Did MAGA Kill the Tea Party?

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

News, Politics

4.7 • 750 Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Former Rep. Justin Amash and Fox News’ Kennedy join Nick Gillespie to examine how MAGA populism reshaped the Tea Party’s limited-government mission, why Congress no longer acts as a check on power, and what it will take to spark a new libertarian revival.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you, everybody.
0:04.0	I'm Nick Gillespie.
0:05.0	This is a special live version of the Reason interview at the Ron Paul Barbecue, and I'm joined by Fox News Personality Kennedy, late of MTV, and the former and future representative of Michigan, I hope.
0:23.6	Justin Amash.
0:24.6	Yeah, thanks, Nick.
0:25.7	All right.
0:26.2	So, you know, let's start out by talking about Ron Paul, this so-called Dr. No.
0:33.9	Justin, what, you know, you served in Congress.
0:40.7	I mean, you're a congressman or you were a congressman like Ron Paul.
0:46.3	You know, how did Ron Paul change the game as far as you're concerned?
0:48.3	He gave us hope.
0:53.1	When I was first starting out in politics, there was no one like him.
0:54.7	Absolutely no one.
0:56.8	We hadn't seen presidential candidates like that.
0:58.9	We hadn't seen people in office like that.
1:08.0	Someone who would just come out, speak the truth, talk about liberty, talk about the things that were really the hallmarks of America. Like what made America genuinely great.
1:12.8	Our beautiful constitution. Uh, hallmarks of America like what made America genuinely great our beautiful Constitution the the way we like held up in high regard our ability to make
1:20.3	decisions for ourselves and he he just reminded us of these things that these are
1:25.8	things that make our country special,
1:28.6	and we don't wanna lose that.
1:31.1	There's so much negativity in politics,
1:33.8	there's more today than maybe ever before.
	...

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