Speaker 1: I'm thrilled today to be joined by state Representative Gloria Johnson,
Speaker 1: who is running against Marshall Blackburn from the Great State
Speaker 1: of Tennessee for the United States Senate.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: Gloria Johnson is from eastern Tennessee from the city of Knoxville,
Speaker 1: represents that area in the state legislature. We're thrilled to
Speaker 1: have per with us today on the warning as we
Speaker 1: continue to bring unfiltered some of the leading Democrats in
Speaker 1: the country who unfortunately you're not going to see much
Speaker 1: on the Acela court or media because they are not
Speaker 1: incumbents yet in the United States Senate. So when you're
Speaker 1: a challenger running against an incumbent, it's a hard road.
Speaker 1: But when you're more than one hundred days out Gloria
Speaker 1: Johnson in a tight race behind but in striking distance,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be like Trump in this business
Speaker 1: where you have your best day one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: days before the election. You want to have it on
Speaker 1: election Day. And you know one thing I would say,
Speaker 1: you know to Tennessee voters that are that are listening.
Speaker 1: I said this to John McCain as he was climbing
Speaker 1: back from being in last place and I mean dead
Speaker 1: last in the Republican primaries in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: go into two thousand and eight, was that we needed
Speaker 1: to be ahead on exactly one day, and that was
Speaker 1: election Day, and we needed to be up on the
Speaker 1: top of the mountain on that day. Now, election day
Speaker 1: starts a little earlier these days in that there's early
Speaker 1: voting and all of that stuff, which warning viewers are
Speaker 1: familiar with. But no matter all of that, Gloria Johnson
Speaker 1: has momentum them and she's running against really a person
Speaker 1: that it astonishes the imagination that the very same state
Speaker 1: that would send Al Gore Senior to the United States Senate,
Speaker 1: Al Gore Junior to the United States Senate, Howard Baker
Speaker 1: to the United States Senate Lemoar Alexander to the United
Speaker 1: States Senate Fred Thompson to the United States Senate.
Speaker 2: Bill Frist to the United States Senate.
Speaker 1: People of astonishing character, astonishing accomplishment, astonishing intellect both parties.
Speaker 1: You get Marsha Blackburn, whose list of crazy statements is
Speaker 1: longer than the Mississippi River. And with that, it's really
Speaker 1: my pleasure to introduce someone who represents better for Tennessee,
Speaker 1: which is important because Tennessee is a vital state of
Speaker 1: the Union, one of the great states of our Union,
Speaker 1: a really special, vibrant, a live place in America, center
Speaker 1: of our American culture, the beating heart in many ways
Speaker 1: musically of our American civilization.
Speaker 2: Gloria Johnson, welcome to the warning.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're going to correct that mistake in the Senate this
Speaker 3: election cycle in November. So we are excited about that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I ran Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: which was a terrible Republican year. We won decisively by
Speaker 1: seventeen points. So you can do this in Tennessee. This
Speaker 1: is good news for you now that Kamala Harris is
Speaker 1: on top of the ticket. It's energized Democrats, it will
Speaker 1: energize women voters, young women voters, energized black voters to
Speaker 1: turn out. So all of these things are are good
Speaker 1: for you at a foundation level, because you know, politics
Speaker 1: isn't fair.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you have the wind with you.
Speaker 1: At your back, and other times you have the wind
Speaker 1: blowing into you, holding you back. And and so if
Speaker 1: it's a you're a Democrat in Tennessee right after the
Speaker 1: after the debate, not good news. You're in a you're
Speaker 1: in a much better position. But you're running against a
Speaker 1: very polarizing, very weak, really very strange woman, a very
Speaker 1: extreme woman who says a lot of crazy things, who
Speaker 1: and so very recently in American life, right, we just
Speaker 1: have been found unfit.
Speaker 2: Right that, Hey, we.
Speaker 1: Want to put you know, this person into the Senate
Speaker 1: in no way. But you know, she's a Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 1: Green of sorts, really a predecessor, you know, but deeply
Speaker 1: linked to her like jd.
Speaker 2: Vance is, you.
Speaker 1: Know, out there out there on the on the French
Speaker 1: antithetical to kind of the tradition of statesmanship and stateswomen
Speaker 1: out of the state of Tennessee. But how are you
Speaker 1: going to beat her? How are you going at her?
Speaker 1: Tell us your story, introduce yourself, and just take as
Speaker 1: long as you as you want, because we're gonna ask
Speaker 1: everybody watching to send money and support and get involved
Speaker 1: in the campaign.
Speaker 3: Sure, absolutely, Well, you know, I decide I've been in
Speaker 3: the state House for eight years. I've gone back and forth.
Speaker 3: They've redistricted my district once I want it, after it
Speaker 3: went from a plus two d district to a plus
Speaker 3: twelve R district. I'm one of just a handful of
Speaker 3: folks in Tennessee who have flipped a red seat multiple times.
Speaker 3: Because this last time, they jerrymandered just my block out
Speaker 3: of my precinct and put it into the only other
Speaker 3: Democratic seat in Knoxville, and they thought I would run
Speaker 3: against my colleague, which I refused to do. So I
Speaker 3: moved six blocks back into the district I'd lived in
Speaker 3: for thirty years that they had redrawn so I couldn't
Speaker 3: win it, and I won it again. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'd been thinking about this from January of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: I just thought, you know, Tennessee, which many in the
Speaker 3: country saw a little over a year ago when we
Speaker 3: had to go to the Well and speak to the
Speaker 3: thousands of folks who showed up from the Covenant shooting.
Speaker 3: After the Covenant shooting where we lost three students and
Speaker 3: three staff members, the thousands just gathered at the Capitol,
Speaker 3: and it was Covenant families, but it was also families
Speaker 3: from Boxville who were tired of gun violence, families from
Speaker 3: Memphis who were tired of gun violence. It was students,
Speaker 3: it was parents, it was grandparents, it was teachers, and
Speaker 3: they gathered by the thousands every day, and the legislature,
Speaker 3: the Republicans refused to acknowledge them. They just refused to
Speaker 3: allow us to do and we have welcoming and honoring
Speaker 3: every morning. On that particular day, they did not have
Speaker 3: welcoming and honoring. We had gotten there early, parents had
Speaker 3: showed up. We started at nine. I got there about
Speaker 3: seven thirty just to talk to the parents who were
Speaker 3: showing up to see how they were feeling, and mothers
Speaker 3: with tears in their eyes just told me I just
Speaker 3: dropped my kids at school. I hope they're safe when
Speaker 3: I go to pick them up or when I go
Speaker 3: to meet the bus. This is a community that was
Speaker 3: hurting so badly. And then when my Republican colleagues walked
Speaker 3: past them onto the house floor, they wouldn't even make
Speaker 3: eye contact with them, just not even acknowledge that they
Speaker 3: were there. And so we felt very strongly about being
Speaker 3: able to acknowledge, being able to tell them that we
Speaker 3: saw them and we heard them, and we cared about
Speaker 3: their issues, and we were going to fight for guns
Speaker 3: since legislation, and either we were not called on or
Speaker 3: our mics were cut every time we tried to speak
Speaker 3: to that and just recognize that they were there. And
Speaker 3: so finally we just decided to go to the well.
Speaker 3: And just the fact the way people showed up and
Speaker 3: continued to show up gave us hope, really for the
Speaker 3: first time in a really tough legislature where democratic norms
Speaker 3: were just being just being put by the side, you know,
Speaker 3: not having debate on bills, not calling on people, cutting
Speaker 3: people's microphone just because you didn't like what they said.
Speaker 3: This is not how the process is supposed to work.
Speaker 3: And people all over the country, not just Tennessee, and
Speaker 3: saw that. And so what happened in those days that
Speaker 3: everyone gathered together, all the thousands of people, they turned
Speaker 3: into a movement, or it boosted a movement that was
Speaker 3: already rolling sort of under the surface, but it just
Speaker 3: blew it up. And so all of these people that
Speaker 3: came from all over they sang together, they chanted together,
Speaker 3: they ordered pizza and had lunch together, They talked to
Speaker 3: each other and about the things that they cared about,
Speaker 3: and just really committed to support each other on through
Speaker 3: to this election. And so we've been building that movement
Speaker 3: and building that momentum and people it's a multi racial,
Speaker 3: multi generational, and multipartisan movement. I had fifty Republicans at
Speaker 3: might kickoff. That doesn't happen, and we have a lot
Speaker 3: of Republicans and independence on board, and just knew that
Speaker 3: if we wanted to fix things in Tennessee, we needed
Speaker 3: someone running at the top of the ticket who was
Speaker 3: going to speak to Democratic values, get that message out
Speaker 3: statewide and help flip some of these down ballot House
Speaker 3: and Senate seats as well as winning a US Senate
Speaker 3: seat for a Democrat. And we are absolutely going to
Speaker 3: do that. People say that a Democrat can't win in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: We are not a red state. We're a non voting state.
Speaker 3: We are typically fiftieth or fifty first in voter turnout.
Speaker 3: Marshall Blackburn won in twenty eighteen by two hundred thousand votes.
Speaker 3: There are three hundred thousand Democratic voters who haven't voted
Speaker 3: the last few cycles because they think their vote doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: We're talking to those voters. We're not operating on the
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen maps. Demographics are changing in Tennessee and we
Speaker 3: are going to get those three hundred thousand voters out
Speaker 3: because they recognize how important this is we win by
Speaker 3: expanding the map, getting those voters to the polls. And
Speaker 3: when we do that, we win this US Senate race.
Speaker 3: Plus we flip down ballot House seats and state Senate seats.
Speaker 3: And that's what we're going to do. And they're helping
Speaker 3: us along the way. I mean, when you look at
Speaker 3: the top of the ticket in the Republican Party, you've
Speaker 3: got an adjudicated rapist who has been convicted of thirty
Speaker 3: four felonies. And then you've got and then you've got
Speaker 3: a vice president christ presidential candidate who believes women should
Speaker 3: stay with their abusers and also believes in a federal
Speaker 3: abortion ban and things women without children are useless to society.
Speaker 3: And then you've got Marsha Blackburn, who voted against the
Speaker 3: violence against women at voted against equil pay for women,
Speaker 3: believes in a federal abortion of van and even questions
Speaker 3: Griswold versus Connecticuts and the decision that gave us access
Speaker 3: to birth control. It is remarkable that three that these
Speaker 3: three folks think that women are going to vote for them,
Speaker 3: And the reality is this puts Tennessee women and girls
Speaker 3: in grave danger. We have one of the strictest abortion
Speaker 3: bands in the country. We only have an exception for
Speaker 3: ectopic and molar pregnancies and dead fetuses. That's it. The
Speaker 3: rest for life of the mother not covered. Rapid incests
Speaker 3: not covered. Tennessee forces a ten year old girl to
Speaker 3: carry her rapist baby. Tennessee forces a woman. They give
Speaker 3: more rights to a violent rapist. A violent rapist has
Speaker 3: the right to choose the mother of their child, but
Speaker 3: a woman can't choose not have a rapist baby. This
Speaker 3: is what Tennessee is like. And here in this state,
Speaker 3: we have got more than one third of our county
Speaker 3: of our state with no obgyn. We've got a third
Speaker 3: to a half of the state with no delivery room.
Speaker 3: That ten year old girl could be an hour and
Speaker 3: a half away from a hospital or an obgyn. And
Speaker 3: we know that children in carrying a pregnancy are two
Speaker 3: times more likely to die than adult women in a pregnancy,
Speaker 3: and in Tennessee's one of the highest states with maternal mortality.
Speaker 3: That they're putting women and girls in danger in the state,
Speaker 3: and they don't think we're going to get to the polls.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a different story for Tennessee this year.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that.
Speaker 1: On the ground, the extremism of all of this with
Speaker 1: actual women without giving a speech about it. I did
Speaker 1: the Ken Ryan campaign. I was deeply in It's the
Speaker 1: best political campaign I've ever ever been involved in. It
Speaker 1: was flawless campaign. The team that ran it did an
Speaker 1: extraordinary job. Brandon Hall, the media consultant, Da've Chased, the
Speaker 1: campaign manager, took the Republicans fifty seven million dollars in
Speaker 1: spending to defeat Tim, who had jd Vance defeated by
Speaker 1: August of Schumer had spent five million on the race
Speaker 1: in that campaign, at the top of the ticket went
Speaker 1: down by twenty six points and Tim went down by five. Right,
Speaker 1: So meaning if the race goes seventeen eighteen, jd Vance
Speaker 1: isn't isn't in the Senate and you're you're in the
Speaker 1: You're at the top of the ticket in this race,
Speaker 1: so you can clearly talk about this. So I'm struck
Speaker 1: by this, which is, and you think about this election
Speaker 1: as somebody who's talked about these issues for nine years,
Speaker 1: I can't think of an alchemy a mix of things
Speaker 1: to say to the ladies to more directly and better
Speaker 1: improve on what you said, which is that you have
Speaker 1: a power that you have not used that now is
Speaker 1: the time to use. It's the time to use this power.
Speaker 1: If you can't persuade women eighteen years of age, twenty
Speaker 1: years of age, I have a twenty year old. A
Speaker 1: lot of the college kids making fun of Biden's age
Speaker 1: on TikTok, which blurs the difference in the celebrity laden
Speaker 1: culture between the threat and the celebrity. And it's just
Speaker 1: one more kind of reality show, Michi goos as opposed
Speaker 1: to a deep threat that you just articulated.
Speaker 2: I just when you see women.
Speaker 1: Who are undecided and confused about the race, about these
Speaker 1: about these issues, what is it that you say to
Speaker 1: them persuasively that you don't belong with this crowd in
Speaker 1: a quasi religious cult, right taping pantages to the side
Speaker 1: of your head, venerating this messianic figure right now, who's
Speaker 1: a convicted felon, the worst president in American history, also
Speaker 1: too old to be president at seventy eight to eighty two.
Speaker 1: But what do you say to them, right to women
Speaker 1: as a as a woman, about a woman who's clearly
Speaker 1: on the side of all of this insanity.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that a lot of women have made
Speaker 3: this decision already. I mean a lot of women I
Speaker 3: didn't have have to convince, They've already come over. That's
Speaker 3: why I'm beating Marsha forty nine to forty three percent
Speaker 3: with women is because they're getting it. But mostly I
Speaker 3: have the conversation because I think of it in terms
Speaker 3: as equality. Women aren't equal if we don't have bodily autonomy.
Speaker 3: And sometimes when I talk to women and make that statement,
Speaker 3: they think, oh, I never thought of it that way.
Speaker 3: That you know, we are not equal. We are second
Speaker 3: class citizens if we do not have autonomy over our
Speaker 3: own body. These are decisions that need to be made
Speaker 3: with a woman and her doctor, her family, her god,
Speaker 3: you know, but not a legislature in the doctor's office
Speaker 3: or the governor in the doctor's office. And they really
Speaker 3: understand that, I mean they really understand. And you also
Speaker 3: talk about if we want to decrease the number of
Speaker 3: unwanted pregnancies, but we've got to be serious about in
Speaker 3: this state, we have an expanded Medicaid give women access
Speaker 3: to affordable health care, so they're not seeing the doctor
Speaker 3: the first time when they find out they're pregnant. You know,
Speaker 3: they will if they're going to a doctor throughout their life.
Speaker 3: They're going to know more about their health. Are they
Speaker 3: healthy enough to carry a pregnancy? All of these things.
Speaker 3: But since we don't give all women access to health care,
Speaker 3: they're not necessarily healthy when they get pregnant. And so
Speaker 3: if we want to be sure that we want to
Speaker 3: make sure they have access to health care, we want
Speaker 3: to make sure women have access to contraception. I brought
Speaker 3: a bill this past year in the legislature which is
Speaker 3: a right to contraception an IVF, and not a single
Speaker 3: Republican voted for it. They say they're not trying to
Speaker 3: take it, but we have them on tape in a
Speaker 3: pro Publica article. They got a tape of the Right
Speaker 3: to life folks in Tennessee legislator, and in that tape
Speaker 3: they said, let it die down about Dobbs and then
Speaker 3: we'll start talking about contraception, and if we don't need
Speaker 3: to do that right now. So we've already heard them
Speaker 3: in private saying that they were coming after it. So
Speaker 3: they can lie all they want, but I'm going to
Speaker 3: call them out on their lives. Marcia Blackburn has told
Speaker 3: the same lot. She voted against contraception and IVF in
Speaker 3: the Senate and said, oh, nobody's coming for it. But
Speaker 3: then you've got her on tape questioning Griswolk. So which
Speaker 3: is it?
Speaker 1: Marcia dreamism is well documented? How do you think about
Speaker 1: these national security issues where she has adopted a position
Speaker 1: that is contrary to everybody before now that has represented
Speaker 1: Tennessee in the United States Senate. They'd all be appalled.
Speaker 1: Fred Thompson, who I knew well, would be appalled. Lamar
Speaker 1: Alexander is on the other side of these issues. Vice
Speaker 1: President Gore is a generator, Howard Baker. And so I
Speaker 1: think about when I whenever I see you know, anybody
Speaker 1: who remembers the nineteen eighties, right.
Speaker 2: This is this is the most astonishing thing.
Speaker 1: Howard Baker was obviously a legendary Tennessee senator, statesman, chief
Speaker 1: of staff to President Reagan, and they're negotiating the end
Speaker 1: of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan very tough on the Russians,
Speaker 1: and Marshall Blackburn, when you look at the world, has
Speaker 1: seemed to embrace this philosophy of Trumpian appeasement and isolation.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how you think about it, but
Speaker 1: I want to give you a chance to talk about
Speaker 1: her on these views, these issues in a in a
Speaker 1: very dangerous, dangerous world. But I'll just say before before
Speaker 1: I turn it over to you, I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is a person who doesn't know what she's talking about,
Speaker 1: isn't confident about the issues in the world. And when
Speaker 1: you see the things that come out of her mouth,
Speaker 1: I think it's really demonstrative of how cooned and bubbled
Speaker 1: this club is. Because any person who's anywhere for as
Speaker 1: long as she's been there. Now, right, we can train
Speaker 1: you to be a brain surgeon in six years from right,
Speaker 1: you know, from never having cut into anything but an apple, right,
Speaker 1: you would think you would pick up some of this stuff.
Speaker 1: But she seems immunized to knowledge about how the world
Speaker 1: world works and its interconnectedness.
Speaker 2: And it's silly. And I don't mean.
Speaker 1: This in a chauvinistic way, but I say this as
Speaker 1: someone who's lived in California for decades and somebody who
Speaker 1: grew up on the East coast. Everybody on the coast.
Speaker 1: Tennessee is a mega state with some of the best
Speaker 1: universities in the country, big thriving cities, Nashville's and American megacity.
Speaker 1: This is a giant economy in the world, in the
Speaker 1: in the in the country, and this is a backwards,
Speaker 1: ignorant know nothing. Who's the United States senator that you're
Speaker 1: that you're challenging. And I'd just like you to talk
Speaker 1: about her from the prism of wow, you know, this
Speaker 1: is one of one hundred people in the world making
Speaker 1: life and death votes and decisions about our national security.
Speaker 1: And how far afield she has gone from the tradition
Speaker 1: of moderation in Tennessee and the tradition of common sense
Speaker 1: in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, she's just nowhere close to where the average
Speaker 3: Tennessee and is because I mean, she has been in
Speaker 3: DC for twenty one years, and like you say, hasn't
Speaker 3: learned a thing. That's one of one thing I hear
Speaker 3: a lot from the Republicans. She's been there twenty one years,
Speaker 3: has the same talking points and hasn't done a thing.
Speaker 3: And she doesn't talk to the people either. She hasn't
Speaker 3: had a town hall in seven and a half years.
Speaker 3: The last one she had was pretty disastrous. And so
Speaker 3: this on this tour, I'm going to all ninety five counties.
Speaker 3: My tour dates are posted on my website. Anyone who
Speaker 3: wants to show up can show up and ask questions
Speaker 3: and talk with us. And she's had only closed door
Speaker 3: meetings with county officials that I have heard of. There
Speaker 3: was one event she was supposed to do a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago that was publicized with Republicans at a
Speaker 3: VFW hall, and she didn't show up for that. That's
Speaker 3: the only one I know that was actually out published
Speaker 3: at all where people could come, and she didn't show up,
Speaker 3: and they said she had struck throat. So I don't
Speaker 3: know where she is. I don't know what she's doing,
Speaker 3: but she's not talking to the people. And yesterday I
Speaker 3: was in four different counties. I started. I started in
Speaker 3: Overton County, then I went to White County, and then
Speaker 3: Cannon County and then Rutherford County and talked well over
Speaker 3: one hundred people yesterday in all of those counties about
Speaker 3: the things that concern them and about the things that
Speaker 3: they care about. And she just hasn't been seen, Like
Speaker 3: you say, she's in a bubble. I find out with
Speaker 3: my colleagues in my Republican college in the legislature, I
Speaker 3: think they go to Republican meetings and church and that's it.
Speaker 3: In my whole day, I talked to Republicans all day long.
Speaker 3: Because I live in East Tennessee. If I'm talking to
Speaker 3: my family or if I'm talking to folks in East Tennessee,
Speaker 3: I'm spending a lot of my time talking to Republicans.
Speaker 3: So I listen to people. I want to listen to
Speaker 3: what people have to say. But here's the interesting thing.
Speaker 3: They want to paint me as this extremist. But the
Speaker 3: reality is, eighty percent of tennesseean's urban, rural, and suburban
Speaker 3: want to do something about gun sense legislation. They want
Speaker 3: universal background checks, they want safe storage laws, and they
Speaker 3: want red flag laws. Eighty percent of Tennesseeans agree on
Speaker 3: that you couldn't talk about guns in Tennessee, but now
Speaker 3: you better talk about gun sense legislation. And then with
Speaker 3: women with abortion, the same thing. Eighty percent of people
Speaker 3: in Tennessee, urban, rural, suburban, all parties want abortion care
Speaker 3: at some level. We don't all agree on where the
Speaker 3: line may be, but eighty percent want that care at
Speaker 3: some level. And she does not, and neither do the
Speaker 3: supermajority in the state legislature. They are the extremists. Sixty
Speaker 3: eighty one percent want cannabis medical cannabis. Sixty percent want
Speaker 3: recreational cannabis. They won't even discuss it. Marcia Blackburn gets
Speaker 3: more money from the NRA than I think anybody you know,
Speaker 3: certainly from Tennessee, ever did, But she's one of the
Speaker 3: top receivers of those dollars. She also voted against capping
Speaker 3: insulin at thirty five dollars in the state with one
Speaker 3: of the highest numbers of diabetics per capita. She voted
Speaker 3: against negotiating drug prices for seniors. Tennesseeans have not expanded Medicaid.
Speaker 3: People are struggling with their health care. She voted to
Speaker 3: repeal the ACA multiple times. She is not she is
Speaker 3: the extremists, She is not on board, and she is
Speaker 3: not even trying, it seems, to get out and talk
Speaker 3: to the regular folks that she's supposed to represent. She lies, consistently,
Speaker 3: makes horrible, this de bigoted statements with no facts whatsoever
Speaker 3: to back it up. Somebody said, Gloria, you need to
Speaker 3: counter every one of our lives. I said, good grief,
Speaker 3: we'd have to add three people to our staff. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's remarkable. I talk to people. Old politicians lie. We
Speaker 3: should not expect our expect politicians to lie, our elected
Speaker 3: officials to lie. We should be held to a higher
Speaker 3: standard of telling the truth, having integrity, and being transparent
Speaker 3: about what we're doing. But in Tennessee men they want
Speaker 3: to do everything behind closed doors. Well that's the question.
Speaker 3: Our primary is August first, so we will see after
Speaker 3: the primary if she is going to debate me, and
Speaker 3: certainly we're going to be asking for debates. We will
Speaker 3: drag her if she won't debate, because it just it
Speaker 3: has to be done. She should be able to get
Speaker 3: before the people and answer some tough questions. I'm ready
Speaker 3: to do it. She's been there twenty one years. If
Speaker 3: she can't answer these questions, she doesn't need to be there.
Speaker 3: I say that all the time about the State House
Speaker 3: where I serve, and when we had orientation, the leader
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party actually told us, well, you can
Speaker 3: use your badge to get into the secret hallways so
Speaker 3: you don't have to talk to press and constituents who
Speaker 3: are in the hallways if you don't want to. And
Speaker 3: all I could think was, I'm not using some secret
Speaker 3: hallway working around behind the scenes. I came there, I
Speaker 3: was elected by the people. They need to know what
Speaker 3: I'm doing. I need to talk about what I'm bringing,
Speaker 3: the legislation I'm bringing, I need to answer questions about it,
Speaker 3: And how are they going to know what I'm doing
Speaker 3: if I refuse to talk to the press, or if
Speaker 3: I refuse to talk to constituents. It's remarkable to me
Speaker 3: that everything they want to do, they want to hide
Speaker 3: from the press, and they want to hide from the people.
Speaker 3: I guess if I had the policy and brought the
Speaker 3: policy they did, I'd want to hide to But we
Speaker 3: should expect our elected officials to be upfront, to answer
Speaker 3: questions and be transparent about what they are doing.
Speaker 1: Representative Johnson, have you ever used the secret passage?
Speaker 2: I would use it all the time.
Speaker 1: I would still talk to the people, but I would
Speaker 1: use it all the time.
Speaker 3: I've just shown it to people and I one time
Speaker 3: there was a voucher vote and there was somebody back
Speaker 3: in those hallways pulling the strings. I went back to
Speaker 3: see who was full of the strengths.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 1: I would do a hybrid approach. I would let me
Speaker 1: let me ask you this question. So the Republican high
Speaker 1: card right as far as an issue where they are
Speaker 1: on the right side of majority opinion in the country
Speaker 1: is on the question of the border, and I had
Speaker 1: a I had a consistent position on this personally, going
Speaker 1: back to the nineties, right, I was always a very
Speaker 1: pro immigration Republican and the deal that I always supported
Speaker 1: Bush McCain, the Kennedy compromise, you know, was that you
Speaker 1: had a population in the country illegally. They were here
Speaker 1: illegally because they were let in without much difficulty, and
Speaker 1: everybody understood that the labor market required this workforce that
Speaker 1: was there. People wanted the border secured, they didn't want
Speaker 1: anyone punished, and.
Speaker 2: They just couldn't get it done in Washington.
Speaker 1: You have, whatever the number may be, the biggest issue
Speaker 1: that the Republicans have to go at a Democrat in
Speaker 1: a red state, right in terms of its most recent
Speaker 1: dispositions electorally, is immigration. So what do you say about
Speaker 1: immigration about the border, and do you recognize as a
Speaker 1: Democrat how important honesty is as an issue. And I'll
Speaker 1: give you two examples. When Senator Menandez is arrested gold
Speaker 1: Barson in the jacket, Chuck Schumer responds, he's been a
Speaker 1: great representative for the people in New Jersey, Right, you know,
Speaker 1: say that it's a native New Jersey. And when when
Speaker 1: Alexander Myorci says border's never been more secure, you understand,
Speaker 1: Or you're a center on TV who was looking at
Speaker 1: Biden the aftermath of debate, usually now he's the wisest
Speaker 1: guy in the land. He's never looked better. That you
Speaker 1: lose honesty as an issue to a side filled with
Speaker 1: extreme fascists who run on an architecture of LIFs. How
Speaker 1: how important that is? And I just I just wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think that I would I would not
Speaker 3: feel the same development in this, you know. I think
Speaker 3: that it doesn't matter when our guys break the law.
Speaker 3: Their guys break the law. You've broken the law, and
Speaker 3: that's the way it is. I think we do need
Speaker 3: to definitely be honest about that. I think that that's
Speaker 3: critically important, and to be honest about the fact that
Speaker 3: we do have a serious situation at the border and
Speaker 3: we do need to fix it. But the thing is
Speaker 3: we can't.
Speaker 2: And there, like you.
Speaker 3: Talked about, there have been deals in the past, it
Speaker 3: always breaks down, and right now we know that it's
Speaker 3: broken down because they need to use it in this campaign.
Speaker 3: I firmly believe that it is something that gens up
Speaker 3: Tennessee Republicans, but we have to be honest about you know,
Speaker 3: what's really happening. Do we need more security, yes, Have
Speaker 3: we tried to put more security? Yes. I think that
Speaker 3: the last bill that was offered had pretty much everything
Speaker 3: in it the Republican wanted. They had a problem with
Speaker 3: one piece of it, and they were misinterpreting that piece
Speaker 3: as I understand it. But it seems like we can
Speaker 3: at least get some measures going so we can get
Speaker 3: the work started, having to pass the citizenship and also
Speaker 3: making things more secure at the border. And I think
Speaker 3: that there are enough people that should be able to
Speaker 3: come to agreement. Sadly, it may not be you know,
Speaker 3: or it will be after the election. But that's why
Speaker 3: this election is so important. Let's get people in believe
Speaker 3: who believe it actually doing the work and not just
Speaker 3: keeping it out there as an issue to run for
Speaker 3: office on. But we're supposed to be doing the work
Speaker 3: of the people, and the people want solutions. But this idea, oh,
Speaker 3: they're taking our jobs. It's just not true because there
Speaker 3: are so many jobs out there, there are not enough people.
Speaker 3: When on my ninety five County tour. I was just
Speaker 3: in Granger County, Tennessee, and Granger County is famous for tomatoes.
Speaker 3: And three year old immigrant came to my event and
Speaker 3: I asked her what her day was like, and twenty
Speaker 3: three year old young woman, she said, well, she has
Speaker 3: to get her mother to work at the far more.
Speaker 3: She works at six am and then she goes to
Speaker 3: work and then she works until the sun goes down
Speaker 3: at nine o'clock. And I thought, who in Granger County
Speaker 3: wanted that job? You know, I don't think that most people,
Speaker 3: most Americans, would take that job. And there are plenty
Speaker 3: of those jobs to have if they wanted them. The
Speaker 3: reality is folks are coming here, they're working really hard
Speaker 3: at jobs that we desperately need. We don't need our
Speaker 3: plants and our food to die on the vine. And
Speaker 3: so we've got to create that path for folks who
Speaker 3: come in here, come here and are doing everything right.
Speaker 3: But we can also secure the border and do all
Speaker 3: of those things. And that's the type of legislation we
Speaker 3: need to see to solve this problem. But to dehumanize
Speaker 3: and not respect the human dignity of these folks are
Speaker 3: coming over here to improve their lives and work hard
Speaker 3: and love this country, and we have to do better.
Speaker 3: We have to do better for us and for them.
Speaker 3: Because I live I think about growing up. I think
Speaker 3: about even fifteen years ago, twenty years ago. In Tennessee,
Speaker 3: we didn't ask where you came from, We didn't ask
Speaker 3: how you worshiped it, we didn't ask who you loved.
Speaker 3: We just pitched in with our community and helped everybody together,
Speaker 3: working together. It didn't matter if you were different religion,
Speaker 3: it didn't matter if you were a different race. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying there has an in bigotry and racism. There
Speaker 3: has been, but it's been. It was a shameful thing
Speaker 3: to be, you know. But most people just work together
Speaker 3: and didn't care if the fact that two women down
Speaker 3: the street are married has absolutely nothing to do with
Speaker 3: how your family is doing. If your family is struggling,
Speaker 3: it's not because two women down the street are married.
Speaker 3: Your family is struggling because you live an hour and
Speaker 3: a half from a hospital, you don't have access to
Speaker 3: affordable healthcare and affordable prescription drugs, you don't have a
Speaker 3: well resourced classroom from child for your child, and you're
Speaker 3: making minimum wage. In Tennessee, which is the federal bent
Speaker 3: On wage, which is seven twenty five an hour. You're
Speaker 3: working two and three jobs to try to keep food
Speaker 3: on the table. Those folks don't have time to follow politics.
Speaker 3: They're trying to stay alive. They're trying to keep the
Speaker 3: lights on and food on the table. And Marsha Blackburn
Speaker 3: doesn't believe in raising the wage. How do you make
Speaker 3: seven dollars an hour or ten dollars an hour even
Speaker 3: and paid chalk care fifteen dollars an hour hour? The
Speaker 3: math does not work. They have no concern for regular families.
Speaker 3: Marsha Blackburn works for lobbyists in corporations. We just finished
Speaker 3: a quarter of fundraising. More than seventy percent of the
Speaker 3: money I raised comes from Tennessee. Only forty percent of
Speaker 3: the money she raises comes from Tennessee. Much of it
Speaker 3: comes from Texas. Who does she represent? Tennessee Families need help,
Speaker 3: They need someone working for them, not for lobbyists, not
Speaker 3: for big Pharma in the NRA and big oil. That's
Speaker 3: who she's working for.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that. People who spend forty years in
Speaker 1: the United States Senate, and I've been around it as
Speaker 1: an institution, right It's mind blowing. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think about it, right, you know, if it was something
Speaker 1: if I wound up in the US Senate, you think
Speaker 1: about even three terms, right, eighteen years is a long time, right,
Speaker 1: but like you know, twelve years whatever. As you point out, right,
Speaker 1: she's been there for twenty years. She hasn't done the
Speaker 1: town hall in seven and.
Speaker 2: A half years. Why does she do this? Like do
Speaker 2: you ever think about that? Like? What do I can
Speaker 2: tell you that she makes? She makes one hundred sixty
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars a year. What a what a what
Speaker 2: a senator makes?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: She would she would make more as a lobbyist. It's
Speaker 2: a what does she? What does she dig about this?
Speaker 2: What's so great about it?
Speaker 3: You know, I don't she I think you mentioned she's
Speaker 3: an odd person. I mean, we were on we were
Speaker 3: on the same airplane. I had already been seated, and
Speaker 3: I saw this woman walking past, and I was like,
Speaker 3: who is that. I was like, oh, my goodness, that
Speaker 3: is Marsha. And so I thought, well, it's stupid for
Speaker 3: us to be on the same plane and not to
Speaker 3: say hello or anything like that. So as we were
Speaker 3: getting off the plane, I waited at the top of
Speaker 3: the jetway, and you know, she came up and I said, high,
Speaker 3: Senator Blackbird. I just wanted we're running against each other.
Speaker 3: Just wanted to said my name, I said, just wanted
Speaker 3: to say hello. It would be silly for us not
Speaker 3: to say hello when we're sitting on the same plane.
Speaker 3: And she just dared at me and just like, and
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you just not say hello? But
Speaker 3: it was as if she had no idea what to do.
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, you're a US senator, you meet constituents
Speaker 3: all the time. Technically I'm a constituent of hers, and
Speaker 3: she couldn't even say hello, and then she felt so awkward.
Speaker 3: I tried to make light of the situation, and I said, hey,
Speaker 3: why don't we take a picture together and we can
Speaker 3: both both post look who I met on the plane.
Speaker 3: And then she looked at me and she said, oh,
Speaker 3: I can't do that, and start walking away.
Speaker 4: It was just the strangest interaction, you know, and I
Speaker 4: just don't I don't know how you couldn't just stop
Speaker 4: and say hello and make you know, pleasantryce with somebody.
Speaker 3: It was weird to me.
Speaker 1: The answer to that question, I can answer this question,
Speaker 1: answer the why now that I have that information, is
Speaker 1: that people would come up to me during like the
Speaker 1: peak of House of Cards, and a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Guyam J. Carson, was like really involved and conceiving of
Speaker 1: the show and you know, helping make it realistic. But
Speaker 1: people would be like, is all this like House of Cards?
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, no, it's like Veep.
Speaker 2: It's like Veep. Right, National politics is.
Speaker 1: Like a giant deep episode, right if you detach and
Speaker 1: sit back and watch it. And she's like a us,
Speaker 1: like a character Inveep, you know, cloistered voting against the
Speaker 1: interests of the state, which is a gigantic state. And
Speaker 1: let me just say again, right for people who haven't
Speaker 1: spent time in Tennessee that will watch this, uh, you
Speaker 1: know from around the around the country. Big distance between
Speaker 1: Knoxville where you're from, and the Mississippi River and Memphis,
Speaker 1: and so you need to tie a ribbon right across
Speaker 1: the state to a different part of the state. About
Speaker 1: about these ideas, Why do you talk about that? Just
Speaker 1: what it's like to campaign? What is your day? Like
Speaker 1: how many hours a day are they torturing you with
Speaker 1: fundraising calls? That will increase you know, if you become
Speaker 1: the nominee here of course, and what is that?
Speaker 2: What is that day like?
Speaker 1: Getting around, doing the doing of things you need to do.
Speaker 1: And as you as you look at this from a
Speaker 1: forward basis, you know, if you're the nominee and you
Speaker 1: have you know about you know, let's you know, three
Speaker 1: months or so, you know, in real time to to
Speaker 1: run the campaign about her, just talk about how you're
Speaker 1: gonna how you're gonna build on what you've been doing
Speaker 1: in order to bring that, in order to bring that home,
Speaker 1: how to embrace the underdog, you know, status capitalize it
Speaker 1: against somebody who's been there too long, who's become too
Speaker 1: strange by their time and power, that you know, lives
Speaker 1: like they're a character in the Hunger Games. Often panem
Speaker 1: completely walled off from the from the regular people. And
Speaker 1: you know, I I just think that that's such a
Speaker 1: huge part of this is her aloofness from reality, from normalcy,
Speaker 1: from unity, as she lives in this terrarium, you know,
Speaker 1: under the capitol though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know absolutely, And it's gonna make a difference
Speaker 3: because what people know about me is I get out
Speaker 3: and talk to folks. I've flipped red districts multiple times,
Speaker 3: because I'm not afraid to talk to people and talk
Speaker 3: to people across the AIP. I have talked to so
Speaker 3: many people in this trail who wanted to see her
Speaker 3: were in DC, but she wouldn't see them because of
Speaker 3: whatever their belief if it was Mom's demand action or
Speaker 3: some of these folks that she just refused to see.
Speaker 3: And I don't do that in my office in Nashville.
Speaker 3: I don't refuse anyone if we can't sit down and
Speaker 3: have a conversation and disagree, and I can tell you
Speaker 3: what my position is and I can listen to your position.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's what it's about. And people,
Speaker 3: certainly the people in my district in Knox will know
Speaker 3: that's who I am. I have people all the time
Speaker 3: tell me, Gloria, we don't agree on much, but I
Speaker 3: do trust you and I know that you will listen
Speaker 3: to me, and so that goes a long way. But
Speaker 3: she has no revertoire like that with the people. And
Speaker 3: so my day, you know, yesterday, it started at seven o'clock.
Speaker 3: We had to be in Overton County, which is for
Speaker 3: two hours from where I am, so we had to
Speaker 3: we had to get up and be there by ten
Speaker 3: o'clock and then we spent an hour and fifteen minutes,
Speaker 3: hour and a half with those folks. Then we drove
Speaker 3: forty minutes to the next county and spent an hour
Speaker 3: to hour and a half with those folks, talking to them,
Speaker 3: asking questions, finding out what, you know, what were the
Speaker 3: biggest issues in their community that they felt like. And
Speaker 3: then I got in the car, drove another hour to
Speaker 3: our next stop in Cannon County and met with folks
Speaker 3: there and did the same thing. Talked again about everything
Speaker 3: in their particular were community, what they saw. And then
Speaker 3: of course our last stop was at five point thirty
Speaker 3: last night in Rutherford County and spend an hour and
Speaker 3: a half there talking to folks, and it was really great.
Speaker 3: There were so many young people there and one of
Speaker 3: the fascinating things that I find as young people. Most
Speaker 3: of these meetings are very often senior citizens, but we've
Speaker 3: got a lot of young people showing up as well,
Speaker 3: and the young people are engaged, they're paying attention, and
Speaker 3: so I love it when they come. And people always
Speaker 3: get excited when the young folks are there. But they're
Speaker 3: excited about this race, and I'm seeing more excitement about
Speaker 3: this race than I have seen across the state of
Speaker 3: Tennessee in a long time. I go around. I'm not
Speaker 3: new to visiting counties across the state. It's five and
Speaker 3: a half hours to Memphis from Knoxville, and it's three
Speaker 3: hours or two and a half hours up to Upper
Speaker 3: each corner, so eight hours or you know, eight or
Speaker 3: nine hours across the whole state. And we've been traveling
Speaker 3: the whole thing. But really it's about listening to people
Speaker 3: and trying to to educate them on some of the
Speaker 3: issues that they don't quite completely understand. Legislation that's been
Speaker 3: passed that that they rarely get to hear about. They
Speaker 3: pass bills so quickly here in the Tennessee State legislature.
Speaker 3: No one knows about them until it affects them. And
Speaker 3: they don't want to debate these bills. They've they've almost
Speaker 3: gotten rid of debate on legislation. I guess it's because
Speaker 3: they are ashamed to really hash out their ideas because
Speaker 3: they're not. It's mostly hate legislation and it doesn't help
Speaker 3: regular families. But you know, Marcia is not getting this
Speaker 3: experience and talking to this people that she thinks she
Speaker 3: can show up with an arb Besider name and win
Speaker 3: this election. And it's not going to be like that
Speaker 3: this year because people are not happy with what she
Speaker 3: is doing and they're paying more attention than ever. And
Speaker 3: so I'm making sure that I'm talking to as many
Speaker 3: people as possible, listening to as many people as possible,
Speaker 3: and I won't ever stop doing that. Every year i
Speaker 3: am in DC, I will continue to visit every county.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how appreciative people are when they say,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for coming to our county. Nobody's
Speaker 3: been to our county in years. No one has done
Speaker 3: a nine five, a true ninety five county tour that's
Speaker 3: posted that anyone can come to. And it's sad because
Speaker 3: these rural counties have needs and everybody when they're running
Speaker 3: for office, oh, we're going to help the rural counties,
Speaker 3: but they never do. And if you don't know the
Speaker 3: faces and you don't have conversations with those people, you
Speaker 3: know what they need. She doesn't get to tell people
Speaker 3: what they need. She doesn't get to listen to lobbyists
Speaker 3: and corporations that fund her campaign, and she doesn't learn
Speaker 3: from them. But the Tennessee, hard working Tennessee families in
Speaker 3: her district need. She has no idea. She hasn't had
Speaker 3: to struggle to make a light bill, she hasn't had
Speaker 3: to struggle to put food on the table. And if
Speaker 3: you don't listen to folks, how do you even understand
Speaker 3: that I've struggled to pay a light build. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's just a fact, and I'm not ashamed of that.
Speaker 3: I am in the same category as far as you know,
Speaker 3: earning as the majority of Tennesseeans. She's far and above
Speaker 3: that and doesn't understand how the majority of Tennesseeans live.
Speaker 3: You know, in all these politicians, well I'm going to
Speaker 3: cut taxes, Well, what they need to ask her is
Speaker 3: who whose taxes are you going to cut? Marsha, Because
Speaker 3: she's gonna cut taxes for the wealthy incorporations. It's exactly
Speaker 3: what they're doing here, and we've seen her do it there.
Speaker 3: Nobody's helping hard working families with their taxes. Democrats want
Speaker 3: to do that, and people need to understand that, need
Speaker 3: to understand that raising the wage and giving people access
Speaker 3: to health care lifts up your state, lifts up your economy.
Speaker 3: And if you don't understand simple economics, you can't help
Speaker 3: the people that need it the most, and we have
Speaker 3: a lot of vulnerable people in Tennessee. She wants to
Speaker 3: get rid of the federal Department of Education. What are
Speaker 3: they fund in Tennessee. They fund free and reduced lunches
Speaker 3: for so many children in Tennessee that go to bed Hungary.
Speaker 3: They fund special education. I taught special ed for twenty
Speaker 3: seven years. My students, because of federal programs, got the
Speaker 3: services they needed. My special ed students, I had a
Speaker 3: higher graduation. Ninety five percent of my special ed students
Speaker 3: graduated because they got the services they need. That's a
Speaker 3: higher graduation rate than the whole high school with regular kids.
Speaker 3: And so when we provide these services for kids, they
Speaker 3: get what they need. I had kids going to college
Speaker 3: going straight into careers because we did work study their
Speaker 3: last semester. And you can't say that about the entire school.
Speaker 3: So and then that money also, the third pot of
Speaker 3: that money goes to fund Title I, which is making
Speaker 3: sure we have equity in our under resource schools, to
Speaker 3: make sure that those under resource schools have the resources
Speaker 3: they need to have a well resourced classroom, to have
Speaker 3: more social workers because they need more of those services.
Speaker 3: That's what those federal dollars do, and she wants to
Speaker 3: shut it down. The Speaker of our House, Cameron Sexton,
Speaker 3: in Tennessee, wanted to refuse the federal funding. It basically
Speaker 3: came down to, if you don't take the federal dollars,
Speaker 3: you don't have to follow civil rights guidelines. This is
Speaker 3: who they are. It's it is remarkable they do not
Speaker 3: care about the average family in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: I had a visit to Washington a couple months back,
Speaker 1: and I was at this premiere and I sat next
Speaker 1: to a Democratic congressman and he was sitting next to
Speaker 1: another Democratic congressman.
Speaker 2: I was like, how you doing.
Speaker 1: He was like, good he is, but you know he
Speaker 1: is I'm much better than than than his colleague. And
Speaker 1: he is this guy, this impressive guy he is, you know,
Speaker 1: Rhodes scholar, Harvard put himself through, came up from nothing.
Speaker 2: He goes he's got the same job as Lauren Bobert.
Speaker 1: And a few months ago I spent time with Keem
Speaker 1: Jefferies and Tim Ryan, who was in the Congress for
Speaker 1: twenty years. A lot of like in terms of just
Speaker 1: absolutely unflappable, like the like like the Yoda, right you know,
Speaker 1: like the Buddha calm temperaments. And I thought about myself right,
Speaker 1: like in the house and the day that I broke
Speaker 1: a board over like.
Speaker 2: Mac Gates's head.
Speaker 1: Right, It's not like the media would be that I'm
Speaker 1: going to get a riven or something for restraining myself
Speaker 1: for like eight hundred days, right until like I finally
Speaker 1: did it. And the reason I asked the question is
Speaker 1: you're subjecting yourself to a level of self abuse, right
Speaker 1: by doing this, Right, That victory means, right, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be like hanging out with Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz,
Speaker 1: that your colleagues will be some of the worst Americans
Speaker 1: out of three hundred and thirty million people, right, which
Speaker 1: is like really bad people who aren't currently incarcerated for
Speaker 1: violent crimes, right, some of the wackiest, most hypocritical Americans.
Speaker 1: Right that there are amongst all of us villainous characters,
Speaker 1: some of them. And I just wonder, you know, you
Speaker 1: seem like a perfectly normal person right about this on earth?
Speaker 2: Why on earth would you want to do it to yourself? Right?
Speaker 2: And then we'll leave it there.
Speaker 1: But it's been a real, a real pleasure hosting you
Speaker 1: Representative Gloria Johnson. We'll put up all your information to
Speaker 1: get involved and be involved in your campaign. Real pleasure
Speaker 1: hosting you.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. And I do have to say twenty
Speaker 3: seven years teaching me most behavior disordered teenagers has prepared
Speaker 3: me for this work.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I was just talking to my daughter.
Speaker 1: We're on a long road trip, and we're talking about
Speaker 1: the days when I was a kid. You know, there
Speaker 1: were no seatbelts, no shoulder straps, right front seat, right
Speaker 1: middle seat, laying down in the back. We were talking
Speaker 1: about school, right, and we were talking about emotionally disturbed
Speaker 1: right out of fashion today. But like the problem kid
Speaker 1: of that era was called the emotionally disturbed kid, right
Speaker 1: that you know, that would be the threat. You know,
Speaker 1: if you misbehaved or go to the emotionally disturbed classroom, right,
Speaker 1: it would hang over You'd be like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: But that is America's epicenter of emotional disturbance, Right, is
Speaker 1: the United States Senate Josh Holly right, frauds of such
Speaker 1: epic titanic dimensions. Right, They're they're almost fictional characters. But
Speaker 1: but but this is this way you'd be signing.
Speaker 3: Up for well and it's it's it's pretty much what
Speaker 3: I'm doing here, and and and the meanness is something.
Speaker 3: You know, we have a seventy four Republicans and twenty
Speaker 3: five Democrats, and uh in addition to being drunk with
Speaker 3: power and authoritarians there, they're just mean their retaliatory. You know.
Speaker 3: The first the first year that Cameron Sexton was up
Speaker 3: for Speaker, I said, I refused to vote for him.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not voting for a Republican speaker. And
Speaker 3: I'm certainly not voting for the Republican speaker who was
Speaker 3: instrumental in stopping medicaid expansion in Tennessee, who also fought
Speaker 3: tooth and nail to keep the bust of Nathan Bedford
Speaker 3: forrest in a place of honor in our capital. Said
Speaker 3: I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2: And one founder of the ku Klux Klan yes.
Speaker 3: And slaughtered three hundred folks who were surrendering at Fort Pillow.
Speaker 3: So I was the only one out of ninety nine
Speaker 3: to vote against him for speaker. And I was giving
Speaker 3: given a closet for an office. And then not only
Speaker 3: was I given a closet for an office, but across
Speaker 3: the hall outside my door, I look outside my door
Speaker 3: and I see the empty member office across the hall.
Speaker 3: And that was intentional, and that was all all about
Speaker 3: punishment and retaliation because I didn't step in line with
Speaker 3: what they wanted. And guess what, I'm never going to
Speaker 3: unless what they want is right, and most often it
Speaker 3: is not. And that's why it's so important that we
Speaker 3: stand up and that we push back against these extremists
Speaker 3: and against this hate. And that's why we have to
Speaker 3: win this US Senate seat in Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Perfect place stand it. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I appreciate you have me on.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning and I invite
Speaker 1: you to join. Subscribe on our substack, on our YouTube
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