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 the former mayor of Maury County, Tennessee and 5th-district GOP nominee for Congress Andy Ogles in the studio to talk about his endorsement by former President Trump, upcoming tele-town hall, and an event with Senator Cruz and radio personality Clay Travis.
Leahy: In the studio with us, a former mayor of Maury County and now the Republican nominee for the 5th Congressional District here in Middle Tennessee. Momentum. Momentum, Andy, seems to be moving towards you and towards the Republicans to take over the House.
Lots of things happening in your campaign. You got a phone call on Saturday from someone our audience knows. Tell us about that phone call. Who called you? How did this happen?
Ogles: Donald Trump called, the former president and presumed nominee for 2024. Just to be honest with you, from an outsider’s perspective, looking in, it certainly seems like he’s ramping up to run.
Leahy: So were you hanging out at the house? Where were you when you got this call?
Ogles: I wish I was hanging out at the house, but no. (Leahy chuckles) We had like eight campaign stops on Saturday. Even last night, and why I look tired is I was speaking in Marshall County last night. But yes, literally, the timing couldn’t have been much better. I had received a text that he was going to call me.
Leahy: You received a text on Saturday morning.
Ogles: Yes, Saturday morning. I got a text for a heads-up that you’ll be getting a call from this number. And we just finished an event. We got in a car and we were driving and my phone rings.
Leahy: What event had you finished? It’s hard to remember, there are so many of them?
Ogles: Literally. But I think that he called between we had the event in Nolensville, and then we were going up to Wilson County for an event.
Leahy: So you’re in the car and ding, ding, ding goes the phone. You look at the number.
Ogles: And I know it’s him. Okay. I answer. I say, well, this is Mayor Andy Ogles. And he goes, Mayor, I hear you’re a great guy. I just wanted to call you and tell you you have my full support. Sorry, everybody listening by the way, that’s a horrible Trump impression. (Leahy laughs) But it was a bit surreal.
Right? But we talked about the race. He read me the endorsement and wanted to make sure that I was okay with it. And then he said, look, we don’t want you to just win. We want you to win big. He didn’t say bigly or hugely. He said we want you to win big.
And he said, so what else can we do? So that sets up this Thursday, which is tomorrow evening, we’re having a town hall with President Trump, and we’ll be releasing that number where you can call in and listen to it.
But he’s literally going to call in to Middle Tennessee, and we’re going to get lots of people on the phone to talk about the state of the country.
Leahy: So this call, you’re going to release a phone number and then people can call in. It will be what, tomorrow? What time?
Ogles: I think we’re looking at 6:00 p.m. But we’ll put all of that on social media to confirm.
Leahy: And we’ll report that. And of course, now, most of the people that listen to this program are active conservatives, but the opposition does a little opposition research. Some little left-wing nerd is writing this down right now as we speak.
(Ogles chuckles) Oooo0-kaaaay, Trump is going to talk with Andy Ogles. We’re going to have to get a little mole in on that call. Do you have a mechanism there for preventing that?
Ogles: They won’t be able to disrupt the call. So if someone jumps on that’s not a …
Leahy: A crazy person.
Ogles: Whatever. At the end of the day, this race is about the economy, and inflation, crime.
Leahy: Joe Biden wants to make it about abortion.
Ogles: The polling – I think we talked about this last week, and the polling continues to bear out that regardless of where you’re at across the country, Republican district, Independent, or even a blue-leaning district. Like the districts in Las Vegas, Nevada, where you’ve got three districts there in Las Vegas.
One of them is barely Republican, the other two are barely Democrat. All three of those are worried about the economy, inflation, crime, the border, and fentanyl. That’s what Americans across the country are talking about.
Leahy: What’s interesting, also, is many pundits are saying Democrats are now saying, well, we peaked too early. And I’m looking at the generic ballot right now at RealClearPolitics, and it’s gone dramatically toward Republicans.
It’s Republicans-plus 2.2 percent. And if you look at the chart in the past week, it’s gone straight up for Republicans versus Democrats.
Ogles: Overall inflation is 8.2 percent. When you get beyond that generic number, gas is up 18 percent. You know, electricity is up almost 16 percent. Meat, bread, poultry, fish, 7.7. And baby food. So think about it. When you’re a young family, everything that you’re buying has just gone up.
Now your baby food and your diapers are costing you 12, 13 percent more. And so that’s why the Democrats are flailing. They’re on death row right now because people are going to vote with their pocketbooks. And whether you like Trump or not, you were better off two years ago.
Leahy: Oh, my goodness. Not even close.
Ogles: Not even close.
Leahy: Not even close.
Ogles: Then if you look at Drudge, the headlines, the Fed waited too long, the government pumped in way too much money. They’re doing all these rate hikes, and now they’re looking at even more aggressive rate hikes as we go forward.
This is like a jumbo jet crashing into the side of the mountain. These people are nuts. They have no idea what they’re doing.
Leahy: Speaking of momentum, there’s more momentum now. A tele-town hall is kind of fun. And having Donald Trump on there talking about Andy Ogles and the 5th Congressional District and national issues, that will be a lot of fun.
But what’s really going to be fun is when you have a rally with, oh, I don’t know, Ted Cruz and Clay Travis supporting Andy Ogles. Now, that is going to be fun. When is that going to be? Where is that going to be?
Ogles: So it’s on the 26th. It’s at The Factory at Franklin there in the Jamison Theater. You can go to facebook.com/andyogles. We’ve got a link there that you can click, and it’ll take you right to the site so you can get the tickets.
It’s free to attend, so we’re not charging you anything. But that being said, it is going to be a lot of fun. And Ted Cruz endorsed me in the primary. I had the honor. I went on a retreat with Senator Cruz and Clay Travis and some other potential income.
Leahy: So you’re hanging with Clay Travis now. His studios are here in the same building we are in. We see him every now and then, and he does promos for the show. But he’s a pretty busy guy, and he’s got like, the most listened-to radio program in America.
Clay [Travis] and Buck [Sexton] from 11:00 a.m to 2:00 p.m. here on Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC. But one thing about Clay is he’s from Middle Tennessee. He’s a fun guy and he understands Tennessee, and he loves sports and politics. This is going to be fun.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this 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.
Photo “Mayor Andy Ogles for Congress” by Mayor Andy Ogles for Congress.
