Live from Virginia Tuesday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed U.S. Senate Republican nominee and veteran Daniel Gade to the show.
During the show, Gade explained his campaign and his motivation for defeating career politician Mark Warner. He was confident that he could target independents and other conservatives that were sick of the status quo and wanted a change in Virginia.
Fredericks: Joining us now is Daniel Gade who is a veteran amputee. Daniel Gade is running for U.S. Senate Republican nominee against Mark Warner which will be decided on November 3rd. Daniel Gade great to have you with us man.
Gade: Thanks, John. I really appreciate being on.
Fredericks: All right, you had two pretty good debate performances I thought. You know, what was interesting in both debates Mark Warner your opponent Democrat incumbent was very reluctant to directly criticize Trump. Why do you think that is?
Gade: Well, I actually thought he came after Trump after the president really hard. But maybe he could have maybe it could have gone harder. But the truth is I think you’re right, as you said. It is partially right that he doesn’t want to make the thinks he can win some Republicans who he thinks are going to split the ticket voting for Trump and then him. And that’s, of course, is ridiculous because he was the leader of the intelligence committee, you know, ‘investigation into Trump collusion.’ So nobody who’s a Trump voter should believe that Mark Warner has their interest in mind.
Fredericks: Well, I don’t think so either. In these two debates, what was the biggest thing that you learned Daniel?
Gade: Well, you know, I learned that Mark Warner is just a career politician. I mean, I knew that. I knew that by his record, but then when you get up there on the stage and you see him repeating talking points instead of actually answering the question. When you see him repeating platitudes instead of actually engaging with the topic at hand.
It’s like, oh that’s what a career politician looks like up close. And so I thought both of my debate performances were absolutely victorious. My staff and professionals around me were thrilled. And so the good news here is that I’ve drawn a sharp contrast between the career politician Mark Warner and me as the career servant. And I think that’s been my biggest takeaway.
Fredericks: Tell me about what you think in this campaign what Mark Warner’s biggest weaknesses, Daniel.
Gade: Well, his biggest weakness is that he has voted with his party virtually in lockstep his entire career and he’s never taken any hard position. So his strategy and his entire political career has been to be sort of be the grey man. The man that nobody notices. The one who only pops up every six years for a campaign. And he doesn’t lead on legislation. He doesn’t take any controversial hard stance and he doesn’t ever go up against his party. And the reason he did that for the longest time was that he thought Virginia was basically a purple or even a red state and he was trying to keep his seat.
Now that he thinks it’s a permanently blue sea, he just is trying to keep his seat by voting with his party all the time. And so and the people of Virginia are smart enough to see through that façade and they know that he is simply a career politician. I think that’s the main weakness. You know, people look at Richmond and they look at D.C. and they say I’m sick of that. That’s a mess. And then they look at the people who are there and they say oh, that’s why it’s a mess. Maybe we should pick new people here.
Fredericks: Daniel, when you look at this race right now, a lot of people have written you off. What do you have to do to win?
Gade: Well, we have to keep doing what we’re doing right now which is we have to unite the base and reach out to independents and soft Democrats. A month ago the polls were me down 22. A week ago they had me down nine. And we’re going to run another poll in a couple of days that I think is going to show really great progress. So what I’ve been doing is introducing myself to the voters by radio and TV and we’re going to keep doing that and we’re seeing that independents, I know most of the folks who are listening to this right now are probably pretty solid conservatives.
But the truth is that independents, when they’re distressed and when they discover that there’s the chance to vote for a career servant rather than a career politician independents are coming over two to one John. And so the challenge is to introduce myself to the independents. And even in Northern Virginia, our internal polling shows me and shows Mark at like 52 and me at like 40. So that is great news because if I get 40 percent of Northern Virginia I win the race.
Fredericks: Well look, the recent polling that we have and you’ve got the same shows you down nine. We’ve got us down three about between three and three and a half. So you running six behind Trump right now. But I attribute that to just name ID. A lot of people don’t know you that’s why you’ve got Your 30 days to get out there Daniel and do it. Let’s talk about the Senate hearings with Amy Coney-Barrett.
Mark Warner has been very critical of the Senate moving forward and McConnell moving forward with her nomination both hearings and then the vote before November third. Do you think the Republicans are doing the right thing? Or would you rather wait until we decide who’s going to be the next president?
Gade: Well, I don’t you know. Here’s what I’ve said consistently. It’s that the constitution gives the President of the United States the authority to appoint judges and other executive officials and gives the Senate the responsibility to either confirm or refuse to confirm those nominees. And in 2016, the Republican Senate errored in not giving Merrick Garland a vote. They should have brought it to the floor voted on him defeated him and told Obama to try again.
And in 2016 Mark agreed with me because he said #do your job. And in 2020, we’ll call that Mark flop. And in 2020 Mark says, oh no, no. We need to wait until after the election as if a president’s authority only is, you know, three-point eight years or three-point seven years rather than four years of a term. So the president still has the authority to appoint somebody.
I’m glad he appointed Amy Coney-Barrett. I think a lot of her and the Senate has a responsibility to give her an up-or-down vote. And I certainly hope they’ll vote yes. And if they don’t, then I’ll vote yes in January when she comes to the floor because she is a distinguished jurist who believes that the constitution is a contract as I do.
Fredericks: As far as your positions and policies, I know there’s one issue that you don’t see eye-to-eye with the Trump Administration on and that’s H-1B visas. I kind of get your position on it. I don’t agree with it, but I certainly respect where you’re at. Are there other positions that you don’t share the same view as Trump does?
Gade: Yeah. So on the H-1B thing, you know our education system in America is a mess. And we’re not sending out enough, and we’re not graduating enough high-tech qualified people to fill all the demand for high-tech jobs particularly in Northern Virginia. So I’m okay with H-1B visas. I think we ought to be bringing the best people from around the world to pull the American plow and work in our industry.
And that’s an area in which I mildly disagree with the administration but that’s fine. You know, Virginia is electing me to be a voice for Virginia and a student and a scholar of the constitution. And so that’s what I’m going to do. Another area that I have expressed some dismay with the administration is in the first three years of the administration, but pre-COVID the budgets were, you know, trillion-dollar deficits year every year and I think that’s a mistake.
I think that what we ought to be doing is having the fiscal discipline and moving towards a balanced budget as rapidly as possible. And that’s an area that the administration I think is in reality an effort to rebuild America as rapidly as possible they were doing some deficit spending which I think was excessive. But that’s a process concern. Not who the president is but how do we get to our shared goal of making keeping America the best country in the world.
Listen to the full show here:
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