Former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, appearing on Breitbart News Sunday, explained that he wouldn’t have left the U.S. Senate for any organization other than The Heritage Foundation.
“They are the flagship of the conservative movement. People all over the country listen to our policy ideas,” he proudly stated.
DeMint sat down for an interview with co-hosts Breitbart News Executive Chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, and Breitbart’s Editor-in-Chief, Alexander Marlow, who were broadcasting on Sirius XM Patriot radio channel 125 at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines.
The highly regarded DeMint was at the forefront of the conservative movement for seven years as a congressman representing South Carolina’s fourth district and then as a U.S. senator from 2005 to 2013. He stepped down from his senate seat in 2013 to become President of The Heritage Foundation, undoubtedly the most prestigious conservative think tank in the nation.
DeMint explained that he has focused Heritage on three areas that are most important to the conservative agenda: a strong society, a strong economy, and a strong defense. Heritage has organized into three institutes addressing these key principles. “Our research is as good or better than it has ever been,” he asserted.
Heritage has upgraded its communications, adding partners like Breitbart to get out “a consistent message across the conservative movement,” DeMint said. Another accomplishment Heritage has achieved, explained DeMint, is that they created a sister organization, Heritage Action, which consists of “10,000 people who can engage congress in an informed way and that gives us a lot of power when we want to affect legislation.”
DeMint acknowledged that the goal of Heritage “is to affect legislation through the power of ideas.”
Marlow asked the former senator why he was at the Iowa Freedom Summit, which was a gathering of aspiring Republican 2016 presidential and vice presidential hopefuls. DeMint replied,
When they asked me to come, I said I don’t want to be part of the presidential track here. But, I would like to help cast the conservative vision for the whole movement and for all the candidates. That is the role we want to play. We don’t endorse candidates. What we want to do is promote the ideas that we think are going to reclaim America. By being part of something like this around the country, the candidates will see the pathway, not only of being elected, but being elected with the right ideas.
Three main policies that Heritage wants to see promulgated by Republicans are energy independence, education opportunities like school choice, and creating a tax code that makes America more competitive in the world.
Chairman Bannon told DeMint that, “nothing galvanizes Breitbart like your organization. The guys over at Heritage are heroes to Breitbart.” DeMint responded saying that “Breitbart is their heroes too. It’s folks like you that keep them accountable.”
The Heritage Foundation president concluded his interview saying, “We want to get out front and show that good policy can be good politics too… Let’s create opportunities for all, unite America with Hispanics, blacks, everybody.”