Dan Caplis Show, Cory Gardner, February 12, 2020
Station: KHOW, 630 am
Show: Dan Caplis Show
Guests: Gardner, Cory
Date: February 12, 2020
Topics: Dick Wadhams, Bipartisanship, Senator Kirsten Sinema, Health Care System, Healty Savings Accounts, Home Health Care, 1962, President Kennedy, Pipeline, Arkansas Valley Conduit, Democrats were busy impeaching President Donald Trump, Clean Water, Jobs, Veterans Re-entering Workforce, STEM Fields, STEM Degrees, V.A. Readiness Initiative, Grand Junction, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Space Command, Colorado Springs, Western Slope, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Household Income Rising, Tax Cuts, Lowest Unemployment, Trade Deal to Benefit Farmers and Ranchers, Eastern Plains, Expand I-25, Path to Victory, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Bernie Sanders, Wage Growth, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, 1999 Clinton Impeachment, Revenge Majority in the House of Representatives, John Bolton, Subpoena, Difference of Policy, Western Slope, Separation of Powers, Three Branches of Government, Jerry Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney
HOST DAN CAPLIS [00:00:28] [referring to bumper music playing after commercial break] We’re supposed to have some celebratory music today. Uh, [show producer] Ryan?
SHOW PRODUCER RYAN [00:00:48] Yeah.
CAPLIS [00:00:49] In what corner of the world is this celebratory music?”.
CO-HOST DICK WADHAMS [00:00:50] [hearty laughter].
RYAN [00:00:50] My friends–.
CAPLIS [00:00:50] I’ve got the memo right in front of me: [reading the memo] “celebratory music today.”.
RYAN [00:00:56] This is — you’ve got to listen to me, here. [Reciting lyrics from the bumper music] “My friends are all depressed.” The Democrats, who are our friends — I’m trying to be conciliatory here and bipartisan, which our next guest is trying to be with Senator Kirsten Sinema, as well.
CAPLIS [00:01:09] I don’t ask for much here, Dick. All I asked for was celebratory bumper music today.
WADHAMS [00:01:11] Yeah! This is like a dirge.
RYAN [00:01:11] It is not a dirge! It’s [the band] Red Hot Chili Peppers.
WADHAMS [00:01:12] [hearty laughter].
CAPLIS [00:01:12] I’m going to bring my own music next time. All right, let’s go to the VIP line. [We are] very fortunate to have Colorado Senator Cory Gardner back on the Dan Caplis Show. Senator, how are you doing?
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO, CORY GARDNER [00:01:29] [laughing] Hey, I’m doing great. Good afternoon. [I am] nice and mellowed out now. Thank you.
CAPLIS [00:01:32] Oh, my goodness.
WADHAMS [00:01:33] [hearty laughter]
CAPLIS [00:01:33] I was I was loving life until then. I’ve got to find a therapist. It’s Dick Wadhams in the house, if you didn’t recognize that famous laugh over there, Senator. And, uh –.
GARDNER [00:01:44] Excellent!
CAPLIS [00:01:44] Hey, before we get to the softballs [questions] like impeachment, let me start with the tough stuff, here. You’re on a roll, obviously, in terms of getting stuff for Colorado. I want to start with some of the rare bipartisanship we’ve seen, the business that you and Senator Kirsten Sinema have been up to. Can you fill folks in on that?
GARDNER [00:02:02] Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I continue to do is try to find ways to save money in our health care system, provide better health care, give people more flexibility with their dollars that they are putting towards health care. And so, Senator Sinema and I have introduced a bill that would allow seniors –allow our seniors to take money out of their health savings accounts for home health care. It’s kind of a no-brainer to me. You’d think that they could already do this because it’s obviously cheaper to receive care in your home. It’s obviously better to receive that care in your home if you’re able to do that instead of going to a higher cost living facility or skilled care center. If you can avoid that, we ought to be doing that. And so, that this would allow seniors to utilize those health savings accounts for their care at their home, which would, I think, make a heck of a lot more sense.
CAPLIS [00:02:51] And then, bring people up to speed on what’s going on in the Arkansas Valley with whole conduit funding.
GARDNER [00:02:56] Oh, man, this is exciting news. You know, in 1962, President Kennedy authorized the legislation that would build a pipeline, 100 plus mile pipeline from Pueblo, Colorado, out to Lamar, Colorado — one hundred-some-plus miles covering, you know, 50,000 people with clean drinking water. He did that in 1962. It was not buiilt. It was not funded until last week. We got the money to begin construction thanks to President Trump, thanks to the work that we were able to do, 50,000 people are going to have clean drinking water in Colorado because of the work that we did. So while the Democrats were busy impeaching President Donald Trump, we were busy helping deliver clean water to Colorado.
CAPLIS [00:03:36] Yeah, and on top of the clean water, I’ve got to imagine they’re gonna be a lot of jobs involved in that build out.
GARDNER [00:03:42] That’s exactly right. So, this is going to be a a significant project, one of the most significant public works projects Colorado has seen in a very long time.
CAPLIS [00:03:51] Hmm. And the bill to support veterans reentering the workforce — can you fill people in on that?
GARDNER [00:03:57] Yeah, absolutely. And thanks, Dan. You know, I have passed more legislation into law now than I think the entire Colorado congressional delegation combined. This bill just got signed into law. This would help to get our veterans into STEM fields. You know, I have met with a group I had a roundtable of veterans students at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction last year. And they told me that they had a significant number of barriers when they were trying to get STEM degrees, taking what they learned in the military, taking their their skills as a veteran into STEM degrees. And so that we now have a bill that would allow, you know, to tear down those barriers. It’s part of what I call my V.A. readiness initiative to make sure that the V.A. system is ready to help fight the fight for veterans once they’re out of their military careers and into civilian life. And so this bill has been signed into law. It’s going to be great getting them into these STEM careers, engineering, mathematics fields that we know these veterans are still able to pursue. And, you know, I was just grateful that the president signed it into law.
CAPLIS [00:04:53] [That is] our guest, Senator Cory Gardner, quite obviously. Before the break, I had asked Dick Wadhams, “Hey, Dick, what’s the first question you’d ask Senator Gardner?” He had a good one.
WADHAMS [00:05:02] Well, Cory, I mean, just listening to you talk about those issues you’ve worked on, you have got a hell of a story to talk about to Colorado’s voters that transcend partisan politics. I think that’s that’s been the most underestimated part of your candidacy by our opponents — by the other side — who think that you’ve been nothing but a Trump clone, which, by the way, I have no trouble with you supporting the administration. But you’ve got a — you’ve got so many great stories to tell which you’ve done for the state in every corner. And I think that’s a hidden strength of your candidacy for reelection.
GARDNER [00:05:38] Well, you know, we’re going to be able to go from corner to corner across Colorado and talk about the things we’ve done. Just look at Grand Junction. We’ve now moved the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Grand Junction in Colorado Springs. We have space force operating with U.S. Space Command out of Colorado Springs. [on the] Western Slope we returned millions of dollars in energy dollars called Anvil Points. We’ve doubled the funding of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The average household income in Colorado has gone up or thousand dollars because of the tax cuts that we passed in 2017 and the average tax cuts over a thousand dollars for households in Colorado. We have the lowest unemployment rate in Colorado. We’ve got now a pipeline that will provide 50000 people with clean drinking water. And we’ve got a trade deal to benefit our farmers and ranchers in the Eastern Plains and the western slope. There are a lot of things that we’re going to be able to talk about, including money to expand I-25 north and I-25 south, for those of your listeners who are now trying to commute on their way home.
CAPLIS [00:06:37] And Senator, before we ask you about impeachment, [I] want to extend that ‘path to victory’ question, bcause you know that topic — often, here in Colorado, now, as you know — is, wow, you know, when you look at how registration has changed, and you look at the — you know, Democrats now having more registered voters than Republicans etc., the question comes up: what is the path to victory for Cory Gardner? I can’t tell you how many people say to me, “Hey, I really want Cory to win, but how is he going to do it?”
GARDNER [00:07:06] Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I get some reporters in Colorado asking me questions. they say, “Well, you know, they’ve all won statewide office before. How will you?” And I say, “Well you know we’ve won statewide office before, too, in Colorado, as a reminder.” And so, this is a good question in this state. But I’ll remind people, though, in John McCain’s case, he lost Colorado by 9 points. In Mitt Romney’s case, he lost Colorado by 6 points. In President Trump’s case, he lost Colorado by a little over 4points. This is not a state that has moved to the left in presidentials. It’s actually moved to the right in presidentials. They’re gonna be nominating somebody like Bernie Sanders. You know, at this time, four years ago, I was asked by every reporter every single time, am I going to support Donald Trump for president? They’re gonna have to be asking that same question to candidates about Bernie Sanders. And so, you know, the bottom line is Colorado has succeeded. Colorado has grown. Wages are up. In fact, low income earning workers are earning wage growth twice as fast as the highest wage earners in Colorado — [in] this country right now. It’s because of our work we’ve done in Congress to reduce taxes, reduce regulations, grow our economy. And they’re going to be supporting somebody who wants socialized medicine, who wants to eliminate the tax cuts, who wants to grow regulations, who wants to destroy oil and gas in every single Democrat in Colorado in this race against me wants to end oil and gas, put over 100000 people out of work and destroy our economy. I just don’t think that’s a winning message.
CAPLIS [00:08:35] Amen, to that! Senator Gardner, obviously, [is] our guest. Senator, before we talk about impeachment. — and that’s the last time I’ll say that because I’m about to ask you about impeachment — are you going to be down in the Springs with the President when he’s here next week?
GARDNER [00:08:49] Oh, I’m gonna be! And it’s gonna be a lot of fun because, you know, like I said, we’ll just be a few miles away from the United States Space Command headquarters of United States Space Force, you know, in a great community that represents the heart and soul of our national security operations. So I’m excited to be there and I’m looking forward to it very much.
CAPLIS [00:09:08] Let me start with the two obvious questions that pertain to this whole impeachment, which I refer to us as “The Coup Attempt 2.0.” But in terms of the vote against additional witnesses, what was your thought process there?
GARDNER [00:09:24] You know, just like Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden said back in 1999, when you have the evidence that the House presented, we didn’t need an 18th witness in this case. That’s the Biden rule. That’s the Schumer rule. We just applied it to this case. We didn’t need an 18th witness. The House had said they had an airtight case — overwhelming evidence — and they did not. They failed to make a conclusive case to remove a duly elected president of the United States for the first time in our nation’s history. And they wanted to nullify the results of the 2016 election and cancel the election in 2020 and create chaos. So I think that they this is a revenge majority in the House of Representatives that drove a partisan impeachment process that the American people simply rejected and want Congress to get back to work [on] things, things like the Arkansas Valley conduit that will actually do good for the American people instead of divide the American people.
CAPLIS [00:10:17] And for the folks who mention John Bolton, because I was thinking he sat in the studio where Dick is right now and we’ve talked many times. But for folks who say, well, you know, John Bolton, he had that book, he had things to say, what’s the harm in bringing him in? What do you say to those folks?
GARDNER [00:10:31] Well, the House could have brought John Bolton in to testify, in fact, when they had the chance. They didn’t subpoena him because they didn’t think he was important to their case. And they testified or they presented a case in the Senate that said our case is overwhelming without John Bolton. So they said they didn’t need him. Certainly they didn’t bring an overwhelming case to remove the president. And the American people expect us to get back to work for them. So instead of ripping up the State of the Union speech, we need to start bringing people together to actually do good things for this nation.
CAPLIS [00:11:00] And obviously, you know, Dick, myself, many of the people listening, etc. are very glad you did what you did in terms of voting against removal of the president. But what do you say to those folks who say, well, first, you should have removed him and if not removed him, then then you should have come out and condemned his actions? What do you say to those folks?
GARDNER [00:11:19] Well, look, they were asking us to remove the president over policy difference. You don’t remove. You don’t impeach a president over a difference of policy. And that’s what they wanted us to do. You don’t trounce constitutional rights. And that’s exactly what the House wanted us to do. And so let’s protect our the integrity of our government, our separation of powers, three branches of government, and let’s get things done for the American people. So. Well, they may have wanted the president impeached. They’re going to have a chance and nine months to vote whether or not they keep the president in office.
WADHAMS [00:11:51] Cory –.
GARDNER [00:11:51] And I don’t know — oh! Sorry! Go ahead.
WADHAMS [00:11:52] Oh, no! Go ahead. Go ahead, I’m sorry.
GARDNER [00:11:55] Well, I just don’t think 100 people — 100 men and women in Washington, D.C. — ought to be displacing the opinions of 63 million people who voted for the president just four years ago.
WADHAMS [00:12:05] You know, Cory, I’m glad you brought up 1998, ’99, the Clinton impeachment, because some of those same hypocrites in the Senate that you alluded to were standing there talking about that. What Clinton did, exploiting an intern for sex in the White House and then lying about it under oath, “No big deal! I mean, yeah, it was wrong, but, but — Yea, he shouldn’t have done it. But it’s not impeachable!” It was just amazing to me to see the hypocrisy of many of those senators who were there then and then were there today to try to get rid of Trump.
GARDNER [00:12:39] Well, and you had Jerry Nadler, who was one of the House managers presenting the impeachment against President Trump, who in 1999 said we should never have a partisan impeachment because it would divide the country. Heck, just last March, Nancy Pelosi said you should never have a partisan impeachment because it would be too divisive. And so, you know, the left flank of the AOC wing, this radical socialist wing that has taken over the party, demanded it and they they had to give it.
CAPLIS [00:13:03] Yes. Last question, Senator, appreciate the time. I really hope we can talk often during the campaign, because every time you come on this show or any other show, you help yourself a lot. Yes. And honestly and I’m not turn Shaniya. I’m just trying to be practical because I really want you to win. There’s not a better candidate in the country. So you know, I hope you and your team let your light shine everywhere through this campaign because it’s –.
GARDNER [00:13:29] [laughing] Like that Sunday school song, right?
CAPLIS [00:13:31] Yeah, exactly! Exactly. And so, my final question is more a personal one. Mitt Romney: do you run into him, you know, just in the normal course of business? And is it any different now that he did what he did? I am still just so disappointed that he went down that road because I think he makes it tougher for everybody who did the right thing.
GARDNER [00:13:54] You know, look, I think there’s there’s as Mitch McConnell said, there’s no dog house in the United States Senate. He did what he believed was right and he came to his own decision the way he did. I just would remind people that are praising Mitt Romney now, many of the same people back when he was running for president accused him of being a felonious tax cheat who caused cancer. And so the fickle praise that’s coming his way for this right now won’t last long when the next moment arrives that they think he should be against the party or the president or Republicans or whatever issue it is of the day. So, you know, I think that he will continue to do what he believes is right, as I will. And that’s what what the people of Colorado and the country expect us all to do.
WADHAMS [00:14:38] So, Cory, how how nervous do you think that Senator Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are about their anointed one, John Hickenlooper, as they watch him bumble through this ethics investigation and embarrass himself every time he opens his mouth about it?
GARDNER [00:14:55] Well, you know, it’s a good question. They probably haven’t been able to talk to him much because he’s doing witness preparation for his ethics corruption trail . And, you know, we’ll see what happens. They probably have phones on the private jets that he’s been taking, so maybe they reach him that way.
WADHAMS [00:15:10] [hearty laughter].
CAPLIS [00:15:10] [laughing] He’s ready! Ladies and gentlemen, he’s in top form. Senator, appreciate the time. Look forward to the next visit.
GARDNER [00:15:17] Hey, thanks for having me.
