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A focus now on a new survey on Americans' views on military spending and international engagement.
Roger Zach Heim is our guest.
He's the Washington director of the Ronald Reagan Foundation, Presidential Foundation and Institute, a group whose mission is what?
To advance President Reagan's legacy, broadly speaking, in Washington, D .C.
I have the honor of being the director of the Reagan Institute, as you mentioned.
Here, we work on taking Reagan ideas, principles, and values, and making sure that those engaged in public policy, be it in the Congress, the executive branch, thought leaders here in town, are really looking at Reagan ideas and principles as they advance U .S. public policy.
How long has the foundation been around?
How are you funded?
Well, the foundation is a 501c3.
And when and why did you decide to start surveying Americans about their views on international engagement and these defense issues that we're going to talk about?
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
But it's not backed up by a lot of evidence.
And so what we sought to do with our survey is to make sure that when it comes to foreign policy, national security, and defense issues, there was actually an annual survey that was a pretty deep dive into the issue set and make sure that our elected officials and policymakers understood where the American people actually were on those very questions.
So how many people did you survey?
When were you in the field on this?
So we were in the field just after the election.
So in early November, about 2 ,500 people were reached out to by our...
We're good to go.
I think?
Well, the first one you mentioned was really the one that got our attention.
As you mentioned, 57 % of American people believe that America should be leading in the world.
And I think surprising to many of those who have looked at We've got our survey.
61 % of Trump voters.
There is a big, broad coalition that put President Trump back into office.
There's certainly a pocket of those voters, a slice of those voters, who actually look to reduce America's role in the world.
But as the survey bears out, the majority of them actually are in line with a very Reagan -esque worldview.
61%.
That is up significantly, not just where we were, as you mentioned in our last survey, as we saw where Trump voters were, but there's some demographics here that really stand out in addition to the Trump voters.
Young voters want to see America leading the world.
Significant jump there, I'd say by about 30 % since our last survey.
That 61 % who want an engaged internationalist American leadership approach, is that at odds in your mind with...
A campaign slogan, a campaign platform that's America first?
Well, I think it's a question of how you have America first.
What is America first?
And I think what this survey really bears out, both in terms of what American leadership is and then what President Trump often campaigned on, peace through strength, you can kind of stitch together how the American people are interpreting that.
So American leadership in the world needs to first and foremost be about America's national interests.
I think you will not hear the Trump...
We're good to go.
We're going to dive more into this survey.
Roger Zach Heim is our guest of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
Go ahead and start calling in.
Phone numbers are split this way.
Republicans 202 -7488.
We're good to go.
Stating that they have at least some confidence that's up, as you've pointed out in the results, from a historic low of 45 % who had a great deal high confidence in the military after the withdrawal from Afghanistan late 2021.
Yeah, this is actually one of the more important discoveries we've had since we've done our survey.
We've had it as far back as 2018.
And when we started the survey in 2018, 70 % of those surveyed had trust and confidence.