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280,863 views Premiered Jan 29, 2026 Making The Argument Podcast
The Worst RINOs in America
Are Democrats really the problem in Washington? Much of the dysfunction actually stems from Republicans in safe red districts who know they’ll never be punished for how they vote. We expose some of the worst RINOs in Congress and how we could get rid of them. You can support Brandon Herrera here: https://brandonherreraforcongress.com/ SPONSOR: Brave Books Brave Books creates pro-God, pro-America stories teaching the lessons our culture is trying to erase, like truth, courage, sacrifice, faith, and love of country through stories kids actually want to read. Get a new book every month and FREE access to their parent-vetted streaming platform BRAVE+ when you join the BRAVE Book Club. Use code NICK for 20% off your first order at: BraveBooks.com/NICK —– Well, it’s almost Valentine’s Day. You know what that means…coffee mugs with innuendos for your spouse. Order by February 1st to get yours in time for Valentine’s Day:
https://shop.nickjfreitas.com/s/Valen… —– GET YOUR MERCH HERE: https://shop.nickjfreitas.com/ BECOME A MEMBER OF THE IC: https://NickJFreitas.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/nickjfreitas/ Facebook: / nickfreitasva Twitter: / nickjfreitas YouTube: / @nickjfreitas TikTok: / nickfreitas3.0 00:00:00 Why Do Republicans Always Seem to Lose? 00:02:03 The Biggest Problem is Weak Republicans In Safe Districts 00:7:22 Five RINOs in Congress Who Need to be Primaried 00:08:57 Mike Kelly in Pennsylvania’s 16th District 00:18:00 How Primary Challenges Moves the Overton Window to the Right 00:22:33 Dave Joyce in Ohio’s 14th District 00:27:43 Brett Guthrie in Kentucky’s 2nd District 00:32:57 Hal Rogers in Kentucky’s 5th District 00:38:25 Tony Gonzales in Texas’ 23rd District 00:43:15
Brandon Herrera is Challenging Gonzales 00:47:08. The Importance of Primarying RINOs 00:52:02 Rewarding Champions like Scott Perry 00:56:20 We Need To Clean House
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0:00
I get asked all the time, Nick, you were in elected office. You were in a legislature. You know what goes on
0:06
behind the scenes. What is the problem with the Republican party? Why is it that when Democrats get
0:12
into power, they get the things they want, and when Republicans get into power, they can’t seem to accomplish anything? Well, there’s a few reasons,
0:20
but I’m going to give you one of the most important reasons today. That’s what we’re going to discuss. And I’m not
0:26
just going to give you I’m not just going to give you platitudes. I’m going to give you specifics. I’m going to explain why the issue I’m going to
0:32
discuss today that all three of us are going to discuss today is one of the single most important things, one of the
0:38
single most important issues for why you can’t get the stuff you want out of a Republican legislature. And we’re going
0:44
to tell you exactly what you can do about it. Exactly what you can do about it. And here’s a hint right off the bat.
0:52
It actually isn’t the Republicans that we get mad at a lot. And those are the
0:58
Republicans in like the swing districts. Yep. Sometimes they take votes we don’t like. Yep. They usually don’t carry the
1:04
bills that we really consider to be good, hardcore conservative bills. But they’re actually not the main problem.
1:10
The main problem is this other category. And we’re going to give you five
1:15
examples of people who probably need to lose their seats in Congress if we ever
1:21
want to have the kind of legislative success that the Democrats always seem to be able to achieve. I’m Nick
1:27
Freighus, host of Making the Argument. With me in the studio, my beautiful bride, Tina, Queen of the Beast.
1:32
Hello everyone. And then of course our resident historian, political prognosticator, the Oracle of Virginia,
1:40
often quoted on X by Elon Musk and now by Brett Cooper. Uh Christian Hines, how
1:45
you doing, man? You didn’t have to. I just want to clarify quoted him and I can’t like I can’t even believe Megan
1:52
McCain. I Yeah, that was crazy. I did not ask Nick to [laughter] say that in the intro. Just clarify.
1:57
No, you you’ve earned it, man. It was good. Listen, um let’s get let’s get right into this.
The Biggest Problem is Weak Republicans In Safe Districts
2:04
The biggest problem, the biggest problem is not the Republicans and the R+1 districts. Um, the biggest problem is
2:10
not even leadership, because leadership is actually a reflection of the composition that you have within the
2:16
House of Representatives, within the Senate, within the US Senate and within your state legislatures,
2:23
right? The biggest problem is weak Republicans in R + 15, R + 20 districts.
2:33
These are the guys who could carry the controversial bills. These are the guys who could take all of the good votes.
2:39
And here’s what they will do time and time again. If it makes it to the floor
2:45
where everyone is paying attention, they’ll vote the right way. They’ll never carry the bill, but they’ll vote
2:51
for it if it makes it. But then you go behind the scenes, you go into the caucus meetings or you look at the subcommittees or the full committees and
2:58
all of a sudden the bill you were really excited about is is not getting a hearing or it died in a subcommittee or
3:05
the it got moved to appropriations. Why why did the gun bill get moved to appropriations? Why did it get moved to
3:11
this other committee that no one was watching at the time? Those are the guys. Those are the guys
3:17
that not only pay no price for taking really, really hard quote unquote controversial votes, but would actually
3:23
be rewarded by their constituents. Those are the guys who kill them. Those are the guys who give top cover to
3:29
leadership to kill those bills because leadership will say, “Well, we can’t have this bill. It’s a little bit too controversial. It’s a little bit too
3:35
heavy right now and it’s going to hurt our guys in the swing districts.” Right? But then you have the
3:40
conservatives going, “Well, look, this is what we were elected to do.” So we’ll we’ll we’ll work for the guys in the
3:45
swing district. We’ll donate money. We’ll go in. We’ll knock doors. We’ll help them win, but we expect them to vote like conservatives,
3:52
right? So who does leadership go to? Right? Because now they got the guys in the swing districts that are a little bit concerned. They got the
3:59
conservatives are like, “No, no, no. This is what we’re elected to do.” And then there’s that other category, the R
4:04
plus 20 rhinos. the R plus 20 guys that will do whatever leadership says because
4:10
for them this is all about getting the good committee assignment. This is all about making sure that their budget
4:16
amendments always make it in right. They’re going to bring home the bacon. They’re going to do all the right favors
4:22
for all the people they need to in leadership in DC and a select group of
4:27
people within their own district to make sure that they never get punished for what they’re doing behind the scenes.
4:33
And if you replace those guys with actual conservatives, if you place
4:39
replace those guys with people that will push the Overton window to the right, that is when you will start getting the
4:44
change you want. Right? It’s not beating up on the R+1 Republican that is barely winning his seat by a couple thousand
4:50
votes. It’s going after these guys that have no excuse
4:56
and year after year, session after session, election after election, get
5:02
away with it. and we’re going to give you the top five this time around. All right, Christian, that’s my leadin. What
5:09
did I miss? Um, not much. The the one thing that I want to say as we jump into it is a lot
5:16
of people will spend time, if you’re in politics, you’ll see, you know, comments from random members of Congress that’ll
5:23
come across your Twitter feed. Like, here’s an example that I’ve got pulled up right here. GOP congressman tells Fox News that Trump can’t quote round up
5:30
everybody and kick them out. He’s talking about illegal immigrants, obviously. We were having a conversation about this right before the podcast started,
5:37
you know, and you just said you’re like, I’m sick of the the normies that, you know, the thermostatic public opinion
5:42
basically. Yeah. People see stuff like this and they get obviously justifiably upset.
5:48
It’s worth noting that Mike Lowour is in a district that Camala Harris won. Yeah. So, he’s in a, you know, a D+1 seat in
5:55
New York. It’s just north of the city. He’s in one of the most competitive seats in the entire country. and he’s
6:01
saying stuff like this and then we ask, you know, well, what’s the problem? Well, the problem is is that he’s
6:06
following the lead of the Overton window as he sees it. Yeah. And that Overton window is being set by
6:13
the left and right parameters. And so when we look at guys like Mike Lowour, he’s saying what he’s saying because
6:18
he’s calculating in my district with the national climate, this is what I need to say to win re-election.
6:24
Well, what’s the excuse for the guy that’s in the Trump plus 23 district? Well, and and let’s say something for Makala here because a lot of times
6:30
Republicans will make the excuse, well, you got to vote for us otherwise we won’t be in the majority and we can’t do anything. And that’s true and that
6:38
should be a calculation, right? We shouldn’t be, this is why I, and I think you’re bringing this up for a good
6:43
point. We shouldn’t be going after Mike Lawler for this. We might not like what he’s saying. We might not like every vote that he
6:48
casts. We might not like every vote that he casts, but if you go after this guy, you’re going to lose and that will
6:55
contribute to you losing the majority. And you don’t want that. Like that is a legitimate a legitimate issue that
7:01
leadership always brings up, but that grassroots conservatives are tired of hearing. So if you’re tired of hearing
7:07
it, just understand they do have a point. But this is where you can get them. This is where you can say, “Okay,
7:13
fine. We’re going to leave Mike Lawler alone. We’re not going to go after Mike. We’re going to help Mike because we understand he’s in a difficult spot.”
7:20
Now show me the excuse for these guys. Yeah. So here’s the first example. Nick tasked me to find five people in safe
Five RINOs in Congress Who Need to be Primaried
7:27
Republican seats that have awful voting records who quite frankly have been there for too long. First one that I’ve
7:33
got for you, Mike Kelly. By the way, the vast majority of these people, I guarantee the overwhelming majority of
7:40
the audience has never heard of. Yeah, you’ve never There’s a reason you’ve never heard of them, though, and that’s because they
7:45
never make waves. They never make waves. Well, and and understand something, too. We’re we’re the what we’re using here is
7:52
Heritage Action. And the reason why we’re using Heritage Action is because obviously Heritage has a very very long
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very very strong reputation with respect to conservative policy. Heritage Action was one of the first groups, the one of
8:04
the first like largecale conservative groups that stopped judging um voting by
8:12
floor votes only. They started to go into the committee votes. And this off a
8:17
lot of people in Congress because they were used to getting rid of the bills like, “Oh, I don’t want to I’m going to vote no on that in committee.” And if if
8:24
the only thing you were looking at was the floor votes, then they look, “Oh my gosh, they’ve got a a 95% lifetime
8:31
score. They’ve got a 100% lifetime score.” And then Heritage said, “Yeah, but most of killing all the good bills
8:38
and committs are happening in the subcommittees and the committees.” And they started grading them. And there was
8:43
this huge backlash from Republican I remember this. There was huge backlash from Republican leadership going, “Oh,
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what what are you doing? You’re gonna make our guys look bad.” And Heritage was like, “No, you’re voting wrong.”
8:56
Yeah. And so you look at a guy like Representative Mike Kelly. So first and foremost, you see he’s got a lifetime
Mike Kelly in Pennsylvania’s 16th District
9:02
score of 67%. That’s a D, right? If if we’re doing the letter grades, by the way, the House average for
9:09
Republicans is only 74. The House is a 74%. So, Heritage, again, Heritage is a reliably conservative
9:14
organization. 74% of this. So, a C. All right, that’s fine. Average. We’ll look at a bell
9:20
curve. We’ll just we’ll be generous. That’s an average. All right. He’s got a 67. He’s got a D. And his session score
9:26
for this time around is 49%. That means 49% of the time, Mike Kelly
9:32
is voting the way that you would expect a conservative to vote. How safe? How safe is his district? But
9:39
but but but Christian maybe maybe he’s in a tough district like maybe Camala Harris won his district and he’s just
9:45
barely hanging on. What is his district? Here’s his district. Oh wow. It’s Eerie Pennsylvania northwest corner
9:51
and uh Trump won his seat 61 to 38. Okay to give you an idea to give you an
9:57
idea and I’m looking at the right right here. Trump plus 23 was what he won by.
10:04
This guy’s district is as about as conservative as my House district was in the Virginia General Assembly. My
10:11
lifetime score, Heritage doesn’t do the states, I don’t think. They don’t do like state legislatores, but Club for
10:16
Growth does. I think my lifetime score was like a 98%. What was the 2%?
10:22
Yeah. What was the 2%. [laughter] It was like a 97 or 98% for Club for Growth. So, Club for Growth or ACU and
10:30
um and Heritage Action, that would be kind of the equivalent for like the state legislatores. And I want to say my
10:35
lifetime score for all of those was somewhere around the 95. You were always in the 95. Always always in the in the mid to high
10:40
90s because there’s always some bill where it was kind of a nuance. Occasionally be a bill that will pass in
10:46
block where it’ll be 100 to zero and then because it got through committee and nobody pulled it out, you’ll It happens
10:52
very rarely. But yeah, but it does happen. It does if you got if you got a 95%
10:58
to give you an idea to give you an idea of one of the bills that I got scored against by America I think American
11:03
Conservative Union or um there was a bill that they wanted to um
11:09
they wanted to come up with a labeling thing where they said you can’t label something as meat if it’s not an animal
11:16
product. And I looked at that as well that’s kind of truth in advertising, right? like you can’t call it you can’t
11:21
call it a meat product if it’s not actually a meat product tofu and they basically they came in and they said well from a liberty standpoint they
11:27
should be able to label it what they want and the consumer should get to decide. So to give you an idea when I get when I get docked down a couple
11:33
points on my score it’s for that it’s not because I voted oh I voted for you know gun control. Speaking of votes, so
11:40
but this guy is got a 49%ity for this session in a district that is
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ruby red. Ruby red. So what how’s he been voting? What what has he cast some votes on? So I looked
11:54
at the last congressional session. That’s 2023 and 2024. Yeah, we’re in the currently we’re in the 119th Congress
12:00
that’ll last from uh 2025 to the end of this year. So, this was the last
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congressional session before the um the 2024 uh presidential election. And
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here’s the the short list of uh things that he voted for. He voted for the um
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uh HR788, which was the uh um FISA warrant bill. Yeah. Um that was
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by the way for those guys like FISA has FISA is is the ability for the government to essentially conduct um
12:31
surveillance operations, phone tapping and things like that based off of intel.
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Uh but they get to they get to kind of skirt around the normal procedures that you would think of that you would
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associate like probable cause, right? Like there’s a different standard for it and basically
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significantly lower standard to get a warrant. Significantly lower standard to get a FISA warrant. And so what happened was is that we found out that like 97% of
12:55
FISA warrants were being approved. And so a lot of people on the liberty movement side were like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We need a little bit more
13:01
oversight because what we’re essentially doing is we’re allowing the intelligence community to basically do these these
13:07
wide warrant grabs for a whole host of things that are not appropriate.” And so there was a big push in the liberty
13:12
movement to be like, “You need to rein this in. There needs to be more protections for American citizens.” He voted for it. So he he voted he voted
13:20
four vice as it currently did without any reforms. So the list that I’ve got here is going to outrage everybody across the entire
13:27
right in terms of the spectrum. Everybody from libertarians to conservatives. Um the next thing that he did was he
13:33
voted for I think it was uh 60 plus billion well he’s voted for all of them. So it’s over 100 billion at this point
13:39
in aid to Ukraine. Um, the big one was the bill in 2024 and a lot of
13:44
conservatives were outraged about that because there there were basically no safeguards for things like fraud and
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corruption and Ukraine is a notoriously corrupt government. Um, we’ve now found out multiple instances actually of
13:58
corruption within the Ukrainian armed forces and government of them basically stealing aid for themselves and then
14:05
like selling it on the black market. These are things like weapons. Yep. Um we had we um we’ve done things
14:12
where we paid for their pension system the country. Yeah. You would you would think, okay,
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we’re just giving money to either allow them to fight the Russians or to take care of their people in the form of
14:23
Nope. We’re propping up their pension system. We’re propping up all kinds of things that you just wouldn’t the average American
14:29
when when our own pensions are having problems. You wouldn’t think we’d be, oh yeah, of course we’re going to send billions to Ukraine’s pension system,
14:36
which oh, by the way, is a bit corrupt. We gave them uh zerointerest loans that
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were forgivable. So, you know, there was like basically free money, right, that that we were giving them. And obviously,
14:47
there’s an ele, you know, the neocon side, you know, was like, well, we need to arm them to defend against the
14:52
Russians. But the way that some of these bills were structured almost encouraged like fraud
14:58
and and corruption. Well, again, if if they wanted to do this in a way where it was just aid, the safest way to do that
15:05
would have been like, we’re going to give you American weapons systems and we’re going to actually ship aid over
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you. So, we’re not handing you cash, which is is much more susceptible to,
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you know, corrupt instates. We’re actually giving you the physical materials you need. But that’s not what they did. And he voted for it.
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And the last two things that he voted for are going to outrage everybody on the right. The first two things I said are one’s going to outrage libertarians,
15:28
one’s going to outrage the national security conservatives. Yeah. The um
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the uh last two things are going to outrage everybody on the right. Yeah. He voted for the um continuing
15:40
resolution. Uh that was HR 6363. This was in 2023.
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This was the infamous I think we even did a podcast on this. Yeah. Continuing resolution. It was like a trillion dollar bill.
15:51
Yeah. I think it was more than that. and he voted for the um the omnibus
15:56
bill in 2023 as well. So basically it was just a blank check for Joe Biden to spend two of them. Yeah. Two separate. So and
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I’ll get at the end of once we’re done with the list we’ll explain a little bit in detail about what differentiates
16:08
between the two things and why they’re so bad. But the TLDDR on this is that and it’s been a while since I’ve said
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TLDDR. The TLDDR on this is that these bills funded everything that Joe Biden
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wanted. We threw away all leverage when we controlled the House. Yeah. And we had a check on Biden’s administration.
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We voted for trillions in spending. Y and we now know where some of that spending went because of things that
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Doge did last year. We funded all of these left-wing groups, all these
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left-wing, you know, captured institutions with dollars that were stolen basically from Mike’s
16:43
constituents. Yeah. To fund leftist causes. Mike Mike voted for his constit for his conservative constituents tax
16:50
dollars to go to the very institutions that were fighting against his constituents
16:55
to go to things like, you know, promoting transgenderism in Colombia. Remember that? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
17:00
Yeah. So, so understand that those are those are and you’re going to see this common theme with a lot of these guys. But
17:06
again, you got so you got Mike Kelly, Ruby red district, and voting the way he
17:13
is. All right. And that’s not to say that people in these districts aren’t ringing alarm bells. It’s just listen, I
17:20
mean, people are going to hate me for saying this, but voters don’t care. They
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don’t want to be contacted. They don’t they just don’t care enough to look into this. You’ve got a handful of people
17:32
that will be ringing the alarm bells, screaming at the top of their lungs trying to say, “This guy is a rhino.
17:39
He’s doing all of this stuff.” And you’ve got people that are like, “What’s on the television tonight? I’m gonna
17:45
watch the game.” That’s why we’re doing this podcast because we want the people who do care to know about this because look, if
17:52
you’re looking for something to do, and I’ve got people all over the country, if you’re looking for something to do, primary these guys, throw these guys out
17:58
of office. And here’s what needs to be understood in in a in a midterm. So, in a presidential year election, that is
How Primary Challenges Moves the Overton Window to the Right
18:04
where you will have your highest turnout because you have Congress up, you have uh you have House of Representatives up,
18:09
Senate seats up, and the president’s up. So, that’s where you get your over 50% um of of the voting population voting,
18:16
and then I don’t know what percentage of the illegal population voting for Democrats, but they’re they’re all out. That’s when they’re out.
18:22
In in a midterm, it’s lower. Like, it’s I want to say it’s more like in the what, like the low 40s on that’s like
18:28
the high end for a midterm. Low 40s to mid 40s. The midterm can hit in the 50
18:34
range if it’s a really competitive. Yeah. So, so but it’s lower. But the primary fraction fraction of the
18:42
population is voting in a midterm primary election. Now, what that means
18:48
is is that a very wellorganized and decently funded, not like through the roof, a wellorganized, decently funded
18:56
primary against someone like this can change a guy like this with a guy that’s going to vote in like the ‘9s, right?
19:03
You can change you can change a guy with a lifetime score in the low 50s to a guy with a lifetime score in the in the ‘9s
19:10
by getting the right primary challenger. And by the way, we’re going to tell you which organizations you can work with to
19:15
do that here in a second to include one that is very active in Pennsylvania. So,
19:20
um, one one relevant question to ask is, does Pennsylvania have party registration?
19:26
Yes, they do. Okay. So, in that case, like even just even if [snorts] you run a primary
19:32
challenger on these guys, you can get even if even if he wins, you can get him
19:37
to move to the right because he’s on notice. Yeah, that that’s that’s a really important point because some
19:42
people are like, “Well, he’s going to win anyway. He’s got too much money or whatnot.” Tina ran against a 27-year
19:49
incumbent who was arguably the second most powerful Republican senator in in Virginia and ran against him because he
19:56
was voting against guns. He was voting against life. He was voting in an R plus like 50 district. and just running
20:03
against him caused him to vote against holding on to a $2 billion
20:10
discrepancy with tax code. He he was seeing dollar signs. We can go ahead and spend that. And just me running caused
20:16
him to go ahead and vote against it. Yeah. So, just so you know, like the whole Solinsky tactic that the threat is
20:21
worse than the things sometime the threat is worse than the actual action sometime. If if somebody if all of a
20:27
sudden this this, you know, Republican in a safe district is tempted to vote really really bad to cut some deals and
20:34
then all of a sudden a couple people show up or one person shows up to primary him, all of a sudden he’s like,
20:40
“Oh, I can’t take that vote. I can’t take that vote. I got a primary challenger coming.” So just the threat alone,
20:46
just the threat alone can be enough to actually bump these guys scores up significantly if they think they’re
20:52
going to get a decent challenger. So that’s what we want you to understand is like this is actually it’s not easy but
20:58
it’s a lot easier than you think. All right let’s look at the next one. And ladies and gentlemen I want to share with you the sponsor for today’s episode
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that code. Check them out. They’re great. Back to the show. Next guy, Dave Joyce in Ohio. 53% session score again
Dave Joyce in Ohio’s 14th District
22:38
last session. This is awful. 55% people. That is an F.
22:44
Yeah. Remember these other guys? Uh, you know, Kay had a 63. She got worse overtime.
22:50
Yeah. Uh, Mike Kelly had a 67. He has the worst lifetime score of the three that we’ve looked at so far.
22:56
55%. That guy’s scoring an F. Wow. Um, but he’s in Ohio. Maybe he’s maybe
23:01
maybe he represents downtown Cincinnati. Is that what he represents, Christian? Uh, no. He represents the uh northeast
23:10
corner of the state that you know Trump got 60% of the vote in. Wow. [laughter] So an R plus 20 district. Um and he has
23:19
a 55 lifetime score. Got it. This is the most conservative district
23:25
in northeast Ohio. Well, okay. Until until Trump came along and he flipped the Youngstown area. Now the sixth
23:31
district is overwhelmingly Republican. But that’s an This has been Republican for
23:37
years, many, many years now, this district. And there he is with a 55 lifetime
23:43
score. Yeah. There’s no excuse. They run for a re-election. They’re like, “Oh, shucks.” And somebody will
23:48
tell you that, “Oh, this guy’s voting this way.” You’ll be like, “Not him. He’s a good guy.” Yeah. And and there’s
23:56
this whole I saw him in the parade and he shook my hand and he was he was looked me in the eye. He looked me in
24:03
the eye and said he was going to defend he was going to defend our rights. And he’s just a he’s a nice chap. And
24:08
you know what? He grew up in this area. He’s lived here. His whole family has lived here for Yeah. Don’t care, dude. Don’t care. We had
24:17
this in We had this. When people give me things like that and they’re like, I looked him in the eye and they told me this and I just don’t
24:22
believe that piece of paper you’re holding. You know, the proof that you’re holding, I just go, “Oh, you’re one of
24:28
those.” Okay. Well, I can’t convince you cuz you’re a freaking and you
24:34
you’re a lowinformation voter. You’ll just do whatever the master tells you what to do and you you like care about
24:42
people that are in power and give them too much uh credit. So, I I have no time for people like
24:49
that anymore. Now, this guy had one other vote. He had he voted for the same four things that everybody else did, but he also had
24:54
another vote. Um yeah, he voted to um basically codify gay marriage at the federal level.
25:00
There you go. Yeah. Yeah. You know what else he did? I um
25:06
I looked this up while we were talking because I was like, “Oh, I remember that he voted for this bill, too.” This was a
25:11
bill back when Democrats controlled Congress that prevented um ICE agents
25:17
from cooperating with Health and Human Services to um facilitate the deportation of illegal immigrants. This
25:22
was in 2019, and he voted for this bill as well. So, he’s awful on immigration. He’s
25:28
awful on any anything remotely socially conservative. And he’s awful on spending. Wow.
25:33
And he’s awful on civil liberties and foreign policy. Yeah. Again, there’s a reason that he’s got uh what is it? It
25:40
makes you wonder 55% li and he’s in and he’s in a district that Trump got almost 60% of the vote in. So,
25:47
he Dave Dave Joyce, if you live in Northeast Ohio, find somebody to primary
25:52
this guy and send him. And again, maybe you don’t even beat them, right? But if if all of a sudden when they start
25:59
taking votes again right before the midterm elections, right, because they’re going to be coming in in and out of session throughout this year and all
26:05
of a sudden these issues are coming up that we want a good conservative vote on. If Dave here finds out, oh, I’ve got
26:11
a wellunded challenger or I’ve got somebody that can actually come after me, he’s going to start voting
26:16
differently. He’s going to go to leadership and like, I know I I know I said I could vote for that, but I can’t now cuz I got a primary challenger.
26:23
That’s what you need. You need to know that these guys can never believe that they’ve got your vote no matter what
26:29
they do forever. Right? We This is one of the biggest problems that we have when we call people up during primary
26:34
races and we say, “Hey, this is I’m calling on behalf of so- and so or I’m running.” They’re like, “Oh, no, no. I vote straight Republican.” I’m like,
26:40
“No, this is a Republican primary. It’s all Republicans running, right?” But there’s a big difference in the sort of
26:47
Republican you can get. Oh, oh, well, what’s going on? And it’s like, guys,
26:52
please stop telling me you you you love our country and you love the Constitution and you but you’re really
26:58
really mad at our government if you’re not actually paying attention to what your representative is doing. I’m not
27:04
saying you’ve got to be immersed in all this. But there are certain moments where there are certain moments where we
27:11
need your attention on something. Pay attention. And this is this is one of those times because it’s it’s the midterms. It’s
27:17
it’s these deep red districts that could have really really good conservative leadership and they don’t.
27:22
Yeah. It’s one of the reasons why people are always so mad at the Republicans and they’re like, “Why do the Republicans
27:28
always give us such bad candidates?” It’s like, “Cuz you didn’t show up to the primary.” If you don’t show up in the primary,
27:33
you’re the one. If you don’t show up to the primary, you gave us that bad that bad candidate that
27:39
like, how do we shake you and wake you up? Yeah. Okay. This next one is gonna Oh my
Brett Guthrie in Kentucky’s 2nd District
27:45
gosh. All right. Go ahead, Christian. Introduce us to Mr. Brett. Uh, Congressman Brett Guthrie in
27:52
Kentucky. 67% lifetime score, 55% session score. Notice how all these
27:58
people have gotten worse over time. Trump is in the White House right now. We have the House, we have the Senate,
28:04
we have the president, we have a favorable Supreme Court, and they’re voting worse.
28:10
They’re voting worse now that we’re in charge. Now that we have some power to do some stuff, they’re voting worse.
28:16
That’s actually They do that all the time though. All the time. They’ll always take They’ll vote better when they know that their vote doesn’t mean anything.
28:22
Symbolic votes when they did the same thing. Yeah. When they know that they’re that that, you know, we’re there’s no way it
28:29
can pass, they’ll take the symbolic vote. But once they know it could pass, they’re like, “Oh, uh, now I’ll pull
28:35
that back.” Wait until you find out what type of district Congressman Brett Guff is. This
28:40
I saw this I saw this in the notes. I’m like you have got to be freaking kidding me. So 67% lifetime score 55 session
28:49
score voted on all those big those big four that we said before those big four bills. And the reason why Christian
28:55
picked some of these is because they deal with everything from foreign policy and in Ukraine. They deal with everything from like civil liberties and
29:02
like FISA. They deal with whether or not this guy voted to allow Joe Biden trillions of dollars to spend on stuff
29:09
that we can’t stand. It’s all the stuff that whether you’re a social conservative, whether you’re a fiscal conservative, where you’re a foreign
29:14
policy conservative, it’s all here. These guys took bad votes on all of it. This guy took bad votes on all of it.
29:20
But Christian, maybe he represents, you know, Louisville, right? Maybe he’s in
29:26
in the deep blue city in Kentucky, right? So here’s his district. Holy absolutely
29:34
hell. You were You were right. He was close to Louisville. He’s here’s the Louisville seat right here. He’s the one outside
29:39
it. He represents the second district in Kentucky. Trump won his district by 41
29:46
points. This guy represents a district. So again, I had a lifetime score across the
29:51
board of the mid9s on all these things. That’s an 81% Republican district, isn’t it? Mid No, wait a second. Mid90s on all
29:57
these things. Mid90s. Okay. I was representing about an R plus 20 R plus
30:03
23 district. This guy’s district is about twice as conservative as mine.
30:11
Twice. And this guy’s got a 67 lifetime score.
30:17
So if you’ve got money and this guy gets a PR challenger, I challenge you pick this up and donate to whoever his
30:24
challenger is. So yeah, Trump got 70% of the vote in his district.
30:30
Jeez. 70%. I struggle to find even a blue precinct
30:35
in his district. There’s like one at the very bottom. It’s like a There you go. There’s your right here. A little town right here.
30:40
There’s your couple of uh What is that? I wonder what uh here. Let me turn that off. It’s Bowling Green. So it’s a
30:47
university. He’s got He’s got one college town and that’s it. And then there’s And then the rest of this tin there’s like I can count on one one hand the
30:53
number of blue precincts. Yeah. in his district. Yeah. Well, and that college town is probably
30:59
a good indicator of why he votes the way he does. I’m just saying. Oh, no, it isn’t. That that college has
31:05
nothing to do with the way he votes. It I I am willing to bet you when this guy has a budget amendment, it gets put in
31:12
there when this because this is one of those guys that’s in a safe district that leadership doesn’t have to worry about, doesn’t have to fund raise on,
31:18
and they go to him and they’re like, “What committees do you want?” But you know the deal for everything.
31:23
you vote the way we want. Trump [snorts] does this sometimes too where he will support a candidate. You’re like, why is
31:28
Trump supporting that guy? Because the guy will do what he’s told, right? And what leadership values is not necessar I
31:36
mean, look, would Mike Johnson like it if he could get more conservative stuff? Yeah, I’m sure he would. But what
31:42
leadership values is loyalty. They value someone that will do what they’re told,
31:47
right? and and from their perspective, you might be able to understand that, but it’s still very frustrating from our
31:52
perspective when we want conservative legislation. But this is a guy that would be really really susceptible to a primary challenger because his district
32:01
voted for Trump by by 41 points. His district wants hardcore conservative
32:09
legislation. His district wants hardcore conservative votes, but most of them are
32:15
probably too busy with their day-to-day lives to go back and check on this guy. And they’re like, “We’re in a safe Republican district.
32:20
We’re in a safe Republican. We’re good to go.” They don’t have to worry about it because they’re not in a constant fight for their lives every two years.
32:25
But there’s one more. Oh, here we go. And Kentucky as well. Kentucky has some really bad repres.
32:36
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they’ve had Democrat governors for so long and until very recently they had a
32:41
Democrat legislature that only flipped in the last like 10 years. It’s it’s like West Virginia delayed.
32:48
Um because West Virginia flipped in the 2010s and Kentucky at the state level has started to flip their tax.
32:55
So Kentucky five Kentucky the last guy looks like the last guy.
Hal Rogers in Kentucky’s 5th District
33:01
Look at look at this guy’s scores. 57% lifetime score, 55% session score. This
33:06
guy’s awful. Rogers, 55%. So almost, again, almost half the
33:13
time when Heritage is looking at votes, and they’ve got a scorecard here. I only gave four examples. They gave way more
33:20
examples here. I mean, look at all these times where he’s, you know, again, another warrant bill, foreign aid bill. He loves
33:26
spending on foreign aid, another Ukraine bill. um you know another on the bus bill like
33:32
look at all these you know times where he’s you know you know oh yeah national defense authorization act that’s a bad
33:38
one because there’s you know tons of wasteful spending in the Pentagon but there was also civil liberty concerns
33:43
about that you know allowing the president to detain a citizen a citizen without any any uh um trial
33:50
all sorts of stuff in here that would outrage anybody on the right that Heritage has a list I noted down to just
33:55
four for our podcast but you can go on their on Look at the list. Christian, surely surely Hal Rogers has
34:03
like a part of his district which is a a deep blue urban center. Uh clearly
34:09
clearly the ACLU head Oh, wait. No, no, no. So So here’s the previous one. Okay, here’s the previous one. Now
34:15
where’s Hell Rod? Oh my gosh. That’s his district. How Wait, what?
34:21
This guy’s got Eastern Kentucky. He’s got Eastern Kentucky with the border of Southwest Virginia. His
34:27
district voted 81% for Donald Trump
34:33
and he gets an F. Trump won his district by 64 points. Not
34:39
64%. Yeah, 64. 64 points. There’s a difference there. Trump did
34:45
not get 64%. He got 81% in this district. That’s insane. This makes this one of
34:52
the most Republican districts in the entire country. This guy, this guy represents a
34:58
district. Again, I had a mid90s lifetime score. This guy’s a 57 lifetime score.
35:03
His district is three times more conservative than the district I represented. And he’s voting for bills that are doing
35:09
things like funding transgenderism in Colombia. Why Why is this guy not have a
35:15
challenger? Why does this guy not have a primary challenger? Because he’s in such a safe red seat. A lot of these pays attention just asleep
35:22
at the wheel. Here’s an example that worked out great. Nick walked into a seat and held it for
35:27
10 years. Yep. Didn’t have a primary challenger when he ran. There was an incumbent when Nick announced the incumbent dropped out.
35:33
Nick gets elected unchallenged in both the primary and the general. That was the only race that you ever ran that was
35:39
unchallenged, your first one, which is always the most vulner vulnerable one for somebody. And in the 10 years that
35:45
Nick was in the general assembly, he never once got a primary challenger. Now, he never deserved it. Oh, I got threatened with one. I got
35:51
threatened with one by the establishment. The establishment said, “We’re going to come in and primary you.” And then they never did.
35:57
They never did. Never did. And the vast majority of people are like Nick. Well, not in terms of their voting
36:04
record, but in terms of their incumbency record of being able to just coast to re-election every single time.
36:10
Nick is in a you were in a safe seat and you never got a primary challenge. Obviously, you didn’t deserve one. And
36:16
your Democrat challenges were a joke. They were never going to beat you. No. And so the vast majority to give you an idea,
36:22
one year because of my bad paperwork uh kurluffle. I actually had to run as a
36:29
write in as an incumbent. You weren’t even on the ballot. I wasn’t even on the ballot. I had to convince people to know me,
36:36
write my name in, the whole deal. And we have a weird name. and I still won with almost 60% of the vote. So, it
36:43
was a good district. There was only one candidate on the ballot. It was the Democrat. And she lost and she lost.
36:48
Yeah. Yeah. But we only got 38% of the vote. The point here is that the vast majority of members of Congress
36:54
have that same type of advantage where they walk in many times they get elected even their first time without a primary
37:01
challenge or they’ll win a three, fiveway primary and then they will never get challenged ever again and they’re in a safe seat so they’ll never lose. and
37:08
they amass a massive war chest over that period of time, never having to spend it. They pay their dues to the caucus.
37:15
They do, but they never have to spend any money to spend the money. And so, anybody that goes to try to challenge this guy sees
37:22
that he’s got a million dollar war chest or whatever, and there’s no way you’re
37:27
ever going to be able to do that. Well, and now and now we want to give you an example of that. So, this last
37:33
one that we’re going to go into, this was a district that is R + 15. So, it’s
37:38
not like an R plus 20, but R plus 15 is solid. That is a solid red district. You’re not losing that district, barring
37:45
some sort of act of God. It’s moving towards us, and it’s moving more and more conservative. Right now, [clears throat]
37:51
the guy who was in that district took a series of bad votes and then he got a
37:56
really good challenger. He got a really good challenger. And we’re going to talk about what he did to that challenger
38:02
because the challenger is back. And if you are looking for a race to send a message to the Republican leadership
38:10
that we are no longer tolerating this game from people in safe safe red, we have figured it out. We’re no longer
38:16
going to challenge you on the R plus1 districts. That’s fine, Mike Lawler. Do your thing, man. But on these deep red
38:21
districts, you’re not safe anymore. You’re not safe anymore. Christian, take us to Texas 23.
Tony Gonzales in Texas’ 23rd District
38:29
23rd district. There’s the 23rd district. So you’ve got El Paso, which is the liberal part of
38:35
this district. Yeah. It runs from the El Paso suburbs. El Paso suburbs to the San Antonio suburbs. It’s the
38:42
entire stretch of the Rio Grand Valley. Yeah. It’s actually the of all the districts in America, it has the longest border
38:48
with Mexico. So the the the argument before was no no Tony Gonzalez took some of these votes
38:54
because it’s a swing district. Ladies and gentlemen, R plus 15 is not a swing
38:59
district, right? An R plus five is like the limit for a potential swing
39:06
district. And you don’t even lose R plus 5s typically in a typical year. You don’t even use the lose the plus fives.
39:12
It’s really got to be something significant. Let’s go through some of the stuff Tony Gonzalez voted on in an R
39:19
plus15 district. So, he’s got a different track record than some of these other people.
39:24
Yep. uh he voted to establish the January 6th commission which ended up turning into a Democrat propaganda machine.
39:31
Yep. That’s all it was used for. Not to mention the fact that it actually for for the same Democrats that talk about due process for illegal immigrants, they
39:38
certainly didn’t care about due process for American citizens, some of whom just happened to be there that day.
39:44
He voted to at least send 60 billion to Ukraine. It was almost certainly more than that. It’s probably north of 100
39:50
billion. Um he voted to enshrine gay marriage at the federal level. um just like one of the other members that we talked about.
39:57
And the most egregious of all of it is that he voted for federal gun control, federal gun control legislation
40:04
in Texas in Texas in an R plus 15. Not to mention that he said some horrible things about
40:10
Border Patrol. Um I mean, he really went after him. And then somebody looked at
40:16
this and said, “This is ridiculous. How why do we have a Republican in a solid
40:21
Republican district voting for gun control, slamming border patrol? Why do we have them voting for, you know, to
40:28
enshrine gay marriage in the federal in at the federal level? Why do we have them siding with Democrats on all this
40:34
stuff? So, Brandon Herrera stepped [snorts] up to run against him. And this
40:39
dude was terrified. So, what did he do? He dropped what was it? Hundreds of
40:44
thousands of dollars. Oh, it was like over a million. over a million dollars claiming that Brennan Herrera was a KKK member, was a
40:51
neo-Nazi, was an anarchist. Let me ask you something, guys. Doesn’t this remind you of what the left calls us?
40:58
Doesn’t this remind you of what the left was doing? Right. Unfortunately, [clears throat] the video
41:04
is busted here, but here’s the headline from CNN. This was from last year, or this was from 2024 when he was primar.
41:10
Um, Yuvalde, that’s the reason he voted for gun control is that Yuvald is in his district. Yeah. Is navigating a tense
41:16
runoff and plotting to take out right-wing quote anarchists. So, in this like piece and he did some interviews
41:21
obviously with CNN, of course, right? And in this he was saying he he called
41:26
Brandon Herrera he suggested Yeah. that Brendan Herrera was a KKK member. He’s like he’s wearing a white hood. He
41:32
called him a neo-Nazi on the campaign trail. He would send out like mailer because he had so much more money than Brenda.
41:37
Much more money than Brenda. Um he’s a he’s a YouTuber. He’s on the unsubscribe podcast. He’s also kind of got over a
41:42
million subscribers AK guy because he does a lot of he does a lot of like uh like rifle testing and things like that.
41:47
Oh, he’s got an incredible firearms collection. Let’s get to that. So So Brandon Herrera
41:53
has I mean if you’re into stuff related to firearms, you probably already know who he is.
41:58
Yeah. But for those who don’t, Brandon Herrera is a very popular conservative YouTuber
42:03
that’s really into gun culture. He has an incredible firearms collection. Well,
42:09
he’s done videos reviewing and shooting hundreds of firearms at this point from
42:14
all sorts of different eras. Yeah. And so, one of the eras obviously is from World War II. Yeah. And so, Brandon Herrera has all sorts of
42:22
guns from the 40s that you can possibly think of, but that includes guns that the Germans made. So, you know, he’s, you know, he’s
42:29
got like the MG42 and, you know, all sorts of stuff like that. So there’s videos of Brendan Herrera, you know,
42:35
firing these, you know, World War II era machine guns and stuff like that, taking out pumpkins and stuff like that, you
42:41
know, and, you know, he’ll say all these like joking things, you know, oh, we’re taking out the commie pumpkins and stuff
42:48
like that. And well, what Tony Gonzalez would do was is that he would take
42:53
things like those clips and then he would attack Brennan Herrera with more lowinformation voters or or just voters
43:00
who might not have known who Brandon was. And he would suggest in his attack ads
43:06
that Brennan Herrera was a Nazi. Yeah. Because he would be f he would do YouTube videos firing German machine
43:12
guns from World War II. By by by the way, which is kind of funny because most
Brandon Herrera is Challenging Gonzales
43:18
people don’t know this, Tony Gonzalez had a staffer that there was an alleged
43:24
affair with. That staffer later committed suicide by setting herself on
43:29
fire. Like there’s actually in an investigation into this going on with Tony Gonzalez. But you don’t see that
43:36
all over the news. No, no, no. You just see CNN and left-wing news outlets promoting a Rhino Republican because he
43:43
got a primary challenger from a conservative who was tired of his crap.
43:49
Now, this is what I’m telling you. Like, you can have an impact. You can have an
43:54
impact on the way these guys vote even if you don’t win. But Brandon was willing to get back into the fight
44:00
again. And so if if you are if you were look maybe you don’t got this problem in your district, but you’re looking to
44:06
support somebody that is trying to replace a rhino with an actual conservative, you can send money to the
44:12
Texas 23. You can have an impact. You can, if you live close to that district, you can go in there and you can
44:18
volunteer on on Brandon’s campaign. You can have an impact. And and because
44:24
again, I think it’s highly likely Brandon can win this. I I think he has highly likely he wins.
44:30
Can we put a link to him in our uh notes? Yeah,
44:35
Tony Gonzalez. I’m going to just bring up his website. By the way, we weren’t told to do this by Brandon decided to do
44:41
this. I know. So, I talked with I was on Unsubscribe uh podcast with with Brandon. I talked to him uh beforehand.
44:48
Um I I think it’s funny that his name is Brandon. So, his slogan is Let’s Go Brandon. [laughter]
44:53
I love it. Yeah. But it’s it’s funny. But um again, Brandon is just a nononsense guy. He
45:00
doesn’t need this job, right? He is doing just fine in his current occupation. He’s doing this because it
45:06
is insulting to him that the district that he lives in, which is solidly red, which is in Texas, is represented by a
45:12
guy that is trashing the things that we believe in when it’s convenient for him,
45:18
and then trying to destroy the reputation and character of a primary opponent because he can’t run on his
45:24
record, right? Typically, you know what you do? You know what you do if you’ve got a good voting record in your district? You don’t you don’t destroy
45:31
the person running against you. you ignore them and you just run your race. But this guy tried to destroy Brandon.
45:37
When when the guy that Tina ran against, the guy that Tina ran against, 27year incumbent,
45:43
right, and and on the the co-chair of the most powerful committee in the Senate, had to spend $650,000
45:49
to beat Tina and actively encourage Democrats to get out and vote in the primary. That’s what these guys do. But
45:55
you know what? His votes improved significantly for that session. So, if you’re ever wondering, because again, I
46:01
know I know what it’s like to be working incredibly hard. I know what it’s like to be working hard, to be doing all
46:07
these things, and to be, you know, frustrated with whether or not wondering whether or not your efforts mean
46:13
anything. Your efforts in a race helping like a guy like Brandon Herrera would mean something. It would mean something.
46:19
So, Tony Gonzalez got a 77 lifetime score. You said that primaring people can sometimes improve their voting records.
46:26
Tony’s a good now. he still needs to go because you can send a message by defeating him. Remember the whole point
46:32
of this podcast was we talked about I brought up the example of Matt Lowour in in a um you know district that Kamala
46:39
Harris won by one point. Yeah. And and he’s like in one of the most competitive seats in America and he’s saying things that get upset about.
46:46
The way that you shift the Overton window is you take out guys that are in these R + 15 R + 64 seats and you move
46:54
the Overton window that way. These are the type of people that you need to be going after. But even if you lose, you
47:01
might get one or two additional good votes out of somebody that they otherwise would not have cast had you
47:06
never primared them. Yeah. The last thing that I want to bring up on this is um the the whole continuing
The Importance of Primarying RINOs
47:13
resolution and omnibus bills. Like when we were listing off the four bills that like all these people voted for,
47:20
the omnibus and continuing resolution bills are especially egregious because they eliminate leverage. One of the
47:27
things that we have that we have not utilized is leverage, the power of the purse that Congress has. There’s so many
47:34
things that the left needs unlimited infinite spending for in order for them to maintain. There’s so many agencies,
47:40
institutions, centers, NOS’s. We know all about this because of what data republican uncovered last year with her
47:48
um NGO tracker that was receiving federal funds. We also know this from the work that Doge did. When Republicans
47:55
in Congress vote for these multi- trillion dollar, multi,000page omnibus
48:00
bills or continuing resolution bills, they’re removing leverage that we have. We don’t get any concessions out of it.
48:06
We don’t say we’re not going to fund the government until we get a border wall, until we get mass deportations, until we
48:12
get the shutdown and elimination of agencies that are doing nothing but perpetuating leftist ideology, until we
48:18
fire people that are receiving paychecks from our conservative constituents who hate those people and are getting paid
48:25
to promote propaganda against our values and our worldview. We don’t do any of those things and we have the ability to
48:31
do it as long as we control the House of Representatives. And so when when people like all of the other individuals on
48:38
this list in these overwhelming Republican districts are voting for these omnibus bills and continuing
48:44
resolutions with no concessions. Yep. They are funding the left with our tax
48:49
dollars and they’re supposed to be on our side. They’re basically controlled opposition. Mhm.
48:55
Well, they’re the sort of guys because I’ve I’ve had people ask me about because this the same thing happens in the state legislatores. same things
49:02
happen. And all you have to do is go look at their scores. Go look at their lifetime scores. And again, if you want to look at the federal level, Heritage
49:08
Action, um, American Conservative Union has a good scorecard. Uh, they also do state legislature scorecards. And, um,
49:15
so does Club for Growth. They have good state legislature scorecards. Here’s what you do. If you’re wondering who’s who in this whole mix, anybody in like
49:22
an R +15, R+ 20 seat that doesn’t have
49:27
like an 85 or better, that’s someone you need to be picking up
49:33
the phone and calling, right? If they’re like an 82, you can probably you can probably convince them to jump up to an
49:39
85, 87, right? But they’re if they’re down there in the 70s in an R plus 20 district, no, they need to be answering
49:46
some questions for their constituency. That’s all you got to do. Club for Growth, American Conservative Union,
49:52
Heritage Action, those three right there. Go look at their scorecards, right? If they’re not at least if R plus
49:58
20 and not in the 80s, there’s a problem. There’s a problem. Uh because
50:03
they should be the ones pushing the Overton window. How Rogers is not pushing the Overton window? Because a
50:08
lot, and if you’re asking the question, well, why don’t they why if they’re in a safe seat, why don’t they do that? Because they’re always protecting their
50:15
interest. And now what they tell themselves is, “No, I’m protecting my district’s interests.” Okay? But what
50:22
they really mean is when they want a bill to get to make it through appropriations, they’ll sit there and
50:28
they’ll rail about guns. Oh, we’re going to stop those Democrats from taking our guns, but then they never carry any gun
50:33
bills, right? And then what ends up happening is when they want when they
50:38
want to bring Bacon home to their district, the Democrats all like, “We got we got you, Hal. We know you’re one
50:44
of the good ones.” That’s what happens. I’ve seen it at the state legislature.
50:49
Nick and Tina, I want you to look at this comparison because remember this guy is in the district that voted for
50:55
Trump. I, you know, he’s in the seat that Trump got 80 plus% of the vote in.
51:01
And I brought up at the beginning of the podcast, Mike Lawler. Mike Lawler’s in a seat that Camala Harris won by one point.
51:07
Yeah. Lawler has an awful voting record for obvious reasons. Yeah. 57% session score, 57% lifetime
51:15
score, but he’s in a Camala plus one seat in New York. Yeah. And Hal Rogers had a worse score last
51:23
session than a guy in one of the most competitive seats in America. Yeah. A guy who we would have given a
51:29
pass to for his district has a better voting record than a guy in one of the most
51:35
conservative congressional districts in the country. Bring up Scott Perry real quick if you can. I want to illustrate a
51:42
point here. Okay, just give me one second to find him. We’re going to bring up Scott Perry. Scott Perry is in um Pennsylvania.
51:48
I’ll show the district, too, if you want me to. Yeah. Um anyway,
51:53
so this is what we’re talking about. Like if you really want to achieve like some like significant change, these are
52:00
the sort of things that we actually need to look at. Here’s Scott Perry. Scott Perry won, I think, his seat by what,
Rewarding Champions like Scott Perry
52:06
less than 2%. Um uh give me one second and I’ll
52:11
it it was very close. It was like one or two points. Scott Perry won a seat by like less than
52:17
two points. They they redistricted him to try to get rid of him, I think. Yeah, I’ll show I’ll show you his district. Um
52:22
91% lifetime score. And like I said, sometimes these bills where they catch you on one here or there, it it could be
52:29
something where there’s like a really really nuanced philosophical position as opposed to something truly substantive.
52:36
Scott Perry has been there for us on every single hardcore substantive bill
52:41
we need. 91% 89% in a district he is barely hanging on to. He held on to his seat by 1.2%.
52:49
1.2%. And we can rely on this guy. Again, I said if they’re in the 80s and the 90s, they’re they’re good because
52:55
there’s always some nuance. There’s always some district stuff. I get it. So, remember Pennsylvania here?
53:01
Um uh remember this guy Mike Kelly with a 49. again 49%.
53:07
You know, he represents a a Trump plus 23 district. Scott Perry is the 10th district. Let me bring that up for you.
53:14
Here’s the 10th district is Harrisburg, which is the capital. And you know, [clears throat] Trump won this seat by, you know, like
53:21
less than five points basically. Yeah. So, barely hanging barely hanging on to that one. You better believe Democrats are going
53:27
to priority. Scott is solid. This is the other thing I wanted to mention. This is the other thing I wanted to mention that’s
53:33
important. This entire episode has been holding bad actors accountable. But there’s another side of this equation
53:39
that is so incredibly important. Reward the good actors. Because if if you’re if
53:45
you’re willing to say, “See, Nick, this just proves they’re all alike.” Not freaking Scott Perry.
53:51
Scott Perry’s nothing like these other guys. He’s got a much harder race and he fights it. And when he wins, he doesn’t
53:57
go down there and start to become a squish. He’s the guy we can depend on. You need to reward your Scott Perry’s,
54:04
right? If you’re looking for RA, what are the Nick? What are the races that I help with? What are the races I can contribute to? If you’re in a good one,
54:11
you go with the Tony Gonzalez’s, you help the Brandon Herreras. With the Scott Perry’s, you help the Scott
54:16
Perry’s, right? With the Scott Perry’s, you help the incumbent. You do what you need. You do because here’s the other
54:22
thing that’s so important about this, right? You tell the bad actors in the safe districts, you’re gone.
54:29
And and again, we already said, look, you give a little bit of a pass to the guys in the dangerous districts. Scott
54:36
Perry is in a dangerous district doing all the right things. If we’re not
54:41
rewarding that guy, if you don’t reward Scott Perry, here’s what everyone else
54:46
learns. See, see, it doesn’t matter. Scott did everything you wanted and you
54:52
didn’t come out and help him. Scott did everything that you said you wanted out of a legislature and you didn’t send him the money. You didn’t knock the doors.
54:58
You didn’t make the phone calls. You didn’t help the guy. And now he’s gone. So, I’m not going to make Scott Perry’s
55:04
mistake. I’m going to hedge my bets. I’m going to vote bad on some of these other issues over here.
55:11
So, it is equally important to reward the good guys as it is to punish the bad ones because I I have seen it, guys. I
55:19
have seen it. I have seen it where somebody took the hard votes, did what they should have done, lost their race,
55:26
and then I’ve watched as people have gone in and they’ve taken the new guys and they’ve said, “Look, don’t be like
55:31
that guy. Don’t be the guy that carries those bills. Don’t be the guy that takes those hard boats. You know, you need you
55:37
need to sit this one out. You need to carry the bills we’re telling you to carry because we’ll protect you.” Right?
55:42
All those conservative grassroots that said they had that guy’s back, they didn’t have it, but we’ll have your back. And that’s how you get people that
55:49
are in there for 20 years in deep red districts doing whatever they’re told. So punish the guys that deserve to need
55:56
that deserve to be punished, but do not forget to reward the guys that deserve to be rewarded, that deserve to be
56:02
praised. And that’s why it’s so important. That’s why I wanted to bring Scott Perry up here because he’s a perfect example of a guy that continues
56:07
to do the right thing no matter how difficult it gets. And if you don’t reward that guy with victories, it’s not
56:13
just that you lose Scott Perry, you lose all the other guys that are saying it’s not worth it. It’s not worth it. So
We Need To Clean House
56:21
go support Brennan Herrera. Go support Scott Perry and all those other districts that we mentioned, right?
56:27
Maybe start looking for some primary challengers. Maybe start looking for some people that are going to get up there and say, “If you don’t vote the
56:32
right way, we will hold you accountable.” You better raise that 67% lifetime score. You better raise that
56:38
57% lifetime score in your R plus40 district, in your R plus 20 district.
56:44
That’s what we expect out of you. And we don’t want to hear any excuses. No excuses. No. Oh, I looked him in the
56:50
eyes and he seems like a good man or you know what, we went to high school together. Great. You can like him all day long. You can go grab a drink with
56:56
the guy. You can you can think he runs a good business. You can like his dog. But when he shows up to DC, he’s got to vote
57:01
the way he’s supposed to vote. She’s got to vote the way she’s supposed to vote. And if they don’t, replace them with
57:07
someone who will. Don’t pick on the guys in the R plus 2 and 3. Pick on the guys in the R plus 15, R plus 20, R plus 40.
57:14
Pick on those guys. They deserve it. Because guess what? By focusing your attention there, they’re getting the
57:20
message because they’re more likely to vote better. Even if they you they don’t even if you don’t win, they’re more likely to vote better. You’re not
57:27
risking losing the majority because you’re not going after the one our post. You’re not going after the Mike Lawler,
57:33
right? This is where you can have the most impact. And it usually takes the least amount of time and the least amount of money.
57:40
So that’s where we pick up that’s where we pick up genuine conservatives and that’s where you send a message to leadership. How great would it be if the
57:46
next time somebody walks in to tell Hal Rogers, “Hey, we really need you to kind of vote this way.” He goes, “Not on your
57:52
life. Are you kidding me? I’ve got a primary challenger and they’re holding up the last four votes I took for you.
57:58
I’m not doing it again. Go ask somebody else.” That’s what you want. This is how to get
58:03
it. Also, a couple organizations you should look at. We already gave you three to look at with respect to, you know, scoring. Heritage Action, Club for
58:10
Growth, American Conservative Union. Another group that you want to look at, and full disclosure, I work for these
58:17
guys. Christian does work for these guys. Citizens Alliance of America. Citizens Alliance is an outstanding
58:23
organization. They’re the ones that ran the PA chase. So, that was the one where they recognized that they that they had
58:29
to win Pennsylvania in order to get Donald Trump elected. And everybody thought, “No, no, no. We got to win
58:34
Wisconsin or we got to win Arizona or we got to win in these other swing states.” But Pennsylvania is just too tough.
58:40
Citizens Alliance went in there and made the difference. They’re the reason why Pennsylvania swung to Donald Trump. They
58:46
also do work in a lot of other states. So, go check out Citizens Alliance. They’re a great one. If you want to do
58:51
volunteer work, you can work with them. If you want to do other work, you can work, you know, you can donate, whatever it is. But they’re a great one. They’re
58:58
a great one to go to. Um, so anyways, those are those are the ones. Citizens
59:04
all there any other group you want to recommend? I think Citizens Alliance is good. No, I think that’s pretty good. At some
59:10
point, you’ll have to bring Cliff back on. Yeah, we are. We’re going to bring Cliff Maloney back on to talk about all this. Okay,
59:17
that is all the time we have for today. Thank you very much for joining us. Make sure to go check out uh those sites that
59:23
we told you. Start identifying. We gave you five here. We gave you six here, I think. start identifying some other
59:28
ones. Once again, thank you very much for joining us and we’ll see you next time. By the way, one more thing real quick, real quick. Valentine’s Day
59:34
merch. Scan the QR code. We got some great stuff coming in. If you order by February 1, it can get to your loved one
59:39
on time. Once again, thank you for joining us. We’ll see you next episode.
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