Ep 10: John Fleming on Faith, Medicine, Business, and Public Service

On this episode of Waiting Tables, host John Bruscato sits down with John Fleming, Louisiana State Treasurer, physician, Navy veteran, businessman, former congressman, and candidate for U.S. Senate.

Fleming shares his personal story, from growing up in a working-class home and losing his father at a young age, to paying his way through medical school through military service and building a career rooted in medicine, business, and public service. He also discusses his time serving in Congress, working in the Trump administration, and his current role as Louisiana’s State Treasurer.

The conversation covers Fleming’s views on leadership, healthcare reform, government spending, carbon capture and sequestration, the role of a U.S. Senator, and what he believes is at stake for Louisiana’s future. Throughout the episode, John Bruscato focuses on getting to know Fleming beyond the headlines and politics, offering listeners a deeper look at the person, his background, and his motivation to serve.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the wedding people. We shouldn't be the people in what type of do primarily like uh personal injury, personal injury workers come up. Um and uh kind of you said JC's a state farm agent now, so I'm like usually on the other side of state route.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Right, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. His father-in-law is Alan Seabaugh. You may know him, state senator.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Yeah, I have like tons of business with Alan.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yeah. So uh so uh so uh yeah, he married uh Alan's eldest daughter. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So Yeah, I've got uh it's and it seems like the m and I'm it seems like the model for uh the insurance companies um that have a large presence like State Farm is it it's like slowly over time, and it's not a hundred percent yet, but their defense lawyers are kind of getting more and more consolidated into the larger markets, you know, like Allen's, you know, and Shreveport. And um and but there's still some local firms that will defend state farm claims. But it it seems like more and more I'm seeing firms from Baton Rouge and New Orleans and Shreveport.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Must be more efficient to do it that way, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I I would yeah, I g I'm assuming that must be it. Right. And then you know, and those firms develop rapports with the plaintiff lawyers and you know, and it's just a handshake thing sometimes. Right. So yeah. Well interesting. Okay. Thank thank you for uh taking the time to do this. Right. Um I really appreciate your uh willingness to participate. And uh uh and and I understand that you, you know, you know, and I kind of wanted to kind of say at the beginning that to for me this isn't about like uh politics or picking a side or anything. Uh it's more uh I have a genuine curiosity to get to know who you are, and sure. I think other people do as well. Right. And so I want to give you an opportunity and I want to give the listeners an opportunity to kind of get to know you from you know a human standpoint, not the not the physician, right, not the state treasurer or the candidate for US Senate. So I wanted to say at the beginning, thank you for uh for taking on the the responsibility of being a candidate. I think it's an awesome thing, uh regardless of who the who's the winner or who will be the winner. Right. Uh it's an awesome thing to be a candidate for a political office to represent other individuals, and as a person that represents uh people, right. Uh I know that it's it's got its challenges.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

It does. It's like walking a high wire without a net. It's challenging, it is. But it's also interesting, and I like challenge.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

You know, it's um well, tell can you tell me a little bit about you? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Um so uh what I like to tell people about myself, which I think is important as the uh as a servant, a government servant, is that I grew up grew up in a working class home. Uh you know, I remember uh my family struggling at times with finances the way many uh homes do today, especially after inflation that we've had and incomes not keeping up. And uh so it was very character-building to be in a home that you know had to deal with some of those financial issues. Uh at age 11, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior, and he's been with me ever since, gotten me out of a lot of things, and I'm so pleased with that. Uh I was influenced by my grandmother, who was an LPN nurse. Uh, she didn't deliberately influence me to become a doctor, but what she told me about hospitals and medicine and all of that. And then I paired that with my interest in serving God by serving people, and I thought, well, that what better way to do that than to be in medicine, to be a doctor one day? And I worked towards that, and I had everything ready to go to college. My dad suddenly died at age 43 of a heart attack, leaving me uh with a mother who was disabled and two younger siblings. Wasn't sure what was going to happen after that, but somehow I got through college with part-time jobs and loans and scholarships.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

If you don't mind me asking, what was the nature of your mother's disability?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

She she had mentally serious severe mental health problems. Okay. Yeah. And uh she couldn't she just could not function in a work environment at all. So um so anyway, um so I got through college, got into medical school, and I ran out of money again after the first semester. But uh there was a new program passed by Congress, and I'm pretty sure I'm the first one that actually was installed into it. It's it continues today. It's called the Health Profession Scholarship Program, uh, where uh medical students, dental students, and others, uh their way is paid through their professional school in exchange for service in the military. So I I went down there that as soon as that law passed, I went to the to the recruiter recruiting station and they swore me in and did a physical. And um uh I'm glad they did because they paid my way through medical school, and I went on to a six-year career as a United States Navy medical officer and and loved it, really enjoyed it. Uh, and I so admire people who are in the military. Uh I had uh relatives, you know, like my father and uncles who served during World War II and just really uh had the greatest of respect for them, still do today. And when I was in Congress, I served on House Armed Services Committee during two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. And I was so pleased to be there in support of our military members, both men and women, who were potentially laying their lives down for protection of our country. So uh while I was there six years, I practiced medicine, enjoyed it, but I really wanted to go into private practice, and so I left uh the Navy and we looked for a town uh that I could open up a medical practice, found one in North Louisiana that needed a doctor, Minden, and uh opened a practice up there and uh still operates today, still have a medical practice. Uh I still practice from time to time. And uh after a few years and the practice flourished, um, I began to think about opening a small business. I said, what's better as an American than to own a small business? Isn't that what our country's about? But I didn't know anything about business, so I decided to get involved in a franchise concept. And I uh found a company, a small company at the time nobody knew anything about called Subway Sandwiches. And I opened the first Subway Sandwich store in North Louisiana in Shreeport in 1986. Ultimately, we opened 32 stores all across North Louisiana, including West Monroe and Monroe. Wow. And so um uh we we also got into other franchising concepts. I uh had a master license on the UPS store. We were over 180 stores in that case. Uh we got involved in uh real estate development, commercial real estate. So, really, after a while, I had one foot firmly in a medical career and another one in small business. I still employ 350 Louisianans today. And then in 2008, had the opportunity to run for Congress. So I ran and was elected, served in the fourth district, which is Mike Johnson's district today. In fact, he succeeded me.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Um I'm his predecessor, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

And I served eight years. I was one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus, which is a very conservative uh Republican group that still exists today in Congress. And uh after those eight years, I went on to, I was appointed to uh to serve in Health and Human Services as Deputy Assistant Secretary by President Trump during his first administration. And then uh he uh promoted me to a position in Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary, where I served as uh head of economic development, U.S. economic development in the Department of Commerce. I had to go through Senate confirmation for that. And then the last 10 months of the first administration, he uh deployed me to the West Wing of the White House, where I served as his deputy chief of staff in the White House. So served four years there. And then uh two years uh, I'm sorry, after leaving that, about for two years I practiced medicine, then I ran for treasurer of Louisiana. So I've served for as Treasurer of Louisiana for two years.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

So for you said you were deputy chief of staff of the White House for President Trump's first administration.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

You're right, that's correct.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

And it was the last 10 months of that administration? Right. So you were you there whenever um I guess the the reelection campaign events and took place?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, I was there on January 6th. Um in fact, after January 6th, a lot of people um Blace basically left the White House, resigned, just up and immediately resigned, blew out like a code quail. Uh but I stayed. I stayed on to the very last day. Uh, you know, a military man never leaves his post, never abandons his post, and I wasn't about to do that, didn't want to do that uh because I believed in President Trump then, I believe in him now, and um uh I just was grateful for the opportunity to serve our nation by serving as his deputy chief of staff. My office was literally only 10 steps from the Oval Office, and uh this was at the peak of the pandemic, you may recall, the COVID-19 pandemic. I served on the coronavirus task force and uh also was the um the uh liaison for the 2020 census. Uh it got behind because of the pandemic, so I had I was the one What does that mean, liaison? Uh I was their contact communication point. I brought in the um the Secretary of Commerce once a week, or at least his deputy once a week. See, uh the uh the Census Bureau is under the Department of Commerce. And what happened was according to the Constitution, enumerators go into the field on April 1st of the dicentennial year. Well, uh, when April 1st came, we were in the midst of this pandemic and people didn't want to go any place. And even if they did, they wore a mask and they wore gowns and gloves and all that. And we we have not in any way prepared for that. So what happened was they didn't actually go out until June. So it was my responsibility to press upon the Department of Commerce because the Department of Commerce didn't want to do anything. They just wanted to hold back a year and not even do the census. But uh the president wanted that census done. So um I I would call in the the the deputy secretary or deputy and secretary of commerce as well as the director of the uh Census Bureau to find out, you know, where they are, what what's the progress? How many more people do we need to hire to catch up? How much money do we need to spend in order to get there? So that was another responsibility. Another responsibility was um uh I would get called by members of Congress because they were my colleagues, see, in the previous four years, and they would say, Well, you know, my hometown is we're overrun with uh people sick with this COVID, some in many bodies that we don't even know what to do with. And so I would deploy FEMA to these various parts of the country that members of Congress would call me about all across the country.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

The areas that were particularly devastating, hard hit, right, and just couldn't keep up.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Uh I I remember, you know, um states like Pennsylvania and Maryland and uh California. In fact, most of them were actually Democrat leaning states. For some reason, I don't know why, but uh but I was happy to to serve anywhere where we needed that care. And FEMA was very responsive. So I just pick up the phone and within a few days they were there with tents and doctors, nurses, whatever they needed.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Well, as you're as a physician, I imagine you might be able to s uh understand this more than uh other uh citizens, but it seems like that COVID 19 in particular affected uh people that were overweight or that had hypertension or diabetes or other other uh um I guess right underlying conditions that associated with being overweight or having a um Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

True. Uh being frail in some way, being obese, not in good physical condition, you see your immune system steps up and then drops down according to your overall health. And there's also some reason to believe that your vitamin D level, if low, because vitamin D is necessary to support your immune system. So if that's low, uh they've actually correlated that people with higher, uh more normalized vitamin D levels actually uh did better with the infection than those who didn't. So uh, but no question about it. If you had an autoimmune disease like rheumatic uh rheumatoid arthritis, I should say, or if you were obese or had diabetes, or you had heart disease or lung disease, uh maybe you were just not in good physical condition, you were elderly, all of these were risk factors for severe infection and ultimately death. Whereas younger people, healthier people, you know, rarely had any kind of problem. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

It was like in a cold or Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I I myself, when I got COVID, uh I didn't even have any symptoms. And um we were required, those of us who worked at the White House, we had to go and be tested for COVID every day before we could report to work. I was tested over a hundred and twenty times with that thing stuck up my nose. It's not a pleasant it wasn't it wasn't pleasant. I had to do that every day. And then when I was when I did get the infection, uh they they would test me every day when I tried to come back because I was symptom free, but I kept I kept coming back positive, so they kept sending me home. So um, but finally, finally uh I got over the infection and and was back to work. Uh but um um no question about it, over a million Americans died from this uh virus, and over seven million people worldwide died from the COVID virus.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Do you think that the American people will ever have uh uh an understanding of what actually led us to the position of having to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Oh, I I think we pretty much know what happened. Uh the NIH was actually um was actually funding the gain of function research that was going on with that virus. And um they were doing the research in Wuhan, which was a lab that was notorious for accidents and mistakes. And sure enough, the f the the uh the index, the z the zero uh individual who got the virus, the which is truly actually the first one, but they call it the zero in the index, uh died of it. And uh it it had escaped from the lab. And and and so it was speculated, and China itself and the WHO tried to claim that they caught it from bats, that that somehow bats were a carry of this. Well, they never found a host for this virus, never have, never will, because there was no host. This was a synthesized virus created in the laboratory, and um unfortunately they lost track of it, and one of the technicians got sick with it, died, and it spread across the world. In fact, in order to kind of cover up what happened, uh China began to actually encourage people to travel abroad, uh, particularly to Italy, which is why Italy became the second hotspot in the world. So people were dying in Italy uh at a high rate uh long before they were in the U.S. And so they were trying to hide behind the fact that it originated with them, but it was pretty obvious what was going on in the WHO, which we've unlinked ourselves from, President Trump has done that already, the World Health Organization, uh they were part of the cover-up for China as well. But this happened all under the control of China. It was China that made the mistake. The question is, why were they doing this? Why would you need a supervirus that would kill humans? And generally you're talking about a military strategy there, that that could potentially be a military weapon, a biological weapon.

unknown 18:52

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

The term gain of function, uh I'm not sure. I I think I have some understanding of what it means, but can you explain what that that terminology means in the context of the virus?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Gain of function is making a virus more potent by manipulating its genes.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

So essentially, increasing the effectiveness of the disease's impact on the human body. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Which is like a what what what possible application could that be but for one thing, and that is military, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

It sounds like a weapon.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

It does sound like a weapon. And, you know, I'm sure that the U.S. military also has uh certain diseases and viruses that they could use as part of um, you know, a uh weapon of mass destruction. So I don't want to say it doesn't happen here, but the point being that somehow we were actually participating in that in China. And so the way the strategy would work if a country was going to create a virus that would kill people or make other soldiers sick is you would vaccinate your population, protect your military and your population, and then you would unleash it on your enemy, and then they can no longer fight because they're ill or they're dying. So that that's been well known for decades. And um, as I say, there there are probably a number of countries that have biological weapons like that, other types of biological weapons. But why in the world we would have participated in their biological weapon development, I have no idea. It makes no sense. I would love to have them under deposition to see what they'd have to say about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Definitely the whole the whole subject raises a lot of eyebrow raising questions. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

No question.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Um can you tell me a little and you're currently the treasurer for the state of Louisiana. Right. What what is the treasurer do like? What's your job? I don't really know, to be to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, three major functions. Uh number one, I invest your tax money. Uh we uh uh get about a $450 million a year return on that investment. Uh secondly, and by the way, I'll also mention that um we're fiscally we're very sound as a state. Our reserve funds are in great shape. Um and you know there there have been past years where that hadn't been true. So we're happy about that. Our bond rating improved from AA negative to AA, so we can borrow money at a lower interest rate. So those are all good things.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Uh secondly, as the state borrows money in the form of issuing bonds, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, uh various things. For instance, um our retirement accounts, um they're underfunded. You know, they created retirement accounts back in the 70s and eighties. And uh in order to meet the promised obligations, they had to borrow money. And so they're the state's paying it off, and the retirement accounts are paying it off over time, but it still is money that comes out of our general fund. So um uh so when we borrow money, we need we want to be sure we get the lowest interest rate possible. But we also purchase bonds and we want the highest interest rate possible. So that's kind of how that works. But the better our bond rating is when we sell our bonds or what have you, we want the the um we want the best return on investment for that. But by the same token, when we borrow money, um we want to get the lowest cost.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

And so um Essentially you're the the state's top banker.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah, and there's there's a bit of arbitrage that goes with that, as you can tell. Uh so uh so anyway, um number two responsibility is as treasurer, I'm a chairman of the bond commission. And so our job, which and that bond commission includes legislative leadership, secretary of state, governor, attorney general, and others. And what we do is review any debt by any political subdivision and affordable housing to make sure that the entities will be able to pay that debt, that they can uh service that debt properly without going under. And um so we we meet once a month, we review a number of requests, and we have to approve them. Um, or if they're not if they're not adequate, then we don't approve them, and then they have to go back and figure something out and come back to us. But in most cases, that's all been worked out in advance. So uh we approve about, I'd say, 98 percent of requests that come before us. And also um Those requests are coming from political subdivisions or from like if uh city well, I'll give you a recent example, the city of New Orleans. Uh, you had to transition to a new mayor. The previous mayor had way overspent the budget as a result of one-time federal money, COVID money, that she was continually rebudgeting into the their general fund that didn't exist. So by the time she left office, they couldn't even meet payroll. So the new uh the incoming mayor, she hadn't even taken office yet, came to us and requested approval for a loan from JP Morgan, their banker, which was securitized by uh expected revenue from taxes. And so they had to get our approval to do that, to make payroll. But then they have other things. They're gonna have to, you know, they're gonna definitely have to cut the size of their government down. They're gonna have to end certain spending uh categories and all that. So if they don't, and they go, if they become insolvent, then what happens is uh we put them under fiscal administration. And the the entities that manage that are the State Treasurer, the Attorney General, and the legislative auditor. So at any one time, there are several entities that are under fiscal administration. Right now, Homer, Louisiana and Bogaloosa, Louisiana are under fiscal administration. So we have to appoint usually an accountant to take over. And the the the mayor does not and the city council does not have financial decisions to make. And we even considered putting New Orleans under fiscal administration. But the jury's out on that right now. We don't quite have to do that yet, but we'll see. Uh we don't want to run these cities, but some uh you know, through fiscal administration, but sometimes we have to, because what happens is we'll have to supplement their revenue through state tax money. And if that happens, we have to be in charge. So um so that's one of the functions that I have as uh as chairman of the bond commission. And then the third thing is we manage, and it's it's really quite quite a significant entity, and that is unclaimed property. Uh it's actually unclaimed cash, where money is in um various accounts, uh, and with a lack of activity, it's turned over to the state, and we try to get the money back to people that it's owed to. It's huge. We have a liability of $1.2 billion.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Uh meaning you're holding $1.2 billion of other people's property.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Uh not exactly holding. Uh we don't at any one time we have three or four hundred million dollars in cash that we're holding. But the true liability is more like one point two billion. Why is there a gap? Because there is some some money that came in that will never be claimed because whoever owned it passed away years ago or what have you. So there's always a gap there between what the total liability is and what money that we actually push out. But w we always have more than enough money to cover any kind of claim. So one in six Louisianans, as it said, are owed money through unclaimed property. It could be a rental deposit, it could be a bank account you forgot about, it could be a tax refund that never got to you. There are many different ways. It could be an inheritance. And we encourage people to come to our website. We also do data matches with the Department of Revenue where we'll sometimes just send a bunch of checks out to people they don't even know they're coming without even claiming them.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

That sounds like a wonderful position to be in. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

It's it's the funniest part of government I've ever been in. Um and uh it's interesting. Uh you would think giving people their money is really easy. But sometimes we have this problem. We had a gentleman that we owed $20,000, and he wouldn't answer his phone, and we would leave him voicemails. And uh we would say on the voicemail, we have $20,000 to give to you, please call us. He wouldn't call us. He thought it was a scam, right? Wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

I think I would call you back.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah, I mean, uh on the chance it might be real. So, but yeah, you're a lawyer. Of course, a lawyer is gonna do that, right? Anyway, um we finally got him to come to a meeting, uh speaking engagement, and I showed him my credentials in the check, and he accepted it, and we got a photo to prove it. We had another gentleman that was owed over $200,000, and uh we couldn't find him. It turns out he was homeless. Uh we did get the money to him eventually. And then thirdly, just the other day I was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Logosport, and I handed a guy a check for $400,000. Largest check we've ever given away in person in history. So uh how does the how does one accumulate that large of a Well, in his case, um it was in DeSoto Parish where they have Haynesville Shell, and the family had been receiving royalty payments for years, and the person who managed those royalty payments, uh mineral royalty repayments, passed away, and the nobody kind of picked it up in the family. I guess they didn't need the cash because you'd think they would be out there trying to find out where the checks are going. But ultimately they did uh, or maybe we contacted, I'm not even sure. But one way or another, uh there was a lot of money owed uh back back royalty payments that had been turned over to us, and probably it was the checks were bouncing or something because maybe the account had been closed. But anyway, I handed him a check for $400,000.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Well, that's uh that's it sounds like a fun job. Yeah, honestly. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Um well um what would you say like as far as in you know, I'm gonna ask a general question, um and you can kind of take it wherever you want to take it. Um what do you think the greatest challenge of your career has been as far as a public figure and um in public service?

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Well, I think that um the most difficult challenge, I think, would be the best way to cla classify it, was when I was in the House of Representatives. Uh I was very disappointed in our Republican leadership that let Democrats just lead them around by the nose. Um a great example that we're seeing today was President Obama um cut this deal with uh Iran. And in that deal, we gave them hundreds of billions of dollars in cash, true greenbacks, which eventually made it back made it to Hezbollah and other um organizations that that do terrorism, and ultimately they killed Americans using that money. Uh and the the idea is in exchange for that that we could monitor their development of nuclear material and that they would never create a nuclear weapon. But we knew they were going to lie to us and they did. They would not allow us on any of their military sites where they were actually doing the real work of building bombs. And so, nonetheless, we we we did have intelligence through the years that told us that they were working on a nuclear bomb. And it got to the point where they were so close, that's when President Trump and Israel uh went ahead and bombed their sites. But we didn't take out all of their capability and they were going back to it, which is why we've gone back again. Uh it was a bad deal from the beginning. Uh we should not have uh but we had Republicans going along with Democrats on this fake deal. Uh we could we you can't trust the uh the uh's of Iran. Now, the people of Iran are wonderful people, they're Persians. And um uh Iran uh back in in the 1970s was the most progressive non-Western nation in the Middle East. I mean, they were uh women could dress like they wanted, they could just like women in the Western world do, wear bikinis or whatever, beautiful models and all of that. And of course, when the Ayatollahs took over in 1979, all that ended, and it's been in a horrible state for these people. They've lived under severe oppression. But our vital interest as a nation is in how they exported terrorism and how they were building a nuclear weapon. And you put nuclear weapons together with terrorism, and that is a really shocking, worrisome thing. So uh as a result of my frustration and those of others, uh a group of us created the House Freedom Caucus, which exists even today, which uh it was the founders, there were nine founders, uh apart from me, there were eight. Uh Ron DeSantis, who's now governor of Florida, or uh Mark Meadows, who is uh who was the chief of staff when I was deputy chief of staff in the White House, and then um Jim Jordan, who's now head of judiciary. Uh so that was the most challenging thing is not only pushing back against Democrats who really had some bad ideas, but even some of our Republican colleagues in leadership who were going along with those ideas. And that's just one example, certainly the uh spending that we're doing. Remember that from George Washington to George Bush 43, we accumulated about $11 trillion national debt. We've all uh we've almost quadrupled that since then. So our expenditures, our national debt is growing very fast. And uh Republicans talk about cutting spending and having a more efficient government, but it doesn't ever seem to happen, although President Trump has been trying very hard with his doge effort to get us into that position. And also with his tariffs. The tariffs actually generate revenue to us, and he hopes that that's gonna begin to pay down our national debt.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Well, somebody that's serving as the Louisiana treasurer from the knowledge and business owner experience that you have. I mean, what are the tariffs ever going to be enough to No, not not by themselves, no.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

That's just one thing. We're gonna have to do a panoply of things, obviously. We need to uh cut back on the bureaucracy in Washington that's grown very expensive and really not effective. Uh we're going to have to ask people to do more who who are able-bodied and able to work and take a job instead of uh so many people who really are on the dole, who are on all kinds of government programs, and yet they're fully capable of working. I mean, we should always protect children and uh single mothers and those who are uh in some way disabled. Uh, you know, they can't take care of themselves. So we have we do have a responsibility. There are a lot of people who live on um government funding that are perfectly capable of working. You know, I told you we have 350 employees in my business. It's very hard to find people who will take jobs these days. It's it uh people oftentimes choose the easy way and just live on benefits. So we have to compete with those benefits and then we have to pay the taxes that fund them. So um we need to get back more to the fundamentals that make our nation great by asking people who are capable to get their education, get their training, get their jobs, and pay their way in society. Remember that John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, said ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. And we need more Americans to stand up for that.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

The question that I want to ask you now is really, and I want to be very careful how I ask this question, um, because I don't want you to anyway interpret this question as some sort of a slight. Sure. But I feel like um when I was preparing to meet with you today, it was this topic that kept bubbling up in my mind uh about who you are in your public life. Yeah. Um and um I know that President Trump has been someone that you've publicly supported and aligned with. And when endorsements didn't go your way, um what what did that clarify for you about your own conviction to seek this office?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

It had nothing to do with it. I I started my campaign 15 months ago, and I've not asked for any endorsements uh except for three of my colleagues in Congress and then a few other people uh or organizations that I know. Uh but I've never sought, for instance, President Trump's endorsement. I'd love to have it. He did endorse me for my treasurer's position. I did work for him for four years. I was one of the first congressmen who endorsed him in 2016. Uh we have a great relationship. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago. Uh but if you're if you if if what you're getting at is the endorsement he made of Congresswoman Lettlow, understand that uh Jeff Landry has been um lobbying the Trump people, not Trump, but the Trump team, for over a year to get the endorsement for her. So this has more to do with Jeff Landry than it does President Trump. And um and so um uh what what I seek to do is to get the endorsement of the voters, the people of Louisiana. Uh I'm not asking people to choose who they vote into office to serve them in in Washington, to do it based on uh what bigwigs and Baton Rouge say, or even in Washington. Uh the people of Louisiana are perfectly capable of making their own decisions on that. And as it turns out, that's what the polls are saying, and actually. Uh I've led in every poll that we've ever done. And the the latest poll that was done, there have been independent polls, and I've led in those too. The latest poll that was done was last week, uh, independent, large poll, sample of over 1,400 people, uh, margin of error of 2.8. That's a very small margin of error. Uh I was 36 percent. Uh Congresswoman Letlow was 25 percent. Uh and um Bill Casty was 20 percent. And on head-to-head in the runoff, uh I led Ms. Letlow by 10 points and led Cassidy by 20 points. So uh as you can see, um while endorsements are nice, even from the President of the United States, uh, they're not necessarily a game changer. And um again, with uh uh 20,000 yard signs spread across the state, uh over 250 volunteers, uh, over 250 personal appearances, podcasts, um, interviews, you name it, none of which any of my opponents have even come close on, uh I've been communicating with the people. And what I tell folks is this is important, and that is if the candidate doesn't communicate with you and you don't have a conversation with the candidate, what's the chance that once they're elected in office they're gonna talk to you? I can tell you it's very low. So I have a reputation for communicating. Um I communicate on uh social media all the time. No one else in this race does that. Uh it's unheard of, but that's what I do. I give out my personal cell number all the time. Uh and uh so I think people feel a connection to me, and I have huge grassroots support. So um, yeah, I'd love to have uh the endorsement of President Trump, but um it's not gonna be necessary to win the race, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

And it's supposing that you were to win the your campaign for U.S. Senate, um what do you view as I guess, you know, what a U.S. senator for Louisiana's essential important responsibilities are in your representation of the state in Washington?

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Well, first and foremost is certainly the right policies in Washington, uh standing up in national defense, uh making sure that we protect our borders, uh, make sure that we run government efficiently so we don't continue to overspend. Um but there are other important issues uh closer to Louisiana, and I'll name one for you that's very, very important, and that's called carbon capture and sequestration. A lot of people in Louisiana have not heard about this yet, but those who know about it are very, very much against it. But it is alive and well in Louisiana. There are 60 permits for that. And this process is basically taking carbon dioxide from the industrial processing of oil and gas and steel and other things, and then pipelining it to various locations throughout Louisiana, drilling a hole into the earth and stuffing it there, and then capping it. Um by federal tax dollars, 45Q tax credits. Uh the gas itself, the concentrated carbon dioxide gas, is toxic to humans. It can kill you and has. Um and there have been accidents. Uh it also uh involves imminent domain, uh, which means you could lose your property rights. Now, imminent domain uh was something created at the very beginning of who we are as a nation, but it's for the good of the people. That is to say, uh let's say you have property and there needs to be power lines uh for the grid. Uh imminent domain can take part of your property, usually compensate you somewhat. Or for instance, uh let's say they're building a highway and you're roads. Yeah, that's the first thing. Yeah, your house is right in the way. So they buy your house from you, require you to do that if you don't do it uh willingly, and then you can take the money and buy how. Someplace else so they can build a highway through. But this is different. This eminent domain, which is in law, allows a private company that's either foreign or domestic, could be a foreign company, can come in, take control of your property, and drill on it and put uh carbon dioxide deep into the ground below you, which then plumes out for miles around your property. So you could be in the plume from somebody else's drill. Uh if that plume of carbon dioxide gets into your water supply, it creates carbonic acid, which leaches heavy metals out of rock formation, so it ruins your water supply. Uh heavy metals like lead will be in your water supply. So if it gets in your aquifer, it's permanently uh damaged. Uh also your property rights, you cannot drill through the plume of uh carbon dioxide. So if you if you got oil and gas down there, you're cut off from it. You can't drill through it. So it could affect your property values uh many different ways, whether it's your mineral rights or whether it has to do with um just the mere fact that it's sitting there and it could erupt out of the ground, which it has done. Um all these are factors, and uh individual citizens in essence do not any longer control their property. This can be actually put in place in their own property. Uh pipelines and uh some of these wells will be close to schools, workplace, and homes. So uh How did this get started? I mean This was an idea that came from remember Al Gore back in the 80s and 90s saying that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause global warming. And uh there's been debate about that for many years. And as it turns out, no one has ever proven that carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere harms the atmosphere at all. However, uh the EPA under Barack Obama, when he was in office about 2009-2010, they actually declared, they put a rule in effect, an executive order, that carbon dioxide is a pollutant in the atmosphere. Never mind that when you exhale you're exhaling carbon dioxide, yes. And never mind that you need carbon dioxide for the trees and the plants and the grass around you.

unknown 46:33

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Vegetation breathes carbon dioxide.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

And exhales oxygen. Right. According to the sixth grade biology. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

That's how we have a cycle. Well, as it turns out, the EPA has just issued a rule to take that down. So under uh President Trump, uh carbon dioxide is no longer considered a pollutant in the atmosphere. So all of this that's been going on, government subsidize wind turbines, governments subsidize solar panels, all that stuff, which has never worked, it doesn't add much to the grid. Uh we're all going, it's a waste of money, it's a waste of time, it doesn't work. We need new technologies for energy. Meanwhile, we have to use traditional oil and gas and clean coal in order to meet the grid needs. So um but part of this has been, well, okay, instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the industrial processing, why don't we just stick it in the ground? And so that idea came up about 15 years ago, and it's moved through government. So 45Q tax credits have now been put into place. Those are hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for this technology. That all went on before Trump was ever elected president. And then this state took over uh the whole concept. Uh the the state of Louisiana now has supremacy on this. They've taken it from the EPA. The EPA allowed them. So since 2020, the state legislature and the two governors that were in place during that period have uh created a state-based carbon capture and sequestration. It's all under the governor. The governor can approve the permits and all this stuff. And so they've passed it again. Mainly Republicans have actually passed this into law so that your land can be taken against your will and that carbon dioxide concentrated and dangerous can be put in the ground. And they did it all without citizens knowing about it. But last spring they learned of it because the permits began to come out. There are about 60 permits pending right now. As far as we can tell, the only entities that benefit from this are the wealthy companies who are already making a lot of money developing oil and gas, which I am fine with because I'm an oil and gas guy. I believe in traditional energy. But I'm totally against carbon capture and sequestration. And um efforts to stop that.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

And you you I'm not I don't really I'm asking a question more than I'm making a statement, but I recall something years ago about uh oil and gas companies using, and it may have been CO2 or some other uh type of gas, uh uh not liquid, but uh an air to uh to like burp the oil wells.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Yeah. That's called um um it that's CO2 used for uh oil recovery enhancement. And that's been done for 50 years. So you use CO2 for that purpose, and that's kind of where they kind of got this idea from. But it's really different because what you're doing is you're putting a small amount of concentrated carbon dioxide in order to get the last 15% of oil that's in the ground. So it's oil recovery, and it's not that much, it's not under pressure, uh, and it's not considered dangerous. Um that's totally different than putting it down there permanently under pressure. Because over time it will leach its way through rock formations and fractures. If it finds itself to an abandoned well or something, it'll come up out of the ground.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And uh so suppose that there's a you a bed of this uh CO2 that's been uh injected into the earth. Right. Uh and there was some large construction project that went on. Uh what would happen, I mean, what could happen if they struck that? Well, is it is it possible to strike a vein of that?

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Uh only if it's a pipeline. Okay if it's if it's in a plume in the earth, uh yeah, you could hit a pocket. Uh but I'll give you an example. In 2020 in Surtasha, Mississippi, a pipeline did crack and explode. Uh there was some um, I think there was some uh a little earthquake or something, and it made the pipe move and it broke. And the carbon dioxide was released and it spread along the ground in a cloud, and uh it you can't outrun it once it's coming to you. And it and if it hits a vehicle, it stops because the vehicle has to have oxygen for combustion. So it sent 45 people to the hospital, loss of consciousness, um, foaming at the mouth, and having seizures. Fortunately, it didn't kill anybody, but it can, because it'll it replaces the oxygen that's in your lung. So if you breathe it, you could die. Uh so it it is it is potentially dangerous, and we know accidents happen. And so uh but I think the thing that really is most problematic here is that um property owners could actually be affected by this, where their their property rights are affected. We've actually polled this question several times. 70 to 90 percent of Louisianans are opposed to carbon capture and sequestration. It just depends on how you ask the question, but it's anywhere from 70 to 90 percent. And yet, uh our government, our state government, is headlong into this. 60 permits are waiting. There's also litigation, because many believe that this uh this eminent domain, see, eminent domain has to be for the for the good of the people. Of the citizens. Well, this is not really for the good of the citizens, this is for the good of the of the company that's gonna make a lot of profit. And uh there are many.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Will they sell the tax credits? Is that what's happening? They're capturing the tax credits and then selling them on a market?

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Right, right. And this actually extends into other things because uh, for instance, the LNG that's gonna be exported to Europe, it begins to satisfy their net zero stuff where uh because they're required under their agreements, their net zero agreements over there in Europe, they have to, whatever LNG they take in, it's got to be net zero. In other words, something was done with the carbon dioxide that was produced. And so that's where it's it's put in the ground in Louisiana to help the people in uh in Europe to meet their goals.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

So that's actually serving the citizens of another country, then if the underlying company is.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

And in the meantime, wealthy companies are making a lot of money. And I've got nothing against wealthy companies making money, as long as they're not harming people and property owners, which in my view, it this does that. So um uh there is litigation. Uh and also if you repeal the 45Q tax credits, which is what I want to do when I get to the Senate.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

That was gonna be my next question. What's the senator gonna do about it?

SPEAKER_00 54:20

If you can get if you can get that money repealed or uh defunded, then these projects stop. Now, is that possible? Well, uh President Trump has already led the effort to stop funding solar and wind. So this is really the third thing. He calls the uh the this whole idea about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere a scam, a Green New Deal scam. And the only thing left now is carbon capture and sequestration. And what a lot of people don't know is that all across the country this is planned, but they plan to pipeline 50 percent or more of it to Louisiana. So that means we become the dumping ground for the rest of the country for carbon capture and sequestration.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

Um that's one that seems like an issue that you've thoroughly examined. Right. Um is there is there anything else that you think is of particular importance for just one more thing about this.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Uh I'm the only one in this Senate race who opposes carbon capture and sequestration. Uh both Ms. Letlow and um Senator Cassidy uh are big proponents of carbon capture and sequestration. So that's how I stand uh apart from them. But there are other things. I'm the only military veteran in this race. Uh if you look at our voting scores for on a conservative scale, mine are definitely strongly in the conservative scales, theirs in a much more liberal scale. Uh so there are a number of things that bind them together in terms of their voting records, in terms of things they support, and I'm set apart from them, which is the reason why a lot of people shrug their shoulders and they go, Well, why did President Trump endorse uh Congresswoman Lettlow when his her voting record is similar to his? And again, that's what I tell people is that's because uh there's been a strong, strong lobby from Jeff Landry, who is very pro-carbon capture and sequestration. And I think that has a lot to do with this, is you know, they're gonna go to Washington and continue to support carbon capture and sequestration, whereas I'm dead set against uh to go and stop it, in effect. So uh on your question of what else, um as a physician, uh I'm very concerned about what Obamacare has done to our health care system. Uh the cost of health care uh goes up faster, twice as fast, in fact, as uh inflation itself. I was in the House of Representatives when Obamacare passed. It was called the Affordable Care Act. It's not affordable. Um I said then, and we see this now, that you'll only see your premiums and your out-of-pocket expenses go up more, and you're gonna get less value for your expenditures, and that's exactly what we have. Because what it's done is it's allowed the entire health care overall, you know, publicly traded companies, energy, uh uh, I should say, uh, companies have now totally controlled our healthcare system. And you are uh, when it comes to a consumer, you can't you make very few choices. You don't know what you're gonna pay. You can't compare uh and shop for care. Uh you don't even know what you're gonna pay when you go to the doctor or you go to the hospital. Whereas everything else in society, you know exactly what you're gonna pay, whether it's a car, apparel, food, house, doesn't matter. You know exactly when you buy that. You're gonna know the value of it and the quality of it, and you're gonna know the price of it. Healthcare is not true. You got tremendous um gap of middle people, so-called middlemen, that lop off uh some of the money.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

So who's getting the cheddar?

SPEAKER_00 58:13

It's big, big, big companies.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Uh I don't think it's the doctors.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

It is not the doctors. No.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

And I feel like the doctors are even in a worse position than the consumer.

SPEAKER_00 58:23

Well, look, before Obamacare, most physicians were in private practice. They were doing fine, they were happy, they spent time with their patients. Since then, uh most of them today are all working for a big corporation, big hospital system, and they feel like they're on a treadmill, they feel like they're on an assembly line, and the people they treat feel the same way. You know, they just run through, you know, you got 10 minutes, and you better get it out fast, and and that's all the time I got with you. That's the way people are being treated, and and the doctors don't like this. They don't want, they they want personalized care. But if they don't keep up the pace, then their pay goes down or they may lose their jobs. So um we've really gone the wrong direct. We've basically corporatized health care, and it's not for the betterment uh of our citizens.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

It it feels like to me, and uh and you know, as a person, a professional, uh, you know, and I have a you know, a practice of law. Yeah. And I, you know, I encounter my clients typically are injured victims or injured workers. Sure. And the the my encounters with or their encounters with the physicians, it's like it it's they they they don't have like you said, they don't have a cycle, they don't have a reason to have a clue about who they should go see. Right. And and so they end up going to like one of these, you know, monster corporate uh clinics. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

And and I'm not sure it's anybody there's fault or what have you, but yeah, it's uh again the providers themselves, the doctors, the nurse practitioners, the physicians' assistants, the nurses, all the healthcare workers, uh they just feel like they're on an assembly line. They're they that they work, it's like being in a factory. It's very unsatisfying to them. Uh, they can't develop the personal relationships they would like to do. So they're very unhappy with it. But they've had no choice because once this uh this law was put in place and it it put so much power into the hands of these big corporations, uh they couldn't make a living in private practice anymore. Uh and and the government participated, for instance, CMS, which is part of Health and Human Services that pays the bills for Medicare. Uh so you'd have like a gastroenterologist who in his practice also had a lab where he could do colonoscopies and other types of tests and procedures. And he could make some through direct care, but also through his lab. They took away his lab. He couldn't have a lab anymore. They wouldn't pay him. Uh what they did is they paid the hospital to have that lab. But what was worse is they paid the hospital five times what they were paying him in his lab. So what happens is the hospital makes a lot more money and the corporation and the shareholders make a lot more money. The doctor makes less money, can't stay in practice, has to go work for the hospital, and the cost just keep going up because the people who are charging are the same people deciding what the pay is. There's no other part of our economy that that happens. If you buy a car, you're gonna shop for that car. You're gonna know what you're gonna pay, you're gonna know what the quality is. You're gonna go from one dealership to another.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

If you if you um And there's features and benefits with picking one car over a different car. Absolutely. And you get information about that through the marketplace.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Absolutely. It's a it that's a healthy marketplace. And so you know you're getting probably the best price and the best quality for that price. But in in healthcare, when you walk into a doctor's clinic, you do not know what you're gonna be paying. You know what? Neither does the doctor. Because, for instance, I still have an operating clinic. What I might charge you would be uh with your insurance would be different for somebody else than their insurance, even though I'm providing the same care.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

And you may have like a provider, and I'm not trying to personalize it to you, but you may have an agreement with my insurance company that creates a certain incentive or whatever for you to see me because of my insurance and who that company is. Well, absolutely. Versus like a somebody that has Medicaid or no insurance.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Absolutely. You know, some insurances either don't pay much or don't pay at all in some cases. So, you know, you go, look, I don't have the staff time. And that's the other part of this, is when I first opened my practice, I had one nurse and one um um, you know, someone working the front desk and you know, putting the charges down on a pegboard and all that. Today you have to have an army of people charging and filing and all this stuff. I mean, you know, the overhead is just humongous, and it's because just how bureaucratic medicine is. So insurance companies uh and big hospital systems, uh, they've taken advantage of all the uh the cost drivers for themselves. And you know, you it's very often that a a company might um you might need to go have a test or a procedure, and they may deny it. You have to get prior approval.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

And uh And then it's and then the when you just what you just said, it makes me feel like uh an insurance adjuster is practicing medicine, not my not my physician or my nurse practitioner or medical advisor. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

But in their plan, they may ultimately plan to approve it. However, uh think about this. So maybe one out of ten people will just give up and not have the procedure, therefore they save money. Or the longer they hold the money, you know that insurance companies make money, they make their profit on investing the money.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

And not paying claims.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

Exactly. So the longer they keep it and the less claims they pay, the more money they make. And you can tell uh I won't mention names, but there's one insurance company, a huge one in particular. They're notorious for not paying claims. And you have to go to battle with them, and finally they may pay your claim $130, but then you go, am I willing to go through that effort again next time? A lot of people just give up. And so uh we need a lot of reform in health care, and that's what I'd like to do in Washington.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

Um what I mean, what I know there was a re well, let me set the stage for this. Uh I know there was uh I think in 2022, which uh you might have been practicing medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

By the way, let me know how we're doing on time. Sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Um and I'm sorry, I didn't uh I should have asked before we started.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Uh we have a chamber of commerce I'm supposed to speak to, so I want to make sure we we're okay with that, how we look on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

Okay. Okay. Okay. Right. Where are you going? Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, sure. Yeah. I'll I'll try to Okay. Good. Bring it, bring it. All right, good. Um But I think in 2022, I think it went into effect 2023, the uh the No Surprises Act. I don't know if you're familiar with that or if you've encountered that in your medical practice. But essentially it's a um it created a uh dispute resolution process for physicians against health insurance companies in particular. So Medicaid, Medicare is totally out on this. And uh it allows a provider to essentially begin a negotiation and then request an uh an arbitration procedure. Right. Like at a judge, right? Like imagine going to court and you know, having a trial on the medical charges, basically is what it is. Right. Um and um and that came in uh I think in 23, and and it's fairly new. There's not I don't think there are a lot of providers that are availing themselves to this uh avenue.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

Yeah. This was discussed when I was in the White House. Um what was happening is there would be certain providers who were not on a network, an insurance network. So let's say you had to go to surgery and the the anesthesiologists were all together in one group and they never signed a contract with the insurance company. So that means that when you have that anesthesia for that surgery, they can charge you anything they want. And so that became alarming how that was occurring, and that's why this law was passed, that um there has to be some logic to the way you're charged, because if your insurance does not have uh they're not in that your insurance network, then that means you got to pay them directly, or the insurance company will pay them what they normally pay anesthesiologist, but you've got to pay the rest. And so people were getting shocked bills like two, three, four, five thousand dollars for something that normally would be covered by their insurance.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

So um, and the whole concept of Obamacare was that everybody has to buy insurance and everybody's gonna be covered.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

Yeah, right. And so what it turned out to be was two things. Number one is a way that hardworking people would have to pay not only for their own health care, but other people who were not working. That is more people in the wagon, fewer people pulling the wagon. And then the other is to really make uh the big business of health care on the national level very profitable. And then the people in the middle who are the patients who have private insurance and the providers and the providers. And the providers are the ones getting squeezed, and that needs to be fixed. Uh and that was one attempt, and I don't know how well it's working. I really have not heard much, but that was a way they were trying to solve the problem of surprise billing because um, you know, you think your insurance is covering everything, and you find out there are two or three doctors who provided services, and they're not even on the network. And and in some cases, you had no choice. You know, you went in, maybe you were in a car accident, you had emergency surgery, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:21

The emergency would then in the scenarios like you mentioned, if like let's say your anesthesiologist is not in the network with your insurance and you're having an elective procedure. That's one instance. But the the most common instance is you go into a hospital where none of the providers are in network with your insurance, and then your provider may maybe their standard billing rate, which this is bizarre too, is like you know, five or ten times what is easily normal.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:53

Uh and and a part of this, though, is that the whole idea behind uh paying physicians is it's supposed to be a negotiated fee. That never happens. Uh it's a dictated fee. You either want to be on the network or you don't. And if you do, this is what you're gonna get paid. And so uh for most doctors, they can't afford to do anything but take whatever is offered to them. But like you say, in some instances, some groups can say we're the only providers of this service in the community. So we're not going to take your price. And so the insurance company does not agree, and and the doctors don't agree, and that's when the surprise billing comes in.

unknown 1:10:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:38

And then you end up with situations where people, again, they're mandated to acquire this insurance. Right. But it doesn't actually provide coverage whenever they need it the most. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

So that means your insurance premiums, your out-of-pocket expenses, all of that just keeps going up and up and up. Because there's nothing to counterbalance that. I mean, anything you do in life in this country, based on the free market economy, there's always an offset. There's something that lowers the cost to a reasonable level because there's competition, there's transparency of pricing, and there's transparency of value. You don't get any of that in our current health care system, and that's the reason why the value uh I mean, we've always had good health care in this country. I mean, I I would never argue otherwise compared to other countries. But the cost to that value is not good. We really need um, or I should say the cost to that quality is not good, which means the value goes down. So so we need we need reform in health care to bring it back closer to what looks like the rest of the economy where you have price transparency, you can shop as a consumer, and you get treated well by the insurance companies.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

So five years from now, let's say you were successful in your campaign for U.S. Senator uh for Louisiana, what uh what do you see as uh success uh uh on the part of your efforts and uh the the outcomes that you would be able to achieve?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:18

Well, in overall policy would be a secure border, uh where uh immigrants would certainly come to this this country, but they would do it as a result of uh of the fact that they're here legally, that we have a strong defense, which we have now and we should continue to maintain, where the economy is better, taxes are lower, we begin paying down the national debt, uh, and we have a health care system that's more responsive to the people and more affordable. So if five years now I can come back and talk to you about that, I will be delighted.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

Well, I hope if you're successful that you will agree to come back. Sure. And uh again, I thank you for uh uh the taking on the effort of uh being a candidate. I think that's an awesome responsibility in and of itself. And uh for your efforts in public service and uh for being an example uh for being uh a leader in uh your field and also in your business. And um and thanks again for coming on here and sharing a little bit about yourself. How can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:26

Oh, thank you, John, and appreciate uh you inviting me and look forward to coming back. Uh they can come to our website, FlemingSenatecampaign.com, or they can just Google my name. Uh and uh I'm also on every social media, Facebook X, all of that. So I'm easy to find. And I actually do answer questions on uh social media, unlike any other candidate you're gonna find. They don't do it. I do. And my question to everyone is if your candidate doesn't answer your questions or not responsive to your concerns, what's the chance they're gonna be answering your questions once they're elected? They don't even need your vote anymore, right? So it's important to be analytical about who is running in these races and be sure that they really care about you as a person, that um that the endorsement should be of the people through the ballot, not high level officials. And I think that's something that most people in Louisiana seem to get. That's the feedback I'm getting.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:34

Well, good luck to you, sir. And um thank you, John. You bet. Thank you. Very good. All right.