And if the Democrats just promise to handle the price of groceries, my goodness, they can make great inroads.

I agree with you.

I think the Democratic Party is missing a bet by just complaining about President Trump per se all the time.

I know that President Trump does things that, you know, maybe it frustrates us once in a while, drives you crazy, but that's not a platform, right? To your point, inflation has been too high.

It was out of control for many years.

One might argue it's under control now, but it's way too high, 3%, pushing 4%.

It should be zero.

What do you think?

Why were you persuaded that that was the way forward then? And why are you looking more closely at advocating for liberty within the GOP now? Well,

Sure.

I spent something like 14 years in the Libertarian Party.

I joined the Libertarian Party around the time I changed my professional career.

I had been a professional economist.

Around the time I went into the police academy and spent 11 and a half years on the road as a cop, it coincides approximately with when I joined the Libertarian Party.

I had been a long-term Republican.

Well, before we wrap up, can you tell us a little bit what you're trying to do specifically with Delegates in Power? Because it's an interesting idea.

Right.

We have made it 250 years as a democratic republic without anyone ever running for...

No one has ever run for vice president before.

And the other reason I think it's interesting is not me personally, right? What's- the reason it's interesting is because the way that we pick VPs in this country is really stupid.

As, as your viewers and listeners are probably well aware, we wait until a few days to go before a national convention, either the Republican side or the Democratic side, and whoever is going to be the presidential nominee just unilaterally decides and announces who it's gonna be, who the VP nominee is gonna be, to form a, a ticket, and then no matter, no matter how dumb an idea they come up with, right? Kamala Harris.

It's gonna be Kamala Harris.

It's gonna be JD Vance.

Yeah

Republican twist because there's delegates voting for them, not just the citizen directly.

That's exactly right.

So this is a compromise.

We recognize that.

We're not going to be able to achieve a primary in just two years.

But we certainly could achieve something that's more legitimate.

And we believe that that would empower the vice president to be a more independent actor inside of the White House, inside the executive branch.

podcast to promote that.

And that's what you're doing with the Republican Liberty Caucus.

And folks are fighting them too, right? So it's a complicated situation.

I'm glad, I'm heartened to hear the way that you structure that question as well.

Ron Paul was one of those guys who had to decide back in the 90s when helping launch the Republican Liberty Caucus, they had to decide, you know, do we join the Libertarian Party? do we try to move the republican party they obviously came to the conclusion that they wanted to work inside the republican party and i've made that decision as well but it's a it's a tricky decision it's a tricky decision obviously the republican party has gotten away from at least parts of the republican party have gotten away from what we used to consider you know when i was in the republican party in the 90s working so hard for the presidential campaigns back in the day we considered the basics fiscal conservatism and adherence to the constitution and support for free markets and we've gotten away from some of those things i wouldn't argue relative to the democratic party right which is on another planet, I think, from mainstream traditional American political thought.

But we have gotten away from some of the basics, and I think the Republican Party is coming back in our direction.

I think it has to.

It would be a little bit of a a backlash from the direction that it's been going.

got fast fingers, yes.