Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Jimmy Sengenberger Show

Guests:    Coffman, Mike

Link:        http://sengenberger.podbean.com/

Date:        October 20, 2018

Topics:

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HOST JIMMY SENGENBERGER: [00:00:00] […] But I want to start with one of the most important races here in Colorado right now, and that is the Sixth Congressional District. Ten years ago was such a thrill, my first election being able to vote, eligible to participate in the process, and I cast my vote proudly for the man who served for the last decade, or so, [and] is our guest here. He is Congressman Mike Coffman. Congressman, welcome back to the Jimmy Sengenberger Show. Good evening.

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO’S SIXTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT, MIKE COFFMAN: [00:00:28] Hey, Jimmy! Thanks For having me. I really appreciate it.

SENGENBERGER: [00:00:30] Thanks for coming on. So, this is a — sort of a — just a fascinating race from a political standpoint, as a study, but it’s also one that really is– just seems to be tough as nails. When you’ve got — what? — somewhere around $2 billion, or rather, $2 million dollars from Michael Bloomberg coming in for an anti-gun agenda to take out Mike Coffman from the sixth Congressional District. Tell us about this race right now.

COFFMAN: [00:00:57] Boy, it is amazing, the amount of money. Michael Bloomberg wants to ingratiate himself with the Democrat Party, wants to run for president. He has put $80 million into an effort through just a bunch of different super PACs — not one of his own, but he’s funding a bunch of different super PACs — essentially to, you know, flip the House of Representatives. So, there are 23 seats that Republicans hold that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. And this is one of those 23. And so, it’s just coming down on us really hard in that effort to flip the House. And so, I mean, this is — and it’s amazing that it’s not getting the — he’s kind of concealing it, to where it is not getting the kind of attention that it ought to get. But this is a New York City gun control agenda carried by Jason Crow. I respect the Second Amendment. I believe in responsible gun ownership. But this is about banning guns. And I think people need to wake up to that fact.

SENGENBERGER: [00:02:01] Well, and that’s why you’ve got so many millions of dollars coming at you. I understand that they are spending from 14 — yes, 14 — different Democratic super PACs in this race, breaking national records when it comes to House race spending. Why do you think that you’re one of those individuals in the House that’s just so heavily targeted, not just now but for many years?

COFFMAN: [00:02:26] Well, I think the fact is that in redistricting in 2012, they wrote the district — redrew the district, really radically redrew it — from a district, from an area that in 2008 McCain carried by eight points to an area that in 2008 Obama carried by eight points. And so this is a district that was designed to get rid of me. They didn’t get rid of me in 2012. They didn’t get rid of me in 2014. They didn’t get rid of me in 2016, even though they made me the top target nationally in all three cycles. So, they’re really, really, really redoubling their efforts this cycle. And so, that — and this is, you know, this is really all about Pelosi being the Speaker of the House, and my opponent Jason Crow was handpicked –this is the first time this has happened in this district — handpicked by the Democrat establishment in Washington D.C. to, quote/unquote “move into this district” and run against me.” And so, he has never stood up to the Democrat Party establishment on anything. When they needed a veteran to speak at the national Democratic convention, a veteran who will say — who would say that things are great under President Obama at the V.A., which he knew was not true. Then he lobbied for the Iran deal, you know, as a veteran carrying the water for the Democrat establishment in WashingtonD.C., even though he knew there was no prohibition on ballistic missile technology, that we were going to give them hundreds of billions of dollars in unfrozen assets that they could use or state supported terrorism, and Israel was deeply opposed to this. It was only a 10 year limit on their development of nuclear weapons, also relaxed the crippling sanctions against the regime — economic sanctions. So this is a guy who can be trusted to always represent the Democratic establishment in WashingtonD.C.. He will never represent us in Colorado. But they promised that they were going to shower him with cash. And they have.

SENGENBERGER: [00:04:34] So, bottom line, from just the first few minutes of this conversation with you, Congressman Mike Coffman, is that Jason Crow, your opponent, is backed by millions of dollars in spending from 14 different PACs and two million of those dollars is coming from Michael Bloomberg to advance a radical gun control agenda. And not only that, to top it all off, Jason Crow lobbied — you just said he lobbied — for the Iran deal. He didn’t just say he supported it. He actually advocated for it openly and fervently.

COFFMAN: [00:05:03] No, he’s very proud of that fact. And what amazes me, too, is a cornerstone of his campaign is saying I don’t take corporate political action committee money. Corporate political action committee money — I mean, these political action committees are a result of a campaign finance reform effort in and of itself, where it doesn’t come from the corporation. It has to come from the employees of the corporation, who voluntarily can donate to a political action committee and then give to candidates. And so, he has demonized those things, and said he’s not going to take a dime from these quote/unquote “corporate PACs”. Well, what he does is, –Democrat leaders in the House of Representatives have these leadership PACs where they take money from these corporate PACs and then they give it to Jason Crow, as kind of a little — in his words — a money laundering scheme. But that’s a cornerstone of his campaign. He’s just not honest. But, he’s a sharp political operative, you know, again, handpicked out of Washington D.C., funded by Michael Bloomberg because he subscribes to The New York City version of gun control. And I don’t think that the average Republican voter really understands that. They think, “Oh,” you know, “Mike Coffman! Oh, he can win. He doesn’t need my support. You know, he’s not with me 100% of the time. So what difference does it make?” It makes a big difference! It makes a big difference if you’re concerned about whether or not the agenda — in terms of tax reform and regulatory reform that has pushed this economy forward — stays in place, you ought to care about this race. If you care about gun rights, you ought to care about this race. I even have Tom Styer, a radical environmentalist–

SENGENBERGER: [00:06:58] Oh, yes.

COFFMAN: [00:07:00] –throwing — also putting money into this race in a superPAC, running from this League of Conservation Voters, which is just an arm of the Democratic party out of Washington D.C.,running these crazy ads. And so, I mean, you can’t turn on the TV without, you know, seeing, you know, my face plastered. And the ratio of their ads to our ads isn’t very good. So, it really is going to take a ground game, in terms of Republicans — of conservatives — who care about the Constitution, who care about this country, you know, getting out to vote.

SENGENBERGER: [00:07:34] Well, one thing that I’ve been stressing, Congressman Mike Coffman, our guest, is that we already know — we’ve heard many leading Democrats talk about the idea of impeaching President Trump, even impeaching Justice Kavanaugh already. And to your point about the establishment, the power brokers in D.C. on the Democrats’ side lining up early on before Jason Crow. There was audio! We played it here on this program back in the spring, of Pelosi’s deputy — the number two Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer– secretly recorded by a progressive Democrat opponent in the primary to Jason Crow, Levi Tillerman, trying to talk him out of the race. So there’s no doubt that Pelosi wants Crow in there to be another pawn for the Democratic cause, and to take you out as the way to do that, and also take back the House of Representatives.

COFFMAN: [00:08:23] Yeah, no, whenever we say Jason Crow’s name, we always say, Nancy Pelosi Jason Crow.” You know, “Nancy Pelosi Jason Crow want to repeal the regulatory reform — those crushing burdens that have crippled American business, that have put us in a slow economic decline, a steady economic decline — and take us back to the good old days — what they see as the good old days — where they want to increase taxes on the American people, increase taxes on business, where the greatest export of America is jobs going overseas. And so, those are the — that’s Nancy Pelosi Jason Crow vision of America.

SENGENBERGER: [00:09:04] You know, one thing that I’m getting from a — you know — a text message from a listener, just expressing that, “Look, I mean, we may want something 100% out of our members of Congress,”– you, or others as conservatives or Republicans — but having somebody who gets it right on the core issues of the day.” You’re talking about guns. You’re talking about gun rights, to be more specific. You’re talking about the whole issue of regulatory reform, of tax cuts, and getting the economic gears really rolling again, the cornerstones of what has really helped to get things rolling for America once more. You have been lockstep behind it, in that regard. And so, Congressman Coffman, I wonder if you could just tell us real briefly about kind of your thought process on how you envision your role today and moving forward in Congress, in terms of being an advocate for the issues where you agree with President Trump on, but also — when you disagree — being willing to say, you know, “I differ.”.

COFFMAN: [00:10:02] I — sure. I think that the President is about rebuilding our military. And I agree with him on that. Where I disagree with him on that is he wants to create — where I have worked really hard to slim down the Pentagon bureaucracy — the President wants to create a new — entirely new –department called Space Force. And prior to his making the announcement, Heather Wilson — the Secretary of the Air Force — said, “Hey,” you know, “give me a chance.” And first, obviously, we’re behind in space. It’s a new battlefield. We don’t have defensible satellite architecture up there that is so critical to navigation, to targeting, to communications of our military. And so, we are vulnerable. And so, there is reasons to be alarmed and concerned, but the answer isn’t more government. I think we came up with a good compromise between the House and the Senate to create a sub-unified combatant command, led by a four star Air Force general, that would take in all the assets of all the branches of military services that are involved in space and consolidate them in one entity — in effect, under an Air Force four star[general]. And I think that’s the way to go. And obviously, we’ve got some [unintelligible] problems we need to work out. So I think that would be an example where we certainly differ.

SENGENBERGER: [00:11:28] And I agree with you on this particular issue, as well. Congressman Mike Coffman, we’ve got about a minute left. What’s your final message to those listeners today as we get ready with the ballots already in hand?

COFFMAN: [00:11:41] Well, look, there’s a normal historical trend that whenever you have a new president that there is in that first midterm — it tends to be rough on the party that has the White House. And you know, we’ve gotten a lot of things done, and they’re reflected in this extraordinary economy where, you know, our allies once again respect us and our enemies fear us as we would want. But the other side is highly motivated. They’re angry. They’re the ones that have been pushed out, in terms of their policies. They’re the ones that have been pushed out in terms of their policies. And so, they’re fighting back. And so, what we have to realize is not to be complacent, that conservatives and Republicans had better get out and vote.

SENGENBERGER: [00:12:28] Right. Absolutely.

COFFMAN: [00:12:29] And they better talk to their neighbors. Because let me tell you what, they’re — and it’s at every level. I mean, it’s at the Governorship. It’s at the Attorney General’s race, the Secretary of State, Treasurer, myself. I mean –.

SENGENBERGER: [00:12:37] Absolutely right. Congressman Mike Coffman, we’re out of time, unfortunately, [we’re] up against a hard break.

COFFMAN: [00:12:41] Okay.

SENGENBERGER: [00:12:42] Congressman — or CoffmanforCongress — that’s the website– .com. Thank you, sir, for joining us. Best of luck.

COFFMAN: [00:12:48] Thanks for having me.