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March 5, 2025 • 16 mins
Guest: Dr. Robin Armstrong, RNC Faith Engagement Chair
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The following is a presentation of FCB Faith. This is
Keeping America First with Bishop John T. Cotes and Reverend
Jeff Jemison on FCB Faith. Happy to be here today.

(00:22):
We have an exciting guest, as all of our guests
are exciting, and they are doing things that are most
helpful to all of us to become more knowledgeable about
what's going on in our city's, states, and country. Today
we have doctor Robin Armstrong out of the great State

(00:44):
of Texas. Dr Armstrong resides in Galveston, Texas. Good morning,
Dr Armstrong, How are you today.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Good Horney, I'm doing well. Thank you good.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Please tell us a little bit about what's going on
there inter state of Texas. What are you doing there?
Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So I was I actually live in Friendswood, Texas now,
which is in Galveston County. I am a Galveston County
Commission was just elected to that two years ago. I
have been active in politics for about the last thirty years,
and I have currently served on the Republican National Committee

(01:28):
representing Texas, and I've been there for about twelve years now.
So I'm kind of a senior member on the Republican
National Committee. And then I've a medical doctor as well.
In fact, I'm in the hospital now seeing patients, and
so i have a medical practice that I owned, Armstrong
Medical Group, and we've got about twenty physicians in ps

(01:50):
and PA's and so we take care of folks in
the hospital, and we have a nursing home practice as well.
So those are the things. I'm married to Martha Armstrong
for twenty seven years. He's also a physician. And I
have four boys, two in college and one in high
school and one in junior high school. So that sums
up everything in about thirty seconds.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Doc Armstrong, I tell you, I think that you're a
great rule model for all of us. And during this
happens to be Black History Month right now, and we're
celebrating that. And I'll tell you that you have a
beautiful family and all of you are very athletic, your
boys are, And tell us a little bit about since

(02:34):
this is Black History Month. You're physician, you have a
great medical practice, also very actively involved in your community.
Tell us a little bit about your boys and their athleticism.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, my oldest is running track in college right now.
He's at UT Arlington and he's an aerospace engineering major,
and so he's studying hard and running hard. In fact,
he has a track meet I think tomorrow or actually
it's Saturday at text A and M and in College
station here, and he's at Texas A and M. Awesome,

(03:15):
he has a track meet there. He runs at UT Arlington,
but his meat is in A and M in College Station.
And then I have a second son who is who
played football in junior college and he's not playing anymore.
He's at University of Houston's economics major. And then I've
got a My other younger sons are actually athletes as well.
So all of them run a lot and keep us

(03:36):
pretty active.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Now did they get that? Does that come from their dad?
Were you active? Or tell us a little bit about yourself,
your background?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I tell you so, Yeah, I ran track and played
football in high school. But but I was not nearly
as fast as my sons are. They run a lot
faster than I did. But but yeah, so they they
they certainly did not get it from their mom though.
So he's about she's about five foot one and not

(04:06):
super athletic.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
But okay, so that's awesome. It's good to know that
our children can do much better than us. They can
excel a little bit further than us than we do
actually in sports and so farth that can relate to that.
I know that you're you've been involved with different issues locally.

(04:30):
Tell us about like I've heard that you're involved with
the Safe Streets crackdowns and we're living in the time
right now where crime is pretty rampant in the country
and folks are just concerned about solving problems and issues talk.
Can you talk about that a little bit, the Safe
Streets crackdowns?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, I think that certainly what we've seen in the
in the in in certainly inner city, in urban areas,
you know, we see crime at a at a significant
you know, high I think a lot of some of
that's related to you know, illegal immigrants coming in committing crime.
Some of that's related to just just long term crime

(05:15):
in the inner city that we've seen, especially in the
black community. And I think that I think that it's
so important to have obviously police officers, you know, community policing,
police officers that have relationships with people, but that we
also have a strong system of justice to where you know,
we are putting you know, we're putting criminals behind bars,

(05:39):
you know. I mean, I don't think that we can
compromise on that. And I think that one thing that
I see that a lot of African Americans are seeing
in the communities is they want they want police officers
who are are fair and impartial and who are cared
for the community. And they also want police officers to

(06:01):
get you know, the bad guys off the streets and
so and so. When when that's done together, I think
that that that that we could see a significant drop
in crime. And also obviously the drug drug epidemic that's
taking place now, cracking down on the car tails preventing
drugs from coming into our communities as well, I think

(06:23):
that's vitally important. And I think that that just having
programs where where kids you know, see examples. You know,
we're working on bringing some boys and girls clubs into
our communities to where you know, kids have opportunities to
to to do other things. You know, we look at

(06:43):
school choice opportunities, and so I know that that's a
big issue here in Texas right now that our legislators
trying to get past where kids who are in failing
schools or schools that are failing them because they can't
keep them safe, or or schools that are failing them
because they're not educating them. They can move schools and
go to a private school. And so I think those

(07:04):
are those are all it's kind of a multifactorial approach
to to to dealing with crime in our communities, Educating
our kids, educating our parents, giving our kids more opportunities
to go to safe schools and schools where they're going
to be uh educated in an excellent way, and then
having that police effort as well, getting criminals off the streets,

(07:25):
stopping the drugs in the streets, you know. And so
I think that those are those are ways that I
see that have been effective, you know, here in our area,
and and and then and then I'm sure they're working
other areas as well. What we've seen also, Oh.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Go ahead with you being there in Texas and dealing
with the illegal immigration, uh, the immigrants coming across with drugs.
How real is that? Because the narrative sometimes on television
is that, uh, it's not it's not accurate. It's it's
they're playing it up too much sometimes. Can you tell

(08:03):
us is that real? How is that a real problem? Well?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Absolutely, it is a It is absolutely a real problem.
I mean, we see it on our border in Opaso,
we see it on our border in Brownsville and Harlingen. Uh,
we see it. We see it taking place on our
border all the time. And so it is it is
a very real problem. And and you know, we see
drug trafficking across the border. We see sex trafficking across

(08:30):
the border. We see kids coming across the border without
their parents, and those kids are are ultimately destined to
be sex trafficked. We see, you know, they have you know,
what they call this might be a little graphic, but
they have rape trees where they rape young girls who
are coming across the border and they throw their underwear

(08:51):
on a tree. That is something that exists here in Texas.
We see this. And so what's happening across this border
and our having our border not secure is a humanity,
humanitarian crisis that that that thank god, you know, President
Trump is is working on and and and we've seen
significant decreases just in the last two weeks when President

(09:15):
Trump came into office. And it's helping our drug problem,
it's helping our our problem with trafficking of kids, it's
helping this problem where these young ladies are not being
victimized by by criminals and gangs and cartails when they
come across the border. And so it's really helping a lot,

(09:36):
and I think it's gonna certainly have an impact in
our communities because we have less drugs in our communities
with stopping the drug flow from the cartails as well.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
I agree, for the last four years, we heard over
and over, we saw that the border was closed and
that we were lied to, and then we were told
that it was closed while all of these things kept
coming in to our country into cities where African Americans
live predominantly, and just devastating cities, adding to the problems

(10:10):
that already exists to the extent that folks have to
leave the cities, vacate their homes, go to other suburbs
as opposed to being able to just live in a
safe city that coupled with the local crime by legal citizens.
So it's so good to hear you who shed light

(10:33):
on this, and you're right there on the ground close
to the border where these problems are existing. Let's talk
a little bit more about your role as a county commissioner.
And then also I know that you're Faith Engagement chairperson
for the rn C. But let's talk about that before
we run out of time. Get absolutely.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
And so as a county commissioner, what we do in
Texas here we have four county commiss here's in a
county judge which is not a real judge but just
sort of someone who helped manages our meetings and everything.
But five folks who actually are basically the legislature for
the county. And so what we do is we deal
with the county's budget. We have about twelve hundred and

(11:17):
thirteen hundred employees and we manage that. And so I
was elected to that in twenty two and so I'll
be up for election again in two years. And so
it's been a great it's a it's a great position,
and you really have a lot of impact in the
local community with the position, and I really like it.
I made up working with folks in the community all

(11:37):
the time. One of our biggest budgetary outlays is the
county jail, which is about seventy million dollars, and so
we have to house those inmates and everything. And so
it's so criminal justice is a big deal in our
local governments, in our County. And so we're fighting a

(11:58):
lot of those battles you talked about, say streets earlier.
We're fighting a lot of those battles trying to make
sure that that that you know, our streets are safe
so that so that the kids can exhale and and
and access opportunities where they're available. And so so it's
it's a great position. I really really enjoy it. And

(12:18):
and it's it's a you really get to have a
significant impact on people locally, and so that's what I
like most about it.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Okay, So doctor Armstrong is Faith Engagement chairperson for the
r n C. Can you talk about that a little bit, uh,
the importance of it and what what do you do?
What do you do it with Faith Engagement Chair.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
With So, as Faith Engagement Chair was appointed actually by
na Na McDaniel, who's the outgoing chair, and then and
then Michael Michael Wattley actually appointed me to that as well.
Again and so what we do as Faith Engagement Chair
nationally is try to engage faith groups to get more
involved and more active and so and so the irony

(13:02):
is that in doing that we actually interact with a
lot of African American churches because what we found is
that is that you know, in some of these churches culturally,
you know, these folks are very conservative. You know, they
don't believe in you know, abortion up through nine months.
They don't believe in this trans you know movement that's

(13:23):
been taking place and you know, boys and girls locker
rooms and boys and girls sports. They don't Most African
American churches don't believe in this stuff. And so we've
been able to interact a lot with you know, some
of the cultural, culturally conservative African American churches, and and
we've been able to do a lot of things in
regards to that. In Harris County, which is where Houston is,

(13:45):
you know, we actually elected African American astor to the
city council who actually is a Republican because talking about
safe streets and talking about the crime epidemic that we
see in in the urban area which is Houston, and
he was able to win election because he said, look,
I care for my community. Houston actually elected three Republican

(14:10):
city council members, which is almost unheard of. But what
happened is is engaging them based on the faith aspect
and engaging them culturally with these issues. That we agree on.
We've been able to win a lot of those folks
over some of the commercials that we used. We sort
of helped to organize this in faith engagement is to say,

(14:34):
we had African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Jocelyn Nungree who's gotten
a lot of national attention her daughter was killed by
an I legal immigrant. We actually had a lot of people,
multi racial people, and they did commercials for us and
they said, you know, look, we don't care who you
vote for for president, but we want you to vote

(14:56):
out of office soft on crime Democrat judges because what
we're seeing here is that a lot of these folks
have been are let out of let out of jail
locally and they go out and commit other crimes and
murder peoples. So we were able to get a lot
of African American support as a result of that effort,
and so we're doing that nationally as well. We're going

(15:18):
to be involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race that's
coming up in April. It's going to be a big
race where we can take over the Supreme Court in Wisconsin,
which is huge, and so we're going to be involved
in races in New Jersey and races in Virginia that
are coming up in November of this year, and so
these are having an impact. And if we activate and

(15:40):
motivate people of faith to get out and vote, then
we believe that as Republicans will do quite well because
a lot of folks are are in those positions of
of of leadership, and we see a lot of faith
people who are who are drifting over to the Republican Party.
We've seen that for some time and that's happening now

(16:02):
and it's going to happen more and more, I think
in the future as the Democrat Party actually becomes more
and more extreme on these cultural issues.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Oh thank you so much, and you're right on spot on.
We thank you, doctor Armstrong for being with us, and
we're going to continue to stay in touch with you.
I like to have you back as time goes on
and we continue to grow this party and make it
a broader party, attracting more and more people to it,

(16:33):
and as we make our country stronger. Thank you again,
Dr Armstrong, and we hope thank you to our audience
for being with us today. God bless you all.
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