Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Peter Boyles Show

Guests:    Edwards

Link:       http://peterboyles.podbean.com/

Date:        November 20, 2017

Topics:

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GUEST HOST RANDY CORPORON:  […] [I am] very excited, though. [I] just read this — first saw the Westword article last week, and I’m told there will be some other writing — some other pieces coming out about this — but Mike Coffman, he, of the “Forever Congressman” congressional CD-6 seat, who–. You know, I’ve had breakfasts with this guy – I mean, one-on-one. I have spent time, called his office. He used to meet with the members of my group, the Arapahoe Tea Party once a month at his office, just across the parking lot almost from the studio, here. [He] was a conservative, would talk to Tea Partiers at Tea Party events, had the courage several years ago at the start of the Obama presidency to talk about how the — the fact that we really don’t know who Barack Obama is and then started backpedaling on that when it got out. And he has just been running further and further left ever since. And someone has said, “Enough!” — one of his own constituents, a gentleman named Roger Edwards, a man I’ve never met before. We are all going to meet him together, for the very first time. Roger, good morning!

GOP CHALLENGER TO THE INCUMBENT OF COLORADO’S SIXTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT, ROGER EDWARDS:  Thank you.

CORPORON:  You look –. Get up real close, lift that microphone right up to your face, there. And then you want to talk right into it.

EDWARDS:  All right.

CORPORON:  There you go! You know, if you get sick or cough or something you can turn away. But yeah, you want to talk right into that thing. And so, let’s first intro – Well, you heard the caller on Roger [Roy] Moore. So, before we get into your biography and start talking about primary-ing Mike Coffman, give me your take on Roy Moore.

EDWARDS:  Well, it’s not so much “a take on Roy Moore.” It’s the construct that we have set up, that in my mind, is going to be increasingly dangerous as it moves through the — just the attitudes of Americans and things like that. You know, we all — whether you’re a man or a woman, or no matter who you are — there are all people who don’t tell the truth. I had happened to, one time, sit on a jury. And it was a date rape case. And the young man that came in was a really nice looking guy, had a suit on, and he was absolutely terrified. Because if he had been convicted of rape, he was looking at 15 to 20 years. The lady who came in – you know, we heard all the testimony and we looked at all the pictures. And he said it was consensual. She said it was not. The jury, at that particular point, was made primarily of women, it was majority of women.

CORPORON:  I’m sure the prosecution did everything they could to make that so.

EDWARDS:  Oh, yeah!

CORPORON:  Yeah.

EDWARDS:  Yeah. And so, when we got back in the jury room and started our deliberations, the women went crazy. They said, “This gal’s story does not match up. She is not telling the truth.” So, and in my own evaluation of the case, I didn’t think he was guilty either. So we returned a ‘not guilty’ verdict on this date rape case, her word against his. And in today, what we’re doing, we’ve set up this construct that you must be believed, [as an accuser of rape]. Well, I’m sorry. I’m going to be skeptical of these things. I’m especially going to be skeptical of something that comes from 30 years, 20 years [ago] — that is an old accusation. If you’re in the workplace –.

CORPORON:  Forty years, in the case of Roy Moore!

EDWARDS:  If you’re in the commercial world, and whether you’re a man or a woman, and the boss comes in and says, you know, “Where’s this report?! How come you don’t have this up?” and [your boss] starts being critical of your performance, all you have got to do is say, “You know, the guy is harassing me!”  And now, the environment — the corporate environment, just the interactions of people – if we allow this to permeate through our system, it is going to become so corrosive that you won’t be able to talk to anybody, about –.

CORPORON:  Well, you know, it’s a really good point. And with Roger Moore, of course they come up with the –.

EDWARDS:  [correcting Corporon] Roy Moore.

CORPORON:  Roy Moore. Yeah, sorry.  You’re Roger.

EDWARDS:  [laughs],

CORPORON:  Roy Moore. I had somebody else do that on the radio. I forget what show it was. So, at least I’m not alone. But, the timing is just unbelievable. And of course they come up with the, what I call –.  Part of my legal practice – we’ve got several lawyers and we do a variety of things, but our criminal defense portion — when you get somebody who is accused of a sex crime, then there’s already a presumption of guilt rather than the presumption of innocence. You know if you take that to trial –, which is why people take plea bargains all the time for things they didn’t do with a sex crime [allegation].  Because it is literally a life sentence, even if you get out of jail within a decade or so, you’re tagged forever. And – but then you tack – you add in a child allegation, which is what they did with Roy Moore – 14-year-old, inappropriate touching, as, uh, from a 32-year-old man. It’s the ‘ick factor’.

EDWARDS:  Mm-hmm.

CORPORON:  You get that heavy duty ‘ick factor’. Immediately, people cringe and you are guilty until proven innocent. But I was suspect right out of the gate just because of the source — Washington Post, just because of the coincidental nature of these four victims all of a sudden, you know, being found right — just coincidentally, I’m sure — a month before an election for a man who is been in public service, been thrown out of office, then reelected by the people for standing up on his principles, just the every bit of the timing and knowing how these Alinsky-ites who control the Democratic Party operate now, and then the attack by Mitch McConnell and the establishment Republicans [inaudible] seemed so well coordinated, so quick, so ready to pounce. I’ve read speculation that Mitch McConnell was — is part of the machine behind this effort to take out Roy Moore. [It will] be interesting to hear from Jenny Beth Martin later, because she’s got her nose on the ground in these important elections, and to see what she thinks about the survival of Roy Moore. So, it sounds like you’re with me, that with an allegation that is this old — as icky as it is, and the suspect timing, and now Gloria Allred with the yearbook that’s already falling apart — signatures that don’t match, dates and initials that don’t make sense – the man is an assistant DA [and] they always sign ADA if they use their initials, although I don’t know any prosecutors that do that — not DA — just all those things — won’t turn it over for analysis, won’t say whether there is a polygraph out there on her client. I just think all this stuff can be used very significantly to help support Roy Moore. And because I’m such a skeptic, and because I think the consequences of allowing that seat — a reliably Republican seat – to turn over to a Democrat, you can’t just put that aside. [impersonating someone who questions Roy Moore’s innocence] “Well, not on this moral issue!” It’s too important. You cannot put that aside. The consequences of giving that seat away would be very, very great. When you factor all those things together, and the simple lack — all the other girls even, and he clearly was dating younger girls. There is no question about that. But the other three said, “…mom’s permission,” … “we’d kiss and hug”… “If it went too far, I’d say, ‘Stop!,” he’d stop… “he was a gentleman.”  So, I am not willing to throw a Roy Moore under the bus. It sounds like you feel the same way.

EDWARDS:  Well, you know, when I was in the corporate world, prior to moving to Colorado, we had sexual harassment training from our legal staff. Any manager participated in that – in those classes. And just the regular workers participated in the classes. So in today’s world, if you’re a corporate entity and you don’t have some kind of sexual harassment training, you’ve got a real problem because that’s where your legal liability is going to come from, from an accusation that — how do you prove? Unless you have three people in a meeting, every time you meet –.

CORPORON:  “He said, she said!”  I get those cases in my office all the time! And people think, “Well, without some objective proof –.” No! People get convicted. They get fired. Their reputations are dashed by a mere allegation. And you’re –. So, you’re right. And we’ve got to be very, very cautious about that.  And we can’t let a man who’s been vetted for 30 or 40 years — married, kids, grandkids, not a whisper — a lot of political, you know, attacks on him from people who disagree with him — but not a whisper of impropriety in his background, you simply cannot allow these kinds of allegations to wipe all that away.

EDWARDS:  Right.

CORPORON:  It would just be unfair.

EDWARDS:  Mm-hmm.

CORPORON:  So, before we get to our first break, we’re speaking with Roger Edwards. He has thrown his hat in the ring. He is the primary challenger — the announced primary challenger– only one so far, running against Mike Coffman in CD-6. You mentioned the corporate world. [Do you] want to take just a couple minutes and give people however much of your biography you think they should know as they start to assess you as a potential candidate, and especially, a potential Congressman.

EDWARDS:  Well, they say that over your lifetime, you have six careers. And I have probably had six careers. I have worked, after –. Oh, I’ll just start at the beginning. After I graduated from high school, the Vietnam War was going on, and you either –. If you if you went to college, you got a deferment. So, I didn’t want to go to Vietnam, so I went to college. My second semester, I had nine hours of ‘F’, three hours of ‘D’, three hours of ‘C’, and the college sent me this nasty letter saying, “Don’t ever come back. You’re an idiot. We never want to see you again.”  So, off to Vietnam I went. I enlisted. And after — that was a life-changing proposition. I came back, completed – uh, repeated all the ‘Ds’ and ‘Fs’, and was on the Dean’s honor roll. And I graduated with a degree in accounting. I worked in public accounting for a while. I worked in private accounting for a while. And then I moved to the private sector where I was essentially the business manager for a commercial organization.

CORPORON:  So, you’re a numbers guy.

EDWARDS:  Yes.

CORPORON:  And the training that you got in the military, it sounds like, created a level of discipline and maybe even some self-respect and a desire to achieve and be successful that you didn’t have before you went into the military?

EDWARDS:  Well, it taught me – and I had this within me, just from my family history. My dad was in the Navy. My uncle was at Pearl Harbor. So I come from a family that served. And it’s one of those things that – you know, sometimes within a person, you know that there’s something greater than yourself. And that’s – you know, I wasn’t particularly excited about going to Vietnam, but I knew there was no way that I was going to do anything to chicken out on that assignment.

CORPORON:  Did you fight? Were you in combat?

EDWARDS:  I was what you might call a forward air observer. We flew a prototype airplane that was designed by Lockheed. It was essentially the first stealth aircraft. It was a powered glider, and we flew at about 1500 feet and 80 knots. It had all the sound-deadening technology on it. So we could fly, we could fly above you and you couldn’t hear us. If you knew what to listen for, you could hear us. But the enemy couldn’t hear us.

CORPORON:  Was it simply for reconnaissance, or did you ever drop anything on people? Or how did that go?

EDWARDS:  [laughs] Yeah, we dropped a lot of things!

CORPORON:  [chuckles] Like, did you have a hand grenade to throw over, or something –?  I don’t know –.

EDWARDS:  Well, we were equipped with the technology of a night vision scope. And what we would do is we would locate targets and then we would work with the artillery and helicopter gunships and naval bombardment and we would call in those strikes and on the targets that we found and we’d kill the enemy.

CORPORON:  Were you able to fly high enough to be out of range? Or were you subject to being fired on?

EDWARDS:  Oh, yeah!  Fifteen-hundred feet, I mean, you know.

CORPORON:  Wow!

EDWARDS:  Yeah, any –.

CORPORON:  Oh, you said that – fifteen hundred! Yeah, I’m a private pilot, so that’s not high at all!

EDWARDS:  That’s landing pattern!

CORPORON:  Yeah! So, all you had – the technology you had to be a stealth player was that you were quiet. You were a glider

EDWARDS:  Yes.

CORPORON:  You’d go out and glide back. Wow!  Well, that’s – how long did you serve?

EDWARDS:  I was in Vietnam for about 11 months.

CORPORON:  K.

EDWARDS:  And, uh –.

CORPORON:  Did the war end, or –?

EDWARDS:  Well, at that time, President Nixon was trying to cut the armed forces. So we got a month “early-out”.

CORPORON:  Pete – I don’t want to drag –. We’ve got to take a break and you’re going to stay with us so we’ll get to know a lot more about you. We’re talking with Roger Edwards, who is running against Mike Coffman. He’s going to give him a primary run for his money. [I’m] Really looking forward to seeing how that works out. But, people have — so many people, if they haven’t taken some time to read, have a complete misunderstanding about the Vietnam War, and you know, think America hasn’t won a war since Vietna – actually, since Korea. That war is still technically ongoing. But we were on the verge of winning the war in Vietnam, when we bailed. And millions of people died as a result of us pulling out there. So, a topic for another day.

EDWARDS:  And, that’s a reason – that’s one of the reasons that has motivated me to do this. And we can talk about it a little bit.

CORPORON:  Sounds good!  Let’s do that. It’s 6:21. We’ll take calls, as well, if you’d like. 303-696-1971. Your chance to get to know the brand new, freshly minted, recently announced primary candidate for Mike Coffman and Congressional District 6, right here in our own backyard. He stays with us. I hope you will, too. I’m Randy Corporon, filling in for Peter Boyles. You’re listening to 710 KNUS.

[commercial break]

[The rest of this transcription is presented here as produced in raw form by Dragon software]

Right now, so pleased to be joined by Roger Edwards, who is taking away from his personal time is simply fed up. It sounds like to me with Republicans who start out as conservatives and then start running as fast as they can toward the middle, which always means the left and they never stop at the middle either. It is people right on Ron and Michael Coffman, Mike Coffman is done the same in my mind used to meet with the rapid tea party once a month is to go talk to groups like ours and the used actually feel like a conservative and so anyway were talking with Roger Roger before we get and you want to make a comment about the Vietnam War and all the people who died when we pulled out and all that but I do want people to know how they can reach you because you’re just getting started. I assume you’re gonna need some help some connections, maybe a few dollars. Along the way and all that. What is the best way right now at the infancy of your primary challenge to Congressman Mike Coffman for people to reach you what the primary ways is to go to my website which is Edwards committee.com www.Edwards committee.com and just so you know you and I are both kind of it that non-technical age these days you don’t need to say the www.automatic now people just put in Edwards committee.com thought I gotta do it. We’ve been working on this website for a couple of months trying to populate it with content so that when you go there you can see some of the things that I have written and you can either like it or you cannot like it before we talk about you know, wise idea to take on Coffman Hill always say my district is changing its no question it was read on specifically to try and take down my Coffman and he is shown the ability and he’s a hard-working campaigner, no question about it, shown the ability to hold onto a purple lane, maybe blue ever bluer district and want to talk about that but only want to break. We would your your Vietnam that courageous flying gliders over enemy territory and the and I just made the comment that people really misunderstand the Vietnam War will be pulled out of there on the verge of victory many many many many many people died as a result, yet recently a Ken Burns put out a documentary on Vietnam that I think is 10 part series and I think it should be required viewing for any person in high school and above that you as a participant in that effort. Not there. There were some things that I knew about Vietnam when I was there. You just sense that what’s right, what’s not right. So there. There were things that I knew about what was going on but in the Ken Burns series he brought out a lot more information that I didn’t know in the fact that Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon. All of these people their administrations. They knew this war was unwinnable but yet they continued to sacrifice men and and civilians into the meat grinder that was that was Vietnam of thousands of 58,000 individuals military people on our side lost or lost their lives hundreds of thousands more were wounded mentally and physically and that I think you close like over a million Vietnamese were killed because I just can’t come out that the corruption of of what these people knew that is, at some point they did say you okay enough. Let’s let’s go a different way and that’s kind of what I feel, where we where Washington is right now. That same type of corruption is in Washington and there there doing things that that don’t seem right you the that the war in Afghanistan. I don’t I don’t endorse that I don’t I don’t believe in it. If you’ve got a tribal culture over there who is been tribal for 2000 years. Wells always says the Afghanistan is the country where empires go to die right in and you’re not going to change in a tribal culture. Let’s get out of there and let them do whatever they want to do and if they start causing a problem will get them all congregated and get will kill them all so Pres. Donald Trump has sent us back to Afghanistan. Did you vote for Donald Trump. I voted for Donald Trump and United I know what the president has done in this particular case, I’m willing to give them a little bit of the leeway because of the professionals that he is put in charge of the military and the Pentagon in in Vietnam. You know LBJ was picking targets from the Oval Office. Nixon was telling us that you know what bombs they can and where they couldn’t if you’re going to it. If you get in the war you need to kill the enemy and you need to kill them with great passion yeah and that’s one thing that Donald Trump is made very clear mean one of his first examples was to drop that mother of all bombs think that big hole is it what were not going there were not going to do politically correct wars again and you can’t allow terrorists to states to pick a country of taken Aryan stage you have to go in there and clean that up so I don’t know what you know. Let stage let them accumulate and then you kill them all the violence, yes it’s, like, it’s an infestation by the way, if you’re just waking up and you haven’t poked her head outside the sunrise is spectacular. We’ve got the sunrise view here from the beautiful 17 can US towers that to 25 in Parker. It is a gorgeous morning. Make sure you take a quick look before it goes away. So talking with Roger Edwards and he’s running he’s taking on my Coffman’s can run the primary campaign as a Republican I went and pulled up your website looks good already and did you do that yourself and work on that you said I have a friend who is in the computer website business and we’ve collaborated on it and develop the website is Edwards committee.com and Roger was telling me off the air that you know he needs just at the infancy of this thing and so he needs to start connecting with people who can help with social media help with that you are reaching out to the different leaders of the different sub communities within CD six think in front of these people in and get to know them. So I go to Edwards committee.com and and reach out. I think that’s a really good idea and that’s a really important issue. I read the article that Westward did on your candidacy is one of the things that you talked about in my Coffman is really to end and Republicans by Intuit. It’s so common in American politics. Now that were dividing up subgroups and subcultures, and what we can’t know, we can’t pass a tax cut for people who produce to create jobs and create products because were hurting some other group over here, never looking at the overall picture. And from what I read of your answers and that and I’ll let you elaborate on this you’re starting from the perspective that whether you’re Muslim or black, red, white, whatever your background history or ethnicity in America when I can do hyphenated Americans is that that is that a that that’s totally correct and my friend that said help me with the website. He’s also been involved in political campaigns. And he’s more of a traditional type has a traditional type of you on campaigns and I was course. I look at that Jason Crow’s webpage and Jason did mention that he got an endorsement from the pipefitters union 208 and I thought I would call the pipefitters and now that we’ve got a challenge between Coffman. You may be perhaps the pipefitters might be interested in endorsing one of the two of us on the Republicans so I had a meeting with the pipefitters union later on I was telling my friend. I said I met with pipe pipefitters union. He was horrified. He says why are you meeting with them, Mike Coffman is going to use that he’s in a target you as a big union friendly guy and it’s issues that caused a lot of problems. I said listen to those pipefitters are professional people. I would guess maybe the union themselves will probably always endorse a Democrat but I can’t help but think that there’s a lot of Trump voters out there in the pipefitters sharing and I’m not. I’m not going to. I’m not in it disqualify any group that say I’m I got talk to you because I know you’re just a Democrat here got so Donald Trump got elected I mean he the Democrat party is no longer the Democrat party JFK could not possibly be a Democrat right now. Just as can happen that people who are in control of the Democrat party are extreme radical Zelinski Heights Marxists, a socialist, almost became in itself a valid socialist who honeymooned in Russia almost became the Democrat nominee and Hillary Clinton part of the way she took him out was to run more toward the left during the primary campaign. So those people have to be starving for someone who will talk about jobs about patriotism about getting government out of the way so people can have a fair shake. Ronald Reagan 149 states in his reelection bid and that was because the blue dog Democrats and in you and I are getting older. We ain’t all dead yet. Right right so heights of the website is Edwards committee.com. I love the kind of the taglines you’ve gotten the different links your freedom, liberty, individual flag, private property, God military life. Those are all pretty important to take a break now when we come back let’s talk about your signature issue are or your two or three issues that you think are gonna really help distinguish you from my Coffman as you go forward in this primary process. I will tell you that speech is a caucus make a real difference. They did because two years ago, a young man of courageous young man with a pretty stiff speech impediment stood up and gave a wonderful speech and fought his way through it. Now tell us you know he was a stutter as I like very serious. He’s fought his way through a very impassioned speech came within two points of getting on the primary ballot against my Coffman

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Top of the arts, about eight minutes left with our guest Roger Edwards. He is primary and Mike Coffman top of the hour, Regis Giles, the sister of Hannah, the beautiful young woman who was involved in the takedown of the exposé on acorn I said Planned Parenthood before, but as usual, listeners don’t want to get away with anything around here. Thanks for that Al appreciate the text and I will talk to her at the top of the hour about sexual harassment and how that fits into her website. Girls just want to have guns. But back to Roger. Time is short. Roger your website is Edwards committee.com a young man who I had never heard of until caucus came within two points of getting on the primary ballot against Mike Coffman at the caucus so there’s no way to no one can say that this can’t be done, it certainly can. What are the couple of issues that do you think will most distinguish you from Congressman Coffman and maybe help get you get some mileage you know I think the primary issue that the primary thing that I deal with them because some of my frustration with Mike is that I’m looking for a Congressman who is going to do what they say they’re going to do and if you can repeal Obama care maybe right every Republican in these majorities ran on the premise of would be repealing Obama care and Coffman was one of the no votes. Was he not that’s correct. Yeah, right, and also unity have to establish some priorities and I don’t quite the agree with some of the priorities that Mike had you and and I don’t agree with some of the priorities Republican Party has in the recent tax bill that was that was coming out of the Senate. They had a provision to eliminate the adoption credit I go to church with a foster family and we said we spoken he said that’s that’s huge for me and I got five foster children and losing this tax credit is a significant issue. I thought why would why would our team want to be did do that well then and taking away people’s tax credits for their home mortgages taking away their ability to write off the money that they have to pay their state taxes on their federal tax return Congress act like it’s their money and then they buy into this leftist argument that you have to pay for tax cuts as though that money just somehow goes into thin air gets hidden under a mattress rather than getting put back into a new car, a college education or a new roof on your house which creates all kinds of economic activity that you know there’s taxes are one thing, but I view this particular thing is the adoption credit as a greater good. You know, not only are you your helping the children who who who need that help another your helping another human being. If I lose my mortgage deduction. I’m just helping me that if the issue is hurting me but if I don’t agree with that. I want to rethink that because if you have extra money even if you just stick it into your retirement account your savings account. The bank uses that money to loan it out to other people exactly their house or their car. Their college education for their kid. So don’t ever apologize for wanting to keep more of your own money. I don’t but I think in this particular issue that the greater good of providing a home stable home life for foster kids absolute is is hard hard to get around and how can Republicans be behind taking away the ability to support more families giving homes to more kids exactly it’s it’s so stupid exactly. And then on the on the opposite side. There was an amendment to the defense reauthorization bill amendment number 10 is actually off offered by congressperson for my former state of Missouri and essentially what the amendment said was it would prohibit the government from providing money for military people to transition in gender reassignment, so the military is that it is folks out there who have started in that the gender reassignment program and the military is providing all of the necessary care for that. I don’t think that’s a viable lug a government responsibility did not make social policy or apply taxpayer dollars to 3/10 of 1% of the American population. I have I have nothing but sympathy for people involved in some kind of fight with their own genitalia. Whether it’s psychological or whatever it is, but the idea that this is something that not only the taxpayer should be doing, but that the military should be making policies extra bathrooms making soldiers uncomfortable because they may not know who is in the stall next to them or whatever or who is getting turned on. The reason you have seen gender bathrooms and showers is because for the vast majority of people. There’s no sexual stimulation in there. It’s just pure common sense, so I’m glad it sounds like you can talk some common sense will and in this particular regard. That amendment was defeated 209 Republicans voted for 24 Republicans voted against it, which defeated the amendment in one of those Republicans was Mike Coffman, very, very yeah I you know I’m all in the freedom freedom of association you you know you can you can do anything you can be anything and I’m all for that. That the promotion in the sub and subsidizing military people to use their position as a way to get this specific medical treatment. I don’t think is appropriate use of government money got less than a minute your website is Edwards committee.com Edwards committee.com Roger Edwards running a primary campaign against Mike Coffman. I’m sure will have you back many times on my Saturday morning show wake up with Randy corporate deftly want to hear more about what you’re up to what you want to leave the audience with in these last 30 or 40 seconds well, I am looking to get out there and talk to people. I’m not that talk at you. I want to talk with you. And if we can have a sensible conversation and you can convince me that that your particular view even though it might be different than mine up. I’m certainly open to listen to that I want to include everybody you said you’d come talk to the Arapaho tea party and maybe even next month. Sure okay I’ll talk to my Coffman hasn’t been willing to talk to us in years and ways to get to meet with him on some talk anybody all right Roger Edwards. Edwards committee.com a primary challenger for Mike Coffman, thanks for coming to the studio think he really were initiated