The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome, welcome! Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Lots to talk about lots to talk about today. Looking forward to it, thank you for joining me.
It’s a great time to be Pro America. It’s a great time to be Pro America. The, the, the, the basics are so good. I I was doing a radio interview earlier today on a Champaign Urbana radio station, the ESPN station there. Stevie J is the host. It’s a phenomenal segment. Every Wednesday at 8:30. My time East Coast time. So 7:35, 7:35 local time in the AM morning. On this ESPN station, me, Stevie J and his older brother Johnny, who played football and basketball in Illinois, I don’t know, 40 years ago talk for about 20 minutes. It’s fantastic and I always finish things being hopeful, even though I have all these things to say about how crazy things are, about, how dishonorable, distrustful. Insane that the swamp is how disreputable the media is. The fake news, everything. But it’s always good to. Always finish upbeat and today’s program will be the same thing.
I’m going to talk in a few moments to my friend Dr. Thomas Williams. He’s the Rome Bureau chief at Breitbart. He also is the author of a new book. I think it’s called The Coming Persecution. Let me see if I’m doing that right. It’s The Coming Persecution. I think I’m getting the title, right and basically He’s saying look. The culture has shifted so much. Yeah, The Coming Persecution: Why things are getting worse and what you can do about it. And Sophia Institute press. And but he finishes, he he never gets dour. He never gets down. He’s just describing, Hey, this is what’s going on. This is how it’s going. This is the direction. Here’s what’s coming. And then what you gonna do about it? How you gonna change the direction? What are you gonna do to change the, You know your outcomes around you and, very good anyway. Interesting.
And so I I finished and then John Schlafly and John Schlafly always makes me smile. He he could have the hardest, harshest, toughest message in his, in in his column, weekly column and he just always makes me smile. So it’ll be good. A good show. I won’t get down too much.
But first first, let me tell you what you need to know. Today’s WYNK and, and let me send you over to proamericareport.com proamericareport.com, where you can sign up for the daily WYNK. The daily What you need to know the WYNK e-mail. Comes out 8:00 AM East Coast, 5:00 AM Pacific. You kind of tune In there, you get some links, you get some stories, some insight. And I’ll send you my WYNK for the day also.
So today’s what you need to know comes to you, I know you like this comes to you from Politico, Politico, the otherwise left of center. But what I say to people is intellectually left intellectual comma left of center, comma and partisan. But they are kind of intellectual. They’re pretty good writers. They’re pretty savvy. They see what’s going on and they write pretty well. So there’s a piece over in Politico. And the title of it is Trump ties GOP in knots over Medicare and Social Security. Now the author, Burgess Everett and Burgess Everett’s been around a while. The other author Caitlin Emma. I don’t know her name as well, but they write a long think piece, long think piece. They got kind of news, but it’s basically talking about how Donald Trump is driving a wedge through the GOP. Over one of America’s thorniest issues, the future of Medicare and Social Security. They’re kind of right in writing this story, but the wedge was driven through the GOP about 5 1/2 years ago, six years ago, when the first time a candidate made a modern Republican candidate ran for office on the national level and said unequivocally, I’ll never touch your Social Security. I’ll never touch your Medicare. We made a deal with you on that, we can’t go back on it. Everybody else, everybody. Paul Ryan as vice president to Mitt Romney, even, you know McCain, of course. And even W Bush in his second term, they all talk about how they’re going to solve the problem of Social Security and Medicare. And here’s the thing. I’ll be the first to acknowledge and join Senator Chuck Grassley in his analysis of the cost. It’s out of control.
But to say that you’re going to cut Medicare and Social Security because it’s out of control, the spending, is dumb. It’s dumb politics. It’s not fair. And by the way, it’s dumb politics. So it’s not fair, meaning people pay in and they and they have, they live with a commitment. They’re gonna get something and then they and then they’re gonna talk about cutting it and then politics. You can’t do it. You cannot do it. You cannot win by alienating a large percentage. A large part of the largest group Of people that vote for you, or vote in elections, seniors, 55 and older. Once you get to be about 55. I’m not quite there. You already starting to think about your Social Security. You already starting to think about what it means. So you you just can’t do it. And Trump 5 1/2 years ago did this, he said. I’m not gonna run. I’m gonna tell you, I’ll protect. So now. Trump is saying, as a new candidate for President, people want to run against him in the primary. He’s saying: Let me explain to you he’s saying. These people have voted for and talked about cutting Medicare and Social Security. They have, they have. And you know who’s laughing. As you see this story written Politico’s writing this piece who’s laughing is the Democrats ’cause the Democrats long ago realized there was no upside in being a serious policy person and deciding what the problems were, Social Security and Medicare. No upside. Just keep saying we’ll never cut it. In fact, we’ll expand it. That’s what the Democrats do. They don’t have any idea how to pay for it all. They don’t have any Idea how it’s gonna work out but they’re smart enough to Know that politically it’s a cudgel. And the only ones dumb enough to not realize it are certain Republicans. But it’s not everybody anymore. It used to be everybody. It used to be most of the people running on the Republican side would get trapped in this argument about who possibly could be, maybe think through the best way to possibly save Social Security. We’ll do this. We’ll make these cuts, mean testing and it never worked. It never worked, but it used to be almost everybody was there and it was. It was, and the Republicans were trapped. Now you read this piece from Politico, guess who gets quoted halfway through Trump, of course. But right after that, Hawley. Right after that, some of these folks that are in the Senate, Vance, JD Vance, doesn’t think you should do it. The people that are saying, oh, no big deal. You know, you just figured out how to make these cuts and then and you, you know, you’ll fight your way over the top of it. Those are John Cornyn in the Senate. Mike Pence’s people are saying, you know, you know that that there should be cuts. I mean, it’s just crazy. So again. Trump has figured out a way to have the Democrats and the Democratic media do their do their heavy lifting For him, because they’re basically making this contrast. And Trump is going to be on the side from the very beginning. Of not cutting and not changing Medicare and and and Social Security. Now within the same article you know there’s links within an article to other articles. There is a link to just how big is the always Trump component of the Republican Party. I referenced this the other day. The fact is that there’s a bunch of people that see in this guy, Trump, someone who steps up and argues things for the American people that no one else will do. Naming China as truly a threat. Talking about how we have to have tariffs no matter what the economists in the ivory towers say we can’t live like this. Stepping up and saying we’re gonna appoint pro-life judges. He didn’t shy away from it. Trump did not say how – I will have no litmus test on my judges, he said. I appoint pro-life judges. He did and Roe V Wade was reversed. Everybody else is, oh well, I won’t have a litmus test and I might deliver – Souter to you. That’s what happened. That’s George W, HW Bush. So there’s a whole bunch of voters and and and and Politico and others are getting used to this. They’re getting used to this now, and they’re starting to talk about it more. There’s a bunch of voters, and I’ve heard this from experienced savvy political guys. And gals. They say there’s a whole bunch of voters that will never vote for a Republican except for Trump, this time. In the future they may vote Republican because they might be Trump Republicans. But if Trump’s running and he gets beaten back or the media, you know, there’s now all this coverage of Paul Ryan talking to the executives at Fox about how we have to hammer down on Trump. And then this is, you know, Paul Ryan’s on the board of Fox. By the way, when you say he’s on the board of Fox, people think, oh, wow, he’s on the board of Fox there’s, you know, 42 members of the board. No, it’s 5. I think three are Murdoch family, maybe one other and Paul Ryan. It’s not exactly like a large board. In other words, when you hear that one of the board members in this case is saying to executives, hey, let’s let’s do this. Let’s do that. That’s not it’s not like, like at one point when the NRA was having trouble and they’re still being sued all over the place. They they I think there was 45 board members. Well, that’s different. Anyway, back to my point. Whatever the number is that you think. If if it’s more than 10%, it’s game over. What I mean by that is, if 10% of the Republican primary will only vote for Trump and Trump runs as he’s doing and runs hard, it’s game over. He has to be the nominee. And if you’re Ron DeSantis, you say to yourself, well, I could win this primary. I can get the money. I can see a path. But it’s apparent victory because I can’t win it. Whoever the Republican is that wins in 2024, it will be close. And you certainly can’t start out with 10% of the Republicans not voting for you. So one of the realities and this by the way this is, this is also a a part of a, you know kind of politics and you know and and tactics because Trump wants this story. Because if you’re Ron DeSantis, you’re saying so I’m 47 years old. I got a long career ahead of me. Do I really want to end it by losing to Joe Biden or losing to Kamala Harris? Because if 10% of the Republican voters stay home and you could say, well, no, no, it’s not true. No. Here’s the thing. There are always Trump voters. I’m not one of them. If the Republican, if they, if they if it comes down to a Republican who’s more conservative than the Democrat, I can’t imagine a Democrat that’s conservative these days. There could be. Could surprise me, but I I doubt it. Therefore I’m not going to say, oh, I’ll never vote for a Republican I don’t like. I I’ll hold my nose and vote for somebody I don’t think is the absolute best. If he’s because you have to choose. You know the perfect’s not on the ballot. But that’s not everybody. And the more people that are vocally that way, the more likely it is that a guy like Ron DeSantis says not now. I’ll step back. I I won’t bother doing this now. So that’s what you need to know. That’s what you know. It’s a big deal and and they’re just discovering this over at Politico. They’re figuring out the reality. That, A.) Trump knows how this how this works. Politics at this level, and especially Republican primary politics. Ohh let me finish, I I don’t know if I started this off. I was telling someone earlier. Governor Scott Walker, I sat next to him in an event a few weeks ago. Did I just tell the story? and and he he’s he’s very savvy. He he had three hard fought elections in Wisconsin to be, the unions tried to destroy him and he won. A recall and elections. And he didn’t win for President. He flamed out pretty quickly, raised a lot of money, but but he was recently quoted, he said, look, when Joe, when when Joe Biden failed to go to Ohio and Donald Trump flew in there and you see the people that see he’s on their side, he’s got water and he’s there. Walker, who I don’t think is a big Trump fan. Said you get a couple more moments like that. That guy’s gonna be president again. And he should be. That’s what’s happening. Trump knows how to seize the moment. And that’s what’s happening around. We gotta take a break. We’ll come back and talk with John Schlafly and Dr. Thomas Williams. Be right back. Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report back in a moment.
