No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Democrats push for windfall tax on oil companies

Episode Date: March 20, 2022

Republicans slam the Biden administration for not doing enough to help Ukraine despite overlooking one major detail. Brian interviews Senator Tammy Duckworth about the prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons, the bill to impose a windfall tax on oil companies, and finally removing lead from water pipes in the United States. And Missouri Senate candidate Lucas Kunce joins to discuss his plan to rein in predatory oil companies and the state of his toss-up Senate race ahead of November.Support Lucas Kunce: https://lucaskunce.com/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Republicans slamming the Biden administration for not doing enough to help Ukraine, despite overlooking one major detail. I interview Senator Tammy Duckworth about the prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons, the bill to impose a windfall tax on oil companies, and finally removing lead from water pipes in the United States. And I'm joined by Missouri Senate candidate Lucas Coontz to discuss his plan to finally rein in predatory oil companies and the state of that toss-up Senate race ahead of November. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So this past week, President Zelensky addressed the United States Congress.

He included a video that was also broadcast on TV that ended up being pretty graphic and not super family friendly, but like, good. You know, in the face of so much disinformation, both on pro-Kremlin media and from the pro-Pooten apologists here in the U.S., good on Zelensky for showing exactly what's happening. And beyond that, like, yeah, it's uncomfortable to watch. It is also uncomfortable for those Ukrainians, so I'm not sure we're really in a position here to complain. Here's an excerpt from Zelensky's speech. I'm addressing the President Biden. You are the leader of the nation, of your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. and powerful and honestly exactly what Zelensky should be doing. And as a result, Republicans took this opportunity to do, you know, what else, but slam Biden. Rick Scott came out and said, President Biden needs to make a decision today, either give the Ukrainians access to the planes and anti-aircraft defense system, it needs to defend itself, or enforce a no-fly zone to close Ukrainian skies to Russian attacks.

If President Biden does not do this now, President Biden will show himself to be absolutely heartless and ignorant of the deaths of innocent Ukrainian children and families. Ted Cruz tweeted, why does the Biden administration continue to slow walk providing the Ukrainian people the weapons they need to defend themselves? Josh Hawley attacked Biden by saying he's not sending enough military equipment to Ukraine. Marsha Blackburn tweeted, President Zelensky delivered a powerful speech this morning. We must send Ukraine lethal support immediately.

And yet, you know, despite all of these calls from all of these people to arm Ukraine, every single one of them voted against an appropriations package that had passed on Thursday that included $13.6 billion in emergency humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. Like the degree of outright, unapologetic shamelessness to blame Biden for not doing enough, and yet at the same time, vote against military aid for the very country of virtue signaling in pretending to support. And it wasn't just that batch of Republicans either. In total, 31 Republican senators out of 50 voted against this aid.

All the while, they have the audacity to claim that an administration and a Democratic Party that are seeking solutions, that are passing bills, that are supplying aid, are the ones not doing enough. And beyond that, as if you really needed another example of their hypocrisy, these are the same people who only, what, two years ago when Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression so that he could extort Zelensky for Trump on Biden, they decided that that was okay. Literally, every single Republican except Mitt Romney signaled their full support for withholding aid from Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. The only difference now is they're not being forced to choose between their deity and anyone else.

And so they'll finally deign to offer some empty lip service, and only lip service. The fact is that you have one party that's looking to govern. And the other party is not only not looking to govern, but just straight gaslighting about the first party. If the GOP isn't willing to come at this in good faith when a dictator is trying to redraw the map of Europe, when, you know, children's hospitals and maternity awards are being bombed and Russia is shelling humanitarian escape routes and entire cities are being raised to the ground, then let's just be honest here, they're never going to. Their priority isn't protecting people or defending democracy. It is only attacking Democrats and doing so without even a shred

of adherence to reality, like voting against aid to Ukraine and then logging onto Twitter and attacking Biden for not delivering enough aid. Just a degree of shamelessness that I'm not even sure I can articulate here. Like, I don't know that I'm able to even wrap my head around what it's like to have that much, what, cognitive dissonance or shamelessness or both. So at this point, I would just offer this. Focus on the people who are trying to help. And those people are on the left. There was one person on the right who could have actually said that he's taken this seriously at every turn, and that was Mitt Romney, but even he's just voted against that $13 billion in military aid to Ukraine. There is only one party committed to protecting democracy, whether it's at home or

abroad. So I hope we all see what's happening in Europe and take that warning seriously because I can promise you that those Ukrainians in Kiev also thought it could never happen to them. Next step is my interview with Tammy Duckworth. Today we have the U.S. Senator from Illinois, Tammy Duckworth. Thank you so much for coming on. It's good to be on. Thanks for having me. Of course. So let's start off with the war in Ukraine. One issue that we're contending with right now is how to continue army Ukraine without Russia, interpreting that as a provocation. And granted, I know that Russia's interpretation of provocation is pretty arbitrary, but still,

how does the U.S. approach this issue of defending democracy while avoiding direct conflict with another nuclear power? Well, to do what we've been doing, which is to be providing them with, in fact, millions of rounds of ammunition, thousands of anti-aircraft artillery missiles, you know, stingers, javelins, We've been providing coming through Poland and supply lines that are being manned by the Ukrainian military, significant, significant arms and ammunition that they need to defend the nation. And in fact, part of the reason they've been as successful as they have been, has been because we've been able to provide them with the weaponry they need to fight the Russians.

Just recently, Poland's deputy prime minister, I believe a day or two ago, has called for international peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, which is basically just, you know, a thinly veiled code for pitting NATO troops directly against Russian troops. I'm assuming that our top priority here should be avoiding a direct conflict with another nuclear power, like I'd mentioned before. What's your position on this? And are we going to see more officials abroad but possibly at home calling for these types of, you know, stuff like a no-fly zone, stuff like peacekeeping missions in Ukraine?

Well, the issue with the peacekeeping mission in Ukraine is that it would have to be agreed to by the Russians. And so far, Vladimir Putin has actually violated every humanitarian corridor agreement that they've agreed to. I mean, so far, they've agreed multiple times to corridors to get, for example, humanitarian aid, food, water, medical supplies into Mariposo. And every single one of those has fallen and the Russians have violated those agreements. within hours of agreeing to them. So if they won't even adhere to an agreement that they made for a matter of hours to bring medical supplies, I don't know that we can count on them agreeing to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

They have to agree that they want peace in Ukraine. And right now, it doesn't seem like the Russians want peace there. Yeah, I agree. Now, with that said, Putin's threatened nuclear attack. You know, we hear that on one hand, he's a rational actor and wouldn't subject himself to the assured destruction that would come with launching a nuclear war against NATO. At the same time, we also hear that he's becoming increasingly unhinged. And at this point, he knows he lost, so his only option is basically going down with a ship

in a blaze of glory. Should Americans be worried about the prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons? We should be worried about the prospect of him using nuclear weapons, because I think it's very much within the realm of possibility that he would do it. I don't think of him as any of the things that he's done as a round. national actor at all because none of this is rational. It makes no sense for him to have invaded Ukraine the way he did. He's destroyed his own economy.

He has his GDP has dropped by 10%. He's just shown the world that he has essentially a hollow army. You know, he was supposed to roll right in and take over Ukraine and 72 hours. Yeah, right? We have fought them off. So he's actually shown the incompetence and the lack of training and the utter hollowness of his own military. And he's really degraded Russian stature in the world. And his stated purpose, which was to stop the encroachment of NATO, all he's done is actually made NATO stronger

because, you know, the Germans have finally agreed. You know what? We're going to actually now spend 3% of our GDP on military equipment. And he's actually united NATO and made it even stronger. So none of the decisions he's made has been rational, which is why I think it's important to rope to be very aware. of his willingness to use of nuclear weapons, because I think he would be. Yeah. And just to build on what you said about the strengthening of NATO, we now have other countries who are inquiring about joining NATO that wouldn't have happened before Finland, Sweden.

So just to kind of build upon exactly that. You know, I know a lot of isolationists are looking at this, not caring much about a couple countries on the other side of the world and saying, why should we care? Why should we risk anything here to go help Ukraine? I mean, what would be your response to that? What are the broader implications of a Russian victory in Ukraine, both for Europe and democracy across the world? Well, what it says is whether or not we're willing to defend democracy

and whether or not we are willing to keep our word. And it's not just Europe that's watching. Asia is watching China. The PRC is watching very carefully what's happening. And they're learning lessons from Russia's failure and they're learning lessons from the fact that you're very quick. quickly united. You know, China has been watching to see if the United States will stand with Taiwan should they decide to annex Taiwan. Countries like India are trying to figure out, do they align

themselves with Russia, which is kind of their tendency to be. But now they're wondering, maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't. So the rest of the world is watching. And frankly, it's not just about national security in terms of armaments. It's about economic security as well. These are nations that are competitors to the United States and to the Western world. And frankly, if we don't stick together, if we don't show a United Front against aggression like this, against folks who don't respect territorial, you know, a nation's territory and a nation's sovereignty, that tells Asia, for example, or nations in Africa, that you can't count on the United States. You can't count on Western powers.

You can't count on these countries that say, hey, you know, go with democracy. and capitalism, because that's the way to go, they're going to say, you know what? The authoritarianism, that seems to be the way that's working, not work for Russia. That's going to work for the PRC. Maybe that's the way we go. That is going to be detrimental to the well-being of democratic nations. Well, you know, you'd mentioned something similar happening with China and Taiwan. Obviously, China and Russia are different in the sense that Russia doesn't create a fraction of what China does in the world.

I mean, so many countries' economies are wrapped up in Chinese manufacturing. What kind of response to you? I mean, it's easier for NATO countries in the Western world to basically allow Russia to become a pariah state, but China's not in that boat. So what would you anticipate would happen if China were to do something similar with Taiwan? Well, you know, it's not that easy for the Western nations to push Russia off. remember that Europe, for example, relies on a significant amount of its energy from Russian oil and Russian gas. And so what China is watching is to see how much pain are Western nations and NATO nations willing to bear in order to isolate Russia and to cut Russia off from that global economic regime.

And that will be an indicator to them in terms of how willing the world would be willing to cut off China from the rest of the world's economy. And I think by standing strong, what we're showing other parts of the world is that, you know what, it's time for us to start building an economy that is not so reliant on China. We learned that during the pandemic, right, that so much of our supply chain is so dependent on the PRC that we realize we need to start and reinvest in manufacturing and reinvigorating our supply chain manufacturing. Maybe not all in the United States, although that would be my preference, but maybe in friendly third countries, in places like Indonesia and Thailand. and those places that can also do manufacturing in a cost-effectively. It doesn't all have to happen in Shenzhen, China. And so I think that there are lessons learned here, and part of that lesson is how much pain is the world,

is the Western world willing to put up with in order to isolate Russia? And I think we're showing that we're willing to put up with an awful lot. Right. Well, speaking of that very issue of the issue of gas prices, that's not just an issue that Russia controls. I mean, you know, these are American oil companies. that are now seeing record profits as a result of raising their prices and kind of hiding under the pretense of inflation because we've seen it in so many other sectors, meat, foods, everything

else, clothing, cars. Now there's now talk of an investigation into price gouging in the oil industry. The cost of crude went from $130 a barrel to 95, and yet the average prices at the pump went from $4.33 all the way down to $4.32. sense. What can Congress and the U.S. government do in terms of oversight of this industry? Well, I'm actually introduced legislation that will address this very issue that would make it illegal for price gouging, for oil companies to price gouge. In fact, it's based on what happened after Hurricane Katrina. The legislation was first actually written in the House of

Representatives to go after people who price gouge, energy companies that price gouge after Katrina. So we've shown that we can do it before we make it illegal. I'm actually introducing legislation to that effect. We can also tax oil companies on the extra profits that they're making through price gouging as well and tax them at a much higher level. And in fact, you know, oil company executives have actually made statements. I mean, this is the most ridiculous thing. How arrogant are you to in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of, you know,

the horrors that you see in Ukraine say, yeah, we could actually. lower gas prices, but we're just not willing to pump more oil because we'd rather buy back stock or we'd rather pay more dividends to our shareholders than bring down gas prices. I mean, they literally said that. And so we need to hold them accountable for that type of gouging behavior because it's not acceptable. Speaking of that windfall tax, you know, does the gas price issue seem to be having any impact on those on the right whose insistence on protecting oil companies is entrenching this

exact problem? Is there any movement or are those oil and gas donations just too good to pass up? It seems to me like it's too good to pass up. You know, they're not, while they want to send more weapons and do everything we can in Ukraine, they don't seem to be willing to do anything with the gas companies, which is very unfortunate. Yeah. And then, of course, you have someone like Kevin McCarthy who's come out and thrown every

excuse in the book at Joe Biden to, you know, to blame him solely for the right. and gas prices, while ignoring the fact that, you know, you have these oil executives like you just mentioned who are coming out and saying, not only do we have record profits to the tune of $174 billion across just four major oil companies this year, but that we have no expectation of increasing supply, because that would hamper our ability to issue these stock buybacks and major dividends to shareholders. Exactly. More broadly, what are Democrats doing in the face of Republican opposition to bring

cost down for consumers, not just in oil and gas, but just across the board? Well, you know, we've identified a bunch of areas that we're going, that we're working on. I'm doing the price gouging, for example, so that's my piece of legislation that I am working on. We're also working on pharmaceutical pricing, for example. I would love to go right to allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Not every Democrat is on board with that. We know we won't get any Republican votes. So we would need all 50 Democrats plus the vice president.

So, you know, our position is let's pass something. Let's at the very least cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month so that families don't have to choose between insulin to take care of their child's diabetes or food or rent. And, you know, there are stories of children as young as 8 or 10 rationing their own insulin because they don't want to be a burden on their parents because the insulin bill is three or four or $500 a month. And that's not acceptable. We're the richest country in the face of the earth.

You know, our kids should not be self-rationing incident. And by the way, this is a drug that's been around for well over 100 years. It shouldn't cost more than $35 a lot. And so we can start to lower the cost of pharmaceuticals.

And let's do it, you know, let's do it a logical way that makes sense, that respects the free market, but at the same time, say, you know what, you don't get to gouge. You don't get to go out, by the way, and buy all the manufacturers of the epipen of an auto, you know, an auto injector and then double the price, you know, for an epipen so that kids with allergies have no other

choice to buy, pay $600 for one syringe, right? Yeah. So you don't get to do that. I think it's telling, too, that, you know, you have all of these Republicans who are coming out and attacking the left because of high prices on everything, and yet in the face of all of these solutions from, you know, this price gouging bill that you yourself are working on to all of the elements of build back better, to these standalone elements, you know, lowering prices for childcare and pre-K and drug prices, that they're opposed to all of it.

And so they'll, you know, wail about these issues. And yet when it comes time to actually supporting any of the solutions, even one, there's, you know, a zero percent buy-in from the right. They don't support any of it. And by the way, when there's things like the American Rescue Plan or the bipartisan infrastructure deal, they won't vote for it. Only a handful of Republicans voted for the bipartisan infrastructure deal. And yet you see Republicans showing up all the time trying to be at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Right, right. Things that they didn't vote for. Well, let's end with that very issue. You've been involved with the clean water provision of the bipartisan infrastructure law, and that would remove lead from the water. You know, we've been hearing about lead and water in places like Flint, Michigan, for literally as long as I can remember. I don't remember a time where we weren't talking about that issue.

You, yourself, were in hearings in the house where, you know, you had a woman with a baby bottle, a clear baby bottle, and there was brown water in it. Can you talk about the fact that this is finally getting done? It's finally getting done. It was very bipartisan as well. I'm very proud of that. My drinking water and wastewater act, do we, you know, we come up with such great acronyms here in Washington, I guess. But I've been working on getting the lead out of our drinking water supply now for over 10 years. and it took a Democratic majority.

And it took me getting to the point where I was a chairwoman of the committee on water and a president who supports eliminating 100% of the lead service lines in this country coming together all in one moment in time to get this passed. And my bill got 89 votes on the floor of the Senate with regular order and got 89 votes. That's pretty bipartisan. You don't get much more bipartisan than that, and I'm very proud of it. And the goal is to get rid of 100% of the lead that, exist today in our review water system and also to make sure that our municipalities have the

dollars to fix their wastewater and their sewer systems because many of those have not been fixed in decades. Well, thank you not only for the work you're doing, but, you know, for continuing to push stuff like this through that hasn't gotten done before, even though it's 20-22, it's far too long, but thank you for, you know, the work you're doing now and finally getting it done. Senator Duckworth, I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Thanks again to Senator Duckworth. Now we have the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, Lucas Coontz. Thanks for coming back on. Yeah, thanks, Brian. It's great to be here. So I want to start off with gas prices. And I basically dedicated every video and podcast that I've done in the last couple of weeks to that issue. And the reason is because of how shameless these gas companies are.

You know, while Americans are contending with higher prices across the board, these gas companies, knowing that they can could just chalk it up to inflation, they inked sky-high profits, you know, $174 billion last year alone. Now, you've been especially vocal about this issue, too. What is your plan on how we deal with the issue of gas companies in light of what we've been seeing? Yeah, it's crazy. You know, they're getting $20 billion a year in U.S. taxpayers' subsidies, and now they're, you know, I think it was Exxon the other day announced, or maybe it was the industry as a whole that they're going to do $38 billion in share buybacks. So they're essentially taking our tax dollars and giving it to their shareholders many of which aren't even in the country right and so

no from what i what i've seen is we've had many decades of this the normal everyday americans being held hostage by these by this oil cartel these big companies and you know you've been talking about it and it's just it's terrible you know we give them the 20 billion dollars on the front end and then they charge us back at the pump more and more and more so you get squeezed on both sides and so for me what i want to do is just break that grip on power that that they've got. I think that the best way to do that is, you know, we're going to make a three-point plan, and it's first, if you drill oil in America, it stays in America. So drills here, stays here, stays in this market, funds American energy. And then another thing is

we're going to cap profits at 5%. Like, I'm tired of seeing these share buybacks. I'm tired to seeing people getting gouged at the pump, and we're going to take that extra money, and we're going to put it into a fund to fund their next generation of energy technology so that there's actually competition with these people because right now, you know, we don't have a free market. We got an energy cartel. We need competition. We need it in the next generation of technology. And then the third point is, you know, if you break these rules, there should be some accountability, so you go to jail. What do you anticipate, like, the governmental pushback, the legislative pushback to banning the overseas export of oil extracted in the U.S. will be. And how do you overcome that?

I mean, look, we're going to see government pushback because government is captured by big oil, right? And it's not just in campaign contributions. They, you know, one and four members of Congress have fossil fuel stocks. And so, you know, when Americans are getting gouged and those share buybacks are going to shareholders, those are going to members of Congress. I mean, what I think we need to do to augment this plan is make it so that oil companies can't have corporate packs. They can't donate to campaigns. And members of Congress can't own stock in them. And so, you know, this goes with a broader agenda of members of Congress shouldn't own stock at all.

because they should be making decisions based on what works for their constituents rather than on their own stock portfolio. As long as government is captured, we're going to have pushback on it. And that's why we know we need to lead from the front on this. We need to push hard and we need to give the American people something they can actually believe in. You'd mentioned capping oil profits at 5% and that would cut gas prices. Are there any other examples of capping the profits of private enterprise?

And I ask not because I don't agree with you. you. I do wholeheartedly, but because, you know, this is, this is going to come up, especially from every member of the House and Senate who are basically on Exxon and Shell's payrolls. Yeah, I mean, we talk about it. You know, there's been a lot of talk about the insulin cartel doing it there in other places. I think that, I think that what we're at, though, is we're at a point where we have a cartel and we have to go to an extreme toolkit to break it, right? When you have private regulators that are more powerful than the government, you have to take extreme measures. And that's what we're looking at right here.

And so I would say, you know, whether we've got previous examples or not, we need to dig into a playbook where we expand that. And, you know, we have seen the country do that in the past. For example, going into World War II, there was a company called Alcoa that had a complete monopoly on all the aluminum that was made in America. And so what they did was they artificially choked supply in order to keep prices up. And, you know, if you listen to what the Exxon CEO said in January, it was we're not interested in increase in production. We're interested in quality and, you know, profit per barrel. And so it's the same thing. The choke production, so they can make more money per item.

And so what we need to do like, and for Alcoa, what we did was rather than cap prices, what we did was we created competition by funding a bunch of competitors. So they made a bunch of, you know, the U.S. government funded a bunch of contractor-run facilities where they made aluminum. They forced that to happen. And, you know, it broke, it not only broke Alcoa's grip on that part of the economy, on the aluminum production, it also made it so that we had enough aluminum to win the war, build airplanes and things like that. And then when the war it was over, we sold those to people who were bidding on them. And one of the guys who ran one of the factories bought that factory. His last name was Reynolds.

And now we get, you know, we got the innovation, Reynolds wrap. and we have an entire, you know, an entire new product out of that. And so that was a novel idea that worked. And I think that because you had a cartel and you couldn't fight them on the position you were at, so you had to go somewhere else, I think that's what we need to start doing here. Which, by the way, is better for everybody.

Like, using your example of the aluminum, like if you choke supply just so that you could squeeze out, like what few dimes you can, what few more dimes you can out of people. And yet, meanwhile, you let the entire economy language, at your feet, that's not going to help you in the long run. Like breeding competition and breeding a healthy economy where people can actually afford to do things, like get out of their house and go in their car

and fill up and drive somewhere without just going to work and coming home because you've had to cut out because gas is in elastic. Well, that's going to be better for everybody in the long run. But so often these companies can't see beyond their quarterly profits, basically. And so I think that lends itself to exactly what you were saying. That's right. And you know, and one of the things, and so I give the Alcoa example for another reason, too. And that's that, you know, one of the things in the Constitution that the United States government's supposed to do is provide for the common defense. Right. And so when it came to Alcoa, like that doesn't just mean like projecting war power overseas. And yet, you know, for the oil and gas industry, it meant spending trillions of dollars in Iraq in a war for oil. And don't tell me that war wasn't for oil. Like Donald Rumsfeld said it was for oil. When I was at Centcom, the Centcom commander said it was for oil.

oil, you know, Alan Greenspan said it was for oil. Everybody who was involved in the planning and creation of that said it was for oil. And so it was. And so, you know, we were willing to spend billions of dollars for that. And, and it was an asset that's not helping us, right? Like, we are reliant right now on Saudi Arabia and Russia and other bad actors on the global energy scheme. I mean, you see that right now with Western Europe, essentially funding Russia's invasion of Ukraine by buying all that gas that Russia used to modernize its military. And so But I bring up the Alco example just because this is also a national security issue. It's a common defense issue because, you know, my biggest worry is now in Europe, you see all

these countries saying, well, we're going to transition to the next generation of energy technology. We realize we can't buy Russian gas anymore. And so they're going to move towards that. And you know, what they can't turn is the United States of America because we're not making it. And so what we're going to see as we transition, if we don't invest in that next generation of energy, everybody's going to turn to China and we're going to replace our reliance on Saudi Arabia and Russia with a complete dependence on China for our energy needs and that's a big problem too and so like we have this this beautiful situation where we can you know invest in American production invest in American

jobs take the money from the oil companies to create competitive energy environment I would start building stuff here exported to Europe to get them off of Russian gas so that we defund Putin's machine and, you know, solve the climate crisis at the same time while not getting beholden to another authoritarian state. So, like, there's just, there's so much good opportunity and where it makes sense, but we're not getting there because these companies have captured our government. It's not a free market. People talk about free market. Oh, you mean, price control in a free market, that's not allowed. It's like, this is not a free market. This is run by a cartel. You have to take free measures to break that because they are stronger than the government right now.

Yeah. Consumers have no purchasing choice or power. You've mentioned the next generation of energy production. How does transitioning to renewable energy specifically factor into that? Because at the end of the day, you know, while your plan that you laid out does seem monumentally effective, it's still predicated on the continued use of fossil fuels, which, you know, A, are finite, and B are killing the planet. So would you advocate for your plan in tandem with the transition of renewables? Yeah, so that's what, so the extra, Anything that's excess profits, so anything over 5% would go into a fund that's for the creation, generation, and production of the next generation of energy technology. And so that, like, what I envision on that is wind, solar, you know, industrial, you know, whatever nuclear sort of things that are not under the fossil fuel umbrella, things that don't involve as extraction, things that will move us to the next level.

Got it. Now, I want to switch gears to your race in Missouri. Right now, Eric Gretens is the leading candidate on the right. Now, those listening might remember Eric Gretens from a blackmail scandal where his hairdresser testified under oath that he coerced her into performing oral sex and took photos of her naked and blindfolded to use his blackmail if she ever told anyone what he did. But, of course, he has a lot of support from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, which is more or less, the entirety of the Republican Party.

I know I'm 10 steps ahead here, but how do you approach this race if you end up facing greetings in the general? So I approach the race really the same way every day, no matter who it's going to be. And that's, you know, it goes along with what I was talking about with Americans are held hostage, we need power back.

Our government is captured. And so what I want to do, like, I want to fundamentally change who has power in this country. That's the theme of our campaign. It's very basic. It's very simple. It's the root of most of our problems. I'm not taking corporate PAC money.

I'm not taking fossil fuel executive money. I'm not taking big farm executive money. Like we're not taking money from the people who have been buying off our politicians and stripping our communities for parts. And when you go around Missouri, like that's what people want. They want power back. They're tired of their communities getting stripped from parts. They're tired, you know, and this is whether you go to rural or urban Missouri. I go to rural Missouri and I'll talk to hog farmers who, you know, they talk about how 90% of Missouri hog farmers were destroyed in just one generation.

And it was done by a monopolist company who then, you know, takes all the money out of the land, doesn't reinvest it in the community and has actually sold itself to China. So there are food goes to China. And they weren't able to do that originally because Missouri had a law that said foreign companies couldn't own agricultural land. But the company called Smithfield, you know, they bought off all the Democrats and Republicans in the legislature to change that law so that they can make it happen. And so what you see out there is people feeling powerless when, you know, I go to a town called Haytai Heights down in the boot. heel. It's an all black town, an all black rural town. And, uh, and they just feel like no one cares about them and they don't have power to the point that like when I'm there, when I'm driving around Haitai Heights, I think my God, this is like I'm back in Iraq. You know, I was a

Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, uh, and the reason I say that is that one day I was down there hanging out with the mayor. They were doing a fundraiser actually to try to raise money for their water tower so that they could get clean water again, which they don't have. And she said, I'm sorry, but we got to go check on the pumps. I said, okay, what do you mean the pumps? She's like, oh, you'll see. And what happens is that every two hours in this town, the mayor or someone else has to take a gas tank. They have to go to their sewage pumps that are broken.

And they've rigged up external pumps that she pours gas into and hand cranks so that their sewage can keep flowing. And anytime someone doesn't do that within two hours, the sewage overflows all over the town. And only then does the government care about them and come in. and they come in and find them for having open sewage. So it's just a situation where like whatever type of community you're in in Missouri, people just feel like they have no power and that the government is controlled by people who don't care about them. Well, Lucas, you know, I know that a lot of us out here, like in the country, kind of look

at Missouri and just kind of write it off as a red state. But I think, you know, people listening to you recognize that we have a pretty extraordinary opportunity with your candidacy to kind of break that mold and show that we have somebody, you know, willing to fight for regular people. So with that said, how can we help your campaign? Yeah, I mean, you're right. You know, we're in a dead heat in the polls, a literal dead heat and all the polling. And we've raised more money than in Republicans. It's going very, very well. What I'd like to do is, you know, if you want to come visit Lucascoons.com, follow us on Twitter at Lucas Coons, M-O, and the name spelled K-U-N-C-C-C-E, Lucascoons-M-O, or Lucascoons.

You can donate there, you can follow us, you can sign up to volunteer, you can spread the word to your friends. I mean, we have a truly grassroots campaign. Our campaign is consistently in the lead in the country for the most, for the highest percentage of grassroots donations. Our average donations, $30 something, dollars. Again, we're not taking money from any of the wrong people. It's truly grassroots, word of mouth, and support from normal everyday people because, you know, where I grew up in Jeff City, Missouri, that's who took care of me as a kid. that's the only people that I ever want to owe, and it's the only people we'll ever owe on this campaign.

Well, we'll leave it there. Lucas, thank you for taking the time and keep kicking ass on the campaign trail. Hey, thanks, Brian. It's great to be here again. Thanks again to Lucas. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen,

produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app, feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.