Speaker 1: You're listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast in the Clay
Speaker 1: and Book Podcast Network. Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tutor Dixon, and I'm so glad you're here with
Speaker 1: me today. We've got a lot to talk about. You
Speaker 1: know that I've talked quite a bit about the dangers
Speaker 1: of China, and my guest today has gone even so
Speaker 1: far as to include this in his latest book. So
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to dig deep into this one. Today.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by David McCormick, former GOP candidate for US
Speaker 1: Senate in Pennsylvania and the author of the book Superpower
Speaker 1: in Peril, A Battle Plan to Renew America. I love
Speaker 1: this because we absolutely have to have a battle plan
Speaker 1: to renew America, don't we.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me, and we do need
Speaker 2: a battle plan. You know. The premise of the book
Speaker 2: is that we're under threat. We're under threat from within
Speaker 2: from some of the decisions we've made that have led
Speaker 2: America to be in decline, and we're threatened from abroad
Speaker 2: with the techno authoritarian model that's China, and we don't
Speaker 2: have a plan. China has a plan, we don't have
Speaker 2: a plan. So there's a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: So let me I think this is going to shock you,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure I think it will. Though we
Speaker 1: both just ran for office, we both know how challenging
Speaker 1: it is, and then we both know what Democrats are
Speaker 1: doing in office. So in Michigan this week, Democrats there
Speaker 1: was a bill brought forward to say we will not
Speaker 1: welcome companies into the state of Michigan that are connected
Speaker 1: or loyal to, or in their by laws say they
Speaker 1: are loyal to the Chinese Communist Party. And every single
Speaker 1: Democrat voted no that they would not stop companies that
Speaker 1: are loyal to the Chinese Communist Party from coming into Michigan.
Speaker 1: They're clearly stating that they're loyal. I mean, isn't that insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of insanity. Honestly, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of insanity. And that's just one good example of it,
Speaker 2: just to put it in perspective. And you know that
Speaker 2: as well. But we learned during COVID how unbelievably dependent
Speaker 2: we are on China semi conductors. Ninety percent of the
Speaker 2: semiconductors we need to make our economy run. Everything from
Speaker 2: pickup trucks to defense weapons are manufactured ninety miles from
Speaker 2: mainland China. Our pharmaceuticals I didn't know this. During COVID
Speaker 2: we saw our entire pharmaceutical supply chain is dependent on China.
Speaker 2: So one of the things I outline in Superpower Apparel
Speaker 2: is that is the need to strategically decouple those industries
Speaker 2: that are so critical to our economy and our national security.
Speaker 2: We need to bring those home or have those in
Speaker 2: the hands of our closest allies, certainly not the communist Chinese.
Speaker 1: Well, I think what you're saying is something that people
Speaker 1: need to understand because we've heard a lot of America First,
Speaker 1: We've heard some candidates come out and say day one,
Speaker 1: no one's working with China anymore. This isn't possible to
Speaker 1: immediately decouple. It has to happen over time, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to America first, doesn't necessary. Everything's going to
Speaker 1: be manufactured in the United States, but Allied countries going
Speaker 1: to friendly countries is so important. If you look at
Speaker 1: China and you look at take iPhone City for example,
Speaker 1: in China, this is an entire city that is surrounded
Speaker 1: that is just high rise buildings. These people are living
Speaker 1: in what we would consider a dormitory. They're only allowed
Speaker 1: to go home to their families maybe once a year,
Speaker 1: and they're working sometimes ten hour shifts with just one
Speaker 1: meal in between. I mean, this is essentially slave labor.
Speaker 1: It's not. The sad thing is it's not easy to
Speaker 1: move out of that because there's no place in the
Speaker 1: United States or friendly countries that will say, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we'll have high rises of three hundred thousand people. And
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. It's hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 1: that are trapped working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're so right, and I'm glad you said that,
Speaker 2: because it's easy to sort of throw away these lines
Speaker 2: on television, but to actually understand what is required to
Speaker 2: really change the game with China is what I try
Speaker 2: to do in the book, and I essentially say there's
Speaker 2: four things we need to do. The first thing we
Speaker 2: need to do is that's strategic decoupling, not everything, those
Speaker 2: industries that are most critical to our national security economics.
Speaker 2: Second thing we need to do along the lines of
Speaker 2: what you said, we need to hold China accountable for
Speaker 2: its bad behavior. The wigers and the human rights abuses there,
Speaker 2: but the Wuhan virus COVID, so you know, it's like
Speaker 2: it was not. We were not able to talk about
Speaker 2: the fact that a virus that originated in Wuhan, where
Speaker 2: this research lab exists, probably was somehow connected to that
Speaker 2: research lab. And yet three years later we see our
Speaker 2: intelligence services acknowledging that that's a real possibility, but that
Speaker 2: the media was pushing that.
Speaker 1: What does holding them accountable for that mean to you?
Speaker 1: Because that's another thing where I think people go, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's Joe Biden really going to do? But
Speaker 1: there is stuff that he can do, so explain the.
Speaker 2: Most important thing to start with is to call it out.
Speaker 2: I mean, believe it or not that that's not what's happened.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden hasn't all that out and made that clear.
Speaker 2: But the way that we begin to hold them accountable
Speaker 2: is to stop allowing our dependency on those key industries
Speaker 2: and also stop American companies from investing in China in
Speaker 2: ways that goes directly against our interests. So today, as
Speaker 2: we speak, there are venture capital firms in the Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley that are investing in artificial intelligence companies in China
Speaker 2: that do business with the PLA and the Communist Party.
Speaker 2: It absolutely makes no sense. So this is something that
Speaker 2: you may disagree with. I'm not sure. So I'm not
Speaker 2: saying we should stop all trade as a practical matter.
Speaker 2: We're the two biggest economies in the world. There's millions
Speaker 2: of jobs that are dependent on it. And I saw
Speaker 2: this in Pennsylvania. I bet you saw it in Michigan.
Speaker 2: So I go into York, Pennsylvania, and I go into
Speaker 2: a manufacturing facility and the fact that China is dumping
Speaker 2: steel and globalization has hurt those workers, hurt the business,
Speaker 2: and they want fair trade. I'm with them. I agree
Speaker 2: on that. I go down the street and I'm in
Speaker 2: a machine shop and this is where Harley Davids's are manufactured.
Speaker 2: And that machine shop makes racks that go on the
Speaker 2: back of Harley Davidson's in the biggest market in the
Speaker 2: world they have is China. And so what I say
Speaker 2: in the book is listen, we can talk about what
Speaker 2: the economic makeup should be five years from now, but today,
Speaker 2: the things we need to focus on are the things
Speaker 2: that are strategic and decouple them from China because China
Speaker 2: is a legitimate threat.
Speaker 1: I agree. So I'm a steel girl. I come from
Speaker 1: a steel foundry. My family owned a steel foundry. We actually,
Speaker 1: I would say most of the steel foundries that went
Speaker 1: out of business in the two thousand and eight two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine timeframe. We're going out of business not
Speaker 1: only because of the recession, but also so much was
Speaker 1: being moved to China at that time. And I think
Speaker 1: that you're going you're not going to there's no way
Speaker 1: to get completely out of that. But I think there
Speaker 1: are strategies you can take. For example, we used to
Speaker 1: make the m WRAP vehicles of parts for the m
Speaker 1: RAP vehicles for the military. That was like an eighty
Speaker 1: percent by America clause why isn't our military equipment one
Speaker 1: hundred percent by America or allies? So I mean, really,
Speaker 1: can we go to that extreme and say military needs
Speaker 1: to be someplace safe?
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. And you know what's happened along
Speaker 2: that point under Joe Biden, in particular our defense industrial base,
Speaker 2: and we saw this with what's what's happening with Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Our defense industrial base is really really sad and lacking.
Speaker 2: So our defense industry, the defense industry used to support
Speaker 2: with your family steel mail, is in trouble because first
Speaker 2: of all, the actual spending on defense is going down
Speaker 2: because the Biden budget doesn't even keep up with inflation,
Speaker 2: and then our defense industrial base, our manufacturing basis supports
Speaker 2: our defense industry has become overly dependent on foreign countries
Speaker 2: or just inadequate to deal with the next generations of weapons.
Speaker 2: And that's a real problem. Particularly you see China on
Speaker 2: the march around the world as we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we see China here on land in Michigan.
Speaker 1: We've been having this fight over the past couple months
Speaker 1: now where a Chinese Communist Party aligned company has come
Speaker 1: in and decided to build a battery factory in Michigan.
Speaker 1: Once we found out, the community has kind of rallied
Speaker 1: against it. So what do you say to governors like
Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer who has said, I will align with these
Speaker 1: companies that are coming from China, and she's going overseas
Speaker 1: to try to bring more overseas companies into the state
Speaker 1: of Michigan, which I say again, if these are allied
Speaker 1: countries or friendly countries, it's different. But what do you
Speaker 1: say to governors who are bringing in companies and not
Speaker 1: only just bringing them in, seven hundred and fifteen million
Speaker 1: of our taxpayer dollars are going to bring this in like,
Speaker 1: we're paying these companies that are aligned with the CCP
Speaker 1: to come in and then they own land in the
Speaker 1: middle of our state. And you know, our greatest resource
Speaker 1: here is water, which is something everybody in the world wants.
Speaker 1: Why would we do that?
Speaker 2: Well, I'd like to make a distinction between foreign investment
Speaker 2: and foreign investment from China, because I think what you
Speaker 2: describe is Chinese company investing in ev which is which
Speaker 2: is becoming incredibly strategic in Michigan, and having that dominance
Speaker 2: in the US market and also having that dependency we
Speaker 2: have on China is absolutely what's to be avoided. And
Speaker 2: so I agree with you one hundred percent, and we
Speaker 2: have to have restrictions. We should have an inbound investment
Speaker 2: SIPIUS kind of restriction. SIPHIUS is the foreign Investment review
Speaker 2: process that happens at the federal level to make sure
Speaker 2: that that doesn't happen, because it's bad for America. It's
Speaker 2: bad ultimately to be dependent on anybody, but really bad
Speaker 2: to be dependent from the Chinese communis. I would make
Speaker 2: a distinction between that and other foreign investment. For example,
Speaker 2: I was in Korea, I was in South Carolina earlier
Speaker 2: this week and I know they've had great success of
Speaker 2: bringing in the South Koreans, a critical ally and having
Speaker 2: manufacturing facilities that have brought new jobs to South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Great business opportunity to help make South Carolina's economy really strong.
Speaker 2: It's a critical ally in South Korea. It's technology that
Speaker 2: we want to build here at home. I think that
Speaker 2: kind of inbound investment's good, Chinese based inbound investment.
Speaker 1: Back, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next
Speaker 1: on a Tutor Dixon podcast. Okay, you just brought up jobs,
Speaker 1: so I want to ask you about that because in
Speaker 1: the state of Michigan, we have really nobody out there
Speaker 1: to work. We have businesses leaving the state because they're
Speaker 1: so desperate for workers. I don't know if Pennsylvania is
Speaker 1: in that situation, but I want to ask you when
Speaker 1: you see states that are desperate for people to do jobs,
Speaker 1: like we need people on our farms, we need people
Speaker 1: in our hospitality industry, we need people in our manufacturing plants.
Speaker 1: We need all of these people. We don't have enough.
Speaker 1: We're in the midst of a total crisis at the border.
Speaker 1: Why can we not have immigration reform that would vet
Speaker 1: these people and get people that we really need in
Speaker 1: here and keep the bad guys out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a huge, huge issue, and I agree with
Speaker 2: what you're saying your sentiment one hundred percent, and say
Speaker 2: make two points one. In the book, I make the
Speaker 2: point that Listen, I grew up thinking a four year
Speaker 2: degree was the path to a great middle class life
Speaker 2: and opportunity, and that's not the case. It doesn't just
Speaker 2: have to be a four year degree. Not every person
Speaker 2: has that be four year degree to have the American
Speaker 2: dream and skilled training. I go across manufacturing facilities, tech
Speaker 2: facilities in Pennsylvania. The biggest issue CEOs have in fracking,
Speaker 2: which is a big industry natural gas in Pennslvania. The
Speaker 2: biggest issue they have is skilled workers. It's not that
Speaker 2: there aren't people to take jobs, there aren't people with
Speaker 2: the adequate skills. So I think gi benefits like I
Speaker 2: had when I left the Army, pell grants, partnerships between
Speaker 2: industry and the community colleges to get these skilled workers
Speaker 2: is huge. So let's help Americans get the kind of
Speaker 2: that you had in your family, Maill, that I learned
Speaker 2: about in Pittsburgh, where you can have a great middle
Speaker 2: class existence, great middle class life by having adequate skills.
Speaker 2: That's one thing. Second thing on skilled immigration, I agree
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. But the first step is to stop
Speaker 2: that pouring across the border. I saw it when I ran,
Speaker 2: I went down and visit the border. I know you're
Speaker 2: seeing it in Michigan. That is an absolute travesty that
Speaker 2: we don't have control of our border, that the fentanyl
Speaker 2: that's killing kids in Pennsylvania and Michigan is coming across
Speaker 2: through those cartels. We've got to stop the border crisis.
Speaker 2: But we also, in my opinion, have to reform our
Speaker 2: skilled immigration process to make sure that we get the
Speaker 2: people coming into our country that have the skills we need.
Speaker 1: But see, the way that works right now is exactly
Speaker 1: what you just said, the skilled immigration, Because we tried
Speaker 1: to bring in factory workers from Ukraine. This was years
Speaker 1: before the war, but we knew we had factory workers
Speaker 1: there that could teach our factory workers here. And the
Speaker 1: only way you can bring someone in through the federal
Speaker 1: program who is skilled is someone who is skilled because
Speaker 1: they have a degree. But we I mean, the learning
Speaker 1: on the job is I mean that's priceless, but that's
Speaker 1: not considered skilled.
Speaker 2: Why well, it's a great question. And what President Trump
Speaker 2: did at the end of his term, there was a
Speaker 2: proposal he put on the table for skilled immigration reform
Speaker 2: that addressed some of these issues. It was more in
Speaker 2: line with Canada system, which has a whole range of skills,
Speaker 2: both educated and non formally trained skills that we can
Speaker 2: bring workers in. And the key point you have to make,
Speaker 2: I think both subsident politically. These don't take away American jobs.
Speaker 2: These are skilled immigrants that come in and help fill
Speaker 2: jobs that are going to help American companies grow and
Speaker 2: be more prospress for our community. So skilled immigration reforms key.
Speaker 2: I think Trump had the right idea, he just didn't
Speaker 2: get it done in the latter half of his administration.
Speaker 2: And that's the kind of approach we need to take
Speaker 2: hand in hand with fixing the border.
Speaker 1: All Right, Elections, we've got to get through elections. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you just went through a rough primary and then your
Speaker 1: primary opponent who won ended up losing the Senate seat
Speaker 1: to someone who is not even able to be in
Speaker 1: the Senate most of the time. So I think all
Speaker 1: of us are shocked by the John Fetterman situation across
Speaker 1: the country. I mean He's an example that people use
Speaker 1: as why people who are impaired in some way shouldn't
Speaker 1: be in office, no matter what age they are. It
Speaker 1: was really shocking. But one thing that I've come out
Speaker 1: of my campaign and done a lot of research on,
Speaker 1: and I've learned from folks who are in other states
Speaker 1: doing lots of research and doing a strong performing, a
Speaker 1: strong ground game on the Republican side, They've told me
Speaker 1: that there is a difference between these states. You have
Speaker 1: messaging states, which would be like a Florida or a
Speaker 1: tech You have ballot states, which is a Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: then Michigan would be a combination of a message and
Speaker 1: a ballot state. And really what we're not doing is
Speaker 1: that work on the ground to get to be I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have a message in Pennsylvania. If
Speaker 1: you're John Fetterman, you have no message. You're literally just
Speaker 1: going and doing the business of elections to capture those ballots.
Speaker 1: So if you run again, how do you change the
Speaker 1: way you do things on the ground there?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's the electro reform issue and then
Speaker 2: there's how I would campaign. They're related but different. I mean,
Speaker 2: the thing that was so frustrating, and I dealt with
Speaker 2: this in a primary, as you might imagine. But when
Speaker 2: the race. The day of the race, it looked like
Speaker 2: I was going to win the race. I was told
Speaker 2: I was going to win the race, and even for
Speaker 2: the seventeen days that followed, I thought for most of
Speaker 2: that time that I was going to win the race
Speaker 2: based on the numbers that I was being told. But
Speaker 2: you had sixty seven counties that had totally different pricesses
Speaker 2: for counting votes. You had all sorts of screwed up
Speaker 2: things where ballots were lost. In Philadelphia, the count from
Speaker 2: the Secretary of Stage, who's a Democrat, was of absentee
Speaker 2: ballances were inconsistent. And so I could see the frustration
Speaker 2: that people have on how screwed up our systems are.
Speaker 2: And one of the basic things that's missing is basic
Speaker 2: voter ID. Hard to imagine that you can show up
Speaker 2: at the polls and you don't have to show ID,
Speaker 2: but yet you can't get on an airplane with that idea.
Speaker 2: It seems so obvious, and yet we haven't been able
Speaker 2: to get voter ID passed in Pennsylvania. That's one thing
Speaker 2: that I would stand from the top of the Mountain
Speaker 2: and scream that we need that in Pennsylvania and we
Speaker 2: need that everywhere. It seems so obvious.
Speaker 1: It's but they're winning. So you make a good point.
Speaker 1: It seems so obvious, and yet they are winning on
Speaker 1: these issues with young people. Somehow they are able to
Speaker 1: twist the message in a way that young people go,
Speaker 1: my gosh, how terrible of you two quire of Voto,
Speaker 1: I d How do Republicans bring that take that message back?
Speaker 2: Now? I think it's it's got to start from the
Speaker 2: first day of the campaign is thinking about election day
Speaker 2: and all the work that needs to go into that
Speaker 2: and making the case that we want everybody to vote.
Speaker 2: We want every legal person to commit and vote. And
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. I don't know about the story in Michigan,
Speaker 2: but the fact that we didn't embrace absentee ballots killed us.
Speaker 2: It killed us in Pennsylvania. And you know that narrative
Speaker 2: that Republicans are going to vote on election day, and
Speaker 2: you know that that was devastating. And so we've got
Speaker 2: to do a better job. And there's initiatives underway here
Speaker 2: to really look at low propensity voters and figure out
Speaker 2: how to reach them, how to encourage them to vote,
Speaker 2: how to encourage them to vote by mail and play
Speaker 2: that game. The Democrats executed much better than we did
Speaker 2: on that plan. And there's obviously all the election irregularities,
Speaker 2: but just on the basic mail in ballot, they outperformed.
Speaker 2: So the person that beat me in the primary was
Speaker 2: memodas he started on election day six hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: seven hundred thousand votes down in the absentee ballot. You
Speaker 2: can't win elections unless you execute on that, and we didn't,
Speaker 2: and we need to do a better job in twenty.
Speaker 1: Four So what is the message going forward for Republicans?
Speaker 1: I've been watching everybody kind of pontificate on what Republicans
Speaker 1: did wrong. I mean, I have my own opinions, certainly
Speaker 1: having gone through a race and lost as well. But
Speaker 1: what do you think the message is on a federal
Speaker 1: level for people?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's three. I think it's three things.
Speaker 2: I think first and foremost, we need to be unified.
Speaker 2: I think the Democrats, at least in Pennsylvania were very unified,
Speaker 2: and we weren't unified, And we spend eighty percent of
Speaker 2: our time talking about the twenty percent of the things
Speaker 2: we disagree with among each other. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: agree with my wife on eighty percent of things. So
Speaker 2: we need to unify as a party around candidates that
Speaker 2: can win general elections. Winning is important, right, Winning the
Speaker 2: general election is support particular of purple state like Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: and at critical state like Michigan, We're gonna have candidates
Speaker 2: that can win the general election. That's the first thing.
Speaker 2: The second thing, and again this is my opinion, we
Speaker 2: need to look forward. We need to look forward, not backward.
Speaker 2: So we can spend all the time in the world
Speaker 2: talking about twenty twenty, but the people I met on
Speaker 2: the campaign troo, I want to talk about how we're
Speaker 2: going to fix the inflation which is killing working families,
Speaker 2: killing people on fixed income, how we're going to stop
Speaker 2: the fentanyl scourge. Crime in Philadelphia, the murder rates in
Speaker 2: an all time high. Those are the things we should
Speaker 2: be talking about. What we're going to do is Republicans
Speaker 2: and Conservatives to fix those problems. And three, we need
Speaker 2: to execute I think on the absentee ballots in Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: at least Acts seventy seven was passed with Republican support.
Speaker 2: Those are the rules now of how voting takes place,
Speaker 2: and we need to within those rules win the game
Speaker 2: from an execution state point, from a ground game standpoint.
Speaker 2: If we do that, we're going to win elections. Right now,
Speaker 2: we're not winning elections, and it's putting our commonwealth and
Speaker 2: the country. And because critical states like Pennsylvania Michigan are
Speaker 2: critical to the majority in the Senate and the House
Speaker 2: also critical to the future of the country. So those
Speaker 2: three things make it will make a big difference.
Speaker 1: How close is America to falling off the edge when
Speaker 1: it comes to being a superpower? I mean, it sounds
Speaker 1: like you think we are in great danger. I also
Speaker 1: believe that China has been working on one hundred year
Speaker 1: plan and they're like eighty five years in and we
Speaker 1: are just asleep at the wheel. We're looking at eight
Speaker 1: years ahead and we're missing the boat here. So how
Speaker 1: scary is it when you look at them having the
Speaker 1: biggest navy in the world, when you look at them
Speaker 1: having this outrageous amount of exports and bringing in all
Speaker 1: of this money, and suddenly people are looking away from
Speaker 1: the US dollar. How close are we?
Speaker 2: Well? I think we're in crisis. I think in economic terms,
Speaker 2: thirty one trillion dollars debt Sky high inflation, national curity,
Speaker 2: the challenge from China. China has a plan technologically superior
Speaker 2: in many areas, and I think spiritually, the basic premise
Speaker 2: of our exceptional country, the idea of merit capitalism, the
Speaker 2: fact that America is the most uniquely successful country in
Speaker 2: the world in terms of bringing people out of poverty.
Speaker 2: All those things are being challenged. And that's why eighty
Speaker 2: percent of Americans think we're headed in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2: Is why two thirds of parents think their kids are
Speaker 2: going to be less well off than they are. And
Speaker 2: that's why sixty percent of Americas living paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 2: So we're in crisis. But here's the contradiction. Because I
Speaker 2: believe we are a super power apparel, I'm optimistic. And
Speaker 2: the reason I'm optimistic is because this is the American tradition.
Speaker 2: We get to the edge of the cliff and we
Speaker 2: pull ourselves back. We've done this throughout history. The Civil
Speaker 2: War is a good example. In my lifetime, I think
Speaker 2: I'm a good bit older than you. But in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine, I was fifteen, and under Jimmy Carter, we
Speaker 2: had sky high inflation, we had an incredible disaster with
Speaker 2: desert one where we tried to rescue our Iranian hostage.
Speaker 2: American hostage is held in Iran. We lost eight service members.
Speaker 2: A lot like Afghanistan. We had sky high prices for gas.
Speaker 2: There was odd days and even days. You had to
Speaker 2: go to the pump on your odd day or even
Speaker 2: day to get your gas. Eighty percent of Americans thought
Speaker 2: the country was headed in the wrong direction, just like
Speaker 2: today and four years later when I was a plea
Speaker 2: but West Point, I'm walking across the campus and America's back,
Speaker 2: the economy's on fire, inflations in check, we're building up
Speaker 2: the military. Mourning in America under Ronald Reagan leadership and
Speaker 2: good conservative policies matter.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you say that if you study history, then
Speaker 1: you would see we've been close to this before, and
Speaker 1: there is hope.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's hope, but it depends on what we do.
Speaker 2: Decline is a choice, but so is renewal. So if
Speaker 2: we can get the right leadership in place, America is
Speaker 2: incredibly resilient. I'd still rather be an American than any
Speaker 2: other person in the world. I'd still rather be in
Speaker 2: our country and have our hand for playing poker. I'd
Speaker 2: rather have our hand than any other hand, but we
Speaker 2: could really screw this up.
Speaker 1: So oh no, I one percent agree with you on
Speaker 1: all of that. I'm so grateful to be an American.
Speaker 1: Really quick, before I let you go, I've got to
Speaker 1: have you comment on culture wars. What's your thought there.
Speaker 2: I think it's a progressive ideology that's permeating our schools,
Speaker 2: our military, or business community. I'm a veteran of the army.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think about that? When you see
Speaker 1: the trans.
Speaker 2: Let me give you an example of this. Under the
Speaker 2: Biden administration, the army released its climate change strategy before
Speaker 2: it released its war fighting strategy. Yeah. So it's it's
Speaker 2: pervasive and the only way to fix this is with leadership.
Speaker 2: We got to have the right leadership on these top
Speaker 2: of these institutions. I think the progressive movement has pushed
Speaker 2: things so far that the pendulum is starting to swing back.
Speaker 2: I think school choice for us as conservatives, I think
Speaker 2: we're at a tipping point. I think what parents saw
Speaker 2: during COVID looking over the shoulder of their kids, about
Speaker 2: the sexualization in elementary schools, about the history of America,
Speaker 2: that America was conceived in sin I think all of
Speaker 2: these things are at a place where we could actually
Speaker 2: really change the game in a very positive ways based
Speaker 2: on the crisis we feel at the moment.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, and I see it every day that
Speaker 1: the folks that are against choice school choice are out
Speaker 1: there getting louder and they're more scared. And they are
Speaker 1: because you see states like Arkansas, Iowa, and Florida Oklahoma
Speaker 1: all going to a choice model and it's working. And
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see success. And we have
Speaker 1: to because we've never seen scores as low in reading,
Speaker 1: math and history. But we can all keep fighting this fight.
Speaker 1: I'm anxious to see where your fight goes, David, and
Speaker 1: what you do next. So I won't ask you if
Speaker 1: you're running. I'll just say we're hoping that that might
Speaker 1: be in the future.
Speaker 2: Well, that's mutual. I'm anxious to see what you do
Speaker 2: as well. And thank you. Really admire what you've done
Speaker 2: in Michigan, and thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, David McCormick. Make sure you check out his book,
Speaker 1: Superpower in Peril, A Battle Plan to Renew America. I
Speaker 1: think that's what we all want and we're so grateful
Speaker 1: that you came on today. David. Thank you, Thanks dear,
Speaker 1: and thank you all for joining me on the Tutor
Speaker 1: Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go to tutordisonpodcast
Speaker 1: dot com. You can subscribe right there, or go to
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and make sure you join us next time on the
Speaker 1: Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have an awesome day.