Grover Norquist

You know, when they think about socialism, maybe they're coming to it with fresher eyes.

They think about like like Grover Norquist and the Republican right calling Obama socialist and they think of Scandinavia.

I think that when a lot of older people think of socialism, they think of the bread lines.

And when I first joined the socialist movement, at least some of the response I got from people in the movement was, well, you know, it's better there be a line for bread than people go hungry.

OK, I would call Milton Friedman the old economist.

uh a champion of tax cuts and school choice a classical liberal right a movement conservative uh ronald reagan a classical liberal a movement conservative right like get government out of my way reduce government so how do you reduce the size and scope of government you don't allow it to take money from people in the first place that's why i'm a disciple of Grover Norquist, who I work for, that's one of the projects I work for, one of the many clients I have in the think tank world.

Grover was a disciple of Ronald Reagan.

He worked on the Reagan campaigns.

And then after that, Reagan died.

According to the the urban myth and legend, which Grover will tell you is largely true.

It's been romanticized a little bit, but that Reagan turned to Grover Norquist after the successful reelection and said, you know, you know a lot about people and taxes and what moves an economy.

You should set up your own organization.

right.

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, painted a brighter picture of Republicans pointing out they've been written off before and recovered.

Nixon was supposed to be the end of the Republican Party, so was Goldwater, so was Reagan after midterm lawsuits in 86, Norquist said.

When this happens to Republicans, the establishment prince announces the Republican Party is over and has to rethink everything.

Before that, he wasn't.

But uh you'll never blah blah blah despise every molecule of your being have a nice and wonderful day same to you thanks for the email cracks me up uh but yes i am an armchair quarterback and hindsight is 20 20 but sometimes you can you can see the cliff before you go over it and somebody who is much better at it than i is the president of americans for tax reform his name is grover norquist and he once made the huge mistake of employing me and he joins us now how you doing grover

him doing well you should come back and play with us at some point

i know i got to get out there for one of those meetings one of these times i've been dealing with uh john to to make that happen but you have a piece in the american spectator the meaning of the 2026 election with the sub headline voters wanted affordability republicans gave them tariffs and unelectable candidates um i i take it you are not surprised by the results on tuesday

It's a branding issue.

And once you lose that, you're rat in a mouse in a Coke bottle analogy comes to mind.

Grover, as we're talking with Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, I have to ask you, you see these incoming members of Congress, you see pundits, you see people that have influence on the left.

planning, promising to go after any and everybody associated even on the outside with the Trump administration.

And again, with an eye toward we're not out of this fight.

In fact, Grover Norquist standing by from Americans for Tax Reform.

Grover, we know one of the things that we do know how to do really well is fight bad Democrats, right? So we're good at this.

And so their overreach will be extreme.

Thank you.

We'll be right back.

Grover Norquist from Americans for Tax Reform.

And I'll be right back.

They said no thank you to that.

And did they not, what was it, Grover Norquist was just telling me that they passed on a property tax.

What happened in California? What's the disconnect? What's going on?

Well, look, Californians vote vibes.

I have a very robust state government affairs business with a lot of great clients in D.C., here in Missouri, across the Midwest.

I represent a lot of great companies, great organizations like Americans for Tax Reform, the great Grover Norquist, who was a disciple of Reagan back in the day.

And American Legislative Exchange Council, we have one of those folks on.

So, yeah, back to what I was going to say.