I'm thrilled today to be joined by state Representative Gloria Johnson, who is running against Marshall Blackburn from the Great State of Tennessee for the United States Senate.
See.
Gloria Johnson is from eastern Tennessee from the city of Knoxville, represents that area in the state legislature. We're thrilled to have per with us today on the warning as we continue to bring unfiltered some of the leading Democrats in the country who unfortunately you're not going to see much on the Acela court or media because they are not incumbents yet in the United States Senate. So when you're a challenger running against an incumbent, it's a hard road.
But when you're more than one hundred days out Gloria Johnson in a tight race behind but in striking distance, you don't want to be like Trump in this business where you have your best day one hundred and thirty days before the election. You want to have it on election Day. And you know one thing I would say, you know to Tennessee voters that are that are listening.
I said this to John McCain as he was climbing back from being in last place and I mean dead last in the Republican primaries in two thousand and seven go into two thousand and eight, was that we needed to be ahead on exactly one day, and that was election Day, and we needed to be up on the top of the mountain on that day. Now, election day starts a little earlier these days in that there's early voting and all of that stuff, which warning viewers are
familiar with. But no matter all of that, Gloria Johnson has momentum them and she's running against really a person that it astonishes the imagination that the very same state that would send Al Gore Senior to the United States Senate, Al Gore Junior to the United States Senate, Howard Baker to the United States Senate Lemoar Alexander to the United States Senate Fred Thompson to the United States Senate.
Bill Frist to the United States Senate.
People of astonishing character, astonishing accomplishment, astonishing intellect both parties. You get Marsha Blackburn, whose list of crazy statements is
longer than the Mississippi River. And with that, it's really my pleasure to introduce someone who represents better for Tennessee, which is important because Tennessee is a vital state of the Union, one of the great states of our Union, a really special, vibrant, a live place in America, center of our American culture, the beating heart in many ways musically of our American civilization.
Gloria Johnson, welcome to the warning.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, we're going to correct that mistake in the Senate this election cycle in November. So we are excited about that.
Okay.
So I ran Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign in two thousand and six, which was a terrible Republican year. We won decisively by seventeen points. So you can do this in Tennessee. This is good news for you now that Kamala Harris is on top of the ticket. It's energized Democrats, it will energize women voters, young women voters, energized black voters to turn out. So all of these things are are good for you at a foundation level, because you know, politics isn't fair.
Sometimes you have the wind with you.
At your back, and other times you have the wind blowing into you, holding you back. And and so if it's a you're a Democrat in Tennessee right after the after the debate, not good news. You're in a you're in a much better position. But you're running against a very polarizing, very weak, really very strange woman, a very extreme woman who says a lot of crazy things, who and so very recently in American life, right, we just have been found unfit.
Right that, Hey, we.
Want to put you know, this person into the Senate in no way. But you know, she's a Marjorie Taylor Green of sorts, really a predecessor, you know, but deeply linked to her like jd.
Vance is, you.
Know, out there out there on the on the French antithetical to kind of the tradition of statesmanship and stateswomen out of the state of Tennessee. But how are you going to beat her? How are you going at her? Tell us your story, introduce yourself, and just take as long as you as you want, because we're gonna ask everybody watching to send money and support and get involved in the campaign.
Sure, absolutely, Well, you know, I decide I've been in the state House for eight years. I've gone back and forth. They've redistricted my district once I want it, after it went from a plus two d district to a plus twelve R district. I'm one of just a handful of folks in Tennessee who have flipped a red seat multiple times. Because this last time, they jerrymandered just my block out of my precinct and put it into the only other Democratic seat in Knoxville, and they thought I would run
against my colleague, which I refused to do. So I moved six blocks back into the district I'd lived in for thirty years that they had redrawn so I couldn't win it, and I won it again. And you know, I'd been thinking about this from January of twenty twenty three. I just thought, you know, Tennessee, which many in the country saw a little over a year ago when we had to go to the Well and speak to the thousands of folks who showed up from the Covenant shooting.
After the Covenant shooting where we lost three students and three staff members, the thousands just gathered at the Capitol, and it was Covenant families, but it was also families from Boxville who were tired of gun violence, families from Memphis who were tired of gun violence. It was students, it was parents, it was grandparents, it was teachers, and they gathered by the thousands every day, and the legislature,
the Republicans refused to acknowledge them. They just refused to allow us to do and we have welcoming and honoring every morning. On that particular day, they did not have welcoming and honoring. We had gotten there early, parents had showed up. We started at nine. I got there about seven thirty just to talk to the parents who were showing up to see how they were feeling, and mothers with tears in their eyes just told me I just
dropped my kids at school. I hope they're safe when I go to pick them up or when I go to meet the bus. This is a community that was hurting so badly. And then when my Republican colleagues walked past them onto the house floor, they wouldn't even make eye contact with them, just not even acknowledge that they
were there. And so we felt very strongly about being able to acknowledge, being able to tell them that we saw them and we heard them, and we cared about their issues, and we were going to fight for guns since legislation, and either we were not called on or our mics were cut every time we tried to speak to that and just recognize that they were there. And so finally we just decided to go to the well.
And just the fact the way people showed up and continued to show up gave us hope, really for the first time in a really tough legislature where democratic norms were just being just being put by the side, you know, not having debate on bills, not calling on people, cutting people's microphone just because you didn't like what they said. This is not how the process is supposed to work. And people all over the country, not just Tennessee, and
saw that. And so what happened in those days that everyone gathered together, all the thousands of people, they turned into a movement, or it boosted a movement that was already rolling sort of under the surface, but it just
blew it up. And so all of these people that came from all over they sang together, they chanted together, they ordered pizza and had lunch together, They talked to each other and about the things that they cared about, and just really committed to support each other on through to this election. And so we've been building that movement and building that momentum and people it's a multi racial, multi generational, and multipartisan movement. I had fifty Republicans at
might kickoff. That doesn't happen, and we have a lot of Republicans and independence on board, and just knew that if we wanted to fix things in Tennessee, we needed someone running at the top of the ticket who was going to speak to Democratic values, get that message out statewide and help flip some of these down ballot House and Senate seats as well as winning a US Senate seat for a Democrat. And we are absolutely going to do that. People say that a Democrat can't win in Tennessee.
We are not a red state. We're a non voting state. We are typically fiftieth or fifty first in voter turnout. Marshall Blackburn won in twenty eighteen by two hundred thousand votes. There are three hundred thousand Democratic voters who haven't voted the last few cycles because they think their vote doesn't matter. We're talking to those voters. We're not operating on the
twenty eighteen maps. Demographics are changing in Tennessee and we are going to get those three hundred thousand voters out because they recognize how important this is we win by expanding the map, getting those voters to the polls. And when we do that, we win this US Senate race. Plus we flip down ballot House seats and state Senate seats. And that's what we're going to do. And they're helping
us along the way. I mean, when you look at the top of the ticket in the Republican Party, you've got an adjudicated rapist who has been convicted of thirty four felonies. And then you've got and then you've got a vice president christ presidential candidate who believes women should stay with their abusers and also believes in a federal abortion ban and things women without children are useless to society.
And then you've got Marsha Blackburn, who voted against the violence against women at voted against equil pay for women, believes in a federal abortion of van and even questions Griswold versus Connecticuts and the decision that gave us access to birth control. It is remarkable that three that these three folks think that women are going to vote for them, And the reality is this puts Tennessee women and girls in grave danger. We have one of the strictest abortion
bands in the country. We only have an exception for ectopic and molar pregnancies and dead fetuses. That's it. The rest for life of the mother not covered. Rapid incests not covered. Tennessee forces a ten year old girl to carry her rapist baby. Tennessee forces a woman. They give more rights to a violent rapist. A violent rapist has the right to choose the mother of their child, but a woman can't choose not have a rapist baby. This
is what Tennessee is like. And here in this state, we have got more than one third of our county of our state with no obgyn. We've got a third to a half of the state with no delivery room. That ten year old girl could be an hour and a half away from a hospital or an obgyn. And we know that children in carrying a pregnancy are two times more likely to die than adult women in a pregnancy, and in Tennessee's one of the highest states with maternal mortality.
That they're putting women and girls in danger in the state, and they don't think we're going to get to the polls. It's going to be a different story for Tennessee this year.
Talk to me about that.
On the ground, the extremism of all of this with actual women without giving a speech about it. I did the Ken Ryan campaign. I was deeply in It's the best political campaign I've ever ever been involved in. It was flawless campaign. The team that ran it did an
extraordinary job. Brandon Hall, the media consultant, Da've Chased, the campaign manager, took the Republicans fifty seven million dollars in spending to defeat Tim, who had jd Vance defeated by August of Schumer had spent five million on the race in that campaign, at the top of the ticket went
down by twenty six points and Tim went down by five. Right, So meaning if the race goes seventeen eighteen, jd Vance isn't isn't in the Senate and you're you're in the You're at the top of the ticket in this race,
so you can clearly talk about this. So I'm struck by this, which is, and you think about this election as somebody who's talked about these issues for nine years, I can't think of an alchemy a mix of things to say to the ladies to more directly and better improve on what you said, which is that you have a power that you have not used that now is the time to use. It's the time to use this power. If you can't persuade women eighteen years of age, twenty
years of age, I have a twenty year old. A lot of the college kids making fun of Biden's age on TikTok, which blurs the difference in the celebrity laden culture between the threat and the celebrity. And it's just one more kind of reality show, Michi goos as opposed to a deep threat that you just articulated.
I just when you see women.
Who are undecided and confused about the race, about these about these issues, what is it that you say to them persuasively that you don't belong with this crowd in a quasi religious cult, right taping pantages to the side of your head, venerating this messianic figure right now, who's a convicted felon, the worst president in American history, also too old to be president at seventy eight to eighty two.
But what do you say to them, right to women as a as a woman, about a woman who's clearly on the side of all of this insanity.
Well, I think that a lot of women have made this decision already. I mean a lot of women I didn't have have to convince, They've already come over. That's why I'm beating Marsha forty nine to forty three percent with women is because they're getting it. But mostly I have the conversation because I think of it in terms as equality. Women aren't equal if we don't have bodily autonomy. And sometimes when I talk to women and make that statement, they think, oh, I never thought of it that way.
That you know, we are not equal. We are second class citizens if we do not have autonomy over our own body. These are decisions that need to be made with a woman and her doctor, her family, her god, you know, but not a legislature in the doctor's office or the governor in the doctor's office. And they really
understand that, I mean they really understand. And you also talk about if we want to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies, but we've got to be serious about in this state, we have an expanded Medicaid give women access to affordable health care, so they're not seeing the doctor the first time when they find out they're pregnant. You know, they will if they're going to a doctor throughout their life. They're going to know more about their health. Are they
healthy enough to carry a pregnancy? All of these things. But since we don't give all women access to health care, they're not necessarily healthy when they get pregnant. And so if we want to be sure that we want to make sure they have access to health care, we want to make sure women have access to contraception. I brought a bill this past year in the legislature which is a right to contraception an IVF, and not a single
Republican voted for it. They say they're not trying to take it, but we have them on tape in a pro Publica article. They got a tape of the Right to life folks in Tennessee legislator, and in that tape they said, let it die down about Dobbs and then we'll start talking about contraception, and if we don't need to do that right now. So we've already heard them in private saying that they were coming after it. So they can lie all they want, but I'm going to
call them out on their lives. Marcia Blackburn has told the same lot. She voted against contraception and IVF in the Senate and said, oh, nobody's coming for it. But then you've got her on tape questioning Griswolk. So which is it?
Marcia dreamism is well documented? How do you think about these national security issues where she has adopted a position that is contrary to everybody before now that has represented Tennessee in the United States Senate. They'd all be appalled. Fred Thompson, who I knew well, would be appalled. Lamar Alexander is on the other side of these issues. Vice
President Gore is a generator, Howard Baker. And so I think about when I whenever I see you know, anybody who remembers the nineteen eighties, right.
This is this is the most astonishing thing.
Howard Baker was obviously a legendary Tennessee senator, statesman, chief of staff to President Reagan, and they're negotiating the end of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan very tough on the Russians, and Marshall Blackburn, when you look at the world, has seemed to embrace this philosophy of Trumpian appeasement and isolation. And I don't know how you think about it, but I want to give you a chance to talk about her on these views, these issues in a in a
very dangerous, dangerous world. But I'll just say before before I turn it over to you, I mean this is this is a person who doesn't know what she's talking about, isn't confident about the issues in the world. And when you see the things that come out of her mouth, I think it's really demonstrative of how cooned and bubbled this club is. Because any person who's anywhere for as
long as she's been there. Now, right, we can train you to be a brain surgeon in six years from right, you know, from never having cut into anything but an apple, right, you would think you would pick up some of this stuff. But she seems immunized to knowledge about how the world world works and its interconnectedness.
And it's silly. And I don't mean.
This in a chauvinistic way, but I say this as someone who's lived in California for decades and somebody who grew up on the East coast. Everybody on the coast. Tennessee is a mega state with some of the best universities in the country, big thriving cities, Nashville's and American megacity. This is a giant economy in the world, in the in the in the country, and this is a backwards, ignorant know nothing. Who's the United States senator that you're
that you're challenging. And I'd just like you to talk about her from the prism of wow, you know, this is one of one hundred people in the world making life and death votes and decisions about our national security. And how far afield she has gone from the tradition of moderation in Tennessee and the tradition of common sense in Tennessee.
Oh absolutely, she's just nowhere close to where the average Tennessee and is because I mean, she has been in DC for twenty one years, and like you say, hasn't learned a thing. That's one of one thing I hear a lot from the Republicans. She's been there twenty one years, has the same talking points and hasn't done a thing. And she doesn't talk to the people either. She hasn't had a town hall in seven and a half years.
The last one she had was pretty disastrous. And so this on this tour, I'm going to all ninety five counties. My tour dates are posted on my website. Anyone who wants to show up can show up and ask questions and talk with us. And she's had only closed door meetings with county officials that I have heard of. There was one event she was supposed to do a couple of weeks ago that was publicized with Republicans at a
VFW hall, and she didn't show up for that. That's the only one I know that was actually out published at all where people could come, and she didn't show up, and they said she had struck throat. So I don't know where she is. I don't know what she's doing, but she's not talking to the people. And yesterday I
was in four different counties. I started. I started in Overton County, then I went to White County, and then Cannon County and then Rutherford County and talked well over one hundred people yesterday in all of those counties about the things that concern them and about the things that they care about. And she just hasn't been seen, Like
you say, she's in a bubble. I find out with my colleagues in my Republican college in the legislature, I think they go to Republican meetings and church and that's it. In my whole day, I talked to Republicans all day long. Because I live in East Tennessee. If I'm talking to my family or if I'm talking to folks in East Tennessee, I'm spending a lot of my time talking to Republicans. So I listen to people. I want to listen to what people have to say. But here's the interesting thing.
They want to paint me as this extremist. But the reality is, eighty percent of tennesseean's urban, rural, and suburban want to do something about gun sense legislation. They want universal background checks, they want safe storage laws, and they want red flag laws. Eighty percent of Tennesseeans agree on that you couldn't talk about guns in Tennessee, but now you better talk about gun sense legislation. And then with
women with abortion, the same thing. Eighty percent of people in Tennessee, urban, rural, suburban, all parties want abortion care at some level. We don't all agree on where the line may be, but eighty percent want that care at some level. And she does not, and neither do the supermajority in the state legislature. They are the extremists. Sixty eighty one percent want cannabis medical cannabis. Sixty percent want
recreational cannabis. They won't even discuss it. Marcia Blackburn gets more money from the NRA than I think anybody you know, certainly from Tennessee, ever did, But she's one of the top receivers of those dollars. She also voted against capping insulin at thirty five dollars in the state with one of the highest numbers of diabetics per capita. She voted against negotiating drug prices for seniors. Tennesseeans have not expanded Medicaid.
People are struggling with their health care. She voted to repeal the ACA multiple times. She is not she is the extremists, She is not on board, and she is not even trying, it seems, to get out and talk to the regular folks that she's supposed to represent. She lies, consistently, makes horrible, this de bigoted statements with no facts whatsoever to back it up. Somebody said, Gloria, you need to counter every one of our lives. I said, good grief,
we'd have to add three people to our staff. I mean, it's remarkable. I talk to people. Old politicians lie. We should not expect our expect politicians to lie, our elected officials to lie. We should be held to a higher standard of telling the truth, having integrity, and being transparent about what we're doing. But in Tennessee men they want to do everything behind closed doors. Well that's the question.
Our primary is August first, so we will see after the primary if she is going to debate me, and certainly we're going to be asking for debates. We will drag her if she won't debate, because it just it has to be done. She should be able to get before the people and answer some tough questions. I'm ready to do it. She's been there twenty one years. If she can't answer these questions, she doesn't need to be there.
I say that all the time about the State House where I serve, and when we had orientation, the leader of the Republican Party actually told us, well, you can use your badge to get into the secret hallways so you don't have to talk to press and constituents who are in the hallways if you don't want to. And all I could think was, I'm not using some secret hallway working around behind the scenes. I came there, I was elected by the people. They need to know what
I'm doing. I need to talk about what I'm bringing, the legislation I'm bringing, I need to answer questions about it, And how are they going to know what I'm doing if I refuse to talk to the press, or if I refuse to talk to constituents. It's remarkable to me that everything they want to do, they want to hide from the press, and they want to hide from the people.
I guess if I had the policy and brought the policy they did, I'd want to hide to But we should expect our elected officials to be upfront, to answer questions and be transparent about what they are doing.
Representative Johnson, have you ever used the secret passage?
I would use it all the time.
I would still talk to the people, but I would use it all the time.
I've just shown it to people and I one time there was a voucher vote and there was somebody back in those hallways pulling the strings. I went back to see who was full of the strengths.
I would.
I would do a hybrid approach. I would let me let me ask you this question. So the Republican high card right as far as an issue where they are on the right side of majority opinion in the country is on the question of the border, and I had a I had a consistent position on this personally, going back to the nineties, right, I was always a very pro immigration Republican and the deal that I always supported Bush McCain, the Kennedy compromise, you know, was that you
had a population in the country illegally. They were here illegally because they were let in without much difficulty, and everybody understood that the labor market required this workforce that was there. People wanted the border secured, they didn't want anyone punished, and.
They just couldn't get it done in Washington.
You have, whatever the number may be, the biggest issue that the Republicans have to go at a Democrat in a red state, right in terms of its most recent dispositions electorally, is immigration. So what do you say about immigration about the border, and do you recognize as a Democrat how important honesty is as an issue. And I'll
give you two examples. When Senator Menandez is arrested gold Barson in the jacket, Chuck Schumer responds, he's been a great representative for the people in New Jersey, Right, you know, say that it's a native New Jersey. And when when Alexander Myorci says border's never been more secure, you understand, Or you're a center on TV who was looking at Biden the aftermath of debate, usually now he's the wisest
guy in the land. He's never looked better. That you lose honesty as an issue to a side filled with extreme fascists who run on an architecture of LIFs. How how important that is? And I just I just wanted to ask you about that.
Yeah, No, I think that I would I would not feel the same development in this, you know. I think that it doesn't matter when our guys break the law. Their guys break the law. You've broken the law, and that's the way it is. I think we do need to definitely be honest about that. I think that that's critically important, and to be honest about the fact that we do have a serious situation at the border and we do need to fix it. But the thing is we can't.
And there, like you.
Talked about, there have been deals in the past, it always breaks down, and right now we know that it's broken down because they need to use it in this campaign. I firmly believe that it is something that gens up Tennessee Republicans, but we have to be honest about you know, what's really happening. Do we need more security, yes, Have we tried to put more security? Yes. I think that the last bill that was offered had pretty much everything
in it the Republican wanted. They had a problem with one piece of it, and they were misinterpreting that piece as I understand it. But it seems like we can at least get some measures going so we can get the work started, having to pass the citizenship and also making things more secure at the border. And I think that there are enough people that should be able to come to agreement. Sadly, it may not be you know, or it will be after the election. But that's why
this election is so important. Let's get people in believe who believe it actually doing the work and not just keeping it out there as an issue to run for office on. But we're supposed to be doing the work of the people, and the people want solutions. But this idea, oh, they're taking our jobs. It's just not true because there are so many jobs out there, there are not enough people.
When on my ninety five County tour. I was just in Granger County, Tennessee, and Granger County is famous for tomatoes. And three year old immigrant came to my event and I asked her what her day was like, and twenty three year old young woman, she said, well, she has to get her mother to work at the far more. She works at six am and then she goes to work and then she works until the sun goes down at nine o'clock. And I thought, who in Granger County
wanted that job? You know, I don't think that most people, most Americans, would take that job. And there are plenty of those jobs to have if they wanted them. The reality is folks are coming here, they're working really hard at jobs that we desperately need. We don't need our plants and our food to die on the vine. And so we've got to create that path for folks who come in here, come here and are doing everything right. But we can also secure the border and do all
of those things. And that's the type of legislation we need to see to solve this problem. But to dehumanize and not respect the human dignity of these folks are coming over here to improve their lives and work hard and love this country, and we have to do better. We have to do better for us and for them. Because I live I think about growing up. I think
about even fifteen years ago, twenty years ago. In Tennessee, we didn't ask where you came from, We didn't ask how you worshiped it, we didn't ask who you loved. We just pitched in with our community and helped everybody together, working together. It didn't matter if you were different religion, it didn't matter if you were a different race. I'm not saying there has an in bigotry and racism. There has been, but it's been. It was a shameful thing
to be, you know. But most people just work together and didn't care if the fact that two women down the street are married has absolutely nothing to do with how your family is doing. If your family is struggling, it's not because two women down the street are married.
Your family is struggling because you live an hour and a half from a hospital, you don't have access to affordable healthcare and affordable prescription drugs, you don't have a well resourced classroom from child for your child, and you're making minimum wage. In Tennessee, which is the federal bent On wage, which is seven twenty five an hour. You're working two and three jobs to try to keep food on the table. Those folks don't have time to follow politics.
They're trying to stay alive. They're trying to keep the lights on and food on the table. And Marsha Blackburn doesn't believe in raising the wage. How do you make seven dollars an hour or ten dollars an hour even and paid chalk care fifteen dollars an hour hour? The math does not work. They have no concern for regular families. Marsha Blackburn works for lobbyists in corporations. We just finished a quarter of fundraising. More than seventy percent of the
money I raised comes from Tennessee. Only forty percent of the money she raises comes from Tennessee. Much of it comes from Texas. Who does she represent? Tennessee Families need help, They need someone working for them, not for lobbyists, not for big Pharma in the NRA and big oil. That's who she's working for.
I can't imagine that. People who spend forty years in the United States Senate, and I've been around it as an institution, right It's mind blowing. And you know, I think about it, right, you know, if it was something if I wound up in the US Senate, you think about even three terms, right, eighteen years is a long time, right, but like you know, twelve years whatever. As you point out, right, she's been there for twenty years. She hasn't done the town hall in seven and.
A half years. Why does she do this? Like do you ever think about that? Like? What do I can tell you that she makes? She makes one hundred sixty seven thousand dollars a year. What a what a what a senator makes?
Right?
She would she would make more as a lobbyist. It's a what does she? What does she dig about this? What's so great about it?
You know, I don't she I think you mentioned she's an odd person. I mean, we were on we were on the same airplane. I had already been seated, and I saw this woman walking past, and I was like, who is that. I was like, oh, my goodness, that is Marsha. And so I thought, well, it's stupid for us to be on the same plane and not to say hello or anything like that. So as we were getting off the plane, I waited at the top of the jetway, and you know, she came up and I said, high,
Senator Blackbird. I just wanted we're running against each other. Just wanted to said my name, I said, just wanted to say hello. It would be silly for us not to say hello when we're sitting on the same plane. And she just dared at me and just like, and I mean, how do you just not say hello? But it was as if she had no idea what to do. And I'm thinking, you're a US senator, you meet constituents
all the time. Technically I'm a constituent of hers, and she couldn't even say hello, and then she felt so awkward. I tried to make light of the situation, and I said, hey, why don't we take a picture together and we can both both post look who I met on the plane. And then she looked at me and she said, oh, I can't do that, and start walking away.
It was just the strangest interaction, you know, and I just don't I don't know how you couldn't just stop and say hello and make you know, pleasantryce with somebody.
It was weird to me.
The answer to that question, I can answer this question, answer the why now that I have that information, is that people would come up to me during like the peak of House of Cards, and a friend of mine, Guyam J. Carson, was like really involved and conceiving of the show and you know, helping make it realistic. But people would be like, is all this like House of Cards? And I'd be like, no, it's like Veep.
It's like Veep. Right, National politics is.
Like a giant deep episode, right if you detach and sit back and watch it. And she's like a us, like a character Inveep, you know, cloistered voting against the interests of the state, which is a gigantic state. And let me just say again, right for people who haven't spent time in Tennessee that will watch this, uh, you know from around the around the country. Big distance between Knoxville where you're from, and the Mississippi River and Memphis, and so you need to tie a ribbon right across
the state to a different part of the state. About about these ideas, Why do you talk about that? Just what it's like to campaign? What is your day? Like how many hours a day are they torturing you with fundraising calls? That will increase you know, if you become the nominee here of course, and what is that?
What is that day like?
Getting around, doing the doing of things you need to do.
And as you as you look at this from a forward basis, you know, if you're the nominee and you have you know about you know, let's you know, three months or so, you know, in real time to to run the campaign about her, just talk about how you're gonna how you're gonna build on what you've been doing in order to bring that, in order to bring that home, how to embrace the underdog, you know, status capitalize it against somebody who's been there too long, who's become too
strange by their time and power, that you know, lives like they're a character in the Hunger Games. Often panem completely walled off from the from the regular people. And you know, I I just think that that's such a huge part of this is her aloofness from reality, from normalcy, from unity, as she lives in this terrarium, you know, under the capitol though.
Yeah, you know absolutely, And it's gonna make a difference because what people know about me is I get out and talk to folks. I've flipped red districts multiple times, because I'm not afraid to talk to people and talk to people across the AIP. I have talked to so many people in this trail who wanted to see her were in DC, but she wouldn't see them because of whatever their belief if it was Mom's demand action or some of these folks that she just refused to see.
And I don't do that in my office in Nashville. I don't refuse anyone if we can't sit down and have a conversation and disagree, and I can tell you what my position is and I can listen to your position. I mean, I think that's what it's about. And people, certainly the people in my district in Knox will know that's who I am. I have people all the time tell me, Gloria, we don't agree on much, but I do trust you and I know that you will listen to me, and so that goes a long way. But
she has no revertoire like that with the people. And so my day, you know, yesterday, it started at seven o'clock. We had to be in Overton County, which is for two hours from where I am, so we had to we had to get up and be there by ten o'clock and then we spent an hour and fifteen minutes,
hour and a half with those folks. Then we drove forty minutes to the next county and spent an hour to hour and a half with those folks, talking to them, asking questions, finding out what, you know, what were the biggest issues in their community that they felt like. And then I got in the car, drove another hour to our next stop in Cannon County and met with folks there and did the same thing. Talked again about everything
in their particular were community, what they saw. And then of course our last stop was at five point thirty last night in Rutherford County and spend an hour and a half there talking to folks, and it was really great. There were so many young people there and one of the fascinating things that I find as young people. Most of these meetings are very often senior citizens, but we've got a lot of young people showing up as well, and the young people are engaged, they're paying attention, and
so I love it when they come. And people always get excited when the young folks are there. But they're excited about this race, and I'm seeing more excitement about this race than I have seen across the state of Tennessee in a long time. I go around. I'm not new to visiting counties across the state. It's five and a half hours to Memphis from Knoxville, and it's three hours or two and a half hours up to Upper each corner, so eight hours or you know, eight or
nine hours across the whole state. And we've been traveling the whole thing. But really it's about listening to people and trying to to educate them on some of the issues that they don't quite completely understand. Legislation that's been passed that that they rarely get to hear about. They pass bills so quickly here in the Tennessee State legislature. No one knows about them until it affects them. And they don't want to debate these bills. They've they've almost
gotten rid of debate on legislation. I guess it's because they are ashamed to really hash out their ideas because they're not. It's mostly hate legislation and it doesn't help regular families. But you know, Marcia is not getting this experience and talking to this people that she thinks she can show up with an arb Besider name and win this election. And it's not going to be like that this year because people are not happy with what she
is doing and they're paying more attention than ever. And so I'm making sure that I'm talking to as many people as possible, listening to as many people as possible, and I won't ever stop doing that. Every year i am in DC, I will continue to visit every county. I can't tell you how appreciative people are when they say, thank you so much for coming to our county. Nobody's been to our county in years. No one has done a nine five, a true ninety five county tour that's
posted that anyone can come to. And it's sad because these rural counties have needs and everybody when they're running for office, oh, we're going to help the rural counties, but they never do. And if you don't know the faces and you don't have conversations with those people, you know what they need. She doesn't get to tell people what they need. She doesn't get to listen to lobbyists and corporations that fund her campaign, and she doesn't learn
from them. But the Tennessee, hard working Tennessee families in her district need. She has no idea. She hasn't had to struggle to make a light bill, she hasn't had to struggle to put food on the table. And if you don't listen to folks, how do you even understand that I've struggled to pay a light build. I mean, that's just a fact, and I'm not ashamed of that. I am in the same category as far as you know,
earning as the majority of Tennesseeans. She's far and above that and doesn't understand how the majority of Tennesseeans live. You know, in all these politicians, well I'm going to cut taxes, Well, what they need to ask her is who whose taxes are you going to cut? Marsha, Because she's gonna cut taxes for the wealthy incorporations. It's exactly what they're doing here, and we've seen her do it there.
Nobody's helping hard working families with their taxes. Democrats want to do that, and people need to understand that, need to understand that raising the wage and giving people access to health care lifts up your state, lifts up your economy. And if you don't understand simple economics, you can't help the people that need it the most, and we have a lot of vulnerable people in Tennessee. She wants to get rid of the federal Department of Education. What are
they fund in Tennessee. They fund free and reduced lunches for so many children in Tennessee that go to bed Hungary. They fund special education. I taught special ed for twenty seven years. My students, because of federal programs, got the services they needed. My special ed students, I had a higher graduation. Ninety five percent of my special ed students graduated because they got the services they need. That's a higher graduation rate than the whole high school with regular kids.
And so when we provide these services for kids, they get what they need. I had kids going to college going straight into careers because we did work study their last semester. And you can't say that about the entire school.
So and then that money also, the third pot of that money goes to fund Title I, which is making sure we have equity in our under resource schools, to make sure that those under resource schools have the resources they need to have a well resourced classroom, to have more social workers because they need more of those services. That's what those federal dollars do, and she wants to shut it down. The Speaker of our House, Cameron Sexton,
in Tennessee, wanted to refuse the federal funding. It basically came down to, if you don't take the federal dollars, you don't have to follow civil rights guidelines. This is who they are. It's it is remarkable they do not care about the average family in Tennessee.
I had a visit to Washington a couple months back, and I was at this premiere and I sat next to a Democratic congressman and he was sitting next to another Democratic congressman.
I was like, how you doing.
He was like, good he is, but you know he is I'm much better than than than his colleague. And he is this guy, this impressive guy he is, you know, Rhodes scholar, Harvard put himself through, came up from nothing.
He goes he's got the same job as Lauren Bobert.
And a few months ago I spent time with Keem Jefferies and Tim Ryan, who was in the Congress for twenty years. A lot of like in terms of just absolutely unflappable, like the like like the Yoda, right you know, like the Buddha calm temperaments. And I thought about myself right, like in the house and the day that I broke a board over like.
Mac Gates's head.
Right, It's not like the media would be that I'm going to get a riven or something for restraining myself for like eight hundred days, right until like I finally
did it. And the reason I asked the question is you're subjecting yourself to a level of self abuse, right by doing this, Right, That victory means, right, you're gonna be like hanging out with Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, that your colleagues will be some of the worst Americans out of three hundred and thirty million people, right, which is like really bad people who aren't currently incarcerated for violent crimes, right, some of the wackiest, most hypocritical Americans.
Right that there are amongst all of us villainous characters, some of them. And I just wonder, you know, you seem like a perfectly normal person right about this on earth?
Why on earth would you want to do it to yourself? Right? And then we'll leave it there.
But it's been a real, a real pleasure hosting you Representative Gloria Johnson. We'll put up all your information to get involved and be involved in your campaign. Real pleasure hosting you.
Well, thank you. And I do have to say twenty seven years teaching me most behavior disordered teenagers has prepared me for this work.
Yeah. Well, I was just talking to my daughter.
We're on a long road trip, and we're talking about the days when I was a kid. You know, there were no seatbelts, no shoulder straps, right front seat, right middle seat, laying down in the back. We were talking about school, right, and we were talking about emotionally disturbed right out of fashion today. But like the problem kid of that era was called the emotionally disturbed kid, right
that you know, that would be the threat. You know, if you misbehaved or go to the emotionally disturbed classroom, right, it would hang over You'd be like, oh my goodness. But that is America's epicenter of emotional disturbance, Right, is the United States Senate Josh Holly right, frauds of such epic titanic dimensions. Right, They're they're almost fictional characters. But but but this is this way you'd be signing.
Up for well and it's it's it's pretty much what I'm doing here, and and and the meanness is something. You know, we have a seventy four Republicans and twenty five Democrats, and uh in addition to being drunk with power and authoritarians there, they're just mean their retaliatory. You know. The first the first year that Cameron Sexton was up for Speaker, I said, I refused to vote for him.
You know, I'm not voting for a Republican speaker. And I'm certainly not voting for the Republican speaker who was instrumental in stopping medicaid expansion in Tennessee, who also fought tooth and nail to keep the bust of Nathan Bedford forrest in a place of honor in our capital. Said I'm not doing it.
And one founder of the ku Klux Klan yes.
And slaughtered three hundred folks who were surrendering at Fort Pillow. So I was the only one out of ninety nine to vote against him for speaker. And I was giving given a closet for an office. And then not only was I given a closet for an office, but across the hall outside my door, I look outside my door and I see the empty member office across the hall. And that was intentional, and that was all all about punishment and retaliation because I didn't step in line with
what they wanted. And guess what, I'm never going to unless what they want is right, and most often it is not. And that's why it's so important that we stand up and that we push back against these extremists and against this hate. And that's why we have to win this US Senate seat in Tennessee.
Perfect place stand it. Thank you for your time.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you have me on.
I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning and I invite you to join. Subscribe on our substack, on our YouTube channel follow us. Welcome to the community.