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July 7, 2023 - The Charlie Kirk Show
35:48
Retire Mitt Romney with Trent Staggs and Robert Lighthizer
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Trade Is Never Free 00:13:11
Hey everybody, 10 to Charlie Kirk Show.
It's time to retire Mitt Romney.
A good man is running against Mitt Romney.
It's time to put Mitt Romney away from politics.
Let's put it that way.
Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
Get involved with turning point action at tpaction.com.
We're also joined by Robert Lighthizer, who has some really insightful commentary on free trade and the destruction that our trade policy has initiated over the last 20 or 30 years.
Get involved with Turning PointUSA.
That's tpusa.com, tpusa.com.
Get involved with turning point action.
That's tpaction.com.
As always, you can email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Buckle up, everybody here.
We go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country.
He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
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Free trade.
It's one of the orthodoxies you are not allowed to challenge of neoliberalism.
Our next guest did challenge it, and the author of the, he's the author of the book, No Trade is Free, Changing Course, Taking on China and Helping America's Workers by Robert Lighthizer.
Robert, welcome to the program.
Congratulations on the book.
Tell us about it.
Well, thank you very much, Charlie.
First of all, it's a great pleasure to be here.
And you know that I'm a fan of the work that you do.
We're engaged in this great struggle for our country.
Yes.
But it's going to be your generation that ends up winning it.
So I'm very much pleased to be a part of it.
So the book is kind of a couple of things.
One, it challenges, as you say, the free trade orthodoxy, which I think is what President Trump did.
I think the free trade orthodoxy created a lot of problems for this country, particularly starting in the 1990s.
And I think we need more of a worker-focused, community-focused, family-focused, I would say conservative approach to trade.
So, and then the other thing that it does is it talks about China and the threat to China.
And it goes through, it gives the indictment.
It says what we did in the Trump administration and why we did it.
And then it gives a path forward.
And in his endorsement of the book, President Trump said, if you want to know what we're going to do in trade in the next administration, this is the place to look.
So I was very pleased with that.
But it's very much consistent with his ideas.
And he and I have, you know, we weren't friends before the administration, but we were ideological brothers for decades on this issue of trade in China.
So let's talk about the root issue.
In D.C., prior to President Trump's arrival, it was a nonstop celebration of the importation of plastic from China, the re-domiciling of critical industry overseas.
And in fact, when I first got my start in conservative world in politics, I was told free trade is the greatest thing ever, free trade is the greatest thing ever.
And I was inundated with pamphlets and seminars and think tanks that I now know are funded by a lot of companies that do benefit from the kind of massive labor arbitrage that has occurred over the last 20 or 30 years.
Of course, trade can enrich a country, but also not every trade deal is made the same.
There's some things you should make domestically.
And also, probably a good idea to have an industrial policy so that you don't have to worry about your enemies making vitamin C or critical infrastructure.
Where did we go wrong as a country?
What parties, politicians, or decisions really charted the path where we started to intentionally deindustrialize America?
So, I mean, that's a really good fundamental question.
The history of trade, the way I see it, is laid out in this book.
But I would summarize it.
First of all, the Republican Party has always been the party of a patriotic populist, pro-production, and not a free trade party, right?
If you go right back from Lincoln, the very first one, he would have said, I, Lincoln, am a protectionist, and free trade is bad.
And you go all the first kind of change in that was probably Eisenhower, who was focused on the Soviet Union.
And then you look at what Nixon did.
He took very important steps to put tariffs on the entire world when we had a trade problem.
You look at Ronald Reagan, who I worked for as a deputy back when I was about your age, I should say.
In any event, he took a very, very populist, defend America approach on trade.
He stopped Japanese cars from coming in and stealed from around the world and did semiconductors and motorcycles and all kinds of other things.
And then you find yourself, and this is the answer to your question: you find yourself in the early 90s.
We have Bill Clinton in the White House.
There's a kind of a sense that it's the end of history.
Remember that book?
Yep.
And that we've won.
Yep.
Exactly.
We've won.
The wall has come down.
The American way of life is going to perpetuate throughout the world.
And everyone's going to be happy and sing kumbaya.
The only thing it ignored was human nature, right?
So kind of implementing that notion of kind of, you know, this kind of elitist notion that we've won, three things happened in the Clinton years in those 90s.
And by the way, all of them with substantial Republican support.
None of them would have the Republican Party.
But so first of all, they passed NAFTA, which was a mistake and hurt American workers.
Then they passed this great, implementing legislation for the last great trade round called the Uruguay Round.
And there they created the WTO, the World Trade Organization, which was a mistake and really hurt America.
And then the trifecta of stupid was completed when, on the way out the door, as he puts the last piece of furniture into the van, leaving the White House, Clinton gets the Congress to pass and a lot of Republicans to vote for him to pass this permanent most favored nation for China.
And then the two decades that follow, let's say a decade and a half up to President Trump, we saw millions of jobs leave, tens of thousands of factories leave.
We saw small towns like the ones that I'm from in Ohio and all across the country dilapidated.
You saw these so-called rise of these so-called deaths of despair.
You saw drug use.
You saw the breakdown of the family, the breakdown of community.
You saw all of these horrible results of this very, very failed policy from the 90s, which I would say sort of a hubris, you know, kind of a policy.
And it was uber free trade.
And we went from having a policy that was kind of okay, kind of not okay, to one where we had hundreds of billions of dollars of trade debts every single year.
Yeah, but they said, Robert, I would always say, oh, no, it's a capital account surplus.
They would always have a spin when you're like, oh, it's a trade deficit.
And they say, well, it's a capital account surplus because now somebody is doing the work for you and you get it for less.
And this was ingrained in those of us in the younger ranks of the conservative movement.
So just about two minutes here, Robert.
Can you talk about, though, the capital flows from major corporations to the preferred think tanks?
You know, for years, Heritage, Cato, they would always not, there would be mandatory celebration of free trade on demand.
You could not challenge it.
Absolutely true.
And by the way, Heritage Now is very much on our side.
Of course, but for years, they were the cheerleader for years.
Look at, I thought, Charlie, well, all these people right down the road, they were basically funded by large corporations who made money importing and then bred this false, this false theology of free trade.
That's precisely what that was the dynamic.
And by the way, it was the dynamic all the way through the Trump administration.
We fought those same people every time we tried to help our workers.
And just you could, one of Donald Trump's longest-lasting legacies, regardless of how this next, you know, his candidacy, is it was a thought crime, Robert, to even utter a question against free trade.
You were considered to be anti-intellectual.
You were considered to be against economic theory.
And what happened is there were some very, very well-paid, I mean, you know, these people, economists, that were really just kind of corporate shills that, yeah, okay, they would go to supply and demand and capital account surplus and they would be able to defend things through a very abstract and theoretical lens.
But then as soon as you'd commit the crime and noticing, like, hey, Southeast Ohio is poor.
Like, oh, no, no, no, actually, it's great that they have dollar generals and opioids.
Don't you understand that we get all this stuff for less?
There are other things to factor into your trade policy than whether or not you get a textile for 50 cents instead of $1.10.
There's other factors.
And so, Robert, your book is really excellent.
No trade is free.
I want to ask you about that, the title, because that is considered to be a provocative statement.
And I do agree, though, the traditional DC think tanks on the right, the center right, they are no longer nearly as enthusiastic to express their free trade views because they know they're going to get slammed that neoliberalism is no longer popular with the American people.
And boy, Donald Trump did a really fabulous job of challenging that.
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The name of the book is No Trade is Free.
So, Robert, tell us about that.
That right there is kind of a gut punch to the prevailing dogma of DC.
What do you mean that no trade is free?
Well, I mean, just in our own lives, if you're making a trade, you're paying something for it, right?
So there's like a double entendre.
There is that notion, but also the notion that we are, free trade is a philosophy that basically emphasizes consumption, materialism, not values, and not production.
That's exactly right.
And what we like as conservative is we believe that there is an intrinsic value to work and that that's what keeps families together.
And I always say, Charlie, I want a country where kids are proud of their parents because they work.
You know, my dad is foreman at the factory or whatever, whatever it is, and where the parents then are hopeful for the kids.
And, you know, for America, manufacturing and the jobs that it spits out is the middle class for the 60% of the country that's not college graduates and for a number of the other ones, too.
So what I was doing was kind of, you know, just making the obvious point that when you think about it, trade is never free.
And it's certainly, there is no free trade.
No country practices free trade in the world.
Damage to Families and Communities 00:03:49
Yeah.
And it's also, it's this new phenomenon that has made corporate America really rich.
It has basically had an all-out assault on normal, ordinary, muscular class labor.
And are we well?
I mean, so like, let's be very honest, Robert, 30 years of these ideas, favorite nation status, we're almost on the third, no, about 20 or 25 years.
Is America better off?
I mean, so you're right, no trade is free.
Do most people in DC, do they ever just stop and say, hey, this has actually made us poorer and our outcomes for health are going down and drug use has gone up.
And yeah, we have homes that are twice as big, filled with three times as much garbage with half as many people in them.
And we have piles of plastic that we never use that we ask people to give away.
And so the last 20 or 30 years, it's actually rather damning our industrial policy.
Absolutely.
The effect on families and communities.
And in addition to your point about this capital account, this nutsy bird thing about that, which another time we ought to probably address that heads-on.
But we have also transferred since about 2003 about $16 trillion worth of the value of our assets, America's equity, debt, and real estate overseas.
All, as you say, in return for the third television set in your basement.
Exactly.
And your question is, are people figuring it out?
Yes.
Yes.
I think it's one of the gate contributions of Donald Trump was that people are starting to figure it out and Republicans particularly are starting to figure it out and realize that this is free trade is not about conserving anything.
It's just about consumption.
Just about consumption.
I totally agree.
Let's play Cut 37.
I'd like your quick reaction to it.
Play Cut 37.
The Treasury Secretary has arrived in the past hour here in Beijing over the next four days.
She's expected to meet with President Xi Jinping's new economics team, many of whom are not familiar to her or to the Biden administration.
She's going to discuss with and consult with the U.S. business community, as well as communicate directly what Treasury has described as areas of concern with the Chinese.
In addition to that, she's going to be speaking about global challenges, as you had mentioned, such as climate change and debt distress in poor nations.
But a minute remaining.
Robert, climate change, your response.
So basically, I'll just give you the short version of what you just saw.
She's going to go there and say, we will continue business as usual, transfer more of our wealth, more of our jobs, the well-being of more of our communities to you, China.
And in return, all we ask is that you make a promise you won't keep to do something about another theology in 20 years.
That's the summary of it.
And that is the Biden administration summarized rather beautifully.
The book is excellent.
You should check it out.
And you could learn a lot.
No trade is free.
We have to keep on challenging these neoliberal pro-importation of plastic consumption Republicans.
They're doing such damage to our country.
We're going to have you back on, Robert, for an entire hour to dive into this because there's so many complexities and including the historical aspect of how we, all this, where did these ideas come from?
Well, we can blame McKinsey and the consultant class, General Electric and others that were the cheerleaders and the designers of the deindustrialization of America.
Robert Lighthizer, thank you so much.
Speaking the Utah Language 00:16:00
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Joining us now is Mayor Trent Staggs, Mayor of Riverton, Utah.
Welcome to the program.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you so much for having me here.
You are primarying Senator Romney.
Tell us about yourself.
That we are, that we are.
Well, I am a lifelong Utah.
I've actually, from elementary school to graduate school, I've attended Utah schools.
I've raised my family there.
I've operated scores of businesses, several businesses.
Took a company public last year, got listed on NASDAQ in the energy space.
And I've been an elected official locally for the last 10 years.
In the last six, served as mayor of this community.
It's a top 20 city by population in the state of Utah and have, you know, have quite a bit of accomplishments there that we've been able to do.
And I think I've not just walked or talked the talk, I've actually walked the walk as a conservative, and people know what they're going to get electing me.
So tell us, our audience, why are you deciding to challenge kind of the darling of the Utah ruling class, Mitt Romney?
Because Massachusetts does not need a third senator.
That's in short, one.
That's his home state, right?
That's correct.
Yeah, he moved to Utah for the Olympics or something, right?
Well, back in 2002, he worked with the Olympics, but he didn't really move there until right before his run for Senate.
I think of him as a Michigan, Massachusetts guy, not as a Utah guy.
Yeah, no.
And clearly, I mean, his voting record, his preference, his policy preferences just, yeah, they emulate that section of the country, really not Utah.
And that's what I'm hearing is I'm going around.
We've built quite the coalition already.
You know, scores of mayors, county commissioners that are endorsed our campaign.
We've got the fraternal order of police, represents 70% of all law enforcement state of Utah, 5,000 cops.
They've endorsed a number of other conservatives.
They've recognized that I am the only conservative in the race and that Mitt's record that we've called out, I mean, five years ago, he put together a video and said, I will fight for Utah every day.
You elect me as your senator.
I am going to put us on a pathway to a balanced budget.
I'll end illegal immigration.
I will stop federal overreach and spending.
And I'll appoint conservative justices to the court.
He hasn't done those.
In fact, he has fought just against those things.
And people have recognized it.
He votes with Biden 60% of the time.
Wow.
And that just doesn't, it's not reflective of Utah's and particularly Republicans in the state.
Well, and he also voted to convict President Trump in that kind of drive-by impeachment.
Now, Utah, I would consider to be the most polite state in the country.
Do you think that's fair?
There is a, yeah, culturally, we want it to be very, very proper.
Very orderly, very rule-following.
So primarying a sitting senator is kind of not against the rules, but that some people would consider to be a little bit rambunctious, right?
Like wait-your-turn type thing.
So tell us kind of the operating calculus, because what I understand from Utah culture, it's, you know, very respectful, you know, don't speak ill of the, you know, the senior senator type thing.
I guess he's the junior senator.
Junior senator.
But yeah, tell me about the reaction you're receiving, specifically in the LDS community.
Yeah.
No, great question.
And that's you, you've, I think, accurately characterized that.
And I mean all that positively.
I love you, Dan.
Yeah, sure.
I think naturally I'm a bit of a contrarian, right?
I ended up running first on city council, beating a 12-year incumbent, then I ran for mayor back in 2017 against a 12-year incumbent.
So this is just what I've done, I think, naturally as I've taken a look at things.
I believe in term limits.
And I only envisioned, my wife and I, that I would run for two terms as mayor.
And so we took a look at this and said, what else can we do?
How can we best serve?
Do we pivot back to the business world or do we continue on with this public service?
And this race in particular is one that really stood out.
And we have to make a change.
And so as I'm going out there and meeting with folks, Mitt is down 11 points in the poll since we announced.
Is that just favorability or a one-on-one ahead of time?
Favorability.
He's only in the 40% range amongst all voters.
And we know he's got a 75% plus approval rating amongst Democrats.
So I think he's only in the 30% range amongst Americans.
Yes.
And we're seeing that.
He's very vulnerable in a primary.
So what is the process then in Utah for the primary?
It's a straight ballot or do you have this rank choice thing that's popping up, right?
Well, we had, we used to be uniquely a caucus convention system.
And in 2014, they passed a law that was.
They were all yelling at each other, right?
And they got rid of it or something, right?
Well, they created a dual pathway.
Okay.
So now somebody can, I say, buy their way on the ballot.
If you got 60% of the delegates previously, like Mike Lee did back in 2010, you were automatically the Republican nominee for the general election.
Since 2014, after the passage of the Senate Bill 54 in Utah, somebody can gather signatures and force their name on a primary ballot.
And I expect that's what Mitt would do.
He hasn't even attended.
I'm a state delegate, and he hasn't even attended the last couple of years.
I don't think he'd be warmly received there, right?
No, he was booed a few years back, and he hasn't returned.
He hasn't returned since.
So he could get on the primary ballot just through signature collection, basically.
He could, yeah, on a statewide race, you know, Utah's about 3.2 million people.
I think it's a little over around 30,000 signatures.
So, but he wouldn't be able to be the nominee unless the voters select him.
Unless he ran as an independent third party, which is conceivable.
That is, yeah, correct.
So we think the convention will be sometime in April to May, and the primary would be around June.
But it's possible that you get the delegates in the convention, but he gets signatures, and you still have to play it out in the primary.
That's correct.
Got it.
And that also factors no one else really getting in, right?
So you're in this race then, and you're receiving a really warm reaction.
Is it fair to say that Utah is more conservative than Romney?
I mean, and talk about just I'm assuming you're LDS, is my assumption right?
I am.
Okay, that's not a, you know, you flip a coin.
No, you turn over a rock.
Everyone's LDS in Utah.
But can you talk just about traditional LDS values?
Again, I'm not LDS.
My closest friends are LDS.
I work with LDS all the time.
Tons of respect.
But one of the things I respect the most is family, pro-life, none of this trans garbage.
But I feel as if there's like some fault lines in that LDS.
Is that fair to say that there's like a little bit of a tension in the LDS world over these issues?
Yeah, I mean, by and large, yes, very family, pro-life.
And I think there's a natural inclination for, you know, in the LDS culture for us to want to be well-liked, right?
Take a look at LDS history over the years, and there's been...
I'm from Illinois.
I know about NaVoo.
That and the extermination order in Missouri.
In Missouri, that's correct.
So I think there's been almost a bend over backwards to try to be perceived as accepting and tolerant.
Yes.
And so, yeah, these fault lines, as you maybe say, that can exist in the culture.
But your first question is whether or not Mitt Romney is reflective of Utah's and their values.
No, absolutely not.
And Michael Lee just proved that initially this last year.
But do you see that in Utah that there's a demand of, hey, we want a senator who is better, is more articulate and at least espouses these Mormon LDS beliefs of strong family, especially with all this trans stuff.
I mean, your governor, in my opinion, has just been perplexing on some of this stuff, at least from looking at it from afar.
I'm sure there's a demand in the LDS world for that, right?
And I don't think it's just in the LDS world.
I think people generally, they want somebody who is bold, a bold conservative that can articulate conservatism and not be afraid to stand up to that.
And that's what I believe I've demonstrated over the last 10 years in elected office.
I mean, throughout my lifetime of career.
But in the last 10 years in particular, I stood up, I said no to mask mandates, to vaccine mandates as a mayor.
I said, look, my law enforcement, my police department is not going to enforce this stuff.
With Biden trying to use OSHA as a means to force down vaccine mandates on people, we have a lot more than 100 employees in our city, so we were maybe going to be subject to that.
I've taken a very strong stance with these types of things.
I've actually cut taxes.
I've cut taxes in my community and demonstrated time and again that I'm going to push back against the establishment.
And so that's what people, that's what they want.
They want to.
So I totally agree.
And so let's just talk about Utah.
I think if you think Mitt Romney is going to run 50-50 shot, maybe?
Because that's still a mystery.
A little bit.
Yeah, his camp's been a little coy, right?
They said, well, we filed our paperwork with the FEC in the event that he wants to run again.
He knows he's vulnerable, though.
He does, and they haven't given a formal announce, but we're operating on the basis that he is going to run.
And I'm seeing things that could indicate that.
He said that if he were to choose to run, he's confident that he would win.
We're not saying the same thing, seeing the same thing on the ground.
No.
But his saving grace could be all these out-of-state Utah transplants in the tech corridor, right?
I mean, Utah is changing.
Am I incorrect by saying that?
You're not incorrect.
I mean, we've been the number one fastest-growing state, I think, for the last decade in terms of percentage population.
We have more data centers than Silicon Valley.
It's really remarkable.
They call it the Silicon Slopes area in Utah.
And we have, we've seen more.
It used to be, you know, we had a really naturally high birth rate.
You know, this culturally, we have a lot of children.
But in the last, I think, five years or more, we've seen in-net migration actually outpace natural birth rates.
And so 60% plus of people coming in, they're coming in from other states, particularly California.
And that has changed, yeah.
Demographically, just in terms of ideology, that it's made a little bit of an impact for sure in our state.
It's going to be fascinating.
We have you through another segment.
What is your website for people to support you?
Yes, trentstaggs.com.
It's S-T-A-G-G-S, TrentStaggs.com.
It's great courage, and we're behind you because Mitt Romney's got to go.
And it's not even just a matter of representing Utah.
It's just so frustrating to see what he's doing in D.C. He's not representing conservative values at all.
And he does it rather pompously, if I may say so.
That's me talking.
I just, I don't like his attitude.
And it's almost holier than now.
And I'm trying to always win over the approval of the kind of current regime.
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The website is trentstaggs.com, S-T-A-G-G-S.
Utah is a special place.
It's going to take a candidate that speaks the Utah language.
And I think Mayor Staggs has that.
I love mayors.
I don't think we embrace mayors enough as conservatives.
Bloomberg has been like the Mr. Mayor Project guy.
Is there a national network of conservative mayors that you know of?
There is an organization that has conservative mayors.
And I think you're spot on.
I mean, this is, I say that as a mayor, I am on the front line.
Yes, it's a tough job of pushing back on government overreach, whether it be federal, state, county.
And you have to get, everyone's complains to you.
Everyone.
Yeah.
Right?
It is just, who's the mayor?
What's this?
Stuff that you don't always have power, jurisdiction over.
No, no.
And that's the funny thing.
I mean, my wife says, I can't go to the grocery store with you anymore because whenever we go, it's.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, hey, you know, can you do something about this easement or can you get something approved?
So being a mayor, I have a lot of respect for you in that.
And so let's just talk about some policy stuff.
You know, looking at your website, it looks like we're in total alignment, but pro-life, pro-family, strong justices.
Absolutely.
You know, talk just about philosophically what, if you were to say a type of senator there currently is in the Senate that you would be most like, who would that be?
Oh, I think Mike Lee is a good senator that we want.
I would emulate.
I love Mike Lee.
He's one of my favorite people.
Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, these are senators that I think Rick Scott that I would in that mold.
Exactly.
That type of ilk.
Well, and I obviously harmonize with that.
Mike Lee has been great and super helpful and a fighter.
And so going to D.C., you know, it tends to change people.
What guarantees can you give that you will stay strong and principled and not become a Mitt Romney if you were to win?
And that is a problem, you know, and I've seen that happen, unfortunately, to some people.
And I think my response to that is take a look at what I've done in 10 years.
I've been in elected office for that period of time.
I don't believe that I've ever done anything contrary to what I said I would do.
I have not been shy to stand up for things like we talked about earlier with respect to governmental overreach at the federal level.
I've stood up for the craziness going on at schools.
I mean, as a mayor, we don't fund in Utah the schools or set the curriculum, but we handle things such as all the resource officers, the crossing guards.
And I have a school safety roundtable meeting that I lead out on every single year.
And all the inappropriate materials that have been going on in schools, I had to stand up and fight back on that just this last April.
And so people, I think they know what they're going to get.
I've demonstrated that, again, I walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
And that is something that I would continue to do in D.C.
Standing Against Federal Overreach 00:02:46
I think you'd be a great senator.
And so is the race pretty set now?
Is that right?
It's just a one-on-one?
Currently, we have one other candidate that's announced an exploratory committee.
But yeah, right now, in terms of fully announced, filed...
I think a one-on-one hurts him, right?
Because a referendum on Romney, according to your numbers, he doesn't get above 40%.
Yeah, I think in a primary in particular, yes, that's going to be the case.
But you also know they're going to come viciously after you, right?
Yeah.
And they hold a bunch of corporate money.
Yeah, and that's, you're right.
He's got the establishment.
He's got the establishment money.
And that is something that my family had weighed long and hard about.
Is this something that we want to be able to do?
Because we know we want to go into it eyes wide open, and we know that we're going to be attacked, unfortunately.
It's kind of a sad state that we're in right now.
But God bless you for wanting to go into it and want to go into that line of fire.
Yeah, because they're going to do everything they possibly can to try, if he runs, to hold on to this.
And I really believe you could have like a Liz Cheney type referendum on this.
I do too.
I do too.
Where the numbers get so wildly out of whack, it just becomes almost unreachable.
So the website, again, is trenchstaggs.com.
And you got a little bit of a lead up, right, before the convention.
So you're building support.
And so if you want to retire Mitt Romney, go to trentstaggs.com.
Final thoughts, Trent?
Yeah, when you go there, you'll take a look at three high-level themes.
Smaller government, safer families, stronger economy.
There's some policy briefs, a little paragraph or so on each on nine top issues.
And that's what I want to do.
I think number one, first and foremost, is a smaller government.
Our government is way too big.
The size scope burden of the government on the lives of average everyday Americans is just out of control.
We need somebody that's actually demonstrated they can cut taxes, as I've done, and innovate and actually lower cut spending and improve governmental services, but lowering costs at the same time.
And that's something that I've done.
So lower taxes.
The regulatory framework is out of control.
That's something we have to address.
I think the Reigns Act is something that we need to implement.
Balanced budget, Reigns Act, just those two things if we can lower the size of government.
I love it.
TrentStags.com.
It's time to retire Willard Mitt Romney, the Michigan Massachusetts senator masquerading from Utah.
Mayor Trent Staggs, thanks so much.
Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.
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