Congressman Dusty Johnson on the Debt Ceiling 01:06:54

Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone.

Another fantastic lineup of guests for you today, folks. We're leading off with Henry Olson, Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and he's here in Arizona for an adventure. Yes, you are. Henry, welcome to Arizona. How's this winter compared to D.C.? Well, you know, it doesn't have cold and snow and, you know, ice that you're slipping on and breaking your hip on. But other than that, it's okay. So it's a perfect place for older people like you and I.

Exactly. So tell folks briefly here, we want to talk about the debt ceiling and Biden's classified adventures and so forth. But tell us, folks, what are you doing in Arizona this winter? I know you're working at H.U. Tell a little bit about it and what Katie Hoff is trying to do to your program.

Yeah, well, I am a visiting professor at SCADL, the School of Civic Education and Thought Leadership at Arizona State University, where I'm teaching a course on the political underpinnings of great American statesmen like Lincoln, Reagan, and FDR. So I'm out here enjoying my time, and what happens? Katie Hobbs decides to cut down

the entire state funding for Skettle and basically put the program at risk. So, you know, thank you, Governor. I appreciate your love. Well, Henry, how much of this is your fault? First off, that she's doing this. And secondly, I have to ask, does she now need to audit your course? Well, whether she needs to audit your course depends on whether you think that she's capable of being a great American stateswoman. Yeah.

As far as my fault, well, you know, I suspect there are other people here who have been here longer who might have kicked her off more. But, you know, like they say, they used to say, you know, never attack somebody who bites ink by the barrel. And I've got pixels by the barrel in Washington. How much is the budget for the program that she's trying, that she's cutting, trying to cut?

I don't know how much we spend at Skettle every year, but Skettle was established by, I believe, a $3 million line-up in the state budget, and it was increased nearly $6 million last year. And she zeroed it out. What she wants to do is transfer it over to the Arizona State University general funding, which means that every year...

The people who run Arizona State will get to decide whether Skettle survives or not. I don't know how much we have from outside donations, but the bulk of it is what she's trying to zero out. Well, that just sounds like something the Arizona legislature will not have happen. So I hope they're getting a hold of them and telling them to put a hard line on the sand on it. I certainly hope so, too. All right. So, well, let's talk about here. We have what seems like our biannual debt ceiling rate.

line in the sand debate going on. And here's the reality. It seems to be the reality is we can't default on our debt. People need to understand that. That's not reality. At the same time, and I know Democrats like to complain Republicans haven't been fiscally disciplined, and that's true. But you can also say it's true that we can't keep going down this path. We have $31 trillion in debt.

We're spending $724 billion a year on interest on that debt. For just a comparison, we spend $1 trillion a year on national defense. We spend $41 billion helping Americans pay rent.

We spend $97.85 billion on K-12 education from the federal government. That's not state funding, of course. The one that really stood out to me, while we're paying $724 billion in interest, for $680 billion a year, we can provide everybody a free college tuition. And it's something Democrats never want to realize. You keep building debt, you're paying interest. If you were a Speaker of the House, how would you approach this?

You know, I think there's two things that you need to do. First, you need to make it clear that you want to be serious about solving the problem. You need to, however, since the Democrats control the presidency and the Senate, you need to have an endgame that says, here's something that they can actually sign off on, because otherwise what you're doing is just building an issue for the future. And maybe that's all they want to do is build an issue and surrender.

So the question is, what's the end game? And I think there's only two reasonable end games they might agree to. One is a commission, which has been floated by Senator Joe Manchin, that would look at the main drivers of the debt, the looming insolvencies of Social Security and Medicare. So that's one end game. The other end game is put revenue on the table.

And I don't think they're going to put revenue on the table. So that means to me the only reasonable end game is a commission that will study these problems and maybe a commission that requires up or down votes on various proposals. But you're not going to get Democrats to agree to the desire of House Republicans to roll back the spending that Democrats have in their DNA. It's just not going to happen. Henry, could you informing informing that commission require those type of votes?

My understanding from the 2011 commission that was formed, the Simpson-Bowles commission, that it was formed with the requirement that if a proposal got a certain level of support from the committee,

that it would have to be voted on, and it never was voted on because both the left and the right withheld their votes so that they didn't get to that level. You know, you don't have to do it a supermajority. You could say, hey, you know, we're going to come up with three proposals and each one gets a vote or whatever it is. So...

Yes, the president says you can do it. The question is, what do you want to accomplish? Do you want to actually try and get a bipartisan solution to get our debt on a downward trajectory? Or do you want to talk and play political games and hope that the American people come behind you so you get to enact close to 100 percent of your agenda? We have obviously a pretty strong contingent in the House that is saying they just want to stand firm. You know, they're throwing a very hard line.

How much is that going to be effective at all? Because all that all the Democrats need are a handful of defections. And it seems like, pardon me, a shutdown would be a non-deal for a lot of those more centrist Republicans.

Yeah, I mean, this is the great game of chicken that's playing. And the question is, who's going to blame first? Democrats are banking that centrist Republicans will blame first because they know that the media will come to their side and that the blame game on Republicans will start. And not a whole, you know, if you do reach that point, not a wholly unjustifiable blame game. The question is, do the Democrats want to give Republicans

something that allows them to go home and say they got something. And then the other question is, do the hardliners want to take that?

They're not going to get what they want. They're not going to get a rollback of federal spending that was enacted in the omnibus last year for domestic programs. The Democrats wanted it for a reason, and they got it for a reason. So the question is, what's your endgame? What's your negotiating strategy? And that's just something we don't know. Well, that's the hard part about having such a narrow margin in the majority. You've got folks like Arizona's Congressman Biggs, who I feel like

They're just heels are dug in. They're not moving. And I don't think they're really considering the ramifications if we default on the debt ceiling this summer. I mean, you know, Thursday was when the deadline hit, the ceiling hit. But, you know, we've got several months here to negotiate. I think what's frustrating for Republicans is the White House refusal to even negotiate on this. And the problem is and this gets political, right?

The White House is just counting on Republicans to say, okay, I want to go home. I want to win re-election. It would be really interesting if you had 100 Republicans sign a letter and saying, we're not running for re-election. We're going to shut the damn thing down. We don't care. I don't care about re-election. And if you did that...

If they really were serious about solving this, if they did that, if you had 100 of them, even 50 saying, I don't give a crap. This is being shut down. We can't continue this path. I'm not looking backwards. I'm looking forward. Whatever happened in the past happened. But we are not running for reelection. We're just going to send our hands. We're not showing up until we get what we want. What does the White House do then?

I think the question is what's the right vehicle for something like that? Is the right vehicle the debt ceiling or is the right vehicle the annual appropriations? Probably the latter. Probably the latter. Yeah, exactly. Probably the latter. But all of us here in this room are rational human beings, right? Also, most people I don't think, Henry, understand what defaulting – Well, I'm not in the room, so I'm accepting it. We're counting Kylie. What –

What would defaulting on the debt ceiling mean for a lot of people out there? Right. Explain that.

So defaulting on, you know, going past the debt ceiling means that the U.S. government can't pay its obligations. And what that means, it's defaulting on the debt. Well, what happens when you default on the debt? It means your credit rating goes down. It means interest rates for future debt offerings will go up. And it means that you probably have fewer buyers as people begin to wonder, hey, wait a minute, the United States is the guarantor of the world's financial system, and maybe they don't want to

to maybe they don't want to be a stable guarantor. And then you've got the knockoff effect in private.

lending markets, which is that government debt, like it or not, forms the backbone of a lot of private offerings like credit card rates or like 30-year mortgages. You put the government underlying foundation at risk while interest rates will go up across the board for people who are trying to collect bank loans and so forth. And that's going to mean that you

an individual pay more because the government is putting its credit at risk. And that's just not a good thing. One thing I found interesting is, you know, it seems like I have to dig into this issue every two years is the,

You hear a lot on the right, and I'm part of it. I don't like foreign countries holding our debt. OK, but of our $31 trillion in debt, China has about $1.95 trillion. I mean, so two thirds of our debt is held by U.S. public, you know, over $2 trillion by Social Security.

And so what happens to those? They just were not paying back Social Security. People don't get Social Security payments. What happens with that? Well, generally what has been said is that you can't simply say, well, pay this and don't pay that. What they've been trying to do is carve out, well, if you're on Social Security, you'll get your check. So what it means is you get the negative of a government shutdown.

where you don't get these things, and you get the negative of a global credit shock. You know, this is just a double whammy that is not prudent to go forward. There's a reason Ronald Reagan, when this was first threatened in 1981 by fiscally conservative politicians,

representatives who said, hey, we were elected to stop the spending. Ron, let's do it. Let's not raise the debt ceiling. Ronald Reagan said, no, I want a clean debt ceiling. We cannot risk the good faith and credit of the United States of America. And eventually the rebels surrendered to what Reagan wanted. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. Henry, we only have about 30 seconds before we go to break here. When we come back, I want to ask, how much does this affect

Or could it affect our ability to remain the world's reserve currency and what that would mean if we were not? Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming back here in just a moment with more from Henry Olson of The Washington Post. For Chuck and Sam, we'll see you in just a few. ♪♪♪

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, Henry Olson, Washington Post columnist, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. When we went to break, we were talking about what happens with a default on the debt ceiling. Does that affect our standing as the world's reserve currency? And how would losing that standing affect Americans? But first, Henry, you do amazing work. I always love your columns. How do folks follow you and keep up with what you're putting out?

Yeah, well, I write almost everything for The Washington Post, so you can subscribe to The Post and they will sign up and let you sign up for an email. So you would get my columns every time they come out into your inbox. I also tweet everything out on 8 at Henry Olson, E-P-P-C-D-C. So that's at Henry Olson at E-P-P-C-D-C.

Henry Olson at EPPC. And we'll have that up on our Twitter for folks who want to follow you. Yes. So, Henry, how does this fight over the debt ceiling potentially affect our standing as the world's reserve currency? Yeah. So I think it impacts it significantly. You know, the world's

World reserve currency means that the bulk of global financial transactions gets done in dollars. And the reason it gets done in dollars is because we are the largest economy in the world, the largest economy in the free world. And it simply means that people feel confident in the value, the stability of that value.

And if you raise questions about the stability of that value, which is what the debt ceiling would do, that means people say, hey, wait a minute, maybe there's another currency that we should trade in because it's a more stable currency, like the euro, like China's renminbi, like the Swiss franc. And that means that less transactions get done in dollars.

And that means higher interest rates getting passed back to consumers of those dollars. And that means, again, America's average people will indirectly feel the benefit, do indirectly feel the benefit of the world currency, and they will feel the pain if date begins to fade.

Well, China is already working with the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is using their currency instead of the U.S. dollar. So this just gives them another leg up if we pull such a stunt. Let's quickly switch over to Russia. Besides the fact it's been interesting to see some on the conservative side not want to –

engage in this moment. It appears that Russia is getting ready for a new offensive. Do you know, three or four different parts into Ukraine? We're talking about another 300,000 troops. How do you see this playing out? And do you have any critiques? Or do you think Biden's doing the right thing? And those right things? Should we be providing be providing tanks?

You know, I think that Biden has largely been doing the right thing. I think he's done an excellent job. I think it is in America's interest to keep Europe and NATO close. And Europe and NATO are scared, worried.

what a resurgent, remilitarized Russia can do. They've been rearming over the last year. They've been cutting economic ties to Russia, which we've been urging to do since the Reagan era. So I think Biden has done a masterful job in doing that. Ukraine needs tanks. The question is, when you're building an army from scratch, you want to build an army that's sustainable. And that means either the United States needs to step in and provide emirates

M1 Abrams tanks, but they probably need to send like 500 or 600 of them because these tanks break down a lot. They require a lot of fuel. That's a lot of investment. Or they can use the German Leopard 2s. And basically what the Germans have been saying is we won't do it unless the Americans put in their Abrams, but it makes no sense to have two lines of tanks.

You have to train people. It's kind of like when an airline company has Airbus and Boeing jets. They have to have two different suppliers, two different sets of training because the planes are different. So what we need to do is figure out which one is going to step up. I think Ukraine needs tanks. They need them sooner rather than later because it takes months for crews to be trained, for mechanics to be trained, for supply lines to be built up. The question is, is it going to be the Germans or is it going to be the Americans and the

I hope it's the Germans and that we can make it good on Germans' terms to help them see the way to do that. But if not, it has to be us. One of the difficulties is actually that our tanks use gasoline, not diesel, and basically all their military runs on diesel.

Well, thanks. I knew that there was a fuel problem, but I didn't know exactly what it was. And you just explained it. And that's another thing is that it's not like you just send over the tank. You know, it's not like, hey, you know, buddy, lend me the car. And then the whole supply line and mechanics line is set up for you. You have to set it up from the back. And the Ukrainian military is built around legacy Soviet systems. They did not have.

Any sort of training or supply line or spare parts built up in Western systems, you build a tank system into that. It's going to take months for this to be put in. If months. We're going to start sending them now. Right, right, right. So, folks, just so you understand, Russia has supposedly 22,000 plus tanks. The United States has about 9,000 tanks. Now, knowing Russia and how our...

Spy agencies always get things wrong. There's 22,000 tanks, probably 10,000 operable, and they probably have 5,000 people who can actually drive the damage. 500 of our tanks would cut through their entire tank. Right. And being where we are, separated by two oceans, we don't really need that many tanks on our side right now. So it's something we should do if we really are serious about not letting Ukraine be the first of a domino. And I hate to use the word domino, but let's be honest. Russia is not going to stop at Ukraine.

Henry, I'm sorry, we only have one minute before we got to let you go. We have a sponsor read at the end of this segment. So we're going to get down pretty quick right here. I want to throw in one last question. How much does Putin's failing health feed into the calculations in Ukraine right now? You know, I think it feeds a lot into it that Putin seems to be committing his country into a war that he's not likely to win if the

the West holds firm. And he's also unlikely to want to negotiate unless he's forced to. And he may not be the one who does negotiating, if you call it that. So Putin's mindset plays a huge bit into it. But what we shouldn't do is be overly afraid and think that suddenly he's going to launch World War III because he's a madman with nukes. Russians know what...

the correlation of power is. And I don't think people behind Putin will let him do that. Harry, Henry, I mean, what are something here with we have a minute left? What is something America should be paying attention to that you think could pop up here within the next year? With respect to the Ukraine or with respect to anything? Anything, anything. What is something that people should be watching out for here?

I think people should be watching out for the conflict with China. There's a lot of talk about how they're not ready to invade Taiwan. It won't be for a couple of years. Well, the thing is, I can't be 100 percent sure what the intelligence community knows and what they don't know. And the other thing is, what's clear is that Xi Jinping wants to cap off his multi, what will ultimately be a multi-decade run as China's paramount leader with

Taiwan in his orbit, and that's going to require him to invade. It's not going to happen peacefully. So I think what we need to do is be prepared for surprises. And the biggest surprise that could hurt us is an invasion. Aging authoritarian leaders are always one of the greatest threats to the world. Henry Olson, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on, as always.

Thanks for having me back.

Talk to our friends at Y Refi. You can find them at investyrefi.com. That's invest, the letter Y, then refi.com or call them at 888-Y-REFI-24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone.

Now by popular demand. Popular. It was like the most retweeted thing we've ever put out. I got two or three messages a day. I got two yesterday and I said, Kylie, you have to talk about crime because that's what people want to talk about. Death and mayhem. And Kylie is our expert on death and mayhem. The irrepressible Kylie Kipper. Exactly.

It gives me nightmares, but that's okay. Our sister sorority consultant. Thank you for coming on in, Kylie. So Kylie, give us an update on the Idaho murder. Okay, so not too much of an update, only because there's a gag order on the case, so really they can't release too much. However, the search warrant was...

released because that did take place in washington so was not under the restrictions of the idaho gag order so what was released was the search warrant of his home and his office they found nothing in his office that they seized but in his home they did seize um one possible animal hair strand now this is from the suspect not the father or this is from the uh

Yeah, the suspect. Yeah. Yeah. So one possible animal hair strand, which is interesting because he did not have an animal. However, one of the victims did. Eight possible hair strands. Again, none of this is tested or connected to Brian, but...

This is just what was seized. Kylie's been doing this long enough. She's referring to him by his first name now. He's her friend, Brian. So I know. Get all the Brians out because there's been three that have murdered people this year alone or last year. But anyways, one computer tower, one Walmart receipt, two Marshalls receipts, which I found interesting. His vacuum was seized. Firestick TV. There was two pillowcases seized with reddish brown stains on it, as well as a dark red spot that was cut out and then two mattress covers.

He did have a preliminary hearing last week, which they just pushed back his or sorry, he had a scheduling hearing for his preliminary hearing because in Idaho, you're supposed to have that within two weeks of being arrested. Correct. They pushed it back six months. So now we're not really going to know anything for the next six months. And he weighed that right. Yes. Speedy trial. I mean, so people know he. I think this is, again, a criticism of.

on universities and education. This guy, being a criminologist, has made so many mistakes that any couch potato watching CSI would have avoided. Yes. This is astounding. I mean, that's... It really is. I mean, the number of mistakes he has made is incredible. Well, and his attorney that was in Pennsylvania, not his...

did come out and say that when he met with him, he was very shocked. He was asking questions on how the process was going to go. So even though he studied all this, he still didn't know what to expect or... Probably doing that AI chat stuff and didn't read anything. Let's talk Alec Baldwin real quick. So Alec Baldwin has been indicted and charged with two counts of...

of involuntary manslaughter on the death on the film set for the movie Rust, which they were going to go back and finish up this spring.

Tell us about what's – I'm not watching that. Well, it's being interesting. I will. Yeah, I mean, honestly, if they finish it, it would probably be the most watched Alec Baldwin movie in the last decade. Without a doubt. So my question is, what's going on? Are these charges – I don't know. For me, it seems like it's a real accident. But someone has to pay a price is what it sounds like. It seems like an accident. However, another woman, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed –

was also, is also being charged. Right, there's three people being charged. Is there two and one person already pled? One took a plea. But Hannah was responsible for loading the gun that day. So my question is, why are you even loading a gun that's not, that is not to be used? Well, why do you have live rounds on a movie set period? Were they actually filming a scene when this happened or were they just rehearsing?

I think this was a rehearsal. Oh, I mean, why would you do any of that? At any point, you would never have. I mean, that's part of the industry safety standard folks have been saying. You do not have live ammunition on a movie set, period. Yeah. Yeah. So that you never have this mistake. Yes. As Hannah, who loaded the gun that day. So why even load the gun at all? Right. It's my question.

I don't know, Chuck. I believe, and I'm not a lawyer, so someone out there can correct me on this. Negligent homicide would have been the step up in a charge. Yeah, it's like a fifth degree felony, fourth or fifth degree felony, I believe. So it's, I mean, the max is a five year sentence if he's convicted. I don't really see him serving any prison time if he's convicted of this. Maybe a year, 18 months. Yeah, county jail or whatever. I view the whole thing as a tragedy. We want to keep following up on it. It's funny-

when you Google his name, now you have all these reputation management consultants saying he's blacklisted in Hollywood. And we know Hollywood loves to throw people under the bus quick. So it'd be interesting if they throw him under the bus. He's been a staple in Hollywood. I think he has a lot of friends. So it'd be interesting to see. The prosecutor on the case said that they're trying to make it clear that everyone's equal under the law, even A-list celebrities. And they're trying to

correct the safety of the film industry, bring attention to it and say like, what's going on? They have handled this in a very methodical, careful manner. So, you know, we'll see what prosecution does with it. It's going to be really interesting to see how this proceeds because you're at a nexus of issues of the left, right? Very much so. I mean, you know, Hollywood very much on their side, Baldwin very, very vocal on the left, but here they are with a gun crime. And I think, I think part of the charging is that they're,

They don't want to seem hypocritical on it. It's horrible for the victim, horrible for the Baldwin family. The whole thing's a mess. Yeah, absolutely. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming right back with a fantastic interview from Congressman Dusty Johnson coming up in just a moment. And then make sure you stay tuned for the podcast-only segment afterwards. We'll be right back.

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We have Congressman Dusty Johnson from South Dakota in the studio with us today. I am in the house. You are in the house. In the house. Thank you so much for joining us. You are the lone congressman from South Dakota. And we spent about six months in South Dakota a few years ago. So I've got to lead off with a question that is critical. Have you now tried non-fried meat? Non-fried meat because chiseling is such a big part of the South Dakota landscape. Everywhere I went in South Dakota –

Chiswick was on the menu and on the first thing everyone ordered on the table. I ate more fried meat in six months than I have in the rest of my life. And if folks have seen me, that's a feat. And P.S., you were loving it. Yes, he was. He wasn't complaining about it. He's just asking. I'm just asking the question because it's delicious. I have had meat in all of their types of being cooked and uncooked.

And love it all. I love it all. It's great. Fantastic. You have a great metabolism, so it doesn't really matter, apparently. Yeah, I mean, I generally describe myself as 150 pounds of pure whoop-ass, but that's not for everybody for sure. Is that your Twitter handle? Whoop-ass? Well, there is a parody account being formed right now somewhere in America.

quick buy it someone all right let's talk about something serious on thursday we hit the debt ceiling limit again this is like a broken record washington does it all the time biden administration refuses to even talk about the issue they just want a clean slate you had a great quote that said what in the world are we doing here if we're not willing to have a serious conversation about spending

And that is going to mean some tension with the Senate. That is going to mean some tension with the other party. But I'm not concerned about tension. How do we handle this? Because I think a lot of people don't understand if you do defaults on the debt ceiling, that's a problem for people. But at the same time, this $31 trillion in debt, $725 billion a year in just interest payments, which, by the way, could pay for everybody's college tuition.

It's a train wreck. You can't... What do we do? Well, you set it up in the right way, and I will start by saying, listen, we should not default on the debt. Full stop. I mean, the Constitution says the full faith and credit of the United States shall not be questioned. We have a constitutional duty to land this plane. But not...

We don't have to land the plane exactly how Joe Biden says we have to do it. That's not how we do things in this country. The American people have said that Republicans are going to be in control of the House and the Democrats will be in control of the Senate and the White House. That means that they understand that we're going to have to find a two-party solution to this thing. So the fact that the White House just refuses to have a conversation about spending...

when we're talking about raising the debt ceiling, I think is beyond the pale. I don't think it works. And I know, Chuck, they try to say, well, gosh darn it, raising the debt ceiling is just paying the credit card balance for the appropriations that y'all already voted on. And so pay your bills. And I get that. But I would say this. If you're a family and you get in the mail a credit card statement that is mind-blowingly large,

It seems only appropriate that that would ignite a conversation with your family about, OK, gang, we can't do this anymore. What are we going to how what changes are we going to make so we don't have to keep getting these credit card bills? That's all I'm asking for from the administration.

Congressman, let me ask, have you actually met with Joe Biden or his senior people personally? Yeah, I've met with the president. I've met with the senior people. Now, I have not met to discuss the debt ceiling. Again, they refuse to negotiate on the debt ceiling. Are they generally pretty accessible? I know that's kind of a past tradition where a lot of presidents would take the time, even with members of the opposite party, to get to know them a little bit and to be able to form relationships that would allow them to work out deals.

How much do they do that? Accessibility is something that I think the Biden team should get a decent amount of credit for. Now, I don't know about the president himself. He is not particularly accessible. But I would say that Ron Klain, Steve Ruscetti, my main contact at the White House, Alicia, really will go out of her way to answer my phone calls, my texts. When I'm upset about something, she does everything she can to try to get to yes to help us.

So my big beef with the Biden administration is not their accessibility. It's the fact that they love to jam through massive trillion dollar deals on one party votes. The accessibility is the best news I've heard about this administration. Yeah, right. Exactly. We had Henry Olson on earlier before you came in. He's a Washington Post columnist. And we were talking about the threat by some in the Freedom Caucus.

And I think all of us in this room would agree with the majority of the Freedom Caucus's priorities, right? But then all of us in this room would be almost termed as right of center or moderate because we agree with the old Ronald Reagan line, I'd rather get 80% of what I want than going over a cliff with my flags waving, right?

It seems to me for them to really take a hard stand on this, if that's the only way they're willing to do this, then there needs to be 50 of them to simply say, we're not running for reelection. We're going to stand firm on this. You're going to give us what we want. But we don't care about reelection. I don't care about being out here forever. This is a clear and present danger to the future of our country. Do you see any other way that they're going to get what they want unless they do something like that?

You're talking the Freedom Caucus. Yeah, the ones that seem to be the real hard line, the Andy Biggs of the world. And I'm not asking you to denigrate your colleagues, but it seems like there's a few of them are just saying, look, I'm digging in here. I'm not backing down on it. Now, this is Washington. That could be changing next week. But as you think about it, the only way it seems to me they're going to get the Biden administration's real attention, they simply saying, look, I'm not running again. I don't care.

You're going to solve this problem. I don't think they would have to make any announcement about their their political future. The reality is, if you have five members of the Republican Party in the House who just say, I, I refuse to go along with anything that Kevin McCarthy wants to do or Joe Biden wants to do. I mean, it's not it's not it's not going to pass the floor if it's just a Republican idea. So you had to get McCarthy has to get Democrats to cross over on it. Well, I don't think we should. We should not.

I am not convinced that these hardliners are as unreasonable as some in the broader media have tried to portray them. I mean, I had a lot of conversations the last couple of weeks with some very conservative members of the Freedom Caucus. And you're right. I agree with them on all of the big picture issues that we want to accomplish for this country. They're not being unreasonable by and large on these spending issues. One of them used the perfect analogy, said we have been running in the wrong direction on spending. Running. Running.

And it seems like when Republicans get control, we do a better job insofar as we slow the pace and now we're walking in the wrong direction. Isn't it time for this country to actually start walking in the right direction?

Great analogy. Now, keep in mind, that is not an over-the-top extremist way to describe it. It's very nuanced. He's not saying everything's got to get solved tomorrow. He's not saying we've got to balance the budget today. Some of the most conservative, I mean, what they're asking for, the hardliners who took, it took them a little while to get okay with McCarthy. One of their big holdups was they wanted to have a vote on a budget that balanced in a 10-year window. I want that budget, too.

And so they are not saying they won't ever do anything no matter what. They're trying to drive a hard bargain. And thank goodness. That makes a ton of sense. One of the things that Henry Olson mentioned, and I agree with him, I know Chuck does too, that there's a difference between having a fight over the budget and the annual appropriations process and over the debt limit. That the budget is more appropriate place to draw that line in the sand. Versus doing the fight over the debt ceiling.

Yeah, I think if you were going to rank them as order of what's the perfect way to have the conversation, okay, yeah, the budget and the appropriations bills, that's clearly a really good time. But I think when the credit card statement shows up at the House, that's also a perfectly reasonable time to ask the conversation about debt and spending and borrowing. To me, it's not, I don't want to get into this false dichotomy where we're only allowed to have the conversation on appropriations bills, but never on borrowing bills.

I think most people don't understand. We're at the point the United States is essentially taking out new credit cards to pay the annual, you know, the monthly fee on the credit cards they've already maxed out. Right. At what point or have we passed that point where it is now totally unsustainable and there has to be pretty significant action to turn this around or we get into a place where the debt is such an enormous part of the budget that it is hamstringing everything the government is trying to do.

We are at a point where, and I wouldn't use the word drastic, because a certain number of these dials, if you allow, well, I'll back up. Albert Einstein said the most powerful force in the known universe is compound interest. I mean, he's really talking about the ability of relatively small numbers over time to move in massive ways outcomes.

And if we can move the dials a little bit on some of this entitlement spending and on some discretionary spending, we, within a 10-year window, can get to where we need to be. We can't do it overnight, but it took us 50 years to dig this hole. We're not going to get out overnight. What I want to do with just a minute is...

Try to give some of your listeners a sense of the size and scope because the numbers are so big. What's $32 trillion? Hell, nobody's got any idea. I can't even picture a million water bottles. But a trillion is a million million.

It is incomprehensible. So if you drop a bunch of zeros, you can get the numbers to a point where it feels more like personal finance. So I'll give you an example. We bring in about $4 trillion worth of revenues to the federal government every year. Drop a bunch of zeros, turn $4 trillion into $40,000. Okay, I've got a $20 an hour job. I'm making $40,000. The problem is that we're not living on $40,000. We're living on $50,000.

And every year we're putting $10,000 or a trillion dollars onto the credit card. And we're putting it on the credit card. We're not buying a mortgage with it generally. We're not buying property. What we're doing is this is largely operating cash.

And yes, it's a low-interest credit card bill, but it's still on the credit card. So I'll close by saying this. What's the balance on the credit card? We have a $40,000-a-year job. The balance on the credit card is $320,000. And I would submit to you that if you're making $40,000 and you owe the credit card company $320,000,

You're in a world of hurt and it's time for real action. Yeah, no question at all. We have just a little over two minutes before we go to break. And Congressman has been kind enough to join us for the podcast only segment also. So we'll be continuing on there. But something I work worked with the city of Phoenix for a number of years. One of the things that I've been in shifting gears on a little bit here, federal contracting rules.

are inflating the cost of everything every government does at every single level across this country. I don't see any real movement in Washington to try to look at those systems. Is there anyone who's digging in on this stuff? So I used to be the co-owner of a pretty decent sized engineering company. We did business in about 40 states. We helped with rural broadband systems. And you're exactly right. Our estimates were that when we were the federally funded project, it raised costs by 30 percent.

There is a push to try to get this. The issue is you're not going to get it done unless you find a two-party solution. And I think we're getting closer. Secretary Buttigieg told me just a few months ago that he's willing to work with us. He knows that the same transportation project that takes two years to site in Italy or France takes five years to site in this country. It's mindless. It costs money. And I think we're getting closer to a solution.

Fantastic. When we come back here, we wanted to ask you a little bit about China and farming, because that's actually kind of a big issue that's underlying some of the things that are going on internationally right now. People need food. Yeah. Food is important. Anyone who's seen me knows I believe in that statement 100 percent. Not ranchers. We don't get chiseled. And that would be a crime against humanity. That would be a crime against humanity.

Congressman, how do folks stay in tune with your work and what you're doing? How do they keep in touch? I would go to the social media platforms. Our handle is at RepDustyJohnson. And I think we've got some content out there that is not just howling at the moon and screaming. I'm a conservative, but I try to be thoughtful. And I think your listeners would appreciate tapping into what we're doing. There's absolutely no doubt.

Congressman Dusty Johnson will be coming back with us on the podcast-only segment. We thank you so much for joining us in studio today. Folks, be sure to go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote, BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can find all of our podcasts, all of our broadcasts there. Make sure you stay in tune. Breaking Battlegrounds, back next week on the air. Breaking Battlegrounds

Welcome back to the podcast, the only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone in studio with us right now, and we thank him very much for joining us. Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, when we went to the well, the end of our on air hour, we were talking a little bit or leaning into talking about China and agriculture. So there's a huge nexus, including in U.S. farmland right now. Congressman, can you tell folks what's going on and what some of the implications of that are?

And first off, I want to say I'm not opposed to all foreign investment. I'm a believer in free markets. If Toyota wants to build another car factory in Tennessee and employ a thousand American machinists and welders, that's good for American prosperity. But my interest in foreign investment gets real thin in a hurry when you're talking about our adversaries. And the Chinese Communist Party is not our friend.

And for 10 years, they have been focused and deliberate and planful in getting more control over the world's food supply.

And we know that from data. Their holdings of foreign-owned farmland have gone up 1,000 percent in the last few years. And they have, during that time frame, accumulated 1,300 large ag processing facilities outside of China at the value of $35 billion. So this is for real. And it's not just the farmland. You mentioned ag processing. That's a critical key component in the supply chain, right?

that they now control a huge portion of. Yeah, people don't consume raw commodities very gosh darn often. They consume finished products. As someone who has gutted a chicken, I will tell you I appreciate that no end. And the fact that China is gaining that kind of control over the global food supply with nary a voice of concern from most of the Western civilization for the last decade I think is problematic.

And I think we have seen the outsized influence that countries like Saudi Arabia or Russia get because of their energy influence. We should not allow China to have that kind of influence over our country or Africa or southeastern Asia. And that's what they're trying to do. And so I'm a leader on a bill that would blacklist the Chinese Communist Party and their partners from buying American farmland or ag processing facilities.

I think that's absolutely necessary right now. And I was I was very glad to hear you refer to them as an adversary because I don't think enough of the public and especially enough of D.C. has readopted that mindset. It's something we haven't seen since the 80s, but, you know, the very early 90s. Xi Jinping is a tyrant and a dictator. And maybe people don't know that yet because he's not quite as ostentatious in his villainy as Vladimir Putin was.

But this guy is a dictator. The way he has treated religious minorities, the way he has treated personal freedom, the way that he has just absolutely cut loose thousands of people to steal American intellectual property and in a systematic and planful way undermine American greatness. This is a problem. And when I was growing up, Soviet Union was a clear and present threat to this country. But they were a clear and present threat in one dimension, and that was militarily. Correct.

The Soviet Union wasn't a cultural threat. China is. They were not an economic threat. They were not an economic threat. China is. And I still and I'm not trying to create another Cold War here. Don't get me wrong. But I am saying that for 10 years, China has worked to undermine us and we haven't been paying attention. Two last questions before we let you go and get on a plane back to sunny South Dakota. Here's the two questions. One, did you really need to take a shower? I had to. We're in Phoenix. All right. One.

What is a book that's most influenced you politically? Freakonomics, which is not a political book, but it is a book about how you can use data to disprove things that everybody believes. Great answer. Second thing, we asked Mike Lee this question. What's the most surprising thing he's learned being in the Senate? He said that no one reads the bills. What's the most surprising thing for you since you've been elected to Congress about D.C.? How many good human beings have been elected to serve?

Because the work product is not that good. And so when you get this dish come out from the kitchen and it smells terrible and it looks bad and it's cold, you're like, well, clearly the chefs don't know what they're doing. But you meet these people and you're like, oh, my gosh, this guy built a multibillion-dollar company and this gal had the most successful nonprofit in the Atlanta area. This person was a general and that person captured Saddam Hussein. And then you put them all together and the sum of the parts changes.

The sum of the whole is less than the sum of the parts. It doesn't make any sense. And I don't know what we can do to change it, but we need to. Well, thank you so much, Congressman Dusty Johnson from South Dakota. We really appreciate having you on the program today. Love to have you back in the future. And thank you for the work you're doing because it's obviously unbelievably important. It's great to have people there who have a range of experience like you do. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Chuck. Appreciate you. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be back next week.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds.

On the line with us today, Monica Eaton, founder of Chargebacks 911, an international entrepreneur, speaker, author, and industry thought leader, founded Chargebacks 911 in 2011 to provide a solution to merchants suffering from fraudulent chargebacks, something I experienced in that world myself. And since then has recovered more than $4 billion in revenue for over 1 million businesses and banks. Monica, tell us exactly what this is because I think this is a problem for

99.9% of the public are completely unaware exists. Sure. So first of all, great to be here. Thank you for having me. So when it comes to chargebacks, just to explain, this is essentially if you have a dispute on a transaction, generally something that you purchased online, and instead of going to the merchant,

or the retailer, then you call your bank. And perhaps you tried to contact the retailer, you were unsuccessful, and you call your bank and your bank gives you a refund. Now, one of the issues that is happening with this chargeback system

And it's continuing to escalate is that consumers are exploiting some loopholes in the system. And essentially what's happening is consumers are under the many consumers under the impression that calling their bank is just more convenient and exactly the same as calling the retailer.

And actually, that's not true. So when you call your bank and you bypass the retailer to claim a transaction isn't authorized, maybe you say you didn't get the product, maybe you forgot to return it and you're stuck with merchandise that you don't like.

And so it becomes a very tempting thing to just go to your banking app, click a button, file a dispute, and voila. That entire transaction disappears from your pending balance and you don't owe it. Now, it can take up to 90 days to finally resolve that claim. And then it's determined if the merchant sends information whether or not the consumer is

ends up keeping the refund or that refund goes back to the merchant. But bottom line, when a chargeback is filed, then the merchant or the retailer is charged a fee, sometimes a fine. None of these are reversible. And if they get too many chargebacks, they can actually lose their ability to even process credit cards.

Which is a major problem if you're an e-commerce or retail vendor. Everyone's e-commerce now. Yeah. You're putting my daughter in business. So let's ask the ugly question. For these consumers who are doing this, what percentage are just trying to get away not paying something, do you think?

Well, that's a tricky question because I do believe that most consumers are honest and, you know, their intention is not to defraud the system and use this mechanism to steal goods or services. But, you know, they're uneducated.

And it's a faceless crime. It's a virtual transaction. They wouldn't walk into a store and steal a pair of shoes, but they would contact their bank and get a refund for the shoes that they already received. So in terms of percentages,

I can tell you what has happened in the industry is the growth of chargebacks that are filed illegitimately, which is called chargeback fraud. In other words, it's a legitimate transaction. The merchants did everything they were supposed to, and the consumer got a refund. Those instances have increased by over 40% in the last two years alone. So let me ask you this question. So

I have a lot of friends in the e-commerce realm, and they say they get a lot of fraudulent chargebacks where the customer says, hey, I haven't received the product, right? What advice would you give to the business owner when they ship a product and it gets a chargeback instigated on the credit card? Well, first and foremost, every business owner needs to be very diligent on capturing as much information as possible on every single order.

And also, don't be afraid of communicating with your customer. Make sure that you send confirmation emails. Make sure that even if you have a phone call to verify that they got it, send a survey afterwards, and make sure that you capture all of that information. Now, interestingly enough, the largest percent of chargebacks that are filed

are not actually the result of what seems like a legitimate claim, such as I didn't receive my product, I didn't get a refund, I canceled my recurring transaction, and the business didn't stop my subscription. Really what ends up happening is the majority of these chargebacks, and up to 90% of all e-commerce chargebacks, are actually claims

that are attributed to identity theft or fraud. So the consumer probably doesn't recognize the description on their credit card, and this is something that the business owners really also need to pay close attention to. And so they see a transaction, and they don't recognize it, and so they call their bank, and it starts out as something innocent. They say, you know, I have no idea who this is.

The bank files a chargeback, and the problem is the consumer should have tried to contact that retailer first, and then they probably would have discovered, you know what, maybe it was my husband that made the charge. Maybe it was my son. But instead, it becomes really a situation out of convenience.

where they think they can just call their bank and their bank processes a refund. The problem with this is that, of course, the merchant or the retailer ends up receiving these claims, and it looks like they have a problem with their fraud filter because they're all coming as fraud or identity theft. And so many merchants and many business owners don't take the time to investigate everything

every single claim. And this is one of the biggest issues in the industry, because if you don't investigate every claim and you just take it at face value, then you may assume that in order to prevent those types of chargebacks from happening in the future, you just need to tighten up your fraud rules. When in reality, maybe you need to communicate more with your customers. Maybe you have a problem with your credit card description that's showing up on the statement.

Maybe your customers aren't able to get in touch with your customer service center. There's a plethora of different sources that merchants can take more responsibility for to help discourage these types of chargebacks. Well, Monica, first of all, you get a bonus for using the word plethora. I love that word. I hope you saw the movie Three Amigos, which it was used in. Fantastic. How did you get interested and become an expert on this topic? I'm always interested in how people...

become an expert in something and make a business out of it. So I have to say, this is one of my favorite stories. Not just because it's a

But it is actually a really cool story. So I started out as an e-commerce merchant and I had a marketplace. And, you know, my passion, my vision, I wanted to be the next eBay. And, you know, every time that I thought I was succeeding, I would get hit by this, you know, this nuisance of chargebacks. And it just seemed, you know, I couldn't actually get ahead of this problem.

And I talked to all my banks, I talked to different consultants, and I was told things like, "Well, you know what, Monica? All you need to do is refund customers." I literally did the most ridiculous things. I made policies where if a customer calls us, no matter what, my call center needed to refund them. And you know, the only thing that happened is my bank account got drained. Nothing changed.

So push came to shove and I did what is probably pretty common sense. I interviewed and surveyed every single customer that filed a chargeback and that was eye-opening. I discovered that the biggest reason for the chargeback were first my fulfillment company wasn't actually shipping products on time. I saw the tracking numbers, but I never thought I needed to search that the tracking numbers actually got delivered. So that was one big problem. Then

On the credit card description, my bank had accidentally put my fax number. So any customer that saw the description, they couldn't call me. And there were just, I actually codified 106 different issues that were leading to chargebacks.

So I built this software just to be able to solve this obstacle because I just cared about building a business and getting customers and building out this marketplace. And then something amazing happened. I started getting referrals.

from banks that I did business with that had merchant accounts with me. And one of them happened to be some big box retailer. And I thought, no, actually, maybe I'm not the only one that's suffering from not knowing what a chargeback is, not knowing how to fix it. So I created Chargebacks 911. Obviously, not a name that sounds very sophisticated. But at the time, this is what my thought was.

As a merchant, I was tired of being victimized, and I wanted to help other merchants. What I wanted most is to dial 911 and be rescued from chargeback hell. So that's what I created, and then it's just a crazy story. In a matter of weeks, I was contacted by the New York Times, then the Wall Street Journal, and the writing was on the wall. I discovered my new passion, and here we are today. How long have you been doing it?

I've been doing this for just about 12 years. And where are you based out of? Our headquarters is in Tampa, Florida. We have a location in the UK and also in Singapore. That's fantastic. And have you been surprised by the growth of your business?

I have, actually. You know, I started out thinking, you know, still it was merchants that maybe they had subscriptions or they were only e-commerce merchants. And as we've grown, then I've come to realize when it comes to chargebacks, this is really a painful event for everyone.

So today we also provide solutions to banks, to all sorts of financial institutions, as well as merchants across the entire globe. I love it. I love it. Monica, is this something that affects smaller retailers more or larger retailers, or is this just across the board?

This is across the board. And you know what's interesting that most people don't realize about chargebacks is if a retailer doesn't respond to a chargeback, you can imagine this is, you know, it's a type of, you know, it's kind of like getting a ticket, but you're guilty before proven innocent. And if you don't prove that you're innocent, then what happens is these banks create fraud rules

And not only did you suffer the consequence of a chargeback that you didn't defend yourself on, but now you may also suffer higher decline rates because banks will assume, since you never responded, that you are guilty. And so they try to prevent fraud from happening to their other customers. Well, what seems now, I was telling Sam before we started,

When we were getting you on the show, you know, the past month I've had a corporate card, a personal card, a family member's personal card were just charged to show up their fraud. I mean, they weren't us. And what it seemed like five years ago, the credit card companies or banks would simply say, okay, we're going to give you credit for that. And, you know, you would still have your card. Now they immediately just say, the card's gone. We're sending you a new one.

It's been a really and it seems like that's probably just a cheaper way for them to handle it. Just saying we're canceling the card. And the problem with that is I get why they're doing it. But then if you have your card set up for taking subscriptions and payments and things, you got to go do that whole hassle. So it's it's really a time consuming task for everybody involved.

Oh yeah, no, it's painful. And you know, to make things more complicated, there's really not any standards. So every bank may have a different protocol. Some banks won't cancel your card, especially if it's an e-commerce transaction. Other banks will just cancel automatically and it's a huge inconvenience. And then there's those banks that they'll cancel your card, they'll give you a new card, but it's

They have mechanisms in place where it can protect all of your subscriptions. It rolls over to your new card number. So it really becomes a confusing problem to navigate for consumers. Monica, one of the things that is potentially hanging over the entire financial industry is a Supreme Court case regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by Elizabeth Warren, which

How would that if the circuit court has ruled that the funding for that is unconstitutional? How would that affect the industry if the Supreme Court upholds that ruling?

Well, I think, you know, it's mixed. There's mixed messages on this, right? So, first of all, you know, I agree that you need regulation in place to help protect consumers. And let's face it, there would be no businesses without consumers. And we need consumers to feel safe. Otherwise, they won't enter their card online and buy more and more. However...

With too much regulation, then you really inhibit innovation and you can restrict things to such an extent that actually it penalizes businesses, which trickle down to increase costs for consumers. And so if I look at, you know, plausibly what could happen if the CFPB, you know, remains, let's say, powerless, then, you know, on the good note, then...

then this could really open the door for a bank to innovate better technology and solutions that are going to help consumers more effectively without having a backlash of consequences. For instance, all of us have probably received those SMS messages that say, did you buy this transaction? Correct, correct.

Kind of annoying, right? So, you know, there's a lot of things that go on in the background where banks are, you know, frankly, they have such high penalties and consequences. They have to advocate protection, even to the extent that it may damage banks.

It may damage the commercial relationship between an honest retailer and a consumer. And the thing that happens there is if the consumer, if you decline too many transactions or you add too much friction in the process, well, businesses end up getting more creative.

So now, and we see this in the industry, but now when you buy something, you have 25 promotions that come with it. You don't realize, you know, maybe you're getting a smaller packet, a smaller item, or you're getting less quality, you know, i.e. inflation. And so that, you know, we really need, we need to give banks and businesses some opportunity to have a little bit of freedom to innovate and use the latest, greatest technology to

because they're on the front line. They know how to solve these problems. And chances are regulators are not as experienced. They don't know the day-to-day interactions. They don't understand the behavior trends. They aren't on the front line talking to these consumers and business owners to know exactly, you know,

what needs to be done to really create a more balanced trade. And then if I look at the negative potential is without any regulation whatsoever, then we could end up with a situation where perhaps consumers will start paying a fee to their bank anytime they file a chargeback.

Maybe they're paying. Maybe they have to sign up for a subscription in order to be able to file a chargeback. Monica, we have to wrap up here in just a minute. I apologize. But real quick, how do folks, businesses, banks, that sort of thing, get connected with you and Chargebacks 911?

Sure. Well, the best way is to visit our website. That's www.chargebacks911.com. And you can also visit us on Twitter, on LinkedIn. Go to info at chargebacks911.com and we'll connect you with an advisor and give you the support you need. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Monica Eaton, founder of Chargebacks 911. Obviously a growing problem throughout the industry. We are very happy to have you on the program today and look forward to having you again in the future.

Thank you. Have a great day. All right, folks, that's going to do it for today's Breaking Battlegrounds. Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe. Make sure you get our podcast in your email box every single week and stay up with the fantastic guests we have. The political field is all about reputation, so don't let someone squash yours online. Secure your name and political future with a yourname.vote web address from godaddy.com. Your political career depends on it.