Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Peter Boyles Show

Guests:    Andrews, John

Link:        https://peterboyles.podbean.com/e/colorados-elder-statesman-john-andrews-oct-23-2019-hr-4/

Date:       October  23, 2019

Topics:     GEO

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GUEST HOST RANDY CORPORON: [00:00:00] Is waiting any longer, he is truly the elder conservative statesman of Colorado right now, he’s a dear friend. I’ve learned so much in conversation with him, even though we don’t always agree. But he’s kind enough to join us now. And John, I can’t thank you enough.

ELDER STATESMAN OF THE COLORADO REPUBLICAN PARTY, JOHN ANDREWS [00:00:16] Well, Randi, thanks for putting me in. You know, I am such an elder statesman that every tick of the clock for me is now an uncertainty. So I’m glad to be with you this morning.

CORPORON [00:00:26] Well, I appreciate it. And it’s guys, it’s been, what, 14 years since you ended your tenure as the president of the state Senate or your your run in the Senate and how things have changed here in Colorado?

ANDREWS [00:00:42] Yes, I wouldn’t have expected that it would be such a lean period that Republicans were entering after the Democrats sweep of 2004, which they consolidated by taking the governorship as Bill Owens departed in 2000 and six there. There’ve been a few flickers along the way, but it’s been a it’s been a long, tough run. We’ve got to hang hang tough and and figure that the liberals are going to do us a favor by overplaying their hand. There’s already some indications of that. And I believe the pendulum is going to swing. But it requires fidelity and fortitude from our side.

CORPORON [00:01:19] Did you hear the interview with Ken Buck that I did.

ANDREWS [00:01:24] I missed it. I wish I’d heard.

CORPORON [00:01:25] All right. Well, you know, one of my biggest frustrations and Ken and I go way back all the respect in the world. You know, he took a principled position on this censure of Adam Schiff based on the history of sensors and when that tool is appropriate. He’s fighting for, you know, Christians and other refugees who are hurting around the country. And [00:01:49]but every time the president does something, it seems like first to the microphone. Are Republicans to find some level of fault. And it seems to me and we heard a little bit of this from Ken Buck [11.3s] when he said that, you know, the president could get more mileage out of touting the economy, talking about the trade agreement between Canada and Mexico. That’s languishing because Nancy Pelosi is pursuing the this ridiculous kangaroo court impeachment process. And instead, you know, he’ll come out and use a word like, oh, lynching yesterday. And my point to him is that Donald Trump showed Republicans what it takes to win an election in the 21st century in the political climate that’s been created by the radical left that now runs the Democrat Party. And yet [00:02:39]it seems to me like Republicans are trying to change the president instead of understanding that this president is showing them what it takes to win. [7.8s] Now, what’s your thought on that?

ANDREWS [00:02:51] [00:02:51]I absolutely agree with you, Randi. Donald Trump can be maddening, but. I see him as the great disruptor, [7.6s] the leader that America so desperately needed at this point. After a long, long run of let’s let’s be honest and bipartisan misrule, mis government in Washington, D.C. and in the state capitals, unfortunately, including our own at times and and as imperfect as Trump is. He knows better than to come half way into a fight where the other side is using all its weapons. He’ll never bring a knife to a gunfight, as the saying goes. And and our side has gotten so used to wearing a kick me sign that we hardly know how to behave when we have a leader who fights back 100 percent of the. Always with perfect wisdom?– no.  Always with the discretion or the finesse that we mnight wish for? — no.  But he is a leader fighting for us. He is starting to put right the domestic policy situation, especially the the staff stagnant economy that we suffered with. He is starting to put right America’s overreach around the world one step, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, feeling his way on policy, be it Syria, Turkey, border and wherever around the world, the trade negotiations with China. But this is a leader that America has needed so, so very, very much. [00:04:20]And it does grieve and and distressed me that Republicans that the party that defends the Constitution, that believes in American exceptionalism are constantly finding themselves on the wrong side. [13.8s]

CORPORON [00:04:36] Yeah, it and you can just as I mentioned before. As soon as the president makes a decision that Republicans disagree with, even if they feel compelled to run to the microphone and express their position, you don’t then hear the follow up. You don’t then hear the I stand with this president for this raging economy. The U.S. MC needs to be passed. Nancy Pelosi is sitting on it. The president is negotiating great trade deals for our country. You just never hear the other side. [00:05:07]It’s like Republicans are more interested in saying something that’s going to get them more microphone time, more camera time than they are and realizing we’re in a fight for the survival of Western civilization. [10.9s]

ANDREWS [00:05:21] Randy, we who believe in liberty and limited government and Judeo-Christian moral truth, and in the particular glorious, exceptional role that America has been assigned in history, as imperfect as a country that we may be, we believe in those things, but realize that [00:05:42]it is a fight to the death. That doesn’t mean we fight unfair or we abandon our own ethics and standards. But for heaven’s sake, we’ve got to come together around the achievable, the achievable — Donald Trump showed us in 2016 — was to elect a president who will again put America first and and stand for American greatness. And it’s achievable to reelect that president in 2020, [24.1s] but not if we’re constantly in a circular firing squad. Not if we’re constantly trying to appease those who have no use for any of the convictions and articles of faith that I that I just spelled out that makes us Republicans and conservatives and constitutional freedom advocates. We have we have got to come together around the vast areas of agreement that we have on the right and the agreement that we have with this imperfect but remarkably capable, fearless leader named Donald Trump.

CORPORON [00:06:36] Talking with John Andrews, former speechwriter for Richard Nixon, who actually left the Nixon administration over Watergate, former gubernatorial candidate, Senate president here in the state of Colorado, founder of the Independence Institute, founder of the Centennial Institute and the Western Conservative Summit, founder of Backbone Radio right here on 710 K in U.S.. In case you’re new to Colorado, I just wanted you to know who we were talking to. And John, the hypocrisy that I see among our Republican leadership right now is so frustrating for years as a Tea Party leader. Every time we get into a primary and then when the primary was over, it was over and there was a candidate and the conservatives or the Tea Partiers weren’t satisfied. We were lectured to and told. And I didn’t necessarily disagree that it’s time to get on board. It’s time to stop sniping at each other. And yet we see Republican leadership at the highest level doing the same thing with the president. And I just I can’t figure out a way to convey that message. I tried to do it a little bit with Ken Buck in our interview. But it seems like that the desires, the wisdom, the the perspective of the average voter, the average doorknock or phone call or a small check writer is simply ignored by these leaders. Now, you’ve played in that arena before. Do you have any suggestions for us to get their attention? [00:08:03]Because for all the talent and likeability quotient of, for instance, a Senator, Cory Gardner, what I hear and see from the Republican base right now when it comes to the senator, I don’t think he’s going to make it in 2020. And it’s essential for the president’s agenda that Cory Gardner is among the senators that are reelected, whether people or everybody likes him or not. [23.3s]

ANDREWS [00:08:29] [00:08:29]Well, I wouldn’t want to have to play the hand of cards that Senator Cory Gardner holds right now going into 2020, Randy.  [5.4s] The polls may not be absolutely accurate, but there’s no doubt that Donald Trump’s popularity is well under water in Colorado right now. That’s not the same as votes that get cast 13 months from now, November 2020. But but [00:08:51]if you’re Gardner, you have endorsed Trump for reelection and he’s endorsed you for reelection. And yet the vast swaths of the state along the front range have no use for President Trump. But that includes a good many Republicans and unaffiliated, as well as virtually every Democrat. And so, yeah, Cory Gardner has got not the greatest hand of cards to play in a tricky environment to to play it in. But whether it’s my friend Senator Gardner or my friend state Republican Chairman and U.S. Representative Ken Buck or others we could think of, I share with you the frustration and the impatience that the cliche of them getting on message does not involve constantly striving to get patted on the head by the mainstream media and left activists that are that will never pat Republicans and conservatives down the head except when we become their their tame apologists like Mitt Romney. That is a complete waste of time, [60.5s] I would say to my friend, Senator Gardner and my friend Representative Buck. We have got to be emphasizing on the one and it’s a both. And if Ken Buck says, come on, Mr. President, please talk about the economy, the need to pass trade deals, to talk about your strong suit and policy and how the Democrats are helping do that, but also stand up for ourselves vigorously. And if, as The Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning, one looks up in the dictionary and finds that the word ‘lynching’ means when the law is taken into the hands of a mob and an unjust unmerited punishment is meted [00:10:31]out. If that’s lynching, then President Trump — let him use that word. And if there’s hurt feelings somewhere, that’s not the main thing. [7.7s] The main thing is that we face in America. Here’s the cliche existential threat, right? Fox News mocks Democrats saying that plastic straws are an existential threat. Climate change is an existential threat. No. The existential threat to Americans who love our way of life, our constitution, our liberties, our right to keep and bear arms, the rule of law, the America first position that we must occupy in the world. The existential threat is from the left. It’s from the Democrats and their allies in the media. And we have got to constantly keep our eye on the main threat and fight back vigorously as if our life politically depends on it. Our life does politically depend on it. And what if you say, well, what? What? What suggestions have I got? Keep on keeping on. Randy, get yourself over to the University of Colorado Bio Sciences Department. Get yourself cloned. [00:11:35]We need more of you. We need more. Pete Boyles. We need more radio station KNUS . We need Fox News to buck up its spine, which has been bothering me lately, and come back to the Fox News that it used to be. But meanwhile, even as we have Fox News, it’s wobbly sometimes. We need that cloned and multiply. [18.4s] We’ve got to just do more of what is being done by the constitutionally faithful, the Liberty fighters, the Tea Partiers like yourself and trust in the Lord to the outcome. I’m not here to predict that America is going to make it through this existential crisis, but some of us want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror that we fought as honorably, as fiercely, as unyielding Lee as carefully as we possibly knew how every day and trust the outcome to the Lord.

CORPORON [00:12:23] Well, you mentioned Donald Trump’s support here in the state of Colorado. And, you know, it’s always important to remind folks that he performed better as an unknown quantity in Colorado in 2016 than did either John McCain or Mitt Romney. And that’s with the –. Go ahead.

ANDREWS [00:12:42] Yeah, that’s right. As I read the numbers, the gap was was beginning to close year by year, partly because of the unattractive candidate. The Democrats were putting out, particularly in the person of Hillary Clinton in 2016. And I think they’re going to do us a favor and put up a very unattractive candidate in 2020, whatever that man or woman’s name happens to be. So there is an opportunity and like I said, the polls of October 20 19 are not definitive or predictive of the votes that get cast. When Coloradans face a real choice between a magnificently successful President Trump and somebody from the Democrat side that wants to run us into the ditch.

CORPORON [00:13:23] Without the enthusiasm of the Republican base of the Tea Party patriots of the conservatives who even those of us who started out skeptically of this president but realize, as you have said — and you, early on, got on board with this president, — that he is the great disruptor, that he has kept so many of his promises that even though he’s not a a movement conservative, you know, somebody who is steeped in history and the Federalist Papers and all the all the things that you and I have enjoyed learning about and allowing to influence our thinking over, you know, dears and years and years of reading and talking. Now he acts in the conservative way in such a great majority of his time. [00:14:09]And if Colorado Republicans Colorado leadership doesn’t help us by jumping on board and expressing that enthusiasm, not just I support this president, but I wish he hadn’t said lynching, but actually get on fire, focus the fire on the radical left without the support of the base. Cory Gardner doesn’t stand a chance in Colorado. They need to quit worrying for the moment about the middle of the roaders or the so-called mysterious soccer moms who don’t like the president’s behavior and instead focus on education in schools and safety and all of the things that this president is trying to bring forward, but advocate for this president. Or we’re gonna lose Colorado again in a big way in 2020. [44.9s]

ANDREWS [00:14:58] The old saw is that a liberal, as somebody does so fair minded, they won’t take their own side in an argument. Now, Republicans say they’re conservative, but look in the mirror and people should ask themselves, have I been infected with some of that unfortunate virus that enable that? That that makes it difficult for me to take my own side in an argument, which means taking the side of the only president that we’ve got. And the only Republican nominee that we’re going to have next year. Never mind that. Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney, Mark Sanford. Bill. Well, fantasies take the side of the those who stand for liberty and limited government and American exceptionalism in America first. And we as a party, we as a conservative liberty movement and ultimately are imperfect but indomitable and magnificent. And I want to say, God given leaders, Donald Trump. We have got to stick together or we’re going to be we’re gonna be crushed. And we’re not going to like the America that we’re gonna be leaving to our children and grandchildren. That haunts me, my grandson. And people have heard me talk about him. High school junior in Littleton. Outstanding young guy. I want to leave him as good or better of an America as my grandparents and parents of the greatest generation left to me. And right now, it isn’t looking good. We we can still turn it around, especially since we’ve put Trump in the White House for the past three years. But it isn’t looking good. We cannot let down the next generation and it’s happening in lest we turn it around.

CORPORON [00:16:31] Yeah, there’s just no question about it. We haven’t even dived in to your most amazing and so important speech from the Western conservative summit back in July where you pointed out for the people who simply aren’t paying attention the dangers imposed by the infiltration of Islam into our society and Western societies around the globe. Do you have time to sit through a break and spend a few minutes on the other side talking about Islam and Christianity?

ANDREWS [00:17:03] I’d be glad to. Thanks. All right. That’s terrific. We’ll go ahead and throw him on hold. Didn’t want to cut him short.

CORPORON [00:17:08] It’s too important of a topic to not spend some time delving in. But when we come back, I’ll ask John Andrews maybe too.