Andy Barr, and he is the Republican congressman from Kentucky, but he is the nominee, and he's running, he's got the GOP nomination to run for Mitch McConnell's seat, and well, and you got President Trump's endorsement, I understand.

Yes, sir.

Honored to be the nominee and earn that endorsement and earn the endorsement of the Republican Party of Kentucky.

And now we're running in a general election where we're looking to earn the support of all Kentuckians who believe in common sense, who love our country and want to stop socialism.

Because what we're seeing, John, as you see it in New York, we've got Mamdani in New York, we've got El-Sayed in Michigan.

And Charles Booker, my opponent in Kentucky, he's a full-blown socialist.

And so this election this fall around the country, but certainly also in Kentucky, is a contest between crazy versus common sense.

And I understand your opponent doesn't have much common sense.

And well, and you got President Trump's endorsement, I understand.

Yes, sir.

Honored to be the nominee and earn that endorsement and earn the endorsement of the Republican Party of Kentucky.

And now we're running in a general election where we're looking to earn the support of all Kentuckians who believe in common sense, who love our country and want to stop socialism.

Because what you're what we're seeing, John, is you see it in New York.

We've got Mamdani in New York.

We've got El-Sayed in Michigan.

And I understand your opponent doesn't have much common sense.

And, well, and you got President Trump's endorsement, I understand.

Yes, sir.

Honored to be the nominee and earn that endorsement and earn the endorsement of the Republican Party of Kentucky.

And now we're running in a general election where we're looking to earn the support of all Kentuckians who believe in common sense, who love our country and want to stop socialism.

Because what we're seeing, John, as you see it in New York, we've got Mamdani in New York, we've got El-Sayed in Michigan.

And Charles Booker, my opponent in Kentucky, he's a full-blown socialist.

And so this election, this fall around the country, but certainly also in Kentucky, is a contest between crazy versus common sense.

And I understand your opponent doesn't have much common sense.

But talk to us about getting the Chamber endorsement, and talk to us about sort of what your economic message is for the people of Kentucky

KentuckyScott, it's great to be with you and great to be on a program that is all about common sense, and great to be with my, my former colleague and good buddy, uh, Mr. Davis.

Rodney and I served together in the Congress.

Uh, Rodney was a great member and doing great work with the US Chamber now.

I'm honored to have the endorsement of the, of the business community of this country and the private sector because that's really what's on the line in this race, as is the case in so many other US Senate, uh, races around the country.

It's common sense versus crazy.

Uh, socialism is, uh, alive and well in this country, sadly, in places like New York with Mamdani, uh, Michigan, um, where the Democrats have nominated a full-blown socialist in El-Sayed, and in Kentucky, where, uh, the Kentucky Democratic Party, for whatever reason, uh, they've lost their minds and they've nominated a socialist in Charles Booker.

What does that tell you, uh, about today's Democratic Party versus the Democratic Party that, you know, you grew up with, uh, in Lexington, Kentucky, that my family was part of in Western Kentucky when I was growing up? It seems like we are far, far away from your dad's or your granddad's, uh, old school Democrats, aren't we?

It seems like we are far, far away from your dad's or your granddad's old school Democrats, aren't we?

Yeah, my father was a Democrat, you know, and there was a lot of, in Kentucky at least, Democrats could be proud of centrists and some sensible leaders that they had over the years.

But now those Democrats are now Republicans.

And many of the Democrats, you know, one would hope or think maybe it's just a temper tantrum.

Their Trump derangement syndrome has gone off the rails.

It's metastasized into a full-blown disease.

So their temper tantrum is just to go radical left and embrace socialism.

Talk to us about your priorities in the U.S. Senate and where you think we need to go as a country on producing enough energy to power the economy that we have today and to fuel the economy that we want tomorrow.

And I'm just wondering, in red Kentucky, are you seeing the same kind of cancer spreading there?

Well, sadly, Eric, I am.

Socialism and anti-Semitism are everywhere.

Even in red states like Kentucky, we have pockets of...

And far left extremism in the urban areas in Lexington, uh, where the college campuses, and of course, uh, in Louisville, which is the one blue congressional district in the state, uh, we see antisemitism.

Um, we see, uh, graffiti and vandalism from a group called, uh, Lex for Palestine in my congressional district, uh, bomb threats of our synagogue and temple.

Uh, it's it's everywhere.

They just kind of accept the term.

Have you got a guideline or rules for people when they should literally say nothing?

I guess the thing that I'm probably most well known for is crisis comms.

I've worked with every brand.

I've worked with football clubs, rugby clubs, politicians, other governments from other countries, which has got me in trouble, but I don't care.

Baddies need PR too, is what I say.

But I think, yeah, the crisis comms playbook is really straightforward.

If you have got a situation where you can apologise without admitting liability, do it.

So they're already in, in, you know, in something that probably conflicts, but If I came to you as the ChatGPT's CMO or the new one or CGO, what would you do to help save ChatGPT?

But when President Trump, as you said, says something in Kentucky, the Republican voters out there tend to listen.

They really do.

And, you know, I was you mentioned Nate Morris dropping out of the race.

I'm grateful that Nate, who I've known for 20 years, turned around and endorsed me and appreciate him communicating to his supporters, hey, support Andy Barr for Senate.

He's going to be the next senator.

And then we do have, you know, remaining competitor Daniel Cameron, who also is a friend.

And we've We've worked together in the past.

Still a huge issue for the people in the bluegrass.

But when President Trump, as you said, says something in Kentucky, the Republican voters out there tend to listen.

They really do.

And, you know, I was you mentioned Nate Morris dropping out of the race.

I'm grateful that Nate, who I've known for 20 years, turned around and endorsed me and appreciate him communicating to his supporters, hey, support Andy Barr for Senate.

He's going to be the next senator.

And then we do have, you know, remaining competitor Daniel Cameron, who also is a friend.

And we've We've worked together in the past.

Still a huge issue for the people in the bluegrass.

And it seems like the the even the common sense democrats are afraid of the the radicals i mean what say you

well absolutely i you just saw it with the state of the union address when the president would ask a very simple straightforward one would think straightforward question do you think that the job of the Congress is to prioritize American citizens or prioritize illegal criminal aliens and stand up if you think we should prioritize American citizens.

And the only people who stood up were the Republicans and I think Senator Fetterman from Pennsylvania.

But every other Democrat refused to stand up.

So, I mean, I don't think all Democrats are totally captive to the extreme far left, but that's what we're seeing in this country right now, that the Democrat Party has been largely overrun by a lot of these folks who want to repudiate our founding, who want to transform our country into something we don't recognize.

That's why they want to open our borders and flood our country with people who don't understand our culture or inundate the country with poisonous drugs.

It's why they want to teach our kids woke ideology in school as opposed to the greatness of our country and the founding and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Why can't we elevate that idea? And so, um, uh, i- it is important to, to fight back and, and I have.

And I've be- I've been a leader in Congress of, of, of voting against DEI initiatives, of defunding DEI initiatives, and taking on, uh, environmental, social, governance, uh, crap, and politicizing things that should never be politicized.

Whether it's in education or whether it's in finance, um, this cancel culture ha- ha- is, is really about, uh, trying to transform our country into something we don't recognize.

Mm.

Uh, and, and then they pushed ESG and DEI into-... what should be the, the, the, the free enterprise system, the center of capitalism, our, our businesses, our corporations, and, uh, they tried to convert them.

Uh, and they did, and they were successful for some period of time.

And, um, those of us who recognized it, we called out those business leaders, uh, for, um, parroting all of this nonsense and saying, "Look, your job as a director or officer of a corporation is not to advance the Democratic National-

Right

...

in that seat, uh, obviously, and, um, uh, it's been a privilege, uh, of a lifetime to serve with you and serve with other patriots in the Congress and, and represent, uh, the Central Kentucky district in Congress, but it would be an even greater privilege to get a chance to fight for all of Kentucky and Kentuckians i- in the US Senate, and continue to help this president, uh, with his agenda, enact his agenda.

I've been, uh, a top ally of this administration, uh, in Congress, and I'll be an even stronger, uh, ally in the Senate.

I was, uh, President Trump's chairman of his 2024 primary campaign in Kentucky for a reason.... um, and we've been fighting together all the way through.

But l- look, there's a lot on the line, and it's, it's about preventing the, the, the radical left from taking our country to a place where they're basically, um, they wanna commit suicide.

They wanna, they wanna open up our borders.

I got to go on..." [chuckles] Like, do you remember that story where the president had only been in office, it seemed like days, and didn't you go to Kentucky with him?

Talk about that.

that.Yeah, so in the National Defense Authorization Act, uh, we are codifying, uh, President Trump's America First investment policy.

Um, unfortunately, Americans have been unwittingly financing, uh, the Chinese military-industrial complex, uh, uh, billions and billions of dollars annually through US index funds, other passive investments.

And then more direct investments like venture capital and private equity flowing into, uh, Chinese entities and technologies of national security concern.

We are addressing this problem.

We've given the Chinese access to our capital markets, the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world, and that has actually helped finance the civil-military fusion and the surveillance state, uh, in, uh, in China.

Um, we should not be giving, uh, the Chinese, uh, the- the- the- the rope to hang us.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

...

it was unilateral withdrawal of the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, it was the chaotic and disastrous retreat from Afghanistan which invited aggression.

It was months of Russian soldiers, uh, uh, assembling at the border and not doing anything about it.

And then after the further invasion of Ukraine, what did Biden do? He put sanctions on Russian banks.

Yes, of course he did, but he issued a- a license that allowed Russian banks to process energy exports.

Well, that's the whole economy of Russia.

So you're on financial services, uh, congressman, what have you thought about what she said? Are you th- are you worried about the dollar eroding as the world currency?

Explain.

Well, exactly, Griff.

We're still cleaning up the mess left for us by, uh, Joe Biden and his open border policies and his borders are Kamala Harris, um.

And, and really, the problem, um, among the many problems with an open border was that Chinese fentanyl producers were, uh, colluding with the, the cartels, taking advantage of our open border to, to, uh, import, uh, their poison into our country and, and into Kentucky.

No, Kentucky's not on the physical border, but if you, uh, if you talk to the Kentucky narcotics officers, uh, they will tell you that the open southern border was directly responsible for the deaths of many Kentuckians over the last several years because of all of that fentanyl pouring across our border.

And you're exactly right.

Um, you know, drug overdose ... doses have been the leading cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45, uh, for several years now.

Your reaction there, though, to, uh, Secretary Hegseth's comments?

And I'm watching that 30-year bond yield as everyone on Washington, in Washington DC is...Do you believe what President Trump said in, on his Truth Social post last night, that this doesn't add to the deficit, even though you have a whole host of different estimates saying that it will add $3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years?

Well, uh, Republicans are also watching, uh, the 30-year.

We're watching the 10-year.

We're watching instability in the bond market.

We're lo- we're looking at weakness, uh, in, uh, demand for Treasuries.

Um, but blaming the Big Beautiful Bill, uh, for weakness, uh, in the Treasury market or instability in the Treasury market is, is like, uh, blaming the firefighter, uh, the arsonist blaming the firefighter for, uh, the inferno.

Um, we just went through four years of a drunken sailor spending spree by the Democrats that, uh, put us, you know, way behind the eight-ball.

Where are people not including growth that you see as being part of this bill?

(laughs)

... is that it's a protectionist country, and they have 150% tariffs on our bourbon exports. And so there's no market penetration. So in comes Donald J. Trump and Howard Lutnick, the new commerce secretary, and they say, "No, no, we want reciprocity. We want, we want access to this o- this 1.4 billion person market." And, um, and the threats of tariffs, guess what? Like three weeks into the new administration, after we met with Lutnick and we told the American dream story of Shashi Reddy, guess what? India reduced their tariffs by 50%.

Yeah.

And we're the coal miners. We powered America. And, uh, every so often, we want, we wanna relax. And, and, you know, a great bourbon man once told me, "Don't leave a bourbon bottle unopened." Even if it's one of the premium brands, you gotta open it, because it's not about the juice in the bottle. It's about pouring a glass for yourself and your friend or your father-