Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Wake Up! with Randy Corporon

Guests:    Gardner, Cory

Link:        https://omny.fm/shows/wake-up-with-randy-corporon/wake-up-with-randy-corporon-aug-31-2019-hr-3

Date:       August 31, 2019

Topics:     Space Command,

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HOST RANDY CORPORON [00:00:00] But we’ve been anxiously awaiting our next opportunity to be joined by the sitting U.S. senator from the state of Colorado, Colorado born and bred, our very own Cory Gardner. And he joins us now. Good morning, sir.

U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO, CORY GARDNER [00:00:14] Good morning, Randy! How are you?

CORPORON [00:00:15] I am really good. [I am] sorry we got to the break late, and tp keep you waiting though.

GARDNER [00:00:21] [laughing] Oh, that’s okay.

CORPORON [00:00:21] You know, your time is so carefully structured now, when we get a block of time we like to make good use of it. So, when are you going back to Washington D.C.?

GARDNER [00:00:31] So, we will be across Colorado over the next week, again. And then we’ll be back in Washington after next week when the session resumes.

CORPORON [00:00:39] And of course, for the last –what? — six weeks or however long this break has been, you’ve just been on vacation, swimming, boating around, using your private helicopter to get from here to there, right?

GARDNER [00:00:50] Yeah, you know, we’ve had a great experience. You know, unfortunately not having any of those things, that makes it a little bit — an opportunity to drive and get to see the real beauty of Colorado. But yeah, we’ve been all over the place. I don’t know how many dozens — 60 or 70 — events that we’ve done across Colorado over the past 30 days, corner to corner, and we continue next week with more.  I’ll be in the Greeley area today. So, it’s a great chance to get to see the best of Colorado.

CORPORON [00:01:17] You know, we get a lot of — this is a talk radio station — a lot of conservative callers, a lot of folks who, you know, usually only pick up the phone if they have something to complain about.  And one of the gripes that people will hear about Cory Gardner is, “Well, I never see him anywhere. I never hear about him in Colorado.” If people want to find out where you are, or have an opportunity to interact with you, how can they track you around?

GARDNER [00:01:47] Yeah, absolutely! I’d encourage them to reach out to our office, whether that’s in Washington D.C. or our local office.  And stay tuned to the releases that we put out. And we’ve done a variety of Meet & Greets, whether that’s Main Street walks, and economic roundtables and farm tours, or, you know, we’ve even done some Meet & Greets with Republican parties around the state. So, we try to mix in and encourage all kinds of activities to hear the broadest voices — broadest group of voices that we can.

CORPORON [00:02:15] Is there a schedule online, or an email that goes out, or just something that people can tie into?

GARDNER [00:02:21] Yeah, well, obviously, we have a newsletter that goes out. I’d encourage people to sign up for the newsletter, that has and contains information. We do phone calls and tele-town halls and releases that way, too — so, to get more people more information.

CORPORON [00:02:34] What issues do you expect to be front and center when you get back to D.C. in a week or so?

GARDNER [00:02:39] Obviously, we have to continue to work on funding the government. The appropriations bills are going to be due at the end of the fiscal year, by September 30. There is going to be a big conversation — important conversations — about how we protect our communities from those who would do violence to themselves and to others. And so, that’s going to be a big part of the debate. So, I would assume those two issues will occupy most of the time.

CORPORON [00:03:01] The financial situation:  what was your position on the — this — what a lot of us think was just a massive spending, suspending the debt ceiling, you know, canceling the budget caps temporarily?  I heard the president when he said — or whoever it was that was talking about the fact that we have Democrats in control of the House. That’s where the purse strings are. So, I know there are limits to what you can do. But my recollection is you voted against suspending the debt ceiling and canceling the budget caps.

GARDNER [00:03:33] Well, and again, I mean, it was against expanding the budget caps by nearly $2 trillion worth of spending. And you know, look, I mean, the spending cap, the debt limit, is about money that has already been spent. And so, that’s one thing. But when you’re adding an additional $2 trillion-plus dollars — and there was a report just a couple of weeks ago that they underestimated it by about $800 billion so it might even be close to $3 trillion — with absolutely no restraints or conversations about how we’re going to stop this national crisis of debt, I think it’s irresponsible. And so I voted against it, will continue to. And I think there’s some pretty basic things we have to do:  a Balanced Budget Amendment at the federal level; we have to reduce spending where it makes sense, follow the GAO reports that identify duplicative spending; we have to focus on economic growth, get more jobs going by reducing burdensome regulations that prevent economic growth; and other things along those lines. And we can have the economic growth that leads to more money, because more people earning more money pay more taxes — not higher taxes — they just generate more economic activity. [We can] reduce spending, get our entitlements under control, and that’s how we get back to this long-term debt need.

CORPORON [00:04:44] We’re talking to Senator Cory Gardner. And our mutual friend, current Colorado state GOP chairman and congressman, Ken Buck, gets flack from listeners to our show sometimes because he doesn’t always align himself with the president. And quite often, that is when big spending decisions are being made. And Ken Buck says, “Are you kidding me? We’re going to grow this government even more?” And he votes against the president. And I hear the same complaints about you. What is your perspective on this president, now that we’re two-and-a-half years in, and what are some of the things that you diverge yourself from him on?

GARDNER [00:05:21] Well, look, we’ve done some great things for Colorado thanks to the administration, and I’m going to make sure that we continue those things. Like, U.S. Space Command was established just a couple of days ago. It is now operating out of Colorado Springs with General Raymond, who I introduced at his confirmation hearing. We have the Bureau of Land Management headquarters moving to Colorado. That happened because we had an administration that was committed to making it happen. We have tax cuts that Coloradans across the state have benefited from. We’ve seen three counties, I think, in Colorado with some of the highest wage growth in the nation, thanks to the economic policies that we have been able to work on together. And so those are all things that we’ve been able to accomplish together, and many, many more including just the additional transportation dollars returning to the state of Colorado. But there are times when we’re going to disagree. I don’t think anybody can agree with any one person 100% of the time. And you know, where I think it’s different that the state of Colorado will — what is good for the state of Colorado, I may be a little bit different. But look, we need our country to succeed. We need the president to succeed because if we don’t, that’s bad for the country.

CORPORON [00:06:24] We’re hearing — we’re just getting lambasted here in Colorado on television and even here, on 710KNUS, there is an ad — kind of the early fertilizing of the field for your opposition against the re-election of Cory Gardner. And these ads are — you know, you have that kind of sexy woman voice on there, saying, “Call Senator Cory Gardner and tell him that rate setting is not the answer for lowering medical prices,” or something like that. What is that all about?

GARDNER [00:06:54] [laughs] Right, so, there’s a debate on surprise medical billing. And I think most Americans understand that they don’t like surprise medical billing. What is it?  It’s when you think you’re covered by your insurance policy, there’s an emergency and you’re your deductible pays for it all. And then months later, you get this bill and — lo and behold — it’s not covered by insurance. And that’s the surprise, and not a good surprise. And so there’s an idea out there — rightfully so — to address this problem, to end surprise billing. But there’s a couple of different ideas on how that can be accomplished. The people who say vote ‘yes’ on the bill are most likely those who may be backed by insurance companies and believe that this will help drive down and cut medical costs. The people who want to someone to vote ‘no’ on it are more likely to be a doctor or a hospital who are concerned that this would not allow them to recoup the costs of their services because the rate would be set too low. So, that’s kind of the direct issue with the ‘for’ and ‘against.’ There’s also legislation out there, led by Senator Bill Cassidy who is a physician himself, that wants to create a more — sort of — ‘middle process’ that would allow something like an independent dispute resolution — arbitration — to determine what should be done about surprise medical billing. So, this debate is far from being over. And there’s people — Republicans and Democrats — on both sides of this issue, and it’s one of those things that I hope we can come to a solution that actually works best for Colorado — Colorado patients, consumers, and constituents. And probably, that middle ground is the right way to go.

CORPORON [00:08:33] This is a great and effective strategy of the left, though. They start early. They start off, and they put on these kind of neutral sounding commercials about issues that — especially when people don’t have time or the interest in getting into the weeds about the actual issue — sounds good, and portrays you in –potentially — in a negative light. And one of the things that I, you know, really think hurt us in 2018 here in Colorado was really a lack of a ground game, a lack of an offense. [It] seems like we’re always running on defense. What is– will we start seeing some advertisements in support of Cory Gardner or some advertisements –?  I guess you don’t have a candidate to go after yet. So that’s one thing, but–.

GARDNER [00:09:15] Right. Right, and yeah, and I mean, the question — you know, we’re still over — we’re almost a year out from having a candidate against me. And we’re — gosh! –we’re more than a year from the election.  And so, money spent now is very difficult to justify. And so, that’s a big challenge, and because — what you don’t want to find yourself in is a situation next year in August, September, October with no money to be able to fight back and go on offense, and to share that positive message. So, we’re going to keep our head down, our shoulder forward, working hard for the people of Colorado as the year goes on. And then on the ground game side, look, we will have a very robust ground game that we’re building with the entire state of Colorado, up and down the ticket. This is going to be exciting and something that quite frankly will have never been seen before.

CORPORON [00:09:59] And one of our hosts is very critical about the fact that it’s not already in place. How long have you been working on this? And when will people — who are on the ground, who aren’t present maybe at some of these many, many stops you’ve been making around the state at party headquarters in different places like that –when are we going to start seeing, feeling, knowing that there’s something to get excited about and get hooked into?

GARDNER [00:10:24] Well, we never quit working on this, and I think that’s the thing. And so, it is obviously data and data, data, data that we continue to receive, analyze, and work on. And, you know, quite frankly, we’re trying to find those voters who voted in 2016 and then didn’t vote in 2020 — [correcting himself] or who voted in 2016, did not vote in 2018, and making sure they’re engaged in 2020. We’re finding voters from out of state who may have moved into the state, which a whole heck of a lot of them have in the last five years, you know, where they registered as Republicans or unaffiliateds in their home state, and are they Republicans here. And so, you know, that’s what we’re trying to do is really get that kind of work underway. And then it just builds over time. Again, we’re more than a year out. And so right now, we’re just sort of in the ‘science’ part of this and heavily focused on the data.

CORPORON [00:11:12] Yeah, Sen. Cory Gardner is with us. Something we hear a lot from listeners and at Tea Party meetings and, just other grassroots events is, you know, “Who is on the bully pulpit for our state?” And I know for you, one of the great opportunities being unchallenged and while the Democrats are sorting out their mess over there to try and figure out your opposition, is you can continue to talk about good things that are happening in Colorado — you mentioned the Space Force, and the Bureau of Land Management being moved to Grand Junction, and so many other things. But for instance, in Colora– I got a text this morning from a regular listener — Karen — and she said that when she talked to somebody on your staff about —  I think this was about safe injection sites —  the response there was that that you don’t necessarily involve yourself in state issues. You’re a senator and you’ve got a different set of priorities. So, how do you make that determination? And why should people think that it’s okay that we don’t hear from you or every other elected official about all of these things that are ravaging our state?

GARDNER [00:12:15] Yeah — no, no, no, I think I’ve made it very clear that I don’t think that that is a good idea, and I oppose that idea. I think at the time there was a ballot initiative or something that someone was considering, and we normally don’t get involved in a state-based ballot initiative on that. But I certainly let my opposition to that issue be known, and perhaps we need to remind some of the staff about that. But I’m sure it was just a — either an oversight or something that was unintended in the message. But clearly, that’s not something that’s good for the state. And you know, I’ve made it very clear as well that I think this idea of giving our Electoral College votes to California, New York is an outrageous idea. It simply allows Colorado to be ignored, and to be used by those who want to go campaign somewhere else. And so, I think this idea to repeal that legislative initiative to give our votes and voices away is something we’re going to be very, very much behind and supportive of.

CORPORON [00:13:09] Yeah, that was a great grassroots success, getting that on the ballot and getting a–.

GARDNER [00:13:11] Oh, [it is] so exciting to see the work that has been done by — you’re right! — by the mayor of, of — I think it was the mayor of Montrose — or I mean, Monument, excuse me, and Rose Pugliese over in Grand Junction. So, it’s very good.

CORPORON [00:13:23] Is your newsletter a place — do you talk about some of these more local issues there? Is that a place where people really interested in what you think, that they can get the details on some of those more localized issues?

GARDNER [00:13:34] You know, the newsletter contains most of the work that we’ve done — it’s kind of a week in review in Washington. So, you know, I think keep up with social media, you know, whether it’s the Twitter feed or a Facebook post for some of the more — more of the, sort of, social media stuff that happens [on] a day to day basis, I guess.

CORPORON [00:13:54] I want to save a couple of minutes to just talk about your — you know — your campaign, your potential challengers, of course, John Hickenlooper, the reluctant U.S. Senate candidate, a great tweet that the president sent out in support of you about a week ago. But, um, –.

GARDNER [00:14:09] I think there’s another one this morning, too. I haven’t seen it yet but I believe there’s another one this morning.

CORPORON [00:14:14] [chuckles] Well, we’ll definitely have to dig that out. I’ll look forward to it! We’ll report out on it on the other side [of our commercial break].  Red Flag is such a big deal in Colorado. There is talk in Congress about — you know, I know the federal government really doesn’t have the power, constitutionally, to enact red flag laws. What they do have is a lot of money. And they can create guidelines and then say, “Hey, you state A, B, or C! You can have access to this pot of money if you adapt red flag laws that are in line with what we’ve come up with here in Congress. I oppose all of those things. Where do you stand on Red Flag here in Colorado, or a national Red Flag perspective?

GARDNER [00:14:52] Well, look, as this conversation goes forward on Red Flag, on any other issue, we have to do a couple things to keep in mind. Number one, how do we protect our communities from harm? How do we protect people from harm, to themselves or to others? But we also have to balance rights in the process of that. We can’t violate innocent people’s rights in the attempt to protect our communities and protect ourselves from harm. And so, if you just look at the rhetoric around like a Red Flag bill, — I mean, Chuck Schumer has already said that the Red Flag — and this is in, I think, it was in a publication called The Hill on October 7th, headlined, “Schumer blasts Red Flag gun legislation as ineffective cop out.” That was Chuck Schumer saying that, and so, obviously, even he doesn’t support that and want that. So, here’s where I think we have to go: we have to protect people’s rights, and we ought to make sure that we find people who are going to commit these crimes before they commit the crimes, that we make sure that we find ways that — whether it’s through the judicial system, whether it’s through our health care system — that we don’t allow these horrible things to happen in the first place. What are the warning signs? How do we identify them? How do we listen to what people are saying, and keep them from doing this in the first place? We have a number of bills designed to do just that. And we’ll be introducing a bill called the Stand Up Act, to help our schools. We’ve got a bill called the Eagles Act, which is dealing with the National Threat Assessment Centre. Those are kinds of things that we can help use to prevent this. But if you look at some of the legislation that is being pushed right now, I couldn’t even loan my brother-in-law a shotgun to go pheasant hunting with me without violating the law.

CORPORON [00:16:23] It’s a mere — absolute insanity!  I know they keep you on a short leash. We got to you late. [We’ll] leave it with this:  the tweet I found from President Trump last week said, “Sen. Cory Gardner has done a fantastic job representing the people of Colorado, really knows how to win, strong on crime borders and the Second Amendment. Cory fights hard for our military and vets — absolutely true! John Hickenlooper is badly damaged after his horrible run for president. Big primary trouble!”  Are you at a stage where you would even comment yet on the very troubled kickoff for the John Hickenlooper for Senate campaign?

GARDNER [00:16:59] Well yeah, yeah, I’m not sure he’s going to end up running for the Senate. He might be running for something else. There’s a lot of races he’s run for in the last couple of months. So, we’ll see what happens. He’s got a primary he’s got to face. And we’re going to continue doing everything we can for the people of Colorado without the distraction of their primary getting in the way.

CORPORON [00:17:17] [chuckling] See, what a nice way — with a touch of humor — to go on the attack!

GARDNER [00:17:22] [laughs].

CORPORON [00:17:22] For people who say Cory Gardner is not ready for a fight, what do you say to them?

GARDNER [00:17:26] Oh, gosh! I don’t think there’s a fight that we’ve ever backed away from. And I’m looking forward to fighting for Colorado. And I’m going to fight against anybody who thinks that socialism, the Green New Deal, Medicare For All, voting against Neil Gorsuch, packing the courts, are good ideas.  We’re going to fight against every single one of those, because I’m not going to let this state turn into California.

CORPORON [00:17:48] That sounds like a great place to wrap it. Sen. Cory Gardner, I hope you get to spend some time with your family. I’m glad that you’ve been spending a great deal of time touring the state and look forward to having you back here on this show sometime very, very soon.

GARDNER [00:18:01] Hey, thanks, Randy! Thanks for having me!

CORPORON [00:18:03] You bet. God bless you. All right, as usual, [we are] late to the break, but we’ve got Michelle Malkin on the other side! So don’t you dare go anywhere! Stay with us! It’s Wake Up! With Randy Corporon at 710 KNUS.