CPAC Live - LIVE FROM CPAC 2021!

Yes, people, we're here at CPAC in Orlando, Florida. I mean, welcome to CPAC Live America Uncanceled. And with me today, I've got the chairman of the American Conservative Union. Yes, the one and only my husband, Matt Schlapp. Great to be with you. You've got to pace yourself, Matt. It's just Thursday, okay? We've got to get through this weekend. Are you ready? I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. Lots of Red Bull, lots of Diet Coke. And I do make her call me Mr. Chairman, just so you know. Oh, yeah, that really, really settles well, yeah. The person who has the greatest title on this panel is a dean, the dean of the business school at Liberty University, a great crusading member of Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and our friend Dave Brat. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for being with us. How are they suspecting at CPAC this weekend? Well, brilliant. The Schlapp, as you call them. Yeah, we just keep it fun. I come every year. Look down here. Look at Radio Row and TV Row. I mean, it's just hundreds. We're going to light it up. We're going to take back the culture. We're going to reinvigorate the young people. Look at these nice young people right here behind us and spread the good word. We got the better message. We got the better policy. We got the people who love the country, love each other, and we're going to win. Dave, so many people are looking at this country of ours that we love, and they're worried. Look at this policy that's coming out of the new administration. Look at the filth and the ridiculous stuff that are on our screens, and look what they're filling our kids' minds with. You have a big ability to influence the next generation of students. Is this a calling that you feel now that you've transitioned from Congress, and now you're teaching kids about the facts of life and what's going on in the world? Yeah. No, it's been my calling the whole time, undergrad in business, and then went to seminary, and then did economics later in Congress and all that. And our faith, the Judeo-Christian tradition, has informed us every bit of the way. In 1640 at Harvard, the motto was truth for Christ and church at Harvard. Wow. I don't know if they're for truth or Christ or church anymore. So the culture has canceled, and it's time for us to just step back and go back to the first principles, everything that made us great. Judeo-Christian tradition, the rule of law, free markets, pro-business mentality, love your neighbor as yourself. It's pretty simple, but we just got to get our confidence back. I think 80%, 90% of the American people have that in their gut, but they're being told that that ain't reality, and we're here to tell them, no, that's what we're aiming at. So do I have to call you Dean from now on? I just got to know, am I changing gears? Okay, Dean Brock, here we go. You're on a panel, it's about losing religious freedom. What are we seeing in America? Why are those people of faith, us people of faith, why are we being threatened? Well, we're being threatened. It's all about power. And so we're being threatened because we've allowed ourselves to be threatened. And so, you know, 100, 150 years ago, you had Karl Marx and no God, and then you have Nietzsche, God is dead in Europe. And he wasn't some crazy liberal. He analyzed the situation. He said, God is dead in Europe, and the churches in Europe were dead. So he was on point. The question is, is God dead here in America? And I don't think so. And so we're being challenged. And we have, Christians, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. And I think we've become gullible and weak. We're not called to be gullible and weak, right? We're called stand up for the truth in love. But we've given too much ground. It's time now to assert out of love, right? St. Augustine, way back, said, you go to war, you can go to war in a just war if you're there to defend the weakest among you. If you're defending them, it's okay to fight. And I think we need to get back to first principles. We're here to fight on behalf of those who need us to stand for them. And our faith is very important to us. It's something that is, I think, central in our family to be able to get through the attacks that we get all the time. And I know that we're not the only ones. There's so many Americans out there that have seen their churches closed because the government has said, we've got to close our churches for on the name of COVID. And really, I think it's had such an impact. But in talking with our pastor, it was kind of interesting. He said to us, he said, but I am seeing a revival in the church. I'm seeing people turn to faith because they feel so lost. They feel so alone. And they feel that if they turn to God, and that they are able to get through these very, very challenging times in our nation. But for the Democrats, the government is their God. No, that's right. Right. Yeah, totally right. And I think that the one thing that I keep thinking about when I look at America, is I wonder as America becomes more secular, even though you're right, Mercy, there are millions of Americans where faith is central to their life. But our society seems to become more secular. Yeah. Can the concept of America work amongst secular people? No, I don't think so. I mean, our rights language, right, people are being canceled right now. That's a cancellation of your rights. That's right. And we believe those rights are inherent, right? They're inalienable. They come from God. They're prior to government, right? Those rights are from God. They're not from government. And so they're canceling us. We have not stood up. By the way, I just want to applaud the schlaps again, Matt and Mercy. You guys, you're positive. The way you convey yourself, that's the powerful piece. It's not fighting nasty. You guys fight with a smile on your face, loving people. And you're leaders in the true sense. First of all, I just want to thank you for that. Thank you. And you're right. There is a reawakening coming, right? There's been several awakenings in the US history. And I think we're at the beginning of it, but it's not automatic. And everyone says, well, don't worry, God's on the throne or God's in charge. Well, of course, that's not in question. Right. The question, God is always in charge. He's right here with us. Right. But the question is, if like with Israel, if you turn your back on God for periods of time, he will allow you to go off in the wilderness. Right. And that's the question. Are we walking off in the wilderness? Right. It's not, it's God is here. There's no problem with that one. The problem is, are we walking, are we turning our back on God? And if we do that, it's on us. It's not upstairs. Well, the problem is when you see these Democrats moving so far to the left, where they are accepting the philosophy of Karl Marx, where there is no God, where there is no respect of God, where government takes over the family. Let's be that they're like trust in us. And we've got to push back and say it is about individual empowerment. It is about a protection of our rights. And, you know, we've got to take it back. Now, one quick question on we know in Virginia, there's always this issue of reopening up schools, not reopening schools. The public school kids are suffering because we've seen the Christian and Catholic schools reopen safely and responsibly. What's going on? Why can't we get our kids all back in school in person? Biden administration's dragging their feet. The state governments are dragging their feet. What is going on? It's very simple what's going on. And the American people don't get this because they don't think that way. What's Marx about? Power. He says, give up God in the short run. Give up your human rights in the short term. Give up the welfare of your kids and education in the short run. They don't care about it. They want to maximize power. People can't get it through their head. The project on the left, these are not liberals. This is not JFK. Good Catholic guy, like schools. Don't go too far. I know, I know. Not a Republican. We're not talking about Marilyn Monroe. But we're not talking about your old classic liberal where we debated over optimal tax rates. This is about religious freedom. Can you speak at your kids going to school? And it's got nothing to do with education, right? Spending on education, going like this, Chicago's the scholar. If you want to go Google that guy. Spending's like this. Student test scores are like this. Hello? No one cares about education. And this new woke thing, you don't hear one thing about helping the poor kids in the rural or in the city. Now it's about who's what trendy person and what category is going to be on your board. It's got nothing to do with loving the kids. Dave Pratt is just getting warmed up from his panel at CPAC. I'm ready. Thank you for being with us. Thanks to the slaps. No, God bless you guys. Thanks for doing what you do. Thanks for being with us. We'll be right back. I'm hoping to learn a little bit more where we're going to be going with the constitutional rights. Lived all around New York my whole life. Kind of just felt like I needed to be around people who shared the same beliefs as me. Getting to be around positive people and just to keep the fight, the positive fight of our values and show others that it's important for us to stick together in this fight. Of course, having President Trump come on Sunday is icing on the cake. I'm looking forward to see President Trump. I'm definitely excited to see President Trump show up. I'm super excited to be here. You know what I'm saying? Because it's my first time coming to a CPAC event. I'm coming all the way from D.C. We're here for our grandkids. We want them to live in a much better world than ours seems to be right now. There is so much to learn here at CPAC and so many interesting people to see. You can't pass it up if you have the opportunity. Hello everyone and welcome back to CPAC Live America Uncancelled. CPAC Uncancelled. Wow, there's a lot of great things happening here. You're uncancelled. I'm uncancelled. It's a good day for you. I'm unnerved, but look who stopped by. You know, I think they're going to end up canceling our next guest. I don't know about you, but we've got the great Buck Sexton with us. He's got his own radio show, The Buck Sexton Show, and he has been on fire. We are so thrilled to have you here. Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me. I knew this was going to happen. Buck Sexton has this amazing Twitter game and you have to follow Buck Sexton. What's your handle? Buck Sexton. It's easy. That's an easy one. There's only one. He can be a little bit of a mean tweeter, but this is a great tweet. It's the whole reason why we're in Florida, because they canceled CPAC in Maryland, right? Here's what Buck just said on Twitter. The only way back to normal life will be through mass defiance of the authoritarian idiocies that we can all see but are forced to obey. Now, is that your response to two or three mandated masks? I am known among some, at least on the online community, for making jokes and predictions about double masking stretching back to last June. I've looked at all the data. I've looked at what's happened in other countries. They're going to have to come up with something else. So the double masking thing, and that's a matter of record. People can sort of check on that one. But I've been trying to tell everybody, the more compliance we have with things that are obviously absurd. Examples of this. I have to start with the most absurd stuff before we get into more of the, okay, well, should we be doing this authoritarianism in the first place? When you're sitting in a restaurant, I'm sure you guys have been in places where you have this rule. You're sitting there, you're breathing, everything's fine. You get up, you go to the bathroom. Excuse me, sir or ma'am, you have to put your mask on for your trip, your solo trip to the bathroom. This is dumb. We all know this is dumb. This is not rooted in anything other than some people's extreme anxiety and other people's desire to control. Well, I think what you're missing, and I think you're not listening to public health professionals, is apparently the virus is afraid of heights. And it kind of survives at these low altitudes. But once you get higher, you really have to be worried. I can't handle these anti-maskers. You really have to be worried about this. I mean, seriously, this is what the suburban moms are worried about. They want to put on their masks. They want to make sure all of us put on our masks. What's going on with you two? What is it? Is it just the males in this world, or what's the deal? I just feel like I like to be told to do things that make sense. And as a general rule, I keep that as a baseline. I think both of you are rebels in this world. There are a lot of things. Look, I'm down here with y'all in Florida, and it feels so different. It does. You know, it feels so different than what you get in New York City. But the thing is, there's still some mitigation and distancing and masking and all these things. But you have a sense that life moves forward and that we're not all frozen in place, because that has always been false. I mean, even in Los Angeles with the lockdowns there, podcasting, near and dear to my heart, an essential activity. My show is great. No one's going to die if they don't hear my show. And in Los Angeles, that's essential, meaning that people aren't actually even locked down. The whole thing is preposterous when you actually dig into it. We should be honest about what we're doing. Is a partial lockdown worth doing, where you destroy some industries, not others? You don't really stop the virus. You maybe slow the virus. Or we can just listen to Fauci. Or you can go back and see what he used to say about HIV in the 80s, and you realize, wow, this is a guy that should have been fired many, many times. If you listen to Fauci, you get the vaccine, but you still can't go to the movies and you still can't go out to dinner. So what are we going to do? But you can't question the vaccine. He's amazing because he says, even after you get the vaccine, you shouldn't do indoor dining. That was earlier this week. And people are doing indoor dining. So somebody should give Dr. Fauci a newspaper. I want to play devil's advocate for one second, because she does. She does. She keeps like putting her hand like she's restraining me. She is really coming at you. The duct tape is coming next. So be careful. So my, you know, I have a lot of girlfriends that we do the little texting with each other. And one of my friends I'll never forget said, I trust Dr. Fauci more than I trust President Trump. And they really believe that Dr. Fauci was sort of this God-like figure who was able to tell them exactly what they needed to do to make sure they didn't get COVID. By the way, I think God's much taller, much taller. Americans are afraid. I mean, what's your reaction to that, though? I mean, there are people who are genuinely afraid of COVID. Yeah, they're afraid because they've been told things all along that are full of panic porn. And there've been projections that were far worse than was actually going to happen in a certain time frame, right? If you look overall, you look at 500,000 deaths, that's awful. But at different stages of the pandemic, people have been told things that were going to help that didn't help. Test and trace, for example, test and trace was supposed to be the thing that would get us back to normalcy. Test and trace in New York City is a joke. I mean, it's absolutely absurd. There's so many cases, they can't do it at all. And I'll just say this about Dr. Fauci and the credibility issue. Dr. Fauci's explanation for why on March 8th of 2020, I even know the date because I play the clip so many times. I mean, think about this. What do you think a doctor would tell you a year ago? Antibiotics don't really work for infections. I just want to let you know. Something really fundamental, and then a year later say, turns out I was wrong. Antibiotics do work for infections. March 8th of 2020, Dr. Fauci said wearing masks was silly, makes people feel better, doesn't do anything. His explanation for why he said that is that he had to lie to us so we wouldn't have a run on masks. That is your top health official. That is completely unacceptable. He honestly should have been fired on the spot. I might have to talk to the big guy about this on Sunday. Sorry, I thought Governor Cuomo was a top health official. Did I get that wrong? He's a top of a lot of officials, apparently. He's a bad guy. He's been doing some really bad things. The problem when Buck Saxton is on a show and you get to talk to Buck, you have so many questions, but you're going to be with us here at CPAC throughout the conference. We're so appreciative you're here. You're going to talk about big tech and all this crazy censorship and silencing and canceling that's going on. Thanks for all you do, Buck Saxton, and thank you for being with us on CPAC Live. You're not canceled here. I thought what better way than to come to a conference here in one of the most free states in the nation right now to meet like-minded conservatives. Some of the speakers I'm really interested in are obviously Donald Trump, but I'm also really excited to hear people like Ben Carson. I want to watch Pam Bondi. I just think that it's so great to have this platform for these different people to come and share their points of view. I'm looking forward to the great speakers. I'm excited for Mike Pompeo, Kristi Noem, a lot of the big heavy hitters. Jim Jordan is another one, and especially the president. I'm attending to see where the Republican Party is going and who's going to step forward and be our leader. This is my first time, so I'm really excited to just be around like-minded people and see what it means to be conservative. Welcome back to CPAC Live America Uncanceled here in Orlando, Florida. Of course, I'm very biased with Florida because it's my home state, but thrilled to be here. Just remember to download the app. Very important. Go to conservative.org. Remember to follow us on Twitter at CPAC. We're also going to be live streaming every single speech, so this is really exciting. Live streaming begins at 8 a.m. on Friday. That's if big tech allows us to live stream, and if Twitter allows us to tweet. This is a real live experiment in their tolerance for the conservative point of view. At CPAC and at ACU, we would be nothing without good leadership. No, that's not a compliment towards me. It's a compliment towards our next guest, the vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, somebody who's been involved in the movement for a very long time, ran for Congress, helped elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency, Charlie Giroux. Thanks for being with us. Great to be with you and Mercy, Matt. So tell us, what's going on in Commonwealth? Are things good? Are things bad? In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I think things are very much like they are elsewhere in the country. There's a frustration among the base over what's happened recently. There's a concern over what they see happening with big tech and the media, but I think there's a hopefulness that in 2022 and 2024, things are going to change and turn around dramatically. The ACU, as you know, was formed when the conservative movement was in the political wilderness after the 1964 Goldwater landslide. It was a fusion of a variety of different component parts of the conservative movement. I see that happening now, where an awful lot of elements of a broad coalition that can win for America are coming together. The thing that unites us is the Biden agenda, the extreme left-wing direction that the Biden administration has taken is going to unite conservatives and activists across Pennsylvania and across the country. Okay, but Charlie, let's be real. This is a question that we keep getting, which is, are we in a civil war as a party in the conservative movement? I mean, you just saw this press conference between Congressman McCarthy and Congresswoman Liz Cheney, where one was saying it's great to have President Trump at CPAC. The other one was saying that President Trump doesn't have a voice in the party or in the movement. So the question becomes, how can we bring together the two sides? We're talking unity, but it is very difficult. When you have a majority party, not everybody agrees. You can have a very comfortable, everybody agrees minority. That's not hard to do. But politics is always about addition and multiplication. And when you're adding folks to a coalition, there are going to be some uncomfortable moments. So I always go back to the person that Matt mentioned a couple of moments ago, Ronald Reagan, who said, the person that agrees with me 80% of the time is not my 20% enemy. That's great. That's a great point. So opening up schools, opening up churches, allowing mom and pop businesses to be open, like the big retailers can be open. Why is the Pennsylvania governor getting this so wrong? The Pennsylvania governor has gotten so many things wrong, Matt, over the course of the pandemic that it's hard to even imagine. Tom Wolf did in Pennsylvania pretty much what Mario Cuomo, I'm getting old. Mario Cuomo. It's a Cuomo dynasty. Let's be real. I didn't think it could get worse than Mario Cuomo, but it can. Tom Wolf did pretty much exactly what Cuomo did in New York, taking people out of hospitals and sadly putting them into assisted living facilities where they died and has not been held to much accountability for that. He shut down schools and then he punished one particular county because they had had the temerity to push back and say, we're going to go ahead and open despite your edicts and mandates. Tom Wolf's got a lot of explaining to do. He's very unpopular with voters back at home right now. There's a secret here. Charlie is really a messaging guru. I thought I was a comms expert, but then I met Charlie. What message should conservatives be focused on so that we can regain ground, that we are able to expand that coalition and bring more people into it? In a word, Mercy, it's freedom. Benjamin Franklin said, where freedom lives, there is my country. That really is what the conservative movement has been about since its inception. It is even more so today. It's talking about individual liberty, individual responsibility, and with that, the opportunity that grows out of freedom that so many people want and that affects everybody in a positive way. Charlie, we're going to take a question from Tina, who's one of our great CPAC supporters. Tina, what's on your mind? I'm Tina Griffin, counterculture mom, and I went out to Hollywood and I was out there for a decade and I saw a lot of brainwashing happening. I learned a lot about who owns the media and I believe today's socialism and communism are infiltrating American soil because of what our kids are being taught, the indoctrination in schools, the common core, with today's pop culture. How can we get the illegal graphic content out of our video games, out of our apps, out of the TV shows that our young children are watching that is causing them to be brick throwers 10 years later? I think she must be talking about Don Lemon. Charlie, what's your answer to Tina? Well, I mean, the media largely has come under incredible scrutiny and with good reason, because there's no balance to it at all. But here you have two folks that have fought back in the media effectively, consistently, with strong voices, and that's what we need. I think you're going to see conservatives creating their own platforms, their own content, et cetera, over the course of the next few years. And that's the way you win. It's by truth triumphing over dishonesty. The only other thing I'll say real fast is, Tina, I think conservatives made a big mistake when they thought that they could turn their kids over to the government to raise their kids. And I understand why people have to work hard and pay the taxes and sometimes you need help with the kids, but I think we've got to take our kids back. There's that old Rhyme and Simon song, which is now 50 years old. When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all. And you think about the crap that kids are being taught today. And I see it in my own children. It's very, very sad and very, very tragic. And as a mother of five, because I'm the only woman on the panel right now, I will tell you, it's so important for parents to feel empowered that they are able to tell their children, look, this is not right and this is not good and we cannot go in this direction. I mean, we spent a lot of time really not watching too much TV, but the kids are starting to read more of the classics and we start having these conversations. And so that family time is so critical to help stop Hollywood in pushing their liberal agenda that's trying to change the culture in America. Grizzly Joe has a question for us. Joe, what's on your mind? What the holy heck is going on on Twitter where we have the CPAC coming up and all these niggas are getting on their bus stops, calling us Nazis, etc, etc, etc. How do we respond to those intellectually challenged folks? Charlie, what do you do when they go low? Because they always say when we go low, they go high. But my experience is when they go low, they even go lower. They go lower. But again, I think we do have to go high, Matt. And we've got a message of hope. We have a message of opportunity. We have a message about the future. The left wing is stuck in the past. They're trying solutions that haven't worked anywhere before. They're going to give them another shot. Biden's going to run the AOC banner and all of the, quote unquote, progressive stuff, which isn't really progressive at all. It's failed policy. We have the solutions for the future. I think we talk about those. And the ad hominems get thrown at you and Mercy. I know they hurt. I'm sure they do. But they ought to be water off the back of my duck because they're nonsense. I don't know. The one thing I'd tell Joe and I tell others is, I'm a German-American. When I'm called a Nazi, it makes me mad. I consider it a slur. When they call me a racist, I'm mad. As a matter of fact, I think if you're called a racist and it does make you mad because you're not a racist, there's something wrong with you. There's an honesty to the low blow that I think is important to just let hang out. Two Latinos and her husband here, they're going to call us racist. It's like when they tell Matt, you don't understand what the Hispanics go through. He's like, believe me, I do because I'm married to one. But also more importantly is that the Democrats have done, what they have focused on is that they're very good at the name calling. It is all about trying to put you in a box, to try to identify you in a certain way, whether it be a racist or using these very inappropriate labels. We have to fight back. We have to push back and say, look, we love America. I always say that Rush Limbaugh always had this wonderful quote, we love people. It is about making sure that they understand their potential as Americans and what they can contribute to this country. That's why I think we go back to the positive message, but we don't let the Democrats and big time get away with it and trying to censor us and trying to cancel us. Charlie Drew, thanks for all you do. Thanks for being at CPAC. You're going to be up on that big stage throughout the weekend. We appreciate all of you watching CPAC live. We're going to be with you all throughout CPAC. We're going to be with you tomorrow. Download the app, as Mercy has reminded you, throughout our time at conservative.org. You download that app, you're going to get a lot of information about who's speaking, what the topics are, and what's going to be happening. Stay tuned. Let's see what big tech does to CPAC. Are they going to accept our message and allow it to freely stream into your living rooms onto your devices? I'm hoping they do the right thing, but I'm also wondering if they will. Thank you for joining us on CPAC live. Thank you, sweetheart, for being here. Are you having fun yet? So far, so good. Grandma Sue's showing up. The kids are showing up. Get ready. It's going to be, we're going to have a lot of fun. It's a family affair. Always a family. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.