Published June 30, 2019
This is a rush transcript from "Life, Liberty & Levin," June 30, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARK LEVIN, HOST: Hello America, Mark Levin. This is a special edition of "Life, Liberty & Levin." We will have a special guest in a few moments, Forrest Lucas of Lucas Oil -- capitalism versus socialism, liberty versus tyranny. That's the subject of this program. It's not discussed enough.
A report just came out from the Congressional Budget Office. It projects unprecedented 144 percent of GDP toward the debt by 2049. This is a big deal.
Federal debt held by the public is on track to hit this level and the report found that if Congress works to wipe out scheduled spending and tax changes under current law, which includes sharp spending traps set to go into effect in 2020 and the expiration of income tax cuts scheduled for 2026, the debt would rise to 219 percent of the GDP.
We're in a serious problem here. And I have a question, all your parents and grandparents out there. Do you care about your kids and grandkids? This is particularly aimed at the Democratic socialists, they like to call themselves. Do you care about your kids and grandkids? Most of us would give our lives for our kids and grandkids. We're protective of them that we want the very best for them. And yet we're destroying their society. We're destroying their economy, because that's the end result in a decade or two, if this continues.
"Oh, we've heard it before, Mark." No. The numbers are just not working right now. The numbers aren't working. We have a crushing debt. We have a fiscal operating debt of $22 trillion. Our economy produces slightly over $18 trillion in goods and services every year. That's enormous.
Unfunded liability, so called entitlements and so forth, over $250 trillion. The mind can't even be wrapped around that. It's incredible.
And then we have proposals being made by Democrats running for President of the United States, not a single proposal on actually cutting the debt, but in ballooning the debt, at least five new entitlements proposed by this group. And let's go through some of them quickly.
Universal childcare: We have no idea how much that's going to cost. They want to eliminate the student debt, which is outrageous. $1.6 trillion. People accumulate the debt and then the rest of us have to pay for it? The government is going to pick it up? Two thirds of the American people never went to college.
Two thirds of the American people are going to subsidize people who went to college who are, in most cases, wealthier than those who have subsidizing them. Genius idea by the Democratic socialists.
Free college? Free college for everybody? Well, what does that mean? Tuition is already through the roof. These college campuses, they can't stop building their empires into themselves. There's never investigations for why this is. Why? Because this is the indoctrination mill of the left, so they want more and more kids to go through there.
But the spending is already out of control in these universities and colleges -- by the way, which squelch free speech among other things -- but free college? Family leave? Family leave. Did we have children before family leave? Did we know how to raise children before family leave? Do we really need the government through some cockamamie scheme subsidizing parents who have children? I mean, this is absurd. Whatever happened to responsibility?
Government run healthcare. They've come up with a lot of cute names like Medicare-for-All. The problem is, it eliminates Medicare. It eliminates all private healthcare. We're all going to live under the Veterans Administration. Where we all have a right to healthcare. Really? Ask the vets. When they go to the Veterans Administration, do they get to say I need this medicine. I need this medicine. I need it to be there tomorrow. No. What does that mean? A right to healthcare. It's an absurdity.
No private insurance, no Medicare, including illegal aliens, according to Bernie Sanders. Now think about that. How the hell are we going to control costs in healthcare?
Guaranteed minimum income. That was a brainchild of Cory Booker and others. So you have what they call a baby bond. Cradle to grave. Guaranteed minimum income? Why the hell would anybody work with all these benefits?
A Green New Deal. You know what this is? This is imported from Germany. It used to be called the De-Growth Movement, the Deindustrialization Movement specifically aimed at making America poor and it has been embraced now by every single candidate in one form or another running for the Democratic nomination.
And climate change. Climate change. Jake Tapper went after the Vice President last week about it. Chuck Todd has announced with his fiat, we will not have manmade climate deniers on our network ever again. Two guys who know nothing about climate.
We have physicists, meteorologists, climatologist with PhDs up the wazoo, thousands of them who questioned manmade climate change or the impact men can have on the climate. They're not allowed anymore on NBC apparently and Jake Tapper says the scientists decided. I don't know how they know that. But I do know this. It'll kill the economy. It'll kill the economy.
Massive Federal infrastructure spending. You drive around Washington, D.C., they never stopped building. Oh, we've got the Metro that goes all the way out. It never works. But it goes all the way out. Two roads into four roads, overpasses, bypasses, underpasses, all kinds of stuff going on. It never ends.
We're going to add $2 trillion, and how much of that is going to flow through the hands of local and state governments for a thousand different purposes. But where is this money coming from?
We have a proposal from Kamala Harris. Federal subsidies for local teacher salaries. Say what? Oh, yeah, Federal subsidies for local teacher salaries.
And they're proposing expanding Social Security, the trustees of the Social Security trust, which there's no money, by the way, because the Federal government stole it already.
They say eight years is all we have under Social Security. The left wants to expand a program that is sinking rather than trying to figure out how to protect it for the people who've paid into it.
Now out of these proposals, and I've only just gotten started. There's five new entitlements -- universal childcare, parental or family leave, government-run healthcare, guaranteed minimum income, Federal subsidies for local teacher salaries -- where's this money coming from? We'll take it from the rich. We will tax the rich.
Ladies and gentlemen, there aren't enough rich. There's not enough wealth in the entire universe to pay for all this. And their proposed costs are a joke. Because they don't know what it's going to be 10 years from now anymore, that they know what the climate and the weather is going to be 10 years from now. They're always low.
This is a destructive program. It not only will fundamentally transform America, it will fundamentally destroy our economic system.
And what happens when you destroy an economic system? Government gets stronger and stronger and more and more abusive, which is why virtually every one of these Democrats reject the limitations placed on them and their agenda and the progressive ideology by your Constitution.
No, I'm not done. Taxes. We have proposals for a wealth tax. Unconstitutional, but don't worry, that'll go the way the Electoral College. Proposals for 70 percent to 90 percent marginal tax rate. A war tax. A Wall Street investment tax. Higher corporate income taxes. Financial transaction taxes. Every kind of tax you can think. We're going to tax our way into wealth and equity.
They have plans that will do nothing but destroy the society. And the media, you sit there as the Praetorian Guard and you protect these people, you protect the idea of a big, ubiquitous centralized government with an unaccountable massive bureaucracy, pushing people around.
We never talk about liberty anymore, or individualism anymore, or success, or true free market capitalism. Look around you. Look at all the wealth that we have. You go to a grocery store, there's everything you want in a grocery store. Look around your home, look what we have. We don't appreciate what we have. Well, we do, but they don't.
And let me remind you, this agenda -- well, this agenda is quite Stalinistic. What do you mean, Mark? Oh, all of these left wing sites and so forth are going to dismiss you. Dismiss me as you will, but pay attention. Facts, listen to this. Chapter X of 1936 Constitution, Stalin's Constitution for the Soviet Union. This is where the Democrats get their policy ideas.
Article 118, "Citizens of the USSR have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality." Article 119, "Citizens in the USSR have the right to rest and leisure. The institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people." It sounds just like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Article 120, "Citizens of the USSR have the right to maintenance in old age, and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people, and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people."
Article 121, "Citizens in the USSR have the right to education. The right is insured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education being free of charge, by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students and universities and colleges."
I could go on. Why is it that these Democrats embrace, not the American dream, but the Soviet dream? Oh, yes, it's true. Why is it that we don't have serious substantive discussions about what they're proposing and how they're going to be paid for? Enough of these platitudes. Enough of this fortune cookie stuff where you pull a sentence out of a cookie and you just read it.
Tax the rich - that answer is not good enough. Redistribute wealth - that answers not good enough. Pay that gap - that answer is not good enough. We need facts. We need information.
Your children, my grandchildren, generations yet born. That's what this is all about. These proposals coming from the left, coming from the Democrats, part of this progressive ideology, are anti-American. That's right, I said it, they're anti-American.
Capitalism. Nobody talks about capitalism anymore. The Industrial Revolution, the biggest middle class on the face of the Earth. We have clean water. It comes right into our homes. You turn the faucet on, there it is, how did that happen? Electricity with the flip of a switch. How did that happen? We have washing machines, dishwashers, toasters. We have heat when we need it. We have air conditioning when we need it. And don't give me that most Americans don't get these things. Almost all Americans have access to these things. Almost all Americans have access to these things.
The average American in this country lives better, in more luxury than Kings and Queens 200 years ago. As I said earlier, walk into your local grocery store. Look at the -- look at the shelves. Look at the 14 different kinds of bread with five different grains. Go to the other aisle. Look at the different kinds of meats you have, 80 percent fat, 85 percent fat, 96 percent fat -- all different cuts.
Look at the different poultry, the different fish all over the country, all over the world. The different wines. I could go on and on.
Why would we destroy such a society? It's time to take on the left. Time to take on the Democratic leadership. It's time to take on socialism with Americanism.
And I have a special guest tonight who is going to help us do that, Forrest Lucas of Lucas Oil. He started from nothing, and he is a successful man who contributes to this society far more than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
But first, don't forget, most weeknights you can watch Levin TV, just give us a call 844-LEVIN-TV, 844-LEVIN-TV and join us, we have a wonderful community over there. Or go to blazetv.com/mark; blazetv.com/mark.
One other thing, the hottest book in America. Folks, this is very, very important. We stand for freedom of the press. The modern mass media today stand for unfreedom of the press. Read all about. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: This is "Life, Liberty & Levin." We have a great guest, Forrest Lucas, how are you, sir?
FORREST LUCAS, FOUNDER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, LUCAS OIL PRODUCTS: I'm fine. Thank you. Good to meet you.
LEVIN: I've always wanted to meet you. You're a success story. With all this talk about socialism and wage gaps, and the left and the Democratic Party, people moving further and further and further left with a Green New Deal and we've got to get rid of fossil fuels.
And so right now, most of these people haven't created a single job in their life and haven't created wealth. Most of them have been politicians of one sort or another most of their life or theoreticians.
So I think it's important for the audience, particularly younger people in the audience to see somebody in flesh and blood, and I want to ask you a few questions who's made it on his own? Were you born rich?
LUCAS: No, no.
LEVIN: Tell me about your background a little bit.
LUCAS: When I was born, we were very poor people in Central Indiana.
LEVIN: Yes.
LUCAS: And this was right, not too far after the depression. So everybody was poor and everybody was getting by. Everybody was working.
LEVIN: Were you on a farm?
LUCAS: Yes.
LEVIN: How many of you were there?
LUCAS: Well, I have three sisters after me but when I was there, it was just me and mom and dad and --
LEVIN: Did you wind up going to college?
LUCAS: No.
LEVIN: How far did you go in high school?
LUCAS: I got a real good high school education. I learned how to type, but I didn't care about the typing. I learned how to write the perfect business letter, which was a big help to me in building my company.
LEVIN: So you're this kid, you're on the farm. It's post-depression, fairly poor. What happens next? You're interested in vehicles, trucks? What happens after that?
LUCAS: When I was 12 years old, I started -- I was working on this farm, show and cattle, ridge cattle. And my dad lost his job there on this farm, so he went back to drinking.
LEVIN: So your dad was a drinker.
LUCAS: Yes, he had a serious drinking problem.
LEVIN: Was he abusive?
LUCAS: Not as much as he was, just the fact that he would be gone and we had no way --
LEVIN: You couldn't care for yourself.
LUCAS: We couldn't take care of ourselves. Right.
LEVIN: So you leave home.
LUCAS: So I left home. I had an opportunity to go down to Southern Indiana and work on a farm down there for the summer. Showing out a guy's cows. I was really good at it. Although I was 14 at the time.
LEVIN: What happened after that? How did you get into the trucking?
LUCAS: I got into tracking for like, I kind of always wanted to be a truck driver. I was fascinated with trucks. We had to kind of trucks we hauled cattle with and stuff like that, you know, so I could do of all that.
I got out of school, and I was married and had a baby on the way already. I did not want to work in a factory all my life. At that time, that's what most people did. You got a job. That was your job the rest your life. That's what you were going to do or become and I didn't want to do that.
But I ended up you know, with a factory job in the night shift. And now I can do the other work during the day, which I did, you know, working for the -- actually, my landlord had a lot of stuff to do. I worked for him all day long, and get five hours of sleep and I knew I wasn't going to do that forever either.
So I started saving up enough money to buy me a truck. And when I was 21, I bought my first semi and went out on the road working for Mayflower, a moving company. They went all over the country. They even went into Canada. And I was getting home about a day or two every five weeks.
So I thought, okay, I'll do this for a couple of years. That was my plan going into it. I'll do this for a couple of years. You know, it's hard for my family and hard for me. But I can do it and then to have enough money to go buy my gas station or some kind of business where I could go from there.
Unfortunately, my first wife, when I left and then the money started coming in, she had to blow it.
LEVIN: She'd lose all the money.
LUCAS: She lost it all, and then heading her way in debt.
LEVIN: So you got from one truck, so I guess you kept working that until you got another truck.
LUCAS: Until I got another truck, until I got another truck. So anyhow, after -- once I got rid of her, it took me about two years ago paid back out and get caught up financially.
LEVIN: How many trucks did you wind up with?
LUCAS: I ended up -- the most ahead was 14.
LEVIN: Fourteen.
LUCAS: Fourteen trucks, but I was brokering loads for other people, too. But taking care of 14 trucks and 14 drivers, 14 drivers-wise is a lot to do. It is really hard work and you're busy all the time, weekends, so on and so forth.
We were in Indiana, and the trucks were passing through, so I couldn't -- I didn't have time to work on them very good, so I told my wife, we're going to get on one coast or the other. And she had been to the East Coast with me and she says, there is no way in the world we're going to go back there.
I had a guy I knew really well in California, so we partnered and got by -- we ended up buying and building or renting a building.
LEVIN: So that became kind of your headquarters out on the west coast?
LUCAS: Yes. And the trucks come in there and I would have time to work on them and do whatever needed to be done.
LEVIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARIANNE RAFFERTY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Live from "America's News Headquarters," I'm Marianne Rafferty. President Trump describing his meeting earlier today with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as wonderful. The President announcing the two had agreed to restart the stalled nuclear talks. But many Democrats say the meeting may amount to nothing more than a photo op.
The President ending his four-day visit to Asia tweeting about being the first sitting US President to set foot into North Korea and what a great honor it was.
More than 100,000 marchers taking part in this year's New York City Pride Parade to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village. Crowds carrying rainbow colors filled the streets of New York City. Organizers say it was one of the largest pride parades in the history of the gay rights movement. I'm Marianne Rafferty, now back to "Life, Liberty & Levin."
LEVIN: So Forrest Lucas, let me ask you a question.
LUCAS: All right.
LEVIN: How did you get from trucks to the Lucas Oil?
LUCAS: We were coming across the desert all the time. You know, it's hot and is really hard on the trucks. It was hard on the motors, hard on the gearboxes. We didn't have air conditioners, so it's hard on the drivers, too.
I started looking around the additives. What can we do to put in here to make this all better? And I found some stuff that was on the market. That was better than nothing.
So okay, I kept looking for more and more and I found a guy who had a little sort of a trash company there where if you were leaving town and you had to get rid of your oil, they would come in and take it or they would buy it or you'd pay them to take it or whatever.
But this guy knew a lot about oil. I was in there talking to him things, mostly oil. At the time, I had made it up for hours, I thought it was as good as I could get it. It was pretty darn good stuff.
But one day, I said, I was looking for something else and I said, this is what wanted it for, and he said I've got it down here, I think just what you want and he showed me the rest of the barrel and I read some writing on it and I said, I didn't know this was ever made yet, it hadn't even been invented, and I took the lid off and I said, holy cow this is it. This is what I'm looking for.
LEVIN: This was additives to oil?
LUCAS: This was not an additives to oil.
LEVIN: It was oil.
LUCAS: I made an additive to oil. But it was for other uses and I don't want to tell anybody what those uses were. I took it home. I made up some batches that are -- after all these years, it's pretty much the same batches that I used right then.
One for the engine oil and one for gear oil and then one for the fuel. And is sent the trucks back out. They went from four and a half miles to a gallon. They all ran at the same time, same engines up to five miles per gallon and the smoke went away because it was all burning.
So we didn't have any atmosphere problems at all, which was not a problem at that time anyhow. But then the engines quit burning their oil, and your boxes are all cooled down. So I fixed all my problems right there with just those two products.
LEVIN: And you pretty much developed this yourself.
LUCAS: I did.
LEVIN: Without any real background.
LUCAS: No.
LEVIN: No expertise.
LUCAS: No.
LEVIN: You just used common sense experience and you kept trying.
LUCAS: And I had -- eventually, I hired people who knew things that I didn't know where I could expand on out into stuff to fix your automatic transmission or your power steering unit. We have saved the world billions and billions and billions of dollars.
LEVIN: Because there's less oil being used.
LUCAS: Less oil being used.
LEVIN: Less pollution.
LUCAS: ... and problems. If you've got say an average person, you've got a transmission that starts leaking and starts slipping, that's about a $4,000.00 or $5,000.00 problem. But if you can go to an auto parts store and buy something for $12.00 to $15.00 and put it in there and it fixes it, if you start out putting it there when it's new, and you never have a problem to start with. That's what we've done. And we've fixed trucks, cars, lots of race cars, boats, guns -- a lot of things.
LEVIN: So Lucas Oil, the additive is everywhere.
LUCAS: Yes.
LEVIN: Pretty much anywhere there's oil.
LUCAS: Yes, we're in several different foreign countries now.
LEVIN: In foreign countries, too, but you produce oil, too?
LUCAS: We do not produce oil.
LEVIN: You move oil?
LUCAS: We move oil. We had to move oil into us. But you know, we have railroad tracks. We actually own railroad tracks there in Southern Indiana where my plant is. We still have a plant in California and the headquarters are there, the Southern Indiana plant is where our big plant is.
LEVIN: And you employ several hundred people.
LUCAS: Yes.
LEVIN: So you come off this farm -- really your father leaves, there's four of you, you leave home. You start with absolutely nothing and then you develop over time this additive, which is ubiquitous, it's everywhere. And now you're a man of means. You inherited nothing. You took advantage of our capitalist system. Back then it wasn't so heavily regulated where you know, you couldn't move right, you were able to act.
And this is now one of the most regulated areas by the bureaucracy of the Federal government and state governments, oil and oil additives, transportation and so forth and so on. I want to pursue this with a little bit when we come back.
Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, you can see Levin TV almost every weeknight, just call us at 844-LEVIN-TV, 855-LEVIN-TV or go to blazetv.com/mark, blazetv.com/mark to sign up.
And did I mention this? "Unfreedom of the Press." Get yourself the copy. Better yet, get your liberal friend a copy. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Forrest Lucas, your trucking business really took off after regulations for cut. Right?
LUCAS: I'll tell you a little story about regulations. They were something that was invented or developed back during the early parts of the depression.
The Federal government came in and said, "Okay, you guys are fighting each other for the hauler's particular freight to the point where nobody was making any money." So they regulated everything. And if have everybody -- you have the right to haul this particular product to this particular place and that's kind of where it was. Regulations were like that.
And this is getting way out of control. Some of the big guys were buying up all the regulations there were and some of the little guys out there were just still stuck with having to haul for those guys -- the big guys. And that wasn't working too good.
And then there's people like myself, although I was hauling moving them and stuff. I get to places like California where everybody moved them to California. Nobody was moving back. So I was a hot freight. There's plenty of people out there that would let us haul their stuff, we would haul for less money. You've got out there, they were a lot better. So I was on the hot freight.
LEVIN: What's hot freight?
LUCAS: That was somebody -- that I didn't have regulations to haul it. But I was hauling it anyhow, not like anything illegal.
LEVIN: Now, I get it. Yes.
LUCAS: But as soon --
LEVIN: Don't say anymore.
LUCAS: As soon as we got -- when the deregulation hit, I got a guy who knew all about how to do it, to fill out all the paperwork for the government to do it. I had all these customers I had, I wrote out these letters and told this guy to sign it and his attorney gave it to this guy, I said, "Take all this stuff and see if you can get 48-state authority. He says "You can't. Nowhere in the world that you're going to get 48-state authority. Nobody would be able to do that." I said, "Try it."
And the papers came back in a few days, I had 48-state authority.
LEVIN: Let me underscore this point. So they made it possible around 1980 for your trucks to go in every state in the country or continental United States. And you immediately saw an opportunity.
You told this fellow you're talking about, all right, I want to be able to transport in every state in the country and he executed that and he succeeded in doing that. And I guess you were the first to be able to transport in 48 different states.
LUCAS: There were big freight lines that could do it.
LEVIN: Yes.
LUCAS: And even though as a moving van or bus, all the movement of that kind was like what I was working for, they could go in all the states, so I was in around 48 states anyhow. But once they deregulated, regulation became worthless, because everybody could do it.
LEVIN: So you didn't have to be part of a big moving company. Little guys could do it too, pretty much.
LUCAS: Yes.
LEVIN: So there's a lot more competition and a lot more convenience to the customer and the consumer, a lot more choices for the customer in the consumer.
The reason I'm focused on this is because this is really when the trucking business took off. That is the government was holding you back to a point.
LUCAS: It was.
LEVIN: And probably other people, too.
LUCAS: Lots of people.
LEVIN: Lots of people. So by removing this, I guess, New Deal regulation, this depression era regulation, changing with the times in 1980, you produce more, you create more, and there's a lot more jobs and a lot more growth and wealth creation.
It's another example, and that's why I wanted to talk to you, of how you grew your businesses, you moved to other businesses, you expanded into other businesses. And much of the time, what slowed you down or what made it difficult was government and much of the time which enabled you to expand was when the government got out of the way.
LUCAS: Yes, right.
LEVIN: Now let me ask you, this, you're not just in oil anymore. Now, it looks like you've gone a little Hollywood.
LUCAS: Yes, we've done a little Hollywood.
LEVIN: What's that all about?
LUCAS: We went into movies. It started out being just a way to advertise and a lot of it was about Protect the Harvest. That's our --
LEVIN: What is Protect the Harvest?
LUCAS: That's an organization I created where we're fighting against the animal rights extremists, environmentalist that are trying to take control over and do away with, you know, vegans who want everybody to be vegans, and that's what we're fighting.
LEVIN: So you're trying to protect basically, ranchers, farmers, hunters, people that use nature.
LUCAS: Yes, everybody using nature and raising animals.
LEVIN: And raise animals and sell them.
LUCAS: For food.
LEVIN: And there's this big movement isn't there that's fighting that -- apparently wants us all to eat, I don't know, lettuce, which I pretty much can't stand, no offense.
But do you see a combination here? That movement and the environmental movement talking about carbon dioxide, the cows create carbon dioxide. I mean, I sit and I scratch my head.
LUCAS: Ain't it crazy?
LEVIN: Yes, that's going to change the climate. I think the sun has more to do with it than cows.
LUCAS: I think so.
LEVIN: So you support this -- what's the organization called again?
LUCAS: Protect the Harvest.
LEVIN: Protect the Harvest. And you call it that, I assume so the public knows, you like to eat. You like to have food, beef, whatever it is. Well, there are people out there and making it more and more difficult to produce it at a decent cost. Right?
LUCAS: Right.
LEVIN: And how's it going? This organization, you making headway?
LUCAS: Yes, we're making headway? We've got a lot of Facebook stuff.
LEVIN: Yes. You've got a lot on the internet going on?
LUCAS: Yes. A lot on the internet, yes, where there are some bad things going on right now in Massachusetts. You had a question three up there, you might want to check in on that.
LEVIN: What are they trying to do?
LUCAS: Well, they want to tell you if you want to buy meat or sell meat or prepare meat, if you have meat in your restaurant or your store, it must have been raised under these certain conditions that are being put forward by the animal rights extremists.
LEVIN: And these are radical rules.
LUCAS: Radical rules that nobody is going to be able to live with and -- but there's a $10,000.00 fine for anybody who gets caught doing it. The same thing is happening now in California, Proposition 12 out there. And where is it going to go from there? They're trying to spread it out.
LEVIN: I don't know. We're all going to move to Montana, I think.
LUCAS: I guess so. It's some crazy, crazy, crazy stuff. But anyhow, but it is happening. Americans don't know about it because they can't believe that that couldn't happen, you know.
LEVIN: And is your group kind of trying to draw attention to it, fighting these types of initiatives.
LUCAS: We are.
LEVIN: All right. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEVIN: Forrest Lucas, Indiana. I take you know a gentleman by the name of Mike Pence.
LUCAS: I guess, I do know Mike Pence very well.
LEVIN: You've known him a long time since he was a Congressman.
LUCAS: Yes, I backed him for a long time.
LEVIN: Backed him a long time. How is he doing?
LUCAS: I think he is doing great.
LEVIN: Yes.
LUCAS: I really do.
LEVIN: And he is a nice man.
LUCAS: He's a nice man. Very nice. He and his wife are both very nice people.
LEVIN: Yes.
LUCAS: Very religious.
LEVIN: Religious people. And how was he as Governor?
LUCAS: He was a good governor.
LEVIN: Yes.
LUCAS: He was a good governor.
LEVIN: Because you've seen a lot of governors come and go in Indiana.
LUCAS: I'm not a kid anymore, yes, I have seen a lot of them come and go.
LEVIN: You've seen a lot of senators come and go. You know, for people who don't live in Indiana. We view Indiana at least, I do, as a fairly conservative state yet every now and then it'll throw a curveball, won't it?
LUCAS: It will.
LEVIN: And you have a mayor there, Mayor Pete, they call him who is running in the Democratic primary for President of the United States. Do you know him very well?
LUCAS: I do not know him very well. I have spoken to him. He wants to talk to me, but I am not --
LEVIN: He wants to talk to you.
LUCAS: I think so, yes.
LEVIN: Now, President Trump, you've met him once or twice.
LUCAS: I've met him once.
LEVIN: Do you like him?
LUCAS: Yes, I do.
LEVIN: You like what he's doing?
LUCAS: Yes. That's what I like about him what he's doing, because I've watched, you know, all the way through this thing.
LEVIN: Do you like the deregulation and that sort of thing?
LUCAS: Yes. Yes, I do.
LEVIN: People say, you know, I don't like the way he tweets and the way he talks and I think to myself, okay, but this is who he is and he is presenting himself openly and transparently to the American people, right?
LUCAS: Yes.
LEVIN: He's not one of these polished Washington politicians, and I think that's one of the reasons people like him. And now, what do you make of this movement, this Green New Deal movement? We're finally, quote, unquote, "energy independent," and I remember as a little kid, OPEC and all the trillions of dollars over time that flowed out of this country, into the Arab countries, into the Middle East and so forth.
And now we're a net exporter of oil, and then we have a political party with people who want to be President of the United States who are attacking fossil fuels, now that we're finally energy independent, attacking fossil fuels. What would replace it? Does anybody know?
LUCAS: I don't know what they would use without fossil fuel. That's crazy to start with you know. We've got the best we ever had, like you say we are selling fuel instead of buying fuel -- oil or fuel whatever you want to call it. We're selling it. And that's good.
Now, coal, okay. Coal might be a little nasty, but that's -- that can be worked out one way or another. But the big thing is, we are in control of a lot of things in the world now. We're not letting other people control us. America is able to be in control and he has done it. He's got everybody's attention. But he's not being mean about it to anybody, in my opinion.
LEVIN: In terms of oil, coal, and these sorts of things, should we be basking in this? I mean, this what -- this is what fuels the engine of this massive economy.
LUCAS: Right.
LEVIN: I mean, and the people who oppose it, like AOC, out of New York City and Bernie Sanders out of New York City, they don't seem to have an alternative.
LUCAS: I cannot understand how that all came about, how those people think like that and talk like that when after Trump won and the Democrats, no offense, I don't want to offend anybody, I cannot not do that, but some of these people are crazy. Trying to get --
LEVIN: Socialism.
LUCAS: Socialism. Yes.
LEVIN: They call it Democratic socialism. Let me ask you this. How do these two words work together? Democratic socialism. Isn't socialism, even in its weakest form, about government controlling decision-making, government controlling industry?
LUCAS: Government will control everything, yes.
LEVIN: With President Obama, Obamacare. What's interesting about this to me is, we get this Obamacare in place and we were told it was going to do all of these wonderful things.
LUCAS: Oh, yes.
LEVIN: Okay, now, we're told, no, no, that's passe, but Obamacare doesn't cover -- Medicare-for-All which means Medicare for no one, because they're going to eliminate Medicare. They're going to eliminate all private healthcare. And I guess they're going to run it all through the Veterans Administration, or the DMVs or something.
Their programs almost never work, and yet the answer to their programs is more government. We just haven't tried enough. We just haven't spent enough. We just haven't done it.
This is one of the reasons I wanted you on the program, so people can understand. Here's a real living success story, a capitalist who came from nothing and produces something that we all need and we all want. It contributes to society, as opposed to say a Bernie Sanders who has really contributed nothing except speeches, and pushes for a radical, radical agenda. We'll be right back.
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LEVIN: Forrest Lucas, let me ask you a question. Again, you worked your way from the bottom up, you couldn't have done it in a socialist society.
LUCAS: No.
LEVIN: You can only do it in a capitalist society.
LUCAS: Right.
LEVIN: In market oriented society.
LUCAS: Exactly.
LEVIN: And your story is not unique. You're unique. Your business is unique, but this is America.
LUCAS: This is America.
LEVIN: So people try to come into this country in order to do what you did.
LUCAS: Right.
LEVIN: And people still like to make money and create things and contribute to society and rather than be a burden on society, so why do you think there is this appeal? Maybe it's a growing appeal to the opposite? To socialism? You couldn't have done what you did in a socialist society?
LUCAS: No.
LEVIN: So what's this appeal do you think?
LUCAS: Best I can figure it out. It's probably a reasonably small part of the population. You know, it was started by under Obama, all this Hurrah - -
LEVIN: The new push.
LUCAS: The push, the push to bring in the people from outside the country, come in and vote Democrats, and --
LEVIN: What about the people in our colleges?
LUCAS: Our colleges? That's crazy, too. They want free college, free medicine, free food, free everything, and --
LEVIN: And you know what you have? Nothing.
LUCAS: You've got nothing. Nobody -- how are you going to pay for all of that? And if you're not working, you don't have to work when you get all of these for free.
LEVIN: And why would anybody want to work? That's your point right now. Why would anyone want to work?
LUCAS: That's right. You've got it right there.
LEVIN: If you can get free whatever.
LUCAS: Right.
LEVIN: And the burden on the productive people in the country, those people who adore it somewhat becomes so enormous that even they can't be as successful.
LUCAS: We have insurance for our employees. We have real good -- we're probably one of the best companies in the country as far as taking care of our people with insurance.
When Obamacare came aboard, it went sky high and our own doctor -- family doctor -- a real nice guy, a good friend of ours, he wished you had to go out of business because he had so much paperwork to do and he has told me one time about how you're supposed to really do it if you're doing it right.
You know, he doesn't just let you fix it, you go pass it on to all these other doctors and you get some smack around to progress to the right people to test you, and then you got all the paperwork that goes with it. That's crazy, but it's happening. It's happening we need get this Obamacare thing completely gone.
LEVIN: Well, I think you're a perfect example of freedom, of capitalism, of success, creating jobs, creating opportunity, providing people with what they want, and it was a pleasure having you on the program.
LUCAS: Thank you very much.
LEVIN: Thank you. Don't forget, see you next time, on "Life, Liberty & Levin."
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