The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome, welcome it’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Great to be together as always. Please visit proamericareport.com. Sign up there for the daily e-mail. The WYNK. What you need to know. It comes in your inbox at 8:00 AM East Coast, 5:00 AM Pacific. And every time in between it. I promise. If you put your e-mail address in there. We will not. I. Won’t sell it. I won’t. Rent it. I won’t loan it to anyone. Just. For us to send you that information and in the WYNK. The daily e-mail. You’ll get a couple of key points, couple of data points, couple of links and one general comment, the WYNK. What I think you need to know and I do that here in the program. So welcome to the Pro America Report and today’s WYNK. I’m going to see if I can explain this well. I I I I’ve been, I’ve been looking at my notes as I’m getting ready to talk. Because you know, I I want to get this right. There has been an exchange over in the in the X sphere in formerly known as Twitter and on social media, where some of the moderate Republicans. I’m thinking like a Byron York of the National Review, I think. He tweeted something and he said I, you know, I just can’t believe it. Donald Trump has 60% plus approval Ratings, popularity, 60% gap over his opponents in the primary run. I can’t believe it. You know it doesn’t. It’s not. It’s it’s not easily explained.
Then he’s been kind of kind of replied to frequently by MAGA conservatives saying. What are you talking about? President Trump is by far the most popular Republican president, meaning popular among Republicans in history in terms of raw numbers, especially. I mean, who knows that You could say that the Reagan the feel for Reagan was more by the time you got to say, seven years into his term and all and over time, people just thought thought so well of him. But in terms of numbers, in Terms of votes Received, in terms of intensity, there’s nothing like It. There’s nothing like it. Trump, as a Republican, to say anything different, is just to not be paying attention to the world.
And to explain it what they try to do is then explain it in some way other than People like the guy that’s leading. Meaning the guy that is their leader. So they saw Trump, they saw him say he would fight for them, they saw him fight for them. They saw him do things with the economy and with energy prices. You don’t have to explain to people when gas prices Went down dramatically and the economy boomed. How that felt. They don’t have to. You don’t have to say. Ohh. Let me explain to you. Supply side economics or anything. They just know one guy was fighting for them. And they like it and then it’s, but it’s explained and the guys like Byron York say, oh, these are low information voters, that people that don’t really understand the problems and don’t understand that they that that Trump is really a bad guy or this or that it’s it the the explanation Of Republican / conservative politics is either really dumb or a lie. And a way to demean people and split people. Remember, it’s the media telling us this. It’s not the voters. And so here’s what I want to transition to.
There’s a lengthy piece I tell you all the time you go to Politico to see what the left is doing as long As you can Read through it and there’s a lengthy piece about a guy named Arthur Brooks. Now you might know. Arthur Brooks. He was for 10 or so years, the head of AEI American Enterprise Institute. It’s a. It’s a big so-called conservative think tank in Washington, DC. And he cut a big figure. He’s a he was very he’s very he’s, he’s articulate and he’s glib and he’s witty. He’s got a lot of charisma. And so he was. Arthur Brooks was a Well known name. For about 12 or 14 years, as the head of this think tank, kind of burst on the scene wrote. A bunch of books, but here’s the thing. He then quit in 2018 or 2019, basically because he was a never Trumper, or say it better. He was against Trump and his think tank, both harbored Never Trumpers and also the policies are exactly opposite of what the true American conservatives want. But the whole article. Is somehow about that he his his think tank was, you know, sort of on the on the side of the conservative principles and that somehow Donald Trump is for populism and even Arthur Brooks says, and populism. Well, that’s not that’s not where anything gets done. Nothing gets done When there’s populism, it’s just raw emotion. And division and it doesn’t, nothing good happens. That’s what he says.
Here’s the truth. AEI was for open borders, AEI was for amnesty for illegals, AEI and its its fellows and senior people was a big part of fostering the idea that we can fight wars all around the world and export our American ideals. And it was costing us trillions and in this. In the case of the last 23 years, it cost us thousands of lives and damaged lives and all the rest. Those were the policies Arthur Arthur Brooks was for the the discussion Of cutting all the entitlements. not discussion. He was for cutting entitlements, Social Security, Medicare and other things because he thought he could do math better than anyone else. he was Close friends with Paul Ryan. And my my point of that is, how do you cut all those things, first of all? You you can’t cut them practically, politically You can’t do it and. More importantly, you made a deal. As Donald Trump said. We made a deal with you. If you wanna start making the deal with younger people, start making the deal with younger people. Stop saying to younger people you’re gonna get it, but with the with older people you you made the deal. Anyway.
So Arthur Brooks was No longer popular, and he’s now gone off to Harvard. Here’s how you can tell he’s not exactly. He wasn’t exactly a firebrand for conservatism if he went off to Harvard, if he was a real conservative. He would have gone off to Hillsdale. Right. Or he would have maybe gone Off to Claremont, even. Maybe, maybe Stanford. But you go, he’s off to. He’s up off at Harvard and he’s starting a Happiness Institute. And here’s what I’d say. He’s a Salesman, I don’t Blame him. He’s a salesman. Now. He’s selling. Now he’s selling Arthur Brooks Inc, but that’s OK.
But here’s what you need to know. The Republican Party. Led by Trump. Has turned. Dramatically now, completely. To positions you can call them America First, if you want. I call them pro America. That’s why I call it the Pro America Report because I I know the America First. I’m not sure what’s loaded in there, but basically it’s we’re a nation that’s going to look after Our people first, we’re a nation that’s going to use all the tools. Ohh yeah, Arthur Brooks and AEI was dramatically against any use of tariffs. If you use tariffs against China, it’s going to crash the economy. Trump said. Well, I’m gonna do it anyway. He used them against China, does not. No. Crash in the economy. In fact, it just yielded billions and up to trillions. Of dollars, probably, but billions, I’d say billions and. Hundreds of billions is better. Of of money and tariffs.
The Trump position is 2 things. One, it’s a mindset we’re going to fight for what is ours. We’re not going to sit around and say nice things to each other at cocktail parties, congratulate each other on being such nice guys, and wear pocket squares that you know, they wander around and Pocket square party and look at each other. We’re going to fight. For the things that matter to us, for God, for family, for country. You know, kind of very common. That’s a throwback, a lot of people feel that because they they’re sick of Looking up I. Mean, you know, Arthur Brooks is a stylish Guy who’s wearing a a $2000 suit. I bet. And he’s got a pocket square and he’s wearing fun shoes and all. And he’s a teacher at Harvard, and he flies on private jets, making lots of money on books. If you make lots of money on books, you know whose books that. That that they the. Industry doesn’t bolster and promote? Conservatives. I mean, they break through a little bit. But so he he’s lionized is my point.
But the second thing is the second thing is 1 trait 1 trait which you need to know one trait of this moment is you’re gonna fight, stand up and fight. Fight for it not be afraid Of it, and the 2nd is what is it?
And what is it? Is we the people, not we the corporations, not we, the world population, not we, the institutions that these people like and love. It’s. We the people. What are you going To do to improve the schools where our kids are? Not, they become a cesspool of insanity. What are you going to do to improve that. Not talk about how ultimately school choice will even out and level people. That’s fine. I hope there’s school choice. There’s school choice as we saw with that Chicago Teachers Union woman, the member of the President, Teachers Union, Chicago woman she she said she had to admit on TV. She sent her son to private school. She’s got school choice ’cause she’s got money. I’m all for school Choice. But when you sit in a think tank and say that eventually school choice will equal out these educational opportunities for everybody, there’s a thousands, millions of kids trapped in public schools that we should fight for. And we should fight for our jobs and we should fight for our industry and we should put build our systems, our government systems echoed on the Constitution so that they promote and incentivize that behavior. And we shouldn’t be embarrassed by it.
We should close the border. It’s not unkind. This is an Arthur Brooks and kindness. It’s not unkind to close the border. I’ve never met the guy. I think I’ve been in the room with with him once. He seems like a. Nice guy I. Mean he doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but he seems exactly like like Paul Ryan. He’s not a bad guy, I don’t think. But his policies and his attitude, I. Would go back to it all the time that they’re all making lots of money. and from ivory towers telling everyone else you’re getting it wrong. And it. Just it feels really. Really rotten for normal people and normal people are sick of it.
And let me be clear, the Democrats are Worse, they do it more. But anyway, when you read this Arthur Brooks story, Politico is justifying his his great shift out of DC is because the populism, the populism of Trump, it used to be really good. Everybody was really good to each other, really kind, and it was working out. Well, not, it’s Not true. It’s it’s it’s a lie. But. It’s meant to give you. A way to think about how. They did, didn’t you? Know how two things how populism is bad. Scary. And and the other is that these other people are virtuous. And you’re not. And we’re not. And the movement’s not so there. That’s what you need to Know today we. Are going to take a break. We’ll be right back. Don’t forget visit ProAmericaReport.com sign Up for the daily e-mail. It’s Ed Martin, on the Pro America Report back in a moment.
