Seven oh five, that's Thursday.
By the time is.
Always please when Congressman Warren Davidson joins the fifty five Caresey Morning Show to talk with us, talk a lot of us about what's going on in Washington, DC. Welcome back to Congressman Davidson. It's a pleasure having you on my program.
Brian. It's always an honor. Thanks for talking with me.
Kind of exciting times being an elected official right now on the Republican side of the ledger, A lot is getting done. That's the understatement of a the year man. I'm Tony Trump has been able to accomplish more and you along with Trump's initiatives and what he campaigned on, a lot of which is being accomplished. It's just it's so fast and so furious. I personally have never witnessed
anything like this. And all the time I've been looking, you know, studying politics was like junior year in high school. What's your take on just the the pace at which we're going here.
Look, Congress is having a hard time moving at the speed of Trump. Trump's getting after it every day. I mean, the team he's put together is doing amazing things, and you know, the results are tremendous. I mean, you know, maybe the best line of the year was at the State of the Union when he said, you know, for the for border security, it turns out all we needed
was a different president. We still haven't passed a really good border security law, but with the big beautiful Bill, we gave lots of funding so that they can keep the pace they're going at and frankly intensify the effort. So we're going to have a secure border. And with a secure border, that I'll give us a lot of options on how do we deal with the rest of these problems. And you know, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about our strong, focused military. I just met with
the Secretary of the Army this week. We're working on, you know, getting the military laser focus readiness wise, I mean, cutting out the bloat and waste. I mean, I'm talking about bureaucratic inefficiencies we've known about for decades. And because Congress generally just does i'm bus bills and just you know, status quo, keep it going, they don't really do the major reforms. And they're getting after it in the executive branch.
Hopefully Congress will move somewhere alongs in line with that, and we'll get some of those reforms documented into law. But the pace is exciting.
Well, and it's good that the Supreme Court greenlighted people getting fired. I just had to laugh, although part of me wanted to cry. It took them four months to figure out actually the number of people that even worked in the State Department. They didn't even know.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's mind blowing. I mean the Security Army. I was talking to them. He said, thirty thousand people work in just the procurement part. These are civilian employees, not soldiers, civilian employees, thirty thousand just buying stuff for the army. And I'm like, well, how does that compare with Walmart or Amazon. He's like, well, yeah, like five thousand, Like they buy everything in the world, all over the planet, right, but yeah, like five thousand
people can do it. Thirty thousand for the army. So you know, they've got, you know, ambitious goals to shrink that and bring the technology up to speed. Part of the reason that some of this stuff is so broken. I mean, X small business with quick books has probably got more tech than a lot of our government agencies in terms of just accounting controls. You know, who authorized this spending? Did you really receive the part that you're about to pay for things like that that you just
kind of take for granted that they're in place. There's a reason they can't pass a quote audit and provide accountability there. The other thing is this idea of the audit that they're doing. It's like, you know, they're not focused on details like that. You get all these you know, big accounting firms coming in and then want to go, well, how do you value the nuclear waste? You're like, yeah, we get some nuclear waste. We're not putting a price on it. I mean, we're just we're just trying to
find out what to do with it. And they're flag and stuff like that, and we're like, no, no, where did the money go that we sent to Ukraine? Exactly?
Things like that exactly. Well, and that's one of the things that I was so impressed by, although underwhelmed at the total amount of fraud, waste and abuse that was out in the world. But when dog looked at USAID and we find out the American taxpayer is working and going to work every day to make money for income taxes, to find out that it's going to like Sesame Street
in Israel or Afghanistan or something. I mean, the list of absurd and insane programs, it's mind boggling, and it's angering to folks like me and other people who pay attention to this. It's the same question who authorized the funding of this ridiculous program? And what did the non governmental organization who said they were going to fix whatever problem is identified actually do with the money. There seems to be no follow up or accounting along those lines.
Yeah, and I mean even if you look at structural problems like you know, hud Okay, we believe we should have a housing safety net, but you know, where's the money going for some of these projects. You keep funning it and they always say, we just need more money. But then when you dig in, you're like, in DC DC public Housing, only fifty percent of the housing units are even livable. They're like, well, you get a maintenanstant repair budget of what it gets spent every year. I
aren't the place is fixed. Did you spend the money fixing the place? Well, we gave it to the contractor, yeah, but did they fix the place? You know, stuff that's crazy and it's no, it isn't getting fixed. That's why you have half of the housing units that the people are paying for not livable. They can't even use them.
Well, And as to yesterday, the nine billion dollar federal funding reduction for foreign aid programs that went through the Senate, it's going to be back to the House. What was the one stumbling block funding for HIV AIDS research or programs out in the world. How's the House going to take the minor changes from the Senate on this one?
Yeah, I mean we're disappointed. I mean, good grief. You get to give a haircut to nine point four billion, which you know is a zero point one percent of federal spending. I mean yes, you know that's why are bond prices higher. Well, because they know nobody's going to cut spending. We're we're riding this sucker on Endo the trash site, it seems. And you know, we we identify ways to save money, it would be popular with the public.
We I mean, only because jd Vance cast the tiebreaking vote, could we defund NPR and you know stuff like that. I mean, MPR needs a billion dollars to sew propaganda for anti American propaganda often, but certainly, you know, anti anybody right of the center of the Democratic Party. They're pushing far left the agenda every day, and they've got lots of donors and plenty of advertisers, and you know, regular people that just donate to local PBS stations, you
know who I admit to have some good programming. I like some of their programming, But if you look at the macro agenda, it's his way left of center, and they don't need tax dollars to do it. But only because jd Vance cast the tiebreaking vote could they do that. We're going to vote on it, I think later today. I mean, they have to go to rules committee here probably as we speak. And I think we're supposed to start a debate on the floor on defense appropriations again
at nine. We did a little bit of it overnight last night.
Well, it seems can you make defense appropriations, you know, contingent upon actually being able to pass an audit? I mean, that seems doesn't seem like a big ask. But you know, I am convinced like nothing else that there's a whole lot of fraudways that abuse in a trillion dollar military budget. This is not to say I don't believe in building ships and keeping up with the Chinese Communist Party or whoever, defending America's interests both at home and abroad. But like
you said, where's the money actually going? Is it accomplishing anything or has it been misspent or otherwise stolen?
Yeah, I mean that was one of the topics talking with the Secretary of the Army, is you know, the state of the audit, because I've you know, got this amendment that I offer, which is, you know, any year that they can't pass an audit, you get to eliminate ten percent of the general in general. You know, they got too many generals, but you have to hold somebody accountable. And okay, we believe you need the money because we want to be strong and focused and have the best
equipment in the world. Even when you do it. One of the things I'm going to speak at is this whole thing called latoral class you know ship Oh sure, the inland waterways and everything else. These are non usable for the purpose. Over half of them aren't even seaworthy right now, and they want to keep funding the program. And instead of just saying, look, man, we're just throwing bad money, throwing good money after bad here, and it's just sort of the sunk cost fallacy. Well, you know,
we've already spent this much. We have to No, it's not fixable.
Stop well, and I just have to throw this out because the nature of warfare has obviously changed dramatically, as illustrated by the you know, the the Israel and the Iranian strikes and of course you got Russia Ukraine. It's full on drone. I mean, you don't need multi billion dollar aircraft to accomplish the goal that a you know,
several thousand dollars drone can accomplish. So are we going to move away from funding you know, these billion dollar manned aircraft in favor of allocating more resources of money to drone type technology.
Well, hopefully we're shifting the focus. I mean we're working on it. I mean our shipbuilding state of shipbuilding in the country is probably one of the biggest issues. Just keeping up with ammunitions is a challenge for the supply chain. You know, to be candid, we shipped a lot of them to other war zones and we need to replenish ours.
Part of it was some of those were older. But then you get well, okay, what's the rate that we can produce new stuff, and that again through the procure process, isn't keeping pace with what we would like and what we what we want to build out for a future surge capability if we ever really needed to, you know, we wouldn't say I was ever one of the biggest fans of Donald Grumsfeld, but he had a decent saying I kind of co opted about the supply chain is you know, you go to war with the supply chain
you have, not with the supply chain you wish you had, right And we're trying to fix that. And that's a big part of what Trump's doing with tariffs. It's a big part about you know, what we're doing with the Defense Production Act, and it is trying to get the whole country focused instead of just used to spending money on giant programs and not caring about the outcome.
We'll continue to congress from more and Davidson pivoting over from that specifical or focus on our defense spending too, giving weapons to Ukraine, among other topics. Stick around me right back seven fifteen fifty five krs toe the talk station and a strong recommendation to get in touch with John Ryan at Prestige Interior. So to your kitchen remodeling project. He did ours. We love what he was able to
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Seven nineteen here fifty five KERR see the talk station by the time of speaking with Congressman Warren Davidson, pivoting a over to arms going to Ukraine. Trump's kind of been on again, off again on this, and most recently he said he's going to provide some additional weapons to Ukraine, notably some Patriot missiles as well as ammunition. They are in desperate need of that kind of thing, but the running out of people to actually operate it. Their military
is getting decimated. Russia keeps making advances. And you know, patriot missile costs what four million dollars apiece. We only manufacture collectively like six hundred of them per year. The system that is required to fire them off and everything related to it is more than a billion dollars. And you've got six hundred plus drones flying into any given target area at a time. You can knock those down with Patriot missiles. The cost benefit analysis just collapses in
the face of how cheap drones are. Congressman Davidson, where are you on arm shipments to Ukraine and where we stand on that? Because Russia they're unwavering in their position. They have a list of demands and they have not moved away from them. I don't know threatening them with fifty days to do this or that. I don't think Putin's going to lift a finger to do anything. He knows what he wants and he's not wavering because he's winning.
Yeah, I mean you point out, like what's going to change Putin's mind? Look, the great thing is Donald Trump came into office with a very clear objective. He wants peace. He doesn't care precisely where lines are drawn, he doesn't care about a lot of the details. But he wants people is he said, I want people to stop dying. Like what's wrong with that? Stop dying? And they're there. There is a massive loss of life on both you know, the Ukrainian military and the Russian military. If you look
at Ukraine, they've been decimated with their population base. They're doing, you know, really indefensible things to get more bodies to go out to the front and uh and push pushing people out into into the combat zone. And look, they're trying to save and defend their country. You understand, it's a it's a terrible war. Uh. But they're also not rationally negotiating. So Trump's done a lot to get Zelensky there.
But in the meantime, uh, you know, the weakness no matter how much money you have, no matter how many munitions you have, you still need manpower. Yeah, and the critical weakness for Ukraine as this has gone on and on and on is manpower. So when they had manpower early, they weren't rational in their negotiating position. So you know, I hope they haven't missed a moment to get a better piece than what they're going to wind up with. But you know, this is part of how bad Biden was.
I mean, I never voted for a dime to go to Ukraine because they would never define what are you trying to accomplish? And then they would say crazy things like well work regime change in Russia and war crimes tribunals for Putin. I'm not saying that would be a completely unjust outcome, but Ukraine isn't going to accomplish that no matter how many we send them. That's world War three, you know, And I'm out on World War three if
we can avoid it. Right. So there's a complete disconnect here with a lot of the resources under the Biden administration. Trump has really still got it right and saying like this also isn't our war to fight or fund, so we'll sell NATO member countries the weapons. Uh. The sort of caveat there is I mean, we fund over half of NATO, so you know, in a way, yes, our dollars are still going to it. But he's trying to
get an outcome, and I hope he does. But you know, the I think the odds are long at this point of getting put in to the negotiating table. If anyone could do it, I think Donald Trump can't.
Yeah, well, it's gonna it's gonna require Zelonsky to relent. I mean that just seems obvious because the longer this goes on and the more he he refuses to negotiate and back off on what he ultimately thinks he wants, which is like the Russia completely leaving the borders of Ukraine, which is never going to happen. This is just going to continue in Russia's position, and from the bargaining standpoint, he's just going to get stronger.
Yeah, then that's what's happened, is you know the moments I mean really honestly, the Biden administration scuttled it. If you look at you know, the Durefan ambassador out of this and how widely reported it back in back in you know, spring summer of twenty two, you know, months after the war started. Uh, you know that the Biden team scuttled any negotiation for peace. I mean the ones get that point was ready to reach a piece with Russia.
So since then he's been emboldened by all the NATO countries. Then the you know the war path first people that are like, no, no, We'll keep cutting you unlimited checks. And at some level, I'm not sure all those checks made it to the front, but there there To your point, a lot of innovation has come out of this war.
The United States has learned a ton. The drone developments come a long way, and you have you have lightweight drones with you know, vision systems, some of which can be controlled not one drone by one operator, but little swarms of these things, and they can target vehicles, they could target humans, they can discriminate amongst targets, and they're they're they're getting pretty good at the supply chain for
for small, very effective drones. So they're there, they are multiplying their combat power, and over time, I think the drones have done a lot to dissuade Russia and the Russian troops on the battlefield, and they're definitely out competing on the supply chain because They've got Western civilization essentially funneling the supply chain, and Russia's got you know, China, which is, you know, a pretty big industrial base obviously,
but the level of innovation isn't matching the drums. I mean, we've picked up battlefield drums and you know, held them in our hands for the small ones and looked at them in other ways for bigger ones, and looking at you know, what's the state of play for technology on either side, and you know, look, there's some encouraging things there. Any wars tragic and pieces of ed or outcome. So hopefully we resolve it.
Amen to that, and something I talked about yesterday with Congressman Massi who joined the program his bill to get the Epstein files released, subject to limitations like no, no child porn or victim identities will be released, so there's some caveats, and then to protect the more warrims worriome elements of what we know they have, which is a
bunch of child porn that he downloaded. But beyond that, a lot of questions, a lot of conspiracies swirling out there, and they only seem to be fed more by Trump's position now that there's nothing there that this is somehow Russian collusion or Russian hoax along the lines of the Steele dossier. That seems to be a position change for the president. But Massey's trying to fast track this bill to get those documents released. Where are you, Congressman Davidson, relative to that subject matter?
Well more than public information. Normally when there's a prosecution, they will simply say I can't talk about an ongoing investigation, and you don't see all the details, right right, so more than a list or more than details that frankly I don't want made public because I don't want them to go away from being able to be used in a trial. I want to know when someone other than Julane Maxwell's going to jail, what's the state of the
prosecutions is what I want to know. But I do find it troubling when you know, Pam Bondi comes out and says, yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, and yeah, you remember the binders and the files that you were had on your desk, Like what so the messaging on this has just been a troche And I think that's the part, like what the heck are you talking about and unfortunately, when you look at the public statements that the president's made, normally he's on message. Boom
boom boom. So you know, the one thing I know about President Trump, though, I mean, one of the things that's defined him is promises made, promises kept. So I'm certainly hopeful that we're going to see this promise kept. And where it's really going to be accountability for the people that we're trafficking kids and the clients that were uh you know all yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean someone, someone, someone was actually doing the other side of this, not
just the victims. And so we want those people prosecuted and and the people are right to do that. And look, if if we can't do that, I mean we need an entirely we need a constitutional convention because this system isn't working. I mean that's pretty basic right there, Like you have to have accountability for people that are doing stuff like that, yes, you.
And of course it fuels the fire of conspiracy theories like how many members of Congress are involved? And are there elected officials? Are their corporate CEOs that were involved in this? Just swirling, swirling questions and again fueled by the now statement that there's no there there. Congressman Warren Davidson, appreciate your time you're willing to spend with my listeners and me on the morning show. Look forward to having you back on and keep up the great work.
Yeah, thanks Brian, Gov. Bless you and all your listeners.
Thank you, sir, and you seven twenty seven right now, if you have KCD talk station, feel free to call five one three, seven four nine fifty five hundred, eight hundred and eighty two to three talk go with pound five fifty on AT and T phones. Another call you need to make is take care of your HVAC system. And the folks that are equipped to do that and have been for coming up in eighty years, the Zimmer family, third generation family and operated Zimmer Heating and air conditioning,
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