Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of those people that we've gotten the honor to
talk to several times, as Senator Pete Ricketts, who happens
to be joining us in the studio this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Senator Ricketts, it is always a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
All right, you're in Nebraska and I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Back on the August work state work periods what they
officially call it's also called a recess.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No recess.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I don't like recess, apparently because it sounds like we're playing,
which we're not. Where we actually are working.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You are kind of playing though. I heard you. You
were over in the fair in Grand Island yesterday.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Oh, we were at the state fair. It was great,
but we were working. I had federal issues for him.
Nice and so we had a panel with US Senator
Shelley Moore, capital from West Virginia, the Environment in Public
Works Committee, and we had Andrew Wheeler, who was the
EPA administrator under Trump, and we talked about how this
administration is crazy over regulating our society five thousand new regulations,
(00:47):
adding forty seven thousand dollars onto every household going expenses.
And then we had another great panel that was moderated
by Adrian Smith, our thirdist recongressman with Greg Dowd who
was the US Trade Representative for Trump for agriculture, and
also kipt Tom who was a UN Ambassador for Agriculture
under Trump, and they were talking about trade and how
(01:08):
this administration doesn't do anything on trade. We've got a
thirty two billion dollar agricultural trade deficit. That's a record.
It beat last year's also record sixteen billion dollars. And
then this is Lloyd like these last two years are
the last two years in the last fifty out like
we've just happened four times the last fifty years, and
the last two have been Biden. And then the last one.
(01:29):
I moderated another panel with just some agribusiness leaders talking
about the challenges of businesses and over and over regulated
environments and that sort of thing. So we had some
great guests and then got a chance to go around
the fair and I've fed a baby lamb and got
to grab a great Like if you're going to the
fair and you go to Leon's food truck. I had
a Burah Bureau sandwich, beurre, a melt beer, a melt
(01:51):
that's what it's called. Fantastic is like it literally falls
apart and melts in your head. It's like bread and
like spread of beef and shee and cilantro onions. Yeah,
he's got this dipping sauce. So it's already like a mess.
Yeah when it starts right because he's got all the
cheese melting together and then he gives you a sauce
that you can dip it into to make it even messy.
(02:12):
On an our talk, Yeah, so have lots of napkins
and yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You man just be ready to get your steps and
so you can handle those calories.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Senator Pete Ricketts charting us.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
It's fascinating you talk about deficit doesn't happen that much
and agriculture. Agriculture is a big deal here. We're trying
to learn as much as we can about what policy
changes somebody like Kamala Harris could be offering to America
that could be an alternative from some of the shortfalls
that I'm sure the Democrats are hearing about the Biden administration.
From the voter's perspective, what's say a guy like you
(02:44):
who's been in Washington, d C. I've Kamala Harris comes
from a Senate background kind of as well as being
an attorney general.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Would anything change?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I don't see any big changes. I mean, Harris, it
was interesting she said from day one, I'm going to
you know, attack the food inflation and the housing shortage,
and of course her solutions were big government solutions. But
it's like Vice President Harris, You've been there for almost
four years. It's not day one, right, You're and she's
just to do the same policies, just trying to dress
(03:13):
them up and make them look different from Biden. But
it's gonna be the same policies. Biden hasn't done anything
to help our agg producers open up markets overseas, and
Harris won't either.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Do they even understand that? I mean, do they have
do they just have peep? Is there anybody that can
help them with that?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I actually I don't think so. It was interesting. So again,
Andrew Wheeler was when he was on our panel yesterday,
he said, hey, you know, when I was epa administrator
and when I was a Senate staffer before that, because
he was he said, I would go visit oil refineries
and farms and talk to the people directly to find
out what it was like and what would impact him,
he said, when I was asking the staff around there,
(03:48):
nobody'd never done that.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
So I don't think there's.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Anybody in this administration who understands what it's really like
to be in agriculture in the Midwest. I certainly haven't
seen anybody from at least this administration come to a
farm in Nebraska. I mean, Trump's egg secretary, like he
was here all the time. Sonny Perdue was a great guy.
He was here all the time. You know, we just
don't see that the cabinet members getting out around the
(04:10):
country like we did under the Trump indmistries.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, and this is I guess the thing is when
you have a political party that a lot of their
platforms are made to kind of speak to the people
who exist in urban areas around the country.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Elite, the rich, elite people.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
That's why the Democrats are talking, right, and those those
urbanites have also zero thoughts about generally what's going on
in agriculture. Another thing that it feels felt feels like
they're just not paying any attention to over the last
few years has been the immigration. But then today a
lot of bombshell ads that have dropped that Kamala Harrison,
your new hardliner on the southern border, and it's interested
(04:47):
in helping fund a border wall.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You buy in this.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
What a hypocrite. She has been the borders are for
the last three and a half years and done absolutely nothing.
And for her to come out and say this is
about as Tony Fargas saying he was on board with
tax right. He fought tax cuts every step of the
way until it came from the last vote where it
was clear was going to pass, and then he jumped
on board and said he was for tax cuts. What
a hypocrite. Same thing with Harris right now. She has
(05:11):
done nothing on the border. Uh. And you know, in fact,
it just so that just when I hit upon that,
you know, that's the so called bipartisan border bill, they
set the emergency level in that bill at five thousand
illegal crossings a day. When Biden actually decided to do
something on the border earlier this year, what did he
set the emergency level at twenty five hundred. But even
(05:31):
he knew that was a bad bill. Yeah, he shouldn't
take stuff out of that bill. So come on, this
was like and for now her now to jump on
board is just it's just the height of hypocrisy.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, and on top of that, they have shown the
actual Trump border wall that was built so far in
the campaign ads.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Okay, so I've been talking about wasting federal spending. So
this administration, the Biden Harris administration, has wasted three hundred
million dollars not building the wall because they've been paying
for storage for the ballowers. For example, one of the
costs they've got is one hundred and thirty thousand dollars
a day to store these wall panels for the border wall.
(06:10):
That's because they won't put him up. And Ted Cruz
has the Secure the Borderack, which I'm a co sponsor of,
which would have required the administration to do that. But
I didn't see Harris out there saying, yeah, we need
to get this done. Let me get on board.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
The dichotomy or the mirror image of that is Donald
Trump's abortion thoughts about that should be a state's rights issue.
Jade Vance as recently as this weekend on national television
saying that Donald Trump would veto a federal abortion ban
bill if it came to his desk. You're in Washington, DC.
Democrats are basically saying that's all a lie. He would
(06:43):
do it if it would ended up on his desk.
And this is kind of the same answer as like, oh, well,
she's not going to build that, while she's just saying
that to win independent votes. So as a guy who's
in Washington, DC, you get to see some of the
inner workings of something like this. Is that of a
federal abortion ban, something that you think if Donald Trump
to be elected and there be Republican majorities in both chambers,
(07:04):
that be something that you guys would explore.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Well, first of all, I do want to go back
to the border thing, because I want to just point
out that Trump brought illegal crossings on the border down
to a forty five year low with things like the
remain of Mexico policy. So just like if we want
to contrast things here, I do want to contrast what
Kamala Harris has said she wants to do with what
Trump actually did when it comes to the abortion issue. Yeah,
(07:28):
I think Trump is very clear this is a state's
right issue, and isn't that what we were asking for
for a long long time that the states be able
to do that. So I actually if he says he's
going to Trump has been very clear about this right
and He's taken some heat from some of the pro
life groups on it, so I believe him what he
says it.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So what you're saying is is point blank that that
would not even be on the table. You guys have
other things you'd want to worry about on the federal level.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah. I think that, you know, certainly protecting women's health.
There's ways that we can do more to make sure
that the abortion injuries protecting women's health. But when it
comes to like doing a band like Republicans have said, hey,
this is a this is a state's right.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Issue, states rights. It's something that Republicans have kind of
bet for you. Yeah, and I feel like that kind
of goes along with the whole conservative thing. So Senator Ricketts,
I I do want to touch on this before we go.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
You're not up.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
You kind of get to watch things unfold this fall. Wow,
I'm running for office. Well, yeah, I working hard about
around the state, right, all right, okay, let me let
me let me rephrase. Okay, So there are some very
contentious battles that are happening that people are very concerned
about kind of how that that might play out, And
(08:34):
there are a lot of people concerned about the legitimacy
of our election process, if I can word that properly
for people. There are states that have different rules than
we do and jurisdictions that we are not going to
understand what their rules are. But from your vantage point,
is that something that Americans should be worrying about the
legitimacy of our election in November.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Well, in Nebraska we have taken steps like voter ID
and I'm very confident in our systems here. We do
not want a federal over election law to tell every
state what to do. So it's really up to the
people of those different states to pass laws that are
going to protect voter integrity. So should people in those
states be asking their officials if they've had the proper protections?
The answer is absolutely yes. We did see things that
(09:15):
would raise questions about voter integrity and a number of
different states. You know, for example, there's a book out
there called rig that talked about one of the examples Wisconsin,
where they were documenting that they are supposed to be
collecting ballots if I'm getting the story right, in Democracy
and the Park kind of things, But that wasn't legal
under Wisconsin law. So that's the kind of thing that
(09:36):
you got to stop at the moment you see it, right,
So we do need people in the different states to
take a look at their election laws to ask the
questions about voter integrity and make sure every state has
laws they're going to protect voter integrity. But it needs
to be done on a state by state basis. It
can't be something where we have a national takeover of
election law because that's exactly what the Democrats want. They
(09:56):
want us to open that door so that they can
do the full blown thing. In fact check, Humor has
talked about it. If he gets control of the Senate,
the House, and the White House, he's going to get
rid of the Philibus rule and do things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, and who knows what the future of the Electoral
College looks like at that point. Now, Nebraska, just to
finish up this conversation, Nebraska has the split you know,
electoral with the second congressional district which went Biden last time.
Don Bacon's a Republican, He's won this, He's the incumbent
once again to try to stay in the in Congress.
Some people are saying this could race could come down
(10:28):
to this single electoral vote here how important is it
for people in Omaha to get, you know, moving on
what they want to do for this particular election.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It is absolutely important because I've seen the same reports
that depending on how the states fall out, the second
congressional district could be the deciding electoral College vote because
we do split up our votes, and that means, hey,
is Republicans, we need to turn out voters and get
them to turn out and vote right. We need to
make sure that we're delivering all the votes we can
get President Trump elected. So that and then of course
(10:59):
we want to make sure on Bacon gets reelected. So yeah,
it's a it's a big deal. It could potentially be
a really big deal. That also means we're gona se
a lot of money spend here for sure, and we've
already seen so you guys should do really well in
this right. There's a lot of ads like that, show
me the money, and we've already seen the two vice
presidents candidates make trips to Omaha here as well to
try to start that like moving the needle here a little.
(11:21):
I think that demonstrates how important the both the campaigns
view this view this congressional district.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
How can people fall along with your exploits on the
road in in Washington.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Sat dot Gov.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I'm doing federal spending issues next week and Plasmas Beatrice,
Nebraska City. So while who so yeah, just if you
have the opportunity, please come out see me.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, enjoying that recess of yours. Right, I am.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
We're recessing. We're recessing for sure. Senator p Ricketts has
always an honor. Thanks so much for being here with
us today.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Thanks emmy.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
All right, well, there you go. You got somebody who
is seeing it on the ground in Washington, d C.
And around the country. There's no doubt about it, though.
This election is going to be really important for the
people and then the Omaha, Nebraska area specifically, and we
just have to watch and see exactly what these candidates
will or will not do, regardless of what they're saying
on the campaign trail. The four o'clock hours coming up,
(12:10):
plenty more to talk about with you here on news
radio eleven ten KFAB