Live from Music Row Monday 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 Congressional District 8 GOP candidate Dean Clouse to the newsmaker line to discuss his background, why he’s running, and issues with current incumbent, Rep. David Kustoff.
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmaker line by Dean Clouse. Dean has announced his candidacy to run in the GOP primary against incumbent David Kustoff in the 8th Congressional District, which extends from Memphis all the way up to almost Clarksville. A very large and diverse district. Welcome, Dean Clouse, thanks for joining us.
Clouse: Thanks for having me on.
Leahy: Dean, I’m looking at the Heritage Action for America rating of the incumbent, David Kustoff, who was elected, I think, in 2016.
He has a 93 percent rating. The average House Republican has a rating of 89 percent. What is your complaint against the incumbent, GOP Representative David Kustoff?
Clouse: I think a lot is just the fact that he’s absent most of the time, at least for constituents. He tends to vote more than other people vote, but we don’t see him until a few months before the elections.
And then he’s everywhere. He’s taking photo ops and everything, and that in and of itself I don’t like. But then he voted for the National Defense Authorization Act 2022, which within that act would give military courts authority to seize guns from veterans.
Veterans are not military anymore. And I’m prior Air Force, that falls on me. They can come in and seize weapons from veterans without due process.
Leahy: Let me see if I understand this. I’m looking at his votes right now, and so you have one complaint is you don’t see enough of him there.
Clouse: Yes.
Leahy: But the other complaint is you have one particular vote that you don’t like. Do they have that right?
Clouse: That’s one of two major votes.
Leahy: So let’s talk about that one vote. What’s the date of that vote?
Clouse: If I recall, I want to say October 18, 2021. I think that was when they voted on it last.
Leahy: What was the bill name and what elements of it do you think he should not have voted for?
Clouse: I think there are things that we need to compromise.
Leahy: What was the bill name? I’m just trying to get the bill name.
Clouse: The bill name is the National Defense Authorization Act for 2022. They vote on this every year, the National Defense Authorization Act. But this year they put in a clause within the bill that would allow the military course to take weapons from veterans.
Leahy: And so he voted for it. And you oppose it. Crom has a question for you, Dean.
Carmichael: Yes, I want to be sure that I understand what your issue is here. There was an omnibus defense bill and the Democrats stuck a clause in this very large bill that troubles you, which, by the way, what you’ve just said troubles me also.
And that was stuck in the bill by the Democrats. And then the bill was presented for either spending money on national defense or you opposed spending money on national defense. Would that be a fair way to characterize it?
Clouse: Yes.
Carmichael: So the congressman would have to have voted, I don’t want to defend the country, or I have to have this stuck in here, which my guess is that will go to court and be overturned.
And by the way, what you’re saying doesn’t surprise me that Democrats would try to do that. My guess is that it will go to court and be overturned.
Clouse: Yes. They do it all the time.
Leahy: You would have voted against that bill, is that right?
Clouse: Yes. There are things that we don’t need to compromise and this is how we’ve lost a lot of our rights, by these compromises being made by our representatives in hopes that it might go to court.
That’s something that’s a fundamental right. It’s the Second Amendment for Americans. And if they can pass that for veterans who are civilians that are prior military, it’s going to be very easy for them to expand that to all civilians and allow military courts … it could be very easy.
Leahy: What was the second bill that you disagreed with his vote on?
Clouse:Â The second bill is the Immunization Modernization and Infrastructure Act, which basically, in practice would create a federal vaccine mandate or a vaccine database rather where the federal government has access to all your vaccine information.
Not just the COVID vaccine but every vaccine. Your dosage, when it was given, how many doses you’ve had, and all of this stuff. This is protected health information. The federal government has no business having access to it.
Leahy: So he voted for that bill and you would have voted against it?
Clouse: Yes.
Leahy: Okay, good. Let me ask you this. Tell us a little bit about your background, Dean.
Clouse: I am prior Air Force. I graduated high school in 2005, went to college, then went to the Air Force, got out, and became a police officer, basically Air Force. I got out in 2012, went back to college, got a doctorate degree in physical therapy. I’ve been a physical therapist treating people for five years.
Leahy: Do you have your own practice? Where do you live?
Clouse: I did have my own practice. I sold it on December 1st. I live in Somerville, Tennessee. I have a wife and two boys.
Leahy: So you sold your practice. Did you make a little money off that?
Clouse: (Chuckles) No, not really.
Carmichael: Did you sell your practice so that you could run for office?
Clouse: I sold my practice because COVID-19 is stopping a lot of people from going to physical therapy. And it was running even. I wasn’t getting anywhere with it.
Carmichael: I’m curious, because of this COVID issue that you’re talking about, physical therapy, are the people that you treated, are these people who medically needed physical therapy?
Clouse: Pretty much everybody that I treat, yes.
Carmichael: In other words, I’m really curious, because physical therapy, if the doctor tells you you have to have it, seems like that would fall under a medical necessity.
Is it because the patients themselves were scared to come in because of COVID or there were some other restrictions?
Clouse: I think I got what you’re asking. The thing with physical therapy is a lot of physicians don’t emphasize it. It’s not that they don’t believe in it.
It’s not a very important thing to a lot of physicians. A lot of people see physical therapy as just giving exercises and is something that you could do on your own.
Listen to the full interview here:
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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.
I think I get what this guy is saying. Leahy mentioned Kustoff’s 93% Heritage rating, and I am aware of all the other metrics and scores out there, but that doesn’t tell the whole picture. Sure, he votes the conservative line the majority of the time, but it’s the big issues where they toe the establishment line instead that really matters. They give us garbage bills like the pork-laden NDAA and omnibus spending bills all while wrapping themselves in the flag, so to speak, as if has to vote for all the crap in it or else you are not supporting our troops. The vaccine database, the Ukraine grift, etc. They give us little votes to placate us and lull us into the perception that they represent our values, but not on big stuff.
Full disclosure, I am in Fleischmann’s district and he is very similar…