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Dec. 6, 2022

637: What's Next for the GOP?

What's the future for the GOP? Is it a party of Trump? Or a party of DeSantis?

On today's episode, I'm joined once again by Ted Harvey from StopJoe.com to discuss the future of the GOP as we head towards the 2024 election. 


Ted and I discuss what he thinks is going to happen with Republican leadership and if he thinks they will be able to win back the White House in 2024. We also talk about his predictions for who will be running against Trump in 2024, as well as what kind of issues we're going to see come up during this election cycle.



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Transcript

Brian Nichols  0:02  
What's the future of the GOP? Let's talk about that instead of arguments. We're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, happy Tuesday there, because you're on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on the course. Another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host. Joining us live from our Stratus ip Studios here in the lovely Eastern Indiana know what cyber attacks are outdated Business Technology, put your company at risk. Learn more at the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash Stratus ip Stratus ip Business Technology simplified folks happy Happy Tuesday. Hope you're doing well. And yes, thank you for joining us because we have to discuss the future of the GOP now after the election. There back in November, we had our good friend Kenny Cody on the show and oh my goodness, it we felt like a nuclear bomb had just gone off. We thought we were gonna get a red wave. Some even said a red tsunami, but it the end of the election night and the day after it looked like a red trickle. So we're recording here today a little bit, you know, a month or so removed from the election. Now we can look back with a little bit different perspective in terms of how did the GOP actually do returning to the program? Ted Harvey, welcome back. What are your thoughts, sir?

Ted Harvey  1:30  
Well, good evening, sir. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Well, you know, I think that we all were hoping that we would have this humongous red wave and that we would pick up 3060 seats. But in hindsight, after doing a little more realistic evaluation of where we were, you have to realize that the Republicans have held the all the all of the House of Representatives for 14 of the last 10 sessions of Congress going back back to the 2004. election and even further back to the 1994 elections when we when when we took over with the house with the Contract with America. So I think that the Republicans and the Democrats that are still there are in very safe seats because of the way we do redistricting. And both parties protect their incumbents first and foremost. And so there's not a lot of seats that are in play across the country. And the Republicans have continually won those seats are important that are in play. And the only time in the last 20 years when that hasn't taken place was in 2018 when the Mueller investigation scam was going on for 18 months and the media and the Democrats and the FBI and the CIA was doing everything they could to discredit Republicans and discredit the Trump administration. Only then did the Democrats pick up a significant number of seats in a in a real wave election. But since then, the in 2020, the Republicans actually picked up seats in a presidential election. They hadn't done that since 2004. And even though Trump lost, we still picked up seats because of the huge coattails that he had with 80 million people coming out to vote for him. And then you fast forward to this election cycle and 2022, we again, picked up more house seats. And so it may not have been a red way. But I would consider it a long term red tide of the Republicans continuing to pick up seats, especially in rural America. And in the Senate, we had to sit we had to protect 21 Republican Senate seats, and the Democrats only needed to protect 15 Democrat Senate seats. So we only lost one. And I think that tomorrow, knock on wood, I pray to God that we pick up the Democrats Senate seat there. And Herschel Walker gets across the finish line there. And it's going to be a draw in that in the United States Senate. And in a in an election year where we had to hold a significant number of more seats than the Democrats did. And looking forward to 2024. It's going to be just the opposite. The Democrats are going to have to defend a ton of seats, that we just had a blowout in the legislatures in many of those states, and Trump won overwhelmingly in many of those states in 2020. So I think the Democrats back is up against the wall and 2024 but McConnell and the Democrats were behind the eight ball this time around.

Brian Nichols  4:50  
So I know we jumped right into things I didn't give you a chance to reintroduce yourself because this isn't the first time you've been on the show you actually joined us prior to the election and we are talking about the campaign. Need to stop the President not that they help the President to stop them in defeat the President this time it was talking about your website, stop joe.com. And do us a favor Ted, I know we like I said we jumped right into things. So folks, if you want to learn a lot more about Ted's history, we got the past episode. But give us a SparkNotes of your kind of history here in GOP politics.

Ted Harvey  5:18  
Sure. Well, I got my start when I was 22 years old, working in the Reagan White House, and then came back to Colorado and got involved in Colorado politics and served in the state legislature for 13 years, five years in the House and eight years in the Senate. And then when my term was up in the Senate, I was being term limited, I helped start a little pack called the the stop Hillary pack. And little did I know it would ever turn into what it did. And it became one of the more significant packs in the 2016 election because there were millions of people across the country that wanted to stop Hillary. And then when Trump won, we changed the name to the committee to defend the president, it became one of the largest pro Trump PACs in the country. And then after that, when when Biden was sworn in, we changed the name of the pack the committee to defeat the president. And we are really the probably the most aggressive pack out there that's pushing the envelope every single day to push back against the Democrats and to stop the radical left from from taking over our country. And so we were very actively engaged in the midterm elections. And we will continue to do so going into 2024 as well.

Brian Nichols  6:26  
Now, we you mentioned one of those elections from the 22 midterms that it isn't done yet. And let's talk about that down in Georgia, Raphael, Warnock and the old Dallas Cowboy that is Herschel Walker. Yes. I'm still reveling in that victory from Sunday night, who we go into that game at the end of the third quarter 2190 and the Cowboys end up winning 54 to 19. I know this isn't the Dallas Cowboys podcast, folks, but you know what, we're gonna we're gonna take that when for what it is. But anyways, going back to the 90s, Herschel Walker, he was actually one of the key pieces that got traded away from the Cowboys. And he ended up going to the Vikings and then long story short, all the draft picks turned into the 90s Super Bowl cowboys. But now he's out there as a GOP fanboy running for the US Senate. So talk to us about what's going to happen here, as we're now recording and airing today on Tuesday. What do we think we're going to see as we go towards the end of the polls tonight, as they close in Georgia?

Ted Harvey  7:19  
Well, I think first and foremost, Jerry Jones should be contributing millions of dollars to my PAC to help Herschel Walker get across the finish line, because the Dallas Cowboy dynasty would never have happened had it not been for that train that you were just talking about, though. I actually have this book wall behind me that you see here. It's assigned Herschel Walker football from two years ago when we had another special election in Georgia. And we were trying to get Lafleur and Purdue across the finish line. And my Pac was very actively involved in that race. And I said, Wouldn't it be great if we could get the legend Georgia football national champion Heisman Trophy winner to do a commercial for us? And so we reached out to him and he said, Yeah, I would love to. So I was able to go down to Dallas, where Herschel lived at the time, and we filmed a commercial. And I was able to get him to sign that football and it was really cool. He was boyhood idol of mine, I actually grew up in Abilene, Texas. So during that time period, when he was when all of that was happening, so it was pretty cool to get to meet Herschel and and then interestingly enough, here he is running for the United States Senate this time around, and we have another special election. So I was able to take a lot of the footage that we had from the 2020 election and put it in to a commercial for Herschel himself this time around. And we're putting close to $300,000 behind that ad in social media going directly to Trump supporters that typically vote in presidential elections, but they definitely don't vote in off year elections, like we have right now. And especially in a special election, where turnout is everything. And so our PAC is doing everything we can to get these Trump supporters out to the polls and make sure that they get out there. And they're the last line of defense for America, in my opinion. And so we are doing everything we can to make sure that they get out and vote and get Herschel Walker across the finish line.

Brian Nichols  9:21  
And what will that look like? Right, because that would lead to a 5050 tie. So I'm personally a fan of divided government because I think a government that is divided really can't do too much to infringe upon my freedoms that is so I'm kind of okay with that. So I guess talk to us. What do you see as the outcome of the election here? Do you see that if it is, in fact, a 5050, split being something that's going to hold the Biden administration and checker, we have to watch out for some of those weary Republicans. I'm looking at you, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney and all the other folks out there

Ted Harvey  9:55  
and Murkowski. Yeah. Um, you bet. It's gonna be very concerning. But like I was just saying before is, is I think we have a great chance of picking up four to five seats in the Senate in 2024. And if we have this seat right now, that's just one extra seat that we're going to have in our column after the 2024 elections, and hopefully we will have a Republican president at that point as well. And so it is important that we win this race for that reason and that reason alone, but also, we have to have this this seat, because you've seen how Joe Manchin and sedima have been able to stop a lot of the crazy whack job stuff that the Democrats want to push through the Senate. And if they have a supermajority, not a super majority, but a at working majority with this president, they can push through all kinds of administrative stuff that the that the administration wasn't able to do, and, and if we have any other judicial appointments that need to be pushed through, we need to have a very tight Senate that can stop some of that stuff. And so having a 5050 split in the Senate would be important. And I agree with you. I'd like to have split government, especially when we have a Democrat governor or a Democrat president, because gridlock is good in that situation. But look, what happened when we had a Republican House and we had a Republican Senate and a Republican President, we were able to get through three solid, conservative justices to the Supreme Court that I believe will save the Republic, whether it was the EPA ruling, or the New York City gun ruling, or whether it was Roe v. Wade, or there's an important case being heard today. With a good friend of mine, the gal who does all of my websites and all of my digital ads and everything here in Colorado. She has a case before the Supreme Court, they're hearing today saying that a web designer should not be forced to do work for same sex marriages that violates her religious beliefs and freedom of speech. And so that would definitely not have been heard before the court if we had not had these three solid conservative justices there. So I hear you when we want to have gridlock, but when we're in charge, we have the ability to save the Republic. And that's what happened when Donald Trump was President United States. All right,

Brian Nichols  12:19  
well, there's the positive outlook. Now, we all know that that means that for every positive, there must be the negative. So what is the worst case scenario, right? Is it truly a unchecked Biden presidency? With at least half of Congress in under his jurisdiction, ready to support whatever he does?

Ted Harvey  12:39  
Well, I don't think so. I think we had a great opportunity now that we have taken back the House of Representatives, and we are going to be able to have a heck of a lot of understanding about what happened with the FBI and the Justice Department doing everything they could to go after American citizens and try to weaponize the the Justice Department against their political enemies. And I want to have a complete and full investigation into that. I want to have the January 6 committee continue on beyond Nancy Pelosi, and I want to have the 12,000 hours of videotape. That is that the government has that they have not released to the American people. They've only released the images that set up Donald Trump and set up Republicans. Well, let's see what actually happened on that day, and let the American people decide one way or the other. Right. I don't care how they decide. I just want them to have the full information about what happened that day. And so I think having the Republicans there is important, and I want to see them also put forward bills that will get people on record like putting in place permanently. The remain in Mexico policy that Trump put in place through an executive order that brought illegal immigration to a trickle. I want to see the Republicans in the House pass those kinds of pieces of legislation and put the Democrats in the Senate on record going into the 2024 election. That's that's how we win elections is by showing the American people just how radical the Democrats are on open borders and everything else.

Brian Nichols  14:13  
I think you're going to see and I think we are seeing there has been a big shift culturally speaking in a lot of folks, because we talked about this in sales, once you see something you can't unsee it and especially with COVID I think there was something about COVID and watching your your even your like your local officials really take a step to infringe on your liberties, seeing friends and family so easily influenced by propaganda. And it I think it made a lot of folks who traditionally were kind of sitting on the sidelines, they weren't really involved. At the very least they were apathetic to the political process, much like John Mulaney skit who talked about Obama saying, you know, I thought that the guy that was in charge has at least competence. I didn't really think too much about it. I think that that is the approach a lot of folks had. But now, I'm hearing a lot more individuals that traditionally wouldn't be involved in this conversation now getting involved. And I gotta say, it does get me excited because I'm hearing a lot more of those voices starting to pop up on what I would say is our side of the argument here. And I think you're going forward and you're looking at how do we say this country, it is imperative on us to build these strong coalition's with folks who are open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. And as a sales professional and a sales executive that makes my ears ring because that means that I have an opportunity now to not just push a particular product solution, but rather, instead we're helping people make change happen. And that's the hardest part is getting people in a position where they are now in a frame of mind to make it switch to make a change, what better chance than when the world is seemingly on fire to try something new. So I guess with that being said, that goes to the ultimate question 10 I think it is this last time you were on the show is well, what's going to happen in 2024. Beforehand, I said do you think that Trump's gonna run and you said you had no inside knowledge? Well, I think we all have the knowledge now Trump is officially running in 2024. Joe Biden has teased that he's going to run in 2024 for reelection, but then just also mentioned that he maybe won't run for reelection. He said we'll see. So then the question is, well, we have Trump Biden, but also there's a pretty darn good governor down in Florida hasn't officially said he's running but just did a steamrolling of his his candidate that he was running against in Charlie Crist down in Florida. So I guess talk to us do we see someone like Ron DeSantis, joining the GOP ranks from a national perspective, and actually standing as a real alternative to President Trump?

Ted Harvey  16:46  
I think there's a lot of people out there that would love to see that, especially the George Bush side of the Republican Party, who are very, very much wanting to get their pound of flesh from Donald Trump, the after the way he dealt with the Neil Bush, who was Jeopardy. What's that jab, jab Bush, Neil Bush lived here in Colorado, Jeb Bush, who, who Donald Trump swept the floor with in the debates. And I think that the Bush family desperately is doing everything they can to find a candidate that will take him on. And I think there are a lot of other Republicans out there that don't want to have Donald Trump the they're the nominee. But in the end, and in my pack is is not engaging in this primary, if there is a primary but just as a political analyst perspective, I think that the the Trump base, whatever you want to call them, the Trump base is probably the most energized and wide and deep political movement in my lifetime. And if Trump continues to run going into the primary season, and goes into Iowa, New Hampshire, these caucus states that are so important at the beginning of the election cycle, he is going to wrap it up pretty early, in my opinion. And I think everybody out there understands that that is the case. And I think DeSantis knows that that is the case. And I think that DeSantis, like you said is one of the most successful governors in America right now. And he is his political career is just going up and up and up and up. And I don't think he wants to risk alienating or upsetting or whatever word you want to use it, the Trump base, because he needs them for his future political career. And in the end, I think he's probably going to decide, no, I'm not going to take on Trump now that Trump has gotten in the race. If Trump doesn't continue to run for one reason or another. I think it's a slam dunk. DeSantis is going to win. But if Trump wants to run, I think Trump wins the nomination. And I think Trump wins the general election as well, because there's nobody in the Democrat bench that can take on Donald Trump.

Brian Nichols  19:19  
I know we're hard pressed for time. I'm just curious, because it seems like you teased it a little bit but what reasons would you see that Trump maybe wouldn't run?

Ted Harvey  19:25  
Well, you know, he is he needs to be much more disciplined. I think having Kanye West at his house and others at his house was probably one of the most undisciplined things he could possibly do. He has got to be more disciplined than he has been over the last six years. If he wants to make sure that he can keep all of the people who want to get in out of the race. And you know, when he gets give a gave his announcement speech. It was an incredibly dis well disciplined on script speech that the President has given since he was giving State of the Union addresses before the country and I was under the impression that that was the way he was going to roll out his candidacy. And then to immediately turn around and have Kanye West and that situation blow up in his face. I think that he's going to have to double down on being more disciplined.

Brian Nichols  20:21  
Who would have thought that the guy on a fundraiser with Mike Myers for Hurricane Katrina that said George Bush hates black people wasn't necessarily a great dinner guests. I don't know, shocking revelation. But with that being said, Yes, we are unfortunately hard pressed for time. So I'm gonna go ahead and kick things off here for final thoughts. And folks, that is, if you are interested in running for office right now we talk about the importance of running for office. But really you want make an impact? How do you do that you run for local office, you run for dog catcher you run for school board for city council for mayor, and here's the reality, it's tough. A lot of folks try to run for office, they're like, Well, I don't know what I'm doing. So I'm going to hire a consultant, and they realize is 10s of 1000s of dollars. And I've had quite literally hundreds of candidates here on the program where I've talked to candidates in some way, shape, or form. I hear that as a concern. So I said, You know what, we're going to help, we're going to do Candidate School 101 Here, The Brian Nichols Show. So yes, starting actually started here last week, we're gonna be doing over at our Patreon, less than $10 a month, if you are running for office, or you are considering running for office, we're gonna go through the basics of fundraising, messaging, building your team, we're going to have other candidates, other elected officials, folks like Ted and other electoral geniuses on the the Patreon there to walk through what actually works, especially when you're running for that local office. So if you're interested, head over to the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash Candidate School. That's my final thoughts, Ed, what do you have for us?

Ted Harvey  21:46  
Well, thank you for having me on. First and foremost, I appreciate it. I encourage everybody to go to website stop joe.com See the Herschel Walker commercial that we're running see the commercials that we ran in North Carolina for Ted Budd, we spent over $1.1 million there to make sure he got to cross the finish line, go to our website, help us out the stuffs not cheap. And we need as much help as we can possibly get

Brian Nichols  22:07  
on many that the true that ain't cheap. And with that being said to you also keep the lights on. So I have 1234 30 some odd lights here in front of me. Well, please consider going ahead and supporting the show over at the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support. You can become a recurring supporter and hey, I lower the cost I heard from folks times are getting tough and they want to support the show but are like Brian five bucks a month? I don't know if I can do that. Okay, dollar 99 that work for you? How about that if you can go ahead and you get value from at least one of our 636 shows we have here in the program, please consider joining us at $1.99 as a supporter here the program over on our Patreon or if you just want to do a one time donation 510 Whatever it may be, I greatly appreciate it because it lets us have amazing guests like Ted return here at the show to leave you educated, enlightened and informed with that being said, Yes, we are on YouTube rumble Odyssey wherever it is, you join us please just do me a favor hit that little notification bell and like the little subscription button so you don't miss a single time that we have amazing guests like Ted joining us. And yet, by the way audio listener which I know 95% of you are audio listeners, we do have video versions of the show. So you want to go ahead and check that out. Go to the Brian Nichols show.com where you can find us all the video versions of the show. You can find the entire transcript of the show plus all 636 other episodes of the program follow me on Twitter, Facebook mindset calm anywhere really their social media at be Nichols liberty, Ted, where can folks go ahead and continue the conversation with you?

Ted Harvey  23:36  
Stop joe.com or follow us on social media at defeat underscore, Joe.

Brian Nichols  23:41  
There you go. All right, folks. Well, that's all we have for you. Make sure you hit that subscribe button because tomorrow, good friend at Jack Hunter is joining the show and we're digging into the Twitter files and all that took place there. Did you catch all that? That was in the tweet thread from Matt Taibbi? Well, if you did not make sure you go ahead and check out tomorrow's episode. But with that being said, it's Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Ted Harvey. We'll see you tomorrow,

Disembodied Voice of Matt Ultan, Vocal Artist Extraordinaire  24:07  
listening to The Brian Nichols Show. Find more episodes at the Brian Nichols show.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Ted HarveyProfile Photo

Ted Harvey

Chairman

Retired Colorado State Senator Ted Harvey has always had a passion for protecting the Constitution and the unborn, while promoting the free-market principle which have resulted in America’s unmatched exceptionalism. At the age of 22, Ted received a political appointment to serve in the White House of President Ronald Reagan, which ignited his passion for traditional conservatism.

After returning home, Ted quickly became involved in Colorado politics, working as a staffer in the Colorado State House and then as the Program Director of the Independence Institute, a Denver-based think tank. Ted also served as the District Office Manager for Representative Joel Hefley (R-CO).

In December 2001, through a vacancy election, Ted was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives and became a conservative champion inside the State House. He was re-elected in both 2002 and 2004, and then elected to the Colorado State Senate in 2006 and 2010.

Ted’s patriotic work continues today. He was a founding member and Chairman of the Stop Hillary PAC, re-named the Committee to Defend the President following the election of President Trump in 2016. It was one of the largest pro-Trump super PACs in the country: Under Ted’s leadership, the Committee spent more than $20 million in Independent Expenditures to support Republican causes, while contributing over $509,000 directly to Republican candidates and incumbents.

Ted has been elected as a Colorado delegate to four of the last five Republican National Conventions including 2016 and 2020.

Ted will cont… Read More