In-Depth Discussion with Congressman Dusty Johnson on China, Border Security, and Economic Policies
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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Horne. And today we're here with a friend of our show, Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. Oh, it's good to be friends. It's good to be back. And we're talking about you coming back more in February and not January when the weather is much better.

better. You can tell I'm not a professional in that I talked over your introduction of me, and it seems like as a politician I would want people to know who Dusty Johnson from South Dakota is. Oh, no, they'll know. We'll bring it up enough times. So did you bring your family out? Did they get away from the cold of South Dakota? No, that really would have been nice if I was a better father and husband, I would. But I don't think those kids should be missing calculus. Keep them in class. How old are your kids again? 18, 15, and 11. So what do they think about you being a congressman?

Is it a nuisance to them? Do they like doing it? Or are they just like, eh, Dad? I think they're proud. I know they're proud. But they're also not political kids. I don't bring them out to D.C. a lot. I don't want them to be the congressman's children. Right. I just want them to be, you know, Max who plays the alto sax and, you know, Ben who likes lifting weights and, you know, Owen who's good at –

good at making jokes. I don't, to the extent they're their own people and not just an auxiliary of me, I think it's better. And I take it the all-powerful Congressman Johnson's wife is quite independent and she got used to it in life? Yeah, she's pretty remarkable. I mean, she's the CEO of a pretty good-sized business in our little town and

She's a total ass kicker. That's fantastic. So right now we have a budget impasse. I guess we got it going. We have to march now. We keep getting a little bit longer on the leash to get it out. What has to happen to get a real budget done here? We need to have the old spirit of just...

cutting the deal. I mean, I know that's sort of like a swear word now. The idea that you would ever cooperate with the other side is considered, you know, absolutely terrible. But we do need to fund government. And that's going to mean there's going to be a lot of 50-50 deals that get cut. And it's not going to be very sexy, but that's what we need to do. When I ask people, especially those in the suburbs or who consider themselves conservative, but

They sort of become independent now. I call them prodigal Republicans, per se. It'd be nice if they'd come home. And I ask them what their biggest problem is. He goes, it's just nothing works anymore. Nothing. And it's just not government. It's from police. It's from churches. It's from charities. It just seems like everything's broke. Are you getting that sense from people that that's a real frustration for them? Yeah. And I think there are, I mean, I have two reactions to that. Number one, it is a little true that things don't work as well as they used to.

It is also – and our political dysfunction, Chuck, is to blame for a lot of that. We're not making the kind of investments that we used to. But it's also that it's so much easier to focus on the negative. Well, it's what gets you clicks. Yes. Right? Right.

I know having a show we've been told time and again, you need to be a little more exaggerated. You need to make more bold pronouncements. It's like, it's not what we are. We're growing. We're almost at a million listeners. I think there's an audience that just wants to have a reasonable conversation, a listen. They can make their own opinion and go from there. I'm not out there saying, you know, like Chris Matthews, rural voters are a cult, right? I'm sure people in South Dakota appreciated that, those who heard of it. But it just doesn't work. It just seems like we can't do the simple things anymore. Right.

Yeah. One thing that America always used to be good at, and the world acknowledges this, we were adults, right? We invested in roads. We didn't shut down our government. We just could always be relied on to do the basic blocking and tackling of governance. And the last 10 years, that's gotten a lot harder. Tony Blair was in the United States just a little over a year ago, and he was talking to a group of members, a bipartisan group of members, and he said,

America's political dysfunction is a global security threat. 100%. 100%. I mean, look, I have told this story before. I'll share it with you. So, well, five, six years ago, I was in Estonia. I've been in Finland for business meetings and a buddy of mine said, hey, I have a friend who's an art professor at the University of Estonia. Let's go see him. So we took a ferry over. It's how close they are, right? Finland and that. Yeah.

and we went there and we met with him, and he had served in the Soviet Army when it broke up. So he's an older man, but, you know, people forget the Soviet Union broke up not that long ago. So he was... Yeah, so he wasn't that old, right? But he was a young man then, and he was an officer. And so we're at lunch, and overlooking, you see the bay, and I said, do you ever worry about the Russians...

coming and trying to take back Estonia. Now, this time, no one's mentioning it, right? It's love. It's a group hug. We had our problems with Russia, but everybody thought, it's okay. This is a Cold War dividend. And I'll never get his comment. He said, he pointed around, there was a U.S. destroyer, some military craft, and he goes, as long as that's there, no one's coming. And he said, I know Americans don't like to take the responsibility, but no one else can.

Right. And it's just and it's just always stuck with me. I mean, it's just you just simply pointed out this taxpayer funded military craft and just saying as long as that's there, no one's coming. And I and I feel like people I think what I'm disappointed in my party right now is especially for a party that supposedly believes in faith. You know, polling shows that we're more the party of faith versus Democrats, right?

There's a responsibility when you have faith. There's a stewardship. And peace is a stewardship. And we acknowledge this in every other environment. If you're a sports guy, I mean, everybody knows if you're the best player on the team, the team is going to be better run if you know that you have unique obligations. Correct. I have to be good in the locker room as well. It's not just on the court. And people know that in businesses, too. Listen, if I'm the boss, I have some special obligations to make the team work well. Correct.

We are America is has been the team captain.

And we don't just get to wash our hands and walk away and say, well, you guys will figure it out. It is going to mean that Americans are less prosperous and it will mean that Americans are less secure. If the only thing we care about are Americans, we still need to be better leaders across the world. Well, the uniqueness of America, let's just look at today's economic numbers. So I think we grew at 3.2 or 3.3 percent last year, which is supposedly our soft landing. Europe's like in a crisis. I mean, Germany's

in a recession. They're like 0.3% negative, right? And, you know, and I know our government likes to take credit for this, but this really has everything to do with people like your wife and these small business owners who have just learned to ignore everybody. And I'm going to make a product and people are going to buy it. And that's the beauty of America is this entrepreneurial bent, even, and you know, my Republican friends and I am one look, Democrats, a lot of Democrats like entrepreneurship too. Now they, now they have a segment that don't, don't get me wrong. They have some real nut jobs. Um,

that make our nut job seem very mellow at times. But that is the beauty of America. There's just so many advantages here. You know, I think we're separated by these two oceans. You know, the Red Sea problem right now is a real problem for Europe. Absolutely. It raises some prices here maybe for us, but it's a real problem for them. It is. Well, I think the same thing about natural gas. I mean, the Russia-Ukraine deal hit Europe in the pocketbook a lot harder than it hit us.

But again, these things, whether it's the Red Sea or whether it's natural gas, American leadership can solve these problems. 100%. We can build more LNG terminals and we can get more natural gas to Europe and we can make them more independent from Russia. We can make sure that the Houthis in Yemen aren't disrupting Europe. Our leadership can help people.

Did I read it right this week that Biden is banning certain exports of the natural gas to Europe or terminals? Did I read that right this week in the Wall Street Journal? It is amazing to me how often the left stands in the way of good environmental stewardship. Our natural gas is 30 percent cleaner than Russia's natural gas. So the only thing you care about...

is carbon. You should still want Americans to go out and get LNG to Europe. Explain to our audience exactly what Biden administration has done on this this week. They have rolled out some new regulations that are going to make it a lot more difficult for us to be able to site LNG terminals, put those things in tankers and get them over to Europe. It's just why? What was the reasoning for it, do you think?

I think we need to be better stewards of the climate. Don't get me wrong. Sure, 100%. But America has reduced its carbon footprint by more in the last five years than the next 15 carbon-reducing countries combined. We've done that in no small part because of natural gas. But if you're a purist, if this is a holy war for you, natural gas is evil. And so they don't want Europe to go from Russian natural gas to American natural gas. They want Europe to go from Russian natural gas to...

something entirely renewable. That's not going to happen overnight. Well, we were talking on the show a month ago, right before Christmas, that they had, because of the cold front and the freezing in England, their winter styles stopped working and they didn't have enough

other sources of power so people were in the cold for the weekend. I mean, I think this is what Europe's going to be facing for a long time because they had gone and not had a plan B. I think we would all agree here, look, I'm for throwing everything at the wall to be energy independent and renewables are part of it. Yeah. But they're never going to be 100% for a while or you and I will be very, very old men when that's a reality, right? Exactly right. And so why would you do that to your populace? And there's a transition. Yeah. I mean,

I mean, there is a transition that makes sense that can serve economic and environmental masters. But unfortunately, my colleagues on the left all too often don't get it. No, they don't. What about Congressman Dusty Johnson from the great state of South Dakota? Great state. What do you think the chances are that your governor becomes the vice presidential—

candidate was president trump oh pretty good i wouldn't bet against her no they're probably 10 or 12 people under active consideration so no one person has a great chance but she's on a list there's a yellow pad and she's on she's on the yellow pad so let me ask you this if she is the nominee who's the who's your lieutenant governor there his name is larry roden and so if she if they win and she's the vice president larry becomes the governor or do you have a special election there

No, he'll be governor until the rest of her term is up, which would be in 2026. Okay. As you go around and meet your constituents in South Dakota, what is the two or three issues that

I repeatedly get asked of you. Border, border, border. And so South Dakota, are you experiencing the problems from the border? I mean, look, we're here in Arizona. The border is real. I mean, we've been to any that border problem is real. This isn't made up. This isn't hyperbole. It is a problem. Right. And we were talking last week at a foreign policy gentleman on.

Look, polling shows there's 700 million people in the world that want to immigrate the United States. And he said, and he said, look, he goes, if you really did it, it's probably really 2 billion. Yeah. Yeah. I know South Dakota has a lot of room. We don't have that much room. Yeah. That's my point. Right. So what has made this South Dakota is a long ways from the border here. What has brought this to their attention so much? Is it just the news or they're seeing it somehow? I mean, what houses affecting their lives?

Certainly people feel it with fentanyl deaths. Right. And it took a little while for people to make the connection to the southern border and fentanyl. Right. But obviously over – I mean it's 100,000 a year in this country with fentanyl and meth. And so that's a big problem. But even more than that, I just think it's the sense of fair play that we can't have 2 million people a year coming across the southern border. 2 million we know of. Right. Right. And the getaways –

are a different problem than the people who want to get picked up because they want to try to claim refugee and asylum status. And just to be clear...

If you're a legitimate refugee, I think decent countries need to try to find a place for you. I would not have wanted to have turned away the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. Correct. But we know that 95% of these people do not have credible fear claims. They are not legitimate refugees. And whenever we can get them that hearing a year, two, seven, ten years from now, their claims are going to get rejected and they're going to be sent home. That's going to be a problem for them. The problem with the immigration issue

Yeah.

I mean, look, I've been to six or five countries. There are no gems. No. Right? And they all have their problems. I remember I was in Germany in October. This was a couple weeks after October 7th. And I was at a hotel for a conference. And they literally came and said, just stay in your room tonight. There's going to be a protest outside. Oh, did they? Yeah. Just stay in your room. This was in Hamburg, Germany. Just stay in your room. Don't go anywhere near this area. I do think the globe is suffering from a lack of leadership. I mean, clearly Putin and Xi Jinping are total autocratic dictator thugs. Yeah.

Olaf Scholz doesn't seem like he's up to being the leader of Europe. Macron is not popular in his own country and certainly not popular anywhere else in Europe. Probably not in his own house either. No, that's right. I mean, you know, Rishi has got his own political problems. Africa is, I mean, countries like Niger are in way worse shape than they were a couple years ago. There is a total lack of leadership. Yeah, it's a crisis in the world right now. People need America to grow up.

And I actually think the first half of last year was way better than people realized. Again, the outrage media, the anger-tainment wanted to make everything seem like a failure, but

The debt ceiling deal cut $2 trillion in spending over the next four years, the largest ever deficit reduction package in American history. We made it easier to bring American energy like natural gas to market by streamlining environmental siting. It was the biggest change to welfare reform in 35 years. Nobody talked about that because it was just easier to...

to allow the outrage media to talk about what a failure it was. Yeah, and I think part of that is for Republicans. I'll just talk about Republicans because I'm a Republican. I think part of that too is we do bad job communicating. So for example, we have a majority, okay? Every one of your members...

can actually have a strategy to be able to be on a talk radio station in their district or state. Yeah. Where, by the way, polling shows 11%, 12% of people get their news. Go see the... A number. Go see the editorial boards. Yeah. I mean, there are things we have on the show and I get feedback. People said, I didn't know that. And you and I would think...

Why don't you know that? But this is the news they get for the week, right? And so I feel that failure to communicate is purely on us. We're just not doing the job and getting out there. And look, there is no time anywhere in South Dakota that you cannot be on a talk radio show every month and they'd have you on. And you can say, this is what's going on. So, for example, I was reading you did these two things on the Second Amendment. We'll have you talk about that for a minute about that.

be able to use tribal ID, which I can't believe that doesn't count. Oh, it's amazing. I mean, it's a government issue ID. Am I wrong on that? You're exactly right. And the other one about military spouses and so forth, they can use a P.O. box on their ID, right? How many people know about you're doing that? Yeah, these aren't hard calls. These are good policies. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing, too. I think Congress is trying to hit a lot of grand slams. And boy, a lot of infield singles would probably get a lot of work done.

They don't give very much attention. To the extent we do hit singles, everybody kind of shrugs. But again, people, I don't know about people, there are lots of platforms that want people angry. They want them scared because that is...

a fantastic way to make money. It's a fantastic way to get small donors. Right, right. I think plenty of Republicans are really good at communicating. The problem is I just think their message makes America weaker. I mean, let's just take that debt ceiling deal. And listen, this was not a perfect deal at all by any means. I mean, we're dealing with, you know, the Democrats have the White House, the Democrats have the Senate, Republicans have the House, barely. Like, how good was our leverage? Well, look, you never let the perfect defeat the good. Absolutely. Absolutely.

But we had, I mean, some of my angrier friends on my side of the aisle were everywhere all at once. Outrage, outrage, outrage. And let's say that that deal was a 70 percent Republican win and a 30 percent Republican loss. They focused in on the 30 percent. They were good communicators. They made everybody believe this thing was a big pile, you know, steaming pile of, you know, dew.

So then rank and file Republican congressmen, they don't really want to go to the sticks back home on the radio station with nuance and logic to try to defend a turd pile. So they just they get real quiet and they hang out in the weeds. And that's a mistake. One hundred percent. So what is right now? So we're trying to get a deal where we get a border solution and in return we give more aid to Ukraine. OK.

what is in our proposal for the border that are just causing the Democrats to have heartburn? I mean, what is just so untenable for them? I mean, if they want Ukraine so bad, I mean, if I'm Biden, I'm just saying, guys, we're going to take this. The border is a disaster. If it doesn't work, we'll blame them. But I'm just telling you, it's a disaster. So what do we have to lose on this except 2024? Yeah, you're all going to pay a price for this. So what is so untenable that they said, I just can't take this, even though I want to give so much money to Ukraine?

I think it is the bleeding heart aspects of the Democratic Party, the people who really their heart goes out to these migrants and they don't feel like policies that make it harder for

for them to get into this country illegally are the right approach, particularly parole. That's a mechanism whereby a president can unilaterally say there's an emergency. We are going to raise the numbers of people who can come in a little bit, either because we want Ukrainians to be able to come or we want people who translated for us in Afghanistan to be able to come in. We need some exceptions to the rule. Republicans really think that that discretion has been woefully abused by Joe Biden. They would like to take that discretion away from presidents and

And the Democrats are freaking out about it. Do you find Joe Biden, because I know you're in negotiations at times, do you find Joe Biden to be an honest negotiator with you guys? Or is he beholden to, I call them, act blue donors? Okay, because I really think there's a progressive element that make all these small donations. And I really feel that's what leads that party now. It's not big donors. They all say it's corporations. Corporations always get blamed. They're the boogeyman. But I really feel it's these

hundreds of millions of small donors out there. And I think a lot of times it's a lot of the same people, but they're just sitting at their keyboards. I just call it the act blue crowd coalition.

I think Joe Biden is a fundamentally different person, it seems to me, than he was 10 years ago. Yes. I mean, I think he basically went to America, you know, five years ago and said, listen, for 40 years I've been, you know, Uncle Joe, the deal cutter, the kind of guy who could get along with everybody. Aren't you sick of the drama? Elect me. There won't be any more drama. We'll find middle ground solutions. Correct. And I think much to America's dismay, he has been a far more liberal president than Barack Obama. Right.

And trillion dollar package after trillion dollar package. And I don't, you know, I think that's why his poll numbers are so lousy. I think people feel like it's been a bait and switch. 100 percent. 100 percent. And then they just see the failure on things. I mean, for example, inflation. You know, they came out yesterday. Wall Street Journal talked about credit card debt. It's gone up. People are missing payments, blah, blah, blah. And so as I've always tried to explain to people on the show, like, well, inflation is going down.

Yes, the percentage increase is going down, but the percentage increase happened. So what you have, you have 62% of people in this country do not even have $1,000 in savings. So when your pricing goes up $708 a month, where are you getting that extra money? Right. If you're 62% that don't have $1,000 in savings, it's probably a good chance you don't have a lot of family members with more savings than that, right? I mean, that's just...

That's right. That's mathematics, right? So you have this, and then you go and say, I'm going to put my credit card. So inflation is not the percentage they say. It's the credit card rate. And that's why I don't think Washington and D.C. and New York media are getting. This is the credit card rate. So people are putting groceries on.

gas on, all these things they generally would just be able to use their debit card check, they're not being able to do right now. And that's what I don't think Washington's getting whatsoever. Yes, this has been an interesting economy because people have jobs, you know, and there's a lot of good jobs. Now, we still want better jobs. We want people to make more money. But this has been a little bit, this is what makes America so unique. We're still buying. We're still working. But when costs go up over $8,000 a year,

You have $1,000 savings. Where do you gain extra money? And those things don't even count. For example, South Dakota, they love the outdoors. I'm sure you have a lot of club sports. So how many of those parents who have kids in club sports are paying an extra $500,000 a year? So expensive. I mean, so that stuff comes up. And that's what I think. I think that is a real frustration for people. It's like, yeah, I get it. I have a job.

But I'm not getting by. There's a problem. Something's got to give. It is hard to celebrate inflation back down at 3%, 4%, 5%. I mean, you doubled my rent yesterday, so now I'm supposed to feel good that it's only 5% more today. I mean, at some point, that's on top of the doubling. And it is a real frustration. People do get really focused on gas prices and milk prices, and I get it. At the same time, though—

We are barreling toward insolvency. 100%. $44 trillion in debt, and it is going to come for us soon. Again, the only silver lining I have in that, and it's not a silver lining, but I'll take pride in it. If it's bad here, imagine everywhere else in the world. I mean, that's the problem, right? So we're always going to be a repository for foreign investment.

Yeah. Right? I mean, so that's a problem. I don't think we're going to get the hard swat to the face in a lot of ways we need to. The dollar as reserve currency is a little safer than some people fear just because everybody's a mess, right? Right. But that's not a strategy. It's not a strategy. At some point, we do need to get our act together.

Now, all right, two more questions before we go. Senator, excuse me, Congressman Dusty Johnson, maybe Senator or Governor someday. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Let's just get through the next election. Exactly. Congressman Dusty Johnson. So two things. Quickly here, I want to talk about your bill on Chinese investment for states. Tell us a little bit about it. Well,

I think we have given China too much coercive economic power over almost every country. And that's particularly true in America. And listen, I don't mind if we're buying cheap T-shirts from them and if we're selling them a whole bunch of soybeans. Those kinds of deals can make America stronger. But it is absurd to me that there are hundreds of life-saving pharmaceuticals we can only get from them.

It's absurd to me that we have given them a near monopoly on things like, you know, computer chips. Right. It's absurd to me that we are letting them increasingly buy up farmland across the globe. The holdings of the Chinese Communist Party farmland outside of China in the last 10 years have increased a thousand percent.

I just think we got to pull together the global team and we got to say, gang, these investments in your ports, in your roads, in your agricultural processing, this is going to make your country and ours weaker. And thank goodness the China committee that I'm a member on, we're starting to get our act together and tell that story. Well, China, the way they do business and make Tony Soprano blush. Right.

Right. What they're doing, basically loan sharking countries in Africa and Central and South America. It's horrible. And there's going to be a consequence to it. Should we prevent China from buying U.S. farmland? Yes.

The Chinese Communist Party and their partners. That doesn't mean that, I mean... I don't think we can buy farmland there, can we? No, no, no. So, I mean, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Right. I think we, listen, there are five terrible despotic regimes. I don't think we should, and I think we just need to blacklist them all. I mean, I don't really think Iran and North Korea need to be buying a bunch of land near North Dakota Air Force bases either. I agree. I agree. All right, one last question. Let's talk about

How do we get some urgency into Congress to take things seriously and realize you're not going to get a perfect deal, but we got to start getting things done? There's a book out right now just someone had given to me last night. It's called The Measure. And basically the premise is one morning everybody in the world woke up with a small wooden box. I have two questions for you. Do you wish to know how long you'll live? And then if so, what will you do with that knowledge? How different do you think Congress would be if everybody woke up with a box one morning and said, you guys have 20 years left.

to live and you have 20 years to fix America. Will we see a different sense of urgency there? Are we still going to go on Fox News and say, Hunter Biden's a coke addict, you know, Donald Trump's mean and he's a racist and blah, blah, blah. Here's the problem. We have the box. We know that Social Security and Medicare both go insolvent in the next seven or eight years.

We know that there's this— Which, by the way, people just don't get. They don't get. I try to explain this all the time. Guys, if you don't do anything, you have benefit cuts of 20% plus here in five, six years. Yeah. There's nothing—I mean, that's just coming. Grandma will get cut if we don't act. Right. Right.

And so I think we know how long we're going to live. We got our box. And we still refuse to act. To me, I just think it's about garbage in, garbage out. And I love the purists and the zealots in my party who think that everything we're going to get done is going to get done through a home run, you know, the Hail Mary pass. And if we just hold strong, the Democrats will all crumble. I wish it—this is not a movie scene.

Right. Righteous indignation alone will not deliver these victories. It took us 60 years to get into these problems. I think the left has been far smarter about being incremental and about day in and day out, piling up small victories that have moved this country in the wrong direction. The right needs to get our head on straight. And so my my purest friends who think that we can if we just hold tight, everything will fall into line.

I'm sorry, they're not being wise enough. And if we are going to get this country pointed back in the right direction on things like Medicare and Social Security solvency, we're going to need to elect more people who I think are rational, tactically smart, and understand that we need to pile up a thousand small victories. And sometimes that means cutting a deal where it's a 70-30 win. 100%. Congressman Dusty Johnson, thanks for visiting with us here today. Thanks for having me. Have a good time tonight. This is BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. Thanks a million.