Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've had this schedule for at least a few days.
We're being joined now by the other senator we didn't
talk to yesterday, representing the state of Nebraska, Senator Pete Ricketts,
joining us on the phone line. Senator Ricketts really do
appreciate the time.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Today, No, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on Emry.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
A couple of things as it relates to the two
things that we're talking about today before we get into
kind of the work that you guys are doing this week.
First thing, I saw your statement right after we learned
about the death of Charlie Kirk yesterday. How do you
kind of sort through your personal emotions understanding how important
this individual was as far as the political discourse was
(00:39):
in America and also what this means for political discourse
in the future.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It was a very emotional evening last night when talking
to my colleagues and again today versus tomber Many people,
including myself, to Charlie personally, and some folks were very
good friends with them and knew him for a long
time since he began his career back, you know, when
he was eighteen years old. And so it's been a
tough day up here on the Hill, and I appreciate
(01:06):
the fact that, you know, I was in my Foreign
Relations Committee meeting and Tim Kaine Center from Virginia, started
off his re marks talking about Charlie Kirk, and of
course there were a number of other senators. Actually Sergio Gore,
who's up for Tomedian Ambassador in India, was a very
close friend to Charlie. He started off his re marks
talking about Charlie. So there's been a lot of recognition
(01:27):
of his life and the just terrible tragedy this assassination represents,
certainly for Charlie and his family. You know, he was
father of two kids. You know, just devastating for his
wife and for his kids, but also you know for
those of us who knew him and for the conservative movement,
(01:47):
and you look at what he did, you know, starting
at eighteen, going out of college campus, and you know,
think about Charlie. He was all about dialogue, talking with people,
debating people. My brother, who knew him better than I
did that one time he was on a college campus.
Somebody said why are you here? And he's like to
talk to have a dialogue because if we stopped talking,
(02:07):
and that's when people turn to violence and Sadly, what
we saw yesterday was an individual who turned to violence
rather than dialogue. You know, what Charlie was about was
about America, about what we represent as Americans having this
kind of conversation and dialogue, and a shooter was anti American.
It was about somebody who was against our values. Our
(02:28):
values in this republic are to have this exchange of ideas,
and that's what our republic is about, is elective officials
and have these conversations, and we have these debates. And
when you try to short circuit that with assassinations, what
you're doing is basically saying you're not an American, you don't
believe in our values. It is just really a tragic
(02:48):
day for our country, as well as for Charlie's family.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
The thing I think beyond that that you guys in
leadership on both sides of the aisle are going to
have to kind of wrestle with now, is how do
we lower the temperature of the room. I know this
is the exact conversation a lot of us were having
in July of last year after Donald Trump survived an
assassination attempt. How do we get the temperature to get
a little bit lower? So people do not feel as
(03:14):
radical about what they're doing and instead do exactly what
Charlie Kirk would do. Let's talk to people and debate
people about different issues and topics. How is that achieved?
And it is that something that can be achieved lowering
the political climate here?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It has to be something we do. We've got to
be able to have civil dialogue about our difference. Says, Look,
we're a big country. We've got you know, over three
hundred million people live in this country and they all
got different ideas about what this country should do. Right,
We've all got our different opinions about how the countries
we run. We've got to be able to have a
civil dialogue about it because if we don't, then we
(03:51):
end up resorting to violence like what we saw yesterday,
and that is going to tear our country apart. So
we've got to get back to the point where we
can have civil dialog, allow people to talk well, we
can have a chance to respond and do it a
way that is well, you don't have to agree with
the person, but you have to understand the person's going
from doing perspective and let them have a chance to
(04:11):
have their say. And that's what Charlie was about, right,
That's what he did. He went to college campuses to
have those conversations and have these dialogue. But that's what
he was doing yesterday, you know, he was doing what
we love to do when he was murdered.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, Senator Peter Rickets is joining us today. It's definitely
a day that people will remember September tenth, twenty twenty five.
But September eleventh, twenty twenty one is a day that
is we were talking about it. It's up there with the
Pearl Harbors and the assassinations of the presidents as they
were serving our nation, and when the British set fire
(04:44):
to the White House in eighteen twelve, like all of
that stuff. September eleventh of two thousand and one is
one of the darkest days in American history. And I
know you, a person who does public service as well
and a great American family, you were well witness to
all this as it was happening in two thousand and one.
From your own personal perspective, what do you remember about
(05:06):
that day and how it made you feel?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well? Many people remember, including myself, remember exactly where we
were on that day. I was in my office and
we had the TV on when my just at Russian
and said a plane struck the World Trade Huner, And
of course the rest of the day, I'm Boulder from there.
We remember the nine and seventy seven innocent people who
were killed by those terrorists. We remember our brave first
(05:30):
responders who rushed into those buildings and many of them
lost their lives because they were there to save somebody
else's lives. We remember there was a I remember a
volunteer fire to Smauburn, Nebraska that drove all night to
be able to get out there and help with the
cleanup afterwards. And we saw that all across the country.
We had actually I was working in ameritory at the time,
(05:52):
and we had people in New York and nobody could
get out of New York City. They couldn't come home.
And actually many of our folks actually volunteered to help
with the people who were playing the scene. We had
people who helped out our teammates by providing a place
to stay overnight becau they didn't have a place to go.
So it was really a time when the country rallied
(06:14):
around to you know, push back against a terrible terrorist attack,
and you know, we actually for a moment had that
kind of unity that you were just talking about a
little bit ago when we got attacked by the terrorists,
And you know, that's part of what we have to
remember is that at the end of the day, we're
all Americans and we're going to have our differences, but
it's a very dangerous world out there, and there are
(06:36):
people who want to destroy our country, and so we've
got to be able to figure out way to work
our problems out so that the enemies that we have
overseas aren't successful.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Center Peter Rick is joining us on eleven ten kfab
this afternoon. It's a good lesson of what America felt
like right in the wake of that attack and what
how somewhat, if somehow, we can get back to that
here in twenty twenty five. Now, I know that you
guys are also at work. You're trying to achieve some things,
and I know the major thing that we were going
(07:07):
to talk about today before all of this happened with
Charlie Kirk was we were going to talk about this
bill that Republicans in the Senate are trying to use
to kind of expedite the confirmation process for a variety
of level of jobs. Can you explain this from your
perspective and why this is really important stuff that needs
to take place for Washington to be is its most efficient?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, absolutely, So. Part of the role of the Senate
is to confirm the pointees that the president has and
of course the being of an administration that's really important. It's like,
over twelve hundred people we have to confirm, and our
org has been very busy trying to get that done.
But the Democrats have been an obstacle to've been blocking.
So let's take a step back. If you go back
(07:52):
to like say Obama, ninety percent of his appointees were
done through either voice vote or you Amas consent. That
happens very quickly, but the Democrats have and then even
under President Trump and President Biden, it was, you know,
fifty six fifty seven percent of nominees we was done
that way. President Trump is the first president history where
(08:13):
the Democrats have not allowed a single one of his
civilian nominees to be done by either unanimous content or
voice book. They are slowing up the entire process. They're
creating a huge obstacle here, and that's not right. It's
making sure that you know, people are not we're not
able to put people into their jobs, which means agencies
don't have leadership, which means that Nebraskans aren't taking the
eye they deserve. And that also means that, you know,
(08:35):
for example, some of our attorneys, our US attorneys are
not getting appointed and that's threatening to public safety. So this,
this substructionism has really gone too far, and so we
approached the Democrats about changing it. In fact, actually interestingly,
back in twenty twenty two, Amy Klobshar and Angus King,
you know, Amye Closeshar, Democrat from Minnesota and Angus King,
(08:56):
Independent from May thought that the apployment process is going
to for Biden and so Lety introduce legislation to be
able to speed up by passing out nominees in groups
what they call it, and block. And so we actually
just lifted that idea and we're going down the process
of you know, putting that in place into our rules.
(09:16):
You know, unprecedented obstruction by the Democrats requires us to
change the precedent, and so we started on that process
to actually this week actually started going through the votes.
And now there's a negotiation going on right now with
the Democrats and the secret can come up with a
biparisan solution, which is frankly everybody's interest to get that done.
But the Democrats have got to be able to, you know,
(09:39):
compromise on some of these things and be able to
work with us to be able to get this done,
or we're going to go forward and we're just going
to overturn the president and we're going to start passing
out nominees in big groups, and at some point, of
course the Democrats will be able to do the same
thing to us. But it's just really become such an
obstacle that, you know, the Democrats are really blocking the
(10:03):
way government is supposed to be working. So we're working
to try and get that overturned.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Just real quick, Senator, what's the difference between what you guys,
is what your plan is in the bipartisan chatter of
what Democrats are trying to meet you in the middle
on on this.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So one of the things that Amy Klobe Shar had
put in and heard things was to go through the
committee process and have a certain limit on the number
of nominees that came out through the committee that we're
generally voted out of the committee, and we think that
actually there's benefit to doing that. But we're also cognizant
that they have blockaded government for the last seven months,
(10:41):
and so if they don't work with us on this,
we're just going to go ahead pass and so we
can do a bunch of people at once, because we've
got to get caught up on this backlog of people
that are stuck in there right now. So, I mean,
it really has got to the point where you look
and say, you know, of the one hundred and nine
people that are out there right now, oh, all these
people or that went through the process. All these people
(11:03):
have to be scrutinized. They've spent an average of two
minutes and twelve seconds talking about these nominees. So it's
really not about, oh, we have to vet these nominees,
we have to look at them. It's really just about
obstructionism for the sake of scoring political points with their base.
And that's what we're really talking to about, like, hey,
you guys got to change this. We've only been able
to get one hundred and thirty sub cabinet nominees confirmed.
(11:27):
We've got again, if you just think about the over
twelve hundred we have to do. We've got a lot
more to do. It would take an average of eighty
hours a week for the rest of the year to
even start getting through this, and that's just not practical.
So the Democrats have really I'm not part of the negotiation,
so I don't know what the hold up is right now,
but if the Democrats can't come to an agreement with us,
(11:49):
we're just gonna have to move forward without them.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, we're going to keep an eye on that, because
that's certainly the obstruction has been very obvious, and Blatant's
finding a solution for that something worth doing. Is just
a matter of whether or not they'll be a part
of that solution or not. Senator Pete Ricketts as always,
really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for being
a part of our show, and I'm sure we'll talk
again very soon.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
All right, great, well, hey, thank you very much. I
appreciate that you having on him. You have a good one.
I've had this schedule for at least a few days.
We're being joined now by the other senator we didn't
talk to yesterday, representing the state of Nebraska, Senator Pete Ricketts,
joining us on the phone line. Senator Ricketts really do
appreciate the time.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Today, No, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on Emry.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
A couple of things as it relates to the two
things that we're talking about today before we get into
kind of the work that you guys are doing this week.
First thing, I saw your statement right after we learned
about the death of Charlie Kirk yesterday. How do you
kind of sort through your personal emotions understanding how important
this individual was as far as the political discourse was
(00:39):
in America and also what this means for political discourse
in the future.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It was a very emotional evening last night when talking
to my colleagues and again today versus tomber Many people,
including myself, to Charlie personally, and some folks were very
good friends with them and knew him for a long
time since he began his career back, you know, when
he was eighteen years old. And so it's been a
tough day up here on the Hill, and I appreciate
(01:06):
the fact that, you know, I was in my Foreign
Relations Committee meeting and Tim Kaine Center from Virginia, started
off his re marks talking about Charlie Kirk, and of
course there were a number of other senators. Actually Sergio Gore,
who's up for Tomedian Ambassador in India, was a very
close friend to Charlie. He started off his re marks
talking about Charlie. So there's been a lot of recognition
(01:27):
of his life and the just terrible tragedy this assassination represents,
certainly for Charlie and his family. You know, he was
father of two kids. You know, just devastating for his
wife and for his kids, but also you know for
those of us who knew him and for the conservative movement,
(01:47):
and you look at what he did, you know, starting
at eighteen, going out of college campus, and you know,
think about Charlie. He was all about dialogue, talking with people,
debating people. My brother, who knew him better than I
did that one time he was on a college campus.
Somebody said why are you here? And he's like to
talk to have a dialogue because if we stopped talking,
(02:07):
and that's when people turn to violence and Sadly, what
we saw yesterday was an individual who turned to violence
rather than dialogue. You know, what Charlie was about was
about America, about what we represent as Americans having this
kind of conversation and dialogue, and a shooter was anti American.
It was about somebody who was against our values. Our
(02:28):
values in this republic are to have this exchange of ideas,
and that's what our republic is about, is elective officials
and have these conversations, and we have these debates. And
when you try to short circuit that with assassinations, what
you're doing is basically saying you're not an American, you don't
believe in our values. It is just really a tragic
(02:48):
day for our country, as well as for Charlie's family.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
The thing I think beyond that that you guys in
leadership on both sides of the aisle are going to
have to kind of wrestle with now, is how do
we lower the temperature of the room. I know this
is the exact conversation a lot of us were having
in July of last year after Donald Trump survived an
assassination attempt. How do we get the temperature to get
a little bit lower? So people do not feel as
(03:14):
radical about what they're doing and instead do exactly what
Charlie Kirk would do. Let's talk to people and debate
people about different issues and topics. How is that achieved?
And it is that something that can be achieved lowering
the political climate here?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
It has to be something we do. We've got to
be able to have civil dialogue about our difference. Says, Look,
we're a big country. We've got you know, over three
hundred million people live in this country and they all
got different ideas about what this country should do. Right,
We've all got our different opinions about how the countries
we run. We've got to be able to have a
civil dialogue about it because if we don't, then we
(03:51):
end up resorting to violence like what we saw yesterday,
and that is going to tear our country apart. So
we've got to get back to the point where we
can have civil dialog, allow people to talk well, we
can have a chance to respond and do it a
way that is well, you don't have to agree with
the person, but you have to understand the person's going
from doing perspective and let them have a chance to
(04:11):
have their say. And that's what Charlie was about, right,
That's what he did. He went to college campuses to
have those conversations and have these dialogue. But that's what
he was doing yesterday, you know, he was doing what
we love to do when he was murdered.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, Senator Peter Rickets is joining us today. It's definitely
a day that people will remember September tenth, twenty twenty five.
But September eleventh, twenty twenty one is a day that
is we were talking about it. It's up there with the
Pearl Harbors and the assassinations of the presidents as they
were serving our nation, and when the British set fire
(04:44):
to the White House in eighteen twelve, like all of
that stuff. September eleventh of two thousand and one is
one of the darkest days in American history. And I
know you, a person who does public service as well
and a great American family, you were well witness to
all this as it was happening in two thousand and one.
From your own personal perspective, what do you remember about
(05:06):
that day and how it made you feel?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well? Many people remember, including myself, remember exactly where we
were on that day. I was in my office and
we had the TV on when my just at Russian
and said a plane struck the World Trade Huner, And
of course the rest of the day, I'm Boulder from there.
We remember the nine and seventy seven innocent people who
were killed by those terrorists. We remember our brave first
(05:30):
responders who rushed into those buildings and many of them
lost their lives because they were there to save somebody
else's lives. We remember there was a I remember a
volunteer fire to Smauburn, Nebraska that drove all night to
be able to get out there and help with the
cleanup afterwards. And we saw that all across the country.
We had actually I was working in ameritory at the time,
(05:52):
and we had people in New York and nobody could
get out of New York City. They couldn't come home.
And actually many of our folks actually volunteered to help
with the people who were playing the scene. We had
people who helped out our teammates by providing a place
to stay overnight becau they didn't have a place to go.
So it was really a time when the country rallied
(06:14):
around to you know, push back against a terrible terrorist attack,
and you know, we actually for a moment had that
kind of unity that you were just talking about a
little bit ago when we got attacked by the terrorists,
And you know, that's part of what we have to
remember is that at the end of the day, we're
all Americans and we're going to have our differences, but
it's a very dangerous world out there, and there are
(06:36):
people who want to destroy our country, and so we've
got to be able to figure out way to work
our problems out so that the enemies that we have
overseas aren't successful.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Center Peter Rick is joining us on eleven ten kfab
this afternoon. It's a good lesson of what America felt
like right in the wake of that attack and what
how somewhat, if somehow, we can get back to that
here in twenty twenty five. Now, I know that you
guys are also at work. You're trying to achieve some things,
and I know the major thing that we were going
(07:07):
to talk about today before all of this happened with
Charlie Kirk was we were going to talk about this
bill that Republicans in the Senate are trying to use
to kind of expedite the confirmation process for a variety
of level of jobs. Can you explain this from your
perspective and why this is really important stuff that needs
to take place for Washington to be is its most efficient?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, absolutely, So. Part of the role of the Senate
is to confirm the pointees that the president has and
of course the being of an administration that's really important. It's like,
over twelve hundred people we have to confirm, and our
org has been very busy trying to get that done.
But the Democrats have been an obstacle to've been blocking.
So let's take a step back. If you go back
(07:52):
to like say Obama, ninety percent of his appointees were
done through either voice vote or you Amas consent. That
happens very quickly, but the Democrats have and then even
under President Trump and President Biden, it was, you know,
fifty six fifty seven percent of nominees we was done
that way. President Trump is the first president history where
(08:13):
the Democrats have not allowed a single one of his
civilian nominees to be done by either unanimous content or
voice book. They are slowing up the entire process. They're
creating a huge obstacle here, and that's not right. It's
making sure that you know, people are not we're not
able to put people into their jobs, which means agencies
don't have leadership, which means that Nebraskans aren't taking the
eye they deserve. And that also means that, you know,
(08:35):
for example, some of our attorneys, our US attorneys are
not getting appointed and that's threatening to public safety. So this,
this substructionism has really gone too far, and so we
approached the Democrats about changing it. In fact, actually interestingly,
back in twenty twenty two, Amy Klobshar and Angus King,
you know, Amye Closeshar, Democrat from Minnesota and Angus King,
(08:56):
Independent from May thought that the apployment process is going
to for Biden and so Lety introduce legislation to be
able to speed up by passing out nominees in groups
what they call it, and block. And so we actually
just lifted that idea and we're going down the process
of you know, putting that in place into our rules.
(09:16):
You know, unprecedented obstruction by the Democrats requires us to
change the precedent, and so we started on that process
to actually this week actually started going through the votes.
And now there's a negotiation going on right now with
the Democrats and the secret can come up with a
biparisan solution, which is frankly everybody's interest to get that done.
But the Democrats have got to be able to, you know,
(09:39):
compromise on some of these things and be able to
work with us to be able to get this done,
or we're going to go forward and we're just going
to overturn the president and we're going to start passing
out nominees in big groups, and at some point, of
course the Democrats will be able to do the same
thing to us. But it's just really become such an
obstacle that, you know, the Democrats are really blocking the
(10:03):
way government is supposed to be working. So we're working
to try and get that overturned.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Just real quick, Senator, what's the difference between what you guys,
is what your plan is in the bipartisan chatter of
what Democrats are trying to meet you in the middle
on on this.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So one of the things that Amy Klobe Shar had
put in and heard things was to go through the
committee process and have a certain limit on the number
of nominees that came out through the committee that we're
generally voted out of the committee, and we think that
actually there's benefit to doing that. But we're also cognizant
that they have blockaded government for the last seven months,
(10:41):
and so if they don't work with us on this,
we're just going to go ahead pass and so we
can do a bunch of people at once, because we've
got to get caught up on this backlog of people
that are stuck in there right now. So, I mean,
it really has got to the point where you look
and say, you know, of the one hundred and nine
people that are out there right now, oh, all these
people or that went through the process. All these people
(11:03):
have to be scrutinized. They've spent an average of two
minutes and twelve seconds talking about these nominees. So it's
really not about, oh, we have to vet these nominees,
we have to look at them. It's really just about
obstructionism for the sake of scoring political points with their base.
And that's what we're really talking to about, like, hey,
you guys got to change this. We've only been able
to get one hundred and thirty sub cabinet nominees confirmed.
(11:27):
We've got again, if you just think about the over
twelve hundred we have to do. We've got a lot
more to do. It would take an average of eighty
hours a week for the rest of the year to
even start getting through this, and that's just not practical.
So the Democrats have really I'm not part of the negotiation,
so I don't know what the hold up is right now,
but if the Democrats can't come to an agreement with us,
(11:49):
we're just gonna have to move forward without them.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, we're going to keep an eye on that, because
that's certainly the obstruction has been very obvious, and Blatant's
finding a solution for that something worth doing. Is just
a matter of whether or not they'll be a part
of that solution or not. Senator Pete Ricketts as always,
really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for being
a part of our show, and I'm sure we'll talk
again very soon.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
All right, great, well, hey, thank you very much. I
appreciate that you having on him. You have a good one.
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