Rep. Mike Collins and Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Getting Our Country Back on Track 59:20

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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Another set of fantastic interviews for you today, folks. First up, Congressman Mike Collins represents Georgia's 10th congressional district. Congressman, thank you for joining us today. Hey, Sam. I appreciate y'all having me on. Thank you. Thank you. So first of all, you represent Athens, Georgia. Is there still a glow from two national championships going on out there?

Well, let's put it this way. The glow is there, and it's probably going to get a little brighter because next year's coming soon. 3P. Who's the last? Is Alabama the only school that's 3P'd it ever in a national championship? Has it ever happened? Yeah, I don't know. You can't ask me those questions. I don't know sports trivia. Get the staff on it. So you sat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, something that you're well qualified to do because you ran a trucking company, which now your sons operate and manage for you.

What do people not understand how inflation, high fuel prices affect the cost of things in a grocery store, for example?

Well, and fuel prices are probably your number two, number three expense, depending on how high fuel gets. And normally you get fuel surcharges as your fuel prices go up. But fuel surcharge never covers 100% of the increase. So when fuel gets to a certain dollar amount, say that $4.50, $4.75, you really start going into the red. But, you know, fuel is not just...

As inflation goes up, fuel is not just reflected in that fuel tank. It's every component on the truck. It's your tires. They're made out of petroleum. It's your manufactured goods, fuel.

Their prices go up. So it's across the board. I think it's just like what the American people see out there. You take, for instance, I think inflation right now is up 13% from when the Biden administration took effect. That means that the average annual income for a family has lost around $7,400, $7,500 annually in buying power.

Just over the inflation. And they see that. Most folks didn't really realize probably what was going on until inflation really kicked in, and either your shelves were empty or your price of your goods was going up exponentially like fuel, which went up, I think, 44% at the end of the day. I have a friend who's a pastor, and I was talking to him the other day, and I said,

how is the economy treating your congregation? And he has about 100, 200 people in it. And he said they're all employed, but they're all struggling paycheck to paycheck. They just can't afford the basics. It's just they're gainfully employed full time and they can't do it. Now they're trying to find part time jobs at night so they can afford the extra fuel cost, the extra food, things of that nature. And now we have Russia announced that they're cutting 500,000 barrels a day.

Right. Which is more of a squeeze on Europe. As you've been in Congress for a short amount of time, is there an appetite to make us energy independent? Because we have the resources to do that. Man, you hit a nail on the head. And that's in a nutshell. You think about when we were energy independent under under the Trump administration, you didn't hear much out of Putin in Russia. It's because all he is is a thug.

with a gas station. And when we were energy independent and exporting oil and selling it all around this world, he was losing money. And he couldn't afford to do anything like what he's doing now. We have effectively funded his war

And now we have funneled billions of dollars over to Ukraine to try to help them to fight against it. And the whole time we're trying to secure Ukraine's border, play policeman in the world, and we can't even secure our own deadline border. I saw a number the other day that said we've now spent more on the Ukraine war than we had in Afghanistan. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. The amount that we've spent on Ukraine is double what the homeland security budget is.

And unbelievable. It makes no sense. No, it makes no sense. And the reality is if we're energy independent, Russia is crippled. Yeah, they're broke. Really? Yeah. You can't bankrupt them. We could cut the world price of gas by 20 percent in a matter of years.

And that's how you handle these people, whether it's Russia or whether it's China. You know, you can you can affect them by making them go broke. And both of them need to be done that way. China in a different respect on how we take care of them. But sure, we get we get back to energy independence.

And we just not one one thug off the block over there. The power of economics in international relations when you're dealing with these countries, it's exactly what Ronald Reagan showed. Right. When he took down the Soviet Union, basically by breaking their economy with an arms buildup.

that's it and and and of course we need to we that maintain peace through strength is very important and and we have gutted a lot of our military and uh running a lot of old equipment

And we need to really make sure that we have that strength there to maintain peace. But you're exactly right. You take, for instance, on the China side of this deal, you know, we have just regulated and taxed the American businessman to the point where they have had to move overseas to manufacture. That's why I thought, I swear, if all nights were me not to wear my boots to the State of the Union address, because

Because I swear by the end of that thing, man, it was deep in there. But when you heard Biden say,

We are going to demand American businesses bring those jobs back to the United States of America. And oh, by the way, we're going to increase your taxes. We're already pounding you on regulations. Now, who in their right mind would do that? Probably, I guess, the same people that are in the oil industry when he said, we only need you for a decade in an industry that takes 10 to 12 years to get a permit. Right.

So, you know, that was, of course, that's a whole different subject, that speech the other night. But you can understand, and I certainly was part of it, why the frustration level was just, it was more than what a lot of us could handle after a while. It was just a propaganda speech. And, you know, and I've told several people since that I really,

believe that the American people really don't believe it. They see it. They see straight through it. Well, as propaganda, a perfect example is how he's handling the debt ceiling. He's unwilling to sit down and talk about it. And so now he goes to Florida yesterday and they're going to start doing the third rail politics. They're going to start lying about Republicans want to kick grandma and grandpa on the street or your parents. And, you know, all Republicans are saying is, look, we're

This is a runaway train, and we don't want to affect anybody who's counting on it right now or in the near future. But for those in their 20s, we've got to start having some honest conversations. And he just simply is unwilling to do it. Matter of fact, I read today in Bloomberg –

Public finances are buckling as retirement promises made to previous generations collide with the realities of an aging population. In 1980, pensions consumed 5.5% of gross domestic product. By 2040, it's 10%. And this is for like every country. I mean, this is not unique. Every city. Someone's going to have to do this. So how do Republicans fight back what is bad?

truly a Biden lie that you want to take it away from grandma now. Yeah. And it is a Biden lie. Anybody that's paid into the social security system is that's what they have relied on and depend on. And they should get that. But you, you, you handle this thing from two different areas. Number one, you know, and I've always been a big proponent of this. You get too many cooks in the kitchen. You just go and burn the mail.

That's why we have set up where we have one person, Speaker McCarthy. He is the guy in the room. Now, what needs to really happen is for the Biden administration to put Joe Biden in the room. Now, I don't know if he'll comprehend what's going on, but we need him in the room and let them hash this thing out and negotiate this because I don't care if it's Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. I don't care what it is or how old you are. If we don't turn this debt around,

and we don't get this spending under control and start paying down that debt, you won't have to worry about that because this place will be bankrupt. And we got a whole lot more problems than that. So we've got to sit down and have an honest discussion on how we're going to turn the ship and stop spending all this money. And, you know, a lot of what we set up in those house rules,

address a lot of this already. Those omnibus bills that they passed that Chuck Schumer, you know, I don't know if y'all saw his press conference. It's probably been about a month. Well, it was when they passed the last omnibus bill. And he said, oh, this is so great. We've done this 10 years in a row. I'm like, holy cow, son. That tells me in a decade you've not done your dad-blamed job once. That's your job. We had a guest last week, a congressman from Mississippi? Mississippi.

And he said, we've hit the $1 trillion in national debt in 1980. We're now at $31 trillion. I mean, that's how much this has grown in three decades. Yeah. You know, what's really odd is, now this omnibus bill, when they passed it, they hit the debt limit then. And the reason I say that is because when they passed the last, what would be known as the debt limit,

They didn't set it as a dollar amount. They set it as a date and time. And so at that date and time, whatever the number was, that's the debt limit. Well, they actually hit that when they passed that omnibus bill. But they're getting in. They're getting in record receipts. And, oh, let's figure out why that is. Well, that's because we had tax breaks and we reduced people's taxes during the Trump administration. And it's just the Sam Walton theory. You know, you sell it cheap.

And your revenues will grow. And so but by setting that time and not setting a number, which is kind of goofy in my mind, you know, they had already hit it.

Why didn't they take care of it then if they were so bent on doing a clean debt limit? You had the House and the Senate then. Yeah, absolutely. Congressman, one of the things that you focus on a lot, and we have just about a minute and a half before we go to break here, is deregulation. That's another big element of freeing up the American economy and generating more economic growth to offset that debt. What is your number one, this is the first thing I'd like to deregulate? Oh, goodness.

Well, you know, I sit on natural resources and actually sit on the oversight committee there. And this goes across every industry.

But permitting processes have gotten so bad, and it's because we have federal bureaucrats out there that really don't know what they're regulating. They just enjoy adding another rule or another reg onto you that they think is another feather in their cap that will get them that extra pay raise or move them on up the ladder. So a lot of the permitting issues out there that get specific to each industry, we are looking at and we are demanding that the federal government –

justify what they're doing. Otherwise, we need to start rolling them back. We've also got a big act that we're pushing through the House right now called the REINS Act, which can help rein in a lot of these federal bureaucracies. Fantastic. Congressman, we're going to go to break here in just a few seconds, but how do folks follow you and your work? Our official page is Rep Mike Collins. You can find us across all the social medias there, and we'd love for you to follow us.

We're putting out information every day. Fantastic. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming right back with more from Representative Mike Collins of Georgia's 10th Congressional District in a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Horne, with my co-host, Sam Stone. Today, we are honored to have with us Congressman Mike Collins. He represents Georgia's 10th Congressional District.

He is not only a small business owner, he's a father. He knows how the economy works because he's had to meet a payroll. Congressman, that's one thing that always strikes me with folks like you who've actually created something. You've had to meet payroll. And I feel a lot of times there are certain members of Congress, and they're generally on one side of the aisle more than another, who just don't understand how paychecks are done. They don't understand being a small business owner. And I'm sure you've had this experience where you've like,

I don't have enough money for payroll tomorrow. I got to figure this out. And they don't understand the anxiety that surrounds that and what small businesses go through to provide jobs. And do you find that in Congress as you deal with various people and staff? You know, you do. And actually, I carry that into the meetings. I was very fortunate. I got put on three committees, eight subcommittees. One of those subcommittees I chair and

And one of the oversight committee in the subcommittee, I'm a vice chair on. So we've got a lot of things that we can stay engaged in. We had in particular, it brings to mind two hearings that we've had this week. And and when I sit down and look at something, we're on the aviation subcommittee. So, you know, obviously, FAA has had quite a bit of problems here lately. Correct. Trying to put planes on top of each other and note them going down. And so when I sit down, I want to look at it, identify the problem.

identify the solution, and identify how we don't do this again. I mean, that's the business side of everything I look at. I am amazed at how the agencies that we talk to don't look at things like that. We had an FAA hearing, what, three weeks ago, just a week and a half or two weeks after the January 11th NOTAM mess.

oh congressman we're looking into that we're still investigating that wait a minute what you're telling me you can't you haven't even identified the whole problem yet so it's just that lack of i don't know maybe the business side of it that that i have found amazing and uh even even this week in a hearing on on lotus on the waters of the u.s uh the same thing uh you know just finding people on the other side to talk to that uh are engaged from a

business minded standpoint. It's also a sense of urgency. I think probably the only people in government that have a sense of urgency is the military, right? So if something bad happens, they have to react. And I think what happens, so if something like that happened to your trucking company, something with scheduling, you and your sons would have been in a room all night till it's figured out the next morning.

And what you see in the federal government, because they get a paycheck no matter what, it's like, you know, we're looking into it. Yeah. And I think you said it all right then. They get a paycheck no matter what. And as we investigate these things, wow, man, we put another great rule in effect, and it's called the Holman Rule.

Now, when we start subpoenaing people, we subpoena you and you work for an agency, and you say, nah, I think I got other things going on that day. I think I've got to go play around the golf. Well, guess what? We can take your salary. We can cut it all the way down to a dollar. Now do you want to come speak to us and let's figure out what's going on? But you're exactly right, man. They act like they can't be fired. They're going to get their paycheck, and they feel like there's no urgency or no need to come speak to Congress. Right.

Congressman, you touched on this earlier when you were talking about the permitting process and dealing with federal bureaucracies. I think we've done a great job of – not a great job always, but deregulating the public economy. But we haven't really focused on deregulating government from itself yet.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're looking at ways to do that now to where we can actually, you know, say we we come in and we say we don't need this part of an agency. You know, then then how do you make sure that those people because we don't even know how many people work for an agency. So how do you make sure that they're not just moved around?

You know, OK, don't worry. You're out of the print shop. We'll put you in the paint shop. Now, they would be easier to count if if Biden, if the Senate passes and Biden signs your bill to mandate federal workers return to the office, I would imagine. Yes, that would be a huge help. And as a matter of fact, I've only been into this job with six weeks. And I would say that the number one thing that we're hearing is people are calling, but they don't get anybody.

Not for our office, but for an agency. And so, yeah, we need these people back at work. There's no reason that they shouldn't be in the office working. And that was another great piece of legislation that we pushed across to the Senate. And I implore you, your audience, we put a lot of good legislation across that to the Senate side.

You know, I don't know if they're not taking it up. Maybe they should show up for work. I think they took the first couple of weeks off. Call your senator. Call all the senators. Get them to understand that you want the legislation that we're sending them to be passed or voted on. You've been in Congress six weeks. What has been your biggest surprise so far? What is something you just like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe they're doing this?

Well, you know, it's not so much they're doing this. It's just the fact somebody told me that before I got there, they said, Mike, now I'm just going to tell you, they're not going to stop the train in the train station and you're just going to get on and they're going to take off again. So you're going to have to jump on a moving train and just hope you jump on and don't break your neck when you land because everything is fluid and it's continuous. And

And you have to be prepared to really, you know, try to get up to speed as fast as possible. Plus work on your personal stuff that you want to get done. And so it's and the other thing is, you know, I'm a small business person and it's so hard for me to let go of things like my schedule, you know, and because when I did it,

I knew what I was doing in my head. But now it's more like, you know, here's your calendar, here's your schedule for the day. So it's been a learning curve. That's going to be a huge learning curve, absolutely, because your responsibilities are just sort of 24-7, unfortunately. Yeah, but, you know, hey, I love it. I get up every day at 5 a.m. I go through the loading dock there at Longworth to get to my office because it's the only, you know, doors that are open. And, man, I'm ready to go to work when the sun comes up.

Now, talking about the only doors that are open, some of the restrictions in government have been due to the COVID health emergency. Are we going to get that? Are we going to finally get rid of that? Yeah, that was actually gone on day one.

Before we got there, you know, you had to have an escort to get into the House office buildings or the Senate. And, you know, so, yeah, it just people just after a while, just like, man, forget it. You know, I'll call you on the phone if I can talk to you. So we didn't get to experience that.

We also didn't experience the proxy voting, which that is gone now. It's funny, the members of Congress that have been there since Nancy Pelosi and since the pandemic, they always joke about it. I mean, we'll take five votes in 30 minutes. And they're like, we couldn't have done five votes in eight hours because of the proxy voting. So that's gone. Members of Congress, show up to work.

Good. Fantastic. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program. Folks, make sure you follow him on social media. Representative Mike Collins, thank you so much. We really loved having you and love to have you again. Anytime. Appreciate the time. Thanks, my friend. Appreciate it. Have a good weekend. Bye bye. You too.

Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming back here in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us next, the 46th governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson. Governor Hutchinson, thank you so much for joining us today. We really love having you on the program. For folks who don't know, in 2018, Governor Hutchinson was reelected with 65 percent of the vote, more votes than any other candidate for governor in the state's history. And he was elected as the governor of Arkansas.

Grew up on a small farm. He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas Law School, and he and his wife, Susan, have been married 47 years. They have four children and six grandchildren, which leads to the most important question of the day, Governor.

Who was more fun to have, the kids or the grandkids? Hey, listen, it is great to be with you today. And I tell you, grandkids are a lot of fun to have in life. And I get to spend a little bit of time with them, even though I am pretty busy looking at 2024 and going around the country. But I value my family and they're special.

I have a friend of mine said the only reason you have kids is so you can have grandkids. So it's an interesting path in life we don't expect when we're younger. So we have a lot of questions we want to ask you today about the country, China, debt ceiling. But one thing I don't think people know about you, and since you're considering maybe more national aspirations coming up here.

As President Reagan appointed you as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, you were 31, and you handled many cases. But one of those cases was you prosecuted what a group called the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It was a white supremacist organization. And what people don't know is you had to put a flak jacket on and go personally negotiate with them to end the standoff. Tell people a little bit about that, and does that moment—

play a role in your future political endeavors in public service? Well, it did. And it was a momentous occasion really for our nation because in that time frame, we were struggling across the country with neo-Nazi groups, white supremacist group that had turned extraordinarily violent.

And we had a nest of them here in Arkansas called the Covenant Sword and Arm of the Lord. And they were in my jurisdiction. I was United States attorney. And so we had the FBI. We had other federal organizations or state police all focused on the violence that was coming out to that particular group.

And we knew that they had anti-aircraft weapons in there. They were training for the fall of society, trying to bring it about. They had caught, shot and killed a Jewish pawn shop owner. They had bombed Jerusalem.

churches. And so this was not the run of the mill violent group. And they had connections with violent groups up in northwest United States, which was Washington, Spokane, as well as Coeur d'Alene. So this was a well-connected, well-financed operation.

We had an arrest warrant for the leader, James Ellison, had a search warrant for the compound. He refused to surrender because one of someone that was going to the compound and shot and killed Trooper Lineker in Missouri in a shootout when a law enforcement stop was made.

And then James Ellison refused to come out of the compound, refused to surrender, surrounded by 200 law enforcement officers, SWAT teams from five states. The FBI called me in to assist in the negotiation. You know, and I'm a young 32-year-old United States attorney, and they threw a bulletproof vest at me and said, hey, you're going to need this. And I thought, you know, this is not a law school. Yeah.

But I put it on. We go to the forward operating compound. I'm with the hostage rescue unit. Three days of negotiation, very tense armed standoff. And ultimately, after three days, we negotiated a surrender. Hostages, which were in essence hostages, came out, as well as ultimately arresting about 20. I prosecuted them in court.

And you asked me the impact on my career. One, it's taught me, you know, if you're going to lead, you need to lead from the front. And then secondly, it's something that every generation seems to face. I mean, we have our varieties of white supremacists or neo-Nazis or extremist groups today that turn violence. And we all have free speech, but

Whenever you cross that line into violence or illegal activity, you know, the arm of the law needs to come down, simply enforce the law. And it makes a difference in our society. Thank you. It's an amazing story. We have just about 45 seconds before we go to the break here. We're going to be coming right back with more from Governor Asa Hutchinson. But Governor, did was this before they created hostage rescue negotiators? I mean, or is this still they're still sending 32 year old attorneys there? Yeah.

Actually, the hostage rescue unit of the FBI had just been created. So they were very experienced in negotiating, but they knew that I needed to be there because they needed that authority. We actually was able, because I was there, to resolve the situation more easily. Thank you. They were experts. I was there assisting with them. Fantastic. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, Governor Asa Hutchinson, 46th Governor of Arkansas. Governor Hutchinson, thank you for joining us. So Governor Hutchinson becomes President Hutchinson. What would you do about the border? Because here in Arizona, it's, you know, it's amazing. Here in Texas, they just come across and, you know, we understand a lot of their motives are pure who are trying to come across. But here in Arizona, it's, you know, it's amazing.

But you can't just have what we have. It can't continue. It's not sustainable. If you were president, what would you do to solve this crisis? And it is a crisis.

Well, it absolutely is a crisis. It's a crisis of confidence in America that we're not able to protect our sovereign territory. We're fighting for and supporting protecting the sovereign territory of Ukraine. Well, our sovereign territory, it begins with controlling our borders. And I believe in immigration. I think they have.

They bring great value to the United States and brings us energy. But we have to have a legal process and we cannot let them come across

the border, whenever it's between the ports of entry, whenever it's illegal, it hurts our ranchers, our farmers, our inner cities. And now you've got mayors, Democratic mayors, as well as Republican governors saying this is unacceptable and looking for solutions. So that's one of the reasons I'm going to go to Tucson in two weeks and have a border solution summit, bringing in thought leaders and saying,

what exactly changes in policy can we do to improve this, what resources are needed? And I go back to the Bush administration, and as everyone knows, we didn't get it perfect, but we had the Arizona Border Control Initiative under my leadership to strengthen the partnership between the state and federals to protect the border, put resources there. And today, whenever you're looking at 2 million people

apprehensions, 2 million coming into our country in an uncontrolled way is totally unacceptable. What needs to be done is first of all, we've got to revise our asylum process to make it meaningful, but also to stop the abuse of it. Secondly, we've got to give the resources to the border patrol as well as the infrastructure, continue to invest in the infrastructure, both technology as well as the physical barrier.

And then thirdly, it is absolutely critical that we engage Mexico and go after the cartel. The cartel is controlling the border. When I was head of the DEA, we worked with Mexico, brought down some cartel leaders. That has broken down through the last decade, and we've got to rebuild that. We cannot let the cartel control.

the human misery that we see along the border in terms of fentanyl coming in, in terms of the human suffering. This is a humanitarian issue, and we've got to take those steps as well as probably a few others to have success on the border. Most importantly, it's about communication. That's where the Biden administration has totally fallen down. They've sent the signal time and time again, it's an open border, come in.

And that has caused the problem. We've got to send the signal. You know, if you're going to come into this country, you apply for a visa. You go and lawfully ask for asylum. And we adjudicate that quickly. If you don't measure up, you go back. And if you do, then we're going to know exactly how that should be processed. Governor, I'm glad you mentioned going after the cartels and working with Mexico.

What are some of the things you think we could do based on your experience to work with Mexico? At this point, they appear to have lost operational control of the northern part of their country to the cartels with really horrific humanitarian consequences for their people and for people trying to cross that border.

First of all, they're very prideful nation. And I say that with great respect. They understand their own sovereignty and they don't want to be bossed around by the United States of America.

but we have to build a partnership with them and also use some economic pressure. Right now, it's an incredible opportunity to move from China the production of our supply chain to move it to more friendly environments. One of those options,

is Mexico. Obviously, you want to bring as much as you can back to the United States, but from a cost standpoint, some of it's going to go back to Mexico. That has got to come across the border. We want to make sure we have the open commerce flow, but there's some leverage points there for Mexico. And if they want to have all the economic benefit of the driving economy in the United States, they need to be effective partners in going after the cartel

but building a more successful rule of law in Mexico because we have such exchanges between our country. So you've got to work through that, but you've got to use the leverage points when they're available as well. China. We have the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia should not be doing what they're doing, but we also have to keep an eye on China. And the Chinese spy balloon this week is another example of

What does President Hutchison do about China? Because it's obviously something we need to focus on. I think China's motives are always a little bit different than Russia because China needs our markets. So it's a little bit different of a competition. It's just not military. What do we do? Well, it's probably one of the most complex and important relationships we have to address.

And I say that, first of all, whenever I supported trade with China, when I was in the Congress of the United States, I did it because I believe that economic freedom in China would bring religious freedom, that would have an opportunity to bring other freedoms to the people. And then secondly, I did it because I thought that they would follow the international rule of law. Well, neither one of those has proven true.

And the fact is they haven't expanded freedom. They've shrunk freedom and they haven't followed. They've abused the international rules. And so our, I mean, the United States has to be tougher. We have to understand the competitive nature of that relationship and the adversarial relationship. Whenever you look at them invading our sovereignty to spy on us through those reconnaissance balloons. And, and,

And so we've got to protect our sovereignty and we've got to make clear to China that we want to have a relationship with a second leading economy in the world. But you're going to follow rules or we're not going to do business with you.

You're not going to steal our technology. And that's why it's critical when I said the supply chain. Let's start with our technology, our sensitive energy, our rare earth manufacturing. Let's get that back here and not dependent upon China. That's the most important thing that we can do in the short term. Go ahead. Go ahead, Governor. Go ahead. You go.

Governor, I was just going to say I'm glad you said that because Arizona, obviously, there's a lot of contentious issues around mining here and across this country with copper, with rare earth minerals, with all these things. Don't we as Republicans have to start making the case, frankly, to the environmental community itself that mining here in the United States, which we do properly, which we take significant precautions, is a far better thing for this planet than

than mining in many of the third world countries where it's now occurring. Absolutely. We're going to put more environmental protections in our mining than they are going to do in a country overseas. And so for the reasons that we don't want to be dependent upon the overseas and our adversarial markets, we need to...

produce those here in the United States, we need to open up that mining. And we're also going to do it in a way that long-term protects our environment. You know, whenever President Biden in his State of the Union dress, he said, we're going to need fossil fuels for at least 10 years. Come on.

We need that energy mix and we need the mining to happen. We need the exploration to happen, the fossil fuels as well. We've got to produce in the United States of America, not just for our own independence. But when you look at Europe, we don't want them having to go to Saudi Arabia and to Russia. We want to be able to be a support mechanism for our allies as well.

If you're president, what would you view as a successful administration in your first four years? What are the two things you think is just paramount that we go and tackle and achieve? Well, very importantly is our spending. You've got to bring the spending under control in order to address the enormous $31 trillion debt of the United States of America. It's a burden and it's sluggish on our economy.

And in order to do that, you've got to grow the economy in the United States. And you do that by building, returning manufacturing. Many places like we've done in Arkansas, you've done it in Arizona. We can do more of that. We've got to produce goods. And that grows our GDP. It grows our economy. And it reduces the impact of the debt and eventually gets us to the point that we can reduce that.

Best leadership of the president, we've got to do that. Secondly, I think it's very, very important whenever you look at the fentanyl crisis, and it's simply a matter of enforcing the law along our border and in the United States, but it's also about educating our citizens. We've stopped investing in the education and the treatment side of these, and that reduces the demand

those illegal drugs and fentanyl is killing our youth. So those are a couple of important things that is important as president. The most important thing a president can do

is to bring out the best in America and appeal to Americans to do more for our country versus appealing to the worst instincts of America. And that's leadership. That's what a president has to do. And it should be measured because that can bring us together to a greater extent. The Reagan standard. I love I love that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you think America's best days are ahead of them?

Oh, without any question. We're resilient. Whenever you have the strength of the rule of law, the foundation of freedom, every country's good days will be ahead as long as you unleash the power of the individual and work and responsibility, creativity. That defines America. And that's what should define our future. And that would be bright.

Well, and one of the things you've pushed for is expanding computer science literacy in your role as head of the National Governors Association. Isn't that those type of technical skills, job training for high tech, mid tech jobs, doesn't that need to be a big focus going forward? Because it seems like we're heading towards an economy where a lot of the low skilled jobs are about to be taken over by techs.

You're absolutely right. And that was a focus of mine as governor. We went from eleven hundred students taking computer science in high school to over twenty three thousand students. That's impressive. We grew the number of teachers from 20 teachers that were certified to teach computer science to over six hundred.

And that's why it's a graduation requirement. And then I took it through the National Governors Association and many governors embrace this. And I want to do more at the national level to enhance our technology education because there's only a couple of choices here. We either lose our technology industries overseas because we don't have the talent. We import the talent to the United States or we produce the talent.

And everyone understands if we can produce the talent, our technology, our innovation will be here and we won't be importing or exporting those jobs. So that's exciting to me. And I believe it's something that is very doable of the United States of America. Governor Asa Hutchison, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your service. And we hope to have you back on the show again soon. I hope so. I enjoyed it. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant weekend.

Sam? Well, that was a fantastic interview with Governor Hutchinson. I really love, Chuck, the point about the science, computer science education. Absolutely. I mean, honestly, if you're a governor, if you're the president right now and you're not focusing on that, we got a big problem. You're really making a huge error. That's the future. The funny thing about him is...

He's just a good man who I think would make an excellent president. I think there's zero question that Asa Hutchinson would be a fantastic president for this country. Look, you and I know I love governors. I love governors because it's the right training ground. Well, folks, thank you for joining us today. But before we go, I've got to tell you, the stock market keeps going up and down. This economy under Biden isn't getting any better.

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at 888-Y-REFI-24. That's 888-Y-REFI-24. And tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds back on the air next week. Welcome to the podcast-only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Really want to thank both our guests today, Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia's 10th Congressional District. Fantastic interview.

calling Putin a thug with a gas station line, Chuck, I died. I almost feel like you need to make t-shirts out of that. Actually, I think I am. I think Breaking Battlegrounds should do t-shirts. Putin's just a thug with the gas station. Do we have to license it? I don't know. I don't know, but we have to consider that. It's a good idea. We can just quote him on it. And then former governor Asa Hutchinson, thank you so much for joining us today. Fantastic to have him on the program as well.

But Chuck, lots of stuff going on in the world right now. Yeah, well, let's talk about the State of the Union, first of all. The State of the... It's funny. During the State of the Union, I was at dinner, so people always text me and say, well, are you watching it? Now, in fairness, I haven't watched a State of the Union in a year because they're unforgettable after 48 hours, besides the initial reaction. But I want to give the ratings. So when President Trump gave his first State of the Union in 2017...

There were 48 million people who watched it. In 2018, 45.6 million. In 2019, 46.8 million. In 2020, 37.2 million. Biden, his first year, 38 million viewers.

This time, 27.3 million viewers. It's the lowest audience in 30 years according to the Nielsen ratings. I mean, that's a drop of 29% from last year. I think he is at the point...

If he didn't have such a complicit New York and D.C. media, people have just tuned him out. Well, look, it's really clear if you watch. I mean, obviously, I've watched parts of that speech. I have a tough time watching them also because they just bore the snot out of me at this point. But to be honest, it was a mix of rambling and raging. And it was half of it was incoherent. Well, I wonder if you talk to communication professionals, it would be interesting if you have a president come on, say the State of the Union.

Folks, we have some work to do.

But I believe that we are still the greatest country on earth. But we need to work together and we're going to do these two things. That's it. I'm not mentioning anything else. I'm not pandering to you. We to be a better, a stronger union have to do X, Y and maybe a Z. Honestly, I really think Barack Obama broke the institution of the State of the Union. Well, he was such a good speaker. He liked to hear himself speak. Right. But he also turned it into partisan rah-rahs instead of – I mean you go back before that even with Clinton but obviously Reagan in a big way.

They were very much a state of the union speech. It was to inform the public, to help guide future policy. There was a real structure to it that was valuable to people to understand the direction of the presidency in this country. And now that's gone and just a it's a partisan, you know, partisan hit job. Well, yeah. And then Biden just simply I love even The Washington Post gave a bunch of.

statements he made for Pinocchio's. And the one thing which really disturbs me is this. We both have elderly parents. I do not want to see their Social Security cut. No. But for people like you and I and those younger, Jamie, Kylie, things have to be changed in the system. So America's aging and Medicare is projected to become insolvent in 2028. Right.

Social Security is to run out of funds by 2035. Folks, you're going to have to just suck it up and realize Congress, both sides of the aisle, are going to sit down and figure out a plan to allow this to have people do it. If you do not, for example, if you do not fix these, you're going to have automatic 27% cuts. Right. So something has to be done. Probably an easy thing to do for those of certain health status is that you need to increase funds.

There are age limits on it. The reality is we may not be able to cap income when they withhold Social Security FICA taxes. And that's probably going to have to happen. Honestly, and I'm, as you know, about as fiscal conservative as you get, but I think you just have to take away the income cap. You're just going to have to make that tax. Maybe the income cap is this. You still donate to it, but after a certain point, the employer doesn't have to match it.

So instead of the 13%, 14%, it's like 6.5%, 7%. So after a certain point, you pay less, but you're still paying into it. But don't make the employer pay into it because that's just a tax on corporations then. Well, but it's going to be – I mean I imagine it's going to be hard to pass with Democrats without that, right? Because they don't understand that –

Every dollar you tax a company is just a tax on the people who buy the product from that company. Yeah, and I don't know what changes that. I don't know if a bunch of financial professionals, everyone in the country has a sign that says, if you don't fix this, you have a problem. You're going to have 27% cuts. And you think there's problems now if they don't get inflationary increases every year? Think of a 27% cut. That means they can't afford food and prescriptions. Well, the other part of that is –

Every organization dedicated to seniors needs to be out front right now seeking a real solution to this if you're honest that that's who your constituency is and who you're trying to represent. It's not for the people who are seniors now, but for, like you said, you and me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Here's another point. The Peterson Foundation, if you're unaware of it, is –

It's an organization that focuses on debt. That's the whole purpose of it. Peterson was sort of a Wall Street successful man there, created this institution. Gets a little too goosey-goosey on some things. But they have said this. Interest payments on outstanding U.S. debt could become the biggest government spending item by 2049.

A price reports on the site today those interest payments could become a drag on economic growth, even if the debt never spirals into a full-blown crisis.

Fiscal conservatives have been banging the deficit reduction drum for decades, and a faction of Republican House conferences is planning to hold a debt ceiling vote hostage in exchange for cuts. Well, the problem is bigger than I think even a lot of these folks are understanding because, you know, we touched earlier on the pension deficit crisis. Right. That affects every government at every level across this country. So here in Arizona, we passed a law.

about six, seven years ago that they have to pay down their pension debt, balance out these accounts over the next 30 years. We're going to be okay as we do that. But there's a lot of states that are heading down that road like freight trains out of control 200 miles on tracks that are heading straight for- California being one. Yeah, straight off a cliff. Yeah, absolutely. California, New York, Illinois, they are headed for crisis. And what color do they all have in common?

The blue are your state, the more of a train wreck you are financially. And you do not understand how bad that's going to be for the average citizen when those things hit because you want to talk about government services, they're going to go away. Oh, my goodness, yes. Let's talk quickly. So there was a poll out this week by Mammoth Polls, Mammoth, Mammoth, whatever they call them, polls of registered Republican voters.

And it's the National Republican primary. They had DeSantis at 33 percent, Trump at 33 percent, Pence at 2 percent, Haley at 1 percent, Cruz at 1 percent, Pompeo 1 percent. If you do simply a head-to-head, DeSantis is at 53 percent, Trump's at 40 percent. I am interested to see— I'm surprised Trump's at 40 percent with the Republicans, to be honest with you. Well, there's just some believers there, though. Well, I—

I agree, but that actually shows that his base has increased from when he ran the first time where his secured base was about 33%. My guess is if they really went head-to-head, DeSantis gets like 65% once this really starts doing it right now. And Democrats have not helped the Trump situation, which they fear so much because they've made all these accusations before.

Many of them proved to be garbage, right? And, you know, so there is a there is a segment of the Republican base saying you've attacked the man. You never gave him a chance. He's you know, he fights for me. It will be interesting to see what I'm really fascinated with as we had Governor Hutchison on and we're going to have former Vice President Pence on here in the future and so forth is.

Everybody deserves the right to run. This is America. No one should back away. But there comes a point after three or four months, and Governor Hutchison has said this in news articles, look, I'll see where I'm April, May. If it doesn't look like there's a path, I'm getting out of it. But I view him as a responsible human being, right? But that's what they all need to be right now. Yeah, because if you really don't want the former president to do it, just saying it's time to move on, doesn't mean you have to dislike Trump or dislike Spalding, just say it's time to move on. You're going to have to make this a one-on-one mindset.

mano-a-mano situation. I don't dislike him at all. The problem I have is that I do not believe he can win a general election, and we cannot have another four years of either a Biden administration with a figurehead on the front of it or another Democrat. Well, for one reason, one reason alone, this debt ceiling. Yeah. I mean, just the debt, period. We have to get on a fiscal sanity path, and I don't think it takes a 20% cut today, but the markets...

need to see that there is an honest, responsible path going forward. Well, we were talking about on the program last week, if you just said over 100 years, we're not going to increase the debt anymore. We're going to pay it down over 100 years. I think we talked about it and you said, hey, the markets would be ecstatic at that. I think they would be overjoyed. I agree. I agree. I mean, you're not talking about drastic action at that point. You're talking about a very measured thing. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Let's quickly talk here. One thing Tommy Schultz put this out today. Baltimore taxpayers spend $21,000 per student in K through 12. 93% of their students are not proficient in math. 23 schools have zero students proficient in math. Zero. 20 schools are getting $21,000 per pupil. Zero.

I'm telling you, they keep talking about money. And I think you and I are believers America needs to be number one education. Without a doubt, we should be. We should be. Those cities like Washington, D.C. folks and Baltimore and Chicago are spending so much money on education and the results are horrendous. And now, again, there are some factors into it that's coming from latchkey kids, single parent households. There's a lot of factors involved. But the reality is this. $21,000 per student.

You know, and let's just go grab a calculator here, Sam, real quick. Let me pull this up here. So if you have 21,000 students and let's say, what do they say the average classroom size is? It's probably about 24. Well, at least that's what it is here in Arizona. They may have much larger classes for all I know. Let's just say it's 24. That's $504,000 per classroom. Right. The teacher with benefits is probably getting about 90 grand, maybe 100. Yep. Because you have to factor in the benefits and those things of that nature. Right.

That's $404,000. Where is this money going to give these kids a better education? It seems like you could almost hire 100 grand to have complete math and reading tutors in the class all day. Oh, you absolutely could. I mean, there's, you know, D.C. public schools, I think now are over $30,000 per kid per year and their results are horrendous.

You know, look, there's a great piece I read. I will post it on on the Battleground social media from the Wall Street Journal talking about what's going on in our schools of education until we fix that, until we start training teachers to teach ABCs and one, two, threes again instead of crazy ideology. I mean, they really they're literally doing like raps and poems as their graduation work. Right. And master's programs.

For education. It's an embarrassment. Look, we posted this week on our Substack account. You can find it at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. George Wilbert, a great piece about teachers' unions and the effect of teachers' unions, period. And folks, they're not serving your kids well. The education needs to be focused on a math, science, reading, things that they can use in the workforce, gathering higher education, and they're just not doing it well.

Let's go over a couple more points. The Super Bowl weekend here in Arizona. Yes, indeed. And we also have the Waste Management Open. What do we have, 500,000 people in town here in Phoenix? It has to be at least that many. It feels like more on the road. Spring training starts next week. Yeah. Does it really? Yeah. Yeah. Pitchers and catchers are reporting sometime next week, I think. Well, here's a stat for Kylie.

50.4 million U.S. adults are expected to wager $16 billion on this Super Bowl. Are you part of that? Are you? What have you bet on? Nothing yet. But what are you leaning towards betting on? She's not yet. We've got to get Kylie on the microphone here. I'm leaning towards picking the winner. I like to do the...

The Gatorade color. I've never won that one, but like one year. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What is the Gatorade color? What's the Gatorade color? You're betting on the color of the Gatorade? Yeah. You can win a lot of money on that. And I'm like, maybe this year it'll be red because it's at Cardinal Stadium and maybe there's some kind of play. But I need to do some research based on the other stadiums if there's any correlation with that. So how did you do in fantasy football this year? We're all going to hell, Chuck. This world has lost its mind.

You got third. I got my money back in two leagues. So you got third using such logic and research to get you to that top tier. Absolutely, yes. To that top tier. All right. All right. So. Okay. I'm still on the Gatorade bet, but okay. By the way, this is the first Super Bowl where you're having in a state where sports betting is legal. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Fantastic. That is great for us. Yeah.

Isn't it legal in all 50 states now? No, no, no, no, no, no. It's 33 states. Remember when I won $1,100 with the, I won Tom Brady throwing to Gronkowski for the first touchdown. And that was when the betting took off. So folks, I want you, we're going to end here shortly. Kylie, I want to tell you to tell folks that now he's retired Tom Brady. The one time you bet on Tom Brady to rush for one yard.

Yes. It was like the first game, was it this year? And it was one of the promotions on one of the apps that became legal here. And it was a guaranteed win, right? Like you put the max you could put on it was like $10 or $50 or something. So I put the max on it because I'm like, oh, one yard. You just had to take one step forward. Yeah.

Well, it's a long step. It's three feet in the yard. Tom's getting older. The stride shortens up. Clearly. I'll never forget because I was at the game and she was so upset. He did not get one yard. I put it in a parlay. Yeah, you did. You put it in a parlay. Because I was like, oh, we're going big here. Oh.

And everything hit in the parlay except his one yard. Just know this. Tom Brady's daughter has held the Super Bowl trophy more times than the Cowboys have won playoff games in the last 20 years. Folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. Enjoy the weekend with your family, and we'll be back with you next week.

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