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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newts World. Recently, a group of

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Speaker 1: conservatives came together to sign a quote statement of principles

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Speaker 1: opposing weaponization of nonprofit donor lists. Now, I have to

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Speaker 1: confess to you, that's a pretty long, complicated idea, and

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Speaker 1: for most Americans they don't realize how really, really important

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Speaker 1: this is. In this statement of principles, the conservatives explained

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Speaker 1: that they're quote united against unconstitutional violations of privacy and

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Speaker 1: free speech perpetrated by Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor

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Speaker 1: Tim Waltz throughout their respective political careers, against Americans who

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Speaker 1: speak out in favor of conservative principles. One of the

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Speaker 1: co signers of the statement is my guest, Andrew Langer,

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Speaker 1: President of the Institute for Liberty. Andrew, welcome and thank

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Speaker 1: you for joining me.

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Speaker 2: Listen.

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Speaker 3: It is a distinct honor and a pleasure to be

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Speaker 3: with you. Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about your own background and

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Speaker 1: how you ended up becoming president of the Institute for Liberty.

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Speaker 3: I wear a lot of different hats in the policy world,

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Speaker 3: but I started working for a gentleman on property rights

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Speaker 3: issues back in the nineteen nineties, around the same time

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Speaker 3: you became speaker. I was working for a blind lawyer.

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Speaker 3: He happened to have been Reagan's Assistant Attorney General in

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Speaker 3: charge of the Environment Division, and his area of expertise

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Speaker 3: was property rights, and he was one of the authors

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Speaker 3: of President Reagan's Executive Order on Takings. He was a

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Speaker 3: constitutional scholar, and because he was visually impaired, I was

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Speaker 3: reading to him everything that came across his desk, and

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Speaker 3: I got a real education in conservative public policy and

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Speaker 3: what's happening on a day to day basis, and developed

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Speaker 3: an interest on the non profit side of the law,

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Speaker 3: the group of nonprofit legal foundations that were out there.

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Speaker 3: Worked for him, then worked for his wife at a

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Speaker 3: group called Defenders of Property Rights, worked for a number

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Speaker 3: of different nonprofit organizations, and have been doing this kind

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Speaker 3: of work for the last fifteen years or so, both

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Speaker 3: the hat that I wear with the Institute for Liberty,

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Speaker 3: but also doing regulatory work for the SEAPAC Foundation. But

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Speaker 3: these are issues and issues of speech and constitutional rights

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Speaker 3: are very near and dear to my heart, and the

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Speaker 3: idea that we have this fundamental right to associate privately

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Speaker 3: and in some cases anonymously with others, especially when it

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Speaker 3: comes to voicing our concerns about things. I consider that

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Speaker 3: to be incredibly sacrisynct.

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Speaker 1: What attracted you to the Institute for Liberty.

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Speaker 3: I've been working for a trade association called the National

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Speaker 3: Federation of Independent Business. Loved that organization, love the work

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Speaker 3: that they do doing regulatory work. Wanted to branch out

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Speaker 3: on my own and have a little bit more flexibility

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Speaker 3: and to get involved in things that went a little

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Speaker 3: bit further beyond the issues dealing with small business and entrepreneurship,

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Speaker 3: which are issues that are still very important to me

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Speaker 3: to this day. One of those happened to be the

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Speaker 3: issue of speech and the issue of donor privacy and

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Speaker 3: the attacks that were being made at the time by

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Speaker 3: folks who were very unhappy with the idea that there

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Speaker 3: was this issue of anonymous speech. I remember sitting down

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Speaker 3: with a Republican staffer on the Senate side of the hill.

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Speaker 3: This is probably around two thousand and six, two thousand

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Speaker 3: and seven, and this staffer telling me that there was

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Speaker 3: no anonymous right or right to anonymous speech, and I

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Speaker 3: sort of had to walk them through why this was

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Speaker 3: not the case. Stemming from a very important nineteen fifty

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Speaker 3: seven case NAACP versus Alabama, and thankfully we were able

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Speaker 3: to be back. But you know there has been this

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Speaker 3: continuous push pull and nude, I know you know this

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Speaker 3: very well. There is a continuous push pull and pressure

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Speaker 3: being put to limit the infinite reas each of the

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Speaker 3: Constitution and the rights that are protected Therein.

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Speaker 1: You're on to something central to our constitutional liberty, and

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Speaker 1: that is, if you don't have the right to anonymity,

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Speaker 1: then nothing can protect you from the state.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: There's a wonderful scene in A Man for All Seasons

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Speaker 1: where Thomas Moore talking to his son in law, and

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Speaker 1: his son in law is a rabid supporter of King

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Speaker 1: Henry and of the Reformation, and his son in law

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Speaker 1: is arguing that if the law isn't useful, just knock

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Speaker 1: it down. Moore says, so, let me understand this. If

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Speaker 1: the devil is hiding behind a law, and to get

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Speaker 1: it the devil, you knock down the law, and then

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Speaker 1: the devil retreats behind another law. Don't get the devil,

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Speaker 1: you knock down that law. Then when you have chased

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Speaker 1: him all the way across England and he's standing in Wales,

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Speaker 1: and he turns now that you've knocked down all the laws?

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Speaker 1: What protects you from the devil? I mean, it's one

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Speaker 1: of the great statements. And of course More only was

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Speaker 1: beheaded because he wouldn't allow loyalty to the king to

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Speaker 1: rise above loyalty to God.

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Speaker 3: Let me digress for a second and say, I was

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Speaker 3: just having a conversation with a theater producer who was

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Speaker 3: working on essentially, there's a playwright who has written a

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Speaker 3: sequel to A Man for All Seasons, sort of focusing

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Speaker 3: on what happens after Thomas Moore is beheaded, and I'm

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Speaker 3: very interested to see where that goes.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's doubly interesting because the chancellor, who has sold

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Speaker 1: out to the king and has More executed, is himself

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Speaker 1: later executed by the king. Because once you establish a

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Speaker 1: tautolitarian state, he can rewrite everything. It invents what it

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Speaker 1: calls justice, which is power, and you have nothing to

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Speaker 1: protect you from that power.

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Speaker 3: And it gets into what Laventi Barria, at least supposedly

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Speaker 3: said the head of the Russian secret police under Stalin,

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Speaker 3: you know, show me the man and I'll show you

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Speaker 3: the crime. That when you have the law being so

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Speaker 3: expansive as it is to you know, infect every aspect

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Speaker 3: of someone's daily life.

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Speaker 2: Someone who has.

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Speaker 3: Not run a foul of the law may or may

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Speaker 3: have inadvertently run a foul of the law, and the

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Speaker 3: state can turn that against them. And the issue that

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Speaker 3: you're talking about as you were teeming this up, this

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Speaker 3: issue of nothing protecting somebody from the state. This was

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Speaker 3: the central issue in the nineteen fifty seven case NAACPR

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Speaker 3: versus Alabama. The State of Alabama wanted access to the

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Speaker 3: NAACP's donor roles, and the Supreme Court rightly recognized at

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Speaker 3: the time that the only reason why the State of

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Speaker 3: Alabama wanted access to the NAACP's donor list was to

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Speaker 3: be able to either harass those donors or discourage them

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Speaker 3: from donating, the fundamental chilling effect on free speech that

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Speaker 3: the First Amendment is supposed to guard against. And so

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Speaker 3: that stood for a very long time as Supreme Court precedent.

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Speaker 3: But of course, the folks who want to harass those

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Speaker 3: donors and chill those donors, they've been trying to chip

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Speaker 3: away at this for the next seventy years.

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Speaker 1: And you've had recent comments like John Carey who said

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Speaker 1: in a recent public con meeting, you know, maybe we're

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Speaker 1: going to have to set aside the First Amendment. There

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Speaker 1: are people on the left who believe that if your

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Speaker 1: cause is morally correct, there should be no limits, and therefore,

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Speaker 1: by definition, you should be subordinated to the state right.

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Speaker 3: I seem to remember Gilbert and Sullivan pillaring that sentiment

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Speaker 3: the Mikado. It is interesting because you then come to

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Speaker 3: where we are today now. Of course, a couple of

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Speaker 3: years ago we had a case in the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 3: the Americans for Prosperity Foundation versus Bonta. Originally it was

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Speaker 3: AFP Foundation versus Harris, but she was no longer Attorney General.

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Speaker 3: California passed a law to try to do the same thing.

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Speaker 3: The Supreme Court said, no, you have no power to

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Speaker 3: do this. These organizations have a right to keep their

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Speaker 3: donor list secret. But then it was a year later.

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Speaker 3: Two years later Tim Waltz himself, who also recently on

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Speaker 3: the debate stage, was talking about the limits to free speech.

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Speaker 3: Tim Waltz, as governor of Minnesota, signed a law very

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Speaker 3: similar to California's law. And this is even more arbitrary

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Speaker 3: because the state of Minnesota would be demanding have access

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Speaker 3: to these lists when they would demand it and it's

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Speaker 3: very unclear as to what circumstances the state would do that.

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Speaker 3: And we all, as you and I both know, you know,

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Speaker 3: the more nebulous, the more subjective you make those standards,

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Speaker 3: the more apt the state is to use and abuse them.

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Speaker 1: I think we don't teach often enough. Lord Acton's dictum

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Speaker 1: that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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Speaker 1: He drops the word tends. And what you have has

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Speaker 1: been a steady growth of government power and therefore a

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Speaker 1: desire by those who are powerful in government to have

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Speaker 1: more and more and more control over the rest of us. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of the most important things you've done is organized

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Speaker 1: a group of significant conservatives to sign a statement of

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Speaker 1: principles opposing weaponization of nonprofit donor lists. That's pretty sophisticated language,

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't when I first read it. It didn't

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Speaker 1: leap out of me like a good Coca Cola or

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Speaker 1: McDonald's commercial. Talk about what you mean by weaponization of

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Speaker 1: nonprofit donor lists?

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Speaker 3: Right, So this gets into this issue that the left

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Speaker 3: is recognized over the years that there is enormous power

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Speaker 3: in both Exposing is probably not the right word, but

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Speaker 3: let's just say exposing for their terminology, exposing donors to

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Speaker 3: greater public scrutiny, either a because you can harass the

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Speaker 3: donors themselves into no longer giving or supporting organizations, or

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Speaker 3: you send a message to others that if you support

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Speaker 3: organizations or causes like this, you will be subjected to

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Speaker 3: the same kind of scrutiny that these other folks have done.

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Speaker 3: And it's a way of achieving the end of silencing

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Speaker 3: someone's speech, but doing it in an extra constitutional manner.

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Speaker 3: And we've been seeing more and more of this over

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Speaker 3: the years, the use of extra constitutional methods of trying

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Speaker 3: to silence this kind of speech. And there are lots

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Speaker 3: of different ways that we can get into, but the

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Speaker 3: basic idea, especially in modern times, comes in things like

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Speaker 3: after California's Proposition eight referendum having to do with gay marriage,

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Speaker 3: you had that donor list to the propa aid organization

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Speaker 3: that got leaked publicly and the donors to that effort

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Speaker 3: were harassed by leftist activists. Or on the climate change issue,

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Speaker 3: the donors to certain conservative or free market limited government

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Speaker 3: organizations having that information found out by legislators, by members

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Speaker 3: of Congress, and members of Congress harassing those to the

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Speaker 3: point at the end where you also had things like

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Speaker 3: attorneys general in various states and commonwealths harassing donors to

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Speaker 3: organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute. These are all what

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Speaker 3: we're talking about when we're talking about the weaponization of

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Speaker 3: donor lists and donor privacy and the attacks on donor privacy.

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Speaker 3: The goal, at the end of the day is to silence,

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Speaker 3: or to prevent, or to harass or to discourage folks

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Speaker 3: from giving you these organizations, and thus at the other end,

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Speaker 3: choking off the ability of these organizations to raise money. Again,

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Speaker 3: the very things that the Supreme Court warned about an

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Speaker 3: NAACP versus Alabama.

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Speaker 1: You make the point that as California Attorney General, Kamala

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Speaker 1: Harris actually exposed findential donor list of thousands of nonprofits

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Speaker 1: on a government website. Walk us through that case. I

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Speaker 1: was really charli. I did not realize this. It's not

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Speaker 1: gotten much play in the presidential campaign, but it's a

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Speaker 1: very sobering example of government putting people at risk.

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Speaker 3: And that's exactly it. The situation occurred in which these

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Speaker 3: organizations they make these filings. Let me take a step

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Speaker 3: back there. So when an organization files its paperwork with

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Speaker 3: a state and with the federal government. Right, so, nonprofit

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Speaker 3: organizations they file, depending on what their tax status is,

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Speaker 3: they file returns with the federal government and then with

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Speaker 3: every state government in the states in which they're doing business.

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Speaker 3: And it is presumed that all of this information is confidential.

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Speaker 3: Right now, an organization's filings with the IRS are made

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Speaker 3: public in a database that's out there, but the donor

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Speaker 3: information is supposed to be redacted. Well, in Kamala Harris's case,

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Speaker 3: this confidential information was actually exposed. And the question, of

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Speaker 3: course is whether or not this was purposeful. There is

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Speaker 3: every reason to think that it was purposeful, because again

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Speaker 3: there is enormous power in getting this information out there

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Speaker 3: and then making the donors to these making them vulnerable

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Speaker 3: to being harassed by individuals.

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Speaker 2: So that's what happened there.

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Speaker 3: And so you get this AFP versus Bonta case again

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Speaker 3: originally AFP versus Harris, and the Supreme Court says, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: We said this already once before, in nineteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 3: These kinds of things. You have this right to associate

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Speaker 3: with people privately and anonymously, You have this right to

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Speaker 3: engage in this kind of discourse anonymously. Now, we as

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Speaker 3: a people have decided that if you're giving to causes

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Speaker 3: that are electoral in nature, that's a whole different kettle

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Speaker 3: of fish. It's also governed by a different agency in

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Speaker 3: a different set of statutes. But the bottom line here

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Speaker 3: is for these purposes, for these entities that are governed

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Speaker 3: under Section five oh one of the Internal Revenue Code,

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Speaker 3: this is considered research and education and to some degree, advocacy,

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Speaker 3: and this has a greater level of protection.

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Speaker 1: In my own personal experience, it has two kinds of

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Speaker 1: chilling effects and donors. One is that you could end

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Speaker 1: up being in direct trouble with the government. The other

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Speaker 1: is you could end up with people who disagree with you,

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Speaker 1: who put pressure on you, and you might, in some

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Speaker 1: circumstances end up having legal fees to protect yourself. So

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Speaker 1: it really moves to inhibit conservatives from being involved in

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Speaker 1: holding the government accountable.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly it.

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Speaker 3: And a really prime example of this is what the

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Speaker 3: Competitive Enterprise Institute face. You know, this is a free market,

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Speaker 3: limited government think tank, not a traditional conservative organization, but

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Speaker 3: one of the leading organizations on the issue of climate

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Speaker 3: change skepticism, and most importantly getting our federal government to

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Speaker 3: think more thoughtfully, to be redundant there, but to be

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Speaker 3: a little bit more thoughtful about the policies that are

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Speaker 3: being enact in response to some perceived thread of man

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Speaker 3: made climate change. And so what happens is CEI has

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Speaker 3: a fundamental right to do this. They're raising good and

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Speaker 3: important questions, questions which need to be asked in terms

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Speaker 3: of what the executive branch is doing. And so what

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Speaker 3: happens is that several donors to CEI get exposed, most

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Speaker 3: notably I want to say exon, but CEI was subpoenaed

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Speaker 3: by the US attorneys in the US Virgin Islands and

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Speaker 3: several other jurisdictions for information about their donors and for

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Speaker 3: information about their correspondence with their donors and their correspondence

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Speaker 3: with other interested parties.

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Speaker 2: About this issue.

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Speaker 3: And the idea was to get CEI to spend huge

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Speaker 3: sums of money on this, but also to try to

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Speaker 3: chill out their speech, to get them to think twice

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Speaker 3: about doing this. And again that comes down to this

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Speaker 3: constant push pull, this constant pressure that is being put

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Speaker 3: on these organizations to try to get them to shut

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Speaker 3: up and go along with the leftist dogma.

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Speaker 1: You pointed out that this happened in California, Well, Kamala

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Speaker 1: Harris was the attorney general. But in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: Nicki Haley, as a presidential candidate, accused New York Attorney

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Speaker 1: General Leticia James of leaking the donor list of her nonprofit.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Politico apparently got a copy of an unredacted

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Speaker 1: copy of Stand for America's tax returns that included a

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Speaker 1: list of donors, which normally is kept private. Isn't this

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Speaker 1: sort of a coercive act?

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Speaker 2: Not even sort of.

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Speaker 3: It is fundamentally a coercive act in other situations as well,

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Speaker 3: where folks have spoken out and have found themselves to

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Speaker 3: be on the wrong side of the state. So you

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Speaker 3: got Nicki Haley on the one side, being faced with

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Speaker 3: this and having her donors have to answer questions from

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Speaker 3: the press about this by the same token, literally the

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Speaker 3: day after Tulci Gabbard endorsed Donald Trump in this election cycle,

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Speaker 3: we only know this because of a whistleblower. She found

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Speaker 3: herself put on a watch list the Organs of Homeland Security,

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Speaker 3: so that every time she enters an airport she is

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Speaker 3: followed by a whole team of people. I mean, this

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Speaker 3: is what they are now doing as a way of

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Speaker 3: trying to silence the opposition.

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Speaker 1: Natassay Abercase I know her person. I like her a lot.

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Speaker 1: She's served in the US military, she's been a member

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Speaker 1: of Congress as well as the state legislator. The idea

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Speaker 1: that they were assigning people to be air marshalls on

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Speaker 1: planes with her and her husband, they had apparently put

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Speaker 1: some signal on the computer. So wherever she showed up,

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Speaker 1: TSA would give her a very thorough looking through all

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Speaker 1: of her suitcases and said, this is madness.

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Speaker 2: It really is.

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Speaker 3: And of course we are very much through the looking

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Speaker 3: class because it's exactly what the left accuses the right

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Speaker 3: of doing right. Isn't this what we've been talking about

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Speaker 3: for the last several weeks in this presidential election cycle,

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Speaker 3: how Donald Trump will treat his political opponents when we've

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Speaker 3: seen all of this happening over the years. Let me

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Speaker 3: just come back to the CEI think for a moment

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Speaker 3: if I could, because it underscores another aspect of this.

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Speaker 3: And of course we're talking at Protectconservative Voices dot Com

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Speaker 3: about the donor list and making sure that we can

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Speaker 3: keep donors private, but The other part of this is

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Speaker 3: the sort of the other abuses of power in terms

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Speaker 3: of the silencing of these voices. You know, during the

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Speaker 3: Obama administration, we had something called Operation Chokepoint, which was

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Speaker 3: a way that they were again extra constitutionally. The Obama

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Speaker 3: administration was pressuring banks and credit card institutions to shut

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Speaker 3: down the accounts and credit card payment processing accounts of

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Speaker 3: entities that they had an ideological animus against. It was

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Speaker 3: payday lenders, it was gun and ammunition manufacturers and dealers,

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Speaker 3: et cetera.

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Speaker 2: But it was also.

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Speaker 3: Small nonprofits, and they were opening up this idea that

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Speaker 3: the left was trying to paint conservative advocacy as fraudulent

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Speaker 3: in nature. On climate change, for instance, right the left

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Speaker 3: says that climate change is settled science. Therefore anything that

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Speaker 3: questions climate change or questions the policy recommendations that are

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Speaker 3: being made, well, that is fraudulent. Therefore it is covered

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Speaker 3: by a whole other set of statutes, and so we're

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Speaker 3: going to go after them for that. And so this

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Speaker 3: is part of this weaponization, the issue of lawfare and

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Speaker 3: then the attempts to silence opposition.

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Speaker 1: I think it's important to recognize that if they're not stopped.

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Speaker 1: They're going to multiply. In Britain, you now get arrested

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Speaker 1: for complaining to the police because they didn't arrest a

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Speaker 1: rapist or a robber. It is astonishing. Canada is a

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Speaker 1: little bit down in that direction, not as bad as

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Speaker 1: Great Britain has become. But you also have this whole

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Speaker 1: problem which we lived through with COVID, where it turned

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Speaker 1: out the people who are being blocked actually knew more

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Speaker 1: and told the truth better than the people who we

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Speaker 1: were told to listen to.

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Speaker 3: I will never forget this. I do a lot of

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Speaker 3: work with a guy named Jerry Rodgers, and Jerry is

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Speaker 3: the editor of Real Clear Policy and the editor of

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Speaker 3: Real Clear Health, one of the best experts on healthcare policies,

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Speaker 3: and and I both do radio together. And he was

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Speaker 3: being pressured by the folks that he works with to

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Speaker 3: not talk about COVID and what he knows about COVID,

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Speaker 3: and he's like, you know, you do understand that I'm

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Speaker 3: the editor of Real Clear Health. I'm reading this stuff

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Speaker 3: on a daily basis. We did a couple of podcasts

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Speaker 3: about sort of public health issues, and those podcasts were

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Speaker 3: deplatformed by YouTube, which again was astounding that somebody else

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Speaker 3: is going to substitute their judgment out there. Here's what

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Speaker 3: I come back to them, and this is what gives

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Speaker 3: me a little bit of hope.

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Speaker 2: I think you and I both agree.

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Speaker 3: In fact, i'm pretty certain you and I both agree

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Speaker 3: that the only answer to speech you don't like is

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Speaker 3: more speech, right, that's the idea. You subject speech you

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Speaker 3: don't like to vigorous discussion, and there are still people

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Speaker 3: on the other side of the aisle who believe that.

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Speaker 3: I had a really great conversation force about a year

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Speaker 3: ago with Bob Levy, who used to write for the

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Speaker 3: Washington Post. He had a daily column in the Washington Post.

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Speaker 3: Bob is a traditional progressive liberal in almost the classical

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Speaker 3: liberal sense, not quite more in the progressive mold. But

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Speaker 3: I asked him, I said, Bob, you know what's your

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Speaker 3: greatest concern And he said, you know, the erosion of

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Speaker 3: the First Amendment.

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Speaker 2: You have folks who recognize this.

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Speaker 3: Now we were losing them, but nevertheless, I think you

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Speaker 3: have folks who are very much aghast at this, and

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Speaker 3: it's a matter of making sure that all of those

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Speaker 3: voices can continue to be heard.

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Speaker 1: It's not just government, but there's also a case which

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Speaker 1: you said, were you head to Chase Bank closing the

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Speaker 1: bank account of a religious freedom nonprofit and requesting access

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Speaker 1: to their donor list. I mean this as grave a

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Speaker 1: danger and a violation of your privacy rights. As anything.

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Speaker 3: This gets into what we call the extra constitutional ways

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Speaker 3: of doing these things, and a great concern because what happens,

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Speaker 3: and we saw this also during COVID Right, is that

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Speaker 3: at the very least members of the government, even the

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Speaker 3: progressive status members of the government, recognize that they can't

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Speaker 3: out and out censor. So what they turn around and

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Speaker 3: do is they turn around and they use the pressure,

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Speaker 3: the coercive power of the regulatory state and they say

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Speaker 3: to these entities, hey, it's a nice banking guide here,

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Speaker 3: it's a nice credit card payment system here. We'd hate

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Speaker 3: for anything to happen to it. With regards to regulation.

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Speaker 3: Maybe you ought to do X, Y and Z on

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Speaker 3: our behalf. You have that aspect of it. But then

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Speaker 3: almost more pernicious because it's not coordinated from folks in government,

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Speaker 3: is the effort on the part of these leftist activist

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Speaker 3: organizations to use things like DEI versity equity inclusion and

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Speaker 3: ESG environmental and social governance to infiltrate these corporate institutions

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Speaker 3: and use those policies and that ideology and that inculcation

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Speaker 3: of that ideology to drive what is not an economic

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Speaker 3: or financial agenda within a business entity, but to drive

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Speaker 3: a political agenda within that entity. And that's where you

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Speaker 3: find situations where banks or other entities are saying, well,

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Speaker 3: we're not going to do business with this anymore.

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Speaker 2: If you're a.

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Speaker 3: Gun store or you're an ammunition manufacturer or dealer, well

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Speaker 3: we don't want your business anymore. Or if you're this

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Speaker 3: kind of a nonprofit, well we don't want that. If

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Speaker 3: you're advocating against I'm raising questions about climate change or

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Speaker 3: climate change policy, we don't want that business here. And again,

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Speaker 3: that is a very dangerous place to be because then

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Speaker 3: we're talking about these systems in which there are very

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Speaker 3: few of them. You know, it's the dangers of oligarchy.

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Speaker 3: Used to be a situation in which the answer was competition,

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Speaker 3: But if the deck winds up getting stacked and the

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Speaker 3: barriers to entry are so high, it's very easy for

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Speaker 3: oligarchs to turn around, or oligarchic businesses to turn around

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Speaker 3: and take over the political agenda.

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Speaker 1: Under the Biden Harris administration, the FBI was listing Catholic

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Speaker 1: churches as potential domestic terrorist threats. What do you think happened?

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Speaker 1: It's such a weird position to.

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Speaker 2: Be in just this way.

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Speaker 3: Kamala Harris did an interview in which she was asked

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Speaker 3: about compromises on abortion policy. What compromises would you consider

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Speaker 3: compromises that would protect and I'm being much more eloquent

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Speaker 3: than the interviewer was, but would you consider compromises that

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Speaker 3: would protect the rights of conscience for people who have

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Speaker 3: religious objections to these things? And Kamala Harris said no,

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Speaker 3: there should be no objections whatsoever. And as shocking and

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Speaker 3: as angering as that is, it's also not surprising given

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Speaker 3: what this administration has done. And this gets into the

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Speaker 3: work that I do on the world regulatory side of things.

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Speaker 3: This administration, unlike just about any other, and even more

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Speaker 3: than the Obama administration, has engaged in what I call

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Speaker 3: and others frankly called the whole of government approach to ideology.

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Speaker 3: They have a particular set of ideological goals that they

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Speaker 3: want to achieve, and they use every different agency or

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Speaker 3: as many different agencies as possible. So this administration is

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Speaker 3: particularly against religious freedom. So at HHS they create a

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Speaker 3: set of rules, or they revisit a set of rules

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Speaker 3: that under the Trump administration protected a doctor's right to

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Speaker 3: not participate in abortions on religious grounds.

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Speaker 2: They got rid of that.

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Speaker 3: They've attacked religious freedom on college campuses through the Department

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Speaker 3: of Education. The things that they've done with the FBI,

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Speaker 3: sending a swat team to the home of a father

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Speaker 3: who was protecting his son as they were protesting outside

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Speaker 3: of an abortion clinic Newton. They even went so far

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Speaker 3: as to earlier this year, this is no joe, they

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Speaker 3: were using the Department of the Interior to remove a

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Speaker 3: statue of William Penn, the great icon of religious freedom

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Speaker 3: in America, to remove its statue of William Penn from

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Speaker 3: the William Penn Homestead in Philadelphia. It is all comprehensive.

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Speaker 3: They hate religion, they hate the rights to religion, they

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Speaker 3: hate the protection of people's rights to their religious freedom,

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Speaker 3: and so they have gone about and attack them. And

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Speaker 3: that will only continue under Kamala Harris. She promised it

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Speaker 3: just the other day.

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Speaker 1: Picking Waltz to be her vice presidential candidate. I loved

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Speaker 1: two of the things he did For Catholics, the communion

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Speaker 1: is a central moment because it is the presentation of

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Speaker 1: the body and blood of Christ, and going to commune

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Speaker 1: at least once a week is a very significant act

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Speaker 1: for at least half of the Catholic community. So at

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Speaker 1: one point during COVID he closed down all the churches,

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Speaker 1: but allowed them all of America to be open for

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Speaker 1: the purpose of quote, retail things.

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Speaker 3: And the other part of this, of course is snitch line,

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Speaker 3: which I don't want to get too far ahead of it,

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Speaker 3: but that's exactly it. And of course Tim Waltz was

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Speaker 3: not alone. We singled him out now because he wants

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Speaker 3: to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. And he

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Speaker 3: has also voiced that he doesn't believe in free speech.

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Speaker 3: I'll come back to that in a second, but that's

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00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:22,360
Speaker 3: exactly it. In example after example in these democratic states,

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00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 3: Maryland where I do radio, the mayor of Baltimore doing that.

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Speaker 3: The governor who's running for Senate right now did that,

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Speaker 3: Tim Waltz, Others all closed down churches. Gavin Newsom is

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00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 3: a prime example of this. Right, Gavin Newsom can go

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00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 3: to the French laundry and have a party, but you

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00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 3: can't go to Communion. If you're a Catholic person living

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00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 3: in California Central Valley, you can't do that. At the

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00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 3: same time, with Waltz, he turned around and created this

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00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 3: snitch line to go tell on your neighbors. For someone

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Speaker 3: who claims to be a student of China and says

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Speaker 3: that he is very critical of China, he's certainly been

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Speaker 3: more than willing to embrace the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian

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Speaker 3: approach to handling these things.

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Speaker 1: When I first read about the snitch line and the

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Speaker 1: idea that he literally is asking people to spy on

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Speaker 1: their neighbors, my first thought was the stasse in East Germany.

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Speaker 1: After the collapse of East Germany, people suddenly realized how

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Speaker 1: many of their neighbors had been reporting on them, and

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00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 1: in that sense, Waltz is a perfect example of a

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Speaker 1: proto to tolitarium. I want to commend you for what

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Speaker 1: you're doing. I think the letter is important, and I

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00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,160
Speaker 1: think the work you're doing to educate the country on

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Speaker 1: religious liberty and on the threat to our freedom and

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00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: the threat to our rights is really important. Our listeners

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00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: can find out more about the Institute for Liberty by

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00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: visiting your website at Institute Forliberty dot org. And Andrew,

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00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you for joining me.

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00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 3: And folks should go and check out the letter at

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00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 3: Protectconservative Voices dot com. Please do that. That's a great group.

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00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 3: Proud to be a part of this effort. Partners at

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00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 3: People United for Privacy. You've done a great job and

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00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 3: thank you so so much for having me on. It's

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00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 3: always great to chat with you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest Andrew Langer. You can find

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Speaker 1: out more about his organization, Institute for Liberty on our

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Speaker 1: show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by

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00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: Ganid three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan.

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00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show

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00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team

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00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: at Gingrish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newsworld, I

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00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,719
Speaker 1: hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us

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Speaker 1: with five stars and give us a review so others

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Speaker 1: can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of

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Speaker 1: Newsworld can sign up for my three free weekly columns

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Speaker 1: at Gingrich three sixty dot com. Slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.

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Speaker 1: This is Newsworld