Station:    KHOW, 630 am

Show:       Dan Caplis Show

Guests:    Buck, Ken

Link:        https://www.spreaker.com/user/9808592/191022-hour-2-dan-with-rep-ken-buck-on-r

Date:       October  22, 2019

Topics:     GEO

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HOST DAN CAPLIS [00:00:01] Oh, hey, we’ve got the congressman, Ken Buck! Everybody else jamming the lines, hold on. You will get on air before the end of this show, I promise you that. Congressman, welcome back to The Dan Caplis Show.

U.S. RERPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO’S FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT, AND CHAIRMAN OF THE COLORADO GOP, KEN BUCK [00:00:12] Thanks, Dan. It’s good to be with you.

CAPLIS [00:00:13] Well, [I] appreciate that. And one of the things I love about you is that you are always happy to dive into any topic. So I’ll ask you about the one we were on — after I ask you about the one we asked you to join us for, which is, you know, you coming out publicly and it’s being portrayed as a break with the administration — I don’t know if you see it that way — but you pushing to allow more refugees to be brought to America. So, tell folks about that.

BUCK [00:00:38] So, I think we are a country of immigrants and legal immigrants, and I think refugees are a critical part of that. We have many refugees that have been resettled in the Greeley area, and I am friends with many of them. And when you hear their conversations and descriptions of the refugee camps that they came from, where they lived for 6, 8, 10 years before winning the lottery and getting a chance to come to the United States and make a better life for themselves, it’s really heartbreaking. But I understand the administration’s position and I agree with your ministrations position. As long as we have this massive influx of asylum seekers coming across our southern border — many of whom are coached to ask for asylum if they are apprehended after coming across the southern border — they have to take personnel from the refugee program and do the interviews and processing of folks that are claiming asylum. And so, I understand why the numbers have gone down. I just want to make sure that we recognize religious minorities, Coptic Christians and others in the Middle East who are being persecuted as part of the refugee resettlement program that we look for in this country. And I also feel really strongly that we should do everything we can by building a wall and working with other countries to slow the influx of asylum seekers who I think are often acting in bad faith so that we can resettle more refugees. We had at one point in this country 200,000 refugees being resettled in America when President Reagan was in office. And we are down to 18,000 now. And so I’m hoping that we move that number up again.

CAPLIS [00:02:29] Now, Ken, are you thinking that — because you’ve got that concern going on on the southern border — about perhaps that process being abused by some? As we know, some are abusing it and others are legit. Are you thinking that we should be on two tracks and in the meantime be accepting more refugees from Africa, other place — you know, the Middle East, for example, as you mentioned — while reviewing the whole process on the southern border? Or does everything get hung up, in your view, while we straighten things out on the southern border?

BUCK [00:03:00] Well, everything is getting hung up now because we have over 300,000 applications — new applications — for refugee status or asylum from the southern border just recently. And so the amount of time it takes to process that will be enormous. And what I’m hoping — [there are] so many possible refugees coming in through the southern border, we just can’t keep the numbers coming through other areas. But I think one of the great things that we have going on in this country is that we are a diverse people, and we welcome refugees from Asia and Africa and the Middle East and Europe and various continents. And I hope we continue to do that.

CAPLIS [00:03:43] And the quote I’m looking at from one of the pieces on this is a Ken Buck: quote, “As a Christian, as a congressman, as a Coloradan, and as an American, I feel very strongly we should have a heart for people.” And that struck me, because having been a Democrat for so long –and then independent, and then becoming a Republican — I was shocked to find out that the Republican Party has an enormous heart and actually has the policies that help those good intentions, you know, benefit a lot of people. So I’m glad that you’re speaking out that way. Hey, you up for talking some other stuff?

BUCK [00:04:17] Absolutely.

CAPLIS [00:04:18] I’ve got a really odd comment on my board. It’s Mark from Walsenburg:  “Why is Ken Buck in favor of impeaching Trump?” And I’m quite sure you are not. So, where are you at on this impeachment thing?

BUCK [00:04:30] Well, I am absolutely not. I have not seen any data that suggests — any facts that suggest — that the president has committed an impeachable offense. And I am — I don’t know where those things start or come from. But, [it is] absolutely not true.

CAPLIS [00:04:48] Yeah. No, I –.  And, you know, it’s crazy with social and everything else out there how stuff gets started. But — and the president tweeted today.  I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, he treated today that he is the subject of a, quote, “lynching.” So we were talking about whether that was a poor choice of words. Any reaction to that?

BUCK [00:05:07] I don’t think it’s a great choice of words, but I don’t think it’s racist, either. I think people understand when Clarence Thomas said that he was the victim of a high tech lynching as a result of his confirmation hearings and, really, the unfair treatment that he got, that he wasn’t making a racial overturn, overture — a racial statement, that had racial overtones to it. And I don’t think the president is either. I think the president is just saying that he is being treated unfairly, that people are drawing conclusions before they’ve seen all the evidence, and that they should pause. And certainly we believe in this country that an individual is innocent until proven guilty. And the president deserves that just like everybody else.

CAPLIS [00:05:56] And finally, and I wanted to cycle back to the Clarence Thomas thing, first. For [then] soon-to-be Justice Thomas to refer to it as a lynching, I think he could have left out the ‘high tech’ [qualifier]. I thought that what was being done to him was just absolutely horrific. I just think that it’s so associated with what’s done to people of color that I think the president should have chosen a different word there. But, let me let me ask you about this, my friend, and that is, is there anything wrong on its face with a quid pro quo when it comes to foreign policy? I’m a little concerned that the administration — because I’m with you, I don’t think anything remotely criminal or impeachable happened here, even if it happened exactly the way the Democrats say. But is the administration making a mistake by appearing to be defensive about the whole quid pro quo thing?

BUCK [00:06:46] So, you know, Dan, you and I are involved in a quid pro quo right now. You have me on the radio. Hopefully, some of your listeners gain information. I go on the radio because I know people are able to listen to me and hopefully I can convince them that I’m a good person. So we just engaged in a quid pro quo. [There is] nothing wrong with that.

CAPLIS [00:07:08] No! [it] felt good.

BUCK [00:07:09] If you go to the store to buy milk, you give somebody cash, they give you milk, you have a quid pro quo. So, foreign policy is just the same as that. We give foreign aid to countries, and in return we expect some things from those countries. So in that sense, there’s nothing wrong with quid pro quo in foreign aid. What is unseemly is if there was a requirement to get foreign aid or military aid, that you had to interfere in the election process of this country, —

CAPLIS [00:07:43] Sure.

BUCK [00:07:43] –if you were trying to dig up dirt on an opponent of the president. I don’t see that in this case. I think that’s where the Democrats are trying to go with this. I don’t see it, and I don’t think it’s fair. And I think the innuendo and the closed door depositions and the lack of transparency that is involved right now is really unfortunate. And I think hiding this important issue from the American people is going to backfire on them.

CAPLIS [00:08:13] Amen. Well said. Ken, [I] really appreciate the time.

BUCK [00:08:17] Thank you, Dan. [it has been] good to be with you.

CAPLIS [00:08:18] Thank you, my friend. Keep up the great work. That is Congressman Ken Buck, also head of the GOP in Colorado. [There is] nothing wrong at all with a quid pro quo as long as what you’re asking for in return is appropriate. If Donald Trump was asking in return for a bucket of cash, [that would be] inappropriate. If he’s asking in return for the Ukraine to investigate corruption, then that’s perfectly legitimate, including corruption by the prior American administration. The fact that he might benefit from it politically, absolutely nothing illegal there at all. I mean, come on. Presidents are constantly thinking about how various official acts and functions will benefit them politically. That that doesn’t make it illegal. You know, again, as I said before, I wish that he had not mentioned Bidens.  I wish that wasn’t part of it. I understand how that can be used by the left. But somehow he legal or impeachable? No way! And perfectly within his presidential powers.