Congressman Warren Davidson joins the show this morning

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Seven oh five, that's Thursday.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
By the time is.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Always please when Congressman Warren Davidson joins the fifty five
Caresey Morning Show to talk with us, talk a lot
of us about what's going on in Washington, DC. Welcome
back to Congressman Davidson. It's a pleasure having you on
my program.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Brian. It's always an honor. Thanks for talking with me.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Kind of exciting times being an elected official right now
on the Republican side of the ledger, A lot is
getting done. That's the understatement of a the year man.
I'm Tony Trump has been able to accomplish more and
you along with Trump's initiatives and what he campaigned on,
a lot of which is being accomplished. It's just it's
so fast and so furious. I personally have never witnessed
anything like this. And all the time I've been looking,

(00:55):
you know, studying politics was like junior year in high school.
What's your take on just the the pace at which
we're going here.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Look, Congress is having a hard time moving at the
speed of Trump. Trump's getting after it every day. I mean,
the team he's put together is doing amazing things, and
you know, the results are tremendous. I mean, you know,
maybe the best line of the year was at the
State of the Union when he said, you know, for
the for border security, it turns out all we needed
was a different president. We still haven't passed a really
good border security law, but with the big beautiful Bill,

(01:27):
we gave lots of funding so that they can keep
the pace they're going at and frankly intensify the effort.
So we're going to have a secure border. And with
a secure border, that I'll give us a lot of
options on how do we deal with the rest of
these problems. And you know, I'm excited about that. I'm
excited about our strong, focused military. I just met with
the Secretary of the Army this week. We're working on,

(01:47):
you know, getting the military laser focus readiness wise, I mean,
cutting out the bloat and waste. I mean, I'm talking
about bureaucratic inefficiencies we've known about for decades. And because
Congress generally just does i'm bus bills and just you know,
status quo, keep it going, they don't really do the
major reforms. And they're getting after it in the executive branch.
Hopefully Congress will move somewhere alongs in line with that,

(02:12):
and we'll get some of those reforms documented into law.
But the pace is exciting.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well, and it's good that the Supreme Court greenlighted people
getting fired. I just had to laugh, although part of
me wanted to cry. It took them four months to
figure out actually the number of people that even worked
in the State Department. They didn't even know.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's mind blowing. I mean the
Security Army. I was talking to them. He said, thirty
thousand people work in just the procurement part. These are
civilian employees, not soldiers, civilian employees, thirty thousand just buying
stuff for the army. And I'm like, well, how does
that compare with Walmart or Amazon. He's like, well, yeah,
like five thousand, Like they buy everything in the world,
all over the planet, right, but yeah, like five thousand

(02:53):
people can do it. Thirty thousand for the army. So
you know, they've got, you know, ambitious goals to shrink
that and bring the technology up to speed. Part of
the reason that some of this stuff is so broken.
I mean, X small business with quick books has probably
got more tech than a lot of our government agencies
in terms of just accounting controls. You know, who authorized
this spending? Did you really receive the part that you're

(03:16):
about to pay for things like that that you just
kind of take for granted that they're in place. There's
a reason they can't pass a quote audit and provide
accountability there. The other thing is this idea of the
audit that they're doing. It's like, you know, they're not
focused on details like that. You get all these you know,
big accounting firms coming in and then want to go, well,
how do you value the nuclear waste? You're like, yeah,

(03:39):
we get some nuclear waste. We're not putting a price
on it. I mean, we're just we're just trying to
find out what to do with it. And they're flag
and stuff like that, and we're like, no, no, where
did the money go that we sent to Ukraine? Exactly?

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Things like that exactly. Well, and that's one of the
things that I was so impressed by, although underwhelmed at
the total amount of fraud, waste and abuse that was
out in the world. But when dog looked at USAID
and we find out the American taxpayer is working and
going to work every day to make money for income taxes,
to find out that it's going to like Sesame Street

(04:11):
in Israel or Afghanistan or something. I mean, the list
of absurd and insane programs, it's mind boggling, and it's
angering to folks like me and other people who pay
attention to this. It's the same question who authorized the
funding of this ridiculous program? And what did the non
governmental organization who said they were going to fix whatever

(04:32):
problem is identified actually do with the money. There seems
to be no follow up or accounting along those lines.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, and I mean even if you look at structural
problems like you know, hud Okay, we believe we should
have a housing safety net, but you know, where's the
money going for some of these projects. You keep funning
it and they always say, we just need more money.
But then when you dig in, you're like, in DC
DC public Housing, only fifty percent of the housing units
are even livable. They're like, well, you get a maintenanstant
repair budget of what it gets spent every year. I

(05:00):
aren't the place is fixed. Did you spend the money
fixing the place? Well, we gave it to the contractor, yeah,
but did they fix the place? You know, stuff that's
crazy and it's no, it isn't getting fixed. That's why
you have half of the housing units that the people
are paying for not livable. They can't even use them.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Well, And as to yesterday, the nine billion dollar federal
funding reduction for foreign aid programs that went through the Senate,
it's going to be back to the House. What was
the one stumbling block funding for HIV AIDS research or
programs out in the world. How's the House going to
take the minor changes from the Senate on this one?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, I mean we're disappointed. I mean, good grief. You
get to give a haircut to nine point four billion,
which you know is a zero point one percent of
federal spending. I mean yes, you know that's why are
bond prices higher. Well, because they know nobody's going to
cut spending. We're we're riding this sucker on Endo the
trash site, it seems. And you know, we we identify

(05:58):
ways to save money, it would be popular with the public.
We I mean, only because jd Vance cast the tiebreaking vote,
could we defund NPR and you know stuff like that.
I mean, MPR needs a billion dollars to sew propaganda
for anti American propaganda often, but certainly, you know, anti
anybody right of the center of the Democratic Party. They're

(06:19):
pushing far left the agenda every day, and they've got
lots of donors and plenty of advertisers, and you know,
regular people that just donate to local PBS stations, you
know who I admit to have some good programming. I
like some of their programming, But if you look at
the macro agenda, it's his way left of center, and
they don't need tax dollars to do it. But only

(06:39):
because jd Vance cast the tiebreaking vote could they do that.
We're going to vote on it, I think later today.
I mean, they have to go to rules committee here
probably as we speak. And I think we're supposed to
start a debate on the floor on defense appropriations again
at nine. We did a little bit of it overnight
last night.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Well, it seems can you make defense appropriations, you know,
contingent upon actually being able to pass an audit? I mean,
that seems doesn't seem like a big ask. But you know,
I am convinced like nothing else that there's a whole
lot of fraudways that abuse in a trillion dollar military budget.
This is not to say I don't believe in building
ships and keeping up with the Chinese Communist Party or whoever,

(07:16):
defending America's interests both at home and abroad. But like
you said, where's the money actually going? Is it accomplishing
anything or has it been misspent or otherwise stolen?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, I mean that was one of the topics talking
with the Secretary of the Army, is you know, the
state of the audit, because I've you know, got this
amendment that I offer, which is, you know, any year
that they can't pass an audit, you get to eliminate
ten percent of the general in general. You know, they
got too many generals, but you have to hold somebody accountable.
And okay, we believe you need the money because we
want to be strong and focused and have the best

(07:50):
equipment in the world. Even when you do it. One
of the things I'm going to speak at is this
whole thing called latoral class you know ship Oh sure,
the inland waterways and everything else. These are non usable
for the purpose. Over half of them aren't even seaworthy
right now, and they want to keep funding the program.
And instead of just saying, look, man, we're just throwing
bad money, throwing good money after bad here, and it's

(08:13):
just sort of the sunk cost fallacy. Well, you know,
we've already spent this much. We have to No, it's
not fixable.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Stop well, and I just have to throw this out
because the nature of warfare has obviously changed dramatically, as
illustrated by the you know, the the Israel and the
Iranian strikes and of course you got Russia Ukraine. It's
full on drone. I mean, you don't need multi billion
dollar aircraft to accomplish the goal that a you know,

(08:41):
several thousand dollars drone can accomplish. So are we going
to move away from funding you know, these billion dollar
manned aircraft in favor of allocating more resources of money
to drone type technology.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, hopefully we're shifting the focus. I mean we're working
on it. I mean our shipbuilding state of shipbuilding in
the country is probably one of the biggest issues. Just
keeping up with ammunitions is a challenge for the supply chain.
You know, to be candid, we shipped a lot of
them to other war zones and we need to replenish ours.
Part of it was some of those were older. But
then you get well, okay, what's the rate that we

(09:13):
can produce new stuff, and that again through the procure process,
isn't keeping pace with what we would like and what
we what we want to build out for a future
surge capability if we ever really needed to, you know,
we wouldn't say I was ever one of the biggest
fans of Donald Grumsfeld, but he had a decent saying
I kind of co opted about the supply chain is
you know, you go to war with the supply chain

(09:35):
you have, not with the supply chain you wish you had,
right And we're trying to fix that. And that's a
big part of what Trump's doing with tariffs. It's a
big part about you know, what we're doing with the
Defense Production Act, and it is trying to get the
whole country focused instead of just used to spending money
on giant programs and not caring about the outcome.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
We'll continue to congress from more and Davidson pivoting over
from that specifical or focus on our defense spending too,
giving weapons to Ukraine, among other topics. Stick around me
right back seven fifteen fifty five krs toe the talk
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Speaker 2 (10:57):
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Speaker 1 (11:55):
Seven nineteen here fifty five KERR see the talk station
by the time of speaking with Congressman Warren Davidson, pivoting
a over to arms going to Ukraine. Trump's kind of
been on again, off again on this, and most recently
he said he's going to provide some additional weapons to Ukraine,
notably some Patriot missiles as well as ammunition. They are
in desperate need of that kind of thing, but the
running out of people to actually operate it. Their military

(12:15):
is getting decimated. Russia keeps making advances. And you know,
patriot missile costs what four million dollars apiece. We only
manufacture collectively like six hundred of them per year. The
system that is required to fire them off and everything
related to it is more than a billion dollars. And
you've got six hundred plus drones flying into any given

(12:35):
target area at a time. You can knock those down
with Patriot missiles. The cost benefit analysis just collapses in
the face of how cheap drones are. Congressman Davidson, where
are you on arm shipments to Ukraine and where we
stand on that? Because Russia they're unwavering in their position.
They have a list of demands and they have not
moved away from them. I don't know threatening them with
fifty days to do this or that. I don't think

(12:58):
Putin's going to lift a finger to do anything. He
knows what he wants and he's not wavering because he's winning.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, I mean you point out, like what's going to
change Putin's mind? Look, the great thing is Donald Trump
came into office with a very clear objective. He wants peace.
He doesn't care precisely where lines are drawn, he doesn't
care about a lot of the details. But he wants
people is he said, I want people to stop dying.
Like what's wrong with that? Stop dying? And they're there.

(13:25):
There is a massive loss of life on both you know,
the Ukrainian military and the Russian military. If you look
at Ukraine, they've been decimated with their population base. They're doing,
you know, really indefensible things to get more bodies to
go out to the front and uh and push pushing
people out into into the combat zone. And look, they're

(13:47):
trying to save and defend their country. You understand, it's
a it's a terrible war. Uh. But they're also not
rationally negotiating. So Trump's done a lot to get Zelensky there.
But in the meantime, uh, you know, the weakness no
matter how much money you have, no matter how many
munitions you have, you still need manpower. Yeah, and the
critical weakness for Ukraine as this has gone on and

(14:08):
on and on is manpower. So when they had manpower early,
they weren't rational in their negotiating position. So you know,
I hope they haven't missed a moment to get a
better piece than what they're going to wind up with.
But you know, this is part of how bad Biden was.
I mean, I never voted for a dime to go
to Ukraine because they would never define what are you
trying to accomplish? And then they would say crazy things

(14:31):
like well work regime change in Russia and war crimes
tribunals for Putin. I'm not saying that would be a
completely unjust outcome, but Ukraine isn't going to accomplish that
no matter how many we send them. That's world War three,
you know, And I'm out on World War three if
we can avoid it. Right. So there's a complete disconnect
here with a lot of the resources under the Biden administration.

(14:53):
Trump has really still got it right and saying like
this also isn't our war to fight or fund, so
we'll sell NATO member countries the weapons. Uh. The sort
of caveat there is I mean, we fund over half
of NATO, so you know, in a way, yes, our
dollars are still going to it. But he's trying to
get an outcome, and I hope he does. But you know,

(15:14):
the I think the odds are long at this point
of getting put in to the negotiating table. If anyone
could do it, I think Donald Trump can't.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, well, it's gonna it's gonna require Zelonsky to relent.
I mean that just seems obvious because the longer this
goes on and the more he he refuses to negotiate
and back off on what he ultimately thinks he wants,
which is like the Russia completely leaving the borders of Ukraine,
which is never going to happen. This is just going
to continue in Russia's position, and from the bargaining standpoint,
he's just going to get stronger.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, then that's what's happened, is you know the moments
I mean really honestly, the Biden administration scuttled it. If
you look at you know, the Durefan ambassador out of
this and how widely reported it back in back in
you know, spring summer of twenty two, you know, months
after the war started. Uh, you know that the Biden

(16:04):
team scuttled any negotiation for peace. I mean the ones
get that point was ready to reach a piece with Russia.
So since then he's been emboldened by all the NATO countries.
Then the you know the war path first people that
are like, no, no, We'll keep cutting you unlimited checks.
And at some level, I'm not sure all those checks
made it to the front, but there there To your point,

(16:27):
a lot of innovation has come out of this war.
The United States has learned a ton. The drone developments
come a long way, and you have you have lightweight
drones with you know, vision systems, some of which can
be controlled not one drone by one operator, but little
swarms of these things, and they can target vehicles, they
could target humans, they can discriminate amongst targets, and they're

(16:51):
they're they're getting pretty good at the supply chain for
for small, very effective drones. So they're there, they are
multiplying their combat power, and over time, I think the
drones have done a lot to dissuade Russia and the
Russian troops on the battlefield, and they're definitely out competing
on the supply chain because They've got Western civilization essentially

(17:13):
funneling the supply chain, and Russia's got you know, China,
which is, you know, a pretty big industrial base obviously,
but the level of innovation isn't matching the drums. I mean,
we've picked up battlefield drums and you know, held them
in our hands for the small ones and looked at
them in other ways for bigger ones, and looking at
you know, what's the state of play for technology on

(17:33):
either side, and you know, look, there's some encouraging things there.
Any wars tragic and pieces of ed or outcome. So
hopefully we resolve it.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Amen to that, and something I talked about yesterday with
Congressman Massi who joined the program his bill to get
the Epstein files released, subject to limitations like no, no
child porn or victim identities will be released, so there's
some caveats, and then to protect the more warrims worriome
elements of what we know they have, which is a
bunch of child porn that he downloaded. But beyond that,
a lot of questions, a lot of conspiracies swirling out there,

(18:05):
and they only seem to be fed more by Trump's
position now that there's nothing there that this is somehow
Russian collusion or Russian hoax along the lines of the
Steele dossier. That seems to be a position change for
the president. But Massey's trying to fast track this bill
to get those documents released. Where are you, Congressman Davidson,
relative to that subject matter?

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Well more than public information. Normally when there's a prosecution,
they will simply say I can't talk about an ongoing investigation,
and you don't see all the details, right right, so
more than a list or more than details that frankly
I don't want made public because I don't want them
to go away from being able to be used in
a trial. I want to know when someone other than
Julane Maxwell's going to jail, what's the state of the

(18:45):
prosecutions is what I want to know. But I do
find it troubling when you know, Pam Bondi comes out
and says, yeah, I don't know what you're talking about,
and yeah, you remember the binders and the files that
you were had on your desk, Like what so the
messaging on this has just been a troche And I
think that's the part, like what the heck are you
talking about and unfortunately, when you look at the public

(19:07):
statements that the president's made, normally he's on message. Boom
boom boom. So you know, the one thing I know
about President Trump, though, I mean, one of the things
that's defined him is promises made, promises kept. So I'm
certainly hopeful that we're going to see this promise kept.
And where it's really going to be accountability for the
people that we're trafficking kids and the clients that were

(19:29):
uh you know all yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean someone, someone,
someone was actually doing the other side of this, not
just the victims. And so we want those people prosecuted
and and the people are right to do that. And look,
if if we can't do that, I mean we need
an entirely we need a constitutional convention because this system

(19:53):
isn't working. I mean that's pretty basic right there, Like
you have to have accountability for people that are doing
stuff like that, yes, you.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
And of course it fuels the fire of conspiracy theories
like how many members of Congress are involved? And are
there elected officials? Are their corporate CEOs that were involved
in this? Just swirling, swirling questions and again fueled by
the now statement that there's no there there. Congressman Warren Davidson,
appreciate your time you're willing to spend with my listeners
and me on the morning show. Look forward to having
you back on and keep up the great work.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, thanks Brian, Gov. Bless you and all your listeners.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Thank you, sir, and you seven twenty seven right now,
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