The Daily Signal - #390: A Freshman House Member Shares What He Plans to Fight For

Episode Date: February 5, 2019

Rep. Denver Riggelman, R-Va. is a former distillery owner, and a veteran. "If you don't fight for what you think is right, if you're not willing to stand up, you will get rolled over," the newly-elected Riggelman tells The Daily Signal, adding that "I don't want to be in politics, but I think people who hate politics need to get involved with politics." Plus: We discuss Fox News' Tucker Carlson's proposal that the government ban smart phones for teens.We also cover these stories:•Lawmakers' guests to the State of the Union include a transgender military member, and an illegal immigrant.•New Jersey has a new law on the books, making it the second state to mandate schools teach LGBT history.•A Hawaii legislator wants to do away with cigarettes for everyone who’s younger than 100. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, February 5th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Last year's midterms brought a wave of new members to Congress, including some new conservatives. Today, we bring you an exclusive interview with Congressman Denver Riggleman, who comes to Congress with both military and business expertise. He'll share his thoughts on what the new Congress needs. Plus, smartphones can be distracting and even addicting, but does that mean government should ban kids from using them? Well, one major conservative figure is saying yes.

We'll discuss. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Today is President Trump's State of the Union speech, and as usual, lawmakers are lining up guests to make a point about policies. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, has us Anna Maria Archilla, the co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy, and more famously, the activists who confronted then-Senator Jeff Flake. Republican of Arizona, in an elevator over his support for Brett Kavanaugh. Senator Kristen Gillibrand announced she would bring Navy Lieutenant Commander, Blake Drayman, as her guest. Lieutenant Commander Drayman is a transgender man.

And Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, Democrat of New Jersey, invited an illegal immigrant, Victorina Morales, who has been in the U.S. for 19 years, five of which she worked at a Trump golf club in New Jersey, per the Daily Beast. Well, Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia is doubling down and rejecting calls to resign after a yearbook photo surfaced of him appearing to be dressed in blackface standing next to someone in a KKK outfit. That image from his 1984 medical school yearbook went viral last Friday and sent the governor into damage control mode. Initially, he acknowledged being the young man in the photo, saying, quote, earlier today a website published a photograph of me from my 1984 medical school yearbook in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive. I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision has caused then and now, end quote.

But then the next day on Saturday, the governor changed his story and denied that he was the young man in the yearbook. I was appalled that they appeared on my page, but I believe then. and now that I am not either of the people in that photo. Instead, he did admit to using blackface, but in a different context, not in the yearbook picture. I did participate in a dance contest in San Antonio, in which I darkened my face as part of a Michael Jackson costume. I look back now and regret that I did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like

that. Northam was elected last year and had to be a lot of. three years remaining in his term. He's facing mounting calls from Democrats, including former Virginia governor, Terry McAuliffe, to resign. Well, if Northam steps down, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax will become governor. On Monday, the website Big League politics suggested Fairfax

was potentially guilty of sexual misconduct. Well, Fairfax hit back with his staff issuing a statement saying he has never assaulted anyone, ever, in any way, shape or form. The statement also said the Washington Post had looked into an allegation against Fairfax and had not gone forward with a story because of insufficient evidence and red flags. The Post, however, stated, quote, Fairfax and the woman, who they did not name, told different versions of what happened in the hotel room with no one else present. The Washington Post could not find anyone who could corroborate either version. The Post did not find significant red flags

and inconsistencies within the allegations, as the Fairfax statement incorrectly said. The Senate voted overwhelmingly last week to express disapproval of President Trump's plans to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan. The amendment passed 68 to 23 and will likely be attached to a Middle East policy bill this week, which was expected to pass easily. The amendment was written by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a strong ally to the president on most issues. But on this issue, he parted ways with the president. In a Senate floor speech Thursday, he said, quote, I believe the threats remain. ISIS and al-Qaeda have yet to be defeated.

And American national security interests require continued commitment to our mission there. Well, if you live in the Garden State, look for your children to become experts on LGBT history. New Jersey has a new law on the books, making it the second state to mandate that schools teach LGBT history. Lendio, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, told the North Jersey record. We believe it further erodes the right of parents to discuss this sensitive issue with their children. If, in fact, schools are going to be promoting and making the claim that this particular person was an LGBTQ member. And a Hawaii legislator wants to do. away with cigarettes for everyone unless they're over 100 years old.

Democratic State Representative Richard Cregan proposed a bill that would incrementally raise the minimum age to buy cigarettes. Under the bill in 2020, the age would go up to 30. In 2021, it would go up to 40, and by the year 2024, it would be totally banned, again, unless you're over 100 years old. But don't worry, if you're into e-cigarettes and you live in Hawaii, he's not coming after your cigarettes, just the old-fashioned kind. And notably, Cregan is a former smoker. So presumably that gives him some kind of moral credibility to talk to other smokers. I'm just trying to imagine if someone in my 30s, I don't smoke. But if I did smoke, having to ask someone older than me to buy cigarettes at this age.

But that would be so freaking insane. You'll find a centenarian, is that what they're called? Yeah, or like just, I guess for the few years. Can you buy some cigarettes? I just can't imagine like going up to someone and being like, hey, are you over 40? I really could use your help to buy this. And also, this could lead to so many awkward situations. Like, what if you thought someone was over 40 or over 100?

Right. He's nowhere near that age. Except this time it wouldn't be teenagers asking 21-year-olds to get their beer. It would be like 50-year-olds asking 102-year-olds. There'd be senior citizens being like, imagine how popular certain nursing home patients would become. Okay. Well, anyway, next up, we are going to feature Rachel's interview with Representative Denver Riggleman. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues?

Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. Each Tuesday in the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. We're joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Representative Dunfer Rugalman, who was elected to Congress in November to represent the 5th District of Virginia. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you. So you've been in Congress for about three weeks now, give or take a little bit. Could you share with our listeners your path to Congress coming from the private sector and not really a political background? Well, people know I don't have a huge political background. I think I ran for federal office, although since June 2nd is my whole whole. time running for federal office. We had four days to prepare for a committee convention because the other congressman got out after the nomination process. But I think people really enjoyed me trying to fight for small businesses and deregulation. They know that I had a background in not only military

intelligence, but military operations. And they know that, you know, I created not only a service company in the Department of Defense that was successful, sold it in 2012, but I started a manufacturing business making liquor, you know, a silver-back distillery. And so I have this, I've had a this unique experience in life, not only to start companies, to be in military intelligence, to start from nothing, I was a Mustang, I was enlisted in the Air Force then commissioned. You know, it started with nothing. I think sort of a definition of the American dream, and the fact is my life experience, I believe, translates pretty well to the political arena, and people thought so, and they asked me to do this, and I did it, and surprisingly, I won.

You mentioned your military background. You were an enlisted aeronautics technician, and a commissioned officer, how has your experience in the military helps shape the way you think about national security and those issues? Well, you have some good intelligence there. That was great, you know? Yeah, I mean, for me, you know, I started, when I started enlisted, it was really looking at radars, avionics. I worked on jets, and they thought I was smart enough to go to college, went to the University of

Virginia. But really, it's about defending the Constitution and serving something bigger than yourself, not people, but an idea. And I believe I'm bringing that here. I think I serve the Constitution. I think everybody serves the Constitution more than they serve specific individuals. I do believe in chain and command, but now as a representative of the 5th District, I have a responsibility to my constituents that I live up to what the Constitution wants me to do,

not what other people want me to do. So I do bring, I believe, a perspective that's a little bit different, and that the needs of the 5th District are what I'm fighting for, and if that's within the left-right boundaries of the Constitution, I'm willing to do that and to fight for it all the way. But if something that's specifically, you know, maybe personality-driven or something outside of those bounds, I'm not going to support it. And guess what? I don't have to because I haven't been in politics. So I get that freedom to make decisions that I believe are best for the 5th District. You mentioned your business silver-back distillery that you and your wife started.

What was it like to build a small business and how has that experience shaped where you are now in Congress? in this journey. When people build a small business, they realize the absolute pain and misery that you go through as an entrepreneur. And people are listening to this will automatically smile and say, I understand the pain. And what you don't understand is that state, local, and federal regulations usually contradict. And you start to go to war against all these three letter agencies and four letter agencies in county and state and local and in federal. They're all concerned. conflicting and you have one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing and usually you have these bureaucrats making decisions that have never done anything like this and they're not sometimes

not out of spite just out of ignorance and once I started fighting for small business and deregulation and I learned that starting a service company the Department of Defense is completely different from a manufacturing company I thought it would translate by the way anybody going to do that it does not translate so do your due diligence so but I think what I learned really what I did learn was that if you don't fight what you think is right, if you're not willing to stand up, you will get rolled over. And I did have a lobbyist at one time tell me, sort of with a smirk. He goes, if you're not at the dinner table, you're on the menu. And that's really where I decided to get involved again and to serve. It's in my DNA because of the military. I don't want to be in politics,

but I think people who hate politics need to get involved with politics. Thank you for sharing that. So looking at the different regulations you mentioned, you know, the state, local, national, how these, all of these are kind of conflicting with each other. Is there a particular regulation or something that you encounter that you specifically want to try to tackle here for small business centers? I know there's probably a lot, but is there one particular one? Yeah, I'll do a simple one because there's some deeply regulated issues. I'm on the Financial Services Committee now for banking and things of that nature.

But how about a simple one? Simple one. Department of Labor, they charge $75 to a farmer for every H-2A worker. legal migrant worker who drives on their own private property. So think about what I just said there in a sentence. They can actually transport anybody they can outside of their property. They can drive outside of their property. But once they're on the property, they have to have a little card that says they're allowed to drive on private property and a $75 person.

It's just there's so much needless regulation based on, I don't know. And I think you're having common sense business people starting to run that might have a better idea of what needs to be done and what doesn't. looking ahead into this new Congress, this new year, are there any particular priorities legislatively or otherwise that you want to tackle like in this first year, your first few years here? Well, there's a couple bills where you're looking at. One of them is actually defining what guidance is and what regulations are. And that's because sometimes it seems like regulators want to know, want you to do something just based on some kind of opinion. So we want to make sure that regulations get out of people's life. So there's some bills that we're looking at that way.

bills that we're looking at like that that I'm going to sign on to. Really, I ran on health care. You know, I ran on immigration, not only on securing the border, but I ran on streamlining immigration because of the labor issues we have. And I ran on making sure we kept a tax cuts in place. And I'm still that way. I haven't changed. But the priorities here in the minority, and I've never been in the majority before,

so I only know minority shut down, all that. I think my priorities here is to make sure that for the 5th District, I reach across the aisle for those things that we can do, right now, but just to make sure there's not too much government overreach and to make sure that we don't have people who sometimes value socialism over freedom, you know, getting into the chilly of my constituents. That's my job to protect them and to stop that stuff. You mentioned the government shutdown. How has that affected you, and just the way you've been having to start out this first year, you mentioned the importance of securing the border and

legal immigration, and we're kind of in the middle of that right now. How has this kind of solidified or defined these first few weeks? You know, when I got into this, I didn't think it would be in a shutdown, right? A historic shutdown as a brand new member, somebody who hasn't, you know, been involved in politics. What I've seen is the startling lack of common sense. You know, everybody talks bipartisanship or they talk that they want to make a deal. You know, it seems like the more some people give, the more other people will take. What I've seen right now is that, you know, I'm on the Republican side, right?

But my belief is that we have to secure the border, even with our drug use that we have in our own district. And I think it's sort of odd that every security expert knows the physical barriers work, and we need to do this type of reform on the border. But we have people playing politics with it. And it's stunning that somebody from San Francisco is actually dictating, you know, how this will go, where people just aren't listening. And I think we're talking past each other. I do believe in the next seven to ten days, I think we're going to have a breakthrough.

And I know that's a long time for people, but I think there's some moderate Democrats that are just fed up. up with what's going on on that side of the aisle. Going back to your military service, is there a particular story or tale from your service that you look back on and enjoy sharing with people who I know a lot of our audience really appreciate our veterans and people who have served? So is there looking back on those days? Is there something that you like to share or remember from that time? Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a loaded question.

There's a lot of military stories. Everybody likes to do that. But I think the thing that taught me as, you know, how a team works together. There was one time where I did have, you know, I had a semi-automatic weapon stuck into my chest, right, with a dry fire. And I thought it was a dry fire. They actually hadn't loaded the weapon. They thought it was funny. But you're talking about four of us in Romania were looking for somebody that was missing and had a pretty dangerous encounter with some Gendarme.

But what I found out about that encounter, and it's a lot of it. long story is that you need to learn the language of the people you're with, number one, because you can be mistranslated pretty quickly, and I can't say what they mistranslated what you said into on this podcast, but also that if you have a great team, we actually had another intelligence agency sort of save our lives, and I was able to do a little bit of my part. It's amazing in the United States of America what we do overseas for others, and it's amazing what veterans do for us, but it's also quite stunning, you know, what teamwork can accomplish if you have everybody working together. And I think that's what I learned in the military

is that there is a brotherhood and sisterhood that can't accomplish things much greater than themselves. And it happened that night in Romania back in 1999. As a small business owner and, you know, here in Congress, and just you mentioned earlier, your goal to keep tax cuts in place, we've seen some people say here in Congress that they want to raise taxes, especially Democrats have said that now that they're in the majority in the house, how important is that to you? And do you see that as a threat if they get serious about that? Yeah, raising taxes is the last bastion of those who can't, you know, actually control their spending. Our deficit or our debt, it's not because of tax cuts, it's because of spending.

I mean, how dare us argue on, you know, top in tax rates between 36% and 39% and say somehow that's the difference. That is absolute bunk. Anybody who's run a company, anybody who knows, knows anything about how to balance a checkbook or actually how to sign the front of checks knows that it's spending, not tax cuts. It's not their money to begin with. And I just find it appalling that we have this, that some people, and especially on the new left, have this automatic assumption that it's their money when it's the taxpayer's money. So my whole thing in life is this. I will always err on the side of liberty. And I always think that even you and even me, you know, two people sitting here talking, we can spend our money and do things better ourselves

than the government can. So that's really where I start from. And if people like it, great. If they don't, I don't give a rats. Congressman Rugglin, thank you so much for being with us today. We appreciate you having, you know, being here. Want to get up to speed about the Supreme Court? Then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast about everything that's happening at the Supreme Court and what the justices are up to. Parents need help. And there's no reason that the Congress, which made smartphones possible in the first place, shouldn't be part of the solution. So here's an idea.

ban smartphone use for children. Pass a federal law tomorrow. Why wouldn't we do that? Well, that was Fox News' Tucker Carlson with a, let's say, very unconservative idea about some federal government intervention. But on his show recently in that same segment, Carlson did give a longer explanation

about how he believes smartphones are hurting American kids. But they've also made our kids much less happy. Thanks to smartphones, kids have not on-stop access to Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks. And the science is very clear on that. The more time you spend liking social media posts and updating your Facebook status, the less healthy you are. A 2015 University of Missouri study found that Facebook use made people more depressed and increased

their envy of others. A 2016 study found that quitting Facebook boosted psychological health. Last fall, a study in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that social media use is directly tied to feelings of loneliness and depression, which can lead to life-threatening psychiatric disorders. It's not surprising then, then rates of mental illness and suicide among teens began to surge right around 2012. That's just as smartphones and social media became universal. Okay. Well, joining us today is Thalia Rampersad, one of our producers for the Daily Signal podcast. Thalia, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me on, Gabe. Okay, so first of

of all, full disclosure, none of us have kids. So I'm sure that those of you who are parents out there hate that we have opinions on these topics. And I might take this all back when I have kids. But let's go around. Thalia, would you let your teenagers or younger have a smartphone? Teenagers, I think, is more of a conversation. I definitely think that under, especially the age of 12 or lower, I don't think kids should have a smartphone. I don't even think they should have a cell phone. They're in such a developmental stage in life that they need to be focusing on, on that. They don't need to be focusing on what their best friend is doing or where they were this weekend. If they want to know, they can talk to them when they get to school. I think it's so crucial

for them to focus on growing up and dealing with the hardships and trials of puberty and what comes with that without having to worry about throwing in technology. So to address just initially, Tocallerson's point about government, obviously do not think the government needs to get involved in this? Just because something would produce a good outcome, doesn't mean the government should do it. I know I'm a believer in pushing things down to the parental level, if possible, and parents seem to be well-placed to regulate more efficiently what their kids are capable of and what their kids can handle.

So, yeah, all about the parents doing it. I think actually, Thalia, I agree that... Daniel, you're already on the record. Before this podcast started, Daniel City would let his 10-year-old use a little bit. smartphone for half an hour a day. So now you have to defend that position. I think it's a spectrum, okay? So like I think if you're five, just my personal opinion, I don't think you have any

business having a, uh, owning, personally owning a phone. All right, good. You're against it for kindergarteners. Maybe if I had three or four kids, they could all use an iPad, like to play games. You know, maybe there's like a way to share. But something about me, like five-year-olds, even ten. year olds having their own personal iPhone doesn't make sense. But I think when they get into that 12, 13, 14, you know, they can handle it. The iPhone is not inherently evil, right? And it's not, it's,

it can do lots of things. And there are parental controls on the iPhone for, for those reasons. So I think as long as you limit, you know, you limit it to a certain amount of time per day and only certain things you can do on, on the phone, I don't see why not. So I, I have changed my mind a lot on this in the past couple of years. I think I would be appalled that I wouldn't want kids to have it if I had said this two years ago. But my thought is, while you might be able to control certain things on parental controls, I'm not sure you can control how much time they spend. And it also strikes me that they can do most of the good stuff on an iPhone, on an iPad or a laptop. And I would just get worried about how easy it is, frankly, myself included, to just waste time on it,

especially at such a formative age when your brain is developing and when social relationships are so important. But one thing I was curious about both of you is you had an experience I didn't have. I did not have a smartphone in college, and both of you did. So how did your college social life, how did the smartphone affect that? This is why we're so less educated than you. We were deprived of true learning. This is my opinion on it. I really truly believe that I almost stunted my educational growth with being exposed too early to technology

because I had such intrigue into technology. And then once I got just a little glimpse of it, I became almost addicted to it. And I didn't know where to draw the line and the boundary. And because all of this was just uncharted territory in terms of our generation, it was almost like we were just inundated with it. if you weren't online or if you weren't talking to your friends on Facebook or texting, I didn't get texting on my cell phone until, I think it was like 12th grade. And I just felt I was so out of the loop.

Like, FOMO was there and it didn't even exist yet, you know? That's fair of missing out for those of you who are not a millennial speak, yeah. But no, it created almost this problem that I didn't recognize until I realized that this is what was causing it. So many studies have come out about the damage of technology and what it can do, especially being exposed to at such a young age when your mind is still developing as a child into an adult. Yeah, I don't know. I got my first iPhone when I was a freshman. It was the 3G iPhone, which looks super old tech nowadays. Like a brick. Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's like wide and weird. It's like very small. But I really liked it at the time. And I actually ended up dropping it in a lake or falling into a lake with it. And so it got ruined.

So then I got a 4G replacement. That was my sophomore year. But I don't know why I got into that. I think, you know, there's ups and downs. Like if you need to text somebody, like, you know, I guess you can do that without a smartphone. Yeah, you can do that with a dumb phone. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I liked being able to check, you know, the sports during my freshman in sophomore years,

my baseball team, the Rangers, were in the World Series. And I liked being able to check, you know, get updates like. while I was doing something else. So that was nice. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because actually my college was rather extreme on this issue, and we actually didn't really have internet access on campus except for, like, the library. Did you submit your papers by hand? Printed out.

Wow. Yeah. And I was not the biggest fan of that rule. I have mixed feelings about it now. So anyway, I had it even more extreme than no smartphone. I literally couldn't check the internet basically more than twice a day. But in retrospect, I think that was kind of awesome. But I also, I was talking to my brother recently whose work intersects with a college.

And he was saying that they are having such problems with teens' mental health and freshmen being isolated that they're literally starting a new initiative next year, which is trying to figure out how to get these college students out of their rooms more. And basically all these people who don't have friends in college to find friends. Like it's so urgent. they don't have enough mental health counselors because so many kids need them and they just are not set up for that level of demand. And I mean, yeah, I think I don't know if it's fair to entirely blame on smartphones, but I think when you have kids going to college who he said from, you know, a socioeconomic background are not from families that you would say are troubled

or difficult in a particular way and they are unable to make friends because they're just chilling out alone. That's pretty extreme. And just touching back, on your no internet policy in college, I personally don't see any sort of negative outcome of going to a library and not having internet access and actually using your brain to go into whatever is a dewey decimal system or whatever it may be to find research. I think that's so beneficial. And the fact now that kids don't even know what they would do, they would combust if they didn't have the internet and not know how to Google search something, I think that is such a downturn from what it could have been.

People were existing way before the internet. And guess what? I would argue that they were much smarter than we are now. Oh, if I walked down the hall without my phone in my pocket, I feel helpless. Exactly. Going outside, you know, without my phone, like, what if someone tries to rob me? What if I lose my wallet and I can't call the police? But, you know, people never thought that back in the day.

No, it's interesting. I forgot my phone coming to work the other day. And it was a very weird metro ride for me because I was just there with my thoughts. Yeah, you kind of feel naked. But isn't that interesting to sit there and actually contemplate something without someone constantly trying to pull your attention one way or another? Well, it was also interesting because I'm old enough that I used to commute without a smartphone at my first year in D.C. And I would just bring books or the newspaper or something. But it was interesting to think, like, I really have to go an hour without knowing what happens on Twitter.

Like, I might miss breaking news for an hour. And that was weird for me. And it made me a little bit jittery. And I don't know that I like that about myself. But anyway, so yeah, if you're a parent and you have kids, we think you should ban smartphones. And since we don't have kids, we obviously know what we're talking about. Except for Daniel, who's a squish. Well, we're going to leave it there for today.

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