Live from Music Row Friday 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 5th Congressional District candidate, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles to the newsmaker line to weigh in on recent comments about the January 6th Committee and the upcoming Republican primary on August 4.
Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line, our good friend the mayor of Maury County, that bastion of freedom, that turbocharged engine of economic growth, Andy Ogles. Good morning, Andy.
Ogles: Good morning. How are you?
Leahy: Andy, you’re also running for the GOP nomination in the 5th Congressional District in the primary race here that will be held on August 4th. Yesterday you had or actually this morning you’ve released a press release calling on Nancy Pelosi to “end the ridiculous January 6 partisan political charade.” Tell us a little bit about your reasoning there, Andy.
Ogles: Just look at the economy. You just had a three-quarter rate increase for credit which impacts your credit cards. It affects mortgages.
Gas prices are through the roof. The economy, we’re going to headstrong into a recession. Meanwhile, Congress is doing this theater, this witch hunt in regards to January 6.
And look, obviously I’m not happy about what happened on January 6 for a whole host of reasons, but we’ve got real substantive issues that need to be addressed and Congress is wasting taxpayer dollars.
Leahy: Well, that may be true. What are the odds that Speaker Pelosi is going to say, oh, Andy Ogles, the candidate for 5th Congressional District GOP primary in Tennessee, has told me we need to end this ridiculous January 6 partisan political charade. What are the odds that she actually would end it?
Ogles: What are the odds that she does anything in regards to listening to the American people? The Democratic Party has truly lost touch with the American people.
And again, this charade, the time, the money that has been spent on it is a waste of money. Let’s look at gas prices. We’re nearing $5 a gallon.
In some places, we’re over $5 a gallon. Now let’s talk about repealing the federal and of course the state gas taxes. And here in Tennessee, that’s almost 50 cents per gallon. It’s about .46. That’s real money going back into the pockets of hard-working Tennessee and Americans every single day.
We’re a commuting society. And I’ve got a pickup truck. It cost me $100, $110 to fill up my truck every time I go. Suddenly now I can save $10, $15 every time I’m at the pump.
Leahy: It seems likely that Republicans will take over control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections.
If you win the GOP primary and if you are elected in the general election, you would then join that class in January of 2023 on this issue of the January 6 Committee, it looks like they’re going to give a criminal referral to Merrick Garland.
It also looks like he’s going to against former President Trump based on really no evidence and no defense on his part.
And it also looks like if you were to be elected in January of 2023, that probably Merrick Garland will begin a criminal prosecution against former President Donald Trump on, shall we say, trumped-up charges. What as a member of Congress would you be able to do to counter that?
Ogles: Fortunately, we are about to have a red wave and that’s impactful for a whole ocean. Things like January 6, the theatrics that we’re seeing now, all that stops right. But I’m also hopeful we are heading towards a recession.
A lot of that’s being driven by two things. One, we have some fundamentals in the economy that are broken that needs to be fixed, like the price of fuel. But then also we have consumer sentiment.
And I’m hopeful that when you see this new wave of Republicans coming in, people believe and realize that Republicans are actually going to work for America, fix this economy, get us back to where we were pre-COVID, pre-Biden.
And so what will happen is that consumer sentiment will change. We’ll have a good fourth quarter, and then as we come into January or February, we’ll see the economy take a turn around the corner.
This next Congress coming into 23 has to get serious about really working for the American people, much in the same way Newt Gingrich did with the Contract for America.
And that’s why I’ve been endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus is because I have a long track record of A, and B, conservative fighting for my constituents. And I’m the most conservative person in the race.
Leahy: Talk about that race a little bit. So there are nine qualified candidates on the ballot. You are one of the three leading fundraisers out there, considered, I believe, probably one of the favorites in it.
What are you seeing out there on the campaign trail as you go through Wilson County in Davidson County, Williamson County, Maury County, Marshall County, and Lewis County? What are people telling you out there? What are you finding?
Ogles: People are set up. I think you’re going to see a sizable turnout and increased turnout across the country. But also here in middle Tennessee, a lot of people who vote sometimes, but not all the time, they’re going to vote this time around.
You’re going to see a big turnout and people are worried. I mean, these gas prices are really starting to affect hardworking Americans. You have some wealthy pockets in the 5th Congressional District, but you also have some very working-class people that are living paycheck to paycheck down here in Maury County, Lewis County, Marshall County, the rural parts of Wilson County, and people are commuting from Lebanon into Nashville.
That’s cutting into their discretionary spending. People now have to make choices about how am I going to spend my paycheck this month or this week because I don’t have enough money to do the things that I would normally do.
And so I think there’s some real concern and angst out there about the future of our country. People are fed up with the fact that we didn’t finish the wall. We’ve got a porous border.
We’ve got lawlessness across the country and then you have the transgender woke agenda that’s being crammed down our throats when one-tenth of one percent is all that truly believes in that nonsense.
But yet you have Nancy Pelosi and this woke culture that it’s trying to force it down Americans’ throats. And I think there’s going to be a backlash. I think there’s a huge opportunity for America to have its voice heard.
And we get back to kind of what I would like to think of as Mayberry, where we get back to traditional values. We get back to letting parents teach their kids and educate their kids and some of these personal issues that parents should really have the main say over.
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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.
dems can’t focus on the real issues because their ideas have failed, and they have no ideas that actually work. they try to govern on woke emotions and ‘good vibes’.
if people keep voting for these liberal clowns we are all doomed
puddin’ joe and crew are leading us to ruin
But Andy, of the three leading candidates your campaign has been the least active of the three, so what are your campaign plans going forward and if you keep the inactivity up aren’t you afraid of taking just enough conservative votes away from Beth Harwell so we are stuck with General Weathervane as our next U.S. Congressman?