Matt Schlapp On The Road, A Conversation w/ Ashley Baker, CPAC PA w/ Sara Carter + Diamond & Silk

Good afternoon, folks. It's Wednesday, September the 23rd here in Alexandria, Virginia from the American Conservative Union's CPAC Live headquarters. I'm here at the anchor desk. We've got a very busy and exciting show for you. 41 days until election day. This marks the beginning of fall. There's a little chill in the air, which means that it's time to get out there and for folks to knock on doors. It's time to get out there and start early voting. We want to make sure that you are, of course, registered to vote, and we've got opinions about how we think you should be voting over the next few weeks. First thing we're going to do is we're going to check in with our chairman, Matt Schlapp, who's on the Trump campaign bus in Michigan, and hear what Matt has to say. Then we're going to hear from Sarah Carter and some of her important remarks that she said at CPAC Pennsylvania last Saturday while we were there in Washington, PA. She is part of our CPAC family, and she's got a personal experience that she wants to share with you about why she fights so hard for conservative values. Then our executive director, Dan Schneider, is going to sit down with Ashley Baker from the Committee for Justice to have a brief conversation about antitrust issues and why you need to follow these antitrust issues and how they affect you and what you do, especially online. Then, finally, a best of, a recap from our friends Diamond and Silk and their fantastic and powerful remarks from CPAC Pennsylvania. First, let's take a look and hear what Matt Schlapp had to say to conservative supporters and folks who are supporting the re-election of President Trump in the great state and the important state of Michigan. Then when it comes to the First Amendment, it's about your political speech, but you know what our founders really believed it was about? Religious freedom, tolerance, the ability to go to church, not go to church, go to synagogue, not go to synagogue, worship God in your heart. Whatever it is you want to do, you get to do. This is America. We gave them all over the world to come here, and we have these principles, and they literally, literally are trying to go right at our ability to practice our faith. Why do I say that? I say that because Joe Biden says that when he gets elected president, he's going to take those nuns back to court to make them pay for abortions. How insane is that? If you don't understand that nuns don't need contraception, then I need to have you go back and talk to some folks. The party of science, not so much, right? What's the next thing that he says he's going to do? He says he's a man of faith. Fine, I take him at his word. Why does he want to make everyone who goes to church would pay for abortion, including his pastor? He no longer believes that even the idea that you don't have to use your taxpayer money to be complicit in abortion, not even that principle matters. And the military, there won't be a conscience clause for people in the military who don't want to perform these dastardly procedures. And Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris believes that if you're a deep person of faith, and if the dog, if the dogma runs deep in your heart, you're basically a member of a hate group. And she has called out all these judicial nominees that president Trump has put up. And has he not done a great job? If this person he picks has the audacity, although he said, it's going to be a woman, which I think is great. But if they have any association with this hate group called the Knights of Columbus, beware, because Kamala Harris said that that's a bridge too far. Literally a group, of course, they wear some funny outfits, no offense for any guys who's in it, the feathers on the hat. But this is what they want you to do. Be a good father. Be a good husband. Stay close to the church. Boy, I think that's sounds really good. I think all of us guys need to hear that message. So what I love about the president, we were saying on the on the bus is, you know, it's controversial. Here, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. And we all want to be respectful of this moment for her family. And, and you have Republicans who've done a perfectly terrible job of picking justices to the Supreme Court. 50% of them are very flaky, right? And we all know it. And they say they want to pick Scalia, and they want to pick Thomas, and then they go and pick something else. Not President Trump. And so a lot of people would say, well, you know, maybe this is a rough time. We're so close to an election. And we just didn't, we didn't have to question what he was going to do. You know what he's going to do? What he told you he would do? Fill the seat. That's exactly right. Fill the seat. That's right. And who's he gonna, and who's he gonna fill it with? He's gonna fill it with somebody who does one simple thing. I don't care if they're pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gun, anti-gun. I don't care any of their policy positions. What I care is, will they read the Constitution? Yes. Will they read the Constitution and uphold the words of the Constitution? That's all we want. By the way, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, you know what happens? And leave it to President Trump to say it. It goes back to all of you. You get to decide what you want. This is what America is. We don't want to pick judges that are going to cram through their own ideas. We want judges who have an understanding of why America is great. And so the one thing I would leave you with is this. I think Donald Trump has given, has extended America's lifeline on this globe. And what you realize is that's good for all of us, right? Selfishly as Americans, it's a wonderful thing. But it's bigger than that. When we went around the globe and did all these events, I cannot tell you how many people, freedom lovers around the globe, in all these different countries, South America, Asia, Europe, they would say, oh my God, if America turns socialist, we are all in a terrible position because America leads this idea of fighting for freedom around the globe. Now, not so much in the previous eight years, but in the last four years with Mike Pompeo and the rest of these folks, it's been amazing. Folks, you have to save America by winning Michigan. You win Michigan, we're going to win this election. Donald Trump gets four more years, it's great for extending our birthright as Americans. We're going to grab hold and pass this idea of freedom onto our kids. But I want you to know it's bigger. There's people around the globe who are looking at what's happening literally here and around these communities in the country. Because they know that if America turns socialist, that their future is dark. And so the final rallying cry for us is to remember, yes, the cause, the man and the leader is Donald Trump. And thank God for him. But the cause is America. And fight hard. And we're going to fight hard. And just finally, we love you guys. Thank you. Well, you can tell that those activists in Michigan were very interested in what Matt had to say. He remains on the road. Ohio is the next stop on that bus tour. And we'll, of course, keep you updated. Sarah Carter is a friend of ours. You can check out her investigative journalism work at sarahacarter.com. And let's give a brief listen to what Sarah had to say to the activists in western Pennsylvania over the weekend. In 2016. I remember being in New York City. And I was at the this is before the election was called. Obviously, early on, the New York Times had said Hillary Clinton was going to win by 95%. There was no way Donald Trump would ever be president. I went to the Trump victory hotel party with all the other journalists. And the majority of them were crying. And they were like, I don't really want to go to Javits. I don't want to be sitting here. This is going to be a horrible night. Why can't I be with Hillary? She's going to win. And I remember just sitting there and I talked to Do you remember that guy from Showtime? He does circus. I can't remember. You know who I'm talking about? He wears a cowboy hat. He does documentaries. You know? Yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy. And he comes up to me. And he says, Sarah Carter, who do you think is going to win tonight? And I said, well, I have no doubt Donald Trump's going to win. And he laughed at me. And he said, well, why do you think that? I said, well, I was in farm country in Pennsylvania. And everywhere I looked, I saw Trump pants. Everywhere I looked. And he said, well, you can't hinge an election. You can't hinge an election on some farm country in Pennsylvania. Oh, really? Yes, I can. You know why? Because Pennsylvania is real America. And if anything, I learned as being a journalist is to listen to real people. Not people living in a bubble. Not people, and I say this over and over again. I even say it on my podcast, who don't even know what a gallon of milk costs. They completely forgot. They forgot what it costs to put gas in a car. They don't know what it's like to have to feed kids. They don't know what it's like to take your dog to the vet and get charged too much money. They don't know what it's like to pay a mortgage on a house when you've lost a job. They don't know what it's like when you go to the feed store and then it's closed because of COVID and you can't even get any seed for your garden to plant your own garden because the governor won't let you go there because he's made that non-essential. Because he doesn't care about real people. He doesn't care about you. He has forgotten who he is working for. Right? And I will close up my story on Pennsylvania with this. That night, as I was in the hotel and everybody was expecting Hillary to win, and by the way, that guy from Showtime left and went to the Javits Center. He said, see you loser, and he left. I sat down with all the other reporters who were desperately looking like they just wanted to jump off of this podium and run out for their dear lives. And we were watching the election results come in. And when Pennsylvania hit, and we saw Pennsylvania go to Donald Trump. I got to tell you, look, I was going to cover the story whoever won. At that point, I was going to cover the story whether it was Hillary Clinton. I didn't have anything vested in this. This is up to the American people. It's up to all of us. That's what makes our nation so great. It's elections, right? It's a peaceful transition of power. We might not like who's in power, but we accept it and we work together as Americans and we find common solutions and we get those solutions and we make a difference. When I turned around and looked at those reporters as the election was being called, and they were literally crying, crying, tears streaming down their, I mean, I got to tell you folks, I was laughing. Not because Trump won, but because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I just never in my life witnessed anything so ridiculous, so out of place, so wrong. I was just like, wow, we know who you wanted to win. So I asked my cameraman, do you mind? Could you take a picture? And he took a picture and I have this great picture of me smiling with them crying behind me. It's like my favorite thing. So thank you, Pennsylvania. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, we had a great time in Pittsburgh with Sarah Carter. She is always a hit with all of our speakers. We do try to have fun at these events and always talk about substantive policies too, because ultimately all these fights politically, it's about what the future of our country is going to look like. Our next guest is Ashley Baker for the Committee for Justice. Ashley will be able to correct me if I got the title wrong. We're going to talk about a very important policy matter that has real world implications for each of us. It was just two or three years ago, ACU was sued for $150 million. We're not for profit. $150 million because a guy claimed that we had colluded to prevent him from speaking at CPAC. Obviously, we invite lots of people to speak and so he sued us under the antitrust laws claiming collusion. It cost us a lot of money to defend us and to get that whole suit dismissed. Ashley, thank you for joining us today. What is going on with antitrust law? Why is this such a big deal? Dan, thank you for having me. Right now, it's going on with antitrust law. In the very beginning, antitrust law was intended to protect economic welfare from illegal activities such as tying, collusion, some of the things in the charges that were against you, although those were completely meritless. It was under the Sherman Act where this started taking place. You guys were sued under the Sherman Act, which has very broad, very vague language. That gets to the heart of what happened in the years between 1890 and the Sherman Act and about the late 1970s when we had the consumer welfare standards. You had this whole period of time in which pretty much every business activity was illegal. Selling shoes in pairs was illegal. Market definition was just anything made of metal. Counting how many firms is in the market on one hand was sufficient analysis, which obviously there are a few problems with that. So there was no rigorous economic analysis and there was also no way to apply this law with any sort of consistency and any sort of regularity. So we got from where we were before the consumer welfare standard in which a suit like the one against you guys probably would have prevailed. I know that wasn't a government suit, but there's this famous quote which Justice Potter Stewart says, the sole consistency I can find in antitrust litigation is that the government always wins. And that was really the only consistency. So we've come a long way since then. Well, Ashley, of course, this is a leading question. I studied a lot of antitrust law and economics as an undergrad and as a law student and attorney. So who was our big hero coming out of the 70s? Who was the person who brought reason and rational thought to our antitrust laws? Well, the big person coming out of the 1970s, late 60s, late 1970s was Robert Bork and his... God bless Robert Bork. I'm sorry? God bless Robert Bork. Yes, God bless Robert Bork. He certainly went through a lot and today we're certainly reminded of that aspect of it as well. Back to the antitrust though, his effect on antitrust law really cannot be understated because of the way in which Justice Scalia, for example, during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings was asked about antitrust. He said, well, I never really liked antitrust much. I didn't understand it in law school. And I later realized that there wasn't much to understand. And Robert Bork brought that understanding to it because he created something called the consumer welfare standard, which is this neutral underlying principle that can be applied evenly to the law, implied evenly by judges. And it's one of these rare incidences in which you have good law and economics that mesh at the same time and it works to solve all of these problems. And beforehand, we had in the 1960s, antitrust being weaponized for all of these left-leaning purposes, such as environmental law and equality and every basket of left-leaning social items that you can imagine. So Ashley, in my mind, if I'm going to just summarize real fast what the consumer welfare standard is about, it's basically, are consumers being forced to pay far more for a good than the free market would otherwise allow? Is there price gouging? Is there collusion? Is there conspiracy to drive up prices against the interests of the consumer? And you mentioned these liberals back then, but we've got liberals today who are now trying to use the same kind of antitrust laws as weapons against people they think are just bad. You have people like Senator Warren and AOC. What's going on today? How is the left trying to revive their terrible ideas? Well, back to what the consumer welfare standard is, one thing I would add is it's not solely based on price. It's largely based on price, but a little nuance there is it is kind of a total goal of the antitrust system is how well off the consumer is as opposed to individual welfare. What value having an iPhone, for example, adds versus not having one. So there are some intangible factors, just not these completely irrelevant intangible factors, such as what we see the left imposing on it. So now we have, just like we had in the Break Up Wall Street campaign, for example, that's one instance in which Elizabeth Warren was going after big companies. She has a long track record of running presidential campaigns off of antitrust. They have not worked out very well for her. So now we also see Warren and Klobuchar and others putting forth legislation that would essentially put bans on mergers as one thing, very strong merger guidelines that would be particularly catastrophic during the post-COVID economic recovery when it's harder to acquire small firms whatsoever, even if there's really no solid market basis for that. You have just- Basically, they're trying to control us. They're trying to control the individual. They're trying to control businesses for reasons other than what's right for the consumer. Yes, and they're trying to undermine the rule of law too. And that's one point that I really wanted to make here is that, for example, one proposal they have would completely invert the burden of proof from the government to the company in proving that they're not a monopoly. And that's very much at odds with the core tenets of the United States legal system. And there's a lot here that is at odds with conservative values and with our view of the rule of law. And this suddenly become popular just because some people don't like certain companies. And I understand why they might not, but I don't think antitrust is the solution for non-competitive problems. Right. Obviously, we've got lots of other laws and lots of other remedies. If a company is engaged in fraud, guess what? We've got fraud statutes. You don't have to try to use the Sherman Antitrust Act or the Clayton Act just as a tool to whack everybody you dislike. Ashley, any last thoughts? And going off of that, I would say that just because one company, and I'm not pointing to any companies, but hypothetically one company is in violation of an antitrust law, that doesn't mean all of our antitrust laws need to be reformed. That actually means that they're working. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions over whether or not antitrust laws are being enforced and whether or not they're working. And they have worked very well for the past 40 years. And also, this is one of the largest victories of the conservative legal movement over the past 50 years. And I think that really goes under recognizes where we came from and what we'd be throwing away by stepping away from this standard. And there are some who would like to do that. And that's just a lot of progress that we as a movement have made that is at rest today. Thank you so much, Ashley. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, Doug. We're now going to hear from Diamond and Silk at our Pennsylvania CPAC event. And they brought the house down, no doubt. And then we'll hear from Ian Walters again, who will wrap up the show. Thank you very much, Ashley. Thank you, Dan. Somebody told me that if we win, it's two counties in this area that we win the election. Did y'all hear that? Y'all better vote like your life depended on it. That's right. I may have to start going to knock on doors up in through here. Yes. Yeah. I heard about child governor. Oh, yeah, I heard. We heard about him. And there was also a Democrat mayor in Nashville who knowingly lied about the data, meaning he downplayed it to shut down bars and restaurants and things of that that nature. You know what? Anybody that does that, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. For crimes against humanity. Prosecute them. That's right. Are you crazy? Yes. I don't sit here and gain all of this weight, eating all of this good food. Yes. It ain't gonna be the virus. It's gonna be you gonna eat yourself into bad health. A lot of these people need to be prosecuted. And I want you all to the series is let me tell you something, not trying to downplay this virus because the virus is very real. But this pandemic is all of the lies, the inflating of numbers, telling me I have to do all of this extra stuff for something with a 98% recovery rate. That's what I don't like. That's right. Oh, and when we started talking about it back in March, they got so upset. Oh, they was upset about it. Y'all make sure you get the book because I can read about what happened in the book. That's right. And can I say one thing about come on, come on. When did Corona go to school to learn how to count six feet? I don't know, girl. See, it's diamond and silk, not diamond and then six feet and then silk. That's right. But we got a mic in our hands over the virus. That's right. That's right. Or when you walk into a restaurant, you pay, you got the mask up when you walk in. But as soon as you sit down at that table, Corona said, bye. Bye. I'll see y'all later. I'll be back. Once y'all eat. Yeah, peace. And don't forget, don't forget Corona ran away whenever they was out there rioting too. Oh, there was no, we are in protest every day, all day. We protesting. You go to church, you let them know I'm protesting the devil. That's why I'm here on the front row. Let them know that. That's right. I don't know what we're going to do about Corona, but I know it's crimes against humanity. You all, this is one of them. I can't, I don't know what to do with myself because I don't know how to stay quiet about something that I feel. She told me not to do it. Can't. Because when I started to be quiet, I dropped weight. My body, I can't eat. You can't eat. I can only eat when I know stuff is getting out to the public. That's right. The way it's supposed to be. But you know, I'm ready for people to be pro-America. Yes. Pro-life. Yes. Pro-flag. Yes. Oh, we going to kneel on the flag. Oh, oh, they want to kneel on the flag. For what? Who is that? They call him LeBron James. They call him King LeBron James. King. Acting more like a Queen LeBron James to me. That's what it look like to me. And I'm going to tell you, if he don't be careful, he going to go from making $13 million to making $13 an hour. That's right. You don't kneel on our flag. That's right. You don't disrespect our veterans, the people who have fought for you to wave that flag. The only person I'm going to kneel to is God. Everybody else, stand. You stand for the flag. Yes. Kneel to God. This is the Republic. Yes. You stand for that. That's right. Yes. I don't know what they teach. Hallelujah. Yeah. I want pro-freedom. I want pro-liberty, pro-Constitution. And I need somebody with some pro-common sense. Yes. Because some people acting like they don't have common sense. You know, Jim Crow... Okay, baby. You know, people walking around as if they don't have no common sense and they want us to believe that Jim Crow Joe is going to win this election. He don't have but six big circles with one person in each circle. I turned on the TV the other day and I saw that and I said, what's that? Sesame Street? What's going on? That ain't Big Bird. That's Joe. And the only one that should be really walking around here with a mask is Jim Crow Joe. To catch all of that, you know what? That's coming out of his mouth. Because he ain't nothing but a liar. That's right. He don't have a plan. He don't have a clue. He don't have a solution. And if he ever get in that White House, he may press one of those buttons and think it's his life call button. That's right. I'm falling and I can't get it up. You all know it. Yes. And I'm not trying to be funny. I'm serious. That's right. We're very serious. I've watched him in action. We watched him. He got his whole face covered up. He don't want to be seen. Yeah. He want to hide in the basement. He come out of the basement. He wanted softball questions and then he run back in the basement. I don't want nobody leaving from the basement. I love President Donald J. Trump because he leave from the front. Yes. Well, that was the always exciting Diamond and Silk. Be sure to pick up their recent book that just came out, Uprising, Who the Hell Said You Can't Ditch and Switch? It was a great way to end what was an awesome event in western Pennsylvania with our friends Diamond and Silk. We hope that you enjoyed it. We hope that you will join us again on Friday at 3.30 p.m. for the next edition of CPAC Live.