No More Comfort Zone Politics / Nick Solheim

0:00If you are going to stay in your conservative ecosystem and you say politics is not for me, then I think you have a responsibility to finance winning. I am 100% opposed to the wanderlust. The classical DC individualist I am here for my own edification and for the glory of my own name. We are creating a broad base of people who operate as a singular unit. The reason that we are able to do that is because we are selecting people without egos who did not go to the prestigious universities and don't feel the compunction to tell you within 10 seconds of meeting you that they graduated from Harvard. They have a desire for our people to win, not for their own glorification. Well, Nick Sohan, glad to have you for this interview. We have had interviews before, but I imagine people tune into this. You are the CEO of American Moment.

1:01It was just a little bit about American Moment. What is it? What do you do? Yeah, so American Moment is an organization that we founded almost five years ago now. It has been a long time, but essentially our work at American Moment is to identify, educate, and credential the next generation of America first staff that can serve in positions in presidential administrations, allied congressional offices, and the nonprofit and private sector of sphere. Essentially the group of people that we focus on are young like we are, and we like to focus on people who otherwise would not be given an opportunity to serve in some of these roles. So the way previously that a lot of these roles, specifically on the Hill and in the administration were selected, it was a credentials game. It was, did you go to an IV?

2:02Do you have a master's? Is your dad a donor to one of these senators? And so it was very difficult for people who went to schools like New St. Andrews College, out here, or say, Christendom College at in Virginia, or people who went to remote outposts of state schools or heaven forbid community college. It was very hard for those people to get their foot in the door in DC. And I dropped out of school a year and a half in, not because I was dumb, but because I was poor. And I sort of had a similar experience where there was no sense in which I could get my foot in the door and as such, it took me an extra five years to be able to get to DC. And so what we exist to do is to take all of these people who would otherwise not be considered for these roles. We put them through a series of boot camps. We have four different academic programs that are meant to not just train you on policy,

3:04but also on how DC works, how all of these departments work, how the hill works and so on. And then help you get your first job in DC and advance your career beyond that. Okay, so other than you say, I've got a son who's interested in going into politics and he fits the bill as far as, maybe he didn't go to the Ivy Leagues or whatnot. As we're considering his options, as he's looking at different options, other than the fact that you can be someone who makes connections in DC. What are the principles of American moment? Like, if I'm thinking where are you at with the major plot points, international policy, national policy, in the conservative world, how do you describe what you're about? Well, I would take it on a bit of a, like I'll get to that, but a bit of a different axis. I think back to a lot of the staff

4:06that served in the first Trump administration. And there were, how do I say this? Some might assume we're good people to use the president's quote. So there were some people who were aligned and were good at their jobs, but that amount was very small. The biggest issue that we had, the two biggest issues we had with the president's staff in the first term were one ideological alignment. So there were a lot of people who did not support the president in the primaries. In many cases, ultimately did not vote for him in the general and who were wholly opposed to his worldview who somehow still ended up in the administration and then actively were seeking to undermine him. On the other side, you had people who were extremely aligned who had been with the president since the primary,

5:07obviously voted for him in the general, so on and so forth, but were complete outsiders and had no understanding of the way a lot of these departments work in the ways in which career officials will seek to undermine not just you, but a duly elected president. So to get to the core of your question, when we're interviewing somebody for to come and do one of our boot camps and then ultimately for one of these roles in politics, I'm looking for that ideological alignment and the competency. And the ideological alignment can't be taught. That has to be felt. Like you can always learn more about and learn how to, it's like apologetics, right? Like you can learn how to defend your position better, but the root, what you believe, how you feel about X, Y, and Z issue,

6:08that is something that many cases, people coming through our programs hold very close. On the competency side of things, being able to speak well, being a good writer, you can teach a lot of that stuff. And so when we're doing those interviews, we're really looking for, okay, where are these people out on the baseline and then related to that, which program on orange should they go through? Like how much more do they need to learn to be able to do one of these roles? On the ideological side, there are three main issues that we are always vending for. And we have this, if you're listening to this and you wanna know what American moment believes, we have 10 priorities on our website, but they all flow out of these three issues, trade, immigration, and foreign policy. And our views on those three issues are very much not just informed by the historic American conservative position

7:08on those issues, but these were also the three biggest issues that the president campaigned on initially in 2015 and 2016. Namely, restricted immigration, both legal and illegal, fair trade over absolute free trade, and then restrained and realist foreign policy that did not get us mired in endless wars. So when we're vetting people like we are looking for, and they may have, they may be more passionate about one of those issues over the other, but the way a lot of the interagency process works in the administration, there's many times there is a lot of overlap between what the Department of Homeland Security is doing and what the Department of War is doing. Venezuela would be a good example of this. And so you wanna make sure that everybody that's coming through your program is aligned on all three of those issues. Okay. So can we take restrained and realist

8:11international policy for a little bit? Sure. So I've seen you've, I saw someone on the internet say that I spent time with Nick Solheim and what was on his mind was Greenland, Greenland, Greenland. Or something of that. Yes, yeah. But you have obviously, we have the Greenland thing and you have the Maduro thing. So if we're at American moment in one of these boot camp sessions, I'm assuming that the Maduro situation was a hot topic, is a hot topic still. What's going on in that boot camp? What do you, what do you say about the Venezuela, let's talk Venezuela first and then let's talk Greenland? Yeah. What should we do with international? What's a restrained and realist policy look like there? Yeah, so I think you're seeing a lot of, there is some debate in the conservative movement about this issue in particular right now, the Venezuela policy. And look, what I would say is,

9:13I have this, it's ingrained in my memory because I was watching it live. The president on the debate stage in 2016 in South Carolina, and you had all of Jeb Bush's donors and his family in the front row. And he just flat out says the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a mistake. And we are worse off as a country because of them. And what I think is notable about the policy in Iraq and Afghanistan versus Venezuela is this is not an extended military operation. It is quick in and out. We go, we grab this guy. We bring him back and we're done. And mercifully, he's in jail. He's in prison in the United States, pretty quick. In New York, of all places. And so now, you always have concerns

10:13with stuff like that, right? That we sent in a relatively small team, but it could have been very possible that one of our soldiers was killed. And we did have, I believe, one or two who were wounded. But mercifully, God was on our side. And no Americans were killed. In terms of strategically what makes Venezuela different, as opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan, it is actually in our hemisphere. This is a complete fulfillment of the Monroe doctrine. And if you're listening to this and you're not familiar with the Monroe doctrine, essentially it comes from James Monroe. In what the two pieces of the Monroe doctrine are, one, we will not allow European powers to have extensive influence in the western hemisphere,

11:15which is applicable to the Greenland thing, which we'll come back to. And then the second piece of it is that America is the hegemon of the western hemisphere. And so we expect to, now we're not subjugating the entire hemisphere, right? But we expect to be heard and listened to and respected. And so look, when you have a country that has been complicit in the drug trade that has worked to support communism in the western hemisphere and that has sent a lot of illegal aliens to the United States, like there's got to be a change. There's got to be a change. And I think it's fully, now I would be much more concerned if this turned into more of, you know, call it. We're going to build democracy. Right. Like a debathification type scenario,

12:15I think that is a lot more difficult to accomplish. There are a lot of neocons that are pushing for that. They have Venezuelan dissidents that they would like us to put in charge. But I think the president has done a great job of saying, look, the people in Venezuela have a government. And this particular guy, Maduro, has done a lot of harm to the United States. We're taking him. But you guys have the right to self-determination. And we're not going to interfere too much beyond that. But you owe us. Does NDC, on the ground, you're there, the conservatives, their supporters of Trump, is there unity of mind on this? Or are there some people with the America first, the Trump base that have raised an eyebrow at his international policy?

13:15Like is it crackle? Somebody make a run? Yeah, it's definitely not been uniform. There are, I think, there are some open questions as to, you know, with some of the oil revenue and that sort of thing, how old that is going to play out. How much does that help us versus make the problem in Venezuela worse, so on, and so forth? But I think by and large, people recognize that, you know, mercifully, all of this has worked out in our favor. And so there's not too much, you know, consternation about this. And actually, here's another really interesting point. I think, to the extent that some people are, I wouldn't say they're opposed to the president's policy. They just have some concerns about how it's going to play out over the next six to 12 months. The basis for all of those concerns is not theoretical.

14:21It's not an ideological opposition. It almost all comes back to, is this going to cause a migration crisis that is going to make it harder to stop illegal aliens from coming into the country at our southern border? That is where most of the concern is grounded. And look, it's pretty obvious that that is the issue that the president cares the most about. And so I think, in a large sense, most of these people trust the president to get the job done. I certainly do. Now, on this, you mentioned the kind of the ideological versus the practical applied to Venezuela. And I've seen you say recently, we have our principles, but then we need to be outcome-oriented. And certainly with President Donald Trump, and also with Vice President J.D. Vance, the vibe of this new conservative, Zoomer world, I think all the energy is good,

15:25but it seems to be oriented very much that way. So we don't, we really want to move away from ideology into practice, kind of bringing back what seems, the reason I like that is it sounds like Burke. And just your allegiances, your loyalties, your prejudices, your instincts. And I think we're moving in a good direction there. I'm interested how it's on the ground in DC with this rising generation of potential leaders at your training and some of the connections you're making with those who are already in government. Is that a real, like, where are we at on that spectrum between ideological, conservative, and practical outcome-oriented conservative? Well, I think all of the young people that are coming through our program are, like, I do not think they are one or the other. Like, they're both, you know, a lot of these people are deeply ideological conservatives, but they know what time it is, and they know that if we don't,

16:30if we don't change direction as a country that we're going to be in big trouble. I got a lot of the specific posts that you're talking about, and by the way, I'm going to use that line in my speech at the Disputario today, but I got a lot of pushback for, you know, from a lot of the free market libertarians and so on for calling for, like, a living constitutionalism or something like that, that is no different from what AOC and Bernie Sanders and all of these people want to do. You imply that we are going to progress to something and that progress is a bad word for some people. Well, so my point is that, and just to be clear, I'm wholly opposed to living constitutionalism. I think a much better example of the kind of thing that I am talking about, you know, the president has been talking about nuking the filibuster as an example. And a lot of the Boomer members of the Senate

17:36Republican Conference as well as a lot of the older ideologues in Washington treat the filibuster like it is in the Constitution. It is like 110 years old. It's not in the Constitution. It's just like a Senate rule. You can just get rid of it. You know, like, that is not a foundational to the Republic question, right? Whereas the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Third and the Fourth Amendment, like these are foundational American values, right? That we can and should not, cannot and should not ever change, in my view. But some of these things that are making it difficult because of the makeup of the Senate Republican Conference to get the president's policy through the Senate, like, look, it is not been like, I believe it came about during the Wilson administration, like, who, by the way, one of the worst presidents we've ever had. So, yeah, like stuff like that, I think,

18:39that's where you need to start willing to be flexible. Not on the foundational principles, but on like how we achieve outcomes. Do you, I mean, is that a pretty strong age spectrum would map so the older would be a little more uncomfortable with that statement you made. The younger are far more comfortable with practical outcomes. Yeah, yeah, so that comes back to the original question that you were asking me. It is wholly a generational divide. The views of people under the age of 30 in Washington, let's call it a 35. People under the age of 35 and then people over have largely, again, speaking of people in the administration, largely the same ideological viewpoints, although the younger folks may be a little more heart edged

19:42about them in the way that they talk about them. It's really those practical outcomes where you start to see that divide. So, you know, you have some people who are pushing a particular policy that we all agree on. And if they get, you know, beaten by some conglomeration of, you know, Democrats and then, you know, 10 Republicans in the Senate, they just throw out their hands and they're like, well, I guess we're gonna have to get, you know, more good guys in the Senate. I'll focus on, you know, X, Y and Z issue. Whereas a lot of the younger guys are like, we have to find it, this is a, this is a civilizational crisis. If we do not figure out, like birthright citizenship is a great, is a great example of this. Like, I think a lot of people, a lot of young people recognize that if we do not figure this out, we could potentially lose our country. And so they are much more committed to finding ways that yes, are still constitutional,

20:43but where on some of these precedents that are not as old, where you could start to get creative, bend the rules a little bit. So there is a huge, I think, generational divide on the desire for outcomes. Do you find a similar generational divide on the left? I think the generational divide on the left is much more ideological than it is outcome-based. Yeah, I think it's a lot more, because you have this very weird, like during the Biden administration, you would have like totally normal, like Al Gore, Democrat serving, and then at the same time, you'd have like, who is that? What was the name of that bald guy that stole that African woman's luggage

21:45in Minnesota and was wearing all of her dresses and stuff? He was like Sam Britton or something like that. So then you have freaks like that, and it is, I think it's a lot more ideologically divided. You have the older crowd, who's like, I think we should be a little harder on corporations and I care about global warming. I'm not super in on all this trans stuff. Insanity spectrum from on the left. Whereas, and again, I'm not talking about just to be clear. I'm not talking about the voting base here. I'm talking about the elite, like the people who are serving in these roles in the administration or on the hill and so on and so forth. I think are specifically speaking of the Trump administration, I think almost, all the appointees are on the same page about what it is we actually want. I do not think the same is true on the left. It's very strange to me. It's a fascinating development and good.

22:46So bringing some of the theological in, we're post-millennial and kind of historically the danger with any kind of post-millennialism would be that it actually turns into liberalism like left stuff you. So the fundamentalist Baptist in the South, you know, that was banging on the Bible conservative once you just hold on to the ancient paths. And as soon as you develop a post-millennial structure, you are now considering the development, the growth of the kingdom in the world, the advance. So rather than just the idea of what we're conserving, you begin to talk about what we're progressing to. Yeah, whereas, so all that to say, it's interesting to me to watch this development, particularly with Gen Z. I'm watching my own kids now. I'm millennial, 41. So I'm, when I find probably most Gen Z people that are wanting to talk about, okay, boomer, you know. We get on your father's and we pass.

23:47We call you spiritual boomers. Spiritual boomers. Oh, dude, is that what millennials are? Yeah, spiritual boomers. A spiritual boomer, okay, nice. I didn't know that, but it makes sense. I can fit that in my category, yeah. So, usually the problem with young people is their ideal and as the man grows, he grows more practical. Yeah. So it's very interesting to have kind of Trump as this very practical man, Vance channeling those same vibes. I'm assuming he's millennial. Is he actually millennial or is he a young exer? I don't know. He's a millennial. He's about your age. Okay, so there you go. You've got both channeling those vibes, and I'm pleased like with the desire, as long as they understand the connection between your principles and its applications and its methods and its outcomes. My postmural eschatology is a Christian map as well

24:50onto a conservative strategy that's realist, that's practical, that's looking for growth. So I guess we take that idea, we've talked about in this way a little bit. How's that applied to Greenland, a realist and restrained international policy? Yeah, so I've spent a lot of time talking to reporters about this over the last couple of weeks because I think they've gotten a lot of it wrong. You know, there was a very big, there was a lot of news stories about how we're preparing for military invasion that was very seriously considered that information is wrong. I'm vigorous. The president, obviously, when asked, you know, when you run the most powerful country in the world and you're asked, are you willing to say that you're gonna take your like most valuable,

25:50but the last, you know, the last resort option off the table, of course, you would never say, yeah, yeah, obviously, military options are off the table, right? Like you would never, you would never do that. And he doesn't do that. And so he said, no, no, I'm not, I'm not taking it off the table. You gotta remember, this is the man that wrote a book called The Art of the Deal. He wants a deal and I've had many conversations with, you know, anonymize this a little bit, but with people in Denmark and in Greenland. And they are very concerned about, you know, a military, you know, based action. The thing that I think we are the most upset about here in the United States is they're not even willing to have a conversation about what a deal looks like.

26:52And in response to not being able to have a conversation about that, and instead wedding the bed, you know, about a potential military solution, they sent like 20 military guys from Germany, from Denmark, from France, and so on and so forth. And then they released this bellicose statement, you know, essentially accusing the United States of being a bad actor, of potentially being a threat to NATO. I think this is a diplomatic failure all the way down. All the president has wanted since 2018, is to have a serious conversation about what a potential change in the relationship between the United States and Greenland is. He wants some kind of deal. And the Danish response has been kind of all this like, this post-war liberal international order,

27:54just like blah, blah, blah. Like I was talking to this, I was talking to a member of the Greenland Civil Service a couple of days ago, and his line to me was, Nick, it's 2026, we don't buy and sell people anymore. And my rhetoric was like, we sold us the US Virgin Islands in 1910, and there were people on it, were you engaging in slavery then, to which you had no answer. And so like, I think the, and this does not just extend to Denmark, by the way, I think this is true throughout NATO, throughout the EU, they have allowed their, not just their military, but also their diplomatic and defense strategy become, you know, derasinated beyond all recognition, like they are so used to being led and covered by the United States,

28:58being so reliant upon us for not just what they ought to believe, vis-à-vis the rest of the world, but also for their actual material physical defense, that they've got nobody who knows how this all actually works. All right, so one of your trainees at American Moment, we're talking Greenland on this particular bootcamp day. He raises his hand and says, okay, so should we buy it or not? I think buy is complicated. There are a lot of options. That's the way I would put it. So there are a couple of different ways that you could go about this, you know, the traditional way that territory in the United States has been acquired, has been something along those lines, right? Another country agrees to sell it to us. That's the case for the Louisiana Purchase from the French, the Alaska Purchase from the Russians, you know,

30:00so on and so forth. There's a certain sense in which that is now antiquated, like nobody likes that anymore. It, that's certainly the Danish view, that that smacks of colonialism, despite the fact that they're currently engaging in colonialism by holding onto a territory. So they do not, they are not fans and never have been of having this conversation about selling. The other option is there is a very robust and highly popular movement in Greenland toward independence. The biggest risk with the Greenlanders becoming independent, it is a very vast territory, like if you adjust for the map projection and put it over the central United States, so put it over like Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, so on. It goes from about 100 miles into Canada on the Minnesota side,

31:02all the way down to Mexico, so through Texas, all of that. So through Texas, all of that. 57,000 people, that whole thing. Some of the, like the port at Nook is one of the best deep seaports in the entire world. There is a potential for vast natural resources and they are going to be a lot of global hedge moms who are gonna be very interested in taking advantage of that, not just us, but the Russians, the Chinese, they have both expressed interest in this in years past. And so the thing that, again, accepting the Monroe doctrine as the premise, you don't want the Russians or the Chinese right on your doorstep, right? You don't want them doing a bunch of these projects in Greenland, you don't want them having very close relationship with the Greenlanders, so there's that concern.

32:04So one of the ideas that has been floated has been let's allow the Greenlanders to become independent, have them put it up for a plebiscite, everybody votes. I think last poll I saw is Greenlandic independence from Denmark on some time horizon. There's a lot of differing views on the time horizon, but polls at about 80%. So let's let them become independent. And then we've talked about admitting them under the Compact of Free Association. So the Compact of Free Association is essentially this agreement that we have with a couple of other independent countries, namely like Palau, the Marshall Islands. It's almost all, actually every single one that's currently in COFA is in the Pacific Ocean. And essentially what they get is military protection,

33:07use of the US dollar, and they get pseudo citizenship with a lot of asterisks. They can come to the United States, they can do stuff like that. They can study here. They can't vote in presidential elections. I don't believe they get to own firearms, but be on that. It's like, mostly, you know, you're... They can glean the edges of the field. Yeah. So, and again, that, the precedent there, right, is these are also very small population-sized places that are strategically located. These were islands that the Chinese were very interested in having military bases on and investing in and so on and so forth, about as related to their, you know, Southeast Asian defense strategy. And so, there have been a lot of conversations about admitting Greenland under a similar arrangement,

34:07where, yes, technically they're independent. They can set their own domestic policy and so on and so forth, but they get protection from the United States in exchange we get further military bases there. They get access to the US economy, no trade barriers, or anything like that, and then the ability to come here to work, study, you know, whatever. What, and what do we get other than we put military bases there? So, I'm actually like, this is my personal view. I'm not super high on, like, putting more military bases there. I think we can do... So, the current state of play there is we have a pitufic space force base. So, it is, which is, I think, the only space force base in the world. So, that is in Northwestern Greenland. That we used to have, back in the day, it was an Air Force base.

35:12We used to have about 10,000 people there. We're down to about 200 right now. I think that we could start to expand that base, again, you know, the president is very passionate about Golden Dome, and so that level of personnel will be required. Beyond that, I think, additional military bases, and this is something that a lot of the Republican Neocon Senators are agitating for, is they want more military bases in Greenland because they want to further entrench the American defense strategy in Europe. They would like to be, you know, again, they still think that Russia is the biggest threat in the world. And so, if we put more military bases in Greenland, you know, we can more easily help Ukraine and so on and so forth. So, my view is we just do a moderate expansion, epitufic,

36:13and then U.S. Coast Guard base in Neoc or something like that. I think the two main things that we would get out of this is one. We could firmly slam the door on the Russians and the Chinese. If it were admitted under Kofa, there are certain restrictions that come with that, that would not allow, you know, foreign investment of specifically our adversaries. So, I think that is a huge plus. And then second, like the economic opportunity, it's a big place, you know, I think, this is kind of cringed, but like one of the things that's been thrown out there is like, you would just put like data centers for where, you know. So, there's that. There's the resources question. There are some rare earth mineral deposits which are going to continue to be extremely valuable, especially as tensions rise between us and the Chinese with Taiwan stuck in the

37:17middle. And then there's a really interesting question of, and now we're getting like, really in the weeds of what we do with the Northwest Passage. Like if we were to admit, Greenland under Kofa, we essentially surround Canada on all sides. Now, this is my take is not, we should invade Canada, but we have this. You heard it here. Next. My view is that, so currently, the status of the Northwest Passage is that Canada defines it as internal waters, i.e., we have to have their permission to sail through it. We can be taxed for sailing through it, and so on and so forth. The American view is that it's international waters, and we can do whatever we damn well, please. But under the Obama administration, we decided to agree to disagree and mainly follow their rules.

38:20I think the thing that becomes really interesting if all of this happens is you have a new shipping cord or that, by the way, like if you're shipping stuff from Western Europe to the West Coast takes about a week and a half less than it takes to send it through the Panama Canal. So there's a huge end you could stop off in Greenland and so on and so forth. It would basically, for anyone who is listening to this podcast who is familiar with Russian foreign policy, it would essentially be the North American equivalent to the Northern Sea Root over Russia, which the Russians and the Chinese are currently using. So yeah, that was very in depth. Yeah, I can tell you have been thinking about Greenland a lot. With that, no, it is really fascinating to hear about the different elements that are going on there. Well, I think one thing too that I neglected to mention here, so I went to World Greenland last summer. I went to this village in the Arctic Circle called Kangaroo Luswak,

39:26and it's the former head of Danish Arctic Command. It's a village of about 200 people. Every single thing in the town is attached to the airport. So when you stay in the hotel, it is in the airport. The one restaurant is in the airport. The grocery store is in the airport, and then it's like block apartments, right? And what's different about a place like Kangaroo Luswak and Nuk is that Nuk is predominantly governed by, and Greenland as a whole, is governed by a if not outright Danish, mixed Danish elite, right? So it's a lot of people, there's a lot of intermarriage between the native peoples of Greenland and the Danes in Nuk. So that makes that stuff a lot more complicated. You go out to a lot of these rural villages. Everybody out there is a native, and they hate the Danish. They despise them. They view them as colonialists.

40:35One of the things that's been in the news recently is that Danish have had to issue a national apology to Greenland because they were sterilizing the natives as recently as the 1970s. They were handing out IUDs to these women in rural villages and not telling them what they were. They were just inserting them and said, it's for your health. So they despise the Danish. Now, their views on America, this is actually another interesting thing that I discovered when I was there. They are also very stratified on generational lines. So older people are like, I mean, I speak Greenland, I speak Danish. I want to be independent from them, but we'll always have some cultural ties there and we're not as close to the United States. All the young guys that we talked to while we were there loved Donald Trump. This is totally

41:40anecdotal. I'm not saying that this is every young person in Greenland, but I talked to probably 20 or 30 young men while I was there, so 10% of this town. They asked us to send them mega hats when we got back to the United States. So there's some interesting color on all that too. Nice. Okay. All right, subject change. You have your delivering a dispute audio address this afternoon. You've seen it in college. I hope my voice recovers before then. And there you are. So tell us what that's going to be about. Let's talk about this. Two themes. Yeah. What are they? Yeah. So one theme is that it is not enough just to retreat into our own small conservative ecosystems.

42:44Some people are going to be called to start productive businesses and so on and so forth. And that's great. I think what's important to remember about that is you go back in American history. The Revolutionary War was not only fought, it was also financed. So if you are going to stay in your conservative ecosystem and you say politics is not for me, you know, I want to start a business, I want to have this productive life. Great. Then I think you have a responsibility to finance winning to finance winning. So it is not going to be enough for, and by the way, I we take graduates from hundreds of universities across the United States. The best that we have ever had in the people serving in the highest levels of government right now that have gone through our

43:46program have come from this institution in this town, New Sin Andrews College, or the broader ecosystem. We've had a couple people from Moscow who have come out who didn't go to NSA, but they're broadly in the sphere. They've come from Hillsdale College and they have come from Christendom College. I get a lot from Christendom College. And I'm here to say that sending me one or two of those guys a year, like out of your graduating class, there's like that one door who's like really into politics, that's not enough. It's not enough. We need more men. We're raising an army for battle in a philosophical sense. So that is the first thing. The second thing is I think part of the skepticism for a lot of people out here and in other places like this, I think

44:47to a certain extent Hillsdale in Michigan is like this as well. Is there is sort of this conservative aversion to wielding power? And there is, these guys don't want to come to DC and effectively take advantage of a political patronage system and wield that sort of power. And again, this is the responsibility that God gives to kings and to rulers. And to men is like punish the evil doer. And I think based on conversations I've had with some individuals in years past studying here, they're not wholly opposed to that, but it feels a little uncomfortable. They see a lot of these ice raids in Minneapolis as an example or they see this

45:56agitator who attempted to run over in ice officer and was ultimately killed and they say that's bad optics. That doesn't look good. And I think conservatives as a whole, if we want to take this country back, we have to get a lot more comfortable with wielding power. Now what that does not mean is we're going to arrest everybody that disagrees with us. That is fundamentally unconstitutional, but not only is it unconstitutional, it's also un-American and un-Christian. It is not a Christian worldview at all. But I think what we do have a duty to do is it has become obvious that there is an entire network of not just the financiers, but also the activists who are seeking to radicalize an entire movement of people to attack not just law enforcement

46:56officials, but also public figures like Charlie Kirk. And we have a duty to make sure that those loosely tied together organizations are rolled up. A lot of those people have their day in court. Yeah. Yeah, I think that certainly that message is going to be really well received here. And I think it's going to kind of be well received even more broadly in the conservative world. Posts, Charlie Kirk. I mean, and even the most recent Minneapolis disaster. The the word I'm getting, not only from students at NSA, but just family back in Florida, right, all friends across the nation. Yeah. I think everybody knows that we're building that

47:56you're it's actually your duty to build power. And this is rooms 13, you know, bear the sword in vain, you actually are supposed to be a terror to evil conduct. Yeah. His ex just came up recently with the, the, you see the Pam Bondy tweet, the, this is a guy, one of the guys that was harassing this, the, the Christians in Minneapolis has also been harassing our service in DC. Yes, I did see. And he went on somewhere and said, arrest me. And they did. It's like, you could kill the messenger, but you can't kill the message. It's kind of big and yeah, Pam Bondy just read to me and said, okay. Yeah. And then now he's they did arrest him. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, they did. So everyone that was actually addressed in my class and everyone. Yeah. But I think, I think the critical thing which I think is going to be the most controversial when I talk about this this afternoon is you have,

48:57this is my personal view. You have too many high capacity people in this town who could be doing other things that would be more valuable to saving the Republic. That is, that is my central thesis. I think, you know, this book by Rod Draer at the Benedict option was was extremely popular pre-COVID. It definitely had like hockey stick popularity during COVID. We thought like we'll go out into our own communities and and and we can control those. We can control what happens there. And my point is, and I think you even saw this here in Moscow during that period of time, you can't. They are going to come after you anyway. I like to point to this scene and I'm going to do it too in my in my talk later today. I don't know if you've ever read this book by Jean Russ by the camp of the Saints. It's a very it's a naughty book. It's

50:03banned in a lot of Western Europe because of its themes about migration. But essentially the thesis is that one million immigrants from India show up in this flotilla on the southern coast of France. And what the book is about actually is not about the evils of mass migration. It is about the weakness of the democratically elected leaders of the West. And it is a it is a self critique. It is a a look inside of yourself and in your own heart critique. And so as the flotilla gets closer and closer to France, one by one all the institutions fall. The the military says, no, we don't we don't need to defend our southern shores. A storm will likely take them out. It is an abdication of responsibility. And as they get closer, the the church, the Catholic church in France says,

51:07well, we are beset with many Western sins. And the Indians are they are here to teach us something. We are going to learn a lot from them. And then right as they are landing on the southern shore, the hypothetical president of France, it is a novel after all, does a national address where he starts to say, we are going to have a whole of government response. He breaks down halfway through the speech, pushes aside his prepared remarks and says that he cannot in good conscience command an entire army and an entire nation against these migrants. It is every man for himself. Every man must decide in his own conscience what he will do. So everyone panics and in some sense accepts the the subjugation of this mass flow of migration. There is a

52:11there is a small band of some Catholic priests and it's sort of a dark humor thing but there's there's a small group of people to get together and they go to escape to northern France and they say like, if we can just get away from all the all the migrants, it'll be it'll be fine. We can have our own little community here and ultimately they're all killed but not by the migrants by the French Air Force for not complying with the desire for migrants are ultimately killed by their own. This will be great for Disputario. You should start assigning this book by the way at NSA. Well I have several questions about how you're using the book. I have several questions about your proposition, your very interesting proposition which I mean will let's face a few of the facts up front. You're incentivized to be in the state, the proposition, the way that you

53:16did because you're running an American moment and we have very high quality people around here. You're going to be inclined to take your position that we got too much fruit over here and we've got to send it out. You said your way. I would not. Now you might say I'd be inclined to want to keep this talent around here in my little town out here in Northern Idaho but you know there's going to be steady troops coming through institutions and we we have a significant population and compared to our town already so we do have some in I do care about the nation so I want to send them to you. So my question is about your proposition or maybe are not kind of I actually have some I'm not structured in quite the same way you're structured. If I'm you I'm saying exactly what you said because I need to I need to fund these these saying solid strong classically trained people that have read these I need to get them into these spots in the government but I but you you raise something is like deep big like the very nature of life itself in the nature of our country what's

54:23going to happen. I and a couple things Roger your Benedict option find a ding that but we ding that so we are I've heard people oh yeah yeah go to Douglas Wilson's blog and watch his several part review where he says it's a retreat into commitment yeah okay we at Newson Andrews have our building named the Boniface room not the Benedict room because Boniface was of course the one who went and took it to the idolatry so what's interesting though but I can understand yeah yeah yeah I can understand all the more reason to send me more than one or two people a year okay okay maybe but we'll see the but um this is a thing though when people think Northern Idaho I mean they Ruby Ridge up here they think I think it's a place of no culture and yet when I come here what's interesting I wonder if I could almost use the proposition that there's more culture in my town Moscow Idaho than there is in Washington DC now here's why that would sound insane well you've got

55:24Christchurch in Washington DC now though okay granted we're happy to bring the culture we're that's why and we bring the worship first but it's not that I agree with you but obviously like but history of course you have wonderful history and now do you just love the history and your monuments and the buildings and of course it's a place it was a place of absolute culture it is no longer it's a place of vacuous swampish whatever that's being revitalized by Gen Z who is very interested in getting and making America great again and recovering the nation but what's interesting about that is um I do a hundred percent think that there are going to be people that should um have to you know shouldn't move and enter into politics yeah but I think that when it comes to the desire to be elite which is a which is probably significantly being recovered in the conservative movement and we're certainly seeing it recovered here that's why we're doing that's why you do Latin and Hebrew and Greek and Herodotus synthesities and Plato and Aristotle

56:28and the Western tradition here that you can be elite and fund this as you mentioned fun what's going on and not have to enter into politics I do agree with that and I would say we're going to need a harmony between say small town culture and real chrysanthem being established yep and the national project and because of our tech in this 21st century you have the ability to play in both of these worlds lots of people do we're playing in both of these worlds right now yep um two things one to put it extremely concisely uh I would like to see Moscow's fruits become the national fruits right it's number one number two when I give this talk later today I do not in any sense expect that the entire student body of New St. Andrews College is uh going to devote itself to coming out to

57:31Washington however I've talked to many of its students over the years who have thought again because they are so enticed by the fruits here and and so on and so forth like yes in it in it in it in another life I would like to do that but it's it's more comfortable you know here and so if I can get 10% of of those kinds of guys today to decide you know what that's interesting I should do that um if I could get if I could get this year 15 Judah Merkel's I would be like 100% right but a couple things let's go things though enticed by the fruits here and I find it comfortable here but I would actually contend you could be enticed by the fruits of Washington DC and you can be remarkably comfortable in Washington DC I'm a man with seven children and several jobs and I wake up early and go to bed late yeah and um the whole

58:34DC type A personality actually exists like you don't uh the idea that the small town of the retreat I mean the classic all our founding fathers in this nation right there I just want to retire and so I've remained under his own vine and under his own fig tree I've done my duty I've done my service I want to go and enjoy my land I know that that kind of that trope's there but that's so manifestly not what is happening in this small town that I just think it at least jostles your thesis about it's you're I think your thesis still plays your point still plays but it does jostle it because it's weird when you go we'll shoot there are several men that are laboring for a new chrysanthem in a small town and they're hustling the way that a type A DC type does yep and the no disagreement the type A guy that's trying to get into politics it's loving to be an elite guy realizes he's working a really really long time on this little tiny fragmented thing they then get scuttled because of some tweet from somebody like they've

59:38spent their life on something so small in particular I'm not saying that that everyone in DC is doing that at all but I'm just saying these are some things I would say you got to watch out for yeah I think and totally agreed that that all the people who are out here doing other things are working extremely hard they're building chrysanthem and so on and so forth um I suppose my only question is if for a small segment of this population whether or not they could be put to a higher and better use I think it's I think it's a legit I would just say I got a bit strong beauty in the beast vibes you know I mean Bell wants something so much more than this provincial life or you know what I mean I you could just feed on it yes are you are you are you going to be the one that I want to see the world are you going to be the one so actually like I am wholly opposed to

1:00:39to that I know right as a thesis is conservative themes going to come in so so one of the things that I tell everybody that comes to our program and it's and in the reason why actually in general we don't let people coming through our boot camps and that sort of thing pick the job they're going to have is because the attitude that we are seeking to cultivate is one of humility if it would make your principle 15% more effective for you to go and work for him and scrub his floors you need to be willing to do that yeah so it is very I think you're taking the analogy a little too far I'm busting your chops because I know you're conservative but I are you the one that's going to be moderating my Q&A yeah I expect I expect I'm bringing chesterton I just read a line from chesterton he said this desire to climbed every mountain top and see the world he's overrated

1:01:40Satan was the chief alpine guide when he took Christ to the top and he said I will lift my eyes up to the hills from where my help comes from but I will only lift my carcass up to the hills if I absolutely have to yes and and that is that is wholly true and I am I am 100% opposed to the wanderlust the classical DC individualist I am here for my own edification and for the glory of my own name we are we are creating a broad base of people who operate as a singular unit and the the the in the sense that the and the reason that we are able to do that is because we are selecting people without egos who did not go to the prestigious universities and don't feel the compunction to tell you within 10 seconds of meeting you that they graduated from Harvard and so the the desire that our guys have to win and that I think a lot of these guys coming out of these institutions

1:02:44the institutions in Hillsdale Christendom College of the Ozarks is another really good example of this they they have a desire for our people to win not for their own glorification yep and you are you're an america first you got hillbilly lg in the background so that particularization that's why I use that argument against it because I knew it let it up the I know that your entity and your organization and zoomers are everything you're doing is about the local the particular your people it's not about wanting so much more than this provincial life but that's a wonderful little vibe that we'll work on disputated a date between the Moscow DC connection so should be fun Nick thanks anything else anything else to point people to american moment dot or yeah dot or the one the one thing I'll say um if there is anybody listening to this who is between the ages of 18 and 30 and for one of for whom one of these things is true you are um about to graduate

1:03:51from college maybe you didn't go to college at all maybe you're working in another career maybe you went to community college and you have a desire to come to DC but maybe you've never been before you've never done an internship you've never done anything like that we have this program is our flagship program it is the thing that I'm the most proud of uh called the fellowship for american statecraft and what it is is we take young people just like what I described maybe this is you that's listening uh we pay them three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars a month we place them in an internship at one of the executive agencies or uh on capitol hill for four days a week you spend all day on friday with us learning what you need to know about the way that policy is actually implemented um in the goal is that by the end of this 12 week program we can find you your first full-time job in dc all every single one of our fellows last year went on to a full-time

1:04:55job in washington so if that's you I would encourage you to apply we currently have the application for summer and for fall uh of this year open um we've changed people's lives we've taken electricians apprentices managers of fast food restaurants dental assistance but also people straight out of school and we have we have put them in these positions where we are going to be able to take our country back so if i've anything to flag it's that get into that yeah that sounds like great stuff and i i was out for theology of american statecraft back in the day so i've seen what american moments doing on the ground and it's great work out there uh Christchurch dc for those who are in the dc area uh has services every sunday christchurch hillsdale for those who are in the hillsdale area um or at hillsdale college there's a service there and i would point out keep an eye out we have um christ in country is um a project that pastor dog wilson pastor toby sumpter

1:05:58pastor joe rigney and myself uh have done you can find it on the christchurch app i'm going to be doing interviews with those men um shortly that's going to be touching on related topics to this whole um this discussion with you today so nick thanks again it's been great to talk always fun you