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Tony and Jodie Visit With American Attorney and Politician John Faso
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This week, Tony and Jodie chat with John Faso. John is an American attorney and politician who served as the U.S. representative for New York's 19th congressional district from 2017 to 2019.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
And another thing. And another thing. And another thing. And another thing. Welcome to another episode of And Another Thing, the podcast that continues to set the bar in the world of podcasts. My name is Jody Jenkins. My name is Tony Clement.
00:00:30
Speaker
And we are very excited to welcome you back once again. Not you, Tony, because you're here pretty much every week, but I meant our listeners out there. That's who we're excited to welcome back. And we certainly appreciate the support week in and week out.
Sponsor Highlight: Municipal Solutions
00:00:47
Speaker
And speaking of support, we couldn't do the show with a couple of good friends of the program, including the team at Municipal Solutions who bring the show to you each week.
00:00:58
Speaker
You can find them online at municipalsolutions.ca. And Tony, I know that you can share a little bit more about that. Yes. John Mutton and the crew are there for you. There's no question that they are Ontario's leading MZO firm. They specialize in development services and project management, which includes development approvals, permit expediting, planning services with municipalities, engineering and architectural services.
00:01:24
Speaker
minor variances, land severances, and even getting those building permits done. Go to municipalsolutions.ca. John and the gang are ready to help you out. And then I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we're on terrestrial radio every Saturday morning at 8.30 AM, 88.7 FM huntersbayradio.com.
00:01:47
Speaker
You'll see a selection actually of podcasts, but ours starts every Saturday morning at 8 30 a.m.
Broadcast Platforms and Subscriber Offer
00:01:55
Speaker
And loonypolitics.com is your home for exclusive news content that you cannot get anywhere else, including episodes of this show, which reminds me we should probably do another one for them. Yeah, we've got to plug them. We've got a schedule, Jody. We have the interview scheduled.
00:02:17
Speaker
Oh, okay. Well, who's that one with? Can you say? Melanie Paradis. Oh, yes. And I won't be doing that one. No, you won't be. I've banned that one from my schedule, my playbook. Anyway, lunipolitics.com. Use the code podcast to get 50% off an annual subscription and do yourself a favor. Do that now. lunipolitics.com. Use the code podcast and thank us later.
00:02:46
Speaker
All right, so we've got a wonderful guest we will get to right away. I was going to mention something off the top, but we can we can save that for later. So why don't you introduce the guest and we'll go from
Guest Introduction: John Faso on U.S. Politics
00:02:59
Speaker
there. Yes, it's our pleasure and and another thing podcast pleasure to have with us, John Faso. He is a U.S. attorney. He was a congressman for the 19th congressional district of New York from 2017 to 2019 as a Republican.
00:03:14
Speaker
and he previously served in the New York State Assembly from 1987 to 2002. John Faso, welcome to the program. Tony, great to be with you and your listeners again, and hope things are well with you up north.
Midterm Election Uncertainties
00:03:29
Speaker
Well, we have, uh, we just had the, uh, the Queen's, uh, uh, funeral, as you know, uh, recently. So that was the big thing. And then I think, I think Jodi and I are going to talk about Justin Trudeau's involvement. Aren't we Jodi at the end of this program? Possibly. Yes. Possibly. But the nature of this interview is going to turn it a little bit away from the, uh, the British Commonwealth and towards our brothers and sisters in the United States of America. And of course.
00:03:57
Speaker
I'm sure our listeners are interested in the state of play in the U.S. as we approach the midterms. And what better source than a former congressman, John Fassel. So give us your sense of what the race is all about and the state of the race right now.
00:04:14
Speaker
Well, I think the races are in flux, and that's a little bit of a way of saying that it's anyone's guess right now how everything turns out. We have all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives that are up.
00:04:31
Speaker
One third of the U.S. Senate is up for election this year. I think the outlook in the 50-50 U.S. Senate is decidedly cloudy. It's going to come down to four or five, maybe six Senate races. And I think that
00:04:54
Speaker
It's a 50-50 proposition as to whether Republicans or Democrats will win control. There are a couple of very highly contested seats. We can go into specific states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, New Hampshire.
00:05:13
Speaker
Washington State, perhaps, the state of Nevada, and also Colorado. Those are the places where the most competitive US Senate seats are up for grabs. The House, the picture is a little bit different. While polls suggest that Democrats have narrowed
00:05:34
Speaker
some of the gap they were facing early in this year. And President Biden's approval rating in most polls has ticked upwards slightly. He is now in the low to even mid 40s.
00:05:49
Speaker
And the president's approval rating is going to be a big factor in terms of whether Democrats keep control or Republicans take control.
Economic Influences on Elections
00:06:00
Speaker
The biggest factor against the Democrats is history. In the first off-year election after a new president's
00:06:07
Speaker
is elected. His party normally will take it on the chin in that first by-election, the first two years after a new president is inaugurated. And by historical standards,
00:06:22
Speaker
the incumbent party will lose approximately 26 seats in the House of Representatives. Since the Democratic margin in the House is currently five seats, it is pretty likely that Republicans, I would say an 80% shot, 80% chance that Republicans will win control, but that we still have almost two months left
00:06:46
Speaker
There are a number of close races across the country and enormous amounts of money are being spent in these races for the House. You also have a lot of closely contested gubernatorial and state level races. Here in New York State, for instance, the entire state legislature runs every two years. A lot of very strongly contested races in New York, states like Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania, et cetera.
00:07:15
Speaker
So I think that the race where it stands now, Tony, it's definitely the Senate is a 50-50 proposition as to which side wins. Likely that Republicans take over control of the House of Representatives. And as we get closer, of course, we'll know better. But the true result will be known on late in the night, early morning on November 8th and 9th.
00:07:42
Speaker
Thank you for that. I would like to just dig a little deeper. You mentioned President Biden, of course, and he's had some some wins legislatively. And I'd like you like you to talk about that, the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act and also the impact of the of the overturning of Roe v. Wade seems to have energized Democrat supporters. Is that is that a correct reading of things?
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think the Roe v. Wade decision definitely has energized Democrats and
00:08:15
Speaker
The public, if you really get into polling on that question, the public has a very nuanced view. They don't look at it as simply a black or white issue. But I think that the Democrats have clearly been able to capture that issue and it does mobilize their base.
Inflation's Impact on Voter Concerns
00:08:35
Speaker
However, all the polling
00:08:37
Speaker
that I have seen both private polling and public polling across the country suggest that the economy and inflation remain the overriding issues and concerns of the average person. And you see it when you drive past the gasoline station, you see it when you're in the supermarket, you see it all across the economy, prices are up and you notice it.
00:09:05
Speaker
I've noticed that myself going grocery shopping that the package of English muffins that my wife likes to buy in the past were either two for five dollars or they'd be about three twenty nine a package. Last week I purchased them four ninety nine a package. So those kind of things are what are hitting the average person, the average family.
00:09:30
Speaker
as they're shopping for their kids going back to school clothes, they're seeing cost increases there. So inflation and the economy, the uncertainty, we have interest rates going up because of inflation. And because the Federal Reserve has decided they're going to try to clamp down on the inflationary spiral. The Biden administration and the president himself have kind of stumbled on this issue.
00:09:58
Speaker
Inflation is running it over in excess of 8% right now. And Americans under 50 aren't used to seeing that. I can remember when I got my first home mortgage back in 1981, my interest rate was 13 and 7 eighths. And I think the mortgage rate now is between 5 and 6% for most homebuyers. Yeah, I think it actually hit 6% in some states, eh?
00:10:26
Speaker
That's right. It has. And so most folks are, you know, they were gotten accustomed to two and a half, three and a half percent mortgage interest rates. And they're not going to see those again for quite some time, I think. So I guess the other factor and I guess we've been dancing around it is the Trump factor. So take us through a little bit of your analysis on that.
00:10:52
Speaker
Well, you know, I've said to people that the National Democratic Party and Donald Trump have the exact same interest at the present, which is talk about Donald Trump.
00:11:02
Speaker
And Democrats don't want to talk about inflation or the economy. They want to talk about Trump and January 6th and abortion. And those issues are certainly important, and they're certainly very important in the minds of Democratic voters, and to some extent, independent swing voters. But I think that
00:11:27
Speaker
It's true that Republicans, if they're in a district or a state that Trump lost, they really don't want to be talking about Donald Trump in this election. Democrats on the other hand want to be talking about him.
00:11:45
Speaker
On the other hand, Democrats also are not exactly embracing President Biden coming in and campaigning for them. So that may change as his approval rating has ticked upwards. But I think in most states that are up for grabs and most swing congressional districts and swing gubernatorial races across the country, you're not going to see the Democratic candidate inviting Mr. Biden in to campaign for them.
00:12:13
Speaker
So it's both parties have have some things that prefer not to talk about. And for many Republicans, it's Donald Trump. And for many Democrats, it's Joe Biden. Who are the the most interesting or even most controversial races in the Senate right now? Well, I think it's a couple. It's Pennsylvania where where Dr. Amendment Oz, who won a very closely contested primary election,
00:12:42
Speaker
with Donald Trump's endorsement is running against John Fetterman, who is the incumbent Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. I would say most of the polls suggest that Fetterman is either slightly ahead or the race is pretty close, but most of the polls are saying Fetterman is slightly ahead. I think that race could go either way. Race in Ohio, J.D. Vance is the Republican nominee. Again, another Trump.
00:13:11
Speaker
and Dorsey. He's running against Congressman Tim Ryan, who is attempting to run as a populist working class Democrat.
00:13:24
Speaker
the other US Senator from Ohio, the other Democrat. This is a seat that Rob Portman is retiring from. The Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown, is your classic populist lunch bucket kind of Democrat. And Tim Ryan is attempting to emulate the strategy that has been successful for Sherrod Brown. I think in this race, Vance, because Ohio has clearly tilted Republican in recent years,
00:13:53
Speaker
Vance is likely to win, but this is not for certain either. Another race, Wisconsin. Senator Ron Johnson, seeking his third term, is running against the lieutenant governor there, a guy named Mandela Barnes. And Ron Johnson has had the good fortune of running previously in two very good Republican years, 2010 and 2016. And many think that the third time is a charm for him.
00:14:21
Speaker
Democrats are keenly interested in defeating Ron Johnson. I think that's a true toss-up race, but I would give Johnson the edge in that race. And the last one, what I'd say, there are two others that are very contested, Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, who won
00:14:46
Speaker
The rest of a six year term, the two years remaining in a six year term of a departed Senator in 2020.
00:14:58
Speaker
He won that race very closely contested, is running against another Trump in Dorsey, Herschel Walker. Herschel Walker, yes. He was a football player and famous in that regard. I would say that's a toss up and maybe Senator Warnock is slightly ahead. And the last race I would highlight is Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly, the former astronaut is running.
00:15:27
Speaker
Again, for the, he was elected just two years ago for the unexpired term of the late Senator John McCain in a close race. And he's running against yet another Trump endorsed candidate. And in that race, that guy is a guy named Blake Masters. And he's very much supported by Donald Trump and the tech billionaire, Peter Thiel.
00:15:56
Speaker
Um, Blake masters used to work for teal in fact, and that's another close toss up race. There's other races in Colorado and Washington state and New Hampshire that are worth looking at. But those are the, those are the five seats that I think would be most determinative in terms of which party wins control.
00:16:16
Speaker
So John, you know, let's just war game this out.
Trump's Influence on Republican Strategy
00:16:20
Speaker
Like all of these Trump inspired and endorsed candidates, if they win, that's a big boost for Trump. Maybe he then declares for the presidency formally, if they all lose, does that have any bearing on what Donald Trump decides to do? Good question.
00:16:42
Speaker
You know, Donald Trump famously said that he could go out on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and his supporters wouldn't abandon him. And his support has proved to be very determinative in some of these races.
00:16:58
Speaker
And, uh, but whether or not that translates into general election success, I think many Republicans are fearful that because he's such a divisive character, even if the typically Republicans will often say they agreed with many of his policies or most of his policies, but they just didn't like him. They didn't like the way he conducted himself. They didn't like his personality. Um,
00:17:22
Speaker
It really runs the gamut, but the Republican Party, the base of the Republican Party is still strongly aligned with Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean that his running for, attempting to run for the presidency again is a good idea, a good political idea for Republicans. I think we would be better
00:17:45
Speaker
to turn the page and have a new candidate to run and not re-fight all of these battles that Donald Trump is engaged in, which frankly many of them seem more personal than policy disputes. So speaking of that, any thoughts on Florida Governor DeSantis?
00:18:09
Speaker
Well, he clearly would be the leading candidate were Trump not to run. And then you have a number of other potential candidates. People have speculated about obviously Nikki Haley, who's a former UN ambassador, a former South Carolina governor, Senator Tim Scott, African-American from South Carolina also.
00:18:36
Speaker
Senator Ben Sasse from Nebraska, obviously Ted Cruz has wanted to run previously and many expect that that fervor still beats strongly within him.
00:18:49
Speaker
Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas, who's got a very good record in the Senate. And there's talk about two governors, Glenn Youngkin, who was just elected last year from Virginia, who definitely has a more moderate tone about how he's definitely a conservative, but he presents it in a more favorable way, so to speak.
00:19:16
Speaker
And governor john sununu from new hampshire who is enormously popular in new hampshire be interesting to see how he would fair as a presidential candidate particularly given his popularity among republicans and you haven't mentioned vice president pencil.
00:19:31
Speaker
Ah, and that was my mistake. Vice President Pence is definitely out there. He's campaigning for candidates. He's definitely trying to do what Richard Nixon did back in 1968, which is to having come off a political defeat eight years prior.
00:19:53
Speaker
And then six years prior for governor of California, which he lost in 1962. And he famously said afterwards in his press conference, you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore to the press. Well, six years later, he was campaigning assiduously in 1966 for other Republicans was successful. That's what Mike Pence is attempting to do now. He is, he's out around the country campaigning for other Republicans.
00:20:20
Speaker
trying to build up chits and IOUs so you can't discount Mike Pence as being a factor in the race. Before we let you go, just give us a sense because you've done it. None of us have done it except for you on this call. How do you run for Congress? What does that take to do?
00:20:43
Speaker
Well, it takes a lot of stamina and endurance. It also takes the need to, if you're not a self-funding wealthy candidate, you've got to go out there and raise the money. And that takes a lot of time and effort. If you have a political base, that's of course
00:21:04
Speaker
a very good thing to start from when i ran for the congress i had run for office in ten years and a lot of my political base that kind of drifted away so i got recreated.
Financial Demands of Political Campaigns
00:21:17
Speaker
And you just gotta go out there and.
00:21:20
Speaker
and meet people and convince your party leadership that you can be the strongest candidate. When I ran in 2016, I had a very well funded primary opponent and who outspent me in the primary about 1.9 million to 1.1 million is what I spent. And that was just in the primary. That was just the primary and I got 67% of the vote in that primary.
00:21:46
Speaker
Well, look, Tony, in 2018, my race for reelection in Congress, if you added up both the candidates, both parties, and all the outside groups that spent money in my congressional district, it was over $32 million spent in that race, which is a crazy amount of money. And I candidly, I believe much of the money that's spent in politics is wasted because I don't think
00:22:15
Speaker
voters after a while, they become immune to these blandishments, whether they're television or cable ads or digital ads or mail in their mailboxes. But the political process always says better to err on the side of spending the money and trying to get every last vote than to not spend it and come up short.
00:22:42
Speaker
You know, I came up short in 18, not for lack of spending, although I was outspent in my race in 18. In 16, I was outspent as well, but not as heavily, and we were able to prevail. And a lot of this depends also on the tide. In 2016, Donald Trump actually won my congressional district. I ran ahead of him, but in 2018,
00:23:08
Speaker
he slightly lost my congressional district. And a lot of those Trump voters from 2016 just simply didn't turn out. I'm sorry, in 20 he lost my congressional district. But in 18, many of those Trump voters who voted both in 16 and in 20 didn't turn out for the off-year election.
00:23:29
Speaker
Oh, I see. It's one of the big things in this in these in these races, Tony, who turns out? And that's that's something that both parties are working feverishly to try to get their supporters to the polls. Jodi, any thoughts or questions for our guest? No, you took all my questions.
00:23:46
Speaker
I did it again, didn't I? You did. There we go. Well, listen, John Faso, it's been great to have you on the program. A lot of keen insight there as we move towards the midterms in the U.S. of A. And as you know, Canadians study U.S. politics, talk U.S. politics, debate U.S. politics. So we feel like we're your cousins who are watching very, very closely. So thanks for giving us your insights.
Canadian Interest in U.S. Politics
00:24:12
Speaker
Great to be with you and your audience, and you be well, and we will look forward and watch these races closely, and maybe after it's over, we'll come back and do a post-mortem. That would be a terrific idea. Thanks again, John. Thank you. Well, there you go. Lots of American political talk between you and John.
00:24:37
Speaker
We hadn't done that for a while though. It was good to get back into US politics a little bit. I know we've been focusing on Canadian and so on, but it's just fascinating what's going on down there. I thought it would be nice to have a guy who's actually done it. He's run for Congress. He's won. He's lost. He's done it all. So there you go. Maybe he's going to run for president. I didn't hear him drop his name. He didn't drop his name, did he? Well, maybe if DeSantis falters, you never know. You heard it here first.
00:25:06
Speaker
Um, so yeah, you wanted to, we made, we made mention of it or you made mention of it.
Trudeau's Karaoke Incident at Queen's Funeral
00:25:12
Speaker
And I said, we'll wait till the end, but I wanted to chat a little bit about Trudeau and a situation or a story that occurred, uh, not that long ago regarding his appearance.
00:25:24
Speaker
and his visit to the UK to honor the Queen. So you want to set this up for our regular? Well, obviously, the thing is that this was the most viewed event in the history of the world. 5.1 billion people viewed part or all of the funeral. That's 63% of the world's population. So this was the biggest
00:25:51
Speaker
television event of all time so far. And what does Justin Trudeau do? For Canadians and for British who are in the know, he kind of stole some of the limelight a little bit with his impromptu karaoke session at the hotel bar on the Saturday nights belting out Bohemian Rhapsody. And, you know, it's as anything with Justin Trudeau,
00:26:20
Speaker
it's completely polarized. Either you think this is despicable and he shouldn't do this. It's an affront to the dignity of his office and to the memory of her late majesty. Or it's just a guy letting his hair down a little bit. What's the big deal? He was singing a couple of tunes with a piano accompaniment. So again, depends on your point of view. I just found it fascinating
00:26:48
Speaker
to for a couple of things. First of all, when the story kind of broke in the morning, I guess the Monday morning, the morning of the funeral, a bunch of people on Twitter were saying, well, this is obviously untrue. You're just trying to say nasty things about the prime minister. This never happened. And then the prime minister's office confirmed that it did happen. And they were still denying these Trudeau, these true anons were still denying it to happen, even when the prime minister's office said, yeah, it happened. The second thing that has been noted
00:27:16
Speaker
is the difference between the mainstream media of Canada's treatment of it versus the British and anyone else who's a sentient being. So you get these global news and CTV. Trudeau does a rendition of a song to honour Her Majesty the Queen. Is there their take on it? And everybody else is saying,
00:27:39
Speaker
You know, drunken Trudeau, it's not been, it's not been proved that he was drunk, but drunken Trudeau, drunken Trudeau defiles the honor of her majesty by late night partying. So again, I just found it interesting as a story. I'm not passing judgment on his activities, but I found it interesting how different elements of the media treated it differently and how different people treated it differently.
Media and Public Reactions to Trudeau's Actions
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I hadn't even heard about it until you told me.
00:28:09
Speaker
about it. So I obviously didn't come across my desk and I watched the clip. Personally, I didn't think anything of it. I was indifferent. I thought it was like whatever. I didn't really care.
00:28:28
Speaker
It'll go away quickly. To me, it was just an interesting case study of how Trudeau, he does command the attention of people. When he does stuff like this, people lose their minds or they lose their minds defending him, one of the two. That to me was more of the story than whether it was right or wrong for him to do it.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah. So you're, and you're right. This won't last long at all. I'm sure it might be done tomorrow, actually, if it isn't done already. He's off to the UN General Assembly. Interestingly, he's off to do that rather than to be in parliament and face Pierre Poliev. So there you go. I heard he's got it either though that he's got an hour coming up. Pierre is going to be able to go at him for an hour this week or is that not happening now? I guess maybe on the Wednesday. Yeah. So it'll be on the Wednesday because that is the caucus day.
00:29:24
Speaker
And so typically party leaders are around for caucus and then Trudeau's tradition has been to designate only one day a week.
00:29:34
Speaker
Harper was there three or four days a week doing question period. Where's Trudeau though? He's going somewhere else over there? He's going to New York City for the UN General Assembly. Oh, New York. Okay. He'll likely be there Wednesday then. He'll be there Wednesday and that'll be the big day because then he would take all the questions on the Wednesday is his traditional way of doing things one day a week.
00:30:03
Speaker
each caucus is all revved up because they've just had a caucus meeting an hour before the House of Commons resumes and so they're all loaded for bear as they say and so that'll be interesting to watch. They've pounded like 16 cases of Red Bull and they're just flying high. Yeah, they've got a little bit of Red Bull there and some muffins. They got some good muffins there. That's about it.
00:30:28
Speaker
Oh, for some reason, what was the name of that one? Oh, he was in Chris Alexander's riding that liberal. Who was that one liberal there? What was that guy's name again? Was his name Mark something? Holland.
00:30:41
Speaker
Mark Holland. I just picture him all of a sudden, like if he was all jacked up on Red Bull, ripping his shirt open and just running down on the floor and screaming. I think he's the liberal whip these days. I could see him doing that too. That's right. He can get fired up too. Oh yeah. Yeah, I know he does. He does. You're right. Speaking of Chris Alexander, we should get him on the show. I haven't heard from him in a long time. I think we did way back when. It was one of our first podcasts. Yeah, I know he was on a long time ago.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see what he's up to and that's a good idea. Yeah. Lots of good ideas out there. Lots of people interviewed. We haven't cornered the market on all of them yet, but we'll see what we can do. Okay. Wow. That's all I got for today. That's great. That's great, man. It's good to hear your voice and hope you're well. The family's well, I hope too. I heard that you spoke a little bit at the leadership convention for the conservatives when you were there and
00:31:41
Speaker
Your opening line was something like, Hey everybody, I just flew in from Toronto and boy, are my arms tired. Yeah. Yeah. That was, no, I, I did not want to go to opener. I didn't want to make the leadership announcement any longer than it already was. So I didn't do that. This is Tony's go-to opener. Enough about me. What do you think about me? You got the.
00:32:05
Speaker
Good. I'm glad we're using the new Zencaster tools here. That's great. Good for you. We've always had that, actually. I just never knew.
00:32:15
Speaker
All right, well, thanks again to Municipal Solutions and their continued support is our presenting sponsor. You can find them online at municipalsolutions.ca. Also, Hunters Bay Radio, 88.7 every Saturday morning. You can catch the program on terrestrial radio. And finally, lunepolitics.com.
00:32:36
Speaker
You can find us there and become an annual subscriber by using the code podcast to get 50% off of your subscription. So make sure you do that today at LooneyPolitics.com. Tony, we will do this again in seven days. Can't wait.