The Return of Dan Frei

Ten years after starting a political wildfire that some say burned Lee Terry, Dan Frei is back to take on Don Bacon.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Scott Vordiez here in Nebraska's second district. Not only do you have to take
on Tony Vargas again here in Nebraska'ssecond district as the presumed Democrat in this,
but you got to get through aRepublican primary. Nebraska second District Congressman
Don Bacon certainly the incumbent Republican andhe's got a competitor here in the Republican

(00:25):
primary in Dan Frye, who joinsus here in the studio. Dan,
Welcome back to News Radio eleven tenkfab Scott, good to be here.
Thanks for having me. What yearwas that when you took on Lee Terry
in similar stakes here? That wasten years ago, So it was a
primary of twenty thirteen for the twentyfourteen election cycle. For those who maybe
have moved into the district since then, remind us what the conditions were that

(00:49):
caused you to want to jump intothat congressional race against Lee Terry ten years
ago. Well, at that pointin time, as we look back as
a country, we were we werein a pretty precarious spot. We had
seen an expansion of the federal governmentlike we'd never seen before in our private
personal lives. We were still dealingwith the after effects of the government bailing

(01:11):
out the auto industries, bailing outthe banks. They had just taken over
the healthcare system, and there wasa lot of question about that. What
were they going to be able toprovide legitimate health care? Was it going
to be affordable? Were we're goingto have to repeal and replace this Obamacare?
And at that point in time,we had tens of thousands of people
crossing our bordery legally and there wasnobody doing anything about it. And we

(01:37):
were seventeen trillion dollars in debt,seventeen trillion, and you look back on
all of that and it's almost likewhat you wouldn't give to have those same
problems today. But at that pointin time, it was pretty precarious,
and I thought it was worthy ofsounding the alarm that said this is not
sustainable. We've got to do somethingabout it. And you know, without

(01:57):
reliving that much detail, the votersat that point in time, the Tea
Party was present and active, andthey just didn't feel that they were being
listened to. And we at thetime, we had a congressman that they
felt was taking his marching orders fromDC and at that point in time,
it was John Bayner and they wereready for change. What are the conditions

(02:20):
that exist now ten years later?Many you just described there, except the
national debt from ten years ago paltryin comparison to what it is now,
not double everything, Every one ofthose metrics has become remarkably worse. And
you put on top of that thatwe've now got a culture decline in our
society that is unprecedented. We've gotthings taking place in our schools and our

(02:45):
workplaces and even in our military withthis diversity in equity and inclusion programs that
are being funded by your tax dollars, and people are done with it.
And you look at the border andwe don't have tens of thousands. We've
got an all out border invasion,and there's no one that can deny that
we are the world's superpower. Andwe have a border that is breached every

(03:09):
day by thousands and thousands of people. There's literally millions in the country right
now. We have no idea whothey are, where they came from.
And the American people are tired ofthis. We're now spending more money as
a country on individuals that have comeinto this country illegally to house them,
feed them, clothe them, andprovide medical care than what we're spending on

(03:32):
our own citizens that need assistance.And the American people are tired of it.
And every state now has become aborder state. And then you look
at the debt. What I wouldn'tgive for a seventeen trillion dollar debt,
We're thirty four trillion dollars in debt. In those that dug that hole,
they still have the shovel. I'vetalked a lot over the years with Nebraska

(03:57):
second District Congressman Don Bacon, Right, he has said pretty much everything you
just said. I don't know there'sanything he would disagree with you on yet
to talk about the construct of whathappened ten years ago related to what's going
on here. A lot of peoplesay that it was your vying against Lee

(04:19):
Terry in the Republican primary that weakenedhim as a candidate, that led to
a Democrat Brad Ashford, you know, being a Democrat that pales. He's
like the seventeen trillion dollar debt comparedto thirty four trillion dollar debt in terms
of his branded Democrat versus some ofwhat we see today, but it did
lead to Lee Terry losing the generalelection and a Democrat getting into the seat.

(04:44):
And there are some people that saythis is going to happen again.
We're going to have Congressman Tony Vargasbecause Dan Fry is, you know,
battling Don Bacon, weakening him andgetting people not to vote for him in
November should he emerge victorious in theprimary. So what do you see is
happening different with the outcome of therace now compared to ten years ago.

(05:06):
One, It had nothing to dowith the Dan Fry campaign ten years ago
that Lee Terry lost. It justdidn't. Lee Terry had been shedding votes
election cycle after election cycle. LeeTerry failed to listen to his constituents.
Don Bacon has been shedding votes electioncycle after election. He has alienated his

(05:30):
conservative base. And that happens whenyou run on a platform that says,
I'm going to go and I'm goingto secure the border. I'm going to
secure the border, and then youvote for legislation that doesn't come close,
you vote for legislation that doesn't doanything to help secure that border. You
start to lose votes when you runon a platform that says, I'm going
to reduce the debt. I'm goingto reduce the spending. I'm going to

(05:54):
reduce the deficit. I'm going toreduce all of this. I'm going to
get this fiscal house in order.And then you've vote for budget busting legislation
time and time again. And wesaw it just earlier this week or late
last week with the one point twotrillion dollars in spending. Our borders still
wide open. We're still shoveling hundredsof billions of dollars to Ukraine to secure

(06:15):
the other borders that are not ours, and the American people are tired of
it. So if Don Bacon squeaksout a winning this primary, which I
don't think he will, that's that'sthe first place that this is going to
be different Don Bacon, based onthe feedback that we're getting from the constituents
and from the field, he's servedhis last term in Congress. So that's

(06:40):
that's that's the consequences of the votesthat you make when you go to d
C and you and you sacrifice allof the commitments that you made while on
the campaign trail. Of course,we'll talk more with Congressman Bacon and leading
up to the primary, and youknow, potentially beyond as well. I
think that he would say, like, look, put me in charge of
all of this stuff and let mehave free reign over all of it,

(07:00):
and you'd see a very different Americatoday, the reality of being one of
four hundred and thirty four votes whenyou've got a slim Republican majority in some
cases during his time in Congress,Democrat majority in the House, and now
you've got a slight Republican majority.You've got a Democratic majority with the Senate,
and you've got the Republican Party bashingeach other in to where you got

(07:24):
it for a minute there, youhad a different speaker every hour, and
they say, look, you knowthis is tough to navigate some of all
this Some of the things that you'retagging as being Don Bacon's fault aren't Don
Bacon's fault. Well, what Iwould tell you is that it's tougher to
navigate when you make bad decisions.And just real quick, we could let's
go back to the speaker decision.The Speaker of the House is an important

(07:45):
role, and when they were vyingfor who the speaker was going to be,
we had an opportunity to get JimJordan a speaker. He's a conservative
rock star. I have the privilegein the honor of being in his district
quite a bit there in Ohio,and those people love him because he does
a great job. What he sayson the campaign trail is what he delivers
for his district. So my congressmanhad the opportunity to vote for Jim Jordan

(08:11):
and couldn't do it, would notdo it, and instead held out for
Speaker Johnson Scott. He was interviewedby Chip Maxwell a few weeks ago and
the first question Chip asking is whatdo you think of Speaker Johnson? Well,
he seems to be inexperienced and indecisive. Congressman, that's the speaker that

(08:33):
you held out for. That's thespeaker that you voted for. So when
you talk about put me in charge, no one person's ever going to be
in charge of that House. You'vegot to find people that can work and
collaborate with their colleagues and deliver onthe commitments that they make. Sometimes that
means working with people like Jim Jordan. That may not be your choice,

(08:56):
but it was a majority choice ofall of your colleagues. Ten years ago,
you ran against Lee Terry and itdidn't work out for you got really
close what was that margin in theRepublican primary, and we flipped about two
point nine percent of the vote.We would have had that race, which
was unheard of. The only racecloser in that in that election cycle was
in Virginia and that's when Eric Cantergot defeated by Dave Bratt. So it

(09:22):
was close. It was very veryclose. So that so you decided,
all right, I'm I guess I'mout. I'm done. You haven't done
anything in politically in ten years,at least not in front of the scenes
running for office or anything. No, not running for office. And you
know, Congressman Bacon had made anissue of this as to you know,
I'd kind of fallen off the radarand not completely true. As a matter

(09:43):
of fact, I'd provided some correspondence. There were times that I'd stopped by
the politic his political office. Asa matter of fact, we've got the
receipts to prove it. There's picturesand text and that type of thing.
But more than anything, about sixyears ago, I had taken a position
with a company that gave me theopportunity to get back to Ohio on a
more frequent basis. We moved herefrom Ohio about thirty years ago, almost

(10:05):
thirty years ago, and my motherwas in the advanced tages of Alzheimer's and
we knew that that time was comingto an end. So this opportunity within
my career gave me the chance toget back there and spend time with her
and see her several times a month, three four times a month. And
I couldn't pass that opportunity up.So that took a fair amount of time.

(10:26):
And then the grandkids went from fromtwo grandchildren ten years ago to ten
now. So yeah, we're prettybusy. That definitely keeps you busy.
But what's going on in your lifenow that you're a little bit more freed
up to go to Washington. Well, I've got a little more time.
Unfortunately Mom did pass, so youknow, the trips to Ohio they're still

(10:48):
there with my career, but probablynot taking nearly as much time. But
at the end of the day,this isn't something that has been on my
bucket list. It's not I saidten years ago that this was about my
kids and my grandkids and if itwas if it was about my kids and
my grandchildren then, and I lookat where we're at now politically, and

(11:13):
from a fiscal perspective, from aborder security perspective, and just a from
a government perspective, it certainly warrantsthe same thing. Now that I've got
ten of them. I want totalk more about some of your issues on
a variety of platform ideas, Butlet's first kind of find out a bit
more about who you are. Giveme the thumbnail. I think it's probably
an old reference to say the readersdigest condensed version of the biography of Dan

(11:39):
Frye. Well, the biography ofDan fry may not be as exciting as
you think it might be. Tryand make it more exciting. This is,
after all radio show. I'll giveit my best. I've been married,
it'll be thirty nine years. Thismay married. Now. Your wife
would say that hopefully that's exciting.She might say that it was thirty seven
and a half of the happiest yearsof her life. It took her about
a year and a half to getme trained. Does she want to move

(12:01):
to Washington. There's not a chanceshe's moving to Washington. Now you go,
you sleep on a cot in youroffice and come back here as much
as possible. That's pretty much whatthis is going to be like. So
but she is all in. Iwill tell you if I'm married way out
of my league, Scott. IfI was able to convince her to marry
me and I've been able to keepthis contract going for almost thirty nine years,

(12:24):
I can negotiate with the best ofthem in DC. We got married
early two years after that. Westarted the family, four kids. Had
no intentions whatsoever of moving to Omaha, Nebraska. I never laid in bed
at night and thought, I'll knowthat I've made it to the big leagues
when I'm in Omaha. My son, at one year old, had developed

(12:46):
a blood disorder, and normally it'svery treatable. He wasn't responding to any
of that treatment, so we hadstarted to ship his medical records, send
his medical records all over the country. Children's Medical Center was the only place
that gave us any home. Sothe head of hematology on College You called
me and said, hey, Dan, we can't guarantee you a different outcome,

(13:07):
but we'll guarantee you a different effort. You bring your boy out here
and we're going to put him onsome experimental medications. We're going to do
some things that others haven't done.But if you don't and you continue to
do what you're doing, it's kindof like playing Russian Roulette with your son.
So when I got off the phone, I shared that with my wife
and she says to me, soundslike we're moving to Omaha, Nebraska.

(13:28):
And I looked at her and Isaid, why don't we just commute for
his treatments? And thank God,Ohio, Yes, thank God for a
godly wife. She looks at meand says, Dan, we've been praying
about this for how long? Andnow you want to negotiate the terms.
We're moving to Omaha, Nebraska.So we loaded up four kids moved Omaha,
Nebraska, thinking that we would behere maybe for a year or two,

(13:48):
and we would either move back withfour healthy children or we'd move back
with my three daughters. That beingsaid, the treatment went very, very
well, and right about on theone year anniversary, the doctor looked at
us and said, hey, everything'sgoing in a great direction. You can

(14:09):
move back. We need to monitorhim for some time, but we could
do the blood test from AFAR andget the results so we looked at that
and nobody wanted to move back.Omaha. I had become home, the
kids had gotten acclimented in the neighborhoodsand the schools and the churches, and
it was home. So here weare thirty years later, just about that.

(14:30):
Sun is now an Omaha police officer. That's great. So it's a
good story. Yeah, that's avery good story. So, and what
is the nature of what it isthat you say you do for a living?
Dan, I've been in the businesstechnology industry in my entire career.
I started in sales long ago,long ago, and throughout that time I
have worked with some of the majormanufacturers Cannon, Sharp, Kiyosa, I've

(14:54):
worked with resellers. I've done everythingfrom executive vice presidents to REA directors,
covering half the country with the salesteam reporting up to me. Right now,
I am in the finance end ofit. So I now work with
resellers across the five state region.Thus is how I get to Ohio and
I work with them and I providefinancial options for their end users. All

(15:16):
right, Dan Fry is seeking yourvote for Congress and Nebraska's upcoming May fourteenth
Republican primary. Let's look at howthings kind of shape up politically in this
race though, this time around,which I think lends itself to your stance
and a lot of different issues inthe Republican Party. You've got a pretty

(15:37):
interesting fracture. You've got people whoare more along the lines of saying like,
look, let's continue to do goodgovernment without you know, blowing the
whole thing up and making friends ormaking enemies out of friends here. And
then you've got the pretty staunch youknow, some people might say, the
maga Republicans who Biden would call domesticterrorists, say, why would we be

(16:00):
building anything up on top of whatis already a bad foundation. Let's burn
it down to the ground and rebuild, and let's do what's necessary here.
Well, that part of the RepublicanParty has taken up route in a leadership
position in Nebraska Republican politics, andso I'm guessing you're getting more support from

(16:22):
the party right now. I knowthey've not supported I think any of the
incumbents who are running for reelection thistime around. It's a little different now
from ten years ago when you weretaking on Lee Terry. It is different.
It's different it's very different. AndI will tell you you know,
I think we've got a lot ofpeople in Washington that want to go when

(16:45):
they want to have a title andthey want to get a paycheck, but
they've never really been held accountable forresults. They've never some of them never
have never been in the business communitywhere they've got to deliver. And I
think that's where the American people are. They're looking for individuals that will go
to DC and deliver on what they'vecampaigned on and make no mistake about it.

(17:08):
You know, I'm telling you rightnow, we've got to get spending
under control. We're thirty four trilliondollars in debt. I'm not naive to
think that we're going to turn thatship around overnight. But when I tell
you we've got to get spending undercontrol, that means that we've got to
stop the deficit spending that we're experiencingright now. So here's where I'm at,

(17:30):
and here's my commitment. When Iget to DC and there's a spending
bill that lands on my desk andit's got increased spending year over year,
just understand, no, I'm no. This government takes in about four point
five trillion a year in revenue,we're spending over six It's unsustainable. So

(17:52):
when somebody tells you that they're goingto go and they're going to get the
fiscal house in order, and theycontinue to take on every hundred days right
now, another trillion dollars in debt, they're not serious about delivering what they've
campaigned on you and I have hearda lot of candidates say things like that,
yet we continue to go deeper anddeeper in debt. So when you're
one of four hundred and thirty fivevotes and your means of trying to get

(18:17):
it done the way that Nebraska homeownershave to get it done in their monthly
budget isn't working, then what Sohere's what I believe is the case.
It's time that we start holding ourcolleagues accountable. When was the last time
that Don Bacon voted for this deficitspending while running on a platform that says
he's going to cut spending and oneof his colleagues called him out and said,

(18:41):
Don, what are you thinking?And then worked to find somebody that
would do the job that Don promisedto do. And that story can be
told with a number of different politiciansacross this country. So what I'm telling
you is that you've got to go. And I'd spoken about this to you
in the break. I just receivedyesterday endorsement from Congressman Bob Good, the

(19:02):
chairman of the Freedom Caucus. That'sa group that's very serious about broadening their
base in DC, and they're veryserious about delivering on what they promise.
And one of their big promises isthat they're going to get this fiscal house
in order. And again, it'snot going to happen overnight, but it
will never happen if we continue tosend individuals to DC that are going to
spend all of our kids and allof our grandkids into oblivion. Republicans always

(19:27):
have a yeah butt like, yeahbut we got the war on terror.
Yeah, but there's a pandemic.Yeah but Putin is invading Ukraine. We
got to do something about this,So let's talk about that. I don't
know if you saw the Meet thePress interview that congressmen did on Easter morning.

(19:48):
Did you see that? No,I would encourage you to go watch
it. That interview was about elevenminutes long. An overwhelming majority of that
was spent on how are we goingto get funding to Ukraine, Scott,
I would ask you, why arewe funding Ukraine in protecting their borders while
ours are wide open. Every oneof our states is now a border state.

(20:14):
Millions and millions of people are inthis country illegally. We have no
idea who they are, where they'reat, and what their intentions are.
And yet I've got my congressman ona Sunday morning talk show talking about how
he is strategizing to send hundreds ofbillions of dollars to Ukraine. If you
go, and here's what's interesting,if you fast forward to about the seven
minute and forty five second mark onthat interview, he will openly tell you

(20:38):
when he speaks to the people inhis district, the number one, two
and three issues are the border,in securing the border, and that's all
he said. That's all he said. So we can save ourselves a whole
lot of money if we would extractourselves from places that we don't belong.
So again, if you're looking forsomebody that going to send hundreds of billions

(21:00):
of dollars to countries that we don'tneed to be in right now, I'm
not your guy. So the argumentwould be then what we just let putin
take as much as Ukraine as youwant. Do we let the Palestinians take
as much of Jerusalem and Gaza asthey want to take. Here's the argument.
Here's the argument. The argument isis that this whole world is safer
when America is strong and secure.Don't kid yourself. We're not strong and

(21:26):
secure. The constituents out here seethat Don Bacon has you know, in
his interview with Chip Maxwell, hesays, hey, we've pulled. We've
pulled this whole Ukraine deal. Andthe American people want us to be there.
They want us to they want usto support this. He's not talking
to the same people I'm talking toin his district. I think he's toned
deaf to this issue. The overwhelmingmajority are not in favor of us dumping

(21:48):
the treasury of the United States intoUkraine. And here's here's all I need
to know about it. Rand Paulhad long, I say, long ago,
not too long ago, come tothe conclusion that we should be done
funding Ukraine. But he took aposition that says, if we're going to
continue to do it, we needto be able to audit it, and

(22:11):
we need to have oversight of thosefunds. It was rejected. Why Why,
that's all I need to know.Who in the world would not want
to know where their funds are beingspent, how they're being spent, and
what they're being spent on. Wedon't need to be there. We need
to secure our own borders. Weneed to make sure that the citizens of

(22:33):
this country are safe. That's theprimary responsibility of the federal government is to
protect and defend the borders of thiscountry and the citizens therein. This isn't
negotiable. The argument from the politicalleft in this country is that Trumpers don't
care about Putin. They'll let himrun roughshot over Ukraine. What the Trumpers
feel is the most dangerous thing inthis country is Mike Pence, and that's

(22:56):
why they go into the Capitol onJanuary sixth to try and stop a free
and fair election. Your thoughts onJanuary sixth on the assessment of the Biden
administration that domestic terrorists MAGA supporters areeven more dangerous than maybe what's going on
with Israel right now. So here'swhere I'm at. I'm going to give
you a gift today, Scott.All right, thank you. My position

(23:21):
on January sixth, is that youhad protesters there. Some might have gotten
out of hand, very few ofthem, but they were there to protest
peacefully. At the end of theday, we've got a two tier justice
system when you see what's going onin DC and those that are outside of
DC and how they're held accountable.If you want to have a discussion on

(23:41):
January six, I will get aguy that's on your show and you talk
about the left, will tell youthat they're terrorist. My own congressman,
Congressman Don Bacon, referred to thej six protesters as terrorist. They're not
terrorists. So I've got a gentlemanin Ohio as a friend of mine.
He spent nine months out of afourteen month sentence in a federal penitentiary.

(24:03):
He never went inside the capitol neverever, was never accused of going inside
the capitol. So if you wantto have an in depth conversation on Jase
six and what really unfolded there,I could put somebody on your show that
and feel free to welcome Don Baconto that too, because this is the
man that he would have referred toas a terrorist, and he's been there,

(24:26):
he's done the time I would loveto talk with him. We'll make
it happen. I'm on every morningfrom five to eleven for the next couple
of weeks. I've got time.It was interesting because when I spoke with
him, I've already called him andI said, hey, would you be
interested? And he says, Dan, you know, I've been thinking about
how do I give voice to thisbecause what happened was an injustice. Come

(24:48):
to find out again, he servednine out of fourteen months. He's still
on probation. And I said,before you do anything, you need to
check with your attorney and make surethat we've got the green light, so
we can make that happen. Allright, I love to talk with him
here. So President Trump is Idon't think it's controversial to say maybe the
most polarizing political figure of our timehere in America. And should you?

(25:14):
I mean, I don't know howmuch Bacon's going to make this about like
tying you to Trump in a Republicanprimary, because I think that you probably
welcome that in a Republican primary.Should you be victorious in May and move
on to the general election against presumablyTony Vargas in November? I don't know
that being tied to Trump is goingto be politically popular in this district.

(25:36):
How do you walk that line?Here's what I would tell you. You
can call me Maga, you cancall me America first. At the end
of the day, there's nothing wrongwith either one of those two. There's
not America first. Think about that. When did that become bad? Make
America great again? When did thatbecome bad? And when I look at
Donald Trump in the policies that hehad when he was in the presidency compared

(25:59):
to where we're at now, Ihave to ask, what is it that
you did not like? Did younot like the interest rates? Did you
not like the fact that we wereenergy independent? Did you not like the
fact that we were exporting energy andour economy was rolling up until the pandemic?
Did we not like the inflation rates? What was it that we didn't
like? Did we not like ourwhat it cost us to go to the

(26:22):
grocery or to fill up our car. I'll take that all day long,
and again, there's nothing wrong withmaking America great again. So don Bacon
Tony Vargas. They can tie meto anybody they want, know that I'm
in this race to make America greatagain. But I'm the America first candidate
here that is willing to say it'sabout leaving something better for those that are

(26:47):
coming behind us, and right nowwe're doing the exact opposite. Most people
agree with what you just said thereabout the Trump presidency, but what they
say that they didn't like was itjust seemed like he just sucked all the
air out of the room and onecould ever talk about was Trump. Mostly
people complaining about it, and itmade you know, people got divorces.

(27:07):
They suddenly social media got crazy andthey just said, look, I just
got tired of all of the fightingabout it, and maybe be better if
Trump just went away. Some ofthese people are Republicans, you need to
come out and vote for you ina primary potentially a general election. How
do you get them back around hereto saying like, look, they want
you to be tired of this process, You've got to re engage. I'm

(27:30):
tired of the process that's that's destroyingthe infrastructure of families. I'm tired of
the process that's destroying the wealth thatwas once created in this nation. That's
what I'm tired of. When youlook at where we're at, I think
this is a change election, andyou've got three and a half years and

(27:51):
by the time election year, bythe time election day rolls around, it
will be four years that people willbe able to compare and contrast. Am
I willing to tolerate, right,someone that doesn't necessarily deliver a message the
way that I would deliver it intheir mind? Or do I want to
continue with these policies of this clownshow of the last four years that is

(28:11):
destroying the very culture and infrastructure ofthis country. I think they'll go back
to the Trump policies, and I'mI'm willing to have that argument all day
long. Dan Fry is seeking yoursupport in the upcoming May fourteenth Republican primary
Nebraska's second congressional district. Again.The website for more information on you and

(28:32):
your thoughts is Fry fr Ei thenumber four Nebraska dot com. I would
encourage you jump on that website,push it out to your friends. This
campaign is catching fire and it isit's going extremely well. Been ten years
since you've been in the studio withme. I appreciate having you back in
here. Thank you very much.In a pleasure of time. Thank and

(28:52):
we will afford Congressman Don Bacon andTony Vargas the same opportunities moving forward here
in this election year. Scott VoysMornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio
eleven ten KFAB