Paul Weyrich

Uh, the Supreme Court upheld the IRS in May of '83, eight to one, with Rehnquist alone in dissent.

The, uh, [clears throat] the testimony Balmer leans hardest on is Paul Weyrich's from a c-conference in 1990.

"What galvanized the Christian community," Weyrich said, "was not abortion or school prayer or the Equal Rights Amendment itself, but the attempt to deny tax-exempt status to Christian schools." They saw it as unfair.

Uh, Balmer's chronology on abortion cuts hard against that conventional story.

He's got a political agenda.

His critics read it as evidence that the rank and file were not motivated by segregation, and he had, uh, had to be addressed in other terms.

The moral majority was founded in June of '79 by Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich, who coined the phrase, and it disbanded in, uh, '89, okay? [clears throat] Now, the third fracture is the one that ke- that comes back.

So keep this one in mind.

I'm telling you.

We play that video all the time of Paul Weyrich, 1980, co-founder of The Heritage Foundation, uh, and the Moral Majority, where he literally said, "We don't want everybody voting.

We don't want them voting." All right, let's talk about Maryland, folks, where there was a debate between Republican Congressman Andy Harris and his Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz, uh, Dan Schwartz.

Harris lashed out at the crowd after they laughed at his comments about gas prices following a question about the Trump-Putin diesel deal.

Yeah

... to Paul Weyrich, uh-

I think I knew that.

It's-

And what happened in a, in a very transitional pe- transformational time for right-wing Christians during the 1990s is they figured out democracy no longer works for them.

In fact, uh, Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the moral majority, co-founder of the Heritage Institute, uh, wrote a letter to conservatives in 1999 saying the whole premise for the last two decades was wrong.

There is no moral majority.

Most of this country wants nothing to do with us, and by the way, this country's moving further and further away from us.

Right, [laughs] exactly.

Ed Meese, uh, Ronald Reagan, Paul Weyrich, right, Heritage Foundation, Leonard Leo-

Joe Coors

Right, the entire-

They're Ed Meese, who is a close advisor to President Reagan.

Paul Weyrich, who is a young organizer.

Joe Kors.

Yes, that Kors, who funded the Heritage Foundation, which may sound familiar if you've heard of Project 2025.

I grew up debating Jerry Falwell all the time, Pat Robertson.

I remember Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich.

Uh, Richard Viguerie told me that he and Paul Weyrich went to Falwell and Robertson personally and said, uh, "Give us your lists.

Give us your lists, and we'll make you household names in America." He was bragging about that, and he got the list and-

All the kingdoms of this world, right, Jim? [laughs]

I remember at the time, um, I was j- I don't know if I had just started or if I was on my way to starting working at NET Television, which was a predecessor to Fox News.

As a matter of fact, s- a, a number of people involved in NET, which at the time stood for National Empowerment Television, founded by Paul Weyrich, who was the founder of the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation.

They had started it to be an alternative, a conservative alternative, NET, to then CNN Uh, d- and it was a fledgling, uh, operation founded at that point in 1993.

It was just trying to get its sea legs when I joined it.

And, and there's some legitimately very talented individuals that work there, many of whom have been there 30 years, which is an amazing testament to any company that is built that can not only maintain, retain employees for 30 years, but see them grow.

I mean, the guy, the people running the network now over at Fox were all behind the scenes, like low-level people, literally worked their way up.

But it wouldn't, I don't think it would've come to be the way it did if not for Paul Weyrich and NET Television.

The big difference between the two was Paul was always trying to rob Peter to pay Paul to be able to run NET and make it competitive.