REP CRAWFORD 8-3-26

What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation. Another pinacolada? Yes, please. Open a new retail location. With 36% more square feet. Fantastic. Hire 36% more help. You're hired and you're hired. Shopify has the world's best converting checkout, up to 36% better than other e-commerce platforms. What you do with those extra sales is up to you. Switch to Shopify today at Shopify.com slash listen and get a $1 trial. Shopify.com slash listen. Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ridland. How would you characterize your prowess? I'd say my style is that I just kind of outwork everybody until I get there because I'm not a quitter. It's just you. And that's yourself. Everything else is team-oriented. The motivation, it was a sort of anger at myself for being weak. That ends up being the driving factor. That anger, that pride, that ego, I think it's a muscle. It gets stronger. When you take that voice seriously, you start to change your life. Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform. And welcome back. Steve Finnegan from the Steve Finnegan show sitting in this morning for Toby. And it's my great pleasure to welcome the congressman from Arkansas's first district, Rick Crawford, to the show. Congressman, welcome. Hey, how are you? I am well. How about yourself today, Rick? Better than I deserve. Me too. Well, lots and lots to talk about. So let's start with Iran. Any updates you can share? How's the peace talks going or where we go from here? Well, I think the president continues to show a great deal of forbearance as it applies to his handling of Iran. And when you see the way they've conducted themselves, while they're in the midst of peace talks and then subsequent attacks, not only on U.S. targets, but even neighbors in the region, they are just not good faith actors. I think the president is giving him a final off-ramp. I hope it's the final off-ramp. This has gone on long enough. But they continue to... I started to say they continue to disappoint, but I don't know that we should be disappointed because they are, if nothing else, they're very consistent in that they continually move the goalposts. They continually, you know, engage in bad faith, and they're just not a legitimate partner in diplomatic efforts. And, you know, to the President's credit, he's doing everything he can to try to resolve this in a peaceful manner. But they're not giving him very many options. And that's a shame. And it's too bad that they're not because, you know, this has been going on for over 40.

What, seven years? Now, I'm going to date myself. I'm not sure what year you went to basic training, but for me it was 1981, so 45 years ago. And we had, when we were doing our Claymore Minds training, the Target had a picture of Ayatollah Kamani on it back in 81. Yeah. And it's still going on this day, and I'm retired from the Army now, and so are you. Yeah, I know. I mean, I went through there in 85, and so, yeah, we're both graybeards. But the point being that it was an interesting time because you knew who the enemy was, and we weren't afraid to say it. Yes. You know, and so, you know, we, that's kind of how we trained. And that continued, I mean, it was fairly recent for you in 1981, having come of your two years removed from the, you know, the Islamic Revolution. You know, and we were still talking about it in 1985 when I went through Basic and not only talking about it, but even, you know, the cadences that we used for marching and things like this would, you know, use Ayatollah in some of those cadences. So, you know, you know, it's a long history. And, you know, I've had some personal interaction with, in that space that I... I have very little regard for the IRGC as a result. Yes, myself included. He just made me laugh thinking about some of the cadences. But, you know, I was right on that cusp. I always said I was double dangerous because the Vietnam vets that were my earliest trainers and mentors, and I'm sure you had some of them too, they taught us all of Charlie's tricks, and then yours and my generation learned Abdul's tricks. Exactly. That's exactly right. So anyway, so moving on, we know that the budget year comes to an end on September 30th, and there's so much backed up legislation in the Senate that the House has passed. So any updates on the NDA or some of the other bills that are pending, what you're feeling? Yeah, I think I got, I saw some reporting earlier this morning that I think Senate may have a deal on a CR to keep us funded through the end of the calendar year. So that's good news. That buys us an additional time, you know, through the balance of the year into the lame duck session. to go ahead and hopefully, I mean, it'd be nice if we could pass the approves bills. And we have done in the House several of them, but that gives us a little bit more time for the appropriators to continue doing what they need to do. And if not, we may be looking at another CR. But the good news is I feel like probably we probably won't see another government shutdown. I don't think anybody wants to see that in the lead up to. midterm election. And on either side, I think, you know, even Chuck Schumer is probably as crazy as he is. I'm not sure he's that crazy that he wants to force another government shutdown. I mean, basically the last government shutdown was the result of his intransigence. And I don't think he wants to do it again because I think probably he realizes that they're going to get the blame for it if that happens. So I think there's a deal on the table. I believe the Senate's going to go ahead and.

and passed the CR. We did our CR last, week four last, before we left for August break. And so, you know, the ball's in their court, I believe they're going to go ahead and hit it, and we're going to have a CR to the end of the year. Now, Congressman, there's a standing thing now between me and Senator Cotton. I actually got Tom to bust out laughing. He was doing an in-studio interview when I asked him about what I called his colleague, Senator Adam Bull Schiff. And when I said that, he looked up and busted out laughing. So now the audience has been daring me. I had another interview with Tom last week if I could make him laugh. But I'll give you my nickname for the former Jefferson County judge, Judge Joker Robinson, that resigned after shutting down Jefferson County and all those people suffering without a paycheck. And as you pointed out, my nickname for Chuck Schumer is Chuckles the Evil Clown Chuck Schumer. shutting down the government, and it hurts all these people. And is there any way to do similar at the federal level what Governor Bernie Sanders and our legislature did here that they passed a law that says that municipalities and county governments that do not complete their budget appropriation will continue to operate under the previous year's budget until the new budget is adopted. Can we do that at the federal level? Yeah, I think there's actually some legislation somewhat similar to that approach, and that is to say, I mean, there are various iterations of what we can do to prevent the government from shutting down. So if we don't get appropriations bills done or if we fail to pass the CR, then you default to either the standing CR or whatever the previous budget was. Yeah. You know, quite frankly, I mean, that's actually a pretty good idea when we're trying to curb spending. Now, the Democrats don't like the idea of being, you know, preventing them from spending more of your money. And that essentially would do it. which is why they don't like it, but I don't like government shutdowns. So this is a way to sort of thread that needle. And if you don't like it, then, you know, pass the CR or pass the approach bills. This way, you don't have to worry about it. But if you fail to do that, I think that's a pretty good fallback to be able to ensure that we don't see a discontinuation and that people aren't suffering. I mean, look, everybody has this idea that, you know, we work for the federal government. You know, everything's perfect. But these are working class folks just like everybody else that in many cases live paycheck to paycheck. And if they miss a payday, it's going to hurt. And if they miss multiple paydays, it hurts really bad. And it's also disruptive to the services that the federal government provides. And some of the things that hit us the most.

are the most visible are things like TSA, you know, when you're going to the airport. But think about, from a food security standpoint, if, you know, if USDA is shut down, we don't have food inspection taking place that disrupts our food supply, things like this. It has a real measurable impact on people that I don't know that we fully appreciate, not to mention that, you know, the first line impact of those employees not getting paid. But second, you know, the lack of services that they provide has an impact on everybody else. And so I think it's – I don't want to be cavalier about – or dismissive about talking about government shutdowns. It's not good. I don't support it. And so I would like to see us adopt some sort of a measure to prevent – a lapse in funding if for some reason we don't get a CR or our approach bills passed in a timely fashion. Well, I think Arkansas set a pretty good model, but I mean, they had to do that with all emergency because in Jefferson County, it was over two months that those poor folks, like you say, working class people that are living paycheck to paycheck, they went two months and they had to go to work, the sheriffs, some of the members of the road department. other what they deemed essential employees. So they all suffered. And as you said, you know, it was like at Christmas time, you know, people, I said to my brother. Last year I was still recovering from surgery around Christmas and I was going to go down to Florida to my brothers. And he ended up coming to Arkansas. I said, well, I'm in better shape than you. So I'll come up to you, big brother. And, you know, so it does affect people. Absolutely. Any updates on the farm bill? I know there's some concern folks, especially in your district. Oh, yeah. In fact, I got some encouraging news. I believe the Senate is marking up their farm bill on August 6th, so that'll be this week. That's very encouraging. We get that done. It clears the Senate. We should be able to get this reconciled, you know, conference between the House and the Senate by the end of the year on that schedule. That's very encouraging good news. I'm glad to hear that, Congressman. And as always, I appreciate you coming on with me here in First News, and we'll have to get you back on on the Steve Finnegan, so in the near future. Love to. I appreciate it. Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy CEO, Mike Ridland. What is your take? Was it what you expected? I was the best thing ever. It was something I always wanted to do. If you show me a clear goal, I'm like, okay, I can do that. Master Chief. He's like, you realize there's about 1% chance that you're making it through. 1%. That's all I need Master Chief. My platoon went home early, and I just went up to my chief, and I was like, I'm not going home. Turns out I'm staying. That's when we go to war. Yeah. I was like, okay, I could get used to this. Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform.