Join us for an insightful conversation as John Rush welcomes John Hart, the visionary CEO of Open the Books. The episode explores the intricate relationship between taxpayers and federal accountability, emphasizing the critical need for transparency and structural change. Highlighted themes include combating government waste, the significance of legislative reform, and leveraging the collective power of citizens. This thought-provoking dialogue offers a glimpse into the strategic initiatives aimed at preserving democracy and empowering the electorate.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 06 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 03 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job first. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 10 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 14 :
All right, we are back. Hour 2, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Myself, Andy Pate. Of course, Charlie is our engineer. John Hart joining us, CEO of Open the Books. Like I said earlier, John, welcome. How are you? I’m great. Thanks for having me. Always a joy. And first thing I ask most guests right now, especially those that are on our side of the aisle, is how much have you enjoyed the past week?
SPEAKER 07 :
I really think this is a 1989 moment for the United States. It’s a chance to tear down the bureaucratic wall that has separated we the people from their government. So we’ve had this 100-year growth of the administrative state, and there’s a historic opportunity. to reverse it. So I’m very hopeful. There’s a lot of ways you can go off the rails, but there’s a lot of things that can go right. And I have great confidence in we the people’s wisdom to push things in the right direction.
SPEAKER 14 :
And again, for those of you listening, we interview open the books, you know, John, you and others from your organization on a pretty routine basis. And you guys have done just a A how should I say just over the years, you guys have done just phenomenal work when it comes to finding, you know, government waste. A lot of the things that I know this administration is going to be looking at, you guys have already done. So I guess really quick before we get into some of the things that your thoughts are when it comes to Doge and so on. How much or has this administration reached out to you guys to even align with some of the facts that you guys have found when it comes to government waste over the years?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, look, I don’t want to – I’m always hesitant to be too specific about when people reach out to us, but I’ll tell you that we’ve been a very close contact.
SPEAKER 04 :
We want recordings.
SPEAKER 07 :
With decision makers, right? Exactly. Speaking of – yeah, I would say visibility does not mean voyeurism. There’s no surveillance.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, and I also know, John, that with what you guys put out, the fact that you’ve got not only a website, but you do these sorts of interviews and different things as well, and you’ll pull out different papers on things that you recently find on certain things. I mean, that stuff is public. I mean, any of these folks could have read those things over the years, and I’ve got to believe they have.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I’ll say, just a couple of tidbits I’m comfortable sharing. I mean, yes, the administration’s reached out to us. We’ve got great contacts over there. But I’m also encouraged by how much initiative Congress is taking. So there’s a Doge caucus in the House and Senate. They’ve already used a lot of our material. There’s an open line of communication. And that’s encouraging because really, for these changes to go into effect, they have to be made permanent through legislative action. So I’m a fan of a lot of the executive orders, particularly the ones on DEI and affirmative action and energy. Those are really helpful and necessary. But you’ve got to lock these savings in through legislation. Absolutely. And that’s what we hope to see happen. And I worked on the Hill for years. I was the late Senator Coburn’s longtime comms director. He was a legendary fiscal conservative, proved that you really can cut waste if you focus on it and do the hard work. We got rid of earmarks for a decade and helped write the legislation that actually enabled Open the Books to exist. So we created USA Spending. which put all federal spending online, that has empowered citizens to hold their government accountable. Because, again, it’s this belief that the elites in our country, they’re not in Washington. They’re people driving right now, listening, who care about the future of the country and want to be involved and just want the information that they need to make good decisions. And so we have a tremendous… faith and confidence in the collective wisdom of the crowd.
SPEAKER 04 :
John, how has it changed the narrative and, shall we say, the political lay of the land for you to have, for the first time ever, the head honcho at X basically broadcasting all government waste? So for the first time ever, you’ve got Elon Musk telling everybody how right John Hart has been. Well, it is extraordinary. I hear he has posters of you all over his home.
SPEAKER 07 :
I doubt that. No, but it is thrilling, and I cannot tell you how gratifying it is. And it’s gratifying because, again, we were in the trenches doing the dirty job of identifying waste 20 years ago. So my old boss, Coburn, offered the amendment to defund the bridge to nowhere back in 2005. We lost that 82 to 15, but that really, that was a key moment in the tea party era that, and, and we did, again, we got rid of earmarks for a decade. We cut spending year to year for the first time since the end of the Korean war back in 2012 and 13. But imagine what we could have done. We had, we had an Elon Musk in our corner back then. And so it makes a huge difference. You know, it, it takes the bully pulpit and turns it up to 11 and, and it’s really an unprecedented opportunity.
SPEAKER 14 :
Really quick, there was news that came out today, of course, you know, Trump basically, not basically, Trump put a pause right now on, you know, federal grant programs reviewing whether they align or not. And I realize that’s dicey. There’ll, of course, be lawsuits coming out right off the bat because in some cases those were already discussed. you know, earmarked by Congress, although I don’t disapprove of what Trump’s doing because what he’s really doing is putting a lot of people on notice where, hey, if you are not legit and you’re just on the dole, we are coming after you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, look, to be honest with you, I think the pause idea, you know, I have mixed feelings on it because it feels like a bit of an unforced error when they don’t need to do that. The executive orders were written really well. And the Constitution gives the president all kinds of tools to play hardball with Congress. He doesn’t have the authority to really pause spending, but he does have the authority to veto bills. And so I hope it just, at a minimum, puts Congress on notice to say, he’s not messing around here.
SPEAKER 14 :
I think he and his staff around him know what you just said, but I think, again, this is just a signal. This is that flare that just went up that said, hey, guys, we aren’t dinking around here.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I mean, a lot of it, John, just seems like Trump does this to put the wind in the sails of Doge. We’re putting you on notice. Yeah, put everybody on notice and just keep the heat on and say, hey, this isn’t going away. This is mounting.
SPEAKER 07 :
Go ahead, John. Right, right. No, I absolutely hope that’s the case. I think when you’re in these titanic fights over spending, you’ve got to pick the poster child of waste really carefully. And so that’s what we did with the bridge to nowhere and, you know, shrimp on a treadmill back in the day. And last week, the focus was on the very woke, you know, LA fire department. And that’s where you want the focus to stay. You don’t want to have situations where what if someone accidentally doesn’t get their Medicaid payment? Or what if some police department is inadvertently defunded, you know, through the pause? Then you really put yourself behind the eight ball. And that’s why it’s just a tactical difference that I wouldn’t have done the pause quite in that way. And I would have.
SPEAKER 04 :
really just push for the permanent cuts and spending because that’s really what people want they don’t want these things paused they want them done that’s right they want them out budget john do you favor doing just one big thing like the bridge to nowhere and having that be the one that you you know like you just said that everybody focuses on or would you like to roll one out every single week or will people become numb to it then No, it’s really a both-and.
SPEAKER 07 :
The image that I think of a lot is that as transparency can cut through government like water cuts through stone, when it finds cracks, it can wash away mighty walls of opposition. So you want to keep that steady flow going, and even if these examples seem trivial or redundant or repetitive… All of that drip, drip, drip, drip, drip really makes a difference over the long haul. And then you have an issue with DEI that’s blatantly… DEI itself is unconstitutional. It’s a violation of the Civil Rights Act to discriminate on the basis of race. And then people realize, wow, that’s really nutty that the government has been funding this, and they’ve been funding misinformation censorship through the federal government. Those cracks in the edifice of the administrative state are big openings, but you’ve got to keep that. So it’s really both and. It’s not an either or. You’ve got to have the crazy examples, but you have to just relentlessly put out information.
SPEAKER 14 :
Realistically, and I know this is hard, you don’t have a crystal ball, I don’t either, and we don’t know what the future holds, but realistically, in the next 12 months, let’s say, what do you really feel this administration, along with, of course, Congress, and you’ve got the Senate involved in this as well, but when it’s all said and done, how much wasteful spending do you really think they can tackle and take out of the budget?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it depends on their level of courage. If they have a maximum level of courage, then they really could cut out about $2 trillion.
SPEAKER 04 :
Is that $2 trillion over how many years?
SPEAKER 07 :
Like a third of the budget, like per year. Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, because we spent $3 trillion on assistance in 2024.
SPEAKER 07 :
The overall budget is, I think, 7.6. The number that I use a lot is, in the 1980s, the Grace Commission found that one out of every three tax dollars is wasted. If you extrapolate that to the base numbers, you get it. But it is true, you can’t do that unless you’re really willing to, what I would call, save Social Security and Medicare. The big myth in Washington is that when politicians say, we’re not going to touch Social Security and Medicare, That’s code for them saying, we’re going to let Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt because we don’t have the courage to address reform. And we really can make sure that those programs exist and are fully funded for middle and lower income people. But you’ve got to means test it. You’ve got to do some things to tweak it to make sure that it really is going to be there in the future. And if they’re willing to think big in that scope, then you really can get to that big number. Otherwise, you’re looking at more in the $500 or $600 billion range.
SPEAKER 14 :
Which, by the way, is a lot of money, but nothing compared to what you said a moment ago.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s a quarter of what you were talking about.
SPEAKER 07 :
But the one thing that’s really important to think about in terms of the scope is that there’s this fallacy of the fixed pie. Like, socialists think about money as a fixed pie. Like, it’s all about redistributing the size of a pie. But in a dynamic growing economy… The pie is always growing, because you have investment and you have new wealth created. A lot of the junk in the federal budget is really focused on stopping new innovation from happening, particularly in energy. In other words, if you cut EPA by 50%, you may have a four-fold increase in energy innovation. just by getting the stupid regulations out of the way. So then you really create economic growth, and you can’t really deal with our debt and deficits unless we have a very dynamic, vibrant, growing economy. And the administration gets that. That’s why he’s focusing on AI. He’s focusing on energy. So these things really work in tandem. Gotcha.
SPEAKER 14 :
Gotcha. Good stuff. John, I always appreciate it very much. Open the Books, and those of you listening, openthebooks.com. And, John, you guys have got stuff there literally on an ongoing basis. Folks just need to click and follow. Thank you so much. You betcha, John. Appreciate you very much. Have a great night. Again, John Hart, CEO of Open the Books, veteran windows and doors, 35% off windows, 45% off doors. Call Dave today. Free labor with that as well. Find him at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 14 :
putting reason into your afternoon drive this is john rush all right we are back rush to reason denver’s afternoon rush klz 560 thank you all for joining us we appreciate it very much and one thing that i was gonna if i could have kept john on a little longer i would have but he’s busy and has all sorts of things to do and does different interviews throughout the day as well i try to honor those guys this time when they’re on and he already spent probably five more minutes with us than what had actually been planned but one thing i would ask i think andy you had the same question is how many u.s worker how many federal u.s federal workers may just quit given that trump’s their new boss and he’s requiring them to come back into the office and they may just say you know what i’m done there’s about he’s anti-dei that’s right so there’s roughly not counting the post office There’s about 2.5 million federal workers. Think about that number for a moment. 2.5 million federal workers.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you’re talking outside the post office?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, there’s 600,000 roughly in the post office, and there’s about 3 million, 3.1 million federal workers. So think about this for a moment, folks. We’ve got roughly, roughly 350 million people in the U.S. That counts old people that aren’t working anymore, young people that can’t work, babies, and so on. So think about this. There is literally, literally, if you include the post office in this, which they’re a federal worker, if you think about this, there is one for ten as far as how many workers in the federal government versus people. Folks, far too many. My gosh. I don’t care if you’re a federal worker listening to me and you don’t agree with me. Far too many workers in the federal government if there’s a one for ten ratio.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I don’t know if you noticed, I almost passed out from sheer joy.
SPEAKER 14 :
Sorry, I’m off on that too. He’d be 30, for 10% you’d need 30 million, so 1%. Yeah, whatever. Still, one in 100.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s still crazy.
SPEAKER 14 :
Still too many.
SPEAKER 04 :
I almost passed out from pure joy just at John’s suggestion of cutting the EPA in half.
SPEAKER 14 :
I’m okay with just getting rid of it.
SPEAKER 04 :
I despise the EPA.
SPEAKER 14 :
Because, frankly, and for those of you listening that would say, well, John, how are you going to keep the rivers clean? You have states. We have states’ rights. They all have their own health departments, by the way. It is so much different. dual things going on with so many different things in this country it’s just layer upon layer upon layer of government by the way from everything that’s local because i got a story for you that goes along with this so we are talking from local all the way to federal the amount of additional layers that are there on in some cases people literally doing the same job over and over again it’s nonsense
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Duplication. It happens all over the place. There’s so much redundancy. And also, hey, without the EPA’s help, California managed to destroy their water supply. OK, like you said, states can make good or bad decisions and then reap what they sow. We don’t need the EPA to tell us what to do in what we need. Our officials right there in each state who have to respond to who the voters every couple of years and basically go back to the voters and say, OK, I managed the environment well enough, but I didn’t wreck your life. How is the balance? Do you want to reelect me?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah. In other words, Andy, instead of these positions, because it happens in Colorado, it happens on a national basis. The heads of these departments, again, federally or locally, they are not elected folks. They are appointed. Which means they can’t be unelected. One of my biggest beefs. They actually, in most cases, and this is not an exaggeration, have more power over you and your business than those elected officials do. Yeah. These appointees end up with far more power. You look at Colorado and the Department of Health, and these folks are appointed, by the way, to the Department of Health. The reality is that Department of Health, in a lot of cases, has more power than your local city council, your local mayor, your local county commissioners do.
SPEAKER 04 :
John, I mean, look national. Yes, absolutely. You’re totally right. Look national for a second. You only have 50 governors. You only have 100 senators. Okay, that’s only 150 people. That’s an incredibly small, incredibly powerful group, correct?
SPEAKER 14 :
All elected, though.
SPEAKER 04 :
And yet, ask any one of them to override the EPA.
SPEAKER 14 :
They can’t. They can’t. No, they can try to pass law.
SPEAKER 04 :
They wouldn’t have a chance.
SPEAKER 14 :
They can try to get together and put some bills together to where they could pass something that would control, quote unquote, the EPA. But at the end of the day, yeah, they don’t hold a candle to the power that EPA officials, ATF officials, on down the line we go, Andy. Which means our lives are being run by people we can’t vote out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And this is something that conservatives have to start realizing. Conservatives, if you’re listening right now, you probably know a lot of young people. And young people, by and large, don’t like the right. Look at them and say, you know, one thing about our side is this. We don’t want your life controlled by people you can’t vote out. Right now, your life is being controlled by an awful lot of people you cannot vote out. You can’t vote them out. You have no control over those who are controlling you. We think you deserve that control.
SPEAKER 14 :
The only thing you can try to do in the case of, for example, your Department of Health and your state agencies is if you vote out your governor and make a change there, you might get some different people appointed to those positions that more align with you. But even that sometimes can be a crapshoot because depending upon the power that those in that department have and yield, by the way, They can become very difficult to replace, Andy. Right. And it happens constantly. Point being, a lot of these departments, and I mean a lot of these departments, three-letter agencies, I should say, federally speaking, And I guess really what needs to happen is, okay, do we believe as a country in states’ rights? If we do, which I do, if we believe in states’ rights, then some of these federal agencies, EPA being one of them, no longer need to exist. You know, you might have a board, by the way. Don’t call it the EPA and don’t have the thousands of workers, which if I looked it up, there’s probably tens of thousands of workers that work for the EPA, Andy. You could literally do what the EPA does as an overarching board to watch over what states are doing with 10 people.
SPEAKER 04 :
By the way, if I may, are you pretty excited about Donald Trump’s idea of over 80,000 IRS slash border agents? That’s a great example, by the way. I love it. Okay, so somebody comes into power and they can actually move this people.
SPEAKER 14 :
By the way, I wasn’t too far off. There’s 18,700 EPA workers.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
By the way, that’s 18,690 more than they need. Yes. In my opinion. Look, they don’t need them.
SPEAKER 04 :
But here’s a great example. Once again, young people or anyone who knows a young person, listen for a moment. Donald Trump comes in, gets rid of the EV mandate. What does that mean? People look and say, oh, he doesn’t care about the planet. Okay, let me ask you something, young person. Do you want to help pay for somebody else’s car?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I own one. My car.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
You want to help pay for my car?
SPEAKER 04 :
Do you want to help pay for John Rush’s car?
SPEAKER 14 :
Literally, that’s what you’re doing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they should because John Rush is a great guy. Thank you. I think John Rush deserves to have these poor young kids who are trying to get enough money to go to college and are working at McDonald’s. They should also pay for John Rush’s car because you’re a great guy, John. you know and you care literally that that explanation is what’s happening andy you do you guys want to help pay for john rush’s car i don’t think so no look by the way i don’t want you right guys the evs if they’re such a great idea they’ll sell on their own and here’s the thing evs right now are a toy for the rich if you take away subsidies they’re a toy for the rich does that mean i’m against them no i think they’re a great toy for the rich i think it’s great i’ve said it many times and And you’re a car guy. You’re going to have every kind of car because you’re— Well, and part of that is because I wanted to learn— You’re an imbalanced person. You really like cars.
SPEAKER 14 :
And I wanted to, on the weekend show, be able to explain how they work and the good, the bad, the ugly of all of that. I wanted to be able to do that during the day as well, which, by the way, we have.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, but seriously, folks, you’ve got to understand. John, we’ll go down the elevator after the show. He’s still talking cars.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, and the reality is— It’s a religion. We have literally interviewed so many quote-unquote experts.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 14 :
On EVs, Andy, you’ve been with me when we’ve done this, and you get them on air, and I’m not trying to exaggerate because it’s not. I literally know more about them than they do, and they’re supposedly the quote-unquote experts. That’s because, Andy, when you own one and you deal with all the factions of, the good, the bad, and otherwise, you start learning more. All of the idiosyncrasies of that particular product. And by the way, Andy’s right. Those that can afford one, great. Go buy one on your own. And those that maybe still want one but can’t afford one, well, guess what? Wait around about two or three years and those new ones will become used ones. Yeah. And you can go buy one of those, by the way. Sure. And off you go.
SPEAKER 04 :
See, another thing I always ask young people, John, along this line, do you want to pay for other people’s activism? No. Okay. Because you can’t be into all forms of activism. You’re going to have a few that are mainly your thing, right? You want to save, I don’t know, the spotted owl. You want to… I don’t even know what those look like. But you want to save the whale. You want to save some fish in California. You want to save whatever. Okay. You know, recycling. Okay. You’re into recycling. These are all stupid, by the way. But… Whoever puts those things through, they are all free to pay for that activism on their own. They put these things through government to force you to help pay for their activism. Shouldn’t you be able to choose what issues are important to you? Shouldn’t you be able to choose your own activism and fund it on your own?
SPEAKER 14 :
Absolutely. Absolutely, Andy. Great explanation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Why is this a hard sales pitch for kids? I don’t think it is.
SPEAKER 14 :
Because they’ve never been taught what you just said. They’ve never been taught that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Shouldn’t you be able to choose your own activism?
SPEAKER 14 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
Shouldn’t you be able to choose your own car?
SPEAKER 14 :
Absolutely. But see, they’ve never been taught that, Andy.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, they haven’t.
SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
All right. I talked in the last hour and really towards the end, some of you listening may or may not have heard that. So today, this particular time slot, I should say, would be a good time to recap what we were talking about during that hour because we didn’t get a chance to really cover everything. And I wanted to get Andy’s input on a few things. And that is, I asked the question. who really is running the Colorado GOP. And before some of you supporters of Dave Williams just, you know, are shouting at the radio saying, well, Dave is, Dave is. Yeah, no, he’s not. Sorry, guys, you’re not going to convince me.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, he’s not. Look, like I said, I consider Dave to be more competent than those who work for him.
SPEAKER 14 :
A little.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I think Dave is part of a team that, of those who are running that group. I do believe it’s though it’s being led by Oltman. It’s being led by Chuck and Julie. It’s being led. And I do believe that Dave is on that team. I think it’s being led by Matt Arnold. I think it’s being led by, um, a few others, you know, the Imers, uh, Charlie had mentioned, I think he’s right there, you know, I think that basically you’ve got a very hardcore activist group. They know that they are tied in all over the state with the Liberty groups and Tea Party groups, and they can turn out a tremendous number of people for meetings. They cannot compete in primaries or general elections at all, but you don’t have to do that to seize power.
SPEAKER 14 :
You don’t. Not in this case.
SPEAKER 04 :
And for Dave, all he wants is $200,000 a year.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, in his next position, whatever that happens to be.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, if Dave thinks he’s going to run for governor, I mean, unless he’s thinking of soaking his campaign for a bunch of money, which he might, okay, if he thinks he can possibly even come within 20 points for the governorship, and he can’t, it won’t even be 30, within 30, okay, if he thinks that, then he has literally lost his mind. Well, I don’t know.
SPEAKER 14 :
Or didn’t have much to start with.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re so mean. You see, for me, it’s never been personal. You hate the guy. I got nothing personal against Dave Williams. I just look at the things he’s done, and I’m just like, please don’t do these things.
SPEAKER 14 :
I just dislike the guy because of what he’s done, politically speaking, to our party in this state.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and you’re a Colorado native. I am not, and that’s why it’s more personal for you.
SPEAKER 14 :
And I think he’s a weasel. I think Dave’s out for Dave only, despite what anybody out there might say. His actions prove that I’m correct in that. And by the way, no one’s been able to come on this program yet. There’s only been two people that have tried. No one’s been able to come on this program yet and disprove me. No. Not one person?
SPEAKER 04 :
No.
SPEAKER 14 :
And even those of you that have tried via text message and emails and things like that, I typically come back at you with just a few answers. Then they run. Yeah, and even you can’t defend beyond that. And I’ve said it all along. I said it from the very get-go, literally not quite two years ago. Pretty close to two years ago, a little less than two years ago, I came out and said, this guy is trouble. He is looking out for his own best interests. He doesn’t care anything about the state of Colorado and or the party in Colorado. He is here for the 200K and whatever that next position happens to be out of it.
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree. And what I’ve really noticed is none of his defenders can defend him. That’s the thing that keeps coming up over and over and over. As you know, I was on a Zoom call with some people who are running to lead the party in Arapahoe County, the chair. By the way, after the Zoom call, I decided to run for chair.
SPEAKER 14 :
Fine. Good job.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, if there are too many Dave supporters, I won’t have a chance, but who knows? Whatever. I’ve been the vice chair, so at least I know what I’m doing.
SPEAKER 14 :
You know what it entails.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, but I asked a couple questions. Some people said I was too harsh, which maybe.
SPEAKER 14 :
Too harsh for asking questions?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, yeah, because what I wanted was this. I said, look, I said, in these positions, you will be voting on state party leadership. So we need to talk about your support because they had already said they are fully, absolutely in support of Dave Williams and everything he has done. I said, OK, if that’s the case, do you think that the state party should be attacking Republican candidates in primaries? They did this. Do you think the state party should put paid for by the Colorado Republican Committee on mailers and newspapers that they send out that advocate for the state chair’s campaign and attack? other republican candidates do you think they should be doing these things and they just said well we don’t think we don’t think that was happening i said that’s fact that’s actually history that happened yes well we don’t we that’s your opinion that’s not my opinion that actually happened can absolutely no ability to defend against any of it okay it just blows my mind john
SPEAKER 14 :
That goes back to my whole point with asking this question as to who’s really running the party is because of the things that you’re saying, and I’ll add another layer onto that. Given the fact that Dave himself… Literally, I mean, he’s been on a couple of different programs. And by the way, the people that he was talking to ate his lunch. So the reality is he won’t go on any program where he feels that he’s got a disadvantage in that particular conversation. In other words, if the other person is smarter than him and can defend their positions better than he can, he just won’t go on and talk to them at all. This is my reasoning for coming up with who’s really running the party. Because if Dave was this smart… as it seems in regards to some of these political maneuvers he’s making in getting the power of the party in his hands, trust me, he would be on air. He would be debating me. He’d be debating Andy online. He would be doing all sorts of things in the public square to defend himself. The reality is he can’t. He won’t. Therefore, proving my point, he’s not the guy pulling the strings for the party. Others are. Yeah, he’s the front man. That’s all he is.
SPEAKER 04 :
What really scares me, John, is their entire power play is this. We can’t win any debates anywhere. So what we’re going to do is simply rally numbers. And we’re going to rally numbers around the state from the crowd that doesn’t care about winning debates. They simply know, look, we hate the open primaries and we must get rid of them no matter what. We hate petition candidates. There are those rich folk who don’t go to assembly and caucus. We got to get rid of them no matter what. They can’t defend any of it. So all they do is rally numbers. And honestly, John, is it going to work this year? I think probably.
SPEAKER 14 :
My prediction is this meeting they’re having Thursday night, unless a lot of you listening change your ways, and some of you core people understand what I’m saying in reality of who’s actually running the party, unless some of you change your ways and your thoughts and your votes as to what’s going to happen on Thursday, Dave seizes more power at the end of the day.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s what’s going to happen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
And at that point, folks, I hate to say this, it’s almost like this last election with Trump and Kamala. If Kamala would have won, you stick a fork in the United States, it’s done. If Dave Williams gets his way Thursday, stick a fork in Colorado politics on our side of the aisle, it’s done.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. But let me ask you, put it out two years then. Obviously, look, if Dave and his people stay in control of the Colorado Republican Party, which I think is very possible. Mm-hmm. We’re done. Because they’ll opt out of the open primary. And I have listed for people in detail the consequences of that. They’re going to be devastating. And they’re going to punish petition candidates, which means they’re going to get the worst candidates. And they’re going to put through. If they had gotten their way, we would have lost the House for Donald Trump. We’ve looked at the candidates. That’s not an if, maybe, or might. We’ve done the math. We’ve done the math. It isn’t close. Had the state party gotten their way, we would have lost the House for Donald Trump. Okay. If they’re in charge for the next two years, they’re going to run the party into the ditch with that kind of power. What happens then? Do people finally say that’s enough? Or will they have amassed so much power that they are in power in perpetuity?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yes, because of the changes in the bylaws and what they’re trying to get done right now, it will become extremely difficult to change the tide of that on down the road two, four, six, eight years. Not saying that it couldn’t ever be changed and or be changed back to where power changes back to the people, which, by the way, it’s ironic that Dave will tell you that that’s what he’s doing right now in relation to these rule changes is he’s trying to get more power back to the people. No, Dave, you’re doing just the opposite. You’re taking it away from people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Anyone who knows anything about numbers understands you’re trying to shrink the pool so you’re a bigger fish.
SPEAKER 14 :
Shrinking the pot. Come on. Shrinking the pot. That’s all you’re doing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
At the end of the day, you’re not doing anything other than that. Right, Andy?
SPEAKER 04 :
John, I’m sorry, but I got no other wording for it. You have to be really dumb to buy that line. I mean, you’ve got to be hurting, okay? And I know that sounds mean. I know it sounds mean, but my goodness. I’m sorry. The numbers are what they are, John. He’s looking at a group that overwhelmingly votes against him at the state central committee, and he’s trying to shrink that group by over 80%, by about 90%, okay? There is no other conclusion to that. Mm-mm. It’s a power grab.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. Somebody asked the question, do Democrats in Colorado have an open primary?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Yeah, both parties have an open primary. Really quick for those who don’t know, unaffiliated vote. What this means is unaffiliated voters can choose which primary they wish to vote in. So they can vote in the Republican primary or the Democrat primary. Usually the Republican primary is going to be a lot juicier.
SPEAKER 14 :
Right. There’s more going on on our side.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
Because the party’s dominated by the left. Yeah. The state is dominated by the left.
SPEAKER 04 :
The state’s dominated by the left, which means what? They got a ton of incumbents who I would run against them. So they’re going to participate in our side.
SPEAKER 14 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
And by the way, they rescued us from our state party’s endorsements.
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
They gave us Jeff Crank.
SPEAKER 14 :
They gave us… They weren’t super smart to… in how they handled things this last election, because when it was all said and done, what they did came back to bite them.
SPEAKER 04 :
The unaffiliated?
SPEAKER 14 :
No, the Democrats. What they tried to do with us and our party and getting some of our hardcore folks elected, it didn’t work out that way for them, Andy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. For those who have forgotten, the Democrats poured money in to try to get Jeff Hurd to not be our candidate. They tried to help Ron Hanks. Right. And Jeff Hurd still beat him by like 14 points or something like that. I mean, they tried, though. They really tried. They did. And this is what blows my mind, John. We’ll end with this and then go to break. These people who say we’ve got to opt out of the primary, they say that the Democrats who infiltrate amongst the unaffiliated and vote in our primary are trying to give us these milquetoast moderate candidates. When all of the money we see spent by Democrats in our primaries all goes to their kind of candidates.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s the opposite, actually.
SPEAKER 04 :
Basically, the Democrats looked at the list of candidates endorsed by the state party. Mm-hmm. And that’s who they supported.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, really quick to close with this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 14 :
Ultimately, it’s because they have a better understanding of what candidates can win in Colorado versus what our hardcore right does here in Colorado.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 14 :
Does that make sense?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it does. And I think that’s true of the hardcore of either party. The hardcore left doesn’t know what wins. The hardcore right just doesn’t know what wins. And I’m hardcore right. I hate to say that.
SPEAKER 14 :
Somebody else said that you know that all the other talk shows in Denver, AM Radio, have called on Dave to come on their programs too. They’ve also welcomed the supporters to call in. Regardless, that doesn’t happen not just on this program but others as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, they won’t debate. They can’t debate.
SPEAKER 14 :
There is a couple of stations because I’ve seen some of the posts and so on. So those of you that are listening that may not know this, there are a couple of what I call small players. in this arena that dave will come on occasionally and have a conversation with problem is it’s it’s such a minor you know there’s such minor players there’s there’s no effect of that whatsoever well it’s very minor players where he will go and speak only to his base correct right yep exactly all right geno’s auto service up next and if you’ve got any problems with your car geno’s is there to take care of you and it’s geno’s auto service.com don’t forget geno starts with a j
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SPEAKER 14 :
Back to Rush to Reason. All right, really quick. Costco has been put on notice, by the way, by a lot of politicians that if they don’t change their DEI practices, it will not end well. We’ll see how that fight goes because Costco is pretty hardcore left.
SPEAKER 04 :
They are very hardcore left, and the question is, does bigotry sell anymore? It has for quite a while. But over the last few years, it’s been going down.
SPEAKER 14 :
I agree. All right. In other news, we were talking earlier. Andy asked this question. And ironically, Richard sent me this article just a few minutes ago. And this just came out late this afternoon. President Donald Trump’s administration. is set to offer every single federal worker the chance to take a deferred resignation with a severance package of roughly eight months of pay and benefits. A senior administration official told NBC that they expect 5% to 10% of the federal workforce to quit. They estimate that could lead to around $100 billion in savings. So that’s your answer to your question earlier, Andy. Okay. Which I didn’t know was going to come out in the news.
SPEAKER 04 :
Eight months is a pretty good payout. Yeah. I’ve seen a year plus, but eight months, I’ve also seen well under eight months, so that’s not bad.
SPEAKER 14 :
So some of these people that just don’t like this administration, knowing that over the course of the next four years, how much more difficult will this job get? Will I even have this job? Will they figure out other ways to cut this job? I think their percentage, Andy, is probably not far off, because if you’re in that position thinking, hmm, hmm, do I really need to be here? Can I take eight months pay and leave? Yeah, I think some of them will take that.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Big question for you, though, John. We’re talking about a lot of liberals who work in government and have for many years. How many of them are confident they can work outside of government? Because eight months, that’ll evaporate.
SPEAKER 14 :
These will be people that are one of two things, is my opinion. Older? Either you’re older and you know that you’re on that path anyways. Okay. You might even have some pension that’s already laid up. And that eight months, by the way, might even put you to the place where, hey, I’m just going to call it quits. Or you’ve only been there two or three years and you realize that, man, this is going to be a long road to hoe to get my pension in the next 20 to 25 years. And I don’t think I can do this. So I’m gone.
SPEAKER 04 :
I wonder how long the offer is going to be there. What if they decide six months from now? I don’t think the offer will be there.
SPEAKER 14 :
The offer is set to go out to the federal workforce through a new system that Trump’s administration is setting up that gives officials the ability to email all federal employees at once. In the email will be a draft resignation letter for them to review. If a person wishes to resign, they will be able to reply with the word resign. The resignation period will begin Tuesday and go through February 6th, to answer your question, Andy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Elon Musk had said earlier this year that there would be a pretty generous package offered to people to leave. So, you know, this has been in the works for a while.
SPEAKER 14 :
So, in other words, this is going to go out Tuesday, and they’ve got a week to decide. Right. Roughly. Actually, not even a week, because Tuesday will be the 4th, so they’re not even going to have—they’ve got three days to decide, Andy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, this is really interesting, John, because between places like CNN, right? Yeah. Okay, follow me here. Between them and all these federal workers, it’s going to be the Libby’s, the liberals who are going to leave. A lot of liberals are suddenly going to be pouring into— The workplace.
SPEAKER 14 :
Looking for jobs. Yeah, no offense. It’s not going to end well.
SPEAKER 04 :
You don’t think so?
SPEAKER 14 :
No. And do you want to know why? Why? I’ll tell you next hour. Okay. As an employer, I will tell you next hour. Because it’s not going to end well for them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Would you as an employer want somebody who just ran from the government?
SPEAKER 14 :
That will be the major question. We have one guest, by the way, at the top of the hour. Then I’ll answer Andy’s question after that. Aiden Grogan is going to join us. And actually, we’re going to talk about the fact that there is a huge and we’ve talked about this before on this program many, many times, especially through covid. Is there a huge depopulation agenda that is headed up by all sorts of different private and government entities? We’ll talk about that next. We’ll be right back. Myself, Andy Pate, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I’m a rich guy
