Congressman Carter Co-Sponsors the Laken Riley Act and Congressman Davidson's Insights on the State of the Union
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The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. 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.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Moran. I'm Sam Stone.

Our first guest up today, Congressman Buddy Carter. For 32 years, Buddy owned Carter's Pharmacy Incorporated in South Georgia. He previously served as the mayor of Pooler, Georgia. And in the Georgia General Assembly, he is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and House Budget Committee. So he's got some busy, busy days in his near future and past. Congressman Carter, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Well, thank you all for having me. I'm excited to be on. So, Congressman, last night we had the State of the Union address.

I have a friend who's in government who is what would be considered a rhino by much of MAGA now. Her comment was on social media, "I just spent the last 70 minutes getting yelled at by an old man, by choice. Two thumbs down. Do not recommend." I think that pretty much succeeds in explaining what happened last night. What did you take away from last night? I've heeded the activists. Your thoughts.

Well, first of all, I went with the intent of going to my 10th State of the Union address, but instead a Democratic pep rally broke out. I was so disappointed. I mean, I just – you know, your friend was right about being yelled at. I mean, this was a guy who was pointing fingers and saying, you're wrong, you're wrong, we're right, you're bad, we're good, the whole night. And they were just simply –

He was wrong. He's wrong on policy. You know, that's why I always say that elections have consequences. Elections have consequences because policies have consequences, and they are wrong on policies. I mean, the things that he needed to be talking about, okay, he touched on the economy. Yes, the economy. And he says, oh, we brought inflation down. It was up at 7%, and now it's down to 3.7%. Let me remind you, Mr. President, when you took office, it was at 1.4%.

I mean, and you want us to celebrate it being at three point seven percent. Well, that's ridiculous. And Congressman, what they what Biden and Democrats keep forgetting when they say that is all those years of six, seven percent inflation add up and people's paychecks haven't kept up.

Well, that's exactly right. And why are we having this inflation? Because day one, this president declared war on American energy and demonized American energy and fossil fuels, resulting in higher gas prices and resulting in higher food prices. Right now, Americans, as a percent of their budget, are paying more for food than they have in decades.

And it's not going down. Food prices are not going down. Gas prices have come down some, but they're still high, much higher than they were when the previous administration was in office. And that's what bothers me about the border. The border was created by this. The border problem is Joe Biden's creation. I mean, we had one of the most secure borders we've ever had.

when Donald Trump was in office. And now Joe Biden, it's as if he went into office and said, whatever Donald Trump was doing at the border, we're going to do just the opposite. And what has it resulted into? Illegal immigrants coming across in record numbers. Fentanyl coming across that border, poisoning, poisoning our citizens, 200 citizens every day dying as a result of fentanyl poisoning.

Congressman, you are a co-sponsor of the Lake and Riley Act, which is going to be on the floor this week. Tell us what that does, what it is, and what you're hoping to accomplish with it, although I imagine it's going to face some opposition from the Democrats.

Well, and we have. It was on the floor this week, and it did pass. Unfortunately, you're right. There were a number of Democrats who voted against it. And very, very disappointingly, there were a number of Georgia Democrats who voted against it. In fact, all five of them did. And I was really hoping that they would vote in favor of this. Look, this should have never happened. And by the way, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that

I was impressed that Joe Biden called her name last night at the State of the Union address. Unfortunately, he didn't get her name right. I think he called her Lincoln, Riley. Her name is Lincoln, Mr. President. It'd be good if you could get that right. I'm sure the family would appreciate it. I mean, after all, they had to bury their child as a result of your policies, Mr. President.

You know, this president, he just does not get it. He doesn't understand. And he tried to equate it with the death of his own child, which I know had to be a traumatic experience for him. No parent should ever have to bury a child, and certainly he had a bad experience. He and his family there, I understand that. But what happened to Lakin Riley was a direct result of his policies.

of his failed policies at the border. This guy should have never been in this country in the first place. And then he should have been detained in New York City when he was endangering the life of a child.

But he wasn't. New York City is a sanctuary city, of course. Of course, Athens, Georgia, where Lakin Rinaldi was a student at the University of Georgia, or Augusta College, and the medical school there, she was – that's a sanctuary city as well.

Again, I hope that by at least stating her name, albeit wrong, that he takes some responsibility for what happened to her because he should. He should have responsibility for what happened to her. Congressman Carter, two questions regarding this tragedy. One, have you talked to Ms. Riley's parents? Have you talked to the family?

I have exchanged texts with the Father. And I tell you, you know, I don't really like texts because you can't really read emotions into them, but this was an exception. I could read the emotion in this text that he sent back to me. And, you know, he told me, he said...

Lakin and her mother were exceptionally close, and this has really been tough on her mother, really been tough on her mother. And as I say, it's hard a lot of times to read emotions into a text, but it wasn't hard to read into this one. I could just tell how they were hurting. Congressman, what would the act do real quick?

Well, the Lake and Rowley Act would say that if in an instance where, like happened in New York City, where this illegal immigrant who was in this country illegally, where he had committed a crime like this, that he would be detained, that he wouldn't be released as he was. And he should have never been released. But it specifically says that they will be detained. Okay.

Well, so you have in Athens, Georgia, the mayor, is it Mayor Gertz of Athens, correct? I believe that's right, yeah. And he had a disastrous press conference. Has there been public pressure on him to reverse the sanctuary city status of Athens?

Yes, there has been. Look, I'm a graduate of the University of Georgia. I spent three wonderful years in Athens, albeit quite a while back, but nevertheless, I love Athens. We all love Athens. It is a very, very special place. Unfortunately, as is the case quite often with academic cities, it is...

Right.

But nevertheless, Athens is a great city and fond memories of my time there. I go back quite often to the football games, of course, and to other events as well. But yes, he's been getting some pushback, as he should. I mean, I saw that press conference. What is it? Right, right. What is it? Yeah, no, horrible, horrible, horrible. Let me go back to the State of the Union real quick. Is there anything in that speech that

that you feel Republicans are willing to try to reach some sort of agreement with the president on? Is there anything he's offered that you think that there's some wiggle room to find some sort of what people call a bipartisan agreement?

Well, a couple of things. First of all, I was pleased, as I said earlier, that he did mention Lake and Raleigh's name, although he mispronounced it or not mispronounced it. He called it the wrong name. But nevertheless, I was pleased with that. You know, when it comes – we need to make sure we understand. When it comes to Ukraine and Israel –

Of course Republicans, of course conservatives support Ukraine. We do not want Putin to be successful. We understand the impact on democracy throughout the world. We get that. We want to support Israel. Of course we want to support Israel. They are our ally, our only ally in the Middle East. We need Israel.

We all agree on that. But, you know, he wanted to point fingers and say, you had an opportunity here to pass a border bill. No, Mr. President, what was sent over from the Senate was not a border bill, Mr. President. It was an amnesty and an immigration bill. And it wasn't addressing the border.

And specifically in that bill, let me ask you, how many laws do we have on the books that says when a certain amount of people break the law, then we're going to stop it, and then everybody else will be guilty? The first 5,000 who come across that border, you're okay. But if you're 5,001, your ass is going to jail. I mean, that's ridiculous.

That was bad legislation. The correct border bill is in the Senate now. It's H.R. 2. That is the best border bill that we have been able to craft yet. If the Senate would take up H.R. 2, maybe we do compromise with them. Maybe we do. Okay, I'm willing to, but that's the starting point is H.R. 2. Congressman, one of the...

concerns I think a lot of American people have. We have just two minutes left in this segment. You're going to be coming back here for the next segment. One of the issues people have is that at the end of the day, these bills that they keep working up in private and then they spring them on the public and on members of Congress and the Senate at the last minute, you have to vote for it right now. How much would a return to regular order benefit our ability to actually govern?

Tremendously. And this is a real problem. In fact, I was in a committee meeting this morning where I was expressing my concern with the fact that some of my legislation is being negotiated by staff now with the Senate. Why am I not in the room? Is my legislation –

you know i i ought to be in that way model b and negotiating that and and you're right a lot of times it sprung upon us i've got one good friend here in congress who made a commitment when he first came to congress he would never vote for a bill that he has a grid and and he's kept that commitment it you know sometimes we get these these army bus uh... spending bills that are just thousands upon thousands of pay up pages and you have time to read that

And they're going to vote on it in 24 hours? And he doesn't. He doesn't vote for anything that he has not read. And I think that's a good policy. But you're right. That's something that's got to change. And if we were to go to regular order and get more on the committee process, then I think we would be better off.

Absolutely. Congressman Buddy Carter represents Georgia's first congressional district. We're going to be coming back with more from the congressman here in just a moment. Stay tuned for Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back.

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Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia, you can reach him on social media at Representative R.E.P. Buddy Carter at X and Instagram. Congressman Carter, President Biden's also proposing to build a temporary port to deliver Gaza aid. What are your thoughts on that? And doesn't that put boots in the Middle East?

Well, there are a lot of people who feel like that does put boots on the ground or are on the dock in the Middle East, and that is of concern. Look, all of us are empathetic, sympathetic, if you will, to the innocent civilians who are unfortunately victims of this war today.

And we want to do everything we can to help them. I mean, we're humanitarians. We don't want to see that happen. But at the same time, I will tell you, this talk about a ceasefire, I'll be quite honest with you. I'm all in favor of a ceasefire. As soon as Hamas is wiped off the face of the earth, that's when we ought to have a ceasefire. But to have a ceasefire and allow them to regroup and to rearm, no. No.

Congressman, I think one of the things that gets sort of left out of our discussion these days is, you know, look, you go back to World War II. Germans paid a very high price, even ones who weren't directly involved with the Nazi party or directly involved. They paid a high price for the leadership they elected. The same thing with the Japanese, with their leadership. The people of Gaza have chosen this leadership at some point.

If they want this to stop, isn't it up to them? They're the ones there to turn over these people, to help Israel wipe out Hamas.

Exactly. I couldn't agree more. And thank you for those historical perspectives because they are important. And I think there are important lessons to be learned from that. That's absolutely correct. We've got to have help from within, and they can help us from within. Now, again, we don't want to see any innocent civilians suffer through this, but if we're going to help you, you've got to help us help you. Yeah, absolutely. Is there...

I want to touch back on the Ukraine war because we kind of brushed over that a little bit. There has been some talk from some of the Baltic states about potentially sending troops in. How much is it possible for Ukraine to achieve this victory people are talking about to sweep Russia out of all their territory, out of the Donbass without foreign troops because they have a population problem?

They do have a population problem, and I'm not sure that they can do it without some help with boots on the ground. Now, let me clarify that and make sure that I'm straightforward on this. I do not want to see any American troops on the ground. I do not want to see that. I don't think any of us, Republican or Democrat, want to see that. I don't speak for everyone, but my sense is that that is the case.

We need to make sure that Putin is defeated. We need to make sure that he is not successful. It's important for democracy in this world. We get that. We understand that. Now, can Ukraine win? Yes, they can. Do they need help from foreign countries? Obviously, they do. And they're going to need our weapons, and we understand that. And

Again, you know, help us help them, Mr. President. Let's get our border secured, and then we'll help Ukraine get their border secured. Congressman Carter, we've asked this question to a lot of your colleagues, and something Sam and I just don't understand. What are Democrats not understanding about the problem at the border?

and allowing millions of undocumented people to come into this country. What is not registering with them? It just seems like such a common sense issue. I mean, look, we can debate and have honest disagreements on taxes, right? Who should pay what? What we should spend on government. Those are academic questions. This is a common sense issue. What are they not getting? Is there some agenda, do you feel, why they are just being so obstinate about it?

Well, first of all, I think we need to make the point that a lot of them are getting it now, that there are a number of Democrats who are coming around saying, well, we've got to do something about this. I believe the latest number I heard was like 67 percent of all Americans are saying you've got to do something about this border. It is out of control. And 67 percent is more than just Republicans. That's the Democrats, too.

But my point is there are a lot of Democrats in Congress, particularly those on the southern border, who are saying we've got to do something about that. Look, I've been to the border eight times in the ten years that I've been a member of Congress. The last time I went was about a month ago. It is as bad now as I've ever seen it. I went down there, and I saw a wall that was started by Barack Obama –

that was continued by Donald Trump, and that was stopped by Joe Biden. I learned some things. One thing that I learned is that for the first time, there are more non-Mexicans coming across that border than there are Mexicans. That should concern all of us. But the thing that really got to me was that the Border Patrol agents were telling us that the price of fentanyl on the streets has plummeted.

It is dirt cheap now. Yes. Now, that's simple economics. I mean, it's supply and demand. The supply is so high now that the price is dirt cheap. It's killing 200 Americans every day. I don't know, Congressman, what the price is in Texas, but I know here in Arizona where we have our broadcast studios, the price of a fentanyl pill is now 25 cents. Wow.

What was it two years ago, Sam? It was about $10 two years ago. Wow.

Now, last night he did say he was going to put more money toward the points of entry and getting people in the ports of entry, which is good. We need that. I understand that. But come on, man. You think that those drugs are just coming through the ports of entry? I mean, get real. Right. Now, we see this all the time. Congressman, we have about a minute and a half before we come to the end of the interview. We want to thank you very much for joining us.

Folks, you can follow him on X at Rep Buddy Carter on Instagram. Also, Rep Buddy Carter. Congressman, real quick before we go. Last question. Is there a sense that we can get a meaningful budget deal that starts aggressive addressing the deficit this year, next year, anytime soon?

Yes, there is. I serve on the Budget Committee, as you mentioned earlier, and I will tell you that we're serious about this. We're serious about reversing the curse. That's our motto for the Republicans on the Budget Committee. Look,

This didn't happen overnight. It's not going to be fixed overnight. And, you know, how do you eat an elephant a bite at a time? We've got to make progress on this. But we've got to address the non-discretionary spending. That is Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare. And last night, the president...

I'm not going to cut your Social Security. I'm not going to let it. Mr. President, we're not saying cut Social Security. We're saying save it, sustain it, stabilize it. That's what we're saying. We don't want to cut anybody's Social Security. But if we don't do something about it, it's not going to be there for people. We are trying to be responsible here. I mean, let's face it. We got $34 trillion in debt.

Right now, debt payments higher than our cost on the military. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate having you. Look forward to getting having you back on the program in the future. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be back in just a moment. All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren.

Our next guest up today, Congressman Warren Davidson, represents Ohio's 8th Congressional District. He's a member of the House Financial Services Committee, enlisted in the Army as an infantryman. As part of the 3rd Infantry Division, he was stationed in Germany and witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

and then spent 15 years owning and operating manufacturing companies in Ohio before being elected in 2016. Congressman Davidson, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program. Definitely an honor. Thanks for having me on today. Congressman Davidson, last night you had the State of the Union. It reminded me a little bit of this gif you've seen often on social media where they have Abe Simpson of The Simpsons, and there's a newspaper article saying, your old man yells at the cloud.

Do you feel last night that this was a State of the Union or more of a political rally Joe Biden was holding and just yelling at people?

Yeah, I had, I think, four people send me that little meme of, you know, old man yells at clouds. So definitely, I think a lot of people had that reaction. It definitely wasn't the state of our union, but it's not the only time Joe Biden's disconnected from reality. He started off talking about the state of the union in Ukraine, and he was about 45 minutes into it before he started talking about America's economy, which is top of mind for people in southwest Ohio, for sure, I think all over the country.

and the other one is the border i mean he didn't acknowledge any of the problems with it until monica de la cruz uh... shouted out about lincoln riley i think he thinks that's lincoln riley uh... but you know at least he acknowledged that there was a problem there uh... to to some extent we quickly pivoted off of it to try to say oh well the senate has the solution the senate doesn't have a solution at all

It would make the problem worse. The House has had a solution since last May, and they've completely ignored it. So what was clear last night on whether it's on border security, foreign policy, the economy, anything else, Joe Biden's doubling down on all the failed policies, and the only way he's going to change course is if Congress makes him. Congressman, one of the things we were talking about with our prior guest is that

State of the unions, if you go back to Clinton, Reagan, obviously the people before them, both Bushes, these were not pep rallies. They were not just rah-rah events for your base. There was always some red meat going to be thrown in. But they were policy presentations. They were a guidestone for the next year of that presidency. Right.

Biden has just thrown that out the window, hasn't he? I mean, last night, I couldn't identify any actual policy in it.

Yeah, I mean, there was this Christmas list section that was basically more free stuff for more people, which is their only play is more government and more spending. But it wasn't in a coherent way. And for people to watch the State of the Union, I tuned out all that. I was like, oh, some of the people like this and some of the people don't like that. But having...

been in Congress now, been through a number of State of the Union addresses, you can kind of sort of see the theater where it's like, yeah, we're okay here on this policy, and no, not on that policy. There's a little bit of signaling, and you kind of read the room for where the level of support is. I think the only truly bipartisan statement in the whole speech was when he said that he was actually going to help get the hostages freed from Hamas.

Other than that, I can't think of a section that was truly bipartisan. How many Americans are still held hostage over there?

I think the number is about eight, but the number is over 100 hostages total. And meanwhile, he came right off of that and started talking about trying to force a ceasefire and a two-state solution and plans for putting a port in to supply Hamas. So he's going to try to fund both sides of the war. He wants to be for Israel and for Hamas, which is a disaster. I mean, it's got terrible consequences and, you know,

Clearly, I think the United States needs to be standing with Israel and not Hamas. Congressman, we have just a minute and a half left before we go to break. One of the things that I've found interesting is unlike past conflicts in that part of the world, the rest of the countries in the Middle East, there's no call for them for a two-state solution. Like they understand the reality much better than Joe Biden and the Democrats in this country. Yeah.

Yeah, and look, I mean, they also understand that a lot of what happened with the Hamas attack on 10-7 was to try to scuttle the Abraham Accords, which, frankly, I think President Trump should receive the Nobel Prize for. It's one of the best peace efforts that we've had in a long time, and it's groundbreaking in terms of seeing the collaboration between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and Israel and other countries, and

Iran sees that as a real threat, so their proxies, Hamas and others, have worked to try to scuttle that. They basically understand in the Middle East what's at stake here, and it's like, well, the Biden administration wasn't even on board with the Abraham Court in the first place.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree 100 percent. Donald Trump and frankly, I thought Jared Kushner should have shared a Nobel Peace Prize for that because they did something no other administration had managed to do in that part of the world. Folks, we're going to be coming back with more from Congressman Warren Davidson here from Ohio's 8th Congressional District in just a moment. Stay tuned. Check us out. Breaking Battlegrounds. Voter, wherever you get your favorite podcast. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, you've been hearing us talk about Y Refi for a while now, and if you haven't gone on their website and checked it out, you need to. The website is invest, the letter Y, then refy.com, or you can give them a call at 888-Y-REFI-24, and they'll explain everything about this fantastic opportunity for you and your family. You can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right, up to 10.25% fixed.

Your principal is not tied down. You can get 100% of your principal back at any time. No penalties, no fees. So again, check it out. InvestYRefi.com or give them a call at 888-YRefi24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Congressman Warren Davidson represents Ohio's 8th Congressional District. Congressman, you served in the Army as an infantryman. You went to West Point. You saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.

HOW MUCH CREDIT DO YOU TAKE THAT RUSSIA, IF THEY GO TO UKRAINE, WILL BE LOOKING AT OTHER TARGETS?

Vladimir Putin is not a good guy. His invasion of Ukraine is not a just invasion. It's not a real cause for war from Vladimir Putin. But nevertheless, the idea that somehow he's the same kind of guy that Adolf Hitler was, where he's got a plan to roll up everything in Europe and make it all part of his big empire, is completely nonsensical.

not supported by the past 25 years. I mean, Putin's been in power for roughly 25 years, and he spent all that time plundering the wealth of Russia. He's not spent that time building the world's most lethal military. And, you know, if he had, it sure hasn't done well going through Ukraine. So, you know, the idea that he would

be open to doing other aggressive things against other countries by all means stay vigilant but the you know i think it's a fallacy to understand what is actually going on in ukraine uh... and it's a reason to try to support more war over there without a real uh... outcome a lot of my colleagues do support that war and a lot of them support more funding but my question from the get-go is tell us the mission define the mission what is exactly you're trying to achieve

and what they can define that i don't know how we would even know what resources they need in order to accomplish it uh... the trouble is that the administration's try to define it in a way that goes as far as regime change in russia uh... including war crimes tribunals for vladimir putin

and that is a world war there is no way that ukraine could accomplish that no matter how much money we give them in pregnant that's any clear at this point no matter how much money we give them without extra combat power from other countries like the united states not just weapons

people supplying manpower in actual operational tactical fighting, they're not going to extract the Russians from Ukraine. And while I think that Russia shouldn't be there, I don't think the United States should wage this war.

Is the administration really saying they want to go in and have regime change in Russia? I mean, I think there's a lot of people who support Ukraine who, if they knew that fact, would just say, oh, good grief, we're not doing that. I don't want World War III. I just want them out of Ukraine. Is that really what they're pushing?

Well, Secretary Newland, the deputy secretary at the State Department, who is thankfully retiring, that's what she has said publicly. And under his breath and an unscripted moment at a speech, Joe Biden said, we can't let this guy stay in charge.

So that says, is that the quiet part out loud or is it posturing? And, you know, they haven't said even in a classified setting a mission that they could truly be held accountable for. And a lot of it comes down to NATO membership. And so, look, the United States got out of Afghanistan successfully.

in a very bad way. It did not go well, and Joe Biden failed to address that again last night on August 31st of 2021. And on September 1st of 2021, the United States entered into a strategic partnership the very next day with Ukraine to support their membership in NATO and to support their admission into the European Union. And

Vladimir Putin started saying this is an escalation, this is a problem. Diplomacy didn't go well. Instead, there was escalations. Putin kept moving and massing troops at the border. Biden kept doing things that, you know, didn't de-escalate it, didn't resolve it peacefully. I think the war could have been prevented. And go back to February 22nd to 22, 2022, and that's

A guy named Jens Stoltenberg, who's the secretary general for NATO, gave a speech talking about the importance of NATO being able to project power around the world. NATO is a defensive alliance. They shouldn't be projecting power anywhere. They're supposed to be a defensive alliance. And on the 24th of February, that's when Putin invaded. Again, not a just reason for Putin to invade, but it's clear that there's a desire amongst the top level of NATO to expand NATO and to push

towards the east uh... so that is a more aggressive posture from uh... from those folks and who who is not going to stop his war in ukraine uh... while there's still this dispute over whether nato israel is not going to be in ukraine so some of our big war war hawks are saying well we have to get that may have to be and but the reality is

And they'll say, oh, well, Ukraine's doing the fighting and we're not. Well, it's not a just war in the sense that you're getting hundreds of thousands of casualties, both from Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine's country is being destroyed and there is no resolution peacefully. In fact, the United States has actively worked to undermine peace negotiations that Ukraine seemed open to participating in.

You being a former West Point graduate and being in the infantry, I'm sure you still have a lot of friends in the military. What is their view? Your friends are still active military about what's going on in the world right now. We have the hot spots with Israel Hamas. We have the Red Sea problems. We have Ukraine. We have China being China and we have Iran always being Iran, which is just despicable. What did they feel about?

happening are they concerned do they think it's overblown what are they telling you

Well, I will say there's a wide range of opinions, both from people still on active duty and people who are former service members, and particularly amongst the officer corps. I mean, I think a lot of the people that I know that serve in the enlisted ranks, they're fine fighting a war to defend America, but they're not interested in expanding an empire, wherever that is. But when you look at the geopolitics of the world, a lot of my organizations

West Point classmates in particular, you had them attack Russia. I mean, we get a bomb, Russia, sure, I'm in. Send money, send weapons, we'll be great. But there are others that are saying, you know, we don't have to attend every war we're invited to. We need to be more focused on our own foreign policy. And if you think strategically, who has spent the last 25 years building the world's most rapidly growing, most capable military is China.

Now, they're still not a true peer-level rival for us. Some of their capabilities are more advanced than ours, including in space, which is part of why the United States needed to create space forces to keep up with what Russia and China are doing in space. So if you look at China's capabilities, the size of their Navy and their ability to project power,

they would love us to get bogged down in Ukraine. They would love us to get bogged down in the Middle East, and they would love us to continue using million-dollar missiles to blow up Toyota pickup trucks in the desert and drive down the same roads and get ambushed so that we stay there for longer. So we haven't been very thoughtful about how we've engaged in the post-Cold War era, and frankly, China has been very thoughtful and intentional about how they've engaged in the post-Cold War era.

So for me and a lot of folks that think like me, we definitely want a strong military. We're all united in that. But I think the division is, is our military really stronger by continuing to squander our resources, or is our military stronger by focusing on America first and building the capability versus expending all the resources? I think the last point I'll say is, look, the way we beat the Soviet Union is we bankrupted their country.

We made them spend a lot of money. And bankrupt countries are hard to defend. We are doing that to our own country. It's a great point, Congressman. Before we end up today's interview, I want to get to the budget and the continuing resolution there. But one thing you said ties to – we've mentioned a few times that you were there for the fall of the Berlin Wall, which essentially marked the end of one era of great power conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

are we taking seriously the fact that we have now entered into what appears to be another area of great power conflict with China? I think a lot of people are. I don't think that a lot of our financial sector did for a long time. They were just happy to be making money in China. But I do think that since Xi Jinping took over in China, virtually everyone realizes that China is a very different country. And frankly, there was a

period where we thought, "Oh, well, if we do business together, sure, we'll be competitive. We'll have rivalries. We clearly have conflicting interests in spots around the world. But I'd rather do business with each other than shoot at each other." And that was where a lot of people were hopeful. But I think all bets are off once Xi Jinping becomes the leader of China. It's a very different approach to foreign policy.

Personally, I think he's trying to bait us into conflict and in a conflict where he sets the terms and he's going to be viewed as the winner of it. And I think we have to be very cautious and thoughtful about how we engage with Xi Jinping. Congressman, a moment ago you said one of the ways we defeated the Soviet Union was by bankrupting them. And now we're doing that to ourselves. We're looking again at another continuing resolution that doesn't appear to address the major deficit gap in our budget.

How do we start taking this seriously and addressing it? I think people we've talked about this on the program, even if we laid out like a 25 year plan where every year we're going to reduce the deficit by two to four percent or something like that, people would understand that. But we don't appear to be heading in that direction at all.

No, I mean, when I first campaigned, one of my things was don't bankrupt America, or I would say don't bankrupt America financially or morally, not just the math, but the terms and conditions that go with the spending. And then once I got here, I just said, well, it's not compassionate to bankrupt America because that's – a lot of times in the name of compassion, that's why we're spending all the money.

And there are lots of great causes that we're funding. Some of them, they're still good causes. We're just not funding them very efficiently or effectively. But we are spending more money. My view is we're doing that because we have a government that's no longer small enough to fit within the Constitution.

And if we would go back to a government small enough to fit within the Constitution, we could afford a government that small. And I just think the easiest metric would be to make it clear to the country that we have at least one political party in the country that's viable nationwide, that every year we measure it by do we have a smaller government? Do we have more freedom and less government? And that's a really simple set of metrics, but we're failing on it every single Congress.

Congressman, would it make sense if, let's say, President Trump wins this election, is it time for us to engage in a wide scale, you know, something along the lines of what Vivek Ramaswamy has called for, a large scale reduction in force of the federal employees?

I hope so. I certainly I love Vivek Ramaswamy's layout. And, you know, Donald Trump had the right saying, drain the swamp. The draining didn't go so well last time. We were certainly hopeful that in a second term it would have been a very aggressive transition and everyone that was eligible to be removed would have been. And then you start over from there. And I think, you know,

Ramaswamy has laid out that as an idea. I think he'd be a very capable part of Trump administration to be able to stay on course. Sometimes with all the divided views within the Republican Party, I think sometimes somebody –

bends the agenda a little bit. We tend to wind up with big government even when Republicans are in power because Republicans often note a campaign on small government, but history shows that there are a lot of big government Republicans that go along with all the Democrats that want big government solutions. That's how we're $34 trillion worth in debt, and we're passing bills that add to the pace of what is already a trillion dollars worth of new debt

every 100 days. So, I mean, everything we're passing this year is actually going to accelerate that, not slow it down. Congressman, we have just about a minute before we come to the end of this program. Real quick, what two or three things can we do to FISA to make that more transparent and, frankly, less concerning for citizens? Yeah.

Freedom Surrendered is rarely reclaimed. We have a real opportunity here. The foreign part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act actually works, but there's not a Domestic Surveillance Act because we have a Fourth Amendment. You're supposed to have to get a warrant or a subpoena, and almost never do you see Jim Jordan and Jerry Nadler agree. They agree you should have to get a warrant or a subpoena. That's it.

It makes sense to me. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. How do people follow you and the work you're doing in Congress?

Well, on Twitter, I'm at Warren Davidson. And on my official website, it's Davidson.House.Gov. Thanks for having me on. Thank you very much, Congressman Warren Davidson. Thank you, Congressman. Of Ohio's 8th Congressional District. Really appreciate having him. Folks, you can tune in. We always have a podcast segment. So make sure if you are not already that you are signed up with our sub stack or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. You can check us out. BreakingBattlegrounds.Vote is the website.

There are numerous ways you can interact. We're on Twitter. We're on Facebook. Lots of good stuff. Chuck does a ton of articles on there. I do a few. Much to his frustration. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air next week. Thank you so much for joining us.

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All right. Welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Thank you to both of our guests today, Congressman Buddy Carter of Georgia's 1st Congressional District, Congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio's 8th Congressional District. I thought both Chuck had some really good points, but there's also some other sort of interesting things going on in the world, including out in California.

Absolutely. Well, first, let's talk about the U.S. economy added 275,000 jobs. I will give credit. I sent you this article this morning to The Washington Post. The Washington Post, while praising it, you and I want to see all people work who want to work. This is what we want to do. A growing economy is good. The Washington Post was a bit cynical, though. A growing economy is fantastic. It's fantastic.

But there's some problems in these numbers and the fact that most of it's coming from government jobs, health care or hospitality industry. So those aren't jobs producing anything. So, for example, government jobs rose by 52,000 of the 275. You and I discussed this. I don't feel that those jobs should ever be included in a job report. No, they absolutely shouldn't. They're taxpayer funded jobs.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure. They pay taxes, but but at the end of the day, we get a small percentage of the outlay return to the Treasury. So it's a net draw having those people on the books. Well, yeah, yeah. They pay taxes, but they're taxpayer funded jobs. Right. So, you know, it's it's a flip of the coin in a lot of ways. And then you had 52 then you had 42,000 jobs created in the food and drinking establishment.

OK, those those are jobs and they're important jobs and we like to eat out and those are important for society. But forty two thousand jobs averaging what, 20 bucks an hour? If that that we're talking about, it's that. And a lot of those are are transitory. Right. So people are now starting to hire up for the summer season or for spring break. They're not necessarily the most stable jobs.

Yeah. So anyway, glad to see people working, but these numbers aren't as robust as Democrats will make them be because Democrats like to do Excel spreadsheet job talking points versus what's really happening at the kitchen dinner table. Well, the other issue to it is that, and this has accelerated dramatically during Biden's tenure. Um,

Every month when we get those job numbers, what goes unreported is a huge downward revision to the prior month's jobs report, like 25 to 30 percent or more. So it's not the government jobs that are being revised down. It's not the government funded health care jobs that are being revised down. What's being revised down are the actual created jobs within the economy. Right. At 100 percent, 100 percent.

Exactly right. I think another interesting development this week that happened is Ameripac, the San Francisco Chronicle, which was being a bit dramatic, said that San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city. Why is that? They did approve two fairly conservative ballot measures on Tuesday. One requires drug testing for getting welfare. Again, as we were talking to Congressman Buddy Kramer yesterday,

it's like the border this is just sort of common sense right are you trying to do things possible we're going to help you get through we'll be the bridge but you have to do your role right yes uh and then the other ballot measure approved expanding police surveillance cameras across the city to reduce crime and keep cities safe um it's really sort of swinging back on the crime issue more towards the center i wouldn't say conservative so everybody conservative but

As much as Democrats like – Democrats like to say, look, crime is decreasing. No, it has not decreased since 2019. It decreased since last year. It decreased after the riots a little bit, but the numbers are still in the high teens, 20%, 30% higher on almost every level.

Well, and also what we know from numerous law enforcement sources and some people we've had on this program is that a lot of that decrease is coming from the non-reporting and non-interdiction of crime. In other words, if you're just letting crime happen and you're not doing anything to stop it, then it's not added into the crime stat data. Correct. Correct. Sam, what are your thoughts about New York?

is the city attorney in Seattle is leading an effort to recriminalize most drugs. Yes. And she's a Republican. And it's important that it's done. Yeah. No, I think we are turning a corner on this at least a little bit, right? We are. And it's needed. It needs to go further, but it's needed. Sam, what are your thoughts about New York's governor –

playing in the National Guard for New York subways. I mean, wasn't Tom Cotton just saying have them there for protection? But she now has them frisking people basically and checking bags. Am I wrong on that? No, you're not wrong at all. I found this entertaining because when Donald Trump suggested during all the rioting to call out the National Guard to enforce the law and do this, Democrats went berserk calling it martial law. Now here we have Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul assuming

essentially instituting martial law in New York subways. And the left is not saying a bloody thing. No, of course not. Of course not. Yeah. It's just horrible. They're ridiculous. I mean, this stuff, Kathy Hockel, I have lost all respect for because she's just constantly talking out of both sides of her mouth. Eric Adams, the same thing. I think some of these politicians need to grow more.

Well, we're in the podcast segment, so I can say this. They need to get some balls. They need to have some courage because their constituents don't want this crime to continue. They are so pushed around by whatever the political winds blow. For example, Biden right now coming out being the strongest of supporters from Israel is now doing the two state, doing all these things to try to.

Get back in his orbit, his voting bloc.

The Muslim community, Arab community in Michigan. No one should think anything what he's done the last two weeks is anything but Michigan. Nothing more. All of this stems from the hundred thousand or so non, you know, non committed votes that were cast in Michigan's Democrat primary. That's when all of a sudden you started seeing this big push out of the White House. They panic that these folks may stay home. These folks are supporting terrorists. So I'd love them not to vote. One hundred percent. And so go ahead.

Well, it leaves them by their nose. Well, Sean, Sam, great show this week. I think Kylie, who's not with us today, did a great job setting up this show, and it's been a good one. Yes, indeed. And folks, as always, BreakingBattlegrounds.vote is the website. You can get us on Substack, Spotify, wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Make sure you are subscribed, download, tune in. Thank you for joining us, and we'll be back next week.