Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys and the community. Everyone. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Software Pritty Software. Pretty long time on talk to
Speaker 1: we bring you the best of the cover an event,
Speaker 1: issues that's going on in the world, as well as
Speaker 1: the world of the military and military affairs. This afternoon,
Speaker 1: we're drawing right reach Colonel Mo Davis, who's running for
Speaker 1: Congress in North Carolina's Loving District. Colonel Davis has joining
Speaker 1: us today and we're gonna talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: his military career and some of the issues that uh
Speaker 1: he's running for in the state of North Carolina. Sout
Speaker 1: further Ado. I want to welcome the colonel to the podcast.
Speaker 1: And we had a few u technical difficulties there, but
Speaker 1: hopefully we're beyond them. We'll get this thing going. Sounds kid,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. So are you originally from the state
Speaker 1: of North Carolina? I am. I was born in Shelby,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, which is uh if you look on a map,
Speaker 1: about halfway between Charlotte Nashville. I was born and born
Speaker 1: and raised there. I went to first grade through high
Speaker 1: school there in the public school system and my dad,
Speaker 1: my dad was disabled veteran of World War Two and
Speaker 1: he was the commander of the American lead and post
Speaker 1: there in Shelby. And that that was back in the
Speaker 1: sixties when I was growing up, and that was when
Speaker 1: the Legion was really you know, the post World War
Speaker 1: two era was really a dynamic organization, and so that
Speaker 1: was my earliest memories are growing up in the Legion
Speaker 1: hall there. Yeah, I think all of us, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: probably we're probably pretty close to the same age, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us remember stuff. Then my
Speaker 1: dad was a World War Two bead as well, and
Speaker 1: he was much involved again with the Legion and one
Speaker 1: of the local Italian American clubs. So you know, some
Speaker 1: of my earliest memories are doing the same thing. Shelby
Speaker 1: is a beautiful area. I didn't realize you were you
Speaker 1: were you had grown up there because I remember going
Speaker 1: up to Asheville. I was stationed at foot Brag. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I never spent any time there, but you know,
Speaker 1: you passed right through their own way up to Asheville. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you passed right by the the world's best barbecue
Speaker 1: because you you're on Highway seventy four and there's Red
Speaker 1: Bridges Barbecue Lodge, which, at least my argument is it's
Speaker 1: the best barbecue in the world. We'll see I missed that.
Speaker 1: I was stationing there all them years, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love good barbecue. I mean that was one of
Speaker 1: the things growing up in Massachusetts. We didn't have great
Speaker 1: barbecue up there, and then being stationed down the South
Speaker 1: all those years, I got quite a taste for it.
Speaker 1: In North Carolina is different than some of the other states. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I really like it. Well, that's what I've had
Speaker 1: a running, a good natured running feud on on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Daniel Vaughan is an editor at Texas Monthly and on Twitter.
Speaker 1: His Twitter handle is BBQ Snob. We've had this running battle.
Speaker 1: I keep telling him that, you know, here in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: when somebody says we're having barbecue, you know what you're
Speaker 1: getting here. Barb Beque is a now and and in
Speaker 1: Texas it's a burb because it's what they did to
Speaker 1: a piece of chicken or some brisket or a sausage
Speaker 1: or in North Carolina, Texas barbecue confused, in my opinion.
Speaker 1: And we'll get it figured out here Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, Texas has some good too. I
Speaker 1: have family out there. But you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: living so many years at and know that acquired club
Speaker 1: to taste for that. Yeah. So you grew up in
Speaker 1: Shelby and um you went to school in uh was
Speaker 1: it n C Central? Well, at first, I went to
Speaker 1: Appalachian State Undergraduate up in Moonoon, North Carolina, and I
Speaker 1: was a criminal justice major up there. And there's a
Speaker 1: part time job. That was back in the day when
Speaker 1: a lot of our counties in North Carolina were dry counties,
Speaker 1: and the county were the college is located was a
Speaker 1: dry county, And that was back in the day too,
Speaker 1: when you could drink at the age of a team.
Speaker 1: And uh so a lot of college kids are drive
Speaker 1: to the next county over to drink and then come
Speaker 1: back to the campus and a lot of the would
Speaker 1: get pulled over and there was no bail bondsman in town.
Speaker 1: So I became a bail bondsman as my part time
Speaker 1: job in in college. And then I worked worked in
Speaker 1: law enforcement training for the state in North Carolina for
Speaker 1: a bit and then went to law school in North
Speaker 1: Carolina Central down in Durham mhm. And that's around the
Speaker 1: time you joined the Air Force and you served twenty
Speaker 1: five years at the rank of colonel. So I did
Speaker 1: joined in three and UH, intending to do four years.
Speaker 1: I said, I had worked in state government and my
Speaker 1: plan had been to go to law school and go
Speaker 1: back to state government. But then I thought I'd do
Speaker 1: four years in the Air Force and get some experience.
Speaker 1: And you do, you get really good litigation experience. Were
Speaker 1: in court soon after getting out of basic training and
Speaker 1: said the first trial I ever did was in the
Speaker 1: spring of ur and my opponent was a young Air
Speaker 1: Force captain from South Carolina named Lindsey Graham, and I
Speaker 1: have known him for quite a while. Now. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's a small world, isn't it. And you know, Um,
Speaker 1: I was reading over some of your bio on your
Speaker 1: website and one of the things that UH struck me
Speaker 1: right off the bat. In two thousand seven, you served
Speaker 1: as the chief prosecutor for Terrorism trans Atleetano Obey and
Speaker 1: that had to been a really interesting time. Um, is
Speaker 1: there anything you can talk about. I don't know if
Speaker 1: anything still classified with that, but our listeners, I know,
Speaker 1: would be very interested in hearing some of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really was a an interesting experience. I did it
Speaker 1: for a little over two years, and I've said that,
Speaker 1: you know, for a I can't say that so once
Speaker 1: in a lifetime opportunity, because most attorneys go a lifetime
Speaker 1: and never get the opportunities. You know, we hadn't done
Speaker 1: military commissions since World War Two, and to have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to lead that effort was a real, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a real privilege. It was a great team of folks
Speaker 1: that I led. By the time I quit in October
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, I think the team was over
Speaker 1: a hundred people, you know, jags from the different military
Speaker 1: services and military law enforcement folks and folks from the
Speaker 1: FBI and ci A and d o J and just
Speaker 1: about every organization that had had an interest had folks
Speaker 1: on the team. And um, you know, the unfortunate part
Speaker 1: is that the process became politicized. And when I first
Speaker 1: got there, the question was what President Bush was going
Speaker 1: to do with the high value detainees College Shake Mohammed
Speaker 1: and those guys. And at that time they were in
Speaker 1: the CIA black sites, and the CIA felt that they
Speaker 1: had gotten all the information they were going to get,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to keep holding them, and so
Speaker 1: for the first several months, the big debate was whether
Speaker 1: to take them into the federal court system here in
Speaker 1: the US or whether to send them to Guantanamo and
Speaker 1: put him in the military commission system. So the spring
Speaker 1: of two thousand six is when the President Bush made
Speaker 1: the decision, and then in September of two thousand and
Speaker 1: six is when the plane landed in the fourteen guys
Speaker 1: got off the airplane that day. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: unfortunately now it's you know, it's fourteen years later and
Speaker 1: college Shake Mohammed still hadn't been tried. It's just I
Speaker 1: feel bad. You haven't lost any sleep for him, But
Speaker 1: I did feel bad for the nine eleven victim families
Speaker 1: that have been denied justice and maybe some closure for
Speaker 1: all these years. The only detainee that got off the
Speaker 1: plane that day that's been tried, convicted, sentenced, and the
Speaker 1: case has been all the way through the U s
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and is over and done was Ahmed Galani,
Speaker 1: who was involved in the East Africa Embassy bombings. And
Speaker 1: Galani is the only detainee that was ever brought to
Speaker 1: the US and he was tried in federal court back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten and got a life sentence.
Speaker 1: He's got in a super max in Colorado, and you know,
Speaker 1: a decade after he was convicted, you know, the other
Speaker 1: guys are still sitting at one time a floundering in
Speaker 1: this process that we just bungled. And it's it's really
Speaker 1: unfortunate that we really did a lot of damage to
Speaker 1: our credibility at Guantanamo. And you know, I've read that
Speaker 1: you know, you took on the administration, you know about
Speaker 1: the use of have been some paints you taunted and
Speaker 1: you talk about battle. Yeah. When I when I came
Speaker 1: into the job, I was the third chief prosecutor. I
Speaker 1: think to the think the fifth chief prosecutor is still there. Well,
Speaker 1: when I came on board, the person that had been
Speaker 1: there before me, there had been some of the folks
Speaker 1: on the prosecution team felt that they were being pushed
Speaker 1: to step over the ethical bounds. And so when I
Speaker 1: came in, there's concern on what's the new guy gonna
Speaker 1: expect of us? And so I told him that I'm
Speaker 1: sixty two years old and I can remember, you know,
Speaker 1: for my generation, and we look back at Nuremberg with
Speaker 1: with Pride at the end of the war. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't take the Nazis out and shoot him. We
Speaker 1: had trials and some were convicted and executed, but others
Speaker 1: were acquitted. And if you remember, Robert Jackson stepped down
Speaker 1: from the U. S. Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg
Speaker 1: and be the chief prosecutor. And I think we're rightfully
Speaker 1: proud of the way we handle that. And so I said, look,
Speaker 1: I want us to do Guantanamo in a way that
Speaker 1: our kids and grandkids will look back at it the
Speaker 1: way we look back at Nuremberg. So we're not going
Speaker 1: to use evidence it was obtained by torture. Of course,
Speaker 1: back in those days, I couldn't say torture. I had
Speaker 1: to say enhanced interrogation techniques because it sounds NICER's like
Speaker 1: when I went through school rights laboratory, they called it
Speaker 1: the enhanced laboratory. Well, I was down there when I
Speaker 1: when there were three of the detainees tried to kill
Speaker 1: themselves and you couldn't use the word suicide. It was
Speaker 1: self injurious behavior. So we had all these terms to
Speaker 1: make things sound more palatable than they really were. But
Speaker 1: but the folks in the chain of command above me
Speaker 1: supported my decision not to use evidence obtained by torture,
Speaker 1: and to be quite honest, like Kalichek Mohammed, there's ample
Speaker 1: evidence of his guilt without using anything he ever said
Speaker 1: in our custody, which you didn't really excuse what we
Speaker 1: did to him, but it makes it irrelevant in his
Speaker 1: criminal trial if we're not going to use that that evidence. YEA.
Speaker 1: So over time, the focus above me and the chain
Speaker 1: of command of her career uniform military retired and they
Speaker 1: were replaced by political appointees. So the person that took
Speaker 1: over was a lady named Susan Crawford who never served
Speaker 1: one day in uniform, but she did serve as Dick
Speaker 1: Cheney's inspector general when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 1: and that's when things began to change. And by the
Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and seven, I was being told
Speaker 1: that President Bush said, we don't torture, so who are
Speaker 1: you to say that we do, And all that evidence
Speaker 1: that you're not using, you need to get into court
Speaker 1: and use it. These guys convicted. And that was when
Speaker 1: I said, you know, you need to find somebody else
Speaker 1: to do this job. I quit and you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, unfortunately was two. That was October of two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, So we're coming up on thirteen years
Speaker 1: later and very little has happened since then. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean when you think about that, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like that long ago. You know, I remember reading about
Speaker 1: all the detainees time there at Guantanamo and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I know they let a lot of both
Speaker 1: PEO will go um, but there's still people down there. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There were a total of seven hundred and seventy nine
Speaker 1: men that were sent to Guantanamo. And if you remember,
Speaker 1: we were told that they were all the worst of
Speaker 1: the worst, you know, the kind of men that would
Speaker 1: they chew through the hydraulic lines on the airplane flying
Speaker 1: to Guantanamo just to kill America. And uh, those seven
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy nine, there's still forty that are there,
Speaker 1: and you know, the vast majority turned out to be
Speaker 1: and you know they weren't. And I went into the
Speaker 1: job believing the narrative that they were all the worst
Speaker 1: of the worst, and you get there and it's like,
Speaker 1: you got to be kidding me. This is you know,
Speaker 1: some of these guys I mean, you do have folks
Speaker 1: like Kali check Mohammed. I'm certainly not going to argue
Speaker 1: that he didn't fit that description. But for every one
Speaker 1: of those, there were, you know, dozens of others that
Speaker 1: never should have been there to begin with, and they
Speaker 1: eventually got cleared and released to be sent back home.
Speaker 1: You know, we we've spent billions of dollars on the
Speaker 1: Guantanamo and squandered our credibility around the world, and it's
Speaker 1: unfortunate that in still an ongoing chapter. Mhm. That's uh,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. And then, uh, I know later in your
Speaker 1: career you went on to become a law professor at
Speaker 1: Howard and you served as a judge of the Department
Speaker 1: of Labor as is that correct? Well, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: a judge for the Department of Labor up in Washington,
Speaker 1: and I finished up by the end of I finished
Speaker 1: up my trials, I still had decisions right, and I
Speaker 1: could do that by teleworking. So my wife and I
Speaker 1: we bought property down in Nashville and we're planning to
Speaker 1: build a retirement house, and so we moved down here
Speaker 1: in of nineteen as our house was being built, and
Speaker 1: I telework from here and last September, September nine, I finished,
Speaker 1: you know, all the cases I had, and packed up
Speaker 1: my laptop and my credentials and set them back to Washington.
Speaker 1: And I thought I had retired at that point. And
Speaker 1: November of last year, our state court here in North
Speaker 1: Carolina told our legislature, because there's several congressional districts here
Speaker 1: that were heavily gerrymanager, this one was one of the
Speaker 1: works here in the eleventh district, and our legislature or
Speaker 1: our courts told the legislator, either you're going to redraw
Speaker 1: the boundaries or we're going to do it for you.
Speaker 1: And that's where aren't you've been here to Asheville. But
Speaker 1: for folks that haven't, it's I've described Ashville the folks
Speaker 1: that have never been here is the Berkeley of the
Speaker 1: Blue Ridge, because it's a very progressive, very accepting, very
Speaker 1: a lot of arts, and it's it's just a wonderful place.
Speaker 1: And so too, it's also very blue. And so to
Speaker 1: dilute the effect, the Republican legislature had split Ashville and
Speaker 1: half and put half in the eleventh Congressional district. That's
Speaker 1: that's the district Mark Meadows represented. But the other half
Speaker 1: in the district of Patrick mckinnry represents. And so where
Speaker 1: I'm standing right now where we built our house, I'm
Speaker 1: literally in the tenth Congressional district as we're speaking. That
Speaker 1: the legislature in the new boundaries put Asheville and Buncombe
Speaker 1: County back together because you couldn't explain splitting it down
Speaker 1: the middle by any reason other than cheating. And so
Speaker 1: when they did that, that's when I mean this, This
Speaker 1: district was a mathematical impossibility for a Democrat to win.
Speaker 1: I mean, for Mark Meadows, all he get his name
Speaker 1: on the ballot, and you know, he won between twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty points every time he ran because of the math.
Speaker 1: And so the new boundaries, it's still a Republican leaning district,
Speaker 1: but it's more like x or seven points and that's doable.
Speaker 1: That's when I decided to get into the race. And
Speaker 1: you know, my plan was to retire. But then I
Speaker 1: sat here and thought, I've got too many years invested
Speaker 1: in defending the country and defending democracy to watch it
Speaker 1: go down the drain. And in my view, you know
Speaker 1: the path we're on, you know, we're not gonna have
Speaker 1: a country left and so I figured if I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to do it, who was, and got in And
Speaker 1: here we are coming into the home stretch with the
Speaker 1: eight weeks to election day, I know, and it seems
Speaker 1: like sneaking up on this. I mean, we were talking
Speaker 1: about elections in November, you know, back in the spring,
Speaker 1: and it's a blink. Now we're like sixty days away.
Speaker 1: It's it's amazing. I mean, this year is flying by.
Speaker 1: So with that, I mean, I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: about some of the issues. And I know a lot
Speaker 1: of our readers and listeners are very interested in social
Speaker 1: Security because we're doing so much what's going on with
Speaker 1: social Security? Excuse me? And I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, what what your plan is and what your
Speaker 1: goal is for that. Yeah, that's and you know, there's
Speaker 1: seventy million Americans that depend on Social Security, and I
Speaker 1: want to fight to preserve what, you know, what they're
Speaker 1: entitled to. You know, it bothers me that, you know,
Speaker 1: the word entitlement is used like a dirty word by
Speaker 1: folks on the other side. And I've tried to explain
Speaker 1: it's called an entitlement because you worked for it and
Speaker 1: earned it, and you're entitled to what you you know,
Speaker 1: the benefit of your bargain, and so a Social Security
Speaker 1: it's you know, it was projected to have enough money
Speaker 1: to continue until about and then you know, the president
Speaker 1: now wants to suspend the payroll tax, which is the
Speaker 1: primary means of funding both Medicare and Social Security. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know, not far from here
Speaker 1: is Lake Lure. That's the lake where Dirty Dancing this film.
Speaker 1: But the river that feeds that if you cut the
Speaker 1: water off from the river, eventually the lake goes dry.
Speaker 1: And it's the same with Social Security. If you take
Speaker 1: away the payroll tax, you know, the fund's gonna go dry,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna go dry a lot faster. And you know,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell has never made any secret to the fact
Speaker 1: that Social Security was in his crosshairs. And Trump has said,
Speaker 1: if reelected, he wants to make the you know, the
Speaker 1: suspension of the payroll attacks permanent. And if we do that, it's, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the system can't stand up. But you know,
Speaker 1: the current system is there's some minor tweaks that could
Speaker 1: be made, like raising the income cap. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: before I retired from the Department of labor. About this
Speaker 1: time of year, my check got bigger. My paycheck because
Speaker 1: the cap is a hundred and thirty seven thousand, seven hundreds.
Speaker 1: So up to that limit, every paycheck they took out
Speaker 1: payroll tax. But once you hit that a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand, seven hundred level, they stopped taking it out.
Speaker 1: So the last couple of months of the year, you know,
Speaker 1: my paycheck always got bigger because I was over the cap.
Speaker 1: So if you increase that cap, you know, you bring
Speaker 1: in more revenue. Um. You know, if you over time
Speaker 1: increase the age where you get full benefits. You know,
Speaker 1: when when Social Security started, people didn't live as long
Speaker 1: as they do now, and I certainly wouldn't I wouldn't
Speaker 1: support any change is going to have a material impact
Speaker 1: on folks that have depended on it. But if you
Speaker 1: start far enough out you know where folks can plan
Speaker 1: their life and you know they've changed it a little bit. Now.
Speaker 1: I think I'm in the transition group, which for me
Speaker 1: to get full benefits, I think it's like sixty six
Speaker 1: years and two months or something. We're used to a
Speaker 1: sixty five if we you know, there there are a
Speaker 1: number of things that could be done with Social Security.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't have a significant impact on anybody. I could
Speaker 1: keep it solvent for decades, but we need to We
Speaker 1: need to do that rather than kicking the can down
Speaker 1: the road until it's a crisis. Let's let's fix it
Speaker 1: and preserve it and you folks the benefit of the
Speaker 1: bargain that was made. And I think we can do
Speaker 1: it without, you know, without too much pain for anybody exactly,
Speaker 1: And so many people paid into that, I mean their
Speaker 1: whole lives, and you know, and uh, to pull the
Speaker 1: rug off from under him at this point, I don't
Speaker 1: agree with that. What's the lover? So you've got me
Speaker 1: on that when I'm on there with you, you know instead,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm also at bad age where I'm
Speaker 1: almost at that same threshold. So it's something that I
Speaker 1: paid into my whole life, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: read some of that benefit as well. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: no reason can there You know that we can. We
Speaker 1: can fix this. It's just a matter of having the
Speaker 1: world to do it. Yeah, absolutely, and I think hopefully
Speaker 1: it will get done. Another issue with our readers and
Speaker 1: listeners is the Second Amendment. And you know, I know
Speaker 1: when people are running under the Democratic ticket. Everyone always
Speaker 1: assumes that their anti gun and their anti Second Amendment,
Speaker 1: and uh, I know that. You know, being from North Carolina,
Speaker 1: you're you're neither one of those, but you had some
Speaker 1: common sense. Uh you know, Uh, I want to say
Speaker 1: feelings on the Second Amendment and gun sense, and I
Speaker 1: would like to ask you about that as well. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was surprised recently to say that I got
Speaker 1: an F rating from the from the n r AN
Speaker 1: you just can't win. Uh. Yeah, Like you said, I
Speaker 1: grew up here in North Carolina. I was I was
Speaker 1: probably like seven years old when my dad got me
Speaker 1: a four ten shotgun, and so I grew up hunting.
Speaker 1: And like I said, when I was in college, I
Speaker 1: worked as a bail bonds at night a gun and
Speaker 1: then twenty five years in the military and I'm still
Speaker 1: a multi gun owner. So you know, the other side
Speaker 1: tries to portray it as you know, the Democrats are
Speaker 1: going to come and take your guns away, And my
Speaker 1: argument is I don't need to come and take years.
Speaker 1: I got my own. And uh but what I what
Speaker 1: I had proposed, And like I said, I got an
Speaker 1: F rating from the n r A, which it's the
Speaker 1: same rating the people that just want to ban guns
Speaker 1: entirely get. But what I've proposed is, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think guns and common sense aren't mutually exclusive terms. And
Speaker 1: so what I proposed is that you know, with a
Speaker 1: with a thorough background check and stringent red flag laws,
Speaker 1: that you know you have a second Amendment right to
Speaker 1: a pistol, rifle, a shotgun, or any combination there of.
Speaker 1: But I think for anything above and beyond that, like
Speaker 1: a military style weapon, if you want an enhanced weapon
Speaker 1: like that that's capable of mass destruction, what I've proposed
Speaker 1: is here in North Carolina, we have a concealed carry
Speaker 1: permit process. If you want to conceal carry, you have
Speaker 1: to follow an application and pay a fee. There's a
Speaker 1: check of your criminal record and your mental health record.
Speaker 1: You have to pay to attend an eight hour guns
Speaker 1: safety course and pass the test at the end of
Speaker 1: the course, and you have to sign saying that if
Speaker 1: you're arrested for an act of violence or hospitalized with
Speaker 1: a mental issue, that is reported to the authorities. And
Speaker 1: so what I've proposed is less use that as a
Speaker 1: framework for a nationwide standard. If you want a more
Speaker 1: enhanced weapon than a process similar to that. I think
Speaker 1: it will do two things. One is, I think some
Speaker 1: people end up buying military style weapons just for the
Speaker 1: the macho factor, and I think if we make it
Speaker 1: a little more difficult that maybe some of them will
Speaker 1: be deterred from doing it. And then I think it
Speaker 1: also can weed out some of those folks that haven't
Speaker 1: demonstrated the responsibility to have a weapon of mass destruction.
Speaker 1: And I know for some folks that's not a perfect solution.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know a lot of folks want to
Speaker 1: just outright banned military style weapons. And I understand that,
Speaker 1: and I think in a perfect world, I mean, I agree.
Speaker 1: I think if you want to carry a military style
Speaker 1: weapon to get down to the recruiting station, and yeah,
Speaker 1: the opportunity to carry one every day, but you could
Speaker 1: carry some pool and sure, yeah I know, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you ought to. You know, I think what
Speaker 1: I'm proposing is reasony. And most of the gun owners
Speaker 1: I've talked to agree that they are not opposed to.
Speaker 1: You know, they think there ought to be some common
Speaker 1: sense applied. So you know, as I said it, I
Speaker 1: know for my opponent, you know, is brought up that
Speaker 1: you know some of the events I've been to, I said, look,
Speaker 1: I'd like to ban assault weapons, but I can't get
Speaker 1: elected running on that, so I'm proposing this alternative. And
Speaker 1: that's true. But you know, when you run for office,
Speaker 1: you don't run to implement your own views. You run
Speaker 1: to represent the district. And I know in this district
Speaker 1: a ban on assault weapons is not what the people want.
Speaker 1: So I've tried to come up with something that I
Speaker 1: think strikes a reasonable balance. Um, you know that accommodates
Speaker 1: everybody's interests. You saw the right to have have your weapons,
Speaker 1: but if you want something that's capable of mass destruction,
Speaker 1: then holding you to a little higher standard, I don't
Speaker 1: think it is unreasonable. Well, uh, you know that we
Speaker 1: don't have enough of that right now. Is you know,
Speaker 1: being able to talk with people on the other side
Speaker 1: of the aisle as it may be, and king and
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's common sense. And so I could think
Speaker 1: it's you know, for some groups, that's a deal breaker.
Speaker 1: I had talked last week with a national group of
Speaker 1: a progressive national group that I would love to have
Speaker 1: their support and endorsement that for them, assault weapons is
Speaker 1: a is a deal breaker, and I'm just not gonna
Speaker 1: do something. It's right to tell people that I'm going
Speaker 1: to do something that i've you know, I don't believe.
Speaker 1: And so I lost their endorsement because I won't commit
Speaker 1: to a ban on assault weapons. But I still get
Speaker 1: an ask from the n R. You can't losing their
Speaker 1: two other things that are always on everyone's mind, education
Speaker 1: and health care. Will start with education. I know that,
Speaker 1: you know when I lived in North Carolina, and that
Speaker 1: was a few years ago, but you know they're there.
Speaker 1: Early areas are not good when it came to local
Speaker 1: spending on you know, students, And I saw on your
Speaker 1: website that there's still kind of in the bottom third
Speaker 1: of the nation um in math and reading skills, and
Speaker 1: you know that that's always a it's a hot Bunton
Speaker 1: issue with everyone. And you know, how how can we
Speaker 1: make education better in this country? Well, you know, education
Speaker 1: is primarily a state and local issue, and it's really
Speaker 1: disappointing for me, I said, I When I grew up here,
Speaker 1: I went through first grade through twelve in the public
Speaker 1: school system down in Shelby, and then I went to
Speaker 1: Appalachian State in North Carolina Central, which are both part
Speaker 1: of the u NC system. So I've got nineteen years
Speaker 1: of my life was spent in public education here in
Speaker 1: North Carolina. And back then, we prided ourselves on good
Speaker 1: schools and good roads, and you know, we had Research
Speaker 1: Triangle Park for anybody ever heard of Silicon Valley. And
Speaker 1: back then we were a proud, progressive, forward leaning southern state.
Speaker 1: And I think we were the envy of the Southeast
Speaker 1: back when I was growing up. But it seems like
Speaker 1: we're the last decade or so that their folks are
Speaker 1: trying to turn the clock back, and one of the
Speaker 1: things they've attacked is public education and by starving off funds.
Speaker 1: I was. I was out in Cherokee County, which is
Speaker 1: the furthest west county in North Carolina, and there was
Speaker 1: a woman I was talking to There is a school teacher,
Speaker 1: but she's teaching in Georgia, which is only about fifteen
Speaker 1: miles away. Because the pay in Georgia's ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year more than in North Carolina. So it's sad.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you know, our kids and are rural
Speaker 1: schools here in North Carolina rank in the bottom third
Speaker 1: of the country and math and reading skill, so I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that that's what I've tried to stress the folks,
Speaker 1: you got to vote blue all the way up and
Speaker 1: down the ballot, because we need to put some Democrats
Speaker 1: back into in charge of our state legislature and take
Speaker 1: care of public education. And the one thing I can
Speaker 1: do from a federal level is with Title one. Title
Speaker 1: ones a program has been around for a long time
Speaker 1: that provides federal funding for counties that are high in
Speaker 1: poverty to attract and retain top notch educators. Fourteen of
Speaker 1: our seventeen counties that make up this district in fourteen
Speaker 1: of the seventeen or or above the national average and poverty.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to Title one has never gotten the
Speaker 1: funding that it that it needs, So I'd like to
Speaker 1: fight for more funding for Title one because we have schools.
Speaker 1: There's an article not too long ago in our paper
Speaker 1: here saying that the average local support for public education
Speaker 1: averages about sixteen hundred dollars per pupil. The high water
Speaker 1: mark is down in Orange County. That's the Durham you know,
Speaker 1: the Research Triangle area, and that's apparently a very affluent
Speaker 1: part of the state, and the kids down there, it's
Speaker 1: over ten thousand dollars a year per pupil that's spent
Speaker 1: on their education. Out Here in the West, we have
Speaker 1: Slain County and the average there is four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars per pupil. And it's not you know, it's
Speaker 1: just not rocket science that you know, a kid that's
Speaker 1: got four hundred and fifty bucks spent on in versus
Speaker 1: one it's got ten thousand. That's not you know, they're
Speaker 1: not playing on the same field. And I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any way to the equalize where everybody gets the same.
Speaker 1: But you know, the quality of your education shouldn't be
Speaker 1: determined by your zip CoA. So we've got to do
Speaker 1: better to UH to support public education. And my opponent
Speaker 1: UH says public public universities and public schools are liberal
Speaker 1: indoctrination centers, so he wants to abolish the Department of
Speaker 1: the Education. And of course he was homeschooled and has
Speaker 1: never spent one day of his life in a public school.
Speaker 1: But he's the authority now on on public education. But
Speaker 1: we can do better. That's an area where I view
Speaker 1: education as an investment, not an expense, because those are
Speaker 1: the those children will be the ones running our country
Speaker 1: and you know, in a generation or two right now.
Speaker 1: And the fact show that you know, the more education,
Speaker 1: the higher your income. That's just a fact. And when
Speaker 1: you earn more, you pay more in taxes and you
Speaker 1: spend more in your community. So it's to me it's
Speaker 1: a win win, and rather than treating it as an expense,
Speaker 1: I think we've got to be looking at it as
Speaker 1: an investment. Absolutely. And I also liked your one of
Speaker 1: the points you've made on your website about supporting the
Speaker 1: expansion broadband broadband internet through about your rural district because again,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think so much learning goes
Speaker 1: on today through the Internet, especially now of course this
Speaker 1: year with the pandemic that we're all you know, hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll all get through this in the very new but
Speaker 1: you know we've seeing that now. They were lying on that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: broadband is an issue that I'm right. I think it
Speaker 1: is a non partisan issue here in western North Carolina
Speaker 1: because it if you don't have it, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're a Democrat or Republican or an independent. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you don't have it, you're behind. And COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: has really shown why it's an at issue I've been
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, way before COVID nineteen. The COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen you really put a spotlight on it because you know,
Speaker 1: when it hit, a lot of our schools sent kids
Speaker 1: home with laptops. But if you're in one of our
Speaker 1: nationwide of Americans have access to broadband, and North Carolina
Speaker 1: as a whole is a little ahead of that we're about,
Speaker 1: but we've got counties out here where it's less than
Speaker 1: fifty percent. So when those kids took the laptop home,
Speaker 1: it was a paperweight. You know, they didn't have internet,
Speaker 1: and a lot of folks have never heard of telemedicine
Speaker 1: until COVID nineteen hit. But if you're in Upon Upon,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the hollis where they don't have broadband,
Speaker 1: you can't use it. And I mentioned that, you know,
Speaker 1: fourteen of our seventeen counties are above the national average
Speaker 1: and poverty. You can't recruit industry now, you can't bring
Speaker 1: in good paying jobs if you don't have broadband, because
Speaker 1: isn't essential utility today like water and electricity. If you
Speaker 1: don't have it, they're not coming. And then I'm a
Speaker 1: disciple of that. I used to be a hospital. We
Speaker 1: got one of either the best or one of the
Speaker 1: best the best VA hospitals here in Nashville, and that's
Speaker 1: where I go. And in our newsletter a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago had said that since March the first, the
Speaker 1: number of telemedicine appointments the v A or up a
Speaker 1: thousand percent. But if there's sixty five thousand veterans in
Speaker 1: this district, and if you're eligible for v A and
Speaker 1: Europe in one of those areas that didn't have broadband,
Speaker 1: you can't use that benefit. This week I got I've
Speaker 1: got my first telemedicine appointment with the VA coming up.
Speaker 1: So the lack of broadband is hurting us across healthcare, education, economically.
Speaker 1: It's just we're behind. Do we need to catch up?
Speaker 1: And there's a bill Jim Clyburn from South Carolina has
Speaker 1: a billy introduced in the House that would treat this
Speaker 1: like we did back in the nineteen thirties and they
Speaker 1: had rural electrification, and it would treat broadband the same
Speaker 1: way to bring broadband to those rural counties the way
Speaker 1: we brought electricity to it ninety years ago. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and again you're talking about the feet I had a
Speaker 1: VA appointment this morning at eight o'clock. And you know,
Speaker 1: now a lot of my therapy appointments are done virtually,
Speaker 1: you know, over the internet, and luckily and the internet
Speaker 1: didn't go out, I mean this morning during my appointment.
Speaker 1: But that's also things will have to deal with. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think better than of my appointments, I
Speaker 1: don't have to go actually see a doctor. I can
Speaker 1: do it over the broadband, and it's it's much more convenient.
Speaker 1: It's you know, I think it saves time and saves expense.
Speaker 1: You don't have to drive all the way to the hospital,
Speaker 1: you know, and especially a lot of our events are
Speaker 1: getting up there in age and they have a hard
Speaker 1: time getting to it from so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm getting away from the education aspect,
Speaker 1: but that's where, you know, I'm all for that as well.
Speaker 1: And while we're on the subject, you know, I know
Speaker 1: v A is they've gone through quite a few changes.
Speaker 1: I think that turned the corner. I think they're doing
Speaker 1: a lot better than they were a few years ago.
Speaker 1: But they still have a long way to go, don't
Speaker 1: they do. And that's uh, you know, I feel really
Speaker 1: fortunate that you know. About a mile from where I'm
Speaker 1: city is the the A Hospital, and it's a great hospital.
Speaker 1: That's from my dad. I mentioned my dad was disabled
Speaker 1: veteran from World War Two and I can remember over
Speaker 1: half a century ago coming up here with him to
Speaker 1: go to the v A Hospital and they've taken great
Speaker 1: care of me. So one of the things I want
Speaker 1: to do is I'm hoping to get a seat on
Speaker 1: the Veterans Affairs Committee so I can make sure that
Speaker 1: we take care of the v A. That's a big
Speaker 1: issue around here. I know, whether Democrat, Republican or independent,
Speaker 1: if you're a veteran that uses the VA the vast majority,
Speaker 1: you want to keep it and not privatize it. So
Speaker 1: that's something I want to I want to try to
Speaker 1: make sure we do. Yeah, absolutely, because I think when
Speaker 1: you privatize it, I don't know, maybe I'm speaking out attorney,
Speaker 1: but I feel like when it gets privatized that the
Speaker 1: care level is going to go down. Yeah. The doctor
Speaker 1: and the doctor, I see the v A was in practice,
Speaker 1: excuse me, in practice here in Ashville for a long time,
Speaker 1: and is the practice got bought out by a corporation
Speaker 1: and he said he stayed on for about a year,
Speaker 1: but it became very clear that it was about profit
Speaker 1: and not fatient care. And that's when he left the
Speaker 1: practice and went to the v A, where he said,
Speaker 1: now here, it's not about billable hours and profit margins,
Speaker 1: is about taking care of people. And that's why I
Speaker 1: went to medical school. So I agree. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: some things that you know, the other side wants to
Speaker 1: try to find a profit margin and everything, whether it's
Speaker 1: education or prisons or veterans healthcare and I guess now
Speaker 1: the post office. But there's some things that you know,
Speaker 1: veterans are entitled to the promise that was made, and
Speaker 1: that's they can go to the v A and the
Speaker 1: v as going to take care of their medical needs.
Speaker 1: And they do, like to said a great job. A
Speaker 1: few years ago, I wouldn't have told you that, because
Speaker 1: you know where I was calling that I stopped calling
Speaker 1: actually because I didn't like the way to treating veterans
Speaker 1: at the time. But that's that's really really changed, and
Speaker 1: I think they're doing a great job, and I and
Speaker 1: I think it's getting better, I'm sure, you know, like
Speaker 1: anyone anyone else, I think it can be better. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I'm pretty place with what they're
Speaker 1: doing from especially for myself, I can only speak for
Speaker 1: this guy is standing here, But I think the v
Speaker 1: A is doing really well. In fact, I just moved
Speaker 1: to the state of Florida and the clinic that I'm
Speaker 1: going to Cape Coral is really really good and I'm
Speaker 1: very happy with it. So let's hope that we can
Speaker 1: keep that ball rolling in the right direction. So especially
Speaker 1: with the suicide issues, it's almost an epidemic right now
Speaker 1: amongst veterans, and you know, that's one area that I
Speaker 1: think the entire country is struggling with. I know the
Speaker 1: v A is looking for starting a new program, but
Speaker 1: it's it's far too high. I mean they're talking between
Speaker 1: seven two a day, and how can we do You
Speaker 1: do you have a plan on how we can help that? Well,
Speaker 1: I think we've we've got to continue to focus on it.
Speaker 1: Did not ignore it. I went out. You know, we've
Speaker 1: been really limited to what we've done with COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: on public events. But when I went to a couple
Speaker 1: of months back, was out in Cherokee County as a
Speaker 1: group of veterans did a twenty two mile walk to
Speaker 1: mark the Veteran suicides per day to try to call
Speaker 1: attention to it, but I think it's it's it's got
Speaker 1: to be part of a comprehensive another issue we didn't
Speaker 1: really have gotten into his healthcare and I think our
Speaker 1: our entire health care system, we maybe COVID nineteen is
Speaker 1: the impetus to to finally address it. That we've got
Speaker 1: a decouple your ability to get healthcare from your employment,
Speaker 1: where if you lose your job, you don't lose your
Speaker 1: ability to get to the doctor because being able to
Speaker 1: get treatment because you have for a lot of veterans
Speaker 1: that they're not near to be a hospital, they're just
Speaker 1: out in the community. They need to be able to
Speaker 1: get get treatment. And we're just done a poor job
Speaker 1: with healthcare in this country in general. We spend more
Speaker 1: money on it than any other country in the world,
Speaker 1: but we don't have the best outcomes. So I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that this will maybe be h yeah, the the catalyst
Speaker 1: for for for change in healthcare, because I think we
Speaker 1: can do a better job across the board. I mean
Speaker 1: not just for veterans, but for for everyone. It's a
Speaker 1: big issue right now. You know, if a lot of
Speaker 1: people can afford the premiums that they have to pay,
Speaker 1: and you know, as you said, I think I think
Speaker 1: it's what one ten presented the people in America now
Speaker 1: and don't have any whatsoever. Yeah, No, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: It's a you know, we spend over eleven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year per person on healthcare and we had over
Speaker 1: thirty million people that don't have coverage. Were other countries
Speaker 1: that we consider to be our peers and our allies,
Speaker 1: like you know, England, France, Germany, Canada on average spend
Speaker 1: about half what we spend and everybody's covered. So you know,
Speaker 1: we can do a much better job, I think, more
Speaker 1: efficiently and make sure we cover everybody. I mean, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to. It's not just there. There are people
Speaker 1: that have coverage that are underinsured. I was talking to
Speaker 1: my the other day is a family of four. I
Speaker 1: think they said they were paying eight thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year in premium and they had a four thousand dollars deductible.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm sure you've known people do that.
Speaker 1: You know, when they something happens, it's like, well do
Speaker 1: to us. So I just try to tough it out
Speaker 1: and see if it goes away, or do I send
Speaker 1: them money. I'm guilty of that. We should we shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing that. We had to we had to be
Speaker 1: if we can cover every And what I'm supporting advocated
Speaker 1: for is that govern the funded public option. Say that
Speaker 1: cradle to grade, you have the ability to go to
Speaker 1: the doctor and you don't go bankrupt. You know, if
Speaker 1: you have a serious illness or an accident. Six out
Speaker 1: of ten personal bankruptcies in this country, six out of
Speaker 1: ten are based on medical debt. And I've met a
Speaker 1: number of folks around here that have said, look, I
Speaker 1: thought I had a good job, and I thought I
Speaker 1: had good insurance, and then I got cancer and I
Speaker 1: maxed out my policy and ended up filing for bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: and you know, we can do better. Well, Um, I
Speaker 1: think that's always a big issue with with our listeners
Speaker 1: and readers. I mean, because it goes with what what I
Speaker 1: was saying. You know, ask me, especially as we age,
Speaker 1: we need better healthcare and you know, there's too many
Speaker 1: people in this contry that they're going without it. So
Speaker 1: hopefully we can we can all work together and get
Speaker 1: that squared away. I mean in the future. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope so, because our system is really geared on fixing
Speaker 1: problems after they occur, rather than preventing problems from occurring
Speaker 1: to begin with. So I'd love to see us be
Speaker 1: able to make sure everybody's covered and focus on preventative
Speaker 1: health rather than waiting until the problem happens and then
Speaker 1: try to try to treat well. And then one of
Speaker 1: the other things I found very interesting on your website
Speaker 1: was North Carolina is second in the country and solar
Speaker 1: energy production, and that, you know, when you're talking about
Speaker 1: jobs the economy, and that's an area where I think unemployment,
Speaker 1: you know, we can kind of nip that in the
Speaker 1: bud and uh, you know, can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about your jobs? Yeah, yeah, I was, I'll be honestly,
Speaker 1: I was surprised too to find out the North Carolina
Speaker 1: ranked second behind California and solar energy production. And I
Speaker 1: mentioned my wife and I built the house and we've
Speaker 1: been here ten weeks now, but we put in solar
Speaker 1: and this power we've got power built today and the
Speaker 1: first one we've gotten since our solar has been fully
Speaker 1: up and running. And our bill last month was over
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty dollars and this month is sixteen dollars,
Speaker 1: which is the monthly search. It's actually the monthly surcharge.
Speaker 1: There's we had no We actually put more energy electricity
Speaker 1: into the into the grid than we and we took out,
Speaker 1: So we've got a credit for where we can pull
Speaker 1: power back out of the system. But I think green
Speaker 1: technology is the way forward for western North Carolina. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned we've got a high rate of poverty here.
Speaker 1: Back before COVID nineteen, the unemployment rate around the district
Speaker 1: was about three and a half percent, which is pretty
Speaker 1: close to the national average. We had counties for the
Speaker 1: poverty rate was tells me that people were working, but
Speaker 1: they weren't earning a living. And so I think green
Speaker 1: technology is a win win. I mean, those are good jobs,
Speaker 1: both manufacturing the equipment and installing the equipment, and it's
Speaker 1: a good deal for the consumer. And I think some
Speaker 1: of the folks that if you go out and it's
Speaker 1: kind of like Obamacare, you know, there's some of the
Speaker 1: rural counties going talked about Obamacare, then they immediately accused
Speaker 1: you of being a socialist. But if you said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think about letting people with pre existing
Speaker 1: conditions get coverage? They like that, or if you said,
Speaker 1: what do you think about letting your kids stay until
Speaker 1: their twenty six so they can get through school and
Speaker 1: get up and running before they get They like that,
Speaker 1: but it was the label they hated. And I think
Speaker 1: the Green New Deal is kind of the same way,
Speaker 1: where you know, if you talk about the Green New Deal,
Speaker 1: they say you're a socialist. But if you if you
Speaker 1: talk to about how would you like not to write
Speaker 1: a check to the power company every month? They like that.
Speaker 1: And for what you're what you're paying for your power
Speaker 1: bill with the Fed a tax credit which the Republicans
Speaker 1: are continuing to erode. With the tax credit and the
Speaker 1: rebate from our power company, it made it economical for
Speaker 1: us to put in solar. And they can plot out,
Speaker 1: you know, how long it takes to recoup your investment.
Speaker 1: For us, it's like ten or twelve years. But for
Speaker 1: what you're paying for power, you can put in solar
Speaker 1: and after a period of time, you're making money. And
Speaker 1: I think you can also appeal with some of those
Speaker 1: folks on national security grounds, because if we're making electricity
Speaker 1: up on the roof of the house, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't need to be garden pipelines in the Middle East
Speaker 1: and shipping lanes if we can make it right here
Speaker 1: at home. So I think there's an opportunity two, you know,
Speaker 1: to get folks on board to do something that's you know,
Speaker 1: it's good for the economy, but it's good for the
Speaker 1: environment too, absolutely, And that's a that's a great one,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're talking about green energy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know the town that I just moved from up
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, they went on this big, you know, see kick,
Speaker 1: and people were vastly against it when they first heard
Speaker 1: about it, and then more and more people started getting
Speaker 1: on board because you talked to your neighbors and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not paying an electric bill anymore, and especially out
Speaker 1: there in the winter, your your electric bill get high
Speaker 1: during the lip of time, I mean, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're running everything and you're trying to keep your house
Speaker 1: warm in the lit and people were saying, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not paying anything anymore. And uh so it became
Speaker 1: a thing up there. And now I'm in my old town,
Speaker 1: solar is like, I'm probably a third of the homes
Speaker 1: out there in that one little time. But it's starting
Speaker 1: to grow, and I think again, it's something you know
Speaker 1: we can cut down our national energy costs in our
Speaker 1: reliance on for and of oil, which we don't know
Speaker 1: it's the cause of many of our country's skills right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a great opportunity. And uh, like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, it's it's good economically, and it's
Speaker 1: it's good environmentally. It's a it's a win win, and
Speaker 1: you know, we have the technologies, no matter having the
Speaker 1: will to do it. And I think like you're saying,
Speaker 1: there are we have a couple of towns here that
Speaker 1: public buildings they put in. You know, the community is
Speaker 1: no longer playing a power bill. They're making their own electricity.
Speaker 1: So it's it's an exciting opportunity. And there's some stuff
Speaker 1: coming down the road. There's uh it's called V two
Speaker 1: eight something from me with it's vehicle. The home. We're
Speaker 1: like my house here, we put in a tin kill
Speaker 1: a lot battery, so if our power goes out, I've
Speaker 1: got ten killer lots of power to keep it running
Speaker 1: for a while. But if you have a tesla, the
Speaker 1: battery in your tesla is probably somewhere between eight and
Speaker 1: a lot eight to twelve times bigger than the battery
Speaker 1: I've got here in my house, and with the two
Speaker 1: H technology, when you pull into your garage, you plug
Speaker 1: in your car, and right now your house then powers
Speaker 1: up your car. But with V too H technology, when
Speaker 1: your house needs power, it pulls it from your car
Speaker 1: back to the house, and a battery that size would
Speaker 1: run a normal size house for assuming there was no
Speaker 1: sunlight at all, you could keep your house powered with
Speaker 1: your car for three or four days. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of promises. Yeah, they're actually the nie the Nissan
Speaker 1: Leaf is available now is the first car here in
Speaker 1: this country that has V too H technology. So and
Speaker 1: for hours we had the folks that's it's pre wired
Speaker 1: for it because we're not there yet. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's really some exciting stuff out there that, like I said,
Speaker 1: could be good economically and good environmentally. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: let's move on. Um. Obviously, with everything that's going on
Speaker 1: in the country right now, you know, a big things
Speaker 1: poet reform and UM protests and violence going across the country.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's just not everyone. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've had any issues in North Carolina as we've
Speaker 1: seen now father, you know, Um, it's something that people
Speaker 1: are really for or really against it. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to have anything you know, where people are split down
Speaker 1: the mental of this, and I know North Carolina isn't.
Speaker 1: It's really a law and order state. So I was
Speaker 1: curious of your tay on all this. You know, what's
Speaker 1: going on with racial injustice and police reform. Yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't had you know, the you know,
Speaker 1: the major eventsit you've seen some other places. But you know,
Speaker 1: my background, like I said, my background was in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a criminal justice major. I worked
Speaker 1: in law enforcement training. Um. I one thing I really
Speaker 1: regret is whoever came up with the term defund the police.
Speaker 1: It was a horrible label. I wish they did. I
Speaker 1: wish they that. I wish it had been reimagining policing
Speaker 1: because I think, you know, one of the things I
Speaker 1: found frustrating in the military is when you move from
Speaker 1: assignment to assignment, you get to a new place and
Speaker 1: you see how they're doing things, and you ask, well,
Speaker 1: why are we doing it that way? And usually the
Speaker 1: answer was, We've always done it that way. And I
Speaker 1: think we've we've done that with with policing, where you know,
Speaker 1: we've kind of gotten into this is the way we've
Speaker 1: always done it, and I think maybe there's some things
Speaker 1: that we've we've dumped on the law enforcement that maybe
Speaker 1: belongs somewhere else, for instance, dealing with mental health issues
Speaker 1: and dealing with alcoholism and dealing with drug addiction, and
Speaker 1: in my view, those are to be treated as health
Speaker 1: care problems, not criminal justice problems. So I wish we
Speaker 1: could use this as an opportunity to to look at,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the roles and missions that we
Speaker 1: want our law enforcement for estionals to carry out, and
Speaker 1: which ones belonged somewhere else. So I've gotten criticized here.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned went to North Carolina Central, which
Speaker 1: is a historically black college, to law school, and then
Speaker 1: I taught at Howard University, which is also a historically
Speaker 1: black college. So I have seven years you know, in
Speaker 1: the HDCU community, which again that doesn't mean I've walked
Speaker 1: in those shoes, but I've walked with the people that
Speaker 1: are in those shoes, and you know, to pretend that
Speaker 1: they're a racial problem is burying your head in the sand.
Speaker 1: I mean, my opponents argued that racism ended in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 1: You know, with the Civil War. He made the argument
Speaker 1: that the six hundred thousand Americans died to end slavery,
Speaker 1: and some my pointed out one half of them. We're
Speaker 1: trying to keep slavery, not end it. But it's an opportunity.
Speaker 1: I got criticized from folks on the right for attending
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter marches in the district, and then I
Speaker 1: got criticized by folks on the left for at ten
Speaker 1: being back the Blue marches. And and my answer is,
Speaker 1: if you're going to Congress to represent the district, you're
Speaker 1: you go to represent everybody, not just the people that
Speaker 1: vote for you and like you. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: both of those movements are those those are folks in
Speaker 1: the community. You know, they're your family, your friends, or neighbors.
Speaker 1: And you know we need to get folks together and
Speaker 1: talk about quit pulling apart less road together for a change.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm sorry to interrupted, I totally agree with that,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think when you look at it,
Speaker 1: a lot of gets lost. I think in the translation,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of our law enforcement officers very very
Speaker 1: good people, and they do their jobs quite well. We
Speaker 1: only hear about those few bad apples when things happen,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think to lump the entire police,
Speaker 1: you know forces to you know, where they're all bad
Speaker 1: and they're all racially and just I don't think that's
Speaker 1: doing them any kind of justice there. Yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: that I've analogized it to be in the military that
Speaker 1: I think if you served in the military or you
Speaker 1: served in law enforcement, that you have a presumption of
Speaker 1: honor and integrity. But it's a rebuttable presumption. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the military, we had folks that we had bad apples,
Speaker 1: and you have to get rid of the bad apples,
Speaker 1: and law enforcements the same way. I think there's a
Speaker 1: presumption that they're honorable folks of integrity, and a lot
Speaker 1: like the military. I mean, you're not going to get
Speaker 1: rich being in the military. You're not going to get
Speaker 1: rich stirring in law enforcement, but you're doing something that matters.
Speaker 1: And so I totally agree with that. Most of the
Speaker 1: folks that I've known in law enforcement have been good,
Speaker 1: dedicated people that were trying to make a difference for
Speaker 1: their for their community. And but you know, we've seen
Speaker 1: examples of the bad apples and those have to go.
Speaker 1: But I also I don't. I don't support violence on
Speaker 1: the other side either, And I've been really pleased that
Speaker 1: some of the folks here that are activists have said
Speaker 1: that some of the events when they've seen you know,
Speaker 1: folks getting violent, and they've tried to point them out
Speaker 1: to the to the police and say, look, those are
Speaker 1: not our folks. You know, we don't condone this. So
Speaker 1: there's really you know, here in Nashville, this this area
Speaker 1: is heavily dependent on tourism, and so when COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: had our you know, restaurants and hotels and those things
Speaker 1: were really really hurting. And then after George Floyd we
Speaker 1: had some marches here there's vandalism, which is just you know,
Speaker 1: I totally rejected. We've got merchants here that we're struggling
Speaker 1: to get by to begin with, and then to vandalize
Speaker 1: their property is inexcusable. But I'd like to see the
Speaker 1: good folks on both sides get together and let's figure
Speaker 1: out how to address this as a community, to do
Speaker 1: better for for all of us. Absolutely, And as you said,
Speaker 1: you know, the the police officers that do suffering from
Speaker 1: his conductor, you know, the use of well not use
Speaker 1: of forces misuse of force. Those have to be weeded
Speaker 1: out and treated them. And and you know, one of
Speaker 1: my other jobs that I do is I cover the NFL,
Speaker 1: so you know where the vast majority of the players
Speaker 1: from the African American community. And again, as you said,
Speaker 1: I haven't watching issues, but you know, talking with some
Speaker 1: of those people, their perceptions of how they stand in
Speaker 1: the law enforcement community are vastly different than some of us.
Speaker 1: And you know, and if if they feel that there's
Speaker 1: an issue there, then we need to change that feeling.
Speaker 1: Doesn't they feel like you there as protected as divers
Speaker 1: of us are, and it is that issue, then we
Speaker 1: need to change that. Yeah, I agree. I was talking
Speaker 1: with the gentleman, African American gentleman. It's a little bit,
Speaker 1: a little bit older than I am, not much, but
Speaker 1: he was an educator. He lives in a nice neighborhood
Speaker 1: as a nice car and uh, we were talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, this very issue, and he was saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, over the last five or five or ten years,
Speaker 1: he's gotten pulled over a half a dozen times driving
Speaker 1: home in the afternoon. You know, he wasn't speeding, he
Speaker 1: didn't cross the yellow line. His tag wasn't expired, but
Speaker 1: he got pulled over, and I haven't gotten pulled over
Speaker 1: in forty years, so you know, it's it's there's definitely
Speaker 1: an issue there that you know, one of the one
Speaker 1: of the last decisions I wrote as a judge at
Speaker 1: the Department of Labor was the largest racial discrimination verdict
Speaker 1: in Department of her history, and it was a case
Speaker 1: involving an enterprise rental Car of Baltimore. We're in their
Speaker 1: hiring they were discriminating against African American applicants, and both
Speaker 1: the government expert and the company's expert agreed that if
Speaker 1: you look at the hiring pattern, that the odds of
Speaker 1: it happening by chance, we're a million times less than
Speaker 1: if you bought a single lottery ticket in one In
Speaker 1: other words, you buying a lottery ticket to remain I
Speaker 1: was more likely to win the lottery with one set
Speaker 1: of numbers. This hiring pattern just happened by a chance.
Speaker 1: So you know, the notion that all is good on
Speaker 1: race is ignoring reality. Absolutely, So, sir, how difficult is it?
Speaker 1: I mean with all the COVID going on and you know,
Speaker 1: we we we're not being able to congregate like we
Speaker 1: normally do I know. I'm missing my college football right now,
Speaker 1: although some of the teams are getting back to playing,
Speaker 1: but I'm getting off attention. How difficult is it to
Speaker 1: run a campaign and getting out to meet people when
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to get out and meet people right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a I've never run before, so I mean, just
Speaker 1: a campaigning in general was a new experience, and then
Speaker 1: you throw a pandemic on top of it, and it's
Speaker 1: made it a real, a real challenge except for my opponent.
Speaker 1: My opponent just pretends like there's nothing going on and
Speaker 1: is still having big events with no mask and hugging
Speaker 1: and kissing and doing all that. And my view is,
Speaker 1: if you want to be in public service and your
Speaker 1: job one is not put in the public at risk.
Speaker 1: And so we've been doing events that comply with the
Speaker 1: with the guidelines, you know, with social distancing and face
Speaker 1: mask and limiting crowd size, and you know, it's made it,
Speaker 1: it's made it difficult. But yeah, I look quite literally,
Speaker 1: prior to COVID nineteen, I had used zoom one time
Speaker 1: in my life, and now I spent half my day
Speaker 1: it seems like sitting in front of a camera on zoom,
Speaker 1: which has been a good tool to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in this in this time that we're in. But again,
Speaker 1: you know, I gues said, we've got counties were people
Speaker 1: don't have broadband, so I can't reach a m So
Speaker 1: it really is a challenge to try to how do
Speaker 1: you connect with those folks when it's it's not safe
Speaker 1: to go out and have a big event and you
Speaker 1: don't have internet where you can talk to him on
Speaker 1: zoom And so we're grappling like a lot of other
Speaker 1: campaigns and trying to figure out how you adapt to
Speaker 1: this environment we're living in. Yeah, it's it's very difficult.
Speaker 1: I know, everyone's getting frustrated, you know, as time goes
Speaker 1: on and we're all I mean, we would all love
Speaker 1: to get back to where we're where we were maybe
Speaker 1: seven eight months ago, but I don't see that happening
Speaker 1: anytime soon. But with that being said, you don't have
Speaker 1: a debate coming up from our night, Um now that's
Speaker 1: got to be a virtual debate. And will there actually
Speaker 1: be people in attendance there? Yeah, this will be This
Speaker 1: is our third we had to we had last Friday
Speaker 1: and last Sturday night. We've got one tomorrow night and
Speaker 1: another one the end of the month, and it's a
Speaker 1: we're both you know, my my opponent and I are
Speaker 1: both there together, and the moderator and the panelist and
Speaker 1: a few other folks. But it's not your traditional debate
Speaker 1: where there's a big room full of people. So uh,
Speaker 1: for the public, you know, it's it's available, it's webcast
Speaker 1: and folks can can tune in and watch it, but
Speaker 1: it would be a very small I think we've had
Speaker 1: ten ten people are less in the rooms the last
Speaker 1: couple of debates, and I think that will be the
Speaker 1: case again tomorrow. Okay, well, um, is there anything you'd
Speaker 1: like to add to our listeners and especially we have
Speaker 1: a lot of readers and listeners from North Carolina, so
Speaker 1: you know, to the voter. So there is there any
Speaker 1: life final message you'd like to put out before we
Speaker 1: wrap this up? It's afternoon. Yeah, I just I'd like
Speaker 1: to say, you know, it's here in western North Carolina
Speaker 1: we're behind you by any objective measure, whether it's education
Speaker 1: or broadband, or healthcare or poverty. You know, we're we're
Speaker 1: we've got work to do. And the argument I've made
Speaker 1: that folks here gave Mark metas four terms, and I've asked,
Speaker 1: when I'm out around the district, you know, what can
Speaker 1: you point to that he did to make your life
Speaker 1: better or your kid's future brighter? And folks really struggle
Speaker 1: to try to come up with something. So the argument
Speaker 1: I've made is give me twenty two months and I'll
Speaker 1: get sworn in on January three and face the voters
Speaker 1: again in November. Give me twenty two months, and if
Speaker 1: I don't keep my word and if you don't see
Speaker 1: things getting better, than fire me. But we can't. You know,
Speaker 1: we're slipping behind and we need to catch up. And
Speaker 1: so my commitment is to work for everybody in this
Speaker 1: district Demo, crap, Republican and unaffiliated, that we're all in
Speaker 1: this together and we can all we can all move
Speaker 1: forward together. All right, Well, sir, we want to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us here and Software Radio today, for
Speaker 1: taking the time and talking to us. And you know
Speaker 1: you've had a very interesting life and now you're running
Speaker 1: for you know, for office, so you know you're career
Speaker 1: of public service continues, and well, all the best with that,
Speaker 1: and uh I once again thanks for taking this time.
Speaker 1: And Joyce, well, thank you. I really appreciate you taking
Speaker 1: time to talk with me, and I hope you stay
Speaker 1: safe and we're gonna have some better days ahead of us.
Speaker 1: Let's all hopefull we can, you know for anybody. So
Speaker 1: that said, you know, we wish you all the best,
Speaker 1: and uh again, sir, stay safe, thank you for your service,
Speaker 1: and uh you know, uh we wish you all the
Speaker 1: success in the upcoming election. Really being said, well yes,
Speaker 1: uh again we appreciate him and and uh patients answered
Speaker 1: all our questions. But that right up here after this
Speaker 1: is Software Radio on Time, on target Steve Ballistro Here.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with another podcast for little soon. We
Speaker 1: want to thank our guest, Colonel Will Davis, who's running
Speaker 1: office uh and for joining us here this afternoon, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back with another show. Love been listening to
Speaker 1: self reply m