Trump’s A-Team, and America’s Path to Greatness | Carla Sands

Transcript:

Rebecca Weber: On November 5th, the American people made their voices clear. And for the first time in a century, we see a presidential administration that appears genuinely dedicated to restoring constitutional government as originally conceived by our founding fathers. Now, Trump was given an irrefutable mandate to take a sledgehammer to the administrative state, and for many of us, Trump’s victory eliminated our fears.

But what kind of leadership will it take to eliminate fraud, corruption, a debt riddled country? What kind of leadership is needed for a radical course correction, one that can unleash energy production from all sources, one that is strong enough to face the ongoing great power competition between the United States and Communist China.

Joining us now to discuss all of this is a truly dynamic woman. She is the accomplished Carla Sands. She is former U. S. ambassador to Denmark, a trailblazer in diplomacy. Diplomacy, Business, and Philanthropy. During her tenure as Ambassador, she strengthened transatlantic partnerships, championed economic growth, and advanced energy security initiatives.

Carla is a passionate advocate for America First policies, and her exceptional leadership and unwavering dedication really inspires us all. Ambassador, welcome to the show. It’s an honor to have you with me.

Carla Sands: Thank you, Rebecca. It’s great to be with you and to be able to talk to your members.

Rebecca Weber: Ambassador, President Trump’s cabinet picks really demonstrate a serious commitment to return power to the American people.

Now, as former ambassador to Denmark, what type of leadership is required to achieve more wins for the United States so that we are wealthier, safer, and free?

Carla Sands: It is the million dollar question, Rebecca, and I’m so, um, I’m so encouraged by the appointments that President Trump is making today. I just learned that Matthew Whitaker, his former acting attorney general, has been appointed to be our NATO ambassador.

We need our allies in NATO to actually carry their own weight and be able to execute Article Three. Thank you. Which is be able to defend their own territory before article five, which is that we all come to the aid of our members, our member states. Um, there’s a lot to get right. Um, Trump’s picks are, it’s like beyond the A team people are calling them heroes, superheroes.

And I think that is actually what we’re looking at. People like Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard. R. F. K. Junior are people that have carved out an expertise area and they have big brains and they love the American people. It’s not about ideology. It’s about all moving in the same direction to like you just said, Rebecca, make our Americans, all Americans and our nation more secure.

More wealthy and freer.

Rebecca Weber: Now you served as ambassador to Denmark under president Trump. What is it like to work for him?

Carla Sands: It, it was the honor of my lifetime and it was a dream I had even as a young girl in high school. And so to be able to work for an America first president meant that every day I could wake up and top of mind was how can I make the United States a more wealthier by creating jobs here at home, and how can I make us safer by countering our adversaries like Russia and China?

And my team and I were incredibly successful at that.

Rebecca Weber: Do you have a favorite Trump story or any stories that you might be able to share with us?

Carla Sands: Well, I do have a couple of stories. Um, first of all, we were able to increase our trade, uh, our exports to Denmark by 45%. So that meant we had jobs here at home.

We were able to advocate for American companies. Sometimes. Uh, successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, because the Chinese Communist Party in some cases had members of, uh, Chinese citizens writing, um, the, the tender offers for, um, fulfillment for products that American companies would never be eligible for.

In Denmark, because the Chinese were writing the tenders and our equipment could never fit in what, uh, would fulfill that. So we were blocked by tariff barriers, non tariff barriers, but we were able to, working with the Trump White House and the Congress, put a consulate in Greenland, securing our nation against Russia and China.

We blocked Huawei. The Chinese made 5G from the entire, uh, entire kingdom of Denmark, and that includes the Faroe Islands and Greenland. And we were also able to stop the completion of that Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2. We worked with the Danish government and again, the Trump White House. And the only area it was never completed was my area of responsibility in the Danish waters, because we never took our foot off the gas.

Rebecca Weber: Wow. I mean, how do you think Trump views diplomacy? Because it does seem to me that there is perhaps a hidden genius in the way that he approaches leaders.

Carla Sands: Yes, so he understands you have to be able to pick up the phone and talk to leaders. Right now, under President Biden and the Harris, Biden Harris administration, my understanding is that, um, Joe Biden hadn’t spoken with Vladimir Putin for two years.

President Trump is very clear. He wants the killing to stop. This war should never have started. There was a negotiated deal. Peace settlement between Vladimir Putin and Zelensky at the top of the Ukraine government that I believe our government and the UK government scuttled sending Boris Johnson over there to say, don’t sign it.

And then the war began. So, uh, President Trump is not a warmonger. He wants peace. He doesn’t want the killing to continue. So we will see peace brought to the Middle East through negotiation. And these leaders aren’t quite sure what President Trump will do. He never takes any option off the table. And I don’t speak for President Trump or his, uh, administration, these all political views of my own, but having worked in the Trump administration, having read his, um, His, um, promises to the American people and listened to his speeches on the campaign trail.

I can tell you, he wants to end the war in Ukraine and he will succeed. However, Rebecca, very concerning that president Biden in the waning days of his presidency as a lame duck has authorized for Ukraine to shoot US made long range missiles into Russia, clearly intending to make it very difficult for President Trump to succeed in ending this war.

And it looks like attempting to start a full scale World War Three. So we need to pray for our nation, which is great for our nation.

Rebecca Weber: This is unbelievable. And we see that the Democrat Party really, and you’ve spoken on this, they’ve abandoned key American values. For example, so many Democrats, they don’t support our greatest ally, Israel.

And as far as Joe Biden’s foreign policy legacy, I think his alienation of Israel really ranks among the most disastrous consequences of his presidency. How can the next administration face this crucial challenge in restoring America’s relationship with its most important Middle East ally?

Carla Sands: That’s a very important question.

So the American people in a bipartisan fashion have supported Israel. We, Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East. And, um, this is a kind of new occurrence. I believe that having a lot of immigration from Muslim majority countries has affected the Democrat party and they are attempting to, um, maybe corral those That population into being their supporters and their voters.

And so they’re trying to, I think, cater to a radical group because, um, we know who we have to support. It is our allies in the Middle East. But under Obama under Biden and Harris, we have seen that they’ve attempted to raise. Iran to be our ally in the Middle East. Iran, these mullahs are our natural enemy.

Don’t forget that, you know, it was decades ago they invaded our U. S. embassy and took hostages for over 400 days and they were not released until President Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Um, Iran, the mullahs are not our friend. The people are educated, they’re young, they’re vibrant, they want to have a great life.

But they’re under the control of this revolutionary Iranian regime, and who, you know, uses money to export terrorism around the world through their proxies and their IRGC, their proxies, like the Houthi rebels, Hamas, Hezbollah, and we’ve seen what they’ve done or attempted to do in Israel. So. Under President Trump, he actually worked to, to put maximum pressure on the Iranian mullahs to, to have change and to suppress their export of terrorism.

And, um, and he was very successful, but as soon as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came into office, you saw what happened. Joe Biden said, I’m not going to enforce the sanctions on Iranian energy. He, you know, sent. Billions of dollars for a handful of hostages. Billions of dollars. We don’t pay for hostages. So I think that was another gift trying to lure them into rejoining something that, uh, that president, um, Barack Obama had put in place called the JCPOA, and it was, uh, it was an agreement that helped Iran and said, Oh, we’re going to keep you from getting a nuclear weapon, but they were never transparent.

They never adhered to the deal, and they got pallets of cash from the Obama administration flown to the mullahs. So. It seems like the Democrats have become so radical in our country that they want to enrich our enemies and they want to hurt our allies and that’s something that President Trump is going to write that we know you have to be friendly to your friends and get your foes to behave themselves.

Rebecca Weber: Absolutely. And I think this is a big reason. It certainly is a big reason among AMAC members why they, they said, no, we’ve got enough is enough. We need to see a peace through strength. I want to shift for a moment and talk a little bit about Trump’s victory. Now, as a Pennsylvanian, how do you think Trump secured such a resounding victory in Pennsylvania this year, especially compared to 2020?

What changed in your view? Um,

Carla Sands: I think election integrity changed. We had Michael Watley at the top at the RNC, along with Laura Trump, and he had his army of lawyers. We had a war room right in Philadelphia. Our team was in that room. And if there was anything spotted that was untoward, that was wrong, illegal, shouldn’t be happening.

They reported it right in and in real time. We had our lawyers address it. You can see just this week, uh, in Bucks County, they were still trying to steal an election, uh, for Senator Casey and count ballots that the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court had said are not eligible to be counted. And they said that they were going to break the law because everybody breaks the law.

And, you know, they wanted to. It’s unbelievable that there are no consequences for breaking the law in the United States. President Trump is a law and order president. He has law and order team he’s putting in place right now so that we will get our, we will have our laws enforced in the United States and he’ll help to make that happen so that victims of crime.

are actually the victims and are taken care of and perpetrators of crime have consequences to their actions or for their actions. Excellent.

Rebecca Weber: Yes. And that is so important. And I’m so proud of our AMAC members. Thousands stood up, uh, and participated as poll watchers and poll workers, uh, and, and did such an incredible job.

I think it was incredible to get out the vote campaign was a true success. Uh, and we see now we’ve got a Republican house and Senate and Trump really has this huge opportunity to secure legislative victories. What would you like to see passed in addition to tax reform?

Carla Sands: Okay. Well, first I just want to talk about what you just spoke about because it’s so important, Rebecca.

Your members were very integral to the win we just had across the country. They’re engaged. They have time. They have resources. They want to make a difference and they want to save our country. President Trump has this window of four years, but it’s actually a window of two because we have an election coming up in two years, in some cases, even in a year.

So I would just appeal to your membership and say. Would you please stay engaged? Would you like celebrate our win, take the holiday period to enjoy, but come the new year, will you double down with us? Will you double down and continue to help people get registered to vote, to volunteer, to be a precinct committee, man, or woman volunteer, to be a poll worker, poll watcher, to get out there and support the down ballot, those row offices.

The, you know, the school board elections, all of the, the, the county offices and the, the small offices that, that people, you know, run for, because those are very important as well. And then the congressional map is very tough for us in two years. We don’t want to see president Trump impeached in two years and have his agenda.

That is. We are, we are back as a nation and we want to really run through the tape for four years and then hopefully hand off that baton to another great America first leader at the top of the ticket. So I would just ask that they stay engaged, Rebecca.

Rebecca Weber: Mm. Thank you so much. And that is a terrific message.

We will be doing all we can to find many, many ways for AMAC members to remain engaged. So thank you so much for that. Energy is such a big issue in Pennsylvania and really around the country. What do you think Trump can do to lower energy prices immediately?

Carla Sands: Right. So a couple of things. First of all, regarding the legislation, I want to see, uh, passed to make it permanent, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act because for business owners, the number one thing that helped them was actually not the tax cut, it was the permitting reform and the decrease in regulations.

President Trump, by the end of his last term, cut seven new reg cut, seven old regulations for every new one that he put in place. So we want to continue that success for businesses. Make, make America the place where people want to open their businesses. And then as far as energy goes, he has promised to drill baby drill.

He has named governor Doug Burgum to be the interior secretary. And you say, well, why are you talking about interior? Because we have these federal lands. That President Biden Kamala Harris locked up. They didn’t. They said they didn’t, but they really did. They made it almost impossible to explore and to get energy.

Um, the permitting is expensive. The every there’s like a war against American energy in every way. And the left, the leftist Democrats have created this. So what the 118th Congress, which is ending now created was something called HR 1. It was this big energy bill, and it unlocks everything permitting the law fair.

It creates a hospitable environment to create and harvest and move cheaply and abundantly American energy of all kinds. And we want a best of the above, not an all of the above kind of energy portfolio. We don’t want government subsidies. Picking winners and losers. And, and then we have, um, for energy secretary, we have, um, trying to think who he nominated for energy secretary.

Um, another great guy. It’ll come to me, but anyway, we’ve got, uh, Lee Zeldin is head of EPA. So he’s going to help us reform the EPA, which is also has embedded and encoded anti energy policies in our own EPA, which, you know, they’re supposed to be getting energy to the people. He’s going to work on things like the grid, hardening our grid, making sure it can carry the energy we need because now with AI.

And people using things like, um, cryptocurrency. We need tons of cheap and abundant energy, even more than we would have without ai. And these other kinds of, you know, uses that use up a lot of energy. Um, energy is at the core of how we are a secure country that are envir, you know, our economy is secure, but also that our military can function.

Strongly throughout the world. Cheap energy will be part of that. And it’s also part of diplomacy. Europe wants our American energy. They don’t want to buy Russian energy anymore. What a thrill.

Rebecca Weber: That’s right. So ambassador, when you, when you look at Trump’s approach here, he’s saying, you know, we’ve got to get rid of a lot of these agencies and departments.

We’ve, we’ve got a clean house. We’ve got to drain the swamp. Uh, do you think that these are realistic? Uh, and I do, I do believe personally that when Trump puts his mind to it, uh, he can get things done. And I do think the American people largely trust him. Yeah. uh, but eliminating, for example, the Department of Transportation, Department of Education, and so on and so forth.

Um, how realistic do you think that is? And do you think the American people, uh, want that? Because we certainly need, uh, Americans to go along with these, these big changes that I believe are desperately needed.

Carla Sands: Well, President Trump has a mandate. He just won the popular vote. I think he got the most votes of any Republican, uh, candidate for president ever, he won the electoral college.

He has a huge mandate. Thank God. And, um, Betsy, Betsy DeVos was his first education secretary. She told me personally, she thought that the education department. Should be disbanded that it has failed at its mission set. And when I say that the reason I do is because when the energy when the, uh, education department was created American American schools with the number 1 in the world today.

It’s about 40 years later or so, a little longer, um, that the American schools are below Croatia. They’re in the 20s as far as the pecking order of how excellent are our schools. We have schools where zero students are proficient in math at their grade level. That’s a crime against our American children, a crime against humanity, that we don’t educate these children, that they don’t have opportunity.

So President Trump proposes to send the money back to the states and this, let the states implement. Their education, which is how it worked before the education department was created. I think most Americans do, uh, support that. When you look at it, I think a majority, a great majority of the Republicans, and then there’s a pretty good majority of the Democrats as well.

Uh, support doing away with the education department. I didn’t know he planned to do away with the transportation department, but if he does, I’m sure there’s a good reason. I’m so excited and inspired that Elon Musk And Vivek Ami are both going to be well, Vive, um, Elon is the Doge, right? The director of Yes.

Of government, uh, elimination efficiency. I think it is. Efficiency. Efficiency, yes. Doge. So, um, Elon is a, is, is a, a great mind, a great thinker. Is that he is all in to make our country great. How blessed are we? How lucky are we to have Elon Musk actually care to do this when he can do anything he wants in the world is the world’s richest man with all of these forward thinking companies, very successful.

And he loves our country so much. He literally came to my church in Pennsylvania, took questions from everyday people for about three hours. Everyone that wanted to ask a question was able to, and he answered kindly, thoughtfully. Never condescending, took every question to heart and talked about why free speech is so important and why our liberties were in under threat before the election.

Rebecca Weber: Yeah, that’s so important. And I think that what we see is, uh, thank God, uh, he, he was able to purchase Twitter now X, uh, and, and that Elon recognizes that there is this woke media out there that is brainwashing our young people and people of all ages for that matter. So, uh, just knowing that we’ve got a real patriot that understands the value of free speech in America is terrific.

And I think for Vivek. He, uh, he knows what it’s at like in the real world, uh, and he sees what it’s like on Wall Street and he understands how these regulations and You know, forcing corporations to, uh, you know, meet certain D. E. I. Requirements and so forth. How badly that really hurts the average investor.

So we’ve got a team of people, I think, that are that Trump has picked his cabinet that are really going to make change. Uh, here in America. We just need to be sure that they are nominated and accepted and, uh, you know, ready, ready to rock and roll on January 20th ambassador. This was so lovely to have you with me.

I want to thank you so much. Any parting thoughts before we let you run?

Carla Sands: Well, you just mentioned Twitter and, and Elon Musk buying it. I don’t think we could have won without Twitter, uh, having been purchased by Elon Musk. I think there was, free speech was going away in the Western world, including the United States.

And, um, it is, um, like our first president, George Washington said, the bedrock. And he said literally, um, without free speech, dumb and silent will be led to the slaughter. So, uh, We have to protect our constitutional rights. President Trump will do that. I hope that, um, your members will stay up to date on what President Trump is doing along with his great aid team and that they will stay engaged so that we continue to deliver to our children and our grandchildren and are able to enjoy in our years, um, the greatest country that’s ever been created, that city on a shining hill.

Rebecca Weber: Ambassador, thank you so much for your unwavering commitment to American values. This has been a real privilege to really hear your insights and learn from your remarkable experiences. So thank you for sharing your time and your expertise with us. We appreciate you so much.

Carla Sands: Thanks Rebecca.

Rebecca Weber: Well that’s it for today folks.

Thank you for tuning in and be sure to join or renew your membership with AMAC because there is strength in numbers and don’t forget to subscribe, share, or leave a review because it means the world to us and helps us bring more great content your way. Until next time, stay curious, stay motivated, stay involved, and never give up.

God bless you all.