The Charlie Kirk Show - Stopping the Californication of America with Congressman Mike Garcia
Aired: 2021-02-01
Duration: 20:33

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, on this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, an exclusive conversation with Congressman Mike Garcia from California, who won his race by 333 votes.
[00:00:08]  A good American who is fighting to take back the house and is representing us wonderfully.
[00:00:12]  We talk about California and so much more.
[00:00:14]  Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:17]  And if you'd like to support this program, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.
[00:00:21]  Congressman Mike Garcia is here.
[00:00:23]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:24]  Here we go.
[00:00:26]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:27]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:29]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:33]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:36]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:37]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:38]  His spirit, his love of this country.
[00:00:40]  He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:00:45]  Turning point USA.
[00:00:46]  We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
[00:00:55]  That's why we are here.
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[00:02:20]  Hey, everybody, welcome to this special episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:02:23]  I'm super thrilled to have with us today Congressman Mike Garcia, who I think is the only congressman who can say he won two hotly contested races in the year of the pandemic.
[00:02:34]  I think that's true.
[00:02:34]  Yeah, and we were the first to have to go through the special election during COVID.
[00:02:38]  And it's been a wild ride.
[00:02:39]  So thanks for having me, Charlie.
[00:02:41]  Well, congratulations.
[00:02:42]  I have been celebrating your victory many times.
[00:02:44]  The first victory you won rather convincingly to fill Katie Hill's seat.
[00:02:49]  The second victory was like 361 votes.
[00:02:52]  333 votes total.
[00:02:54]  333.
[00:02:54]  So you just get that number framed in your office.
[00:02:56]  Exactly.
[00:02:57]  We've had pens made, Army knives made with 333.
[00:03:00]  And it's awesome.
[00:03:01]  And so tell us about that race, but also tell us why you got into politics.
[00:03:06]  And I'm super interested in that.
[00:03:08]  Yeah.
[00:03:08]  So, you know, I grew up in Southern California and I didn't grow up with an interest in politics.
[00:03:13]  I was observing politics.
[00:03:15]  I was a poli-sci major, but I dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot.
[00:03:19]  And I had the opportunity to go to the Naval Academy and become a fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy, flying F-18s off of aircraft carriers and went on to serve in combat operations over Iraq in 2003.
[00:03:31]  And that was my goal.
[00:03:32]  That was my dream in life.
[00:03:33]  That was what I focused on, and it was my mission.
[00:03:36]  I came off of active duty in 2009 and rotated into the business sector, working for an aerospace company at the time, and had a great career, great job, great family, wife, beautiful boys, and was really living the dream life.
[00:03:50]  And I started to see things happen in California that were obviously discouraging, but also became friction points for myself personally as a businessman, as an investor, someone who's wanting to stay in California, became harder and harder.
[00:04:05]  And then along came Katie Hill.
[00:04:08]  Yeah.
[00:04:08]  And she ran for office in our district, California's 25th district, which had been historically conservative for 20, 30 years.
[00:04:16]  You know, Buck McKean was in the seat for roughly 22 years, Steve Knight for four years.
[00:04:21]  And then this phenomenon and this wave called Katie Hill came to town and she won an election that I just couldn't believe.
[00:04:28]  And as a private citizen, as a businessman, someone with no aspirations of getting into politics, I saw that election and I just realized the day after she won her election that I needed to do something.
[00:04:39]  I needed to come off the sidelines.
[00:04:41]  We all needed to pay attention a little bit more.
[00:04:43]  And for me, it was making sure that our nation didn't become what California has become.
[00:04:49]  Yeah, seriously.
[00:04:50]  And as broken as California is and as bad as it is, it can be a lot worse if our nation started adopting some of those policies.
[00:04:57]  So when we upload someone like Katie Hill to the national scene and put her in Congress to represent us, and now with AOC and the gang, that was just a bridge too far for me.
[00:05:07]  So I decided to quit my job, run for Congress, and never held a political office in my life.
[00:05:13]  And we just outworked everyone.
[00:05:15]  We worked harder than anyone out there.
[00:05:16]  So she resigned because of whatever.
[00:05:18]  She had some unforced errors.
[00:05:20]  There you go.
[00:05:21]  That's a good way to put it.
[00:05:22]  And then you won the special election, which really kind of shocked the world a little bit, especially the margin during the virus.
[00:05:30]  And you served a really short term and ran again.
[00:05:34]  And so 333 votes.
[00:05:36]  Kind of walk us through how you were able to win.
[00:05:39]  This was a top 10 race across the country.
[00:05:41]  It was.
[00:05:41]  Pelosi was spending a lot of money on this race.
[00:05:43]  She wanted it back.
[00:05:44]  And you won by 333 votes, which is one of the reasons why the margins for Pelosi for her speakership are so thin.
[00:05:52]  That's right.
[00:05:52]  And I actually think the Cook Political Report had your seat as like a lean Democrat, if not at best toss-up.
[00:05:59]  Right.
[00:05:59]  They changed three times in the course of four months.
[00:06:03]  It started with likely Dem, then it went to lean Dem and then to toss-up.
[00:06:07]  Then we won by nine points.
[00:06:08]  And it's like, hey, guys, we saw this coming.
[00:06:10]  Sure.
[00:06:11]  We knew the sentiment on the ground.
[00:06:13]  I don't get in any fights that I don't think I can win.
[00:06:15]  And I knew we would be able to beat Katie Hill with her resignation and everything that lined up with the special election.
[00:06:21]  That's how we ended up with a nine-point win.
[00:06:23]  That margin of victory was even bigger than I had imagined.
[00:06:26]  But we knew going into November with the presidential race on the ticket and the passion and the energy on both sides coming out in November that it was going to tighten up.
[00:06:37]  And on election night, we were down 15%.
[00:06:41]  And over the course of 30 days, while they had the counters counting for literally 30 days, we ended up up 333 votes.
[00:06:50]  And it was literally hard work.
[00:06:52]  We had the best grassroots campaign in the nation.
[00:06:54]  We had 500 volunteers who these weren't necessarily political activists.
[00:06:59]  These were folks in the community who were just tired of the nonsense and got behind the mission.
[00:07:04]  And we just made it rain longer than anyone could tread water around us.
[00:07:08]  And we made it so that our opponents wanted the election to be over.
[00:07:13]  I held them accountable in debates, extremely aggressive in debates.
[00:07:16]  Did it with class, did it with dignity and honor and respect, but it was a ruthless aggression towards our opponents.
[00:07:23]  And that is why we won.
[00:07:25]  And hopefully it'll be a little easier in the 2022.
[00:07:28]  Yeah, I know a lot of activists that got involved for the first time in your race.
[00:07:32]  Some of them go to Rob McCoy's church in Calvary Chapel, Thousand Oaks, and they were involved knocking on doors, making phone calls, and all of that helped make a difference, obviously, in your margins.
[00:07:42]  So you talk about not letting the rest of the country become California.
[00:07:46]  California, I love visiting for the scenery, the weather, some of the people.
[00:07:53]  Not all the people.
[00:07:54]  Not all the people like me, and that's fine.
[00:07:56]  But it really is a test case of how to mess up a once great state.
[00:08:00]  That's right.
[00:08:01]  You probably remember when California was the gem of the country, where it was a place of opportunity.
[00:08:06]  You cannot get a U-Haul going east.
[00:08:09]  Nope.
[00:08:10]  And that's not a metaphor or a joke.
[00:08:12]  There's a mass exodus right now.
[00:08:14]  If you're in Phoenix, they will pay you to bring a U-Haul back to L.A. They'll give you a U-Haul gift card.
[00:08:19]  That's right.
[00:08:20]  Talk about how California went wrong.
[00:08:22]  Well, it starts with people not paying attention, right?
[00:08:24]  It starts with good conservatives like us not paying attention, not only not being active in the current political scene, but not raising our kids to appreciate what's in the Constitution, to appreciate what conservative values mean in the real world.
[00:08:38]  And when we fall asleep at the wheel like that for 20, 30 years, what happens is you end up with a single party system in one of the largest states with one of the largest GDPs in the world being run by people who don't understand business.
[00:08:50]  They don't understand fiscal conservative policy, social conservative values.
[00:08:54]  And we end up with a state like ours where despite being the fifth largest GDP in the world as a state, we have the highest taxes, the highest homeless rates, some of the worst infrastructure.
[00:09:08]  We have a bunch of communities that are now bashing our own law enforcement.
[00:09:13]  We have neighborhoods in my district right now where when the winds get above 30 miles an hour, the power turns off.
[00:09:18]  And in many of those neighborhoods, the water turns off as well because they're on electrical wells, right?
[00:09:24]  So in the suburbs of LA, it's starting to look like a suburb of Venezuela right now in many cases.
[00:09:30]  And it is a testimony of how bad things can go.
[00:09:34]  And what scares the heck out of me is when a new president like Biden comes in and says, I'm going to use California as the blueprint for my policies.
[00:09:42]  And obviously with Kamala there right next to him, she knows exactly what that means.
[00:09:46]  And Pelosi in the House knows exactly what that means.
[00:09:48]  And it's a recipe for disaster for our country.
[00:09:52]  So my mission right now is to help save California.
[00:09:56]  We will get more seats back.
[00:09:57]  I hope we can get the governor's seat back.
[00:10:00]  We need to get Newsome out of there.
[00:10:01]  So if you haven't already signed the petition in California for recall Newsome, but we'll get more seats back.
[00:10:08]  But my bigger mission right now is literally to make sure that the United States does not become what California has become.
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[00:11:20]  It's a tragedy what's happened in California.
[00:11:22]  I know so many good people that have left.
[00:11:24]  I know so many people that don't want to leave.
[00:11:26]  The quality of life is nice still.
[00:11:28]  They built their businesses.
[00:11:29]  They have their family there, but the numbers just don't make sense.
[00:11:32]  And they are starting to see the quality of life slip.
[00:11:35]  Starting to see a lot more homelessness, increases in crime, just a different set of agenda.
[00:11:41]  And California used to be a deep red state, as you well know.
[00:11:44]  And it's changed dramatically throughout the years.
[00:11:48]  And so Gavin Newsom is being recalled right now.
[00:11:51]  It looks like the signatures are trending.
[00:11:53]  I think they'll get there, yeah.
[00:11:55]  It's looking favorable.
[00:11:57]  For me, the whole point of supporting the recall was just to get him to allow our businesses to get turned back.
[00:12:01]  Pelosi's one of these guys where you've got to hit him with a stick before he starts paying attention.
[00:12:05]  And this recall is the proverbial stick over the head right now.
[00:12:09]  And he's realizing it is real and he may be recalled.
[00:12:12]  And amazingly, you know, now he's allowing our restaurants to open.
[00:12:16]  He scoffed at it first.
[00:12:17]  He did.
[00:12:18]  And he didn't realize how much anger there actually was.
[00:12:21]  And I mean, California has a history of recalling governors.
[00:12:24]  Not successfully, but at least going through the recall.
[00:12:26]  It's very, very hard to do.
[00:12:28]  But it's going to put him through a tough fight, I think.
[00:12:30]  And he's up again in 2022.
[00:12:32]  Is that right?
[00:12:33]  So he might have to survive a recall and run for resurrection.
[00:12:36]  Right.
[00:12:36]  And that's what I'm trying to make sure that our Republican Party in California needs to focus on both races.
[00:12:43]  We need to focus on being successful in 2022.
[00:12:47]  The recall efforts need to continue in earnest, and we need to get behind that.
[00:12:52]  But we really have to position ourselves better for 2022 and make sure that he can't win if that doesn't happen.
[00:12:57]  So I think priority number one has to be taking back the House of Representatives.
[00:13:00]  You totally agree.
[00:13:01]  Obviously, being in the minority is no fun.
[00:13:03]  Only by seven seats.
[00:13:05]  But it feels like it might as well be 70 seats, right?
[00:13:07]  Because the way this House is playing right now, yeah, Pelosi is, you know, in reality, with such a close ratio and close to equilibrium, a rational speaker would actually make more compromises and we would actually get to a rational legislative agenda.
[00:13:24]  That's just not happening right now.
[00:13:26]  And in some ways, that's good for us.
[00:13:29]  The left will overplay their hands.
[00:13:30]  Totally.
[00:13:31]  Pelosi is now beholden to AOC, and AOC is effectively the speaker of the House right now, running the agenda in the leadership and the country.
[00:13:41]  So I think the average American is going to look at this and go, hey, we're done with this.
[00:13:44]  This doesn't make any sense.
[00:13:46]  And I was one of the few that actually thought we were going to get the House back in this last cycle.
[00:13:50]  McCarthy and I were probably the only two that actually thought it was doable.
[00:13:53]  So I wasn't surprised by how many seats we got back.
[00:13:56]  What I was surprised of, frankly, is that we didn't get the House back.
[00:14:01]  And we will get it in 2022, no doubt, if not before that.
[00:14:03]  And there are a couple races, you know, Sean Parnell, you know, that I think he might run again, and they might have asked him to go.
[00:14:09]  Sean's a great guy.
[00:14:10]  And we got to get back that Highland Park, Texas seat right near North Dallas.
[00:14:13]  We've got to get that one back.
[00:14:15]  But there were some huge victories.
[00:14:16]  Michelle Steele, Young Kim, Beth Van Dyne, Marionette Miller-Meeks by six votes.
[00:14:20]  Madison Cawthorne, Maria Elvira-Salazar, Burgess Owens, Nancy Mace.
[00:14:25]  Yeah, talk about this new freshman class.
[00:14:28]  I still consider it to be part of it because it's still the same calendar year.
[00:14:31]  But obviously, you're not a freshman technically.
[00:14:33]  Yeah, I'm kind of in a no-man's land.
[00:14:35]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:14:35]  You're kind of a special electoral.
[00:14:37]  Which is great.
[00:14:37]  I love the sophomore class and this freshman class is high energy.
[00:14:40]  But it's a high energy class.
[00:14:42]  It's a high energy class with a lot of personality.
[00:14:44]  And frankly, it's what our party needs right now, right?
[00:14:46]  I think our party needs an offset to the AOCs and the Omars of the world.
[00:14:51]  And that's what some of these people say.
[00:14:54]  And we've got to be able to fight fire with fire.
[00:14:56]  And, you know, I'm not a die-in-the-wool kind of Republican guy, right?
[00:15:03]  I didn't grow up with this allegiance to any political party.
[00:15:06]  The only allegiance I had was to the flag and the Constitution.
[00:15:10]  So I don't ascribe to this theory that we have to play by Queensbury rules.
[00:15:15]  When your opposition is playing MMA-style rules against you, you have to play in that arena with us.
[00:15:22]  And we've got to be able to roll up our sleeves, be a little more aggressive than perhaps the establishment GOP wants to be.
[00:15:29]  And we've got to win.
[00:15:31]  That doesn't mean we compromise our integrity or our moral values, but we've got to be aggressive and we've got to be willing to get a little dirty to do it.
[00:15:37]  So what do you think the blueprint is to win in 2022?
[00:15:40]  And let me tell you, some people are getting a little apathetic.
[00:15:43]  Oh, you know, my vote doesn't matter and all this, but let's go.
[00:15:45]  Your race is really interesting.
[00:15:47]  You won by 333 votes, and you were down 15 percent.
[00:15:51]  And so it shows that you could still win.
[00:15:53]  And so, what's the blueprint to victory?
[00:15:55]  You know, we're only 16 months out until voting's going to start.
[00:15:58]  Yeah, we have to highlight every success that we have, and we have to put a shiny bright light on every failure that the left is bringing to the table.
[00:16:06]  And really, what you are doing in Turning Point USA does is it helps us breed the next generation so that they understand that what they've been told about conservative values is a fallacy.
[00:16:17]  And here's what the reality of conservative values does: here's why it's good for the nation.
[00:16:21]  We can't survive as a nation unless we start paying attention to things like national security, partnerships with Israel, investing in our military and our law enforcement.
[00:16:32]  So, we need to not only educate folks, but put a bright light on our opposition and go, this is why this is bad for our nation, and just have a battle rhythm and a cadence that they can't keep up with.
[00:16:44]  Yeah.
[00:16:45]  And it seems as if the Democrats, controlling everything, they are more concerned about resurrecting the bad feelings of the last election, continuing on these bitter narratives.
[00:16:57]  And so, for folks out there that want to get engaged and get involved, what's your piece of advice for them specifically about how to do that?
[00:17:06]  Well, I'd say support the local races and support the congressional races for sure.
[00:17:11]  Reach out to the local campaigns.
[00:17:13]  We won because of our grassroots campaign.
[00:17:17]  We were named campaign of the year.
[00:17:19]  Yeah, that's right.
[00:17:19]  The Washington Post, I think, but that wasn't because necessarily of our professional team.
[00:17:26]  That was because of our 500 volunteers on the ground.
[00:17:29]  And while it may feel uncomfortable at first, what we figured out was people were enjoying it.
[00:17:34]  They were going out.
[00:17:35]  They became part of the movement.
[00:17:36]  They took pride in it.
[00:17:37]  So I would encourage folks to actually get involved and help the campaigns directly.
[00:17:42]  If you can't help with your time, then donate as well.
[00:17:45]  And the left spends money.
[00:17:47]  Pelosi spent $15 million against me in the last race.
[00:17:49]  $15 million.
[00:17:50]  So, yeah, it's a real problem.
[00:17:52]  And in California, it's not cheap.
[00:17:53]  So we've got to keep the race going.
[00:17:55]  Yeah, it's an expensive media market, no doubt.
[00:17:58]  But taking back the House has got to be mission number one.
[00:18:01]  Absolutely.
[00:18:02]  And the Senate, whatever will happen will happen there.
[00:18:04]  It's a little bit tougher.
[00:18:04]  But the House is really good.
[00:18:06]  I mean, can you talk about how these new maps, we're adding seats in some Republican states.
[00:18:10]  We have the energy.
[00:18:11]  They look like they're going to have some retirements.
[00:18:13]  It feels like 2018 for them, and it feels like 2010 for us.
[00:18:16]  Correct.
[00:18:17]  So a lot of reasons to have hope.
[00:18:19]  And I think you said this in one of your talks at the churches down in SoCal last a couple of weeks ago.
[00:18:24]  As doom and gloom as the last couple of months has seemed to have presented us, there's a lot of reasons for hope.
[00:18:30]  And there's a lot of trends right now that are favorable to the Republican Party.
[00:18:34]  California will lose a seat.
[00:18:36]  It will likely be a Dem seat that gets cut.
[00:18:40]  So that is, again, a harbinger of how things are trending, right?
[00:18:44]  The shift from left to right is happening.
[00:18:46]  And we have so much momentum right now.
[00:18:48]  If we just stay together as a party, if we stay on message, if we stay positive but still be aggressive against our opposition, we will get these seats back.
[00:18:56]  And I think folks like me going to other districts to help some of these challengers win seats back is critical, and I'm committed to that.
[00:19:04]  We can win back a couple of the Orange County seats, too.
[00:19:06]  Absolutely.
[00:19:06]  We can win back all of them.
[00:19:07]  I think we can win back five out of five in Orange County.
[00:19:10]  A lot of these folks are fakers.
[00:19:11]  A lot of the incumbents, Dems, are fakers, right?
[00:19:14]  People like Katie Porter, fake models.
[00:19:17]  They don't understand what they're doing.
[00:19:20]  These Dems have no idea of what it means to run a business or what it means to even run a family in California.
[00:19:26]  And so we just got to pull the veil back a little bit and highlight the fact that they are, in fact, fakers.
[00:19:32]  Well, I want to thank you for what you're doing for our country and holding the line every single day in D.C.
[00:19:37]  I know it's not always easy, but The more that we see Republicans stand up and fight, you know, it really makes a difference.
[00:19:45]  It's definitely not easy.
[00:19:46]  It's a sacrifice across the board, but it's honestly the biggest honor that someone like me can have.
[00:19:51]  And I'm glad I'm there to represent the 25th District of California and hopefully make a difference for the nation.
[00:19:57]  Here's my prediction: you're going to win by more than 333 votes in 2020.
[00:20:00]  I hope so.
[00:20:00]  I don't have enough hair left to go.
[00:20:02]  Whatever map they end up drawing, right?
[00:20:04]  I hope so.
[00:20:04]  Well, that's right.
[00:20:05]  Congressman, thank you.
[00:20:06]  How can people support your campaign if they want to?
[00:20:09]  Yeah, if you go to electmikegarcia.com, you can sign up as a volunteer.
[00:20:12]  You can sign up for our newsletters and you can donate through the website as well.
[00:20:16]  Awesome.
[00:20:16]  Thank you, Charlie.
[00:20:16]  Appreciate you having the line.
[00:20:17]  Thank you.
[00:20:18]  Thank you.
[00:20:20]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:20:22]  If you'd like to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com.
[00:20:26]  If you'd like to email us your questions, do so at freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:20:30]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:20:32]  God bless.
[00:20:33]  Speak to you soon.