to um to the country is Washington and uh and the culture that supports it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'll get into that a little bit more later on, but maybe you could also tell us a little bit about the founding of the RLC.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: When was it founded?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: The RLC was founded, and I'm glad that we looked this up before.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because I see it was born in it was uh founded in 1991.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Did I get that date right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: The actual official founding was July 1991.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ripon, Wisconsin.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Rip in Wisconsin.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: We had the Republican Party.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: We had some uh you know, some interesting folks who were uh you know involved with it being Roger McBride and some other folks.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the first convention was held in July of 1991, and I think even back then they saw you saw the direction where we were going.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh you know the Reagan presidency offered some promise at its inception.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, Reagan gave some great interviews, um, particularly in Reason magazine in 1975, where he said that the heart of conservatism is libertarianism.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so there was a lot of hope.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: But his, you know, Reagan's unfortunately, you know, he did some good things, but he really started us um on the path to where we stand today.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so there was a reaction to that, especially, you know, in uh you know, in the George W.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh H.W.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Bush presidency, um, the party was drifting into something.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what to describe what the HW presidency was about, other than sort of establishment Republican, you know, uh you know, yeah, Reagan.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever they were interested in, you know.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, so I think the R the RLC was a reaction to that.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Reagan definitely uh had people, Republicans thinking about limited government and individual freedom and stuff like that.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: But also the 1988 uh Libertarian Party, where they had uh Ran Ron Paul was the presidential candidate, that got a lot of support from Republicans.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it actually had a bunch of Republicans that they called themselves the Liberty Caucus, and they were trying to influence what was going inside the Republican Party at the same time, but they never really officially formed or or had officers that like the RLC did back in in July of 1991.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I think you know Ron was always a you know an admired Republican.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's interesting because um I wasn't active in politics at all.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was a student body president at Fordham, um, but I really was focused on my my business career um during those years.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that I did before I got involved in Ron Paul's campaign in 2007 was I was living in Chicago and I um I heard that I kind of liked Ron Paul.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'd heard some things about him.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went to a Libertarian Party office and stuffed envelopes for him uh to send out uh mailers.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: That was a thing you had to do in those days.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so that was really the only active political thing I had done from when I graduated college until uh I got involved in his campaign in 2007.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he's always been sort of a, you know, uh the a guiding light, you know, North Star, if you will, of uh, you know, what Republican politics and national politics ought to be be about.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and another thing that uh I I read about your the um the mission of the RLC is to support uh candidates who align with the RLC principles.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you have a pretty vigorous candidate in full uh endorsement process.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Could you kind of go over that a little bit as far as how the national uh party endorses the candidates for the federal government or how the states endorse candidates for the state governments?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we have um uh we have ten chapters.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've grown quite a bit uh with our chapters.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know there were there have been periods where the Republican Liberty Caucus was uh was formidable, particularly during and just with the end of Ron Paul's uh 2008 run.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was sort of the high point of the RLC.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we've been building back chapters, we have 10 now, and on the state level, um, they have their own vetting process, which is guided by um the national, but they effectively do the same thing.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have a questionnaire, we ask uh candidates to uh you know to fill out it's it's involved, and we really appreciate when candidates do it because if anybody who's ever run for office knows, you get a lot of these kinds of questionnaires from groups.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um so we do we appreciate the time that they take to fill those out, and then they have to sign our our Liberty Compact, and um which basically is a you know recitation of the the basic principles of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so they they fill out the applic the the questionnaire and then they sign the compact, and then we uh we interview the the candidates whose whose whose um surveys look good, and then it goes to a vote either if you're running for state office to the to the board of the state party, uh and if it's a national office congress uh or um president, uh we um you know we take a vote on the national board.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess at this point I I need to confess that uh I the Hof was a longtime member of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Matter of fact, at one point I was the vice chair of the National Caucus and a longtime representative from South Carolina.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And the candidate endorsement process was quite extensive.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: The candidate had to meet the uh the basically confirmed that they met the principles of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: We the survey covered constitutional principles about limited government, free enterprise, and personal liberty.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: What I really liked, and I hope you're still using it, the Liberty Compact.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Are you still using that for your Yeah?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned earlier, we did they still, you know, we still ask the candidates to um to sign the Liberty Compact.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, uh that's sort of it's an essential, it's a critical portion, you know, yeah, because it it says in it says in the Liberty Compact that the candidate will work to restore liberty, not restrict it, to shrink government, not expand it, to reduce taxes, not raise them, to abolish programs, not create them, to promote the freedom and independence of citizens, not the interference of government in their lives, and observe the limited, enumerated powers of the Constitution, not ignore them.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: My God, that that's that's fabulous.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I wish that every uh person that went for public office or went to uh mortar on the Potomac actually had to sign a pledge like that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: If everybody had to sign a pledge like that, we wouldn't have the problems we have today.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: The United States would be a very prosperous nation and a very peaceful nation.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's it's great.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure, thanks.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I absolutely we um, you know, if we would not have nearly$40 trillion in federal debt if people signed that compact and kept their word to it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, the problems that we have today is because people don't understand what it's really about there, Steve, is that it's it's the it's an understanding about what the appropriate role of government is in our lives.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: The founders were really clear about it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't take it doesn't take a you know a lot to understand where they were going.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted to constrain the government.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: The Constitution um is um is an exercise in restraint and constraint, um, and that the the the the the idea of the enlightenment, the great idea that the individual is the sovereign and l we're born in a state of liberty, um, and that liberty is to be preserved by governments, not uh distinguished or restrained uh by them.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're after.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the compact is about.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if people understood that, then I think we'd be in a very different situation.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: The Constitution was written to restrain the role of government in our lives, not to increase the role of government.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're a recent college graduate from any university in the U.S., you probably disagree with that because you believe that it's government responsibility to take care of me from cradle to grave.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I and and government is there to fix all the problems we have in the universe.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I often, if you live and listen to my previous episodes, you talked about the uh the infiltration of the progressive agenda in all of our American institutions and how right now we're kind of traveling on that road to serfdom, and it's organizations like the Republican Liberty Caucus that we need to reverse direction and get us back on the road to individual and economic freedom.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: So so yeah, you got quite a challenge in front of you.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um how many uh so so to meet that ch challenge, how is the membership doing?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Are you growing the number of state chapters?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Are you you're growing the number of state coordinators?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's been yeah, that's going that's uh going really well.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we uh over the last year um have you know we actually sort of you know dwindled down.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: We had strong states like um Florida and uh and Texas.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh you know a lot of a lot of this depends a bit on you know who the national candidates are and who the leaders are of the Republican Party.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, Donald Trump um you can s you know say what you want, but he's you know he's um a great character, charismatic, and he just sucked the oxygen out of the room and got people's attention focused on on the agenda that was you know that that he saw was important and for which a lot of people have sympathy.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so um but but now people are starting to see the limitations of that, and we have you know other leaders who've uh you know who've stood up and uh and you know one kind of are sort of questioning about where we're going.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the last year, geez, we've uh we have uh doubled the size of the membership, we've doubled the size of the number of state chapters that we have.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you can see coordinators working in about another 15 or 20 states working on growing membership so that they can store chapters.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So things are moving in a great direction, and it's it gives me a little bit of hope about the where we can where we can go as a country.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: I guess within this year you've added uh Alabama and Virginia to uh the list of uh fully certified state chapters.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Alabama, Virginia, um Alabama, Virginia, Kentuck, Kentucky.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Kentucky, okay.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know we have yeah, we have just I'm just pulling it up right now, the chapters that we have, but we have if you you know you go to our website, you can see where we have you know state coordinators working in you know in a number of states.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say it's about 15 or so.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're on the verge of a new chapter in in Georgia.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, we have uh you know, we've you know, we're on the verge of a chapter in in in uh Indiana, Tennessee.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But um we gotta get people off their beach chairs in in Myrtle Beach and uh get them going with uh getting get South Carolina back in the loop here.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: When I was CRL, the state the state that uh flew the flag, don't tread on me, needs a Republican Liberty Caucus chapter.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the uh South Carolina chapter used to be really big back uh I don't know, ten years ago, but then things kind of have an ebb and flow to them, and uh the uh South Carolina chapter's kind of uh been pretty laid back here here recently.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the problem with South Carolina, too, is that it doesn't have a GOP.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a very dysfunctional G O P.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, you have a G O B O B, what's that?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh good old boys.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It these are all Dixiecrats.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: These are all old Dixiecrats, these are not Republicans.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, South Carolina politics is very interesting.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I will say this that every uh, you know, trust me, Lisa, um California is an interesting place.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as you mentioned, I'm on the board of the California Republican Party.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I served as the chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party for six years.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we are actually the largest Republican Party in the country based on our registration.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, every state has dysfunction.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh you also have people who who are rooted in the history of the country and in every state, and those are the people we're looking to carry the torch.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't get that feeling in the listening to the national news.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: You say, yeah, all three Republicans in California are now doing this, you know, because basically the Democrats kind of control the whole state, don't they?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they do.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: They do.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, California is interesting and so they they have a supermajority in Sacramento.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: They control both uh both houses and of course the the government the executive branch.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um you know if you look at California in the map, a color-coded uh uh map of where the Democrat voters are and whether we have the blue and the red, you see like you go about 10, maybe 15 miles in in most parts of the state, and it's a very red state.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the population centers are um are largely uh Democrat, not exclusively sub Orange County and a strong foothold in uh in San Diego.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, Republican registration has actually, you know, grown.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think we need to grow about another, I want to say another five points and have the Democrats another five points.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think we'll see competitive races on the state level and we'll see you uh See us breaking the um the supermajority.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like you're gonna have a pretty competitive race for California governor this year.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: The Republicans are gonna have uh definitely have a voice.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll see about that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I like Steve.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've known Steve a long time and uh helped his, you know, helped him um you know, my position um in the um in the California GOP, um what's called the Chair of Chairs, and we work with uh every county chair to help them with the resources and the things they need to run their their counties uh effectively.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I worked with Steve and I talked to him pretty regularly um now.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is we have a 19-point deficit, and uh I anybody's gonna be able to break, you know, overcome that it'd be somebody like Steve.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: But um I he'll bring up great issues.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not sure about you know about the prospects of a victory though.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: You think his campaign will grow the the number of Republicans in the state?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um possibly, possibly.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I I find guys who help move the needle in terms of registration take strong positions on the principal.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I think to it I think they to you know I noticed look uh you there's three thousand one hundred and forty-four counties in America.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Guess which county has the lowest percentage of Republican registration?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Los Angeles County.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're in the right neighborhood.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, San Francisco.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: What's San Francisco County?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a San Francisco County?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: So during my tenure as as chairman, um, you know, the last Republican mayor left office uh in San Francisco in January of 1964, and every year since then we'd uh drop registration, and I said, well, let's let's see if we can't change that a little bit.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: We yeah, we um didn't uh you know we didn't focus on trying to be you know friends with the other side or trying to moderate our positions to appeal to the offensive sitters.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: We said, no, we're gonna hold our position.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we believe in.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we took up we had other strategies, but we held that position and uh for the first time not only did we stop the the slide in Republican registration, but we actually grew, we grew 25%.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I find that if someone takes a really strong principal position, they they're the types of people who um move the needle on registration.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um Steve's not exactly like that.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: He's more of a uh we can do better kind of guy, more of a sort of practical guy.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's principled, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't lead with that in his in his politics.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he'll move the needle much in terms of Republican registration, but I think he'll appeal to he'll get a lot of a lot of Republican votes, he'll pick off some Democrats, and he'll get a lot of MPPs, and that's what will that's his his best chance to win, and I think he's suited for that more than moving the needle on Republican registration.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't the Republicans focus on the quality of life, the reality of the situation that are cities that are controlled by Democrats?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, San Francisco, I used to go there all the time when I traveled for a living.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was a beautiful city.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Nowadays when I'm watching TV and and hearing the people on the on the talking heads, they say, Well, you go there, but you better wear rubber boots when you walk down the street.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it's it i i it's it's a problem.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sitting right here in this in in the city in the middle of San Francisco now.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh yeah, sure, that's that that's what we focus on, they're quality of life issues.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just you know the danger and this and and the filth of the city, um, but it's also high gas prices uh that are you know it's California prices are about you know 50, 60, 70 percent higher than the than the national average.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you got extremely high gas prices, and California's doing everything humanly possible to get rid of the petroleum plants, the pr the processing plants, the refineries.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, terrible thing.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, there I think you would think that um the we're you know, we're talking about what the role of government is.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um you would think that the Democrats believe that the role of government is to miserate the you know Californians.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the number of companies that are leaving San Francisco.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: You hear about that every day.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: National uh chains closing their stores in San Francisco.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh the Democrat administration is ruining the city, but yet they still have the highest number of Democrat registered voters.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, that does not make sense.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we picked that off.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: We you know, we look we go the growing 25 percent is I think impressive just because think about the energy it takes and the frustration it takes to actually say, I'm coming out of the closet of Republican in San Francisco.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a tough thing to do.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we you know we we we did that, but it's not, you know, it's it's it's the the it's San Francisco, and San Francisco's been a uh a feeder um city to Sacramento, and so now what happens is what are we looking at?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're looking at a billionaire tax.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is something I want to put on the radar for your listeners.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not just a tax on billionaires' income, it's a tax on tax net worth of billionaires.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's on the ballot in November.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It is a um it's a um thing that they're trying to float across the country.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: You hear Elizabeth Warren talking about it, you've got a number of people talking about it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: But let me just make this really I want to make this really clear.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: We have an amazing ecosystem.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's really what drives the entire California economy, and that is um, you know, the tech business uh centered at a Palo Alto on Sand Hill Road, where the billionaires live.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: They they accumulate capital and they invested in tech companies which affect how we live in our futures.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it is the envy of the world.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've lived around the world, I've been to a million cities in this country, every c city everywhere would like to have the ecosystem that we have in the Bay Area.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: If they pass that billionaire tax, it's for the first time in since the founding of Silicon Valley that we're actually going to have the threat of losing that ecosystem because billionaires will move out of the state and they'll start saying, eh, you know, we can put these deals together in Miami.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: We can put these deals together in Austin, we can put these deals together in some other places that give us tax breaks, and uh it really threatens uh life.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's it's an ideology that emanates from places like San Francisco that filters in the Sacramento that impacts the quality of life of people all over California.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there used to be a good website called uh How Money Walks.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And when states start imposing ridiculous taxes on people, on the producers, they walk.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: They go to other states.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: And not only uh California, but right now Seattle's making the same mistake.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: They've got their billionaire tax that they're considering, or I think I may have already passed.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna see You look at you You look at I I did I well I just looked at um this recently.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at the uh a chart of the states and how much they s they spend per capita.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And take a guess at which states are the two lowest in spending per capita.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, what do you mean by that spending per capita?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um Well, you know, you could say you could say the the budget for New York State is a massive amount, right?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then you divide it by the number of people, and that's the amount that they spend.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: So who's the key thing with government?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Here's here's the thing that you have to look with governments.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Never look at the revenue, always look at the spending, especially on the federal level.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Spending is what matters.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: That is the that is the productive that they're taking resources that they're taking out of the uh the society.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're taking capital out of the out of the country that could be used other else places, yeah.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: That could be used to to advancing humanity, and instead they're putting it into make work jobs that um such the energy.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: But the the the the the the what I was getting at, the two c states with the lowest spending per capita, state government budgets with the lowest spending per capita are Texas and Florida.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where everybody where is everyone moving?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: Very dynamic states.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Very dynamic.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where people, you know, and they have no income taxes, and that's where wealthy people feel like, okay, this is this is where I want to set up my business.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna have an intrusive government that's gonna threaten me every time I try and you know do something interesting and try and you know grow, you know, grow a company, and they're leaving places like California to go there.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so so uh basically uh the Republican Liberty Caucus right now, you definitely have a culture that's a little bit different than the Republican Party.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think your biggest challenge today is your challenge within the Republican Party.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: And in closing today, I'd like to talk a little bit about what are those challenges and how are you going to meet those challenges.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: How can you actually, what can you do to help reform the Republican Party, to put it more in line with your with your uh your tenets, what you you believe in.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start by taking a look at where the Republican Party is right now.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not monolithically uh ideologically behind um Donald Trump.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I don't and I don't want to mean to um come across that at all.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: I like Donald Trump and I think that's the right thing.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my research says it's fractured.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: You got Donald Trump on one end and you got other Republicans on the other end.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's like they gotta come together.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: You have a lot of people who either have no you know no ideas of their own or they're sort of like wishy-washy about them.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so if their you know re-election is threatened, they're not willing to you know to stand up to Donald Trump, who's the you know, the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: But as his influence over the party wanes, and he will have influence over the party for some time to come, but it'll it'll wane.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we have an opportunity, particularly in 2028, to take on a new direction.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the Republican Liberty Caucus is out there, we're aggressively uh, you know, we're we're building chapters, we're raising money, we're starting new programs to um to attract people to the RLC so that we become a force.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our biggest chapter is in, as I mentioned earlier, is in Florida.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh in January they have what's called lobbying days, and when the RLC rolls into Tallaha, you can rest assured that uh legislators meet with them, they hear them out, they come to their events because they do not want to get on the wrong side of the RLC.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we want to do.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we want to do.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that it's a mistake that Florida, which has the lowest spending per capita of any state government in the country, is also a really strong RLC state.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the stronger the RLC is, the uh the the the the more effective the uh the government is.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we're focused on the red states where um where the RLC can have an impact.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and if you do you know, these are the ideas that that are interesting to you, then you should join the RLC.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know Florida's got a very, very active uh Republican Liberty Caucus.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what about alliances?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Couldn't you help grow the party by forming alliances with other freedom-loving institutions like uh the uh Americans for Prosperity, uh this uh Young Americans for Liberty?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh every state, uh almost every state, has a legislative freedom caucus.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: Have you all gotten together and met with the various freedom caucuses and said, hey, we need to get together on certain issues and then form an alliance?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: We do, uh we do it in the states where we're active.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we we um have stake ordinators are now starting to work with some of those caucuses.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: I just went to a retreat uh last month with the uh Young Americans for Liberty.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was a great uh event, and we were talking about how we can move uh you know work uh together moving forward.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the Kentucky Derby with Rand Paul and um and he and I have you know shared some ideas about what we can do.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have some thoughts about you know doing high-profile events that involve all of those the liberty-driven political groups in the Republican Party.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: So is uh Rand Rand Paul still very supported of the RLC?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: We have I mean if you look at his quote on our website, he says he wouldn't know where he'd be today if it wasn't for the RLC, because it was RLC men you know members that really you know got behind him, encouraged him to run, and then you know worked on aggressively on his two 2010 campaign, which uh which it was an impressive win.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um because you you look you look back, I mean, he was a little active in politics and he had in organization, but he had never held elective office.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there were substantial people who he had to who we had to face down.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he, you know, his first his first office was becoming a U.S.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: senator.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it was Republican Liberty Caucus folks who uh who helped him achieve that.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: So he's he's always got a special place uh in the RLC.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: The last uh RLC convention I was at was in Orlando, Florida, and the keynote speaker there was Thomas Massey.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just fantastic.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: He was the Liberty guy in the U.S.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Congress.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: And even your uh your Liberty Index placed him at the top with the highest score in Congress, and also Rand Paul.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Rand Paul scored the highest in the Senate.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: But the problem was the next highest was way, way, way down below Rand Paul.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: You got a big problem in the Senate as far as uh Republicans who support the Liberty agenda.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have some good good folks in the House.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um Rand stands alone uh in the in the uh in the Liberty Index.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And just so people know, you know, what we do is we don't lobby people on individual bills, and we um you know don't do anything preferential.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we we just do the scorecard, we look at people who how they voted at the end of the year, and then we just do a score.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just that you know, Rand and Thomas happen to come out on top because they share the same idea of what the government ought to do.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: We should we have the same political philosophy, and so it's just the way it works out, and that's not gonna change.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh you know, Rand isn't gonna change.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, Thomas you know wouldn't change so much.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was so committed to his principles that um you know that they had to throw thirty million dollars at him to to run him out of office.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: So um before I close here, tell us a little bit about the Liberty Index.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because I definitely use that document.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I spread it through every one of my Facebook pages whenever it comes out to let the people in South Carolina know here's your repo here's your glorious Republicans, here's their score, and it's pretty low for most of them.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um the Liberty Caucus, the Liberty Index, we do it for um we we grade every Republican in the House in the House Index, and then in the Senate Index, we grade every Republican based on how they voted uh over the last year.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's very difficult to capture every vote.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um but what we do is we take a cross-section of of um of votes based on foreign policy, domestic policy, spending, taxation, a variety of things.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then we assign a grade to each of those votes.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh and I I I think uh you know, you might have some in any one year you might have you know someone who can go off or um but over the course of time you can tell, you know, who you know who's got this who are strong liberty defenders.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, Rand Paul and Thomas Massey over the many years have just the best the best scores.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, Ron Paul I think is sort of the I don't think he ever got less than a hundred on an index, but Thomas is right there with them, and Rand is the is the leader in the Senate.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really important because if you look at the rest of the U.S.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Senate, they're kind of largely useless.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're just they're just establishment guys who you know are going to continue to grow the you know the the the bureaucratic state in DC and uh they're um they're they're you know they're not friends of liberty.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: So uh what I was getting at, I see that Liberty Index is one of your best tools for informing the public.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: You're exposing the Republicans that are not really living up to the old party tradition, and that's a great tool for getting Americans interested in politics again inside and look at what we're doing.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: We do and by the way, our chapters do it on the state level, too.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: We do it in Florida, we do it in in Texas.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's ri it's a really important tool.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we had one in South Carolina for a while.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we definitely need another one as soon as possible.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: As soon as you get South Carolina reorganized, I'd even help them do a Liberty Index for the state of South Carolina.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: So so really I would encourage your folks from South Carolina or sitting on Myrtle Beach or Pauli's Beach, you know, to take a break from the beach one day and uh go over and sign up to join the Republican Liberty Caucus at rlc.org and follow us at R Liberty Caucus on uh X and uh you know and get involved.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get that South Carolina chapter going again.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody wants to donate to the Republican Liberty Caucus, how do they do that?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Go to rlc.org and uh click on donate and uh jump right in.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Become a member, make a donation.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Very good.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Mr.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Dennis, thanks for being uh on the show today.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it looks like someone can use the words Republican and Liberty in the same sentence.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: We are fortunate that the Republican Liberty Caucus acts as the conscience of the Republican Party, constantly reminding them of the need to return America to a land that embraces limited government, individual, and economic freedom.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: While I'm obviously a radical libertarian, I wish the best of luck for the RLC in the future in reforming the Republican Party.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Its organizations such as the Libertarian Party, as dysfunctional as it is, the Republican Liberty Caucus, the Legislative Freedom Caucus, Young Americans for Liberty, Americans for Prosperity, and even the John Burt Society, who work tirelessly to reverse America's current slide to serfdom.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: And all of these organizations share my mantra: less government, more freedom.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: And now a word from our glorious leader, the executive producer of uh Liberty Crack Media, Trip Detmering.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, yes, hey everybody, this has been another fantastic episode of Conversations with the Hoff.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoy the Conversations with the Hoff that drops every Thursday, uh go to LibertyCrackmedia.com and find out more about some of our amazing podcasts and some of our amazing sponsors that have been uh jumping on board lately.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank uh uh John Dennis for joining us.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to learn more about the RLC, go to rlc.org.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: You will see all the links in our notations.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, this has been Conversations with the Hawke.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: Got a question back off the glow from Campus Quad to the Capitol Steps.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_04: We're talking to the Hawk.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_04: Or in between Old School roots and a freedom ring.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_04: See what you find.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_04: One more question.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_04: Let's just run a little time.