Latest / Breaking The Meta / The Man Challenging Speaker Mike Johnson | Interview w/Matt Gromlich
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: you you Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. Today we have a very, very, very, very special guest. His name is Matt Gromlich and he is running for Louisiana's 4th District. And just in case anybody doesn't know, the current representative for Louisiana's 4th District is the current Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. So I am so excited about having this conversation. Matt, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. Absolutely, absolutely. So for those of us that don't know much about Louisiana, could you just give us a quick explanation about ⁓ what is in Louisiana's fourth district? In Louisiana's fourth district is about a third of the state geographically. So if you look at a map of Louisiana, know, Northwest Louisiana, so the top quarter, but then it goes over to about halfway. through the state and then down pretty much all the way down to Lake Charles area. And it purposefully is gerrymandered so that it doesn't include parts of Shreveport, the big city, or parts of Alexandria or parts of Lake Charles. It doesn't include Baton Rouge and New Orleans. So it is a very geographically large district, which is very difficult to get to everybody in the district. Also there's because of the geography. A lot people don't have a lot of broadband. So the ways of contacting people are a little difficult. But yeah, it's a district and I live here and I work here and I love this district and these people. Yeah. So just going a little bit deeper into that, would you mind just giving us a little background on yourself and why you decided to run for Congress in the first place? Sure. Yeah. So like you said, my name's Matt Gromlich running in Louisiana for My background is that I'm a lifelong educator. This is my 14th year teaching. I started out teaching middle and high school math and science. then got it. It's great. It's great. I loved it. I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it so much that I ended up going to school. got my PhD and then the job here in Ellis. I work at Ellis image report where I teach future high school math and science teachers. Yeah. Nice. So why did you decide to run in the first place? So yeah, why change my entire life and jump into a race that people say is, already confirmed, ⁓ outcomes. And I really think that in this political environment, every single person needs to be contested. Every person who's allowing this administration to occur to, you know, make the decisions that they're making to attack American citizens. we need to primary or we need to run against every single person that we can. That's the only way that we're one going to win in some of these districts. And then two to show that there are people in every single part of America that are not okay with this current administration. Yeah. Like I said, mad respect, mad respect. When, when I saw, when I saw your name on, on the calendar, I was very, very excited. As you have gone around the district and talked to people, what are the current pain points? What are the things that your districts are dealing with the most that needs help from the federal government? I think there are a lot of things that are just universal, where you talk about prices, affordability, inflation, specifically here, maybe more so than other places, looking at job and job opportunities. We don't really have an industry here anymore. The biggest industry is like the healthcare industry. But as far as, you know, manufacturing implants, a lot of that has been gone from our community for a while. And even the data centers that they talk about bringing in aren't going to bring in a lot of jobs. And, you know, we can talk about that as well. That is an issue in our community that we're facing. I think one of the bigger things though, is just the fact that it feels like Mike Johnson has abandoned our district and our people, where he is not making decisions for us in Louisiana. He's now become part of the establishment and he's covering for them. And, you know, the number of times that the house has been not in session is insane, like how many people can make money and not work. So I think that there's a discontent. in the local community with, how are we better now than we were 10 years ago? And if we can't point to things that have actually made our lives better, well, we should probably have different representation. So as you've walked around and talked with people, you know, weird weird. Have you noticed as you've been walking around that people Are people noticing that Mike Johnson has kind of been non-existent? Like, is that something that you were hearing quite often? Yes. I think it's, ⁓ yeah, non-existent in our community and then actively damaging when he's in Congress, when he's in Washington. And, you know, Mike Johnson is from this community. A lot of my colleagues went to school with him, went to high school with him. Yeah. So it's interesting hearing their perspective where It's like we had hope. When we sent him to Congress, there was a hopefulness to it and it hasn't materialized. And then since he's become speaker, it truly had, you would think that the speaker would be able to whip the votes to get some benefit to their constituency. And that truly hasn't happened. And the things that he's supported have actively hurt the people around here and people are noticing. So obviously that goes along with my next question, which one of the biggest problems that we have, I think in politics is a lack of accountability. And I think that doesn't matter which side of the aisle you're talking about, whether you're even when you're talking about federal state, whatever, we're even just normal people. I feel like we've just got a huge accountability problem in this country. ⁓ So my question is, how do you see accountability? How do you see being held accountable? by your constituents and how do you see accountability going forward in Congress? Okay, a lot of questions there. How do I see it? How do I want it? what? Yeah, like how do you see it? How do you want your constituents to be able, like how do you want to be held accountable by your constituents if you become ⁓ a congressman? Yeah, I think so much of what's happening right now is because of misinformation and disinformation. And as an educator, that's like extra painful to me. So part of my campaign is trying to get information to voters and not biased information, not information that is like purposefully manipulative. hey, here's especially like with money. I say I'm like a happy tax accountant here. Here's happy math teacher. here's where we're spending our money on. Here's all the money that we have. Here's where it's been going. Here's how we prioritize in the past. We can make different priorities in the future. And so for me, that's investing in healthcare, investing in education, in like a universal pre-K school lunches. And so I would want my constituents to say, number one, are you educating us? Are you letting us know what's happening? I mean, we have like six different elections happening in Louisiana in 2026. There's so many different special elections. Your congressman should be the person being like, hey, there's elections. There's elections. We had this huge storm coming through. We heard from our governor, didn't hear anything from our congressional representatives about, you know, the storm itself. Where do you go if you, if you lose power? Like the, that person should be in the know and they should be helping out their community. like I, want to do that and I want people to hold me accountable for that. So obviously you had mentioned healthcare as an issue that your district deals with a lot. I'm assuming that the passage of the Medicare cuts that are coming with the passage of the big beautiful bill, the loss of subsidies from ⁓ the deal that was made to ⁓ create the budget for this year, both of those either are currently or will affect your community greatly. Yeah, they will. think, you know, the impact is still a little to be determined. ⁓ And, it's hard because of the political gamesmanship that there is where, okay, we're going to pass this, this bill and some of it's going to be enacted now, but some of it won't be until 2027. And then we could maybe blame it on the other party or whoever comes into power. And it's so frustrating because people are going to get hurt and die because of your decisions. Like, this is not a position that should be taken lightly, and it's not a game. This is life or death. And it's so frustrating and demoralizing to know that there are people in these positions who care more about themselves and their political futures than how their vote is impacting their... Yeah. How has the tariffs that this administration has blanketly thrown around affected your district? I think we don't see as many of them. Like you can't point as much to a specific place or industry. But of course, price increases across the board. Right. And that is because of the tariffs, whether the administration wants to agree with that or not. We, I mean, we've seen a hike in almost every single cost associated with living. Going along with the tariffs, we're also dealing with things like ⁓ changes to our place on the world stage. Whether you're talking Venezuela, Greenland, the back and forth tariffs and threats to our allies that has already caused things like Canada to create a new trade agreement with China ⁓ and our president to threaten 100 % tariffs on them to try and get them to not, guess, even though they are. How do you see, regardless of what this administration thinks, our place in the world stage has changed in a year. How do you see our place at the table? How do you see our place in foreign? affairs going forward from this point on. It's not great for a little bit. In one year, we have shown that we are much more likely, well, we've shown as an American population that we are willing to vote in somebody again with the popular vote. So we can't now say like, oh, 2016 was a fluke, there's an electoral college. It wouldn't have happened anywhere else. We've shown who we are as Americans, or at least in 2024, who we were as Americans. So other countries, like that's not a fluke anymore. Other countries have to respond accordingly. And you're seeing that the countries are making trade deals with other more stable trading partners, where it's not this at a whim or going to have 100 % tariffs and then no tariffs and then 10 % tariffs and then, ⁓ maybe starting in May, we will. I mean, if you are a country and you care about your citizens and your population, then you're going to want to partner with people that are much more stable. And we've proven that currently we're not. So in the short term, we have to build up that respect again and that stability. It'll take a little while, unfortunately. I mean, there's so much damage that has happened. I definitely can't argue. I would even say that because of what this administration has done, it was going to take a lot more than probably anyone thinks to build back that trust. Because even if we bring someone back in, 2028, who cares who's to say that the next president after that isn't just going to snap their fingers and do the exact same thing again, right? Yeah, because we brought in somebody in 2020. And then we switched back. So we're going to have to show other countries that will have like consistent leadership and foreign policy. That's not an every four year thing. And maybe some sort of ⁓ regulation or just changing the way we do things in this country to make sure that something, someone can't come in and just snap their fingers and do exactly what this administration is doing. Well, and part of that is Congress or should be. There's a reason why we have checks and balances in this country. There's a reason why we have separate and co-equal branches of government and that we aren't led by a king, a dictator, a ⁓ one man show. And that's why it's so frustrating where Congress, if they wanted to, could have stopped or could even now stop a lot of the decisions that are being made at the executive side. And they're choosing actively not to. Right. Yeah. So I like to do this thing where we future cast a little bit. So you get through the primaries, general election comes and you beat Mike Johnson. Everyone has a party for a little while. And January 2nd comes around and you are sworn in. What is the first thing that you do? So I'm an educator. I've seen the impacts of poverty and lack of resources on our students, on our communities, on our families. And I think one of the first and easiest things to do that is not like completely dismantling a system is to provide free school lunches to every single child in the United States. And I would say to teachers as well. I remember my first year teaching, I was making like such little money that some days I had to put money in my car and drive to work and I didn't have enough money to bring food. So like if we care about our future and our children and we are as, you know, pro life as we say we are in Louisiana. then we should not want any child to go to school hungry. So like that's number one. And that is something where we can take money that has a different priority, reprioritize. And you know, you would have to figure out like how you deal out the money for that, but it's already within a system that exists. So like, let's make sure that nobody goes to school hungry. I love it. I love it. If Anyone listening got to this point and you had one or two things that no matter if they forgot everything else we talked about that they remember about you, about this campaign, what would those one or two things be? That's a great question. If people have gotten this far, then I want them to know that, well, thank you for listening, but that you're not alone. I'm stepping up. have my campaign. It's going to be a hard fought battle. I know that the odds are against us, but that never stopped anybody in our country from fighting. We have had so many times where it looked like we wouldn't even be a country or that we wouldn't be able to survive. And we have, because people have stepped up and gotten together and built a community and fought back. And that's what I'm trying to do. And, you know, it's not just me there. I have to have like an amazing team around me in a community and support. But we can get through this when we work together and we're able to band together and fight. really good to me. I totally agree. 100%. It's one of the main reasons I'm doing what I'm doing here is to try and help get the word out for people that really want to fix and change things. And change is possible. I say to my students too, like, Change is not only possible, change is inevitable. The world is changing, your lives are changing, every single day is a change. So let's make change purposeful and not just let change happen around us. ⁓ I thought of another question that I wanted to make sure I asked because ⁓ Louisiana obviously is a pretty deeply red state in general. What has been your experience walking around and ⁓ interacting with people that consider themselves Republicans in some way, or form, but see a D next to your name. Yeah. It's tough. But I think what I want to communicate and need to communicate to people is that I was raised in a very conservative Republican family, very Christian family. The values that were instilled in me as a Republican conservative Christian when I was eight are still the same values that I hold today. And truly, it's not like me who's changed, it's the Republican Party who's changed and shifted. And just because there's a D next to my name, it doesn't mean that that we're different. It doesn't mean that we don't hold these same values. And so if you can like, get around me having the D next to my name, like the more that we talk, the more that I talk to people, ⁓ As long as everybody is in a position where like they're at least a little willing to listen. We've had really great conversations and we're really not that different. Care about our community. We care about our future. We want people to be happy and healthy and not scared. And we want a better life for our kids. And we want to have a good job where we feel like we're a valued member of society and that we're giving back. That is what the members of my community want, no matter what you have next to your name. So it's getting over that first hurdle of, please talk to me. I promise I'm not scary. have this whole video concept of like, promise Democrats aren't scary. Like we're not the devil. We're not, you know, but there is that kind of mentality from a lot of people that you do have to overcome. When is the primary for Louisiana? So the primary it's interesting. This is the first time that we've had a closed party primary for federal position So it's a huge change that's part of the education as well before we had like just the November jungle primary So ours is May 16th with early voting starting May 2nd ⁓ Closed party primary and then move on to the general gotcha ⁓ if Anyone is interested in learning more about you or supporting your campaign, whether volunteering or ⁓ donating, where can they find you? Yeah, someone all the socials, most of them, Matt Grom, look for Congress or, you know, some variation. And then Matt Grom look for congress.com or fighters for our future.com. Both of those lead to the same place. I like fighters for our future. I was told it's a little too cute. And so if somebody wanted to like they, should be able to just like Google Matt Gromwell for Congress and get it. So there's both. and yeah, they're, ⁓ donate volunteer. have some videos on there. I have a really cool series. It's called what if, and it's, know, what if we took this money that was allocated for this purpose and then we re prioritized it for this other purpose? Like what could we do just with the money we currently have? So I encourage people to check out that series. And yeah, you can donate and volunteer no matter where you are in the country. Volunteering doesn't necessarily have to mean like knocking on doors, although it does include that there's so many different aspects of research team and ⁓ looking at different policy positions and yeah, I can use all the help I can get. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you coming on here and talking with us for a little bit. ⁓ Thank you for everyone that. that listened this far for both of us. If you wouldn't mind hitting all those buttons down below, it really does help me out and make it possible for me to keep doing what I'm ⁓ And watching and sharing this, not just for Matt, but for every candidate who is a grassroots candidate who's not trying to take large amounts of money, wants the country to grow and wants to break that status quo and wants to fix all of these problems that have just been. you know, sitting here for decades and no one's ever worked on. These people want to be held accountable. They want to work for you. They are a part of your community. And ⁓ the best thing that we can do as part of this country is help these people with visibility and name recognition. So please consider watching this as well as ⁓ their social medias or any of the videos that I'm putting out and sharing them with people, especially if you know people in those districts. It really is helpful to everyone. And for anyone who doesn't know anything about this podcast, just so know, Breaking the Meta is all about hard conversations when necessary, about breaking that status quo and about fighting for the fact that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender, or identity, deserve rights, respect, dignity, and safety. And I will continue to fight for that as long as I'm doing this podcast. ⁓ Matt, thank you again for joining us. I really do appreciate it. And for everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye, guys.