GREG LOPEZ AT 2:30 TODAY And though I am generally a Greg fan I was not happy he backed out of the Republican Women of Weld's debates Saturday over a fit of pique about an endorsement. I will ask him about that and let him make the case for your vote in the CD-4 special election to fill Ken Buck's seat until the next Congress is seated.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The man who is on the ballotfor the fourth Congressional District special election that
will decide who sits in ken Buck'sseat now that he deserted the seat,
and they'll be there until the nextCongress is seated. He is former Parker
mayor Greg Lopez. Hey, Greg, how you doing good? Mandy,
how are you doing today? Thankyou for having me. Well, I'm
(00:20):
glad to have you. We missedyou on Saturday at the Republican Women of
Weald event. It was very interestingto hear from your opponents who represented the
Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party,and then there was Frank Ottwood who just
wanted to talk about approval voting.But we missed you. What happened?
Well, you know, Andy,you know, for me, the Republican
(00:43):
Party is like a family, andthe Republican Women of Wealth that is a
great organization that's run by amazing women, as you know, Jillian Smith,
Sammy Klein, her mom, MargeKleine, you know. And I don't
think people are really interested in whathappened in the Grizzly Rose on Saturda.
I think what they're interested in hearingis what's going on in their lives and
(01:03):
what's going on here in Congress,and how are we going to make their
lives better, specifically with a votercrisis and inflation. I know when I
travel the district, that's what theirconcern is. Greg. What are we
going to do to deal with aborder crisis? What are we going to
do with the cost of living?What are we going to do with all
these things? And that's those arethe areas that I've been focusing on.
Those are the conversations that I'm havingwith the unaffiliated voters out there in the
(01:26):
district. Well, and it isgoing to be unaffiliated voters who make this
decision. Why should people vote forGreg Lopez for And you know, Greg,
I think it was an interesting strategythat you use, A good one,
by the way, saying look,I'm not running for this office permanently,
I'm just running to fill out therest of ken Buck's term. Why
(01:46):
did you decide to do it thatway? Look, I would shar mean
as you can imagine a lot ofconversations about what who's already been selected,
who's already going to be doing this? You know, when I when Tim
Buck first announced that he was goingto resign, I had a lot of
people call me and say, Greg, you should run for this district.
(02:07):
You won this district. People knowyou in this district. And I say,
you know what, there's a lotof great candidates that are going to
step forward. And there are greatcandidates, they're all my friends, you
know. But I wanted to bringclarity and purpose to the special election.
Maddy, you may not know this, but this is only the second time
in Colorado history that this has happenedwhere there's been a vacancy in Congress.
(02:29):
And the first time was when youknow, have you seen Apollo thirteen?
You know, Tim Bacon played theactor played the character of Jack Schweigert,
a Colorado resident that ran for theSick Congressional district. He was diagnosed with
cancer while he was campaigning. Hewon the election, and then on December
(02:49):
of that same year, he passedaway, and that is when we had
to have a vacancy election and BobSchaffer got into Congress. So this is
a very situation. This is asecond time in Colorado history that this has
happened, and I wanted to bringpurpose and clarity to this. And even
people today are confused about the specialelection. People are thinking that I'm running
(03:13):
against other candidates that are a Republicanparty. Some of them think I'm already
in Congress. Others aren't sure what'shappening. So I ran to bring clarity
and purpose to this election. Well, and in you know, the what
are the upsides of a vote forGreg Lopez is? You know, he's
not going to stay there for life. He's not even running for the for
the seat to take over in January. So what do you hope to accomplish
(03:37):
in this small time in Congress?Well, you know what, that's what
a lot of people are asking me. You know, Greg, it's you're
going to be there for six months. What can you do? Well,
the one thing I can do ismake sure that we still maintain a strong
conservative voice. As you know,right now, Mandy, there is no
voice for over seven hundred and fortyeight thousand people in CD four, There
(03:57):
is no voice in Congress right now. And so what I hope to do
is bring a different perspective from onwhat's going on in the border, the
crisis of the border, and alsomaking sure that you know what, we
only have a as you know,we only have a one seat majority in
the House. So this is oneof the most important elections to shave the
Republic, and so I'm going togo there and I have the ideas on
(04:21):
how I'm going to perhaps introduce newconcepts. You know, Helen Kreeble,
you can remember the name Helen Creebele, right sure, you know Helen Kreeble.
You know she was a dear friendof mine, as you know,
she used to live in partner.I met her when I was a mayor.
One of the things that she talkedto me back early in the early
two hundred two thousands was about thered Card solution on immigration. I don't
(04:45):
know if you've heard of that,but that's legislation that she introduced along with
Greg Walter and others. And I'mgoing to bring that out of the shelf.
And it's about a work permit programfor individuals that want to work in
America. This is not a amnestybuild. This is not a way to
become a citizen. This is trulyabout working here in the United States legally.
(05:09):
So I want to reintroduce to thaton the honor of Helen Kreeble from
Parker, you know, and alsothe fact that she created the leadership program
of the Rockies you know, andwhen it comes to inflation, we got
to look at what are we spendingin our national debt? You know,
our national today, national debt todayis over thirty five trillion dollars and it's
growing by one hundred It's growing bya trillion dollars one hundred days. So
(05:31):
we've got to figure out how we'regoing to stop this spending. I agree
with you on both of those things. On both of those issues, I
think that we must have a vibrant, robust guestworker program. It's incredibly important
to the agricultural industry, and thereare jobs that Americans have decided they're not
going to do so. But asa as a freshman placeholder member of Congress,
(05:53):
how do you get that stuff done? How do you make an impact
for the in the halls of Congresswhen they know you're just kind of there
for a little bit, you're juststopping off. But here's the interesting thing
about that, Mandy. You know, am I a freshman? Yes,
But I'm walking into a senior congressman'soffice. I'm walking into being a member
(06:14):
of the Dijiciary Committee, of theForeign Affairs Committee. I've spoken with Jim
Jordan, I've spoken with the Houseleader. I've spoken with a leader Scalie.
They're all already talking to me aboutHey, Greg, when you come
up here, we need to makesure that we are doing good work.
We want to know what you wantto accomplish because they recognize that it's very
important for the Republican Party at thenational level to show unity and show progress.
(06:39):
So I'm in a very unique situation. I think everybody is going to
be working with me because they knowthat I'm going to be there for a
short time. They know my background, they know my experience. They know
that I ran for governor, andthey also know that I'm a former mayor,
and they recognize the principles that Istand on. Even the Freedom Cocus
has asked me to be a partof their organization, so that it's going
(07:02):
to be a good That was aquestion that was asked the candidates of the
fourth Congressional District on Saturday, wasif you were asked, would you join
the feed Freedom Caucus? Yeah?If you look at you know what how
the Freedom Caucus works. You knowthey are strong believers in the Constitution,
They stand behind our conservative values.They are really united and changed to one
(07:26):
single voice But what a lot ofpeople may not know this mandia that in
order for them to stand forward asone voice, eighty percent of all the
members must agree. If eighty percentof the members do not agree, then
a freedom Caucus will not step forwardas a group. Individuals can step forward
on their own, but the FreedomCaucus will only step forward as a freedom
(07:46):
caucus if eighty percent of the membersare in agreement. Well, but aren't
you promising to vote as a partof the freedom Caucus even if you're in
that twenty percent on an issue?No? No, Look, that's the
beauty of this. This is whata lot of people get confused. Right,
we all believe in our conservative values. Everybody wants to put people in
a box. And what I'm tellingyou is that if the cost has agreed
(08:09):
at eighty percent of them, andthey say, hey, we're all going
to vote on this, do whatone of the things and you've talked about
this on your right over the fourthwe have to look at what's in the
best interest for the country in thefuture, not only what's happening today,
but these decisions are having huge impactson families all the way across the world
our nation. I should say,so, you know what, I'm looking
(08:30):
forward for those discussions. I'm lookingforward to being in those rooms and talk
about the future of our republic.And I think it's going to be a
very great opportunity for me to beable to bring a strong voice to the
fourth Congressional District once again. Whatissues do you think are the most important
of the fourth? Wow? Well, you know, I mean when I
talk to people, it's all thebasics, right, It's the cost of
(08:54):
living. It's inflation. Look,when you talk about gas prices, a
lot of people forget that in ruralColorado, just to go to the grocery
store, they're driving thirty or fortymiles. Just to take their children to
school is the same amount of distance, and so they're struggling with the cost
of living. They're struggling to makeends meet. A lot of people out
there live on fixed incomes, youknow, and they're ranchers and farmers.
(09:16):
They're basically hoping the crop is goingto be a good crop, that they're
able to get the right money fortheir cattle and so forth. So right
now, throughout the entire district,it is about inflation. The other thing
is, you know, when Iwas running for governor, we talked about
water. Water is still the mainissue here in the entire state of Colorado.
So water is something I'm going tobe working with them on because,
(09:39):
as you know, it's one ofthe most precious commodities that we have,
and without water, we're not goingto have food, and we're not going
to be able to sustain Colorado asa place where we can all be proud
to be a state that we canall live in. So those are some
of the things that I'm hearing fromthe people in CB four. Greg,
how can people get more information aboutyour campaign? If they want to find
out more, donate whatever, Howcan they do that? You know,
(10:01):
it's pretty simple. They need togo to Greg Lopiz dot co, Greg
Lopez dot C. You know,go to my website, make a contribution
whatever amount, it really doesn't matter. Look, people need to understand that
there is a special election. Mandy. My question is not my election is
(10:22):
not going to be the first questionon the ballot. I'm hearing it could
be the last question on the ballot. I'm alsoly hearing it could be at
the back of the ballot. SoI need everybody to understand fill out the
entire ballot. When you vote,come between now and June twenty fifth,
and encourage all your Republican friends,the unaffliated voters to be voting because it's
(10:43):
very important for the voice of CDfour to be heard. Amen to that.
Greg, I appreciate you making timetoday. Thank you, Smandy.
It is a pleasure, all right. I have a good day. That's
Greg Lopez. He is running inthe special election to Phil Kenbuck seat.
He will only be there until Decemberas he is not running in the race
for c D four, so it'sa little eas right, it's a little
(11:03):
bit confusing, but you'll you guys, I have faith in you. You'll
figure it out.
The man who is on the ballotfor the fourth Congressional District special election that
will decide who sits in ken Buck'sseat now that he deserted the seat,
and they'll be there until the nextCongress is seated. He is former Parker
mayor Greg Lopez. Hey, Greg, how you doing good? Mandy,
how are you doing today? Thankyou for having me. Well, I'm
(00:20):
glad to have you. We missedyou on Saturday at the Republican Women of
Weald event. It was very interestingto hear from your opponents who represented the
Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party,and then there was Frank Ottwood who just
wanted to talk about approval voting.But we missed you. What happened?
Well, you know, Andy,you know, for me, the Republican
(00:43):
Party is like a family, andthe Republican Women of Wealth that is a
great organization that's run by amazing women, as you know, Jillian Smith,
Sammy Klein, her mom, MargeKleine, you know. And I don't
think people are really interested in whathappened in the Grizzly Rose on Saturda.
I think what they're interested in hearingis what's going on in their lives and
(01:03):
what's going on here in Congress,and how are we going to make their
lives better, specifically with a votercrisis and inflation. I know when I
travel the district, that's what theirconcern is. Greg. What are we
going to do to deal with aborder crisis? What are we going to
do with the cost of living?What are we going to do with all
these things? And that's those arethe areas that I've been focusing on.
Those are the conversations that I'm havingwith the unaffiliated voters out there in the
(01:26):
district. Well, and it isgoing to be unaffiliated voters who make this
decision. Why should people vote forGreg Lopez for And you know, Greg,
I think it was an interesting strategythat you use, A good one,
by the way, saying look,I'm not running for this office permanently,
I'm just running to fill out therest of ken Buck's term. Why
(01:46):
did you decide to do it thatway? Look, I would shar mean
as you can imagine a lot ofconversations about what who's already been selected,
who's already going to be doing this? You know, when I when Tim
Buck first announced that he was goingto resign, I had a lot of
people call me and say, Greg, you should run for this district.
(02:07):
You won this district. People knowyou in this district. And I say,
you know what, there's a lotof great candidates that are going to
step forward. And there are greatcandidates, they're all my friends, you
know. But I wanted to bringclarity and purpose to the special election.
Maddy, you may not know this, but this is only the second time
in Colorado history that this has happenedwhere there's been a vacancy in Congress.
(02:29):
And the first time was when youknow, have you seen Apollo thirteen?
You know, Tim Bacon played theactor played the character of Jack Schweigert,
a Colorado resident that ran for theSick Congressional district. He was diagnosed with
cancer while he was campaigning. Hewon the election, and then on December
(02:49):
of that same year, he passedaway, and that is when we had
to have a vacancy election and BobSchaffer got into Congress. So this is
a very situation. This is asecond time in Colorado history that this has
happened, and I wanted to bringpurpose and clarity to this. And even
people today are confused about the specialelection. People are thinking that I'm running
(03:13):
against other candidates that are a Republicanparty. Some of them think I'm already
in Congress. Others aren't sure what'shappening. So I ran to bring clarity
and purpose to this election. Well, and in you know, the what
are the upsides of a vote forGreg Lopez is? You know, he's
not going to stay there for life. He's not even running for the for
the seat to take over in January. So what do you hope to accomplish
(03:37):
in this small time in Congress?Well, you know what, that's what
a lot of people are asking me. You know, Greg, it's you're
going to be there for six months. What can you do? Well,
the one thing I can do ismake sure that we still maintain a strong
conservative voice. As you know,right now, Mandy, there is no
voice for over seven hundred and fortyeight thousand people in CD four, There
(03:57):
is no voice in Congress right now. And so what I hope to do
is bring a different perspective from onwhat's going on in the border, the
crisis of the border, and alsomaking sure that you know what, we
only have a as you know,we only have a one seat majority in
the House. So this is oneof the most important elections to shave the
Republic, and so I'm going togo there and I have the ideas on
(04:21):
how I'm going to perhaps introduce newconcepts. You know, Helen Kreeble,
you can remember the name Helen Creebele, right sure, you know Helen Kreeble.
You know she was a dear friendof mine, as you know,
she used to live in partner.I met her when I was a mayor.
One of the things that she talkedto me back early in the early
two hundred two thousands was about thered Card solution on immigration. I don't
(04:45):
know if you've heard of that,but that's legislation that she introduced along with
Greg Walter and others. And I'mgoing to bring that out of the shelf.
And it's about a work permit programfor individuals that want to work in
America. This is not a amnestybuild. This is not a way to
become a citizen. This is trulyabout working here in the United States legally.
(05:09):
So I want to reintroduce to thaton the honor of Helen Kreeble from
Parker, you know, and alsothe fact that she created the leadership program
of the Rockies you know, andwhen it comes to inflation, we got
to look at what are we spendingin our national debt? You know,
our national today, national debt todayis over thirty five trillion dollars and it's
growing by one hundred It's growing bya trillion dollars one hundred days. So
(05:31):
we've got to figure out how we'regoing to stop this spending. I agree
with you on both of those things. On both of those issues, I
think that we must have a vibrant, robust guestworker program. It's incredibly important
to the agricultural industry, and thereare jobs that Americans have decided they're not
going to do so. But asa as a freshman placeholder member of Congress,
(05:53):
how do you get that stuff done? How do you make an impact
for the in the halls of Congresswhen they know you're just kind of there
for a little bit, you're juststopping off. But here's the interesting thing
about that, Mandy. You know, am I a freshman? Yes,
But I'm walking into a senior congressman'soffice. I'm walking into being a member
(06:14):
of the Dijiciary Committee, of theForeign Affairs Committee. I've spoken with Jim
Jordan, I've spoken with the Houseleader. I've spoken with a leader Scalie.
They're all already talking to me aboutHey, Greg, when you come
up here, we need to makesure that we are doing good work.
We want to know what you wantto accomplish because they recognize that it's very
important for the Republican Party at thenational level to show unity and show progress.
(06:39):
So I'm in a very unique situation. I think everybody is going to
be working with me because they knowthat I'm going to be there for a
short time. They know my background, they know my experience. They know
that I ran for governor, andthey also know that I'm a former mayor,
and they recognize the principles that Istand on. Even the Freedom Cocus
has asked me to be a partof their organization, so that it's going
(07:02):
to be a good That was aquestion that was asked the candidates of the
fourth Congressional District on Saturday, wasif you were asked, would you join
the feed Freedom Caucus? Yeah?If you look at you know what how
the Freedom Caucus works. You knowthey are strong believers in the Constitution,
They stand behind our conservative values.They are really united and changed to one
(07:26):
single voice But what a lot ofpeople may not know this mandia that in
order for them to stand forward asone voice, eighty percent of all the
members must agree. If eighty percentof the members do not agree, then
a freedom Caucus will not step forwardas a group. Individuals can step forward
on their own, but the FreedomCaucus will only step forward as a freedom
(07:46):
caucus if eighty percent of the membersare in agreement. Well, but aren't
you promising to vote as a partof the freedom Caucus even if you're in
that twenty percent on an issue?No? No, Look, that's the
beauty of this. This is whata lot of people get confused. Right,
we all believe in our conservative values. Everybody wants to put people in
a box. And what I'm tellingyou is that if the cost has agreed
(08:09):
at eighty percent of them, andthey say, hey, we're all going
to vote on this, do whatone of the things and you've talked about
this on your right over the fourthwe have to look at what's in the
best interest for the country in thefuture, not only what's happening today,
but these decisions are having huge impactson families all the way across the world
our nation. I should say,so, you know what, I'm looking
(08:30):
forward for those discussions. I'm lookingforward to being in those rooms and talk
about the future of our republic.And I think it's going to be a
very great opportunity for me to beable to bring a strong voice to the
fourth Congressional District once again. Whatissues do you think are the most important
of the fourth? Wow? Well, you know, I mean when I
talk to people, it's all thebasics, right, It's the cost of
(08:54):
living. It's inflation. Look,when you talk about gas prices, a
lot of people forget that in ruralColorado, just to go to the grocery
store, they're driving thirty or fortymiles. Just to take their children to
school is the same amount of distance, and so they're struggling with the cost
of living. They're struggling to makeends meet. A lot of people out
there live on fixed incomes, youknow, and they're ranchers and farmers.
(09:16):
They're basically hoping the crop is goingto be a good crop, that they're
able to get the right money fortheir cattle and so forth. So right
now, throughout the entire district,it is about inflation. The other thing
is, you know, when Iwas running for governor, we talked about
water. Water is still the mainissue here in the entire state of Colorado.
So water is something I'm going tobe working with them on because,
(09:39):
as you know, it's one ofthe most precious commodities that we have,
and without water, we're not goingto have food, and we're not going
to be able to sustain Colorado asa place where we can all be proud
to be a state that we canall live in. So those are some
of the things that I'm hearing fromthe people in CB four. Greg,
how can people get more information aboutyour campaign? If they want to find
out more, donate whatever, Howcan they do that? You know,
(10:01):
it's pretty simple. They need togo to Greg Lopiz dot co, Greg
Lopez dot C. You know,go to my website, make a contribution
whatever amount, it really doesn't matter. Look, people need to understand that
there is a special election. Mandy. My question is not my election is
(10:22):
not going to be the first questionon the ballot. I'm hearing it could
be the last question on the ballot. I'm alsoly hearing it could be at
the back of the ballot. SoI need everybody to understand fill out the
entire ballot. When you vote,come between now and June twenty fifth,
and encourage all your Republican friends,the unaffliated voters to be voting because it's
(10:43):
very important for the voice of CDfour to be heard. Amen to that.
Greg, I appreciate you making timetoday. Thank you, Smandy.
It is a pleasure, all right. I have a good day. That's
Greg Lopez. He is running inthe special election to Phil Kenbuck seat.
He will only be there until Decemberas he is not running in the race
for c D four, so it'sa little eas right, it's a little
(11:03):
bit confusing, but you'll you guys, I have faith in you. You'll
figure it out.
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