Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz

What is the plan? What will change? Republicans are squandering this trifecta with the same issues, the same approach to legislating, and the same loser arguments. Today, I broach the need to shoot down bad ideas from the administration and not take a “wait and see” approach after it’s already too late. We’re joined by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), one of the Freedom Caucus members who penned a letter to the speaker demanding that we up our game on budget reconciliation. Burlison makes the case for reorienting the focus of the reconciliation bill toward transformational spending cuts. He is constantly thinking of ideas to fulfill the mandate rather than producing corny videos on social media like some of his colleagues. He also believes that health care reform needs to be part of the discussion. His plan is to negotiate directly with Trump rather than with Johnson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Given that Republicans have made it clear they will not fight on appropriations bills, debt ceilings, or reauthorization bills, it leaves us with budget reconciliation as their only opportunity for create enduring change. Today, I lay out the case for a course correction against the existing plans from Trump, Johnson, and Thune. The focus is too centered on taxes and things that can be done executively. The focus needs to shift to spending cuts and downsizing of government. As always, I offer my idea of what I would do for budget reconciliation and how I would message it around immigration cuts and welfare reform. If we fail to establish enduring victories in Washington or in the red states, we will be on the hook for devastation when Democrats inevitably come back into power. Moreover, regardless of the Democrats, the crushing cost of living will continue.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is the dangerous premise that somehow Trump needs a ton of border funding in order to enforce the laws. We’re joined today by the inimitable Jessica Vaughan, who explains that interior enforcement is key and all of that can be done with enforcement of the laws. We discuss a full array of policies Trump can implement to target illegal employment, tax incentives, and identity theft, as well as using expedited removal and state and local law enforcement. We also discuss all the ways visa programs are fleecing Americans – from the foreign student pipeline to the cheap labor worker visas. There is a lot that Trump can do to root out the corruption from these programs and even temporarily halt them under inherent sovereign authority over foreign affairs.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our inaugural episode of 2025, I review our concerns about where Trump and Elon are headed both with spending and with immigration. Those were the two core mandate issues of the election, yet on both of them Trump is reversing course. I lay out a very specific plan for Trump to fulfill his mandate by passing the RAISE Act to restrict all low-skilled immigration before we have any debate about increasing other categories. Trump needs to get back to making the moral and cultural case against mass immigration. I also lay out strategies for budget reconciliation and why it’s important to force concessions from Speaker Johnson before handing him the gavel. We cannot simply be listless vessels allowing Trump to drift and pull everyone to the left. The mandate is huge, the opportunity is real, but unless we change course, we will toss a political interception. Finally, I introduce a new fun segment to deal with the listless vessels who make sudden "retarded" arguments they never believed.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s special 2024 grand finale, we cover the gamut of topics. I begin by launching truth bombs about the budget and debt ceiling fight. We cannot survive if we tether our beliefs 100% to one man, all day, all the time. I dispel myths about the history of the debt ceiling and the history of the past 15 years of budget fights. Next, we’re joined by an all-star panel of hero doctors from the COVID era to discuss the future agenda of the medical freedom movement. We engage in a wide-ranging discussion with Drs. Lynn Fynn, Kat Lindley, and Mary Bowden about what RFK Jr. needs to accomplish at HHS. They warn about the shedding of respiratory viral vaccines, the need to terminate COVID, RSV, and mRNA shots, and how to restore medical ethics at the state level. We also discuss how to fix health care delivery at the retail level to empower independent, smart, and ethical doctors like those on our panel today. Finally, I close out the year with my parting message.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yesterday was one of the greatest days in the history of conservative media. Finally, we had everyone united behind blowing up a bad budget bill. Sadly, Trump came in and tossed an interception by demanding an even worse bill with no spending offsets and suspending the debt limit. I make the case for why that is a terrible idea and why it is a harbinger of things to come with spending in general and other issues in particular. We’re joined by Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison to discuss his ideas to push for enduring spending cuts. He is proposing to devolve the debt limit authority to state legislatures. This is a brilliant idea and the sort of innovative thinking that the base must demand from Trump.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin today by going through the omnibus bill and noting how conservative media close to Trump are missing an opportunity to get the big man in the right headspace. We saw this betrayal coming a mile away, yet we have failed to direct Trump’s attention to it. If we are going to improve things from Trump’s first term, the way he interacts with Congress must change. Next, we tackle the drone swarm issue with special guest George Hill. A former Marine, Hill served as the National Security Intelligence supervisor for the Boston office of the NSA and has a lot of important insights on the drone situation. Hill believes that the most likely scenario is that our military contractors are ops-testing our own security vulnerabilities in the era of drone warfare. In that case, the drones would thankfully be innocuous, but he believes the problem is that we just can’t trust our government. Hill reminds us that to this day, we don’t know why our government would purposely allow China to surveil us with balloons two years ago, and there are no innocent explanations. As part of that trust issue, Hill also explains that there is a pattern of behavior where our government allows adversaries to get away with harmful activity. He believes we could easily end the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea with a single torpedo, yet it’s not done.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Johnson is betraying us with more spending even before Trump takes office. I explain why we need a fight over the speakership, but that will not happen unless we get Trump to change his legislative focus. Likewise, we are having similar problems in the red states. We’re joined today by state Rep. Jordan Pace, chairman of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, to discuss everything that is wrong with the state party. Under the leadership of Speaker Murrell Smith, Democrats have been given key subcommittee chairs. Pace explains with painstaking detail the subterfuge GOP leaders use to advance the Democrat agenda without transparency. They have a corrupt process of picking judges, which often results in placing liberals on the bench. Moreover, they continue promoting biomedical tyranny, pushing socially liberal policies, and handing over state lands to the green grift. In South Carolina and elsewhere, unless we support the Freedom Caucus members, the GOP will continue promoting Democrat policies without the Democrats owning the consequences.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin today by observing how the GOP has become the gay old party where you cannot get confirmed to the Pentagon without supporting gay marriage and women in combat. Next, I tackle a vitally important issue that is festering within Trump world. Trump is promising to sell off federal land and build “freedom cities,” which are nothing more than 15-minute cities. I explain how Doug Burgum and the tech bros who are pushing urbanization of red states will be behind this plan, and it will result in turning red states blue. The better idea is to create a new homesteading act, which would work to re-ruralize America by parceling out homesteads, which will attract more conservatives to live in those areas. I also explain how this idea is built upon the erroneous premise that the source of the housing crisis is due to a lack of housing supply and zoning laws. In fact, we need zoning laws to protect against overdevelopment. The source of the housing crisis is a mix of debt-driven inflation, Federal Reserve monetary policies, farm bills, energy policies, and universal homeownership subsidies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we continue our discussion of how to pin down Republicans and conservative media to commit to specific goals. They are all in agreement about abstract ideas, but then when it comes to the specific issues and leverage points that will determine the outcome, they fall apart. I list a number of fault lines that reveal who is real and discuss the need to lay down those markers before the trifecta GOP control begins. I do this by reading through the transcript of Trump’s Time magazine article to identify some concerning messaging points. Things like actual spending cuts of entire programs, legal immigration, and some social issues are concerning, and we need to get ahead of them. As always, rather than just criticizing the status quo, I offer up what I would pitch to Trump in the Oval Office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices