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June 6, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
50:46
Kevin Walling
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the podcast today.
Just a few minutes, we're going to have a great conversation with our friend, Kevin Wall.
And Kevin, Democrat, we disagree on most things, but Kevin is one of those that we can actually talk to because I believe that talking about some of these issues is good.
And look, I've always believed if I don't have the best ideas, my job is to convince you.
If you don't have the best ideas, my job is to convince you that we have the best ideas.
And Kevin's a great guy.
He's going to be on the show a lot more with us.
So Kevin's going to be with us here in just a few minutes.
But look, a lot of things going on.
I know in the last week we've had the debt ceiling votes.
We've had everything up in the air.
Folks, the big problem in our debt ceiling, and I'm just going to touch on this for a few minutes, is not the deal that was just struck, but it's the appropriations process that we're going to get into again later this fall.
And that is where the real work has to be done.
So for all you conservatives out there who are griping about the debt ceiling vote, it's a terrible vote, I get it.
I ain't crazy about it either.
But, you know, with the Republicans controlling one-third of the Triumvirate as far as how you get stuff done in Washington, DC. I think, you know, these are things that we have to take into account and figure out how we get it done.
Do I wish it was gotten better?
Yeah.
Did I think the Biden administration handle this awfully?
Yes, they handled it terribly.
And now we have to move forward.
But folks, if you really want to focus, if you really want to be an informed person, Focus on the appropriations process.
Watch and see if they actually do.
One of the things was to get all 12 bills done or they face a 1% across the board cut which by the way is a disaster.
Do not think that 1% across the board for all programs defense and otherwise is a good thing.
It's not.
1% across the board for defense will put us in a position with maintenance and operations that will be detrimental if you just have to take it all in defense where everybody else gets 1% spread over all the other agencies.
So Again, this is not a good thing, but we're gonna continue to monitor here on the Doug Collins Podcast, let you know what's going on.
But right now, after the break, come back with my friend, Kevin Wall.
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Between the two of us, it's funny.
For people who've heard the podcast before, Kevin has been on before.
Kevin is a friend.
Politically, we differ.
And that's fine.
That's a good thing.
But it's funny.
We've been keeping up with overtime with texts.
And we'll go back and forth.
I'll see him.
He'll see me.
And we'll go back and forth.
And I said, well, it's time for us to get back into this.
And really to do it regularly, Kevin.
I want to do this.
Today, I want to just sort of, we're going to cover a lot of topics, just in general, just you and I sitting at the coffee shop and our listeners are sitting at the coffee shop just talking about really the things that are going on.
And as we go through the next year or so, as you and I hopefully will stay together doing this regularly, we'll take up topics and we'll be able to do this a little bit more in specific because I think that people need to hear Discussion about what's going on.
And if we don't engage in discussion on both sides, then we get into a lot of problems.
And I'll just start us off here, so we're not over-controversial, but it is amazing to me that Both sides, and I think, I'm going to say from the conservative side, the conservative side felt that the more liberal side did this much better than we did, so we decided to join on, and that was sort of canceling or boycotting stuff.
Now, I think a lot of what we see is that we're frustrated that people have different ideas that we don't like that are now being highlighted, and there's no outlet for us to talk, Kevin.
What do you think about that?
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
I mean, it seems like every comment, every display at a target, every beverage now is subject to some semblance of cancel culture when at the end of the day, I think it's both a Republican and a Democratic value.
You're a consumer, right?
Let money decide where you spend your resources and let that be the ultimate issue at play.
Don't Don't protest what a store is doing or what a musician is saying.
Just don't go to the musician.
Just don't go to the store and let that process play out.
By the way, Cree wanted to join in, so Cree says, hey, Kevin.
Hey, Cree.
Cree runs the house.
But, you know, look, and I get this, and I'd love to hear from your perspective, and I've heard you talk about this, and you're definitely not on the side that I think a lot of conservatives, especially, get really frustrated with.
But there is this idea that there are values, there are things that are being talked about now.
And pushed, if you would, okay?
And again, however you want to frame it, that we just didn't see, and many people say, okay, I don't care, you know, frankly, what you do or want to choose to be or whatever, but why is it being pushed, you know, in, you know, different formats in different ways?
And I think that's where people are really, you know, struggling with it.
And I mean, we've seen it all the way from state legislatures, we've seen it in Congress, we see it in our, you know, day-to-day.
Um...
It's like we've almost lost this, again, the line of, I don't want to say decency, but it's the line of, where should some of this stuff be and why is it that companies now tend to, and they're getting punished a great deal, especially from some of these companies, for pushing ideological that they had never done 10 to 15 years ago, and especially for what is perceived as a very small part of their marketing plan.
Yeah, I think the word that I'm almost looking at is just common sense, right?
We can call it decency.
We can call it common sense and stuff like that.
And I think there's pressures on a lot of these Fortune 500, 100 companies, especially in the consumer space.
Right.
To be reflective of their employees.
So, you know, you've got all these kind of LGBT groups within these Fortune 500 companies.
You've got, you know, these African-American groups, you've got Asian-American groups, whatever, in terms of the diversity aspect of it.
But at the end of the day, the consumers, as I said before, will decide.
Where they spend their resources.
And, you know, I think part of, you know, we could talk about Target specifically or Bud Light or things like that.
I think they've gotten into some of this niche marketing, right, that doesn't appeal to the masses, but maybe check some boxes, especially for their employees, right?
We see that process play out with Disney as well, right, where they took a stand in Florida because I think, you know, the previous CEO was getting a lot of flack From employees in the state that they weren't doing enough in terms of standing up against what Governor DeSantis was doing.
And now we've entered into this space where, you know, based on the Supreme Court decision saying corporations have free speech.
Right.
That there's this pressure now to your question where it wasn't 15 years ago where corporations are now acting in the political space and taking issues on legislation, policy, positions like that because of the pressures from shareholders, employees where they haven't had to do that in the past. positions like that because of the pressures from shareholders, employees Let's let's take this a little bit.
And Kevin, without, you know, again, you and I can discuss things and be a part.
But it is interesting to me and I agree with the employee sentiment.
But what we're seeing in some of this is to take action and initiative in which I think there's a lot on the conservative side that says, OK, I see you wanting to be recognized, whether it's your LGBTQ, whatever it is here in a smaller percentage of the workforce.
I mean, we just know by simple numbers, it's a smaller percentage of the workforce.
But yet, at the same point in time, if you wanted to flip it to more of what you and I actually know, and we've had a lot of conversations, traditional faith beliefs and stuff like that, that's pushed out of the marketplace.
And I think that's become sort of the catch here for many.
It says, okay, if you want your fine, I understand a corporation saying, okay, we've got some employees that this makes them feel good.
But we got a lot of employees over here that when they have tried to bring, you know, there's values that they have, they've been left out of the place, and especially in mainstream media.
And you and I both do a lot of mainstream media.
And it is amazing to me how it has become very divided into what's reported and not reported.
I mean...
That's something I know from your background.
It's just interesting to me that if you're going to have it in an apartment marketplace, shouldn't it just be open for both instead of being intolerant of either?
I think it does.
And that's why these conversations, you and I, are so important, right?
Because I think that's where the vast majority of Americans are, right?
They're somewhere in the middle, right?
They're not on the far right extremes or far left extremes.
And at the end of the day, just want to go to Target and buy whatever they want, you know?
Want to, you know, listen to whatever they want to listen to to go to whatever concert that they want to go to see and not have those pressures involved where so much of what we do as consumers are through an ideological lens.
And I think, you know, dollars will decide that, right?
You mentioned, you know, Target is suffering a little bit in terms of the financials.
Bud Light is suffering in terms of the financials.
And you're seeing now these kind of backlashes that take the form of, Well, I think it's going to be interesting, too, because for the first time, and in discussing this, for the first time, and I'll say, and again, my perspective, for the first time, conservatives have actually Caused an effect.
You know what I'm saying?
I can remember...
Look, as people know, I'm a chaplain.
I've been a pastor for years and chaplain and still there.
I remember when my convention, the Southern Baptist Convention, which I'm a part of, boycotted Disney.
This was like 15 years ago, 16 years ago.
It didn't even make a ripple.
I mean, we're the largest Protestant denomination, right under Catholic, and from your perspective, you know, this is, you know, a lot of people, 50, 60 million people, and it didn't really make a ripple.
It did with some, but not everybody.
Now, Anheuser-Busch is taking a beating.
I mean, 30%.
This is unprecedented for conservative backlash.
We've seen the liberal side get their way in a lot of these things, and conservatives just sort of sit back and be mad about it.
But now Target, I mean, $6 billion in cap loss.
You're seeing this stuff integrate in and then, so it'll be interesting to see, I don't want to delve into this because there's more we could probably delve into, but it is interesting to me that for the first time here, and I'm interested to see what it will take on, the conservative side actually making a difference in some of these arguments.
No, it's a good point.
I mean, the only thing I disagree with you is that you're an Air Force chaplain, not a Navy chaplain, but that's all right.
Well, light blue instead of dark blue, but I was in Navy for a while, so you remember.
I know, I remember.
But you left the Navy for the Air Force to get sky high, but...
Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, I remember back in the spring court and the Hobby Lobby case and stuff like that, and okay, all these liberals are not going to go to Hobby Lobby, and they, you know, they didn't see really any of an effect on their side, you know, Chick-fil-A, standing against Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A's numbers are bigger than anyone else's in terms of different protests on the left against some of these corporations, but I think you make a good point.
This is the first time we're seeing this, Doug, where Where it's a tangible effect of folks from a more conservative side actually having an effect on the bottom line, especially on the Bud Light front.
Yeah, it's interesting.
The Bud Light is 30%.
They're just tanking.
I go into stores here in North Georgia, and I know you're over in South Carolina and you travel around.
They're selling 30 packs for $12.
They're giving it away.
They're practically giving it away.
And they finally had to actually say, look, we're going to buy it back.
What's interesting is it's affecting other parts of their brand as well.
It's not just Bud Light, Budweiser, and all these others that have been affected here.
Modella, I read an article today, Modella is on the poise of taking over the number one slot.
And Bud Light was there.
That's just an amazing piece of interest.
And not to mention Chick-fil-A, but Chick-fil-A now, it's going to be interesting to see where this comes out when their corporate structure has added a DEI officer.
And now it's going to be interesting to see how that goes.
Let's move off of this, though.
People love their chicken, though.
They can care less, maybe, about that one corporate hire.
I don't think that's going to be...
Yeah, we're going to see how that one goes.
It's like, whoa, we just stepped over the line here.
And it's funny for me, as someone who grew up with Chick-fil-A, my brother actually worked for the company for a while, and I've known him forever.
I know this is blasphemy from someone in Georgia.
Okay, I get it.
But I'm a Popeyes guy.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, I know.
I've admitted it publicly.
I've confessed here on the show with Kevin.
But I like Chick-fil-A. Don't get me wrong.
I like Chick-fil-A. The way they run their company.
You talk about somebody who handled the pandemic and came out five miles better?
Oh, my God.
They were amazing.
It was my pleasure to go there.
I mean, it was amazing.
But, again, it'll be interesting to see.
Let's turn our attention to something, though, that caught mine in your text a few weeks ago.
And I think this is fascinating, okay?
And you and I are just going to disagree, so this is going to be fun.
I saw a tweet that you made where you said, Colin Allred is the greatest thing since, you know, the coming of politicians in Texas.
He's going to take on Cruz and we're going to win.
I texted you and it was sort of funny because I texted you and I said, I don't think he's going to get within five points.
And I love your response.
It's a bet.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's on.
I'll get you a meal at Chick-fil-A or at Popeye's.
We'll do it.
We'll do it.
I love it.
But here's the thing.
And this goes into Georgia.
It goes into North Carolina.
It goes into...
I'm unwilling to put Arizona, Pennsylvania.
I think there's some other additives going on in those, but you and I are going to have a long conversation over the year about that.
But let's just deal with Texas.
I'm going to give you now a moment.
Here, my friend, from the left, explain to me by any number that you've seen in Texas that gives you any thought That Allred, who, by the way, won the seat with Sessions after it was, you know, it was made a real tough seat for Sessions to start with.
Yeah, it changed a bit outside Dallas, yeah.
Yeah, that he could win statewide.
Here's your minute or two pitch.
Yeah, listen, I think, you know, demographics, you know, I argue in that piece, demographics are changing, right?
So it's getting a little bit more black and brown in terms of the communities.
They're traditionally more Democrat in terms of their voting.
Actually, I've seen coming out of the pandemic, too, I can't tell you the number of people I know that are Democrats.
This is a whole other conversation.
They're moving to places like Texas, like Austin, Dallas, Houston, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina.
We split our time between D.C. and Charleston.
It's all Yankees coming down.
I think that changes the demographics on the ground.
You see Texas change a little bit.
The fact that they're Impeaching Ken Paxton is so fascinating, too, that these House Republicans are seeing their own districts change a little bit.
And a lot's been reported in terms of the dynamics on the ground there.
Colin's got it.
He's a fifth, fourth-generation Texan.
Ted Cruz, you know, was born in Canada and moved to Texas.
We appreciate that.
I got to get a little plug for that.
So I think he's got a really compelling case.
And again, you know, Ted Cruz just won by two points against Beto O'Rourke, you know, just four years ago.
So, I mean, Texas is Democrats' white whale.
We've been saying Texas is going to go blue for the last two decades, right?
Ever since Ann Richards.
Yeah.
But again, I think, you know, the more that we, this is a terrible Senate map for Democrats, as you know, Doug.
The more that we can, you know, be a little bit on the offense, right?
And Texas gives us one of the few opportunities, maybe Florida too, if we recruit a good candidate down there against Rick Scott.
But these are a few of the only places where Democrats can actually go on the offense.
Oh, I agree.
Look, Robert Francis was a complete, utter disaster, okay, in Texas, okay?
I mean, I'm sorry.
And I came in with him.
He and I actually came into the Congress together.
Interesting guy 10 years ago.
And really changed.
Really changed.
Especially when he took on Cruz and then ran for president and got the vanity.
He became like a legend in his own mind, I think, too.
In terms of the ego deciding everything and all that kind of stuff.
He reminded me of one that carried his own fan to blow his hair.
It's like, huh?
How do we And then the stupid stunts that he pulled last year in the governor's race was just the Uvalde incident where he breaks up the...
Or he starts yelling at the press conference.
Anyway, the interesting thing is I don't disagree with you in the sense that if you're going to put money somewhere, okay, fine.
Because you've got a lot of donors that go into Texas and other places.
But I think one of the reasons why I said lose by five is what I saw on the border.
And this was taking results.
I mean, we kept a seat down there on the border that Democrats didn't think we'd keep.
And we kept it.
And Hispanics in the southern part down there, I mean, we were seeing a much higher percentage.
I mean, not since George W. Bush kind of percentages in Texas.
I just don't see that changing.
And especially with the utter disaster that's going on at the border right now and these communities.
And, you know, it's just so I was just curious.
And I get it.
I mean, that there's you got to put somebody up in Collins decided and he's got the money to do it.
The question will be, is there a Ted Cruz backlash in Texas?
I'm not sure there is.
Yeah, it's a good question.
And I wonder too, I mean, Texas is such a massive state.
Georgia is such a big state.
I wonder what the dynamic is.
And immigration is huge.
The border is in crisis.
I'm a Democrat that is fine at absolutely saying that and shouting it from the rooftops.
I just wonder how much the border is at play comparative to You know, say that the energy grid disaster that was down there, right?
Crews fleeing to Cancun.
And like, I wonder about the voters in Austin and Dallas and the suburbs.
You know, are they super focused on immigration?
I'm sure they are to some degree.
But the day to day in terms of that energy grid, that is just going to be an issue again and again until they get it in line and get it better.
I wonder if that takes over in terms of the issues down there.
I just think Robert Francis was a terrible candidate.
But, you know, take your power grid issue, which I would have thought would have been a big issue, too.
I mean, Abbott stomped him.
I mean, 10 points.
And Greg Abbott's a good guy.
I like Abbott.
But Abbott's not the warm, fuzzy guy.
I mean, he's not the...
No.
I mean, he is not that politician.
He's not the...
He's not the retail...
He's no Doug Collins.
That's for darn sure.
Well, I'll tell you the one that's going to be interesting.
Switching from Texas, and we could probably put the fries on this one.
Go to West Virginia.
Yeah.
I've been out there saying, and I think you've laughed at me before when I said this, I've said, I don't think Manchin's going to run for his street seat.
I think he's going to run for president.
And I think that was, you talk about scaring the White House to death?
I think that would scare the White House to death.
But Justice and the governor, I mean, you've got to love a man whose wife passed away a few years ago, had issues, and he brings his big bulldog with him everywhere.
I mean, Gandhi is so cool.
Well, and he flips that dog around.
I think he did it during the State of the State to say, you know, kiss my dog's booty or something like that or say it to the dog's rear end or something like that.
And there's some interesting, I think, legal...
I just saw some breaking news earlier this week about some legal issues with justice and oversight and stuff like that.
So we'll see how that plays out.
Hey, Kevin, isn't that amazing?
The first poll comes out, shows him up 20 on Manchin, and all of a sudden DOJ files a civil lawsuit.
Come on, man.
Come on.
I think that process has been going on for a little bit.
Jim Jensen was elected as a Democratic governor and then obviously switched parties, as we remember.
But listen, I mean, Joe Manchin is an institution in West Virginia.
I think similar to Texas being our white whale for Democrats, Republicans have salivated over the idea of taking out Joe Manchin and Either in the governor's races, Senate races, and he survives.
So we'll see how that process plays out for sure.
Let's turn to something that sort of leads into what we just talked about.
And Justice, real quick, has to get out of his primary, too.
So he's got Alex Mooney.
I don't know if you overlapped in the House.
I did.
I would.
Yeah.
Because he's more recent.
He was more recently elected.
Yeah, Mooney's hardcore.
Mooney's hardcore.
Yeah, he's hardcore.
Yeah, he's a nice guy.
And that's going to be a combative primary, for sure.
Yeah, the big problem Mooney's going to have is he's not native to West Virginia.
Yeah, that's right.
He's a Marylander.
Just like Ted Cruz coming in last minute to run for office in a different state.
Except for the fact of 12 years being elected in 14 years.
No problem.
In the Maryland Senate.
But let's turn to something that is, it's become more frustrating to me.
And let's discuss it.
As a ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and even before then, dealing with DOJ, Over the past 10 to 15 years, or less 10 years, I'm going to bring it 10 years, has become very, very frustrating.
It became one of the most contentious hearings we had of oversight in Judiciary Committee.
It is just frustrating on many angles, but from Russia to Mueller, I mean, just everything.
Bill Barr and I had lots of conversations, Matt Whitaker and I did.
I made a book one time of my confrontation with Eric Holder.
I always thought Hillary Clinton was the best person to testify in Congress.
Eric Holder was 1A. He could tick you off and say nothing at the same time.
It was just that.
But it is becoming concerning.
And I've got Democrat friends, Republican friends, both sides, who take a step back from, let's just say, from Trump, from Biden, from everybody else.
I mean, when you've got Christopher Wray right now, who I've publicly said even two years ago should resign because of any dealings I had with him, who is basically telling the House Oversight Committee, we're not going to let you see something.
And because it has intel in it, and not even making accommodation, not even saying, oh, let's go to the skiff, let's do this.
I mean, this is just the ultimate thumb your nose at this.
And I think it's not playing well on either side of the aisle, if they're honest.
Well, I think, Doug, to your point, this has been going on for decades almost with the Department of Justice under Republican administrations, Democratic administrations, in terms of the desire for Congress's legitimate role of oversight over these agencies.
And, you know, those subpoenas go unanswered both when Dems are running the House and Republicans are running the House, even when you have a Democrat in office in the administration and a Democrat in Congress and a Republican, you know, administration and a Republican.
But I will step in here on that one, though, Kevin.
I will step in.
We in the House, Republicans, you know, found contempt on Eric Holder.
Of course, DOJ did not do anything with it.
We had several others who found contempt, nothing with it.
And then, again, without getting into a lot of detail, all of a sudden, the January 6th committee all of a sudden finds people in contempt, and DOJ finds the cause to start prosecution?
I mean, that is what I know I hear from a lot.
I know I hear from a lot of conservatives, but I've heard, you know, even Democrats who say, yeah, they don't look good.
Why if all of a sudden after 15 years, you never enforce a contempt action at all.
And then just because it's this January 6th, mainly Republican, I mean, Democrat committee with a Democrat DOJ, you're all of a sudden starting to enforce the contempt actions?
Well, and I think because of that frustration, because of the unwillingness of these government officials, whether they be in office or formally in office or in a staff position, they just have said no to any kind of oversight and any kind of subpoena.
And I think we need universal fairness across the board.
And your point is well taken, Doug, in terms of It started with Eric Holder.
We've had some contempt of Congress in the past, but that was, in recent memory, the most recent issue with that.
Was that over Fast and Furious, I think?
Was that part of that?
It showed legitimate problems.
It's one thing for us to disagree on policy.
That's all day long.
But when you're an agency and you're not giving...
I'll say, Chris, I get you, buddy.
It's got some human intel in it.
But number one, he's now admitted it exists.
That's the problem.
From a legal perspective, he's admitted it exists.
He won't say what it says publicly, which I'll...
Okay, I'm one of those that actually say, okay, I get that.
What I do not get...
And I've been in both places.
They have really good skiffs at DOJ. We have really good skiffs in the Capitol.
You're telling me you can't bring James Comer into a room and show him what he's asking for and then work out a deal?
Because it's not Chris Ray's property.
That's the part that I think bothers a lot of people.
Well, we saw the same frustrations, Doug, with Congress.
And I think, actually, the Senate Intel Committee, not to knock the House a little bit, but I think the Senate Intel Committee with Mark Warner, Marco Rubio, really strong.
I think we've gotten, at least on the House side, with House Intel, you know, with Adam Schiff and what's-his-name-from-California.
We've kind of gotten off the track.
Yeah, that committee blew up.
It blew up.
Yeah, so...
But, you know, for...
For months, Congress was saying, okay, we've got all these documents at Pence's residence, Biden's residence, issue at Mar-a-Lago.
Let us see what those documents are.
We are entitled in terms of oversight.
And for months, they were stonewalled by justice, by the intelligence agencies, just to get a level set in terms of what those documents are.
And that's not a Republican issue, Democratic issue.
There's documents seemingly everywhere.
And they still don't have access.
A handle on this.
Exactly right.
I think they've gotten some briefings, but not the extent that they need to for true oversight.
You know, as much as, you know, look, documents and everything else, it is interesting to me that, granted, now they're trying to say there's more to the Mar-a-Lago incident.
Jack Smith's going to have to figure that one out, okay?
But the literal interpretation of that law is very clear.
One, you're dealing with the President and Trump.
You're dealing with Vice Presidents and Pence and Biden at the time, who have no declassification authority, have no, you know, but yet, and I'm throwing more Pence and Biden both in the same boat here.
It is interesting to me, like if I, you and I, okay, let's go back to Navy and Air Force.
If I went down to Robbins Air Force Base where I'm at, where I'm stationed, and I inadvertently I took from our secure server and downloaded something I was using there in the office and I took it out.
It's not a question of did I mean to or not.
It's just I did it, I'm now punished.
Period.
End of statement.
It's just like going back to Hillary Clinton in that server.
It's not a matter of did you have it or was it or was it not.
It was on there, it's there.
But yet...
These E-1s, E-2s, E-4s, E-5s, O-2s, you know, these captains, they're sitting there looking and saying, why are they treated differently when every year multiple people are either put out of the military or the FBI or others for doing less?
I think this is what really frustrates people.
And then to have the highest level of DOJ say, oh, we ain't gonna talk about it.
Yeah, well, I think that's a frustration by so many people that have access to the documents, Doug, that take their roles and responsibilities seriously.
And I think when you come up through the military in that training, It's a lot different.
And you've done this on both sides in terms of getting elected to Congress.
You have a lot of folks that have no semblance of national security.
Respect, right?
You know, they don't come up through the chain of command that now have access to all these documents.
You have administration staff that have access to these documents.
They go through FS-86 and stuff like that and background checks, but don't realize the sensitive nature and the fact that a lot of lives are behind a lot of these documents and how we come to this knowledge and this level of intelligence.
And I think, you know, we have an over-classification problem in this country.
We have a problem with way too many people having access to these documents.
Saw that with the guy with the leak in terms of this, the base up in Massachusetts.
But again, I think it's a lack of fundamental respect for what these documents are.
And the fact that this has been going on for 50, 60 years of people just casually having these things and boxing them up and they leave and all this kind of stuff and not a real semblance of, you know, these are state secrets that are critically important to the national security of this country.
And people with those access points, as you said, they come up through the military that have a respect for that, should absolutely be frustrated that these folks that have access to these same documents don't treat it with the level of respect that it's deserved.
Exactly.
And I think that's the problem.
You know, again, it goes back to the, you know, this, quote, two-tier system of justice.
They see one thing happening to others.
They don't see it happening.
They see it to the upper echelon, so to speak.
They don't see it.
The elites don't get it.
It's the common folk that get it.
And, you know, and in the rise of this populism, and I don't know if it's you and I was talking about this or what, but this populist rise in both of our parties, right?
Both Republican and Democrat.
That's, you know, let's philosophically look back.
I mean, I told somebody the other day, I said, we haven't seen this much populism sort of on both sides.
I mean, in the line of, I mean, we're going back to Huey Long.
We're going back to Gene Talmadge in Georgia.
I mean, this is not, for people to branch this as conservative and liberal, as you and I would probably classify conservative and liberal, we're not there right now.
Yeah, no, I think it's a really interesting point.
You know, I've done a lot.
I was down in Louisiana a few times over the last couple of weeks or in months down there for Jazz Fest and stuff like that and actually kind of reading more and more about Huey Long.
And it's almost that, you know, the idea of populism wasn't necessarily, you know, he was a Democrat and FDR was actually fearful of him in terms of a Primary challenge.
But it made such strange bedfellows in terms of the sides of the political spectrum that he united with that populist bent that we're seeing some of the traditional lines between Republicans and Democrats kind of grayed a little bit with this sense of an eye towards populism, right?
And advocating for those issues.
It's really interesting.
And it's happening in both our parties for sure.
Well, it is, and I think it's made a lot of these elections in the last little bit, you know, really...
Finishing up on sort of this conversation with, you know, the issue with some of these races and stuff that we're seeing in the DOJ. Look, I don't know where you've fallen or if you have fallen here.
I will...
I'm not a fan of Adam Schiff at all, number one.
Number two, him winning in California, I think would be a travesty.
Because you talk about, and look, I have respect for people who stand up for their beliefs, and whether they're wrong, right or wrong, if they fight for them, and they fight for them honestly.
But when I went through the impeachment process and I had to sit there with Jerry Nadler and I watched the others and Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi turned it all over to him, let him do his little star chamber issue down in there and then didn't have the guts enough to come and sit before the Judiciary Committee to defend his report.
He sent Dan Goldman up there and he and I, by the way, anybody on YouTube can go look up mine and Dan Goldman immediately.
It didn't work out real well for Goldman.
It's ugly.
But now he's a member of Congress.
And I loved it the other day.
Kevin, okay, we both just have to sit back and laugh at both of our sides at times.
And look, I'm a conservative.
You're not.
You're a Democrat.
I'm a Republican.
But when Dan Goldman got all high and mighty the other day about Jim Jordan and keeping stuff from him, I wanted to just vomit.
I was like, Are you kidding me?
Really?
Because that clip that I told you about was where they released, if you remember the impeachment stuff, they released the phone numbers and conversation between Nunez, Julian, and some of the White House folks and reporters.
Again, not anything part of this.
It was just gratuitous.
But Adam Schiff, I'm just going to say it now, does your party have a plan besides Gavin Newsom, which, oh please God, is Schiff going to win out in California?
I don't know.
I doubt it.
I mean, I think, you know, Schiff is a little bit more of a showboater in my party than a workhorse.
And I think, you know, it'll be interesting, the dynamic with, obviously, you know, the elections in a year and a half in terms of that seat with Dianne Feinstein.
And, you know, if she is to retire beforehand and the governor picks Gavin and picks her successor, you know, does that person, is that person just a placeholder, right, with the idea that, okay, we'll let the people decide?
Or, you Does Gavin really want to put in someone that will run for that seat and kind of put his mark on that seat?
Barbara Lee, others that are in that primary will be certainly interesting.
Well, it is interesting that Newson, and this is, again, very frustrating for you and I, and we've talked about our upbringings.
I mean, we both came from working class.
We both, you know, we work for what we have.
My dad was a state trooper.
It's very frustrating for me to hear, like, governors and other things like, I'm going to appoint And it'd be a hyphenate, an African-American female, an African-American male, a Hispanic.
You know, look, I don't mind anybody.
If they're the best, put them out there.
You know, it's like everything else.
If you're the best doctor, get in the doctor.
I want the best as you got.
But, you know, for everybody in California now, I mean, nuisance, which I think fine signs, frankly, should resign now.
And I don't know if you, I said this on TV the other day, that I'm faulting her staff at this point.
I mean, her family, yes, but she only has the one daughter, if I'm not mistaken.
But her staff knows she's not right.
And they're keeping pay.
They're getting paid.
And I get it.
They love her.
They're trying to protect her.
But they're not protecting her now.
When she doesn't even...
Kevin, how does it make you feel?
I mean, especially...
I remember, look, we had a couple of members on the Republican side.
It was just like, this is sad.
But to see Diane like she is now and to know who she was, whether I agreed with her or not, how do we rectify that?
It's tough.
And I think part of the problem, Doug, honestly, is we're doing all these decisions through the lens of partisanship and that Mitch McConnell, others are really good in terms of exercising power, even in the minority.
And I think there's a fear that if she steps down and Newsom appoints someone, and I don't know, I'm not as familiar with the rules of the Senate, but I think it's got to be a majority, at least 60, I think, to put a new member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And I think that's the calculation that, you know, Mitch McConnell will likely hold up that process, or you won't get 10 Republicans on board to fill that vacancy on judiciary.
And the saddest thing is to see Dianne Feinstein wheeled out just to vote on those nominations because of that fear of that split judiciary committee, where for the next, you know, year and a half, we won't have anyone process through.
Yeah, I think we should quit, though.
Yeah, I think if she quit, though, they can't because it's 11-10 split.
I think if she quit, if she wasn't there, I think they can put her on or not put her, but they put somebody else on.
And, you know, there may be some hoops to go through, but I think they could get the person on.
It's just frustrating to me because you know as well as I do, there's not going to be a Republican come out of California.
No, no, no.
You know, so you're going to have the numbers.
And I think, Doug, to your original point, I mean, you know, Love her or hate her, you know, she came in and she was elected in 92 or 94 or something like that.
And, you know, really successful mayor of San Francisco, you know, first woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And she was a powerhouse on women's issues, you know, gun issues, things like that.
And now to see her, you know, just like anyone, you know, and I've got, you know, I got...
Strong Thurman on my wall right here.
The last days of Strong Thurman and others.
Robert Byrd.
It was like Weekend at Bernie's for a lot of these folks.
That's not fair to their constituents that they represent or to their legacy, even.
Wrapping up here, like I said, and I hope, Kevin, we can make this a regular occurrence.
I've been talking pretty regularly.
I think we can do this as we look at, but one of the questions that's coming up now, and I'm hearing this, so I've got a Democrat to ask.
I want to ask.
And I know you're in for Biden, and I understand that.
But I'm hearing a lot, a lot of chatter.
Okay?
That either two things are going to happen.
That they're going to try and repeat the 2020 election and basically just hide him away for the next, you know, year.
Or...
There's a legit, this ain't really going to happen.
And that there could be...
But here's the key, and I'm going to ask this.
I think it has to happen before the primaries because nobody wants Vice President Harris.
I've not heard a Democrat who stood up and said, oh, please give me Vice President Harris.
You know, it just don't...
That's like a song that you never hear sung.
I mean, it's just not there.
From your perspective now, and I know you'll give the line you need to, But do you at least acknowledge that there's a lot of conversation along that same line?
No, absolutely.
I'm sure there's a ton of chatter out there, just given the President's age and things like that.
And that's fine.
We should entertain that conversation and have that conversation.
And that's going to be, if not a deciding factor, a factor for a lot of voters.
I think these previews of a Rose Garden thing and stuff like that, I think are a bit premature.
The President is traveling You know, seemingly every week to two, three states.
He wheels up fairly soon to visit in Colorado.
So, I mean, he's on the move.
And I think any incumbent president wants to use the trappings of the White House, the optics of the White House, Air Force One, things like that to make the case to the American people.
That's one advantage that an incumbent president has.
And I think, you know, I'm a guy that says, let Biden be Biden.
You know, I was in the green room with Speaker McCarthy a few days ago, you know, during the debt negotiations and stuff like that.
And he said, you know, he had multiple conversations with Joe Biden and that they were productive, good, engaging.
It's not weekend at birdies, stuff like that, that I think is a lot of the chatter out there on the right wing, that there was actual, like, He knew his stuff and what to advocate for.
And this is coming from Kevin McCarthy, who has said that publicly, too.
And we'll see over the next year and a half or so what the White House decides to do.
The problem with...
Okay, here's something we always forget, okay?
I think everybody forgets that Donald Trump is a businessman from New York, okay?
Number one, he's a builder from New York, which colors everything he does, okay?
Whether you like him or don't like him, that is just that business mentality, that general contractor mentality, and everybody forgets that.
They put him in a position of this politically operative he never was, didn't want to be.
And everybody forgets...
That Joe Biden has been this kind of screw up for years.
I mean, this is a guy, I mean, you know, he was at President Obama actually said, if you wanted to mess things up, give it to Joe Biden.
I mean, that was the show.
Yeah, I mean, but this is just the way it is.
And I'm not excusing it, because I think now it's gotten a little worse.
But I think some Democrats forget, this is the same Joe Biden, you know, that has been doing this for years, not just in the last few days, you know.
Well, I think, you know, Joe Biden, you know, has endeared himself to the American people, like him or not, gaffes and all, off-the-cuff remarks.
You know, people know who he is.
And it's going to be interesting.
What I know the vast majority of Americans don't want is to see a repeat of 2020 with Biden versus Trump in all the polling that I see.
So we'll see, you know, what happens on your side, whether it is that repeat.
Well, if you look at the polls, they don't want Biden on your side, so it's been an interesting run on that one.
The problem for you guys is they want Trump on your side.
The vast majority of Americans don't want that rematch, and I'll get my side those numbers up for the incoming president every day on Fox.
I love it.
You know, one of the things, too, and I forgot you brought it up and it's a good thing to do because, I mean, we're right in the middle of votes right now on this debt ceiling.
Look, Republican, Democrats, you know, I've never met, I've met very few Democrats.
Let me try to change this because there's a couple of them out there that, not you and not others, they just think, you know, spending forever and it doesn't really matter.
But most know that at the end of the day, we do have a problem in D.C. It's just a matter of how we spend it and where we spend it.
This debt ceiling stuff, look, I think at the end of the day, I'm not sure where I would have voted on it, but I don't think it was what all the Republicans wanted by no means.
I know it's not what the Democrats wanted.
But the real issue here is, yes, the debt's in.
But the real issue is when we come down to the appropriation stuff and we go up.
Kevin, you've heard this before.
We've heard it on Democrats.
We've done it on the Republican side.
You've done it on Democrats.
Well, we're going to increase it by 5%.
Well, we cut it by 2.5%.
So we cut the budget by 2.5%.
No, you increased it by 2.5%.
You took the projected increase and dropped it 2.5%.
You know, at some point, you really believe that there has to be a reckoning on some of this stuff.
And whether debt ceiling is it, how you use it, I think this will eventually pass.
McCarthy will have to deal with the fallout on it.
But we just don't focus on the real issue, which is appropriations process.
No, I think you're absolutely right.
I think you made this point in a video not too long ago with your podcast that we haven't gone through regular order in the budgeting process in a very long time.
And Democrats and Republicans both introduced their budget, and it's just a signaling budget, right?
These are all of our priorities with no focus on actually what will pass, what should pass.
And I think that the process has been so co-opted by people that have no interest in And actually governing and laying out a series of tough decisions.
And we've got to give up ground in terms of the entitlements and things like that and have an honest conversation on that front.
Republicans need to give a little ground on defense and where we're prioritizing those resources there.
Because if you take both those pockets out, I mean, that's, what is there, like 12% left in terms of what we're negotiating on the margins when we take out defense and entitlements.
And that's not how you're ever going to balance a budget.
Or make any kind of dent in our debt.
Yeah, the reality, I tell this story all the time, and I think you may have heard it on the podcast, about 84% of the budget Congress never votes on.
84% of, and it's going higher pretty much every year, percentagely.
So it's about 85, 84, 85%.
And people don't understand this.
We don't vote on Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.
We don't vote on it.
Every year it just gets spent because it's an automatic entitlement program.
And so you are right in the sense that we get down to about 16% of the budget, eight defense, eight everything else that you can ever imagine.
And the sad part about it is if you cut out everything but defense, You're still barely breaking even.
And we're bringing in more than we've ever brought in, you know, in history.
And so it's gonna be a really interesting time.
I'm anxious to see if we can have some discussion about that on a bigger scale.
I tried to work on it in Congress when I was there.
The Budget Control Act is a joke.
Totally.
It's just not there.
As we go forward, look, we're going to have a lot of fun over the next while doing these.
Folks, if you have any questions for either one of us, go to the DougCollinsPodcast.com.
There's a little email button right there.
You can send me a question.
We'll have this on.
Kevin and I are going to do this every few weeks.
We're going to get on and discuss an issue.
If you want to have an issue specifically that you'd like to hear, let us know about it.
In the meantime, catch him on Fox.
He is...
The sanity for the Democrats.
That's what they say on Twitter.
The sane Democrat or the likable Democrat.
We'll take it.
Yeah, because the other Democrat they always put me with don't like me.
I don't know how anyone could not like it.
We have a good time as it comes up, but it is fun.
But folks, this is the wrap for the day.
Kevin will be with us again.
Kevin, thanks for being a part of the Doug Collins podcast.
We'll see you again next time, okay?
You're the best, Congressman.
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