The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, Welcome, welcome. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. I’m I’m right now. I’m in southwestern Missouri, near Springfield, MO. For the Mike Lindell conference on election integrity. And it has been fascinating. I’ll talk about that in a moment. We also will have a chance to visit with my old friend Todd Bensman and also Ryan Walters a new guest on the program. He is from Oklahoma, he’s the state Superintendent and we’re going to talk to him about what’s going on in Oklahoma. So we you got a lot there and we’re in for a lot today.
But first as I mentioned what you need to know the WYNK today is about election integrity and visit proamericareport.com proamericareport.com and you could Sign up for the Daily e-mail the Daily WYNK what you need to know the what you need to know is Pro America Reports WYNK it goes out each morning. Monday through Friday and it goes into your inbox 8:00 AM, East Coast Time, 5:00 AM Pacific Time and everywhere in between. And it gives you a couple of links, a couple of stories and what you Need to know a focus. People really enjoy it. Go to proamericareport.com and sign up. Alright. Today’s WYNK.
Today’s what you need to know is about election integrity. So let me tell you what we’ve got here to let me tell you what is happening. In Springfield, MO, which is down in southwest Missouri in that part of the state, kind of go out Route 44 from new from Saint Louis about 3 1/2 hours. And there is a there is a a series of hotels and a Convention Center and a gathering of folks for Mike Lindell’s two day, he calls it Election Crime Bureau and election integrity sessions. Now it was. It the the meeting. Which is still got a few more speakers to go. But and and then and the highlight is is Mike Lindell revealing his plans, what he thinks needs to happen in the next 15 or 16 months. But the Gathering is a cross section of what I would say are leaders in the in the sort of election integrity Movement, you know, big names Mike Lindell, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, Rudy Giuliani, others. And then Emerald Roberts Robinson, the journalist who does a lot, Steve Bannon is is here. But then also grassroots folks, because what Mike Lindell has been saying for a couple of years now is. Sort of get local, get local, get to the. County level and figure it out and. So there’s all these people. And I you Know I’m from the Midwest. I’m from Missouri. I’ve been done a lot of grassroots tea party organizing. My work with the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, but meeting folks here, it’s lots of new people, which is very exciting. It’s really, really good news because new people bring fresh blood and also because new people bring fresh energy in and you know that A lot of times you Get tired out if you’re slogging away so. Very interesting meeting and I’ll tell you the Open of the Meeting was a welcome from Mike Lindell, which was maybe 15 minutes, which is always stirring. The guy is a really amazing man. His wife did the blessing at the beginning, but then he showed a couple of videos and here’s what you need to know.
There are still so many questions about 2020. About exactly what went on that have never been answered and I don’t think and Mike was careful, I don’t think we’re spending any time we should spend any time trying to necessarily relitigate 2020. There’s, it’s too far back. It’s there’s not a path to do it that’s meaningful, but Mike’s point was there were so many things that didn’t add up that were significantly wrong with what happened that we have to think to ourselves. How do We go forward. How do we Go forward in 2024 and protect the election. And it’s it is true That I I’m against ballot harvesting. I think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s abused by the left and the and and the money interests. But I know a bunch of people who promote it, but that’s only one piece of the puzzle. I it’s true that I’m against voter registration fraud and the voter registration pushes and all. I think we need to be much more intentional about. I’m all I’m. I’m I’m there.
But where the rubber hits the road for a lot Of people is Mike Lindell And folks here you listen. You say what’s the path forward?
The path forward has to be an Election Day. One day it has to be paper ballots that are traceable, that are not hooked up to computers that are not on the Internet. It has to be hands on ballots. I mean, we can do this and one of the things that Mike Lindell said. In his talk was beware of other nations, he said about other Nations that have a system that relies on all the electronics and all the systems that are that don’t seem to be clear enough, transparent enough, accountable enough, he said. Because and it’s a great way to say it. Everyone who’s elected under that system thinks the system worked. They think the system worked perfectly. It’s it’s psychologically impossible to think that the system is broken if you won. I shouldn’t say that. It’s not psychologically impossible. It’s psychologically difficult for someone to Say ohh yeah, yeah, yeah. The you know election that I won, that that was corrupt, that was a selection, not an election. It’s obviously difficult to demand that to happen. So we shouldn’t try actually. Instead, we should say how do we make it more transparent? How do we make it so it’s more accountable? How do we give people confidence? And I’m reminded of the lesson I learned when I ran the election board in 2005 and six in Saint Louis. And the lesson I learned there was you have to run a good system and it’s very hard. It’s complicated. It’s got a lot of Moving parts, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong. You only get to practice 3 or 4 times a year, you know on a primary and then maybe a municipal election. So you don’t get a lot of practice. It’s not like You can, you know, even moot court when you have a a single trial or a single argument, you can moot court it 20 times and you can get pretty close. Well, when you have an election, it’s hard to run elections and get the sense of how an Election Day goes. So it’s hard work. That’s number one.
The number 2, though, is people have to believe the system works if they don’t believe the system works, they start to Not check in. They start to check out is a better way to say it. They start to think that it’s not worth the trouble. They start to move on to other things. And so you’ve got to worry about both those things.
Here’s what. Here’s what I would say. I have to say, I salute Mike Lindell again and again. Partly he’s a nice man, partly he’s impressive and he’s he cares a lot about people and you see that, but partly it’s the entrepreneurial spirit. It it. It’s so quintessentially American. He he talks about how people say in Minnesota, where he’s from. That if it was Democrats that were getting the elections messed up, he’d still be protesting. They believe that. But here’s the thing. He believe he he believes. In trying. Trying that, he believes in in seeing if if something works and failing fast and and jumping into things with sort of entrepreneurial spirit. In the case of elections, he has not been leading the public effort in the last, l don’t know, year? he did for a while, but he. Did do more public things and this event. Public or it’s streamed online, but he’s more he’s gone out and he’s gone to counties. He’s gone to local communities, he said. What do you need to succeed? How do you think the system’s working? What could we do to make it work better? How would it fit together? And he’s he’s he’s adjusted. To the moment we’re in. I I hate to be. Use this as a soapbox. Just to be critical. But I will in this sense. Mike Lindell’s meeting, which was a couple thousand people attending in and out of the place. I mean, I met a lot of folks and there was a lot that were there that. But it’s it’s what the National Party should be doing. It’s what the state parties should be doing because it’s a kind of organizing and informing and then sending people on their way. And just by the nature. Of the training and. The nature of the the effort, it is confidence creating. You know you don’t have in person meetings just to make sure that people l don’t know, just understand that they’re looking in their eyes and they understand the system. It’s not just that you have these meetings in person because you can fortify people. Yes, you can inform them. Yes, you can teach them, but you fortify them. Encourage them. Me, I sometimes. I give a talk and I say fortify and fellowship. They go together. So importantly, when you’re talking about doing things that take A lot of Time aren’t going to get a lot of attention, aren’t usually paid, sometimes gets you some antagonism from people. Mike Lindell is is is really very creative about how he is approaching this. And I think it’s so American and generally it’s so successful. You know, he if he doesn’t fail in the first iteration, he goes again and again at the well, I would go back to at the beginning of this. Two day conference. He spent a chunk of time saying, look. Don’t look back. Don’t worry about looking back. Don’t worry that you can’t fix what happened. Say, how do we make what we’re doing now, transparent, accountable, manageable. So that people have the confidence that the system works. So we actually know what works and what can we do.
And the big factor here is that he thinks, and I agree, that you gotta get away from the electronics. You gotta get away from the electronics and the and the stuff that you can’t figure out.
I mean, he he makes the argument at one point in, in January of 2021 and maybe February also, he said, you know, people were saying, you can’t say this and say that about. Some system and he was saying just show it to us. If it’s working, show it to us. We we’re not saying we know it’s not working, but you should be able to show it to us. And if someone saying it doesn’t make sense to. You should want to show them. We’re talking about the electronic. Machines or any system and it’s not that you have to run around and and and give. Everyone that has a complaint of full showing. But when you have enough people that. Are like what happened here? How do we know what this was? That’s really worth it.
And what you need to know is Mike Lindell is heroic in his efforts to make this happen, it’s extraordinary to see.
Alright, we got to take a break. We’ll be right back. We’ll get a lot more. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report back in a moment.
