Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 81 - Dan Crenshaw

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

Dan Crenshaw is the freshman Republican Congressman from the 2nd District of Texas.  Prior to his political career, he served as a United States Navy SEAL for 10 years.  On his 3rd combat deployment, he was injured by an IED (improvised explosive device) which cost him his right eye and left him with substantial damage to his left.  He was medically retired due to his injuries, and shortly thereafter began his career in politics.  https://crenshawforcongress.com/      

Ladies and gentlemen, let's get going on today's episode. Episode number 81 is brought to you by Onit. If you're a listener to the podcast, you'll know that Onit is a strength and conditioning organization, a health and wellness optimization organization, and right now, they are having their semi-annual sale. Starting a week ago, about a week ago, I should say. April 22nd, Onit is delivering the deepest discounts that you will see until Black Friday. on all your favorite products.

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band's you know got a pretty much a badass resume he served in the united states navy as a seal he and i actually met and i won't get too deep into it because we talk about it in the podcast but i was a buds instructor he was a buds student he successfully made it through the training and continued on to an operational career in the seal teams where he was injured by an iED in 2012 lost his right eye in that iED strike and after that began a successful career in politics. And he is three months into his first term, like I said, serving as the Republican congressman from the second district here in Texas.

And I had the opportunity to sit down with him in his hometown of Houston chatted about, man, quite a bit, everything from his military career, why he chose to serve, everything leading up until his injury, his recovery from the injury, the decision to enter politics, how he feels about his life in the spotlight after his decision to in fact run for the vacating seat in Congress what he thinks is working, what he thinks isn't working. It was a pretty awesome conversation. I hadn't seen him in years, six years, I believe,

and it was great to finally reconnect, sit back down with him, and explore some of the ideas and principles that he is moving forward with in his life. So, without me talking anymore, clear it hot, episode number 81 with the newly minted congressman from the second district of Texas, Daniel Crenshaw. The red smoke. Okay, copy.

Where's the smoke? I'm looking at danger close now. Come on one minute. Can't be clear hot. Okay. All right. Everything you say from here on out, how does the NCS investigation start? I've got to go back.

Hold on. Can be held against you or... Yeah, something like that. I have a politician now, so I am well aware of how this works. Yeah. are a politician now, which we will get into how baffling that is to me. But let's go way back, right? So we have to? Are you sure? Well, we got to go back a little bit. Um, because we probably should explain to people how we know each other, which is through the Navy. But before we even get

to that, um, I was a bit of a mentor to you, if, if you recall. You can paraphras, you know, describe it to our view like, we'll get to the actual details. Uh, no, it is funny how long we've known each other and the, uh, the path that our, uh, I don't know, our journeys each took us, but why the Navy? Why did you decide to join the Navy? Or actually, what were you doing up to that point? Talk me through where we actually met. Yeah.

Well, how did I even get there? How did I get to second phase? Or why even? Because post-9-11. Yeah. Well, 9-11 had nothing to do with me joining the military. So that 9-11 occurred. September 11th?

Well, I'm thinking back to what grade I was in. So I just started my senior year. And so I was heavily, I'd already decided years, years and years before that, that I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. So it didn't affect that decision one way or the other. I knew since I wanted to be, I knew I wanted to be a SEAL since I was 11, too. And that's a pretty normal story in the SEAL teams. For us, it's normal for other people when I travel around and talk to them. They're like, how could you possibly have known?

And my answer to that is I have absolutely no idea. But it was one of the most common narratives inside of the community that I've ever been exposed to. It is. And here's why. because you can't make it through that training unless you've always wanted it, unless you never had a choice, right? And so we decided early on in life that we would not have a choice that we would make it through that, no matter how mean our instructors were to us, and I'm motioning to you for those who are just listening.

Which you shouldn't, because it was nice. You're a hugger, as we would call you. But it's difficult, it's difficult to make it through Hellweek if you believe that, that you're there to try it out. You know, if you're, if you're just trying to see if you can make it. No, you already know you can make it prior. You're just, and you're willing to die to get there. And that's why, you know, and frankly, it takes some time to build up that mental capacity.

And I think that's why those of us who wanted it from an early age, we make it through. And that's why that story is so common. So, I just- Did you have people quit on the first day in your class? Of course. Yeah. So thinking about everything that you just said, because this is something that baffled me. And, um, when I described it,

people the ability to see both sides of the coin going back and being an instructor having been a student wildly different experiences one is much more enjoyable than the other it's probably the most memorable thing but you as a student you were aware that people were quitting but you weren't really aware how many the velocity and the volume because you're continuing on the evolution as a second phase instructor and going and watching like the first day just like you described like if you showed up at buds and were there by accident, you have made so many mistakes along the way. You had to volunteer and sign paperwork, and you would think that everybody would have that same mindset. No idea what you were getting into.

But 15 minutes into the first evolution, the first phase, almost every class, the bell starts ringing. So I wonder about those people. Like, what was their particular headspace? You should have them on a podcast. I can't find any of them. Yeah. Well, and I'm sure some are listening. And, you know, they've all got their own reasons and I don't like to judge. But it was just, it's a simple mental preparation. You didn't, there's no way that you went there knowing what you were getting into. But, so I was similar. I don't remember exactly what age I was, but it was probably around 11 or 12. And, you know, I read Dick Marcinko's book, Rogue Warrior. Did you make the mistake that I did and think that that belonged in the nonfiction section? I wasn't sure. I didn't care. I just knew it was cool, right? I'll give you that point for sure.

It was, it was cool, right? And then you start at an early age, you kind of, you, you start, this sort of archetype of what you want to become and this this you know and i think i think all of our our reasoning for wanting to join the sealed teams at an early age it starts off with this sense of adventure and this desire to go into combat and and and be a warrior and all that and i think it evolves over time into more a sense of duty and patriotism as we get older and mature more but that's what it was um you know and once i was hooked i was hooked and then every decision i made was was was geared towards that goal. I did ROTC.

I graduated. I was commissioned. I spent that entire four years in college, trying to get into buds. I succeeded in that. Why did you go the college route versus enlisting right out of high school? Well, maybe just the way I grew up.

I wanted to go to college. And I also wanted to lead, right? I was enamored by the idea of leading men into battle. Of course, it's not until you get to the SEAL teams. You realize the chiefs do a lot of the leading. as well. So whether you're enlisted or an officer, there's plenty of leadership opportunities. And your first day on the job, there's not much expected of you, even if you are in a leadership

position, so you're going to be okay. Right, right, as a junior officer. But that being said, when it came to deployment, even my second deployment, I was running operations. I mean, I was still in charge. So I could certainly say that I was leading men into battle a lot earlier than I would have been if I had been enlisted. Oh, by your second employment? Yeah, you would have been. Well, because I was the OIC. I was, and I wasn't supposed to be the OIC.

I ended up being the OIC. I'm familiar with that playing out. That's right. You had something to do with that. I, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah, you were deeply involved in that. We needed to make a roster shift.

Right, right. So everybody listening understands, my platoon commander had to relieve another platoon commander, and then I became the platoon commander in Ramadi, Iraq. And I may or may not have been responsible for that other platoon commander no longer being a platoon commander. I forgot that you had a lot to do with that. And so, I mean, when it ended up being, though, is a great leadership experience for me a little bit earlier in my career than I would have normally gotten. And that's why I joined, right?

And I wanted to do right by the guys I was leading, get them the right missions, and do right by the mission that our country had said we were going to do. And I think we did that. Then unfortunately, we left Iraq right after that deployment, and then everything went to hell. But that's why I got into politics to make sure we don't make those kind of dumb decisions anymore. You guys were shutting down the SOTIF. Yeah. Okay.

So we're talking, we're back in 2010. Yeah. Was that your, that was your second deployment? That was my second deployment. Okay, because we first met, I was a Bud's instructor from OS. Okay, so that explains. Okay. So I was still a Bud's instructor when you graduated training, moved on.

and did your first deployment. Okay. And then we reconnected back at Team 3. All right. That makes sense to me. Yep. Good old class 264. Wow.

You remember the class number? Yeah. I wasn't sure you would. Do you not remember the watch that I got in an incredible amount of trouble for that has 264 in Grado? Yeah. I do remember that. Remember that. Oh, geez.

Oh, yes. That was a good time. So you were our proctor. Yep. And maybe you should explain to people. what that means. What does it mean? I think on paper it's just the official interface between the class. Right. You're like our liaison between the instructors and the class. That's probably the best word. We see you the most and you give us your disappointed face the most. You guys disappointed me most often.

Did we? Yes. We always wonder about that. This is the big game of being a student and buds is the instructors are always disappointed in you. And since I've never been an instructor, I never got to see how we laughed. I know. Trust me. I know. I mean, it's so much fun. But like the funny game that students have to play is, are they really mad at us? Are they just joking? Is this part of the game? We don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's this, it's this, they're always screwing with your head. I would like to think I was pretty transparent. Really? I mean, like one out. I don't know if I'm, you're legitimately disappointed in us. Yeah, your guys class sucks sometimes. That's fair. Mostly from the top, it started at the top and just worked its way down.

You did like our class leadership, yeah. Yeah, which was you. It was not me. Not at first. No, no, no, no, no. I took over after you got rid of our class leadership. There's starting to see a pattern here in my career, right? Did he fail pull comp?

Yeah. Was I responsible for that? Probably more than likely. Yeah, I had a hand in that, I think. Did I administer pull comp to you? No, you didn't. I had drogo. You probably had a harder test than I was giving.

administer then? Not really. I had an interesting pool. I think he was fair. Yeah. I think he was fair. I would say my test was incredibly fair, but it was incredibly difficult. I passed few people, but everybody got exactly the same test.

And bottom line is, when you failed, I pulled you up and you failed. And when you passed, you passed. But you weren't going to get gifted. I don't like pool comp. I don't like pool comp either. It's one of my least favorite evolutions. It took me three tries. I would go through Hell Week again.

Well, that's ridiculous. Is it? Yeah, seven days versus a maximum of 20 minutes. I don't think it was. a maximum of 20 minutes. Listen, on paper, it's a maximum of 20 minutes. Maybe that's an overstatement to say that I would go through Hellweek again. I did get to pretend instructor once and run with Hellweek for just like a, maybe an hour.

And this was Wednesday. And that's when you really get a feel for how much these guys are getting beaten into the ground. And it's Wednesday. So Hell Week starts on Sunday. And this is Wednesday. I mean, they've run maybe 100 miles by this point, maybe more. actually because I'm sorry you know I think the estimate is maybe 200 miles throughout the entire week I've heard that estimate before well if they're still using the old chow hall back in those days I mean that's

that's three miles round trip so I mean you're doing 10 a day just for food plus in hell week you're probably running there for midrats so I mean that's but even if they don't use the old chow hall they're still making that distance happen and this is what I've noticed as I've kept an eye on it so to speak Jesus man I'm that week I got to get down there in Secura Hellweek. That'd be fun. But it was Wednesday, and these guys were running. I mean, we were running with them, you know, and they haven't slept for, you know, since Sunday.

It's impressive. Now, after Wednesdays, you know, it dwindles down a little bit, but it's that we are still driving these guys right into the ground. It's still, it is still a trial by fire. I'm proud to say. It is. And again, one of the, I actually find the most rewarding billet that I held was as a both instructor. When I look back on my career, I actually, I look back on that one, the fondest because of being able to see you behind the curtain. Because when I went through as a student, it was the same

thing. I'm like, why is this guy yelling at me? I just repeated the same behavior that I did yesterday, and he was very happy. He was fine with it. Not only was he fine with it. I got like a pseudo, like three-quarters thumbs up. So I'm like, okay, I need to do this behavior. Now I'm getting smashed. What's going on? And Hellweek was another interesting one, because you're a zombie, as you know, going through it. Yeah. And the instructors are required to augment the shifts. And it's funny to see the pace,

velocity, and aggression that you start with. And then it peaks at about Tuesday and then it has to shallow off, even though the students don't know it because they're fried. Right. But otherwise you'll kill them.

Yeah. Because they're exhausted. They're awake for so long. Yeah. Our body is swollen completely. I mean, it's, it's an interesting physiological experiment. Yeah.

To take on people. It's, it really is. And you watch injuries that you previously had in a sense go. They'll either get worse and you'll break. So that happened to me. I was in class 261 initially. I fractured my tibia in the middle of hell week.

And then I had to restart it. And then that injury didn't really get. It was still bothering me in 264, but then it just went away. So it'll either get worse and break you or it'll heal itself. And I'm not the only person. I'm not the only person who have told this story. This is a fairly normal thing that happens. is there's something that almost resets inside your body and it's inexplicable.

I really don't know what it is. That whole week is a, you know, more people should try that out. I don't know if they have the facilities and staff for have more people try that out. Now, maybe you should start a company. I'm going to pass on that too because there's enough facilities and staff. You have people who are already doing that for a profit. I think you'd get a lot of demand signal out there for people to go through your hell week. You know, I actually think a lot of people would pay for it,

but I just have no desire to try to, what would be the word, modify that for a civilian market because... Some people have tried, I've seen it. Some people have tried and seen it. To truly give them the full experience, you would probably net a prison sentence at the end of that for what you would do. I think so. Yeah, people are not prepared.

Again, it's not something you can just go decide to do. And USAAA is probably not going to ensure or have a policy for that evolution. So I'm going to take a pass. Plus, I think what I have seen at least in my time post-military, that the vast majority of the lessons learned, you don't have to go through that difficult of an evolution. And you can, if you can connect the dots in between the ears for people, you can get to a lot of the lessons learned without having to actually do anything physical.

If you can kind of change their perspective and awaken a different thought process, you can get them there. That's the right. And that gets to a deeper point about how do you build mental toughness and resilience? And a lesson I tell people a lot is just do something really hard. hard. Yeah. But do something hard for you. It doesn't have to be what I perceive to be hard. It doesn't have to be hell week. It has to be hard for you. It has to push your limits in some way. And there will be this awakening that I think occurs. And you start to believe because of that, well, when you gain

confidence, and then you start to believe that you can handle more adversity. So it's, there's, there is a deeper process to why we do hell week. I mean, I look back at my life, the things that were the most difficult for me to achieve have the most value. Of course. You know, hell week being one of them, making it into the community that I wanted to be in since I was barely double digits in age to having kids. You know, I mean, that's not easy.

Yeah. I have three kids now, one of which wants to learn how to drive. Like, dude, you can learn when you're 30. Get out of here. You know, what's this?

You're almost 16. No, you're not. You're 12. Get out. I didn't realize your kids are that old. I got a kid in high school, man. How old are you? I'm old enough.

Come on. Inside 87. My driver's license says I'm 41. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

My body doesn't feel awesome most days that I wake up. But I mean, I had kids pretty young, though, too. I mean, when we met, I already had, yeah, I'd already had all three of my kids at the time that we met. Or I was just getting ready to have my daughter. Wow. Because I picked up, yeah, my commission. I think I got my notification that I was going to get commissioned when your class

was going through second phase. Right. So what about post buds? Where'd you go? So, yeah. So we met in second phase of, of course. I got through that.

Went through third phase. And post-buzz I went to Steel Team 3. Went to Fallujah, my first deployment in Iraq, and second deployment we talked about a little bit, also Iraq. And third deployment, still was Still Team 3, although I was technically attached to SA1. But for the purpose of this podcast,

it was still Team 3. I was back with my little platoon in Afghanistan. And this is where my life sort of diverged. of course about six, seven months into that deployment. This was maybe a nine-month deployment that we were doing. Where were you guys? We were operating out of Kandahar. So we were.

Down south. Yeah, we were at Kandahar Airfield. We were partnered with the Afghan commando units. And so we would do missions throughout the entire province. And the southern part of that province leading into Helmand to the west was heavily, The main threat there is IEDs. I mean, they're everywhere. They're not just on pathways or doorways or where you would think they would be.

They're just everywhere. It's a very randomized placement system that they have. Isn't it also the most heavily mined country on Earth as well? I mean, it's got it with older, like older Soviet mind. Yeah, just everything that's left over. I'm sure it is. I don't know that we really found a lot of those. It's mostly what's scared.

And if we did, I don't think they would work. I never found a single one, but I thought about it on every. single step that I took. What we were thinking about was the ones, you know, these, uh, that these Taliban created, which are really rudimentary. They're, they're just a plywood and wrapped in maybe some wire. Maybe. I mean, they might even figure, they had some other ways of getting metal out of them completely and still be able to detonate. And, um, I mean, they're, they're cheap. They're easy to make and they're devastating, you know, and, uh, we, we, we already had a few of our guys get blown up on, on the, the, the Afghans get blown up.

they would usually lose both legs. We're talking about 10 to 15 pounds of explosives. Were they putting it on artillery shells or just HME? It was like a fertilizer base that they would just pack in there. So yeah, HME. Which stands for homemade explosive. Yep. You're wondering what the hell we're talking about.

We make it sound really official, but it just means some people got together and made some stuff. Think of a Home Depot project. Yeah, but a really dangerous. one and using fertilizer that would it would basically be illegal here. Probably. So the, so on this particular day where I got hurt, we were responding to a troops in contact that some Marine Special Operations guys were in out in Helmand just over the border from Kanahar.

So we obviously, this is not a place we would normally operate, but the siege of soda, the higher echelons of command warrant just go out there and relieve them. And there's all sorts of reasons behind that. But we would always insert into the early morning. We always wanted to arrive at night, hole up somewhere, and then we would start moving throughout the day. It's a good way to do things because it doesn't, it ensures that the enemy doesn't arm the IEDs. They can't keep them armed all the time. So that's the one benefit we have.

If they keep them armed all the time, the batteries run out and they're useless. So there's a way to move around where we can avoid that. Now, the problem in this case was people had been there for a few days already, so these things were already armed. This wasn't like we were coming in on a new operation. And as we moved to a certain compound, we hadn't been perfectly cleared yet. I was actually with my EOD guy as they were clearing it, but the place was flooded. It wasn't well executed. Let's just say that.

And one of my Afghan interpreters was responding to a call, and he stepped on it right. right in front of me. So maybe the distance you and I are sitting at right now was probably the distance we were at, you know, just a couple feet. And he, he, it was, it was a large enough explosion. It took both his arms and both his legs right away. And, um, and that, that might have been a factor of how big it was, but also how much metal and hard rock was packed into it. This was very hard grounds. It was not soft dirt the way it sometimes is. So, so everything turned into shrapnel, essentially. Yeah. I mean, I had a bolt in my hand that, They removed, like, you know, a couple weeks later.

So, I mean, just to give you an idea, and the things that came into my eyes were wires and shrapnel, a metal type, and those things continued to come out of my body over time. But so that happened, and it didn't knock me unconscious. I sort of, it kind of feels like a truck hits you, but there's also a bunch of guys in the truck shooting you with a shotgun and pouring tobacco sauce all over your body.

Like that, so that's sort of what getting blown up feels like. Did you hear it, or was it so loud that it was overwhelmed your ears? It's just like a shock. So I would say, yes, I certainly heard it and you're knocked down. It just feels like you got punched really, really hard, but in the way that I just described. So it's just a big shock, right? And you're not sure what happened. My immediate reaction was, feel my legs, because I want to see.

You go into immediate, like, battle damage assessment mode. Fingers and toes, right-wind. Yeah, like, what's happening. And it's a big relief to see your legs still there. Because there's a ton of pain down there. My, you know, my eyes and my permanent damage. But the blast really rocked my knees and up. So knees down, there's really nothing.

There's no shrapnel wounds because, well, just the angle of the blast, right? Do you say so it was buried? So it was angling up at you, essentially? Yes. Yes. Because it was, again, it was like about this distance. that angle started at my knees. So I had the heaviest,

the heaviest wounds would probably be from the knees up to the torso area. And then, oh, then my face looked like I got hit in the face with a shotgun. That's what it looked like even a week later in the one picture I do have. So it wasn't good. It was, it was a painful experience, I guess.

But it was interesting about it. It wasn't painful for my eyes. I just assumed this entire time that I had dirted my eyes. Could you still see a little bit? No. No. It's interesting because I have memories of seeing, but I don't... You don't think you had the ability to see?

I was not actually seeing. Huh. And I was able to eventually kind of get up and walk away from it. Not like, not just walk off into the distance. Okay, just that's not what happened. That you couldn't see. Walk to the MetaVac helicopter when it did come about 45 minutes later. And, you know, this, by the way, this idea that there was nothing wrong with my eyes

that I would just see again. This just persisted for a while, actually, to my benefit because it kept me sane. I think the worst thing in the world is to worry when you're already in a terrible condition. Adding anxiety on top of that would have been pretty insufferable. And hard to say why I believe that. Who knows, who cares? Divine intervention, call it God's strength working through you. I don't know.

But it worked, and it kept me somewhat more. sane. So I woke up about five days later because as soon as I got on in the Metavac, they, uh, they, they knocked me out. Um, I was in bad enough condition that they, they didn't want me awake anymore. And I didn't wake up until I was in Germany. So they moved me a couple times around in Afghanistan and, uh, that's when they were inucleated, which means removed my right eye. Um, it's, uh, you know, because they, they deemed that unsavable at that point. And they were hoping that they could save my left eye. And the way to better do that is actually remove one of your eyes. Um, it's, uh, you know, uh, because they'd be able to save my left eye.

eyes so that your body isn't trying to save that, isn't trying to heal that eye. That's the... So it focuses all of its healing energy, for lack of a better word, or time and effort on that. Right. Your body will keep trying to heal both if it's there. If you remove it, the idea is that it's not putting resources towards that. That's the explanation I heard. So you got on a helicopter, you walked yourself to a helicopter, had two eyes in Afghanistan.

Yeah. And then did you have any sensation of time passing or you just woke up and then you had one and you were in Germany. Correct. Jesus. So, yeah. That's going to be a little bit unsettling, I can imagine. It wasn't that surprising, I guess.

I don't know. It's hard to put myself back in that mindset. I mean, I knew something bad had happened. So it wasn't like I woke up and they told me that and I had this big reaction. I mean, this is always my surprised face. Yeah. On all situations, whether I'm happy or sad. It's the face you're looking at now.

That's generally. Fair enough. So I kind of take most things, most news that I get, I take it. And I'm just like, okay, it's internalize that and then go from there. I can trace that. And most team guys, I think, are like that. And you can trace that back to maybe pool comp. Pool comp is where even before.

Yeah, but pool comp is a place where you really learn to internalize emotion. and just get that next procedure done because you can't breathe and you need to get it done so that you can breathe. When I try to explain to people what pool comp is, and I tell them that it's a diving test that has nothing to do with diving. Yeah, well, that's true. They sit there and they go, what are you talking about? It's underwater, right?

You're wearing diving gear. I'm like, yes, that is how the evolution is executed, but it's about being able to control your emotions and follow a procedure regardless of what your body is telling you to do. Right. That's what it is. It's, you know, and you can, you can trace all these lessons back to an old adage, which is like count to 10.

You know, count to 10, calm yourself down, count to 10, and get something done. You know, things your grandma taught you. So we're back in Germany. The other issue I was having was I was hallucinating constantly. So maybe this is why that I thought, I thought that I could see. No, it was, your optic nerve still fires.

So it's kind of like phantom pain. And when you go blind, and suddenly there's still an optic nerve trying to figure something out. So what I was seeing was Afghanistan. I would know where I was. I was not delirious in any way. I knew I was in Germany. I had some friends come up and actually travel with me

so that I wasn't alone during that whole time. And I would know they're next to me, but I would see them as an Afghan like villager. I would see our piles of weapons as if we were still on a mission, like, you know, when we were just putting our guns over there or something. I would see mud huts and mud walls around us. It's just what I would see all the time for days.

So this eventually becomes pretty problematic. It becomes pretty awful because... Yeah, how do you navigate your way through that? You just do? Because you don't have a choice. At a certain point, it's like, well, I could just complain about it and lose my mind or, you know... So you're essentially in an IMAX movie, a 3D, IMAX movie and you can't get out of the seat.

You can't. And it's really awful when you're, when you do fall asleep for just because I wasn't sleeping much, I was in, I was in a ton of pain. My body was very swollen at this time. There was no way I could get up and walk anymore. You know, I got up and walked after the blast because your adrenaline is still going and you just have to do what you have to do. You're not going to have guys carry you because they'll never let you forget that. This is an accurate point. Yeah. And so, um, but my body was really messed up by like, I mean, I couldn't move for days in a hospital bed. So, yeah, I don't know.

You just deal with it. I mean, I always had somebody to talk to, I think. And, you know, we could, we could dull the pain with medication. And it was just a conversation about when I could get back to the Bethesda to do the surgery, that would hopefully save my left eye. And so that was my big host. So that's what I held on to, right? I'm looking forward to getting my eye fixed.

Did you have vision at all in your left eye at this point? No. It was completely blind because there was a cataract in my left eye. So if they did open up the patch over it and they shined a light in it, what I would see was like a cloud. I would see like an interesting, almost heavenly like cloud, and that's just kind of what you see if you have a cataract. So the blast gave me a cataract, a trauma-induced cataract,

which means the lens that's in the middle of your eye got shot out. That's what that means. And so obviously, and of course, along with that, there's damage to my cornea. There's damage to my iris, which still exists. Like my iris can't close and open the way yours can. I'm very sensitive to the light. And there was damage to my retina as well, which they would find later, and which would require this whole other set of surgeries that would have,

that almost made me go blind again. So the miracle that happened is I did eventually get to Bethesda. We did this surgery. somebody finally asked why I was hallucinating so much and gave me a shot of medication. This is before I even had the surgery. So, I mean, I was blind for a long time. This is weeks. And they finally gave me some, basically an anxiety medicine that would make it go black.

Because I would dream and then wake up in that dream and be unable to escape it. It's you're literally living in a nightmare. Dude. It's not cool. It eventually gets old. No, that doesn't sound cool. It eventually gets old. And eventually a nurse was like, how long has this been going on?

And we're like the whole time. Seven to ten weeks. Yeah. No, it's just, it wasn't great. How long was it? But we got over that. Okay, hold on. How long were you experiencing these hallucinations before you said something to anybody?

Well, I just, I don't know, frankly. It's hard to. I was hoping you're going to say like 10 weeks, but I just ate it for 10 weeks. I would definitely say it to like my friends, you know, Like, everybody around me knew, but, you know, I would, you know, realistically, this, this maybe went on for a week or two. That's a really long time to live in a movie. It's horrible. Yeah, it's not great.

Like I said, it's not great. And when they finally gave me the, I think it was out of van, I continued to loosen it pretty heavily, but I saw Christmas. I was actually seeing Christmas, like a Christmas elf world for like three hours, and then it went black. I promise you this is true. I believe you. I'm just thinking of my head I would have snapped long before this ever happened. Yeah. Yeah.

Let me just don't have a choice. It goes back to choice. I mean, you could, you can choose to, to react in a way that isn't helpful or you can choose not to. And the reality is that you probably would have chosen to react the same way I did because you don't have a choice.

Yeah. And you've been shot. You've been through hard moments as well. And you can choose to react in a, in a unproductive way, but I don't really see the, point in that. It's unproductive. It's unproductive. So, so that happened. They did the surgery. They were happy with it. That was very exciting. We had some hope. They definitely didn't think I'd see as well as I do now.

So I mean, I'm correctable at least right now. So I'm wearing a contact that you can see me now and it corrects distance pretty well. I can't see up close. I've got to work seeing glasses. What's your vision now? Correctible. Well, correctable, it's almost 2020. That's awesome. It's like a, practically 2020. You know, it's pretty good. Like, I mean, I can sort of read a license plate out there. Not bad. Yeah.

You know, it's practically 2020. It's, it's, it's truly correctable. Now, I've got a lot of blind spots. My retina has damage. They found another problem that almost made me go blind again with a retinal degeneration. And you have to do a pretty invasive surgery to make that stop. Please tell me you're not awake for that.

Oh, you're definitely not awake. But. Because I had PRK and you're definitely. awake for that. And let's not, I am not comparing what PRK is that I had. Oh, please tell me about your eye problems, Andy. How hard was it? You don't understand. I don't. I was in that place for 30 minutes. 30 minutes. And your eyes were sore afterwards. You had to, well, they were also itchy. They were itchy. They were so bad. I can't even imagine. Actually, I can't because I've had PRK. Yeah. I had perfect vision before I got blown up. Yeah. No, my point, my point being is that you had no

choice but to watch what they were doing. And I would have much preferred to not participate in that particular activity. No, because this is far more invasive than PRK. PRK is they kind of hold your eye open and then they laser it. Yeah. And it literally takes like nine seconds. Yeah. That's amazing.

It goes, da, da, da, da, da, da, and you're like, okay, next die. The miracle of the world we live in. So, no, this one, what they have to do, and I can, I'll try and explain this very quickly because we don't want to do this entire show, I'm sure, on my injuries. But we get six hours left. You're good. Great. Just kidding.

when your retina is degenerating there's a hole in it it will continue to expand and so the way to make this stop is they remove a membrane on the back of your retina because that membrane causes tension and it allows that hole to keep expanding so all they have to do is take off the membrane

they figured this out some time ago there's actually pretty normal surgery in older folks and it's not that it's not that risky for them it's highly risky for me because my eye was so weak and damaged in the first place. And it's like, man, we just don't want to do another invasive surgery on this guy's eye. But the question was, okay, you will go blind slowly with the macular degeneration or you'll go blind right away because this surgery could make you go blind right away.

So we're like, well, let's just try it and hope. And maybe I'll go blind right away, but at least we give it a shot and we did. It worked out just fine. But I was blind for another six weeks because that's the recovery. So was the recovery of your vision and your left eye? did that break the hallucinations because you had that visual input? Oh, yeah. But the hallucinations did break before that because of the medication.

The medication. So it went black, yeah. But it probably provided an escape because then you actually were getting some active input. Oh, yeah, yeah. That makes it all go away. Sure. So what did your career look like post recovery?

I think the last, actually, when was the last time we saw each other? I was thinking about this on the way over here. I don't know. I think it was in the gym behind Team 3 years ago. I do remember that. You had a stack of your medical records. Yeah, I was medically, or going through the P-E-B-M-E-B board process. Yep.

And that had to have been 2013. That could be the last time we saw each other. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Yeah, and you got out 2016? Yep, late 2016. So I fought the system quite a bit. Shocker. This was the advice.

I remember that conversation because this was in the midst of me fighting the system. And I remember you talking to me about it. And, you know, and I think you were, you were telling me, like, there is a life after the SEAL teams. And I was like, no, there's not. There can't possibly be. So again, I figured it out. Profound guidance that I was giving you. Profound guidance, yes.

And so, but I didn't listen to you. And so I never have. Nothing has changed since the first day we met. Nothing has changed. And so I continued to find that system. We tried to get medical waivers. We found other ways. So I did deploy again.

I went back as a troop commander and deployed back to the Middle East and Bahrain. And then again, and again, a different kind of deployment in Korea. Different but similar. Let's just say that. Fair enough. Back in late 2016, although by that time, they were going to retire me. I mean, the command had basically given up on trying to fight the system and trying to get me a waiver to deploy. It was too difficult, mostly because of my left eye.

With one eye, they could maybe figure out how to how to work around the medical issues. But the fact that I had one eye that needed a contact to really function, we just couldn't make it work. Could you not pass like the dive jump physical or what was the stumbling block that you were bounced up against? Yeah, the dive jump physical because there's just, there's certain checkboxes in those physicals that say pretty emphatically like, do you have one eye? You know, and if the answer to that is yes, you are disqualified. Right. You're clearly disqualified and then you need a waiver if we want to actually qualify you to deploy. And so we just couldn't fight it anymore.

You know, there's, we can talk about that for an hour about the, and what's wrong with that, frankly. I mean, again, a lot of of my lessons that I've learned, they do fit into policy. I mean, are we, is it really intelligent for the Department of Defense to be medically retiring people before they're ready? we can find places for people with a good amount of experience and still have some skills to offer the military. We can find a place for them instead of retiring them and then putting them on a taxpayer-funded retirement for the rest of their lives.

I'm not so sure that's a good use of taxpayer money or a good use of the skills and the training that we've given a lot of these people who don't want to leave. I mean, I can think of the top of my head, somebody with your experience, you were at the 10-year point in your career, which is the same point that I went back as a Buds instructor, I could rattle off five positions that you could go to sequentially from there that could give back, whether from a leadership perspective, a tactical perspective, a mentorship.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. There's plenty to do. Yeah. What sucks is it seems in the SEAL teams, it's like you either fit the circle peg in the circle hole or see you later. And we're better about it than most. Yeah, that's a good point. So you've got to free up.

This is the case with all federal government agencies, too. it's not just the military. You've got to establish some boundaries and then free up people to make creative, flexible decisions. And you'll generally come out on top. Now, there is some risk involved with that, of course. This is what we're basically talking about is more decentralized command. There is some risk involved in that.

But for the most part, you're going to get a better outcome. That's my belief. I mean, it's what makes me a conservative politician. Well, you get better buy-in from the people as well if they feel like they have a hand on their own fate. You've got to empower people. You know, that's always the case. And now I'm not complaining in hindsight, right?

Like everything happens for a reason, I believe, and obstacles aren't really obstacles. They're just kind of rocks in a river that are moving you around and moving you a different direction. That's all well and good. I wouldn't be where I am today if I had succeeded in fighting the system. So, you know, what I certainly don't have is any kind of resentment, you know, and I had this conversation with our commandant at the time when they sat down and told me, like, we are putting you through a med board, whether you like it or not.

You are going to find another way to contribute to the SEAL teams later on. I said, no, it's not possible. It's like, you know what, it is possible. They sat you down and had the talk. Yeah, Dan, listen. You're going. You've submitted 50 waivers. There will not be a 50 first.

Right. And they were right. And they were right. So, you know, resentment is a use, it's one of those, another unproductive, useless emotion. So that has. happened. And late 2016, I was out. I knew I wanted to stay in public policy, whatever that meant. It wasn't clear what that meant yet. I mean, so I...

So did you have political aspirations while you were still in the military? No. Um, no. I didn't even have them when I was in grad school. So the, uh, which, where'd you go to grad school? Harvard. Of course you heard of it. Whatever. It's an online college, right? Yeah, it's a little community college out in Cambridge. That's what I thought. So, so... It's UC Santa Cruz of the East. There you go. Oh, the banana slugs of the East. I got it.

Yeah. Did you know that UC Santa Cruz for a long time only had past fail grades? Which I would imagine as a bitch when somebody asks you your GPA. Yeah, well, I passed. Pass, bro. My GPA's a pass. That's, yeah. I'm sure that works.

Harvard isn't that different. But imagine trying to apply for like another, you know, further education. And like, it's based off of a. ranking. Oh, that's undergrad? Yeah. Yeah, it's not good for undergrad. No, I don't think it's good for anything. Do you just be told pass fail?

Grad school sometimes I can sort of see the logic there, but not undergrad because for the reason you just explained. Yeah, when you're competing against the people going to MIT and you're like, yes, my GPA is a pass. Yeah. That's the only you need to know, best ever. Yeah, my favorite activity is to sit at the lighthouse and smoke weed. What?

I don't know. I'm not getting into this school. Why not? So, okay, so when you were in, because I didn't want to ask you that one, when your thoughts of getting involved in politics, because as far as I'm concerned, you're out of your goddamn mind, being involved in politics. So I would say, and you can look at like my Facebook history is the only indicator of this is when I started becoming more interested in politics, I started talking politics more and more and more. in sort of the political framework with which I view government started to materialize more later in life. I mean, keep in mind, I grew up abroad mostly. I went to high school in Bogota, Columbia. The notions of Democrat, Republican, and liberal, conservative, they were not really in my face.

For me, it was more about international versus national issues because I lived abroad so much, and then I went to Tufts University, a pretty liberal college. But this was, and I graduated in 2006, I don't feel like politics was French. and center. Would you major? And every class, international relations. And I did a minor in physics. And so maybe it was the nature of the courses that I took that the domestic politics

were not really front and center. So I was not swayed one way or the other. I think I certainly leaned conservative just intrinsically. And this is more a product of what you prioritize as far as your moral principles go. And I could get into a long conversation about that, if you'd like. But there's, we're sort of, our brains are sort of wired one way or the other. generally speaking, there's personality characteristics that will define whether you're liberal or conservative. But I didn't really think about the politics of it just yet. It was only a few years

before getting out of the military that I even really got into it. And then I went to Harvard really with an eye, again, so to speak, on looking. Only you can get away with some of that. Well, all my buddies from the teams definitely try to get away with it at every chance they get. We're going to make a bad eye joke. That's a special community that has no rules. Yeah. The same with the Twitter haters. They really like that.

Because they got nothing except for, we hate you so much, you want to hide. Oh my God. There's only one pool of humanity that is lower than Twitter. Which one? YouTube comments. Oh, really?

Yeah. In my opinion, it goes, YouTube comments, Twitter, and I guess everything else would be a step above that. But it is the lowest rungs of humanity that I've ever encountered. Twitter needs to lighten up. Like Instagram. is so nice. My Instagram comments are always, they're always fun. They're positive.

You know, even Facebook. Facebook's a little bit more of a mix, but Twitter's just, boom. Anyway, so what were we talking about? Tuffs. Yeah, so, okay, but then Harvard after the military, and so I didn't have any political aspirations at Harvard. Now, Harvard, the Kennedy School in particular, because I did a public policy degree, it is a highly political school in the sense that they're trying to people how to run for office. They push that agenda a little bit. They're actually basically teaching that. There's a class called how to become a politician.

I mean, there's a class called how to run a campaign. You know, so they, and this is good. I mean, it's cool that they have this stuff. I didn't know that existed. Along with all of the policy attributes that they do. And so, and you can, you can, there's a whole wide variety. Now I focused more on domestic economics and national security issues. Because what I was really looking at was maybe a policy job in national security.

You know, that would be a good segue from the SEAL teams, I would think. And that was actually almost what I did. I almost took a job doing counterweapons of mass destruction issues at the Department of Defense. And that same day, my hometown congressman, Ted Poe, announced retirement here in the second district, where we are right now. And slept on it, then decided to go for it. That was it. I mean, that's how it happened. It's not, now, did we have in the back of our mind, my wife and I, thinking political office down the road, you're definitely going to get that bug in your ear if you've been doing a master's degree where you see that stuff put out there.

And you start to realize that if you want to have an impact on a wide variety of issues, not just counterweapons of mass destruction. If you want to have an impact on a lot of different issues, then you have to be in political office. There is no other way to do that, to have that influence and to have that impact. And impact is really what it comes down to. There's one good reason why you should be in political office versus something else. It's the ability to truly impact a lot of different things and influence. So when you say you slept on it and then went for it, what does that look like the day you wake up? You're like, all right, I'm going for this.

Well, okay, that's a good question because a lot of people don't realize like, okay, what does that take? Well, first you have to sign up. Like you have to go to the... A step that would trip up. 80% of people. Yeah, you got to get your name on the ballot, you know, and, and you either have to You basically declare you're running. Yeah, you declare. Yeah, and there's a quick sign up process to do that. And boom, you're in. And, but then, then you got to, you got to do the basics. You got to get a headshot. You got to get, uh, a website. You've got to, you got to figure out, like, what your logo is. You've got to figure out what your talking points are. I mean, we're jumping into this in

November of 2017. And the primary is March of 2018. So this is, this is a very, this is a very, unusual way to run for office. Yeah, five months out. Yeah, I mean, and it's really even less because this is late November, nobody's campaigning in December, this is the holidays. January, you're sort of just starting, but you haven't raised much money. Nobody wants to help you. By the time early February hits, early ballots, those mail-in ballots that go to senior

citizens are already going out. And you're not even sure people have heard of you yet. And it turns out nobody had heard of me yet. So I lost all those. Early voting in Texas starts two weeks out. So, and then election day is March 6th. So this is, this is a very limited amount of time. If you're going to run for Congress, you should generally start about a year out and start telling people and start raising money and start, you know, getting your name out there.

This is a long process. We did it in just a couple months. And to be fair, so did everybody. Everybody jumped into that race. Because of the announcement of the retirement. Yeah, he announced pretty late, a few weeks before the deadline to jump into it, actually. Why did he choose to do that? I got to ask him that someday.

Because it seems like he actually put anybody who might replace him at a disadvantage. Well, actually what he did by doing that was equalized the playing field, I think. Oh, because everybody was behind the power curve. Right, because everybody's behind the power curve. Now, well, you know what? The counter argument to that is that I would have had a much bigger advantage if I had been able to start earlier. So because of what I was, I was at a huge disadvantage to be. who could put millions of dollars into their own campaign.

So there was, which was at least, at least a few of those competitors of nine of us in total, everybody had the ability to put tens of thousands of dollars into their own campaign. A couple had the ability to put millions. So it was not an easy, this was a highly competitive race, especially for the Republicans, because, well, it's a Republican seat. So whoever wins the primary is very likely to win the general was the thought going into it. So you're going to put a lot of effort into winning that primary. So yeah, if I had had more time, I could have gotten more votes. I could have gotten more people to figure me out. And I would

have been able to go to more restaurants and shake people's hands, knock on more doors. So more time would have been better. What's your thoughts? I mean, how was that experience of going to restaurants and knocking on doors? And how much of your time was spent actually fundraising? You're talking about the money that people put into their campaigns? Well, much more time than you would like in generally in politics is spent fundraising. I wish everybody would just donate to us, but they don't. But hey, you can go to Crenshaw for Congress.com and donate right now. I'll put a link on the podcast description.

Crenshaw for Congress. But you're in Congress. You don't need that a couple more times. You don't need any more money. You're in Congress. Always fundraising. Always fundraising. You have to. I already have an opponent for the next time. Haven't you only been in office for three months? Yep. I'm a target. I'm definitely a target from from the left. So it is what it is. But this is just the nature of the game. And these are two-year

terms. So, yeah, I mean, it's right away. Would you want to do another two-year term? Which is, I mean, probably a little premature question given you been at it for three months, but. Oh, well, definitely, I mean, I'm already running. You know, it's not a, yeah, I mean, we're definitely going forward again. And we're not going to quit this early. Come on, man. You remember, this is like the first 15 minutes of buds. Like, you got to think the long. Third of the class is already turning the bell into the Philharmonic. That's true. That's true. But we'll definitely, we'll definitely run again in 2020. And, you know, there's, it's, it's, this gets into the question of whether you like the job or not. And so far I do. I mean, I, I didn't have any different expectations, really, of what it would be. I'm not naive. I'm not idealistic. I know how hard things are to get done in Congress. It's designed that way. I like it that way, frankly. I'm not a big centralized government kind of. guy. I want bigger decisions to be made for you at the state and local level because it is easier

for you to hold those officials accountable. Now, the problem that we've gone into in American society is that people don't hold those officials accountable. They don't even sure there exist, right? Everybody focuses on the presidency. Everything going wrong or right in your life is because of the president. That's an unfortunate change in our culture where we forgot that if we have complaints about our schools, maybe we should get involved in our school board elections. I tell people that all the time because they ask you, what are you going to do? do about our schools. You know, they're teaching the wrong stuff. They're doing this or whatever the problem is. And I say, who's on your school board? You know, you vote for them. You've got,

you elect these people. You've got to be involved in this stuff. This really matters. But, uh, and so, so getting back to, to decentralized control and local control, basically federalism, you know, how the constitution was written is extremely important. Yeah, I know I went off on a tangent there. Go for it. It's the internet, man. You can go off on We can do it where we want. So, but what was the original question? Bring us back. Let's bring us back to the...

Just kind of asking what you thought of the experience of, you know, going door to door into the restaurants and fundraising. Yeah. Yeah, what's it like to campaign? Okay, so you get your website. You basically hire a consultant who tells you how to build a website, all right, and how this should look. You've got to set up, you know, a donation button on there and get that set up.

One of the harder things about running for office as a nobody is, is you don't have the ability to afford even a lawyer, like a campaign finance lawyer, to tell you how to get the money incorrectly. So you're screwing that up right away. And that becomes pretty difficult. I mean, you're screwing up the little stuff. And I'm going to go off another tangent real quick

and talk about campaign finance for a minute because I want as many people to understand this as possible. everybody thinks that the problem with campaign finance is that there's big money involved. And I'm using quotation marks for those of you listening. Big money. Big money. Okay, here's the reality. I can only take $2,800 from a single individual and from a corporate pack, $5,000.

That's a drop in the bucket when it comes to running a campaign. Okay, nobody can buy you off individually. Now, think of it this way. Me, as an incumbent politician with a million people on social media that I can ask for money from and a huge mailing list and big name ID now. It's pretty easy for me at this point now to raise money that way, one donor at a time. Okay. It's not that hard for me.

It's very hard for you if you're a nobody trying to compete with me. Okay. So what's a, so is the system we have really good with all these limitations with all these rules and regulations? Because again, there's a lot of rules and regulations. See that you have to comply with. Okay. I can afford to have lawyers do that and make sure that we're in compliance.

You can't. All right. So this is what it was like for me back in 2017. So ask yourself, if we want to reform campaign finance, what's the most fair way to do that? What would allow people, regular people, to actually compete with incumbent politicians? And the answer is counterintuitive. The answer is actually you have to raise limits. You have to raise limits significantly so that somebody can actually compete with you.

All right. That's the dirty little secret about campaign finance. When we're talking about taking big money out of politics, and this is the Democrat talking point. What they really mean is keep incumbents in. That's what they actually mean. And that's a really unfortunate reality. And they're selling a really false bill of goods there. Isn't the concern, though, that you could have undue influence from a large donor? There's that concern. But then you know what? You can be voted out. Because in the end, you stand for something. Okay. And if you go to office and you no longer stand for that and people

voted for you because you stand for something and then you go off and you change that, well, then they can vote you out. you know in the end everything you do is highly transparent and uh so i mean there there is that concern but the reality is too is that a donor won't support you unless they already agree with you that that's the other reality about say corporate packs okay so um when a corporate pack approaches me they're not trying to convince me of anything it's because my values already align with theirs and because i'm i'm generally lower taxes deregulation kind of conservative that's what they generally want because they want to be able to run their business and hire more people and invest in

our economy. These are all good things. Corporations are not evil in any way. The other thing you have to ask yourself is specifically on the corporate PAC side, because this is always coming up in general political discussions, is it really wrong for a group of people to pool their money together and advocate? That's American democracy. That has been American democracy forever. What is wrong with that? you know and I would say well there's nothing wrong with that that's that's exactly how it should be and actually if you if you deny them the freedom to do that you're seriously infringing on their their ability to engage in democracy and exercise their freedom of speech and so so that's fundamentally what that and that's the basis of citizens united that's that's that's whole debate all right

and people need to understand what that really means it's not corporations using their profits to exercise influence that's illegal that remains illegal and so getting a lot of that out there, I think is important. The more we tell people what the truth is about campaign finance and how it would help you if you were a nobody like I was trying to make it. I had to compete with somebody who was able to put $6.5 million of their own money into their campaign. They don't spend me 30 to one. I'm the exception. I'm not the rule. So I'm the exception in that I was able to overcome that. And I was able to overcome it because I got a story to tell. I knew why I was running. I was able to articulate that to a lot of different groups. It's a highly engaged area in the Houston area. So

meaning a lot of different political groups. They like to have all the candidates come and talk to them, and they'll ask us all questions, and we get to compete with them one another. But not all districts are like that. Not all districts offer candidates the opportunity to really come out and engage. You have to do it yourself, and that can be harder. I got some good earned media, you know,

I was able to get on Fox News and tell my story. I literally ran across the district, 100 miles, like from down to south of where we are now, all the way winding up to the northeast. part of Houston to Lake Houston. Well, that's just dumb. No, it was great. It was dumb, actually.

My knee has not recovered. Because I don't like running. Neither do I. Running is dumb. That's ridiculous. I don't like it. Do you want to segue, do you? Get a freaking.

Right. But that wouldn't have had the same umph to it, you know? Could have done an American flag speed. Yeah. Well, I could have. Lots of could haves there. I don't think that would have worked as well. But we ran, it got attention, you know.

I got attention. I was also raising money to rebuild a neighborhood that got hurt after Hurricane Harvey, and so we were able to do some of that. And just little things, right? Creative campaigning. I plastered my face everywhere and put the yard signs up. I mean, you do all the little things. And it's about basic leadership, too. Okay, you got to inspire one person to inspire another person and kind of make that dream catch fire. and what I really ran on to, and I would say this to anybody who ever wants to run for office is you need to know really deep down why you're running because if you do know why, other people will understand why,

because that passion will come out, and maybe it's an issue that you care about. Maybe there's a story you have that you want to tell people and like this is why you're running and it's compelling and it connects with other people. For me, it was, I'm very passionate about a conservative approach to governance. It's not even just one issue. It's how we govern as a country,

and I want to be able to give the conservative movement a future and a better message, and a better way of explaining of that approach to government. It's that framework that I care about so much. Explain that to people in a more coherent way, because I'm not so sure it has been explained correctly over the years. And for the primary, at least, you know, that's effective. And frankly, I think that's effective even in a general election.

You know, when we, I don't know that we, we talk enough about why we believe what we believe. Like, how did we get to this policy point where I'm talking about, you know, lowering the corporate tax rate? Right. So that's, because that's a policy. But how do you get there, you know? And it's downstream of culture. So you've got to start with cultural principles that lead to our constitutional principles that lead to this idea that we think it's a better idea to have lower corporate tax rates. because I can make an economic argument for why that's a good idea.

But what about the simple idea that people should be able to keep more of their money? This is a cultural value. Why does government exist in the first place? Does it exist to tax corporations and individuals as much as possible? And why would it exist to do that? Well, to give benevolent academics in Washington who are bureaucrats, all the power and money they need to implement the programs that they think are really great. And this gets back to another idea.

Why should they even be doing that? why can a group of experts exercise complete centralized control and figure out everybody's problems for them? To me, that's an inherently flawed philosophy. This is why I prefer decentralized control, letting you keep more of your money, letting you do what you want with your time, letting you enjoy the benefits of your success instead of punishing that success. So I'm getting back to very foundational arguments for how we got to this point where we wanted

to lower the corporate tax rate by 15 percentage points. You've got to explain to people why. and maybe think through why. You know, we're talking about this before, I think. You have the power of that question. It's my favorite one. Yeah. And like how even in tactics in the SEAL teams, you know, we would do.

Literally be at a podium, sometimes often literally hammering the podium, this is what we do. And then somebody says, why? And you shut up. This is what we do. It's written down somewhere. How many people, you know, so I look at myself and my understanding of politics, and I can go back even farther, the campaign finance reform.

I know almost nothing about it. And this is a negative choice that I think I inherently make is that I choose not to pay attention to it because I cannot separate the wheat from the chaff. I have access to the same social media avenues that people do the same news, media outlets. And I am at a point where I cannot determine, quite frankly, what in the fuck is going on. especially with something as nuanced as campaign finance, for instance, which is why, which I do try to talk about it more because it's something that,

especially young people, you know, are concerned about, they ask about a lot and I love being able to explain it, you know, in a way that, that I think makes sense and in a way they haven't really heard before because what they hear are the talking points,

you know, get the big money out. And I'm not in favor of big money in corporations controlling our politicians. and been told that a million times in talking points. It's got to be true. It's got to be based on some truth, right? Well, no. Why?

Let's go back to why. Let's actually ask the question. And it is unfortunate that there isn't a news media that simply breaks these issues out in a coherent and very fair way. Or non-editorialized way. Right. Like when my dad talks about it, the difference in the news when he was growing up versus the news now, where one was a non-editorialized reporting what happened,

where you were given the space and distance to make up your own mind, versus turning on a news outlet now where you're told what the issue is and then also right on top of that, what you should think. Yeah, exactly. We've conflated opinion journalism with actual journalism. Is there a route out of that, given the platforms that exist today, in your opinion? because like I said so what I know and the reason I ask that is because the position I find myself in the more I see people yelling at each other at least I miss least less I'm interested in what they're talking about

yeah the more that it's thrown in my face the more likely that I am to detach from it a little bit so what I end up happening or what ends up happening for me is I pay less attention which therefore and you know this as well as anybody if you want to make moves you do it in the seams where people aren't paying attention so it's it I view it it's something that I would like to change about myself, but to be honest with it, I don't even know where to begin. Yeah. And I mean, I could give you news outlets that I think are good, you know, but to speak to my own biases. I understand that.

I think national review is. I mean, I mean, even beyond, like, just talking in general, the amount of the volume of information that has thrown at people and the inability to determine what fact from fiction or a blend of the two, semi-factual, but a little bit fiction. Yeah. Semi-fiction, but a little bit factual. It's just, I don't know. And what people find themselves having to do is to if you really are open-minded and you really do want to get to the truth of an issue, you've got to seek out the more reputable sources on either side.

Like Facebook. Yeah, Facebook is perfect. No, just look at my Twitter comments. It's the best. That'll be the best source of information you can find. but you know the conservative side there's plenty of think tanks that would that would offer you here's the data

like here's the argument too so AEI American Enterprise Institute Heritage Foundation National Review magazine these are these are intellectual thought leaders who are writing this stuff this is this is not this is not commentary well it is I mean there's opinions throughout and these are these are conservative

just to be clear but they're I was going to say who funds those organizations well it's conservatives I mean this is this is this is are the conservative thought leaders, is what I'm saying. And on the left, like, you know, you look for what you need from the left. Maybe it's Brookings Institute or something. In the same thing, they're funded by the left as well too. So, yeah. These are left wing, there's left wing think tanks. Or, you know, there's left wing columnist, too, that will at least try to make an argument. And so that your best option then is to look at both and see which one

is convincing. And one of the reasons I'm a conservative is because that every time I ever looked at both, the right is more convincing because we delve a few more layers deep into it. You know, and that's just, that's just how I end up on these things. So, but that's what you have to do. It's, it's hard to imagine where to go to find all of that in one place that really fairly balances out the two because it's really not the news. I mean, and the news is reporting on current events too. So it's, well, plus I hate seeing, I don't like turning the TV on and seeing your face.

So I just turn it off immediately. You say that. But you do like it. Every time I like, I'll turn the team and like, God damn it, Dan, you're on TV again. Which leads me to my next question. What's the, what's a week in the length of a freshman congressman look like? I mean, we're in, we're in Houston right now,

but most of the time when I see you on the news, you're not in Houston. Yeah. Well, yeah, most of my interviews are while I'm in D.C. Although we do a fair amount of interviews here, too. So this week, I'll head back to D.C. tomorrow. We'll be back in session. and we'll have votes at 630.

It'll be a typical day. It would be easier. I can just look at my schedule. I'm not going to tell you exactly what's on my schedule, but this is the best way to answer this. Just tell us the address and room number of each event. Well, everybody can find me in D.C. You'd be amazed how easy it is for anybody to access our offices in Washington, D.C.

It is the people's house after all. Yeah. So, you know, I've got speaking events. We've got, we'll have, we'll have meetings with our, with our conference, meaning the Republican Party will have its meetings. We'll talk about legislation coming up for the week. A lot of the things you do throughout the day are meeting with different groups who have issues. And they usually have to have some connection to the district to get a meeting. But, you know, if you have an issue and you want to talk about it, and especially if you represent a group and some kind of interest that maybe we're not aware of,

then we want to hear about it. So that takes up a lot of the time of what we do. You mix in some fundraising in there, of course. You're always doing that. But a lot of my time is speaking events, going to different groups, talking to them, giving them updates. This is what we've been voting on the last few months. Because, I mean, not everybody follows what HR1 and HR8 are, right?

Like, it's, you know, they might know the issues, generally speaking, but I go there to tell them what we voted on it, explain the votes that I took if they have questions on that and tell them what we might see on the horizon. So it's a lot of engagement while we're back here in home and even when in D.C. Because there's multiple ways to engage, of course. We're doing a podcast right now. That engages lots of people. You know, obviously I'm pretty prolific on social media because I want to give people a little bit of insight into what I'm doing all the time and then be able to explain things in a coherent way, right?

It doesn't have to be, it doesn't always have to be an official statement. People want to hear you just talk to them. And this is a change in politics, I think, over the last few years. People want to see that. What I'll do sometimes, I'll just pull up a camera and be like, we just got out of this vote. This is what it means.

Yeah, so you do that. Let me break this down. Well, it allows you to explain it on your terms. that's one cool thing about the ability to broadcast on whatever medium it might be. Like, I like podcasts because you can go down as many tangents as you want to. If the SINCARB runs out,

I guess we could go to Target and get another one, but it allows you to discuss it the breadth and depth that you want to, as opposed to, you know, flip into, whatever, fill in the blank, Fox News, USA Today, whatever it might be. Yeah, you got two minutes. Get your point out. Oh, man, I've done a couple fundraising ones

just for when I was raising money for the SEAL Foundation. They're like, okay, this point seems incredibly nuanced and complex. You have six seconds. Yeah. And I spent three of those going, uh, uh. Yeah. What?

No, it takes some practice, you know, because you ought to get those points out right away. But that's why it, this gets back to, we touched on this a little bit before that the new age of getting information out there, whether it's a podcast or whether, oh, well, this is, this is what I wanted to hit on when you were talking about how do people digest news anymore. You know, it's hard to get that nuance. And I think that's why you're seeing such a rise in popularity in podcasts, a rise in popularity of YouTube videos. You know, this people have the attention span, and they do want to hear a little bit more of a thoughtful discussion than just that two-minute news clip that, you know,

because you only had two minutes if you're even lucky enough to get that. But why not talk about an issue for 10 minutes? Like, well, why not go on some tangents? I mean, people are driving in the car. They have time to listen to it. That's the beauty of podcast. So there's a hunger for that long-form discussion and diving into an issue and really going back and forth on it. Well, I think, I mean, totally, I mean, this is pure conjecture.

But I think people, at least the ones I know, I think they inherently, given the two-minute blurb of everything, I think it's a little bit grating. And it forces them to seek that longer medium, whatever it may be. And they may not even recognize that. It took me a while to realize that I just don't like that. Here's 15 seconds, what happens. Here's what you should think. I'm like, shut up.

Like that's, for one, it's not enough information for me because I, like you, I think, I love going, when I do try to figure things out, I go right back to the data. And I'd rather just look at the raw data and I'll figure out the anomalies and the outliers on my own. But I'd rather just look at it and take the time to understand the issue. And the arguments behind that, or the arguments on how to interpret that data to, well, given whatever we're talking about. And you're naturally curious. And this is, this is my big piece of advice to especially younger people is, is, it's okay not to know. and it's okay to think there might be more to this story

and I'm going to wait till there's wait till I find out more about this particular issue that so-and-so really say that you know always ask yourself that do you really think this story happened and I've been the man I've already but you should comment first and then think yeah yeah comment first throw some fire bombs and then uh

and then walk yourself back yeah I mean but this is the problem so people are immediately they immediately react and they react viciously Well, that's the pros and cons to this instantaneous media. Right. But then they're emotionally invested in that reaction because you did it. You don't want to lock it back because you did it. And this is really dangerous because it's, and this is just natural human, natural human nature.

It's kind of a ham-handed way of saying it. But it's human nature to once you've invested in that decision that you yourself made or that opinion that you yourself created, it's hard to walk it back. All right. It really is. Even if you do find out information that would. that would that would counter what you thought. So, and this is unfortunate. So I always say, like, don't say it unless you're sure.

You know, I mean, be curious. Be curious. Like, don't, don't fall into confirmation bias. It's okay not to know, right? It's like, there's a lot of things you don't know. And that's, we've gotten away from that as a society, I think, we have very strong opinions without a lot of, without always having a lot of knowledge behind that opinion.

That's just dangerous. It's okay just to not have an opinion. Yeah, I think it's okay to sit there and take your time. Before I forget, I think it's interesting. You have the same pop socket on your phone that my 10-year-old daughter has. No way. No, but she has a pop socket. And the fact that you're a congressman and you have one, I think you should never use that again.

Wow. It's kind of judgy. It's super judgy. Yeah. Did you go to law school? I didn't. Oh. You're not a judge. I'm not a judge.

Okay. I was just wondering. I was just making sure. You're a congressman and you shouldn't use a pop socket. because that's just what my kids did. But it's easy to hold it that way. I don't even know if I can talk to you anymore. Now I can,

it stands up by itself. There's a, there's a, whatever. So what's working in the government and what's broke? Three months in, what's your initial assessment? Wow.

What works? Again, federal government in many ways, works the way it was supposed to in terms of, of inability to compromise and inability to get things done quickly. That's how it was designed. We didn't like the idea of things happening quickly

with all the power of the federal government behind it. That being said, the federal government still does too much. So what does it do really well? Well, it spends too much money really well. So that's pretty bad. We have $22 trillion in debt, and we're not talking, we never even debate the main drivers of that debt,

which is 70% of our spending. So 70% of our spending we don't even vote on every year. We fight about description, discretionary spending. So that's Department of Defense. That's the most of what the discretionary spending is. But it's also every other federal agency, right? It's actually what you most understand government to be is discretionary spending. But it's actually only about 30% of our spending. Mandatory spending is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, all of these things. 70% we don't vote on it. All right. That happens because it's mandatory.

It's going to be spent no matter what because these are entitlement programs. That is driving our debt in a really bad direction. And as a percentage of our spending, it will continue to increase. As a percentage of our GDP, that will continue to increase. While as a percentage of GDP discretionary spending will continue to decrease, while our taxation actually, meaning federal income, the income that the government is getting, the government revenue, stays about the same, even with the tax cuts.

So there's this big debate in Congress between Democrats and Republicans over why we have a debt and whether we're spending too much or taxing too little. All right. Again, I'll never believe that we're taxing too little because I think, And this goes back to my philosophy of why does government exist in the first place? It is not to tax you to the maximum amount possible. It is to protect your inalienable rights, give you the infrastructure to pursue your happiness. And that's it.

Protect inalienable rights. Not create new rights. We don't just get to decide that things we want become rights. That's not how this works. And just mathematically, it's falsehood to say that the tax cuts caused the debt. I mean, we have record amounts of revenue last year and this year. And they continues to increase. We're going to increase revenue by about five percentage points a year over the next 10 years.

We don't have a taxation problem. All right. And, you know, people need to understand that as well. So what does government doing wrong? We're spending too much money and it's killing our generation because we're the one's got to pay for this. Is there any route to actually pay for it? Well, we just need to be on a fiscal trajectory that is sustainable. You don't actually have to pay off your debt.

It just needs to be sustainable, meaning it doesn't grow as a percentage of GDP the way it is growing now. Stabilizing it as a percentage of GDP would be, well, it would be stabilizing. It would be sustainable. You're still always going to have a debt, and that debt will always still be growing,

but as far as our credit is concerned, and as far as our ability to sustain that, we can, as long as the growth of our economy, is greater than the deficits that we incur every year. So it's not actually as draconian as you think it is. Now I would still argue that we should have zero deficits every year. And that would actually cause the debt as a percentage of GDP to go down. All right.

There's a little complicated there. But the point is, is it's possible. And with certain reforms, raising the retirement age, without promising too much, right? The problem is the easiest thing in the world for a politician to do to get elected is to promise more stuff. I'll promise you more stuff. And I'm going to get that done.

And when you get that done, well, you've got to promise more stuff on top of that. And that's what's happened over decades and decades and decades. And as a conservative, we're always the ones raising our hand and saying, I don't think we should spend that much money on this. And they'll say, and let's say this is a bill, you know,

that helps all the children, you know. And what they'll say is, well, we can't spend all that money on, even though it's a good thing to spend some money on. We can't spend the amount you're saying it on because who's going to pay for it. And they'll say, well, you're against the children. And this is the game that gets played in politics.

And so you bully each other into spending more and more and more. And when you don't have a balanced budget amendment at the federal level, the way you do at the state level, and a lot of states do, there's no need for compromise. And what happens instead is you're able to bully each other into spending more and more and more and accuse each other of not being for the nice things. This is really problematic. It actually causes more division than it would if you had a balanced budget and you had to make compromises

because you couldn't accuse each other of not having a big heart. When you attach higher dollar signs to a bigger heart, you're making a really deceitful moral argument against somebody. You're questioning their character because they have a legitimate concern about how much we're spending. This is why things are so divisive in my opinion. It's one of many reasons, but it's one of them. You know, this is actually, it's counterintuitive, but it actually shows that a balanced budget amendment where we're forced to have a balanced budget, I think would actually create more compromise and less divisiveness because you can no longer make those moral arguments against each other. Give you less room to maneuver. Right, right. Like, we have to make these decisions. Right now, the reality is you don't have to make the decisions.

And both sides know that. Unfortunately, yeah, because like Republicans at least say we don't want to spend more, but we're not very good at getting it done. We would have to, frankly, have way more control over the government. I mean, 60 votes. in the Senate, control the House, control the presidency and have real fiscal conservatives in there, and then I think we could get something done. But you also have to convince the American people that we shouldn't let government buy you off, right? Because this is what it's really fundamentally comes down to. Do you want to let government buy you off or not? Are you going to be a voter that is persuaded by a politician who says, we're going to promise you more stuff? And I would urge people

don't be persuaded by that, because it's an impossible promise. Okay, let me give me an example. example, this idea of taxing the 1% to pay for all the great programs, right, free this, free that, free this. It's impossible mathematically, all right. And we should all we have to do is compare ourselves to some other countries that do promise a lot of these things. The reality is that those countries tax their middle class far higher than we do. They have a far more regressive tax system, and this is just according to the OECD data, all right? They almost have a flat tax. I'm talking about the countries like Denmark and Finland and Sweden in particular, because we always like to compare ourselves with them. They have a practical.

practically flat tax system, a coefficient of about one, which is practically a flat system, meaning by flat tax system, I mean, let's say everybody's taxed at, you know, 10%. That would be a flat tax system. We have a very progressive tax system in America where the poor are practically not taxed at all. In fact, it's almost negative. They get, when you incorporate transfers, wealth transfers, meaning welfare, they end up not only not paying taxes, but getting an additional income on top of that. Whereas the rich pay far more.

The top 1% I think pays between 30 and 40% of all federal revenue. So I don't know what fair share means to a lot of people, but that's not technically fair. Okay. Now, maybe it's fine with us, but it's not fair by any sense of the imagination. So if you want to spend $32 trillion on Medicare for All, you do have to significantly raise taxes on the middle and lower classes. That's just a mathematical fact. That's what Denmark does. So an example, if you make $70,000 in Denmark, you're already paying the top tax rate.

Whereas in America, you're paying the top tax rate at almost like almost $500,000. So it's quite different. You know, and people need to understand that. So if you want to have an honest debate and argument about we want to give you this and we want to tax you this to pay for it, fine, have that debate. At least you're being honest. But to say that we can tax the 1% is just a lie. It's a mathematical lie. Or they are not lying and they're just planning on borrowing more, which I would argue is still a tax.

It's just a tax on the younger generation. Yeah, there's a lot going on there, man. There's a lot. I mean, that's a thing. There's a lot to unpack. And I don't know, depending on the shotgun blast of information that's coming at your face from the source that it's coming from, most people are just going to put their hands up and shy away. And then people who want to maneuver will maneuver in that scene when nobody's paying attention.

I think that's the big danger of it. It is. And, you know, your original question was what works and what doesn't. And I want to do a 10-minute explanation of the debt and how to pay for that. But that's one of my biggest issues. because it's a product of my age, you know, and people my age are going to have to pay this down. These programs, these entitlement programs, go insolvent,

Social Security goes insolvent by 2035, Medicare goes insolvent in 2026. This is right around the corner. That is actually going to describe it in just those terms. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, that should scare us. And the question is, do we want to double our own tax rates to pay for that stuff? All these, all these programs that have proven themselves to be unsustainable? Do we really want to increase our taxes to pay for that?

Should we make some adult decisions and rein these in? We don't even have to cut benefits greatly at this point, right? We can raise the retirement age. We can means test them. There's a lot of creative ways to do this stuff. What does work in Washington? Maybe I could give you some positive answer there. You know.

Well, from an outside perspective, from somebody who is, I mean, openly said that I should follow the government more and I don't because of the fact that I can't separate truth from fiction. it seems that there are more things that are broken than are that are working. So it doesn't surprise me, even from my non-educated perspective, that you would struggle more to find the things, a shining example of something that cuts down the middle of the aisle and both parties can agree on. Yeah, I mean, national security issues are generally things we both agree on. Those tend to work okay, I think.

Not a whole lot of division on where we, what direction we should be going on any given national security. issue, whether we should be funding our military properly, funding the intelligence community properly. So there's generally a lot more bipartisanship on those issues. And now, is it working perfectly? No, I think we need to invest more in certain technologies to keep our country safe, compete with China, compete with future threats from Russia, Iran, and on these things, as our military moves from a counterterrorism operation to a more great power competition. and that's something we have to be concerned about,

but I think we're getting there. So I don't know that we need to be super upset about it. The reality is that we don't agree on what's wrong with Washington and then how to fix it, which is also in a sense how Washington is supposed to work. It is a big debate. We live in a republic where we debate these big ideas. And I'd say as long as we're debating that in a way,

that doesn't just degrade into character attacks, which is generally what happens, right? Then we'd be doing it just fine. Because as long as you're debating ideas, even viciously, that's okay. That's what we're supposed to be doing. It's when those debate tactics become highly dishonest is when I get a little frustrated.

And I've seen that happen just over the last couple weeks. You've been, how has it been? getting just kind of rocketed into the social media stratosphere, if you will, because from our old job, you know, social media following is not necessarily inherently part of the job description. Right. It is now, though, for sure, especially this new generation of politicians. You know, my freshman class, obviously, it's like me and a few of our Democrat colleagues. And we get all the attention.

And so I find myself trying to walk this line between just ignoring, as much as what they say as possible and just really just commenting on when I really feel the need to. And it is consequences. You know, you are in the fight. Like, and people, people pick up what I say. And I don't mind that. It means I don't mind being out there. I know what I believe and I know why I believe it. So I don't mind being a spokesperson for it. And I'm not afraid to step into that. But, you know, we should always be cautious about what we step into and why. And I think I've walked that line just fine. You know, so those... You find it bizarre being a public figure now coming from a world where it's more supposedly

supposed to be cloaked in anonymity, whether or not that always holds true. Yeah. It's a little different conversation. Yeah. It is strange, but it happened gradually. I mean, when you decide you want to run for office, your entire goal is to get more famous. Yeah, your life's going to change by that decision alone. Right. If you don't get name ID, then you can't win.

So your entire job at that point running for office is to get people to know you and to like you. So it happened gradually. Obviously, it took off wildly after the Saturday Night Live thing. Which, by the way, how did they contact you? Email. I think, I think. Was the subject line R bad? Sorry.

It was just, yeah, it was, yeah, they contacted. At first it was just a producer who contacted us in a Paul. And then Lauren Michael got a hold of me. And I can't remember if it was a phone conversation or an email. But, you know, he put out the idea of me coming out there and doing the show with them. Which was the best response ever. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, it was a perfect, it was, it was, it was a really a perfect situation where I could imagine a world where they didn't really mean it the way it came out. And that's important. Give people that space. And I don't always give people that space. Because, sometimes I think it's obvious just based on the circumstances that they meant what they said. And if they don't apologize, then why give them the graciousness of accepting an apology? See, Saturday Night Live actually apologized. And so I want to contrast this real quick with what happened a few weeks ago with Ilhan Omar, right? And she says, she describes 9-11 as some people did something.

Some people claim that was taken out of context. Of course it wasn't. Of course it wasn't. Yeah, I went back and I actually found the entire video on that just because I wanted to see the context for myself. It was not out of context at all. Now, she was making a broader point, which I don't have a problem with. Her point was that, you know, Muslim civil liberties should be protected,

that care has a role in that. Of course, she apparently doesn't know when care was founded, which is... She flubbed the date a bit. Strange. So, but that's not the point. Nobody had a problem with a broader point. You still describe something in a dismissive way, and I said that was unbelievable. The reaction that took place after that was astonishing even to me.

And what I've noticed is, is, frankly, when you're exposed, some truth about people, and they don't like it, they're going to come after you pretty hard. And they did. Now, in the end, I have no problem with what I said or did. I think we did the right thing. I can always tell, look at your tweets. I can gauge how close they are to the hot button by just the number of comments back to you and the number of retweets. Yeah.

And so I'll look at that first. I'm like, oh, what do you say? Yeah. Yeah. That's how, on Twitter specifically, that is how you're, that is how you met. measure it. Yeah. And there was this argument that, well, why don't you take your advice from Saturday

Night Live, the advice you gave. And I'm like, okay, let's, let's break that down. The advice I gave after Saturday Night Live was attack ideas, but don't attack people's character. And so here's what actually happened when I, when I, when I commented on Omar's remarks. What I attacked was what she said. Simple as that. What you said is wrong.

It was unbelievable. You shouldn't, you shouldn't talk about 9-11 that way. You know, and you could, you could easily diffuse it. You could, she could have said, I didn't mean it that way. You know, I was talking off the cuff, you know, the fair enough. Like, let's give people the space to say that. But of course they don't say that. What she says is, well, she doubles down and then she accuses me even citing violence against her.

Like, wow, that went about 10 different steps forward. So, you know, it's, and what do they do that will they attack my character? Then they start saying that I'm not a supportive of 9-11 victims. they start making up all these stories. It was pretty interesting to watch that narrative play out. And so to say that it wasn't keeping that same advice is pretty illogical, frankly. And again, the advice was if people are willing to apologize, you know, give them that graciousness. Like don't always take up a grieved victim status, even though our society apparently values that more than it should.

or rewards it more than it should. Yeah, maybe that's the better word. But in the end, what's the difference? And that's a problem. Like when you're always seeking out that ability to be the agreed victim, again, this is what Representative Vomar did, right? Was she said, well, now I'm just under attack because of what you said. And we're like, no, it's because of what you said, what you said,

not us pointing it out. What you said. Take some responsibility for that. And it's really problematic that we're in this world right now. now where people don't take responsibility for that, where they rely on their identity to make their argument, which is a really shallow way of making an argument. You can't talk to me because I'm this identity because I'm this gender or this skin color or this religion. Really, you can't make a point against me because of that? That's a really cheap way to make an argument,

and that's what we're seeing now. How much do you think that detracts from your ability to do your job on both sides of the aisle? You know what talking about? Enormously. Well, I mean, just the social media aspect alone. I mean, there's not a day that goes by. And so I open the Fox News app every day for the last 30 days to do a test. And every day for the last 30 days on the first four leading articles is a picture of AOC every single day, regardless of what I mean? And so it draws attention, which draws people to following or listening to her social media profile the way she talks. I mean, right around or different. I'm not making a value judgment on it. But it seems like that churn is consuming so much of the bandwidth that I can't imagine that helping anybody

actually do the job with which they were elected to do. Yes and no. Part of the job you're elected to do is to represent in a public way. And so not all representatives see it that way. Everybody goes, every member goes up there with some, I guess, maybe a different perspective on what they're supposed to do up there. Now, if you're in the majority, your goal should be to legislate. All right.

And legislated bills that will make it through the Senate and make it through the executive. We're in the minority right now. They have no interest in working with us on major legislation. That's just been true so far. Maybe that'll change later on. You know, we keep talking about an infrastructure bill, for instance. But that should be your goal. Some people go up there to fight the good fight, right?

to constantly hit back on what the other side is saying. Some people go up there because they have one issue that they care about. And I know people like that. They only ran for Congress because of one issue. I ran on really a couple of different issues that I definitely still work on a lot, both in messaging, both publicly and behind the scenes. And that's flooding issues here in Houston and that's border security. So, I mean, I'm on Homeland Security Committee,

and the Homeland deals with both of these in a pretty deep way. So does it really detract in a way, yes, but not as much as you'd think. I mean... I guess it seems like a distraction. It can be. It can be. But a detraction, but a distraction. I mean, it can be, but that depends on your personality.

You know, the solution to that is don't let it distract you. Because the reality is, I mean, if you follow my social media, we put out one thing a day. It's about one thing a day. So this isn't a huge, this certainly isn't a big part of my day that we focus on social media, but it is an important part. And the thing is, is that it gets blown up because everybody's talking about it. And so it gives you the, it gives normal people the impression that all these members are doing is on social media. Now, if you look at AOS. That's actually a good point, because a lot of that can get accelerated and elevated without them actually participating beyond

the initial interaction. 100%. Now, AOC is a little different. She's literally always on Twitter. So, and you can see that from her Twitter feed. I mean, it's so that, so you can make a different argument about her. You guys seem like besties, by the way. I would, you know, we could be. It seems like, honestly, it seems from a totally outside and, again, uneducated perspective that you two are getting pitted against each other, whether that's intentional or that's just the way that it is.

That certainly seems what it looks like. And the reality is we both exercise a little bit of discipline and how we go after each other because it's, it is kind of a war of attrition. And so, you know, like on the Omar thing, for some reason, and she felt the need to defend, well, she always defends Omar. And so, okay, fair enough. Now she made up lies about me in order to do so,

but so I didn't find that to be very, uh, she said you were handsome or what was, oh. Yes, I got one head. Nice. You know,

so I didn't, I wasn't a fan of that, but for the most part, I, and I don't even respond, right? Like I did, yeah,

well, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no upswing, positive, of upswingy responded to some of that. A lot of my comments on AOC are generally because people ask me.

Or I might hammer the Green New Deal or something. But again, now we're just attacking policies. And I, which I think is not only fair game, but it's your job. Like you're supposed to go after people's policies. Well, that's what they're presenting is the solution, right? Yeah. And their ideas and everything they say. All right.

Then, again, what we have to avoid and what we don't do a good job avoiding, like we, I mean, just America. doesn't do a good job avoiding is the tendency to attack their character or their personality or something about them as a person at hominem attacks as opposed to what they're saying. And again, if you want proof of that, just look at my Twitter feed. It's old one-eyed this, one-eyed that. You know, nobody actually comments on what I said. Yeah.

Right? They just, they just name call. You know what's funny is I will actually, I can't make my way through the thousands of comments. But I can say anecdotally, when I do click on them, it does. does degrade to one eye this. Honestly, I would say within five to seven comments. Yeah. That's what it eventually turns.

Then I'm like, I'm out. I can't do it. And the only reason I even look at him is because we're trying to build a list of mean tweets that we can read out because it's funny, but they're not even funny. That's the thing. I saw a couple good zingers in there. I'm like, because I don't like to look at them. You know, you'll drive yourself crazy looking through.

And you'll be so tempted to respond and you're not, you shouldn't. but um that would be a good feature for twitter to have i'm about to start reading comments disable uh responses for the next 30 minutes yeah yeah yeah so you can look at it and regardless like the harder you hit it it adds another five minutes to you're disabled that's good it keeps adding it yeah and eventually you're shut out for like 24 and you come back yeah okay fine moving on it would save so many people's reputations it would have saved many it would have saved a lot yeah uh you know another one that's in the uh headlines all the time, too, is immigration and border stuff.

And you're saying, you're on the border security, which panel you on? Homeland Security Committee on the subcommittees I'm on are oversight as well as disaster preparedness. So what are your thoughts on what's going on at the border? Well, my thoughts, I'm living in a border state. Actually, I do too, but we have, I don't think, the issues. Yeah. Well, it's a crisis.

It's very clearly a crisis. We had 400,000 people illegally, illegals coming over. and apprehended last year and we're already surpassed that this year. So who knows what we'll even get to at this point. And, you know, there's certain loopholes in our system that incentivize this. And what they incentivize is for these adults from Central America to bring children with them. And this is a new problem. It's a new crisis. It's been building over a couple of years, but it's really peaked at this point. And we're completely overwhelmed as far as our Border Patrol is concerned. They have no place to house these people. We're just catching them or releasing them.

Because everybody knows that they can jump across, claim asylum, even though they have no real valid claim to an asylum. And then that they'll be told to show up for a court date later on. When you say release, so they just released into a city? Literally released. Yeah. Random cities. So all over the United States. And it's not clear whether they're really showing back up for their hearings, especially if they know ahead of time that they don't really have any valid claim to asylum.

Because most of these people are economic migrants. I'm not saying they're bad people. The wrong arguments to use are the ones that have been used for the last couple of years is that we can't let the drugs and the crime and all that. It's not effective. All right, here's what's effective. We had 100,000 people in March. That's too many people.

And it's not fair. It's not fair or moral or just to have them cut in front of legal immigrants. What about legal immigrants? What about people who actually have an asylum claim, who are fleeing persecution of some sorts? That's what our process is for. So, you know, we certainly need to, walls to fend this off.

I mean, where we do have walls, there's less crossings. It's really as simple as that. I always think it's laughable when the talking points from the left where I always, you know, you're a seal. You should know that walls don't matter. And I'm like, what? They actually do. Quite a bit, actually.

They work, but they're not impenetrable. They're not impenetrable, but there's certainly a deterrent. And, yeah, you know, we can get over them with our special training and our equipment and all that. But if you're talking. I don't say it's more the latter, but it's, but it's, you know, You know, it's not easy. And the fact, and the reality is that where they exist, you just don't see the crossings.

Because, I mean, regular people show up to them and they're like, okay, well, I can't, can't get over this. I mean, it really is as simple as that. It's not impossible, but it's certainly a deterrent. And again, security is about mitigating risk. Okay, it's about mitigating movement. And the point is to prevent somebody from coming from point A to point B. Okay, so walls are a part of that. They're not the only part of it.

A major thing we have to do is reform the way we accept. accept asylum seekers at all. And we should have a question out there. Should you really be allowed to claim asylum if you come in between points of entry? You know, because you're not actually fleeing some kind of persecution. That's not actually happening. You're not fleeing Mexico. You're not running away from somebody chasing. Yeah, there's not like the dust trail right behind the vehicle. Yeah, I mean, that's just not what's happening. So there's really no good reason why you wouldn't go to a point of entry. Democrats say, well, well, there's too long of a line there. Yes, there is. It's true. Okay, because we do live in a country where we have to have a

process and we can't possibly take in 100,000 people at a time. And all these people who are claiming asylum don't necessarily have a valid claim. And this is just proven in the data. I mean, between 80 and 90 percent, it turns out they didn't have a valid claim and they should be deported. We need to be able to adjudicate those claims right away. Don't catch and release them, hold them, adjudicate them as far as quickly as possible. If we want to make sure that line goes through quicker, then let's try and add more resources there. Let's put more immigration judges. Let's put more detention facilities. Let's get this done. I'm willing to invest that money if that's what we need to do. And it should also be acceptable to ask them to wait in Mexico. Again, we have to

deter that we have to remove these incentives because right now they know how to, they know how to, they know how to take advantage of our loopholes. That's why you're seeing hundreds of thousands of people come. And it's, it's 100% unsustainable. And you can't absorb that many people in all at once. And it's, it's just wholly unfair to legal immigrants doing it the right way. How long does the process take for those who are doing it the right way? Well, it depends on a lot of factors. And it depends on what kind of visa they're applying for. What would be the quickest?

I'm not actually sure. All right. How the quickest would be. Yeah, quickest would be. But the quickest would be you marry an American citizen probably. Or you have some kind of family. So our system right now, it rewards, is what we call chain migration. You know, it rewards family members who have family members who have family members in the United

States, right? This is a problem because what it does is it only rewards certain countries, right? It rewards everybody south of our border as opposed to having a more diverse immigration system from around the world. So again, it's not fair to me that people can claim asylum rather easily from Central America, but not Africa. Really, like, why? Why do we prioritize them over Africans? It's, you know, a lot of cases, Africans are definitely being persecuted a lot more. I mean, 100% more. I don't think there's a question. So what about them? You know, like when we can't even focus over there or anywhere else in the world because

we're completely overwhelmed right now in our process by people who are taking advantage of the system. This is, this is wholly unjust to actual asylum seekers, actual refugees, and actual legal immigrants. How long do you think you would take? I say you could get both parties involved and come to an agreement. How long do you think it would take to implement? Don't laugh at that. It's possible.

I wouldn't laugh. I really wasn't. How long do you think it would take for something to be implemented that could actually fix that? Because say there was an agreement in government, and it's not like, you know, it's not like tomorrow that solution is there. If all of a sudden we all agreed on asylum process reform, that would have immediate effects. I mean immediate, because that word gets out fast. Oh, the Americans just changed the way they're doing that. So you think we would have an influx.

The difference would be the number of people who are approaching using that mechanism. Right. Well, if they know they're getting turned around because they don't have a proper asylum claim, then they're going to stop coming. So it would have an immediate effect. I mean, much faster than the walls going up would have. You know, the walls going up are more of a long-term security issue that we do have, because keep in mind,

the immigrants coming across are put there by drug cartels. Drug cartels have complete operational control of the southern border. Complete operational control. Nobody goes across that border without paying them first. Okay. They put about 50 people there. they know that Border Patrol is going to be tied up for a couple hours processing all these people who are all claiming asylum. And then they go around them and they use that distraction to put in the drugs and the people they want to get across undetected, they put them there.

So you do need more technology. You do need walls. There's actually legitimate reasons for this. It's a defense and depth issue for sure. I mean, a wall, I think it's going to be less effective until there is no gaps in the walls, obviously. And then I don't think, I mean, obviously, a 20-foot wall is going to make a 24-foot ladder maker, a millionaire overnight. Yeah. And they're going to do.

But again, it's mitigating, you know. For sure. Because how many people, and what are you doing when you're at the top of the wall? Do you jump, obviously? Yeah, just jump. Yeah. How hard can that be? Which is a parachute landing full, which you learned.

Well, you didn't learn it because you didn't have to go to airborne school, did you? Well, we did four days of static line jumping in O-Tie. So we kind of learned it. I did five days of my left-hand side PLF. Well, look, the reality is. Andy, is that us new guys were just easier to train because we're smarter. I can't argue that. I'm as dumb as this set of sunglasses on this table.

It would be the first person to admit that. Yeah, it's a defense-in-depth issue. Last question for you, because I'm going to get a beer. How far do you want to take it in politics? As far as the American people will have me. No, no. More precise. Are you going to be running for president one day?

Well, you can't be more precise because politics is, there's not a pipeline, you know. Well, if there is, you're in it. Yeah, I'm definitely in it, wherever it is. But it's more of about opportunity. It's about that moment. You know, just like me running for Congress was really about that moment. It wasn't like I've been eyeing this seat for a while. You did it again, nice.

Yep, so to speak. Yep. So it's hard to say, but, you know, I will definitely continue to serve. That's, there's no going back at this point. We're in the game. and I like what I'm doing. I like having a voice and having an effect and fighting for the ideals that I care about so much.

And this is a cultural war just as much as it is, a political and policy war. And I find that to be, one, extremely fulfilling and extremely important because I care very much about the future of this country, and I want the future of this country to be sustainable. And what's not sustainable is promising people more things, telling them that only government can help you.

That is not sustainable. Never will be. Personal responsibility is an ultimate foundation of our country. And if we don't start to value that again, if we don't start telling people that they're in charge of their own destiny, that they're empowered, and that government is simply there

to protect your rights to pursue your own happiness, then I have a lot of fear for the future of our country. So I don't plan on getting out of that fight anytime soon. It's a pretty good ending. Thanks. Thanks for the time, man. Of course. It's great to be with you.

Ladies and gents, that's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I know how to blast. We connect him with an old friend. Thank you to everybody who is taking the time to listen to the podcast. I really appreciate those of you who are devoting your time and effort to seek out the content, and specifically those who are taking the time to reach out and give me feedback. So people ask me all the time what it is they could do to help me out when it comes to the podcast.

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