FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Alabama Republican Party's ALGOP Chairman John Wahl - Jeff Poor Show - Tuesday 9-03-24
- ♪ You'll hide a black tornado ♪ ♪ Across the western sky ♪ ♪ Rope an old blue northern ♪ ♪ And milk and tennis dried ♪ ♪ But all the Mississippi ♪ ♪ And it seems down flat ♪ ♪ Long before you take this cowboy's hat ♪ - Welcome back to "The Jumpboard Show." It's F.M. Talk, 106.5. Thanks for sticking around on this Tuesday morning. We do appreciate it. Joining us now in the line, we do this every Tuesday. John Wall, the Alabama Republican Party Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, is on with us. Chairman, good morning, aren't you? - I'm doing good. It's good to be on the show. - Hey, thanks for coming on. Let's start here the, your dinner coming up here a week from Friday. Let's go to the summer dinner. Laura Trump, but also I understand Bill Haggard, he added to the list. It's an election year. Tell us a little bit about it. - Well, you know, I really love the line about the committee of on the center because you got Laura Trump, who obviously being the daughter-in-law of Donald Trump, but also I think one of the people who are revitalizing the RNC. You know, we see so much more energy at the national Republican Party level, and a lot of that is due to Laura. She really is a strong leader. She's talking about the principles that the party needs to be focusing on returning to our fundamental values. And I think that's an incredibly important thing for the RNC, and you can see the difference she's made. So she's a tremendous guest. I think people are really gonna have fun listening to her. And then of course, Bill Haggard, recruited into the Senate by Donald Trump himself. You know, I think it's pretty clear he's going to be in the cabinet, whether that's Secretary of State or Secretary of the Treasury are part of some question marks, but two high-profile Trump team members coming to Alabama, so we're really excited about what's coming together. - I had to know, sir, Haggard, he will do that election. Well, I was on at Huntsville, actually, and they expressed a lot of interest in being on. I guess to pick up those Leaked County Tennessee votes, but he's been doing some things in Alabama, fundraisers and whatnot. - That kind of interesting that he's expanding his profile here in the Yellhammer State. - No, you know, it really is. I would add into that with him in Huntsville, where he was doing a fundraiser and he kind of said he was Alabama's third senator, and everybody kind of laughed, but at the same time, what a great thing for Alabama. Because it's one of the situations, with Bill Haggard, you have two things. You have one, he is a true conservative, like a very strong conservative stands up for the principles, you know, it's a party believes in these platform issues, stood against FISA and so many of these things where we saw, you know, really government overreach, and he's been one of those small government physical conservatives that we need. But no, you know, looking at his future, you know, in the cabinet, you know, potentially the Trump wins in the cabinet, I love that he'll have a fond memories of Alabama and, you know, it's gonna be good for our state as well as the course for Tennessee. - Yeah, so a big line up coming up here week from Friday, right, that's when a little late this year. - Yeah, that's right. No, it is a little bit late just with the convention. We delayed things because, you know, so much went on with both the Republican and Democrat conventions, getting a little bit later, and really focusing on the general election. And I'm gonna put a plug in here, like to your listeners, if they wanna do something before the election for Donald Trump, this is a Trump victory fund fundraiser, you know, if they wanna help fund efforts going to Georgia, send me volunteers to Georgia, this type of thing, but also have a really fun night. This is a great opportunity. I hope people, I hope people get, you know, are able to come because I think they'll enjoy this event. - Chairman, when I saw this story, I think I may have heard you laughing from afar, but I wouldn't get you to react to it. The Southern Poverty Law Center apparently does a poll showing, and this polling that they have done, I actually never heard this entity doing it, Paul, but they did a poll in this figure's Dopson race, giving figures a 12-point lead over Caroline Dopson. And my instinct, my initial election is like, there's no way, I mean, this is, this is, what was your reaction to that, Paul? - Well, it gave me hope because look, if the Democrats are polling thing, and let's be honest, the Southern Poverty Law Centers are Democrats, I know they try to act on partisan, but we all know what's going on. But now, if polling can be this disingenuous, and trust me, as a former pollster, I know it can, it also gives me hope on the national level with some of these swing states. Like, this is what pollsters are doing. This is why they can be so unaccurate, and why Donald Trump has overperformed polling in years, and why I believe Caroline Dopson will overperform this polling. I mean, I don't want to be so cocky or confident to say, oh, she's in a lead or anything, but she is not both points behind that is laughable. - That's interesting, Tay, because like, why are they polling this race? Why did they feel the need to put this out there? And it was, you know, just sort of how the water carriers, the media are treating this as a legit poll, but this is an activist organization putting this out there. - Well, look, one thing that I struggle with, and I have for years, is you have all these far left groups, and whether they're socialist or Democrat groups, or, you know, basically the allies, the social engineers of the Democrat party, when they speak, the press jump through their hoops, whether it's Southern Poverty Loss and our think tanks, and you name it. But if you go to the opposite, you know, the conservative think tanks or club for growth or whoever, when they put something out, each doesn't get picked up on it. And I think this is just one more area where you can see the bias of the media. It is pretty clear that if it's a liberal or progressive organization or a think tank, the media are going to develop over, they're going to report it, they're going to look at whatever they're saying, and then conservative stuff with that. And I think it's just one more area where we have to fight this battle for information, because it allows the left to communicate the message they want to the public without even having to, quote unquote, be partisan. Like if the Democrat party had run this poll, nobody would believe it. Southern Poverty Loss Center has the same agenda, pretty much as a Democrat party, but they believe it because it comes from, quote unquote, an independent organization. Let me ask you this. And so you and I talked about this a hundred times that, whoever, whichever presidential candidate wins AL2, be it Trump or Harris for a while or say Biden, that's how this congressional race is going to go. But I think this is certainly a swing district, but I don't think it's going to be a reflection necessarily of anything nationally. I mean, Alabama is still unique. And even though there's a de-presence there that kind of, you know, based on past president, the de-presence really overshadows the, our presence there, that doesn't tell me, that doesn't tell me that that is necessarily a reflection of anything going on nationally, that it really is all politics is local, and that Trump can pull it out there, but it's not really necessarily like a Michigan or, you know, any of these Pennsylvania or wherever we're talking about being swing. Yeah, and I think it's a very unique situation. - No, I absolutely agree with that. And a lot of that is because on the national level, you have a lot of minority influence as you do in CD2. The difference is they're not the same group of minorities. You know, the Democrats would love to stereotype all African-Americans are all Hispanics as being the same, this group mentality, group identity. And it's not true. So, you know, your New York City or your Philadelphia black population has very different values than the rural area in CD2. You know, a lot of our minorities in CD2 believe in family values. Their communities are centered around the church. And they don't like what they're seeing from the Democrat Party right now. And I believe we will one day see more and more of that community recognizing that and coming over to the Republican Party. I hope it's this cycle and helps us win this swing district. But whether it is or isn't, I think there's a very different value set between the Democrats and the minorities in CD2 and the rest of the country. So I think you hit the nail on the head, the Democrat policies here in Alabama, even the Democrat communities are not popular. They understand we need to close the border. They understand that we need to protect our children from this transgender crash. And these are the things that are affecting their lives. They see it, they know it. And it's why we have a chance to build the ticking ground here in Alabama. - Another element to this is, I think Dobson will maybe just slightly, but she will outperform Trump and CD2 because I think you know the type of people who they are in some of these sort of urban neighborhoods, but not necessarily maybe affluent. They're never gonna vote for Trump, but they'll vote for Dobson. They'll go along with whatever the chamber of commerce or business community line is. But I don't think the opposite is true. I don't think there's anybody out there who will vote for Trump and then vote down ballot and vote for Shamari figures. And I think the figures performs in line with Harris and that may be one advantage for the Dobson folks. - I know you're absolutely correct. And look, and I'm gonna say this, if they're sincere, you have this movement of people who are like, they wanna see, you know, especially some of the symbol progressive women, who are like, well, they wanna see women in office. Well, look, this is their chance. You know, if you're a suburban mom in Mobile, you're honest about this message. You're not voting Democrat. We're voting, you know, you should be voting for Caroline Dobson. And so I think we will see some of that. We'll see a few percent. And if she over performs what Donald Trump does by two or three percent, they'll, you're getting close to the realm where we're seeing that, where we're seeing that in polling. And with past election results, where that's very close to putting her into that 50% mark where it's a very competitive race. - Unnaturally the trend, I think that Harris has cooled off a bunch. - To me, it's not real clear what the direction is other than it's not, she's not full steam ahead anymore. And you gotta give it to them. They really had a good, good rollout. But the problem to me is they used up all their headroom, like they used up that last spring. They peaked a little early and I use this the other day with a high ranking politician in the state. It's like basketball season and the team that peaks in February and fizzles out by March and doesn't play as well in the tournament. But that's what Harris sort of feels like to me. She's, 'cause you knew there was no way they could keep up that momentum all the way to November 5th. But I'm kind of wondering like how much, they're gonna be really, those guys on the other side are gonna be really close to their ceiling. - Look, I agree and I kind of told that, you know, talking about this before. Post can mention, because she had two honey moons here. Don't forget that. She went straight from becoming the nominee, getting all this positive press straight into their convention. Got a goose off of that. More than likely and anything can still happen. But if you look at past presidential elections of the trend, she should be there after high watermark now. And if that's the case, I think if the election will help the day Donald Trump will still win. We still get Georgia. We still get Pennsylvania closely. And then we pick up at least one Nevada in Arizona. That's the electoral votes we need. It's not. So as long as Donald Trump can fold, we'll see that now. We'll even gain a little ground. I think we're still in a very good position. - Yeah, 'cause I still think, I think Trump has room to grow. I'm not so sure about Harris. And here's the thing. Let's crazy, crazy hypothetical here. But if Harris were to Republican, and we're cheering for Republicans here, I mean, let's be honest about where we are. And Harris is a situation where Republicans, I would be worried. I wouldn't see a path. I would be worried. But here don't really get that sense from the other side. They, you know, the Lincoln Project and all those, they act like they've got it wrapped up. I think that's insane. - Well, you have to remember. - It's like we saw with the poll we were talking about. They project strength. People, the public like to vote for a winner. We saw this with Hillary Clinton. It's not in 2016. We saw with Biden, you know, where they were like, oh, Donald Trump is so far behind. He doesn't have a chance. Well, in 2016, they cut him out because, no, he obviously did have a chance. And he way over performed expectations in 2020. And the argument community actually won the election without unconstitutional voting practices. But what the, I think with the biggest mistake that the Harris campaign has made and the mainstream media has made is they have introduced her to the country or I should say reintroduced her to the country as this swab, well-spoken, you know, community. Can she actually deliver on that when she's on the debate stage or when she's off teleprompter at these events for, you know, the next 70 days? And I think that's very hard for Canada to do when I think they have set expectations too high when she does not deliver on those expectations. I think you're right. I think that's where we start to see a trend down for her. - Well, I think this, they're kind of treating her like a, like Obama 2.0, okay? And the thing about Obama, I mean, he's a once in a lifetime politician, but I mean, anticipating the turnout that Obama's going to draw. But I think with some of this polling chairman that it's maybe waiting respondents for our early certain demographics a little heavier because they think you're gonna get African-American turnout like they did for Obama. Alec, she'll probably outperform Joe Biden, you know, potentially, I don't know in the African-American communities or maybe, you know, turnout will be up because of her, but I, even Hillary Clinton, but I don't, I think it's a reach for her to assume that she's gonna get Obama-level numbers. - You look, you're 100% correct. If you watch Obama's speech to convention, you saw it. I mean, do I like his policies? No, but the man has charisma. Probably the, probably the best spoken president we've had since Reagan, just incredibly smooth charisma. He knows how to talk about issues in a way that brings in independence or even Republicans. You know, he was talking about religious liberty. Thank you, the very skilled politician and a very skilled orator. And Kamala Harris does not have either of those. And I think what the press has tried to do in creating that image that she is, that next, you know, that Obama 2.0 is actually going to be what sinks her at the end of this thing. - Yeah, have they raised a bar too high for her? - I really believe that. I mean, look, if somehow she delivers, we'll be sitting here scratching her head, and you know it too much for now. But I don't see how she does it. I've never seen her be able to deliver that. I think the expectations are too high. And I'll tell you right now, I do not want to be hurt. I'm going into a debate September 10th. And I hope that President Trump sits back, stays calmer, and lets her be the focus. I am talking to the American people about the values and the issues we believe and how those healthy American people and then let her just crash and burn because I think that will happen if she has to actually present with how to teleprompter for 90 minutes. - Chair, we got to leave it there at a time. Folks want to find out more about the Alabama Republican Party, Aki, and they do so. - Yes, well we'll always love to interact with people. Social media, it's at Alabama Republican Party, and then our website, where they can get tickets for our upcoming summer dinner with Laura Trump, is algop.org. - All right, y'all check that out. Chairman, we appreciate it. - Now, always good to be on the show. - All right, we got to get a break here by right back this is, F.M. Talk 1.065. ♪ You're old enough to understand ♪ ♪ A son you don't have to fight to be a man ♪ ♪ There's someone for everyone ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Spin my dollar ♪ ♪ Barking a holler needs a mountain moonlight ♪ ♪ Hold her up tight ♪