Kevin Roberts

And we believe that not only is a smaller government good, but the reason that a smaller government is good is because it gives you and me and all

330 million Americans, more self-governance.

That's the reason that Heritage exists.

I think I know where you're going.

Gosh, it's a heck of a lot harder.

Okay.

And I've seen that.

I'm an educator by training and have been in public policy for a decade.

Just in the decade that I've been in, because of social media, now because of AI, it's changed.

But it changed even before then.

Our longtime president, co-founder, the late Dr. Ed Fulner, passed away last year, said that, and he remained on our board and a close friend of mine, great mentor,

He said up until the last months of his life, he said, Kevin, the change that he had to adapt heritage to, which was the advent of Fox News, which was a good thing, right?

The advent of the very early days of social media, that that paled in comparison to what we were now having to deal with.

Not just we at Heritage, but the whole ecosystem of organizations like ours, the advent of AI.

But one thing in particular, Patrick, that I'll home in on, and that is that everyone can be a self-appointed expert.

Now, I say that with great celebration.

I think that's good.

Heritage is funded not by a few grand white knights in Washington, D.C., but by 565,000 individual members, everyday Americans, which means that although we're headquartered in D.C., we're not of D.C., all of that to say we celebrate the democratization of information.

But to your question, the heart of your question about how that has made our work more difficult, we have to adapt to that.

And so what we've done, the bottom line is continue to do the research,