Jim Lamon on Putting America First
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Welcome to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone. Today, Chuck Warren is not with us. Instead, we have the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. Excited to be here. Look at that. She said like five words and it's not even the end of the program yet. That's the most so far. You are way beyond your average already. In studio with us, Jim Lehman, running for U.S. Senate here in Arizona.

And we thank you for joining us, Jim. The reason Chuck is not with us today is he is working on one of the other campaigns, and we want to be upfront and honest about that. We don't want him to... He didn't feel comfortable being in the studio interviewing you. As folks know, I'm working with Carrie Lake when we have gubernatorial candidates. I will not be here, and Chuck will handle those. So...

We are very happy to have you in the studio with us today, Jim. Thank you. Thank you. And by the way, most other candidates aren't comfortable being in a room with me either because I call them out on their all being politicians and government guys and lawyers instead of being right for the people and being a business guy and a veteran. We've got too many of the politicians and the squishy types, if you will. And you're not one of those. There's no question.

You have been putting Americans first from long before you got in this race. You are a veteran. You served six years as an Army officer, three of those in Germany during the Cold War. Speaking of the Cold War, I keep saying people don't understand war.

We are for the first time again in a geopolitical conflict with an international adversary. You know what that's like. Very much so. And Sam on the trail, as I tell people and as I've seen in business over these years, we need to treat Communist Chinese Party like we did the Soviet Union. I don't see why we keep cuddling up to them other than we've got a lot of politicians around the country, particularly in Washington. They're sold out.

They've simply taken their CCP dollars over the taxpayer. You've got a lot of companies that have done that to the American worker. You've got a lot of politicians that have helped it happen. Again, you're not one of those guys. You've been very clear on this issue. Sam, in our company, we're one of the fastest growing private energy companies in the country. We're a billion dollar company.

$800 million a year in revenue. $600 million of that stays right here in good old USA. The other $200 million will be Canada, Mexico, Europe, South Korea.

Our team is actually incentivized to work hard with American vendors to help them to grow their businesses. And you're going to see some of those testimonials as I smack around Marxist Kelly with some of that because he's totally sold out to Communist China. I also want to mention that it's hard to do because we've so sold out our country that transformers, cable, is tough to come by.

We do it, and we can actually make more money, probably about 4% more if we bought cheap Chinese crap. But not the goal. That's not what we do in our company. But we get it back in the long-term nature of that product, being able to be online much longer and better. People used to understand not only do you get a better product when you're buying from American firms that produce it here in America, but you're actually creating your own market. Absolutely. Right?

Right? I mean, you're putting money in the pockets of people who are going to buy your energy. They do. And keeping it at home, our kids, grandkids deserve the same American opportunity we did. If I...

We're having that kind of company that was just buying for the lowest dollar. How can I look at our fellow citizens or my own kids and grandkids? I did everything I could to help this country and do the same thing that we were able to do when we were growing up with American Dream. A lot of this is common sense. And the politicians and my worthy Republican candidates don't have a clue at times.

I think that's actually one of the big differences that I would point to between you and some of your opponents in this race. You have been about America first before it was America first. Very much the point. President Trump, of course, has emphasized it many times, and it certainly has helped our country prior to the current debacle we have. Examples, before I ever thought about running for race,

One of the consultants recently said, "Jim, you should go back and look at what you guys have been contributing to yourself and your company." And between the actual donations to conservative candidates, conservative causes, and fundraisers, it's $7 million.

And they said, oh, by the way, they went and looked under the FEC filings, and my three worthy competitors, they printed out all the lists, and it came up to zero. Now, I'll give Berno one exception to that. He did contribute $60,000 to himself, right? That's out of that. The other one, guys, is that the audit.

We needed an audit. We audited my company. It's a good thing to do. You've got to find out what goes wrong and go set about to fix it. And certainly we've done a little bit of that in the state legislature,

We've got more to do. As we've seen in any audit, I've stood up from day one. I've helped pay for the security for the audit and still say we should be back in special session to make those things happen. My opponents are either crickets or two of them on media saying, oh, the election's over and we need to move on and embrace the clown in the White House back in November. It's getting really hard to embrace the guy. Oh, my God. I mean, really. No, this has been...

For everything anyone said bad about President Trump, all the things basically that they accused Trump of, Biden is actually doing. I mean, in terms of the sort of totalitarian policy. Not that polls have much accuracy, but 38% this morning, and that's from leftist polls? So, I mean, my gosh, he's lost in – he's never had the Republicans, those that cared about the country. He's got a few squishes, but, you know, the independents –

Just look at, I guess, the open border fiasco. We're under an invasion. I mean, I see some of the news media. We've got 10,000 Haitians. Guys, you divide 2.5 million by every day, and you get a big number. That's what's coming across. I've been blessed to work very closely with the Border Patrol and have received the endorsement earliest ever of the entire Border Patrol Union.

21,000 members led by Brandon Judd today and even those that supported their work before in President Trump's campaign. Holman, Morgan, all have endorsed the earliest ever because they see the problem and they want somebody, a layman, to stand up and be accountable to the people of America. They call it this.

I have been in Arizona politics for a long time. I have never heard of them endorsing more than a year before these elections. I mean, usually it's five, six months. And enthusiastically. So just this weekend, we're having a coordination session where they are going to provide a thousand volunteers from Casa Grande South. We're going to be in every restaurant, every place that you can imagine, grocery stores, restaurants.

Weight rooms, gyms, they're going to be there touting the message that to help save this country, we've got to elect laymen and other principled America First candidates across the country. Now, I want to be clear. You are not against immigration. Absolutely not. I'm fortunate that mine is fourth generation Scottish and English.

Married a wonderful Cherokee Indian lady in North Carolina. So we're all a product of that at some point. But we have the most beautiful, best legal immigration system in the country. And I don't think people realize, but we let in about the equivalent of about 1% of our population each year legally. It's like 3 million people. 3 million. The only thing that I call into question there is we're giving visas to Chinese and India engineers. Mm-hmm.

And I will do everything in my power in the Senate to stop that. My company, we're 1,712 on payroll last month, big engineering construction company all across the country.

And of that, we're hiring 40 a month. Ten of those are engineers. We've got several hundred engineers. Guys, there's six, seven applicants for every engineering job. We have plenty of engineers. We need to have our own ASU, NAU, GC. All of our guys need to get those jobs. They're not those. I think there's a way, and that's, by the way, almost a half a million.

that we can take out of that system and potentially use that, let's take a much lower number for that, as a way to solve some of our lingering long-term issues where people have been waiting 20 years to become a legal citizen that has done everything right in sitting and waiting. But absolutely, those who've come here illegally, you don't get the opportunity to jump in line in this country.

That has always been my issue. It's not fair. We're allowing people to break the law, and in so doing, they're harming people who are doing everything right and waiting forever to get here. It just calls out the hypocrisy. You know, the George Soros-led organizations that are funneling into the Democratic Party and

open borders. COVID is not an issue at the border, nor is anything else. But you want to mask our kids. COVID is not an issue. Drugs aren't an issue. Rape isn't an issue. Human trafficking, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking. None of these are issues at the border if you're a Democrat. And they are the core of what's actually happening. There's no question. And that's why Brandon Judd and the guys, when we met about the campaign and

working in lockstep to bring about those kind of reforms in the Senate. My point is that on the website, JimLaman, L-A-M-O-N.com, you'll find our policies being posted there. We still have more to come, but there's about a half a dozen there. I'm kind of like Newt Gingrich and the guys that said, hey, I'm going to put a contract with Arizona out there. Stand with Jim Laman. You're going to know what you're going to get in the Senate.

And I will take that attitude there that this is no longer about compromise. This is about getting things done.

in the Senate because I'm not taking lobbyist dollars. I'm not taking PAC dollars. I don't need to. We've got a great company. I'm going to fund half this campaign and looking for the great people of Arizona and the U.S. to do the other half, and they're coming in like droves for that because I just don't have to do it. And that's a lot of the sellout to Soros and these globalists and these no-border people. It is destroying our communities and our country, and it's got to stop, and I'll do whatever I have to do in the Senate to make sure it happens. So, Jim, what is...

What has been your biggest takeaway from running a Fortune 500 company, and how has that shaped your policies running for office? Well, great question. I'm a hands-on guy, and having been out in the field prior to our current company I founded here in Arizona eight years ago, we built a big coal and gas plant, billion-dollar stuff.

I was president there, and so I'm not the kind of guy that sits in the ivory tower. I'm out in the field. And what I hear there and in my current company of 1,700, we look just like America, from Latinos to African Americans, et cetera. There is a universe of agreement about the policies you're going to see there because that's where they came from. I mean, this is grassroots on a political side, but it's the real human beings that work every day to build this country.

Now, we're 22% veterans in our country because the general population is about 5%. I'm a veteran, so we need to give those men and women an extra shot. They're even more so. I gave up so many years of my life. I don't want to see this country go away. So I think the biggest thing I bring is that hands-on approach. Not a politician. Let me think. Good Lord. It's a matter of what are the – this is not John McCain's seat. This is not Jim – this is Arizona's seat.

Those people deserve their voice to be heard. Absolutely. You know, one thing we have about a minute before we go to break and then we'll be coming right back with Jim Lehman here. Folks, go to his website, Jim Lehman dot com, because one thing we've seen in past elections. Look at his issues. Look at what he's talking about.

Jim, you're not changing those when you get to the general election, right? No, absolutely not. That's putting them out there. The consultants say, Jim, don't be so bold. Don't be so detailed. It's time for boldness. It's time to put it out there and then go do it and not be have your hands. All of my Republican opponents taking big, libist and pack dollars already. I will not do it. I don't need to. And I will not. There's a compromising element to that. Always at the very least, you're going to be listening to those folks.

even when their interests don't align with the American people. Folks, fantastic interview so far. We're going to be coming right back with Jim Lehman, candidate for U.S. Senate here in Arizona. Go to jimlehman.com. Check it out. Highly encourage you. Bergen-Potl is coming right back.

The 2020 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2021. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.vote web domain from godaddy.com. Get yours now.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of the studio today, but with us, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. We've gotten like five whole sentences out of her. This is so far beyond our record, I don't even know what to say anymore. It's an exciting day. Are you going to put up with that? Yeah, I might. Also in studio with us, U.S. Senate candidate here in the great state of Arizona, Jim Lehman. Jim, thank you. When we were going to break...

You mentioned something actually before we came on the program that you're doing right now that I think will make a huge difference for Republicans in your race, but I think it'll make a huge difference for you in your race. It'll make a huge difference for Republicans across the state. You're actually out registering Republican voters right now. It is the right thing to do. I've watched over the years George Soros do it just one election to another and said, we need to do that. We have a history and a party of kind of

doing it on the back end four months before the election, six months, oh, let's get energized. So we put a team together, 25 full-time staff, five offices across the state, hundreds of volunteers. We outregistered the Dems two to one, three to one almost, in the last two months.

Turning Point does a good job around the schools and the colleges. We've added to that substantially by doing it in front of the Walmarts or out at the post offices and all the public sidewalks. People are calling me from Santa Cruz that said, hey, Jim, I just want to let you know.

Somebody stopped me twice today in two different locations and said, I've never seen a Republican down here registering voters this early. So it's a beautiful thing. People, I think, are really energized this year to take their country back. We want to make sure that they are registered to vote and push hard for the legislature to get things right and call a special session. Let's tighten up these rules that we found in the audit as well. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one thing is some of those candidates have come over since the report came out.

But you've been there, and you've said from day one, look, we need these audits. I've said from day one, we need real ballot security. You go back to 2016, 60% of Democrats thought the election was stolen, up to include Russia hacking the machines. Very true, and...

If you look at the findings, we've got work to do. There's no question about it. I applaud Arizona. We've been at the tip of the country in leadership here. And we found issues. We've got to go make those things happen. But also from a standpoint of just looking at doing what's right, you know, those type of things that come out. You've got to go, you know, the state legislature's got to step up.

And in terms of supporting it, I've done that from day one, as you said. The worthy opponents I have are kind of been crickets. But you've got to stand up. You've got to be accounted for and bring on the heat. I'm up for it. I want to kind of rapid fire go over some issues before we get to the end of the interview here. Mining. This just popped up again here in Arizona where there's been a huge copper deposit found in southern Arizona. Yeah.

And frankly, our elected officials a lot have talked about supporting mining here in Arizona, but then allowed it all to go on in China and Nigeria, Chad, all these places around the world where the environmental controls are nothing compared to what we have, where you have child labor. Exactly.

Yeah, meeting around the state, Joe, we've been averaging 860 miles a week in the first 20 weeks here, getting out to really get local. And then Nogales, for example, just this last few days, we have, as you said, mining discoveries there that will be an immediate 2,000 direct jobs.

And 8,000 indirect jobs. And those are all high-paying jobs. Starting entry, $78,000 for great Americans. Someone send me an application. Strategically. I mean, what are we thinking? You know, China's building a huge navy. They're not going to allow our minerals or other people's minerals. We have them here in the country.

We do. Copper, for example, we mine 80% of our nation's needs. We need to start moving toward 120%, quote, the green economy or the electric vehicles or whatever we're going to is a lot more copper than a combustion engine. We only process 50%. We send that other 30% all the way to Indonesia and back. Insane if you care about the environment. Look at the beautiful smelter down in Miami.

very low emissions, and you take that same view of Indonesia, and you'll see a very stark difference. It's all one atmosphere, theoretically. So when we do that, initially...

Just a critical infrastructure of our country. We've got to get our rare earth minerals. We've got to have all of the core minerals in mines. Beautiful American jobs. It's time to get the EPA out of the way. We know the rules to live by. I've lived by those rules in building power plants for 30 years. You don't need to keep reviewing. We know what the rules are. As private industry, we'll comply.

Go home. Stay out of our business. Let's build America again. I've been saying for a number of years that if you really are concerned about CO2, the best thing we could do is not spend a huge amount of money in tying up our economy here, but literally just go overseas to the coal plants in China, India, all these other places, and install the smokestack scrubbers that we require.

Interestingly, Joe, I've been there a few times in my past history where I've seen the coal plants originally that were built were using World Trade Organization money and World Bank money, things like that. They actually installed the scrubbers because they had to to get the money. Right. They turned them off because they consume about 200 megawatts of a 1,000-megawatt plant. Once they get the money, they don't care. So that kind of hypocrisy of –

of not allowing manufacturing here. It's got to stop. My goal is America first. And part of it, you'll see on the website, is we're going to tariff China, India, those polluters who don't abide by reasonable wages, slave labor versus our reasonable, don't have insurance for their workers. All the things that we do here, environmental safety standards, they're going to be tariffed to be the equivalent of America. So we're giving our American businesses and workers a level playing field

take those tariffs, set them aside in investment tax credit, and you'll see more chip factories, more aluminum mining and copper and manganese, which, by the way,

And Nogales says 50% of the world's supply is sitting underground, and we're importing from China. That's insanity. That's insanity and dumb. Aren't these the people that tell us this is one world, one planet, Mother Earth, we have to take care of her? What is the difference between mining on U.S. soil and mining in China, except that U.S. mines are far cleaner, safer, and better run? Part of it is the Chinese Communist Party is very strategic.

You know, they've put a lot of things in place through the environmental system and the environmental activists here and the sue until the NGOs, until you capitulate and then they get their fees back and you delay, delay, delay. It gives them that strategic advantage because they don't have to do that. And we've got to, I'm calling it out and want to get to Washington, EPA and all these others. These rules are going to change because we're not going to allow this anymore in our country. It's just not going to happen anymore.

Jim, we only have two minutes left in the interview. What do folks need to know about you and your candidacy before they're going to the ballot? We still have a while to go, but before they do.

do. Sure, guys. You have a few choices on the Republican side. One is America's first candidate, not taking any PAC or libelous dollars. I will be true to you. I'm fortunately with a great company and have saved and invested well in my life. I don't have to. I look for you, jimlamer.com, for the other half of that, so I will be pure for you in the Senate.

I will have American First policies. You can look on the website. You'll see six of those already posted, and you're going to see more. I will bring with me to those the best person in mining in Arizona, the best person in Border Patrol that goes with me to those Senate committee meetings and marks up the bills. I'm not going to have a junior staff. This is going to be a real team of real experts who will get real things done. And additionally, I'm out there with the people.

I love that because I say all the time most people don't understand in Washington what's really happening. It's not your elected officials writing those laws. It's not actual experts from the field writing those laws. It's 22-year-old kids who just graduated from Harvard or Yale.

and don't know anything about the actual world. We'll see how they stand up when I, myself, and Brandon Judd sit across from them on immigration. We're going to take the heat to Washington. I'm an ex-college linebacker of a couple years with Coach Bryant. I'm a six-year paratrooper engineer officer. I've built big coal plants. I'll take the heat to Washington for you. Folks, you're not going to get tougher than someone who played for Bear Bryant. That's just all there is to it. No quit, brother. No quit. Jim Lehman, thank you for being in studio. Fantastic interview.

Folks, America First right there, JimLayman.com. Check them out. Joe Culley, thank you very much. Thank you. The 2020 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2021. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.vote domain from GoDaddy. Get yours now.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your hosts Sam Stone, Chuck Warren, not in the studio today with us, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper, and very graciously agreed. We had another guest who was going to come on for the second half of the program. He could not make it. So Jim Lehman, candidate for U.S. Senate, thank you so much, sir, for agreeing to stick around for the last half hour of the program here.

Some were such good fun here. Why not? Yeah, well, it's been a fantastic conversation so far. What I really love is that you are not again. You say you're not a politician, but you're really not a politician. You got into this because you see what's going on around you. But you're a business guy. You've served in the military. You're a family. I mean, you are you are the picture of what is not Washington, right?

Thanks, Sam. I think we used to have statesmen in this country, right? We did. People that weren't there for a living. And I'm not taking a pension out of this. My salary I'm going to donate here in Arizona, no libis dollars, as we said, no PAC.

because you've got to be true to the people. I mean, this is a beautiful country that is getting sold down the river in more ways, and not just Communist Chinese Party, they're the principal one, but just self-interest. And it's time to be there for the people. The people of Arizona, as we've traveled around the state in 20 weeks, 70 almost presentations, something like 40,000 people, rodeos, and just all kind of great club meetings, people are really energized. And I asked the club organizer or the

the legislative district chairman, what did it look like last year in election year? Jim, we're up 40% attendance over last year. I said, well, obviously most of that's just the enthusiasm of the country. I said, also, they're coming here to hear you, Jim, because you're bringing the message that people want to hear that you're going to be a fighter, you're

You're going to stand up for us. You're not going to say one thing now and do another, which I'm not. I mean, I'm going to be held accountable to those policies on the website. And it's getting a lot, Nenagalis and Yuma both this week.

My gosh, the Latino community, you know, they're getting overrun. This is not what they believe. They've got beautiful families there just like great Americans that they are. They want us to treat people respectfully. Exactly. But they want their own opportunities. They're here. They're citizens. Absolutely. Just like I am or you are. We're all the same as American citizens. And bringing that together and stopping this craziness that's going on. A very brief item on the budget, by the way.

I think a tremendous amount of this craziness is related to the amount of money just slushing around in the system that we, our kids and grandkids, are going to either default by ruining our currency or we're going to buck it up and stop doing things. When Clinton and Gingrich did their thing, that was $2 trillion just a little bit before 9/11, which hasn't been that long ago. Escalated for inflation, $3 trillion. These clowns in Washington are talking $6.5 trillion.

So get it back to what we give them. Three and a half is plenty. And after they've dumped, what, four and change, you know, that they just printed in the last year and a half. And I work at the city of Phoenix government. I know what we have done with the money, some of which was useful, but a lot of which was just, you know, we got we got people's friends.

have jobs and got programs and got paid. Or paying people to stay home, which is insanity in the making. We have a tough time competing. Restaurants, you look around town, it's people staying at home based on the government largus that's being given to them. Well, let's not quote the government largus. It's ours. It's the taxpayers that put money into it. And I intend to be very

Excuse me, very fiscally responsible that you'll see, oh, Jim, well, you can't get to a balanced budget because you destroy the economy. Well, let's watch, okay? Because all that government stuff is fake economy to begin with. We need to get back. We're sending $3.5 trillion. That's plenty. Let's bring that back down. And how do we pay the debt off? A, grow the economy, get back to energy dominance in this country, which we can do. Two, bring manufacturing back to the country, as I said, with tariffs and set up investment tax credits to rebuild our industries.

Well, you know, for example, you talked about paying people to stay home, right? City of Phoenix just created a program with a universal basic income test pilot, $1,000 a month for 12 months for 12,000 people. And the way you get to the front of the line for that is you've already had them pay off your rent, which you didn't pay, and your utilities, which you didn't pay, while you were very likely receiving more money than you ever made before. Right.

because of the enhanced unemployment. So they had the enhanced unemployment. They're sitting at home. They're not paying their rent. They're not paying their bills. I don't know what they're spending the money on, but they're not meeting their obligations. This is what politics has become. Then we're just going to throw more handouts at them. And it all comes from one source. That's called the taxpayers, right? There's no way to invent money. It comes from the taxpayers.

And it's time to call it what it is. You know, that's just socialism in the making. They're moving rapidly to Marxism. And we have got to stand up as Americans here in Arizona. We've we've led on audit. We've led on a lot of things in this country. And it's time to lead in the U.S. Senate. And I'll do it for you. I need your help to get there. But I'll stand tall and bring linebacker and paratrooper and engine construction mentality and strength and tenacity to this job. You know, everything you have ever done.

You either succeed or fail. There's no kind of in between on those things, right? You build a power plant, it works or it doesn't. You know how to achieve and get things done. That's what I like the most about you, Jim. We're going to be coming right back. Broken Potholes, back with you in just a moment. It's the new year and time for a new you. You've thought about running for political office, but don't know where to start.

Before you start any planning, you need to secure your name online with a yourname.vote web domain. This means your constituents will know they are learning about the real you when they surf the web. Secure your domain from GoDaddy.com today. Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your hosts. I'm Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of the studio today. In studio with us, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper.

She smiles and giggles every time I call her irrepressible, and I really have no idea why I do that, but she seems to enjoy it, so we're going with it. Yeah, let's keep it. Okay. Jim Lehman, also in studio with us today, candidate for U.S. Senate here in Arizona, talking some sense. And when we went to the break, he started talking about something, folks, I think you need to hear out there, because you own a power company, an energy company. You started out in coal and gas.

But that's changing. And the mix of energies are changing. So tell us a little bit about that. Senator, this is also part of a very broad appeal, not just to Republicans, but to independents coming up in this race. And I'm going to be very vocal about it. We already are. And you're going to see many of the ads against Mark Kelly for it. The team that I have, 1,700 on staff, many of those came with me from the coal and gas industry.

We built a billion-dollar plants. We never missed a schedule or a performance guarantee or a budget. So we took that mentality of working to be national champions and brought that over to solar.

Big utility scale, not rooftop, big utility scale solar. And we never looked at it like a green thing. That's a great benefit, but we looked at it as cost of energy. It must be the lowest cost of energy if you're going to always be there as part of the grid. You can't have subsidies that go on forever because they started out that way, just like natural gas started out with subsidies.

Today, as those subsidies have declined, and there's still a little bit for natural gas, a little bit in solar, but the point of this is that on an unsubsidized, levelized basis cost of electricity, solar today is 2.5 cents a kilowatt hour. By perspective, gas is 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Coal is 12. Nuclear is 24. Why is the grid changing to solar and natural gas so quickly?

It's also, yeah, it's cleaner, both of those. I'm not against coal and not against nuclear. There won't be any more built in the country. It's just too darn expensive. We found cheaper, better technologies that progress just like your laptop or anything else has. So I'm very proud of that. My team has always been cost-driven and output-driven. We have the highest output of any of the solar companies out there for the plants we operate and maintain after we design and build them using American products.

Every chance we get, European if we don't. And that's shown that this is a very sustainable industry, and I will take that to the campaign and help people know that from an independent standpoint, even some Democrats, you need to know that this is the real deal, and you can have a conservative guy at heart who also is into renewal.

When you said something I thought was very interesting, you're talking about the combination of solar and natural gas. And I don't think people understand how that works and why solar alone is not nearly as efficient as when you combine the two.

Gas is great for the base load, you know, really clouded days. We're still producing electricity, not as much. Gas pulls into the equation. We're also now very large into storage. Those costs have come down enough that a typical plant for us today will over-generate and store about 20 to 40 percent of electricity in a day. And so it pushes the gas need to come online a little more back into the back end of the day.

But a beautiful combination because in the aggregate, you've got a much lower two-cost electricity. The thing that I find quite interesting in a bad way is that present-day APS is talking about needing a rate increase. They're costing lower per generation, yet they need a cost increase. And I'm speaking against Republicans, folks, that are running for some of the commission offices because they're actually entertaining this craziness.

Costs need to come down. We have to compete for Texas every day for new manufacturing plants as we rebuild American manufacturing chip factories, etc. Their cost of electricity is a lot lower than ours. Why is that? They have open competition. You know, we've got a certain amount of infrastructure that has to be regulated from transmission lines and making sure the customer gets electricity at the end of the day.

But we're going to get more open competition. So I'm not just your dyed-in-the-wool Republican here. There are a lot of areas that I am for the people, not for the corporations in the sense of the word that it's about serving our customers. And I've been told that for American manufacturing, for the American economy, both for a manufacturing plant and a lot of the new technologies, data storage, Bitcoin mining, everything like that,

you have to have a really good, direct, reliable energy source or you're putting that business at risk. And that's why a lot of them have gone to Texas.

It is, and the cost factor. After your raw materials, after your labor, it's almost always the cost of electricity is a third in your cost stack. So if you're going to make your most efficient product, sell your consumer, then you look at that. And Texas is one of the largest solar-producing states in the country. And growing fast. Growing faster than the others. We do virtually none here in Arizona because it's so low cost. If you get a guaranteed markup of...

7, 8, 10%, you're not going to want lower costs. For sure, that's an easy button for APS and SRP. You know, that's a great point that I don't think most people, and even I didn't connect that when I read the piece on it that came out yesterday or the day before. But the higher their energy costs, the more profit they make because their profit's based on a factor over and above cost.

It's a weird equation when you have a monopoly. I'm not saying that you can do it there. You have to have a monopoly for transmission because you don't want two transmission lines, right? But outsourcing the source of the power.

and plants that have been paid off a couple of times over. You know, you've got 50-year-old plants. Just also, why do utility companies need to have 50-yard line suites at stadiums? Who's buying the power? I mean, come on, guys. This is our money. It's just like Washington. Some things have got to get relooked at from a common-sense standpoint. I know Chuck and I are enormous baseball fans and basketball fans and football fans, and so we're usually sitting in one of those suites not owned by them.

We pay for it ourselves, but I know what you mean because they're next door to us, and they're whooping it up every day, and that's on the taxpayer dime. You all out there are paying for that. It's getting back to basics, back to Tom's. That's why you see such an uproaring of the grassroots in our state.

that are coming to the table and saying, we're going to take back our state. We're going to take back our country. They're tired of politicians and people who are just passing money back and forth between pockets. It's time to get back to good old USA. I'm a businessman, a veteran, but more than anything, guys, as a family man and a grandfather, I'm a patriot.

In this country, I'm so blessed with, have lived the American dream, humble beginnings, put myself through college. I want that for our kids and grandkids. And Kylie, for her audacious children and grandchildren. Someday. When she gets old enough to have them. But it's just a matter of common sense that we've got to get back to. And I hear on the campaign trail, everybody was seeing record attendance at our rallies and our events.

And I'm going to stand tall for it. I'm going to bring the heat in the U.S. Senate. You've been building a lot of momentum out there. Oh, my gosh. It's just amazing to see. And, again, we used to, when we first started, hey, guys, we want to come meet with you. Now we've got to prioritize presentations. You know, we're doing two a day at least. We're in, you know, Yuma. Got back 1130 last night.

There was standing room only in there. It's incredible. The audience were seeing, and the enthusiasm. And they come up, they sign our petitions, they volunteer, they're really getting out there. Jim, we'll get yard signs.

Guys, we got like 395 days to go, "I want yard signs, right? I want to put them in my neighborhood. My neighbors want to put them up." We're talking Latinos and we're talking everyone across the board here that's coming out. This is not a very conservative group. This is Americans coming forward. Well, you know, it's one thing, and Chuck and I have talked about this and talked about this with some of the other guests on the program, and, you know, Kylie, you can fill in on this from some of your own experiences out in the field knocking on doors.

Democrats' assumption that Latinos, of what Latinos care about, is totally out of whack. I mean, when you go out and talk to Latinos in our community here in Texas or Florida where we do a ton of work, they're small business owners. They're starting small businesses at higher rates than every other ethnic group in the country. They're workers. They show up and bust their butt every day. What about their family people? They're big on families. Pro-life, exactly. Pro-life? Pro-life.

Pro-education. Pro-education. So what about the Democratic platform appeals to them? I don't understand. I don't think they do at all. A lot of it's just been the hand-me-down mentality of, you know, hey, we voted for this guy, we kind of like him, et cetera. But they're really opening up today with all the new sources of media that we have out there. It's no longer just your mainstream media. There's a lot of new sources. People are getting the information, your radio show and others as well.

and I'm on Latino West Stations to put that message out. They get it, and they're looking for their families and grandkids to see what we have seen also. And you've got this flood of labor that will work for several dollars less on the illegal side, and that's not for them. They don't want this either. Pro-family is a big one, and also education.

I'm extremely pro-education for our children, and the dollars should follow the parents' decision with the child, not what the teachers' union want. I have no yet, I have not found one person to hold their hand up when I say, tell me something good about the Department of Education. 40,000 people, not one hand. Why have it? Close it. It's just putting propaganda out there. It's not doing a darn thing for our kids.

We've got to get back to the kids and education. It's all about results. It's not about union bosses. It's not about department education. Well, and you are a big supporter of educational choice. As you said, let the money go with the kid. Put the dollars in the backpack. Let the parent choose if they want to send them to a public school, if they want to send them to a private school, if they want to send them to a charter, which are public schools.

It's religious homeschooling. Yeah. It's their choice. Homeschooling has exploded in the last two years because parents finally got to see what garbage their kids were learning in these government-run schools. Again, in my company, I'm very hands-on and close to them. It's surprising the number of people that are doing that. And they're seeing the results as a result of the kids are getting scholarships they never thought about because now they're so academically advanced.

They're able to go into curriculums like engineering where they were thinking, well, I might want to just be an artist or something, which is nothing wrong with that, but it takes a higher level of education for that engineer. And they're making those decisions, a very positive impact. We've got to be able to bring that to all communities, South Phoenix and everywhere in this state. You know, I think one of the worst things Washington ever did was give government –

guarantees for student loans, for college student loans, because it totally decoupled the cost of college from the benefit. Right. And I've said from the start, the thing to do would be to actually make these colleges have to underwrite their loans. Exactly. Should be between the person and the whoever they're borrowing the money from.

If you're looking for a loan forgiveness program on the backs of the taxpayers, I'm not your guy. The taxpayers should not be fronting the money except for their children and for those in the areas that people can't afford it from a public school standpoint. That's why we have the money to follow the child. And don't look for degrees to go to nowhere anymore.

in the administration that I want to help lead Washington. It's got to get back to the people who are providing for the taxes. That's the limit of what we've got. We don't have all this extra larges out there. You know, a lot of this is frankly the fault of the legacy media, which has completely failed this country. But the fact of the matter is now that here in Arizona, for instance, we're spending over $14,000 per kid per year on average for their public school K-12 education.

that's higher than the cost to send them to our public universities. Well, it's a matter of the education, right? Get everything out of the way except for that effectiveness. You have to run businesses lean, and you have to look for the result, or your customers don't buy. We need the same thing to happen in our school system.

Every child should get the best opportunity. No child should be, you know, their outcome should be based on their zip code. It should be based on their ability to go just as far as they want to. And we'll see a lot of new results and a lot of new people thinking for themselves instead of the way that the union bosses want them to think. Yeah, absolutely. I'll never forget the first time I went with a candidate to a debate at a public school. They had us park in the teacher parking lot. And the spot I pulled into was the Director of Community Relations.

And it was next to the Assistant Director of Community Relations, which was next to the Director of Community Student Relations, which was next to the Director of Parent Community Relations.

I think the parents are the community, so I still never figured that one out. But the amount of bloat in the system is just outrageous. Oh, it is, absolutely. And again, that's getting back to our principles and common sense. These things are not hard to figure out. You've got to have people with guts in the elected office to stand up and make it happen. That's what I intend to bring, Joe, is that, is not beholding to anyone, no libist dollars, no union dollars, et cetera. I'm going there for the American people, particularly in Arizona.

fantastic interview, Jim. I want to thank you again so much for extending and staying with us throughout this program. We really appreciate having you on folks. Go to Jim layman.com, check it out, learn about the candidates in this race. I think you're going to like Jim a lot when you do. Uh, we have, you know, look, I think we have good candidates for a lot of seats, but the experience you bring is very unique. Well, thank you, Joe. And, uh,

I said, if you want that linebacker, paratrooper, engineering construction guy mentality that's only beholding to the taxpayers and the workers here in Arizona that want a better education, a better shot at the American dream, I'm your guy. And I'll bring the heat in Washington and take Marxist Kelly and send him back to his Beijing home. Perfect. Broken potholes. Coming back next week. It's the new year and time for the new you.

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Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host. I'm Sam Stone. Chuck Warren not in studio with us today. We just finished a fantastic interview with Jim Lehman running for the U.S. Senate here in Arizona. And I am now forcing two ladies who really don't want to speak at the mic, the irrepressible Kylie Kaeper, Jamie Kleshek. Kylie, you're the best.

Do we have a moment of sunshine for the folks this week? I feel like if they've stuck around and they're listening to this on the podcast, they deserve a little happiness. They're waiting for my big moment. They are. We all are. Every week. Yes, I do have an amazing sunshine moment this week. You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. And these ladies bring the sunshine to our studio.

What do we got? I'm a little sad that Chuck's not here this week because him and I have been on this elephant kick lately. Everyone loves elephants. They're so cute, the little baby elephants. But I recently came across a story. In Asia, they created a giant food court for elephants migrating because they do not have a sense of land ownership.

Shocker. Reason, yeah, no, that makes sense. So they created this food court that spans 670,000 square meters, and it's stocked with five salty ponds and has many different kinds of foods that satisfy their dietary needs. And this has become so necessary because in the last 10 years, elephants have grown from 85 to 185 that are migrating through Asia. Oh, really? Yeah. So the population is coming back. Yes, yeah. And so this keeps...

They have been creating conflict with the farmers in Asia because they'll just go onto the farm, start eating everything, and it's causing them to lose money. Elephants don't diet very often. I wish they would just wander into my backyard so I wouldn't complain. But this is very necessary. This is just finished.

I believe in May and they're migrating from May until October, November-ish. So hopefully in November, I'll have some stats on if this is working or not. But so far they're seeing some good results and the elephants are happy and nutritioned.

Okay. I mean, look, folks, I don't think you can feel, but that is sunshine right there, right? There's nothing that can be sad about that. No, that is a great story. Some of them get a little dark. They do, from time to time. I tried to find one that was absolutely, there's nothing we could turn bad about that. No, you really can't go wrong with an elephant food court. Yes. Unless you're me. I might eat too much. Okay.

You know, I dragged Jamie on the mic here, and if you're listening to this, thank you for sticking around with us on the podcast. Because some of the things that are going on at the City of Phoenix right now, and Jamie worked there with me for four years, so she knows this, and she can talk about it a little bit as well. But yesterday, the City of Phoenix hired a director, or heat mitigation officer. Heat mitigation officer. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Now, unsurprisingly, look, I know the guy is a nice guy. He's a smart guy. He works at ASU and he's still going to be working at ASU and collecting his ASU salary. But now he gets a full time job and a full time salary from the city of Phoenix. Also, in shocker shocker, he happens to be friendly with our mayor. Always, every single time. This is honestly, folks, this is getting to the point where I'm like this needs to start being investigated again.

Now, in this particular case and one other we're going to talk about, I'm pretty exercised about this. If you go on my Twitter account, which whimsically is at Sam the Paul, because I know what I am. Jim might not be a politician. Jim Lehman, who we just had in studio here, might not be a politician. I've been in this too long to try to fake it anymore. I'm one of them. But I feel like I have some different ideas. And here's two things we're doing. So he comes. They hold their press conference. And this guy says, we're going to plant more trees.

We're going to build more shade structures. And we're going to paint the surfaces of streets and roofs with light-colored reflective materials. Now, Jamie, correct me if I'm wrong here, but wasn't the City of Phoenix already doing each of those three things? I was just thinking that all of those sounded very familiar. Yeah, so we actually had programs for

doing all of that. Yes, we did. Right? So we have a tree and shade master plan program that has been expanding like crazy. We just completed, and they started when you were there, but it is just completed.

A test pilot program for what they call cool paving. It was very successful, I think, right? Yeah, very successful. Yeah, great stuff. Yeah, no, absolutely. But nothing new. And it even offers the possibility of extending the life of our roadways. Oh boy, that would be nice. So this is great stuff, right? And look, shade structures in cities in Arizona. Yeah.

Anyone complaining about some shade while they're walking around here in the 110 degree heat? No. I've never heard it. No. But we had a program building those things, too. Yes, we did. Okay. So maybe I just have to assume I'm missing something here now. Kate Gallego will tell me I'm missing something. But often when she says that, it's really for the consumption of the local media who won't question it or dig into it or ask any details. Right.

Because this guy's not going to be doing anything we're not already doing. So what is he actually doing? Spending a lot more money. Oh, wait. So, yeah, so this guy's going to get a big salary. And if he stays for five years, he's going to get a pension. Nice cushy pension, yes. And if he leaves before that, he actually can get paid out. Oh, yeah. You get a big chunk of money. So if he walks away before that.

And he's not going to be the only one in this office, right? Oh, no. I mean, have you ever seen them open an office that didn't have at least a handful of other people working in it? If there are less than six people in this office, I will be stunned. Yeah, me too. Actually, I would put an even dozen as a pretty reasonable expectation by next year. Yeah, I would definitely say probably a dozen is what they're going to look at for that. Yeah. And they will all be making...

Total compensation probably about $100,000 to $150,000 each. Yeah. I feel like this guy just found the gig. Right? No, look, I'm not blaming him. No. We can put in a good word. Yeah, look, if I can be there and be like, hey, just keep doing what you're doing. I got a paycheck to collect and I'm going to go play some Parcheesi. I'm doing that. Yeah. Right?

That sounds solid. So, yeah, folks, by the way, what Jamie was quoting is really important. So right when every time you hear a government salary, City of Phoenix, if they say the salary is $75,000, the actual cost to you, the taxpayer, is $150,000. It's double. It's double. And so now we've got something going on at the federal government that I think is distorting people's understanding of money and the economy. They're printing a ton of it.

Right? Oh, yeah. Trillions of dollars. What does that even look like? So we're buying all this stuff that the federal government is buying. We're doing it with funny money, with fake money. Totally. But now, does the city of Phoenix have a printing press? No, but they do have Joe Biden, and he is very happy to continue to send them us more money. Oh, yeah. There's that.

Now, that is kind of a problem here because, you know, they're bloating this government. And this is happening, folks. This is happening all across the country. Your local government are taking this ARPA funds, these care funds that they received, and they're hiring a lot of people who are going to be there next year and the year after and the year after that, right? Mm-hmm. So how are we going to pay for them? There's only one way to do it. They're going to have to raise taxes. Oh, that's what they're doing. So it's not actually free. No. No.

No. OK, but what's the city of Phoenix going to do? Because we were already projecting max tax increases for the next 10 years just to keep up with our growing budgetary obligations before we did all this new spending. Yeah, but Kate Gallego really doesn't want to talk about that. Math is not her specialty. No, no. I called into council the other day and I pointed out that they were adding 50 percent in terms of, you know, number of track miles or whatever to the contract for maintenance of the SkyTrain out at the airport. Right. Right.

So they're extending it out to the rental car center. That adds about 50% to the total distance on the track. They were quadrupling the cost of the maintenance contract in a no-bid contract for the company that's currently executing that one. Yeah, folks, that didn't make sense to me either. Gallego comes back and goes, oh, it costs us $0.08 per passenger to move them. Okay, well, okay, Kate, you're only looking at the maintenance cost when you do that, not the actual operating cost or the capital cost.

So, you know, I know you get the last word at council meetings, but this is my radio program. And we're definitely going to be cutting this piece and putting it out there for you to listen to because that eight cents is also bull when you just multiplied it by four. Right. Or am I am I crazy?

No, I think you're spot on. Yeah, I'm actually okay at math. It's part of being a baseball fan. Kylie understands this because her boyfriend's a baseball player. Yeah, and I recently just saw Moneyball. Yeah. Statistics are really important in sports, huh? Very important. Yeah. They don't translate all that well to politics, unfortunately. No. So we did that, and we did something else, too.

We hired a, I mean, as part of this, they're hiring an arborist, right? Don't we have three or four of them? Yeah, we actually do have a couple of them. They're all in different departments, so none of them talk to each other, which is really confusing, but we do have a few. That is, again, folks, this is your local government, so there's a few there. They're going to bring in another one or move one of them around and hire someone else, but regardless, you're going to end up with one more arborist than the City of Phoenix employs. Jamie? Jamie?

We have landscapers all over Arizona, Phoenix and Arizona. Do they plant trees? Sure. Oh, okay. Do they plant trees that stay alive? Generally. Yeah. I mean, sometimes a tree dies. You can't do anything about it. But for the most part, they do just fine. Okay. And we're already planting trees. Yes. Yes.

So why would we need another person, another arborist who, again, is a professional that comes with a very high salary? Why do we need them? You know, I'm actually thinking that this is the kind of thing the city of Phoenix could get a community volunteer group together to do. People love planting trees. Oh, now, see, that's interesting because you bring that up.

There is one. Really? Yes. Wow. Yeah, we have a nonprofit that's doing this. Now, here's the breakdown, folks. This nonprofit that's doing this, they're planting trees for about $300, $250, $300 a tree. Before we did all this, the city of Phoenix was planting trees for about $500 a tree. Gotta love that government bloat. Now, they did promise that if the tree died, they would replace it as part of that $500. Okay. Okay. I mean, look, the $500 was not...

But it wasn't unreasonable. It wasn't insane. Well, I mean, are we expecting half the trees to die? Because then it sounds about right. Yeah. Well, that's kind of what we do because we're not great at this stuff. We don't maintain our trees very well. No, we don't.

But so, okay, now they're more than doubling the cost. So if we're doubling the cost of all this stuff and now we're, you know, our tree and shade master plan, all this stuff, we're adding all these people to oversee them that we get to pay a lot of money to. So what's the end effect?

I'm somehow thinking we're still not going to get people to go clean up when tree branches fall down and block street lanes. I'm thinking that's still not going to happen because if you call into the city of Phoenix and you ask for that right now, it's going to take you like 12 days. Yeah, folks, that big monsoon that we had right at the end of the season, I literally was driving home at the tail end of that storm, and there is one of our police officers parked with his cruiser in the street in front of a downed tree, and he is trying to cut this apart immediately.

With a Swiss Army knife. That is definitely the best use of our police time. At least he's trying. Oh, look, he was the only one there. Public works was nowhere to be seen. No. Streets. I mean, look, they had a lot to do. Not on shift until next morning. But yeah, no, I mean, that's what we're talking about. But at the end of the day, folks, when I start out by saying Phoenix doesn't have a printing press...

The issue here is that when you hire people to do stuff you're already doing, when you increase the bureaucracy, when you increase all of those things, you're actually reducing the amount of this stuff that we can do. So in other words, we hired a person to be the heat mitigation officer, but the only effect this individual will actually have is to reduce the amount of heat we can mitigate. Yes, absolutely. And we're hiring an arborist.

whose only function would be to reduce the number of trees we can plant. You can plant a lot of trees for the salary of an arborist. Yeah, I mean, when you're talking $150,000 and a tree's 500 bucks a pop, you're talking 300 trees every year that we are not going to be planting just because we've hired that one person. Folks, that's what we're talking about with this government stuff. And that's some of the things Jim Lehman was talking about. It's some of the things other guests on this program have talked about.

But you cannot look at this stuff and just cheer every government higher and every government growth because a lot of times what they're doing is just replicating stuff they're already doing at higher cost. Yep.

Government is really bad at coming up with new ideas. So anytime you think you hear a new idea from government, I guarantee it is not new. It's already existing in some other city and it failed there miserably and cost millions or billions of dollars. Or they're doing it here and it's failing and costing millions of dollars every time. I can't say it any better than that, folks. That's going to be it for this week. I really appreciate you all tuning in and sticking with us.

Broken Potholes will be back next week. Kylie, who's our guest next week? We have Stephen Richer. Okay, folks, you're going to want to tune in for this one. I like Stephen Richer personally, but there is nobody in this country other than Joe Biden who's had a worse year in the political realm than he has. And Ryan Lovelance. He's from the Washington Post. And had a very fascinating article that we wanted to talk with him about. Yes. So those are both going to be fantastic conversations. Make sure you tune back in.

We do air in the Phoenix area, but you can go online and get it at 960 AM The Patriot, KKNT. Look that up if you want to actually hear the show live. You don't get this final segment, but you get everything else. The final segment's only available if you're listening to this, you're listening to it on one of our podcasts. And make sure you like, subscribe, comment, subscribe.

Give us some feedback here, folks. Get on our Twitter account. Let us know what you think about this. Do you have any guests that you want on? You know what? I'm happy to reach out to them. You guys are doing great. Oh, you're talking to them, not me. No, I'm talking to the people, my listeners that are here for me. My ego just got in the way again. Folks, my ego just got in the way again. There's nothing I can do about it. It's always been a problem. All right. That's going to do it, folks. Broken Potholes will be back next week.

Thank you for tuning in. We love you all. We appreciate you. God bless this country. Let's make it better. The political field is all about reputation, so don't let someone squash yours online. Secure your name and political future with a yourname.vote web address from GoDaddy.com. Your political career depends on it.