Best Of: Conservatives Don't Hate EVs—They Hate Being Forced (Originally Aired February 17, 2026)

Originally aired February 17, 2026.

This week's Best Of episode begins with a confession that usually surprises people:

I drive an electric Hummer.

That doesn't make me less conservative.

It actually reinforces one of my core beliefs.

People don't reject innovation—they reject being told what they're supposed to like.

In this episode, we separate technology from politics and examine how mandates, subsidies, and political messaging have transformed a consumer product into a cultural battlefield.

The conversation explores:

•  Why coercion creates resistance 
•  How markets drive better innovation than mandates 
•  The history of energy transitions 
•  California's energy contradictions 
•  Why consumer freedom produces better outcomes than political planning 

This isn't really an episode about electric vehicles.

It's an episode about liberty.

📞 252-CHAD-LAW

🌐 ChadParkerLaw.com

00:00 I Drive an EV... Calm Down

03:11 Why Conservatives Distrust Electric Vehicles

07:42 The Real Problem Isn't the Technology

12:18 Energy Transitions Have Always Taken Time

17:03 Why Mandates Create Backlash

22:11 Markets vs Government Planning

27:36 California's Energy Contradictions

32:26 When Politics Replaces Consumer Choice

37:02 Innovation Without Coercion

41:46 Reagan's Reminder & Final Thoughts

#BestOf
#CommonSense
#ChadLaw
#ElectricVehicles
#EV
#Energy
#FreeMarkets
#Innovation
#Politics
#ConsumerChoice
#EnergyPolicy
#Rumble

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello America. Yes, I drive an EV. Calm down. Alright, before anyone clips this out of context, yes, I drive an AV. I drive the new Hummer EV SUV. Not a Prius, not a Virtue Scooter, not a government rebate roller skate, a 9,000 or 10,000 pound electric tank, and I love it. SK Conservative. Driving electric. CNN just felt a disturbance in the narrative. Now, here's what makes this interesting. I resisted for years, folks. Not because EVs are stupid. Not because technology is bad. Not because oil companies paid me in steak dinners, I wish. I resisted because I hate being told what I must like. I hated the green guilt. I hated the moral lectures. I hated the planet villain framing. I hated the idea that if I didn't comply, I was somehow unethical or somehow un-American. It wasn't the car, folks. It was the coercion. And here's what I discovered when you strip away the junk science headlines and apocalyptic Instagram posts. It's just a choice. Gas, diesel, electric. Pick what works for your life. That's how adults make decisions. And the second I removed the political pressure from the equation, the second I evaluated it like a normal consumer, the EV made sense. It's quiet, it's fast, it charges at home, fits my driving pattern, and boom, done. That's innovation. But when demand is forced, when subsidies inflate adoption, when mandates replace preference, that's not innovation. That's called distortion. And distortion creates bubbles. And we'll talk about those bubbles when we're back after these words. The only show where we don't just read the headlines, we read the economic math underneath the headlines. I'm your host, Chad Law, America's binary brother, the holiest Tomo, and the gayest conservative of all time. Some even say the queen of common sense, broadcasting truth through the airwaves on the only rainbow that matters: the red, white, and blue rainbow. And quick reminder, folks, 866 Last Gay is the phone number. Call it, text it. You just found out your pickup truck is problematic, but your power grid isn't stable enough for everyone to charge at once. Well, that's your support line, 866 Last Gay. Operators are standing by with calculators. But folks, tonight is not anti-EV. I literally drove one here. Tonight is about something much bigger. It's about what happens when policy creates artificial demand, when government replaces consumer choice, when subsidies prop up markets that haven't matured, and when regulatory expansion outpaces measurable results. Because when that happens, folks, you don't get progress. You get a bubble. And bubbles don't burst because innovation fails. They burst because distortion can't survive contact with math. Tonight we're going to connect three stories: California regulating refineries into retreat, then importing foreign gasoline. The federal government's now dismantling the regulatory backbone of climate expansion, and activists responding not with results, but with lawsuits. Three headlines, one pattern, the climate bubble has in fact burst. And that is good news, folks. Here's the rule. If EVs win on merit, great. If renewables scale on performance, fantastic. If innovation beats gas because it's better, beautiful. But if it wins because Washington tilted the table, that's not a victory. That's an illusion, ladies and gentlemen. And the illusions, they don't survive inflation. When you subsidize demand beyond organic growth, you inflate expectations. When you mandate outcomes before infrastructure exists, you create fragility. When you lecture voters while raising their bills, you create backlash. That's not ideology. That's called cause and effect, harder personal term. And I'll say this clearly. I didn't buy my Hummer EV because I was scared. I bought it because it fit my life. That's the difference between choice and coercion. Choice builds stable markets. Coercion builds political bubbles. So when California drives refineries out of town, when energy gets imported from overseas, when regulators reverse course, when activists sprint to court, understand what you're watching. You're watching a market distorted by artificial pressure. You're watching policy outrun performance. You're watching the bill for symbolic politics come due, which many of you have seen in your electrical bills and at the gas pump. Folks, obviously I'm not anti-electric, but I am anti-economic fantasy. I'm not anti-environment, but I am anti-mandate without math. And if climate policy is going to survive long term, it's got to work without guilt. It's got to work without subsidies as life support, without lawsuits as oxygen tanks. Because when something works, it doesn't need protection from voters. But it's official, folks. The climate bubble, created by Democrats and climate elitists like Bill Gate, has officially bursts. Cue the meltdowns. Folks, let me ask you something. If you wanted lower gas prices, would you shut down your own refineries and then import gasoline from India? Because that's not satire, that's California. And that's where we will begin tonight. Let's jump right into this story from the Daily BS titled California Importing Foreign Fuel After Running Refineries Out of Town. This piece was written by Audrey Streb, published February 16th. And now, for those of you unfamiliar, the Daily BS is a conservative news and commentary outlet that often republishes reporting from the Daily Caller News Foundation. It has an editorial voice, yes, but the data in this story, that's real-world energy market reporting. Here's the core of it. California, the self-declared climate vanguard of the Western Hemisphere, has pushed so hard on environmental regulation, low-carbon fuel mandates, and refinery compliance costs that multiple major refineries have either shut down or announced plans to exit the state. Phillips 66, Valero, facilities scaled back or closed. The result, California is now importing a record share of its gasoline from foreign refineries, including the Bahamas, India, and Asia. Let me just repeat that for you at home. The state that lectures the planet about carbon footprints is now shipping refined gasoline across oceans to meet domestic demand. You can't make this stuff up, folks. And let's break down what actually happened. Let's talk the mechanics, because the mechanics are important. California has one of the most aggressive climate policy structures in the country. They embrace cap and trade programs, low carbon fuel standard mandates, they have special gasoline blend requirements unique just to that state, and regulatory compliance costs that are dramatically higher than national averages. And refineries operate already on very thin margins. These aren't tech startups. They're not ESG hedge funds. They're industrial facilities that depend on scale, throughput, and predictable regulation. When compliance costs rise, when political hostility is obvious, when expansion permits become nearly impossible, capital leaves. That's not ideological, folks. It's just math. And refining capacity on the West Coast has been shrinking for years. But demand didn't vanish, so supply had to come from somewhere else. And now it's coming from overseas. Congratulations, Gavin. You reduced in-state emissions by outsourcing them to other countries. That's not climate leadership, that's a counting theater. California, where the fuel is gluten-free, organic, ethically sourced, and shipped 8,000 miles on a diesel tanker. The carbon footprint didn't disappear. It just got a passport. This is bigger than California, folks. This is what I call the climate bubble. For the past decade, climate policy has operated under an unspoken assumption that we could aggressively suppress fossil fuel infrastructure before scalable alternatives fully replaced it. That assumption also came with the assumption that we could do that without serious economic blowback. That was the bubble. That political belief could override physical supply chains. The belief that mandates could replace markets. The belief that announcing a transition equals completing a transition. That is not the same thing. And now reality is applying pressure, and the bubble is bursting. Folks, energy systems are not hashtags, you know this. They're multi-trillion dollar physical networks, pipeline refineries, storage facilities, transmission lines, shipping routes. And when you deliberately shrink one part of that system without fully built replacement capacity, three things happen. Prices rise, volatility increases, imports expand. California is experiencing all three. Gas prices in California consistently run $1 to $1.50 above the national average. Why? Because the state isolated its fuel blend, reduced its refining base, and limited expansion. So when there's disruption, like a fire, maintenance issues, storm, prices spike dramatically because there's less buffer. Energy markets require redundancy. California chose fragility. Political incentive structure. Here's where it gets interesting. Why would policymakers allow this, right? Because politically, it works short term. What can you do? You can announce refinery closures as climate wins. You can claim reduced in-state emissions, blame oil companies for price spikes, frame imports as temporary adjustments, and more. Does this sound familiar in California? Meanwhile, voters feel the pain at the pump, but the policy architecture remains intact for Newsom and his ilk. And here's the part no one likes to say. Climate virtue pulls better than refinery stability, but refinery stability keeps the lights on. Here's the irony. The same political culture that warns about energy dependence has now created energy dependence. The same state that sues oil companies now depends on foreign refiners for supply. The same leaders who criticize pipeline projects now rely on maritime imports. You can't regulate physics, folks. You can only relocate consequences, just like when we talk about EVs. The pollution is simply sandbagged from the tailpipe to the power plant. Okay? They're not any better. And there's a broader national implication here, because, like I say, California is the petri dish and often a preview of national policy ambitions. It's the testing ground for the progressive left. If this regulatory framework scaled federally, immediately you would see national refining contraction, higher import reliance, and increased geopolitical exposure, not to mention higher transport costs and more expensive gas. And here's where the climate bubble fully bursts. Renewables are growing, yes. EV adoption is also increasing, yes. But guess what? Fossil fuels still power heavy industry, aviation, shipping, agriculture, and military logistics. And you cannot legislate them out of existence faster than you replace their functional capacity. That's the problem here. It's not denial, that's just engineering reality. The climate bubble bursts when the cost of symbolic winds exceeds the benefit of practical outcomes. In other words, when middle class families start to notice, when grid reliability becomes fragile, and when fuel imports contradict emissions rhetoric. When economic math collides with political messaging, we enter the phase of a bubble bursting. We've seen this with the home market over and over and over again. As the last gay conservative, let me say something gently but firmly. Folks, I'm all for innovation. I'm all for cleaner air. I'm all for smarter energy, but I am not for pretending that tankers from India are somehow morally superior to refineries in California. That's not environmentalism. That's just optics. And guess what? The market, the beautiful market that I love, always pushes back. Because markets don't care about speeches. If you reduce supply while demand remains steady, prices rise. If domestic producers exit, foreign producers enter. If infrastructure investment become hostile, capital relocates. We are watching that relocation in live TV right now. And the more hostile the regulatory climate becomes, the more investment shifts to Texas, to the Gulf Coast, to international refining hubs, because capital is fluid. So is gasoline, apparently. And here's the hard truth, and it's uncomfortable for climate maximalists. Transition is a sequencing problem. You build before you demolish. You scale alternatives before suppressing incumbents. You harden grid capacity before electrifying transportation. If you reverse the order, you get instability. California reversed the order. You don't reduce emissions by importing them. You don't reduce volatility by shrinking supply. You don't reduce prices by increasing constraints. You don't reduce dependency by outsourcing production. And you don't build public trust by pretending this was the plan all along. The climate bubble wasn't just about energy. It was about belief. Belief that policy ambition automatically equals policy competence. Belief that announcing net zero targets equals engineering feasibility. Belief that slogans can substitute for actual systems. But guess what? Systems bite back. They always do. And this is just story number one, because what's happening in California isn't isolated. We're seeing parallel cracks everywhere. States reconsidering aggressive mandates. Energy reliability debates are expanding. Investors quietly are shifting exposure. The conversation is changing, folks. The tone is shifting. The bubble is deflating. And in the next segment, we're going to look at another story that reinforces this pattern where climate ambition meets hard limits. But before we go there, understand this. Energy, folks, is a civilization's bloodstream. When you constrict arteries too fast, the body reacts. California tried to run refineries out of town. Now fuel is sailing back in on foreign ships. That's not progress. That's circular irony. And it's the clearest sign yet that the climate bubble has burst. Now stay with me. We're just getting started. The regulatory reversal is the next big good news. And it's where it gets interesting. Because while California is importing gasoline from halfway around the planet, Washington just did something seismic. Let's jump into story number two from the Daily BS on February 15th, titled How Trump EPA Appending Climate Scam Revives U.S. Industry. And what the piece is, is it a republished commentary from Mandy Gunisakara, the former EPA chief of staff. The Trump EPA has moved to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding. Now, if you're not a regulatory lawyer, that sounds like a bureaucratic alphabet soup, but it's not. It's the legal backbone of modern federal climate regulation. Back in 2009, under the Obama administration, the EPA determined that greenhouse greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, endanger public health and welfare. That finding allowed the federal government to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Clean Air Act. It became the lever, the hinge, and the final authority. Everything from vehicle emission standards to power plant rules leaned on that one determination that was largely faulty. And now the EPA is moving to dismantle it because we have no evidence that carbon is a public health concern. That's not trimming a branch, that's pulling something up from its roots. So think about the symmetry here. California tries to regulate fossil fuel infrastructure into retreat, and now the federal government is stripping away the regulatory authority that empowered those frameworks in the first place. This story is about authority contraction, but both reactions to the same tension. The limits of climate maximalism. Now, let's break it down simply. The EPA chief of staff argues that repealing the finding could save Americans tens of billions annually in compliance costs. It would erase pressure on trucking, manufacturing, energy producers, automobile companies. And here's the practical angle, folks. 80% of the goods that you eat, that you use, move by truck. So if you regulate trucking costs upward through fuel mandates or forced electrification timelines, those costs cascade through the economy. That's what we're seeing. Groceries, construction, consumer goods. Everything gets more expensive. That's where climate change policy has hurt your wallet. So the supporters of the reveal say this isn't anti-environment. It's pro-economic reality. And that is true. And whether you agree or not, you can't deny this. The political appetite for endless cost escalation is shrinking because the voters don't want it anymore. California said shut down refineries. Washington just said shut down the regulatory engine that allowed them to do that. That's not coincidence. That's backlash. For years, climate policy expanded under an assumption that regulatory authority would grow steadily, that compliance costs would be absorbed, that voters would tolerate it indefinitely. But then inflation happened, energy spikes happened, supply chain fragility happened, and suddenly voters started asking, how much is this climate stuff costing me? That question bursts bubbles. The climate bubble bursts. When policy ambition outruns economic patience, when theoretical models hit grocery bills, when regulatory enthusiasm hits diesel prices, and here's the deeper truth, ladies and gentlemen, climate regulation was politically durable when energy was cheap. It was easy to say back when Al Gore was in office, but it becomes politically fragile when energy becomes expensive, like it is today. That's the pivot point we're living through. And we have to look at the bigger picture. So let's zoom out one more time. You have two reactions happening simultaneously here, folks. California doubling down on aggressive supply suppression, and the federal regulators reversing course and dismantling the legal basis for carbon mandates. That's not a unified transition. That's policy whiplash. And whiplash happens when systems are unstable. And here's what nobody wants to admit. If climate policy had been sequenced carefully, if grid expansion had kept pace, if storage technology had scaled faster, if alternatives had fully replaced demand, we wouldn't be seeing this backlash. But that's not what happened. Instead, mandates outran infrastructure, and voters noticed. I'm not here to say climate change science is fake. I'm here to say economic gravity is undefeated. You can declare war on carbon, but you cannot declare victory over supply chains. Remember, California importing gasoline, that's what happens when you suppress production before demand disappears. Now look at this federal rollback. That's what happens when regulatory pressure exceeds public tolerance. Different arenas, same patterns, overextension, correction, escalation. The climate bubble wasn't just environmental, it was also psychological. It convinced these policymakers that resistance would fade, that costs would be absorbed quietly, that industry would comply indefinitely. But industry doesn't operate on a clause like these politicians do. It operates on margins. And when those margins collapse based on the regulatory environment you've created, so does compliance. Transitions are delicate. You can't rip out the old system before the new one works. That's called common sense. You can't legislate industrial evolution like it's a city council zoning change. That's not how energy works. Remember, energy transitions historically take decades, folks. We tried to compress it into press conferences. That compression Creates rupture. And you don't replace diesel with declarations. You don't power freight with hashtags, and you don't move steel with virtue signals. Most importantly, you can't and don't stabilize markets by destabilizing rules every election cycle. So here's where we stand after those two stories. California shows us what happens when supply is politically suffocated. The EPA rollback shows us what happens when regulatory authority meets political resistance. Both are evidence of the same phenomenon. The era of frictionless climate expansion is over. Thank God. Now comes the messy phase, the recalibration phase, the phase where policy collides with voters, markets, and reality. And our third story, we're going to see another angle of that collision. Because, folks, because the climate conversation isn't disappearing, it's transforming. And the transformation is not going the way activists expected it to go. Listen, folks, if it worked, you wouldn't need to sue, right? That's how I look at things. But watch what happens next. Because whenever the climate bubble feels pressure, whenever regulatory authority is questioned, whenever the cost-benefit math gets audited, the response is almost okay, let's back up. Let's evaluate outcomes. It almost always is call the lawyers. With that, we'll jump into story three from the Daily BS again on February 13th, titled Liberals Immediately Fling Lawsuit Threats After Trump Kills Their Beloved Regulation. This piece outlines how almost immediately after the Trump EPA began dismantling a major climate regulation framework, progressive advocacy groups and state attorney generals began preparing legal challenges, not studies, not alternative proposals, not measurable counter data, lawsuits. Before the economic impact is even analyzed, injunction requests fly. Before outcomes can even be observed, emergency court filings, and that tells you something profound. Here's the question nobody wants to ask. If the regulation was working, if it was delivering clear, measurable, undeniable results, if Americans could point to lower prices, stronger grids, cleaner outcomes that justified the cost, why is the first move always legal warfare? Why not defend it with data? Why not defend it with outcomes? Why not say, look at the results? Look at what we've achieved. This stands on its own merit. But instead, the reflex is stop it in court. That's not confidence. That's called dependence. This is where the bubble bursts. For years we were told, we have to act now. We have to sacrifice, we have to accept higher prices, we have to accept mandated features, we have to accept tighter rules. Okay, Americans did. We accepted more expensive energy, mandated vehicle technology, appliance restrictions, layered compliance costs, grid strain, regulatory complexity. We were told this is necessary. Fine, but necessity implies results. And here's the uncomfortable question, ladies and gentlemen. Where are they today? Where are the results? Global emissions are still rising, largely driven by developing economies like India and China who don't want to participate in climate crash. U.S. emissions reductions are incremental and often attributable to market fuel switching, not any regulatory genius, let's be honest. Energy prices are at their most volatile levels, and supply chains are as fragile as we've ever seen them. And we're importing gasoline into California. That is not the outcome of a system working flawlessly. That's a system under strain. And the biggest point we have to talk about is ROI. Let's talk about return on investment. Because what people need to understand is that policy is an investment. Regulation is an investment. Sacrifice is an investment. If you invest trillions directly and indirectly in climate initiatives, you reconfigure entire industries, if you reshape supply chains, then the return must justify the cost. Right now, the public perception is that the return is marginal. And when perceived return falls below perceived sacrifice, political legitimacy collapses. That's the bursting point. And that's when lawsuits become substitute for results. When you have nothing to show, sue. Here's the core problem. When policy doesn't generate clear public wins, its defenders retreat to process. This is the Democrat specialty. They defend the rule, they defend the authority, they defend the procedure. However, they never defend the outcome because they can't. And when the outcome isn't persuasive, they defend it in court. Litigation is the shield for Democrats. And court orders become the enforcement mechanism. Judges become policy referees, and that's not how durable reform works. Durable reform survives elections. Durable reform survives audits. Durable reform survives scrutiny. If it needs emergency injunctions to survive political turnover, it may not be as stable as advertised. Call back to segment one and two. California tried to suppress production. The EPA, rollback, tried to suppress regulatory overreach. And now the third act, suppressed dissent through litigation. Three different arenas, one pattern. When political ambition outruns measurable results, the system destabilizes. And let's be blunt. For years, activists said we need more regulation because the science demands it. Okay, but science should produce measurable outcomes. So where are the measurable wins proportional to the economic re-engineering? Where is the grid stability revolution? Where is the price stability? Where is the geopolitical independence we were promised? Where is the tangible everyday improvement for the average American family? People want to know. Instead, what most Americans feel is higher utility bills, higher gas prices, stupid mandated features and vehicles they didn't even ask for, compliance cost baked into goods they don't know they're paying for, and political fights every election cycle over junk science. And those frustrations surface when they're told, see you in court. That's not persuasive governance, that's defensive governance. And it's important that we look at how Trump's approach is different from other administrations. And this is where the nuance of it all matters. This isn't about burning down every climate initiative. It's about recalibrating Trump's approach, whether you agree with all of it or not, is not delete environmental policy. However, is rebalance cost against measurable benefit. That's a difference. He's arguing, basically, folks, if a regulation costs X amount of dollars, the measurable benefit should exceed that total. If compliance creates instability, that policy should be reconsidered. If the regulatory state expands faster than its results justify it, then it needs to be pulled back. That's not radical, contrary to what the left says. It's called auditing. But that's why we're seeing this psychological shift. The climate bubble created an aura of inevitability. It suggested this direction is settled. This authority is permanent. This expansion is unquestionable. But inevitability narratives crumble when prices spike, infrastructure strains, courts become battlegrounds, public patience erodes. That's where we're at now. If climate regulation were delivering overwhelming, undeniable wins, politicians wouldn't need to threaten lawsuits every time voters elect someone who questions it. If it were working at scale, it wouldn't be it would be politically untouchable. We know this. Instead, it's litigated. That should tell you everything. The bubble bursts not when science changes, it bursts when public tolerance shifts. When voters start asking, what did we actually get for all this climate stuff we've agreed to? When energy transitions feel unstable instead of empowering, when sacrifice outpaces payoff, and when the response to criticism is courtroom aggression instead of outcome transparency. So now we've seen it from three angles suppression, regulatory rollback, litigation reflex. All signs of a policy architecture that is failing and under stress. And stress always exposes fragility. So let's step back. Three stories, one pattern, California regulated refineries into retreat and now imports foreign fuel. The EPA rolled back the legal spine of federal climate regulation, and activists responded not with proof of success, but with lawsuits. Different headlines, same tension. For years, we were told, this transition is inevitable. This expansion of authority is necessary. This sacrifice is temporary, and the cost is justified. And for a while, Americans went along with it. Because most of us want cleaner air. Most of us want responsible stewardship. And most of us understand innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum. But here's where the bubble burst. Sacrifice has a shelf life, folks, and that shelf life depends on results. Because results are the currency of legitimacy. Remember that. Policy survives when it works, not when it intimidates, not when it threatens litigation, not when it wraps itself in moral urgency. It survives when the average person can point to tangible improvement. If energy is more reliable, if prices are stable, if innovation is flourishing, if dependency is shrinking, people tolerate transition. But when energy gets more expensive, when mandates feel intrusive, when infrastructure becomes fragile, when supply chains get longer and not shorter, then voters start auditing themselves. And that audit is what we're living through right now. California was a warning shot. California showed us something important. You can't regulate supply out of existence faster than demand disappears. And if you do, you don't eliminate the system, you distort it, you offshore it, you make it more expensive. That's not climate victory. That's economic leakage. The federal rollback was also a signal. The EPA rollback wasn't just partisan theater. It was a signal, a signal that regulatory expansion has limits, that authority must justify itself, always, that cost must be weighed against benefit, always, and that the political system is not a one-way ratchet. Expansion is not permanent, especially when results are debated and costs are very visible. And then came the lawsuits. That's the tell. When your first instinct is court defense instead of data defense, when your reflex is injunction instead of outcome analysis, when your strategy is preservation through process, it suggests the foundation isn't as unshakable as advertised. Ladies and gentlemen, you know if something works, truly works. It doesn't need emergency litigation to survive elections. It survives because the public sees its value. Let's be clear. It's definitely not about denying climate science. This isn't about pretending emissions don't matter. This isn't about saying do nothing. It's about asking a grown-up question. Are we getting proportional results for proportional sacrifice? Since when is that radical? It's called rational. Folks, the climate bubble was built on inevitability. It told us more regulation always equals more progress. More mandates always equal more benefit. More sacrifice always equals more reward. But bubbles inflate when belief outpaces proof, and they burst when proof fails to scale with the cost. We are in that bursting phase. You can feel it. It's exciting. You can feel it in voter frustration, in market volatility, in regulatory reversals, all good things. And you know it's working when the progressives engage in legal warfare. Folks, rebalancing doesn't mean abandoning environmental goals. It means sequencing them intelligently. It means build alternatives before dismantling incumbents, measure outcomes before mandating expansion, audit cost before expanding authority, incentivize innovation instead of litigating dissent. And yes, sometimes it means pulling back when the math doesn't add up. That's not sabotage. It's governance. And the hard truth is, folks, energy transitions are slow, historically slow. They take decades. Just ask Germany, move from nuclear to Russian fuel. They require infrastructure build out, grid modernization, technological maturity. They don't respond well to compression by decree. When you compress too fast, you get instability. When instability meets voter fatigue, you get backlash. When backlash meets entrenched bureaucracy, you get lawsuits. That's the cycle, folks. But here's the question that will define the next decade. Will climate policy evolve towards measurable accountability? Or is it going to double down on procedural defense? Will it prove its worth through outcomes? Or preserve itself through litigation? Because Americans will support what works, we always do, but they will not endlessly subsidize what feels symbolic. California importing fuel. Federal regulators revising course. Activists sprinting to the courtroom. Those aren't random events. They're stress fractures. And stress fractures tell you when something has been pushed too far too fast. The climate bubble didn't burst because people stopped caring about the environment. It burst because people started questioning the math. And math is stubborn. So now we enter the next phase. Less inevitability, more scrutiny. Less symbolism, more accountability. Less courtroom drama, more real world results. And honestly, that might be the healthiest development yet. Because durable policy doesn't survive on fear. It survives on performance. And performance is measurable. If we're going to transition energy, let's do it with discipline, folks. If we're going to regulate, let's do it with evidence. If we're going to ask Americans to sacrifice, let's make sure the return is visible. That's not anti-climate. That's pro results. And when results finally match rhetoric, the lawsuits won't be necessary. Until then, the bubble has burst. Like I said in the beginning, folks, I drive an EV. I like it. It works for my life. Not because I was guilted into it, not because a politician mandated it, not because a subsidy bribed me, because it made sense. That's how markets are supposed to function. Choice, competition, performance, not coercion. And tonight wasn't about hating electric vehicles. And it wasn't about denying climate science. It was about something much simple. If you have to manufacture demand, if you have to inflate markets with subsidies, if you have to protect regulations with lawsuits, then what you're defending might not be as stable as you claim. That's not cynicism. That's economics. And that brings us to tonight's Reagan reminder. Ronald Reagan once said, the most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. That line wasn't anti-help. It was anti-overreach. It was a warning about what happens when confidence outruns competence, when central planning replaces organic growth, when intention substitutes for outcome. And look at what we talked about tonight. California regulates refineries out of existence and imports fuel. Federal regulators expand authority, then get rolled back. Activists promise transformation and respond to scrutiny with lawsuits. That's not smooth transition. That's overreach meeting reality. And reality doesn't care about press conferences. If energy policy works, it won't need to be rescued by injunctions. If EVs win, they won't need mandates. If climate strategy delivers measurable results, it won't collapse every election cycle. Because durable policy does not survive through fear, it survives through performance. And on that note, folks, quick reminder 866 last gay is the phone number. Call it, text it. If you're driving electric but still paying fossil fuel prices, if your governor banned gas stoves, but your grid can't handle a heat wave. If you just want someone to say, let's check the math, that's your hotline, 866 LastGay. We accept calls, texts, and spreadsheets. Folks, we're not anti-environment here. We are anti-economic fantasy. And we are absolutely not anti-progress. We just believe progress has to survive contact with math. Because math doesn't litigate, math doesn't posture, math doesn't virtue signal. Math just wins every time. I'm America's binary brother, the holiest homo, and the queen of common sense. And until next time, if it works, it wins. If it needs a mandate, it's not ready. As always, may God bless and save America. Good night.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

It's marvelous that you should care for me. Yes, you've made my life so glamorous. You can't blame me for feeling. It's so marvelous. That's you should care for me. It's marvelous.