Live from Music Row Tuesday 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 official guest host Aaron Gulbransen in-studio to speculate whether TN-5 candidate Kurt Winstead campaign is propping up cash on hand based on recent financial reporting.
Leahy: We’ve been giving Andy Ogles a hard time about lack of transparency in his financial reporting. And we’re about to give Kurt Winstead a hard time, not about the lack of transparency, but about the way that his financial reporting has been reported.
But we’re also going to give Andy Ogles a hard time about something else. Now, you saw Andy last night. He was at it with the meet-and-greet at Plantation Pub here in Bellevue.
Gulbransen: Which, full disclosure, I hope there’s not too many terrorists out there that are trying to figure out where I live. But that’s a block away from where I live.
Leahy: But you live out there. But here’s the thing, Aaron. There was also a meeting of the Maury County Commission down in Columbia last night to discuss his veto of their budget. Now, he is still the mayor of Maury County. Was he present at that meeting?
Gulbransen: No, he was at Plantation Pub.
Leahy: Did you ask him why he was not at the meeting of the county commission?
Gulbransen: Anticipating the obvious, he mentioned that he didn’t believe he could change the outcome of the vote.
Leahy: But he’s the mayor, and part of the duties of the mayor is to talk with and communicate with the county commission. What was the vote there in terms of the veto?
Gulbransen: It was overwhelming.
Leahy: It was like 12 to 2 to 3.
Leahy: Seventeen to 2 to 3.
Gulbransen: Oh, that was even worse than I thought it was.
Leahy: Yeah, I think that was 17 to 2, to 3. They overrode his veto of the budget, and of course, he made a big deal about the budget and we did a story on it, the veto.
But I don’t know, Andy, you’re the mayor of Maury County. If the county commission is meeting on a budget issue, you ought to be there and not at the Plantation Pub. That’s just my view. So have we given Andy Ogles a hard enough time in this segment?
Gulbransen: Just a bit …Â a bit of honest transparency.
Leahy: By the way. We’ve invited the four leading candidates in for one hour in the hot seat. And Jeff Beierlein has accepted our invitation, and he will be here in the hot seat on Thursday for one hour, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.
Gulbransen: And Jeff appears to be a candidate on the rise, in my observation.
Leahy: Yes, he is a candidate on the rise. Beth Harwell has also accepted our invitation, even though she didn’t make The Epoch Times debate, which I think was a mistake. But she’ll be here in the hot seat.
We don’t know exactly when, but of course, the early voting has started. And then on August 4th, two weeks and two days from today, is Election Day, so she’ll be here.
But we’ve asked Kurt Winstead, who wants people to tell him to his face that he’s a liberal in his commercials. We are invited him to have a face-to-face conversation here in-studio.
They’re not returning our calls. We call them every day. Please, Kurt, come in so we can tell you to your face what we think of your record. He doesn’t seem to be that interested in actually having somebody telling something to his face. Kurt, come on. We’re nice. Come on in.
Also, Andy Ogles, we’ve invited his campaign to come in in the hot seat, not coming in. He spent a year coming in here for an hour to The Tennessee Star Report, and now I can’t get him to call back.
Gulbransen: Well, maybe when Nick Cage from National Treasure uncovers his finance report, he’ll come and bring it to you.
Leahy: Boom shaka laka. Okay, Andy, we’re giving you a hard time, but you got to show up, man. You got to show up. Now, we’re going to give Kurt Winstead a hard time, because he filed timely.
Gulbransen: Filed on time, and it’s just a weird finance report.
Leahy: Well, here’s the rest of the story. He has, as of June 30th – Kurt Winstead, the candidate for GOP nomination on the ballot on August 4, has $820,000 in cash. He’s got more than anybody else.
Beth has, like, $430,000 in cash and nobody else … we don’t know what Andy has in cash. No idea, because he’s late filing that report. And we’re suspect that the claim that he raised $453,000 may be a stretch.
Gulbransen: Yes.
Leahy: We’re suspect of that, but we don’t know. You think $820,000 in cash? That’s a lot, but tell us the rest of the story. How much of that, really, can he use?
Gulbransen: Well, $680,000 of it is in debt obligations owed by the campaign, all of which, in one form or another, is owed to Winstead himself. And $220,000 of that $680,000 is in the form of an unsecured loan provided to the campaign by Winstead personally.
And then here’s the interesting thing. Another $460,000 are funds that he secured from an unsecured loan and obtained a 3.5 percent interest rate from Pinnacle Bank on June 21st.
Leahy: That’s interesting because it’s an unsecured loan. I guess you and I talked about this sometime, if you have a lot of business with a bank, they’ll give you an unsecured loan. Not everybody can get an unsecured loan for $460,000.
But before that, on March 31st, just before the Q1 filing, he got a secured loan for $460,000. Seven days later, he paid that back. So it was basically just to prop up cash on hand, as reported on March 31st.
And my question to you is, is this another little effort to prop up cash on hand? Because the day after the election or before the last reporting period, is he going to pay that back from the campaign?
Gulbransen: I would imagine. When you see these kinds of things in a campaign finance report, it is very unlikely for them to be spending the entire thing on their campaign.
Leahy:Â It’s often just to prop up cash on hand.
Gulbransen: Especially when there is an interest rate involved.
Leahy:Â So now the other part about this $820,000, apparently, he can’t use $140,000 of it because these were contributions dedicated to the general election. So if you look at it, 820 minus 140, you’re down to 680, which is basically the money he’s loaned to his campaign.
Gulbransen: So the question is why do you prop up your campaign finance report at this stage in the game? The voters don’t care about how much money you have in the bank. Whether it’s $400,000 or $800,000, they don’t care.
But donors care and outside groups that are paying attention to the race care. So it could be that they are trying to show the best finance report they possibly can in order to impress more donors and more outside donors.
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.
