Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz

The most important question in politics is this: Who treats politics as a means to policy outcomes, and who treats it as an end in itself? If you are in the former camp, you will be more appalled when Republicans do liberal things because that prevents us from ever achieving our goals. I use this theme to provide updates on the atrocious hostage deal, budget reconciliation, and some of the Cabinet confirmation hearings. Republicans are now going to the media and bashing the only plan on the table to actually cut spending. Why? Because politics is an end in itself. Finally, I discuss why the housing and credit crises are all related to the inflation-driven spending, yet Republicans are making up excuses to distract from cutting spending. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, I dispel all of the loser arguments in favor of a hostage deal supported by Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, Biden, and every Democrat around. What we witnessed yesterday was the power and danger of the purported right-wing leader joining with the Left to crush us. It doesn’t have to be this way. I believe we are at a crossroads. If we ramp up the pressure on Trump, there are still good things we can do. I make the case for divesting from Qatar and shoring up Trump’s foreign policy to make sure he doesn’t endorse a Palestinian state. I also share some thoughts about DeSantis’ pick of Ashley Moody for the vacant Florida Senate seat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We could bury our heads in the sand, or we could force a course correction with Trump before it’s too late. Nobody is discussing this, but earlier this week, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, shocked the world and pressured Israel to accept a deal to essentially rebuild Hamas and release 1,000 terrorists in exchange for only some of the hostages, who might not even be alive. I explain what this represents, where it’s coming from, and how there is a shadow Cabinet around Trump that is tied in with global special interest money, including foreign Arab money tied to Qatar, that will subvert even the views of Trump’s relatively good Cabinet. Trump also has a desire to be seen as a nonpartisan deal-maker to solve left-wing goals. That’s why the global Left’s opposition to him has essentially evaporated. If we don’t demand a course correction now, you can expect us to get rolled by the same people for the same reasons on spending, immigration, social issues, and every other priority that has even less support among Republican elites than Israel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin today by discussing how Florida legislative leaders are pushing back against DeSantis because they actually still support illegal immigration. I demonstrate how Republicans in general are more left-wing than ever before. Next, we’re joined by a special guest who joins us anonymously under his social media screen name, Non-Hyphenated American. He came to the U.S. from India in 1991 through a student visa and H-1B and became a patriotic, conservative citizen. But he is here today to warn us that the program has turned into a conveyor belt to replace the American worker and, worse, subvert American culture. He describes how the sheer number of immigrants and the circumstances through which the Indians are brought in are subverting American values with a problematic mindset that is creating high-income balkanized ghettos. His presentation is as riveting as it is unique. In many respects, he believes that what the Indian visa mill is doing is more of a threat than illegal immigration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The bad news is that Trump and Republicans are already walking back campaign promises on inflation and immigration. The good news is that he hasn’t even taken office yet and none of this misdirection is irrevocable. This is why we are at a crossroads. We can either continue treating the party like a boyfriend and covering for its betrayals with excuses. Or we can treat them like wayward children and force them into a better direction. I offer ideas for how we do that on spending and immigration. I also warn about the growing evidence that Trump will get involved in red-state gubernatorial primaries, as RINOs work to get his endorsement. Plus, the importance of DeSantis’ special session on state-based immigration enforcement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s show, we make the cultural and economic case to shut down mass migration — both legal and illegal. We have to shoot high and move the Overton window. We’re joined by George Fishman, senior legal fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and one of the foremost experts on immigration law, to discuss his recent piece arguing that the 1924 immigration law was the greatest piece of legislation for the American worker. We go through 100 years of immigration law and data and juxtapose it to the labor market to show how the 1924 bill helped launch the American middle class, while the recent mass migration has crushed the American worker. The sad reality is that unlike 100 years ago, our elite governing class refuse to deliver for the American worker, including the politicians who run on doing just that.he politicians who run on doing just that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s special show, I engage in the deepest dive into the tax code available on the web. I do this to show that we are facing a policy and political checkmate trying to do more tax cuts. Most people don’t pay that much in federal income taxes, thanks to two generations of tax cuts. They are paying exponentially more on the cost of living thanks to the deficit spending, which will be exacerbated by more tax cuts. Democrats already agreed to extend most of the tax cuts, and in order to get the final rates at the top, we are going to have to offer them garbage provisions that aren’t worth the squeeze. In the world we live in today, tax cuts are just not the issue of our time. Reconciliation should be used more for spending. With that said, if Trump is hell-bent on making taxes the main issue, I offer some ideas for small business tax cuts as well as using the tax code to leverage systemic health care reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s action-packed show, we cover a lot of ground on a ton of issues that we were supposed to care about. We are being distracted with trolling about buying Canada and Greenland, while Republicans and their tech bro donors are selling us out on the core issues of inflation and invasion. I explain my controlled opposition theorem of how the Left needs to co-opt the populist movement and jujitsu it to leftist outcomes while offering the veneer of moving to the right on meaningless things like “the Laken Rilley bill.” This idea of having foreign investors create “data centers” in red America is also a bad idea for numerous reasons. Plus, we play Coward or Craven to understand why both the influencers and the voters on the Right suddenly don’t care about inflation. Are they stupid or subversive? You decide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the plan? What will change? Republicans are squandering this trifecta with the same issues, the same approach to legislating, and the same loser arguments. Today, I broach the need to shoot down bad ideas from the administration and not take a “wait and see” approach after it’s already too late. We’re joined by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), one of the Freedom Caucus members who penned a letter to the speaker demanding that we up our game on budget reconciliation. Burlison makes the case for reorienting the focus of the reconciliation bill toward transformational spending cuts. He is constantly thinking of ideas to fulfill the mandate rather than producing corny videos on social media like some of his colleagues. He also believes that health care reform needs to be part of the discussion. His plan is to negotiate directly with Trump rather than with Johnson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Given that Republicans have made it clear they will not fight on appropriations bills, debt ceilings, or reauthorization bills, it leaves us with budget reconciliation as their only opportunity for create enduring change. Today, I lay out the case for a course correction against the existing plans from Trump, Johnson, and Thune. The focus is too centered on taxes and things that can be done executively. The focus needs to shift to spending cuts and downsizing of government. As always, I offer my idea of what I would do for budget reconciliation and how I would message it around immigration cuts and welfare reform. If we fail to establish enduring victories in Washington or in the red states, we will be on the hook for devastation when Democrats inevitably come back into power. Moreover, regardless of the Democrats, the crushing cost of living will continue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is the dangerous premise that somehow Trump needs a ton of border funding in order to enforce the laws. We’re joined today by the inimitable Jessica Vaughan, who explains that interior enforcement is key and all of that can be done with enforcement of the laws. We discuss a full array of policies Trump can implement to target illegal employment, tax incentives, and identity theft, as well as using expedited removal and state and local law enforcement. We also discuss all the ways visa programs are fleecing Americans – from the foreign student pipeline to the cheap labor worker visas. There is a lot that Trump can do to root out the corruption from these programs and even temporarily halt them under inherent sovereign authority over foreign affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our inaugural episode of 2025, I review our concerns about where Trump and Elon are headed both with spending and with immigration. Those were the two core mandate issues of the election, yet on both of them Trump is reversing course. I lay out a very specific plan for Trump to fulfill his mandate by passing the RAISE Act to restrict all low-skilled immigration before we have any debate about increasing other categories. Trump needs to get back to making the moral and cultural case against mass immigration. I also lay out strategies for budget reconciliation and why it’s important to force concessions from Speaker Johnson before handing him the gavel. We cannot simply be listless vessels allowing Trump to drift and pull everyone to the left. The mandate is huge, the opportunity is real, but unless we change course, we will toss a political interception. Finally, I introduce a new fun segment to deal with the listless vessels who make sudden "retarded" arguments they never believed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s special 2024 grand finale, we cover a gambit of topics. I begin by launching truth bombs about the budget and debt ceiling fight. We cannot survive if we tether our beliefs 100% to one man, all day, all the time. I dispel myths about the history of the debt ceiling and the history of the past 15 years of budget fights. Next, we’re joined by an all-star panel of hero doctors from the COVID era to discuss the future agenda of the medical freedom movement. We engage in a wide-ranging discussion with Drs. Lynn Fynn, Kat Lindley, and Mary Bowden about what RFK Jr. needs to accomplish at HHS. They warn about the shedding of respiratory viral vaccines, the need to terminate COVID, RSV, and mRNA shots, and how to restore medical ethics at a state level. We also discuss how to fix healthcare delivery at the retail level to empower independent, smart, and ethical doctors like those on our panel today. Finally, I close out the year with my parting message. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yesterday was one of the greatest days in the history of conservative media. Finally, we had everyone united behind blowing up a bad budget bill. Sadly, Trump came in and tossed an interception by demanding an even worse bill with no spending offsets and suspending the debt limit. I make the case for why that is a terrible idea and why it is a harbinger of things to come with spending in general and other issues in particular. We’re joined by Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison to discuss his ideas to push for enduring spending cuts. He is proposing to devolve the debt limit authority to state legislatures. This is a brilliant idea and the sort of innovative thinking that the base must demand from Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin today by going through the omnibus bill and noting how conservative media close to Trump is missing an opportunity to get the big man in the right headspace. We saw this betrayal coming a mile away, yet we have failed to direct Trump’s attention to it. If we are going to improve things from Trump’s first term, the way he interacts with Congress must change. Next, we tackle the drone swarm issue with special guest George Hill. A former Marine, Hill served as the National Security Intelligence supervisor for the Boston office of the NSA and has a lot of important insights on the drone situation. Hill believes that the most likely scenario is that our military contractors are ops-testing our own security vulnerabilities in the era of drone warfare. In that case, the drones would thankfully be innocuous, but the problem he believes is that we just can’t trust our government. Hill reminds us that to this day, we don’t know why our government would purposely allow China to surveil us with balloons two years ago, and there are no innocent explanations. As part of that trust issue, Hill also explains that there is a pattern of behavior where our government allows adversaries to get away with harmful activity. He believes we could easily end the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea with a single torpedo, yet it’s not done. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Johnson is betraying us with more spending even before Trump takes office. I explain why we need a fight over the speakership, but that will not happen unless we get Trump to change his legislative focus. Likewise, we are having similar problems in the red states. We’re joined today by state Rep. Jordan Pace, chairman of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, to discuss everything that is wrong with the state party. Under the leadership of Speaker Murrell Smith, Democrats have been given key subcommittee chairs. Pace explains with painstaking detail the subterfuge GOP leaders use to advance the Democrat agenda without transparency. They have a corrupt process of picking judges, which often results in placing liberals on the bench. Moreover, they continue promoting biomedical tyranny, pushing socially liberal policies, and handing over state lands to the green grift. In South Carolina and elsewhere, unless we support the Freedom Caucus members, the GOP will continue promoting Democrat policies without the Democrats owning the consequences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We begin today by observing how the GOP has become the gay old party where you cannot get confirmed to the Pentagon without supporting gay marriage and women in combat. Next, I tackle a vitally important issue that is festering within Trump world. Trump is promising to sell off federal land and build “freedom cities,” which are nothing more than 15-minute cities. I explain how Doug Burgum and the tech bros who are pushing urbanization of red states will be behind this plan, and it will result in turning red states blue. The better idea is to create a new homesteading act, which would work to re-ruralize America by parceling out homesteads, which will attract more conservatives to live in those areas. I also explain how this idea is built upon the erroneous premise that the source of the housing crisis is due to a lack of housing supply and zoning laws. In fact, we need zoning laws to protect against overdevelopment. The source of the housing crisis is a mix of debt-driven inflation, Federal Reserve monetary policies, farm bills, energy policies, and universal homeownership subsidies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we continue our discussion of how to pin down Republicans and conservative media to commit to specific goals. They are all in agreement about abstract ideas, but then when it comes to the specific issues and leverage points that will determine the outcome, they fall apart. I list a number of fault lines that reveal who is real and discuss the need to lay down those markers before the trifecta GOP control begins. I do this by reading through the transcript of Trump’s Time magazine article to identify some concerning messaging points. Things like actual spending cuts of entire programs, legal immigration, and some social issues are concerning, and we need to get ahead of them. As always, rather than just criticizing the status quo, I offer up what I would pitch to Trump in the Oval Office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a reason we have a motto to focus on “the issues that matter, in the way they matter, at the time they matter.” I explain how everyone complains about issues in the abstract and there is broad agreement about what we should do generally, but when it comes to the specifics that will determine the outcome, we lack a movement. I go through some examples with spending, fixing the military, and vaccines. Also, there is news out that the RSV shots are killing babies, yet we still don’t have a unified movement to take them off the market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Penny might have dodged a bullet, but his case is a harbinger of what is to come the next time Democrats take over. I offer some ideas on how red states should push back on the coming tyranny of political prosecutions we will see from blue states. Next, I’m joined by my personal friend Jonathan Gross, the most effective and dedicated attorney representing January 6 defendants. He makes a strong case for why Trump should immediately pardon all of the defendants. Even those who committed some degree of crime were already punished well beyond what is sanctioned by the American legal tradition, plus none of them got a fair trial. Gross also emphasizes the importance of Trump’s DOJ doing a full investigation into the who, what, and why of the January 6 persecution regime, especially juxtaposed to what the feds declined to do against BLM. Finally, we discuss the need for judicial reforms, modifying jury pools for fairer trials, and the need to reform bar certification so that conservatives can practice law unmolested by those targeting their political beliefs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices