Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 200 | Should We Be Worried? | Guest: Rep. Thomas Massie

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky joins me to share his insight on what's going on in abortion legislation, all the craziness that is impeachment, and the recently passed 2,000+-page spending bill and the importance of it.

Hey guys, happy Friday. Welcome to Relatable today. We are talking to Congressman Thomas Massey. He is awesome. He is from Kentucky. We are going to talk about abortion legislation. We're going to be talking a little bit about the hearing that I was a part of and he was a part of a few weeks ago and he's going to kind of give us some insight into that. But we're also going to address impeachment and all the craziness that has been happening this week and the spending bill that was passed this week. as well, what's in it, why it matters, the process behind passing these huge 2,000-plus page bills and how we as the American people can actually affect change when it comes to not just the content of these bills, but also the process that goes into it. So I'm really excited for you to hear this conversation. He is just a wonderful, wonderful person to talk to and a very good conversationalist, and you're going to learn a lot. But to kind of refresh your memory on who Congressman Massey actually is. I want to play you this clip from the hearing that I was a part of a couple weeks ago on Capitol Hill in regards to abortion legislation that the Democrats called.

I played it in the episode that recapped it because it was one of my very favorite parts of the hearing because it was just such a good line of questioning and a really, really revealing part of the hearing. So here that is. At your clinic, does it matter? what the reason is for the abortion? At my clinic, I trust that women have a valid reason. Every reason that they have is valid. Okay, so given that you think that every reason is valid, would you abort a viable fetus if there was not a law preventing it?

Again, given that the reality for people choosing abortion is that there are many reasons, there isn't a single thing that defines somebody's choice. It is a reflection of their... You seem to have a hard time saying this. This tells me you have a heart. Or at least you know that people watching this have a heart. And they would be concerned if you would just admit, which you won't admit here, that you would abort a viable fetus for any reason if the law did not prevent it.

Mr. Massey, abortion is moral. It is important. It is health care. And I support people being the experts in their own lives. and making decisions for themselves. It gives me some hope that you hear, understand that people do not support you when you abort, when you say, or if you would say, that you would abort a viable fetus for any reason, but given what you've told us in your opening statement and knowing what you've said,

we know that you would, but it does give me hope that you still know in your heart, that's wrong. I'm going to use my remaining time asking Mrs. Stuckke, should any reason be of a good reason for having an abortion? Absolutely not. It's a child. It's a life inside the womb from the moment of conception onward. And I'm very troubled by how flippantly she said that there are 3,000 abortions performed every year of defenseless human beings. And the remark that abortion is, It is moral. Time has expired. That kind of project driving my lifestyle.

No, the time has expired. Loved it. I mean, it was sad, but loved it. Thought that he just did such an excellent job of that. So without further ado, here is Congressman Massey. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So some people, most people, I would say listening to this podcast are familiar with you for

lots of different reasons. They probably follow you or have heard a few things from you on Fox or elsewhere. But they also might know you from the hearing that I was a part of a few weeks ago talking about legislation on abortion. You had an awesome exchange. I thought that it was probably one of the best, if not the best parts of the hearing where you questioned the abortionist that was on the panel with me. And the audience just heard a little bit of that. Can you just talk to me kind of how you created that line of questioning that you hit her with? Sure. You know, going into that hearing, we kind of had a pre-meeting among the Republicans. And the advice we were given

was not to talk to those witnesses, just to avoid the witnesses that the Democrats had called because they were all women and that they would make us look bad if we tried to engage them in a discussion. And so what they really wanted us to do was to talk to you, Allie Beth, and give you a chance to speak because we knew you would shine. But I turned to the, Congressman, to my left and the one to my right. And I said, you know what? I think I'm going to ask the abortion doctor some very uncomfortable questions. And you all might be uncomfortable too. And I'm going to see where it goes. I don't know where it will go. And so I didn't have a line of questioning. Honestly, I just thought, let's prod and probe and see if she will answer any of these really

hard questions. I mean, the questions that are hard for people who, you know, perform abortions, I would think they would be hard. So I asked her, for instance, details. Like, how do you dispose of the babies? How many babies have you aborted? What's the biggest baby you've aborted? And she avoided every single question for as long as she could. And then I finally said, you know what?

This tells me something about you. You must have a heart somewhere in there because you know it's wrong. Otherwise, you wouldn't have avoided all of my questions. Right. And then obviously I think the best part is when I had about a minute left and I gave it to you to sort of drive the point home because she had just told me I had through the series of questions got her to admit that she believed every reason that's ever given for having an abortion was a valid reason. And that's what I pivoted to you. And you explained there's no good reason. Right.

Through all nine months, by the way, she wouldn't even tell you if at any point maybe abortion, wouldn't be the best option, wouldn't be a safe option for either the mother or obviously the child. She couldn't even tell you the point of viability. And anyone who has been pregnant or who can even look up fetal development online can tell you when viability is. But you're right. They are so afraid of speaking to the humanity of life inside the womb because they know that even the, even the most adamant abortion supporter, there is this bit of morality left in them that flinches a little bit. thinking about inflicting pain on an innocent and defenseless child. And I thought that you revealed that so well as they gaslight and accuse pro-lifers of only using generalities and euphemisms.

She wouldn't even tell you the scientific reality of what an abortion is and of what a baby is inside the womb. So I just thought that that was so good. Go ahead. She had been, yeah, she had been heavily coached not to answer any of the questions I asked. Yes. And what's ironic is we had been coached. you know, you may not want to ask these difficult questions. So, you know, I took it head on. And what's also interesting, I'm not sure if it came through in the hearing videos, is there was an audience behind her.

And they were 95% pro-abortion. Yes. I mean, and you could hear a pin drop in that room when I was asking those questions. There was nobody cheering for either side. And you could, if you could have seen the looks on their faces, as they felt, I guess a glimmer of, you know, a glimmer of compassion or humanity inside of them as I asked as difficult questions. So maybe it had the same effect, hopefully, on people who are watching, you know, through the TV. And what you might not have seen Congressman while you were asking

this question. And I was on the edge of my seat, too, because, okay, I know the answers to these questions. She knew the answers to the questions, too. She just don't want to answer them. The, there were, a lot of people that were lining the room. I think a lot of them were probably staff, but you could tell, I think, which ones by the expressions on their faces and just their countenance, which ones were kind of going for the Democratic side

and which ones were going for the Republican side. But there were a group of girls that were watching, and as you were questioning, I saw this young woman gripping as tightly as she could, the clipboard that she had. And she, I could just tell that she was stressed out. And I think that is the reaction from a lot of people. It's like, please don't talk about what an abortion is.

The pro-abortion side knows that they can't actually talk about what the procedure is. And it should tell you something that if you're on the side that has to operate under deceit, that maybe, maybe it's not the side to be on, which is why I thought your line of questioning was perfect. By the way, Allie, Beth, this isn't a hearing that Republicans called. I mean, the Democrats don't just have. the Speaker of the House, they've got every gavel, every chairmanship. And so they called this hearing to try and advance their pro-abortion agenda. And I think, you know, the line of questioning that I engaged with the abortion doctor and then with you when you drove at home, I think we really set their agenda back some in that hearing. And maybe they'll think twice about trying

to have a hearing like that again. I think so too, because they were on the defense the entire time. I think it's kind of crazy to think that you guys were coached not to ask questions because to me, there is no way to lose by simply asking them to describe what an abortion is. The pro-life side is going to win every time because either they're going to fumble and not answer or what they are going to reveal is so brutal and disgusting that most people just they don't want to support it. So I think you're absolutely right. They were on the defense the whole time. A lot of people asked me, why were you the only pro-life witness?

That's so not fair. but obviously that was those were the rules because they are the majority yeah those are the rules you know if you as you saw in these impeachment hearings we're lucky if we even get to have one witness like if they're feeling like they're going to follow the rules that day so it says a lot about the fact that the staff did their research and realized you would be the best witness we could have and you you really were you came through thank you very much it was an honor You know, you didn't know, I didn't give you my line of questioning. You didn't know what I was going to ask.

No. I didn't know where it was going to go when I started asking. And then I gave you about 60 seconds. That's the other thing. They tried to shut you down at the end. Like that's when you know you're really scoring hits is when they try to gavel you down when the Democrat before me had two extra minutes. And when you got to one second left, they're like, she's done.

Stop it. Yeah. Well, it was an honor to be there. So I, it was, it was really, it was probably one of the best experiences, one of the scariest experiences beforehand, but one of the best experiences of my career, definitely. Before we get into the impeachment stuff, because you did mention that, I do want to ask you about this Kentucky law. I've gotten a lot of questions about it that are, can you tell me if it's requiring doctors that are dealing with someone who may be considering an abortion, if it requires them to show the ultrasound picture or just allows them to. What's the deal with that

Kentucky law? You are a congressman from Kentucky in case some people don't know. Yeah, I'm a congressman from Kentucky. I didn't write the law and I didn't even get to vote on it because I'm not in the state legislature, but I'm really excited about it. And frankly, I think this is we're going to, we are going to make our progress on the pro life movement. It's going to be state by state, law by law, court battle by court battle. So what the law requires in Kentucky, that they passed. And by the way, it got struck down. Then it got reaffirmed by a court. And the Supreme Court here in Washington, D.C., said, you know what? We're not going to take this up. We're going to let the law stand, the last court ruling, which is the one that reestablished the 2017 law. But what the law says

is a doctor contemplating, you know, performing an abortion for a patient has to show the patient, an ultrasound. They have to perform an ultrasound. They have to show the patient, the ultrasound. The law does say that the woman can avert her eyes, like she doesn't have to look at the ultrasound. And she could also request that the volume, if there's a heartbeat or something that you can hear, she can request that the volume be turned down. So it's a requirement on the doctor, but not on the woman who may be contemplating an abortion. There was a lot of pushback, obviously, from Planned Parenthood, from NAROL, from pro-abortion rights groups. Can you talk about, do you know what some of that pushback was? Why are they so

against informed consent? Oh, well, because they know it works. I mean, Alibeth, I have four children, and I'll never forget my first child, but my daughter, I'm not afraid to say this. My wife and I were married, but we weren't planning to have a baby. We were both still in college. Yeah. And when, you know, we didn't ever contemplate an abortion, but I didn't really fully realize that there was a little human being in there until we went to the doctor and heard the heartbeat.

And that's like, whoa, that's when it became really real for me. I know for me, even though we never contemplated an abortion, it really drove. home the fact that there was a living person inside of there. So the reason, you know, the pro-abortion folks push back, I think is they know that it works, that it changes minds. I'm an engineer, by the way. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer. But I feel like engineers by inventing ultrasounds and now the 3D ultrasounds, they are really helping as much as any lawmaker is to move this discussion about where life begins. And so, and the pro-abortion groups know that they produced a study that I saw that said

that only in a very few cases does it change somebody's mind. But if you look at the study, they only look at the people who requested an ultrasound. They don't look at the people who came in and weren't like given the opportunity to have an ultrasound. Right. Absolutely. And if it didn't change anyone's mind, if it wasn't that big of a deal, why would they care? Well, why are they pushing back on it so much if it was so inconsequential? But like, you know, they know that having that information. I mean, we hear babies referred to as clumps of cells. Obviously, there are a lot of people, unfortunately, who are operating under ignorance. But I had the same experience that you did, already having been pro life when I got pregnant and seeing my child for the first time. I think it was like the 11 week ultrasound that I saw the arms and the legs and the brain and the lungs. It was like, okay, I knew this was a human.

being, but seeing the humanity and the personhood of that child just does something to you. I just think God created us that way to have that instinct of, wow, this is my child, and I'm here to protect him or her. Okay, moving on from the abortion conversation, I do want to get your insight on what is going on with all of this impeachment stuff. To be honest, I think a lot of people out there haven't really been paying attention. It's like they're not watching the game. They just want to see the end score. And the end score is kind of happening. at least on the House side this week. So tell us kind of what's been going on. Yeah. Well, I was most involved in this process as a member of the Oversight Committee.

The committee that you came to testify in front of was actually the lead committee on the Republican side down in the classified rooms where we heard the witnesses the first time. We like to call those the witness tryouts. Adam Schiff called witnesses. And if they did good, for him in the secret room, then he brought them out into the hearing and had them up there. But I was down in the secret room with Jim Jordan, and we were the ones initially asking the question. So it wasn't even always possible to watch this process. But now it's very public. Today, we're having the vote. I just voted against the rules that the Democrats came up with

here in the House to hear the impeachment. They're going to have like five hours of debate, maybe four hours, and then they're going to be done with it. We're going to take a vote. And the fact that they're moving this so quickly shows you that they're going backwards in public opinion. And there will be no Republicans, I will predict, who vote for impeachment. That'll be the first time in history that you've ever had an impeachment that wasn't bipartisan. But the opposition will be bipartisan. There will be Democrats who vote with us today. Now, I know some of those Democrats. And so it's going to be interesting. The gallery is full in the House of Representatives, typically, there are just a few tourists up there, but now it's full.

The press boxes are full. Everybody's got all their eyes on what's going on here. Why do you think they've decided to go forward with impeachment? Obviously, Republicans believe that there haven't been impeachable offenses, at least according to the articles of impeachment that they have filed. What do you think the political calculation is that Nancy Pelosi finally did after saying for so long, no, we're not doing impeachment? What do you think the calculation is that made her say, you know what, this is going to be worth it going into 2020?

You know, people, they look at the leadership we choose up here like John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi, and they have no understanding. They're like, how do you pick those as your leaders? I can tell you they didn't get there by accident. Nancy Pelosi, and I wasn't even a big fan of John Boehner's, although I want a Republican speaker. But both of them are very talented and very politically astute. and that's how they get to be speaker. And she knew, and she's known from the beginning, this is a bad political play,

and it's more likely than not to backfire on her. So she tried to avoid it for the longest time, and she eventually got pushed into it by her base. They're also raising a lot of money off of this issue among their base. But among moderates and independence, like moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats and independents, And this is what Nancy Pelosi knew all along. This is why she tried to avoid impeachment.

Those independents and moderates are against impeachment for the most part, as almost every poll shows. And so, you know, here's the silver lining alleybath of this. It's been a waste of time, but the Democrats haven't been able, for instance, to advance their pro-abortion agenda here because they've been spending so much time on impeachment. And also the other silver lining is if this backfires on them at the ballot box, which I think it's going to, and we may get a chance to get the House back, if it backfires on them, maybe we can go another 20 or 30 years without another impeachment because, you know,

the congressman, whether the Republicans or Democrats and whether it's Republican or Democrat in that White House, will hopefully be somewhat reluctant to undergo such a political process again. Right. So you don't think that this is going to be. be effective PR for them. To me, I think that's kind of what they're banking on, that there's a lot of people that maybe they aren't paying attention to the impeachment thing right now. Maybe they're only going to tune in when they're trying to figure out who to vote for Republican or Democrat. And then they just tear, oh, wait, Donald Trump was impeached. I'm not going to vote for a guy that was impeached. Like impeachment's pretty bad, right? And so I think they may be betting on that being an

effective strategy to get some people that aren't paying attention right now. Do you think that that work for them? I mean, some of them have stated that. They've said, we've got to impeach him. Otherwise, he might win his reelection. But I don't think Nancy Pelosi believes that. You can see how reluctant she's been. And when people go to the ballot box to vote for a congressman, it's good.

And really, in a presidential year, they're mostly voting for president. He's at the, or her is at the top of the ticket. And then the congressmen are below that. And when they go vote, they're going to, the ones who vote for Donald Trump aren't going to go down the next line and vote for somebody who tried to remove Donald Trump. Yeah. So I really think it's going to be consequential at the ballot box. And by the way, you know, a lot of people are saying some of these Democrats who are going to vote against impeachment are just doing it for electoral reasons. I believe there are a lot of Democrats who don't think we should be impeaching this president on such flimsy evidence and flimsy articles of impeachment.

How is it that the views on this are so disparate? They are so far apart. If you go to Twitter, you click on the hashtag impeachment day or whatever it is, you see all of these people saying, oh, yes, Trump has done all of these very impeachable things. And they are so resolute that this is absolutely the way of integrity and the way to go. And then you've got the other side who says, oh, my gosh, this is the sham. This is flimsy. This is a joke. And most people looking at that, they're like, what the heck, how am I supposed to figure out what's actually true? How is it that we are so polarized on this particular issue? You know, at Twitter, you're always going to get a polarization there. I call it a dumpster fire. True. If I weren't an elected member of Congress, I probably wouldn't have a

Twitter account. Yeah. But I think if you go look and talk to your neighbor, I think what you'll find is not everybody posts on Twitter, but a lot of people watch Twitter. Yeah. And they've got the same questions as you. They're like, you know, I kind of don't like what he did, but I don't think you should be impeached over something like this. It's basically a disagreement. Like, you'll find a lot of people in the middle there that aren't on Twitter or Facebook just like screaming at each other. And those are the ones who I think are going to be influenced and actually decide the results of the next presidential and congressional and Senate elections. Yeah, I think you're right. Okay. Let's talk. about this spending bill. I've seen some things that you've said on Twitter about this. Okay, if people are listening and they can't see your reaction, he just put his face in his hands. He doesn't look happy about this at all. Tell us, oh my gosh, you all, y'all have to watch this on YouTube. He's got the spending bill in front of him. Okay, so this is like one of the

bills we vote on last week. Our printer quit working after 2,000 pages. And it said, turn me off and turn me back on in 30 minutes and maybe I will work for you. Is that how you felt to? That's probably how you felt too. I'm just going to. Yes, this is how I feel exactly. And so this, that was last week's defense authorization. Yesterday we passed an omnibus that was over 2,000 pages together.

And it had stuff, you know, it had things sprinkled in there that a lot of, members of Congress are just now finding out about, even though they've already voted for or against the bill. By the way, it's the biggest spinning bill ever in the, like, I pointed this out on Twitter. I know I've just disparaged Twitter, but I pointed this out on Twitter that the Democrats, a day after they give this president more spending authority than any ruler in the history of, human civilization, the day after they give him all that money to do all these things, they're going to vote to impeach him because they say he's abusing his power. Like, there's some irony in there and maybe a little bit of hypocrisy. Yes. Okay. What else is in the bell? Because I agree with that. And I saw you say that

on Fox. And I thought that was a great point. But there's another, there's another thing. The tobacco, the being able to buy tobacco, right? The age raised until to 20, from 18 to 21. What do you think about that? So, yeah, I was frankly appalled. Now, I don't want my kids to smoke. I have adult children who are in those age ranges. Yes. And I'm not going to say whether they smoke or not. But I don't want them to smoke. But if you're old enough to go in the military and die for our country, if you're old enough to vote, and by the way, some Democrats want to lower the voting age. Yeah. But if you're old enough to make those decisions, then you're old enough to go in the military,

you should be old enough to decide whether you want to buy and use tobacco and tobacco products or not. And even if the people watching this video, I think there should be a ban on tobacco products. It should be a state law. There's nothing in the Constitution that really gives us the authority to do that. The person you're hurting if you're using tobacco is yourself. And so I don't think it's, you know, the government's job to protect us from ourselves. How did that happen? Who is supporting this and what's their reasoning behind it? You know, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this is the absolute truth. The tobacco lobby supported it because they're getting sort of a black eye for the vaping flavors.

Gotcha. Interesting. Yeah. So what this does is it gives them some cover. By the way, I'm not. I'm from Kentucky. I'll get in all sorts of trouble. We're one of the biggest tobacco producers in the country. But I mean, maybe the tobacco lobbyist won't be mad at me for telling you this. Maybe they will, but it's the honest truth. It was introduced into this bill by Senator McConnell, who's from Kentucky, and the tobacco folks want it in there. I think because they've taken such a hit in the public for the vaping flavors. They thought, well, let's do something. And so the thing they're doing is to ban tobacco for people under the age of 21 at the federal level.

And I've read this thing and I've read it over and I'm reading it again. And I'm not sure if it bans vaping products or not for people under the age of 21. I think it can be interpreted that way because the FDA eventually makes the definitions and the rules. Interesting. That's really interesting. I'm sure that there are a lot of people listening to. this who knows someone who vapes, maybe even if they do have adult children or teenage children, their kids vape. I am kind of completely unaware and ignorant to all of that. I just know it's a

problem. I see those viral posts on Facebook of someone whose kid was sent to the hospital. And I obviously think it's terrible. But I agree with you that this should be a state issue and that the federal government doesn't really have this kind of authority when it comes to raising the age. Okay, here's a question that I have for you. Yeah. Is there a fiscal responsible party on Capitol Hill. That's the question that I have been seen circulate on social media in regards to this bill. Is there a party who cares about fiscal responsibility? That party is not in Washington, D.C. And that's sort of my reputation for better or worse. I would call out Republicans and Democrats when they campaign on one thing and do something else. And the thing

that I haven't told you yet is the omnibus bill that passed yesterday. It passed with a lot of Republican votes. In fact, it passed with more than two-thirds of Congress voting for it. So it's a veto-proof majority. Now, the president wouldn't likely veto this bill because, frankly, it's got a lot of things that he wants in it. Like the border wall. What's that? Like funding for the border wall, correct? Yeah, there's a one and a half billion funding for the border wall. The NDA that's funded by the omnibus, but the NDA as a separate bill we passed last week, it's got space force in there, it's got a raise for the military, 3% raised for the military. And so there are a lot of the president's agendas that are in these last-minute bills that are coming through.

And he probably wouldn't veto it anyway. But what disappoints me is the number of Republicans who voted for it. And it's difficult, honestly, to vote against it because then you open yourself up to the accusation that, oh, you don't care about our military because this had a pay raise for the military. Even if that part of the bill was like 0.001% of the bill and should have been a separate bill to vote on anyway, you'll still get criticism for that. And that's what makes it tough here in Washington, D.C. to be a fiscal conservative. they put more things in the bill and more or less dare you to vote against it. I've heard people say, you know, the president should have a line item veto. And the president has asked for a line item veto.

And, you know, I think that could help things, but here's the problem. The Supreme Court already ruled the line item veto unconstitutional. But the president wouldn't need a line item veto to exercise his discretion. if we would pass these bills as separate bills instead of one big giant bill, if we would pass them as we're supposed to as 12 separate bills, then a president could say, you know what, I like the border wall that's in this bill.

And so I'm going to, I'll sign this one, but this other bill has funding for Planned Parenthood. And so I'm not going to sign that one. That would give the president the ability. And frankly, it would be a more responsible way for Congress to use the power of the purse, instead of throwing all these bills into one giant bill.

Is that ever a possibility that we could get there rather than these omnibus bills? It's a possibility. The last time we passed 12 separate appropriations bills was in the 1990s. And what happened is they would get like maybe eight of the 12 passed and then they would do an omnibus for the last four. And then they might get only four of them passed

and they would do an omnibus for the last eight. And then now what we've devolved into is not just an omnibus, for 12 bills, but now that the omnibus has to pass, it's a vehicle to stick stuff in there that you want. You know, Alliebeth, I just remembered this. When I first got elected to Congress in 2012, there was an NDAA that expanded abortion coverage for members of the military. And my staff found it. It was one of those bills where you just had like, you know, less than 24 hours to read it.

That's the other problem with these giant bills. You can't read it. And my staff found that provision in there. And, you know, it was in special circumstances. Rape, incest, life of the mother. They say the military, if you have military health care, it will cover your abortion. Now, this is, it seems to me like a violation of some of the restrictions, you know, the Hyde Amendment. That's what I was about to ask.

Great. But they decided it wasn't. and they put it in the NDAA in 2012. And I tried to, at the last second, because there wasn't much time to alert people to this, I tried to rally some of the groups. But they just didn't have time to rally. And it became law. It's part of the law now.

Wow. And that's the problem with these big giant bills. And if you guys don't have enough time and not every congressperson is aware of the bills that they are signing, we can bet that the majority of the American people have no idea what is being written into law. And that's a huge problem. That's why they do this. That is exactly why they do this. I'm under no illusion that if you gave some of these members of Congress 100 days,

would they even read a three-page bill? Yeah. But their constituents could read it because it's online. I mean, this is different than it was 20 years ago. You can get all these bills online. constituents and groups that care about these things could comb through the bills and then call up their congresspeople and say, hey, don't vote for this. You represent me.

But that's what they're short-circuiting when they give us less than 24 hours to vote on a bill after we see the language. They're not just short-circuiting a member or a member staff's ability to read the bill. They're making sure you all don't get to read the bill and give us a phone call. So who and how could we? change this? Who would be responsible for changing this process, maybe splitting up the bill, like you said, for more transparency? And what can we do? What can we do as the American people to hold you guys accountable to try to change the process? It's hard to get people to care about process.

At the end of the day, they're just looking at the big fight. And they say, Republicans, you need to try harder. And what they don't realize is the game is so rigged that doesn't matter how hard. Republicans try whether in the majority or the minority, if you put all these bills together, it's not going to work. So I would say call your congressperson and your two senators. And this is like a little piece of advice I'd like to give you not just on these issues, but other issues. Before I got elected, I always wondered what was the best way to get a message to my congressman and my two senators. And I thought, like, if I wrote a letter and heck, maybe if I take a long time and write it in cursive and show I really care,

that that would have the biggest impact. But in fact, I don't believe that's true now that I'm elected. I believe phone calls are the most effective way, because, number one, they're quicker. Number two, it takes less of your time. But most importantly, a congressman's staff has to answer those phone calls. And I've been on the floor voting, and I'll turn to another member of Congress, and I'll say, are you voting yes or no?

and they will say, I don't know, I got a lot of phone calls on this one. I might vote yes. How many phone calls did you get? They don't ask me how many faxes or letters or emails. They want to know how many phone calls. I think it's more direct and personal. So that's the thing you can do. Be polite and be brief.

And maybe call every month or so. Don't call every day. Don't call once a year. We have what we call frequent flyers here that like try to call twice a day. Wow. And the other thing is don't call another congressman. Like, don't call. That's not your congressman.

Yeah, because the staff might be polite, but they're not going to write down what you're saying. Yeah, because they're not representing you. Yeah. And you can't be mad at a congressman in California if you live in Kentucky because they don't vote the way you want. I mean, they work for somebody else, frankly. So everybody has one U.S. representative and two U.S. senators. So just make three phone calls. It's not that hard. That's good practical advice. I appreciate that. I have one last question. And I don't think I've ever asked a congressperson this. Do you like your job?

Oh, gosh. Do I have a deer in the headlights look? Do you enjoy the day to day of your job? It just seems like there's constantly so much going on. There's no way that you guys can get sleep. Can I tell you the best parts and the worst parts? Yes. Okay. The worst parts are raising money, particularly if you're conservative, you don't like to beg. And so that's not a fun thing to ask for money. And you can't win based on your good looks. Like that's obvious if you just look at these people in Congress, myself included. And so this, but really the worst part of the job is being away from my family four days a week. Yeah. I go. Yeah. I go back to Kentucky every week. weekend. In seven years, I've only spent two weekends in Washington, D.C. Wow. So being away from family is the hardest part. Honestly, the best part is when people thank you for giving them hope, when you stand up for something here and you're really disliked here,

it's very difficult. People will stare at you like they have lasers in their eyes, like your colleagues. And these are the people you're supposed to be having dinner with, that evening and they're so mad at you, they would, you know, they would stare a hole through you. And but when you go back home and people thank you, that's rewarding. It's also, I mean, I'll just admit this. When I put my voting card in the machine and cast a ballot on every issue for 750,000 people, it's a, it's a big responsibility, but I consider it a great honor. and I try never to forget that vote is for the people I represent. It's not my voting card that I'm using.

It's really their voting card loan to me. And that's actually the funnest part of being a congressman is casting that vote. In addition to all the people you meet and the places, the factories you get to visit and the schools and stuff, that's fun too. That's a good answer. Thank you. Thank you for indulging me. I've just wondered, you guys have a big job, a stressful job, an exhausting job.

And it's obviously an honor to do it. But sometimes I'm like, but do you guys really enjoy it? But you gave me a good answer. So I appreciate that. And thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. Thanks for having me on your show. And thank you also for coming and being the lone witness in a very hostile hearing with many hostile congressmen.

You know, it's one thing to sign up for this job and run for office. It's another thing for you to volunteer and come be a witness. And, you know, swear an oath there in front of people. And you didn't let us down. And so thank you so much. You're always welcome in our oversight committee and all the committees here. I appreciate that very much. Thank you for what you do and for what you fight for.

Thanks, Sally Beth.