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Real America’s Voice
Just the News No Noise with John Solomon and Amanda Head, January 2nd, 2025
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Amanda Head
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Tim Stewart
Guaranteed Human.
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John Solomon
Good evening, America and welcome to the Friday edition of Just the news. No noise. Happy New Year to everybody. We start the new year with a bang. Yes, I'm going to get that in a second. First, all the formalities. I'm John Solomon, your co host here in Washington, D.C. joined by Amanda Head, who will be with us in just a few seconds. A very newsy day here at Just the News. No Noise. President Trump this morning deciding that he will not make the same mistake that President Barack Obama did 16 years ago when he failed, Barack Obama did failed to support Iranian protesters who were trying to overthrow the mullahs in that country. Today, President Trump made clear he stands with the protesters and warned that the United States is locked and loaded and ready to intervene if Iran continues to assassinate and kill those protesters who are just simply exercising free speech rights. We're going to get to a little bit more of that later in the show. Also today, a lot of news around the growing scandal, Democratic blue states and massive taxpayer fraud. Just the news, of course, began its reporting on the Minneapolis angle that Minnesota Governor Tim Watts all the way back in August of 2024, a lot of people caught up to that. Now we're taking a look at California. Keep an eye out tomorrow and Justin Newscam will have a great story about just how much fraud and pervasive fraud there is under Gavin Newsom's reign in California where the dollars and the figures and, and the population are much larger and therefore much consequential to you and me, the, the American taxpayers. With that, let me turn to my amazing co host, Amanda Head. Amanda Head, happy New Year. Good to be back with you. What do you got on your radar?
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Amanda Head
Good to see you, John. Yes, I've got a number of items on my radar. Number one, the FBI thwarting yet another reported terrorist attack, this time in North Carolina at a grocery store. And Director Cash Patel spoke about this and said of course, that his agents are working around the clock and it's not just in major, major cities like New York and Los Angeles. We already knew about that terrorist attack that was planned for New Year's Eve in Los Angeles that was thwarted, thank goodness. But some other things, John, that are on my radar. Speaking of New York City, Mayor Mamdani in his first action, wiping away some of the late term actions by his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, and he's getting a lot of censure for one of the items that Mayor Eric Adams put in place and that was protections against, protections for New York's Jewish community. So that's something that a lot of folks are, are very upset about. And also, John, California's new minimum wage hike starts this year. This is after a reported, I think it's 18,000 jobs were lost in the state as a result of the minimum wage hike from last year. This is now going up even more. But wouldn't you know, John, there are certain exceptions in this. Now, Gavin Newsom, I guess he attributes these nuances to the negotiation process. But it's interesting because one of the exemptions is for businesses that sell bread and it is at a certain weight before it cools. And you would think to yourself, why on earth would that be an exception in there? Well, wouldn't you know that one of the folks who owns the largest number of franchises of Panera Bread, a lot of those of which are in California, he donated to Gavin Newsom's campaign. So, my goodness, we are uncovering all of this Minnesota fraud, but it's looking like California might have quite a bit of interesting stories to dig into as well. So we're going to stay on top of all of those stories.
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John Solomon
Yeah, a lot to dig into in the Golden State, which seems like a golden opportunity for a lot of fraudsters, something we'll be tackling tomorrow. All right, we're going to kick the show off with a great interview that Amanda did a few weeks ago with Missouri Congressman Bob Ander to discuss one of the big pushes from 2026among Republicans in Congress, affordability, including specifically one of the most important aspects of affordability, health care. Take a look.
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Interviewer (John Solomon)
We are here with Congressman Bob Ander from the great state of Missouri and someone who practices medicine, so someone who can speak very authoritatively on health care and the stand that Republicans are taking with respect to. I've heard a lot of actual solutions for patching Obamacare. From what I understand from a lot of folks, as bad as Obamacare is, it has kind of reached its tentacles into the system, so much so that it's going to be hard to replace it with an entirely new system. But I've heard some solutions to it and I know you and a lot of Republicans have ideas on how to fix it. Talk to us about that.
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Congressman Bob Ander
Yeah. Well, Amanda, thanks. It's great to be with you this morning. You know, the Democrats broke our healthcare system with Obamacare. They essentially expanded the role of government. They outlawed the private insurance market, and that led to a affordability crisis. There are a lot of areas today where we talk about affordability, but nowhere is the Crisis worse than in health care. You know, the very year the Obamacare exchanges were implemented in 2014, insurance prices went up 47% one year and since then they've gone up 98%. So we do not need to be doubling down on a broken system. We need to be reintroducing market oriented, consumer choice driven reforms. So things like expanding health savings accounts, association of health plans, where groups of employers or other groups can get together and form their own plans, short term health plans where people can buy the insurance that they want and need, not a one size fits all, extremely expensive plan that some bureaucrat wrote for them.
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Interviewer (John Solomon)
How long would it take to, to not only get something like that passed, but also get it implemented? Because as we know, the health care system is a behemoth. And changing the mechanism is, to me, something that might take a lot of time, but maybe you see it a different way.
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Congressman Bob Ander
Well, I think we could do it. I think some of these things have strong support among Republicans in Congress, both House and Senate. I think common sense Democrats would also support reforms because again, we can, without undoing the Obamacare behemoth, as you call it, and it is a behemoth, without rolling back Medicaid or anything. We can institute these reforms and then consumers will choose what's best for them, saving enormous amounts of money right away in the short term. And I think ultimately then we can, you know, that we can look at how do we treat folks who are poor, who need our help, who, you know, have preexisting conditions, for instance. But we need to institute some more market reforms, some more consumer driven reforms into this system.
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Interviewer (John Solomon)
Yeah, because, you know, anytime you open up a market, whether it's health care, whether it's agriculture, whatever the case may be, when you make it look more like the free market, then you create that competition. And I know during President Trump's first term, one of the things that he was lobbying hard for was cross state competition where you didn't have, you know, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, it was Blue Cross Blue Shield, you know, regional or even national. What do you think about that?
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Congressman Bob Ander
Absolutely, yeah. Competition across state lines could be huge, as could allowing more entrance into the health care system. You know, things like certificate of needs laws and bans on physician ownership of hospitals. These are antiquated approaches to health care. Even in health care, as dysfunctional as the system is in many ways, where you actually see market competition, things like Lasik, eye surgery, plastic surgery, these various hormone clinics and so on, you see vigorous competition and you see quality go up and prices go down. That hasn't happened otherwise in our dysfunctional health care system. And that is the role of government. Government has been the time for government to allow free market solutions to fix the problem.
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Interviewer (John Solomon)
I want to ask you about another aspect of health care and the damage that we saw, frankly, from COVID A lot of people lost trust of a lot of the governmental institutions that are supposed to offer wisdom on guidance like vaccines and things like that. You, as a physician, have you noticed in your own practice, parents or even people with autonomy over their own bodies who are now more apprehensive to getting vaccines and maybe when they hear health guidance, maybe they just don't believe it.
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Congressman Bob Ander
Yeah. This loss of trust in our public health system, I've seen it not only in my patients, I've seen it in myself. When I went to medical school, I implicitly trusted the American Academy of Pediatrics, the cdc, the nih. I do not anymore because we were given such bad advice over and over again. Everything that someone brought forth, people like Jay Bhattacharya, who now runs the nih, Marty Makary, who now runs the fda, they were, they were, they were speaking common sense and truth, and they were labeled misinformation. They were deplatformed. So I am seeing more, you know, hesitancy for vaccines. Look, I think some of the traditional vaccines that we've been giving for decades, mmr, dpt, polio, they have done an enormous amount of good. But it seems to me the public health officials are too eager to just take any vaccine that the pharma industry comes up with and add it to the mandatory vaccination schedule. There's no reason to be vaccinating babies for hepatitis B and there's no reason children need Covid vaccines whatsoever. No, I, I think we're seeing some distrust, hopefully. I think what we're seeing is a rebalancing and no longer taking these bureaucratic diktats at face value.
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Interviewer (John Solomon)
You know, I think of, of our founding fathers and the healthy level of distrust that they had for government. And I feel like when it came to our government health agencies, we lost that. And there should be a healthy level of maybe not distrust, but skepticism, as you said. So I think that's great. I want to ask you about Republican priorities heading into midterms because you got the one big beautiful bill passed. If there can be some patchwork done to Obamacare where Americans can feel real tangible results very soon, I think that that's going to be a big feather in your cap heading into terms. But what do you see as priorities that will help push you guys across the finish line so you can keep and maybe even expand the majority?
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Congressman Bob Ander
Well, I think what's on everyone's mind these days is affordability. And already under President Trump and Republican leadership, we've seen an improvement in affordability, a decrease in inflation down to about 2.4%. We've seen mortgage interest rates down 70 basis points, about 10% since 2January. So we need to keep doing that. We're seeing really decreases about six and a half percent overall in energy prices. I think people are seeing that at the pump, but we need to keep doing the same because I think the affordability crisis fundamentally is due to the overspending, decades of overspending that went on steroids under the Biden administration, where we now are dealing with a $38 trillion deficit, you know, 950 billion a year in interest on that debt. That's crowding out other investment, crowding out opportunities for, for young people to buy homes. I think we need to keep working on improving our economy affordability, reducing inflation and increasing economic growth and jobs.
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Tim Stewart
Yeah.
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Interviewer (John Solomon)
I mean, at the end of the day, I know that we all who are here on Capitol Hill, here at the Cannon Building, we would all like to think that people pay attention to the nitty gritty legislation and the nuances of things that happen up here. But at the end of the day, it's the kitchen table issues that matter. Speaking of kitchen table issues, this thanks to giving. We had Black Friday, we had Cyber Monday, and Democrats were trying their hardest to push people to not spend money because they wanted to push back against the Trump administration. And yet $11.8 billion later, people spent on, you know, historic levels. It seems like the American people are feeling a little, maybe a little bit more loose with their finances because they feel like things are good, things are to come.
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Congressman Bob Ander
I think that's right. Despite the negativity just poured out day after day after day by the mainstream stream media, I think consumers are seeing, wait a second, maybe, maybe things are a little more affordable now. Maybe I can spend money on Christmas gifts, on long term investments. I think that's right. And I think we need to stay the course, do more of the same. And yet we could do a lot better. We should, we Republicans should be doing more to restrain spending. We should be doing more to open up affordable energy options. More, of course, to open up affordable health care options.
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John Solomon
Wow, what a great conversation. We're going to take a quick commercial break. When we come back, we got a chance to sit down with new CEO of the nra, Doug Hammond and talk about all the important cases involving gun rights and the efforts of how gun rights will play out in the 2026 election. We're going to have that next right after these messages.
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January 6th Narrator 1
The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They want to steal the election. We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
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Doug Hammond
Events in Washington have taken a violent and tumultuous.
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January 6th Narrator 2
January 6th wasn't just a moment in history for thousands of Americans, it was the moment their voices were taken.
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Tim Stewart
It's insurrection.
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Congressman Bob Ander
They were persecuted, hunted, seditious, conspiracy.
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January 6th Narrator 2
But behind prison walls, something unexpected happened. They found their voice again, started singing a national anthem.
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Congressman Bob Ander
We took it up to him at Mar a Lago. He goes, I'll put my voice on it.
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John Solomon
Our supporters made this go platinum.
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January 6th Narrator 2
Real America's voice is telling the real story of January 6th like you've never seen it before.
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John Solomon
Everybody, this must be peaceful.
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January 6th Narrator 2
This is not the story you were shown.
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John Solomon
I chose responsibility.
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January 6th Narrator 2
This is the story they lived government.
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Doug Hammond
Entrapment scheme that this actually was.
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January 6th Narrator 2
The J6 Patriots are no longer staying silent. They are speaking. They are standing and they are telling the truth.
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John Solomon
You can't kill us. You can't beat us.
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January 6th Narrator 2
They tried to silence them. Instead they woke up an entire nation. The sleeping Giant coming soon.
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John Solomon
Welcome back America. There's been so much news about the second Amendment and gun rights in America. Whether it's the Justice Department's decision to create an enforcement division to make sure second Amendment civil liberties are protected or Australia's efforts to restrain guns in the aftermath of that happening horrific anti Semitic terrorism incident. A lot of people talking about gun rights and I thought we'd turn to one of the most trusted voices in the world when it comes to gun rights. The National Rifle association has been there protecting rights for more than a century. Joining U.S. now, the NRA's executive vice president and CEO Doug Hammond. Doug, great to have you on the show.
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Doug Hammond
Hey John, nice to, nice to be with you. Thank you.
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John Solomon
Great honor to have you on. I was thinking of the NRA when I watched the leaders of Australia say we've got the perfect solution to this terror attack. We'll just restrain more people from having lawful guns. Why does that always happen in left leaning countries when the obvious thing is a good guy or a good gal with a gun probably could have stopped that attack sooner.
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Doug Hammond
Yeah, John, I completely agree. I know that we're fortunate in the USA to have the Second Amendment. And in an event that's as horrific as we just witnessed there in Bondi beach, it would have been, in my opinion, a different outcome had that horrific situation developed in the usa. We've got so many folks that now have concealed carry permits, even though took law enforcement, I've been told, 20, 30 minutes to respond, and then it was an unarmed street vendor that interceded. But my belief is that had that horrific situation developed in the usa, there'd have been an armed citizen that would have interceded to stop that attack.
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John Solomon
Yeah, it is remarkable. The Second Amendment has had a pretty good year, not only because President Trump has pro Second Amendment policies, but we've seen mass shootings go down. We've seen lots of great episodes in which good citizens who are lawfully carrying a gun have been able to intercede and stop. And then we saw the Justice Department announce that it's going to have an enforcement division to make sure the Second Amendment is protected, particularly in blue states where there's an onslaught against those civil liberties. I'd like to get your reaction to sort of what 2025 told us about the Second Amendment and its resiliency in America.
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Doug Hammond
Yeah. This announcement out of the Justice Department does not surprise me whatsoever. President Trump is easily the most pro Second Amendment president that we've had. He's a life member of the National Rifle association, and we've had a total of nine presidents that have been members of nra. So I think it's just a straight reinforcement that Second Amendment rights will not take a back seat to any of our other constitutional rights. And it's really about freedom and checks and balances and giving law abiding citizens the right to protect themselves, their homes, their families, their businesses, and to be there as a deterrent in the event that there are. There are rogue elements out there that would do us harm.
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John Solomon
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about a dynamic, and I think it's the most important dynamic. And I've heard being at NRA conventions for many, many years, this said that the Second Amendment was created to make sure that the First Amendment would never be taken. But you take a look at what's going on in the United Kingdom, in Great Britain, years of restrictions on firearms and now a growing restriction on free speech. People are actually being arrested for thought crimes in what used to be one of the pillars of Western civilization, freedom. What lessons can we learn from Great Britain's demise of freedom and what should it say about the Second Amendment in our country?
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Doug Hammond
Well, I think it's a solid example of why we're so blessed to be American citizens. It's a culture war, as you know, John. And I think First Amendment rights are critical. And I've been reading the same things that you've been reading about Great Britain and how that society is being constrained. And you have to be vigilant here. I mean, you know, President Reagan said it many years ago that, you know, freedom is just one generation away from extinction. And so we can't get complacent and we need to continue to advocate and that's what NRA is here to do at the local, state and federal level to ensure that our First Amendment rights and second Amendment rights, these are God given rights, but we can't take them for granted.
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John Solomon
One of the great movements, and the NRA has been there for a long time for it, but it is accelerated in ways I think few could imagine is the constitutional carry or permitless carry movement in America. I think we're up to 29 states, if I do my math correctly. An example of state rights sort of overcoming an era where Biden, Obama wanted to put federal restrictions on guns. Talk about the resiliency of that constitutional carry, permitless carry movement.
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Doug Hammond
Sure, I'd be glad to. It started with NRA in the state of Florida and we rolled it out across the country. And now as you said, 29 states, you know, have that, that right of for our citizens. And we think there are going to be more states. We think that there will be more. And the one thing people don't talk about a lot, John, is firearms that are used as a deterrent. There was a study done at Georgetown and I think it was 1.63 million times a year firearms were used to deter crime. And 85% of the time those firearms were not even discharged. Just the fact that you have one results in those breaking contact, those that would do us harm, break contact. I'm a concealed carry permit holder, but I have to be careful because being a Virginia resident, when I travel across the Potomac into either Maryland or the District of Columbia, I would be a felon because I would be in possession of a firearm. So if you have a concealed carry permit, it's incumbent upon all of us to be aware of different laws in the different jurisdictions that we visit. You've got House Resolution 38, that's currently being reviewed and we hope to get the votes for that. But that would be national reciprocity. That would be just like the driver's license. I have and you have. We can drive in all 50 states. And we believe that if we're concealed carry permit holders in Virginia, then I should have the ability to cross 49 other state lines and it should be legal for me.
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John Solomon
Yeah, exactly. Real quickly, another thing that NRA does with such extraordinary success is go to courts when there are unlawful restrictions. You have an extraordinary record of victory time and time again, often reaching all the way to the Supreme Court. What are the big cases we should be watching in the next year or two?
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Doug Hammond
Well, we've got our First Amendment case, which was a massive victory. It was the NRA versus Vulo, which is the NRA v. Maria Voulo, who was the director of financial services in the state of New York. And the case was that the state of New York conspired with the banks and the insurance companies to not do business with NRA because of our Second Amendment advocacy case went to the supreme court. It was a 90 verdict. Justice Sotomayor wrote the opinion and it was affirmed that that's just not conduct that is acceptable in the USA with our constitutional rights. And it's not just Second Amendment. It could be applied to any other special interest group and discriminatory behavior on the state level versus another group. So it was a great precedent and it was your NRA that brought that case.
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John Solomon
Yeah. Historic and protecting two of the great constitutional rights in America. Doug Hamlin, as always, a great honor to have you or anyone from the NRA on this show. You are doing such important work. Thank you for joining us and Merry Christmas.
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Doug Hammond
Merry Christmas, John. Thank you very much.
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John Solomon
Yeah, Great conversation. Thanks so much. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick commercial break. More around the corner right after these messages. Welcome back, America. We talk often on the show how important it is for America to be an energy first economy, for national security, for economic dominance, and to win the AI revolution that we're fighting right alongside of China. A lot has been accomplished in the first year of the Trump administration on energy, whether it's creating an energy dominance council in the White House on par with the National Economic Council, creating extraordinary regulation reform at the epa, or just opening up new areas so that energy production can go quicker, faster and more successfully. Joining us now to bring us up to speed on all the dizzying changes is one of our good friends of the show. He's the president of the Oil and Gas association, our friend Tim Stewart. Tim, good to have you on the show.
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Tim Stewart
John, it's great to be with you.
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John Solomon
It has been a dizzying year in the energy industry. I Can't think of another year in my 35 years in Washington where more policy change has taken place. Bring us up to speed on the successes and then tell us what's right around the corner, like permitting reform.
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Tim Stewart
Yeah, you know, it's been a fascinating year from my 30 years spent in the industry. The challenge is the last four years were the most challenging regulatory and legislative environment the oil and gas industry has ever been in. It was. It was. You woke up every morning wondering what bad thing was going to happen to you today. And to the Trump administration's credit, they turned back the clock on that four years and reset us back to the center, where things were for decades. So that has been really, really beneficial to industry and our ability to plan for the future. There are some things ahead, permit reform and other things. But to be honest with you, between the executive orders and the one big, beautiful bill, we've been able to reset. And frankly, the United States is a great place to invest in the oil and gas industry again, there's no doubt.
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John Solomon
And leading the world, really, whether it's in production or innovation. I want to get to some of those innovations before we do. I think the left, which was the big regulatory machinery in Washington for a long time, realized that they couldn't even build their own windmills and their own solar plants that they want to create because they had created this monstrosity under nepa, under all the regulations, it seems to me I've been talking about permanent reform for 20 years. It's always going to happen. Next year, it's going to be next year. It seems like that's around the corner because Democrats are dance partners with Republicans on this. Is that a good read?
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Tim Stewart
Exactly right. It's been fascinating to watch because in this town, you live by executive order, you die by executive order. And what to my point earlier about what we went through for four years using, with the Biden administration, using executive orders to cancel our projects, the Trump administration said basically, well, look, what goes around comes around. And they did the exact same thing to the renewable industry and some of those major projects. And what that did was it brought everybody to the realization that we need some certainty, and certainty is key in our industry, regardless if it's oil and gas or if you're building a renewable project. And I think we're now at this key point where both sides realize there's so much capital invested, so many sunk costs, we've got to get the permit, certainty. That's what we're excited to be working on for this next few Weeks here.
- [27:29]
John Solomon
At least in the House, that could potentially get done before the end of the year. I talked to several members of Congress who feel like that that's really, really moving forward. Senate will probably be next year.
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Tim Stewart
Yeah, because the Senate is the place where good ideas go to die. Right. But it has been interesting, John, the four corners, the four key members of the Senate have all sort of had a gentleman's agreement amongst themselves and the ladies as well, with Senator Capito, that this needs to be done. And again, the certainty, the ability to say it doesn't matter what type of project is permitted, what type of project is already underway, it can't be canceled on a whim, things like that, judicial review and 150 day limitation on how long things can take. That's going to be key for both sides. And I think again, it's a Baptist bootlegger coalition. You know, both sides can agree on something and that's what we're looking for.
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John Solomon
But it does seem like it's heading in that direction, which is pretty remarkable. Meanwhile, the appetite of this nation for power can't be larger. AI is going to consume gigawatts of energy that we haven't even imagined creating yet. Tell us what that demand looks like and how we're doing keeping up with it.
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Tim Stewart
So it's been interesting. In 1997, natural gas accounted for 14% of the electricity generation in the United States. This past year was 43%. It is by far the biggest source of electricity. So for the oil and gas industry, we are powering the AI revolution. And to be honest with the air revolution is a national security issue as much as it is anything else. For us, it's an exciting time to be involved. And again, that Baptist bootlegger coalition. If you had told me two years ago that I'd be sitting linking arms with Silicon Valley investors on natural gas generation, I would never have believed it. But they came to realize that you cannot get from here to there without the product that my industry produces. It is an exciting time. There's some challenges still, but it's an exciting time.
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John Solomon
Yeah, no, there are a lot of challenges ahead. I want to talk a little bit about what happens with emissions since natural gas has become a bigger part of it, because there's still a large part of the country that worries about climate emissions. Gas has been the single driver of bringing emissions down in America. And while we're going down, China's going up because they've gone to coal, right?
- [29:44]
Tim Stewart
Exactly. 65% of all the emissions reduction taking place has happened because of that fuel switching between coal and natural gas. We're the world's leader in that and we've shown the world that it can be done. That there is a fossil future still while having a clean, clean air about us that's only going to grow even further. Again, the challenges we have is with electricity generation you have, from our industry's perspective, we produce but getting that to the end user is becoming a challenge because the infrastructure is not based around an AI infrastructure where there's peak power that fluctuates repeatedly. We're used to having in a steady float, one dimensional. That's why permit reform is so crucial for us to build out that second phase of the infrastructure. On the affordability issue, we've got to get more of the data centers behind the meter using our product without having them to compete against the residential and the commercial users. That's where a lot of the electricity spike price increases have taken place. The more we can get directly to them, the more crucial it will be.
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John Solomon
That's where the extraordinary innovation's been getting. We've had several times on the show the folks from Voltigrid, but we don't have to do major public project works to make this happen. We can create these little mini grids that just power a data center or a major project separate of putting strain on the residential system that has grown by leaps and bounds. Tell us where we are in that and what sort of things need to be decided in Washington to make sure that that innovation grows quicker and faster.
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Tim Stewart
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, again, never bet against our industry.
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John Solomon
Right.
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Tim Stewart
We have proven we're with the administration when it comes to reshoring domestic manufacturing. Our industry is probably the best example of that anywhere. It took us 20 years. 20 years ago you and I were talking about how much investing billions of dollars in LNG export. Now we are LNG import. Now we're talking billions of dollars in LNG export. You know, sending it out. We're going to control 25% of the market. But the challenge we had is we haven't been able to reshore our supply chain right now. And that is going to take time. A good example on Voltigrid. I know he's been a guest on your show several times. The whole Voltigrid model is based on a very complex supply chain that actually starts in Austria, finds its way through Canada, then to Wisconsin and New Jersey and Texas. And the company that has made Voltigrid possible has announced that they're going to bring new manufacturing to the United States, which is phenomenal. Half a billion dollars investment, 400 jobs. That's going to take time to do that. And there needs to be a little bit of flexibility when it comes to the impacts that tariffs and other things are having. But it's an exciting time to be in industry. And again, don't bet against us because we've proven time and time again that we are resilient.
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John Solomon
There's sort of an irony to that narrative you just told us because a lot of people think, well, the AI revolution is going to be eliminating jobs, but actually the energy industry is going to be creating a lot more jobs to create the power that's going to make that AI revolution possible. But we need to be able to create things like steel parts that we don't have been making here for a long time. That's what's underway right now, right?
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Tim Stewart
Yeah, it's, you know, the saying is you can't grow bananas in Minnesota, you know, and we have again, the supply chain challenges. There are parts and components that our industry relies on, everything from the drilling components, frankly, to the natural gas generation components that simply aren't made in the United States anymore. And it's going to be a challenge to bring them back. And again, flexibility is needed, time is needed. But again, it's going to happen and it's going to be an exciting time.
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John Solomon
And manufacturing Middle of America is going to be one of the beneficiaries, right?
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Tim Stewart
Absolutely.
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John Solomon
Amazing stories.
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Tim Stewart
Homegrown American jobs.
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John Solomon
How about that? Something we've been looking forward to for a long time. Tim, every time you come on the show, I feel like you take us up to the horizon. We see the future a little more clearly. Great to have you on the show today.
- [33:32]
Tim Stewart
Thanks for having me.
- [33:33]
John Solomon
What a great conversation as always. All right, folks, how about that? A manufacturing readiness sounds brought by the AI revolution because the energy is going to drive it. Well, more of that right after these messages.
- [33:49]
January 6th Narrator 3
From behind prison bars, the J6 political prisoners defied the system singing the national anthem through prison phones. President Trump added his voice and the J6 choir shattered records, going number one on the Billboard charts with their song justice for All. They sang as captives. Now they sing again as free men. Their new song, Anthem of the Free is available for pre order right now on itunes. Scan the QR code or search Anthony Anthem of the Free single by the J6 prison choir and high res. Scroll down and click buy on itunes. Store. Let's shock the system again. Stand with the J6 Patriots pre order anthem of the free today.
- [34:53]
John Solomon
Welcome back America. We talked a lot about it on this show over the last five years. That is that free speech is in grave danger across the world. Now in the United States we had a big slide backwards but then Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Congress and the courts intervened. Stop that slide in some cases have reversed it. But around the country that is not always the case. Around the world, excuse me, that's not always the case. As former British Prime Minister Liz Truss recently reminded us, Great Britain and many other places in the Western world are continuing to allow free speech rights to go away. How can we prevent it? How do we make sure it doesn't come back here? Joining us now is an American government policymaker, attended university professor, management consultant, lawyer and best selling author of the new book Free Expression under Defending Free Speech and Free Press across the Political Spectrum. He served in four presidential administrations on a bipartisan basis. He is Stuart Brotman Stewart. Great to have you on the show.
- [35:49]
Stuart Brotman
Great to be here, John. And hi.
- [35:51]
John Solomon
I cannot think of it. Good.
- [35:54]
Amanda Head
Stuart, Happy New Year.
- [35:55]
Stuart Brotman
Happy New Year.
- [35:58]
John Solomon
Stuart. I can't think of a more perfectly timed book than yours, the Free Speech Debate. I think a lot of people thought well we kind of fixed it when Elon Musk bought Twitter and Donald Trump came back into power and Congress pass some laws and the courts got involved. But when we look over the pond to what's going on in Europe, the threat to free speech is still very real, right?
- [36:19]
Stuart Brotman
It is. And actually we're talking about something broader than free speech. We're talking about free expression. And as you know, the First Amendment covers both freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And so I like to talk about this in a broader area. Obviously free speech is fundamentally important, but also free press and the right of free expression.
- [36:43]
John Solomon
Yeah. So important.
- [36:45]
Amanda Head
Absolutely. Stuart. You know, we are seeing some legacy news organizations like CBS maybe do a little bit of a moderating towards the center. At least they claim that they are going to with folks like, like Barry Weiss. Barry Weiss's involvement. Do you anticipate that that is real? Is that genuine and what does that do for this fight for free speech? Not only as you said, for the citizens, but freedom of the press as well.
- [37:10]
Stuart Brotman
Well, I think we're in the process of readjusting our culture and I think that's a positive aspect which is being more sensitive to free expression and trying to figure out where is the middle here. Obviously at both ends of the political spectrum. The 15% on the right, the 50% on the left. They will continue to argue and perhaps advocate further restrictions. But I think we have a very, very broad middle, that middle of 70, 75%. And I think CBS clearly is trying to reach that broad middle, as a number of other media organizations are trying to do. And I think that's a very good thing. What we've seen recently in survey data is that people are worried about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In fact, we see that there's a downward trend now about that same number. About 70 to 75% of Americans believe that free speech is basically on the decline. And so when you put those numbers together, you see that people understand there's a problem, and yet there is a broad consensus of people who support greater free expression. And so I think news organizations and other media outlets that respond to that will be very well served.
- [38:39]
John Solomon
Yeah, very true. So I want to ask a little bit about a kind of troubling trend. I think for most of our 250 years which we're about to celebrate in America, we believe what our founding fathers believe, that our freedoms came from our maker and they were inalienable and they couldn't be taken from us. But recently had Senator Tim Kaine in Virginia say, no, I think they come more from government than they come from the Almighty. And then you've seen other people talk about we might need to put some limits on the First Amendment. There seems to be a cultural and even a academic shift in where our free, our free speech rights, our freedoms come from. How troubled should we be about those sort of trend lines?
- [39:21]
Stuart Brotman
Well, I think that is troubling, and certainly what I advocate is sort of a counter revolution there. But I think we need to have a cultural shift in favor of free speech and free expression. And it's very possible. I always talk about the Second Amendment. So as you know, over the past 50 years, we have had a substantial cultural shift in favor of the Second Amendment. And we've had, obviously, court opinions. But we see that in our general culture now there is a greater respect and a greater support for Second Amendment rights. It takes about 50 years to have that cultural shift. So this isn't going to happen overnight. But I think we can begin to think about the First Amendment in the same way that we thought about the Second Amendment. How do we begin to create a cultural shift? And that's a shift that's beyond government. That's something that we as citizens respond to. And as you indicated, those responses are based on higher powers. Beyond government.
- [40:29]
Amanda Head
Yeah, Stuart, when you look at the age spectrum. You know, obviously the youngest generation came out in droves for President Trump. But since then, John and I have spoken to a number of people who have indicated that that was maybe less a support of Donald Trump and more a desire for a shock to the system. When it comes to this youngest generation and their support of ideas, foundational ideas like freedom of speech, do you get the sense that they are moving more in the direction of more free speech or less?
- [40:59]
Stuart Brotman
Well, I wish I could be positive there, but I think the survey data is quite troubling. We see about a third of college students who believe that violence is a inappropriate response to speech, which is counter to everything that we understand and believe about the notion of free speech and the First Amendment. So that trend is very troubling and certainly indicates that certainly younger people are now favoring violence as a counteraction to speech as opposed to counterspeech.
- [41:35]
John Solomon
Unbelievable. Remarkable. Stuart, before we let you go, I want to talk about what I call the shot heard around the world. Marco Rubio, the Undersecretary of State. Sarah Rogers. Sanctioning some Western countries, officials who were involved in earlier censorship activities. How important is that move and how much more sanctioning might we see in the next few months to make a point out of America here?
- [42:00]
Stuart Brotman
Clearly we have the First Amendment, which doesn't apply to other countries, but again, we have a culture of free expression. And I think we need to promote that culture around the world. And I think Secretary Rubio's actions certainly are consistent with promoting the idea that America is the champion of free expression.
- [42:23]
John Solomon
Yeah. So very important, Stuart. I recommend everybody read your book. This is such an important moment in American history. Free expression under fire, defending free speech and free press across the political spectrum. Folks, go get that. Great book, Stuart. Great honor to have you on the show. Happy New Year. Thank you for joining us.
- [42:40]
Stuart Brotman
Happy New Year. Great to be with both of you.
- [42:44]
John Solomon
Yeah. Congrats on a great book. All right, folks. Amen. And I'll be back right after these. Quick break.
- [43:16]
January 6th Narrator 1
The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They want to steal the election. We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
- [43:32]
Doug Hammond
Events in Washington have taken a violent and tumultuous turk.
- [43:57]
January 6th Narrator 2
January 6th wasn't just a moment in history for thousands of Americans, it was the moment their voices were taken.
- [44:04]
Tim Stewart
It's insurrection.
- [44:05]
January 6th Narrator 2
They were persecuted, hunted, seditious conspiracy. But behind prison walls, something unexpected happened. They found their voice again, started singing the national anthem.
- [44:15]
Congressman Bob Ander
We took it up to him at Mar a Lago, he goes, I'll put my voice on it.
- [44:18]
John Solomon
Our supporters made this go platinum.
- [44:20]
January 6th Narrator 2
Real America's voice is telling the real story of January 6th like you've never seen it before before.
- [44:27]
John Solomon
Everybody, this must be peaceful.
- [44:29]
January 6th Narrator 2
This is not the story you were shown.
- [44:31]
John Solomon
I take responsibility.
- [44:33]
January 6th Narrator 2
This is the story they lived government.
- [44:35]
Doug Hammond
Entrapment scheme that this actually was.
- [44:38]
January 6th Narrator 2
The J6 Patriots are no longer staying silent. They are speaking, they are standing and they are telling the truth.
- [44:46]
John Solomon
You can't kill us. You can't beat us.
- [44:48]
January 6th Narrator 2
They tried to silence them. Instead they woke up an entire nation. The sleeping giant coming soon.
- [45:07]
Amanda Head
Welcome back everybody. John, as you and our audience know, I am closing out my last few days here in Canada and there are a number of things that I've seen here that I am terrified of coming to to our American soil. One of which I talked about last week when I took that unsanctioned, unguided tour of the men's restroom. Don't wor guys. I did have my father in law do recon effort. There was no one else in the restroom. But showing the menstrual products machine in the men's bathroom. But also, John, something disturbing. Within the last few weeks, their parliament approved an amendment to what's known as Bill C9, which is speech protections. And the amendment pertains to religious speech. So this effectively criminalizes religious speech. You know, in the United States we see folks who are at pro life, you know, pro life protesters at abortion clinics, but also, you know, tons of religious supporters across this country who show up to boycott certain things and just show their support of religious liberty in this country and in Canada, it looks like they are going the way of that being disallowed and even criminalized. And it terrifies me. And you know, as we were talking to Stewart about this and as you were saying, John, so aptly you look at what's happening in Europe and a lot of people say, oh, that could never happen here in the United States. Look at our founding, look at what our, our founding values, how, how closely attached they are to religious liberty. But you know, Canada and the UK are not that far from that either. So it's, it's pretty terrifying. And it shows you what can happen if, if you take your eyes off the watch for just one moment.
- [46:38]
John Solomon
Yeah, listen. Across the border to the north or across the pond in Great Britain, we see what the far left really wants to do to freedom. And we're just one generation away from squandering that here we have to fight harder and more aggressively than ever before because these ideas, this idea that you can no longer express your faith, that you can no longer express your dissent to your government. One of the things that shocked me in the Jack Smith transcript that got released last week was the fact that Jack Smith said he didn't believe President Trump had a First Amendment right to raise questions about the 2020 election. I thought we all had the right to redress our grievances to our government. These mentalities and these mindsets are creeping in in so many ways around us right here in America and the looking glass of what America could look like if the far left has its way, it's sitting right across the border or right across the pond in Great Britain and in Canada. So we got to keep a close eye on that. I wouldn't be surprised if we see more sanctions by Sarah Rogers at the State Department soon. I'm hearing some rumblings that Canada could be next.
- [47:43]
Amanda Head
Yeah. And John, you mentioned Senator Tim Kaine earlier in the program, and it made me think of Virginia. You and your fellow Virginian Virginians are entering the FO part of the FIFO program when it comes to taxes because you guys just got slapped with a new 4% tax on prepared food. So on top of the 6% state sales tax, now you will be paying 10% for certain food items. That's really basically what we are paying California. Virginia is getting California.
- [48:13]
John Solomon
Yeah. Well, it's a classic Democrat move. Tax those who are lawfully buying their food and then let illegal immigrants and others try to defraud the food aid programs like we saw in Minnesota. Sad thing. But again, Democrats can't find enough money. So they're always looking for new ways to give big government more money. And I think that I won't be surprised if in a few months we're talking about the western part of Virginia having conversations with West Virginia to potentially secede, much like the Oregon communities are thinking about seceding to Idaho. I think some of the red areas of Virginia are going to have their fill of Democrats very quickly.
- [48:55]
Amanda Head
Absolutely. All right, John, we are fully in our 250th year. It's started with a magnificent display on the Washington Monument on New Year's Eve. So many amazing events queued up for this year. I can't believe this 2026, it just 2025 went by in the blink of an eye this summer. And leading up to this summer in Washington, D.C. is going to be, as the kids say, lit.
- [49:19]
John Solomon
Yeah. There's no doubt in so many extraordinary opportunities to reconnect young people to the history, the founding, the freedoms that our founding fathers held so dear. Something their educators didn't do. I think this is a golden opportunity to re educate a young population that may have been deprived of some of the great stories of our freedom, our history and our legacy here in America. So I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be a fun year.
- [49:43]
Amanda Head
I am too. I cannot wait for this. And as you said, for our youngest generation, I think that this will be a lesson in patriotism. And I'm actually going to have a story out at Just the News over the weekend for all of you who want a bit of a rundown on some of those major events happening across the country so you can surely check one out.
- [49:57]
Interviewer (John Solomon)
All right, everybody, that's going to do it for us.
- [49:59]
Amanda Head
Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday. This is an I heart podcast, guaranteed human.