The Cameron Brown Show
Where people, ideas, politics, culture, science, and the unknown collide. No limits. Just conversation and discovery.
The Cameron Brown Show
Project 2025, Ending Forever Wars, The Future of South Carolina & Disclosure | Paul Dans | Ep. 70
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Paul Dans is the architect of Project 2025 — the 900-page federal policy blueprint that reshaped the opening months of the Trump administration's second term. A former White House appointee, constitutional lawyer, and one of the most influential figures in modern conservative politics, Dans joined us while he was still running for U.S. Senate in South Carolina. He has since dropped out of the race and put his support behind Mark Lynch for Senate.
The conversation we had stands on its own.
In this episode we cover:
- The origins of Project 2025 and how much of it has actually been implemented
- The deep state, political blackmail, and how Washington really works
- Ending forever wars and the Iran conflict
- South Carolina's roads, economy, and agricultural revival
- Bringing shop class, trade skills, and manufacturing back to the next generation
- Chinese land ownership in South Carolina
- UAP and Epstein file disclosure
- Term limits and political accountability
- The Chevron case and his biggest legal victories
- What he wants South Carolina to look like for the next generation
Whatever your politics, this is a conversation worth hearing.
The Cameron Brown Show. Where people, ideas, politics, culture, science, and the unknown collide. No limits. Just conversation and discovery.
Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeart Radio.
One of the great things about your generation is you're so media savvy. You guys own this new media. And this is the way we're gonna get the message out, uh grassroots word of mouth. But ultimately it's about y'all voting. And so when I say I'm running, I'm I'm a dad of five. Look, I my kids are right behind your generation, my eldest is 12. I'm upset because this is not the US I was born into.
SPEAKER_00Well, Paul, thank you so much for joining the Camera Brown show today. Hope you're uh hope you're doing well. Great to be with you, Cameron. Excited, yes. Awesome. Very, very excited for this. Uh I'm it sounds like you're on the road a lot right now, traveling around a bunch. Uh obviously, with a with a lot going on right now in preparation for June 9th. Um, but um how how have things been?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's right. I'm I'm running for United States Senate here to retire Lindsey Graham to take this seat back for us, the people of South Carolina. Uh it's great. I mean, moving around the state is the most fun of the whole job, meeting people. We're on the road. I think we have about 160 events teed up between now and June 9th. We've already done a good 100 plus. So it's, you know, meeting people all over where they are, hearing their issues, and you know, really appreciating how wonderful a state we have, how much potential there is here, but how much neglect I have to say has happened. We we deserve to be living a lot better than we are.
SPEAKER_00So 160 events, and you decided to jump on for an hour with me. I I appreciate I appreciate that, to say the least.
SPEAKER_01Well, look, I'm running for your generation, I'll be frank. This is, you know, I can't press every palm. I'm gonna try to, but um, you know, the one of the great things about your generation is you're so media savvy. You guys own this new media, and this is um the way we're gonna get the message out, uh, grassroots, word of mouth. Uh, but ultimately it's about y'all voting. And so when I say, you know, I'm running, I'm I'm a dad of five. Look, I my kids are right behind your generation, my eldest is 12. And um, I'm upset, you know, because this is not the U.S. I was born into. Um, what happened the last 20, 30 years, and you all suffered worse of it, was really an abomination. Uh, you know, they uh they assaulted so much of Middle America to redesign this place to basically uh you know remake the look of the U.S., but also, you know, dissolve our national borders. And in interim, you've you know, your generation, the Zoomers have really taken it by the chin. So I'm standing up to fight that. Um, and I'm excited about you know being able to be on media, particularly like shows like this.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, I appreciate us starting off on that note because there's plenty of those frustrations that I'm probably gonna bring up during this uh this next hour as well, just to make sure we address those accordingly. Um just to start though, I kind of want to go back to the beginning, but can you give us just a better understanding of where you come from? Um, and uh also a little bit more about your educational background, MIT, law school, et cetera, all that fun stuff. Let's start there and then we'll proceed into the fun questions after that.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, I'm a dad of five. I am an identical twin. Um, yeah, my parents, we were what I call pure-blooded deplorable. So um come from the working stock that built this country. I'm the grandson of a textile mill worker. Uh my parents were the first in their in their families to go to college. My mom was a public school teacher, and my dad, you know, rose from poverty to be a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins. So I grew up in Maryland. My dad was in the military, and we were moving around. But from second grade on, I've always lived south of the Mason Dixon. Um I uh, you know, went K through 12 public schools, and they were very good back then. I grew up in the 80s during the Cold War, you know, and um this was really intent on making us the best we could be. Uh and I'll talk more about some of my um remembrances, but what I think we have to refocus on public schools here in South Carolina. But I went on to MIT uh, you know, on scholarships. I paid by the UAW. You know, my I'm the first generation not to be in the Union. And uh my my grandfather, he was a merchant marine out at sea. Uh seafarer was um, you know, a marine engineer, and and like I said, all my mom's family were these mechanic types, you know, who when fought, they actually landed on D-Day and behind enemy lines uh during World War II. So I come from you know a kind of a tradition of of war fighters, this kind of blue-collar guys. And when I was at MIT, I saw this whole deindustrialization going down in real time. And this was the beginning of what really the Malays that has beset us for the last 30 years, essentially this globalization, moving the factories abroad, leaving the working class in the lurch, and you know, the things taking its place were, you know, um basically social welfare schemes and drugs. You know, it was uh you know, but in the old days it it was a lot of more heroin and and that sort of abuse, but now it's uh it's oxycotton, codone, and and um you know, the whole the whole thing. So yeah, social media, you know, social media came on. Uh yeah, I was obviously an analog generation guy, so they talk about us growing up in the 80s, drinking from garden hoses, and you know, our parents would let us out. Our neighborhoods were safe, you know. It was um it was a different time. Um but I think you know, at the risk of kind of sounding like an old timer, I really do believe the last 20 years vastly accelerated the decline and you know, until we got to an absurd point where men are pretending to be women um and vice versa. It's uh it's a kind of obscene thing. But um basically went on to law school at the University of Virginia and uh was big there in the president of the Federalist Society. No one in my family were lawyers, but I became a constitutional conservative there. Uh, was twice elected the president of the Federalist Society. Uh but you know, you come out of these schools with massive debt, and that's the question: how do you pay it off? I went up to New York City with these big firms, hoping to chip away at that debt, worked on the big cases. Um, best thing that came out in New York was meeting my wife, who's a Carolina girl. Uh, grew up in Charlotte, but uh she was recruited to New York City Ballet. She's a prodigy, if you will. Uh she at 15 she got a full scholarship to go up there to School American Ballet and then became pro at at 16. So that's like the top in the world. And uh I, you know, in the Sea of Red uh blue up there, I ran into her and it was a blessing. We um she became pretty famous later on. She would she would retire from the ballet, go to Columbia University, and then start training Natalie Portman for this award-winning role, the Academy Award in Black Swan. So Mary Helen developed a lot of online fitness. She's a an influencer, but she's really the leading face of bar fitness worldwide. So we developed platforms back in 2012 that were online, similar to what you would call Zoom today, but allowing her to train all over the world, also streaming workouts, even before they had Netflix. She we were running uh her streaming workouts. So we were selling in 130 countries. That was really the fun part. Um, we started having kids, uh, you know, and it became clear we had to get to a place where um where family values were paramount. We had gotten married on John's Island 20 years ago and really loved the low country. And we said if we're blessed enough to have kids, we're coming back here and we're gonna set up. And that's essentially how it happened. I was working with her. I was look, I was a Trump guy from the jump. I was always a fan of Trump. And he started making wrestlings about running in 2012. I had given up on politics. You know, I was one of these like I was H. Ross Perot guy, never, never a Republican kind of country club person, but the Democrats had left us, right? We were my parents were kind of Kennedy-esque uh working class Democrats to you know, asked not what your country can do for you, but for what you can do for your country. They literally met in Washington, D.C. uh during Kennedy years here, um, '63. So uh that's it was a gravitational move, but Donald Trump was somebody who was threatening to break the system, and that was really exciting as an outsider. I always thought the only way we're ever going to get this back is getting beyond kind of this this two-party uh for a real outsider. And so I got early on with Trump, volunteered with him in 15 and 16, time when Lindsey Graham's doing all of his malarkey, you know, and we're looking at this guy going, This guy's a joke, but we love Trump. Helped him get elected, volunteered in Pennsylvania, thinking it would be, you know, I'd be able to go into the administration. Um I at the time was, you know, a top corporate lawyer. I had actually helped solve big cases, like a $27 billion case for Chevron, just using my MIT problem skills, problem solving and legal acumen from Virginia, and kind of dogged, you know, I I don't give up. I'm I'd I bite down like a, you know, and don't release like a um, you know, like a German Shepherd or something. But um that that's what I did, you know, getting in and and finally we had the opportunity to join the admin in 18. That's when we we relocated down to uh Fort Mill, okay. Um, right by the in-laws. By then my my in-laws had uh I I always joke they escaped communism, they they left Charlotte Mecklenburg and set over for Fort Mill. So um, you know, the whole family's kind of planting ourselves in in South Carolina. Right. Um But you know that's that's where where I come in. I was a Trump guy from the jump. I was one of his top appointees, and um I became the the actual swamp trainer, the guy who who comes from outside of of uh from Washington and and and upsets the Apple card.
SPEAKER_00I was uh there's a there's a lot of accomplishments on the legal side of things too, and I've I've done a good bit of research on that side, and I would love to spend um frankly, I feel like this is that we probably need to wait till after June 9th to dive into all of the the fun legal stories because I feel like we could probably go for days and have that conversation. But is there one case just before aside well aside from all the political questions, is there one case though, ship maybe the Chevron case that um that you think of as your your biggest win or your biggest battle when you were during the Yeah, it's the Chevron case.
SPEAKER_01Like they they've written two books about that, they're gonna put a movie out. But that was really my cracking the code. Um what had happened there were uh you know, Chevron acquired Texac in the 60s. They used to um extract oil down in in uh Ecuador and South America and Central America. And um some inventive plaintiff lawyers uh in the mid-90s had sued Texaco, which became Chevron, saying that they had polluted down in South America, and the result was all these birth defects and whatnot. In fact, it was a state-owned oil company that had done this. But uh, you know, the plaintiff lawyers um got in league with the with the government of Ecuador, this um kind of socialist uh regime, and they basically concocted a scheme whereby they would make a phony judgment against Chevron and then for force him to settle. So for billions. And it looked like Chevron was gonna be forced to do that. What they had done um to put pressure on Chevron to settle was bring down a documentary film crew like a Michael Moore type production that was gonna actually, you know, for Academy Awards sort of things, show about how bad this big American oil company was. And uh what happened was for two years they they followed, this is during the height of of a virtual uh of reality TV, and they brought a crew down there, they filmed all their machinations and scheming, and then 600 hours over two years, but made a two-hour movie. So I sued to get what they call the outtakes, the stuff on the cutting room floor. Most attorneys were like, you can't get that. There's you know, there's qualified privilege. Anyways, we got the smoking gun evidence, drilled that down for three years, about 5,000 attorneys ultimately working on the case, but it proved my whole thesis that this thing was a big setup, a big broad broad daylight shakedown. And the important thing was the people on the other end are very smart, they're progressives, they are actually um law school classmates of Barack Obama's, you know, from Harvard Law School. So this is kind of what we're up against. This end justifies the means. And so they will do anything to get to the proper end. But the the coming out of that, I knew that I could face off with these people at the highest level and win. And it just really took, you know, some degree of of inspiration, genius, if you will, but really just putting your shoulder to the wheel, 90. You know, I work like 3,000 hours, seven days a week. I just I you know, I kind of focus and grind. I I wouldn't say, you know, I have I have some gifts. Um some people can actually focus and and uh you know really get to the truth of it, but that that's what we did, and it was a big success. But that that would be the one case I think that stands out above all the rest.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I love it. You were also um this is on you know, this is public information, this is on the website. You talk about being the architect of Project 2025 um pretty pretty frequently. And Project 2025 in and of itself has obviously been um uh a bit of a sticking point, it seems like, over the past uh couple of years, especially, but mainly in 2024, is obviously the Democrats used it as great leverage, seemingly against Trump. Um, President Trump then kind of backed away from it publicly, but obviously has followed through with a lot of the things that were that were mentioned in Project 2025 uh throughout the the duration of this particular um uh um phase of his uh presidency. But I want to ask you on that part specifically, with everything that was included in Project 2025, how do you feel like it has been executed uh up to this point? Because it has obviously been followed it seemingly um to a well, at least to a certain degree. Some parts are criticized, but how do you feel like it's been it's been executed up to this point?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think but for Project 2025, Trump 47 would not have come out of the gates gangbusters like they did. Um look, you know, independent estimates put it at 80% of what they're doing in the second term has its genesis in our kind of communal work there. And to be sure, a lot of this was um carrying on from the first Trump term. But what really put Project 2025 on the map, which upset the left, they knew that we were, quote, over the target, as they say in Washington. And that's what brought all the flack on, was that we had finally systematically prepared uh for when we take power to use it and to move out and not be twiddling our thumbs, but to just come hard, you know, like wave after wave after wave. So um, yeah, I'm very proud of the work we did. It it uh ultimately, you know, it was with with the Trump campaign. I was integrally involved with with helping them, and they out, you know, they got the first six copies of the book. We can explain to to the audience how this actually was structured, but the net result was um I think it it gave us a roadmap. It really is the architecture of how you can kind of move. And some people critique it for not going hard enough. You know, people are like, but had it not been there, there would have just been kind of the same missed opportunity I think you saw in Trump one with Paul Ryan and and how they you know went after the president with the fake Russia hoax. Basically, they're trying to run the clock out. We have possession of the ball and we have to score. And if you don't have the plays ready to run, what's the point? You know? So that that's what I did. I was the architect of it. I was like a standout uh appointee for President Trump in his first term. He called one of these people he calls his killers, right? So but I got in late and I realized that we had met the enemy and it was us, as they say, that so many of our side were not ready to go balls to the walls to do the stuff we had to do. And in order to get that done the next time, we had to recruit people from the outside. We had to show them what's going on in Washington. We had to put a out kind of a book that said, this is what we believe in the main, and this is how you think about these agencies, and this is maybe a goal to shoot for. And then finally, we had to put an actual 180-day roadmap, like a playbook together. So we, you know, we systematically did that. The Heritage Foundation was my sponsor for it, and I brought together with with the help of others, you know, over 110 conservative groups, thousands of volunteers preparing 25 plans, which you know were fed right into the bloodstream. Why do you think that's the one? But you know, the left the left attacked it because look, I I put the the source code for the deep state right there. It's like I went right at the damn thing and said it's personnel, it's the laws that work up here, it's these people who are embedded, there's a total political class, the thing is broken, and we, if we're ever gonna seize power, we have to kind of mow down the deep state. Right.
SPEAKER_00Do you think, just to be kind of uh, I guess a little bit critical here, Trump backed away pretty aggressively from being attached to Project 2025? Is that because the left was utilizing it and criticizing it um enough to make him want to back away from it from the publicly speaking, or what was the main reason he backed away from it in your opinion?
SPEAKER_01No, I you know, I think quite the opposite. I think he was comfortable with it. You know, to be fair, that he he is there about winning, right? The guy has has tunnel vision and and look, he's if if he hadn't gotten off the map there in Butler at the Matt in Butler PA and said fight, fight, fight, none of this would have happened. So thank God for President Trump. But yeah, I think the people who engendered the knocking of it were actually um so-called, you know, brothers in arms or fellow soldiers. It's the right itself. Like there is a power struggle amongst siblings, and that's you know, where you have um some of his campaign advisors saying to knock it. But at the same point, look, um the it had already it was we were ready for that. We wanted the ideas to be taken hold of, and that's ultimately there's a saying in Washington if you don't mind who gets credit for something, there's no limit to what you can achieve, and that's what we've done, I think.
SPEAKER_00Love it, I love it. Um, with the uh we'll we'll we'll we'll just jump into the Middle East right now. Let's just go ahead and go there because it's obviously ever on the on top of everybody's mind, and it's and it's all over the place. And I can't get on social media without seeing some, you know, some kind of misinformation um or I guess information that you think is real, and then you send it to a friend, and it immediately gets um flagged as as false. Uh, I've got a friend that was in Iran for a while, actually recently, and just just recently got out. And I even sent him something today, and he goes, That's that's false. That's that's not even true. It's the bombing of the synagogue in in Tehran. He was like, I I've already talked to a friend, the synagogue is actually still there. I was like, Are you are you sure? So it's it's wild how much information we're taking in on a daily basis around this particular conflict in the Middle East. Um, but your opponent, Senator Graham, has been a huge fan of pushing this particular war. And I think a lot of people were really tired of it. And I'm me, me being one of them. We're tired of the endless wars, we're tired of the endless wars, especially in the Middle East. And so I guess I want to just ask, how are you, how are you gonna be different? And how are we actually gonna end these wars while it seems like the administration, while they did run on ending the wars, seems to be prolonging uh these wars at this time.
SPEAKER_01Look, I'm gonna be the Republican senator from South Carolina, not the Uniparty senator from Israel. I'm here for us, South Carolina and America first. And, you know, I'm tired of it too. Really, you know, look, we in this country uh we've been blessed with a lot, but we've also given a lot, and our lives have been greatly degraded over the last 30 years. We have to get back on our feet. You know, with respect to the but for um, you know, Lindsey Graham's um machinations, I don't think there would have been this war. I think that he's one of the bad voices in the president's head. And you see this with every war. He's doing the same thing with Ukraine. He's the guy who pushed, you know, the Syria attacks. This is go down the line, he's always for kinetic violence, and it's it's bizarre, really. At the same point, like we have 2,000 people dying of opioid deaths in South Carolina. Like, what when are you gonna actually focus on what's happening here at home? People are dying on the vine, and you're rooting to put another 50 billion for the retirees in Ukraine. It's absurd. So look, I'm I'm done with that. That's I stood up to stop World War III. These guys, I mean, it's it's getting pathologically um uh insane to to focus on this sort of thing when we have these problems here at home. And and you know, it's it's time high time we had an America First uh perspective, which you know first let's lock down our own Western hemisphere. We will take it from Terra del Fuego up to Greenland. You know, I salute with the president of Venezuela. Let's get these results. Resources marshaled here for Americans. But we got to get, look, we got to get Georgetown paper open again. We got to get steel here in the U.S. We we're going to bring back textile manufacturing. If we didn't learn from COVID what happens with the supply shocks, you know, this is insane that we're going and opening up all these kind of battles because the Chinese are like, they're on the on the sidelines building ships and they're actually infiltrating our country. Like they freaking own 144,000 acres of land in beneficially in South Carolina. You know, they're actually invading us already. And and people like Lindsey Graham, it's just a massive disconnect. And and you know, he will literally I never talk about the what's going on in South Carolina. It's always Israel this, Israel that.
SPEAKER_00I could be wrong with this too, but I don't know that I've heard him talk about China much, uh, just in general.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is the dog that doesn't bark, right? You know, but you you you say to yourself at the end of the day, everything he advocates inures to the benefit of China. You know, he's like, we need to give more munitions from uh the United States to Ukraine to basically fight this endless war that's just a war of attrition, that by the way, is killing white Christian against white Christian in the bed basket of Eastern Europe, which is the most asinine concept. If you want to start world poverty, that would be a way to do it. Um but you know, when they say bring over you know the javelin missiles, whatever. Oh, yeah, we can't use javelin, they take seven to ten years to build a new one. Our our entire defense capability, this military industrial that he profits from, you know, they've just paid themselves huge amounts and then they pay off their friends in Washington, but nothing actually gets built.
SPEAKER_00Paul, I always myself all the time, and I ask this question I'm like, is it that simple though? Right? Is it is it just follow the money? And I I I just like I feel like I fight internally, and I'm like, it's not, it's there's no way it's that simple that he's just being paid by an organization and he that and that's the reason that he's he's so pro-war all the time.
SPEAKER_01Is it that simple? I'm not a professional politician, but yeah, it is. I hate to say you know, the the money thing, it's it's power, you know. It money and power. Um, you know, people are fighting their own personal demons. I don't know what drives this guy, but you can't do this politics thing without money, you know, and and idealism only goes so far. But they they basically build this impenetrable web where everyone is in on it, and um, you know, you're gonna suffer if if you don't if you don't play ball. So that's essentially how you build this one party state, which we are. I mean, it's it's like it's beyond, you know, um uh in in South Carolina it's it's corrupt, you know, and and it goes all the way to Washington. He's the head of the snake. And this is it's um a way that uh yeah, I I would like to say it was in power and money, but that's ultimately what this whole thing is. And you know, people are blackmailed, okay? That's like let's be real about this.
SPEAKER_00This this dude is Yeah, that's that that's for sure. And I feel like that's the other thing for me, too. I was like, people have, I mean, they gotta get elected and they immediately get blackmailed, but it seems to be the case across the board. Um, or some something's going on because they say one thing and they get elected, and it seems like things change dramatically.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the the and it's I saw when I was in the federal government, first of all, that there was an entire intrusion of communist Chinese, all right? So it's all over, you know, and and other foreign countries. Obviously, Israel has a massive um control on people. But yes, this it's as simple as that. It they really are kind of hooked on the power and and blackmailed into taking positions. And, you know, the they protect one another. It it really is the scheme. So uh if you're an outsider going to it, they they bring full bear on you. That's why they they keep good people out. And I'm done with it. I'm gonna stand up and fight. This is this is how our country got built by people who are like, damn the torpedoes. I'm going forward. And um I'm I'm I'm putting it online.
SPEAKER_00Well, you mentioned yourself as a deplorable earlier, and I'm not sure that I'm I meet the same level of deplorable as you necessarily, but I would like to say that I I criticize dramatically every single individual, regardless of who it is and regardless of the party, because I feel like that's the best way for us to hold our country accountable and hold our politicians uh accountable that we we do elect when we put into office. And so I've I have found myself doing that a lot as of late. And I guess my my question for you as it relates to you know being critical, building out this plan, especially, and then uh obviously wanting to see it implemented 100%, because it's something that you you were the architect of. Um, as it relates to these wars, and then our president, and I'm once again, I don't want to get into criticizing too much here, but the the truth from yesterday about the civilization truth that I'm sure you saw everywhere. Um, do you see that as a bargaining chip? Do you see that as a way to bring Iran to the table, or did you see that as as something that maybe went a little bit too far?
SPEAKER_01Look, we didn't vote for endless wars. We did we voted to get America back on track, and I do think a lot of us were like, this is too far. You know, it's it's we we and I've I've always supported the president. You've not be finding me a bad word, but like I didn't vote for Mark Levin, okay? He's not MAGA. These, you know, nobody uh, you know, wanted to have these voices, Lindsey Graham, in the forefront. That's exactly why I went to support Lindsey, to support President Trump, because of these whack jobs and to see them move in and actually hold sway. Look, you were talking earlier about the news, and we don't know what the truth is unless you're in a classified briefing room. And then even then, we don't know if they're getting the dodge themselves. That's how the whole Iraq thing started, right? WMDs. They didn't tell the president the truth or whatever the case is. But there's a small group of people actually know the truth. Luckily, we get around it now with with new media, but you have to be very suspicious and and always challenging the SAS quo. And look, in the case of Iran, um elementally, we were told last summer uh Operation Midnight Hammer destroyed the nuclear threat, right? That there isn't any emergent threat against the United States. And and you know, when they keep shift changing the goalposts about we're doing this because of of hypersonic missiles. Well, hypersonic missiles are everywhere. Okay, they're and they're a threat to anyone from wherever. Okay, that's the whole point of hypersonic missiles. Um, but you know, the throwing gaze off a roof is now the reason why we're going to do this to end a civilization that's 3,000 years. Like, no, they we did not I'll go to the gas pump and it's 35 bucks extra to fill up the SUV, right? What are people who are living on uh fixed incomes, people who actually have to drive for their work, the farmers, like they don't get to buy wholesale gas, they're filling up their combines, it's a thousand bucks now. This happened overnight. I mean, it yeah, oh, it's a type a small amount to pay. No, it's not. We what do we get from this? This is billions and billions and billions of lost uh ability for us to get back on our feet. So for what purpose? Um, I I'm sharply critical of the war. I'm a big supporter of President Trump, but it's like wrap it up. We want to hit it and quit it, and we need to um get safer here at home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I was I I work mainly with service-based clients in my uh one of my service businesses this morning I was talking with who was filling up his tank on diesel. He's like, it's it's expensive. And I'm like, I I I get it. I mean, you're you're trying to hold junk and remove junk from a a local construction site um and you know, take it to the landfill, and you now have to charge your clients another $150 because how much more expensive gas?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the the price shock is the worst part because it actually has it's kind of like a freeze in the winter, you know, when they have the citrus crops. You get that shock and the trees don't come back, you know, you lose the fruit. Like you look at what happened in COVID, all these businesses shut down. They didn't come back, right? COVID's over, but they're gone. And the same thing's going on. I was talking to um a logging company, the top lumberjack in South Carolina, um, and he, you know, he's out there in Florence, and uh his fuel bills for the running the trucks doubled overnight, okay? Whatever profit he was making, now they're just keeping people at work for not going under. And and at the same point they're closing the mills. You know, this is how we end up losing an entire industry. And lumber isn't insignificant. Everyone lives off of that in the low country and have for the last 200 years. Like we import $28 billion of paper products from Canada, from Brazil, whatnot, and we have standing trees all over South Carolina. Asinine. Like, let's have a U.S. center that says, no, we're not gonna bring these other products into the port of Charleston. And yes, if we have to support this paper mill, we're gonna help them use 21st technology to actually have a clean burning paper mill. But we're not gonna get rid of the paper industry. And if we have to carry these loggers for a bit, we're gonna do that because I'm sick of sending the money to Ukraine for their civil servants. I'm sick of putting illegals on, you know, the the uh social welfare net here, and I'm sick of importing H1Bs to do our jobs. This is our country, and we got to take it back.
SPEAKER_00But uh, but yeah, and I guess just to that to that question, I I I think as a follow-up to that, I want to I really want to focus on South Carolina um yeah and and talk about especially our generation is kind of a the the next phase of this conversation too. Um obviously everything's getting more expensive. Uh we've got AI coming in rapidly and seemingly taking over what a lot of a lot of jobs uh also should create a lot of opportunity as well, which would be awesome. Uh and buying a house as uh as a first-time home buyer is very difficult for those that are even, I guess, starting to get into their 30s as well. So what is what is the message to the to the younger generation uh in so in South Carolina, especially?
SPEAKER_01Look, the this this boomer class uh traded away your inheritance. This is your the people lived and died and fought just for you to enjoy this life here at home. It's your home. We're gonna take it back. Uh and we're gonna do that on a number of fronts. My my entire focus is South Carolina first, putting this next generation on the right footing. I have five kids coming right behind you. And um I I have a three-part plan for that, really, uh for confronting the disruption from from AI, but also bringing us back to the land. And I think that's, you know, we live in this blessed uh, you know, agricultural economy, but we have to take in the 21st century at the same time, bring in, restore these core industries so we can really live healthy lives, uh, but you know, come together as God intended. You know, that I I'm really upset about the birth rate and the family formations and and kind of the war that they've put men and women on. So I think we can always have a family first. So one, I'm I want shop class back in every middle school and high school. Okay. This uh your generation never knew it, but when I went to middle school and everyone behind me, um, we did wood shop, metal shop, drafting, and you start working with your hands in seventh grade, you know. Um, and that formation, I want 21st century robotics. I want people problem solving as kids that is gonna help them like fix things in the future. So you get you graduate on to high school where you're doing you know advanced robotics, state-of-the-art stuff, welding, uh, auto repair, HVAC, but really a whole um group that's coming out to be plumbers and electricians, the jobs they can never take away from us. We're gonna use those jobs to build South Carolina. We have the worst roads in the country. We have to build the grids. You know, we can't build these ships that want a $1.5 trillion sub-building and ships and not. They can't find the welders. They fly them in from Turkey and Romania. Absurd. They stay in all those roadside hotels. So we got to start with our own people training them. You know, they're working, they're not gonna be doing the drugs. I mean, this is where the hopelessness comes from. Um, two, look, I want to put us back on the land. Um 21st Century Homesteading Act that's gonna help the family farm come back. There's a whole bunch of oxygenarian farmers who can't pass it on to the next generation. You know, with the fuel now, they're having a hard time even farming. And a lot of we have Clemson, we have other schools that are top in the country with tech. We can put money in the hands of small farmers, 150-acre har farmsteads, pay you to rehabilitate the houses. You go through rural South Carolina, these towns are all closed up. You're like, what happened here? Like, bring them back. We have high-speed cable and and and internet and that ability to do that and satellite. You know, it doesn't, you don't have to be fixed anymore. So I want to declare farmland critical infrastructure. I want to seize the land owned by the Chinese, put it in a constructive trust nationwide. This is one of the first acts I'm gonna introduce when I get to the Senate. Uh, and we're going to basically stand up uh kind of communal agriculture around major population areas. So your first stop's gonna be the farm stand to get the healthy food. Um, we're gonna eat well again. You know, I talked to the seniors and this little lady of fixed income, whatever, she's like if the Walmart went away, she wouldn't know what to do. She's on Anderson and she said, My friends and I talk about one day eating meat again, meat. Okay, that's absurd. We live in the United States. We take half of our beef in from like Argentina and Brazil and Australia. Forget that. You know, it's an incredible statistic. 1970, they had a hundred thousand more head of cattle on South Carolina land than they do today, right? And we have five times the population or whatever. Like, you know, this you know, battle of cow pens, people know of cow pens. Cow pens was a turning point for the southern campaign of the Revolutionary War. We're on this is the patriotic land. This is like um, you know, real, this is where people fighting, but cow pens itself, what is that? That's a stockyard. The original stockyards of the United States were here in South Carolina. So I'm like saying, I want a steak on every plate, right? We're gonna eat meat again. And believe me, I'm a I'm a red meat eater.
SPEAKER_00So make America eat meat.
SPEAKER_01Because like we're gonna bring, you know, the you know, the the um cattle back, but all kinds of stuff. You know, chicken is poultry is our our major um producer, but also swine and and just really grow healthy food for South Carolina, kind of sustainable farming and you know, raw milk, whatever the case is, but very healthy living. And and and make it so that young couples can come together and basically do this. Uh and then, you know, three, I want a nationwide crime act, uh crime bill. Basically, nobody should be living in fear to live in the cities or in rural America, and there's just you know too many bad elements out there. We have to we have to throw the book at people, not just the migrant crime, but the youth crime. Um this is unacceptable. We have to bring back law and order. If it means bringing the uh you know the National Guard to Myrtle Beach, we'll do it. But like no one should be afraid to go to Myrtle Beach. It was made for the families. Right. So this is like uh I envision a South Carolina that is gonna be tech friendly in the sense that um we're gonna have this 21st century agriculture that's gonna be healthy and you know certainly be attractive. We're gonna put money back in the public schools and and and make sure we have this class of people who are able to be the work workforce for this 21st century industrial economy. And um I think we have all the all the ability here. We just need a U.S. center who isn't pounding the table for billions to Ukraine, but pounding the table for billions to um Georgetown and and you know um Spartanburg and everywhere in between, you know, the because look at the roads, they're obscene, folks. And and you know, we're 50th in the country, the worst roads in the country.
SPEAKER_00They're pretty bad. They're pretty bad. 26 is improving a little bit, though, the amount of times that I've now driven up 26. It's getting better, but it's it is.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's hey it's 30 years in the making, you know, and and finally they're getting at it. But um, you know, this is a road where the Lindsay, oh, he helped with the port, you know. Well, the port's one thing, but what about all the trucks going to the port? You know, they're gonna have to go on a road. And the 26, like all the rest of them, and I drive the 26 every day. You know, I I tell you, getting out in the morning and watching the people from Somerville spend two hours to go 10 miles at a creep is obscene. Like, yes, like you have to anticipate there's gonna be growth and build for it ahead of time, not wait for it to be upon you. Look, I went to MIT, right? I went economics, but I also have a master in city planning. So I worked at HUD. This is like my focus is going to be building South Carolina for a healthy 21st century. I look, I'm a high-speed rail guy too. I mean, I think we have this ability to really make this amazing rural state, but also we have the best beaches in the country and and we have this high-tech ability. We have it in Greenville, we want to bring the jobs down to low country as well. But um all the all the components are there. People are coming here for a reason, but you know, we have this uh how dare I say fake and gay senator. I yes, I said it as they say that is just obsessed with foreign war, and meanwhile, we're dying on the vine here at home. It's it's a very solvable um solution.
SPEAKER_00So as a follow-up to that, how do you feel about term limits?
SPEAKER_01I've already committed to them. Look, I signed the pledge. Uh I'm not a career politician. This is not my wheelhouse to get up here and you know, but like I know how to do this stuff effectively. I was the top, you know, I led thousands in the movement, and um this is the the sort of thing people have to come and give in Washington, but then go home. Otherwise, you become part of this whole gravy train. And and it's intoxicating. I mean, the seven trillion dollars, everyone's cutting themselves in on this. Um so yeah, I supported it. I'm limiting myself, but um I I don't think we should have career politicians. And Lindsay needs to go 32 years. He's looking for a fifth term.
SPEAKER_00I hate to do the whole rapid fire questions, but I know we have like 13 minutes left. And so just with with just a few additional questions here, um the term limits is is obviously one of the main focuses here, especially in replacing a career politician. Uh also if you are if you don't win, what are you gonna do next? If if you don't end up uh winning and becoming the next senator, uh what what does Paul Dance do next to support the people of South Carolina?
SPEAKER_01Look, I'm working on the same issues I'm running on. Like the you don't have to be in the U.S. Senate. Being in the U.S. Senate will help me definitely solve these problems, but they have to be approached. And so look, I'm I'm gonna advocate for uh shop class. I'm going to advocate to open up Georgetown paper. I'm gonna stop these attacks on on, I'm gonna get justice for all the people killed by fentanyl. I'm gonna bring the sacklers to justice. I'm going to lock that criminal Fauci up. These are things I'm gonna push for as an advocate. And, you know, what I learned with Heritage in Project 2025 is you can make a massive change even from outside elected office. Now, I'm gonna win this thing, and I'm running to win. But um look, I've I've consecrated the last 10 years of my life to doing this, and and you know, I'm effective at it. So um that's that's what I'm planning to do.
SPEAKER_00And we did not talk about the UFO UAP setup um quite yet. We haven't really gone there at all. Um, but I I do want to just get your general thoughts on all on all of that as well, because that seems to be kind of going on in the background. Um, but it seems like you're a proponent of of full UAP disclosure. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01I'm a proponent of all disclosure. I'm sick of the classified information. I'm sick of stuff being kept from people. We're adults, we're all on this earth together, and we need to know. And and I'm gonna be Mr. Disclosure. I'm gonna not only gonna get the UAPs, I'm gonna get what happened with Kennedy. Okay, there's still 10,000 docs being hidden on that, notwithstanding all the laws. But um, yeah, I, you know, do I believe it? I don't know enough to believe there's enough um misinformation both ways, but I do know that uh, you know, my kids saw something very strange in Charleston last year, um, along the times when they're doing all these sightings. And, you know, this is uh these things we need to know what's happening. Um so I'm I'm gonna be a tireless advocate. Uh it's there's nothing more, and you know, and I've seen when I was In government, how they give you the runaround. Oh, we have to de-class this, we have to run it by 30 different groups first before we surrender it. It's like, no, you know, this is how they have a separate government, a political class, is keeping information from us. So whether it be, you know, what happened in the opioids and the Sacklers, and look, guys, a white genocide. Like they started from the beginning. They said this is an addictive uh population, these Scots-Irish, we're going to target them. And they did an inverse uh opium war on us, okay? And it was run ultimately by the Chinese communists. This is a long-term strategy, infiltration of our country. They look on a long-term basis. They have corrupt politicians, and you know, Lindsey Graham is chief among them. Um, but we we just have to we have to start fighting. So um I will be I will get to the bottom. Uh, you know, Tim Burchett, that's a guy, a buddy of mine. That's somebody you can basically model because we we basically are operating on the same.
SPEAKER_00I'm a big fan, so that makes a lot of.
SPEAKER_01I'm a big fan. He's a great man.
SPEAKER_00As it relates to disclosure, the so I just my my actual my last guest was an Epstein survivor, and that entire episode was super deep and hard to honestly wrap my mind around and during certain certain parts of the human trafficking aspect of that particular conversation. But I'm I'm curious to know a little bit more about your thoughts on disclosure of the Epstein files as well, because it seems like a lot of that's being withheld as well.
SPEAKER_01Also, from the beginning, I said full disclosure, let the chips fall where they may. Uh, like there are things that transcend um party politics. We have to get to the truth of it. Um, nothing's worth protecting more than our children. And then I say that as a data five. Um, I really do think that it not only holding this back, it just increases sowing distrust of government too. So even if there were nothing there, you want to disclose it. Um and and I I I have not been a fan of how that's been treated. You know, I think um I'm gonna be the champion. And look, it hits our state worse than uh ever. I look one of the locuses of human trafficking is Myrtle Beach, okay? One of the five places in the whole U.S. where the Sacklers targeted was was Myrtle Beach. Okay, this is a cross section where a lot of the country is coming, but um that's that's where the most dangerous intersections are for these sort of things. So let's get on it. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00So, Paul, I appreciate your time first and foremost today. I I want to just get to give you this last few minutes to wrap things up, maybe hit on certain points that we didn't discuss or questions I didn't ask that you'd like to address uh with the people listening.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I want your listeners to know this is your Senate seat. Okay, you're sitting here listening to this, but if you want it, you got to take it back. It's no one's gonna hand it back to you. I'm Paul Dance is standing up to be the nominal name, but it's ours, and I can't win it alone. Like I I'll be up here, you know, putting my my money, my life, my family on the line to do this. But um, you know, I'm fighting for y'all as much as my own kids. Um, what you can do is push the message out. You can um volunteer, but most of all, you have to vote. You have to drag yourselves to the polls. I tell the people, hey, the youth are with us, and they're like, oh, that doesn't matter. They don't vote. You know, we just are looking at the same stodgy Fox News watching conde boomer class that decides who our next senator is going to be. This man has to go. We are totally gonna win this. He is below 50%. So as long as we keep him below 50%, I come in second, we will be in a runoff, and all bets are off. Look, he is uh uh recognized as a criminal across the world, but it's all on our shoulders in South Carolina to do this removal. So I hope you all take it seriously. Go to Pauldance.com, follow us at Dance for Senate on X, uh, Facebook if you do Facebook, but we're also you know, we're all over TikTok. You can even find us. But uh spread the word and and network and get your own to commit to voting and work your parents, work, you know, work your neighbor, your coworkers, because it's word of mouth, June 9th. You can vote in advance, but you have to register to vote if you're not registered. Register 30 days before, May 9th. And um appreciate everyone's support because he's never been weaker. And this will be a referendum. This will be a national referendum. If you're not excited about what's been going on in the Middle East, this is your time to send a message. And I'm gonna be a guy who puts us first. I will guarantee you that your life is gonna be better in six years with Paul Dance in the U.S. Senate.
SPEAKER_00Well, Paul, once again, thank you so much for the time today. Uh, you got a lot more events coming up over the next uh come find us.
SPEAKER_01That's how many days is it now? Until Yeah, well, it's about 62 days, I believe. Okay. Um but just go sign up at Pauldans.com. You'll get our newsletter and come find us on the trail. I love, I love meeting y'all and um take road, you know, signs and and just get out there and knock doors for us because this is gonna happen. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, Paul, once again, thank you so much for the time and uh best of luck with the the upcoming race.
SPEAKER_01Great, thank you, Cameron. Great to be with you today. Absolutely.