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Show Rewind 8-24-26 · South Carolina's Morning News

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  Speaker 1: Your news, traffic, weather and information stations. This is South
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  Speaker 1: Carolina's Morning News on one O three point five FM,
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  Speaker 1: five sixty AM WVOC, and ninety four to three WSC.
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  Speaker 2: Well, good morning and welcome back to South Carolina's morning news.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Kelly Nash. That's Christopher Thompson. Great to see you again, Christopher.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome back to you, Kelly. Glad to have you back.
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  Speaker 2: It's uh boy, you know it's Remember a couple of
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  Speaker 2: weeks ago, the South Carolina Election Commission said that this
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  Speaker 2: would be the absolute worst day to have an election
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  Speaker 2: was the first day of school. I felt like I
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  Speaker 2: took the absolute worst week off. Oh, with so much
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  Speaker 2: happening around here last week. Oh my gosh, it was
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  Speaker 2: a fun week while you were out, but we missed you.
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  Speaker 2: I remember when I was a kid, there was a
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  Speaker 2: song and they used to it was gosh, I can't
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  Speaker 2: remember who's saying, welcome to the show. Remember that song,
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show that never ends. This is how
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  Speaker 2: I feel. Welcome to the show that never ends. We're
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  Speaker 2: so happy you could attend. Step inside, Step inside, because
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  Speaker 2: this show is not going to end. As long as
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  Speaker 2: there's news to be made, there's always going to be
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  Speaker 2: news talk. And thankfully though this little chapter is going
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  Speaker 2: to end, this has been a very brutal couple of weeks.
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  Speaker 2: It feels like for the GOP when it comes to
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  Speaker 2: this particular race between Graham and Norton or Norman.
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  Speaker 3: It has goten ugly. Social media is all you have
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  Speaker 3: to look at. But I mean, you see the ads,
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  Speaker 3: you see the mailers. I mean this has gotten heated
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  Speaker 3: in a hurry.
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  Speaker 4: So I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: Coming up a little bit later on this morning, we're
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  Speaker 2: going to have professional surrogates, people who have been picked
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  Speaker 2: by the campaigns to represent their candidates, and I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to ask them to do the same thing I would
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  Speaker 2: ask you. You don't have to be a professional surrogate,
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  Speaker 2: but you're one of those people who've already made up
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  Speaker 2: your mind. I was reading one of Nick Reynold's stories
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  Speaker 2: this week from The Posting Courier about how he was
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  Speaker 2: interviewing people at the Trump rally I guess on Friday night,
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  Speaker 2: and there was multiple undecided in the crowd. Now, if
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  Speaker 2: you're one of those people who have made up your mind,
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  Speaker 2: whether it was early in the race or maybe later on,
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  Speaker 2: tell me why you picked that person, Why are you
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  Speaker 2: a Graham supporter? Why are you a Norman supporter? But
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  Speaker 2: don't take shots at the other person. We're going to
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  Speaker 2: have Representative Timmins is going to be calling in. We're
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  Speaker 2: also going to be talking to a former Senator, Jim Demnt.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously dement is with Ralph Norman, Timmins big Graham supporter.
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  Speaker 2: They have been picked by the campaigns is people to
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  Speaker 2: talk about them, So we're going to talk to them,
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  Speaker 2: and again I'm going to ask them, don't take shots
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  Speaker 2: at the other person. Just just go ahead and tell
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  Speaker 2: me about your person. Use the talk back feature. Either
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  Speaker 2: tell me who's saying welcome back to the show that
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  Speaker 2: never ends, or why you're supporting Graham or Norton today
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  Speaker 2: or Norman today. Because I feel like there is so
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  Speaker 2: much that's still left out there that nobody really I
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  Speaker 2: don't feel like we have answers on a lot of
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  Speaker 2: different things.
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  Speaker 4: There's just so many questions.
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  Speaker 2: It feels like it almost feels like I know less
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  Speaker 2: two weeks into this thing than I knew two weeks ago.
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  Speaker 3: Well, a lot of people have already made up their minds.
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  Speaker 3: Were you surprised at the numbers the early voting numbers
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  Speaker 3: that we saw because I you know, I thought for
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  Speaker 3: a special election, a runoff after school had started, I
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  Speaker 3: just figured the numbers would drop way off, and they didn't.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you're talking about for the early voting, we really voted.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Steve Michaels does a great job with that, and
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  Speaker 2: I suggest everybody follow him on X if you if
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  Speaker 2: you're on X, he is a great follow Steve Michael.
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  Speaker 2: So I would recommend he's been breaking down by county.
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  Speaker 2: I love how he even cranks it down like two percentages,
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  Speaker 2: Like he'll he'll take a look at like a little
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  Speaker 2: county and he'll say, you know, in the uh in
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  Speaker 2: the general, they had you know, two six hundred and
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  Speaker 2: forty two votes. Right now they're early voting, they're at
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  Speaker 2: this amount, you know, seven hundred and twenty two, which
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  Speaker 2: is X amount percentage and whatever. And we don't know
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  Speaker 2: what it tells us other than there is some very
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  Speaker 2: passionate people out there, and you can see that on
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  Speaker 2: social MEDIU.
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  Speaker 4: My gosh, the passion is so high right now, and.
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  Speaker 2: It feels like if the other person wins, it's like
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  Speaker 2: it's almost like we're talking about a Democrat that if
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  Speaker 2: that other individual wins, it's the end of the union.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to just we're going to lose everything. I
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  Speaker 2: don't feel that way about either one of the candidates.
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  Speaker 2: I have preferences like anybody else does, but I don't
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  Speaker 2: feel like we're in peril if one of these two
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  Speaker 2: candidates is the next Senator.
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  Speaker 3: No, I don't either, But yeah, you're right. The passion
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  Speaker 3: right now is running high, and it will take a
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  Speaker 3: few weeks before you know, people realize, Okay, that person,
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  Speaker 3: whether it was my person or not, that person's the best,
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  Speaker 3: you know, to beat Annie Andrews in November.
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  Speaker 4: Well they have to be.
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  Speaker 2: They might not be the best. What we're gonna have
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  Speaker 2: to go with. We don't want we don't want to
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  Speaker 2: be like you know. I was just looking at Michigan
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  Speaker 2: el sied he's there now. There's a movement. I saw
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  Speaker 2: a press conference over the weekend Democrats for Mike Rogers,
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  Speaker 2: and there was like literally hundreds of people at this
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  Speaker 2: rally and they're all coming up, going I've never voted
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  Speaker 2: Republican in my life by l Sai ed is too
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  Speaker 2: as a bridge too far. I can't vote for him.
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  Speaker 2: I have to support Mike Rogers. And if Mike Rogers
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  Speaker 2: happens to win in Michigan, that'll be the first Republican
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  Speaker 2: senator elected since nineteen ninety four.
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  Speaker 3: You're not suggesting that we're going to have a group
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  Speaker 3: called Republicans for Annie Andrews, are you?
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  Speaker 4: I the way I.
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  Speaker 2: See these people talking about their competition, That's what I'm
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  Speaker 2: concerned about. We have to unite the Republican Party, and
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  Speaker 2: we have to do it quickly, because I mean, we're
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  Speaker 2: already basically we're in September and so then you've got
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  Speaker 2: September October and.
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  Speaker 4: That we're voting.
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  Speaker 2: So you got eight nine weeks here to put this
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  Speaker 2: thing together, and we got to heal a lot of
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  Speaker 2: hurt feelings. Annie Andrews is a bridge too far, I
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  Speaker 2: would think for most people. Although she is pivoting as
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  Speaker 2: hard to the center as she can get. She even
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  Speaker 2: had that ridiculous little moment where somebody asked her about
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  Speaker 2: are you a Carolina or a Clemson fan? And she's
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  Speaker 2: I'll just say, go sports goodness, gracious, all right, So
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  Speaker 2: if you're if you want somebody who can at least
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  Speaker 2: have an opinion on Carolina Clemson without worrying if they're
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  Speaker 2: gonna step on some toes.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure we can get that answer. Can't we
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  Speaker 4: out of Ralph? For Darlene?
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  Speaker 3: I doubt they would want to if they probably wouldn't
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  Speaker 3: want to antagonize either side.
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  Speaker 4: At this point.
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  Speaker 3: Oh my god, you can't afford to leave lose a
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  Speaker 3: single vote.
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  Speaker 4: Why I have more.
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  Speaker 2: Respect if you just say I'm a game Cock fan
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  Speaker 2: or I'm a Clemson fan because of whatever reason, and
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna stick with them.
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  Speaker 4: But I love the entire state. I support them all.
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  Speaker 4: It's six on.
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  Speaker 2: I want to take a break and hopefully get some
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  Speaker 2: of your talkbacks. She used the talkback feature on the
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  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app. If you want to support your candidate this morning,
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  Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from you.
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  Speaker 4: This is South Carolina's morning news from the.
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  Speaker 1: Midlands to the low Country. This is South Carolina's morning news.
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  Speaker 5: It's Emerson, Lake and Palmer that sings the song.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yes for those of you who just getting your
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  Speaker 2: day started, uh, welcome to my Welcome to the show
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  Speaker 2: that never ends.
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  Speaker 4: This is it.
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  Speaker 2: And I was trying to remember there was one of
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  Speaker 2: those songs when I was a kid, you know, I
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  Speaker 2: was thinking it was that other group who is it
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  Speaker 2: the tubes that's saying she's a beauty. Yeah, it's in
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  Speaker 2: my mind that's who it was.
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  Speaker 3: But it was Emerson Lake and Palmer. Michael nailed it
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  Speaker 3: for us. Thank you, Michael.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Now, has Anyboddy Christopher called, you know, use the
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  Speaker 2: talkback feature to tell us who their favorite candidate is
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  Speaker 2: for tomorrow?
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  Speaker 3: And why Scott just checked in?
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  Speaker 6: Well, I am still undecided, but I'm lady towards Ralph Norman.
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  Speaker 4: Not because I think he's a better candidate.
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  Speaker 7: I think he would be less wayed by the opposition.
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  Speaker 7: And there's evidence that Graham's campaign has taking money from
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  Speaker 7: Democrat packs and other Democrat political operatives, which really concerns me.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think that there's proof for evidence that the
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  Speaker 2: Graham campaign has taken any money from Democrat packs. I
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  Speaker 2: think what you're alluding to is there are packs that
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  Speaker 2: have Democrat ties that are supporting her.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, I mean that they can't quit. The
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  Speaker 3: campaigns can't coordinate with the packs, correct. But I think
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  Speaker 3: a concern is the fact that Democrats there is at
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  Speaker 3: least a group of Democrats that want her to win badly,
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  Speaker 3: that want to beat in Ralph Norman badly, and that's
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  Speaker 3: probably what Scott's alluding to.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, I.
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  Speaker 2: You know, look, you've you've already violated my rule. I
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  Speaker 2: had one rule. Just talk about your candidate. Let's not,
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  Speaker 2: you know, take shots at the other candidate. Because again,
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  Speaker 2: after tomorrow, we're gonna have to rally behind one of
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  Speaker 2: these two. So tearing them down is not the way
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  Speaker 2: to go yet. We we want to we want to focus.
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  Speaker 4: On the positives.
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  Speaker 2: So what did you what do you like about Ralph
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  Speaker 2: Norman or what do you like about Darlene Graham? And
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  Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, there's a lot to like about both,
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  Speaker 2: although there's also a lot to be concerned about with both.
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  Speaker 2: All Right, I'll take a moment. Here's here's what I
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  Speaker 2: would be concerned with with Ralph Norman. Ralph Norman is
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  Speaker 2: a legit fiscal conservative. It's the same concerns you would
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  Speaker 2: have had with Mark Sandford. Mark Sandford and Ralph Norman
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  Speaker 2: are legit concerned about the budget. They're legit concerned about
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  Speaker 2: cutting spending. And when you start talking about cutting spending,
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  Speaker 2: that includes spending that would go to South Carolina. Lindsey
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  Speaker 2: Graham was not concerned about cutting spending that comes to
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  Speaker 2: South Carolina. Lindsey Graham was concerned about cutting spending in
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  Speaker 2: other states. He was concerned about it. He's a nimby,
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  Speaker 2: not in my backyard. That is not Ralph and that
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  Speaker 2: is not Mark. They are just concerned as with the
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  Speaker 2: with the budget in general, were at forty trillion dollars
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  Speaker 2: a debt unsustainable That that's kind of like the cornerstone
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  Speaker 2: of their campaign. If you make money in South Carolina
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  Speaker 2: based off of federal spending. I understand why you would
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  Speaker 2: be very concerned about him as him or Mark getting
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  Speaker 2: into the you know, into a senate position where they
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  Speaker 2: could they could block spending. I understand that if you're
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  Speaker 2: concerned about Darlene Graham. I mean the whole the debate thing,
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  Speaker 2: the debacle with the Taiwan question is it's when I
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  Speaker 2: say it's laughable. They've used that on the was it
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  Speaker 2: the Tonight Show?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Jimmy Fallon, They just did a yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely shredded that. And then you had Kristin Walker yesterday
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  Speaker 2: interviewing Tim Scott asking should a Senate candidate be fully
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  Speaker 2: aware of financial or excuse me of you know, our
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  Speaker 2: policies regarding security and national defense and Tim Scott's in
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  Speaker 2: that awkward position of well, yeah she is, she is ready.
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  Speaker 2: It didn't look ready when you said I'm not aware?
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  Speaker 2: And what she actually used the phrase? What was it again?
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  Speaker 2: That national security is not my thing?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's yeah, I could see where that'd be concerning.
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  Speaker 3: It's no doubt concerning. But she's done a lot of
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  Speaker 3: damage control since then. Was it effective enough? We'll have
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  Speaker 3: to wait and see tomorrow.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: So again there is negative things about both candidates, which
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  Speaker 2: I completely understand. I'm looking more for the positives. You know,
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  Speaker 2: one of the things that happens in these types of
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  Speaker 2: campaigns is you see a lot of negative campaigning. A
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  Speaker 2: lot of that comes from out like you said, Christopher,
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  Speaker 2: outside packs people who have a vested interest and the
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  Speaker 2: other person winning, so they're going to take shots, create
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  Speaker 2: false narratives about whomever that. What that serves to do
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  Speaker 2: is two things. One, it obviously diminishes support for, you know,
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  Speaker 2: from undecided against the person who they're taking.
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  Speaker 4: The shots at.
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  Speaker 2: But more importantly, I think it also drives down voter
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  Speaker 2: participation in general, because if both sides are taking shots
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  Speaker 2: at the other person, then voters just end up feeling frustrated.
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  Speaker 2: They're like, well, we got two bums. We're choosing between
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  Speaker 2: two bums. Why would I even get off the couch
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  Speaker 2: to go vote for one of these two losers?
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  Speaker 4: And that's not where we're at. That is not reality.
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  Speaker 2: You have two candidates that are there's a lot to
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  Speaker 2: like about them, So let you tell your story. I
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  Speaker 2: know we've got people listening from the gram campaign and
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  Speaker 2: I know not the campaign per se.
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  Speaker 4: I'm scratched that.
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  Speaker 2: I know we have those people too, but we have
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  Speaker 2: people who are supporters. You love Darlene Graham. Tell me
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  Speaker 2: why you love Ralph Norman. Tell me why don't tell
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  Speaker 2: me about why you don't like the other ones. That's
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  Speaker 2: what I want to hear on the talkback feature. You
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  Speaker 2: get to be the professional surrogate. By the way, I
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  Speaker 2: just got a message from Steve Michael, so we're going
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  Speaker 2: to hopefully be talking him in the seven thirty hour
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  Speaker 2: talking about crunching those early voting numbers that you were
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  Speaker 2: alluding to earlier, Christopher.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I was pleasantly surprised when we saw those
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  Speaker 3: numbers come out.
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  Speaker 2: We're late for a break, so we'll get to that
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  Speaker 2: and back with more on South Carolina's Morning News.
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  Speaker 1: This is South Carolina's Morning News on one O three
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  Speaker 1: five FM and five sixty AM WVOC Columbia and ninety
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  Speaker 1: four to three WSC Charleston.
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  Speaker 6: On the positive note for Ralph Norman, he's got a
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  Speaker 6: record of votes that he's already cast in Congress, and
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  Speaker 6: boats that he's voted on, and platforms that he stood
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  Speaker 6: on for years, so it's easy to see things just
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  Speaker 6: like the physical conservativeness.
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  Speaker 4: There's a clear vision of what he stands for, all right,
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  Speaker 4: and that's what we're looking for today.
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  Speaker 2: People, you get to be the surrogate for the campaign
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  Speaker 2: today positively promoting your candidate as we head into tomorrow's
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  Speaker 2: special runoff election. Why do you like your candidate? We
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  Speaker 2: still have a lot of undecideds out there who are
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  Speaker 2: trying to find a reason, and unfortunately, what we're getting
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  Speaker 2: a lot of is negative camp, you know, advertising. So
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: you're told why to not like the other person, but
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  Speaker 2: why should we like your person?
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  Speaker 4: And I'm I'm appreciative of that. Yes, you know.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things I thought was a missed moment
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  Speaker 2: for Ralph the other night Christopher in the debate was
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  Speaker 2: Darlene took the shot of you know, I've accomplished more
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  Speaker 2: in twenty days than you have in twenty years. And
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  Speaker 2: then she mentioned that she had co sponsored the Save
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  Speaker 2: America Act, and I would if I was Ralph, I
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  Speaker 2: would have been like, well, seeing that I'm the original
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  Speaker 2: author of that, I appreciate you co sponsoring my legislation.
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  Speaker 3: Kelly, he didn't have a chance, waited for her closing
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  Speaker 3: statement to make that comment.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose you're right. So anyway, there is a
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  Speaker 2: lot to like about Ralph Norman. But there's also a
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: lot to like about Darlen Graham. We're looking for some
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  Speaker 2: Darlen Graham supporters this morning. Let us know why you're
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: supporting Darlene's campaign. Why are you excited about her as
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: being the next senator? I saw Tim Scott trying to
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: make the case. Obviously, Donald Trump trying to make the
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  Speaker 2: case on Friday, vote like he's on the ballot. He says,
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  Speaker 2: So you're not going to get a stronger endorsement than that. Okay, Well,
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  Speaker 2: hopefully get some more of your talkbacks this morning. It's
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  Speaker 2: six twenty eight on South Carolina's Morning.
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  Speaker 1: News, Live from the state Capitol. This is South Carolina's
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  Speaker 1: Morning News.
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  Speaker 4: Hi there.
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  Speaker 2: This is Kelly Nash six thirty four. Christopher Thompson and
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  Speaker 2: I back together. It's been a little while since we've
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: been able to work together, and so we're happy to
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  Speaker 2: be with you this morning and taking your talkbacks on
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  Speaker 2: why you're supporting your candidates for tomorrow in our Senate
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: runoff election. I'll say that Donald Trump, I don't know
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  Speaker 2: that was it unexpected that he mentioned that the I
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: seventy three corridor would be built, that it.
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  Speaker 4: Was kind of.
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  Speaker 2: It's not riding on Darlene Graham's candidacy, It was not
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  Speaker 2: associated with her candidacy. I do note that what was
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  Speaker 2: it the I think probably about earlier this year in
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  Speaker 2: the springtime. I think we passed some sort of resolution
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: in South Carolina that if he was to get the
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: funding for it, we would rename it the Trump Extension
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: or something like that.
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  Speaker 4: So Donald Trump motivated to get his name on.
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  Speaker 3: Everything it would see, and the funding's there, it's just
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  Speaker 3: it hasn't nobody's been able to pull the trigger as
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  Speaker 3: of yet. I mean, this has been talked about since
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  Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan. That's when the quarter was first proposed, when
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan was president.
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  Speaker 2: Now when Ronald Reagan was talking about it. It was basically,
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  Speaker 2: if I remember right, it started in like Michigan, and
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  Speaker 2: it was going to go like Michigan all the way
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: to Myrtle Beach. And now we're talking about basically just
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: getting off I ninety five going to Myrtle Beach.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: So it's a lot smaller project.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: But still a connector that would take a lot of
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: land in order to make it happen. And apparently that
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: now they say they have like ninety percent of the
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: right of ways bought and purchased already and just they're
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: just waiting to start building.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I know our show only airs in the Midlands and
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the Charleston Low Country area. I'd love to hear from
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: some people in the PD. Maybe they're listening on the
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Ihurt radio app. Maybe they're looking for South Carolina's morning
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: news on the Ihurt radio app. What you can hear
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: obviously in the PD. You can hear us anywhere in
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: the country. You can hear us anywhere in the world. Yes,
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: on the Ihurt radio app. But if you live in
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: the PD area, for example, you live in Dylan, you
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: live in one of those towns where five oh one
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: is the main corridor to Myrtle Beach. Your business will
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: be absolutely destroyed by this. You're you're it's like the
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: railroad came through and just took everybody away from you.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: How are those people just nervous as heck right now
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: that that their way of life is about to be
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: changed forever?
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Probably?
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's because this has been buried for
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: so long. They probably thought they were safe at this point.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: I mean that I seventy three has been on the
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: radar for years and nobody's been able to push it fruition.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: But the money is at the state level, the money's
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: at the federal level. It's been allocated. They're just waiting
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: for the chance to start.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: We might be talking to Russell Fry later on today.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I might ask that question, like, this is kind of
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: your region, How how do you feel about it? Because
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: what I'm also wondering again, I think the total price
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: tags like four billion dollars, and like, you know, the
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: state of South Carolina is going to put up basically
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: I guess two billion, and the federal government's going to
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: put up like two billion. Do we need it? In
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: other words, does it make it easier to get to
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Myrtle Beach. Yes, is there anybody currently not going to
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Myrtle Beach that would go to Myrtle Beach if the
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: trip was easier? I feel like everybody who wants to
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: go to Myrtle Beach already goes to Myrtle Beach.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Well, you and I aren't stuck in that traffic every day,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: so it's easy for us to say sitting in one
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: part of the South Carolina, but I mean it's there
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: have been huge traffic headaches, and there always are all
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: summer long. So it would alleviate those traffic headaches, and
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: for that reason alone, people feel like it's the right
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: thing to do. I think that most of the push
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: against it was environmental in nature, and now I mean
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: they've already got the land purchased that there's not much
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: the environmentalists can say.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Well, the environmentalists are saying that that's fantastic that you've
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: already bought it, But when you pave over the wetlands,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: what's happening is you're not going to be able to
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: absorb rain, so you're going to massively increase flooding in
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the Myrtle Beach area and all the way down to it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: So that's a problem.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think they'll lose that argument, but oh yeah.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: There will definitely lose that argument.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Nobody cares in the long term, but they will care
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: in the future when they're like, crap, why is it
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: so wet around here all the time?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Well, the Army of Corps of engineers, I mean, they
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: can study that and figure out the right ways to
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: pave and where not to pave. Let's hope they've done that.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I mean they've had They've had six different presidential administrations
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: to study that issue. They should be able to figure
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: that out.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Well, we might be getting a new highway under construction
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: very soon in South Carolina, so we'll keep our eyes
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: on that. If you've got thoughts on the I seventy
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: three corridor, or if you've got thoughts on who you're
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: going to be supporting tomorrow, we'd love to hear from you.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Like I said, we're gonna have some professional surrogate's coming
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: up a little bit later on with Senator former Senator
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Jim Dementt and current House Member William Timmins supporting their
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: candidates in the eight o'clock hour. Love to get your
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: support in earlier on the Talkback feature on the iHeartRadio
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: app at six thirty nine.
• 20:56
  Speaker 8: This is South Carolina's Morning News.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: You know, Christopher, we did not go to Warrangeburg this weekend.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: I'm assuming you know what. I don't know. Maybe you
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: made the trip down.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: You wanted to see Mayor Pete when he came to town,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and he spoke at Claflin and then he spoke at
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: some sort of the Spratt Issues conference. And first off,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I hate pandering, and he is so pandering. He actively
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: comes out and says, I only won three percent of
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the black vote the last time I was running for
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: president in South Carolina, I only got three percent of
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the black votes. So I only want to meet with
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: black people. So here he is surrounded by black students,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: surrounded by black people, So that should do it. That's
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: going to fix it. And then he posted this this
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: is I'm just gonna play a little clip of Mayor
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Pete in South Carolina talking about why. First off, he
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: says there's no such thing as a permanently read state, county,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: or district, something that South Carolina has the potential to
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: demonstrate in November. And then here's his big pushback against
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: the Republicans or.
• 22:11
  Speaker 9: They cannot possibly run on their record.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: You can't run on a record of covering up the
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: Epstein files. That's your push.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: They're running on a record of covering up the Epstein files.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Who in the flip is talking about the Epstein.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Files today other than Mayor Pete no one. Good for
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: him for dredging that up. I'm sure Black voters in
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: South Carolina are saying, Oh, yeah, that's our key issue,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: that's what we're worried about.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: That is so wonderful.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Wow, thank you for driving in from Fort Wayne or
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: wherever you came in from to bring that inspiring message
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to South Carolina Democrats. Crystal Spain, I'm sure is beaming
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: with pride over the fact that they landed him.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: You are listening to South Carolina News.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And it's six fifty two, all right, So Ezra Klein
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: is a big time reporter, podcaster, all those types of
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: things influencer will say. And Rain Wilson the name might
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: not ring a bell to you, but he was one
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: of the stars of the office.
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: Uh.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: He was the.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Second in command underneath Michael If I remember right, Dwight Shrewt,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: who is for some reason talking more and more about politics,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: getting in you know, getting asked onto these podcasts to
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: be interviewed.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: Here's a little.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Snippet between him and Ezra Kleine over the Weekend.
• 23:40
  Speaker 8: Pointed, it is his Christianity they hate.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's talking about tell his brand of Christianity, which
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: is so so achingly close to you that Jesus Christianity.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: It's achingly close to Jesus's brand of Christianity, says Rain Wilson,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: and Ezra klein agrees that if you're if you're wondering
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: what a Christian sounds like, it sounds like James tell Rico.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And again, I'll just remind you James tell Rico, who
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: is four four drag performances in schools, James tell Rico,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: who is for abortion, right on up to the moment
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you deliver it. This is the this is the guy
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: who is closest to Jesus. According to two people who
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: don't follow Jesus.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: It's amazing.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, neither one of them's a member of the
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Baja faith, and the other one is Jewish but obviously
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: does not subscribe to Jesus being the Messiah. It's unbelievable
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: to me that this is that this charade is allowed
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: to play out in public as if it's real.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: But Hollywood celebrities get attention for their points of view
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: all the time and for all the wrong reasons.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So we're we're watching this play out in real time
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: in Texas. By the way, side, Note what's her face?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: The lady who was trying to beat him? Why am
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I drawing a blank on her name?
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: Right now?
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: She's the house member she got redistricted. You know who
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about. She will not endorse James tall Rico,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: and she says that she's going to be campaigning because
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: he might be hurting down bout races in which there
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: are a lot of great black candidates on the Democrat side,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: and she's going to work for that. But she's not
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: endorsing tall Rico. I don't know if it's because she
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: thinks that she's a Christian or if she just finds
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: some offensive in general. But that's who beat her in
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: the primaries with tall Rico.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: This is South Carolina's morning news on one O three
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: point five FM, five sixty AM WVOC, and ninety four
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: to three WSC.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Let's get after it and make it a fantastic Monday.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Hi there, I'm killing Ash Christopher Thompson along as well.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: We are South Carolina's morning news. And I was off
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: last week, but I did watch the debate from I
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: was up in the Berkshears, which is a very tony
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: area of New England, and I said to my wife,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: don't care that we're on vacation, we have to watch this.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that I Christopher maybe was
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: it talked about locally how I like Newsmax, but I
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: thought they did a horrible job with this debate.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was awful. The broadcast itself was and
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: you could tell the host, Greta Ancestren, was frequently frustrated.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: I was frustrated with her as well.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Though, I mean, you know, to your point, they didn't
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: have the clock up and running for the candidates to
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: start the debate. That was horrific. You know, both of
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: them get cut off surprisingly in.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: The mother opening statements.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we started off on the bad foot. Yeah,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: but Greta was I don't know, I don't know how
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to put it. They just did not do a very
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: polished job. And then if you look at Greta on
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: whether you're watching her on Newsmax or you're watching her
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: on social media. She has spent so much time it
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: feels as if just defending the idea that Darlene Graham
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: kind of blew a question. She did a four and
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: a half minute piece on Newsmax entitled What's wrong with
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: the media, And the whole gist of it is that
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: so many news outlets were focused on the fact that
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: she wasn't aware of how to identify Taiwan in relationship
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: to national security and that is a legitimate concern, right
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: that in this audience, I would imagine ninety percent of you,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: without any prompting, would be able to say an opinion.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: It might not be the same opinion that I.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Have, or that Trump has, or that Christopher has regarding
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: is Taiwan a legitimate concern for the United States? And
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: why is the Red Sea? Why is that something that
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: the military is focusing on. You could might not even
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: be the right opinion, but you would have an opinion.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't just say national security is not. Now, With
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: all that being said, that's not a disqualifying answer either.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: People butcher questions all the times in debate, but it
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: is a legitimate thing to point to and say what the.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Flip agreed and I couldn't believe. I mean, Greta n.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Sustron literally became a Darlene Graham supporter in the in
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: the days after that debate because all she did, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: she called out a lot of local reporters when they
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: were simply saying, here's the focus of a lot of
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: people from last night's debate being you know, Wednesday the
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: next day, is that one answer from Darling Graham because
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: it was the focus. I mean, that got over one
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: million views by Wednesday afternoon. I mean, it was a
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: big foat. It was a viral moment, and unfortunately for
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: the Graham campaign it was, you know, wrongly for them,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: a viral moment, but for Greta n Sustron, and she's
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the one who asked the question, and for her to
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: call out the media saying they were unfair to focus
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: on that one answer, well, that one answer caught a
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: lot of people by surprise.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: In full disclosure, I was so stunned by the answer
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: that I don't even remember did Ralph Norman get a
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: whack at that question?
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: He did.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: In fact, we played both in their entirety years. Okay,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: her answer followed by Ralph Norman's answer, I was.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I was just like talking to my wife the whole time.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Did she really just say national security is not my thing?
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I was stunned.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: But again I've seen people butcher answers before in debates.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not, you know, the end of the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: campaign by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes you have
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: a bad moment, sometimes you have a bad debate. You know,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: they tried to well, I don't want to compare it
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to a Joe Biden moment, but I mean, you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden won the presidency after numerous gaffes. So it's
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: it's you know, that doesn't mean it's the end. One
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: of the things that we're looking for this morning, by
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: the way, is why are you supporting whether it's Darlene
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Graham or Ralph Norman. Because as Christopher and I keep
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: talking about, and I think I'm imagining everybody in the
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: GOP talking about this, I've heard Alan Wilson talk about
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: it numerous times. Is we all need to be together
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: as a party moving forward, whatever the results of tomorrow is.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: But so, can you promote your candidate without being negative?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Can you say you know about the other person? Can
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: you say I support Darlene Graham because of this position,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I think that she's whatever fresh new eyes, someone who's
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: never been there before can bring a new perspective.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: She's a powerful voice, not a career politician, not a
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: career politician. What is it about Darlene Graham that's got
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: you excited? What is it about Ralph Norman that's got
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: you excited? I'd like to hear it on the talkback feature.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: It's easy as downloading the absolutely free I Hurt radio app,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: hitting that microphone and leaving us a message. Speaking of surrogates,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: we're going to have a couple of them coming up.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: We've got former Senator Jim DeMint at just after eight o'clock,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and we have current House Member William Timmins from the
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Graham campaign. He'll be joining us at about eight thirty
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: three ish. So that's what we got coming down here
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: on South Carolina's morning News. And by the way, what
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: did you think of the Newsmax debate? Did it go fantastic?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Did you love it? Did you what were the problems
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: that you saw? What would you like to have seen
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: done differently? Is there a way that we can redo
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: debates where we can actually get more insights into the
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: thinking behind a candidate. I'd be interested in hearing how
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: we can improve debates because oftentimes debates just feel like
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: almost like they're in a filibuster mode.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: They're saying nothing. They're just giving you blah blah blah
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: blah blah blah blah blah blah the time up. Yeah.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: I remember, you know George H. W.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Bush would say several times in a debate, Well, I'm
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: sure I've used up all my time, and.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: They're like, no, no, you still have another thirty seconds. No,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: keep talking. Well, I'd like a thousand points of light.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: We're moving in the right direction, America is moving forward whatever. Anyway,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: those are some of the on the plate this morning.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: It is now seven nine on South Carolina's Morning News.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: From the Midlands to the low Country. This is South
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Carolina's Morning News.
• 32:10
  Speaker 10: I'm voting for Darlen Graham tomorrow because I appreciate that
• 32:13
  Speaker 10: she's been a leader that turned around a struggling state
• 32:15
  Speaker 10: agency and made it in a national model, and that
• 32:17
  Speaker 10: really impresses me.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: She's also a budget.
• 32:19
  Speaker 10: Shopper like me, and she cares about affordability. I appreciate
• 32:22
  Speaker 10: her being relatable and like our founding fathers wanted. I
• 32:26
  Speaker 10: appreciate she's a citizen legislator, not not some kind of
• 32:28
  Speaker 10: career politician, and she's already done more in passing that
• 32:31
  Speaker 10: Russian sanctions bill in the first few weeks that most
• 32:34
  Speaker 10: politicians do in decades. I'm for Darlene tomorrow.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: He sounds all in, all in for Darlene.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: There's the positive messaging you wanted to hear.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Now, if I was speaking with that individual, I would ask,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: are you willing to support Ralph Norman if he's fortunate
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: enough to win tomorrow?
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: I think you would be.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine that anybody who's supporting Darlen Graham or
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Ralph Norman would vote for Annie Andrews or even sit out.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: The election come November.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: They're always hurt feelings immediately after an election, but you
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: know those feelings get healed as you get closer to
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: the general So.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you for using the talkback feature to support your candidate.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: I found this clip, Christopher, perhaps you saw it as well.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: CNN decided to interview Katie Porter. Now, Katie Porter, for
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: those of you who don't remember, is the lady who
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: was charged with throwing hot mashed potatoes on her husband's
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: head in an argument. She was also mocked mercilessly after
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: she told an assistant to get the blank out of
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: my shot during an interview.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: She was said to be brutal to her staff.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, get the blank out of my shot. You're in
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: my shot.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: And the assistant was trying to correct Katie Porter because
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: she had her facts wrong on a and it was
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: a pre recorded interview. This wasn't like a live TV shot.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: This was something they were going to do for YouTube,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and she was just saying, you're misunderstanding the actual data.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Let me just bring you up to speed on it.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: We'll get the blank out of my shot. Katie Porter
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: is also the lady who was sitting down with a
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal podcaster if I remember right, it was
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, might have been The New York Times,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: and told the lady that if you keep asking those questions,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to leave. You're not going to ask
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: me those questions. So Katie Porter is horrible when it
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: comes to managing, and that's why her you know, run
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: for governor ended so horrifically. Out in California anyway, she
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: was the guest on CNN with a couple of other
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: people and they're talking about the Darlene Graham moment, and
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: it's an opportunity for CNN to take a shot at
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: both Ralph Norman and Darlene Graham.
• 34:51
  Speaker 11: This is not how when you have a mistake like this,
• 34:54
  Speaker 11: it's in a moment, you're you're rushed, you're tired, something
• 34:59
  Speaker 11: kind of you have more of an motion. That's not
• 35:01
  Speaker 11: what this is. This might be just dumb, like just not.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: The issue.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: It's a Kinsley gaff.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: It's a Michael Kinsley gaff.
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: It is saying what you actually mean.
• 35:14
  Speaker 12: I mean that is that's what he famously described as
• 35:16
  Speaker 12: a Washington gaff when you when you say what you
• 35:18
  Speaker 12: actually believe.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: And she was just being honest.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: She was just being honest.
• 35:22
  Speaker 8: Security is not her thing, but she doesn't know much
• 35:24
  Speaker 8: about it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: That's that's what that was his honest, which was honest.
• 35:28
  Speaker 12: Interesting part though, is the Republicans standing next to her
• 35:31
  Speaker 12: rough Norman says nothing because don't interrupt the sound bite.
• 35:36
  Speaker 12: Let her keep talking. I'm willing to bet that the
• 35:39
  Speaker 12: ad is already cut and will be in circulation.
• 35:42
  Speaker 11: Tom Well and that he's not the sharpest tool in
• 35:44
  Speaker 11: the shed, I know, but.
• 35:48
  Speaker 8: There's no way plus in this crowd.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: So there you go, CNN with the fair and buy it.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: They're just right down the middle. Sure it's CNN. When
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: it comes to analyzing what happened in Republican politics again,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: they wonder why they fail. It's because you can't be honest.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: You can't just say this was a moment and talk
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: about the moment and then maybe bring up some of
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the good points that she made, you know about the
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: not being a career politician, about what our caller said.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: You know that she is a budget shopper that resonates
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: with a lot of people. Darlene Graham experiences legit concern
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: and sticker shock when it comes to grocery shopping and
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: other things, and so she's going to do whatever she
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: can to try to bring down those costs. You could
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: promote those types of things. You could say why she's
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: an appealing candidate to certain people. But no, you're not
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: going to get that from CNN at all, But we
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: will get it from you by using the talkback feature.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: It is now seven eighteen.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: This is South Carolina's morning news on one O three
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: five FM on five sixty AM. WVOC Columbia and ninety
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: four to three WSC Charleston.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it tells us anything, but it
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: is interesting. I feel that most of the endorsements for
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Darlene Graham come from current politicians, and most of the
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: endorsements for Ralph Norman come from former politicians. For example,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley, former governor, endorses Ralph Norman. Current governor Henry McMaster.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I think it was just on Friday, came out and
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: supported Darlene Graham. Mark Sandford, former governor and congressman going
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: with Ralph, Jenny Huntcott, who's probably going to be the
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: first district representative, along with Russell Frye, William Timmins, pretty
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: much everybody in the Congress, you know, save for James Clyburn,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: they all seem to be coming along for Darlene Graham.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Mark Meadows, former chief of staff for Donald Trump, got Ralph.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Obviously the President himself, the big dog comes in for Darlene.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: It's now there are a couple of current.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: We'll call them, I guess they are they officially Freedom
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Caucus members in the Senate, but there's a couple of
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Senators who have come out for currently serving for Ralph Norman.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: They were very like Rick Scott I think was one
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: of them. They aggressively got out there wanted him. But
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: there's also a whole bunch of people you know that
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: are currently serving. I think Tom Cotton is one of
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: them who's for Darlene Graham.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: So it's it's for.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: The most part, currently serving politicians are with her. Formally
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: serving ones are with Ralph. Do you see any connection
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: as to why that would be.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a connection, but I know
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: that that's become a Norman arguing point, especially via social media.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Is Norman has pointed out, look, the establishment, the swamp
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: is again me there for Darlene Graham. So he's using
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: that argument to kind of pivot. I mean, it's true,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: it feels like most of the current politicians are in
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: the Graham camp. So he's saying, look, they want me out.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: The swamp wants me out. Now. I don't know if
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: you can refer to Donald Trump as the swamp, but
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: there are a lot of establishment Republicans who are in
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Darlene Graham's camp.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, you know, the pro life movement,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: National Right to Life, South Carolta Citizens for Life. They
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: all came along for Darling Graham. I mention it, by
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: the way, if you're on Facebook, I did comment on
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the Citizens for Life because I am very active with
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: South Carolinta Citizens for Life. Because they made the point
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: that Darlene Graham would be a strong voice for the unborn,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: I said, I wish you would wait until after this
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: was over, because I'm sure that Ralph Norman would be
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: a strong voice for the unborn as well. Again, there's
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of overlapping between Darlene and Ralph when it
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: comes to positions, as it would be in any Republican primary. Sure,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the question becomes who do you think would do a
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: better job as and why? Those types of questions. But
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: to question like are they both pro life? Of course
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: they are. Are they both for smaller government?
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Yes? Are they both for you know, the Second Amendment?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Sure, there's really not a lot of wiggle room here,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: unlike which you're we're going to have with Annie Andrews
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: and Democrats there against all that stuff, and pretty soon
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: they're going to come out and just admit what they've
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: always been, which are socialists who want to get rid
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: of the Constitution. For God's sakes, But anyway, we're taking
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: more of your talkbacks as to why you're supporting one
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: of the candidates over the other, and again not negatively,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: you know, slamming the other candidate, just why you're for
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: that person. I think we're going to be talking to
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Steve Michaels, who's been crunching data like crazy when it
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: comes to these early voting. We're going to try to
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: get him on just after the break. It will take
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: a break. Now, it's seven eight on South Carolina's Morning News.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Live from the state capital. This is South Carolina's Morning News.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: All right, this is Kelly Nash, seven thirty four. One
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: of the things I use social media for is to
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: google fashion.
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: Now it's not well. The reason I go on social
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: media for the most.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Part is because I like looking at information, specifically on X.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: And when I'm looking at X, one of the accounts
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I like to look at is at Steve w.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: Michael. Steve Michael now joins us. Good morning, How are
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: you sir?
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: Good good?
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: How are you Kelly Fantastic?
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: On your X account, it says President of Victory Enterprises,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: General Consultant at Alan Wilson for governor. So you have
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: a long history, I assume of basically crunching numbers when
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: it comes to elections.
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: That's that's correct. And I've taken a deep dive at
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: this Senate special election, which numbers been interesting to say
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: the least.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: So first off, before we even ask you about this,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I have been following local and state and federal elections
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: for decades. I can't recall an election like this that
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: has had as little polling, almost no polling. Is this
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: bizarre to you as well?
• 42:21
  Speaker 13: Yeah?
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: It is. You know, obviously there's there's a number of
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: whispers about polls that are out there. Very little of
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: it has, you know, come out in public. So you know,
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: that can be for multiple reasons.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: For example, you know, we just finished the governor's race.
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: In the runoff, we had polling that consistently showed us,
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: you know, up between fifteen and later twenty nine points.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: We didn't release it because we didn't want to create
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: more attention on ourselves, right, so try to keep our
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: heads down and so forth. In other cases, you don't
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: really pulling because your numbers aren't good, right, so you
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: don't really know the intention. You know, I myself and
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: pull four times so far in this race. So I
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: know polls exist, it's just.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: Not a lot have been public interesting.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And so there are there is polling. This is what
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: they would call internal pulling. So the Norman and Graham
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: campaigns are kind of aware of where they're sitting.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Probably you know, the Trump White House polled, they have
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: pulled consistently, you know, and the and the runoff again
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: in the governor's race. We were aware they're pulling. You
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: might have third party groups, you might have other vested
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: interests pulling as well. So likely not just those two campaigns,
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: but you know, everyone's trying to get a finger on
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: the pulse if you're a business corporation whatever else, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: trying to figure out where you're supposed to invest in.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: So you want numbers in order to make you know
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: sure investment.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Well, let's get to your X account because you know,
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: in the old days on X you could only post
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: like two hundred characters or something like that. But if
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I'm going to read one of your posts, I better
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: pack a lunch because you're throwing in a lot of
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: information and I don't want And for people who are
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: like political nerds, this is this is gold. What you're
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: putting out here, But let's go more surface level if
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: we can. Can you take anything away? First off, are
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: we showing good early voting right now? Do we have
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: some good turnout?
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, look our early voting turnouts up three and a
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: half percent. Those are strong numbers, you know, especially you know,
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: most of the time people say, oh, turnout drops in
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: a in a runoff situation in this state, it didn't
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: turn out up three and a half percent.
• 44:31
  Speaker 13: Those are strong numbers.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: And we can draw you know, a couple of distinct things.
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: One is, you know, in the third and the fourth,
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: so an upstate you know, Greenville, Spartenberg, but all the
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: way over the Georgia border, they are up roughly two thousand,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: one hundred votes, so really strong numbers, you know, basically
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: ten percent increase. Now in the seventh, which is the
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: PD the Grain strand you know Orange County, the major
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: vote that are there in there, you're looking at a
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: drop of about twelve hundred votes. So you know, a
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: little concerning if you're a campaign that's counting on those numbers,
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: you have to be a tad concern. In the first,
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: Low Country, you know there they are down two and
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: forty votes. But you know, for the most part. You know,
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: we see here in the Midlands we're up five percent,
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: pretty good number. Lexington's one of the three highest vote
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: hetters right now.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: So we're talking with Steve Michael, who does this professionally,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: crunches numbers, looks at voting data. If tell me if
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I'm wrong when I what I'm hearing you say is
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: the upstate is up. That is typically going to be
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: considered Ralph Norman territory, Darlene Graham would be, I guess
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: the Midlands and more of the low Country and Russell
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Fry kind of had Or County in that area the PD,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: and the voting is down a little bit up there.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: The Fry campaign had pivoted to Darlene Graham. It seems
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: as if maybe that I don't want to say, it's
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: not having the effect that they had hoped, but the
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: voting is down in the PD.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: That's trict. I mean so far. You look at the
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: Trump rally for Friday, Certainly the hope is that you
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: increase turnout from that if you have Conston Frid it
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: to major endorsement Nordon County, but you're again you're three
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: major counties in the seventh Lawrence Orey and Georgetown. You're
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: down eleven hundred votes, so you really have to pick
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: it up on election day. You know, first district. You know,
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: obviously Senator Graham did well in the first district, did
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: first go round. So did governor former Governor Stanford as well, though,
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: so where does his percent of the vote go? He
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: on Friday endorsed Thomason Norman. Does that translate? Is it
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: too late? Does that endorsement matter whatsoever?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: In the third and the fourth that's gonna help. It
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: should help Comas and Norman a good bit. There are
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: a couple counties in the third where Senator Graham did better,
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: specifically and Anderson and a Tony. She won Anderson. She
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: does better in the lower portions of the third. So
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: we'll see, we'll see what that translates as. But yeah,
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: if you look at right now, three, four and five
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: look really good for Commerce and Norman. You got some
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: work to do if you're Senator Graham, and the seventh
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: in the first and you know, the sixth isn't the
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: nie vote getter. It's about three thousand, seven hundred votes
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: so far. It's up actually compared to the first round.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: But obviously it's the smallest vote share overall.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: All right, well, before we let you go, Steve, I'm
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: not going to ask you who's going to win, and
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen any polling, but how
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: close do you expect this race to be tomorrow?
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: I think it's plus for minus three points at the
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: end of the day. Senator Graham has a lot of
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: structural advantages. Obviously, the vote surges and three four and
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: five give Thomas jan Norman a strong chance going into
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: election day. And then you hear whispers of poles. So
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: it's going to be I think an exciting night if
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: you're a political junkie to take a look, to watch
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: and to see how it all breaks down.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: So within about three points, all right, well this should
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: be a very competitive race. Then tomorrow, not looking for
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: an early night, we'll be up late watching the returns.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: All right, thank you, all right, thank you Steve Michael,
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: and appreciate him taking some time. By the way, again,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: a great read if you want to follow the numbers.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Steve W. Michael On X we'll take a break at
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: seven forty one.
• 48:32
  Speaker 8: This is South Carolina's Morning News.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I'm Kelley Nash. Christopher Thompson, you're the sports guy. Is
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: his name pronounced Ennis or enis cantor Freedom?
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: I believe it's Ennis Ennis.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: And he got kicked out of a WNBA game last night.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: He was explaining what happened here at the Fever game.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: He'd celebrated a three point shot by Sophie Cunningham and.
• 48:53
  Speaker 14: Then right literally a couple of position later, Natasha came
• 48:59
  Speaker 14: back and starts screaming and yelling and said, she's not
• 49:03
  Speaker 14: going to sleep with you.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: I've never heard of a player yelling at any fan
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: They're not going to sleep with you. Yeah, but that's
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: and then he kind of said some things back, and
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: then that was it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: They booted him out.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: But he and that other fella, they are pushing this
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: issue and it is becoming a multimillion dollar headache.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: For the WNBA.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: It's huge. I mean it's it's a distraction when that
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: league is getting its best ratings of all time, when
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: they have the most popular players they've ever had, and
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: they can't capitalize in it because they can't get out
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: of their own way when it comes to deciding who
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: should play the game.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: And it's funny that he was wearing a T shirt
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: that just says woman, now adult human female. That's he
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: was trying to help them out figure out what a
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: woman is. But he said he took a photo by
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: the restroom, said, well, you know, it's halftime.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: I need to use the restroom. Rules are rules? Oh
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: my gosh. Anyway, that's a lot of fun to watch.
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: It's seven seven.
• 50:01
  Speaker 8: You're listening to South Carolina's morning news.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: So I don't know why it's back in the news today,
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: but I guess maybe. Ron DeSantis gave a speech or
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: something over the weekend where he reiterated his position that
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: there should be no congressional pensions and health benefits for
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: people who are no longer serving in Congress. Now, this
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: has been his position forever. In twenty thirteen, he said,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't run for Congress for the perks.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: I ran for.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Office to be the type of citizen legislator or founding
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: fathers envisioned and change the prevailing culture in Washington. That
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: was in twenty thirteen, so thirteen years ago he started.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Twenty fifteen, he authored a bill ending this. This is
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: nothing new for Ron DeSantis. He does point out that
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: if you're a vested member of Congress currently who someone
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: who's expecting your health benefits to be taken care of,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: that you should be grandfathered.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: In Mitch McConnell's saying thank you, thank you.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: How much is the American people paying for Mitch McConnell's
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: healthcare at this point? My gosh, good point, Christopher Thompson,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: and for a lot of other people, I'm sure, but
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I think that you know is he pointed out, and
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: others have pointed out, we never have a like a
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: lack of funding for the pension. It's only it seems
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: for Social Security.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: Why is that?
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question, and that also creates the
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: career politician. When you're fully vested and you're getting those
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: great benefits that the rest of us don't have access to,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: why would you ever want to leave Washington.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: I'm afraid that a lot of people who are currently
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: serving would still reject it, even though this wouldn't affect them.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Like he said, if you're already been in Congress for
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: a few years, you're expecting these benefits, so you're going
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: to get those. It's for the future people to run
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: to maybe disincentivize people who are looking to become career politicians.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like voting on term limits. If you
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: want to vote on term limits, you vote on it now,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: and you say this is for the future, this is
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: not for the people currently here. We're not going to
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: kick them out. That's the only way you're going to
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: get something like that passed. I know for you true bloods,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: you people are like, no, no, no, it's got to
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: apply to them now. Well, they're never going to vote
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: for that. No one's going to vote to put themselves
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: out of a job. No sore. If that is an
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: issue that you believe strongly in, this should be the
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: type of thing that you would be for future.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: Generations, not the current crop.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I appreciate Ron DeSantis apparently bringing that back out and
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: getting it in the news. I just saw it again
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: a few minutes ago, so I thought that was worth noting.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: Seven fifty four.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: We'll be back with former Senator Jim DeMint right after this.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: On South Carolina's Morning.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: News, your news, traffic, weather and information stations. This is
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: South Carolina's Morning News on one O three point five FM,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: five sixty AM WVOC, and ninety fourth WSC.
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: It's eight oh three. I'm Kelly Nash and on the phone.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Always thrilled to talk with.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Probably still my favorite senator to ever represent the state
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: while I lived in it. I've only been here twenty
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: five years or so. Jim Dementz, how are you, sir, Kelly?
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: I'm great.
• 53:18
  Speaker 15: It makes me feel old, yeah, like that, But I'll
• 53:25
  Speaker 15: tell you but these are exciting times. I think we've
• 53:28
  Speaker 15: got a chance to get somebody might be even better
• 53:32
  Speaker 15: than me. So that's what I hope we can talk
• 53:34
  Speaker 15: a little bit about this morning, and among other things.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and again we're trying to be positive. I've been
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: asking the listeners this morning to be surrogates for their
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: candidates without putting down the other candidate, because in you know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: twenty four hours or so, well, no, but well, within
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: forty eight hours, we're gonna know who the candidate is
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: to go up against Annie Andrews, and we all got
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: a uni behind him. We're not benefiting ourselves by tearing
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: down the other person. Let's talk about how great our
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: candidate is. You were one of the first endorsements for
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Ralph Norman. You came out very early and very strong
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: for Ralph. Why do you love Ralph Norman as our
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: next senator?
• 54:15
  Speaker 15: Well, I've watched him serve for eight years in the House,
• 54:19
  Speaker 15: and he's part of the Freedom Caucus, so he's in
• 54:22
  Speaker 15: and out of our building at the Conservative Partnership a lot.
• 54:26
  Speaker 15: He's always been working behind the scenes to make bills better.
• 54:30
  Speaker 15: Some folks say they have a good voting record, but
• 54:33
  Speaker 15: you never hear their name when these bills are getting shaped.
• 54:37
  Speaker 15: But Ralph is whether it was a big beautiful bill
• 54:40
  Speaker 15: or holding back the speaker until the speaker put conservatives
• 54:44
  Speaker 15: on the right committees, He's pushed the line. And one
• 54:48
  Speaker 15: of the things I've found, Kat Kelly, is that if
• 54:52
  Speaker 15: you don't have strong conservative convictions when you go to
• 54:55
  Speaker 15: the Senate, you're going to be liberal or even a
• 54:58
  Speaker 15: rhino before it's over, because that's the nature of the Senate.
• 55:03
  Speaker 15: And Ralph has got that kind of courage. I've seen
• 55:06
  Speaker 15: him again stand strong even if the President called, like
• 55:10
  Speaker 15: he did on the Big Beautiful Bill, said let it go.
• 55:13
  Speaker 15: Ralph said we can make it better. We can cut
• 55:15
  Speaker 15: the spending and subsidies. And he did, and he got
• 55:19
  Speaker 15: the bill passed, and he did vote for it despite
• 55:22
  Speaker 15: all the negative ads that have been run against him.
• 55:26
  Speaker 15: So but even better, Kelly, there's a new class that'll
• 55:30
  Speaker 15: be coming into the Senate. You know Barry Moore who's
• 55:33
  Speaker 15: been in the Freedom Caucus who will be the new
• 55:36
  Speaker 15: Senator from Alabama. Harriet Hagman has been in the Freedom
• 55:41
  Speaker 15: Caucus from Wyoming. She beat Lee Liz Cheney in a primary.
• 55:47
  Speaker 15: And there's several others who could change the nature of
• 55:51
  Speaker 15: the Senate. And that's why Mike Lee and Rick Scott
• 55:54
  Speaker 15: and the top conservatives in the Senate have endorsed Ralph
• 56:00
  Speaker 15: because they know he'll join them and maybe help help
• 56:04
  Speaker 15: change things. And believe me, the Senate needs to be changed.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: I heard that John Thune is running millions of dollars
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: of ads trying to keep himself as the speaker, excuse
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: me as the leader is do you think that if
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: the Republicans are able to hang on to the Senate
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: that there's going to be a change in that position.
• 56:25
  Speaker 15: I don't know's they'll either be a change or there'll
• 56:28
  Speaker 15: be a lot of agreements to do things differently. And
• 56:31
  Speaker 15: Ralph is one who said he wouldn't vote for Foon
• 56:34
  Speaker 15: and that's why the party, unfortunately, he's spending millions of
• 56:38
  Speaker 15: dollars against Ralph. I've just seen over the years and
• 56:42
  Speaker 15: it's really been frustrating to watch that. They'll spend tens
• 56:46
  Speaker 15: of millions of dollars to protect Susan Collins, and then
• 56:49
  Speaker 15: they'll spend millions of dollars to try to keep Conservatives
• 56:53
  Speaker 15: from winning a Senate seat. That's why we need a
• 56:56
  Speaker 15: change in leadership there. But it's looking good. I've seen
• 57:00
  Speaker 15: three polls. One of them is since the debate, Ralph
• 57:04
  Speaker 15: is still about ten points ahead. The areas where he
• 57:09
  Speaker 15: did in well in the first round of the primary
• 57:12
  Speaker 15: have had good turnout. But we've got to get strong
• 57:16
  Speaker 15: conservatives in the state to vote tomorrow. That's really key,
• 57:22
  Speaker 15: and I think he'll be our next senator if the
• 57:26
  Speaker 15: Conservatives get out and vote tomorrow.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Well, Jim, you're a political insider. That's how you're seeing
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: these polls. Because Christopher Thompson and I have been talking.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: We're not seeing any polls published now.
• 57:37
  Speaker 15: These are private polls, you know, done by Senate Conservatives
• 57:40
  Speaker 15: Fund and others that are trying to watch the race.
• 57:43
  Speaker 15: And I've been frustrated too, and I know why that is.
• 57:48
  Speaker 15: If the polls were good for Ralph's opponent, you would
• 57:52
  Speaker 15: be seeing them all over the place, because that's one
• 57:54
  Speaker 15: way to discourage Ralph's voters from coming out. But seeing that,
• 58:00
  Speaker 15: the other thing you're not seeing is President Trump is
• 58:02
  Speaker 15: not saying bad things about Ralph, which he often does
• 58:06
  Speaker 15: about opponents of the people he's endorsed. So I think
• 58:10
  Speaker 15: they've told him he should expect to be having to
• 58:13
  Speaker 15: work with Ralph in the Senate. So they're being a
• 58:16
  Speaker 15: little careful there, but it's so at least it looks
• 58:21
  Speaker 15: good on paper at this point. And Ralph won the
• 58:26
  Speaker 15: straw Pole in Charleston, which was not his strong area
• 58:29
  Speaker 15: before Lexton County Republicans endorsed him, So some things really
• 58:38
  Speaker 15: look good here across the state. And I would just
• 58:41
  Speaker 15: love to see conservatives in the Republican Party get out
• 58:44
  Speaker 15: and vote in mass and send a strong signal. And
• 58:47
  Speaker 15: now I think that'll really help Ralph. But you're right
• 58:50
  Speaker 15: the way you started, Kelly's really important. Regardless of what happens,
• 58:54
  Speaker 15: Republicans need to stand together because we can't take for
• 58:57
  Speaker 15: granted we're always going to in these seats, and if
• 59:01
  Speaker 15: some of the Republicans hold back if Ralph wins because
• 59:05
  Speaker 15: he's not their pick, that'll really hurt us.
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: In November.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Well, we talked to Steve Michael earlier. I'm not sure
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: if you're familiar with Steve. He works with Alan Wilson
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: on polling and those types of things, and he was
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: crunching numbers just based off early voting, and it's been
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: pretty good. In the Ralph territories like the Upstate, they've
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: been getting out early. They're actually ahead of where they
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: were a few weeks ago. But I asked him, I said,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: what do you see this coming down to as far
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: as how close of an election. He thinks it's going
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: to be within three points, and so if that's the case,
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: then literally every single vote matters as we go into
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: this thing tomorrow.
• 59:44
  Speaker 15: You're right, and it's hard to get people out in
• 59:48
  Speaker 15: August to just vote for one position, but we really
• 59:53
  Speaker 15: got to do it because this is such an important
• 59:56
  Speaker 15: seat rarely comes open in the Senate and we desperately
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 15: need some not just people who vote conservative, but those
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 15: are willing to stand up and speak out and push
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 15: against the envelope. Because the House has done some good things.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 15: I mean, they passed to Save America Act, but it
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 15: goes over the Senate and it dies because we've got
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 15: a few folks like Lisa Mkowski and Susan Collins, and
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 15: even Mitch McConnell has shown his true Collins are holding
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 15: back the Republican agenda and we need some new folks
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 15: there who are going to figure out how to get
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 15: things done well.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Jim, I certainly appreciate your time. You did a great
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: job representing Ralph Norman. We're going to talk to Representative
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: Timmins in a few minutes. He's going to be making
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: the case for Darlene Graham as we try to get
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: both sides of the issue covered here this morning. But
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: thanks for taking some time to join South Carolina's Morning News.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 15: Thank you, Kelly.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: From the Midlands to the low Country. This is South
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Carolina's Morning News.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: Great talking to former Senator Jim Dementt, And like I said,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: coming up in just a little bit, first ever phone call.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I have never spoken with Representative Timmins. I won't bring
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: up the fact, Christopher that I did kind of slam
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Representative Timmins. It was two three weeks ago when he
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: was taking what I thought were some unfair pot shots
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: at Russell Fry. But we'll leave that off because we're
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: trying to be nice right now. We're in a good
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: mood We're trying to unite the party, Christopher. That's our
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: job today.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: And he's now on the team with he's on Team
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: Graham with Russell Frye.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's not gonna be slaming Russell fry anymore.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: We won't.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: So what did you think about what Jim de Mint said?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm curious. It was very positive as you asked.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: You've asked both these surrogates, you know, come forth with
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: your positives about the candidate you're endorsing without slamming the opponent.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: And I thought Jim Demant did a great job of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: portraying why right. But he did say something interesting, you know,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: he mentioned the fact that Donald Trump has not taken
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: any shots at Ralph Norman as he usually does when
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: he involves himself when he endorses a candidate, Trump will
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: usually say, and this guy's a bad guy, and let
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: me tell you why he hasn't done that with Ralph Norman,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: which led Russell Demitt, or led Jim Dimant at least
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: to speculate that it's because, you know, Ralph Norman then
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: maybe doing better in the polls than we think.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: There was a quote from Ralph Norman in a story
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: that I read last week where somebody floated the rumor
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: that there was going to be another dual endorsement, endorsement
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: something like that, and he said we'll see, meaning you know,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people ran with that is if
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: maybe that's something that Ralph was hearing.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: There's no way Donald Trump would have come to Myrtle
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: Beach if he wasn't fully behind Darlene Graham exactly.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: But there at that point there was some sort of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: speculation that perhaps that was going to get called off.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: If that had been called off, that would have been
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: a disaster of epic proportions.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: Thankfully it didn't get called off.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, tonight, if I understand right,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's doing another what they call what a tell
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: a rallies or something like that. So there's a I
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: forget the phone number, but you can I'm sure find
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: it on the gram social media accounts.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: They'll have that up. You can just call it. They'll
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: probably call you. I mean a lot of times these
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: tell a rallies, they will call you and you're on
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: the phone whether you want to be or not, unless
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: you disengage the call.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember who the only one that I've
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: got one when was from Nancy Mace. For some reason,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Nancy Mace wanted me to join her. Are you kidding me?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: How did you even get my number? This is so bizarre.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: But yeah, no, thankfully, I've done a pretty good job
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: I think of blocking most of that spam. But yeah,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: there'll be another rally tonight with Trump and Darlene Graham,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: so we'll we'll see how that plays out. But again,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Steve Michael got it at a three point race. That's incredible.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: We'll see how accurate that is.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: You're hearing from the Norman supporters that it's a much
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: bigger lead for Ralph. I don't know that it's a
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: lead for Ralph at all. I would think my take
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: would be with the entire machine behind Darlene, whether you're
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: talking about Tim Scott, the current governor, the President of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: the United States, all of these people, it would seem
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: as if she should be the front runner.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: I think because of the Trump visit on Friday and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: the fact that it occurred on a Friday, which means
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: all you saw Saturday and Sunday were scenes of Donald
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Trump and Myrtle Beach touting Darling Graham. Now he didn't
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: devote the entire speech to Darling Graham, but certainly she
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: was there on the podium and got his endorsement. I
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: think because of the fact that that was literally all
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: the news you saw over the weekend, that's going to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: be huge for her.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutelytely. Without that endorsement, none of this has even happened.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: True.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: I don't even know that she would have run had
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: because she said the reason I'm running is because the
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: President asked me to, and then after much prayer, I
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: decided I would like to serve my country in my state.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: So without Trump's nudging, none of this happens, I think.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: But either way, it's.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: We're at where we're at, and it's all going to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: be over tomorrow night sometimes, so we'll we'll figure it out, Ben.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: But in the meantime, we got Representative Timmins coming up
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: in a little bit, and we'll take a quick break.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: Now it's eight twenty.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: This is South Carolina's morning news on one O three
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: five FM and five sixty AM WVOC, Columbia and ninety
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: four to three WSC Charleston.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: All right, so the race to name everything after Lindsay
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: Graham is on uh Strom Thurman currently holds the record,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: in case you're wondering, with five major buildings named after him,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: including the courthouse in Columbia, the Fitness and Wellness Center
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: at the University of South Carolina, a high school in Edgefield,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: the Strom Thurman Dam and Lake reservoir by the Savannah River.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: In there we now have joint base Lindsey Graham. And
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: apparently on Friday they voted to name the new ROTC building.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: It'll be called the Lindsey Graham ROTC Center of Excellence.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: And they now this is they're not building the building
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: just because of Lindsay Graham. That is something that they
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: had already started on right this in twenty twenty four
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: they voted the funding for this, so they needed a
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: new ROTC building. But do you think that Lindsay Graham
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: will end up with more or less? What is the
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: What does the Calshi market say on Strom Thurman going
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: to retain the title of most buildings named after him?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: Or will Lindsey Graham surpass him eventually?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think anybody would ever surpass Strom. He was
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: He was in power too long, bigger than life, bigger
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: than life even.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: In death, even in death, well Lindsey Graham's gonna give
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: it a shot, I guess.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: I mean he's off to a very strong start. He's true.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Within a couple of months, he's got two pretty major
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: facilities named after himself. We'll see how that goes over
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: the next few years or so, but yes, congratulations. I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: think that's a very fitting tribute to him, as well
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: as the Joint Base Charleston being renamed in his honor. Obviously,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Lindsey Graham, two times graduate of the University of South
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Carolina and the military so close to his heart. To
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: rename the ROTC Center after him is a I think
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: a fantastic idea.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: If you have.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Thoughts on that, or if you want to be a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: professional surrogate, well, I say professional an amateur surrogate, because
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: we're not paying you anything.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: Use the talkback.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: Feature on the iHeartRadio app to let us know why
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: you're supporting your candidate. Tomorrow, we're going to talk to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: one of those people who is actually affiliated with the campaign.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Representative William Timmins will be joining the show coming up
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: in just a minute. It is South Carolina's Morning.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: News, Live from the state Capitol. This is South Carolina's
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Morning News.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: It's eight thirty three. This is Kelly Nash and on
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: the phone. Representative William Timmins.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: Good morning, Kelly, good morning.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 9: Thanks for having me on.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: It's a pleasure to have you on.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: This is our first conversation on their I mentioned before
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: the break that we've never spoken. Actually we did speak.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: You probably wouldn't remember this because it was so brief.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: But last year I got into the I kind of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: like snuck in almost into the congressional picnic at the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: White House and we interacted for just a brief moment
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: with Representative Wilson and some other people. So that was
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: my first time meeting you, and I'm excited to have
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: you on the air. People might not be familiar with
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: you here in the Midlands because you represent the Upstate.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: You replaced Trey Goudie and ironically have better hair, even
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: though you're like, do.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 9: You have better hair? And they need to realize that
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 9: that's funny because I have no hair exactly.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: You and I are both part of that. You know,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: we've got the perfect head. The rest were covered with hair.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: We got the perfect skulls. So you know, God said
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: no hair for you. So Representative Timmans what we've been
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: doing this morning, has been asking listeners as well as
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: professional surrogates to represent their candidate outslamming the other one,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: because ultimately here in about forty eight hours or so,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: we're going to have to unify behind one of these
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: two candidates, and it's not going to do us any
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: good if we're wrecking the other person. So you are
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: a strong supporter of Darlene Graham, Let's make the case
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: why should people be excited about Darlene Graham.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 9: First, I want to talk to my credibility. I've known
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 9: Ralph for about fifteen years. Our families have been in
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 9: business together. We have real estate development companies. I've also
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 9: known Darlene Graham for about eight years, and keep in
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 9: mind I served with Ralph in the House for eight years.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 9: I've known Darling Graham through her brother Lindsey Rest in
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 9: Peace and through her work to secure federal funding and
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 9: advocacy for the Commissioner the Line. So I'm in a
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 9: unique position to make this assessment. I'd say number one,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 9: Ralph is not.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 13: In a position to do what South Colin needs.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 9: He has shown that he is an obstacle at every
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 9: course in the House. He has been the biggest thorn
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 9: in the side the President Trump of the entire House Caucus.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 9: And that's not what we need right now. We need
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 9: somebody that's going to go and advocate for the President's policies,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 9: advocate for America. First, seventy seven million Americans old President
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 9: Trump that they backed his vision for the future. They
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 9: wanted him to go and preserve the American dream.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 13: Give us about two hundred and fift years of greatness.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 9: And Ralph has been the single biggest obstacle to the
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 9: President's agenda, whether it's the speaker vote, whether it's the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 9: one big beautiful bill. And it's always about Ralph. And
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 9: I'm not flaming him because that's just his record.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 16: Now.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 9: Darlene, obviously she does not have a substantial political record,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 9: but she has shown that she's going to be an
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 9: advocate for the President's policies and the people of South Carolina.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 9: And listen, we get two senators. Senator Scott has shown
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 9: that he is an incredible advocate for the people with
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 9: South Kana and he's done everything he can to make
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 9: us prosperous here at home. Senator Graham did the same.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 9: We need more advocates that are going to go to
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 9: Washington to try to help South County prosperous. Not people
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 9: that are going to say no, I'm not people that
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 9: are going to make decisions based off of their own
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 9: personal self interest.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: So, as a supporter of Darling Graham, you're you did
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: take a little bit of a shot at Ralph. I mean,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: you gotta admit that that's a smile, a little shot
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: at Raalm.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 9: It's his record, it's his record, and listen, this is
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 9: the guy, this is the guy that campaign recruited a
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 9: candidate to run against me after I'm the only reason
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 9: he got on the committee he wanted to get on.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 9: So I mean, he's he makes things personal and he
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 9: attacks people.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 13: And again, his.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 9: Record is his record, and he wants to talk about
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 9: how Darling doesn't have a substantial record. He has an
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 9: incredible record of being a contrarian for no purpose other
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 9: than attention. And you can see that in the state House.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 9: He was the only person to vote against the speaker.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 9: Then he held out with the speaker until the President
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 9: had to call him and talked to him for an
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 9: hour on the phone. I mean, if he's in the Senate,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 9: he's going to be one of three votes that the
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 9: President's gonna need and I promise you, the President's gonna
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 9: be talking to him for hours on end to beg
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 9: him to do what the American people have already told
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 9: our country, They already told our president that they want
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 9: him to do. And that's not the kind of person
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 9: we need, in the kind of team player we need.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 9: We need somebody's gonna go work hard, help South Carolina
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 9: represent South Carolina and not make everything about themselves. And again,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 9: I'm not attacking him. I'm talking about his record. His
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 9: record is very clear. He's trying to hide from it.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 9: He's got fake pole saying that he supports or fake
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 9: scorecard saying he supports a president more than me or
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 9: Russell or Joe Wilson. I mean, it's just kind of silly.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 9: I mean, I hope people aren't falling for this stuff.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 9: The President has endorsed Darlene, has endorsed me and Russell
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 9: and Joe and Sherry multiple times. He's number once endorsed
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 9: for Alph Norman, not once, not once. That's because Ralph
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 9: Norman is for routes and he's not for America first,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 9: and he's not for South Carolina. And again, he trying
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 9: to hides from his record, while then Darlene doesn't have
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 9: a good one. I will take her record over his
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 9: any day of the week.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: Talking with Representative William Timmins from the fourth District, and again,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: just I understand your position that you think that Ralph's
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: an obstructionist to the president and Darlene would not be.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: But if you're looking for someone who's not an obstructionist,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: literally any of us pretty much could be in that
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: position because we would vote with the president ninety nine
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: percent of the time. I'm sure you would vote with
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: the president ninety nine percent of the time. And there's
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, a lot of South Carolinians who
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: would agree to vote on a lot of those bills
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: in agreement with the president. Is there other things about
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: Darlene Graham that excite you as a potential senator?
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 9: So one of the biggest issues right we have right
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 9: now is affordability. Affordability is the number one issue, and
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 9: there's nobody in the Senate that understands that issue more
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 9: than Darlene Graham. She lives paycheck to paycheck, She works
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 9: on her finances with her family at the kitchen table.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 9: She has to make hard choices at the grocery store.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 9: The vast majority of the Senate does not even know
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 9: what that means. They don't know how much the cart
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 9: and eggs are.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 13: They don't know what the price of milk is. They
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 13: don't know how much a gawn of gasses.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 9: So I mean, having somebody that lives this is very important.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 9: And the other thing is, remember she is a perfect
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 9: example of the importance of our social safety nets at
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 9: a time where social security is going to be coming
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 9: under fire because auscurity measures come in in five or
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 9: six years. I mean, she has been successful. She has
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 9: survived because of social security. Survivor does us Her parents
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 9: passed away when she was young, and Senator Lindsey Graham
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 9: adopted her, and they literally were able to make it
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 9: work as a family because of our social safety that's
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 9: they're very important. So to have someone that has survived.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 13: Has become a United States Senator.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 9: Having relied on those social safety nets, she is a
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 9: very unique perspective. And whether it's her just being a
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 9: fairly normal, average everyday American, or whether it's her personal
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 9: life experience with the importance of social safety nets in
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 9: our country, I think these are things that the Senate
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 9: sorely needs.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: Our country needs.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 9: Our country needs people that have had these experiences that
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 9: are able to go and say that's not really how
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 9: that works. And the proposal you're making that change is
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 9: going to adversely impact hundreds of thousands of Americans, and
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 9: so if you do it this way, I think that
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 9: that would be better. And again we go back to
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 9: this whole obstructionist thing with Ralph. I work hand in
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 9: hand with the White House on so many issues where
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 9: I get to bring my life experience and my knowledge
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 9: to the table to graft these bills to get them
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 9: in the best position possible to then vote.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 13: On them and pass them and get them signed into law.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 9: And that's a collaborative process. That process is critical to
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 9: really the entire legislative process. And that's not what Ralph does.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 9: Ralph wait till the end, the screams and yells, he
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 9: pitches the foot, and he says, I want this. If
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 9: you don't do this, I'm taking my ball and going home.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 9: When you could have come to the table when the
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 9: bill was being drafted to get this stuff done.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 13: And that's what Darling's going to do because.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 9: Her life experience is critical and understanding all the changes
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 9: that are being proposed are going to impact the American people.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 9: And you don't have to do it at the end.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 9: You do it through the process, and that's how it's
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 9: supposed to work.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: All Right, we got to wrap things up with you,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: Representative tim and certainly appreciate taking time.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: Quick question.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: Are you going to support whoever wins this in the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: in the general election?
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 9: I'll never vote for Ralph, but I would bever vote
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 9: for a Democrat. And I will say this, Ralph versus
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 9: Annie Andrews, that's gonna be a tough race and it's
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 9: gonna cost tens of millions of dollars and Darlen will
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 9: wipe the floor with her.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 13: So yeah, we'll leave it that.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: You've certainly given voters something to think about as they
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: head to the polls tomorrow, for our folks in Charleston
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: and people in the Midlands who might not be familiar
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: with your Representative Timmans. Certainly again the replacement for Trey Gotti.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: Are you still retiring next year?
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 9: By the way, all.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 13: Right, I'm running one more time.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 9: I'm on the ballot in November.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: Lea my last.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 9: I'm really looking forward to getting back to.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 13: Private life.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: Wow, we need more people like you are willing to
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: come on in and serve and do some stuff and
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: then move on out and let the fresh blood in
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: love that attitude.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Representative Timmins.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 9: Appreciate you having me on.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: All right, have a great day. All right?
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: What do you folks think you can let us know?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: Use the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. It's eight
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: forty three.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 16: This South Carolina Morning News, and this is Frank from Columbia.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 16: I'm sitting here listening to a Representative Timmins, and he
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 16: did exactly the opposite of what you called him to do,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 16: which was speak well about his candidate, Darlene Graham without
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 16: bashing the other candidate. And he just spent all this
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 16: time bashing the other candidate.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: Is wow, wow, you know it's look, I did the
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: best I could with that. I try to course correct
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: in the middle of it. Then I actually felt compelled
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: to ask him, would you support Ralph in the general?
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: He did say he would support Ralph Norman. But again,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: what we'll be back tomorrow with more of these opportunities
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: for you to make the you know, the big push
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: for your candidate. But we need to unify behind one
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: of them. In the next forty eight hours or so.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: All right, eight forty nine, take a quick breaking back
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: with more.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 8: You're listening to South Carolina This Morning News.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 4: All right, we got to wrap things up with you.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: Represented if Timmins certainly appreciate taking time quick question, are
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: you going to support whoever wins this in the in
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: the general election?
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 9: I'll never vote for Ralph, but I would never vote
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 9: for a Democrat.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 13: And I will say this, Wow, Ralph versus any.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 9: Andrews, that's going to be a tough race and it's
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 9: going to cost tens of millions of dollars and Darley
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 9: and wipe the floor with her.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: So yeah, well, leiave it that that I misheard him
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: in real time. I thought he said I'll vote for Ralph,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: but you Christopher during the break said no, I think
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: he said I will never vote for Ralph, which is
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: exactly what I just heard this time. When you write
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: it back for me, so, Representative Timmins from the Upstate
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: said he would not support Ralph Norman if he's fortunate
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: enough to move on tomorrow.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: And that's kind of what we've been trying to avoid.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: We want people to support whoever the nominee is over
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: Andy Andrews. Now by not voting for any Andrews, that
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that you're helping.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: You got to get out and actively vote for the candidates.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: He obviously has a personal ax to grind with Ralph
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: Norman well, and you.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: Know, it's certainly I would think comes down to the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: fact that Ralph Norman has supported a primary challenger who
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: almost beat him in the.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: Last run around.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: But anyway, we'll be back with more of your opinions
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: tomorrow morning just after six am with South Carolina's morning
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: News