5-1-24 *INTERVIEW* Colorado's 3rd Congressional District Candidate Adam Frisch

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
My special guest in studio is AdamFresh. Adam is the Democratic candidate in
Colorado's third congressional district. It isthe seat currently held by Lauren Bobert.
Adam almost beat Lauren last time.I suspect that Adam would have beaten Lauren
last time if more people had thoughtit was possible. I think a lot

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of people thought it's just a donedeal. It's such a red seat,
she's not gonna lose, so I'mnot going to bother to vote. I
think that if more people had realizedit was going to be as close as
it was, he probably would havebeaten her. And Adam's strength as a
candidate last time and fundraising this timescared Lauren Bobert out of CD three and
now she's running in CD four.So we're going to talk about that a

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bit. We're also going to talkabout issues and all kinds of stuff.
So, Adam Frisch is great tomeet you in person. Thanks for joining
us in the KOA studio. Goodmorning, Ross, great to be here.
Before we talk about politics and universitiesand stuff, tell us a little
about you. I mean, youmight end up in Congress, so I
think folks would like to know alittle about you. Where'd you come from?
What have you done? Tell ussomething? Yeah? Actually, I

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was born on Fort peck Indian Reservation, the very northeast corner or Canada,
Montana, North Dakota come together.Both my parents are from northern Minnesota.
My dad's dad came over from Europeand my dad grew up in the Iron
Ore Town of Virginia, Minnesota miningtown. And my great grandfather on my
mom's side came over from Europe andopened up started a cattle trading business that

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my cousin now runs MJ. Whittisand Esco. Minnesota's the fourth generation.
It's a feed storgway in elevator now. But my dad ended up going to
work for the Indian Health Service forabout four or five years, and so
I spent my first five years oflife on for Peckettian Reservation. Moved back
to Minneapolis and went to school there. I had a misspent youth of doing

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some skiing, key racing. Onein Minnesota. Yeah, there's a three
hundred foot hill, buck Hill,you know, I think Buck Hill has
about eight or nine Olympians so persquare vertical foot about three hundred feet there's
nowhere else in the world that hasproduced more Olympians. I was not one
of them. I was good,but not great. Uh huh. I
went out to the University of Colorado. I was going to ski, I

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got hurt. I stayed for obviousreasons, and then I wanted to get
involved in finance of some sort.So I moved out to New York City.
Nobody wanted to hire anybody in financefrom the University of Colorado, only
Columbia and Yale and Harvard, asyou know Ross and so I waited tables
for a year, which was great, and then I kind of stumbled into
working on the byside, on theinvestment management side, for a couple of

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years. And then I ended upspending my last seven or eight years in
New York City working in the globalinterest rate, foreign exchange derivative stuff.
And I said, there's two hundredcurrencies in the world. I traded the
one hundred ninety small ones. Andso I spent a lot of time actually
in Asia and Latin America, MiddleEast Africa, and at the end of
the day, a lot of nineeleven funerals. And that's kind of what
sent me packing and kind of reassessingwhat else I should be working on,

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and so I headed out to Coloradomet the proverbial girl in the Western Slope,
and she was a former racer andbanker as well, and so we
ended up moving to Aspen about twentyyears ago, Picking County, I called
Upper Picking County, and I gotinto home building in construction, and I
got on city council for eight years. That was elected community service, truly,

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and my wife ended up spending sometime as elected member of our school
board for the public school district,again elected community service. And we have
an eighteen year old son, Felix, who took his junior of high school
off last year and we did atwenty five thousand mile father's son road trip.
I think he's probably listening right now, so I'll say hi to Felix.

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And he's a very politically astute kid. And we have a seventh We
have a six year old daughter whois at Aspen High School, as well
as doing lacrosse and a bunch ofother stuff. And twenty twenty one,
late summer early fall, there weresome comments made by the current congresswoman.
As I say, don't ask themwhat they were. I don't remember,

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but they were very on brand.And that's where Katie and Felix to myself
had a pretty in depth conversation aboutsometimes it's important stand up, and we
decided that with all kind of headwindsliving in a mountain town in a somewhat
read district. You know, Iwas independent for twenty years, and we
actually explored running as an independent,but that's a whole other story and the

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feasibility that just wasn't there. Well, all right, that's a heck of
a life story, super interesting.You don't hear a lot about like Jewish
kids growing up on an Indian reservationnear Canada. No, so that's a
pretty cool story. Tell me,whatever is the first story that comes to
your mind about the most interesting tradeyou ever made, the most interesting trade.

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I'm much former trader, so Ilike trading stories like some wacky current
and see maybe well it wasn't toowacky, but so I started to I
got involved in the foreign exchange marketsin about ninety six, and I worked
for a British bank that did alot of work in Asian Africa. And
the plan was they wanted to starta new product that allowed companies to hedge

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and investors to take risk in China, Taiwan, India, Philippines and we
and I'm like, well, that'sa that's like two thirds of the world
right there, as far as betweenChina and India and South Korea. And
so I went to London for acouple of months and learned a product that
no one in the world knew wasavailable. And then what happened was in

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nineteen ninety seven. For some ofyou might remember, not a lot of
you would that there was a hugeAsian financial crisis in ninety seven. Yeah,
and all of a sudden, wewere the only people in the country
that had an idea or a productthat a lot of people needed, all
all of a sudden. So itwas very interesting to be in the cycle
logically center of a financial meltdown andseeing the people, traders and finance ministers

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react in a very panic mode.Was very interested and so all of a
sudden it became very very busy,and we did. I did a lot
of work in China watching China,you know. I used to watch the
Chinese Taiwan Straight Conversation twenty four sevenfor eight years, and so not a
specific trade, but very very involvedin what happened in China and India for

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a really long time in the nineties. Fascinating. Yeah, So let's do
a little politics, and I wantto talk about university stuff. So you're
running. You're running for Congress asa Democrat, And every time I've ever
heard you talk, you sound prettymoderate to me, especially within the spectrum
that is today's Democratic Party, whichhas shifted probably probably much of it has

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shifted to your left. But isit fair to call you a moderate?
Yeah, listen, I'm a conservativebusinessman. I thought about running as an
independent. I looked the kind ofthe lay of the land. It decided
the best way to see Lauren Bobertdefeated was the reregistered as a Democrat after
twenty years. And you know,there are two or three or four pretty

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non conservative Democrats in the House,and I'll be part of that group.
You look up at Patola and Alaskaand Jared Jared Golden up in Maine.
A lot of support for domestic energy, a lot of support for working class
people, but also realizing that welook after our district. And I've been
saying for long time, Ross,it's not team Runner, Team Blue,

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It's team CD three and we're very, very focused on that. Yes,
I got called it Dino all thetime by people on the left and the
people on the right. But youknow, people are exhausted, they're fed
up with national politics, especially withour current representative. My mom calls it
the pro normal Party and that I'mtrying to build this pro normal party coalition,
and that's what we've been doing,and that's one of the reasons we've

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been able to do so well.Okay, before I get to issues with
you, one kind of macro question. So my experience and I've known lots
of people who've been in Congress,and the story is always the same.
When you're new in Congress, ifyou don't do what the leadership wants,
you will not get on the committeesthat you want to be on. You

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will be shut out. And thisis on both sides. It's not unique
to either party I had. Okay, so I can tell the story because
this is a long time ago.Now. I was talking with Paul Ryan
and I asked him, and thisbefore he was chairman of anything, And
I asked him, dude, whydid you vote for that farm bill that

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was just a subsidy laden disaster?And I know that you know that,
And he said, because if Ivoted against it, I would never become
chairman of the Budget Committee. Andthis is everywhere. So let's say that
I believe that you're a moderate,because I do. I don't believe you'll

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be able to function as a moderateonce you get to Congress. I believe
that a vote for any Democrat isa vote for whatever the leadership wants,
and the leadership is way to yourleft. So how can you convince me
that you will be able to beindependent and vote your moderate views when Hakim
Jeffries or the next Nancy Pelosi tellsyou vote this way or else? Isn't

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it ross? You asked the numberone question I get asked every single time
from independence and moderate you know,kind of pro normal Republicans. And I
fully appreciate why that question is asked. The only thing I can do is,
first of all, no one inDC votes for me. The only
thing I can do to focus onthis district and honor that is every time

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that there's a big vote, wetry to send out press releases or we
make very statements about hey, listen, this is how we were devoted.
You know, just last night therewas a vote about pushing back against Biden's
rejiggered BLM land regulations and the bilumthat's trying to tighten regulations that's going to

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hurt farmers and ranchers, is goingto hurt domestic energy. And there's people
I respect, Joe Nagose and andothers that were spoke uping for this,
and there were three Democrats that votedwith all the Republicans, and I would
have been another one, and I'vesaid that publicly. Now we'll send out
a press release about it. Abouta month ago, there was Biden.

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Without the respect to President Biden,he wanted to do something horrible for the
domestic energy and for the global climate. He wanted a ban exporting LNG gas
in the near future. And therewere a handful of Democrats and we sent
on a press release about it.So we're on the record about being pro
energy, pro jobs, pro CDthree, and we will continue to do

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that. And the few people Ido know in DC are very aware of
where I stand. They understand myindependence. A lot of times, people
even a freshmen at either party,as you note, will kind of start
to tow some party lines because theyneed the support or they need the money.
And as much as I hate themoney in politics hypocritically, ironically,

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I do a pretty good job ofbeing able to raise it. And so
we're not gonna need the money fromthe party. And I'm gonna be focusing
on egg ranching, farming, publiclands, water and looking after the farmers
and ranchers and small business owners andyou know, damn whatever else happens.
With all the respect, I willalso add, just from a purely nuts

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and bolts political thing, the leadersof the Democratic Party will be smart enough
to know that if you end upwinning this election, you'll be representing a
Republican leaning district and if you wereto just vote like every other Democrat drone,
you'll lose it the next time around, And they wouldn't want to lose
the seats, so they would giveyou a little more leeway to vote like

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a moderate. Let me do.I want to do a lightning round with
you, and I want you togive me quick answers on your on your
position on issues, but do makethem quick. Ok okay A to Ukraine,
Yes, aids Israel of course whensolar subsidies at some level, but
we need to support every type ofenergy and there might be some Republicans that

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don't understand that there's a climate crisis, but that there's a lot more Democrats
that don't understand the math of domesticenergy production and how important it is to
make sure that natural gas remains astaple of how we get we cannot.
You know, wind and solar islike five percent of the United States production
just for the I'm not a Republican, but there is no climate crisis.

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Climate changes, but it's not acrisis. One other thing. This is
just a data point because you're sinceyou're a trader, you'd be a data
guy. This is kind of aninteresting thing. The United States last year
added six point two gigawatts of windcapacity, and actual production of wind energy
declined because there was less wind.And it's a very interesting thing when you're

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because grid reliability is an incredibly importantthing. Energy energy reliability and cost are
two really really important things. AndChina just produced just brought more coal production
online than the United States has inits entire inventory, right, and we
need to figure out a way touse natural gas and other aspects. It's

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all hands on deck, from solarto wind, to hydro to geo thermo
it's all about you. It's allabout nuclear. Nuclear is the answer.
Okay, jes see, Joe Bidenwants to significantly raise income tax rates.
Where are you on that? Theonly thing I want to see income tax
race for is to pay off thedebt and deficit. Okay. As long

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as we're talking about debt and deficit, then what about spending levels right now?
I mean, Biden is the worstever and Trump wasn't much better.
So it's very difficult for Democrats tomake arguments for reducing government spending. But
where are you Listen, one oneparty wants to tax and spend, one
wants to borrow and spend, andboth parties seem to want to spend a

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lot. And I appreciate it.And you know, if we go back
to pre COVID, which is acouple of years ago, I think that
the United States spending levels are upthirty or forty percent. And I appreciate
we needed some serious amount of supportduring COVID, But as we wind back
down, we have to figure outa way. It's you know, in
nineteen ninety three we had a surplus, so in thirty it took us thirty

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years to get in this thirty fourtrillion dollar hole. It's going to probably
take us twenty or thirty years,but we need to start chipping away.
And as I said, when westart to see increases in revenue, I
want that money to go towards payingoff the debt and deficit, not to
see increases in spending. We're talkingwith Adam Fresh He's the Democratic candidate for
the third congressional district. His websiteis Adam for Colorado dot com and that's

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the word for fo or Adam forColorado dot com, where you can learn
more. All right, let's seewhat else do I want to ask you
about? Is there is there afederal role in the issue of abortion.
Well, I don't want government mandatedpregnancies, and I don't want government government
mandated family planning, and so Ithink role being taken away was a horrible

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idea, and I think a lotof other people believe that. I'm proud
that abortions are down about fifty percentin the past thirty years, and I'm
very happy that in Colorado woman's healthcareis left open to the freedom of those
women and the doctors to make thosedecisions. And I would rather at the
federal level, I wish. Ido not think it's helpful for Colorado or

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district of the country to get ridof Roe. Okay, but that's done
already. And just for the record, I think it was great to get
rid of Roe. I'm pro choice, but Roe was a terrible decision by
the Supreme Court and it was anticonstitutional and it needed to go because this
is an issue that belongs at thestates. And I'm pro choice. But
that ship is sailed. It's spiltmilk under the bridge. So if you

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were in Congress and a bill cameup that were to essentially create a legislative
replacement for Roe v. Wade toguarantee abortion at the federal level, would
you vote for that? Yeah,it'd be one of the few federal things.
I'd be doing it on those kindof social conversations because I do not
agree that the government should be mandatingpregnancies and the government should be mandated family

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planning. If you were in charge, what would be done at the southern
border right now? We need tosecure the border. It's a mess.
It's a security mess, it's thehumanitarian mess. I would have been very,
very supportive of the legislation that probablywould have passed the House by three
hundred and fifty votes. That gotshot down by former President Trump's comments that

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was supported by the Border Guard Union. We need more money to process legal
immigration, but we need a lotmore money to make sure that we stop
illegal immigration. We need to figureout how to crack down on asylum,
which seems to be taking advantage ofunder what's true politically asylum versus just economic
opportunity, which obviously we need todo. But we need more people coming
through here legally, and we needto make sure that there's a calmness to

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that. That's a huge problem.I have been told by some people that
are in this from the health,from the public sector service agencies, and
the sheriff's offices. There's something likeseventy percent of the fentanyl that ends up
in Chicago's coming through the Southwest Coloradoand N twenty five corridor, and we
need to lock down the illegal drugTrying to figure that out. Well,

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we need to make sure people cancome over here legally, all right,
So let's switch gears for our lasttwo minutes or so. You and you
and I were raised very similarly inthat we both went to conservative Jewish synagogues
when when we were young. Andyour kids and my kids are almost identical
in age, and you've got onewho's going to be going off to college

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soon. Mine is probably going towait a year before going to college,
just about to graduate from high school. And I would love your take on
what you see going on on collegecampuses around the country. I think you
told me where your son is likelyto go to college. I'm not going
to say it. You can ifyou want. And you know, what
do you think? Well, what'sflushed out over the past couple of months

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is that there's favored speech, notfree speech. And that's to me,
the one sentence that's going on.Listen, if somebody wants to peacefully march
about how much they love Hitler,that's you know, I don't like that,
but they certainly have that constitutionally protectedright, and I will defend their
ability to do so. But theproblem is if the KKK decided to show
up, or some type of antigay organization decided to tell people horrendously that

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they should go back to the closet, or that the KKK was marching that
African Americans should go back to Africa, they would last about a half of
a second. And so that's whereI think a lot of us are frustrated.
Not so much that there is freespeech, but there is favored speech.
And that's what's happened over the pastcouple months, in the past couple
of weeks. I just don't equatefree speech with destruction of private property,

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and I don't equate free speech withstopping people from able to learn on a
campus. And so I think thatI'll think a lot of these college administrators
just didn't really believe in their heartsthat they believed in free speech. They
believed in favorite speech. And that'skind of the whole that's the kind of
the root of our problem. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And
then just one one last and thisbroadening out now beyond campuses. You and

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I are both Jewish. What doyou make of what appears to be much
broader anti semitism in this country thanprobably a lot of people have expected.
And maybe it's not as broad asit seems, because it's like on the
news all the time in a smallnumber of very loud people, So maybe
it's not that much. But what'syour take on that? Oh, it's
bad, Yeah, without a doubtand it's growing. And yes, certainly

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the cable news network and social mediamight be highlighted, but they're flushing out
some deep resentment of anti Semitism.Listen, I'm no fan of the current
Israeli government, but it goes waybeyond that. And when you're telling people
shouting to Jews to go back toPoland, which is quite ironic because that's
not exactly where the Jewish people camefrom. And it's just really disheartening to

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see these younger especially these younger kids, and as you know as a father
and as a parent, as asixteen year old and eighteen year old who
have been proud and involved in theJewish community religiously and culturally, it is
just really really disheartening to hear.Not it's partly ignorance, but a lot
of it is just pent up demand, and it goes back over the past
thirty years over oppressor and oppressed andonly based on the color of one's skin

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and nothing else, and it justhas opened up a huge can of worms.
And you're seeing a lot of horriblethings, not only from the students,
but from the professors and the administrationsthat are pushing this and I think
it needs to stop. And again, love free speech. Say all you
want about being pro Hitler in proNazi, which is basically not much different
than what these people are. Youcan be pro Palestinian in pro Jewish,

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but this pro Hamas thing is justunbelievable. His heartneing and the ignorance of
it and the danger of it isreally horrible. Yeah, and I'll add
I think that most people who claimthat they're pro Palestinian, I think at
least many of them are really justanti Israel and they're trying to use that
as a cover. Last question foryou, sock sock, shoe, shoe
or sock shoe, sock shoe?What was that when you're putting your shoes

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and socks on in the morning,both socks and then both shoes, or
a sock and a shoe and thenthe other sock and the other shoe.
All socks first, of course,sock, socks, shoe, shoe.
All right, I'm not surprised becausehe is a moderate after all. Adam
Frish is Democrat, the candidate forColorado's third congressional district, the seat currently
held by Lauren Bobert, who isfleeing because She's afraid that Adam will beat

(21:44):
her if she tries again, soshe's running in CD four instead. Adam
for Colorado is the website to learnmore. Adam fo r Colorado dot com.
Great to meet you in person.Thanks for coming into the studio.
Great to see it. Ross