it is great to have you. anyone not subscribed to politico please click on the link and subscribe. or, go to politico.com/ to follow live programming. thank you for tuning in and have a wonderful july 4 holiday. enjoy the events at the white house, anita, thank you for doing this. i need to: thank you. -- anita: thank you. >> in a moment we will take you to the white house for a naturalization ceremony held by president biden. it is expected to start at any moment. >> terry schilling is the president of the american principles project. we want to talk about the american family.

what is your organization? why was offended? -- why was it founded? >> we were founded in 2009. we were different then. we were almost like an orphanage for super important issues that politicians and conservatives were not caring about. we had a gold standard project, a religious freedom project, an immigration project. a few years ago, we reassessed the threats in the country. we found a major gap when it came to filling the little gap for family policy. there are a left -- a lot of great family groups out there who do legislative and ministerial work. but, there was nobody going into campaign and elections and making politicians pay a price when they hurt family with public policy. we revamped avp. there was a mini revolution.

we wanted to fill that political gap for families. our board chairman sean tyler says we are the nra for families. i think that is the right way to look at this. we are not organizing owners in politics. we are organizing families in politics. so, that is as simply as i can put it. there are a lot of groups out there that do this for their own special interest groups. there is big pharma, big tech, big business, big oil. but, there is no big family until now. we just launched our big family membership program -- like the nra membership organization that is going to be organizing families directly in politics from the local level all the way to the present. we care about families and strengthening the american family with public health people policy. host: you mentioned the nra and that is the headline from fox news, wanting to create the

nra for families. what you mean by that? guest: when a politician, for example, is supporting gun confiscation efforts or gun control efforts, the nra alerts its members and engages them and organizes them in politics to make the politician pay a price and unelected the politician. that's in the message to the other politicians that when you do something to hurt gunowners or take away second amendment rights, you're going to pay a price electorally. steve, you and i have both been in politics for a long time, and is cynical as i can be at one times, politicians care about one thing, there reelection. all we are doing is playing by the rules, and we want politicians to take into account reelection efforts when they vote for bills that have an impact on the family. if it is going to hurt the family, we don't want them to vote for it and we want them to know they will pay a price for

it. if it helps families, we want them to vote for it and we want them to know they will be a price if they vote against it. this is very small, but we are off to a great start. 3500 members signed up in the first two weeks. there is a lot that we still have to do, but i think it is going to change family policy and politics for a long time. host: let's talk about policy. give us one specific example of a policy you want to see either changed or enforced. guest: well, first of all, the big we have been focused on is stopping the equality act. across the country, states of the local level all the way up have been passing what is called sexual-orientation and gender identity law, nondiscrimination law. these laws are having an adverse effect on other roots of american citizens. you take our daughters and our girls in our women.

you passed a gender identity nondiscrimination bill at the local level, and what happens is males who were born male who identify as women are able to not only compete in women's sports against girls, they are also able to enter women's private facilities. this is a drastic change from where america has always been. when we started passing these laws to segregate bathrooms on the base of sex, it was feminist -- women didn't have their own hybrid facilities--private facilities. feminists wanted their own facilities. this is a big change. we want to fight those laws, we want to change those laws and keep the federal government from passing those laws because it is going to have an adverse effect on our women and daughters. host: the website is americanprinciplesproject.org.

one example of the work you are doing is this. [video clip] >> victory comes with sacrifice, struggle, determination,, sours, training every day---countless hours, training every day, waking up at 4:00 a.m., developing skills. nothing is handed to you. everything earned. driven by the desire to win, to overcome the agony of defeat, to achieve, to succeed. it is one of the strongest human emotions. i just want a fair shot. i want justice. but joe biden and the administration would make me compete against biological boys in sports. the american principles project is working to stop it. they want to protect girls' t sports. be an mvp for girl athletes everywhere. go to protectgirlsports.us to

make a contribution. host: elaborate on this debate that is becoming front and center in the country right now. guest: what this ultimately comes down to is there is a political movement in this country that seeks to erase all differences between the two sexes. and that has formalized itself into this gender ideology, gender non-binary movement in the lgbt movement. what they are seeking to do is pass these laws which basically eliminate the legal distinctions and protections that we have carved out for women. it is absolutely disaster -- it is a self-evident truth that we all know to be do that women and men are equal, but they complement each other because they are different. you can be different and still be equal. these laws are going on all over the country, they are very

harmful. we were trying to figure out how to stop them, and there's a lot of really bad things that go along with these bills. i mentioned the private facilities and sports. you look at women's prisons. you pass this bill and what happens is males, even if they are convicted sex offenders, if they claim to be women in prison, they get to be moved to the women's prison facility. that is not only wrong, that is dangerous. that is harmful. some would say that is evil. we need to do a better job of acknowledging reality. there are certain things you can't change, regardless of how hard you try. we have to do it because it is about protecting our kids, protecting our daughters, protecting our women, making sure they have equal opportunities, they are safe. there are a lot of biological differences at the genetic level between men and women, including men. men are taller on average, stronger on average, they have more muscle mass, they have more

bone density. they are totally different, that is ok. you can still be equal and be different. these laws erase the legal distinctions that women and men had to work so hard to achieve over the last 260-some years. that is what we are dealing with, and that is why we are so motivated to fight against it because it is actually hard for. host: i -- absolutely harmful. host: i want to remind our viewers they can join the conversation. we have a line for independents. you can send us a text message. we are on twitter, @cspanwj. do you want to follow-up? guest: we tested a lot of the stuff in the harm that comes with this including the religious freedom aspect, and we found that the messages that voters responded most to that would actually change how they vote was the issue of fairness, safety, protecting children.

that is what we have based all of our campaigns against these laws on. you will see us running ads on protecting women's privacy, protecting women's safety, also protecting women's opportunities when it comes to athletics and academics. host: i want to get your reaction to the transportation secretary pete buttigieg, who is openly gay, and he spoke at a gay pride event talking about transgender issues. [video clip] >> and especially dangerous political strategy in some states right now where some politicians try to gain advantage by picking on transgender kids. some of the most vulnerable people in this country. there are consequences when politicians and other leaders responded to transgender people's search for equality and belonging by basically denying that someone can be transgender at all. telling america the transgender people do not exist amounts to telling very real transgender people that they should not exist. and if you are a person in a

position of responsibility, you need to understand the weight of your words. you need to understand that if you go around signaling to people that transgender youth shouldn't exist, transgender youth will hear you, and some of them will believe you. so this is a matter of life and death. host: that from white house event, the transportation secretary. terry schilling, your reaction? guest: first of all, i think he built a strawman. that is an unfair argument for . no one denies that there are people who suffer from gender dysphoria, where they feel uncomfortable in the body they are born in. frankly, i'm not motivated by anything besides wanting to give the appropriate and best care to people who identify as transgender or people who suffer from gender dysphoria. if you look at the two sides of this debate, you have pete buttigieg's side, which is

actually causing the harm here. they are telling young children that they were born in the wrong body. for a little situation is the fact that they were a mistake from the beginning, that there was something wrong from the beginning, is incredible harmful itself. but it goes further -- this agenda from the transgender lobby, they want to get these little kids on puberty blockers which cause permanent sterilization. that is something kids can't even come for a -you can't even comprehend-. they can't consent to that. we always say that children cannot consent to sex and sexuality. by allowing them to opt into these treatments like hormone blockers, they are permanently sterilized, giving of their ability to ever have their own kids, it is so evil and harmful. that is what i want to stop. how i would put it employees democrats and the left one----

put it simply is democrats and the left want to -- you have kids who are uncomfortable in the body so let's change the body. make alterations so you don't feel uncomfortable. my solution is simpler and much more scientifically based -- i want to change your mind. i want your mind to accept your body as it is. you are perfect in every way. need to talk you through some of the confusion that is going on. we shouldn't make any permanent alterations to your body. you are perfect in every way. if my child -- i have five kids -- if my child was suffering from other type of body dysmorphia where they felt like they were too fat or uncomfortable in their body -- by the way, feeling uncomfortable in your own body is something every teenager goes through. it's a very natural thing, is normal part of puberty. my solution for my child that feels uncomfortable in the body

would not be to change the body, it would be to change their mind, to get them to accept himself, to get them to love themselves, not make permanent alterations. i think pete buttigieg is being extremely disingenuous, and his movement is going to cause a lot of harm. i tell people that in five to 10 years when all of these little kids who have been rushed into thes