The Tudor Dixon Podcast: AOC & Whitmer Flounder at Munich, Rubio Steals Show

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (The Tudor Dixon Podcast Edition)
Episode: AOC & Whitmer Flounder at Munich, Rubio Steals Show
Date: February 18, 2026
Guests: Tudor Dixon (Host) and Mary Katharine Ham (Political Commentator, Clay and Buck Network)

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Episode Overview

This episode analyzes the performance of key American political figures—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—at the 2026 Munich Security Conference. In contrast to their struggles on the international stage, Senator Marco Rubio's standout speech and leadership are highlighted. Tudor Dixon and Mary Katharine Ham examine the broader implications of Democratic messaging failures, the phenomenon of "Democrat privilege" in media, and explore issues surrounding women’s and trans rights debates at the global forum.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Democratic Messaging and "Democrat Privilege" in Media

• Munich Conference as a Test: Tudor and Mary Katharine open by noting how AOC and Whitmer, who lobbied to be on a foreign policy panel, were unprepared for basic questions on topics like Taiwan and Ukraine.
  • “It would be pretty—Taiwan and Ukraine would be at the top of that list, wouldn’t you think?” (Tudor, 05:09)
• Media Protection: They claim media shields Democrats from tough questions, leading to poor public performances abroad.
  • “[AOC] came back after she totally flubbed it... and the New York Times guys is tweeting out, don’t worry, guys. She called me. Let me explain. Can you imagine them ever doing that for… a Republican?” (Tudor, 06:36)

2. Performance Failures of AOC and Whitmer

• Self-Inflicted Problems: Both chose to participate, presumably to raise their foreign policy credentials, but lacked basic preparedness.
  • “No one forced either of these people to go to Munich. They decided to go.” (Mary Katharine, 05:49)
  • “How could you not have a position on Ukraine? ...She said land mass. I hope they can keep their land mass.” (Tudor, 08:40)
• Preparation versus Substance: Tudor and Mary Katharine mock the focus on appearance and buzzwords over actual knowledge.
  • “Just memorize something.” (Mary Katharine, 07:29)
  • “She says in her interview… I wasn’t even there to audition... what I was doing was just like offering this different view of the world.” (Mary Katharine, 07:34)

3. Female Representation and Perceptions on the World Stage

• Impact on Perceptions: Tudor expresses embarrassment in the lack of well-prepared American women in international politics.
  • “I do think that the American women that are coming out on the Democrat side are making women, American women look bad.” (Tudor, 10:19)
• Contrast with Marco Rubio: Rubio is praised for his substance and preparation, earning the audience’s respect and a standing ovation.
  • “Marco Rubio delivered this phenomenal speech. We were all incredibly impressed.” (Tudor, 13:11)

4. Hillary Clinton’s Outburst and the "Women’s Rights" Panel

• Lack of Composure Under Pressure: Hillary Clinton is criticized for responding defensively rather than diplomatically, especially in tense exchanges with European leaders.
  • “She is not calm under fire. She starts just sort of yelling things.” (Mary Katharine, 12:09)
• Trans Rights and Women’s Rights Intersect: Discussion of Sarah McBride (a trans panelist) and Clinton’s framing as “threats to trans people are threats to all women,” is met with rejection by both hosts.
  • “I just fundamentally disagree with that. I don’t think we are the same. I don’t like being put in that bucket.” (Tudor, 15:25)
  • “Those rights collide on a regular basis.” (Mary Katharine, 16:41)

5. Trans Issues and the Left’s Disconnect with Voters

• Backlash and Cultural Shifts: Mary Katharine cites polling indicating public opinion on trans issues has reversed due to real-life consequences of progressive policies.
  • “We tried it out, we don’t like it. And now you have to pay the price for that in public policy, which is that this was a failed experiment and people are going to go back the other direction.” (Mary Katharine, 20:56)
• Dems Out of Touch: Panelists assert Democrat figures on stage at Munich “still aren’t hearing the message” that much of the U.S. electorate is uninterested or hostile toward leftist social causes. Specific ridicule for AOC’s comments about the history of cowboys and “intersectionality” is shared.

6. Rubio’s Leadership and the Necessity of Cultural Confidence

• Standing Up for Western Values: Rubio’s speech on Western civilization, heritage, and cultural pride is seen as providing “permission” to Europeans to value their own history.
  • “The United States gives permission to say, you actually should hold on to what Europe was, you should hold on to your culture, you should be proud of your heritage, and it is okay to be proud.” (Tudor, 27:25)
• Leadership versus Performative Activism: Mary Katharine notes how present moment leadership is rare; when it happens, it resonates, as with Giorgia Meloni in Italy.

7. Critique of “Failing Up” and Media Spin

• AOC’s and Kamala Harris’s ability to “fail up”—advance despite gaffes—are linked to sympathetic media treatment.
  • “How do these people get… they keep failing up.” (Tudor, 23:36)
  • “As long as you say things like intersectionality and rules-based order and class-based international politics, you will be counted as a smart person.” (Mary Katharine, 23:08)
• International Feedback Loops: An Argentinian member’s polite but sharp rebuttals to AOC’s positions are highlighted as a reality check absent in U.S. domestic forums.

8. Advice for Republicans and Lessons about Political Messaging

• Local vs National Messaging: Over-focusing on “culture war” topics sometimes backfires; what resonates nationally may not locally.
  • “You have to personalize your race. You have to actually talk to the people on the ground and understand what they want.” (Tudor, 34:54)
• Abigail Spanberger’s Success: Noted as a Democrat who succeeded by quietly ignoring unpopular leftist priorities.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Democrat Media Privilege
  • “You can show up at Munich and think, I’ll be fine. I’m AOC, everyone loves me. The media has never asked me anything terribly tough.” – Mary Katharine Ham (04:00)
• On Lack of Preparation
  • “If you are in Congress for eight years… you should have some thoughts on this.” – Mary Katharine Ham (05:40)
  • “How could you not be able to say …there’s got to be some diplomacy? She said land mass. I hope they can keep their land mass.” – Tudor Dixon (08:40)
• On Hillary Clinton’s Outburst
  • “She is not calm under fire. She starts just sort of yelling things.” – Mary Katharine Ham (12:09)
  • “She’s just a crab now.” – Tudor Dixon (12:08)
• On Women’s Rights Panel
  • “Threats toward trans people are threats toward all women. And I just fundamentally disagree with that.” – Tudor Dixon (15:25)
  • “Those rights collide on a regular basis…[on] Broadway…there’s a woman out there who could have had that role, who didn’t get that role.” – Mary Katharine Ham (16:49)
• On “Fail Up” Culture
  • “How do these people get… they keep failing up. And she could very, very easily fail up to the Senate because the people of New York are willing to fail people up.” – Tudor Dixon (23:36)
• On Leftist Language Tics
  • “The right always needs a boogeyman. I mean, a boogie person — legitimately said that.” – Tudor Dixon (33:46)
  • “Boogie inclusivity is very important.” – Mary Katharine Ham (34:05)
• On Rubio’s Speech
  • “When the United States gives permission to say, you actually should hold on to what Europe was, you should hold on to your culture, you should be proud of your heritage, and it is okay to be proud.” – Tudor Dixon (28:30)
• On Lessons for Future Elections
  • “You have to actually talk to the people on the ground and understand what they want.” – Tudor Dixon (34:54)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Intro & Framing of Munich Conference: 02:36–05:36
• AOC & Whitmer's Munich Performance: 05:36–10:19
• Hillary Clinton's Panel & Women's Rights Discussion: 12:05–17:35
• Trans Issues & Public Backlash: 19:07–21:36
• AOC’s gaffes, media spin, and international pushback: 22:55–25:52
• Rubio’s Speech and European Reception: 27:14–30:13
• Political Messaging for Republicans: 32:58–35:46

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Tone and Language

The conversation is sharp, irreverent, humorous, and at times openly scornful toward Democratic figures while displaying admiration for Rubio’s intellect and leadership. Both hosts use pointed, colloquial language and regularly break into laughter at what they see as the ideological and presentational failures of their political opponents.

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Conclusion

Dixon and Ham argue that Democratic leaders failed by not preparing for international scrutiny, relying on friendly media coverage, and embracing disconnected "woke" talking points. In contrast, Rubio’s clear message resonated internationally. The episode closes with a call for Republican candidates to stay grounded in local issues and effective communication as the 2026 midterms approach.

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Transcript

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

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[Tudor Dixon]

Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Well, today we have Mary Kathryn Ham with us because we thought it was really important to go through everything that happened in Munich, and there seemed to be no one better than Mary Katherine to join me today. Thank you so much for joining me. I know you are part of the Clay and Buck network. Also you have the normally podcast alongside Carol Markowitz, and also you're the host of Getting Hammered. So thank you so much for joining me.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Thank you so much. So, such kind words. I appreciate being here.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, I'm excited about talking about this because obviously I was watching this over the weekend and actually I was traveling last night, so I was kind of like going through and rewatching some of the things that were said because it's interesting to me as we see the Democrats kind of stumbling and fumbling and trying to figure out who is going to be the leader in 28, it's like they're putting these people out and they're testing them, but they've always been this amazing machine. In the past, I've looked at them and gone, wow, they really have things tightened up. They, they know what they're doing, but when it comes to messaging, they are so off. This is like word salad part two.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, no, they don't know what direction to go in general. And I think they also have a little bit of Democrat privilege when it comes to being asked questions at all.

[Tudor Dixon]

So such a good way of putting it.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

You can show up at Munich and think, I'll be fine. I'm aoc, everyone loves me. The media has never asked me anything terribly tough. Sure, I don't know these issues, but I'm like, I'm great. And that sort of fell apart on the big stage because she was asked things that she didn't know about and she was not deft in handling those. So I think there's some of that going on. Also, Democrats are having trouble despite, you know, Republican losses in various places, and they've done well in special elections. They're having trouble landing on a message because they are largely led by progressive groups who demand that they say things that regular voters don't like. So they're trying out, trying to figure out how to reconcile that. They also can't get people to even come into the office. So that has been tricky for them. And some who would like to win elections for Democrats are like, it seems like if we think this is actually an emergency, beating Republicans, we should come to the office and work on it. And the rank and file workers are like, nah, that sounds crazy. We don't think we want to be part of that.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, there. So I will say that is definitely a problem that Gretchen Whitmer would have here in Michigan. We've watched people, they've struggled to get people back to work, but she is another one that went over there. So. So AOC and, and Whitmer were on a panel together. This panel was literally a foreign policy panel. You would think that going there, you would say, what are some of the major foreign policy issues? And it would be pretty. Taiwan and Ukraine would be at the top of that list, wouldn't you think?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, that seems logical. Again, this is not. You're not being asked about the undersecretary for Agriculture in Gambia. Like, that's not what you're being asked. You're being asked major issues. And I want to stress this. No one forced either of these people to go to Munich. They decided to go. They went to Munich, presumably knowing that it is a foreign policy gathering. They went, I assume, looking to burnish credentials. And yet I, I would say if you've been in Congress for eight years, as AOC has, you should have some thoughts on this. Whitmer is a governor. It is less likely that she's going to encounter these things again. No one forced her to go and try to show off.

[Tudor Dixon]

No, but I think that's the important point, is that people don't understand. You don't just. You don't get invited. People aren't begging you. You're lobbying to be a part of this. She knew what. Yes, she knew what she was going to. She was trying to get people there. But you made a really great point a few minutes ago, and that is, if you are in the United States and you are a Democrat, you are almost never tested. And certainly on the state level, the media has very much cushioned her. They've. They've protected Whitmer. AOC is always protected. Look, she came back after she totally flubbed it. She came back and the New York Times guys is tweeting out, don't worry, guys. She called me. Let me Explain. Can you imagine them ever doing that for me? For a Republican?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

No. Could you just write down everything I say, why I wasn't great, and then write it? And then also, if you could sprinkle in your own defenses of me, that'd be great too. And he did that. I think if you don't have thoughts on these big issues before you go, you shouldn't be going. But if you go, you have six to eight hours on an airplane.

[Tudor Dixon]

Right?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Just memorize something. Just memorize something. And the thing that gets me about AOC is she says in her interview, I use the term lightly with the New York Times. While she's stenography for her, she says that, yeah, I wasn't even there to audition. You guys are so caught up in the horse race. What I was doing was just like offering this different view of the world that's very important to these important people. Okay, well, you fail that too. You should have concentrated on how you were going to do that. And then Whitmer, my favorite part of hers was like, you know, other people here are better at answering this than I am. And then the ambassador is like, no, no, you go ahead and please. And she says, I'm a governor. Like, she doesn't encounter these things. Fine. Why are you here? Right?

[Tudor Dixon]

And, and we know there is no question that she has been trying to get into that 2028 lineup. She was trying to be vice president. Wasn't a secret. That was absolutely out there in the open. In fact, there were even reports that she was told by the Biden administration ahead of time, you will be the pick. And she had staff members that were looking at real estate in D.C. when they were told, actually we had to go with Kamal Harris. So we know that she wanted to be this person. She has made multiple trips overseas. But even if you were, okay, so pretend you're completely brain dead on everything else. How could you not have a position on Ukraine? Even if you couldn't figure out Taiwan, how could you not be able to say, you know what, I really believe that we are at a situ. In a situation where we have to be able to negotiate between these two countries. There's got to be some diplomacy. She has no, she. She can't say anything. She said land mass. I hope they can keep their land mass.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Well, and as you note this, not. It's not that it has to be a perfect answer. There is a perfect answer for some of these things. These are not easy situations, but it is actually fairly simple to get briefed up and to have something to offer because you have showed up to tell people you have something to offer. So you should, you should have something on the top of your head to do so. And I, I, look, I have this complaint sometimes, frankly, about Trump where I'm like, you need to be as prepared for these questions as I am for a Tuesday TV hit. Right. And I'll get annoyed with him. And also, he's been elected president twice. He's not auditioning. And one more thing about Trump, he doesn't get caught with nothing to say. Right. That's true. That is also a skill that neither of these women showed under pressure here. That.

[Tudor Dixon]

And that's what we saw. And honestly, as I watched this, I was disappointed to not see some strong Republican women out there, because I do think that the American women that are coming out on the Democrat side are making women, American women look bad. I mean, we already have this bad stain on our record with Kamala Harris out there and not being able to. I mean, you say at least Trump never is at a lack of having something to say. She could have never. Actually, she said a lot. It never was anything. That was the more embarrassing situation. But even looking at what I've seen from the Democrats, there is this underlying feeling that they think if they go on the world stage and they trash the president, that the rest of the world stage is going to come around them. They think that what they are doing on the national stage is going to play worldwide. And what they're miscalculating is that the people on the world stage, the European countries, the Asian countries, the Latin American countries, certainly Europe and Latin America, they don't want to look at the United States and say, if the Democrats get back into power, we're going to be in trouble because America will not be strong. But to go out there with the only message is we hate Trump. And my gosh, could Hillary Clinton have been more embarrassing when she just went bananas and she starts throwing out, we don't have any women's rights in the United States. What is she talking about? My gosh, this woman was a senator, she was a first lady. She was the Secretary of State, for crying out loud. How could she possibly sit there and honest to goodness say women don't have rights?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Well, and she's not auditioning for anything. So, you know, that's like her real.

[Tudor Dixon]

Thought, she's just a crab now.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yes. But one thing that struck me about that situation is, again, Democrat privilege. She's barely getting pushed. She's barely getting pushed in that back and forth with, I believe he was Czech lawmaker or Czech thought leader or representative there. And she is not calm under fire. She starts just sort of yelling things. Yeah. And there are plenty of points you can make calmly in that situation that probably would have gone over fine. And, and again, when you're in this type of gathering that is sort of over intellectualized, screaming at your interlocutor is not the way to go about it. I don't, I don't know where she was. She was all over the map though, by the way, because she also was like, hey, we should probably admit that mass migration is like pretty destabilizing and bad for a bunch of people, which is quite a thing to say in front of Europe, especially after you kept your mouth shut for the last 10 years about Europe, in the last four years about the US and, but, you know, I guess they're admitting things that the rest of us knew 10 years ago now.

[Tudor Dixon]

I think it's interesting that they talked so much about women's rights and women's role. And she actually moderated a panel that was kind of like a women's slash LGBTQ rights panel. And it was interesting to me because I do think that as women, it is harder to be taken seriously in a room like that if you are screeching. You know, we know we go into those moments and we know that you have to be very serious, you have to be calm. You don't have the same ability to rise to anger as a man does because you're not taken as seriously. And certainly she would understand that. And the frustrating thing to me is she had Marco Rubio's position. Marco Rubio delivered this phenomenal speech. We were all incredibly impressed. But he was able to deliver that speech and have the room come around him because he is doing the meetings on the ground. When he says, I'm meeting with these people behind the scenes, he's actually meeting with them. They know they're prepared for what he's going to say. They're prepared for that boldness. Was she completely clueless as Secretary of State? How long have we had a Democrat party that does not understand, has no self awareness or awareness of the room around them?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

I think that Hillary is mad at the world because she didn't get the position that she wanted to get.

[Tudor Dixon]

And so that's like, oh, happy birthday, Madam President. That's my favorite tweet.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

It's always sitting there in the back of her mind. And even though she is still invited to these very high level gatherings, I think she is easy perhaps to tick off because she's mad that Rubio has the job she had. She's mad that Trump has the job she wanted. And she thinks that. She thinks that that is deeply unfair and that we were all unfair to her. And I don't know, girl. Like, you're not making me convinced that people were super unfair to you. You're making me convinced that you thought you were entitled to something and you didn't do a ton of appealing to people. And here we.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, it was interesting because she's on this panel where she is talking about women's rights and they keep going back to the right, and the right has taken all this away from women. And you've got Sarah McBride on this panel, which to me is frustrating, that we're talking about women's rights and the United States representative is a transgender person who, who actually said threats toward trans people are threats toward all women. And I just fundamentally disagree with that. I. I don't think we are the same. I don't like being put in the into that bucket. I don't like that discussion. But Hillary Clinton kept going back to the right is so well funded. We can't fight them. Are you kidding me?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Y' all have plenty of billionaires, and they were also bilking taxpayers out of right. So much money, funneling it into their NGOs. No, it's crazy. They. They frequently outspend Republicans and they just say not a word about it because as long as they're the ones outspending Republicans, it's good money. And billionaires who are left leaning are good billionaires. And all that's fine. I mean, it really is just based on whatever the rules of the moment are. I also reject this framing that a threat to trans women is a threat to women, because we're not the same. And in fact, those rights collide on a regular basis. And I'll give you a very sort of casual example of that. Today I was talking to a friend, and he informed me that Dylan Mulvaney got one of six female roles meant for females in a prestigious Broadway production. And so there's a woman out there who could have had that role, who didn't get that role. Right. That is a collision of rights there. Now, it's a privilege, obviously, to be cast in one of these shows. I'm not aware that Mulvaney has a ton of Broadway experience. But regardless, it does grate on the women that these very rare opportunities, many of them are being taken up buy men.

[Tudor Dixon]

Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon Podcast.

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[Tudor Dixon]

For healing, learn more and sign the [e-mail] and there is not a way to look past the fact that we have seen these medications that these people are put on to change their bodies, change their hormones, which really does, it really does mess with your mind somehow. We see this outburst of mass shootings from this group and that is something that I feel like we are not allowed to address. And yet again over the weekend we just saw another one and I really feel like this is a totally. This is not. These are not women. This is not. You're not becoming a woman. That was something that Sarah McBride said. What? I have shoulder length hair and glasses and I'm not woman enough? Well, you're not a woman.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

That's like. And I think McBride is better at framing this than like 90% of activists. By the way but, but the fact remains that we're not the same. And the fact remains, actually I was reading a piece in the Argument, which is a left leaning publication, but honest and fairly intellectual. And they had done some polling on trans issues and found that since 2016, the idea of shared bathrooms, the idea of locker room spaces, the idea of trans rights in general had just taken this huge nosedive. And I submit it is because we ran a 10 year experiment and people don't like the results and they didn't like how they were treated when they tried to raise concerns about this, particularly when it came to the treatment of minors by psychologists and physicians and in spaces that they share in locker rooms. Just in Northern Virginia in the past couple of months, we've had a 50 something sex offender who shows up in women's locker rooms all over Northern Virginia schools and tries to go swimming in pools and shower in the ladies room. And when people complain about that, the school boards and the local officials are like, oh, just, just let's not, let's not punish him. We finally got a prosecutor to go after him. But these are real things that people saw in their real lives. And the result is that you guys yelled at us and were real jerks about this for 10 years. We tried it out, we don't like it. And now you have to pay the price for that in public policy, which is that this was a failed experiment and people are going to go back the other direction.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, and that was interesting to me is that that's the, the message that they chose to go out with on the world stage when really, if you look back, a lot of people credit the ad. Trump is for you, Kamala's for they them with winning. Because so many women and parents in general, I mean to your point, as parents, we are concerned when our daughters go into a locker room, when our daughters go into a public restroom and there's a man in there. And that, that I think was overwhelming. And it's not just mothers like fathers, you know, my dad would just have freaked out if he thought I was in danger. You just have this innate protection of your children, you know, so this idea that you're going to put children in harm's way was totally asinine. But I still am not hearing a message from them. I mean, I saw AOC go over there and people were like, oh, she was so great at talking about all of this stuff about the economy. She didn't know that slave people didn't bring cow or didn't bring horses to the United States. What in the world was that when she. I was like, oh, Marco Rubio talked about cowboys. I. The. The people of Mexico and slave people would like to have a word. And she says it so, so confidently. Yes.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Wait till she hears where the Spanish language came from.

[Tudor Dixon]

The Mexican language. Is it. Yeah. I mean, really, will she call it that?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

No, it is. There's a part of being a Democrat that means as long as you say things like intersectionality and rules based order and class based international politics, you will be counted as a smart person. And once you're in the smart person bucket, they'll put you on stage, and you will then reveal that you have major gaps in your knowledge. And then you will call the New York Times to say that those major gaps don't matter. And the New York Times will say, those don't matter.

[Tudor Dixon]

But is the New York Times just the. The CBS of Kamala Harris? I mean, really, at what point are we going to say, you have to stop making crap up to try to cover for them? Because that's what they did with Kamala. They edited that piece to try to save her butt because she didn't know enough. And how do these people get like, they fa. They keep failing up. And she could very, very easily fail up to the Senate because the people of New York are willing to fail people up. I mean, look at Mamdani and what's happening in New York right now. But as I watched her on the world stage, I really was not just humiliated. I was stunned by the fact that afterward they came out and they said, we did so many hours of prep for this, because the prep was obviously not on foreign policy. The prep was on radical socialism bringing. Because she did bring it back. I mean, if you were to give her some grace on the fact that she is a complete moron when it comes to history, she did bring it back to socialism regularly. And, like, this is, you know, this is what it should be. She was totally schooled by the woman from Argentina who says, are you kidding me? Like, but very so politely. And that was the. That was the one part about it that I thought, like, here's a woman who so graciously says, you know what? I am actually. You may say maduro with a Spanish accent, but I actually live right next to there. You know, she's like, I actually have Venezuelans that live in my neighborhood because they had to leave their home and they are happy. I mean, it was kind of interesting to watch that perspective that we don't actually get to hear on the national stage here because that the, the left is so hardcore on, oh, anything that happens in Latin America is. Is such a disaster for America to be involved. Here you have someone from Argentina saying, we would love to have. We're having this trade deal with the United States. We'd love to have the United States more involved. We're so happy that Maduro was taken out of power. He was not elected. The people were cheering, and yet they immediately move on as soon as they hear that.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

No, there was a brief shining moment after Maduro was taken out expertly by the US Military and President Trump's decision, in which you would see a bunch of Venezuelan Americans cheering about this and Venezuelans on social media and you would get this. Oh, you got this sort of mainstreamed message of like, no, no, no, you guys are getting this wrong. But the reason that the left gets it wrong is because they think America bad, communism and socialism good. This is one of the reasons that, that AOC doesn't have a lot of deep thoughts about defending Taiwan. Right. It's not that you have to say, yeah, we're going to send in troops, but her brain goes, I don't know, like, the CCP is kind of like on board with the things that I like. And so she doesn't know where to land. They don't know to land against Maduro and for the people of Venezuela because in their minds, ah, you know, it's sort of the cost of doing business when it comes to communism. Right. And the real fascist is Donald Trump. This is a silly way to think, or I think, as Rubio put it in his really soaring, beautiful speech, foolish. This is foolish. This is a foolish binary that you are living your life by. To be ashamed of Western values and then to lift up this thing that has hurt people for centuries. Right. But many politicians on the left have trouble seeing that clearly.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, and I think that they clearly brought leftists together at this conference. I mean, you have the one guy on the panel with AOC who is saying, I think Europe should just join as one. We should have one president. The EU should be one thing. And in his reasoning for that was, we'll never have the same amount of money as the United States and therefore, we don't have the same voice and we don't want the United States to be more powerful than Europe. So Europe should come together as kind of one umbrella under the EU and have their own president. And. And honestly, that is a radical view. But when you heard what Rubio was saying and giving permission to say, we want to continue to hold onto our heritage. We want to continue to hold onto our culture. I believe there are many, many leaders out there who were waiting for the United States to say that, because there is no leader of the EU that as one. But the United States does have a very big voice. And when the United States gives permission to say, you actually should hold on to what Europe was, you should hold on to your culture, you should be proud of your heritage, and it is okay to be proud. It doesn't make you some radical nationalist. You know, that word has been demonized to the point where people are like, oh, I can't love my own country. We're now giving them permission. And that's why you saw a standing ovation. Because who doesn't want to love their history? Who doesn't want to say, I'm proud of who I am?

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yeah, I think he. Leadership matters. And he was leading in that moment, and he was leading in a way that was right for the room that was addressing their concerns. And you're right, was giving them permission by saying, you know, our function is not to be a welfare state that then apologizes for everything we do. That's not our function in the world. The Western world is the home of the Enlightenment and free speech and religious liberty and all these amazing things that have made the world prosperity. And so you don't have to do that. It's basically like, get a hold of yourself, man, to all of Europe. And I think there are people who respond to that. You see it in Italy, where Giorgio Meloni is a perfect example of this. Now, when she expressed pride in Italy and the idea that there should be governable borders thereof, she, of course, was called the biggest fascist since Mussolini by much of the press. And it turns out actually that Italy's doing pretty well and that she has made improvements that have made Italians lives better and that people like her. And she's also extremely cool, which is a bonus. And dress is great. But. But, yeah, I think people overreacted to Meloni. And now this has become something that Europeans are allowed to do, and many of them are insistent on doing it. The politicians are behind the regular folks in this way.

[Tudor Dixon]

Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on Tudor Dixon podcast. Well, and it was funny to me that Hillary. Hillary Clinton, as a former Secretary of state, sitting next to a Czech politician and having that discussion with him where he says, well, I think you just really don't like Trump. And instead of her having a mature reaction to it, she. That's when she started to go off. But the. If you. If she really understood European countries, and I do think that if you are in the position of Marco Rubio or what Hillary Clinton, the position Hillary Clinton was in as Secretary of State, your job is to go into these other countries, understand who they are, understand their culture. There is a way that you talk to people to make sure that you can have a diplomatic discussion. I don't believe that she was capable of doing that. And the reason I say that is that she would have understood. The Czech Republic is very proud of their culture. Their borders are closed. They do not allow immigration. They are very concerned with making sure that they preserve their history and preserve who they are and protect against communism, because they've experienced that as well. There's a whole history there that was oozing out of the guy sitting next to her. And yet she couldn't pause for a moment and step outside of her own liberal mind and her own hatred for Trump to go, wow, this guy actually lives a different story than I do.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Well, and he was also trying to explain something to her about how Trump came about. And it's something that politicians of left and right should listen to, which is all he was saying was like, people don't like you, because this whole class doing this whole thing, y' all done went too far. We don't like it. Everybody was upset. Y' all kept ignoring us and being jerks about it. And then this other guy came along who was not ignoring us and wasn't a jerk about it. Right. About these things that we cared about. And she can't hear that because she thinks her function, and again, her missed moment, is to be the one who informs us what is good for us. And the idea that this man from the Czech Republic had the audacity to tell her that the people might think differently about what's good for them. She didn't like that at all. But I think both right and left, the business of politics is the business of persuading people on a regular basis. If you let go of that and think you're gonna just parade all the way over to the far right or the far left, you will get in trouble for it eventually.

[Tudor Dixon]

The far left is so. They're so broken by their language, and you can see it as they talk. It's like they're so stuck in certain words. And that was. I believe that when he started to say, I, I believe there's two genders, you went too far on this. That's why she immediately turned it around to saying, do you think there should be a war on women? Which was clearly not what he was saying. She had to figure out a way to make it acceptable. Like, I have to throw something out there. But I noticed when she was talking in the other panel with Sarah McBride, she. They were talking about how, you know, trans people are the tip of the spear and they're leading for women and they're leading for women's rights and all these. And Sarah McBride, this is what I mean by getting caught up in their own language. She said, you know, the problem is that the right always needs a boogeyman. I mean, a boogie person legitimately said that.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

No, this is. It's because for years that was the coin of the realm. That's how you get on the panel is you use that language.

[Tudor Dixon]

Boogie inclusivity.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Boogie inclusivity is very important.

[Tudor Dixon]

Oh, my gosh.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

And I, I saw a couple sort of more moderate critics of some of these folks who are on these stages, AOC and Whitmer, saying, look, if you talk like a college professor, it's not going to cut it with the American people like that. You sound like a lunatic when you talk this way. And I think that's one of those examples. I would also caution for Republicans that on the trans issue in particular and on these gender issues, yes, people think the left is crazy on this and they are mad at the left about it. That doesn't mean they won't listen to the left on, on other issues. So Virginia is a place where I think the, the campaign for governor got way too far into that issue alone and didn't address which Democrats are out of touch on, didn't address affordability, which is what people are thinking about all the time. So there's differences in what people vote on versus what they think the Dems are crazy on.

[Tudor Dixon]

And you make a great point for the midterms because there's differences on what is a national story than what is a local story. And your statewide races are local races. So I think oftentimes we, as Republicans go, oh, that worked here. That's going to work here. And that's. You gotta, you've got to personalize your race. You've got to see. You have to actually talk to the people on the ground and understand what they want. I mean, in. And that's, I would say the same thing for Michigan. I mean, we, we also talked about that. That was not the concern on the ground here. The concern is, are we going to have jobs? Are we going to reduce our energy costs? Affordability, exactly what you're saying, and that's critical for us. These conferences are interesting to see where their mind is, but we have to make sure we know what we should be talking about come midterms, which is now.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Yep, I agree. The the key to Abigail Spamberger's success in Virginia partially was she didn't moderate. She just didn't talk about these issues that voters are mad at Democrats about. She was like, moving on, but she.

[Tudor Dixon]

Sure did immediately push them. Yeah, that's the sad thing. Well, I appreciate you coming on today, Mary Kathryn Ham, it was wonderful to talk to you and I would love to have you back to talk as we go through the midterms and we start to see some of this stuff breaking down and how people are talking about it.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

Sounds great. Thank you so much for having me.

[Tudor Dixon]

Thank you. And thank you all for joining us on the Tudor Dixon Podcast for this episode and others. You can get it wherever you get Your podcast, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or you can watch on YouTube or rumble uterdixon. But make sure you watch and have a blessed day.

[Mary Kathryn Ham]

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.