Speaker 1: During the campaign, there was polling that showed twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five was deeply on popular, but people just didn't believe
Speaker 1: that Trump would do these things. They said, if Trump did,
Speaker 1: you know, band abortion entirely, for example, I wouldn't like that.
Speaker 1: But there's no chance he's going to do this. And
Speaker 1: there's a whole list of those things. So I think
Speaker 1: when people understand what it actually means, there will be
Speaker 1: more pushback. But if they see it simply as a
Speaker 1: kind of fuzzy pro family agenda, they may underestimate just
Speaker 1: how sweeping and radical it is.
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to this episode of Next
Speaker 2: Question You Know. Project twenty twenty five is a nearly
Speaker 2: one thousand page document that is designed to serve as
Speaker 2: a blueprint for transforming American society. Most people, of course,
Speaker 2: heard of it prior to the election, but many people
Speaker 2: hadn't and still haven't read it, and those who did
Speaker 2: read it thought there was no way in hell that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump would actually implement it. Well guess what he has.
Speaker 2: So here are the questions, what does Project twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five actually say, what does it mean? And is there
Speaker 2: any way to stop what seems to be this runaway train.
Speaker 2: David Graham, who's a writer for the Atlantic, has written
Speaker 2: a new book called The Project. How Project twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five is reshaping America, and he's here to answer those
Speaker 2: questions and more. I think you're one of the few people, David,
Speaker 2: who has read Project twenty twenty five's Mandate for Leadership
Speaker 2: cover to cover. It's almost one thousand pages, nine hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty two. So, in broad strokes, what was your
Speaker 2: takeaway after reading the whole damn thing?
Speaker 1: Right? You know, I'd read bits and pieces during the campaign,
Speaker 1: but I hadn't read the whole thing, And when I
Speaker 1: actually sat down to read it, I was pretty astonished.
Speaker 1: It was a richer document that I had realized. It
Speaker 1: was more radical, it was more interesting. There are these
Speaker 1: conflicts in it, and it seemed like such a roadmap
Speaker 1: to what we would expect from a Trump administration. And
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly how it's played out.
Speaker 2: You were initially somewhat skeptical of the hype around Project
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, but as you said, it was much
Speaker 2: more radical than you thought. Can you tell us more
Speaker 2: about that and what you ascertained that made you think
Speaker 2: Jesus this is pretty serious stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, we get these kind of policy blueprints every
Speaker 1: four years, and often there are just kind of lists
Speaker 1: of policies people want, and that's what I thought this
Speaker 1: was too. But this is really a whole scheme for
Speaker 1: remaking the federal government and then remaking American society. I
Speaker 1: think it's ambitions are just much broader, and it has methods.
Speaker 1: I mean, they thought about how to make these things
Speaker 1: happen in a way that the typical policy wishless just
Speaker 1: doesn't have.
Speaker 2: Like what I mean, tell us how they hope to
Speaker 2: implement it to get widespread acceptance, and we'll talk about
Speaker 2: its popularity or left up later, but it's much more
Speaker 2: give us a little more meat to understand the methodology
Speaker 2: they hope to incorporate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the centerpiece is taking charge of the
Speaker 1: federal government and taking charge of the executive branch in
Speaker 1: a way that no president has before. So they lay
Speaker 1: out how to take over the Justice Department, how to
Speaker 1: use the Office of Management and Budget, which is you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a dusty agency as the command center for
Speaker 1: taking charge of the federal government, how to use the
Speaker 1: Office of Presidential Personnel, and then to sort of accrue
Speaker 1: presidential power by taking over independent regulatory agencies, so things
Speaker 1: like you know, the FCC or the FTC. Traditionally, you know,
Speaker 1: they work relatively independently. They're appointed by the president and
Speaker 1: their leaders, but then they do their own thing. They
Speaker 1: think that's unconstitutional. They want Trump to be directing those things.
Speaker 1: And once you have control of all of them, and
Speaker 1: you start to push civil servants out as well, you
Speaker 1: can make the federal government do what you want to do,
Speaker 1: and that includes creating this very conservative vision of society.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump during the campaign obviously distanced himself from Project
Speaker 2: twenty five, but it seems like he is in it
Speaker 2: hole hog, isn't it. Talk about the difference between how
Speaker 2: he talked about this document and how it's been implemented
Speaker 2: already during the course of his still young administration second administration.
Speaker 1: You know, there's something like seventy contributors to Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. A quarter of them were in his first administration.
Speaker 1: Some of them were cabinet members. Russell Vote, wh's kind
Speaker 1: of the intellectual architect, was the head of OMB in
Speaker 1: the first administration. He is again. He led Trump's policy
Speaker 1: committee during the twenty twenty four campaign. So the idea
Speaker 1: that there was really any distance I think was always
Speaker 1: very flimsy. But now that he's in office, he's put
Speaker 1: these people in top positions and he's followed their prescriptions
Speaker 1: really closely. So, you know, if you look at the
Speaker 1: executive orders we saw in the first week of the presidency,
Speaker 1: thirty seven of forty seven I believe, according to Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: were directly from Project twenty twenty five. He's following the
Speaker 1: blueprint right as it's laid out.
Speaker 2: Tell me more about this Russell Vogue guy, because if
Speaker 2: he is sort of the intellectual archaet of it, tell
Speaker 2: me about his background, his philosophy, and how he has
Speaker 2: imbued this document or this blueprint with his own ideas.
Speaker 1: So votes an interesting guy because he comes from this
Speaker 1: sort of traditional conservative, socially conservative, fiscally conservative wing of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, and he worked for Phil Graham and
Speaker 1: the Senate. He came up through these these traditional channels.
Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like naturally a Trump guy because he is
Speaker 1: so socially conservative. But he got into the first Trump
Speaker 1: administration and he found himself really frustrated by what he saw.
Speaker 1: He saw civil servants, he felt who were obstructing Trump.
Speaker 1: But he also saw political appointees who he thought were lazy,
Speaker 1: or who were rhinos, or who were you know, trying
Speaker 1: to obstruct Trump for whatever their ends were. And he
Speaker 1: didn't want that to happen again. And so he designs
Speaker 1: Projects twenty twenty five as a way to have staff
Speaker 1: who would be on board, who'd be trained and ready
Speaker 1: to go, and as a set of methods to sort
Speaker 1: of drive through that opposition and to bring about the
Speaker 1: you know, the Christian nation that he says we should be.
Speaker 1: And we're founded as you who shocked.
Speaker 2: I know you've read bits and pieces before you wrote
Speaker 2: this book, but when you read it in its totality,
Speaker 2: what was your reaction in general as just an American
Speaker 2: citizen in terms of what they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: I was amazed how radical it was. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is just a program for all of society, and they
Speaker 1: want to change so many basically, you know, want to
Speaker 1: change the way your children are taught and what you
Speaker 1: get in classrooms. They want to change the way you
Speaker 1: interact with your healthcare providers. They want to affect really everything,
Speaker 1: every part of life. And I think I hadn't realized
Speaker 1: that I mean, I remember reading through it and I
Speaker 1: kept like, you know, walking out of my office to
Speaker 1: my wife, like you won't believe what I'm reading here?
Speaker 1: Can you believe that they're saying this? And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it is. You know, it's important to understand
Speaker 1: just how systematic it is. And that's what I didn't
Speaker 1: grasp until I read the whole thing, and what I
Speaker 1: hope I can convey in the book.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm curious if you saw it also
Speaker 2: as a blueprint for autocracy, because you know, it sounds
Speaker 2: both like it wants to go back in time right
Speaker 2: and remove what most people see as progress or some
Speaker 2: people see as progress in terms of equal rights, the
Speaker 2: role of women, and marginalized communities, opportunities, you know, being
Speaker 2: more full throated participants in American life, and autocracy. So
Speaker 2: where do you see it philosophically? Landing it's a melding
Speaker 2: of those two things, you know. So some of the
Speaker 2: ideas here are things that we've heard from the Republican
Speaker 2: Party or from social concertis for a long time. And
Speaker 2: I think what sets this apart is the willingness to
Speaker 2: use the federal government as a kind of coercive force
Speaker 2: This is not a sort of, you know, Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: limited government idea. This is about accruing a lot of
Speaker 2: presidential power and using it to, you know, to build
Speaker 2: the society people want in a way that the Republican
Speaker 2: Party has traditionally stood against. We'll talk about the Christian
Speaker 2: nationalism part in a moment, because I don't want to
Speaker 2: make listeners viewers think that I just was like glossing
Speaker 2: that over. But first I want to talk about some
Speaker 2: of the goals of Project twenty twenty five. They're four
Speaker 2: of them, and let's talk about them. One is restore
Speaker 2: the family is the centerpiece of American life and protect
Speaker 2: our children. What does that mean exactly? From their vantage point.
Speaker 1: It means a whole range of things. So it means,
Speaker 1: for example, abolishing the Department of Education and giving parents
Speaker 1: and giving religious organizations much more ConTroll over education, moving
Speaker 1: things away from the public school system and towards private
Speaker 1: schools and religious schools. It means banning abortion nationwide. It
Speaker 1: means defining gender or defining sex as male and female
Speaker 1: with nothing between, sort of pushing trans people into the shadows.
Speaker 1: It means using things like welfare to encourage nuclear families
Speaker 1: to encourage marriage and fatherhood. They lay out basically how
Speaker 1: to use every department of the government as a way
Speaker 1: to achieve these things.
Speaker 2: How much of the document feels like, either blatantly or implicitly,
Speaker 2: a backlash against progressive sort of liberal thinking in general.
Speaker 2: Does it go without saying or is it specified within
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: It is specified at places. And they talk a lot
Speaker 1: about wokeness. They don't tell us what they mean by that,
Speaker 1: but they're clearly reacting against something. And in statements, you know,
Speaker 1: in interviews elsewhere, Russell Vote and Paul Danz, who is
Speaker 1: sort of his partner in building this, have talked about
Speaker 1: their reaction to how society has changed, and they're feeling that,
Speaker 1: you know, Christianity is being sidelined, and then the America
Speaker 1: that they know and love is being taken away from
Speaker 1: them and they want to reclaim it.
Speaker 2: What do they think of separation of church and state.
Speaker 1: They don't believe in it.
Speaker 2: They don't.
Speaker 1: It's simply not a factor. I mean, they say that
Speaker 1: the government shouldn't establish a church, but they say this
Speaker 1: is a Christian nation, it was founded as a Christian nation,
Speaker 1: and it should be Vote speaking to Charlie Kirk a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago said, you know, the left uses
Speaker 1: all these pejoratives for us. They call me a Christian nationalist,
Speaker 1: But unlike a lot of the pejoratives, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I'm a Christian, I'm a nationalist. I think we should
Speaker 1: have a Christian nation.
Speaker 2: Another goal is to dismantle the administrative state and return
Speaker 2: self governance to the American people. What does that mean exactly?
Speaker 1: So, the administrative state is basically the executive branch as
Speaker 1: we know it. We have hundreds of thousands of civil
Speaker 1: servants who, you know, we interact with them when we're
Speaker 1: dealing with social security. They are forecasting our weather, they
Speaker 1: are sending grants to our schools, all of these things,
Speaker 1: and they operate in a sort of semi autonomous way.
Speaker 1: They're non political, they stay in the government no matter
Speaker 1: what happens. They're also these independent agencies that act sort
Speaker 1: of outside of the president's purview. They want to demolish
Speaker 1: all of that. They think the president should have full
Speaker 1: control of anyone who works at the executive branch, and
Speaker 1: those people should be basically working towards his political goals,
Speaker 1: whatever those might be. And so they want to lay
Speaker 1: off civil servants. We've obviously seen a lot of that already,
Speaker 1: and I will see more of it. They want to
Speaker 1: convert other civil servants to being political appointees, and they
Speaker 1: want to with you know, get rid of these guard
Speaker 1: reels we've traditionally seen, like Justice Department independence example.
Speaker 2: Scary, right, I mean, you're talking about it so matter
Speaker 2: of factly, but you know, most civil servants aren't necessarily
Speaker 2: there to push an ideological agenda. They're really there to
Speaker 2: keep the government going right, the wheels of government operating right.
Speaker 2: So it's almost a sense of paranoia that there are
Speaker 2: dark forces lurking. I guess that's why they call it
Speaker 2: the deep state, but dark forces lurking everywhere that have
Speaker 2: a very concrete political agenda that they're trying to push.
Speaker 2: But it really that's not really the case of government workers,
Speaker 2: Isn't it exactly right?
Speaker 1: It's not. I mean, you know, there are surveys that
Speaker 1: show that government workers lean left in their politics, but
Speaker 1: most of the things they do simply are not political.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know a lot of Americans gripe
Speaker 1: about bureaucrats, but when I read the prescriptions here, I
Speaker 1: think is making these people, you know, appointed on the
Speaker 1: basis of their politics, on their loyalty to the present.
Speaker 1: Is that going to make services better or is it
Speaker 1: going to make things worse? It seems to me it's
Speaker 1: likely to make things worse.
Speaker 2: The third thing is defend our nation's sovereignty, borders and
Speaker 2: bounty against global threats. Help me understand that.
Speaker 1: It's a little opaque.
Speaker 2: I think that means a couple Also, what is bounty.
Speaker 1: Right, It's a lofty term they want to use to
Speaker 1: make this seem maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2: More patriotic or old school or something.
Speaker 1: I think that means first of all, borders, so it
Speaker 1: means closing the border. It means reducing immigration, both legal
Speaker 1: and I legal. There's a sense that there are too
Speaker 1: many people coming into the country through whatever means. So
Speaker 1: that means fewer visas, making it harder to immigrate. Those
Speaker 1: are things that they value. And it also means a
Speaker 1: kind of existential conflict with China. So throughout you see
Speaker 1: the sense that China is a threat that Americans don't grasp.
Speaker 1: They don't see how big a threat China is, and
Speaker 1: it has to be confronted economically, culturally, and if necessary,
Speaker 1: militarily as well.
Speaker 2: And finally, secure are God given individual rights to live
Speaker 2: freely what our Constitution calls the blessings of liberty. So
Speaker 2: how do they view liberty because a lot of people
Speaker 2: think that liberties are being taken away, not granted to
Speaker 2: American citizens.
Speaker 1: That's right. There's this chilling quote where Kevin Roberts, who's
Speaker 1: the head of the Heritage Foundation which convened this, says you,
Speaker 1: liberty is doing not just what we want, but what
Speaker 1: we ought. So it's libert or willing. And I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not liberty. And I think the way most
Speaker 1: people understand it, it's using the federal government to tell
Speaker 1: you how to live.
Speaker 2: Where do you see the germ of this coming from.
Speaker 2: Obviously we talked about a backlash against I guess pluralism, globalization,
Speaker 2: equal rights right, and I think gender roles, DEI, affirmative action,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, trying to level the playing field
Speaker 2: in our society. But what else is really fomented this?
Speaker 2: In your view having read.
Speaker 1: It, yeah, I think it has a very long history.
Speaker 1: And so you know DEI is a boogeyman often in
Speaker 1: the document, but you go further back and their concerns
Speaker 1: about you know, Title nine, for example, and they want
Speaker 1: to use Title nine to enforce certain priorities. But also
Speaker 1: they're very skeptical of it. They're skeptical of the Equal
Speaker 1: Employment Opportunity Commission, they're skeptical of the New Deal itself. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a sense that over the last century
Speaker 1: things have happened to change the way America works that
Speaker 1: have taken us away from the Christian founding. They see
Speaker 1: and they want to reclaim things in that way.
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Speaker 2: or follow them on social media. You talk about Russell
Speaker 2: Vote casually mentioned he's a self described Christian nationalist, So
Speaker 2: can you talk about what Christian nationalists believe and how
Speaker 2: his principles bled into this document.
Speaker 1: You know, they believe that this is a Christian nation.
Speaker 1: They believe that.
Speaker 2: Well, can you explain why they believe that?
Speaker 1: You know, they look at the founders and they say,
Speaker 1: many of the founders were Christians. They see language about God,
Speaker 1: and they simply believe that since, you know, since European
Speaker 1: settlers arrived in the in what is now the United States,
Speaker 1: they would bring Christian ideas and that is the foundation
Speaker 1: of the country. And they think that that has always
Speaker 1: been in the DNA. But we've started to drift away
Speaker 1: from that.
Speaker 2: I mean, so, how does this fit in with sort
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump's seeming obsession with anti Semitism and sort
Speaker 2: of Jewish American citizens.
Speaker 1: You know, they often use this language about a Judeo
Speaker 1: Christian society, and they talk about, for example, a biblically
Speaker 1: grounded vision of the family. And so it's a little
Speaker 1: bit broader, but very much it's focused around Christianity. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you know, they think that there should be
Speaker 1: all people should have a sabbath. You know, they should
Speaker 1: not have to work for at least a day a week,
Speaker 1: and if they do, they should have to get time
Speaker 1: and a half. This is an idea that maybe could
Speaker 1: have appeal across the spectrum, but it's phrasing these very
Speaker 1: religious ways, and they say, we assume this would be Sunday,
Speaker 1: but it could, for example, be Friday evening to Saturday
Speaker 1: evening if for somebody of a different faith. So there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of accommodation. But the norm is very
Speaker 1: much Christianity, and so much of the policy stems from Christianity.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about the dark side of Christian nationalism
Speaker 2: for people who are perhaps unaware of the sort of
Speaker 2: nefarious ramifications of this kind of ideology.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very much about telling people how to live,
Speaker 1: and so it means shutting down abortion rights. It means
Speaker 1: pushing women towards motherhood and out of the workplace. Not
Speaker 1: out of the workplace, but away from the workplace. It
Speaker 1: means knocking down, you know that many of the changes
Speaker 1: we have seen in the last few decades of giving
Speaker 1: women more leeway and more rights. It means discouraging things
Speaker 1: like divorce. It means schools that are tutoring children in
Speaker 1: biblical principles and that are not necessarily teaching things like evolution.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a you know, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of ideas that are not popular, and it's a
Speaker 1: very totalizing way to approach.
Speaker 2: Life, but it is popular in some quarters. Can you
Speaker 2: talk about where Project twenty twenty five resonated and the
Speaker 2: segment of the population who might embrace this, if not wholeheartedly,
Speaker 2: then half heartedly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think that this vision of society,
Speaker 1: and this the kind of backlash we're talking about, is
Speaker 1: really core to Donald Trump's appeal. It is people who
Speaker 1: feel like they are losing status in society. They feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, a white man in particular, don't have the
Speaker 1: same kind of status they once did. The Christians are persecuted,
Speaker 1: that white people are persecuted. And for those people, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is very popular. They want to see this kind
Speaker 1: of vision and they're willing to follow a plan that
Speaker 1: offers some of these things. Now, I do think that
Speaker 1: that's a little bit. I think it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a shallow appeal. I think people have this really emotional
Speaker 1: connection to it, but when they get to some of
Speaker 1: the details of Project twenty twenty five, I don't think
Speaker 1: they're going to be as fond of some of them.
Speaker 2: What do you mean emotional appeal on principle for some
Speaker 2: of these ideas.
Speaker 1: I think that just the concept that that something's been
Speaker 1: taken from you. We're going to put things back the
Speaker 1: way they were at some point, and this is often
Speaker 1: left quite, you know, a little bit vague. At some
Speaker 1: point things started to change in this country and they're
Speaker 1: not the way they once were, and this is often done.
Speaker 1: It's kind of vague way, it's kind of a new window.
Speaker 2: And what do you think they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Well, I think they have to be studiously they because
Speaker 1: no one wants to say things were better before the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act, when on occasion we've seen politicians say
Speaker 1: that it has gone very poorly for them, so they
Speaker 1: have to sort of cloak it in this vagueness. This
Speaker 1: is why when we say make America great again, Trump
Speaker 1: never tells us exactly when it was that America was
Speaker 1: great that he wants to go back to.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about sort of you talked about the
Speaker 2: inherent sexism. What about the inherent racism of this document?
Speaker 2: Clearly it is anti immigrant, right unless they're white immigrants,
Speaker 2: white Christian immigrants, right, So can you talk about how
Speaker 2: you interpreted the inherent racism that these people incorporated in
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I think was a real paternalistic attitude and a lot
Speaker 1: of the document. You know, they say that we need
Speaker 1: to restore the family, and they say in you know,
Speaker 1: for example, in poor black communities, they're not allowed enough
Speaker 1: fathers living in the home. We need to encourage that.
Speaker 1: You have in the chap on the Department of Housing
Speaker 1: and Urban Development a sense that, you know, things like
Speaker 1: housing vouchers or public housing are creating a culture of
Speaker 1: dependency and people are not willing to help themselves. So
Speaker 1: in some ways, these are things we've heard from the right.
Speaker 2: I want to say, and I think there's some people,
Speaker 2: even who are moderate who can say I could get
Speaker 2: on board with the need to have more involved fathers
Speaker 2: in all communities.
Speaker 1: Back Obama was a big proponent of right.
Speaker 2: So at its face, it's not that offensive. But is
Speaker 2: it imbued with more sort of racist dog whistles or
Speaker 2: innuendo that would be interpreted by the average person.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that is not necessarily there.
Speaker 1: They do keep us a very sort of color blind
Speaker 1: approach at a lot of places. But what you see is
Speaker 1: a disparate impact on people. If you start directing aid
Speaker 1: on these ways, if you start putting it through religious groups,
Speaker 1: if you take away things like the EEOC, you're going
Speaker 1: to have disparate impact, and they say disparate impact is
Speaker 1: a you know, a false concept that ought to be
Speaker 1: thrown out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, let's talk about that, because is there much
Speaker 2: discussion on the impact of all these proposals and policies
Speaker 2: and is there any kind of appreciation or acceptance of
Speaker 2: how these things could go or wry.
Speaker 1: No, I would say there's a little bit of a gap.
Speaker 1: They talk about as sort of the shining future they imagine,
Speaker 1: and they talk about the policies that they are, but
Speaker 1: there's a gap in between about how exactly these things work.
Speaker 1: And I think often they fail to really grapple with
Speaker 1: the impacts of the things they suggest. So, you know,
Speaker 1: they complain about politicization in the executive branch, and then
Speaker 1: they offer a plan to politicize it that seems to
Speaker 1: cut against what you want. They complain that Congress has
Speaker 1: abdicated too much power and is you know, no longer
Speaker 1: as a sort of as it should bete and they
Speaker 1: want to give more power to the executive branch.
Speaker 2: So they say Congress has abdicated it, but they don't
Speaker 2: say the executive branch has seized it.
Speaker 1: No, they one of the executive branch to seize much more.
Speaker 2: Do you think Donald Trump is in lockstep with a
Speaker 2: lot of these policies or do you think he simply
Speaker 2: sees it as a means to an end, as a
Speaker 2: means to a massive power grab by him and the
Speaker 2: people around him who agree with him.
Speaker 1: I think it's symbiosis. So for Trump, he gets trained employees,
Speaker 1: you know, trained staffers who are loyal to his project,
Speaker 1: who are ready to go on day one. He has
Speaker 1: a whole policy agenda and he has ways, for example,
Speaker 1: to clear out the deep state that he hates, and
Speaker 1: to reak retribution by using the Justice Department, newly in
Speaker 1: his control, as a tool of retribution. And for them,
Speaker 1: they have a vessel. I mean they understand that these
Speaker 1: things are hard to do, that they've been conservative priorities
Speaker 1: for a long time and they haven't happened, and they
Speaker 1: see Trump as someone who's willing to sort of force
Speaker 1: it through. So each side gets something they want, but
Speaker 1: they're looking way beyond Trump. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: plan for decades to come, and Trump is just the
Speaker 1: first stage of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, tell us more about that. What is the
Speaker 2: long view for the architects of Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: They understand that the firste hundred days are very important,
Speaker 1: as we've seen, they understand the first two years before
Speaker 1: the midterms are very important. They want to get as
Speaker 1: far as they can toward that. But the changes they're
Speaker 1: making are not going to be reversed no matter, you know,
Speaker 1: how Democrats do in the midterms or who the next
Speaker 1: president is, because you can't rehire thousands of federal employees.
Speaker 1: There's going to be so much brain drain. There's going
Speaker 1: to be programs that are shut down. You know, there's
Speaker 1: an end to basically all climate change research is kind
Speaker 1: of plated here. Those are things that are hard to
Speaker 1: put back. You can't rehire all the generals they've fired,
Speaker 1: which is another Project twenty twenty five priority. So the
Speaker 1: next president will inherit a government that is much smaller
Speaker 1: and is reoriented a lot, and they will have to
Speaker 1: grapple with that rather than what Trump received on January twentieth.
Speaker 2: Could you get on board with anything that was in
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five in terms of you know, so
Speaker 2: called waste, fraud and abuse. I think it's so interesting
Speaker 2: they're you know, getting rid of fraud by getting rid
Speaker 2: of the people who are basically responsible for recognizing, recognizing
Speaker 2: and doing something about it. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean people talk about waste, fraud, and abuse,
Speaker 1: and obviously nobody is in favor of those things. But
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to find that than it seems
Speaker 1: as Elon Musk has discovered. It's not just sitting there
Speaker 1: waiting to be discovered. You know, I think there are
Speaker 1: some really interesting ideas in here, and I think, for example,
Speaker 1: they're concerned about driving at birth rates, this pro natalist view,
Speaker 1: but there's places that you can see, you know, crossover
Speaker 1: with the left. They think duelas should be available to
Speaker 1: all mothers. For example, they think that childcare should be
Speaker 1: more easily avaiable. They advocate for childcare in the workplace, saying,
Speaker 1: you know, parents shouldn't have to be so far away
Speaker 1: from their children.
Speaker 2: They want to give money to women or families where
Speaker 2: they're six or more children.
Speaker 1: M There's all these ways to encouraging and you know,
Speaker 1: these are ideas that I think the left would like.
Speaker 1: Often that they have diagnoses that I think are reasonable,
Speaker 1: it's whether the prescription works, and that's often where the
Speaker 1: problem is.
Speaker 2: Give me an example of that.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think talking about Congress is a
Speaker 1: great one. Congress is very broken. If you talk political
Speaker 1: scientists or former members of Congress from either party, they'll
Speaker 1: tell you that it's just that giving the president unfettered
Speaker 1: power everything else isn't going to fix that problem. It's
Speaker 1: not going to solve the problems in our politics.
Speaker 2: I know that you right that the architects of Project
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five sought the year twenty twenty four as
Speaker 2: a critical moment in time comparable to seventeen seventy six
Speaker 2: or eighteen sixty. Can you describe that? And I guess
Speaker 2: they look at it as a huge and dramatic inflection
Speaker 2: point for American society.
Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, I think that they phrase it
Speaker 1: this way tells us how important it is to them
Speaker 1: and how sweeping their plan is. They're trying to meet
Speaker 1: a moment like that. Kevin Roberts, the head of Heritage,
Speaker 1: said last summer that we're in the midst of a
Speaker 1: second American revolution and bloodless if the Left allows it
Speaker 1: to be. I think that's pretty chilling, and it also explains,
Speaker 1: I think why it's so important to pay attention to
Speaker 1: this and understand what they want to do and understand
Speaker 1: the methods they've layed out.
Speaker 2: I would probably normally save this towards the end of
Speaker 2: our interview, but you know, as I hear this, it
Speaker 2: feels like a runaway train, right, And I think so
Speaker 2: many people are wondering how can we stop this train?
Speaker 2: And there don't seem to be the tools at our
Speaker 2: disposal to say, hey, we don't want this society. And
Speaker 2: in fact, I think only thirteen percent and who knows
Speaker 2: how deep the understanding is of this plan approve of
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five in America. But it is happening
Speaker 2: at full speed. So how do you stop this or
Speaker 2: how do you reverse course? If, in fact, so much
Speaker 2: damage is going to be done in the first two
Speaker 2: years of this administration.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really tough question. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the first thing is understanding it, and I think
Speaker 1: that is something we've missed. I think Democrats don't seem
Speaker 1: to be looking ahead. I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: population has been shocked by things that have happened. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I wanted to do
Speaker 1: in the book was explain to people where things are
Speaker 1: going so that they can look ahead, and so they're
Speaker 1: a little bit less surprised and they can start figuring
Speaker 1: out how they want to respond. And I think that's
Speaker 1: valuable for people who agree with Projects twenty twenty five too.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to understand this. It's an important
Speaker 1: part of being an American citizen to see where our
Speaker 1: country is headed.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty unsatisfying answer. I having to be honest
Speaker 2: with you. I'm talk to me, so I agree. Understanding
Speaker 2: it is the first step. But what can be done
Speaker 2: at all? Or is that something you actually didn't focus
Speaker 2: on in this book.
Speaker 1: It's not something I focused on it.
Speaker 2: Maybe you need to do a second book, right.
Speaker 1: Being the sequel? Right? I mean, I think there was
Speaker 1: so much in the document that I felt like I
Speaker 1: had to get. I had to explain all of those
Speaker 1: and break it down and figure out how to respond
Speaker 1: to it as a such a vast topic too, you know,
Speaker 1: I think people need to understand that what is going
Speaker 1: to come later is not going to be returned to
Speaker 1: where things were. We're not going to go back to
Speaker 1: pre Project twenty twenty five. We have to rethink what
Speaker 1: American government should be like. I think I've thought a
Speaker 1: lot about the post Watergate reforms and whether we might
Speaker 1: see something like those sorts of reforms to the government,
Speaker 1: you know, after Trump leave's office.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the Elon Musk of it all and
Speaker 2: how he fits into Project twenty twenty five. How does
Speaker 2: he You.
Speaker 1: Know, he's not contemplated and the speed with which he's
Speaker 1: acted is something that has come to as a surprise
Speaker 1: to me. The things he's done have not. It's really
Speaker 1: been the space.
Speaker 2: Is he operating with this playbook?
Speaker 1: He is very much If you look at what he's doing,
Speaker 1: he's following what they're doing it. He's doing it a
Speaker 1: lot faster they you know, they these are people who
Speaker 1: have served in government and thought really hard about how
Speaker 1: they could work using the laws, using what's in place
Speaker 1: to achieve what they wanted, and Musk kind of just
Speaker 1: buldoze through it. He's made those things happen a lot faster.
Speaker 1: But he's working closely with Russell Vote, and I think
Speaker 1: for people like Russell Vote and other Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five architects, Musk is just a vessel. In the same
Speaker 1: way that Trump is a means to an end, Musk
Speaker 1: is a means to an end as well.
Speaker 2: They approve of what he's doing though right.
Speaker 1: They do, absolutely. I think they're they're driving it. They're
Speaker 1: encouraging him, they're pointing him where to go.
Speaker 2: Is saying, now though, that DOGE will produce only fifteen
Speaker 2: percent of the savings that promised, and the New York
Speaker 2: Times is saying that estimate is inflated with errors and guesswork.
Speaker 2: So how can they be pleased with the results if
Speaker 2: they're not really, I guess, dismantling the deep state as
Speaker 2: significantly as they had hoped.
Speaker 1: You know, I think the efficiency is something he talks
Speaker 1: about a lot. It's not their concern. Their concern is
Speaker 1: getting rid of the employees. And we see these people
Speaker 1: leaving every day. We see them. Russell Vote said he
Speaker 1: wanted to put the federal bureaucracy in trauma, and I
Speaker 1: think we see that happening all the time. Federal workers
Speaker 1: are in fact in trauma. They're contemplating the exits, they're
Speaker 1: being forced out. Just today, I see that the federal
Speaker 1: watchdog in charge of employees is no longer going to
Speaker 1: be fighting these dismissals. And so this progress is happening.
Speaker 1: Even if they don't save money, they know that they're
Speaker 1: putting things under the President's control, and they're moving things
Speaker 1: toward this Christian society. Anything else is just kind of
Speaker 1: collateral damage.
Speaker 2: So who will replace all these people? There will have
Speaker 2: to be a litmus test for your religious beliefs and
Speaker 2: your loyalty to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Right. They want people chosen on whether they're true to
Speaker 1: the president, whether they are longtime MAGA believers. And you know,
Speaker 1: we saw for example, people being question for their jobs
Speaker 1: in the administration. Do you believe the twenty twenty election
Speaker 1: was stolen? If you say no, you don't get a job.
Speaker 1: These are the kind of tests that we're going to get.
Speaker 2: Okay, dumb question, But isn't that against the law.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that are ostensibly against the law,
Speaker 1: and if you just do them and try to get
Speaker 1: away with them, you can do that. And one thing
Speaker 1: that the architects of Project twenty twenty five want to
Speaker 1: do is push things to Supreme Court. So, for example,
Speaker 1: it's illegal for the president to take control of or
Speaker 1: to fire you know, members of the National Labor Relations
Speaker 1: Board or the Federal Elections.
Speaker 2: Commission aren't the chairman of the FED.
Speaker 1: For example, but they want to they they believe that
Speaker 1: it's unconstitutional if they can push that the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: They think they now have a conservative majority that will
Speaker 1: rule with them and overturn ninety five years of president
Speaker 1: About this, well.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about how they view the judiciary branch of
Speaker 2: the American government. What is discussed in Project twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five about that.
Speaker 1: They almost don't pay attention to any of the lower branches.
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen the President Jdvan tell these people
Speaker 1: attacking federal judges directly. The architects of Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five mostly see the Supreme Court as allies, and they
Speaker 1: think if they can push these cases to them, they're
Speaker 1: going to get favorable rulings and be able to work
Speaker 1: towards society they want.
Speaker 2: And what do you think do you think the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court will rubber stamp a lot of the stuff that's
Speaker 2: being done, or do you think that they will say, hey,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this has gone too far and uphold
Speaker 2: the decisions the lower courts may be making when they
Speaker 2: are against what Donald Trump wants to do.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to know. We've seen sometimes the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court go along with what seemed like very far fetched
Speaker 1: arguments from Trump. I mean, you know, give immunity the
Speaker 1: immunity exactly, and then we saw them more recently shooting
Speaker 1: down as alien Enemies Act use. So it's a little
Speaker 1: bit hard to tell. I think the question is, you know,
Speaker 1: we know there are two to three votes who will
Speaker 1: agree with almost anything he says. They know there are
Speaker 1: three votes that will vote against almost anything he says.
Speaker 1: And the question is where these people in the middle.
Speaker 1: You know where John robertson, where Cunny Barrett come out?
Speaker 2: Really, because she offended people with a recent decision, tell
Speaker 2: us about that.
Speaker 1: You know, she is somebody who the right has worked
Speaker 1: so hard to get judges in place who will work
Speaker 1: along with them, and I think you know those efforts
Speaker 1: go right along with Projects twenty twenty five. They were
Speaker 1: very upset about somebody like a David Suiter proving more
Speaker 1: liberal than they expected. And so when they see a
Speaker 1: judge who doesn't simply rubber stamp what Trump says, they
Speaker 1: see this as disloyalty. So there's an implicit idea that
Speaker 1: the judiciary should be listening to the president, that it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be an independent check, even if that's not something
Speaker 1: that is directly stated.
Speaker 2: This is so friggin' terrifying. If you want to get
Speaker 2: smarter Every morning with a breakdown of the news and
Speaker 2: fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture. Sign
Speaker 2: up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going
Speaker 2: to Katiecuric dot com. SO Project twenty twenty five calls
Speaker 2: for drastic tax cuts, the elimination of federal regulations, massive
Speaker 2: reduction in the federal workforce, but also is proposing a
Speaker 2: slew of initiatives that would need to be paid for
Speaker 2: and administered by you, guessed at the federal government. So
Speaker 2: how do they reconcile just replacing perhaps one bureaucracy with
Speaker 2: one that is closer to them ideologically.
Speaker 1: I don't think they do. I think it's a real flaw.
Speaker 1: And although, for example, they say a recurring theme because
Speaker 1: it's organized by department, there's a chapter on each department,
Speaker 1: is that the writers say that we need to get
Speaker 1: rid of many federal employees, we need to hire some
Speaker 1: more in this agency, we need to expand the Defense Department,
Speaker 1: we need to expand the Department of Homeland Security. So
Speaker 1: I think there's a real flaw there, and they don't
Speaker 1: explain how they're going to administer a lot of the things.
Speaker 1: If they have cleared out the experts and they're bringing
Speaker 1: people who don't have any training in these things.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about climate change. Since it is Earth Day today,
Speaker 2: what is the document stance on global warming?
Speaker 1: They don't say that global warming is a hoax. They
Speaker 1: just don't want to deal with it. So any climate
Speaker 1: related research would be shut down, Climate warnings would be
Speaker 1: thrown out, environmental regulation would be trashed across the board.
Speaker 1: So that's air pollution, water pollution, but that's also you know,
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas issues. They think that the Interior Department should
Speaker 1: basically be in charge of getting more oil and gas extracted.
Speaker 1: Everything is arranged around fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: But is protecting the earth and clean air, clean water?
Speaker 2: Is that not a Christian value?
Speaker 1: You know, you would think so. And the story they
Speaker 1: tell I think is very strange. They say, back in
Speaker 1: the seventies, the air was dirty, the water was dirty.
Speaker 1: We cleaned things up. We should celebrate that. Why are
Speaker 1: environmental that is always telling us how bad things are.
Speaker 1: We need to look at all the things that are
Speaker 1: really goot and we need to focus on things that
Speaker 1: we can measure. And they say, you know, we can't
Speaker 1: measure climate change well enough and so we just shouldn't
Speaker 1: worry about it, and I think that's it's very hard
Speaker 1: to grasp.
Speaker 2: One of the more radical proposals you highlight is the
Speaker 2: privatization of NOAH, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Speaker 2: which provides essential weather data. What do they have against
Speaker 2: that agency?
Speaker 1: So there's a couple of things there. One is that
Speaker 1: NOAH oversees a lot of climate research, and they you know,
Speaker 1: they believe that that that's pernicious, that it's part of
Speaker 1: the sort of leftist ideology that's pushing things. So they
Speaker 1: want to put some of these things in the private sector,
Speaker 1: and that's been a conservative party for a while. There
Speaker 1: was an attempt to privatize it in the first Trump
Speaker 1: administration that didn't get very far. So you know, there's
Speaker 1: an element of the private sector can do things better,
Speaker 1: and also an element of we've got to get these
Speaker 1: climate things out of the way and not be telling
Speaker 1: people about this because it will make them believe the
Speaker 1: climate change is a problem.
Speaker 2: But doesn't know what does so much in terms of
Speaker 2: you're saying they want to privatize sort of the National
Speaker 2: Weather Service and telling people when storms are going to
Speaker 2: be happening, and they want to erase sort of the
Speaker 2: impact climate change may have on these weather events.
Speaker 1: Right, if you're worried about hurricanes, you know, if you
Speaker 1: live in a hurricane zone, you want the National Hurricane
Speaker 1: Center to be doing its best work, and you wanted
Speaker 1: to be thinking about climate change because climate change affects hurricanes.
Speaker 1: If we shut these things down, it's going to you know,
Speaker 1: it's going to directly affect people's lives. It's going to
Speaker 1: it threatens their very safety.
Speaker 2: And also just about development, you know, if you want
Speaker 2: to think about flooding or see exact levels and all
Speaker 2: kinds of things that not only impact sort of quality
Speaker 2: of life, but really life and death decisions, right for both,
Speaker 2: you know, on the personal level and on the societal level, right.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, they say, well, technology will fix these things,
Speaker 1: but I think it's whistling past the graveyard.
Speaker 2: How will technology fix these things?
Speaker 1: They don't tell us that.
Speaker 2: I want to dig into the family first toenda a
Speaker 2: little bit more, because it's super fascinating and kind of
Speaker 2: the trad wife's dream. Right. One of the mandates is
Speaker 2: restore the family is the centerpiece of American life. But
Speaker 2: they have a very specific image of what a family
Speaker 2: should be at a time where families have become increasingly diverse, right, right,
Speaker 2: So talk about that, and you know, they have this
Speaker 2: very Ossie and Harriet, yes, throwback vision of American families
Speaker 2: and American life. And you say they want to push
Speaker 2: women away from the workforce, but not completely get them
Speaker 2: out of the workforce. Can you explain sort of how
Speaker 2: they view what is sort of ideally this American family.
Speaker 1: You know, for them, the highest calling for a woman's
Speaker 1: motherhood and everything should be rerented around that. They want
Speaker 1: women to be having more children. They want them to
Speaker 1: be spending as much time as they can with the children,
Speaker 1: so that ideally means being at home for the children.
Speaker 1: Failing that, they should, you know, and they should have
Speaker 1: childcare on site where they're working. The father should be working.
Speaker 1: The father should be the bread winner. They should be
Speaker 1: the focus of the family. The children should be gender conforming,
Speaker 1: so their boys or their girls, they you know, wear
Speaker 1: blue or pink. Trans people are sort of pushed into
Speaker 1: the shadows. They're skeptical of same sex marriage. They don't
Speaker 1: talk about overturning the precedents, but they say, and this
Speaker 1: is not true, but they claim that same sex marriage
Speaker 1: has higher divorce rates. I spend a long time trying
Speaker 1: to track down how they justify this. There's no data
Speaker 1: to back it up. You know, it's a whole program,
Speaker 1: and it's a very old school I'd.
Speaker 2: Say, yeah, and so anti women and I don't know,
Speaker 2: just really bizarre.
Speaker 1: You know they I think there are women involved who
Speaker 1: would say that this is in fact, this is pro women,
Speaker 1: this is this is a.
Speaker 2: House so I mean, I think pro women is being
Speaker 2: able to make the choice right.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, this is very much this tad wife aesthetic.
Speaker 1: As you say, you know, they think that women will
Speaker 1: be happier in the circumstance.
Speaker 2: Yes, or what was that woman's name, something Morgan, Marabelle Morgan.
Speaker 2: Do you remember her?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, I think she used to say you should greet
Speaker 2: your husband when he comes home from work wrapped in
Speaker 2: saranne wrap. I just remember, anybody remember Marabelle Morgan here? Anyway,
Speaker 2: maybe google her and see if I'm right? Am I
Speaker 2: we interrupt this podcast to get a little more context here.
Speaker 2: Marabelle says you should greet your husband at the door
Speaker 2: wearing nothing but saranne rap. I was right.
Speaker 1: Wow, good recall, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll take famous anti feminists for two thousand, please, Alex right.
Speaker 2: I mean it is just so such a throwback and
Speaker 2: honestly so insulting to women.
Speaker 1: You know, they talk about it, And what did your.
Speaker 2: Wife say about this when you came and said, wow,
Speaker 2: you won't believe what it says here?
Speaker 1: She was not a fan. You know, you talk about
Speaker 1: gender ideology, they say all these things left to pushing
Speaker 1: gender ideology and anything that is sort of contra their vision.
Speaker 1: But I think they fail to understand how much what
Speaker 1: their offering is an ideology too. They don't recognize that.
Speaker 2: Well, when you say gender ideology, I mean what does
Speaker 2: that mean exactly?
Speaker 1: So that means, for example, the idea that you could
Speaker 1: be non gender conforming, it means LGBTQ people in general,
Speaker 1: all of these things they see not as you know,
Speaker 1: not as real people who exist in the world, but
Speaker 1: simply as a figment of leftist ideology.
Speaker 2: There are currently forty Republican women serving in Congress at
Speaker 2: the moment, eight women in cabinet level positions in the
Speaker 2: current Trump administration. So how do they reconcile that would
Speaker 2: they like to see those women just go home and
Speaker 2: take care of their children or grandchildren.
Speaker 1: They don't reconcile it. It's another one of these flaws,
Speaker 1: you know. I think there are a lot of prominent
Speaker 1: women in the White House and in the conservative movement
Speaker 1: right now. The contributors to Project twenty twenty five, though,
Speaker 1: are much more male than a lot of that, and
Speaker 1: the sort of leading architects are very much male. I
Speaker 1: think if somebody like Roger Severino, who wrote the chapter
Speaker 1: on Health and Human Services and writes about a lot
Speaker 1: of this, his wife, Carrie Severino, is a very prominent
Speaker 1: lawyer in the conservative movement. She's been involved in confirming
Speaker 1: judges for Trump. And so even as they're pushing these ideas,
Speaker 1: there are people in the orbit who don't really conform
Speaker 1: to the vision.
Speaker 2: They say, so what you know, you said that you
Speaker 2: didn't really know what the solution was. In terms of
Speaker 2: pushing back. Is part of it providing an alternate vision
Speaker 2: for America by say Democrats are people who are more
Speaker 2: progressive in their thinking. You know.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I think it's unsatisfying is that
Speaker 1: there are ideas that are more popular. A lot of
Speaker 1: the things that the Democrats have been pushing are things
Speaker 1: that pull much better, And I think people haven't understood
Speaker 1: the details of Project twenty twenty five or they don't
Speaker 1: believe it. So during the campaign there was polling that
Speaker 1: showed Project twenty twenty five was deeply unpopular, but people
Speaker 1: just didn't believe that Trump would do these things. They said,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, I don't if Trump did, you know,
Speaker 1: banned abortion entirely, for example, I wouldn't like that. But
Speaker 1: there's no chance he's going to do this. And there's
Speaker 1: a whole list of those things. So I think when
Speaker 1: people understand what it actually means, there will be more pushback.
Speaker 1: But if they see it simply as a kind of
Speaker 1: fuzzy pro family agenda, they may underestimate just how sweeping
Speaker 1: and radical it is.
Speaker 2: But what do you think of this notion of an
Speaker 2: alternative vision for America that perhaps maybe isn't as progressive
Speaker 2: as some of these policies and actions were during previous administrations,
Speaker 2: but that represents something that is certainly far less radical
Speaker 2: than this few of America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there is a broad consensus
Speaker 1: around a lot of things. I think most people understand
Speaker 1: that trans people exist, and they may have hesitations about
Speaker 1: specific policies, but they certainly don't want to write them
Speaker 1: out of the language of the government. There are people
Speaker 1: who you know, oppose abortion on moral grounds, but understand
Speaker 1: that there's a danger in banning it nationwide need access
Speaker 1: to healthcare. They're people who you know, something like medicaid
Speaker 1: is an example here. Medicaid is wildly popular and people
Speaker 1: on the right have been trying to cut it for decades.
Speaker 1: It's something that people like. So some of the things
Speaker 1: that are already there, and I think there's a consensus
Speaker 1: that is just looking sort of to be marshaled and
Speaker 1: organized around an alternative.
Speaker 2: Do you think this got enough attention during the campaign?
Speaker 2: I know many of my followers were saying, why aren't
Speaker 2: you talking more about Project twenty twenty five. At that point,
Speaker 2: I felt like everybody was talking about it. But you
Speaker 2: say people were talking about it but not taking it seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and I would count myself in this.
Speaker 1: I had looked at it, and I looked at bits
Speaker 1: and pieces. You know, you read some of the individual
Speaker 1: policy points. You're writing about an issue, or you're covering
Speaker 1: issue and you get a little bit of it, or
Speaker 1: there's something you're passionate about it has to be read
Speaker 1: as a whole, and that's very hard to do. You know,
Speaker 1: this is nearly a thousand pages. It's an often very
Speaker 1: technical language. You know. One thing I hope to do
Speaker 1: in the book is to make these things more legible
Speaker 1: and pull out what is important and make put in
Speaker 1: terms that people can understand.
Speaker 2: So this is kind of the cliff Notes version of
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yes, I want people to understand what's important and how
Speaker 1: it all works without having to weigh through a lot
Speaker 1: of technical language.
Speaker 2: Well, David Graham, you've ruined my day. I'm very sorry,
Speaker 2: but thank you, and I think this is a really
Speaker 2: important book for people to read if they want to
Speaker 2: understand what's going on, because you really can't come up
Speaker 2: with solutions or an antidote until you figure out what
Speaker 2: the game plan is, so you can not only decide
Speaker 2: what your defense is going to be, but what your
Speaker 2: offense is going to be as well. Definitely, thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Thank you, Thanks for listening everyone. If you
Speaker 2: have a question for me, a subject you want us
Speaker 2: to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about
Speaker 2: how you navigate this crazy world, reach out send me
Speaker 2: a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from
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