139. September 8, 2026

0:00Will we continue to embrace truth, justice, peace and a path to prosperity? I believe that America's best days can still be ahead, and I want to lead us forward. Join me now in the Read Revolution. Hey, it is great to be back with you on this Tuesday. I'm John Reed and you're watching the Read Revolution on Live in Dallas, Texas today from the start of this very odd program that President Trump has insisted on. The midterm convention. Normally you have these national conventions for both political parties at the four-year mark and they pick cities in states that they think maybe hosting the convention will

1:02kind of bump the point or two and give them some sort of victory. Texas is of course very important. I don't know how this thing is going to shake out with the Senate race here of Tallerico who's a very odd Democrat. I went to Baylor University in Waco, Texas. It's been a long time since I've been back in Texas, but I've certainly monitored the politics here and have a lot of friends who were involved in politics here. I can't imagine that if Beto O'Rourke was unsuccessful that this guy with the very bizarre kind of weird, I would even call it a Christian theology that he pushes is kind of a bastardized version of it that he pushes that he's got much of a chance here. Most of them, whatever the baseline is for the radical Democrats who do live in Texas, I just got to believe that somebody like him, Paxton, is going to pull out a win here.

2:03What remains to be seen is we had 10 days in Virginia at least before early voting starts for this midterm election is what are people thinking? Are they still on board with the Trump voters turnout in a midterm when his name isn't on the ballot? Are they still on board with him or is that softening? That Trump supports softening and thus Republicans either have to win on their own or they're going to lose because a lot of people show up to cast a vote to send a message to Donald Trump. Very concerned that it is the latter of the two, but the president isn't just going to sit silently and hope that everything works out. He has decided that having this midterm convention here in Dallas is really important. It does give him a chance for people who are interested to share what he considers to be his victories and the positives that he and the administration have been able to accomplish

3:08over the first two years of the term and make the case for sending Republicans back to the Congress and not allowing the Democrats to do what they are going to do if they win, which is derail everything they possibly can that the president wants to accomplish. Maybe even attempt to remove him from office. I have a hard time believing they're going to have the numbers even if they do win to accomplish that, but I think they're going to try. There's a lot on the line for President Trump personally and politically in this midterm and he is pulling out all the stops to have this two-day, two-night event here in Dallas which starts tomorrow. My plan is to do this program from outside of the American Airlines arena tomorrow right before the session starts. My understanding, and this is kind of weird, President Trump is going to speak on night number one instead of night number two.

4:11Normally when you do a convention, and I've been to every one of them since 1992 for the Republicans and all of them since Obama was coordinated for the Democrats. I've been to a lot of these things over the years. Usually you build to a crescendo. In the four-year cycle, this is the nomination and then the nominating acceptance speech by the person who is going to be the party nominee for President of the United States. You build up over the course of two, three, four nights to the grand moment that the person accepts the nomination and puts forward their vision. When we talk to producer Dan at the end of the show, there's a lot of sports this week which will be competing. This was decided. Were they checking the schedule?

5:11I mean, clearly, I guess you wanted to have it after Labor Day. I suppose to have it after Labor Day where more people are back from their vacations. The kids are generally back in school and people are into their fall routine. How much competition is going to have on Wednesday and Thursday night? I'm guessing that Thursday night football is the reason that President Trump is speaking on Wednesday. I'll check. I'm not going to act like I'm an expert. I think it's probably likely that that's one of the reasons that President Trump is going to speak tomorrow night Wednesday night instead of waiting for Thursday night. Then, what we've been told is true, JD Vance, the vice president will speak on Thursday. Kind of weird, but gives them two shots at folks hearing about what the accomplishments are. I've been asking, I just got to Dallas about an hour ago. I'm lucky I'm even able to do the show. If the plane had been late from Richmond, I would have been in big trouble.

6:15I've been asking people, what would you say if your neighbor came up to you and said, tell me about the accomplishments of the Trump administration, what would your answer be? I think it's becoming dicey for the president. Look, I'm all in. There's nowhere for me to go even if I wanted to leave. The Democrats are so reckless and irresponsible. They continue to, their followers and their key most rabid supporters continue to show how disgusting they are in their behavior on a regular basis. I mean, just look, we're coming up on the anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I know this isn't everybody, but I'm afraid that it's a little more widespread than some would like to admit. There are a lot of Democrats and radical leftists who are thrilled to make a scene and not a mornful scene, but a really nasty, obnoxious, horrible, disgusting joyous scene over

7:18the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. If someone were to ask me a different question than what the president has accomplished, but what has made me more fervent than ever, the Democrats cannot be put back in office, that would be one of the things that I'm going to identify. Not just the assassination of Charlie Kirk, people are assassinated, people are murdered. I don't approve of it, regardless of who's doing it and who the victim is. I don't approve of that. I'm hoping that I can be one of the voices that tries to avoid what I'm afraid is coming, which is a civil war, since we don't seem to agree on anything from what a man is, and a woman is, and whether you should have to cow-tow to that, tax rates, welfare, we're $40 trillion in debt, but nobody seems to care about it. I think there's some real tension points that are going to blow up our society pretty quickly, but I'd like to try to prevent that horror from occurring.

8:23I look at the way a lot of leftists, not every leftist, not every Democrat, but a lot of them responded to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The lack of rebuke to those people from the leaders of that party, it's just not something that I can condone, and it's not a group of people that I trust to be in a leadership position. They continue on a daily basis to come up with positions that are really outrageous and horrifying to me. I wasn't able to talk with you while I was traveling around the world over the last couple weeks about the trial of the woman who murdered her three children. These horrible murders do occur. It's not the first time something like this has happened, but I have to say, I think it's the first time that I have witnessed a ground swell of support for the woman who killed

9:28her kids. Not just, well, you know, must have been tough and kind of some sort of empathy, but a full-throated defense of her to the point where she and her family, her parents, have raised a couple of million dollars to try to defend her. Now that is weird to me. I am not having been a parent, I'm sure some of you would discount what I have to say about it, and that's fine. But I'm a person who has standards, and I just don't think that we can tolerate anybody who's going to murder three people, especially when they're in their own family and they're innocent. And I've done anything wrong, and they're the person who's supposed to protect and defend those three kids. And I don't think that I'm dismissive of people's mental health, but mental health is not

10:28an excuse for murder. And we have reached a place in our society where we seem to have decided that in certain cases, if you claim that you're mentally deranged, and maybe you were at the moment, that you committed the crime, that is somehow an excuse or a reason that you shouldn't be held responsible for the horror that you committed. And I'm not on board with that. I haven't been on board with it since Sean Hankley, Jr. tried to shoot President Reagan. I was outraged that we let a would-be presidential assassin off the hook. Now that guy is walking around in Richmond playing songs on his guitar, trying to book different events all across the country, and he's free. And to me, that just demonstrates what a morally confused society we have become. If you're not able to look at someone who would attempt to kill the President of the United States and hold them accountable for that, and the signal that it sends to everybody

11:34else is, this culture is not serious. This culture doesn't really care about human life. And quite frankly, if you can shoot at, try to kill the President, then we don't have the instinct to survive as a culture, because you just can't tolerate it. And I would say the same thing about this woman who is now in limbo because of the mistrial that was declared. We are sending a signal to people all across the United States and around the world that this is a sixth society that is incapable of rendering a judgment about something that shouldn't be a debate. You kill your three kids. I mean, personally, I would execute you. I would. You might have been crazy. There might have been some reasons that you did what you did. They're not excuses. They're reasons. They're things that might be interesting to understand. But if you kill your three children, I think the only just thing is for us to take your

12:39life. That eliminates you. And it sends a signal to everybody else. We're serious. We don't tolerate this behavior. But we're incapable of the society of doing that, it seems. And if we do do it, it takes so many years to get to the point where we actually execute the person that I think it's not an effective punishment at that point. It almost makes us look more pathetic and more weak than if we just locked them up for life, which I'm not willing to do. I don't want to pay for those people. So there's several things that have occurred while I was traveling around the world and I haven't been able to talk to you that I think are notable. We've got a couple of sound bites today that I did want to share with you. But before we do that, producer Dan, do you have that graphic of the Space Force uniform? I saw this last night and I have been either on a plane or on the outside of the planet

13:40or dealing with stuff back in Richmond for the last several days. I'm not sure when this was actually released. But take a look at the Space Force uniform and tell me what you think of this. If you were understanding the attacks that are leveled against Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Ron Reagan, me, anybody who's a Republican, that you're a Nazi, right? That is the default slur now against Republicans is that you're a Nazi. If someone came up to you and said, hey, we have to pick a uniform outfit for a new branch of the military and hear the designs. Would you pick this design? I don't know if you can see this. This is kind of shocking to me. I guess if it were a costume and you were at Disney World and you were at the Star Wars

14:47exhibition and the Millennium Falcon was there and you wanted to present one of the bad guys, then maybe you would use this. I mean, doesn't this look like one of the imperial leaders from Star Wars? I mean, that's what I immediately go to given my generation. I can imagine that other people would look at it and see the leather boots and some of the other components of the uniform and would harken towards a Nazi uniform. I just don't understand. To me, this looks ominous. It looks negative. It invites the comparison that I don't think we deserve and we certainly don't want it to the Nazis. And I just, things like this keep happening where I'm like, who is making these decisions? Who is looking at presumably two or three different designs, right? Most executives ask narrow down the three things and I will pick which one I like.

15:48Is that the one you would pick? I mean, I'm curious whether President Trump picked this himself. I hope not because I think it is just another error that starts to compound the negativity directed towards him, towards the administration and towards those of us who have been supportive of him. I'm very puzzled by it. I don't understand why you would choose that instead of saying, take this away from me. Come back with something like a, purely, I mean, I've been bound the U.S. Navy, down a Virginia Beach, in Norfolk, when the men and women are wearing their dress white, since it's pretty, I think, inspiring and positive look. And so it's just weird. I don't want to be overly critical, but what are we thinking by putting that out as the

16:55choice for space force? It's not even Navy blue. It looks to me like it's a dark black, really an odd choice. And does that make, I mean, is that a huge big deal? Probably not. Probably not a huge big deal. But the cumulative effect of the social media posts of what we see with ICE and I am fully supportive of ICE deporting people who are here illegally. I mean, everybody's been on notice for two years now, plus that things weren't going to stay the same. You get your paperwork in order or you're out. So I mean, how much, how much sympathy am I supposed to have for somebody who doesn't take that seriously? Who just hangs out and pretends like they're either arrogantly not going to obey the law or they don't take it seriously and get their paperwork in order. How much, how much more latitude, how much more sympathy am I supposed to offer? I'm not.

17:55But there's no doubt that because of the way the media is characterizing it, because of the bad behavior of leftists, another reason why I don't think we can ever put Democrats in charge of anything is that they are applauding this outrageous behavior from their supporters where they go out and actually physically intervene to try to stop the lawful enforcement of federal immigration regulation. But the cumulative effect of this stuff isn't that negative. And I'm very concerned that as we head towards these midterms, and you know, who knows what to believe when you're actually looking at the popularity polls. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. But I do look at what happened in Virginia last year when I was running for Lieutenant Governor. And it wasn't good, right? I mean, the Democrats were motivated. They turned out they wanted to not just defeat the Republican ticket and Republican members

18:57of the legislature, some of whom, you know, are pretty mainstream people. And I think I'm relatively mainstream. That's a whole other conversation, I guess. But the Democrats turned out, because in Virginia last year, they were determined to trounce every Republican they possibly could and send a message in their minds to Donald Trump. I don't think Donald Trump cared to be honest with you. But they sent a message to me, at least, as an observer, as a candidate and an as observer that they are a powerful group. And when they decide they're going to come out and vote, they can outvote you. Then you had the referendum in Virginia in April, and even with a really concerted effort from Republicans. Not as much money as the Democrats had and a ballot question, which the Democrats, again, another reason I can't put them in charge is that they have no sense of fairness or decency or honesty. They wrote the ballot question in a way that was very deceiving.

20:03They won that too. I mean, it wasn't by 15 points, like the way they won the governor's office just a few months earlier, but they won that too. So I think there has been a negative shift, and that's why this event in Dallas this week, and the days that lead up to early voting, not just in Virginia, but in other states across the country, are so important. The president is going to have to explain what he has achieved, why the gas prices, I'm going to hate to go to that because that is a vulnerability, why the gas prices are not lower than they are. I mean, I think statistically they're lower than they were under Joe Biden at the height, but they're not where we wanted them to be, and that influences everything. That does drive other prices up. That's a problem. Why President Trump, someone who many, many people, myself included, applauded in his first

21:06term for not engaging in warfare, chose to get involved in a conflict in Iran, and again, I just want to be honest with you. I fully support Obama and the hell out of Iran. I am so disappointed that we haven't done this previously. I'm very angry at Barack Obama and the Democrats for enriching and reviving Iran. They were in trouble, and we gave the money, and we cut a deal with people who do not deserve to have a deal because they're liars and they're deceivers, both culturally and from a religious perspective, and they have a history of being deviant liars and killers, and I don't know why we would ever make an agreement with them. Barack Obama put us in a situation, but then Donald Trump was the one who attacked Barack Obama for that stupid plan, and then Donald Trump negotiated with them for weeks and months.

22:10In between declaring victory and saying that he would bomb, so there was a little bit of a schizophrenic, if I could just be candid with you, there was a schizophrenic message that went out on a regular basis that I think wore out, even people like me, who've been very supportive of President Trump in general and who do support the war in Iran. That's got to be explained somehow. What are we doing here? What does the near future hold? And a year from now, after this election is over, and we're headed towards the end of the Trump presidency, where should we be? I will be very curious to see whether the President and his team decide to tackle that issue head on, or whether their goal is to have this two-day event and not bring it up at all. I think some people would probably argue that the Iran situation is a net negative.

23:11Don't talk about it. Talk about inflation coming down. Talk about trying to lower gas prices. Talk about some sort of plan for affordability. I don't know what that is, but let's come up with something and share it with people, because that's what Democrats continue to campaign on. This will be really important, because the things that positioned the President to be successful in the past, just to be completely candid, don't look as great today as they did. And I think some people who have been very supportive of the President over many, many years have become somewhat disillusioned that we're in this conflict with Iran, and the crisis continues economically and culturally. It's very frustrated with the Congress. The Congress can't even pass the Save America Act, which the vast majority of Americans, Republican and Democrat alike, seem to be supportive of, if you look at the polls, and

24:14said not even a close call, and Republicans don't seem to be able to get on the same page to get that done. That is humiliating. When you look at this two-year period, which we're about to conclude, as another miracle, a second miracle, where you have a Republican President, a Republican House of Representatives, and a Republican Senate, and you start to really track what has been accomplished, and what has not been accomplished, I think that has a tendency to humiliate the base, which may make them stay home, and that is unacceptable. That cannot happen to President's got to make a strong case and a strong argument to get people out to be supportive this fall. Now my argument is, even if you hate Donald Trump, even if you were a Donald Trump supporter and you're not now, even if you're really frustrated or angry about Iran, even if you're

25:16totally ticked off about gas prices. Even if you're mad at the Congress, and I think there's a reason to be mad at the Congress, if you don't vote, and if you empower these Democrats, you're not just empowering the old Democrats who were left of center. You might get your taxes raised. The welfare state might expand. You might have a new ring of the President when it comes to foreign policy because he can't get support from the Congress. I mean, there are things that I would disagree with on any day that old Democrats used to push. The problem is the old Democrats have been vanquished. That's happened in Virginia. If you're not 100% for abortion from conception to the day of birth, you cannot be an elected official in the Democrat Party, certainly not in Virginia. You tell me anybody, tell me one elected official who's a Democrat in Virginia who is willing

26:21to say we should ban abortion in the third trimester or who is willing to say we should ban abortion on the day the child's being born. I mean, how low a bar can we possibly have from a moral standpoint? If all I'm asking you to do is stand up and tell your people, no, we won't abort the baby on the day it's going to be born. Let's even throw in the caveat that the baby has to be the only reason for an abortion on the day of birth is that there's a birth defect. I think some people are truly horrified by doing that too. But let's throw that in as a caveat. You won't hear that. Truly, tell me somebody who is a Democrat elected official in Virginia who will stand up and say that you will not hear it. That's why the Democrats are pushing this pro-abortion day of birth abortion constitutional amendment

27:23this year because they are the radicals that we've been warning you about. That's just in Virginia around other parts of the country and this has begun to seep into the Democrat mindset here. You've got the Democrat Socialists, aka full blown communist. I mean, I don't know why we're debating the nomenclature here. If you are a part of the DSA, you're not just pushing for increased welfare and Medicare for all. You're pushing for a communist revolution to do away with the Constitution. It's the entire nature of our system of government from the Supreme Court to the presidency to the way the Congress operates. These people are the radicals that we have been concerned about for a long time and they are in power and they are rising in power. One of the other things that I think the president has to do is communicate to people who

28:23may not be fans. Maybe they never were fans or maybe they're people who backed away a little bit from the Trump agenda. All right. I mean, what are we going to do to argue over that? What we can't have is for people to stay home or think that by voting Democrat, they're sending a message to Trump. The only thing you're doing is sabotaging the future of your own society. If you do that. If you stay home, if you allow the Democrats to get elected, because you did not do it, you did vote. And you somehow convinced yourself that that is the moral high ground. You are mistaken. You are giving up your society to the radical communists and the radical Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party. That's what happened in Virginia last year. Is there a lot of conservatives decided for a variety of reasons? I guess I'm one of them, but what can I tell you?

29:25I would be blunt and tell you you're pretty stupid if you allowed a radical Islamist to be Lieutenant Governor instead of a gay conservative who's with you on 99 out of 100 issues. But hey, now you're going to be ruled by a radical Islamist whose pro-abortionates America is a pro-Hamas protester who's going to localize conflicts on the other side of the planet. That's the kind of leadership you're getting in Virginia today. That can happen all across the country. And for Virginians, what happened last year needs to be a wake-up call. And we should use it and talk about it. It's painful as it is for me. I'm going to talk about it because I want to sound the alarm that people stay home across the country in tight districts or quite frankly, even in districts where Republicans have a 6, 7, 8, 9 point lead, this could be a terrible election.

30:25And the consequences of that are not just a two-year detente between the Trump administration and the Democrats in Congress. The consequences are very, very severe for the future of the country. For the policies that will be enacted, the policies that will be repealed, the constant attacks on things that we hope will stabilize the society economically, politically, and culturally. President's got a lot to accomplish in the next two days. And we will be live tomorrow to tell you what we anticipate hearing from President Trump on Wednesday evening. All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I'm going to talk to Jeff Reyer, who you know is the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia. I don't know if Jeff is actually arrived here at Dallas. I think he probably got here yesterday, and I'm talking to him yet. We'll see what he's hearing, what the RNC is planning that he's aware of, and where

31:25he thinks Virginia is 10 days out from the start of early voting. That's what we return here on the read revolution. All right, back on the read revolution on this Tuesday. I'm John Reed, and we're joined now by Jeff Reyer, who is the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia. And I am, are you, are you in the hotel? I am in the hotel. I am, I am here in Dallas like you. Where did you get here? I got here yesterday. Yeah, I got, I got here yesterday, and we started getting the goody bags ready for

32:26our delegates and other, other such things. So we're getting prepared. Today I'm busy picking up credentials, and we'll be distributing those tomorrow, because as I think you're, if you're, you know, obviously a very limited number of people get to go to these things, but they are highly secure events. They keep track of everybody is coming in, everybody goes through magnetometers, everybody, you know, if you don't have the right pass, you don't, you don't get to go to any of it, and they are, they're very strict about it. So we have to pick up all of those correct passes, et cetera. It's very exciting. I'm kind of a little worried about security, given that this is the 25th anniversary of 9-11. I mean, of course, every year we have a 9-11 anniversary, but radical Islamists do... No, come back, John. I'm still in the schools. Yeah, they do like big dates and anniversaries. Yeah. So I'm, what are you hearing about security for this?

33:29Is just the normal around the president. They're going to be really tight. It's not just tight around the president. It appears to be tight around anybody that's affiliated with the administration and members in Congress. So and the delegate's themselves. So the, the arena is going to be pretty well locked down from everything we've heard, but the, you know, there's a lot of different, incinerary events going on around related to it, and they are very, very secure. You know, the questions we get, you know, Virginia has its own event going on, and we have to provide lists of names for the events to make sure that they were properly secure. So... Can just grab a plus one or somebody just met in the hotel bar and bring them along. No, no, don't do that. You'll get in trouble. What work? If we don't have the name, we can't get you into anything. So, you know, we get the name. Why do you think they're doing this, Jeff? I mean, this is the first time any political party has had one of these national midterm

34:34conventions. I am technically a delegate, but I don't think we're voting on anything. We're not doing a policy agenda or... So why do this, you think? I think the president's vision is to focus people on what the actual issues are. And to also remind people of the level of accomplishments that have been made over the course of the last two years, because America is, in many ways, you know, is so much better off than it was two years ago with Biden and the White House. We no longer watch on television films of literally tens of thousands of people on a daily basis coming across the border and being released into the country. We now have significantly lower tax rates and significantly larger tax refunds, which Americans experience this year. We don't have to worry about tax on tips going forward for people who are tip employees. We don't have to worry about tax on overtime or tax on social security. I think it's something like 87 percent now with social security recipients pay zero tax.

35:38You know, that's pretty good. And it's, you know, one of the challenges when you're in office is if you solve these problems, the problems are solved and then people forget. And I think that the real message of this is, this is what we've done and this is what we're going to do going forward. Because we have to get beyond what have you done for me lately, sort of mentality. We have to remind people that, actually, it's a very different America than it was on January 19, 2020-25. Yeah. What do you think makes the list for forward looking agenda items? I, people laugh at me when I say that I have always thought that the contract with America, the New Gingrich spearheaded, was brilliant. It is hard to replicate that. You don't want to, you know, if something's on the list, ten times, it pretty much indicates that you're getting accomplished. But I think people like lists. What would you think is going to make the list for forward looking agenda?

36:42I do think, I do think people like lists. I think a lot of the things that are going to make the list are things that are that we would ordinarily associate with regulation in nature, meaning that the ability to build things faster, better to be able to actually have government, have a positive impact on people's lives. And for individual businesses to be able to grow is going to be a lot of it. You can see a lot of that focus with the president being pretty bold on the data center issue at a time when it's, you know, somewhat controversial. He clearly sees the challenge as China and our ability to compete with them. And I think we're going to continue to see a lot of that. So I think a lot of it is going to be based on manufacturing and where we have to go in the future. And we do, you know, we need to go in a different direction than we've been going. You know, the challenge is at this point, you know, if you look at like even the unemployment reports, you know, if you've got, you know, if you're coming out of graduate school with

37:45a degree, you have a lesser chance of getting employed than somebody who's coming out of a six month program to be trained on HFAC. This is a changed economy. This is very, you know, very different. We have to, we have to adapt. And it's going to be a challenge adapting. We know for certain that the Democrats don't have an answer for that because what they're talking about is expanding Medicare to everybody. Well, that means nobody will get it. You know, I mean, effectively you won't get healthcare out of it. And you know, they're pushing a lot of a lot of a much larger, much larger government, much larger government intrusion. And we've already seen the result of what they do. You know, we saw the highest inflation rates since the Carter administration. You know, we saw a very, a very stagnant economy during their, during their time in office. So, you know, we know what they can do. We have to remind people of what they did and what we plan on doing.

38:45I've talked to a lot of Republican strategists outside of Virginia who really do think that the president's in a good position. That Republicans are in a good position to hold the House potentially and keep the Senate. The House largely because there have been a lot of lines either stopped from being redrawn or redrawn. What's your assessment of that is the Republican safe here or not? Well, I don't think we're safe by any stretch of the imagination. I think it's going to be very difficult the whole way through. And you know, it's interesting the media constantly touts that the RNC has much more money than the DNC. Absolutely true. But the problem is, and you can see this in races like in the Texas Senate race right now, is there are so many of these outside groups that are funded by, by Democrat activists like George Soros or, Mr. like this, his name is Kim members last name, but the guy in Singapore that they keep trying to track down.

39:46There are so many of these activities that are funded by them that there just isn't a check they can't cover. They can do whatever it is they want. So money is going to be a challenge for the year as it is for us all the time. I mean, look, we went through that in the referendum this year. We were wildly outspent. You went through it in your campaign for Lieutenant Governor, even when you're an aggressive fundraiser keeping up with the Democrats who have a tremendous amount of billionaires who are willing to write checks can be quite a challenge. That's probably our biggest threat for the year going forward. And we'll see how well we're able to keep up. Although, if I may Democrat at this point, I'm probably pretty nervous, excuse me, I'm pretty nervous about Michigan and I'm probably pretty nervous about Maine. I never believed and I still don't that Susan Collins can be defeated. I just think she is Maine in so many ways and I think that really does show.

40:51But Abdu El Saeed is I think pretty openly anti-Semitic. I don't really, I was talking to a Democratic friend the other night and he was, you know, touting his party's chances and I said, what are you going to do about the stigma of bigotry? And he was really shocked and I'm like, I got news for you. That's a problem. You didn't see it? It's for real. I said, you know, you really do have this stigma of bigotry. And I said, the Democratic Party certainly experienced that during the segregation era when all the segregationists were hardcore Democrats. But it's come back in a different form and I would say a particularly repulsive one in this case. Do you think that fractures some of the core base for the Democrat Party? I mean, I did a lot of outreach towards Jewish voters in Virginia. Not, I am for the Jews and I'm for Israel and I'm a Christian but I'm happy to tell

41:54everybody that and I'll argue it all day if I have to. And I hope that that resonated with them. Plus, my opponent was supporting Hamas and, you know, out protesting for Palestine after the tragedy there. So I kind of hope that that might move them. It didn't seem to move them. So do you think that this fractures that a little bit? I will tell you this. I think you're wrong. And let me tell you why I think you're wrong. Okay. I heard from a lot of people who I know in the Jewish community who went DRD in the last election. So I think the read effort paid off more than you think it did. And I do think it's just the reasons why I think it's one of the reasons why you outpaced the top of the ticket in your performance. I do. I think there were voters that started on the D side this way and came over to you.

42:56And I think it was extremely helpful and helpful for the party long term because, essentially, if the Democratic Party continues in its current direction, the American Jewish community is going to have to come to the reality or to the realization, I should say, that they may have no choice that we may be the only place that's a home and civil and shares their values. They've had a long standing relationship with the Democratic Party by and large, but I think that's changing. And we are seeing that change race by race. In Michigan, it's tremendous. I mean, obviously. It has to be. I just can't imagine. Yeah. It really looks like that. Just about every day, the Rogers people end up putting out a new list of prominent lifelong Democrats that are backing Rogers over L. Said and the issue that's doing it is Israel

44:06and also his past comments indicating some real problems there. But actually, if you see the DSA candidates and you watch these primaries, people kept claiming, oh, it's about Medicare for all and fresh faces. No. No, what was differentiating them from their opponent consistently was Israel. That was what was consistently differentiating them from their opponents. And within each circumstance, pretty much, if you look back, you can see some pretty unpleasant comments made by their candidates, unacceptable comments, I'd say. It's a remarkable dynamic that's at play in both parties, but a severe change and a really nasty, I think potentially a dangerous change for the Democrats. If I was a Jewish voter unaffiliated, I would be very worried about my physical safety

45:09in America going forward. Well, I would as well. And one of the challenges is that it's all based on lies. The Israeli government is not committing genocide. There is not starvation in Gaza. The claims that have been made by the opponents of Israel are blood libels. It's outrageous. And yet, they're promulgated by the American media frequently and certainly by the European one. When any of these things are examined or looked into, they're total fantasies as far as the claims. There was an actual piece in the Washington Examiner last week about this. Very long column that went through and refuted all of it. And of course, Alan Dershowitch, when anybody lets them on the air, is more than willing to tell the facts as they stand. But it's unfortunate. You have people claiming that they have a foreign policy objection. They have a foreign policy objection. They're objection to Jews. Call it what it is.

46:10It is that basic. Well, let me bring you to Virginia and the prospects for Republican candidates in the Commonwealth. Sure. We've got Jen Kiggins and Rob Whitman, incumbent Republicans. Very important that they're returned to the Congress. But they're in a fight to hold on. What do you think? How do you handicap that right now? I feel good about both for a couple of reasons. One, and I love pointing this out to people. Both of their districts voted no. On their redistricting referendum. That's not bad. Coming off of two districts that Abigail Spanberger carried, albeit in Rob's case quite narrowly. But you won Rob's district, though. But coming off of the gubernatorial race, I think the Democrats got a little headed there skis as far as the targeting, especially in the case of Whitman. That being said, both of these campaigns are experiencing just gobs of money that they're

47:11having to withstand. They have good teams that are putting together a pretty concerted effort. We're trying to build some on the volunteer activities that really drove our effort during the referendum and builds from there. And actually we're using that as well to help Bert Mississawa in the Senate race because he too, he's facing Mark Warner with tens of millions of dollars and he's not going to have all likelihood the ability to raise that kind of money. So we're having to rely on the same playbook we use for the referendum because it's the only one realistically, it's the only thing we can do when you're facing an onslaught of money that is a challenge. The president is unleashing some of his mega money. He made a big, I feel a little, Dan is so good about this sort of thing. The president is unleashing some of his money. He made a deal of that yesterday.

48:12They're sending money to Texas. I suppose it's not coincidental that he's coming to Texas. Probably a good time to release it. Yeah. But yeah. Do you think Bert Mississawa, the Republican running for US Senate against Mark Warner, will get some? You know, I don't know. It depends on how they feel money wise as far as their position versus the Democrats. One of the challenges that we have this year is there are so many hotly contested Senate races. And we ran into the same problem in 2014 when Ed Gillespie was running against Mark Warner and was largely left to his own devices because they were worried about mic rounds in South Dakota and Pat Roberts and Kansas. Now as it turned out, you know, they picked up about receipts in 2014. But they could have picked up Gillespie's and they missed it. He was like the last one on the cut.

49:13I mean, he was just, you know, on the cost meeting like, yeah. So we're going to have to be more. How tight was that again? He lost by six tenths of a point, I think. Yeah, it was really tight. Really? Yeah. It was really tight. That should give Republicans some hope that the state is not lost, that if you get out there and show up and you make some donations to the candidates, you believe in, you can, you can, and the candidate works hard, you can be competitive. It's all about turnout. It really is. It's about, you know, it's, what do you know, 80% of success is showing up. And our success is getting our voters to show up. You know, we almost overcame an onslaught and a very misleading ballot question in the referendum. In the referendum because we organized and got the word out and made sure our people knew and had a stunning turnout for an April election as far as levels. It's the same way this November. It's what, what can we do to, to energize and get those folks to the polls.

50:20Money is a critical part of it. We're trying to do things at the party to make things easier for people. You can go to virginia.gov and if you look in the upper right hand corner, you'll see the thing that says store. And if you click on that, you can buy ticket bumper stickers and signs for your, for your own congressional district. We have different ones for all 11 districts that include Mrs. Zawa and our Republican congressional candidate in the district. Signs, same deal. We have vote no on all three because the party is taking a strong stand on the ballot referendum. We have vote no on all three. And for these election items, we're selling them at the lowest cost that when red our vendor allows. So we're not, we're not profiteering off of these things. We just want to get them out. We also are working on supplies at, at our PV ourselves and individual committees are doing the same just as they did during the referendum.

51:21I mean, that is all you can do if you don't have cash to go up on television and, and that's ridiculously expensive, especially in voter rich, northern Virginia where the Democrats do have an edge. Yeah. So what have you heard yet whether Bert Mrs. Zawa will be able to debate Mark Warner on television or not? I have not and obviously Warner is avoiding that so far. I don't think he's going to be able to escape the whole campaign without, without even one. I, my, my guess is though, based on the way he's, and his team is handling it so far, we'll get one and I don't know which one it'll be, but I think it'll be similar to what that's Manburger did, which is one. I think actually it would be kind of an embarrassment for Warner if he wouldn't do at least one. I agree with you. And you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to raise hell about it because I do think if we allow Gazala Hashmi to get away without doing a statewide debate and then Mark Warner says, you know, that

52:21worked out well for her. She never got past any tough questions and she didn't have to defend her stupid decisions. So why don't I try that? If we let these people get away with that. And I mean Republican and Democrat alike, if you allow these people to start not doing what used to be the baseline, you know, defend, introduce yourself and defend your positions and tell people what you believe in. If we don't, we don't hold that baseline level. I mean, the whole system falls apart, I think. Yeah. We, we all would love to see Warner and that debate. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you know, the guy was running against him whose signatures mysteriously disappear. This Mark Miranda claims that and I'm not, I had heard this, but I wasn't going to say it till one of his own people said it. Mark Brand says, if you do something at nine o'clock at night, Mark Warner has dementia. Now I haven't seen it. I don't know. But I'm not around him.

53:22So right. Who is? And this is, we should have a debate at eight o'clock at night. And see where it ends up at nine. Listen, I'm looking forward to seeing you this afternoon and this evening and of course tomorrow for the start of the midterm convention here in Dallas. Really excited about it, Jeff. A two day bash and look for your folks watching at home. Tune us in. We'll be there. You'll see the Virginia delegation will all wave. We promise. So okay. Thank you. Terrific. Jeff Ryer, the Chair of the Republican Party of Virginia. Appreciate you taking a few minutes. Take care. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back with producer Dan and we'll wrap things up so that I can go get lunch. You're in Dallas. See you in a second on the READ revolution.

54:27I think the new interface on reStream has some kinks to work out. I don't know if you can hear the interruptions in the music. I'm not to figure this out, but we take a couple weeks off. You know, whatever we do these things remotely, there's some glitches. I don't think that has nothing to do with your auditions. That's something I was signing on today. I said, oh, things are looking a little different here than they did a couple weeks ago. They've had a makeover on the platform. I'll have to figure out what's going on with all of the logistics here. But yes, it's good to be back. It's good to see you. I'm glad you made it. Thank you very much. All of three, almost four solid weeks. That we've. Yeah.

55:28That we did you enjoy your break? I won't lie. I did. I did. I got much more sleep and exercise than I'm accustomed to, which is good on both counts. And yeah, no, I'm glad that Jeff liked my question if it didn't annoy him too much. But yes, it's what is the president waiting for? We need to we just spend this money. We actually have money. We have an advantage over the leftists in terms of money, thanks, I think, largely to their gross overspending in 2024. Goodness. Well, two things, Dan. They blew through a lot of money and sum up their donors, even if they are real lefty crazies, don't like waste, you know? So they look at Kamala Harris and they say, how much money did you pay Beyonce? How much money did you pay? So it's a, I'm not giving you money for that. And that people always, no matter what business you're in, if people find out that you're blowing the money and wasting it, they ain't going to give you anymore.

56:30And then the second thing I think is this realization that the NGOs and the USAID money, which would normally come into play. And I don't know if you put a gun to my head that I could prove this, but my instinct having been around it in Washington is that a lot of the money that Democrats, artists for their efforts, was laundered through these different entities. And since you cut that off, it's not available to them now. And right as you're saying that Carl Brown, host of the Killer Carls show, which I also produce on the weekend is writing that very thing in the chat. Yeah, Carl writes, oh, Carl writes Bingo. That's exactly right. Yes. Isn't that, yeah, isn't that interesting that when that goes away? If USAID, which I have participated, you know, I went to Baghdad during the war with USAID

57:34and one of their NGOs. So I mean, I've seen it up close a number of times over a decade. But I have to tell you, I think if USAID was still fully funded and those institutions were active, you'd already be seeing riots in the streets domestically because I just think that that money was coming through the federal government and being laundered to groups that would then go out and use almost CIA tactics that we would have used to overthrow other governments to do that to our own. And that's one reason I am not crying that that organization has been defunded. I think it was really important. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, Carl says, great minds think like he's already endorsed you for governor in 2029 in Virginia. Oh, it's that right. Oh, yeah. Carl goes on, goes on a show almost every week and says, I've already picked my gubernatorial

58:34candidate in Virginia in 2029. That's that's John Jay Reed. Oh, well, I need, I need to send him a coupon for a free drink or something. That's right. That's right. That's right. Anybody who's still talking nice about me. Oh, goodness. Well, I don't want to, the labor, did you have anything you wanted to hit up today since we just came back? Well, you know, the, the one thing I would like to say, I had a speaking engagement last Friday for the, the Guchlin Republican women, Republican women of Guchlin women and Guchlin who happened to be Republican, whatever the, whatever the title was, they, they very kindly invited me to speak to them last Friday. Had a great time. I, I hope that they enjoyed my appearance half as much as I enjoyed being with them. But wanted to, wanted to thank them for this wonderful commemorative ornament that they, that they gave me as a gift, the, the official ornament of America's semi-quincidental. Yeah, that looks like a big one. Is it the big version?

59:35It's, I mean, I don't, I don't know, but this is, this is the size of it there that, but that's just, that's it. It's, that's an ornament that, just a rec, replica of the Declaration of Independence. I mean, I could not have picked something more meaningful or, or value. For you personally. Yeah. This is, and I, thank, thanks so much to, to, to the, to the lovely ladies of, of Guchlin for, for inviting me in for, for this gift. I, I will cherish it for the rest of my days. So yes. That's fantastic. That was glad you're getting out of that. That was, meeting lots of folks. That's right. Exactly, exactly. I did have, I did have two or three videos I could share with, with, with us for, for, now the, the, the one of them is very short. I, I thought this was interesting. You know, we have, we have, we have cops junior here. I'll call it cops, cops junior. If I can, if I can pull this up, but yes, here we go. If it, if it will play correctly. Cool back boy. What you gonna do?

1:00:35What you gonna do when they come for you? Guys, if I were a little kid, I'd be so scared at this moment. Well, Stuart little there, I think, is, he's running off. But, but yeah, there he goes. He's running. So you're gonna be early, huh? I do. But we'll see this, this could, this could mean that, that we have some, some difficulty with the, with the rest of my videos. But let's see, I, I also had a video, more adult like of, this is, this is from Michigan, but, but I guess the cops have a grappling hook technique. I guess they're using in Michigan to stop, stop cars from getting away. And this was, this was, this amused me when I, when I saw it. So the grappling hook is, you did under the car. Yes. And so the guy is trying to get away.

1:01:36Trying to get away. Oh my god. Well, I can think of a lot of ways this could go badly. Yeah, that car is not passing inspection. Next stop, okay. And then it wouldn't be, I mean, we, we have to celebrate the fact that we're back with, with none other than a baby Trump video. And of course, this is one sent to, sent to us by our listeners. They, they've really become fans of the baby Trump video too. But this is, this is Trump, I guess talking about the, the prospect of running for president again and, and that dreadful 2020, that, that 22nd amendment here. So, so apparently, I can't run again. The 22nd amendment, very unfair amendment, possibly the worst one. Sure, that one's been around since 1951. It ain't going anywhere like Gators in a Louisiana ditch. I called my lawyers, all of them. They said they'd get back to me, which means there is a loophole and they're scared to

1:02:39say it. Sir, I've actually been thinking about 2028 myself. I've been putting together some policy ideas and, that's great JD. Love the energy. Here's what we're going to do. You run. Your name on the ballot. Your face on the signs. But I picked the cabinet. I write the speeches and I do the rallies. So I'd be president, but you'd be helping very aggressively from a couch, probably at Marlago. I'll have fully remote veto power. Sir, that's just the presidency with a middleman, like buying crawfish through a broker, unnecessary and insulting to the crawfish. Do I at least get to pick my own tie? We'll discuss it, but I'm leaning no. Your tie game needs work JD. It's very well documented. Sir, what you're describing is a puppet government. They got a word for that in Latin. You also have a word for winning, John. And it's me, Trump, in every language. They're clever. They're clever. Now you've set off all the leftists who were going to see a baby Trump video and think

1:03:46it's serious. Well, you were mentioning about the fact that I hadn't even thought about this, but the football schedule this week could, yeah, that could have an impact on you. Now tell me, who's playing the bar? There's a Wednesday. Tomorrow, yeah, first time ever, I think we're having a Wednesday night kickoff to the season. I mean, go figure. The NFL just wants to keep on encroaching on every day of the week until they own them all. But the rematch of the previous year's Super Bowl, New England at Seattle, and then I think the next night we have an Australia game. I could be getting these wrong. I know Thursday and Friday we have games, but I think the Thursday night game is a game in Australia between the 49ers and the Rams. So what do you think? Is anybody going to watch this convention with that competition or what? It could be a little tough. I won't lie. It could be a little tough, but that could be why he's the presence decided, well, let me speak on the first night. Wednesday, I don't know.

1:04:46It's, yeah, I almost wonder if it would have been smarter to do a Tuesday Wednesday thing than a Wednesday Thursday thing, but we'll see. But these are such big events. You can't just turn on a dime and change. Oh, no, no, no, no. I just wonder when the schedule was set for this, whether it was something that was done, what came first here? The cart, what's the horse? The NFL set their schedule first or did Trump and company set their schedule first? And I hope it, I hope that it wasn't that the NFL set their schedule first and then Trump comes and says, let's just do it on Wednesday and Thursday anyway. Because that would suggest some rather poor planning, I think. Yeah. You want to get as many eyeballs as possible. Absolutely. Absolutely. And to be candidly live tomorrow, hopefully from the American Airlines arena tomorrow for

1:05:49the program. And I'll be at the event tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to telling you all about it. I think it's going to be an interesting couple of days. They have a big event tonight for all the Southern states. And I'm curious as to who that is and what it's going to look like. I don't even know where we're going. I think they're keeping that a secret. So wouldn't it be nice if it were just a convention? I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. Or me. Yeah. It's like, yeah. All right. Well, hey, always good to see you. Glad to be back here. And be too. Thank you so much. producer Dana. If you want to shoot us an out, send it to the read revolution at gmail.com, the read revolution at gmail.com. Hope it's a great Tuesday for you. And we'll see you back here tomorrow for the next edition of the read revolution live from Dallas and the Republican midterm convention.