Big Stanford WIN for Free Speech, plus guest Dave McCormick on How We Beat China

we've got a victory to celebrate. You got a letter back about a previous podcast that we did exposing a federal judge that was shut down at one of the Ivy League schools. I'll let you take it from there on this victory lap. Well, sure, now this is yet another victory. It's been a good week. We keep having big, big wins. This of course, concerned Stanford Law School and something we've talked about at length on the podcast, which is Judge Kyle Duncan went out to Stanford Law School.

He was speaking there, was invited by the Federalist Society and a group of left wing activists showed up there. They protested there. They screamed at him, they cursed at him, they made sexually profane attacks at him, They shouted him down, They prevented him from giving his speech. It was outrageous. It then became even worse because he asked, quite reasonably,

is there anyone from the administration here? And the Dean for d EI for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion stepped forward, and he for a moment thought, oh good, there's an adult in the room who will actually stop them from shouting me down. Well. No, It turned out the Dean had a prepared screed six minutes that she read from where she sided with the protester. She denounced the judge. She said how painful his very existence was. She kept saying. Her odd phrase was is the juice worse the squeeze?

In other words, is it worth it to let you speak? Because our sensitive natures will be troubled? It was outrageous. We talked about it at length. In response, I did several things. One of the things I did is I sent a letter to the Texas State Bar urging the Texas State Bar to inquire of every graduate of Stanford for the next three years whether they participated in screaming and harassing and shouting down and cursing at the federal judge.

Because to be a member of the bar, the bar has to make a determination that you have the character and fitness to do so. And if you don't know how to deal with a federal judge without screaming and cursing at him, you are not, in my view, fit to be a member of the bar. A second letter I sent was to Stanford Law School, and Stanford Law School has a free speech policy. The policy, on the

face of is quite good. It says that you have a right to free speech, that speakers that come to Stanford have a right to be heard, that the people who want to hear the speakers have a right to hear what they have to say, and that students don't have a right to shout them down. And I asked Stanford, I said, number one, what are you going to do concerning the specific students who violated this policy? Is there

going to be any discipline? And number two, what are you going to do with this dean who defied Stanford's policy and sided with the aggressive protesters rather than the right of the speaker. The federal judge to give his remarks, well, we got a response back from Stanford Law School on

March twenty second. March twenty second happens to be my dad's eighty fourth birthday, and so I thought it was a great birthday present because, much to my astonishment, I'm actually going to say something nice about Stanford Law School. It is a letter from the President of Stanford University and a letter from the Dean of Stanford Law School, woman named Jenny Martinez, who actually went to law school with I know Jenny. She was a year behind me, I think in law school. She's now the dean of

the Stanford Law School. And their letter broke the news number one that the dean has been suspended. And this is a big deal. I asked specifically about the dean, and I'm going to quote from the letter. The response is, Associate Dean tien Steinbach is currently on leave. Generally speaking, the university does not comment publicly on pending personnel matters. That's a big deal for a so called elite law school like Stanford Law School to take their high priestess

of diversity and put her on leave for stifling free speech. Now, mind you, she completely defied the university policy but in today's left wing, woke culture, it is remarkable and I'm going to say Stanford is to be commended for holding its deans to the standard of following school policy. And then secondly, with regard to the students, what Stanford said in response is they said they're not going to discipline

the individual students. I was disappointed at that, but their reasoning, as they said, because we had an administ they're a dean who refuse to follow our own policy, so we're not going to hold the students responsible. I don't entirely agree with that, but it wasn't a crazy thing they said. But here's what also they said. In summary, the university is taking the following steps to address these issues in

the near term. One, staff will receive additional training on the role of any administrator's president events to ensure that university rules on disruption of events will be followed. Two. We will also adopt a more explicit policy with clear protocols for dealing with disruptions that will better protect the rights of speakers and also those who wish to exercise

their right to protest within permissible bounds. This will bring greater clarity and certainty about future enforcement of the policy, including through disciplinary sanctions as appropriate. Three currently enrolled law students will attend a mandatory half day session on the topic of freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession. These sessions will include speakers representing a range

of viewpoints. And four a committee will work during the spring quarter here feedback from the faculty, students, and members of the bar, including our alumni, and make further recommendations on the steps that the law school should take. This is a big deal. It's a big victory the fact that these woke, angry leftists are going to be required from the school to learn about free speech, to learn. Look, if you're training to be a member of the bar and you want to appear before a federal judge, you

may disagree with the federal judge. You may hate the federal judge. You may think the federal judge's rulings are wrong in every respect. But if you stand up and start yelling and screaming and cursing at the federal judge, you better a broad a toothbrush, because you are going to jail, and you're going to be held in contempt of court. And I'm going to commend Stanford. What happened

there was disgraceful, but their response candidly surprised me. And it gives some degree of hope that that that free speech is possible and that maybe maybe maybe the pendulum of the woke schools maybe starting to swing back the other direction, especially since we've seen so many different speeches be stifled or canceled at universities over the last couple

of years, especially conservative speakers. Let's just be clear about that, is that this is a good moment for free speech, as you described it, and it's a moment that we should all celebrate. I want to get into this other issue. You have a good friend, uh with you tonight who's got a new book that is that is out right now. You should get your hands on this book, especially with what we're dealing with with China right now. Dave McCormick's new book is out, Superpower and Peril, Battle Plan to

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for up to ten years. All right, Senator, this is a very important moment I think in our country's history, specifically when it comes to China. We're seeing this unnatural alliance that's taking place right now, China Russia getting together. Dave McCormick is with you tonight as well. He's got this new book out. The timing couldn't have been better, Dave.

Welcome to Verdict, first of off, and you've got to be excited to see not only your book come out, but also the timing of it with what's happening right now with China. Hey, Ben, thanks so much for having me and Senator thanks for having me on today. Yeah, the timing couldn't be perfect. It could be more perfect.

Rather the that we're at a tipping point here. America's in decline, and we see that decline with then in terms of our economic situation, our national security capability, and spiritually what's going on in the country in terms of progressive ideology chipping away at American strength and some fundamentals of America. But at the very same time we see this huge existential challenge from China, and it's getting worse

by the day. In the last couple of weeks, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal that cited a study by an Australian think tank that identified forty four technologies that are critical for economic growth and national security. The Chinese were in the lead in thirty seven of the forty four, according to this Australian think tank. And more than the technological capability, China is pursuing a strategy

to displace America as the superpower. And that's what this book is about superpower and peril, is that our status in the world, our leadership at home, and our status in the world is in question. And you only have to look at the news this week, where in the very same week you saw the Chinese brokering a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and you saw China Chinese leader she in Russia in partnership with Putin, in support

of Putin's aggression in Ukraine. And if that doesn't give you evidence that China is on the move, then nothing will. And in essence, what I say in the book is China has a plan and we don't. America doesn't have a plan. In this book, Superpound Peril is about our plan for retaining our place in the world and for restoring the American dream. Well, and Ben, let me jump in here for a second because I want to tell our listeners a little bit about who Dave is. Dave

is a good friend of mine. I've known Dave McCormick a long long time. Dave is someone who grew up in Pennsylvania. Grew up actually as parents at a Christmas tree farm. He grew up in rural Pennsylvania. He was a jock. He was All state in wrestling. He was All state in football. He ended up going to West Point. At West Point, he was captain of the wrestling team. He became an Army ranger. He was a combat veteran. He defended our nation. He came back to Pennsylvania. He

became incredibly successful. Was a CEO of a very large company in Pittsburgh, created over a thousand jobs in Pittsburgh. He went to serve in the administration. He was a senior official in the Bush administration, the Treasury Department dealing with China, taking on China directly. He became the CEO of one of the largest hedge funds in the world, was incredibly successful as a financial leader. When Donald Trump was president, Donald Trump wanted Dave to come in as

the deputy Secretary of Defense. He ended up not doing that, but Trump very much wanted him to do that. His wife, who was another dear friend, Dina Powell, was Donald Trump's deputy National Security adviser, and she's someone Heidi and I have known for for twenty four years now. Dave, as you will recall, just ran for Senate in the state of Pennsylvania, and he'd put on a heck of a campaign. I endorsed Dave the very first week he was in

the campaign. I campaigned all over the state of Pennsylvania with him. We did rallies all over the state. Unfortunately, in that race, Donald Trump ended up endorsing doctor Oz. I wish he had not. I think that was a mistake. At the end of the day, Dave lost the primary. I think it was nine hundred and how many votes, nine fifteen votes of one point four million cast. I'm sure that number you'll forget, right, Ben, So I have to admit for me the number is nine hundred is

for Dave. Nine hundred and fifteen is acutely carved into his consciousness. Yeah, as long as you had under that and the number of friends and your phone, then it's not your fault. Okay, just one. But if it's above that in your phone, it's totally your fault, exactly. But I will say the consequences are very real. I am absolutely certain had Dave gotten nine hundred and sixteen votes more in the primary, had he been the nominee, he would have won the general election. He would have been

the new Republican Senator from the state of Pennsylvania. And the consequence of that, instead of a fifty one forty nine Democrats Senate, we would have fifty fifty Senate. What that would mean is Democrats on every committee would have equal representation. Right now they have a majority on every committee. It means Democrats can issue subpoenas, it means they have control to accelerate their agenda through the Senate. And it

was heartbreaking. I will also say, and I'm not going to press Dave to make an announcement, but I'm going to be quite candid. I hope that he's running again in twenty twenty four. I think he'll make a hell of a senator. And I was proud to stand with him. But this book he wrote is a book he'd actually been working on before Maria ran for Senate, and he suddenly found himself out on the campaign trail, shaking hands and kissing babies, and he kind of put the book

on hold. And then when the campaign was over, he went back to the book and finished it and turned it around. And I say all of that to say, when Dave writes a about China, he does so from first hand experience having dealt with China. But b when he writes about the economy in America's economic situation, he does so as an incredibly successful business leader who has created jobs, who's worked to the highest levels of government, and so he's thinking seriously about how America wins this

battle with China. I believe China is the single greatest geopolitical threat facing the United States for the next hundred years, and Dave's thinking seriously about how we win that battle. Dave, you had an interesting op ed that obviously connected to your book launch that was at Fox News, and it says China has a plan to lead the word old What's ours. The scary part is that may be one of the most accurate op ed headlines I've seen a long time, Because I genuinely don't know what America's plan

is to lead the world under the Biden team. You'll look at just how out of touch this White House is. They're having the cast of Ted Lasso come in on the day that China and Russia are having very serious meetings about how they're basically going to align it with one another and in essence take over the world. Yeah, that split screen of those two things happening, those two press conferences at the same time said at all And

I think you're right. We have very weak leadership in Joe Biden, and so I wish I could say it only related to China, but I think it relates to our economy. I think it relates to the disaster in Afghanistan and which really showed weakness, the invitation to putin into Ukraine with the Nordstream to pipeline, the shaky ham and Eggs responds to the Chinese satellite. All of these are signals to the world and signals to our adversaries that this is a moment to test and challenge America's

weakness and to really be on offense. We need to do two things at the same time. We need to go to the gym at home. Part of our problem is a deterioration in some basic fundamentals. We have an economy that is spending at an excessive rate thirty one trillion dollars of debt, forty percent increase in discretionary spending in the last two years under Joe Biden, record high inflation, a direct consequence of those prolonged low interest rates combined

with the spending of Biden. And as a consequence, our economy is weak and we've got big problems ahead, unfortunately, and that's why eighty percent of Americans think the country's had in the wrong direction. But we also have weakness in our military, with the wokeness that's or to hijacked our armed services, which is very sad for me as someone who served. I went to West Point, served in

the army. But just as an example, the US Army released a climate change strategy before it released a war fighting strategy under Joe Biden, and we have this, uh, you know, what I can only say is this progressive ideology that's chipping away at some fundamentals that's made America exceptional So the schools where they're teaching a history of American America's that we don't recognize, that says America was

conceived in sin. That makes our kids not recognize the exceptional contribution that America has done more in the history of the world than any other country for freedom and poverty, eradication and so forth. And if your kids don't think that the country's exceptional, then they don't understand what it takes to preserve it and fight for it. We see it in we see it in business with ESG criteria sort of undermining basic principles of capitalism and the allocation

of capital in pursuit of profit. That's made America's economy the envy of the world. So there's a lot we need to do at home to build back our strength. At the same time, we need to confront China abroad. And what I laid out of that article you refer to and in the book Superpower and Peril is a plan to confront China where we strategically decouple in things like semiconductors of pharmaceuticals. It was shocking to me and I suspect many of your listeners that are pharmaceutical supply chain.

During COVID, we saw our pharmaceutical supply chain dependent on China. That ninety percent of the chips that we need to make America run sophisticate chips are manufactured ninety miles from mainland China. So we've got a decouple and those strategic day Repeat that because I want to make sure everyone listening to it. Here's that point. There are a lot of important things you're saying, but the point on chips

in particular is really important to repeat. That's, yeah, chips, microchips really are the you know, sort of the underlying technology that drives today's modern economy. Everything from the pickup truck that's in my driveway, which by the way, he couldn't buy for a year because of the delays and chips, to our most sophisticated weaponry, and we don't have really

any domestic chip microchip manufacturing capability. Over the years, with sleepwalking on the part of policymakers on both parties, frankly, we now have a situation where ninety percent of the chips that America requires are manufactured in Taiwan, which is ninety miles from mainland China. So if you thought about strategically,

you know, suffocating America. If you took control of those chip fabricators in Taiwan, you'd be able to strangle the world and put a huge strategic delay on the capacity to deploy new weapons and all sorts of things. And that's a strategic vulnerability that's almost unthinkable, and yet we've let it happen. Well, and I want you to pause for a second and reflect on what that means. You know, we talk a lot on Verdict about foreign policy. We talk a lot about China and Russia and what's going

on in the world. But one of the reasons why Taiwan is so critical, one of the reasons why when I sit down in briefings with our Secretary Defense and our Joint chiefs, the number one scenario they're talking about inevitably is China invading Taiwan. Because the magnitude of the threat to America that there is very little, if anything, that is comparable. You look at that vulnerability on chips, Imagine for a second that China successfully invades Taiwan, takes

it over. They have the capacity a just to cut off the most sophisticated chips that are being produced ninety percent of which are being produced in Taiwan. So if you imagine for a second, Okay, I guess America doesn't want any more cars, doesn't want any more trucks, doesn't want any more planes, doesn't want any more iPhones, doesn't want any more missiles, doesn't want any more weapons technology. China's ability to say you're done, We're cutting off your

supply is massive. And by the way, that's only one scenario. Another scenario is that China takes those chips and implements within them surveillance technology, says okay, fine, you can have chips, but much as they've done with Huawei and Telecom, you can have chips, but the Chinese government is now going to surveil everything on your cell phone, everything on your car, everything on your truck, everything on your plane, everything on

your missile and weapons technology. That vulnerability is massive, and it is something number one that a significant percentage of the American people don't appreciate. Number two that Joe Biden in this administration is doing zero to prevent, and number three that should be an acute focus of American foreign policy and economic policy to address and correct our vulnerability

on this front. I want to ask you, Dave about TikTok, and not TikTok within it spasically as a company, but the bigger underlying issue of national security and the fact that we have this app that virtually half of America has on their phone, and there still has not been, in my opinion, of warning about this app from the top the head of the United States of America, and there's just deafening silence when what we know is basically

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for the best deals of the day. Promo code Verdict, Patriotmobile dot Com slash Verdict. Dave I mentioned TikTok a second ago. I think this is much bigger than TikTok. I think it's the fact that we have a device, or i should say, an app on your device that can look at virtually everything you're doing, collecting data. It's very clear that China is doing this, abusing this power. That's what it was created for. And we still have at White House that has not given a warning to

the American people. This is something that China is using to spy on us. Why have they not been more proactive on that? In your opinion, Well, I think there's not a recognition of how important data is. Data. There's an article a couple of years ago in The Times

that said data is the new oil. In fact, data is much more significant strategically even than oil was in the past, because data is the key to innovation, and data gives huge insight into both the strengths and vulnerabilities of an economy, of a military, of an intelligence service. So having access to data is a huge advantage. And once again, China has a plan for data dominance, and it really has an advantage because it's a techno authoritarian power and America doesn't have a plan. And so why

isn't there a sufficient focus on TikTok? I don't think there's an adequate appreciation of how vulnerable we are by letting TikTok have access to our data. But China has access to our data in a variety of ways that have to be curtailed, and so what I argue for in the book is much more significant privacy restraints. Does it alarm you that if you buy a pair of sneakers online that for the next three months you get

all sorts of advertisements in your feed for sneakers. While that just shows you that your data is being sold and you lose control of your data, and you may click the little box at the end of the purchase, but in the end, who knows what that means and where your data actually goes. Well, with China, it's much more significant. One of the things I cite here is a case where our intelligence services identified that China was pulling the fitbit data of our troops in Afghanistan to

be able to monitor what was happening there. It's a huge strategic advantage from an intelligence perspective, and it has to be stopped, and so I think understanding the significance of it leads to some obvious requirements to restrict and stop. The other thing is that data drives innovation. So if you look at Operation Warp Speed, one of the reasons that we had such success in developing new vaccines was that the pharmac companies were able to share data, and

the Chinese don't share data at all. The Wuhan lab is a perfect example of why we couldn't get to the bottom of what happened with COVID because there was no sharing. So we've got to have a strategy to push back on China, control our data, block China from getting access to our data, and leveraging our data for innovation. Well,

and Ben, I often think art imitates life. As you know, I'm a movie buff and I watch all sorts of stupid series on TV because I download them on my iPad and every time I'm on an airplane, I watched the series. One series i'm a fan of is the

HBO series Westworld. I don't know if you happen to have seen it, but it's a sci fi series where part of the premise, so you have these very lifelike robots who you learn as you get into the later seasons, are designed to collect constant data about people and develop models to know what Ben Ferguson would do if faced with every choice in life. And once they have that data, they essentially know how to control you. They know everything,

they know who you are. They can literally predict the future. Now, I don't think HBO is necessarily nostrodamis, but it does underscore the power of data, and right now our federal government is not It's not even that we're losing this battle. We're not even engaged in this battle. It is a one sided fight. And so Dave, let me ask you this, in your judgment, what is China's objective, what are they trying to accomplish, and what are their principal tools for

accomplishing it. I think China is essentially trying to create techno authoritarian dominance. In other words, they're trying to ensure that their economy is the dominant technological force in the world. So that's from a capability perspective, and that obviously is able to ensure a very lethal military, and they're also pursuing a set of foreign policy objectives that will ensure that China really displaces America is the global superpower. Now.

I think the evidence that that was the objective would have been a little less certain in the twenty twelve twenty thirteen fourteen timeframe, But with the rise of President she it's become obvious that that's the goal. And one reason we know that is because he said it time and again in his speeches and his documents in terms of where he expects China to be as a global leader.

But more than that, we see evidence just in the in the in the recent weeks where China has done a brilliant job of advancing its interest in Central America, South America, in the Middle East, and when there's a void in leadership, when people feel uncertain that they can count on America. The Middle East is a great example

of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of our tightest allies, has lots of reasons to object to the rise of Iran, and yet under President Biden, there's been an opening, an opening that the Chinese have deftly exploited and is really displacing. America is the critical superpower in the Middle East. So the objective is world dominance in displacing the United States and doing so with techno authoritarian capability. Well and a

week American president is profoundly dangerous. It's profoundly dangerous because our enemies step into the void. It's profoundly dangerous because our allies are afraid to rely on us and they move into that void as well, that they end up being drawn into the spheres of influence of our enemies. Let me ask you this Dave as a follow up.

As you look at it, what are the strengths and strengths and weaknesses China has in this battle, and even more importantly, what are the strengths and weaknesses America has and how do we win? How do we beat China and stop them from achieving their goal of world dominance. Well, the strengths that the Chinese have is also its weakness in the sense that it's a top down, state driven economy,

the techno authoritarian. What I mean by that is they've got a clear strategy and economic strategy to dominate in these key technologies. There used to be this notion when I served in the government, of dual use technologies being something we had to monitor carefully. In essence, today there's a convergence artificial intelligence, quantum science, robotics, satellites. They are

interchangeably the core of national security and economic vitality. The Chinese recognize that, and they have a very focused strategy to be the dominant player in all those technologies. And the fact that they have a state controlled economy they can drive the allocation of capital and the focus on those areas through their state owned enterprises. So how do we beat them? And now how do we beat them? Well, we beat them because our economy and their economy, Because

if that's created all sorts of weaknesses. We can beat them because our economy is far more agile, far more entrepreneurial. But we're failing at the moment. We're at investing in basic R and D. We're failing at educating our people to be able to compete in these new areas. Semiconduction is a great example. You don't have to have a college degree to fill some of these key technical jobs, but you do have to have technical training, and we're deeply short in the requirements. And and this is what

I argue in the books Superpower and Peril. We need to have the government, and we need to do this with care. But we need to have the government create incentives, tax rebates, and potentially side by side investing with the private sector to drive capital into those areas are going to be most critical for our national security, like artificial intelligence as an example. And we need to do that in a way that the government doesn't play any role

in picking companies or anything like that. We can't we can't have a China model, and we can't have industrial policy like the Biden administrations put in place. We have to have markets driven ways to drive private capital to these technologies. That matter so much for the future, and with those kinds of things in place, we can win this game. But right now we're on our back foot and we're losing. I want to ask you a final question, and this is about what happens when technology teams up

with a country that desperately needs a technology. Obviously, I'm talking about China and Russia, and we see how big of an impact technology can have, even on killing innocent people in Ukraine, drones coming in other type of technology that Russia just doesn't have. This alliance between these two countries are so dangerous for that reason, in my opinion, I want to get your take on that. And before I do that, I want to tell you about our

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thirty five percent off. Dave, I want you to answer that question about the technology, and you have a country country that has a ton of it. You have a country that has hardly any of it and is decades behind. When you put those two together right now, and this is happening in real time, they both bring something the table. One needs energy that's something Russia does have, and the other needs to as technology and that's something that Russia

needs well. I think that alliance is poses real challenges and risks to the United States, but I think our path is clear. The problem is we're just not following it. And let me elaborate on that for a minute. Defense spending needs to do two things at the same time, and we shouldn't pay too much attention to those who

are arguing one or the other. We need to invest in existing platforms because that's core to our military capability to fight a land war or a sea battle in the South China Sea, or to support the Ukrainians in

their fight against Russia. But we also need to invest in the next generation in a way that's going to make sure that we are out in front of where the Chinese are, and the Chinese have developed lots of capabilities that really threaten us in the South China Sea and are going to threaten us in anything we do militarily around the world. So we've got to have and

that's not happening under Joe Biden right now. The spending is not even keeping up with inflation, and right now we have leadership that's not able to do those two things at the same time. The second thing we need to do, and just to refer to your point on energy, the Biden administration has taken us absolutely the wrong direction. I mean I live in Pennsylvania, which has the fourth largest natural gas reserve in the world. Of Pennsylvania, ware

Country would be fourth. And the Biden administration is essentially in one fell swoop. Made us less secure because we've become an energy importer, has made us less rich because it's hurt us economically, and has hurt the environment because natural gas out of Pennsylvania is much cleaner than the imports we have today. And that's a key building block of national security, and we've screwed it up. And that again has created the opportunity for a partnership between Russia

and China, which poses real risk. Well, and let me echo a couple of things Dave just said. Number one, I believe America cannon will prevail against China. I think we have enormous assets, the most important of which is freedom. Free enterprise is a much stronger economic system than communism. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and by the way, lots of Democrats and left wing academics said, oh, the Soviet Union was unbeatable. Jimmy Carter wind that we couldn't compete,

and the American free enterprise system was so powerful. But what we needed was American leadership. We needed the clarity that we saw during the Reagan administration to call them out for who they are. When Reagan described the Soviet Union as the evil Empire. When he was asked what's your strategy in the Cold War, he said, it's very simple. We win, they lose. When he said Marxism, Leninism will end up on the ash heap of history. When he said,

mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall. That clarity and strength of leadership, combined with unleashing the American economic engine, bankrupted the Soviet Union and won the Cold War without firing a shot. I believe we need to replicate the strategy of the Cold War for dealing with China. I think Dave is one of the most serious thinkers in the country and doing so, and I'm optimistic. Look, Joe Biden is not going to do it. The Democrats are not

going to do it. But the American people are frustrated with the path they're on. They're going to change. As we're wrapping up the band, I'm going to take a moment of personal privilege and just Victory lap for a moment. We started this podcast by Victory Lapping Stanford Law School, and any moment of sanity and free speech breaking out on one of our elite law schools, I'm going to victory lap on the other end now and just point

out I'm sitting there hanging out with two jocks. Listen, and I want to do a shout out to all of our listeners who are geeks and nerds. Maybe you're a theater kid. Look Ben, for all his awe shucks down to earth nature was a varsity tennis player at Ole Miss and Dave was captain of the damn wrestling team at West Point. And by the way, as I'm campaigning with him across Pennsylvania, you didn't tell me initially he was all state in football because that didn't even

merit mentioning. It didn't make the list. Me. I was on the debate team. So let's be clear, both Ben and Dave in high school or college would have stuffed me in the locker. And here we are hanging out on the podcast fighting to save America. So I'm just gonna revel for a moment of it and say to every one of you who wasn't captain of the wrestling team at West Point, there's hope for you. There's hope for me, and there's hope for America. I love it.

I love it. Grab Dave's new book has Superpower in Peril of Battle Plan to Renew America. You can grab it on Amazon or wherever you get your books. I know you're on a book tour as well. If people want to see where you're headed or where you're going. Is that schedule out there so people can find it. Yes, it's out there on Dave mccormickbook dot com. Dave mccormickbook dot com. Dave, it was a pleasure to have you on Verdict. We've got a lot of news and maybe breaking.

Don't worry this week. We will have you covered the center and I will be back here with you in a couple of days. And make sure you hit that share button, subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode, and write us to five star reviews so we can meet reach new listeners. We'll see it back here in a couple of days.