00:00 - This program has been paid

00:01 - for by the sponsor and does not reflect the views of PCN.

00:05 - Welcome to PMA perspective, your weekly half hour news

00:08 - program on Pennsylvania business, government and politics.

00:11 - I'm your host, David Taylor from Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association.

00:15 - On this week's program, we'll review the 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.

00:20 - PMA perspective starts now.

00:23 - You're watching PMA perspective, a statewide source

00:27 - for business, government, and policy news.

00:39 - Newsmaker interviews with your host David and Taylor

00:43 - and reports from the field with PMA Carl Moreira and Joy Johnson.

00:48 - From our studios in Harrisburg.

00:50 - PMA perspective starts now.

00:54 - William and Henry, great to see you again and congratulations

00:57 - on a very successful 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.

01:00 - Thank you very much, Dave.

01:02 - We had a great weekend, three days of conservative activists

01:06 - from all over the Commonwealth, a lot of speakers, a lot of panelists.

01:09 - Well, I thought it was a great get to have as our leadoff speaker, the U.S.

01:13 - Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, indeed was.

01:17 - We have never had a presidential cabinet member speak at PLC before.

01:21 - After 37 years.

01:23 - So this was the first time to have a cabinet member, a cabinet member

01:26 - who, by the way, is in the process of eliminating her own department.

01:30 - Well, Senator McMahon talked a lot about that, about change in education

01:34 - and especially about the role that the US Department of Ed has played

01:39 - and how that role is being now handed over to other parts

01:42 - of the federal government. Let's listen to her now.

01:45 - I really want to listen

01:46 - to people on the ground and visiting schools and visiting,

01:50 - schools of all kinds.

01:52 - Public. Private.

01:53 - Micro schools, high schools, middle schools and universities.

01:57 - Because I really want to know what the issues are and how we can best serve.

02:02 - You know, these, these institutions, but how we can best

02:05 - serve our students because I think we have definitely failed them.

02:09 - This was a stat that just blew me away.

02:12 - Said that in Harrisburg,

02:15 - that only 12% of high school

02:18 - seniors could read with proficiency

02:21 - and only 3% could do math with proficiency.

02:25 - Now, I was absolutely astounded by that stat

02:28 - that 12 and 3% really, really struck me.

02:33 - So being here, you know, in Pennsylvania,

02:36 - I think I just wanted to mention that to you

02:38 - folks who are here today to see how important, what we are

02:43 - trying to do with the Department of Education is returning it to the state.

02:47 - So the states are empowered.

02:49 - Governors are empowered.

02:50 - Superintendents are empowered.

02:51 - But more importantly, parents are empowered.

02:55 - You know, just to show,

02:57 - how we're

02:57 - actually making this happen, because I said to the president,

03:02 - I said, sure,

03:02 - you do realize that I can't just shut the light off and walk out there.

03:06 - There are a lot of things

03:07 - that we're going to have to accomplish in order to do that.

03:09 - And ultimately, Congress has to vote on closing the Department of Education

03:14 - and eliminating the office of the Secretary of Education.

03:18 - And so I am working very closely

03:23 - with Congress, members of, you know, on the education committees,

03:27 - on, on both on both sides to show them we have proof of concept.

03:31 - So what we're doing is signing interagency agreements,

03:35 - which we're allowed to do, which government does all the time.

03:38 - You're almost subcontracting with a different agency

03:41 - that can do something that you're doing in your agency,

03:43 - but do it better, more efficiently, with more expertise.

03:47 - For instance,

03:47 - we moved all of our adult education programs over to the Department of Labor.

03:52 - There were 23 different adult

03:55 - education programs from different agencies around the government.

03:59 - So we wanted to consolidate them, you know, with labor, we've signed several

04:02 - of these interagency agreements.

04:04 - The one that was announced last week,

04:07 - which I bet there be no disagreement with anyone in this room.

04:11 - It was with the Treasury Department to take over student

04:15 - loans, money that comes from the federal government,

04:18 - which amounts to $1.7

04:21 - trillion at this point in time.

04:24 - I don't think it's been managed well by the Department of Education.

04:27 - If you think about it, that makes us the fifth largest bank

04:32 - in the United States, and I'm running it.

04:35 - I'm not a banker, so we need good, strong policy, but we need it to be

04:39 - an treasury where we all know they're accustomed to collecting money.

04:43 - They've got they've got Internal Revenue Service.

04:46 - They're they're very efficient at collecting money.

04:48 - So I've told Congress, I said, just let me prove to you this will work,

04:53 - and then I'm going to ask you for your vote.

04:55 - I'm not going to ask you for it now.

04:57 - I think in the end, hopefully

04:59 - we will be able to

05:00 - convince members of Congress that this is how it's going to work,

05:04 - and we will have showed them that in these first steps.

05:07 - It is, it's more efficient and it's successful.

05:11 - Well, then after, Secretary McMahon,

05:14 - that our, attendees got a jolt of energy from, our local U.S.

05:19 - representative, Scott Perry.

05:21 - The Scott Perry always is a favorite at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.

05:25 - They've, you know, he had been the chairman of the House

05:29 - Freedom Caucus, the conservative caucus in the House, for a couple of years.

05:33 - And it was important this year that we have him to show

05:36 - that he could talk a bit about the president and the war in Iraq.

05:40 - And there are a lot of issues that are taking place at the federal level.

05:44 - Well, Congressman Perry is a national leader

05:47 - in that conversation, that he's a member not only of the, U.S.

05:50 - House Committee on Foreign Relations,

05:52 - but also a member of the House Intelligence Committee, and that,

05:55 - certainly Congressman Perry had a lot to say. Let's go to him now.

05:59 - I watched one guy on TV say, the president.

06:02 - There's a huge reversal of policy unlike anything a president has ever done

06:07 - before, because the president ran on stopping endless wars.

06:11 - And now. And now what?

06:13 - This war, ladies and gentlemen, has been raging for 47 years.

06:17 - The president is stopping another endless war right now.

06:20 - That's what's happening.

06:22 - What we should be doing is thanking the president of the United States of America

06:27 - for ending the murdering and maiming of thousands

06:31 - upon thousands of American citizens by Iran.

06:35 - Iran has never back down to anyone.

06:39 - They've never back down to anyone.

06:41 - And everybody said, well, he had this threat.

06:44 - He had this threat.

06:45 - And then he backed off of the threat.

06:49 - Because Iran finally came to somebody.

06:52 - Now, I don't love my kids having to see those kind of things.

06:56 - I'm sure you don't either.

06:58 - But I will tell you this.

06:59 - Forget about how the president says what he says.

07:03 - Let's look at the result that's going to happen this weekend when J.D.

07:05 - Vance or the Pakistanis can work this out.

07:08 - All right.

07:08 - So everything in context, everything in context.

07:13 - Which leads me to something else. You know,

07:16 - it has been said I think it's misquoted, but it doesn't matter.

07:19 - We're going to give it to Thomas Jefferson anyhow.

07:23 - Eternal vigilance is the cost of freedom is the cost of freedom.

07:27 - And a lot of us feel like, well, I'm in the crowd.

07:30 - I'm a voter. I'm a citizen.

07:31 - What can I what can I do this with this eternal vigilance?

07:36 - What can I do?

07:37 - Well, at a minimum, selecting who? You.

07:40 - Who leads you.

07:41 - This not just your members of Congress.

07:43 - It starts at your township level.

07:46 - Your borough level.

07:48 - Right now, this tax season,

07:51 - the IRS just reported that Pennsylvanians and Americans are getting 24%

07:56 - more in their refund because of the bill that we did last

08:00 - last year under President Trump. It

08:03 - Pennsylvania incomes are up 3500

08:05 - to $6500 this year.

08:09 - Venezuela is no longer a threat to the United States of America.

08:13 - Cuba is on the verge of toppling Iran.

08:18 - I guarantee you Iran is going to back down.

08:20 - It's going to happen,

08:22 - and we're no longer going to live under the threat of nuclear war.

08:25 - Men are not going to be competing in girls sports,

08:29 - right.

08:32 - And we're going to stop the attempted

08:33 - Islamic zombification of the United States of America.

08:37 - We're not going to put up with it.

08:38 - Ladies and gentlemen, eternal vigilance.

08:41 - God bless you.

08:43 - And of course, it was a great pleasure to be joined by,

08:45 - our new United States Senator, Dave McCormick, who was on the scene

08:49 - talking about, well, a lot of things, but especially talking about

08:53 - Pennsylvania's energy opportunity and about artificial intelligence.

08:56 - Dave, as you have talked about it on this program many times, energy

09:00 - is vitally important in Pennsylvania.

09:02 - We are a leading energy producer, and in very short order, Senator

09:06 - McCormick has been a national leader in terms of both energy development

09:10 - and AI development.

09:12 - Well, of course, it's only because, Pennsylvania has an even larger energy

09:18 - potential that for as much natural gas as we're, pumping out,

09:22 - it still is only a third or a quarter of what our maximum output could be.

09:27 - And and using that delta, that, that untapped

09:30 - energy is what makes the AI opportunity possible.

09:33 - And Senator McCormick talked about that.

09:35 - Let's listen to him.

09:36 - We may be at the most profound moment of change in human history.

09:41 - In this moment, we're in with artificial intelligence

09:45 - and how much the world's changing, and AI and energy go hand in hand.

09:49 - So you can't have leadership in artificial intelligence and technology

09:53 - without energy and Pennsylvania, you know, we're in this war with battle

09:57 - with China, but Pennsylvania is the place where we can lead for America.

10:02 - We've done that before.

10:04 - We did it in the arsenal of democracy in World War Two.

10:06 - We're uniquely positioned to lead, and we're uniquely positioned to lead

10:10 - because we have unbelievable energy, unbelievable energy.

10:14 - The fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world.

10:18 - We got these incredible skilled workers.

10:20 - We've got, we've got unbelievable, proximity to most of the population.

10:25 - We've got water, we've got these great universities,

10:27 - Penn State, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania.

10:30 - So we are blessed and we are poised to lead.

10:34 - The problem is, that,

10:37 - President Trump inherited a really terrible economy

10:41 - that had the highest inflation in 50 years,

10:45 - that had job loss, where the job growth that happened,

10:48 - our Joe Biden was in the government, it was in private sector growth.

10:52 - So it's taken a while to get that straight.

10:54 - And so we've got this challenge where I can look at you

10:58 - and I can go through all the numbers, and I will briefly.

11:00 - The economy is getting better.

11:02 - It's getting better over the last year than it has under

11:05 - the four years of Joe Biden.

11:06 - And it's still not good enough.

11:09 - Energy prices are still too

11:10 - high, health care costs are so too high, housing still too high.

11:12 - And regarding the strength and the supply of energy and oil, I mean,

11:17 - how do we fix that so that we're not paying 450 at the pump?

11:20 - There's a couple things that, come away from this.

11:23 - Number one, thank God the president had doubled down on energy dominance.

11:29 - So this is hurting us.

11:31 - It's devastating to China and Europe and other places.

11:33 - So we need to have energy capability at home.

11:36 - So we're not dependent on anybody. That's the first thing.

11:39 - And and we're on that path.

11:41 - But there's certain things we're dependent on.

11:42 - The less dependent we are, the better.

11:44 - It's a good example is fertilizer. Fertilizer.

11:47 - I was just with a bunch of farmers. Fertilizer went up 60%.

11:49 - We need to be.

11:50 - We need that fertilizer capability at home because we can't be dependent

11:53 - on the rest of the world.

11:54 - The second thing is, we need to use our military capability.

11:57 - If they don't open the street in a very targeted way to do that.

12:00 - And we can and we'll have lots of allies that'll help us do that.

12:03 - The I'm in regular contact with the Gulf countries.

12:06 - There's going to be a lot of support if we can't get through

12:09 - this peaceful negotiation to get the strait open.

12:11 - I'm not saying it would be easy,

12:12 - but we have the capability to do this militarily if we need to.

12:16 - And in the meantime, what the president has done is

12:18 - put more supply into the market with us and other countries

12:22 - so we can make the price impact less by putting,

12:27 - millions of barrels into the market through the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

12:31 - But the only way we're going to get energy markets back to normal is finished.

12:34 - Finish the job.

12:35 - All of the things we talked about today require good people to be in office,

12:39 - and we have to have elections we can trust.

12:41 - You've been outspoken on the Senate floor, on nationally, on television

12:45 - and across our state.

12:47 - You know, talk to us about why the Save act

12:49 - is so important to you and why you've taken a leadership role.

12:51 - It's, there's a couple things that are so frustrating.

12:55 - Since I've been I've been there 15 months.

12:57 - There's two issues I'd say the most frustrating the shutdowns,

13:00 - the shutting down the government for political leverage

13:03 - as a business person like this is the stupidest thing.

13:06 - But the other is, is the Save America Act, which is just so frustrating

13:12 - because you can't get 60 people, even 50 people, but let's say 60.

13:16 - You can't get 60 people to vote for something that 80

13:20 - out of every 100 people think makes sense.

13:24 - And, you know, it's got two provisions, which I think you probably all know.

13:26 - You have to prove you're a citizen to be able to register to vote,

13:31 - and then you have to have an ID when you show up to vote,

13:33 - just like you have to have an ID to get blood or get a beer or anything.

13:38 - For me, I mean, this is personal.

13:40 - I mean, I lost by 950 votes.

13:43 - I won by 15,000 votes out of 7 million.

13:47 - So the idea that, when Democrats say this is rare, it doesn't have to be

13:53 - that prevalent to change an election and change the course of history.

13:57 - And you have to ask yourself,

13:58 - I always try to think the best of people as a why are the Democrats

14:03 - so fundamentally opposed to something that seems so common sense?

14:08 - And I think the simple answer is that they think there's a huge benefit

14:12 - in elections for our illegal population growing,

14:17 - and which is why the border policies are as they are,

14:20 - and the possibility of our some segment of our legal population voting.

14:24 - I just know that it's not something, I'm not promising it's going to get passed

14:29 - what I am promising is I'm not going to stop

14:31 - fighting and making sure that everybody I'm going to be that burr

14:34 - in the saddle, that everybody keeps saying, God, this guy will not shut up

14:38 - because it's so fundamental and important, particularly places like Pennsylvania.

14:41 - And thank you.

14:43 - And of

14:44 - course, it's no surprise that our attendees were greatly enthused

14:47 - by the presence of, State Treasurer Stacey Garrity, the GOP nominee for governor.

14:53 - They indeed were.

14:54 - And we usually don't have candidates

14:57 - speak at the dinner that we have the major dinner on Friday evening.

15:01 - But this year, with Stacey Garrity being the only candidate for governor,

15:04 - we wanted to put special emphasis on her and on her campaign because she's said

15:10 - they've an uphill battle against our incumbent governor, Josh Shapiro.

15:14 - But she did outline the many reasons why governor Josh Shapiro

15:18 - should be sent into retirement.

15:19 - And we should have.

15:20 - Stacy Garrett is our next governor.

15:22 - The American dream is fleeting in the Commonwealth where it was first born.

15:26 - And that is such a shame because we have a governor

15:30 - who is more interested in Pennsylvania Avenue than helping

15:34 - Pennsylvania families, Pennsylvanians they know they recognize our potential.

15:39 - But you know what?

15:40 - They also know that we are not achieving it under the failed

15:44 - policies of Josh Shapiro.

15:45 - And he wasn't very happy when I called his administration mediocre.

15:50 - But folks, what else do you call a state that ranks 38th economically?

15:56 - What else do you call a state that ranked 41st overall?

16:01 - What else do you call a state that has 3000 deficient bridges?

16:06 - What else do you call a state where two thirds

16:10 - of your eighth graders can't read at great level?

16:13 - What else do you call a state where you spend

16:17 - $5 billion more than what you bring in?

16:21 - Mediocre?

16:22 - So on second thought, I think maybe I was being a little too kind

16:27 - because Josh Shapiro has failed us,

16:30 - but somehow he believes he deserves a promotion.

16:34 - And you know what?

16:36 - That's the problem.

16:38 - He is more focused on his personal political ambition

16:42 - than fixing the problems that Pennsylvanians are facing today.

16:47 - Thanks.

16:47 - Change day one on a Garrity

16:51 - Richie administration.

16:54 - My administration will help

16:56 - the people of Pennsylvania achieve their dreams.

16:59 - We will no longer tolerate failing up in our schools,

17:03 - and we're not going to let our kids fail behind in the classroom.

17:07 - We will bring accountability and opportunity to the classroom,

17:11 - and by the end of our administration, Pennsylvania

17:15 - will be a leader in the nation for education.

17:18 - As your next governor, I will let Harrisburg bureaucrats

17:23 - or national political consultants redefine reality.

17:27 - For Pennsylvania's children, protecting their future doesn't stop.

17:32 - It doesn't stop at the classroom or the playing field.

17:35 - It means building.

17:36 - Building a commonwealth where they can afford to stay,

17:40 - raise a family, and build a life.

17:42 - Right here in Pennsylvania, we will tap the energy resources right under our feet.

17:48 - That is going to fuel the nation.

17:50 - It's going to lower utility bills for Pennsylvanian families

17:53 - and secure America's energy future.

17:57 - We will make Pennsylvania the hub of global commerce

18:00 - that we should be so that those students, they stay in Pennsylvania,

18:04 - they build a home in Pennsylvania, and they start a business in Pennsylvania.

18:10 - Josh Shapiro is so confident that he thinks he can just breezed

18:14 - past Pennsylvania voters in 2026

18:18 - on his way to 2028.

18:21 - Well, you know what?

18:22 - Not on my watch and not on your watch.

18:27 - We will

18:27 - hold him accountable for his failed leadership.

18:30 - That's left our Commonwealth in the bottom tier of states

18:35 - in almost every single metric.

18:38 - Think about that.

18:40 - We're going to expose the corruption and the scandals

18:42 - he's tried to cover up and believe me, there are a lot.

18:46 - And we will kick him out of Harrisburg,

18:49 - away from the white House and into irrelevance.

18:52 - And that is because I do not accept Josh Shapiro's mediocrity.

18:58 - I know that you don't Pennsylvania deserve a governor

19:04 - with a plan worthy of the place that gave birth

19:07 - to this nation Pennsylvania has led before.

19:11 - We are the state that sparked the revolution.

19:13 - We are the state that powered the Industrial revolution.

19:16 - We are the state that built the American working class.

19:21 - There is no reason, none, that we can't lead again.

19:25 - But you know what? Leadership matters.

19:27 - Accountability matters.

19:29 - And putting Pennsylvania families first matters

19:34 - will be honored.

19:34 - Guest at the conference was Chris Ruddy, the founder of the Newsmax

19:40 - TV network, and news service,

19:43 - formerly of the New York Post and of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

19:46 - It was especially interesting, I think, to have a speaker,

19:50 - first of all, Dave,

19:50 - we've never had a speaker before who started a major cable network.

19:55 - And as we were selecting the speaker for this year,

19:58 - I thought that would be a really interesting situation to hear.

20:01 - How did you start a major cable network?

20:04 - And as you pointed out,

20:05 - he got his start in Greensburg, Pennsylvania at the Tribune Review.

20:08 - So there was a Pennsylvania angle to it.

20:10 - And it was especially interesting because Newsmax,

20:14 - their white House correspondents, John Gizzy,

20:17 - was was present also when the two of them had a conversation together.

20:20 - Let's see that now.

20:23 - I was hired at the New York Post as my first major position.

20:26 - I was an investigative

20:27 - reporter, broke a number of stories that made national headlines.

20:31 - I would go out to California. I was on the talk radio.

20:33 - Mike Reagan, who you add up there, is a great friend of mine.

20:35 - It was on Newsmax until he just passed.

20:40 - We would just get tremendous interest from California.

20:44 - And there was a guy that had just been fired from the CBS

20:47 - gift shop that started a website with links to all my stories.

20:50 - His name was Matt Drudge, and the Drudge Report.

20:54 - So I saw the power of the internet.

20:56 - I'm thinking, this is 1996, 97, said Matt.

21:00 - Drudge is brilliant, but I think I can turn this into a real business.

21:05 - So in 98, with $25,000 investment,

21:09 - I started Newsmax and it took off newsmax.com as a digital website,

21:16 - really the dominant conservative media

21:19 - for on the online position for many years.

21:23 - And then in 2012 to 14 period, I decided we

21:27 - no America needed another channel and we needed to go video.

21:32 - And that's when I launched the TV channel last year,

21:36 - we were number six for all cable, according to Nielsen.

21:39 - So total day ratings.

21:42 - There's hundreds of cable channels.

21:44 - We did not have the bank account of Rupert Murdoch.

21:47 - It's people like you that made it decisively successful.

21:51 - And we've just had a tremendous impact, to the point

21:54 - that about 50 million people read or watch us regularly.

21:59 - We have about 25 million people,

22:03 - going through social media now, watching us.

22:05 - Believe it or not, we're available in 100 countries,

22:10 - and in about ten countries, they do it broadcast and or plan

22:14 - to local language like in the Balkans, they have Newsmax, Balkans, Serbia.

22:19 - It's a Serbian language.

22:21 - They have 200 reporters and they cover the world.

22:25 - And it's a very impressive news.

22:26 - It's the number one news in that region.

22:29 - And so we are signing these international deals.

22:31 - We're here in Latin America on direct TV Latin America.

22:35 - They actually take like Rob Schmidt and Greg Kelly at night.

22:39 - And they dub it auto dub it with AI in Spanish so that people

22:43 - are actually listening to the actual live show as it's happening in Spanish.

22:48 - So that's really cool.

22:50 - And that's going to happen all over the world with our channel.

22:52 - So we see the international expansion is very important

22:56 - because it's a projection, we believe, of American values,

23:00 - and they need the truth.

23:02 - Like you think the press is bad here.

23:04 - It's even worse in Europe and it's so far left.

23:08 - So this is a big challenge for the rest of the world because

23:13 - it's a titanic struggle for freedom, not just here, but around the world.

23:18 - Well, the conference was, well attended.

23:20 - We had, I think, over 700 attendees and that, folks, were very interested

23:26 - in hearing our luncheon speaker, also, Fox News contributor, journalist.

23:31 - Joe Concha.

23:32 - Dave, you are correct.

23:32 - It was well attended the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, by the way,

23:35 - is the largest and longest running grassroots

23:39 - activists conservative conference in the entire nation.

23:42 - And it has been going on now, as I said, for some 37 years.

23:46 - And we entered this year's conference

23:48 - with Joe Concha, who is a Fox News contributor.

23:51 - He had some very interesting things to say.

23:55 - When we think back about what our founders always searched

23:59 - for, always wanted this country to be, we are seeing the Republic under attack.

24:05 - We see the Republic under attack by the Democrat Party,

24:09 - which is not the Democratic Party that I wrote a book once called,

24:13 - Progressively Worse.

24:14 - Why Today's Democrats ain't Your daddy's Donkeys.

24:16 - And I went back and I looked at JFK, for example, and John F Kennedy

24:20 - was for tax cuts during a recession that he inherited from Eisenhower.

24:24 - He was for obviously beefing up the military is staring down Khrushchev.

24:27 - Does that sound like a Democrat to you or MAGA? No.

24:30 - And his approval rating was 70%

24:32 - before he was tragically killed in Dallas in November of 1963.

24:35 - Then you even look at Jimmy Carter.

24:37 - We had a Democratic president in our lifetimes.

24:40 - That was pro-life.

24:42 - Now there's maybe one person in all of Congress, in the Senate

24:45 - that's pro-life

24:46 - on the Democratic side, Bill Clinton, bad person, pretty smart president.

24:50 - However, worked with Newt Gingrich on a balanced budget amendment.

24:54 - That's not spending what you don't have.

24:56 - That's good.

24:57 - The era of big government is over welfare reform.

25:00 - And he won two elections because he worked with the other side

25:03 - and did common sense things that brought his party to the center.

25:06 - Now the party is unrecognizable.

25:10 - And Kelce, which is a betting market,

25:13 - and sometimes more accurate than most polls,

25:16 - finds that Democrats now have the highest chance of taking back

25:20 - the House in November, the Senate and then the white House.

25:24 - 43% odds on.

25:25 - That's the highest that's ever been.

25:27 - What will happen if that happens?

25:28 - Well, nuking the filibuster. Right.

25:31 - They will do that the minute they get back into office.

25:34 - What that does is they don't need 60 votes in the Senate.

25:37 - They don't need a supermajority.

25:38 - Therefore, just with even 50 votes.

25:40 - And the vice president, if they have full power,

25:44 - they will vote unanimously and they will do some radical things to this country.

25:47 - First, they're going to add Washington and Puerto Rico is states,

25:50 - which means automatically for Democratic senators.

25:55 - So you'll suddenly have

25:56 - almost a permanent, almost certainly a permanent majority in the Senate,

26:00 - no matter how well Republicans perform, because they did great in the 2024

26:04 - election. They still only got the 53.

26:05 - They abolish the Electoral College, no doubt about that.

26:08 - And if that happened,

26:10 - let's say 26 years ago, you wouldn't have President George W Bush.

26:14 - Al Gore would have won that election.

26:15 - And then in 2016, you don't have a President Donald Trump.

26:18 - You didn't win the popular vote during that election.

26:20 - So they know that their odds are up if they do that.

26:23 - Think of it, America 250 and what the founders were thinking

26:25 - with the Electoral College, they did not want large population centers

26:30 - controlling how our country ultimately voted for a president.

26:34 - What else do we have if they win?

26:36 - Well, at the same back fails, we can have the best candidates.

26:40 - But I think a lot of you out there would say, hey, look, we gave you

26:44 - the presidency, we gave you the Senate, and we gave you the Congress,

26:47 - and you still can't pass the one thing we really, really want.

26:50 - 85% of people support voter ID in elections.

26:53 - They support, obviously, showing that you're an American citizen

26:56 - when you want to vote.

26:57 - So more states are doing it, thankfully.

27:00 - But the Save act has to pass.

27:02 - And that means nuking the filibuster probably, or going through reconciliation.

27:05 - Either way, if this doesn't pass, I think enough people ten, 15, 20%

27:10 - will be, you know what? We gave you guys a chance.

27:12 - Screw you. I'm staying home.

27:14 - Well, I thought that the conference was,

27:17 - very wide ranging, very interesting.

27:20 - Where can people go to actually see more of that content?

27:23 - We have posted on our YouTube channel at leadership PA,

27:28 - and if you go to YouTube, you can watch the the full conference.

27:32 - Really.

27:33 - And it's broken up into each of the individual speakers and panels.

27:36 - If you go to our YouTube channel,

27:38 - you could watch any or all of the 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.

27:42 - Outstanding. Solo. When you going to do this again next year?

27:44 - We're going to do it again next year.

27:46 - David April 8th, ninth and 10th once again at the Penn

27:49 - Harris Convention Center in Canfield, Pennsylvania.

27:52 - Outstanding. Well, once again, woman.

27:54 - Congratulations on a successful Pennsylvania leadership conference.

27:57 - And we'll look forward to next year. Thank you. David.

28:00 - Well, that's all the time we have for this week's program, PMA

28:03 - perspective return next week.

28:05 - And until then, stay current on what's happening in your state government

28:09 - by visiting PA manufacturers.org.

28:12 - From all of us here at PMA.

28:14 - Thanks very much for watching and we'll see you next week.

28:35 - This program has been paid

28:37 - for by the sponsor and does not reflect the views of PCN.