Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Jonathan and Kelly show.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shut up.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I did not refuse the National Guard. The President didn't
send it. Why are you coming here with republican talking points,
Kelly Nash?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Why want the National Guard there to begin with? They
clearly didn't know, and I take responsibility for not having them.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Just prepare for and Kelly show woc.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, when DC does actually get back into gear with
the new House Committee investigating January the sixth, do you
think that maybe the second video you heard recorded with
the cell phone in the car during January sixth, where
Nancy says she takes she has to take responsibility.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And she was wearing her mask. It sounded like that,
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Why does she stop wearing it?
When did they say it was clear to not wear
the masks? But to make it even worse? During that
she was kept pulling it up and pulling it down.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Yeah, so pull it down so I could speak to
you and then spit all over you exactly, call back up.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And she was very upset, you know, she was spitting
and at that point she was spitting the truth. Then
suddenly it's nothing but Republican talking points. All right, we'll
get back to that to quote a few good men.
You know what's election suason where the candidates are hitting
the trail, they're knocking on doors. They're even knocking on
our door. I heard radio Killy Nash, Welcome into the studio.
(01:27):
Paul Dan's the man who I have learned at the
feet of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC is in fact the
wizard behind the curtain. He blows the smoke in the
fire of the Trump administration. Are you in fact the
puppet master of Project twenty five?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
This is the man in the flesh, This is this
is the guy. He set the whole world on fire,
like you yeah, no, you know, hey, we solved drought,
I think in the US, within the non liberal tiers,
that Project twenty twenty five, it still sets him on edge.
I think this is the cast test that really just
(02:05):
freaks him out. But you know, it's about us taking
our government back. It's about citizen This is citizen led
democracy and we are We published the source code to
the deep state and we told them how to fight.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And that reason we wanted you in here is because
now we're going from the heavy duty, big thinking think
tanks to actually hitting the road in South Carolina. And
I know you enjoy being in Charleston now and you're
running against Lindsey Graham, so let's talk about your Senate campaign.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well, that's right. He is the head of the swamp
in the way you know that. I am a lawyer
by training. I went to MIT to back up, you know,
and went to Virginia Law school. Married to Carolina girl.
That's how I get to Carolina. Best in the world.
Probably another thing Lindsay and I disagree on. But you know,
(02:58):
I've dedicated my last it's basically twelve years towards making
sure we can take back this federal government. For the
assistance and getting behind Trump was the number one.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Way to do that.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I and now, yeah, confronting what I think is the
real threat to our liberty, our Rhino senators. These are
the folks who really do play on the other side,
their controlled opposition, and the fact that we have a
person like Lindsey Graham thirty two years up in Washington.
You know, he went there it was seven trillion dollars
(03:32):
in debt, now's thirty seven trillion. This guy wants to
bomb a new country every week, you know, driving up
to the studio all I saw were people waiting in traffic,
you know, Somerville, the lines backing up six thirty in
the morning to drive into Charleston, and same up here
in Columbia. It's like you neglect the state because you're
halfway around the world fighting for a border between Ukraine
(03:55):
and Russia. Let's think about America for a change.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
We're talking with Paul Dan's and you're find yourself in
a very interesting predicament because you are very pro Trump.
You were telling me earlier you have been like a
pro Trump guy since twenty twelve, even before the twenty
sixteen campaign. And yet Trump seems to be the guy saying, hey, Lindsey,
Lindsay's a great guy. He helps us when we need him,
(04:19):
helps us with the left. So I mean, how do
you work this out? How do you get the Trump
voter to leave Lindsey Graham, who Trump is saying he
helps us, and come along with you.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, I mean, remember Trump endorsed Mitch McConnell, right, so
we have to start at that thing. He's not perfect.
God's the only one who's perfect, Jesus. So you know,
to be fair to President Trump, he endorsed Lindsey back
in February. I joined this race in August. But look,
that Lindsay case makes itself. I think over time the
(04:53):
president is realizing that Lindsey he you know, I'm the
architect of Project twenty twenty five, and Lindsey he was
actually the architect of the Russia hoax. He was a
guy who actually, you know, he was so vehemently anti Trump.
Famously did not vote for Donald Trump in sixteen. He
voted for this, you know, the CIA guy, Evan McMullen.
(05:15):
That's how that's our senator from South Carolina. So to
have him now latching his wagon to President Trump is
you know, disingenuous. This is the typical Lindsay show. You know,
a year before reelection, all of a sudden he turns Trump,
only to go off off the reservation, you know, right
after election. So the case is going to be made.
(05:38):
I'm going to prosecute this, you know, I like I say.
I started with President Trump back in the day, hoping
he would run for president and take care of that
second term of Obama. That's where most of the real
damage to the Union got done in those four years
from twelve to sixteen. President Trump got in there. I
(06:00):
worked in Pennsylvania again elected, you know, as a volunteer
attorney in the war room at the same time where
he had Lindsay running around here saying, you know, he
can go to hell if you want to make America
great again, and all the various invective. But the point
was that Trump didn't have a team ready to roll.
And as much as we got done, I ultimately got
(06:21):
in the Trump administration. I was a standout there and
that's why the Heritage Foundation recruited me to develop Project
twenty twenty five. We have to make the case of
President Trump that look, you only have two more years.
This is about the future of this country, the future
of this movement. We have to pass the torch to
the next generation MAGA fighter, and that's who I've proven
(06:43):
to be. I've been in the trenches for the last
twelve years, and you know, if you like what President
Trump's been doing in the second term, that's how I
just spent the last three years working seventy hour weeks
to block and tackle and make sure this policy and
personnel is ready to roll.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
You know, this statement may seem a little insensitive for
persons who if you were, say a child taken hostage
during the Ukrainian War by Putin or Israeli family member
was taken hostage by Abas. And it's also insulting for
the rest of us who had to pay for all
the crap that rolled out of the dam Biden administration.
(07:21):
But if you look back on it, it seems like
the fact that that election was stolen ended up being
a blessing and that Donald Trump, apparently I was looking
in and you tell me, learned a lot about how
the government runs. So he had four years to school
up and start choosing people as he made his re
entry into the Oval office. How much of that do
(07:42):
you think actually played into the availability of him to
move the needle so much that he has since he
got into office this time.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Well, number one, I would say my platform is God, Family, Country,
and I do believe that there's a grand plan for
us from the Almighty. I think that Trump was spared
his life. I do believe the Lord works in mysterious ways.
And you're right, you know, this four year kind of intermission,
if you will, helped focus the president. Now people like
(08:13):
Lindsey remember he was through with Donald Trump in January
twenty twenty one. This is the guy who wanted to
shoot the J six protesters in the head. He didn't
see Donald Trump coming back. He actually wanted to put
the nails in the coffin, and that's where he went
to work for Biden. But you know, when election time
came up in twenty you know, he started seeing the
(08:35):
rise of Donald Trump in twenty twenty three and tried
to hitch onto that wagon. I think that ultimately President
Trump has learned from the first term. But this is
what Project twenty twenty five did. The number of us
got together and we said the reason why we're having
such difficulty. And remember I was slogging it out with
(08:55):
the true believers in the admin in nineteen and twenty
when the Democrats were in Congress. They were breathing down
our neck, you know. And the president only gets a
point four thousand people. There's two point two million federal workers.
That's one to five hundred. If you don't even fill
the four thousand, and then you fill them with, say
twenty five hundred, and half of those people might be
(09:18):
McCain people or Bush people who are actually against Trump,
you're not going to get anything done. So we said
number one, mister President personnelist policy. You have to get
fighters in there. They have to be aligned, they have
to be able to be technically capable to do this
work because it requires, you know, top notch legal expertise.
(09:40):
So that's what we did. We came together as a group.
I was recruited to go the Heritage Foundation, which is
really the mothership, if you will, of the conservative movement.
And I stood up a one hundred and ten member
coalition of all the federal rather all the conservative organizations,
(10:02):
and said, guys, we agree about seventy percent of the things.
Let's stop fighting one one another. Let's get on the
same page. Let's put this in a book where it
can serve as a reference manual for the next president.
But let's go further. Let's build a database. This recruit
twenty thousand people from across the United States who are
going to drain the swamp. The swamp isn't going to
(10:24):
drain itself. It's people like the listeners here who are
willing to serve, drop their tools and go off to
Washington and apply it and then come back home, not
live thirty two years like Lindsey Graham. It's like you
go there, you do your service. And you come back
to your life. And three we had to teach them
online training. We had to develop a school because look,
(10:47):
the bureaucrats know the drill, and you walk into an agency,
you're going to get your hat handed to you very quickly.
You got to know what's going on there. And for finally,
we needed to write one hundred and eighty day plans,
and that's what you see in process right now. I
recruited Russ Vote, who is now the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget, and I said, you know, Russ,
(11:09):
these are what we need. We need agency plans. So
you can walk in like a pilot does when he
enters a plane or she and starts flicking buttons. That's
what you have to do. One hundred and eighty days, clip, clip, clip,
So we were able to come wave after wave after
wave and just knock the libs down. And that's what
you saw rolling out in February March April. It's like
(11:31):
Christmas morning every day. But now you know I always
envisioned Project twenty twenty five is D day. Now the
slog begins. We are still marching, and that's where the
president you really have to look at personnel and so
I agree with you. Ultimately, it was a blessing in disguise.
President Trump learned the hard way. He knows who the
(11:54):
enemies are. And you know, I think she's going to
realize in time that Lyn Graham has actually been working
against him the whole time. He started out frontally assaulting him,
but when he couldn't do that, he made nice with
him and then whispers in his ear all this neo
con business, all this spending, and basically pulls the president
(12:16):
towards the establishment track.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Paul Dan's are you good at golf?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You know, I'm good at being a dad met in
the course.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
The course.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I was a lacrosse player in college, the All American athlete.
I was an ocean lifeguard swimming, and I do have
a facility for golf. It's one of the things I
didn't grow up on the country club, though I was saying,
I'm a pure blooded deplorable. My family comes from probably
working at the country club more than being a member
(12:50):
of what.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I just wanted to follow that up with, because it
seems like the relationship with Trump is very important, and
what you architected with the project twenty twenty five and
what you've been demonstrating. Here is a you're highly intelligent,
mit grad lawyer from University of Virginia, all those types
of things. Someone who's devoted to the conservative movement. We've
had speaking of the Heritage Foundation. We've had Jim DeMint On,
he's a regular on this show. Jim demnt left the
(13:13):
Senate specifically because he felt like he could be more
used to the conservative movement outside of the Senate.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And he has been.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
He's been incredible, But you feel like you want to
be inside.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
What why?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I got four kids. I'm not gonna sit here on
the sidelines and put this man back into Washington. He
is an existential threat. And when I say this man
Lindsey Graham for a fifth term, this is this is
you know, I'm a problem solver. I helped bring this
together to get President Trump under way. But I'm moving
to where the puck is going, and that's the United
(13:50):
States Senate. That's ultimately the logjam. H you know, it's
a club up there, and it's a Uni party club,
and that's what we have to deconstruct. So look, the
one thing, maybe I'm a little hard headed, but I'm
fearless and I don't bend. And that's why I distinguished
myself in that first term as an appointee. I just
(14:11):
kind of came in and, you know, went at it.
Didn't ask what I had to do, just kind of
intuitively said, you know, hey, we won the election, let's
start governing like it. What do you mean that career
is in that place, you know, move them out, put
in an appointee who was aligned with us. And that's
(14:31):
why I'm moving to the US Senate. The Lindsay sat there,
why all these problems came to be? You know, it's
not just that infrastructure falling a part in South Carolina.
It's that, you know, thirty trillion dollars, our kids can't
even afford the American dream anymore. They can't own a house.
The first first time home buyer average age is thirty
(14:53):
eight years old. How are you supposed to have equity
interest in this country a piece of the rock when
you know, you know that you can barely make the
monthly nut for your apartment rent. And that's what he
brought us.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
As if it were possible.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
For a guy who sits behind a microphone, I'm not
certainly not saying anything behind Lindsay Graham's back here said
it to his face that he has like a fifty
to fifty love hate relationship with the conservative voters in
the state of South Carolina.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It's like a teeter totter and it seems.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
To constantly evolve around a twenty four hour news cycle.
So with that in mind, let me ask you a
question about something going on in the news right now,
because Lindsay Graham says that the government will be able
to reopen, but it won't be the leadership, It'll be the.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
Rank and file that bring it together.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Now, I don't know if both parties or the Republicans
are going to be on a democratic He doesn't go
on to say that in particular, which is a little
bit mysterious about it. But what is going to happen?
How is this going to play out? Because we keep
hearing the Democrats are telling you, I think that they're
going to hold out forever. They've already told you this
could go past November. So how does this play out
(15:58):
in your estimation with opening the government?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Well, Lindsey, you know, fifty to fifty. He actually scores
an f from the Heritage Foundation as a conservative. If
you look Ultimately, how this guy performs and you know,
every major issue he actually works against us. Certainly he
is always in front of the cameras, and you have
to remember a lot of this is pantomime. You know,
some people on our side aren't really on our side.
(16:26):
So he'll go out there and basically feed a narrative
that is ultimately going to help the left. I think, look,
the Democrats are in disarray. We knock them off their block.
They don't have an issue. This is how they're going
into the midterms. They're going to try to make shut
down the issue. So you're right there. They don't have
(16:46):
any intention. They're out, you know, have him wine in
Napa Valley right now and sun tanning. Ultimately, it will
as things break down, the media will find the one
thing that isn't going right, the trashes that were flowing
at the National Monument or some silliness like that. But
(17:07):
the exercise, ultimately, I think is a good one for
the administration to hold the line on. You ask yourself, well,
is it really a government shutdown. It's not. It's a
government slowdown. Government never shuts down. Now, we're just doing
what a government, the essential things have to do. So
(17:27):
you should ask yourself this thought experiment is like, well,
why do we do all the other stuff? Why don't
we just peel it back to the essential part of
government and then add back the few things that we
can mutually agree have to get done. So I think
the actual process itself is very important for us. We
are at one hundred year reconstruction of this union on
(17:51):
a constitutional footing. We have shut the door with Project
twenty twenty five and Trump on the progressive era, but
they have left so much damage that you know, you
do have to take a hunk out of this thing.
So as RUSS you know, furloughs federal workers. I think
a lot of these programs they're giving us the tools
(18:12):
to say, hey, you know, Congress didn't get his act
together to pass the money, therefore we can't do it.
Get rid of it. Ultimately, I do think it would
probably run another month is if I were betting. But
you know, the president certainly has a lot on his plate,
and national defense and the troops are paramount. That's our
(18:36):
major reason, national security. But I don't think that that
gets jeopardized by this shutdown.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
The biggest vote that sticks out of my mind from
Lindsey Graham in the recent past would be back in
Was it twenty two when he voted with Biden's people
on the one and a half trillion dollar omnibus bill.
I don't remember if his really had that much of
an effect on that, If that's what helped it over
(19:03):
the line or whatever. I thought it was a stupid
plan when it was proposed. Are there other items that
you can recall recently, like or does he change his
vote when Trump is back in power as opposed to
when Trump is not in power.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No, he's actually pretty consistently bad, and he's actually obviously
worse when the Democrats are there. Look, he was the
number one helper to Joe Biden to put those terrible
judges in place, the judge Diana I've you know, the
Maryland judge, the district court who just let the attempted
assassin of Justice Kavanaugh walk with a seven year sentence
(19:42):
instead of the thirty that was thanks to our own
Senator Lindsay Graham. He showed up and voted present in
committee that caused her to be able to go on
the floor and get voted into office. So he has
done that with many of these district Court judges, the
very ones that have been doing the nationwide injunctions. He
obviously voted for all three Obama Supreme Court picks. In fact,
(20:07):
you know the famous justice who doesn't know what a
woman is, Justice Jackson. That's thanks to Lindsay himself. He
was the one who put her on the DC's circuit,
which is kind of the bullpen for the Supreme Court.
So I'm not sure he has much more of a
conception of what a woman is either.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Oh goodness, you know the age old adage, the fear
of loss is greater than the opportunity of gain. For
here in South Carolina, with our number of military bases,
some people would argue that John Thurman state in office
until he died because of his support of the military
and his availability of making sure Fort Jackson stayed open
and we got Fort or shoreff Force Base everything they needed.
(20:50):
Lindsey Graham is very much in that same kind of mold.
What do you say to people who say, well, if
we lose the seniority of Lindsey Graham with our we
might lose four Jackson, We might we might suffer a
loss at Show Air Force Bace.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
This state has two hundred and fifty years of being
the first to fight. This is the people who live
here that will never change. Uh. Look, nobody has a
birthright to a citizen, to a Senate seat. And the
over those thirty two years, he's hurt our military by
constantly putting him into conflicts where we break things, we
(21:26):
break people in the military. Look, there's like forty one
military suicides a day. Now. Like to go and fight
all these wars that aren't in our national interest. You're
asking the best among us, our soldiers and their families
to sacrifice, to make the ultimate sacrifice for you know,
a cause that actually isn't worth dying for. Let these
(21:48):
folks actually fight for America when it counts. And that
means having the prudence to say, no, we're not gonna
we're not gonna go off and fight this other country's battles.
But he is, you know, he's flip flopped on everything.
The one thing he's consistent on is escalation. He always
wants to bomb. And even this last Sunday, you know,
(22:11):
when the peace deal was falling apart or wasn't getting signed,
he was like mister President and Hamas had indicated they
would go along. He's like, let's just start bombing. Well,
twenty lives hostage lives were spared because the president rejected
what this mad man was saying in his ear. But
I will be a champion of the military. I'm there
(22:34):
for the vets. My dad was a Vietnam Vet. My
uncles all you know, they dropped behind enemy lines in
World War Two. They stormed the beaches in D Day.
They were actually French immigrants, so that was their first language.
My grandfather was a merchant marine in the Mermansk Run
(22:54):
that was the most perilous in World War Two. He
was in the engine room, marine engineer there. So we
talked about the highest casualty rate I come from. I
stand on the shoulder of giants basically, and the military.
These are the folks in my blood and I'm going
to fight for them. But fighting for them does not
just mean sending them off to war at every junction.
(23:16):
It means supporting their families, getting them living wages, getting
better conditions on post, and ultimately, you know, making sure
that they are the war fighter we need. That's why
they're there to fight, and we can't get in their way.
We have to let these strong men at night protect
US and women and Lindsey, you know, is the opposite
(23:39):
of that.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Talking with Paul Dan's running for Senate here in South
Carolina versus Lindsay Graham, at least in the Republican primary.
You're the architect self proclaimed is and I've guess been
reassured by other people that you are the guy behind
Project twenty twenty five. During the campaign, Trump kind of
disavowed knowledge of Project twenty twenty five. Do you think
(24:03):
he actually had read Project twenty twenty five and was
just disavowing it because the Liberals were making it such
a hot topic, or do you think that it really
just kind of aligned with what he already naturally believed
so he didn't need to read it.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Well, no, I you know, obviously I stood up Project
twenty twenty five, was recruited there to the Heritage Foundation,
and conceived the whole thing. Like I said, there's some
difference of opinion whether I did that at my kitchen
counter in Fort Mill or at our new house down
there in Charleston. But historians one day will like kind
of plack up in one of the two places. But look, yeah,
(24:36):
it was it was based because a number of US
knew exactly that President Trump needs to win. He's focused
on winning the man, that's why he is who he is.
And part of that was he wasn't going to be
thinking about transition. That was that was a November sixth proposition.
So that's why we came together and do this. But
(24:56):
to be sure, look, we looped in in all the
people below. Trump knew everything about it. Looked the first
six copies of the book went to the Trump campaign,
So you know, when he knocked it, I think it
was you look, it was a political decision, but really
engineered by the people on one side of his ear.
(25:18):
Who are you know, campaigners. You know, ultimately you have
to remember there's a team of rivals, so this is
kind of a rivalry, and we got knocked and they
ultimately took Project twenty twenty five ideas and then took
the jobs themselves. So it's kind of you know, whenever
thing's happened in politics, you asked yourself the question is
(25:40):
a Latin one, I learned, and not fancy Latin guy,
but it was a que bono who benefits? And you say, like,
who actually benefited from Project twenty twenty five being cast
aside and obviously, then you can work backwards to how
it happened. You know, nobody could ever accuse Howard right,
he was the the co chair of transition plan, of
(26:06):
actually coming up with the plan for the transition.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
He was famously one of Hillary Clinton's biggest backers and
you know, famously the next door neighbor of no other
than Epstein's. So yes, he did not put out a
nine hundred page book about how to give the vets
the people you know who were forced to take the
jab or leave the service. We said, put back pay,
(26:31):
put them back in, reinstate them. We wrote that two
years ago. I mean, our book came out in March
twenty twenty three. You know they're doing this now two
years later. So it was a political calculation. But you know,
part of it also is in Washington, there's a saying
from Ron Reagan that if there's no limit to what
(26:52):
you can accomplish, if you don't want to take credit
for it, and that's you know, the servant leadership aspect
of Project twenty twenty five. We were gonna do the
homework for them and kind of lay it out in
the hopes that when they needed it, they'd rip it
off the table and take it and start putting it
in place. And that's exactly what happened. And because I've
been in office there and you know, it's like it's
(27:15):
like social media. You're feeding content, like what's the next
thing we're gonna do, what's the next thing we're gonna do.
And if you don't have a plan to actually pull
off the shelf and look at you know, you're gonna
be sitting around gazing at your navel or spending the
next six months saying what is our agenda? So we said, look,
let's do this over this four year interregnum and say
(27:36):
let's be ready to roll day one. And we copied
the Democrats, we copied the Libs. And that's what also
blew their mind. They're like, all we did was knock
you guys off. You're planning twenty four to seven when
you're out of power, what you're going to do next.
And all of a sudden, we finally got the Conservatives
to stop knifing one another and get on the same page.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well, plainly, as you describe, you're going from one out
of the coin to the other, because you're going to
go from behind the scenes in DC now you're going
to be out in front running for office in South Carolina.
Are we going to see you on a campaign? Are
we already hearing about a debate schedule being set up?
How you think you're being received? How can South Carolinians
find out more about you where you're gonna be because
they want to hear you speak. How do you feel
(28:20):
about your campaign thus far?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Absolutely excited to be moving around the state meeting people.
I'll say, Paul Dans dot com, Paul Dance dot com,
you can go learn about our campaign. Support us. We
don't have twenty million dollars of kind of deep state
blood money pouring into our coffers. I didn't pass out
billions of dollars to Crony's to get kickbacks. But we
(28:44):
do have patriots all over the country lining up behind
us as well. This is Lindsay's not just a South
Carolina problems. He's an America problem. And all the folks
who think like us across the Union are praying for
the good people of South Carolina to stand up and
get this guy out. So you know, we've had great results.
We've only been at this for two months now. We
(29:06):
had polling in that we shot up thirteen points. Lindsey
is well below fifty percent, which would drive a runoff.
I'm second. I'm at twenty two percent, and you know,
mister Lynch has fallen from ten to four percent. So
this is going to be the main event in twenty
twenty six. It's actually I've described it as a steel
(29:26):
cage match for the future of America. First, you know,
someone who's actually fired bureaucrats, a swamp drainer like myself,
who went in there only a true believer in Washington, outsider,
and got the present marching in the right direction, versus
the guy who's been there thirty two years, who's actually
created these problems with his endless wars, with his endless spending,
(29:48):
you know, with the failure to ever get accountability. He
never got the answers for us on j six never
got the answers for us on twenty twenty, never got
the answers for us on twenty sixteen. He'll never get
you the answers. He will just run interference for the machine.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Paul Dan's you are a MIT grad and an attorney.
I'm sure you're very well versed with you know, the
Federalist papers and the Constitution and all of those things.
Are you concerned with any of the president's actions so
far in this administration that he might have overreached and
(30:24):
that somehow this is setting a precedent for future administrations
where they might be hostile to some conservatives, where they
could also overreach and use the president's precedents.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Well, right, I'm a constitutional conservative. I've been at this
for thirty years. I was twice selected the president of
the Federalist Society Chapter University of Virginia School of Law,
which you used to be the citadel for conservative attorneys
in really one of the leading thought areas. Look, the president,
(30:57):
we've suffered through so much constant tution neglect in the
last thirty years that everything he's doing now is reparative.
I do believe you know that it ultimately comes down
to having strong attorneys in place. I'll say this is
the bad news of our conservative movement is we are
just systematically outmanned with the technical attorneys out there. That's
(31:20):
a function of these law schools. They've been churning out
eighty percent liberal attorneys, maybe twenty percent conservative, and most
of the twenty percent conservative believe in God family country
are out there working for their families, and it's tough
to get them to go into government service. So you know,
I do believe they're being pressed to do things. The
(31:43):
immigration thing has to happen like this was because Biden
failed to enforce the law for years. It's not like
we've adopted new laws. We're just now enforcing the ones that.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
We're actually hostile towards the laws and stop Texas and
others from trying to enforce them.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Incredible. I mean, it was like Alice in Wonderland when
you'd be like, our federal government is stopping the state
from repelling an invasion on their border in Texas because
the federal government won't do its very job. And you know,
this is kind of pulling at the seams of this
great compact of ours. But I do salute what they're doing.
(32:23):
I do feel it's not so much what Trump's doing,
but what the DOJ should be doing. And that's more
my worry that we're now nine months in, I'd like
to see some orange jumpsuits, like like, let's get some
guys in leg irons seriously, like if we don't do this,
justice delayed is justice denied? And komy like those are
(32:44):
not great charges against them, because, like what, Lindsey Graham
had the opportunity four years to nail this guy to
the wall, but he did the exact opposite. He never
sent a subpoena. The whole time he was on the
Judiciary Committee, he supported Robert Muller. Lindsay was always threatening
President Trump not to fire Muller. You can't just now
(33:04):
gaslight us and claim that you're going to go after Comy.
Forget it, guy, we know you were actually part of
this rush. I think you were the one, after all,
who told McCain to give the p dossier to the FBI.
You started the whole ball rolling. I'm like centated every
time he opens his trap. I'm like, you have the
right to remain silent, you know, because I you know,
(33:27):
he's a guy who should be on the other side
of the inquiry, not asking the questions but answering them.
But you know, the reality is that we have to
move swiftly with the Justice Department, and part of that
is getting more politicals in place. The FBI still only
has two appointees that should change immediately. There are mechanisms
(33:51):
to put aligned personnel, and there are so many good
law enforcement, people who've done careers of service here in
South Carolina sheriff. I know they're all over this country.
Who could go to Washington, who could shape up the FBI?
And that's what needs to get You have to turn
over bad people. If you let bad people stay in place,
they will kick the can down the road. They'll tell you, oh,
(34:14):
you know, we were always on your side. We just
were too timid to say anything. And time will run out.
This is a play clock. Time is running off the clock.
And when I went to work there in Washington, I'd
always come home and I'd say few that's another day.
They didn't fire me because I'm going full till every day.
(34:34):
When you walk into the office, you feel the weight
of the good people behind you. You have this awesome responsibility.
If you're not doing something moving forward, you're letting the
people down. And that's why I'm asking for people's votes.
I'm saying, give me a shot at this. I come
to work for you, not for some Ukrainian dictator, not
(34:56):
for some foreign country on Middle East. I am here
to work for the people of South Carolina. And and
you're my boss, and you'll if you ever boo me
for six minutes in my hometown and you turn your
back on me, I'll get the picture. You know, I'm
not going to ask you for another six years. I'm
actually going to change what I was doing, or say,
(35:16):
you know, maybe next man up, maybe I can't do
this thing. But no one has a right to that
Senate seat. We need it back. We need to rip
it away from the deep state, because that's who owns
it right now, is a deep state Senate seat, and
I want to return it to the people of South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I know we could be hard pressing you for your time,
and we have a lot of questions. Now I'm happy
you may want to be like Katie Porter and just
put a lid on it right now and walk out
the door.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I don't know, but no, no, I'm an open book.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
You help me.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
One of the things that seemingly is true, and it's
going to be true again. It looks like with you
kicking up the dust around here, is that there. South
Carolina always finds itself in the midst of a national
conversation when we get into an election season, and Chuck
Todd said it well years ago. He said, if I
were a young reporter looking to make my name in politics.
I would immediately move to South Carolina because there's always
(36:04):
something going on, and I believe you're about to start
a firestorm you already have with the Lindsey Graham campaign
and Republicans. But what happens if you start and you
gain the kind of attraction that you think you're going
to gain. The Democrat Party is just chomping at the
bit to try to find somebody to take Lindsey Graham's seat,
and you know there'll be a ton of California New
(36:25):
York money coming in if they can find a candidate.
Do you have thoughts on who that candidate might be
and do you already have your plan laid out on
how you're going to attack them?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Well, I think Lindsey Graham is a candidate that it
actually helps the Democrats raise money. That's the very threat
of Lindsey Graham is the reason why. And you know
he's the weaker a candidate between he and I. But
there's no question that a Republican would carry the state.
The reality is that we are Godfamily country. We essentially
(36:57):
have a liberal Democrat in place in Lindsey Graham because
he throws the R after his name, and he hitches
himself to Trump for one one year every six and
then after that he goes and puts the Biden judges
in place, and he votes for the big spending, the
one point five trillion, and he basically marches off to
commit our troops and our money at every place. So
(37:20):
we're not even getting a Republican. Let's not kid ourselves.
But that's the disconnect. That's why this government is so broken.
And that's what I set out to fix with the
executive branch in Project twenty twenty five. And now I'm
moving the Article one, you know, the Congress, and this
can be done, folks. This is this is it just
(37:40):
matters to get out and vote and vote, you know,
for change this. I am the next generation. We need
somebody who actually has a stake in this in this state.
I have four kids, eleven, nine, seven, and four. I
you know, I deal with sick kids. In the middle
of the night, I talked to him about their schooling.
(38:01):
We you know, I was k through twelve public schools.
My mom was a public school teacher. My mother in
law is a public school teacher. I'm so upset that
the thing is broken, and you know, I want to
address these problems. But if you never had these life
experiences as Lindsey Graham. You know, he lives up in
the townhouse in Washington, d c. Young men flitting about
(38:22):
all hours of the night. He does not know what
it's like to get a five thousand dollars hospital bill
out of the blue and deal with you know, illegals
in the in the emergency room. I mean, like, let's
get real. Why don't you go sit in traffic in
Summerville for an hour at seven in the morning to
(38:42):
get to your job when for thirty years you didn't
bring National Highway money here to build a third lane.
You know, like we're at the third like drive the
ninety five. Guess what the crappiest portion is. You know
it starts at south of the border and runs down
to Blufton. It's like, how we aren't even matching up
(39:03):
with the fellow states. This is it's dangerous out there.
Our secondary roads are the worst in the country. And
you know that is you know, thirty years behind. Well,
guess who's been thirty years somewhere Lindsay in Washington, make
a change. You know the definition of insanity is repeating
things and thinking it's going to be different. It is
(39:23):
time for a change.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
All right.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
I guess we have to wrap things up now. Paul
Dan's what is it again, Paul dance dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Call dance dot com da NS And you know we're
going to be up in Clemson tonight. If y'all have
you know kids or family up there, We're going to
be talking to the Clemson Republicans. Well that's this Tuesday,
and I don't know when this is going to broadcast,
but yeah, we will be all over the state. We
were in Florence two nights ago, moving them around Greenville
(39:52):
and obviously up in Fort Mill as well.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
I just started following the exit Dans for Senate Dan's
for cent Is that for all social media or that's.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
For that's on Instagram. We are also on truth social
I believe and we are now standing up with TikTok. Oh. Hey,
look this is for faith believers and for the kids
really thirty five and under. This is their country. They're
the ones inheriting this mess. Lindsey has spent their inheritance
(40:27):
and now they are going to have to tackle this
and we're going to help them dig out. This campaign
is for for that next generation because I am I
lived American dream. My family came here with nothing. They
fought the nation's wars, they worked in the factories, they
built this managed to get me mit and I'm going
(40:47):
to leave it better than I found it. And that's
what I think we all have to do. So get
behind our campaign Paul Dance dot com and we are
going to be with the USC College Republicans on Monday,
October twenty seventh, So that's gonna be on five point
thirty out at the USC but love to meet with people.
(41:12):
Will be putting up more of our events online on
our website too.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Thank you, Paul.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
I have a feeling we'll be seeing you again, I
hope
Speaker 1 (41:18):
So absolutely thank you for having me
Welcome to the Jonathan and Kelly show.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shut up.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I did not refuse the National Guard. The President didn't
send it. Why are you coming here with republican talking points,
Kelly Nash?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Why want the National Guard there to begin with? They
clearly didn't know, and I take responsibility for not having them.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Just prepare for and Kelly show woc.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, when DC does actually get back into gear with
the new House Committee investigating January the sixth, do you
think that maybe the second video you heard recorded with
the cell phone in the car during January sixth, where
Nancy says she takes she has to take responsibility.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And she was wearing her mask. It sounded like that,
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Why does she stop wearing it?
When did they say it was clear to not wear
the masks? But to make it even worse? During that
she was kept pulling it up and pulling it down.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Yeah, so pull it down so I could speak to
you and then spit all over you exactly, call back up.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And she was very upset, you know, she was spitting
and at that point she was spitting the truth. Then
suddenly it's nothing but Republican talking points. All right, we'll
get back to that to quote a few good men.
You know what's election suason where the candidates are hitting
the trail, they're knocking on doors. They're even knocking on
our door. I heard radio Killy Nash, Welcome into the studio.
(01:27):
Paul Dan's the man who I have learned at the
feet of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC is in fact the
wizard behind the curtain. He blows the smoke in the
fire of the Trump administration. Are you in fact the
puppet master of Project twenty five?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
This is the man in the flesh, This is this
is the guy. He set the whole world on fire,
like you yeah, no, you know, hey, we solved drought,
I think in the US, within the non liberal tiers,
that Project twenty twenty five, it still sets him on edge.
I think this is the cast test that really just
(02:05):
freaks him out. But you know, it's about us taking
our government back. It's about citizen This is citizen led
democracy and we are We published the source code to
the deep state and we told them how to fight.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And that reason we wanted you in here is because
now we're going from the heavy duty, big thinking think
tanks to actually hitting the road in South Carolina. And
I know you enjoy being in Charleston now and you're
running against Lindsey Graham, so let's talk about your Senate campaign.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well, that's right. He is the head of the swamp
in the way you know that. I am a lawyer
by training. I went to MIT to back up, you know,
and went to Virginia Law school. Married to Carolina girl.
That's how I get to Carolina. Best in the world.
Probably another thing Lindsay and I disagree on. But you know,
(02:58):
I've dedicated my last it's basically twelve years towards making
sure we can take back this federal government. For the
assistance and getting behind Trump was the number one.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Way to do that.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I and now, yeah, confronting what I think is the
real threat to our liberty, our Rhino senators. These are
the folks who really do play on the other side,
their controlled opposition, and the fact that we have a
person like Lindsey Graham thirty two years up in Washington.
You know, he went there it was seven trillion dollars
(03:32):
in debt, now's thirty seven trillion. This guy wants to
bomb a new country every week, you know, driving up
to the studio all I saw were people waiting in traffic,
you know, Somerville, the lines backing up six thirty in
the morning to drive into Charleston, and same up here
in Columbia. It's like you neglect the state because you're
halfway around the world fighting for a border between Ukraine
(03:55):
and Russia. Let's think about America for a change.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
We're talking with Paul Dan's and you're find yourself in
a very interesting predicament because you are very pro Trump.
You were telling me earlier you have been like a
pro Trump guy since twenty twelve, even before the twenty
sixteen campaign. And yet Trump seems to be the guy saying, hey, Lindsey,
Lindsay's a great guy. He helps us when we need him,
(04:19):
helps us with the left. So I mean, how do
you work this out? How do you get the Trump
voter to leave Lindsey Graham, who Trump is saying he
helps us, and come along with you.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, I mean, remember Trump endorsed Mitch McConnell, right, so
we have to start at that thing. He's not perfect.
God's the only one who's perfect, Jesus. So you know,
to be fair to President Trump, he endorsed Lindsey back
in February. I joined this race in August. But look,
that Lindsay case makes itself. I think over time the
(04:53):
president is realizing that Lindsey he you know, I'm the
architect of Project twenty twenty five, and Lindsey he was
actually the architect of the Russia hoax. He was a
guy who actually, you know, he was so vehemently anti Trump.
Famously did not vote for Donald Trump in sixteen. He
voted for this, you know, the CIA guy, Evan McMullen.
(05:15):
That's how that's our senator from South Carolina. So to
have him now latching his wagon to President Trump is
you know, disingenuous. This is the typical Lindsay show. You know,
a year before reelection, all of a sudden he turns Trump,
only to go off off the reservation, you know, right
after election. So the case is going to be made.
(05:38):
I'm going to prosecute this, you know, I like I say.
I started with President Trump back in the day, hoping
he would run for president and take care of that
second term of Obama. That's where most of the real
damage to the Union got done in those four years
from twelve to sixteen. President Trump got in there. I
(06:00):
worked in Pennsylvania again elected, you know, as a volunteer
attorney in the war room at the same time where
he had Lindsay running around here saying, you know, he
can go to hell if you want to make America
great again, and all the various invective. But the point
was that Trump didn't have a team ready to roll.
And as much as we got done, I ultimately got
(06:21):
in the Trump administration. I was a standout there and
that's why the Heritage Foundation recruited me to develop Project
twenty twenty five. We have to make the case of
President Trump that look, you only have two more years.
This is about the future of this country, the future
of this movement. We have to pass the torch to
the next generation MAGA fighter, and that's who I've proven
(06:43):
to be. I've been in the trenches for the last
twelve years, and you know, if you like what President
Trump's been doing in the second term, that's how I
just spent the last three years working seventy hour weeks
to block and tackle and make sure this policy and
personnel is ready to roll.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
You know, this statement may seem a little insensitive for
persons who if you were, say a child taken hostage
during the Ukrainian War by Putin or Israeli family member
was taken hostage by Abas. And it's also insulting for
the rest of us who had to pay for all
the crap that rolled out of the dam Biden administration.
(07:21):
But if you look back on it, it seems like
the fact that that election was stolen ended up being
a blessing and that Donald Trump, apparently I was looking
in and you tell me, learned a lot about how
the government runs. So he had four years to school
up and start choosing people as he made his re
entry into the Oval office. How much of that do
(07:42):
you think actually played into the availability of him to
move the needle so much that he has since he
got into office this time.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Well, number one, I would say my platform is God, Family, Country,
and I do believe that there's a grand plan for
us from the Almighty. I think that Trump was spared
his life. I do believe the Lord works in mysterious ways.
And you're right, you know, this four year kind of intermission,
if you will, helped focus the president. Now people like
(08:13):
Lindsey remember he was through with Donald Trump in January
twenty twenty one. This is the guy who wanted to
shoot the J six protesters in the head. He didn't
see Donald Trump coming back. He actually wanted to put
the nails in the coffin, and that's where he went
to work for Biden. But you know, when election time
came up in twenty you know, he started seeing the
(08:35):
rise of Donald Trump in twenty twenty three and tried
to hitch onto that wagon. I think that ultimately President
Trump has learned from the first term. But this is
what Project twenty twenty five did. The number of us
got together and we said the reason why we're having
such difficulty. And remember I was slogging it out with
(08:55):
the true believers in the admin in nineteen and twenty
when the Democrats were in Congress. They were breathing down
our neck, you know. And the president only gets a
point four thousand people. There's two point two million federal workers.
That's one to five hundred. If you don't even fill
the four thousand, and then you fill them with, say
twenty five hundred, and half of those people might be
(09:18):
McCain people or Bush people who are actually against Trump,
you're not going to get anything done. So we said
number one, mister President personnelist policy. You have to get
fighters in there. They have to be aligned, they have
to be able to be technically capable to do this
work because it requires, you know, top notch legal expertise.
(09:40):
So that's what we did. We came together as a group.
I was recruited to go the Heritage Foundation, which is
really the mothership, if you will, of the conservative movement.
And I stood up a one hundred and ten member
coalition of all the federal rather all the conservative organizations,
(10:02):
and said, guys, we agree about seventy percent of the things.
Let's stop fighting one one another. Let's get on the
same page. Let's put this in a book where it
can serve as a reference manual for the next president.
But let's go further. Let's build a database. This recruit
twenty thousand people from across the United States who are
going to drain the swamp. The swamp isn't going to
(10:24):
drain itself. It's people like the listeners here who are
willing to serve, drop their tools and go off to
Washington and apply it and then come back home, not
live thirty two years like Lindsey Graham. It's like you
go there, you do your service. And you come back
to your life. And three we had to teach them
online training. We had to develop a school because look,
(10:47):
the bureaucrats know the drill, and you walk into an agency,
you're going to get your hat handed to you very quickly.
You got to know what's going on there. And for finally,
we needed to write one hundred and eighty day plans,
and that's what you see in process right now. I
recruited Russ Vote, who is now the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget, and I said, you know, Russ,
(11:09):
these are what we need. We need agency plans. So
you can walk in like a pilot does when he
enters a plane or she and starts flicking buttons. That's
what you have to do. One hundred and eighty days, clip, clip, clip,
So we were able to come wave after wave after
wave and just knock the libs down. And that's what
you saw rolling out in February March April. It's like
(11:31):
Christmas morning every day. But now you know I always
envisioned Project twenty twenty five is D day. Now the
slog begins. We are still marching, and that's where the
president you really have to look at personnel and so
I agree with you. Ultimately, it was a blessing in disguise.
President Trump learned the hard way. He knows who the
(11:54):
enemies are. And you know, I think she's going to
realize in time that Lyn Graham has actually been working
against him the whole time. He started out frontally assaulting him,
but when he couldn't do that, he made nice with
him and then whispers in his ear all this neo
con business, all this spending, and basically pulls the president
(12:16):
towards the establishment track.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Paul Dan's are you good at golf?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You know, I'm good at being a dad met in
the course.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
The course.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I was a lacrosse player in college, the All American athlete.
I was an ocean lifeguard swimming, and I do have
a facility for golf. It's one of the things I
didn't grow up on the country club, though I was saying,
I'm a pure blooded deplorable. My family comes from probably
working at the country club more than being a member
(12:50):
of what.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I just wanted to follow that up with, because it
seems like the relationship with Trump is very important, and
what you architected with the project twenty twenty five and
what you've been demonstrating. Here is a you're highly intelligent,
mit grad lawyer from University of Virginia, all those types
of things. Someone who's devoted to the conservative movement. We've
had speaking of the Heritage Foundation. We've had Jim DeMint On,
he's a regular on this show. Jim demnt left the
(13:13):
Senate specifically because he felt like he could be more
used to the conservative movement outside of the Senate.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And he has been.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
He's been incredible, But you feel like you want to
be inside.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
What why?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I got four kids. I'm not gonna sit here on
the sidelines and put this man back into Washington. He
is an existential threat. And when I say this man
Lindsey Graham for a fifth term, this is this is
you know, I'm a problem solver. I helped bring this
together to get President Trump under way. But I'm moving
to where the puck is going, and that's the United
(13:50):
States Senate. That's ultimately the logjam. H you know, it's
a club up there, and it's a Uni party club,
and that's what we have to deconstruct. So look, the
one thing, maybe I'm a little hard headed, but I'm
fearless and I don't bend. And that's why I distinguished
myself in that first term as an appointee. I just
(14:11):
kind of came in and, you know, went at it.
Didn't ask what I had to do, just kind of
intuitively said, you know, hey, we won the election, let's
start governing like it. What do you mean that career
is in that place, you know, move them out, put
in an appointee who was aligned with us. And that's
(14:31):
why I'm moving to the US Senate. The Lindsay sat there,
why all these problems came to be? You know, it's
not just that infrastructure falling a part in South Carolina.
It's that, you know, thirty trillion dollars, our kids can't
even afford the American dream anymore. They can't own a house.
The first first time home buyer average age is thirty
(14:53):
eight years old. How are you supposed to have equity
interest in this country a piece of the rock when
you know, you know that you can barely make the
monthly nut for your apartment rent. And that's what he
brought us.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
As if it were possible.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
For a guy who sits behind a microphone, I'm not
certainly not saying anything behind Lindsay Graham's back here said
it to his face that he has like a fifty
to fifty love hate relationship with the conservative voters in
the state of South Carolina.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It's like a teeter totter and it seems.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
To constantly evolve around a twenty four hour news cycle.
So with that in mind, let me ask you a
question about something going on in the news right now,
because Lindsay Graham says that the government will be able
to reopen, but it won't be the leadership, It'll be the.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
Rank and file that bring it together.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Now, I don't know if both parties or the Republicans
are going to be on a democratic He doesn't go
on to say that in particular, which is a little
bit mysterious about it. But what is going to happen?
How is this going to play out? Because we keep
hearing the Democrats are telling you, I think that they're
going to hold out forever. They've already told you this
could go past November. So how does this play out
(15:58):
in your estimation with opening the government?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Well, Lindsey, you know, fifty to fifty. He actually scores
an f from the Heritage Foundation as a conservative. If
you look Ultimately, how this guy performs and you know,
every major issue he actually works against us. Certainly he
is always in front of the cameras, and you have
to remember a lot of this is pantomime. You know,
some people on our side aren't really on our side.
(16:26):
So he'll go out there and basically feed a narrative
that is ultimately going to help the left. I think, look,
the Democrats are in disarray. We knock them off their block.
They don't have an issue. This is how they're going
into the midterms. They're going to try to make shut
down the issue. So you're right there. They don't have
(16:46):
any intention. They're out, you know, have him wine in
Napa Valley right now and sun tanning. Ultimately, it will
as things break down, the media will find the one
thing that isn't going right, the trashes that were flowing
at the National Monument or some silliness like that. But
(17:07):
the exercise, ultimately, I think is a good one for
the administration to hold the line on. You ask yourself, well,
is it really a government shutdown. It's not. It's a
government slowdown. Government never shuts down. Now, we're just doing
what a government, the essential things have to do. So
(17:27):
you should ask yourself this thought experiment is like, well,
why do we do all the other stuff? Why don't
we just peel it back to the essential part of
government and then add back the few things that we
can mutually agree have to get done. So I think
the actual process itself is very important for us. We
are at one hundred year reconstruction of this union on
(17:51):
a constitutional footing. We have shut the door with Project
twenty twenty five and Trump on the progressive era, but
they have left so much damage that you know, you
do have to take a hunk out of this thing.
So as RUSS you know, furloughs federal workers. I think
a lot of these programs they're giving us the tools
(18:12):
to say, hey, you know, Congress didn't get his act
together to pass the money, therefore we can't do it.
Get rid of it. Ultimately, I do think it would
probably run another month is if I were betting. But
you know, the president certainly has a lot on his plate,
and national defense and the troops are paramount. That's our
(18:36):
major reason, national security. But I don't think that that
gets jeopardized by this shutdown.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
The biggest vote that sticks out of my mind from
Lindsey Graham in the recent past would be back in
Was it twenty two when he voted with Biden's people
on the one and a half trillion dollar omnibus bill.
I don't remember if his really had that much of
an effect on that, If that's what helped it over
(19:03):
the line or whatever. I thought it was a stupid
plan when it was proposed. Are there other items that
you can recall recently, like or does he change his
vote when Trump is back in power as opposed to
when Trump is not in power.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No, he's actually pretty consistently bad, and he's actually obviously
worse when the Democrats are there. Look, he was the
number one helper to Joe Biden to put those terrible
judges in place, the judge Diana I've you know, the
Maryland judge, the district court who just let the attempted
assassin of Justice Kavanaugh walk with a seven year sentence
(19:42):
instead of the thirty that was thanks to our own
Senator Lindsay Graham. He showed up and voted present in
committee that caused her to be able to go on
the floor and get voted into office. So he has
done that with many of these district Court judges, the
very ones that have been doing the nationwide injunctions. He
obviously voted for all three Obama Supreme Court picks. In fact,
(20:07):
you know the famous justice who doesn't know what a
woman is, Justice Jackson. That's thanks to Lindsay himself. He
was the one who put her on the DC's circuit,
which is kind of the bullpen for the Supreme Court.
So I'm not sure he has much more of a
conception of what a woman is either.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Oh goodness, you know the age old adage, the fear
of loss is greater than the opportunity of gain. For
here in South Carolina, with our number of military bases,
some people would argue that John Thurman state in office
until he died because of his support of the military
and his availability of making sure Fort Jackson stayed open
and we got Fort or shoreff Force Base everything they needed.
(20:50):
Lindsey Graham is very much in that same kind of mold.
What do you say to people who say, well, if
we lose the seniority of Lindsey Graham with our we
might lose four Jackson, We might we might suffer a
loss at Show Air Force Bace.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
This state has two hundred and fifty years of being
the first to fight. This is the people who live
here that will never change. Uh. Look, nobody has a
birthright to a citizen, to a Senate seat. And the
over those thirty two years, he's hurt our military by
constantly putting him into conflicts where we break things, we
(21:26):
break people in the military. Look, there's like forty one
military suicides a day. Now. Like to go and fight
all these wars that aren't in our national interest. You're
asking the best among us, our soldiers and their families
to sacrifice, to make the ultimate sacrifice for you know,
a cause that actually isn't worth dying for. Let these
(21:48):
folks actually fight for America when it counts. And that
means having the prudence to say, no, we're not gonna
we're not gonna go off and fight this other country's battles.
But he is, you know, he's flip flopped on everything.
The one thing he's consistent on is escalation. He always
wants to bomb. And even this last Sunday, you know,
(22:11):
when the peace deal was falling apart or wasn't getting signed,
he was like mister President and Hamas had indicated they
would go along. He's like, let's just start bombing. Well,
twenty lives hostage lives were spared because the president rejected
what this mad man was saying in his ear. But
I will be a champion of the military. I'm there
(22:34):
for the vets. My dad was a Vietnam Vet. My
uncles all you know, they dropped behind enemy lines in
World War Two. They stormed the beaches in D Day.
They were actually French immigrants, so that was their first language.
My grandfather was a merchant marine in the Mermansk Run
(22:54):
that was the most perilous in World War Two. He
was in the engine room, marine engineer there. So we
talked about the highest casualty rate I come from. I
stand on the shoulder of giants basically, and the military.
These are the folks in my blood and I'm going
to fight for them. But fighting for them does not
just mean sending them off to war at every junction.
(23:16):
It means supporting their families, getting them living wages, getting
better conditions on post, and ultimately, you know, making sure
that they are the war fighter we need. That's why
they're there to fight, and we can't get in their way.
We have to let these strong men at night protect
US and women and Lindsey, you know, is the opposite
(23:39):
of that.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Talking with Paul Dan's running for Senate here in South
Carolina versus Lindsay Graham, at least in the Republican primary.
You're the architect self proclaimed is and I've guess been
reassured by other people that you are the guy behind
Project twenty twenty five. During the campaign, Trump kind of
disavowed knowledge of Project twenty twenty five. Do you think
(24:03):
he actually had read Project twenty twenty five and was
just disavowing it because the Liberals were making it such
a hot topic, or do you think that it really
just kind of aligned with what he already naturally believed
so he didn't need to read it.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Well, no, I you know, obviously I stood up Project
twenty twenty five, was recruited there to the Heritage Foundation,
and conceived the whole thing. Like I said, there's some
difference of opinion whether I did that at my kitchen
counter in Fort Mill or at our new house down
there in Charleston. But historians one day will like kind
of plack up in one of the two places. But look, yeah,
(24:36):
it was it was based because a number of US
knew exactly that President Trump needs to win. He's focused
on winning the man, that's why he is who he is.
And part of that was he wasn't going to be
thinking about transition. That was that was a November sixth proposition.
So that's why we came together and do this. But
(24:56):
to be sure, look, we looped in in all the
people below. Trump knew everything about it. Looked the first
six copies of the book went to the Trump campaign,
So you know, when he knocked it, I think it
was you look, it was a political decision, but really
engineered by the people on one side of his ear.
(25:18):
Who are you know, campaigners. You know, ultimately you have
to remember there's a team of rivals, so this is
kind of a rivalry, and we got knocked and they
ultimately took Project twenty twenty five ideas and then took
the jobs themselves. So it's kind of you know, whenever
thing's happened in politics, you asked yourself the question is
(25:40):
a Latin one, I learned, and not fancy Latin guy,
but it was a que bono who benefits? And you say, like,
who actually benefited from Project twenty twenty five being cast
aside and obviously, then you can work backwards to how
it happened. You know, nobody could ever accuse Howard right,
he was the the co chair of transition plan, of
(26:06):
actually coming up with the plan for the transition.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
He was famously one of Hillary Clinton's biggest backers and
you know, famously the next door neighbor of no other
than Epstein's. So yes, he did not put out a
nine hundred page book about how to give the vets
the people you know who were forced to take the
jab or leave the service. We said, put back pay,
(26:31):
put them back in, reinstate them. We wrote that two
years ago. I mean, our book came out in March
twenty twenty three. You know they're doing this now two
years later. So it was a political calculation. But you know,
part of it also is in Washington, there's a saying
from Ron Reagan that if there's no limit to what
(26:52):
you can accomplish, if you don't want to take credit
for it, and that's you know, the servant leadership aspect
of Project twenty twenty five. We were gonna do the
homework for them and kind of lay it out in
the hopes that when they needed it, they'd rip it
off the table and take it and start putting it
in place. And that's exactly what happened. And because I've
been in office there and you know, it's like it's
(27:15):
like social media. You're feeding content, like what's the next
thing we're gonna do, what's the next thing we're gonna do.
And if you don't have a plan to actually pull
off the shelf and look at you know, you're gonna
be sitting around gazing at your navel or spending the
next six months saying what is our agenda? So we said, look,
let's do this over this four year interregnum and say
(27:36):
let's be ready to roll day one. And we copied
the Democrats, we copied the Libs. And that's what also
blew their mind. They're like, all we did was knock
you guys off. You're planning twenty four to seven when
you're out of power, what you're going to do next.
And all of a sudden, we finally got the Conservatives
to stop knifing one another and get on the same page.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well, plainly, as you describe, you're going from one out
of the coin to the other, because you're going to
go from behind the scenes in DC now you're going
to be out in front running for office in South Carolina.
Are we going to see you on a campaign? Are
we already hearing about a debate schedule being set up?
How you think you're being received? How can South Carolinians
find out more about you where you're gonna be because
they want to hear you speak. How do you feel
(28:20):
about your campaign thus far?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Absolutely excited to be moving around the state meeting people.
I'll say, Paul Dans dot com, Paul Dance dot com,
you can go learn about our campaign. Support us. We
don't have twenty million dollars of kind of deep state
blood money pouring into our coffers. I didn't pass out
billions of dollars to Crony's to get kickbacks. But we
(28:44):
do have patriots all over the country lining up behind
us as well. This is Lindsay's not just a South
Carolina problems. He's an America problem. And all the folks
who think like us across the Union are praying for
the good people of South Carolina to stand up and
get this guy out. So you know, we've had great results.
We've only been at this for two months now. We
(29:06):
had polling in that we shot up thirteen points. Lindsey
is well below fifty percent, which would drive a runoff.
I'm second. I'm at twenty two percent, and you know,
mister Lynch has fallen from ten to four percent. So
this is going to be the main event in twenty
twenty six. It's actually I've described it as a steel
(29:26):
cage match for the future of America. First, you know,
someone who's actually fired bureaucrats, a swamp drainer like myself,
who went in there only a true believer in Washington, outsider,
and got the present marching in the right direction, versus
the guy who's been there thirty two years, who's actually
created these problems with his endless wars, with his endless spending,
(29:48):
you know, with the failure to ever get accountability. He
never got the answers for us on j six never
got the answers for us on twenty twenty, never got
the answers for us on twenty sixteen. He'll never get
you the answers. He will just run interference for the machine.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Paul Dan's you are a MIT grad and an attorney.
I'm sure you're very well versed with you know, the
Federalist papers and the Constitution and all of those things.
Are you concerned with any of the president's actions so
far in this administration that he might have overreached and
(30:24):
that somehow this is setting a precedent for future administrations
where they might be hostile to some conservatives, where they
could also overreach and use the president's precedents.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Well, right, I'm a constitutional conservative. I've been at this
for thirty years. I was twice selected the president of
the Federalist Society Chapter University of Virginia School of Law,
which you used to be the citadel for conservative attorneys
in really one of the leading thought areas. Look, the president,
(30:57):
we've suffered through so much constant tution neglect in the
last thirty years that everything he's doing now is reparative.
I do believe you know that it ultimately comes down
to having strong attorneys in place. I'll say this is
the bad news of our conservative movement is we are
just systematically outmanned with the technical attorneys out there. That's
(31:20):
a function of these law schools. They've been churning out
eighty percent liberal attorneys, maybe twenty percent conservative, and most
of the twenty percent conservative believe in God family country
are out there working for their families, and it's tough
to get them to go into government service. So you know,
I do believe they're being pressed to do things. The
(31:43):
immigration thing has to happen like this was because Biden
failed to enforce the law for years. It's not like
we've adopted new laws. We're just now enforcing the ones that.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
We're actually hostile towards the laws and stop Texas and
others from trying to enforce them.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Incredible. I mean, it was like Alice in Wonderland when
you'd be like, our federal government is stopping the state
from repelling an invasion on their border in Texas because
the federal government won't do its very job. And you know,
this is kind of pulling at the seams of this
great compact of ours. But I do salute what they're doing.
(32:23):
I do feel it's not so much what Trump's doing,
but what the DOJ should be doing. And that's more
my worry that we're now nine months in, I'd like
to see some orange jumpsuits, like like, let's get some
guys in leg irons seriously, like if we don't do this,
justice delayed is justice denied? And komy like those are
(32:44):
not great charges against them, because, like what, Lindsey Graham
had the opportunity four years to nail this guy to
the wall, but he did the exact opposite. He never
sent a subpoena. The whole time he was on the
Judiciary Committee, he supported Robert Muller. Lindsay was always threatening
President Trump not to fire Muller. You can't just now
(33:04):
gaslight us and claim that you're going to go after Comy.
Forget it, guy, we know you were actually part of
this rush. I think you were the one, after all,
who told McCain to give the p dossier to the FBI.
You started the whole ball rolling. I'm like centated every
time he opens his trap. I'm like, you have the
right to remain silent, you know, because I you know,
(33:27):
he's a guy who should be on the other side
of the inquiry, not asking the questions but answering them.
But you know, the reality is that we have to
move swiftly with the Justice Department, and part of that
is getting more politicals in place. The FBI still only
has two appointees that should change immediately. There are mechanisms
(33:51):
to put aligned personnel, and there are so many good
law enforcement, people who've done careers of service here in
South Carolina sheriff. I know they're all over this country.
Who could go to Washington, who could shape up the FBI?
And that's what needs to get You have to turn
over bad people. If you let bad people stay in place,
they will kick the can down the road. They'll tell you, oh,
(34:14):
you know, we were always on your side. We just
were too timid to say anything. And time will run out.
This is a play clock. Time is running off the clock.
And when I went to work there in Washington, I'd
always come home and I'd say few that's another day.
They didn't fire me because I'm going full till every day.
(34:34):
When you walk into the office, you feel the weight
of the good people behind you. You have this awesome responsibility.
If you're not doing something moving forward, you're letting the
people down. And that's why I'm asking for people's votes.
I'm saying, give me a shot at this. I come
to work for you, not for some Ukrainian dictator, not
(34:56):
for some foreign country on Middle East. I am here
to work for the people of South Carolina. And and
you're my boss, and you'll if you ever boo me
for six minutes in my hometown and you turn your
back on me, I'll get the picture. You know, I'm
not going to ask you for another six years. I'm
actually going to change what I was doing, or say,
(35:16):
you know, maybe next man up, maybe I can't do
this thing. But no one has a right to that
Senate seat. We need it back. We need to rip
it away from the deep state, because that's who owns
it right now, is a deep state Senate seat, and
I want to return it to the people of South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I know we could be hard pressing you for your time,
and we have a lot of questions. Now I'm happy
you may want to be like Katie Porter and just
put a lid on it right now and walk out
the door.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I don't know, but no, no, I'm an open book.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
You help me.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
One of the things that seemingly is true, and it's
going to be true again. It looks like with you
kicking up the dust around here, is that there. South
Carolina always finds itself in the midst of a national
conversation when we get into an election season, and Chuck
Todd said it well years ago. He said, if I
were a young reporter looking to make my name in politics.
I would immediately move to South Carolina because there's always
(36:04):
something going on, and I believe you're about to start
a firestorm you already have with the Lindsey Graham campaign
and Republicans. But what happens if you start and you
gain the kind of attraction that you think you're going
to gain. The Democrat Party is just chomping at the
bit to try to find somebody to take Lindsey Graham's seat,
and you know there'll be a ton of California New
(36:25):
York money coming in if they can find a candidate.
Do you have thoughts on who that candidate might be
and do you already have your plan laid out on
how you're going to attack them?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Well, I think Lindsey Graham is a candidate that it
actually helps the Democrats raise money. That's the very threat
of Lindsey Graham is the reason why. And you know
he's the weaker a candidate between he and I. But
there's no question that a Republican would carry the state.
The reality is that we are Godfamily country. We essentially
(36:57):
have a liberal Democrat in place in Lindsey Graham because
he throws the R after his name, and he hitches
himself to Trump for one one year every six and
then after that he goes and puts the Biden judges
in place, and he votes for the big spending, the
one point five trillion, and he basically marches off to
commit our troops and our money at every place. So
(37:20):
we're not even getting a Republican. Let's not kid ourselves.
But that's the disconnect. That's why this government is so broken.
And that's what I set out to fix with the
executive branch in Project twenty twenty five. And now I'm
moving the Article one, you know, the Congress, and this
can be done, folks. This is this is it just
(37:40):
matters to get out and vote and vote, you know,
for change this. I am the next generation. We need
somebody who actually has a stake in this in this state.
I have four kids, eleven, nine, seven, and four. I
you know, I deal with sick kids. In the middle
of the night, I talked to him about their schooling.
(38:01):
We you know, I was k through twelve public schools.
My mom was a public school teacher. My mother in
law is a public school teacher. I'm so upset that
the thing is broken, and you know, I want to
address these problems. But if you never had these life
experiences as Lindsey Graham. You know, he lives up in
the townhouse in Washington, d c. Young men flitting about
(38:22):
all hours of the night. He does not know what
it's like to get a five thousand dollars hospital bill
out of the blue and deal with you know, illegals
in the in the emergency room. I mean, like, let's
get real. Why don't you go sit in traffic in
Summerville for an hour at seven in the morning to
(38:42):
get to your job when for thirty years you didn't
bring National Highway money here to build a third lane.
You know, like we're at the third like drive the
ninety five. Guess what the crappiest portion is. You know
it starts at south of the border and runs down
to Blufton. It's like, how we aren't even matching up
(39:03):
with the fellow states. This is it's dangerous out there.
Our secondary roads are the worst in the country. And
you know that is you know, thirty years behind. Well,
guess who's been thirty years somewhere Lindsay in Washington, make
a change. You know the definition of insanity is repeating
things and thinking it's going to be different. It is
(39:23):
time for a change.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
All right.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
I guess we have to wrap things up now. Paul
Dan's what is it again, Paul dance dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Call dance dot com da NS And you know we're
going to be up in Clemson tonight. If y'all have
you know kids or family up there, We're going to
be talking to the Clemson Republicans. Well that's this Tuesday,
and I don't know when this is going to broadcast,
but yeah, we will be all over the state. We
were in Florence two nights ago, moving them around Greenville
(39:52):
and obviously up in Fort Mill as well.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
I just started following the exit Dans for Senate Dan's
for cent Is that for all social media or that's.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
For that's on Instagram. We are also on truth social
I believe and we are now standing up with TikTok. Oh. Hey,
look this is for faith believers and for the kids
really thirty five and under. This is their country. They're
the ones inheriting this mess. Lindsey has spent their inheritance
(40:27):
and now they are going to have to tackle this
and we're going to help them dig out. This campaign
is for for that next generation because I am I
lived American dream. My family came here with nothing. They
fought the nation's wars, they worked in the factories, they
built this managed to get me mit and I'm going
(40:47):
to leave it better than I found it. And that's
what I think we all have to do. So get
behind our campaign Paul Dance dot com and we are
going to be with the USC College Republicans on Monday,
October twenty seventh, So that's gonna be on five point
thirty out at the USC but love to meet with people.
(41:12):
Will be putting up more of our events online on
our website too.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Thank you, Paul.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
I have a feeling we'll be seeing you again, I
hope
Speaker 1 (41:18):
So absolutely thank you for having me
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