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 all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio for the first edition of Aaron’s Analysis.
AARON GULBRANSEN:
I have a simple exhortation for the audience and a lot of you do this already, but I think it’s very important to note when it comes to news and politics. Always think and dig deeper. Pay attention. Most of the people talking in politics, speaking, messaging, and creating messaging are doing so with a specific aim and goal in mind and want you to act accordingly.
You, the audience, have your duty to always ask why and what they are aiming for. Because this message is very often self-serving and also deceptive. The motivation in politics is almost never what the stated purpose is. If you barely pay attention, you will get fooled and act and speak accordingly.
A perfect example of this is the failed Russia Gate and the accusations against Donald Trump. If you were to rely upon what the members of the left, the media, and former Obama administration officials were saying on TV, you would’ve believed that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin.
If you go went and read the congressional committees and paid attention and watched their testimony, you saw that they were lying on television and Trump did not collude with Putin. Even right now, in a slightly different way, you’re seeing a lot of self-serving messaging on the Trump indictment.
Obviously, coming from the left, they believe that Donald Trump should go to jail because their hatred is blinding them. But also because we are in the middle of a campaign contest for the presidency, you are seeing Trump’s supporters pile on and demand fielty from opponents of Donald Trump or potential opponents of Donald Trump in the Republican primary.
Another scenario where messaging has been deceptive is when you had a former candidate for the RNC chair which happened several months ago where Harmeet Dhillon was talking about how she was the conservative outsider and she was going to take the party back to grassroots. She made over $800,000 from the Republican National Committee as an attorney.
Deceptive. Even today, at the local level, you have candidates running for office and chairman in counties like Williamson, Sumner County, and several other places as well, where they talk about the various things that the party is going to do once they take over, take over the school board and take over this body and that party.
The role of the Republican party and this is not messaging, this is just very true, is to get Republican nominees elected. The same thing goes for the Democrat Party. These parties structure which is several different things than outside groups like mine and others. So when you’re hearing messaging very often, ask yourself, what’s the truth here?
Take things to their logical conclusion. Why is the messenger saying this? And what are they looking for? Are they looking to simply win an election and they’ll say anything to get there, or are they looking to make somebody else look bad?
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this analysis:
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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.
Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Thuan Vo.
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 all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio to discuss Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition goals and the expected swift passage of modified abortion trigger ban in Senate next week.
Leahy: We welcome in studio, the official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report and all-star panelist, Aaron Gulbransen and also the Tennessee state director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. How much longer do you anticipate the Tennessee General Assembly will remain in session?
Gulbransen: Everybody tells me probably the first week in May.
Leahy: We’ve got probably, what, five or six more weeks left, right?
Gulbransen: Yes.
Leahy: These sessions have an ebb and flow to them, right?
Gulbransen: They do, especially at the beginning, right? You’re, they’re not doing a lot on Mondays. Then, as of late, they do a lot on Mondays, but they’re typically not in session on Fridays. And they have their floor. This will expand as it goes on, but, they’ve typically had their floor sessions early in the morning on Thursdays in both Houses, and they get out of town.
Leahy: They did. I think they accomplished a lot early on with the prohibition of gender mutilation for those under the age of 18 and with the bill that prohibited sexually suggestive public shows where kids attended adult cabaret shows on public property.
Gulbransen: Adult cabaret shows on public property and also where children may be.
Leahy: They got that done.
Gulbransen: For those of you lefties in the audience, because there’s so many of you, I say sarcastically, listening to this show, the talking points on the left have been just so bizarre on SB 3.
Leahy: SB 3 being…
Gulbransen: The adult cabaret show ban on public property. And in front of kids they’ve tried to twist it and say, oh, you’re banning drag shows. You can’t do Shakespeare in the park anymore. And it’s just ridiculous empty rhetoric.
And of course, by revving up their people, the General Assembly got flooded based on that. And that, of course, was Senate Majority leader Jack Johnson’s bill. He’s had a great session. He was on the two bills we just mentioned; he was the Senate prime sponsor.
There is also legislation he sponsored passed that made some protections against government overreach on COVID, permanent. Which obviously is very important to me and most of us listening.
It was a good session for Leader Johnson. Of course, on the adult cabaret show ban, Chris Todd in the House deserves a lot of credit too.
Leahy: Chris has emerged as quite a leader there. There are a couple of other bills out there, though. There’s this controversial bill but it shouldn’t be controversial, but the proposal to make the Duck River a scenic river.
Apparently, there is a group that wants to turn parts near the Duck River in Maury County into a landfill. That’s turned out to be fairly contentious. I don’t know if you’ve tracked that particular one.
Gulbransen: No, because unfortunately, the Tennessee Faith and Freedom have nothing to do with that, those sorts of issues.
Leahy: Good point. So here’s my take on the Tennessee General Assembly right now. I think it started off very strongly. And now in part because of the controversy surrounding Lieutenant Governor McNally, it seems to be bogging down toward the end. Your thoughts?
Gulbransen: I think so. I think they were so hot and heavy and got a lot accomplished very quickly that it’s at the point where, okay, where do we go? Or a lot of the very important issues they’re working on, they’re not getting a lot of media attention.
Last night the House passed with 83 votes in favor of the modification of the state’s abortion trigger ban. Ultimately after a lot of public pressure and a lot of work by a lot of different people, a very narrow modification was made. They removed the affirmative defense clause in there. For those of you who don’t know what that means…
Leahy: Add me to that list. (Chuckles)
Gulbransen: You’ll see this in a lot of legislation and laws on the books in the state, especially on gun carry laws. It’s basically as some would say, an arcane way of saying you can’t do this except X, Y, and Z. And if you find yourself being charged this is your affirmative defense. I’m trying to think of an analogy that isn’t inflammatory here, but, if you are…
Leahy: Oh, you can be inflammatory.
Gulbransen: If for some reason you have to go speed really quickly because you’re in fear for your life and you get pulled over and you get a ticket and you can go to court and explain affirmatively. Yes, sir. Yes, I was speeding. But it’s because such and such was chasing after me with a gun. That’s affirmative. That’s an affirmative defense.
Leahy: That bill has passed the House now pretty resoundingly.
Gulbransen: Yes.
Leahy: Where is it on the state Senate side?
Gulbransen: I think you’ll see action next week.
Leahy: And you anticipate that bill will pass in the state Senate?
Gulbransen: I think it will. It’s on the Senate judiciary calendar today. It’ll probably sail through that and then you’ll see probably a floor vote next week.
Leahy: What’s the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s view on that bill?
Gulbransen: We are far happier with it than the original intent of it.
Leahy: That is a very qualified answer.
Gulbransen: In the beginning, it was far broader and it was all over the place. But we’re much happier with what it is now.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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.
Background Photo “Tennessee Senate” by Tennessee General Assembly.
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 all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio to describe the mission of the Faith and Freedom Coalition locally and nationally.
Leahy: In studio with us, Aaron Gomon, the official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report, is also an all-star panelist and the state director for the State of Tennessee of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Aaron, your job as the state director in Tennessee of the Faith and Freedom Coalition is to represent the agenda of the Faith and Freedom Coalition before the Tennessee General Assembly. How’s that going this session?
Gulbransen: Very well. By the way, you can find us on the web at tnffcoalition.com and on Twitter @tnfaithfreedom.
Leahy: Can I just ask you this question first? If you can remind our audience what the Faith and Freedom Coalition is at the national level.
Gulbransen: The simplest thing to do to say is we activate conservative voters of faith. And that’s across all different denominations. And we support Israel. We support traditional marriage. We’re very pro-life. We have an operation at the federal level that does what I do in the state.
There are several different people working in DC in both halls of Congress and at the White House. Of course, when you have a conservative in the White House, you can certainly get a lot more things done, but that’s what we do. We engage in issues and advocacy on a swath of different issues. There’s also some criminal justice reform with a conservative bent on that as well.
A lot of work gets done in other states. And we’ll be dipping our toes into that here pretty soon. Human trafficking and child trafficking issues are very important. And then we will deal with taxes as well. Here in Tennessee, we’re blessed with not having a state income tax.
And the issue of taxes is not as necessarily as big as it is in other states. Check out more about all of this on tnffcoalition.com. I neglect to say that often enough on the air. So I’m just making up for it today, Michael. We’ve been blessed.
An obvious statement, working with The Tennessee Star as I did and working with you was a very good jumpstart to relationships with the General Assembly, and we’ve been able to hop on and support bills and have a say in a number of different issues.
Leahy: I was just going to add that one of the things that we’ve done here at The Tennessee Star, we’ve been up here for six years, and you came in as our Tennessee political editor and did a great job. But one of the things that we’ve done is simply this, the phrase that you coined, left stream media which I love.
Coined that today here. Mark it down, folks. Left-stream media. I’m stealing it by the way. That phrase accurately describes the media in Tennessee. They’re all left-stream. All of them except for The Tennessee Star. All we do is talk to Tennessee legislators, county executives, and local officials.
And we simply report factually what they say. We don’t twist it. We just tell folks what they say. And because of that, members of the Tennessee General Assembly like to talk to us. We just simply report what they say accurately because the left-stream media here in Tennessee, News Channel Five, they’re all lefties.
They all have an agenda. And Tennessee General Assembly members know that. You get straight reporting from us. And that’s why we’ve been able to communicate with a lot of members of the Tennessee General Assembly. That’s why they come in here in studio and talk.
Because we’re not trying to twist things. And that’s one of the things that in your reporting, you got to know a lot of these folks. And that’s why now, not in a reporting capacity, but in another capacity, you’ve been able to develop relationships with people that have come to trust you because of your honest reporting.
Gulbransen: It wasn’t exactly like switching to advocacy was foreign to me. I did that for many years. A vast majority of my career is in campaigns.
Leahy: You worked with the American Center for Law and Justice. ACLJ. Purely journalistic. But for most of your career, you’ve been either a political consultant or an issue advocate.
Gulbransen: Yes. And my first foray into politics at least as a volunteer was with the Long Island Coalition for Life, the oldest pro-life group in the country which actually was started before Roe v. Wade even happened. Obviously, the issue of life is very important to me.
On that note, there’s an important bill that the House local government committee is taking up today, HB 90. The short version of it bans local governments from spending money on abortions or spending money assisting people in obtaining an abortion.
Leahy: There’s a little thing going on here. This is very interesting when you talk about local governments. In Tennessee, the local governments that are in the left-wing centers such as Nashville, Davidson County, and Shelby County, they want to have their own government.
They went out with the sanctuary city thing that a couple of years ago, the Tennessee General Assembly slapped them down on that. But they all want to be their own governments, and they are creations of the state government, and they don’t wanna recognize it pretty much.
Gulbransen: In the wake of the abolition of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court, Nashville Metro Council tried to send $500,000 to Planned Parenthood. The mayor’s office, I forget the exact wording of it, but basically, made clear that they would try to help their employees go out of state to get abortions and this sort of thing.
And honestly, I think the most common sense coalition-building side of the abortion debate is no taxpayer money should ever be spent on this. There are a lot of people that will have differing opinions on it. But when you bring up money, there’s a lot more consensus. Unless you’re a far-left Democrat, that’s an elected official, and you’re pandering to your base.
Leahy: What cracks me up about a lot of these far-left, local, folks who run for our office and run for city council, is they misunderstand their base. They think actually if they become a city council member here in Nashville or in Memphis, their job is to set American foreign or national policy. No, your job is to make sure that the streets aren’t filled with potholes, and the garbage gets collected in your neighborhood.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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.
Background Photo “Faith and Freedom Coalition” by Faith and Freedom Coalition.
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 all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio to describe the recent bills that have passed in both the State House and State Senate.
Leahy: In studio, the state director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Mr. Aaron Gulbransen. Aaron, bring us up to speed on what’s happening in the Tennessee General Assembly.
Gulbransen: It seems that every day is busy at the General Assembly, but it seems like the last couple of weeks has just been lightning speed. We’ve discussed this a lot with Senator Johnson and others. You know, SB 1, the transgender mutilation bill, and the drag show bill SB 3.
Leahy: To be clear, one of our good friends pointed out, it’s really not a bill to stop drag shows. It’s a bill to regulate them and drag shows and related shows where they show body parts.
Gulbransen: Not on taxpayer-funded property and not in front of kids. There you go. And that’s what it was really done for. I was not in front of kids. And those of us in the media, unfortunately, and, and, and including myself, and some of the legislators themselves, shorthand referred to it as the drag show bill.
Leahy: That’s a good point. It’s interesting because when you write headlines, right? You shorten it. And we used that same headline, although, in the body of it, we d we described the detail. But one of our listeners pointed out that wasn’t exactly accurate, and no, I think they were right.
Gulbransen: And the Senate Majority Leader and the other bill sponsor, Chris Todd, pointed that out. The word drag is not in there. I will say, on behalf of those of us in conservative media, we are unwittingly feeding a little bit into a narrative.
Leahy: That was the point that one of our listeners made.
Gulbransen: And there are so many minutes in a segment, and you say things quicker. But there you go.
Leahy: This is the bill where Hillary Clinton, literally flies into town. Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, those icons of moral virtue, fly into town along with Pete Buttigieg, Alfred E. Newman, Alfred E. Buttigieg, as Bannon calls him. They fly into town, and they criticize what Tennesseans have done to protect children.
That is crazy. And then Gavin Newsom because you know California’s going so well, criticizes Bill Lee as well. And you know, Bill Lee punches back, and good for him.
Gulbransen: And certainly good for him. I will say, I don’t think the Clintons’ or Pete Buttigieg has ever had a reputation for defending children.
Leahy: No.
Gulbransen: And also, how dare Gavin Newsom to say anything, really about anything, but specifically recently, California just lessened the penalties on certain kinds of sex acts performed on underage children.
Leahy: And Gavin Newsom’s in favor of that?
Gulbransen: Yes. He signed it.
Leahy: Unbelievable.
Gulbransen: To paraphrase a phrase from the Bible, Newsom needs to take the log out of his own eye. For those of you who and including myself, was happy to see a special session a couple of years ago put some protections in against government overreach on COVID measures. Senator Jack Johnson’s SB 11 and Jason Zachary’s, HB 02, passed the House yesterday.
And basically, it makes a permanent liability shield against companies and people that might be sued for not requiring the vaccine, which is just a common sense thing. But that, that was very good. You had a bill by Bo Watson in the Senate passed the Senate unanimously, which is a simple thing, but I think it’s a good thing in terms of election integrity.
It allows a candidate to see a release and receive a list of all voters who change their residential address at the polling place and it requires under the circumstances of a recount to include verification of any change of addresses at the polling place.
You had another bill, SB 834 by Senator Lundberg, that prohibits a public institution of higher education that provides internet access to students, faculty, staff, and the general public from allowing individuals to access on that internet videos and forms like TikTok, which is another good thing.
Leahy: TikTok and Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti will be in here at 7:30 to talk about investigating TikTok. Look, TikTok is the Chinese Communist Party. They basically own TikTok and they’re taking data from Americans. It’s a national security problem.
Gulbransen: We had another bill sponsored by Senator Lundberg in the House sponsored by Representative Todd. You tend to see Todd’s name pop up in a lot of good bills. So he’s one of the good eggs. I know him. He was the house sponsor of the Yes On One, which was the right-to-work constitutional amendment.
He worked on that for many years, and that was a big victory in November when the voters passed it at over 70 percent of the vote, including a big majority here in Davidson County, which showed me that Democrats voted for it, which was good. A common sense thing. There’s another one.
SB 638 expands student eligibility for education savings accounts which we love, right? Anything to do with school choice is great. ESAs and charter schools are wonderful. Heidi Campbell had one of those silly leftist token bills that went nowhere. And of course, we oppose it here at Tennessee Faith and Freedom. She was trying to just abolish charter schools and ESAs.
Leahy: You talk about charter schools; we’re big fans of charter schools. So the latest Phil Williams expose is an organization called SCORE that is looking to expand charter schools. They’ve got a private study that apparently says we need more charter schools.
Well, of course, we need more private schools because K-12 public schools are absolutely failing in every measure of reading, writing, and arithmetic, not hitting their standards, and indoctrinating kids. We’re all in favor of charter schools. And Phil Williams may not like him, but we don’t like Phil Williams. (Laughter) So there you go. We’ll be back with more.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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.
Background Photo “Tennessee House of Representatives” by Tennessee General Assembly. Background Photo “Tennessee Senate” by Tennessee General Assembly.
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 all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio to discuss proposed legislation that is likely to pass reducing the size of Metro Nashville Council members from 40 to 20.
Leahy: Aaron, a couple of things if you could bring us up to speed on. How is this bill that will reduce the size of Metro Council to no more than 20 from the current level of 40 of Metro Nashville Davidson County? How’s that doing?
Gulbransen: William Lambert’s bill in the House, HB 48, passed the House yesterday, 72 to 25. And the Senate version will be heard. Today in the Senate Finance Ways and Means Committee, the senator that is the Senate sponsor, SB 87, is State Senator Bo Watson.
Leahy: That thing’s gonna pass.
Gulbransen: You’ve got the heavyweights behind it. Of course, there are a number of very accurate things to say about it. One of which, from my perspective, it’s a good government bill.
Leahy: In essence, it’s a good government bill, but it is motivated by revenge.
Gulbransen: Revenge.
Leahy: So there’s that. What about this idea of getting rid of runoffs in local elections? There’s a bill, and if it passes and becomes law, would it apply to the mayoral election here in at Metro Nashville Davidson County?
Gulbransen: My understanding is that’s the intent. I will say what the caveat is; it’s still a caption. It is gonna be, from my understanding, heard this week. But I haven’t seen the amendment to the caption so.
Leahy: We could be in a situation where if it passes and it goes into effect this year, it would eliminate runoffs in Metro Nashville Davidson County mayoral election, which means that somebody in theory could be elected mayor with 20, 25 percent of the vote. Is that right?
Gulbransen: Yes. If you get all the Republicans swimming in the same direction you could. You could see that, or you could see anybody, really. The Democrat party right now, with their emphasis on their very disparate identity politics under the situation, would have to put a lot of pressure to get behind one person to make sure that doesn’t happen. But they wouldn’t be able to do that.
Leahy: The announced candidates in the mayoral race are Matt Wilshire, who’s raised like a million bucks, he says, or maybe more than that. A little bit more than that.
Gulbransen: He’s certainly capable of that.
Leahy: And Matt Wilshire, who’s a lefty.
Gulbransen: He’s a carpetbagger, right?
Leahy: Matt? No, Matt Wilshire is not a carpet bagger. Oh no. We can only use that phrase for the actual carpetbagger. Jim Carpetbagger Gingrich.
Gulbransen: That’s the carpetbagger.
Leahy: He’s the carpetbagger. Matt? No, Matt is born and breaded.
Gulbransen: Excuse me, Matt. I apologize for that one.
Leahy: Matt Wilshire. You gotta come in, and we’ll let you know that was an inaccurate description of who you are.
Gulbransen: I got you confused with Gingrich for a moment. But carpetbagger, Jim Gingrich.
Leahy: We’ve had advice for all of them to come in. They’ve not come in. Sharon hurt. She’s been on; she’s a lefty. Who else is out there? Fred O’Connell. He’s a lefty.
Gulbranen: Yarbro.
Leahy: Yarbro actually, I think he’s got some promise in terms of winning. Because he’s got some chops, he’s got his own money. He’s a partner of Bass, Berry, and Sims. Now on the not-crazy lunatic left-wing side, you have Natisha Brooks, who’s very nice.
I don’t think she’s got a lot of money. Fran Bush, our friend who is a former Metro Nashville School Board member and who ran as an Independent and really got decimated. She lost three to one just recently, and she said that she’s gonna try and raise $500,000. That’s not gonna be enough.
I don’t even know if she’ll get to $500,000. She’s a friend. And then Alice Rolli just announced, and we’re gonna have Alice on. Alice, I think she’s gonna have money, but she worked in Lamar Alexander’s reelection campaign. She’s had a series of jobs, none of which I think she’s accomplished much of anything in.
But she’ll come on and she’ll tell us if she’s accomplished anything. And her dad was a big financial guy who got into some trouble but was friends with Lamar Alexander, not on our side. It’s a weak field.
Gulbransen: If you get rid of the runoffs, it’s a completely different campaign in all likelihood. If they don’t, then you’re looking at more than one Democrat that gets into the runoff. And then you’ll have a Democrat mayor.
Leahy: We’ve had Fran Bush in and Natisha Brooks. We’ll get Alice Rolli in and talk to her about that. We’ll ask her the tough questions. What have you actually accomplished in your life and how could you be a mayor?
I think she’ll have money, but has she accomplished anything? And is she a conservative, or is she, basically a Lamar Alexander establishment Republican? We’ll find that out.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
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.
Background Photo “Election Day” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
