Interview With Jordan Bloom On Rand Paul’s Filibuster

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – On today’s show, Jordan Bloom of the American Conservative Magazine joined Mike Church to discuss Rand Paul’s filibuster from the Senate floor, check out the transcript and audio for more…

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Let’s go to the Dude Maker Hotline to my buddy Jordan Bloom from The American Conservative Magazine.  Jordan, sorry you had to sit through all that.

Jordan Bloom:  Hi, Mike.  How you doing?

Mike:  I’m well exercised and my lungs are functioning perfectly today.  How are you?

Jordan:  I’m a little tired.  I stopped watching the whole filibuster business around 12:30 last night, which was about 20 minutes before it ended, before Rand Paul alluded to having to pee really badly, which is completely understandable after 12 hours and 52 minutes.

Mike:  Maybe if Louie Gohmert hadn’t brought him the Kit-Kat bar and Gatorade, he might have been able to go another hour.

Jordan:  That’s right.  He was also brought an apple and a thermos full of hot tea just like in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Mike:  I like the use of the props.  What did you think about the various reactions?  As you covered this for the American Conservative Magazine website last night, was it a curiosity to you that the usual suspects were missing in action?  We didn’t hear from John McCain, didn’t hear from Lindsey Graham, didn’t hear from any of the decepticon lobby.

Jordan:  The reason why we didn’t hear from them is because they were at dinner with Barack Obama.

Mike:  They got out at 10:00.

Jordan:  You can see where their priorities are.

Mike:  They could have contacted afterwards.  They were certainly there during the day.  I didn’t see Senator McCain or Senator Graham.  The list goes on and on.  There’s a list of all the senators that did not stand with Rand.  I don’t know about you, but the longer I watched it and listening to Rand Paul speak, the more it became apparent to me that he was inveighing mostly against his own party.  How about you?

Jordan:  I’d say so.  He certainly seemed like he was rebuking Cruz in a couple points.  I think the thing to pay attention to here is you look at the more establishment GOP senators that went there and defended the filibuster, which is great, like Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz.  They were defending the legitimacy of Paul’s right to inquire about this.  They weren’t saying he was right on the policy.  That’s what they’re supporting him on.  It isn’t exactly that they agree with him on the drones.  There is still that tension there.

Mike:  I picked up on that.  I even wondered why Ted Cruz was there.  I heard specific things that Rand said that could have been aimed directly at Ted Cruz.

Jordan:  Definitely.  It seemed like that.  I’m trying to remember.  He definitely rebuked him in a couple points.

Mike:  I’m going to have to go back and read through or sort through some of the digital media files to get specific on that.  He did refer to support of the Patriot Act, referred to support of the NDAA, which Cruz hasn’t had a chance to vote on.  Every indication is that he is a proponent of it.  The definition of the battlefield as being everywhere, I think there was a lot of good substance there.  I also thought that while Rand was talking, he seemed to be more prone to or dedicated to the actual subject matter at hand and not all the ancillary things that didn’t have anything to do with it.  In other words, he kept it on message.  Mike Lee kept it on message.  Ted Cruz, when he got up, was just pure theater.

Jordan:  The impressive thing about this whole filibuster is that Rand Paul kept it on policy almost the entire time.  He veered off into talking about eminent domain abuse, some stuff on privacy, but it was pretty on message, and most of it was extemporized.  He was just speaking off the cuff.  Most of what Ted Cruz rose to talk about, he did a lot of reading of Tweets.  He read a letter from the Alamo, a speech from Patton, just killing time, which is fine.  He’s coming to give his support.  Ted Cruz wasn’t bringing substance.

Mike:  Yesterday was the 177^th anniversary of the stand at the Alamo.  They brought up: Well, it was Kentucky and Davy Crockett who came down to San Antonio.  There was a little bit of a metaphorical moment.

Jordan:  Cruz said William Barret Travis and Davy Crockett would be standing side by side with you if they were alive today, and they’d be proud to call you brother.  Kind of a weird shout-out there.

Mike:  Finally in summation, Jordan Bloom from American Conservative Magazine, he writes on the left-hand side of the AmConMag.com page.  You can read him pretty much every day.  Listeners have been asking me: Mike, do you think anything is going to become of this?  Is this going to have any effect on anything?  I think the effect is emotional, for those especially in the nascent liberty movement.  How about you?

Jordan:  Yeah.  All you really have to look at is when was the last time you were proud and excited to be a Republican?  I think yesterday was the first time for a lot of people, in a really long time.  We’ll see how much the Republican Party decides to take up this issue.  Mitch McConnell, towards the end of the filibuster last night, announced that he’d actually oppose Brennan’s nomination.  Reince Priebus issued a tweet.  They’re getting behind it but we’ve yet to see whether it’s going to be substantive or rhetoric.

Mike:  Jordan, thank you very much for your time, brother.  We’ll talk to you again real soon.

End Mike Church Show Transcript