Lt Col Allen West (Ret) - The House of Representatives: One Year of Republican Control
Show notes and Transcript
Col Allen West (Ret) joins Hearts of Oak once again to give us a birds eye view of US politics.
Its been nearly a year since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives so what has changed and have they been successful?
Kevin McCarthy was voted in after a long and gruelling process but is he delivering on the concerns of American people who are witnessing an increasing power grab from every government institution?
And what is happening in Col West's home state of Texas? Is Governor Greg Abbott even a Republican and why does he not secure the Texas border? With Mitch McConnell malfunctioning and Nancy Pelosi seeking re-electing does America need more politicians who have been part of the system for decades and made it their career?
And finally we finish looking at the Republican Primary and Col West shares his honest assessment.
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Allen B. West is a Christian constitutional conservative, combat veteran, and former Member of the US Congress.
Allen West was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia in the same neighbourhood where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once preached. He is the third of four generations of military servicemen, all combat veterans, in his family.
West was commissioned through ROTC at the University of Tennessee as a Second Lieutenant (2LT) on July 31, 1982. He entered active-duty service in the U.S. Army on November 1, 1983 at Fort Sill to attend the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course. He later attended airborne and jumpmaster training at Fort Benning. West’s first assignment was as an airborne infantry company fire support team leader and battalion training officer in the 325th Airborne Battalion Combat Team. In 1987, he was promoted to Captain and attended the Field Artillery Officer Advanced Course.
He was then assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, where he commanded Bravo Battery, 6th Field Artillery Regiment and was a Battalion Task Force fire support officer for 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. While with the 1st Infantry Division, he participated in Operations Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.
West’s culminating assignment to his career was as Battalion Commander of the 2d Battalion 20th Field Artillery, 4th Infantry Division. He assumed command of this unit on June 6, 2002. He deployed with his unit during the Iraq War in 2003 and continued to command his battalion until his retirement from the Army in 2004 after 22 years of honourable service in defence of the Republic.
In November of 2010, Allen was honoured to continue his oath of service to his country when he was elected to the United States Congress, representing Florida’s 22nd District. As a member of the 112th Congress, West introduced seven major pieces of legislation, and was the original sponsor of H. R. 1246 which reduces costs at the Department of Defence, was passed unanimously (393-0), and signed into law by President Obama as part of the National Defence Authorization Act. Congressman West voted for the Balanced Budget Amendment, and voted for over 30 different bills designed to empower small businesses, reduce government barriers to job creation, boost American competitiveness, encourage entrepreneurship and growth, and maximize American energy production.
West holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and two Masters, one from Kansas State University and another from the US Army Command and General Staff Officers College.
He is the former Executive Director of the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas Texas. West is an avid distance runner, a Master SCUBA diver, a motorcyclist, and in his spare time he enjoys cheering his beloved Tennessee Volunteers.
Hold Texas, Hold the Nation: Victory or Death by Lt Col Allen B West (ret) available on Amazonhttps://www.amazon.com/Hold-Texas-Nation-Victory-Death/dp/1612542980
Follow and support Col West at the following links...
Substack: https://allenwest.substack.com/
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Podcast: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/b58w7-26cd73/Allen-West-%7C-Steadfast--Loyal-Podcast
The ACRU The American Constitutional Rights Union
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Interview recorded 14.9.23
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
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Transcript(Hearts of Oak)
Colonel Allen West, it is wonderful to have you back with us again. Thank you so much for your time today.
(Col Allen West)
It's good to be back with you, Peter. Thanks for having me.
No, thank you. And everyone can follow you @AllenWest on Twitter. And in case any of our viewers don't know who Colonel Allen West is, Executive Director, American Constitutional Rights Union Action, former Texas GOP chair, former Florida representative, retired army lieutenant colonel.
I never know if it's left tenant or lieutenant. That's where I get my U.S. and English mixed up.
Author, host of Steadfast and Loyal podcast. And I saw one of your recent guests was Mark Huck.
The pro-life pastor who had his home-raided by the FBI which is a huge story and maybe we'll get touching on how the FBI have been weaponized to that extent and of course your Substack alanwest.substack.com all the links are in the description for our viewers and listeners.
Midterms and we're now, approaching a year since the midterms ten months in. The Republican Party obviously has had control of the House of Representatives.
I want to know your assessment, I think, of how the Republicans have performed within those 10 months as someone who has been an elected official and understands the ins and outs in the different levels of political life. What are your thoughts as you look on what's happening at the moment?
Well, I will tell you first and foremost, the only constitutionally mandated duty and responsibility that the House and the Senate are supposed to pass every year is to create a budget.
That means that they're supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills. They're supposed to resolve them and send those to the president to be signed. And so once again, we're not going to make that, constitutionally mandated goal, which has to occur by 30 September. They're already talking about a continuing resolution, which means that the fiscal calamity that we see that over $30 trillion in debt, $2 trillion in annual deficit, is just going to continue on.
So I would have to grade them with an F for not being able to do what was necessary to get those appropriations bills passed in the House, because they do have control of the House, but the onus is on the Senate to do something.
At least they have passed one appropriations bill in the House.
The Senate has not passed any whatsoever.
But I will tell you that one thing that I will give them great credit for and commend them for is what they have uncovered as far as the corruption of the President Biden's family.
I don't see how anyone could dismiss this. I mean, why does this family need 20 secretive LLCs, 150 some odd suspicious financial activity reports?
We know that there has been payments that have come from countries such as Romania to the Biden family members, nine different members. And so when you look at some of these connections, you know, the Hunter Biden laptop is for real. It's not Russian disinformation or misinformation. And you start to see the connections between his son to Ukraine, to China, to Russia, and of course, some of the issues we have now with our foreign policy. You just have to wonder if we do have a president that is compromised. And I think that's one of the things that they have to be commended for getting to the bottom of this or at least getting this out there to be discussed in the political sphere.
Do you think that was a bit slow? Because I know we have had Garrett Ziegler on before, we've had Miranda Devine, here in the UK the Daily Mail will publish, regular stories of Hunter and his escapades, for want of a better word, and all the information has been there and they have got round to it. Do you think it was maybe possible to get to that point quicker or is it there just is not the support in the House to move it forward quicker?
Well, there was not the support in the House under the Democrat control, but without a doubt, when you have people like the Daily Mail, Miranda Devine, the New York Post that are uncovering these things, you know, thankfully we did get the House back under the Republican leadership of control. You had to get the hearings done, and now we start to see all of these different things. We're starting to get confirmation of evidence and things of this nature.
I think that where we are right now, and Kevin McCarthy coming back and saying, yeah, we got to do an impeachment inquiry, I would have said, you could have made that assessment a couple of months ago, without a doubt, before you go on August recess, so you can get your appropriations bills done and you can continue on with this.
But I'm glad to see that Republicans have grown a little bit of a spine, not a complete spine, but a little bit of a spine, and they're standing up to the corruption and the unconstitutional actions of this administration.
It is quite a difficult situation to be in. And a lack of spine is something we see certainly here in the UK as well, amongst most of our politicians, but there's a lot happening, with the destruction of the country and the economy through Bidenomics. It's quite difficult, I guess, as an elected official, to respond to that, to hold Biden to account, but also to realize there is a lot of destruction being done to the country.
No, you're absolutely right. I don't even see how anyone could debate this.
The facts are very clear. when Joe Biden came into office, inflation in the United States of America was 1.4%.
Within no time, he had taken it up to 5%, to 6%, to 9.1%. Now I know you have a lot of people, such as the White House mouthpiece, Karine Jean-Pierre, would say that it was all because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Well, before Vladimir Putin did that, the inflation was at 7%.
So now they're touting, well, inflation is down to 4%. Well, guess what?
It's still higher than it was at 1.4%. Now there's talk within the next couple of months, it could take back up to 5%.
That is an unseen form of taxation on the American people. When you think about it, you look at the price of commodities, goods and services and things of this nature.
It is absolutely horrific. Then you look on top of that, the Biden administration war against our energy independence and our energy sector.
We were at a point where we were energy independent, producing, consuming and exporting our resources.
And when Biden came in, The price of gasoline, the average price of gasoline was $2.40.
Now it's back up to close to $5, $6 in some places.
So I don't understand how he thinks he could go out and tout the economy.
Maybe there are some onesie-twosie things he can try, but overall, the American people know that this is not going in the right direction.
And then on top of that, Peter, you have allowed six to seven million people to come into the country illegally. What other country does that? What other country says, we don't care about our sovereignty, just walk across the border, come in, and we will tell the American people to give you free benefits. That is also destroying our economy as well.
I remember back in April when I drove across many parts of the states, six, seven different states from on the east, central and over in the West, and ended up in California, realized why I'd never been to LA and realized why I never wanted to go back.
I don't blame you.
But wish I kind of had been there through Reagan's time as governor. He kind of looked back in history and you wish you'd been there at that time. But I was even surprised at the difference in fuel prices across the country here in the UK it's more or less the same across the country and I kind of in my head I was thinking how long do those individuals who live in California put up with the fuel prices, with crime with drugs, with everything that's happening and I kind of couldn't square that and talk to people and they said yeah it's bad but yet they'll happily vote in the same institutions, the same party, the Democrats and continue that spiral.
Well, it's amazing, and you know, I live here in Texas, and I can tell you, you see countless amounts of California license plates now in Texas, and there's a big joke about how many U-Haul vans are, you know, coming into Texas.
They're not going back to California, they're coming to Texas.
So you do have a huge migration, and based upon the last census, California has lost a massive amount of population to the point where they lost two congressional representative districts. So people are starting to realize it, people are starting to feel it. But the problem, Peter, in America is that you have Democrat control of all the major urban population centres. And that's where you see all the greatest amount of failures. You see the poverty, you see the crime, you see the drug trafficking, and now the human and sex trafficking because of the open borders. So even in a place like California, where a good part of that state is still very strong, red, conservative, especially the Central Valley, Northern California. It's the coastal elites, and it's the major population centres. You look at a state like Washington, and everyone looks and sees Seattle and Tacoma, and they figure that the rest of Washington is like that. It's not. It's that one county and the county north of King County that causes, you know, Washington to be a blue state. And sadly, we're seeing that happen here in Texas, I live here in Dallas County, Dallas County and Dallas, Austin and Travis County, the capital, the Houston, Harris County, San Antonio, Bear County, El Paso.
These are all very strong Democrat strongholds, and that's the major population centres.
It is amazing to me that we cannot do a better job of messaging that shows that, look, there's a reason why the crime is spiking.
Austin, Texas is now the 15th highest city for homicides in the United States of America.
The capital of Texas has the 15th highest rating for homicides.
Their police chief just resigned.
And why is that? Because they have a communist city council in Austin that defunded their police by $150 million.
So I think we've got to start stressing the one key issue, which is individual safety.
You can't go out downtown Austin anymore because of the homeless situation, because of the crime situation. And I think another big issue that will play, Peter, going into the 2024 election cycle is parental rights and protection of our children.
I mean, when you've got Joe Biden, his wife Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, and Karine Jean-Pierre standing up and telling the American people that their children are not theirs, they belong to all of us, that's crossing the Rubicon, as I think many people understand. I think that's what you saw happen in the last state-wide election in Virginia, when all of a sudden education became an issue, and the Democrats don't want school choice. The teachers' union is here. Rand and Weingarten is so powerful. I think a lot of these basic kitchen table, homegrown local issues are going to be very important nationally in 2024.
I want to pick up on that, and I watched the Virginia elections closely, and they were interesting, that issue on parental rights.
But just on Texas, you were a chair of the GOP. You had convictions.
You had fight.
You had issues you believed in and stood for, and that conviction politics we don't see often, certainly not here in the UK and probably the same in the US there.
But how does that fit in with the governor Abbott? Because I know you were certainly critical of him and it seems as though he's put up a few floating barriers in the river and supposedly that fixes immigration.
There's a disconnect there between actually as a Republican governor what he should be doing and actually what he is doing and there seems to be a huge gap.
There is a huge gap, and as a matter of fact, the Constitution of the United States of America says very clearly in Article 4, Section 4, that the federal government is supposed to protect every state in the union from invasion.
When they don't do that, Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 says exactly what states can do, the actions they can take when actually invaded.
And then also in the Texas state constitution, Article 4, Section 4, it says that the responsibility of the governor of the state of Texas as the commander of the Texas Military Department.
The National Guard and things here, he is supposed to repel invasions. When you put out 1,000 meters of big orange toys in the middle of the Rio Grande River, when Texas has a border with Mexico that is about 1,249 miles, 1,000 meters is not going to do anything.
I was just a month ago down on the border in between Eagle Pass and Del Rio in Kenny County and talking to the law enforcement there and the sheriff there, he said, people just go around it.
So this band aid on a sucking chest wound type of mentality, this political optic to say that, look, I'm doing something, I've got the guard down there, but no one is being turned back.
And I'm sure the people in the UK know about Governor Abbott putting people on buses and sending them to New York, Washington, and to LA also.
Well, you know, as I said, the governor is aiding and abetting human and sex trafficking.
He's continuing to send illegals who are here illegally deeper into the United States of America.
So he's actually violating the constitution as well. And furthermore, Peter, each illegal immigrant is about $1,400 for a Texas taxpayer to pay for them to be on one of these buses.
I didn't sign up for that. I don't think any Texas taxpayer signed up for that.
So my criticisms of the governor is that he does not, you know, stand up and do what he is supposed to do as the governor of Texas, to include some unconstitutional actions where, you know, he extended his emergency powers over the state of Texas unconstitutionally.
He did not go through the legislature during the whole COVID issue.
Who would have thought in Texas we'd have mass mandates and shot mandates, but we did.
So that's why I say it is not so much a Democrat versus Republican issue anymore in the United States of America.
It is about progressive, socialist, Marxist on one side and constitutional conservatives, and we must understand the proper role and relationship between the institution of government and the individual.
And there are some people that don't get that. They want more power concentrated in seats of government, being at the federal level or even the state level or even the local level. And they usurp more individual rights, freedoms, and liberties.
I mean, look at what is going on in New Mexico, where you have the governor in New Mexico saying that because of the crime issue that the policies of Democrats created in Albuquerque, releasing criminals on the streets, the drug trafficking, human sex trafficking, we're going to suspend the Second Amendment.
We're going to create a public health crisis. You can't do that.
So we have a real issue in America of elected officials that are not abiding by the rule of law, and I think that's the most important thing that we have to correct here in this country.
Obviously, we in the UK look at states like Florida, like Texas, as bastions of free speech, as those who hold the line on the American dream, and yet you've described something different.
The Governor's position, Governor Abbott, how does it fit in? What checks and balances are there on him? Because I'm assuming that Texas is still a red state in some ways.
Yeah. No, it is a red state, but I would challenge anyone to go back and look at the 2020, presidential electoral map broken down by county. You can Google it and they'll pull up.
And you can see the concentrations of blue in the state of Texas.
Texas has 254 counties. It's a pretty doggone big state.
But when you focus and concentrate on those major population centres, it's a numbers game, because you don't have enough population out in rural counties, being West Texas, where there are some counties you may have 4,000 or 5,000 people, or over in East Texas.
So that's the strategy of the left. I mean, they've done that in Georgia, where the major population centres, Atlanta, Macon, Augusta, Savannah, Columbus, That's the reason why all of a sudden you've got two socialist senators from the state of Georgia.
So we really have to pay attention to that. But Texas, the governor is supposed to be restrained by the legislative branch. But when the legislative branch does not do their job and allow the governor to run roughshod over them, just the same as you can see that at the federal government level, you know, we're not supposed to be ruled by executive orders and edicts and mandates and decrees. We're supposed to have a legislative process. But too often people are allowing governors and also presidents to just, you know, sign off on something and people believe that it's law, and it is not. So we've got to get back to that blocking and tackling of understanding what it means to live in a constitutional republic.
Back to the national side, Kevin McCarthy, you talked about the Republicans maybe getting an F in the House and of course Kevin McCarthy is Majority Chair there in the House and his becoming elected was a fraught endeavour of many negotiations and votes. What about him personally And where does the position or the role or the place of the Freedom Caucus fit into his role in the House?
Well, I think the Freedom Caucus is just trying to restore what we what we call regular order up there in the United States House of Representatives to do things by the regular processes and procedures that they're supposed to operate under and not have you know bills basically be written in the Speaker's office or in the Majority Leader's office and you know, you get told a couple of days out, this is what you're going to vote for, like an omnibus spending bill, which, you know, they continue to do.
And that's what gets us into this fiscal mess that we find here in the United States of America.
So I applauded the people for saying that the election of a speaker is just not a coronation.
There are some very serious things that we want to see happen, and Kevin McCarthy had to go through that crucible to get their support.
But again, on this back side, we still don't see them getting the appropriations bills passed and things of this nature.
And we don't have to sit around and wait and impeach Joe Biden on this corruption thing.
What he is doing on the border is a violation of the Constitution.
That's his policy. I mean, he came in and he said, we're going to allow illegals to come into this country. That's treasonous.
When you are selling oil from our strategic patrolling reserve to China, to me, that's treasonous, but that's what this administration is doing.
When you're undermining your country's own energy independence, to me, that's a high crime and misdemeanour. When you are restoring the Taliban back into power in Afghanistan, that's aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.
So there are so many things that you can hold Joe Biden accountable for.
But I think that, like I said, at least we don't have Nancy Pelosi still as the Speaker of the House there, and we would not know anything about the level of corruption we see with this Biden family.
One thing I guess, people like Pelosi and maybe Mitch McConnell can say is they don't remember, we've seen...
Poor Mitch McConnell has his issues, lets say....
Is that ageist?
I didn't say such a thing. No, but how does that fit because in in the UK? It's kind of a rush or a move towards, younger and younger, where America seems to be older and older and with Pelosi she's going to run again and she's what, 82 or 83? At some point you have to retire and I don't know whether that fits in with the American political model.
Well it's interesting enough, I think it was George Mason who said 17 June 1787 that nothing so greatly impels a man to regard the interests of of his constituents than the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people from whence he was taken where he shall participate in their burdens.
Our founding fathers never meant for us to have a career political class, a political elite, but due to the apathy of the electorate here in America, this is exactly what we have.
So interestingly enough, Peter, what you have seen because of the last couple of episodes of Mitch McConnell just blanking out.
And what has been up, Diane Feinstein and her health issues and John Fetterman, I mean, who cannot hold a clear sentence.
People are asking for term limits there in the House and Senate at the federal government level.
There are many states that have term limits on their representatives, but we don't have that.
I remember when I was sworn into Congress, there was a congressman from Michigan by the name of, I think, David Dingell.
And Dingell had been in office longer than I had been alive.
And so you just ask yourself. And of course, when he finally dies, who gets to take his seat?
His wife!
And so this is not the cronyism, nepotism that we wanted to have in America.
So yes, people are starting to ask a question about mental acuity.
I mean, you look at our own president, and this is not good on the public stage.
What would the media in America say if Donald Trump had ever said at a press conference in a foreign country, I'm going to bed now?
I mean, they'd go berserk.
And so I think that Americans do want something different. And I got to tell you, this is something that Nikki Haley has been talking about.
It's time for a new generation of leaders. And I think she's 50, 51 years of age.
And this is something that's striking the tone with the American people.
And I'll be very honest, you know, even President Trump, I think he's 77 or 78.
And so the American people are sitting back saying, I mean, we got an 80 year old and a 77, 78 year old, we're gonna be voting for them to be president once again. They're not happy with that setup.
Well, Sleepy Joe, he does need a sleep, I'm sure. And I wanna touch on the Republican primary, But just last thinking on the Mitch McConnell situation, obviously the Republicans in the Senate decided he was the best person for the job.
Does that mean the calibre isn't as high in the Senate as it should be?
Or are there others that could step into that position and be voted in?
Well, I think what they decided and voted on is this same old thing.
He's been there and that's who should be the leader.
And he can raise the most money.
There have to be better qualifications than just that. You need someone that is sharp, that has the ability to go out there and go head to head on the debate floor with the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer.
You cannot have someone that says they're a leader and they're having these moments of blanking out.
And I would think that it would be the honourable thing for Mitch McConnell to say that, you know, I'm not up to this anymore.
I'm going to step aside and let someone younger, John Thune or whoever to step into this position.
So, but again, it comes back to the American people now starting to ask, should there be term limits?
Should there be mental acuity testing on individuals there in the House and the Senate or maybe in the Supreme Court.
You mentioned Nikki Haley and obviously the Republican primary and I watched the first debate.
I was over there in Virginia and I watched it. The main candidate, obviously Trump, was not there.
I thought Nikki Haley did well. I thought Vivek did well, although I'm not sure exactly where he's come from.
Obviously, I've watched DeSantis, has been a very good governor.
What are your thoughts on the field? Because my initial thoughts were, if someone like Donald Trump is running, then you don't even get in the ring.
It's not your time.
But these individuals have chosen to put themselves up against the gorilla in the room, in effect.
What are your thoughts as you look from the outside at the campaign, at the primary?
Well, I will tell you very simply, and I've said this publicly on many interviews, is that Donald Trump has to change the narrative.
Donald Trump should be on that debate stage, because right now the media is painting him as someone, a former president under indictments, several different states.
What he has to do is be the former president that is running to be president again.
And the only way you change that is to go on offense, to be on the debate stage, to defend your record, to talk about your record, to talk about where you are now.
And if you're going to be, I'll use your metaphor, if you're the gorilla, well then you got to beat down all the chimpanzees, but you can't run away from them.
And I think that that's the important thing that he has to do.
So if he continues to skip debates, my concern is he makes himself less and less relevant when it comes to talking about the issues.
And you can go on Tucker and everything like that and have what, I don't know, 10, 12 million people check it out, but still you were not on the debate stage.
And I think it's a little disingenuous to the American people to say that, I'm leading in the polls, I don't need to show up, I'm gonna win it.
Well, I'm a big college football fan. And I will tell you that every year you have your preseason ranked number one team, and It just so happens it's Georgia, and Georgia, of course, they've wanted to last national champions.
But even being a preseason number one, that doesn't mean they skip all of the games in the season.
It doesn't mean that they say, well, we're only going to play teams with a winning record, or we're only going to play our home games. We're not going to go travel to anybody else's stadium, because we're the preseason ranked number one.
Every single weekend, Georgia has to go out and validate their ranking.
And every team has to do that.
So I think that President Trump should not sit back and just say, hey, look, I'm ahead. I don't need to go.
You got to show that you are the gorilla. You do deserve that ranking.
You do deserve that polling support. and get that narrative changed.
I watched my first football game when I was over there, USC against someone else, and after three and a half hours, I had lost the will to live. So yeah, sometimes I need to be educated on the ins and outs of American football.
Peter, let me tell you what, one of these days, I graduated from the University of Tennessee. I'm going to take you to the good old-fashioned South-eastern Conference football game. You're absolutely going to love it. I'll walk you through and talk you through everything, but the best part is all the tailgating, man.
It was confusing, but I will take you up on that offer, definitely, someday.
You mentioned parental rights, and I've just actually written a piece for Our Church magazine on this issue, which we are facing a hugely hot topic, currently debated in Parliament over the last few weeks even. I was at a demo yesterday outside Parliament on this very issue. We've watched those debates with parents, those school meetings, and the frustration of parents even getting access to materials and this has certainly been a huge topic here and over there. How is that playing out in the political sphere with many organizations trying to educate parents to what is happening, getting parents more involved, trying to wake up politicians to what's happening.
Well, I will tell you again, let's go back to what happened in Virginia. And you saw a state that had just gone for Joe Biden in the 2020 election by 10 or 11 points. And then a year later, they lose the governor's mansion and they lose lieutenant governor, they lose attorney general. Why? Because all of a sudden, Tara McAuliffe gets on the debate stage against Glenn Youngkin and says the quote that the left has always believed secretly and in private, but he said it in public.
Parents do not have a right in deciding what their children are being taught.
That unified people, R&D didn't matter. It was just parents who want to have the best opportunities for their kids and the best opportunities comes from a great education.
And when you start to look now at the schools and our kids that are failing, not reading and not doing math at grade level across the country, but yet, you know, everyone is saying everything's fine in our schools.
When you have school choice that got passed in a Republican legislature in North Carolina, but the Democrat governor, Roy Cooper, comes out and declares a state of emergency, against school choice.
No, this has really lit a fire under a lot of parents.
No one has ever really paid attention to school board meetings.
People are showing up to school board meetings. People are running for school board.
They wanna make sure that the right educational policies are there.
They don't want these filthy books that are showing up in school libraries.
In California, they're out there saying that if your child, a little boy, wants to be a little girl, you have to go along with her or else the state of California is going to take your child away from you.
This is huge, man. I don't know what the left is thinking. Having this drag queen exposure of our kids. That's contributing to a delinquency of a minor.
You can't take a kid to a strip show, or they talk about this gender mutilation surgeries.
If you're under the age of 18, you can't even get a tattoo. But now we're supposed to believe that an 11, 12-year-old can decide that they want their bodies to be mutilated, and parents are supposed to go along with it or else lose their child. This is a huge issue going into 2024. And when you have an organization called Moms for Liberty, that really is out there, you know, standing up for parental rights, and they're designated as a hate group. I mean, the FBI is classifying parents as domestic terrorists that are going to, you know, school board meetings. This is lighting a fire on a lot of people here in the United States, American parents and grandparents, and I think it's going to play hugely in the 2024 cycle.
Yeah, we've had Tina Descovich on twice, talking to her about what Moms for Liberty are doing, and extremely jealous of the success they're having, and we need something like that here. But I'm wondering, what about churches? What's the church's position and role and engagement in this protecting children issue.
I think churches are waking up, as a matter of fact last week I was up in Ohio, you know they have this ballot initiative coming up in November which which will basically codify murder.
It says in the Bible of Deuteronomy 30 and 19, I sit before you, heaven and earth, and life and death, and choose life so that you and your descendants shall live. I mean, it's very simple.
Psalms 121, verses three through five, talks about children are a blessing from God, and the man that has more of them is like arrows in the quiver. Jeremiah chapter one, talk about I knew you before I formed you in the womb. So I think you're going to see a lot of the churches standing up against this, because this is infanticide. This is not just about, okay, I'm a victim of rape, I'm a victim of incest. This is about murdering unborn babies all the way up to the time that they're born. Even in some states—California, a couple others—they're talking about, if you don't want the baby after it's born, still kill it.
Now, to me, I don't understand how you justify that.
This is also going to be a huge issue. The left, I think, believes that they could win on this, but when you really describe it, what they stand for, and Planned Parenthood, and Margaret Sanger, who was a white supremacist and a racist, people aren't going to go for that.
It's been a destruction of the Black community. I want everyone to understand, since Roe v. Wade in 1973, over 20 million Black babies have been murdered in the womb. And in any other sense, people would say that's a genocide.
So it's those simple bits of information and education we've got to get people out there.
But yet, 70 to 73 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are located in black communities.
So this is targeted.
This issue play out in the Republican primary itself, the issue of pro-life, which some candidates are certainly much more, some are afraid of engaging, and on the issue of parental rights and responsibility of children, which are two huge issues, but obviously quite separate issues. How do you see that playing out in the Republican primary itself?
I think Republicans need to go on offense, and I think that people are looking for someone that is strong on those issues. Lots of times Republicans will, and these are the establishment Republicans, say, don't talk about the life issue, don't talk about social issues. Well, they're here.
You're talking about a group of people that believe in murdering children up to the time of birth. You're talking about a group of people that want to expose our children to sexual deviancy and perversion. You're talking about people that want to mutilate the bodies of our children, and they don't want our kids to get a good quality education. So I think that there's an incredible opportunity here for strong constitutional conservatives who just happen to have an R after their name to go against the Democrats and say, why do you hate children? I mean, that's the question that we should be asking. Why does this party have such an angst against children? They want to kill them in the womb after they're born, if they allow them to be born, they want to mutilate their bodies. They want to expose them to sexual deviancy and perversion. You know, we've got this thing in America now where the left is saying you can't say paedophiles anymore, Peter. You have to say minor attracted persons. Well, let me tell you something. I've got a two year old grandson, I got another grandson on the way.
You will see someone come down on you like Thor if you mess with my grandsons.
And so we've got to protect our kids. But with all that being said, they still don't want to educate them. They have a good future. I mean, it's appalling what is happening in the system of education in America where our kids can't read and do math at grade level. So yes, I think that this is an issue that should be talked about. It's an economic issue, because the more that you have future generations dependent upon the government, you know, who's going to pay for that? So we are dwindling our economic opportunities by way of lessening our educational opportunities.
Can I finish on something a little bit different? Your background is military and here in the UK we've had that with the royal family, we've had the military connection, we've had originally, traditionally, many serving the military going into public service in politics and I know you've also had that in the States.
Is that becoming less so with military shrinking, with less influence? The route you've taken, is that not really as viable to others?
Well, I will tell you that I come from a military family. My dad served in the Army in World War II in the European Theatre.
My older brother was a Marine infantryman in Vietnam. My dad challenged me to be the first officer in our family when I was 15.
And so I went through college ROTC and was commissioned in 1982, served 22 years.
My nephew is a lieutenant colonel right now in the Army.
My father-in-law did 24 years of service, two combat tours of Vietnam.
Both of my son-in-laws are soldiers. And so that sense of generational service to the country, I think we're losing that.
And as a matter of fact, it was about a month and a half ago, the current Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth, said that she doesn't want to recruit future soldiers from families that have generations of service to the country.
Wants to look at a new and different type of recruit. Well, first of all, what a slap in the face to families that have had a lifelong commitment to this country of service and sacrifice and commitment. And I think everyone knows that the recruiting and retention in our military is down. Why? Because they're focusing all these social pet peeves and ideological agendas of the left. You cannot have an effective military fighting force if you're instituting cultural Marxism that says, well, you know, Peter, since your skin colour, you're bad, you're an oppressor, there's nothing you can do about that. Alan, because of your skin colour, you're a victim, you're oppressed. So how are we supposed to get in a foxhole together, Peter? How are we supposed to trust each other in a situation called combat? But yet that's what's happening in our military, and this whole emphasis on gender dysphoria, and how we're spending taxpayer money to allow, you know, soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines to take paid leave.
To go and murder future generations of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines in their womb.
We have got to change things in the Oval Office because the most important title for a president of the United States of America is Commander-in-Chief. Right now, when you think about what Joe Biden did with that debacle in Afghanistan, where 13 Americans unnecessarily lost their lives. Many others were wounded at Hamid Karzai International Airport, but the story is not told about the other Marines who have committed suicide because of that fateful day, and how so many feel that they were abandoned. I spent two and a half years in Afghanistan. So we have got to change things with the leadership of our military, especially the civilian side. When you've got a Secretary of Defence that's writing letters to females in the military saying that you just need to go ahead and be prepared for biological males to be in your shower and latrine facilities, that's not what the American people want to support in our military.
Because the military in the US has been an institution that has united the country traditionally. You have much more respect, I think, for your military even than we have in Europe.
And I kind of see that, as a foreigner looking in, as slowly unravelling.
Is that a kind of fair assessment?
It's a very fair assessment. And the thing is that it is not that the trust and confidence is lacking for the individual, the young troops, soldier, sailor, airman, marine.
It's the lack of trust and confidence in the leadership of our military, be it the civilian leadership or the senior military leadership that is lacking.
So until there are changes there, that lack of trust and confidence is going to continue.
Colonel Allen West, I appreciate you coming on today and obviously the viewers can get more of your own steadfast and loyal podcast over on Rumble and elsewhere. And I will certainly take you up on your offer of understanding college football. I will sometime, but thank you so much for coming on and sharing your expertise and understanding what's happening stateside.
Thank you, Peter. It's a pleasure and God bless you and God be with you.
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