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 Clint Brewer in studio to describe how candidates can win Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District and explained the mindset of voters.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by our longtime friend, good friend Clint Brewer. Recovering journalist and public affairs expert. Clint now, as somebody who’s seen lots of congressional races in Tennessee, what is a candidate going to have to do to win that primary?
Remember, there’s a primary and a general. We haven’t talked and we won’t talk until later about the Democratic primary. But it looks like the Justice Democrats are going to back AOC. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, that crowd.
They’re going to back Odessa Kelly. I think she’s still going to run. By the way, one just as an aside, a very sad, sad note, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leaving Twitter. And the reason is because it’s causing her too much anxiety. I’m so sorry about that.
Brewer: Causing her anxiety?
Leahy: Because when she’s seen without a mask at a party, people make fun of her and she just can’t take it anymore. (Chuckles)
Brewer: I don’t know what to do about that one.
Leahy: Now, but you do know what to do about what these candidates need to do to win in the August 2022 Republican primary in the Fifth Congressional District.
Why don’t you lay out what the old district was, what the new district is, and why this is a good thing for Republican candidates.
Brewer: The old district was Davidson County and a little spillover into some other satellite counties to the north. It was primarily a blue county, blue district, a little bit of purple in there. It’s why you had Jim Cooper in it for so long.
Blue Dog Democrat to the left enough to keep the progressives at bay, to the center enough, where he wasn’t super objectionable to the right. He kind of flew below the radar screen. This new district is interesting.
You’re going to pick up aspects of Davidson County. There’s sort of older parts of Davidson County. Hermitage, Old Hickory, Donelson, sort of that little curve below at the bottom.
And then you pick up Western Wilson County, which is very conservative, but it’s got a lot of new people moving into it. And you’re getting a slice of Williamson County where you’re going to see a similar aspect with maybe a little bit more wealth.
And then you get into Maury County and there’s all of Maury County and it is very much a county in transition. It’s booming, absolutely booming. Again, more new folks. And then you pick up a couple of smaller rural counties.
Leahy: Marshall County and Lewis County.
Brewer: Marshall and Lewis. You’ve got to think about it. The slice of Davidson County that’s left is very much a sort of old-school yellow Dog Democrat from back in the day kind of piece.
You got a lot of older folks there who maybe were affected by NAFTA. You’ve got some plants that shut down there over time. I’m thinking about the Dupont plant in particular, which was downsized. You see a lot of that, but they’re still Democrats.
You also have a ton of new people. You have parts of it that are very much in transition. If you look at the census, you have a real influx of immigrants. You have an influx of first-time homeowners and people who are first-time college graduates.
It’s an incredibly interesting mix. Not necessarily bad for the Republican candidate if you look at how Trump overperformed in some of those categories last time. Davidson County still has to be a focus.
You still have to run on the ground in Davidson County. Wilson County has been a rock-ribbed Republican county for a long time, but a lot of people aren’t going to know where they live. Williamson County, the same way.
And then you get out into Maury County in these rural counties, and you’re going to have to act like an adult, I guess is the best way to say it. Some of the bomb-throwing we’ve seen, some of the silliness that we’ve seen early on, some of the sorts of lack of process, I guess I would say with jumping out there with a presidential endorsement and then jumping out there with, I voted in the primaries.
No, I didn’t vote in the primaries. Kind of from these two transplants, it’s not behavior that’s going to be particularly well-received.
Leahy: No it won’t be. And by the way, before we get into that, and we’ll kind of look at the strengths and weaknesses of the various candidates. One announced, one endorsed, three or four likely.
I think there’s a hurdle for the transplanted carpetbaggers to clear. And that hurdle will be discovered probably next week or the week after they pick up their papers to petition, papers to get the signatures to get on the ballot Monday, and then sometime shortly after Monday.
If Morgan Ortagus announces, then she will be almost certainly challenged. Her bona fides. And Robby Starbuck’s bona fides will absolutely be challenged. Robby will not meet the standard of three out of four of the most recent statewide primaries. Morgan might not.
We haven’t seen her voting record. You have the president endorse you and nobody knows what her voting record is. And then even if she’s voted wherever she’s lived for the past four years or however long, even if she’s voted in three out of four primaries there, it’s unclear right now. There’s some dispute as to whether or not they’d be accepted as a state.
Brewer: Well, let me say this. Let’s just set Mr. Starbuck aside. I would like to see Ms. Ortagus in the race, and I’ll tell you why. She’s a very qualified person, and I’m not expressing a preference here, but I would like to see her compete for the seat.
And I would like to see it because I would like to see the transplant audience, if you will, the new folks represented in a way in this, because it’s going to be a marriage of old and new in this seat.
I think there is room in the debate about who should lead the Fifth District and who should represent it in Congress. I think there’s room. As someone who’s lived there for a very long time.
I think there’s room for that voice in the race. She’s a serious person. These folks want, serious representation. They care about the issues.
They are very hard-working people. It’s a very diverse district. It does trend plus-11 Trump based on the last election. These are folks who care and I think that they deserve serious representation and somebody who speaks with an adult voice.
Leahy: My view would be a little different on that because in that particular case, first, if we talked about this before and I’m still trying to get the data on it, 750,000 people in the district. Let’s say 90 percent of them have lived here for more than two years.
Brewer: That’s a stretch.
Leahy: 85 percent have lived here more than two years.
Brewer: Of likely Republican voters of the 750,000.
Leahy: Probably plus or minus around there. Ninety-nine percent of them have lived here more than have been registered voters for more than two months. So my argument would be I don’t think that one percent that’s just arrived here lately, I don’t think they need a voice.
Brewer: Here’s the thing. If they don’t have a voting record in the state, I don’t mean the candidates, the new voters, it’s hard to track them.
Leahy: Good point.
Brewer: It’s hard as a campaign to go back and look and say they’ve got a voting record that trends this way or that way. There’s a lot of unknowns.
Leahy: I think the point on this is both of them will face challenges.
Brewer: You’re talking procedural.
Leahy: Procedural challenges to getting on the ballot. And I think somebody will have to vouch for Robby. For sure, possibly for Morgan.
And then there’s a special committee, 13 members of the executive committee. The majority will go up or down. I don’t think it’s looking very good for Robby.
Brewer: I want to hear the debate, though. I want to hear what she would bring to the table. And I think that former Speaker Harwell I think Mayor Ogles are being very respectful right now of the process. They’re waiting for the governor to sign the redistricting bill.
Leahy: Exactly.
Brewer: They’re doing what you do when you understand how politics work in Tennessee. They’re not running out into traffic and saying follow me. I think the complexion of the race will change a lot when we start to hear from folks like that.
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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 “People Voting” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
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 GOP candidate for Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District Robby Starbuck to the newsmaker line to discuss the latest gossip on aiding his friend North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn and his high-profile and local endorsements.
Leahy: We’re joined on our newsmaker line now by our friend Robby Starbuck. Robby has announced back in August that he’s a candidate for the Fifth Congressional District here in Tennessee. Turns out that’s interesting because no one knows exactly what the Fifth Congressional District will look like yet. Good morning, Robby. How are you?
Starbuck: I’m doing well, how are you doing, sir?
Leahy: Good. So just for our listening audience, give our listeners a little reminder of your background and where you live now and what you’re doing.
Starbuck: Absolutely. So background-wise. What’s inspired me to do this is my family lost everything in Cuba, and I love this country so much. It’s given me so much. I was able to go to the top of my career in Hollywood, directing Oscar-winning actors, also some of the country music stars.
But my heart is in the south and my wife’s from the south. And this is where we raise our kids. And I want us to have the representation that Tennessee deserves. The conservative values that I know we have here. And Jim Cooper just doesn’t do that for us.
And he hasn’t done that. He’s bent his knee to The Squad and to the left on every turn recently. And so we deserve to have a representative who’s going to stand up for the conservative values that make this country great.
I came out in 2015 and endorsed President Trump and burned down my career in Hollywood. And that was sort of the beginning of this journey for us. And we’ve been blessed to have the support of people like Senator Rand Paul, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, and President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Rick Grennell who is now the head of the president’s PAC for 2022.
So we’re very excited about this race because this district is changing, as you mentioned, and we expect the district to become much more conservative as a result of redistricting. And that’s going to give us the opportunity to win the majority with this seat.
Which is going to give a lot of power to Middle Tennessee voters. And it’s going to give a lot of power to us to do great things for the state of Tennessee. And not just the state of Tennessee, but for the country. Reinvigorate this country with the freedom that makes our country great.
Leahy: When will we know what the boundaries of the Fifth Congressional District will be?
Starbuck: That’s interesting this Friday, actually, they’re having a meeting with the committee on redistricting, and they’re supposed to release some maps during that.
Leahy: Those are just maps for the state House of Representatives, not for Congress, right?
Starbuck: Yes. Exactly. That’s for state House Representatives. And then they’re going to release another round of maps later in the month. And then in early January, this district will be finalized. I’m just trying to give people a little info on the entire process because your state House seats are going to be changing, too.
Everything should be finalized in January in terms of what it should look like. Based on the math of Middle Tennessee and the growth that’s happened, there’s sort of limited options in terms of what will be possible as long as you keep every other seat safe in the state of Tennessee.
And you just kind of follow the math. And when you follow the math and our own modeling, we see this seat being turned into a firm Republican seat.
Leahy: Once it comes out as finalized there will be court challenges and after that’s all done will you have to evaluate whether or not you’ll proceed with your candidacy depending upon the shape of the district or are you all in regardless?
Starbuck: No. We are all in period. And I think Jim Cooper understands actually, this district is changing. He’s been on a media tour recently to CNN. He just wrote an opinion in The Tennesseean and essentially begged Tennessee’s legislature to not take this seat because he knows the math.
And he admits, actually, I thought this is very interesting, in The Tennesseean piece that he has no recourse to stop this because he knows the math. He knows that they have every single legal responsibility to do this.
And so it really gives him no legal recourse. And the Democrat’s top lawyer who generally attacks redistricting cases his name is Mark Elias has a list of all the states he’s going to sue. Tennessee is not on that list and that’s because we have a very clear law in terms of how we approach this.
And the math is so simple. Honestly, this should have been done 10 years ago where they redistricted it to make it a conservative seat because we had the room to do it 10 years ago. But there was, I guess, a lot of nervousness then, and that nervousness should not exist.
Our state has gotten much more conservative. And sort of paradoxically, something that people don’t always realize is some of that growth we’ve had from blue states is a lot of conservative people fleeing here.
And these are people who want to make sure that the state of Tennessee doesn’t turn into California and it doesn’t turn into New York. They love this state and they want to keep the conservative values.
So those people are helping to make that possible and that we’re able to flip this. Hopefully, at the end of this, we’ll only have one Democrat seat left down in Memphis.
Leahy: Right now, the congressional delegation, seven Republicans, two Democrats. Jim Cooper and Steve Cohen are down in Memphis. What you’re suggesting is redistricting could turn it into eight Republican seats and one Democrat. Let me go to this question for you.
I saw your name in the news. We’ve not had a chance to talk about this, but I saw a report. I think it was last week that current congressman, I think it’s Madison Cawthorn, the young kid from North Carolina that replaced Mark Meadows in Congress. Very conservative, a Freedom Caucus guy.
I saw a report that he brought you onto the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. He got in a little procedural trouble for that. Was that true? Did you go on the floor of the House and how did that come about?
Starbuck: I was on the floor of the House, but, yes, the story is really taken out of context. They made it sound like he snuck me in and that was not the case. (Leahy laughs) Madison, as many know, is disabled. He’s in a wheelchair.
According to the ADA, he has the ability to have an aide that is able to help him. And he needed help. I’m his friend. I’m not just somebody running for Congress. And as his friend, he asked me if I could act as his aide and help him with his chair.
And that was something I think any friend would do. And I was honored to be there. I didn’t cause a ruckus in there or anything. I mean, I helped Madison. That was about that.
Leahy: The press reports claimed that the reason you got in is that you falsely claimed or that he falsely claimed that you were a staff member. That’s what the press reports were, right?
Starbuck: Yes. I think it was entirely dishonest. And I would love to figure out who exactly made that the story. But Madison is a great guy, and I think North Carolina is really lucky to have him, and we would never do anything like that.
They try to frame everything like it’s an insurrection. I actually saw somebody afterward from the left, and they’re one of those conspiracy accounts, and they say, oh, Madison and Robby, this is a dry run for a terror attack. And I’m like, are you serious?
Leahy: Are you kidding me?
Starbuck: They’ve lost their minds.
Leahy: It sounds like it was just like a normal thing, right? He probably always needs somebody to help him because he’s disabled in a wheelchair to help him get on the floor. And on that day, he asked you, his friend to do it. It’s no big deal. It seems to me.
Starbuck: It really wasn’t. To be honest with you. Neither of us even thought twice about it. It was like a very normal thing. And if you’ve ever looked at the House floor, it’s very steep. And there’s a portion of it that actually is not the easiest to get the chair through.
It’s really tight, and it’s steep. And I’m sure they have video from the House where you can see I was pushing his chair up, that steep part of it. So it’s just odd honestly. I found the story really odd, and we were like, you know what?
This is one of those stories. The media will make anything up. And there are other people, too, who have their own sort of motivations around why they want to do it. I was talking to somebody recently.
I was like, honestly, we should just throw this back at them and say, do you have a problem with disabled people being able to have an aide?
Leahy: Complying with the Americans Disability Act, right? Hey, tell me briefly. So you’ve racked up a whole series of high-profile endorsements. Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, and Rick Grenell. Ric Grenell, what a great guy he is. How did you secure Ric Grenell’s endorsement?
Starbuck: Ric and I have talked for a long time throughout Trump’s administration, and I think that he understands that my instincts are really strong and that I am the type of person who’s going to go on offense.
He definitely understands that our country cannot withstand another generation of leaders who want to be on defense. It’s how we’ve lost every segment of our culture. We’ve lost academia, we’ve lost the media, we’ve lost entertainment, and we’ve done it by sitting around, playing defense.
We need people who are on offense. And my ideas and everything along the way had crossed Trump’s administration and it made an impression on him. And I think it was something where when he found out I was going to do this, he said, I’m all in. Let’s go for this. You’re going to win this.
Leahy: You’ve got a lot of high-profile national endorsements. You’ve lived here just what, a couple of years? Two years. Three years.
Starbuck: Four.
Leahy: Four years now?
Starbuck: Almost four.
Leahy: So what level of local endorsement have you received?
Starbuck: Yes. Senator Bowling. She has endorsed us. That’s actually one that I have not said before. That just happened recently.
Leahy: Are you breaking some news here on our show?
Starbuck: I’m breaking a little bit of news. Ralph Norman, who is a Freedom Caucus member, he’s a member of Congress. He’s from South Carolina. He just endorsed us as well. That’s also breaking news. So those are great ones we’re really excited to have.
And we’ve been really supported. A lot of the groups here in Middle Tennessee are patriot groups, and I feel like those are really the types of groups who matter in elections in a national sense, and even locally, a lot of people may not know their names, but these groups that are people meeting at their houses, and it’s 40, 50 people.
These are the groups that win elections. They’re the doorknockers. They’re the phone callers. They’re the people who are rabid about us winning this country back and having a majority and actually fighting for America’s first values. Not the old establishment values, but really this American first movement. And I think we get that.
Leahy: Robby Starbuck, candidate for Congress. Thanks so much for joining. Come on in person again, if you would please.
Starbuck: Absolutely.
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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.
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. – guest host Ben Cunningham welcomed GOP chair for Davidson County Jim Garrett to the newsmaker line to discuss why they are pushing back now on Metro Nashville Public Schools’ attempt to mask mandate students again and how 2022 will be an interesting election year for the Fifth Congressional District of Davidson County.
Cunningham: Jim Garrett is the chair of the Davidson County Republican Party. Jim is on the line with us this morning. Jim, good morning.
Garrett: Good morning. Good morning, Ben. Good morning, Andy, and good morning, Grant. How are you?
Cunningham: We are doing great. Thanks so much for calling in this early. I’m telling you, it puts a new perspective on the world when you get up at 4:00 am in the morning. Actually, I got up at 3:15, so that really was a new perspective.
But thanks so much for calling in this morning, Jim. You guys have just sent a letter to the Metropolitan Nashville School system as the Republican Party of Davidson County. What did you say?
Garrett: We felt it was time that we stand up against this rhetoric that we hear coming from the left. Basically, we outlined that we were against masks and we would encourage the school system not to enforce a mask mandate. And we gave them five or six factual reasons to support our argument there.
I think the left that uses emotion, we like to use fact. And we use factual reasons and studies. And there are so many conflicting studies, you don’t know who to believe. And I think that’s by design on their part to keep us all confused so that their rhetoric seems to be dominant. And it should not be.
Cunningham: Why now? Why at the end of July, first of August – of course, school is about to start. But what motivated you to do this?
Garrett: We had heard several of our members had seen a petition that went out by a group. And I won’t say a left party. But it went out by a group associated with them calling for the schools to reinstitute the mask mandates.
And because of that petition, and they’re advertising in The Tennessean, and they had 1,800 signatures. Because of that, we felt it was important for us to say something.
Henry: Jim, Grant, Henry, here with Americans for Prosperity. Have ya’ll received any kind of response yet? Good, bad, or otherwise to this letter you sent out?
Garrett: I am not aware of any response yet. The people who are monitoring this with us, our communications people told me that there’s not been any feedback. And I personally have not received any. Although I did, again, a call last week from a lady who was a school teacher.
And she kept talking about the Republican Party was so vile in her school by her students and how she didn’t introduce politics to the school. But yet she only let them listen and watch PBS and CNN television shows.
Cunningham: (Laughs) Oh, boy, that’s objectivity. Isn’t it? I’m telling you, it’s crazy. Well, thank you so much for stepping out. And even in a blue county like Davidson County, the Republican votes represent 40 percent plus of the electorate. So they should listen and they should respond, and they should give you some kind of feedback back on this thing.
Garrett: I think the Republicans, our members feel like if we don’t stay in that often, we probably don’t. Conservatives tend to be individualists. We let the individual make the decision like we think parents should be making the decision about masking in schools and not the school board. But they think we don’t say enough. And our executive committee felt it was time on this subject to stand up and shout out our opposition to it.
Henry: Jim, let me ask here as well. Yesterday, Speaker Cameron Sexton was quoted saying the following: “And I sure hope that a school system in this state after this data is released does not shut their schools. If they do, I’m going to ask the governor for legislation to allow these parents in those school districts to take their money through school choice and go to wherever they deem they need to go.”
Is that kind of message resonating with any of the state Republicans in Davidson County?
Garrett: I believe it is. Yes. We believe in the voucher system. It’s been battered back and forth in the General Assembly. I hear it from our members who – some who would like that and some who wouldn’t.
But I do hear it. And so I think we’re supporting that stance. I heard that yesterday and was surprised that he came out with a statement about what he did.
Cunningham: Jim, on another topic, just politics that we’re interested in and I’m sure the audience is interested in is you’re keeping up very closely with the redistricting process. Every 10 years when they do a new census, they have to come out and redraw the political districts.
And, of course, a lot of people are very interested in Davidson County, in the Fifth Congressional District, and what’s going to happen there and how the districts might be drawn. Give us just a quick timeline of how one of the major decision points in the future for that. And when will we know what the new districts will look like?
Garrett: We have talked with Senator Jack Johnson. We’ve talked with Representative Lambert. Members of our group have talked with them about that same question. They tell us now is the time to get involved.
We have a meeting next week with Speaker Sexton to discuss redistricting specifically. And there’ll be another subject in their meeting with Speaker Sexton. But primarily the meeting is about redistricting. We are working on a map of where the Republican voters are in Davidson County, and we’ll have some ideas about what we would like to see.
We don’t need a major change. We just like to have some districts tweaked a little bit to pick up five or six points. And if we get a fair chance, I think we can pick up seats. But we don’t need a slam dunk in say a half a dozen districts or so. But we need some help here in Davidson County.
Cunningham: It is the enclave of Democrats that stay there year after year. I don’t know how long Jim Cooper has been there. Of course, Jim’s got a challenger from the left also this time, a pretty strong challenge. I think AOC has endorsed his challenger. So lots of things going on.
He’s got to worry about the challenger from the left first. But hopefully, we can have a competitive district where Republicans can have a shot. At least running a good, solid campaign and presenting a great alternative.
Garrett: I think Cooper’s been there – I’ve heard – 32 years, and he’s run basically unopposed for most of those, unfortunately. But yes, this year he seems to have a good shot at it. I would actually like to see Kelly win the primary for Starbuck because I think she would be a better opponent to run against than Cooper is.
She is so socialist and so much to the left, I think she would make a good opposite candidate. 2022 is going to be an interesting year. We have got two or three candidates right now that have announced running for that seat. There are going to be more that show up.
I’m sure that there’s one or two more. I’ve talked with them and they’re still in the decision process. So I think 2022 is going to be an interesting year for the U.S. Congress seat here in Davidson County.
Cunningham: And how do people get in touch with the Davidson County Republican Party?
Garrett: They can always get us through the gopnashville.org website. And there are buttons here for volunteering for contributing. But if you go to the volunteer button and put your name in, there is a place where you can ask questions. We get questions through there all the time.
Listen to the full second 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.
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 GOP candidate for Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District, Robby Starbuck, who weighed in on the Cuban protests for freedom and the strategy conservatives must take to get America back on track.
Leahy: We are joined by Robby Starbuck, who is a candidate for the Republican nomination in the Fifth Congressional District here in Middle Tennessee. Good morning, Robby.
Starbuck: Good morning, Michael. How are you doing?
Leahy: We’re doing great. The protest in Cuba against the dictatorial tyrannical Communist regime that’s been there for 62 years, you have some personal connection to Cuba, tell us about that and tell us your reaction to these protests.
Starbuck: Yes. My own family fled Cuba during the revolution or shortly after and I still have some family there.
And I found myself this week simultaneously so proud of the people there who are rising up and demanding freedom and liberty, while also being entirely disappointed by our own leaders here in America and a certain portion of people in this country who don’t realize how lucky we are to be a free people that have a Constitution that guarantees us or recognizes, rather, our rights that are God-given.
There’s kind of two sides to this coin because while I’m so proud of those people, it really highlights that this is a window in time where we can look in the future and see that this is what is going to happen in our country if we don’t make the right choices right now.
And if we don’t do the right things and we don’t win in 2022, this is what we have waiting for us in the future. The future where people have so much poverty, so much hunger, so much need, and have to face so much tyranny from their government that they have no choice but to rise up. And so I hope that we never get there. And I hope we make the right choices.
Leahy: Now, tell us a little bit about your family. I know your grandfather came over here. Was your mother born in Cuba, or was she born here in the states?
Starbuck: She was born in Cuba, yes. Actually, she was a teenager when she came here.
Leahy: Really? When did she come over? What year did she come over?
Starbuck: I don’t know the exact year. I’m not great at the years, but she came over when she was a teenager and she lived in a place called –
Leahy: And you currently have family members back in Cuba. Have you talked to them at all?
Starbuck: No. Because there’s a lot of fear given what I’m doing here in America and everything and we have been doing for the past few years, that it would put them in danger in Cuba if I had communication with them.
So I don’t, but other people in my family keep in communication with them. It’s that dangerous in Cuba. Even just talking to somebody in the U.S. who is doing what I’m doing and stands for freedom and has stood against the Communist Party, there is a danger for people who live there on the island.
Leahy: What has the incumbent congressman from the Fifth Congressional District, Democrat Jim Cooper, who’s been there forever and a day, said about these Cuban protests? Has he made a public statement in support of the protesters?
Starbuck: No. Absolutely nothing. In fact, saying nothing is probably the worst thing because it says everything. And by proxy, it sort of says that he doesn’t disagree with these people on the radical left in his party who are supporting the Communist government there and who not only supported Communist government but made statements essentially saying that this whole thing is about COVID and about COVID vaccines.
It says nothing. I watched all of these protests videos and listened intently. Not one video that has been on the Internet of these protests has mentioned COVID or COVID vaccines. What they mentioned were liberty and freedom.
And the visual from it is people waving American flags and that’s despite decades and decades of indoctrination where they’re supposed to hate America.
And these people are out there still in love with America and the idea of freedom. And that says a lot, after decades of government indoctrination, they still want freedom.
Leahy: Yeah, they certainly do. Let’s talk about the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The legal but not legitimate administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
And as I say, the beta male running American foreign policy. The guy formerly with the law firm of Winken, Blinken, and Nod. Not really, but just to point out what a great expert this guy is. What has he said about these protests?
Starbuck: He’s an empty suit. He’s an empty suit. He has no interest in actually stopping this. In fact, the Biden administration’s interest is in helping the Cuban government, by proxy.
The only thing that they don’t want to do is they don’t want to publicly give them too much support where people can figure out what’s going on.
So it’s more of a wink and a nod. What they did is they dropped sanctions in Venezuela so that the Venezuelan government could help the Communist government in Cuba.
They don’t want to directly come out and help them, because if they do, they already know they have a big problem with Cubans.
We are pretty much the most conservative voter block in the country. And so they fear losing that voting block entirely for the future because they know right now in Florida, they’re not winning a state-wide election for a while.
And so they don’t want to make that a permanent problem. And just through their weakness and cowardice, they’re going to make a permanent problem because the people that have come here that are Cuban Americans know the difference.
They pay attention. And what they prefer is the type of leadership we saw from Mike Pompeo and Ron DeSantis this week, where both have stood for the Cuban people constantly and very vocally, and are now demanding the Biden administration offer up an Internet access point, which is something that we did for people in Iran not too long ago.
The Cuban government has shut down the Internet and they’ve blocked people from social media in hopes of trying to quit these protests.
Leahy: On the campaign trail, when you talk about Cuba, how do people respond to you?
Starbuck: Very well. I think people really understand that this is something that could happen here. And I think that that’s something that has given me a little bit of hope that these people see very clearly that this is something that could happen.
On the flip side that I’ll get some questions about, do I believe in U.S. intervention, and I don’t. I believe in America first. And I don’t believe in intervention anywhere else.
I can’t, despite my own personal feelings, go and say we should go save the day in Cuba. I think that what’s happening now is what needs to happen and that is the people who are rising up and they’re saying we’ve had enough.
We want freedom and liberty, and they’re doing all the things necessary to try to change things there. So there’s been a lot of conversations along those lines.
If it gets to a certain point where we see the government really seriously mass murdering in the streets, we can have a different conversation.
But aside from that, I’m glad rather that people are seeing the direct line from how you get there and what’s happening here in America.
Leahy: A couple of campaign questions for you, if that’s okay. First, is it true that Candace Owens has endorsed you?
Starbuck: It is. It’s true that Candace Owens has 100 percent. It happened this week. She’s a really good friend of mine. And I think people know, if they’ve watched what she has done over the past few years, she’s a real fighter for this country.
She knows who’s the real deal and who’s not. And so that’s why she’s jumped into this race to endorse them.
Leahy: Second campaign question, a bit of a curveball. Are you ready? Here it’s coming.
Starbuck: Yep.
Leahy: Do you anticipate any challenges to your eligibility to run for the Republican nomination in the Fifth Congressional District?
Starbuck: I heard that somebody wanted to make some sort of challenge and that’s ludicrous. I don’t even understand what the basis that they would have for that is anything like that.
Leahy: I think it has something to do with, have you voted in X number of Republican primaries in the past. Something like that?
Starbuck: Well, I mean, if that’s the case, that’s going to get thrown out really quickly. I voted in Republican primaries in California and that fills every need that is necessary.
Leahy: Is it a standard Republican primary in California or in Tennessee?
Starbuck: The standard is Republican primaries. So if you have lived in a state previously – say two and a half three years ago -and if you voted in enough of those primaries as a Republican, that seems to be the standard legally.
Leahy: And I think the eligibility standard to run in a congressional district in any state is you simply have to be a resident for, is it like, six months or one year? And you could run for any district in the state in which you’re a resident. Is that right?
Starbuck: Exactly.
Leahy: Good! What’s on your agenda for the next week or so on the campaign trail, Robby?
Starbuck: Actually, we’ve been doing so many events and just got back from CPAC. I spoke at CPAC.
Leahy: That’s right. What did you say and what was your reaction at CPAC? I forgot all about that.
Starbuck: CPAC was incredible. We had an amazing reaction. My phone is still full at this point of people I’ve got to get back to because it’s just been an insane reaction.
But for myself and former Governor Scott Walker and Congressman Mark Walker from North Carolina, we did a panel essentially on how you can roll back what the left is done here in America over the past few years.
And there’s a lot of talk about offensive strategy going forward because essentially it is a big part of our problem. We’ve been on defense for too long for decades and decades and decades.
And it’s done nothing but seed ground. And some of these people who are really RHINOS and have called themselves Conservatives, I had a very frank question: What have they conserved over the last 25, 30 years? And the only thing I can think of is their job.
Leahy: (Laughs) That’s a good line, Robby. That’s a very good line.
Starbuck: That’s true. But at this point, we need somebody who’s ready to conserve some other things, and that’s going to take an offensive strategy.
It’s going to take bold leadership and it’s going to take some outside-the-box thinking in terms of how we message our policies and that we need to be very aggressive in having an offensive plan and stop apologizing.
We had a fantastic reaction. And one of the great things I saw at CPAC with so many of the people who were there, they really just wanted leadership and they wanted something to do.
And they came because they’re ready to take action someway or another. And they want to be able to know, what do I do? What is the best thing I can do to save this country?
Leahy: Robby Starbuck, candidate for the Fifth Congressional District, the Republican nomination. Thanks for joining us. Come back again, please.
Starbuck: Thank you. Will do. And if anybody wants to find out more go to starbuck2022.com.
Listen to the second 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.
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 bringing with Cuban immigrant parents and his first job at MySpace.
Leahy: In studio, Robby Starbuck is with us. Good morning, Robby.
Starbuck: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
Leahy: We just ran up the stairs.
Starbuck: We sure did.
Scooter: You guys need a little time to catch your breath? I got some perfect music.
Leahy: Robby needs less time than I do.
Scooter: I got here specifically at this time to make sure we got our exercise. It was one of those things, you know, where you hit every red light, every single red light on the way here.
Leahy: I do that some mornings.
Scooter: It happens. But in the nick time.
Leahy: Scooter goes 30 seconds. 15 seconds!
Scooter: I’m looking over and I’m in the last element in our thing here. And I’m like, uh oh, they’re not back. This is going to get weird.
Leahy: Robby Starbuck. Robby welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.
Starbuck: Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here. I know that pretty much all of my neighbors are in love with this show. The where they were very excited.
Leahy: Your neighbors have very good taste.
Starbuck: They do. They’re smart people.
Leahy: This is your first time in studio.
Starbuck: It is. It is. So I’ve been on a couple of times, but this is the first time I made it here for the full show.
Leahy: It’s totally more fun to be in studio.
Starbuck: It is.
Leahy: Even if we have to race up the stairs.
Starbuck: That makes it more fun.
Leahy: So that Scooter doesn’t have dead air when he opens up the show.
Scooter: There will be something on the air. I don’t necessarily want to know me, but there will be something. (Leahy laughs)
Starbuck: Well, tell me it’s not memorable. We’ll never forget the first time I was in studio.
Leahy: We will remember that. So Robby Starbuck, you have announced that you’re running for Congress in the Fifth Congressional District. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Starbuck: So if you don’t know me already, I started out sort of making my name in Hollywood as a director, producer. I directed and produced some of the biggest stars. Oscar-winning actors, actresses.
Leahy: See that’s kind of cool, right? Making a name in Hollywood?
Starbuck: Yeah. It’s not as cool as it sounds. That was where I had to make that decision to come out as a conservative. And it was a no-brainer for me because my family came from Cuba.
Leahy: Where in Cuba is your family from?
Starbuck: Ciego de Avila? It’s kind of a rural area. It’s not by the beach.
Leahy: And when did they come out of Cuba?
Starbuck: It was in the 60s. They all came at different times. So I can give you, like, one year, because the nature of it was like, say, like my grandpa. My mom came first, but my grandpa was held for a few years.
And the State Department had to get him out. So it was all in different stages, and some of my family members never got to leave. Some of them have died in Cuba, and some of them are still stuck there.
Leahy: Now, did your father come from Cuba?
Starbuck: No. My dad didn’t come from Cuba.
Leahy: Where’s your dad from?
Starbuck: I think he was born in Oklahoma.
Leahy: So your mom came here in the 60s? Where did she live when she first came here?
Starbuck: Florida. So my family started over completely. I mean, they lost everything. Even my great-grandpa started over as a janitor working two jobs.
Leahy: So they came with nothing. They had assets in Cuba.
Starbuck: They had their home stolen, their car stolen, every possession they had. I mean, for people that don’t know the history of Cuba, I mean, they took everything at gunpoint, and that’s it. You get to come with your shirt on your back. There was a legal process for it. They follow that process.
Leahy: A legal process for stealing your property.
Starbuck: Exactly. A legal process for stealing your property and then kicking you out basically.
Leahy: That could never happen here.
Starbuck: Oh, yeah. You know what? That’s the reason why I came out because I saw that there were all these steps that my grandparents, my mom had warned me about my entire life, about how this happened. How did we get to that place?
Leahy: How old was your mom when she came here?
Starbuck: She was 17.
Leahy: In 1962.
Starbuck: It was like 60, 63, 64.
Leahy: That was after the revolution. So she was probably 13 during the revolution. 59, 60.
Starbuck: And so for them, it was one of those things where they were far enough away, where nobody had really pushed up on them. And I think this is one of the things people can kind of relate to now is if you feel like it’s not at your front doorstep yet and you see the stuff happening right now in society.
Leahy: First they came for the. Then they came for the. Then they came from you.
Starbuck: One of the biggest regrets you’ll hear from Venezuelans and Cubans is that not enough people stood up. They kept waiting, thinking it’s not going to hit my doorstep.
Leahy: And then it did.
Starbuck: And then it did.
Leahy: Venezuela. I’ve been to Venezuela before.
Starbuck: It was awful.
Leahy: It was a great, beautiful place way back. Way back in 1972, 73. I guess it was a long time ago. You weren’t even born then. (Laughs) So where did your mom and dad meet?
Starbuck: They met in California. So part of my family still lives in Florida, part in Cuba and then part in California. So my mom and her great grandparents, I’m sorry. Her grandparents, my great grandparents, and her parents moved to California to start over there because one of them had gotten a job there. She met him I want to say, is West Covina was where they met.
Leahy: Southern California. And now what did your mom and her parents do for a living in California?
Starbuck: My grandpa ended up doing insurance. Super exciting. He was in insurance sales.
Leahy: We have a lot of insurance people listening to us.
Starbuck: I was being serious. It is super exciting. I mean, the stories that he has about his time and insurance is actually some exciting about that. For instance, a lot of people don’t know there are tornadoes in California. That was something that most people have no idea about. But there are tornadoes.
Leahy: I didn’t know that.
Starbuck: And so there’s a certain amount of tornado damage every year. I always found that interesting. So he got a job in insurance.
Leahy: What did your mom do? Did she go to college?
Starbuck: She was in real estate. Was actually the first person to go to college.
Leahy: So your mom’s in real estate and your dad in a meet and West Covina? And they get married. Where did you grow up? I grew up partially in Temecula. So my childhood is a little interesting. I graduated at 16.
Leahy: From high school.
Starbuck: So I actually left home and had simultaneously finished my first year of College in a gifted program in California.
Leahy: Are you gifted Robby?
Starbuck: Here’s what’s interesting about that program.
Leahy: We have a gifted person in here.
Starbuck: What’s really interesting about it is that the program is now being trashed in California because they say that program is a racist because there are too many Asians in the program.
Leahy: And so your mom is Cuban. And that program, from what you graduated, is now being trashed as racist.
Starbuck: It’s being trashed as racist. And another kid, let’s say, who has sort of accelerated learning and is ready to move ahead faster, won’t be able to anymore. They’re gonna be pushed back.
Leahy: They got to move it back. Dumb it down right?
Starbuck: I mean, I thought we were supposed to celebrate exceptionalism and like wanting to push ahead.
Leahy: America traditionally celebrates exceptionalism.
Starbuck: We should. We always should.
Leahy: I don’t know what this thing is we’re in right now.
Starbuck: It’s definitely not that. It’s the antithesis of it. So I left at 16 and essentially started my life.
Leahy: So let’s go back. What did your dad do for a living? He was also real estate.
Leahy: Real estate. And so you grew up in which said you grew up in?
Starbuck: Temecula was the initial place.
Leahy: And Temecula is where in Southern California?
Starbuck: It’s kind of about an hour, 15 minutes north of San Diego.
Leahy: So is it Orange County?
Starbuck: No, not Orange County. No, it’s Riverside County.
Leahy: Riverside County. A little deserty?
Starbuck: It’s bigger now. There’s an Indian casino there.
Leahy: Where was the special program?
Starbuck: It was all over the state of California so you could qualify for it.
Leahy: You graduate from high school at 16 Temecula, and you’ve got your first year of college. What happens then?
Starbuck: I went to work while doing college for a guy named Brad Greenspan. He started a site called MySpace.
Leahy: So you were working for MySpace.
Starbuck: Not only that, but he had a website called Live Video. It was the first video streaming website on the Internet. And everybody thought this was a crazy idea.
Leahy: So you were going to college where I was going at the time.
Starbuck: I ended up switching to Saddleback, which was a college where I was able to work and then go to school.
Leahy: Where did you start?
Starbuck: Saddleback, Orange County. And I was able to work there like it was my work.
Leahy: So you were in Orange County working for the MySpace folks, working for Brad. And he had a couple of different websites. So did you work just for MySpace or for other websites,
Starbuck: It was a whole company. A bunch of different things. So we produced original content, original shows.
Leahy: I mean, when you say you work for him, did you write code?
Starbuck: No, I was producing shows.
Leahy: How old are you?
Starbuck: 16. So how do you monetize all this stuff on the Internet?
Leahy: How do you connect with Brad.
Starbuck: Through a recruiter. Actually, a guy named Trent, who I’m still really good friends with today, who I flipped from being a Bernie Bro to being a Trump voter. He was my recruiter. He recruited me there.
Leahy: How did you connect with this guy?
Starbuck: He found me. Honestly, I’ve never asked him how he found me, but he found me.
Leahy: Had you done some video stuff?
Starbuck: I had done some video stuff, and I had sort of large social media already then. And I think that’s how he found me. That’d be my guess. That was my assumption.
Leahy: Was there a MySpace office or did you work out of your house?
Starbuck: There were multiple. So there was an office for E Universe, which was the parent company. And then you could work from home, work from the studio if you were shooting stuff. It was very free.
Leahy: Where was the universe located?
Starbuck: There was an office in LA. and then there was a satellite office in Orange County.
Leahy: Did you work in the satellite office?
Starbuck: I did both. It was depending on what we were doing.
Leahy: How old were you when you did this?
Starbuck: 16.
Leahy: Are you thinking, how did this happen?
Starbuck: Not really.
Leahy: Was it because you were gifted? (Laughs)
Starbuck: No. You’re never going to forget that.
Leahy: Yes. Every time we introduce you, ladies and gentlemen, the gifted Robby Starbuck. (Laughs)
Starbuck: No, no, actually, I wish they had a different word for those programs.
Leahy: I’m just teasing.
Starbuck: No, I know. It was really funny the first time I met with Brad was like, look, the weird thing for me here is like, don’t talk about your age with people because they’re gonna feel really weird answering to a 16-year-old. So you just look young. It was like this thing at work that you just didn’t talk about.
Listen to the full second 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.
