women offered her thoughts on passing down conservative values to young women. here's a portion of the program. >> the core principles, religious state and freedom are intrinsically linked, in a political sense, a personal sense with young women. young women who think a lot of self-esteem and we hear a lot about this especially government schools. self-esteem is okay and this is not important, however self-worth is totally different concept and that's the chapter, self-worth from god not government. it's this idea that it's the most important concept, i think, for a girl to understand, knowing that she is, your made, unconditionally loved by god, will be a corner stone of conservatism and it's something that goes with the policy at the same time. this notion that, you know, the government can substitute for

god. well, i would argue no, that's really not so. >> to watch the rest of this program, visit book tv.org, click on the after words tab to find this and all previous episodes. >> now on book tv, more television for serious readers. >> nice to see everybody today, thank you all for joining us and joining us at the heritage foundation, my name is jessica anderson, executive director of heritage action the nation's most effective grass roots organization in the country. we represent over 2 million activists and sentinals fighting every single day for our freedoms at the local, state and international level. this is why we were so interested in our guests new book which outlines the fight all americans currently face in opposing the biden regime. the book highlights a grass a

root agenda for securing our freedoms and putting us first. you really got to know sean for the first time as the first press secretary to president trump but as you can all, i'm sure, test, you fell in love with him on his escapades on dancing with the stars. he is hosting a new show, and somehow between his daily press advising, talking with the president and working with activists across the country, he found time to pen this new, fantastic book which we'll discuss today. the book is called radical nation, joe biden and kamala harris's dangerous plan for america. please welcome, sean spencer.

>> so this is heritage. >> yeah, it looks beautiful. >> gorgeous, beautiful day in washington and really glad to have this conversation with you. this is an absolutely fantastic and very timely book. i had the pleasure of being able to read it and i have a sneak copy before we were here today, and all our guests get to take home a copy as well. so i want to start there with your thinking going into the book. obviously you've written a few books before. this is your third, and this is well-timed with everything that we're seeing in washington, the biden regime, there's very, very, dangerous legislative agenda so what led you to write this book, what was your thinking behind it that made you take pen to paper. >> so, right after it was clear that joe biden was going to become president, in january, humanex which is the publishing division of news max and we need to get a book out right away and

you're in a unique position because of your past experience in the white house, campaign et cetera. so if we could do it really quick, really take a look at these people and what do you think is important that people need to know? and at the time, i was like well look at the people that are filling these key positions. look at the policies they're talking about pursuing and the idea was frankly to be a warning. and when you write a book, you sometimes don't know the environment that's going to, you know, take place when it publishes. i mean, i think god was like here you go, and this is a clear landing strip for this. because so much of what i write about is literally happening right now. whether it's voting rights, the economy, foreign policy, so many of the things that we were looking at in terms of the people that we're going to be managing this administration's policies in those areas or the actual policies themselves needed to get written about because frankly, i don't think, and this is not an insult on the american people, but i think that there's 2 chapters on there

about the media. and what is happening right now, jessica, is that if you wake up any morning and watch the today show and read the washington post, you, it's like if you ever saw the lego movie it's like everything is great. there's nothing wrong. i mean everything's fine and they call it a success and people, the other day, the economy is a huge success, and if you don't know any different, if that's where you're getting your news from, waking up, going to work, dropping the kids off, living your life, you're like okay. and you don't realize that there is actually this entire plan taking place in front of our eyes that is frankly changing the fabric and structure of our country and the best part about this is you can go okay well sean you're partisan, that's what you think. no, no, one, joe biden told us he was going to be the most progressive president ever. his words, not mine. three frieds ago today, he said if we pass my 1.2, and 3.5

pieces of legislation, we will transform the structure and nature of the economy, his words. who asked for that? i don't remember that coming out during the campaign. the structure and nature of our economy. what's wrong with it. >> i didn't realize we had a huge problem, but we need to understand that's what's going on in front of our eyes and if we don't wake up, and i hate to say this because i think a lot of folks on the right talk about the fact biden's not in charge and not doing this. like we're minimizing the problem. the problem is, whoever is in charge, i don't really care. but they're going in a direction that i don't want to go and i don't think most people realize, once we head there, that once government has its tent can tells and things, it never let's go. >> so you talk about this a lot in the book, and you dig deep, into how biden is basically became who he is, and a lot of the advice that he's taking and i want to read a part of this, it's toward the end of the book. but you're referencing i think an incredibly pivotal moment in

the biden administration right at the beginning when he got together with all these liberal historians and put everybody in a room. there was no conservatives there, not that we aren't available, not that there aren't historians available to visit with him. he doesn't invite them. so you write, and i'm going to read this for everybody. according to these reports of this meeting, joe biden appears to be thinking of his place in history, and that's why he seems hell bent on accomplishing big things in a big hurry, the secret meeting called in discussion how big is too big and how fast is too fast to jam through a once in a lifetime historic change in america. the secret meeting outlined for the history books marker of the think big, go big mentality that purr vads the west wing today. historians there reportedly told biden exactly what he wanted to hear forget bipartisan ship and playing by the rules.

time to bolden anything that is stands in your way as well as bipartisan niceties as the filibuster. you go on to say the historians leaned in, say go big, do it now, and i love this part. because no one's really tieing this together. they confirmed joe biden's worst instincts, urging him to spend big, grow the size of government, expand power of government beyond what we saw with fdr and joe biden loves the growing narrative that he's bolder, has bigger thinking than fdr and president obama. >> exactly, but think about it. everything he said, he gets it. time is limited and i think they get this unlike previous administrations from both parties. they have a window and know you have to get as much done as quick as possible. last night he was asked will you consider moving the filibuster for certain things. said yes for voting rights,

potentially other thing and other things. he gets it, at some point, they're just going to do it. especially if they realize they're going to lose the house which they will. mark my words. the few weeks leading up to it it's going to be a flurry. they will get as much done as possible. he understands this. i will give him credit as a politician for that. he understands he has to cement his legacy. fdr is still fdr, we talk about him because he went big and bold and we have the government programs because of that. so the only way you become the talking point in the future is if people say oh, you know what biden did, so he has to get all this stuff done. en 1.2 trillion, 3.5 trillion, numbers we never heard of. he gets it and wants people to be talking about him as, remember what biden did and kind of replace the talk of the new deal with, remember when biden passed build back better? that's going to be the new talking point for politicians in the future on the left. and he gets the fact that barack

obama may have been the first black president but he will be the most progressive president and he wants to cement that. i mean, he is, i don't think it's alarmist to suggest at his age he is probably a one-term president and i think he recognizes that and anybody with eyes and ears and a pulse gets that, and so he's going to do as much as he can as quick as he can. >> the impact of this will be profound. >> absolutely, i think one of the things that i like to say is you have to understand what i call the big why. why are they doing all of this? and the thing is, is it in isolation, you can explain one or two things say it's this or that, and it's not. they all tie together. everything is about maintaining permanent political power. right? so think about this.

because if you have power and it's permanent, you can continue to pass your policies infinitum so what do you need to do? maintain power in those key areas so one you pack the court, two, you make dc a state, puerto rico and state and potentially get four permanent democratic senators. district of columbia votes 95 to five on a good day and considering the history of the senate i mean it will be pretty hard to start overcoming not just two but four. so that gives you that, guarantees you never lose a super majority, then you need new voters so let's people come in through the southern border, immediately come in for citizenship, come in where you're now allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections, give them driver's licenses so if you

have driver's license and can vote, who is really going to check to make sure you can't vote in a federal election? no one. so you start to do that and what do you do? you ensure you always have the votes and always got the institutions in control. boom. >> there's a policy, we saw with the $5.5 trillion reconciliation infrastructure package, all the policies you warned about in this book, the process agenda with the filibuster, additional states, there's the political agenda, of course, because they want to continue to win elections and cement their power, but there's also the cancel agenda and you talk about this in your book. the agenda to cancel conservatives in every aspect of life. in the media, in the main stream press, going after families, going after parents now, what's

the deal with cancel culture and the cancel agenda? >> i'm glad you brought it up because it ties into the first two things. liberals are afraid of conservatives because our agenda and policies make sense. the second that you expose that, they win and we lose, so they have to cancel us. they don't want your voices heard so they call you a racist, bigot, misogynist and it doesn't feel great and it take as pretty thick skin. give you a silly example, i was out with a couple of guys a couple weeks ago and they were telling me this story where a bunch of parents were getting involved in their school. and one of the women works at

verizon so she was arguing against a lot of the changes saying they don't make sense or whatever so what did they do? they called verizon, called hr and wanted to say, this woman engaged in racist behavior. we just want you to document she's been doing this in her private life. her actions were spoking out about changes the school board wanted to make. they wanted to make sure it was documented in hr, because, so what do you think the hr person does? maybe i should call her boss and see what's going on, and so immediately, you know, what's the reaction? okay. stop talking about school, going to back down. who wants to put up with that, in front of their house, number listed online? they cancel you. they shame you. if you speak out against it and

it takes a lot, i get it. i wouldn't want that for my family, my friends, wouldn't wish it on anybody but they get the game which is i'm going to silence you, and you can't get the facts out, present an alternative. think about this. they're trying to get congress sent a letter to at & t, verizon, all these cable carries say explain why you're carrying news max and von, what do you mean, first of all because we have a ton of viewers, thank you, secondly, you offer an alternative view. you can have m snbc on and no one cares, it's get rid of any dissenting voices and in an audience particularly young today, it's not easy guys but

you got to do it. if you don't fight back and get your voice out there, they win. and, in, you know, i don't want to jump ahead but a chapter in the book deals with this, how to fight back, and they make it difficult for folks to do it. but i believe, and if i may digress but in every argument if you dissect it, we win they lose. so against everything behind conservative principles and ideas. so they say, you support trump, how can you support him, well what about the facts, what about the policy? i want to give you my favorite example in the book, i'm just obsessed with this because it's easy. the framers decided the district of columbia where we are now should be separate from a state, so in 1790 they took a part from

virginia and maryland and created a 10 mile district which we're in now. in 1835 they gave back the part of virginia to virginia because it wasn't being used, i live there now. so the democrats come along say the district of columbia should be a state, allow people to vote. i'm for people voting, i'm for voting rights so that sounds great, but wait, let me think of a different solution. why don't we give back the part of maryland to maryland if it's not being used because it's already a state, and it would make sense. well, they're against that. why? why wouldn't you give back to maryland which by the way is the same thing we did to virginia and keep this enclave here to the white house, but what's the real motive? it's not about letting them vote, it's about getting two senators and if we don't scratch

the surface of these arguments, we miss the real motive at hand. >>, you know, it's amazing, the way it works because they almost convince you, we've been talking a lot about this at heritage action, they almost convince you to drink sand, telling you it's water. and that's a huge problem for a generation that doesn't even know what it is, so we're talking about freedoms, protecting your freedoms, well the people in their '20s graduating college, getting first job, coming out of covid pandemic my eight-year-old son forced to wear a mask in school. this is the world he knows. so what advice do you have for us to think through, how do we first define freedom for the next generation in an effort to protect it? to even get to the goal of preserving it and handing it down from generation to

generation? >> i think the first thing is, to kind of talk about what you're delving into, free exchange of idea as what the country is all about, the group on the left talks about being tolerant group is the least tolerant. i don't have a problem with msnbc, rachel maddow i think it's awesome. i love the idea of dissenting voices, flip the channel here and there much to the dismay of my family, when watching something i flick around but i think that's healthy. i think it makes me a stronger conservative when i can listen to what they say so i think the easiest thing again go back to logic and fact, why don't we hear both sides? i think you should hear crazy people. because you go okay, wait, that is crazy. now i know why we're doing what we're doing but you should realize there's dissenting

opinion. that's what makes debate healthy, especially college campuses, the funny part of college that's one of the reasons you're there supposedly is exposed to different ideas and views but it's like no, no, no, this is what we'll listen to, comrades and what i would say is push people, let that voice in, have a debate. then secondly, i think it's to get involved and understand the tools are there. you and i had this discussion like a week ago. i grew up early in the 90s doing campaigns where like the heritage issue book, been renamed, when you talk about healthcare, tax policy, you can debate with facts because the left wants to talk about theories and feelings. i talk about facts, what's going to make your life better, business grow, all that stuff,

and i think if we make it fact-based we win more. >> so the book talks about what's to come and one is the institutions weaponized against us, one of which is the department of justice launching an all-out assault on all of us, average americans and particularly parents so one of the unique phenomenons that happened around the country as groos roots organization we came to be on the front row to watch is all these parents coming out of the woodwork, getting involved, going to the microphone, being brave enough to stand up. all these parents may not have been conservative voters before. >> probably not. >> may be new to the fold so what can we do to bridge the gap right now between where we want to go with the conservative, america first, public policy agenda, and examining that

energy that is so palpable right now? i think one of the beauties is we have more tools than ever before. when i was growing up we had news papers, write letters to the editor but that was it, and i know. i have a bunch of framed news papers my kids are like where did those come from? but i think one feel of the things you have the ability, i love tweeting out just fun fact of the day or something and i think there are tools, videos, whether tiktok or snap chat, so many ways to get facts out in a way that's not necessarily confrontational. i was walking down pence imvein yeah avenue, on the house side,

big thing from the peter's institute about national debt. now it's $28 trillion. every single american owes 80,000 in debt, every man, woman and child. once you realize that, when you talk about the spending, i mean this is before we spend another $5 trillion, you all owe 90 grand. every person. and when interest rates go back up which they will at some point, we're going to be really screwed, but i think explaining to people what is going on, and just, again, we don't have to persuade in the same way they do, because we actually can just say, do you realize you owe this much pun money and you'll owe another 5 trillion. what are you getting for it? i'm watching town hall with biden last night, no joke, folks, how many times did he say that? i was like stop it with the no joke. my dad used to say joey no joke.

so i gathered all the big companies and say we got to start operating 24/7, they won't come to eight hours and you want 24 seven? get first eight hours under control then worry about the other 16 but everyone's like this is a great idea. they can't get people to work for 8 hours a day and the answer is make them work 24. two additional shifts. we don't have truck drivers because they're staying at home. go to a restaurant now, anywhere, they got signs, bear with us we're short on help and the answer is let's make people work more? are you kidding? but we have common sense, it's the beauty of what we have right now. walk up to somebody, say let me get this straight, the administration solution is tell

boo people who aren't working to work more. i mean i got a d in economics and i get this. >> you should of led with that story, what does president trump think of the book? >> if he flip it, he endorsed it had at the front, said it's maga all the way and i appreciate that, i would say, and it's funny, this is meant as a complement. people give the president credit for what he did in office, i got to be honest, the one thing donald trump did more than anyone else is bring common sense. i told a bunch of stories, we're sitting in the roosevelt room, he was going on executive order for the pipe line, says jessica, we're going to use u.s. steal for this right? and whoa whoa, just stops, we're

doing all this and not doing u.s. steal? stop. we're not doing this until we do this thing to make sure we're u.s. steal. it was common sense. why are we doing this stuff and not using a u.s. product in doing it? now, there are challenges in doing that and he understood, like worked through, you know, how much source material we had, et cetera. but the point is it took common sense to say why aren't we making america, i was u.s. trade representative under bush last three years of his administration told over and over again, enact trade agreement and there's nothing we can do about it. okay. trump said we don't really care. why are auto workers getting screwed, wisconsin dairy farmers getting screwed? we're just going to tear it up and redo it and everyone went you can't do that, that the not how it's supposed to work and he goes i don't care.

when you think about it, why wouldn't we have done that. why be in a deal with two closest trading partners north and south on a deal that screwed our own workers. in the 1990s it was a different world, i get it, but why not modernize it yet the mentality in washington, it's in a cup board over there. no one, can take it out, can look. trump brought common sense to so many issues. why let china walk all over us, why not stand up to them? all these things. and i think part of this is we need more common sense brought to the debate. more than anything, he recognized and appreciated we need to get back to understanding what worked and what didn't and the problem frankly, with the last election, beyond all the irregularities was it was style versus substance. every time i talk to a democrat running for biden or, i don't

like the tweets okay. tweets don't hurt you, i'm sorry, snow flake, it's not how it works. tweets don't hurt you, don't make you better. policies do and i think we are seeing the consequences of that now. >> i love that. i also think trump taught us how to fight? >> that's the thing, you have to understand the country is worth saving and if you don't fight, they win. so, you know, it's worth it. and, you know, it was funny, a couple weeks ago, i think two or three maybe now, i got an email on a wednesday morning and said president trump in 2019 had treaty with border visitors, i got an email from white house presidential office, thank you biden, we'd like your resignation by 6:00 p.m. today or you'll be terminated, so i

wrote no, terminated and we sued them and it's not easy but there's 11 people who were on the board of west point, naval academy and two of us, myself, director of and manager for president trump put our name on a lawsuit. it's not great going up against, but it's the right thing to do. my term ends in a month, but it's just important to to set the precedent and it's easy to say that's a bummer, it's different to say i'm willing to put my name on a lawsuit and sue the president of the united states. if we're willing to go out there and say we believe what makes this country great is worth fighting for do it, be a parent, show up at a school board meeting, engage with people, put facts out there, but it's our

country to save and to fight for. >> there's a lot we can fight on right now. the fight to make it easier to vote, front and center across the country, use it to smear every single one of us that wants a safe and secure election. we talked about critical race theory, the school board and parents and demanding civility in our schools and not allow them to be indoctrinated, we got this trillion dollar spending behemoth coming towards us. where do you see kind of the next fight, what's next for conservatives? >> it's an interesting question because here's how i answer this. i believe if republicans get out of their own way, it comes back to house representative.

the question is how would they lead? what would they fight for. power for the sake of power is not worth fighting for. i'm sure you get more stationary and things like that but at the end of the day, i think there's a lot worth fighting for you just mentioned and i think the republican leaders need to say if you give us the opportunity to lead again, we will fight for you, for this country. it's not easy. but i'll tell you, there is so much going on in government, why are we not looking and finding -- why are we just allowing, if you stop and say, you know, has any senator read what's in the $3.5 trillion bill? that should be the first question. we're spending all this money. do you even know what's in it? first of all they haven't. >> right, and they just started to negotiate the pricetag said tell us what number you can live

with. no, tell us the number and how much it will cost, not how much are you willing to blow of our future's money? and the worst, you know who's financing it? china. we just went through a pandemic they sent us and turn around say can we buy our ppe and drugs from you? i think that's literally like going to the guy who robbed your house and saying can you give us a loan with my money? crazy, yet nothing is being done about it. we should have used this opportunity to look in and say what can we do. calling this economy a success, maybe it's an opportunity for a lot of u.s. companies to think of coming back. at the same time they're raising the corporate tax, really, you think that's what they're going to do? i'm getting screwed, you're costing me more money, i should come home. again, it defies logic. >> you spent a lot of time here

outlining everything we have to fight on. talked about it here today, danced around the things we have to do. first, we have to show up. be the man in the arena, show up with the facts on our side, what if we get canceled? what about senator alvers in georgia who lost his job because of the integrity bill he carried in georgia. >> well, again, i think the easy thing is to give up. the hard thing is to stay in the arena you mentioned. but if you look, generally speaking, i think the people who stay in the arena and fight eventually win. it may not be easy or quick in a society that wants instant gratification. sometimes it takes a while. it's like a video you put up, wow, 15 views then three days

later it's 100 but some things take a while to percolate. be willing to stay in the arena. when they cancel you, they win when you give up. so stay in, go to a different platform, trump announced his own platform, they're losing the ability to do that. they control the ecosystem for so long, hollywood, late night shows, academia, government, big tech, all big corporate america. they control those, but what happens is in the 90s it was the advent of talk radio and they started to go how do we come around that? they take big tech and suddenly, conservatives start saying they can use twitter so we start canceling, our team goes out and builds new platforms but we need to be willing to go. it's a amazing, we launched news max my show a year ago, probably more people in this room that watched the first episode now averaging hundreds of thousands

of people a nugt, nipping at cnn's heels. people are and we don't do a ton of advertising, it's word of mouth, people saying i like your work and your show. that's because there's alternatives. so they don't want you to see anything but what they show you, but i'm a big believer whether it's news max, the blaze, heritage, we need to support the big team and gets out there, share stuff, encourage other people to get involved. but it is part of our duty as americans to be in this arena. >> an america worth fighting for. pushback against this potential radical nation. one last question for you. the picture. the masks, oh my gosh, if there

was an image for the last year and a half. talk to me about what it means for the cover. >> we went back and forth for a lot of different designs and like anything else, when you find the right one, as you mentioned, this is my their book. first two had me on it but you're like what's that image you want to convey and when we saw that, it was like, that's it. and it just spoke to us because that's everything there. it's the hypocrisy, double standard, the freedom. everything you try to say, right, looking over his shoulder, looking out, like, how are you feeling today. by the way i love this, we covered this, she walked into her own birthday like surprise. can't even do a birthday right, you wonder how the rest of it screwed up. if you can't do a birthday surprise right you know you're

in trouble. >> thank you, sean. >> thank you to heritage, heritage action. >> dangerous plan for america, we have free copies today, he was nice enough to sign, thank you everyone for joining us today and sean for leading the fight. >> thank you all for beak here. thank you. >> on our weekly author interview program, "after words" retired lieutenant colonel phelps offered his view on drone warfare. >> one the biggest transitions we've seen with drones is that

occurring on a daily basis, operating aircraft, that mental transition occurs when you wake up at your house in the morning, then drive to work, you basically commute to combat and fly a, you know, a combat mission on the other side of the planet. you might have a strike, you know, during that period of time then mentally transitioning yourself to return home at the end of the day so a lot of the people i interviewed talked about this strange feeling i they often refer to as deployed in garrison where you're conducting combat operations from home and doing these transitions on a daily basis. sometimes working 12, 14 hour

shifts, you know, several days a week. so you have these strange periods of work where you're mentally deployed physically still in the united states. may have conducted a strike sometime during your mission then may be in time, home in time for dinner with your family, or seeing, you know, a soccer game or picking up milk from the store, so it's unlike anything that most traditional warriors ever experienced in the past. so that's the biggest change. in the psychology of how these warriors are fighting. >> watch the rest of this program online at book tv.org.

>> here's a look at most notable books of 2021 according to amazon. clint smith looks at slavery's legacy in america, how it's affected history and how the worry has passed. in beautiful country, reflects on her journey as an undocumented child in america. ana malaika tubbs explores the changes malcolm x and others had on their sons. nathaniel philbrick on washington's jurn through the new republican and patrick radden kief reports on the wealthy of a family selling oxycontin and other pharmaceuticals. all these authors appeared at book tv and you can find the programs on book tv.org.