All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 6, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
32:13
Three and Half Weeks Later
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
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.
Hi everybody, we're back.
Welcome to the Doug Collins Podcast.
Glad to have you joining us in today.
Got lots to discuss.
We haven't had a chance to discuss some of the political moves because in just a minute after the break, I'm going to be bringing in Chip Blake.
Normally, you know Chip from our Friday's Finest and you will always see him on Friday's Finest.
But we have Chip bringing in for some political discussion today because we've had the sort of running bet going between Friday's Finest is how many weeks it would go without a speaker.
Well, congratulations.
Congratulations!
We now have a speaker.
I'm not sure where that's going to go, but Chip and I are going to discuss it here in just a minute.
A lot of things going on today.
I'd be glad to have you with us on the podcast as we go forward.
So just right after the break, it'll be Chip coming on.
We're going to talk some politics today on the Doug Collins podcast.
Hey folks, when you look out and you see the country and just the disarray it is, you see the Biden administration, you see the wholesale prices have just went through the roof again.
Inflation is tearing us up.
If you have your finances all impinged in just a few areas, if you're just in stocks and bonds and you're not diversified, I got some news for you.
You need a navigator.
You need somebody to help you get to where you need to go with those finances.
And I can't think of anybody better to do that than my friends at Legacy Precious Metals.
You need precious metals in that portfolio.
You need gold and silver.
And Legacy Precious Metals, the folks there, they're the navigators.
They know how to deal with tough times.
They know how to look ahead and take your personal situation and make it something that can be workable for you in the long term.
Because at the end of the day, that's the one you're most concerned about.
You need to make sure that your personal finances and your retirement are secure.
You need folks like Legacy Precious Metals helping you in that.
They will take the time to learn you.
They'll learn your finances.
They'll learn where your investment goals are, and they'll help you get there.
And metals and gold right now, in this kind of crazy inflation, in this kind of crazy economy with the Bidens, Economy is just, you need that help, and Legacy Precious Metals is the one to do that.
So give Legacy Precious Metals a call, 866-528-1903, 866-528-1903, or you can always visit them online at LegacyPMInvestments.com, and you can download their free investor's guide.
Legacy Precious Metals, they're the ones you need.
They're the navigators to help you to these turbulent times.
Hey everybody, it's MyPillow's 20th year anniversary and over 80 million MyPillows have been sold.
Mike Lindell and MyPillow wants to thank each of you and every one of you for giving you the lowest price in history on their MyPillows.
You will receive a queen size MyPillow for $19.98.
Regular price is $69.98 and just $10 more for a king size.
You will receive deep discounts on all MyPillow products, such as bed sheets, mattress toppers, pet beds, mattresses, MySlippers, and so much more.
This is a time to try out something other than the amazing products that you've had your eye on.
Go to MyPillow.com, click on the radio podcast square, and use the promo Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S, to receive this amazing offer on the queen size MyPillow for $19.98 or call 800-986-3994.
This offer comes with a 10-year warranty and 60-day money-back guarantee.
It's time to start getting the quality sleep you deserve.
You know how I know that?
Because I sleep on a MyPillow every night.
Go to MyPillow.com and use promo code Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S, or call 800-986-3994 today.
Alright, welcome aboard, Chip.
How we doing, buddy?
I'm doing great, Doug.
I hope you are.
Oh yeah, ready to go.
You know, just been on the road a lot, looking at all this, watching it, and hearing from people's, you know, especially when you're up at Fox and you're up everywhere else talking about what's going on on Capitol Hill.
Well, first off, we now have a speaker.
Let's, you know, again, this has been on the discussion.
We've talked about this on the podcast earlier, but now I want to dive in a little deeper here.
Because, you know, look, Mike Johnson is a good guy.
I know him personally.
I know him very well.
He's a good guy.
He's been on this podcast multiple times.
And so, sort of get a behind-the-scenes in him.
But, Chip, one, let's just go, before we get to Mike himself and really the problems that are there, did it really, and this is sort of rhetorical, but it's not, It was amazing.
It took three and a half weeks.
I mean, what does that show us?
Because one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today about politics is we're going to get into redistricting.
We're going to get into elections.
We're going to get into stuff that you and I have been dealing with forever.
But...
I think we still have a problem within the conference, even though they came together.
I know there's people passing out in their cars right now.
Please, no heavy traffic here.
But it did pass unanimously.
But you just get the sense that maybe this isn't, you know, it's going to be a struggle that reveals deeper schisms within the party.
Yeah, I mean, look, it took three and a half weeks.
In some ways, Doug, it feels like it took a lot longer than that, right?
I mean, you know, three and a half weeks is a long time, but it feels like now that we have a speaker, it kind of feels like we went six or seven weeks without one.
You know, I was watching Mike Johnson's first formal press conference today.
He gave it this morning.
You know, the thing that struck me is just how, and I don't know Mike Johnson like you do, and I'm getting to learn, you know, a lot more about him just like most of the American people are right now.
And what really struck me, Doug, is just how different he is than Kevin.
That's not a knock on Kevin.
It's just, you know, as individuals and as elected officials and as people, I mean, people have different strengths and weaknesses and different styles.
And, you know, Mike Johnson, what he says, his cadence, his personality, his His style, probably his tactics, his ideology.
I didn't realize how they really are different than Kevin.
What's not different are the challenges that he faces, right?
I mean, the challenges that he faces are very similar, if not identical, to the ones that Kevin faces.
And so, yeah, look, he's going to have a little bit of a honeymoon, but it's going to be about We're still in the honeymoon phase now, but I don't know how, especially in light of what happened You know,
with the, you know, motion to vacate the chair and eight Republicans voting for all Democrats to, you know, remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker, I don't know with the wombs that exist between, you know, the, let's just call it the different sides of the caucus.
I mean, I don't know that, you know, I think everybody kind of wants to get along right now, and they are in public, but I mean, I think we'll see where the rubber hits the road here really within the next two or three weeks.
Yeah, and I think so.
And look, we're looking back a little bit here.
And last week, you also had, interestingly enough, Kay Granger, head of Props, is retiring.
You had Ken Buck, who...
It's that he's basically retiring, and he did not go out, you know, quietly.
He went kicking and screaming, and I think you'll hear more from Ken.
And Ken is another one that I know very well, and it's just...
And Ken is very opinionated, always has been.
I knew him before he was elected, but what he's been saying really brings back some of the harsh realities that we have in the conference, that this just is not going to be easy.
It may or may not happen before this actual podcast drops, but there is a bill that is being discussed about the Israel pay-for.
And This one shines a little bit of a light, I think, Chip, into the thinking of Mike Johnson, the new speaker, in a way that we're going to have to get used to for a little bit.
And I don't mean to be...
Look, I'm wanting to uplift him, okay?
I want him to do good.
I mean, we need all the help we can get.
But it is interesting that this was a more...
Okay, let me set this table here for everybody listening to the podcast.
And again, if this is, you know, again, always taping podcasts, bills are moving pretty quickly, but I want to say this.
When you were looking at the Israel pay package, everybody supports the Israel aid package.
There's nobody really in Congress except the squad and a few others who are not supporting it.
So it would pass with bipartisan if it came basically on its own.
Now, in the House, the Ukrainian aid package has a real hard time, and that's why the Senate is doing it.
So I thought he had a good idea to come out early, get an Israeli package up, $14 billion, send it to the Senate.
And then I thought, and look, we can all debate how badly we are in debt.
I get it.
But he's got the CR coming up.
He's got appropriations bills where he can maybe offset some stuff there.
He chose not to do that.
He chose not to bring a clean, what we'll call a clean bill.
He chose to offset it with IRS money, which immediately took, from the inflation reduction act, immediately took all the Democrats off the table.
In some ways, I feel like that has undercut the position, because if he could have sent that to the House, to the Senate, with 350, 375 Republicans and Democrats, that puts Schumer and McConnell in a hard boat.
It does, but 100%, Doug.
But I think you just kind of highlighted the challenges that he's going to deal with, right?
Because Kevin...
If you watch Kevin McCarthy's press conference as a speaker, you know, he never really...
Kevin never had a honeymoon, ever.
No.
I mean, you know, it was how many days?
How many votes?
So Kevin never really had a honeymoon.
Kevin always seemed very frustrated.
And I think rightfully so, because, you know, Republicans don't control the executive branch.
And we don't control the Senate.
We have such a narrow majority in the House.
And so I think one of the reasons Kevin was always frustrated and he always looked exasperated and exhausted when he was speaking is because he knew that the hand that he had been dealt It was not a really strong hand.
If you play poker, you get two cards that nobody gets to see, and then the other cards belong to everybody else.
The cards that Kevin kept on getting that nobody could see, you didn't need to see them, but you knew they weren't good cards.
Mike Johnson right now, he's not experienced Defeat yet on legislation.
He's not experienced defeat on any tactics and legislative tactics decision that he's made.
He will because it's just, you know, it's part and parcel.
And look, I hope he succeeds as well.
But, you know, I don't know how, you know, I don't have a crystal ball to know how we're going to get funding for legislation.
For Israel, it seems like it's gotten off to a little bit of a rocky start.
But maybe, Doug, when this is all said and done, and if Israel does get the funding that they need, maybe we can go back and look at this and say, all right, well, Mike Johnson had to go about it that way at the beginning.
But Honeymoon's going to be over quick.
It's about to be a rough three, four, or five weeks.
Yeah, and I think that's only my concern is, look, I get it.
I mean, you would lose 50, 60, I won't go high.
So you'll lose 40, 50, even maybe 60 Republicans if they didn't offset it.
Okay, I was watching something.
Okay, Chip, this will blow your mind.
I was watching Boston Legal.
I had it on in the background.
I was doing work at the office.
First time I've been in the office in about two weeks.
And I just had it playing in the background.
And they were doing an argument about voting and kids voting.
It was one of the funnier episodes, a better episode.
But Dan Larroquette, who played one of the lawyers, got up and he made a comment.
He said, why not, you know, kids 17, why shouldn't they vote?
I mean, we're already $8 trillion in debt.
And I thought to myself, that was just 2006, 2007. We were $8 trillion in debt.
We are $33 trillion today.
It was $12 trillion when I got to Congress in 2012. It was like around $12 trillion, $13 trillion.
I mean, I get it that, you know, people are going to say, well, you should have offset it.
Well, you know, maybe until you start actually doing really things that's going to cut that, then basically, I love you, man, but shut up.
That's like you being on a diet and having a double scoop Sunday and just saying, hold the sprinkles.
I mean, we got a problem here.
And I just was, you know, I thought maybe they could do that.
And for the first time in a long time, the House put the Senate in a bind.
Yeah, that would be nice from time to time, wouldn't it?
Occasionally.
And think about it.
How would McConnell and Schumer say no in many ways to, okay, we know that our Ukraine money in the House is almost going to be hard to get.
We know we're getting pressured hard on Israel money.
All right, let's just take this off the table and go back to square one.
Look, we'll see it all play out in the crystal ball.
Mike Johnson, it could be the best route.
Because for the most part, he pleased...
His side, he'll get not all of those.
This is a concern.
Because you've got some who inherently just don't want to do it anyway.
Oh, yeah.
And that's what I think he's about to find out.
You know this from serving and being up in Washington.
So much of what happens up there...
It's really about personality and relationships, and I know people don't like to hear that.
And it does seem like, and I certainly like Kevin, I know you did, and that doesn't mean I always got along with him or agreed with everything that he was doing.
I know you kind of feel the same way, but, you know, In watching Mike's press conference this morning, you know, we're about to find out how much of the people that didn't like Kevin and his tactics was about personality and how much of it was actually about policy.
Yeah, I think it's a lot.
Yeah, because I mean, Mike Johnson's a hard guy not to like, right?
I mean, he's, you know, he's, I mean, he just, he's, He's smooth.
He's calculated.
He drives the media crazy.
I don't know if you've noticed this, Doug.
The mainstream media is going ballistic because he's not independently wealthy.
Yeah, the latest is he doesn't have a checking account.
They're convinced that he's hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in a foreign...
I mean, it's just crazy.
We're about to find out We're about to find out all that, but I appreciated his demeanor.
I could see why he's such a likable fellow.
I could see why he was the one person at the end of the three-and-a-half-week episode that was able to unite the caucus.
But I think he's got the hardest job right now in politics, and I wish him nothing but the best.
I think he's well positioned to handle it, but we'll see, right?
I mean, he's gone from...
He's gone from pitching in single A, where you can't fill the stands in a 6,000-seat stadium, to pitching Game 7 in the World Series overnight.
We're about to see what that looks like.
I'll say this, and then I'll shut up.
The last question he got asked in today's press conference was, all this has happened pretty quick on you.
Can you reflect on what the last week has meant to your family?
And yourself.
And he thought about it and he said, you know, I'm from Louisiana, so I really deal a lot with football and hurricane metaphors.
And I can say it's been a catfire.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
And the shocker, too, you know, you talk about the press and him going through his financials.
Okay, I'm going to share for those listening.
Anybody out there, you know, for the most part, you know, everybody talks about what, you know, politicians make and they're underhanded.
They do dirty deals, all this kind of crap.
We're the most regulated industry out there, okay?
I mean, because from a personal standpoint, I had to when I was in Congress, and I made it pretty easy on my staff because I really didn't have any stocks.
I didn't have, I mean, we were, I mean, Lisa and I had saved money.
We had a house.
We had a few things, but we didn't, you know, it was always good for us.
We never wanted to be in the bottom five of the 435, but we never wanted to be, you know, we were never going to get close to the top of who made most and always in the bottom.
But people know that you can look at it.
I mean, this is open.
And if you lie on that, you go to jail.
I mean, this is not a, you know, it's not a, hey, make it up as you go kind of thing.
But they're picking on him, you know, in that regard.
But what got me the most is they're picking on him because he's an actual conservative.
His wife and he are actual conservatives.
They believe in pro-life.
They have biblical worldview.
It's amazing to me that they're calling him a short earther.
Because he said, you know, he made a speech one time, you know, he believed in the biblical chronology of Earth.
It's like, okay, I mean, again, it's just, it's so hypocritical of the left.
So hypocritical.
Oh, completely.
Completely.
And he's, not only is he a conservative, but he's a Christian, and he's not afraid to wear his faith on his sleeve.
No, he's not.
And he's, by the way, he's likable.
He's a likable person.
He's a likable guy, and that drives him nuts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You see him out and you've heard him on this podcast.
And I encourage, hey, folks, if you're listening to the podcast, if you haven't subscribed, please hit the subscribe button.
Keep coming back.
But also, you can go back.
If you subscribe, you can go back and see wherever you get your podcast.
And you can go back and find Mike Johnson.
We've had him on a couple of times over the years talking about a lot of the different stuff going on.
And he's very knowledgeable.
He's a constitutional lawyer.
They're not...
Shockingly enough, and I know there may be people listening to this podcast that will be offended by what I'm going to say.
Shockingly enough, he is actually a constitutional lawyer, not one who plays one at local party meetings.
I'm waiting for the email button to ring on that one, but okay.
Here we go.
Just go there and hit the button and tell me what you want to tell me.
I don't care.
If you have spent 20 minutes reading the Constitution and believe that you have all the ins and outs on it and you go talk about it at different party meetings, Republican party meetings and others, Okay, smell some of them ways you're there.
I mean, because...
Yeah.
Yeah, it's not going to happen.
But anyway, he is, and he gets the issues.
Amy Comey Barrett and him are personal friends, known each other since school.
Interesting.
Yeah, it really is.
And he helped get her...
You know, he was very supportive and pushing when she was nominated and everything.
So a lot you see here.
Let's go back to something else, though, Chip.
And this is...
Something that I'm seeing, Georgia just had this happen to them.
I think it's a travesty.
I think the district court judge has little to no understanding of the election issues on redistricting.
But I think also, to his fairness, and I'm trying to be kind here, I think the Supreme Court left it ambiguous on What these districts have to look like.
Because frankly, back in June, the Supreme Court basically said, in Alabama, you've got to make an African American district.
And it was like, okay, how are they actually saying that?
Now, Georgia has just been told to redraw their maps, both their legislative maps on the state level and their congressional maps.
It's going to be interesting to see how that goes.
I had a conversation with someone who was near the governor's office in Georgia, Kemp, who said, we ain't worried about it until the legislature figures it out.
I said, I get that.
But You've got North Carolina.
The reason I'm setting this up, it's a long setup, but bear with me.
Number one, folks, if you don't know, Chip was with a guy named Lynn Westmillan.
Lynn Westmillan is a mentor of mine.
He's a dear friend, just like he is to Chip, served in Congress.
I'll tell people this all the time.
If Lynn had not went to Congress, Lynn Westmillan would still be the Speaker of the House in Georgia, if not Governor.
I just believe he would have been and stayed there.
But he has an old contractor, a good old boy mentality.
That's just the way he is.
But he got in, y'all got into redistricting heavy from really his time before you even more started working with him in the early 2000s, all the way to when you were working with him in 2009, 2010, working on the previous maps.
This matters, and I'm afraid Republicans, Chip, and I'd love to get your input here, I'm afraid Republicans got complacent after the last round, and we didn't take this round of redistricting as seriously across the country as, say, we did back in 2010. Yeah, I mean, where to start, right?
I mean, there's so much to unpack there.
I mean, I will say this, that, you know, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court rightly kicked out as unconstitutional, a lot later than they should have, candidly.
I mean, a lot of people don't know, but what Section 5 mandated was that if you were a Section 5 state, Or jurisdiction, which Georgia was, many of the states in the South were, you had to submit your maps to the Justice Department for preclearance.
It was blatantly unconstitutional because for a variety of reasons, back to what you said about I'm not a constitutional scholar, but what I do understand is you can't have one set of laws for one people and another set of laws for another people.
But we did.
The formula that decided preclearance Up until like, what, five years ago, maybe six years ago, you know, maybe, you know, was the 1968-1972 presidential election.
I mean, are you kidding me?
So, you know, now there's this whole cottage industry that the Democrats have that's much more of a, it's much bigger of a cottage industry that, you know, they raise tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, To go after only states that have Republican drawn maps.
It's not so they can equal the playing field for minorities to compete.
Do not kid yourselves.
The reason behind this is to maximize Democrat drawn districts.
That is political.
That is not leveling the playing field for It's only going after Republican state-drawn maps.
And look, what these judges have done is they move the goalposts every time they make a decision.
And I'll say this, and I know I'm going to get criticized for saying it, but...
Federal judges, especially Trump-appointed federal judges, you know, in some ways, you know, they're on the federal bench now, and that's a lifetime appointment, right?
You know, they are petrified at making a ruling at which they could be labeled against.
by the other side as racist.
Racist, yeah, yeah.
And so what they're going to do is they're going to sprinkle in, and unfortunately, redistricting and legislative maps has been the sweetener that they decide that they're going to use to always point to and say, you know, I evaluate these you know, I evaluate these cases on a case-by-case basis It's a problem, but I don't have the solution for it.
But one federal judge in Georgia, all of a sudden, Steve Jones.
Decided he's going to overturn the will of 180 people in the House, 56 members in the Senate, and the governor's signature.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
And when you look at this too, Chip, and I don't want to bore people with Georgia, but let's just think about this.
And we'll get back to Georgia in a second.
Over the past month and a half, you're dealing with a real situation in which, if I was Richard Hudson with the NRCC, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is the House side, You're looking and staring down the possibility that of lean D, lean R, okay, take out the undecideds, but seats that you could keep, because here's what really kills me about some of this redistricting.
They don't deal a lot with the very purple seats.
They deal with the hard seats.
They switch them from D to R, or R to D, however you want to be fair about it.
But you're looking, if he could actually start the cycle For the states who are going to have to change before next year, which Georgia is one of them, he could start literally in a minority position.
Because New York is looking at at least seven seats.
I just talked to some of the Republicans up there.
Seven seats that they have right now currently to flip R to D. You're looking at Alabama.
We've already lost one in Alabama.
If you go by what Steve Jones has said here, and by the way, Georgia is appealing it, but they're not asking for a stay.
So in other words, we're going to go ahead and draw maps.
Interesting legal theory there.
We won't get into that.
But anyway, they're not.
So in December, you know, November 27th, state legislature is coming in.
One seat basically in play there.
That's a flip R to D is what they're looking at.
North Carolina, however, has been a blessing, in a sense, if you're looking at this from R&D numbers, because they've went six, five numbers, I think, five the other way.
But there's a balance.
But you're only talking about a four-seat majority.
And by the way, those states you just mentioned, other than New York, I mean, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, those are all southern states.
Here we go.
And so we're dealing with this.
And again, the Santos seat, I mean, there's other non-redistricting kind of stuff that you got to look at as well.
So it's just very frustrating coming from a state.
In fact, it was Georgia and North Carolina who started this idea of, you know, suing, looking at the redistricting, taking Section 5 to heart.
Georgia did it in a very landmark case, which Flip Georgia Republican.
Listen, to be fair about it, it did, because the maps were...
Tom Murphy, the former speaker, forever, that last set in 2000 were just so badly gerrymandered, it was terrible.
We won the case, got maps that were much cleaner.
So, really and truly...
My hope is that the House will get this stuff together because I think the election cycle right now is very, very difficult for the House.
It is very difficult for the House, and a lot of that is of their own doing, right?
I mean, if you're a voter right now, I mean, why after what you just witnessed the last three weeks would you decide you wanted to vote Republican in your House race?
I mean...
Unless it's, look, I don't like Congress, but I like my congressman or my congressperson.
That was one of my biggest criticisms of what the gang of A did on the motion to vacate the chair.
When are we going to start thinking about making certain that we keep a majority in the House with everything else you just mentioned?
If we lose a majority in the House, It's going to be a long...
And the Senate is no guarantee.
Of course not.
Look, this is where...
And we're going to sort of wrap it up here, Chip.
Because I want to get back to this.
You and I are going to do a couple more.
Then I want us to do deep dives for people.
Because you and I both have been on the inside looking at this.
And it's like, how does this work going forward?
And I think too many people just assume that...
It's either rigged, gerrymandered, or whatever.
I believe that voting still matters, but I believe that the statistics and also believe that the polls don't lie.
I mean, they can be skewed, but they give you a good snap, as you've always taught me, a snapshot in time.
In a moment in time.
But we need to talk more about this because one of the issues we didn't talk about today, and I want to get back with you on another time to do this, is the money factor.
And Johnson is going to have a heck of a time trying to replace the money that Kevin McCarthy was bringing in.
And folks out there who say, I don't like money in politics.
Oh, grow up.
Okay?
It's everywhere.
And it's not illegal.
It's not bad.
I mean, think about how many people have ever came to you, Chip, and said, I'm going to run a grassroots campaign.
And you said, that's nice.
I'm not going to be helping you.
You know?
Yeah, I mean, you can only, grassroots campaign work, they work when they're funded.
And, you know, I mean, if you're strictly running a grassroots campaign, you know, the translation is, I really don't think my fundraising potential is all that well.
I'm all for successful grassroots campaigns, but it has to be balanced.
Yeah, or you're running for a non-understood county office that nobody cares about.
Yeah.
You can win doing that.
Unless you're running for surveyor in your county and your family has 100 people in it.
You'll probably win that one.
Okay, I get it.
That's right.
Folks, it's Chip Lake.
Chip's great.
You see him on Friday's Finest.
He's a dear friend of mine.
He is one of my political mentors and political friends and just an all-around brother.
And I appreciate him a bunch being on here.
We're going to talk more about this because we want to keep you informed of what's going on.
That people don't talk about it.
It's not the left or right.
Even the right media doesn't talk about these kind of things because they get into the heart of who we are as a political, you know, electoral world.
And we've got to understand that if you're going to see things made better.
So, Chip, we'll see you next time.
And, folks, keep tuning in to the Doug Collins Podcast.
We'll see you on the next time.
▲
Export Selection