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April 11, 2024 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
37:43
Episode 164: Clemson University vs. Free Speech (feat. Trevor Tiedeman) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
inside of the House of Representatives.
You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?
Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.
We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight.
I want to thank you, Matt Gates, for holding the line.
Matt Gates is a courageous man.
If we had hundreds of Matt Gates in D.C., the country turns around.
It's that simple.
He's so tough, he's so strong, he's smart, and he loves this country.
Matt Gates.
It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.
We will save America.
It's choose your fighter time.
and send in the Firebrands. - Welcome back to Firebrand.
I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz.
We're broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House office building here in the Capitol complex in Washington, D.C. And here in the Gates office, we do not tolerate bullies.
We particularly don't like it when it constrains free speech, and on college campuses, we've seen an increasing number of administrators try to skirt the law, avoid the Constitution, and really limit what can be said that we would normally allow, particularly if it's someone expressing a viewpoint on the political right.
The executive producer of this podcast, Joel Valdez, our communications director, Actually, I think kind of came to us by virtue of the free speech on college campus movement.
And, you know, Joel, I'm going to get into that in a minute.
But the latest iteration that got in my craw, I saw it online, was at Clemson University, where a group of students associated with the Clemson College Republicans were out campaigning for a congressional candidate in an open seat.
And they had this encounter with administrators to listen.
Someone pull up what's soliciting.
That is not soliciting.
Listen, you're not going to pull.
Maybe I'm too old.
Maybe I'm too old.
You got to pull.
You got to lock.
No, I'm not going to.
Well, let's get the lawyers on.
No, we're not.
You can't kick us out.
We're not soliciting.
We would just like also the specific claims and policies so we can double check it.
You can get the police officers over here and they can explain.
I'm not giving police officers.
We don't want to make this clear.
Get him over here.
I know.
How's it going, sir?
They're saying we're soliciting up.
Stop.
I'm listening to the cop.
No, you're absolutely not.
We did it earlier this year for the Trump campaign, and it was all fine.
Not at the football game?
Yes, at the football game.
It was a tailgate act.
It was right there.
It was right next Thursday.
She had no problem.
We would just like to do the exact policy.
When we go door-to-door to canvas for political campaigns...
I'm just going to run this through, okay?
They have told you that you're in violation of the university policy, right?
And they said that what you're thinking is you can't do, okay?
They've asked you to not do it.
I've been here a long time.
Okay, well, I also know what I'm talking about.
I'm not asking you if you know what to talk about.
I'm asking you if you will abide by what the university has asked, yes or no.
It's not what it is.
I'm going to stop you there.
It's will you abide, yes or no.
It's a yes or no question.
Yes or no.
Are we selling anything?
Yes or no, will you buy it?
Are we selling anything?
Can I see your driver's license, please?
Are you going to arrest me for soliciting?
Is that what you're telling me?
Can I see your driver's license, please?
So, for next time, or even for this time, if we put our signs away, we can still say, Stuart Jones for Congress?
Or, to what, can you clarify what we're allowed to do or not?
That would be a better answer question for, there are people who deal specifically in university policy.
Okay.
That would be better meant for them.
So who should I go to call them about this?
I just need to know so we don't have this issue in the future.
Yes.
You are violating Clemson University policy and as students you do have to abide by those rules and there are penalties and consequences for not.
So I'm going to just be honest with you.
The rightness report is going to be all set in the standards.
And then you have to make sanctions for the university.
Anything else I can answer for you?
We will be challenging this vehemently.
Fair enough.
Who should I call to get clarification on the policy?
Because you did not provide me the clarification I need.
They gave you the policy.
Well, I have it down, but I wanted to ask about if we take away the signs, because from what I heard, the issue was that we didn't have, is that we had signs.
Yeah.
And signage, you're handing out signage.
That's what I was told by this.
Well, Dawson, Cooney Standards can give you all that information.
I would talk with them.
I would talk with them.
They'll be in contact with you Monday, probably.
They'll be in contact with you Monday, okay?
I love it.
All right.
Thank you very much.
We are back live, and we are joined by the chairman of the Clemson College Republicans, Trevor Tiedemann.
Trevor, we're going to talk to you.
What were we watching there?
You had these people with no understanding of the First Amendment, of the policies.
Paint the picture for us.
It looked like an abject disaster.
Well, it certainly was.
I mean, you had two goofballs dressed up in their white zip-up hoodies as university officials.
On their golf carts, they rolled up and they were contradicting themselves at first.
One of them said, We could take down our signage for a congressional candidate here in the 3rd District, Stuart Jones, who we're canvassing for.
If we took down the signs, we could stay there.
And then the other gentleman said we had to pack up and leave.
So obviously with that contradiction, we were like, we're not backing down.
This is obviously attacking our First Amendment right.
We can be out here.
We know that it's non-commercial free speech.
We can do this.
We've been doing it for a while.
I challenged him along with my secretary, Jane Keeney, and we got the police involved and the police officer clearly didn't know what he was talking about either.
But someone in the athletics department told us to leave and sent those two bozos to kick us out.
So that's how it I'm just wondering, before you assembled this group to go and engage in First Amendment protected activity, did you research the rules and know them, or was it just the fact that it was so obvious that they didn't know the rules that really emboldened you to push back?
Well, we didn't need to know the rules because we've been doing it for a long time.
We did a lot of canvassing for the Trump campaign with door knocking.
We've been tabling before outside of games.
We tabled for the Trump campaign back in October, I believe, before a game, literally 100 feet from that spot.
But I think the problem was, is we got a very good spot for tabling this time, right at the intersection in front of the stadium scoreboard.
And I think someone in athletics was like, we can't have that.
We can't have these Campus conservatives out here doing what they need to do for political candidates.
So that's what I think happened.
But yeah, I didn't need to know the rule because I know what canvassing is protected under the First Amendment.
And clearly they didn't.
So that's where we're at right now.
I'm going to bring in Joel Valdez.
Joel, I want you to give the audience a brief description of how you've been on the front lines of the free speech wars on college campuses.
But what I admired so much about what I saw at Clemson is that these students were respectful, they were knowledgeable, but they stood their ground.
I think a lot of people in that situation, at the first sign of someone in a Law enforcement uniform showing up would have quivered and sort of skulked away.
And these folks really, I think, inspired a lot of folks with the video that we saw online.
Yeah, absolutely.
Trevor and the Clemson College Republicans are rock stars.
And my journey into DC starts with having my free speech stifled on my college campus at the time.
So whenever it comes to the issue of university free speech, that's an issue that hits very close to home for me.
When I was a freshman at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the fall of 2017, I was actually part of two clubs.
I was part of Turning Point USA's chapter at UIUC, and I was also acting as an Illinois campus correspondent for Campus Reform, which is a journalism project of the Leadership Institute that reports on the front lines of Liberal bias and abuses on college campuses.
And so what had happened in my case is there was a university professor who was protesting, having a protest on campus one year after Trump's inauguration on campus.
This is one of the guys who waves one of the biggest Antifa flags on campus.
I thought as a student journalist it would be interesting to see what this professor paid by the public university was saying during school hours on school grounds.
I just went to the back and we made waves on the campus as we had done activism for Turning Point.
They already knew our names and some of our And when I was going to report, this professor in particular had singled me out and singled out my crew who was recording to try and assault us on campus, try to stop us from reporting on what he was saying because he knew that we were effective on college campus at getting the abuse out on Fox News, on Daily Wire.
On some of the Turning Point programming.
And so this guy literally charged me and my cameraman trying to assault us on campus, trying to stop us from reporting.
And what did the university do to us?
They didn't give us an apology.
They didn't say sorry.
They ended up giving us multiple disciplinary measures throughout the months leading up to them telling me that I could no longer re-register for classes and that I would be effectively be kicked out of the university for acting as a campus journalist and so that led me to suing my university for nearly two years before closing the case which later on President Trump in the White House had actually highlighted my free speech case against the university and so I give big props to Trevor and the Clemson College Republicans Because
I personally know what it's like to try to keep your composure, try to get everything that's happening on video, and then following up with action.
And it's very difficult when you have university officials and the police in your face telling you that you're wrong when they can't even give you the definition of soliciting.
So it was an astonishing case on your end, and I'm glad you guys stood up for yourselves.
Do you fear retaliation from the university for this type of activism and for pushing back, or do you get the sense that you've got a vice president for student affairs that seems to have taken your side in this?
Yeah, yeah, so I'll speak to him a little bit.
His name's Chris Miller.
He's done a fantastic job in promoting free speech on campus.
This is not the first controversy the college Republicans at Clemson have been a part of.
We've called out the drag show in the past, and most recently we got Feminine products and tampons removed from the men's bathrooms on campus, and we got a bunch of backlash from the socialists on campus, the blue hairs, you name it.
So they have actually supported us in our free speech efforts, and they have done nothing to curtail that whatsoever.
But this is a symptom of a different issue.
Clearly, someone in athletics has a problem with freedom of speech on our end.
And I hate that it umbrellas the entire university because I think the university has been very good on free speech on our end.
But they still, the athletics department and the police do need to apologize for this because it's absolutely asinine that they tried to kick us out for simply canvassing and using our First Amendment right.
Well, are you seeking any sort of response from the athletics department or the university at large regarding this episode and the consequences that should come to whatever administration officials tried to act in this unconstitutional way towards you and your club?
Yeah, yeah.
I am seeking a public written apology from both the athletics department and the police department.
For not only our club, but for also the clubs nationwide, the other conservative organizations, and also this is nonpartisan.
This is freedom of speech, so it could be Democrats as well.
You should be able to use your freedom of speech anywhere you please outside at a public institution like this at Clemson.
And it should set a precedent for these other schools that we're going into election season and everyone should have the right to canvas outside of these types of events.
So I would like this public apology to be used as sort of inspiration for other schools to just simply use freedom of speech policy that we all know and love and implement it everywhere.
So I'm seeking for a public apology from both departments, and I have yet to get anything back from them yet.
At the very least, I wanted an apology from my university and from the unhinged professor who attempted to assault me on camera, but instead I got threatened with endless disciplinary action and eventually got kicked out of school.
Are there any kind of remedies or specific changes in university policy that you would like to see from Clemson to ensure that this kind of harassment never happens again?
Yeah, well, I mean, it kind of starts with, you know, teaching these university officials because I was told that the two gentlemen that first arrived were subcontracted by the university.
But that doesn't matter.
It's still under the jurisdiction of the university.
They still hired them on as event staff.
And Summit Athletics told them to kick us out.
So therefore, Summit Athletics needs to be taught what is protected and what isn't.
And what our speech was, was freedom of speech.
It's canvassing for political candidates.
And that's something they should just know.
And I don't know if it needs to just be beat over the head with these people.
The police officer clearly didn't know what he's talking about either, so the police department needs to do a better job at educating their officers on specific policies regarding this.
Because what this is, the reason why it blew up is it's a form of intimidation, and it does not look good on anyone's part to kick a bunch of college students out for activism like this, and that's why it blew up.
So I just don't want it to happen in the future.
But I will say on the appeals process in which we got reported to the glorified principal's office, as I call it, called the Office of Community and Ethical Standards, we went straight to the top through Chris Miller and he exonerated us of all wrongdoings, me and my secretary, because we did nothing wrong.
So the appeal process works and it's just the matter of what actually happened happened and I don't want it to happen again.
I think this is going to happen again all over the country, actually.
I think it's been happening, and I think that oftentimes it's the conservatives that have to be the dissident-resistant voice on college campuses.
I'd love to start with you, Trevor.
Advice to other conservatives on college campuses who want to express a viewpoint, who might face a hostile administration, Now that you've been through that, you seem to have come out the other side quite successful in convincing the administration that this conduct is allowed and the behavior that was directed against you should be disallowed.
But give us your advice from the trail.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I've been doing this for about two years now, and I've been tabling outside.
I've been spit at.
I've been cussed at.
Really, you just got to have thick skin and you got to record everything.
I mean, we're in the digital age where everything's put out there.
And just so happened our PR director, Janae Mitchell, recorded this behind my back.
I didn't even know she was recording it.
So that's just what needs to happen.
People need to be held accountable in the public sphere.
And what I would encourage young conservatives to do is if they encounter anything like this, to record it, to do whatever they need to do, to put it out there to social media, because you can only talk about it so much to your inner circle and people around the university.
No one's actually going to believe you unless you have the physical evidence and showing that to people.
So I would encourage that.
Also, just have thick skin.
I mean, don't be scared of these people.
They're just bureaucrats.
Obviously, they don't know what they're talking about.
And you're in the right.
So don't back down ever if you encounter some of these people.
I mean, it's just going to be a part of the political sphere from now until I die, probably.
You can't just let that affect you.
You just got to have thick skin and just push through it.
And what I love is the contrast at the thoughtfulness and the respect that was shown when conservatives were having this interaction.
And imagine if this had been a bunch of genderless, purple-haired, woketopians.
You know, they'd have been trying to assault the police officer.
They would have been ranting and raving, and there was a discipline there and really a maturity that is admirable and I think central to the success of this moment for your club.
Joel, what advice would you give conservative activists on campus about how to endure these moments?
Yeah, no, I think Trevor nailed some of the key points on that.
Get everything on camera from all angles, as many cameras as you can.
Definitely know your rights.
Definitely understand how you're being perceived on camera and how you can use that in follow-up action.
But also, I think on social media, you got a lot of backup from a lot of good people.
And so hopefully that these members in the College of Clemson Republicans can see that courage is contagious.
Insane reaction to me exposing one of their faculty professors spooked a lot of members from doing future activism when they saw how hard they came down on us.
It did take a few years to eventually see that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Hopefully from seeing how you stood your ground, how your members are standing your ground, and the backup that you're getting that hopefully, you know, like you said, have tough, have thick skin, but at the same time know that there is going to be some backup from some of the fighters.
I'm interested in your reaction, Trevor.
What kind of a reaction have you gotten from some of your fellow college Republicans on campus after this?
Oh, we're all locked in right now.
We enjoyed the adrenaline rush that it kind of gave because it showed a lot of people too.
We have a lot of young freshmen in our club right now and they haven't really experienced, you know, what it actually means to be a conservative on a college campus and sometimes you have to deal with this stuff.
And I thought everyone handled it so perfectly because when that police officer was asking for my driver's license and my secretary's driver's license, He could have kept going down the chain until I stepped up.
And it's not in the video.
It was actually cut out.
I stepped up and I'm like, I'll take all the blame for it.
I don't want anyone else getting caught in this as well.
But he would have kept going and asking for other people's driver's license, I believe.
But that did not faze any of my club members that were behind us.
They were sitting there.
They were out there wanting to continue to politically canvas.
So I'll just speak to that.
They've been phenomenal all year with not only tabling for this, but tabling for pro-life issues.
Immigration, you name it, they've been absolute workhorses, so credit to them.
But in terms of the response from other people, I mean, the College Republicans, the Turning Point chapter here at Clemson, they've been all supportive.
I mean, everything that happened was totally ridiculous and asinine, like I said.
So everyone's in our corner, even the parents, too.
You got a lot of angry parents sending emails and phone calls to the athletics department, the police department.
And that's what we need, honestly, because That's what it's going to take.
You've got to twist the arms of these people because they need to issue a public apology and it's going to take people calling their office and letting them know that Hey, this is wrong.
I never thought I'd see a story come out of Clemson University like this.
I expected it at UC Berkeley in California.
I expected it on liberal college campuses like my own, but I didn't expect it from Clemson University.
Does it surprise you that your university attempted to shut down your freedom of speech?
And why do you think that these officials were so locked in on you guys specifically?
I want to say it is a political sway by someone in the athletics department.
I think they saw us outside of a spring game that was pretty successful, right outside of their scoreboard.
And they were like, we can't be having that.
So we got to get them out of here.
But I mean, like I said before, I think the university has been very good on free speech.
Just this specific incident, they need to work on it.
I mean, this is absolutely ridiculous that this was allowed, especially when we've done this type of canvassing before.
But yeah, I mean, you would expect it from UC Berkeley, where nothing is able to be said out loud by conservative voices.
But unfortunately, it happened at Clemson University, which is right in the heart of the South, in conservative country.
I mean, the Pickens-Trump rally had tens of thousands of people show up to it.
So you would think it's ripe for the cause for freedom of speech, but...
I mean, unfortunately it just wasn't.
But I think there's a lesson in that.
I think the lesson is there are these tyrants on every college campus.
Now, they might not be in charge of every area and they might not ultimately prevail when there's a good appeal process and review process, but if this can emerge at Clemson, It could emerge in the Bible Belt, in the Deep South, anywhere, and that's why it requires vigilance.
And it's also why it requires consequences.
I don't think it's sufficient for the university to address this issue simply by stating that Clemson College Republicans did nothing wrong.
I think Clemson University needs to specifically remediate with the individuals that made these decisions And any policy that was vague or unclear that was relied upon to have this deeply tortured interpretation of the law.
So I wanted you to know, Trevor, that my office is sending a letter to the president of Clemson University, President Clemens, and we're politely asking for the information regarding the people who were involved, their employment, for which offices they work, for which offices they work, and what affirmative steps Clemson is taking to ensure that staff comport with the First Amendment.
And I think that your call for a public apology would be an obvious step that one could take to ensure that the right message is sent to all the staffs.
So we'll be sending this letter to Clemson University today.
I think it is very unfortunate that this event happened in the first place, but we cannot allow it to just exist as a viral moment on social media.
It has to be a teaching moment for precisely the reason Joel said, because this is spreading like kudzu, this desire to limit speech.
I'm eager to get your reaction to that, and I've got a few more questions for you about South Carolina politics.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
I mean, I think that's awesome, and this information does need to be shown to the public, and we need to know who did this and who signed off on it, because clearly, like I said, it's symptomatic of that kudzu, like you were talking about, infecting even a more right-wing institution, as you'd call it, at Clemson.
And yeah, we need to get more information about that because it's totally ridiculous.
And this is not the only campus it happens on.
I mean, we're umbrellaed under the College Republicans of America.
There's chapters in the Northeast and other crazy liberal places that deal with this stuff all the time.
And having that organization have all these college Republican chapters together, working together in terms of social media and just general support is so helpful.
Congressman Gates, that is an awesome letter.
I do appreciate you sticking up for us on this behalf.
And I am hearing that there may be officials at Clemson University watching this very podcast right now.
Can you talk a little bit more about that, Trevor, and if you've heard any information on the response?
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, the university is clearly watching this right now because, I mean...
This is bad PR for them, and bad PR means money.
It means a lot of things are going wrong on their end, which is unfortunate because, like I said, I like Clemson University, but this is the problem that was created under them, and they have to answer for it.
So if President Clements and Vice President of Student Affairs, Chris Miller, are watching, I mean, this is something that we would like, not only as just conservatives, but as a student body, we do need answers for this, and we do need a public Statements about this at a minimum.
You know, if they're watching, I do encourage that to be done.
And while this was an unfortunate event, I actually think that this can turn into a very positive experience.
If the reaction to this is thoughtful and thorough and very clear, then I actually think Clemson could come out of this looking pretty good if instead this is ignored, this is treated as well, you know, students should just, you know, respect when anyone else tells them what to do.
Then that is going to metastasize and then those negative consequences that you talk about will grow more severe unnecessarily.
I think that the apology is an important thing.
But I do want to zoom out since I have you here and you've been on the front lines of this fight.
Joel has as well.
I would love you to share with our audience what issues you find.
Are animating college Republicans and young conservatives.
We see on the broad issue matrix immigration leading the way, certainly the price of goods.
But what are you hearing about from your members and other folks that are driving really a lot of generational shift in people under 30 toward more conservative policies and conservative causes?
Well, you mentioned immigration, and that is the number one issue that I've talked to college Republicans, Turning Point members about.
And it's huge because it's changing the voter demographic rapidly.
So that's going to affect us down the road.
Are we going to win elections with this specific issue?
But also affecting South Carolinians as a whole, I-85 runs through Atlanta to Charlotte, which also cuts through the upstate of South Carolina, which is right where we're placed, our university is placed.
And that's where a lot of drugs are ran through, a lot of gang activity, you know, from the border.
And if we don't shut that down, it's going to start.
It has killed South Carolinians.
There's fentanyl pouring in, as as many other states experience.
But we have such a big interstate going through the heart of South Carolina that we've busted drugs before.
And it's all from these Mexican drug cartels.
And these people are animals.
And if we don't lock it down, then we're going to have no law and order.
And we're not going to have a voter demographic in this country that represents Americans.
So that's a huge issue that I think most college students right now are very worried about, especially with Lake and Riley.
That was only a few hundred miles south of us, and that was terrible.
And for that to happen to a college student on a college campus, it does scare a lot of people.
So it could happen at Clemson University too.
You just never know.
So that's a huge issue I envision bringing a lot of young people, especially conservatives, to the polls.
Joel, what are you seeing in terms of this?
I mean, the under-30 crowd was a core feature of the Democrat coalition under Obama and then initially under Biden.
And we are seeing a real shift there.
What issues do you think are driving that?
Yeah, well, I think aside from just from immigration, which is obviously a big issue, I think the students are starting to see the bleak future of the economy and jobs in general.
I think now that their college degrees are being extremely diluted, and they're getting this rude awakening that it's becoming very hard to get a job after this promise of going to college for four years.
That promise has now been broken to the Gen Z generations.
And they're seeing less money in their wallets, and that's being reflected From the folks who are just entering the job force for the first time.
So I think some of these economic experiences under Joe Biden has definitely created a bleak future in which they are going back to the years of prosperity that we saw under President Trump.
So I think that's going to be a big factor coming up.
Undeniably, I think these economic conditions are leading Gen Z to maybe a different place than the younger millennials who stayed living with their parents.
This new version of Gen Z actually starts looking at, hey, I might want to buy a house one day.
You won't be able to with these interest rates.
Trevor, I also wanted to ask you a question about the Palmetto State.
You know, South Carolina gave President Trump this overwhelming victory, basically drives Nikki Haley out of the race.
But what do you see as the trends?
I thought your analysis on the I-85 thing was really good.
Are there other things in South Carolina that people around the country might want to know about?
Yeah, so a lot of people would think that South Carolina's ruby red, which it is.
But the state legislature does not reflect that.
Actually, CPAC, the American Conservative Union, rates South Carolina as the second most liberal Republican supermajorities in the country.
And that's because we have a lot of rhinos in our state legislature that say they're Republican and conservative, but they vote a different way or push through these ridiculous bills that are It's basically ironed out by the Chamber of Commerce, and they basically dictate a lot of what happens in South Carolina.
And so I think there needs to be a big push at creating the Freedom Caucus, making it larger in South Carolina and states abroad, because what we have is just a good old boy system in South Carolina.
It's been absolutely destroying our state for years, and it's been a lot of watered-down bills that could have been way more conservative.
And I see states like your state congressman, Florida, that are passing extremely conservative legislation, and we can't even get a constitutional carry bill passed and a good pro-life bill passed because of the rhinos in the state legislature.
So there's been a big push on our end to get a lot of these people that are actually conservative elected.
So we're doing a lot of work on our end with door knocking, canvassing, like we did this past Saturday, to fix that.
So I encourage people in their own state to try and push for more Freedom Caucus members to join their state legislature.
With our primary, it's June 11th, but it could be different in other states.
So definitely latch on to someone you believe is conservative and run with it, because that's how you make a change.
Yeah, and I want to ask you this question because it's something I struggle with.
I get all these candidates from all over the country that become very interested in wanting to align with a bill that we've sponsored or some event or opportunity.
And when they're running...
They all kind of sound the same.
Everyone says they're a great champion for liberty.
Everyone says that they don't want forever wars.
Everybody says that they don't want the surveillance state, that they want to cut spending.
They definitely want to cut spending.
They're willing to take chances to secure the border.
And then they get here, and at the first sign of criticism, or at the first moment where you've got to use a little leverage or take a little criticism...
They're hiding under their desks.
And so give me your vetting tools.
When you talk to someone and decide whether or not you're going to go out there and sweat on a Saturday afternoon and talk to folks on their way into a Clemson football game, how do you know they're worth it?
What are the issues and what are the tells that you look for the most?
Obviously, we know Joel doesn't know how to pick well.
He's working for me.
I'll check with you.
Oh, come on.
Don't sell yourself short.
But the big thing is 100% money.
So that's FEC filings.
Followthemoney.org is also a good website that we use to vet candidates because that's who is going to be reflecting what they believe, is who's giving them money.
If it's more grassroots people, that's who I'm in favor for because that's representing the people of South Carolina and abroad.
But if they're getting money from big super PACs and lobbyists, there's a big problem with lawyer legislators in this state that dictate a lot of stuff, and that's a whole other issue.
So yeah, money's a big one.
Also, who they're friends with.
You can use just social media as a good vetting tool, too, to see who are they following, who are they interacting with.
Is it establishment people?
Is it rhinos?
If it is, then they're not the candidate for me.
That's why You know, the Freedom Caucus people.
They're the more grassroots people.
They're the people getting the money from the people of South Carolina.
Therefore, I and my club members kind of gravitate towards them more so than anything.
So money is probably the biggest driver.
And the relationship aspect is what I use to vet people.
That's incredible.
I was not expecting you to give that answer.
I thought you would say a particular issue set or a way that somebody made their presentation.
You go right to the dollars and cents.
And frankly, that's probably as good a system as any because we see people up here that kowtow to their donors and subject the interests of their constituents.
You got a better vetting strategy, Joel?
Yeah, mine was a little bit easier beforehand.
It really came down to two questions.
One, what did you think of the former disgraced speaker, Kevin McCarthy?
And two, would you say it publicly?
If you're trying to hire Joel away from me to run your podcast, those are the questions you may have to answer.
Well, Trevor, we wish you and all of your club members the best of luck.
We're going to keep you updated regarding the responses we get from Clemson.
We're sorry you had to do that, but actually I think it's a shining example of how to respond With maturity and with grace and with knowledge.
And my hope is that a lot of different students at Clemson and beyond see this, that they join your club, that they're right there alongside you, and that you guys are able to have a great opportunity for free speech.
Also, always thank Joel for pulling double duty, producing this podcast and joining me again as a guest.
So, appreciate you.
Oh, before we let you go, Trevor, folks want to follow the activities of the club.
Support the club.
Make a pitch for where they can go, how they can follow you and find you.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you can follow the Clemson College Republicans on X at ClemsonCRs or Instagram at ClemsonCollegeRep.
So that's where you can find us primarily.
Also, we do a lot of work with the College Republicans of America.
They're at on X and Instagram is U.S. College GOP. So that's where you can find us.
There's so much information.
Going on in the conservative space for young people on college campuses.
So definitely we'll keep you posted on stuff on our end because I don't envision this being the only time we are involved in controversy.
Well, I hope the next time we have you on it's to talk about your great insights about the shape of the electorate and the issues motivating people and less because you're being harassed.
But thanks so much for being with us.
Roll the credits.
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