Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed GOP candidate for Nashville’s Fifth District, Robby Starbuck in studio to discuss his top two priorities if elected to Congress in 2022.
Leahy: In the studio with us, Republican congressional candidate Robby Starbuck, running for the Republican nomination in the Fifth Congressional District. We asked you this question before the break, Robby. If elected to Congress and sworn in January of 2023, what would be your number one legislative priority?
Starbuck: I’ve written two already that would be immediately put forward. Number one would be banned Critical Race Theory, not just in public schools, but also if you want a government grant, you want a government contract, you cannot train your employees with Critical Race Theory, and you cannot impose it on anybody within your business.
Leahy: Now that is a very good idea, number one. And what you’re combining, it’s interesting, the way you’ve structured. It’s not just banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory.
But what you’ve done there is you have incorporated in the legislative proposal Donald Trump’s executive order that banned federal funding for contractors that taught critical race, of course, the legal but not legitimate occupant of one those hundred Pennsylvania Avenue to Biden. One of the first things he did was to reverse that executive order.
Starbuck: And every other executive order.
Leahy: That particular idea, I think, is very, very interesting. And so that would be the bill that you would introduce.
Starbuck: That I would introduce right away.
Leahy: That would be your number one priority.
Starbuck: It’s essential to freedom. Education helps define what our national identity is. And so if we’re educating our kids to hate our country, then guess what? In 20 years, our national identity is going to be hating our country.
Leahy: By the way, that’s what public schools are doing right now.
Starbuck: 100 percent.
Leahy: They’re teaching kids to hate America, and your tax dollars are paying for it.
Starbuck: And we’re the adults and it’s our job to step in and stop it. And so that’s why that would be the first thing. The second thing would be a very simple immigration bill that says if you come here illegally, you will never, ever be allowed to become a citizen of the United States, and you will never be entitled to benefits.
Obviously very small caveats to that. If you’re being hunted down by your government or something along those lines, then maybe we have a different path.
Leahy: Well, there’s existing law for allows for asylum,
Starbuck: For true asylum. But there’s a process.
Starbuck: Exactly. There has to be a process. Merit-based. But our big problem with immigration is we’ve changed everything from incentivizing legal behavior to incentivizing illegal behavior.
When you have the Democratic candidates, now the person occupying the White House saying, we’re going to give you free health care, free this free that free everything. And then they act shocked when you have the borders getting flooded on a daily basis.
Obviously, they’re not shocked. They knew what that was going to do. We have to incentivize legal behavior again, which means saying, hey, if you ever want to be in America legally, you need to do this the right way, because if you do it one time the wrong way, you’re not going to be able to ever become a citizen here.
That will change the migration patterns right away. I’m not saying it’ll stop it, but it will change that pattern.
Leahy: Let’s talk a little bit about how successful such legislation would be. Now in the current makeup of Congress, where the Democrats have a nine or 10 vote margin and Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, such legislation would go nowhere. She wouldn’t even bring it forward.
Starbuck: She wouldn’t bring it forward or allow it to be.
Leahy: If Republicans maintain a majority, that legislation would have a chance. What do you think the odds are that the Republicans will win back the House of Representatives in November 2022?
Starbuck: We are going to win back the House in 2022. The Senate, I’m not making any promises, but the House I feel 1000 percent that we are going to take the House in 2022.
The energy on that level and just the wind is in our sails in many ways in terms of redistricting happening. And you saw a bunch of blue states lose districts as part of the census consuming New York. And people have fled their States.
Leahy: California lost one district.
Starbuck: And New York lost one or two. I don’t remember if it was one or two. I’d say it was I think seven states that lost seats were blue states and they went almost entirely red.
Leahy: We kept the nine congressional districts, but probably were right on the edge of adding a 10th.
Starbuck: Yeah, we right on the edge. And I would guess that in 10 years we’ll add another one.
Leahy: I think you’re probably right about that. Now, our listeners looking at this could say, you know, if a Republican won the fifth congressional district in November 2022 that would be a plus one for Republicans and increase the likelihood that Republicans win a majority of the House. And I think your argument would be…you can do it, right?
Starbuck: Absolutely. I’m a different candidate than we’ve ever had in this district before. And where has it gotten us running the same people from the same schools with the same backgrounds? We haven’t won this district.
It hasn’t done any good for the people here. We have to think outside the box. I’m an outside-the-box candidate. I’m fully, fully cognizant of that. But I can win this. We can flip Independents.
We can take a message in about freedom, especially after COVID. And with the background my family had fleeing Cuba and Marxism to be able to say, did you enjoy this free trial over the last year and a half of Marxism and socialism?
Leahy: We had a 15 month free trial of Marxism.
Starbuck: You got a free trial and I think a lot of people are ready to make the return. And you saw how the Coopers treated you like they were Kings and you were just their pawns that had to do whatever they told you to do. That’s not what America was founded on. We’re supposed to be free.
Leahy: First, would you engage in a debate if I don’t know, The Tennessee Star were to host it between you and any other candidates who are seeking the Republican nomination?
Starbuck: Absolutely. I will always debate people.
Leahy: Okay. So if we had one in-studio here at five in the morning and or six in the morning, we could do a two-hour debate from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.
Starbuck: Absolutely. I’ll just pray for them beforehand.
Leahy: We’ve got enough room in the studio. We will start identifying other candidates and we’ll start putting that out here. We might even, like, do it on a monthly basis.
I’ll have you in here from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and all the Republican candidates, and we’ll just have a nice conversation. And then after the August 2022 primary, we’ll invite the incumbent, Jim Cooper.
Starbuck: I’m not so sure Jim is going to be the person in a general election.
Leahy: Now, that’s interesting because he does have an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes type challenger.
Starbuck: He does. AOC backed a socialist to run against him. And if we’re being perfectly honest, the energy on the left in Nashville is the Progressives. It’s not the Blue Dog Democrats.
Blue Dog Democrats are being pushed out of their party. So who is his constituency? Especially after the last year and a half. The far left and the groups that have all this grassroots energy on the ground, they’re going to be backing AOC’s candidate.
They raised $100,000 in a week, which is, you know, they’re going to make him spend money. They’re going to make him spend a good deal of money if he decides to run. I think after redistricting it’s not a foregone conclusion that he even doesn’t retire.
Leahy: He did kick off his reelection campaign.
Starbuck: He could always quit.
Leahy: He also has had some personal problems with his wife who passed away.
Starbuck: I was very sorry to hear that.
Leahy: And again, our condolences to Representative Cooper about that, and we criticize his policies.
Starbuck: But he’s a human being. It’s terrible. I can’t imagine losing that person you love the most.
Leahy: Now the challenger on the left is Odessa Kelly. She did play ball for Tennessee State University. But she’s worked for the city government most of her career. That’s her main accomplishment.
Starbuck: And she would like a bigger government.
Leahy: And she’s not Jim Cooper. That’s her other accomplishment.
Starbuck: You know what? On that one, I will say that’s gonna help her out. I don’t understand how anybody can work in the government and then at the end of it, go, you know what’s going to fix things? More government.
Leahy: Well, that’s how they think. Whoever wins, whether it’s Odessa Kelly or Jim Cooper, or whoever their Democratic nominee is, we will invite them to a debate with the Republican nominee. Will you attend?
Starbuck: Oh, I definitely will. I think the question is, will they attend?
Leahy: I don’t think they’ll attend because they don’t believe in a free exchange of ideas, because their ideas are so very bad.
Starbuck: Absolutely.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Robby Starbuck” by Robby Starbuck.
