- Faith and Freedom'sChairman Dr. Ralph Reed,
so glad to have you with us.
Now, tell us, how significant is it
to have formerVice-President Pence speaking
at this year's conference?
- Well, we're excited to have him.
We've got an extraordinary lineup
of speakers, senators, governors.
Governor Ron DeSantis ofFlorida is keynoting our gala.
We're giving our lifetimeachievement award
to former speaker Newt Gingrich.
We expect somewhere between2,500 and 3,000 attendees,
the biggest Road to Majority ever.
It's gonna be quite a weekend.
- Yeah, we're curious, Ralph,
and good to see you this evening,
did you ask former PresidentDonald Trump to speak
or was he invited?
- We sure did.
Former President Trumphas spoken six times
to Road to Majority,
three times as a privatecitizen or candidate
and three times as president.
We look forward tohaving him in the future
and he was invited andhe's always welcome.
- Well, speaking of President Trump,
just wanna get your opinion,
who is at the helm of theRepublican party right now?
Is President Trump the defacto leader of the GOP?
- Well, I think in ahealthy and vibrant party
that's out of power,
which is where the RepublicanParty is right now,
there's no single locus of leadership.
Obviously you've gotcongressional leadership.
You've got governors.
You have former President Trump
who still has a very important voice
in the future of the party,
particularly should he decide
to seek the nomination in 2024.
So, you know, as withall other things Trump,
it's not gonna be boring.
Fasten your seat belts andget ready for what promises
to be a very fascinatingnext three or four years.
- Ralph, within the past year,there's been a steady decline
in Americans who identify as conservative.
How do you hope to win them back
and what might be that strategy?
- Well, I think we're veryconfident and optimistic,
and I think the firstanswer to your question
is really simply stated,
the abysmal record of thecurrent administration.
I mean, they've been in office
for a little more than 120 days.
You've already had awar in the Middle East,
a crisis on the Southern border,
anemic employment numbers,
the highest inflation in 13 years.
You know, that's afterfour or five months.
Imagine what it's gonnabe like after four years.
So I think this radical left-wing agenda,
tax, spend, borrow, regulate,
pro-abortion, anti-traditional family,
a left-wing agenda is gonna turn off
a lotta people in the middle.
And then I think the secondanswer to your question
is a compelling agenda of ourown that we need to develop
and that's what we're gonnabe laying the groundwork for
at the Road to Majority conference.
- Ralph, you know, you guys inan election year, of course,
are on the ground.
You're knocking on doors.
You are really boots on the ground.
In this last election in 2020,
what was the evangelical turnout like?
Was it as high as it was in 2016
and what did you see from evangelicals?
- You know, it's a great question,
and the answer is itwas the largest turnout
in modern American political history.
According to exit polls,
there were approximately 45 million
self-identified born again evangelicals
who went to the polls.
That's roughly 9 millionmore who went in 2016.
Their share of the electoratewent from 26% in 2016
to 28% in 2020,
and it was even higher inthe battleground states.
So we did our job
and President Trump and thecandidates did their job
and we turned out thebiggest vote we'd ever seen.
If we can do that again in 2022,
I think Nancy Pelosi is gonna be enjoying
her last months as Speaker soon.
- All right.
Ralph Reed with Faithand Freedom Coalition.
Thank you so much
and best of luck withyour event this week.
- Thank you very much.
