KCOL Mornings with Jimmy Lakey, Doug Lamborn, February 6, 2020

Station:    KCOL, 700 am

Show:       KCOL Mornings with Jimmy Lakey

Guests:    Lamborn

Link:        https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1067-the-lakey-effect-30140430/

Date:       February 6, 2020

Topics:     State of the Union address, Bitter and Angry Democrat Members of Congress, Vitriol Towards Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Policy, Achievements, Ripping up the President’s Speech, Mike Pence, Pro-Life Policies, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Deregulation, Religious Freedom Matt Gaetz, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Cutting Taxes, Decreasing Size of Government, Bipartisan Legislation, Price Reducing Measures for Prescription Drugs,

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LAKEY:  [00:00:01]  All right, ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, I want to go straight to the hotline,. His time is precious, he is a congressman from Colorado, the 5th Congressional District. It’s Congressman Doug Lamborn, district five. Doug Lamborn, welcome back, sir. Nice to have you.

LAMBORN:  [00:00:16] Hey, Jimmy, good to be on your show today.

LAKEY:  [00:00:18] I’m glad to have you. Let me ask you, were you there for the State of the Union? I want your observation. What was the atmosphere like? It seemed rather raucous. Give me your thoughts [on] State of the Union the other night.

LAMBORN:  [00:00:28] I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and I’m so glad I was there. You would not believe the difference between the two sides of the aisle. On one side, we were cheering and clapping and happy and applauding with standing ovations, minute after minute. And on the other side, stone cold sile, sitting on their hands, gritting their teeth, not very happy at all. And you know which — who I’m talking about.

LAKEY:  [00:00:53] Yeah. Let me let me ask you, it seemed as if it was — . There were so many things that could have been applauded. I mean, the unemployment rate being low, you applaud for that. It seemed as if even the young lady up in the  gallery that got a scholarship, you applaud for that. But your colleagues across the aisle really had a tough time applauding for things that to me are kind of nonpartisan. We should celebrate — maybe you don’t like the policy or whatever, but you still celebrate — ‘that’s a good piece of news.’  They seem so filled with hate and rage and anger. Is it coming across on television worse than it really is, or is it maybe they look nicer on television than they really do in person?

LAMBORN:  [00:01:31] Yeah. No, it’s that. People could not tell on TV how bitter and angry these folks really were. You know, I can talk to the Democrats about policy and things like that. But when it comes to Donald Trump, it’s like they’re a new person and they do not want to deal with that rationally. They can’t emotionally, rationally deal with Donald Trump. They’re just — their emotions get the better of them. And we saw that with Nancy Pelosi. Could you believe how she was ripping up the speech after it was over? That was childish. That was childish. And it really degraded her as Speaker and the whole institution. I regret that she did that.

LAKEY:  [00:02:14] Yeah. I am sure you saw this, or maybe you didn’t. Your colleague, Matt Gaetz from Georgia, he’s filed a complaint to the Ethics Commission and said, “Listen, that was a violation of federal law! That was — that was an obligatory presentation of a copy of the State of the Union he is required by law to give, and she ripped it up. Have you heard about this ethics complaint? And how does the ethics process work now that he’s filed a complaint against the Speaker?

LAMBORN:  [00:02:38] Well, I hope that that is heard. The Ethics Committee may or may not take it up. It’s a bipartisan committee, equally split betwen the parties. Tie votes do not count. So if it’s a party line vote to take it up, it would not be taken up, if the Democrats, in other words, oppose it. We’re also doing a resolution to censor her, and I’m a co-sponsor on that resolution.

LAKEY:  [00:03:03] Yeah, good for you.  Let me ask you, Congressman, is you’ve mentioned that you can talk policy with them, but the moment Donald Trump name comes up, it’s almost as if Beelzebub infests their body and they just can’t they can’t contain it. Why do you think that is? Is it because Donald Trump beats them at every turn and they’re kind of used to getting their way with the Republicans? I mean, why the vitriol towards Donald Trump? Is it — is it because of his strength? Is it because of his policy? Is it because he beat Hillary Clinton? Give me a guess, some analysis. Why is it that Donald Trump so turns their stomach and they have what we call Trump Derangement Syndrome?

LAMBORN:  [00:03:38] Yes! TDS!  And they do have that. Jimmy, I think it’s a combination of all of the above. And I — they believe Hillary should have won. Donald Trump is illegitimate. He won electorally, but they’re not letting themselves count that, even though that’s how the Constitution reads. They hate his policies, the people he’s appointing like Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch,  his vice president, Mike Pence, the pro-life policies he has, the pro-Second Amendment policies he has, the pro-freedom of religion policies that he has, cutting taxes and decreasing the size of government. They don’t like that. All — anyway you look at it –.  But what was worse, two nights ago, Jimmy, is that they got this fiasco in Iowa. And I think that that’s a bad omen for them, that their presidential candidates are falling apart. They don’t even have a winner to declare in Iowa.

LAKEY:  [00:04:47] [laughs].

LAMBORN:  [00:04:47] There’s no momentum for whoever to say, “I’m the leader,” or, “I came in second,” to take that to the next stage. It just destroyed their ability to help themselves. They’re going into New Hampshire and, you know, we’ll hear something about that next Tuesday, I guess. But all of that has been not just been taken away, but shown to be based on Democrat incompetence in Iowa. How can we trust them to run anything when this is the kind of performance we get?

LAKEY:  [00:05:25] Yeah.

LAMBORN:  [00:05:25] And Joe Biden came in fourth, and he was going to be the savior who would keep them from having a radical liberal like Bernie Sanders be the nominee. I think they see their world starting to crumble around him, Jimmy. And that is making them desperate.

LAKEY:  [00:05:42] So you’re saying they showed up in a bad mood, even a worse mood than normal.

LAMBORN:  [00:05:45] [laughing] yes!

LAKEY:  [00:05:45] Doug Lamborn is my guest, the 5th Congressional District congressman from Colorado. Doug Lamborn, [is] my guest.  Doug Lamborn, the impeachment acquittal happened yesterday by the U.S. Senate. I know that your job was done in the in the House. But when the word spread that the president had been acquitted, does that affect anything? Does — did the atmosphere change? Did you guys have a party last night, or had you guys already moved on from the impeachment saga?

LAMBORN:  [00:06:11] I think everyone kind of figured, you know, that was baked in the cake and figured that that was going to happen. And we’re moving on. And that — that, again — is one of those things that’s putting them in a bad mood. They know that that whole thing fizzled. You know, I went to one of the evening sessions because I had some time available, and it’s historical.  So, I went over there and I was listening to Alan Dershowitz make great arguments for President Trump, that this is not an impeachable offense, it’s not obstruction of Congress. He did a great job. All of their people did a great job. But the thing that caught my eye, Jimmy, is that the gallery was only half full. Anyone wandering through the Capitol that night could have waltzed in and and listened to the impeachment trial. And that should not be the case if there’s any interest in the public. The public is tuning this out and is not paying attention. And I don’t think the Democrats counted on that, either. It’s a nonstarter. It has gone nowhere for them.

LAKEY:  [00:07:15] Congressman Doug Lamborn, 5th Congressional District. Congressman, one quick thought:  Colorado a couple of years ago, we were big behind Mitt Romney. A lot of people endorsed him early on. Even our own friend, Tom Tancredo, endorsed. I mean, he got 0– across the board in Colorado — big support. What were your thoughts when you found out he was the lone Republican that voted to convict the president yesterday? Do you have any thoughts on Mitt Romney? Because, again, Coloradoans all knew Mitt Romney, because we were big supporters of his across the Republican Party.

LAMBORN:  [00:07:42] Well, and I thought he would have been much better than Barack Obama. And so for that reason, I supported him as well. And he would have been better than Barack Obama. But I was so disappointed, Jimmy. He got so much support from Republicans all over the country. And then he lets us down by not — you know — not having any loyalty to his president or –. And that — and I don’t think he really even opened his mind. I think he thinks he should be president. He’s more deserving than Donald Trump, certainly, to be president. But he never got it. And so I think there’s a chip on his shoulder. And so, I don’t think he really let himself be objective and say, “Okay, I don’t — I may not agree with what happened in the  phone calls with Ukraine, but it’s not impeachable,” whatever you think about that.  He just didn’t let himself — I mean, he could have even adopted that philosophy and voted to acquit. And that would have been great. But I don’t understand Mitt Romney. I don’t. It’s very disappointing. I think he let us all down.

LAKEY:  [00:08:43] Yeah, I agree. One more quick question for you, Congressman Doug Lamborn, 5th Congressional District in Colorado. Congressman Lamborn, impeachment is now over, at least for now. Some people think that the House committees, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler might try to do this whole thing again. We’ll find out if that’s true. What happens now? After the State of the Union, President Trump has laid out some vision, some things that maybe the Congress can come together on. What’s happening now in the hallowed halls of the U.S. House of Representatives, or is it just going to continue to be rancor, partisan fight during an election year, or is anything about to get done?

LAMBORN:  [00:09:15] I would love to do some things on a bipartisan basis to help the American people. Like, we had some good prescription drug cost-saving measures, not the suppression of profits so that they can’t do R&D in the future. That would be eating our seed corn, so to speak. But other conservative, free market approaches, and they haven’t — unfortunately, they haven’t let those come to the floor yet. They had a bad bill that came to the floor. But that’s the kind of thing that we could work on if they were open minded to doing that. But I don’t think their Trump hatred lets them be open minded to work with the president or Republicans.

 

LAKEY:  [00:09:54] Yeah.

LAMBORN:  [00:09:54] Certainly, Nancy Pelosi is so emotionally over the — off the deep end, I don’t think you can work with President Trump to do  — to agree that the sun rises in the east.

LAKEY:  00:10:08] Yeah, I found it very telling was telling that of the State of the Union was for president. Trump touted the success of criminal justice reform and the Democrats worked with him on criminal justice reform. It was a bipartisan effort. They wouldn’t even applaud for that because they didn’t want Donald Trump to get any credit. And I said, OK, these people are — they’re bat crap crazy! They’re all-out loons. If they can’t even applaud for their own accomplishment, that’s how we knew it was all off the end.

LAMBORN:  [00:10:36] Exactly!  Jimmy, let me see one last thing before you have to go to break. And that is, I was — the one thing I’ll say, I’ll credit Nancy Pelosi with, she at least showed up for the medal ceremony for Rush Limbaugh.

LAKEY:  [00:10:50] [hearty laughter]  How was that? That seemed to be very touching. There were so many things in the gallery.

LAMBORN:  [00:10:55] Yeah! And I sat right below and I could look up and see their expressions on their faces. Rush Limbaugh was so surprised and was so touched by that. You know, he doesn’t look well, Jimmy.  He’s thin. He’s gaunt. I hope he pulls through this, but I don’t know what is going to happen.  Life is short and we have to take — we have to appreciate it at every moment.

LAKEY:  [00:11:15] Doug Lamborn, I appreciate your time. Congressman, thanks for not jumping on here. I love it. Nancy Pelosi showed up for the medal ceremony. That’s beautiful. Doug Lamborn, God bless your friend. We’ll talk to you soon. The 5th Congressional District, Doug Lamborn representing Colorado in the 5th Congressional District  on the hotline. I’m back in a moment. That’s not — hope Rush sends Nancy a thank you note for attending the ceremony. Stick around. More to come.