Michael Johns: “There’s a war against America’s founding principles”

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Michael Johns, co-founder and leader of the national Tea Party movement and a former White House speechwriter during the Bush administration, spoke exclusively with El American about America’s tense political environment.

Johns believes that there is a war in the United States aimed at undermining the principles of the nation’s founding fathers. He remains concerned about Chinese interference in U.S. domestic politics and the Biden family’s involvement with companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and also weighed in on the Trump campaign’s ongoing attempts to prove allegations of fraud in the presidential election.

The former White House speechwriter also explained why he does not believe that the Biden administration would ever recognize Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela, a regime that he considers a national security threat alongside Cuba and Nicaragua.

ER:

Hello, everybody. My name is Emmanuel Rincón, we are with Michael Johns, co founder and leader of the national Tea Party movement, former White House speechwriter during the Bush administration and political analysts. Michael, how are you?

MJ: 

Good Emmanuel, how are you?

ER:

Fine, thank you. Michael, the United States has been living a huge cultural war for several decades. And today, it seems to have reached its boiling point. Everything seems ready for the country to face a radical change of system. Indoctrination has been such that today’s American schools want to eliminate Lincoln’s name, because he supposedly did not much for the blacks, they have knocked down statues of the founding fathers, and canceled the American history. What is the Republican Party doing to stop this?

MJ:

Probably not enough. In my judgment, I think it’s one of the big problems is that when we launched the Tea Party movement in 2009, a lot of people sort of depicted that as being essentially focused at opposing Obama and the Democrats that were then running Congress. And that’s true, but it also was, you know, kind of a manifestation frustration of the Republican Party, that it wasn’t stand for ideals, that it was too heavily populated with political consultants and individuals who really weren’t prepared to define the party in a bold way. I still think that’s largely the case is a lot of need for improvement in the party, it might even be asking too much to expect that the party itself is going to resolve something this big, I think it ultimately is going to fall back on, you know, on largely on academia, which has been heavily controlled by the left, it’s going to fall back on public schools, it’s going to fall back on families and parenting, it’s going to fall back on, you know, media and education. And there’s an extraordinary amount of work to do and large part, to be honest, what most, most sort of on my sides, I think, focused on criticizing the left’s takeover these institutions. I think, you have to start by acknowledging that, you know, we really haven’t been minding the store for the most part of the last 30 years, as these institutions were taken over. And that really didn’t my judgment points to leadership crisis are on one side.

ER:

In the big media, a narrative is being constructed to bring about an abrupt change in the system, in big tech there is a great censorship of American conservatives, during practically the entire electoral year there was media harassment against the half of the country that President Trump represented, what is being done to ensure that the free speech of American conservatives is respected?

MJ:

Well the major thing right now is an ongoing debate over trying to recategorize social media under the FCC guidelines. So they’ve had protection since the 1990s, under a component of regulation that protected them and made them immune from liability, on the basis that they were operating as, you know, an open platform, and they ultimately weren’t responsible for the content that appeared on these outlets. But, you know, ultimately, once you start the platforming people as they’ve done, once you start determining what can and cannot be published, once you start blocking, as they just did the fourth largest newspaper in the country, the New York Post, and it’s reporting on the Biden scandal. And the examples go on and as you well know. Now you’re not an open platform, you’re a publishing company. And as a public publishing company, you can’t be used as a except the same, you know, immunity laws, and liability laws that apply to traditional publishers. So in my judgment, you can take most of these companies, which are not operating in the spirit or the letter of the law, as it related to how they’re originally categorized. The President Trump’s absolutely right on target to try to get this done with some urgency.

ER:

Michael, I wrote a book, a dystopian novel about an America ruled by communists, however, so far this year I have sent the manuscript to several literary agents and the average response was that they liked the work, but that they did not consider that the publishing climate was appropriate to publishing this type of novel. Culturally, in the media, in the cinema, in literature, there is a predominance and dominance of the left. At what point did all this happen and how can we turn it around?

MJ:

I think my entire adult life we’ve looked at most of these institutions, and you know, and it certainly includes book publishing. My dad actually worked in that profession and for a good part of his career. And they’ve been largely controlled by the left. It’s an intriguing question, not one that you ask, but one that I’m presenting as a way to answer your question, how did these institutions become almost all systematically controlled by an ideology? That is that itself is a less subscribed to ideology, then conservatism or, you know… in my judgment, my views, for instance, are pretty centrist. The more I’ve thought about it, I mean, my feeling is, you know, I’m here into the Constitution, limited government, low taxes. You know, those aren’t extreme views, they’re very mainstream views. And yet, there’s a war going on as you correctly said and that’s the word you used. And it’s a word I agree with. There’s a war against America’s founding principles. It’s a war for understanding our history. It’s a war for controlling education in this country for controlling media messaging for determining what is and is not both accurate and acceptable in the way of human communication. And it’s completely contradictory, obviously, to the founding of this country. And I have to say, you know, my biggest concern, even more so than the fact that these things are happening is the fact that I don’t see the sense of urgency being applied on our side to really bring resolution to it. And I think it’s that same lack of urgency that allowed us to fall in this position in the first place.

So we have gotten to a point where we either need to get reengaged in these existing institutions, which I think is going to be incredibly difficult, but build our own, which is the conclusion some of the people whose views I, you know, kind of trust the most have been sort of that’s where their heads at right now, is it that we’re going to ultimately have to like rebuild institutions that we’re really looking at that level of divisiveness. I’m hoping that’s not the case, that it’s just an issue of us not being sufficiently engaged. But I have been a student of communist revolutions and socialist ascent worldwide. I’ve seen how it’s operated. And I certainly would agree with the Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans that have been warning us that we’re, they’ve seen this whole way before.

ER: 

Socialism is increasingly accepted in the United States, why has this ideological threat not been neutralized in the country despite the evidence that exists about all the death and destruction it has caused in the world?

MJ:

I mean, there’s a whole, firstly, to lack of an understanding of history. I mean, I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to document the atrocities of communism and socialism worldwide, including all the way back through the Cold War, and I wasn’t just not even just academically and scholarly and journalistically and from an active standpoint, but you know, I really visited a lot of these areas during Cold War, I was out with Nicaraguan contras, in the 80s, was one of the first Americans to do that, and went out with the leader resistance movement Angola, went out with the resistance movement in Cambodia. So I was an early champion, and people who are rising up to resist communism and I saw the both the price that they had paid by communist revolutions, and tyrannies, and also the price they were prepared to pay to get out of those situations.

So I’ve spent most of my life warning the American population of the dangers of this path. Now when you say how do we end up here, it’s, it’s an entire generation of people that are completely oblivious to the realities of 100 million people have been killed under the communist ideology. It’s a product of, I think, not understanding, having experienced some programs in our country that arguably have had some… have had social instant socialist instincts or socialist inclinations, and not having necessarily seen the tyrannical part of this yet.

And you know, and it’s, it’s a perception maybe also with a lack of an appreciation of the free market economy, which we get. I’ve always said, You can’t just take for granted. The people are going to know this is the better way to go about things. I mean, most people don’t get around the world. Most people don’t get to these places I’ve been, and they don’t get to see the reality of it. But it’s a story that needs to continue to be told. And it’s let me add one final thing, which I think we have to be honest about and I think there’s something the President’s been honest about. It’s an imperfect system. So we have to be continually trying to get every person who slips to the crack of this system becomes an exhibit in the selling of alternative doctrines that had, you know… I mean, socialism has no track record to speak of, and whip lifting people out of poverty or desperate situations, it would be the worst thing for us to do. They had no base really to support any degree of safety net in these countries, It’s the last place you’d want to be in the world for health care, or for social services of any type.

But I do, I do believe there are too many Americans who have fallen through the cracks or system. And so I like the way this presents an approach that he’s put a lot of focus on what he’s called the forgotten man and woman. And I think if he is given an opportunity of a second term, because I still do believe this is an ongoing possibility. And I think the fraud is documentable, and just we need to get hearing on it. If he’s given another four years, I think he’s also going to be able to bring some focus to the urban communities in the country, and which has been governed for decades by Democrats… schools are broken, crime on streets, hopelessness, drug addiction. It’s a very, very unsustainable situation and a horrible one that I think Democrats have to assume some responsibility for, and Republicans have to get in there. And I don’t think really preach but listen a little bit, and ask if, you know, sort of see if we can find some opportunities to offer alternative solutions. I’m talking about Baltimore, you know, talking about parts of the five boroughs, New York City, I’m talking about Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago, it’s very difficult to see a country surviving or excelling when its cities are failing, our cities are failing.

ER:

Let’s talk, let’s talk about the very likely Biden administration. You think that if he becomes the next president, he will end up his term or will be Kamala Harris, the first female president of the United States.

MJ:

You know, I just be speculating, I don’t know, I think my observation of his physical capacity and his mental capacity is that they’re both diminished. And as part of a product of aging. I don’t think we ever really saw any complete comprehensive health report on him. So but he doesn’t update one thing. I’ve seen people who really want this job and people who don’t want it. And when I looked at it, the effort he exerted throughout the fall, we came across to me as someone who felt almost like he was going through the motions of taking on a responsibility that others had convinced them to take. You didn’t see the passion, the energy levels, or the messaging that you saw from President Trump, who I think did does want a second term

ER:

How far to the left will the Biden administration be? You think it will be moderate? Will be more to socialism?

MJ:

I think would be on… A lot of that’s gonna depend on this Senate. The Senate races coming up on the fifth of January in Georgia, if Republicans lose the Senate, I mean, I think all bets are off. I mean, I couldn’t with good confidence tell you that we’re going to be able to maintain the filibuster rule, which we’ve lived under, obviously, right. I mean, our tea party movement took back, this is the US Senate in 2014. That was a tea party victory. And we kept the filibuster in place in an act of good faith, hoping that if we lost the Senate, that ultimately it would be kept in place. So I would hope that’d be honored.

But I’ve seen Obama criticizing and I’ve seen others criticizing it, Biden wouldn’t commit to it. So you’re talking about being able to pass legislation with, you know, with 51 votes in the Senate, and a one vote majority in the House. I think it would be really bad. And then you look at the courts being packed to actually, and I think you look at Tuesday, I think you look at two states and put in Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, which in their eyes would give them four more senators, it would be a very, very politically bleak situation for those of center and center right outlooks. Now, that doesn’t happen, the types of appointments he’s making, it seems to be very reflected to the Obama administration, which, you know, again, our tea party movement blocked when we took the house in 2010. He never had the green light to pursue the sort of legislation that he would if he did get Obamacare passed, but we repealed the mandate, which was the most one concerning components… But I think the issue now is if we hold the senate you’re also just looking at a kind of globalist corporatism, you know, as well, I would word it, which is almost an ideology that fits somewhere between, it’s somewhere it’s a left of center ideology. And it’s not one that respects the autonomy, and the uniqueness and the even the individual rights of the United States. I mean, I think it’s a very multinational nature, it’s going to put more reliance on the UN. More on these multinational entities, that at the end of the day have… you know, we’ve entered into them voluntarily, we’ve left a few of them voluntarily, including the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, both of which, in my judgment are completely failing in their respective human rights and health missions. As of late, and we’re engaged in I think, a very active global tension with China, which is going to define the rest of our lives.

We were really misled by many Scientologists inside the beltway, we didn’t speak honestly about the threat that was associated with the rise of China’s economy, which is now the second largest in the world. And, you know, just about in every respect, I mean, militarily, politically, economically. Even culturally, I think we’re, we’re at loggerheads with them. And I think we had, we and President Trump, who fully understood this, I think it’s part time policy has been, you know, very on target the last four years, but was it ultimately successful in bringing about a whole lot of change? Wasn’t, but not because of Trump. It wasn’t because I think we, you know, we drill, do we hit steel, and we hit steel pretty quickly. I mean, they ultimately are not a country that is accustomed to keeping a word. And they have not been a country that traditionally is that operates on a kind of understanding of net benefit on both sides.

ER:

Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk a little more about China. There’s evidence allege that Biden family business company is linked to the Communist Party. How will the republicans or, what to do to prevent the Communist Party of China from setting the tone for the Biden administration?

MJ:

I’m very concerned for that. I think you saw a button question a few times about China during the campaign, I would hope he would offer some reassuring words that he understood, at least in some way, the nature of this threat and get a sense that he understood that it all it even acknowledges it. And then you talk about a family. There’s a whole series of developments here. I mean, a lot of us early in the campaign, when we talked about Biden and I found myself guilty of this, myself would say, this guy’s been in Washington DC for 47 years as a senator and a vice president in two high level federal positions, what he accomplished, you know, and they’re really, you really can point to much aside from this very unpopular crime bill of the 90s. But it’s clear now when you really look at what he’s done. If you go through particularly his vice presidency, he would be given position to foreign policy responsibility. As he’s walked through, he was given foreign policy responsibility by Obama in Iraq, where he was charged with trying to get the American military exonerated are protected from criminal prosecution from the war over there, he goes to Iraq, he fails in the mission, but his brother walks away on the border, the $1.5 billion Iraqi housing project. He’s charged with, you know, trying to curtail Putin and Putin his aggression, and, you know, confront sort of some degree of reasonableness in what Russia was up to including meddling that they ostensibly were so concerned about.

He more or less failed completely in that mission, but $3.5 million still unexplained to this day, what it’s even for is, you know wired to Hunter Biden, he goes, he’s put in charge of Ukraine policy, after Crimea, when Russia invaded and occupied Crimea, and we also were trying to address Ukrainian corruption issues within the government, he goes to Ukraine. There’s no progress made in Crimea. Obama administration never allocates any military aid to Ukraine, we filleted all humanitarian aid, nothing to send a message to Russia. The corruption continues more or less, in fact, the prosecutor who is investigating and is fired on his directive. But so again, it’s 100% Biden,

I mean, Joe Biden fails, but Hunter Biden who had no experience in Ukraine probably can play with capital, Ukraine was before then, and had no experience in energy walks away being on the board of the largest, one of the largest energy companies in the country and Burisma, then, you look at, I think, as you correctly said, the Chinese Communist Party is probably the most concerning part of it. Because when you look at the private equity fund that he set up, it’s basically the same story, Joe Biden goes to China, Obama says, you know, try to get them to back off of, you know, the intellectual property theft, the currency manipulations, force, technology transfer, the South China Sea, military aggression, all these things. And it’s the same story.

Joe Biden fails the American people, but Hunter Biden walks away with 10s of millions, which might be hundreds. And we’ve gotten the fall to the bottom of that yet into this private equity fund, and again, a private equity fund this guy, I mean, I’m not trying to be disparaging, but he was a drug addict. I don’t know if he is now or not, but he was. And had, you know, discharged from the military, had no history in finance or financial management, the idea of managing a global private equity fund itself is just like, outrageous on the surface. If you were a Hunter Smith, there’s no way $1 would be going into his private equity fund or no reason he would even have a private equity fund.

So clearly, there’s been an effort by probably the two biggest geopolitical rivals are everyone afraid it that we confront, that had made an effort to buy leverage in my judgment with Joe Biden, Joe Biden circumvented the ethics rules by directing that into his family and, you know, it’s very similar to what you’d see and, you know, foreign dictatorships it’s I think it’s immensely troubling.

I will say this, kudos to the Republicans in the Senate for investigating it. See Ron Johnson, and Charles Grassley, both of those committees that looked into it. They issued a report that was incredibly damning, and immensely frightening. In fact, Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky, referred to the Justice Department as a criminal referral, saying we got to look into whether there was crimes involved here. And you look at the media coverage of this, and as I said earlier, social media blocked it out completely. I still think there’s only answered questions as it relates to the content of the laptop. I mean, we were told that there was only 5% of those emails were released before the election, that laptops in the hands of the justice department… they have not they’re not apparently appointing a special prosecutor. Which is confusing, I think, too. Many who are looking objectively at it. And we you know that I’m hoping that we hold the senate because I have no belief that Democrats will continue that investigation if they do take the Senate.

ER:

Let’s talk a little bit about Iran. Iran is another important point on US foreign policy. If Biden returns to the nuclear path, and this results in a rollback of the Middle East peace accords achieved by the Trump administration, what do you think that the Republicans can do about it?

MJ:

Well, we’re gonna be pretty limited. I mean, if they try to go back into the Iran agreement, one thing, one option available would be to insist that it be done as a treaty. It was sort of because I mean, Democrats kind of presented it like we were violating almost the treaty when we left. And, of course, it wasn’t a treaty, it was an agreement. So we entered it. And we left it, you know, I mean, one president thought it was a great idea, to send, you know, billions of dollars to Iran, and to give them these what I think are immensely favorable terms of inspections. I mean, unfortunately, the details of that agreement get lost. And people speak about it in a surface level… Iran has nuclear ambitions for decades, it had very aggressive programs, they were clearly violating the Iran agreement throughout the Obama administration. Into the Trump administration, President Trump was right to get out of it, we should not be rewarding that country financially that in addition to their nuclear program, they’re also the world’s largest state terrorism sponsor. So that when you look, for instance, at the growth of regional terrorism, you can see a proportionate correlation with that deal. And they’re picking up their support for the Hutus in Yemen, for Hamas, for Hezbollah, for the shooted forces in Iraq, and all around the world. There’s almost no part of the world where Iran has not and had it’s been involved. It literally have conducted assassinations in Europe. And that’s another area of concern to me, I don’t understand, you know, I think the European Union really needs to be joining us in isolating Iran, and not denying them the financial resources that they’re, you know, they’re going to utilize for, you know, malevolence purposes. So, it would be a huge mistake to go back in this deal.

And just to kind of go through some of the other flaws. I mean, you can’t do inspections on military sites, which is where they logically would be conducting their nuclear development program, I think we’re required to give them a most a month’s notice, like between three and four weeks advance notice any inspection, which conveniently is just like enough time for them to more or less clean up all of these sites. So it was reminiscent of some of the bad deals we did with the Soviet Union in the 70s. And that Reagan had a kind of address. I saw a lot of commonality between those in between what we did with Rand, I’ll tell you the other thing is I’m intrigued not to dive into this too deeply. But I’m intrigued with Saudi Arabia’s willingness to go in the agreement. And I think that, you know, we did if the worst happened, and you know, Biden takes the presidency, we’ll back in the deal.

The idea of having Saudi Arabia in that deal is probably a good idea, because one of the arguments against a nuclear Iran, which I mean, it should be self evident how dangerous it is, but it also is going to kick off a regional arms race. I mean, I don’t think, and I appreciate the Saudis position on this. I just don’t think they’re going to stand by and allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Well, they don’t have them, given that they’ve had missiles landing in Riyadh, you know, directed by Iran, and it’s, you know, kind of rebel sponsored partners.

ER:

What do you think it would be Biden attitude towards Maduro in Venezuela? We´ll he recognizing again as President? You think Nicolas Maduro regime represent a threat to United States national security?

MJ:

I don’t think he will recognize Maduro. I think it’s too controversial. I don’t think there’s any… I think it’d be a lot of domestic pushback here in the United States. Venezuelan community is very active politically here, there and they’re, you know, they’re great grid zone best Americans. They’re very astute, and I’m glad they’re here. I think there’s a dilemma, though, because the initial position we had the government in exile, the support for that seems to have fallen a little bit apart. And I think the economic isolation of that as well, it is, you know, beneficial, but, you know, realistically, I mean, what is the end game with that as well, I think what you want to see is the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, we’re not going to go to war to accomplish that. Even though there were some periods there during the Trump administration, I think a lot of people thought it was very possible that there was going to be a military engagement, we can continue to isolate Venezuela, from exporting petroleum, you know, try to do deals or importing petroleum, from Iran or elsewhere. And, you know, try to support, I guess, the democracy movements within Venezuela, which are there and they’re vibrant. I mean, the people in Venezuela want change, there’s no doubt about that. We have three regimes in this hemisphere that desperately want change in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, all three very tyrannical, all three, you know, no tolerance for political opposition, extraordinary violators of human rights. No representative democracy.

ER:

But you think that… you think that Venezuela´s regime is a threat security to the United States?

MJ:

Yeah, I mean, there’s no doubt about that, based on a lot of the steps they’ve taken. And their level of collaboration with Cuba and Nicaragua, they’ve operated you know, these three regimes, cohesively, they’ve been involved in drug running, they’ve been involved in the undermining of democracies in other Latin American countries. They’re vehemently anti American. That’s what sort of its kind… (unintelligible) they use to keep justification of their regime in place. And when you look at Maduro´s messages, he hasn’t had much of a message to the people of Venezuela. Just I mean, Chavez had promises. But his point, nobody’s believing promises. You know, I think, at this point, people have given up on the system in Venezuela.

ER:

Michael, to close. President Trump has alleged that a major election fraud has occurred in the United States. Do you believe that Trump’s demand are intended to really fight this election or is he preparing the grounds to return in 2024?

MJ:

Right now, you got to disregard everything you read in the mainstream media. The evidence of voter fraud is voluminous, extensive, compelling. To me, we’re being misled on that. It’s all there. It’ll be six states, six to eight states. The means that we’re used to very somewhere else six to eight states. It’s these are crimes. And what we need are hearings where the evidence is heard, because that’s the other lie that’s being told the American people is because there have been a lot of court failures for the legal team. But they’ve been procedural failures. You know, they’ve been with the Supreme Court, It was an issue of standing, legal standing. The evidence if it’s actually given an opportunity to present we get an opportunity for these whistleblowers to testify.

There’s now almost 1,000 affidavits, that is evidence. So when you hear from the mainstream media, there’s no evidence of voter fraud, that’s just an outright lie. You get 1,000 documented cases. And then we have all the other evidence that’s been acquired. We’ve got video, photographs, and we’re talking about an extraordinary number of ballots allegedly, created, manipulated, or wrongly cast with illegally cast.

Obviously, I supported the president from day one. Obviously, I want him seen another four years. But you know, I’ve never before in my entire career, like questioning the outcome of the US election. I didn’t support Obama, but I never questioned that he won the election. I didn’t support Bill Clinton in 92. I didn’t question if he won the election. I do question the outcome of this election. I think it’s very much in question. And I’m very disappointed that institutions, individuals who spent their whole lives talking about the importance of our Constitution, and of our representative democracy, are now pretending that we’re not in the middle of a major crisis. And you know, they may not support Trump. But this isn’t about a person. This is about our system of government. And I’m concerned if we don’t resolve it, between now and Inauguration Day, that these systems start to become embedded into the institution. And it becomes much more difficult to ultimately, you know, the root and to resolve at some point, and I think American people are ready. Just look at the damage has been done. I mean, 47% of this country does not believe this was a fair election. That’s an amazing number half the country, and 80% of Republicans.

ER:

Well, Michael, thank you very much for your time. I hope we can speak again.

MJ:

Absolutely. Good luck to you.

Emmanuel Rincón

Emmanuel Rincón is a lawyer, writer, novelist and essayist. He has won several international literary awards. He is Editor-at-large at El American // Emmanuel Rincón es abogado, escritor, novelista y ensayista. Ganador de diversos premios literarios internacionales. Es editor-at-large en El American