ICE Out Protests: Public School Teachers Organized the Student Walkouts | Ashley Hayek

[00:00:00] Ashley Hayek is a mom of five, an activist, and the president of America First Works. She's my very special guest today, and I think you're going to love learning more about what America First Works and America First Policy Institute are doing. I'm Jenny Beth Martin, and this is The Jenny Beth Show.

[00:00:30] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Ashley Hayek, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be with you. So, Ashley, tell everyone a little bit about what you're doing with America First Works. Sure. So, as you know, I'm the president of America First Works, which is the political arm of the America First Policy Institute.

[00:00:55] And it's really an exciting time. In 2024, we had a big piece of the ground game in order to bank votes going into Election Day to help support the president as well as turnout voters on Election Day. So, what we're doing for 2026 really isn't that different. We're focusing on states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, even south of Texas, looking at those House seats.

[00:01:18] And one thing that I think is really important to keep in mind is there have only been four times in the past 100 years that the president's party has gained seats in the House. And so, while we know that this is going to be a really big task, that the stats are against us, the odds are against us, the reality is we do have a president who tends to make history. And so, I think this is such an important time. And it is, you know, there's so much hope.

[00:01:44] And we see that the president has delivered on so many of his promises that we're going to get that message to the voters and hopefully turn them all out for Election Day in 2026. And what is your background, Ashley? How did you wind up at America First Works and what did you do before? Sure. So, actually, I'm from the, I'll say, the People's Republic of California. I did political nonprofit work in California. And then in 2019, I was recruited to go join the Trump campaign.

[00:02:12] And so, I started as the executive director of Women for Trump and then eventually became the national coalition's director. And we had over 45 different coalitions from Women for Trump, Black Voices for Trump, Latinos for Trump, etc. And it was such an honor to be able to be a part of that team. After that election ended, the campaign ended, I did a little bit of work, a bus tour for the Georgia election. And then I met Brooke Rollins and Linda McMahon.

[00:02:40] And I was one of the day one team members of the America First Policy Institute.

[00:02:45] And I have to tell you, Jenny Beth, like, if you look at the history of AFPI and where we've come from and the fact that you have women like Linda and Brooke, now Secretary McMahon and Secretary Rollins and Larry Kudlow, who at a time, people said the America First movement was dead, that it was over, that they were willing to lean in, to double down and to help, you know, move this movement forward is really a testament to the type of people that they are.

[00:03:12] My meeting with Brooke Rollins was on January 7th of 2021. I thought there's no way this woman is going to take this meeting. And she did. And we talked about what the future is going to look like, especially when things are so dark. And now it's been about five years since AFPI has existed. We have about 100 members that are serving or have served in this new administration. And then in 2021, late 2021, I started America First Works with Secretary Rollins.

[00:03:42] And the idea was how do we advocate? How do we fight, you know, on the ground for those America First policies? And Jenny Beth, you've done so much of this and you're such a hero at this that I really look to you for your mentorship on a lot of this. How do you mobilize people to support important causes that have such great impacts on our life? So it's been such a wild ride.

[00:04:03] It's very fun to be able to be a part of this and to support the president's agenda and to make sure that we are codifying those policies, not just at the federal level, but at the state level and even the city level as well. Yeah, it is so important that we codify it. The things that can be done with an executive order can be undone with an executive order. And the fact that you are working not just at the federal level, but at the state and even local area to codify it is very, very important.

[00:04:30] Tell people a little bit about Brooke Rollins and Linda McMahon. They're awesome. They are absolutely wonderful women. Brooke is very much a visionary and big ideas and just such a faithful woman. She has four children. And when I was working on the campaign at that time, I had four and I have five kids.

[00:04:54] But I just really looked up to her and just, you know, what a dynamic person she is and just has God and family and country just in everything that she does. And so she's been such an incredible leader for AFPI and now at the Department of Agriculture doing a great job there. And then Linda McMahon is the most unassuming rock star you could ever know and just, you know, fight.

[00:05:23] There are a million things that this woman could be doing. She's, you know, co-founded the WWE with her husband and built that business from scratch and is extremely successful. And most people could very easily go to an island and take a vacation and, you know, call it in. And she doesn't. She shows up every day fighting for our country, fighting for the president, fighting for parents now as secretary of education. And I'm just so impressed by the two of them. They're wonderful people. And we're so proud that they are our founders.

[00:05:53] Yeah, they really are incredible people. I've known Brooke for many years and she is always so pleasant to, at least every interaction I've ever had with her, she's so pleasant to work with. And when I've come to her and said, hey, I'm having such and such challenge and I could really use help getting people together or whatever it might be. She gets what I'm trying to do and always steps up and lends a hand.

[00:06:20] And I appreciate her so very much. I don't know Linda as well. What I do know is that I'm watching what she's doing in the Department of Education. And I think it is absolutely amazing. She's trying to get rid of fraud. She's trying to make sure education is happening and that it's not just indoctrination. And she's looking at ways to take things out of the federal government control and put it back into the state and local government so education is closer to home.

[00:06:47] So we tease with her, like who thought that shutting down the Department of Education would be the easiest job in the administration. But she has done such a remarkable job on communicating what that means. AFPI actually created a America 250 civics task force with Katie Gorka, who leads that, have traveled across the country with Secretary McMahon, building a coalition of different groups to advance like civics education specifically.

[00:07:15] And it's just really remarkable. And what's also interesting is there's so much misinformation about this administration. There's so much fake news, if you will, that's, you know, disseminated to the American people. You don't really know the truth. And there are so many times where you think, well, why doesn't the Department of Education handle this? Well, there's actually a lot. There's more that they don't do than what they do do. So it doesn't really make sense for them to exist.

[00:07:40] And once you actually get into the details, you realize why the job she's doing is so important is that people can actually get what they need. It's like a sponge. If everything's at the top and it never gets down to the kid, what's the point? And so I just think what she's doing is remarkable. And she does it with such grace in class. She really does. Can you elaborate on what the civics task force does? Yeah, so they have done a whole tour across the country.

[00:08:03] They have convened a bunch of different groups, including Turning Point, I believe Heritage Foundation, several others, and just talking about getting education, America's history right. And if you think about the narrative that has been put forth with telling our kids how they should feel about America rather than the true history of America, it's a disservice to our country.

[00:08:28] And so that is what the civics task force is really focused on doing is how do we bring forth the true history of America, especially this year as we celebrate our 250th birthday. And they've done a remarkable job doing that. I think that's so important. When my kids were going through public school, one of the things that bothered me is that I would see in their history books and social studies books,

[00:08:53] they would show a chart and that chart would have capitalism and socialism and fascism and other forms of government all in the chart. And it would just sort of list different characteristics and have check marks by it. And it makes it seem like it is that any is OK. You could have socialism. You could have Marxism. You could have capitalism or our republic. It's all OK. They're equal.

[00:09:23] Just some have some benefits. Others have other benefits. And it's not teaching history. It's not teaching the facts. And it is doing exactly what you just said. It's it's it's showing it's sending a message through emotions rather than explaining the facts. Right. And then our kids don't understand why America is America or anything about our founding or the beauty of it, of this great experiment that, you know, is it perfect? No.

[00:09:53] Is it exceptional? Absolutely. Are we the greatest country in the world? Yes. Should we be proud of that? Yes. I think there's no greater moment than when you go when you look at the World Cup games. Right. And you see everybody united around a team. And that's just I think how we should be as a country is we should be on the same team cheering for the same thing. And instead, we've gotten to a place where it's very dark and it's very divided.

[00:10:16] And when you see, you know, the establishment media, the legacy media cheering and hoping that our president fails and actually fueling that, it's a huge disservice to the country and to our kids. Yes, it absolutely is a huge disservice to our country when that happens. I'm very grateful that Linda McMahon is working on this through the Civics Task Force and that she is working to help improve education.

[00:10:44] Going back to what you said that you're working on for this election cycle, you're focusing on different House seats. And you said that I and I agree with this completely. You said that there have only been four times in the last 100 years where the president's party has actually gained seats in a midterm election. And the odds are definitely stacked against us.

[00:11:10] Yet President Trump has defied history throughout his entire presidency. So if any president can defy history again with the midterm elections is this one. What are you doing exactly as you're you're looking at the House seats? So we have teams on the ground in these target House seats across the country that are going door to door, encouraging folks to vote. Now, we started this in March of this year in the presidential cycle.

[00:11:39] We started in June of the election year. We wanted to start earlier because we realized it's important to make sure we get the message out. You know, there's a lot of negative negativity about the president and the administration and his policies. Ninety two percent of the media is negative about the president and the administration's policies. Most people don't even know what's going on because it's not even covered in the press. You wouldn't know that, you know, prescription prices have dropped drastically.

[00:12:05] You wouldn't know about the great wins of school choice and the one big beautiful bill. You don't know those things because that's not what the media decides to cover. And so we have been sharing the good news of the administration for quite some time. The other thing that's really important is we've done a number of different, you know, message tests to just understand, really understand the American voter. And what we found is when they do understand and when they do hear about the great policies and the work this administration is doing, they're more likely to vote.

[00:12:33] And that is my theory as to why the left, the fake news propaganda wants to shut down the good news is because they know it suppresses our vote. And they want to make sure that we are held back. The president cannot be successful. I'll just say this. If you look beyond 2026, there are two paths this country can take. Number one, we can continue to work hard to bring back jobs, to continue to work on our health care system, to make things affordable and not even affordable.

[00:13:03] The president has made it clear he wants he wants America to be prosperous for the American people. Or we can go down a path where we lose the House and we are faced with nothing but impeachments, political showmanship, obstruction and just complete steps backwards and degradation of, you know, everything we've worked so hard for.

[00:13:22] So my thought is give the president a chance, give him the tools that he needs, give him a few more seats in majority so we don't have those folks like Thomas Massey or Tom Tillis who are constant obstructionists holding back the America First agenda. Give him the seats that he needs to accomplish the America First agenda and let's get this done. Otherwise, it will be nothing but political theater for the next two years. Yes, I think that is exactly right.

[00:13:50] And I think also if you voted for President Trump in 2024 and you understand that even if things aren't happening as quickly as you want them to happen, things are better now than they were under President Biden and the previous administration in those four years.

[00:14:09] If you don't get back out and vote and vote for the conservatives and the MAGA side to continue to control the House and continue to control the Senate, then you canceled your vote. The vote in 2024 really didn't matter because everything that has been accomplished right now will either come to a complete and total grinding halt or it will be undone.

[00:14:33] That's exactly right. And the other piece of this is the people you will be putting into office by not voting, like by not not voting is almost worse. In many cases, you we have to get folks to show up to vote. The people that will be put in these offices are the extreme of the extreme. They are born of the Democrat Socialists of America, of the working party for it's like the working party family or working family party.

[00:15:01] There's a party of socialism and liberation. They're all cut from the same cloth. And what we are seeing is like especially the DSA candidates, they're using the Democrat Party as a vehicle to advance their extreme left wing causes. I mean, if you thought defund the police was bad, if you thought the government control over your children undermining your parental rights was bad, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[00:15:25] They want to abolish everything. And the threat to our society, to our democracy, as we know it, is truly at stake. You look at the Tallarico, you look at, you know, the race in Michigan, like these are far left radicals, people who said maybe America deserved 9-11. The fact that there are people who actually hate our country so much that would wish that death and destruction upon our beautiful country is absolutely revolting. And it's terrifying to think what would happen if enough of them were in office.

[00:15:52] I want to be very clear. The DSA, they have over 120,000 dues paying members. They have elected over 250 elected officials in 2025 alone. This is a growing movement and it is frightening the amount of destruction, anti-capitalist, you know, thoughts, movement policies that they have. And what they want to do is ultimately destroy America as we know it today. They do. They don't want to keep our constitutional republic. They don't want to keep our constitution.

[00:16:21] When they say things like, well, we need to abolish the Senate and abolish, abolish the Senate, abolish the Supreme Court or pack the Supreme Court. They want to change the presidency or get rid of the presidency and make it report to Congress. So the three branches of government and one of the branches divided into two, they want to consolidate all power into one branch of government.

[00:16:46] Then they want to abolish the police, abolish immigration enforcement, abolish prison. So people who have been in prison for for vicious, violent crime, they they are willing to just let back on the streets. That is not helpful for society at all. And in the end, of course, they want to raise taxes. They want more government control.

[00:17:12] If you didn't like lockdowns when you were experiencing that in 2020 and 21 and 22, what they will do when it comes to government control will make the lockdowns look like child's play. And they really and truly do want when you want to abolish two full branches of our government plus half of the other one. That is basically saying you want to abolish our government and replace it. And that's what they want.

[00:17:41] They want to completely change the entire way that America governs its itself. Yeah, that's 100 percent correct. And that's what is on the ballot. And these are people who I mean, the AOC is Rashida Tlaib. They have those articles of impeachment drafted up, ready to go.

[00:18:01] And it's it's actually really sad to think what could happen if these people are given any sort of authority and are able to expand their footprint in our government because they don't love America and they don't want what's best for for her. And so we need to make sure that we protect that at all costs. When we look at the midterm election, there's a couple of things that are very concerning. Number one, those no and low propensity voters. These are people who, you know, don't vote frequently, maybe every four years. They drop over about 37 percent.

[00:18:31] So in midterm elections. So people who are already disengaged, disengage a little bit more. The other thing that we have found is that folks that are religious, they tend to opt out as well. Those votes drop about 30 percent in midterm elections. So people of faith, if you're involved in your community, your religious liberty, your religious freedom is on the line. We're seeing this across the country, just the attack on Christianity and faith.

[00:18:55] And so to be able to have that block of voters go out and vote and support the president to support the congressional members is going to be absolutely critical from a turnout perspective. Seniors go up about 17 percent. Gun owners drop about 17 percent. Gun owners, it was like 44,000 or 70,000 didn't vote in Wisconsin in the 2020 election. We only lost the state by 40,000 or so. You'd have to check my numbers. I'm doing this off the top of my head.

[00:19:22] However, the amount of folks that sat home would have made up for the state in 2020. We were able to work with groups like Hunter Nation in 2024 and that were able to close that gap. And so that's what we have to do. We need to find these folks and make sure that they are showing up on election day, banking the votes early and making sure the America First movement is healthy going into 2027. Because the day after that midterm election, all eyes will be on the presidential race of 2028.

[00:19:48] Yeah, I think that even before the end of polling closes, the media is going to be talking about the 2028 election on election day. I mean, they're already doing it right now, but it will be in full gear. There will be no break in between the two. So what is it that you are finding works when you're trying to talk to voters and explain to them?

[00:20:13] You said that when they understand what has been happening in America and the good things that have been happening, they are more likely to go and vote. What is it that how are they responding and what are they responding to exactly? Exactly. So most of the time we'll start out with, you know, did you know over 90 percent of the media is negative against the president?

[00:20:37] And then we'll just go into a series of policy wins and just talking about the great things that the administration has done, whether it is health care, you know, parental rights, the news of the day of that week, you know, to be able to have a conversation. And once people hear the good news and they can go and verify it on the White House website or through AFPI research or other organizations, other news sites, adjust the news, whatever.

[00:21:05] They're able to, you know, have a good sense of of the wins of the administration, if you will. And they're they're excited to continue to support the president. I mean, let's just go back for a second. The left wants you to feel if you're a conservative alone, they will cast you as racist or bigoted or the idea behind this negativity is to suppress our votes.

[00:21:28] And so if we're able to deliver the good news of why it's OK to support this administration, why you should be proud to support this administration to build up that excitement, it helps significantly. And so that's what we're that's what we're doing. And the reception is overwhelmingly positive. We've also created social media groups that people can join and get updated information about things that the administration is doing. And those seem to be working quite well to continue to get good information, good news out about the administration.

[00:21:57] That's so important to make sure that they understand how to communicate it and that the activists know how to communicate it and then that they are able to go and and do that work and communicate it to the voters.

[00:22:12] So when you talk about going to look at just the news and AFPI and the White House for things that have happened and the facts that have happened, what are the kind of things that people can find at AFPI research and what kind of research have you done that that would be interesting to people? Sure. So on AFPI, we have a message and data lab and every day we put out talking points on the top three policy issues of the day.

[00:22:39] And so those are all based on fact research, you know, information that our policy experts put together. So you can sign up for that to receive those in your email every day or you can go to the website and find those there. We also do deeper dives on different topics. We are in the middle of one on adoption, for example. So we'll soon be releasing some information about the impact of adoption. We've done things on we'll be we'll have released already.

[00:23:05] Sorry, we released already USMCA and what that looks like different pulling on different issues that matter to to folks who you can go through and navigate the website to find whether it's economy, energy, AI, you know, parental rights, education. There's something for everyone. We are also gearing up for the 2027 legislative session. So there's going to be a lot of important bills that we're going to be looking at across the spectrum in the states.

[00:23:34] We have a presence in about 27 states and we also have 10 state chapters. So if you're involved in your state, you want to be more involved in the state legislative process. There's definitely a place for people to get more involved. That's the ultimate grassroots, I think, playground for people who are just getting started in political work or policy work. It's a lot of fun. One of the coolest things I think that we have on our website is we have a tax cuts calculator. So you can go on.

[00:24:04] You could look at your congressional district. You can look at your state. You can see the amount of savings that you had because of the one big beautiful bill or the working family tax cuts. And you can scroll over different congressional districts. You can look at different states. That really provides a good perspective of how much money people are saving because of that policy, thanks to the House and Senate as well as the president. So really exciting information, a lot of great facts and some good calls to action as well. That's wonderful, Ashley.

[00:24:32] When you talked about AI, you mentioned AI and energy. And one of the things that seems to be popping up this election cycle ties to data centers. What are you finding about AI? What does your research show? So I'll kind of step back and just talk about this from a narrative outside perspective. There was an article earlier this year that talked about how the left is losing.

[00:24:59] And one way that they can actually win is by focusing on issues like AI and data centers. And one thing that I will say is that the left is using AI and data centers as a complete wedge issue to tear apart our side and to try and create a differentiation between the two parties. Although there are many other things to create differentiations about as well. There's a lot of lies that are perpetuated around data centers.

[00:25:28] For example, the argument of water. And AFPI did release some research that showed that the water myth that they use up too much water is actually false. And so our job is to make sure that we have all of the information, that it's transparent before we make decisions. When it comes to AI, the biggest thing I think about, there's two things actually. Number one, Mike Balkender, who's one of our economists and our chair of our prosperity initiative here at AFPI, he made a really good point. He said, can you imagine if China won the internet war?

[00:25:57] And that's terrifying to think about. America cannot lose the AI war. Can we do it responsibly? Can we do it economically? Can we do it in a way that makes sense? Can we do it in a way that makes us exceptional? Yeah, we can. And we need to. We cannot allow China to win the AI war. That's number one. Number two, Linda McMahon in a town hall a couple months ago had made the comment that when we were little kids, we would throw paper airplanes and now kids are playing with drones. We are in a different time.

[00:26:26] And I thought that was such a perfect illustration of where we were and where we are today. You may not realize it. Parents may not realize it. But our kids engage with AI, you know, 60% of the time, 60% of the content online that they're engaging with has some form of AI. And so AFPI did a research paper on that usage as well. And it's something that we should understand and, you know, be forward leaning instead of trying to say we're going to shut it all down. It's the wrong approach and it doesn't work.

[00:26:55] So how do we find solutions that work, that are responsible, but still allows us to excel and be the best in the world? Yes, I think it's extremely, extremely important that we find a way to do that. And I think that AI scares, it just scares people because they don't understand it. They don't know how to use it. They're afraid that their job is going to go away or there's going to be some sort of, they're going to be displaced in some way.

[00:27:23] So you have that at a very personal financial level for people. Then you also have people who are upset because they just don't want it in their backyard or they don't want it in their community. And some of it is because of the myths that you were just talking about. They think it's going to destroy the water or it's going to take up energy and prevent their community from having the right kind of energy. I think those can be overcome with facts.

[00:27:51] And then the AI companies and the local governments and the state governments have to find a way to balance what they're doing, the expansion that they're doing with the local interest of the community. Because if the local government doesn't find a way to balance that, they're going to get voted out of office. So there has to be a balance there.

[00:28:18] And I don't think that the local governments were prepared for this kind of backlash that we're seeing. And I can understand, I can put myself in the shoes of the people who live in a much more rural community and understand their concerns. But I think that their concerns can be addressed. And we still can make sure that we beat China, that we preserve property rights, and that we are doing what is in the best interest of the country.

[00:28:47] You bring up a couple of really good points. First of all, I think it was Ronald Reagan who said, you know, the last thing you want to hear is, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Which is why it's really important for organizations like AFPI to produce the research and the creative solutions to address, you know, some of these really important issues of our time. And that's what we're committed to doing. The other piece on the rural side, well, if you go back to the previous administration, I mean, I have to acknowledge the fact that, yeah, I think Americans are scared.

[00:29:17] They're worried. You have an administration that shut down our pipelines, that offshored all of our jobs, that decimated our economy. So, of course, like we have to recognize that people are worried and that they are fearful of what, you know, a big change could look like. And it's their right to feel that way. And I want to acknowledge that. However, we have a president who has shown that I'm going to open up the pipelines. I'm going to make America energy independent again.

[00:29:44] I'm going to bring in millions of jobs and bring those jobs back to the United States. And what my understanding is, is now due to all the manufacturing jobs that are coming back, we're going to have a shortage of workers. And so we're going to need more workers. If you go back to the argument when the Internet was coming about, people were so afraid about the Internet's going to take over everything. But it actually just improved our lives and made it better and made us more productive. So, yes, there are guardrails that we have to acknowledge.

[00:30:13] Yes, we don't want AI to, you know, take away morals, values, individualism, you know, human dignity, people. However, we also want to make sure that they make us a more efficient, productive society. And how do we do that in a way that is done correctly? And that's so incredibly important that we get this right. And I think we have the right president at the right time to do this with the great people around him. And absolutely, we should hold tech companies accountable. We see what happens when they have, you know, this long leash. We saw what happened with censorship.

[00:30:42] We saw what happened with misinformation. And so we absolutely should be making sure folks are held accountable. You look at what happened with the Anthropic, by the way, thinking that they should have a say in our secretary of war job in order to bring peace or to be able to fulfill his job with our defense system. So, of course, there has to be a very holistic examination about how all of this works together. But it's something that we can't accomplish.

[00:31:10] The last point that I want to make is I find it completely, absolutely hypocritical of the left who is stomping their feet and crying about data centers in rural communities and trying to make this their issue. When they literally took farms from people to put up wind farms, you don't have a leg to stand on. You don't get to talk about this righteousness when you literally took farmland and you put solar farms on that property instead.

[00:31:36] So as far as I'm concerned, the left can eat their words on that one and on all of the data centers. Republicans are the ones that want capitalism, that want property rights, that want to support, you know, our farmers in rural America. And the left has no leg to stand on on this issue whatsoever. Those are very good points, Ashley. So you also have a report about the research behind who is with ICE out. What have you learned from that?

[00:32:04] And explain what ICE out is. Remind people what that is. So I had an opportunity to get a very close inside look at our Department of Justice in late 2025 and early 2026. And one of the things that I found to be so interesting was all of the ICE out protests that we were seeing. And sometimes it's ICE out and sometimes it is the No Kings rallies. They come in different shapes and forms. And so I wanted to get a better understanding of, you know, are these really organic?

[00:32:34] Who's actually behind these protests against the administration and against deporting illegal criminal aliens? And so we have a team that started digging into this. And we initially found that this is a recruitment effort. One of the big groups that is behind this is called the Sunrise Movement. And a woman by the name of Aru Ajay is leading this movement. They're the same group that did the ground game for Mondami in New York.

[00:33:03] They're on the ground in Minnesota. They support the DSA and the PSL candidates. And they receive a lot of foreign funding. There are videos of this woman going down to Cuba and Venezuela supporting the Castro-Modero regimes. And so this is very much a foreign-influenced effort to undermine our law enforcement in the states.

[00:33:27] And so what was interesting was as I was starting to dig into this, they recruit especially young people around issues like being pro-Palestine, anti-capitalism, environmentalism, and of course anti-IS. All of it, you know, put together to be anti-President Trump and his administration. My daughter, who goes to a private school, received a flyer for an ICE-out rally. Now remember, a lot of these rallies were allegedly student-led.

[00:33:52] They were led by, you know, kids that were leaving their classrooms to protest, you know, how terrible ICE is. So we scraped the data off of my child's graphic that she received. And it was actually put together by two Washington, D.C. public school teachers. So they're really not student-led. They're being fueled, organized by public school teachers. During this time, there was also a huge protest in Los Angeles targeting White Memorial Hospital,

[00:34:20] where they thought there were folks that were in ICE custody being treated there. Massive protests led by who? Oh, that's right. A Los Angeles Unified School District public school teacher. Then we started digging into Texas, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austin. All of those walkouts at those high schools were being led by, guess who, Ginny Beth? Teachers. Yep. And what we found is those teachers are not only the co-chair of their DSA chapter or their

[00:34:49] No Kings chapter, but they're also on the board of the American Federation of Teachers. And they also are the ones that are organizing these walkouts. And they're principals and they're civics teachers. And these are the ones that are with your kids every single day. And this is what I think people need to understand, is these are the teachers that wanted to, American Federation of Teachers was the organization that wanted to mask your kids, keep them out of classrooms, allow boys and girls spaces. They are the ones that are behind all of this movement to indoctrinate your kids.

[00:35:17] And now they want them to go out to an ICE protest, connect the dots, and understand that this is also CCP, Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba money coming into our country through these organizations, undermining our systems, and interfering with our kids' education. And as parents, this is our opportunity to fight back and show that we're not going to tolerate it. That is so alarming that it's actually coming from teachers. It's not completely surprising, but it's very alarming.

[00:35:46] Because not only are they having an effect on the activism locally, but they also are continuing to indoctrinate children. Like your daughter came home with a flyer about it. Yeah, absolutely. And they do this because they don't want to just turn your child into an activist at college. They want to get them sooner. They want to do it in high school. They want to do it in middle school. They would prefer to do it actually in elementary school, as we've seen with a lot of the gender movement.

[00:36:15] All of it is tied together. Everyone thinks, oh, some of this is, you know, organic. None of it is organic. It all feeds back to the same place. And it's all funded by, like I said, foreign entities, but also the Tides Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Buffett Foundation, this globalist elite billionaires who funnel money into these organizations to undermine our parental rights and our kids and want to brainwash them. And we just have to be much more aware of what we're dealing with.

[00:36:43] And, you know, it's not just it's ice out today and maybe no Kings rally, but it was also Black Lives Matter. It was also Occupy Wall Street. It's all connected. There's none of this is, you know, organic. And they create this social media toolkit. They create everything to go along with it. Yes, they do create all of that. And the heart of it, well, I think Antifa is probably also tied with this same network.

[00:37:12] They all ultimately want to destroy our form of government and replace it. That's what they all have in common. Get rid of the police. Get rid of the corporations. Get rid of the borders. Get rid of immigration enforcement. Get rid of the presidency. Get rid of the Senate. All of it.

[00:37:34] It all ties back together to the ultimate agenda, which is to replace our form of government with a Marxist, socialist, communist government. Or as John McLaughlin says, big government, socialist government. That's right. And I'll say that if you look at Antifa, so I think that there are some Antifa groups. However, Antifa is more of a purpose. It is more of a, you know, a lifestyle, if you will.

[00:38:04] It's anti-fascist. And if you read the Antifa handbook, it states, if at first use your words, if that doesn't work, then use your fists. If that doesn't work, use a weapon. It lays that out there. And so when the left, when Tim Walsh or whoever is calling the president fascist, calling Charlie Kirk fascist, calling Spencer Pratt fascist, they're actually putting a target on those people's backs. And that's what folks need to understand. The language is purpose. It's intentional.

[00:38:34] The reason they use those words is because people who are Antifa, it may not necessarily be a organization, but that is their identity. And as God and religion and faith leaves our society, and instead their purpose is focused on anti-fascism or Antifa, it creates this very unwell culture of hatred, violence. And it just continues to incidences like we saw with Charlie and the president. Yeah.

[00:39:04] And the violence that we have seen and the hatred that we have seen, it is so dangerous for our society. It causes people to lose hope. It causes people to be disengaged. It causes people not to want to be active. It scares people out of becoming active because they don't want to be harmed physically. And it intimidates them.

[00:39:32] It makes them not want to speak out either because they're afraid that if they speak out, they're going to have all of this pressure come down on them. They twist the beautiful things about our country and sometimes weaponize it. Like we care about our country. We speak out about our country. We exercise our First Amendment rights with it.

[00:39:59] And then they take that and they are able to turn it in and make us be afraid to actually speak out. Yep. That's their entire plan, right? Because if you are afraid to speak out, then you're not going to say the things that need to be said. It kind of goes back to the media and being complicit in a lot of this. It's the more that you feel fearful, ashamed, isolated. You're not going to want to engage in the process. And that's exactly what they want.

[00:40:27] So if you go back and you look at things like January 6th or you look at, you know, the election being stolen, like they targeted people and made their life complete hell so that they wouldn't want to be in the process again. That's why, you know, they have an entire team of attorneys that they pay through their system, that they protect through the bureaucracy.

[00:40:49] And we have people who are maybe afraid to be involved because they don't want to have multiple lawsuits still going on five years later across the country. Yeah. And in those lawsuits, boy, that also is a way to intimidate people because they don't, most people can't afford to hire lawyers to fight back against that. Yeah. Ashley, we want to win and I'm going to end on winning.

[00:41:18] What if we we lose control of one one chamber or both chambers of Congress? What do you think people would what should would your message be to people if that happens? Number one, everything stops. We talked about this. Everything stops. It comes to a halt. However, we have to fight in the states. And so the states are our next line of defense.

[00:41:42] And this is actually really special about AFPI because AFPI was born in 2021 when there was little that felt that could be done. Our fastball, I would say to use a Brooke Rollins term is really in the states. So how do we get that legislative agenda past the state level? How do we make sure that our states are the first line of defense for prosperity, freedom, opportunity, liberty? But also we are going to have on our 501c3 side at America First Policy Institute, we have an incredible litigation team.

[00:42:12] We will work like never before to make sure that we are filing the lawsuits, getting involved from a litigation standpoint to continue to fight for our country. It's going to be it will be very brutal two years if we lose the House and Senate. However, I would say leave this interview with hope.

[00:42:32] There's an incredible coalition of conservative leaders that are going to lay it all out on the line, leave it all out on fields, fight like never before and make sure that we can bank those votes. Vote early if you can. All we want votes to only be on Election Day and we don't love mail ballots. Let's use every tool available to us that we can make sure that we can secure and make it too big to rig, to quote the president. Okay. And then how let's just delve into that is the last topic. So.

[00:43:01] That's what happens if we don't if we don't win. That's that's what we're up against and what we'll have to to deal with and how we can fight back if we don't win. But let's do everything we can to prevent that from happening.

[00:43:12] What what message you want to give people for how they can get involved, what they should be doing so that we can make sure that we hold on to this majority in the House and the Senate, even if it's a very slim majority, so that President Trump can continue to work on his agenda and we can work to codify the wonderful things he's doing.

[00:43:32] Yeah. So get involved, whether it's your local political local political party through America First Works, Tea Party Patriots, trying to find an organization that is around you. Get involved. We're national so we can get you onboarded. We have a great program where you can send postcards to voters in your state or in other states. Remind them to vote.

[00:43:54] There's all sorts of different ways that you can get involved, knocking on doors, sending text messages, mailing postcards, even posting, you know, positive messaging about the president and the administration on social media is a great thing to do. Share the truth. Sign up for the message and data lab on AFPI's website and make sure people understand, you know, all the great ones from the administration. There is there is no limit to what you can do. Be a poll worker, be a poll watcher. All of those things are so important between now and Election Day.

[00:44:23] And in some cases, sadly, even after Election Day, seven to 10 days or 30 days if you're in California or maybe a year in California. Who knows what is anymore? But there are so many things to do to get involved. And it would be a shame to think about being the day after the election, things not going the way that we wanted them to do and think I would have made five more phone calls or 10 more door knocks. What difference it could have made? Because it is a game of it's a game of benches. These elections come down to slim margins.

[00:44:50] You look at Mariette Miller Meeks in Iowa, and I think she won her seat last time by only 300 votes. That's how close these races are. So it's really important that we do everything we can to build those margins. That is so true. Well, Ashley Hyatt, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for all the amazing work that you're doing at America First Works and also at your sister organization, America First Policy Institute. Thank you. I appreciate it. If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe.

[00:45:19] It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org. Thank you.