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Conservative factions at odds over affordability ahead of November elections

Jenna Ellis: I love talking about the things of God. Because of truth and the biblical worldview, the U.S. constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect the rights that our founders recognize come from God our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you and God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jenna Ellis in the Morning.

Jenna Ellis: Good morning. It is Monday, August 10, and a lot of, kids are going back to school today. And so we're starting fall already. I can't even believe that it still is extremely hot in Florida, so it doesn't feel like fall at all. But, we're talking about a lot of different, issues as, the kids go back to school and as families are looking at, going to back to the grocery stores every week. And then also as we head into the midterms, and you may have heard about burrito gate, this is now the $20 burrito controversy on the right. And there's an opinion piece in the NewSong York Post from Carol, Markowitz, who's a really great opinion columnist by the way, how burrito gate roiled the right, exposing a dangerous disconnect on affordability. So the question is, how much should a burrito cost? That question sparked an all out social media war on the right this week, dividing commentators, influencers, media figures and Even Vice President J.D. vance into angry factions at odds over affordability, which is this election season's hot button issue. So it started when podcaster from Daily Wire Matt Walsh posted a, complaint about insane grocery prices, urging Republicans to, quote, end the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It's one of the main reasons socialists are gaining power. So then turning Point USA spokesman, Andrew Colvett agreed, adding that one of his group's college student members had provided, quote, his take on affordability. A burrito shouldn't cost $20. So that's when then, the Babylon Bee podcast producer Joel Berry pointed out that his Wife, quote, made homemade burritos for a family of eight, and it cost less than $20 total for everyone. And he said, I'm beginning to think the affordability crisis is really an I don't know how to cook crisis. He added, and this kind of just set off a, bunch of different comments and commentaries. But I think that, that really, both sides are not quite understanding why this matters politically, because Republicans won significant support in 2024 because voters were frustrated with inflation. And inflation may have slowed a bit, but prices generally didn't return to pre pandemic levels. And so conservatives, in my opinion, should avoid two really bad responses to the overall affordability crisis. because bad response. One that a lot of conservatives took is that there really isn't a problem. And we should all obviously immediately reject that because we experience higher costs every week. I mean, things just are more expensive than they were in 2019. And the bad response number two is, well, then the government should simply make everything cheaper. That's the socialist answer, which is the problem that the GOP is facing in November that they're not really addressing. The government can't legislate prosperity by simply lowering prices.

Richard Stern says much of the affordability crisis stems from government policies

So let's welcome in Richard Stern, who is the vice president of economics at Advancing American Freedom. And, AAF kind of got into this debate by posting a burrito pricing index. so how do you, how do you see this debate overall as, I think, illustrative of where the controversy lies? Because some conservatives are just wanting to say, well, everybody's entitled. Doesn't matter, Go if you can't afford it, you know, go cook a burrito at home. And then others are saying, well, no, we have to actually address this, and it doesn't matter what people can or can't cook at home. There really is an affordability crisis.

Richard Stern: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on today to talk about this. And I think you highlight exactly where a lot of this divide is. So, you know, where we came into this is to say that, yes, you know, affordability is absolutely a problem. We agree that there is a real problem that's going on. However, and you're absolutely right about this, you can't merely legislate prosperity. We wanted to come in and point fingers at where the real burdens are, where the real villain is in this story that's made affordability worse. And it's not a, ah, war that's been going on for a couple months. It is the slow drip, the slow theft of the federal government, frankly, over decades between Printing money to cover its own deficits and cause inflation for most Americans, or through tax policy and regulatory policy that has made it harder and harder for people to buy homes, cars, all kinds of other things, and made it harder to employ people to have good jobs, to have a wages rise as well. And so, you know, we posted, as you pointed out, a burrito index that points out frankly, where food is more expensive or it's cheaper. No surprise places like NewSong York, San Francisco have the highest prices. But it really maps to these underlying issues that stem back to usually government regulations, federal and sometimes state government.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, and so how m much of the affordability challenge actually stems from government policy, versus other normal market forces and that voters can actually attribute to the GOP when they're looking at their choice for November.

Richard Stern: So in my opinion, I think everything that presents itself really as the feeling of there being a crisis comes from government. And, it's not that there is an imperfection in the world, something couldn't be better. But markets try to figure out how to produce abundance. Markets on their own give people jobs. They find ways for everyone to be efficiently working towards ending scarcity across all manner of things. All of these issues that people point out really do come back to something the government's done. And I'll give you a perfect example on this one. The perhaps biggest item that people have talked about that's gotten less affordable other than groceries has been a, hump. And that's rents. But it's mostly mortgage payments. Well, mortgage rates nearly tripled in just the last couple of years. And in truth, grocery prices also are up almost, 30% since COVID And both of these are because of the fiscal policy of the government. So the US government ran a several trillion dollar debt during COVID spending on the stimulus checks, you know, availability quotes and some of these other things. And all of that was covered by the Federal Reserve printing money, which really meant at the end of the day, you paid for all of that in the form of inflation after the fact. But more than that, once it set off this inflation time bomb, the only way to deal with it was for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. And of course that meant that car loan rates and mortgage rates went absolutely through the roof. So for the average American trying to get a new home, and even if you're renting, you're still dealing indirectly with this mortgage, costs tripled basically overnight in a six month period of time. Grocery prices went up about a quarter in a similar period of time. And so that that is exactly one trigger. We can go back in time and look at it. And it's the government's fiscal policies during Cove and those supposed stimulus checks and then the debt and money printing that came out after that.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And I think a lot of people are looking at the pre pandemic, levels, and they're directly attributing a, lot of the, the economic and affordability issues to both the first Trump administration and of course, during, the Biden administration. And then they're wondering, why hasn't the GOP done more? Because it's not just in, the affordability issues, at least especially for young people. Yes. They're complaining about not being able to buy a house now. You know, the median age of buying a house is somewhere between, you know, 36 and 38, and even higher, according to, you know, some other studies that I've read, which, which is really ridiculous. And it seems like the American Dream is kind of out of reach for a lot of young people, but it's not just about housing. It is about kind of this everyday quality of life and thus where the burrito gate comes in. But also, you see kind of this response on both sides from the GOP to say, on one hand, a burrito shouldn't cost $20. But then they're saying to young people, but you shouldn't want to go and, go out to eat every day, and you shouldn't want to have all of these luxuries that maybe you grew up with, when your parents have already worked really hard. But then you see, you know, other kind of, wealth gaps between the people who can afford a $20 burrito and they don't really think about it, and then the young people who are saying, you know, this is frustrating. I feel like I can't even attain the bare minimum because all of these grocery prices and just the average cost of living is so high. And so what's the best potential, you know, GOP messaging to. To really address the fact that it's not that young people don't want to work or are entitled. I mean, there's a lot of that, yes, that's not going to be good messaging, but to actually address some of these everyday situations where I think, rightly, a lot of young people feel very frustrated because it's just true that things. Everything costs more today than it did in 2019.

Richard Stern: So I think this is a great, divide here to focus on. And, you know, part of this is a lot of Times and, you know, conservatives unfortunately will do this. People will try to say, well, just leave things alone, or things are fine as is. But at the same time, as conservatives, we've understood, we've talked about in the past, that the government has created problems, that the government has gotten in the way. You know, if you go back to Ronald Reagan, he certainly made an entire campaign about getting the government out of the way. And his messaging worked because he was able to go to people who were in the 70s and right at the beginning of the 80s were struggling. you had people that energy prices were through the roof, things were getting less affordable. You had President Jimmy Carter simply saying to people, you know, are you cold? Do you want to turn up the heat? Just put a sweater on instead. And Reagan capitalized on it and said, no, you deserve to be able to have things with the wealthiest, greatest country on the planet. And he called a spade a spade, said, look, it's the government that's causing these problems. Fast forward to today. There's not that messaging unity. The right at times wants to complain about what's going on, but is unwilling to have the honest conversation with the American public about what's caused it. And so, you know, everybody wants to think about the government is providing all these amazing benefits when it spends money. And, all these people now are hesitant to point out the absolute fact that government only can provide those benefits by taxing somebody else, by robbing Peter the pay Paul. And so we need to get back, I think, as a movement to addressing that. I think the left lies and promises free benefits that they know they're going to tax you on the back end or cause inflation to cover. And you need a conservative movement who's willing to say that in public. And instead there are too many elements that are, quote, unquote, on the right who are borrowing leftist talking points and blaming business. And then, yes, you're right, there's this divide where people are trying to lecture young people instead. All of that is missing the point. It's missing the real origin of where the problems are coming from, of who is fault about this. And I think it's highlighting a little bit of where conservatives are not sure what they stand for these days. But again, that's part of why we were glad to jump into the mix and, and put some facts on the board and talk about really where these problems came from.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, you're so right, absolutely, Richard, that I think a lot of conservatives are highlighting a problem, but we're seeing through the social media response of even A lot of really influential conservative voices who don't actually understand what they believe and especially what they believe about, capitalism and conservative economics. And so while they're suggesting that socialism isn't the answer, and they're not really giving concrete solutions and saying, you know, here's what the problem was, here's what we can attribute it to, and here are the solutions that, the administration needs to tackle even more. But moving forward, this is why we need to vote for conservative policy and messaging it in a way that young people understand, because if they're not happy with how the economy is going right now, they're going to try to look for alternatives at the ballot box. And conservatives can scream, you know, socialism bad, but if you don't actually define it and you don't point out, here's why it's bad and here's how it will affect you if those people get in office, then we're really not making any headway. And so, last question for you before we have to break.

Richard Stern: Conservatives are more fractured and divided since Trump took office

so how can conservatives actually reclaim that and build more of a cohesive, outlook on policy? Because I think we are more fractured and divided as a conservative movement and than we have been since Trump originally took office.

Richard Stern: I think you're unfortunately, absolutely right about that. And, you know, the way that I think about it, and it's the way you're talking about it, is that we've got all these people on the right that are offering either socialism light without realizing it, or are offering a degrowth agenda, right? The people saying, well, you should just suffer high prices and less access and, you know, man up about it. They're offering a degrowth agenda and the other side is offering, like I said, what the left is offering, but less of it. To straight to your question about what can we do Instead, we got to call a spade a spade and recognize both of those, that the solution is not advocating for less access and higher prices. And the solution is not offering just a little bit less government than the socialists offer. The thing we need to rally back around, something that we all used to remember as conservatives is, is that it's individual entrepreneurs and innovators that build the future, that invent the ways for us to have access to prosperity, to good paying jobs, to goods and services, and that it's not through bureaucrats, it's through understanding that there's a divine spark in each of us, that each of us is blessed with some unique ability to come in and contribute to society. And for many of us, it's service ordinarily to a few people, and for some people, for entrepreneurs and innovators, it's service to millions of people. The thing to do is get out of their way. It's to get government out of the way, whether your contributions are small or large, and let people find the way that they're called to, to contribute to everybody in society. And that is truthfully the truth at the heart of all of capitalism, of free market belief patterns. That's what we need to remember. That's what we need to get out of the way and rally around.

Jenna Ellis: Yes. So well said. Well, we've got to take a break here, but Richard Stern, really appreciate your comments. And, you know, this is, I believe, going to be, the number one issue in the midterms. And conservatives are going to have to address affordability with more than just burrito gate and kind of coming at each other. And I thought it was remarkable how literally everybody got it wrong on social media and we're just talking over each other. utterly ridiculous. But, anyway, my special guest, Richard Stern, the vice president of economics at Advancing American Freedom. You can follow them on X American Freedom. See that burrito index. And we will be right back with more M. Foreign.

President Trump signed an executive order that denies citizenship to birth tourists

Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. Well, in the wake of the Supreme Court's terrible birthright citizenship opinion, you remember that from earlier this year, President Trump has a new executive order that denies citizenship to birth tourists by adopting two ideas that. Roger Severino, who's the vice president of the Heritage foundation and former director, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights under Trump's first administration, says, that those two ideas were promoted and originated by heritage scholars, but we still need to, quote, unquote, sink the boat. So Roger Severino, joins me now, and this is encouraging. I think, overall that President Trump hasn't just sort of let this go because in addition to affordability, obviously illegal immigration, birthright citizenship and everything that conservatives voted for in 2024, I think is still going to be on the ballot, during midterms. So where are we at with this? And good morning.

Roger Severino: Hey, good morning. Well, we've made tremendous progress since that, that gut punch of, a Supreme Court decision. And a lot of people, they were throwing up their hands. They said, look, the Supreme Court constitutionalized the issue. They didn't have to decide it under 14th amendment citizenship clause. They did. And they said, essentially, birthplace citizenship is a rule if you're born in the United States, save a few narrow exceptions, you're a U.S. citizen. Well, let's look at those exceptions. And my post was about pushing back on the logic of that Supreme Court decision. And I said the territories, we still have US Territories. China has exploited access to the territories. It's the closest to the to mainland China is Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. Half the distance to there than than Hawaii for example. And there you had more Chinese being born than native born in cnmi. That's just absurd that you would go to a hospital and they had to expand the birth wing to accommodate Chinese birth tourists. So my idea was to say, look, Supreme Court said nothing about territories. And there's a whole line of cases that say territories don't automatically have the U.S. constitution apply, including the 14th Amendment. Let's, let's ban birth tourism there. And President Trump in his order did exactly that. Ah, the issue is, is bigger than just the territories. So I have all sorts of follow on ideas. But I was also encouraged to see that he banned commercial surrogacy as well. Already out of the gate. This is of course when especially Chinese businessmen brag about paying for people, American women, often poor, to have their babies so that they're born in the US and then they could ship them right back to China and then wait, lying, wait, almost like a cell, so they could activate at a later date as an American citizen pre made, prepackaged and prepaid for. President Trump is ending that as well and it's very encouraging.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, that is really awesome that m. He's trying to find, you know, other ways to kind of attack this issue when the Supreme Court's opinion was, was just terrible. And I think you're absolutely right to characterize it as, you know, unnecessarily political and they made it constitutional when they really didn't need to. And the 14th Amendment, its legislative history, we've talked about that extensively on this program, talking about what that actually meant in context and how the Supreme Court should have held. But they didn't. And so overall, how difficult do you think it may be for Trump to advance, you know, some of these other ways of engaging the issue in light of the Supreme Court opinion that seemed fairly broad, in terms of its determinations.

Roger Severino: Sure. There's two issues with the anchor baby problem. There is the anchor, what is the status of a child born in the United States, what counts as the United States who's eligible. And there are some narrow exceptions there that again we have to push the Supreme Court's logic on it. And that's what this order does. It does another very important thing, which I had suggested they do. It also focuses on the boat that the anchor is meant to. To tie. The boat is, of course, the parents. Well, the parents are the ones engaging in this fraudulent activity. And my suggestion was, if anybody engages in birth tourism or if your two illegal alien parents give birth to a child in the US you are now Persona non grata, meaning the parents. The parents cannot step foot into the United States legally. No authorization for a tourist visa, for a work visa, for lottery eligibility. You can't get asylum and just permanently deny them. So you want to have your kid go to Cal Poly Pomona and graduate there. Well, good luck attending the graduation. You're going to have to watch it by Zoom. You're never going to step foot in the United States again. And there was a companion executive order that came with the one we were just talking about that does empower the Secretary of State and Homeland Security to deny tribal authorizations to people who engage in birth tourism and up to and including permanently bar an entry. So that's my idea right there. Permanently bar their entry. The only thing that's missing is that it's discretionary. The Secretary may permanently bar entry. I think it should be a flat rule if. If you're adjudicated to have engaged in virtuism, you are not here by any permission, and you have a kid. Sorry. You never step foot. You bore the risk. And, okay, there may be some cases where somebody's there on a work visa and they're seven, eight months pregnant. They can't make it back in time. Fine. They should have the option of relinquishing their child's citizenship. Just relinquish it as the authority as a parent, and then they won't have any of the Persona non grata, consequences. So I think that's the last thing that needs to be done on this particular issue. Go after the boat and make it so they lose every incentive to ever have the kid in the US and that means they could never come visit and are deemed Persona langran and make it permanent.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, and I think removing the incentives is exactly the way to. To attack the problem. And, you're saying, Roger Severino, that the. The proposal suggests, allowing parents to renounce or relinquish a child's U.S. citizenship. So under current law, does U.S. law treat citizenship as belonging to the child rather than the parents, or can the parents voluntarily relinquish citizenship on behalf of a minority?

Roger Severino: Yeah, the INA spells out circumstances where people can renounce their own citizenship, and it usually includes being an adult. However, there's one instance where they talk about guardianship, ah, probably of adults that don't have capacity, a severe mental illness or something like that. So there's a gap. It doesn't specifically say that you can or cannot, which means it should be tested. Now, would Congress be required to step in? This is a constitutional right. Can a parent take that authority? Well, parents have all sorts of authority over their children and say they want to leave the country permanently and raise their child. Say they're Bulgarians. They don't want to raise them in Bulgaria without U.S. citizenship. That's an interesting parental rights question that I think we need to really push and say, look, this is a way of addressing this massive problem created by the Supreme Court by constitutionalizing it. So we need to use every lever to push back. And if it goes up to the Supreme Court to decide it, fine, so be it. that's what it takes to, to have co equal representation in government.

Pushing back on Supreme Court decisions that tried to be final is crucial

Pushing back on Supreme Court decisions that tried to be the final word, but it's never the final word. You also have the president and Congress with their authority, and we need to be pushing back in these ways.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, Congress absolutely needs to be pushing back. And I think that's, a really key frustration for a lot of conservatives right now that it seems like in the wake of a lot of, bad precedent from the Supreme Court, we're getting a lot of, pushback, and we're thankful, for that from the Trump administration. But Congress doesn't seem in a hurry to really do anything. And I've done said for a long time on this program. I really wonder if the GOP in Congress overall even wants to govern. I mean, the fact that they can't even pass the SAVE act, which should be the most basic type of legislation that they could put forward in this term. The fact that they can't even pass that is utterly ridiculous. But, if we were just, you know, arguing, the, the best potential way that Congress could act, what would be the steps that they could take to also undermine or maybe force a reconsideration of the Supreme Court's opinion?

Roger Severino: Well, you mentioned the Save America act, which, which deals with voting and make sure people, that are here illegally don't get to vote. And of course, we are now discovering that, yes, states have been registering illegal aliens and they have been voting. And this is a combined question. Why is it that there has been no action on The Save America act, or on immigration reform, ending birth, tourism, et cetera, because some people benefit from the system. You have some of these businesses that are exploiting it to get effectively low wage workers, that they could hold over a barrel because they're here illegally. And you also have folks in the Democratic Party who see these are future voters for them. And that's where the State of America act. And that's why you see the illegal immigration problem still unaddressed by Congress. And with Save America, look, just push for, as Senator Lee has been asking for a true talking filibuster. Force the issue, force the question, make the other side defend the indefensible. But we're not, we're not seeing it yet. We're hopeful that there's still time and there are still possibilities for it to happen. And we're pushing very hard at the Heritage foundation to see the Safe America act become law. The companionship, of course, is true immigration reform. Now Congress can take the President's executive order that was just issued and make it permanent. So you don't have another president that comes down with open borders philosophy, undoing it all. So Congress should make it into statute, make it permanent. We talked about relinquishing citizenship. It may require Congress to act there. and you get rid of these incentives so that they will never come to this country to have a baby because they won't get the benefits from it. Now there's one last point. States can also play a role in this. We have this other Supreme Court decision from a couple decades ago, Plyler versus Doe, that said you can't charge kids of illegal immigrants tuition for public schools. One of the big reasons why illegal aliens have kids here is to get all the public benefits, all the free medical care, all the free education, all the free police, fire protection, roads. And to a sense, you can't blame them because compared to where they're coming from, this is the land of plenty. They still shouldn't be breaking the law to do it. And we should be ending the ability for them to get those benefits. It makes us the suckers by continuing to do it. So there's this one Supreme Court decision from the 80s, Kliner versus Doe. It's a 5, 4 decision which is ripe for revisiting. So local school districts should at the very beginning say, okay, as a condition of registering and public schools, you must identify your immigration status. Just it just that, just identify are you here legally or not for the parents and the kid? That itself is probably going to go to the Supreme Court to decide whether they even ask the question. And then once you ask the question, you tell how big the problem is. Then you say, well, okay, for those who want to pay for the illegal immigrant kids, you pay for it. So you have differential taxing where you opt in or opt out. If you, you have to check a box. Do you want part of your local taxes to go pay for the education of illegal immigrants or not? And if you don't opt out, then you're stuck with paying that higher bill. Again. The kids can get that free education, but I guarantee you that'll go to the Supreme Court as well. And every step we do to take this will highlight the crazy logic of this country, which is almost unique in the world where you have birthplace, citizenship and free benefits for illegal immigrants. So we got to keep pushing again, again, and get it before the Supreme Court. And then we're going to see the dam break in our favor. Yeah.

Jenna Ellis: And, well, I mean, assuming this goes to the Supreme Court, and it should, I mean, as a taxpayer, I don't want my tax dollars going to pay for the education illegals. I mean, I am all for having, removing all of these incentives and also having solutions for, specifically for birth tourism. But also, those who enter illegally, they shouldn't be benefiting from that underlying crime. And it seems like that's the part that never goes addressed. People just say, well, they're already here and that's fine, but they're not addressing the fact that they came here illegally. And so do you think, though, that if that goes up to the Supreme Court and they are asked to revisit Plyler, that the current disposition of where the Supreme Court is at on the birthright citizenship issue overall, that they would take this for, one, and that they would actually, hold in, in favor of allowing taxpayers to opt out?

Roger Severino: I think they would. It was a, it was a 5, 4 decision, very poorly reasoned. And what we've seen is when Supreme Court overreaches in one area, they tend to try to make up for it in the back end. This is not like the Warren Court era, where they compounded their errors, error after error, and made it worse, as we saw with Bostock, the terrible decision on, gender identity in Title vii. Then we had follow on cases. What about in women's sports? What about in, medicine? Can states prevent the surgical transitioning of kids, which is mutilation? Supreme Court said, yeah, states can do these things to protect children, they can protect women's sports. We've seen this Movement, too, where it took away in one hand, it started to do damage control with the other hand in subsequent cases. I think the same thing will happen here. Supreme Court overreached in this decision. And I think in future cases, if we play our cards right and team up correctly, then, yes, I think they will start paring back the damage that they caused.

Jenna Ellis: And that's really encouraging. I'm speaking to Roger Severino, who is, the vice president at Heritage foundation. And, we're talking about the Trump executive order on birthright citizenship. And, you know, one of the things that's, that's ultimately frustrating when you have, a Republican president in power who's willing to do these types of executive orders, is the inevitable possibility that the next president will just undo all of that. And while Congress isn't taking, their, their power seriously, really, and they're not willing to legislate on this, it's frustrating to see how, you know, you can make some headway, but then that can be almost immediately, undermined by a future incoming administration. But going along the path of some of these judicial, attacks and wanting to get that up in front of the Supreme Court, I mean, we can do that as conservatives, regardless of who's in office and regardless of the executive and legislative. And so those things will continue to advance. But, how should voters view this, though? And if this is a really big and key issue for a lot of the GOP base, and I believe that it is, how should they look at how important it is to vote in not only the midterms, but then also the next presidential election for conservatives so that we can continue doing this work. And it's not, you know, two steps forward, three steps back. And we're always doing this push and pull with executive orders rather than actually setting good policy precedent, for, the long term in America,

Roger Severino: this is how important the issue is. It's determining who gets to be an American. That's fundamentally what the question is about. Do Americans get determined who Americans are or will be, or is it foreigners who have no connection to this country, who abuse our laws and engage in things like birth tourism, and they get to determine citizenship status? And that, that, that sort of question cuts to the core of our democracy. We need to have borders to have a nation, and we need to have the ability to say who is an American and who decide that should be Americans. And, of course, you exercise and protect that right through voting for representatives that are willing to take those positions and hold firm to it, we've talked about a whole lot of ideas that at the federal level that can be done to address this, by Congress codifying a lot of the president's executive order. The state and local governments can do it as well because they're the ones on the ground that deal with most of the fallout of illegal immigration. So I'm encouraged that there is so much more that can be done. And at the Supreme Court, I think, think if enough people push back, we'll do the right thing in subsequent cases and limit the harm, for the

Jenna Ellis: benefit of Americans, I hope so.

Roger Severino: Red states need to be dealing with this as well

Well, Roger Severino, I so appreciate you coming on this morning. Great to talk with you. You can follow him on X at RogerSeverino. Underscore. You can also follow the Heritage foundation at Heritage. And this is a really big issue. And I'm encouraged that we can also, do some of these things, things on the state level. Red states need to be dealing with this as well. We'll be right back with more. We're living in a defining moment in history. Today, a woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can order the abortion pill online, often before anyone has had the chance to tell her she is loved, that she's not alone, or that there is hope. That's why you are needed right now. You were made for this moment. At PreBorn Network clinics, mothers are welcomed with compassion, practical support, and a free ultrasound. And when she sees her baby and hears that tiny heartbeat for the very first time, fear often gives way to hope. In fact, more than 80% of abortion vulnerable women choose life after seeing their baby on an ultrasound at a PreBorn Network clinic. That one moment can save a baby's life and open a mother's heart to the hope of Jesus Christ. This is our moment to stand. For those who cannot speak for themselves. Just $28 provides one life saving ultrasound. $140 helps rescue five babies. Please don't wait. Dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby. Or [email protected] afr that's preborn.com afr Together we can save lives one heartbeat at a time. welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Florida's gubernatorial primary is coming up August 18th

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. Well, Florida's gubernatorial primary is coming up, August 18th, so that is a week from tomorrow. And Governor Ron DeSantis, has not formally endorsed any candidates. He said, he said that, you, know he's staying out of the primary, but he said that former House Speaker Paul Renner would be A really good governor with a great record of policy. And this is what he had to say late last week.

Ron DeSantis: So, you know, like somebody like, Like Speaker Renner, I mean, people said, you know, when he ran, I said, you know, I didn't. I didn't advise him to run. It wasn't because I didn't think he would be. Be a good governor. I think he'd be really good. he's got a great record of politics. But, how are you going to get. What's your strategy to get known? How do you get known to people right when you're doing that? And that's been. That's just something that's very difficult in our state. And honestly, it's difficult in many places around the country with these primaries.

Jenna Ellis: I totally agree with him. And I also agree with one of the, the comments to Florida's Voice News, from a guy named Joel Griffith, from American Freedom center, that said the Florida GOP actually denied Paul Renner the opportunity to get known when it did denied the Republican voters of Florida the opportunity to hear from Byron Donalds, who's the current front runner according to the polls, and former Speaker Paul Renner on the debate stage. And so, you know, there's been a lot of shenanigans going on, I think, in the state, but let's welcome in a former Florida House speaker and gubernatorial candidate, Paul Renner. So I was very encouraged actually, to hear Governor, DeSantis say this and, and essentially say that, you know, you're his choice. And I think that's. That's fair. Fair to say, when he said you'd be a good governor, you've been great on policy, where conversely, the governor has said that Byron Donalds wouldn't, and is not aligned with him on policy. So, you know, this is about as good as it'll get, from Governor DeSantis. And so how, in your mind, has this influenced the primary overall?

 Paul Renner: Well, I think it's moving votes. People have been waiting for the governor to kind of signal, as you said, his choice. he's not endorsing and running around the state campaigning, but, but signaling who he thinks would make a really good governor replace him. And why is that? Because he knows that of all the candidates, there's no comparison between me and Byron Donald for sure. Even his lieutenant governor comes to experience, leadership results that we had the two years that he said earlier, I think, on your show, the most successful two years, really in Florida history. That no other legislature in America got as much done during the time that I was leading, the legislature. And so he gets that. If you want to protect and strengthen the free state of Florida, I'm your candidate. Yeah.

Jenna Ellis: And, you know, I think he's also right that it's really difficult to, get the word out to, every. All the voters in as big of a state as Florida is. And so, you know, while he's made these comments, what's your plan to get those comments in front of voters, when early voting has already started?

 Paul Renner: Well, we're blasting it out on, you know, any means necessary on your show, on. On, on text messaging, you know, any way we can. we've got, you know, some money to spend here at, in the last couple, of weeks. You know, so we're on tv, we're sent mail out to critical areas that we need to win to win this race, that type of thing. And so we're getting the word out, and, you know, everything helps, social media helps, and we're getting that out through all different vehicles of media.

Jenna Ellis: And that's great. And I think that, you know, all of the comments there have been, you know, not just from the one that I read, but, you know, overall and across the board, supporters, other than Byron, Donald supporters, of course, they're happy that he was insulated from a debate and didn't have to answer for his record, his ethics questions and, you know, some of these other things. they were happy that he was shielded from a debate. But across the board, Florida's, Republican voters were really frustrated that there wasn't a GOP held debate. And of course they, they said, well, you know, nobody, met the threshold of their rules that they didn't put out ahead of time or identify. And it just seemed kind of a cover after the fact. And in my view. And so, how. How damaging do you think, overall, regardless of the outcome, the Florida GOP is signaling, at least in my opinion, as a Floridian, it's signaling to voters like me that our opinion doesn't really matter and that they want to just coordinate their own preferred candidate without really giving everyone an opportunity to actually hear from all of the different candidates. Sure.

 Paul Renner: And listen, the party did that at Byron's direction, at Donald's direction, their campaign's direction. There's been an effort to, I hate to say rig this election, but. And I don't say that, you know, sour grapes, it is what it is, but to not allow us to raise other candidates, to raise money, you know, directing everything to Byron Donalds, making sure he doesn't have to face the voters. The good, the good news is there was a debate. So for those listening and saying, I don't know enough about Renner, there was a debate. I was there, Collins, fishback, the other three major candidates. And you can Google it on YouTube and see it, and you'll see, that I won that debate. And you'll see why Byron Donalds didn't want to show up. Because he has a lot of unanswered questions. There's a lot of concerns and doubts about him. He's never, as the governor said, he's never been part of any of our wins here in Florida. He passed, you know, two bills in five years in Congress. He missed over 150 votes, but he never missed a single national, TV interview to build his name ID. And so this is not somebody that you want, because we will go backwards dramatically from Ron DeSantis to Byron Donald where he the nominee. and people would see that in a debate, he knows that. He knows he has no answer to the why question. Why are you running for office? And why would you be better than the other candidates? He doesn't have an answer because he wouldn't be. And so I would just encourage people to look at that debate if they want to learn more, and ask the question of why, if Byron Donalds thinks he would make a great governor, can he stand in for one hour, two hours with his fellow Republicans? And if he can't do that, how can he protect the free state of Florida? How can he beat the Democrats in the left for the next eight years?

Jenna Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. And, and just so our listeners know, we've invited Byron Donalds and we've also invited, Jay Collins, who's previously been on the show. But then as soon as he started running for governor, he didn't want to answer some of, the difficult questions. And you know, and so my view is if you're only going to go on media, who you think is going to be, friendly to you, and you can't answer some of the basic voter questions, then, you know, in my opinion, as a voter, that's disqualifying. I mean, you should be able to get on a debate stage. You should be able to go on even, if you consider it opposition media. I mean, as, as Governor DeSantis has gone into, you know, forums on CNN and MSNBC and people that are not so friendly to his Policy. And so that's just what you're going to have to do as governor. So can't you even face, your own voting constituency in a primary? I mean, you know, this is just so basic in my view. And you know, one of the things, with, with Jay Collins that I was very disappointed to see this week is how he kind of blew off the, the pro life community. There was an event, that he either didn't show up for, just backed out of. I'm not exactly sure, why he didn't attend. But, you know, those types of decisions are priorities that the voting base really needs to first of all be aware of and then understand because that's my biggest issue as a voter, with any of the candidates is are you going to have DeSantis's record on Pro life and also you're going to fight as hard as he did against recreational marijuana? I mean, those are two big issues, along with, you know, affordability, some of these other things and obviously doing the state, the state policy when the federal government won't on things like illegal immigration, banning Sharia law. I mean all of those things are important. But for me as a voter, pro life and not legalizing recreational marijuana, as a former Colorado state residential, those are the two big issues. And it's interesting to me, Paul Renner, that Byron Donalds and Jay Collins won't really address the voters on those issues.

 Paul Renner: No, they won't. And you have videos though, of Byron saying it's a medical procedure, it's divisive, he talks like a Democrat.

Paul Renner: David Jolly could be Florida's next governor

And Jay Collins, at a home school convention that I, we both attended, you know, said it's not a top priority for him. It's not. He just, he was uncomfortable talking about it. Then he comes back, said, oh, I'm pro life. Because it show up at the only pro life summit, we had, the only, campaign candidate for him that we had in this entire campaign, he was a no show, and right there in his hometown, you know, his home area of the Tampa St. Pete area. And I believe he was in the area. So, you know, people make choices about what's important to them. It's one of those issues that as a, as someone who is pro life, I don't care if it polls at 30%, if it's life and it means it's worth defending, I'm going to defend it and I'm always going to stand up for Capital T truth. As a Christian, you have to do that. It doesn't matter if it's popular. You know my favorite leadership verse in The Bible, Isaiah 6, you know, here am I. Send me. It's unconditional. It doesn't say if it's popular or it's raining or the media, unless the media, you know, is going to attack me or my friends leave me. No, you have to stand up for the truth everywhere you go on all topics. And on the issue of marijuana, I'm the only candidate that joined the governor, traveled the state, especially on abortion, on the abortion bill, to stop our state from becoming an anything goes pot and abortion state. The other sent out tweets on social media. That doesn't get the job done. And so you want a leader who's going to run to the fight, not wait for the fight to come to them. We've enjoyed that with Governor DeSantis. We need that in our next governor. And otherwise we're going to go backwards. And Byron Donald is going to let, quote, unquote, let the voters decide. We know where that lands.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And one last question. We're almost out of time, but, you know, some of the polling is showing that if Byron is the nominee, then it will be really close, potentially even giving a win to the Democrat nominee. And how terrible would that be for Florida to follow Governor DeSantis, with a Democrat, potentially.

 Paul Renner: So I think you absolutely can lose to David Jolly and it would be terrible. you know, people, people, have concerns for a reason and you know, some of these are known, like the missed votes, like the getting rich in office, like, you know, really not caring about governing, passing two bills, inconsequential bills in five years in Congress. He's just not somebody that really cares about the state and cares about governing. He's looking at his next higher office and he'll be immediately, you know, auditioning to be someone's vice president or run for president. That's not the kind of leader we want. he just hasn't proven himself to really care about conservation conservative principles and we could lose this race and we can't do that.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Paul Renner. And for those who want to learn more about him, he's actually doing an X space tonight at 8 Ah PM Eastern. So do your research, do your due diligence, especially in Florida, but also get out and vote in the primary, regardless of what state you're in. As always, reach me and my team. Jennaafr.net preborn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion. And every day their network clinics rescue 200 babies lives. Will you join PreBorn in loving and supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today. Go to preborn.com afr.

 Jenna Ellis discusses the pressing issues surrounding affordability and the recent social media controversy dubbed "Burrito Gate." Joined by Richard Stern from Advancing American Freedom, they delve into how rising grocery prices and inflation are impacting American families. They explore the political implications of these economic challenges, particularly for the upcoming midterms, and how conservatives can effectively address voters' concerns. The conversation also touches on government policies that have contributed to the affordability crisis and the importance of a cohesive conservative message that resonates with younger voters.

(00:00) Preborn provides ultrasounds to help pregnant women choose life

(00:32) Conservative factions at odds over affordability ahead of November elections

(04:11) Richard Stern says much of the affordability crisis stems from government policies

(14:46) Richard Stern: Conservatives are more fractured and divided since Trump took office

(17:49) President Trump signed an executive order that denies citizenship to birth tourists

(25:53) Pushing back on Supreme Court decisions that tried to be final is crucial

(36:01) Roger Severino: Red states need to be dealing with this as well

(37:48) Florida's gubernatorial primary is coming up August 18th

(46:01) Paul Renner: David Jolly could be Florida's next governor