 We're on the air again with another edition of Pacious on the News. Tonight, we're talking about political parties. I have as my guest the chairman of the Main State Republican Party, Demi Kazunis. And I should say at the outset, Kazunis, Pacious. You get two Greeks tonight. We're gonna talk a little bit about parties. And Demi, I wanna welcome you to the show. You've been on once before. You did a nice job. So we thought we'd get you back for another appearance. And I wanna begin with the audience by reading something from Federalist Number 10, the Federalist Papers. This was written by James Madison, the primary writer of the US Constitution was published in New York newspaper on November 23, 1787. I also wanna say as a matter of background, we talked a lot about pushing back against the elitists and condemning elitists. And it seems to be a big issue in our country today, but these people who formed this nation, the founding fathers, if they were nothing else, they were elitists. They were the educated class in America, all of them pretty much university graduates. And they had the point of view, intellectual point of view of elitists. So you sometimes have to take what they say were the green assault, but they were thoughtful people. And so we're gonna talk about political parties which they called factions at the beginning of our country. And so Madison writes, and I think this is very important. And indeed, I would suggest everybody watching this program, go online, just type in Federalist Number 10 and read it for yourselves because it's fascinating. Madison says, as long as the reason of man continues fallible and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other. The diversity of the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate is not less an insuperable obstacle to uniformity of interests. Insuperable obstacle to uniformity of interests. No such thing as uniformity of interests. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man. And there you have it from Madison. The real problem is us, our nature, who we are. A zeal says Madison, a zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government and many other points and attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power, attachment to individual leaders or to persons whose fortunes have been interesting to human passions, have in turn divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good. And he goes and says one more thing, which I find interesting. He said, so strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that where no substantial occasion presents itself, nothing real important presents itself, says Madison. He says, even then, even then, the factual, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. Even says Madison, when it isn't really important. Even says Madison, when it really makes no difference to us. Still, these differences will inflame our passions. And so we begin with that and that's the basis of political parties and they recognized it. And they thought they thought they were designing a system of government to keep those passions and animosities and differences in check. They thought that the only way to overcome human nature in this problem was to have a government that could regulate it. And he says at the end, or near the end, the regulation of these various and interfering interests formed the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction. So government, it was designed, they thought to mitigate these differences, these animosities, these passions that arose from the nature of human beings. And certainly it's being tested today. It truly is being tested. And we're going to find out. And remember, we've had one failure. We had one failure in 1861, the Civil War, where it all broke down and came apart. So it can happen. And Madison and his cohorts must have done okay because Humpty Dumpty got put back together again for how long we do not know. All right, Demi, I made my speech. Thank you for listening. Well, we're going to talk. Now we're going to go let you talk a little. I was going to say, you must know my Big Fat Greek family. When you talk about it. Did they do that? Well, I suspect, you know, you get families, you get friends together and you're going to have a varied opinion. I think that we all are different and have different opinions is what human nature is all about. It's how to organize the thought and come up with a common goal that is always the issue in government. So I mean... Well, that's true. I mean, I think that's what government is all about anyway. So it's getting the folks to come together, collaborate, and for the greater good, for the greater good of civilization. So Demi, so political parties have evolved and we've had periods in history where they've disappeared altogether, for instance, the Whigs and the Republicans were the successors to the Whigs. We had the Know Nothing Party, which was very influential for a period of just two or three years. It was basically an anti-government movement It was basically an anti-immigrant party and mostly focused on getting rid of Catholics and getting them out of the country. But basically, since the Civil War, it's been Republicans and Democrats that made up of different shifting sands of population. And the Democratic Party, you remember, was the Party of the South and the Party of Segregation and the Republican Party was the abolitionist party, designed and built to do away with slavery. In 1964, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Democrats had been beneficiaries of a solid Democratic vote in the South. Every member of Congress, but with a couple of exceptions, from the South was a Democrat and every time there was a presidential election, prior to 1964, Democrats carried the other Southern State and it got every single electoral vote from the South, except when Senator Thurman ran in the Dixcrat under the Dixcrat banner in 1948. However, Johnson, when he signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, said, we've just turned the South over to the Republican Party for my generation, and he said to Bill Moyers, for your life as well, for your lifetime as well. And he was right, it shifted. So now we have this line up with the different parties. In by 1980, it began to the party system began to matter more in those days prior to them. There were a lot of moderate Republicans and there were a lot of moderate Democrats and there was a real center in the legislature in the Congress. There isn't any more. There's no real center. It's rare. Susan Collins is a rare bird. So when I was the chairman of the main Democratic Party in 1977, Hattie Bickmore, the Republican chair and I were on PBS, a big special, a one hour special on PBS called What's a Party For? Featuring the main Republican and Democratic state chairs. And the problem that the parties had then was they were becoming irrelevant. People said, there's not much difference between these two parties. You know, they're pretty much in the middle and what do we need them for? And hence the title, What's a Party For? Now there is a big difference, a huge difference between the two parties and party seems to mean everything in Congress, both for the Democrats and the Republicans. The party system has overtaken the congressional system. So it's dominating everything. So tell us about the party. It tells us about we'll have somebody on for the main Democratic Party. But tell us about the Republican Party. You can people probably don't even know how it's how it's put together. What does it consist of representatives from different areas and so forth? Why don't you describe it? Well, first of all, I think and again, I come into politics from a I'm a science based person. I started college as a math person and I got a zoe degree and then went to dental school. So I see things a little bit more from the human nature point of view than I do from history and politics. I look at everything a little bit differently, which is kind of an interesting perspective from my point of view. I think that that our country is the best country in the world because we have a pendulum that swings back and forth. And sometimes it really swings pretty hard one direction and goes over to the other direction. Other times the pendulum does a little bit smaller sweeping movements. But at this point, we've got we went from Obama to Trump and now to Biden. And so the swing is great, co causing huge polarizations in our country. We typically are because human nature being so there's always two sides, not three sides or four sides, two sides, mainly that creates how we think. And then we look for that middle area where we can get along. I got involved more with the Republican Party, I think back when I ran in 2012, I ran on an issue of from health care. And it was very personal to me, which a lot of times people get involved in politics because it's very personal to them. But we had an issue with addiction in my family. And so I chose to put on my platform that we reduce the amount of prescription drugs that are written by health care and have it. In other words, half, half, if I want to prescribe 12, like it into you, I would prescribe six and then with a refill to force you to go back to the drugstore to get the other half. And most of the time people don't need all 12 anyways, and it wouldn't be out in the streets or they wouldn't be stolen from grandma's house. And that's where my platform started. And then I lost that race. But I didn't stop there. I continued on and very quickly went from being executive member of the York County to then becoming the vice chair under Rick Bennett and then becoming chair and just getting reelected for my third time. What how does it work? We have every county has a chairman from every county voted by the Republicans of that county. We have a committee man, a committee woman. So that's at least three members of every single county. And then depending on how large the county is, you have at large positions for every 10,000 Republicans, there's another representative. So the party that represents the Republican Party in the state in my case has about 75 members and I'm the chairperson of that. And basically I'm the coach of that group. I hold the team together. We work things out. We develop a platform. We discuss bylaws, financial budget that we have to discuss. And the party basically represents what we believe in, which is individual freedom, limited government, fiscal responsibility, the rule of law, peace through strength, the safety of life and free market. And those are the basic I wrote these down this morning. Those are the basic beliefs that we have. For me, the sanctity of life is huge. I am I'm I call myself a tree-hugging tightwad, which means that I'm basically a huge environmentalist animal rights. And it's very hard for me to stomach that we would have shelters for animals. And I'd be the first one to pick up a squirrel on the side of the road and try to mother it and bring it to a vet that we're OK with late term abortion. It's not something I can fathom. So that's a big issue for me. And fiscal responsibility, I think, is very important to me because our government can swell where it becomes a entity in itself to survive. And we have to be careful because it really exists because of us, not in spite of us. So that those are the this is how I view my party. This is why I'm the chairperson of the party. And other than that, why am I doing it? You know, you you asked me if I was going to do it for 30 years more. And that would get me to be weak, wicked old at that point, wicked old. So. So. It's fair to say that in both major parties, the. They're run by activists, people that are sufficiently interested to go to meetings to help organize things. I it's it we're not demeaning it by saying it's a game. But people do get engaged by it. And and they're in what we call the quote political game. I often recall when I'm talking about these things. A trip I took in Russia with a prominent group of half dozen prominent Communist Party members back in 1980. And one of them was a Jewish guy from Azerbaijan. And Misha was his name. It was a good guy. But he was Jewish, which was unusual for Communist Party functionaries to be Jewish because they were prejudiced against them. And I said to him, I'm standing at the bar next to him. And I said, Misha, what are you doing as a, you know, full time Communist Party apparatchek, you know, official, you're a Jew. And he looked at me and he says, Mr. Pesh, you Democrat, right? Yes. You meet a lot, a lot of people, be Democrat. Yes, you have good contacts, be Democrat. Yes, me too, he said. So that explained a little bit about political activity on the part of some people. So all right. So some people say, well, look, the Republican Party needs to broaden itself. It needs to be open to more people. I looked at the enrollment figures for this past year, Secretary of State's office. And in Maine, there are 300, these are rounded to the nearest thousand, 387,000 people registered as Democrats. Three hundred and forty thousand people, not in a party, independence and and two hundred and ninety five thousand for Republicans. So there's almost a hundred thousand fewer Republicans than Democrats. Right. You win elections. And Susan Collins got elected. So what can be done about that? And the other thing I wanted to ask you about, which I think is related to that because demographic, if you look at a political map of the state of Maine, you see a thin blue line going up the coast to Maine from Kittery to Bahar. And ninety five percent of the state is red. And just that little, thin, very narrow blue line going up the coast. Any ideas on why that is? Yeah, I live in that thin blue line. So I understand that my neighbors, most of them, and I grew up in Soco, have moved here from out of state. My town of Soco at one time was a town of eight thousand people. Now it's a city of twenty three thousand people. And probably two thirds of these folks are out of state as I moved in. And they're bringing, of course, with them, their politics. So you'll see a lot of that. It's interesting that New Hampshire, I'm friends with the chair of New Hampshire, it's his CD one, which is the southern part of his state that's Republican. And it's the northern part that's more democratic. So I have often asked him, is it because it borders and it closer to Vermont? Who knows? But it is interesting why we think it's probably just basically that's where a lot of folks move up from out of state. They love our beaches. They love that area of Maine. They can they can buy a little bit of Maine, you know, paradise living in the coast. And like I said, they probably bring their politics with them. But yeah, Republicans are an interesting lot of people. They're very, as I said before, they're very much into freedom, individual freedom. And so a lot of them may be Republicans, but they they call the cells unenrolled as to not be bothered, as to be maybe even a little off the grid and be able to do what they want to do. So even though, yeah, we two ninety five, we're probably got quite a bit of that, you know, independent group that's part of the Republican Party, they do decide most of the elections. By the way, that middle third is what decides which way election will go. Depending if if our messaging fits what they are looking for. Thank you. I think you're probably right. In the last election, Biden got. Say it another way, Gideon got three hundred and forty seven thousand votes. Three hundred and forty seven. Biden got ninety thousand votes more than Gideon did. So those are independents going to him in large measure and some Democrat and maybe a few Republicans. I know some Republicans who voted for Biden several in fact. And then Trump got three hundred and sixty one thousand votes. So eighty thousand less than Biden. And but Susan Collins, Susan Collins got sixty thousand votes that Trump didn't get. And so she she vastly exceeded the Trump vote. So that had to be a lot of independence as well. Both for Susan Collins, they normally do, don't they? Yeah, it was an interesting situation. I think a couple of things happened. I think, first of all, our state is is the oldest state in the country. And so you're going to have folks that may be voting. And again, this this felt a lot of a personality vote this time around. I think they may have felt more connected to Biden than to Trump on this vote, because probably the coronavirus, I think also the rank choice voting that the Democrats have been touting I think came to haunt them because Lisa Savage told a lot of folks out there vote for me first and Sarah Gideon second, which is what they did. And they that took a whole lot of votes away from Sarah Gideon. And I think folks thought folks felt that they could trust Susan Collins with the state of Maine more than they could trust Sarah Gideon. And I think it showed at the ballot box. So. The two parties that decide who the candidates are going to be in November, basically the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will decide it. And they decide it with primaries. And that gives you and the Democrat Democrat Party a lot of power because we end up with basically two choices and they're your choices. And they're made by a rather small number of people in the primary. Not a lot of people vote in a primary, unless it's a big, broadly contested primary. So. You can nominate somebody who. Basically, that is does not have a broad base of support. But when it comes down to just two people, now the vote in November is maybe for many people, the lesser of two evils. And so. Ranked choice voting is supposed to help alleviate that by. Trying to get people to be more moderate or candidates to be more moderate. You don't like ranked choice voting, I trust. I hope I hope the folks out there that are listening understand what happened with ranked choice voting for the Senate race. I mean, how well did that work for them? And I don't see the rank or rank or any less, less money spent, less let's go along to get a long kind of feel going on. So do I think I think it costs a state $100,000 to collect all the paper ballots, go up to Augusta and then have to figure it out? Yeah, I think it's ridiculous. On the other side, we're still using paper ballots because of ranked choice voting. That might be actually not a bad thing. So, you know, with every issue, there's some good and bad and you have to figure out what you want, how to state to run and at the end, maturity wins and that's how it's going to be. But I don't think it did it helps Sarah Gideon one bit. But we did. Well, one of the things is she was running against a very popular incumbent, Susan Collins has a lot of support. So, you know, these technical things may help or hurt a candidate, but most important is whether the candidate has supporters and whether they think the candidate does a good job and in the case of a person who's been in the Senate for 24 years, it's do they think she's done a good job? So there are a lot of things that that affect the outcome of these elections. Do you think that don't do you think that that Joe Biden won the election? Do you think he was he was a winner or do you think it was stolen, as they say? Stolen. So I think that popular vote did go to Biden. I think there were many irregularities in the states. And I think we I think 74 million people feel that something happened, something doesn't feel right to them. And to disregard their feelings is to, as I would say to somebody is to put your hand over their mouth, trying to muzzle them. It doesn't it doesn't help our party. It doesn't help our our government. It doesn't help anybody. And so we still need some investigating going on. There needs to be one election day. We need to not be peppered by ballots. We need to have, you know, voter decide on how we want to vote or register. Do we do same day? Do we do it weeks before? And finally, I think that a lot of people have issues that a lot of people are not comfortable with, I don't know, voting machines that all needs to be looked at. I can tell you as the chair of the party, I think that there are a lot of people out there that don't feel that their vote mattered. And that's a bad thing for our country. And do you think in the states that Trump won, they feel their vote mattered? I think they stay in a main personally. There might have been some voter irregularities and some we may be looking at, you know, in some bigger cities to find out if they were same day registration and has the clerks gone back to look at these registrations because that's part of their job to look to see if that person still resides or should they be taken off the voter roll? I think there might be some issues in Maine, but I think our state did good. I think there are other states like Pennsylvania and Georgia where, you know, our folks were asked to leave and then they continued counting after they left. There is some questions that need to be answered. And I've looked into that and I would I would suggest to people watching this program, this issue that was brought to the courts, incidentally, they claim that the Republican accounts, the voting counts continued after the Republican poll watchers left. You can get all the information on that off the internet. And of course, there were 60 some odd lawsuits brought. That's one of the things we do in this country is is use the courts to resolve these things. So I think back to my question, do you think that in the states that Trump won, there were voting irregularities? That Trump won? Yeah, let's take Alabama and Mississippi. Right. Trump won easily in those states. Do you think you think that the vote was improper and illegitimate? It may have been. I mean, I have I I haven't looked at the voting at all. I can only talk about the state of Maine. I can't talk about any other states. But I think that we need to come back around and discuss how voting occurs. If a large, huge group of people in the United States feel something's not right and that there might have been some irregularities, I think I think the masses want it to be looked at. And I think that's the job of our government to take a closer look at how we vote. People did not feel that their votes were counted, whatever, whatever they feel. I'm not going to be the one to say, you know, you shouldn't be feeling like that, because we know that humans need to be heard from. That's that's the role of government. Be here you, but this is what's going to happen or this law is going to happen. Or, you know, that's the role of government. That that's we're not talking about a few million. We're talking about like seventy four million. So I think that there needs to be some greater look at what happened during this elections and why so many people feel disenfranchised. Well, the Republicans are so more organized and they did have people watching at the polls and they did have lawyers and they did bring cases and so I'm a lawyer. So I think things can be proved. I've spent my life in the law and I think that's what the judicial process is all about. And that's what you mentioned rule of law, rule of law is all about. So rule of law was employed, cases were brought, but there was no evidence. So at a certain point, do we need to say to the seventy four million people that you say feel disenfranchised? Look, there is no evidence. Where's the evidence that this election was stolen? The fact of the matter is the seventy four million people, they have heard a president who they adore, who they adore. They don't like they adore. I don't understand why, because I don't think he's that an attractive human being, but they adore. OK, they adore. So I think you'll be very happy to hear that from you. Yeah, yeah. And no, I don't think he's probably a good enough looking guy, but he doesn't have the personal characteristics that appeal to me. But in any event, I I I just think that if you're told a certain thing, you know, if we know through history, you said something about why you're a scientist, not a historian, but if you read history, you know that if a certain thing, they call it the big lie, he said over and over again, the communists did it all the time, the big lie. And and so did Hitler. It it affects people, they believe it. And so, of course, these people are going to believe it. Almost every Republican member of Congress says the election was stolen. That's why they and so these people get worked up. They said, all these leaders that I admire so much say this election was unfair. It was stolen. I'm going to believe it. So it starts at the top, not at the bottom, I think. And what and what did the left leaning media do? They shut down the the ability for these folks to communicate because they're going to shut steel vote down. You what what has happened is it only intensified these people's thoughts. So let's talk about the big lie. The big lie won't be a big lie. If you allow it to go out there, be dissected, be looked into, evaluated and at the end realize that maybe there was no big lie. Though with what the left leaning media is doing is the biggest mistake of all, is to shut down communication. And I think that it will come back to bite them. We wouldn't shut down communication. The Wall Street Journal is shutting down communication. Let's not talk about newspapers because I can tell you anybody probably 55 and under doesn't even know what a newspaper looks like. OK, let's talk about media like Twitter, Facebook. Oh, God, other platforms. I can't even think of them at all. I mean, I only know like three or four because I'm old. But that's beside the point. But they've shut down. There's so many people that I know that have their Facebook groups taken off. They are being censored. They're not allowed on Twitter. A lot of people that I know, not one or two or three, a lot of people. When you do that and let's just say you're thinking there's a big lie and they're not allowed to continue to discuss their feelings and their thoughts and then have these media people allow different thoughts so that people can can be educated. You've just took their thoughts and intensified it. Yeah, you're it's a mistake. The freedom of the marketplace. There we are. Republican preset freedom of the of the marketplace. These are private companies and they run their business and they're free. Free, they want to be they they are and they want to be free of government interference. OK, they want to be free of government interference. And silence. No, no, I'm just saying that's what they say. So I know what they say and and and let me say I'm just copying what many Republicans say to me, anybody who wants to start a media company. That's a say a right wing Republican is free to do it is free to do it. And nobody will tell him who to shut off or who to put on who to take off. So any Republicans who want to start just like they did with with Fox News, start your own. Oh, and I think anybody out there that has Facebook and Twitter stocks should consider on dumping them because half the country is going to go ahead and basically get off as soon as a new media is. But I'm explaining to you that the big lie, you have to be careful because the first thing that Hitler did is to then stop any basically anybody from putting out a view that was probably anti-Hitler shutting down communication is is in my mother and my mother grew up in in Greece during World War Two. So she saw it and she'll be the first one to tell me that this is not good when people can't talk and communicate with each other. You know, I certainly wouldn't argue that I would say one critical difference. Hitler was the government, the government shut down communication. Do you think that Joe Biden shut shut down or shutting off people from these media companies? So so for the average high school graduate out there, what do you think they think? I'm looking at facts. I'm not I can't go on the basis of what. So Biden is in and left leaning media has shut communication off of all Republicans. So what is it look to the high school graduate out there? Who can I think I think Republicans are communicating fine. OK, and I don't think anybody shut down. I think it is true and you're a Democrat and I'm a Republican and I'm trying to tell you how they feel and I'm trying to explain to you. They feel that they have had their their way of communicating that their platform removed so that they can't continue to communicate. They feel basically locked out and they're angry about it. I understand what you're saying. And I understand you're promoting this this view that they've been locked out. But the fact remains that there are facts and and I'm not I'm not promoting it. I am I'm just communicating and letting you know how they feel. I know how they feel. Look, I read all about the conspiracies. I read about QAnon. I read all this stuff. I know how people feel and I'm sympathetic sometimes with them sometimes. But but I know how people feel. But facts are what really counts facts. Because once we we go just on how people feel, if you can stir up people, you know, there are people, there are politicians around who know how to stir up people and not all of them are Republicans. And we've had some populist demagogues who have been Democrats. So if it's OK for a Republican, it's OK for a Democrat and we're going to have them. The only things standing between us and that kind of chaos are facts. And facts are very, very important. And always have been and no democracy can operate without facts. So that's all that's all I'm telling you. Tell me what let let let let let's move on. I read I read the you're going to have a meeting. And first of all, I happen to know Susan Collins is an admirer of yours and you're friends. OK, I love you and that that pleases me because I like you. And I like it when when important and very smart politicians like you. So OK, so I like that fact. So so and I know what it's like to be a state chairman. You've got a lot of different groups to take care of and try to keep them all happy. And it is very, very difficult. Yes. So not only that, but the state chairman has to can't say no to people in their organization that want to do something. They have to give them the opportunity to freedom to speak and to be heard. And I understand that's the job of the state chairman. So. I looked at I know you're going to have on the 13th or 14th of this month a meeting in which you're going to consider what you're going to say to Susan Collins again, and I'm not going to put you on the spot because I know that that's boiling up in your party. Exactly. So. I read the letter that was sent Susan Collins and I also read Susan Collins's response, which I thought I'm not trying to stir up trouble he did, but I thought her response was was a good one. She said she's the only member of Congress from all of New England that's a Republican. Sure. Only one in the whole region. That's pretty good. She's kind of important that she's able to get elected when nobody else is. In all of the Senate races, she was the only one, only one who out polled the president, Republican presidential candidate in all the states in which they had Senate races. The only one in the United States. Yes, that's that's pretty good. Yeah, seems to me she's pretty good at politics. Yes. And and I think the Democrats would love to have. We don't have it. You know, the Democrats would love to have a senator like that. So I what I I read the letter and I saw her in there that probably your hand, there were some awfully nice things that were said in the letter about Susan Collins, if you don't have to say yes or no, but I see your hand in this. Yeah, but that you have to keep everybody happy. But I do want to say a couple of things. You said that you said the letter said that said some of us have serious concerns of the way the house managers in the impeachment altered the video of President Trump. Said they tried to fool us with this video. Now, I've been I've been watching TV the last few months. I actually saw it. And I think most people in this country saw they saw the president speaking at film of him, have both video and audio of him speaking. Everything that's going on, they've had video and audio of him saying the election was stolen. I did not live. I won all of that. So we don't need the house managers to tell us what happened. We all know every citizen in this country that looks at TV or listens to the radio knows what happened. So that business about altering the house managers, they think that the house managers actually change people's opinion of what happened. People can decide for themselves what happened. They saw it. So I didn't like that and it was all about the prosecution. What Susan Collins says is that she says he's he stoked it. He stoked the insurrection. That's her view. So why don't they just say, look, I mean, I'm not asking you to defend everybody's position. You have you have your ideas. Everybody has their own ideas. But what can happen to Susan Collins? Nothing other than say, we don't like it. I'm sure they've all written her letters telling her she's a rhino. She's this, she's that. Somebody in the State Committee, I hope, will say, what good does this do? The Republican Party? You know, it's in and you must have some members of the State Committee who will say that. And so you'll have, I assume, a debate over this and there'll be people on both sides of the debate and I'm happy to hear you're shaking your head. And I'm happy to hear that. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And the meeting is about. Remember, the resolution doesn't exist. It's more of a discussion. OK, it's a discussion because there's no proposal for there's no here's a letter where you all vote yes or no on it. That's correct. OK, and what do you have your means in Augusta? Yeah, so let me explain something to you. The letter both times and it's not Mike Shepherd's fault. He's just doing his job. Both times, the letter that I sent to my State Committee was taken and when they when I was quoted in actuality, I never was quoted, but to Mike Shepherd, they took the language of that email to my State Committee and used it as as what I said. So so I have a little bit of an issue that's that's a separate issue. That's because what the some members of my State Committee want to do is fire up the issue. So let me ask you to clarify that for the audience. I want to give you an opportunity to explain that I didn't quite understand. Well, I don't know who Shepherd is or anything like that. Oh, he's a he's a writer for Bangor Daily News. OK, so there's a Bangor Daily News writer did a story about it and he attributed to you certain things that were not should not have been attributed to you. It was just a leaked email from me to my State Committee. Oh, OK. And in the leaked email, you said what? Quote, unquote, whatever I said to the to the members of the State Committee, and it was a tribute, you know, it was made to look like I actually was quoted by an actuality. I never spoke to Bangor Daily News of both issues. So it's just unfortunate. On the other side, let's look at it from a different point of view. For example, I knew many of members that were going to to the Capitol the day of January 6th. I was at the RNC meeting in Amelia Island in Florida, so I wasn't even close. But I did have people that I know quite well that did go to the Capitol. Didn't storm the Capitol. They were just at the Capitol. What unfortunately happened was some of these people had visits paid by the FBI at their homes, asked to look at their phones and one person, a young person that decided to go. And again, these people playing these trips weeks ahead of time, not the day off. They weren't called by President Trump. They went on their own and they go there. They one person was actually one point four miles away from the Capitol building itself, and yet the FBI looked over this poor young person's phone, looked at his pictures, looked at my text in the text. I was like, I'm here at the RNC meeting, get out of there now. I'm watching TV and I'm like scared, get out of there now. And the FBI were asking, who's Demi? Why is she telling you this? Was she involved? Did she recruit these people to go? So you can see where this is all going. It's a huge conspiracy. And so a lot of these folks in the state of Maine are talking. And they feel that, you know, there was a conspiracy, there was an issue. And that's what, unfortunately, our senator has to deal with is the fact that the FBI paid a lot of visits to a lot of people's homes, looking for evidence to create a narrative that I was somehow involved. When I was about Demi, because Demi called up this young person and said, I'm watching TV right now. Please get out of there now. Stop walking as fast as your little legs can carry you and get out of there. I don't want you to have to be hurt because in the military and you and I were both in the military, you know, one of my favorite comments when it was told to me because I was in the medical corps was bullets have no names. When they fly, they fly. All right, Demi, I just I want to make sure I understand it. So you the when did the FBI came to visit some people in Maine? Yes. After the after the so-called insurrection, yes, before, OK, afterwards. So and they came to people that they that they thought were at the Capitol, which they were because they were able to to find without subpoenas, records of possible purchases, airlines and hotels. They they got the FBI. OK, so the FBI is investigating who was at the Capitol, who stormed the Capitol. They're investigating not storm who went to the Capitol. OK, because if people that but all of the stormers, not all not not all the people who went to storm, but all of the stormers went so they're looking for people who stormed the Capitol. And you first start with people who were at the Capitol. You know, they had pictures, but it's OK. And you'll forget we are and see had two pipe bombs the night before that we knew about. Yeah. So. My question to you is so the FBI came and interviewed people that you know in Maine. Correct. And wanted to know if they stormed the Capitol. And if they didn't storm the Capitol, nothing happened to them, right? They weren't there, but they were harassed and they were without, you know, subpoenas were asked, they went through their phones, through the GPS, through their pictures, through their emails and through their texts, of which I was one of them saying, get out of there. And they wanted to know what my what I was doing, calling them. So here we have a case of overly aggressive law enforcement. Yes, sir. All right. Overly aggressive. There are a lot of people, others besides Republicans who complain about overly aggressive law enforcement. I guess you would agree it exists. Sometimes law enforcement overly exercises its power, correct? Correct. OK. So anyway, I take you're you're a little sore about that. I would be too. And and they were and they want to know who you were because they saw the messages. Demi, Demi says, stop walking now. Get the blank out of there as fast as your little legs can carry you because I'm watching TV and I'm fearful for your life. OK, but incidentally, it wasn't. It every the people who went their plan to go there, January 6th, it was a I believe that it was an organized thing. I mean, that January 6th was out there. Come to the capital, which is the day that the Congress was to certify the votes. Correct. OK. And so they went. Well, you do you know, you I guess you do know why they why the people that you you know, went to the capital on January 6th to be part of the president. To support the president just like they would go if there was a rally anywhere in the country, they were intent for a lot of these people was they were thinking this might be the last time they'd be able to see the president still be president in a rally. They were excited to see the president. So tell me this is that I I can understand certain things about Trump, you know, he knows he understands human nature. He understands it very well. And he's a showman and a promoter. And that's his strength in life, showmanship and promotion. And but he's not a guy who's spent his life believing in fiscal responsibility. He didn't care about that. And when he was president, it was nothing that he really talked about. I don't think he ever talked about it. In terms of free market, the Republicans had always always been for free trade no longer under him. So how does he have the Republican Party, which he was never really part of in his spell? Is it as somebody, as some people suggest that there is a lot of grievance and resentment among people and he's sticking in the eye of the elites, sticking his finger in the eye of the establishment Republicans and they like that. They want a disruptor and he delivered on what he what he promised people would do since that that's it. I think there was a. Void out there. I think there was a void out there of of of folks that felt they were under represented. They were the working man that got up every single morning, went to work, you know, was trying to to make a goal of it, help their families and they felt that they that the the politicians in in Washington, you see, we're not listening to them. So I think that. Trump came along and I think that he listened and he spoke. He spoke to that person when you watch and speak. And I remember looking at videos of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump when he was speaking to them, he was actually talking to that person out in the audience. He was pointing the finger. He was including them. He was talking. Hillary would say a Biden not so much. I mean, we didn't see as much of the comparisons because because Biden was sheltered in the basement. But what we didn't see is is the fact that Hillary was to these folks, she called them deplorables, Walmart shoppers. Trump was talking to that segment and he that segment believed him. He goes in there for four years and actually did a lot of policies, which I personally think are great to basically answer the call. A lot of his policies were, in fact, to help the average worker out there in the United States that felt that they weren't being listened to. And what like an example of two or three of those policies? Oh, Lord, I think, you know, he was very supportive of you know, law, law, lawman, you know, that that group. You mean like the FBI coming and visiting people at the FBI does not belong to Trump. We all know. Remember the Russia collusion? Yeah, you get the wrong group there. The average. Remember, we're talking about the people out there in in, you know, in small Hicksville, Maine, we're talking about the police. We're talking about the the cops. We're talking about the Union guy. We're talking about a lot of people. Me being up, me being a veteran, a lot of people. I live in Germany. We need to have our boys home from Germany. What are they doing there? The Germans don't want us there. Well, get get out. I get, you know, we have the endless war in Afghanistan. Get our boys home, get our people home. I should say boys, our boys and girls, because they're they're both serving there. Get our folks home and wars. Law and order, late to abortion for once we have somebody talking about late to abortion. That's a big deal for a lot of people, especially people like me. And you and I talked about it before. If there was a stray dog who was pregnant and due to have her puppies was euthanized along with her puppies, the outlaw would be huge. And yet, you know, we, we, you know, we call that it's OK for a late term of abortion to occur, which should never be OK. I'm trying to think. Well, you don't have to go through the whole list. That's OK. OK, thank you. You mentioned a lot of them. So, look, you mentioned unions. Oh, it's a tricky. The Republicans never did like unions traditionally. Yeah, and they and Reagan set out to kind of destroy unions. And now we're left with what I disagree with, which is public employee unions. I'm I'm for unions, but not public employee unions. But that's all we got left in this country. If you're a working guy, we get we get the teachers unions. Well, it's public employees. Oh, OK. You're right. You're right. Public employees. So so that's what we we got left. And so when you talk about people not having power in the 50s and 60s, I can tell you because I'm old. All right, unions were very powerful and people did not feel disenfranchised, did not feel they didn't have power because the union had power. And, you know, I never I'll never forget the UPS, UPS drivers were making, you know, $80,000 a year in those days, strong union. Everybody said, look, that's unions so strong, it's terrible. It's, you know, they're making too much money and so forth. The fact is that unions were very helpful in creating a middle class. No question about it. Yes. So now, Demi, an hour goes very, very fast. You've been terrific. I've enjoyed having you on. You know, the other thing, Demi, because I don't you and I don't agree on much, but I like the fact that you explain yourself, that you have passion for your views. You have passion for your political party. You do a good job and you're an excellent spokesman for the Republican Party. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you, because I know you're you're a tough guy. Everybody tells me you're going on with Harold Pace's All My Lord. You asked Paul LaPage, I had Paul LaPage on. And when I finished with Paul LaPage, he said, anytime you want to do this. Wow. Yeah. So, incidentally, Paul LaPage and Donald Trump own the Republican Party of Maine, the two of them together. Trump won it and Trump, too. They own it. Here's here's what amazes me. They're not trying to be nice to people. They're not. They don't they insult a lot of people. But boy, they are both of them popular. If all the page runs for the Republican nomination, he'll get it for sure. And next time, if Donald Trump runs in in 2024 for the Republican nomination, he'll get it. It's a phenomenon and you're shaking your head like I'm not crazy. No, you're definitely not crazy. And I tell everybody, I said at the end of the day, if you need major open hot surgery, are you going to go out? You're going to go for the really nice guy with a good bedside manner. Are you going to go for the best surgeon out there? That's true. Well, yeah, we'll leave it at that. Well, leave it at that, Demi. Thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate it. We I learned a lot and I'm sure the audience did, too. Thanks. Thank you. Bye bye.