United States Senator Marsha Blackburn on China Balloon: ‘The Chinese Communist Party Sees Joe Biden as Weak’

United States Senator Marsha Blackburn on China Balloon: ‘The Chinese Communist Party Sees Joe Biden as Weak’

Live from Music Row, Monday 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 United States Senator Marsha Blackburn to the newsmaker line to comment on the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States, the Biden family compromise, and economic effects of China.

Leahy: On the newsmaker line right now, Senator Marsha Blackburn, the senior senator from Tennessee. Good morning, Senator Blackburn.

Blackburn: Good morning! It’s good to be with you, and always good to have a conversation with Crom.

Carmichael: Well, you’re very kind. (Blackburn chuckles)

Leahy: Senator Blackburn, it’s another day. Has there been a separate sighting of some unknown object or balloon over Alaska or Canada or the United States recently, like today?

Blackburn: (Laughs) We have not been informed that there has been another sighting this morning, but it appears that every day they are finding more balloons. And this calls into question the coordination between the intel community, and the Department of Defense, and how closely they are watching our skies.

Here is what we do know, is that the Chinese Communist Party is intent on global domination by the time we get to the midpoint of this century. Anybody that doubts that should read Michael Pillsbury’s book The 100 Year Marathon.

The Chinese Communist Party sees this as the China century, and because of that, they’ve been very aggressive in their surveillance. You look at what they’re doing with TikTok and how that is affecting our youth and young adults. You look at the anguish that was caused to young people by the pandemic. We still do not know the origins of the pandemic. There are so many questions about the vaccine and the dangers this has caused to young people. And you look at the Chinese Confucius Institute that fortunately we’ve been able to remove from most of our universities and the Confucius classrooms that have been in many K12 schools. This is part of their propaganda, and so we know where they’re headed. What we need is for this administration, this Department of Defense, to get serious about this and to realize China is not a competitor. As the President said just a couple of weeks ago, China is an adversary. They want to dominate us. And it is not the Chinese people. It is the Chinese Communist Party.

Carmichael: What do you make of all of these balloons and these other things? I guess we’re shooting down something that I don’t know if it’s buoyed by a balloon, but I think there have been like three or four shootdowns in the last 10 days without revealing anything that’s classified.

Leahy: Four.

Blackburn: Four.

Carmichael: Do we know anything? And what do we make of something that’s kind of been going on obviously for quite some time? And now all of a sudden, the Biden administration is reacting.

Blackburn: And they are only reacting to this because a private citizen, saw something and said something and put a photograph up on a website there in Montana and said, who knows something about this? Now, bear in mind, this administration had said nothing until a citizen who was a reporter and a pilot took a picture, put it on the website, and said, what do you know about this?

This administration would not have come forward. Anthony Blinken would not have canceled his trip to China without this information. So the period of time this has been going on, we don’t know how many they have surveilled. We do not know. We have had a briefing, a classified briefing as you said.

I had a lot of questions that came out of that. Principally, why did they let this first balloon go when they spotted it and started following it off the coast of Alaska? And then they let it come back into Montana and then let it just kind of trapes across the country and then decided to shoot it down after it went to South Carolina.

But Crom, how did they know it was not going to stall out over one of our major cities and just sit there and collect intelligence? Why did they not choose to bring it down safely in Alaska when they could have done that?

Carmichael: Yes, there just seems to me to be more deal with the facts that we know, which are not very many, but they just beg many, many other questions. And it just almost appears to me that the Biden administration and as Robert Gates pointed out, Biden hasn’t made a good foreign policy decision in his entire career. He’s always been on the wrong side of every foreign policy decision and I think he sees the Communist Chinese Party almost as an organization he would like to emulate.

Blackburn: And one of the things that are of tremendous concern to me is the Biden family compromise. Why did they let this thing go and why is it that as you two know because you follow everything that is happening every day and you’re on top of it, you know that they could have made that choice to dismantle that balloon.

They could have decided that they were going to stand up to this. But the bottom line, the Chinese Communist Party sees Joe Biden as weak. They know he is not going to come after them. Whether it is that he is compromised, whether it is as Bob Gates said and as you just said, he can’t make the right decision on foreign policy because he is given more to appeasing than he is to showing strength.

I tell you this much, this would never have happened with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo because China would have known, Xi Jinping would have known there would be hell to pay if they did this because they didn’t know what Donald Trump was going to do from one day to the next day.

And they knew that Mike Pompeo was not going to put up with this. And because of this and because of the fact that President Trump and Secretary Pompeo repeatedly held them to account and pushed the issues around the COVID vaccine and put sanctions on them and dealt with them on tariffs and trade, they knew that they could not push this.

Now, when you look at the economic side of this, you’re looking at a trade deficit that is the largest that we have had. China imported more stuff to the United States last year than ever, and we have a bigger trade deficit than ever. And that is because of the policies of this administration.

When you look at great power competition, you look at the Chinese Communist Party, you look at what they’re doing over. The United States had a balloon in Latin America. You had the balloon up in Canada. They’re surveilling people.

They’re practicing debt diplomacy. They are bullying Taiwan and all of the Pacific island nations. People are begging for our help and this administration is sitting on their hands and trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing.

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Sandy Torchon.

 

National Security Expert Bill Gertz: Biden’s Weak Response to China Spy Balloon Yet Another Example of America’s Current ‘Woefully Inadequate’ Leadership

National Security Expert Bill Gertz: Biden’s Weak Response to China Spy Balloon Yet Another Example of America’s Current ‘Woefully Inadequate’ Leadership

Live from Music Row, Friday 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 Washington Times reporter and national security expert Bill Gertz to the newsmaker line to comment on the Chinese spy balloon and the intentions of current U.S. leadership.

Leahy: On the newsmaker line, our very good friend, the great national security correspondent with The Washington Times, Bill Gertz. Good morning, Bill.

Gertz: Good morning.

Leahy: I’m reminded of this Babylon Bee headline. I don’t know if you saw this. Chinese spy balloon shot down after it’s completed all the spying. You’ve written just recently that balloons serve multiple roles in Chinese warfare. Chinese military confirms snub of U.S. Defense Secretary Austin’s call over balloon. What do you make of this Chinese spy balloon?

Gertz: It’s really a sputnik moment going back to the days of the space race. I think it was a real wake-up call for most Americans to see that China is not some far-away threat, that it’s a here-and-now threat to the United States, albeit an intelligence threat. But let’s not forget that the Pentagon has identified electromagnetic pulse weapons as a threat.

And so they could have flown a nuclear warhead on a balloon and dropped it and detonated it over one of the large cities which would have blacked out all of the electronics over there. So I think the key takeaway from this whole incident is that China can reach out and touch us. And I think that’s really an important wake-up call for most Americans.

Leahy: To me, it seems ingenious that they use balloons for this purpose not just to gather intelligence, but they could use it for military purposes. Our leadership, from Joe Biden to Joint Chief of Staff Chair Milley to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, I’m going to use a word, they seem feckless to me. Your thoughts?

Gertz: I kind of agree with you. Clearly, the mishandling of this was evident in the fact that the Biden administration is launching what I would call a neo-appeasement approach. That means they’re getting ready to revert to the older policies where we look the other way for Chinese human rights abuses and nuclear arms proliferation in order to somehow avoid a future conflict with China.

It’s the opposite of the policy of Ronald Reagan, which was peace through strength. Instead, they’ve adopted what I call a war avoidance policy. And this is really dangerous. I think that we really need to stand up to the Chinese. They’ve made it clear that they want to dominate the world, and the main obstacle to dominating the world is the United States.

So they’re working very covertly through things like fentanyl shipments and undermining our system here and promoting communist ideology to try and undermine and ultimately destroy the U.S.

Carmichael: Bill, this is Crom Carmichael. My question is there are lots of folks in the media who are supportive, in fact, most people in the media are supportive of the Biden administration and his worldview. What would it take to wake them up, or is it even possible for them to be awakened? Are they kind of part of the communist plot?

Gertz: A lot of the mainstream liberal media just signed on to the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party has kind of been taken over by a lot of radical leftists and I think that’s really the main issue. So you have this reflection in the mainstream media that, oh, China is not really a threat.

In fact, I think the far-left in the U.S. looks at China as the ideological future. This is a communist system that they think works. Unlike the Soviet Union, which collapsed back in 1991, the Chinese have tried to find ways of forcing their economy to work.

Although right now, their economy is in trouble, which is one reason they’re trying to revert back to some of the more COVID policies of pretending to be a capitalist system, when in fact, they’re really a nuclear-armed communist dictatorship.

Leahy: Yes. And I look at this, and I think of what former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said about Joe Biden. They asked him, has Joe Biden ever been right on any foreign policy issue? And Secretary Gates said I can’t think of one time he’s been right. He’s been wrong; it seems to me. And he’s brought in dunderheads underneath him, Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin, who make the wrong decisions to advance the cause of our enemy; it seems to me almost as if they are covertly cooperating. Now that’s a little bit out there, but what are your thoughts when I say something like that?

Gertz: First, Lloyd Austin reached out to his counterpart in China immediately after we shot down the balloon last week, and the Chinese said no thanks. And yet the Pentagon issued a statement saying, well, we think it’s so important to talk with the Chinese. The Pentagon has had this military-to-military exchange program with China for decades, and the whole point is to try and “build trust.”

And they misunderstand the nature of the Chinese military. It’s not a national army like our U.S. Army. It’s a party army. His main job is to defend the Communist Party of China. On General Milley, we had the case where back during the Trump administration, he actually called his Chinese military counterpart and said, oh, we think you’ve misunderstood us, we think you’re going to attack us, and we’re going to attack you.

But we’re not. And if we do, I would warn you in advance. A lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill thought that was treasonous, but he defended it, saying there was some kind of intelligence. Yet I spoke with top officials of the Trump administration, and they said there was never any intelligence that China thought the U.S. was going to attack them. So these are the two top defense leaders that have really shown themselves to be woefully inadequate.

Leahy: I think you’re kind to just call them woefully inadequate. I look at their actions, Bill, and I got to tell you, and I don’t want to get you in trouble on this, right, but I look at it, and I think their actions are treasonous. Both of them. Both Milley and Lloyd Austin. And I think that a patriotic American president would fire them immediately. Your thoughts?

Gertz: Republicans have recently just taken over the House of Representatives, and they have formed a special commission on China. So, hopefully, I think these two issues, the actions of Lloyd Austin and General Milley should be part of that investigation.

They should do a thorough investigation, bring them before this committee, and have them testify on explaining what they’re doing and whether or not what they’re doing is wrong.

Leahy: Is that the special committee headed up by Mike Gallagher, the congressman from Wisconsin?

Gertz: Yes. I have great hopes.

Leahy: He’s a very sharp guy. I have confidence in him.

Gertz: Yes.

Leahy: You’ve been doing this at a high level of excellence for, what, three decades now? Maybe more than that.

Gertz: It’s been a good run. (Chuckles)

Leahy: You’re a great American and a great reporter, and we are honored to have you on The Tennessee Star Report. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Gertz: Thank you for having me on.

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Bill Gertz” by Bill Gertz. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Wendy Maxwell.

 

Roger Simon: ‘The Most Important Thing in the World – China – Was Missing from Biden’s SOTU Address’

Roger Simon: ‘The Most Important Thing in the World – China – Was Missing from Biden’s SOTU Address’

Live from Music Row Thursday 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 Roger Simon in studio to comment upon the State of the Union address and America’s love affair with money at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party.

Leahy: We welcome to our microphones because it is Thursday, February 9, 2023. It’s a Thursday at the 7:00 a.m. hour. It means it’s time for my former boss at PJ TV, an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and great novelist.

He’s got a new book coming out called American Refugee, one of those popular columnists at The Epoch Times. And, of course, all-star panelists here, Mr. Roger Simon. Good morning, Roger.

Simon: I do it on Thursday. It must be Belgium.

Leahy: There was a movie. If it’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium. Is it Thursday?

Simon: I can’t remember. Anyway, one day or another, it was Belgium.

Leahy: You had a piece at The Epoch Times about your reaction to the State of the Union address. What is that reaction?

Simon: Well, some of it is inevitable. First of all, the state of the union is always boring. Let’s be honest. Really boring.

Leahy: Can I give you some credit? Do you know what is the most fun part of when a speech comes on? You know this. You founded PJ Media. And you know Steven Green, right? He has this great thing called Drunk Blogging.

Simon: Yes.

Leahy: It’s the best way to watch. He drinks, I don’t know, whatever he drinks. And, of course, the comments get riper.

Simon: He makes very good old fashions.

Leahy: Yes.

Simon: I was once at a thing where he made old fashions for everybody that showed us his technique and blah, blah, blah. It was very good.

Leahy: Very good.

Simon: But he’s not really a drunk.

Leahy: I know.

Simon: That’s the good thing about him. It’s not a good thing to be. Anyway, that’s my advice for this morning. But besides the fact that it’s always a boring subject.

Leahy: Always.

Simon: The most important thing in the entire world was deliberately missing from the SOTU.  And it was the five-letter word China. (Chuckles)

Leahy: Yes.

Simon: Somehow or another, our esteemed president overlooked it. And the reason is very obvious. China has made a fool of him and also has bought him and then most recently flew a giant balloon all over the United States, and he didn’t do a damn thing about it. And we don’t know, and we’ll probably never know because we are lied to by our intelligence agencies at all times. What exactly did the Chinese learn from their experience?

Leahy: We’ll never know. And I think his speech dragged on for the longest hour and a half of my life. And I think what, he had maybe 60 seconds of that on China, or not even that.

Simon: Not even that.

Leahy: It was like 30 seconds.

Simon: Right. He had to have something because people like me and you and anybody who was slightly awake would have noticed China is not only the elephant in the room. They own parts of Tennessee, not to mention the rest of the United States.

Leahy: Not only are they flying over our military bases and our air bases, but they’re also buying farmland right next to it.

Simon: Yes. All over the place, though. In Montana, around those bases, but all over. They’re buying it here.

Leahy: Yes. I’m reminded when I look at this. What was it that Nikita Khrushchev said? We will bury you, and you’ll sell us the rope to hang yourselves. Or something like that?

Simon: Something like that. Then he banged his shoe. But I’m afraid he may have been right. This is the sad truth. We better do something about it. One thing is to kick this guy out of the White House because the term that is used for this is elite capture.

If the audience has heard this term, it’s an interesting term because that’s what the Chinese do. They buy our scientists, professors, politicians, and anybody they can because they know the great weakness of Americans I hate to say this, is that we like money.

Leahy: Out for the almighty dollar. Well, that’s capitalism.

Simon: It’s capitalism. But I think we’re a little bit too hungry for it sometimes. The Chinese have recognized this, and they take advantage.

Leahy: Did you know they’re buying Private K-12 military schools around the country? Did you see that?  Because they want to sort of, get these kids in junior ROTC and then send them to West Point and turn them into, you know, embedded Chicom operatives within our military.

Simon: General Milley is that way already.

Leahy: You know why. Because he went to Princeton. (Laughter)

Simon: Not Dartmouth or Harvard.

Leahy: That’s right.

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Joe Biden. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International Relations Expert Dominick Sansone Suggests Chinese Spy Balloon’s Trek Illustrates Division Among U.S. Leadership

International Relations Expert Dominick Sansone Suggests Chinese Spy Balloon’s Trek Illustrates Division Among U.S. Leadership

Live from Music Row, Monday 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 international relations expert and contributor for The Epoch Times, Dominick Sansone, to the newsmaker line to speculate on the reasoning the Chinese spy ballon that recently entered the United States airspace was allowed to complete it’s trek and causing the sowing of division between US leadership.

Leahy: This morning on our newsmaker line, our very good friend Dominick Sansone, who is an Epoch Times contributor, an expert on all things eastern Europe, and a doctoral student at Hillsdale College. Welcome to our microphones, Dominick.

Sansone: Hey, Michael. Good to speak with you.

Leahy: Dominick, you’ve been studying foreign policy and we’ve been talking about the Chinese spy balloon fiasco. The Chinese spy balloon, which we didn’t learn about until it was over in Montana.

We’ve heard that the U.S. military was aware of it at least when it was over the Aleutians, but may have heard about it before. Just give us the facts about what we know about the spy balloon and the current status of our foreign policy relations with regard to China and our projection of, I don’t know, weakness around the world.

Sansone: Yes, definitely. As you said, it was first reported over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska but floated over the United States for quite a few days. Of course, we saw it in Montana, which is home to a major U.S. Air Force base that houses 150 minutemen and IBMs. So that’s alarming.

Whether it was collecting information on that, I can’t say. But again, it raises more questions, I think, than any answers we have. Why did we wait until it was over the Atlantic Ocean which spans the entire continental United States before President Biden decided to shoot it down?

As you alluded to as far as state projecting an image of weakness in the international scene, that’s definitely a possibility. I also think there are some pretty odd coincidences that happened with this event.

Why did it happen right on the eve of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s planned trip to China in which there were reports of a potential (Inaudible talk) Why did that happen right now? Obviously, China knew that this balloon was over in the United States at this specific time. What was going on in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that would need them to reach that calculus that this is the right time to do this?

Leahy: Let me ask you this question and if you can give us a concise and brief response to it. It seems to me, looking at this, that the Chinese Communist Party, they look at this, they know Joe, the legal but not legitimate President of the United States, is compromised by all of the dealings of his drug-addled influence-peddling son, Hunter Biden.

And they know that all this in the press, that he is the big guy who is getting 10 percent of all these foreign deals, including deals with the Chicoms that Hunter Biden is involved with. Did they send this probe out in order to test the reactions of Joe Biden? So answer that first, and then I’ve got a follow-up question.

Sansone: That’s definitely a possibility. You hit it on the head, they have their man in the White House. That’s who they want there. And all of Joe Biden’s dealings proven with China, so, yes, I think that could definitely potentially be a possibility.

Leahy: The follow-up question to that is the following: what did they learn from the weak, and there’s another adjective I could use here, but I’m not going to use it because we’re on the air and the FCC might have a word to say about that. (Sansone chuckles)

But to the weak blank response of Joe Biden, who allowed this spy balloon to go across the breadth of the United States, collecting all sorts of information and sending it back to the Chicoms before, “shooting it down?” Well, he did shoot it down after it had done all its spying as The Babylon Bee responded. What grade would you give Joe Biden as a commander-in-chief for his response to this spy balloon?

Sansone: I’m going to give him a C plus and maybe a D, honestly, only not a failing grade because I don’t really think that he’s legitimately in control and as you said, making decisions. I think we saw a lot of division between him, General Mark Milley and the entire United States’ high command.

Leahy: Let me jump in here, Dominick. I would give him an F minus. (Sansone chuckles) It sounds like you’re suggesting that Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin were really in charge of America’s response and not Joe Biden. And I see Crom Carmichael also has a follow-up question for you on this.

Carmichael: Biden, he’s the commander in chief. Are you saying that Biden is not responsible for the lack of action until after the spy satellite had done all that the Chinese desired for it to do?

Sansone: Of course, he certainly deserves all responsibility as the commander-in-chief. But again, I do think that there’s a lot of different inclusive acting in the White House. I don’t think that he’s just making decisions by himself. I do think that that is one thing that the Chinese government showed very well, that they wanted to show, that worked well for them, that they sowed a division in the U.S. Leadership.

And also when we see the media response of left-wing sources now coming out, all these other things during Trump, I think they get off on all of this division that they sell here and it shows – just projects – U.S. weakness in general.

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Dominick Sansone” by Modern Diplomacy. Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Andrew Van Huss. CC BY-SA 4.0.

 

Tennessee State Representative Bob Freeman Discusses Background and Passed Legislation

Tennessee State Representative Bob Freeman Discusses Background and Passed Legislation

Live from Music Row, Monday 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 State Representative Bob Freeman (D-Nashville) in studio to discuss his background and legislation that he’s passed in the Tennessee General Assembly.

Leahy: We are delighted to be joined in our studio right now by the bravest Democrat in the state of Tennessee, State Representative Bob Freeman. Good morning, Bob.

Freeman: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Leahy: You are the second Democrat ever to come in studio and talk to us.

Freeman: Well, maybe if you talked a little nicer about us, we would come on more often.

Leahy: (Laughs) Now that’s a very good answer. That’s a very good answer. So the rumor, and I’m not going to ask you the big question yet, is that you are considering running for mayor.

Freeman: I’ve heard that rumor.

Leahy: You’ve heard that rumor. And we’ll ask you the big question in our next segment. But now we want to kind of get to know you a little bit. And mentioning that you’re a Democrat, I have two questions for you. Number one, this Chinese spy balloon thing. Have you followed that story?

Freeman: Just on the news.

Leahy: First question, did you vote for Joe Biden for president?

Freeman: I did and I supported him pretty heavily.

Leahy: You supported Joe Biden heavily. And do you think that he handled the Chinese spy balloon incident properly?

Freeman: That’s a good question. I don’t know that I have enough information to say yes or no. What negotiations were going on behind the scenes? When did they spot it? There are so many decisions there that we can play Monday morning quarterback, but I don’t know that we’ve got the information to discern.

Leahy: If I were to say that he’s entirely compromised by the Chinese Communist Party and that the fact that he failed to shoot this spy balloon down the minute it came into American territory and that’s an impeachable offense, would you agree or disagree with that?

Freeman: I think you could write 1,000 narratives based on your cherry-picking of facts to create whatever story you want. I stand by that. I don’t think that we know the information.

I think we know bits and pieces of it. And if somebody would like to bring impeachment charges, I would welcome that and I think he would defend himself and walk away from that.

Leahy: We’ve established that you are a Democrat and a supporter of Joe Biden. (Freeman chuckles) Now let’s ask the other question. It’s interesting, Bob, you are in the Tennessee House of Representatives. You served there since 2018.

Freeman: Correct.

Leahy: You’ve got a real job. In addition to that, your father is Bill Freeman and you helped build a huge real estate empire in Middle Tennessee. You run that now, right?

Freeman: Yes.

Leahy: That’s a pretty big job.

Freeman: It’s a big job. We’ve got 526 employees.

Leahy: That’s a lot.

Freeman: In five different states. So, yes, it’s a big job.

Leahy: You got that big job, probably making pretty good money at it. And you’re also in politics now. I want to talk about the political side. There are 99 members of the Tennessee House of Representatives. They’re what, 25, 20? How many Democrats are there?

Freeman: 24. We lost one.

Leahy: 24. The Republicans have a supermajority not only in the House of Representatives but also in the state Senate. What kind of strategy do you have with 24 members of the House? You seem to be a pretty sane person.

I can’t say that about most of your colleagues and maybe some of your Republican colleagues are the same. But you know, generally speaking, there’s a lot of common sense among the majority. But my question to you is, what is your strategy to accomplish anything legislatively as a member of the minority party?

Freeman: That was something that I thought about before I ran. Why did I run? And I ran because it’s important. We make decisions that have effects or affect the state of Tennessee for generations to come. And what we’re doing is important and doesn’t need to be trivialized and turned into this partisan bickering. And I kind of take that approach when I bring legislation.

Leahy: Is there any legislation that you’ve introduced that has been passed?

Freeman: A ton of legislation.

Leahy: A ton, that you’ve introduced.

Freeman: Yes. One example is I wrote a bill that allows for rape kit tracking across our state.

Leahy: Were you the lead sponsor?

Freeman: I was the lead sponsor and it passed.

Leahy: Well, congratulations on that. I’ve learned something, Bob Freeman.

Freeman: I’ve passed probably 25 bills or so.

Leahy: So you have been a productive state legislature?

Freeman: I’ve been a productive state legislator.

Leahy: I’ve learned something.

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

– – –

Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Bob Freeman” by Tennessee General Assembly. Background Photo “Tennessee State Capitol” by Andre Porter. CC BY-SA 3.0.