FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
John Merrill - Jeff Poor Show - Friday 7-19-24
[Music] It's good to see you. Welcome back to the Jeff Moore Show. What if I'm talking about '06/'05/8 or sticking with us on this Friday morning? Text line, you want to be in touch with the Show 25/1, 3, 4, 3, 0, 1, 0, 6. We will get to your text here in a short order, so keep them coming. I always appreciate the feedback. Still to come. Stay senator Chris Elliott here in about an hour or so, our returning champions. So stay tuned for that. But joining us now, loading up the car, I'm told in Milwaukee about to head to do south to Chicago. But appreciative that he has come on on some short notice, Secretary of Foreign Secretary of State John Merrill is with us. Secretary, good morning. How are you? Jeff, it's always good to be with you, my friend. Hey, thanks for making time for us. We do appreciate it. Also, if you were a delegate, you got to witness it. It's now over. This Republican National Convention is in the books. I'm sure you've been to many of these before. Where is this one kind of rank on the scale for you? Look, not only have we been to some before, but I've had the privilege, I think, to our friends at the cable satellite, the public affairs network, seat ban, to watch all of the conventions that have been televised from 1952 until this one. And the only one that I think comes close to equaling the energy, the enthusiasm, the excitement, and the just wonderful entertainment value that we've experienced over the last five days is Reagan's re-elect in 1984. That's the only one that I think even comes close to equaling this one. This is the first one I miss is 2000, and I think it felt a little slow getting out of the gate only because I think it was kind of fresh from Saturday and the assassination attempt, but it did seem to really gather steam there at the end. Was it that way in the building? Yeah, it was. There's no doubt about it, and I think it was phenomenal, but I will say this. I've got a friend that I want the friend to just say hello to all your listeners right now and just let you know he's thinking about you down in Alabama. I think you'd love to hear from me. Let me just interrupt him right here while he's putting his stuff in his car to be able to head back home. I think you'll recognize the voice straight up. Yeah, Coach, how you doing, man? How you doing, Coach? How was it? It was good. You know, it started off anytime you start a convention off an attempt in the assassination, it's probably going to be pretty good, I'll tell you, especially when it's a failed attempt, but it was a little different all during the week, but President Trump made it do it. I thought he was good, speeches were good, everybody spoke was good. We had a good time kicking off the next three months and trying to get him elected. Jeff, we couldn't have had a better chairman than Coach, and I know President Trump and I had talked about Coach doing that almost a year ago, and he is clearly the most popular elected official we have in our state today, and clearly one of the most outstanding leaders in elective officers in the nation, and we're excited to have him leading our delegation here. I know he won't stay back because he's in the middle of getting in his vehicle now, but I want to make sure you got to hear from him since he was right here. Right, Jeff, we'll talk soon, y'all have a good weekend coming up. We feel like it's Sunday here, you know, at the end of the week, but we'll talk to you soon. Go ahead. Secretary, let's pick it up here, I mean, if you're Republican today, and even if you don't compare it to what's going on on the other side, don't you feel pretty good about where Republicans are headed in November, right? Absolutely, without question, I don't think that we could be in any better position than we are today with the nation having the conversation that they're having today. Obviously, there's a lot of variables in play when it comes to looking at the way that things are set up with the Democratic Party and the questions about President Biden and whether or not he's going to continue in his role as the presumptive nominee, but those are all things that are going to be resolved over the next few days because obviously we're looking at a two-week window here. Well, we have been lectured for the last five years about democracy and, you know, I think they really misused democracy in this context. However, we've been lectured as Republicans and it goes back to all those January shenanigans and everything else, but how dare they lecture us and then take their primary candidate who won all those primaries, caucuses, and goes on to be the presumptive nominee and is yanked at rug out from under him. Like, they can do whatever they want to. Democratic Party is a private organization, but just don't lecture us about the whole Democratic process anymore. That you're exactly right, my friend, and that is something that is just really beyond reason why we would even expect that that might take place. I know they talk about broker conventions and we went through this. It seems like every cycle, but they're serious this time. Like, they want to figure out a Biden exit plan and it's strange to me. It's like, well, if your policies are so good, it's a Democratic Party position in 2024 is so good. We're not really voting on that. We're voting on the personality. I mean, that's a blanket admission that that's what this is all about because it's more about them not wanting to lose than it is any of their ideas or anything else. I agree 100%, and I don't think there's any doubt about it. And just one more point on this, I mean, we saw what happened when we tried it in Alabama, right? With Charlie Gradyk and guess who gets elected, the first Republican governor since Reconstruction? That's right, 100%. So would you anticipate like, I think you people, I don't know, like a backlash to that. And furthermore, speaking in your capacity as a former secretary of state, what does that look like if they make a, if they do make a last minute switch here? Is there anything that would really change the way Alabama would have to do the election, you think? No, as long as it gets resolved in the next couple of weeks, everything's found. There'll be no questions. The Democrats will be able to put whoever they've won on the ballot at that time representing their parties, their nominee, so there won't be any questions or concerns as long as it's done within the next two weeks because that's when it has to be completed. Well, talk a little more about the convention real quick. Any other takeaways? I mean, the JD Vance pick, do you feel good about that? What was the crowd reception to that? What did you, any other highlights stick out in your head? I do think that everybody enthusiastically received Senator Vance. I think his conservative bona fives are well established. Obviously, whatever concern and risk that there was that had been introduced from his interaction with the president prior to 2016 has been completely resolved. I mean, the president actually endorsed him in 2022 when he was running for election to the full term and obviously he's one of the most powerful and popular elected officials in Ohio, as a matter of fact, I had the privilege to spend some time with Governor DeWine. I don't know if you remember this step. I was Governor John Houston, the lieutenant governor in Ohio, yeah, at the state of the state in Columbus about two months ago and then, of course, Governor Houston had actually introduced Senator Vance when he was presented before the convention on Wednesday. Oddly enough, and this is inside baseball, but I know you'll love it. John told me, he said, John, you won't believe this, I just found out that I was going to do this an hour before I did it on Wednesday night. So he wasn't even prepared, he didn't even have a shoes, he didn't have his tie, he didn't have anything, or even a jacket to be able to go ahead and present Senator Vance, but I think it's going to be enthusiastically received. He's a great speaker, great communicator, obviously, through his ability, elegy that's been well established and I think that people will love JV Vance and his family and think about it. Thirty-nine years old, youngest person in the history of the republic to serve in that capacity. Yeah, very young, and here's something else might take away from it, and you know Donald Trump pretty well, that he went with Vance against not Scott Rubio or Doug Bergram tells me that, and I think this is just maybe he's going more with his own impulses, and he's not listening to other people, and you know, it's not going to be like 16 and 17 when he brought in people to kind of try to like bring the party together, the Rex Tillerson or whatever, that we're going to see something kind of more on Bran with Trump than what we've seen in the past. Yeah, he doesn't have to do that now because obviously he's in a different position because he's been president of the United States, he has his own people, his own base, people have long embraced him for who he is and who he represents for our party, so I think he was looking for somebody that he had confidence in that he knew what had his back and somebody that could communicate the message that needed to be communicated as we move forward in the process now, but over the next four years as well. Yeah, I think he's really going to go with his own instincts, and at least that's my hope, as far as JD Vance himself, I think he's perfectly fine pick, I just, I don't know that it really matters as much people want to go out and vote for Donald Trump, the down ballot or the down ticket part of it is probably not as important as it may be and have been in the past. Absolutely. I don't think there's any doubt about that, brother. Well, Secretary, I know you're busy and you're traveling and I'm not going to keep you, but thanks for hopping on real quick and giving us your thoughts on the convention up in Milwaukee. Man, you're so kind to call us and allow us to visit we for a few minutes a day. I hope you didn't mind, I hope you didn't mind coach visiting with us a little bit. I thought you'd love that. War Eagle to you, and I just wanted to make sure that he had an opportunity to share with your listeners, too, since he chaired our delegation. We appreciate that. John Merrill, former Secretary of State and Republican National Convention delegate, ladies and gentlemen, Secretary, thanks again. Thank you, brother. Talk soon. All right. Two, five, one, three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six, and the like Secretary a little busy there, getting down to Chicago, told me he's going to hit a Cubs game down it regularly today. Let's get some of these tanks out of the way because I got a bunch of sharp, strip mall labor colony referring to the Patrick Alley is on there, yeah, I mean, but even then, I mean, you know, when we talk about wanting to raise the minimum wage for those people, but if you stopped allowing a legal immigrant labor in, then the all these jobs would have to pay more. You have a finite amount of labor and you have a demand for it and the demand must meet whatever it takes to get the supply up and they would have to pay more. So rather than having a $17, $20 an hour minimum wage, like a lot of liberals want to do, you end the illegal immigration, you probably get there, the market does it naturally at some point passes dead on right there. No one in the market will work for minimum wage. They won't even apply. If you put it on that minimum wage is a mute talking point because and relying on the government, this gets back to your whole idea of self-reliance, right, right on the government to raise the minimum wage to make you happier employees. It's just a bad, bad, it's a bad way to live. It's a bad way to live to expect government to fix your problems, to make you happier, to just wait around for something like that, 2, 5, 1, 3, 4, 3, 0, 1, 0, 6, I'm a dental technician, it had been for 43 years and I love what I do. I can't believe I get paid to do this job. Are you being facetious, are you, I mean, good to congrats then. Start Digger. I'm part of the generation that was raised to be the best at your jobs, or someone can take your job and show up and work hard and give the company what they are paid for every time they give raises, I get one proud of it, proud to be an American. Thank God for me being born in this nation. I mean, we're just getting away from that whole idea that you control your own destiny. There's been a backlash against meritocracy, but if you, if you stripped away illegal labor taking jobs lower, not even taking jobs away, but working for cheap, working for much cheaper than you and I would work or any illegal citizen, is that right? Is that morally right? Is that a morally right or are a, I'll say, is that a moral policy for your government to be engaged in knowing that if they allow someone to come across the border, they're going to go to work somewhere in that company that should be hiring someone here legally as hired somebody illegal because they could pay them a whole lot less. And the companies are just doing what they are going to do, but it's the government policy of not protecting the border, that is making it possible. Don't put the onus on the corporation or the company, they're a moral, it's your government that's doing the wrong thing. 2-5-1-3-4-3-0-1-0-1-0-6, we'll be right back.