Speaker 1: I am pleased as punch to have the member of
Speaker 1: Congress from the Oh geez, Jeff, what districtor are you fifth? Yes,
Speaker 1: fifth congressional district. He's Representative Jeff Crank, who I completely
Speaker 1: smeared his good name this morning on my blog by
Speaker 1: saying he did something when in reality it was the
Speaker 1: other representative, Jeff from Colorado. Jeff heard, I've got Jeff
Speaker 1: Crank with me today and Representative Jeff Crank. It's clear
Speaker 1: that one of you is going to have to change
Speaker 1: your name because they are two confusing the idiots like
Speaker 1: me who confuse a kind of important vote. And we'll
Speaker 1: get to that in just a moment. But first of all,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: Well thanks for having me, Mandy. I always enjoy being
Speaker 2: on with you.
Speaker 1: Yes, I appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Speaker 1: Let's start with what I initially reached out many many.
Speaker 1: It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was September second.
Speaker 3: I went back and looked at the date today.
Speaker 1: September second, Space Command is being moved to Alabama. I
Speaker 1: reach out and said, let's get you on the show.
Speaker 1: Today's the first day that we could get you on.
Speaker 1: But Holy crap, it's like a lifetime has happened in
Speaker 1: the last two weeks. But let's start with Space Command.
Speaker 1: Is there any chance to salvage this for Colorado Springs?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I think there is, and I'm working to
Speaker 2: try and fight that decision. Actually, all of the members
Speaker 2: of the delegation, Democrats and Republicans, signed a statement the
Speaker 2: day that had happened that we are opposed to it.
Speaker 2: It's the wrong thing to do from a national security perspective,
Speaker 2: and we're fighting the decisions and I'm working with our
Speaker 2: senators to help do that as well. There are some,
Speaker 2: though on the left, who who think that fighting this
Speaker 2: decision is attacking Donald Trump. Right. It isn't right, because
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and the Trump administration make the decision about
Speaker 2: what roles and missions might come to Colorado. And so
Speaker 2: I have been working hard with the administration to find
Speaker 2: some things to come to Colorado that would expand missions
Speaker 2: beyond Space Command. And there's lots of things, and I've
Speaker 2: had really good discussions with them. I'm very confident that
Speaker 2: we're going to get more things coming to Colorado. Nothing
Speaker 2: in this decision to move Space Command changes the fact
Speaker 2: that fifty percent of US Space Force is actually located
Speaker 2: in Colorado. It's going to remain in Colorado. Fifty percent
Speaker 2: of the Space Force and growing will be in Colorado.
Speaker 2: And so people confuse sometimes the difference between Space Force
Speaker 2: and Space Command. Obviously, we're disappointed in the decision. It's
Speaker 2: the wrong decision. We're going to fight it. But as
Speaker 2: equally important is the fact that we're just going to
Speaker 2: work hard to bring more missions, roles and missions to Colorado,
Speaker 2: and specifically to Colorado Springs.
Speaker 1: So I mean not to disparage what you just said,
Speaker 1: that as sounds a little like we're going to get
Speaker 1: a consolation prize, like we're going to get other things
Speaker 1: to make up for the loss of talent or the
Speaker 1: other things that will be peeled off by the loss
Speaker 1: of Space Command.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: One of the things that President Trump said in his
Speaker 1: comments announcing the change was that when I heard from
Speaker 1: the Alabama delegation, everybody all the time, they didn't talk
Speaker 1: about anything else but moving Space Command. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like they just got to jump on us because they
Speaker 1: tend to all align with the same political party. Did
Speaker 1: it make it easier for them to do a full
Speaker 1: court press than our situation. And I'm not asking you
Speaker 1: to say anything bad about your Democratic colleagues at all,
Speaker 1: but dealing with someone from your own party is a
Speaker 1: heck of a lot easier than dealing with someone from
Speaker 1: the other party.
Speaker 3: I don't care who you are.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the Alabama delegation has been working this
Speaker 2: for many years. Keep in mind, I mean I've been
Speaker 2: a member of Congress for nine months, right, So I
Speaker 2: got sworn in nine months ago. The decision to move
Speaker 2: Space Command was made by President Trump in his first
Speaker 2: term at the in twenty twenty one. In January of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. I wasn't a member of Congress, wasn't
Speaker 2: even thinking about running for Congress back then. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of history that's been, you know, been behind
Speaker 2: us on this decision. So what I was left with
Speaker 2: when I arrived on January third of this year was really,
Speaker 2: you know, what do we do? How do we fight
Speaker 2: this decision? And we fought it not from a political standpoint,
Speaker 2: but from a military one that it just doesn't make
Speaker 2: sense from a military standpoint to move Space Command. But
Speaker 2: I would say this, the pie is so much bigger today.
Speaker 2: And you talked about maybe a consolation prize. I would
Speaker 2: just say I don't think that's the case. I think
Speaker 2: there's going to be a pretty major realignment of our military,
Speaker 2: particularly when it comes to space, over the next couple
Speaker 2: of years. As I said, we're going to the space
Speaker 2: force in Colorado will continue to grow. But the high
Speaker 2: is so much bigger today than it was those many
Speaker 2: years ago when the decision was first made. We just
Speaker 2: added Golden Dome. Golden Dome. We just put twenty five
Speaker 2: billion dollars Congress approved for the first year of Golden Dome.
Speaker 2: I mean, Golden Dome's going to be hundreds of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars that's going to be spent. Much of that
Speaker 2: money will be coming to Colorado. So I would just
Speaker 2: say that what's coming to Colorado through Golden Dome and
Speaker 2: through other things is going to dwarf what might be
Speaker 2: lost in Space Command. And by the way, Space Command
Speaker 2: was originally supposed to be about twenty three hundred jobs.
Speaker 2: We've worked with the administration to talk about what the
Speaker 2: impact would be and it'll be about one thousand jobs,
Speaker 2: six hundred of those civilian, four hundred military. So it's
Speaker 2: going to be a far less impact than it was
Speaker 2: originally going to be when they announced it number one
Speaker 2: and number two. Just with with Golden Dome, there's just
Speaker 2: going to be so much more coming here. There's going
Speaker 2: to be more space business in Colorado five years from
Speaker 2: now than there is today, no matter what happens with
Speaker 2: Space Command.
Speaker 1: So a couple of people asking just to be clear here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna answer this question, Mandy, as I understand it.
Speaker 1: Space Command has moved, but not Space Force. And that's
Speaker 1: what Jeff was just saying here, is that Space Force,
Speaker 1: over fifty percent of Space Force is still located in Colorado.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about Golden Dome for just a second,
Speaker 1: because I think this is the Israelis have proved how
Speaker 1: effective a dome defense system is. And you know, Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan got laughed at when he said we're going to
Speaker 1: have this Star Wars missile defense system. It's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that fifty years later, and yes it has been
Speaker 1: fifty years, it finally looks like it's going to be
Speaker 1: coming to fruition. If so much of that is coming
Speaker 1: to Colorado, is that because of our existing commercial infancy structure,
Speaker 1: the companies that are already existing in Colorado springs in
Speaker 1: Denver in those areas that are doing this kind of
Speaker 1: high tech stuff.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a lot of that, and much of
Speaker 2: that is going to stay here. It's not going to
Speaker 2: move to Alabama. Most of it won't move to Alabama
Speaker 2: just because Space Command may move to Alabama. But it
Speaker 2: is both that civilian workforce, but we also have a
Speaker 2: lot of the military bases here that do so much
Speaker 2: that can't be moved. GPS satellites. All of the GPS
Speaker 2: satellites in the world. Every day when you use your
Speaker 2: phone to navigate you from one place to another, that's
Speaker 2: all controlled on the ground in my congressional district at
Speaker 2: Shriver Air Force Base, that's all done there, Norrad, Cheyenne Mountain,
Speaker 2: all of that stuff that's not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: So Northern Command is a unified command and it's still
Speaker 2: headquartered here in Colorado Springs. They're going to be the
Speaker 2: executors of Golden Dome. They're going to decide if something
Speaker 2: If a missile is fired anywhere in the world, they're
Speaker 2: going to in a split second, make a decision about
Speaker 2: whether that missile is headed to the United States or not,
Speaker 2: and if it is, how to shoot it down. And
Speaker 2: how to defend the United States. Every decision about that
Speaker 2: in the Command structure will be made right here in
Speaker 2: Colorado Springs. Actually, so that's why Colorado is going to
Speaker 2: really benefit from Golden Dome. I formed the Golden Dome
Speaker 2: Caucus in Congress so that we could continue to keep
Speaker 2: Colorado the head of really space in the military.
Speaker 3: Somebody just checks it in.
Speaker 1: During the Biden era, Colorado Springs was named the permanent
Speaker 1: home of Space Command. Trump overturned that. Let's not forget that.
Speaker 1: Represent your voters, not Trump. I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: what he just said, that he's been advocating for this.
Speaker 3: But how do you respond to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Mandy, look, I mean that's a political question
Speaker 2: by someone who's probably trying to make score a pulit aint.
Speaker 2: I have fought the president on this. I just said
Speaker 2: that we don't agree with the decision. It is a
Speaker 2: bad decision for national security. I do not support the
Speaker 2: decision to move it. But what's the alternative? Should I
Speaker 2: just attack Donald Trump as a president like many Democrats
Speaker 2: have done. That's counterproductive. To attack the president doesn't help
Speaker 2: us get more missions for the people that I represent.
Speaker 2: So my job as their congressman, and as a representative
Speaker 2: from the state of Colorado is do my best to
Speaker 2: keep as many jobs here as I possibly can. We
Speaker 2: are fighting as best we can to keep the Space
Speaker 2: Command in Colorado. But you know, it's also tough sometimes
Speaker 2: when we do have a governor that wants to thumb
Speaker 2: his nose at the Trump administration over immigration, over healthcare,
Speaker 2: over everything. We have US senators that tend to want
Speaker 2: to do that too. Although I will say Governor ben Or,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Senator Bennett has been really helpful in the
Speaker 2: fight here on Space Command. So you know, it's tough.
Speaker 2: Colorado has continually tried to poke the eye of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that. I'm going to try
Speaker 2: and work to get roles and missions to Colorado. That
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that I agree with the decision. I've said
Speaker 2: from day one that I oppose any move from Space
Speaker 2: Command and I'm going to do everything I can to
Speaker 2: stop it.
Speaker 1: I'm with Representative Jeff Crank and I want to to
Speaker 1: get to with something that I and I've gone back
Speaker 1: and I've corrected the blog, so if you looked at
Speaker 1: it earlier, you will see me as I just told
Speaker 1: Jeff I've hoisted myself on my own Petardi idiocy because
Speaker 1: one member, one Republican member of the Colorado delegation, voted
Speaker 1: against a move to censure Representative ilhan Omar, who has
Speaker 1: been everywhere she can be saying the most nasty things
Speaker 1: she can about your kirk, because that's what she does.
Speaker 1: And I am so wrong. It was Representative Jeff Heard
Speaker 1: who voted no.
Speaker 3: You voted yes on that?
Speaker 2: Why well, And to even confuse it a little bit,
Speaker 2: a little bit more, what we actually voted on was
Speaker 2: a motion to table a motion to censure ilhan Omar.
Speaker 2: So I actually voted no on the motion to table it.
Speaker 2: Jeff Heard voted yes. But essentially I voted to continue
Speaker 2: with the resolution of censure on ilhan Omar. Jeff Heard
Speaker 2: voted yes on the motion to table that, so he
Speaker 2: voted against the censure of ilhan Omar. And you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to speak for Jeff. Jeff's a friend.
Speaker 2: It's not a vote that I agreed with or would
Speaker 2: have cast. I just believe that, you know, of course,
Speaker 2: I support free speech. I've I am very much opposed
Speaker 2: to the government coming in. You know, there's been a
Speaker 2: lot of talk about free speech as of late, and
Speaker 2: the whole issue with Jimmy Kimmel and all of that, well, look,
Speaker 2: the free market ought to decide whether Jimmy Kimmel's on
Speaker 2: the air or not. I don't watch him, I don't
Speaker 2: like him, and if people don't want him on air,
Speaker 2: stop watching him. But the government should never whether it's
Speaker 2: a fec or I'm sorry, the FCC chairman or anyone
Speaker 2: else should never step in. It's a violation of the
Speaker 2: First Amendment to get government telling someone that they shouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing that. We saw it during COVID. I mean,
Speaker 2: we saw what the Biden administration did to censor people
Speaker 2: who had a different view of COVID. That is wrong,
Speaker 2: and the Supreme Courts ruled that it's wrong. So I'm
Speaker 2: totally against that. But this wasn't an issue with Ilhan
Speaker 2: Omar in my view of free speech. In fact, if
Speaker 2: we would have passed the resolution of censure, she still
Speaker 2: had free speech. She had every right to say whatever
Speaker 2: vile and discussed thing that she wanted to say, and
Speaker 2: she has said a lot of vile and disgusting things,
Speaker 2: particularly about Charlie Kirk. She's fully entitled to do that.
Speaker 2: The question on whether or not we should censure her
Speaker 2: is whether or not that is becoming of a member
Speaker 2: of Congress, and whether we should hold ourselves to a
Speaker 2: higher standard. And I would simply say this. You know,
Speaker 2: we had a motion or a resolution a few months
Speaker 2: back when two Democrats were killed in Minnesota by this
Speaker 2: guy who went to their door, these Democrat legislators, and
Speaker 2: he killed them. I voted for that, and I think
Speaker 2: every Republican voted right to condemn that action. They did.
Speaker 3: I looked this morning.
Speaker 1: Every Republican voted to contemn the political violence that took
Speaker 1: the lives of Melissahrtman and her husband. And you can't
Speaker 1: even get Democrats to vote for a resolution just honoring.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's terrible that we've to that point where we
Speaker 2: have to fight over this. Look. I said this last night.
Speaker 2: If you can't as a human being and an American,
Speaker 2: if you can't say that the murder of someone else
Speaker 2: is wrong, an innocent person, just because you disagree with them.
Speaker 2: If you can't say that that's wrong, you need to
Speaker 2: go back and go to church again. You need to
Speaker 2: go back and have your parents raise you again, because
Speaker 2: that is the most Unamerican thing. It's the most un
Speaker 2: Christian thought that anybody could have. We should all be
Speaker 2: condemning violence, and we should all stand up for the
Speaker 2: First Amendment. They are not mutually exclusive. We need to
Speaker 2: do the right thing, and we as leaders need to
Speaker 2: hold people accountable when they don't do that.
Speaker 3: You know, I've been going back and forth.
Speaker 1: It's like I can appreciate the fact that everything you
Speaker 1: just said about the SEC and my issue with Brendan
Speaker 1: Carr is significant enough that if he was cut loose,
Speaker 1: I'd be okay with that, because I don't want people
Speaker 1: who have the power to permanently disrupt someone's life. And
Speaker 1: let's be real, the FCC commissioner can call my boss
Speaker 1: right now and Jeff, your former.
Speaker 3: Radio you know this.
Speaker 1: The FCC commissioner can call my boss right now and say,
Speaker 1: I'm about to find your host five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for something I think she said wrong, and that's going
Speaker 1: to get me fired, Like the you know I heart
Speaker 1: won't fire me for what I said, They'll fire me
Speaker 1: for getting that. Fine, that's how it works. So I
Speaker 1: am against that. I'd be okay if he left. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, this hue and cry over Jimmy
Speaker 1: Kimmel has been full of crocodile tears and massive swaths
Speaker 1: of hypocrisy. That my defense of him in the sense
Speaker 1: that what Brendan Carr did was stupid, he should have
Speaker 1: never done that, he should have kept his yapper shut.
Speaker 3: I'm like, eh, you know, I probably should.
Speaker 1: Be more upset, but the outrage does not meet the
Speaker 1: level of what actually happened, especially when today on x
Speaker 1: I see Jim Jordan has published a read of admissions
Speaker 1: by Alphabet by Meta of the myriad ways that the
Speaker 1: Biden administration worked very diligently to censor viewpoints that at
Speaker 1: this point have found to be accurate during COVID. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not even that they were wrong, they were just unpopular,
Speaker 1: and now most of them have been proven true.
Speaker 3: So the censorship issue was huge, and.
Speaker 2: Mandy that that was all litigated. It was taken to
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled on it
Speaker 2: in the Missouri case and said that the government interfering
Speaker 2: and trying to go to these social media companies and
Speaker 2: have and censor through them, to use social media companies
Speaker 2: as the agent that would censor on behalf of the
Speaker 2: government was a violation of the First Amendment. And the
Speaker 2: same is true if the FCC chair or someone from
Speaker 2: or the FCC as a whole would try and do
Speaker 2: that as well, that's wrong. But look, let's be honest.
Speaker 2: A company has every right if they are hiring you
Speaker 2: as a spokesperson and you say something that you know
Speaker 2: is offensive, they have the right to fire you.
Speaker 3: That's in my contract.
Speaker 2: That's not a violation of the First Amendment in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form, right.
Speaker 1: I think for me, the issue really comes down to,
Speaker 1: and I said it on the first day, it is
Speaker 1: my belief. You've worked in media that ABC News looked
Speaker 1: at a show that's probably losing money hand over fist.
Speaker 1: We know Colbert was losing forty million dollars a year
Speaker 1: and they saw an opportunity to scrape that contract off
Speaker 1: and they tried to take it, but the backlash was
Speaker 1: such that.
Speaker 3: They could not do that. And that that is my theory.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna die on that hill because I've
Speaker 1: been in this industry for so long, I know how
Speaker 1: it works, and that makes the most sense.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think that's one hundred percent true. And you know,
Speaker 2: the reality is anybody and you know this because I
Speaker 2: do think that the radio business, having been in it
Speaker 2: is a free market business.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: If you don't produce a good show, advertisers won't pay
Speaker 2: to advertise, and pretty soon, uh you know, your your
Speaker 2: employer looks at and says, well, I don't know, let's
Speaker 2: just go in a different direction. So it still is
Speaker 2: one of those areas. It's very free market uh here.
Speaker 2: But but we don't embrace that as conservatives, right, and
Speaker 2: you know, to think that these late night shows, they
Speaker 2: don't they're not even funny. What what about what Jimmy
Speaker 2: Kimmel said? What whether it was it was uh you know,
Speaker 2: inappropriate for him to say it or not all of that?
Speaker 2: What about it was funny? There was nothing funny about
Speaker 2: what he said? And so you know the job here
Speaker 2: on late night comedy last I checked and Johnny Carson
Speaker 2: of course, has a great famous discussion where he said,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not my job to preach to people,
Speaker 2: it's it's to entertain them and be funny. And so
Speaker 2: you know that's that should be the standard. And I'll
Speaker 2: tell you that. And you see with like Greg Guttfeld
Speaker 2: on Fox News and his show, he's killing these guys,
Speaker 2: because he's got it down. He's trying to be funny,
Speaker 2: and he goes after Trump, he goes after the right,
Speaker 2: he goes after the left. He's funny, and I missed
Speaker 2: the old days. I thought David Letterman was funny until
Speaker 2: you know, until George Bush came along, and then he is.
Speaker 2: His driven hatred for George Bush caused him to go
Speaker 2: off in a terrible direction and ruin late night TV.
Speaker 1: Representative Jeff Crank, I really appreciate your time today, and boy,
Speaker 1: am I glad you didn't vote against that thing that
Speaker 1: I clearly had no idea what I was talking about.
Speaker 3: But no, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you many, I'm glad I didn't.
Speaker 3: Vote it too.
Speaker 1: There you go, to Congressman, I appreciate you coming on
Speaker 1: today very very much, and hopefully we'll be able to
Speaker 1: do this soon.
Speaker 2: You got it. Thanks all right, Andy, appreciate thank you.
Speaker 1: That's Representative Jeff Crank, who is not the one who
Speaker 1: voted against the censure of ilhan Omar.
Speaker 3: So there you go.