Congressman Warren Davidson joins Brian Thomas this morning

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fifty five Carorise de Talk Station. Ryan Thomas wishing everyone
a very happy Friday, even thanking everybody who made a
listener lunch yesterday and always happy to welcome to the
fifty five Karrossay Morning Show. It's that day the return
of Congressman Orren Davidson. Congressman Davidson, welcome back, my friend,
Thanks for coming on the program again.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Always a joy to talk with you. Brian, thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, at least you had three more and your company. Yesterday,
you along with Brian Fitzpatrick, Thomas Massey, and Tom Barrett
of Michigan voted to pass this I guess measure to
limit Donald Trump's Ukraine War. The vote total was two
fifteen to two to eight. I ran War Powers Resolution.

(00:40):
What will this do? I mean, assuming the unlikely that
it goes and passes in the Senate and it survives
a Donald Trump veto, which I think may be inevitable.
But what was this design to do?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Congressman Davidson, Well, it was really designed to support and
defend the Constitution. I mean, so if you look at
the War Powers Act, it was passed in nineteen seventy three,
Congress had sort of just passively cut the checks for
the Vietnam War. They couldn't get control of the floor
of the House to really schedule a vote. The committee's
of jurisdiction tend to be populated by people that are

(01:12):
for all the wars and all the places. That's been
true really in the post World War two era. So
the Korean War went on all three years of the
Korean War. We don't call it the police Korean police action.
We call it the Korean War because it was a war.
But Congress would never vote to authorize it. The Vietnam
War had gone on for a decade in nineteen seventy three,

(01:36):
and so they passed this War Powers Act, which gives
you a privileged vote for Congress to be able to
go on record to say, hey, this is unauthorized, and
it puts some pressure abit public relations pr or whatever
on the president to seek authorization for the war. And
that's what the that's what the Constitution says. Is not

(01:57):
so much whether you should do this war or that war.
The Constitution says, Congress is supposed to vote to authorize it.
And I you have not only a constitutional duty, but
a moral obligation to the people that you asked to
wage your wars, to define the mission, to then authorize
that mission, and then accomplish the mission. And so those
kinds of things happen't happen, and then when you fail

(02:19):
to do that, that's how you wind up with these
aimless and endless wars.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, and defining the mission seems to be one of
the more critical elements we need right now. And I'm
with you on your perception of all this because the
Constitution says what it says, you need the input of
Congress in terms in dealing with matters of war. And sorry,
let me interject, I had to crack up. You said,
we don't call it the Korean police accents the Korean War.
It's one of those Orwellian things. It's like, for example,

(02:44):
in our current spat with the Iranians, we have a
ceasefire on paper, and people keep saying it's a ceasefire,
and yet both sides keep shooting each other. Just don't
ignore your lying eyes, right, Congressman Davidson.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
But yeah, I mean it embarrassing when the war in Iran,
first I guess, renewed really active hostilities on February twenty eighth,
and people were calling it a war and then catching
themselves well, I mean, you know, conflict, you know, kinetic engagement,
you know, whatever, every kind of thing to avoid saying war.

(03:18):
It's you know, it's like I don't know what a
woman is. Well, of course we know what a woman is,
and of course we know what a war is. And
you know it should be self evident what a ceasefire is.
But you know, President Trump yesterday in a fitting response,
people said, what do you mean by ceasefire? And he goes, well,
in that region, maybe it means you go after each
other a little less intensely. And so you know, as

(03:42):
you look in the Middle East, to you, well it
is progress. And I will say the blockade part seems
to be working. I you know, had the privilege of
questioning Secretary Rubio yesterday and I think, look, they've done
so many things. Well, one of the primary focuses was
you didn't need to change the law to secure the boarder,
border security and national security. This mass migration nonsense, that's

(04:04):
flooding our country with illegals. President trumpet shut off. This
administration has been very effective, and the national security strategy
focuses on that that national security begins at our own border,
it spreads through our hemisphere and then goes out around
the world and looks at our own interests. I talked
about other authorizations for force, like, you know, we're still

(04:24):
not really dealing with the Uranian proxies correctly. We should authorize,
you know, the activity we should actually authorize. What the
administration has done is treating the drug cartels as enemies
of our country, and that migration linkage is exploiting people,
killing Americans and lots of other people. But then when
it comes to war, you know that basically every administration says, yeah,

(04:45):
we basically we can do whatever we want, and that's
not what the Constitution says. There are a lot of
people that think it would be better if the constitution
did say that. Then find them. I'm open to having
a debate about a constitutional amendment to that. But there
are no free wars. And that was a big part
of the the congressional or the constitutional debate when the
founding fathers were drafting the constitution. That's where they created

(05:07):
the tension between Article one and the legislature and Article
two and the presidency, and basically gave the president the
power to wage the war. But Congress the duty to
declare the war.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I guess I'd have to ask, even in the
absence of war powers resolution or obviously the declaration of
war seems to be even off the table, but you
retain the power of the purse. Can you not deny
funds to continue the ongoing efforts against the Iranians? I mean,
is that not another independent mechanism? I know that's a
tall ask given the dysfunction in Congress these days, Congressman Davidson,

(05:42):
But isn't that certainly possible?

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, it is possible. But the problem is this is,
once you've got troops in harm's way, how do you
not fund them? So there's really the dilemma is, well,
how do you not give them the resources to do things?
And the way you really do the resources is, you know,
when the country is united. But look, it took three
days after nine to eleven for Congress to vote to

(06:07):
authorize the war. We knew we should go to war, right,
But then what failed after that? Well, they didn't define
the mission. That's where George W. Bush, if you know,
was out on a carrier waving a flags, a big
banner mission accomplished. Everyone knew that wasn't true, except apparently
George Bush. I think he knew too, right, But it
was all pr and designed to build the support for

(06:31):
going into Iraq. Well, how did that turn out? How
did Afghanistan turnout? Congress has consistently failed in its obligation
to A define the mission and b, you know, tie
the money to results and measure and hold people accountable
for actually accomplishing the mission instead of just waging the

(06:51):
war actually winning the war.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, and I'm glad you mentioned in Afghanistan because it's
great illustration for those who thinks since because we have
the biggest, baddest military in the world, and there's no
denying that that Afghanistans, these crazy guys with Ak forty
sevens in the mountains, were able to fend off for
over a long period of time. I can't remember, was
it a decade with the Russian invasion and then following
that we invaded Afghanistan and ultimately really had nothing to

(07:15):
show for it when when we pulled out immediately. It
just shows the tenacity of a very well obviously fundamentalist
religious group and how much and how long they are
willing to just wage this guerrilla warfare against major military powers.
I mean, just because you have a big military does
not ensure your victory under those circumstances.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
No, I mean their religion basically, the more they suffer,
the more it validates, you know, the righteousness of their cause.
So they just keep digging in and digging in, and
you know they want more gi hot and everything. These
people are crazy. Their right to be viewed as enemies
of our country. I mean, our military is waging a
just you know, it's just to take out Ayatolamania, and

(08:00):
that was a just action. It was also you know,
not unprecedented to do something like that without a congressional authorization,
but it is unconstitutional still, and you know that it's
fair if if the public really wants a debate on
constitutional amendment, and whoever gets elected president gets this. You
can't forget student debt, but you can go to World
War three if you want to, you know, you know,

(08:24):
all those kinds of things. It's like, well, look, I
want the president to have the flexibility to respond in
a time of crisis. That's a duty defined in the constitution.
You should be able to say, repel an invasion and
take a decisive, swift action. But you know, that's for
like an exigent circumstance where you don't have the ability
to convene Congress. And you know, if you look at it,

(08:46):
the country isn't truly united behind this war, and even
Republicans aren't united behind this war. Even some of the
most enthusiastic people in the initial days after you know,
early March show when this began, our starting to go
what are we doing here? And why are we doing it?
And you know, what is the what does victory look

(09:06):
like here? And those are the kinds of questions that
you should ask. And that's why you should have the
debate on the floor of Congress and vote not just
for funding but for the actual this is the mission,
go accomplish it.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yes, And the Iranians have been, you know, blowing stuff
up and killing American servicemen and funding terrorist proxies that
in turn kill people who we are allies with or
kill our troop. This has going on for well since
nineteen seventy nine. The urgency, the eminent threat or the
eminent concern that I suppose served as a predicate to
starting a war with Iran, the operation of big theory.
I think that's a that's something we're hiding behind now,

(09:41):
or the administration's hiding behind because I think the urgency
was because they knew that thirty five or so, the
head leaders of the Iranian religious fundamentalist group that runs
the country, we're in one spot at one time, and
we needed to hurry up and blow them all up.
Whether we're in one spot and thinking it was going
to be more like Venezuela with the decapitation of Maduro
and the inevitable quick fall of that regime.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I mean then look even within the administration to
pull off the successful decapitation strike, I mean, you know, operationally,
I mean that was brilliant, well executed mission. I mean,
as an army guy, I look at it and go, well,
that was you know, well executed or military is done
amazing things in combat. But even opset wise, I mean,

(10:25):
they kept that super tight, even within the Pentagon, on
whether that was even going to be a mission. And
that's the only way you could accomplish a mission like that,
And so that's a fair question to say, well, can
you do these kinds of things in a modern era
and have a vote in Congress, And you know the
right sequence would have been to authorize the combat before

(10:48):
it took place. But you've had ninety days now, and
that's not what the War Powers Acts say is by
the way, But some people claimed that early on, like,
well the war powers access Presidenttive whatever he wants for
ninety days. Well he's basically done what he wants for
ninety ays. But one of the things that he doesn't
want to do is come get congressional authorization. And I
just asked Secretary Review about that yesterday and they basically said, look,

(11:10):
we think we have all the authority we need. We do.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
And this is because I think since World War Two,
Congressman Davidson, we've just sort of been ignoring the whole
legal framework upon which war's supposed to be waged. Convenient
to just let it slide by the wayside, and all
the other guys did it. Ergo, I'm allowed to do it.
Let's bring Congressman Warren Davidson back a few more points
on that, but some other topics as well, including some
maybe another reconciliation bill. We'll find out with Congressman Warren Davidson.

(11:37):
The talk station seven twenty here fifty five Kerr see
the talk station Brian Thomas talking with Congressman Warren Davidson.
Sticking with the subject of the war with the Iranians,
Donald Trump just said, I guess yesterday he will not
resume what has been described as all out war unless
Iran kills US troops. Now, that sounds like a line
in the sand, but we've been down this road quite

(11:58):
a few times. If we don't, if they don't do this,
if they don't step up and do that, then I'm
going to start blowing them off the map and off
the face of the earth. This wash rent, repeat cycle.
I don't know what all out means. Does that mean
boots on the ground. Are we actually going to invade
and this raises obviously much bigger problems, or are we
just going to ultimately pull the plug on this because

(12:19):
the Iranians have a stranglehold on the Straight of Horror
Moves and obviously our American military is incapable of ferrying
enough boats to get regular order going on in this strait.
Seems like we've got kind of a stalemate here with
their ports being closed and the Straight of Horror Moves
being closed. Your thoughts and comments, Congressman Davidson, Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I think you want to be careful not to get
baited into a conflict. You don't really want to let
your enemy pick the time in or or a place
of any engagement. You want to dictate that in combat.
And that's why I think the blockade is effective. The
navy blockad, I mean, our navy's big enough and powerful
enough to impose its will on a Ran. I mean,
way we've destroyed their navy and be yeah, okay, they've

(13:02):
got drones and they've got stuff that you know, for
a commercial vessel to drive through a straight you know,
they risk the whole cargo, they risk the crew. There's
no way the insurance is going to cover that. And
so people don't want to risk losing a tanker load
worth of oil and the liability for the lives that
could be lost. So the ships stay put and they
don't go through. But nevertheless, what ELSO doesn't go through

(13:25):
is there's no commerce going on in Iran right now.
So this is crippling Iran. I mean, this is you know,
when maximum pressure are forced her into the table in
the first Trump administration. This is nothing on the kind
of level of the blockade. So look, that is a
military operation. I mean, I think it's an effective one.
I think it's if we have the strategic patience to

(13:48):
continue doing that. I think it can be can be effective.
If you pump oil every day, you eventually have to
ship oil sometime. And I hope it doesn't turn into
an environmental disaster, but it is putting pressure on RAND.
They need resources in their economy. You know, they have
back door ways to get some things across land, but
they're fundamentally being crippled with this blockade. Well, and I.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Suppose the future may be different. A lot of hard
lessons are being learned. And I saw this article by
Georgie Kantschev headlined the Horror Moves squeeze is redrawing the
oil map for good. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
and Iraq are pouring money into pipelines, rail and storage
to keep the oil flowing even when the strait isn't
they see the future. They see the present, and the

(14:32):
future is let's pipe it out and never have to
rely on the straight of horror moves again. So that
could be a real positive thing down the road, although
billions of dollars will have to be spent and will
take years to accomplish it. They've already ramped up pipeline
shipping of oil in the area wherever they possibly can,
along with rail.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah. I mean, so look at you'll have a more
resilient supply chain. In the meantime. The US is like,
I hear you guys need oil. We got oil outside
is Look, you know, we are paying price higher prices
at the pump in the United States. I think we're
feeling the pain less than a lot of places around
the world. That doesn't mean we don't feel the pain,
but I mean, I want to be clear. Look that
the price at the pump is the tip of the

(15:13):
iceberg in terms of the cost of war. And you know,
I mean the first Sunday after we voted on this
in March, I got a text from a you know,
a friend, former Ranger guy, but I didn't serve with him,
but he served much younger than me in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and he's like, hey, I lost another bat boy, guy

(15:34):
from Ranger battalion to suicide. And you look at the
cost of war. This guy lost ten friends in the
wake of war. And if you look at you know,
another metric for the cost of war, not just twenty
plus a veteran suicide to day on average. But you know,
in two thousand and five, twenty years ago, we were
spending about sixty billion dollars a year on the VA

(15:58):
and we have a moral obligation to get for those
people who've served our country, and we have and you
know last year we spent over four hundred billion dollars
and we still have twenty plus suicides. So like, the
cost of war is enduring and ongoing for the people
that you asked to wage it. And I think that's
why the least you could do is expect Congress.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
To vote the least. Congressman Davidson, can you stick around
for one more segment? Got a few questions about the
reconciliation bill that's being proposed over in the Senate. Want
to see where you are on that or not. If
you don't have enough time, that's great, I understand completely.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, heavy to talk. Plenty going on there.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Oh yeah, hold on one more with Congressman Davidson. It's
seven twenty five right now, fifty five CARES seven thirty
eight to fifty five care CD Talk Stationan Brian Thomas
with Congressman Warren Davidson, pivoting over. I guess the Senate
has now got a reconciliation package number two. We got
one through earlier, and of course you have to use
reconciliation because of the Senate filibuster. Democrats are not going
to give in and do anything to help benefit the

(16:54):
American people or most notably reasoned to go because of
Donald Trump. But this one regarding immigration enforcement, notably the
US Immigrations and Customs enforcement and Customs and Border Protection
funding which has never yet been funded. That's still that
thing that was the reason for the shutdown. But part
of the stumbling block and not moving this forward sooner
apparently is the White House ballroom funding and the Anti

(17:18):
weaponization fund, which is rather controversial. I thought Trump had
backed off on the ladder, but the funding for the
for the ballroom at over a billion dollars, seemed to
rub people the wrong way. Anyway, with that out of
that package, is this going to move forward? And what
do you think? And will it pass?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah? I was just at at dinner with some conservative
senators last night. They feel like they've got a path
through the Senate finally. I mean, it's just frustrating sitting
and looking at the Senate. So you know, people back
home are you know, always like what's up with Thun,
What's up with the Senate? How are they not taking
action on Save America and gazillion other things? And you know, hey,

(17:56):
I get a ring side seat. It's frustrating. We've spent
hours and hours an hour or is passing things in
the House only to go watch them ignore it and
do nothing in the Senate and then trip up over
our own stuff. Like the ballroom goes back to Obama.
I mean, there's a whole lot of other things that
are going on besides, you know, under the floor of
the ballroom, there's going to be other stuff out of
that building. This is an idea that's a long time standing,

(18:19):
and somehow they've turned it into Trump's vanity project. It's like, no,
it's a common sense thing to have there. You do
need to appropriate some money and authorize some of the
things that you need to do there. This isn't the
perfect bill to do it, but you know, as long
as Trump's president, Democrats are going to be opposed to
doing those things. But the real mistake here is look
last December or last October, unfortunately, the Senate folded and

(18:43):
let Senate Democrats strip out the Homeland security funding package,
let them strip out the funding for ice and Bord patrol.
So we've been depleting the one hundred plus billion dollars
that we've put to you plus up the effort at
ice and Bord patrol. We've been burning through that cash
to continue operating ice and border patrol. So you know

(19:06):
that's not an unlimited amount of money. We're supposed to
have ongoing appropriations for ice in border p ttrol. So
we need the Sendate to take action. And now it's
going to be as skinny as you can make it.
But they are finally supposed to put on it today.
So even if they drag it into the end of
the week, they'll get it done this week, I believe.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, it's good to hear that some and maybe you
don't get everything you want, but I'll take a step
in the right direction along those lines. But save America
that is, as I understand it, since it's not budget related,
you couldn't put that into a budget reconciliation in order
to dodge the filibusters.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah that's right. Yeah, this is this And I don't
even think they're going to attempt to do it, but yeah,
would it's a policy thing. So look, reconciliation is this
magic word that breaks the sixty vote spell on the
Senate so that you can just get us, you can
answer the actual question, you can call it straight with
the Senate, and they got go on record and a

(20:00):
simple majority passes things in the Senate. The closure rule,
the sixty vote rules what they use to prevent an
actual vote on the underlying topic. And yet because it's
policy related, the rules for budget reconciliation don't allow policy.
That's known as the bird rule, so it would be
stripped out.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Well, and you know what, always, I guess I'm frustrated
by this when you see the protesters at these ice facilities,
obviously well funded by massive billionaire infusions of cash giving
them all the supplies and resources they need. You got
people that are twenty four hours a day, seven days
a week, for multiple days, the same people protesting something
is amiss there, but that the Democrats are wed to

(20:42):
the whole idea that they do not want to do
anything about. And it would rather have criminal illegal immigrants
released out on the streets, people who have committed horrific crimes,
convicted in many cases of horrific crimes like child rape
that they want them released. I don't understand how any ration,
sane human being could could advocate for that with a

(21:02):
straight face. And I'd like to hope and pray that
the vast majority of the American population agrees with me
on that topic and thinks the Democrats are crazy. What
do you hear on the hill there when you're talking
with Democrats about that reality?

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, I mean here, it's a total disconnect. Like when
I talk we poll in our district, and you know,
it's been a little while since we went out and
did any kind of polling. But a lot of the
things that they're not really even partisan issues. I mean,
you know, illegal immigrations, I legal immigration. Now you know,
my opponent thinks there's no such thing as illegal people
and they should be able to vote in elections, you know,

(21:38):
even if you're here illegally of course, so you know
there are radicals out there, but that's not a consensus
position of even Democrats in Southwest Ohio. But when you
come to Congress, they vote that way, and it's the
same like it's bipartisan to deal with scams. I mean,
this Medicaid fraud stuff that's going on, that's not a
partisan issue in Ohio to go after that, punish it

(21:59):
and possible people. And in Congress, look, if you want
to go after people that are scamming seniors, there's no
partisanship there. Democrats are happy to work with me on
that issue in any way. But when the scam involves
ripping off the federal government to give money even to
illegals that they didn't wire out or leave with to
go back to Somaya or Bhutan or wherever else, somehow

(22:22):
it becomes partisan. I mean, I think this stuff is crazy.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, and they try to accuse people of racism when
people are merely going after the fraud. Did another frustrating
thing for me that in Minnesota anyway, that was the argument, well,
we didn't really go after fraud because it was racist
to do so. And I'm thinking, well, no, it isn't
that one segment of the Somali population having to be fraudsters.
I don't care where they came from. They could come from,

(22:45):
you know, Iowa. If they're criminals ripping the American taxpayers off,
those are the people we are going after. It has
nothing to do with the fact that they originated from
Somalia here legally or illegally, they are criminals. That's why
we're going after him. And didn't everyone be going after
people who are ripping off every single American taxpayer of
any political stripe.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, I mean that was the whole point of Doze
in the first place. And part of this that's coming
out is because Doge went in and dug into the
files and said, look, DOGE being the US Digital Service
legally the brand name when the Musk came in was
a Department of Government Efficiency DOGE. And they pulled this
data out. And what really happened as investigative journalists went

(23:28):
out and started going, well, gee, why would we have
ninety four LLCs at the same address?

Speaker 1 (23:35):
What is this about?

Speaker 2 (23:37):
And they started going, well, where's our money going? Well,
it's going to this building right here, and there's ninety
four LLCs related who's controlling this? And they started asking
questions that mainstream journalists weren't that. You know, in some cases,
when I talked to the auditor, keyth Faber, he's highlighted, Look,
they're complying with this level of the law, but there's
stuff going on. He's highlighted, you know, tens of millions,

(24:00):
if not billion plus dollars of fraud. As the auditor.
I think he's going to do a great job getting
after this with prosecutions as Attorney General. But I think
that's where the public's rightly frustrated and say, how is
it that we have these scams going on? Yeah, I
mean President Trump's getting scrutiny because he's putting pressure on Treasury.
We get the Bank Secrecy Act that spies on everyone

(24:20):
on your bank accounts and your money. But somehow this
thing that's supposed to catch the people that are laundering
money for the drug cartels and stop North Korea from
getting weapons that we don't approve of. That's why they
spy on you in your bank accounts officially, but you
can't filter out the people that aren't even legally in
the country. And now they got bank accounts, I mean,

(24:42):
and medicaid payments going to them. And this is crazy
stuff that's going on, and thankfully we're exposing.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
It, thankfully, and I hope that continues to be a
big prominent issue as we move into November, because I again,
to me, this bears absolutely no political stripe. Were being
being ripped off and that has to stop. I hope
that gets some headway from me. Lease of the Republicans
are embracing the concept of going after it like you.
Congressman Warren Davidson. Thank you for your time today and

(25:10):
thank you for your service to our country in the
American military and your ongoing services. Congressman, I appreciate your
willingness to come on the program and share your thoughts
and comments about these important issues with my listeners and me,
and I really can't wait to get you back on again, sir.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
That's always an honor. God bless you and all your listeners.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Brian and you, sir, thanks again, seven thirty eight right
now if you have KSITY talk station