Liam McCollum
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What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm very excited for this episode. Just a quick reminder, tomorrow, Stamford, Connecticut, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein will be out there at New York Comedy Club. Last I heard, there were still some tickets available. So if you want to come, go get them now because it does look like it's going to sell out. So grab them now if you can. And then I'm coming all over the place, comicdabesmith.com.

For all of my my ticket links and stuff for for road gigs. All right. Very happy to be joined today for the first time on the show by Liam McCollum, who is really one of the the brightest young minds in the liberty movement, one of our rising stars. And he is a libertarian. He we were hanging out at the Libertarian Convention yesterday.

just a few months back in Washington, D.C., and he spoke to my wife for about 15 minutes, and then she came over. She goes, I really like that Liam guy. And to have a libertarian who can talk to a pretty girl for 15 minutes and leave with her liking him is...

let's just say we don't have a very deep bench in that department. So I'm saying the nation's hopes are pinned exclusively on you. So thank you very much for joining us. How are you, sir? I really appreciate it. Thank you. I've been a fan for years. And actually, on the way to this interview, I was listening to your interview with Tucker Carlson. And right before that, I tuned into your interview with the Young Turks. And I just got to say, like, it's been phenomenal to see you kind of

you know, be like the, the force in this populist movement that is somehow united, uh, the left and the right to where, uh, Tucker Carlson and Shank love you. And, and it's, it's just great to see, uh, Candace Owens, you know, the former daily wire girl likes you and you're kind of uniting these forces is it's just amazing.

Well, thank you very much. I mean, it's kind of the advantage that us kind of Ron Paulian types have is that we're good on stuff. And we're, as Scott Horton always says, we're kind of better than the left on the issues the left's good on and better than the right on the issues the right's good on. So, you know, it's always been, it's always kind of come natural to me to kind of like be like, hey, I can present these ideas in a way that will be appealing to many different audiences without

compromise without like, I'm not saying anything I don't believe. So it has been interesting. Anyway, the, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on today was because, so, you know, the, I just did the Tucker Carlson episode and a lot of it, because I'm talking to Tucker and his audience was kind of my advice to the Trump populist movement was

And you just wrote this piece, which was also kind of in a similar vein. So I want to get into this, but before I do, just because I'm curious about this and I don't think I've ever asked you, how did you, I know you're a younger guy. You've risen up in this world over the last few years. And I'm just really curious because I'm always curious in people's kind of like origin stories. So like, how did you become this guy who's like this libertarian figure out in Montana there? What brought you into this world?

Yeah. So, you know, growing up, um, in 2016, I was 16 at the time and that was kind of my entry point into politics. Uh, I like, I was a huge Trump supporter. Uh, I actually went to a costume contest and wore a Trump mask on Halloween and won and I would wear MAGA hats. I was like, just, yeah, I, I was annoying. And, and so I, my senior year, um,

I registered for this honor civics class and I was like listening to Ben Shapiro every day, getting my advice on foreign policy from him every day. And my teacher at the time, Lee Deming, Mr. Deming, he said something bad about Obamacare. And so I went up to him after class and I was like, huh, like I'm going to fish here, see what his politics are.

And I was like, do you listen, listen to Ben Shapiro? And do you have any recommendations on who to listen to? And he, uh, he's like, yeah, you know, Ben Shapiro is good, but you should check out Tom Woods. And so that kind of sent me down the rabbit hole. Um, I ended up finding, uh, uh, Lysander Spooner, who was the first like libertarian anarchist, uh,

attorney that I had read. And then, funny enough, and it ties us to the topic you invited me on to talk about today, Lee Deming, my teacher, he went on to run for office in Montana. And

is now a representative for my, my hometown. And my senior year, I introduced him to the idea of the defendant guard act. And he is now the sponsor of it in Montana. So last year I got to work with him like, uh, by his side as like one of the main activists pushing this bill. And, uh, we, we were the first, I think we were the first state last year. Um, and, and all of all time to get it passed through a committee and get it actually like debated on the floor of the house, uh,

Um, and so I, I kind of just became like a pretty big activist in the, in the, um,

in the world of the Defend the Guard Act and have helped people around the country with advice on how to promote this in their state. So I've become friends with Dan McKnight and Diego Rivera, the great guys over at Bring Our Troops Home. And everyone should follow them. Everyone should go to bringourtroopshome.us. But yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at now. And I'm also...

You know, I'm a member of the Montana Libertarian Party, the Mises Caucus here. I was a Mises apprentice with Tho Bishop at the Mises Institute. We just got done with Mises U a couple of weeks ago. And I also was a...

It was a Hazlitt fellow for the Foundation for Economic Education with Dan Sanchez a couple of years back. So, yeah, I've kind of had an opportunity to have like be surrounded by a lot of great mentors. And I'm very thankful for you that you've kind of I've been able to add you to that list.

It's been awesome. Well, thank you very much, man. That's, that's incredible. And what, oh man, it's like, what are the odds that you'd be like a curious youngster and your teacher listens to Tom Woods? That's just so great. That's a great, like, couldn't have pointed you toward a better person. And go ahead. And it was in public education. So that, that's the coolest part is that I was just like lucky. Like he's a public, public education, high school civics teacher who was a libertarian. And, you know, a story I like to tell is

I didn't know this at the time, but in front of me every single day was a portrait of Ron Paul. I didn't know who he was. I knew who Rand Paul was. But in his class, he had Ron Paul as a portrait. And then one day I walked in and there was a photo of Abraham Lincoln. And it was in front of class and it normally was on the side. And he had written on the whiteboard, Lincoln was the worst president and an arrow to the portrait. So

So I later, he introduced me to like Tom DiLorenzo and yeah, he he's great.

Yeah. Those are all great people. By the way, if people haven't read, uh, Tom DeLorenzo wrote two books on Abraham Lincoln that were both really phenomenal. He's the, um, the president of the Mises Institute now. Yeah. I have not been, I, I went twice to a Mises university, but I haven't been back. I haven't been there since I think maybe 2017 or 2018. I mean, I gotta make, I gotta get back there soon. Cause it's just so it's, it's really awesome. It's really like, uh, it's like,

That and the Young Americans for Liberty stuff, I forget what they call it, the Revolution Summit or something like that. But it's just like when you go there and you see really young people who are really passionate and really well-versed in Austrian economics and libertarian theory and stuff. It does kind of recharge your soul a little bit when you're my age and you're like, oh, okay, all right. There's a new crop of talent coming up. That's good.

And it's like, like when you're the smartest guy in your hometown and when you can promote Austrian economics and you know your stuff, and then you go to the Mises Institute and you have this 18 year old kid who wins the award, like there's an exam at the end of the week and he ends up winning and it's like, wow, this is phenomenal. So it's just, it's great to connect. And I would highly recommend Phil Bishop was, is the guy who runs the apprenticeship. If you're a young guy and you're getting into these ideas, we

we were in the second cohort, I believe. Um, this was the second year they had run it. And if, if you want to get into these ideas, I would, I would definitely apply for the Mises apprenticeship through the Institute. Yeah. Though, though has been a really, uh, uh, uh,

really valuable resource for me over the years. I literally just the other day, I was, I asked him something. I can't even remember what it was. Something. Oh, it was something about what Rothbard said about one of Hayek's books. And I was like, what did Rothbard say about this? Wasn't it something like this? And like, I mean, it was like,

it was comical. It was like, he responded to me like 30 seconds later with like the full text of the paragraph. And I was like, how is it even possible you found it this quick? How did you copy and paste this quick? But he's like an unbelievable resource on all types of, you know, like the, the kind of like, like probably the best,

historian on Rothbard and Mises and Hayek and all these guys that, that we have. So yeah, just, and a great guy on top of that. Okay. So you wrote this piece for the libertarian Institute the other day. Tell me about that, that I kind of alluded to it before, but it's about defend the guard and it was advice to Donald Trump. And so take it from there.

Yeah. And I should say for people who don't know what it is, the Defend the Guard Act is state-based legislation that would prohibit the National Guard from being sent to overseas wars if Congress has not first declared war. And I don't know if you know this, but a couple of weeks ago, well, actually, I think just a couple of days ago, the Oregon National Guard was sent to Iraq and Syria. And it was just a couple of weeks ago, the Georgia, I think there were two Georgia National Guard

soldiers that were killed in non-combat situations, but it was in the same month that National Guardsmen were fired upon because of the conflict in the Middle East right now. And earlier this year, National Guard troops were on the border of Syria and Jordan, and three National Guard members from Arizona, I believe, were injured in that strike, and then a few soldiers

people in other branches of the military died. So that's kind of the context for why this bill is necessary. It's not about some future war, even though it's more necessary now because this war in Ukraine is now bleeding over into Russia. It looks like people are striking in Russia now. So

It is to prevent National Guardsmen from being sent to future wars in a hypothetical situation, but it's happening right now is what I want to stress. Soldiers are at risk currently. And so this bill, it was sort of... I think the reason we started pushing it and the idea behind it is that repeatedly people were calling on Congress to repeal or reform the authorization for use of military force that was passed in 2001.

that all of these conflicts are currently based off of like it, you know, they, they axed the 2002 AUMF a couple of years ago and Mark Milley at the time said, okay, this one's fine to get rid of because all of the wars we, we, we base it off of this one. Um, and, and I actually got the opportunity to talk to Matt Gates about the defend the guard act. And when, when I told him about it, he said, well, why can't I just pass this at the federal level? And, um,

I said, well, you know, I'm a big fan of yours and the fact that you keep introducing these war powers resolutions to withdraw from like Syria, to withdraw from Somalia and to withdraw from Iraq. But how many people vote for them? It's all these usual suspects. It's Matt Gaetz. It's the Freedom Republicans. It's my representative, Matt Rosendale and Thomas Massey. But that's it. And, you know, my own state legislature passed legislation

a resolution, I believe two years ago, calling on our own delegation, and we only have four people in our delegation from Montana to vote against this AUMF. Only two people in the legislature voted against that resolution. So almost unanimously, the state called on these guys to repeal the AUMF. And

The entirety of the delegation voted to uphold the AUMF. So what this bill is, is it's essentially acknowledging the political reality that if we want to end wars, we have to have the states do something about it. So this is a state-led movement that essentially imposes itself that says, look, we want to end these endless wars. We will not send our National Guard troops, which are the state militia, to these foreign conflicts unless we

Unless you declare war as the Constitution requires first. And in this article, I kind of make the case from both a conservative and a libertarian perspective. I think, you know, Trump was very he was open to coming to our convention at the Libertarian Party Convention in D.C. and I.

Clearly, he's open to having a conversation or at least people on his campaign were. So I'm trying to in this article, I'm trying to make the case that if you want to win over libertarian voters, I can't guarantee you that the party will nominate you as the presidential candidate like you tried. But I can I can give you the talking points that can win libertarians at large.

And I will say, so I uploaded this or I published this article on Monday and I went to the Trump rally in Montana on Friday with our libertarian candidate that's running for U.S. Senate. And I met with the Senate candidate the Republican Party is pushing in our state who's running against our guy. And I gave him an advanced copy of this and just said, hey, this is something we care deeply about. And

some good news that's already come out of this is that the following day, uh, he was at an event. It was a Republican event, um, on the Eastern part of the state and lead Emming, uh, my, my teacher, the sponsor of the bill asked him point blank, do you support this bill? So like literally the day after I gave him this and talk to him and he was in front of a crowd of like 60 people and had to look him in the eye and, and gave the best defense of it I've heard. And, and if he got elected, uh,

He would be the second senator to endorse the bill in the entire country. The other ones ran Paul. So, yeah, so I guess I'm just trying to make a make an appeal from a conservative and a libertarian perspective. Why? Like, this is a very popular issue and that if if Donald Trump gets behind it, he could probably win over a lot of support from libertarians.

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Yeah, no question. And I do think also, as I was trying to make the case on Tucker's show, that I think also just it's there's kind of there's two things. Number one, I think a lot of Trump supporters would get behind something like this, particularly if you said it the right way. And then number two, Trump can make the rest of them get on board with that. You know, I remember I

I debated kind of infamously in libertarian circles. I debated the former chair of the Libertarian Party years ago at the Soho Forum. And one of the things, and then I had my podcast, I can't remember whether this was at the Oxford Debater on the podcast, but he said at one point something like, you know, you can't be talking about monetary policy and these things, like people don't care about that, you know? And I was like, no, that's our job.

Our job is to make people care about that. That's what Ron Paul did. It's not like there was any focus group that said, and the Fed is going to get these huge, like, cheers. It was just like he explained it in such a compelling way that for people like me, because I was young at that time, I didn't really know anything about the Federal Reserve. I'd like heard of it, but I didn't know how it worked. And then he explained it. And I was like, what? That's an

An outrage. And then I read up about and then it's like become like my biggest issue that I care about are up there. And it's like yet Donald Trump, if he says this in a compelling way, he can decide that Trump supporters care about this. Like he you know, in the same way that he decided they were against the war in Iraq and then they were like, I sure does sound right and went with it. So the value that, you know, could be added by Trump supporters.

getting behind something like this is enormous, and it could really help him too. And in some ways, I think, I don't know, I'm curious your thoughts on this, but I do think...

The one thing that's really positive about Joe Biden getting out of the race and now not having an old senile man running against him and the polls tightening and kind of the big money going behind Kamala Harris and all of this kind of media attention. And I will grant, I think a lot of it's fake, but they're saying like, oh, she's winning in a lot of these polls. The polls certainly are much closer. The benefit now is it's like, hey, Donald Trump, you don't get to just coast.

to victory. You actually have to really appeal to people. And I think something like this is a great place to start. I would agree with you. I was, I was actually listening to your podcast where you made the case. I think you were talking about maybe Kyle Rittenhouse and how he had came out and said that he was going to write in Ron Paul in November and, and how you you've just been making the case that like, no, this is the time where the base should be asking for their candidate to be

great on all the ideas. And the answer to that wasn't to criticize Kyle Rittenhouse. It was to say, how can we get Ron Paul on Donald Trump's campaign as an advisor so that you can win over all of these people? Because it is a problem. I mean, like, it's a problem for him. I mean, I love it. But like people, thousands of people write in Ron Paul every November. So how can he warm up to those people? And so,

because he has been a willing participant and because he is like come to our convention and like in a, what I think is like a historic thing, like he has demonstrated maybe like unprecedented humility and like, like really a beautiful thing that he's willing to sit down and talk to libertarians. And, and so I just hope he's listening. And, and I do think that this is a right wing thing. So like the majority of Republicans in Montana voted for this bill and

The people who opposed it were Democrats. Only two Democrats voted for this in the House. It was the establishment Republicans who opposed this bill. And what I think would happen if he endorsed this is I would be able to go to all of them and say, well, your guy, like the guy of your party, like the lead guy has endorsed this bill. How are you going to say no against this? And that's also the value in having

Tim Sheehy, our senator from or the Senate candidate from Montana endorsed this over the weekend as I get to go to them with this video and say, look at what he said. So I think, you

you know, that's sort of the value that I see with the libertarian party going forward is, is trying to sit down and, and say like exactly what I told to Tim Sheehy. I said, you know, I can't guarantee you that the Montana libertarian party will support you. You know, you've said some things about the, uh,

Iran that make us believe that you want to go to war with Iran and that you'll, uh, you'll be a war hawk in there, but I can tell you the things that libertarians need to hear. And, and I, I challenge you to be the most libertarian. I challenge you to be more libertarian than our guy. And if, if you, if you're curious about how to do that, call me up. And, and so I, I kind of think that that's what we should be doing with Trump. And I'm glad that he's

willing to and that it sounds like he has a relationship with the Libertarian Party at the national level. Yeah, no question about that. And I think, look, I think libertarians have to be realistic about what we can achieve. Of course, as I'm sure you're well aware, there's a lot of purity spiraling in the libertarian world. But

We are also we have to recognize that we're in a very unique moment right now. And what and don't get me wrong. I mean, there's a lot of things to be frustrated with about Donald Trump. I think I was talking about a lot of these on Tucker's show the other day, but so much

of what we really believe in is so appealing right now to Trump supporters. So you've kind of got this moment where it's like, hey, you could just be really good on these issues and really win over, forget just the libertarians. I mean, that's an important enough block too. But that like, you know, there's with all of the wars right now,

I mean, I shouldn't not with like, say, Iraq and Syria and things like this. But with the conflict in in Ukraine and now, I guess, in Russia, by the way, Dave DeCamp just I was just reading before we came on had a great piece on this over at antiwar.com today. But, you know, this OK, Mitch McConnell and guys like that, you know, support all the wars. But.

There is this doesn't really have Republican fingerprints on it. These are all conflicts that started under Joe Biden. And so it's kind of like what happens a lot of the time is that you're requiring one group

like one political party to kind of disown their own person who they got behind. Now, Donald Trump was able to do this. Part of it is because he, he was, he is this like cult of personality type figure that has such a, you know, devout fan base and,

But and also it's because he was running against Jeb Bush. So he was able to say, hey, your brother lied us into war. And he was able to get people who like enthusiastically supported George W. Bush to be like, yes, not only was he not what I was saying he was, but screw him. That's kind of difficult. But right now it doesn't require any of that.

All you have to do, like the social psychology of the thing, is just to say that Joe Biden is a fool who's had this crazy, reckless policy that's resulted in nothing but disaster. And we're against that. Isn't this like such an easy talking point to hand to Donald Trump? Now, obviously, he's not going to go there with Israel, but certainly this is.

is a great, like defend the guard. That's easy for you. That doesn't even necessarily piss off. Well, maybe it does piss off a pack, but whatever, like it's, you could say that and still be Trumpian about it. So I, I think it's like the perfect opportunity and the perfect thing to push for him. I,

Right.

Right.

you know, or, you know, America first is defined by Nick Fuentes or Tom Cotton. Those are our options. It's either Nick Fuentes, Tom Cotton, or paleo conservative or libertarians like Tucker Carlson and you. So, so I would rather talk him, listen to Tucker, Candace and yourself. And, you know, like the way that,

Tom Cotton is spinning all of this is that, well, America first means that Donald Trump is strong and we lead through peace through strength. And well, actually we would have avoided this war in Ukraine if, you know, Donald Trump was in office because he would have given even more aid. He said this in an interview with Sean Hannity. And he says that, that Trump's actually stronger than Biden because he gave the first weapons package to Ukraine. And so we have to resist against that and say like,

I think you've mentioned this before, that it seems like Donald Trump has these instincts where he's right. He came out and said that Jeb Bush, his brother lied us into the Iraq war. That was the best moment he ever had on the campaign stage. And even today when he talks about

Israel, like he celebrates the Abraham Accords, but then like in the same sentence, he goes, but I'm not enemy. I'm not an enemy to Iran. Like we were very friendly with them and like we struck him a couple of times. And so like part of me, and maybe this is naive, but part of me is trying to be really optimistic and hoping that Trump just hates war. And, you know, he came out and he says he wants to stop the dying in Ukraine. And so,

Maybe he just has surrounded himself with people like Tom Cotton who are saying, well, the way you avoid war is by doing what we've done in the past and whatever. But if we can propose alternative solutions to this, maybe he'd listen. And I think you're doing a great part in amplifying that. I mean, I remember very early in the Ukraine war, like I was on my college campus with my student group. We would go out on campus and we'd have posters and we'd ask

do you support the war in Ukraine? And we try to have a dialogue. And at that time, like very early in the war, it was hostile out there. And like, I truly believe libertarians and yourself had like a very strong influence and it's hard to measure, but a very strong influence in pushing the needle. You went on the largest platform, Joe Rogan's podcast, and you were talking about how this war was provoked by the United States with the 2014 coup. And so I think

I think we shouldn't take that for granted and we should use our platform to try to get these candidates to accept our views or at least entertain them. Yeah, it was, um, it was an interesting experience, uh, because this was, um, like, uh, it was still the old Twitter when the first episode of Rogan, where I went on, it's like, I was on like right before Vladimir Putin invaded, uh,

and then like the next time i was on was like a few months into the war and the the clip of me talking about it went like super viral um and you know his show is just has such a huge audience and it was still old twitter and i got like i think i've never gotten before or since like it the amount of blue check journalists

who were like furious with me and all types of, you know, like name calling and stuff. And, uh, you know, other than a puppet of Vladimir Putin and I'm spewing Russian propaganda and like, like Joe Scarborough and all these people were like coming after me. And I do remember thinking like, even at that moment being like, okay,

Like they're freaking out because their position is so vulnerable here. And the truth is that it's something we all got to keep in mind, particularly for people who listen to this show and for people just in our world, like the people who listen to Tom Woods and Scott Horton and stuff like that and read their books.

is that like, there's still so many people who this has never been explained to. And it's this weird, it's not like there's anything that, you know, it's like I happen to have these relationships and I get on some of these big platforms, but it's kind of easy in a weird way because it's just like so many people just don't know this story. And it's a really interesting, really compelling story. Once you like just tell it to people, it's actually very hard to argue with.

But yeah, I think, and certainly I'm just a small part of it, but I do think you're right that a lot of people on our side of this conflict were able, because...

Unlike with previous wars, like the Internet platforms are just so much bigger and they're so much less controlled by three letter agencies that we were able to kind of get our side of this story out in a way that just wasn't true with with earlier wars, like where it just didn't get out until much, much later. And the disaster was so apparent. But now I do think the war in Ukraine is.

And the needle moving and there's a lot of people who played major roles in this. I mean, Glenn Greenwald was incredible and like a lot of other people like that. But yeah, I do think after the story kind of got out, you saw a lot of people move in a direction of being much more suspicious of the conflict. Yeah, I mean, and I think that that's why you've been able to reach like the young Turks and people on the left as well as like, like you were so right about Ukraine, you

to right-wingers and it was so obviously a bad war to right-wingers. And now this war in Israel's popping off and it's so obviously wrong to left-wingers. So you've been able to kind of bridge the gap and you've been able to communicate that this is the consistent libertarian position. And I think you're absolutely right that people haven't heard these ideas. After I went to the

rally, the Trump rally on Friday, I came back and I was like telling the whole story because Donald Trump called out us at the convention. He said, there's a great libertarian standing over here. Why don't you stay? Yeah. And, and our candidates stood up and he was like, yeah, this great guy, we're all libertarians here. And so I came back in my, my family, uh,

Asked my grandpa, he's a big Trump supporter, and my cousins, they were like, well, what is a libertarian? And I said, well, you know how conservatives, they claim to be for limited government. Just apply that to foreign policy. We shouldn't be sending money to foreign countries when our country's struggling. And they're just nodding along. They haven't heard this. There's this tendency in libertarian circles to feel like we have to water down our message to

get elected or whatever. And I really think that we need to follow the Ron Paul model, which is like, he went up on stage and said something extremely unpopular. He told people what blowback was. And I'm sure people in the audience at the time

were like listening and they were like really grappling with that. You know, they were conflicted because they had heard a story completely opposed to that their whole life. And, and then, you know, over time they actually contended with those ideas and were, you know,

converted. And that's how Ron Paul became who he is today and why he has millions of followers. So I think we should, we should use that model and, and not look at data, like not look at voter data and what people believed yesterday and what they were polling and polling in the political polls and what they cared about yesterday. But like,

try to anticipate what they might care about in the future and try to convince them to care about these ideas. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moink. Moink delivers grass fed and grass finished beef lamb, pasteurized pork,

Sustainable wild caught Alaskan salmon all straight to your door and it comes from family farms. The Moink farmers farm like our grandparents did and as a result the meat tastes so much better 'cause the family farm just does it better. The Moink difference is a difference you can taste and you can also feel good knowing you're helping family farms stay financially independent. You choose the meat that's delivered in every box.

So you choose from ribeyes, chicken breasts, pork chops, salmon filets, and much more. Plus you can cancel anytime. I love Moink. My family loves this company. It's a great way to get grass fed, grass finished, actual quality meat from local farms.

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Um, so yeah, I, I couldn't agree with you more. And, and like, in terms of the defend the guard act and its popularity, like, like Donald Trump would be reaching Republicans around the country. Like, I don't know if you saw this, the, the Republican GOP, uh, in, in Texas, they, they sent out an internal request.

I don't know what you call it, like an internal resolution or like an internal poll on their ballot to see whether their supporters support Defend the Guard. And I think one point, I think it was like 1.8 million people voted on it. And they came back with 80 some percent supporting the bill. And that's like one of the largest Republican parties in the country voting.

They said they support the bill. And the larger context of that is that they're also having, you know, a standoff with the federal government regarding their southern border. And, you know, they were trying to deploy National Guard guardsmen at the southern border to put up fences and stuff to prevent what they perceive to be an invasion. And so I wrote this article with that in mind. And I tried to have some intellectual honesty where I was saying,

This is the libertarian argument for it. I think you put it this way, that we're bleeding heart libertarians. We care about war. We care about foreign policy. But if you care about the border and that's your biggest issue, you need to get behind the Defend the Guard Act because the constitutional –

vision of the National Guard is that they are the state militia. And the Constitution sets out that there are only three purposes for which the federal government can federalize National Guard. And that's to respond to an invasion, respond to an insurrection, or enforce the laws of the Union. And currently, these endless wars are unconstitutional. They have not been passed by an official law of the Union. So

They're unconstitutional and the states retain authority outside of that. So that would be the kind of conservative argument for this. And there are many cases where –

you know, deployments of National Guard overseas conflicts with the state's, you know, interests. You know, during Hurricane Katrina, 3,000 National Guard troops were over in Iraq and Louisiana, and they had to bring National Guard troops from other states to come help. There was a similar story with the Florida National Guard. During the Ukraine war, or like right before they started

going to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers at the time that there were hurricanes in Florida. So I think the most recent case is this border crisis where a lot of conservative red states perceive them there to be an invasion and like a disaster that, you know, we should be focusing on at home. But instead, they're over in Syria and they're being attacked and they're being injured. So that's the conservative case for this bill.

Or just like how much, as you're saying this, is that not just the antithesis of America first? Like the idea that we have these major problems here, but sorry, we can't deal with them because we've got our boys helping prop up some country.

government in a faraway country that we're trying to install there. It's like just it's the definition of America first would be opposing that and supporting this. And, you know, to your to your point about what Ron Paul was able to do by kind of saying some unpopular things. And it's look, I've I've experienced this in in my career and a lot of this is because I learned the lesson from him. I remember hearing Dan McAdams said once and he was kind of talking about

I believe the topic he was talking about is like when the Ron Paul revolution energy kind of died down and the Trump movement kind of picked up. And it was like, he was like, you know what, what Dr. Paul always says is like in these moments when there's kind of the, you're in a storm here, it's like, you just hold onto your principles, you're

and tell the truth about what you're seeing in front of you. And I remember being like, yes, that way, because I was at the time I was just starting to like get a little bit of an audience going and just starting to get some traction with my podcast. And it always felt to me like, um,

It was like, you know, I started, I believe I started this podcast in 2012. I took a break from it for a little bit and then came back in 2013. And I've basically been going ever since. But so there was this weird timing where like the Ron Paul revolution ended and

And then I started and it was kind of like, oh man, am I like preaching this thing that's already had its heyday and is now over? And like, I was a little nervous about that. Like, well, what do I do? Like, I don't know. Is there going to be an audience for this? Is it just dwindling down more and more? And then like what, you know, what's the future going to be like for me? And I,

That, that, when I heard him say that, that really like, I was like, yeah, okay, that's right. I just tell the truth. Just do that. And, and what's happened over the years is that it's kind of like a thing where it's my advice to people who are in this world, to you, to other people like it, like you in our world where it's like,

It's like a low time preference thing. It's like the thing is that what happened with Ron Paul is that when he blew up in 2008 and the Internet was kind of blowing up with him, you could go back and look at all these like video montages of all the shit he was saying in the 70s and the 80s and that and they aged.

so well. They all, it was like, oh man, like he was talking about how like we're going to provoke like a hatred against us and we're going to be dealing with blowback and terrorism before we were. And then he was talking about how artificially low interest rates were going to lead to bubbles in the housing market. And you're like, oh, this all aged story.

so well. And so much of the energy I have now, so much of that, the, like the, the success that I've had is because people go like, Oh, but look, he was against lockdowns in, in March and April. And this is like when it was unpopular at the time, people were like, what do you mean you're against lockdowns? Like there's this virus we know nothing about like what? And it's just like,

whether it was Russiagate and the war in Syria and the war in Ukraine and COVID and all this stuff, it's just like it does pay off ultimately. There is real currency in having a track record that you build up over time. And it was very difficult for me in my 20s to see that

In my 40s now, it's just like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes a lot more sense. But that's one of the real values in telling the truth too. Again, it's the only strategic advantage that libertarians have.

It's all we have is that we're right about this stuff. That's our superpower. And that's it. We don't have the advantage that a lot of others have, which is that like, oh, really powerful, concentrated interests are going to love this and get behind it. So we don't have that, but we do have, it's so beautiful in a way is like what we have is that this is all true. And,

And just like, you know, people say it rings true. The truth just has a ring to it. It has a feel that grasps people. And even if you're saying something really unpopular in the moment, it's like, tell the truth. It's going, the truth always ages well.

Yeah, absolutely. And like, so when, when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, I went to YouTube and I found this old clip of Ron Paul in 1988. And now I see it everywhere circulating on, on Twitter because of this. But I clipped it and it's Ron Paul talking about how the FBI was used to go after political opponents and anti-war activists. And so I posted that on Twitter and it blew up because it was like the night of the raid on Mar-a-Lago. And,

And it's this weird thing where like the GOP now is if Ron Paul were running and we didn't have to deal with the Trump factor, like with where they're at right now, Ron Paul would absolutely be the candidate. And you go in, you know, that's ignoring like the inner party politics and whatever, like they might steal it from him.

But like, if you go to my, my grandfather, my grandfather is a huge Trump supporter. And if you go to him and you say, you know, I don't think the FBI shouldn't be moved from Texas to Washington, DC. I think you should get rid of it. He would absolutely agree with you. And so, and Ron Paul is like, if you go on Twitter now, it's hashtag Ron Paul is right. It's trending all the time with like right-wingers and, and,

It's absolutely true. I think that's resonating with people. I really think that the reason libertarians have the power they have is largely because of you and what you've been doing on all of these large platforms.

Well, thank you. I mean, I like to think that I've played a part in it, but obviously there's also a lot of, you know, I'm also armed by so many of our great thinkers, you know, and like, it's really the truth. Like, I claim no originality in almost anything that I'm doing. I mean, like, I guess I'm kind of good at, like, thinking of my own example or my own way to say it, but I'm armed by Ron Paul and Tom Woods and Scott Horton and all of them.

And more and more now these days, I mean, all the Dave DeCamp and Connor Freeman and Kyle, all these guys are just like so great. So they, you know, they, it helps a lot that we have this whole kind of

But look, even just another example is just coming to me as we're talking about this. But like Thomas Massey being like the lone voice who was against the crazy spending bills in 2020. And at the time, Donald Trump sending people to attack him and him taking all this heat. But who what right winger now is going to look back at

that and not go, yeah, okay, right. He was right about that. This did lead to like this disastrous price inflation that we're living under. And so it's just we're in such a unique moment. And I know that there are some people

like say in the libertarian party who, uh, are a little bit resistant to kind of like the idea of working with, uh, Donald Trump or trying to persuade Donald Trump. Um, but I do think it's kind of like, you know,

We're in this very unique moment. We have this kind of potential. And you want to just keep doing the same thing? I mean, I'm not saying that Angela's kind of maneuvering here is flawless, but it's something pretty impressive. It's something different than we've ever had before. And what do you really think the answer here is to have a real impact is to just say vote for Chase and ignore...

The disgust impulse that you feel inside of you when you see his COVID posts or something like that. It's like I that doesn't seem to be a winning strategy to make.

Well, and like, and I don't want to bash on him too hard, but when, when Chase Oliver got elected at the convention, he went up on stage and criticized the fact that we even invited Donald Trump to the convention. And, and then he said something to the effect of no real libertarian would serve in a Trump administration or in the Trump cabinet. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like if we, if, if,

If we could get Scott Horton, if we could get Donald Trump to pick Scott Horton to be the secretary of the state, and I'm not, I'm under no illusion that this would happen. I'm just saying if we could, that would be the best thing that he's ever done ever. And like, why wouldn't you want to influence his policy? So, you know, I agree with you. There's like this Trump derangement syndrome in, in the party. And the, the reason I, the reason I am willing to talk to them and to appeal to them is because they,

Michael Heiss has put it this way to me, that we're in competition with the right in a way that we're not with the left. The left, we already know where they stand and they're not coming our direction. But the example of my grandfather is perfect. You tell him we got to get rid of the FBI, he agrees. And so there's a...

I think what we are doing here is it's larger than Trump himself. Trump represents a larger movement, and when he says good things, they hear it. And that's what matters to me. I'm under no illusion. I don't think that if Donald Trump gets into office in November that all of our problems are going to be solved. I do not believe that. I kind of agree with

you know, you've said this in the past that the federal government's lost and we have to like focus on the state level. And, and so what I care about is influence influencing the culture. And, and if we can have people in it, like Trump, who is like got the biggest megaphone in the world, if we can have him adopting our ideas, I think that's the quickest way to do it. And, um,

And to your point about like Ron Paul and the truth here, like I think it's in Trump's interest to realize that

the foundation and like kind of the background for, for why his movement was so popular is because I think he actually did pick up on this like dissident right wing strain that Ron Paul started. I think Ron Paul, after the time you were talking about the time where the Ron Paul revolution kind of dwindled and it was like, you know, thrown under the rug for a while. Um, we, we had the Obama administration and then they, you know,

Yeah. But what happened is Donald Trump comes back and he basically appeals to this populist energy that I think Ron Paul represented. And it wasn't grounded in principle in the same way. But I think a lot of Ron Paul supporters ended up supporting Trump and the GOP. And I know you've talked about this with Tucker Carlson before that like,

like if it hadn't been for Trump's 2016 race, we likely wouldn't have a GOP that is opposed to the Ukraine war. And in the same way, without Ron Paul's 2008 and 2012 elections, I really do not think that we would have had Trumpism. And so I think Trump needs to realize that like,

Ron Paul libertarians are his allies and and, you know, he should really listen to him because it's in his interest, like like with the inflamed inflation issue, for instance, if if he gets in there and he believes that he has to the way he gets through this crisis is by lowering interest rates. I mean, that's going to come back to hurt him.

So he better get some like Ron Paulian economic advisors, maybe listen to Javier Malay a little bit, you know? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply. I love this company. If you're concerned about uncertainty in the future, you got to go check them out. This is the best way to be prepared. They're mega three-month emergency food kits.

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Let's get back into the show. Yeah. You know, in a way, he kind of got rescued a little bit by losing the election in 2020. Yeah. You know, because then it's easy to like blame the price inflation on Joe Biden that we all know was coming one way or the other. And so there's there's something to that.

But look, I remember in 2016, just to back up your point, because this is kind of forgotten history, but I remember it because I pay attention to this stuff. But in the campaign, in the Republican primary in 2016, it wasn't just Donald Trump and Ted Cruz at one point, and maybe one other guy, I can't remember. Definitely the two of them started talking about auditing the Federal Reserve.

And I'm sorry, there is no freaking way that comes up without Ron Paul. There's only one reason. Like this had never come up in Republican national politics before. It was only because they were like, hey, I do remember that there were like, you know, hundreds of thousands of people screaming and the Fed and that's some red meat we can throw in a close race. Every like little constituency matters.

And so they were playing to that. And I think that a lot of the stuff that libertarians really ought to pay attention to also is that, look, Donald Trump started

with the birther stuff about Obama not being a real, you know, really born in America or all of this. And like, and he had even like kind of flirted with 9-11 conspiracies and then certainly flirted with a lot of other conspiracies. And part of it is just that people had been waking up to the point where I'm not saying the birther stuff is true or anything like that. I really don't know anything about it, to be honest. But the point is that people were so suspicious of

And they were so suspicious that you could tell them like, you know, it's like you see this online now. You could tell people that like this goes, you know, it's a whole basically ring of pedophiles who are running the government. And people are like, I'm listening. What do you like? What do you have on that? And there's something like if libertarians don't see an opportunity in that.

And then some libertarians are even silly enough to like mock people who believe in some of these conspiracies. Like I'm not even saying you shouldn't maybe try to correct them and try to be like, hey, let's focus on this. Here's a really good conspiracy that we have really strong evidence for. But there is no question that there has been a huge growth in the just lack of not even just lack of trust. I mean, that's that's like nothing.

under selling it. It's like the people's understanding of how truly evil the ruling elite are and how much they are against you, how much they hate your guts and are working against your interests. That's a tremendous opportunity for libertarians. And the other thing I would just say to keep in mind on the theme of kind of low time preference here is that Donald Trump is old.

And this is it. Even if he wins, he only gets four more years. If he loses, he's not running again. That is not going to happen. He's not going to run at 85 or whatever. And there is this real question of like where the future of this Trumpian movement goes. I certainly don't see the populist streak dying. It's going to be who can kind of pick up that mantle. And so now you start going like, oh, I know a lot of people thought like 2024 was the year, but really 2028 is really,

perhaps going to be the year where like we can make some real noise. And if that's the case, you go, who's left to inherit this? You know, like if you ask them, the number one person is Tucker Carlson and he's not doing it. He's not interested in going into politics. At least I don't think so. And so it's like, and even if, and even if he was, I mean, don't get me wrong. I,

I would think it would be amazing if Tucker Carlson would run for something. He'd have my support. But like you do realize that it's like, oh, OK, there's this new like coalition forming and libertarians in many different ways have a real seat at this table. So let's I'm not saying I have all the answers of what we should do, but like, hey, let's explore that. That seems to be the best prospects for liberty that we could possibly hope for.

Yeah. I mean, if the options between Nick Fuentes, Tom Cotton, or Vivek Ramaswamy defining what America first means in 2028, like we should absolutely be pushing for Vivek Ramaswamy. If the Overton window between the Libertarian Party and the GOP is Vivek to you, like

Like we're, we're doing really good. And I, I wanted to go back to, uh, uh, another example of where the populist like MAGA base is kind of copying around Paul, like recently, just in the last like two weeks, um, uh,

The Republican base has been pointing out that Kamala Harris stole Trump's no taxes on tips. And Hunter DeRenzis, he's a great guy from the Libertarian Institute. Yeah, he's great. And bring our troops home. He sent me this business card from the 2012 Ron Paul campaign, and it's on my Twitter feed, where it's no taxes on tips.

tips. And he was the guy who introduced this original legislation. So everything that is popular now, everything that is great, like Thomas Massey's get rid of the Department of Education bill. That was Ron Paul. All of this is Ron Paul. And I think that we have a real unique opportunity when you look at the culture and just the pulse right now where we have an opportunity to influence it

And I think a real problem in the Libertarian Party in particular is that we have a lot of people who just aren't tapped into political realities at all. They have no idea what people are listening to. They aren't listening to your podcast on Joe Rogan. They aren't listening to your podcast on Tucker Carlson. They're not watching people change their minds actively. They have no idea where we're at.

And a lot of them also believe that they can get a libertarian elected in November. So they're just not living in reality. And so that is a real problem. But if you are grounded in reality, like I think you are sort of amazed at what's happening. And like, you know, you might not like Trump. There might be a lot of Trump derangement syndrome out there. But I think we have an opportunity to at least like help guide it, guide this America first MAGA crowd in the future. And I hope to influence it a little bit.

Yeah, look, man, I mean, I know that I got some libertarian guys a little bit angry at me, which I do. I think that, look, I'm not saying this means I'm right about everything, but

I think I would not be doing my job if I didn't bother libertarians sometimes. You know what I mean? I don't know what exactly my role in this whole thing is, but it's not just to tell you what you want to hear already. I mean, okay, if we're the group that...

has, you know, my like worldview and, you know, we share a theory and we're consistently losing while the state is consistently winning. I shouldn't just be telling you what you want to hear all the time. That doesn't sound right to me. Um, but I, when I was down in Nashville and I was doing a podcast and, and someone asked me a question about something about the libertarian party and it

one of the things I said was just like, it disgusts me how obsessed so many people in the party get over just

party issues and you know i mean like obviously like over the last few years i took part in the caucus wars and i you know like went to battle with all this stuff but if you like if you listen to my show throughout any of those years that was never what i was leading with it was like maybe like once every couple months there'd be an episode we were talking about like what

happened when they tried to steal New Hampshire or something like that. But I was talking for all of 2020 and 2021, these years where we were in those caucus wars, my shows were about the lockdowns and the COVID regime and like all the stuff that that mattered. And so I'll tell this quick, like a story. But I so I remember in 2020,

I want to say maybe it was 2022. I think it was early 2022. I was out in Arizona at the state Libertarian Party Convention. And the two keynote speakers were it might have been 21, but the two keynote speakers were me and Joe Jorgensen. And so she spoke before me.

And the theme of her talk was lessons from the 2020 campaign. And she just gave this whole speech about how great the campaign was.

And it was great because they if you looked at the budget, you know, the amount of dollars that every vote cost them, you know, Gary Johnson's campaign actually cost more per vote. And therefore they were like the best bang for your buck of every campaign. And she told the story about how they got the bus for a really good deal. And so they could campaign around on this bus and they were talking about it was just

all about her campaign and what, and I'm sitting there in the back of the room with Scott Horton, just like furious. And it's not even anything against her. Like I never had anything against Joe Jorgensen. Well, I, this was before she lied about me on Patrick, but David show, but I, at the time I didn't have anything against her. Um, but it was just like, Hey, you, you're a, you love Liberty and you ran for president in 2020 and,

And not once did you mention anything about what happened to the country that year. Like, how is that not like what you're talking about your own like budgetary issues? And I'll tell you, man, and if this like angers some LP members, then that's OK. But watching people over the last month and there's a few people I'm thinking of.

who are like obsessively posting on Twitter every day about the latest thing that happened at the LNC meeting and the latest thing about this or that. And like, well, I'm leaving this caucus and I'm joining this caucus and I can't stand for this. And you're like, guys, the country has gone through like this insane transformation. We have witnessed an assassination attempt and a coup over the last few weeks. And you're obsessed with this thing.

I mean, I'm not even saying like they're not just like I'm obsessed with this local activism. I'm doing like good more power to you if it's that. But over the like political happenings of this third part, it's just guys refocus and think about what actually matters here. And if you're just if you're just in theory and third party politics, that just there's something about that that really seems not right here.

to me. And why would anybody else want to support you when you're like, first priority isn't what's happening to them, what's happening to the nation that they live in? It's just that none of that makes any sense to me. Well, if I can, I just, I want to make a case to like Mises caucus supporters who were maybe upset at you for not running. And like, I think there were a lot of people who were

It became disaffected after chase one. And they thought that it was like we had lost and it was the feed of the takeover or whatever. But, you know, like since then I've actually been reinvigorated. And part of that is because of,

I think the vision or the potential that I've seen because of what happened in D.C. I mean, because the fact that Vivek, RFK and Trump were there, I mean, we have like real political leverage in this country to influence culture. And we should we should not.

be partisans. We should not be social party warriors. I think that's a term that's thrown around. And, you know, I'm trying to give, I guess, a model of the strategy that libertarians should be following in Montana and what we've done with the Defend the Guard Act and getting these endorsements. And, you know, I highly recommend any Mises caucus member who hasn't read the Decentralized Revolution Vision document to please do that because, you know,

This was written by Michael Heiss, and it's just phenomenal. And I want to remind everyone that the presidential election was never the primary goal that we were hanging our hat on. The presidential election was always a funnel to redirect people toward this long-term vision, which was pointed at issue coalitions at the local level that would build trust with Republicans and Democrats, which is what we're trying to do in Montana. And it's how we were able to get

a Senate candidate, a US Senate candidate to endorse defend the guard is because we are actually going out and we're actually promoting issues that people care about and exercising power and influence as a libertarian party. And so I would highly recommend people to look at what we're doing here and read that document and realize that if we want to have influence, it's got to be

I do think that it has to be at the local level. And I do think you, you need to start, like, if you, if you care about this country, like start actually trying to get things like Defending Guard passed and care about things that matter. I think that's another thing that puts us apart from the, the prags or whatever you want to call them in the party is that like,

They almost forget the fundamental Austrian idea that people have ordinal rankings of values. So they forget what issues people care about. And I think the Austrian strategy or the Mises caucus strategy, in a sense, is like,

paradoxically the most radical and most practical thing because we care about Rothbardian libertarianism, Hoppean libertarianism, Ron Paulian libertarianism, the most consistent and extreme libertarianism, but we're only emphasizing the things that we think people care about. We're talking about war. We're talking about inflation. We're talking about the political corruption, the fact that a presidential candidate was just

almost assassinated on live television yeah and instead the old guard wants to like treat like oh well prostitution is illegal in some states like they want to treat that at the same level but it's like we have to understand human psychology here and the way you reach people is by understanding their preferences and and i think that's what we're trying to do

Well, I mean, listen, and I'll say this, we're over time and I got to wrap, but it, you know, I don't want to pick on him because it's like a younger guy who wrote the piece, but I don't know if you saw, but there's this piece by Cato the other day about how Kamala Harris should like embrace open borders. And she has this opportunity to defend.

her immigration track record and stand up for the immigrants because after all, they commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans or whatever, which by the way is not even true, but regardless of that. But I was stunned by it where it's not just, look, you could disagree with me about open borders and you could be on the open border side or whatever. I disagree, but

But you're like, you're really going to delude yourself to think that that would be a political winner? Like, why do you suppose she's not doing that?

It's like, yeah, because she knows this would be a nine. And it's like, no, like libertarians, you can't, we can't do this. You can't delude yourself into thinking that like the people's priorities are something totally different than what they are. And no, that is not where the American people are. You would not lead your campaign with open borders. It would be a, she'd literally collapse in the polls. If she came out, they're giving her advice that would undoubtedly tank her campaign if she were to do it. And it's just,

It's kind of something to see that and go like, okay, that can't be our strategy for sure. Well, and I think this strategy is really just about facing political realities and then adapting to them. You acknowledge the Libertarian Party isn't going to get a presidential candidate elected in probably ever. You acknowledge that we're not going to get a gubernatorial candidate elected in a really long time. So how can we adapt? And so if you are an open border party,

libertarian and you're facing reality, you say, okay, well, this just isn't the time to move the needle on this. You say, how can I use this open border issue to pivot to other issues that are reachable? So you, you say, for instance, if you care about this immigration problem, you should care about the wars that cause refugee crises, you know, around the world. And, and then, and then you actually get Republicans ears and they're like, oh, well, I care about the border. So maybe I should care about wars too. So yeah, I think,

I think we have a serious problem in the party, but I'm glad that it seems to be moving in the right direction. Yeah, no. And I think there's a lot of things to be excited about. I mean, one of the things like I'm really excited about is like, you know, just in terms of like the which which what a presidential run was always supposed to be was like a speaking tour. And in terms of stuff like that, I do think that it's like, look, man, like when when Scott Horton's first book was

Fools Aaron came out was like 2017. I want to say or something like that. 2018 maybe. And I mean, he had like no platform compared to what he has today. And.

And like when provoked is so good and I can't wait for it to come out, this is going to generate enormously more reach. Like this is going to be the definitive book on this war. He was not in a position like that when, when he wrote enough already. And like, that's a part because all of us have, have like kind of come up and like have a bigger following now than, than we did back then. And like,

There's just there's a lot of stuff to be excited about. I hope people still are. We live in like crazy, amazing times. And yeah, I think the I think the prospects for liberty are actually much stronger right now than they than they were. Certainly when that when I was talking to you about when I was starting my podcast in 2013 or whatever, like I'm much more optimistic about things right now. So I do agree with you on that.

I do have to wrap up there, but dude, we got to do this again a lot more times. I really enjoy talking to you. Please tell people where they can go find your stuff and where they can support you. Find me at M. Liam McCollum on Twitter and also you should subscribe to Human Reaction. I just partnered with them. They're a great new podcast. Great group of guys over there. They're very new, but they have grown in size like

exponentially and the quality podcast, quality conversations. And I just partnered with them. I'm going to start producing content with them. Um, and I'd love to have you on as a guest when I start doing stuff. Absolutely. Give me a text message. I'm happy to do it. Thank you so much, Liam. Really appreciate you taking the time. All right. Thanks for listening to everybody. Catch you next time. Peace.