The Great America Show - November 09, 2022


VICTORIES DON’T HAVE TO BE RED WAVES


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

173.34091

Word Count

2,235

Sentence Count

151


Summary

Lou Dobbs reacts to the results of the mid-term elections and talks with Rep. Claudia Tenney, D-New York, who was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Lou also talks about the Democratic tsunami, and whether or not it was a red wave or a blue wave.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and welcome to The Great America Show.
00:00:04.540 I have to be straightforward with you from the very beginning. I had hope leading up to this
00:00:10.920 week that the midterm elections would, in some profound ways, resolve important issues that
00:00:16.420 divide our nation and our people. I know you, perhaps most of us, were, in fact, hoping for
00:00:22.840 the same resolution. Of course, an election that ended on our own terms with our values and
00:00:30.380 philosophy and beliefs held up by most, if not all, of our countrymen, our fellow patriots.
00:00:36.500 We didn't succeed, did we, in that hope? But we did make advances in that direction.
00:00:42.960 Our existential midterm election has answered some important questions in and about America,
00:00:49.960 and did succeed in halting, at least momentarily, our blind descent into open conflict in our
00:00:57.000 fractured society. But yesterday's vote didn't answer all our questions or truly and finally
00:01:04.200 resolve our conflicts between warring parties and between our visions for this great republic
00:01:10.600 and all Americans united. It was supposed to be a great red wave, a red tsunami, predicted by a
00:01:19.060 number of pollsters and politicos, and most of us had hoped against hope that we would see that
00:01:24.660 unfold. So, no, we didn't win a wave. We didn't win a transformational victory, nor a mandate.
00:01:33.060 But we did win victories, like the re-election of Congresswoman Claudia Tenney of New York.
00:01:38.820 We talked with her last night as she celebrated her re-election to the House of Representatives.
00:01:43.780 Congratulations, Representative Tenney, on winning re-election. You're a terrific force in Congress,
00:01:50.820 and I know you have to be pleased with your margin of victory, richly deserved.
00:01:56.020 Well, thank you so much. It's been a tremendously difficult year in New York. We've had redistricting,
00:02:00.820 lawsuits, two primaries, lots of confusion. And I have a very new district that thankfully looks
00:02:09.460 favorably on me as I had a big primary win, and now we're seeing an even bigger general election win,
00:02:15.300 which I'm really grateful to the voters and hoping to see a little more excitement on the statewide
00:02:20.420 level. I know we've got a lot of tight races here, but there's still a lot of votes to be counted,
00:02:25.780 and we're hoping that these are going to come down to the wire, and we're going to see some big
00:02:29.700 winds, and we're going to take back the House. Well, as you would say, it looks like there's
00:02:37.380 going to be some headwinds. Is it your judgment that that tsunami is now perhaps more of a wave,
00:02:45.620 or perhaps is it even not a red wave? I was always cautious about this. I thought we would
00:02:52.980 probably gain around 15 seats, and I still think that we're probably on track to do that.
00:02:58.740 I see some big winds out there still. It's early. You don't know what you can watch on TV. You don't
00:03:04.180 know where these votes are coming unless you've got the inside data. Because I know, first of all,
00:03:09.380 you see them all come out, and they're all early votes popping out first. And then you're going to
00:03:13.940 see the early votes are typically Democrats. The absentee ballots are typically Democrats,
00:03:19.060 usually two to one margin. So you're going to see as the numbers come in, the Republican
00:03:24.260 candidates chip away at those. And that's what we're seeing. So a lot of the votes are just
00:03:28.580 starting to come in. A lot of confusion. Obviously, we see issues in Arizona. But it's going to be
00:03:34.980 interesting to see what ultimately happens when we get to the end here. I see some nice wins out of
00:03:40.020 Virginia. I see Glenn Youngkin was on. Some good wins out of New York. I think Michael Lawler is
00:03:44.900 looking really strong. It should be interesting to see who ends up winning. You know, they're not
00:03:49.380 showing, they're only showing the swing seats. They're not showing a lot of the big wins that we could be
00:03:54.340 seeing down in New York, in Long Island, where although it looks like Lee Zeldin is not going
00:04:00.100 to prevail here yet. He was very strong in different parts of the state, including Long Island, where
00:04:06.260 he's from in New York. So I see that there's still a lot of a lot of votes to be counted. So it's going
00:04:12.100 to come down to the wire. Thankfully, I'm not going to be the one with my votes down to the wire as I was
00:04:16.900 in 2020, where I was up by 28,422 votes and ended up only winning by 109. And that's after 100 days in
00:04:26.100 court. But we fought it out. We started the Election Integrity Caucus. As I've cautioned everyone who
00:04:31.780 talks about this red wave, red tsunami, we have huge issues we've got to deal with with election
00:04:37.700 integrity. And we are going to continue to work on those issues. So I'm hoping that we're going to,
00:04:43.540 you know, continue to correct that as time goes forward. And, and we take back the House this,
00:04:48.100 this year. As bad as the state of this economy has been, and is the pain that's been inflicted by this,
00:04:56.260 this puppet president, this election is far, far closer than anyone, I think, frankly,
00:05:04.740 a conservative Republican independent could have ever imagined. Your thoughts?
00:05:09.860 Yeah, it is very close. And that's because we have a lot of problems with communication. We've got
00:05:16.500 a media that is in the tank with the left wing and the Democrats. We have Democrats who
00:05:22.260 don't acknowledge, you know, that, that we are a constitutional republic. We keep hearing about
00:05:27.220 democracy, democracy. You know, we are a constitutional republic that's self-governing.
00:05:32.260 We are not a straight democracy. And that's by design, because our founders were concerned about
00:05:36.500 the tyranny of the majority. It's one of the reasons, you know, I'm a former newspaper owner.
00:05:41.060 I'm an attorney. I explain every vote that I take in the House because I want to decode what's going
00:05:45.940 on in Washington. I want the voters to know that they, what, what, why bills are named a certain way
00:05:52.420 and they don't do what they say they're going to do. I want to make sure that the public is able to be
00:05:57.540 self-governing. Remember, that was the quintessential question that Lincoln asked during one of the
00:06:02.500 worst moments in our nation's history. The civil war was the question of, yeah, can we save the
00:06:07.140 republic? But more importantly, can we be self-governing? And we're at that precipice.
00:06:11.540 And it looks to me right now, like New York state is not in a position to be self-governing. I'm very
00:06:17.380 concerned about the future of New York state. If we continue with one party rule and the kind of tyranny
00:06:23.300 and the kind of authoritarianism we're seeing from Kathy Hochul, unprecedented.
00:06:28.420 She makes Andrew Cuomo look like someone who's a moderate. And this is a, this is a, I'm very,
00:06:34.500 very worried about the future of New York state. I'm very worried that the empire state is going
00:06:39.540 to look like the exodus state if we don't take back some of these key seats in Congress and we
00:06:44.740 don't chip away at some of these Senate seats and also a number of the assembly seats that,
00:06:50.340 to take back the super majority that they hold in the New York state legislature. I think what you're
00:06:56.020 seeing, you know, you see the Democrats talking about Ron DeSantis saying, you know,
00:07:00.020 oh, he won because he gerrymandered. And my question is, yes, he moved all kinds of Republicans
00:07:05.300 from the Northeast where they didn't feel their government was working for them. And they moved
00:07:09.860 to Florida where they could find freedom and a governor that actually represented their values.
00:07:14.580 And that's why you see a resounding win out of not just Governor DeSantis, but all the waves he
00:07:21.700 brought through big wins in Miami-Dade, those areas which are traditionally Democrat areas,
00:07:27.060 he brought in a huge number of votes. Maria Salazar winning with big numbers, Carlos Jimenez winning
00:07:32.820 in big numbers. It was amazing. So I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the votes coming
00:07:37.780 in, but I'm seeing now, as we flip through the screens here on my TV, that more and more Republicans
00:07:42.820 are coming in. So I don't think the wave is going to be as big as some projected, but it's going to be about
00:07:48.260 where I projected. And that's because I'm concerned about election integrity and whether we're really
00:07:53.300 getting our message out there on that issue. And to that issue, Congresswoman, Maricopa County in
00:08:01.540 Arizona, machine problems. Also in New Jersey, as we look around the country, Pennsylvania, some of the
00:08:11.620 the original problem states, certainly. Having problems once again with two years to prepare,
00:08:20.740 it's inexcusable. Electoral integrity is, as you are demonstrating through your leadership,
00:08:28.580 is absolutely critical. Yet we still have three major electronic voting companies, private companies,
00:08:36.820 who are all unregulated. And that is just a straightforward fact. I don't want them,
00:08:42.420 frankly, regulated by the federal government. I want them regulated by state governments, but
00:08:47.700 they're not even that. Most secretaries of state and county clerks who administer, who run elections in
00:08:55.940 the states don't even know what a machine is or what happens in that little black box. Can you speak to that?
00:09:02.740 Yeah, it's a huge, it's an issue. Look, it should be one citizen, one vote. You're seeing the
00:09:08.900 vote diluted by attempts to put non-citizens in to vote in our elections. You see a move by Democrats,
00:09:14.980 particularly in New York, against having a photo ID to vote, which has been, it's an 85 percent winner
00:09:23.220 when you deal with all, across all polling, all demographics and all ethnicities. Everybody agrees that
00:09:29.460 that's something they want. But I mean, it's really about being bold enough to get the message out
00:09:34.420 there and not be accused of being an election denier. This is what the Democrats are so effective
00:09:39.220 at saying. You challenge an election or the situation in an election, and suddenly you're an election
00:09:44.580 denier. I've had Democrats in New York City, where it's all about primaries there because they're all
00:09:50.260 Democrats, complain to me and say, we need election integrity. I'm like, join my caucus. And you know,
00:09:55.300 they end up losing in primaries. They have issues down there. But because they, the majority ruling
00:10:01.380 class of the Democrats in New York, they don't want to fix it. And that's what you're seeing around the
00:10:05.460 country. We need to be bold and we need to take this seriously. We cannot let the Democrats continue
00:10:10.900 what they've been doing to undermine our elections while they accuse us. That's exactly what they're
00:10:15.860 doing. While they suppress the vote, we want every citizen to vote because guess what happens? And we
00:10:20.820 have huge turnouts. Republicans win. And that's because people feel trust in the system. So it's
00:10:26.740 a never ending fight. We've got to continue on that on that on that vein. We thank you very much,
00:10:31.860 Congresswoman, for being with us. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Thank you for the kind words.
00:10:37.540 Yeah, thank you. It is, as Congresswoman Tenney said, a never ending fight. While some of our elected
00:10:44.660 officials like Congresswoman Tenney are pursuing important and critical public policy goals,
00:10:50.820 our media of all kinds, but last night, mostly the cable and TV network kind,
00:10:56.900 press propaganda and refer to Republican politicians and elected officials who question the integrity of
00:11:04.260 the 2020 election as election deniers. They insist that you not be properly skeptical of all media in
00:11:12.100 this age of disinformation and lies, particularly of the political kind. Here's CNN's John King asking
00:11:20.740 his audience to suspend their critical judgment and rely on the good work of government,
00:11:26.820 especially the government most proximate, closest to you.
00:11:32.420 Keeping an eye on that one. That's good. But you see, that's our first votes. And that's the
00:11:35.540 wonder of democracy, whether you're a Democrat or Republican. And I wanted to point that out
00:11:39.060 to be a little bit of the crank in the room following Brianna there. Stay off social media,
00:11:42.820 people. If you're trying to figure out, if you're trying to figure out, are there really issues with
00:11:46.740 voting? Trust your local officials. Trust us here. Trust a news source that you know and trust to be
00:11:52.020 honest about this. They're doing their jobs and they're doing it right. I offer another request
00:11:56.340 of you. Don't suspend your critical judgment, please. Especially when it comes to politics,
00:12:02.180 government and media, all of it, but particularly corporate media. And when it comes to elections,
00:12:09.140 we need to first speak honestly about them. And when there's a question about irregularity
00:12:14.900 or anomaly or outright appearance of impropriety or fraud, we should investigate. And we, the public,
00:12:22.820 should have the answers forthwith. And certainly, at least in the time it takes to hold an election
00:12:29.220 and to count the votes. Until then, the clock is ticking on the survival of our great republic.
00:12:35.860 Let's fight. And let's fight to win. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for voting. And here tomorrow,
00:12:42.580 our guest will be Congressman Andy Biggs, former head of the Congressional Freedom Caucus,
00:12:47.380 and a great American. Till then, God bless you. And may God bless America.