The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Great to be with you.
Well, we had a long evening on Tuesday night with the election returns. The recall election show with Andrew Kaye was a lot of fun, and we had some great guests. We’ll get to all that. We’ll break it down for you. I’ll give you my take of what you need to know coming out of Recall 2021.
But we also will have some great guests later on. We’ll talk with Martin Dugard. Martin Dugard is the author of an upcoming book Taking Paris, and he himself is an accomplished writer and author, sold a lot of books, history books. He did the Killing books with Bill O’Reilly Killing Lincoln, Killing Patton, and he’s a very talented writer. We’ll talk with him about Taking Paris.
Then we’ll also talk with Ronald Kessler, who’s written a bunch of books on the White House and the Secret Service. He’s been a real sort of journalist and historian, a journalistic, historian. We’ll also talk to him about this Woodward book and see what he thinks.
But first, let’s talk about what you need to know on this recall. Okay, what you need to know on the recall. Recall 2021. I want to give you a couple of thoughts, a couple of bullet points to take away the first one is this the Democrats took this very seriously. Now, up to about two months ago. I’m not sure that anybody really thought they were taking it seriously.
They took it seriously. They decided that this was not just a referendum on Gavin Newsom and might lose the governorship, which is a very, very, very, very important position. I’ll tell you why in a second.
But they also knew it would slow the agenda of the left. And so they spent hundreds of millions of dollars. They brought out all the big guns — AOC, Obama, and they got the base motivated, and they turned them out. They made sure the election rules were loosey goosey, and they turned them out.
Now, one of the reasons why this is so important to understand is that they needed to win for the agenda. But they also need… you have to understand, the governorships are so important for fundraising and for controlling the relationship of the donor and corporate class to the party.
When you have the governor of California call you and you’re a Wall Street big firm or you’re a manufacturing company or you’re big tech. You’re listening differently than when it’s a candidate, just some guy running for office because that governor has a lot of influence on what happens in your life.
So first, the Democrats took it seriously. They took it very seriously.
Number two, the Republican Party was not organized for a recall. Now it’s hard to do a recall. It’s not a normal election. You’ve got 46 candidates. In this case, I think 45 were Republicans. Early on, there was a bunch of people that were, I would say, mainstream Republican or party members in good standing had run for office and all.
And then Larry Elder got in late, obviously took all the oxygen out of the room. So the Republican Party in California is kind of anemic anyway, it’s tough to be in the minority like they are, to not have much of a leadership role. So it’s kind of weak. And that showed. That showed in terms of the ground game, that showed in terms of the ground game.
So the first thing is, Dems took it seriously. GOP in California is weak. I mean, I think you have to describe it that way.
Number three, Larry Elder was really good. He was really good as a candidate. He looked, sounded, you know, he looked differently, sounded differently, was communicating well. He was a very impressive… Larry Elder is an influencer now in a category that he wasn’t six weeks ago.
On the flip side, Elder is stronger and so is Gavin Newsom. And so is Gavin Newsom. If they, you know, if you strike the King, they say if you’re going to strike the King, you better take him out. They tried to take out the governor, now he survived. People say it’s almost like Scott Walker. After they tried to recall Scott Walker, and they made him the number one target. He kept winning. He got stronger and stronger.
Now, it turns out he wasn’t a very good presidential candidate, but he was strong. He was tough. He was a fighter. That’s what you’re seeing with Gavin Newsom. I don’t know what his future is, but I say he’s a front runner for the next presidential election, 2024 or 2028. Either one, I think he’s a front runner. He can raise the money. He’s got the profile.
So Larry Elder emerges as a bigger star. And so does Gavin Newsom. Both those things are true.
All right. The last thing I will say on this, and this is the one that’s tougher is the nationalizing the election, which happened here, and it happened because the Democrats designed it thus. It didn’t make it… They nationalized it by saying Elder’s like Trump, and they didn’t run away from the COVID health freedom stuff, that they are bullies about it.
And the Republicans have to come up with a better answer for how they’re for health, but they’re not for imposing all this stuff on us. On We the People. It’s a challenge. What happened in this case is they nationalized the election, everything’s about Trump.
Think about it. The news is all about Trump again. There’s a Trump book. There’s a Trump, new Trump Woodward book. Trump was the center of the recall. I mean, they love having Trump, and the media loves it because they love the attention. They love to get people agitated.
So it’s, but on this COVID question, the pandemic, the Wuhan flu, the Wuhan virus. I don’t think the Republicans have a really clear answer for what they’re up to, because far too many people have been made afraid. They’ve been made afraid by big tech, big media, and big government. And again, it doesn’t matter how we got here. It matters that we’re here. It doesn’t matter why people are scared. And if they were lied to, which they were in large part, it matters that they are scared.
And what do we do about it? And how do we change the equation? How do we make things better? It’s a real challenge. I actually think if anybody should have been punished for his conduct on COVID, it was Gavin Newsom. He did not, he does not look like he paid a big price.
And that’s got to worry you as you figure out what that means. Okay, now and maybe I’ll do one more thing. One more thing on that is that the last point? So I got 1,2,3,4,5 points. Okay, so five points and the fifth point.
Here it is, the 2022 election — we just saw a preview. What’s the preview? Hyper focus on Trump, make him the issue. Hyper focus on an issue that undercuts traditional voters.
In this case, I think a lot of seniors stuck with Newsom over Larry Elder, I think. But more importantly, get out your rabid base. And so what you saw the Democrats do so in 2022, the playbook that they just ran for 2022, the playbook is what? Get out the base, right?
Get out the base. That was what Obama was there for. Keep the election rules loose. Keep the election rules loose, right? And loosey goosey is better. And three: make it about Trump, right? And those all relate together. Get out the base as a Trump thing, too.
But you know, that’s what they did. And I got to tell you, if you look at 2022 or maybe one more factor on there is when you get out the base, keep the election rules, and make it about Trump.
One more overarching piece of that is get lots of money. Raise and spend a fortune, which the Democrats love doing. As a 2020 strategy, that’s, that was the playbook they just ran. That’s going to be tough to beat. People that think that somehow the Republicans are going to win the House walking away. I’m not seeing it. I’m not seeing it after the numbers I’m seeing last night.
And I will tell you, one thing I’ll mention later on the program. The fact that the race is not that close in terms of the numbers that are being reported is frustrating because it will make it easier for everybody to demand that you not talk about voter fraud.
They’ll say, “oh, don’t talk about voter fraud. It wouldn’t have made a difference. Newsom won by so much it wouldn’t have made a difference. Don’t talk about voter fraud. Don’t do that. Don’t make that the focus. You don’t want to do that.” That’s what they’re going to do to us.
And so you know what I’ve said? I did an interview on a radio show out in Champagne Urbana. I said the following thing. What you need to know is this: nine months ago, we had an election where the rules were loosey goosey. Everything was upside down. There was lots of irregularities, and we were forced, there was no way to audit the machines. There was no way to audit the system.
Nine months later, in California, we did the same thing again, and we’re being told again, you have no right to ask for an election that’s transparent, that is able to be audited, and gives you confidence. You’re not allowed to ask that. And if you do, “you’re a bigot. You’re an insurrectionist. You’re a big liar.”
What a shame on this country that we have just done another election, a big election with an election system that – it may have been done well, it may have been done fairly. I can’t be sure. But I will tell you this, they didn’t change any of the rules to make it more transparent, more accountable, more auditable. Nothing. Didn’t do any of that.
So what you need to know is that was a big day yesterday. The recall election, what was decided, what was decided on Tuesday, what was shown? The Democrats aren’t going away. They’re not lying down. They’re not taking this easy. And they’ve got some plays to run, and they look like they’re going to run them again.
And it looks to me like the Republicans don’t have any new plays to run. They’re running the same old, same old. And it looks like that’s how you lose. So that’s what you need to know.
Alright, we’ve got to take a break. When we come back, Martin Dugard, the author of Taking Paris. We’ll take a break and be right back. Don’t forget, visit ProAmericaReport.com, ProAmericaReport.com to find out all of the, listen to this again and sign up for the Daily WYNK. That’s what you need to know. Be right back. Ed Martin.