Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24

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John Bickley: Donald Trump heads into his second term with wind in his sails, enjoying a Republican-held House and Senate and an American populace primed for some major changes in the federal government. In this episode, we talk to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts about why he sees significant opportunity for Trump and the Republican Party to shift the power back into the hands of the people.

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John Bickley: Joining us now is Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and author of a new book calling for what he's labeled the second American revolution. First of all, thank you so much for joining us.

Kevin Roberts: Thanks for having me.

John Bickley: Look, we all just went through a tumultuous election year. Nothing about the election went the way anybody anticipated in terms of the campaigns. It was historic. It was wild. And from the news side, it was very entertaining to cover. We've now made it through and we have a president elect Trump, the 47th president of the U.S. Let's start by focusing actually on the Democrats. What do you believe are the lessons that should have been learned by Democrats this go around? And do you actually think they're going to learn them?

Kevin Roberts: Bottom line is the top lesson Democrats should be talking about right now is that when you govern like radical leftists and attempt to run to the center very late in the campaign, that does not work. Sometimes it works for Democrats to govern on the radical left, but they over many, a long period of months will move to the center and it works. In this case, their record prevented that from happening. And the more the vice president tried to present herself as someone in the center, there were two problems that she had. Number one, enough of the American people realized that was a lie. And number two, it actually underscored this persistent concern that they had about her and have about a lot of politicians, especially on the left, which is that they're inauthentic. And so they try to run an inauthentic campaign against whatever you think about Donald Trump, the most authentic man in politics.

Georgia Howe: Right. And so the lesson that they should be drawing, Democrats should be drawing is either run as radical leftists and convince the American people that they are with you, which they are not, or which is what I would recommend they do, be a center left party, be less ridiculous about abortion, be less ridiculous about the power of the state in our lives, be less ridiculous about basically your whole program. But I'm just telling you now, at least spending the daytime, many days in Washington, D.C., those aren't the conversations they're having. And they've actually pushed out very thoughtful folks like Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. I think I disagree with Senator Murphy on everything, but he had this very thoughtful analysis on X several days ago. And those conversations just are not happening. It's bad for the Democrats, but good for those of us who believe that this commences a generation-long era of conservative policy reform.

Kevin Roberts: Now, looking at the Republican Party, it's different than it was eight years ago. A lot of people discuss and debate about the ideas of principles versus pragmatism. How would you define now, writ large, the Republican approach to politics, particularly under a Trump administration as he's laying out his vision for it. What is the Republican Party now?

Kevin Roberts: I will describe it two ways, and I will, in the second way, acknowledge your point about principles, maybe even versus pragmatism. But the first, and I think arguably more important way, is that the Republican Party is, once again, a working-class, multi-ethnic coalition. And of course, it includes middle-class and high-net-worth people, too. But the reason I say once again is not even to harken back to Reagan or sometime 100 years ago, but to its very roots. You know that I'm a historian and the very roots of the Republican Party, particularly when Abraham Lincoln ran in 1860, certainly had something to do in that election with anti-slavery. But even more important than that in that election was the sense that the Republican Party stood for the American worker, what Abraham Lincoln termed free labor ideology. It was his way of saying sort of working class blue collar middle class and so on And that the most important thing that the Republican Party has become But it also important to acknowledge that there is a tension between principles, which we, by definition, don't have the power to change, at least in a social sense. But in a political sense, Trump and his campaign put an emphasis on pragmatism, that we're going to water down, they are going to water down the party's position on abortion. They have stopped fighting on marriage. And there are questions about what Trump will do as president regarding using the federal government and the administrative state for certain aims that may in fact be very good, but those are going to, this is going to be sort of a tense conversation with other conservatives who are very Trump aligned. I'm not saying that all of that is bad. I'm just saying that there's a tension there. And I think one of the goals that we have, certainly at Heritage and I think across the movement, is to reconcile those, not just for politics. That's almost the least of my concerns, although it's a concern, but more importantly for the long run, to make sure that the Republican Party, as it has been my entire lifetime, best represents the principles that Americans believe are upstream of those political considerations.

Georgia Howe: You know, part of the defense from Trump and his team about their stance on abortion ends up becoming an argument that is a very familiar Republican argument, which is, leave this to the states, let's not have intrusion from the federal government. Do you think some of those stances hold up and are consistent with Republican principles?

Kevin Roberts: Sure. That's not only a thoughtful, but a very valid position to have. And for example, in the months following the Dobbs decision as Heritage and other pro-life organizations were trying to figure out what do we do at the federal level regarding further restrictions on abortion, I was surprised, although as a friend, when a couple of members of Congress, I'll leave them anonymous because I don't know if their positions on this were ever stated, but really thoughtful stalwart conservatives, men you would never say are squishes on this issue, said this is not a federal issue. Heritage's position is that there ought to at least be some mild parameters put on abortion at the federal level. And if you go that step, then it's difficult to say then everything else is for the states. But to the heart of your question, yes, it's a valid and consistent Republican position to say the states are going to handle that. The caveat that I would issue on that and that Heritage will be talking about is as it relates to morality, the Republican Party has also always said that that's something that needs to happen at the federal level.

Kevin Roberts: You talk a lot about this, the experts and the elites in your latest book, Dawn's Early Light, Taking Back Washington to Save America. You've used a provocative phrase in the book, a second American revolution, and it has to do with this tension between the common people and the elites. Can you describe the premise of your book?

Kevin Roberts: Sure. I used second American Revolution for two purposes. The first is I'm a historian of the American Revolution. And while I can tell you a lot about military battles, the most important part of the American Revolution was the building and rebuilding of institutions that put into American associational life, our daily life, the founding principles. And so when I talk about the second American Revolution in a historic sense, I'm not talking about military battles or violence of any kind. In fact, quite the opposite. The whole point of referencing that is to talk about how peaceful the most important part of the American Revolution was, which went on for many decades. But the second is, and it's fascinating to me, just in the weeks following the election, we have seen President Elect Trump and a lot of his advisors talk about this refounding of America. And I think what they're getting at is the same thing that I talk about in the book, which is that the worst part of America today, the most challenging part of America today, isn't our political discourse. It isn't some terrible policies. It's that for two generations, our institutions have deteriorated and they've deteriorated because they have stopped cultivating a sense of self-governance in Americans. They've stopped cultivating a sense of truth for that matter. And that goes directly to your point about this presidential campaign being one that I think came down on the issue of common sense.

Georgia Howe: And in fact, the Trump Vance campaign could have as early as August, just run campaign ads that said, just trust what you see with your own eyes. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. And you can go on and on and on are the economy. Trust what you're paying at the grocery store as being a problem. But that's connected to the second American revolution idea, because just briefly, permit me to play historian for one moment. In the 1760s and early 1770s, British colonial officials in the then colonies were telling American colonists, oh no, it's not a problem that you have to go get a stamp, which cost you a couple of pence. That's not a problem. That's not the empire imposing our will on you. And they scratched their heads and said, the heck it isn't. Of course it is. This isn't uniquely American, but that just skepticism we have about elites, whether it's in the 1770s or in the 2020s is natural to us. And it is glorious to see it being reanimated right now.

Kevin Roberts: Now you talk about some of the institutions that have been corrupted, some salvageable some not salvageable I interested in the latter which institutions need to be completely reinvented discarded altogether What do you see as the not salvageable institutions in our society I name names.

Kevin Roberts: In the book, I talk about the New York Times, which I think is largely a den of liars. But they're really in microcosm, which is a perfect example of the legacy media writ large. And part of a common sense presidential campaign is more Americans realizing they should stop getting their news from places like that. There are many others, especially in Washington, but also name an organization that I'm not only fond of, but as I write about in the book was instrumental in my overcoming some difficulties in my family when I was growing up in Louisiana, and that's the Boy Scouts of America. I'm a very proud Eagle Scout. I would not be the person I am without the leadership and virtue lessons I learned from Boy Scouts of America. Therefore, it was one of the great civic tragedies when the Boy Scouts of America, of all organizations, decided to go down the path of the woke mind virus. And now it's not even called the Boy Scouts of America. Nothing against girls, obviously. I'm a dad of three girls. But this is also a war on men, which is against common sense. So they just need to go away. They're not salvageable. The New York Times is not salvageable. But the institutions or the category of institutions I really home in on are K-12 schools and universities. I love public schools, but the system as it's currently structured and funded must be totally reformed. I hope that they're salvageable because this promise that we make to American school children that regardless of where they come from and how much money their family has or doesn't have, that we're going to give them the opportunity for the best education of the world, the public school system isn't delivering on that. And also universities. I was at Ivy League College recently as part of the book tour. I was grateful to be there. It was a mixed audience ideologically of students on the left and the right. By the way, all of them were not only respectful, but just wonderfully engaging intellectually. Good to hear. But I went to the hotel room after that and I called my wife and I told her, she said, this is shocking. Do you think there's any hope? And my answer to her question is my answer to your question, which is no, because the administrators at places like that are cowards. They're not bad people. They just suffer from cowardice. So until there is some factor within those institutions or external to those institutions, which might be federal policy, they're just going to wither on the vine even though they are blessed with very significant endowments.

Georgia Howe: We've been watching what's happening in Oklahoma in terms of education reform. Some other states like Florida, for example, have been very proactive on this as well. Do you see signs of hope with reform in some of these states? And what would be some examples or maybe some paths forward for this?

Kevin Roberts: There is no policy arena I am more optimistic about than education reform. And almost all of that optimism comes from what states have decided to do. Oklahoma is a great example. The leadership of Governor Stitt there, Superintendent Ryan Walters, Heritage has helped them as we've helped other state officials developed not just an improved vehicle for funding education, universal school choice or close to it, but very importantly, also the content of this. So for a long time, some of your audience may not know this, conservatives only focused on that, the delivery vehicle, the structure of how we do this, vouchers, education savings accounts as they now are. But I realized a few years ago, along with many other conservative education reformers, is that we have to also play in the curriculum game. because if all you're doing is making it easier for children to have access to really bad content, then you're not helping the situation. So I'm hopeful about that. I'm hopeful about what has happened in Florida. And I'm also hopeful that those examples in the aggregate, as the new administration comes in and the new secretary of education and her team, which will likely be a very good team come in, will give them wind in their sails to, at the very least, get the federal government out of the way of those state-based reforms. That's like hitting a single in a baseball game. A double or a triple that would score a couple of runs would be eliminating some of the education programs. The grand slam would be eliminating the department entirely for the purpose of improving education in this country. We believe at Heritage there is a strong correlation between the 45-year history of the U.S. Department of Education and declining educational attainment.

Georgia Howe: Yeah, that's the kind of thing that would be one of the great policy victories of the Trump administration. There's been some promises made to do just that, to dissolve the Department of Education. Do you think that's actually going to happen?

Kevin Roberts: I think that it's as likely as it's ever been. It is probably a jump ball. And I think if it does happen, obviously, it must include legislation. Heritage is very clear about that. And that legislation is likely because of politics, but maybe also because of good old fashioned prudence. to include an incremental approach to this in much the same way that as I was coming of age as a college student conservative during the Clinton presidency, credit to him and the House and Senate conservatives for passing welfare reform. That's the model. The problem was it only went one step because of politics. We need the secretary of education and the president and vice president to articulate what 10 years down the road looks like and to have benchmarks and to constantly message to the American people this reform. This reform of the U.S. Department of Education is the most important thing we're going to do as a people as we celebrate our 250th birthday.

Georgia Howe: I want to ask you about the FBI and your perspective on the Bureau There been a lot of focus for very good reasons for the last several years since Trump first started to run for president the first go What do you think about the FBI and what needs to be done to reform it?

Kevin Roberts: The FBI is a rotten institution, thankfully, with many great men and women in rank-and-file roles. But for too long, the FBI has been too independent of any real overview by either the president or the attorney general or Congress, which would be appropriate. Congress has largely just abdicated its responsibility to do so. We believe at Heritage that the best way to reform the FBI is to go into the legal code that created it, select all, delete, and start from scratch. We believe there's, to be clear, a very proper role for a federal bureau of investigation. We think that in its current constitution and structure, it is so unreformable that that would be the best way to actually fix it. Because of politics, it's most likely that reform will have to come from a very vigorous director, but also real vigor from the president and from the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate. They've got to play ball when it comes to reforming that agency. It's rotten. It is used to persecute Americans. There are probably people in our respective organizations, the Daily Wire and Heritage. I happen to know factually that's the case, at least for some of us at Heritage. The FBI was on the brink of persecuting. They've done so with the former president. I wouldn't like that at all if it were someone on the political left. This is something that ought to transcend politics. And it's very important to sum up here as the president prosecutes this political case against the FBI, that as much as he could make it personal that he explained, as he did during the campaign, the reform is about the ordinary American and making sure the FBI works for us rather than against us.

Georgia Howe: Final question. We've got a big year coming up for Republicans. They're in power, both chambers. They have the presidency. They have a sympathetic Supreme Court. What are you hoping to see in the first year of the Trump presidency?

Kevin Roberts: I hope to see a real discipline about what the policy priorities are. Obviously, those don't have to run in such a linear fashion, but to some extent, being excellent in communication about what those priorities are and why is the first step. The second step, I would argue, at Heritage is to completely close the border. And I think President Trump, keep in mind his first appointment was a border czar, our Heritage fellow Tom Homan, who taught me several years ago as we started working together on border security, is that it isn't just about closing the border, but about interior enforcement. And that's where Americans in the interior of the country, obviously a majority of Americans, believe that their interests have been forgotten on that issue. Not only is it important to do that for its inherent purposes, It's also important to do that to prove to the American people that Trump meant it, that he's going to spend political capital to do so, including deportations of millions of people. And then that gives you the political will to move on to point two. And I think point two is largely going to be focused on the economy, ranging from very important deregulatory efforts to policies of the Treasury Secretary to re-upping the Trump tax cuts. All of those are very important in step two, and Americans will feel the benefits of that relatively early. And then, as I speculate, John, the third step is sort of up in the air. There are a lot of possibilities, but I think I would recommend, as a friend, to the president and vice president-elect that they pick some example of the reform that they will be doing throughout the government. Maybe it comes from the work at government efficiency that Elon and Vivek will be doing. Maybe they decide they're going to focus on the Department of Education. And my point is spend a lot of time, a disproportionate amount of media time, explaining to the American people what this is about, why they're doing it, how they're about it, that they're treating federal employees well as they're doing so, sort of the human level that Americans pay attention to, which is good, and then go do it. And I actually think that that gives them an expanded popular will to move on to step four, whatever that may be. The pressures in D.C. will be such that they're going to try to push all of those together so that only one of those things can happen. It's really important that the president and his team, who thus far just look terrific to us at Heritage, be very disciplined in how they go about that and when.

John Bickley: Kevin Roberts, thank you so much for joining us. Always a pleasure.

Kevin Roberts: Thank you.

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John Bickley: That was Heritage President Kevin Roberts, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire.