Rep. Scott Bottoms (R-15), Republican candidate for Colorado governor, joins Ryan live in-studio to respond to claims made by primary opponent Victor Marx in a Tuesday conversation on the program. Also, he updates on the state of the race and his campaign as the calendar is about to flip to January.
Scott Bottoms for Colorado Governor - Reclaim Colorado
Scott Bottoms for Colorado Governor - Reclaim Colorado
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's why I'm running. No one else can win in
the general but me. If Senator kirk Meyer could, if
she really could, I wouldn't be running if Scott Bottoms,
who I know and I've called her friend. I text
him when his father passed away. Yeah, I wrote on
(00:21):
his Facebook page it was his anniversary thirty five years
with him and his bride yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So much like in a debate format which Victor Marx
is passing on for January tenth, when a name is invoked,
that person gets an invitation. I have reached out to
Barb Kirkmeyer, hoping to have her on either tomorrow or Friday.
And Representative Scott Bottoms, who was just mentioned there in
my previous conversation with Victor Marx, joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Live in studio today. Scott, thank you so much for
your time. Yeah, it's always a privileged things.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
First and foremost, my deepest condolence is on the passing
of your father. I can only imagine what you're going
through with that. Let's start there, just personally, how difficult
it was for you to manage that and stay focused
on a campaign.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
What's going on with you right now? Yeah, that is
a difficult direction in life. I mean, it changes everything.
He's patriarch, he did have dementia pretty bad, and he
was in memory care, and so there's there's some of
you that says, this is a relief for him. He
told me growing up. I heard him say this one
(01:30):
hundred times at least. I don't ever want to get
to that place where I'm depending upon other people, where
I'm sitting in a wheelchair, I'm or I don't know
who I am. This happened with his mother, and and
so then to seem that way, and my wife and
I've talked about this a lot, that he would not
want to have been where he was, and so when
he passed, which which actually kind of happened suddenly, it
(01:53):
was kind of a relief in my spirit. I don't
I don't know how to verbalize that, but I know
he's in heaven. I know he's with the with Jesus,
and that makes everything okay for me. So, what impact
did your father have on your life in its direction, Scott?
Was there a part of him that continues on in
you and your pursuits for politics anything along those lines. Well,
(02:16):
so my family wasn't really political growing up. I don't
remember us like having big discussions about this and talking
about things. My dad was a very strong personality in
a lot of different ways. He and I didn't really
get along much when I was growing up really at all,
and there were some difficulties there. But I watched how
(02:38):
he did things, and I really did appreciate and admire
some of the things he did and how he did them.
And I was actually having this conversation with somebody just
the other day. You know, you're sitting around reminiscing about
your life, and you know, your dad just passed all
these things. And I remember an incident when I was
six years old when he was the principal of the
(02:59):
high school in the city where we were, and elementary
is like across the fields, and we'd come over for
a pep rally at the school. At the high school,
all of the elementary did and this was like a
big state game or something, and we're playing a team
(03:19):
that their mascot was the Indians, And I did not
understand any of this at the time. It was probably
ten years later before I really worked all this out.
But during the pep rally, they had this guy that
was Native American that dressed up in Indian clothes and
ran around the gym and then the football players tackley
(03:40):
broke his arm, broke his collar bone, all this stuff.
I mean, it was horrible. I didn't I'm watching this
in the but I'm like six, I'm like, yeah, first grade.
I didn't know what's going on. But that evening we
went to the hospital and I remember standing in the
hospital visiting this kid. I didn't know why we were there.
I didn't know what was happening. And the conversation leaving
(04:03):
the hospital on the way home, I realized that this
was a racist thing that they had. They had used
this kid, and and I didn't understand that racism was
not part of my thought process or a household just
never was. And how my dad was so mad. He
didn't know what was happening, and he fired the coach
(04:23):
that day and all this other stuff because don't do this. Well,
then the whole city started. It was a little community
in Texas, and the whole community started coming out after him.
And I'm talking to this guy in my church about
this and just telling him the whole thing, and he
said to me, he said, he said, that's what I
see in you. That's the same concept, he said. He said,
you're probably not as different from your dad as you think.
(04:45):
It was a it was a it was a nice
little moment for me to process. Hey, you know, dad,
Dad really had some good thoughts when it came to
how we treat people, and he always treated people good.
But but yeah, that one just hit me kind of hard.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Representative Scott Bottoms joining US Republican candidate for governor. And Scott,
our thoughts and prayers are with you, especially during this
holiday season. So tough to lose a parent during this time.
But truly is really sending the best out to you
and for his memory, and what a great memory you
just recalled right there. Victor Marx also went on to
describe this interaction with you, and one of the main
(05:23):
reasons you reached out to me is you wanted to
comment and respond to this. So here it is for
our listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Scott can't win the general. He called me the night
before I announced and he said, Victor, don't announce.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I said why why?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And I'm talking to him as a friend who I've
spoken at a church Ryan, and my life's not been
anything but normal, So I'm like, what's going on what
do I need to know Scott? And he said, I've
been trying to get a hold of you because you know,
I'm running for governor and I want you to be
(06:03):
my lieutenant governor. Ask him direct.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So I was very.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well. I felt honored that Scott would ask me to
be his lieutenant governor, meaning if he couldn't carry on
his duties, I would have to step into that position.
So obviously Scott thought highly enough of me. He victor
say it, ask him direct. Here is representative Scott Bottoms
asking him directly about what you just heard.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, that's not what happened. Let me tell you the thing.
He is right about a couple of things. I had
been trying to reach him for months and I told
him when he actually and he wouldn't respond. I had
text him, I'd seen all kinds of messages, and you know, interestingly,
like a week before that, he texted me and said, hey,
(06:51):
I'm glad you're running for governor. And then like thirty
minutes later, he comes out with this statement, He's going
to make this announcement in a week or so to
run for a governor. And that caught me so off guard.
I'm like, what is going on in this guy's head.
You know, I really did think we were friends. I
(07:11):
really I did have him come to my church and
speak at a men's rally that we did and about
human trafficking some of that stuff. But this, this is
what actually happened on that phone call because I called him.
It was actually a few hours before he declared it
wasn't the night before. But so I sent him a
(07:33):
text because he wouldn't respond to him, and I said,
you should not run because I knew he would respond
to that. So he calls me. He says, what's up?
And he was irritated with me, right, And I said, Victor,
you don't know what's going on. I said, I've been
trying to reach you for months about human trafficking stuff.
I need you to get involved with that. Now that
all this other information is coming out, I think I
dodged a bullet there. I think that was pretty providential
(07:56):
that he did not actually respond and get involved on
human trafficking thing.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
What information are you referring to?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
There just lots of stuff that's coming out and will
continue to come out about the validity of the human
trafficking stuff and his arena in there. And the I'll
just leave it at that. This stuff is coming out.
I can give you some places to check. But to me,
it's good because I feel like he had conned me
(08:26):
when he came to our church. I he's taking up offerings,
he's doing all this stuff for human trafficking. Come to
find out, it's not exactly what it looks like. And
so I'm leaving that up to the media to dig
in there and figure that out. I'm getting so much
information and I'm just trying to say, look, call the media.
This is not my this is not my job. But
(08:48):
with all that said, I said, I'm calling you because
I'm trying to get you to help me with some
human trafficking stuff that I've been involved with. I've sat
on boards of human trafficking groups and I needed his
team to come in and help me to do that.
And I said, plus, I wanted to talk to you
about the campaign and even this Lieutenant governor concept. And
I said, but I can't do that now. I said,
(09:09):
you don't know what you're jumping into here. And I said,
I'm trying to warn you there are three people trying
to use you right now that are going to try
to use your your persona and try to get money
from you because they need they need money, they're broke,
and and they're they're just using you. And he said, well,
(09:29):
I don't agree with that, and uh.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
We're these three people using him.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I'll give you two names. I won't give you the
third one for a lot of different reasons. But uh,
the first person is Heidie Ganal. She's the one that's
been setting him up to run and do all this stuff.
And then the second one that came kind of later
to the game was Britta Horn. And and now Heidi's bailing.
(09:54):
I can explain that if you want me to. And
and Bretta Horn is just trying to use him. So
so Victor sent out this message. He actually called and
left a message on my voicemail saying, hey, this state
Party can't afford to have assembly, can you they need
seventy thousand dollars? Can you give money from your campaign?
And so I send him this text. I can show
(10:16):
you the text. I thought, okay that this is unethical,
This isn't appropriate for him to ask that question. And
I specifically have people that are given to me that
have said do not give to the State Party and
our State Party has never had a problem raised money
upuntil now, and so Heidi's already bailing. She's been trying
to get jobs in DC quite a bit lately, at
(10:38):
least five that I know of, and she's backing away
from Victor because now of this other controversy that's coming up,
with the validity of his human trafficking all this other stuff,
and so she's starting to try to put distance between
her and Victor. Britta can't do that yet because she's
asking Victor to help her raise money for the state Party.
So this is the stuff that I told vic on
(11:00):
that phone call, that original phone call. Victor, you don't
know what's going on. You're stepping into arena. You don't
have a clue about. He doesn't know anything about the state,
doesn't know anything about policy, doesn't know how bills work,
doesn't know how the budget works, doesn't know any of
this stuff. And when he's asked these questions, he doesn't
answer them. I told him this ahead of time, and
I specifically told him, Victor, I did want to use
(11:21):
you for some human trafficking help. I did want to
talk politics and even Lieutenant Governor, I said, but I
can't do that now you are destroying your own ministry.
You're destroying and he said, no, I've got my ministry
taken care of all. It's all going to be this
is the human trafficking stuff, it's all going to be
taken care of. Nothing to worry about there. I said, okay.
(11:41):
I said, but to me, that's more important than you
trying to run for governor. And then I told him,
I said, because you're not going to be governor, it's
not going to happen. And he said, well, no, you
can't win. That's the statement where he said, and he
did say this, he said, you can't win in the
general election. But here's the thing. I'm actually the only
publican on the list right now, of all twenty three
(12:03):
or four whatever they're running, I'm the only one that
can go at Senator Bennett. I'm the only one that
actually knows the information can debate with him. And I've
got the power and the passion to do it. And
I've proven that over my three years in the House,
and so the idea that somehow I can't win, I'm
so far ahead of all the rest of the Republicans
in this race, and they know it. That's why when
(12:24):
Senator Kirkmeyer hat's conversations and she said that's in the room.
She says things like, well, we Scott and I agree
on like ninety five percent of stuff, Well we don't.
We don't agree on almost anything. And then you know,
Victor is saying the same thing now that I thought
he could do this, and I thought he could win,
and I thought, you know, he could raise all this
(12:45):
money and all the things he's saying out there, well
none of that stuff's happening. And now that the state
is find this, his support has moved backwards. He's in
single digits right now. When it comes to support across
the state of Colorado, Senator Kirkmyer is the only one
that's not in single digits. She's in double digits, and
it's very small. But everybody else is in single digits,
(13:07):
including Victor. And I'm in the seventy five to eighty
percentile range. And so this is why, all of a sudden,
now everybody's trying to tag on to me, and Victor included.
And here's the thing that gets me is, I did
think we were friends, and now he's trying to use
my friendship and my relationship with them and coming and
speaking my church is some kind of leverage to gain
(13:28):
ground in this campaign instead of just get out there
and speak about who you are, say what your policy is.
Nobody can get him to talk about his policies because
he doesn't have them, and so go on shows like
this and say this is what I'm going to do
for housing, this is what I'm going to do against crime,
this is what I'm going to do for the economy.
I've been working with the Small Business Administrator with the
(13:51):
Trump he's the Chairman of Small Business Administration for the
Trump administration. We've got a plan where we're going to
be rolling out with small business to add to my
economic plan. We'll talk about that stuff instead of you know, I,
I'm I Scott likes me. You know, I don't know
that means. That's just bizarre to me. And it really
(14:13):
has bothered me on a personal level because I did
think we were friends, and now I realized that he
had been using me. I did ask him to become
of the church. Now I think he's been conning our
church in the process. And I'm not the only guy
that the pastor that feels that way. So so yeah,
that's actually what happened in that conversation. I never asked
him to be lieutenant governor and he knows it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Representative Scott Bottom's Republican candidate for governor joining us. A
couple things to follow up because you dropped some bombshells there.
One of the problems that I had, just speaking personally
now with Dave Williams as the former chairs, he stepped
into primaries in house races, US House races, state level
races as well, and endorsed candidates as the chair of
the party. I found that to be completely out of line,
(14:56):
and that was explicit. He came right out and did it.
Are you telling us right now that perhaps Britta Horn
is the chair of the Republican Party in Colorado right now,
is implicitly endorsing Victor Marx And is that a conflict
of interest in your mind?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yes, there is a conflict for me there. I don't
think that state party chair should be endorsing anybody. I
don't think county chairs should be endorsed in anybody. I've
got a lot of county chairs that have said that
to me that you know, behind the scenes, they're going
to vote for me there one hundred percent on board.
But they say, but I can't endorse you, And I
tell him that's totally understandable. That is how this is
(15:34):
supposed to go. Specifically, when you're talking about money, Okay,
I'm gonna put money here. I'm gonna put money here. Well,
counties and state party can't do that until there's only
one Republican candidate, right And that's just the way it works.
And I don't have a problem with that. The whole
brid of thing is for Victor to come out and
(15:54):
ask us to bail out. Now, I say us. I
don't actually know for sure if he asked any other
governor candidate. Okay, I did. When I text my response
to him, I did send it to Center Baisley and
Greg Lopez. I consider both of them my friends. They're
good guys, very solid guys. But I just assumed that
(16:15):
he had sent that to them too, And so I
told him, Victory, you can't do this. And I also
told him he needs to check on some campaign law,
campaign finance law, because I think there's a couple of
things that he's stepping right on the line where there
could be fines and stuff like this. So right now,
our state party doesn't need worse. We don't need more fines,
we don't need attacks from SOS the Secretary of State
(16:39):
to try to undermine what we're trying to do. Because
our state parties broke, they're talking about not even having
an assembly. So when she sends out Victor to say, Hey,
I'm going to rally the troops and I'm going to
be the Knight in Shining Arbor to come to everybody's rescue. Yeah, okay, Victor,
but you don't know how this works. You're potentially walking
on the edge of breaking laws here and then asking
(17:02):
me to donate to the state party when the state
Party's supposed to give to me. Although I've never ever
had one penny from the state Party, didn't matter who
the leadership in the past has been, I've never had
one penny. I've never had a phone call. I've never
had any of that kind of stuff having to do
with political stuff. Now. I did know Dave Williams on
a personal level, so and he and I talked about
things on a personal level, but never from a hey,
(17:24):
we're going to give you money or any of that
kind of stuff. Not that I've needed it, but so, yeah,
I don't appreciate Britta doing this, I think, and I've
stayed out of this conversation. I've stayed out of all
of this stuff from the very beginning because our state
party was crashing and burning. Now I think we're actually
just burning the whole thing down, and so I've tried
(17:45):
to stay away from it. But the only hope for
us to have an assembly and do the things that
by law we're allowed to do is if Brita resigns
and gets somebody in there that can actually raise money
instead of just having a bunch of lawsuits stuff going on.
And that's where she thought she could send Victor out
to do this, and it's going to hurt it's going
to continue to hurt our party, and it's going to
(18:07):
continue to hurt Victor. This is not the arena that
he needs to be involved in. He's either running for
governor he's not. And that's where the craziness is going
on right now.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Representative Scott Boddams will be part of a Republican Governor
candidate forum, a debate at the Double Tree by Hilton
and Greeley at Lincoln Park. That'll be Saturday, January tenth,
from one thirty to three thirty PM yours truly. Mandy
Connell will be moderating that debate very much looking forward
to it. And the identified six front runners in the
race all invited. Five of them agreed to attend, including
(18:39):
Representative Scott Bottoms Greg Lopez also will be their Senator
Bob Kirkmeyer, Senator Mark Baisley, and Sheriff Jason mike Sel.
All five of them will be in attendance. Victor Marx
declined We'll get into that when we come back after
the break. But one quick question here, Scott, I'm just
going to throw it out there. You mentioned there were
three people that you believed were either using victor are
(19:00):
propping them up hiding an all Brida horn. You said
you can't mention the third. Can you tell us why
you can't mention the third or why you won't.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, the reason I won't mention the third is because
it will affect a lot a lot more people, a
lot more innocent people. It's just a different dynamic, it's
not as much of a political concept. But yeah, I'm
just doing it to try to protect some people.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And then real quick about your church, what the people
need to know about that and your affiliation religiously, what
they need to know, just who.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
We are, that kind of thing. Yeah, So I've been
in ministry since I was twenty years old. I'm Assemblies
of God our church down in Colorado Springs Church at Briargate.
We've been there almost fourteen years now, and that's the
church where we had Victor come about maybe three years ago.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Okay, Representative Scott Bottoms joining us here live in studio.
We appreciate his time. Your response reaction at five seven,
seven three nine. If you have a question for him
as well, you can send those along via text. When
we come back, we'll talk more about the debate and
more about his policy positions. Representative Scott Boham's candidate for
Colorado governor, stays with us after this. This debate was
(20:17):
set up by Steve Wells and Sheriff Steve Reims with
a month notice exactly, So it would have been December
tenth preparing for January tenth. You already had some events schedule.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
How far in advance would you require notice in order
to participate in a.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Debate, Well, it just depends on my schedule and what
I have going. Look, I'm going to debate when I
want and who I want?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Period? Well, why is that up to you?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
The other five candidates agreed to this debate, they have
other obligations to and you, why is your time more
valuable than theirs?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
My time? Is that more valuable than theirs? But listen,
if the purpose of me running is.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
To win in Colorado, not Florida, that's.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Brilliant, Ryan, your professional for all these years, and that's
what you come up with.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Your event is in Florida. You told me that you
have four events in Florida. You just said that, Sir.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Captain obvious. You're stating what we're going over again and again.
If the purpose is for me to win, right, and
I have a very disciplined strategic campaign team. I choose
the events. When apparently we're leading in every aspect, I chuckle.
(21:38):
I mean the fact we're having this conversation. Five professional
politicians wanted me to show up so they could have
a little shark tank.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
One of those five professional politicians he's referring to in
order to operate said shark tank is representative Scott Bottoms
and he is now with us in studio to reply
to this. He will participating in the aforementioned debate That
will be January tenth, and that will be at the
Double Tree by Hilton in Greeley at Lincoln Park from
one thirty pm to three thirty pm. My colleague Mandy
(22:12):
Connell over at KOA. You's truly be moderating the debate.
Senator Barb Kirkmeyer, Senator Mark Baisley, former Congressman Greg Lopez,
Sheriff Jason Mike sel and Representative Scott Bottoms all accepting
that invitation. Victor Marx declined, Scott is back with us. Scott,
your response to what you just heard, Yeah, that's interesting.
(22:32):
So I think he's referring to me as one of
the career politicians or whatever.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
You know. So I've been a pastor for thirty five years.
I've been a representative for a hot second, and the
reason is because I wanted to change some things. I
don't even think Mikexel's ever been in political office, I
mean Sheriff conna Is. But but yeah, it's interesting the
frame of that way. I don't argue with that. He
(23:00):
can choose whatever he wants or whatever he doesn't want
to do. He's i mean, he's got a team, he's
grown adult or whatever. He wants. My deal with all
of this is I've even done some forums with with
Attorney General Wiser. I'm not as scared to talk to anybody.
I'll sit and have the conversation. I'll I went into
(23:21):
a very unfriendly room of quite a few hundred people
and had a discussion. There was four people that were invited, myself,
Senator kirk Meyer, Wiser, and Senator Bennett. And Senator kirk
Meyer didn't show up. I don't know why I didn't
ask her, It's not my business. Senator Bennett didn't show
(23:41):
up either, and turn General Wiser went after Bennett quite
a bit. From what I understand, Senator Bennett's not really
He's kind of doing the same thing Victor marsh doing.
He's not showing up to things. I have my ideas
of why him and Victor both are not, But at
the end of the day, I'll show up anywhere I'm not.
I know what my policies are, I know how to
verbalize them, I know how to articulate them in public,
(24:04):
and so I want to go to every one of
these that I possibly can. There's some that my schedule
won't allow me to be there, and I'm not picking
on Victor with that. If he says he's going to
be in Florida, he's going to be in Florida. That's
not my business. I guess it's more your business because
you're the media, But it's not my business. If he
doesn't want to show up, he doesn't have to show up.
But at the same time, he's losing opportunity to really
(24:26):
articulate his values and his principles and these kind of things. Plus,
this is a forum. I mean, you're saying it's kind
of a debate, but I think it's really just a forum.
We're not He doesn't have to worry about debating. I've
been in debates. That's not what a forum is. And
the forums are easy. You just get up and say
what you believe. You don't have to worry about what
(24:47):
anybody else says. So that's why I go to him,
and you know, and again I would say the same thing.
I'll choose what I can go to and what I can't.
But it's not because I don't know my issues or
I don't want to discuss this stuff. I will show
up and have that discussion. Fact. So, so you know,
he did say that he was leading I don't always
getting that information from all the statistics are showing I'm
(25:10):
so far ahead of them victors in single digits. Now,
with that being said, I am going to be the
guy coming out of the primary. Okay, I will be
the Republican candidate that goes against Bennett. And it won't
be Wiser, It'll be Bennett. Police has already made that clear,
and I can explain that if you want to unpack that.
But so I can't wait until I'm in a room
(25:33):
with media and center Bennett and our debating. I am
salivating for that moment. I will own that man.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So a couple things along the lines of ideology, Scott,
and that is there are people that would perceive this
as a fissure or a split between maybe evangelicals yourself
being a pastor of an Assembly of God church, Victor
Marx with his ministry, and that in a crowded primary,
especially with these major candidates we're talking about, that my
(26:00):
split support along those lines. The second part of that
analysis I want you to respond to is you are
extremely conservative and principled, and I think that will bode
well in a primary election, like you point out, but
that the criticism would be you're too conservative to win
in a general. You're too pro life, you're too far right.
The unaffiliateds won't vote for you. How do you respond
(26:22):
to that criticism?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
The first part of the riff that this is supposedly causing.
So a lot of people were concerned when Victor first
jumped in. I got hundreds, probably thousands of emails, text messages, Oh,
Victor's going to split the vote, He's going to take
your votes. And no he's not. And here's the reason why.
Heidi Ganal is the one who backed him. Heidi is
(26:45):
the one who said, we need you to run. And
here's so I'll just give you a little bit of
the insider baseball that that you may not know. I'm
the front runner. Everybody knows that coming in we've done
we've done discussions, all those kind of things. So coming
out of session into the summer, now, all of a sudden,
Senator Kirkmyer jumps in. Okay, well, the reason she jumped
(27:09):
in was to try to be because she's on the
opposite side of Republicanism than I am. I'm conservatives, She's
very liberal. You can see this in any of her
bills that she votes on, any of the any of
the groups that either Republican or Democrat groups the greatest.
In the House, we're on the opposite side of numbers.
Right in liberty, I'm ninety seven and cut I'm ninety one,
(27:32):
she's in the forties. You know. Then on the Democrat sides,
I'm in the zeros and she's in the seventy and eighties,
you know, kind of thing. So, so she came into
the race to take the wind out of my sales,
and because they are Republican leadership that just don't like me.
There's a handful of people that have been controlling the
state and doing some things for quite a few years now,
(27:55):
and they don't like me because I don't cow down
to their mentalities. I don't just go long to get along.
I really I really say what I believe and I
stand with it. And I think my three years in
the House has proven that I don't waiver. I am
very consistent. And so Kirkmeyer comes in to be the
person that's gonna change the whole race and pull everything
from me, and she just never got traction. At the
(28:17):
forum we did in Loveland, there was fourteen of us there.
They did a straw poll afterwards, and I had like
one hundred and something votes, I don't remember what it was,
one hundred and five hundred and ten, something like that.
And I think she was the only one. She's the
only one that was in double digits. She had twenty votes,
and she brought at least ten people with her because
(28:39):
I sat and talked to him in the four yer
ahead of time, right, So everybody else was in single digits.
Of Victor Marx was also on that. He didn't show
up to that also, but he was on the ballot
and he got three votes, I think something like that. Okay,
so so all of a sudden, everybody's realizing, you know,
Barber curk Myers not the one to take the wind
(29:04):
out of my sales. And so all of a sudden,
now Heidi goes to Victory and says, hey, let's do this,
let's let's run. And then there you know, there's another
person involved.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Why do you think Heidi didn't just throw her support
behind you.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, I thought she was for a while. I thought
I had a pretty decent relationship with Heidi. I had
interacted with her a handful of times. And and here's
the biggest reason is because I'm not part of the
system and Heidi is. I don't think Heidi's a bad person,
but I'll give you an example and the stuff that
we're seeing on our numbers right now, I'm going to
(29:38):
have about two hundred thousand votes more than Heidi. God,
if we had the election right now today. The reason
is because Heidi made some very bad decisions that were
that were philosophical, ideological decisions in the last campaign, and
they hurt her too bad because she wouldn't take a
stand when she needed to take the stand. And I
think her campaign was given her some bad direction too.
(29:58):
But so so I am I am more conservad than Heidi.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
And will that cost you in a general election in Colorado,
mostly blue state against something like Michael Bunnett.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Why not? No? And and there's a bunch of things.
So so with the whole Victor coming in, he he
doesn't hurt me. He hurts Barbar Kirkmeyer because Victor is
is not conservative. He he's part of the Christian crowd,
but he's not conservative. And part of the reason we
know this is because Heidi is the one that picked him.
How he doesn't strongly pick conservative people to surround herself.
(30:30):
With That's also why she didn't support me, all right,
because she could have. Why didn't she? Right, why didn't
Why didn't she support Senter Baisley. He's very conservative, right,
Greg Lopez is even pretty conservative. Why didn't she supported
Now I know why she didn't. Sport great ran against
each other, But so so she picks Victor. And now
(30:52):
Victor when he's getting questioned about things like abortion and
and these are all recorded stuff. He's not on the
conservative side of the subjects. He's not taking a strong
stand against abortion, he's not taking a strong stand against
the grooming stuff. Although that seems to be the Irenian's
come from me. He hasn't taken a strong stand on
things like Tina Peters. These are all conservative side of
(31:14):
the subjects stuff, right, And so that's why they picked him.
I didn't understand this at the time. I'd never really
sat down and talked politics with him, so I didn't
know what he thought about this stuff. I assumed he
was conservative like me, and come to find out he's not.
Now in the general, here's some I could talk about
this for like two hours, but let me give you
just a few little like arrows to shoot down and
(31:37):
you can. You can do your homework on this and
see if I'm making this stuff up. Okay, So, so
Forbes magazine did an article a few months ago, two
and a half, three months ago that said that that
Colorado is no longer a blue state, but there's gonna
be a if they've got a good, strong candidate, the
(31:58):
Republicans can actually in the governor seat. They Forbes did that,
Remember that, And then the last couple of sentences of
that Forbes Magazine actually told you why they wrote the article,
because there's always a reason. You don't just get those
kind of things are not just hey, here's information. They
have a reason behind it. So the last couple of
sentences said, this is a shot across the bow to
(32:19):
the Democrat leadership in Colorado. Okay. The Denver posted an
article back in late spring, early summer that said, and
this is the Google these are the words you can
use to google. This is Democrat leadership underwater with Democrat voters. Okay,
same thing. The Denver Post is trying to send a
shot across the bow to the Democrat leadership. And I'm
(32:39):
saying this publicly on the air, and I know I'm
not giving insider information because the Democrat leadership in the House,
the Senate, in the governor's office is not going to
wake up. They have moved so far to the left,
they have become so left and since so Marxists, they've
left a lot of their Democrat base behind. And we
get stuff all the time of Democrats that are going
to vote for me. I have Democrats that will call
(33:01):
me and say I had a Democrat lobbyist, a major
Democrat lobbyist say to me this last spring. He said,
we know he's talking about Democrats. He said, we know
we're going to lose all four state seats. A Democrat
lobbyist told me that here's the thing. Even if he's
half right, I'm the next governor. They know that they're
(33:22):
going to lose the governor's seat. Secretary of State, Attorney
General and treasure right. So, and I know I'm saying
this publicly on air, but I'll stand behind this. I've
been saying this for six months. Secretary of State Griswold
and Attorney General Wiser are probably going to be indicted
before the twenty sixth election. And it's not for the
election fraud stuff. There's four investigations going on for the
(33:44):
election fraud stuff. Okay, by the DOJ. This is a
total separate thing that's going on that has to do
with sedition, treason against the federal government. And some of
this stuff was recorded, and the Democrats know this. All
of their insider numbers are telling us that they know this.
(34:04):
That there's going to be a Republican governor. But it
has to be a strong personality, it has to be
a strong leader. Well, here's the thing. You look at
why Trump got elected. It it wasn't purely because of
his rhetoric of policies and stuff like that. Although people
like me that's why I voted for him. It's like,
I know what he's going to do, but it's because
(34:25):
he's a strong leader that won't compromise and even people
that don't necessarily agree with everything that he believes policy wise.
We need a strong after Biden, you know that we
needed a strong leader to lead our country in all
these areas well, and in the entire Republican grouping right now,
(34:47):
the one hundred and fifty people that are running, I
am I am that strong leader and there's no doubt
about that. I mean, anybody that does any homework on
me anything that you look at my speeches in the House,
you look at anything I've done. I let's hear anything.
I'm that strong leader and that's what people are looking for.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Got to put you on pause there. We'll come back
after this time out. Representative Scott Bottoms, Colorado governor candidate
on the Republican side, joining us here on Ryan Schuling Live.
Representative Scott Bottoms in studio with us your questions at
five seven, seven three nine. He's already agreed to stay
with us for one extra segment because there's a very
(35:24):
important issue that I want to discuss with him and
sort out in this Colorado Governor's race. Again, five of
the six top candidates will be participating in a candidate forum.
Yours truly Mandy Connor will serve as the moderators for this.
It'll be taking place on Saturday, January tenth, one thirty
to three thirty pm at the Double Tree by Hilton
(35:44):
Greeley at Lincoln Park. Greg Lopez, Senator Mark Baisley, Senator
Barb Kirkmeyer, Sheriff Jason Michael, and the aforementioned Representative Scott
Bottoms taking part quick question from a listener Here, Brad
and Hyland's Ranch wants to know Scott that, he says,
Scott needs to explain his statement that Victor is conning
his church. What do you mean by that, conning your church?
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Yeah, that's a pretty strong statement, but I stand by it.
We had him come to our church to talk about
the human trafficking and all this stuff that's involved with that,
and we gave him offering these kind of things. Right now,
there's so much information out there that maybe that's not
exactly what it appeared to be, and maybe the human
trafficking arena is not as he's not doing as much
(36:28):
within that as what the offerings are for. And so, yeah,
I feel like I feel like he's he's I feel
like he's used me in three or four different ways,
used our friendship completely made this. I asked him to
be lieutenant governor. I did the opposite. I said I was,
(36:49):
but I can't now and then said some things on.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
This Why would you ask him to be lieutenant governor
if you believed he was conning your church? Or is
that why you're saying.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
No, No, I didn't know any of that stuff. When I
wouldn't have had him come to the church if I
if I knew all the stuff I know now, I
would not have my men's director, who actually is the
one who asked him to come. He and I have
talked about this. We made a major mistake. We should
not have had him come to the church because of
all of this other stuff where I've got I've got well,
I won't go into all that, but I just there's
(37:18):
a lot of information that we are finding out now
that is that is horrific when it comes to what's
actually going on and what he says is going on.
And so, yeah, I feel like he conned me. I
feel like he conned me on a relational level. And
then and then even sent me a text this morning
(37:38):
on the way over here saying, Hey, remember we're buddies,
and when you go on the show, remember the conversation
we had. I'm like, I do remember the conversation, and
you misrepresented it. You said I asked you to be
lieutenant governor. Do I just ignore that? Do I just
pretend like that didn't happen. I did not ask him
to be lieutenant governor. And so I feel like he's
conned me and conned the church and everything more.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Th Representative Scott Bottoms after this,
Here's why I'm running. No one else can win in
the general but me. If Senator kirk Meyer could, if
she really could, I wouldn't be running if Scott Bottoms,
who I know and I've called her friend. I text
him when his father passed away. Yeah, I wrote on
(00:21):
his Facebook page it was his anniversary thirty five years
with him and his bride yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So much like in a debate format which Victor Marx
is passing on for January tenth, when a name is invoked,
that person gets an invitation. I have reached out to
Barb Kirkmeyer, hoping to have her on either tomorrow or Friday.
And Representative Scott Bottoms, who was just mentioned there in
my previous conversation with Victor Marx, joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Live in studio today. Scott, thank you so much for
your time. Yeah, it's always a privileged things.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
First and foremost, my deepest condolence is on the passing
of your father. I can only imagine what you're going
through with that. Let's start there, just personally, how difficult
it was for you to manage that and stay focused
on a campaign.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
What's going on with you right now? Yeah, that is
a difficult direction in life. I mean, it changes everything.
He's patriarch, he did have dementia pretty bad, and he
was in memory care, and so there's there's some of
you that says, this is a relief for him. He
told me growing up. I heard him say this one
(01:30):
hundred times at least. I don't ever want to get
to that place where I'm depending upon other people, where
I'm sitting in a wheelchair, I'm or I don't know
who I am. This happened with his mother, and and
so then to seem that way, and my wife and
I've talked about this a lot, that he would not
want to have been where he was, and so when
he passed, which which actually kind of happened suddenly, it
(01:53):
was kind of a relief in my spirit. I don't
I don't know how to verbalize that, but I know
he's in heaven. I know he's with the with Jesus,
and that makes everything okay for me. So, what impact
did your father have on your life in its direction, Scott?
Was there a part of him that continues on in
you and your pursuits for politics anything along those lines. Well,
(02:16):
so my family wasn't really political growing up. I don't
remember us like having big discussions about this and talking
about things. My dad was a very strong personality in
a lot of different ways. He and I didn't really
get along much when I was growing up really at all,
and there were some difficulties there. But I watched how
(02:38):
he did things, and I really did appreciate and admire
some of the things he did and how he did them.
And I was actually having this conversation with somebody just
the other day. You know, you're sitting around reminiscing about
your life, and you know, your dad just passed all
these things. And I remember an incident when I was
six years old when he was the principal of the
(02:59):
high school in the city where we were, and elementary
is like across the fields, and we'd come over for
a pep rally at the school. At the high school,
all of the elementary did and this was like a
big state game or something, and we're playing a team
(03:19):
that their mascot was the Indians, And I did not
understand any of this at the time. It was probably
ten years later before I really worked all this out.
But during the pep rally, they had this guy that
was Native American that dressed up in Indian clothes and
ran around the gym and then the football players tackley
(03:40):
broke his arm, broke his collar bone, all this stuff.
I mean, it was horrible. I didn't I'm watching this
in the but I'm like six, I'm like, yeah, first grade.
I didn't know what's going on. But that evening we
went to the hospital and I remember standing in the
hospital visiting this kid. I didn't know why we were there.
I didn't know what was happening. And the conversation leaving
(04:03):
the hospital on the way home, I realized that this
was a racist thing that they had. They had used
this kid, and and I didn't understand that racism was
not part of my thought process or a household just
never was. And how my dad was so mad. He
didn't know what was happening, and he fired the coach
(04:23):
that day and all this other stuff because don't do this. Well,
then the whole city started. It was a little community
in Texas, and the whole community started coming out after him.
And I'm talking to this guy in my church about
this and just telling him the whole thing, and he
said to me, he said, he said, that's what I
see in you. That's the same concept, he said. He said,
you're probably not as different from your dad as you think.
(04:45):
It was a it was a it was a nice
little moment for me to process. Hey, you know, dad,
Dad really had some good thoughts when it came to
how we treat people, and he always treated people good.
But but yeah, that one just hit me kind of hard.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Representative Scott Bottoms joining US Republican candidate for governor. And Scott,
our thoughts and prayers are with you, especially during this
holiday season. So tough to lose a parent during this time.
But truly is really sending the best out to you
and for his memory, and what a great memory you
just recalled right there. Victor Marx also went on to
describe this interaction with you, and one of the main
(05:23):
reasons you reached out to me is you wanted to
comment and respond to this. So here it is for
our listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Scott can't win the general. He called me the night
before I announced and he said, Victor, don't announce.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I said why why?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And I'm talking to him as a friend who I've
spoken at a church Ryan, and my life's not been
anything but normal, So I'm like, what's going on what
do I need to know Scott? And he said, I've
been trying to get a hold of you because you know,
I'm running for governor and I want you to be
(06:03):
my lieutenant governor. Ask him direct.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So I was very.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well. I felt honored that Scott would ask me to
be his lieutenant governor, meaning if he couldn't carry on
his duties, I would have to step into that position.
So obviously Scott thought highly enough of me. He victor
say it, ask him direct. Here is representative Scott Bottoms
asking him directly about what you just heard.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, that's not what happened. Let me tell you the thing.
He is right about a couple of things. I had
been trying to reach him for months and I told
him when he actually and he wouldn't respond. I had
text him, I'd seen all kinds of messages, and you know, interestingly,
like a week before that, he texted me and said, hey,
(06:51):
I'm glad you're running for governor. And then like thirty
minutes later, he comes out with this statement, He's going
to make this announcement in a week or so to
run for a governor. And that caught me so off guard.
I'm like, what is going on in this guy's head.
You know, I really did think we were friends. I
(07:11):
really I did have him come to my church and
speak at a men's rally that we did and about
human trafficking some of that stuff. But this, this is
what actually happened on that phone call because I called him.
It was actually a few hours before he declared it
wasn't the night before. But so I sent him a
(07:33):
text because he wouldn't respond to him, and I said,
you should not run because I knew he would respond
to that. So he calls me. He says, what's up?
And he was irritated with me, right, And I said, Victor,
you don't know what's going on. I said, I've been
trying to reach you for months about human trafficking stuff.
I need you to get involved with that. Now that
all this other information is coming out, I think I
dodged a bullet there. I think that was pretty providential
(07:56):
that he did not actually respond and get involved on
human trafficking thing.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
What information are you referring to?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
There just lots of stuff that's coming out and will
continue to come out about the validity of the human
trafficking stuff and his arena in there. And the I'll
just leave it at that. This stuff is coming out.
I can give you some places to check. But to me,
it's good because I feel like he had conned me
(08:26):
when he came to our church. I he's taking up offerings,
he's doing all this stuff for human trafficking. Come to
find out, it's not exactly what it looks like. And
so I'm leaving that up to the media to dig
in there and figure that out. I'm getting so much
information and I'm just trying to say, look, call the media.
This is not my this is not my job. But
(08:48):
with all that said, I said, I'm calling you because
I'm trying to get you to help me with some
human trafficking stuff that I've been involved with. I've sat
on boards of human trafficking groups and I needed his
team to come in and help me to do that.
And I said, plus, I wanted to talk to you
about the campaign and even this Lieutenant governor concept. And
I said, but I can't do that now. I said,
(09:09):
you don't know what you're jumping into here. And I said,
I'm trying to warn you there are three people trying
to use you right now that are going to try
to use your your persona and try to get money
from you because they need they need money, they're broke,
and and they're they're just using you. And he said, well,
(09:29):
I don't agree with that, and uh.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
We're these three people using him.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I'll give you two names. I won't give you the
third one for a lot of different reasons. But uh,
the first person is Heidie Ganal. She's the one that's
been setting him up to run and do all this stuff.
And then the second one that came kind of later
to the game was Britta Horn. And and now Heidi's bailing.
(09:54):
I can explain that if you want me to. And
and Bretta Horn is just trying to use him. So
so Victor sent out this message. He actually called and
left a message on my voicemail saying, hey, this state
Party can't afford to have assembly, can you they need
seventy thousand dollars? Can you give money from your campaign?
And so I send him this text. I can show
(10:16):
you the text. I thought, okay that this is unethical,
This isn't appropriate for him to ask that question. And
I specifically have people that are given to me that
have said do not give to the State Party and
our State Party has never had a problem raised money
upuntil now, and so Heidi's already bailing. She's been trying
to get jobs in DC quite a bit lately, at
(10:38):
least five that I know of, and she's backing away
from Victor because now of this other controversy that's coming up,
with the validity of his human trafficking all this other stuff,
and so she's starting to try to put distance between
her and Victor. Britta can't do that yet because she's
asking Victor to help her raise money for the state Party.
So this is the stuff that I told vic on
(11:00):
that phone call, that original phone call. Victor, you don't
know what's going on. You're stepping into arena. You don't
have a clue about. He doesn't know anything about the state,
doesn't know anything about policy, doesn't know how bills work,
doesn't know how the budget works, doesn't know any of
this stuff. And when he's asked these questions, he doesn't
answer them. I told him this ahead of time, and
I specifically told him, Victor, I did want to use
(11:21):
you for some human trafficking help. I did want to
talk politics and even Lieutenant Governor, I said, but I
can't do that now you are destroying your own ministry.
You're destroying and he said, no, I've got my ministry
taken care of all. It's all going to be this
is the human trafficking stuff, it's all going to be
taken care of. Nothing to worry about there. I said, okay.
(11:41):
I said, but to me, that's more important than you
trying to run for governor. And then I told him,
I said, because you're not going to be governor, it's
not going to happen. And he said, well, no, you
can't win. That's the statement where he said, and he
did say this, he said, you can't win in the
general election. But here's the thing. I'm actually the only
publican on the list right now, of all twenty three
(12:03):
or four whatever they're running, I'm the only one that
can go at Senator Bennett. I'm the only one that
actually knows the information can debate with him. And I've
got the power and the passion to do it. And
I've proven that over my three years in the House,
and so the idea that somehow I can't win, I'm
so far ahead of all the rest of the Republicans
in this race, and they know it. That's why when
(12:24):
Senator Kirkmeyer hat's conversations and she said that's in the room.
She says things like, well, we Scott and I agree
on like ninety five percent of stuff, Well we don't.
We don't agree on almost anything. And then you know,
Victor is saying the same thing now that I thought
he could do this, and I thought he could win,
and I thought, you know, he could raise all this
(12:45):
money and all the things he's saying out there, well
none of that stuff's happening. And now that the state
is find this, his support has moved backwards. He's in
single digits right now. When it comes to support across
the state of Colorado, Senator Kirkmyer is the only one
that's not in single digits. She's in double digits, and
it's very small. But everybody else is in single digits,
(13:07):
including Victor. And I'm in the seventy five to eighty
percentile range. And so this is why, all of a sudden,
now everybody's trying to tag on to me, and Victor included.
And here's the thing that gets me is, I did
think we were friends, and now he's trying to use
my friendship and my relationship with them and coming and
speaking my church is some kind of leverage to gain
(13:28):
ground in this campaign instead of just get out there
and speak about who you are, say what your policy is.
Nobody can get him to talk about his policies because
he doesn't have them, and so go on shows like
this and say this is what I'm going to do
for housing, this is what I'm going to do against crime,
this is what I'm going to do for the economy.
I've been working with the Small Business Administrator with the
(13:51):
Trump he's the Chairman of Small Business Administration for the
Trump administration. We've got a plan where we're going to
be rolling out with small business to add to my
economic plan. We'll talk about that stuff instead of you know, I,
I'm I Scott likes me. You know, I don't know
that means. That's just bizarre to me. And it really
(14:13):
has bothered me on a personal level because I did
think we were friends, and now I realized that he
had been using me. I did ask him to become
of the church. Now I think he's been conning our
church in the process. And I'm not the only guy
that the pastor that feels that way. So so yeah,
that's actually what happened in that conversation. I never asked
him to be lieutenant governor and he knows it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Representative Scott Bottom's Republican candidate for governor joining us. A
couple things to follow up because you dropped some bombshells there.
One of the problems that I had, just speaking personally
now with Dave Williams as the former chairs, he stepped
into primaries in house races, US House races, state level
races as well, and endorsed candidates as the chair of
the party. I found that to be completely out of line,
(14:56):
and that was explicit. He came right out and did it.
Are you telling us right now that perhaps Britta Horn
is the chair of the Republican Party in Colorado right now,
is implicitly endorsing Victor Marx And is that a conflict
of interest in your mind?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yes, there is a conflict for me there. I don't
think that state party chair should be endorsing anybody. I
don't think county chairs should be endorsed in anybody. I've
got a lot of county chairs that have said that
to me that you know, behind the scenes, they're going
to vote for me there one hundred percent on board.
But they say, but I can't endorse you, And I
tell him that's totally understandable. That is how this is
(15:34):
supposed to go. Specifically, when you're talking about money, Okay,
I'm gonna put money here. I'm gonna put money here. Well,
counties and state party can't do that until there's only
one Republican candidate, right And that's just the way it works.
And I don't have a problem with that. The whole
brid of thing is for Victor to come out and
(15:54):
ask us to bail out. Now, I say us. I
don't actually know for sure if he asked any other
governor candidate. Okay, I did. When I text my response
to him, I did send it to Center Baisley and
Greg Lopez. I consider both of them my friends. They're
good guys, very solid guys. But I just assumed that
(16:15):
he had sent that to them too, And so I
told him, Victory, you can't do this. And I also
told him he needs to check on some campaign law,
campaign finance law, because I think there's a couple of
things that he's stepping right on the line where there
could be fines and stuff like this. So right now,
our state party doesn't need worse. We don't need more fines,
we don't need attacks from SOS the Secretary of State
(16:39):
to try to undermine what we're trying to do. Because
our state parties broke, they're talking about not even having
an assembly. So when she sends out Victor to say, Hey,
I'm going to rally the troops and I'm going to
be the Knight in Shining Arbor to come to everybody's rescue. Yeah, okay, Victor,
but you don't know how this works. You're potentially walking
on the edge of breaking laws here and then asking
(17:02):
me to donate to the state party when the state
Party's supposed to give to me. Although I've never ever
had one penny from the state Party, didn't matter who
the leadership in the past has been, I've never had
one penny. I've never had a phone call. I've never
had any of that kind of stuff having to do
with political stuff. Now. I did know Dave Williams on
a personal level, so and he and I talked about
things on a personal level, but never from a hey,
(17:24):
we're going to give you money or any of that
kind of stuff. Not that I've needed it, but so, yeah,
I don't appreciate Britta doing this, I think, and I've
stayed out of this conversation. I've stayed out of all
of this stuff from the very beginning because our state
party was crashing and burning. Now I think we're actually
just burning the whole thing down, and so I've tried
(17:45):
to stay away from it. But the only hope for
us to have an assembly and do the things that
by law we're allowed to do is if Brita resigns
and gets somebody in there that can actually raise money
instead of just having a bunch of lawsuits stuff going on.
And that's where she thought she could send Victor out
to do this, and it's going to hurt it's going
to continue to hurt our party, and it's going to
(18:07):
continue to hurt Victor. This is not the arena that
he needs to be involved in. He's either running for
governor he's not. And that's where the craziness is going
on right now.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Representative Scott Boddams will be part of a Republican Governor
candidate forum, a debate at the Double Tree by Hilton
and Greeley at Lincoln Park. That'll be Saturday, January tenth,
from one thirty to three thirty PM yours truly. Mandy
Connell will be moderating that debate very much looking forward
to it. And the identified six front runners in the
race all invited. Five of them agreed to attend, including
(18:39):
Representative Scott Bottoms Greg Lopez also will be their Senator
Bob Kirkmeyer, Senator Mark Baisley, and Sheriff Jason mike Sel.
All five of them will be in attendance. Victor Marx
declined We'll get into that when we come back after
the break. But one quick question here, Scott, I'm just
going to throw it out there. You mentioned there were
three people that you believed were either using victor are
(19:00):
propping them up hiding an all Brida horn. You said
you can't mention the third. Can you tell us why
you can't mention the third or why you won't.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, the reason I won't mention the third is because
it will affect a lot a lot more people, a
lot more innocent people. It's just a different dynamic, it's
not as much of a political concept. But yeah, I'm
just doing it to try to protect some people.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And then real quick about your church, what the people
need to know about that and your affiliation religiously, what
they need to know, just who.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
We are, that kind of thing. Yeah, So I've been
in ministry since I was twenty years old. I'm Assemblies
of God our church down in Colorado Springs Church at Briargate.
We've been there almost fourteen years now, and that's the
church where we had Victor come about maybe three years ago.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Okay, Representative Scott Bottoms joining us here live in studio.
We appreciate his time. Your response reaction at five seven,
seven three nine. If you have a question for him
as well, you can send those along via text. When
we come back, we'll talk more about the debate and
more about his policy positions. Representative Scott Boham's candidate for
Colorado governor, stays with us after this. This debate was
(20:17):
set up by Steve Wells and Sheriff Steve Reims with
a month notice exactly, So it would have been December
tenth preparing for January tenth. You already had some events schedule.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
How far in advance would you require notice in order
to participate in a.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Debate, Well, it just depends on my schedule and what
I have going. Look, I'm going to debate when I
want and who I want?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Period? Well, why is that up to you?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
The other five candidates agreed to this debate, they have
other obligations to and you, why is your time more
valuable than theirs?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
My time? Is that more valuable than theirs? But listen,
if the purpose of me running is.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
To win in Colorado, not Florida, that's.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Brilliant, Ryan, your professional for all these years, and that's
what you come up with.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Your event is in Florida. You told me that you
have four events in Florida. You just said that, Sir.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Captain obvious. You're stating what we're going over again and again.
If the purpose is for me to win, right, and
I have a very disciplined strategic campaign team. I choose
the events. When apparently we're leading in every aspect, I chuckle.
(21:38):
I mean the fact we're having this conversation. Five professional
politicians wanted me to show up so they could have
a little shark tank.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
One of those five professional politicians he's referring to in
order to operate said shark tank is representative Scott Bottoms
and he is now with us in studio to reply
to this. He will participating in the aforementioned debate That
will be January tenth, and that will be at the
Double Tree by Hilton in Greeley at Lincoln Park from
one thirty pm to three thirty pm. My colleague Mandy
(22:12):
Connell over at KOA. You's truly be moderating the debate.
Senator Barb Kirkmeyer, Senator Mark Baisley, former Congressman Greg Lopez,
Sheriff Jason Mike sel and Representative Scott Bottoms all accepting
that invitation. Victor Marx declined, Scott is back with us. Scott,
your response to what you just heard, Yeah, that's interesting.
(22:32):
So I think he's referring to me as one of
the career politicians or whatever.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
You know. So I've been a pastor for thirty five years.
I've been a representative for a hot second, and the
reason is because I wanted to change some things. I
don't even think Mikexel's ever been in political office, I
mean Sheriff conna Is. But but yeah, it's interesting the
frame of that way. I don't argue with that. He
(23:00):
can choose whatever he wants or whatever he doesn't want
to do. He's i mean, he's got a team, he's
grown adult or whatever. He wants. My deal with all
of this is I've even done some forums with with
Attorney General Wiser. I'm not as scared to talk to anybody.
I'll sit and have the conversation. I'll I went into
(23:21):
a very unfriendly room of quite a few hundred people
and had a discussion. There was four people that were invited, myself,
Senator kirk Meyer, Wiser, and Senator Bennett. And Senator kirk
Meyer didn't show up. I don't know why I didn't
ask her, It's not my business. Senator Bennett didn't show
(23:41):
up either, and turn General Wiser went after Bennett quite
a bit. From what I understand, Senator Bennett's not really
He's kind of doing the same thing Victor marsh doing.
He's not showing up to things. I have my ideas
of why him and Victor both are not, But at
the end of the day, I'll show up anywhere I'm not.
I know what my policies are, I know how to
verbalize them, I know how to articulate them in public,
(24:04):
and so I want to go to every one of
these that I possibly can. There's some that my schedule
won't allow me to be there, and I'm not picking
on Victor with that. If he says he's going to
be in Florida, he's going to be in Florida. That's
not my business. I guess it's more your business because
you're the media, But it's not my business. If he
doesn't want to show up, he doesn't have to show up.
But at the same time, he's losing opportunity to really
(24:26):
articulate his values and his principles and these kind of things. Plus,
this is a forum. I mean, you're saying it's kind
of a debate, but I think it's really just a forum.
We're not He doesn't have to worry about debating. I've
been in debates. That's not what a forum is. And
the forums are easy. You just get up and say
what you believe. You don't have to worry about what
(24:47):
anybody else says. So that's why I go to him,
and you know, and again I would say the same thing.
I'll choose what I can go to and what I can't.
But it's not because I don't know my issues or
I don't want to discuss this stuff. I will show
up and have that discussion. Fact. So, so you know,
he did say that he was leading I don't always
getting that information from all the statistics are showing I'm
(25:10):
so far ahead of them victors in single digits. Now,
with that being said, I am going to be the
guy coming out of the primary. Okay, I will be
the Republican candidate that goes against Bennett. And it won't
be Wiser, It'll be Bennett. Police has already made that clear,
and I can explain that if you want to unpack that.
But so I can't wait until I'm in a room
(25:33):
with media and center Bennett and our debating. I am
salivating for that moment. I will own that man.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So a couple things along the lines of ideology, Scott,
and that is there are people that would perceive this
as a fissure or a split between maybe evangelicals yourself
being a pastor of an Assembly of God church, Victor
Marx with his ministry, and that in a crowded primary,
especially with these major candidates we're talking about, that my
(26:00):
split support along those lines. The second part of that
analysis I want you to respond to is you are
extremely conservative and principled, and I think that will bode
well in a primary election, like you point out, but
that the criticism would be you're too conservative to win
in a general. You're too pro life, you're too far right.
The unaffiliateds won't vote for you. How do you respond
(26:22):
to that criticism?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
The first part of the riff that this is supposedly causing.
So a lot of people were concerned when Victor first
jumped in. I got hundreds, probably thousands of emails, text messages, Oh,
Victor's going to split the vote, He's going to take
your votes. And no he's not. And here's the reason why.
Heidi Ganal is the one who backed him. Heidi is
(26:45):
the one who said, we need you to run. And
here's so I'll just give you a little bit of
the insider baseball that that you may not know. I'm
the front runner. Everybody knows that coming in we've done
we've done discussions, all those kind of things. So coming
out of session into the summer, now, all of a sudden,
Senator Kirkmyer jumps in. Okay, well, the reason she jumped
(27:09):
in was to try to be because she's on the
opposite side of Republicanism than I am. I'm conservatives, She's
very liberal. You can see this in any of her
bills that she votes on, any of the any of
the groups that either Republican or Democrat groups the greatest.
In the House, we're on the opposite side of numbers.
Right in liberty, I'm ninety seven and cut I'm ninety one,
(27:32):
she's in the forties. You know. Then on the Democrat sides,
I'm in the zeros and she's in the seventy and eighties,
you know, kind of thing. So, so she came into
the race to take the wind out of my sales,
and because they are Republican leadership that just don't like me.
There's a handful of people that have been controlling the
state and doing some things for quite a few years now,
(27:55):
and they don't like me because I don't cow down
to their mentalities. I don't just go long to get along.
I really I really say what I believe and I
stand with it. And I think my three years in
the House has proven that I don't waiver. I am
very consistent. And so Kirkmeyer comes in to be the
person that's gonna change the whole race and pull everything
from me, and she just never got traction. At the
(28:17):
forum we did in Loveland, there was fourteen of us there.
They did a straw poll afterwards, and I had like
one hundred and something votes, I don't remember what it was,
one hundred and five hundred and ten, something like that.
And I think she was the only one. She's the
only one that was in double digits. She had twenty votes,
and she brought at least ten people with her because
(28:39):
I sat and talked to him in the four yer
ahead of time, right, So everybody else was in single digits.
Of Victor Marx was also on that. He didn't show
up to that also, but he was on the ballot
and he got three votes, I think something like that. Okay,
so so all of a sudden, everybody's realizing, you know,
Barber curk Myers not the one to take the wind
(29:04):
out of my sales. And so all of a sudden,
now Heidi goes to Victory and says, hey, let's do this,
let's let's run. And then there you know, there's another
person involved.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Why do you think Heidi didn't just throw her support
behind you.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, I thought she was for a while. I thought
I had a pretty decent relationship with Heidi. I had
interacted with her a handful of times. And and here's
the biggest reason is because I'm not part of the
system and Heidi is. I don't think Heidi's a bad person,
but I'll give you an example and the stuff that
we're seeing on our numbers right now, I'm going to
(29:38):
have about two hundred thousand votes more than Heidi. God,
if we had the election right now today. The reason
is because Heidi made some very bad decisions that were
that were philosophical, ideological decisions in the last campaign, and
they hurt her too bad because she wouldn't take a
stand when she needed to take the stand. And I
think her campaign was given her some bad direction too.
(29:58):
But so so I am I am more conservad than Heidi.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
And will that cost you in a general election in Colorado,
mostly blue state against something like Michael Bunnett.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Why not? No? And and there's a bunch of things.
So so with the whole Victor coming in, he he
doesn't hurt me. He hurts Barbar Kirkmeyer because Victor is
is not conservative. He he's part of the Christian crowd,
but he's not conservative. And part of the reason we
know this is because Heidi is the one that picked him.
How he doesn't strongly pick conservative people to surround herself.
(30:30):
With That's also why she didn't support me, all right,
because she could have. Why didn't she? Right, why didn't
Why didn't she support Senter Baisley. He's very conservative, right,
Greg Lopez is even pretty conservative. Why didn't she supported
Now I know why she didn't. Sport great ran against
each other, But so so she picks Victor. And now
(30:52):
Victor when he's getting questioned about things like abortion and
and these are all recorded stuff. He's not on the
conservative side of the subjects. He's not taking a strong
stand against abortion, he's not taking a strong stand against
the grooming stuff. Although that seems to be the Irenian's
come from me. He hasn't taken a strong stand on
things like Tina Peters. These are all conservative side of
(31:14):
the subjects stuff, right, And so that's why they picked him.
I didn't understand this at the time. I'd never really
sat down and talked politics with him, so I didn't
know what he thought about this stuff. I assumed he
was conservative like me, and come to find out he's not.
Now in the general, here's some I could talk about
this for like two hours, but let me give you
just a few little like arrows to shoot down and
(31:37):
you can. You can do your homework on this and
see if I'm making this stuff up. Okay, So, so
Forbes magazine did an article a few months ago, two
and a half, three months ago that said that that
Colorado is no longer a blue state, but there's gonna
be a if they've got a good, strong candidate, the
(31:58):
Republicans can actually in the governor seat. They Forbes did that,
Remember that, And then the last couple of sentences of
that Forbes Magazine actually told you why they wrote the article,
because there's always a reason. You don't just get those
kind of things are not just hey, here's information. They
have a reason behind it. So the last couple of
sentences said, this is a shot across the bow to
(32:19):
the Democrat leadership in Colorado. Okay. The Denver posted an
article back in late spring, early summer that said, and
this is the Google these are the words you can
use to google. This is Democrat leadership underwater with Democrat voters. Okay,
same thing. The Denver Post is trying to send a
shot across the bow to the Democrat leadership. And I'm
(32:39):
saying this publicly on the air, and I know I'm
not giving insider information because the Democrat leadership in the House,
the Senate, in the governor's office is not going to
wake up. They have moved so far to the left,
they have become so left and since so Marxists, they've
left a lot of their Democrat base behind. And we
get stuff all the time of Democrats that are going
to vote for me. I have Democrats that will call
(33:01):
me and say I had a Democrat lobbyist, a major
Democrat lobbyist say to me this last spring. He said,
we know he's talking about Democrats. He said, we know
we're going to lose all four state seats. A Democrat
lobbyist told me that here's the thing. Even if he's
half right, I'm the next governor. They know that they're
(33:22):
going to lose the governor's seat. Secretary of State, Attorney
General and treasure right. So, and I know I'm saying
this publicly on air, but I'll stand behind this. I've
been saying this for six months. Secretary of State Griswold
and Attorney General Wiser are probably going to be indicted
before the twenty sixth election. And it's not for the
election fraud stuff. There's four investigations going on for the
(33:44):
election fraud stuff. Okay, by the DOJ. This is a
total separate thing that's going on that has to do
with sedition, treason against the federal government. And some of
this stuff was recorded, and the Democrats know this. All
of their insider numbers are telling us that they know this.
(34:04):
That there's going to be a Republican governor. But it
has to be a strong personality, it has to be
a strong leader. Well, here's the thing. You look at
why Trump got elected. It it wasn't purely because of
his rhetoric of policies and stuff like that. Although people
like me that's why I voted for him. It's like,
I know what he's going to do, but it's because
(34:25):
he's a strong leader that won't compromise and even people
that don't necessarily agree with everything that he believes policy wise.
We need a strong after Biden, you know that we
needed a strong leader to lead our country in all
these areas well, and in the entire Republican grouping right now,
(34:47):
the one hundred and fifty people that are running, I
am I am that strong leader and there's no doubt
about that. I mean, anybody that does any homework on
me anything that you look at my speeches in the House,
you look at anything I've done. I let's hear anything.
I'm that strong leader and that's what people are looking for.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Got to put you on pause there. We'll come back
after this time out. Representative Scott Bottoms, Colorado governor candidate
on the Republican side, joining us here on Ryan Schuling Live.
Representative Scott Bottoms in studio with us your questions at
five seven, seven three nine. He's already agreed to stay
with us for one extra segment because there's a very
(35:24):
important issue that I want to discuss with him and
sort out in this Colorado Governor's race. Again, five of
the six top candidates will be participating in a candidate forum.
Yours truly Mandy Connor will serve as the moderators for this.
It'll be taking place on Saturday, January tenth, one thirty
to three thirty pm at the Double Tree by Hilton
(35:44):
Greeley at Lincoln Park. Greg Lopez, Senator Mark Baisley, Senator
Barb Kirkmeyer, Sheriff Jason Michael, and the aforementioned Representative Scott
Bottoms taking part quick question from a listener Here, Brad
and Hyland's Ranch wants to know Scott that, he says,
Scott needs to explain his statement that Victor is conning
his church. What do you mean by that, conning your church?
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Yeah, that's a pretty strong statement, but I stand by it.
We had him come to our church to talk about
the human trafficking and all this stuff that's involved with that,
and we gave him offering these kind of things. Right now,
there's so much information out there that maybe that's not
exactly what it appeared to be, and maybe the human
trafficking arena is not as he's not doing as much
(36:28):
within that as what the offerings are for. And so, yeah,
I feel like I feel like he's he's I feel
like he's used me in three or four different ways,
used our friendship completely made this. I asked him to
be lieutenant governor. I did the opposite. I said I was,
(36:49):
but I can't now and then said some things on.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
This Why would you ask him to be lieutenant governor
if you believed he was conning your church? Or is
that why you're saying.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
No, No, I didn't know any of that stuff. When I
wouldn't have had him come to the church if I
if I knew all the stuff I know now, I
would not have my men's director, who actually is the
one who asked him to come. He and I have
talked about this. We made a major mistake. We should
not have had him come to the church because of
all of this other stuff where I've got I've got well,
I won't go into all that, but I just there's
(37:18):
a lot of information that we are finding out now
that is that is horrific when it comes to what's
actually going on and what he says is going on.
And so, yeah, I feel like he conned me. I
feel like he conned me on a relational level. And
then and then even sent me a text this morning
(37:38):
on the way over here saying, Hey, remember we're buddies,
and when you go on the show, remember the conversation
we had. I'm like, I do remember the conversation, and
you misrepresented it. You said I asked you to be
lieutenant governor. Do I just ignore that? Do I just
pretend like that didn't happen. I did not ask him
to be lieutenant governor. And so I feel like he's
conned me and conned the church and everything more.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Th Representative Scott Bottoms after this,
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