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 Tennessee Congressman Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN-03) to the newsmaker line to talk about his experience playing on the Congressional Baseball Team and the need for Republicans to take back the House and Senate in November midterms.
Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line, Congressman Chuck Fleischmann from the third district in Tennessee. Welcome, Congressman Fleischmann. How are you this morning?
Fleischmann: Michael? I am great. I played a little baseball in Washington, D.C., this morning, but so glad to be with you. I was in your great city this past weekend visiting with some fine folks. I tell you, Nashville gets better and better all the time.
Leahy: So are you a second baseman? What position do you play?
Fleischmann: Well, I used to be. I was actually a left-handed second baseman. But with age and maturity, I have now been repositioned in the outfield.
But every once in a while I run back into the infield and play a little first and second. I throw left and bat left. So, having a good time.
But our team is very good and we are going to beat the Democrats again this year, not only on the ballfield but at the ballot boxes.
Leahy: So when you do the annual Congressional Baseball Game? How long has that tradition been going on?
Fleischmann: Over 100 years. When I was elected in 2010, in 2011, I played in the 100th year. And as a matter of fact, that’s where I made that famous play at second base, which would have been easy for a righty, tough for a lefty, but in my great University of Tennessee uniform. And that was on a poster of 100 years of congressional baseball. So we’re running at about 112 years, sir.
Leahy: Okay, so let’s talk about that famous play at second base. (Chuckles) Now, what was that famous play?
Fleischmann: God has a sense of humor. I was not going to get in the game. And my good friend Kevin Brady is famous for the wonderful Trump tax bill that gave hard-working Americans a break back then.
He said, Chuck, I want you to get in. And the manager at that time, another Texan, said, well, he’s left-handed and, I don’t know, take my place at second. I ran out there so fast and the ball was hitting the hole.
It would have been very easy for a right-handed player. But I had a backhanded throw to first and the rest was history. It was on the front page of the Washington Journal the next day and the picture went viral.
Leahy: What about it? Did you make the play?
Fleischmann: I made the play, but I made an easy play look very hard. (Leahy laughs) Left-handed in the wrong position.
Leahy: Well, obviously, this is a great trade for a political leader, right? Make something easy look hard, but succeed at it. Did you play baseball before?
Fleischmann: I did. I played when I was young, but I never knew Congress had a congressional baseball team. And I came up here and gave it my all. And what a great fraternity. I met people from all over the country on our great caucus.
And by the way, we’ve elected some incredible, incredible, not only good ball players but great Republican legislators. Some of my friends like Jake Ellzey from Texas, and Blake Moore from Utah. Good, solid conservatives, great Americans, strong Christians.
Gosh, it’s just a privilege to be out there with these guys. And they’re 20 years younger than me. I’m going to be 60 in October, but thank God I get out there every day, work hard, play hard, and give it my best, as I do for people in the 3rd district of Tennessee.
Leahy: Crom Carmichael has a question for you.
Carmichael: I have a question for you on the baseball team. It would seem to me like that the key position is whether or not you have a good pitcher.
Fleischmann: You are so right. And fortunately, the Democrats no longer have that. Our very first year, they elected a fellow by the name of Cedric Richmond, who, incidentally, I broke his no-hitter up my second year and he took it quite well.
(Leahy chuckles) But the Democrats won year after year. Cedric went on to the White House to serve President Biden and has since left, because everybody’s leaving President Biden, understandably.
But be that as it may, he’s no longer in Congress, and the Democrats just don’t have the pitchers, and we will clobber them this year. (Carmichael chuckles)
Leahy: How seriously are you guys training? What quality of ball are you playing?
Fleischmann: Fast-pitch, hard-ball. Every day that we are in session I get picked up at 5:30 [a.m.] by a retired three-star Marine general who represents the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a great American who fought in Vietnam. He picks me up at 5:30, If we’re there at 5:31, we get left. So every day that we’re in session, we practice.
Leahy: That sounds like fun. Sounds like the most fun you have in Congress. What are the Democrats doing up there? What’s it like being with the Democrats who aren’t following regular order? You don’t go through committees. It’s just whatever Nancy Pelosi wants to jam through.
Fleischmann: Michael, you are so right. The last four years, the last two terms, in the minority, have been a disaster. It’s frustrating, because we lose just about every vote because she is a disciplinarian presiding over pure chaos.
The radical left continues to batter us, not only in the House and in the Senate, but doing untold damage to our country. Joe Biden is clueless.
He went before the AFL-CIO yesterday and actually was praising his performance in our economy. It’s shocking, it’s wrong, it’s a disaster, and we’ve got to take this country back at the ballot box.
We’re going to do that in a big way in the House in November. I hope and pray we do that in the Senate. And we have got to get a good, strong Republican president back in the White House in two years.
Leahy: Crom Carmichael has a question for you.
Carmichael: Quick question: In that speech, Biden called for an increase in taxes on corporations and what he defines as the wealthy. What are the chances that there will be a substantial tax increase passed between now and the election?
Fleischmann: None. And I will tell you why. Unfortunately, it would pass in the House. Nancy Pelosi would like to tax anything, anywhere, and anyhow.
Her view of America, and the radical left’s view of America, is so antithetical to free-market capitalism, it’s sickening. [… but in the Senate, they will never get 60 votes for a tax increase …]
Listen to the interview:
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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.
Chuck Fleischman voted to send Ukraine $53 Billion and he’s worried about inflation? What a clown
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