In this episode, we've lined up a trio of compelling guests to keep you informed. First, Congressman Russell Fry, representing South Carolina's 7th District, joins us to discuss critical topics, including the border crisis, Hurricane Idalia's impact on his district, and his bipartisan bill, the Fentanyl Crisis Research and Evaluation Act. Plus, we'll explore the latest developments in the Biden family investigations.

Then, we'll shift our focus to New York's 3rd Congressional District with congressional candidate Kellen Curry where he discusses his bid to unseat incumbent George Santos.

Lastly, friend of the show, Henry Olsen, a Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, will provide insights into the ever-evolving political landscape, including his recent analysis of Trump.

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Congressman Russell Fry is proud to serve the Grand Strand and Pee Dee as their Representative for South Carolina's Seventh Congressional District.Russell is a true believer in the American Dream. Growing up he watched his parents work hard for every penny they earned, and since then Russell has been doing the same. He put himself through his undergraduate education at the University of South Carolina and law school at the Charleston School of Law, where he served as president of the Student Bar Association, helped the school achieve its American Bar Association accreditation, and also received the prestigious Civility Award. After this, he practiced law along the Grand Strand for over a decade.As an Eagle Scout, Russell shares the sentiment that "you should leave your campsite better than you found it." Every day he strives towards a goal that "we should leave our country better than we found it." Growing up, he saw first-hand how government's actions directly affect families living paycheck to paycheck, and he is committed to fighting for those who don't always have a voice.Russell is a public servant and active member of his community. Prior to this role, he represented State House District 106 (Horry County) in South Carolina's General Assembly for seven years. He served as Chief Majority Whip, where he fought for lower taxes, less government, pro-Second Amendment legislation, and pro-life legislation. Russell also chaired the House Opioid Abuse Prevention Study Committee, which resulted in 18 policy initiatives being signed into law and record funding for opioid prevention, education, and treatment.Russell is a loving husband to his wife, Bronwen, and dedicated father to their son, James. The family lives in Murrells Inlet with their chocolate lab, Jasper.

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Kellen Curry

As a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy Kellen spent eight years on active duty delivering critical cyber security technology for our country's military and completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan. After completing his Master of Business Administration degree at George Washington University, Kellen went on to work at J.P. Morgan's Corporate and Investment Banking Division in New York City. Kellen believes his extensive experience working in national security and in our national economy will serve him well in his bid for Congress. Kellen continues to serve our nation in the Air Force Reserves and is a student at Columbia University pursuing a Master of Science in Sports Management where he also volunteers with Positive Coaching Alliance, a non-profit organization which strives to create a positive youth sports environment in communities across the country.In his campaign, Kellen will be focusing on core issues including national defense in the face of rising global threats, economic insecurity due to persistently high inflation, increasing affordability on Long Island and raising the accountability bar in D.C. through ethics reforms.He will also be working to achieve what he calls 'the gold standard of constituency services' which has been absent but is critical to improving the lives of NY-3 residents.

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Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He was the Thomas W. Smith distinguished scholar in residence at Arizona State University for the winter/spring 2023 semester. Olsen began his career as a political consultant at the California firm of Hoffenblum-Mollrich. After three years working for the California Assembly Republican Caucus, he returned to school to become a lawyer. Following law school he clerked for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs on the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and as an associate in the Philadelphia office of Dechert, Price & Rhoads. He then joined the think tank world where he spent the next eighteen years as an executive at a variety of institutions, serving as the President of the Commonwealth Foundation, a Vice President at the Manhattan Institute, and as Vice President and Director, National Research Initiative, at the American Enterprise Institute. He left AEI in 2013 to pursue a career in political analysis and writing at EPPC. During that time his work has appeared in variety of leading publications in America and the United Kingdom. He is the author or co-author of two books, "The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism" and (with Dante J. Scala) "The Four Faces of the Republican Party". His biennial election predictions have been widely praised for the uncanny accuracy, and he is a frequent guest on television and radio programs. Olsen regularly speaks about American political trends and global populism in the United State, Europe, and Australia.

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TRANSCRIPTION

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today, Congressman Russell Fry, represents South Carolina's seventh District. Prior to going to the US Congress, he represented the state House in South Carolina's General Assembly for seven years, served as chief majority whip. And Chuck, we always love Congress members and senators who have served in their local, state house or local government because you just get a perspective that Washington does not offer. So we're very excited to talk with him. He is a fighter for lower taxes, less government, pro-Second Amendment legislation and pro-life legislation. Chuck, if you're pro-life today, you've got to be fighting this fentanyl epidemic, this crisis that is tearing the country apart.

Chuck Warren: 100%. Congressman, you have introduced a bipartisan bill called the Fentanyl Crisis Research and Evaluation Act to learn more about how the fentanyl crisis is impacting America in South Carolina in 2021, you had 1494 deaths due to fentanyl. I mean, that's we can multiply that by 1020 because of the family members it affects, right? Their loved ones, things of that nature. What do we need to do to turn the tide back against this fentanyl crisis?

Congressman Russell Fry: Oh, gosh, there's just a lot. And quite honestly, I don't even know that we have enough time in this segment, but we'll try. The first thing I think is and the first thing is you've got to stop the flow that's at the border. You've got to stop that. You've got to address that. But beyond that, what you have to realize is you need access to care. You need the ability of families to get the resources and the help they need. You need to strengthen law enforcement. And what frustrates me is this is the biggest one of the biggest health care problems that we have in this country. But beyond that, Congress doesn't know a lot about the impact on the economy, on the labor market, on housing, the impact on the Treasury, I mean, all these different things. And the fact that we don't know those frustrates me. I just got there. I'm like, wait a second, y'all don't know these data points that would help dictate good policy. So you got to stop the flow. But beyond that, you need to give lanes for recovery so that people can get back on their feet and get back to work, get back to being normal people. And fentanyl just I mean, we see it every day. 70% of the overdoses in this state are associated with fentanyl alone. And it's similar like that across the country. It's just sad to see.

Chuck Warren: Well, what's so frustrating about this fentanyl crisis is a there is a role for government closing the border, finding out what these data points are, the things you're trying to investigate.

Sam Stone: And pushing people into treatment.

Chuck Warren: Pushing people in treatment. But what's also frustrating for me is just don't take drugs. I mean, you know, I mean, it's that's what's hard about it. Right? And so there's you know, the government has a role in this. And I don't want to pretend it does not law enforcement has a role in this. But there's also a lot of personal responsibility. And I think that's something the communities and churches I mean, the old Nancy Reagan slogan, just say no, which was mocked. I don't know. Maybe we need a campaign like that again.

Congressman Russell Fry: Well, maybe. Look, and I do know that prevention for every dollar that you invest in prevention, you save, I think, $4 in health care costs and $7 in criminal justice costs. So the messaging, the PSA that people put out there, that that education component is just so big. And what's crazy look, I'm 38 years old and we all know people who partake in a little bit of marijuana or whatever. People just do that. And and in some states, it's allowed. Some states it's not. But you know what's crazy? They lived to tell the tale until recently. I mean, it's laced in everything. And that's the that's the crazy people don't go out and seek, you know, let me get some fentanyl. It's usually added into other things. And you hear about West Point cadets, you hear about students, you hear about just really everybody in all walks of life that have to deal with this. And they never live to tell the tale to get back on the recovery. So the prevention side, which you just talked about, that's critical to this.

Sam Stone: Well, and and, Congressman, this is Sam. One of the things that so I've worked a lot with the city of Phoenix. And one of the things that that we know that I don't think the public is fully aware of yet is that Narcan loses effectiveness after a person has had to use it a couple of times. So the more the more someone has overdosed. And right now, we're keeping a lot of these folks alive by having Narcan everywhere. But there are limitations on that. And that's going to result in a increased death toll over time.

Congressman Russell Fry: I'm right. Right. And you know what's frustrating to to that point, we just did this pilot program in South Carolina that I think other places can do. But say you say you overdose, you go to the hospital, you're recovered, you revive, you come around again, and you know what? You have this moment of clarity. At that point. A lot of people do, and they go, I need to get help. And so then they try to go get into a place to get help. And guess what? You got to wait two, three, four weeks to get into a place. Well, guess what? By that time, that addiction has already started to pull you back in and you're back doing the same thing you are again. What we've done in South Carolina, at least here locally, is fast track those people. So when these things happen. But that's one of those barriers to access that just when there's that clarity because everyone hits that point, when there's that clarity and you go, I need to get help, I need help, you got to wait around for 4 or 5, six weeks. If you can even get in somewhere.

Sam Stone: You have to have help available right then and there, right?

Congressman Russell Fry: So you need it. And if you don't have that peer to peer help, if you don't have, you know, medication assisted treatment or whatever, whatever options are out there, if that's not available to you, you're doing the same thing again. And you might not get a second, third and fourth chance in the future. You might overdose and pass away. And that's what we're seeing right now.

Chuck Warren: With Congressman Russell Fry. He represents South Carolina's seventh district. You can catch this interview this weekend in Florence, South Carolina, on Am 1400 and of course, nationwide on other outlets. Congressman, have you talked to local law enforcement about this issue? And what are their what's their feedback to you?

Congressman Russell Fry: Well, I have and unfortunately, in your listening area in Florence, there's a sheriff whose daughter just recently passed away from a fentanyl overdose. And so, again, it affects everybody, but they're seeing just the dramatic growth in it. Their officers are equipped with Narcan. They're seeing it. They're seeing the growth of this drug in rural communities, in urban centers, really everywhere. And it's and it's worse than it's ever been. So they feel frustrated. South Carolina did fortunately pass a law last year. I had when I was in the General Assembly, I was had brought it up. And sometimes these things take a couple of years to get done. But in this one, it just gives tools to law enforcement to be able to crack down on this, to be able to, you know, to unwind some of these some of these drug rings that are that are around. And so that's a big component to this, too. But they're feeling it and they see it every day. And they have to train their officers on how to deal with it because it's a dangerous substance that if it gets on your skin, one of their own might go down.

Sam Stone: Yeah, we've seen that across the country with police officers who have been overdosed from from very minor exposure to fentanyl during their interactions with the public. So it's a huge issue. But Congressman, one of the things and I know you've been a big fighter for a secure border, but it seems like this is not a problem we're going to be able to address unless we start getting control of the border. And the data that just come out shows that not only are we not doing anything realistically to get control of the border, the problem is worse than it's ever been. Over 90,000 people detained by Border Patrol last month, you know, beating a May 2019 record.

Chuck Warren: And that's who they.

Sam Stone: Caught and that's who they caught. The fentanyl dealers are not the ones those are the ones who are turning themselves over to Border Patrol to begin the asylum process. The people were not catching are the fentanyl traffickers, the dealers, the cartel members. Right. How do we address this unless we start really securing our border?

Congressman Russell Fry: Well, you can't. And that's been my message even before I got to Congress. And just doing dealing with opioids in the state level, you cannot begin to address the issue until you shut off the hose, until you shut off the flow. And it doesn't mean you can't start start trying and keep trying. South Carolina's always going to do that. Local governments are always going to keep trying to address it, but they're not in the position that the federal government is to deal with the flow. And when you have the administration touts the record amount of fentanyl that they've seized, that's great. But there's so much more that's coming through the border. We know that. We know the precursors, the chemicals are coming from China. We know that they're being manufactured. And just south we know that the cartels are shipping them up and they're not dummies. They will flood an area with 100 200 migrants and then two miles up the road, they'll sneak a you know, they'll sneak fentanyl across the border or, you know, human smuggling or human trafficking. They'll do that because all the resources are dealing with the 200 people that are just sitting there in this section of Yuma or wherever they might be. It's obscene.

Chuck Warren: Well, with Congressman Russell Fry, you can get him on Twitter at Russell Fry, SC. Congressman, you you're your district was just hit by the hurricane. How is everybody doing? How's everybody coping out there?

Congressman Russell Fry: I think okay. I mean, we were very fortunate. I mean, there was some tornadic activity up in the Cherry Grove section along the coast. And so you had some homes that were damaged. You have a road that that looks like it took some damage. But I would say overall, we were very fortunate. I think the storm, you know, there's never a. A great time for a storm to hit. But when it's low tide and the storm arrives, you don't have the storm surge. It was moving very quickly, so it didn't stay here long. You know, it rained five and a half, six inches, which is a lot. But it was able we were able to largely absorb it. So I think overall, we were very blessed in dealing with it. And so some some things to recover from, but not as bad as Florida and not as bad as prior storms in our area.

Sam Stone: Congressman, we have just about two minutes before we go to break. And folks, we're going to be coming back with more from congressman here in just a moment. But one of the things I kind of Chuck and I have been kind of talking about these last couple of days watching this hurricane is that I think the almost every American citizen would would give thanks to God that this did not end up being a worse situation than it was, that it was not the catastrophe that was predicted. But what is kind of disconcerting to me is that it seems like the corporate media, the left media, even some Democrat officials, there was almost a palpable sense of disappointment that these two hurricanes that we've just had, the one on the West Coast and this one neither delivered the kind of catastrophe that that they almost seem to be hoping for.

Congressman Russell Fry: No, it's it's it's wild. And they drive clicks and they spin up fear. We actually had some and I won't tell you who, but we had some news interviews that were canceled. And I just have to assume that it was it wasn't it wasn't chaotic enough for them. But regardless, I think I think you're right. And and it's sad to see people get spun up. We've been dealing with storms since forever. And in 1957, we had Hurricane Hazel that wreaked havoc. It was way before my time. But you talk to people, it was, I think, a Category 4 or 5 that hit this area directly. These storms are you know, they they are problematic. But what makes it worse is just the the doomsday scenarios from the media. People just need to be prepared. They need to listen to their, you know, their local local officials and state officials on how to deal with this. But then that's when FEMA comes in on the back end, is to help the recovery.

Sam Stone: Yeah, absolutely. Breaking is going to be back in just a moment with more from Congressman Russell Fry.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be continuing on in just a moment with more from Congressman Russell Fry of South Carolina's seventh District. But first, folks, how's your portfolio doing? Been an up and down, another up and down week in the Biden stock market. What if you could earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return instead of taking all that risk up to 10.25% fixed? It's a fantastic opportunity from our friends at Y refy. Check them out, invest, yrefy.com or give them a call at 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. All right, Congressman, before we went to break, we were talking a little bit about the issues with fentanyl, the border. And you mentioned that something I think a lot of people are becoming aware of is that the precursor chemicals for the fentanyl that we're seeing coming into the country for the meth, that is vastly more powerful than it was just a few years ago. That is coming into this country with the the tranq and other new designer drugs, the precursor chemicals are all coming to Mexico where they're turned into drugs. They're coming from China. What can we do to try to stop that pipeline?

Congressman Russell Fry: Well, I think I think you've got to have a realistic one. I think that there are and we we saw this a little bit with with the Trump administration in the early stages. But you've got to stop that flow. You've got to be able to sanction those companies, stop the flow, take, you know, and look, China needs to be a willing participant here, too. And that's the frustration that I have right now, is that there was a there was an op ed the other day talking about fentanyl from a Biden administration official, but they never mentioned China. Well, they have a big role here. These chemicals are manufactured over there and they're shipped across to the cartels who put it all together and make fentanyl. And so they've got to be a willing participant. But you've got to have an administration that actually wakes up and says, we know this is coming from our southern border. We know the chemicals are coming from China. And up to this point, they're not really talking about that. And I think that's the big that's the biggest frustration.

Sam Stone: You're asking Joe Biden to wake up. There's no evidence that's possible.

Chuck Warren: I mean, look, if you're China and you want to hurt your competitor, I won't say we're there. Amy, let's say were their number one competitor. What do you do? You flood their country with things that will cause devastation, Right? It's an unseen war that.

Sam Stone: Fentanyl, meth.

Chuck Warren: Tiktok, it's not the same as firing a missile, but it has the same effect. All due respect.

Congressman Russell Fry: Well, in a lot of these companies, too, I mean, they have multiple locations in different spots, right? I mean, they're just they're usually not just isolated in China. You know, these are big companies. And so they need to have some skin in the game. You need to be able to you need to be able to leverage influence there, maybe even tariff or sanction them. But at the end of the day, the flow, you know, China has a spot there. And you know what? Maybe there's there is a nefarious purpose behind this. I believe you're probably right about that. But there are ways to address it. And if they won't, then we need to there are other ways that we can force them to the table. And we need to we need to take a look at that. 300 Americans die every single day from this drug. I mean, it's just astronomical. And, you know, we've used the term poisoning because that's really what it is. It's not an overdose as much as it is fentanyl poisoning in our country. So pulling them to the table, even if they don't want to come, I think has got to be a priority of this administration.

Chuck Warren: With Congressman Russell Fry of South Carolina's seventh District, you can join and help us campaign at Russell Fry SC.com or visit him on Twitter. Russell Fry, SC. First, I have two questions. First, is it true you're the eighth grade ping pong champion?

Congressman Russell Fry: Oh, yeah. I still got the trophy. It wasn't it wasn't a participation trophy either. It was a real trophy.

Chuck Warren: And and and the person you you, you beat, is that person still bitter about that or has he given up? Given up?

Congressman Russell Fry: They probably given up. I don't know. Maybe they're bitter. I haven't talked to that person in a while.

Chuck Warren: But, you know, I think I think we need a social media post with that trophy.

Sam Stone: We'll be coming We'll be coming back with with more from from Congressman Gump here shortly.

Chuck Warren: Exactly. All right. We have Hunter Biden and, you know, the press, which is gives the ultimate cover to the Biden administration. First of the laptop two years later, they admit it. Now we have all these alias names, 5000 emails and archives. Tell our audience what on earth is going on. I saw a tweet this morning. I just replied, The easiest way for Biden to solve this just release all the emails if there's nothing there. Right? I mean, just transparency. So tell people a little bit about it and what House Republicans can do to flesh this out more since the press is going to do everything they can to protect President Biden and Hunter.

Congressman Russell Fry: Well, they're finally starting to pay attention. And I think that's maybe begrudgingly, maybe they don't want to pay attention, but they're finally starting to take notice of what's going on. But the new the new revelation, you know, look, Hunter Biden or Joe Biden had aliases that they used and that's what the Oversight Committee had subpoenaed. They used aliases, you know, Robin Wear and Robert Peters and, you know, different names that they would use. And so we subpoenaed anything that had to deal with those names or those email addresses. And again, it just shows a pattern of conduct with this family. You look at the text messages, you look at the emails, you look at the use of the term the big guy. You look at the 1023 that was released, you look at the the bank transactions and the money that flows from, at this point, four companies ultimately layered through kind of a series of money laundering actions and funneled into 20 LLCs that are all connected to multiple members of the Biden family. So this this again, just shows a course of conduct.

Chuck Warren: And what people, family and what people don't understand is I own several companies, so I have various LLCs for various things. Correct. It takes a lot of work to manage 20 LLCs. You get filings, you get taxes. I mean, so this wasn't done just. To be. I mean, it was done more to be clever and hide something. They don't seem done.

Sam Stone: Admittedly, they don't seem to have paid a lot of attention to the taxes part.

Chuck Warren: No, but would you agree with that? I mean, doing 20 LLCs. I mean, it takes a lot of work.

Congressman Russell Fry: Oh, it's a headache. And most of these LLCs were actually formed while Joe was vice president. That's that's kind of alarming. But to see and I think there was a quote in the 1023. You all have seen it. Your listeners have seen it as well. But it was toward the bottom. And the guy says it will take investigators ten years to figure out what's going on. And that's kind of proven true. I mean, we're on year I think, eight at this point, but it's taken that long because no one, DOJ and others didn't want to actually investigate this. But to when you're dealing with financial stuff, it's just so nebulous and it's hard to follow and it's hard to track and it's hard to keep people's attention. But there is enough smoke here that people realize what's going on. And I think that's why the work that we've done so far has been incredibly important on this and also why I think that this is headed toward an impeachment inquiry. It doesn't mean impeachment. You still have to do your homework and make sure you do your job. But at this point, there's just enough there. There's way more than enough to launch that process.

Chuck Warren: We have about 30s left with you. Tell our audience, tell your constituents why you have faith in America's future.

Congressman Russell Fry: Because I have faith in the American people and their resolve and their ability to take large amounts of information, synthesize them and make an opinion. We're seeing people wake up in a powerful way right now. And and it's not just Republicans. It's really everybody realizing what's going on. The people control this country. They always have. And they see what's going on is is, you know, shameful. But they're ready for for a better tomorrow.

Sam Stone: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Congressman. We very much appreciate your time today. Folks, you can follow him. Chuck, what was that?

Chuck Warren: You can follow him on Twitter, Russell Fry, SC, or you can also visit his website. Russell Frysc.com contribute, volunteer, get involved. He's doing the great work and help him out. Congressman, thank you.

Congressman Russell Fry: Thank you all.

Chuck Warren: Have a great weekend.

Sam Stone: Folks, more from breaking battlegrounds. We're back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with the host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Big thank you to our first guest up today, Congressman Russell Fry. Fantastic discussion with him. And now we're talking to someone. Frankly, Chuck, I think this is going to be one of the most important congressional races for for Republicans in the country in this coming year. It's going to be close. Well, if you.

Chuck Warren: Like honesty in public elections. Yes.

Sam Stone: Yeah, Well, some of us still do. Some some of us believe in truth telling, even even on the air here where almost everyone else wants to lie to you. But, folks, we're not doing that. And that's why we have today Kellen Curry, congressional candidate running against Jorge Santos for New York's third Congressional District. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, one of those places where they don't take liars lightly and spent eight years on active duty delivering critical cybersecurity technology for our country's military. After completing two tours in Afghanistan, Kaelin went on to work at J.P. Morgan's corporate and investment banking division in New York City. Kaelin Curry, welcome to the program.

Kellen Curry: Hey, how are you? Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be talking with you guys this afternoon.

Chuck Warren: So tell us, what did the Air Force do to prepare you to run for Congress and to serve in Congress eventually?

Kellen Curry: Absolutely. I think, you know, every every part of my experience in the Air Force was extremely positive. You know, the culture of serving the country, which, you know, is a culture that I come from my my you know, I'm a third generation veteran. My parents were public servants. Dad was a retired naval officer. Mom is a is a continues to be a decades long federal civil servant. And so just grew up watching them and and they both worked at Tinker Air Force Base right outside of Oklahoma City. And just, you know, I always wanted to have my own story of service. And so I think it was always in my future and going to the Air Force Academy and serving in the Air Force as an officer, you know, just the lessons of leadership, the lessons of of of being in a team and a group where you don't know who's who's a Republican or who's a Democrat, you just your mission focused. And that's the kind of perspective I bring to politics.

Sam Stone: Kellen Considering especially mission focus, one of the things I like about your background, your resume, is the experience in cybersecurity. There are a few people in Congress, in the Senate who are starting to become more aware of that issue. But it's not an area where there's a lot of elected expertise. You talk about mission focus. How much do you think you'll be able to make that your mission to help educate your colleagues about the various issues related to cybersecurity on both sides of the aisle?

Kellen Curry: Absolutely. I think the country has been going through and really all of society has really been going through a learning curve when it comes to cybersecurity. And it's really just a matter of how do we defend and safeguard the information that's that's on that's on our networks. And we're so we're such a networked people in in society today. And so, you know, the first and foremost is just, you know, your hygiene on the Internet. You know, when you use the same password for every website. I know some of us are guilty of that. I know I am sometimes, too. It seems like I'm.

Sam Stone: Looking across at Chuck right now and laughing. Yeah.

Kellen Curry: Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, we live in a in a culture in a society where you got to have a password and login for like everything you touch. And so, you know, that's the first and foremost. And then the other thing is that I think from a national security standpoint is that we just have to invest, we have to invest, and we have to nurture innovation. One of the best things about America is our is our innovative economy, and that flows into our national security. I mean, to the extent that we can nurture that, that innovation in the private sector and then leverage it to use in military applications is what my time in the Air Force was all about. And so, you know, like you said, being able to educate, you know, our lawmakers on how to procure those those technologies, how to make sure that we don't pass regulation, that that stifles that technology is really the biggest thing.

Chuck Warren: What do we do about China? I mean, you were in the military, two tours in Afghanistan. What do we do about China? What do your colleagues you worked with, what what do people actually who defend this country think we should be doing with China? Yeah.

Kellen Curry: Yeah. Well, first and foremost, we have to not overreact. China for sure is a is a near-peer competitor, as we say, in the military. And so they absolutely should be taken serious. But they have a lot of issues and challenges, social challenges on their end, you know, so so it's not like we're going up against an adversary that we cannot be successful in. I think, you know, going back to the innovative economy that I mentioned earlier, we have to make sure that we remain an innovative and capitalistic economy that can produce technologies of the future. You know, you think about you think about China, so much of what they want to you know, how they want to. Place American superpower is, is really through AI and quantum computing and biotechnology and these other things. So we have to continue to make those investments. We also have to do things. For example, the Merchant Marine Academy is located here in my district. And so when you think about how do we sustain naval power in the South China Sea, the merchant Marines are on the front lines of making sure that we're able to do that because they transport so much equipment and personnel into the South China Sea. So those are just a few things, a couple of things I would say. And then maybe the last is that we have to reinvigorate our all volunteer military force, which is at an all time low in terms of our propensity for people to serve.

Sam Stone: And I want to talk more about that. And and the merchant Marine issue you brought up Kellen Curry. We're coming right back with more from him. He's running against Jorge Santos in New York's third Congressional District, breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Moran. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be continuing on in just a moment with more from Kellen Curry, congressional candidate running against Jorge Santos in New York's third Congressional District. But before we do, folks, how's that portfolio of yours doing? Are you making money in this stock market, this Biden economy working out for you? It doesn't seem to be working out for most people. That's why Chuck and I recommend you check out our friends and invest. Why refy.com Go to their website. Invest y refy.com Learn how you can earn up to 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right up to 10.25% fixed. You can turn your monthly income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There's no penalty to your principal if you need to withdraw your money early. This is a fantastic opportunity. So check it out. Go to investyrefy.com or give them a call at 888 yrefy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you.

Chuck Warren: Well, we're with Kellen Curry here. He is running for Congress in New York, three against Jorge Santos. And you can learn more about him at Kellen Currycomb. Sam wants to follow up with some questions on the Merchant Marines.

Sam Stone: Go ahead, Sam. Yeah, so that's actually Kellen, thank you for bringing that up because that's actually something that hasn't come up here before. I know a little bit about it from a friend who went through the Merchant Marine Academy. But one of the big underlying issues to national security that I don't think most people understand is our ability to transport goods and troops in wartime crisis. And to do that, you need US flagged carriers and we don't have many of them. And that's a huge issue. And we don't have enough merchant marine sailors. And that's another huge issue.

Kellen Curry: Absolutely. I mean, if you if you think about it, over 90% of the ships that come in and out of American ports are, you know, our foreign crews. And so you could expect that in a conflict that China, they will do all they can to put pressure on those foreign crews and on those host governments not to make good on deliveries to our ports. And we saw what can happen with this during the pandemic. You know, when store shelves went bare and, you know, the American economy was crippled, supply chains became dislocated. So we have to be able to continue our economy even if we do get into, you know, a a hot war, if you will, in the South China Sea with with China. But, you know, to your other point, the vast majority of the military's equipment and personnel actually moves on sea. And so we have to have that capability. It has to be something that's real and that's a deterrent effect and that China understands that we can sustain ourselves in a in a naval, you know, in a naval conflict or just a naval operation in in the in that region, particularly in the South China Sea. And so, so much of this capacity over the last, you know, three or 4 or 5 decades has really left our country. And it's it's been outsourced. And so we have to work and think about how we bring more of that capability back to America. You know, we've seen industrial policy in the microchip space, and we're going to have to do a industrial policy to bring the merchant marine presence back to our country, increase the number of sealift officers, the number of merchant Marine officers, which the Merchant Marine Academy produces. And this is you know, this is one of the crown jewels of our district. It's one of the crown jewels of the nation. We need a strong federal partner for that academy. And I look forward to being that in Congress.

Sam Stone: You know, one of the things I think that's underreported also, we had a different congressman on our program. Hopefully you'll be joining him in office fairly soon. But one of the things he pointed out was China's aggressive efforts via both partnership and intimidation to essentially deny that chain of Pacific islands that the US used in World War Two to eventually get to Japan. But China realizes that that chain is is our ladder in a Pacific war with them, and they're really doing a lot to take it away. You talk about that ability to deliver equipment that becomes doubly critical in this situation where we can't count on our ability to fly troops and resources into those islands.

Kellen Curry: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so much of so much of how we posture to be successful against China is really going to depend on our allies in that region to make sure that we have basing options, that we have places where we can stage and host our troops and our and our equipment in a way that that China can't can't penetrate. And so it's positive that we recently had a trilateral at Camp David with some of the nations there, mainly Japan and South Korea and America. Of course, Japan and South Korea have been, you know, at odds for quite some time. And so our ability to bring those nations together is extremely important. The administration just you know, we did a big bill out of the House that eventually passed the Senate and was signed into law to. To deliver more aid to Taiwan in a way that we haven't done in the past. And so I think the administration just released about two. 2 billion or so to make sure we operationalize that that that that legislation. So that's that's a good thing. I mean, one thing about America that's unrivaled is our alliances around the world. I mean, it's a tremendous source of soft power, the ability of an American president to pick up the phone and call somebody anywhere in the world. And, you know, eight, nine times out of ten get a favorable response is is really, really important. It's going to be important against against the fight against China. So it's good that we have an administration that recognizes that. And that's one area that I do support this administration on.

Sam Stone: See, Chuck, I love it when we get congressional candidates and people running for office for the first time who can talk about this whole variety wide range of geopolitical issues, because that kind of knowledge. Kalen Curry that you're just displaying is is rare for people who are entering Congress. And folks, you need to check him out and follow him at Kellen Kellen underscore Curry on Twitter. You can go to his website. Kellen Curry.com Definitely go and check him out there and support this man because we need to bring we need to retain control of Congress. We need smart people there who can talk about issues like we've been talking about. And also we need to restore some integrity to this specific seat, because, quite frankly, Jorge Santos is an embarrassment to every Republican in this country.

Chuck Warren: He's a bad Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live skit. Kellen, let me ask you this question. There's two reasons. There's a couple reasons why you said you were running for office besides obviously your service in the Air Force and your tours in Afghanistan. One was running against Jorge Santos because he's ineffective. But number two, you've cited Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan and you called it a disastrous withdrawal. Talk about it a little bit, what that meant to you and the people you served with over there.

Kellen Curry: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was it was heart wrenching, you know, I mean, I spent two tours there. I worked, you know, actually I worked on an old Russian base we were embedded with with our Afghan allies working shoulder to shoulder. It was a very interesting unit. I was I was attached with, you know, we had actually bought about 30 helicopters from the Russians, actually when relations were good in the early 2000. And we were trying to outfit these with new armaments for what was essentially the Afghans, like 82nd Airborne helicopter unit. And so we were doing that work. My job was to do all we could to keep these things in the air and provide all the procurement necessary to do that and to teach the Afghans how to do that as well. And so, you know, you go through things like that. You travel the country doing that work, and then you turn on and you come home and you turn on CNN and you see, you know, people clinging from planes and just the chaos and certainly the 13 Marines that we lost. And there was just there was a better way to exit that country that did not leave, you know, America diminished on the global stage.

Kellen Curry: And I think watching that, certainly every veteran that spent time there watching that and then, of course, you know, by going to the Air Force Academy, I had friends that went there that unfortunately did not come back home. And, you know, you internalize all that and and it moves you, you know, emotionally. And then you look over and you see we have somebody here in Congress who's just wholly unfit. And the fact is that our veterans and the American people writ large, they deserve the best leadership that our country can provide so that we can avoid those situations, but also so we can have trust that the agenda that our elected representatives are pursuing is, is the agenda of the people and not their own personal agenda. And so, you know, all of those things, I think moved me to to think about how I could serve again. And and this was something that that that came up. And I did a lot of the research and asked a lot of the questions and eventually got to the point where I decided to go for it. And here I am.

Chuck Warren: Well, we certainly need more leaders like you in Congress and you've had some great life experiences. So, for example, you ran the 60m at the Air Force Academy. What did track and field teach you about leadership?

Kellen Curry: Yeah, you know, I've always been active in sports. And I think, you know, for me as an athlete, you know, you've got mom and dad there to, you know, to make you into the person that that you that you eventually become. But but something happens in that relationship with coaches and with athletes that's just special. And it enriches the life of a young person. You know, Track did that for me. High school football did that for me. I still stay in touch with coaches from high school. Wait, what.

Sam Stone: Position did you play? We got to we got to get the important stuff in here.

Kellen Curry: Yeah, I was a I was a defensive back. I didn't have any hands, so I couldn't catch anything. So they put me on that side of the ball. But. But yeah, man, I enjoyed sports of all kind and just the relationship building. Being in the team building and in the lessons that you learn from those experiences, they just make you a well rounded person and and enjoy traveling the country and running track at the Air Force Academy. It was a real highlight for me.

Sam Stone: All right. So so now we know you were a DB. So the important question becomes, are you a Deion Sanders DB or are you covering everybody, locking them up or are you Troy Polamalu? You're coming in there to knock their head off?

Kellen Curry: I'm covering them up, man.

Chuck Warren: Yeah, Yeah. You're a blanket.

Kellen Curry: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was only like £160 soaking wet, so there wasn't a whole lot of hitting I could do, but. But I could run and I could run and chase and cover folks. And so, so really enjoyed the ups and downs of what you learn in that sport and just in sports in general. So really enjoyed competing.

Chuck Warren: You worked in investment banking after the Air Force One issue you're going to have to deal with when you're elected is our deficit in national debt are it's just not a path we can continue. What do you propose we do on it? How do we pay down our debt? How do we get our finances in order?

Kellen Curry: Yeah, I think the first thing we have to do is we have to be honest with the American people about where we are. I mean, the fact is we're not going to cut our way out of this hole. We're not going to, you know, grow our way out of the hole in terms of, you know, achieving, you know, astronomical GDP growth rates year over year. I think in order to bend the curve on the debt, we're going to have to get away from annual deficit spending at some point. And and listen, we are transitioning right now from a low interest rate environment to a high interest rate environment. So the interest on the debt is going to become more material than what we've seen in the past, and it's going to create more pain. So, you know, some of the first things that I think we're going to have to do is we're going to have to get our arms around how do we make our entitlement programs more solvent. We know that Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, these programs are going to become insolvent here in the next ten, 15, 20 years. And so we've got to get serious about how do we restructure these things and do it in a way where Democrats aren't going to go out and say, oh, here comes the Republicans again. They're going to end these programs as you know it and all that. So so we have we need presidential leadership on this issue to move the country in this direction and get serious about it, because it will become something that that begins to crowd out what we can do in the defense space, the investments that we have to make there, and certainly the investments that we have to make on the domestic side as well. But but the entitlement programs is something that's going to be a forcing a forcing function that makes us get real about how we spend and how we allocate money. We definitely need more members of Congress who are going to hold the line on spending as we go forward here in the next several decades.

Sam Stone: Kellen, we have only about two minutes left here before we let you go. What has been the initial response from folks on the ground there in the third Congressional District in New York? You know, as they're learning about you and that you're taking on Santos in this race.

Kellen Curry: You know, it's been tremendously positive. I think a lot of a lot of what was in the trajectory of the Santos story, I think at this point here, you know, people on the ground are just kind of sick and tired of hearing about the guy.

Chuck Warren: So.

Kellen Curry: You know, they they are they are hungry for what comes next. We are the first campaign that's been out there on doorsteps and the reaction has been positive. They want to know who the candidates are, what they're talking about, what their ideas are for moving the district forward. And they're ready for the stain of of of Mr. Santos to be removed. And so I think at this point, we've all kind of learned our lesson, that we have to wake up and make sure we're paying attention in these elections, that we get out and vote and that we know who we're voting for. And so I think you're going to see a lot of people who are just excited about about doing that work as citizens and taking responsibility to make sure that they get to know the candidates. They're getting to know me. I think they like what they hear and what they see, and I think we're going to be successful here.

Sam Stone: I love that folks. Thank you so much, Kellen Curry. We really appreciate having you on the program today. Folks. You can follow him at Kellen underscore Curry on Twitter at Kellen Currycomb. Make sure you tune in to breaking battlegrounds next week when we're back on the air. But in the meantime, we always have a little extra segment for our podcast listeners. Go to all your favorite podcast places, download us subscribe, and we'll see you next week.

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Sam Stone: All right, Welcome to the podcast. Only segment of breaking battlegrounds. Folks. Thank you for tuning in as always. And special thanks to Congressman Russell Fry and Kellen Curry for their appearances today. Fantastic discussions from them. But now we're continuing on with somebody that, frankly, Chuck, I always loved talking to him more than almost any of our guests, friend of the program and repeat returning guest Henry Olsen, Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Henry, thank you so much, as always, for joining us.

Henry Olsen: Well, thank you, as always for having me back.

Chuck Warren: Henry, Tell us about your new podcast, by the way. Let's get a plug for it. Tell us about it. Sure.

Henry Olsen: My new podcast is called Beyond the Polls, and I interview leading election analysts and poll analysts every two weeks. And we talk about all things political. We talk about the Republican race and we talk about where Biden is. And I always have somebody from one of the key swing states in my segment called State of Play, where the person who's on the ground knows the state best can give you the lowdown. So it's every two weeks you can find it on all the podcast formulas.

Chuck Warren: So since you've been doing that, tell us something that has stood out to you, talking to your guests, a little nugget that has stood out to you.

Henry Olsen: The importance of what I'm calling the double doubters, that if you go back to 2016, the reason the polls were upended is that 18% of Americans didn't like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and they switched in the last week from being undecided or third party voters to backing Trump over 20%. My pollsters, analysts are telling me, are double doubters with respect to Biden and Trump. And that's before the mudslinging between them really starts in earnest. That sounds to me like if we do get the rematch that the polls suggest, we're going to get the same sort of late break that may confound the experts.

Chuck Warren: So that perfect segue into your your column this week. Trump might have the lead in Iowa, but he has one big weakness. What is that weakness?

Henry Olsen: That weakness is churchgoing evangelicals, that they are the group that has swung behind one candidate and propelled them to victory in each of the last three caucuses. Actually, the last four. They gave George W Bush a narrow plurality in 2000. And I spent a week there. And the polls say he's got a lot of support among evangelicals, but the people on the ground may be willing to back him, but they're looking around. They want to see is there somebody better, somebody who supports our values, supports our issues and doesn't have the baggage? Iowa evangelicals historically break late. They wait until the last few months to make a decision. So it's not saying Trump isn't going to win, but don't be surprised if you see them switch to somebody who they think can give them 80% of the fight with 10% of the baggage.

Sam Stone: Now, is it just the baggage or are there specific policies that Trump is weak with them on? The one that popped to my mind was Covid and allowing the closure of churches. Is there something like that that's playing?

Henry Olsen: I'll tell you, I was surprised in my conversations at the lack of policy disagreements. I would have expected more of the evangelicals to note things like that, but also note his backing away from a strongly pro-life stance, saying that the whole point of overturning Roe was to negotiate without saying what he actually stands for. I did not get that from anybody. I really got a question of that. His long standing concerns about his character remain. And the question of is this guy so tied down by his character and legal problems that he can't effectively beat Joe Biden. And they're really scared of Joe Biden.

Chuck Warren: They should be. They should be. Let's do a little switch here and let's talk about the Hunter Biden stuff. Do you feel look, you're in D.C.. You're a columnist for The Washington Post. Do you feel what people call the legacy media is really starting to pay attention to this issue or are they still trying to just sweep it under the floor mat?

Henry Olsen: You know, I would say it's between and it depends on which legacy media outlet you're talking about. There's beginning to be enough there, there. Right. You know, in the sense that you just can't ignore some of the things that are now being said under oath as opposed to things that were being speculated about or which relied on, you know, on emails, copies of emails found on laptops. And so I think we're only 1 or 2 revelations away. If those revelations exist of the legacy media actually having to pay much more attention to it. I think they're no longer in the sweep under the rug. They hope that it goes away. But if it doesn't, I think there's been enough there that they actually will have to turn their attention to it.

Chuck Warren: Do you find any reasonable explanation why he would have 5000 emails under an alias?

Henry Olsen: A reasonable explanation? Yeah.

Chuck Warren: I mean, look, I mean, the easy way to handle this is just release them all. If there's nothing there, there's nothing there. Just make it transparency and embarrass the Republicans. That's an easy way to handle this, right? If there's nothing there.

Henry Olsen: Yeah, well, I never want to get into the argument that stereotypically is offered by autocratic police departments. If you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide.

Sam Stone: Guys, guys, I don't know this. I've got to say, this is like going when you've got this. This is like going to the ATM after 3 a.m. Nothing good is going to come from this. When you have fake email addresses and you're in office, nothing good is ever going to come from that.

Henry Olsen: Yeah.

Henry Olsen: You know, the thing is, I can imagine reasons you would want to do it like evade, you know.

Sam Stone: Like did you see Gretchen Whitmer's guy communicating with her in Greek alphabet letters?

Chuck Warren: Oh, that's cool.

Sam Stone: To avoid FOIA.

Henry Olsen: Yeah. No, I hadn't. I hadn't heard about that one. You know, just goes to show they all should have been watching Bill and Ted because I.

Chuck Warren: Think there's.

Henry Olsen: Greek alphabets when Bill interviewed Socrates. But.

Henry Olsen: You know.

Henry Olsen: I can imagine good reasons for 5000 emails under multiple aliases, depending who he's communicating with. But again, the thing is, at some point, we're going to find out at least some of them. And if they aren't benign, you know, like personal stuff, that you just don't want to have somebody you know, somebody who's you're concerned about hacking and they'll looking for the words Joe Biden. I could imagine that if you were a foreign government and you might want to have malware placed on Joe Biden's personal friends and anything that says Joe Biden gets sent to Beijing. Yeah, I can imagine that as a vice president and wanting to avoid things like that. But again, we'll see whether eventually some of these will be produced. May not be 5000, may be 200, maybe 500. And we'll see what they say.

Chuck Warren: Interesting. If we wrap up here, anything you think we should be looking for here in news the next month or two? Something that's going to pop up that you feel we should keep our eyes on?

Henry Olsen: You know, I think there's the usual, you know, who knows what's going to happen in the counteroffensive in Ukraine? Who knows what's going to happen with the Chinese economy. I would say, though, that, you know, the second debate is going to take place at the end of the month, September 27th, out at the Reagan Library. And it's going to be make or break time for some of these people. You know that the one in Milwaukee was really kind of first impression, kind of like speed dating. The second one is going to find out whether anybody wants to return the phone call. And so I think you're going to see a little bit more fire, a little bit more opposition. And it could be that somebody breaks out or somebody crashes to the earth.

Sam Stone: I would like to see a couple more people drop out before then. I would narrow it to 4 or 5 maybe.

Chuck Warren: I think what's really impressive is the cultural references Henry's used today speed dating and Bill and Ted. That's the most amazing thing of this aspect today. One last question. One last question, Henry. I think Republicans have a really good chance of taking the Senate. What are your thoughts?

Henry Olsen: Absolutely. I think they should be the favorites. Even if Biden wins re-election. That has to do with the math. Yes. You know, so poll came out today or yesterday from a respected pollster showed Jon Tester only getting 43% against either of his opponents, Sherrod Brown. There's been polls show that Brown's in a neck and neck race. But the important thing is where is the longtime incumbent? And he's sitting at 45%, which is roughly around where a Democrat should get flip those two seats. The Republicans control the Senate. And then you've got all the other seats. This is a map that heavily favors Republicans. Joe Manchin haven't even mentioned him. You know, these are three states that Trump carried by between 6 and 30 something points. It's just hard to see where Republicans don't get those 2 or 3 seats. And then it's very hard to see how they would lose other seats that they hold given what are up to throw control back to the Democrats?

Chuck Warren: Well, being a Republican, I have complete faith my party can blow it one way or another. So amen.

Sam Stone: Amen. Our skills are legendary.

Chuck Warren: Henry Olsen, thanks a million for visiting with us today.

Henry Olsen: Thanks for having me on.

Chuck Warren: Folks. This is breaking battlegrounds. We hope you've enjoyed this week's show and we'll be back next week. And if you can visit us at Breaking Battlegrounds or anywhere you find your podcasts. Have a great weekend.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

Join hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone this week on Breaking Battlegrounds for a dynamic lineup of discussions. Our first guest, Governor Joe Lombardo, gives an exclusive update on his journey as Nevada's Governor and shares his perspective on the state's progress and his vision for the road ahead.

Later in the show, we shift gears to explore the complex world of technology with David Sinclair. Sinclair delves into the intricacies of data gathering and behavioral manipulation by tech giants. Gain a deeper understanding of how these companies collect and leverage user data.

Concluding the episode, Rachel Walden, Mesa Public Schools Governing Board Member, brings a crucial dialogue on school safety to the forefront. Gain insight into the latest agreement in Mesa, AZ, where a significant step has been taken to enhance student safety. Every junior high and high school campus now benefits from the presence of school safety resource officers, fostering a secure learning environment.

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Governor Joe Lombardo

Born in Japan in a military family, Governor Joe Lombardo spent his childhood growing up across the world, until his father was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base and his family put down roots in Las Vegas.

Governor Lombardo attended Rancho High School in North Las Vegas, before going on to attend the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. After graduating, he served in the United States Army and in the Nevada National Guard.

Following his military service, Governor Lombardo joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), where he quickly rose through the ranks and served on nearly every level of LVMPD, from detective to assistant sheriff. While serving at LVMPD, Governor Lombardo earned his Master of Science in Crisis Management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2006.

After 26 years on the force, Governor Lombardo was elected as Sheriff of Clark County in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. As the sheriff of Nevada's largest county, he oversaw a $1.3 billion dollar budget, 6,000 employees, and LVMPD's efforts to protect millions of Clark County residents and visitors each day.

Governor Lombardo was elected as the 31st Governor of Nevada in November 2022 and sworn into office in January 2023. Governor Lombardo is focused on diversifying and revitalizing Nevada's economy, restoring law and order in communities across the state, and bringing excellence, school choice, and accountability to Nevada's education system.

More important to him than anything, Governor Lombardo is a devoted husband to First Lady Donna Lombardo, a dedicated father to his daughter Morgan, stepdaughter Lacey, stepson Jackson, and a grandfather to his 1-year-old grandson Teddy

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David Sinclair is the founder and CEO of 4FreedomMobile. A secure mobile service platform that provides secure, unlimited talk, text and high-speed data worldwide, while preventing tech companies, network operators, and others from tracking users' location, identity, communications, internet activity, payments, and more.

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Rachel Walden is a member of the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board, the largest school district in the state. As a Governing member she has prioritized academic achievement, parental rights, fiscal responsibility, and transparency.

TRANSCRIPTION

Chuck Warren

We met with Governor Joe Lombardo today. He is the governor, the 20th most popular governor in the United States. How does it feel to be in the top 20?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Was it 20 or 27? 20th?

Chuck Warren

20th, 57% approval, 20th. Most popular. You should. It feels.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Good. I just don't know how comprehensive the poll is. Right. I mean, but it's good that in the short tenure seven months. Right. That people the word is getting out. What we're trying to achieve here in the state of Nevada and what we're trying to achieve for the conservative side of the Republican Party and and the decisions we're making along the way and how we're competing with the state legislature that's in the verge of a supermajority. And and and yet we're still getting work done. So I think people recognize that.

Chuck Warren

That's fantastic. I flew out from Milwaukee this morning and I was talking to a gentleman doing my shoeshine, and he said, I said, Who is your favorite politician? Because he knew that there were RNC meetings there. Where were you at? Milwaukee.

Gov Joe Lombardo

You were in the airport in Milwaukee. Okay.

Chuck Warren

And I said, Who's your favorite politician? Because he was asking a lot of political questions. And he said, Tommy Thompson. And I said, Why is that? He goes, I could just trust him. And it seems like something we're facing now as people don't trust their elected officials anymore. So how do you being truly outnumbered in the legislature develop this trust not only with the voters of Nevada, but the legislature, so that they know that when I deal with Governor Lombardo, his word means something?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, that's a good point. Well, hopefully part of it and the trust factor is my previous career. Right. Being a law enforcement official for 34 years, almost 35 years, and and being the sheriff, the top dog in Clark County, Nevada. You know, we went through a lot of crisis during my tenure and our response and leadership and doing what I say I'm going to do and actually doing it is a big deal for politicians. You know, it's quite often you hear people complain that they say they're going to do stuff, especially during the campaign periods, and it actually doesn't get done right. It's just a sound bite to garner votes. And I think it's important that you do exactly what people say, and that's what we've done or not say but expect. And that's what we've done in our short tenure. And I made that promise on the campaign trail. You know, I'm not going to make these flamboyant statements thinking it's just going to be arbitrary statements to garner votes. Right. You know, an example I'll give you is we had a debate here. There was. Can believe it was either 6 or 7 Folks were vying for the Republican nomination for the governorship, and one of the questions was presented about bringing the National Guard to the border states.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Okay. And whether I would support that. And that was the only one dissenter on that question. And the reason being is I know how you use the National Guard. I know the cost of the National Guard and its intent. You know, it's for protection of your own borders within your own state. And you have those individuals are tasked with personal jobs that are usually part time soldiers and and they have their careers. And so you can't arbitrarily willy nilly make decisions on that kind of resource for something that is, they say it's not in our backyard. Right. And people trust that. And you have a knowledge of exactly what you're talking about and not just, you know, spitballing. Correct. And and so they appreciate those those kind of decisions. But it's all the proof in the pudding per se, right? You know, you do what you say you're going to do and you actually do it.

Chuck Warren

How has it been trying to diversify Nevada's economy? You always hear that is the goal, right? It's always the goal. You have no income. You have no income tax here. So but it's always the goal. But we know the strip commands a lot of attention.

Gov Joe Lombardo

You know what it is, is. Well, first and foremost, every governor and every state in the nation in history has always had that in their platform. Right. Right. Because that's their job. The governor's job is the economy. The environment, education. Right. The economy is diversifying the economy and ensure that you don't have all your eggs in one basket. And that you don't suffer in times of crisis. So unfortunately. But fortunately, you got to take advantage of a crisis, correct? Right. You can't put your head in the sand and say, I'm going to go away. I hope he goes away and then you'll deal with the aftermath. But the important thing is take advantage of it when you can. And what I'm alluding to is Covid. So in the state of Nevada, throughout our history, we've survived. Our economic engine has been gambling and entertainment. And we have all those eggs in that one basket. In previous years, we've seen some certain crises, you know, the Great Recession, you know, part of the the housing crisis and all that, you know, we suffered because that, you know, it's disposable cash that they use in the state of Nevada. And that's the first to go away during times of economic strife. And so we saw some errors in our economic engine or our profile or our program in the state of Nevada, because we were always the first one out and the last one back in in economic recovery. So when you say your goal is to diversify the economy, it's got to be true. It's got to be accurate and you got to put a concerted effort into it getting past an election. Now, repeat what I said earlier. Every governor says that.

Chuck Warren

You have to or you're not going to win.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Right. Right. And and that's one of the responsibilities of government is the economy. And so Covid happens. And once again, we're the first out and the last to come back. And what I mean by last comeback is the last to recover. And but

fortunately here last month, we've had a 4% increase overall since the beginning of my tenure and economic numbers, employment numbers. So that's that's proof that we're getting what we say we're going to do, get it done. So back to your original question, diversifying the economy. We have to expand upon the gambling space. And people realize that now. Now it's not just rhetoric. They're saying, Oh, s**t, we got to do something to fix this. And what I've done in that you talked about our there's no state income tax. Our sales tax is very low or modified, business tax is low and every other revenue source that we utilize in small business and big business is state of Nevada is low across the board. So how can we get track more people? Well, now we start getting into tax incentives. You know, Tesla is the perfect example of that 4 to 1 on return, on dollar, on investment in return. So people see that, oh, you know, that is a good, viable functionality of the economic package that we are able to offer. Every state is offering an economic package in recent legislative session. We're talking about film tax credits. Okay. That's a new hot button item in the economy. Now, film getting the film industry in your state. Education drives the economy. Education drives the companies that want to transfer and and have the labor force available for their companies once they put their roots down. So all that is all part and parcel of what we're trying to achieve.

Chuck Warren

Part of the diversity.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, that's the.

Chuck Warren

Diversity school choice. Does it have a.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Future that does.

Chuck Warren

School choice have a future here? I mean, I.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Know.

Chuck Warren

Teachers unions, they just think like you're asking for the end of the world. If you give kids a choice.

Gov Joe Lombardo

You know, I got to I got to be frank with you on that. You're you're that's usually an accurate statement. But here in southern Nevada, the Clark County Education Association, which is the teachers union here, they I've been working hand in hand with them. They are not opposed to school choice. They're not opposed to school choice. Their primary driver is teacher salaries. Right. And they can't argue against school choice. For one, it polls in the 70th percentile across the board here in the state of Nevada. And two is. Our curriculum is bad. I mean, we're continually ranked at the bottom of the barrel in education, availability, environment and curriculum. So how do you change that? And it's been proven across the United States, in the states that have adopted school choice and the success associated with it. So the unions not necessarily isn't pushing back against that. So they're more defined in how we fix the teacher pipeline. So it's a little bit transactional.

Chuck Warren

We need higher salaries. Then we'll we're not going to stand in the way of this.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, in the. It's a good thing, right? So now so what is preventing it from happening here?

Chuck Warren

You're outnumbered in the legislature, legislature.

Gov Joe Lombardo

We bring it back to the legislature. There's a mechanism here in state of Nevada called Opportunity Scholarships. It's a it's a different form of education savings accounts, where there's a tax benefit of organizations that participate in into the into the program. And, you know, we have 400,000 students in totality in the state of Nevada. It only affects 1400 students. But something as simple as that, you're like, that's pixie dust. As far as budgetary costs, the legislature, legislature pushed back

on it, wanted it to default to the statutory regulation of amount provided to that program. And so as a result, 600 kids were going to lose their scholarships as part of school choice. And so I had to fight tooth and nail, find different funding mechanisms to support that. And it was all the result of the legislature pushing back on it. It's that it's the the left decision in point of context. With school choice, they don't support it. I think it's a detriment to public dollars for private institutions. And if you look at it and understand it and know both sides of it, that's absolutely opposite. It's nothing more than an opportunity for our kids to get educated.

Chuck Warren

Your families used to you being in the spotlight. We have a minute left. How do they like. We only have a minute. A minute left. Yeah, you had lots of say. They're in the spotlight again as governors in 20 years. Clark County sheriff. Now they're governor first, the first family in Nevada. How are they liking it?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Did you say 20 years? As the Clark County sheriff?

Chuck Warren

Is that what you were?

Gov Joe Lombardo

20 years? I was on the department in totality.

Gov Joe Lombardo

35 years.

Gov Joe Lombardo

35 years. But I was the sheriff for eight years.

Chuck Warren

Okay.

Gov Joe Lombardo

I want to make sure you're accurate.

Chuck Warren

I was not. I was.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Not. I'll read it.

Chuck Warren

I was not I was not accurate. So how do they like how has it been for them?

Gov Joe Lombardo

Um, that's a great question. And to be frank with you, it's so so, you know, it's on a different level of transparency and public. I as the governor, as compared to the sheriff. And, you know, and there's a lot of event driven schedule issues as the governor. And so there's a balance of what what's important for the to the family to show face and and ensure that they're part of what we're doing here. You know, as the governor within the state of Nevada and what's important in the family unit. And so it's a balancing act. It's still early in it. It's overwhelming, I would say, for the family at this point. But we'll work out the schedule. We'll get it worked out. And your uniqueness in the state of Nevada, you know, opposite of where you're from, you know, down in the Phoenix is, you know, the largest metropolitan area is obviously Phoenix. And your capital is there, right? Well, it's opposite here in the state of Nevada. So we got Carson City, where the state capitol is, but the largest metropolitan area is in southern Nevada, Clark County, Las Vegas. So it's a balancing. I have to spend time in both places. I enjoy both places. So that's probably the hardest part for them. Separation.

Chuck Warren

Governor, we appreciate your time today.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Yeah, absolutely.

Chuck Warren

Good luck. Thank you.

Gov Joe Lombardo

Thanks for making the effort to come out and see me.

Chuck Warren

Appreciate it.

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Sam Stone

All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Up next with us, David Sinclair, founder and CEO of For Freedom Mobile, a secure mobile service platform that provides secure, unlimited talk, text and high speed data worldwide while preventing tech companies, network operators and others from tracking users location, identity communications, internet activity payments and more. Folks, I think you'd be shocked at how much data your phone company is collecting on you and what gets done with it. So, David Sinclair, welcome to the program. I had a great time meeting this guy at Freedomfest this year in Memphis. And, you know, he has a wealth of knowledge and background experience that both led him to start this company and then lends expertise to a number of related issues. So, David, thank you for joining us and welcome to the program.

David Sinclair

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Sam Stone

What made you decide to go start for Freedom Mobile?

David Sinclair

So I spent most of the last 30 years living outside the US, primarily working in emerging markets. So countries like Russia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and other countries like that. And what I was doing there was implementing large, complex IT projects for government agencies, nationally owned companies, that sort of thing, some of which included surveillance systems. So we were implementing systems at large mobile operators to track people through their mobile phones, track their locations, monitor their communications, even enable people to, for example, turn on your phone's microphone when you weren't using your phone and listen in to your conversation. Yeah. So implementing these types of surveillance projects in these emerging markets, we saw the way that government agencies could utilize this data. And when I moved back to the US after spending almost 30 years abroad doing this, I was shocked to discover I'm surveilled more in the US than I ever was when I was living abroad. It's crazy. And so that was when I realized, wait a minute, I didn't move back to the land of the free. You know, in the 30 years that I was gone, things have changed. And so I decided that there must be a way to try to stop some of this surveillance. And since I've been implementing it for so long, I began working on technologies to help stop it.

Chuck Warren

How does this compare to other countries you've been in developing countries. How does the surveillance in the United States compare to other countries, these growing markets you've been in?

David Sinclair

Um. I would say that there is much less awareness of the level of surveillance in the US than there is in other countries. Interesting. You know, I will tell you, I had a conversation at the CS, the consumer Trade show in Las Vegas with a woman from Hong Kong, and she flat out said to me. I fully expect that the Chinese government is listening to my conversation through my phone right now with you. And therefore, she didn't want to discuss my topics with me because she was afraid.

Sam Stone

Yeah, that I think, is stunning. And something you said a minute ago, David. We're talking with David Sinclair, founder and CEO for Freedom Mobile. I think people don't realize that this is absolutely true. So somebody in government, whether they

have a warrant or not, they can access, whether it's truly legal or not, they can access your phone, turn on your microphone, turn on your camera, download everything in there right now without you knowing it.

David Sinclair

It is absolutely technically possible to do that. I've personally seen it done. The the thing to understand here in the US is there is a law that requires the mobile operators to collect their subscribers, location, identity, keep a record of every phone call they make and receive, keep a copy of every text message they make and receive, you know, track their internet activity, etcetera. Beyond that, the mobile operators have access to an enormous amount of sensors inside your device. And I'll give you one example. There's a effectively a gyroscope inside your phone. So your phone tracks, whether it's laying on a table or it's moving horizontally, or maybe you're going in an elevator and it's moving vertically, that sort of thing. Using that, they can tell. What time did you wake up this morning? Because the first thing we do, we pick up our phone, right? Sure. So so, you know, mobile operators know your sleep habits. They know that makes sense in your home.

Chuck Warren

Makes sense.

Sam Stone

It's really stunning.

David Sinclair

The amount of data that they have.

Sam Stone

Now. It's not just the gathering of this data, for instance, like for some sort of criminal investigation, But one of the things that you touched on when I was talking with you is behavioral manipulation. And the more data someone has, the easier that becomes. But let's talk about what is behavioral manipulation in the digital world.

David Sinclair

The simplest example of that is manipulating your search results. So back between 2000 and 5 and about 2015, Facebook and Google both were running experience experiments and actually publishing the results to the public in which they showed how by changing people's search results. They could change the actions that those people took. They could change because what do they do? They show you only certain information and they hide from you. Other information that changes the way you think. And as a result, it changes the way you act. And these reports are available on the Internet still to this day. This is something they prove they can do. And today they do that.

Sam Stone

How much are they doing that today? Because I know there have been a lot of people who have said that occurred during, for instance, the last election, and then we should expect it during the next one. But how pervasive is this? I mean, even beyond politics, how much does this stretch into other areas of human behavior?

David Sinclair

So there is a value to the social media companies. I'll give you this. The social media as an example, their business model is the traditional advertising business model. It's driven by eyeballs on ads, right? So they need to drive engagement. A part of the experiments that they ran in the early 2000 was to see if I show people rainbows, unicorns and butterflies. They figured out people stop looking at their app and walk away happy. But if they throw in items that play on people's fears, uncertainties and doubts, those drive a negative emotional response. And guess what? Negative emotional response drives greater engagement. You stay on the app longer. And so while they may show primarily things that you're happy to see and that sort of thing, they also throw in a certain amount of FUD fear, uncertainty and doubt in there to keep you engaged, to keep you emotionally engaged in what you're looking at and keep eyeballs on the screen. And so, you know, I don't have anything against the social media companies doing this because it's a part of their business model. But what people need to recognize, though, is that they are doing this. And what have they begun doing really in the last ten years? A lot more is they play a lot more on people's fears, uncertainties and doubts around topics that have been politicized. And so I believe that a lot of the political fragmentation that we see in our country is driven by the social media companies because they have a commercial vested interest in driving that fragmentation, pitting one group against the other.

Sam Stone

We're going to be coming back with more in just a moment with David Sinclair, founder and CEO of Four Freedom Mobile. Folks, check that out. I believe. David, it's for freedom. Mobilcom. Go on there. You know, it's you need to protect yourself. You need to protect your data. You need to try to limit what some of these foreign and domestic actors have access to because they've proven they're not responsible. Breaking battlegrounds will be coming back with more in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren on the line with us right now, David Sinclair, founder and CEO for Freedom Mobile. We were talking before we went to the break about all the ways that you can your data can be gathered from you, from your mobile device, from any electronic device, and then talking a little bit about how data can be used to manipulate and manipulate behavior. We're seeing that with the social media companies. David, Obviously, I think this can and should be concerning to a lot of people. What do folks need to do to start taking better control of their privacy and protect their their data?

David Sinclair

You know, I'm glad you asked that because there's a low awareness amongst people about how their data is collected and used and often used against them. Things like banks collecting your data in order to determine what interest rate to give you on a loan, How risky an investment are you? Right? And most people don't even think about the things that they could do. There's even less awareness around what people can do to protect their information. Let's start with the simple stuff. Most people have heard of the term VPN. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that, well, if I use a VPN, well then my data is secure. What a VPN does is it encrypts your internet activity. And that's about it. It hides your IP address. Right. Which is often used to determine your location. But it doesn't do any more than that. Your communications are not secure. Your app usage is not secure. Your operating system on your phone is still collecting all this data and sending it back to the people who made your phone. You know, I'll give you a simple example here. The FCC ran a test on iOS and Android phones. And discover that on average, an iOS device sends data on you back to Apple 52 times a day. And Android device sends data on you back to Google 14 times an hour.

Chuck Warren

Oh, my gosh.

David Sinclair

That's more than 300 times a day.

Chuck Warren

Oh, my gosh.

Sam Stone

That's astounding.

David Sinclair

It's shocking. It really is. And Apple has spent, you know, 150, $200 million promoting themselves as Apple equals privacy. I honestly don't believe that.

Chuck Warren

I don't either.

David Sinclair

Apple prevents other apps maybe from collecting your data, but Apple is still collecting your data. Apple is all about creating a unique data set. Who is the Apple consumer generally? They're they're better off. Right. Generally, they're the kind of people companies want to market to.

Sam Stone

Right. Mhm. Well, and regardless of what they intend to do with your data, even Apple isn't truly secure from having that data breached and then, you know, collected by others. Right.

Speaker7

Absolutely.

David Sinclair

Any company that collects any data on you, they're at risk of getting breached. Absolutely. And frankly, that's part of the reason why my company for Freedom Mobile, we don't collect any data on anybody. So people sign up anonymously. All we have is an email address, a phone number, and that's it. So we don't collect their location, we don't collect their identity. We don't collect their communications, internet activity, etcetera. And we provide them with software applications that they can put onto their phone to help prevent anybody else from being able to collect that data either.

Sam Stone

Nice. Nice.

David Sinclair

The other big thing that we do, you know, we started as a software company, just a pure software player, right? Get our apps, put them on your iPhone, get them, put them on your Samsung Android phone. Prevent other people from collecting your data. What we figured out is that the mobile operators themselves, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Are actually some of the biggest data collectors there are in the world. Right. And by the way, each of those three companies has been fined for selling their subscribers real time location data in real time, meaning somebody would go out on the Internet and pay $19 a month and enter a phone number and they would be able to track the location of that phone number, that device, 24 by seven in real time. And that's against the law in the US to sell that. And they've been fined for doing it. They pay the fines. Yeah, I'm sure if they've actually kept doing it. No, no, they'll.

Chuck Warren

Keep doing it because it's just it's a rounding error for them. It doesn't mean anything.

Sam Stone

It's Michael Jordan's shoe. Yeah, right. You pay the fines because you're going to end up making so much more money from what you're doing. We're going to.

Chuck Warren

Pay the fine for each NBA games because they'll make more money on the shoe. Absolutely.

Sam Stone

David, before we go, we have just one minute left. How do folks I think I gave the website earlier, but give that and tell us a little bit more about how people can get connected with for Freedom Mobile.

Speaker7

Sure.

David Sinclair

So the website is for Freedom Mobile. That's the number for Freedom Mobilcom And they can go out to the website and learn all about how they're being, how they're being tracked, how their data is being collected, how hackers are breaking into their phones and stealing their data. And they can also learn about the solutions that we have to help prevent that, including, by the way, helping prevent network operators from being able to track you even.

Sam Stone

I love that. David Sinclair, thank you so much. Folks, check them out for free, T-mobile.com. We're going to have David on from time to time as we go forward, talk about some of these technical issues, because obviously he has a wealth of experience and knows a lot about what's going on that I think the average person needs to know. Breaking battlegrounds. Back with more in just a moment.

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Chuck Warren

Welcome back to the final segment of breaking battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. And Sam Stone is with me here. And we're going to take this time to talk about just some highlights and issues of the day. We appreciate our two

guests. We had David Sinclair, A for Freedom Mobilcom, and then.

Sam Stone

Before that, Chuck.

Chuck Warren

We need to read.

Sam Stone

I got to we got to pay the bills.

Chuck Warren

Pay the bills. Sam, go ahead and talk about why.

Sam Stone

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Chuck Warren

That's well, it's important people are paying $705 more per month for basic goods. So you've got to have your retirement money and something that's going to keep up with inflation.

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Chuck Warren

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Chuck Warren

I appreciate the opportunity the other day to go down. Kiley and I were interviewing Governor Lombardo of Nevada. He was a guest on our show, and he was Sheriff Lombardo, candidate for governor. You know, the one thing I took from him, he's a very blunt man. I think he has a clear vision of what he wants to do. I get the sense when we were talking about school choice, that he understands how to work within the confines of public sector unions because of, you know, being over the sheriff when the largest sheriff's departments in the country.

Sam Stone

Right. Yeah. You're dealing with a huge union presence, multiple unions.

Chuck Warren

I found it interesting and I've said this for years, so it's sort of hit me, hit me hard. I've been saying that the way you take care of the school choice issue is make sure teachers get a great salary. Then they just really don't care. And he said when I made a comment about that and he corrected me quickly, he said, The teachers unions in Clark County are not the problem. It's the legislature. They just simply want higher teacher salary. So he said it's, you know, and they've got almost a supermajority in Nevada for the assembly and State Senate, which is another point. You're going to have some conservatives moaning and groaning about Governor Lombardo's decisions on some things. I think he's taking the Ronald Reagan approach. If I can get 70 or 80% of something, I'm taking it right.

Sam Stone

He's dealing with Democrat, big Democrat majorities in his House and his Senate. You don't get you're not a dictator. You're a governor. Exactly.

Chuck Warren

So I think he's doing a great job. It's going to be interesting to watch him. He is the 20th most popular governor in the country.

Sam Stone

Which is astounding because none of the other swing state governors are that high except for Youngkin.

Chuck Warren

Yeah, he's just he's just done a good job. And I think people appreciate him in Nevada. I think Nevada has changed a little bit. It's probably more getting more towards center like. But they've got a they've got issues out there, party wise organization as almost every state has. So there's that. Um, let's talk about the debate in Milwaukee this week. It got 12.8 million viewers, which is darn good. It's a lot. It is. You know, we keep hearing that the Tucker Trump thing had 180 million views, Folks, that's a lie. It never had that many. First of all, it's not mathematically possible.

Sam Stone

Well, so so I actually saw a really good breakdown on this. And I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to credit Tim Pool of pool Cast, who. Thank you. I think is a very, very good analyst on this kind of stuff because he did a nice job. He said, look, out of those 180 million impressions. Right. Typically what we see on a video is 20% will watch a few minutes. Correct. And then 10% will watch 15, 20 plus minutes and a much smaller number will actually get to the end. So if you watch every every Internet video, viewership starts out much higher and then drops off pretty quickly. So you have.

Chuck Warren

All right, so let's go. So let's go to those numbers real quick. So 200 million, let's say 200 million, 200 million. Okay.

Sam Stone

So 40 million saw at least a couple of minutes of that video. Okay.

Chuck Warren

And then how many saw less than that? So.

Sam Stone

So 160 million. Who just scrolled Buy it on Twitter.

Chuck Warren

Do TV ratings have 12 points? So basically, long story short, folks, more people watch the debate in whole in totality than they ever watch the Tucker Trump debate.

Sam Stone

But more individual eyeballs touched, at least for a few minutes. The Trump thing. Yeah, but.

Chuck Warren

That's just it's.

Sam Stone

Nothing. Look, but I don't want to dismiss that.

Chuck Warren

I don't want to dismiss it. But people are smoking again, Hunter Biden crack pipe. If they think that there's actually 200 million people watching that whole interview.

Sam Stone

Oh, no, that's not the case.

Chuck Warren

It didn't get close. So you probably had 5 million. 6 million watch it in its entirety, probably less.

Sam Stone

Who actually made it to the end? Yeah.

Chuck Warren

Based on the. So again. Aggressive numbers for Trump. Trump did a great strategy. It's the same strategy that Biden used in 2020. You know, he's he's a clear frontrunner. I think the indictments are going to you know, look, I think it's very hard for him to lose the nomination right now.

Sam Stone

I thought he made the absolute right decision in not going into that room.

Chuck Warren

He made it politically right decision.

Sam Stone

Politically right decision. I would add, though, that I actually thought it was a good decision for the country because it changed that debate entirely and it became a much more open, free flowing debate. And one of the things I really like, Chuck, is you had a range of opinions and ideas on that stage.

Chuck Warren

Yes. Yes. I mean, for example, I thought, hey, Nikki Haley was the best one. If you're just basing on poor performance, I mean, you don't have the griefer issues or anything. I just think she was the best performing one.

Sam Stone

I thought she performed very well. Yeah, she.

Chuck Warren

Did.

Sam Stone

She performed well.

Chuck Warren

Vivek has lots of energy. And I think, look, if I was going to if you and I were going to Vegas tonight and saying, put down who's the VP for Trump nominee, I think it's Vivek.

Sam Stone

I would agree with that. I think you know what what I like about Vivek, he's young and inexperienced. He'll say some things sometimes that aren't, you know, don't make much sense or that are kind of wacky. But he's also talking about a vast range of issues all the time. And I don't expect somebody to know everything about everything.

Chuck Warren

Oh, no. I mean, you know, it's funny. The press has been trying to attack him on various issues. Boy, they do not hold Biden to the same accountability for the wackadoodle things.

Sam Stone

He says no. And one of the things I kind of like about Ramaswami, but that is a weakness in this sort of media environment is that he very carefully chooses words. So like, for instance, when he said the climate change agenda is a hoax, right?

Chuck Warren

Not climate change, the agenda. Right.

Sam Stone

The agenda is actually very specifically not saying climate change is a hoax. He's saying the agenda behind it is a hoax and most.

Chuck Warren

Liberals are too stupid to pick that.

Sam Stone

Up. Almost nobody seemed to.

Chuck Warren

Pick that up, which is sad. I think he did well. Um, look, Asa, who's been a guest on this show and a friend of the show, he should not be in this. I love the North Dakota. The North Dakota governor is dedicated to federalism. That's the one thing I really took from the debate. You agree? And I and you and I've talked about this. I think that's really an alternative, truly federalism in our country versus what we're heading towards. You and I have discussed this, and I think he's right about it.

Sam Stone

I think he's 100% right about it. And I think that was something if you looked up there. The governors, including DeSantis, have a very different kind of outlook than the people who are not governors, because I think they've dealt with this federal overreach in a very personal way. Right. And that includes, to some degree, Chris Christie, who I was very impressed with his performance.

Chuck Warren

Well, he's just you know, look, Chris Christie is very good. And, you know, the right just, you know, because he's gone and turned on Trump, he's.

Sam Stone

Got a very low rating, you know, high negative.

Chuck Warren

But would there be a better AG in this country than Chris Christie?

Sam Stone

I tell you what, he'd be a good AG and you know what I like. And and look, folks, I'm an old school Easterner in this sense. I like that he's a brawler and he doesn't have a glass jaw.

Chuck Warren

The chat GPT comment was just incredible. You know what the.

Sam Stone

Best part about that was? Ramaswami had a better comeback, but Christie delivered his line so well that no one even knows Ramaswami hit him back.

Chuck Warren

Yeah, no, absolutely. 100%. So let's talk briefly about how bad the Biden administration example 5428 And today we've got. Is that.

Sam Stone

All? I thought it was much more than that.

Chuck Warren

So based on Bloomberg us and talks with Venezuela over sanctions relief in return for fair elections. So basically, energy expert Phil Flynn explains the hope is lifting the sanctions on Venezuela will be better able to export that now coveted heavy blend of dirty oil that is so good in yielding diesel that is globally undersupplied. Basically, we're making deals with Venezuela, a country that has absolutely been a monster on human rights comparable to Iran.

Sam Stone

Yeah, well worse since in in its recent history is is as bad as any place on the planet.

Chuck Warren

But we're not going to go to Alaska, Texas or Oklahoma. Let's go to Venezuela. It reminded me, Sam, when you and I worked on a sugar project years ago in Florida and the environmentalists did not. They wanted to get rid of all the sugar, Right.

Sam Stone

All the sugar farming in.

Chuck Warren

Florida and Florida and say, where do you get well, Mexico. Well, I remember us asking, well, don't they have the same pollution? Well, yeah, but it's a Mexico. I just sort of feel this is their talking point, right? It's just like they're really not

concerned about it. Let's talk about mortgage rates. So when Trump left office, mortgage rates were 2.9%. Today, they're 7.1 that the higher mortgage rates are going to cost people about $32,000 more or $900 per month.

Sam Stone

You know what? I was seeing two things to that point that I found interesting and troubling. Well, one is troubling. I think the other is actually a great thing. The housing sales. Right now, the vast majority of housing sales right now are people who are being paying cash. So whether it's the BlackRock Vanguard, big companies or it's people who are wealthy enough to just pay cash, the houses that are being sold are only the ones that basically people can buy for cash. Right. And to and I think that's a really bad thing that that speaks to a huge distortion in a market for first time homebuyers.

Chuck Warren

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sam Stone

A really good thing is a new development that people are finally realizing that you don't have to sell your house with a mortgage financed by a bank, that you can sell your house to somebody, issue a mortgage yourself. And as the homeowner, you can make the interest off it.

Chuck Warren

Well, you're going to see a lot of stuff like that. Michelle Ugenti was telling me a conversation that she feels we're getting to the point on home ownership because of the cost as well, that you're going to see sort of a European style where you're just like, I'm just handing it down to my kids, I think.

Sam Stone

Absolutely.

Chuck Warren

You know, and that's.

Sam Stone

Uh, here's one thing in that vein.

Chuck Warren

I don't want to live with my family. Do you know?

Sam Stone

I know I kind of don't. Um, one of the things we're seeing here, like, people don't realize if you haven't really traveled outside the United States, but the size of every living space in the United States is so much vastly larger. Like you go, the bathrooms in European and Asian countries are tiny, the bedrooms are tiny, you know.

Chuck Warren

But they're used to it. They're used to. So we're not. Remember when we were working on a campaign in Florida, down in Miami Dade and the campaign manager, we were driving, if you remember this, and he said he had worked at Publix and Publix lets employees take part of equity. So he sold out his position, had enough money to buy a home. So he was living with his mom and some other relatives. So I said, being a gringo, I said, Are you excited to go and live on your own with his upcoming wife? He goes, Well, no, my mom's going to live with me too. So there are certain cultures just used to it. I think this would be a big adjustment for gringos.

Sam Stone

I think it's a huge adjustment for the gringos, for all of us. And and not only to the crowding, but to frankly, the time has come for us. Housing spaces to shrink.

Chuck Warren

Yeah. By the way, Vivek raised 450 grand the night of the Republic after the Republican debates. Small donors.

Sam Stone

Excellent.

Chuck Warren

Hall Yeah. No, it's a good hall One more thing. Let's talk to Bloomberg here. So the outlook for the federal budget right now is essentially unprecedented crisis sized deficits as far as the eye can see, even through even though the economy appears to be in good health, that prospect is making investors uneasy, as demonstrated by yields on benchmark. Ten year treasuries climbed to 4.3% this week, the highest since 2007. Investors worry that sustained fiscal shortfalls on the scale projected by the CBO could push rates higher, which only puts more pressure on public finances by adding to the government's ballooning interest. Bill's concerns and testified this month after A12 punch, Treasury ramped up debt issuance, heralding a supply deluge that likely will last several quarters. And Fitch ratings unexpectedly downgraded America's sovereign credit rating. Folks, if we don't take care of this, you are going to pay the price. This isn't this isn't monopoly money. You're going to see in higher interest rates, higher inflation. Your paychecks are going to be hit and they're going to come after more taxes. You're going to we just can't do everything.

Sam Stone

And it's going to get a lot worse because we're going to lose reserve currency status. And that's coming, you know, BRICs, which is the alternative now to sort of the Western alliance built around the dollar, Brazil, Russia, India, China, they just added six new members.

Chuck Warren

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, among six countries invited to join BRICs, you know, so they've also invited Ethiopia. Argentina have them. Those are train wrecks. But, well.

Sam Stone

Ethiopia, though the problem is Ethiopia has a huge reserve of rare earth minerals. Yes, that's why they added them.

Chuck Warren

Yep. Yep. It's basically become an anti-Western bloc. Right. Folks, we we appreciate it. We hope you join us for our podcast portion. We're having Rachel Walden on to discuss school boards and resource officers in Mesa. They've made some changes there. And she'll also discuss why school boards important. If you want to get involved, show up at the minimum to your school board meetings, if not, run for school board.

Sam Stone

Rachel's the only Republican on the Mesa Public Schools Board, and it's made a huge difference. Make sure you download and tune in and hear about it.

Chuck Warren

Breaking battlegrounds dot vote. We'll talk to you next week.

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Sam Stone

Welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Chuck, a story you and I both glommed onto in the Arizona Republic came out very recently, showed Mesa public schools had finally will be adding a school resource officer for every single school in the school district. And that's something I know parents and others have been fighting for for quite a while. But one of the changes that instantly jumped to my mind and frankly, it's been tough. We've had a tough time getting resource officers into all those schools. We've gotten pushback from some of the schools, school leaders, some of the school boards, just like we have with Phoenix Union, Tempe, the Tucson school districts, Flagstaff, some of the others that have trended more liberal. But there was a change last election cycle on the Mesa Public School board. And we now have school board member Rachel Walden on the line with us. Rachel is a Republican. She was as I understand it, Rachel, the only Republican elected to that school board.

Rachel Walden

Correct? Yeah. In 2022.

Sam Stone

Yep. And so I really felt like when I saw that story, I said, you know, that's the impact a single school board member can

have that if conservatives go out and get people on these boards.

Chuck Warren

Well, one thing people don't understand is if you really want to change public education, elect a new school board. I mean, I think everybody thinks the legislature and the governor control that. But the you know, the rubber meets the road at the school board. Is that right, Rachel?

Rachel Walden

Yes, it does. The school board has a lot of authority. They direct the entire tone of the district. They oversee the superintendents so they can oversee the goals of the district, the priorities of the district. And they call the shots on what the agenda is every meeting.

Sam Stone

And your role when you came in there, I know you've you know, you're working. Frankly, everything I've heard is you're working very well with your colleagues. But it's very different when someone like you is in that room and on that board and when they're not. Right.

Rachel Walden

Yes. I think I'm the most outspoken board member. A lot of the past meetings, there wasn't much discussion. It felt like the board was a rubber stamp. And people were surprised to know that the board didn't ever meet outside of those meetings because there were so little discussion, so few questions would be asked in those meetings.

Sam Stone

How many people do you think they're just viewing? I see this on the left more than the right, and maybe that's just part of the focus we need to redo. But a lot of folks on the left seem to just be using these as their first step up the political ladder. And it's not really about the kids.

Rachel Walden

I think that we've seen that in school boards. A lot of people that ran for school boards for Mesa were asked to run. It was almost like a community service where people were tapping in and saying, well, we want to make sure these projects get through and keep the status quo. And they'd ask certain people to run. And then on the flip side, too, you do have the people that run as a political stepping stone. And we've seen that with a lot of our elected officials where they often start at school board. At the same time, someone like myself has gotten into school board and then realized that I'm good at government, I have a knack for government. And then there may be other opportunities that come from that too.

Sam Stone

And I think you're earning those opportunities. But one of the differences is you didn't run to start your way up the political ladder. People have been reaching out because you're effective and like, Yeah.

Rachel Walden

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I didn't I had no political ambition whatsoever. When I ran. I was still a stay at home mom. I had left my career and it was all about trying to save the rising generation. It still is. That will always be priority one for me.

Chuck Warren

Rachel, do you feel there's a more important office that people should get involved in? Parents should get involved in the school board.

Rachel Walden

A more important office? Yeah. No, I mean, school board is everything. That's where if you've got kids in the district, if you're concerned about the future of this country, then you absolutely should be involved in school board. It is for everybody. We need every voice speaking out about this, because the boards right now across the state, across the country, are not focused on academic achievement.

Chuck Warren

Do you feel that there's outside groups on the left, like teachers unions, that are really that really go and push to get people to run for school boards here in Arizona?

Rachel Walden

Oh, absolutely. The teacher union is very organized. We had 45 speakers at our last meeting. 45 people signed up for public comment. We haven't seen that since the school shut down and they were all there to just parrot the same talking point. They were teacher unions. They were wearing their matching shirts. They definitely have their own agenda. They definitely have their own people. They want to run.

Sam Stone

You know, one of the things so school resource officers, obviously school safety has become a really big issue. Right. But I you know, and obviously, I think it's a great thing to have an officer there who can help protect the students, but they play a much bigger role than that, too, right? I mean, this isn't just about stopping a school shooting.

Rachel Walden

Yes. Yes. They're often involved in somebody bringing a weapon to school, into vaping and to drugs and to overall discipline where they get called in to to help with with those issues.

Sam Stone

In discipline is actually if you if you look at real surveys of teachers, Chuck. Classroom discipline and the ability to maintain order in their classroom is at least as important as salary when it comes to the conditions that are driving teachers out of schools.

Rachel Walden

That's completely.

Rachel Walden

True.

Rachel Walden

Completely true.

Sam Stone

Rachel. How many? I mean, you know, I obviously, I'm not asking for straight numbers, but how much does that resource officer change the environment in the school when they're there?

Rachel Walden

I think overall, everybody feels better knowing that there is that authority there and that comes from parents that have requested it. People in the community that go. This just makes sense that we have somebody on there with that authority to to help provide safety. And the teachers like it. The principals of requested it. The elementary schools even would like to have school resource officers. We have them in all the junior highs and high schools. But the elementary schools want it too. I mean, we have issues where kids are suspended from school, for example. They still show up at campus. So who's going to who's going to remove that student from campus? Right. We need SROs.

Sam Stone

How when the vote for this to expand them to all the schools came down, was there a lot of opposition? Did you have a bunch of people speaking against it?

Rachel Walden

No, not at all. I don't think anybody spoke out against it.

Sam Stone

That's honestly, I'm surprised to hear that. And I think that's fantastic. Yeah.

Rachel Walden

Well, because the I think part of it is the whole agenda of of the left to to try to make guns a big focus of even though there's way more problems than that. So they kind of can't speak out against it because it goes against the left narrative.

Sam Stone

Well, I mean, frankly, I'm glad to hear that they're starting to take this more seriously because every time we had this when I was with the city of Phoenix, every time there was a request or a push to get more SROs into the Phoenix Union schools, it was, you know, we don't feel safe having somebody with a gun on campus. And this you know, these officers are hunting

our children kind of thing. I'm glad to hear that didn't come up.

Rachel Walden

Yeah, I think there's a lot more stronger voice in Mesa from the community that that does feel safer. I agree with you. I think if we got some of the teachers union people on, they would voice that that same concern. But they're a minority in Mesa.

Sam Stone

How much how much has your being on that board shifted? You know, shifted the school district back to a focus on educational basics.

Rachel Walden

Well, I think it's helped quite a bit because my being on the board has helped a lot of parents get involved and come to the meeting because they feel like there's somebody that represents them. So I hear that all the time from the community. They're more engaged now in what the board is doing. So this time when we did our board goals, they were completely academically focused. That's the first time that's happened. Usually they have other goals in there, maybe something about social emotional learning or counseling or but every every single topic was just graduation rates, proficiency, student outcomes. And I felt like that was a big win for us because it was it was very new to only have those goals.

Sam Stone

That's a big deal, Chuck. I mean, just it's a.

Chuck Warren

Huge deal and people just need to make it part of their daily life to go to these school boards. You can't have teachers union showing 40 people up and we've got to get more. Rachel's on the school board, so we're going to focus on what education is supposed to be. The basics, reading, writing, math.

Sam Stone

Rachel We we do kind of a short segment for the podcast here. We're going to wrap up in just a moment. But how do folks stay up with with the work you're doing at NPS? And then I know you are eyeballing a run at the corporation commission and keep me in. I'm planning to keep that school board seat, which you can do, and I think that'd be great. We need great people on the on the Corp also. But tell folks how they stay in touch with you and your work.

Rachel Walden

So you can follow me online. My handle is at Walden Patriot and. And I post what's going on with the school boards and upcoming meetings and then just put it in your calendar. Right. Everybody's got a smartphone now. Put second Tuesday and second Thursday of the month at 630. It doesn't change except that fall break. That's the only time. And and just make it a point to go even just once a month the last meeting of the month, which is the fourth Tuesday that's open comment so you don't have to know what's going on. You can just come and comment of what you think is important or what you want to see in the schools.

Sam Stone

Love it. Thank you so much. Rachel Walden, member of the Mesa Public School District Board. Really appreciate having you on there. And I love hearing good news about schools, Chuck, because we don't get that enough anymore. We do.

Chuck Warren

Not. Thank you, Rachel. We hope you have a great day.

Rachel Walden

Great. Thank you so much.

Chuck Warren

Thank you. Bye bye.

Sam Stone

Bye now. That was really good, Chuck. I like that. You know, we don't put enough focus on school boards on our side of the aisle. Democrats are so organized from the very, very base up.

Chuck Warren

We have talked you and I have talked many times. There's three areas of influence, the United States that conservatives have simply ignored. Okay. One is universities. And I think it's going to take a while, But but that's going to take a while. But, you know, at the end of the day, you can go and get more of the wealthy. Donors say, I'm going to endow this chair in economics. I mean, you can change that. It's not going to be rapid, but you can really start making a difference on that because at the end of the day, universities are just money horse. And if you go in with $1 million check, they're going to let you do what you want. And it's a simple reality. And I explained this to conservatives all the time. They complain about so- and-so charity, go. Universities are money w****s. They are simply going to go and take the check.

Sam Stone

Well, and that's what I liked about Tom Lewis's move, following all the stuff with Ann Atkinson that we've been talking about and the suppression of free speech at ASU pulling his money out and walking away from them. I think more donors need to use that power, that lever.

Chuck Warren

Yeah, I agree. The second one is journalism. We need to start setting up scholarships, pushing creative and thoughtful conservative college students to get into journalism. But it can't be the journalism where you just go, I'm going to work at the Daily Wire and National Review. Right. You got to you got to go work at the daily papers. You got to go work at Arizona Republic, Las Vegas Review Journal. You got to go look because.

Sam Stone

Your local broadcast Nightly.

Chuck Warren

News, because that is where well, even more so than that, the newspapers, only 6% based on polling get their news on candidates and things from the newspaper. But 2,526% get it from their local news. Well, where's the local news? Get it from from the newspaper?

Sam Stone

Yeah.

Chuck Warren

So it really is 30%. So we really have got to get involved in that. And again, you and I have discussed this. I'm not looking for slanted news. I just want both sides put into it.

Sam Stone

You know, you don't find in almost any publication.

Chuck Warren

No, no, no, they don't. And then the third item is public schools. We've talked about this. Teachers unions are truly one of the greatest threats to our country. I believe that. And frankly, the test results prove that. Now there is a role for parents. They're not doing their job. There's lots of things. But teachers unions are in. For one thing, they're a union representing teachers. If you think the kids are their first priority, then you are smoking Hunter Biden's crack pipe because this is just not reality. And how do you solve this? People think, well, Doocy go and gave a 20% raise in the legislature to teacher salaries. We both know those teachers do not get a 20% salary because it goes elsewhere.

Sam Stone

They got like eight, nine, 10%.

Chuck Warren

So if you want to affect change and it's easy, go run for school board and win. Yeah, I mean, just look what Rachel's done there and she's still in the minority. But there's one reasonable voice there that brings people and then you have to show up. Teachers unions continually pack these meetings with public comments. It's a charade. Everybody should know it, but you need to show up and counter it.

Sam Stone

Yep, absolutely you do. Folks, if you enjoy this, make sure you share it with friends. Get on our subscriber list so you get our content in your email box every single week. And be sure to tune in again next week for Chuck. This is Sam. We're back next week.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds. First up is Orlando Sonza, a U.S. Army Veteran and dedicated Ohioan running in Ohio's First Congressional District. Raised in New Jersey and a West Point graduate, Orlando's journey is a testament to his diverse background and commitment to service. Our second guest is Jason Willick, an Opinion columnist at The Washington Post where he primarily writes about legal matters, political ideas, and foreign affairs. In this episode, he delves into the timely topic of Hunter Biden and the Trump indictments. Don't miss this engaging conversation that brings thought-provoking insights and expert analysis to the forefront.

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Orlando Sonza is a proud Ohioan. A second generation Filipino American, Orlando was raised in New Jersey and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. While there he met his wife, Jessica, a Mexican/Filipino American, fellow Academy classmate, and Cincinnati native.

Orlando graduated top ten in his class at West Point where he majored in political science and minored in systems engineering. Upon graduation, he and Jessica both commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army. Orlando served on active duty as an Infantry Officer and Finance Officer with the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Jason Willick writes a regular Washington Post column on legal issues, political ideas and foreign affairs. Before coming to The Post in 2022, he was an editorial writer and assistant editorial features editor for the Wall Street Journal, and before that a staff writer and associate editor at the American Interest.

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Transcription

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone, Chuck Warren out of the studio for the moment. He will be joining us, we hope, within a few minutes. But we wanted to get rolling with our first guest today, frankly, because he has an amazing background. I'm really looking forward to chatting with Orlando, Sonza, candidate for Ohio's first congressional district and proud Ohioan, second generation Filipino American, raised in New Jersey, attended West Point, graduated top ten in his class, majoring in science, majored in political science, minored in systems engineering. So folks, this guy is no dummy. That is for sure. Orlando, Sonza, welcome to the program.

Orlando Sonza: Sam, Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Great to be here.

Sam Stone: So what made you decide to go to West Point or to try to go that route?

Orlando Sonza: Yeah. You know, I always knew, I think early on in my life that I wanted to join the army. I mean, call it whether it was playing Army men as I was a little kid or that.

Sam Stone: Now are we talking about the little green plastic guys or did you have the metal ones? That's right.

Orlando Sonza: Oh, no, no. It's definitely the little green guys, you know, kicking it back old school, too. Toy Story one, you know, to to those guys. But no, there was a fateful trip that my family and I took. I remember distinctly when I was in eighth grade, of course, growing up in New Jersey, I was just an hour away from Bear Mountain, West Point country. And so we went up there and I saw the cadets in uniform. I saw them marching. I looked out over the Hudson River and I was like, this is the place where I'm going to, this is where I'm going to. And so I made it my commitment. And, you know, I was involved with Junior ROTC in high school, and that kind of just charted the path. And that's how I ended up at the at the academy now.

Sam Stone: So because a lot of us out here are dummies, what exactly is systems engineering?

Orlando Sonza: So systems engineering, you know, is another name for it is industrial engineering. At at West Point every cadet had to minor in an engineering, whether it was nuclear engineering, mechanical, electrical. I didn't know that love kind of. Yeah, yeah. So I really gravitated towards problem solving. And really that's all systems engineering. Industrial engineering is it's how do you solve complex problems, whether it's in business or in manufacturing. And so that's what I chose, not just me, but actually my wife. I don't know if you knew this, Sam, but.

Sam Stone: Folks. Sorry about that. We had a very short technical glitch. We are continuing on with candidate or Lanzo Sansa running for Ohio's first Congressional District, Orlando. When we rudely technologically disconnected you there briefly, you were telling us your wife also, I think, actually went to West Point. So this is an amazing family.

Orlando Sonza: Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, public service and servant leadership that's in our blood. I mean, that's in the signs of blood, whether it's it's me and my story. But my wife, too, is an incredible person because she grew up in Cincinnati, you know, native here in southwest Ohio. And she also found her way to the academy. And that's where we met. We were classmates. We commission together. We graduated together. We served our country for about five years together. And yeah, we're my best friend and also my my co fighter in this thing.

Sam Stone: So and now after that, as I understand, after you both left the military, you moved back to her hometown in Cincinnati. So there's an important question I think we need to ask you here. Ah, yeah. No.

Orlando Sonza: Go ahead. You know it's coming. It's coming.

Sam Stone: Have you become a fan of eating chili on spaghetti?

Orlando Sonza: Look, Sam, I will tell you this, all right? It is Skyline all the way. I don't think I've yet to even taste Gold star, but it's Skyline all the way. But I had the luxury of tasting skyline for the first time, wearing a bib in front of my now father in law, asking for his blessing to marry Jessica. So when I put that coney in my mouth and tasted cinnamon in my chili, I was like, What in the world is this? This is awful. But I got his blessing and I've since acquired the skyline taste.

Sam Stone: So and so. So you actually got a photo of that from that that evening?

Orlando Sonza: No, because I think I spit it all on my bib, so, you know, know it well, but it's ingrained in my memory and so in John's as well.

Sam Stone: So I love that. So Orlando, just a heads up. Chuck is just now rejoined us in studio here, so we'll be continuing on with the both of us. But. All right, great. Hello, Orlando. Orlando.

Orlando Sonza: Good to meet you. Nice to.

Chuck Warren: Meet you.

Sam Stone: One of the things I wanted to get at in your bio, it says you're a second generation Filipino American. One of the things Chuck and I have talked on this program about is, frankly, the patriotism of people who have come to this country and then served in the military and how in many ways we're finding that recent immigrant families are as or more patriotic than than people more so here for generations. They're more so. More so.

Orlando Sonza: Oh, 100%, Sam And, you know, that's something that I grew up. Knowing, you know, and seeing it's, I think, just a false narrative that has been perpetrated by left wing media to showcase that this is something just recent. You know, it is truly immigrant families or that have that life story that showcases that. It is this sense of patriotism, love of country. Commitment to hard work, you know, love of freedom that this country has and the ability to go from nothing to achieving the American dream. That's something I grew up with and saw in New Jersey. It's something that my wife also, you know, that she's she's coming from a parents that have a Mexican American lineage, then also a Filipino American lineage. She saw that as well. So, yeah, that's 100% true today for sure. But it's also been true, you know, for for decades also in our country.

Sam Stone: I like that you brought up the American dream because if you're running for Congress, another thing we've talked about, Chuck, a lot on this show is that the American dream isn't dead, even if there's a lot of people out there who who seem to think it is but one group that across doesn't matter where they came from. But immigrants believe in the American dream.

Chuck Warren: They're the demographic that believes in it.

Sam Stone: Yeah, absolutely. Orlando.

Orlando Sonza: That's right. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Let me ask you a question. So you're running for Congress now out there in Cincinnati. You've had a very illustrious career. You've had some many opportunities to to learn certain aspects of a career. So, for example, I want to ask you what each job has prepared, how each job has prepared you to be in Congress, for example, by going to West Point and serving the military. What? Talents that you acquire and develop that will benefit your constituents in Cincinnati. If you're in Congress.

Orlando Sonza: Yeah. You know, talking specifically to buy West Point and military background, I remember distinctly, you know, every week I would go to the Cadet Barber shop, get a haircut, and there was this poster in one of the, you know, one of the walls at the barber shop and it said West Point, where leaders aren't born. They're made. You know, it's kind of a cliche. It's a it's a funny thing, but it's just so impacted me the first time I saw it, because what I realized was leadership is about going through experiences and challenges and formulating this ability to lead people and lead them well. You know, the good leaders that we've seen in our country, they're not born. They were made by the crucible of adversity. And so whether it was at West Point, but then being able to translate and apply what I learned at the Academy, which was truly a premier leadership institution and applied it in the military, that's what I gleaned back. And I knew that in the military, whether I was leading infantry soldiers or leading finance soldiers in the second half of my military career, what it came down to is how do you motivate, train and inspire people to achieve a common goal but do it in a way that's transformational. And so I took that and then translated it into a post-military career. But I would say first and foremost, it is leadership that I learned at West Point and the military. And that's quite frankly, what we are seeing the lack of today. Right. Whether it's in Congress or at the White House, just Washington and its lack of good leadership is what's crippling for our nation and what people are tired of seeing. They want good, serious leadership that can solve complex, serious problems. That's what I seek to do when elected to Congress.

Sam Stone: It does seem, Chuck, like there's a lack of I was going to say, like Congress and the White House often these days seem rudderless, but I guess that would be more of a Navy analogy. They're bad pathfinders, right? They're not good at following the trails that they need to follow to get where they need to go.

Chuck Warren: No, not at all. You also served as an associate prosecutor for Hamilton County prosecutor's office. What, while serving in that role, what talents can you take to Congress that you learn from there?

Orlando Sonza: You know, it's a lot of problems, right, that are impacting our nation, not just southwest Ohio, but specifically, you know, drawing from my experience as an assistant prosecutor, as an attorney. The problem that we're seeing in southwest Ohio, whether it's the crime that is just continue to escalate the rate of violent crime, that's continuing to escalate across our big cities where Cincinnati you know, I just saw the numbers recently that we've got more juvenile homicides in in years, in decades in Cincinnati, or it's the fentanyl crisis, the opioid epidemic that is impacting southwest Ohio and across the country. You we need someone that can understand how to advocate for the right legislation necessary to reduce the crime in our cities and stop the wave of harmful drugs like fentanyl from destroying more lives. Look, that's that. That goes to the heart of having the right type of laws. And we don't need an actual, you know, legislator that has a law background, but certainly would help, right. Because it is laws and having constitutional laws that would then advance the good goals that we need in order to fix those problems. But as a prosecutor as well, I can speak firsthand to what I saw Fentanyl was doing and the the opioid epidemic was doing for our city and also what violent crime was doing in our city. And so that's what I'm seeking to actually fix and drawing from that experience.

Sam Stone: Yeah, I think that's actually one of the most important things right now for Congress to truly understand is how dramatic a shift fentanyl and then sort of the post 2020 lawlessness has created in this country. It's a really critical issue. We have only about 45 seconds before we go to break here. We're going to be continuing on after the break with Orlando, Sonza, candidate for Ohio's first Congressional district. And folks, make sure you stay tuned for the second half of our program. We're going to have Jason Willick, regular Washington Post columnist, talking about all the legal issues with Hunter, with Trump, all that kind of stuff. So make sure you stay tuned for that. And folks, if you're not already subscribed to our substack, go on our website. Make sure you get all the new episodes of breaking battlegrounds right when they come out for Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We'll be back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Moran. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be continuing on in just a moment with Orlando Sansa, candidate with an amazing background running for Ohio's first congressional district. But before we do that, folks, how is your 401. K doing these days? The market's been up. The market's been down. This Biden economy is not helping folks. It is maybe time for you to consider diversifying your portfolio. You need to check out our friends at invest Y refy. Go to their website, invest the letter Y, then refy.com check them out because you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right. A 10.25 fixed rate of return in this economy is a fantastic opportunity. So go to that website. Check them out. You're not going to regret it. Invest the letter Y, then refy.com.

Chuck Warren: So you're running for Congress. What is it? Why should people vote for you versus the Democrat incumbent?

Orlando Sonza: Yeah, you know, it comes down to really what we've seen that Ohioans want today. They don't want the identity politics. What they want is serious leadership representing them in Washington. Who has the background and experience as a problem solver capable of understanding the complex issues impacting our nation? And, you know, unlike my opponent, I'm not interested in focusing on attention grabbing headlines like, for example, posing shirtless on the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer to show off personal tattoos as a sitting US congressman.

Sam Stone: Was he riding behind Vladimir Putin on his horse?

Orlando Sonza: I don't know.

Orlando Sonza: About that, but he was on top of a rooftop and that was his first headliner as a US congressman. It's like, are you kidding me? You know, it's like, what about highlighting weird times?

Chuck Warren: What times? You know what?

Chuck Warren: Weird times.

Sam Stone: Yeah, that's, you know, that's really bizarre. Orlando.

Orlando Sonza: Well, you know, I say it. I wish I could make it up. But what it really highlights is the the leaders that we have in Washington, Greg Landsman is no exception. He's just completely out of touch for his role as a congressman and how he seeks to actually solve these complex issues of today. We're talking about a guy who is completely off when it comes to trying to fix inflation. You know, yesterday or two days ago, he decides to highlight on Twitter, you know, this infrastructure bill that got passed last year and how because of.

Sam Stone: His call that the pedestrian bridges to nowhere bill.

Orlando Sonza: Yeah right and and you know yeah it's great if we have a new Brent Spence Bridge here in Cincinnati connecting northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. But look, if our city continues to be crime ridden, if fentanyl continues to be in our streets, if our wallets are still being wreaked by inflation, then what? What good is a bridge? And my question to Landsman is, you know, why was your first position when this whole debt ceiling debacle unfolded? Why was your first position to increase government spending with no cut, with no cuts in spending? It's like, are you are you kidding me? It's like, you know, let's perpetuate the problem to solve the problem.

Sam Stone: You know, your experience as a prosecutor, you see a lot of people on a day to day basis who are really living on the edge, who a few hundred dollars a month can be the difference between them potentially participating in crime or ending up on the street or having all sorts of issues. And here we have an economy that news just came out $700 per month per family is the cost of the Biden inflation that Landsman and these others are are cheering on. That's right. How much of an impact does that have on the people of your district?

Orlando Sonza: It it has a huge impact. And look, it doesn't take a CPA like me, you know, with a master's in tax to realize that inflation has a direct impact on the wallets of Americans, everyday Americans, middle class Americans, especially me. Where to your point, I saw the same statistic $700 more a month than two years ago. And what is that actually speaking of? That's the rise in just the cost of living of our utility bills. I mean, we are talking about, you know, Greg Landsman being one of the ones that voted no on the very bill, H.R. one, that seeks to reduce our monthly gas and electric bills. Well, that's contributing to the $700 more a month than Americans are spending. It's the fact that we even have this thing called, you know, an electric and energy poverty in our country. And he doesn't want to fix it by the very bill that can lower the cost of gas and electricity for everyday Americans, completely out of touch. And so ultimately, what I'm seeking to do is to showcase to southwest Ohio that we have the opportunity here to bring back serious leadership. Not a. Attention grabbing antics. Back to Washington for southwest Ohio. Let's roll up our sleeves and let's actually get things done and achieve the things we want to achieve for Ohioans.

Sam Stone: We have about 3.5 minutes left. Chuck, you have experience as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill. I've worked at the city of Phoenix. I think one of the things that we would both probably agree on is that when you find a member of Congress or any elected body who has that one issue that they are passionate about.

Chuck Warren: You can tell you can tell it's sincerity when they talk about it.

Sam Stone: Orlando, what for you is that issue that drives you?

Orlando Sonza: Yeah, you know, we haven't touched on it yet. Right. But my ultimate motivation for jumping in this race is my four kids. You know, I'm raising alongside Jessica, four kids under the age of eight, seven, five, three and one. So when we're talking about protecting them and also achieving an America that is safe and secure for them, it also speaks to my parenting and the ability to make the best decisions for them. So what's the issue that's near and dear to my heart that's resounding with a lot of Southwest Ohioans? It's standing up for the family, whether it's the parents or the kids, and whether it's just simply standing up for parental rights with the the the Parents Bill of Rights, where you have landsmen voting no on simply affirming that we parents have a right to know what happens in our kids schools or to make the best educational decisions for our kids. I mean, that's bar none. First and foremost, we need to stand up for our parents and then also stand up for the safety and well-being for our kids so that they thrive. That is the number one issue that I think transcends all these other issues, whether it's fixing our economy for them, securing America for them, or just making sure that they thrive as they grow up in this country. That's what's motivating me to get into this fight. Get into this fight with no district map, Right. I'm not a candidate of convenience, right? I don't know if this map is going to be blue or red, but we'll find out in a month. But look, I didn't hold out. What? What? Southwest, Ohio, Cincinnati, Warren County, Hamilton County needs as a fighter. Someone who's willing to fight and lead from the front, no matter what this district may look like in terms of map lean. And I'm committed to do that. I'm committed to fight for my kids, my community, and this country will win in November. And I just urge everybody to join the fight alongside with us.

Chuck Warren: Where can they reach you at? Where can they find you? And learn more about your campaign? Where can they donate all that fun stuff.

Orlando Sonza: Yeah, absolutely. Orlandosonza.com Orlando like one of your favorite places in Florida Sonza Sonza.com come join the team come volunteer this this movement is just starting chip in if you can and we're just excited to to do this alongside other strong Americans that love this country, love their community.

Sam Stone: That's fantastic. Folks, we have just about a minute before we go to break. And we are going to be coming right back with Jason Willock of The Washington Post. Orlando, we really want to thank you for coming on the program today, folks. You know, Orlando is one of those candidates we have out there that are really highlighting the growing diversity of the Republican Party. But also what you hear from our guests week after week is the intellectual diversity, the variety of views and issues that are important to them in Orlando. We want to thank you again for taking the time to join us in our audience today. We really appreciate having you. We'll look forward to getting some updates on your campaign as it goes forward. And we're wishing you the absolute best.

Orlando Sonza: Thank you, Sam. Chuck, Thank you for having me.

Chuck Warren: Have a great weekend, folks.

Sam Stone: Breaking battlegrounds will be back in just one moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Up next with us today, Jason Willick writes a regular Washington Post column on legal issues, political ideas and foreign affairs. Before coming to the Post, he was an editorial writer and assistant editorial feature features editor for the Wall Street Journal, and before that, a staff writer and associate editor at American Interest. Jason, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Jason Willick: Good to be with.

Chuck Warren: You, Jason. We want to talk about the legal mess our country's in right now with both Hunter Biden and former President Trump. I want to first start with this. So it was announced this week that Germany is not going to meet their commitment on 2% of GNP towards defense spending. Poland is now spending 5% of their GNP towards defense. Should we just move our troops and everything over to Poland?

Jason Willick: Well, I ah, you know, the post Cold War. Arrangement is really sort of getting unsettled, isn't it, with. Yes. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I mean, Germany is the biggest economy in Europe. I think there's a growing consensus in Washington that we need to be focusing on Asia, on China, that that's the bigger threat to American interests. And Germany's the richest country in Europe. So they're clearly going to need to foot the foot the bill for maintaining security in Europe. And it looked for a moment like they might do that with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Berlin was really freaked out and starting to rethink all of its priorities. And I think they're starting to fall back to a it'll be okay. The Americans will take care of it. The Eastern Europeans will deal with it. We don't we don't really need to fundamentally rethink things. And I think it's definitely a priority for a US administration to talk some sense into the Germans on this.

Chuck Warren: I hope they bring it up at the RNC debate for the presidential candidates on Tuesday night, because I think this is a real issue going forward for national security. All right. Let's talk about this. You wrote a column recently called Written said why the Hunter Biden plea fiasco will be a drag on Democrats. And since you wrote that, we now have a special prosecutor, the same prosecutor who gave the sweetheart deal to him on the plea arrangement. Talk to our listeners, explain to them exactly what's happening.

Jason Willick: Well, there was this astonishing situation a few weeks ago where the plea deal, which we were all told, you know, this is a very normal plea deal. The Merrick Garland says everyone is treated alike. And my Justice Department, we treat like cases alike. How dare anyone question that? And then they put the plea agreement in front of a judge and she said, this is very irregular. I've never seen anything like this. What is going on here? She didn't even say, I'm not going to accept it. She just said, Can you explain to me what the deal is? What's the immunity? How much immunity does he get in exchange for pleading guilty to these charges? How does it work on this gun charge, the diversion agreement that you guys have entered? And then the two parties that turned out didn't even agree what was in the deal? Because the defense for Hunter Biden thought it was very generous and the prosecutors were like, no, no, no, it wasn't that generous. So the whole thing, the whole thing blew up and they weren't able to reach.

Jason Willick: And then she said, Come back to me in a few weeks, work this out. And then it seems that they've tried to go back and work it out and they couldn't come to an agreement about a plea deal. And I think what basically happened is the Justice Department was trying to give Hunter Biden a very generous deal. But when they were asked to explain it in public, it became politically embarrassing to admit how generous it was. So then with all this scrutiny, the thing fell apart. The Justice Department realized politically, we can't do this. We can't look like we're giving such a generous deal to the president's son. And so now Merrick Garland thinks that he's resolving this by appointing a special counsel, which, you know, it's true that if he would have appointed a special counsel a while ago, that would have, I think, made people less concerned about what was going on. But now you're appointing a special counsel, the same prosecutor who gave this deal in the first place. So I don't think it's it's really solving the issue.

Chuck Warren: Jason, wasn't there anybody Look, I don't think Garland made this decision just by himself on his desk one day. So he obviously had some people that he trusts that he talks to. Right. Do you think anybody said, you know, we probably shouldn't appoint the same guy that just gave this what most Americans think is a sweetheart deal? Do you think there's anybody advising him that's playing devil's advocate, saying, you know, this may not look right?

Jason Willick: I think, you know, it's Republicans were calling for David Weiss, who's the United States attorney for Delaware, who was appointed by Trump. But, you know, Delaware is a Democratic state, has has two Democratic senators. So it was approved basically by Democrats as well as Trump to become the special counsel. And Republicans initially said, why isn't he a special counsel? And some of the whistleblowers in this case said, you know, he needed these powers of special counsel that he didn't have. So I think Garland's like, you know, a few months ago, this was the debate was, should David Weiss be a special counsel? I think so. And I think Garland is trying to hold the thing together, satisfy critics by making him a special counsel. But you're absolutely right. It's you know, it's too little and too late.

Chuck Warren: It stinks to high heaven with Jason Willock. He is a Washington Post columnist. We're going to have him back on our next segment. You can find him on Twitter at Jay Willock. And this is breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at breaking battlegrounds dot vote. We'll be right back with Jason. Talk more about Hunter Biden and all the fun Donald Trump appointments, indictments. We'll be back.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, if you're looking for a fantastic investment opportunity where you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return, 10.25 fixed rate of return in this market is absolutely phenomenal. And when you invest with refy, you actually benefit while doing good for others. They're helping refinance distressed private student loans, and they've turned that into a fantastic opportunity for you to make money while they're doing it. So it's a win win. Check them out. Invest. Why Refy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com or give them a call at 888 y refy 24. Make sure you tell them Chuck and Sam sent you.

Chuck Warren: We're with Jason Willock. He is a Washington Post columnist. He goes over law, politics, foreign policy. You can find him on Twitter at Jay Willock, W.i.l.l. Ike All right. Going back to Hunter Biden, can Congress do anything to have them appoint a new special prosecutor, special counsel, or are they just sort of stuck with this same old, same old?

Speaker6: I think.

Jason Willick: They're stuck. I mean, they can they can do subpoenas and conduct, try to do their own investigation. But I think that the Justice Department, they can't compel the Justice Department really to do to do something different. Merrick Garland's in charge of the Justice Department. They and I think that they're they need to conduct their own parallel investigation if they want to if they want to.

Chuck Warren: Mitch McConnell does not get enough credit for keeping Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court. Not at all. But that's a conversation for another day. All right, Jason, you wrote an article this week called Trump Triggers the Politics of Emergency. Talk to us a little bit about that article and explain to our audience what you see as the most difficult indictment on Donald Trump. What's the most dangerous for him? What's the least likely to produce anything against him?

Jason Willick: So on the article on the Politics of Emergency, I wrote that after some of you may have remembered that people wanted to disqualify Trump from the ballot from running again under the 14th Amendment's Section three, which disqualifies someone who engaged in insurrection against the United States as a Civil War era provision of the Constitution meant to disqualify Confederates. And so the House impeached Trump for incitement to insurrection and wanted the Senate to disqualify him. But he was acquitted in the Senate trial. But what I'm saying in this column is I think that among Trump's opponents, we're going to see this idea getting momentum again. What what triggered that was there was a long article by two law professors sort of arguing that he needs to be disqualified. It's not even close. And and it's in effect automatically so people can go to court or secretaries of state can take him off the ballot and and it can be challenged in court. But this is this has to happen. This is what is constitutional. And my point is just we're really getting into a politics of emergency here. I think as the as Trump's political momentum increases, he seems likely to get the Republican nomination. I think that's why part of the reason at least we we saw the decision to indict him. There was this sense that we have to do something about January 6th. And I think in the next year or so, we're going to see some efforts to try to disqualify him from the ballot, because just if one state disqualifies him from the ballot, that would then go to the Supreme Court and it would become a national issue. It's been something that most serious people would not have taken seriously before, But who knows, maybe in six months they will start taking it seriously and will start lobbying for this to happen.

Sam Stone: In this piece, Jason, written by these professors, are they arguing that, for instance, a secretary of state or high state elections official could simply they don't have to go to court to get Trump thrown off the ballot? They could simply make the decision to just leave him off the ballot and then it would actually be in Trump's camp or the RNC camp to try to sue to restore that access.

Jason Willick: Pretty much there. You know, the procedure varies by state who has standing to do what, what the power is of various election officials. But they're basically saying, yes, someone can try to enforce, in their view, the 14th Amendment and then Trump can take them to court and challenge them.

Sam Stone: See, here in Arizona, for instance, you have a Democrat secretary of state who's been very vocal about Trump. You have a Democrat AG who's been vocal about Trump. You have a Democrat governor who's called for them to prosecute Trump here. I think very easily they could throw it off the ballot. But you're talking about the politics of emergency. This that kind of thing is what worries me, Chuck, more than anything else right now.

Chuck Warren: That's nothing goes right to the.

Sam Stone: Supreme Court environment.

Chuck Warren: Yeah, no, absolutely.

Jason Willick: I agree. I mean, look, I think this is not normal politics. This is we're talking about having an election. We're. Where we have a candidate who's under indictment in four jurisdictions. The judge in D.C. is basically telling him to stop talking about the case in the way that he is or she might have to take action against him. Meanwhile, in parallel, you might have efforts to take him off the ballot. And like I said, I don't see how at least somebody doesn't try to take him off the ballot in some blue states such that this gets to the courts pretty quickly. This is just an extraordinary situation. And I have I have worries for how it will affect our legitimacy of our of our political system.

Chuck Warren: If you have an office pool, look for Arizona's AG to try this trick. I'm convinced of it. I would. She is she is an activist and she wants that headline. It's amazing. Okay. Trump's been indicted now on four separate, you know, many indictments, but many counts. But there's you know, there's basically four big things. What do you view as the most dangerous to him of actually being convicted on in order You can rank him in order. What you think? One, two, three, four?

Jason Willick: Well, I think I mean, what I think he's likely to be convicted on is different from what I think is likely to actually hold up on appeal and and what I think is actually the strongest. I mean.

Chuck Warren: So so go through each case. Go through each case. Let's start first with J six. Go ahead. What do you think on that?

Jason Willick: Well, I think, you know, on January 6th, you're talking about a Washington, DC jury, which is know roughly 95% Democratic. And I think if you give a jury like that permission to convict Donald Trump, you say, look, if you find that he acted corruptly, you can convict him. I think most you know, I think he has really long odds to get an actual acquittal. You know, a hung jury is possible. I do think the statutes that are being used in that case, fraud and obstruction and conspiring against rights are sort of strange uses of these statutes. I think they're they're aggressive uses of the statutes. And I think that there's definitely a chance that on appeal, one or more of those could be invalidated as No, that's not what this statute means. But I think Jack Smith is racing to get to trial, to get a conviction before the election. And, you know, appeals would take much longer than that. I think in Florida, the Mar a Lago case, that's clearly the strongest case. I think Trump did mishandle the documents. I think if what Jack Smith says is true, he obstructed the efforts of the government to get back the documents that said in Miami, he's got a much more, you know, friendly, friendly terrain.

Chuck Warren: Friendly terrain down there.

Jason Willick: Much, much more politically friendly terrain. It's possible for me to imagine one juror saying, no, this is politically motivated. I'm not going to convict him and getting a hung jury because, remember, even a hung jury would be a big defeat for the prosecution in any of these. But I do think that's the strongest case by far down in Florida. And then you've got this New York case that I think is kind of ridiculous about about paying. But but again, you're talking about a Manhattan jury is not is not very popular there.

Sam Stone: No. I mean, look, I, I absolutely expect that whatever Manhattan jury is to convict him. But I would love to see them prosecute all the other New York politicians who have paid off mistresses over the years, because that could be fun, right?

Jason Willick: I mean, it's a little bit you know, it's a little bit ridiculous. And on appeal, you know, on some of these, you know, appellate courts are going to look at it in probably a less political way and be like, hold on a second. This isn't a proper use of the law. So I could on a lot of these, I could see one thing on conviction, something else on appeal. Then down in Georgia, you know, I think Fulton County, again, a fairly Democratic area, Trump's going to try to remove the case, the federal court, which would be a little bit of a different jury pool, maybe a more favorable jury pool. I think some parts that that one is a mixed bag. I think some parts of the case are stronger. I think the Rico, the idea of using Rico is is a little is a stretch and may not hold up. But Georgia has sort of more straightforward laws like it's not like this was fraud and fraud means this in some broad sense. It's like it's more straightforward, like soliciting an officer to do something that they shouldn't do. It's more broken down. You know, this particular phone call is a crime. So I think it's a little more straightforward. But I think the whole Rico framing is flawed and that that one's a mess. It's a huge case, huge numbers of people. Some of them are going to try to remove it to federal court. That one is not going to go to trial before the election, I don't think.

Chuck Warren: Well, yeah, I mean, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp today said that, quote, This trial, despite what dates anybody is asking for, it's not going to happen before the election.

Jason Willick: Oh, did he?

Chuck Warren: Yeah. That came out this morning. That was like a couple hours ago. So Kemp has just said this is not happening before the election, so. You know what, Jason? If. If Peacock or Netflix came to you and said, Write us the craziest experience about an ex-president getting in legal trouble, Could you have made this up?

Jason Willick: Uh.

Jason Willick: I would need more imagination. I would need more imagination. But, you know, he's, uh. I think it's important to note, you know, he's he's given, you know, he's in a real way. He's brought this on himself. Yes, he has. He did. On January 6th. On January 6th, I, you know, I'm on the fence and I and I, you know, I don't I'm not I don't really think that it fits the criminal statutes. I think they're trying to create criminal statutes to fit his terrible conduct. But I think it's basically terrible political conduct that that voters should judge. And, you know, but that's that's not happening. And instead, we're trying to use the legal process. And, you know, I think, you know, who knows what kind of precedents are going to be set by this legal process? I really do do worry about that.

Sam Stone: Jason, which of the charges do you think you've talked about? Some of them. They may have different fates in front of a jury. And then on appeal, which of these charges is the one that is most likely to make it all the way through and stick?

Jason Willick: All the way through and thick. Well, I mean, I'd say if if a jury in Florida convicts Trump of mishandling the documents or of obstructing the investigation, that will stick. That's not something I don't think that the appellate courts will reverse.

Jason Willick: So I.

Jason Willick: Probably have to say that one, that's ultimately the strongest, clearest case alleging sort of a straightforward violation of the.

Jason Willick: Law.

Sam Stone: Yeah. It seemed that way to me. I think one of the the questions I had, especially looking at the Georgia indictments that I felt frankly, in some ways angered me most, was that they're targeting Trump's lawyers and. Right. And that sort of thing, that that's a really dangerous precedent to be setting in our legal system.

Jason Willick: Yeah.

Jason Willick: Yep. Um, you know, to some extent they don't prosecute the lawyers in the January and Jack Smith's January 6th case in Washington, but they're named as co-conspirators, you know, without naming them. But it's clear that they're co-conspirators. I mean, the line between a nutty legal theory and and a fraud, you know, we want people to be allowed to raise nutty legal theories in general. I mean, and that's why I made the comparison in the piece. What if somebody says I have the right to take Trump off the ballot because it's constitutionally required? And so you take him off the ballot and then he wins, Can he turn around and say this was election interference? Your theory was in bad faith and it was completely wrong and you're taking me off the ballot was, you know, interfering with the election process illegally. I mean, the these are the kinds of things that we want to be very careful with. And I think this is what gets to the sense of emergency. People are normally careful with these things, but they feel now we're in an emergency. We have to throw caution to the wind. And we we have to stop this.

Chuck Warren: Democrats are going to create a whole new precedent. It's like when Harry Reid did with the judges in the Senate and then we go around and use it and they have a cow and a conniption. Quickly here, we got about a minute left with you, Jason, and we want to have you back on because I'm sure this topic will be continuing for a while. President Biden today is having a summit with Japan and South Korea. I think that's a good move for the country. Your thoughts?

Speaker6: Absolutely.

Jason Willick: You know, we have treaty commitments to defend South Korea and Japan. We've you know, we've fought a war in the last century and in both countries, in World War II and in the Korean War. These are important strategic countries that are rich, powerful countries that we need to check China. They have, you know, a tough history together. You know, Japan invaded Korea. There's no love lost between them on some issues. So to the extent that we can bring them into an alignment as opposed to being pried apart, you know, our alliance structure will be stronger.

Sam Stone: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Jason Willick of The Washington Post. We really appreciate having you on again today, folks. You can follow him at I believe it's at JA Willick on Twitter.

Chuck Warren: That's correct.

Sam Stone: That's correct. Okay. Follow him, folks at Jay Willick on Twitter and subscribe to The Washington Post. Let's keep the good journalism rolling, breaking battlegrounds coming back, not on air. You got to tune in for our podcast segment, Go to breaking battlegrounds dot vote. We'll see you on air next week.

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Chuck Warren: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds podcast. Only extra innings. Glad you're with us here today. And Sam, I are going to talk about three issues on this portion of the podcast today and we'll probably talk baseball.

Sam Stone: Now you got me drooling over this extra innings.

Chuck Warren: I I'm a changeup baseball podcast is now extra innings podcasts now for breaking battlegrounds is extra innings so that's where we're at. All right, folks, you were here first. All right. First, the average rate of most common type of mortgages in the United States is now 7.1%. That's 30 year fixed loans. Wow. That's the highest since December 2001. And folks, most of you remember what happened in 2001, right? We had nine divided by 11 and September 2001. Yeah. So, um, the 2% past year, that's more than 4.4 points from the all time low seen in January 2021. That's how much mortgage has gone up under a Joe Biden presidency. They don't want to talk about it. But here's here's what the reality of this is. With a 20% down payment. And Sam, there's a lot of people who do not have a 20% down payment for a home.

Sam Stone: Now, a lot of people are putting 3% maybe if that.

Chuck Warren: But our mortgage companies, because of these, they're probably going to start requiring there's no more going to be this 3% stuff. I'm telling you right now, unless you do a 50 year mortgage.

Sam Stone: Or your Fannie Freddie back. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: So so a median priced house is $465,000. No, excuse me. Sorry about that. With a 20% down now on a median priced home, you will pay $465,000 in interest over 30 years. Now.

Sam Stone: Up from from how much? I mean, it had to. It was 200. Yeah. 200. Right.

Chuck Warren: A year and a half ago. So when Biden talks about the economy's doing great, it's it's an interesting scenario. A lot of people work. That's true. I don't feel we're in this crippling recession, but we are in as our guest Oscar talked earlier, we have things like electric poverty now. We have food poverty now. I love gas. Poverty now. Right. And so that's where we're at. And, you know, I don't know, you know, this extra $700 a month, Sam, where are people getting it? We know, for example, that 60% of people don't even have $1,000 in savings. They couldn't come up with 1000 for emergency. Were people getting this extra $70 a month? They're doing it from credit cards.

Sam Stone: Which is running.

Chuck Warren: Out. Which is running.

Sam Stone: Out. I mean, we're we're hearing already from the credit card companies that the defaults are going way up. Yep. You're hearing from the auto loan companies, the defaults are going way up. If you want to talk about the risk of a real recession, it's not the job situation now, but it's the home and living situation with these folks being displaced because of these increases. And then how do you maintain a job?

Chuck Warren: Well, and this is the dishonesty of our mainstream media. If this was a President Reagan or President Bush 41 or President Bush 43 a Trump, we would see front page stories in the Miami Herald, Arizona Republic, San Diego Tribune, weekly of people standing in food lines.

Sam Stone: Every single day. You would see teasers throughout the day on all their commercials for the big piece that night attacking, you know, Trump, Reagan, whichever Republican for these conditions. I mean, this is $700 a month per household. You know, folks, do the math, right? You're talking $8,400 per year. Yeah. Where's the average American getting an extra $8,400?

Chuck Warren: Right now they're big borrowing still and it's a problem. So let's talk now about another problem that the Maui fires.

Sam Stone: The response to the fire.

Chuck Warren: The response has been horrible. I talked to a friend a couple of days ago who used to be an employee of mine who now lives out there. And we were talking about I said, so do the deaths get over 100? This is a couple of days after, and she's homeless, lost her house, but she has some in-laws that she's been able to stay with on the island. And she said, Chuck, there's a thousand people missing. I mean, you're going to get to a thousand people dead here because it happened so fast. And there's a story today which I have posted on our social media of a woman trying to go back and rescue her son, and they found him charred. I mean, he was he was dead with the family pet. And it's just and so the real question is, and Sam, why don't you describe it, there was an administrator who's in charge for five hours, did not allow them to have water that they needed.

Sam Stone: Yeah. Did not release water that, you know, that Maui has stored and didn't allow homeowners to get that water to be able to, you know, protect their properties at all, even for the firefighters to hook up to and fight the fires. This administrator literally hemmed and hawed because he said that due to environmental considerations, water had to be treated as a precious resource. Let me add a couple other things, because the the emergency response from Hawaii, the state of Hawaii, the officials of Hawaii, Chuck, I believe are guilty of mass murder.

Chuck Warren: Well, they should be held up for manslaughter. Yeah, I mean, they really should.

Sam Stone: For for a thousand counts by the end of this thing of manslaughter.

Chuck Warren: Absolutely. What he did was criminal.

Sam Stone: Well, how about the power companies which left the power on for five hours in all their lines when they knew they were sparking fires? And why would you do that? The only thing I could think I haven't seen much investigation on this, Chuck, but the only thing I could think of was they didn't want to turn off power to the big resorts.

Chuck Warren: Maybe so. Maybe so.

Sam Stone: I mean, because I mean.

Chuck Warren: There's no there's no reason for.

Sam Stone: It. Look, I know from here in Arizona and I know from situations in California now, the power companies have just made a decision, look, if you get winds over a certain amount, that's likely to be starting to down, shut them down, you just shut them down. You just shut them down because the risk of fire and the risk to to civilian life from that kind of situation is too great. So he shut them down. They did not do that. Then they denied them water. Then they're not letting them into their homes. They didn't activate the sirens to let people know there was a problem. I mean, there are so many things that Hawaii did wrong here and they're being kind of given a pass again by the national media on this. Well, what's.

Chuck Warren: Amazing is Hawaii's governor asked the press to do their job to investigate the water. He did that yesterday. Just saying basically, why don't you guys do your job and find out why this wasn't released?

Sam Stone: Well, and why aren't they asking questions about the electricity? Why aren't they asking questions about some sort of organized rescue that never came together?

Chuck Warren: So, Mr. Manuel, he's the deputy director of Hawaii's Commission on Water Resource Management. Whenever you have a long title like that, you're fairly worthless anyway.

Sam Stone: Guaranteed.

Chuck Warren: I think he should be charged with manslaughter.

Sam Stone: I agree.

Chuck Warren: And I'm not saying that to make a political point. I think what he did was putting the needs of people as a very secondary measure on this.

Sam Stone: I think there are numerous, numerous officials there that need to be looked into very carefully and criminal prosecution considered in a number of cases based on how they handled this. And he's number one at the top of that list.

Chuck Warren: I agree. All right. Well, let's talk about a headline grabbing politician. Katie Hobbs thinks Donald Trump should be prosecuted. You know, view that for what he was. I don't know if the country needs a fifth one and ag mains, which you and I said when the elections were over, that was going to be worse for Arizona than Katie Hobbs. I still stand by that.

Sam Stone: Because Chris Mayes is smarter than Katie Hobbs.

Chuck Warren: And she directly has and she has an agenda. She has an agenda. I don't. I think that's just very bad for the country. And I think that is going to cause a real problem of Arizona. They do it, and I'm pretty convinced they're going to try to do it.

Sam Stone: I think they are going to I think they're going to prosecute him for sure. And again, going back to some of the things Jason said, write your jury here isn't going to be an easy jury.

Chuck Warren: No, it's a hung jury here.

Sam Stone: It's a hung jury here for sure. You're not you're almost certain not to get it through. This is Arizona still. It's still despite all the election laws, it's still a lightly center right, light red state. So you're not going to do that. But what does concern me, what he was talking about, that state of emergency, I fully believe and expect that Mayes, Adrian Fontes and Hobbs will conspire to remove Trump from the ballot. And given the timelines here in Arizona, they'll do it after the preferential the presidential preferential election, right. So when Trump is the nominee. Right. They'll wait because until then, you can't. I mean, really, you have nothing to remove. They'll do that. Our timeline is so tight between that and when ballots go out for the general election, there's barely time to print them. So they're basically going to ensure that there's no way that Trump's name appears on a ballot in Arizona. If they do that and.

Chuck Warren: Does that.

Chuck Warren: Does that if that goes, does that go up to the US Supreme Court or are Arizona State Supreme Court?

Sam Stone: Well, it's going to have to go through the Arizona Supreme Court first. I mean, it's going to be a state court case first and then potentially could be appealed to the US Supreme Court. Now, I do think, frankly, the Arizona Supreme Court will rule to put him on the ballot. I agree. But let me let me just say this. The minute they make that move. I'm putting on body armor. It's going to be because this the chance that that will create an actual insurrection. And real violence to me is here in Arizona and in many other places in this country, to me would be almost 100% if they do that.

Chuck Warren: Well, I hope it doesn't happen. I hope their political ambitions take a back seat. Let the current four cases play out.

Sam Stone: Well and let the election play out. I mean, at the at the end of the day and Jason Willick alluded to this, is that there is a role for judging the actions of politicians when they're legally questionable but aren't clearly over a line. Correct. And that mechanism is elections. Correct. And we're going to have one.

Chuck Warren: Yeah. Let it play out. Yeah, let it play out. Well, folks, this is breaking battlegrounds. Please share our show with your friends and family and colleagues. You can find us at Breaking Battlegrounds dot vote or wherever you download your podcast. This is Chuck and Sam. We look forward to having you next week.

Chuck Warren: Have a great weekend.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds that tackles a range of pressing topics. Our first guest, Arizona Representative Matt Gress, candidly shares his concerns about the homeless hotel conversion in Scottsdale. Join us as we dissect the intricacies of this issue and its potential implications. Representative Gress also provides insights into President Biden's recent visit to Arizona and his pivotal role in the ADE's School Safety Taskforce.

Shifting gears, we sit down with Tim Chapman, Senior Advisor of Advancing American Freedom. Tune in to gain a comprehensive understanding of conservative trends and the impactful initiatives spearheaded by AAF.

Concluding our episode, we engage in a thought-provoking dialogue with Dr. Owen Anderson, a distinguished professor at ASU specializing in philosophy, religious studies, and theology. Building on our ongoing exploration, Dr. Anderson provides fresh insights into the nuanced landscape of free speech on ASU's campus.

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Representative Matt Gress

Matt Gress represents Arizona's 4th Legislative District. Matt Gress is a former public school teacher, school board member and an active member of the local community. He is passionate about public service and solving problems. As our state representative, Matt will work with both sides – Republicans and Democrats – to find solutions to issues such as reducing the cost of living, increasing teacher pay, reducing crime and addressing Arizona's water crisis.

Matt is endorsed by some of our community's most respected organizations: Arizona State Troopers, the Arizona Police Association, the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the Professional Firefighters of Arizona, the Arizona Nurses Association, the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.

Like many, Matt came here from somewhere else — small town Oklahoma. The youngest of four, he was raised by a single mom in a single-wide trailer. Growing up, Matt's family didn't have much, but that never stopped them from dreaming big. Matt learned the value of hard work, to respect his elders and to count his blessings.

Matt worked his way through college driving school buses, and became the first in his family to earn a degree. While attending the University of Oklahoma, Matt was selected for the distinguished Harry S. Truman Scholarship — awarded to only one college student in each state who possesses leadership potential and a call to public service. After graduating, Matt was accepted to join Teach for America, a national teaching corps focused on serving in high-need, high-poverty schools. Matt taught high school English.

From 2017 to 2021, Matt served as a Governing Board Member in the Madison Elementary School District. While on the board, Matt fought to keep schools open during COVID-19, supported increased school choice and advocated for parents and taxpayers to have a seat at the table in curriculum, hiring decisions and budgeting, including expensive procurement contracts.

Matt is a budget hawk. He holds a Masters in Public Administration, with a focus on state and local government finance and public management, from Syracuse University. Here in Arizona, Matt has served as a faculty associate at Arizona State University and as a budget analyst at the Arizona State Capitol, learning exactly where our tax dollars go. Currently, he serves as the state's top budget chief in the Arizona Governor's Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting. There, he has authored budgets directing billions of new dollars towards K-12 education and teachers.

Matt also has experience in energy, water and technology policy, previously serving as an advisor at the Arizona Corporation Commission, where he worked on issues related to expanding broadband, lowering energy rates, reducing regulations on small businesses, and enhancing the stability of our power grid.

Matt, along with his partner Daniel, is proud to call Arizona and District 4 his home. He's an avid volunteer in the community, and plans to focus in the Legislature on solutions that can bring both sides together.

Matt is a proud Rotarian and past president of the Phoenix-Arcadia Rotary Club, a Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy Fellow, a former board member of the Madison Education Foundation, and previously served as a commissioner on the Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission.

Tim ChapmanTim Chapman is a Senior Advisor at Advancing American Freedom (AAF), a public policy advocacy organization founded by Vice President Mike Pence. He is also a Principal at P2 Public Affairs where he works with clients to build national campaigns to influence public policy. Chapman has served as the Executive Director of Heritage Action, Chief of Staff at the Heritage Foundation, and as an adviser and staff to Senators DeMint, Nickles and Hutchinson.Chapman's experience in conservative policy advocacy is extensive as he was a co-founder of Heritage Action - the advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation – and a former Executive Director at Stand for America, an advocacy organization founded by Ambassador Nikki Haley. Tim has built and maintained policy coalitions on the right that have helped shape the consensus within the GOP and he has helped craft messaging/activist campaigns that have resulted in policy victories.

Dr. Owen AndersonDr. Owen Anderson is a professor of philosophy, religious studies, and theology at ASU and he writes about the radical ideologies of class, race, and gender used by some to coerce students and prevent free speech. He is also a pastor at Historic Christian Church of Phoenix. Recently, he has been working on the problem of DEIB, antiracism, decolonizing the curriculum, secular universities, and the loss of academic freedom. The philosophy behind these movements is presented in our universities as "the fact of the matter." Why is that? And are we still allowed to think critically and discuss alternative ways of understanding the world and our history? Rousseau, Marx, and Freud dominate the mind of the current secular university professor. We can do much better.

Substack:

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Transcription

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today. He just won the legislator of the Year for the Republican caucus in the state of Arizona. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Big, big news. He didn't he didn't even highlight it for this show. He's so humble. He wouldn't even put that on there. The Legislator of the Year, Matt Gress, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Matt Gress: It's great to be on with the illustrious two of you for sure. So when you got this award for Legislator of the Year, is it just like a big gold medallion that you wear around your neck now? Maybe a target on my back, I think, hey, you were just appointed and join the school safety task force in Arizona. Tell our listeners a little bit about that and why that's important not only for Arizona, but other states should be considering this superintendent of public instruction, Tom Horn, has convened a number of different stakeholders across the state teachers, social workers, school counselors, school resource officers, sheriffs legislators. It ranges the gamut. And I think he is trying to be responsive to what we've all been hearing across the state and really across the country. It's one of the issues that I hear about in my legislative district quite a bit, which is how can parents know that when they send their kids to school, they will be safe and they will come home. And and there's a variety of ways of addressing this situation. And thank God, you know, Arizona has not witnessed one of these mass school shootings that we've seen in in other states. But that shouldn't dissuade us from acting to, you know, take clear, measurable steps to secure our school facilities. There's a balance for sure. You know, we we don't want schools becoming prisons, but but we do want them to be safe places that parents, staff and students themselves feel is a safe place for learning. So, you know.

Chuck Warren: Just I mean, you're going to dig more into this. So when we go and join these type of task force, we get more information than we currently have. Okay. So my question is, what is your gut reaction tell you that needs to be done on this right now before getting more details from the task force? What is your gut reaction tell you that it needs to be done to make schools more secure so parents and kids feel confident when they go to school, they're going to be safe.

Matt Gress: I think there are two two key measures. One involves personnel and one involves physical infrastructure. So on the personnel front, a few years ago when I served as the budget director, we worked on some changes to the school safety grant program, where we allowed school counselors and social workers to be part of a school safety apparatus. So you had your SROs, the so-called cops on campus, right? And then we added to that on the mental and social health side of this, because mental health is a major factor when you look at these shootings. So we recognize that. And we also increased funding. You know, the program started out at $13 million, I believe, back in, let's say, 2018 or 2019. We boosted that to now it's over $82 million that we're spending on the school safety grant program. And there still is excess demand versus supply. So I'm on the funding and grants subcommittee of this task force, and we're going to take a hard look at where we can free up resources. And I believe that there are plenty. So personnel is a side of it. And in particular, in addition to, you know, not just the social workers and school counselors, SROs have been something I've heard from from parents and and a number of different stakeholders about having an SRO in every campus. And the challenge with that is SROs are sworn peace officers from police departments.

Matt Gress: Correct. We have huge vacancies when it comes to filling our police departments as it stands right now. So we're exploring ways where we can tap into talent of perhaps retired sworn peace officers or, you know, staff that meet all of the criteria. But have not gotten the full, what we call a post certification. Maybe there is an alternate form that we can provide that opens up talented, capable people who care about keeping kids safe, that can be there to respond when a crisis occurs. So the personnel side is one element and then the physical infrastructure. You know, when I served on the school board in central Phoenix, we did a safety threat assessment of every building. We looked at the physical premises, fencing the doorways. How do you get in and out? Who lets people in and out, Cameras, locks, all of the above. And I think that if a school in Arizona is going to go out for a bond or a capital override, the first thing that they need to prioritize is the safety of their facilities. And if they don't have a safety assessment done, they are flying blind and I don't think they should be asking voters for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars if they don't know what they need to do to improve the security of their physical infrastructure.

Sam Stone: Matt that's a really good point because one of the things that's underrated, frankly, are the secured entry and exit points at schools. There was an incident, it barely got covered. I think it was the end of last month, July 31st. I had to actually go to duck, duck, go, because you can't find this link on on Google for an attempted school shooting in Memphis, Tennessee, at a Jewish school. The shooter could not get in. They opened fire outside the building and then were taken down by police and court. So no one was hurt. You know, nothing happened. Obviously, something happened. But it wasn't a traumatic incident in the way these others have been. And that was just a matter of simple physical security like you're talking about. It's not that hard to implement these, especially when the legislature is putting the kind of money you're talking about into it, right?

Matt Gress: Absolutely. And take, for instance, the study on Uvaldi, another case in point where the door was propped open. It was a, you know, lock and key type of door. You know, in this day and age, they need to be electronic locks, you know, the magnetic locks where you need a badge to swipe in and out. There needs to be alarms on these external doors when they're left open. I mean, you can go to a gym and you go out the wrong exit and within 15 seconds, you know, the the alarms are sounding. And if we can do it at some of these other places that that aren't as sensitive of spaces as schools, we can definitely prioritize that at at our school campuses. And that was something we included in this year's budget. Speaking of private or parochial schools, that. Department of Homeland Security is established a grant program that that these places of worship and and the parochial schools can access to help bolster their security. We had we heard from a rabbi that talked about the increase in anti-Semitic behavior and how they're taking great pains to ensure that these sacred spaces are kept safe for parishioners.

Sam Stone: Yeah, absolutely. Anything else on that before we move on? Because I do want to get on to this city of Scottsdale. Plan to house homeless in a hotel there. You have raised some concerns with that, as have others.

Matt Gress: Yes, let's let's chat about that one. That one's been a hot topic.

Sam Stone: Start by telling because we're on in markets across the country, literally coast to coast. Now, folks, if you're listening to Breaking Battlegrounds, you can be doing it in San Diego. You can be doing it in Miami. You can be here in Phoenix. You can be almost anywhere in the country and hear this program. You can be anywhere online and download and subscribe to our podcast and get all of our content. But folks probably don't know if they're not here in Phoenix, and even if they are, they probably don't know what's going on here. So can you give us a little background? What what is this situation?

Matt Gress: Well, here in Phoenix and in the Valley, just like everywhere else in the country, homelessness has really gripped communities. It has created such misery and tragedy for the people experiencing homelessness, as well as the surrounding communities that are affected by people living outside and this year at the legislature, we put in $60 million, $60 million to invest in homelessness programs. Um, that that can get people off the streets and into the treatment that they need. And that was the intent all along, is that we need to approach this from a treatment first modality versus a housing first modality, which I think a lot of cities and public policy has advocated for years. And I think it's failed.

Sam Stone: It has totally failed. And it's just warehousing. The problem is what they're doing.

Matt Gress: Absolutely. You're absolutely right there. And that's exactly what has happened in a quasi sort of way with an initiative. The Department of Housing has executed with a number of cities, not just Scottsdale, but the city of Phoenix, Mesa, Flagstaff and others. And what they're doing essentially is convert meeting rooms at an active operating hotel. Converting these rooms into homeless shelters in Scottsdale. Ten rooms. It ranged between 10 to 15. And as part of the contract with the Department of Housing, the city of Scottsdale has to set aside at least three of these rooms, and they're going to be operating year round for people who live in the zone, which is a which is a notorious place that has gained national attention about failing people in downtown Phoenix, just these large, massive encampments. So people from the zone in central Phoenix being moved up to Scottsdale, as well as foreign nationals who would have otherwise been deported under the now expired Title 42, which is now under litigation. The Florida attorney general is challenging the the Biden administration's approach to immigration. So what we said is whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What is going on here with this program? Did you did you confer with the surrounding community? It's abutted the the property in question is is abutting the largest HOA in the United States. It's across from a school and other amusements that cater to kids. Are you doing background checks? I mean, there were just so many questions. And we reached out to the city of Scottsdale to ask those questions. And their answers have been have fallen short of satisfactory.

Sam Stone: Yeah, absolutely. Matt, I want to continue on with with this a little bit more. When we come back from our break here. We've got about 45 seconds before we go to break. One of the points that I was going to make on that is it's $940,000 state grant to house 15 people, 10 to 15. So anywhere from 94,000 down to a cheap price of $63,000 per person to house them for the year. And you ask a bunch of questions that I think need to be answered about what's going to happen when they're in that housing. We're going to be coming back with more from Matt Gress here on Breaking Battlegrounds in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren continuing on the line with us in just a moment. Arizona Legislator of the Year Matt Grass, freshman legislator, win that award. Pretty darn impressive, folks. But you know what else is impressive? Being able to earn a 10.25% fixed rate of return in this Biden economy. The stock market is all sorts of volatile. Inflation continues to rage out of control. This is not a time to take a lot of risks with your finances.

Sam Stone: You need a reliable product that delivers a high fixed interest rate of return. Then you need to talk to our friends at invest. Why Refy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com give them or give them a ring. They're at 888 y refy 24 and make sure you tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Okay. Matt Continuing on, when we went to break, I mentioned that the cost of this program, it's a $940,000 state grant, as you mentioned, Scottsdale's planning to house 10 to 15 people. That's a lot of money per person, over 60,000, maybe over 90,000 per person, depending on how many there is. And you asked you sent a letter to the city of Scottsdale that raised a bunch of questions that I thought were frankly, really important about community outreach program implementation. What's going to happen to these people? Are they just going to be housed, you know, warehoused like we were talking about, or is there going to be a treatment program to help get them back on track? Matt, what have you gotten any answer? What are some of these questions that citizens in Scottsdale need to be asking and then get those answers to?

Matt Gress: Well, it's it's a mixed bag. And one of the reasons why I'm concerned about this program, it's been portrayed as it's helping grandma who couldn't afford the rent anymore and has just recently been evicted from her apartment. Let's keep her from becoming homeless or same situation with a single mom with kids. That's a very different type of situation versus what we call chronic homelessness, or Mayor Gallego is referred to as service resistant. And you're going to be putting those participants in this program. And there is just this unfounded confidence that they're going to be able to solve the issue. And your regionalizing what is a tragedy that has been unfolding for quite some time now in central Phoenix, your regionalizing that to places like Scottsdale. But what's even worse and you is that it's one thing to take an entire hotel facility and go through the process of converting it to a homeless shelter. But what you're doing is operating the hotel simultaneously to a homeless shelter in the same location. So a family on vacation is right next to someone who's just experienced one of the most chaotic, traumatic times of their life right next door. Unknowing of what's happening, the hotel paying customers are not given the benefit of the doubt. They're not given any information about whether this is an active homeless shelter. I think that's pertinent information to know for a paying customer. And I think it's very it's very problematic. And it hasn't worked in other places. Look at San Francisco. L.a. Is going to be having a measure on the ballot next year related to forcing hotels to accept homeless vouchers. This is just not the approach.

Sam Stone: You brought up. A good point about the type of person who's homeless, who's going into this, whether it's someone who's very recently on the street, what I would tend to describe as transitionally homeless people who were generally able to get off the streets fairly.

Chuck Warren: Quickly, What is that, 10%, ten, 15% of homeless?

Sam Stone: It's probably half, chuck. Half are transitionally homeless, but they don't stay homeless for very long. We don't even consider them.

Chuck Warren: Those are people generally go to shelters or.

Sam Stone: Something to correct. They will go to shelters, they will couch surf. They will do whatever they need to do. And very soon they will get off the street. We dealt with this a lot in Phoenix, the type that Matt was talking to, the service resistant homeless are your chronic street homeless. They're who people actually think.

Chuck Warren: Of as homeless. They're the ones that won't go to the Salvation Army because they require them not to take drugs there.

Sam Stone: It's exactly right. Yeah. And so that's a very different population. You're dealing with a lot of pathologies, including criminal pathologies that you're dealing with at that point. And you're clearly right to bring this up. There's another element to this I want to touch on, which is what you said about the Zone. Phoenix had had allowed this enormous homeless, sprawling encampment near downtown, totally out of control. Judge They were sued. Judge stepped in and said, you've got to mitigate this. The judge clearly in their order, in his orders, was saying, hey, you have to provide alternatives, including structured camping and all this. One of the things that's going on right now is Phoenix spent a bunch of money on a structured camping site that now they. Can't use because they put it in a in an area with a toxic environmental problem. They knew that problem existed before it went. They they went out there. They spent all this money, achieved nothing, and are back at square one and are pushing the problems off on people in your district and elsewhere around the state. We're seeing it throughout the entire valley now much more, much more significantly because of that. How I mean, how do we start getting some of these liberal cities on track to to start actually doing their part the right way?

Matt Gress: Well, we've the state has provided money and we've we've tried to do our part in investing in programs that should be evidence based. But unfortunately, I think that the executive has incorrectly interpreted what the legislature was trying to do with, you know, we included $150 million for the housing trust fund. That's to help people stay in their homes, $60 million for homelessness, people who aren't in their homes anymore. And we need to find a place for them to be. There just seems to be more of a focus on climate change in this context versus finding real solutions for people experiencing homelessness. And I think we have to sue, I think, and the courts are going to have to force the cities to do what they have been loathed to do. And until you can clean up these tragedies like the zone, it's going to be hard to engage in a more holistic conversation about how we address homelessness in the Valley.

Chuck Warren: Let's change topics here real quick. We have we have two minutes left. Biden's visit. What are your thoughts? He came to Arizona this weekend. He decided to take more property away from rural miners. What are your thoughts on it?

Matt Gress: A million acres removed from the tax rolls. And you'd think that, by the way, how much.

Chuck Warren: By the way, let me ask you a question real quick. How much does that hurt schools, public schools? How much does it take out gently?

Matt Gress: Oh, significantly, because they're tied to either state trust land or they're tied to private taxpaying owners. And all of those dollars go into the equalization formula that helps fund schools. But not a peep, actually. Praise from from the Democrats. No real engagement with half of the monument. They decided to go to Flagstaff and do their public outreach, but not two hours, 2.5 hours to the west in Kingman, where there was a clearly different point of view. And then, you know, we talk about there are so many precious minerals here on these claims that could help us achieve more clean energy or help us achieve energy independence or other key areas.

Sam Stone: Precious minerals.

Sam Stone: That are.

Sam Stone: Precious, minerals that are being mined all over the world using much dirtier mining techniques, using.

Chuck Warren: We're using child labor. Yeah, child labor across the overseas. Yeah.

Matt Gress: And by countries who hate America. Yes. If this was an opportunity to make America stronger.

Chuck Warren: Clearly missed the mark. Quickly, real quick here, I want to get back to this question. How much money I know we got 30s. Real quick, how much money do you think it takes out of public education for Arizona? Just a guesstimate. Give a range.

Matt Gress: That's that's hard to say depending on the number of mining claims because there are property taxes.

Chuck Warren: 30 million. 40 million. 30. 40 million.

Matt Gress: Oh, I would have to be more than that. You have to be more than that over the lifetime. Over 20 years. Say, I think you're going to see much more than that.

Sam Stone: Matt, real quick, 15 seconds. How do folks stay in touch with you and your work?

Matt Gress: You can look me up, Matt Gress. MattGrress.com You can follow me on Twitter at Matthew Gress two T'S and just feel free to reach out. All right. Always yours.

Chuck Warren: Thanks, buddy. Have a great day, man. We appreciate you.

Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Up next today, Tim Chapman, senior adviser at Advancing America Freedom, a public policy organization founded by Vice President Mike Pence. He's also a principal at P two public affairs, where it works with clients to build national campaigns to influence public policy. Former executive director of Heritage Action Action, chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation and has advised Senators DeMint, Nichols and Hutchinson to a heck of a resume. Tim, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the program.

Tim Chapman: Hey, thank you.

Tim Chapman: Both for having.

Chuck Warren: Me. Excited to be here. So tell us about what advancing American Freedom is working on right now.

Tim Chapman: Well, thanks for asking.

Tim Chapman: Advancing, as you mentioned there in the intro. Advancing American Freedom was founded by.

Tim Chapman: Vice.

Tim Chapman: President Mike Pence.

Matt Gress: And he founded.

Tim Chapman: This thing about a a little more than a year and a half ago. And he you know, I've always loved him. I came to Washington in 2001 and he came to Washington a little after that time as a congressman. And so I followed him and always had great admiration for him because, you know, as we were working on the outside to try to influence Congress towards conservative ends, he was on the inside and he was always fighting for the limited government perspective and the conservative perspective and the pro-life perspective in the House of Representatives. And he did that in many different ways there. And so he was super policy focused. And then, you know, once he left the administration, you know, he was thinking about ways that he could continue to be focused on policy. He worked a little bit with with the Heritage Foundation. And then he began to build out his own organization, which was advancing American freedom. And he asked he asked me to come on board there a while back. And he said, look, like we knew that he was thinking about running for for president. But he said, look, I need people who are going to come on board with this organization.

Tim Chapman: I need this organization to exist irrespective of my political future. And, you know, Tim, will you come in and work with this team? And I was you know, I jumped at the chance because I've always like I said, I've always liked being dead. So, you know, our focus is on kind of the traditional three legs of the stool and the conservative movement, social, social values, fiscal values and a strong national defense. And we kind of see, you know, there's a lot of things, as you both know, probably better than I. There's a lot of trends happening in the conservative movement and the Republican Party right now. And one of them that kind of worries me a little bit is a trend away from fiscal conservatism. Yes, it is a trend away from American leadership around the globe. Well, Tim Tim, let me ask. I think we wanted to talk about that. Yeah, Tim, let me let me ask you this. We talk about this a lot. You know, look, it's not as sexy as hitting some woke issue, right? It's it doesn't doesn't it's not good for fun conversation.

Sam Stone: It's also complicated.

Chuck Warren: It's complicated. Yeah. Tim, how do we get out of this mess? It's a mess. I mean, I'm so worried about it and what it's going to start doing in reality in the next five.

Sam Stone: Had our credit rating downgraded. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: I mean, people don't understand interest rates are going to be higher. I mean, what people don't get is how this you know, they always talk about trickle down economics. And we just recently had our show about Biden's inflation. Biden's inflation caused people $14,000 dollars per family extra dollars. Yeah. Which means they either use their savings, which we know most people don't have. They borrow from friends or family, which a lot of people don't have friends or family. You can loan them money or they use credit cards, which have minimum 19 to 20% interest rates. So really, inflation is in the high teens when you think of it that way. Right. How do we. Yeah, I mean, I don't think in our lifetime you and I and Sam here are going to be able to pay off $30 trillion. But what do we need to do to show the world, to show the markets to strengthen our currency, keep low? What is the plan we need to do? Do we just need to say we're not going above this level anymore? What do we need to do? Yeah, I mean, your show, right on what has happening right now with inflation and Biden's inflation is basically just a tax on, you know, on average families across this country. And that's the first wave of what's going to happen to people if the fiscal profligacy continues. The second wave is actual raising of taxes on people.

Tim Chapman: So you'll you'll not only be taxed by the inflation, but eventually it's going to catch up to us and to pay for all the programs that we're running right now and we're going to have to raise taxes. And that's actually the left game plan. That's where they want to go with this. They you know, they're they are comfortable to wait out having discussions about Social Security reform, Medicare reform, welfare spending, you know, any kind of spending. They're comfortable to wait out that discussion because they think when push comes to shove, we'll get to the point where we just have to, you know, raise taxes. Right. But I'll tell you the first thing to. Do you know to address this is not to run away from it. And that's what we're afraid of right now. We see a party that, you know, we love this party. We've been Republicans and conservatives a long time. But I see some of my best friends in some of the greatest think tanks in this country and some of my best friends who are working with some of great leaders on Capitol Hill, refusing to talk about the spending issues. And so that's one thing that AAF wants to do, is to is to raise the issue again, even though it's out of step with where we are right now. It's a populist moment. We're going to raise it and we're going to keep talking about it. Good.

Sam Stone: Yeah, fantastic. We're going to be coming back with more from Tim Chapman in just a moment. Folks, you can follow him at Tim Chapman on Twitter. Tim, thank you so much for joining us. Stick around, folks, for the next segment. We're going to be talking a little bit more about the fiscal health of this country and some other things happening in Washington. Breaking battlegrounds coming right back. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone continuing on the line with us in just a moment, Tim Chapman, senior adviser at the Advancing American Freedom Public Policy Organization, founded by Vice President Mike Pence. They're focused a lot on classical conservative issues like fiscal fiscal responsibility. And folks, if you want to be fiscally responsible, one great way to do that is to get some quality diversity in your in your portfolio. And one and a fantastic way to do that is to go to our check out our friends at invest y Refy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right. 10.25% fixed rate of return. The market goes up. The market goes down. You keep making money. Check them out. Invest y refy.com or give them a call at 888 YREY24 and make sure you tell them Chuck and Sam sent you.

Chuck Warren: So, Tim, I want to go back to talk about what you're doing. So Sam and I were talking before the show today that Republicans are like a two note pony. It's like, okay, we're going to the moon. Well, how does this affect abortion or Second Amendment rights? We seem to. Right. We we just seem to have the political mailing thing. Here's a checklist. And, you know, those are important issues. I'm not disagreeing, but there are so many other issues. You know, you know, for example, I do not have on my bingo card in 22, 23 that Republicans that there's a segment of Republicans, not all of them, but a segment who are sympathetic to Russia and the Ukraine war. Right. And then they try to couch it and say Putin's evil. It's like Democrats talking about crime. Well, I'm right. I'm not. I hate crime, but I don't want to fund cops. Right. Yeah, right, Right. Has this caught you? I mean, you've been in this you were you worked at Heritage Action. You worked for some of our great senators. Has this caught you by surprise that this this this isolationist movement has taken such strength? So, you know, it's always been latent in our movement. And as you all know, there were times in our movement where we were more isolationist than not. You know, as the as we rolled through the Reagan years, that changed and we projected American strength and led the world to a better place. But, you know, that latency has now caught up and there's and you see it everywhere. And I think it's caught steam for a few reasons. And, you know, the first reason is that just you know, we did we didn't do, you know, a great job in our foreign entanglements over the last 20 years. Right. So and that may be almost.

Sam Stone: Over the last hundred years, like Exactly World War two forward.

Tim Chapman: Yeah. So I understand that. Okay. So there's a track record there and there's a problem. There's also this is one area we were just talking about spending. I think there is still within the conservative movement, you know, a desire to be fiscally responsible. And this is low hanging fruit that they perceive a lot of, you know, people perceive. Sure. Why are we going to spend another 24 billion to Ukraine now? But I think the biggest thing driving this right now, especially with respect to Ukraine, is just good old fashioned politics. If you look at the politics around Ukraine, this is one where Democrats just accidentally got one, right. They they they they're supportive of the Ukrainian effort. But it's not because they somehow found principle on this. It's because they perceive, you know, in their in their version of history. The only reason that Donald Trump ever won in 2016 was because Vladimir Putin handpicked him and used all sorts of, you know, machinations to install them in office. So this is Ukraine versus Putin. And Putin is the guy in their minds who put Trump in the in the in the White House. And so, therefore, Ukraine must be protected at all costs. They're fighting a knee jerk. Yeah, there's a knee jerk reaction there from Republican voters, grassroots conservatives, who are like, well, if all these Democrats are flying Ukrainian flags, this must be the wrong cause. Right?

Sam Stone: Right. Yeah. Democrats are there or want us to be there to fight Trump in reality. Right. And you've got a handful of Republicans who are obviously against that.

Chuck Warren: As Sam and I talk a lot with guests, We had Congressman Issa on last week, as you can agree that Ukraine has much corruption in it. You can also agree that it's not cool for Russia to go take over a country that it wants to take over because it doesn't stop there. I mean, they're not mutually exclusive. Right. And so, yeah, it's interesting, you know, and talk about the foreign policy. The last, you know, 75 years or so. I think that's sort of a cheap shot. People take. I mean, if you look at cities that practice practice the broken window theory and then they abandoned it with cops. Looks what happened to them. And I hate to break it to people, but the United States is not doing a lot of this. This rule is a bigger crap hole than it is now. Well.

Sam Stone: Chuck, I mean, one of the things that's happened, we've pulled back from a lot of our engagement and a lot of our economic and. Military engagement from the Pacific Theater, from Latin America, to focus.

Chuck Warren: On the Middle East.

Sam Stone: But in China has has stepped into that breach in a way that's very damaging for us.

Chuck Warren: I agree. All right. Let's talk about trade. Does the Republican need to start becoming more productive and proactive on getting trade agreements again, or are we going to let China and other people just do it? Yeah. So the way we think about this is we have learned some lessons about trade over the last 20 years. Free trade is still an overwhelmingly good thing. You know, people producing things and trading those things and bringing, you know, profit to their nation and their communities is a wonderful thing. And then people get to have the benefits of that. But we did not do it right with China. That's very clear. And China is is far and away our biggest global challenge for the United States over the next couple of decades. So what we need to be thinking about, the world's already doing this in its own kind of in its own way. The world is dividing into free countries, you know, free spheres of influence and those that are run by authoritarians like China, like Russia, like Iran. And we need to we need to make lots of great trade agreements with our allies, period, You know, and we need to think about how to do this in a way where we're not relying on China for the things that we really need.

Tim Chapman: So we we're stuck right now. We're stuck dealing with kind of the residue from some bad policy decisions that are in the rear view mirror. And we have to figure out how to get out of it, you know, So, for example, like, you know, China is so intertwined in our economy right now. We've got, you know, great American companies like Ford that are opening plants, you know, with Chinese batteries, Chinese battery plants in Michigan and other places around the country. You know, and that's a problem like that is a problem because China having that foothold in our economy is not a good thing. So we need to think, All right, well, what is it that we need to do as Americans to wean ourselves off of, you know, the need for Chinese renewable energies or batteries or whatever it is, and build our own source of domestic energy here. Tim You guys, you know.

Sam Stone: Yeah, go. Can I stop you on that front? Because that's relevant to the discussion we just had with our previous guest on this program. It's something that just happened here in Arizona. It's not just previous bad policy. We just had Joe Biden come out to Arizona, take a million acres. That is key mining territory for any number of precious minerals that we need for these things and declared a national monument and take it off the table. Exactly. That is that is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing, right?

Tim Chapman: That's exactly right. I mean, we if and why would Democrats be doing that when they are the ones demanding that we produce green vehicles and use all these renewable sorts of energy because it's an elitist party, it's an elitist party. It's amazing how they've become. I guess they've always been latte liberals, right? There's always been that group. But it has been exasperated since Trump. It's just like, because I hate this guy, I'm going to become a latte liberal now. It's just so out of the realm of moral consciousness. I don't know where to begin. Yeah, and it's a logical disconnect according to their own principles too. So if you want us to have more, more electric powered vehicles in the United States, but you also say that you are against authoritarian regimes who, you know, punish religious, you know, dissent or any sort of political dissent, You know, China, then why are you forcing Ford and other companies to use Chinese resources to build the things that you are forcing us to to do, you know, in your own the bill that they just passed. So it's a complete mess. They're all over the place on it. Republicans and conservatives really have a chance to come in on the energy issue and to double down on what we produce, whether it's, you know, gas or oil. Et cetera. You know, or to or to even win over some of that renewable stuff. Yeah, well, we should be we should be using those mines in Arizona. Minnesota has the same thing.

Sam Stone: Why are we not hammering? Why is our party not hammering the left on the very simple fact that mining activity here in the United States is far less environmentally damaging than mining almost.

Chuck Warren: I'll raise my hand on that because it's not abortion or gun rights. We don't talk about anything else. Right? Yeah. No, I you look, I'm with you on that. I think that's one of the reasons we created Advancing American Freedom. And that's what Vice President Pence really wanted, is to try to bring a policy discussion back to the party, because right now it's so personality based. I mean, it is personality based. It's based on whatever the latest thing on Twitter is. I don't even I can't even check Twitter anymore because it's driving me insane. Although I do, I'll admit to it. I do. You're an addict. You're an addict. We'll get you. We'll get you help. Yeah. Sorry. I guess it's not Twitter or whatever we're calling it, you know? But it is a it is a bad situation. Like if we're able to focus this on the policies, the left is such so bent and pretzels as we were just discussing on so much of this stuff. And they're on the wrong side of the American people. We'd be a 60% party pretty easily if we do this stuff. And energy is just huge and it all ties together. It's the energy stuff. It's what we were talking about earlier on. The spending stuff and the spending stuff also leaves us very weak to China. Um, so there's a lot of opportunity here, but we kind of got a, um, we kind of got to pull it together as a movement.

Sam Stone: What are you seeing ahead of these upcoming budget negotiations? I mean, are is there any real appetite on our side to stand firm and get real concessions during this negotiation?

Tim Chapman: Yeah, I mean, look, there is there certainly is. You know, the the House Freedom Caucus guys are have been consistently saying they want to use these leverage points to score some wins on fiscal discipline there. So that's you know, but really, that's like 20 Republicans in the House who want to do that. And then there's probably another 60 to 70 that also would be on board fighting with those guys if they can identify an achievable, you know, outcome that makes sense and that is politically popular. There's a debate right now as to whether or not you use this this leverage point for fighting on the border or whether you use it for fiscal stuff. And frankly, guys like I don't know, I don't know where they're going to go with it. I hope they I think they should use it for fiscal stuff because I think anytime you're having a spending fight, it makes more logical sense to me to just attach it to spending rather than some of the other issues. As much as I want a victory on the border, um, so but, but, but I can't I can't handicap it for you because I think we'll end up in a shutdown. And I think once we end up in a shutdown, you know, it's like, is this a three day shutdown? Is it a 13 day shutdown? I don't know if I don't know where they land. If they go shut down, they just need to keep it shut till they get what they want. If you're going to take the political prize, just say, I don't care if I lose. That's right. We're going to just do it. So multiple have a have a quiz for you here. What's more realistic that we get to a balanced budget annually within ten years that we get the border secure or the Cleveland Browns win the Super Bowl? And you ask this, he's a Browns fan. That I'm a Cleveland Browns fan. Yeah. Look, Hope springs eternal. This is the best time of the year to be a Cleveland Browns fan. We're going all the way this year. Keep the dream alive, buddy. Chuck.

Sam Stone: Their team is not terrible anymore.

Tim Chapman: Oh, yeah.

Sam Stone: You never know. I got. I got to say, I put my odds on the Browns.

Chuck Warren: Oh, I do, too. That's the point. I put my odds on the Browns. That's how bad this is. I know. Look, guys, we're off season champs every single offseason, all right? We always win the off season. I don't know if anyone saw the the number one movie on Netflix right now is the Johnny Manziel special. And that just peels back The Onion about how dumb the decisions we make as Browns, you know, as a Browns team are.

Sam Stone: That was a stunning documentary, by the way.

Tim Chapman: Like, yes, it's a good watch.

Chuck Warren: Maybe, maybe, maybe. You really do need to hire Kevin Costner from Draft Day, who is a pretend general manager. Tim, with limited time left, tell us how you got into this. I came to DC, you know, right out of college. I knew in college that I wanted that I wanted to be involved in politics and that I thought I think politics, despite, you know, the bad rap it deservedly gets, is a noble profession if done right. And I think we need to find a way to make politics work for this country. I came here in 2001 and kind of got the bug and got hooked. And and the longer I've stayed here, the more I think we got to find a way to get it right. And I tried to escape many times. I tried to escape, but DC sucks you back in and so, you know, we'll just keep working. I got into it that way and and we're going to stick it out and see if we can make something really big. Great.

Sam Stone: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Tim Chapman, senior Advisor at Advancing American Freedom. You can follow them at Advancing American Freedom.com and follow Tim at Tim Chapman on Twitter. Tim, thank you so much. Folks, stay tuned. We've got a continuation of an education fight, a professor fight here in Arizona. You don't want to miss it on the podcast only segment.

Chuck Warren: Thank you, Tim.

Sam Stone: Welcome back to the podcast segment of Breaking battlegrounds with the host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, if you've been following our show, you've been in tune with what happened at the Barrett Honors College at ASU with a protest by a number of the professors trying to, despite whatever they might claim, trying to shut down a free an event featuring some conservative speakers Charlie Kirk, Dennis Prager and Robert Kiyosaki and others, They called it a white supremacist event. They did everything they could on campus to chill the free speech of these individuals and to to basically to hide this event. Students were bullied and threatened by professors. The materials for this event were taken down. There was I mean, really, it was a very concerted effort. We have been talking about this. We had an Atkinson who was the director of the program that put the event together, who was subsequently fired. We've had her on the program after we had her on, we had a professor, Brooke Simpson. You may have heard his segment. He said we were completely wrong. Then we had him on the air. We gave him 40 minutes. And frankly, I didn't feel like Chuck, he contributed anything particularly to the conversation. I mean, he told us we were wrong, but he could never say why we were actually wrong or why an was wrong or any of this.

Sam Stone: It really came down to a convoluted logic. And so we have another professor from ASU who's been part of this discussion, Dr. Owen Anderson, Professor of Philosophy, religious Studies and theology at ASU. He writes about the radical ideologies of race, class, race and gender used by some to coerce students and prevent free speech. So obviously really, really relevant to what we're talking about here. He's also a pastor at Historic Christian Church of Phoenix. He's been working on the problem of DEIB anti racism decolonising the curriculum, secular universities and the loss of academic freedom that has attended those movements. And, you know, this is something I don't think is going away anytime soon. This is a major problem when you have universities stifling free speech and the free exchange of ideas. So, Dr. Owen Anderson, thank you so much for taking the time today and joining us to continue this discussion. We really appreciate it because we know that every time someone like you comes on a program like this and talks honestly and openly about it, you're putting yourself under the gun from a lot of your colleagues. And so thank you for joining us. And and thank you for being willing to participate in this discussion. Well, yeah.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Thank you for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking to you about this. And and, you know, there is some of that pushback. I've I was told at one point by my dean not to speak to the media without getting ASU approval and that that that got me to appeal to fire, which is the foundation for individual rights and expression. And that's a that's a fire is a group that kind of monitors universities. Universities all want to be rated as a green light, including ASU. So fire got involved and ASU took that back. But what they did tell me was my provost specifically said, before I talk to the media, I have to say this is my own personal opinion. I don't represent ASU.

Sam Stone: And so and so, yeah, folks, let's be clear. We're talking to Dr. Owen Anderson. This is his own personal opinion and he does not represent ASU. He simply.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Works. What? I'm curious. I'm sorry. I didn't mean.

Sam Stone: No, I was just going to say, you work there and you've been part of this discussion. So thank you for taking the time.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Yeah, I'm curious to see if that's done for everybody or just the conservative guy.

Chuck Warren: Well, Professor Simpson, in fairness, made very clear that he was not speaking for ASU. So I think you I think you all got the same memo.

Sam Stone: And actually, I agree with that memo. I think professors should be able to say whatever they want and not speak for the university.

Chuck Warren: I agree. I agree.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Well, and that's one of the issues with this letter by the Barrett faculty is they wrote it on ASU resources. And as Barrett professors, they didn't say they're speaking as private citizens. So that is one of the issues.

Sam Stone: Yeah, absolutely. That's an issue. I mean, look, and I'm sure you would say and I've seen a lot of the comments you made online and this and other issues, and I would generally assume you agree with the statement that, hey, no one's trying to stop these professors from saying that they do not like these speakers or that they think that these speakers don't have anything to offer. That's their opinion. Fine. But there's a difference. That's perfectly.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Fine. Exactly. And so that's actually been ASU's point is to say, well, the event happened, so that's free speech and the professor's objected and that's their free speech. But the concern has never been that they objected. The concern was how they did it, that they used ASU resources, they use their classrooms and they intimidated students. Those are things that are clearly violations of our ASU faculty manual. And so that's been the problem.

Sam Stone: And how much do you see this because of the work you're doing? How much do you see this? I mean, to me, this is a really fundamental. This incident highlighted a really fundamental underlying fight in academia between a handful of what I would call traditionalist free speech and and free thought advocates and then this new D-I bureaucracy.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Yeah, well, exactly. I think so. I think the letter itself written by 39 of the Barrett faculty, which is a supermajority, didn't get any issues. It spent his time calling the people they disagree with purveyors of hate, white nationalist bigots. And so you left. If you read the letter, you left it thinking, well, what what do you disagree with, though? Like, what's the issue that you would take and what's your argument against it? And so that's really what happens when you have this Dei philosophy, which those are all very positive words. Diversity is a good word. Inclusion is a good word. We want to do those things, equity. But they're actually part of a social philosophy which says from the outset things like America is structurally racist, and if you don't agree with us, you're one of the racists. And so it shuts down actual conversation because you're just not allowed to doubt it or debate it.

Sam Stone: I want to focus real quick, doctor, on on equity, because if we're talking about equity, as in I have equity in my bank account, it's an unmitigated good thing. And for anybody. But when you're talking about equity in an academic setting, that's a very loaded and charged word that's very different, whose actual meaning in practice is very different from the perception that the average member of the public has about it. Right.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Exactly. I mean, all three of the words in Dei don't mean what the public thinks they mean, because I mean, that's really what you do, right? You're both involved in politics and in politics. You pick positive words. You say, well, we're pro-choice. Everyone likes choice. You don't say, well, we're pro killing babies, Right? So that's what you do is you pick a positive term. So that's what they've done here. So equity means because America is structurally racist, we need to redivide wealth appropriately. And so that means that some people have been getting privileges and they need to have their wealth taken away and given to other people who, although they may not have been direct objects of the discrimination, they're maybe their ancestors were. And so they should be given that wealth.

Sam Stone: Correct? Yeah. There's also a tie to to just Marxism and equality of outcomes, right?

Dr. Owen Anderson: Well, yeah, exactly. Well, that's one thing is, you know, the Barrett faculty have said, well, we said they're white nationalists, but then we're getting called Marxists. Well, wait, there's a big difference.

Chuck Warren: Well, they don't.

Dr. Owen Anderson: It doesn't believe he's a white nationalist. Well, yeah, these professors, many of them, identify as Marxists. So this is not name calling. It's just saying this is what they believe they are.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Well, they don't. It's a funny pattern. And I think conservatives probably do it, too. But you see it a lot in academia. They like to go and tattoo people with these phrases, Right. I mean, look, there's there are many things to be called that have a very ill effect on all of us mentally. But being called a bigot. Yeah.

Dr. Owen Anderson: It's basically.

Chuck Warren: And it stays with you. It stays with you. Yeah.

Dr. Owen Anderson: That's the worst one. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Yeah. I mean, it's just. And it's just horrible. And they know this. And so when you turn around and say, Well, you're a Marxist, you're a commie, they're like, We're being attacked. Well, yeah, you started this idiot conversation to begin with. Why don't you just shut up?

Dr. Owen Anderson: And if someone told me, Hey, I'm not a Marxist, I'd be fine saying, okay, well, tell me what you are. I'll use that term. But the truth is, they teach that all of history is a conflict between economic classes and that the rich rule over the poor and that money should be redistributed. I mean, that's all straight out of the Communist Manifesto. So. So that's not an insult. It's just a it's just to say that's what they are. Whereas no one thinks white nationalist is a title people take and say, Yeah, that's what I am. Whereas Marxists, yeah, a lot of professors identify as Marxists or they're greatly influenced by Marx.

Sam Stone: Yeah, and that's an important difference too. I mean, but also to Chuck's point, there's this attitude I think, that has crept into academia where they can criticize society and elements of society, individuals.

Chuck Warren: And it's free speech for them.

Sam Stone: Too. It's free speech. But but then when they come under criticism, it's it becomes this, you know, soul altering thing that they have to roll around in distress and scream for help. It triggers them. Yeah.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Yeah. Well, that's what happens is I think they go from calling their opponents white nationalists, biggest hate hatemongers and these, these these guys like Charlie Kirk, especially Dennis Prager, that's really mainstream conservative thought. If he's a hatemonger, that's labeling all conservatives hate mongers. I mean, he's not somehow an extreme conservative.

Sam Stone: And so and he's a practicing Jew.

Chuck Warren: He's devotional. He's devout, strictly speaking.

Dr. Owen Anderson: I mean, when the event started, Charlie Kirk wasn't on the panel. He introduced it. And I asked people about the event. And I tell I asked them, do you know what he talked about? And they say, no. He told people to observe the Sabbath day. That's what he spent his introduction on. And he said, Dennis Prager has been helping me as a Christian learn how to observe the Sabbath. So that's the kind of advice that was being given. Its not exactly political and.

Dr. Owen Anderson: So.

Dr. Owen Anderson: It was objected to.

Chuck Warren: I have a question for you. So this brings up a point. Okay. So is that the type of program that, you know, here's what it is. I feel academia and I you know, look, I support ASU financially, various things there significantly. I feel college has become sort of pay for play now, you know, Sam and I and you can say we want to do an endowment chair for X And look, I think Michael Crow deserves a lot of credit for a lot of things. And one thing is if you come in with 1.5 for an endowment chair, you come on in. I mean, that's just that's just how he is, right?

Dr. Owen Anderson: A university organized like ASU, we don't have lots of state taxes. We don't have any money from oil or things like that.

Chuck Warren: Yeah. So. So he does that and he would do it for right or left. I don't think Michael Crow cares one way or another. Right. I mean, that's the problem.

Dr. Owen Anderson: With their letter also is they're saying Lewis is paying he's to have his his position taught to students. Well, wait a minute. If that's what worries them, are they writing letters for all of the leftist centers at ASU or just the one?

Chuck Warren: Well, it's not only that. How many of them are less of an endowment from a leftist endowment? Yeah. Which no one Has anybody even looked at that, Sam?

Sam Stone: No, but you know what? When you said that Chuck and Dr. Anderson, when you said that it occurred to me something from my time at the city of Phoenix, because the city of Phoenix was repeatedly partnering with ASU to reach out to get grants from far leftist charitable institutions and to endow chairs to study whether it was global warming or some something that Phoenix had some interest in. And in the five years that I was in Sal Deceases office at the City of Phoenix, there were probably, if I would remember off the top of my head, 12 or 15 of those positions that came through on our budget.

Chuck Warren: So should we. So should colleges just stop accepting this? I mean, that one way to solve this, I mean, so for the for the Lewis for this Ted Lewis thing at Barrett, was it was that the right entity to be having that type of thing at And I think that's a fair question. How it gets.

Dr. Owen Anderson: How it gets politicized. I just I just put up on my YouTube channel, which is Dr. Owen Anderson, a interview I did this week with Representative Austin Smith, and we were talking about this exact issue of how do we avoid politicizing public education. And this goes back to using these special words because we have a center for American institutions at ASU, right. Which doesn't believe America is structurally racist and teaches the value of our founding principles that considered far conservative. Right. So so those words aren't telling you to vote for Republicans. They don't tell you how to vote in the next election. It's just saying, hey, Thomas Jefferson has some really good ideas and that's considered to be on the right. Whereas the political stuff on the left is very political. So this spring we also had Ibram X Kendi come out and he's one of the guys who said discrimination is good as long as you do it the right way, which means you discriminate against white people. He's very clear about that. That's not me putting words in his mouth. And we hosted him and no professor said, Wait, this is political. We shouldn't have that on campus.

Sam Stone: My favorite Ibram X Kendi moment is when Joy Reid didn't realize that and started asking him that question. You know, she's asking him, Hey, you didn't really say this, right? And he's like, Well, yes, I did. That's exactly what I meant to do.

Chuck Warren: I appreciate his honesty.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Yeah, yeah. Last week we had a drag event at ASU and NAU. Professors wrote and said, Hey, this might hurt some of my students because. Well, because.

Chuck Warren: Because. Because you're not a Marxist. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it is. People who oppose to anybody else speaking that opposes their view of the world is a Marxist. They can say whatever they want, but that's what they are. They're suppressing free speech.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Right. I think that's and one of the classes I teach is logic. I'm a philosopher, so like my whole job, I'm paid to question people. So the more someone says, Hey, don't question me, the more that, you know, red flags are going off, right. To say, Hey, I got a question this person and use logic to do it. So what really disappoints me is that professors couldn't get into the substance. What I would have loved to have seen if they said, look, in their letter, they said they're worried for their LGBTQ plus students. Well, why? Presumably it's because Dennis Prager believes that marriage is ordained by God between one man and one woman. So they should have written a letter debating that and said, hey, we don't believe in God. We think marriage is a social construct. Right. That's been used to oppress women. That would have been a great debate. And I know for sure Dennis Prager would have had that. And if he didn't want to, I'll debate it. But that's not what they did. They got right into name calling. And I guarantee they expect their students to actually provide evidence in their papers and give arguments, not just resort to name calling.

Chuck Warren: Who knows.

Dr. Owen Anderson: For.

Chuck Warren: That? I mean, I don't know. I question that.

Chuck Warren: It depends.

Chuck Warren: It depends. It depends if they like the way their their views are. I don't question. I question that. I think that's where we're at now and that's what's frightening about it. I think the guests we have talked about who much of the right would find repulsive. They deserve the right to speak.

Sam Stone: There was a really good tweet by Scott Walker, the former Wisconsin governor, a couple of days ago, where he said he had been at a forum and someone criticized him on the basis saying, well, conservatives don't want college students to hear these things that we disagree with. And Walker said, no, that's not it. We just want them to hear that there are two sides.

Chuck Warren: It's very.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Well, that's. Oh, yeah, I read that tweet. That's exactly right. They don't even give the two sides. And and then maybe I was somewhat pampered as a philosopher because as a as a student, I expected that. And my professors were good at doing that. I never really got the sense that, okay, my professors teach me his view. I would we'd we'd go to philosophers who disagree with each other, and I got to figure out how to think about that. So, yeah, I think those days are pretty well gone. And that's what really bothers me. That's what we need to bring back, is the ability to teach students what is logic and how do we use it to evaluate different belief systems.

Chuck Warren: And and and sort of grow up. There are people you walk by every day, people you live with. They had just opposite views on various things happening in our world. And if you can't handle that, get some help.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Well, that's that's exactly why they go to the word hatemonger and white nationalist bigot, because if they just said, hey, these guys disagree with us about marriage, you'd say so. You know, we're adults. Lots of people have different opinions. So they have to go to something shocking and say, no, not just that, but these guys are white nationalists. And you think of Nazis or something and you say, Wow, really? I didn't know that. And you don't want to go to the event. Yeah. And that's really the sad part.

Sam Stone: That and that that is where I felt Professor Simpson fell so short on this program is he didn't understand the connection that what they're doing are really just ad hominem attacks designed to suppress speech that that in doing so, they are committing an act against free inquiry and against free thought at that university. Whereas like you just said, Doctor, had they gone out and said, we disagree with them on these points and we would like to have open debate on these issues. That's the purpose as most of us understand it, of a university.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Yeah, that was wonderful. And I said that three of us wrote a letter and that's one of the things I said in there by myself was since I'm the philosopher in the group, I'll debate any of them or all of them at the same time. Let's do that. But I don't I'm surprised to find this out. But it doesn't I guess it doesn't surprise me. Debating is considered a form of of violence. So if you say, hey, let's debate this, they view that as using the coercion of reason and reason is probably also white nationalist or something.

Sam Stone: Oh, geez. Well.

Dr. Owen Anderson: Even asking for public debate gets dismissed.

Sam Stone: Yeah. No, and that's got to stop. And folks, for any of those Barrett professors, if you want to come on, we will provide the platform on our podcast with Dr. Anderson or others. You can debate it with us. You can debate it with him. Any of those letter signees who want to join us and have that open discussion on these issues, we'd welcome it. We'll set it up. We'll provide the time and place. Chuck, thank you so much. We really had a great show today, folks. Thank you for tuning in. I want to thank Dr. Owen Anderson for his time today. Doctor, we really appreciate you having on the program. And if you are not subscribed, folks, make sure you subscribe so you get our all of our podcasts, all of our content directly to your mailbox each week.

Chuck Warren: Thanks, Doctor.

Chuck Warren: Appreciate you. Yeah, thank.

Dr. Owen Anderson: You for having me.

Sam Stone: Thank you. Folks, breaking battlegrounds back on the air next week. See you then.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

Join us this week as we delve into crucial conversations and heartwarming nostalgia. In this episode, our first guest, Congressman Darrell Issa, opens up about his dedicated efforts in supporting the 13 Gold Star families who have been profoundly impacted by the unfortunate fallout of the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Through insightful dialogue, we uncover the dedication and resilience required to address these critical issues.

Shifting gears, we invite you to a captivating trip down memory lane. We're thrilled to be joined by the charismatic cast of 'The Sandlot,' coming together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this beloved classic. Chauncey Leopardi (Squints), Marty York (Alan "Yeah-Yeah" McClennan) and Victor DiMattia (Timmy Timmons) join us as they share their treasured experiences, behind-the-scenes stories, and the enduring magic that has made 'The Sandlot' a timeless masterpiece.

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Congressman Darrell Issa represents the people of California's 48th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.

The 48th District encompasses the central and eastern parts of San Diego County and a portion of Riverside County, including the communities of Fallbrook, Bonsall, Valley Center, Ramona, Escondido, Santee, Poway, Lakeside, Alpine, Temecula, Murrieta and the mountain and desert areas of the San Diego-Imperial County line.

Originally from Ohio, Issa enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was a senior in high school. Through his military service, he received an ROTC scholarship and graduated with a degree in business from Sienna Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. Upon graduation, Issa was commissioned as an Army officer, and ultimately obtained the rank of captain. He completed his active-duty military service in 1980 and turned his interests to the private sector.

At the height of his career in business, Issa served as CEO of a California-based electronics company that he founded and built in the mid-1990s, which became the nation's largest manufacturer of vehicle anti-theft and auto security devices. In 1994, Issa was named Entrepreneur of the Year. Issa also served as chairman of the Consumer Electronics Association, an organization of 2000 companies within the consumer technology industry.

Issa is a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. From 2011-2015, he was the Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and previously served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Energy & Commerce Committee, and the Small Business Committee.

As a congressman and leader at California's grassroots level, Issa has championed smart, limited government and advanced legislation to balance the federal budget and promote transparency to hold government accountable to the people.

A holder of 37 patents, Issa has been vigilant about protecting intellectual property rights. His successful efforts to fight human trafficking along the U.S. border have resulted in tougher laws, stiffer penalties, and more consistent enforcement. His watchful concern to guarantee that U.S. taxpayers receive the royalties they are owed from mineral interests on federal lands exposed fraud and mismanagement at the Mineral Management Service (MMS) in 2006. In 2008, when Congress was asked to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the wake of that year's financial crisis, Issa stood by his experience starting and growing successful businesses, opposed giving a blank-check bailout to Wall Street, and voted against all government bailouts.

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The Sandlot Cast:

Chauncey Leopardi is an American actor known for playing Michael "Squints" Palledorous in the 1993 film The Sandlot and Alan White in the 1999 series Freaks and Geeks.

Marty York is an actor, known for playing Alan "Yeah-Yeah" McClennan in The Sandlot (1993). He is also known for Boy Meets World (1993) and Due Justice.

Victor DiMattia is an actor and director, known for The Sandlot (1993), Cool as Ice (1991) and Dennis the Menace (1987).

About The Sandlot: When Scottie Smalls (Thomas Guiry) moves to a new neighborhood, he manages to make friends with a group of kids who play baseball at the sandlot. Together they go on a series of funny and touching adventures. The boys run into trouble when Smalls borrows a ball from his stepdad that gets hit over a fence.

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Transcription

Chuck Warren: Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren with my co-host, Sam Stone. On this segment, we have Congressman Darrell Issa. He represents California's 48th Congressional District, which encompasses central and eastern parts of San Diego County and a portion of Riverside County. He is also a senior member on the House Judiciary Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee. And Congressman Issa, thank you for joining us.

Darrell Issa: Well, Chuck, thanks for having me on and and congratulations on your ever expanding listeners.

Chuck Warren: Well, thank you. And it's because of folks like you who are willing to come on and talk about important issues. And you have one coming up this Monday. You're holding a congressional forum for folks who want to attend it. It's at 10 a.m. Pacific Escondido City Hall. And tell us what you're going to be doing there during this congressional forum.

Darrell Issa: Well, this Chuck, this is the kind of official event that these district work periods are made for, you know, in 2021, with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and 13 of our service members killed. Uh, we sort of, you know, said, okay, now turn the page. The administration likes to say the problem is for these the Gold Star families, the spouses, the parents, the children of these servicemen and women. You can't just turn a page. And they've never really been never been heard. They when they went to to Dover to claim the bodies, even that they managed to the administration managed to sort of screw up and make it happen and so on. So one of the things that we wanted to do in addition to we've had some of the Gold Star families in Washington, many of these individuals, they deployed from what's called the 21 here at Camp Pendleton. And so we've arranged to bring them back to the district, flown their families in, put them up and given them an opportunity, not just on Monday to tell their stories, but on Tuesday, thanks to the Marine Corps station, they will be transported to the top of this mountain where a marine. Includes their loved ones. They'll be taken up by Humvees. Walk that last few feet and and really have an opportunity to bring at least a little closure to it. And by the way, have thousands of people that support what their loved ones did and how that sacrifice may have been unnecessary mistake, but it was still their sacrifice. And so they're going to get a thank you from the people of San Diego and the Marines of Camp Pendleton.

Chuck Warren: I imagine. Have you have you met and talked with most of these these 13 families?

Darrell Issa: I have. We hosted nine groups of families in San Diego and Washington, D.C., but I've spoken to two at least one member of each family. So in some cases it's too soon for them to to really want to open up, to communicate. But there's usually, in this case, always at least one member who was willing to speak on behalf of the family. You know, years ago, Brian Terry, the Border Patrol agent that was killed based on the Fast and Furious mistake of the Obama administration, we saw one family member who the family felt comfortable saying, let him speak for all of us. And the same often happens here, but many of them will attend and, you know, have that quiet remembrance that see them, their loved ones honored by their fellow Marines at the memorial and at the ceremony on Tuesday. Now, that's a private ceremony because, again, they're coming on Monday. They'll tell their story and people will have an opportunity to meet with them if they want to. Tuesday, though, is really for the families to understand that the Marine Corps is a close knit family and their loved ones will be remembered for their sacrifice.

Chuck Warren: Let me ask you this. This may be a bit of a personal question. How has this affected you? I mean, I imagine this is emotionally draining. It probably gets the blood pressure increasing, talking to each one of these families and knowing that they they sort of died a little bit in vain because of poor execution. How has this affected you?

Darrell Issa: Well as a Vietnam era, serving with, you know, my colleagues who served in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, um, you know, all of us who have served, you know, ask, you know, what was it worth it? The ones we lost in training, the ones we lost later in in their service. And it is tough because you're constantly reminded that our men and women in uniform have won every war we've been sent to. Only to have the peace somehow screwed up by those who have PhDs and are supposed to know so much. You know, we won the Iraq conflict. We won the Afghanistan effort. No question at all. By the way. We won it with our NATO. It's like we never had before. Uh, just as we we fought North Korea and could have done more. There was a cease fire and no end to it. We won Vietnam and left a government with capability and then allowed it to be taken. So that's what I think the reminder is, is and I think it's important for your listeners, many of whom are in San Diego. Look, we we need to continue to thank those who serve, who go in harm's way. And then we need to hold those accountable who squander their efforts in Iraq today. We have an inherently chaotic country because not because we didn't drive Saddam out, but because while we held that country the same in Afghanistan, the experts couldn't figure out how to help them form a stable government that could go on. And you notice I didn't say a democracy, right. Not every not every place in the world is ready for democracy, but every every place we go into.

Darrell Issa: We have an obligation as the late George Herbert Bush once said and was told, you, look, if you break it, you own it and you have to leave it with the pieces back together. Uh, we we didn't do that in Afghanistan, and we withdrew at a time when we had the ability to keep it stable. We had the ability to give more time to to efforts to make that country able to sustain. Instead, we gave it back to the Taliban, who are the only reason we went in there was their control of the government. We we didn't have to take over Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden. We made the decision to drive them out. And 20 years later, we invited them in. That's not what we're talking about on Monday. Monday, we're talking about the sacrifice of these individuals, who they were and how much they they loved service in the Marines or the Army, which person is talking. And that's important. But we're not going to be talking about the mistakes that were made, how 160 other people died in that explosion and fire because they were crammed into an area. We're not going to be talking about how they should have been in Bagram, which would have been safer. Those are for other times. Those are for the times in Washington where we hold the hearings and try to hold those accountable, many of whom are still in power, made these mistakes.

Sam Stone: Congressman, I think and I would agree with you, it is really critical to hold those people in power accountable for what happened, in part because the mistakes they made, it wasn't the service members or their mistake. It was the mistake of the Biden administration, the people pulling out. But the repercussions of that, as seen in the actions of Russia, as seen in the actions of China, what they did in that period has made the world less safe for everybody.

Darrell Issa: You're exactly right, Chuck. That is that is the challenge that that we deal with every day, and particularly those of us who are veterans is how do we get there? And I serve on foreign affairs on top of it. We've got to get to where famously, you know, our allies count on us and believe in us, and our enemies fear us. Neither one is the case right now. I was I've been in Munich, I was in Kiev, in Ukraine, and so on. These people, many of them, you know, they're being encouraged to hedge their bets. Even some of our former allies in the Middle East are hedging their bets. That's not good. Even Israel, when I talk to the leaders there, they're they're very concerned that we don't have their back, which we've had since the founding of the state of Israel. And I will tell you, the when the speaker made the decision to bring the president of Israel to speak before Congress, he did so as part of what we could do. To assure them that we still are strong allies. Because if that if those allies don't trust us and our enemies don't fear us, we will be back in a major conflict, the type that too many men and women have given to to not have again.

Chuck Warren: I'm old enough to remember, and you are too, that when Republicans were wholeheartedly against Russian communists and I and I feel there's a segment right now who are opposed to Ukraine because of some affiliation or something to Russia. It's important Ukraine for the United States and for national security and world security.

Darrell Issa: Chuck, this is one of the things that's frustrating. I call them compromised, and I don't say they're compromised by money. I don't say they're compromised by something that somebody knows about them. And I don't even know if they're compromised by some sort of false information they've been given. But there are a number of people who I respect otherwise who clearly, on the issue of Russia, a few were on China, but some on China, they somehow hold out this hope that evil isn't what we're looking at, that these that you can somehow switch it. You can't. And that's what we knew for, by the way, Republicans and Democrats stood united. Kennedy was just as staunchly an anti-communist as Nixon. We need to get back to that resolution that there's good and evil. And once you determine that somebody is evil, don't be debating whether the other side's good enough. Deal with evil. Ukraine isn't perfect, but it's not Russia and it's not the aggressor.

Sam Stone: Yeah, nobody in the world is perfect, but there are absolutes in the real world. It is absolutely a fact that Russia and China are great power, opposites to us. They are our competitors on the world stage and if they take over, that leads to a much more dangerous world and a much, much less stable world for everybody. And I think there are far too many members who continue to discount that fact, Chuck, that that we just have to start looking once again. At the moment, we are in a great power conflict and there is good and evil.

Chuck Warren: Congressman Sam and I have told other guests we've had you can say Ukraine has corruption problems, but also we can't allow Russia just to go take a country. They're not mutually exclusive. And oh, you're absolutely.

Darrell Issa: You know, you're absolutely right. And I would tell everyone, Taiwan had corruption problems. South Korea had corruption problems. But they we worked them through that. And today they are sustainable democracies. So the transition can take a long time. But if Russia invades and takes them over, just like the 60 years before, there won't be a transition to an effective democracy.

Chuck Warren: With Congressman Darrell Issa. He'll be right back with us for our next break. This is breaking battlegrounds with Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. We'll be right back.

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Chuck Warren: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Today we have with us Darrell Issa. But folks, Sam's going to make a little point here for you.

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Chuck Warren: So the Supreme Court did the United States a really huge civics lesson favor in that they rejected Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program for one simple reason. That is something Congress has to vote on. What do you see needs to happen so Congress start taking their appropriate role again on budgeting, on foreign policy, on things of this nature. It seems like we truly are, to use the catch phrase, swamp running. Dc It's just a bunch of bureaucrats. You guys pass a bill, they put the details in, they run it, they rule on it. What can we do to give that power back to Congress as it was intended to?

Darrell Issa: Well, that's a great question, and it's one that the speaker began when he literally clawed back $29 billion of funds that were already spent that were basically being used as walking around money for immigration. And he used the debt ceiling as a basis for it. But that's just a very small down payment, you know, living in Washington and having the honor of being able to lead people up to the top of the dome of the Capitol. When you look out on the dome from the dome, what you see is you see you're from the Capitol. You see six buildings total that belong to the House of Representatives and Senate for their their offices. And there were two more annexes. That's all the buildings of our entire branch. But you don't see is you don't see another building for miles. It is in part of the executive branch cabinet position after cabinet position. And of course, you know, what you see at the EPA pales in comparison to the field offices or all these other large bureaucracies. Congress has the ability to determine who hit it hires to do determination of its rights and responsibilities. And the reality is Congress needs to be more responsible and it needs to cede less in each law. And many of our laws require reauthorization. One of them actually is called FISA. It's just spying on people, presumably outside the US. But as we found, they used it to spy on President Trump and others.

Darrell Issa: We have the ability to take back a lot of that authority. We have the ability to give some of it to courts, but we certainly need to do that on foreign policy, Believe it or not, people have forgotten this. Every trade agreement is the absolute right of the House of Representatives. We pass a law every so many years, you know, that gives a right to the administration to negotiate and then come back to us with an up or down. And of course, sometimes, like Obama, they negotiate something they know that Congress will never pass and then they act like they were they were pro trade and we weren't. That's ridiculous. We can and should, for example, have members of the House of Representatives or people that we hire. Those trade negotiations with a seat at the table. Constitution says we can do it if we simply hold the constitution and return to original principles, including how we allocate money to the executive branch, we can absolutely take it back. But it's going to take every member of Congress understanding that ceding power to the other branch is lazy. And unfortunately, it's led to the kind of control that Democrats seem to like. And Republicans to a person go home and tell their constituents is wrong. So that's a long winded way to say the way we take it back is we begin taking it back every day with every bill we've had.

Sam Stone: Congressman, this is Sam. One of the things my background was in part working with the city of Phoenix and in talking to friends that I have who work in federal bureaucracies, federal agencies primarily outside of DC, one of the issues that I think is across the board in government now is they are just massively overstaffed. On the bureaucratic side, 20 to 30% of the people do 80 to 90% of the work. The others are frankly a drag on their morale. But the the overarch, the. Coming out of it is that when you have that many bureaucrats, they can really only justify their jobs by continuing to pass more and more regulation, more and more, expand the reach of their departments and their government agencies. And so much of the problems in this country, I think, now stems from the fact that our government, we can spend huge amounts of money to $2.2 trillion on infrastructure, and the signature outcome of it is a handful of pedestrian bridges to nowhere that we're not getting the bang for our buck because of that over bureaucracy, bureaucratization.

Darrell Issa: Well, you're exactly right. And, you know, one of the best examples is, you know, if you try to get a visa or a passport right now, you can't get a passport renewed. And unless you go to your congressman, you're going to wait months. Now, you sort of look and say, well, why is that? Is it because they can't get enough people or they they don't have enough money? Not at all. It's because they got used to basically they call it teleworking. I call it working. Congress has the ability to hold them accountable. And we need to right now, one of the things that Foreign Affairs is looking at is literally privatizing to a contractor. Most of that work with a recognition that we're going to pay X amount. It has to be delivered in a certain amount of time or they don't get anything. You can't do that very effectively with the in-house bureaucracy. You can do it when you force them to have a lesser amount of government worker and a greater amount of people who you can hold accountable. And by the way, you can fire them if they don't meet the target objective. So a lot of that has to be done that way. The headcount I'll give you an example. The Pentagon today has more employees for basically 1 million soldiers, sailors and Marines than they had when we had 11 million spread all throughout the world. And remember, back then, we were doing everything by paper with typewriters and carbon copy. The fact is that our overhead has become so bloated that, for example, in the Pentagon, holding someone accountable is almost impossible because there are so many people with so many titles needs to change again. When Congress authorizes money, we have the ability to authorize how many generals and how many colonels and by the way, how many DOD civilians. And I've challenged the Armed Services Committee to do just that, to reduce. And Ken Calvert, who's a California congressman, has actually begun the process of reducing the total number of DOD civilians and telling them that we know they can live with less and we expect them to do so.

Chuck Warren: Well, please, please keep pushing that. Congressman, we have about 30s left here with our time with you. We appreciate you coming on today with Congressman Darrell Issa, California 48th District. You're on the foreign House Foreign affairs Committee. What is the 1 or 2 things that keep you up at night with 30s left on that?

Darrell Issa: What keeps me up at night are three things the the cozy relationship this administration seems to want to have with Iran, the unwillingness to actually call China and Russia for what they are on an everyday basis. President Biden called Xi a dictator and then he backpedaled from it. He should never have backpedaled from it. Ronald Reagan called Russia Soviet Union an evil empire and it stuck and it made a difference. We need to get back to those three above all other countries, those three countries being called for what they are.

Chuck Warren: Thank you. Congressman Darrell Issa, thank you for joining us. We hope to have you on again soon. Folks, this is breaking battlegrounds. We'll be back.

Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Moran. I'm Sam Stone. Well, as baseball geeks, as family movie fanatics, we were really excited for this next interview. I remember this film from a long time ago. Chuck and I really enjoyed it, rewatched it last night and I thought it aged better than I could have ever imagined. We are incredibly honored to have the cast of The Sandlot here to celebrate their 30th anniversary today. We have Chauncey Leopardi, squints known as Squints Marty York, who played Alan Yaya McLennan. And guys, thank you so much for joining us today. We really love having you on the program. It's it's you know what I thought about the film last night rewatching it. It was an homage to a lost era in American childhood in many ways. You know, the last free kids in America.

Chuck Warren: We used to play baseball every day. Yeah, wake.

Sam Stone: Up all day, every day.

Chuck Warren: So you're both we're young child actors. Did you play baseball like this? Did you have a bunch of friends you gather with and played baseball every day in the park?

Chauncey Leopardi: Um, I think you guys nailed it with the homage to, like, a Lost childhood, because I definitely feel like today's generation and even, you know, the generation before kind of lost that out all day until the, you know, the streetlights came on type of vibe. But yeah, we both were athletic, I would say, and we didn't play organized sports. We were sandlot kids ourselves.

Marty York: So yeah, I mean, we, uh, we learned a lot before we went to the field. So we, we actually became very good at playing in Los Angeles before we came to Utah. And our, our coach, our baseball coach was actually squints his grandpa. Oh, wow. Uh, during the, the squint scene where he talks about in the tree house.

Chauncey Leopardi: Police chief Squiggman Pallidus.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yes.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah. He's a Kappa. He's a Giants fan. But we won't hold that against him. But he actually was our baseball.

Sam Stone: Here in Arizona. We do hold that against him also.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, we do too. Silently in Los Angeles. But, you know, he's. He's fond of heart.

Chuck Warren: Do you do you get tired? I know you're doing it 30th anniversary. And, you know, this film's become very special for a lot of people. Um, do you do you do you look back on it with fond memories or just something like this is just in the past. And I'm a new chapters in life now.

Chauncey Leopardi: No mean you see the joy that it brings people and that it's it's continued over, you know, three, four generations now of like, you know, parents passing it down to their children. And you see the moments that they've shared and the the genuine happiness that the film brings and the fact that kids will still watch it to this day, which is, you know, super odd and doesn't happen very often anymore. So we enjoy it, we embrace it and take on the roles that we've been given. And I guess we're here to carry the torch for, you know, for the sandlot kids everywhere now.

Marty York: Yeah. I mean, it's still surprises us when we, you know, we go to these sporting events and these like professional athletes are like, we love your movie or you guys are the reason we play baseball or, you know, it's it's still, you know, it's like year after year it just gets bigger and bigger, which is really cool.

Sam Stone: I asked a bunch of parents if they had shown it to their kids. You know, with young kids right now and universally they had.

Chuck Warren: Like, well, it's a movie. It's a movie you can actually watch with your kids to generational film. So, um, Chauncey and Marty, do you both do you both have kids? Do you have nephews and nieces?

Chauncey Leopardi: I have. I have a bunch of kids. Marty doesn't have any kids. Not that I know of.

Chuck Warren: So have you made. Have you? But. So, Marty, we'll leave that for another episode one day. John, we.

Chauncey Leopardi: Got 50.

Sam Stone: Minutes coming up in the second segment here.

Chuck Warren: Chuck, Chauncey, have your kids all watched the show?

Chauncey Leopardi: So, you.

Chauncey Leopardi: Know, my oldest is 21, so she's seen it previously. But I have a five and a seven year old that I just started showing it to them. And like I caught my son, who's five, watching it the other day, just like it might be the first like live action movie that he's actually sat through. So it still holds strong. You know, he's still like, they're excited. They're with us. They they came here to Utah with us and they're going to be at the sandlot. So they're so excited to be in The Sandlot movie because that's what they think's going on.

Chauncey Leopardi: Oh, that's fantastic. And.

Chuck Warren: Chauncey, I want I want to make a correction, though I split time between Arizona. Utah when you said a bunch of kids in Utah were thinking, that's five, six, seven kids. So just realize three kids in Utah is not a lot of kids.

Chauncey Leopardi: I have four, but yeah, I'm working on it. I'll get.

Chuck Warren: There. You get there. You got to get there and be part of it. Are you both baseball fans?

Chauncey Leopardi: It pours a.

Chauncey Leopardi: Lot in l.a.

Chauncey Leopardi: Are you both? Yeah, we're baseball fans. Are you baseball.

Chuck Warren: Fans? So.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah. Did.

Chuck Warren: Were you baseball fans before the movie?

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah. I mean, I was in a basketball phase when we did Sandlot. It was the Michael Jordan era. So, you know, basketball was king at the moment. But I think over time, the game has grown on us because we've become such a part of it. Um, and, you know, it's a great thing.

Victor Dimattia: Yeah. Oh, and this is Victor Dimattia, by the way. I played Timmy Timmons. Y'all didn't introduce me, but I'm hearing you. Hi, Victor. How are you talking? So I'm good, man. Good.

Chuck Warren: Victor. Hey, Victor, We want to hear you. We're going to take a quick break. This is breaking battlegrounds.

Victor Dimattia: You know, I'm leaving. Never mind. We're going to.

Chuck Warren: Come back with a very bitter victor. We'll be right back. This is breaking battlegrounds. We're with the cast of Sandlots with Marty, Victor and Chauncey. We'll be right back.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, are you looking for an opportunity to earn a tremendous rate of return that's not tied to the stock market. The stock market can go up. The stock market can go down. You can still earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right, 10.25% fixed. Just give our friends at invest refi a call. You can call them at 888 y refy 24. Or just go online, invest the letter Y, then refy.com and let them know Chuck and Sam sent you. Okay. Continuing on with the cast of the Sandlot, we are very excited to have them in studio. I was really stunned, Chuck, rewatching that movie at how well it has held up over all these years and so the opportunity to talk about it, we have Chauncey Leopardi, Marty York, Victor Dimattia online with us today. Guys. I was stunned at how well, like even the really kind of goofy effects about the beast kind of held up just because they they sort of still seemed like kids. Overblown fears. And the rest of it looks like it could have been made yesterday.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, Yeah. It's really cool.

Chauncey Leopardi: I think it's kind of lost in time because of the way that David shot it. David Mickey Evans is the writer director and he had Tony Richmond, the DP. He handed him like Kodak chromatic film and he said, I want the film to look like this. And if anybody remembers Kodak chromatic film, it has that like. That that weird like, like pop art type of vibe to it. And so it's kind of like this last summer that's just, you know, it's like a time capsule and it doesn't really age and it just is, you know, a piece of Americana.

Chauncey Leopardi: It connects it.

Sam Stone: Beautifully.

Victor Dimattia: That it I think the fact that it's set in the 60s, it came out in the 90s but set in the 60s kind of also sets it apart like that. So it doesn't look aged like kind of like a Christmas story, how it takes place like in the past, correct. So it just like, it just never like looks like it's dated.

Chuck Warren: Um, Victor, Marty, Chauncey, you all seem like you have a good relationship. I'm sure a lot of movies, a lot of movie casts. Can't say that. Have you all stayed close over the years?

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, we got a great group chat. It's been cracking lately. Actually, I've been. I've been putting some really good memes in there.

Victor Dimattia: Yeah, it's mostly just Chauncey and Marty making fun of each other, but. But it's entertaining, pretty much.

Chuck Warren: I tell our audience. What was it like filming? Okay, so your young men, how long did it take? How long were you out there? You know, I know filming at times, too, can be quite boring at times because it's a hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. What was it like being young men, boys, teenagers, filming something like this? Victor, we'll start with you.

Victor Dimattia: Oh, it was a long it was a long shoot. I mean, it was like almost three months, which like these days you don't do that anymore. Really. Things move a lot faster. But they really took their time. And we had a lot of days in Lake City filming this movie.

Sam Stone: Yeah. One of the things I mean, in watching it, it looked like you guys were having a ton of fun throughout it. I mean, it's hard, I think, for kids sometimes to to hide their their personal experience on film other than the pool scene, which I guess apparently was was freezing cold that day. But you guys look like you were having a ton of fun throughout that movie.

Chauncey Leopardi: It was a blast. I mean, we got to play ball all day. You know, you got nine kids running around, you know, with their their their set parents or, you know, we had our parents come to set. It was it was a really cool experience. And it was a.

Chauncey Leopardi: It was a lot.

Chauncey Leopardi: Of it felt like the last of like a real film production where, like, all those sets were really built. They were all hard sets. You had real props. Nothing was CGI. Everything was like, really done. So you really had like that awe of like, you know, this is a cool period sports movie with kids and a dog. And it was a lot going on. It was a really good time.

Marty York: We all did our own stuff too, which was really cool. Well.

Chuck Warren: The big stunt.

Marty York: This is Marty, the scene where I'm actually going over the fence in the harness. I actually really did that. Oh, did you really? Yeah, It was about 25, 30ft in the air and just literally held on by a fiberglass harness. And the crew was pulling me with these, like, metal wires. So it was I mean, it was dangerous. You know.

Chauncey Leopardi: It was definitely an OSHA violation.

Chuck Warren: How long? Oh, definitely. How long did how long did it take to film that scene? How how long were you in that harness?

Marty York: I think we did. It took about two hours. Three hours of filming.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, Marty had to perfect his.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah.

Marty York: You know, that was, uh. That was all improvised, too. We improvised a lot of the stuff on set, too.

Chauncey Leopardi: Also, if you watch it when. When they. When we pull him up, Marty pushes off of the the railing of the treehouse because he would have cracked his head open. So you definitely can't do that kind of stuff anymore with child labor law.

Chuck Warren: No, you can't. Not at all. I have a question I want to ask all three of you individually, and I'll start with Victor, then Marty, then Chauncey. How did you get the role? Did you have to go through a bunch of auditions? Victor, I want to start with you. Then we'll go to Marty and Chauncey. How did you get the role?

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, it was a really long casting process. I mean, I had done a bunch of stuff before and it was like, you know, you go out and maybe have a callback or two, but this was like they kept bringing us back over and over, and then they would like pair us up with different kids and like kind of see how we interacted together. And they brought us out onto a field and had us play baseball and stuff. So it was like definitely a much longer process than than other stuff that I had done.

Sam Stone: I have to ask because I had totally forgotten when I got to the end of the movie last night that James Earl Jones was in it.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah.

Sam Stone: Did you all get that? I mean, because obviously that's post Star Wars Post Darth Vader. Were you guys a Star Wars fans and be like, what was that like? Did you get to interact with him and what was he like?

Marty York: Yeah, this is Marty. Actually, I did get a chance to interact with him. My mom said I'm actually going to take you to meet Darth Vader. He took me to his trailer, and she said. She said, Yeah, that's. He was like eating breakfast or something. And she's like, That's Darth Vader. And I asked him that and he goes, I said, Are you Darth Vader? And he goes, I am your father. And yeah, and the James Earl Jones, you know, Darth Vader voice. And it was amazing.

Chuck Warren: Jones I want to go back to these auditions. Chauncey, How did you get your role?

Chauncey Leopardi: Um, originally I was reading for another part, actually, I think I was reading for. Yeah. When I went in and like Vic said, it was a pretty rigorous, I think I went back on like 4 or 5 callbacks and then we did like a lot of like, I guess it's kind of like screen testing. But we went to this place in LA called the Sportsmen's Lodge. It's where a lot of the kids from out of town were staying and we would like run lines on film or tape. Like for 2 or 3 hours in the morning as they pulled in kids and mixed and matched and did their thing. And then we would go play baseball in the afternoon with our baseball coach and see if the kids could actually look like they could play. So it was probably the the, you know, the most strenuous casting process I had ever done. I mean, sometimes you go in, you don't hear anything, and then you book a job or sometimes you read a couple times and maybe screen test. But this was like a month and a half long process probably of like, you know, continuous. Um, you know, rigorous auditioning and and baseball training. You know, and I think obviously they did what they had to do and the film held up. So I guess it was a good process for them.

Sam Stone: The baseball training worked. It looked good.

Chuck Warren: Yeah, it looked it looked legitimate because they obviously can play. So how many of the kids that you saw during.

Chauncey Leopardi: Some of these guys were rough? Yeah, Well.

Chuck Warren: That's my question. During auditions, how what percentage of people during auditions really cannot play baseball at all?

Chauncey Leopardi: Like like 90% of them probably.

Marty York: Really horrible.

Sam Stone: The theater kid crowd does not cross over entirely with the baseball kid crowd.

Chauncey Leopardi: You know, the thing is, actors, they had clips of audiences when you would go to like a casting call and of course your mom or whatever be like.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, yeah, you can do all of it. Just if they ask, just tell them you can do that to ride a horse. Sure, we'll figure it out later.

Chuck Warren: I think that's what all parents advice is. When you have a job opportunity, just say you can do everything. We'll figure it out later, right?

Marty York: Exactly.

Chuck Warren: Hope is not a battle plan, but sometimes it is in the world. Yeah. When you got done with the film, were you just of the mindset like, All right, I'm ready for the next job? Or did you realize what a wonderful experience this was? And I mean, how how and we'll start with you, Chauncey, then Marty, then Victor. How did when it got done, what were your feelings with it? Just it's done. I'm worn out. It was three months in Salt Lake. I'm ready to get back to other things in life. Try new things. I mean, what went through your mind?

Chauncey Leopardi: I was late to start junior high.

Chuck Warren: Oh.

Chauncey Leopardi: I went right back into school.

Chuck Warren: Did everybody know you were an actor in junior high?

Chauncey Leopardi: I mean, it was starting a new school because I was just going into sixth grade, so I think it was a little funny. I met one of my best friends. We're still friends to this day because we were the only two kids in the back of gym class with no gym clothes on and we were just sitting there next to each other because we were both he was moving from somewhere else from San Diego up to L.A. And I was just had come back from doing this film, so we were both late to school and had no gym clothes. And that kind of set the tone for our friendship kind of, you know, which is pretty cool. Um, yeah, it was cool. And when the film came out, it's interesting. It was a different time. So, you know, nowadays I think that like there's a lot more social media presence, especially for young actor kids, and they have, you know, a more demanding promotional schedule. We did go on a promo tour, but outside of that, you kind of lived a normal life even if you were, you know, a quote unquote, celebrity at the time. I mean, they had like teenybopper magazines, but there wasn't nobody chasing you around or paparazzi or that type of deal. So, you know, you came in and you did movies and then you went home and you had a normal, you know, teenage life.

Chuck Warren: Marty, how about you?

Marty York: Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, after the, after the movie I. Yes, auditioning for stuff. I think like a lot of Boy Meets World and it was, you know, going to my school experience was like very strange because I was like the only actor there. And, and the, the jocks didn't like that for some reason. So it was an interesting experience for me. But I mean, you know, life and I kept acting and doing stuff and. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: And Victor, how about you?

Victor Dimattia: Um, yeah. I mean, you know, um. Lake Chauncey was saying, you know, right after that, I went back to school and was a little bit late getting back in there. But I went to school in San Fernando Valley in California. So like, there was other kids in my class that were actors, and I think all of them were trying to be actors and going out on auditions and stuff. So, I mean, it wasn't really all that all that weird, but we stayed in touch, you know, after the movie and we went and hung out. We actually I remember Brandon, who played Nunez, was in the Mighty Ducks that had filmed just before The Sandlot. So right after the movie Wrapped Ducks came out shortly after that. And I remember, um, a few of us that lived in LA all went to the theater to go watch that together and go see Brandon and the Mighty Ducks. So that was pretty cool.

Sam Stone: That's awesome. Is there is there one scene that you guys had the most fun filming that that was like just a blast that day?

Chauncey Leopardi: I really like the playing. The baseball against the other team was fun. We played a lot that day. It was pretty cool.

Chauncey Leopardi: I saw you said the pool scene.

Chauncey Leopardi: I mean, not that everybody. I mean, I guess not everybody has the same experience. I think for us as a group, like I like the stuff when we were actually getting to play ball. I know that as we were shooting the film, we were shooting a movie, but we were always trying to just like hit dingers and like hang out together and have that kind of thing, you know? So.

Sam Stone: Yeah, what I loved about that scene, it sort of as a baseball fan, it portended in many ways the future of baseball, where it moved from the sandlots of the country to the organized teams. And personally, Chuck, I don't think that's helped the game. I think they built stronger players when it's that opening of it, when they talk about they just never stop playing.

Chuck Warren: No, no. Well, we see the.

Chauncey Leopardi: Kids in with the with the the milk, the milk box gloves just coming in and crushing the league. So I guess you're right, right? Yeah.

Sam Stone: Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Guys, we're going to go. We're ending this segment wherever you can. Stay with us just for ten minutes more. Go into our podcast portion, which talk a little bit more with you. Can you all three do that? Do you have time for ten more minutes?

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, we're good.

Chuck Warren: Okay, good. By the.

Chauncey Leopardi: Way, the green room.

Chuck Warren: Here, by the way. Yeah, I saw that there at the hockey stadium. Marty, I understand you were born in Auburn. I graduated high school in Auburn in 83. And you were born in 80.

Marty York: Oh, get out of here. Auburn, California.

Chuck Warren: Yeah. Plaster High School. Go, Go! Mighty Hillman.

Marty York: Oh, awesome, man. Yeah, it's. I haven't been down there since I was, like, ten, but it's changed. It's grass Valley has grown. Grass Valley is actually. That's where I lived. Are born in Auburn, but lived in Grass Valley.

Chuck Warren: Fantastic. This is breaking battlegrounds with the cast of Sandlot. Please join us for our podcast portion with Marty, Chauncey and Victor, and we'll talk a little bit more about the 30th anniversary and how this films influenced baseball and kids and families. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at Breaking Battlegrounds, Dot Vote or wherever you find your podcasts. This is Chuck and Sam. We'll be right back.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to the podcast. Only portion of breaking battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone continuing on the line with us. And thank you guys so much for doing so. We have key members from the cast of The Sandlot, Chauncey Leopardi, Marty York, Victor Dimattia, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Kind of reliving a little slice of of my childhood, if you will. And guys, I just got to thank you rewatching that. I really enjoyed it again last night. It was That's a blast. It's such a fun film, Chuck.

Chuck Warren: It really is. So what do you tell us a little about what's going to go on this weekend for the 30th anniversary?

Chauncey Leopardi: So tonight we're going to be at the Salt Lake Bees game. Um, hanging out there with the fans and the team. And then tomorrow, um, on the lot. Uh. Think we'll be doing a VIP session early and then we're going to do a public signing for all the ticket holders, and then they're going to show the film after we do a big Q&A for everybody. Um. And yeah, that's kind of the gist of things, you know? But on the lot celebrating 30 years.

Sam Stone: And the bees are a ton of bees.

Chauncey Leopardi: Be there.

Chauncey Leopardi: Oh, the.

Chauncey Leopardi: Bees. Yeah, the bees are great. Yeah, that's a good time. We haven't been back for about five years.

Victor Dimattia: Yeah, we've been there. Yeah, we were there for the 20th anniversary of the 25th. And now the 30th.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah. They always take good care of us There.

Chuck Warren: That's fantastic. So being child actors, which I think would be very difficult, is it something you would recommend for kids to pursue if they really want to pursue it now that you have 30 years to reflect on these things?

Chauncey Leopardi: If they really want to pursue it. Yes. It's not something that I would necessarily. Um, throw my kids into unwillingly.

Marty York: But it's kind of a different ballgame now as far as like social media and everything and like YouTube and yeah, the way that auditions are done nowadays is they're like self tapes. Whereas like, when we were kids, our parents would take us to auditions and, you know, they'd be shuttling us around all over Los Angeles. And nowadays it's like a bunch of thumbnails on a computer screen. And you know, these casting directors have to choose like that. So I mean, I definitely think nowadays it might be like, you know, a little tougher, but it's easier on the parents nowadays than it was back in our day.

Chauncey Leopardi: Do you feel like it can be a lot of pressure? Yeah, I have kids, so I feel like I would say that, you know, there was times that I wanted to be a kid and I had a job, you know? And it's.

Chauncey Leopardi: Hard to.

Chauncey Leopardi: Tell a ten year old that wants to go hang out with his friends that he's got to go hold down the family. So, you know, I feel like if it's something you're passionate about, you know, we. But thought wasn't necessarily. You know, I don't want my kids auditions necessarily, and force them into that life either. I guess to each their own.

Sam Stone: Yeah. The social media element has to be really, really tough because it's tough enough to be a kid in a social media world, much less a famous kid in a social media world. As parents, that's, I think, a tricky.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, a lot of it is like. That's kind of the focal point of this field now to I mean, the whole business is kind of ran off of social. So if you don't have a social presence, especially for younger, younger people, then they don't really have a place, you know what I mean? So it's more driven around that. Do you have a following? Not like, are you an. Get it. Are like, you handle the social game and can you go viral on TikTok and and can you more or less you know.

Chuck Warren: Yeah right, right. So let me ask you this question. We'll start with you. Chauncey, who played skits on Sandlot. Who has been your favorite athlete?

Chauncey Leopardi: You've met my favorite athlete. We've met. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: You've actually met Wade Boggs?

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah. Wade Boggs. Yeah, man, Wade is a he's a I've met a lot of athletes and they're all great. But Wade is we played we played a softball game with him at the Field of Dreams. Oh, wow. And Wade Wade took us out drinking afterwards and did karaoke with us. Me and Wade did a duet. And at the end he he grabbed me and he whispered in my ear. He sang back up for me. We were singing Leonard Skynyrd. And. And at the end of the song. He he whispered in my ear and he said, That was f*****g beautiful, brother.

Chuck Warren: And you can say and you can quote that on podcasts. That's amazing. And see and see and see. Chauncey That should be on social media right there.

Sam Stone: Okay. As a as a Boston kid born and raised now I'm super jealous. I'm super jealous.

Chuck Warren: Marty, how about you?

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah. No, he's.

Chuck Warren: Go ahead.

Marty York: I'll have to go away, too, man. Wade Wade's just. I think we'd all probably go with Wade because he's made an.

Chauncey Leopardi: Impression on us.

Marty York: He's the funniest guy to be around. And it's funny because we just saw him at the Baseball Hall of Fame. And the moment we walked in, he goes.

Chauncey Leopardi: The Little Leaguers.

Marty York: He goes, the Little Leaguers are here, tells us a little leaguer. It's not the same.

Chuck Warren: As your old men in your 40s Now, that's fantastic, man.

Chauncey Leopardi: I'm sorry I missed that.

Marty York: He had his he had his cooler of beer right there, too. He always has his cooler of beer.

Chuck Warren: Oh, that's amazing.

Chauncey Leopardi: I. Yeah, we saw him in Cooperstown two weeks ago and then I saw him again last weekend in Chicago. And he just as soon as he saw me, he goes, How did I get so lucky? I got two weeks in a row seeing you guys. And. And Wade's a kisser. He's a kisser. Is he? Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Well, I guess when you're.

Chauncey Leopardi: Affectionate with this loved.

Chuck Warren: One. Yes. When you're carrying around a cooler of beer, you're going to be affectionate all the time. Is there. Is there some homage or recognition of Sandlot at the Hall of Fame?

Chauncey Leopardi: There is. So they have I think they have the original screenplay signed by everybody. And there's a couple big posters and then a I think the Babe Ruth Ball is there as well.

Chauncey Leopardi: Yeah, they got a few things in there. Yeah.

Chauncey Leopardi: So it's there and the baseball section. So that was really cool to see that as well.

Chuck Warren: How was it playing at Field of Dreams? How was that?

Chauncey Leopardi: That was incredible, bro. A really great experience. We got two minutes left, guys. We got to go on air. No worries. But the field of Dreams was incredible. It was an experience that I hope that we get to have again. Yeah, we played softball with Reggie Jackson and Rickey Henderson and Ozzie Smith and Wade Boggs, and we came out of the cornfield and and, you know, it was it was a it definitely bring a tear to your eye because the field is still the same. And it's pretty inspiring if you're into baseball and films.

Sam Stone: And someone who's deeply into baseball and films, we're going to let that be the final word. Thank you so much to the cast and crew from The Sandlot, guys. That's an amazing experience. And I think every baseball fan, every fan of the movie would love to have been able to to see and participate in that like you did. Unbelievable. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Chauncey Leopardi: Thanks, guys.

Marty York: Thanks, guys. Have a good.

Chuck Warren: Weekend. Take care. Thanks, guys. You too. Well, Sam, that was fantastic.

Sam Stone: That was brilliant. That was brilliant.

Chuck Warren: And I'm glad. I'm glad the Hall of Fame has that recognition in there for them.

Sam Stone: You know, I do like that. It's interesting. I think baseball generates better movies than any other sport. Yes. I mean, it just for some reason, it lends itself to the moviemaking business, right? Like the pacing of it, maybe. I don't know exactly what it is, but it does. And yeah, the hall I was probably there before that display went up, but I remember the one from a League of their Own, which had just, just gone in there when I went.

Chuck Warren: Um, we definitely need to go scalped some tickets and go hit the Field of Dreams game Major League Baseball does during the summer next summer. So yeah.

Sam Stone: Absolutely. I mean, look, the the field at Cooperstown is one of the most beautiful little stadium fields you've ever seen in your life. They do just a brilliant job, folks. If you haven't been to Cooperstown, if you're if you're baseball fans, if you've got a kid who's a baseball player, take the time to go to Cooperstown. That is it. It's so different than the basketball or Football Hall of Fame. It's really a living experience when you're in that town.

Chuck Warren: Well, we've had a great show this week with the cast of Sandlot, and we appreciate them coming on. And Congressman Issa from California introducing us. He's our first guest for the San Diego market. That's very exciting. I want to talk a couple a couple political issues here to end the show. First of all, Ron DeSantis came up with a great idea this week. And sadly, Ron DeSantis campaign won't get this out. But I'm hoping every frankly, every Republican congressional candidate does an ad on this. What Ron DeSantis is proposing is that college student loan debt be dischargeable during bankruptcy because right now you can't declare bankruptcy on student loans. But here's the twist. He would put the universities on the hook for it. His quote is, I think the universities should be responsible for the student debt. You produce somebody that can be successful. They pay off the loans. Great. If you don't, then you're going to be on the hook, he said on the campaign trail. I really like this a lot. Oh, I love it. And DeSantis DeSantis is very I mean, look, people may not like his personality. The campaign may.

Sam Stone: Seem the campaign has been.

Chuck Warren: Rough, seem.

Sam Stone: Rough. It's been rough.

Chuck Warren: But he is the smartest policy guy. I think him and Vivek are the guys that really are thinking outside the box. And and, you know, we need that's how you win. That's how you build your that's how you broaden the tent.

Sam Stone: I mean, first, I think going forward and I've said this for a couple of years, you should absolutely make these universities guarantee their own loans. And so I love this idea. I mean, at the end of the day, if a university is having to guarantee their loans, they're not going to allow a student to rack up $200,000 for a career that pays 45 grand.

Chuck Warren: Or they may or they may say, if you want to get a degree in modern art, you also have to have a minor in business. Right? Right. You can do this, but you also have to have a skill.

Sam Stone: Well, return on investment.

Chuck Warren: Yeah. And they need to start looking at more. And so like, you know, it's unfair to make somebody who's repairing air conditioning or working at a grocery store or driving a taxi pay because some kid defaulted on it. So make the university responsible. So they put a little more time and effort into this as well.

Sam Stone: Well, and bankruptcy is not a nothing thing. No, no.

Chuck Warren: I mean, it's a major thing. It's on your record for seven years. It can affect a lot of things.

Sam Stone: So people aren't just going to rush to give themselves a BC to get rid of their their student loan debt. So it becomes a very thoughtful decision at that point. I love having universities on the line. You're right about DeSantis having real policy chops as he's shown in Florida. Yes, he's he's very much in front of the game when it comes to the policy end of this. For all the criticism, his campaign, I have not been impressed. Apparently, nobody in the country has been particularly impressed. But his governance has been beyond impressive. And I wish we would be recognizing that more and stop, stop this idea that that a primary fight means we have to tear down.

Chuck Warren: Right?

Sam Stone: I mean, stop.

Chuck Warren: I wish all of the Republicans this includes President Trump, which is focused more on Joe Biden. Joe Biden is corrupt. Yeah, Joe Biden is not honest. Joe Biden is not. I'm not even sure he's there. And that brings a point. You and I, we because we're on an hour a week plus a podcast, we really try to focus on issues, right? And sometimes we have like the cast of Sandlot because it's our mic. We're going to have some people we.

Sam Stone: Want to have some fun from time to time. Yeah, but.

Chuck Warren: This Hunter Biden thing stinks to high heaven. And watching Democrats change the narrative every time is incredible. For example, The New York Times literally came out the other day and said it has been long. It has long been known that the elder Mr. Biden at times interacted with his son's business partners. That is a bald faced lie. Put in print by the New York Times because they have denied it. Matter of fact, when Hunter Biden this is not New York Times, but when Hunter Biden's story came out, the NPR said they announced that they weren't covering the laptop news because, quote, We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. Right. But they keep getting these facts right. So you had trust fund, Dan, who was a Levi Strauss heir in New York, who seems to be he decided that AOC was enough to have an idiot on the Democrat side. He's got Levi Strauss.

Sam Stone: And Goldman Sachs.

Chuck Warren: He's going to do it as a white trust fund guy. Right. And so he's been covering for these folks. But every time the facts come out, it gets more and more and more now, again. Does Joe Biden love his son? 100%. And we all know dads will do certain things for sons, but people aren't being honest about this. And even if Joe Biden took no money, okay, Even if he took no money. We'll give them. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Sam Stone: He didn't want to, but okay.

Chuck Warren: He still went and intervened to play a role, to give an illusion so his son could take money from foreign countries.

Sam Stone: One of the things one of the things forget the illusion. One of the things that is totally damning in this thing to me is the Viktor Shokin incident, the Ukrainian prosecutor that Biden bragged on the world stage that he got fired. And what was Shokin doing? Investigating Burisma, Burisma, which was the company in Ukraine that was paying the Biden family through Hunter. I don't think you know, you're already hearing all the left say, well, he didn't do anything. It was the illusion you hit on it. It's the illusion of access.

Chuck Warren: But before he didn't know. But as of a month ago, he didn't know anything. He had no part in his business deals. He's just a loving father. That's just not true.

Sam Stone: Oh, no. Look, these newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, when it comes to politics, they do some good work outside of those areas. And it's sad. I don't want to tar the entire newsroom with the same brush, but when it comes to politics, all they're doing is is mirroring the Democrat Party line, whatever that happens to be. And Covid taught them a terrible and unfortunate truth is that if they just lie long and strong enough that more and 51% of people will buy.

Chuck Warren: It, and The New York Times and The Washington Post will cover for them. Right. And then The New York Times did like like they did with the laptop. They came out later and said, oh, yes, we you know, we had somebody look at it this this laptop.

Sam Stone: Did with the.

Chuck Warren: Dossier. And now they're pretending like, well, people have known that he knew the business associates. I mean, it just keeps it's a staggering thing. One last item before we take off. I came across this this morning on a on a newsletter I get. And so I Googled it and there's articles on it. And so California is threatening to sue professors who want to testify as experts in the learning loss case against the state of California. Technically, these professors signed away their right to engage in litigation when they got access to non-public state K-12 datasets for their own research, and now they can't testify to the extent of damage and learning loss suffered by the state's poorest students. The only time rules are enforced in California is when it's very important not to question California's obligation to children in poor families. Yeah, that's I mean, I am, by the way, I am really excited for the DeSantis Newsom debate. And I really help, you know, as as Newsom likes to throw the term around Nazi all the time. I hope this and the myriad of examples that California does all the time that Governor DeSantis just pounds it on him.

Sam Stone: He absolutely needs to do that. I mean, absolutely needs to run over him with this, because when you look at it, Florida is in a upward trajectory. The state has improved dramatically in in DeSantis term. It has Republican policies are working across the board. It's Florida has one of the best educational systems in the country now, K-12. They have one of the best college systems in the country. What state doesn't have those things anymore?

Chuck Warren: California. That's right. And California has. Do they have the worst homeless population in the the.

Sam Stone: Worst homeless problem? They have the worst housing problem. They have the next to Boston now the worst traffic and transit problems. There is nothing that California is doing well other than generating huge wealth at the very top. And so one of the things there's a piece I think it was the I forget which paper put it out, The Chronicle or LA Times, I think. But saying, oh, California is still doing a wonderful job attracting the ultra wealthy. Okay, So what they're creating is a Latin American country.

Chuck Warren: Absolutely.

Sam Stone: It's a Latin American country where the top.

Chuck Warren: Well, it's a Russian economy. Yeah.

Sam Stone: Yeah, that's a perfect example.

Chuck Warren: It's a Russian.

Sam Stone: Economy. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: All the oligarchs who are Putin's friends. So these are all Newsom's friends, right? Same concept.

Sam Stone: And then underneath them are this giant mass of struggling poor people.

Chuck Warren: Well, one other note, and we'll leave here. So remember the old days when we had people like Elizabeth Warren claimed to be Native Americans or some other ethnic groups so they can get into college. Pocahontas. Yeah. Well, now New York's the state of New York is having the amount of people who claim a disability apply for college. And it is almost it's almost doubled. I mean, you know, look, whenever there's a loophole, kids are going to find a way to get that loophole. Right.

Sam Stone: Kids and parents. I mean, look, at the end of the day, I remember. So when I go, I have certain issues learning in classrooms, in certain classroom settings because I don't hear super well. It's hard for me to differentiate certain vowels. So language learning in particular is very difficult in a classroom setting for me. Right. So I went through all this testing. They had me go through all this testing when I got to college, and then they offered me an out around the language. And I realized this is what a lot of them are doing right, is they're making their experience easier. It's not just the access to get in, but it's the experience you deal with there easier. I didn't want that. I actually, you know, if I had to do it over again, I would take a summer and go do an immersion course and really learn it, because I do regret not doing that. Taking that that grant for that, it was a mistake. Well, like.

Chuck Warren: In New York in 20 1516, you had about 11,000 applications saying they have mental health problems. So as disability. Right. In 21, it's 15,000. Right.

Sam Stone: Well, okay. But we've seen what's happening to the mental health of young liberals. So that actually sounds maybe legit.

Chuck Warren: Unbelievable.

Sam Stone: They're lost their mind.

Chuck Warren: Well, folks, this is breaking battlegrounds. This is Chuck and Sam. Thank you for joining us and for our new friends in Tulsa and Cincinnati and Nashville and San Diego, thank you for joining us. Please share our show with your friends. If they don't have time to listen to it when they're driving or going to kids games, you can find us at breaking Battlegrounds, dot Vote or wherever you download. Your podcasts. Have a fantastic week.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, the podcast that fearlessly tackles the most divisive issues gripping our nation today. In this riveting episode, we are thrilled to host two guests whose expertise and perspectives promise to ignite thoughtful discussions.

Congressman Andy Harris joins us first, shedding light on critical matters such as legal immigration and the urgent need for enforcing our border laws. He also delves into the world of IRS whistleblowers and Secretary Mayorkas, providing keen insights into these complex topics. With a unique background as a medical practitioner in Congress during the COVID pandemic, Congressman Harris discusses the federal government's handling of COVID.

Later, the show takes an intense turn as Professor Brooks Simpson engages in a fiery debate with Sam Stone and Michelle Ugenti-Rita, exploring the state of Free Speech at Arizona State and Barrett College. Get ready for a gripping episode filled with candid conversations that will challenge your perspectives and broaden your understanding.

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The son of immigrants who fled communist Eastern Europe immediately after World War II, Dr. Andy Harris was as a physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, a medical officer in the Naval Reserve, and a state senator before coming to Congress.

Born in Brooklyn in 1957, he studied medicine at Hopkins, where he continued to practice as an anesthesiologist for nearly three decades. Andy specialized in obstetric anesthesiology.

In 1988, Andy answered a recruitment call to fill a critical need for anesthesiologists in the Naval Reserve during the Reagan administration. He went on to establish and command The Johns Hopkins Medical Naval Reserve Unit. In 1990, his unit was called up to active duty in order to assist with Operation Desert Shield (and later Operation Desert Storm) at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Harris attained the rank of Commander (O-5) before leaving the Reserves after seventeen years.

Unhappy with the status quo in Annapolis, Andy decided to take on the establishment and run for the Maryland State Senate in 1998, where he served for 12 years. Maryland's First Congressional District first elected Andy to serve in the House of Representatives in 2010. He is the is the current Chairman of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies subcommittee on Appropriations. He also serves on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies subcommittee as well as the Homeland Security subcommittee on Appropriations.

Andy was married to his late wife, Cookie, for over 33 years, and he is the proud father of five children, stepfather of one, and grandfather to ten. Andy lives with his wife, Nicole, and their dog in Dorchester County. In his free time, he enjoys spending time on the Chesapeake Bay with his family and repairing old cars with his sons.

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Brooks D. Simpson is an ASU Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University, where he is a member of the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts faculty. A member of the honors faculty at Barrett, The Honors College, during the spring 2017 semester he served as associate dean (interim) at Barrett's Downtown campus. As a historian of the United States, Professor Simpson studies American political and military history as well as the American presidency, specializing in the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Note: Brooks Simpson speaks on his own behalf, not as a representative of ASU. His opinions are his own.

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Transcription

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're going to be jumping right into it with our first guest today. We're very pleased to have on the line Congressman Andy Harris of the first Congressional District of Maryland. Congressman Harris was a physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, medical officer in the Naval Reserve and a state senator before coming to Congress. Congressman, welcome to the program.

Chuck Warren: It's good to be with you, Congressman. This is Chuck. I want to start with two questions. The first one is a little more practical. You're the only Republican member of the Maryland delegation. Is that correct? That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Andy Harris: Hopefully we'll get another one. But I'm the only one now.

Chuck Warren: Do they treat you this? The other members of the delegation treat you like a misfit toy or are they good working with you?

Andy Harris: It depends on the issue. You tell me what the issue is. I'll tell you how I get treated.

Chuck Warren: Well, how about this? Regarding constituent issues in Maryland, do they work pretty well with you?

Andy Harris: Absolutely. No question. The senators work with me. Obviously, if we have a constituent who contacts my office from another representative's office. Yeah, they work. They work with me on that. Again, look, on some issues, on a lot of issues, we're going to disagree. But on the issues that are important to our constituents and where we have commonality, we agree.

Sam Stone: Congressman, I'm glad we touched on constituent services because I think that's something that doesn't get talked about enough. How important is that to just doing your job the right way and how much can that separate, frankly, a good Congress member from a great one?

Andy Harris: I think it's very important now, honestly, to be honest with you, it shouldn't be that important because the federal government should work without the intervention of representatives. But the problem is, is that it frequently needs it. Right now. For instance, passports are months and months behind. And if somebody has a trip coming up, you know, we have to we have to advocate on their behalf with the Department of State. It shouldn't be that way. I mean, you pay a fee to process a passport. It should be processed in a timely fashion.

Sam Stone: Chuck and I have a good friend who is in green card limbo right now. And, you know, I mean, it's a constant problem. And you're right, they shouldn't need intervention by someone like yourself.

Chuck Warren: With Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland. Congressman, so both your parents fled communist Eastern Europe to come to the United States. I find that background fascinating because I think it gives you a unique perspective on the immigration crisis our country faces now. How has that that giving you an outlook on immigration and what do you feel needs to be done?

Andy Harris: Sure. No, My parents came from my mother's ethnic Ukrainian. It was, you know, fled Poland That was part of Poland, part of the Ukraine she was born in at the time. But it was again, the communists took it over after World War II. My father fled Hungary when the communists took it over. They, you know, met at a displacement camp in Austria, and they waited literally years for the legal pathway to come to the United States. They came they found the American dream for them and, you know, raised four boys here, all all successful, the absolute American dream. But they waited years in line to come in legally. And this is a great country. You know, we accept, you know, a million immigrants every year legally. And that's what immigrants should expect. They should expect to respect our process. And, you know, a lot of them don't. I mean, some do like my parents did. So we're a country of immigrants. I get it. But, you know, you can't start out your trip to this country, a country of law and order, by breaking the law. It's just not right. It should never we should never allow it.

Chuck Warren: What are some things we can do to stop this crisis? You know, for example, we had a guest on the show months ago. Talk about that. If you don't come through a port of entry and there's 327 in the country, you're immediately denied asylum.

Sam Stone: Former US attorney out of Yuma, right.

Chuck Warren: I mean, is that the type of type of legislation we need to start getting this under control?

Andy Harris: Honestly, we don't even need legislation. The laws are on the books. We need an administration that will enforce the laws on the books. The last administration did. This administration doesn't. And what we've seen is roughly a tripling of the number of illegal immigrants coming in under this administration. We have plenty of laws. We don't need laws. You know, the Democrats want to pass laws because they want to legalize everybody who came in illegally. They want to legalize people and make citizens out of people who came in illegally. Again, we just need to enforce our current laws. And it's a shame. It's a real shame that we don't enforce our borders.

Sam Stone: Congressman, we recently had some hearings with Secretary Mayorkas on this issue. And one of the things I find so disconcerting with this administration is their officials will sit up there and flatly not merely deny the truth, but present a picture that is directly opposite. Of the reality. And I think a lot of folks in Arizona, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, California know the reality is not the picture he painted.

Andy Harris: That's absolutely right. And you know, about a few months ago when there was that crisis in Del Rio where you had, you know, 10,000 people flooded and, you know, one of one of the one of the broadcast outlets, you know, had had a helicopter taking pictures of it. Americans realize there is actually chaos at the border. You know, I blame the media. The media should be you know, it's American media. It should be protective of our laws in this country. And it should actually expose the administration when they are not enforcing the laws of this country. Instead, you know, most of the media is absolutely complicit.

Sam Stone: You know, one thing that came out in the media this week, Chuck, and Congressman Harris, that I almost swallowed my tongue when I saw it and the way they presented it, the media was talking this week about the Border Patrol keeping crossers in cages in this heat. They their entire talk was it's the Border Patrol that did that. Compare that to Trump when he was.

Chuck Warren: Trump, it was the Trump administration that did it. Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible. Congressman, you mentioned that we just need to enforce the laws on the book. Let's do a tutorial for our audience here because I don't think a lot of people, as we've talked to people, they really don't realize what's on the book. It's sort of like these gun laws. We have lots of gun laws on the book. There always seem to be ignored. And then a mass shooter who wasn't convicted of committing crimes with them, you know, bypassed them. So talk about what laws we have on the book with immigration that you feel we need to enforce.

Andy Harris: Well, one of the one of the first ones is, is that if you're if you're applying for asylum, you need to be detained until your asylum hearing. It's pretty simple. I mean, that's that's the law. The law is you're supposed to be detained. Now, when you when you allow, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of people to cross the border, you don't have adequate detention facilities. The answer is don't allow any more people to cross the border instead of allow them across the border and then just release them into the interior of the country with perhaps the promise that they will one day show up for their asylum here and hearing years into the future, because literally we have a backlog of a couple of million cases. That's not the way it should be done. You know, you could interpret you could easily interpret the law to say you can't cross into the into the United States unless we have a detention facility that has a bed for you. And if we don't and that you get a prompt asylum hearing, we don't have enough detention facilities, we don't have enough judges. So we have a years long backlog with people being admitted into the interior with literally just the promise that, yeah, I'll show up, I'll show up for my asylum hearing. And of course the statistics are the vast, vast majority never show up. And of the ones that do show up, the vast majority are in fact denied asylum.

Chuck Warren: Let's talk about a minute here about the IRS whistleblowers. What have you found interesting about the IRS whistleblowers that came out this past week?

Andy Harris: Well, I think, you know, the 50,000 foot picture is it's amazing because when the whistleblowers, you know, two years ago, the Democrats loved whistleblowers. They respected it. Oh, my gosh, you can't say anything bad about a whistleblower because they were whistleblowers who were blowing the whistle on the Trump administration. Now you've got whistleblowers who I think any objective person would say, yeah, these are legitimate whistleblowers. They are, you know, some of the informants, legitimate informants, and yet they're supposed to be distrusted. Now, this is the hypocrisy of that is just is particularly stunning. I don't I think the average American has come to come to understand that there are two systems of justice, you know, one for Hunter Biden and one for everybody else in the country. You know, the judge the judge's decision yesterday to deny the plea bargain shows just how true that is. That here's a here's here's a man accused on a gun charge where if, according to the plea bargain, if he keeps his nose clean for a couple of years, doesn't even get doesn't even get a felony conviction on a gun charge on his record, that's pretty amazing. That's all I can say. And people and people that really bothers Americans. Americans, above all, would like to believe that there is a that, you know, Lady Justice wears a blindfold. But it's pretty clear that peeking out from under that blindfold for some people, especially if your last name is Biden.

Sam Stone: Congressman, I agree 100% with everything you just said, the except that the American people really understand and know this. One of the things I keep having conversations with Republicans about is that when you're talking to your Democrat and independent neighbors who aren't watching Fox News and things to the right of Fox News, there has been no coverage of any of this. No, I mean, no coverage of the whistleblowers, no coverage of Hunter Biden, no coverage of the border hearings. There's no coverage anymore of anything that is detrimental to the left point of view.

Andy Harris: Well, you know, but that's only the last in a long string of of incidents that tell the same story. So I think most people. And you'd ask most people that. Yeah. You know, if you went and protested at a school board. Yeah. The FBI actually began to open files, domestic terrorism files on you. I think people just understand that if you are part of the administration or agree with the administration, there's one way you're treated. If you disagree, there's another way. And the Hunter Biden incident is just the latest in a string.

Sam Stone: How much should Republicans be really featuring this in all the campaigns coast to coast coming up for for next year? Because quite frankly, when you look at all of this, the level of corruption and incompetence, I can't point to a single area right now where the Biden administration is succeeding in their policy.

Andy Harris: Look, I agree. I mean, you know, the biggest laugh is they somehow claim Biden is working out great. Well, I don't know. I go to the grocery store and I don't think it's working out so great. I go I go to the gas station. I don't think it's working out so great. So, I mean, I'm not sure I understand, you know, where they see that coming from.

Chuck Warren: Well, there was a I saw a news clip today from a liberal economist who said that the reason people are not impressed with the economy is that real wages went up for manufacturing and middle class workers during Trump administration. They're not doing that now. And so it's not affecting the people that they think it affects. And so then what they do is they take their paycheck, they go to the grocery store, they pay more for gas or pay more for groceries or pay more for utilities. Everything's gone up five, ten, 15, 20%.

Andy Harris: That's right. So so to compare the Trump administration and the Trump administration, wages went up faster than prices because inflation was low and wages grew in the Biden administration. Wages are going up way slower than inflation. So in fact, your paycheck doesn't go as far and everybody knows it. I mean, again, you know, you can talk all you want, but people, they take their paychecks and they go out and they try to you know, they try to buy things that they fully understand that this economy is very, very different from the one before Joe Biden took office.

Sam Stone: Yeah, enormously different. We have just about 30s before we go to break here, we're going to be coming back with more from Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland's first Congressional district here in just a moment. Folks, if you want to keep in touch with him, you can follow him on Twitter at Rep. Andy Harris, MD. That's at Rep, Andy Harris, MD. And definitely make sure you check him out. He's doing fantastic work there. Congressman, When we come back, we're going to be talking more on spending and the economy. Also, folks, stay tuned. Breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're continuing on with Congressman Andy Harris here in just a moment. But folks, we were talking about the economy. And if you're concerned about the economy and about your portfolio, you need to check out our friends at invest y refy.com that's invest the letter y, then refy.com they have an opportunity for you to earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right. 10.25% fixed. Phenomenal opportunity not tied to the stock market. The Biden economy goes down, the Biden economy goes down. You continue to earn 10.25%. Check them out. Again, that's invest y refy.com or give them a call at 888 Y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you.

Chuck Warren: Worth Congressman Andy Harris. Congressman, I want to take a step away from what we've been talking about for a moment. You are a doctor. You work from Johns Hopkins during Covid. Did your colleagues from both sides of the aisle come and talk to you about your opinion on it?

Andy Harris: Well, I will tell you that certainly from my side of the aisle, they did. You know, my opinion was that we didn't take the right course of action during Covid. So a lot of the members on the other side of the aisle didn't come talk to me about it. But it became pretty clear early on that this, first of all, that this was this was a function of the Chinese. There's no question about it. It came out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It's amazing that there's still not there's near-total universal acceptance of that now by the federal government, but it's not universally accepted yet. And that's dangerous because we need to know how dangerous China is and how they lied to us during the at the beginning of this pandemic.

Sam Stone: Congressman, you're a doctor. So one of the things that I've been dismayed about since the you know, since Covid is that our public health response was awful. I mean, it was just awful. But there doesn't seem to be any real effort to go back and look and say, hey, we need to redo our plans and reconsider how we're going to approach these things, how we interact with the public, all of that sort of stuff. I mean, they basically got everything wrong, but but aren't appearing to admit it or prepare to next time, hopefully, you know, long, long time from now. But whenever that may be to do better, Is there is there effort underway in Congress or in the federal government to really look at how we can do things differently than we did this last time?

Andy Harris: There certainly should be, and we're certainly trying to steer it that way. You know, the Republican majority in the House. But I'll tell you, they're still denial among the federal agencies. They deny that they did anything wrong. And look, they didn't get everything wrong. Honestly, if you were a high risk patient, you were a senior, you had multiple, you know, co-morbidities. We call them, you know, you were you were sick person. The vaccines were that was probably a good idea because the vaccines didn't prevent the disease. They did decrease the severity. But very early on, we knew that there were two categories of people, high risk and low risk. And if you were in low risk, there really was no need for the vaccine. And yet the government continued to push them. That was probably when that occurred that the government didn't give you a choice because, look, if you want if you're low risk and you want to take the vaccine, God bless you, your choice. When the government stopped giving you a choice, that's when I knew this government was out of control on this. And they were not following the science. They were just they were just going to deny that they had gotten something wrong. And in medicine, that's very dangerous. You know, if you realize you've made the wrong diagnosis, make the right one and begin the treatment on the right one, you don't just continue down the path saying, well, I'm really not going to admit that I made the wrong diagnosis because that doesn't end well for the patients.

Chuck Warren: Well, it's I I'm going back. It's amazing to me that members on both sides of the aisle, especially Democrats, didn't come to you. So there's you know, there's there's 19 members, 19 members of the Senate in the House who are doctors. There's 15in the House. Which of those ten are Republican and the Senate? All of them are GOP. I just find it appalling that they're not willing to talk to a colleague and say, you know, hey, Congressman Harris, what do you think about this based on your background? I just that's just so strange.

Andy Harris: Well, again, you know, they made everything partisan. You know, you know, if you agreed with President Trump on anything, you were wrong. It didn't make a difference whether you're a physician or not. You were wrong. That's not that's just not the way it should be. And literally to a person, I mean, I knew all the physicians, all of them who are Republicans, literally every single one of them knew that we were heading in the wrong direction. And yet the what the problem was, what there were only a couple of doctors that were appearing every day. You know, their names were Berks and Fauci. Right. And Dr. Fauci clearly had a conflict of interest here because he held responsibility for the Wuhan Institute of Virology doing some of that gain of function research. And I think, again, there is this and it may come to light, you know. In the future that there was a kind of a collaboration with the NIH and people with the NIH, with this with this denial that this was this this came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, partly because they were funding them. They didn't want to again, they didn't want to admit they made a mistake. You make a mistake. Just admit it. People in the end are much more forgiving if you just admit it rather than double down on on the on the misleading, the misleading evidence. And that's what they were doing.

Chuck Warren: And people would have understood that. I mean, that's the thing. They all knew. This was knew people were caught off guard. They knew that. I mean, it's just so simple to say, okay, look, this is what we've learned. We need to change course.

Andy Harris: Absolutely. Again, the conflict of interest here was that obviously the NIH and the National Institute that Dr. Fauci headed, you know, funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And again, you know, again, you know, at some point and part of it is that Dr. Fauci was a little naive. And a lot of scientists are naive believe that, well, you know, we can trust the Chinese scientists. Well, no, you can't. Because, you know, if you to succeed as a Chinese scientist, you have to be a member of the Chinese Communist Party and you have to do what you're told. That's not science. Science is when you follow the scientific truth, not do what you're told. And again, I think it's just being naive about the ways of the world and communism. Again, with my parents having come from communist countries, I fully understood what was going on here. The communists were lying about it. And again, there are people who refuse to believe that somehow a scientist would lie. No, that's not the way it works in communist countries.

Sam Stone: Yeah, One of the things so we just touched on China, and that's kind of been one of our running themes on this show. We are in a period of contest between great nations, and it doesn't seem like we fully comprehend that that is the case here in the United States.

Andy Harris: I agree with you. And the evidence of it is if you go into one of the large container ports in the country, you see ships loaded with 1000 containers from China. We are we are literally funding our enemy. When we purchase things from China, we are funding our enemy. And this is just a bad it's just a bad choice. I don't know how we end it. I think President Trump, through some of his tariff and trade policies, was getting in the right direction with it. And then, of course, the Biden administration just whistling past the graveyard.

Sam Stone: Yeah, absolutely. We have just about a minute and a half before we go to break, Congressman, anything coming up on the docket that you think people should be keeping an eye on?

Andy Harris: Well, the most important thing is the is the appropriations, the spending struggle that's going on in Washington right now. Again, many people in Washington, honestly, on both sides of the aisle, are just addicted to a deficit spending. But when we're running deficits over $1 trillion a year, I think the average person understands, you know, they take out a home mortgage, they take out a car loan. The proviso is you're actually going to pay it back. There are people in Washington who believe that somehow you can borrow trillions of dollars without ever having a plan to pay it back. That doesn't work. It doesn't work. That doesn't end well.

Chuck Warren: It's never worked.

Andy Harris: Nope, it never will and never will for mathematical reasons.

Chuck Warren: Never will. Yeah. Math. Math is a real stinker, I have found out.

Andy Harris: It's like science. It's a real.

Chuck Warren: Stinker. You know.

Sam Stone: Those absolutes. Democrats just don't want the binary answers to anything. No, they don't. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today. Folks, we want to thank Congressman Andy Harris for taking his time this morning. We're really pleased to have him on the program. You can follow him at Rep. Andy Harris, MD, on Twitter and breaking battlegrounds. We'll be back with more in just a moment. We have a we have a hot couple of segments coming up for you. Stay tuned. All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host. I'm Sam Stone. Chuck Warren actually stepping out of studio because in a certain way, this next couple of segments are a continuation of some segments we did a few weeks ago. So we have Michelle Ugenti-rita back in studio here in Chuck's place. Thank you again, Michelle, and in studio with us today. And thank you for joining us. Professor Brooks Simpson, ASU Foundation Professor of history at Arizona State University, member of the College of Integrated Sciences, Sciences and Art Faculty, a member of the Honors Faculty at Barrett the Honors College during Spring 2017 semester. He serves as associate dean at Barrett's downtown campus. So, Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I'm really glad to be here, Sam. And right now I have to give the disclaimer that I am speaking for myself and not as a representative of Arizona State.

Sam Stone: Absolutely. And folks, that's an important distinction. If he were if we wanted to get him in here speaking from Arizona State, we'd have to go through them. And that's a that's a complicated process. So we appreciate your willingness to step out here and speak on it. When we were talking last time, Michelle, we were talking about an incident surrounding the Barrett College, an event Health, Wealth and Happiness event featuring some conservative speakers that brought some controversy to ASU. And there's since been a rather great deal of fallout. After we did that segment, Professor Simpson said on our Twitter, Hey, you guys are wrong, said we got it wrong. So we're having him in here today and we thank him for the courage to come in here, because not everyone is willing to do that and tell us how and why we were wrong. And we want to get into that. More in just a minute. But first, start out, Professor, with a little bit about you and your background. How how did you get into teaching in the first place?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Um, I enjoyed history as a historian. I've written some books and done some other things as that goes, my concentration is in American history, especially the presidency, military history, political history, civil war and reconstruction. Pretty traditional stuff.

Sam Stone: So is there a book I saw you've written a couple of them. Is there one of them that you're like, Hey, this is my best piece of work.

Professor Brooks Simpson: The one for which I'm most known is the first of a two volume biography of Ulysses S Grant called Ulysses S Grant Triumph over Adversity, 1822 to 1865.

Sam Stone: And I I'll admit I haven't read that yet, but I am actually going to order it because I'm a huge US Grant fan. I think he's one of the more underreported figures from the Civil War and the post-war period, quite frankly. But okay, so you grew up where did you grow up?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Long Island, New York. I am unlike you, a born and bred Yankees fan and also a New York Islanders fan. But we can still talk.

Sam Stone: All right, folks. Now, I'm not sure about that. We may need to throw him out of the studio before we continue any further. Yankees fans are not allowed in here, so. Okay. So you started out in New York, Long Island. Where did you go to school?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Undergraduate University of Virginia Graduate School. University of Wisconsin. Worked at the University of Tennessee, then at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Came out here in 1990.

Sam Stone: Okay, so 1990 pretty much makes you a native Arizonan at this point.

Professor Brooks Simpson: It sure looks that way.

Sam Stone: 70%. Did you know, Michelle? 70% of our state was born elsewhere?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: No, I was born here. Really? So I guess I'm. Yeah, You're not the norm. You're them. But I'm not the norm in a lot of different ways. But yeah, I'm one of them.

Sam Stone: I didn't realize until the other day it was that high. I think that's a pretty extraordinary number. It's one of those things I laughed at. I think in campaigns, when you see someone come out, I'm a native Arizonan and my opponent only moved here, it's like, well, most of the voters just moved here too.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: So yeah, well, we're kind of a melting pot within a melting pot. Arizona.

Sam Stone: Yeah, Very, very true. We've got just about two minutes before we get a break. We're going to get into the specific story, why we have Professor Simpson in the studio. Touch on that a little bit more. But before we go, we'll just kind of lay out the basics of it. Michelle, do you want to kind of just lay out the basic what happened?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Well, there was a an event hosted by an organization, organization associated with the Barrett College. They were bringing in.

Sam Stone: Guests to Lewis Center.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Lewis Center, Correct. They were bringing in guest speakers. This event was being advertised to anyone who wanted to attend, but primarily geared for the the students of the college. And there was subsequently a letter signed by the faculty of that college.

Sam Stone: A majority, but not all of the faculty.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Correct? Correct. A majority, but definitely not all that outlining their frustration and. And opposition to hosting a open event with speakers that they.

Sam Stone: Charlie Kirk, Dennis Prager, Rich dad, poor dad.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Robert Kiyosaki right that they and they labeled these individuals purveyors of hate and they outlined in the letter why they disagreed with the choice of the college to promote such an event for students to attend.

Sam Stone: And then subsequently there were some blowback and repercussions with an Atkinson who helped organize that event, being let go from her position and then also the director of the Gammage Center being let go from their position as well. So we're going to get into now all of the fallout from that. Our take, Professor Simpson's take when breaking battlegrounds comes back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone. In studio with me today, my co-host, Michelle Ugenti-rita, for the second half of the program, and Professor Brooks Simpson of the ASU of ASU folks. But before we get into our next segment, I got to tell you a little bit more about our friends from Refy. They are doing a fantastic job creating a tremendous investment opportunity with an up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right, 10.25% fixed rate of return. And by investing with by refy, you help them. You help them refinance distressed student loans, getting students who have fallen behind on their private student loan payments back on track, getting their lives back in order. And you make money doesn't get any better than that. Check them out. Invest. Why refy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com or give them a call at 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Okay. Continuing on now with Professor Simpson, Michelle Ugenti-Rita in studio. So we've laid out on the program what we have been told happened or what we believe happened. Tell us why we were wrong.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Well, you're not wrong so much as it's incomplete. And that's what I said, that I think Ms.. Atkinson's account is incomplete. And some of the statements made since then.

Sam Stone: What are what are some of the things that are incomplete?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Okay. First of all, there was a history of friction between the Lewis Center and Barrett from its inception that this is not something that.

Sam Stone: What's the what was the basis of that friction?

Professor Brooks Simpson: There were administrative issues and there was a perception among the faculty of donor overreach on the part of. Mr. Lewis.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: May I ask, But what does that have to do with the faculty's position on the health, wealth and happiness event that they sponsored?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Well, I think that what happened is when when Miss Atkinson went ahead and had this much more public program, so this was not student programming anymore, but a public presentation. A majority of the Barrett faculty said, we don't like this program, not not because of its subject matter. And I think that's been misunderstood, but because they didn't like Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk in particular, and they expressed their opposition to having Barrett associated with those two speakers names in what was originally a private petition to the dean. So this was not originally supposed to be for public release.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But who who who cares why? Why should we care about what the faculty think about these individuals and their ability to express themselves to students who want to attend an event?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Matters who you are, whether you want to care or not. But the fact is that they were expressing their opinion about these speakers and about being associated with those speakers. They wanted, in fact, just to be disassociated from the Lewis Center. They had no problem with the programming, so to speak. They had a problem with the speakers. And so that is the.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Programming, the speakers, because in their letter, which, you know, they they talk about how the event runs contrary to the core values of the community. And then they call the speakers purveyors of hate. They say that this platform legitimizes the speakers, legitimizes their anti-intellectual and anti-democratic views. I mean, I think that's more than just expressing a dislike or displeasure for the speakers, but really trying to, in my opinion, um, well. And squash the event.

Sam Stone: And I want to add a second part to that question is why should any professor or a group of professors be out front saying, we don't want students to have a choice to go listen to someone who has very different views, even views they may find hateful. I mean, this is this is the difference between the definition of free speech that has traditionally been in this society, which says the answer to speech you don't like is more speech. But, Sam.

Professor Brooks Simpson: They didn't say that the event shouldn't be held. They just wanted to have Barrett disassociate.

Sam Stone: Well, they want the university to not be involved with the event.

Professor Brooks Simpson: No, no. They just wanted Barrett not to be involved with the event. They understood that the event was going to take place, and they were. They observed in that petition, not crossing that line that they said, we're not opposed to the event being held. We're opposed to being associated with it.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: What is the distinction there? I mean, the kind of one of the same not being associated with it. I mean, my question is, it is why even opine? This is not a mandatory event. It's it can be attended by everyone and anyone. Why?

Sam Stone: And this is not the other part to this professor, is that this is not an isolated incident. This is a they are now becoming a chain of these type of incidents, not only across the country, but even right here at ASU with people who objected. A bunch of professors really pulled the exact same thing in regards to an event with Don Critchlow's I forget the name of the center, but Don Critchlow's Center, where they were bringing in Jason Chaffetz and Andy Biggs to speak. I mean, you're talking about a former congressman and a sitting congressman, and they said we can't hear them. And they gave the same reasoning, the same, oh, this is hate, This is this, this is that. And how is this not just them being too weak to to listen to and then stand up to opinions they don't like?

Professor Brooks Simpson: I wouldn't frame it that way. They didn't say that they were going to stand up to opinions they didn't like.

Sam Stone: And again, no, they they they didn't stand up to opinions. They didn't like. They went back door and said, hey, we're not going to listen to it. We're not going to we're not going to propose an alternate event with different speakers. What they did is say, we want to make it difficult for them to speak.

Professor Brooks Simpson: That's your reading of their petition? That is not my reading of their petition. And this goes back to, I think, what you said. What's the difference? There's a difference between saying, I don't want to be associated with that and saying, I don't think this event should take place on campus. If they said, I don't think this event should take place on campus and we are protesting this event and we think these speakers should be disinvited and the event canceled, then that's a much more serious issue of faculty.

Sam Stone: Well, I mean, I feel like they sort of learned their lesson the first time because Crow stepped in to defend Critchlow's program and allow it to continue when they did try to cancel that one entirely. Right. So to me, this is they're just finding whatever line they can defend, the farthest line out there they can to suppress speech.

Professor Brooks Simpson: But was it the Barrett faculty who did with the center of the study?

Sam Stone: There were a bunch of names that were adjoined. I mean, I wasn't 100% the same group, but a bunch of the same people, same professors were part of the objection to.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Both, but it wasn't identified as a barrack or they may have been acting.

Sam Stone: It was it was a professor group.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Well, but there are different professors, right?

Sam Stone: This in this case, though, it was just a broad group of professors that were objecting.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And that's a different thing. I know Don Critchlow very well, a former colleague of mine. That's a different issue than what we're talking about in terms of what happened with Barrett in this February 8th presentation. So there I think the Barrett faculty said we don't want to be associated with this, but you can have the event. Now, you some people may not see a distinction there, others do. It's what happened after that that became even more interesting. Talk about students being intimidated, which if. True would be quite serious.

Sam Stone: Well, I mean, there's a lot about this that, quite frankly, I depending on exactly what happened, I find kind of offensive. I mean, ASU released a statement. There were flyers for this event put up around campus. Asu, released a statement, said if anyone removed flyers, it was not at the direction of ASU or Barrett leadership. But we also have evidence from who was taking those down that it was campus campus employees who went around and took down all that those advertising materials.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And that's what I think this investigation is going to try to determine what really did happen there, because we have differing accounts of what's going on from from differing sides. And there are people watching this who are not in either camp who are saying, boy, there's a lot of confusion here about what did happen. And and this did not turn out well, in part because people didn't explore alternatives post event.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Well, what is the confusion? I mean, I read this letter, which is off the chart. I mean, the the kind of pompousness this letter.

Sam Stone: Read a few of the passages because I think this is relevant.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Um, our collective efforts to promote Barrett as a home of inclusive excellence demands that we distance ourselves from the hate that these provocateurs hope to to legitimize by attacking or attaching themselves to the Barrett name. Um, yeah.

Sam Stone: I mean, this is the thing. Here's here's the thing. I don't, I don't see it as all that different to, say, the Barrett name versus the ASU name, right? I mean, at the end of the day, what you're trying to do is say, hey, these people should not be speaking to our students because they're hateful according to these individuals.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Right. So what do you say to that?

Professor Brooks Simpson: I say that is not what the petition letter says. And we'll go back to that again and again. So we're going to disagree on that. I don't see them as wanting to stop the event because they understood that would have violated free speech protections. I do say, yeah, they wanted to disassociate themselves from Lewis. And and frankly, you know, one of the questions should be why would Lewis want to stay with Barrett after this? You could set up a center for free speech or for career development. I mean, this was not supposed to be a free speech center. This was a personal development center set up the Lewis Center outside of Barrett. No one seems to have explored that. Well, why should they? You could still because.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: You have a handful of professors who have their.

Sam Stone: I mean, to me, that that seems like a cop out because at the end of the day, what would these professors not be objecting to? The exact same let's say the exact same curriculum was put on by a different center will create. It's the t.W. Lewis Standalone Center.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Part of free speech. Sam is the ability to object, the ability.

Sam Stone: The ability to.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Object and and and I'm not, you know, going to vouch for the wording used in this petition. That's that's why I don't sign petitions, because I don't want someone else pretending to speak to me for me. All right. I watched the event on tape. It seemed to me to be, except for a few comments about the controversy. A pretty straightforward event.

Sam Stone: Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, too, that this was not a political event in the way these speakers normally focus on their things. So they were adjusting their message. But it's like, okay, if you if we've said something you don't like, then that forbids you from coming on and talking about anything else either.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: To me, this is the this is the faculty thinking that they're smarter than everyone else and this is them disguising their prejudices and their biases under the guise of intellectualism. And that's what this this that's what this letter says, that they're smarter. The people who have opposing views are dumb and they shouldn't be exposed to these people that they've labeled as provocateurs and hatemongers. And and that is concerning. That's actually very concerning in our democratic United States of America.

Sam Stone: I would say that I would I would be more apt, professor, to agree with your take on this if we didn't have things like students who had come forward to say that in their you know, as soon as this controversy broke, they went to a class and the professors in that class spent 30 minutes dedicated to talking about the potential dangers associated with the event and how the T.W. Lewis Center has given in to its donors philosophy by hosting a dangerous speech, which have been debunked through speakers who have propagated hate towards various minority communities and who undermine getting an education in the first place. I'm sorry, isn't the point of getting an education to be exposed to ideas that aren't yours?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Absolutely. Okay. So let's let's address two things here. First of all, the faculty member who was supposed to have done that has actually issued a denial that that account is accurate. So that's going to be part of an investigation. What went on in that classroom? We're talking now about a single faculty member, not all of the signers of the document, 39in all acting like this in class. And I think you're right about how do people talk about each other. So I do know that one of the professors who is supportive of Ms.. Atkinson has gone ahead and declared that anyone who disagrees with him is showing contempt for God. Now, I find that a chilling of a piece of speech myself, that my my faith is being questioned by someone who disagrees with me. Okay.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I think you you digress. I think we need to go back to this.

Sam Stone: We've got just one minute before we we come to the end of our on air program, folks. Be sure to tune in. Professor, do you have a few more minutes? Sure. Fantastic. We're going to continue on in our podcast segment because I think this is a really important discussion. We want to we want to really dig into this some more folks. Make sure you stay tuned for that podcast segment. You can also get all of our past podcasts at Breaking battlegrounds dot Vote. Check us out there, follow us on social media, substack, Spotify, all the good places to find your podcasts. Breaking battlegrounds is there. And again, you're not going to want to miss the rest of this show, so be sure you're subscribed and you get our you get our podcast in your email box. You don't have to do anything else. Breaking battlegrounds back on air next week.

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Sam Stone: All right, Welcome to the podcast. Only segment of breaking battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone, in studio with me today. The lovely Michelle Ugenti-Rita is taking Chuck's place so we can continue on with the conversation. Michelle and I started on the air a few weeks ago and in studio a man who and I always appreciate this, quite frankly, who dared to challenge us because that, you know, there's lots of people who will tell you to. And thank goodness. Jeremy And we're in the podcast segment, I can say it. They'll just tell you to go f**k off when you're online, right? It's, you know, some poop emoji. Poop emoji. Finger emoji. But you didn't do that. I appreciated the discussion and I appreciate having you in here. Professor Brooke Simpson of the of ASU. We really enjoy the chance to talk about this. When we were before we went to break, we were talking about there was one professor who reported, according to their student, and they've denied this. The professor has denied this, spent a bunch of time in class really kind of dissuading students from attending this event and kind of trying to make sure that they were lined up against it. And unfortunately, I mean, we do have two other students who said more or less the same thing about other classes. So that that one I was referring to was a professor. Dr. Miller. I have one student who was I have no idea what CWHAL101 is. Some human events class by a professor Sores got the same thing and then a second student who said the same thing about the Dr. Miller's statement. So I don't think I mean, obviously you said ASU is looking into this. They're investigating what happened in these classes, but it doesn't seem like it was just that one incident. I mean, this was a really concerted effort by the 37 signees to to try to to, if if nothing else, disrupt this event.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I haven't seen evidence of that. I've seen one professor, Dr. Miller, discussed extensively in two of those three accounts. Professor Suarez seems to have been a between class discussion from which the student assumed other things were going on in the class. That doesn't always happen. Students walk out and they ask you other things and you give your opinion. They know what your opinion, and that doesn't mean what's going on in the classroom is an ideological rant. I mean, to characterize this faculty as some sort of radical Marxist group and Marxist has been. I mean, no one of those faculty are more like Groucho Marx in terms of their live and let live attitude towards this than they are towards Karl Marx. And you see, this is where, you know, I I'm saying that sometimes faculty behave ways that outrage people. And I would argue that if you don't want to be ticked off, don't go on a college campus because there'll be something that will tick you off.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But but, but but let me just ask because do you think the letter signed February 1st by by faculty was designed to disrupt the event? No. No. What did what was it.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Designed to do? I think it was designed to start to move the Lewis Center outside of Barrett and said we cannot have this kind of programming. The Lewis Center programming beforehand was so internal that it didn't get this kind of public scrutiny.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But. But who are the professors to be the arbiter of what's right and what's wrong and what's hate and what's not and what people can listen to and what they can't listen to and what's described as anti-democratic or anti-intellectual? Who are why are they the ones that get to be the judge of that?

Professor Brooks Simpson: I wouldn't frame it that way. First of all, they are expressing their dissent and dissatisfaction and criticism of the speakers. All right. And and not the topic as far as what goes on afterwards after they had spoken. It's really up to the Barrett leadership, the deans, to deal with this. The faculty had their say. They organized their counter workshops or whatever you want to call them. And in a sense that is an exercise of free speech, just as the three professors, including Don Critchlow, who wrote in response to this, they were exercising their free speech. I didn't like that they characterized this petition as trying to shut down the event altogether because the Barret faculty was actually very careful to say, no, the event could go on. We don't want to be associated with it anymore.

Sam Stone: Well, but so I think they're very smart and toeing a line they knew if they crossed would would make it more difficult for them. So I get that. But at the same time, there is an underlying issue with this that we're seeing at universities across the country, which is an intolerance of speech. Deemed anathema to the left. And we've seen this at with speaker after speaker after speaker and for professors. What makes this different to me when they're when those things are led by students, I think you kind of just got to shrug and roll your eyes and say, we need to do a better job of trying to get through to these students. But when it's led by professors, the the fundamental issue behind all of this is that we've reached a place where what is it? I think 90% of positions at ASU require a diversity statement in your in your application.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Now, I'm unaware of that. Okay. And I know that that that accusation has been made. And I do know that in Barrett there is a request for a statement that's been produced. So, you know, they didn't have Dei statements when I came in in 1990.

Sam Stone: So and that's my point is like, why why all of a sudden do we need to do to universities and a subset of professors. It's not all but a subset of professors that those universities feel the need to limit the speech that they don't like or that they deem hateful rather than contend against that speech. Because to me, what they're demonstrating to the students is not a commitment to academic excellence and intellectual pursuit. What they are demonstrating to the students is intellectual cowardice.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I understand that. And and that's a good broader conversation now for multiple years. And I you know, I think I informed you folks that I served as the chair of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. So academic freedom is important to me and freedom of speech is important to me. And I understand the desire of the contest of ideas in the public square so I can understand the concern and the need for discussion of whether such statements, statements are the kind of thing we want to have in the environment. We have that it's hard. It is up to President Crowe and others to justify a commitment to the University of Chicago statement and these hiring requirements. Okay. But that's that gets outside of what we're talking about, a very specific event and a very specific response. And I understand that you're saying is this the tip of an iceberg?

Sam Stone: Well, I think that is the basic problem that underlies what happened with this health, wealth and happiness event. The basic problem is that we are we are we are accepting now more and more of professors who are. And it's anti free speech.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I don't know who the we are.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Well, I'll. We'll do these. I mean, they put their name on it. We'll just talk with these professors. I mean, they're right here. We'll just start with this list. And since it's local and ASU, I mean, I think we're over complicating this. This was an event with national speakers designed to communicate, you know, certain points of view to college kids and others who are invited. And the professors took it upon themselves. Not all of them, but the majority of them in the college took it upon themselves to label this a hate event and with with the expressed motivation to disrupt it. What other motivation would there be other than to stop it and squash it?

Professor Brooks Simpson: I again, that's.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Something that you kind of see in China and other third world countries.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And that's where this argument begins to.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: When you don't like something, you squash it. When you don't like the point of view expressed by someone else. Instead of having an intellectual conversation and trying to persuade someone with your argument, you label them and then you try to stop it.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I think, you know, you make a point about labeling. And so what I've heard this faculty, again, labeled as Marxists, they've come under attack. They were put on a professor watch list. Okay.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: And then that person who did that and that person who did that can come in here and you can talk to them. I'm just talking about this letter. I didn't put anybody on.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I understand.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But that's why you opined. I mean, you went on Twitter and you opined and we're giving you a platform.

Professor Brooks Simpson: That's right.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: And so defend it.

Professor Brooks Simpson: My comment on Twitter was that the story that you were getting from Ms.. Atkinson was incomplete. So let's understand what I did say and what I haven't said. Now, you've characterized labeling as counter intellectual, and I agree with you, but that's also what the people who've criticized the actions of the. Well, two.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Rights don't make you know, two wrongs don't make a right.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And that's and that's why this is a larger discussion about how we're going to conduct a free speech environment. The real difficulty with free speech is that you have to defend the free speech of people who you disagree with. Yeah, I.

Sam Stone: Mean, famously, the ACLU defended the Klu Klux Klan. Right now, I'm Jewish. I'm certainly not jumping out front to defend the KKK, but that was the right thing to do because it guarantees my ability to say pretty much anything I want to say. And that runs.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Contrary to what what.

Sam Stone: What is happening.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Here. So I think we all agree and that's not what happened here. To your point, it's to me the greatest expression of free speech is tolerance. It's tolerance of other speech that you may not like.

Sam Stone: Or to to go attend this event, then hold your own event and counter it if that's what you feel you need to do.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Which is what they did outside. Prior to the.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Event, they sent a private letter outlining why the college should disassociate themselves from the event. They took a, I guess, a vote of no confidence in the leadership of T.W. Lewis Center. You know, they didn't want this event to go on. And they highlighted in their letter why and they outlined why these speakers.

Professor Brooks Simpson: We will continue to disagree on the issue of them not wanting to.

Sam Stone: But but, but, but but with all of this. So we can disagree on that one point. But other than that, I mean, you did say on Twitter we were hilariously wrong that Ann Atkinson was hilariously wrong. So other than that one point of disagreement, which is between whether they're saying it shouldn't be part of Barrett versus it's the broader issue, which I would call quibbling. But. But you say it's significant. Okay.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Because the the Barrett faculty isn't speaking for all.

Sam Stone: But then where were we hilariously wrong?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Ann, for example, has portrayed this as a very harmonious relationship that all of a sudden was disrupted and it was harmonious with the previous dean, Marc Jacobs. People I've talked to suggest that that was not the case, that Jacobs did not look very carefully at the donor agreement. And Lewis is very good. Mr. Lewis is very good at structuring donor agreements very carefully so that he continues to have influence. There are reports that, in fact, an was not the choice of Barrett to head Lewis, but rather was Mr. Lewis's choice forced upon them with the suggestion that perhaps if Mr. Lewis did not get his way, he might pull his.

Sam Stone: Okay, okay. But we we don't have any.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I'm just saying there's a longer institutional.

Sam Stone: Well, that may be, but none of that's qualifies as being hilariously wrong. I mean, what what was hilariously wrong?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Well, got your attention if I said, Oh, yeah.

Sam Stone: Absolutely it did. But I mean, this is where this is.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Where are you intimately involved in the contracts or are you part of.

Professor Brooks Simpson: No, no, that's that's your watch this. I watch this as an outsider. I okay.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: So you don't have any direct.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Information? No, no. And that's why I think I as part of the investigation, I'd like to see these contracts. I'd like to see the agreements. What harassment? The harassment of the Barrett faculty and the. But. So wait, wait.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: So you're just repeating hearsay?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Because you don't have an eye.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I'm repeating a lot of this is hearsay at this point. Those student reports were redacted and reformed by the person who gave them that. That's hearsay. So it's okay.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Well, I'm glad you just admit that you're repeating hearsay.

Sam Stone: That's fine. Well, that's actually witness testimony versus hearsay, which is third party second hand.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And so but until I see the original document. With names redacted to protect the students. I'm going to go. What? I'm not quite sure what's going, but.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: What is that I still don't get? That's that's a separate issue with the students. Said we have the professors signatures on a letter where they outline why they think that this event should be labeled, you know, or should be stopped, frankly. And I think you're right. They did it in a way where they just kind of.

Sam Stone: They knew where the line was from the previous event, from when they got when they got pushed back from Michael Crow. And that brings up a different point, which we haven't touched on, which is that crow is always a day late and a dollar short coming to these things. It's always down the road. And his response is. Is never up front to to stand behind these type of events and say, no, before this gains any traction, before it gets the point that people start getting fired. I'm going to stand on the front line and say, say we do have a commitment to the Chicago Chicago University free speech commitment. It seems always late. And this is the for a lot of conservatives, this is a fundamental issue right now with universities that they will put out these these broad statements that they're committed to free speech. But when the rubber meets the road, it's the they they do not stand behind it.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I understand that that that's how this has been portrayed in various venues, etcetera. And the reporting on how was the.

Sam Stone: Portrayal different than the reality? I mean, isn't that the reality?

Professor Brooks Simpson: The reality is the event came off. It was successful. You've already heard this? Yeah.

Sam Stone: No, the event the event did happen. Okay.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And so actually what then interests me is post event, what actions were taken by various actors and what happened. Mr. Lewis pulls his donation as is every right to do that means Ann Atkinson no longer as a funded position because that's a soft money position. She contends that she has donors ASU contests that.

Sam Stone: Well, but she wasn't given any time to do it. I mean, I've tried to raise money before. You can't raise $1 million in a day.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I know, but I understand that. I'm saying let's have that investigation take place. We know that the Barrett faculty were targeted by both Charlie's Professor Watchlist and by Dennis Prager calling for their firing. And since then. So if you're going to fire somebody for their freedom of expression, then you violated free speech.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But that was just his opinion on a radio show and that was after the fact.

Sam Stone: Well, also also, though, no.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Actually, that is not after the fact. He made his first protest on February 3rd on his podcast After after.

Sam Stone: But it was after the letter came out. That's what.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I'm saying.

Sam Stone: And I'm saying where this was already under attack and he's responding. Now.

Professor Brooks Simpson: You have a state senator who headed that hearing committee who also called for the firing of faculty. So. If you fire faculty and the expressions, if you fire faculty for their expressions of opinion. Then you're violating free. No, no, no.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: That's the action I'm asking. So what? Someone said that.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Well, then so what? So that's all it happened with the Barrett faculty. They made a request to the event. Went on?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: No, they. What they did was try to disrupt the event, and what they did was try to walk. No, no, I'm just reading the language they call these individuals. And I want to get your opinion. White nationalist provocateurs. Do you agree with that?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I and referencing Charlie Kirk.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: And Dennis Prager. Do you agree that these two are white nationalist provocateurs as outlined in the letter signed by the majority of faculty at the Barret at the Barret College?

Professor Brooks Simpson: For what I've listened to about Charlie and Dennis, they often say things about American history, which I would take issue with. Okay. Okay. Would I have used that language? No. All right. But again, part of free speech is fighting for people who may use language of which you do not approve. And so as much as you want to focus on that petition, the petition triggered so many other things that I think do address and raise concerns about how we're going to govern free speech on campus in the future. What are going to be the parameters ET?

Sam Stone: I guess that concerns me because I'm an absolutist on free speech and I don't think it should be governed.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And I knew it. I knew it. I'd say governance. You'd go, Hmm. And I got that. And that's why. On the other hand, Crowe has endorsed this Center for American Institutions. That's why there are people who are supporting this. The criticism of the Barrett faculty, who, you know, are themselves, in a way, shining examples of free speech because they're there. And I've never heard, you know, another job I've had is run the university's promotion and tenure committees for the last level of review before it goes to the provost and the president's office. No one ever talked about anyone's political views.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But but see, there's we're kind of blurring a couple of lines because.

Sam Stone: You don't have to talk about their political views when you weed them out with.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: The diversity.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I know because some people who have been involved in this, their their files went forward. And all I'll say is I've never heard a discussion about political views at that level at all or saw it discussed in the files. Uh, so we can continue to talk about the narrow issue of the petition. And you and I will go around and circle.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But it's not, it's not, it's not narrow. I mean, it's really the crux of the issue, which is you have a letter signed by the majority of faculty attacking the individuals, not attacking or talking about or offering a different opinion about what was presented at the event, but attacking the individuals personally, labeling them just trying to discredit them and stifle speech and trying to be disruptors and trying to stop these individuals from expressing themselves.

Sam Stone: Only thing, Michelle, that I agreed with that they said at all, and it wasn't really part of the letter, but but part of the discussion at that time was I'm not sure what some of these folks have to do with health, wealth and happiness. Now, I would disagree. Knowing more about them in their backgrounds, that would be a reasonable point to contest. Right?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Right. What's the nexus between the speaker and the event.

Sam Stone: And the event? But when these attacks, Michelle, is exactly right. When you start out with saying that the reason this shouldn't be that this should be disassociated, that this should be cut out of of our circle, is because these people are X, Y and Z. And frankly, those those contentions are not provable unless you come from a very specific mindset.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: And they and they and they list things that have nothing to do with the event and have everything to do with, I mean, other incidents, other situations and quotes that happened know, in the past. So.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Then you can test it by saying the Barrett faculty have incorrect understanding of the speakers of what they said, which which has been said that, you know, media matters is not exactly the most unbiased source if we're going for information. But and I think and I think that was a really good point that I think you have to listen to the people. I mean, because.

Sam Stone: The media matters, media folks who we've kind of back up on this media matters. A lot of this started the letter was prompted by information sent out by Media Matters, which is a far left wing organization designed to promote and help elect Democrats, essentially is why it was founded to create a narrative to help elect more Democrats. So fine, but a lot a lot of their contentions are pulled so far out of context as to be absolutely ridiculous. But again, they weren't contesting why they're there or the ideas they're contesting these people as individuals and saying they hold views we don't like, therefore we don't want to have any association with them or allow any association with them. Isn't that exactly the opposite of the way we should be treating academia?

Professor Brooks Simpson: We agreed all the way to the last sentence. So we we have a common narrative here at this point, which, given how this discussion has been going on in the broader sense, is is an achievement.

Sam Stone: Well, no. And that's why we appreciate you being here.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And so. I think that the way to push back against the petition is also to exercise free speech, which is what those three professors did. Okay. This was not a I hate, you know, not because there were issues of publicity. A lot of issues, a big place. Lots of things are going on we have no idea about. I would not have known about this except, frankly, for for Critchlow, because I've known Don. I helped bring him to ASU. So, you know, if you're going to talk about me, that's a little different than Marxist radical.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I feel like we need to answer questions, though, here.

Professor Brooks Simpson: But.

Professor Brooks Simpson: But I've answered the questions that I can answer. You keep on asking me to defend a document that I did not author and to decide where the charge is made. Well said document are true.

Sam Stone: So okay.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: You went on Twitter and claimed that there were falsehoods being made and there was a lack of understanding and parts of the story was not discussed.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And yeah.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I think, for example, the harassment, rather serious harassment of the Barrett faculty and calls for their termination, that also brings in the issues of free speech.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Like how?

Professor Brooks Simpson: If you speak up, you get fired.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: That's just what one person said.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Why can't they say that? No, no, no.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: You keep talking about if that's acted upon.

Professor Brooks Simpson: It's not one person.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: So what's someone say? Wait a minute.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Excuse me. Well, when a state senator says it at a hearing, I pay attention.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Really?

Professor Brooks Simpson: Don't you pay attention to what?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: As a state. As a former state senator.

Sam Stone: I was about to say, as a former state senator, there's no way you pay attention every time one of your colleagues opens their mouth and.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Says and demands someone be fired.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Okay, Well, then if you.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Want to say that Anthony Kern is just talking out of his hat, that's fine. That's fine.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: But the point but the point is, why can't he why can't anyone why can't these individuals attend an event and talk about health, wellness and happiness without the faculty trying to interfere with the event and try to stop it?

Professor Brooks Simpson: We're going to continue to go around Michelle time and again. And I'm saying the faculty said you can have your event, but we don't want to be touched by this anymore. We don't want to be associated by this anymore. We do not want to have Barrett the Honors College presents, Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager. That was the crux of their complaint. So so.

Professor Brooks Simpson: And.

Sam Stone: I do look, I don't want to go back around in circles. We've been on this long enough. I do feel like that is a bit of a cop out. I mean, I feel like what they did was a very fine line that they knew where the line was. And they they tried to walk that line. But the fundamental issue for me is that there is this underlying attitude that has pervaded a large portion of faculty at universities, which is anti free speech and which quite frankly is very totalitarian in their instincts and how to prevent that speech.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Okay, then we can either from this event say, okay, let's step back for a moment. People on both sides and people in the middle and say, okay, how do we want to do this in the future? Okay, we could stop this now. And the conversation going on now I don't think is productive for anybody because there is a lot of labeling, There is a lot of name calling. It's on both sides. We could say it's faculty behaving badly. But I mean, this is not just one side. There's there's a larger controversy going on.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I do. I don't really I.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Don't see that.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I'm sorry.

Sam Stone: I make a distinction. I make a distinction like Michelle does, I think because one is a group of faculty at that institution and the mission of the institution should be the open pursuit of knowledge. Right? I mean, basically, the fundamental mission of every university should be the open pursuit of knowledge. So they have they should have a commitment to that. Do I expect radio listeners to always have that exact same level? No, No. And so when you're saying people are calling them, you know, who listen to Charlie on the radio and he said something and then people are sending emails or calling, I don't hold I'm not going to hold them to the same standard I do. A professor that professor is in some sense on the public payroll, and they're there to enhance the overall mission of the university. And when we're failing from that, that is a very different thing than some state senator or some radio listener calling in and saying saying something on the same level. Even when they're saying the same thing, the role makes it different.

Professor Brooks Simpson: I understand what you're saying. And look, I just wrote a piece for the conversation which was non argumentative, didn't give a point of view at all, just a descriptive issue about the Tuberville holds. And I've already gotten hate mail and I'm going, Where is this from? So hate mail is part of this They.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Hate What is.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: That? What is the.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: Point?

Professor Brooks Simpson: The point is we all get that. Didn't ask for my job. That didn't ask that that I be fired, that didn't threaten my family, that didn't threaten to have CPS come into my household part of. And, you know, when you're threatened to be fired. No, you're not fired yet. But your state employees and now you've got a state senator calling for you to be terminated. Yeah, we might want to take a step back.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: I think we're just.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: We're putting blame somewhere else. I mean, the real focus is that the professors intervened and tried to stop an event.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: You continue to say, because.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: That's the point. And you keep ignoring it and you want to opine on Twitter. But then when we invite you here, you you can't seem to defend the position. That's what I'd love defend why the professor should be allowed to interfere with an event sponsored by a college to bring guest speakers.

Professor Brooks Simpson: No, I said that the the story was incomplete.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: That is the that's the story.

Professor Brooks Simpson: Well, you and I then disagree. So. So you know Michelle to have I. Make a better conversation. We probably You've said your piece on this. I've said my piece on this. There really are other things we we might want to explore that I think are more fruitful and frankly, more pertinent because.

Sam Stone: I think I think there are a lot of broader issues attached to this. I mean, that I think fundamentally, when you're talking about people on the right related to this, what we're looking at is this being a symptom of a much larger disease, right? And so the symptom itself is bad, but the disease is the concern. The symptom goes away if you address the disease. And I think there is not much evidence at this point that universities, including ASU, are taking that disease seriously enough. And that we can get into all of that. And I think it would be a great piece for another podcast, another program, because we're deep into this one. And I want to thank Brooke Simpson, professor at ASU, for coming on with us, challenging us here a little bit. Michelle, again, always lovely to have wonderful in studio folks. Be sure if you are not subscribed, that's the easiest thing in the world. Literally click one button and we will come to your email box every single week when breaking battlegrounds comes out. Thank you so much for tuning in. We appreciate you. We're back on the air again next week.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

In this week's episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, we are honored to welcome a lineup of exceptional guests, each bringing their unique perspectives on pressing issues that matter most to our nation.

Our first guest needs no introduction, as he is a dear friend of the show and a prominent figure in the political landscape. Matt Lewis, the acclaimed columnist at The Daily Beast and the author of "Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections (and How It Can Reclaim Its Conservative Roots)," graces our platform once again. Today, Matt joins us to share insights from his newly-released book, "Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America."

Next on our show is Congressman James Moylan, representing Guam. As Guam Liberation Day approaches on July 21, Congressman Moylan joins us to shed light on this historic event and its profound significance to the people of Guam. We explore the remarkable journey of resilience and freedom, honoring the spirit of those who have shaped Guam's vibrant history.

Our final guest, California State Senator Shannon Grove, enters the conversation with an urgent and compelling topic. She discusses her crucial bill that aims to designate human trafficking as a serious and violent felony. Despite the importance of this legislation, California democrats voted it down. Tune in to learn more about this critical issue and the efforts to combat human trafficking in the Golden State.

Subscribe now and stay informed on the latest developments, only on Breaking Battlegrounds!

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Called a "first-rate talent" in The Washington Post and "super-smart" by John Heilemann, Matt K. Lewis is a center-right critic of American politics and pop culture.

As a journalist, Lewis has earned a reputation as an "independently minded" (Columbia Journalism Review) and "intellectually honest" commentator (Ben Adler, Newsweek). He is a senior columnist for The Daily Beast, and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, GQ, The Washington Post, The Week, Roll Call, Politico, The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian. He previously served as senior contributor for The Daily Caller, and before that, as a columnist for AOL's Politics Daily.

Lewis dissects the day's issues in conversation with other thinkers, authors, and newsmakers on his podcast Matt Lewis and the News, and co-hosts The DMZ Show with liberal pundit Bill Scher. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, PBS NewsHour, ABC's "Nightline," HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," and CBS News' "Face The Nation," and has contributed to radio outlets including NPR and the BBC.

Kirsten Powers described Lewis's 2016 book, Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went From the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump, as "a lively and fascinating read for any person confounded by the state of today's Republican Party." In 2011, Lewis released The Quotable Rogue: The Ideals of Sarah Palin in Her Own Words, an edited compilation of the Alaska governor's much-discussed public utterances.

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Congressman James Moylan proudly serves as Guam's congressional delegate to the 118th United States Congress.

As the first Republican to win the seat on Guam in nearly 30 years, Moylan's victory was historic. He is a strong and trustworthy leader who's focused on issues that affect Guamanians most.

Moylan believes island residents have a right to know what's happening in their governing offices. Therefore, he has created an open door policy allowing constituents to have their concerns addressed.

Moylan's history of service includes his time as a senator in the 35th and 36th Guam Legislature, a Veteran of the United States army and a parole officer at the Department of Corrections.

Additionally, Moylan has more than two decades of experience working in the private sector, including healthcare, financial services, and insurance.

In his current position, Moylan serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee. Both Committees address issues that are vital to Guam.

Additionally, Moylan is a native of Guam and is from the village of Tumon. He graduated from John F Kennedy High School and continued to the University of Guam where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice. Most of all, Moylan is a proud father to Abby and Krissy Moylan.

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Senator Shannon Grove was born and raised in Kern County.

After graduating from high school, Senator Grove served in the United States Army. While stationed in Frankfurt, Germany she witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Following her service to our nation, she established a staffing company with her sister-in-law called Continental Labor and Staffing Resources. Senator Grove currently serves as the CEO.

Prior to her election to the State Senate, Senator Grove was the first woman veteran elected to the California Legislature as she served the 34th Assembly District from 2010 to 2016.

Senator Grove was elected to represent the 16th Senate District in November 2018, which includes portions of Kern, Tulare, and San Bernardino counties. In January 2019, she was elected Leader of the Senate Republican Caucus where she served in that capacity for two years. As the Republican Leader-Emeritus, Grove remains a committed representative working with legislators to advance policies that benefit the constituents, businesses, and communities within Senate District 16.

Senator Grove is an advocate for small business, school choice, the developmentally disabled, farmers, and families. She currently lives in Kern County with her husband, Rick. They are the proud parents of five children and eight grandchildren.

Transcription:

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren on the line with us right now. Fantastic new book out came out on the 18th. Matt Lewis. He is a friend of the program, columnist for The Daily Beast, author of Too Dumb to Fail How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections. Yeah, we are not too dumb to fail. That's been proven many, many times. And today he's joining us to discuss his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America. Matt, thank you for joining us and welcome to the show.

Matt Lewis: Well, thanks for having me back.

Chuck Warren: So what gave you the idea to write a book about this issue about filthy rich politicians?

Matt Lewis: Well, to be honest, it was because I'm a capitalist. And I was I was actually approached by a book agent, believe it or not, who had this idea to rank the 100 richest politicians in America.

Chuck Warren: Interesting.

Matt Lewis: That was the original idea of the book. It was 100 chapters. Each chapter was just going to be on. Wow. The 100 richest politicians in just how they made their money. And that's how it started. And it evolved, I think, into a much deeper, more important topic, which includes, you know, the original idea, but but goes so much deeper into like, what it all means. And so it was one of those just the stars aligned and I think we ended up writing a great book.

Sam Stone: We got the book a few days ago. I've gone through most of it, I admit, to skimming a few portions. Who is the richest politician in America?

Matt Lewis: The richest politician in America is JB Pritzker, who's the governor of Illinois. He is an heir to the Hyatt fortune. There are 11 billionaires in his family and interestingly, when he was running for governor in Illinois, there were three billionaires running for the seat last year in 2022.

Sam Stone: Well, amazing. You know what I love about Pritzker? I don't know if you've ever read the book Super Mob, but that family got its start with mob financing.

Matt Lewis: Well, you know, it's like the Kennedys, you know, I mean, you go back far enough.

Chuck Warren: I think we just call those hard money loans today.

Matt Lewis: But in in Congress, it would be Rick Scott. Most people and by the way, it's impossible to know the actual net wealth of most politicians because the range have ways of hiding it. And it's reported in broad ranges. But it used to be Darrell Issa. Right now we believe it is Rick Scott, senator from Florida, who's the richest in Congress.

Chuck Warren: Well, so why should this matter to the average voter? I mean, so, for example, you know, as a 2020, I believe about half the members of Congress had a median net worth of $1 million. Okay. And there's almost 22 million people in the United States that have that net worth now. Now, most of that's probably in their home, right. Something they've lived in 20, 30 years. And a couple other things.

Sam Stone: I mean, half of California has, but it's.

Chuck Warren: Still a lot of money. I mean, you know, a population of 350 million, 21, 21, 22 million people are worth $1 million. And, you know, and that seems like a lot of money. But we also realize that's a lot. And it's not in a lot of ways, right? I mean, you can't retire on that per se and just live on it. But why is this important for Americans and why should they demand some reforms on this?

Matt Lewis: Well, so the book is about two things. It's about how the rich get elected and how the elected get rich. And I think both things are important. So right now, the average member of Congress is about 12 times richer than the median American household. And so I think you know, look, I don't begrudge rich people from, you know, for running for office. And in fact, there's some ways that I even admire that. But I do think it's it seems likely to me that when and by the way, I should say that this this phenomenon where the average member of Congress is 12 times richer than the rest of us is kind of new. It's been going on for about three decades now. The gap has dramatically widened. And it just stands to reason, to me that when our elected officials are that much richer than the rest of us, there would be some sort of a disconnect or just a worldview difference in terms of connecting with working class Americans. But that doesn't bother me near as much as the second half of the story, which is the fact that once people get elected, they tend to get richer. And I think that is much more corrosive and damaging than just having rich politicians.

Chuck Warren: Well, it's true, though. If you have a certain amount of wealth, you have different concerns than somebody who's making 15, $20 an hour. I mean, that's fair, right? And so how can you really relate if you're all full of people who are highly successful financially?

Matt Lewis: Totally. I mean, you know, because of, you know, I'm from a very kind of middle class, working class background. My dad was a prison guard in Hagerstown, Maryland, for 30 years. And that's kind of how I grew up. And I live in West Virginia. I went to a little a little college in West Virginia, but I've been blessed to get to, you know, also know some, you know, folks in journalism who come from maybe more privileged backgrounds than me. And there are some of the nicest, kindest, best people. But I'm telling you, they see they see the world differently than I do. And who could blame them? I mean, they've come from wealth, right? They grew up. And I just think we're all formed by our experience. And and it's impossible not to be at some level.

Chuck Warren: Absolutely. We're with Matt Lewis. He is a columnist for The Daily Beast. He has come out with a new book that was released this Tuesday. You can get it at at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble wherever you find your books. Filthy rich politicians, the Swamp Creatures, latte liberals and ruling class elites cashed in on America came out this Tuesday, July 18th. All right. So I want to ask a couple of questions, because your book covers many topics, but who are some of the politicians that we have that are married into money or inherited great wealth?

Matt Lewis: So you're the first person to ask me this question. I have a whole chapter or a whole section on this. So thank you. Because this is so I ranked well Business Insider ranked the they have a ranking of the 100 richest politicians in America. And so when the appendix of my book I took the richest 25 and then I personally did kind of a deep dive into them how they made their money. And of the richest 25 members of Congress, more than half, 13 of them made their money through inheritance or marriage the.

Sam Stone: Really old fashioned way.

Matt Lewis: Yes. And I'll give you a few examples. Richard Blumenthal, his father in law, and by the way, it's usually fathers in law for what that's worth. Interesting.

Chuck Warren: Interesting.

Matt Lewis: Yeah. Richard Blumenthal's father in law is Peter Malkin, who basically owned the Empire State Building. In fact, he was involved in a in a fight with Donald Trump at some point over control of that.

Sam Stone: There was a long time when he was the developer in New York, the real estate guy. Yeah.

Matt Lewis: Indeed. There's a Texas congressman named Michael McCaul. His father in law runs Clear Channel Communications.

Chuck Warren: Oh, wow.

Matt Lewis: Rokana, who's a congressman out of California who's starting to really make a name for himself. His father in law owns a trans max or started trans max and also runs Mara Holdings. Wow. And Mitch McConnell, a lot of people were like, how did Mitch McConnell all of a sudden get all this money? And there are like conspiracy theories about.

Chuck Warren: That cocaine.

Matt Lewis: Mitch And and and by the way, who knows, right? I mean, maybe there's some secret, But but basically what happened is that, you know, Mitch McConnell is married to Elaine Chao and her mom. When her mom died, you know, she inherited a ton of money. And how much how.

Chuck Warren: Much she did inherit, how much did she inherit?

Matt Lewis: Oh, we're talking you definitely were talking tens of millions of dollars. Yeah. I mean, he became incredibly wealthy overnight and it looks super suspicious, but it's a matter of public record directly correlates to when her you know, it's money from her her father but but she inherited it when when the mother died.

Sam Stone: Andy Biggs is a $10 Billion publisher clearinghouse sweepstakes win is starting to look more and more legitimate.

Chuck Warren: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know.

Matt Lewis: You know, what's you know, what's interesting is, is Kevin McCarthy, the current speaker of the House, won the lottery.

Chuck Warren: Oh, really? I thought he did the sandwich shops. Did he really?

Matt Lewis: Well, what happened is when he was very young, he won $5,000 in the lottery and he used that money to buy like a deli. And that is what led him to Congress. So.

Chuck Warren: Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah, but see, that's that's a little more of a that's more of an all-American story. I got $5,000.

Sam Stone: Yeah, that's a great story. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Yeah, it is a great story. It's sort of like, um. Oh, what's it what's that movie? Will Ferrell, where he gets sent to prison for insider trading and he's talking to us. He's talking to his father in law and said, I started this business all of myself with this computer and a $9 million loan from my father. And, you know, there's a lot of people like that. Um, so next to insider trading and I want to get into that probably the next segment. How do certain members benefit their family members, either via their connections or congressional campaigns? That happens a lot more than people think. And it always seems like a surprise to people that some kids on the payroll and we've got two minutes here, but can you give a couple of examples how that's happening?

Matt Lewis: Totally. I'll give you it's a by the way, it's a bipartisan book. Um, both pretty much everyone's equally guilty of this. And so we'll start with Ilhan Omar, you know, a member of the squad on the left. She has directed millions of dollars, millions of campaign dollars to her husband's consulting firm. Likewise, Bernie Sanders, who, by the way, he became a millionaire from a book deal, but his wife, Jane, he has paid a lot of money to her over the years, including hiring her to be his media ad buyer when she had zero experience doing that. So she's basically getting a cut or a percentage of the money his campaign spends buying TV advertisements.

Chuck Warren: Does she do that during the presidential, too?

Matt Lewis: That is a good question. I think most of this happened in the his congressional races, like in Vermont senatorial races. But, you know, we're talking about a lot of money. And this one.

Sam Stone: There's a lot of money when there's no risk, because he was never in doubt for any of those re-elections. Right. I mean, that's really kind of a.

Matt Lewis: And Bernie. Bernie didn't just pay Jane. I mean, he paid her like her children, too. Which brings me to Ron Paul, a Republican who has employed six. In 2012, when he was running for president, he employed six family members, but he was a piker. He paid them a grand total of $300,000. So, you know.

Chuck Warren: That's that's that's literally not surprising, though, right?

Sam Stone: That that's chintzy, cheap. He's hosing his family.

Chuck Warren: Do you think that do you think Congress should crack down on this and just not allow you in campaigns to hire family members?

Sam Stone: We got 30s. We're going to. Okay. Going to head to break here in just a moment.

Chuck Warren: We're with Matt Lewis. He is the author of a great new book came out this week, Filthy Rich Politicians The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America. You can find this at Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Wherever you get your book, go buy it. This is a very important. We're going to come back and talk to Matt a little bit about what reforms he thinks need to be done so we can clean this up. This is Chuck and Sam breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at breaking battlegrounds vote. We'll be right back.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warrem. I'm Sam Stone. We're continuing on here in just a moment with Matt Lewis, columnist of The Daily Beast, author of Too Dumb to Fail, and his newest book, Filthy Rich Politicians. We're talking about that one today. But folks, if you're looking to get filthy rich, maybe you should give our call. Our friends at Invest Y refy a call, go to their website, invest y refy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com and learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on your money. That's right. 10.25% Phenomenal rate of return not correlated to the stock market. The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down, your investment continues, racking up the great interest and great returns for you. So give them give our friends there a call. You can do that at 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you Matt.

Chuck Warren: All right. So, so much to cover in your book, but tell us what are reforms of your king for the day? And they said, Matt, you make these changes and we start building a little trust back up in Congress again. What would you do?

Matt Lewis: Okay. So the first couple we've talked about, I would the most important is to ban individual stock trading for members of Congress and their family. That is by far the most important thing we can do, because.

Chuck Warren: Certainly I want to make one appearance.

Matt Lewis: Of insider.

Chuck Warren: Trading. Right. I don't want to hurt you, but you made a good point. I listened to on a fellow podcast, which you made this point. It's not even so much about them increasing their wealth. Sometimes it's that they prevent the loss of wealth. So let's use, for example, Senator Barr in North Carolina as an example, if you can share that with our audience.

Matt Lewis: Yeah, this is really corrosive. So Senator Senator Richard Burr, he just retired, but he was chairman of the Intel Committee. So like in that capacity, you know, he had access to all sorts of of kind of classified briefings, classified information. And you might remember back in early 2020, like before most Americans realized how damaging Covid 19 was going to be like in terms of shutting down businesses and the economy. Um, Richard Burr dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in things like Wyndham Hotels, the kinds of things that would be damaged in a global pandemic shutdown. But making matters even worse. Then he picks up the phone and calls his brother in law and within one minute of hanging up with Richard Burr, his brother in law calls his broker and dumps his stock. And so that is the thing. It's it's not just that politicians are able to make money by virtue of what certainly looks like insider trading, but it's it avoids the downfall. And certainly during times of change and crisis, that's when they can really use information to dump stock and avoid like a major catastrophic loss.

Sam Stone: Well, and that has the the so as someone who does trade stock issues, the other side of that is if you dump at the start of something like that on an industry like hotels, like airlines, all of that, you're going to get that going two ways. You're going to avoid the loss and then you're going to be able to buy back in at a low point and you're going to know when that low point is hit.

Matt Lewis: Absolutely. And and again, think of it. I mean, the average American at this point doesn't know how bad Covid 19 is going to be. We're being told it'll disappear. It'll be, you know, like a miracle. It'll disappear or, you know, two weeks to slow the spread or whatever.

Sam Stone: This is when you had De Blasio telling folks, go out in the streets and celebrate the Chinese New Year. Right. I mean, it's literally coinciding with that moment.

Matt Lewis: And so that's a classic example, right? Our politicians are telling the public, don't worry, everything's fine. And yet what are they doing? What are they doing with their money? And so I think that is super corrosive. And that's by far, I would say, the most important reform in the book.

Chuck Warren: Let me ask you this. I'm a follow up two questions real quick. How many members have siblings or family members that are in the brokerage business or selling and trading stocks? Do you know that you were you able to find that out?

Matt Lewis: I it's in the book. I don't recall offhand. Okay. I do know it is in the book. And I will I will say this. I mean, in 20 so in 2012, up until 2012, it wasn't even illegal to engage in insider trading in Congress. It's only been the last decade when that was illegal. Now the problem is policing. And I can tell you that the law it's called the Stock Act that made it illegal has has done very little to alleviate. The problem.

Chuck Warren: There's always a loophole, right? There's always some loophole they'll find. All right, what else would you do? What else would you reform?

Matt Lewis: Well, we've talked about family. I would I would ban the practice of hiring family for campaigns or official congressional offices. If you want to volunteer on a campaign, by all means. I just. We just wouldn't pay you. I would have a ten year moratorium on lobbying so that after serving in Congress, you can't go out and just start lobbying your former colleagues immediately. You would have a ten year basically ban on that. Some people like Ted Cruz and AOC want a lifetime ban. I don't even know if that would be constitutional right now. It's, I think, two years in the Senate, one year in the House. But like you said, Chuck, I mean, there are ways around it. There's this thing called the Daschle loophole where politicians immediately start lobbying. They just don't register as lobbyists.

Chuck Warren: They're consultants. They're consultants.

Matt Lewis: Yes. They're yeah, exactly.

Chuck Warren: You know, and you know what? You see this a lot, too. I mean, take Congress out of the equation. You see this a lot in legislatures. Legislatures. You know, you see people who couldn't rub two nickels together for their elected to the legislature, which doesn't take as much money. And now they're lobbying and making six high, six digits a year.

Sam Stone: Watch every governor's staff, if they've just won their second term, they get into year five. Right. And that whole staff disappears into the lobbying land and they're all rich by year eight.

Chuck Warren: Is that something that you think we should push also on the state level? And hopefully, you know, I find out a lot of times if states start pushing something, various states, then it goes to the national level is that's something that people should be pushing their state legislatures to pass?

Matt Lewis: I would say definitely I would I would strongly encourage that. And, you know, sometimes states can be the laboratories of democracy. And if these reforms can begin there, that would be very healthy.

Chuck Warren: What else? Okay. Lobbying, banning stock, hiring kids and family on campaigns. Those are three great things. What else could be done?

Matt Lewis: One of them this is one that is not sexy, but it's book deals, believe it or not. You know, Bernie Sanders, who's a socialist, was asked, how did you become a millionaire? And he said, and I'm paraphrasing, but this is pretty close to the real quote. He said, I wrote a best selling book. If you write a best selling book, you could be a millionaire, too. But but the book deals are really I mean, people are using their their perch, their position to become millionaires. But the worst part of it is the bulk orders, right? So you write a book, but instead of real people buying the book, it's like the National Republican Senatorial Committee buys like 50,000 copies of it. And some of that money very well could trickle back into your pocket. Well, for example.

Chuck Warren: For example, Bernie Sanders, I just looked it up, made $170,000 in book royalties in 2022, which almost matches his $174,000 congressional salary.

Matt Lewis: There you go. There you go. And I don't think you wrote a book in 2022. No, he's still making royalties.

Sam Stone: Well, and you know, the quality of most of these books, you know, they're ghost written or co-written, and most of them are just garbage. And you see these huge payouts, you know, it's not for their incredible insight in that in that no tome.

Matt Lewis: Totally. Yeah. These are not this is not Hemingway you know.

Chuck Warren: Well with Matt Lewis good friend of the show, daily columnist at The Daily Beast. He has come out with a new book. You can buy It now, Filthy Rich Politicians, the Swamp Creatures, Latte, Liberals and Ruling Class Elites. When we come back, we're going to talk about the latte liberals and what Matt dug in about that. I'm going to.

Sam Stone: Bring up Joe Biden also. You can do.

Chuck Warren: That as well. That's right. This is breaking battlegrounds. Find us are breaking battlegrounds vote. We'll be right back.

Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone, continuing on right now with Matt Lewis, friend of the program, columnist for The Daily Beast and author of the new book Filthy Rich Politicians, Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America, available right now at Amazon or your favorite bookseller? Matt As I read it, I did get to the section on the Bidens. And two things I think stand out is, one, they're cashing in less than most of of a lot of these other political families are. But two quite frankly, Matt, the stupidity of their schemes with Hunter Biden and all this stuff when there are so many ways that they could I don't want to say legitimately, but at least entirely legally make huge amounts of money. Did nobody in that family take notes from the Clinton Global Initiative?

Matt Lewis: Well, I think if you've seen the pictures of Hunter Biden recently, you know that at least some members of his family are not operating based on reason and logic. Um, Joe Biden kind of has, it seems like I mean, who knows? I mean, I don't know if he's, quote, the big guy who's getting a cut from the Burisma money or whatever, from Hunter. But Joe, according to his actual, you know, disclosure reports, really wasn't all that wealthy compared to most of these politicians until he left the vice presidency. And then he had about three years where he really cashed in. He made about $15 million off of, you know, the usual boring stuff, speeches, book deals, being a adjunct professor, that kind of thing. But the one thing that is clear is that Biden has a long history of his family cashing in on on his name. And it's not just Hunter, it's James and Frank, I think it is, who've been doing this. And, you know, I found that way back in 1988, the first time Biden ran for president. He raised about $11 million. There's a lot of money. In 1988, he raised $11 million, and 20% of that money went to the Biden family or companies that employed the Biden family. So this thing of him spreading the money around to his family has been going on for 25 or 30, I guess 35 years something.

Chuck Warren: Yeah. So in 1988, if you go and say, what's the dollar value, then that's worth about 5.1 million today. Yeah, I mean, it's real money. Sam, what are your what's your family doing for you?

Sam Stone: I I've got to run for something more significant than city council is what you're saying. Chuck Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Matt Let me ask you a question and Sam Biden Biden stuff, but I want to ask you a question. I, I heard you on an interview and I thought this was really interesting. And folks, Matt has just a wonderful wife. And the thing I love about Erin is she is so dang blunt. And you were talking to her about maybe on a walk running for Congress. Would you tell I want to understand really how hard this is to do, first of all, and why there is a certain wealth factor involved with it. I don't think they quite understand. You know, I have a congressional candidate friend who's running right now. He's put 300 grand on his race and just he just said it doesn't seem like it's enough. And that's what I have. That's what it is. Right. Would you explain your conversation and why this is so hard and why we are getting a certain amount of people in office?

Matt Lewis: Totally. And this was eye opening for me as someone who's been, you know, in politics for decades, even for me, I had to kind of grapple with this realization. So but so my wife, as you know, Chuck, my wife is a Republican political fundraiser. And while I was writing this book, you know, we went out for a walk and we were talking and I was you know, I live in West Virginia and my congressman is running for Senate against Joe Manchin. And so we were walking. I said, you know, if things were a little different, maybe I someday I could run for Congress. And she's like, oh, you don't have enough money. And I said like, well, what are you talking about? Like, number one, I've been in you know, I know a lot of people. I've been in journalism for a couple of decades and I've got a good network and I'm like, number two, I'm married to a professional Republican fundraiser. Surely I could run for Congress in West Virginia. And she was like, Well, let me put it to you this way. If I didn't know you and you approached me and you wanted to hire me, I would say, come back to me. When you've either donated $300,000 or raise $300,000 from your personal Christmas card list, and then and only then would I introduce you to political action committees and high dollar donors. And that's when it hit me that even I who wrote on the Straight Talk Express with John McCain could not win a congressional seat in West Virginia because I'm not rich enough.

Chuck Warren: Well, you need better friends. Yeah.

Sam Stone: Yeah. Chuck and I are not going to be able to help you that much there. Matt Lewis, we want to thank you again for joining us. We have just about 30s before we end the segment here, we really appreciate having you on. How do folks stay in touch with all of your work?

Matt Lewis: Oh, awesome. Well, first, get filthy rich politicians. Follow me on Twitter at Matt K Lewis and check me out at The Daily Beast.

Sam Stone: Perfect. Thank you so much. Once again, Matt, we always love having you on the program. Looking forward to the next round breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone in studio with me today. Kiley Kipper dragged reluctantly onto the mic once again back.

Kiley Kipper: By popular demand. I'm just.

Sam Stone: Kidding. People love you, Kiley. They are always happy to talk to you. And you know what else makes people happy? Earning a really high rate of return on their investments. That makes almost everybody I know happy. And folks, if you haven't checked out our friends at Invest Refy.com, you need to do that right now. Go to invest the letter Y then refy.com you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. The market goes up, the market goes down, your rate of return stays the same. It is a tremendous opportunity and we highly encourage you to check it out. So again, go on their website, invest y refy.com or give them a call at 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Now, our next segment up, we have a returning guest, someone we really enjoyed having on the program last time, Congressman James Moylan of Guam. And we have something actually this is coming out on Saturday, the 22nd. We record on the 21st. And folks, the 21st is a very special day. July 21st is a special day in Guam. Congressman, tell us what's going on.

Congressman James Moylan: Sure. I'll be happy to. Hi there, Sam. And hi, Kiley. And we as we greet folks from Guam, we say half a day. So half a day to you both.

Sam Stone: And half a day to you as well, sir.

Congressman James Moylan: Thank you. So we I was just on the floor today and gave a five minute speech for Congressional Record announcing the celebration of Guam's 79th Liberation Day 79 years ago. Guam was liberated and from during World War two. We also had a ceremony at the war. Let me see. World War II Memorial on July. July 13th here, where we had a wreath laying presentation on the monument at the War Memorial with Guam on it. This is a tradition that has been long ongoing for for quite some time. And we've joined in with our Guam Society of America, the oldest tomorrow group in the nation. We have so many different tomorrow groups throughout the nation, but this is the first and the oldest. We also had other members of Congress that were present. We had the undersecretary of the United States Air Force, Christine Christine Jones, and we also had the commandant of the United States Marine Corps, General Eric Smith, also do a presentation. So what's really happening is to remember this day for celebration. 79 years ago, on July 21st, 19, 1944, Guam, after two years of occupation by the Japanese Imperial Army military, the United States service members landed on our south west part of Guam, to liberate over 20,000 tomorrows and Americans from the occupation of Guam.

Congressman James Moylan: The actual the war in World War II were not. Many people know that Guam was actually occupied by the Japanese soldiers, and that day came as an invasion on December 8th of 1941. This is a special day for Guam because we were celebrating the feast of Santa Maria Kamalen, and that's Guam's patron saint. And after people were coming out of church, the sounds of bombs were just dropping and planes flying overhead. And and it drowned out what was a peaceful neighborhood and a great celebration of of of our services there. And that's what started the occupation on Guam. So we're very thankful 79 years later for the liberation Day of Guam, when the Marines came on back on July 21st, 1944. So that's our celebration. And we we're very patriotic and we're we're rededicating ourselves to chorus. And Guam is even even just as important then as it is even more so now with the Indopacom situation and the Communist Chinese party threat for national security and our sister nations out there who are supporting us as well, with the U.S taking the.

Sam Stone: Lead that has I mean, that is something that I think is so almost incomprehensible, Congressman, to any American right to you're stepping out of out of a services or a celebration in your country is being bombed around you. And there have to be people there who who lived through that experience, who still have that direct memory. Yes. And that has.

Congressman James Moylan: In fact.

Sam Stone: Never leave you.

Congressman James Moylan: Right. And many of war survivors still tell the stories. And we did have a war survivor here for a celebration here in Washington, DC at the Pacific Memorial. So but my mother was also one. So my mother had told me this story and she was 12 years old at the time. She was coming out of the cathedral with her grandfather. And she she explained the story in this way, that as they were exiting and they see the Japanese zeros flying over and the bombs were coming on down and she's yelling at her grandfather, too, Grandpa, we got to go. We got to go. Let's run, run, run. As an older man, he said, No, just leave me here. And she started she had to pull him so they can run, run for protection and run and hide and get back home to their family. So them with my mother's explanation. And and by the way, my father was in Pearl Harbor at the time of the bombing in Pearl Harbor, too. So every everybody's generations and generations, families have been affected. And the war stories continue to the brutality that was taken against forced labor, forced marches, beheadings, stabbings, grenades and and caves where where locals were were killed and massacred. And it was it was tremendous loss of innocent lives. But that's why we celebrate the. With the Liberation Day coming out, with the Marines, coming out back with US soldiers, with the United States Navy there to re reclaim Guam and give us our freedom back.

Congressman James Moylan: And my mother was part of that as well. There was what they called the Bennington Force march, where the Japanese troops used the local residents as a shield, As the Americans were coming onto the shore and coming inland, the Japanese were marching that direction, but using the local folks as a barrier. But of course, you know, the US is not going to kill innocent citizens. And my mom would explain to me as she's climbing up the hills in Menningen when they see the star on on the army, I believe it was an army tank or an army jeep. Then the soldiers would call them over and tell them to keep quiet, keep quiet, just come this way, come this way. And they felt so, so relieved to see the US, see Americans, see the military there. And it was a joyful celebration. And that's why this this has continued in celebrating and remembering in memory of this throughout the nation. We have Guam societies that we have calendars of events for just about every state where there's Guam residents. And they establish their organization and they celebrate to to remember those that have died, that have sacrificed. And if there are survivors to celebrate their lives as well for what we consider the greatest generation.

Sam Stone: Congressman, one of the things I think people know from, you know, books and movies like Unbroken a little bit, some of the experience that, for instance, American POWs went through. But I don't think they know enough about what the people of the occupied islands of the Pacific, including Guam, went through. You were just, you know, referencing some of it right there. But that occupation was just absolutely brutal in every regard and with with really little consideration for the humanity of the people of Guam or any of the other islands of the Pacific.

Congressman James Moylan: Very true. And and not all were able to talk about it some more. Chose to to forget my my mother's father was imprisoned in Japanese in Japan as well. And then when he came back to the to Guam after the war was over, he died shortly thereafter just from lack of lack of nutrition. So it was very it was it was brutal. And and the rules of war and Geneva Convention, there was there's nothing like that. The forced labor that was placed upon the people, the beheading of of local folks and the fights that went on and and what they had to endure. And you had to bow also to the imperial Japanese Army. And if you didn't, you're whipped and beaten. It was it was a sad day for those almost two and a half years of occupation. And that's why when the Americans came back, it was a great celebration. And since that time, of course, we've grown and we had we're considered per capita, the highest enlistment in the nation, where people joining the military, because of our commitment and the happiness and the joy that the United States came back to claim that U.S territory, which was the U.S territory at the time.

Sam Stone: So there are few, few populations on the planet that love America and the ideals of America like the people of Guam.

Congressman James Moylan: Yes. And I'm happy to represent as the delegate here. And there's a couple of committees that we were able to get ourselves on. And one is the House Armed Services Committee, which I play a great role in the readiness and also the personnel part. And I focus on on Guam and the Northern Marianas and and the Indopacom region. So we've had also we're able to have within the first quarter, a congressional delegation come through Guam. Second quarter, we just had another one, the House committee, House Armed Services Committee, to include the chairman and several other members of the House to come on up over an experience of what Guam is and what the role was and what it is now for the Indopacom region to defend against communist Chinese threat. And then we're going to have another one through the Natural Resources Committee, Department of Interior Affairs, which I'm a part of also, and the subcommittee specifically regarding our nation's Republic of Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands as well. All these nations joining in so we can protect freedom and democracy. Right. And we are against the Communist Chinese party. So I'm very fortunate to represent Guam in these two committees that have a great impact in the Indopacom region. And we're I believe the United States will be here for a long, long time to ensure that the Chinese threat is is deterred by our show of strength with all our other countries that are involved with our democracy.

Sam Stone: And people folks out there may not realize that as a territory. Guam, obviously, we're talking to their congressman member right now. Congressman, you don't have a vote on the House floor, but you do have a vote on committee. And I think most people don't recognize that what happens on the House floor is often kind of a dog and pony show, that the actual sausage gets made in those committees that dictates what's actually going to be voted on and how those bills, you know, interact with with the intent of the authors.

Congressman James Moylan: Exactly. And we just were discussing the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, which is the one of the biggest budget for the defense of the nation, and so much billions of dollars going into the Indo-Pacific region. Our influence there, we were able to double what we received last last fiscal year for for the island defense. So that's a great influence there. So in committee, yes, we do this and pardon me.

Sam Stone: Sorry, we had a little technical glitch right there. Apologize for that. Let's just keep going here. I want to switch up topics just a little bit. We have only two minutes left. Are there any traditional celebrations, the traditional foods like here, obviously July 4th, Independence Day, it's hot dogs, hamburgers, fireworks. Are there celebratory traditions around Guam's Independence Day, their liberation day?

Congressman James Moylan: Yes. Unfortunately, this year we didn't have it because we were hit with Super Typhoon Marwar. So we're still recovering from that. However, we'll we get back to our traditions. We usually have a parade with all the branches of the military, all our department agencies and a lot of villages are also represented with floats. It's it's it's a beautiful parade that goes down what's known as Marine Corps Drive. That's our main road on Guam. In addition, people overnight on the sides of the roads and they picnic because it's right next to the beach and they barbecue. We love our fiesta. We call it Fiesta food. We have what's called red rice barbecue chicken, barbecue ribs. And our marinade is delicious. We have a sauce called Vinodhini, which is our hot sauce. And we have something special called Chicken Kelaguen that everybody loves. So.

Sam Stone: Congressman, I think we I think we need to check the weather and make some plans for next year to come. There.

Congressman James Moylan: There you go. You're more than welcome and you're invited. Please come on down. It's going to be the 80th. And that's where you should have your show coming out of. That'd be great.

Sam Stone: I think that sounds like an absolutely fantastic plan. Congressman James Moylan of Guam, thank you so much for joining us once again. We really appreciate having you on the program, folks. Stay tuned for our podcast only segment. You're not going to want to miss this one. Breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment.

Speaker1: The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a your name Web domain from GoDaddy.com. Get yours now.

Sam Stone: Welcome to the podcast. Only segment of breaking battlegrounds. In studio with me today the irrepressible haven't broken that out in a while the irrepressible Kiley Kipper. She remains irrepressible folks. She is our producer. She does a fantastic job. We've got Jeremy in the booth, as always, doing a beautiful job on all our audio and on the line. Now, I saw this come out a little while ago and it kind of blew me away. We have Senator Shannon Grove from California's 12th Senate District. Senator Grove has served in the US Army and had the amazing. It had to be amazing. Senator, the experience in Frankfurt, Germany, of watching the fall of the Berlin Wall. She's an advocate for small business school choice, the developmentally disabled farmers and families, and we're having her on today to discuss her proposed amendment to Assembly Bill 2167. Senator, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Tell us what this amendment was. First, I think this is news that was so much going on in the country, escaped a lot of people, but it really blew me away when I heard about your bill. I'm shocked California didn't have something like this already on the books and then shocked and disheartened at the Democrats response to it.

Senator Shannon Grove: No.

Senator Shannon Grove: And I appreciate you guys covering this subject matter. I really do. And thank you for having me on. Sb 14 was a simple solution that would just allow us individuals who sell children for sex, sex trafficking, minor children, 0 to 17in age group. It would make it a serious felony in the state of California right now, there's two subsections that deal with this subject matter. And selling a child for sex does not automatically make it a serious felony unless there's coercion, torture, violence, you know, all these different things that go along with it, then it can be considered serious. But I want the actual act of selling the child to be a serious felony.

Sam Stone: And it shocks I mean, honestly, it we're sitting here in Arizona, obviously, we've had Republican leadership for a long time. So it's a very different environment. Obviously, every state is different. But this should be a no brainer, right? I mean, so much of the problem and we've dealt with the issue of sex trafficking and child sex trafficking here quite a bit. Obviously, with the border. Arizona is also another hub of that activity, just like California is, unfortunately. But a lot of times it's very difficult to prove those if you can prove any element of it at all. It's really difficult to prove those other elements. This has got to be just hamstringing prosecutors, this current law.

Senator Shannon Grove: It really is hamstringing prosecutors. And that's why we work together with our district attorneys, including all the statewide district attorneys, with the exception of 3 or 4. But specifically Nancy O'Malley, the former district attorney of Alameda County, who established the heat unit, the human trafficking exploitation unit. And what happened is, is that that was the first unit set up like that in the nation that was victim centered. She's prosecuted over 850 cases of human trafficking. And one of the big issues that she has is that you can't convict these individuals because this particular bill, SB 14, the language is not on the books. When we first introduced the language, we wanted to make sure everybody was encompassed, that everybody in sex trafficking, labor trafficking were all included. But to get it out of the Senate, we had to narrow it to minors only. So we moved the football a little bit. We got a unanimous vote in the Senate. 40 senators in the state of California, all 40 voted I no abstentions and no no's. Fast forward to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, where the bill dies.

Sam Stone: Oh.

Sam Stone: I it stuns me. What was to hear that? I mean, it's sort of it's just gross. I mean, quite frankly, it's just gross. They clearly killed it when they they figured it wouldn't draw much attention by killing it in committee. But, my goodness, how how did what did they what did they say? How did these Democrats look at themselves in the mirror?

Kiley Kipper: That's what I want to know, is what is their response when you're trying to have these conversations with the people that you work with?

Senator Shannon Grove: So, yeah, no. So I did I was, you know, they requested me leadership, requested me to meet with the chair of the committee after it was killed and he wanted me to take an amendment. So let me explain the bill just a little bit more so people get a full grasp of it. If you sex trafficking a minor child in the state of California and you get caught and you get prosecuted, you get sentenced to either four, 8 or 12 years, let's just take the maximum 12 years with California's criminal justice reform laws. You go to school, you go to classes, you're a good behavior in prison. You can get out in less than four years. So let's just take that scenario, which happens quite often. You get out in four years and then you go back to sex trafficking a minor. That's when my bill kicks in and creates a strike offense that when you get busted on your second offense for selling a child for sex, then you have to serve your full 12 years and you have a strike against you, which could, if you continue your bad behavior, you could end up with life in prison. The chair wants me to take an amendment to allow the second offense of sex trafficking, not the first one. When you get convicted, you go to prison. You get out in four years, but then you get out again and you sex trafficker minor do or do another bad felony, something that's listed as a serious or violent felony. He wants me to take an amendment to allow the perpetrator to plea bargain down. I said no. So that's why the bill died.

Sam Stone: That that is that is Kiley. That is stunning to me.

Kiley Kipper: Just sitting here shaking our heads.

Sam Stone: Yeah, My mouth is my mouth is on the bottom of this table right now because can you even.

Senator Shannon Grove: Believe we're having this conversation?

Sam Stone: No, no, no. Senator, we're talking to Senator Shannon Grove of California's 12th Senate District. She proposed this bill that would have made it a serious and violent felony to traffic minor children for the purposes of sex. That's a really narrow thing. I mean, trafficking any person should be a serious and violent felony. I like your original intent, but I understand cutting it back. You have to make a deal. I cannot comprehend the inhumanity that it takes to not move this out of committee.

Senator Shannon Grove: Well, I think it just, you know, with the the media engaging the way they did and Californians raising up their voices and, you know, with the the the exposure that the bill got from dying caused the Public Safety Committee to reverse their decision, you know, 24 hours later. So it still is moving through the building. They are still pushing for amendments. You know, the public safety chair voted for the bill. We got it out of public safety. And now he's on, you know, TV. Every time he turns around going the bill is still flawed. I have to fix this bill. There's nothing wrong with my bill. It says that if you it just simply says you can't. It's a serious felony to to sex traffickers sell a child for sex. It's just ridiculous that you wouldn't be able to get this passed with flying colors. And what's interesting is, is that, like I said, every senator voted for it, including Scott Wiener out of San Francisco, The San Francisco Chronicle, and I'm talking about San Francisco, not normal California, but San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle even did an article, you know, against the chair's arguments like like you mean sex trafficking. The minor isn't enough like that. They have to brutalize them. You know, there's a whole list of things that they have to do in order to make it a strike or a default to life in prison. But I mean, branding them with a branding iron instead of tattooing all these different things in the details that will allow you to make it a fallback for the strike able offense. I just want to make it a strike able offense for sex trafficking. A minor like you shouldn't need all these other things. I think sex trafficking, a minor like my witness said it and it's kind of gross, but you have to get this vision in your head. Grown men all over a ten year old child, that in itself should be a serious felony.

Sam Stone: Okay. I'm glad to be here. We are, folks, we are recording this just before lunchtime and I started the intermittent fasting thing. And I'm right now really glad that I don't start eating anything till noon because I think I would have thrown up right there. I mean, that's just.

Senator Shannon Grove: This is disgusting. It's the hardest bill I've ever. I met parents that whose daughter was trafficked. And I said, How did you find out? You know, you know, tell me your story. She got a text message, a video. She clicked on the video and it was five guys gang raping her daughter. I met a and it's it's disproportionately does affect black women and people of color. If you look at Figueroa Street, the National Coalition of Human Trafficking down there says that 70% of the women that are in their shelters are are black or brown. And then also 55% of them on the streets are black or brown. So for them to say that this disproportionately affects black people, I agree with them in that portion only. They are concerned about the black people that could possibly go to prison for perpetrating these crimes against black women. And I to me, I don't care what color your skin is, I, I don't care what I was in the military. Everybody's green, but I don't care what color your skin is. If you're sex trafficking minors, I do want you to go to prison for a long time. Yeah.

Sam Stone: I mean, this this hesitation on their part, it's protecting the evil people and not protecting the innocent ones. And who gives a darn about skin color? That just makes no sense at all.

Senator Shannon Grove: But when they can't make an argument on the substance, they always throw in race. And they always do that. They always throw in race. And then you've got these people out there doing the q-anon thing. If they can't make an argument on the substance, they try to distract from the substance. And I keep saying the bill is very simple. If you sex trafficking a minor 0 to 17, you should go to prison.

Sam Stone: Well, and part of the backstory behind some of their opposition, I imagine, is what they've been trying to do to essentially legalize or decriminalize however you want to put it, prostitution. But they present it as as a choice for the people that are engaging in that activity. This is not a choice. I mean, this is not somebody. Yeah. Who's who's making a decision about their own life. This is somebody who's being abused in the worst way possible.

Senator Shannon Grove: You're exactly right. But when you get into the details, I guess you'd say the the the serious felony doesn't kick in when you traffic a minor because, you know, you just you have to imagine somebody's going, come on, you know, like a family member or do this for dad, do this for mom. You know, whatever a neighbor come on, just do this one time. Well, they're not they're not beating her into submission. They're not. So it doesn't count, right? It just doesn't count. So there are there are it is very, very hard to prosecute a serious felony in the state of California for this because the girls are scared. They're young. They they they're afraid to turn someone in. And so basically, they have to have all these additional things that happen once you sex traffic the minor. And that's why I was trying to make it simple that that selling the child or sex trafficking the child should be enough alone by itself as a serious felony.

Sam Stone: I, I.

Sam Stone: Would agree, Kylie, in part because when you talk to experts about this, about sex trafficking, particularly a minor, children, you know, even regardless of the physical abuse, what they're using is mental abuse and mental torture to to keep these these young people in a position where they can continue to be exploited. They're tearing their mind apart. Yeah.

Kiley Kipper: And it'll never be recovered. Obviously, their life will never be the same.

Senator Shannon Grove: I mean, Kiley, you're absolutely right when you think about it. You know, even my survivors that have gone on to have families and you know that I have Odessa Perkins, if you haven't watched her testimony, she really nailed them with her responses. But she was she was trafficked as a minor and went through the anger stage, the criminal stage, the whole bit where she was, you know, didn't function right in society because of the trauma in her. And then you become a survivor versus a victim. Right. And now she's an interventionist. She's a speaker and author. She has a nonprofit where she rescues at risk kids and deters at risk kids and rescues people out of human trafficking. So there is a is a road to recovery. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't deal with this trauma that affected her as a child all of her life, every single day. And the same with Jenna McKay, who does the Jenna McKay Foundation. And you know what's interesting about these two individuals, Odessa is a black a black woman trafficked as a child in a in a poor socioeconomic disadvantaged neighborhood. But Jenna McKay came from a Christian home, no divorce, got a full ride scholarship to Vanguard University and was lured out of that by someone who said they loved her. She fell in love. She thought she they'd been dating for a few months. He asked her to go to Vegas, knock on the door. When they get to Vegas, they exchanged money and men came in and raped her.

Kiley Kipper: Wow.

Senator Shannon Grove: So there's different stories in this human trafficking realm.

Sam Stone: And it takes an enormous amount of courage to be able to come out and tell those stories. But it takes as much courage in the moment to be able to go and tell that story to police. And it just sounds like this, you know, anything you do that adds barriers, that makes it more difficult for them to have the the the resolution in part, I guess, of having their assailant be actually placed in bars and behind bars and face real penalties. That has to be part of the healing process for a lot of them. Right. Is is seeing justice actually happen. And this is this this hesitation by some California Democrats is really denying that.

Senator Shannon Grove: It really is. And that's a perfect way to explain it, too. So we're trying to remove barriers. There's barriers now to testimony which you just said. So this bill would remove barriers. It just the act of selling the child for sex would be a serious felony. So there wouldn't be any barriers where you have to meet a certain level or did they beat you? Did they sodomise you? Did they I mean, all these crazy things, right? So just the act. So we're trying to remove the barriers for these these kids to testify. So that's a very good way to put it. Thank you for phrasing it that way.

Sam Stone: Fantastic. Senator, anything else that we should be focusing, you know, people should be paying attention to around this upcoming hearings or anything like that. And then secondly, how can they support you in the work you're doing? Because I got to say, especially in California, you're you're swimming upstream in a big way. But they need more voices like yours who provide some balance.

Senator Shannon Grove: I appreciate that. So the bill did get out of public safety. It quieted the media down a little bit. So now everybody's off on their what they call summer break. We come back on August 14th and the bill will go before the Appropriations Committee in order to get through one more committee, the opposition, the Democrats that killed the bill originally in public safety and then re voted for the bill two days later or a day and a half later. They are still saying that I they are going to fix this bill and they're going to make me take amendments. There is nothing to fix in this bill, so please stay engaged in the process. You can follow me at Shannon Grove, CA on Instagram, Shannon Grove, CA on Twitter, Shannon Grove, CA on Facebook, or Senator Shannon Grove on Facebook. But and we'll post the, you know, the day that the hearing is going to take place. We'll keep everybody updated on social media. So please stay engaged and to pray for this process because it really is just just a mess the way that the California state legislature operates. And then also, you know, participate in the hearing process. They still allow call ins. You can call in, you can write in, you can you can just participate to support the bill. So thank you, folks.

Sam Stone: We have a lot of listeners out there right now who are listening to this who are in California. Make your voice heard. You know, make stand up, exercise your right as a citizen. I think that's incredibly important in this case. They need to hear from voices outside the political process and where people really stand, because I don't see. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Senator Shannon Grove. I don't see anything at all that needs to be amended in this bill. This needs to pass.

Senator Shannon Grove: I agree. Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me and get the message out there. I really appreciate it.

Sam Stone: All right. Fantastic. Folks, remember to tune in every week to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're on all your favorite Salem network stations. And you can also download us wherever you find your podcasts, Substack, Spotify. Apple Podcasts. I think we still even post to YouTube, although I've never I've never actually been on our YouTube site. Kiley To find out what's up. It's up. Okay, folks, make sure you're tuning in. That's how we keep the lights on here in this studio. That's how we pay the bills and that's how we continue to bring you stories about what's going on around the country that maybe aren't getting enough coverage like this one. Again, thank you to all of our guests today and particular thanks to our final guest, Senator Shannon Grove of California. It is, as always, been an enlightening and and not always easy journey here with breaking battlegrounds today. But we appreciate you sticking with us. See you next week.

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Join us this week as we delve into the heart of Iran's turmoil with esteemed guest Elliott Abrams, former foreign policy advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Gain exclusive insights and expert analysis on the current state of affairs in Iran, exploring the underlying factors, potential ramifications, and possible solutions. Don't miss this captivating episode as we unravel the complexities of one of the world's most critical geopolitical hotspots.

We're also joined by Andrew Hale, the Jay Van Andel Senior Trade Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, who brings his extensive experience in international trade and defense intelligence. Together, we examine the alarming issue of China defaulting on $850 billion of debt, shedding light on the potential global consequences and exploring the economic and geopolitical landscape. Don't miss this captivating episode as we unravel the complexities of Iran's chaos and China's financial challenges.

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Elliott Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the administration of Donald Trump.Abrams was educated at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. After serving on the staffs of Senators Henry M. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan, he was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and received the secretary of state's Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz. In 2012, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy gave him its Scholar-Statesman Award.Abrams was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, from 1996 until joining the White House staff. He was a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2001 and chairman of the commission in the latter year, and served a second term as a member of the Commission in 2012-2014. From 2009 to 2016, Abrams was a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which directs the activities of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is a member of the board of the National Endowment for Democracy, and teaches U.S. foreign policy at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.Abrams joined the Bush administration in June 2001 as special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council for democracy, human rights, and international organizations. From December 2002 to February 2005, he served as special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council for Near East and North African affairs. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy from February 2005 to January 2009, and in that capacity supervised both the Near East and North African affairs and the democracy, human rights, and international organizations directorates of the National Security Council.Abrams rejoined the State Department in January 2019 as Special Representative for Venezuela, and in August 2020 took on the additional position of Special Representative for Iran. He left the Department in January 2021.Abrams is the author of five books: Undue Process, Security and Sacrifice, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and most recently Realism and Democracy: American Foreign Policy After the Arab Spring. He is the editor of three more, Close Calls: Intervention, Terrorism, Missile Defense and "Just War" Today; Honor Among Nations: Intangible Interests and Foreign Policy; and The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Andrew is the Jay Van Andel Senior Policy Analyst in Trade Policy in Heritage's Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

Andrew Hale is currently the Jay Van Andel Senior Trade Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation. A dual citizen of the U.S. and the United Kingdom, he has previously worked for the UK Department for International Trade, in Defense Intelligence, and for Parliament. In the U.S. he has worked for the State Department and for a Member of Congress.

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Transcription

Chuck Warren: [00:00:27] Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren, my co-host today, Michelle Ugenti-rita. Hello, Michelle. Hello. We are so fortunate today to have with us Elliott Abrams. He is a man who's been responsible for a lot of the peace and prosperity in our world for the past several decades. Couple decades. He served as deputy assistant to president and National deputy National Security Advisor to the administration of George W Bush, where he supervised US policy in the Middle East for the White House and a Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the administration of Donald Trump. He is also a senior fellow for the Middle Eastern Studies for the Council of Foreign Relations. Mr. Abrams, thank you for joining us today.

Elliott Abrams: [00:01:09] Sure. Very glad to do it.

Chuck Warren: [00:01:10] All right. So let's talk about Iran. Iran sees some tankers, sees a tanker last week. They seem to be causing chaos all the time, sort of unabated. Tell us what our listeners what we need to know about Iran and what do we need to do?

Elliott Abrams: [00:01:25] Well, the first thing is just what you said. That is they're causing chaos. They're causing chaos in the whole region. They're basically an enemy to everybody there Yemen, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan. I mean, they're supporting terrorist groups all over the Middle East and they're targeting Americans and they've been targeting Americans since 1979, since the revolution there. And they've been killing Americans for decades. And frankly, we're letting them get away with it. They've been killing Americans. We're not killing Iranians. You know, we just sort of issue strong protests when these things happen. And the lesson that teaches them is, okay, we can get away with it. So at this point, they're really a dangerous country for all of our friends in the region. And, you know, the they continue to use the same to slogans, Death to America, Death to Israel that they've been using since 1979. So what do we do about it? Well, one thing we shouldn't do, maybe we should start with this. We should not get back into the nuclear deal that President Obama negotiated. It was a bad deal the day he did it.

Elliott Abrams: [00:02:47] And it's a worse deal now because there were a lot of provisions of it that were going to disappear over time. And they're disappearing because the years have gone by. That was a 2015 deal and it's slowly disappearing. Another thing, here's the thing we should do. If you look at the amount of oil they were exporting, mostly to China. During the Trump years, it was much, much less. Then they're exporting now again, they're getting away with it. In the Trump administration, we made it clear to everybody involved in oil that is, you know, the ship owners, the ship captains, the crews, the insurers, you name it, we're going to go after you. They obviously don't believe that anymore. And the amount of oil that's going from Iran to China is way up and the amount of money they get is way up. They're practically broke at the end of the Trump administration and they've got tens of billions of dollars now. So we need to those sanctions are all on the books. We need to enforce them if we're going to have any impact.

Chuck Warren: [00:03:58] We don't seem to enforce anything domestically. Gun laws don't seem to get enforced. Every time you hear about a mass shooting, there's some gun law. They. You know, they broke previously and it's not enforced. We just had on before you, Andrew Hale, or after he discussed the $850 Billion in Debt. China has the United States that they're defaulting on. We're not holding them accountable. Why don't we hold these folks to accountable to laws that are in the books?

Elliott Abrams: [00:04:26] Well, I agree with you. And I think in the case of Iran, you know, we can do it. We showed that we can do it by the time Trump left office, their whole national reserves that they could access were down to $4 billion. You know, there are there are a lot of individuals in this country now who've got more money than that, but they're building it up again because we're not enforcing it. Why don't we do it? I think this administration, Biden administration came, came, you know, these are all Obama people. And they came in with the idea that Iran deal called the JCPoA in 2015. It was great. It was perfect. It was wonderful. We just have to restore it. And so, you know, they don't want to make trouble. They don't want to make the Iranians angry by enforcing the sanctions that are on the books, partly because they think, well, you know, we're going to get back in this deal and the sanctions will go away. So why bother enforcing them? Well, we're two and a half years into the Biden administration. There is no thank God, there is no deal with Iran. We should be enforcing those sanctions.

Chuck Warren: [00:05:36] If you were to sit down and let's say you're say you're in Iowa and you're sitting down in New Hampshire, you're running for president, you're sitting in the living rooms of people. The question it would seem to me that would be asked is why is Iran so hell bent on causing so much chaos and continually attacking Americans? I mean, it's been for decades. I mean, what is the motivation to do? Continue to do this instead of saying, let's just be normal, let our people have a decent life, we'll have our rules. But, you know, we don't need to be causing chaos. All the time. The ultimate disruptors of the Middle East.

Elliott Abrams: [00:06:10] They are they are. Well, you know, it's it's actually a very good question. I think the answer is, first of all, it's not a democracy. You know, it's a theocracy. It's ruled by the ayatollahs. So no one cares what Iranians think. You know, they're not voting for these policies. They didn't vote for this government. So we can't blame the Iranian people. We got to blame the ayatollahs who run the country. And, you know, it's completely ideological for them. First of all, you know, there are Shiites and they believe that the fact that most of the Arab countries and most of the Muslim countries in the world are Sunnis is is evil and they want more power for their brand of Islam. The other thing is they want to be the most powerful country in the Middle East. They are the most powerful country in the Gulf. They have a much larger, more capable military than than the other countries. So what stops them from really dominating the whole region?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:07:12] You made a bold statement. You said Iran is killing Americans and we're letting them get away with it. Yeah, I mean, that's frightening. Why are we letting them get away with it? What's the political motivation to continue to allow Americans get slaughtered like we have over the last several decades?

Elliott Abrams: [00:07:29] You know, it's amazing. You know, you just said it. And when you say it, I think most Americans would hear that and say, this can't be right. Right. But it is right. I mean, look, look at the Iraq Iran, look at the Iraq war. I mean. They were feeding all of those terrorists in Iraq. The Pentagon will tell you that Iran killed something north of 600 Americans and wounded and crippled thousands of Americans. But go back further. The Marine barracks in Beirut. Who did that? Iran and Hezbollah did that. Hundreds of Marines dead and we never really respond. And we have what's known as escalation dominance. That is, people say, well, you know, if we strike back and then they'll escalate and then we're in a real war. No, we're not. It's a third rate power. It's a country of 70 million people. They're not insane. They do these things because they think rightly so far they can get away with them. And if they didn't think that, they'd stop and by the way, you know, they kill more Americans than they kill Israelis. And why is that? They attack more Americans.

Elliott Abrams: [00:08:43] Why? Because they know the Israelis will hit them. They know every time they hit, they'll get hit back. And we need to establish the same kind of deterrence with Iran or this is going to keep on happening. Another example, hostages. We've got hostages in Iran now. President Trump got several of them out. This was Under Secretary of State Pompeo for nothing. That is, we didn't, you know, pay a ransom to get them out. We negotiated. We pressured and got them out. This administration is negotiating as it should, to get the hostages out, but it looks as if the deal is they're going to be willing to pay something like 7 or $10 billion. So the Iranians learn from that. But this is a good business, right? You take American hostages, you make a lot of money. We're we're letting them get away with it. And I think every president says, well, not right now. You know, I don't want to take this on right now or it's going to get too complicated. But this has been going on since 1979.

Chuck Warren: [00:09:45] They sound like coyotes at the border here.

Elliott Abrams: [00:09:48] Well, they're you know, look, they're not crazy. They look at this the way any criminal gang would look at it. What can I get away with? What's too dangerous for me? What's the likely punishment? How likely is it that I get caught and punished? And they make their calculation. And unfortunately, we've taught the lesson over the years. They're you know, you're probably going to get away with it.

Chuck Warren: [00:10:09] Every teenager has weighed that decision with their parents on something, Right? Right. We all have kids here. They've all weighed that decision.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:10:15] All the time.

Chuck Warren: [00:10:16] I think a perfect example of this is when Trump ordered the assassination of I think it was General Soleimani back three years ago. You know, New York Times, oh, my gosh, World War three has started, you know, and they they toss some missiles at some of our bases. But you haven't heard anything since. And. No, you know, look, you just sometimes got to you know, I remember years ago, Lee Atwater told me the way you handle a bully is you punch the bully. If you don't, they'll keep doing it.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:10:44] You have to stick up to them.

Elliott Abrams: [00:10:45] That is, you know, it's right. I remember under Jimmy Carter, Secretary of State Vance resigned in protest after he tried to free the hostages in Desert One. And somebody made the comment that Vance was a guy who obviously had never been in a schoolyard and didn't know how you behave with bullies. And I think I really do think that's exactly right, that they respect power. What was their real response to our assassination of Soleimani? Nothing.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:11:20] Exactly. Nothing.

Chuck Warren: [00:11:21] Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. It's just it's crazy that we're still talking about Iran since 1979 and hostages. Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely boggles the mind that we're still at that point, we have less less than a minute here for this segment here. When we come back, I definitely want to talk about the Cuban spy base that we're putting down there. China. Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit about the Monroe Doctrine. Do we need to really re-up that in our hemisphere now? I feel like that's something we need to do. We've neglected it quite a bit. Just briefly in 30s, what are 2 or 3 things you would do if you had control of US policy towards Iran?

Elliott Abrams: [00:12:01] First of all, I'd tell them that Obama's nuclear deal is dead and we're not going back to it. Secondly, I tell them that every time, every time they try to kill an American, whether they succeed or not. Oh, sometimes they miss. They only wound someone. They're going to get hit, not their proxies in Syria or Iraq. They are going to get hit. They'd stop very fast.

Chuck Warren: [00:12:23] With Elliott Abrams. He is the senior fellow of Middle Eastern studies at the Council of Foreign Relations. He also served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national Security advisor to the administration of President George W Bush, and also served as special Envoy to Iran and Venezuela for Donald Trump. Mr. Abrams, where can people find you and your writings?

Elliott Abrams: [00:12:45] The Council on Foreign Relations website cfr.org, just, you know, on the search search for my name. And there's a list there of everything I've done.

Chuck Warren: [00:12:57] Recently, bok tastic with Elliott Abrams. We'll be right back.

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Chuck Warren: [00:13:50] Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren, and my co-host today is Michelle Ugenti-rita. Thank you, Michelle. I'm so glad you're here. We are so lucky to have with us today Elliott Abrams. He is a man who has been involved in international politics for three decades plus. Mr. Abrams, thanks again for joining the show.

Elliott Abrams: [00:14:07] Glad to do.

Chuck Warren: [00:14:08] It. All right. So you recently wrote a piece on the Chinese spy base in Cuba. I mean, boy, history seems to repeat itself a lot. It wasn't China, it was Russia. But it just seems it gone over and over and over. What do we need to do? And why should the United States, which Michelle and I both believe in this policy, we need to start focusing more on our hemisphere, right? South and Central America. I mean, everybody talks about a border crisis. Well, you can lessen the border crisis if you have thriving economies in Central and South America. I mean, there's lots of ways to this. But talk about how dangerous this is. What should the United States do?

Elliott Abrams: [00:14:43] Well, first, it is dangerous. And we face something a little bit like this under President Reagan and I served in the Reagan administration, we had some of this in Central America. We had, for example, the communist guerrillas take over in Nicaragua, and they were on the verge of taking over in El Salvador. And then there was Grenada. Remember that? And Reagan invaded. What he did was he said, look, we've got to do something about these economies. We had a thing called the Caribbean Basin Initiative to help improve their economies, try to get more factories open there, give them some access to the US for things like garments. Much better to have them made there than in China or, you know, Vietnam or someplace. And it worked. And I do think that the we need something like that and the Biden administration does not, it seems to me, have really have a policy. And so everybody comes up to the border and the border has for many, many years been essentially open. I mean, not formally, but, you know, realistically, you you go on a cross. Now, the Chinese are making inroads all over Latin America, spending a lot of money and getting people in debt, which is their specialty. You know, we'll build that bridge, we'll build that road, we'll build that airport, and then you're in debt to them. And many of these countries can't pay. So then the Chinese have real leverage over them. That's happening all over, particularly South America. Now, in Cuba, you know, the Russians really don't have the money they had once upon a time.

Elliott Abrams: [00:16:23] So the Chinese are offering them money and in exchange, they want the kind of spy base the Russians had. It's at a place called Lourdes the Soviets had. And, of course, you know, 90 miles from Florida, I'm watching Florida, CentCom headquarters in Florida, Southcom headquarters in Florida. You know, one could go on Air Force bases in Florida. So it's very useful to them. But one thing I think we've got to do, you mentioned the Monroe Doctrine is to make it clear that people are not going to be able to get weaponry that can reach the United States. We actually had this happen in the Trump administration. We had some intelligence that Iran was going to send missiles to Venezuela that could reach the United States. And we made it clear to them, we sent messages to all the right channels, including military Intel. No. That's not acceptable. We will interdict those ships. And if we can't interdict them for some reason or you fly this stuff in, we'll take them out in Venezuela. That's not going to be permitted. And they stopped. They never did it again. A real, you know, a real assertion of American willingness. And nobody will take us on because we're stronger. I think we've got to keep that clear for Cuba, for Venezuela, for all of Latin America, that we are not going to permit it to be a base for attacks on the United States or for threats against the United States.

Chuck Warren: [00:18:01] Well, I'm going to take a little different question here than what we've been talking about. You have worked for Reagan, the Bushes and Trump. Tell us something that people don't know about each president you work for. The press would never cover, but something that you found that was a certain quality about their leadership that our audience would like to understand.

Elliott Abrams: [00:18:22] Oh, boy. I'll say one thing about Ronald Reagan. I think people know it, but in private, he was about the most charming man on the face of the earth. And he had a million stories. Many of them from his days in Hollywood. But he was just, you know, indomitable, I guess, is the word I'd use. You know, people would line up to try to get to spend a minute with him. There are some bosses, you know, who people you know, you go in there. No, you go in. Not with Ronald Reagan. People were just you know, when you had a minute with him, it was delightful. I would say something about George W Bush that I think people don't remember. Think about 9/11. It happened. And he thought most Americans thought our intelligence community thought maybe this is only the start. Maybe there's more coming. And the whole country turned to the president for our leadership. And you may remember his speech at the National Cathedral to be working for him in those days was to realize this is a man who is carrying the country on his shoulders, not only carrying just us in the staff. Big deal about that, but the whole government and carrying the country. Of course, he couldn't have done it without his very deep religious faith, which he had and has. But I remember those days thinking, what is the strength of this man? He knows if he flinches, if he wobbles, if he shows that he's uncertain, he's depressed, the whole country is going to feel that way in a day or two. And he never did. He never flinched. I think those were in a in a way his his most his greatest days because he carried all of us in that in that terrible period in the fall of 2001.

Chuck Warren: [00:20:22] And Trump.

Elliott Abrams: [00:20:23] I didn't get to spend as much time with Trump for for George W Bush. And I worked in the White House. You know, he was right there for state sorry for Trump. I was at the State Department and handling Venezuela and Iran and didn't get to to spend as much time.

Chuck Warren: [00:20:42] Well, let me let me ask you this question about Trump, which I think we have this we have this segment of the Republican Party. I am not one. We have two minutes left here, by the way, on this segment. He's not as isolationist as some of his ardent supporters are. I mean, you gave me an example of Iran. An isolationist is not going to go knock out an Iranian general. What do people misunderstand about his foreign policy?

Elliott Abrams: [00:21:05] Well, I think you've said it. I'll give you another example of Venezuela. I mean, okay, so they have a dictator and it's a horrible, horrible situation and people are fighting back democratically. Who cares, Right? What's our business? That was not the Trump view. We actually spent an enormous amount of time and diplomatic effort supporting the opposition in Venezuela. He was not at all an isolationist. He you might call him a sort of realpolitik guy. That is, he wanted to weigh costs and benefits very, very carefully. He didn't want to throw good money after bad. He didn't want to invest in a losing situation. That's very different from saying, I don't care and I'm not interested. That was not the Trump administration view. And you remember, what did he say about NATO? He didn't say I'm leaving NATO. He said, pay up. Right. He said, let's make this work. So I think I think the isolationist idea is that's not a description of Donald Trump.

Chuck Warren: [00:22:08] Yeah, he definitely wanted them to pay their 2%. And I'm telling.

Elliott Abrams: [00:22:13] You. Right. And he made a lot of progress, by the way.

Chuck Warren: [00:22:14] Absolutely.

Elliott Abrams: [00:22:15] More progress than any president had made before.

Chuck Warren: [00:22:18] And he would definitely and he would definitely demand that they put their fair share into Ukraine now, which they're not doing. They're all lip service right now. Let's use Canada as an example where Michelle and I with Elliot Abrams. This is breaking battlegrounds vote. We're going to come back with Elliot for one more segment and we're going to talk about something interesting, why the US should promote democracy and human rights for the United States. And Michelle will take the lead on that with our guests. And we'll be right back. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm Chuck Warren, my co-host today, Michelle Ugenti-rita. We have with us Elliott Abrams, a man who's worked for three presidents. And he has a lot of knowledge. I hope you will listen and share this on our podcast or go to breaking battlegrounds vote. Michelle, go ahead and let's talk about democracy.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:23:05] Democracy. Well, something that we obviously care very much about here in the United States of America. But what is our role and what should be our role when it comes to promoting, protecting, spearheading growing democracy in other parts of the world? You would think this wouldn't be such a divided debate, but it is. You have a lot of people that say it's not our business, just concentrate on our home turf and territory. And then you've got the other side that says, look, we have a responsibility to to frankly, humanity and the entire world to make sure that representative government, democracy is promoted so that everyone can have the chance at prosperity. Because I think we could all agree when people do, that lessens the kind of violence that we see and plight that people are in. And but, but, but where? What's our role and what should that be, if anything?

Elliott Abrams: [00:24:01] I think first, we're always balancing various interests, right? A government is not an NGO. We have commercial interests, financial interests, national security interests, as well as the desire to see other countries be democratic. So we're always balancing them. It's false that sometimes people say, well, you can't make that the center of your foreign policy. It never is. It's one of the things in our foreign policy. But, you know, if you look around the world, democracies don't go to war with each other. Democracies don't fight each other. A world that's more democratic is going to be a more peaceful world and it's going to be better for us because those are natural allies of ours. You see it in the Pacific, the countries that are afraid of and opposing China, like South Korea, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, obviously you see it in Europe and the NATO countries. So it is in our interest. And if you look at at the say, the refugee flows, you know, you see all the Venezuelans coming to the United States. That's because they have a vicious dictatorship that is destroying the has destroyed their economy and eliminated democracy in that country.

Elliott Abrams: [00:25:20] So people flee. 7 million of them have have fled Venezuela. That wouldn't happen if they had a decent democratic government. So we have a we have a direct interest here in having more and better allies and in our own region having a more stable Central America, Caribbean area, Latin America more generally, I think would be like if we had if we didn't have Canada. And instead we had, you know, choose your country. But we had a country like Venezuela on our northern border with a 3000 mile border. So it is in our interest to do this. It is not in our interest to make it the only thing we care about. We have you know, we. President Reagan always used to say trust but verify. He did negotiate with the Russians, with the Soviet Union. Soviet Union. Nobody's saying we shouldn't talk to them. Nobody's saying we should forget about national security. But one of the elements of our national security, I would argue, is the expansion of the number of countries that are democratic countries and naturally look to the United States as a friend and ally.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:26:35] What do you do with the.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:26:36] Countries that push back on wanting to support and and become a democratic country? What do you do with them?

Elliott Abrams: [00:26:44] You know, in most cases, maybe even say all cases. You know, it's it's the corrupt leadership. It's not the people. You look at Iran, I mean, which is an enemy. It's not the Iranian people. You know, they never they never chose this death to America hostility. Same thing with Russia. I think if Putin fell, you might well see a less aggressive Russia. It's in Putin's interest to invade all these, you know, Georgia and Ukraine and all. So I think what we need to do in those cases is give at least moral support and maybe some material support. You know, for example, broadcasting, we did that throughout the Cold War. Radio Free Europe, Voice of America. That's critically important. It's not going to cause a war. It's not all that expensive, but it's a way of getting our message out to the people of those countries. They want to hear that message. They didn't choose those governments.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:27:40] Now, and they need to know that they have someone in their corner rooting for them. And I can imagine that those in power are going to absolutely balk and push back on, you know, having a system that would probably take them out.

Elliott Abrams: [00:27:54] They do. And, you know, for broadcasting, for example, they tried jamming in the Cold War days, the Reagan days, you know, we used to ship in fax machines. Sounds like the Middle Ages now, but that was an advanced technology back then. Nowadays, obviously, it's Internet and what we should be doing and are doing, for example, trying to help Iranians and Russians get their news on the Internet because they're sure not going to get it from the regimes that just don't get it from TikTok.

Chuck Warren: [00:28:22] Yeah, knowledge is power. Elliott Abrams, thank you so much for visiting with us today. I hope you'll come on again soon. You've been fantastic and we appreciate appreciate your honesty and your experience.

Elliott Abrams: [00:28:32] It's been my.

Chuck Warren: [00:28:33] Pleasure. Thank you. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at breaking battlegrounds. Vote and we'll be right back.

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Chuck Warren: [00:29:16] Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds on our segment. Now we have Andrew Hale. He is the senior policy analyst and trade policy and Heritage's Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. Just a lot of speak out there, but it is he's an economist and he talks about trade policy. And today we're talking about China defaulting on their US debt. First, folks, are you concerned about your economic future? May I recommend that you go and invest in y refy y refi can guarantee an up to a 10.25% return and helping college students on their overdue college loans. So just log in to invest y refy.com. That's right. Invest in y. Refy.com or call 888Y refy - 24. Tell him Chuck and Sam sent you. If you're interested in having a continual source of income as you retire. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Hale: [00:30:16] Yes, hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Chuck Warren: [00:30:18] So first question, you have worked in the US State Department and for a member of Congress, which one did you enjoy the most and what were your big takeaways from working for both entities?

Andrew Hale: [00:30:31] Well, when I was the State Department, I was in a bureaucratic office, so I was dealing with a lot of paperwork and sitting behind a desk and computer monitor quite a lot. And it was not very forward facing, but that was just my particular job. So was not a reflection on the institution with regards to Congress. It was very, very active. I was working for a very dynamic member of Congress who is quite unique. He was a Holocaust survivor and he was the chairman of the international the Foreign Affairs Committee. So I have to say that my takeaway was I learned a great deal. And the congressman also encouraged his staff to take a lot of responsibility. So I have to say that I prefer the role in Congress.

Chuck Warren: [00:31:10] That's fantastic. All right. So you wrote this fascinating article. That's why we reached out to you. And it was in the Hill and it's called China is in Default on $1 trillion in debt to the US bondholders. Will the US force repayment? You know, we pay approximately $850 billion a year in interest on our national debt. We actually spend more on interest on our national debt than we do programs for children in this country now, which is just insane. But China's defaulting on their debt to the United States. What does this mean for the United States and what should they do about it?

Andrew Hale: [00:31:44] Well, that's a very important question. I'm very glad you asked that, because you see, China's in selective default because you see they've actually paid British bondholders because you see this this is debt that goes back to the debt of the imperial government of the Chinese emperor, who then, of course, abdicated in 1911. And then after they had the Republic of China up until 1949. And then, of course, the People's Republic of China won the Civil War and they defaulted on the debt that was taken out by those two previous administrations. And they have real stuff that they still benefit from roads, bridges, railway, etcetera. And they're the only country I can think of that gets away with violating international finance law, domestic U.S law and international law concerning successor government doctrine. And so but for whatever, I think largely because the United States does so much business with China, often we look the other way with regards to this and other matters. Well.

Chuck Warren: [00:32:41] Let me and let me stop you right there, Andrew. So, for example, and you can explain a little bit briefly to our folks. China loans a lot of money to third world countries. If those third world countries do not pay them back, what does China do?

Andrew Hale: [00:32:55] China holds them over a gun barrel. I mean, they basically they they they get them indebted and then they require property, deepwater, ports. They take stuff from them. They basically in some cases, if you look at the Solomon Islands, they're effectively taking their sovereignty. So and they're doing that right here in our hemisphere in and they're doing that in South America, the Caribbean and Central America by getting these countries heavily in debt and building ports. And I think it's time to chat a little bit more. Ronald Reagan in the Grenada invasion or JFK with regards to the Cuban Missile crisis and not let them interfere in our sphere of influence.

Chuck Warren: [00:33:30] So so China once was defaulting on sovereign debt to the United Kingdom. What did Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher do then in regards to the negotiations in Hong Kong and the debt?

Andrew Hale: [00:33:43] Yes. So for example, Margaret Thatcher, during the negotiations to return Hong Kong, Mrs. Thatcher was reluctant to give Hong Kong back and the Chinese responded that we could they could just turn off the water and Britain could would be very difficult for the United Kingdom to defend Hong Kong if China just wanted to take it, given they were halfway around the world. So but she still drove a very hard bargain and said that the People's Republic of China must honor the defaulted sovereign debt held by British citizens in order for China to have access to UK capital markets. And so faced with that stark choice, the PRC agreed. But the US has never given China that stark choice.

Chuck Warren: [00:34:20] So should we do that?

Andrew Hale: [00:34:22] Yes, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other relevant government departments in Washington need to ensure that the PRC cannot issue new sovereign debt in the United States until such time that they have made at least some satisfactory settlement on their defaulted sovereign debt owed to American bondholders.

Chuck Warren: [00:34:39] How much are we talking about? I mean, it's close to a trillion, but how much of that is interest and who's this affecting? So I think what happens and we talk about national debt a lot on our show, but I think what's happening is it's monopoly money, right? It's like you and I, Andrew, we get together and we just play Monopoly for four hours because the game never seems to end. And. You know, this money seems fake. So. So tell me who you know. Who is China affecting by not paying back these debts?

Andrew Hale: [00:35:08] Well, for example, I wouldn't quite agree with you that it's Monopoly money because these bonds were gold denominated bonds. Well, no, but what.

Chuck Warren: [00:35:14] I'm saying is people people view these big numbers as monopoly numbers. I agree with you. It's real money. But people hear these numbers and their eyes sort of gloss over like, oh, my gosh, are you kidding me? What does that even mean?

Andrew Hale: [00:35:24] Well, exactly. So the United States pays interest on over 850 billion in debt held by the People's Republic of China. And but like we've said that the PRC has defaulted on American bondholders. Now, that debt that they owe American bondholders is, in today's terms, worth over a trillion. So quite literally, the president could order the treasury secretary to purchase these effectively for pennies on the dollar and put them on the Treasury books and use them for future negotiations with the People's Republic of China. Or they could also use them to pay off the 850 billion debt held by the people of the Republic of China.

Chuck Warren: [00:36:03] Is there momentum in Congress for taking a tougher line on China paying back their debt? Because certainly China holds people accountable when they loan them money, as we discussed earlier. What is there is there bipartisan appetite to have this confrontation?

Andrew Hale: [00:36:21] Well, there actually has been for decades a number of resolutions that have come through both houses of Congress. Democrat and Republican senators and congressmen have supported resolutions in decades past. But they when they would go up to the White House, you know, the attitude was business is good. We don't want to upset the apple cart. We don't want to upset Wall Street or the major companies and people invested in China. So we're going to just ignore that. We are now at a different place. We're in a new Cold War with China. And now there's even more support in both houses of Congress. And I think there'll be pressure on the current administration and any future administration to address this matter.

Chuck Warren: [00:36:57] What if China continues to fail to meet these obligations and what type of legislation that we could pass that pressures them to do it? And what would be the result of that legislation that you feel that would sort of force China to pay their bills?

Andrew Hale: [00:37:14] Well, one one thing you could do, I mentioned a few things already, but one thing you could do as a first course of action is the three primary credit rating agencies need to incorporate this defaulted sovereign debt into their sovereign debt credit ratings. So I'm referring, of course, to S&P, Moody's and Fitch, as the SEC could then compel they could actually compel the credit rating agencies if required by Congress. If Congress passed legislation, the SEC could compel the credit rating agencies to do this. And in my opinion, it's absurd and it's unfair that the People's Republic of China has an A credit rating when they are in selective default. And what that would do, they certainly wouldn't be issuing more of their own debt if their credit rating took a plunge.

Chuck Warren: [00:37:55] All right. Now you handle trade for Heritage Foundation. Okay. Let me I saw an article this week and actually it was on Axios is where I read it. And it was sort of funny, the spin. So Mexico now has supplanted China as the United States top trading partner. So they do 69 billion. China does 47 billion. How much? That's how much they grew. Okay. Do you view that as a good thing or a bad thing?

Andrew Hale: [00:38:18] I think that we need to do I think it's a bad thing. I think we need to do more friend shoring and near-shoring. And as I've said before on this call, I think we need to address the Monroe Doctrine. Why are we allowing China to effectively hoover up, you know, economic and even diplomatic and even security power in this hemisphere, North and South America. So I think we need to address this as a matter of urgency. It's one thing to look at them to Hoover up Africa or Oceana, Oceana or Asia, but to have them actually right here in our backyard, I personally find that very, very threatening. I think it's a huge security breach that we've allowed it to go this far. And I think that the current administration needs to take this much more seriously.

Chuck Warren: [00:38:59] I agree with you. I have discussed this for years with friends and policy folks that I feel the United States has simply performed malpractice by not focusing more on Central and South America, that this is our backyard. And so for our folks who because civics is horrible in high school now, explain to them what the Monroe Doctrine was and why we should reengage the Monroe Doctrine as a national security policy.

Andrew Hale: [00:39:28] Under President Monroe. What happened was, is that they told the European powers, which had colonies here, that they couldn't acquire anymore, that that was enough, and that this was America's sphere of influence. And so at the time, of course, you know, they were looking, of course, at, you know, the United Kingdom and Canada was the British Dominion and, you know, British British interests. And then, of course, there were Caribbean islands and all sorts of, you know, various colonies in South America as well. And so they said, no more, you can't. Acquire any more and we will intervene if you do try. It was giving notice to other countries not to interfere any further in this hemisphere. And we're not invoking that anymore. We're just letting China walk in. If you look at, for example, Barbados, one small island, by getting that country so heavily in debt in these belt and road projects, building stadiums and all sorts of infrastructure that they can never, ever pay off adequately. So, again, it's compromising those countries security. And of course, if they're starting to build deepwater ports here and they can start actually docking naval ships here, this is a serious threat and we need to start taking it very seriously.

Chuck Warren: [00:40:36] What do you think? I mean, part of what Heritage does is they are a great resource for policy, especially for folks on the right of center. What do you think we can do to start getting Congress and as a result, constituents more educated? Why this is important for us to do as a policy matter and for national security?

Andrew Hale: [00:40:56] Well, I think, for example, a lot of members of Congress are addressing this matter. It is very topical. There's bipartisan interest. I will say this, though. I think there's also a lot of people who do a lot of saber rattling and they speak the the the good talk on this issue. But I think also at the end of the day, you know, look, where some congressmen and senators are having their coffers lined by, you know, you have to look at where the money is going. And I think one of the reasons why there's been two reasons why we haven't addressed this historically, There was a naive belief that China would embrace them with trade and business. And then they'll obviously develop democracy and human rights and Western norms. And that has never happened. And that was naive, wishful thinking. But then, of course, there's simply the cynicism and and the fact that a lot of people are getting rich and they don't want to upset the apple cart. And I could think of a lot of people I could name, which I won't, who basically have had very pro-China policies or don't want to address the very serious issues of the human rights, the Uyghur slave labor in the textile industry or any of that, because they're heavily invested there, companies and individuals heavily exposed to China.

Chuck Warren: [00:42:03] We have two minutes left. What are things that you think presidential candidates on the Republican side should be talking about regarding trade? Donald Trump seemed to sort of take us back to the tariff isolationist structure. I don't know where you are on that, but if you were king of the day for US trade policy, what are 2 or 3 things that you think we should implement or double down on?

Andrew Hale: [00:42:28] I take the view that I come from a free trade background. Having said that, there is a sort of almost religious belief in free, universal free trade amongst some people, which I think needs to be checked. And I think President Trump checked that. I do not and I no longer believe in free trade with foreign adversaries. And of course, the top of that list would be China. I don't believe if you look at the list of foreign adversaries, that's U.S law. We're talking about China, Belarus, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea. Et cetera. You're looking at countries like that. We should not have free trade with China.

Chuck Warren: [00:43:08] That's all I want to I'm going to have to cut you off this segment. I want folks to know where they can follow your work with Andrew Hale of the Heritage Foundation. He is a policy analyst for trade policy. Andrew, where can they follow you?

Andrew Hale: [00:43:21] Yes, Drew Hale, DC on Twitter.

Chuck Warren: [00:43:25] Folks, go there he is. Excellent. Andrew, we hope you'll come back and visit us again. You've been fantastic today. Loved your article, folks, go visit the Hill. You can just Google it. And Andrew, thanks for visiting us. And he discusses China defaulting on $1 trillion to US bondholders. What will the US do? So Andrew, thanks for visiting us today.

Andrew Hale: [00:43:44] Thank you so much. Look forward to coming back.

Chuck Warren: [00:43:45] Appreciate it. Thank you. This is breaking battlegrounds dot vote. Stay tuned for our podcast portion with Michelle and I talking about some issues that are affecting America today. Have a good weekend.

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Chuck Warren: [00:44:21] Welcome back to the podcast. Only portion of breaking battlegrounds with my humble self, Chuck Warren and Michelle Ugenti-rita in the studio with us today. Kylie's going to give us a little update here on some true crime saga, especially the missing boy in Houston with some updates and a correction.

Kiley Kipper: [00:44:39] Yeah, I made a mistake last week, but, you know, I'm not afraid to correct. Yeah, obviously, you.

Chuck Warren: [00:44:45] Obviously don't work for The Washington Post, but continue.

Kiley Kipper: [00:44:47] Yeah. So last week I had said that it was from the state of Texas that if you have a child that's missing for three years or more, then you get a payout. That was incorrect. What it was was he had a brother that had passed away about a year or two prior to him, in quotes going missing, and his life insurance was left to Rudy. This is the Rudy Farias case. I just jumped right into it, jumped right in. We talked about it last.

Chuck Warren: [00:45:15] Week down in Houston.

Kiley Kipper: [00:45:16] Yes. So the life insurance was going to Rudy. But in the case that Rudy was missing, or if he passed away, then that money after three years would then go to his mom. So now that's a speculation of why she did it. Yes. Last week we had left off with Rudy and his mom were again, in quotes on the run. They are now separated. No one's arrested. The mother is not being charged with anything. Rudy is with some other family members his mom is with. It looks like friends, family.

Chuck Warren: [00:45:48] We talked about this. And Michelle, you've worked on this. I think what it is, is the consent law in Texas is probably 16 or younger since she was 17. I think that's why there's been no.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:45:57] Charges.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:45:58] Consent for.

Kiley Kipper: [00:46:00] So a little update or a little like.

Chuck Warren: [00:46:02] A relationship with an adult.

Kiley Kipper: [00:46:04] Oh, so he went so Rudy went missing. Okay. I'm saying in quotes eight years ago because but really, they found that he was just his mom was holding him captive in the home and making him perform inappropriate actions with her and acting like the father of the home.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:46:20] Oh, wow.

Kiley Kipper: [00:46:20] So, yes, so a little like disturbing. But he was saying he had a form. So he did an interview with Fox this week and he had said that he feels like he had a form of Stockholm syndrome. Yes. And that, like, he wasn't physically, like chained down and being held captive there. But she was very manipulative and saying, if you leave the house, the cops will arrest you and stuff like that. So just putting that in his mind that he couldn't do anything but be hers.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:46:43] And the Stockholm Syndrome means to that you are sympathetic with your you become sympathetic. You start to feel bad for them and you don't want.

Kiley Kipper: [00:46:50] Yes.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:46:50] So his hurt.

Kiley Kipper: [00:46:51] And his dad had committed suicide and then lost a brother in a motorcycle accident. So it was just them two. She reported him missing. And so but the mom's response to his interview was he's being rehearsed. And his lawyer even says or her lawyer said that that sounds very rehearsed and not like him and that she doesn't believe that like he's she's saying is he now he's 25 now. He went missing at 17. Yeah. And again, I say missing and.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:17] She sounds so incredibly manipulative. Yeah.

Kiley Kipper: [00:47:20] But Go-fund me has since banned her because she's created so many GoFundMe armies under different names and everything. So she's since been banned from that.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:27] And she is a character.

Kiley Kipper: [00:47:29] Yeah, but I think GoFundMe is going to make her pay back the money that she may have taken from that.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:33] If they can get it.

Kiley Kipper: [00:47:34] If they can.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:34] Yeah, they can. That money is not coming back. I mean, she doesn't she doesn't sound honest or sound mind enough to say I want to pay back and make up.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:47:42] But how is there.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:47:42] Not a law that has been broken here?

Chuck Warren: [00:47:45] Well, I'm just saying, if he's saying he has he's a consenting individual based on the consent laws of a state. Right. I mean, what is the consent law? Can you an adult here in Arizona, what is the consent law? I think that's something you've worked on with marriage.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:47:56] Well, I did.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:47:57] But that was that was marriage.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:58] And what was the what was the age limit?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:48:01] It was 16.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:48:01] You could get married? No. And in fact, you could even get married younger with your parents.

Chuck Warren: [00:48:05] That's my point. They may have a consent law because he's 17. He's of old enough.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:48:09] Right. But you'd have to get married.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:48:11] I don't think they got married. Did he marry his mom?

Chuck Warren: [00:48:14] We're just trying to figure out why she's not arrested. And the only thing I can. Yeah, the only thing. The only thing. The only thing I can come up with is there's a consent law.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:48:19] Well, there's like, Romeo and Juliet laws where if there's a three year differential, it's considered okay. But I think this all changes with the fact that it's his mother.

Chuck Warren: [00:48:29] Yeah, well, let's let's go to another depressing topic here. So wonderful. So monthly payments on a $400,000 home in the United States now is nearly $1,000 more expensive than they were two years ago. Michelle, you're a recent home buyer. And we you and I talked about this last week. Now, Americans to feel financially secure, feel they need to make $233,000 a year. What? What has to happen? I don't know what needs to happen here because no one's going to there's not a lot of people are going to make $230,000 a year. Right. I mean, it's just for lots of reasons. Right. But this is a problem for people.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:12] I think there's a couple of things. One, costs really have gone up.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:15] I mean, for example, you know, you're a.

Chuck Warren: [00:49:17] Cook, you grocery shop. How much do you have? You noticed it visibly when you go to the cash register it.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:24] I throw up a little bit in my mouth when I go to the cash register because it's it's it's so expensive. But you know what? Eating out is even more expensive. So then you just you go ahead and you go ahead and do it. But triple, triple the amount. I mean, you spend 100 bucks in the grocery store and you're walking out with like one bag. Yeah, it's I'll.

Kiley Kipper: [00:49:43] Walk in just for breakfast stuff.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:45] I just have one bag of wine that I walk out with. I can't.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:48] I can't. Wow. This is.

Chuck Warren: [00:49:50] That's a reusable bag.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:51] Though, right? Right. Exactly. It's gotten a lot of use, But but there's also.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:49:56] The entitlement component. So I think prices have gone up. But I think people's expectation for what they should have and what they want, I mean, when they're sitting there on on social media, it looks like everybody is on a yacht these days. And I don't think that that perception is is reality. And so, I mean, because you're asking, why do people think they need $250,000?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:50:17] 233 Yeah.

Chuck Warren: [00:50:18] No. Yeah. But the things like the mortgages, that's a real thing.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:50:22] That's real. I mean.

Chuck Warren: [00:50:23] When you go from 2 to 3% plus mortgage rates to 7% plus, I mean, that's real money.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:50:29] Paper was, I mean, it was free, you know, not too long ago. So essentially with interest rates being so low, I mean, now and there doesn't seem like there's going to be any relief in sight. It's the interest rates are incredibly high. I don't know that they have reached pinnacle height. I mean, I think in the you would know in the 80s in the 70s, what were they like in the 80s?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:50:51] Okay. Well, the interest rates were 13%.

Chuck Warren: [00:50:52] Okay. Yeah, I remember my parents, they were double digits.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:50:55] Right.

Chuck Warren: [00:50:55] I remember my parents bought a home and it was 13% interest rate.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:50:58] Yeah.

Chuck Warren: [00:51:00] I mean, that's just. I mean, can you imagine?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:51:02] No, I'm like.

Chuck Warren: [00:51:02] I mean, it just makes you boggle your mind. You're never paying off that home because everything's going to interest towards it. Michelle, what's going on in Arizona that people should be paying attention to?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:51:14] Well, if you listen to the news media, you would think that we are all living in a volcano and we're about to die of heat stroke. It is hot here right now in Arizona. But I think that's just a liberal agenda pushing climate change. But anyway, outside of that, I think you've got the sessions still going, which is unusual here.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:51:33] Don't end anymore. Now you know.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:51:35] What? It's just like the song that never ends. It goes on and on, my friend. Some people that feels like session typically it's it would have concluded they want to keep it open Chuck because we have a Democrat governor and that's something that Arizona typically doesn't have. And so they are keeping the legislative session open to hopefully provide some kind of check on her authority. Runaway executive orders, that kind of thing. I don't know how well that strategy is working, but that's kind of where we're at.

Kiley Kipper: [00:52:09] How many bills has Katie Hobbs signed into law this year? Well, how.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:52:12] Many? It's really the yeah, I mean, I want to know.

Kiley Kipper: [00:52:15] How many she signed, how she signed any.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:52:17] She has signed. Yes, she has. And but she she does hold the record now for most vetoed bills. I don't know why we're surprised. I served with Katie Hobbs. I mean, she's very liberal. She's very extreme. I mean, she's certainly living up to the reputation, people who know her as a liberal. She's doing I mean, she's she's exercising. And those philosophies as governor really tells you elections matter. And, you know.

Chuck Warren: [00:52:47] They really do. I mean, you're just seeing the result of it. She's no surprise what she's doing. That's what I'm.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:52:52] Saying. I mean, it's not a surprise. It's disappointing. It's unfortunate. It's it's going to make Arizona have to climb out of a bigger hole. But we can do it. But she really is it's not a surprise that she is governing so liberally.

Chuck Warren: [00:53:10] Last final comment. So Kamala Harris is always worthy of entertaining us for the week. This week, she and her word salad. She described I as. I. I mean, she just a fancy thing. The thing that's hard about her for me is she's the I czar, and I don't think she knows what it is. Do you?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:53:31] What is her approval rating?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:53:32] It's like the lowest of any vice president.

Chuck Warren: [00:53:34] And so we had Chris Wilson on last week and he's a national pollster. And we just asked if she brings any benefit to Biden. And I want to know what the White House thinks she brings.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:53:43] I completely.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:53:44] Agree. Other than she's like a ball and chain. She's an anchor, too.

Chuck Warren: [00:53:48] Yeah. I mean, and it's just, you know, and we're going to play play here. Play here as we sign off just this mish mash that a compilation of all her various fun word clouds that she has.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:54:01] She rivals.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:54:02] Biden.

Chuck Warren: [00:54:03] No, I mean, it's not.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:54:04] Even faux pas. But I think.

Chuck Warren: [00:54:05] With Biden, he gets the benefit of the doubt from some people that, look, I know he was once really, really smart. He's old, right? We give our elders a little more flexibility, but people are hurt with her, just like really I mean, I just don't know what she brings to the table for them. No.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:54:21] I agree. And I think that's why you don't see her very much. I don't really.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:54:26] See them pushing.

Chuck Warren: [00:54:27] So let me ask you this. You've served for 12 years in the legislature here. And you obviously, I mean, it's real. There is real sexism in the world. And I think there's real sexism towards female elected officials and candidates. It's real. It's even if people don't want to admit it. But do you think the criticisms of her are based on sexism or she just doesn't meet the standard of what we want for a vice president?

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:54:52] No, I mean, the criticisms on her are based on her actions. Right. And the way that she communicates, the way that she talks about issues. And if you don't believe it, you know, I think what you were going to do is show the compilation. I mean, it's right there. She she doesn't look like she has a grasp of the issues or that she can articulate a platform in any level of death depth. Excuse me. And that's why people think that, you know, she's.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:55:25] A bit of a clown.

Chuck Warren: [00:55:26] I just don't think it's a sexist issue. I think she just doesn't meet what people expect from their vice president.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:55:31] No, no, I completely.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:55:34] Agree.

Chuck Warren: [00:55:35] Well, Michelle, thanks for joining us this week.

Michelle Ugenti- Rita: [00:55:36] This was a.

Chuck Warren: [00:55:37] Blast. Fantastic. Kiley, thank you for the update, of course, and for the sincere correction, which you would not find. What I'm here for. The Washington Post. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at breaking battlegrounds, dot vote, sign up, listen to our podcast, share it with your friends. We're going to leave with this compilation of Kamala Harris. Enjoy it and share. Have a great weekend and week, folks.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, Chuck and Sam are joined by friend of the show, Chris Wilson. Later in the program, Maya MacGuineas of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calls in to talk about Bidenomics and our growing national debt.

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Prior to starting WPA Intelligence in 2004, Chris Wilson was Global Director of Research for Weber Shandwick International, the world's largest public relations firm at the time.In 2021 Chris was named Pollster of the Year by the American Association of Political Consultants for his work directing survey research and predictive analytics on the Glenn Youngkin for Governor of Virginia campaign. In 2019 he was named Technology Leader of the year by Campaigns & Elections magazine.In 2016, as the Director of Research, Analytics and Digital Strategy for the Cruz for President campaign, Chris is credited for playing a key role in Cruz's triumph in Iowa and helping the Texas Senator finish with the most delegates earned by a 2nd place finisher since Ronald Reagan in 1976. Wilson and WPAi work with organizations like the Club for Growth, Freedom Works, Family Research Council, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee providing data and polling.WPAi's data management platform, Bonfire, has become the dominant desktop as a service tool for conservative candidates and organizations from US Senate down to school board. Bonfire has leveled the playing field with the progressive left when it comes to the important use of predictive analytics by those on the right.Perhaps most importantly, for six consecutive cycles, WPAi clients have outperformed the partisan average win ratio in both their primary and general election contests by double digits.An Oklahoma native, Chris is a graduate of University of Oklahoma and remains an avid Sooner fan. In the rare instances that Chris isn't working, he enjoys watching OU and Cornell College, where his son Denver is the starting quarterback, football, spending time with his five children, reading, and racking up impressive amounts of frequent flyer miles.Chris is a regular political analyst on Fox News.

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Maya MacGuineas is the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Her areas of expertise include budget, tax, and economic policy. As a leading budget expert and a political independent, she has worked closely with members of both parties and serves as a trusted resource on Capitol Hill. MacGuineas testifies regularly before Congress and has published broadly, including regularly in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, and numerous other outlets. She also appears regularly as a commentator on television.MacGuineas oversees a number of the Committee's projects including the grassroots coalition Fix the Debt; the Committee's Fiscal Institute; and FixUS, a project seeking to better understand the root causes of our nation's growing divisions and deteriorating political system, and to work with others to bring attention to these issues and the need to fix them. Her most recent area of focus is on the future of the economy, technology, and capitalism.Previously, MacGuineas worked at the Brookings Institution and on Wall Street, and in the spring of 2009 she did a stint on The Washington Post editorial board, covering economic and fiscal policy. MacGuineas serves on a number of boards and is a native Washingtonian.

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Transcription

Sam Stone: [00:00:11] Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today, Chris Wilson, founder and CEO of WPA Intelligence. Prior to starting WPA in 2004, Chris was global director of research for Weber Shandwick International, the world's largest public relations firm. At the time, in 2021, he was named Pollster of the Year by the American Association of Political Consultants for his work directing, survey, research and predictive analysis. Analytics. Can't speak this morning on the Glenn Youngkin for Governor of Virginia campaign. In 2019, he was named Technology Leader of the Year by campaigns and elections. Awfully impressive resume. Chris, thank you again for joining us and welcome back to the program.

Chris Wilson: [00:00:55] Well, thanks. I made it all up and sent it to you. You know, that's actually real. So wannabes out there, that's okay. That's okay. It's 2023. You can do whatever you want. Now, this is radio.

Sam Stone: [00:01:01] We're good with fluff. So.

Chris Wilson: [00:01:03] Exactly. Before we get to before we get talking some politics, tell us a little bit. Your son's playing at University of Oklahoma and playing quarterback, right? Well, no, they actually moved him to tight end. So really appreciate you asking. Yeah, I actually played quarterback his whole life. I was recruited out of high school to a small college in Iowa as a quarterback, but decided he wanted to come home. And it was a long story, actually. I ran into former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops at a fundraiser for Kevin Stitt, who's a client of mine, the governor of Oklahoma. And they got to talking. And one thing led to another. You know, Stoops is a walk on wide receiver. Stoops, the son, is a walk on wide receiver at Oklahoma. And he was they were talking about that. And so. Denver yeah, he moved back and and walked on in the in the spring and you got to play about probably two thirds of the snaps in the spring game and we'll see. I have high hopes for him. The kid works his tail off and he's really a proud dad.

Sam Stone: [00:01:56] Quarterback move into any kind of receiver position You just up your chance to get drafted by Bill Belichick. That's right. That's all there is to it.

Chris Wilson: [00:02:02] That's right yeah that's Yeah. Six three about £210 tight end. You can get out there and rumble a little bit. Yeah. There you go. Um.

Chuck Warren: [00:02:10] What a wonderful experience. I know you're a big University of Oklahoma fan, so that's probably extra pleasure for you seeing your boy out there.

Chris Wilson: [00:02:16] Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's very cool. I'm pretty excited.

Chuck Warren: [00:02:18] That's very cool.

Chris Wilson: [00:02:19] And, you know, they'll be out playing at BYU this year.

Chuck Warren: [00:02:20] That's right. We're going to see you out there for dinner. Looking forward to it. You'll you'll enjoy the Provo experience. All right. We're going to play a clip real quick. We'll click here real quick here. We'll click on Kamala Harris's word salad yesterday about culture. Jeremy, go ahead.

Kamala Harris: [00:02:33] Well, I think culture is it is a reflection of our moment and our time. Right. And and and present culture is the way we express how we're feeling about the moment. And and we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment. That is a reflection of joy because, you know, it comes in the morning. We have we have to find ways to also express the way we feel about the moment in terms of just having language and a connection to how people are experiencing life. And I think about it in that way, too.

Chuck Warren: [00:03:14] So Kamala reminds me a lot of your either Sam in elementary school asked to give a book report in front of the class, and we had not read the book. I mean, that's basically what she talks like, right? It's just many words as possible. So my question for you is, and you've done so much polling for so many years, does the vice presidency even matter anymore in regarding how we view the presidency? I mean, because who no one takes her serious. I mean, polling shows that.

Sam Stone: [00:03:41] Kamala Harris brought to you by White Claw. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Wilson: [00:03:44] Yeah. It's a word salad against word. Salad is a bad name. And she doesn't she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. And anytime she starts ripping on time or moments, you know, it's going to get good fast. Right. And it's also it's it's cringe worthy in the sense that even if you disagree with her and are are sort of watching sitting back going, okay this is now people are going to realize who she is. You're also thinking how embarrassing for the United States of America that this woman is in the second highest office. I guess it's arguable, but one of the highest offices in the land. And she can't deliver a simple sentence without a without embarrassing herself. And then the in the morning and then she does that cackle thing. It's really embarrassing and it's embarrassing for the administration. And somebody's got to just cut her off. They need to travel around like one of those big hooks that they used to have on game shows back in the 50s and 60s and just kind of pull her off stage before she goes so far that the dollar starts losing value.

Chuck Warren: [00:04:47] But so my question. Yeah, I mean, so does she prove that who we So you're working for the superPAC for Ron DeSantis, correct? I am. That's correct. So you've you've I'm sure this is not the primary object of your research, but I'm sure you've thought about who's the best fix for him. Right. Do you think unless you get a real popular governor in a battleground state who actually has a. Political organization. Do they really matter at all?

Chris Wilson: [00:05:14] Well, you kind of you kind of answered the question with your preamble to the question is, yes, it can matter a lot. Did it matter for Joe Biden? No, because it was an affirmative action pick, sort of like his Supreme Court pick was. He made it very clear that he was looking for an African-American woman and he just wanted somebody to fill that role. And so does it matter? Let's go back a step, though, is remember, whenever Joe Biden was rolling very damaged into South Carolina and he got the endorsement of a very important member of Congress by committing to that member of Congress that he would appoint a black woman as BP and or as to the Supreme Court. And things turned around for him there, because that vote constituency matters in the Democratic primary in South Carolina. So he went from someone who was in danger, grave danger of coming in distant in the primaries, as he had in Iowa and New Hampshire, to moving back into the frontrunner status. So it mattered to him in the primary. And did it matter in the general for him? No, it didn't. But I think you could argue that you can look at past picks that did have a strong impact. And I think about Lloyd Bentsen, even though he lost, but for Michael Dukakis had a big impact for him in 88, probably made a pretty significant difference. I think Al Gore had a big impact for Bill Clinton. He was able to deliver Tennessee. It's the last time, you know, Tennessee went for a Democrat.

Sam Stone: [00:06:43] And and there are certainly been picks that that had impact. Kamala, though, Chris, I have to ask, I mean, I don't remember her being this incoherent previously. And it's not age like Joe Biden. So what the heck is going on? Or did we all just miss it? And she actually was this this absolutely this big a mess?

Chris Wilson: [00:07:07] Well, I don't think many people paid attention to her as a senator from California or an attorney general from California. And the good thing about being a prosecutor is you're one. You don't really do much prosecuting in those roles. You have people who do it for you to your lines are pretty scripted before you walk out there. And when she's on script, she's not bad. I mean, she can deliver a good speech, but it's just whenever she starts riffing and I think she's developed a little bit too much confidence in her ability to do so. And so that's how you end up with this sort of common the sort of ongoing, embarrassing moments that you saw. I think it was yesterday when she gave the cringe speech.

Sam Stone: [00:07:41] How does someone not pull her aside on her staff and be like, this is terrible, you need to fix this?

Chris Wilson: [00:07:48] Well, have you read much about the situation with their staff? I mean, every time they do a camera angle, they all are just sitting there staring at you want to blink if they need help. And it's I feel like there is there's probably not anyone who can deal with her in that way. That's on her staff. She just seems to be one of those horrible bosses that just runs through people on an ongoing basis. And it's a it's an unfortunate story. And, you know, it's I often joke around that being a Democrat press secretary has got to be the easiest job on the planet. And this is certainly a representation of that because you think through what if we had if you were working for someone like that, Chuck, and you're doing political campaigns on a major level, or if I was today, there's no way you could survive that kind of situation. So you have one misstep word or, you know, you think back to whenever. Whenever Dan Quayle put an extra two E on potato because that was on the card in front of him. And it was a story that went on for weeks, if not months. And she's able to just roll right through this stuff as if it's we're being unfair or overly critical by by analyzing the fact that she can't put together a simple sentence about what culture is or what time is or what moments are.

Chuck Warren: [00:08:58] All right. Let's go. Let's talk. Let's talk presidency. What issues do you feel are the winning issues for whoever the Republican candidate will be to defeat Joe Biden?

Chris Wilson: [00:09:12] I think that starts and almost ends with the economy. You've got to understand that, that Americans are hurting. The price of everything has gone up substantially under Joe Biden, that the price is almost cost prohibitive for people to be able to commute to work on an ongoing basis. And that's by design, frankly, by the Biden administration. And so those are the those are the contrasts that have to be drawn and that and they're important. It's really just the overall significance, the overall ability of America to continue to succeed is is incumbent is dependent on that. And so I'd say that's number one. And if you were to go to a second point, I think there is a little bit of building, not a little bit, but there's a lot of rebuilding America's stature in the world after the withdrawal in Afghanistan, the way China has acted toward us, the way that Russia has acted toward us, there is just a complete dismissal of the United States as a foreign power at this point. I think that's an that is an important aspect, someone who can reclaim that. And I think there is another important aspect is just the overall important issue is the ability of parents to raise their own children. It is a a stunning development the way that Democrats have tried to get between parents and their kids. And I'll tell you, it's one of the reasons why you mentioned at the beginning that I worked for Glenn Youngkin. It's one of the reasons why Glenn Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe, because Terry McAuliffe said made the famous gaffe that he didn't want parents telling teachers what they should teach their kids.

Chris Wilson: [00:10:53] And moms and dads in Virginia rose up and said, no, I disagree with that. And I really think that and to be clear, I'm on the super PAC side of the partisan super PAC side. So let me compliment the campaign. They put out a video yesterday for moms for DeSantis, which Casey DeSantis talked about the role that Governor DeSantis has played in the state of Florida of protecting the rights of parents to raise their kids in the way they want to and to stop any woke teachers or woke systems from being able to intervene in the right of a parent to make decisions for their children or their children's education, their children's, the way their children are raised, whether or not their children are able to go and mutilate themselves with a doctor or have themselves mutilated by a doctor. It's just the overall the decisions that or the process that's going on right now. Those of us who have kids have kids. And, you know, I have five that the attempt of the left to get between a parent and their children and inject themselves into everything from the education to the raising to even the mutilation of that child is stunning to me that they believe that that is okay. And so I think that is also going to become it's a major issue that's going to come to light, particularly if Governor DeSantis is the nominee because of what he's been able to do to protect the parents rights in Florida. And I think that is could be the difference between a Republican winning and a losing right again, like we did in 2000.

Chuck Warren: [00:12:28] Great. Well, we're going to take a quick break. We're with Chris Wilson. You can find him on Twitter at Wilson, WPA. You can also find him on Instagram at Wilson, WPA. Follow Chris. He has great insights. You'll stay up to date on what's going on on country. This is Chuck Warren Sam Stone at breaking battlegrounds, vote. We'll be right back.

Sam Stone: [00:13:05] Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, it's been another crazy week on the stock market. And if you need a opportunity to make a very high fixed rate of return, if you're looking for a fantastic return, that's not coupled to the stock market where you'll know what each monthly statement will look like with no surprises. You need to check out our friends at invest y Refy.com invest y refy is connecting student loan borrowers to to investors and they are just doing great for people on both sides. It's a fantastic opportunity. We highly encourage you to check it out. Go to their website at invest y refy.com or give them a call at 88yrefy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. All right. Continuing on with Chris Wilson of WPA Intelligence. Chris, you are working in the primaries right now. One of the things I think there's obviously a lot of noise with Trump and DeSantis and some of the other candidates out there. But in terms of the issues, what issues should Republican voters be focusing on or Republican candidates be focusing on first to win the primary, but second, and more importantly, set themselves up to win the general election?

Chris Wilson: [00:14:19] You know, I think from an issue standpoint, kind of what we covered in the last segment is, is what matters. I mean, all of those issues matter for Republican primary voters to the economy, parents right to raise their own children, a strong education, things like that. But I'll tell you what, if I were advising candidates directly, and particularly if I was advising this kind of gets into you move down from the presidential campaign because I still work with and WPA intelligence, we work with dozens, sometimes even hundreds of candidates around the country. And one of the things I can tell you I hear from them to a person is a concern about who is at the top of the ticket in 2024. And I'll tell you, this is not to nerd out too much on you guys, but there have been a lot of academic research that's been done about the impact that Donald Trump has had since he emerged on the political scene on elections and everything. Be careful what you wish for. Impact of President Trump endorsed in the midterms by Ballard and others, Comparing the impact of Joe Biden on popular attitudes to the parties. By Jacobson. 22 elections by also by Jacobson. But the most recent one, which is really interesting one by experimental evidence on public perceptions of Trump endorsements by Barron, McLaughlin and others all quantify the impact that Trump has had going back to 2018 on close elections. And the reason why this matters is if Democrats take a majority in the Senate, they're going to stack the Supreme Court. They're going to get rid of the filibuster. They're going to make D.C. and Puerto Rico states these aren't these aren't like pie in the sky speculations. These are things they say they want to do, they would do today if it wasn't.

Sam Stone: [00:16:00] They've been very clear they want to do everything you just said.

Chris Wilson: [00:16:04] So the study I just mentioned by Barron McLaughlin and Bloom on experimental evidence on public perception of Trump endorsements is that when Trump gets involved in a race, it actually costs that candidate seven points. It goes a high from nine to a low of five in a competitive general election. So I want you to think back to last cycle. You know, obviously in Utah, Mike Lee got into a close race. He was able to pull it out at the end, but there were some close races we didn't pull out in Arizona and Georgia and Pennsylvania. We almost I mean, think about how far behind Governor DeWine, JD Vance ran in Ohio. All of those are states are races where Trump had an impact. And so you can quantify that number at 79%. So we as Republicans, I think, should really care about what happens if we have somebody at the top of the ticket that takes 7 to 9 points off of every single candidate who's running in a competitive race. That's a and you can real quickly run down the numbers and think about how many House and Senate seats we would ultimately lose.

Sam Stone: [00:17:03] Yeah, I mean, that's a bloodbath that that you're describing. And one of the things, Chris, that I don't think I haven't really seen polling that quantifies this more so just dealing with anecdotal evidence from independent voters or soft voters, whatever you want to call them, they are completely hardened against Trump, rightly or wrongly. And this is one of the things I tell a lot of Trump supporters.

Chris Wilson: [00:17:29] And moving more against him, by the way.

Sam Stone: [00:17:31] Yeah. And moving more against him.

Chris Wilson: [00:17:32] Surveys, they continue to move more against him. Yes.

Sam Stone: [00:17:35] And so I mean, for him to if he's going to be at the top of the ticket, he and his team have to address that. There's no evidence they're doing so. I mean, they're doubling and tripling down on all the things that are driving that cohort away.

Chris Wilson: [00:17:48] No, I agree. And it's it is a real problem because there is nothing that's been done since 2020 to change the face of the election. If you believe that that weird things went on in Georgia and Arizona last time or there's there's nothing that's being done by their campaign to guard against that. And I'll tell you, there are weird things that happen in elections, no question about it. We had as many people, as many lawyers in Virginia at the Youngkin headquarters as we did staffers, because we wanted to guard against that. And that's how you have to do it in any close election. It's that has been the case since I've been involved in politics, which is over 20 years. And so you've got to guard against that. You've got to understand the rules and play against it. You know, I grew up playing basketball and I was there when the three point line came out. My coach hated the three point line. I said, Well, we still have to use it. Well, the same thing is true with with with ballot harvesting. I may hate that as a rule, but I can't leave that to the Democrats to do all by themselves. And so we will compete at that level and we have to be able to compete at that level. And I think that's the challenges that exist is if Donald Trump is the nominee, Republicans lose in 24 and they probably are 24 and they probably lose the House and the Senate by by historical numbers. And it puts us in a situation where America in 2025 and 26 is a very different place than we live in today. I don't mean to end on a down down note, but since you asked, I think that is the most important thing that every voter should take into account when they cast their ballot for in any primary in 2024.

Sam Stone: [00:19:10] And Chuck, if the things that Chris just said listed at the start of this segment come true, in other words, Court-packing, Puerto Rico, DC. There's no recovery for Republicans.

Chuck Warren: [00:19:21] No, that's right. No, no, there is not. Chris, what is something we've talked about these main issues, the economy. You know, we have we now have out today that they did a poll of 2500 US adults and they said they need to earn $233,000 a year to feel financially secure. Then you have America's role in the world. And I think one big thing about that's always been is our role as the preeminent power have made us feel safe. But I also think Americans like being number one. I mean, just look at Olympic sports, right? When we win. Right. And then we have the parents, you know, being able to, you know, decide what their children do. What are other issues with your crystal ball and research that you think lawmakers need to start paying more attention to? That can be that could really turn quickly against conservatives.

Chris Wilson: [00:20:12] Well, another one that I think is has really come to the top is, is the wokeness of corporations. And I think the the the sort of forcing their values on Americans. And we've seen a lot of backfire on that. We've certainly seen a backfire with target Bud Light and it's even Ben and Jerry's over the weekend where they said you know every every company built on a tribe should give that land back. Everyone should give it a try. And then it turns out their their corporate headquarters on the tribe, they've lost $2.5 billion in corporate value since that happened. So because from people from people selling the stock and and the collapse of the company. So I think those are other aspects of it that where you look at someone who has been willing to take on woke the woke corporate left and stand up to them and take away things like tax incentives they asked for, which really I would argue that tax incentives are a conservative way of approaching work on corporations from a from a local government standpoint. And so I think those are aspects that matter, too. And it's an important thing for us to be paying attention to.

Chuck Warren: [00:21:18] Well, Chris, we sure appreciate you joining us today and wish you the best of luck this cycle. We hope to have you on again before the Christmas season. Folks, please follow Chris Wilson at Wilson WP at Twitter, same thing on Instagram. Wilson. Wp There you can learn you can follow University of Oklahoma football quite well and you can also you can also you can also stay in touch with the research that's going on in our country. Chris, we sure appreciate your time and we hope you have a fantastic weekend, my friend.

Chris Wilson: [00:21:46] Thank you. Good to talk to you.

Chuck Warren: [00:21:47] Thanks. Bye bye. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can follow us at breaking battlegrounds. Vote and listen to us anywhere you get your podcasts. We'll be right back.

Sam Stone: [00:22:05] Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone, continuing on with our fantastic guests for today, we have Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Boy, is that something we have needed for a long time. She is an expert in budget, tax and economic policy and has worked closely with members of both parties and serves as a trusted source on Capitol Hill. Maya, thank you and for joining us and welcome to the program.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:22:32] Yeah, happy to join.

Chuck Warren: [00:22:34] So both the left and right seem to be like Keystone cops on the national debt and budget deficit. They both think this is the one way or highway and that's the only way that works. So let's take, for example, let's start first with the belief that you can just tax your way out of this by taxing everybody who has money in the country. Is that possible?

Maya MacGuineas: [00:22:51] There's not a chance. This is a problem that, quite frankly, you're going to have to put everything on the table in order to get where we need to fiscally. But the notion that you can just do this by raising revenues and you'll hear people who make that case saying, listen, what are the lowest tax countries in the world? We can certainly have higher taxes. True. We can have higher taxes. True. We're going to have to have higher taxes. But absolutely not the case that you can fix this problem entirely. On the revenue side of the budget, the biggest growth in our budget imbalances comes from growing health care costs, growing retirement costs, most of those fueled by the aging of the population and growing interest costs. Because we've borrowed so much interest payments on the debt are the fastest growing part of the budget. So no matter how much you bring your revenues up, the fact that spending is still going to be going, growing faster than your economy means it won't be able to keep pace. And you're going to have to bring some of those spending levels back under control.

Chuck Warren: [00:23:50] All right. So now let's go to the argument the right likes to make. We can just cut all these programs and we can do this all in budget. Everything, balance it in ten years. Is that reality? Yeah.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:24:01] That also not true and not even close. One of the things during the debt ceiling fight that I was really worried about was that people who thought you could do this on the spending side and wanted to be aggressive and are fiscally focused, which I am, and I share those beliefs. But I was worried they would overshoot and that they would say we have to balance the in ten years and do so by spending cuts. We're not going to be able to come anywhere close to balancing the budget in ten years. To do so would take saving about $16 trillion over that ten year period. The last time we saved $16 trillion was easily never, not not even close. Right. So this is not even in the realm of the possible. Now, a fiscal metric that I think is aggressive but doable would be what if we just stabilized our debt so that it's not growing faster? That doesn't grow up to above where it is right now, which is almost 100% of GDP, just doing that over ten years so that we keep it at the same level of debt to GDP that would require $8 trillion in savings. That is an aggressive amount. It is doable, but it is not doable. On just the spending cuts side of the budget. There's no way that no matter how much you pull back these programs, no realistic way that you could cut spending enough to save $8 trillion. The trajectory we're mythbusting here, which is good because everybody's out there making promises we don't make.

Chuck Warren: [00:25:27] I mean, I'm convinced, you know, with our show, we have people I mean, we're conservative, but I don't think people understand math anymore. That's my concern. I mean, this is this is yellow pad, pencil in hand, math. And no one wants to seem to admit it. And we all created this problem. So we're all going to have to work together to get out of the problem.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:25:48] Boy, do I agree with that one. And let me talk about that fuzzy math, because basically what you have on both sides of the aisle now is kind of made up fairy tale economics. So on the Republican side, you'll hear time and time again we're going to cut taxes. It's going to generate so much growth, it's going to pay for itself. Just nowhere close to reality. If you cut taxes, it is going to help grow the economy and it will do so so that it generates about $0.20 for every dollar you spend on tax cuts. So you still have to offset the bulk of those tax cuts by cutting spending or raising other taxes. And then on the left, you hear things like this policy is so important, we shouldn't have to pay for it, just not true. Like if something's important, the whole point of budgeting is you should pay for it. And if it's not important, you shouldn't do it. But the other thing that we've been hearing is people for the past year are saying, don't worry, we can just print more money. That is so fundamentally wrong. And we've seen that it's wrong because we've just had a huge bout and are still in the midst of of high inflation kicked off because we we put too much money in the economy. Borrowing for Covid was the right thing to do. But the last bill that we did put way too much money in the economy and created this inflationary problem that has only gotten worse with with additional factors exacerbating it. So there's a lot of made up economics out there. There's a lot of made up mathematics. This basically comes down to the basic issue of budgets and trade offs. We shouldn't be borrowing as much money as we are, and I can talk about that more.

Sam Stone: [00:27:17] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Maya, we're going to come back with more from Maya macGuineas here in just a minute, folks. Continuing on. She is the president of the Bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And frankly, Maya, we really appreciate having you on this program. We love having these kind of honest discussions that I don't think are out there enough. And we're going to be continuing on with that. More in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Folks, are you concerned with stock market volatility? What if you could invest in a portfolio with a high fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market or portfolio? Well, you know what each monthly statement would look like, but no surprises. You can turn your monthly income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There's no loss of principle. If you need your money back at any time, your interest is compounded daily, you're paid monthly and there are no fees. The secure collateralized portfolio that delivers a high fixed interest rate and by investing, you can do well for yourself by doing good for others. So check out our friends at Invest by Refy.com. That's invest the letter Y, then refy.com or give them a call at 88 y refy 24 and see how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return.

Chuck Warren: [00:28:50] Maya So I think one thing that gets lost when we talk budgets and deficits and debt is it becomes sort of an Excel spreadsheet. It's numbers and I think the numbers seem like monopoly numbers to a lot of people, right? So, for example, we want to talk here about, look, we need to have entitlement reform. There's no if butts ands it's, you know, two thirds of our budget Congress doesn't even control. It's just mandatory. And Sam and myself and you, we have loved ones who need Social Security. They're in it or they're expecting it real soon. Right. But I think one thing that doesn't get talked about enough is I'm a father. You have children based on Wikipedia. And Wikipedia never lies. Yeah. How does this when you look at these things, does that concern you for their future? What you have so much debt where you're paying interest more, you're paying spending more than money in the federal budget on interest debts than you are things that matter that it will create inflation, higher interest rates. Does this concern you as a mother?

Maya MacGuineas: [00:29:48] Yeah. I mean, it's right. It's both systemic and personal, this issue. And so first, you know, we are actually spending this year more on interest payments to finance the debt of the fast pass than the entire federal budget spends on programs for children. That's how backwards this is. But absolutely, I mean, there are many reasons that I worry about the effects of the national debt. They're economic. They're leaving us vulnerable for future emergencies, their foreign policy and national security, where we're increasingly vulnerable and dependent on other countries. But one of the bottom line issues here is we are spending a lot of money because we want to we like those things and we are refusing to pay for it because none of us like paying taxes. And so the other option is we are then saying we will borrow this money and we will push those bills onto the future, onto our kids. And I will say, my kids refuse to listen to my deficit speeches at the dinner table. So shame on them for not caring. But no, but it is. And it's hard to get younger people to care about it because they think, as we all did when we were in our teens and 20s you're like, the world is great. Everything's going to be fine. I don't need to worry about future. But the truth and it's discouraging truth right now is we are leaving a country and frankly, a world that is much riskier, much more difficult to navigate, much more filled with potential risk to the next generation than we've ever seen before. And this goes well beyond the debt. It goes to national security, to the effects of technology, to all sorts of things that they need a strong budget to be able to respond to. And instead, we are giving them tens of trillions of dollars in debt that they owe just because we were unwilling to pay for these things ourselves, even though we are the beneficiaries of them.

Sam Stone: [00:31:32] Yeah, one of the things that I find interesting, Maya, is that the the media and academia or whatever has sold kids on the idea that we are facing an existential crisis, potentially the death of the planet within 20 years from environmental issues. That's not particularly realistic. But we are facing a financial cliff that would affect them far, far more than anything the environment ever will in their lifetimes coming up very soon.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:31:59] Well, I think it's interesting. I actually think the environment and the fiscal challenges have something in common, which is there's no immediate moment where it turns into the problem if you default. That happened on a certain day. If there's a government shutdown, that happens on a certain day. But when it comes to these issues, they slowly compound if we don't do anything about them. But there's no one moment where you say we can't return. And so you have members of Congress constantly saying we can punt this off until another day. But there should be no disagreement on the severity of having the amount of debt we have. We're not only are we spending more on interest than we are kids today, five years from now, we'll be spending more on interest payments than we are on national defense. This is an increasingly risky world. And so I don't know how you get kids to take this issue on and make it their own. Again, I think there's this eternal optimism that comes with youth. That means people can't believe it's really that big a problem. And numbers like trillion are so hard to follow. It's very difficult to personalize this. And lastly, the solutions, they're not fun. Here's the truth. We have to raise taxes, cut spending, fix our entitlement programs. Nobody thinks that's going to be fun, but you have to do that for the sustainability of our economic health. And so it's hard to get people to rally and march in the streets calling for fiscal reforms. But really, it's one of the most important things that we could do that also affects all the other issues that people do worry about.

Sam Stone: [00:33:22] My I don't know if you saw the piece that was in the Hill on the fourth by Andrew Hale said China is in default on $1 trillion in debt to US bondholders. Will the US force repayment? This is debt that was created by the previous government prior to the Maoist takeover. But in international norms that doesn't erase the debt. China is the only country on earth not paying that. He actually suggested. Simply, we essentially nationalize that debt and wipe it off our books, take, you know, balance it against $1 trillion in in our treasuries that China holds, which would free up $95 Billion a month in interest payments. Is something like that practical or possible? And how much would that trillion dollars actually make a difference to our overall financial situation?

Maya MacGuineas: [00:34:10] Yeah, I saw that.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:34:11] Piece and I did think that was interesting. And I definitely think that a lot of this is interconnected with the tensions that we have with China and the fact that we are dependent on them, that they own almost $1 trillion of our treasuries. But I don't think unilaterally sort of nationalizing that debt or declaring that we're not going to repay what we owe China would be good because markets are beyond just the bilateral agreements. If we were to do that with China, there would be growing concerns through other countries, and I think that would hasten the effort that there already is to move away from the dollar as a reserve currency. And that is something that benefits us tremendously. So I think it's actually very important that the US not make changes that risk its status right now, something that we benefit from of being the safe haven and the reserve currency. I think what we really have to focus on is balancing our own books, spending only as much as we're willing to pay in taxes, borrowing only when there's economic emergencies and a real reason to do so. And we can't find any shortcuts around those those hard truths.

Chuck Warren: [00:35:12] So let's talk entitlements for a minute, a little more detail on it. So like we said, there are people who are on Social Security now. We'll just use Social Security example, but there's Medicare, too, and you've got people who are close to retirement age. What do you think is the type of retirement reform we really should be talking about without affecting those who really count on this right now for day to day living?

Maya MacGuineas: [00:35:33] Yeah, and I think that's the right question because I think we need to fix these programs in a way that strengthens and preserves them for the people who most need them, but understands that both of them are headed towards insolvency. Social Security and just over a decade, if we do nothing, there will be across the board 23% benefit cuts. And yet you have politicians of all stripes making promises not to touch Social Security or Medicare. Medicare also will have across the board 10% provider cuts if we don't make changes. So these folks are promising you not to touch your entitlements, are promising you that you will have provider and benefit cuts that will affect everybody. Instead, what we should be doing is. This isn't thought out. Policy solutions and Social Security. This is about 4 or 5 options. You can raise payroll taxes or the payroll tax cap. You can raise the retirement age, which makes sense because we're living longer. And you could start it now, but have it kick in very, very gradually over time for people under 55, 50, whatever. You can slow the growth of benefits. And I would do that on the high end, not across the board. And you can fix the way we calculate inflation, which overstates it right now. There are a lot of fixes we could put in for Social Security, but the longer we wait and we've already waited too long, the more difficult they will be.

Sam Stone: [00:36:44] Maya.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:36:45] Oh.

Sam Stone: [00:36:46] I'm sorry. You talked about slowing benefits on the high end of the scale. This is something that's come up a lot on both sides is means testing for Social Security. I've fought this battle with Republicans for years and just said, look, we're just going to have to do this. This is going to come. There's one objection coming from the right. There's another from the left. It's from the left, though I don't understand their objection because it seems like that falls in line with everything else that they talk about.

Chuck Warren: [00:37:13] Make the rich pay their fair share.

Sam Stone: [00:37:14] Tax the rich. Why do we need to be, from their perspective, giving wealthy people this benefit rather than means testing it and directing it at the people that need it?

Maya MacGuineas: [00:37:25] It's just a great question because it's honestly a policy I have never understood. If you support progressive policies on the tax side, you should also support progressive policies on the spending side. And right now we have actually very we have regressive Social Security benefits where the well-off, their benefits are more reflecting that they paid in more in taxes. And so the concern is, oh, if you if you reduce the benefits for rich people in Social Security, there won't be a strong constituency of support. They won't fight to save Social Security. That's just not true. The biggest growth we've seen in government benefits in past years have been like an Eitc and Medicaid programs that were directed towards the poor. So there are support. There is support for smart programs that help people who need them the most. And when I go out and I talk to people in town halls, they always say means test my benefit. If I don't need it, no problem. I just want it there if I do. So when I hear Democrats saying you can't touch benefits for rich people or having someone like Bernie Sanders actually suggesting increasing benefits for everybody, including rich people, it means it's more money getting spent on those who don't need it and less money for things that you might really worry about, like education, investment in children or at risk youth, things like that. So I think it's an internally very inconsistent argument. And I think means testing is one of the areas that makes the most sense given the situation we're in with Social Security and Medicare.

Chuck Warren: [00:38:48] Well, I think I think the left's argument on this is based upon union loyalties, because they get good pensions and they don't want to see it cut for their members. But that's that's a red meat conversation for another day. All right. So let's talk about this. What do you think? I think it's really important that the US stay the economic superpower in the world. We have certain benefits that most countries do not have, nor will they ever have. My question for you is, what do you think we need to do realistically to make sure we keep and maintain that position for the next couple of decades?

Maya MacGuineas: [00:39:18] I think there's a few things. One, we need to start paying for all the policies that we do instead of borrowing to we need to switch our budget priorities. Right now, about 85% of our budget is consumption. 15% is investment. We need to turn that on its head. We need to be making investments in human capital, basic R&D. We just put a lot of money into infrastructure. So I think that that should be fine for a while and we need to reduce overall spending so that more of that money can be in the private sector and making private sector investments. And finally, we need to switch our spending priorities, which are all focused on the old into investments in the next generation, because just the same reason it's damaging to borrowed so much and pushed that into the future and to kids not failing to invest in them, but giving very comfortable benefits to my father who doesn't necessarily need them. Those priorities do not keep us strong as an economic superpower. We also want to deregulate and a lot of ways and smart trade policy, all of those things which are going to recognize the importance of our being an economic superpower in this highly integrated global economy.

Sam Stone: [00:40:22] You know, one of the discussions, Maya, that never comes up that I mean, and this may be a little bit outside your specific area of expertise is the cost of government programs has gone up dramatically, far more than the delivery of services from those programs. You're seeing a huge bureaucratic bloat. And it would seem at some point like one part or the other needs to start getting serious about leaning down government to actually deliver the dollars where they're intended to go.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:40:51] 100%. 100%. If you talk to anybody in agencies right now, they are feeling the bloat. There's been so much money that has been a big run up in funding agencies in the past years, that there are situations where people are traveling because they don't know what to do with their budgets. There are people who are absolutely underworked and it's well known and that undermines the morale in place. So, listen, I don't want to take away from the main point, which is we have to fix our entitlement programs. We're not going to be able to do this without revenues. But there are savings to be had throughout the government, in the Defense Department, in the health care industries, in every one of our programs that's out there and in the government bureaucracy itself. And this should be something in order to help regain trust in government that we are able to really go through with a fine tooth comb and revamp a lot of these programs, free them of some of the bureaucratic constraints so that people can have more trust that if they are paying tax dollars, that those tax dollars are going to be used.

Sam Stone: [00:41:48] Well, yeah, absolutely. I think all of that is critical. Maya macGuineas, thank you so much for joining us today. We really, really appreciate having you on the program. Folks, You can follow her on Twitter at Maya macGuineas, Mac McGinnis at Budget Hawks at Fix USA. Org and Crfb. Org. Maya, again, thank you so much for joining us on the program. We love having you on and look forward to having you on again in the near future.

Maya MacGuineas: [00:42:17] Great. Nice to talk with you.

Chuck Warren: [00:42:18] Thank you. This is breaking battlegrounds. Join us next for our podcast segment. We'll be honored to have Kylie Kipper straight from Houston talking crime and baseball. We're very excited about this.

Sam Stone: [00:42:29] It's been a long time since we had Kylie.

Chuck Warren: [00:42:31] She's got she's got a doozy. So folks, follow us at Breaking Battlegrounds Vote, share the podcast, and we'll talk to you here briefly on the podcast episode by.

Sam Stone: [00:42:51] Welcome to the podcast, only segment of breaking battlegrounds. Up next, it's been a long time. It's been a very long time since we had a kyli true crime update. Kylie Kipper, our producer, hates being on the microphone today. She's been forced to be better at it. You know, you're great at it.

Kylie Kipper: [00:43:10] That's the I'm getting more comfortable. I meant.

Sam Stone: [00:43:12] Okay.

Chuck Warren: [00:43:12] Two years will do that to you. Two years will do that to you.

Sam Stone: [00:43:14] It's been a while, huh? So.

Chuck Warren: [00:43:16] Kylie, you're actually in a state where there's been sort of this mystery. This young man was missing seven years ago, and then he showed up. And, you know, look, Americans love a kid being recovered. Story. All people do. If you don't, you don't have a heart. Right?

Sam Stone: [00:43:29] So this is a strange one, though.

Chuck Warren: [00:43:30] Chuck, So we're all excited about it then. Come to find out there's a little bit more to the story, which sadly seems to be a lot to these stories now. There always seems to be a little bit more to the story, right? So you've done some digging on it. Tell us about it. What's what's the true story here?

Kylie Kipper: [00:43:44] Yeah, So there's a few pieces of this investigation which it's still ongoing. They have another press conference tonight, but they had one yesterday which has caused a lot of feathers to be ruffled. So Rudy Farias was 17 years old when his mom reported him missing after he took the dogs for a walk. It turns out that he had just run away and his mom had told him that police are looking for him and we'll put him in jail if he does not come home. So at that time, he went home two days later, but his mom never reported him of coming home. She just kept the investigation saying he's still missing. So he was discovered this week unconscious outside of a church in Houston where the police, when they reported to it to the scene, had just ended up calling his mom, saying, we found your son. And she was like, oh, this is amazing. She posted photos. I'm putting in air quotes of him in the hospital, which people, family members, his aunts, cousins have come out to say that those photos were taken in 2012. And they're not recent photos in which he did not, after being discovered at this church, did not go to the hospital to get any of the help that he may have needed. Um, the yesterday and the investigation. Police chief had said that they had many run ins with their family and that the entire time his mom would just say he is still missing if they would ask who he is in the house, because at this point he's gotten older, she would say, this is my nephew and give him a fake name.

Sam Stone: [00:45:17] So So he was around. They they like set him up with a fake ID or something and were telling people he wasn't him.

Kylie Kipper: [00:45:25] Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so the weird part about it is, is when they did the investigation with him and his mom, Rudy obviously would not speak about any wrongdoing of his mom the past eight years. So he would just say, you know, yeah, I was living at home. She just wanted me to keep it private. X, Y, z, until he got separated from his mom, which then he was doing an interview with a detective and this community activist named Quanell X. So this is where it gets like, all kind of. Different sides of the story. So the police chief in the interview yesterday said Rudy did not report any sexual assault charges by his. Or sexual assault wrongdoing by his mom. However, this Cornell gentleman who came out and was speaking and seemed very passionate about it was crying in the interviews. He was in the interview with the detective, and he clearly stated many times of sexual encounters with his mom that ultimately led him to run away after eight years, which is how he ended up at the church. So he had stolen his mom's car to get away from his mom. And some of these can be a bit disturbing, but you know, many things. So a little backtrack, a little history about his parents is his dad was also a part of the Houston Police Department until he committed suicide in around 2011, I believe, after they were investigating him for being corrupt. So people think that that has something to do with why the police chief is saying that there was that Rudy did not report any of this. However, Quanell has come out and done a bunch of interviews on Newsnation and Fox and is just saying he's reported that his mom would make him play daddy and would sleep naked in bed together.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:19] And oh my gosh.

Kylie Kipper: [00:47:21] Can use that kind of imagination, which ultimately would lead him to try to escape his mom again. After eight years. He would take she would take Rudy to work and make her or make him do her job.

Sam Stone: [00:47:35] Um, she what was her job, do we know?

Kylie Kipper: [00:47:38] It just seemed like some, like, low level.

Chuck Warren: [00:47:41] Clerical type job.

Kylie Kipper: [00:47:42] Yeah. Um.

Sam Stone: [00:47:44] Was there any, like, financial incentive? I mean, was she, like, raising money for the search for him or something? What's the.

Kylie Kipper: [00:47:50] Yes, she did have, um, a fundraiser online, which her goal was 75,000. I have not been able to find if she actually raised that money. But something else that came up was in Texas. If you have a child that goes missing after three years, you get a basically like a life insurance payout. So that's another thing that their goodness to see if she got that money. Um, but an ex-husband came out and said this is a little background about his mom now is an ex-husband came out and said that she was a bigamist. And what I could find is in 1997, she married some she married a guy. Then again in 1998, she married another guy in that same year. She wanted a annulment on the basis that she was already married to the previous guy, which neither of these is the police detective. In 2007. She then marries the detective for the Houston Police Department. And then in 1999 to 2010, there's another marriage that's been found and then a fourth marriage from 2009 to 2012 that has also been found.

Chuck Warren: [00:48:56] Boy, some kid sure draw the short end of the stick who they get stuck with, parents and folks for you if you don't know, bigamy is when the crime of marrying someone while you're still married to someone else. In case you don't know that term, I hope it doesn't come up a lot in your conversations at home, but nonetheless, that's what it means. So what do you think happens now? What are the police saying? Or I guess we'll know more tonight, right? I mean, that's really the key.

Kylie Kipper: [00:49:16] So everyone so after this investigation between his mom and his and Rudy, the detective that sat there with Quanell X, this community activist, left the room and Quanell, said, I'm going to do interviews on this. Is there anything you don't want me to say? And he said, No, you can say whatever you want. The detective then went into the next room and arrested or put handcuffs, not arrested, put handcuffs on the mom, which indicated that Quanell says this detective thought his mom had committed a crime. However, at the end of the day, they ended up just walking both of them out and they left together. So now no one is 100% positive where Rudy or his mom are located today.

Chuck Warren: [00:49:54] Well, how old was he when he disappeared?

Kylie Kipper: [00:49:56] He was 17 and.

Chuck Warren: [00:49:58] He's been missing. They may say he was of sound mind to be in a relationship. I bet. I bet that's part of it. So we're going to have you talking about this again next week. You'll keep us up to date when you're back in the studio now, folks, so you don't understand. Kylie is in Houston today, not because she loves the summer weather of Houston, but nobody.

Sam Stone: [00:50:16] Nobody loves the summer weather or the smell of Houston in the.

Chuck Warren: [00:50:19] Summer. Her fiance, Isaiah Campbell, who's been playing Double A for the Seattle Mariners affiliate in Little Rock, was called up to the big league club, the Mariners, yesterday. And Kylie hopped on a plane and flew out there. And Kylie, just what was that experience like? What were your feelings? I mean, it's you know, look, a lot of people don't get to do this. So how was it for you?

Kylie Kipper: [00:50:41] I mean, sometimes still to this moment, it doesn't feel real. Um, I think I did an interview yesterday with an MLB TV reporter, and it was very hard to articulate how I was feeling. And, you know, just like the emotions that go into it because he has just had this dream For him since he was little. And it's finally coming true. He is. Yesterday he was not in the game yet, so we're still waiting for his. Actual official debut. But he is on the roster and we're hoping it's. Tonight or tomorrow.

Chuck Warren: [00:51:10] Well, folks, as you know, Sam and I adore Kylie and the great work she does on the show and Jamie. And so I was last night watching two teams. I could care less about the Astros and Mariners waiting for her to pitch. And apparently Isaiah's good teammate was the starter last night and decided like, let me pitch like a Cy Young Award winner this year. It's what he did. So Isaiah did not get in the game. So this weekend, if he can pull up the Mariners and Houston Astros and look for Isaiah Campbell to come in late innings to help the team out.

Kylie Kipper: [00:51:39] Yeah.

Sam Stone: [00:51:40] Can we just get Kylie to post a clip of his appearance so I don't have to watch a mariners Astros game?

Chuck Warren: [00:51:45] Chuck Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. So before you get Kylie off and end the podcast, we just want to give a congratulations. And since Kylie is engaged, she'll appreciate this. Jimmy, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter today are celebrating their 77th anniversary. Now, folks, let me let me talk about this for a minute here. The US census says 6% of married couples in the United States make the 50th wedding anniversary, one tenth of a percent make their seventh of those 75 years or more. They don't even keep the statistic. So that's that's how rare that is. And Sam makes a good point. You know, it's the longevity. The lifespan of.

Sam Stone: [00:52:23] A man is like 79.

Chuck Warren: [00:52:24] Years. There's a lot to this, but there's a lot of people who just don't want to be together 77 years. So there's something to this, right?

Sam Stone: [00:52:30] It's an amazing it's an amazing thing. And congratulations to both of them, without a doubt. And it speaks to great character on both.

Chuck Warren: [00:52:37] It really does. It really does. And it speaks to a great partnership. Yeah. So happy anniversary to the Carters. Kylie, We're very excited for you and we're excited for his first pitch to Major League Baseball this weekend. And so we'll keep in touch with you on that, folks. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can follow us on breaking battlegrounds vote. Besides the radio stations we're on, you can also catch us on podcasts wherever you listen to a podcast, please share. Please rate. Thanks a million. We'll be back next week.

Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, Chuck and Sam are joined by friend of the show, Martin Di Caro of the Washington Times and host of the History as It Happens podcast. Later in the, Utah's Congressman Blake Moore calls in to talk about his work on the House Ways and Means Committee.

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Martin Di Caro brings 25 years of broadcast journalism experience to the Washington Times. He has won numerous prestigious awards throughout his career in major media markets across the country. Before coming to the Times, Martin was a news anchor at Bloomberg Radio's Washington bureau. From 2012 to 2017, he covered transportation at NPR member station WAMU 88.5 in Washington, where his work on the yearslong Metrorail crisis earned Martin his second Edward R. Murrow award, which included hosting the radio station's first podcast, Metropocalypse. Martin worked as a reporter for AP Radio in New York and Washington for eight years starting in 2008. He lives in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. and his interests include reading history and following his beloved New York Jets. He can be reached at [email protected].

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A native of Ogden, Blake Moore is a proactive problem solver committed to representing each and every constituent of Utah's First District. He is dedicated to reflecting Utah's values in Congress and finding solutions to the challenges facing the district and the state. Advocating for inclusive, pro-growth, and aspirational principles, Blake is amplifying Northern Utah's voice on a national level to ensure Utahns receive the service and representation they deserve.

Blake currently serves as the first-ever Utah Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, where he sits on the Healthcare, Social Security, and Work and Welfare subcommittees. He also serves on the House Budget Committee to push for policies to reverse our national debt crisis and advocate for Utah's defense community. Blake continues to represent Hill Air Force Base as co-chair of the Armed Forces and Depot caucuses.

Before being elected to Congress, Blake worked for small businesses and in the foreign service, experiences that now guide his work on domestic and foreign policy. As a Principal at Cicero Group, Blake worked primarily in the social impact, marketing research, and strategy practice areas leading projects and serving clients throughout Utah and the nation. He has expertise in education, financial services, public policy, healthcare, transportation, supply chain, and waste industries, and this work informs his customer service and problem solver approach in Washington, D.C., as he identifies ways to help the federal government better work for Northern Utah. His passion for helping organizations manage the change process drives his ambition to overcome partisan gridlock, improve federal agencies, and smartly streamline the nation's bureaucracy.

Previously, Blake worked abroad in business development in the healthcare and financial services industries, which led him to understand the challenges that small businesses grapple with daily. Blake was also honored to serve in the Foreign Service for the U.S. Department of State, where he gained first-hand knowledge of America's international threats. This experience taught him to take seriously the United States' diplomatic apparatus, the readiness of the Armed Forces, and the nation's commitment to strengthening partnerships and alliances across the globe.

Blake joined Congress in 2021 and served on the Armed Services, Natural Resources, and Budget committees during his first term. On these committees, he advocated for Hill Air Force Base and Utah's defense community, promoted domestic energy production, worked on addressing our debt and deficit crises, among several other efforts. Congressman Moore convened a Debt and Deficit Task Force in Ogden to create a framework of solutions with local leaders for how the federal government can grow the economy, save and strengthen vital programs, focus America's spending, and fix Congress's budgeting process. For these efforts, he was named a 2022 Fiscal Hero by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He also successfully pushed for provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act packages for FY22 and FY23 that support Hill Air Force Base's modernization efforts, Sentinel program, housing availability, and more.

Blake was the most successful freshman Republican member in terms of legislation passed, with four bills signed into law by President Biden and several more passed through committee. His bills that became law are the Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act, the Better Cybercrime Metrics Act, the National Medal of Honor Act, the Modernizing Access to our Public Land Act, and provisions in the Afghanistan Accountability Act.

Blake is an active and valued team player within the House Republican Conference, chosen to serve as an Assistant Whip on the Republican Whip Team, the House Armed Services Committee conferee on the China legislation conference committee, and co-chair of the bipartisan Depot, Air Force, and Future caucuses.

Blake obtained a Master's in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University. He graduated from the University of Utah after serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Seoul, South Korea, and signing a scholarship to play as the quarterback at Utah State University. In high school, he was awarded the Wendy's National High School Heisman, an award honoring one male and one female senior for excellence in athletics, academics, and citizenship. He remembers fondly a conversation with a Heisman trustee after the ceremony. The trustee mentioned that it was Blake's Eagle Scout and other service projects that set him apart. Blake recalls thinking at that moment, "I'm not special; that's just the way kids are raised in Northern Utah!"

Blake is married to Jane Boyer, his amazing, humorous, and very candid wife, who encourages him to take risks and pursue big things. Blake and Jane have four awesome and active boys who keep them on their toes- Max, George, Winston, and Franklin. Even with a congressional term under his belt, Blake's most prized title is "Little League Coach."

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Transcription

Sam Stone: [00:00:10] Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. First up today, we're very excited to have returning guests, Martin Di Caro. Martin is a broadcast journalist for The Washington Times and host of The History As It Happens podcast, which I know Chuck is a huge fan of. I've tuned into a number of times, highly recommend that folks and Chuck take it away.

Chuck Warren: [00:00:32] So folks, we'll post this on our social media. Martin had a great episode this past Thursday called Our Radical Declaration, talking about the Declaration of Independence since July 4th is here coming up. And Martin, thanks for visiting us today.

Martin Di Caro: [00:00:49] Chuck and Sam, I'm delighted to be here. Happy Independence Day in advance.

Chuck Warren: [00:00:54] Thank you very much. Are you as well? So the podcast is history as it happens. And Martin, I want to I want to start off with this question. So we all have origin stories. We were talking before the show, Apple, they did a garage. I mean, it seems like all tech companies start in a garage for some reason, but nonetheless, it's a garage, right? But these origin stories define who we are. Right? And I was thinking the other day on a flight where I hit four cities in five days and the Delta flight attendant came up and hand me a thank you letter for flying three. 3 million miles, Right. Like, I don't know what they expect me to do with the letter, but nonetheless, it was nice of her. And and I thought about all the times I have taken red eyes home to go see kids games, be there for events. And I asked my kids, what do they remember? And they said, I just remember you sacrifice for the family. So that's an origin story for our family, right? What is the origin story for our country, specifically July 4th? And does that origin story still stand?

Martin Di Caro: [00:01:55] I would say yes. We're still living in the political world of the founders. Lots of changes. Of course, lots of stuff has happened, had a civil war and what is often called our second founding with the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. And of course, World War Two made the United States a global power right. Uncontested global power in the Cold War victory in late 1980s. But to get back to your question, yes, our origins are still very important. They're still contested. But, you know, we're a nation built upon ideas, and ideas are never static. They're dynamic. And, you know, what does it mean to be an American? That question was trenchant in the late 18th century, and we're still contesting it today. And that's kind of the nature of democracy, right? It's permanent origin. It's permanent argument. Just look at the Supreme Court decisions that have come down the past week. Right. They deal with fundamental rights, sometimes competing rights. You know, as David M Kennedy, a great historian has said, who gets a seat at the table of the great American barbecue. So our origins, you know, in retrospect, were rather puny when you think about what the revolutionaries accomplished, right? But that egalitarian rhetoric, those egalitarian ideals are still very much with us. We're still contesting them. Our history is a history of political conflict.

Sam Stone: [00:03:20] Martin I actually don't like the idea of a second founding as much as realistically after the Civil War was the I don't want to say culmination because we've seen with these Supreme Court cases even this week the continuation. But that was really the first major step in fulfilling all the promises that the founders laid out. And part of the genius to me of of both the declaration and the Constitution is that they understood that they were imperfect and that they would not achieve right away all the ideals they laid down on paper, but they left a path for us to do it.

Martin Di Caro: [00:03:56] Absolutely. And I like how you linked both the Declaration and the Constitution together. Obviously, the Constitution created our government or our second government because the Articles of Confederation didn't work out. But that was very Lincolnian of you. I mean, he saw both of them as being connected. Yeah, I mean the revolution. And I'm going to I'm going to cite Gordon Wood's work here, by the way, in my first podcast of this three part series I'm doing, my guests were Sean Wilentz and Jim Oakes. They are fantastic. I hope everyone takes a listen to that. But I'll cite Gordon Wood here. He says the revolution did more than legally create the United States. It transformed our society. The changes were radical and they were extensive, he says. You know, instead of focusing on what the revolution did not accomplish, to your point about it being incomplete, we should focus instead on why these ideas were so powerful and continue to animate our politics to this day. Our revolution eliminated monarchy. It created a large republic. It reconstituted again, citing Gordon Wood. What Americans meant by public or state power brought an entirely new kind of politics and a new kind of democratic. Office holder onto the world stage. And I do think the revolutionaries of the late 18th century knew that they were you know, I don't want to say that they knew they would be talking for the ages, you know, for all time. But they got the sense that they were on history's stage as well. I mean, it was a revolution. It did reorder society.

Chuck Warren: [00:05:26] Wherewith Martin Di Caro. He is a broadcast journalist for The Washington Times and host a great podcast history As it happens. If you want to be smart, listen to that podcast. Let me ask you this question. I think there's one thing people don't understand about the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence, and hopefully you can talk a little bit about it. A third of the country supported it. A third probably was ambivalent. And the other third was, you know, the British fanboys. Right. I mean, is that fair to say?

Martin Di Caro: [00:05:53] Yeah, that's what John Adams said. You know, it's hard to say exactly what public opinion was at any given time. You know, there was no polling. Of course, even polls today aren't altogether accurate. But yeah, that's roughly how how historians see it. You know, you had that middle ground of people who were indifferent. I mean, revolutions and wars are scary things. And we know that ordinary people get swept up in are damaged by, you know, the the vicissitudes of war. How do you like that word? Love it more so than you know, others. So, yeah, you did have people who were ardent revolutionaries who wanted to break with Great Britain. He had other revolutionaries who were more moderate, looking to reconcile even well into 1776. And then, of course, you did have loyalists, but, you know, loyalist the number of loyalists and their strength was always overestimated by I mean, that was one of the problems of the way parliament and the king handled all this. They thought that Loyalism was was stronger than it actually, it was. It was actually. And as the war goes on, it becomes weaker and weaker.

Sam Stone: [00:06:56] Well, and when you talk about that ambivalence, one of the things if I if you go back and think about it was a historical in many ways, but the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson one of the one of the depictions that I did like in that was that they showed the war happening in people's front yards. Right. Which was the truth, right? I mean, this was not being fought in some remote battlefield that nobody had any connection to. This was this was a civil war, a revolution fought in people's backyards and people's front yards. And so you can understand the ambivalence of a lot of folks who didn't want to see that for any number of reasons, merely the protection of their family.

Martin Di Caro: [00:07:36] Yeah, Revolutionary War was in many ways a civil war. Loyalists had their lost their property. They were outcasts from society for a while after the war ended. And we can celebrate the revolution because it turned out the way, you know, we think it should have turned out. But at the time, of course, there was no unity about any of this. Right? Right. We tend to look back at the revolution as a source of, well, something that all of us can celebrate. But don't use the word unity. As I mentioned at the top of the show, we're still contesting its meaning. We're still arguing over the meaning of freedom and civil liberties and rights. I mean, that's something that comes up in this series. I'm doing Jack Rakove, another great historian, will be my guest in part two of this series. He talks about, you know, the revolutionaries who were gathered at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. They were not concerned with, you know, what we now consider to be statements of individual equality. You know, their purpose and this makes sense, of course, was, you know, in the in the maelstrom of a war, to declare that the colonists as a people had the same rights to self-government as other nations. But, of course, they use universal language. I mean, Jefferson wrote it a certain way for certain reasons, and that language became aspirational for anybody. I mean, even during the war enslaved black people, they start to cite the Declaration of Independence. These ideas about egalitarianism are percolating at a level audible to normal people, and they're citing the declaration to sue for freedom. And they're collaborating with whites to end slavery in the northern colonies than the northern states, which as we know does happen mostly in a gradual sense. But there was an anti-slavery aspect to the revolution.

Chuck Warren: [00:09:22] Well, didn't Martin Luther King call the Declaration of Independence a promissory note? He did at.

Martin Di Caro: [00:09:27] The March on Washington. 60th anniversary of that is coming up this year. Elizabeth Cady Stanton at Seneca Falls in 1858. She cites the the Declaration of Independence in her Declaration of Sentiments. And that, of course, is part of political struggle. It takes another 70 years for women to get the right to vote in the federal constitution and amendment, of course, even. Ho Chi Minh, a communist. He cited the Declaration of Independence verbatim in 1945 when he tried to announce Vietnamese independence after World War Two.

Sam Stone: [00:10:00] You know what I always found interesting about the founding and the writing of the declaration, the Constitution, This was not the first time that any of. These ideas had been put on paper, but it was the first time they were brought together as the foundation of a new government. In other words, these ideas had been percolating.

Chuck Warren: [00:10:16] It wasn't a talk, the talk. It was a walk. The walk.

Sam Stone: [00:10:18] Right? Yeah. Which made it very different.

Martin Di Caro: [00:10:22] And they had no way of knowing it would even succeed. I mean, as a matter of fact, the Revolutionary War did not go well, right? For a lot of reasons. I mean, they barely could keep an army in the field. I mean, this frustrated George Washington to no end. The state governments didn't want to pay, you know, their fair share to keep an army supplied. And it was very difficult to raise taxes at all under the Articles of Confederation to pay for things. Inflation was rampant. As I mentioned, war is miserable. And there was also a smallpox outbreak. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: [00:10:55] So. Martin, that is a great point here. I think people seem to forget that America has always been somewhat messy because we're allowed to speak our mind, right? And and with a minute 30 here for our next segment, what have you, as you've studied and interviewed all these great historians, what do you view as the top three or 2 or 3 qualities that American president has to have unite people to for a common good, A common cause?

Martin Di Caro: [00:11:21] You said an American president? Yeah. Oh, I think vision is important. I think it's important to invoke our origins to. But not an idealized kind of silly or patriotic way. But, you know, I think also for any president, right. Any politician to understand the importance of politics, I think a lot of people today kind of throw their hands up in the air. Yes. And I noticed this a lot on the especially among younger people on the left. Politics is slow and ineffective. And, you know, our all that egalitarian rhetoric was a lie when they said it back in the 18th century. I do not agree with that position. So, you know, you get this pessimistic, despondent type of attitude when, you know, our history is a history of political conflict. It's about, you know, stating a vision. I think any successful politician can state a vision, but also be good at the politics.

Sam Stone: [00:12:14] Fantastic. Martin We're going to be coming back, folks, with more in just a moment from Martin DeCaro of The Washington Times and host of History As It Happens podcast. Be sure you're tuning in and downloading. Go to breaking battlegrounds vote. You can get the links to all of our Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all the good stuff there. Make sure you're signing up to get our latest episodes right in your email box. We really appreciate it. And hang on because we have more with Martin Di Caro coming right up.

Sam Stone: [00:00:05] Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. On the line with us is Martin Di Caro, broadcast journalist for The Washington Times and host of History As It Happens podcast. But folks, are you concerned with stock market volatility? If you're not, you should be. Market's been going up and down like a rocket. Any returns you're getting out there, it's very hard to count on them. That's why we at Breaking Battlegrounds have endorsed investing with Y Refy. If you invest with Y Refy, you can earn up to a 10.25% rate of return. That's a fixed rate of return at 10.25%. It's the best deal out there right now. Log on to invest Y Refy.com that's invest the letter y, then Refy.com or call them at 888. Y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. You won't regret it. Chuck We're continuing on right now with Martin Di Caro. Fantastic conversation so far as we're heading into the July 4th super long weekend. This time.

Chuck Warren: [00:01:05] Martin Talk to our audience a little bit, expand further on our last question about how political conflict works in America. And it's sometimes it's just a messy pot of stew. Yeah.

Marti Di Caro: [00:01:16] Yeah. No one's going to hire me to be a political consultant, by the way. But I mean, being good at politics is hard. I mean, there's not just one actor either. So you have a, you know, a brilliant political manipulator like Lyndon Johnson. But, you know, he wasn't the only actor in all of that as well. He needed help from other people. But I guess my point is, you know, I'm more interested in I've been doing these shows now about the American Revolution and just trying to understand why things happen the way they did, rather than saying, Oh, I wish this had happened sooner than it actually did. You know, why did it take 20 years to finally get rid of the slave trade through federal legislation in 1807 1808, following the compromise that was made at the Constitutional Convention? Why did it take Abraham Lincoln all of 18 months? As if 18 months is a really long amount of time to do a full emancipation proclamation out of after the start of the Civil War. You know, why did it take 70 years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the Seneca Falls meetings in 1858? 70 years to finally get, you know, women's suffrage? Well, instead of saying, you know, complaining that things didn't happen on the schedule, we think it should have, we need to think more historically and really understand why things happen the way they did. How is an American Revolution even possible to begin with? Why were people ready to hear those egalitarian words and act on them when they did? I think we get a better understanding of our origins when we do that.

Sam Stone: [00:02:41] Because in many ways, Martin, a lot of those ideas were not to the benefit of the the most powerful people who had guided our society and every other society prior to the implementation of these ideals, right? I mean, they they benefited from the system that was previously in place.

Marti Di Caro: [00:02:59] Absolutely. I mean, you can make the point about Thomas Jefferson himself, right? He penned the document with some help from Adams and Franklin and others. He was a lifelong slaveholder and he certainly did not want to see slavery. Well, you know, Jefferson's views on slavery do change over time. Early in his career, he took some aggressive moves to try to end slavery. But later on, he didn't, partly because it was an unpopular thing to do in Virginia, which was a very large, you know, slave holding colony, then slaveholding state. But certainly, yeah, you know, this is a very corrosive idea, egalitarianism. It challenges the status quo. Other people are free to interpret those words any way they want in a democratic society and say, you know what, I want a seat at the table as well. So, yeah, you're right.

Chuck Warren: [00:03:48] Of the 56 delegates at the Second Continental Congress, we call them our founding fathers, who was one besides the obvious? Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, who's who's somebody that stands out that people don't pay enough attention to.

Marti Di Caro: [00:04:00] I think somebody like John Dickinson, who was a patriot and a revolutionary, but he was rather moderate. I think it's interesting to look at the way and I can recommend a book about this. Please do. Please do. Yeah. Well, and I think this book is still in print. I was able to find a copy of it. Wouldn't that be great if I recommend a book that no one can actually find?

Chuck Warren: [00:04:18] Yeah. Yeah.

Marti Di Caro: [00:04:19] The Beginnings of National Politics by Jack Rakove. I use this book to frame our conversation in part two of my series. Dickinson was very, very interesting as to why he was trying to still reconcile with the Crown. You know, people like James Otis, George Mason, they articulated many of these ideas and ideals, but we don't often think of them. They don't come to mind right away. We rather think of Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, George Washington.

Chuck Warren: [00:04:47] Will Gallup this week released a poll and the headline Extreme Pride Americans remains Near Record Low, which was funny about it, is 67% of Americans are extremely or very proud of the United States. That's a pretty high number. Right. And then which.

Sam Stone: [00:05:03] Throws a lot of the modern.

Chuck Warren: [00:05:04] Narrative. Yeah. Yeah. It did. Another 22% of us adults are moderately proud. I mean, so basically you're over you're close mid 80s on this. Right. But why do you think to our audience, why do you think we should be proud to be Americans?

Marti Di Caro: [00:05:18] Well, you know, I'm also not happy with a lot of things these days. And, you know, I guess depending on your politics, maybe the Supreme Court has you pulling your hair out. Maybe you think, hey, this is how our founders intended it to be. Right? Right. You know, your question again, why, why or why should people be proud of their country? I think because, you know, we have a premise for a politics, a progressive politics, if you want to use that word, to make positive change. Now, maybe some people aren't happy with that use of my choice of words there. So guess what? I guess what I'm trying.

Sam Stone: [00:05:52] I'm all for stealing progressive back.

Marti Di Caro: [00:05:55] You know, if people are going to sneer at our country, right. And our founding and these ideals and the egalitarian, egalitarian rhetoric and say, well, it was a lie then and we've never been able to fulfill it as if anyone actually argues it was a reflection of reality in the late 18th century. Right. Well, if they're going to sneer at that, as James Oakes said on my show, then what's their premise for change? What are you going to base your politics on? Right. I think I like our system, right. I like the idea of fundamental human equality as the guiding principle for our nation.

Sam Stone: [00:06:30] I think that's a great point, because with all the tear the system down rhetoric you hear today in the news and on social media, the one thing that's missing is what? What follows? What are what are you trying to replace these current systems with other than some vague notion of.

Chuck Warren: [00:06:49] Yo have a my way or the highway mentality is what you.

Marti Di Caro: [00:06:51] Have. That's people who give up on politics. Then, you know, abolish the Senate, abolish the Supreme Court. I mean, that's not serious stuff.

Chuck Warren: [00:06:58] But, you know, but in fairness to you, you're also a patient man. I mean, for example, you're a Jets fan, right? So this is taught you this is taught you amazing patience over the years, right?

Marti Di Caro: [00:07:08] Yes. And I will never give up on them because I know the moment I finally, you know, throw in the towel, they'll win.

Chuck Warren: [00:07:14] I remember I remember for the Giants became this this great power years when I grew up in the Northern California, the old next door neighbor who loved the giants said, look, I've just learned to say there's always next year, you know? And I think that's for the Jets fans, too. You know?

Sam Stone: [00:07:28] You know what? You know what I want for the Jets season? I want a great like six games from Aaron Rodgers, who goes down with a tragic injury. And we see we see we see Zach Wilson come back with the all time great comeback. Yeah, great comeback. Rebirth of his career.

Marti Di Caro: [00:07:45] Well, you know, everyone needs a soap opera. Some people watch real soap operas. I watch the Jets.

Sam Stone: [00:07:51] Well, I get I get The New York Post in my news every morning, and they're panic over. That would be.

Chuck Warren: [00:07:56] Fantastic. It'd be amazing.

Marti Di Caro: [00:07:58] Great sports section in that paper.

Chuck Warren: [00:08:01] Martin. Martin, what else with our limited time here, what else do you think people should pay more attention to regarding the July 4th? We have one minute.

Marti Di Caro: [00:08:10] You know what? Go and read the Declaration of Independence. Everyone can cite those, you know, 55 most famous words. Read the grievances, especially the final grievance. You know, we didn't get to this, but that's okay. This whole idea of a slavery revolution, that's a nonsensical idea that's been put out there by the 1619 project. Yeah. Read those grievances and then go and understand, you know, what was the purpose behind them? Why was Jefferson and his compatriots, why did they, you know, go after King George the third the way they did after, you know, going after parliament through most of.

Sam Stone: [00:08:42] The the antidote to ahistorical nonsense is actual history. Thank you so much, Martin De Caro, broadcast journalist for Washington Times and History as It Happens podcast. We love having you on the program and look forward to having you again, folks. Breaking battlegrounds. Back with more in just a moment.

Chuck Warren: [00:00:09] Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren, with my co-host, Sam Stone. Today, we are lucky to have with us on these two segments, Congressman Blake Moore. Congressman Moore represents Utah's first Congressional District. He is also the first ever Republican from Utah who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, which discusses issues we talk about all the time. Sam, health care, Social Security work and welfare subcommittees.

Sam Stone: [00:00:32] Pretty much all the most important stuff in the country goes through ways and means.

Chuck Warren: [00:00:35] Exactly. He is married to Jane Boyer, who the former Jane Boyer. And she is a very candid wife. And so we want to know how she's candid with you, Blake. And he's also the father of four active boys and he's also a little league coach. How are you as a Little League coach, Congressman?

Congressman Moore: [00:00:54] You know, I've had a ref pull me aside the other day. He said, wait, you're the congressman, aren't you? And I go, Oh, boy. And he said, he goes, You were on our case today, but I like it. I'd vote for you because you're fiery. I like that you got passion. So I figured it could very well work in the opposite for me as well, too. So I do have to be careful.

Chuck Warren: [00:01:18] So what are the what are the age range for your boys?

Congressman Moore: [00:01:21] Ten, seven, seven and about 18 months.

Chuck Warren: [00:01:24] So which one do you coach, the ten year old or seven year old?

Congressman Moore: [00:01:26] Mostly to this point. The ten year old. The seven year old started playing a lot of sports kind of right when I was first running for office. And that was that was tough. So I did a lot with the seven year old. And now I'm picking it back up now that I'm, you know, in my second term, a little bit of a groove scheduling wise that I can, you know, try to try to get engaged a little bit more. So mostly. Mostly, yes. Football, basketball and baseball. You get me outside those three sports, I don't know what I'm doing.

Chuck Warren: [00:01:53] Or does your wife feel outnumbered in the house or everybody knows who's really in charge there?

Congressman Moore: [00:01:58] They know who's in charge. But she. I actually wanted the girl more. Uh, ironically enough, I think if we were to have had a girl, it would have been she. She would have definitely said that was the best thing. But I still am the one that wants the daughter wants the wedding one day to give away the all that stuff. A little bit of a traditionalist there. So I do feel like we never got that girl, but we definitely don't need five boys. So the risk of going for any more is going to be way, way out.

Chuck Warren: [00:02:30] You're not you're not taking that to Vegas. Um, so how do you handle the travel with four young boys and take it? Your family lives in the district in Utah. How do you handle your travel back and forth?

Congressman Moore: [00:02:40] Fortunately, I'm about 15 minutes from the airport, and we have direct flights from Salt Lake. So that is a uniquely special thing we can have direct to DC. So that cuts down. I have colleagues from North Dakota, Iowa, some places in Texas, they're an hour, hour and a half away from an airport. Then they're taking a layover. It can always be worse for you. And so my mindset is, one, it could always be worse. I have it pretty, pretty good. Um, think of what some of our military folks go through and the time they spend away from their family and, and, you know, the duty and honor that they do in their life and their service is more honorable, I think, than than what we do in Congress. But it is a fight in Congress. And and it is it is a sacred position. So, um, other folks have always sacrificed more. I think that's how I look at it. My wife deals with it. She she said to me when I first ran, Now listen, if you win, which I don't think you will, you when you win, you can't give me a hard time or make any of those snide comments you do. When we budget together, you can't be passive aggressive about babysitting costs. You just have to you just have to take it and you have to deal with it and not give me a hard time. And you let me own that.

Sam Stone: [00:03:53] And Congressman, we could feel bad for you. But we've had the member from Guam on this show and there's nobody who's got a travel schedule as rough as that Poor guy.

Congressman Moore: [00:04:02] Exactly.

Chuck Warren: [00:04:03] Um, quickly here, tell us a little bit about your work with small business. Is there any bills you're sponsoring on it?

Congressman Moore: [00:04:09] So in 2017, Republicans, you know, went at it alone. They used the budget reconciliation process, which allows you to pass a bill without, you know, by bypassing the filibuster when you have the White House, House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats both do this often. Sometimes that leads to big legislation that you wouldn't otherwise do or be able to do given the filibuster. But, um. They they they did the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. And in that tax cut, Jobs Act was a lot of things. And it is our job now and we're in a different political environment. So we're not going to be able to do that same thing over again and re-up everything that's in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act because it's not a political reality. Right. The things that expired, the Democrats aren't going to go on board with. But there are issues. There are there are provisions inside that bill that we have to be able to look back and say, what has worked, what has driven growth, and the Small Business Growth Act that we put together that was passed out of the committee just a few weeks ago, something we're really excited about. And basically it doubles your ability to take itemized deductions on capital improvements, farm equipment, office equipment and just things that you're investing in your own business. A major piece of manufacturing. If you can write all.

Chuck Warren: [00:05:25] These all these things, that creates productivity and jobs, correct? Exactly. We're going to take a quick break here with Congressman Blake Moore. Utah's first Congressional District. He sits on the House Ways and Means Committee. This is breaking battlegrounds. You can find us at breaking battlegrounds. Vote. We'll be right back.

Sam Stone: [00:00:11] Welcome back to.

Sam Stone: [00:00:12] Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Continuing on the line with us, Congressman Blake Moore from Utah's first Congressional District here in just a moment. But folks, are you struggling with stock market volatility right now, especially with Joe Biden in office? What if you could invest in a portfolio with a high fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market? A portfolio where you know what each monthly statement will look like with no surprises, you can turn your monthly income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There's no loss of principle. If you need your money back at any time, your interest is compounded daily, you're paid monthly. There are no fees. And this is a secure collateralized portfolio that delivers a fixed rate of return up to 10.25%, up to 10.25%. It's the best deal out there in investing right now. Check out our friends at Invest Y Refy.com That's invest the letter Y. The letter Y, then Refy.com or give them a call at 888 Y Refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Okay, Chuck Continuing on with Congressman Moore. Congressman, are you familiar with the proposal that I believe it's Congressman Schweikert here from Arizona has put up to increase the minimum before businesses have to file a 1099 for contract employees and the like from I believe it's currently $600 or 800 up to 5000. Talking to a lot of small business owners, that's the kind of simple thing that would make their lives massively easier. Is that something that that you're looking to support and that others should be talking about more? Because I heard a little about it and then it seems to have disappeared.

Congressman Moore: [00:01:47] It's absolutely yeah, I know about it. We passed it in the the economic package a few weeks ago. This is the this is an opportunity to that the chairman, Chairman Smith wanted us to go out into, you know, regular America, not just inside the Beltway and do some and do some public hearings. And this is one of the things that rang true and kind of highlighted to us. Well, we need to really be focused on this. This is like listening to, you know, everyday Americans running their businesses. This is what we learn from them. And we're like this. This was set years and years ago. And if you would have just adjust for inflation, it would go up. That's how you get with the regulatory body. It becomes archaic and you don't create opportunities to be dynamic within the system. So it's a no brainer in my opinion. It's an overly burdensome. And I think the best example is the Chairman Smith, who still runs a small family farm. If someone comes and bails hay for him, like every like high school senior that comes and bails hay for, you know, ten bucks an hour, they end up having to do a full 1099. That is not the intent. So up the threshold, still holding people accountable. This isn't where the all the tax evaders are doing a bunch of high school seniors. This is not where it is. And babysitters like.

Sam Stone: [00:02:58] No smarter.

Congressman Moore: [00:02:59] Than our economy.

Sam Stone: [00:03:00] The tax evaders tend to be in much higher tax brackets than people who are filing a few thousand dollars in a 1099. Exactly right. One of the things that I think has been a good focus within this Congress and this touches on it, but is and it seems like we could at least find some more room with Democrats to agree on. This is going through some of these archaic rules and saying, hey, does this really still work or does it need to be adjusted or does it need to be replaced or gotten rid of it? Deregulating in a way that doesn't reduce oversight is very possible, isn't it?

Congressman Moore: [00:03:35] Yeah, it's very possible. And we need to be adults back in Washington and find those simplistic things we can address on in the Ways and Means Committee. Right now, trade is largely bipartisan and we actually have really good collaborative work together. We do on that. Taxation has become so toxic that I feel that I fear people aren't looking at the big picture. And and if you take an individual piece, I think you got a lot of agreement, but it's how you move it forward. And that's the thing I don't think Americans necessarily understand well enough is, yeah, we agree on a lot of things, but then how you move the package forward, do you tie it to something else that's less popular and try to get more support? That's where we've got to get to more single issue voting that would make everything run more smoothly back there.

Chuck Warren: [00:04:24] Well, that's absolutely right. We've often wondered and we talked to various members and they all say, yes, you're correct, Why don't you push more single issue? So, for example, here's one we had a former attorney here who worked on the border and she suggesting, for example, an immigration bill that says unless you come through a port of entry and there's about 327 of them, some of them in the United States, unless you come through a port of entry, you're immediately denied asylum. You need to come through the front door. Right? Right. There needs to be a process that seems like a pretty easy bill. If somebody just submitted that issue alone, one pager, it gets through.

Sam Stone: [00:04:57] From an Arizona perspective. It separates the wolves from the sheep. Right. Because the wolves will keep going through.

Chuck Warren: [00:05:02] So why don't so so, Congressman, more why don't they do that more?

Congressman Moore: [00:05:08] I, i, i. It would make so many things better in our legislative experience. Um. I. Immigration particularly has become a wedge issue. I don't know how else to put it. For 40 years, we've had people that want to to build the right type of policy. You either have to do one of two things on immigration and I'll be brief. You either have to do what we're talking about, make it very simplistic, and tie it together or make it more comprehensive. And and I think people want to get like halfway comprehensive, like I'm supportive of of truly looking at DACA and a visa system that makes sense and is streamlined and gets more workers here. I want more workers here. My district desperately needs more good workforce here, and that can come from a more streamlined immigration. But if we do all if we do that before we tighten up the border process, then the cartels will just be the cartels will be empowered. So you have to build a more comprehensive approach. I do like what Maria Salazar is doing in that comprehensive piece. I just don't think we're we're not ready for it right now because as Republicans, we want to make sure that you see the first part done, and that is the good policy remain in Mexico policy and tighten up the border security. And then we'll get plenty of people on board for for for streamlining it. But it's it's a conundrum and it's a wedge issue. And that's that's and we're not living up to what the Americans need. Every single person back in Washington isn't isn't living up to what they need.

Chuck Warren: [00:06:37] So, Congressman Moore, let's talk about a simpler issue. And I say that sarcastically. You're on the House Ways and Means Committee. What do we do about Social Security? I mean, it's a ticking time bomb. People are not being honest about the reform. I have not heard any Republican to say, yeah, we're going to cut benefits now. We've made promise to some people currently retired and those close to retirement that need to be upheld. But what do we need to do for a workforce in their 20s and 30s who are going to have 80 plus year, you know, longevity? What do we do?

Congressman Moore: [00:07:06] We took the best first step, last, last session of Congress. The 117th passed the secure 2.0 bill. Secure 2.0 will allow for younger workers to have an extra five or so years saving for retirement. If you are paying down your student loan, say you've graduated from grad school, you're 25 years old and you start paying down your student loan, you you oftentimes have to choose between paying down your student loan or contributing to your 401. K. Your company can. Now, if you are if you're paying your student loan down and a big, big win in Scotus today about the student loan repayment, we can get into that but the company can now contribute on your behalf even if you're not putting in your own match. So we're going to start having people save for retirement much earlier. Um, and that that will.

Sam Stone: [00:07:53] That's a great step, Congressman. And thank you. I mean, it's the.

Congressman Moore: [00:07:57] Right it's the right step. It had over 400 votes in Congress in the House to pass. Very bipartisan. It's productive. We we have to create other incentives that you do probably have to means test Social Security going forward. We got people getting it that really have that don't really they don't really need it. And they could actually probably delay if they were to be willing to take it in case they lived longer just to offset that risk. So there's all sorts of productive ways we can be doing this without just saying we need to tax more because we have a worker to retirement work ratio issue and we've known it's been coming. I will say this retroactively, if we would have done what President Bush had tried to push, tried to do, we would have been putting money instead of just into a, you know, a government low yield bond like the trust fund. We would have been putting money into mutual funds. And and Dems Democrats will always say, oh, you're privatizing it. You just want to help your Wall Street buddies. That's fundamentally false. And they know it and it's dishonest. If we would have done that, we would have been able to grow the amount of money that we have to contribute to that. Over the last 20 years, would anybody not choose to put money into an S&P 520 years ago? Absolutely not. It was closing at 900 and today it's closing at 4000. Stock markets go up into the right generally over time. They always have. If we don't if we're not willing to trust that, then we're not going to be able to to to to do that. So there's all sorts of things out there that could be doing and we're stuck in stagnation. And if we don't do something in the next ten years to truly address this issue, then, you know, we are we are literally dooming people to having far fewer, you know, 75% of the benefit automatically kicks in. So we're doing them regardless.

Sam Stone: [00:09:41] It's a it's a really dishonest talking point, Chuck, to say that the market is somehow robbing people because over any 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 year period, the market may go up or down. But over any ten year period in US history, over 20 years, 50 years, it always goes up. Well, it's even more.

Congressman Moore: [00:09:58] Look at all these Ivy League schools with their endowments, right? They're out there. They're out there engaging in growth opportunities, in market opportunities. And and I don't hear any Democrats complaining about all these Ivy leagues that are that are, you know, using their endowments to to cover their expenses. And they're doing a they're doing a fabulous job. And they're also very profitable. And we could be doing that more with with the government. I think Senator Cassidy, I believe, has got some really good proposals that that way it's tougher now because we just don't the trust fund is in such a dire it's in a more dire situation than it was back in the early 2000 when when President George W Bush wanted to push this more. It's just disingenuous.

Sam Stone: [00:10:39] And I'm really glad, Congressman, that you brought up means testing, because I've heard too many politicians be afraid of that. But I've never talked to anyone who was rich who cared. No, you know, I mean, honestly, if you're rich, the amount you're going to get from Social Security is so minimal that it takes an actual Scrooge to care about whether they're going to get that money at that point, that that's just the way it is.

Congressman Moore: [00:11:02] And what wealthy people want to see is good money going after good. If they're good, money is going after complete government waste. And right now we have just too much government spending and people are like, well, geez, I would love to be contributing to paying down our debt. If I knew that it was going to actually make a difference. But if it's not making a difference, then they shouldn't. So so I kind of see it both ways. But you're right, you've been saying and I think you can offset the risk by saying, I don't need to engage in this for, you know, if I live past I'm 80 or, you know, at 78, I will defer that to that point. There's no real serious conversations going on. It's more so just a little bit of of the latter. And, you know, Republicans had a chance to do it in 2017 and they they deferred and they President Trump wanted to wait till he was in his second term. And it's so ironic right now. I'm a guy that can call it both ways to see President Trump criticize House Republicans, trying to say we're out there trying to get rid of Social Security. That is also disingenuous and it's all political and it's just kind of lobbying for older people's votes. And that's that's not what that's not being an adult back there as not good.

Sam Stone: [00:12:08] Governance, that's.

Chuck Warren: [00:12:09] For sure. Governance at all. We have two minutes left here. So we're coming up on the July 4th weekend. Tell our audience what this holiday means to you. And specifically, what is your hope and vision for America ten, 20 years down the road?

Congressman Moore: [00:12:24] Oh, thank you. I love that question. I really appreciate you focusing on that. You know, it's not just a talking point or a feel good statement, but but God, country and family, they really do mean a lot. And they should be. What everybody what we root ourselves in for this holiday is is family. For me, I've always been able to find time to boat, to golf, to to to something outdoors. We're not great campers. We got young kids still. But like in Utah, like this holiday matters. And there's always time to to find opportunities to to be with family. And I love it. And Utah is a unique place because you have the 4th of July and then you have the 24th of July. And that's our sort of a holiday when the Pioneers came into to Utah. So we call it Pioneer Day. And so there's a lot of fireworks, a lot of God country and family in this place. And my my honest vision for America is to recognize that we have some we have policy differences. Um, but if we let those policy differences divide us continually and if we if that moves into constant personality and division, then China wins, Russia wins, our adversaries win. And we don't have the strength that we have and what we've led the world on over the over the last century. And my vision is to to be firm on where I'm at policy, defend it, try to persuade, and then look for opportunities to to unite our nation more so than than I feel like we are right now.

Chuck Warren: [00:14:04] Congressman, we have 15 seconds with you. Where can people follow you on social media?

Congressman Moore: [00:14:09] Electmoore.com Is my website or just go to rep Blakemore There's uh, I can't remember. So there's campaign and there's but rep Blakemore on all my socials. Uh, and we would love, would love to follow.

Chuck Warren: [00:14:24] Congressman Moore, Utah's first Congressional District. Thanks for joining us. Have a great 4th of July. This is breaking battlegrounds. We'll be back after this break.

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