Morning Wire - Hung Cao’s Race for VA Senate | 10.13.24

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

Retired Navy Captain Hung Cao shares his personal journey as a refugee from communist Vietnam, his military service, and outlines his political platform as he seeks to win Virginia’s Senate seat. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Black Rifle Coffee: Give back by drinking America's coffee! Get an exclusive discount with code DAILYWIRE: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hung Cow is a refugee from communist Vietnam, an MIT graduate, and a retired Navy captain with 25 years of combat experience. Now, Cow is on a new mission, taking on incumbent Tim Cain in the upcoming Virginia Senate race. We speak to him about his background, his views on key issues like immigration and military recruitment, and his vision for the future. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's October 13th. And this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. Hey guys, producer Brandon here. Black Rifle Coffee helps you wake up each morning feeling dialed in and ready to make the most of your day.

And now's your chance to get 20% off your purchase using code Daily Wire at black rifle coffee.com. All of their explosive coffees are roasted right here in the USA by a veteran-led team of expert roasters obsessed with crafting the perfect cup of coffee. Every black rifle purchase makes it possible for Black Rifle Coffee Company to help provide funding, training and equipment to our nation's military and first responders. Head to their site now for 20% off your purchase with Code Daily Wire. Joining us this morning is retired Navy Captain and U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia, Hung, thanks so much for coming on. Jorya, thank you for having me on. So you're running for Senate in Virginia trying to unseat incumbent Tim Kane. For those who are not

familiar with you, can you explain a little bit about your background, your education, and your military service? Absolutely. So in 1975, when Vietnam fell to the communists, my family had to flee there because my father was a high-ranking Vietnamese senior official. He was a deputy minister of agriculture. So he would have been marked for death or sent to re-education camp. So that night, my mom had to stow notes into her clothes saying, this is my son, please take care of in case we get separated. Because there's a possibility she would have had to throw us into an airplane or something like that. But, you know, we made it to airport and my parents had another resolution.

What if the Americans only took two of our five kids? or three of our five kids, to leave behind, and how do they take care of themselves, and how do we even come back to get them? But this amazing country brought us all over here, and we settled in North Virginia, but then not for long, because my father could not find any work over here.

We had to move to West Africa in Sub-Saharan Niger, where we spent seven years over there. I went to French schools, but at the age of 12, my parents realized, gosh, this kid doesn't speak in English, and so my mom had to bring us all back to the United States, and my dad stayed in these other harsh countries, like Chad and Zaire, Cameroon, Guinea, just to make a living, and we would see them every six months or so. But that's what sacrifice is so that your kids can get the American dream.

So over here, my mom pushed education to us, and so I went to the top school in the country, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. I went to the United States Naval Academy where I earned a bachelor's in engineering. I went to a naval postgraduate school where I had a master's in physics, and I had fellowships at Harvard, MIT. But I wanted to pay back this country for everything he gave. me with 25 years of service, Navy special operations. Whereas a Navy deep sea diver that recovered John Fannie Jr., his wife, his sister-in-law,

as well as a diffuse bombs for our steel teams and special forces teams in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. So that's me in a nutshell, Jolie. Wow. Now, having fled from communism, were you raised in a home that leaned conservative in their politics, or is this something you came to later? I know there's sort of an expectation that immigrants will vote Democrat. What was your journey like? You know, I don't really know what my parents' politics were. I mean, I know a lot of people that worked for my dad when he was the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Vietnam were Democrats that came back here and they worked under the Card administration and they were the Secretary of Agriculture or other congressmen, senators. But I think that the Democrat Party in the 70s is not the Democrat Party now. I mean, I think my dad would roller in his grave right now if he saw that those guys are now just a bunch of communists. I mean, this is what we feel. fought against for years. And the Democrat Party today is not what it purports to be. They're not the defenders of freedom and democracy. They are pushing left-wing ideology, and you will get

ostracized and pushed aside and ridiculed and called names if you don't agree with their positions. And I hate this, that they call themselves a Democratic Party. They're nowhere near Democratic. And I think that's what confuses a lot of, especially immigrants coming in here. They hear where Democratic, Oh, of course I want democratic thinking. But it's not that they don't purport the same values and ideologies that make America. So what brought you to this moment wanting to get into politics? Well, let's be very clear. I don't want to get in politics, but I have to because, you know, when I was in Afghanistan,

my last combat tour was in January 2021. And we left behind a country that was stable and able to stand in stone two feet. But when Joe Biden came in and just destroyed everything and watching Mother's hand babies to Marines, it just destroyed my heart. I mean, we lost a lot of friends over there. We spent a lot of time and money and for what? To take Afghanistan away from the Taliban to give it back to the Taliban. So that's why I said, I just can't serve anymore.

It's just like what happened to Vietnam. And so I retired and I ran for actual Congress in the 10th Congressional District up in Northern Virginia. That includes the infamous Loudoun County where the school board was attacking the parents. And I didn't win, but I moved that needle so far over for my an area where Joe Biden won by 19%. I was able to take it down to 6%. And they asked me to run for U.S. Senate because no one has ever performed this well in Northern Virginia before.

And so here I am running against Tim Kane, who is Hillary Clinton's running mate. And nobody knows who he is or remembers him, except for he got stuck on I-95 with a bottle, Dr. Pepper, during a snowstorm. And how close is this contest right now? Do you think you're going to be able to move the needle a little further? Absolutely.

So, you know, there's a lot of, I don't want to say fake polls, but just they're off right now. Some of them have him as far as 20% above, and it's just not true. We have our own internal numbers, and this is corroborated by some very good universities that have us about six points behind him. But Donald Trump is only about one or two points behind Kamala Harris in the same poll. And I'll tell you right now, there's no such animal that's going to go vote for Donald Trump and in the same ballot vote for Tim K. So I think my numbers are a lot closer than they appear to be right now.

You released a very powerful ad about living in communist Vietnam. Tell us about that ad and the reaction it's gotten. Well, it's from the heart. I mean, it was just me pounding on the door. And it's the sound of communists coming to your door and taking away your freedom. I mean, both my parents lost their fathers from communists, knock on the door and take him away in the middle of night. And if you don't think that can happen here, wait until Kamala Harris and Tim Volk gets in there.

I mean, don't forget Tim Wall set up a snitch line. Kamala Harris also said that even if you're a law Biden citizen, it doesn't mean the police can knock on your door to check on if you're handling your guns safely, you know, and according to how she interprets that. So, you know, this is the beginning of socialism and communism turning kids against parents. We saw that in Loudoun County. We also see that in Michigan where they have a law that if your kids think that the parents are not abiding by, you know, taking care of their guns safely, then you can snitch on your parents. And this is scary to me.

This is exactly what communism looks out. Now, you've also spoken out strongly regarding the border crisis. What do you think the right path forward is in that regard? Okay, so my thing is, don't ask for the American dream if you're not willing to obey the American laws and embrace the American culture, because I did. I love this country so incredibly much. I wrote a blank check up to a cleaning my life to defend it for 25 years in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. So we, need to secure the border. We need to stop giving them money because some families are getting upwards of $5,000 to $10,000 gift cards. You know, my family never got that, nor didn't want

free money. And then we need immediately deport anybody who's incarcerated because they've already broken the law twice. Then on the fourth prong of this is to force companies to use E-Verify. If they don't use E-Verify to make sure their workers are documented, then they will be fine severely. So if they can't get free money and they can't get jobs, they will self-deport from this country. So you are a 25-year Navy veteran, and you've pointed to the decline in military recruitment. You've expressed concern specifically about the rise of DEI policies in the military. Tell us about what you've seen on that front in your long history of service and why you feel the need to speak out about it now. Well, DEI has no place in the military. When we talk about

diversity, it's diversity of thought and backgrounds and experiences. And, Equity, it's not right for the military. Look, equity sounds a lot like quality, but what it means is it finishes at the same level. I'm five, six, 170 pounds. I'm never going to play in the NBA or the NFL. It's just not how God made me. Now, you give me some math problems, I'm all over it.

And inclusion, the military is probably the most exclusive organization out there. Less than 10% of our country can qualify for military service and less than 1% have served. And where I come from in the special operations community, sometimes attrition rates in the special spools, like I commanded the naval diving salvage chain center, the attrition rate can be up to 75%. So three quarters of people don't make it through because we are special operations warriors. And we have to be able to do the hard things when we're asked to do it. And it's just not for everyone. And, you know, it's not like playing call of duty like these kids think.

This is, it's hard work. You're doing special insertions and you're doing things that only have a handful of people can deem. So DEI has no place in the United States and military. All right. Well, Hung, thank you so much for making time for us from the campaign trail. Thank you, Georgia. And if your listeners want to find more about me, they can go to hungforVA.com.

That's h-U-o-g-F-R-B-A.com. Look, maybe you can't vote for me, but I can vote for you because my vote in the United States Senate will be for all Americans. So thank you again for having me up. That was Hung Cow. U.S. Senate candidate for Virginia, and this has been a Sunday episode of Morning Wire.