April 25, 2024 • 42 mins
Part 1 of Open Minds with Ryan Newman covers how his upbringing in the American southwest and his less conventional career, including military service, as well as judicial clerkships, and service in both state and federal government, shaped his life and thought. What does it mean to fight for what you believe in? What grounds our rights, and are there limits to those rights? How do political leaders balance our competing interests in national crises?
Featuring:
Ryan Newman, General Counsel, Executive Office of the Governor, State of Florida
Alida Kass, Vice President & Director, Strategic Initiatives and Freedom of Thought Project, The Federalist Society
Featuring:
Ryan Newman, General Counsel, Executive Office of the Governor, State of Florida
Alida Kass, Vice President & Director, Strategic Initiatives and Freedom of Thought Project, The Federalist Society
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Open Minds, a freedom of thought podcast series
interviewing the people who bring courage and independent thought to
the challenges of today. Hello, Ryan Newman, Welcome to the Freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Of Thought Podcast. Great to be here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So your early life. You were born in New Mexico,
grew up in New Mexico College at West Point. That's
five years of service in the army and then the
kind of of very successful career that some in the
(00:45):
conservative legal movement are sort of privileged to have, right,
very distinguished career of series of clerkships, including Justice Alito
Jones Day, some Capitol Hill, served in the Trump administration,
including Office of Legal Policy and now General Counsel to
(01:06):
Governor DeSantis.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
If you know, it's desperate to get me to figure
out what I want to do for a living.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Serving of the thanks of a grateful nation don't necessarily
sort of right, right, yeah, yeah, gainful employment is nice too,
But especially in your current role, you've really been involved
in some of the most interesting policy work involving freedom
(01:37):
of thought in the country, and I think changed the
conversation on the role of the state in preserving freedom
and preserving freedom of thought and conscience speech. So just
to back up a bit, I am very interested in
(01:58):
the connection between your life and thought. So, like I say,
some aspects of your career are very typical for kind
of high success conservative legal movement. I'm not sure. I
think you're the first freedom of Thought podcast Injurviewee to
have gone to West Point and served in the military.
(02:19):
So how did that happen growing up? What did you
want to do? Was that part of the culture in
your in your family?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, actually not at all. In fact, we don't really
have a history of service in my family. And I guess,
you know, this is a freedom of thought podcast. Most
people don't think of the military as a place where
freedom of thought, you know, flourishes. Obviously, it's a very
regimented lifestyle. I had always wanted to go though, into
(02:48):
the army, ever since I was little. Just had a
really strong and passionate sense of patriotism and felt that,
you know, military service was the highest form of patriotism
and service to your to your country, and so I
just always had a really strong urge to do that.
(03:08):
And you know, like any young boy, I was really
into army things, and I think my parents thought that
I will that it was just a stage, you know,
a boyhood stage that would quickly pass. The next thing.
They knew they were dropping me off at West Point.
But at some level though, I grew up in the West,
(03:29):
you know, and so when people think of the West,
they think of freedom, you know, and a resilience. You
think of the you know, in southeast New Mexico, which
is where I'm from, is oil and gas country, you know,
so people are really independent spirited out there, and the
oil business has always been kind of known for, you know,
(03:51):
its booms and its busts, and you know, being independent minded,
independent spirited, not needing any to get ahead, you know,
just work hard and tank your lumps when they come,
but not looking for any handouts. You know. That's the
kind of mentality I think that prevailed at least where
I grew up in Southeast New Mexico. And I certainly
(04:14):
the values my parents raised me with. So that also,
I think gives me a bit of a contrarian nature too.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I don't like kind of buck at you know, oppressive
ideologies or you know, just buck at the notion that
you know, these these are the way that things have
to be, or that you have to think. So there
is a bit of a dichotomy there because on one hand, yeah,
I spent a lot of my life in the military,
(04:42):
not exactly a place known for its freedom in that sense.
But then I also come from a part of the
country though that I think values that the independent minded spirit,
and I think that's kind of what has brought me
to where I'm at, kind of in the in the
political world.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Were your parents. Are your parents politically independent? Did they
instill let or encourage that kind of contrary?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Not overtly. I mean, they're very religious, So I grew
up in a a in a very Christian background, and
so my parents were always, you know, conservative, and how
they lived their life that.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Has a bit of a of a of a countercultural
these days.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It certainly does, absolutely although it really didn't seem like
it in the world where I grew up. Certainly, you know,
relative to the country at large, that is, that is
absolutely true. But it's not as though we've talked about
politics growing up. We really didn't. But I do have
distinct memories of having a very politically conservative worldview growing up,
(05:54):
and I'd remember, you know, I was in high school
in nineteen ninety two, Bill Clinton was elected, and I
was just so disgusted at the thought that our country
would ever lacked a draft dodger to be president of
the United States. And I was just disgusted by that.
But at the time, I was I was more focused
(06:15):
on military things than politics at the time, although yeah,
I had some interest.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Did was Was west Point sort of what you expected
it to be? I I hear, it's a it's a
it's a bit of a tough a tough slog.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I mean it was. It was good for me
because it forced me to, you know, transcend what I
thought I was capable of in a lot of ways.
And I kind of needed, uh, I kind of needed that,
and so it was a great builder of character for me.
The interesting thing is when I went to West Point,
I thought that I was going to make the military career,
(06:56):
you know, and I was thinking I wanted to be
a general, you know, I wanted were stars and all
this sort of thing. That's kind of the mindset I
had going in to West Point. But one thing that's
interesting about the West Point curriculum is it's very broad
It's very broad based, and students don't get a lot
of discretion and the courses they take, especially for the
(07:18):
first two years, it is a set curriculum and you
take you know, philosophy, political science, American history, chemistry, physics,
and so forth. But one of the required courses at
West Point is also the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
which wouldn't be a surprise, but also constitutional law. And
so I took a constitutional law class at the academy
(07:43):
that's required for all cadets, and that was my real
first exposure. Because I'm not from a family of lawyers either.
That was my first real exposure to law, and I
loved it. I just thought it was so fascinating, you know, explored,
you know, the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, you know all.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It was my first real exposure to all of that,
and that really planted the seed in my mind about
going to law school one day and probably actually setting
me on a course to leaving the military all together,
which was not my plan going in. But once I
was exposed to that class, political science, politics, that sort
(08:27):
of thing, I kind of got a bug that I
think would eventually draw me away from the military and
into a more of a legal political world. What did
your parents do so my dad was was a realtor,
and my mom was a school teacher, although for much
of my growing up years she was, you know, stay
(08:48):
at home mom. She didn't go into the classroom until
until much until much later.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And so then when you left West Point and we're
just serving in the army. When you left West Point,
did you have the idea at that time that you
might find your way to law school? I did. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
By the time I left West Point, I was thinking, look,
I'll do my five meet my five year obligation and
then and then think about, well, not just think about,
but go into go to law school. Now, a lot
of a lot of junior officers who do end up
getting an interest or developing an interest in a law
(09:28):
will do what they call the funded Law Education program,
which is a program that allows you to branch transfer
away from whatever branch or the army you're in and
become a JAG officer, and of course the military will
pay for your schooling, but then you obviously owe the army. However,
many years I didn't really have interest in doing that
(09:50):
because I wanted more career flexibility, and you know, to
be frank about it, I just kind of like politics
and and I wanted to get you know, fight for
the things that I believed in politically, and that's just
not something that you can do the military. Military is
a political place, it's not really it's not really a
(10:11):
place for partisans. And I just had a sense that,
you know, I wanted to I wanted to pursue that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So what would you say would you have said at
that time, what would it mean to fight for the
things that you believed in? At least I mean, because
that may have evolved over time, but when you were
heading to law school, what did you think that that meant?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, I mean the standard conservative I think view of
the world. I've always been culturally conservative, so on social issues,
I've always been a staunch, staunch conservative, pro life, wanting
a more conservative culture, pro family, you know, all those
sorts of things. And you know, at the time, especially
(10:55):
when I was a junior, junior officer in the army,
I'd go out to the field, you know, faithfully read
my National Review, you know, when I had some talent.
So I was very much a you know, a conservative
in that vein, you know, socially conservative, uh, you know,
economically pro free markets, you know, pro pro free enterprise.
(11:17):
You know, let's little down the government size return, you know,
power back to the states, you know, those sort of
standard conservative views.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
And then so then after law school you had a
series of clerkships, including Justine Faliedo. So what was that?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
What was that like? Any Well, that was an incredible honor, obviously,
and to this day, I don't I feel like I'm
I was a I don't know, an army affirmative action
pick or something. I feel like I never really felt
like I deserved it, but I was fortunate, nonetheless to
have that great opportunity. And of course, you know, I
(11:58):
think he is a model judge. And between him and
Justice Thomas, you know, those are the justices that everybody,
you know, everybody who considers themselves to be uh durst
prudentially conservative, you know, should be looking to. In my
mind that that is the standard. Those two individuals are
(12:23):
the standard.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Is there were there any ideas or or sort of
clarifying concepts experiences that you had there that you well.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
One thing that that struck me about some of his
decisions when I when I first clerked, you know, this
was a couple of years after Snyder versus Phelps and
the Stevens case where Justice Alito was kind of by
himself on some of these First Amendment questions explain what
those and well, Snyder versus Phelps was, you know about
(12:56):
the was whether or not a toward action could be
brought against I can't remember the name of the organization,
is an organization that would protest service members funerals, and
so the question is whether whether or not the torque
could be brought against them for their speech activities causing
(13:19):
obviously great emotional distress to the families. And the court
ultimately held didn't know those activities were protected, and Justice
Alito disagreed and thought that, you know, the plane off
should at least be able to bring their their torque claim.
But I think it just revealed, you know, that he
had a more restrained and nuanced view of the scope
(13:42):
of the First Amendment than really all of his other colleagues.
I did same thing with Steven Stevens. Is about a
federal law that prohibited these crush videos. You know, I
guess people will make videos of crushing the it's the
terrible heads of the little kittens animals, and and you
(14:03):
know he would have upheld that law and not struck
it down. The rest of the court. I wanted to
strike it down, so I do I to me, that
really appealed to me because while well, I obviously believe
in the First Amendment, I do believe there are limits
to it, and that there are moral limits uh to it,
(14:27):
and that that's grounded, I think in a proper understanding
of of the free speech clause, right historically grounded, that's right. Yeah,
I mean, well, you know, it's just so Abraham Lincoln
talks about right. There's not you know, you know, have
a right to do it wrong. So if these rights
are grounded in the in the natural law and in
(14:51):
natural rights, then that means there has to be natural
law limits to the rights, because the rights and obligations
come from the same place, the moral law, the natural law.
Right right.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So the difference maybe between having the scope of of
of of the protection as having sort of substantive moral
content and limits as opposed.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
To the sort of the more abstract absolutely and look,
you can find a lot of this, of course by
doing historical analysis, because I think this is the way
our framers thought. But the idea that it's completely free
willing is just not not correct.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
But and I think there's there's some some scholarship done
that's been done more recently John Campbell we've talked about.
But at the time, just as Alito was quite a
bit ahead of the curve, I think so on that
thinking probably and.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
He still might be too far ahead of the curve,
I think relative to do his colleagues. But this is
an area that I think needs, you know, rethinking. I
think we just instinctively want to think that, you know,
the First Amendment this expansive thing, and it is a
very broad thing. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting
(16:10):
it's an arrow ride. It is a meaningful right, but
there are limits and unfortunately, increasingly in our society were
incapable of identifying limits and drawing lines. And I think
it requires just more intellectual and philosophical thought on our
part to figure this out. And that means I think
(16:30):
re engaging with you know, a tradition that has existed
in the past, but I think that we've lost sight of.
So after.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
After your clerkship experiences, you went to Jones.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Day, Yeah, so, I when I graduated from law school,
my first clerkship was with Judge Edmondson who was the
chief judge of the Eleventh Circuit at the time in Atlanta.
I did that, and then I went to jones Day
for a year. I get bouncing between clerkships and Jen's Day,
but yeah, in between clerkships, I went to jones Day
(17:07):
after my eleven Circuit clerkship when jones Day then went
to clerk for Judge Leon, he's the federal district judge
here in the District of Columbia. And then after that
went back to johnes Day for another year. That's actually interesting.
I left d C all together and went to Texas.
DC was kind of grading on me by then, and
(17:29):
my wife and I were itching to get back west.
So I actually we actually left d C, went back
and worked at the jenes Day office in Dallas. But
what's interesting about that is Judge Judge Leon was an
important backer of mine and I told him and and
(17:52):
he you know he was. I wouldn't have even applied
to Justice Alito but for Judge Leon. He's the one
who encouraged me. He's the one that really pushed me
to do this. But I remember telling him, I said, look, Judge,
I'll apply because you're asking me to. Well, my wife
and I are going back to Texas, and I just
(18:13):
remember him kind of shrugging his shouldiers and saying, Okay,
you can go back. And so I went back started
at Jones Day. I was probably on the job for
maybe two months, and got a call to go interview
with the Justice and then and then you know, a
month or two later, I actually had the job, walked
back into the managing partner's office and said, I know
(18:34):
I just got here, but I hope you'll forgive me.
I got a clerkship with Justice. So that brought me
back to Washington, d C. And then I did that
and then went back to genes Day again, but stayed
here in this time, stay here at that time.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, and what kind of work were you doing.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
At jenes Day? So I was in the issues in
appeals practice at least for that that that last round,
and had great experiences there working, you know, doing some
legal work on the Detroit bankruptcy and it's for the big,
the big thing that I did that that year. And
of course I know we have common friend and James Burnham.
We were on the same the same trial team that
(19:14):
defended Governor McDonnell in his public corruption prosecution by the
Partner of Justice, and I don't know, maybe I was
bad luck there because I was on the trial team
he unfortunately lost. We always felt very strongly that he
was legally in as a matter of law, we just
(19:34):
couldn't get the trial judged to see that. But it's
very difficult to kick a criminal case on the front end.
It's very difficult to you know, avail an emotion to
dismiss or something. But our whole case really did boil
down to, you know, a question of law, pure question
of law. But because it's very difficult to get course
(19:55):
to take that up, you know, you got to go
through the whole trial, and of course she did and
was found was found guilty. And then soon after that
I got an opportunity to move on to work for
Senator Cruz while the case was making its way up
through the appellate courts, but lost in the Fourth Circuit,
(20:15):
but ultimately prevailed with the unanimous decision, and the Supreme
Court was fortunate enough to go hear the argument and
Unul Francisco handled that and that was just a wonderful experience,
and it was it was great to you know, see
our position vindicated in the.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
End right, and then I guess at some point you
transitioned into the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So after Jones' Day, I went to work for Sinata
Cruz for two years, and that was it was an
interesting experience because while I was on his Senate staff,
so I was his chief counsel. But it was during
that two year peer then he ran for president, So
this was the twenty This was twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
(21:06):
which was an incredible experience. And of course he's an
incredible boss and a great legal mind in his its
own right. So it was a great honor obviously to
work for him, and it was just an interesting experience
to be on the hill working for him when he
was running for president. It was a you know, interesting time,
especially that first year twenty fifteen. You know, he's gearing
(21:29):
up for his run, not just gearing up, but I
think he announced as early as March of twenty fifteen.
But because there's less you know, time on the campaign trail,
he was still back, you know, on the floor in
the Senate doing staying as a senator for twenty fifteen.
But that put a lot of pressure on us because
(21:51):
he was the subcommittee chair on the Judiciary Committee for
the Oversight Oversight Federal Rights Federal Courts Subcommittee, and so
he put a lot of pressure on us to organize hearings,
do a lot of hearings. So I think we cranked
out more hearings as a subcommittee than any other subcommittee
(22:14):
and the Judiciary Committee that year. We're pretty proud of that.
But it was a hectic time and he would you know,
come in, do his thing, and then move on to
the next event. It was amazing to see him operate.
And then, of course, once we sort of turned into
twenty sixteen, you know, he was out on the campaign
(22:34):
trail a lot, but the business of the you know,
the Committee and the Senate still still moved on. But
that was a great experience. But I did do that
for two years before moving on to the Trump administration,
which is an interesting, Yes, which is an interesting turn
of events and of itself because obviously, you know, Senator
Cruz was an opponent of Donald Trump, and of course
(22:57):
everybody remembers, you know, Senator Cruz's speech at the at
the convention, yep. But what was interesting, but when he
came back and President Trump won, the Senator actually brought
me into his office and said, you know, while he
(23:18):
would like me to stay if I wanted to, he
actually encouraged me to go into the administration, which I
thought was a remarkable thing for him to do, especially
after what he had just been through. Actually, yeah, yeah,
and you know, I think at the time, I think
there was still a lot of questions about you know,
(23:38):
how conservative you know, President Trump would be in office
and that and that sort of thing. But I think
he wanted me to get the experience and to be
a part of the administration and to move the ball forward.
And so yeah, he very much encouraged me to make
the jomp because at that time I was very uncertain
whether that's something I wanted to do. But once he
(24:02):
encouraged me, and once I realized that a lot of
great friends of mine who I trusted and knew or
solid people were going into the administration, I decided to
go as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
It's it's it's an interesting I mean, I think we've
seen it and we saw it after people, you know,
after the administration, and people are leaving to go back
to sort of other forms of employment, right, and it's
it does seem like an interesting challenge where sort of
on the one hand, you have people questioning how conservative
(24:35):
is this is this president, But then on the other hand,
like you will be president for four years and you
know either you know, sort of the question of who
staffs that administration, right is a pretty important one.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, I mean I learned as a lot of people
did some hard political lessons, you know, at the time,
because especially those who are more intellectually minded about and
philosophically minded about things, you know, you want to be
a purist. It was a natural tendency to just you know,
want things to be perfect. And the reality is in
(25:13):
a you know, big, diverse, bustling country like ours, it
just doesn't work that way. It's a massive country, millions
and millions of people think very differently, right, And at
the end of the day, it's a two party system
we have, you know, we have nominees to parties and
you got to pick a side. You know, you've got
to pick a team, and uh, you know who the
(25:36):
winner may may not, you know, be who you would
have preferred, but that's how the system works. And you know,
so you know, you gotta got a duty to go
and help, you know, help your side move them all forward.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Exactly, yeah, And I mean, it was, of course, sort
of even apart from kind of how conservative, not not
a conventional Republican administ station in a lot of ways
by the standards of prior Republican administration.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Not by any not by any stretch. Which is also
a learning point because you know, I mean, the difference
between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, who is the party's nominee,
you know, four years right, massive golf obviously, and you know,
(26:27):
you have the Tea Party movement obviously in twenty ten,
and Senator Cruz rode that movement, you know, into office
basically coming out of nowhere to beat some very powerful
political figures in the in the state of Texas writing
that movement. But I even think to a certain extent,
(26:47):
even even Senator Cruz kind of misread the nature of
the movement. We thought it was a more libertarian kind
of movement, get the government off our backs kind of movement,
and there's certainly an element of that, obviously, the resistance
to Obamacare and everything. But I think what it turned
(27:10):
out to be was a more populist movement than a
libertarian movement. And that's why I think in the end,
you know, Donald Trump was pushing those ideas in ways
that his opponents were not. And I know that Senator
Sessions and the President had a falling out, but you know,
(27:35):
Senator Sessions was the first US senator support and endorse
Donald Trump, and Senator Sessions in the Senate sort of
embodied this populist this populist mindset, and I think what
I mean by that is, at least as a policy matter,
is tough on crime, skeptical a free trade and the
(28:02):
damage that it's done to the working class in the country,
very focused on immigration and limiting immigration into the country,
and then cultural conservatism and social issues, and then of
course a more restrained foreign policy. It's not to say,
(28:26):
an isolationist foreign policy, but a foreign policy that's focused
less on, you know, pursuing idealistic goals and much more
focused on the hard realities of what's in our country's
interests and what are we capable of actually accomplishing in
(28:46):
a very different, very difficult global environment.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And you know, I think President Trump was the first
to really push on some of those shoes in a
lot of ways. It really is I think the fruition
of what Patrick Buchanan tried to accomplish back in the
early nineties and sort of go back when you mentioned
(29:13):
you know where I was, back when I was in
high school and Hobbs, New Mexico in nineteen ninety two. Well,
of course that that you know, that election also featured
you know, kind of an unusual candidates. Ross pro Right
captured the minds of a significant portion of the Republican
(29:34):
base with you know, his various concerns that weren't being addressed,
you know, by mainstream establishment politicians at the time. But
then following that in nineteen ninety six, you know, you
had Patrick Buchanan who was making all of these same points.
You know, that immigration is a problem, global free trade
(29:58):
is a problem or a potential problem, you know, and
we need a restrained foreign policy. And oh, by the way,
we need to get back to our cultural roots in
this country in terms of you know, social policy and
so forth. And of course that was the road, that
was the path, not shaken at the time, but I
(30:20):
do think it ultimately manifested itself in the election of
Donald Trump. And and of course Senator Sessions at the time,
you know, he was the Senator who was beating these
drums repeatedly you know, on the Senate floor. And while
while Senator Cruz had a lot in common with with
Senator Sessions and they were aligned on a lot of
(30:41):
issues in the in the Judiciary Committee. In fact, my
closest you know friends in terms of other Senate staffers,
you know, we're Senator Sessions staff. We worked together very
close on many things. But Center Sessions really embodied that.
And I think, you know, Center Cruz has seen the
(31:05):
value and all that as well and has moved in
that direction. But I do think it was an you know,
a misdiagnosis of where that Tea Party movement really was.
That I think maybe hurt Center Cruz and gave President
Trump a bit of an advantage in the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So there were some who have said would have said,
I guess that that that is not really a conservative
policy platform. And I'm not really sure how useful it
is to sort of chase down the sort of the
(31:48):
scope and content of labels. But for a lot of
the intra right policy debates, right there is some discussion
on the merits of the policy, but a lot you
wind up, I think you're focused on the question of
whether something is or is not conservative, right, So what
(32:10):
any thoughts on on whether you want to call it
conservative or just sort of whatever label you want for
your kind of legal and political philosophies, Like, what would
you say are the essential elements.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
That Well, I think the person who is best to
find what conservatism really is, and I'm not going to
be able to do him justice, but is Russell clerk Kirk.
And if you go back and read his work, he's
sort of he laid out six or ten principles of
conservatism which I think really influenced influenced me in fact,
(32:47):
when I mean that his book The Conservative Mind, which
I'm sure you're familiar with, really spoke to me in
a profound way when I first read it, because I thought, yeah,
that makes sends to me. Right. Conservatism is not just
a set of policy prescriptions, but it really is a
way of looking at the world.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And maybe the rare book that stands the test of
time in terms of that's right.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I think it was just even some reasons. I mean,
it's a I can't remember I was I'd written in
nineteen fifty five or something like that, so it's it's
it is a great it is a great book, but
he walks through a number of principles that I think
encapsulate what conservatism is, and I think you can extrapolate
from those, you know, what policies you should be pursuing,
(33:35):
you know, at a given time. But like preserving the
moral order, for instance, a belief in the transcendent, you know,
these are right, I think a key component of what
it means to be a conservative a respect a respect
for you know, the diversity of people, you know, because
(33:57):
he was yeah, because you know this, of course, he
was writing at a time in which, you know, the
trend was toward socialistic uniformity, right, But I think conservatism
does value the natural diversity of human societies, and I
think that's why there's a tendency to favor the local,
(34:19):
you know, over the you know, over the national and
conservative and conservative thought. So I do think that's a key,
a key element of it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
So then transitioning to your your move to the to
the dessentis administration and again a lot of new policy
ideas that not just no one had done before, but
like maybe not had even thought seriously about being able
(34:50):
to do before. And some of that disagreement within the right,
some criticism that it's authoritarian, big government conservatism. It's contrary
to to true conservative principles, and just so that we're
not kind of just back and forth on abstractions. I
(35:11):
remember one of the early decisions fairly early in the
COVID era that set the DYSANTUS administration apart was what
to do about the vaccine mandates. And you came onto
a webinar that the Freedom of Thought Project did that
kind of canvassed the lay of the land, and I
think we had there was there was someone there was
(35:34):
someone who had published sort of the libertarian case for
federal government vaccine mandates, and then you had, you know,
you had some sort of some middle ground about well,
maybe the federal government shouldn't do it, but maybe there's
like a sort of a federalism thing or sort of
states com mandate the vaccines.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I think there was the sort of the largest consensus was,
I think, on the idea that government should stay out
but like just leave it to the private sector, right,
and let people vote with their feet and vote with
their dollars. Right. I think there was this idea that
if people really didn't like the vaccine mandates, like the
local hardware store would sort of scale up and challenge
Home Depot, and I think that came up on the
(36:15):
program and the dissent you know, the dissent administration was
really quite an outlier, as I recall, in just a
straight up ban just sort of for the state of
purposes of the state of Florida, we will not permit
a vaccine mandate. And how so with that maybe as
(36:39):
a sort of as a as an interesting concrete example
sort of what's the thinking of how that fits in
this conservative philosophical framework.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Well, sometimes I think we focus too much on proceduralism,
and so we do, I think, have a tendency to
want to talk and abstractions, right, Well, what's the appropriate,
uh scope of liberty? What's appropriate scope of government? You
(37:12):
know in the abstract as if there is ever a
clean answer to that, I'm not sure that there necessarily is.
That's why I think we live in a republic. We
vote on things, we elect leaders to exercise judgment, and
(37:33):
so I want to kind of start there because one
of the reasons that I went to Florida is because
I was impressed by the way that the governor handled
the COVID crisis. In emergencies that's typically when you know,
(37:53):
the government has its you know, the widest sway and
especially the executive you know in America in an emergency, right,
but that requires exercising good judgment, and unfortunately that's in
you know, lower and lower supply of these days. But
(38:14):
one of the things that really impressed me about the
governor was he didn't just do what everybody else was doing.
And there's a natural tendency, especially for politicians who are naturally,
i think risk averse, to just follow the herd. What
are other governors doing? What is the president telling me
to do? What are all these CDC experts telling me
(38:35):
to do? And I'll just do that. Governor Santis did
not do that. He looked at the evidence himself, independently,
obviously with the advice of others, but he didn't just
stop there in terms of looking at all, Right, well, yeah,
(38:55):
COVID and our number one task is to stop this
out of the disease, because he had to examine well
to do that, what will be the impact and other
areas of life that are also important? Right, how will
it affect other interests that are very important? Right? That
(39:17):
is not something a doctor can tell you Fauci is
not going to tell you, you know, how you should
address schools or you know, keep the economy going. All
he's going to say is, you know, lockdowns and masks,
you know, because that's what will stop the spread. Well,
you know, people in leadership positions can't stop there. They
(39:38):
have to consider the consequences of that. In other words,
they have to balance competing interests. And I think that's
what the governor did to better effect than any other
leader at the time, and I think that's why he's
been credited for having a successful response to the COVID crisis.
(40:00):
But once he did his homework and realized that a
lot of the things that were being pushed about the
about the vaccines and about the about COVID itself were
not necessarily accurate. And then the oppressiveness with which the
medical community and the public health establishment was, you know,
(40:24):
forcing this upon everyone. His natural were, his inclination given
the state of play, was to protect people and to
let them make decisions for themselves as to whether or
not they're going to take that vaccine or not, and
to not allow whether it be public authorities or whether
(40:48):
it be a person's employer, make the decision for them
at the end of the day. And so he came
in strong for for choice, giving people the choice, especially
given given all of the circumstances that that existed at
the time in a state of knowledge with respect to
(41:09):
these vaccines which were cooked up in Breaknick you know,
Breaknick pace. And so I think he just in that
and in a fundamental way, like that's what it means
to be a good leader, and in a way, that's
what it means to be a conservative leader. Right, Like,
let's look at that, Let's really look at the state
(41:31):
of knowledge at the time. Let's let's have let's balance
all the competing interest let's take them all into account
and in an exercise measure judgment not get swept away
by ideology or by experts, you know, in what they're
saying and so forth. And so I think he embodies
like the I think that in that crisis, he was
(41:52):
the model of a of a true statesman and political leader.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Interesting, so we're going to take a break and we
will be back to focus on to bring this sort
of philosophical framework and apply to the present situation. So
thanks so much, Fri
Welcome to Open Minds, a freedom of thought podcast series
interviewing the people who bring courage and independent thought to
the challenges of today. Hello, Ryan Newman, Welcome to the Freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Of Thought Podcast. Great to be here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So your early life. You were born in New Mexico,
grew up in New Mexico College at West Point. That's
five years of service in the army and then the
kind of of very successful career that some in the
(00:45):
conservative legal movement are sort of privileged to have, right,
very distinguished career of series of clerkships, including Justice Alito
Jones Day, some Capitol Hill, served in the Trump administration,
including Office of Legal Policy and now General Counsel to
(01:06):
Governor DeSantis.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
If you know, it's desperate to get me to figure
out what I want to do for a living.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Serving of the thanks of a grateful nation don't necessarily
sort of right, right, yeah, yeah, gainful employment is nice too,
But especially in your current role, you've really been involved
in some of the most interesting policy work involving freedom
(01:37):
of thought in the country, and I think changed the
conversation on the role of the state in preserving freedom
and preserving freedom of thought and conscience speech. So just
to back up a bit, I am very interested in
(01:58):
the connection between your life and thought. So, like I say,
some aspects of your career are very typical for kind
of high success conservative legal movement. I'm not sure. I
think you're the first freedom of Thought podcast Injurviewee to
have gone to West Point and served in the military.
(02:19):
So how did that happen growing up? What did you
want to do? Was that part of the culture in
your in your family?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, actually not at all. In fact, we don't really
have a history of service in my family. And I guess,
you know, this is a freedom of thought podcast. Most
people don't think of the military as a place where
freedom of thought, you know, flourishes. Obviously, it's a very
regimented lifestyle. I had always wanted to go though, into
(02:48):
the army, ever since I was little. Just had a
really strong and passionate sense of patriotism and felt that,
you know, military service was the highest form of patriotism
and service to your to your country, and so I
just always had a really strong urge to do that.
(03:08):
And you know, like any young boy, I was really
into army things, and I think my parents thought that
I will that it was just a stage, you know,
a boyhood stage that would quickly pass. The next thing.
They knew they were dropping me off at West Point.
But at some level though, I grew up in the West,
(03:29):
you know, and so when people think of the West,
they think of freedom, you know, and a resilience. You
think of the you know, in southeast New Mexico, which
is where I'm from, is oil and gas country, you know,
so people are really independent spirited out there, and the
oil business has always been kind of known for, you know,
(03:51):
its booms and its busts, and you know, being independent minded,
independent spirited, not needing any to get ahead, you know,
just work hard and tank your lumps when they come,
but not looking for any handouts. You know. That's the
kind of mentality I think that prevailed at least where
I grew up in Southeast New Mexico. And I certainly
(04:14):
the values my parents raised me with. So that also,
I think gives me a bit of a contrarian nature too.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I don't like kind of buck at you know, oppressive
ideologies or you know, just buck at the notion that
you know, these these are the way that things have
to be, or that you have to think. So there
is a bit of a dichotomy there because on one hand, yeah,
I spent a lot of my life in the military,
(04:42):
not exactly a place known for its freedom in that sense.
But then I also come from a part of the
country though that I think values that the independent minded spirit,
and I think that's kind of what has brought me
to where I'm at, kind of in the in the
political world.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Were your parents. Are your parents politically independent? Did they
instill let or encourage that kind of contrary?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Not overtly. I mean, they're very religious, So I grew
up in a a in a very Christian background, and
so my parents were always, you know, conservative, and how
they lived their life that.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Has a bit of a of a of a countercultural
these days.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It certainly does, absolutely although it really didn't seem like
it in the world where I grew up. Certainly, you know,
relative to the country at large, that is, that is
absolutely true. But it's not as though we've talked about
politics growing up. We really didn't. But I do have
distinct memories of having a very politically conservative worldview growing up,
(05:54):
and I'd remember, you know, I was in high school
in nineteen ninety two, Bill Clinton was elected, and I
was just so disgusted at the thought that our country
would ever lacked a draft dodger to be president of
the United States. And I was just disgusted by that.
But at the time, I was I was more focused
(06:15):
on military things than politics at the time, although yeah,
I had some interest.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Did was Was west Point sort of what you expected
it to be? I I hear, it's a it's a
it's a bit of a tough a tough slog.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I mean it was. It was good for me
because it forced me to, you know, transcend what I
thought I was capable of in a lot of ways.
And I kind of needed, uh, I kind of needed that,
and so it was a great builder of character for me.
The interesting thing is when I went to West Point,
I thought that I was going to make the military career,
(06:56):
you know, and I was thinking I wanted to be
a general, you know, I wanted were stars and all
this sort of thing. That's kind of the mindset I
had going in to West Point. But one thing that's
interesting about the West Point curriculum is it's very broad
It's very broad based, and students don't get a lot
of discretion and the courses they take, especially for the
(07:18):
first two years, it is a set curriculum and you
take you know, philosophy, political science, American history, chemistry, physics,
and so forth. But one of the required courses at
West Point is also the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
which wouldn't be a surprise, but also constitutional law. And
so I took a constitutional law class at the academy
(07:43):
that's required for all cadets, and that was my real
first exposure. Because I'm not from a family of lawyers either.
That was my first real exposure to law, and I
loved it. I just thought it was so fascinating, you know, explored,
you know, the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, you know all.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It was my first real exposure to all of that,
and that really planted the seed in my mind about
going to law school one day and probably actually setting
me on a course to leaving the military all together,
which was not my plan going in. But once I
was exposed to that class, political science, politics, that sort
(08:27):
of thing, I kind of got a bug that I
think would eventually draw me away from the military and
into a more of a legal political world. What did
your parents do so my dad was was a realtor,
and my mom was a school teacher, although for much
of my growing up years she was, you know, stay
(08:48):
at home mom. She didn't go into the classroom until
until much until much later.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And so then when you left West Point and we're
just serving in the army. When you left West Point,
did you have the idea at that time that you
might find your way to law school? I did. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
By the time I left West Point, I was thinking, look,
I'll do my five meet my five year obligation and
then and then think about, well, not just think about,
but go into go to law school. Now, a lot
of a lot of junior officers who do end up
getting an interest or developing an interest in a law
(09:28):
will do what they call the funded Law Education program,
which is a program that allows you to branch transfer
away from whatever branch or the army you're in and
become a JAG officer, and of course the military will
pay for your schooling, but then you obviously owe the army. However,
many years I didn't really have interest in doing that
(09:50):
because I wanted more career flexibility, and you know, to
be frank about it, I just kind of like politics
and and I wanted to get you know, fight for
the things that I believed in politically, and that's just
not something that you can do the military. Military is
a political place, it's not really it's not really a
(10:11):
place for partisans. And I just had a sense that,
you know, I wanted to I wanted to pursue that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So what would you say would you have said at
that time, what would it mean to fight for the
things that you believed in? At least I mean, because
that may have evolved over time, but when you were
heading to law school, what did you think that that meant?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, I mean the standard conservative I think view of
the world. I've always been culturally conservative, so on social issues,
I've always been a staunch, staunch conservative, pro life, wanting
a more conservative culture, pro family, you know, all those
sorts of things. And you know, at the time, especially
(10:55):
when I was a junior, junior officer in the army,
I'd go out to the field, you know, faithfully read
my National Review, you know, when I had some talent.
So I was very much a you know, a conservative
in that vein, you know, socially conservative, uh, you know,
economically pro free markets, you know, pro pro free enterprise.
(11:17):
You know, let's little down the government size return, you know,
power back to the states, you know, those sort of
standard conservative views.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
And then so then after law school you had a
series of clerkships, including Justine Faliedo. So what was that?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
What was that like? Any Well, that was an incredible honor, obviously,
and to this day, I don't I feel like I'm
I was a I don't know, an army affirmative action
pick or something. I feel like I never really felt
like I deserved it, but I was fortunate, nonetheless to
have that great opportunity. And of course, you know, I
(11:58):
think he is a model judge. And between him and
Justice Thomas, you know, those are the justices that everybody,
you know, everybody who considers themselves to be uh durst
prudentially conservative, you know, should be looking to. In my
mind that that is the standard. Those two individuals are
(12:23):
the standard.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Is there were there any ideas or or sort of
clarifying concepts experiences that you had there that you well.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
One thing that that struck me about some of his
decisions when I when I first clerked, you know, this
was a couple of years after Snyder versus Phelps and
the Stevens case where Justice Alito was kind of by
himself on some of these First Amendment questions explain what
those and well, Snyder versus Phelps was, you know about
(12:56):
the was whether or not a toward action could be
brought against I can't remember the name of the organization,
is an organization that would protest service members funerals, and
so the question is whether whether or not the torque
could be brought against them for their speech activities causing
(13:19):
obviously great emotional distress to the families. And the court
ultimately held didn't know those activities were protected, and Justice
Alito disagreed and thought that, you know, the plane off
should at least be able to bring their their torque claim.
But I think it just revealed, you know, that he
had a more restrained and nuanced view of the scope
(13:42):
of the First Amendment than really all of his other colleagues.
I did same thing with Steven Stevens. Is about a
federal law that prohibited these crush videos. You know, I
guess people will make videos of crushing the it's the
terrible heads of the little kittens animals, and and you
(14:03):
know he would have upheld that law and not struck
it down. The rest of the court. I wanted to
strike it down, so I do I to me, that
really appealed to me because while well, I obviously believe
in the First Amendment, I do believe there are limits
to it, and that there are moral limits uh to it,
(14:27):
and that that's grounded, I think in a proper understanding
of of the free speech clause, right historically grounded, that's right. Yeah,
I mean, well, you know, it's just so Abraham Lincoln
talks about right. There's not you know, you know, have
a right to do it wrong. So if these rights
are grounded in the in the natural law and in
(14:51):
natural rights, then that means there has to be natural
law limits to the rights, because the rights and obligations
come from the same place, the moral law, the natural law.
Right right.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So the difference maybe between having the scope of of
of of the protection as having sort of substantive moral
content and limits as opposed.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
To the sort of the more abstract absolutely and look,
you can find a lot of this, of course by
doing historical analysis, because I think this is the way
our framers thought. But the idea that it's completely free
willing is just not not correct.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
But and I think there's there's some some scholarship done
that's been done more recently John Campbell we've talked about.
But at the time, just as Alito was quite a
bit ahead of the curve, I think so on that
thinking probably and.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
He still might be too far ahead of the curve,
I think relative to do his colleagues. But this is
an area that I think needs, you know, rethinking. I
think we just instinctively want to think that, you know,
the First Amendment this expansive thing, and it is a
very broad thing. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting
(16:10):
it's an arrow ride. It is a meaningful right, but
there are limits and unfortunately, increasingly in our society were
incapable of identifying limits and drawing lines. And I think
it requires just more intellectual and philosophical thought on our
part to figure this out. And that means I think
(16:30):
re engaging with you know, a tradition that has existed
in the past, but I think that we've lost sight of.
So after.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
After your clerkship experiences, you went to Jones.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Day, Yeah, so, I when I graduated from law school,
my first clerkship was with Judge Edmondson who was the
chief judge of the Eleventh Circuit at the time in Atlanta.
I did that, and then I went to jones Day
for a year. I get bouncing between clerkships and Jen's Day,
but yeah, in between clerkships, I went to jones Day
(17:07):
after my eleven Circuit clerkship when jones Day then went
to clerk for Judge Leon, he's the federal district judge
here in the District of Columbia. And then after that
went back to johnes Day for another year. That's actually interesting.
I left d C all together and went to Texas.
DC was kind of grading on me by then, and
(17:29):
my wife and I were itching to get back west.
So I actually we actually left d C, went back
and worked at the jenes Day office in Dallas. But
what's interesting about that is Judge Judge Leon was an
important backer of mine and I told him and and
(17:52):
he you know he was. I wouldn't have even applied
to Justice Alito but for Judge Leon. He's the one
who encouraged me. He's the one that really pushed me
to do this. But I remember telling him, I said, look, Judge,
I'll apply because you're asking me to. Well, my wife
and I are going back to Texas, and I just
(18:13):
remember him kind of shrugging his shouldiers and saying, Okay,
you can go back. And so I went back started
at Jones Day. I was probably on the job for
maybe two months, and got a call to go interview
with the Justice and then and then you know, a
month or two later, I actually had the job, walked
back into the managing partner's office and said, I know
(18:34):
I just got here, but I hope you'll forgive me.
I got a clerkship with Justice. So that brought me
back to Washington, d C. And then I did that
and then went back to genes Day again, but stayed
here in this time, stay here at that time.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, and what kind of work were you doing.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
At jenes Day? So I was in the issues in
appeals practice at least for that that that last round,
and had great experiences there working, you know, doing some
legal work on the Detroit bankruptcy and it's for the big,
the big thing that I did that that year. And
of course I know we have common friend and James Burnham.
We were on the same the same trial team that
(19:14):
defended Governor McDonnell in his public corruption prosecution by the
Partner of Justice, and I don't know, maybe I was
bad luck there because I was on the trial team
he unfortunately lost. We always felt very strongly that he
was legally in as a matter of law, we just
(19:34):
couldn't get the trial judged to see that. But it's
very difficult to kick a criminal case on the front end.
It's very difficult to you know, avail an emotion to
dismiss or something. But our whole case really did boil
down to, you know, a question of law, pure question
of law. But because it's very difficult to get course
(19:55):
to take that up, you know, you got to go
through the whole trial, and of course she did and
was found was found guilty. And then soon after that
I got an opportunity to move on to work for
Senator Cruz while the case was making its way up
through the appellate courts, but lost in the Fourth Circuit,
(20:15):
but ultimately prevailed with the unanimous decision, and the Supreme
Court was fortunate enough to go hear the argument and
Unul Francisco handled that and that was just a wonderful experience,
and it was it was great to you know, see
our position vindicated in the.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
End right, and then I guess at some point you
transitioned into the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So after Jones' Day, I went to work for Sinata
Cruz for two years, and that was it was an
interesting experience because while I was on his Senate staff,
so I was his chief counsel. But it was during
that two year peer then he ran for president, So
this was the twenty This was twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,
(21:06):
which was an incredible experience. And of course he's an
incredible boss and a great legal mind in his its
own right. So it was a great honor obviously to
work for him, and it was just an interesting experience
to be on the hill working for him when he
was running for president. It was a you know, interesting time,
especially that first year twenty fifteen. You know, he's gearing
(21:29):
up for his run, not just gearing up, but I
think he announced as early as March of twenty fifteen.
But because there's less you know, time on the campaign trail,
he was still back, you know, on the floor in
the Senate doing staying as a senator for twenty fifteen.
But that put a lot of pressure on us because
(21:51):
he was the subcommittee chair on the Judiciary Committee for
the Oversight Oversight Federal Rights Federal Courts Subcommittee, and so
he put a lot of pressure on us to organize hearings,
do a lot of hearings. So I think we cranked
out more hearings as a subcommittee than any other subcommittee
(22:14):
and the Judiciary Committee that year. We're pretty proud of that.
But it was a hectic time and he would you know,
come in, do his thing, and then move on to
the next event. It was amazing to see him operate.
And then, of course, once we sort of turned into
twenty sixteen, you know, he was out on the campaign
(22:34):
trail a lot, but the business of the you know,
the Committee and the Senate still still moved on. But
that was a great experience. But I did do that
for two years before moving on to the Trump administration,
which is an interesting, Yes, which is an interesting turn
of events and of itself because obviously, you know, Senator
Cruz was an opponent of Donald Trump, and of course
(22:57):
everybody remembers, you know, Senator Cruz's speech at the at
the convention, yep. But what was interesting, but when he
came back and President Trump won, the Senator actually brought
me into his office and said, you know, while he
(23:18):
would like me to stay if I wanted to, he
actually encouraged me to go into the administration, which I
thought was a remarkable thing for him to do, especially
after what he had just been through. Actually, yeah, yeah,
and you know, I think at the time, I think
there was still a lot of questions about you know,
(23:38):
how conservative you know, President Trump would be in office
and that and that sort of thing. But I think
he wanted me to get the experience and to be
a part of the administration and to move the ball forward.
And so yeah, he very much encouraged me to make
the jomp because at that time I was very uncertain
whether that's something I wanted to do. But once he
(24:02):
encouraged me, and once I realized that a lot of
great friends of mine who I trusted and knew or
solid people were going into the administration, I decided to
go as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
It's it's it's an interesting I mean, I think we've
seen it and we saw it after people, you know,
after the administration, and people are leaving to go back
to sort of other forms of employment, right, and it's
it does seem like an interesting challenge where sort of
on the one hand, you have people questioning how conservative
(24:35):
is this is this president, But then on the other hand,
like you will be president for four years and you
know either you know, sort of the question of who
staffs that administration, right is a pretty important one.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, I mean I learned as a lot of people
did some hard political lessons, you know, at the time,
because especially those who are more intellectually minded about and
philosophically minded about things, you know, you want to be
a purist. It was a natural tendency to just you know,
want things to be perfect. And the reality is in
(25:13):
a you know, big, diverse, bustling country like ours, it
just doesn't work that way. It's a massive country, millions
and millions of people think very differently, right, And at
the end of the day, it's a two party system
we have, you know, we have nominees to parties and
you got to pick a side. You know, you've got
to pick a team, and uh, you know who the
(25:36):
winner may may not, you know, be who you would
have preferred, but that's how the system works. And you know,
so you know, you gotta got a duty to go
and help, you know, help your side move them all forward.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Exactly, yeah, And I mean, it was, of course, sort
of even apart from kind of how conservative, not not
a conventional Republican administ station in a lot of ways
by the standards of prior Republican administration.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Not by any not by any stretch. Which is also
a learning point because you know, I mean, the difference
between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, who is the party's nominee,
you know, four years right, massive golf obviously, and you know,
(26:27):
you have the Tea Party movement obviously in twenty ten,
and Senator Cruz rode that movement, you know, into office
basically coming out of nowhere to beat some very powerful
political figures in the in the state of Texas writing
that movement. But I even think to a certain extent,
(26:47):
even even Senator Cruz kind of misread the nature of
the movement. We thought it was a more libertarian kind
of movement, get the government off our backs kind of movement,
and there's certainly an element of that, obviously, the resistance
to Obamacare and everything. But I think what it turned
(27:10):
out to be was a more populist movement than a
libertarian movement. And that's why I think in the end,
you know, Donald Trump was pushing those ideas in ways
that his opponents were not. And I know that Senator
Sessions and the President had a falling out, but you know,
(27:35):
Senator Sessions was the first US senator support and endorse
Donald Trump, and Senator Sessions in the Senate sort of
embodied this populist this populist mindset, and I think what
I mean by that is, at least as a policy matter,
is tough on crime, skeptical a free trade and the
(28:02):
damage that it's done to the working class in the country,
very focused on immigration and limiting immigration into the country,
and then cultural conservatism and social issues, and then of
course a more restrained foreign policy. It's not to say,
(28:26):
an isolationist foreign policy, but a foreign policy that's focused
less on, you know, pursuing idealistic goals and much more
focused on the hard realities of what's in our country's
interests and what are we capable of actually accomplishing in
(28:46):
a very different, very difficult global environment.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And you know, I think President Trump was the first
to really push on some of those shoes in a
lot of ways. It really is I think the fruition
of what Patrick Buchanan tried to accomplish back in the
early nineties and sort of go back when you mentioned
(29:13):
you know where I was, back when I was in
high school and Hobbs, New Mexico in nineteen ninety two. Well,
of course that that you know, that election also featured
you know, kind of an unusual candidates. Ross pro Right
captured the minds of a significant portion of the Republican
(29:34):
base with you know, his various concerns that weren't being addressed,
you know, by mainstream establishment politicians at the time. But
then following that in nineteen ninety six, you know, you
had Patrick Buchanan who was making all of these same points.
You know, that immigration is a problem, global free trade
(29:58):
is a problem or a potential problem, you know, and
we need a restrained foreign policy. And oh, by the way,
we need to get back to our cultural roots in
this country in terms of you know, social policy and
so forth. And of course that was the road, that
was the path, not shaken at the time, but I
(30:20):
do think it ultimately manifested itself in the election of
Donald Trump. And and of course Senator Sessions at the time,
you know, he was the Senator who was beating these
drums repeatedly you know, on the Senate floor. And while
while Senator Cruz had a lot in common with with
Senator Sessions and they were aligned on a lot of
(30:41):
issues in the in the Judiciary Committee. In fact, my
closest you know friends in terms of other Senate staffers,
you know, we're Senator Sessions staff. We worked together very
close on many things. But Center Sessions really embodied that.
And I think, you know, Center Cruz has seen the
(31:05):
value and all that as well and has moved in
that direction. But I do think it was an you know,
a misdiagnosis of where that Tea Party movement really was.
That I think maybe hurt Center Cruz and gave President
Trump a bit of an advantage in the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So there were some who have said would have said,
I guess that that that is not really a conservative
policy platform. And I'm not really sure how useful it
is to sort of chase down the sort of the
(31:48):
scope and content of labels. But for a lot of
the intra right policy debates, right there is some discussion
on the merits of the policy, but a lot you
wind up, I think you're focused on the question of
whether something is or is not conservative, right, So what
(32:10):
any thoughts on on whether you want to call it
conservative or just sort of whatever label you want for
your kind of legal and political philosophies, Like, what would
you say are the essential elements.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
That Well, I think the person who is best to
find what conservatism really is, and I'm not going to
be able to do him justice, but is Russell clerk Kirk.
And if you go back and read his work, he's
sort of he laid out six or ten principles of
conservatism which I think really influenced influenced me in fact,
(32:47):
when I mean that his book The Conservative Mind, which
I'm sure you're familiar with, really spoke to me in
a profound way when I first read it, because I thought, yeah,
that makes sends to me. Right. Conservatism is not just
a set of policy prescriptions, but it really is a
way of looking at the world.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And maybe the rare book that stands the test of
time in terms of that's right.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I think it was just even some reasons. I mean,
it's a I can't remember I was I'd written in
nineteen fifty five or something like that, so it's it's
it is a great it is a great book, but
he walks through a number of principles that I think
encapsulate what conservatism is, and I think you can extrapolate
from those, you know, what policies you should be pursuing,
(33:35):
you know, at a given time. But like preserving the
moral order, for instance, a belief in the transcendent, you know,
these are right, I think a key component of what
it means to be a conservative a respect a respect
for you know, the diversity of people, you know, because
(33:57):
he was yeah, because you know this, of course, he
was writing at a time in which, you know, the
trend was toward socialistic uniformity, right, But I think conservatism
does value the natural diversity of human societies, and I
think that's why there's a tendency to favor the local,
(34:19):
you know, over the you know, over the national and
conservative and conservative thought. So I do think that's a key,
a key element of it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
So then transitioning to your your move to the to
the dessentis administration and again a lot of new policy
ideas that not just no one had done before, but
like maybe not had even thought seriously about being able
(34:50):
to do before. And some of that disagreement within the right,
some criticism that it's authoritarian, big government conservatism. It's contrary
to to true conservative principles, and just so that we're
not kind of just back and forth on abstractions. I
(35:11):
remember one of the early decisions fairly early in the
COVID era that set the DYSANTUS administration apart was what
to do about the vaccine mandates. And you came onto
a webinar that the Freedom of Thought Project did that
kind of canvassed the lay of the land, and I
think we had there was there was someone there was
(35:34):
someone who had published sort of the libertarian case for
federal government vaccine mandates, and then you had, you know,
you had some sort of some middle ground about well,
maybe the federal government shouldn't do it, but maybe there's
like a sort of a federalism thing or sort of
states com mandate the vaccines.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I think there was the sort of the largest consensus was,
I think, on the idea that government should stay out
but like just leave it to the private sector, right,
and let people vote with their feet and vote with
their dollars. Right. I think there was this idea that
if people really didn't like the vaccine mandates, like the
local hardware store would sort of scale up and challenge
Home Depot, and I think that came up on the
(36:15):
program and the dissent you know, the dissent administration was
really quite an outlier, as I recall, in just a
straight up ban just sort of for the state of
purposes of the state of Florida, we will not permit
a vaccine mandate. And how so with that maybe as
(36:39):
a sort of as a as an interesting concrete example
sort of what's the thinking of how that fits in
this conservative philosophical framework.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Well, sometimes I think we focus too much on proceduralism,
and so we do, I think, have a tendency to
want to talk and abstractions, right, Well, what's the appropriate,
uh scope of liberty? What's appropriate scope of government? You
(37:12):
know in the abstract as if there is ever a
clean answer to that, I'm not sure that there necessarily is.
That's why I think we live in a republic. We
vote on things, we elect leaders to exercise judgment, and
(37:33):
so I want to kind of start there because one
of the reasons that I went to Florida is because
I was impressed by the way that the governor handled
the COVID crisis. In emergencies that's typically when you know,
(37:53):
the government has its you know, the widest sway and
especially the executive you know in America in an emergency, right,
but that requires exercising good judgment, and unfortunately that's in
you know, lower and lower supply of these days. But
(38:14):
one of the things that really impressed me about the
governor was he didn't just do what everybody else was doing.
And there's a natural tendency, especially for politicians who are naturally,
i think risk averse, to just follow the herd. What
are other governors doing? What is the president telling me
to do? What are all these CDC experts telling me
(38:35):
to do? And I'll just do that. Governor Santis did
not do that. He looked at the evidence himself, independently,
obviously with the advice of others, but he didn't just
stop there in terms of looking at all, Right, well, yeah,
(38:55):
COVID and our number one task is to stop this
out of the disease, because he had to examine well
to do that, what will be the impact and other
areas of life that are also important? Right, how will
it affect other interests that are very important? Right? That
(39:17):
is not something a doctor can tell you Fauci is
not going to tell you, you know, how you should
address schools or you know, keep the economy going. All
he's going to say is, you know, lockdowns and masks,
you know, because that's what will stop the spread. Well,
you know, people in leadership positions can't stop there. They
(39:38):
have to consider the consequences of that. In other words,
they have to balance competing interests. And I think that's
what the governor did to better effect than any other
leader at the time, and I think that's why he's
been credited for having a successful response to the COVID crisis.
(40:00):
But once he did his homework and realized that a
lot of the things that were being pushed about the
about the vaccines and about the about COVID itself were
not necessarily accurate. And then the oppressiveness with which the
medical community and the public health establishment was, you know,
(40:24):
forcing this upon everyone. His natural were, his inclination given
the state of play, was to protect people and to
let them make decisions for themselves as to whether or
not they're going to take that vaccine or not, and
to not allow whether it be public authorities or whether
(40:48):
it be a person's employer, make the decision for them
at the end of the day. And so he came
in strong for for choice, giving people the choice, especially
given given all of the circumstances that that existed at
the time in a state of knowledge with respect to
(41:09):
these vaccines which were cooked up in Breaknick you know,
Breaknick pace. And so I think he just in that
and in a fundamental way, like that's what it means
to be a good leader, and in a way, that's
what it means to be a conservative leader. Right, Like,
let's look at that, Let's really look at the state
(41:31):
of knowledge at the time. Let's let's have let's balance
all the competing interest let's take them all into account
and in an exercise measure judgment not get swept away
by ideology or by experts, you know, in what they're
saying and so forth. And so I think he embodies
like the I think that in that crisis, he was
(41:52):
the model of a of a true statesman and political leader.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Interesting, so we're going to take a break and we
will be back to focus on to bring this sort
of philosophical framework and apply to the present situation. So
thanks so much, Fri
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