glad to be joined by our good friend
brand new freshman conservative
congressman ken buck ken welcome to the
morning show
good morning randy i'm not brand new
i've been doing this four weeks i know
you're in for a month i you know jimmy
sangenberger he fills in on the morning
show he works for me at my law firm good
young activist posted up yesterday that
congressman ken buck will be joining
randy corporen on wake up tomorrow
morning and the first comment from
somebody who will remain nameless was
ugg if randy wanted to pick a rhino to
talk to he should have just gotten
bainer
and i thought
are you and this is a guy i like i know
i communicate with i'm like are you
kidding me the man has been in congress
for four weeks
and we're to label him anything at all
it just and i got to tell you if you
know mitch mcconnell or john boehner or
paul ryan or somebody wanted to come on
the klz morning show of course we would
want to talk to those people isn't that
what we need to do talk to each other
figure out the decision making try and
influence the debate not just shooting
off names and labels
i had to tell you randy what's amazing
me is how little i didn't know when i
was sitting in washington or sitting in
colorado listening about what happens in
washington dc it is absolutely
fascinating what is going on behind the
scenes and and to try to label somebody
i mean i'll give you a perfect example
the dhs bill which i think we're going
to talk about the funding for the
appropriations bill for homeland
security um
there was a part of me that wanted to
vote for it there's a pardon they wanted
to vote against i wanted to vote for it
because it had in it
provisions that defunded the president's
executive order it also was a bill that
funded a lot of things that um you know
it was it was a large funding bill and i
am a fiscal conservative i believe that
we've got to reduce the size of
government we've got to get a balanced
budget but we've got to get to a
balanced budget so what do you do i all
i have is the choice of voting yes no or
present and in that case i voted yes
because i thought the the president's
executive order was unconstitutional and
we needed to make sure we sent a loud
and strong message but there is no
perfect bill where you can say my yes
vote is a very clear statement for
conservatism
let's talk a little bit about that a lot
of media is reporting on the fact that
there are democrats democrats who came
out very loudly against barack obama's
executive amnesty but they're now
standing in the way of moving this bill
forward and putting it on the
president's desk
yeah it's it is sad to me because what
we're ultimately going to do uh if the
democrats in the united states senate
continue playing this game is uh we are
going to threaten the the safety and
security of this country over the
unconstitutional acts of the president
what they're saying is they would rather
risk the the security of our homeland
rather than um
rather than pass a
a
uh
the bill that limits uh what the
unconstitutional actions of the
president because we've funded uh in
that appropriations bill we have funded
uh what what the president asked for
what the senate wants to do uh the only
thing that's
an issue now are these uh
unconstitutional actions of the
president and uh it's just sad that the
democrats the senate are holding uh this
bill hostage
when we know what the what is inevitably
coming this president is going to take
the bully pulpit and he's going to say
the republicans are putting national
security at risk republicans send me a
clean dhs bill the media is going to
pick up with that message this whole
thing goes back to the chromis and you
weren't in office yet of course the
conservatives and the liberty movement
went nuts when cromnibus was passed but
the one hope the one strength in the
cromnibus was that it gave this limited
period of funding for the department of
homeland security so that this fight
could be had
now as funding is about to run out for
the dhs are the republicans talking to
each other about a strategy to resist
the media onslaught when the president
takes the bully pulpit and says
republicans are endangering the nation
absolutely we are doing our best to get
on radio shows to write it and give
interviews for newspapers and and get
that word out the president feels so
strongly about this we send the
executive order and let's move forward
with with a uh an appropriations bill
that doesn't even have to address uh
those executive orders but you're
absolutely right the crown the bus was
passed um over objections because they
wanted to fight at that point on on uh
this dhs and and i i think it's very
clear that that's what the fight is over
and the president uh and the president
picked this fight you know the the
economy is is sluggish the there are so
many uh problems that the president is
facing he would much rather uh
fight on a bright and shiny object over
here than deal with the very tough
issues that we have to deal with this
this president has has really uh shown a
huge sustain for his office and and for
our system of government and
it's just terribly unfortunate well the
democrats are starting the new message
you you saw signs of it last night that
american people should relax about this
not terrorism not radical islamic
violence but but these violent groups
who are committing uh serious crimes
because
they're far more likely to be killed by
a lightning strike or in a car accident
or with a in a heart attack with a heart
attack in america than they are to be
killed by a terrorist so don't don't
look over here this is this isn't a big
deal are republicans banding together to
inform their constituents and educate
the country to this growing threat on
our homeland
you know i have not heard uh other than
what we've all seen on tv i have not
heard a a huge effort we are going to
take up the
uh the
use of force uh request by the president
um i i frankly uh
have some reservations about that i've
got to look at it very carefully
to me that use of force request has got
to be limited in time it has to be very
specific uh as to what this president
wants to accomplish i want to make sure
that we've got an exit strategy so we're
we're not giving this president uh a
uh an opportunity to
engage in uh conflicts uh anywhere he
wants uh in the world at any time so i'm
gonna be very interested in that but in
terms of messaging i think it is a a
serious threat um and obviously we've
been under threat before 9 11 during 9
11 uh and and we will continue to face a
serious uh threat from terrorists uh and
and we've got to take it seriously but
uh the the particular issue of what's
going on in the middle east
um you know if this president had
acted responsibly and
uh
and continued to support the iraqi uh
government and military and not uh drawn
down as fast as he did
uh it's it's questionable whether we'd
be in this situation right
former weld county district attorney ken
buck now in cory gardner's old seat in
congress newly elected to cd4 the party
organizational meetings have been going
on here in colorado and there seems to
be a movement afoot
to challenge the leadership of ryan call
at the head of the republican party in
your own county 13 of the 13 elected
officials to the county and the bonus
members have all come out in support of
steve house
people who are elected to congress
people who are elected here in the state
as republicans all have a vote at the
central committee meeting have you had
any time to think about this race uh
this leadership
uh fight that's going on for control of
the republican party here in the state
of colorado
sure i've had time to think about it uh
randy and uh you know
cory gardner um is the highest ranking
republican elected official in colorado
he is supporting ryan call
ryan um
while uh
didn't was not very successful four
years ago was or two years ago was
successful this last election and
getting things done and he's agreed to
step down after two years um on the
other hand steve house is is a good
friend of mine i respect the way he ran
uh the governor's race and and i thought
he did a good job and brings a lot to
the job uh at this point i have talked
to both of them and not made a decision
on
what i'm going to do
all right well i want to encourage you
to watch very carefully as much as you
can from back in washington i know you
get home periodically at the
uh the wave that's going on in these
organizational meetings in arapaho 15 of
23 people came out in favor of house in
denver 10 of 13. and neil mattai is now
the chairman of adams county republicans
10 of 15 supporting steve house
there are people who really feel like
the republican party underperformed here
in colorado compared to the wave
elections that went around the state and
you know maybe that's a conversation we
can have another time there's a whole
month for this to play out and i'm i'm
glad you're open to seeing how these
things emerge and haven't made your
decision yet
this republican freedom caucus when the
this thing was unrolled there were nine
conservative names on there and people
said wait a minute ken buck our
conservative new congressman he's the
president of the freshman class he's
going to be on all these great
committees where is his name on the
republican freedom caucus what's your
position on the caucus and what's your
involvement in it if any
yeah i was a member of the caucus before
the caucus was formed i had had
conversations with jim jordan and mark
meadows and
others uh before uh i was elected in in
november and i had started reaching out
to various uh freshmen uh and uh
actually had contributed to some uh of
the those uh campaigns before uh the
elections in november i uh after the
election during orientation i i had
meetings for various folks this is
something that it just didn't happen in
the last couple of weeks it is something
that has been on the drawing board for a
while um and i certainly have been
worked hard to work with the freshman
class to make sure that a number of
freshmen join the freedom caucus and i
have been at all of its meetings and and
was uh
one of the
uh as soon as uh a sign-up sheet was
passed around that my name was was on
that sign-up sheet so what they did was
they talked about the nine people uh
that had worked together um for the last
couple of years before i got to congress
they those nine people were involved in
the
activities around the crown the bus and
other uh important pieces of legislation
um and so they didn't include any
freshman names on that and i'm not sure
if dave brad's name was on that or not
but dave was sort of one of those people
he got in
at the end of last session it's so uh
hard to identify which class he's in but
uh
so yes i am i am part of the freedom
caucus i have been part of the uh
formation of that and and i look forward
to working closely
i it's great that you mentioned dave
brad at seven o'clock on tuesdays we're
joined by christopher doss who is the
mastermind behind the defeat of eric
cantor and the election of dave bratt
they took down eric cantor
who ran an almost 10 million dollar
primary campaign with a little over a
hundred thousand dollars so the the fact
that liberty and principal can win even
in big republican establishment politics
is something that really keeps us fired
up and ken i appreciate you joining us
for the show this morning thanks for
your direct answers to the questions and
we're going to keep working on you with
regard to steve house
congressman ken buck on the klz morning
show when we come back