Interview w/Congressman Bob Good (VA-05)

You're listening to Life, Liberty, Happiness, a show that's a little about everything and a lot about nothing. Today we're keeping you informed with our interview with Congressman Bob Good. All right, joining us on the program today is Congressman Bob Good. Welcome to the show, Bob. Great to be with you. Brian Trent, thanks for having me. Before we get into the less important questions, let me ask you my most important question. Who is the best wrestler in your family? Well, clearly it's me. Since I'm the only one here with you this morning, I can confidently say that I will tell you My brothers and I became wrestlers when we were kids. One of my brothers was a state champ, one was a state runner up. We did it most of our lives. And then my three boys were a wrestlers. My two boys af three children. Two boys were wrestlers. They're both all stay. My nephew was a state champ coached for about fifteen years during the time of my boys. Wrestler Delivery University, and frankly, there's nothing that's a better tool to shape young men, and now young women are doing it as well. I certainly support that, but to make My brothers and I grew up hard. We grew up in a rough, lower income family background. We fought every day against each other, We fought every day at school. We kind of had to grow up tough and hard. But today's kids are often sheltered from that. And I don't know a better tool to shape young men to develop mental and physical toughness to support a wrestling Often, I think every boy ought to have to wrestle, just because it's hard and life doing hard things are good for us. A little background, years ago, and I mean years ago, I had the privilege of working for your brother Steve. Is that right? Steve was a state champ. He probably never told you that, but Steve was. That's why I figured you would say, maybe but son was a state champion. Yes, phenomenal wrestling, But yeah, years and years ago. Billy Bob's Pizza, I remember Steve at Billy Bob's. Yeah, I got to eat that Billy Bob's because Steve was running that show back years back. So uh yeah. But at the same time, I think maybe we should have wrestling matches with you and Jim Jordan's as a who's winning that match? Well, I'm a little bigger than Jim, but uh, and I was a decent college wrestler, but Jim was elite. So we're gonna leave that match unwrestled so that I stay undefeated against Jim Jordan. He was an elite guy, two time NSAA champ, and he also beat the great John Smith, who was an Olympic champ to keep. John Smith at Oklahom State won two national championships. Jim Jordan at Wisconsin won two. But in one of those matches that Jim won, he defeated John Smith, kept him from being a three timer. And John Smith is considered by some to be America's greatest wrestler. Wow, that's how good Jim Jordan was. Oh yeah, holy cow. All right, well let's get let's dive into politics a little bit. Your first stint in politics would have been Campbell County. That's right. Why what made you? You know? It's funny. The first person I called, and I won't say his name, but a local businessman in Campbell, a friend who kind of had been involved in terms of supporting politics. When I called him to tell him I was thinking about doing that, he said to me, why the heck would you do that. He said, it pays you seven thousand dollars. You only hear from the people who don't like it, or madic to why in the world would you do it? But the truth is, since I averst I was a little kid, I enjoyed following politics. I recognized the importance in our lives. I remember in the mid seventies following the carter Ford presidential election. My first time getting to vote was the second Reagan election in eighty four, when I was nineteen years old. But I always knew that it mattered, and my wife and I always advocated, contributed, followed it, and I cared very much about it. But I never planned to go into politics, which I think is actually a good, healthy thing. I think one of the many things that's wrong with politics is it's filled with people who are ambitious, self serving, prideful, and in it for all the wrong reasons. It actually worries me a little bit when I meet a young person's, Oh, I want to go into politics. These people who've been in it all of their lives and pursued it for generally not the most noble or virtuous of reasons, not generally to serve or to help others, but it tends to be because they want to be something or whatever their thing might be. So I had no intention of going into it. You know. After I graduated Liberty, I went to work in finance. I didn't know you weren't supposed to work in your degree, But I got a degree in finance and an MBA, and so I went to work with City Group for seventeen years, and my wife and I moved around a little bit, and then had a chance to come back to Liberty, where my wife and I had met, where I had wrestled there, she had cheered there, and a chance to come back to our alma mater in two thousand and five, and took almost a fifty percent pay cup from City Group to come back to Liberty. So it wasn't a good financial attition, but we loved the school, we loved the impact it had on our lives, and we wanted to be part of the Liberty Lynchburg community. So we came back to Liberty in five for me to work as the chief fundraiser, the director of Athletics Development, one of the senior Associate a d's, specifically overseeing the Flames Club raising money for scholarships and athletic operations and facilities and that sort of thing, just at the time when Liberty was starting to explode about twenty years ago. And so into your back to your specifically your question in this in fifteen twenty fifteen, when I was fifty years old. So you know, it's funny once you win an election, people call you a politician as a term of derision, and I have been called by opponents, oh, career politician. Well, if I started at age fifty, I guess that would be a bit of a stretch. But I was asked by others, friends and neighbors to run for what was an open seat in Campbell where we had a chance to flip it to a conservative board to reflect the conservative community. It's kind of a seventy percent Republican community. And my wife and I prayed about it, tried not to do it, tried to find somebody else to do it, because my job at Liberty. When you work in college athletics, especially in Liberty, as a campus that never sleeps, there's no spring break, fall break, summer break, winter break. You know, it's just four seven. And then when you do fundraising on top of it, I mean, it's nights and weekends, and it's events and it's travel, and I loved it. I thought, gosh, how do you tack on to that, me and a county supervisor and do a good job? So we tried to find somebody else to do it. We couldn't, and so finally, after we prayed about, we had a piece about doing it. So I ran in fifteen and then term limited myself in nineteen and just didn't have a piece or desire to run again. There's a very unusual thing in politics, you know what, confident would have overwhelmingly won reelection, but just didn't feel a piece about running again at nineteen. So I made an announcement early nineteen that I wasn't going to run again. I had a friend neighbor down the street who and where we lived in the Hunter's Mill section of Campbell County, who wanted to run, and we just referred to him, say we're not gonna run. And I didn't make some grand declaration I'm out of politics. I've it, just not running again. Had no intention to ever run again, and had some folks encouraged me to look at state, but didn't have a desire to do that how do you go off to Richmond for two months at a time I couldn't couldn't leave my job and do that. I admire and respect the ones who were able to do that, So I thought that I was finished, but Lord had other plans. Yes, it's amazing how sometimes that happens. So let's stick on this for just a second, because it's one of the things that I'm passionate about. How do you, with you being involved in athletics and fundraising, how do you get to local boards to increase funding for athletics at the school level. It's something that I've tried for many years now and can't seem to get rolling. But I think I think athletics is extremely important in education, but for some reason, it's always cut first whenever. How do you see that? That's a great question that I've never been asked, Brian, that I could not agree more with what you're saying, having grown up as a student athlete and have continued as a college athlete and then as a coach and invested in young people's lives on that with the privilege of being involved with coaching wrestling. But I agree. I think that athletics is unique in its ability again to teach life value. I mean, if you think about life, whether you're speaking of spiritual context or even just a temporal context of the you know, the lifespan. Life is really about doing today what you should do so you'll be glad later, instead of doing what's easy and comfortable today. So take academically, you study today hoping to get a grade good grade later, or to get a better an education for a better future. You work hard today because if you work hard, you can save some money, or you can provide for your family, or if you work hard today, you can hopefully get a promotion or opportunity for greater responsibility. And athletics is like that. You practice and you train, and you discipline, and you sacrifice, which is critically important life lessons, and you learn to work in something bigger than yourself, a team, you know, unity, togetherness, those kind of things just to you just hit something. We have a kid in our in our family that had not done sports and decided he was going to go for JF on the wrestling team, and I ever heard his coach tell their team, when you think you can't, you can, man, that's just right up. That's what you want. I use what I learned in wrestlings in life so much. Plus sports teaches you life is not fair correct to a large degree or to some degree. You get what you put into it. And so but what the value is the journey? It's not that And I tell the kids very often, it's not the trophy or the metal or the whatever that you want. It's what you went through to win it absolutely or to be the best and you may lose, but to be the best you can be to it's the journey and the sacrifice and the discipline and the perseverance and the toughness that you build that translates because we never until he turned it in, we never reach sort of the goal of the endgame or whatever its. Life is a journey and success is a journey. And it's also not fair. You can get injured. Gosh, I had injuries. My boys had injuries. That's not fair. You can you know, have a coach that maybe doesn't you don't agree with, and you learn to deal with a difficult boss or a difficult situation. As a matter of facts, this is applicable because the great Bill Walton, who just passed away, I remember, and he was more of a liberal, progressive kind of guy. I'd agree with them politically, and I wasn't really ever a fan of his teams per se, but I remember him once it just stuck with me. He was talking about his kids and he said, I tried to teach my kids to take joy in the success of others. Try to teach my kids to take joy and the success of others. And that's critical to life joy. You know, if we're all focused on our own and getting ours and us and so forth, but if we can learn it's a lifelong lesson to take joy and the success of others, you know, there is true joy in that. But I think but to your point, sorry to really get off on a rabbit trail there, but exactly, I think that while obviously academics are critically important in providing out Sandia education and merit based and I'm being on school choice and all these kind of things, but you you know, sports athletics is a wonderful tool. Coaches are so important. We ought to invest in those. And that's by the way, side note, I'm a big fan of the t bow bell. I wish that we had that in Virginia. We're homeschool kids could compete in their respective school districts. If it's supposed to be about the children, it's supposed to be about the kids. Why do we want to deny somebody to participate in extracurricular activities in their respective school district just because they relieve the state, in the county or the city of the burden of educating that child. Why wouldn't we want to make, you know, have all of that talent available to the program, whatever it might be. Why wouldn't we want the best for that young person in spite of the fact their parents may have chosen a different course to put them, you know, and to teach educate them at home. I wish Virginia would pass that bell. Yeah, And I tell you, in Bedford County we had to switch on our school board and people think it doesn't matter, but it absolutely matters because we've switched from a five to or a six to one school board to a four to three. Now Marcus Hill was the one person standing alone. We have switched it. And the difference is if COVID hit today, we would have kids still being able to compete. There was two hundred plus people standing outside wanting their kids to be able to compete the following year, and we still had we lost out, and we lost out, We lost four to three and kids lost a whole senior year of participating in sports. Wow, that's a whole conversation there on the government did to our children during COVID. Oh yeah, it's terrible. But all right, So moving on to let's talk about one of the things that is very important to I know Trent and I on this program is election integrity as a Republican or Democrat. I mean being sure your vote counts. Right, that's the most important thing to us. What can Congress do or what is Congress doing to ensure that election integrity is there for us? Well, it certainly is a challenge. As you know, two thirds of government, if you want to say the Senate in the White House are controlled by individuals who don't want election integrity exactly as you know, anytime you talk about it, they say, oh, that's you know, that's that's election deniers or what have you, and or that's racist. You know, you want to have IDs. You don't want to allow unsolicited mass mail ballots to be sent out. You want here against ballot harvesting or third party ballot handling or drop boxes away from polling places, or you don't want illegals to vote, or you don't want non citizens to vote. That's racist, or what have you. You're trying to suppress the vote. Your Jim crows, as Joe Biden himself said, So, the Democrats do not one election degory. They want to facilitate the right to cheap. Matter of fact, they tried to pass thankfully it didn't pass, but they tried to pass their bill when they had full control of government during my first term. It was in twenty twenty one. I think they tried to pass their right to Cheap bill. I forget what they called it, but that's essentially what it was. It was to codify into law for all fifty states. Oh yeah, the relaxed voting I'll say standards. There was no standards during the COVID virus situation. And so the Dems absolutely resist our efforts to do that. Now that said, it's a fifty state solution, and we don't really like that because we'd like to be able to waive a want and fix it at the macro level. But the Constitution gives primary responsibility for how elections are conducted to this respective state legislators. One of the reasons why I objected in January sixth of twenty one, my first couple of days in Congress, to those half a dozen states. Now we only had two states where we had senators objected with us, so that several of us rose and voiced our objection to all six of those states that were questioned Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Was because the questionable votes exceeded the margin supposed margin of victory, and they didn't in those respective states. You didn't FOI all the laws that were on the books from those state legislators, and you had non state legislators changed the voting procedures in the name of COVID such that I felt like it was unconstitutional. So anyway, all that said, so, while we would like if it's a conservative government doing conservative things, a part of us would like, Okay, let's federalize and change election law. Let's have Congress do it. But if you recognize that power to do that, then you're empowering Schumer, Biden, Pelosi as they tried to do to decide how Virginia and every other state should run their elections, and we probably wouldn't like that outcome many times. So it is a fifty state solution. Now that said, I have a bill it's called One Citizen, One Vote, which would deny federal funding for elections. So, in other words, they wouldn't get any federal resources to conduct their elections if they didn't meet five minimum standards that they if they don't prohibit illegals from voting, if they don't require voter ID, if they do unsolicited mass mail ballots, if they do allow third party ballot handling or ballot harvesting, or if they do allow drop boxes at places other than polling stations, then they wouldn't be ultiple federal funds. Now, obviously the Dems and the Senate and the President would never sign that bill. But the thing that I guess I would just put on all of us. Again, it's a state solution for all of our states. But also the one thing that a couple of things that we can do as citizens is to overwhelm the vote at the polls, make it so it's too hard to cheat because we've got such overwhelming margin of victory. And the fact is that in red areas. There's too many people who are not voting. There's too many people in our churches who are not voting. Too many people at our gun rallies or hunters or our Second Amendment advocates who are not voting. Whether it's because they're apathetic, or they think their vote doesn't count, or the election is rigged, or all the policies are the same, it doesn't matter. I hope they've suffered enough to connect politics to their lives and they'll turn out. The other thing is people to be engaged in the process as poll workers, pole watchers, election challenger, that sort of thing. We got to have a ground game that superior come November. We're never going to out cheat the Dems because our party is the party of the rule of law absolute and we have integrity. And not to say we're perfect, obviously we're made up of imperfect people. But the Dems, the ends justifies the means, and they're trying to already rig the election by trying to keep the president off the ballot or trying to put them in jail. This suppression of information, the collusion with the big tech to control information, the weaponization of the government against its citizens, and they're going for broke because they know their goose is cooked. If we can prevail with all both houses in the White House in November. We talk about it on the show all the time about somehow, some way technology gets better and better, but somehow it takes longer and longer for elections for the votes to be counted. Now not in Florida. Yeah, that's so incredible. Florida. You got what the third most populous state, and they can have the results very quickly in a purplish state. People think it's a red state out This is the hanging chats of twenty years ago. It's not that long ago that we had a Democrat governor Democrat senator in the state of Florida. But Florida can do it, But Arizona it takes days. And California they were still counting Garvey and the eight weeks later, they were still counting the primary vote. And they are conditioning us sure so that it takes much longer. Yeah, my whole adult life, it's never taken this long. But this year is I'm worried that what happened in twenty twenty, I have not seen the is going to be any different. I don't. I mean, maybe I'm wrong on that, but is ballot harvesting still happening? Is dropbox is still happening. It's very scary, and we're right to be concerned. If we don't have election tager, we don't really have anything. I do think there's been improvements in some of these states, and I certainly hope and pray that is the case. Virginia seems to be better than most. And I've tried to push for the House committee that has jurisdiction. I'm not on that committee, but the House Committee on Administration has jurisdiction for election oversight. I've tried to help connect that committee to some individuals who are at the forefront of the election integrity battle, particularly as it applies to machines and the security and the integrity of our voting machines. And so I'll just leave it at that. There's so much to be concerned about that I'll give a sports example because that's what we talk a lot about. Sure, but it was amazing to me when I watched the US Open that they were so accurate. I remember a couple of years ago they were so accurate on the calls, and you know, they used to do the camera thing, the show that it was and it was always right, and they even had a judge that would yell out or in or whatever, and all of it. I realized later all of that was mechanical. It was so it was controversial with the start, but then all the players that were for and the players that were against it realized when it was a level playing field and it was all automated, they loved it because they know it's for on it to be right. They didn't it threw out the and both sides. I don't understand why this is even a controversy once once it's fair, but when you can't win on policy, I guess it tells you everything you need to know that they don't want it to be fair, they don't want integrity, but they also want to utilize every opportunity to make everything about race, which is racist. To suggest that minorities can't get exactly they would want they would want it is a racist thing obviously to say that, And you know that's an eighty percent of issue eight percent Americans won election integrity, Yeah, exactly. But as a Republican, so you touched on it earlier about I mean you do. As a Republican, you feel like you're constantly battling the party within itself to make sure we are and you know, we have integrity within the party. That seems to be a fight constantly, and it's a fight that I love. At the same time, there's so much frustration that when you see twenty sixteen happen, Trump wins and within days they're announcing, you know, Russia, the collusion committees that are going to look at the collusion and all this other stuff, and we spend four years of that, people go to prison, and then you know, we're looking at the other side of Okay, we know that you know, Hillary Clinton and all the stuff that they did, and nothing ever happens. So it does get frustrating as a voter to see. But at the same time you understand we're trying to do bigger and better things. But at the same time, this stuff keeps happening, and it's like, when will we start winning? Start And I will say with uh, with this group, the Jim Jordan's that you all of them, it seems to be we're finally at least fighting a fight, at least we hear people like you saying the things that, well, you're the first person I've ever donated to. You don't know, but when you did what you did with Kevin McCarthy, I was like, I am so tired of the Kevin McCarthy's that we're running things that say everything you want to hear, then get elected and do nothing that they said that they want to do, except when the third year rolls back around or the second year rolls back around, they start saying it again or say enough about the other side. That makes you think and I'm just tired of that. And you are not that at all. And Matt Gates and you and the leadership, the Jim Jordan, those people are what we I mean. It might be a ground swell, but like you said in wrestling, you got to build it so you become something. And that's why we've our big fancy thank you, Thank you for that. That's the a tremendous compliment on your support and actually a lot of our supporters and donors over the past four years or so since I started this journey, we were the first person they contributed to politically, and I think it can be demonstrably shown that I have not done what is best for me politically in the things that I've done since I've been in office, and I have the scars and the attacks and the enemies and the opponents and the money being spent against me. Accordingly that I've done what I believe was right. I've done what I said I would do. I stand behind everything that I've done since I first started to run for office in Gamble County eight years ago, nine years ago now, and then for Congress almost five years ago. And you know, if I was looking out for my reelection or for Bob Goods's political career, I would do things very differently. But I'm already an old guy. But I don't plan to grow old in Congress the older Okay, So people that don't know the fifth District, the history of the fifth District is phenomenal. I when you first when you just punch it up and you start reading about the fifth dist I mean, you have the very first congressional battle is James Madison in Monroe. Right, So you got you got the fourth and fifth president eventually racing against each other for you the seat that you're in. That's right. I Mean there's a lot of history. It feels like that kind of battle now, I mean, honestly, where you should be the safest of all people, and then yet you have a campaign that is attacking you on which the ads are amazingly and I won't say effective. When I go down the road, I'm like, how could you be attacking Bob? I mean, it'd be the lastie to make it sound like you're not right enough? Is preposterous. Where where is this campaign against you? Is it the Kevin McCarthy Is it? Is it the Donald Trump Desantus thing? Do you have any thoughts on well, so on the fifth District. I just touched on that for a second, then go to the politics the day. But you're right to have a district that was first represented by James Madison, our fourth president, you know, the author, primary author of our constitution, to have ties to Thomas Jefferson. Obviously Monticello's in district. Popular Forest is near here right in the district. We've got ties to Patrick Henry with his home Redhill, which I was just at for a naturalization ceremony just a week or two ago. We the nation came together again in an appomatics. We've got the history of Barbara Johns in Farmville. I bragged to my friends up in DC that we have the most historic of districts in the most historic of states, and we are really the center of the founding of our country. We need the politics of it, of the current politics of the day. You've got a combination of things. To your point, how did we get to where we are? On the one hand, I have an opponent who is a relentless politician, who's a He is the opposite of what we were talking about Brian a few moments ago about how I first got into politics. I did not seek running for Congress. I didn't go to that part. People after I had said in early nineteen I wasn't going to run again. The summer of nineteen, people came to me and asked me to run against our incumbent, brand New he'd only been there a few months at that point, previous congressman who was a rhino, so we already knew he was a motor he's a rhino, he's betraying the trust of Republicans. And then after we beat him by the way he came out against the president, he came and worked for Jender Nancy Plussi's JA sixth Commission. He worked for Hunter Biden. I mean, he's just a disaster. But we're out spent eight to one. Didn't seek that out. Others asked me to do it. I thought, gosh, how do you run for Congress if you're not self employed, independently wealthy, retired again, had this real demanding job. Turns out you quit your job and go for a year without income to take on an incumbent where by the way, everybody was endorsing my at that time boss where I worked at the university. The former president of Little University endorsed my opponent. Oh well, President Trump endorsed my opponent. Kevin Karthy endorsed my opponent. I was out spent eight to one. Uh. Somehow, Lord's grace, with a lot of hard work from a lot of people, we won that nomination contest and then the general. By the way, in twenty twenty, if you remember this fella named Cameron Webb out of Charlotte's. The Dems had their dream candidate. They thought he was a doctor, lawyer out of Charlottesvielle, sharp guy. They thought this is the next Obama. It was their number one takeover seat. They thought, gosh, this right wing guy. He says he's a biblical and constitutional conservative. Nobody's going to vote for him. The party's divided because he beat the accumba and they spent eleven million. We were just getting crushed kind of like we are today by these negative, dishonest distortions, and we somehow won with fifty two percent of the vote. But so that, but that, I had friends and neighbors asked me to run in nineteen for the twenty twenty race. They said, hey, we can't get a state delegate or a state senator to take on this incumbent congressman because it's really hard to meet an incumbent, which is kind of nice for me now, but it's really hard to meet an incumbent, and we're looking for a conservative supervisor. We know you probably won't do it because he just said you're not running again for supervisors or any chance. And I said, you know what, I can't say no out of hand. Let my wife and I pray about it, and she was dead set against it at first, but we just felt the Lord open the door and lead us, and we said we'd lead it open, We'll go through it. End up quitting my job my opponent's very different. Again, I've run for two things in my life, neither of which did I seek out fifty five when I got to Congress or got elected the first time. And my opponent is a perpetual candidate source of a race. He's run for as many as four things within a twelve month period. He tried to primary me two years ago when he found out he's running against Spanberger again in the seventh district. Then he found out he was in the fifth district, so he tried to primary me, didn't get much traction, missed the filing deadline, runs for state Senate, asked me to support him, and I don't support people who primary me. He lies during the primary race for state Senate saying he won't run for Congress because people knew some people suspected he would. He liked multiple people. He could have never won that nomination if he didn't run against me, or excuse me, if he had acknowled he was going to run against me, and so then he has an uncontested race last November in the general, so we knew he was really covertly running for Congress when he was running the general race. And then of course after he wins, before he's sworn in, he declares for Congress. So you have an ambitious, self serving individual who will do or say anything to try to win a race and to reach for the next rung on the political ladder. I think he's underestimated how people view him. That combined with you us, how do we get here. You've got enemies in DC who when you take on the establishment of status quo and you disrupt, they got a cabal there. They got a system that works for the uniparty that doesn't work for us, and they think they got a good thing going, and it's all about getting elected and re elected and don't challenge your status quo. And so when you do what you mentioned a few moments ago, Trent, and you take on the former speaker, and you challenge your own party when it's wrong, and when you believe that the things we campaign on, the things we say, he should be more than just every two years talking points or slogans. We ought to actually do that. Most of Washington on our side, even they run as conservatives, they vote as moderates, and they go back and lie to their constituents about what they're voting on. Because you can take a thousand page bill that's a trillion dollars and talk about some good sounding things that are in there, ye, or you know, or when you vote against it, as I have, my opponent can take that and say, oh, he was against these things that sound good in there. Yes, they don't. You know not he doesn't say, Bob voted against climate change. Bob voted against LGBTQ funding and transgender funding and abortion funding and DEI and CRT. Oh, No, he voted against something that sounds good. And that's the old track. They're going to slip something in there that then that can campaign against you because you would have voted against the bigger bill. And it's so obvious. But man, those ads are effective. Yeah, they're effective. And I will say my race is much bigger than me against my opponent. It literally is the established swamp trying to take out the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. Really, it's an attack on the House Freedom Caucus, the ones who are the fighters, the ones who are the warriors, to say, you know what, don't try we'll take you out, We'll make an example of you, to scare off this kind of thing going forward. And so you've got the former speaker who's on his revenge tour. He quit Congress because he wasn't willing to serve if he wasn't speaker, and he said, I'm going to spend millions of dollars to try to defeat the people who, you know, were I blame for me not being the speaker anymore. He doesn't blame himself, he blames other people. And so you've got my opponent would do it for almost nothing because it's the kind of person he is, and he's a dishonest guy. And then you combine that with lots of moneys from the deep State, from the swamp, from California and DC millions of dollars, and then you get those ads that you're talking about. Yeah, can you speak a little bit? Look so brown? And I read enough about politics to be dangerous, and we do a show which is even more dangerous. Can you can you describe what the Freedom Caucus is exactly? That that's partydom Caucuschairman was started in I think twenty fifteen. I wasn't there at the time, of course, but by Mark Meadows, former congressro North Carolina and Trump's chief of staff and Jim Jordan and they were the first two chairman Jordan first and then Mark Meadows, followed by Andy Biggs from Arizona, Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, then myself. And by the way, I'm so thankful and privileged to be entrusted with a leadership with the Freedom Caucus. I want to draw a contrast there for you chairman of committees, like got a couple of chairman of committee supporting my opponent. They are not elected by the members. We members have no say I'm on the budget committee, I'm on the Education Workforce Committee. We don't get to pick our chairman. The party boss is the establishment leadership picks the chairman. And there's three ways you get to become a chairman of a committee in Washington. Number one, raise money for the party. Of course, that clearly qualifies you to run a committee. How much money raised. Two, do whatever the party tells you to do. They tell you how to vote, they tell you what to do, and you follow. You run the play the team calls, irrespective of what you believe or your own integrity. And thirdly, be an establishing minor at Rhino. That's how you get to be chairman of a committee. Generally, the Freedom Caucus. The thirty five members of the caucus vote and select their chairmen. So the members of the Freedom of Caucus to select me as chairman back in December or start to serving January, takeover for Scott Perry from Pennsylvania. But the Freedom Caucus exists, I would say for two reasons. One to be the conservative conscience, the conservative anchor of the Republican Party. That we ought to be who we say we are, do what we say we will do, stand for the things we say we will stand for, fight for the things we should fight for, and actually hold true to what we say we're about as Republicans. I often say, it doesn't matter what you believe if you're not willing to fight for what you believe. We all know good people around us. We sit by them in church on Sunday, or maybe they're in our family, or they're our friends or our neighbors, good solid people who love the country, love the Lord, love the right things. But we wouldn't necessarily follow them into battle. They're not really fighters, risk takers, tough so in politics, so it doesn't matter what you believe it you're not willing to fight for. So Freedom call because is the conservative anchor of the party. Secondly, we are willing to challenge our own party when we're wrong. We're constitution first, country first, principal first. And because we're conservatives, and we're constitutional conservatives and I say courageous conservative warriors, we have no choice but to be Republicans because the Democrat parties become communists who hate the founders, hate the Constitution, hate the country, hate the principles upon which were found them. So the Democrat Party they're in lockstep. They're whether they talk like moderates, like the one who wants to be our governor, or our two senators who vote like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but they feel bad about it. They talk like moderates. When they come back to the district, the Dems vote in lockstep. There's no daylights worth the difference between Abigail Spanberger and aoc or, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, and again Bernie Sanders and Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren. They all vote the same. They all vote the same now because and here's the to another difference, by the way Democrats runs half of them. They run as moderates, and they all vote like communists. Republicans all run as conservatives, but half of them vote like moderates when they get there. It's the total opposite of that. And then what the party tells you, you know what, just vote for this, you know what will We'll cover you in your district. We'll spend money in your district. We'll come down and do fundraisers for you. We'll put you on a better committee assignment, will help you even though you're doing what your voters don't want you to do. In your district, We'll cover for you. And they hate the Freedom Caucus because now, especially where we can go straight to the public through communication channels, we expose them, We name and shame them, and they get mad at me for telling people how they voted. I'm like, if you say, that's the good for your district, because you got you should want people to know how you vote. I'm just trying to help you. As matter of fact, you can tell all of the voters in my district how I voted because I stand behind what I did and I want them to know it. Why don't you want the people in your district to know how you voted? And it really is incredible, But they hate us for it. And I'll tell you I took the free class from Hillsdale Constitution. Of course it'd be the free one, but I will tell you it's amazing how different when I went through that class of what I learned in high school compared to that class teaching me about the Constitution. And it opened my eyes to what we've kind of talked about on the program, that gridlock is a good thing. We need to be ironing out these bills so that it is good for everyone and not the left or the right. And we're working and we should be passing. The less you're passing, the better off we are. You are exactly right. I got a tee off on that. Well, you're exactly right. Brian chip Roy, my friend from Texas who's one of the most effective members of Congress, maybe the most effective in my view. But we're talking about the first and man, is that a rally we were doing in Charlottesville just a couple of weeks ago where we had one hundred and fifty people turned out on a less than twenty four hours notice. We literally at our rally in Charlottesville, which is the bluest part of my district, but we had one hundred and fifty people turn out on twenty four hour notice, which literally is a larger crowd than the cumulative amount of people who've come to all the quote events my opponent has had in seven months. By the way, he doesn't he's kind of run the bide in basement strategy, has no events and has nobody come out for him. But Chip Broyce said it, and I'm giving him credit. Sometimes we still stuff. We don't give each other credit. But he was talking about the First Amendment and he says, you know, Congress shall make no law. He said, we should have just stopped right there. And of course it goes on to say respect or establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof But you're right. When we get criticized sometimes that this Congress has been one of the least effective we've not gotten you should say, good, praise the Lord, thank God for that, because the less we do, the better, especially in divided government. And so when somebody says that to me, oh, you guys aren't showing you can get things on, you can govern. You guys are in past, And I say to them, okay, recognizing that Chuck Schumer runs the Senate and Joe Bye and is in the White House. Tell me what you wish we did more of that, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden would agree to take up now next year, god willing, we've got Trump in the White House, a Republican Senate, and hopefully expand a House majority, then we would justly deserve criticism that Republicans aren't delivering if we don't. But divided government, you want us saying no, no, no, no, no to Schumer and Biden because we don't have the ability to overturn a lot now where we are failing. It's just the opposite that they want. We ought to be passing Republican stuff out of the House and then having a fight with the Senate and the White House instead the previous speaker, and I'm sad to say the current speaker. What they do is is what they've done, is they decide, Okay, what will the Senate take, what will the White House take? So we can keep the government open, because we can't shut down the very government that's destroying the country, by the way, so let's pass out of the House what the Senate and the White House will agree to. So we have a seamless transition and no disruption. Because we love government and government is so great, we got to show we can govern and get things done, no matter how harmful it is to the country. And so the Freedom Caucus, to back to Trend's question, has existed to fight that, or does exist to fight that and to expose that and say no, we ought to actually do republican stuff. And the House is responsible what the House does. We're not responsible the Senate of the White House do, and better to shut down the government if necessary to force a fight over the border. Why would we fund the border invasion that we campaign against. Why would we fund the policies that we ran against. Why wouldn't we demand the Senate meet us halfway and say, you know what, if you won't meet us halfway and we'll have some give and take because we only control one house, then dog on it. We're not going to fund the government because we have the power of the purse. But too many are cowards, cowards, absolute cowards, and uh oh no, we'll fight next time exactly, and unfortunately next time never gets there. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because let's talk about a fight that well, not really a fight. But the Freedom Caucus, you guys, you know, you seem to always try to make it right. And so Marjorie Taylor Green tell me a little bit about how this, you know, she gets I most hope I'm wording it properly, but basically out out of the Freedom Caucus, right. So is that a conversation that had the two guys have, Hey, you know you're not falling with what our principles are? Does that how this? Well, Brian, the only thing I know to do is to be real. And I'm the same person publicly and privately. And if you're just consistent and tell the truth, then you don't have to remember who you told what. So when the General Lady from Georgia came to Congress, we came in as freshman in twenty twenty. We both liked it to start serving January twenty one. We were aligned conservatives, both fighters both but something happened a year in and I won't try to explain it or understand it or defend it, but she made some kind of a deal with Kevin McCarthy and I. Matt Gates and I were leading the run up to and ultimately the challenge to the former speaker towards the end of twenty twenty. I'm sorry, at the end of twenty two, going into January of twenty three, when the ultimate Speaker challenge happened the first time on we had the fifteen votes, and I assumed she would be with us in that challenge because she had also run as a disruptor and challenge of service quo and anti establishment and change and so forth. And when I called her to ask her, would she be willing would she be joined this as the fall of twenty around September October, when we're trying to kind of get ahead count if the margins are narrow enough after the election and we've got the leverage, can we try to block because what Republicans have always done is we just elect next in line, the presumptive speaker, just Otaman on the floor, and it's you know, whoever's been you know, kind of sticking into the country in leadership for you know, a dozen years. Well, opposites promote them and make them the speaker, because you know, that's how we got the thirty at that time, thirty trillion dollars in debt and twenty percent approval rating in Congress so obviously we should just keep doing what we're doing. Yeah. So when I was reaching out Gates and Irich, okay, who's with us on this fight? I was very surprised when she said, basically, no, he's become a friend. I'm going to support him. And you know, she apparently got some committee promises and some things that she wanted and so forth. I don't know and don't understand it. And so she was against us in the January of twenty three when were challenging the previous speaker, and then when her base reached out and express their disappointment. Yes, she was not just supporting him, but she was vocal in it. I mean, she was carrying his water. She got tremendous pushback in her Ruby Red district, and herm when that happens is not to recalibrate take responsibility. Was to then turn and direct her ire, if you will, her her anger at those who were challenging the speaker, and she was very vocal in her criticism, her dishonest criticism, that we were lying to the American people, we were going to elect a Democrat. She even went on a really well known radio parle guess and said, I said I would vote for a Democrat, which was totally untrue. Obviously, she said we're going to elect a Democrat speaker, which we knew there was no chance that was going to happen. We knew every Democrat was going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. There was no risk going to electing Debath. But oh, they have no plan. You couldn't have a direct plan because the way the status the SWANMPT works, you cannot raise your hand and say I want to be speaker as long as there's a chance and the presumption that the majority of the minority at the time was going to be speaker, because if you were part of the overthrow, there's no chance you were going to be speaker. So you had to lay low and wait until the deal was done. And then we had a contest. So and anybody we thought should become a speaker, once we named them, there was no chance. So you had to be covert, you had to be discreet and just try to block it. And it ultimately that led to some changes to rules and processes, which were healthy and which were good. So anyway, that's what started the strain with the Freedom Caucus. Then in the summer of twenty three, she just continued to attack members publicly that were in the Freedom Caucus, and it was clear she wasn't with us, and so ultimately we voted her out of the Freedom Caucus. And so there since that time, she's had a personal vendetta against me. She hates me. You know, if you think about the inconsistency there, kind of her closest I'll say, ally she's kind of an island to herself, but her kind of closest ally in the Congress is probably mister Massey. If you know, I thing about mister Massey. If it was about the president, she wouldn't be allies with mister Massey because he was a vocal opponent of the president with his supportive former Governor De Santis and really has had a very rocky relationship with President Trump since he's been there, going back to the COVID days. So it's it's really an interesting inconsistency there, and so that's why I would expect, Well, I mean, that's listen, my three strongest are you, Matt Gates, and I'm a huge Rand Paul fan. Yeah, to be on a rally with Ran on Monday. By the way, here in the district Monday in Lynchburg, one o'clock Redeeming Grace Baptist Church. It's free, but you need to RSVP on our website. Bob good for Congress dot Com. But Ran Paul, who's been a tremendous help, a tremendous outlly. I meet with him regularly in DC. He's one of the senate, courageous conservative warriors. And but he's coming to our district on Monday in Lynchburg. I was, I'm just being honest with you. I was not a fan of his in the two thousand, probably twelve somewhere running there. You know, I was one of those guys that bought bought into the whole. We've got to fight for other places because we have to preserve liberty. I was that guy. I was, you know, I was holding the George Bush. Yes, that guy. You know. I was all of that. And Ran Paul's just steadfast in his beliefs, slowly got me just moving forward, you know. Of Yeah, this is right. He is as bad as Trump was on the debate stage of just humiliate he really did. But Rand Paul, to his credit, effectively led and helped I think Donald Trump do a phenomenal job on foreign affairs. Yes, and I think a lot of that came from rand Paul. And ran Paul became a huge supporter for Trump. He's a hero, he really is. He's one of the strongest, most I would say, top two or three senators. He knows the Constitution, he's highly principal. He was ahead of his time, as you're right, he is. Most Republicans have come around to realize that ran Paul was right, is right, and so yeah, we're so thankful to have his support. Speaking of people that are running and Republicans and that type of thing. Like I said, Brian, and I feel like we're a stude and keep up with things. And I went to one of your rallies and it said, since they laid the rules, lived by the rules they've given us, go vote early. And I was like, yeah, you know what, I'm gonna go do that, so and then tell my friends to go vote early. Know, I want to elect you there. So I'm gonna go and go take care of it. And then I won't even know wear the districting lines. I know in the fifth district, you have Danville, you have Lynchburg, Charlottesville. I live in forest, so you have us, and so I go there and then all of a sudden, I look down and I say, we have people running for Senate, right we have? We had five or six names running for Senate. And I was like, I didn't even know. I'm not even informed. I have no idea who to vote for here, I don't I don't know what to do. So I didn't. I didn't put it. I didn't put it in check mark that that's Brian Leater. I said, since I didn't vote, can I go back and do a second one vote second time? So I mean you're in the know if is Have you made an endorsement for the primary. Yes, I've endorsed Scott Parkinson out of Northern Virginia. He's a good friend I've known for about five years now, and I'm not against any of the candidate. I think we've got a good group, but Scott Parkinson, who is who I've endorsed. But it does tell you the challenge of running statewide. It's a challenge to have the resources and the name. I d to inform everybody across the state because these guys have been running since the end of last year. Anyway, certainly, gosh, probably someone for a full year now, but and obviously being an incumbent, it's a challenge in the Senate. You've got Caine's got millions of dollars. He has an image as a moderate to some ill informed people, even though I mean it was Hillary Clent Clinton's running mate, and again his voting record mirrors Bernie Sanderson and Elizabeth Warren and before that Kamala Harris when she was in there. But some people think he's a reasonable monitor because he acts like that when he's in the Commonwealth. But yeah, so we do have five candidates, and I've endorse Scott Parkinson. Well we ever get something I talk about in that with her family. Southwest Virginia just seems to never have a representative at that level. Will we ever? Do you think Virginia will ever get back because it seems like everybody flocks to Northern Virginia to find a candidate. Well, it is true, as I think through these candidates, I believe four of them are Northern Virginia and one of them is Virginia Beach. And again I'm I'm a supporting cost Scott Parks and I think he'd be excellent were aligned on values and principles and so forth. But you're right, Southwest is tougher. And I think it's a reflection too of the concentration of power in Richmond. From on the state level. All the leadership positions seem to come from Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. And some of that's just because obviously population there's more people, but also the Democrats are all concentrated in those area. There's the Democrats have nobody in Southwest pretty much anymore, even for But yeah, you're exactly right. Well, I just thought it was effective when Glenn Younkin ran that he actually did something that a lot of them don't. They do not focus on Southwest Virginia. And yet he came, and he came many many times, and it was on election night you could see that paying offer him, especially in the Blacksburg area in places like that. And so I'm wondering if it is a shift coming that while we're not going to have that power that we used to have way back when. I mean, for even though he was a state for the longest time we had been, the Bedford area had Putney that was a massive, you know, influencer for this area. I do feel like we at least now have even though it's not a loud voice, we at least have a voice. And you're coming, you know, coming to Lynchburgh with Rand Paul and things like that. It does help us feel like maybe they aren't listening. You know, yeah, you're you're right. I would submit that the reason why one of the reasons why I certainly Governor Youngkin did win and why we won state wide and twenty one was because the turnout in Southwest and the fifth and the sixth and the ninth district was ninety percent. I mean, it was like coming out for him, like, I mean, it was incredible to turn out in the margin of victory in those areas to help offset the more blue purple areas around the state. And that's what happens to us. We're just assumed, we just have become well, we know we're going to be read. It doesn't mean anything. And I like what Charlie Kirk is doing turning point down in Arizona, chasing ballots, that's what they call it. They're they're making the people that just assume, you know, we were going to our county is going to be read anyway, is to go get those votes. Your votes matter, every single one of them matters against what's blue. But across the state, the lesson there is in twenty two midterms and in twenty three state midterms, the reds didn't turn out. That's exactly like they did in twenty one, and that's why we didn't do as well as we'd hoped. Yeah, that's exactly right. June eighteenth is approaching quickly, twenty days. What can aired listeners do? Where do they need to go to show their support contributions? Thank you for asking us. A number of ways people can help. First is to friends, point, go vote now, Go vote early during normal business hours. You can vote at your municipal center, your registrar depends on your county exactly where that is. But something can happen election day. You can be called out of town, you can have a family emergency, you can have a health situation, and you, despite your best intentions, you don't vote. So while I think it should be election day, that's what the constitution says, unfortunately long in Virginia's forty five days. So my wife and I vote early. We don't vote often like Democrats, but we do vote early. And so please go out and vote now. We'll have Saturday voting on the eighth and the fifteenth, not this Saturday, the first, but the next two Saturdays, if that's more convenient for you, but please vote early. Secondly, we do need your help. We're being massively outspent by the deep state dark super pac money. We have raised more money in our campaign than our opponent has. Not overwhelmingly more, but we've raised more. We've raised maybe a million two to his million or so. We've gotten more than ten times a number of donations from the fifth district. He literally got eleven eleven donations in the first quarter from people in the fifth distory, where we received over one thousand. So the grassroots are behind us. We are going to win this. The ground game is far superior for us. The volunteers are far superior, the door knockings far superior. The local officials who are supporting us, the GOP leaders, the grassroots as well as the local electors are overwhelmingly for us. That's something that doesn't show up in the DC and are on the headlines or in the media. But what we do need their help. At Bob Goodforcongress dot Com, they can contribute. Everybody contribute a little bit. Now's the time to do it because twenty days out. The earlier you do it, the better we can use it to impact the campaign with a couple of more mailers, a couple more ads. Secondly, put up signs, you know, contact the web site, say you want to sign, put up a yard sign. Volunteer to make phone calls, to knock doors. Again, there's only twenty days to do it. Volunteer to work the polls and give out the efferent. We will have far more ground game there, given out voter information, voter guides on election day. But if you don't want this seat bought by the d C swamp, by the California d C special interests. It was Eric Kenner, the former majority leader who Dave Ratt defeated, who took my opponent to d C to show him around and introduce him to the Rhinos swamp establishment. By the way, very different and Brian kind of touched on this. The people supporting me, they come to the district and campaign with me, Chip Roy, Matt Gates, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, Andrew Clyde, Mark Meadows and so forth. The people supporting my opponent. He cannot bring him to the district because he doesn't want people to see that the people who vote the wrong way in d C, the establishment moderate rhinos, are who he would vote like if he ever got to d C. But so we need people giving out the information on election day, working the polls. I trust the people the fifth district I received in twenty twenty the first time I ran the most votes any congressional cannon has ever gotten the history of the fifth district two hundred and ten thousand votes in twenty twenty two in a midterm. While the gross numbers were not as high because of the midterm not a presdential year, we got a larger margin of victory. We went from fifty two percent to fifty seven percent. I'm not entitled denomination. It belongs to the people, But I try trust them. I don't believe they're swayed after three and a half years by negative ads or endorsements or whatever. You you know, if after three and a half years, they need to figure out who's endorsing me, decide if they're support me or if they're going to watch a TV ad that says, you know, Bob's been fighting for the border from three and a half years, I thought, But this ad says he's for the border invasion. Or Bob's a little conservative leader in Congress who leads the Freedom Caucus and he's done what he said. But you know, this ad says he's a rhino. I don't think folks are believing that in the fifth district, not seeing evidence of that. I think it's really motivated and engage the grassroots, the core Republicans who will turn out, so we expect to win, but we can take nothing for granted. It's going to be a battle. The money's on their side, and we after everything we can to make sure we win. Thanks. You want to ask yeah question, Yeah, we always I'll put you on the spot here. Every guest we have on we always ask this question. If you could pick anyone in history and go back or somebody current, who would you want to spend twenty four hours with and where would you want to spend it with them? I think it'd be George Washington. You know, I think he's our greatest president. To think about what he did, the way he led the Continental Army against all the odds, against all the resources, and even just a portion of the population in the colonies even was for the revolution. Just about a third of it was actively for the revolution, and then only about ten percent of those were actually participating in fighting. That the three percenters you probably heard, that ragtag bunch, terribly out resource, terribly outgunned by the dominant world power. And to lead that army to that victory, and then to have the people try to make him king. Who would turn down? I mean, we're all human, right, we're all motivated sometimes by the wrong things. But to turn down the chance to become king, which of course was in principle that you'd like to think that you would respond the same way. And then to term limit himself to eight years, when he could have stayed president as long as as he wanted to. And just when you read this farewell address, I think he's our greatest president, our greatest leader, and the Lord raised him up at just the right time to found this experiment in democracy, rule of the people, by the people, for the people. Abraham lincol would say eighty years later, this self rule, this constitution that limited not what the people could do, but what the government could do. So I think he, among our founding fathers, was at the forefront, and I think he's our greatest president. So I think we George Washington. And it's outside the district, but Mount Vernon be a great place to Yeah, that'd be cool. Well, Bob Good Congressman incumbent, get out and vote. Thank you for spending your time today with us, and we appreciate you. Thank you, Brian and trying great to be with you guys. Thank you for your service. Thank you