Pennsylvania is one of the most important states for this presidential election and also for winning back the United States Senate. It's going to be one of the most expensive Senate races in the country, and it comes down to Republican businessman Dave McCormick versus Democrat Bob Casey. Now, Dave has been able to avoid a nasty primary because the entire Republican delegation of the state has gotten behind him. Now
he's been an incredibly successful businessman. He also graduated from West Point, served in the military, earned a bronze star. But who is Dave McCormick. I want to introduce you to him In this episode. We'll get to know him a little bit better. I'll ask him about the state of the country, ask him about his views on abortion, get into his background a little bit. So who is Dave McCormick find out Stay tuned well, Dave, it's great
to have you on the show. I know that campaigning is busy and so you're probably exhausted and out there working hard, so we appreciate you making the time for the show.
Oh, I'm glad to be on. Thanks Lisa.
Okay, so you grew up in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Tell me about Bloomsburg.
Yeah, well, I was a seventh generation Pennsylvania. My dad was born in Indiana County, which is out in the western part of the state. Mom was born in punk Satani, and I was born in Washington County, which is right next to Pittsburgh. But they moved around when I was a young kid. And I grew up in Bloomsburg, which is about fifty miles south of Scranton, and it's like the perfect quintessential small town. So my folks had a farm.
My dad worked at the college, but they had a farm, and he was the president of a little state college. And so I grew up bailing hay and trimming Christmas trees. I was a bus boy at the local hotel. I was a paper boy, and I played sports like most young Pennsylvania boys and girls, and I wrestled and played football. And wrestling in Pennsylvania is it's.
A big deal.
It's in the Blood Street, it's on a Saturday night. If you walk into the gym during wrestling season, it'll be jam packed. And so wrestling kind of defined me and I wrestled in high school and then that got me to college wrestling. I was recruited to wrestle at West Point and I ended up wrestling all four years there, and I was the co captain of the wrestling team.
And so wrestling in small town gyms like chic Alemmy and Chick Shiney and Sealings Grove and North Scoogle that was a big part of my growing up.
So you grew up near scrant and Joe Biden.
Well, I don't know he's he claims, but you know, I think the office is probably a lot bigger connection to most people than them Bob are than Joe Biden, because I think Joe Biden left Scranton at the age of five or something like that, so he.
His claim is limited.
Although there is certainly, uh, there is certainly a highway up there that has Joe Biden on it, which I take note of every time.
I drop by.
Yeah, well, I would do something else, but you know it would involve two figures going out. But anyhoy e sadly exactly all right. So you have six daughters, So I have three brothers, and my parents told me that I was more difficult to raise that all three boys combined. So how was that that been.
So I have four daughters, and then I remarried and I have two more daughters. So I have six in total, their ages twenty three to seventeen.
And so we had a moment where we had six teenagers all at the same time.
And essentially what I've said is, listen, I've done wrestling in college, I went to Ranger School, I served in the eighty second in Iraq. I've been in business, I've been in politics.
Nothing.
Nothing will test a man like being the father that to sixteenage daughters.
Nothing.
And so it's been a joy. And we're all most empty nesters at this point, and we're proud of all six of them. They're not so sure they love this political stuff. In fact, they're pretty much one hundred percent against their father running or their stepfather running. But but but they're loving and supportive.
Nonetheless, Well you.
Know the why? You know why run because you know, let's face it, look, you're really rich, which is a great thing everyone wants to be. You know, like before you quit your job in twenty twenty two, you're you're making twenty two million or more as CEO of Bridgewater Associates. So why, you know, why give that up, right. That sounds well, that sounds pretty good. You know, I'm not gonna lie.
If you're rich, the best way to get less rich is to go into politics. That's that's the starting point. But all kidding aside, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
I'm fifty eight.
You know, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and and didn't didn't you know, I didn't have I didn't have any money. I went to West Point and had that career that I talked about. I ran a couple of country companies. I ran a company in Pittsburgh that created about a thousand jobs, and six hundred of them in Pittsburgh. And then I served in the government again and then went on to run Bridgewater. And so when I look at my life, I mean, I am so feel so blessed.
And you know, the only person more surprised by my success than me as my dad. And so I look at it and say, wow, only in America.
And it's the same with my wife.
Dina's story was an immigrant from Egypt and you know, came to Dallas at the age of five and worked away through college and has had this remarkable career in government and business, and that America we love is in trouble. And so my simple answer to your question is, if you believe America is exceptional, if you believe that you've been benefited by the America dream, if you believe America is in trouble and you believe you can do something
about it, then you're called to serve. And that's why, even though you know politics isn't the most pleasant thing these days, that I decided to do it, and I did it with full knowledge of what it entails, because as you know, I ran in twenty twenty two and lost a very close primary. So I'm in this with eyes wide open that it's it's a contact sport and
it's tough. But if we don't have good people who frankly don't need the job, jumping in to take on these jobs, then I think we're going to be lost as a country.
No, I agree, but I think we need I mean, you know, for instance, you you look at someone like Joe Biden. All he's done is government, Yet you know we send him when the country is a mess. You can't fix a problem that you know he's been a part of for for this long and part of that is really a chaotic world that we live in right now. I know you've got a big foreign policy background. You mentioned, you know, you're a veteran, served in the Army, went to West Point. You know, you worked as a deputy
National Security advisor for the Bush administration as well. How do you think we got here? How much of where we are now in this chaotic world has to do with Joe Biden? And I guess kind of what scares you the most about sort of this global unrest that's happening.
Well, the you know, the.
Career tician part about Joe Biden, I agree with him. That's the same with my opponent, Bob Casey. He's been the Senate for eighteen years, he's been in statewide public office for thirty years, so his entire life has been devoted to public service. So we should thank him for a service. But it's not it's not what we need now, and we need true change in leadership that's going to get the country back on a position of strength. And what's happened on the world stage under President of Byness
in the world's increasingly complex. It's a tough neighborhood. We've got you know, adversaries around the world that are growing in power. But under Joe Biden, what's happened is we've lost to terrence. And deterrence is a combination of power, economic and military strength. It's a combination of will, the willingness to use that power, that strength, and of uncertainty, you know, whether the enemy or the adversary wonders what and how you'll do it, and that creates fear, fear
of challenging us. And so you know, you and I learned on the playground we were kids that if the bully smells weakness, the bully is going to push the case. And right now what's happened around the world is our adversaries smell weakness. And it started with the botched withdrawal out of Afghanistan, which was an absolute disgrace. It continued with the very weak mixed messages that Biden gave putin
the approval of the nord Stream two pipeline. The mixed messages, you know, will send Zelenski a plane when Russia invaded? You know Biden's remarks that, you know, how would he respond? What depends you know, how far Putin goes.
It's the weak.
Response to the Chinese surveillance balloon, which which may seem like a small thing, but you think about that that balloon was flying over our military basis for you know, the better part of a week and the week response
to the terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East. There's been over one hundred and sixty attacks last year, many of them against US forces in the least and Biden's response every step of the way has been hamhanded, slow, weak, unclear, and that's made our enemies think now's the time, now's the time to push, now's the time to test. And that's what I think our biggest problem is. And unfortunately,
deterrence is like your reputation. You know how hard it is to build a great reputation and how easy it is to lose a good reputation if you make a mistake.
What's that way with deterrence.
It's hard to build, it's easy to lose, and once you lose it, it's hard to get back. And I don't think we're going to get deterrence back under Joe Biden. I think we're going to need to get a new leader. I'm getting Preident Trump in the office. President Trump had deterrence. When you blow up a guy like Solo Moni. The folks in Iran are saying, wait a second, this guy means business and we need that kind of leadership in
the Senate. And Bob Casey has been an absolute appeaser of tyrants around the world, most notably Aaron because he signed the JPCA in twenty fifteen, the Iran Deal, which gave Iran back one hundred billion dollars of sanctioned money, and that's it's used that money.
To support these terrorist proxies around the world.
No, my my favorite part is when Trump was talking about having chocolate cake with President She and then was telling him that he was setting the Tomahawk missiles to steer over chocolate cake, which is just kind of a you know, power move, and then dropping the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan after he took off, as I think, kind of just sending a message that hey, there's a new sheriff in town, like we're not messing around.
You tell that story. My wife was at that table.
Oh my god, no.
Room in the in the subsequent meeting with the National Security Council, and she tells that story, and that's absolutely the case that that is uh that's that's that.
That sends a message.
And I think President Trump had a uh had a lot of success in demonstrating that deterrence. And you know, the thing about him which I which I agree with, he said, the last thing you want to do is broadcast how you're going to respond to your enemy. So he created a lot of uncertainty in how we would respond, and that's that's the key to deterrent. So I think that's our biggest problem on the world stage right now.
That and the fact that China, you know, China's orchestrating a lot of what's happening around the world behind the scenes. And you know, it was notable a couple months ago, you may you may have seen it on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
There was a.
Picture of President Shei in Moscow, you know, standing behind Putin of course, supporting his efforts in Ukraine. And during that on that very same day, there was a picture of the Foreign Minister from China in Saudi Arabia welcoming the foreign minister from Iran and Saudi Arabia that we're in talks with China seeking to orchestrate that China is playing a role in the world stage, on connecting all the dots, underwriting and supporting many of the challenges to
American leadership. And that's because China's explicit goal under President She is to displace America as the global superpower and challenge our interests and challenge our goals around the world. And so you know, we've got to have a tough minded strategy that not only returns to terrence, but also stands tall against China and holds China accountable.
For bad behavior.
Who the a strategy that make sure we're not dependent on China for key parts of our national security, make sure that our companies and our investors aren't supporting China by investing in the Chinese military or the Chinese Communist Party. So that's also a big, a big challenge on the global stage that the Biden administration has failed to address in any meaningful way.
We've got to take a quick commercial break more with Dave McCormick on the other side, you can't really hold a country, you know, accountable when you know your son has profited off a bit business deals with China and you potentially have as well, right, I mean, he's the big guy potentially you know, God has been the recipient somehow of some of that money allegedly, you know, his son definitely has. Yeah, so you know, how does that shape Joe Biden's ability to deal with China?
Yeah?
This is what this is one of the more disturbing things in the last three years, which is I mean, what you're referring to is just this two tier justice system where we see playing out in real time a political motivation behind prosecution prosecutions at President Trump, whether it's in the New York case or in Georgia where it's highly highly politicized. It clearly wouldn't be like this if
the man that they were prosecuting wasn't Donald Trump. And then you see two cases that are pretty similar with sensitive doctor Humens, and the treatment of Joe Biden by the justice system and the treatment of Donald Trump by the justice system are dramatically different, despite very similar challenges or very similar accusations of of of misbehavior. And it gives us all pause, Wait a second, do we have a justice system that's actually gonna bring justice that's going
to be fair to all involved? Or has it been hijacked and politicized? And I think the Hunter Biden case is a perfect example of that, where you know, you had this laptop, you had these accusations against President Trump of collaborating with the Russians, and then you know, out of hand, all these national security figures and intelligence figures slap down the accusations that that's Hunter Biden's that that's Hunter Biden's laptop, and you know, this is all this
is all disinformation. And then with time we see that that that's in fact not the case. And with time we're finding that President Trump is being treated in a way that's not consistent. You know, this five hundre million dollar fine, I'm surd I've been in business. I've been in business for almost thirty years. I've been a CEO
of two companies. I've never heard of anything remotely like that in terms of that fine, particularly when there's no one who's been damaged, so there's no damages that are being ruled against. And this is this is a fundamental fear because America is based on the idea of a justice system which is fair to all innocent until proven guilty, and that you'll get a fair shake. And I think we see that under President Biden and the Democrats leading
the justice system judicial process. We're getting two very different approaches in Yeah, well, I.
Think that's kind of all been thrown out the door, you know, sadly under this administration is sort of the direction the country is going in with you know, censorship, A lot of it happened during COVID and has just gotten worse since then. I wanted to ask you on China specifically, why do we have so many Chinese nationals entering the United States through the southern border, and with your background and working on Chinese related issues, why are they doing that? What's the objective?
You know, I.
Don't know the objective, although I can imagine what the objective is. I mean, I think the thing that we've lost sight of is that with ten million illegal migrant entering our country in a three year period, that those are not people from Mexico. Those are people from across the world, from Syria, from Central Asia, and from China.
The last numbers I saw were twenty thousand or something like that in the past year, and it's hard to imagine that that's not part of a very conscious effort to infiltrate the United States, particularly given how difficult it is to get out of China, so hard to imagine the government isn't somehow behind this y'or sanctioning it. And that's part of a comprehensive approach to undermining, challenging and becoming integrated into America in a way for some Chinese
nationals that is very, very counter to America's interests. Many Chinese nationals that come go to graduate school stay in America and or contributing citizens and become American citizens, but there are many that are part of an effort to undermine our national security by stealing state secrets and becoming part of a framework of compromising America's interest And you see these confusion centers around the United States, you see the infiltration into some of our cities. You see in
our universities. There's many great graduate students who come from China with the best motivations. There's some that are very explicitly targeted by the Chinese government, and that's an enormous national security problem. When you think about twenty thousand coming across our border last year, I can't but imagine that there's a nefarious intention behind that, and I think it's really scary.
We also know there's just a lot of foreign money going to our universities as well, which you would have to imagine shapes what happens on those campuses as a result, in the same way that you know, obviously the Biden family taking money from China probably shapes his positioning on foreign policy. You would imagine, what do you think the biggest issue we face as a country is right now?
Well, I think there's there's sort of the fast burn and the slow burn. I mean the fast burn is we got two big issues that are affecting Pennsylvanians and Americans in a big way. One is the economy. And you know what's happened under Joe Biden and the enormous spending and the war on fossil fuels, is that prices have gone up by twenty percent, wages have gone up
by fourteen fifteen percent. And so if you're of the sixty percent of Pennsylvanians who live paycheck to paycheck sixty percent most Pennsylvanians live in paycheck to paycheck, man, under Joe Biden, you're getting squeezed.
Your life got hard or not easier. You're living paycheck to paycheck.
If you have a bad day and your transmission goes down, you don't have a thousand dollars in your checking account to fix it. That is unacceptable. And that is the direct result of a set of policies that Joe Biden and Bob Casey have supported, which is the warrant energy and the EXCESSUS spending.
That's a big deal.
Well, the second the second big deal was the border. I mean that we talked about all the problems from that, the fentanyl crisis, the crime in our cities. That's the second big problem, and I think it's I think it's absolutely undermining the quality of life, the safety, the well being of our fellow Americans and our fellow Pennsylvanians. Now, the long burn problem is a bit what we were talking about. If you go to our college campuses and our young people only thirty percent of them, I think
America is exceptional. If you look at our recruiting numbers for our military, they can't meet the recruiting numbers because our young peopleeople can't pass the obesity test or the physical fitness test, or they have drug problems. And of the few that are able to actually qualify, the majority don't want to serve. And then if you look at the statistics on TikTok and social media in terms of
how our young people are spending their time. You know, these are the building blocks of or the key factors undermining the quality of our society. If our citizens don't want to serve, if they don't believe America is special, if they're being co opted by social media, some of it from a foreign adversary that is undermining our.
Social norms or mores.
That is the long run problem, and I think really undermines our ability to remain the greatest country in the world.
How big of an issue in Pennsylvania. You know, Joe Biden has been trying to set all these deadlines for this big push for electric vehicles, even though the market's not really demanding it. How much is that going to impact Pennsylvania.
It's a huge impact.
And I think when we look back on the Biden administration, we will talk about energy policy is the most significant miscalculation. And the reason it's such a big deal is that we are blessed with incredible natural resources in America, particularly natural gas. Natural gas in Pennsylvania is the fourth largest
natural gas reserves in the world. I heard a statistic the other day but just put in perspective, if we developed our natural gas capability, we would be able to export the equivalent of another Saudi Arabia ten million barrels a day in natural gas equivalent from America alone. So it's enormous what we could do, and it's so critical to our national security to be able to put that
natural gas in the hands of our allies. It's so critical for our economy because those fracking jobs in Pennsylvania are sixty seventy thousand for a nineteen twenty year old kid with the technical training and go to ninety or one hundred thousand a year with overtime. This is like the next generation of great middle class jobs, middle class life. You don't have that a four year degree. You get a one or two year technical degree. It's a huge opportunity.
But here's the great irony. It helps our environment and reduces carbon emissions because our natural gas exports replace coal fired plants in India and China, which are the main carbon emitters today. And so this strategy has been a disaster. But here's the final straw. This mandating of evs is destroying manufacturing jobs and it's also making us more dependent
on China. So these evs come with lithium batteries eighty percent of them are made from China, eighty percent of the lithium batteries in the world, and solar panels, the large majority of which are made in China. So we are making ourselves more dependent on our primary adversary at the same time we're hurting our security, hurting our economy, and hurting the environment. It's complete hypocrisy. It makes no sense.
And I think what time is going to become clear how stupid this is, And it's already becoming clear in places like Pennsylvania.
You've got to take a quick commercial break. More with Dave McCormack on the other side, Obviously, Democrats are going to try to make abortion a key issue heading into twenty twenty four. Are you pro life? Where do you stand?
Yeah, I'm pro life. I'm in favor of the three exceptions. I'm not in favor of federal bands. I'm not in favor of the extreme policies of the Democratic Party and a Bob Casey which allows abortions up until the dow date. And so the way I say it on the campaign try, I say, listen, I'm not for either extreme. This is an era where we need to find common ground. And I think common grounds around widely available contraception, it's around support for adoption services for young families, and it's in
support of restrictions on late term abortions. And Pennsylvania has
a law. Here's the great irony of it. Somebody has a law that was signed by Republicans and Democrats alike, and the governor who signed it into place is a governor named Casey, the father of my opponent, and my opponent was a pro life ran on as a pro life senator eighteen years ago, and in two thousand and eight he flipped his position to be pro choice, and as recently as two years ago, when Roeve Wade was overturned, he signed legislation that would have allowed for abortions up
until the due date. So I'm running against somebody here is who's truly been all over the place on the issue of abortion at a time when this is a big issue for voters across Pennsylvania.
You know, Pennsylvania is a critical state both for winning the White House as well as winning back the Senate male in balloting, and you go back to twenty twenty two. I think Biden ended up getting something like three out of four mail in ballots that were cast in the state. Biden won by less than two two percent of the vote. What are you doing on mail balloting? You know? Do you think that Republicans are prepared in the state to win votes in the manner in which elections are conducted today.
Yeah, I think there's two things, three things we got to get right structurally to win Pennsylvania. By the way, Pennsylvanya is becoming a red state. When Donald Trump won in twenty sixteen, there was a million more registered Democrats than Republicans. Today it's under four hundred thousand, and the gaps closing fast. So there's three things we need to do. The first thing is we need to accelerate that acceleration, accelerate that registration of Republican voters, and there's an initiatives.
Underway to do that.
Second thing we need to do is a whole set of efforts around election integrity. There's all sorts of problems
in Pennsylvania. We got sixty seven counties. They all have different processes, and whether you think this is a big problem or a little problem, it's affecting the willingness of people to vote because they don't think they're voting count So we need to have a very transparent process of validating voting machines, of making sure there's chain of custody, on making sure there's oversight of drop boxes, of making sure there's the right observers and legal processes and challenges
on election day. So election integris Number two third is the one you mentioned, which is mail in ballots, and that was a huge Democratic advantage on this. The Democrats have embraced mail in ballots and they're beating us now on average seven to one. And there's a huge initiative, arguably the largest in the country, many millions of dollars being invested by a number of groups to focus on
low propensity voters. These are voters that vote zero, once or twice in the last four elections and get them registered for mail in ballots and then get them to submit their mail in ballots. And that effort I suspect will close the gap in Pennsylvania, but not close it completely. I think it's going to take multiple election cycles.
To close it completely.
And you know, part of it is convincing people that their vote's going to count. By mail in ballot and that there's a clear way to do it. And so we're closely coordinating with the Trump team, with the RNC and others to make sure that we have the right program in place to take advantage of mail in ballots. It's early on, but I'm encouraged that there's the right focus and the right resources.
It's great to hear before we go. Where can people go to help?
They can find me at Dave MCCORMICKPA dot com. I'm spending most of my time driving across the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and my campaign bus, which gets me into every small town I can find. And you know, it's sixty seven counties and I'm in. I've this year so far, I've been in forty seven of them. I've done one hundred and forty events. I am running a campaign that's going to touch people all across our commonwealth and a good old fashioned retail campaign, and I'm excited about it.
I feel like there's a real change of foot I can feel it in the air, and I'm excited to be part of it.
Well, Dave McCormick, good luck. It's an important state. We appreciate you making the time for us today.
Thanks for we have a great day.
That was Dave McCormick running for Senate in Pennsylvania. Appreciate him making the time. You know, these guys have crazy schedules, so we really appreciate him making time for the show every Monday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. I want to think John Cassio for putting the show together. Until next time,