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>> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to create wi-fi enabled list so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> republican presidential candidate sat down with iowa governor kim reynolds during a visit to a state fair in des moines. he discussed his plan to reduce the number of government agencies and how his campaign is centered around reviving pride in america's national identity.

>> today i saw a sign for lemonade. they were on the microphone. i forgot what i was doing here for a moment. oh, my goodness. what a great crowd. thank you so much for being here for the third day of the fair side chats. it's so exciting. this is an opportunity for me to interview republican presidential candidates as we move to the first in the nation caucus on january 15. so thanks for being here. i'm so lucky to have joining me today, vivek. yes. so entrepreneur, business owner, welcome back to the iowa state fair. welcome back to

iowa. you've been here a lot. uh i look forward to having the opportunity to chat this morning. >> i'm excited to be here with you guys. i feel like i live here these days and we're, we're feeling right at home. thanks to the warm welcome. we get every time as most of, you know, i actually don't have a ton of experience in this realm of politics. i'm not a politician. i'm a business builder. i enjoy meeting many farmers, business builders, entrepreneurs across the state. i think we have a lot in common. my view is that i'm also here as a member of my generation, i just turned 38. they said 37 was a little too young to be president. so i said fine, i'm going to turn 38. so i got that problem solved. but speaking is a member of my generation. i think we are in the middle of this national void where young people like me, we're just so hungry to believe in something bigger than ourselves. and i said, it's sitting right here right in front of us. it's that flag on this gentleman shirt and his hat right here. it's the united states of america. it's the greatest nation known to mankind. if we can revive pride in that country, i think our national problems start melting away right there. and so that's what this campaign is all about. revive our national identity. good things are going to happen in this country and it just might take a different

generation to help lead us there. so, thank you, kim. >> i appreciate you. and i didn't even have to ask the first question you've answered it as a no, that's great because i wanted to talk about how we can get the next generation engaged because it's so important and a lot of the issues that you're talking about the is doing just that it's bringing young people to the table. >> i'm gonna, a couple of young people right there. i'm really glad, 8 30 on a saturday morning. i'm proud of you guys. >> yes. listen. so we're going to jump right in to if that's ok. i'm going to ask you a topic that you're very familiar with. i know i've talked to you many times about it and that's eg and

so just can you talk about how we explain it to the average person? and honestly, the impact that it's having on their lives. >> and my general rule of thumb is if it comes in an acronym, if it's designed to sound boring, they want it to sound boring for a reason actually. so they call it esg today after, after the work i've done in the last couple of years, i built a company to fight against this in capital markets, wrote a couple of books. what are they saying? we're not calling it esg anymore. we're going to call it something else, sustainability, whatever they use for the future, the reality is what's going on is this. they're using our money, the money of most of the people here this morning to implement social and environmental agendas through the back door through corporate america, using your retirement funds and your investment accounts to vote for racial equity audits or scope three emissions caps that you didn't know they were using your money to do. and that congress would have never passed through the front door. so this is actually, i think one of the grave threats to liberty today, you know, wherever you stand on climate change, i think most of the climate change agenda, i'm just going to say it is a hoax. i'm going to call that for what it is. wherever you stand on racial equity audits, i personally

believe we're a country that should have a color blind meritocracy. that's my view. but wherever you stand, we should settle that through free speech and open debate in the public square in a constitutional republic. that's the way we do things post 1776 on this side of the atlantic. and what these guys are saying is no, no, no, no, not so fast guys. the people of a nation, the citizens cannot be trusted to sort out their differences on climate change or racial injustice because they'll get it wrong. so we have to do it in the back of palace halls. it used to be in the back of palace halls in old world england. today. it's in the back of palace halls, in a corner office, a black rock suite in park avenue in manhattan either way though. that's not how we do it in the united states of america. we fought a revolution in 1776. that's why we've adopted that you hold in our thomas payne style paperwork up. they thank you for that. we

fought a revolution in 17 76 for a reason. and kim, i do think that it does frighten some people when i say it this way, but it's not intended to be frightening. i intended it in a hopeful way. there's other great people running this primary, by the way, i love them all. they're my colleagues, not my competitors. we're all colleagues in a national revival. that's why i'm not going to bash any of them. they're great people. you guys are going to see him here throughout the fair and i'm going to need every one of them and every one of you to get this job done. but i think the choice we face is, do you want incremental reform? in which case, i'm probably not your guy. do you want reform or do you want revolution? i stand on the side of the revolution, the american revolution. and that's really what this issue is all about. thank you. i know it's -- >> i know it's kind of heavy to jump in, but we got to pay attention to what's happening to your point. exactly what we see them doing behind closed doors. so thank you for talking about that. so let's go from g to

china. how should the american people understand truly the threat that china poses to our national security? and as president, how do you begin to address that? >> so i'm going to state a basic and obvious fact, we cannot depend on an enemy for our modern way of life. we never depended on the ussr for the shoes on our feet or the phones in our pockets. we just didn't. today, we depend on communist china for the way we live our lives. that doesn't work over the long run. it's like we're in a co dependent relationship, co dependent relationships do not end well. the only question is who ends it first, the sooner we end it the better for us. and i think just run this through in your head. if you doubt me on this, if that were a russian spy balloon flying over half this country, what would we have done? shot it down?

>> what would we have done in iowa once again, what would we have done in iowa? shot it down. amen. >> if it was russian. but they wouldn't let you at the us government level because they wanted to fly over half the country, transmit the information and then do a nominal shoot down over the atlantic. if that were russia, we would have ratcheted up sanctions. we didn't do it for china. you want to know why? let's be honest, i'm going to speak. this campaign is about truth. you see it on your hat. speak the hard truth. it's because we're scared, we're scared because we depend on them. and xi jin ping he says, you know what? you all are addicted to me. you're addicted to that fentanyl. i'm pumping across your southern border in a modern opium war that you don't admit you're in, you're addicted to the digital fentanyl that i'm putting in your kids' hands in the form of modern social media. you're addicted to the financial fentanyl in the form of the national debt that you have no capacity to wean yourself off of. and so kim, i think this is actually a positive point. it's not a doom and gloom point, i promise. which is that the real question isn't even about china. the real question is, do we have it in us to actually strengthen up with a spine and stand up for who we are? if we do, china will have to play ball according to

the same set of rules. but if we remain addicted to our enemy, then we deserve the consequences that we face. and that's why i'm going to say yes, we do have it in us. we will lead our nation forward. if thomas jefferson, my favorite president were alive today. the declaration of independence he'd be signing is the declaration of independence from communist china. that's a declaration of independence that i will sign as your next president. >> thank you. i appreciate that. you know, i've been, we've been pushing for civic requirements in high school to ensure that our students i know can learn the foundational principles of our country and what it actually means to be free. we've forgotten how fragile that is. so why are we seeing really the disconnect between our young people and the opportunities that truly exist in this country and that america provides. >> first of all, can we just give your great governor a round of applause? she is dominant. she is totally dominant school choice example. for the rest of the country, it does start with

education and i tell them about a conversation we had in your office. right. i mean, my whole game is if we're going to stay behind closed doors, we'll say it in public. i think that there's no reason why every high school student who graduates in this country should not have to pass the same civics test that an immigrant, like my parents had to pass in order to become citizens of this country. you got to know something about that country. i want to share a fact to you. some people may, you may think i'm just making this up. this is actually a survey conducted two months ago, widely connected survey by the reboots foundation. 60% of young americans think about that. six out of 10 young americans say they would sooner give up their right to vote than to give up their access to tik tok. i'm not making that up. so the reality is why young people don't value

a country. they're taught to hate. young people don't value a country that they don't even know anything about. and so this campaign, if it's about one thing, the way i'm going to lead this country, if it's about, one thing is reviving this idea of citizenship, actually, what does it mean to be a citizen of this nation? and now this is a little heavy for a saturday morning. but i just think it's important that we talk about it where we're taught to believe that citizenship is what do i get? what do i get? what am i entitled to? and as the 14th amendment and say, what are the privileges of citizenship? well, i think we ought to ask ourselves a different question. i think this is a place where conservatives can lead the way. i think the question we ought to ask is what are our duties as citizens? that's really what citizenship is about. and our first duty is to know something

about this country and then to pledge allegiance to it. and i think this is a deep moment for conservatives to look ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves who we are because for a long time, even people like me, what do i stand for? and i still stand for the american dream, the individualist, the capitalist in me to say that i will achieve anything i want with my own hard work and commitment and dedication. i'm an individualist and i will not apologize for capitalism. and that's a good thing. i'm proud of it. that is who we are, that is definitely who we are. but it is half the story. we can also admit at the same time that there's the other half of us that is still a citizen of a nation and that we have civic duties to that nation. those aren't contradictory. those go together. and we ask the

question of what does it mean to be an american? i remember 1776 it was the year of the wealth of nations and the year of the declaration of independence, individualism and unity, capitalism and a republic. both of those are what it means to be american. and i think that's what we're gonna have to teach our youth. my two sons who are running around here somewhere or other riding some rides. if there's one thing i want to say when i leave office in january 2033 that's the destination. not november 2024. that's just a step along the way. january 2033 when i'm leaving office, i kind of want to say the same thing that ronald reagan said when he left office in january of 89 that we revived a sort of missing national character that we lacked when he took over office. when i will take over office. i want to look my two sons in the eye and know they live in a country where they and their generation are once again proud to be citizens of this

nation. i believe that is possible, but it's going to require each of us doing our part. >> and iowa did theirs when we said no to c rt and that being taught in our classroom. so thank you legislators for helping me get that across the finish line. we appreciate your work on that and we did that before anybody else was even talking about it. so we did that two years ago. it does start there. you can't teach these young people to hate our country and who they are. it's ridiculous. so, you know, i love the vision. i love what you're talking about, but bureaucracy is out of control. we started here in iowa. i cut 20 working with the legislature again, i got 21 agencies from my cabinet. we went from 37 down to 16 $215 billion of savings. over four years, we are going to return that money back to the taxpayers and tax cuts. uh so, so we ask iowans for questions and thomas and bettendorf wants to know what's your plan to reduce the size of government? especially with the number of government employees. how do you, how do you tackle that? is it possible? >> yes, it is. yes. yes, it is.

>> look at the states. >> yes. yes, we not. yes, we can. yes, we will. ok. so i'm going to tell you what i'm going to do. but then i'm going to more importantly tell you how i'm going to do it because i know i'm in iowa, you guys demand the details. so the first thing is my first term in office, 75% head count reduction across the federal employee base. 50% done in the first year. take the government agencies that should not exist from the fbi to the irs to the, to the cdc, to the department of education, get in there and shut them down. that is how we revive the integrity of a constitutional republic. you know, if i'm the us president, that's your choice, not mine. but if you all put me there and i can't work for you for more than eight years, which i think is a good thing, then neither should any of those bureaucrats reporting into me, civil service protections out term limits in for the bureaucracy. and, and i understand this as a ceo i've built businesses, many of you run businesses big and small across this audience. you know, with me that if somebody works for you and you cannot fire them, that means they don't work

for you. it means in some way you work for them because you're responsible for what they do without having any authority to change it. so i refuse to be a puppet sitting in the white house going through the motions. this is one of the areas where i want to give credit to my most recent republican predecessor, donald trump and where i want to say i want to build and on his foundation to go further when i give him credit was he's the first person in either political party to have identified this rot of a problem. that wasn't me. i was in the business world back when he was doing it. so i give him immense credit for actually having the courage to identify the problem of the deep state. and i said i'm not going to be bashing other candidates that includes him. ok, i respect the most successful president in our century. i also want to learn from where he left off because one of the issues is the

managerial class. the advisors who advise the president come from that same swamp. and so what they told him was that, hey, you can't fire these people because there are civil service protections that stop them from being fired. that was bad advice. turns out we need an outsider who's been a ceo who comes from outside the swamp, but who also knows the law and constitution of this country to say no to those advisers because i've read the law and here's how it works. you can't fire individual employees who are civil service protected. but those rules do not apply to mass layoffs and mass layoffs are absolutely what i am bringing to the dc bureaucracy. that is how we actually drain the swamp and get this job done. >> thank you. ok. it goes, this time goes way too fast. but so we're going to do the fast three and then i'm going to give you the last five minutes to really talk about some things that are important to you and i'll lead into that question. but here's

the fast three. give me one funny campaign moment on the trail. >> so this is a funny one. so we were at the moms for liberty event in philadelphia. we're my mom's for liberty. i love this. so that was the first event where you were there. you remember where we brought our two kids on stage and it was like wild. they're like, we're trying to talk about like how we're going to shut down the department of education. and my son's like running around making faces to the audience. so i'm unveiling a pretty detailed proposal for the first time. it's kind of complicated and i didn't know how i was going to play with an audience. and like all of a sudden i hear the audience applauding and i'm pleasantly surprised i was like, oh, these guys really like this plan about how we're going to move money around from public schools to school choice. and so i get off and i'm talking to my wife and my family afterwards and say, hey, the audience really loved that. she's like, no, no, no, you missed it. arjun is like our one year old son, he was just clapping his hands at the same time. and so the audience was clapping for him, not for me. and so that's one of the things that i've learned is if, if the audience is responding to something, it's probably not something i'm

saying it's what my kids are doing. and so that's, i >> i experienced that many times. i, i get that favorite fair food that you've had or looking forward to having. >> i had the fun cake with powdered sugar. we go the whole >> sugar it up, sugar it up. ok. your favorite walkout song? >> i actually like m and m's lose yourself to be honest with you. >> i am really starting to understand my age. i'm gonna have to go look it up. ok. but again, ii, i love it. i love that. i've learned so much on these interviews. a lot of takeaways. ok. as i travel, the state, i get to interact with a lot of iowans and they truly are looking for a leader that will kind of stand up for the american people, for this country, for our freedoms. they want somebody that has the moral conviction to do the right thing. even when the right thing is really hard. they want somebody that can take that

vision and act on day one. and most importantly, they want somebody that can win. that's how they end almost every conversation. so tell us why you think or tell the audience why you think you're that person. >> i'll respond to the practical part about the winning. this cannot be a 50.1 election for so many reasons. it can't. i think we need a moral mandate akin to what ronald reagan delivered in 1980. that's what we need. i'm going to be really honest. i think there are other good republicans in this race who can defeat joe biden. i'll go on record. i'm going to be very honest. i expect to be the nominee. i expect they will not let joe biden run against me whoever i'm running against though, it needs to be a landslide. and the difference between 50.1 and a landslide is actually young people in this race. for those of you who came to jalapeno pizza last night, we saw many of them at our party last night. 40% of my 70,000 donors to this campaign are first time ever donors to the republican party in any form compared to 2%. normally, we're bringing young people along with us in droves. and so if you put me in that position as your nominee, it is my duty, my responsibility to bring them along with us in our movement and deliver that landslide election. and here's how we do it. young people know the difference of when they're being lied to young people know the difference of when they're just being told some fluff that you memorize in a political speech two minutes before you showed up. ok. and the reality is that's why this is a campaign

founded on speaking the truth, not when it's easy, but when it is hard, the hard truth that goes back to telling the people we the people the truth. once again, god is real, there are two genders, fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity. reverse racism is racism. an open border is not a border. parents determine the education of their kids, the nuclear family. yes, is the best and greatest form of governance known to mankind. capitalism lifts us up from poverty. there are three branches of government in america, not four and our constitution, it is the strongest guarantor of freedom in human history. that is the truth. we stand up for the truth. we fight for the truth.

that is who we are. and, and if i have one thing that i will ask of you guys and this is a good one for a bright saturday morning for us to wrap on is that were taught to believe that we're a nation in decline. we're taught to believe we're at the end of the roman empire. the pie is shrinking. all we have left is how we split up the shrinking pieces at the very end. i don't think we have to be a nation in decline. i don't think we have to be ancient rome. i think the truth is as a nation, not just me, not just the young people here. i think our nation is really just a little young actually going through our own version of adolescence, figuring out who we're really going to be when we grow up, when you view it that way. at least for me, it takes some of the pressure off. it makes sense. when you go through adolescence, you go through that identity crisis,

you lose your self confidence, you lose your way a little bit, you forget who you are, but we are stronger for it when we get to our adulthood on the other side. so i don't think we have to be a nation in decline. i truly think we might still yet be a nation in our ascent. maybe the early stages of our ascent, maybe we're not even at base camp yet. on our way to that mountain top, maybe we still are that shining city on a hill that reagan spoke of in 80 that place where no matter who you are, where your parents came from, what your skin color is. how long your last name is my case that you get ahead in this country with your own hard work, your own commitment, your own dedication and that you're free to speak your mind at every step of the way. that's the american dream. that's what we are running to and that is what we together are going to revive, to save our great nation. thank you guys. thank you. thank you. it's good to see you when one shot,

one opportunity sees everything you ever wanted. one moment. to cancer.

♪ if you had one shot, one moment. to cancer. yo, his palms are sweaty, knees, weak arms and a heavy beat. his on his sweater already. mom's spaghetti. he's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop palms. but he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down. the whole crowd goes loud and he opens his mouth but the words won't come out. he's joking now, everybody's joking. now, the clock's running out, time's up, over, step back to reality. oh,

there goes gravity open the he's, he don't have any nuts. he don't, he don't, he, he don't matter but his own home. that's when he's back to the lab. so you better go catch this and hope it don't lose yourself in the music. miss your chance to blow this opportunity and the music you want miss your chance >> ladies and gentlemen of the iowa state fair. stick around. ambassador nikki haley is up next at 9:30. in the meantime, jrs is open, serving food and drinks.

♪ coast to coast. so he's known as the, the roads this home, his father, he goes, barely knows his own know to see it. these products they moved on to the next. so the song, suppose it's hard when the beat goes in the music. one shot. do not miss your chance to blow one and the music, the moment your one shot do not miss your chance to blow this chains with two call rage to tear this motherf off like two dogs cage. i was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed. i've been chewed up and spit out and moved off stage, but i kept priming and step right in the next cipher. let's believe somebody's paying the pi pi or the pain inside amplifies the i would provide the right type life for my family because who stands the and there's no, these times are so hard and it's getting, trying to feed and water. ♪

my c plus see is not a between being a father and a pre without a baby mama drama on a, you don't want to stay in one spot if another damn or not like a snail. i got to formulate a plot or end up in jail. a shot option. failure's not. this trail has got to go. i cannot in salem is my shot. yeah, two hours and the music. ♪

>> this week c-span brings you campaign 2024 coverage from the iowa state fair. watch a fair side chat with republican presidential candidates hosted by iowa governor kim reynolds. former south carolina governor in the u.s. ambassador to the u.s. nikki haley and on friday night florida governor ron desantis, fair side chats. with republican presidential candidates from the iowa state fair. this week at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span and online at c-span.org.

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