The 2027 Young Americas Foundation Cruise

The Occupy Movement didn't start on Wall Street. It started in Madison, Wisconsin, when 100,000 protestors descended onto the grounds of the State Capitol soon after Scott Walker took office as Governor. Their goal was to intimidate him and his allies, but he did not back down. He was unintimidated.

Scott's reforms took power from the hands of big government special interests and put it firmly into the hands of the hard-working people of Wisconsin and those that they elect to run their local governments. Those reforms, known as Act 10, have saved taxpayers more than $16 billion. During Governor Walker's tenure, Wisconsin enacted more common-sense conservative reforms than any state in the nation. They targeted him, and he won, becoming the first Governor in American history to win a recall election.

Now, Scott serves as president of Young America's Foundation, which trains the next generation of leaders in the fight for freedom. YAF conducts programs at the Reagan Ranch, Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, its national headquarters in northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and regional sites nationwide. YAF also hosts more conservative campus lectures than any other organization and has a digital presence with more than one billion views.

Scott has been married to Tonette for more than 30 years. They live on Pewaukee Lake in Wisconsin while also spending time in Virginia and California. Scott and Tonette have two adult children.

Born the son of a pastor and a part-time bookkeeper and raised in a small town, Scott understands the value of hard work and community. He is a proud Eagle Scout and an alum of the American Legion's Badger Boys State and Boys Nations programs. When he's not working, Scott can be found riding on his Harley Davidson Road King, on their pontoon boat out on the lake, or cheering on the Packers or one of Wisconsin's other sports teams. Most importantly, he is a follower of Christ.

Jason S. Miyares served as the 48th Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2022 to 2026, becoming the first Latino-American elected to statewide office in Virginia. As the Commonwealth’s chief legal officer, he led the Office of the Attorney General and represented the interests of more than eight million Virginians. 

In 2015, Mr. Miyares was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. During his tenure in the General Assembly, he built a reputation for his work on criminal law, constitutional issues, and government accountability.  

In 2021, Virginians elected Mr. Miyares as Attorney General. He led the Office of the Attorney General through major legal actions involving corporate misconduct, multistate consumer protection, and constitutional litigation, while continuing to represent the Commonwealth in state and federal courts. 

Investigative journalist and author Peter Schweizer is a 5 time #1 New York Times bestselling author,  most recently of The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon. Schweizer is an alumnus of Young America’s Foundation’s programs and also serves as a YAF director.

Prior to founding the Governmental Accountability Institute in 2012, Peter was a consultant to the Office of Presidential Speechwriting in the White House for President George W. Bush. He has also served as a member of the Ultraterrorism Study Group at the U.S. government’s Sandia National Laboratory and is a former consultant to NBC News. His books have been translated into eleven languages, and he is a frequent guest commentator on television networks, radio talk shows, and podcasts. He is also the host of GAI’s own weekly podcast, The Drill Down, which relentlessly exposes cronyism and corruption in Washington.

Peter’s investigative work has appeared on the frontpages of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal,  as well as two segments on 60 Minutes.

His other nonfiction books include Reagan’s War (Doubleday, 2002), which the Washington Post praised as “A fascinating, well-written, useful and important look at one of the three or four most important American political leaders of the 20th century. No serious assessment of the 40th President of the United States can ignore the central importance of anti-communism in his career; after Schweizer none will.”

The Los Angeles Times called it “A rousing and compelling case that Reagan’s personal and political odyssey…was central to bringing down the ‘evil empire.'”

He is also the co-author of The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty (Doubleday, 2004), which the New York Times called “Fascinating…Provides illuminating insights into the internal dynamics of the Bush family dynasty.” The New York Post declared, “If you want to know as fully as can be told the story of how the Bushes rose from Midwestern obscurity to equal the records of families like the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, and the Adamses — this is the book.”

Other nonfiction works include Architects of Ruin (Harper, 2009), Victory (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994), Do As I Say (Not As I Do) (Doubleday, 2005), and Makers and Takers (Doubleday, 2008).

His academic books include Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement (Texas A&M University Press, 2006), The Reagan Presidency: Assessing the Man and His Legacy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), and The Fall Of The Wall: Reassessing the Causes and Consequences of the End of the Cold War (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). He was also a contributor to Living in the Eighties (Oxford University Press, 2008).

His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, National Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs.

Peter received his M. Phil. from Oxford University and his B.A. from George Washington University. He lives in Florida with his wife, Rhonda.