Inside Washington with Congressman John Curtis
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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 Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of studio today.

But we're going to get right rolling with our first guest here. Congressman John Curtis represents Utah's 3rd Congressional District.

And he's known for getting things done, which is rare enough in Washington these days. Since being elected in 2017, John has passed 15 pieces of legislation into law, ranging in diverse topics from better managing public lands, combating human trafficking, reducing burdensome regulations on small business and more. And he is ranked the ninth most effective Republican member of Congress ever.

by the Nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking. So thank you so much for giving us some of your time this morning. I know you're on a tight deadline with votes coming up there, Congressman. We really appreciate you having the time for us and our listeners.

I love it. Sam, I'm so pleased. I've been looking forward to this and anxious to share with your listeners what's happening here in Washington. Well, so speaking of what's happening in Washington, one of the issues you like to focus on, which I mentioned, is better managing public lands. That is a huge issue for Utah. It is a huge issue for Arizona, really the entire West. And there's been some rather aggressive rulemaking there.

coming out of the Biden administration. What's going on there right now? You know, and this is for your listeners' perspectives, too. I share a boundary with Arizona, the four corners. My district goes from the top of Utah to the bottom along the east side all the way down to the Arizona border. And so there are a lot of commonalities. But you're right, there is a march, not just from the Biden administration, but really from all of Washington, D.C., to try

to try to tell local people how to manage their land. And you can imagine how frustrating that is to somebody who for decades and decades, really generations, has done a fabulous job of managing this land, preserving and protecting it, and making sure that grazing continues, that restaurant recreation continues, and that we're preserving and protecting this land. And D.C. feels like for some reason they know better 2,000 miles away, and it just causes a lot of problems.

It's an important issue that I think we have listeners obviously all across the country. If you are in California listening in San Diego, if you are back on the East Coast, you don't understand how much of the land in the West is owned by the federal government.

How much do you know by percentage or approximately? Oh, I do. Yeah, I do. So think about this. As a state, we're 67 percent, but that's nothing. In the rural parts of my district, we are over 90 percent, some 92, 94 percent. So think about for a minute trying to run a county when 94 percent of your land is owned by the federal government and does not produce property tax. They

They tell you what you can do on it, what you can't do on it. You can't build homes on it, right? I mean, it is one of the most difficult things that these counties deal with in parts of the West. And you're absolutely right. My colleagues from the East, even my Republican colleagues from the East, can't really comprehend what it's like to have that much land owned by the federal government.

It's really restrictive. And one of the big battles that seems to be breaking is this sort of war on farming and ranching that seems to be coming from the left. And maybe I'm being too dramatic by saying it that way, but maybe not. No, I'll just double down on it a little bit. It's a demonization of our ag community. We've seen it with fossil fuels, and now they're coming after the ag community for

forgetting where we get our food. Yeah. Forgetting, like, okay, how is this going to work if we just get rid of all of our farmers and ranchers, who, by the way, are the most patriotic, subtly earth people that you'll ever meet. Absolutely. Yeah, and the stigmatization is really unfortunate of these very, very good people. And what's crazy about that to me, Congressman, is post-COVID,

And we saw how close our supply chain came to breaking during COVID. Absolutely. How many grocery stores were sitting there with empty shelves? Why would we ever want to consider making ourselves food dependent on foreign nations?

Well, I'll tell you, there's a pattern here. And if you look at energy, you'll see the same pattern. And, you know, remember back in the late 70s when we became dependent because the oil embargo on a foreign country for fuel, we decided that was a bad place to be and we didn't want to be there. But the parallel is very similar. We want to demonize U.S. natural resources, even though they're the cleanest in the world. And

And somehow they fly around the country and from the world and say it's OK for Venezuela to produce. It's OK for Iran to produce. It's OK for these other countries. But we're going to shut it down here domestically. You can imagine how hypocritical they feel. That's that's something I've really never understood. Obviously, mining also a big issue in the West. And for for us here in Arizona, copper mining is.

You need a ton of copper for all of these new technologies, everything from solar panels to electric vehicles to the cell phones everyone's carrying. And we act like mining copper in other countries without any environmental controls is somehow environmentally superior to

To mining in the United States. Yeah, it's called outsourcing our guilt. And somehow, if we don't see it, it's okay. So never mind that human rights violations are part of it. Never mind that there's no OSHA regulations. Never mind there's no emissions regulations. And we subject our U.S. businesses to all of that.

And it's not okay to do here, but it is okay to do over there. And once again, I'll just say that if you're in one of these industries, you've just got to be going crazy and see the hypocrisy in that. And it has real national security implications, too, given China's dominant position in these metal markets. Absolutely. And there's no better example than the mistakes that can be made in Europe, who perpetrated

to be going down a clean road and woke up one day realizing they were buying very dirty fossil fuels from an enemy. That's a really bad place to be. Right. Speaking of which, I want to shift topics here a little bit. There's kind of a lot going on in Congress and in D.C. right now. Another potential speaker fight. Then you've got these various foreign aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and others. Right.

What are you seeing come down the pike right now on all of that? Well, I'll tell you what, I'm actually really impressed with a couple of things. I have a number of constituents and even a number of colleagues who are very concerned about the U.S. sending money with no accountability, the U.S. sending money when we're not taking care of our own borders. And you've heard all the arguments. And I'm telling you, Mike Johnson has worked really hard to address those concerns. For instance,

Part of the bills that are being put on the floor require a proportionate contribution from Europe as the United States. Part of the bills on the floor, I think people are surprised to find out, of the $60 or so billion going to Ukraine funding, about 70% of it never leaves the United States. It stays right here in the United States.

And so I think it's a situation where we have to do a better job of really articulating to the American people what are in these bills and what's in the best interest of the United States. How do we, you know, one of the issues that we've had a lot of guests on here and brought up is,

is that our military supply chain is limited to a relatively small number of companies. We don't seem to have the ability to shift production, increase production as quickly as we need to.

How do we start addressing that to make our military procurement more nimble and responsive to our needs at any given moment? Well, I can tell you a couple of examples. I had somebody in my office yesterday that's one of the only – there's only a couple of U.S. manufacturers of drones. And he told me the military was looking at buying 200 a year. And I just laughed. Seriously? Right? Right.

We've got a contract for 200 drones a year, and Iran just launched 400 in one night. And so I do wonder about that. And then another thing, Sam, I think that's relevant is I think what you said applies to our entire supply chain. We learned through COVID just how vulnerable we were.

And I tell you, between COVID and the Trump tariffs, you know, you got to give Trump a shout out on tariffs. We were all complaining about him, but he saw something we didn't, which is our dependency on China. And that was the first where those we started to break and realize we've got to source other countries. And that started with the Trump tariffs. COVID helped, but we're still a long ways away from it.

Speaking of President Trump, one of the more interesting things that's come up is that there are some folks out there who are accusing you of not being sufficiently supportive of President Trump. Now, I have to tell our listeners, I know for a fact you've been to fundraisers here in Arizona to help support President Trump. You're running all over the place doing that. That seems like a really strange accusation.

You know, I think it comes from this point that I make that, look, nobody should have my absolute loyalty no matter what they do. And I'll just point to President Trump. As much as I loved about what he did, I felt like he spent too much money. So I pushed back on some of his budgets. But if you're interpreting that as I don't support the president, you know, to your point, my voting record is 91 percent positive.

with Donald Trump. I served with him for three years. We overlapped for three years, 91%. As you mentioned, during 2020, I went not just to Arizona, to other states to campaign for him. I could see how critical it was that we have a Trump presidency instead of a Biden presidency. And we've seen the results of that. And hey, listen, when President Trump was doing tax reform, when he was doing

deregulation when he was doing so many things. Supreme Court, I was winded his back. And I will continue to do the same thing. And I think we're going to see President Trump in office. I'm happy to support him. Absolutely. Fingers crossed. I always, when I do speeches and talks in front of crowds, one of the things I start with is I ask everyone if they have someone in their life, a husband, wife, a

loved one that they care about more than anybody else in the world, raise your hand. Of course, everyone raises their hand. And then I say, okay, now how many of you agree with that person 100% of the time? Yeah. And

There's always one guy, by the way, who tries to keep his hand up and it's perfect because then I can call him out. Yeah, right. Yeah. What kind of dream world do you live in? But you're right. That doesn't mean we don't love them and support them. Right. But I do think that our system is dependent on pushback.

And, gosh, my favorite president was Ronald Reagan. And I could point to a few things, you know, where I would have pushed back had I been serving with him. Doesn't mean I didn't think, you know, he was just an amazing president. But I think that's my job, too, is to make sure that whatever's done is in harmony with the values of my constituents. Absolutely. Congressman.

Thank you so much for joining us today. We have just about 30 seconds left. How do people follow you and your work? Thank you. It's johncurtis.org. They can go on and subscribe to our different social media feeds.

And we'd love him to follow us. It's an exciting race here in Utah. And really appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Congressman John Curtis of Utah's 3rd Congressional District. Really appreciate having you on and all your insights today. And thank you. We'll look forward to having you back in the future. Thanks, Sam. Okay, thank you. All right, bye-bye.

Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of studio today and so joining us in the studio to help host this fine program, a good friend of the program, Sean Noble. Sean, thank you so much for joining us. Great to be here, Sam. So you have your own podcast also. That's true. People should be subscribed to that.

As well. And they should be subscribed to Breaking Battlegrounds, too, obviously. I mean, the two together, you don't need to go anywhere else. No, you get all your news commentary and a good couple of jokes every week. That's right. Breaking Battles, and then you can go to Light Beer Dark Money. LightBeerDarkMoney.com. Which I've said before is still the greatest name for a podcast. It's just fantastic. We try to live up to it, but sometimes we fall short. So-

Unfortunately, we had to rush the first interview with Congressman Curtis because he's actually about to go back to the floor for some votes. It's a big week. Yeah, it is a very big week. And you came into the studio. We start a few minutes early. You came in basically right on time. I think he did. I was able to listen to that. He is obviously a very thoughtful congressman.

Something that is a rarity in the House. Too much, yeah. And I think, and I say rarity, but it's probably just the opposite. There are more thoughtful congressmen and congresswomen than there are not. It's just the ones who are not are the ones who get all the attention because they're attention seekers. That's pretty much the explanation for our online discourse too, right? There's a lot of thoughtful people out there that you can follow and learn from.

But you just see the crazy. Yeah, you get overwhelmed with screaming. Yeah, yeah. I tell people all the time that Twitter is not real life. It's an actual dumpster fire. But there are some really good things there that you can find. And so just like that, when you're in Congress, you can find some people who have some good, thoughtful discussion. I thought what he said about...

helping educate the American people and other members of Congress about what is actually the language of these packages in the aid packages going for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan.

There's a TikTok ban. There's a border security bill. All these things are coming to the floor. I have to give credit to Speaker Johnson. He is putting his career on the line without question. I would add that I want to give him credit for something else, that he broke these bills up into individual. Here's one for Ukraine. Here's one for Israel. Here's one for Taiwan. This is what we as Republicans, many of us across the country, have been asking for

for a long time. Yeah. Let's have actual discussions about individual topics on their own merits and not a Christmas tree package that has, you know, oh, I can't vote for it or I can't vote against it because it's got other things that we want or don't want. So, yeah, I think you're right. That is a very, it was very thoughtful of him to do that. He's not getting the credit he should for that. Absolutely not. And it's because there is this, and I will just flat out say it, there are Putin puppets

In the in the House who are not going to let up and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Geitz and maybe a few others. I have Tom Massey. Those are people who are making arguments about the funding to Ukraine that are literally using the talking points of Russia.

I would agree, but I want to separate out Thomas Massey a little bit. I knew you would. Well, because... Because he's a true libertarian. Right. That's a... He's actually got some philosophy behind his... Yeah, he's consistent. Yeah. Right? This isn't an issue specifically about Ukraine. He's consistent on foreign aid and foreign military engagements. Right. And so...

You know, personally, I think there's a role for that voice. I totally agree. I just disagree that he with his decision to join with Marjorie Taylor Greene on this motion of vacate issue. This is wrong. Yeah, because it's it is. Look, you can have the argument, but to put somebody somebody's career.

career on the line for every policy dispute seems a little bit ridiculous. That's not a way to govern. It goes back to the analogy I gave to the congressman about, do you agree with the person you love the most in the world 100%? No, nobody does, right? There's always that husband in the room with his wife sitting right next to him who wants to fake it. He's like, I really do. You're like, you're lying. No.

And I always close at the point, if you can't agree with them 100% and you meet a member of Congress, any elected official who's agreeing with you 100%, you're talking to a liar. Yes. Yes. That is 100% true. I mean, that's such a great point because there is no one that you can be 100% with on every issue. Not if you're honest. Yeah, because we're all individuals and we have our own individual issues.

It takes and experiences that form us. So, yeah, you're exactly right. And I think that you can be critical and have a discussion about is it right to send money to Ukraine or send munitions to Ukraine. That's worth the debate because that's why we do public policy.

But the part that's lost on those who are just adamantly no support to Ukraine, period, we are going to support Russia basically by default, is if you'd have said in the 1980s, hey, there's a point in time in which you could spend less than a trillion dollars and you can completely decimate Russia's military, you would take that deal every day of the week. And it's not only less than a trillion, it's less than $100 billion. Right.

Do you think – and I'm going to pull this kind of out of left field. But do you think – and I think it's too old now to really be a hangover related to this. But we did that effectively in Afghanistan and ended up empowering the wrong people. Right. Do you think that colors some of the –

I don't because I don't think these people are thoughtful enough to remember what happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s. I'm being honest. I just... Look, I wish I could disagree with you right now, Sean. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't have any idea what happened in the 1980s and that the Mujahideen in Afghanistan... She needs to start by watching Charlie Wilson's war. Yes, exactly. Just use a little bit of pop culture to educate yourself about the 80s. I mean, Red Dawn. But the...

But there is a difference because Afghanistan, you know, the Russians was stupid to try to go, but they were just in this expansionary force. But if we don't stop Russia, it's not like there's going to be a worse thing that rises if we beat Putin. Right. There isn't anything worse than Putin. He is trying to.

to advance Russia. He's trying to rebuild the Soviet Union, you know, the great empire. I mean, which has been something he's talked about for 30 years. I mean, since he first came into power, I mean, he is a former KGB officer. I mean, it's, you don't take the Soviet out of this. Did you ever hear there was, I'm not a huge fan of Dick Cheney, but he had a great quote about Putin right after Bush met him for the first time, George W. Bush. And,

Bush said, oh, I looked in his eyes and I saw a human being and blah, blah, blah. And someone asked Cheney about that. And he said, yeah, I looked in his eyes and I saw three letters. KGB. It's exactly right. And, you know, unfortunately, Putin has been able to pull the wool over on the eyes of many people. Tucker Carlson being one of them. I mean, I think that that.

What what Tucker did when he went over to Russia and interviewed Putin and then went on this just just. Well, the interview was one thing. It's what happened. What he did after that, that I thought was a very different thing. We have just about a minute before we go to break. And folks, we've got to tell you about our friends at YRefi.

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Okay, joining us up next, Con Carroll, commentary editor for the Washington Examiner, served as communications director in the U.S. Senate for seven years before returning to journalism. He's a graduate of the Antonin Scalia Law School and lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and three children. You can follow him online at concarroll.com. Con Carroll, thank you so much. Welcome to the program.

It's great to be here. I always just go with Scalia Law School. Just get that first name. It's always a tricky one. That's a great point. I am good at getting tongue-tied on this program, so I have no idea why they let me stay on the air here, but that's a good advice and I'll take it. It's not like there's a ton of other Scalias out there, so just say the name and move on. So the big news, I guess not big news, but it's I think shocking to some people and maybe not so much to others,

is what's been going on with NPR, their CEO, and her unbelievable Twitter history. Is this more common than we think? Because you've seen a lot of folks out there saying this kind of thinking, which is really –

to me, very vapid, has infested institutions from coast to coast. Yeah, no, I mean, I think when you look at her resume, not just her tweets, but her resume, you really see that she is a perfect embodiment of this kind of globalist NGO mindset, right? And I wrote an article this week where I dubbed her the queen of the Karens. Which is a great piece, right? We have that up and we will repost it on our social medias.

Right. And what triggered the thought in my head is one of her tweets, she said, quote, I know that hysteric white woman voice. I was taught to do it and I've done it. I'm like, yeah, I bet she has. I bet that is in fact her entire professional Madonna. It's her Karen voice, which she uses to enforce ideologically on, you know, the progressive worldview on everyone around her. And she's not some anomaly. She is the, like I said, just the embodiment of this, you know,

To look at her resume, just to step back, this is a woman who grew up in a very white Connecticut suburb of New York City, then went to study first in Syria, then in Cairo, then back to New York City before internships in London and Germany before

before she finally came to work at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. I mean, you know, she's just a perfect byproduct of that set of people. What's astounding to me particularly is, you know, I grew up listening to NPR. Obviously, I didn't agree with it all the time, but there was enormous value there as a fair arbiter of the news, or at least as close to fair as you get most of the time.

But it's a she has no background right in journalism or experience in the industry. She came, like you said, from the NGO world and then from Wikimedia. How do you put someone like that in charge of what is supposed to be the nation's flagship journalistic institution?

Well, I think her role at Wikimedia and what she tried to do there, what she officially said she was trying to do there, makes her new role at NPR all that more scary. Because when you look at not just her tweets, but now they're digging up videos of what she wants to do or what she was trying to do, and basically Wikipedia always from its founding –

like most of the internet, was produced by generally white men, right? And so she would look at all the... And Wikipedia is volunteer-based. People don't... There are people that get paid, but most of the pages you see are created by volunteers. And, of course, you look at that, and it's because...

White men are just more interested in this kind of stuff. But she saw that as a problem that needed to be solved and that these voices need to be controlled and managed and that truth didn't matter. And instead, you had to have a specific progressive worldview that had to be heard on Wikipedia's pages. And she was going to enforce that through policy to make sure that the truth was not the priority and that instead what she called consensus and getting things done was.

And it's that mindset that she that you that's why she was hired for NPR to bring that mindset and to bring those, you know, the censorship instincts to NPR. And I think that's just very scary for an already troubled organization. That that is hugely problematic. And it is emblematic, emblematic also of why so many of our flagship newspapers, NPR and others are seeing declining readership, listenership.

I think it's astounding that they don't seem to comprehend that when you go out on a daily basis and try to offend half the potential audience, that that audience doesn't then stay tuned in.

But yeah, I mean, I think it's worse than that because, you know, there is a kind of feedback loop in the sense that they're no longer looking for a general audience. They're looking for more of a subscription model. So you have the people that are actually paying X amount of dollars to The New York Times or, you know, calling in and giving them money. I got to cut you off real quick. We're going to be coming back with more here in just a moment.

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Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone. In studio with me today, Sean Noble. And folks, you've heard us say it before. I'll keep saying it again until you do it. You've got to go to invest, the letter Y, then refy.com and learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on a secure collateralized portfolio. It's a fantastic opportunity to secure the future for you and your family. And by investing with Y Refi, you're doing well for yourself by doing good for others. You're doing well for yourself by doing good for others.

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Sam, you're really good at that.

And, you know, you have this all kind of started as a result of of Uri Berliner, who has been a 25 year, you know, reporter there, producer. And he made the point in a piece on Free Press that, you know, one of the points was that out of the 87 members of the editorial team in D.C. for NPR, all of them, not not one,

Republican. All of them were Democrats. It was 87 to zero. And he was like, maybe we're not as diverse as we should be in that regard, given all the DEI stuff that we follow in the other ways is. And then to have this person in with with the Queen, all Karen's, as you as you mentioned, Catherine Mayer as the head of it. I mean, that just puts more pressure

fuel on the fire from what I think. What is Congress going to do? I presume the House, one of the House committees is going to have some kind of a hearing and call her up there, right? I'm sure they'll have a hearing. Whether or not anything will happen out of that hearing, I'm highly doubtful of. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have the hearing. That doesn't mean they shouldn't get her up there and have her answer questions about what her feelings are on truth.

and what she's trying to accomplish at NPR, and what she was trying to accomplish at Wikimedia before that. I think getting that all on the record under oath is of value. But I hope your listeners are not sitting there hoping that this Republican Congress is then going to finally defund NPR, because I don't know if you've been paying attention, but it doesn't seem like they have the power or will to get that done. Yeah, well, frankly, I mean,

I think that one of the things, even if they voted to defund it, it was going to it would go nowhere. I mean, I think part of the challenge that some Republicans in the House don't recognize when they talk to their constituencies, when they talk to the American people, they act as if, oh, you know, it's only because Speaker Johnson, we can't get this done without any recognition that we have Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Democrats and Joe Biden in the White House. I mean, there is a little bit of limitation on what we can actually get done.

Yes, there's an upper limit as to what they can accomplish. And so in that vein, you know, we this is a big week for Congress. What how do you see this stuff playing out with these votes on the foreign aid package? There's what, four or five different bills that Johnson's put together. How does how does this look and what what comes at the end of this?

I think at the end of it, Ukraine gets its money. I think these bills pass, and then the Senate, you know, stitches them together as they see fit, and it finally gets done. Then, you know, it looks like there's going to be a motion to vacate. I think the big difference between this time and last time is that Democrats are kind of bored with the theater of it all.

I think last time they were more than happy to embarrass Kevin McCarthy and take the short-term political gain of voting with Matt Gaetz and those other Republicans to vacate the chair. Now, remember, they didn't have to vote for Kevin McCarthy in order to stop that motion.

All they had to do was not vote at all. All they had to do was just vote present, right? Instead, Democrats chose to vote with Gates, right? To vote with the crazies in order to get rid of McCarthy. And what that did was...

It derailed Ukraine. The whole reason Gates filed that motion is because McCarthy's next step was Ukraine. Right. And so I think what the Democrats have realized is that, look, Ukraine could have had their aid, you know, months ago if they just would have, you know, not even voted with McCarthy, but just not voted at all.

Just taking a walk. Right. If just taking a walk. Instead, they voted for chaos. They voted for Gates. And Ukraine, therefore, has suffered in the meantime because of what Democrats did. Yeah, that is a great point that I don't think is discussed enough. I actually hadn't heard anybody make the point that clearly. That Ukraine's suffering because of the actions of the Democrats following Gates' death.

you know, off this cliff. For giggles. Yeah. And well, you know, they obviously hate McCarthy. And so I agree with you. I think that they are bored might be might be a good way to put it. It also might be that they're just tired of the shenanigans. Well, and Con, I would ask, we brought this up with the previous guest also, but

Shouldn't Speaker Johnson be getting some credit for breaking these bills up into their individual buckets instead of running yet another omnibus? Isn't this what Republicans have been saying we want to start seeing happen? Yeah. I mean, you know, he was in a tough spot. I think it's fine, you know, breaking them up. But, you know, he then put them into one rule, which, you know, kind of makes their passage kind of like I wouldn't I wouldn't call an omnibus, but, you know, it does kind of, you

put them into the same bill. They're going to be sent over the Senate and chopped up anyways. So however he could get it across the line, I think that's fine.

Whether he puts it as a loan or direct payment or whatever else he wants to do it to assuage some conservatives, I think that's fine. There was just a universe of people in the caucus that were never going to be happy if Ukraine aid passed no matter what.

And they're still unhappy and they're going to be happy. And I think he finally realized that and just said, I'm going to take this bullet and move on. And I think that's where we are. I think he should have done it sooner, but that's where we are. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And because there is no appeasing. I mean, they clearly are never they've they've completely become Putin's puppets. So they're never going to go off of that.

Shifting topics a little bit here, we just had the Mayorkas impeachment, which moved from the House to the Senate, and the Senate tabled it.

Has that ever happened before with an impeachment bill or impeachment? No, no, it's new ground. I think it's how all impeachments will be handled going forward. I think it's, I mean, you know, all, I mean, look at, think of any of the past impeachments we've had. It's all just been a very shirts and skins game. You know, people very rarely cross parties on these matters. And so I think now when you have the majority of,

who does not want the impeachment, they're just not even going to bother with the formality. They'll just quickly dismiss it. Now, you know, if you have an opposition party in charge that actually does want the theater of it, then yes, they'll go through the motions of trial. But I think any time you have a party that controls the Senate that also is a party that controls the White House, this is the new way that impeachment will be dealt with. It will just be dismissed outright. It is astounding to me that the Democrats have not learned

that when they change precedent, it comes back and bites them in the ass every single time. When Harry Reid decided that he was going to nuke the filibuster for justices, then all of a sudden...

It came back and bit him. You know, that's how we have the Supreme Court that we have, because he took the filibuster away for for the courts. And now they're tabling an impeachment. Well, when if if they ever try to like if the Democrats take the House and the Republicans have the Senate and they and Trump wins and they impeach Trump, then it's going to get tabled. I mean, it just it's it's it's.

just strikes me as bizarre that the Democrats haven't figured out that they're doing things that are only going to hurt them in the long run.

I just think they think they're very special children and that the rules therefore don't apply to them. You know, I mean, they think that democracy really is at stake, that it will be literally the end of the world if Trump wins. And therefore, any tactics to make sure that doesn't happen are therefore valid. And I think that's the same mindset they took to the judicial nominations beforehand and that they take to pretty much any issue. And I think it explains a lot of their behavior.

What speaking of the end of democracy, what how do you see the 2024 election playing out with these trials that that Trump's dealing with? And, you know, we see a lot of things happening with RFK Jr. being on the ballot in some places. This is, in my mind, the most unproductive.

It's unpredictable, I guess, of all elections. And because you're asking me to predict it. Yes. Yes. Exactly right. Well, and then throw in the and throw in the thing that I've been saying on on my past on my podcast, Light, Beer, Dark Money for the last almost a year. I don't think that Biden's going to end up being the general election candidate. I still believe that the Democrats are going to place him at the convention, but.

People think I'm crazy. I might be crazy. I still think that there'll be Michelle Obama because you can't leapfrog Kamala with anyone else. But that is a little bit of an out there theory. I've wavered over it, but I'm not in that camp. I know. What should people expect besides the unexpected?

Sure. Well, first, let me say 2016, I think, was very humbling for me and a lot of other people. So I'm very leery to give predictions after I so confidently predicted there's no way Trump was going to win, which, of course, did not happen. He did win. You know, but, you know, that said, I think earlier when, you know, Biden had those very clear and public memory lapses and Trump was further ahead in the polls, I think I was on your side as far as them replacing him at the convention.

which is the only place you could do it. But he has since rebounded in the polls. I think he had a performance at the State of the Union that Democrats at least view as strong and competent. So I would bet that he's safe for now unless you see him publicly fall down a flight of stairs. I think he's fine.

And then heading into November, anything can happen. It's a puncher's race for both candidates. I keep wondering, guys, if this isn't one of those races where we're going to see a lot more tickets splitting than normal. Oh, I don't think there's any doubt. And I still think the RFK Jr. factor matters. Particularly, I mean, they announced today, I think, or yesterday, that he's now qualified for Michigan. Yeah.

That's a huge deal. I mean, if it is a huge deal, you know, I mean, because if you get Ralph Nader, you know, just getting, you know, two or three was enough to pull, pull Florida and pull some huge states in 2000. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's.

Well, I mean, Jill Stein pulled more than what Trump won. Than the margin of victory in Arizona for Trump. In Arizona, Georgia, a couple of different states, yeah. Yeah. And here in Arizona, Con, this is something you may not know because I'm a geek on this stuff, but the wild card here in Arizona, and this is probably true in other states, I haven't looked at them, but because we're in Arizona, I look at it.

Typically in a presidential election, I went back about 30 years, you'll have about 10,000 ballots voted.

that are left blank on the presidential presidential line so people vote the ballot and they'll leave the presidential line blank in 2016 these days i totally understand yeah which when 2016 it was 90 000 people and then in 2020 it was 60 000 people so there's so many people who were like and and if you look at the the deep dive on where these come from it's mostly republican areas so it's obviously people could vote for trump

But I think that that's a part of this factor with the RFK Jr. is going to have, you know, impact in a certain number of states. And Nicole Shanahan as his VP could certainly also have some impact. So that's going to be going to be very interesting. Con Carroll, commentary editor for The Washington Examiner. Con, how do folks follow you and your work?

Oh, yeah. Of course, WashingtonExaminer.com. Very easy to go ahead and see our work there. And of course, I'm on Twitter way too much. Handle is just at Concarol, C-O-N-N-C-A-R-R-O-L-L. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. It was a pleasure. Thank you, guys.

Folks, if you're not, get on our podcast. Get that extra segment that's coming up. You don't want to miss it. We have Kylie's crime update. Lots of blood and gore for you. And then we're going to finish with a sunshine moment. So we're going straight from murder and mayhem to light. Stay tuned. Make sure you download BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be back on the air next week.

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 the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. Big thank you to both of our guests today. Congressman John Curtis of Utah's 3rd Congressional District. Sean, I thought he was fantastic. And Con Carroll of the Washington Examiner, one of the more thoughtful pundits in D.C. Pleasure to have him on. So thank you to both of our guests. But now what everyone really is tuning into this program for and waiting for is

Blood, guts, and gore. That's right. Yeah. It bleeds, it leads. Oh, and it does today. Kylie's Corner has morphed into murder and mayhem. So, Kylie, what updates do we have? It's been another exciting week in the world of violent crime.

I know. Unfortunately, it has been. I have two updates today and then a new story that I'm going to share with you. But the first update I have is about the Brian Koberger case. And he is the one that's being accused of killing the four students in Idaho back in November of 2022. And that was one of the first ones we started you started talking about on this program. I think that's when I started wanting to do that. Changing from the sunshine moment over to my not so shiny moment. We've had to we've had to totally replace Kylie as our sunshine moment. Right.

But there will be one at the end of the show. So stay tuned. Yeah. Yes. So it's taken him over a year to submit an alibi. But on April 17th, it was the last day he was able to submit an alibi for it to be used in court. Well, we've all had writer's block before. Right. And this is what the defense has come up with. Mr. Coburger was out driving in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022, as he often did to hike Rathaus.

run or hike and run and or to see the moon and stars. He drove through the area of South Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho, including Wawa Wai Park. So that's what they came up with. That's not the Wawa that Joe Biden staged his appearance at, by the way, folks. No, but his defense then said that they were going to bring in an expert to discuss his phone data. But if we go back to the original arrest that was made,

They had said his phone data showed him driving towards the incident, and then his phone data went out, and then it came back on after the incident occurred. So they're going to try to prove he wasn't in the area, which I imagine this person's going to. Remember, Brian Koberger was studying criminal defense, so I think he's a lot smarter than we think he is. And I feel like he was probably, you know, putting an air quote, stargazing and doing whatever prior to prove that, oh, I did this often.

And my phone data would lose, you know, I'd lose connection. So that's why it's not connecting. Yeah. But really all the defense is saying all he has to do is show reasonable doubt and he could get out. So I mean, the question is how well did he premeditate this murder? Essentially. Sounds like pretty well. Yeah. He was doing if he was actually, you know,

covering his tracks in the sense of doing things to create a pattern. Well, but then we saw some things in the case that Kylie's pointed out that we're not all that smart, right? So six of one, half a dozen of another. Yeah. So it's only a time. I just don't understand why you can submit an alibi a year and a half later. Yeah, that's a great point. And then it'd be used. But anyways. That is really kind of astounding. Yeah.

yeah but anyways people that weren't so um sneaky with getting away with something was a few weeks ago i had talked when i was driving out to boston i'm often on an app called the citizens app you want to sponsor us let me know um but you can go on there you can see all the crime that's going on in the area and we had stopped in this i forget what the town was called but it was in texas and we were driving through the panhandle of oklahoma when i came across this case of two women

That were missing at the time. They have now their bodies have now been discovered, but it was Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelly. They were driving through the panhandle of Oklahoma to pick up Veronica's six year old daughter and eight year old son to celebrate her daughter's birthday. She got visiting rights every Saturday. So this was a Saturday going into a Sunday. And Jillian was the supervisor. So she had to supervise all the visits with Veronica. So she was like a state CPS or something.

Yes, correct. She was also a pastor's wife, but they never made it to the birthday party. Their car was later found abandoned in a rural area of Texas County, Oklahoma, about 11 miles south of Elkhart, Kansas, which is where the party was taking place. They never made it to pick up the children either.

well four people have now are now in custody and i encourage you to go look them up because they are scary as hell but um court documents say that the suspect was the grand the children's grandmother and her boyfriend and then two of their friends they were all members of a group called god's misfits

Yeah. And so one of the couples that was arrested had a 16 year old daughter. She told investigator that God's misfits was comprised of seven people in Oklahoma. And it was an anti-government group that has religious affiliations. There's another group apparently somewhere else in this country that's also called God's misfits and they are not associated with these people and they want to make that clear. Yeah.

but it's a misfit fight yes it is um but two days prior to the woman's disappearance the daughter of one of the couples that was arrested claims that her parents said that they were going on a mission the following days but veronica and julian's bodies were then discovered on a land leafed by one of the suspects and um now they're further investigating what happened but i imagine it's over this custody battle because veronica

was moving from not being supervised, not having supervised visits to then just being able to visit with the kids without a supervisor. And I think that's what has set the grandmother off. The dad did not have custody because he was in a rehabilitation center somewhere. So he was not involved in the disappearance. But prior, the grandmother had made death threats to her

to Veronica and to her lawyers. So I don't know how she still had custody of these children even after that. But when someone says grandmother, I do not think of murder and mayhem. Yeah. I mean, that's the part that's just crazy, right? It's just like,

If you go look them up, you know, it might make a little bit more sense. I just did. It does make more sense, but it is crazy. Another crazy thing about this case is when I was looking this up, there's a News Nation reporter who prior to the arrest, they went to the scene to see where like the car was abandoned just to show viewers how rural the area was.

And when they were approaching the scene, they got out of the car, they started taking video. A black SUV came and tried to block their car in. They said, you know, our plan was if we saw a car, we were just going to hop right back in our car and get out of there. This black SUV then followed them for a few miles until they kind of got to a more public area. But they had hired a private investigator to look into this, and she'd said that this area is very well known for human trafficking. So if this was not involved with the case,

This is not an abnormal thing that happens. So if you're driving through the panhandle of Oklahoma, be careful.

Or just avoid it all together. Or just avoid it. I mean, I had to drive through it. I was like, hmm, and the maps is not very good. They kept trying to take shortcuts and putting us on people's farms. And at first, I wasn't realizing what was happening until I'm on this bumpy road. And I'm like, OK, what's going on? So then I was able to ignore what the map was telling me to do. But if you're there, just stay on the ground. Don't get on the dirt roads. Yeah.

I having done some work in Oklahoma, I got to say, unless you have like a relative in the panhandle. Yeah, there's no reason to be there. There's no reason to be there. No, none. It is a good place to get pulled over. I can tell you that from experience. The cops like handing out tickets. Yeah, I'm sure they do. I bet. They probably board out there. But my last story also took place in a rural area. So just, you know, I'm just going to say probably avoid the rural areas if you want.

Don't have to go in there. But this story is kind of crazy. It's still ongoing. So I don't have all the answers. But in case you're wondering, folks, Kylie Kipper is not a small town gal. I am not. No, there's enough crime in the big cities for me that like I don't need to be going to the small rural areas. But anyways, so this incident took place on April 11th in Seminole County, Florida.

This all started with a video of a carjacking. Within two hours of the carjacking, police got a call about a car that was on fire in a remote area to which they found it so engulfed in flames that they weren't able to tell the make or the model of the car. They later discovered that it was the car that was in this video. And in the car was Catherine,

all obvious and they found a dozen shell casings around the car she was obviously deceived um the person who took the video of the carjacking did call 9-1-1 he said he witnessed a green acura chasing chasing and ramming into this car to which he then started recording katherine who was in the car she had a phone she called her husband and she said i'm being followed by somebody he then said don't get out of the car just come straight home

Catherine nor her husband called the police during this incident. The husband also never called the police after she never appeared home. He wasn't like, my wife was being chased and followed. What happened? What? That's crazy. I smell. I smell something.

Yeah. So later, the police figure out this green Acura that was involved in the carjacking is extremely rare. There's only three in the state of Florida and two of them have been sold to salvage yards. So really, this is the one of one car from an auction. It was bought from an auction where someone along the way, I'm not surprised, did not file the title or title paperwork. So they don't know who owns it. But they do know that two days prior to this incident, the car was at an apartment complex, illegally parked, and it was towed away.

The tow truck driver who towed the car away was then murdered. He was shot at his home, and they found over 100 spent rounds at the crime scene, and the green Acura was also seen at the crime scene prior to the murder. What? So they really wanted this car back. Oh, my gosh. What's in that car? Yeah, no kidding. There's money in the banana bag. So I had a friend. This is probably 15 years ago, 12, 15 years ago. I had a friend who bought...

a Ford Explorer at auction, right? And it had some damage and whatnot, government seizure of some type. Well, he owned a body shop and he would go buy these things, fix them up and sell them, whatever. And he starts pulling it apart and the thing is packed from one, from tip to tail. The thing is packed with cocaine, right? I mean, there's bags in, in the tire, in the spare tire, they're in the doors, they're in the, underneath the floor, all this stuff. Right.

And so, of course, that ended up being a lot of fun for him because he's dealing with DEA and all this stuff. But yeah, what is in this car? You know, I don't know, but there has been one arrest made.

It's not one of the carjackers. And I mean, if it is, we don't know yet, but it was actually a deputy with Orange County, Florida. His name is Francisco. And he was apparently this is the husband by the police have said he's been cooperative, but they think he knows more. And I'm going to tell you why. So.

The husband and her brother of the woman who was found deceased knew Francisco's wife, the deputy's wife. And they asked, can your husband give us information on the investigators working this case? Not information about the case, but the investigators working the case. Francisco then pretended to be a detective, went into the system, and then shared the deputy's names, cell phone numbers, and home addresses with the husband and father. Whoa. Yeah. Wow. Wait, wait, where in Florida is this again? We need...

Orange County, Florida and Seminole. So that's northern Florida, right? Yeah. They do say it's kind of in the central northern area, I believe. But those are the only arrests that have been made. And this deputy made bail. It was only a $15,000 bail and he is now currently out on bail. So this is all I know. This is all developing. He was out on bail yesterday, so this is the most recent update so far. But

I'll keep you posted what happens, but something about this green Acura. Yeah. Boy, this car is the devil's sleigh right there. Yeah, right. Something's in this car. With it being so unique, I'm not sure how they haven't found it since the incident, but... Yeah, that's a... Or even the tow truck murder. I don't know. Yeah, boy, this is... The poor tow truck driver. This is interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, they're going to find it in a swamp or a lake. Yeah. No, totally. You're crushed in somebody's salvage yard. Yeah. Wow. Well, Kylie, thank you so much. How is the East Coast treating you? It's getting better, you know. Yeah. Getting there. She's great. Look, folks, I don't want to give away the secret.

Let me be very clear. Arizona is a terrible, awful place to live and nobody should ever move here. Don't ever come here. Right. No, no. You don't want to you don't want to do that. You don't want to enjoy the beautiful sunshiny weather and 84 degree day that we have. Don't do it. No, we were at the dog park and it was the high was, I think, like 58 this day. And I was wearing sweatshirt, sweatpants. And this woman goes, I know you're not from here.

I was like, oh, okay. I'm like, well, it's cold. Well, yeah, because 58, if you're actually from Boston, is t-shirt and shorts weather. Yeah, that's absolutely shorts weather. Yeah. Well, thank you. I wouldn't say absolutely, but. Well, it is if you're from there. Yeah. I mean, literally, once it goes over 50, that first over 50 day is when you put on your shorts. That's right. Which was this week. Yeah. See? Summer has arrived, Kylie. Rejoice. Rejoice.

All right. Kylie Campbell, the former Kylie Kipper, thank you so much. We really – everyone loves those updates, the murder and mayhem. You can't get any better than that. We had a good program today. Yeah. It was fun discussions with everybody, and we like to try to end on a high note, so we're going to do that here in just a moment.

Now, I was actually out of the studio one week. Have you done one of these before? No, this is my first time. This is your first. So we've got to start by introducing you to the guests. Yeah. My name is Jenna Moore and I'm a graduate from ASU. I'm graduating right now. And so I'm just hopping on to share some sunshiny moments whenever I can. Well, and I should put in a little plug for her boyfriend if I can. Oh, please. If I'm not going to embarrass you too much.

So tell us what he's doing because that's actually a really cool story I think that's flying under the radar a little bit. Yeah, so my boyfriend is running in one of the most competitive swing districts here in Arizona for LD2 and he's running for the state house. And his name Ari? His name is Ari Bradshaw. You can find him at ari.vote. That's a great website. We always love the .vote domains, folks. Got to get your .vote domain.

And he had an announcement. I was really stunned. Ari Bradshaw, how old is he, by the way? He is 26 years old. 26 years old. He's now one of the youngest people who are involved in the House race. And he was right near the top of...

Of all fundraisers so far. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. That's great. Like fourth or something? Yeah. He raised 90K, I believe, this past quarter. And it's so fascinating to hear him talk about it and watch him work. He has a great strategy and I'm really excited about him. Everybody's really excited about him. And

I think he's got a good shot in LD2, hopefully. I think he does, too, actually. And I think he can be – his background's in tech, right? Yes, tech and marketing. And he's a smart guy. I got to tell you, Sean, having worked in the government –

There's almost no one in government IT who has an actual background in tech. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And how refreshing will it be to have somebody at the state legislature who understands tech? Right. When they talk about these bills that impact tech and privacy and those things, I mean, nobody knows. All the various government systems that you interact with on a regular basis. Someone like this, it's one of the reasons I always try to look for candidates because

And even if they're long shots, I'll work with candidates who bring a specific skill set to the table that's lacking in broader government. Because even if they didn't make it, boy, we need those people to be able to talk and you need to be able to hear what they have to say and how we fix some of this. Because I think everyone agrees. It's one of the things I think is driving all the –

the bad blood in the country right now is that our government is not functioning. Right, right. Like if you're on the left and you want more taxes and more government programs, but you're not – you're getting the taxes, but the government programs are failing. They're just eating up all the money. They're not delivering what you're asking for. So then their reaction is, well, just give us more money. On the Republican side, you're like, wait, you keep taking more and more of my money and you do nothing productive with it.

So when you have someone like Ari who's running for a seat who can bring real insight into those systems, man, I'm a big believer that we've got to do everything we can to get those folks in.

I don't want to bash too much on the lawyers out there, but we got plenty of them. Oh, there's so many. There are too many lawyers in politics. Yeah. That's the way it is. I love those people like Ari Bradshaw who can do and bring things to the table that the rest of their colleagues cannot. Absolutely. So, Jeanette, so now that I've waxed eloquent on your boyfriend, who I do really know and I know and like and I think he could be a great addition to the Statehouse.

You're going to be bringing us now every week. We're going back to the sunshine moment to finish this podcast from the gloom and doom and murder and mayhem.

that Kylie brings to the table because we have felt a little weird about that. We like this program to be positive and uplifting. So take it away. Yeah, of course. Well, so I just have a little story about a man who just is graduating college just like I am. But he decided to go back more than 50 years after graduating high school to college. He's a 72-year-old father of five.

And his 99-year-old mother was actually there to cheer him on as he crossed the stage for his graduation ceremony. Oh, that is cool. Wow. Fantastic. Wow. Yeah. So his name is Sam Kaplan. He graduated high school in 1969, and he decided to re-enroll when he was 68 years old.

And he said, I was riding down the 316 and heard on the radio that Georgia Gwinnett College was offering a degree that involved script writing. And he said, my car seemed to have developed automatic steering. And I pulled over onto Collins Hill Road. And five minutes later, I was registering for the fall semester.

Wow. And here he is four years later. Here he is four years later. And he had a standing ovation. Everyone was very excited when he graduated. And there's a video and everyone's cheering for him. And he said when he had to jump back into academics, he was nervous about meeting all of his new friends because they're all 50 years his junior year.

So he said he made it a goal to meet a quota and each day he would approach a new student with the intention of learning more about their academic goals and their dreams for the future. And he said he thinks that those are uncommon questions to ask of these kids and they don't get that with people. And he said, "I think I have a good relationship with them. I got hugs from a lot of them on the last day of classes."

So it's just great that they were all so excited and gave him a big applause at his graduation in the video. And it reminds me of a story that went viral a few years ago. A pair of 81-year-old grandmothers, they were also best friends, decided to go on an adventure. And among other things, they rode a sleigh pulled by huskies in Finland.

Flew high in a hot air balloon in Egypt, which I would love to do. That would be an awesome vacation. And they also crossed the Drake Passage, which is one of the most dangerous journeys for a ship to take. It's around the southern tip of South America from Cape Horn. They took a two-day journey across the ocean. And they said that they experienced 20 feet waves on this passage. Oh, I mean, that's...

That is a famous graveyard of sailing ships where, I mean, it is colder than you can possibly imagine. The wind is incredible and the waves. I have some friends who are sailors and they say the difference there is that most places the waves come from one direction, which you can deal with when you're navigating a ship. Right.

But here you get rogue waves from every direction chopping it up. It is incredibly dangerous. That is a very cool trip. I love his intentionality in his approach to all the other students. Yeah. What is his name? His name is Sam Kaplan. Sam Kaplan. That is awesome. What a great story. That's incredible. I love that. Any final thoughts, folks?

I mean, can't get better than Sam Kaplan. No. His lead, you know. It's great. You can have an adventure at any age and start anything new no matter where you're at. And make a new friend no matter how different from you they might be. The more the merrier. I love that. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in once again. As always, we really appreciate having you. If you aren't already subscribed, well, you're probably hearing this because you are subscribed. But that doesn't mean you couldn't share our link with a friend.

I mean, just, you know, just a little suggestion. Send them an email. Get them to subscribe to Breaking Battlegrounds so they don't miss any of this incredible content.

And once again, to everyone today, thank you so much to our guests, Congressman Curtis, Con Carroll of the Washington Examiner, Sean Noble, who took some time to join us. You can light beer, dark money. Happy to be here. Check that out. Yep. And thank you so much, Kylie, Jenna. Really appreciate it. Great stuff. We will be back next week. See you.