[00:00:04] Broadcasting live from atop the Rocky Mountains, the crossroads of the West, you are listening to the Liberty Roundtable Radio Talk Show. I'm going to have you along, my fellow Americans, this interview after Star Studies interview, it doesn't get better than that at Liberty Fest. Liberty-minded Americans running around having the best time of their lives.
[00:00:32] I'm going straight from this event, Freedom Fest, or Freedom Fest, to Red Pill Expo right after this. So man, we've just got back-to-back Barnburner broadcasts for you, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for being with us. I've got two people with me. I've got the original Prince, first of all. Okay, Prince is dead, I know, but this guy outlasted the wannabe. Prince, welcome, sir. Thank you. Now, as far as I understand, you're a political strategist? Yes. Tell me what that means.
[00:00:59] So I've worked on numerous campaigns on all the Democratic, Republican, and Independent side. Last campaign I played a major role on was RFK Jr.'s campaign as New York State Director and Coalition Bullet, where I met great people like Mike Jermott and was able to go out and meet a lot of voters from all parts of the aisle, parts of the country, and get to explore the political spectrum and feel the divide that we are currently experiencing.
[00:01:28] All right, so I want to know, behind the scenes with Mike Termot, does he go to McDonald's all the time like Donald Trump? What's the deal? No. No? No. A fit man like him? No. All right, just wondering. Mike Jermott with us, ladies and gentlemen. He just announced at Freedom Fest. You want to do the announcement again?
[00:01:44] I would be happy to, because this is the place to make all important announcements. We have announced a two-year campaign to seek the Republican Party's nomination for vice president, which is to say something that's never been tried before, never been done before. So I can assure you this is going to be the best vice presidential campaign to seek the Republican Party's nomination.
[00:02:05] And the idea is that vice president should be independent, should be elected by delegates, should be selected by them as a representative republic that we are, not picked like a monarch, right? Right. That's well said. I don't even know why I'm here, Sam. That was so well said. They should be picked by the entire party, by the national delegates to the national convention in the summer of 2028. And we believe that to unify the Republican Party, we need someone from the liberty movement on that national ticket.
[00:02:36] And somebody that can think independent if we feel like the president's, you know, you got him for four years and then, hey, if he's good, it's eight years. And so it's a long time. We need someone to kind of a check and balance on that. Someone that can think for themselves and someone that can speak out and say, hold on. And we can have a rigorous discussion that seems to be shut down when the mainstream press is afraid of the president or vice versa. And so we need this open dialogue in America. That's the American way. But then we want to use representation.
[00:03:01] That's why delegates. So it doesn't go peer democracy on us, which we reject. It's a true constitutional republic. That's Mike's bid. And we've talked about that in the last interview that I did with Mike just yesterday. We'll be rolling these out kind of in series. So if you missed that one, go back and watch it. But this one, ladies and gentlemen, is about... But you just heard it. You just, it was so well said. I don't even know why I'm here. But it was a summary to tease the last episode for those who haven't seen it. But this one is about Mike's book, Broken. Is he broken, Prince? Is it Mike that's broken?
[00:03:31] We're all a little broken. We're all broken. I'll aim into that. We're trying to heal. The nation's broken is what we're talking about, right? Yes. All right. Tell me about it. Were you involved in the book? I was. It was a collaboration from a number of authors looking at different aspects of the broken city political environment that we live in today. From the political division, the social division, the personal divisions we have. You know, the last few elections, families have broken up, divorces have happened, friendships have fallen apart.
[00:03:59] And the nation's getting more polarized, more divided, to the point where if something doesn't change soon, things can get to a really rocky, terrifying place. And the book is meant to address that and provide solutions? Yes. It addresses it. It goes into the history of it, explores how we got here. It uncovers that this isn't the only time or even the first time this has happened. You know, we did have something called a civil war where about 4 or 5% of the U.S. population died.
[00:04:28] But we've healed and come out of these situations one at a time. And, you know, while things look bleak at the moment, it's not terminal. If we choose to make a change, if we choose to seek a solution together, we can come back together and solve this problem. You know why I think the book's broken, Mike? I want to hear it. Because you didn't have me write the foreword. I'm very worried about this. I'm just kidding. We did a book a couple years ago. We did this book a couple months ago. We will be doing another one.
[00:04:57] And I will be correcting that oversight. We're going to have Sam Bushman involved in the next one. And it's going to be rednecked. You're going to be like, I'm fixing to fix it. But Redneck Fix is going to be the name of the book. All right. So let's talk about Broken, though. You guys did a bunch of research for the book, right? We did. And we were very fortunate to get folks like Prince and another 10 authors or so to write essays.
[00:05:23] Prince Agrabah is, you know, the most important one, the best read, the easiest read, the one with the most solutions, the one with the most insight. But the other ones are good, too. Okay. The reason we did this is because we believe that if we don't fix the problems, right, if we don't address the broken nature of our politics, we're going to continue to get the bad policies that we've been getting. And that's going to lead to disaster in one of three ways. Or more than one of three ways.
[00:05:53] But the three big disasters. Because I'm sure to think of the fourth. The big three things that we're worried about is the federal government eventually defaulting on the national debt. Oh, that's not an event. Or that's not a maybe. That's an eventuality. That is an eventuality. If we don't change, right? We need to fix things or else that is coming. We could just print them a big piece of paper, though, that pays it all off. We could. But we're looking for something slightly more sophisticated. Number two. Okay. We're worried about our foreign policy.
[00:06:19] We get into wars so often that I worry that eventually we're going to get into something, how do I put this, over our head, from which we won't be able to extract ourselves. It's kind of like the ICE song that said, ICE, ICE, baby. We're going, peace, peace, baby. Peace. And number three, we worry about civil unrest. We worry about a period of time during which we might have rioting. You know, we had a lot of rioting in 2020. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. Everywhere I go, people riot.
[00:06:49] I have seen rioting. But it feels different in this day and age. It would not shock you. It might surprise you, but it wouldn't completely shock you if I were to say in the future we are running the risk that rioting will get out of hand. A state government or a federal government or both could overreact. You could imagine martial law.
[00:07:11] And you could imagine that the reaction of the populace would be to accelerate, to double down on the rioting rather than quell the rioting. And that's what we're afraid of getting out of hand. Well, parties are the cause. Founders warned about factions. And that's what we're really getting on steroids. Parties are part of the problem. Apathy is part of the problem. Tell me what role the media plays in your research.
[00:07:32] But we believe that the media has become bifurcated and then trifurcated and multiplicated, right, to align with political interests. They call that a cluster in other worlds, by the way. A cluster F. We believe that it has become aligned with politicians, aligned with political interests, rather than playing the role that it was intended to play, which is to hold a check.
[00:07:56] So each faction of the Republican Party, each faction of the Democratic Party, everyone has their favorite media, right? Nobody works across party lines to hold everybody accountable. I do. Come on now. Well, that is a good point. We need more folks like you who recognize that it's usually, not just occasionally, it's usually the case that both parties are playing an unhelpful role. Amen to that.
[00:08:23] The prince of strategy here, we talked about the media's involvement. I mentioned parties are part of the problem. I mentioned all kinds of—tell me the politicians' responsibility in this thing, sir. So, Shane, the Constitution, their responsibilities to the Constitution and to serve the people— Not to a bear-crap professional do-good or thug? Yeah. Surprisingly not. But now their sole job seems to be just to maintain power, gain more power.
[00:08:53] Go in poor, leave rich. And rich themselves. Exactly. Look at the last few presidents going in nearly broke, coming out 100 millionaires. That was not meant to be the case. Politics was not supposed to be a path to riches. It was supposed to be a public service serving the people.
[00:09:12] Now you have a system where politicians use taxpayer money to give to their allies, to have it funneled back to themselves and campaign donations or through NGOs or et cetera, feeding the national debt problem, feeding some of these other problems, and not trying to help solve the problems of the people. What you have is a bunch of politicians making false promises of, elect me now, and I'll solve your problem tomorrow. Oh, one more election. One more election.
[00:09:42] One more election. Ten more elections later, then we'll solve your problem. But the other guy's evil, though. So we're still better if we're not doing anything for you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you that it's broken because we always want to look to some bear-crap professional do-gooder as our Savior. And I'm here to tell you there's only one Savior, and he ain't a politician. It's Jesus Christ, ladies and gentlemen. That's just my opinion, to which I'm entitled. But let me ask you this, though. So the politician wants to get in there. They want to fix everything for us.
[00:10:09] But it seems like they really have the same agenda. They just have it, do it my way, not Prince's way. Or you say, do it your way, not Sam or Mike's way, or whatever. But at the end of the day, it's like we can do it. Why don't we do it the constitutional way? And what would it take for us to actually take the Constitution seriously? Because I'm convinced it's broken because we're not following the Constitution. That's my take. To some extent, yes. So what's interesting, we've all read about the chaos of the 60s.
[00:10:34] And there were reforms that happened in the 80s to help solve that called the Sunshine Reforms, which we get into in the book. And what's interesting was there were some things that were done with good intentions, like trying to have government openness and the primary process so that voters or grassroots could get more involved with the process of party bosses picking politicians. Unfortunately, there were unexpected consequences of that.
[00:11:02] When politicians aren't able to talk behind closed doors and compromise and have to speak publicly, people can use primaries to blast them for compromising, and that causes more polarization. Oh, you gave up too much in that compromise. You're not left enough. You're not right enough. Let's go more extreme.
[00:11:21] And so instead of having a Congress full of middle-of-the-road dealmakers, you have a Congress that's very extreme on both sides because anyone that isn't gets knocked out in the primary process. Then you have the media that feeds into that. You know, you don't have Walter Cronkite anymore.
[00:11:39] Now you have Fox News and MSNBC skewing and spinning narratives to fire people up, fuel anger, fuel hate, fuel fear, and essentially not hold anyone responsible for their actions.
[00:11:59] Just say the other person is more evil, you know, a Nazi, whatever else, fear them, vote for, you know, vote to me no matter what, vote red no matter what, which allows corruption to thrive and grow because no one's holding these people in check. Mike Termot, let me ask you this question. I disagree with the vitriol. I wrote an article back in 2016 called A Clarion Call for Civility. Yeah. For this very, you know, point. You need to publish that again, by the way. It's a book. It's about to be released. Thank you.
[00:12:27] So anyway, I digress except to say that my job is done here. I got you to publish the book over again. The only thing that brings fear more than that to me in any way is if we refuse to dialogue. Isn't that where we're almost getting? You know what? A conservative won't interview a liberal. A liberal won't come on with a conservative or vice versa or whatever to where we're not even talking at all. I agree with you, Sam. As a matter of fact, it's so bad that if you do go on someone's podcast who is perceived to be on the other side of a political debate,
[00:12:56] you can actually be criticized for it now. Not only does your party reward you for overlooking the opportunity, but they'll criticize you. They'll punish you for going on a podcast inside of another party or even inside of another fashion. Yeah. Do you know who Sammy Hagar is? Mm-hmm. So Sammy Hagar was a front man for Van Halen, just so everybody kind of knows. He's been a rocker forever. He's known as the Red Rocker. I can't drive 55. That's the guy. Yeah. I mean, I think he's a great guy.
[00:13:23] He has a bar called Cabo Wabo or whatever, and it's in Mexico. But he has another one here in Vegas that I'm going to go to here later. Really? But anyway, I bring all this up because he was in the news recently, and here's what happened. Many performers said they wouldn't perform for Trump's 250. They just rejected it because of the Donald. Yep. And he got a firestorm against him for being willing to perform. Yep. And instead of cucking and wimping out, Sammy just stood up and said, hey, man, I'm performing for 250.
[00:13:53] This is not about Trump. Yep. This is about our great country, and I'm doing it. Yep. I'm going to his bar, and I'm going to his restaurant to go there and thank them because he stood tall, and we need more of that, sir. I agree wholeheartedly, and it took some guts. I think that is the right attitude. And it is true to cast a little bit of sympathy for those who may have decided otherwise. I get how complicated it is, right? You're going to get punished by people, but that's why it takes some courage.
[00:14:23] And I'm just saying, throw down for America, people. Come on now. And I also appreciate the fact that we as Republicans, frequently members of our party, contribute to the problem, too. I'm not just laying this all at the feet of the Democrats. That's right. You know, we have said things that have made people feel like they can't participate in events in which we're participating. So sometimes we're part of the problem, as we say. Yes, sir. So everyone has to take responsibility for their actions. All right. Yes, sir. Oh, it's interesting, too.
[00:14:52] Once upon a time, we actually at least had respect for the office, for example. You know, you go back to 1980s. You know, the liberals really hated Ronald Reagan, but at the end of the day, he was president. And when he had an event, you know, you'd have Robin Williams and other celebrities. They weren't in protest. You know, they had respect for the office of the presidency and the government of the United States of America. That's eroded significantly over the last 40 years to the point where it doesn't matter who's in the office, whether it's Biden or Trump, it's our team or the enemy.
[00:15:22] And, you know, we don't have that unifying force that everyone looks towards saying, look, we're all Americans. This is who we are. This represents all of us. It's not our president. That's not our president. This is our president. And we need to get back to the point where we at least accept some level of unity, the Constitution and what it stands for. It starts individually as a clarion call for civility, ladies and gentlemen. So, Mike, we all agree with you. It's broken. Great book. Where do we get it?
[00:15:52] You can get the book in a couple different ways. You go to Amazon and, you know, just Google and go to Amazon and search. It's called Broken. You can also, you might have to, you know, there has been a book in the distant past, less interesting, of course, with similar names. So you got to sort your way through that. But, you know, that's fine. You can search by Prince's name or by my name. You can also go to our website, which is arguably slightly easier, although sometimes harder to spell.
[00:16:20] Well, you can go to MikeTermott.com if you can spell Termott correctly, T-E-R-M-A-A-T. And you'll find not only how to acquire this book, you'll find something about the book so you can decide if you want it or not. We've done books in the past. You can check that out and check out everything that we're doing. You can check out the campaign and learn all kinds of things. So we encourage people to go there. And do you have the original Prince.com or no? I do not. All right. You got to fix that, bro. Come on.
[00:16:50] All right. So Broken is the name of the book. And we all agree that it's broken. Is this book full of solutions, though? Like, what can I do about it? I appreciate that it's broken. I agree. But you know what? Unless you can empower me. It's going to be a problem. It's going to be a challenge. No one is going to suggest this is easy. He points out that the incentive structure that we have in place
[00:17:19] is really a root cause of the broken nature of our politics currently. And so that we need to address that. And that's a bit of a culture shift. He did correctly point out just a few minutes ago that we need to get to a point where we can respect other Americans. And if I can just add to that, I believe that we need to replace our current political narrative, which is your identity as a Democrat, your identity as a Republican.
[00:17:49] We need to get back to a place where your identity is as an American. We have to be more proud of our American heritage wherever you're from, right? We're very, you know, pro-nation that's pro-immigrant, pro-multiculturalism. But pro-legal immigrant. Legal, thank you, man. And we've got to work on making that a bigger door. We've got to slam that illegal door, but we've got to make the legal door bigger. We've got to give people a chance and an opportunity they don't have to wait forever
[00:18:19] if they want to dot all the I's and cross all the T's and they really want to be an American. Let's make it happen. I wrote an immigration plan called the Justice Mercy Immigration Plan. Yep. And it's justice for thugs and criminals. You've got to put them in jail. You've got to stop them. You've got to kick them out of the country. Sometimes people've got to go to jail, Sam. Okay, but then the mercy plan says, you know what, if you just want a better life, we're not here to be your enemy. Let's make it happen. And then we can take both ends and we know what to do. Then we can work towards the middle when it gets harder. We can do that together. Come on now. And we can be proud of that as Americans
[00:18:47] because there's no other nation on this planet that is as tolerant culturally, ethnically, racially toward each other. We need to recognize that about ourselves, own it, lean into it, and be as American as we can be. Amen. Final word to you, Prince. I absolutely agree. You know, Ronald Reagan talks about how you can go to Japan, but you won't really be a Japanese, or you can go to France, but you won't really be a Frenchman, but you come into America and you can be an American.
[00:19:16] But, you know, we need to accept that there's some things. That eats French fries and drives a Japanese car, right? All right. But, you know, that's the thing about being American. You know, we need to move away from the concept of, you know, I'm an Asian American or I'm an African American or I'm a white American. We need to become American and just American and accept the idea that unifies us. Thank you, Prince. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time, sir. Thank you, Mike. Good to be with you, Mike. Mike Termot, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. The book is called Broken.
[00:19:45] Get it on Amazon or go to MikeTermot.com. And just look for the word broken and then you got to make sure. How do they know they got the right one? They don't got the old one. Because I have Mike Termot as the editor and Prince Agrabah as one of the essay authors. All right. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Sam Bushman. This is Liberty Roundtable Live. God save our constitutional republic.