10 27 25 We talk with SC House Freedom Caucus member Jay Kilmartin

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Jonathan and Kelly Show.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Jonathan Rush, earlier this month, you called Maine Senate candidate
Graham Platner impressive. But since then, obviously a lot about
him has come out, including the fact that he had
a Nazi emblem tattooed on his chest. Do you still
think Platner is impressive?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Kelly Nash?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
She sounds like a human being to me, a human
being who made mistakes.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
And Kelly Show, I got to tell you something, not
since the word gravitas. Remember that word gravitas.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Of course, that was the Dick Cheney description that swept
the internet.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Is the world's gravitas. Have I seen a explanation on
the talking points Republican or Democrats sweep as quickly and
effectively as that one. You're trying to cover up the
Nazi tattoo on this guy's peck.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'll be honest with you. I don't study I don't
even study World War II that in depth. I know
some people are enthralled by World War Two. I mean
I watched Johnny's The World at War. I remember that
show back in the day on what was like PBS
used to show that back in the day. I had
never heard the turn Totten kompf am I saying it right,
I don't know. Apparently that's the thing that was on

(01:14):
the SS officers hats. That's how you knew you were
you were a Nazi officer if you had the Totten
coff on your hat. Is that a Totten cuff on
your unfom anyway, Apparently he got that tattooed on his
right breast back in nineteen ninety seven. Didn't know what.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
It was, so he says, and you know what, I'll.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Go with that. I mean, I've met lots of people
who don't know what they got tattooed on them.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Jimmy Buffett and who else. He said he was drunk.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Plenty of co ed's have come back from Florida with
stuff on them that they've.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
All this new, brand new tattoo.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
So, but I don't know the reason.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
But they they do have audio of this guy in
twenty twelve. In twenty ten, he was posting about it
and he was calling it my Taunton comp In twenty
ten he's referring to it. So if you know the word,
maybe he didn't know it in two thousand and seven,
but you knew it in twenty ten. Wow, and you
knew it in twenty twelve when you're talking about it. Come,

(02:21):
So he just got it covered up like what a
couple of months ago, And by covered up that thing
is looks even more demonic. Whatever he's got that thing.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
I know they like put one of the characters off
of like a video game like pac Man. It looks
like one of the pac Man ghosts chasing across his chest.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
But you know, they also have posts of this guy
on Reddit from twenty twenty one talking about the toutonkomp
he's also talking about how we need to go full
communist socialism, isn't strong enough, cops are nothing more than
opportunistic cowards, why don't black people tip? And then apparently

(02:59):
a whole myriad of homophobic slurs and those types of things,
And I'm just reading this from a left leaning magazine.
Plantner has used homophobic language and rhetoric that mocked and
demeaned the LGBTQ plus community, and appears to use slurs
casually in discussions unrelated to sexuality and others. He explicitly

(03:22):
frames gay people as always being the punchline. So the left,
the at least the intellectually honest. Amongst the left hate
this guy because he is the opposite of what they wanted.
But you just heard Chris Murphy from Connecticut. Bernie Sanders
is sticking by him, and the main reason seems to

(03:45):
be because he in a head to head race against
Susan Collins. He is favorited to win that race.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
He's winning, so how can we not back him. He's winning.
It's kind of like Mom Donnie, he's winning.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
The fact that he loves Nazis, Well for Mom Donnie,
I don't know that he loves Nazis. I know that
Mam Donnie refuses to distance himself from any from the
River to the Sea quote. He won't condemn it.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
He won't condemn hamas he will.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Not condemn hamas he stands by the original statements of winning,
we should take Israel and remove it from the map.
That's Mam Donnie for you. And but he's winning, So
even the New York Jews are supporting Mam Donnie and
his effort. Again, he said I would arrest I would
arrest the president of Israel if he ever showed up

(04:32):
at the UN.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
You set foot in the city limits of New York city.
You're gonna be going to jail. Look at frog Mark.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Now, will you arrest rapists? No, no, because we got
to get their backstory. We got we don't know if they.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, what if?

Speaker 3 (04:47):
What if that rapist was raped himself? How could I
punish him for being the victim?

Speaker 1 (04:52):
So that's all.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
You don't become a rapist on your own. But if
you did, then we'll arrest you.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
You got to be taught how to do that.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
But yeah, Grand Plantner May today may be a big
day in Graham's life because apparently Susan Mills I think
is the former or soon to be former governor. She's
also running in the primary. He was up thirty four
points last month. Okay, thirty four points on her in
this primary. The poll that came out yesterday has him

(05:21):
down five to her. Now, oh my gosh, So this
is just Maine likely voters.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
A thirty nine point swing.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yes, in a month. That's when this whole scandal started erupting.
So will Bernie Sanders now today back off his support
Will Chris Murphy from Connecticut? He just sounds like a
human being. The one with the Nazi tattoos. Yeah, that's
the one.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
He just made. It just sounds like a guy just
made a mistake. Okay, well that he's not winning definitely. Well,
I think the voters are spoken, the constituency has spoken.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
I mean it's great because when you think, well, again,
I don't know who likes Nazis? Does anybody? I don't
even think because again the Democrats are telling us here.
If these polls are accurate, then even the Democrats don't
like Nazis. I know, Republicans don't.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Have somebody who likes Nazis. Some tattoo shop operators, they're
making money off the tattoos. Other than that, I can't
think of anybody.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
I mean, this is this is a It would have
to be a tough sell.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
And how the hell if you're a tattoo shopper. I
was just thinking if I walked into Public's in one
of the Nazi birthday came, do you think they would
do that?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Remember there was a kid that some white supremacist family
named their kid Adolf Hitler. Yes, and they wanted to
get the Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler cake made and the
bakery wouldn't make it, and then they tried to sue
the bakery. Yep, but I think they lost that case.
And I think I'm pretty sure if it was a
sane state, they would have taken the kid from them.

(06:53):
Why would you name your child Adolf Hitler?

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Good Lord? All right, So all of that's continue to enrolled.
And by the way, Donald Trump doesn't care about Americans.
He's leaving the country. He's gonna be gone for a
week listening.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
He already left, right. I saw a video of him dancing.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
With the gone for a week.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
They were dancing, Yes, the Malaysian kids, the Malaysian kids,
they all wanted to greet Donald Trump with his YMCA dance.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
With the YMCA dance kind of. I think he changed
it up for him a little bit. So obviously he
doesn't care about the American people. He's not willing to
come Ben and then Aida Chuck Schumer.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
I heard Mark Kelly, the Arizona Senator and guy who
wants to be the president, came to Columbia and Charleston
about two three months ago talking about how he should
be the next president, saying that Trump doesn't care and
that if Trump cared, he would be negotiating right now
with Democrats. And the interviewer pushed back and said Trump

(07:45):
has already said he's not going to give you a
nickel of that one and a half trillion that you're
looking for for healthcare. So what else is there to negotiate?
And this is not associated with the funding bill that
we're talking about. We're not negotiating that, and we're just
looking for a clean resolution. And he said, well, he's wrong.
It would make a difference if we could sit down

(08:07):
and talk to him. And so she was like, would
you take less than one and a half trillion, No,
which is at one point three. He wouldn't take less
than one and a half trillion, he said in that
we actually need more than that, more than that. Yeah,
So there is no negotiation. You just want free socialized
medicine effective immediately.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
And if you go to ruin health care, let's just
go ahead and do away with it right now. How
about that?

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Just when you say do away with healthcare, away with.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
The whole program, just throw Obamacare right out the window,
and she's going to screw it up for everybody, and
Grandma is not going to get her health care anyway.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Well, it's interesting because when you look at basically the
premise of Obamacare, and we've talked about this before. The
concept is that people who make money pay for the
healthcare of people who don't make money. That's right, and
it incentivizes several to keep a lower wages jobs because
if you actually had to step up and pay for

(09:03):
your own and I hate calling it healthcare because it's
not healthcare, it's insurance insurance. Yeah, if you had to
pay for your own insurance, it would be expensive. But
by forcing up the costs for all Americans trying to
spread the wealth, redistribute the wealth, so to speak, you've
actually made the actual healthcare, not the insurance. The insurance

(09:24):
is more expensive for everybody who has to pay into it,
but the actual healthcare that people receive from their doctors
has greatly diminished over the last fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
I don't know how many times we could have this conversation.
We'll find out when they finally come to the table
and realize Donald Trump's already told you upfront, he told
you when it happened, we're not going to expand we're
not going to continue with the expansion you put in.
The COVID was just another rink, a lot of COVID,
So none of that's happening. So we're not adding back
in money that we took out during the big beautiful

(09:53):
bill that you got in. But I realized the frustration.
You get a harvest that's dying in the field, you're
not able to bring it in. I got it, I
get it. Hold on a second, let me open this door.
Kellen ash Welcome in the studio. J kil Martin, House
Seat eighty five, General Assembly. Good to have your sir,
Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, it's good morning to you. Jay. You're part of
that very bad group of people known as the Freedom
Caucus dundum.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yes, yeah, you want to. It's Halloween time. You want to.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
When you say that, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
We're pressing up as a member of the Freedom Call.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah exactly. I got my Ron Paul t shirt
under my my.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Sure you guys are evil. Yeah, you know, it's amazing anymore.
One of the first articles you read in the matter
of fests posting Courier State newspaper at wys there was
always that that that contingency, and they always highlight the
differences between the Democrats and the Republicans. But here in
the state of South Carolina, somewhere in the first three

(10:52):
paragraphs is always a comparison between the majority super majority
Republicans and dunt dun duh the Freedoms. Yeah, you guys
are the great division over there. That's why we can't
get anything done. You won't reach across the aisle. That's
what the State newsper.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Well, you know, we're we're a bunch of dragtag conservatives.
You know, we came in there. I came in three
years ago, and there were some freedom fighters before us,
but we weren't really organized, and they were the ones
that I looked up to. Kind of one of the
reasons that I ran. I'm like, I love those guys.
They they say what they're going to do when they're
on the campaign trail, and then you get in there

(11:31):
and you know, you hear we're one of the most
liberal red states in the nation, and uh you know
it's from really legitimate groups like Policy Council, Club for Growth, SEAPACK,
and you see it and they're like, ah, we don't
care about rating systems, uh, you know, and and so
our time is limited down there. We don't know how

(11:52):
long we're going to be down there, so we're just
going to do what we say we're going to do.
We're on the when we're on the campaign trail and
do conservative things and that angers the swamp.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yeah, so that's what we're looking at. The Columbia legislature
is basically a swamp. When you talk about the people
from all across the state, they come here and serve
in Columbia.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Yeah, look where they spend their money. And the Republican
Caucus spends a lot of money in the election cycle
and they spend it against Conservatives. They fight us more
than they do the Democrats. And it's really weird explaining
that when you're on the campaign trail knocking on doors
and you start talking about the Republicans and they're like,

(12:32):
but you know, people go, but you're a Republican. I'm like,
oh man, this is going to be a long conversation.
Let's start here and I'll tell you what they're doing.
And some people get it, you know, they because that's
what they complain about, the good old boy system. I'm like,
we're a product of you know, this conversation is about
the good old boy system.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
You know what's amazing is is that we've always heard
the age old adage, Iron sharpens iron. So if you've
got Republicans more conservative and the more moderate conservatives in
any conversation in the subcommittee, it would give them the
opportunity to really work it out so that the iron
sharp and iron we come up with better legislation that
won't be constantly drugged to the Supreme Court and overturned.
You've got to go back and revise it, YadA, YadA, YadA,

(13:15):
or issues like with roads and bridges, that we will
be able to come down with better legislation so that
it's more effective for the South Carolina citizens. But for
the life of me, we've been joking killing now for
how long? We got a bunch of Democrats that are
now running as Republicans for Pete's sake, and as you
pointed out, we're the most liberal red state in America today.
How do we grow the Freedom Caucus so that we

(13:38):
can finally get some legislation done here? Because this is
a stronghold that strong. These guys controlled that much money
inside the state of South Carolina's political system.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yes, and yes, we need to close the primaries because
I think a lot of the Republicans down in the
State House are there because we have open primaries. I mean,
the Democrats aren't even hiding the Face Act, Now who
to vote for? And up in the Upstate Diane Mitchell,
who's a Conservative Freedom Caucus candidate, is getting text messages

(14:11):
from somebody in the House Republican Caucus that she's a
Democrat and hey, we need to support her.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
So they're riding this wave of just you know, us
exposing the fact that Democrats are out there on social
media saying vote for this. It's it's it's amazing. First
you close the primaries and you get people to pay attention,
which is, you know, you pull your hair out because
people don't know what House Reps and senators do. I

(14:40):
get called as if I'm their personal lawyer all the time,
and I can't give law advice. But some of the
some of the requests we get are just what are
you talking about? You know, I can't help you get
your child back because of child custody case or something.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
And are you the only member who is not a lawyer? Well,
let's see, it's like pretty much everybody over there's a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
If you want to go there.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Of course, we have more lawyer legislators than any other state,
and we don't have three equal branches co equal branches
of government. We have a really weak governor. The legislature
gets to choose the judges and set their salaries. So
when and you know, we've got a legislature full of lawyers,

(15:25):
they go in front of these same judges. I've never
seen anything like this, and we should all be screaming
about it. The conflict of interest is unbelievable. So, yeah,
we don't have three co equal branches of government.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
And Joe Jay, I know you personally, so I know
that you listen to WVOC, and I would suspect that
you line up politically with about ninety seven percent of
the stuff said on most of those radio shows, whether
we're talking about Hannity, back Clay and Clay and Buck

(15:58):
and so it's the Republicans in this state, the elected
Republicans that don't agree with a lot of the stuff
that's being said on WVOC.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
They say they agree, yeah, but then they go down.
You know, one of the when you're voting on bills,
and sometimes it happens real quickly and you try to
read the bill and you're scratching your head because it's
all in lawyer. You know, it's been written by lawyers.
You ask yourself, does it grow government, and most bills
do so. The frustration with us a lot of times

(16:31):
is we're obstructionists. But I think it's just as important
to vote against bad bills as it is for good bills,
you know, the really good bills that the public are behind.
We vote yes on if they're not infringements on our freedom.
But there's a lot of bad stuff out there.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
You know. We talk to a lot of persons who
are running for Wednesday, a lot. They're more than a
couple of running for the governor the gubernatorial race, and
a lot of them talk about some of the same things.
We talk about. Roads and bridges a lot. We talk
about the lawyers, the representation of how we put our
judges in place, those things. Those seem to be the
two key ones right now that everybody's keying off of.

(17:10):
But there are things that South Carolinians just scratch their
heads over and wonder why. And I don't know, maybe
we'll start with this one. With our roads in particular,
we've been paying for decades extra gas taxes, other fees.
We welcome people to South Carolina, whether they get their
tag with a two hundred dollars, welcome to South Carolina.

(17:31):
Help us fix our roads fees. We've known from the
DOT how many bridges we have that are deficient. But
when you get right down to it, since all politics
is local and we're talking about local and every zip code,
it seems like there is no place in the state
where people can leave their driveway and drive to a
major thoroughfare where they will in fact find more potholes.

(17:51):
So just in their own neighborhoods, we can't fill a
pothole in the state. That's kind to be embarrassing at
some point for anybody in leadership. How do we continue
or what is the problem with all the money? What
would bring it in that we can't get these roads fixed.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Well, you said the solution keep it local. And I
went in front of as a citizen, went in front
of the DOT Modernization Subcommittee whatever they created. The ad
hoc committee had twenty three members, so it just tells
me it's riddled with just politics, you know. So they
put this committee together and I went in front of

(18:27):
them and I said, we need to keep it local.
If somebody in Myrtle Beach has a problem with their
state road, which should probably be a county road, they
don't even know who to go to, who can rattle
off the Secretary of Transportation's name and how accessible is he.
That's why I'm in favor of giving most of these

(18:47):
roads back to the counties. You know, somebody will call
me with a pothole and I call the DOT and
they say, well, let me check. Let me see if
that's one of our roads, and it's in a subdivision,
and then they go, oh, well, our road starts at
that stop sign in the same subdivision. Like who divvys
up roads between county and state?

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Right?

Speaker 4 (19:10):
And if you could go down to a county council meeting.
I know the county councilmen in Lexington. You know, I've
got their cell numbers. They're accessible, they have meetings that
the public can. You can drive, you know, maybe the
furthest ten or fifteen miles. You know, somebody from Myrtle
Beach isn't going to drive to Columbia and complain about
their roads. So keep it local, give it back to

(19:31):
the counties. We'd taken so much money in the state
here when they passed the gas tax, did you know
it was just for interstates and bridges. No, they advertised
they were going to fix all our roads and they're
not even catching up on well they are in the
interstate because I've drived through that mess down I twenty
six every day. But the bridges. You know, April Cromer,

(19:54):
a legislator in the Upstate. I talked to her last
week and she's sending me the list of bridges in
the state. I was like, yeah, it's a long list.
And literally there's bridges that are closed that heavy equipment,
heavy tractor trailers can't go over, and they've got a
detour around. So you know, the answer is just get

(20:14):
it local because it's such a mess. We've got the
Central Midlands COG Council of Government. I never even heard
of that before I ran, and they go and talk
about roads. We've got the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank. What
is that, I'll tell you what it is. They created
it to build the Ravenel Bridge in nineteen ninety seven

(20:35):
and now they have this bord of directors and a
bank that your DOT money goes to somebody in the dot.
Four years ago when I was running and said, we
need to get rid of that, so I wrote a bill.
Let's get rid of it, you know, put it all
into one fund. So there's more accountability. It's a big
bureaucracy and it's a big mess. Roads from start to
finish take seven to ten years. And then they build

(21:00):
a four hundred million dollar interchange for Blythwood up in
Blythwood for VW Scout in two and a half years.
It just tells you what they can do, what they're
capable of. And you know, it's wouldn't you love to
have a job ten years from now guaranteed? You know,
let's stretch this out as long as we can ten years,

(21:20):
my gosh, you know. So to your point, keep it local,
get it closer to the people.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
All right, we're talking with j kil Martin. And before
I ask my question, I just want you to know
that South Carolina was recognized the Department of Transportation in
South Carolina recognized as the number one department of transportation
in this country by the Reason Foundation of Los Angeles. Now,
I feel like that in itself, and at the time

(21:49):
when they gave it, they they mentioned that, yes, there's
only nine states physically smaller than us, but there's only
fifty or excuse me, forty states that have fewer state
roads than us. I mean, we're fourth in the country
on state roads, which is unbelievable. So congratulations Dot on
being the best in the country according to the far

(22:10):
left Reason Foundation.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Of Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Wow, my question for you, Jay is you and the
rest of the Freedom Caucus have made a fantastic argument
for people who are willing to listen about we're not
We're not governing the state the way the voters claim
they want it run. They want it run as a
conservative state, yet we're a very liberal state the way

(22:34):
we govern here. You've been positioned as an obstructionist group.
You're just a thorn in the side. Is there any
plans as we move into twenty twenty six? Are you
guys coming up with ideas or anything on how we
can better position ourselves so we stop getting so much
bad press, which I guess sometimes as a compliment, but

(22:55):
more importantly, how can we win over the people that
are in the middle here, because not everybody who's a
conservative is actually in the Freedom Foundation, are they?

Speaker 1 (23:04):
That's correct.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, there's a lot of good conservatives that went in
there and they weren't affiliated with Freedom Caucus, and you
do see them getting pulled. I mean, there's lots of
scotch on the rocks over at Hall's chop house. And
I mean literally, the best thing people can do is
come down to the State House and they're competing with
millions of dollars in the lobby, you know, and you

(23:27):
have to remind yourself while you're surrounded by all this
who your constituents are. And I beg people come and
sit at my desk, even if you disagree with me.
You gotta see what's what we're up against. So right now,
what is it late October? We need to find good candidates,
which is the hardest thing to do. When when they

(23:49):
were courting me, I didn't know they were asking me
to run at first. This is four years ago, and
I was like, yeah, I'm helping you find somebody. It
is it is so hard hard to find people that
are financially capable that will knock on forty five hundred doors.
So I've got a good group of grassroots people that

(24:10):
will knock on doors for me. And you know it's
because I've been involved for so long. But I always
thought to myself as a roadie. You know, I'm the
tea party roadie. I'll fig you, I'll give you coffee,
but don't make me speak don't make me go up there.
You know, I'll carry your speakers when you're done. And
then I've kind of evolved into this. You know, people
forced me, they were like, it's you, dude. I'm like,

(24:32):
oh my god, what do you talk about there?

Speaker 1 (24:35):
You are?

Speaker 4 (24:36):
You're crazy. So finding people that don't want to get
in for the power or to put that on their resume.
You know, I know my time's limited down there, and
when it's over, hopefully I'll be able to find a
good conservative replacement. But finding people, you know and supporting
Freedom Caucus is the number one thing.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Help me understand the process and this because we're a
stage one. That sounds bad as a bad diagnosis. You're
a stage one. We're a square one having to do
with a Santy Cooper deal. And I don't know if
you've read about this in the paper, because all this
has came down over the weekend, and maybe you've been
involved with conversations prior to this, where we have a company, Brookfield,
who I didn't even realize was the parent company of

(25:19):
General Electric, which is how we gotten in this muck
of billions of dollars to begin with. So we're knee
deep in debt over there at Fairfield County been paying
it off with a five percent little more than five
percent surcharge for the rate payers. I don't know. I've
forgotten what it costs the taxpayers. So both taxpayers and
ratepayers are on the hook for this thing. We got
a company that's going to come in and buy it out,

(25:40):
so they will pay off the remaining debt, so at
least the rate payers will be out of the way
of having to pay more. But of all the conversations
or the newspaper articles I've read about this morning, the
most interesting was from WYSTV when it said, preliminarily, Brookfield
has agreed to supply us some of the power. Wait

(26:02):
a minute, what, yeah, what have you? Maybe that was
a typo by somebody in the newsroom. I don't know
whether they meant to type, but it sounds like we
just cut a deal so we can get ourselves out
of the most embarrassing financial I guess what was the
line this morning from I.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Think it was Tom Davis. This is like the biggest
embarrassment in South Carolina history.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
So, as I guess my question was, as I've been
spouting here and getting all frustrated just knowing what's coming down,
because that train coming down the track is going to
run over us. Again, I'm just fearful of it. Why
wouldn't I be fearful of it. It's already happened before.
So it goes from this initial process now into a
subcommittee hopefully, and then other senators and or House members

(26:43):
will have an opportunity to chime in before we inculd
deal with a company where they may end up supplying
us some power.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Well, you got part of it correct. You know it'll
go to a subcommittee and then committee. Okay, So I
don't I anticipate them doing what they did with VW scout.
And they admitted that they used code words, quote unquote
to make sure other legislators didn't know what they were

(27:11):
talking about. Literally, the most people in the legislature found
out about VW scout the night before the press conference.
They did it all behind closed doors. They did it
with Richland County, Blythewood, the legislature. It was all hidden.
It's it would blow your mind that it was all

(27:32):
done behind the show shot. And then you know we've
had we've had to close the primary bill in some
form or the other for nineteen years sitting waiting to
go to committee. They got this secretly through committee and
then onto the House floor and Senate floor and then
onto the governor's desk in fourteen days.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Boom.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
It's it's all political theater. When you think that they're
going to be, you know, doing subcommittees and committee meetings,
it's it's probably a done deal. Unfortunately, I don't know.
I'm not in the room with them, obviously because i'd
blow their cover. But uh yeah, I read it. There's
already ten billion dollars into the project, right, that's what

(28:18):
it cost initially. They you know, they'll have to pay
off the debt, and that ten billion dollars from how
long ago would probably be a twenty billion dollar project today.
So they're already getting a deal, right, So let them
come in here, pay off the debt and that's it.
There shouldn't be side deals. Another unfortunate thing is how
many people in the legislature right now, in the Senate

(28:39):
and House voted for that.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
In the past.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
Most of them weren't held accountable.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
They're so you know, you're like.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Just vote them out. They're going to do it again.
I guarantee it, and I guarantee. There's negotiations going on
right now. You know, like you said, we may get
some of the power. How do we know that somebody's
talking to somebody?

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Well, and the article said, we haven't hammered out all
the details yet. So hopefully there's an opportunity for the
General Assembly, Representative's House and sen it a step in
because stituentcy get on the phone now, start saying, hey,
what's going on before we get hung out again? Because
this didn't work out so well the last time, Why
do I have faith it's going to work out this time?
And why does the state still own something called Santee Cooper.

(29:24):
We're not good at running electric electric companies around here?
I agree. I agree.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
We shouldn't be in the public private partnerships. There's there's
too much you know, backroom deals to be done and
you know, handouts. You know, when they do make it public,
they'll be like, this is what's going to happen and
they'll they'll say, oh, we're only giving them two hundred millionaire.
We're only giving them you know, it's crazy. So you know,

(29:51):
look up who voted for that? You remember the Carolina Panthers. Yeah, things,
you know we put off front hundreds and millions of
dollars into that those people are mostly still in power.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
And at this point we're only talking about the amount
of money we're going to have to invest. We haven't
talked yet about the company coming into what kind of
tax breaks we're going to give them to pick it up.
So in the future we're not going to be generating
as much money as we had thought or could have
possibly offered that properly. Yeah, and now we find out
we don't even know how much power are we going
to get out of it when our state is in
desperate need to.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
Power and water and the AI you know, warehouses that
want to come in here, and you know they're working
on deals to give them discounts on electricity.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
So yeah, we're talking with j kil Martin, and you know,
we would be Jonathan and I would be crucified by
the audience if we didn't bring up the subject matter
that everybody's talks about. And I'm just reading this is
from WSPA Television talking about the ethics investigation into the
Rjmay scandal. Representative Donald McCabe and Representative Joe White, both Republicans,

(30:58):
fully cooperative, voluntarily handed over their requested materials. However, J
kil Martin, Stephen Frank, and Jordan Pace, the current leader
of the Freedom Caucus, either ignored multiple requests for interviews
or refused to respond to communication with the investigative team.
What say you, J kil Martin?

Speaker 4 (31:15):
J kil Martin says, we had I had a lawyer
call me, identified himself, but I never heard from the
Ethics Committee really, and then he called me again trying
to bully me, and never heard from the Ethics Committee,
like if I was and I wasn't under an investigation.
I was a witness. Yeah, you know, they're trying to
say what did you know and when did you know it?

(31:37):
And finally I got with the good cop, bad cop
lawyer on their side, and he goes, oh, you need
to check with a guy down at the State House.
He's the one that hired us. And I called him
and he goes, oh, yeah, they're legit. And so then
I sent in everything I had. They wanted all of
my personal texts, you know, emails invoices.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
You did cooperate?

Speaker 1 (31:59):
I did.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
It took a little bit longer, and then we didn't
feel like this independent lawyer who is on retainer from
the House Republican Caucus was independent. He gave to this lawyer,
gave to most of our opponents. We're looking at him,
Oh my god, it is so dirty. You're like, I mean,
it's it's laughable. But you're like, how do they get

(32:21):
away with this? And the guy that hired him is
supposed to be independent. I'm not going to name him,
but he goes to all the House Republican Caucus meetings.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, he's not independent. You know.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
It's a big and it was just it's a big show.
It's so anyway, That's that's all I got on that.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Well, what about the reference in one of the articles.
I've forgotten who printed it, but you paid or j
May five four hundred dollars yep, yeah, you know, was
that some kind of contribution to his attorney? You're trying
to bail him out over there. What's the implication to that?

Speaker 4 (32:54):
No, I pay my bills. You know, when you have
a political consultant company and they help you win a race,
you pay a winner's bonus and and it wasn't due
until later, so I paid the winners bonus and they're
all freaking out, what did.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
You pay him for?

Speaker 4 (33:11):
And they you know what, all the politicians that are
doing this down there know exactly what it is, but
they think they've got a They've got a little Twitter
tweet on X we're going to get him with this
one and and one of the guys didn't pay him
and they're they're ragging on him for not paying him.
So well, you know, damned if you do, damned if
you don't, what do you do?

Speaker 3 (33:30):
The optics of politics is a very ugly game, yeah
to play, and I'm thankful that people like you have
stepped up. I mean, even I guess I'd have to
say the people on the other side of the aisle,
whether they're the I don't know what we call what
do we call him rhinos and or Democrats, people who
are willing to serve if they're not in it just

(33:51):
to make money and backdoor deals. I thank them if
they're if. But for these other people I guess that
are backdoor dealing it to make my I mean, we
got to figure out a way to get them out
of our politics.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Well at least make it known and let the people decide.
That's something we lack severely having people pay attention. I mean,
the information's out there, and I know everybody doesn't have
time to come and sit in the gallery up in
the loft and watch everything.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
You'd shoot yourself.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
It's mind numbing some days when you know, we spend
the first couple hours doing recognitions and you know, and
then it gets to the end of the session and
it's like, we don't have time to close the primaries.
It's like, oh my gosh, we we just you know,
we recognize thirty cheer teams for when in different and

(34:42):
I mean, if we could do that maybe once a
month or or once a week instead of yeah, just
knock that out and then get to work. It's not
a like like I said earlier, it's it's it's political
theater most of the time on the house floor. So
get in touch with your house rep, your senator, and
first of all, know who they are.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
I can go up to a neighbor of mine that
knows me, that knows them in politics, and I'll ask
them who their House Rep is and they're like, oh,
forgive me, I don't know. I'm like, come on, man,
it's me.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Come on.

Speaker 4 (35:16):
You'll you'll learn real quick when you get a pothole.
Oh yeah, that's what he does.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Two guesses. The first one doesn't count. Who is it?

Speaker 4 (35:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And they usually go, is it Joe Wilson.
I'm like, no, he's in d C. I'm the local guy.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Now they may be saying to yourself, Hey, maybe I
should look up and find out who my house I
cannot find out who my house member is.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Just just go to Google. Let's see legislature and and
it'll pop up. You put your address in and you
click a button. It'll tell you who your your congressional
representative is, the two senators, it'll tell you who your
state senator, and your house state house member.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
The Freedom Clock has compile something that shows things like
these backdoor deals? Is there is it a possibility that
you guys could have a website that shows that sort
of stuff.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
Yeah, we could get better at it. You know, people
are like you guys aren't very organized. I have two restaurants,
I have a cigar shop. I'm very involved in my church.
You know this is supposed to be a part time job. Yeah,
I wish I could. I could, you know, just do
that full time? And we don't have the money to
do it full time. Like, did you know that the
house Republican Caucus as their political consultant has an office

(36:29):
on the fifth floor of the Black Building. You know,
so they have full time people that are dumping millions
of dollars into defeating us, and we're like out there
trying to run our businesses. So yeah, we can definitely.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Need like a college intern to run it, some young
freedom loving twenty one year old to put together a website.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah, there's a few of them out there, but you know,
they can't work for nothing, so I can't.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
I did for many years in radio.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah I get it. Oh, thanks again for coming about,
and next time would come in and hopefully we'll have
an update about our election commission. I want to get
indeed deep into that because we're running out of time. Yeah. Yeah,
we're we're going to have to move forward with some
type of plan and we've already got two arrested over
the weekend.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
Yeah, and I'm just reading that like you guys are.
I'm not down there, because when you're in session, you
hear the little mumblings and you hear conversations and elevators.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah, that's how we elect judges too. Hey, I got
this job. Literally that's there. Hey, Will you vote for him. Oh,
this is crazy South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Seems like every homeowners association or every zip code needs
a strong administration organization and a lobbyist riding the elevator
over the General Assembly to make sure our issues are
going to be brought up at some point on the House.
For when we finished saluting all of the five A
cheerleading specialists and all of the football teams for pizza.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Yeah, absolutely, come and ride the elevator with Jay.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Oh we thought that they did that at the end
of the session. It was just we'd like to introduce
this for the House record, and they just passed the
paper law. It probably takes like fifteen minutes to get
all those initiations or all those certifications through them. But
you're saying we wait time at the beginning of the
Oh my gosh, I got one. A House member made
it Jonathan rush Lay and when I celebrated my thirtieth
anniversary or something that took up valuable house.

Speaker 4 (38:11):
Well, if you if if they want to recognize them
on the House floor, we have like two hundred member
high school bands up in the balcony and the poor
the sergeant at arms. Oh my gosh, they're they're shuffling
people in and out, in and out and in and out,
and it's it's yeah, it's well, maybe one day a week,
because I really believe it's a really cool thing you

(38:32):
can do for constituents.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Not much on legislation, but a whole lot on pop
and circumstance.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Well, it's got to be more than one day because
I got to have like the rock Hill Frisbee golf team,
you get you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
Yeah, there's some funny ones that would do. Everybody stands
up in claps and they're trying to read the bills
that are coming out.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Stand up and clap. That's South Carol in a House
Freedom Caucus, remember, j kil Martin. Good to have you
in the studio.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
Thank you, Jonathan Kelly, thank you. It's been my pleasure.
Appreciate you having me