Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) to the newsmaker line to get his reaction to Joe Biden’s abrupt decision to remove American forces from Afghanistan last week and its repercussions.
Leahy: We are joined by our good friend, Congressman Tim Burchett from the Second Congressional District in Knoxville. Good morning, Congressman Burchett.
Burchett: Hey, good morning. Thank you for having me on.
Leahy: Well, brother, what’s going on up there in Washington? You have a commander in chief who’s awol. We have 11,000 Americans stranded in Afghanistan, and we have a secretary of defense and secretary of state who appears to be helpless, begging the Taliban not to be mean. That’s not going to turn out well. What’s your take on all this?
Burchett: I think you’re wrong about our president. I think he’s circumnavigating the globe looking for McDonald’s soft serve machines that are operating.
Leahy: (Leahy laughs) Now that’s a good one.
Burchett: As you well know, there aren’t any that are operating if you’ve ever tried to get any ice cream at the McDonalds in the last century. But anyway, that’s for another show. It is a disgrace.
The Democrats right now in D.C. are trying to push this so-called infrastructure bill because they got to change the agenda. And I’m a little surprised that Pelosi is still considering calling us back to vote on it when it doesn’t look like she has the votes.
But because she gets us all in D.C. every time we get the mic, that’s what we’re going to be talking about. And frankly, some Democrats will be, too, because they’re very close to losing their majority.
And they will this time, undoubtedly. But it’s going to turn into a swamp. We’re just going to swamp them completely across the map if this keeps up.
The latest tragedy is them saying that they weren’t going to commit to getting all the Americans out. We’ve got close to 15,000 Americans. I believe we’ve been working on it through our office.
And I’m sure every congressional office has too. We got people over there that they’re trying to get out. There is no clear directive. Of course, I’m one of those that wanted to get our troops out of there, get them out.
But the difference under Trump than under Biden is all you have to do is remember Soleimani. He was a murdering thug terrorist. I guess he was a general in their ranks, and he got cocky, and they vaporized him.
The only thing they had left to identify him was his ring finger. There’s a ring on it. I’ve seen the pictures. They’re very graphic. And that was all that was left of him from a drone strike. No Americans lost their lives.
And it was a textbook tactical strike on a very vicious and mean human being. And they understood that under Trump and basically under Pompeo. And that’s why they could talk to those to negotiate, if you will, with those people.
And now it’s just a complete 180. And they know this bunch. They’re going to be like Obama 2.0. They’re going to negotiate with America’s checkbook. They’ll just keep pushing the envelope, and I don’t know where it will stop.
And this is a complete embarrassment across the board. And I said we better start focusing on our southern border because now they know we don’t have any guts in the White House.
And actually, we don’t have anybody in the White House. And folks are talking now, let’s get rid of Biden. Look who’s behind Biden. It’s Kamala Harris, and we don’t want her in the White House.
Leahy: I got an idea for you. Are you ready?
Burchett: Okay, go ahead.
Leahy: Remove and replace Pelosi. You got to get six Democrats to flip and get her out. Impeach Biden and Harris, get them out. And whoever is selected, the new speaker, you move them up to president. How practical or impractical is that idea?
Burchett: That takes a lot of time, and it’s just not going to happen I don’t think. It’s great fodder and it’s great to talk about. but I just don’t see that happening. You’re not going to get six Democrats to flip. They’re pretty much locked in right now.
Leahy: They are 222 Democrats, 211 Republicans in the House right now. Two vacancies. Are you telling me, and I think you are telling me, that they’re – among those 222 Democrats, there are not six Patriots who realize what a danger Joe Biden is as president of the United States?
Burchett: I think that’s correct. I don’t think you’re going to get six. I don’t think you could get two right now. I may be wrong, and maybe something like that is in the works.
Leahy: I don’t think it’s in the works, which is kind of why I brought it up to you. Are the Democrats that unpatriotic, really?
Burchett: They use the carrot and the stick very well over there. They reward their folks. And if they don’t, they punish them. And they are very good at that. They are very good at that.
I’ve seen them circle around them on the House floor and when they messed up and not had the vote on something. AOC had a vote before we left for break, and she got beat on the House floor.
Over half the Democrats voted against her. And I guess almost all the Republicans voted against her. When they’re mad at somebody, they might not publicize it, but they’ll sure whip them pretty hard on the floor.
And they’ve done that in the past. I think we’re stuck with this and we’ve frankly, we deserve it. You had close to an estimated 20 million so-called evangelical Christians who didn’t get out and vote because they didn’t like some guy’s mean tweet.
Leahy: (Chuckles) Good point.
Burchett: And 2 million American sportsmen, which are gun owners, did not get out and vote. Our folks have got to quit this. We’ve got to deal with what we’ve got, and let’s go.
Leahy: Congressman Burchett, I think what you’re saying here is that we’re going to have a very, very bad period of time between now and January 2023 when it looks like Republicans would take over the House of Representatives. That’s a long time for misery in the country.
Burchett: That is correct. That is correct. But you got to remember, for us to elect a Ronald Reagan, we had to elect a Jimmy Carter. And so that’s what’s going to happen I think. I don’t want to say I told you so, but dadgummit I told you so.
This guy is a disaster from day one. His international stands have been just horrid. When we had Bin Laden, he’s the one guy that voted not to do it, not to go after him. You can’t say enough bad about what he’s done.
And just where he is mentally, too. I’ve said this all along. He is not well, this is a Saturday Night Live skit that just writes itself. I haven’t watched Saturday Night Live in years. But I would hope that at some point that they would seize upon this. And you’re seeing some of the national media turns on him, which is just obvious.
They have to on this crazy thing because he’s just not there. If Trump had said, I’m not going to hold a press conference unless you submit the questions first and then we’re going to pick which questions we’re going to answer and which people – we’re only going to allow certain people in the press conference, there would have been national outrage, but this is the standard operating procedure for this bunch.
He does not answer to the press. And they are co-conspirators in this and they realize it, too. And I think the American public realizes it, and that’s why nobody trusts the national media. Nobody takes a local paper. The Knoxville News Sentinel in Knoxville is run and printed out of Nashville and nobody I know even takes the dadgum local paper.
Leahy: We hear a lot of people calling in from Knoxville who read The Tennessee Star because we actually produce real news.
Burchett: Absolutely. And we have a local paper here that’s a weekly: The Focus. And it’s what most people get their news from. And it’s really a shame. But getting back to this Afghanistan debacle, it could have been prevented.
And again, under Trump, there was going to be the withdrawal, but it was a conditional withdrawal, and we knew it. And we had agreements with them.
There is no conditional withdrawal with this bunch now because they know they don’t – they know we’re not going to back it up with anything.
Leahy: Last question for you. We got a minute here. Congressman Burchett, before we go. Where is Vice President Harris? Have you seen her?
Burchett: (Chuckles) No, I doubt she’s on our southern border. She’s probably in Europe.
Leahy: Exactly. I think she went to Vietnam actually. Seriously. I saw a report on that.
Burchett: That’s ironic.
Leahy: That’s crazy.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Burchett is awesome. He figured out early that you just need to shoot straight while others shoot from the hip.