The Counter Deep State: How an Outsider Helped Trump Deregulate │ Steve Friess

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. My guest today is Steve Friess, a businessman, conservative activist, education reform advocate, and candidate for Wyoming's single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Steve comes from a family that has had a significant impact on the conservative movement. His late father, Foster Friess, was one of the nation's most influential conservative philanthropists and helped support causes and organizations that shape modern conservatism. Steve has continued to be a member of the United States.

[00:00:44] We've continued that legacy through business, philanthropy, education, and grassroots activism. I'm Jenny Beth Martin, and this is The Jenny Beth Show. Steve, welcome to the show. Steve Friess, Jenny Beth, it is more than an honor to be here. It's really a thrill. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. Well, tell me, why did you decide to run for Congress? Steve Friess, The Jenny Beth Show. You know, it's not something I had ever really intended to do.

[00:01:10] It's just that when I several things really motivated me. Probably the first was when I saw how the left went after President Trump during the Biden years, the coordinated legal attacks, the willingness to do anything that they could to put him behind bars or prevent him from returning to office.

[00:01:35] That just made me feel like when you when you when you coupled that with their stated plans to add more states to the union, to pack the Supreme Court until they got the votes that they wanted. Just alarm bells were going off that the left is alive and well, and they just need to be pushed back because they just don't have the interests of America, first and foremost.

[00:02:02] You are so right about that. The left is it seems to me that there are radicals within the Democrat Party who truly want to destroy our constitutional republic and replace it with a Marxist society.

[00:02:15] So it's important that when we have conservatives and people who care about the Constitution and constitutional rights, whether they're even conservative or moderate or liberal Democrats, it's important that those people are standing up and speaking out against the extreme left, which is so radical and crazy. Steve, you have described yourself as a political outsider. Why do you use that phrase?

[00:02:46] Well, I use that phrase because I really had never intended to run for office. I'm I'm 60 years old. I think I've still got a few good years left in me, but I never wanted to make a career out of out of politics. And in my heart, politics is is, you know, it's it's elections and campaigns and all those aspects. What always mattered more to me was policy. What were people going to do when they actually got into office?

[00:03:17] And, you know, can I just go back to a mention? You made me think of something with your last point. And that is that because you brought up liberal, you brought up moderate Democrats. The Democrats of today are not the Bill Clinton Democrats. The Kamala Democrats are an entirely different far left breed that just are a threat to this nation's future.

[00:03:42] Sure. I'm sorry, I just had to say that because I meet people that have been as I a few people as I go across the state in Wyoming who, you know, I've always been a Democrat. And I I pause and I say, well, you were a Bill Clinton Democrat, weren't you? What did you really think of this last of the Biden presidency? And I think we're we're we're helping people to understand that it's a very different it's a very different threat now.

[00:04:08] Yeah, it really is. And I think that Fetterman sees that it is not the same Democrat Party that he always was part of. Of course, he isn't changing parties and he still votes with the Democrats most of the time. But he is expressing concerns about the direction of the Democrat Party. And it reminds me a good bit of Zell Miller, who was a senator from Georgia and a governor from Georgia.

[00:04:33] He was a Democrat and he finally had to leave the Democrat Party because he felt in any wrote a book about it saying that the Democrat Party had left him. He didn't leave leave the party. Well, well, right now what we're seeing, the the Democrat Party of today is not at all like what would Bill Bill Clinton was like. At least during Bill Clinton's time, there was a willingness to pass bipartisan legislation.

[00:05:01] We got the budget balanced under Bill Clinton. But the Democrats in Congress right now wouldn't do it. They're willing to shut down the Department of Homeland Security for months just to stand up to President Trump. It's craziness.

[00:05:16] Well, in large part, that's because their plan was to flood the country with illegal immigrants, figure out a way to give them all the right to vote, keep giving them lots of free stuff and have a dependent class that would eternally keep them in power. That's just transparently. Wasn't that mocked? Right. They mocked that as the great replacement and said it was a conspiracy theory.

[00:05:41] It's just too plain to see that that was their intention and they'll do it again if they get a chance. Absolutely. They they really will do it again. And that's why it is important to make sure that we're doing all we can to hold the House representatives and the Senate in in the upcoming election and to make sure that we have people who go to Congress in seats like yours that are actually conservatives and not.

[00:06:10] Not even moderate Republicans. We need in red seats. We need conservatives being elected, which is what you're hoping to do. Yes. Jenny Beth, and I have to say you brought up the Save Act. And as I was weighing whether I would run or not. I turned on the news and there you were standing behind the Speaker of the House, having helped push and push and push the Save America Act.

[00:06:39] You know, I just have to applaud your leadership, your your staying power and your your enthusiasm. I mean. Even now, you are you remind me of sorry, I'm getting a little sorry. You forgive me. You remind me so much of of Ronald Reagan's happy warrior.

[00:07:03] You know, you you just stay at it and you keep going and and your whole your whole organization. When I learned from you also that you've been growing membership. That just thrilled me. So I got to tell you two things while I was debating whether I would do this or not. Your image came up there right right behind Speaker Johnson's.

[00:07:27] And then, you know, as we all waste a little time on Instagram, Brandon Gill came up. And I said to myself, pardon my French. Hell yeah. I want to work with that guy. Here's the guy that understands the stakes. Here's the guy that understands what the fight is. And here is a relentless warrior. Now, the people of Wyoming, when they send me to Washington, which I sure hope they do,

[00:07:54] they shouldn't expect to see me in that role, you know, going for the cameras and things. My efforts are going to be more behind the scenes to make changes that are going to benefit Wyoming. I might not be the one that becomes kind of the movie star that he is, but I don't I don't look like the movie star that he is, do I? So. Well, I think that everyone has has a role to play.

[00:08:21] And one thing that I appreciate about Brandon Gill, from what I can tell, and I haven't I don't know him. So I I'm saying this based on the impressions that I have on him. He seems very serious. And he's he's trying to highlight the differences between what the radical left is trying to do versus just common what's common sense. And I appreciate that about him because he's not just going over the top just to get the camera on him.

[00:08:51] And then what you just said about wanting to make sure that that you're you've got your head down and you're working on policy. There is a place for that as well. If all that the politicians ever did was go for the camera, we'd never get any good policy passed. We it would just be all hot air all the time. So so we need we need the people who are shining the light and we need the people who are are writing the policy. Yes.

[00:09:18] And speaking of that, you have had policy concerns and that that is where you want to to focus if you are elected. What are the issues that motivate you the most and what are the what kind of policy would you you be advocating? So my whole vision of this campaign, it's really about grandchildren being with their grandparents and grandparents being with their grandchildren.

[00:09:46] I enjoy having being able to take my kids over to be with my mom, my dad. You know, he left us five years ago onto the great beyond. And and I just know that a family is richer when it can stay together. There's wisdom and insight passed on. And I want every Wyoming family to have that opportunity, too.

[00:10:11] And the reason that doesn't happen a lot is that we're one of the states where so often that middle generation leaves to find better economic opportunities. Wyoming's greatest economic potential is in its extractive industries of oil, gas, coal, mining, rare earths.

[00:10:33] And what can be done to make all of those industries grow is for there to be changes in regulatory policies. There are systems right now that especially after the Biden administration was in place, they're structured to slow things down, provide opportunities for repeated lawsuits from radical environmentalists.

[00:10:59] They're they're they're just structural abilities to to thwart progress. I want to work hard to make regulatory changes so that all of those industries can flourish. And it's and it's also not just for the benefit of people in Wyoming. We have national security concerns when we're beholden to China for rare earth minerals that

[00:11:26] we need in everything in all of our advanced weapon systems that keep us safe and also for the advancement of technology. These are all things that Wyoming really has kind of a kind of a patriotic duty to use those resources for the betterment of the country. Well, I think it's very important. And your state does have amazing natural resources that can be tapped into to help grow your state

[00:11:55] and help help save save the country. Maybe the wrong word to use in in this, but to help improve the country and to make the country even better than it is right now. And it's important to free those resources up. You're right. The Biden administration really did all that they could to clamp down and just quash so many

[00:12:20] of the industries that relate to oil and gas and rare earth minerals. And yet what happens? Coal. Yeah, forget coal. It's thrilling to me that he's going to make efforts to help export our coal through I believe it's the Oakland Terminal. Environmentalists will even say they have to admit Wyoming's clean coal shipped all the way to Taiwan and Japan and burned there.

[00:12:48] That is a cleaner net result than using the dirty coal, the dirtier coal that they get from other locations. Yes. And if we can ship it over there, we should be able to use it here as well in America if we need to. And if you can't get it out because they refuse to allow mining of coal, it can't benefit any country. And then, as you're saying, then they will go and find coal in other places and in places

[00:13:14] that don't actually work to protect the environment the way that we do in America. Exactly. And I don't know how many of your viewers have, I want to say, fallen for the, I think, truly faulty definition of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. But carbon dioxide is what makes plants grow. It is plant food.

[00:13:42] And it's where we get our oxygen from after the plants get a hold of the carbon dioxide. It's a structural, integral part of our environment and our cycle. And this notion that carbon dioxide is somehow pollutant is one of the most, I think, foolish and harmful ideas that's gained far too much traction in our policymakers and in our country at large. Yes.

[00:14:12] And we've talked about that before on my show. CO2 is plant food. We need it. The plants take carbon dioxide and turn it back into oxygen for us to be able to breathe in. So it's important for plants and it's also important for us. And yet somehow that basic science is lost on so many Americans right now because it just

[00:14:40] isn't even being taught in school, I don't think. Well, in fact, I think we have an education system. One of the one of the important things that President Trump did in his first administration was to draw a stronger line between federal education initiatives and states controlling their own education systems. And he was able to draw that line because of an executive order that he drafted.

[00:15:10] And, you know, I'm eager to tell you a little bit about the story about how I got involved with executive orders further. I think that that probably was probably the most exciting few years of my life when I brought together people, you know, some of the smartest conservative attorneys in D.C. and used their knowledge, captured it. This is before President Trump was even on the scene. This was during the Obama administration.

[00:15:41] We pulled together teams that prepared executive orders. Frankly, I was I was very surprised when I learned that an ongoing effort like that didn't exist. And I think the attitude prior to that was, well, you know, the important thing is you've got to win the elections first and then you can figure that stuff out later. The problem with that is these brilliant attorneys that had worked under Reagan and both of the Bushes who really were conservatives.

[00:16:10] It's kind of fun. Some of them called themselves, Jenny Beth, the counter deep state. I love that. You know, they they were the ones watching where the real problems were, where the real points of leverage were. And so the problem with waiting until you win the election is that if you don't capture all these insights, we structurally on the right have a have a problem with the way the left goes after things.

[00:16:38] So they're the folks who I was mentioning, their counterparts on the left that work in government when they are out of power. They all get warehoused in big, fancy think tanks and get paid a lot of money, just sit on the sidelines and wait and plan for how they're going to come in and take charge of everything again. Whereas conservatives, typically they're not doing that as much.

[00:17:04] They're off becoming, you know, general councils of huge corporations or they're they're fighting other legal battles at groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, things like that. So. The left is relentless. And I think it's because. Of their of a of a spiritual dimension, honestly, I think that the left believes that humans can

[00:17:29] be made perfect if they just are told to follow the right policies. There's this notion that that man can be perfected. And so their their their view of government, it's almost like it's their religion and it's why they're so relentless. Whereas so many on the conservative side know that know that there is a God above us looking down. He's there for us.

[00:17:58] He's there to hear our prayers. But we know that man is inherently flawed. There were all sinners that need to be forgiven. And we don't take this view that we have to impose our will on others. And that and we understand that the freedom that America offers is like no other country in history. And it's it's a special thing that has to be preserved and defended. Yes, you're exactly right.

[00:18:28] And I think that you're you're right. The left, they don't have the same respect for God and the same love of God in the same acknowledgement of Christ as our savior, as Christians have. And and even in we have Jewish people who are in our movement as well and other religions.

[00:18:52] So we we look to a higher power and we believe in something that is greater than us. And in our case, we believe in a God who loves us so much. He sacrificed his son for the forgiveness of our sins. And which means we are sinful, that we are sinful and our sins need to be forgiven. And so what you were just saying makes makes sense. And I hadn't thought of it exactly the way you have.

[00:19:19] I I've thought of it in terms of the left is seeking to fill that human desire for something greater than itself. And they look oftentimes towards the government for that. But also what you are saying is that they think that if they can just give us enough rules and policies and we follow it all, that will all turn into perfect beings. And and that it doesn't it just doesn't work that way. Human nature does not work that way.

[00:19:50] Steve, so you help pull these attorneys together and you had the executive order project. And I know about it, but the audience doesn't. So what did the attorneys do when they when they got together that was was different? You were they still working in the law firms like you mentioned or were they in think tanks? And and then what did they do? So what was exciting about this effort?

[00:20:16] And I haven't asked any of them their permission to give their names out. Maybe we can do that in a future time. Yeah. But this was an effort that was entirely volunteer and it was and it was peer recruitment. So somebody who had great insight into the regulatory process, when we started talking about the Department of Education, he would say, you know, I know a really great attorney that served over there. Let's bring him into the room.

[00:20:45] So this grew to an effort where we actually had we had, I think, 13 different teams working on different sort of segments of and it was all opportunistic. What's who has a great idea? How can we get it in the room and have people with a lot of legal knowledge kick it around? I mean, we went back and forth on so many different ideas. What's the best way to do this?

[00:21:11] What's the way that will will most help an agency streamline its its activities? And probably the best example of this, I'm sure folks will remember when President Trump talked about how he was going to repeal two regulations for every one that he passed. Do you remember two for one? So the tool that we gave him, the order that we had drafted was actually far more powerful than that because it honestly isn't the number of regulations that matters.

[00:21:41] It's what's the burden or the cost that that regulation imposes on our country. And so for a silly example, right, we all have seatbelts that come across like this, right? Right. So if the regulators decide we need one over here, too, you can actually build up a quantifiable reason of this is going to cost manufacturers this much more, which is going to raise the price of cars this much more. They put dollar figures on the burden that their regulations are going to create.

[00:22:11] So what our executive order said, it was really a regulatory budget. The premise was the government can't just keep piling regulation after regulation after regulation and grind our economy down and destroy opportunity. So if you want to pass, let's say my silly double seatbelt thing was going to cost up $10 billion. Well, if you want to pass that, Mr. Regulator, you've got to bring to the table and repeal

[00:22:40] $10 billion worth of regulations. So that tool provided agencies a lot of discipline. And frankly, I'm told a lot of them knew that they had to do some housekeeping. They had to get rid of things that were duplicative or unnecessary or outdated. So by the end of President Trump's first term, I believe the final analysis was that he repealed about seven regulations for every new one that he passed. That is amazing.

[00:23:08] And it's so good that you had a team of people who are willing to help work on on that streamlining it and helping reduce the burden and helping, most importantly, free up the economy. People, they think about the tax cuts that President Trump had, which definitely made a huge impact on the economy.

[00:23:31] And also that regulatory reform freed businesses to be able to grow in a way that they hadn't been able to in many years, in many earlier years. And it helped really unleash the economy. And so many people want to get back to that unleashed economy. And President Trump is working hard to make that happen yet again.

[00:23:56] And the biggest thing he's done is assemble an absolute rock star cabinet. I think that Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, might be one of the most brilliant people I've ever met in my life. And right up there with him is Doug Burgum at Interior and Lee Zeldin at EPA. And it's really those three agencies that have such a high bearing on Wyoming and its future.

[00:24:25] Because if we can sort out some of the redundant regulations, some of the, you know, chasing your tail kind of things where first you have to do this and then this, oh, you've got to do that again. Or, you know, there's some situations where there has to be one, a little, my dad always hated acronyms. So it's called an EA. But he didn't even really like me saying the FBI. He wanted me to say the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

[00:24:53] Or IRS, the Internal Revenue Service. He drilled that into our heads. He wanted, he didn't want anybody to be sitting in a room and feel like they didn't know what was going on because they didn't know the three-letter acronym. So I'm going to give people a little acronym lesson then, of course, of why not? Because we have time, which I'm so grateful for. However, I have to say, campaigning around the state when I go and I have a great chance

[00:25:23] of meeting people, but then I've got to give a two-minute speech. That's no opportunity for anyone to understand, you know, what my insights are and what my experience is and what I want to put to work for the state of Wyoming. So, okay, a little deep dive into most of us have heard of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB. Okay.

[00:25:47] Well, within that, there is an office called OIRA, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Can you imagine anything that sounds, I'll say it again, it's how bureaucratic could it be, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs? It sounds like a satire, right? Yes. But they play an important role. They write the rules by which other agencies have to write their rules.

[00:26:19] So here was a very important memo that we had President Trump send to OIRA. The Obama administration, in passing regulations to, you know, again, go after carbon dioxide, plant food, they would cite, they would say, well, Professor X has a model which says that if we don't cut carbon this much, the world is going to end.

[00:26:47] Well, lo and behold, Professor X's model was a black box. There was no peer review allowed. There was no opportunity for any other scientist to say, what's in this black box that's giving this conclusion? So a memo that we sent to OIRA said, we called it the sound science memo.

[00:27:11] A regulation cannot be justified through, I'm paraphrasing, through the citation of a scientific model that is not open source and peer reviewable. And right away, this gave the Trump administration the ability to start pulling out these regulations that were based on black box science. So again, it's really deep in the weed stuff.

[00:27:42] OIRA, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. But having the chance to see that and get up and close to it. Oh, here's another one. OK, another crazy thing. So we all know that laws are passed. And even though they're these thousand page laws, they're oftentimes kind of vague. And so for the agencies to get these laws into an enforceable form, that's what they create regulations for.

[00:28:08] Now, regulations often end up being a little bit vague and open to interpretation. So there's another level of document that agencies produce, which is called guidance. And so the guidance can actually take a regulation and make it much more onerous or can make it much more reasonable. So another memo that we provided, we provided President Trump with, we jokingly called it

[00:28:37] guidance guidance. So it changed the way that agencies could use guidance. And the general principle was, you can't use guidance to triple down and double down the intensity of this regulation. It's stern and strict enough. So again, it was another window that I had into how this big regulatory machine works.

[00:29:08] So what that gives me is insight into this process. So my mission is to go around Wyoming. And as I meet, you know, the small operators of oil and gas and mining and aggregates and all the folks trying to do their best to earn a living here. And sometimes this won't be exactly what the big oil companies want, because I'm looking out for the people that are working here.

[00:29:39] I'm going to be able to find, OK, what are the what's the what's the low hanging fruit? What are the few regulations that we should change first that's going to enable you to hire more people? That's going to enable you to expand what you're doing so that you can earn a larger income. You can afford more opportunities for your kids and your family and take care of your parents, too. That's really what I'm bringing to the table.

[00:30:07] It's it's an it's an understanding of the regulatory process and all the crazy acronyms so that I can open up opportunity here because that's just going to benefit the whole country. Lower cost energy is is what the entire country needs because it's the bedrock cost in everything across the country that you buy or consume or it's got to be shipped to you. And that's using oil and, you know, that's using fuels to get to you.

[00:30:37] Yes, that is exactly right. And it makes a huge difference on the cost of products. When energy is high, then everything else, every product has to to factor on top of the cost of energy unless it is some sort of a service. And sometimes even services, you wind up having to worry about costs because it costs you money to get to where the service provider service provider is.

[00:31:04] So it has an effect on the entire the entirety of the economy. So, Steve, you're a political outsider and you've never been elected to office before, but you do understand the ins and outs of the federal government, especially with the rulemaking process. And the rulemaking process stems from laws that that Congress has passes.

[00:31:28] So you're you're not a political novice, I guess, is the right way to to describe that. Correct. And on top of your passion for energy and regulatory reform that frees up the economy and frees up Americans, you also have been involved in in education. Right. Haven't you you done a lot, at least locally with education and you have a passion for making

[00:31:56] sure children are educated well? Yes. So as as you would call me, Beth, my father built and I had the honor of working alongside him, built a successful investment business. And when we sold that, we started dedicating our resources towards building the conservative movement. And he had always been a big fan of giving parents more choices over what education they could provide their kids.

[00:32:25] And that's really the school choice movement. And I found that a fascinating area, too. And at that time, Milwaukee had a program and Florida, I think, had a program that they called a tax credit scholarship. A corporation could make a gift to a scholarship granting organization that could then provide

[00:32:49] scholarships for kids to get out of either failing schools or kids with with serious financial needs and help them perhaps find a private school option that was that could better meet their needs. Because we all know kids don't learn the same way. I have four kids. Some of them are visual learners. Some of them listen.

[00:33:15] Some of them have to be more engaged in a physical task to really to really gain their knowledge. So I was honored to be part of for a number of years, I served on the board of the Alliance for School Choice with Betsy DeVos, who went on later to become President Trump's Secretary of Education in Wyoming. So so we could think of that as a as a policy level involvement.

[00:33:41] And then when we had young kids, we had learned a lot about great educational models, in particular, the classical education model. And we we decided, my wife and I, to start our own school. So in a way, we went from the policy level, we could call that wholesale down to an individual school. We could call that retail.

[00:34:05] Uh, and so it's it's been a real joy to build the Jackson Hole Classical Academy. Um, and it it actually led to my first, uh, engagement with the Wyoming legislature. Can I talk a little bit about that? Of course. Thanks. Yeah. So in Teton County, the the zoning regulations, one of the reasons it's such a beautiful place

[00:34:32] is that we don't have great, big, tall, flashing neon signs and we don't have huge billboards and we don't have streetlights. You know, you know, you won't see you won't see just a lot of the visual. It got kind of a a hard code where everything has to look sort of frontier town and wooden board sidewalks and things. And it makes it very charming and very beautiful.

[00:34:57] Back in the 80s, they, uh, Jackson knew that this was going to be a place that people would want to move to. And they thought that for the betterment of the community, there should be a limit to the size a person's home should be. And they set that at 10,000 square feet, which is still, you know, I would never want to own a house that I couldn't clean in a day. You know what? No. Because you have no privacy. I've been to some of these homes and you walk around and there's a couple other people there just fixing things that broke.

[00:35:27] You know, it doesn't appeal to me, but they didn't want people building gigantic homes in Jackson, in Teton County. So they set a cap at 10,000 square feet. Well, lo and behold, when we start wanting to build a school, there isn't, there weren't zoning rules for a private school. You had to basically follow the rules that a house would. And so when they said, so they told us, well, yes, if you do this and this, you can build

[00:35:55] as much square footage as the high school, 100,000 square feet. But, you know, you're going to have to chop it up into 10 different boxes, 10 different heating and cooling systems. And, and, and, and by the way, the edge of the roofs have to be 30 feet apart. So you can put a 10,000 square foot, uh, in a 10,000 square foot box, you can put a gymnasium, but a locker room won't fit there.

[00:36:20] So literally we would have had kids get changed for a basketball game, run 30 feet through. It couldn't even be a covered walkway. You'd have to run through the snow to get to the gym. So finally in our exasperation, I just thought, you know, shouldn't the, shouldn't the rules for zoning for schools be the same for private and public schools? Doesn't that just make sense?

[00:36:47] And I took that to the state legislature and, and they were able to see that that was, that was the way things ought to be. So, uh, it was, it was my first experience writing, drafting a law and then lobbying for, for the law. And, and, and literally at that time, the Capitol in Wyoming was being rebuilt and they had taken over, I think it was a, uh, a former Kmart building.

[00:37:12] So there was a door where the legislators would walk in and they had about 30 yards before the water fountain and then another 20 yards before the bathroom. And then 10 yards after that, they're in chambers. So in the lobby, I had to introduce myself and talk about my issue long enough to make a, an appointment to see them later. So it was true lobbying. Uh, and I, and I learned how to be persuasive with legislators and get their attention.

[00:37:41] And it was admittedly, it's not the same experience as serving in the legislature, but I did get that law passed. And I did understand the process, the committees it had to go through. Um, and it was very enjoyable, especially because we were able then to, to finally break ground and build a beautiful school. Well, that is a great success story. And, um, tell me more about, well, first, let me just see this.

[00:38:11] We all start somewhere when it is, when we're working on legislation, having some experience with it, going into Congress is better than having none and having to figure it all out from when you, when you get there, especially if you think that the legislative process is like schoolhouse rock. Um, cause it's not those committees and the lobbying and are really, really, um, important to understand.

[00:38:38] It's part of why we're having, uh, and the rules that each chamber has to follow. Very important. It's why we're having a difficulty on the Senate side with the Save America Act is because of those rules. So you have to understand them and figure out ways that, that you can find, um, fulcrums for leverage points. Um, when it comes to the school that you started and school choice in, in general. So let's talk about school choice in general, and then the school that you started, what

[00:39:08] are, what are the things that you think are important about school choices that made you want to be so involved in it? It, it, it is some, why is school choice important and having those alternatives to public education so important? And then how have you incorporated that into the school that, that you helped fam? Sure.

[00:39:34] I would say there's, there's a two part answer on my part. The first is that my wife and I were very attracted to what's known as classical education. And that's a broad category. Really. You could think of it as, as, as many flavors of, of classical education as there are ice cream. You know, you can have, you can have very different approaches to what classical education means,

[00:40:02] but I think we would all in the classical education movement, so to speak, say that it really centers on learning how to think rather than what to think instead of being given kind of a, a doctrine that, uh, you know, carbon dioxide is a pollutant and it's going to melt the polar ice caps in five years, which is what they were saying 20 years ago. Right. Right.

[00:40:28] Instead of being given a doctrine to, to just take wholeheartedly, how are you going to think about it and, and consider it carefully? And so some classical schools have what they call the Socratic method where the teacher works very hard to develop this, this works best in the upper grades when you're talking about literature

[00:40:50] and history, uh, when you're talking about the big issues of civilization, talented teachers that can lead that to be, to come from a place of conversation where they're asking their students questions and the questions prompt the students to engage one another in a dialogue. They learn how to speak on their feet. There's a lot of public speaking involved typically with a classical education.

[00:41:19] And then going even back to earlier years, some of the things that are shown to be structural beneficially for your ability to learn ordered thinking is the study of Latin. Uh, I didn't have the benefit of, of learning Latin as a child, but I can tell you, uh, it's kind of remarkable that I can see people thinking, our students thinking in a more sort of systematic

[00:41:45] matter, they kind of manner, they sort of have kind of rules that they go through the kind of structured thinking that the study of Latin gives you also enables you to think more structured as you evaluate an argument. And, and plus there were some really fun experience from that. I remember we had the opportunity to take my, uh, our children over to, uh, Poland one summer

[00:42:10] and we're in Krakow and there was a, there was a, a, a Latin inscription over one of the archways into the old city. And my 10 year old son looked up and I said, can you read that? And he said, yeah. And I said, well, what does it say? And he said, come on, but no, I don't, please tell me what it said. And he said, well, if God stands with us, who can stand against us?

[00:42:37] And I thought, how cool that this 10 year old kid is seeing that Latin inscription in an archway in a historic old, uh, city and, and understanding what that meant to people hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years to go. Um, so it's been, it's been a joy. We've had graduates go on to UW here and also to West Point, um, great East coast schools,

[00:43:07] Columbia, though. I worry about what they're being taught there. Yes. It's a business major. He's going to be fine. Uh, but, um, yeah, higher education, boy, that's a whole nother story to talk about. So I think I can say one more thing about, about school choice for, for us, in addition to classical education, it's also, uh, it's, there's also a religious component of our school.

[00:43:32] Um, you know, they're broadly speaking, you could say there are, there are two categories of religious school. There are, uh, uh, covenantal schools and missional schools. A covenantal school is one where as you go in as a parent, you're asked to sign and agree to a statement of faith. So many of the, of the Lutheran schools, many of which are classical also, as a parent, you

[00:44:01] sign and say that this is the, this is the scriptural interpretation that the Lutheran church holds and you agree with it. And that is what will be taught here. And, and so you, you, they really want to have Lutheran children at the school by and large, you know, there's, there are gradations of all this. So that's what you call a covenantal school. You're entering into kind of a covenant with the families and the church on what the spiritual teachings are.

[00:44:30] A more missional school like ours is open to families of any religion. And we have families of many religions at our school. Uh, and also they could say none, I suppose. I don't buy that, but, but what we're going to be exposing students here to, they're going to read some Bible verses. They're going to understand, they're going to be some memorization. That's also a big part of the classical model too. Memorization.

[00:44:59] It's like, it's like calisthenics for the brain. So the, the spiritual dynamic of understanding the, the cultural tradition of how Christ's message has shaped Western civilization and, and who he was and, and what he taught us. That's something that people are going to find at our school, because what we found in

[00:45:24] the attraction of that to some parents is that particularly as local schools get too much influence from Washington DC and activists with their views of what children should learn. The, the, the DC influence on schools can sometimes introduce corrosive elements.

[00:45:49] Gender being the first absurd thing, the gender ideology that, that was pushed from the top down is something that you will not find at a classical Christian school. We were made, God made us male and female and, and you can't switch teams. Uh, that's something that's going to be clear to everyone. And, and the families really embrace that at our school.

[00:46:12] So again, a missional school doesn't require children to adopt a faith, but they're going to learn about it and what it means. And that I believe helps them be a better citizen because they're going to understand the people that live in America that, that hold fast to the, to the teachings of Christ and what, and what the Christian tradition really means. I think that that is quite, um, it's really good.

[00:46:39] It's in it's, and I'm glad you took the time to explain what classical education is. I'm familiar with it, but not because my children went to school in a classical school. I'm more familiar with it because one of my, um, teammates, her, her children are going through a classical education. I have learned a lot about it with her and she has talked about all of the memorization that her kids have to, to do even at very young, young ages.

[00:47:07] It's, it's a lot of memorizing and I, and I hear what her kids are going through and I'm like, man, I wish I had known about this when my kids were small and could have had my children go through that. But it's, it's that kind of school choice, those kinds of opportunities. And also you're not just advocating for it at a, a national level. You're not just advocating for it in other states and saying, Hey, they've got a great model. We should follow it.

[00:47:35] But you stepped up and took the time to do that in your own community, not for your own children. Of course, they benefit from it, but for the children in your community as well, because you are so passionate about this. Yes. And I've got to take it one step further. My wife is now leading something called the Humanitas Institute, which is working nationwide to raise awareness and bring more attention to and resources to the whole classical education

[00:48:05] movement. I, I somewhat jokingly refer to it as back in the, in the nineties, all the dairy producers got together or pooled their resources and created the got milk campaign. And their, their idea was to work together to raise everyone's appreciation of milk. So Humanitas is kind of doing the same thing.

[00:48:29] They're going to be raising awareness so that people can understand what classical education is and all its different flavors and help teachers find where they can get that sort of instruction. Um, so tell parents, students, and educators. Yes, I think it's very important. I'm glad that she's doing that. And, um, I, one of the things that you said that classical education focuses on is teaching

[00:48:58] children how to think, not what to think. And that is something that as we watch what has happened in the public school system, and my kids were in public school, all but one, one year of, of K through 12. Um, the public school system really is teaching what to think, not how to think. And, and they want you to think in, in a box.

[00:49:24] It's a, it's a, and we've seen COVID help shine light on just how narrow and small that box is. And I think that the AP exam system, which I've gone off on before in my, my show, it has an even smaller box that they want everyone to, to conform to across the entire country into this very narrow box. So it's, it's really important that they know how to think and how to reason.

[00:49:53] So when, when they learn or hear things from the government later in life, or they hear things or see things on their phone and on social media, they have the skills and the ability to think it through and figure out is what I'm seeing real? Does this make sense? Where does it come from? Is it something that I agree with? What are the values that I care about?

[00:50:14] All of that combined, that critical thinking, the ability to think is a lifelong skill that I think our public school system is failing to instill in most, most students right now. I would agree. I would agree that, and in particular when they're operating based on mandates that come out of DC, we've got a lot of great schools in the state of Wyoming. We've got a lot of great educators.

[00:50:44] You know, I think the classical education, it was the model that appealed to us most, but, but there are other more, you know, sort of STEM focused educations. Another area of education that I'm excited about seeing it grow and perhaps there will be a role that can be played from Washington is, is more of a trade school education. I think one of the greatest tragedies was when we decided to take shop out of high school,

[00:51:12] when people lost the idea that working with their hands was there's dignity and honor in that. There are so many jobs now that are going wanting for people with the skills to do that. And it's skilled work. It's not, it's not just heavy labor. Um, I, I had the opportunity to meet the, um, Mike Rowe, the, the dirty jobs gentleman.

[00:51:37] And he's also advocating for a higher degree of, of trade school opportunities because you, it's something that can't be outsourced to China, right? You know, somebody has got to show up and do it. And if I have the numbers, right, maybe, you know, better, but I thought I heard him say that for five people retiring every year from what they call the building trades, I think

[00:52:02] that's HVAC and electrical and plumbing and maybe some, you know, structural roofing or something for every five that were retiring, only two were entering. So I think there are going to be a lot of opportunities for people there to build successful businesses businesses by doing the work that is involved that you can learn in a trade school. And why not a two-year trade school investment where you can probably even get a paid internship

[00:52:30] where you're working as an apprentice and start banking money rather than going, I think, I think a generation may have been, some people may have been misled into going dramatically into debt to earn a degree that, that never is going to provide them the return to pay that debt back. I think that's, that's structurally something that, that went a little off kilter in our country in the last, maybe the last decade even.

[00:52:59] Yeah, I think that you're exactly right about that. I, the, well, a couple of things about what you just said. First, the trade schools are very important. There are kids who just simply, they don't like learning. They don't, or maybe they don't like learning in school. That might be a better thing to say. Not that they don't like to learn, because I think humans like to learn. They, they like discovering new things and, and learning.

[00:53:27] And certainly as children, we can watch kids when they learn how to count or jump or run or, or spell. They're excited about the ability to do that. And then as they get older, there are things that, that they just, they're, they're turned off by the educational system. And honestly, after some of the things that I saw both of my kids go through, it's no wonder they get turned off by it. But they're having that opportunity. You said yourself, you've got four children.

[00:53:56] They each learn in a different way. They also have different skills and they have different talents. And there have to be opportunities for everyone, no matter what their skills and talents are, not just, we're not just saying all of your skills and talents have to fit into this structure and this path. When there are still a lot of other paths that are available. Jenny Beth, I'm, I'm going to have to sort of, I want you to play back the tape and ask

[00:54:22] yourself, did I just have a little implicit bias there myself? Because I believe it is not the case that someone works with their hands. It's because they don't want to learn. I'm sorry. I'm maybe I'm misphrasing you, but it's, I don't think that trade schools should be there for people who, who, who couldn't go on to be lawyers. But what I want to propose is, or suggest is that the kind of skills that would make you

[00:54:47] a successful lawyer or doctor can also be put to work in some of these trades, because yes, you'll learn how to, how to install this HVAC system. But with entrepreneurial skills, pretty soon you can have five different shops and rolling it out across the country. It's exactly right. It's not a lesser category of work. That's, that's what I, I don't know. I caught a whiff of that and I've, I got my heckles up just a little. Well, I, and I'm fine with you saying that and calling me out on it.

[00:55:17] That doesn't offend me at all because of what I'm about to say. My point is we all have our own skills and our talents and we have to be able to elaborate. We have to be able to lean into them and play to our strengths. And there, I mean, my brother, one of my brothers, he had a horrible experience in, in, in school. And it isn't that he isn't capable of learning. He reads all the time.

[00:55:42] He likes to learn and he likes to read, but the education system did him a disservice and he would be better off. And he is, he's, he's found other things to do without going through college. And I have no, no issue with that at all. When my, as you may remember, and if you don't, you will now, when, when this movement was getting started, my then husband and I had gone through bankruptcy. We lost everything.

[00:56:12] He had a business that, that failed and we lost everything and we had to make ends meet. And we went and started a housekeeping service and we were cleaning our neighbors' houses when Rick Centelli had that rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Who here wants to pay for your neighbor's homes that has, have more bathrooms than you and they can't afford it? We did not want our neighbors paying for a home that we could no longer afford.

[00:56:38] And in fact, we were not too proud to go clean their homes and their bathrooms rather than them paying to bail us out. And when there is dignity and work, when you, it doesn't matter what the work is, whether it is cleaning your neighbor's homes and their bathrooms, whether it is a trade, whether it is attorneys or doctors or whatever it might be, there is dignity in it.

[00:57:04] When the government takes away the ability for people to work because they put so many regulations on, they have, have told people, this is the only area you should be, you should all, everyone should be going to college. And if you don't go to college, you're, they look down on you or whatever it might be. That is when people lose, lose dignity and self-respect because they can't provide for themselves.

[00:57:29] And when they depend on other people or they depend on the government, it makes them lose even more of that. And so I think that making sure that there are those opportunities, it's very, very important. And I was not too proud of who I was to go and, and pick up a sponge and cleaning supplies and clean other people's houses so that I did not have to have the government bailing me out.

[00:57:53] You know, you, you, you're bringing up, uh, an issue that comes to mind with me here is, is a change in our culture of, of the dignity of work. And I even want to, um, I mean to go after another little piece of that. I remember when I used to bike over to the little strip mall near where I grew up and there was, I can't remember if it was a Woolworths or one of the department stores towards the back, there was the area called the layaway session section.

[00:58:23] And, and if you wanted something and couldn't afford it, they would basically put it up on the shelf and your name would be on it. And every week you'd make a dollar payment towards it. And after a certain period of time, you could take it home. And now I think we have a generation or generations being raised where everything is instant gratification. Here's everything.

[00:58:49] Just put it on a credit card, get yourself way over your, over your head in debt. Um, there's, there's something analogous here to both instant gratification because you haven't worked for it. You haven't earned it and, and the dignity of work. And to that, I would add, oh, you're going to have to help me with his name. He was the fellow who, who was the head of AEI American Enterprise Institute for a number of years.

[00:59:16] He's done a lot of research on happiness. He's done a lot of research on happiness and what, what brings happiness to us. And his number one conclusion was earned success. When, when, when we work at something and we achieve it, that's where we get real fulfillment. Um, that's when we get real fulfillment. Arthur Brooks. Thank you. Arthur Brooks. A fascinating man.

[00:59:45] Fascinating man who has really studied. What is it that makes a life satisfying and rewarding? What brings human fulfillment? And again, going right back to what I hope to achieve. My score core, my scorecard for myself is going to be from the day I got into, get into office to the day I leave. How many high paying jobs? Did I move that needle? Did I increase the number of jobs in oil and gas and mining?

[01:00:14] Because that means I've provided opportunities or opened the door for people to have earned success. And to be more fulfilled in their lives. Yes. And when you create, when you not create, because the government isn't going to create it, you're going to get out of the way so that the private sector can create those jobs. And when more of those jobs are created, then you need more restaurants and you need more hotels

[01:00:42] and you need more other businesses to support those workers. So it helps grow the economy. Yes, absolutely. So, Steve, let me ask you one more question, which is about the economy. And you can elaborate on this. But when it comes to growing the economy, which do you think is more important, cutting taxes or cutting spending? Oh, that's a really difficult question that I haven't.

[01:01:09] I think that they're both necessary. But at this point in time, I think the prior, I will never vote for a tax increase. Let, you know, I have to be, you know, I should have gone through the checklist too. I'm 100% pro-life. I'm 100% pro-Second Amendment. I have fun telling people the one gun law that I would be for.

[01:01:34] I'd like to see all pistol and rifle manufacturers put threads on so we can use suppressors. Okay. That's my one gun law that I would go for. Not that I'm going to sponsor it, but that's the one I would sign on to. But the real problem that we have is the out-of-control spending of our government. That's what's causing inflation.

[01:01:58] That's what's causing, you know, the absurdly renamed Inflation Reduction Act. It was more of Biden. It drove inflation. The crazy tax gimmicks that drove really unproductive wind projects across the country, and a lot of them in Wyoming. These did not lower the cost of energy.

[01:02:24] These were costly tax gimmicks that just added to, you know, it ended up us buying a lot of this equipment from China. You know, solar panels and wind turbines, a lot of those components are coming from China. Why are we doing that when we've got coal and oil and gas here?

[01:02:49] Government spending is the number one issue if we want to get our country back on a more sustainable path. The level of our deficit, the level of our debt. This is the number one issue that if we don't solve it, we're not going to be, you know, what's the phrase? It's something that cannot go on forever will eventually stop.

[01:03:15] And we're further down that road than we ever thought we would be even 20 years ago. And that's going to take a lot of courage. That's going to take a lot of a lot of a lot of working with people to figure out what the solutions are there. Yes, I think that you're exactly right. And we cutting taxes helps grow the economy. And that is extremely, extremely important. I think that it really is going to take both.

[01:03:45] As you said, we have to be able to grow the economy. We can't keep spending the money that we're spending as a country. We were $39 trillion in debt. When this Tea Party movement started, we started because the government spending was out of control. And we were $12 trillion in debt at the time. $39 trillion. It's real money. And it is going to catch up with us at some point.

[01:04:11] So we need politicians who will become elected officials who will solve and work to solve this problem. And you have the guts to say we have to cut spending. And that's why we can only applaud President Trump's efforts so far. The way he ripped apart USAID, which I think everybody listening, we thought USAID, oh, that's us being generous and helpful around the world. It was anything but.

[01:04:37] The books have not yet been written, I think, to really show the corruption and the outright theft and graft that that entity was creating. It's fantastic that he shut it down. I've had several people, you know, Washington folks say, if that was the only thing he achieved in his administration, that was worth it. And of course, he's done so much more. Exactly. OK, Steve.

[01:05:06] So let's close out with a couple of just really simple, simple questions for you. Give us a two minute speech that you have for why people should vote for you. OK. Well, as I said, I'm 100 percent pro-life. I'm 100 percent pro-gun. I'm 100 percent against raising your taxes. I'm a fighter who has learned.

[01:05:34] Well, we've we've fought for a long time to try to build the conservative movement, both getting involved with Tea Party Patriots at the very beginning, with Charlie Kirk at Turning Point USA, with True the Vote long before the 2020 election. And even on the gender issue, you know, we helped fund the group that that brought that brought good grief. The swimmer to you, Riley.

[01:06:04] Riley Gaines. Riley Gaines. Thank you. Riley Gaines. You know, we helped the group that that gave her media training and called Fox News over and over again and said, you've got to tell this story. So all of this time I've been working kind of behind the scenes to drive the conservative movement. I'm ready to go to Washington and get out in front and drive it further forward.

[01:06:29] And again, my goal in doing this is I want to engage the regulatory system and process so that great jobs can come to Wyoming, so that grandparents can enjoy their grandchildren and vice versa. I'm Steve Freese. I'm running for Congress in the great state of Wyoming, and I would love to have the honor of your vote on August 18th. And where can people go for more information?

[01:06:56] Please come to my website, F-R-I-E-S-S, like French fries with two S's, FreeseFORWY.com. Very good. Steve Freese, thank you so much for joining me today. Jenny Beth, it has been a joy. I look forward to seeing you again. If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution.

[01:07:24] 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. For more information, visit Tea Party Patriots Action.