A Conversation with Matt Schlapp and special guests Scott Walker and Rep. Ken Buck

Hello, everyone, and welcome to CPAC Live. Today we have two fantastic guests. The first guest is someone you know well, a real hero of yours, Governor Scott Walker, who will be talking to us from the great state of Wisconsin. We're also going to be joined by Congressman Ken Buck from Colorado, who's written a great new book, which focuses on this new battle we have, the battle we cannot lose, which is this battle against social media and big tech companies. The title of the book is called Capital of Freedom. What a great title. To start this show, I just want to bring you up to speed on what's happening near the swamp in the state of Maryland. On Friday, the Montgomery County government in Maryland basically sent, you could call it a cease and desist order, to private schools, basically saying that because public schools are going all online, private schools must follow them. And I think their rationale is that one size has to fit all, which is their mentality in all education. If a public school has to be treated in a certain way, a private school must follow suit. And of course, this is completely antithetical to our Constitution. The reason why our founders envisioned this idea of a Bill of Rights, and the very first amendment in that Bill of Rights talks about our freedom to practice our religion or to practice no religion. And a county government does not have the ability to intervene and throttle those First Amendment privileges. And Bill Barr has been very clear that you also can't make a higher bar for religious institutions than you do for other private institutions. And this is outrageous. And as the father of five kids that go to Catholic schools in and around this area, I think other parents as well are fixing for a big fight on this. But you don't even have to be a Republican or a conservative to understand the idea that a parent understands best how to raise a child. And I was on C-SPAN last week and one of the callers said that I was literally going to kill my children by sending them to school. This is the outrageous left wing fascism that has been let loose in our country. And I think it's time for the authorities and the federal government to say something, to make it clear to these blue states and these socialist governed counties and cities around this country that they can't prevent us from fully exercising our religious rights, whether that be in religious schools or in church services. And this is something that I'm going to keep you posted on. I believe and fear that this kind of fascism will spread to other counties and to other cities and could be coming to a neighborhood near you. We all want to make sure that parents have the full range of choices. And in the Catholic schools in northern Virginia, they are allowing parents to choose whether they want to be online or in person. The parent gets to choose. What's so wrong about that? The liberals always told us that we should give them the right to choose. And now we're really saying that was marketing, that was faux, that was false, that was fake. They don't want us to have any choices. I think somebody who understands this very well is our first guest, Governor Scott Walker. Thanks for being with us, Governor. My pleasure. Great to be with you. Please tell me that there's better news in the state of Wisconsin. Well, there is. Thankfully, it's not because of the current Democrat governor. It's because of our state Supreme Court, which months ago said the governor had overstepped his administration and overstepped their their bounds. And the Republican legislature stood up and said, hey, we're not going to shut everything down. We can be safe. We can take this seriously. We're in a much better position going forward. But these are the kind of challenges we have. And I hope for your initial point there, Matt, that people all across America, whether they're conservative or not, if their parents understand this is why we've been advocating for school choice for so long, whether you send your kid to a Catholic school, a Lutheran school, a Jewish school, doesn't matter, non-secretarian school, you should have the choice in this case, whether your kid goes to school that's open in person or maybe you want to go online. The parent should be the one making that decision, not the government. Yeah, I have no judgment for any parent who believes that the health risks to their kids are such where they want them to do online learning. I wouldn't have any problem with that if we were in non-Chinese Corona times. I don't have any problem with the teacher who might be in one of these targeted categories to want to have a different setup for teaching the kids. I wouldn't have any problem with the teacher Skyping in and then other parents trying to make it work for that teacher by staying in the classroom who aren't in some kind of don't have health concerns to keep general order in the classroom. I'm open to every kind of flexible solution, right? Because that's what we believe in. Well, exactly. But this is why I think so many people are confused as to what's going on in the world, because you have people saying one thing, you have to do this. The irony is we've got so in New York state, they're talking about teachers, the teachers union. I want to stress the union because it's usually the union bosses, most teachers overwhelmingly just want to teach the good, decent people at the union bosses that are more often the problem than not. But they said not only do they not want to teach in person, they talked about how they were tired of teaching online. Well, hey, there's a lot of health care professionals, particularly months ago, who when everybody else was focused on dealing with coronavirus in emergency rooms, if they were, say, involved in elective surgeries, many of them were laid off because they weren't deemed essential workers, even in terms of health care. I think the taxpayers understand, hey, if you're not going to work online and you're not going to work in person, you shouldn't be collecting a paycheck. But this is the weird, weird world that we live in these days. So like no other politician, public servant, former politician, all these categories you get to be in, like nobody else, you understand what it's like to go through a hate field campaign filled with lies and distortion. And you also understand that there's something strange about the current political moment, which extends not only to the cycles you were running in Wisconsin, but it extends to 2020. Sometimes you have to do the most controversial things and everything, every lesson that's been taught to every politician, like don't be too controversial, don't step on landmines. Sometimes you have to do the most controversial things and sometimes you're the most politically rewarded for doing that. In 2020 in Wisconsin, what's the state of what the people of Wisconsin think about this presidential campaign? Well, it's fluid, as you can imagine, you referenced when we went through, in fact, the book behind me, I talked about it, Unintimidated, talked about what we did in Wisconsin and taking on really this false premise that you either have to cut major services or essential services or you have to dramatically raise taxes in order to get things going after a crisis. We inherited one after the 2010 election, big unemployment, big budget deficit. We turned things around and they tried to recall it. In the end, we actually got more votes in the recall election than we did in the original election. I think we were headed down that same path with President Donald Trump in the sense that here was a guy who took on all the third rail, he took on all the big issues, he took on the swamp, as we've said, he tried to drain the swamp and he passed, I mean, talk about some of the most significant tax cuts in American history, reigned in the regulatory nightmare that we see in our federal government, did all sorts of things that helped the people of Wisconsin and across America get to one of the best economies we'd ever seen. I mean, 50 year low on unemployment, lowest ever recorded for African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, people with disabilities, veterans. Obviously, coronavirus has twisted that all up. And that's why I say it's fluid, because the Democrats had leaped onto that, recognized before all this, Donald Trump's record was going to lead him, I think, to the same thing we saw after the recall, and that is voters saying, in the end, we just care about results. That's why it's so important for conservatives in this state and in key battleground states to remind people that Joe Biden doesn't have a plan. His plan is to attack the president. Joe Biden isn't going to get the economy going. He's going to actually raise taxes, all of it. And Joe Biden wants to take funding away from the police and transfer it to other programs. If you're worried about your health, your safety and your job, Joe Biden's not the guy only Donald Trump is. That's right. And we're going to be in Wisconsin doing CPAC Wisconsin. You're going to be one of our headliners. You know, your former lieutenant governor is going to be one of our headliners, Rebecca Clayfish, Congressman Mike Gallagher. It's going to be on August 14th. And you can go to our website at conservative.org to get more information. Now, it's almost a revolutionary thing, a governor, to say that you're actually going to go into a state and have a CPAC because the left has everyone convinced that that is going to result in a super spreading event. As you know, super spreading events of Chinese Corona only happen when Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters, Christians, Jews go to religious services. That's the only time it happens. It seems like other times everyone's just fine. So I expect that some people will say this is an outrageous example of following the Constitution and actually having a political debate around a presidential campaign. Well, the beautiful part is we can walk into government. In this case, we can get together and talk about big, bold political ideas that will further advance not only the citizens of Wisconsin, but across the country. And we can be safe at the same time. That's all conveniently, safely. We can do it the same way we were just talking about schools. Kids can go to school and be safe. There's plenty of sensible things. I remember early on when they were still trying to keep things closed down here. I said, why is it that I can go to the Menards or Home Depot or the grocery store and be safe, but I can't go to the local store down the block? It just makes no sense. Melissa Francis from Fox News tweeted out over the weekend, she said, I just drove by Target. It's so full. There's a line out into the parking lot. The parking lot is full, but my neighboring school can't open. What does this make? Well, it just doesn't. And unfortunately, I don't know what they think. There's some magic pill that helps the protesters of certain issues and not those who speak out about this. But in the end, we're going to show that common sense prevails. Common sense, conservative ideas work. I'm looking forward to being with you and the team at CPAC here in Wisconsin, and I'm looking forward to us getting energized for what's really at stake, not only in Wisconsin, but all across the country this fall. Look, one of the things that conservatives have probably failed at is working together a lot more. I think part of that reason is we're individuals, we're entrepreneurs. We kind of go it alone a lot. We have a fierce independence streak. But as the country is faced with this mortal terror of socialism spreading to a tiny minority of radicalized people, but it's spreading because so many institutions believe that they have to grab hold of it to virtue signal about the fact that they're not racist or that they're compassionate or whatever the convenient excuses they're using to destroy our country. As you consider what you're going to do with this great institution, the Young Americans Foundation, obviously the American Conservative Union, these two organizations have been around a long time. Give us a little bit of your vision as you plot and plan about what you're going to do with the leadership of this very important institution. Yeah, our predecessors were the founders. I mean, usually a part of this great organization thinking about, yeah, certainly involvement with CPAC and that. This is one where it boils down to simple contrast. It's not conservative, liberal, not Republican or Democrat. It's more fundamental than that. It's the difference between socialism, which believes in government, and those of us on the right who believe in freedom. We believe in the individual. And we've got to do that now more than ever. We can see what's happened in Seattle and Portland and Chicago and New York and sadly far too many other urban centers across America. This is when we see the failure of education and higher education, the overcoming of Hollywood and other sources of media. The good news is the optimist in me looks at all this and says, despite all the disadvantages those of us on the right have with young people today, we still have a possibility to reach them. We just did a survey about a month ago that surveyed high school and college students. And we found that even in high school, even with all the challenges, teachers, unions and the bosses involved with that, those students were still leaning more our way when they get into college. So we've got to reach them sooner. We've got to be more aggressive. And you're right. We've got to partner together, whether it's ACU and YAF or any number of other groups. We've got to realize we're on the right side when it comes to freedom. And I think a lot of our donors and supporters across this country, you know, there's a time when, you know, you can have a little more competition and sometimes competition brings out better ideas and stuff. I do believe in that. Certainly works in sports and business and everything else. But because we face this existential question of whether America will exist any longer in the form, any kind of form that then you and I were taught to love and respect. It's critical that we find ways, seems to me, to work together. And obviously, one of the goals, we have a C3 and a C4 at the ACU and on the C4 side and on the Super PAC side, one of those goals for us is making sure that the right candidates win these elections. And it seems like the 2020 campaign, obviously, my wife works for Donald Trump and we're big supporters of him. But what's been made clear to me and I think to many people in our CPAC community, including Republicans in the swamp that are always kind of complaining about President Trump, is this is so much bigger than just about whether Donald Trump is reelected. It's so much bigger than just whether or not the country is going to consider electing basically a senile person, Joe Biden, to be president. I mean, that's so risky with the job it is. When you look at this, we keep thinking it's really America versus socialism. Which one do you want? Is that equate to what you're thinking, how you're thinking about the November? Oh, there's no doubt about it. I mean, who would have thought even six months ago that you would have someone who is an openly supportive, a sympathizer of not only communism and socialism, but a Fidel Castro would actually be considered even considered to be the running mate, one of the two National Party nominees. That's where we're at today. This is how radicalized it would basically be like putting Bernie Sanders on the ballot under a different name. That's what's at stake here. And anybody who doubts he says, oh, you're overplaying your hand. Not true at all. Look at Venezuela today, a country that a decade and a half ago was one of the wealthiest, most prosperous countries in this entire hemisphere. Last year alone, nine out of every 10 Venezuelans were living in poverty. So much so the average Venezuelan lost about 20 pounds due to malnutrition and deprivation. That's the process. That's the road we're headed on if we give total control to the left. And it's not even just the Venezuela. I mean, again, look at Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York. See the mess that we see there today. This is what happens when you give the left that kind of power. We cannot let that happen. And finally, give us an idea of what's happening in Wisconsin. Do you find that it's true in Wisconsin, which we're seeing in these other national polls, which, you know, there are a lot of problems with these polls. But one indication that seems to be consistent is that conservatives are motivated to turn out in November, specifically on the presidential ballot. They're three times more motivated in most of these polls than Biden supporters. Do you see do you sense a similar spirit out there? And it's kind of a quiet spirit because of the ramifications. If you too proudly proclaim your conservatism. Absolutely. It's always been true. Any of the public polls skew a little bit more towards Democrat for exactly that reasons than Republican. People are more reluctant. It's been even more true under Donald Trump. And I'd say it's been supercharged the last few months because of all the riots. People are really intimidated to answer poll questions, not knowing if it's a legitimate polling firm or if it's one of these radical rioting groups out there. So I do think it is a very, very competitive race here. But I think but I tell people all the time we need a 2012 turnout, not a 2018 turnout by that. I mean, in 2012, when I was on the ballot and recall, people didn't just turn out. They grabbed everyone they could. They grabbed their family, their friends, neighbors, people they worship with. The work with and brought them to the polls in 2018, a lot of people took it for granted and we can see the difference. So make it like it was in 2012, at least here in Wisconsin. Turn out everyone and anyone and tell them what's at stake. Otherwise, Madison and places like Milwaukee will win the day. And we cannot have that because Madison's the left. Madison is to the left of Berkeley. I spent time in Milwaukee and I understand exactly what you're saying and I understand exactly what you're saying about these liberal colleges, too. It breaks my heart when I read what Marquette is doing. You know, I think there's a we have we have a lot of challenges. But I want you to know, as we end this conversation, let you get back to your busy schedule, which is I was driving with some of my older daughters and they were telling me how much they love country music and they they're not listening to as much pop because they said they just can't get away from the socialism that's seeping into every aspect of our popular culture. So they said they like listening to country music because at least they love America. Now, that makes you feel good, doesn't it? It does. There's a lot more young people like that. Yes. They're just overwhelming and timid, which is why groups like Yap are so important and bringing those young people at CPAC, not only in D.C., but around the country is so important because they need to know they're not alone. They're not alone. We're out there and we're going to have CPAC, everyone. Don't worry. We're going to have it no matter what they try to do to us. We're going to have it. And Wisconsin's going to be a test case in that. Governor Scott Walker, thanks so much for joining us today on CPAC Live. And we're now going to show everybody a short video about this struggle we have with Big Tech and these social media companies and these online companies. And on the other side, we're going to be joined by Congressman Ken Buck, a great conservative, who's going to talk about this fight in his new book. We'll be right back with you. I'll just cut to the chase. Big Tech's out to get conservatives. That's not a suspicion. That's not a hunch. That's a fact. July 20th, 2020, Google removes the homepages of Breitbart in the Daily Caller. Just last night, we learned Google has censored Breitbart so much traffic has declined 99 percent. June 16th, 2020, Google threatens to demonetize and ban the Federalists. April 19th, 2020, Google and YouTube announce a policy censoring the content that conflicts with recommendations of the World Health Organization. Think about that. The World Health Organization, the organization that lied to us, the organization that shield for China. And if you contradict something they say, they can say whatever they want. They can lie for China. They can shield for China. You say something against them, you get censored. June 29th, 2020, Amazon bans President Trump's account on Twitch after he raises concerns about defunding the police. June 4th, 2020, Amazon bans a book critical of the coronavirus lockdowns written by a conservative commentator. May 27th, 2020. Amazon Smile won't let you give to the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund, but you can give to Planned Parenthood. Welcome back to CPAC Live. We're now joined by a great conservative congressman, Ken Buck, who has a had 100 percent score last year and has a 98 percent lifetime score with the American Conservative Union. And as the congressman knows, that's a great score because we don't graze. We don't grade on a curve. We grade very in a very tough manner. And what did Mitt Romney once say? That he was an extreme conservative. I don't really know what that means, but I know what a consistent conservative is. And Ken Buck, we are happy to have you with us today. Thank you very much. Good to be with you, Matt. And the really the breaking news is you've got a very important book coming out tomorrow, I believe, that talks about this really caustic political moment we're in. Tell us about the book and tell us about why you wrote it. Sure. Well, I give tours of the Capitol in the evening to constituents and other groups, and I have gone around with historians and learned a lot about the features of the Capitol, the the architectural features, the the stories that have occurred in the Capitol. And it all points to a very strong history and points to our constitutional foundation as a nation. And when the cancel culture that is so prevalent now is trying to ignore our history or rewrite our history, they're doing so in it really in violation of all of the things that you see in the Capitol and in America. And so I wanted to make sure I pointed out how the features of the Capitol talk about where we should be going as a future, because it's made us such a great country up to this point. And when you talk about the history of this country, which obviously is admirable and bronze and it's great architecture in the country, they built the life. Thomas Jefferson and our founders are or at least those who occupied the first important offices in the new country built the Library of Congress to be just like a showstopper. So the whole world could see that America was a country on the rise. Now you see that even like knowing, understanding, loving American history, the good and the bad, it's almost like they don't want to allow you to discuss it. Yeah, I think they they want to ignore history. And what we need to do is we need to celebrate history. And they don't understand that if we don't celebrate, we don't keep our values. No doubt that we need to look into history and we need to identify how individuals were flawed. But we also need to understand that those individuals did something so fundamentally different with the relationship between government and the people that it needs to be celebrated. It needs to be we need to stand on top of a mountain and just scream what a great country this is. And so many people miss that point. The book keeps coming back to that point. It may be religious freedom and maybe Second Amendment rights and maybe separation of powers. All those principles are so important to where we need to go as a country. You know, I've had it relayed to me as people have criticized some of my social media postings that you have to be careful with this whole question of race. And one of the things that was relayed to me was that being too strong an advocate for the role that Christopher Columbus played in our history, but for a lot of people is akin to racism, which really shocked me. I should have understood why while they're ripping down all these statues, that somehow that's being credentialized. So it's not just Americans who played an instrumental role in starting this great country. It's just like every major figure of Western civilization. And I view Christopher Columbus as a great Christian, probably imperfect as all human beings are, but also one courageous guy to get in those ships and demonstrate to the whole world that you could get on the big ocean and the earth was a globe. I mean, these were big lessons, but now we're taught that they're actually not that important. Right. Absolutely. And unfortunately, what the what the left is trying to do, what the what the socialists are trying to do is they're not just trying to promote their speech or their worldview. They want to shut down our speech and our worldview. And it may be how they go on to social media and attack someone for your speech in an effort to really delegitimize your speech. They also protest and try to shut down conservative speakers when they go to universities. It's not a marketplace of ideas to them. It's really a fascist attempt at at shutting down speech through violence or threatened violence. Yeah, I completely agree. My view is, is that having lost almost all the universities, having lost almost all the major foundations, we're in the process of seeing that we've lost the corporate boardrooms of almost every major publicly traded U.S. corporation. Not all. We still have plenty of good ones. And now we're seeing that on social media, that these platforms that they said, hey, the water's fine, everybody can come in if you have conservative views, if you have liberal views, if you have socialist views, if you have even more traditional views, come on in. And now what we're learning is that they were lying, that they wanted everybody in so they could start making a lot of money. And now they're shutting down people like you and me. And if you really looked at all those statues and all those lives and all those frescoes that are in the Capitol, if these social media companies could consider the Capitol to be something akin to their platform, we would see a whitewash and a removal of huge chunks of our history. Is that right? I think that's right. And it's really a beautiful history. Matt, there are so many features in the U.S. Capitol that are worth noting. And I hope people not only read my book, Capital of Freedom, Restoring American Greatness, but also come to the U.S. Capitol, take a tour of the U.S. Capitol, see it, but make sure that when you when you listen to the news, when you read the news, you understand American history so you can put that in perspective. And I think there are far too many people that don't understand American history. And when they read something, they believe it without having that perspective. Now, and I do encourage everyone to purchase your book, and I know at ACU we'll be helping to promote it because it's very important during these confusing times for people to understand that it's OK to be proud of your history. It's OK to be proud of your country. And it's mandatory that citizens understand what's worked and what hasn't worked in our country. You know, our founders were incredibly imperfect men. You can't read stories about John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and realize that they were, shall we say, complicated people. And, you know, they had egos and they had points of view and these people got into fights. And it's a really interesting history. But the other thing that's interesting about the people who founded our country is they were all engaged in some kind of commerce, some kind of practical vocation, which helped our country, you know, survive in the most amazing challenges in this most beautiful part of the globe. As you give these tours around the Capitol, is there a founder or an early American leader who you kind of seem to gravitate towards or admire the most? Well, I think George Washington certainly comes to mind that the Capitol, the city, the district was named after George Washington and he was supposed to be buried in the Capitol. And if you look in the inside of the dome, it speaks to religious freedom in the founding of our country because there are angels carrying the spirit of George Washington to heaven depicted in inside the dome. And there are so many features of George Washington. One of my favorite and Mike Lee, who wrote the foreword to this book, talk about the the painting of George Washington resigning his commission to the Continental Congress. And it's so fundamentally important to understand the time frame where European military figures were trying to grab more and more power. And George Washington said, no, we are breaking away from a monarchy. We are we are trying to reassure to establish a different relationship between people in government. And it's important for me to give up power so that we have this in the long term. And when you look at someone's flaws, make sure you understand that the courage it takes to do what they did also. So you think about Washington and Dan Schneider, our executive director, often reminds us that that was maybe the single most important American act, the man who could have been king, who commanded victorious armies, literally turns in his command to essentially civilian authorities. He could have had it all. I could have been king, could have been ruler for life, could have been Julius Caesar, could have crossed that Rubicon. But he did something that was very humble in the spirit of democracy. Yet at the same time, it is also true that he was a slaveholder. How could a man like George Washington have this great virtue and humility and decency and understanding that America had to start off right in that way? Yet at the same time, he clearly struggled with this idea of slavery. He was a slave owner. He had half a dozen businesses down and around Mount Vernon, but he also freed his slaves at a point in the future. How do you how do you wrestle with that in your own mind? Well, I think it's important, Matt, that we recognize the fact that George Washington was flawed and that he lived in a time in this country's history where many people were flawed and the norms were so much different, not that they were acceptable. And certainly in retrospect, they're absolutely unacceptable. And it's a horrific practice to enslave another human being. But when you look at what he accomplished and how great a person he was and how he had this really love for future generations and the freedom that those future generations would enjoy. That's where I think it's so important to recognize what a great man he is. And every single person in American history has been flawed. And if we all we if we only look at their flaws, we miss the fact that this is a great country and a great country moving forward. Well, some of us would argue that only one human being has been perfect in the history of mankind, so you're going to have every single human being exhibit virtues and vices. And so going back to this concept of what's happening on our social media platforms, which you'll experience as you try to promote your book, if they determine that there's something in that book that's so beyond the pale, they might try to cancel you. Right. This is the fear that every conservative I don't even think it's conservative. Every non socialist in this country now has to fear. You know, we have a lot of young people that associate themselves with CPAC. We just talked to Governor Scott Walker about the fact that we're going to be back having a CPAC in Wisconsin in August. What's your advice to young people as they try to figure out what they think about politics, learning how to express it, but knowing if they could literally be destroyed if this angry, intolerant mob decides to turn on them? Well, Matt, I think it's so important for everyone to understand, and especially young people, that they hold the future. These young people are looking at 30 trillion dollars of debt. And how do you repay that? And if you don't get involved, you don't have anybody to blame 20 years from now when there is an economic crisis. And so I would encourage young people to get involved, understand that you have to have thick skin, understand that there are some of us who are willing to stand up and and take the abuse. But we only do that because we have great people that are supporting us, great people who are who are there with us in the fight. And if you want to be in the fight someday, it's so important to get involved. Now, I worked on Senate campaigns, gubernatorial campaigns, all sorts of political activities to learn what this game is about. And I would really encourage young people to get involved now, more so than at any point in our history. We are at a crossroads. And I think that hopefully through your organization and other efforts, these young people understand that there is no higher calling than to serve the public and to serve freedom in America. You know, I have to tell you, when I talk to the young people around the country, even though travel has been more limited, I never feel more optimistic. And I agree with you. I think that they're they're obviously the key to the future, but they're also looking for some guidance and advice in a very scary world in the state of Colorado. You know, obviously, it's a state that has been purple, been reddish, been bluish. It seems to be tilting a lot more blue these days. Do I have that wrong? And should we feel hope about what's happening in Colorado? Or are we seeing the destruction of what these Marxists want to do all over the country? I think I have a lot of hope in Colorado, Matt. I am the state party Republican chairman, as well as being a member of Congress from Colorado. And I have to tell you, Cory Gardner is a great U.S. Senate candidate. He is just a ray of sunshine. In a state that continues to look darker and darker. And I think people will gravitate towards Senator Gardner. I think people will support his campaign. I think President Trump has a lot of support in Colorado. It's always a tough race for a presidential candidate. John McCain lost Colorado by about nine points. Mitt Romney by about seven points. Donald Trump lost Colorado by around four and a half points. So the state is trending in the in the right direction. And I think President Trump has a record of accomplishment with the tax bills, with the appointment of good conservative United States Supreme Court justices, one from Colorado. I think that this will be a very good year for Colorado in the elections. You know, as a member of Congress, you get to do a lot of things. And it's quite an honor to serve in Congress, as you obviously know. And you're protected by the Capitol Hill cops who put themselves on the line to make sure that you have a safe and secure place to work and that all these great this all this great art and architecture is protected as well. Do you think your Democratic colleagues ever sense the irony that as the left and their party and Joe Biden specifically is embracing this idea of taking funds away from police and moving them towards other community organizing type functions? Do they ever get the irony that these men and women who are in the Capitol Hill police force are putting their lives on the line to protect all of them every day? And they can't do that without resources. And they won't want to do it if we don't love and respect and have their back. You know, I think one of the problems with my Democratic colleagues is they feel so entitled. They feel like they deserve to be protected. But at the same time, can unfairly criticize the efforts of police. So, yes, I think they appreciate in a lot of ways what what the police are doing. But at the same time, their language and I've had capital police officers come up to me just so frustrated with the language of a few, just a few members of the of the left. And and and yet there is such a clear contrast between the two parties. I was a prosecutor for 25 years, Matt, and I understand that there are some bad police officers that should not be police officers. We should not be giving these people guns and badges. Absolutely. I also understand that the overwhelming percentage are super people and are so we're so hardworking and are dedicated to protecting the lives of so many that we need to again, we need to celebrate police officers. We need to celebrate law enforcement and we need to understand that, yes, there are some flawed individuals. We need to make sure that we have a process in place to weed them out. But but we also have to pay police officers the money that they deserve and make sure that we give them the respect that they deserve so that they continue to do their jobs and protecting all of us. I often say I'm for mending it, getting rid of the bad cops, making sure there's more training. I'm for mending it, not ending it. And I think ending it is awfully dangerous. And for those of us who are living in and around the swamp, you know, it's a matter of time before crime starts going back to where it was not that long ago. If if we take these irresponsible steps. Ken Buck, once again, a great conservative from the state of Colorado. Everybody needs to go out and buy Capital of Freedom, which the congressman has ably authored. And once again, congressman, tell people the best way to purchase this important book. Sure, it's online in a number of different platforms, Barnes and Noble dot com, Amazon dot com. It will be in bookstores. I don't know how many bookstores are open in America. So I think the easiest way to do it is to buy it online. And I certainly appreciate the American Conservative Union and all that you do, Matt, to make sure that our conservative voices is heard around America. We have better days some days than other days, as I'm sure you feel, congressman. But I feel like we're in the thick of the fight, as Ronald Reagan used to say. And I wouldn't want to be any other place. And I know you wouldn't want to be any other place. Congressman Ken Buck, thanks for joining us on CPAC Live. And we're going to be right back with some final thoughts after this short break. Well, as we said at the top of the show, there's an all out assault on our religious freedoms in Montgomery County, right outside your nation's capital. You literally have government officials telling churches and private schools, mostly parochial schools, that they can't implement their own regimes to keep their teachers, administrators and students safe, which could also allow for five days a week in-person education because they've mandated that the public schools change and the public schools close. And the public schools are closing because, as we know, the teachers union are making demands that they close. And I believe the teachers unions are making demands that the public schools close, not because they're worried about our kids. Matter of fact, I don't think it has anything to do with the kids when it comes to the teachers unions anymore. It's about shutting down schools, which results in shutting down the economy, which results in shutting down the Trump campaign. And they hope will result in this. Basically, let's face it. Addled man, Joe Biden, becoming the president of the United States, all politics, it's got nothing to do with our kids. But of course, now they want to infect this left wing radicalism into our churches and tell our churches they have to reclose next step. They've already told us we can't sing unless we're singing at a funeral someone they appreciate. And and this is where we are as a country. And so we have to stand up. And over the weekend, I saw these terrible videos, one put out by AOC, this member of the squad from New York. And she was attacking a saint of the Christian church, St. Damien, who literally exercised his white privilege by going to a leper colony in Hawaii and caring for lepers to the point where he contracted the disease and died of leprosy. That was exercising his white privilege. And the fact that he is a statue in Statuary Hall, that Ken Buck just talked about this beautiful part of the Capitol where many of these statues are located. And he's just right off a statuary hall. The fact that it would be wrong to have a great human being, a saint of the church, be amongst those statues just shows you how radical these folks are. They don't just hate America. They hate the Christian church. They hate the state of Israel. They hate so many of the values that have made our country great and made your families strong and will make our kids successful. You saw the videos of, you know, Black Lives Matter Incorporated in conjunction with Antifa and these other radical Marxist groups burning Bibles on social media today. I have people saying that, you know, it's impossible to say which organization is more extreme than the other in terms of what they're doing. Well, just look at the videos. And who's calling all these people to take to the streets, to burn churches, to burn Bibles, to rip down statues of Jesus and Mary and to attack the art of our founders? Who's calling them out? Who's who's saying stop it? Well, I just hear Republicans and conservatives and really fair minded law enforcement folks who are saying to stop it. Where are the Democrats who would used to stand up for cops and used to stand up for first responders? We're not hearing from them. We've heard zero from Joe Biden in terms of calling this out. We've heard zero from the women he's considering to be the vice president on the ticket with him. And what's the reason they're not calling it out? I think they feel like they benefit from all of this. These radical activities that are going on around the country. Did we ever think in this country that it would be accepted by one of the major parties to take to the streets and burn Bibles, burn churches, tear down statues, try to bring down a courthouse named after Mark Hatfield, who was one of the most left wing Republicans to ever serve in Congress? All of this is a time of confusion. And we know that the way we get out of confusion is to use our common sense and to try to lift ourselves up to a higher purpose. And part of that is fighting racial equality and fighting racism. Not America. America is the solution to so many of these problems. It's not the problem. And that's what the left fundamentally doesn't understand. They are trying to rip down our country. And the question for you and for me and for those of us at the American Conservative Union is what will we do to stop that? My friends, it's America versus socialism. That's what we face. This is the challenge potentially of our lives. Let's stand up and meet it head on. Thanks for joining us on CPAC Live. We'll see you again Wednesday.