Bob McDonnell

All right, well we are back and now we have Governor Bob McDonald joining us too, but this is an interesting situation.

Let's talk about what's going on in the last few minutes here on this show.

First, we hear from you, you're telling me that you're having a bit of trouble getting on.

John is on with our previous guest, David Harshani, talking about his appearance at the Virginia Council coming up in the next month here April 1st,

not an April Fool's joke, he's really going to be there, but I'm trying to juggle all these hats.

And in the process of getting you on, we assume to have lost the main man himself, John.

That's the two of us unless John finds a way to get back on. He's up in North of Virginia.

He had a breakfast in a speech this morning and we've had some, I'll be just totally transparent.

We've had some trouble with the broadcast when we've had to do it.

In some capacity remotely, but how are you? What's been going on with you?

Well, man, thanks for asking. I've got my plate full. I'm practicing law running a small little consulting business teaching it.

Three different universities, law and government and a full plate with eight grandchildren.

God is good. Plenty to do and lots of love in my life with my grandkids and I've been married in a couple months.

Well, congratulations. I knew that there was a new special somebody in your life for a few years here, but yeah, well, will any details there that you care to share or.

So young lady, I've known for a long time and got to know the through public service and a little bit through government.

She and her late husband used to fly me around. So I keep getting her. I never know what she looked like. I only saw the back of her head for about 10 years in an airplane.

She's business later down here at Hampton Road Cheryl McCluskey and we become best friends and I'm very blessed.

Oh, congratulations. I think John, we've we've managed to get John back.

Hope so.

He's got to ask the governor how much he's been paying attention to everything going on in the session this this winter. So yeah.

Hey, sorry about that. You know, Northern Virginia is weird. Almost everywhere I'm gone. We have these little issues, but we're we're making it through. I appreciate you joining us today.

Good. Welcome to the podcast world.

Yeah. Yeah. There's always always some curve balls.

And I am radio to politics to to podcast.

Is that moving up in the world or back hiding? I'm not. You'll have to tell me John.

We'll see if we get we get the Joe Rogan checks coming in. Maybe that will be it. That'll be an improvement.

Listen, I don't know what you and Dan have already covered, but you know, I'm covered everything.

Talking about these issues related to the gerrymandering situation and this push by Democrats to steal and stop the votes and the voice of almost half of the Commonwealth.

What's your reaction to this? Are you surprised?

Well, because the power grabs to some degree by both parties, but more so with the the form left that will do anything to gain gain control in a short run because they're they're vitriolic hatred for our president is so palpable.

Anything to stop this last two years, but in the long term, I think they realize with all these mass Exodus from blue states, Johnny, see what's happening from California, all the west coast to Texas, Florida, freedom, loving states like that.

They know they better do something, I think.

So it's it's not surprising, but the boldness and the audacity and falsehoods and the hypocrisy with the way they're doing it is stunning.

Let me just tell you when I was governor, that's why we're running to me saying we need bipartisan redistricting commissions.

We've got to have the people drawing the lines, not the politicians, so a long trajectory in 2020.

The issue went to the people of Virginia and overwhelmingly, I think two to one, they passed a referendum saying, okay, a bipartisan redistricting commission draws the lines for the congressional for the congressional seats in Virginia.

And here we are five years later. No, no, no, we don't want that. We need to draw the lines.

And so we're taking the power away from the people who just decided they wanted it and we're now going to give it back to the politician.

So it's it's boldface. And then the question, of course, Johnny's you've read is a big boldface lie. The purpose is to restore fairness. Well, that's a complete joke. There's no restoring fairness.

There's nothing to restore. Virginia's generally had reasonable lines that look the power and party is always drawn the lines, but it's been nothing like this power grab where personally every congressional district now has to have a piece of Fairfax or Arlington or Alexandria or Northern Virginia.

And here's the here's really the biggest line of all of it, John. I use those words intentionally because it's it's making something that's not true.

They're claiming this is a response to Donald Trump or response to what happened in Texas. Well, there's about eight states, John, that have zero Republican members of Congress.

And the reason for that is these states, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and others, they've been drawing these lines in a gerrymandered fashion for years and years to preserve single party democratic rule in those in those states.

So some of those states have 30 40% of their population votes Republican and they had zero Republican seats in Congress. So I'm, you know, I'm done with this, this boldface line rhetoric that it's a response to Texas when democratic states have been doing it for for decades.

I think the judge Jack Hurley out in the western part of the state was right when he threw out these, throughout the lawsuits that I mean, or, you know, the election that said that that the Democrats did not do this correctly.

They did not have a intervening election between the, between the vote on this redistricting amendment and therefore they haven't properly amended the Constitution.

I think it's a little curious that the Supreme Court is allowing the referendum to go forward. Now that's not a decision on the merits. They're just essentially saying, well, we don't have time to get to the merits and we'll do it sometime after April 21.

I think their, their hope may be that the citizens defeated and then it's moved and they don't have to worry about it. I'm that may be their, their, their employment one way or the other. I think it's either unconstitutional because they didn't get on the ballot right or some constitutional because they haven't respected communities of interest.

They haven't respected the contiguous land mass issues and some of these things. So either way, I think they're on very thin statutory and constitutional ice and they're either likely to lose in court or they're likely to lose.

If you look at the early polls, because the people are going to reject this paragraph and say, no, what we told you six years ago when we voted is really how we feel we want to bipartisan redistricting commission.

Let me ask you as a former attorney general, not just as a governor, a former member of the House of delegates, you've been around this for decades.

Why would the State Supreme Court punt here? You know, what other right or or a numerated obligation, privilege and right and obligation would a court say, hey, we'll let, we'll let the vote go on.

People can choose to suppress other citizens. I mean, it seems odd to me that they would walk away from this, I think, kind of basic obligation that they've got in their role.

I mean, I'm losing faith in the court system in Virginia. It seems like case after case after case, whether it's the Robert E. Lee statue and the covenant that was agreed to there.

That didn't matter during COVID, the courts allowed the government to run all over the private rights of the citizens. And in this case, they won't even adjudicate the rulebook that the Democrats themselves put in. I mean, what is the point if the courts aren't going to engage here?

So let me say, I'm not concluding that there's anything nefarious on its face. First number one, it's a slightly right to center court, if you look at who appointed the Supreme Court of Virginia. Secondly, there could be a very practical reason for when I mentioned that maybe the people will throw it out on January 21st of April, then they don't have to get to the mayor.

But there's a more practical one, John, and that has to do with the fact that we start voting now 45 days in advance. So I think they thought, well, we really can't get to a briefing on the mayor's oral argument and a final ruling by us nine justices on the Virginia Supreme Court before early voting started.

I mean, I just voted two days ago. And so it's we're in the 45 day period right now where you can actually go to the poll and vote on this redistricting amendment. So I think that was the real deadline, not, not then.

So that means that means the manipulators, the deviance control the calendar and the system and the courts are kind of impotent to push back on that. I hate that. I mean, that may be true. But boy, I hate that explanation because it means somebody can play the system and still push forward with something that shouldn't be transpiring.

Well, I blame it on the legislature, John, because the legislature absolutely jammed the court. They didn't have by the time these lawsuits got filed.

And the Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal of what happened out in Teswell County. They were the court was completely jammed. I mean, within a couple of days after they got that initial ruling, they either would have had a rule on the merits, which means brief oral argument and decision, which I think was really impractical.

They impractical that they could do all of that that quickly and do a good job on a big constitutional question or they had to say, look, we're going to just let the, let the election happen and we'll have a normal process of brief oral argument and then ultimately decide.

In other words, they don't have any free judged view of how this is going to turn out because they're important constitutional questions that have never been raised before on this issue.

And they wanted, they want to seriously consider it. So I'm not really blaming the court. I'm blaming what the legislature did to jam the court and set the election on the 21st, knowing that the 45 days before that in March, the early voting starts.

And they just really couldn't do a good job. So it's all the Democrat power brokers that desperately wanted to take four streets away from the Republicans, stop Donald Trump. They claim it's Texas, but it's BS. They could do it in Indiana and another Republican state. I think South Carolina said, we're not playing that game.

We're going to be principled. We're not going to do something and say it's only for one term, knowing that the Democrats can turn around and do it at the warm ever turn and they take over those states.

And I think then if this was successful, the Democrats will rule this day when they thought it was a good idea to do this with all the population centers that they're losing Republicans can turn around.

They can redistrict every two years if they wanted to base the world and read that this is just bad government. It's arrogant, it's selfish, it's disingenuous, and it's all about power.

Yeah. Well, I sure hope that the average voter that may pay attention once a year right around the start of November that we can get their attention and explain this to the between now and April 21st.

Let me ask your reaction to what's been happening at the Capitol. You know, politicians run your, you've run a number of times. You've been around this stuff. You always want to sell an aspirational idea, especially if you're running statewide.

Let me tell you how I'm going to make your life better. Abigail Spanberger successfully told Virginians that she would make things more affordable for them.

Nothing that she has done. I don't think at this point and that her party has proposed will actually cut costs for the average Virginian. In fact, it looks to me like they're going to raise costs on your energy bill.

Certainly your tax bill, the 51 tax proposals that are out there. What's your reaction to this?

Well, you've quickly broken the curve, John. It's nice to wrap yourself in the flag or the mantra of affordability, but it's not what you say. It's what you do.

And there have been a lot of tax increases. Now, I will give them credit, at least in the Senate. It doesn't look like a lot of those tax increases have passed.

But there's still a ways to go and there's still the decision of what what the governor is going to do. Now, the Senate is repealing a tax break that I signed that has been wildly successful.

And that is a tax break for data centers. So we can keep the cost of the information technology age low where the data center capital of the world in Virginian.

Because it's worked so well in incentivizing people to make multi billion dollar capital investments in Virginian and the jobs that go with it.

And the local governments love it because it's a it's a it's a property tax boom for the billions and cat backs may invested in their community.

So that's a joke. I mean, a billion dollar repeal of a tax credit is a tax increase. That's the only way you skin that that cat. And the other thing.

John is the thing that the Democratic Party doesn't understand and you'll get this right away is corporations don't really pay taxes. If you tax and regulate a corporation, they simply pass it on in the price of the goods and services to the customer.

So all those other let's call it hidden taxes that they're doing for the regulatory structure. Those are still there. All the voluntary taxes by every form of gambling known to man is now coming into Virginia.

This year eye gaming skill gaming you name it, baby, you're going to have it. Even in Northern Virginia, a new casino with a local people don't want it to local legislators don't want to they're forcing that.

Down the throat. So the bottom line out of all this.

And they'll be independent people that will do this at the end of the session.

The things that Abigail Spanberger will sign into law that her party is pushing and the cost of that to real people and the middle class people.

I guarantee there are going to be an increase in the cost of living in Virginia.

And the affordability mantra will turn out to be a hoax and the the onion will be peeled back and it's too bad.

But that's what's going to happen.

I didn't think they could get worse than taxing gym memberships and dog grooming and your Uber eats delivery.

But Gazelle Hoshmi just broke the tie in the Senate yesterday to tax sleeping to tax every mattress in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

That seems like a total betrayal of what these folks ran on and I hope people are paying attention or mad about it.

They should be.

Yeah, that hurt right there. Very good picture.

Artificial intelligence just in the interest of all this closure.

But I think it makes a point that the little Iatola is on the march.

Try to press the people of Virginia.

Here's the other thing too.

And you know this Glenn Youngkin left this state in excellent fiscal condition.

I mean, excellent. I was fortunate during my four years.

We had a surplus every year.

But my total surpluses over four years was two billion.

That was real money in 2014 when I left office.

But Glenn Youngkin has left billions a year on average in surpluses.

Now, a lot some of that was from the you know, a lot of the COVID money flowing from DC, etc.

But he was very conservative and budgeted.

Yeah, he brought in about 160 billion dollars of new capital investment in Virginia.

It's starting to pay dividends.

Now he cut taxes on the military.

X is on the average working family and it's created an economic growth.

You know, a little over three percent unemployment now in Virginia.

So there was no need to raise any taxes.

The rainy day fund all time high.

About 15% of the total budget of Virginia's now tucked away in the rainy day fund.

President and fiscal strength, AAA bond rating.

We didn't need the money.

But Democrats have a love affair with your money, your tax revenue.

And they're going to take as much because then they can roll it out to their union friends.

They're pro abortion friends.

Everybody that gives them tax money.

I mean, gives them the political contributions at election time.

That's the cabal is more money to your friends.

They support you during the election.

You win more elections and the power grab continues.

That's what's going on, Jim.

Yeah.

Listen, I want to ask you a reaction of the national scene.

President Trump's name causes very visceral reactions from people.

Either love him in some parts of the state or up here where I am today in northern Virginia.

There seems to be a lot of hostility towards President Trump.

How do you think this plays out both in the midterms,

regardless of how the maps are drawn in Virginia.

And ongoing for the last two years of the Trump administration.

President Trump is a complicated figure.

The billionaire New Yorker that wins two elections and increases the Republican vote

from the Hispanic and young black male community.

It's so hard.

He's an enigma of sorts.

Hey, look, for a guy like me, you know how the style is that I govern.

John, the one that you have and the way you deal with people.

I don't like the bravada, the arrogance, the bullying.

I don't like that from the president.

And I think it hurts him badly in the time being displayed

above the other main middle class voters.

So there's a political price.

John, you know, in a normal year,

the president's party loses seats in the midterm.

That's almost a staple of American politics from the beginning of the republic.

I think it's going to be exacerbated this year.

The impact of the tariffs still that were unpopular.

The war that is ongoing and we don't really know what's going to happen

and what the after plan, the after action plans really are in Venezuela and Iran.

But you know, it's been a career growing years on the Army.

I hate war.

I detest it.

But it's necessary because there are people, people in the world in the region.

Iran regime is at the top of the list.

And people are making independent decisions about,

really, was this a necessary war?

Were we an imminent threat from an Iran republic of attack

or would they have eminently having a nuclear weapon?

I think we really know the average person probably confusing facts

of the different political parties,

whether at this particular moment that the diplomacy had been run to the

run its course and worn out and nothing was going to happen,

or whether we needed to go to war now.

What I will say is the incredible firepower and discipline and absolute excellence

of the United States military, you know, makes me want to cry.

These folks are so good and so well trained, apart from what you think about the policy,

when we decided to go to war, this is a military now that will go to war to fight.

We're not having political arms tied behind our back.

I know when I was in the Army we learned on day one,

the goal of the military is to kill people and break things for the good of the country.

And we're doing that and it's the tactical action.

So I think we'll at some point have a pretty decisive military victory.

But John, then the question is what then?

What does the new government look like?

We got the Ayatollah son who just lost his wife and his kid.

I mean, he's not going to be a peacemaker as far as I can see.

So, I don't know, the bottom line is this is the question that voters will decide

that they like the wars.

I mean, President Trump stopped about eight of them,

and then now he's involved with two or three new ones,

if you count the Narco-terrorism war in Latin America.

So people who make that decision on that, the terrorists.

And really, are you better off now than you were at 9% inflation with Joe Biden?

Are things really more affordable under Donald Trump?

I think you got to say, yes.

So it's still too soon to tell.

Seven months till the election is still a long time for both for entities and inflation and terrorists.

So it's not fully baked in yet, John.

And I think it's still too close to call.

The former governor of Virginia, former attorney general, Bob McDonald.

I really appreciate the chance to talk to you.

Thank you.

Thanks, John, for having me on.

Bless wishes with the new podcast.

Thank you very much, sir.

All right, let's take that quick break.

And we will come back and producer Dan will rejoin us in just a moment.

Here on The Read Revolution.