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 senior editor-at-large at The Epoch Times Roger Simon in studio to discuss former GOP chairman Allen West’s opportunistic career path and his race for the 2022 governorship of Texas.
Leahy: In-studio, our newest all-star panelist Roger Simon. Roger, you know, Crom and I have been learning how to shoot at the Nashville Glock store.
They have there something called the Shoot 270 Ranges. I’ve been using that, and I’ve learned a lot about shooting in that shoot 270 range.
Simon: I’ll go down there.
Leahy: Have you shot very much yourself?
Simon: Yeah, I have a fantastic shot. The first time I started to shoot was with Rick Perry,
Leahy: Oh yeah. The governor of Texas, I hear he’s a pretty good shot.
Simon: Oh, he was the first one I ever saw use a laser gun.
Leahy: Oh, wow.
Simon: He refutely shot a coyote running when he was jogging.
Leahy: That’s a great story, even if it’s just a story. But it’s interesting. They’ve got these Shoot 270 ranges. It’s not like just a lane range. When you shoot, do you go into places where they just have one lane?
Simon: Yes.
Leahy: You’ve got to go to the Nashville Glock Store because they don’t just assign a Lane. At Shoot 270 you get trained. There’s a big difference. You should use shoot270.com. Go ahead and book a session. Tell them you’re my friend.
Simon: Discount?
Leahy: They might. I don’t know. Just say, hey, I’m a friend of Michael Patrick Leahy and Crom Carmichael. Go to shoot270.com so you can log in there right now, Roger, and try it.
I know you’re a big fan of the shooting experience. You’re probably more experienced than I am. I’ve had three lessons. They’ve been great there, but I’m just beginning to get a little confidence.
I’m the kind of person Roger, as you probably know, I like to master something, right? I feel confident when I master it. I’m moving up the learning chain on this. Shoot270.com.
Simon: Do you want to hear my shooting story, Michael?
Leahy: I would love to hear about your shooting experience.
Simon: My baptism by shooting some years ago out of nowhere when I was running PJ Media. As you know, I got an email saying, would you like to come shooting with the governor of Texas, then Rick Perry, for who I ended up writing speeches, by the way.
I said well, that’d be a lot of fun. Only I didn’t know how to shoot. And I figured, the governor of Texas, he probably is good at this.
He invited me and the late Andrew Breitbart because we were sort of honchos of Blogdom at that point. So I went down in near LAX there’s a shooting range run by Marines.
And I went in there and I said, I got to go shoot. I didn’t say the governor of Texas, I didn’t want to show off. I just said I got to learn to shoot. I went in the range with a Glock.
And I missed everything in sight. (Leahy laughs) So the guy said, do you play a sport? And I said, yeah, I play tennis. (Chuckles) And he said, well, what do you do in tennis? Do you follow through?
And I said, yeah, I follow through but you don’t follow through with a pistol. I mean, you go, boom, and that’s it. And he said, just try it. And I said, okay, I pretended to follow through and then boom, boom, boom.
I’m hitting the bullseye. And to this day, I don’t know how that works. But anyway I went down to Texas, and I did it again. So if you go online, you can find a video with me and Governor Rick Perry plus Andrew Breitbart.
Leahy: I’m going to find that video.
Simon: It’s called Shooting With the Governor. I’m going to find that video. And I shot the video myself while in it with a little bit of help.
Leahy: That’s quite a story. Are you ready for a curveball? Because I know you’re a big baseball fan.
Simon: I’m not that big of a baseball fan.
Leahy: You were as a kid.
Simon: I’m a big tennis fan. Which is a very sad moment to see yesterday the great man, Roger Federer lost at Wimbledon for the first time since he was a pup.
Leahy: I did not know that. Well, what’s the tennis term for throwing a curveball?
Simon: Hitting a twist.
Leahy: Okay, I’m gonna hit a twist here. Are you ready? So you might have a little insight into the story. You’re talking about the former governor of Texas, Rick Perry.
Well, there’s a current governor of Texas. His name is Greg Abbott, and he’s been endorsed by President Trump although I’m not sure if there’s necessarily they’re completely aligned.
He has been endorsed by President Trump. President Trump went down to the border with him on June 30th. Now, here’s a question for you. There’s a guy by the name of Allen West.
Simon: I know Allen West. He worked for me at PJTV.
Leahy: Everybody worked for you, me, everybody at some time. I worked for you, Allen West worked for you.
Simon: And now I’m working for no one. (Laughter)
Leahy: But I have to get your insight into this. And I saw this, and I thought hmmm…
Simon: He’s running for governor. He served in the Army. A Lieutenant Colonel. Had some controversy there.
Simon: You shake hands with this man and you know it. I mean, he’s got a right hand on him.
Leahy: Yeah, he’s a wrestler. He focused on being fit. He’s a fit guy. So he served for one term in Congress in Florida. He was defeated for reelection.
Moved to Texas, where he was to head up the National Center for Policy Analysis. And I’m just going to state the facts. About a year after he went to run it, they went bankrupt.
You know that story. So that is first a little bit of a question mark to me. And they’d been around for, like, 35 years.
Then he decides, having lived for all of a couple of years in Texas, that he’s going to run for chairman of the Texas GOP.
Simon: I think it was even in one year or something like that.
Leahy: So he runs. He wins. He defeats my friend James Dicky, who was an early Tea Party guy. And he serves as the chairman of the GOP for about a year. When you are the chairman of the party, your job is to build up the party.
Simon: Theoretically.
Leahy: You’re not supposed to advance your own interest. Well, magically, he resigns as chairman of the party and then announces last week he’s going to challenge Greg Abbott in the Republican primary for governor. Do you have any thoughts on this, Roger?
Simon: Yeah, I read the same thing, and I’ve known Allen for a while. I haven’t seen him in a long time. My thoughts, I think, are not dissimilar to what you’re implying.
And your thoughts here, (Leahy laughs) I think enough already. I mean, Abbot has been maybe mediocre.
Simon: Mediocre to mildly disappointing. On the other hand, he seems to be getting it somewhat better.
Leahy: That’s my take, too.
Simon: And I think that that’s what I think is Trump’s take too.
Leahy: Trump’s endorsed him.
Simon: Yeah, I know. And I think he does that strategically.
Leahy: Oh, yeah.
Simon: And therefore, at this point, there are so many more important gubernatorial primaries coming up, like here in Tennessee, that we should be focusing on and changing the governor.
I think that’s a sidebar. And I think it’s a little bit of ego coming in there. Maybe a lot of ego.
Leahy: Let me just say the phrase you use was a little bit of ego. Or maybe a lot of ego. I’m kind of looking at this, and I’m thinking, so you lived in the state for a couple of years.
You’re the chairman of the party for a year. You resign midterm two weeks later. You announced you’re running for the party nomination for governor. It just strikes me as a little bit like…
Simon: Like Hillary Clinton?
Leahy: It just strikes me as a little bit opportunistic.
Simon: Yeah, right. I think so. Opportunistic. Plus, you know, power-hungry. (Laughter)
Leahy: Your words, not mine. I’m not gonna necessarily take issue with that characterization, Roger.
Simon: And I have to add, my dealings with him is that he was a nice guy. We got along fine.
Leahy: I have a similar reaction. I sat next to him at an event in D.C. to chat.
Simon: He takes up a lot of space when you sit next to him. (Chuckles)
Leahy: He does.
Simon: He’s got the biggest shoulders than 14 states.
Leahy: You’re exactly right on that.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Allen West” by the Republican Party of Texas.
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 the original all-star panelist former Mrs. Florida 2016, Real Voice News contributor, and host of Behind the Headlines, Karyn Turk to the newsmakers line to discuss pageant win and top priorities.
Leahy: We are joined on the newsmaker line now by Karyn Turk, Mrs. Florida 2016, a weekly contributor to Real America’s Voice. And she has her own YouTube show Behind the Headlines. Karyn, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.
Turk: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Leahy: So tell us first, Mrs. Florida. How does one become Mrs. Florida?
Turk: It was a wild ride. Not really, ever something I thought I would do. I wasn’t a pageant girl. I didn’t grow up in the South. I grew up in New Jersey. And in New Jersey, we didn’t have a whole lot of beauty pageants.
I didn’t know a lot about it, but I had some women that actually got behind me at a charity event and convinced me that it would be a great idea for me to compete. And I did in large part because of them and their support.
I won and I happened to win just as Donald Trump was coming down the escalator. And I was passionate about change in America and took a political position. Since then, I hear the pageant organizers have gone ahead and added in a stipulation that you can’t speak politically once you have the Crown because winning in 2016 was pretty epic. And I supported Making America Great Again.
Leahy: When I grew up, of course, these pageants have kind of morphed I suppose when I was a kid, the big deal was, of course, Miss America, right? That was the big deal. It was in Atlantic City.
I guess it got started in the 1920s. And then at some point, the Miss America Pageant got started. What does that pageant, what do they look for? And what is their main agenda?
Turk: For the pageant circuit that I was a part of winning Mrs. Florida 2016 is that a lot of it was about your accomplishments, your self-confidence, and what you achieved. Obviously, there is a beauty aspect, but I think it’s more about the way you carry yourself.
And I don’t know that I could have done this before being in my 40s? It’s probably why I was the Mrs. version and not the Miss. But when you go into a pageant, I realized that a lot of those stereotypes and a lot of the things that I had heard about the cattiness and the competition really wasn’t there at all.
And the women really support each other. And what was cool about it is I don’t think I could have gotten on that stage and exuded what the judges were looking for had I not had the support of that entire group of women. And it was really just a fantastic, magical event that I will never forget. So the Mrs. America Pageant still around, right? I guess.
Turk: Yes, they’re still around. And there are so many pageant circuits. You don’t realize until you get in there that there are dozens of different sections. There’s the U.S. version. I was the U.S. continental version.
There’s a Miss America, there’s the universe circuit, there’s the international circuit. And people that are into doing pageants know all of this. But if you’re in the outside world, you might not be aware that there’s a lot of different arms to do this thing.
Leahy: How many contestants were there in Mrs. Florida 2016? Was there a specific, like two or three-day, one-week event? Where did it take place?
Turk: For this particular event they lead up actually represent your city or your state or whatever, your district was. I was Mrs. Wellington, which was the town that I was living in. For about six months prior to the pageant, you represent your town or your city, and you do charity work and the different things that you’re involved in.
And they watch you, and they actually make you a finalist based on those things that you do in your city or your region that you’re representing. And then they narrow it down to the finalists. And I think we had about 40 finalists.
And then you go to the actual event, which was held here in Palm Beach Gardens at our Eissey Theater, which isn’t far from me. I live in Palm Beach, Florida, and that was where we had the actual final competition.
And that’s when you go on the stage and you wear the gown and you do interviews. The interview portion for me was the best part. I had six judges that you have to impress. And I went in with a business plan of how I was going to use my platform to elevate the narrative for charities and different organizations I was working with.
And at the time, I spent a lot of time being (Inaudible talk). And obviously, they liked it, because that was 30 percent of your score. And I got a perfect score on the interview, which enabled me to win the pageant.
Leahy: If you’re a contestant here and you decide you want to do it, does it cost you money or time or both? What does it cost?
Turk: Both. You definitely need to invest a lot of time. It’s not something that is easy to do. But there were a lot of women there that were working women with kids that found the time to do it. And women can do a lot of things.
We’re multi-taskers. So there’s no reason that the time should be a hurdle. Yes, it is costly. But you are also able to get people to sponsor you, and it’s good visibility for them. Maybe businesses you work with or your insurance agent.
So women have a choice. A lot of the women do pay for themselves and a lot of women get sponsors to help them with the cost.
Leahy: And it sounds like once you were Mrs. Florida 2016 you have a full year where your Mrs. Florida. Is that what happened? And you go around the state doing Mrs. Florida kind of things?
Turk: It was an entire year, and I did a lot of Mrs. Florida kind of things. I spent a lot of time in DC, and I got a lot of amazing opportunities, including talking to you today. I don’t know where I’d be had I not been Mrs. Florida in 2016.
Leahy: So do they pay you to do that, or do you still put out some of your own money during that period?
Turk: Yeah, they don’t pay you to do that. There are, again, the sponsorship opportunities and things that come your way that translates into revenue opportunities. But the pageant circuit itself does not pay you to do that.
Leahy: So you tell me you said you were born in New Jersey. Where in New Jersey were you born?
Turk: I grew up right outside of New York City in a town called Teaneck, New Jersey.
Leahy: Oh yeah. Teaneck, New Jersey. How did you end up in Florida?
Turk: I escaped like a lot of other people do. Florida is sort of the place that you escaped to if you want to get away from somewhere else. And I was living up there and had some of my kids, my three girls and my first marriage was falling apart, and I escaped to Florida.
I was lucky enough to be offered a job down here. And I picked up my stuff 21 years ago and came down. It was the best decision I ever made.
Leahy: Well, sure. Florida, New Jersey, Florida, New Jersey. (Laughter) That’s not a hard choice, is it?
Turk: It’s crazy to see all the New Yorkers and New Jersey people that are now discovering what I discovered 21 years ago. I was a little ahead of the curve, but we’ve got them coming down here in a mass exodus out of these states that have suffered during the pandemic under bad government rules.
Leahy: Before we go, you’re involved in this rally to Reopen America Tour. Tell us a little bit about that in our last minute.
Turk: An opportunity to be surrounded by great Americans and great people, the likes of Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, Mike Lindell, and so many more. And I was at the Tampa rally, which was incredible.
And to watch these individuals take the stage was just a really inspiring moment. About 9,000 people showed up in Tampa. So as this continues, it’s actually Clay Clark’s ReAwaken America Tour. It’s going to be something that’s going to be spreading like, wildfire, and I’m glad to be a part of it.
Leahy: So what other things? I mean, you’re a big pro-Trump person. Last question, what other things are you involved in promoting freedom and liberty around Florida?
Turk: I promote freedom and liberty across the country. Although I am from Florida. We have a great governor here, Governor DeSantis, so I hope that we either continue with him as governor or he maybe goes on to a larger office.
Leahy: Gee, what might that be? Let me think. (Laughter)
Turk: He’d have my full support. We’d be sad to lose him here, but it would be an amazing thing to see him run for a larger office. He’d certainly be up for the task.
Leahy: Karyn Turk, Mrs. Florida 2016, has her own YouTube show Behind the Headlines. Karyn, thanks for joining us today.
Turk: Thanks so much.
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.
Photo “Karyn Turk” by Karyn Turk. CC BY-SA 4.0.
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 IWF’s Senior Fellow Carrie Sheffield to the newsmakers line to discuss her recent piece at CNN and connecting with an audience that she calls ‘the persuadables.’
Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line our good friend Carrie Sheffield, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, most recently with our good friend John Solomon at Just the News. Welcome, Carrie Good morning.
Sheffield: Yes. Hi.
Leahy: Good morning, Carrie.
Sheffield: Hi. You cut out for a second, but here I am. How are you?
Leahy: Well, we are great, Carrie. Now, I have a little bit of mystery here that I’d like to see if you could help me solve. So you actually were able to get an op-ed published at CNN. How did that happen?
Sheffield: I give credit to the CNN op-ed editor. He’s had a long career at News Day, which is out on Long Island, which is one of the more conservative places of New York. I think he’s got respect. He understands there’s actually a need in the opinion section for CNN for more voices.
Leahy: Was this the first time you had an op-ed at CNN, or have you had it up there before?
Sheffield: No, I’ve been writing for almost four years. Fall of 2017 was my first.
Leahy: Wow. Cheap things I didn’t know Carrie about you or CNN. (Laughter)
Sheffield: I’m more than happy to write because a challenge people who are going to be triggered. But the secret part of why I do CNN and been on a bunch of MSNBC programs on shows like Don Lemon and Al Sharpton is because even though on Twitter and elsewhere I’m going to be dragged and there are very vocal liberals. I do know that there are some persuadables, and usually, they’re not as vocal. And I’m really trying to reach them.
Leahy: So what kind of response you get from CNN readers to your columns?
Sheffield: I would say the average as I said, I get online, a lot of hate. Liberals will post on Twitter or Facebook or other social media about how much they hate the column. But like I said, my audience, my target audience isn’t them. I’m really trying to reach people who are persuadable.
Leahy: So the persuadable people who watch CNN, who don’t sit in their basement and send nasty-grams out. That’s who you’re trying to reach.
Sheffield: Well, exactly. I was just at the airport yesterday and low and behold, they’re playing CNN everywhere. So it is one of those brands that I think that the operators of places like bars and airports and other public areas, doctors offices, maybe they’re not so political, and they think that it’s more down the middle and they don’t really realize how far left it is. Again, I’m more than happy to take any opportunity I can to get a good word out there.
Leahy: Heads must have exploded in Jeff Zucker’s CEO suite after he read this piece. Trump Deserves Credit for Policies Biden is Adopting on Foreign Policy. You wrote that it and it was published yesterday. Make the case here for our listeners that you make in this column.
Sheffield: Yeah, absolutely. What I did was I went through and I looked at the way that to his credit, I mean, I could write pages and pages and multiple books on ways I disagree with Joe Biden, but he is backtracking on some key foreign policy decisions and going in the direction of Trump.
One obviously is a really big one about China. And the big point I made in the lead was that look, he’s saying some right things, but the big question is whether he is actually going to back this up.
For example, on China, he said that he really wants to take a muscular posture. Biden expanded the list of Chinese companies that are barred from U.S. investors. His Secretary of state has been saying pretty much the exact same thing that Mike Pompeo was saying about the Uyghurs and the human rights abuses there in China.
And then the big kahuna is that he reversed course on doing a deeper dive into the roots of the Wuhan virus. And before we know, Democrats were saying that when Trump was calling for that, that was somehow xenophobic.
And now you have people like even Anthony Fauci, who were saying they want more of an investigation. I don’t know if there’s going to be any teeth to this or this is all just performative.
I hope that they will actually do more of an investigation. I don’t know that there are even the materials and the evidence at this point. It’s probably been destroyed. But at least they are willing to admit that they were wrong.
Leahy: The four keywords from your lead sentence about Biden backing Trump policies in some instances now were, ‘at least on paper.’
Sheffield: (Chuckles) Yes, exactly.
Leahy: By the way, that was a very nicely written lead sentence. And I’m sure as you’re thinking that through, at what point did you say I got to add these four words at least on paper?
Sheffield: Right from the get-go because that really is the big question. It’s interesting how much Biden says one thing and does another because he certainly did that quite a bit during the campaign where he promised that he was just the nice moderate, the friendly moderate in the race, and he’s governed anything but.
I do think that on foreign policy realism has set in. At the end of the day, I think a lot of this is coming from his staff. And so he did another thing that he continued from Trump which was with Russia.
This Open Skies Treaty, which was about patrols that were allowed by Russians and the United States over each other’s territories. And the Russians kept cheating on it. And President Trump said we’re going to pull out of this because they’re just not keeping it.
And at the time, Joe Biden said it was a short-sided policy of going it alone and abandoning American leadership. He said it would increase the risks of miscalculation and conflict and alienate Europeans who wanted the U.S to stay in the treaty.
And it turns out now Biden is saying and the exact opposite again, to his credit, he is keeping the U.S. out and not trying to get back into that treaty. He is doing some things that I very much disagree with Russia.
President Trump had put some sanctions on some Russian companies that were trying to finish the Nord Two Streamline Pipeline. And I found it really ironic that Joe Biden removed those sanctions and basically paved the way to allow this major strategic pipeline that’s going between Russia and Germany.
It’s going to make Germany way more dependent on Russian fuel. And this pipeline bypasses Ukraine, which means that Ukraine is going to be economically weakened right now or in the future going forward because they’re not going to get the land transfer fees, and it’s hurting Ukraine.
It’s making Europe more dependent on Russia. Meanwhile, here in North America, Joe Biden rejects the Keystone Pipeline. So just putting that in context, he killed a domestic source of oil with the pipeline while promoting and removing sanctions against a Russian pipeline.
If Trump had done the opposite, the left would be screaming and saying that he’s compromised and that he’s a Russian asset. And again, no one’s asking him about this.
Leahy: Carrie Sheffield, that is a fascinating point. I had the same thought you’ve articulated it very well. Carrie, it is always a delight to have you here on The Tennessee Star Report. Come back with us again and come to Nashville and come in in person sometime. We’d love to meet you in the studio.
Sheffield: I would love that. Thank you so much.
Listen to the full second hour:
– – –
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 “Carrie Sheffield” by Patrick Ryan. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line to predict the fate of Liz Cheney being removed from her post as House Republican Conference Chair and her possible replacement.
Leahy: Joining us on the newsmaker line, the very best Washington Correspondent in the country, representing The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Good morning, Michael. Good morning Crom. We’re all very excited about today’s big showdown.
Leahy: The big showdown of Liz Cheney, who’s been promoting herself so much, it even has irritated the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy. He’s sick of dealing with her. He wants to get her out of the House conference leadership position which is the number three position there. What’s going to happen today?
McCabe: They’re going to have the vote today and then they’re going to sort of have a round of sort of candidate events and people will have a chance to sort of lobby with their colleagues. Then they’ll have a vote to fill the position if it is vacated on Friday. And I think it’s interesting that one, it really has to have been irritating to McCarthy because the disposition is towards reaction, not action.
You’ve noticed this is a guy who has, I think, with vacancies he’s within three votes of taking over this Chamber. If he was to flip over, say, five to 10 conservative Democrats, he would be Speaker the House. He’s done nothing to present a positive agenda. He’s done nothing to sort of assuming that he’s that close. And he’s a very passive guy.
And basically, he just waits for Democrats to make a mistake. For him to actually stand up and say he’s going up against Cheney, that’s a big deal. And the other point is this is not a small office. She has a staff, about 50 people, and has her own sort of suite of offices associated with the Republican conference.
This is not just a token position or symbolic position. She is actively involved in running the Republican program in the House of Representatives, which makes it so galling that she’s come out against Trump. And, frankly, against the vast majority of House Republicans who not only support Trump but love him.
Leahy: What is Liz Cheney’s endgame? Why is she doing this?
McCabe: Well, as I wrote in The Tennessee Star for the Star News Network, Cheney is being backed by Team Ryan. Paul Ryan’s organization is backing her. His top aid and former chief of staff and someone who’s a senior advisor at his nonprofit called the American Idea Foundation, Kevin Seaford. He’s her senior advisor. Her fundraiser is a guy named Jeff Livingston, who’s been raising money for Paul Ryan, going back to 2004.
And other members of sort of Team Ryan and, of course, the Bush family and Mitt Romney have been sort of egging her on. I would say that Paul Ryan is the one who’s running this thing from the shadows. If she’s following his advice, she is a fool because Paul Ryan has never demonstrated any political acumen or skill, or competence.
This is the guy who was handed a 50 in-seat majority and did absolutely nothing with it. He was handed the largest House majority going back to 1928. More than 80 years and he torched it. Paul Ryan had 20 more seats than Newt Gingrich. And the fact that Liz Cheney is marching into the Valley of Death with Paul Ryan as the sort of coach and mentor is absurd.
Leahy: In the vote today, is she removed? Yes or no?
McCabe: Yes.
Carmichael: Will it be close?
McCabe: No. These people voted to oust her last time. 140 people voted to keep her and 60 said to get rid of her. They are going to flip that. She might get 60 saying ok. Look for Nancy Mace the freshman congresswoman from South Carolina who worked in the Trump campaign in 2016. She is also part of this Team Ryan political organization.
She didn’t vote to impeach but she’s been very negative of the President and presenting herself as the new face of the sort of post-Trump Republican Party. Watch Nancy Mace to see what she does. And if she votes against Cheney, then, you know it’s pathetic because Mace and Cheney are supposed to do a fundraiser in June.
Carmichael: Now, question, assuming that she does get beat, will she run for reelection?
McCabe: Oh, absolutely.
Carmichael: Really?
McCabe: She’s raised millions of dollars to her first quarter. She raised $1.5 million dollars, and she’ll keep raising money. There’s no reason. I mean, look at Andrew Cuomo in this political era, you don’t quit. She’s going to keep it going and she’s motivated by this belief that she is correct. And she really believed that there was nothing wrong with the way this election in 2020 was handled.
And she calls anyone who questions it, she says they are part of the big lie. And that’s absolutely galling. It’s galling to people who saw things with their own eyes.
Carmichael: I think that she wants to become the next Nicole Wallace. I think she’s applying for a gig. I’m predicting that if she loses, that she’ll put feelers out to join one of the networks in the news area so that she can have a much bigger platform than she’s going to have if she were to lose. And if she were to lose an election in Wyoming in the primary, then her value to a news network drops dramatically.
McCabe: She doesn’t want to give up this job. I mean, this is a great job. When you have a staff of 15, 20 people, you have your own offices, you have on your own agenda, and you have so much control over what the Republicans are up to znd plus her fundraising and leadership PAC and everything else, she doesn’t want to be deposed.
Carmichael: I know that but if she is deposed, then she loses all of that and becomes just a low-level member of the House and chairman of no positions that matter. If she loses in the primary, then she kind of becomes irrelevant.
McCabe: They really believe that Trump is finished. The Republican establishment has always believed that if we could just get rid of Trump, then people will be quiet. And then we can go along to get along. We can do business with China. We can bring in all the cheap labor. We can do the amnesty. President Romney would have given us amnesty. He would have given us an assault weapons ban and we’d be speaking Chinese right now.
Leahy: (Chuckles) That’s a good one. She’s going to be deposed today. When they vote for her replacement on Friday will Elise Stefanik be selected or somebody else?
McCabe: Well, there’s a lot of early momentum for Stefanik which surprised me because Jim Banks from Indiana, who’s the head of the Republican Study Committee, kind of had the inside position. It just seems like events unfolded and Banks wasn’t ready. And people are sort of mounting some rearguard actions against Stefanik because she has a pretty left-wing voting record.
But to her credit, she went after the Russian collusion hoax. She defended the President left, right, and center during the 2020 campaign. And that’s what people want right now. People want someone who’s willing to fight for this party, either you are in the party or your not.
Leahy: Because she represents the district of upstate New York where I grew up until I was, like, 12 years old, very far North. She’s a very clever person. She came in sort of under the wing of John Boehner. So she’s kind of a middle-of-the-road Republican. But she seems to understand power. She seems to understand the public, which is why, even though she’s got a very middle-of-the-road voting record, she’s defended Trump very very successfully. So bottom line, do you think she has it?
McCabe: Yeah. She was very close to Ryan until she figured out she could raise five million dollars ‘defending Trump.’ If she can raise money, she’ll defend Trump. She wins.
Leahy: I think you’re exactly right in that.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
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 the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the cancel cultures looming boomerang effect on Democrats and Trump as the official leader of the Republican Party.
Leahy: We are joined by the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael. Good morning, Crom.
Carmichael: Good morning, Michael.
Leahy: Well over the weekend Donald Trump made a little bit of news. He spoke at CPAC.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: And by the way, just as an aside. So the Hyatt Hotels hosted CPAC and now all the Democrats are trying to do a boycott of Hyatt Hotels. Hyatt responded, ‘tough!’ (Laughs) I like that. ‘We believe in diversity of thought.’
Carmichael: Which hotel chain is Pritzker’s? The governor of Illinois.
Leahy: I think it might be Hyatt.
Carmichael: Maybe he’s not associated with it anymore.
Leahy: It sold off.
Carmichael: But let me say this you can do something for a certain period of time like this cancel culture. The cancel culture is going to soon come back and bite the people who are trying to run it. It’s going to bite them in the butt because it’s wrong. It is fundamentally wrong. And let me say this. It is anti-American.
Leahy: Totally anti-American.
Carmichael: It is anti-American. Forget the Constitution for a second. I’m talking about our nature. Our nature is to discuss and to disagree and to come to conclusions after a full debate. That’s what our nature is as a country. And the left hates that. They want to be in control. It’s really kind of interesting. And by the way, Biden’s one point nine trillion dollar so-called coronavirus package is exactly what I’m talking about here.
It epitomizes it. Only nine percent of the one point nine trillion, only nine percent is for coronavirus if you expand the definition of helping coronavirus to its extreme. The other 91 percent is for Democrat interests. And so what the Democrats have done is they’ve divided our country. And by the way, it’s not 50 percent of the country that’s going to benefit. It’s like 20 to 25 percent of the country is going to benefit. Everybody else ends up taking a back seat.
Leahy: You are right as always about the ownership of the Hyatt hotel chain. It is the Pritzker family. J.B. Pritzker inherited a lot of money, is part of that family, but it looks like he’s the first cousin or second cousin to the guys that are running it right now. So not involved in the operation of it.
Carmichael: Well, but I mean he may not be involved in it, but financially he is still part of it it sounds like.
Leahy: Possibly.
Carmichael: So he’s a little conflicted.
Leahy: He’s a conflicted guy.
Carmichael: He’s going to be conflicted. But if we can if we continue on here. You have you had this one point nine trillion dollars and let here’s where the biggest for these. The biggest chunks are going. They’re going to the teachers’ unions who are going to be rewarded ultimately for not doing their job now. Think about that for a second. you’re going to get billions and billions of dollars for not doing your job unless it turns out that your job is to make sure that Black and Hispanic children do not get a quality education.
Leahy: Well the other element of the teachers union jobs is to present and indoctrinate a left-wing anti-American ideology to K-12 students.
Carmichael: Well, yeah, but they’re not doing that because they’re not even in class.
Leahy: When they are in a class that’s one of the things they’re doing.
Carmichael: Yeah, but I’m talking about what they’re actually doing now. Then you had the blue states and their pension plans which are completely underwater. We’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars underwater from irresponsible management and over-generous payouts. And then you have the private sector unions it turns out. Private sector unions have had these industry groups like the Trucker’s Association is actually one giant pension of 400,000 people all across these states and all these different companies.
And so it’s not just one company. and these companies are underfunding their unions. And the reason they’re being underfunded is well, I take that back. They’re not really being underfunded the plans are being mismanaged. The returns on the plans over the last 15 years have been less than five percent a year. They projected to be in the eight to nine percent range if they had hit their projections.
Which they should have by the way if they were properly managed and if they had then they would be funded. You have these cronies who are put in charge of managing the pension funds. And they then abuse that responsibility and then Democrats turn around to the taxpayers the non-union members and say pony up you have to make good for the mistakes of our side.
Leahy: This is basically, you know, class warfare. economic class warfare upon taxpayers, small business people, and middle-class Americans.
Carmichael: Yes. What this is an organized crime done ‘legally’. And I put legally in quotes and it dwarfs it. I mean organized crime is a five billion dollar a year industry maybe. I’m just picking a number here. This is 90 percent of one point nine trillion. And then Biden’s coming in with another package right behind it. Now, here’s why this all ties into Trump’s speech. Trump is now back. There about four or five Democrats in the Senate who know that if they vote for this one-point-nine trillion-dollar package they will likely lose their next election.
Leahy: So we’d say Joe Sinema.
Carmichael: Well no – Joe Manchin.
Leahy: Now you can understand why I said Joe Sinema because we’re in the land of transgender.
Carmichael: Kristen Sinema. Tester. John Tester.
Leahy: He got re-elected though in 2018.
Carmichael: 2018. So he’s going to be running in 2024.
Leahy: I kind of call him a communist with a crew cut. (Chuckles)
Carmichael: But he’s not one of us but he’s going to be stuck. And then Sherrod Brown. Sherrod Brown is a lefty but he’s in a state that’s now pretty solidly red.
Leahy: 2024 he’s up again. Sherrod Brown.
Carmichael: Is that when he’s up.
Leahy: This coming year 2022 remember Rob Portman announced he’s resigning. There’s going to be a big brouhaha for the Republican nomination.
Carmichael: But all of these all of these Senators have to look out. If they just got re-elected in 2020, then they’re not up until 2026.
Leahy: Right.
Carmichael: They have lots of maneuvering lots of wiggle room.
Leahy: There will be a presidential in between.
Carmichael: And Trump is the leader of the Republican Party.
Leahy: Undoubtedly.
Carmichael: There’s not anyone who’s even in the league.
Leahy: He was very smart. I thought it was a very well-worded speech – a well-crafted speech – right on policy issues. And I thought he was very smart right upfront to say I am not starting a third party. That was very smart.
Carmichael: Yes. Because what the left is trying to do is to divide the Trump supporters which represent 70 to 80 percent of the Republican Party now. And I’m not saying the rest of it is not Trump supporters, but they wouldn’t necessarily leave the Republican Party. If Trump runs for re-election or runs for election. I don’t know if you call it re-election or not.
Leahy: If he runs for a non-consecutive second term. Thank you, Grover Cleveland.
Carmichael: There you are. Here’s what’s interesting about this. Trump is such a leader of the party. And by the way, he will be enormously effective in 2022.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: Out campaigning for candidates.
Leahy: Already in Ohio, he’s endorsed a guy who’s running against this squishy Anthony Gonzalez who voted to impeach him. Gonzales is gone. Gonzalez will be defeated in 2022 in the House. And he’s already going to be weighing-in on these issues.
Carmichael: Alright and so has he endorsed somebody in Ohio?
Leahy: Yeah, this Max Miller, who was a former aide to him.
Carmichael: For the Senate?
Leahy: No, no. For the House seat that Gonzales has. He’s not endorsed for the Senate. He probably won’t for a while.
Carmichael: Well at any rate though, what I’m saying is is he’ll be out and he will campaign against those who voted to impeach him. And frankly well he should. And he will be very effective I believe in helping Republicans retake control of the House. And if and if he does do that, then he won’t have to announce that he’s running in 2024.
Leahy: There will be a groundswell for him.
Carmichael: Until he decides that he wants to because you can be an almost candidate and do a whole bunch of things legally that once you announce, it changes.
Leahy: Max Miller is the guy in Ohio that Trump just endorsed.
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.
