ICYMI: Tillis Talks Reelection With WRAL’s David Crabtree Ahead Of Super Tuesday

March 2nd, 2020

Contrasts His Accomplishments With Democrats’ Socialist Agenda

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – In an interview that aired on WRAL-Raleigh this past weekend, Senator Thom Tillis sat down with David Crabtree to talk about his re-election campaign ahead of Super Tuesday. Tillis discussed his record of conservative and bipartisan accomplishments, as well as the need to fight back against the dangerous socialist agenda that his challengers are embracing by vowing to support the Democratic nominee for president.

Watch the full interview HERE.

HIGHLIGHTS

Tillis on how he’s done for America what he first did for North Carolina at the state level:

A part of what I have enjoyed most is how some of the things that I did for North Carolina, I have been able to do for all of America. We think about tax cuts, something we were very focused on when I was Speaker of the House, doing the tax cuts and seeing a direct and immediate reaction in terms of job growth, record low unemployment among African Americans, women, hispanics. To be able to get a second shot at criminal justice reform. When I was Speaker of the House we did the Justice Reinvestment Act, which was really trying to get smart on rehabilitation, reducing recidivism, and then to go up there and serve on the Judiciary Committee and work to get criminal justice reform done, to see that happen. Even something along eugenics. We did the eugenics compensation when I was Speaker of the House, I was able to go up to the Senate because we found out that someone who may be entitled to some level of restitution could be subject to federal taxes, and to be able to get a bill in place to kind of finish what I started here.

Tillis on his record bipartisan accomplishments:

I think the one thing I hope your viewers recognize, is that there’s a lot of good things that happen every day. When I was on the Senate floor during a recess during impeachment, I was down in the well talking to one of the House managers who was trying to remove the President of the United States. I’m sure the media and people watching from afar thought we were talking about impeachment, but we were talking about a bill we’re working on to help farmers. And in the back when you’d see us talking, I’m talking with Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware on intellectual property reform that we’re working on. I could list a long list of things that have happened on a bipartisan basis. You can’t get anything done in the Senate without bipartisan support, and I’ve got a long, long list of those things that I could talk about, that at the end of the day I’d say I scored pretty high in my first five years.

Tillis on his Democratic challengers vowing to support the Democratic nominee for president:

What matters to me is both Cal Cunningham and Erica Smith have said that they would endorse whoever gets nominated by the Democratic party for president. They’ve gotten out there in support of the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a lot of what I consider to be empty promises that they simply cannot deliver on. They would destroy the economy, they could take health care away that you get on your job from 160 million Americans. At the end of the day, that’s what this election is going to be about – their liberal progressive agenda, or one of limited government and historic growth.

Tillis on how all of the Democrats running for president are wrong for North Carolina:

I firmly believe that they are probably going to go all the way to Milwaukee before they have a nominee, but they all have the same thing in common. They are all coalescing around a bigger government, higher tax, higher regulation, many of them have openly said that we are spending too much money on the military and we need to spend it somewhere else. So the candidate who wins the nomination – I have people ask me which one I would prefer over the other – I said it really doesn’t make much difference now because they are all racing to the far left with the liberal progressive agenda that I don’t think people in North Carolina and the battleground states are going to accept.

Tillis on the danger socialism poses to the next generation:

I actually love meetings, smaller meetings where I can have a real discussion with young people. I meet with a lot of them in my office and as I’m traveling across the state. I think many of them are smart enough to know that the promises that some people are making, they probably can’t keep. Now some actually believe that now is the time – I saw some interviews in New Hampshire among some young people that said they believe that now is the time for the United States to become socialist or a socialist democracy. I think we need to continue to explain the long term consequences for that. To give all that we want to give, all that we take away is their freedom and their opportunity, their ability to realize the kinds of dreams that you and I realized. And when you communicate it in that way – I remember when my daughter was 14 years old, the mother of my beautiful grand baby, she wanted me to give her some money, she was probably about 12 years old, and she said, dad I want money. I can’t even remember what she wanted it for. I said, well sweetie we don’t have enough money to do that. She said, we just need to go to the bank. Well the same thing is true here. We just need to go to the bank, but there is no money in the bank to pay for what they are promising. I think that they are empty promises. They will hurt employment, they will destroy our economy, they will make us less competitive in a time where we have the opportunity to have the strongest economic might that this nation has ever enjoyed. That’s very, very important for this generation coming up and for the generations behind them, and I’m fighting for that.

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