Tony Samuel Joins!
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My name is Nigel Ethan Hatcher in for Hammer. Also joining us live in studio as he does every Thursday, Tony Samuel, Samuels, Samuel Solutions, a longtime political, local insider, was part of Donald Trump's campaign here in Indiana before his first election. Tony, welcome back. How are you? Thank you. Just a little bit about your background before we move on. I mean, what is it like? Like, how do you get to run the campaign in India? I'm not saying you ran it. Or maybe you did with Donald Trump in 2016, 2015, before the election. It was first term. It was kind of a wild story. I was at a conference. I got involved in politics way back in 1992 after I had graduated from college IUPY. and went to work as a manager at a blockbuster video if you remember those and didn't want to do that my whole life i'd been in retail while i was in college working my way through at a target store so i had that experience didn't want to do that my whole life i literally called the republican party looked up the number in the white pages in the phone book when we had those way back then And they told me who was running for governor. This is 92, so I'll jump ahead to the 2016. But that's how I got started was as a volunteer for a campaign of a guy who was superintendent of schools for the state, Dr. H.T. Evans, and he was running for governor. We lost in the primary, but that led to one thing after another. And then in... By 2016, I'd started my own lobbying firm after working for Brian Bosma as communications director for the Indiana House Republicans and for in the Mitch Daniels administration as a deputy commissioner at the Department of Local Government Finance and chief of staff there. So back to your question. I literally ran into somebody at a conference who connected me with someone at the Trump campaign. This is like late 2015. I got in touch with this person. There were others here who I knew were friends with, former state party GOP chairman Rex Early and a couple other guys, including Steve Hilbert, who was a close friend of Trump's. So the four of us and another gentleman. Four of us started the Trump campaign here in Indiana. Wow. In February, March of 2016, we opened an office in early April. We hired our state director, Susie Javarowski, who's now Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources for Governor Braun. So it was really the five of us and volunteers that ran that campaign. And then they hired me. The title was a... Vice chair, Rex was the state chair. And then they hired me and put me on the payroll as a communications director for Indiana. Wow. What a gig. Yeah, it was cool. It was a lot of fun. And we won. So it was great. Yeah. Winning is important. That could be important. One of the things I've noticed here, it's been a theme today on the show, is that the donut mayors, the donut prosecutors in counties.
are sick and tired of Marion County criminals. crossing the lines, coming into their counties, shooting up houses, murders, things like that. I'm wondering what you're thinking. We just most recently heard from the Hendricks County prosecutor, Lauren Delp, saying, look, here's the facts. I mean, since 2019 and murders have doubled and or a crime is tripled, or maybe the Marion County, criminals have tripled, murders have doubled. Have you noticed this trend now with the mayor of Carmel, the mayor of Greenwood, the prosecutors? And can you understand why they're so upset at soft-on-crime prosecutors like Ryan Mears and some of the judges here in Marion County? Absolutely. I can understand and relate, and we see it. And it's a good thing that they're speaking out. And like you had mentioned earlier, our U.S. Senator, one of them, Jim Banks, spoke about this on the floor of the Senate. the murder that happened, you know, before the Victor Field, Brett, Scrodham. Terrible situation. But it's something every day, every week. You know, you hear it weekends, it's not safe to be downtown. The governor has sent in the state police when they've been requested, and I know he'll continue to do that. But it's a good thing that the surrounding mayors and prosecutors are up in arms about it. It's weak responses from... Ryan Mears and Democrats, frankly, on this issue. But he calls it disingenuous. Sue Fincom complaining that the guy from your county that you had in jail, like multiple, multiple times was out. And I don't even know what that means. He doesn't explain how it's disingenuous. He just talks about political points when she's, first of all, she's not up for reelection anytime soon. Yeah. She's just upset that they're not doing their job here in this county. Yeah, he's not doing good job. He's letting people out when they, you know, should stay incarcerated. He's too soft on what he's charging them with. He doesn't have a good relationship with the police department from what I hear. You can go on and on, but it's not what a prosecutor should be known for. And it's not just this city, but it's... Democrat prosecutors and other big cities and throughout the country. And it's, you know, I'm sure you guys have talked about. I know you have and I have as well that George Soros funded. It goes back to the spread of socialism, communism, really Marxism behind it that's happening throughout the country. And one of the ways that they're attacking this country is by letting criminals out and letting them continue to commit crimes and putting fear into our families and communities. And it is spreading. from, you know, the bigger cities to the surrounding areas. So it's a good thing that, you know, folks are talking about it. There needs to be an action plan. What method, and speaking of action plan, what method do you think Republicans can pursue to hold rogue prosecutors like Ryan Friend of the Miscreant Mears accountable or some of these rogue judges accountable when we don't currently have a recall mechanism for some of those seats? Yeah, we've...
I know there's talk about looking at things at the State House. Now that's a little bit of ways that would be in the 2027 General Assembly. There are folks talking about that next session. You know, the best thing we can do right now is elect Philip Faust to be the next prosecutor for Marin County. I've talked to him. He's a great guy. He's so qualified. I've talked to him and then I've been on this show. Yeah. And hopefully more people will get to know him. There needs to be funding behind his campaign. He needs to get out there. He needs a, you know, he's got at least one good person working for him because I know her, but he needs a stronger team. And, you know, Marion County GOP and state GOP, you know, we need to look at this as they need to step up as what I was going to say. There we go. And we need to look at this not just as a, you know, now six month plan, but. This prosecutor, along with the next mayoral election in Indianapolis, those two things should go hand in hand. We can't let this slip by and then focus on the mayor's race if we're going to do that. We need to help Philip Faust to win this seat. It's just frustrating because Cindy Carasco had such a great campaign against Ryan Mears the last time. Phil Faust was great in here, really nice guy, worked under Ryan Mears, a deputy prosecutor. If anybody knows the trouble. going on in that place, it's him and how he could fix it. But the fact that the last time Mears won, it was like 6040, blue versus red, Democrat versus Republican, does that give you pause? Oh, yeah, it scares me. And it's been like this for such a long time. But, you know, if you get all the Republicans motivated, and here's where Democrats beat us, they scare their voters into coming out and and casting a ballot, whether they make Trump a villain or they make Republicans a villain, they will, you know, influence them, manipulate them to come out and vote. We need to do a better job of spreading the message on crime because this can affect anyone and it does. It affects, you know. families and and and people that just you know you never would expect things that that happen are happening and so Republicans need to to realize that we can make a change we can change that 60 40 percentage but we also need funding and we do need you know elected officials Republicans around the state to focus on Mirren County because They now, you know, now we're talking about how it affects other parts of state. And people come here for Colts games, for Pacers games, for concerts, all that thing. Everybody, it's got to be an all hands-on deck. You keep redirecting the conversation exactly where I want you to go, which is pointing out the fundraising aspect to this. How do you spread the message, especially in the modern political age? You do it with money. And where are you getting this money from? Well, theoretically from the state party mechanisms, but it just seems like Marion County has been left to blow in the wind.
by state Republicans. We don't get the assets invested into these races. And you got qualified candidates like Philip Faust, but let's be honest, an orange peel would be a more qualified prosecutor than Ryan Friend of the Miscreant Mears here in Indianapolis. But without the funding mechanism to help support these candidates, they're forever going to falter in the face of what is a much more organized Democrat opposition, a much more entrenched opposition with a lot of the socialists living here in Marion County. money, money, money to overcome that. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, hopefully. These guys are listening to you guys. You know, I'll keep, I'll keep saying the same thing. Jim Banks is, I think, you know, saying the right things. And Todd Rokita is as well. So it's just, you know, there's not, unfortunately, a lot of time, but there is time. And, you know, like Spencer Pratt in, in L.A., there was, you know, the fires and the palisades. And he made that, you know. his issue because it affected him. It affected his family. It affected so many people. Crime is affecting everyone in the same way here in the central city. And so everybody needs to pay attention. And the folks that can spread that message and if they can by. you know, helping raise money that it just needs to happen. It's a Hammer-Nigel show. I'm Nigel, Ethan Hatcher, in for Hammer. Also live in studio with his political insider, Tony Samuel, joining us, Bo Bai, winning the Democrat nominee for Secretary of State at the recent convention. Your thoughts overall? What does, what kind of chances does he have at the future Republican nomination, whoever that might be? Well, yeah, happy to talk about Bobi, but also I'm wearing my Space Force, Zach Schler. Alien T-shirt. Is that what that is? I thought we were going to talk about. I know the listeners can't see it, but YouTube folks might be able to. Stand up. I thought we were going to talk about space aliens. We're not talking about space aliens. You've got a little green man right there in the center of your shirt. But I thought that might tie in with the Democrat State Convention. It just happened also. So yeah, Bo Bai winning at the, I don't think it was unexpected. I think. Most people thought it would go that way, but, you know, his opponent was one of those, you know, activists that had a following. And what's interesting is she got 40% of the vote there. And these are the party activists, the most loyal Democrat, you know, voters and participants in the party. So 40% of them did not vote for Bo Bai. So, you know, even though he's got the by name, I don't think.
you know his chances are that much better than uh really then um well maybe a little bit he's got a pedigree i mean birch and evan and Boy, is he dreamy, too. I'm just saying, I mean, who Ethan is going up to Fort Wayne here in a couple weeks is you get to vote for the nominee. Yeah, we got Jamie Rittenauer, David Shelton, Max Establishment Engling, Diego Morales, the sitting Secretary of State. It's going to be an exciting convention. I'm looking forward to that. Dirty Diego is going down. I don't know. How does it work? Are you allowed to, you're not allowed to say who you're voting for? Yeah, you are? Yeah, no, I'm supporting David Shelton all the way, baby. Okay. Yeah, he is the most qualified candidate. He's been putting in the time. He's been putting his nose to the grindstone for quite some time. And I'm not happy with the establishment Republicans totally sidestepping and stepping over the David Shelton campaign to anoint this buddy of Jim Banks, Max Establishment Engling. I mean, he might be a perfectly nice guy in his private life, but as far as. qualifications for Secretary of State are concerned. Let's go with David Shelton. Make politicians boring again, baby. Tony, what do you think? I think Ethan's got a good point. And this is what's interesting about conventions is, you know, delegates have a right to choose, and they've got, you know, their own minds to make up based on what they see. David Shelton is very qualified. I'm good friends with a lady named Valerie Kroger, who's, who's running his, kind of running his campaign. Max Singling, I don't have a problem with. I get the... you know establishment um kind of criticism there but i've met him he's a great guy i think he'll he'll do a great job uh if it's him um i think diego and some of these guys again in office they just make mistakes they uh make themselves look bad they make the people and the office around them look bad and they just need to, you know, wise up. I mean, this goes, Democrats, Democrats make themselves look, Democrats make themselves look bad too with under a minute left. I mean, this Graham Platner guy in Maine, the Democrats got behind. What is it, what can we glean here in Indiana about the Democrat Party, especially progressives as a whole for getting behind this guy? Yeah, and I kind of like talking about as a whole because, because what you see across the country, you know, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders has been around for quite a while, but now you got Zohran Mamdani in New York, a socialist mayor. I mean, they are making gains. Even Graham Platner will lose to Susan Collins, I'm pretty sure, but they are making gains by putting up these weirdos that are really Marxist, socialist, you know, James Talarico and Texas. It goes on and on, and they might not win this time.
But some do. Zohran Mamdani has won. And they'll keep making gains. And again, that's the Democrats are more organized that way. Tony Samuel, thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next Thursday. Sorry about we forgot the whiskey this time. No problem. My bad. I won't let it happen again. It's a Hammer and Nigel show. What is Toyota affordability? It's buying smart. Your local Toyota dealer has great deals available today on RAV-4, Grand Highlander, Camry, and Corolla, with the features and style you deserve. It means driving for less, with hybrid and plug-in hybrid options across the lineup, delivering great MPGs. And it means trading for more. Toyota is known for building long-lasting vehicles, meaning your car will hold its value for years to come. Shop Toyota.com to find out more. Toyota, let's go places.