Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's my pleasure to welcome back to Koa Lauren Bobert,
Republican congresswoman representing Colorado's fourth congressional district. I think I
haven't had Lauren on the show for maybe three months,
so it's good to have you back. Lauren. Thanks for
being here.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Ross. It is great to be with you again, and
sorry about the delay. As I'm playing Granny today and
my grandson, who I stepped away from my phone.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
For a minute, that's more important actually, So thank you
for taking time away from your grandson to be with us.
If I were you, I probably would have told Ross
to like take a hike. I got my grandkid today,
But thank you. So before we get into issues, you
are several months now into representing CD four. You did
(00:47):
several years in CD three. What are you finding as
the main differences, if any, in your job between representing
four versus three.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, well, I would say the biggest difference other than
the terrain from mountains to the plain, is really a
lot of us talk about this rural urban divide, which
is very real, but I've come to find there's even
more of an east west divide in Colorado, and some
of us would call that the Continental Divide. We have
(01:23):
ninety percent of Colorado's water west of the Continental Divide
and ninety percent of the population approximately east of the divide,
and so there is a continuous water struggle. So water
remains a top issue for me. It's just the way
I go about delivering those results to my constituents is
(01:43):
much different. Before I was really battling the federal agencies
fear of land management all of these public lands and
the third District for more water storage, more access, multiple
use options for federal lands and now here and we're
where's the majority of the fourth District is privately owned.
(02:05):
There's different strategies to go about water storage projects on
these private lands. I've been working with five different counties
in the fourth District for the Parker Water Project, and
this is something that I'm hoping to get a direct
community project funding for. Hopefully we can get several million
dollars of that so we can have an abundance of water,
(02:28):
keep water that Nebraska wants to take from us. And
other than that, you know, I mean, this is a
slightly more diverse district in terms of rural and those
suburban areas like Larimer County, parts of Weald County and
of course Douglas County, and so balancing those those needs
and representing their specific issues is something that I focus
(02:52):
on each and every day.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Very interesting answer.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I love.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I love the water answer, and I know you've been
focused on water for well your whole time in Congress,
and it's I will say water. You've heard the old
line a thousand times, right, whiskeys for drinking and waters
for fighting. And water is arguably the most or one
of the most complex political issues. And that's all I
(03:19):
really know, right. I haven't studied it. I just know
the law and the politics and the emotions around water.
And if you never thought of it, then you wouldn't
think of it. But it is just one of the
most difficult issues. It pits people against people, and state
against state and humans against nature and it's tough.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, and every local government has some level of authority
with the water as well. And we're even taking on
Mexico for the water that they're taking from Colorado, so
even other countries are getting involved.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Okay, one other quick thing. Last time when you were
on or maybe the time before that, we talked about
your bill that I think passed or you said it
was going to pass dealing with like zip code stuff,
so you wouldn't have all these towns that showed up
in the mail as other towns and had and it
caused sales tax problems. What's the what's the status of
all that?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yes, so that built past the House, and we were
in the last two hours of the congressional session last
year and one senator put a hold on it at
the very end and killed it in the Senate. But
we are reintroducing this. We have more communities that are
added to this year's legislation. Once again. It is bipartisanate
is by camera, and in fact, I just spoke with
Chairman Comer of the Oversight Committee where we have jurisdiction
(04:32):
over these zip code issues. And this is one of
our more recent priorities to get this passed out of
the House once again, and I'm Senator Bennett is co
sponsoring in the Senate. It will be bipartisan by cameral
and it'll give these towns not only an identity, but
it'll help with sales tax revenue, homeowner insurance rate, first
(04:53):
responders response times and accuracy, and of course mail delivery.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah. I love the fact that you're saying on this issue,
and I commend you for it. Last question on it,
do you happen to remember which senator it was who
put the hold on it? And have you spoken with
that person?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, the Senate's a tricky animal there, and it is anonymous.
What senator I was given a hint that it was
a Democrat. There were actually several holds put on it
for different reason and I was able to track down
most of them and get the holds listed, But that
very last one that went signed on to it would
not allow me to know who they were.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Remarkable. Ye okay. This is from Denver seven dot com,
our ABC News affiliate here, quoting from a news article.
Representative Lauren Bolbert wants to hold federal funding for a
state funded project that would bring passenger rail service to
Colorado's Front Range. All right, I won't read anymore. Tell
us what you're thinking and doing here.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, So this is an issue that has certainly come
up a lot here in the fourth District. This is
a massive money pit the to the project that will
take years and years to even begin, and it will
take spend billions of dollars on a system that is
rarely used. And so I am working with Elon Musk
(06:13):
and Secretary Duffy to halt the federal funding for the
Front Range passenger rail project in Colorado. This is going
to cost way too much money, money that we should
not spend. And I mean it's starting estimate is at
fourteen billion dollars. So this certainly flies in the face
(06:35):
of any DOGE efforts to save the taxpayers money. But
the project, it's been advertised as a solution to transportation
needs in Colorado's Front Range Corridor. However, an honest assessment
reveals that this project is absolutely irresponsible. It's fiscally irresponsible,
it's impracticable, and the benefits and the special interests there,
(07:00):
it benefits special interest groups rather than the American citizens.
And you know a lot of folks with that rail
service that is already in place. If you look at
the carts, they're mainly empty. Those who are riding it
are writing it for either nothing or very little, and
at some points it's really just a traveling homeless center.
(07:21):
And so there are more efficient ways that we can
be using money. We all know that Colorado's roads need
to be fixed. We're somewhere around forty seven in the
nation for road quality, and I think that we can
invest more in our actual roads rather than use imminent
domain to seize private property from the constituents in Colorado.
(07:42):
I think that it's an absolute unacceptable overreach by the
federal government. And I've heard directly from the locals and
constituents who live in the projected railway who have absolute
grave concerns over this. So we want to stop this.
And you know, even if you look at our TD's funding,
I believe that their budget is more than se DOT.
(08:05):
RTD's budget is more than c DOT and only a
very small percentage. I think it's four percent. If I'm wrong,
I'll get that number to you. Of their budget only
comes from fair rate and others. It's from sales tax.
It's about sixty percent from sales tax from the communities
(08:26):
that fund our TD. And you know, this is just
another one of those examples, another extension of that funding
where their fair rates don't even cover the actual projects itself.
It can't stand on its own, then it shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
It shouldn't be projected. Well, what I like to say
about basically all passenger rail in the US, and these
are always kind of fever dreams of the of the left,
of people like Gavin Newsom. But what I like to
say about projects like this is, yes, they tend to
take years longer than they're planned to take to build them,
(09:02):
and yes, they tend to be billions of dollars over
budget by the time they're done. But at least they
will run huge losses every year while they're operating.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yes, that is exactly right.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
You know, we have.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
A we have a Republican club, I guess in Washington,
d C. The Capitol Hill Club. And you know, I
tell people all the time, you know that the food
is overpriced, but at least it's mediocre. And they're kind
of the same concepts there. And it will run deficits
and the taxpayers, not only in Colorado but Nathan Wide
(09:36):
will pay for it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Unbelievable. All right, let's do one more thing. We have
just just a couple of minutes here. So the federal
budget is a very big deal, and the House has
to pass a budget. There's been some debate about one big,
beautiful bill, which Donald Trump talks about a lot, you know,
or break it up into two bills. And there's a
lot of stuff between the House and Senate that I
don't entirely understand. But what are you seeing? So I
(10:01):
have two questions, what are you seeing as the likely
path of the budget process here? And do you think
that fiscal conservatives, and I consider you among them, who
really want to be aggressive in cutting government spending, do
you think you're going to get your way or do
you think that you know, Republicans squishes in the House
(10:21):
are going to minimize spending cuts.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, there are many of those Republicans squishes. Unfortunately we
are out numbered there.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
But I meant the Senate if I said the House, well, they're.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
In the House too. Don't think they aren't. And I
battled them and debates every single day I'm in Washington, DC.
We've sent over one point five trillion dollars in spending
cuts for this budget reconciliation, the Big Beautiful Bill, and
the Senate sent us back four billion dollars in cuts.
We sent one point five trillion, They sent back four
(10:54):
billion dollars and cuts absolutely insulting. And so we do
have a a verbal agreement with Senate Leader John Soon
and our speaker and many Republicans in the House saying
that our baseline will be one point five trillion dollars
in cuts. We are still spending at pre COVID pandemic levels.
(11:18):
There's nothing closer to eternity here on earth than a
government program. Everyone wants to justify the spending, but we
have got to get this over. Almost thirty seven trillion
dollars in debt. It is a moral, unsustainable, unjustifiable, and unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Okay, So just one quick follow up, because we only
got about a minute. So you know, I talked about
the budget cutters, the fiscal hawks, and again i'd say
I think that includes you. You can correct me if
you think it doesn't. But I wonder then on the
other side of the Republican Party, and usually Mike Lawler
is the poster boy for this, and I don't dislike
the guy, but Mike Lawler is a Republican from New
(11:55):
York who is in a swing district or even a
light blue district. And there's a few people like this,
Republicans who are in districts that maybe Biden won the
first time and when Biden ran, and they're going to
have a hard time going along with as much spending
cutting as you want. So if they won't go along,
I mean you guys can't be in a position where
(12:16):
you need Democratic votes because then we're all totally hosed.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Correct, Democrats are not going to sign on to this,
and America is about to get a crash course on
budget reconciliation. The beautiful part of it is we can
do budget reconciliation as many times as we need. If
we need seven beautiful bills, we can do seven of them.
It's the only thing that does not require the filibuster
in the Senate, where it only takes a simple majority
(12:42):
to pass the legislation and have President Trump sign that
into law. So it may be one big, beautiful bill,
but there's a chance that we could end up with
several before we get to actual agreement. We've got to
have border fundings, we've got to have cuts, and President
Trump has a prompt significant tax cuts, no tax on tips,
no tax on social Security, no tax on overtime, and
(13:05):
we have got to find a way to balance that
and reconcile that so we aren't going further into debt.
This is our number one priority and it's going to
get really exciting when we go back to DC next week.
Is this is the thing we will be working on
until it passes, and maybe even more if we pass
(13:26):
more budget reconciliation.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I will ask you to just check with your staff.
I believe that it is not correct to say you
can pass as many reconciliation bills as you want. I'm
pretty sure there is a limit on the number of
reconciliation bills that can go through in any one year,
So go check that. But I agree with you on
everything else.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We're talking with the Speaker on that, and it's highly debated,
and yes, there is an avenue and a mechanism to
pass multiple we don't want to pass seven. We would
like to keep it down to two, maybe even three,
or if we get it right the first round, just
the one.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Lauren Bobert is a good Republican congresswoman representing the fourth
Congressional District. Thanks for your time. As always, Lauren appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Thanks ro
It's my pleasure to welcome back to Koa Lauren Bobert,
Republican congresswoman representing Colorado's fourth congressional district. I think I
haven't had Lauren on the show for maybe three months,
so it's good to have you back. Lauren. Thanks for
being here.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Ross. It is great to be with you again, and
sorry about the delay. As I'm playing Granny today and
my grandson, who I stepped away from my phone.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
For a minute, that's more important actually, So thank you
for taking time away from your grandson to be with us.
If I were you, I probably would have told Ross
to like take a hike. I got my grandkid today,
But thank you. So before we get into issues, you
are several months now into representing CD four. You did
(00:47):
several years in CD three. What are you finding as
the main differences, if any, in your job between representing
four versus three.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, well, I would say the biggest difference other than
the terrain from mountains to the plain, is really a
lot of us talk about this rural urban divide, which
is very real, but I've come to find there's even
more of an east west divide in Colorado, and some
of us would call that the Continental Divide. We have
(01:23):
ninety percent of Colorado's water west of the Continental Divide
and ninety percent of the population approximately east of the divide,
and so there is a continuous water struggle. So water
remains a top issue for me. It's just the way
I go about delivering those results to my constituents is
(01:43):
much different. Before I was really battling the federal agencies
fear of land management all of these public lands and
the third District for more water storage, more access, multiple
use options for federal lands and now here and we're
where's the majority of the fourth District is privately owned.
(02:05):
There's different strategies to go about water storage projects on
these private lands. I've been working with five different counties
in the fourth District for the Parker Water Project, and
this is something that I'm hoping to get a direct
community project funding for. Hopefully we can get several million
dollars of that so we can have an abundance of water,
(02:28):
keep water that Nebraska wants to take from us. And
other than that, you know, I mean, this is a
slightly more diverse district in terms of rural and those
suburban areas like Larimer County, parts of Weald County and
of course Douglas County, and so balancing those those needs
and representing their specific issues is something that I focus
(02:52):
on each and every day.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Very interesting answer.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I love.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I love the water answer, and I know you've been
focused on water for well your whole time in Congress,
and it's I will say water. You've heard the old
line a thousand times, right, whiskeys for drinking and waters
for fighting. And water is arguably the most or one
of the most complex political issues. And that's all I
(03:19):
really know, right. I haven't studied it. I just know
the law and the politics and the emotions around water.
And if you never thought of it, then you wouldn't
think of it. But it is just one of the
most difficult issues. It pits people against people, and state
against state and humans against nature and it's tough.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, and every local government has some level of authority
with the water as well. And we're even taking on
Mexico for the water that they're taking from Colorado, so
even other countries are getting involved.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Okay, one other quick thing. Last time when you were
on or maybe the time before that, we talked about
your bill that I think passed or you said it
was going to pass dealing with like zip code stuff,
so you wouldn't have all these towns that showed up
in the mail as other towns and had and it
caused sales tax problems. What's the what's the status of
all that?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yes, so that built past the House, and we were
in the last two hours of the congressional session last
year and one senator put a hold on it at
the very end and killed it in the Senate. But
we are reintroducing this. We have more communities that are
added to this year's legislation. Once again. It is bipartisanate
is by camera, and in fact, I just spoke with
Chairman Comer of the Oversight Committee where we have jurisdiction
(04:32):
over these zip code issues. And this is one of
our more recent priorities to get this passed out of
the House once again, and I'm Senator Bennett is co
sponsoring in the Senate. It will be bipartisan by cameral
and it'll give these towns not only an identity, but
it'll help with sales tax revenue, homeowner insurance rate, first
(04:53):
responders response times and accuracy, and of course mail delivery.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah. I love the fact that you're saying on this issue,
and I commend you for it. Last question on it,
do you happen to remember which senator it was who
put the hold on it? And have you spoken with
that person?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, the Senate's a tricky animal there, and it is anonymous.
What senator I was given a hint that it was
a Democrat. There were actually several holds put on it
for different reason and I was able to track down
most of them and get the holds listed, But that
very last one that went signed on to it would
not allow me to know who they were.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Remarkable. Ye okay. This is from Denver seven dot com,
our ABC News affiliate here, quoting from a news article.
Representative Lauren Bolbert wants to hold federal funding for a
state funded project that would bring passenger rail service to
Colorado's Front Range. All right, I won't read anymore. Tell
us what you're thinking and doing here.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, So this is an issue that has certainly come
up a lot here in the fourth District. This is
a massive money pit the to the project that will
take years and years to even begin, and it will
take spend billions of dollars on a system that is
rarely used. And so I am working with Elon Musk
(06:13):
and Secretary Duffy to halt the federal funding for the
Front Range passenger rail project in Colorado. This is going
to cost way too much money, money that we should
not spend. And I mean it's starting estimate is at
fourteen billion dollars. So this certainly flies in the face
(06:35):
of any DOGE efforts to save the taxpayers money. But
the project, it's been advertised as a solution to transportation
needs in Colorado's Front Range Corridor. However, an honest assessment
reveals that this project is absolutely irresponsible. It's fiscally irresponsible,
it's impracticable, and the benefits and the special interests there,
(07:00):
it benefits special interest groups rather than the American citizens.
And you know a lot of folks with that rail
service that is already in place. If you look at
the carts, they're mainly empty. Those who are riding it
are writing it for either nothing or very little, and
at some points it's really just a traveling homeless center.
(07:21):
And so there are more efficient ways that we can
be using money. We all know that Colorado's roads need
to be fixed. We're somewhere around forty seven in the
nation for road quality, and I think that we can
invest more in our actual roads rather than use imminent
domain to seize private property from the constituents in Colorado.
(07:42):
I think that it's an absolute unacceptable overreach by the
federal government. And I've heard directly from the locals and
constituents who live in the projected railway who have absolute
grave concerns over this. So we want to stop this.
And you know, even if you look at our TD's funding,
I believe that their budget is more than se DOT.
(08:05):
RTD's budget is more than c DOT and only a
very small percentage. I think it's four percent. If I'm wrong,
I'll get that number to you. Of their budget only
comes from fair rate and others. It's from sales tax.
It's about sixty percent from sales tax from the communities
(08:26):
that fund our TD. And you know, this is just
another one of those examples, another extension of that funding
where their fair rates don't even cover the actual projects itself.
It can't stand on its own, then it shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
It shouldn't be projected. Well, what I like to say
about basically all passenger rail in the US, and these
are always kind of fever dreams of the of the left,
of people like Gavin Newsom. But what I like to
say about projects like this is, yes, they tend to
take years longer than they're planned to take to build them,
(09:02):
and yes, they tend to be billions of dollars over
budget by the time they're done. But at least they
will run huge losses every year while they're operating.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yes, that is exactly right.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
You know, we have.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
A we have a Republican club, I guess in Washington,
d C. The Capitol Hill Club. And you know, I
tell people all the time, you know that the food
is overpriced, but at least it's mediocre. And they're kind
of the same concepts there. And it will run deficits
and the taxpayers, not only in Colorado but Nathan Wide
(09:36):
will pay for it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Unbelievable. All right, let's do one more thing. We have
just just a couple of minutes here. So the federal
budget is a very big deal, and the House has
to pass a budget. There's been some debate about one big,
beautiful bill, which Donald Trump talks about a lot, you know,
or break it up into two bills. And there's a
lot of stuff between the House and Senate that I
don't entirely understand. But what are you seeing? So I
(10:01):
have two questions, what are you seeing as the likely
path of the budget process here? And do you think
that fiscal conservatives, and I consider you among them, who
really want to be aggressive in cutting government spending, do
you think you're going to get your way or do
you think that you know, Republicans squishes in the House
(10:21):
are going to minimize spending cuts.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, there are many of those Republicans squishes. Unfortunately we
are out numbered there.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
But I meant the Senate if I said the House, well, they're.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
In the House too. Don't think they aren't. And I
battled them and debates every single day I'm in Washington, DC.
We've sent over one point five trillion dollars in spending
cuts for this budget reconciliation, the Big Beautiful Bill, and
the Senate sent us back four billion dollars in cuts.
We sent one point five trillion, They sent back four
(10:54):
billion dollars and cuts absolutely insulting. And so we do
have a a verbal agreement with Senate Leader John Soon
and our speaker and many Republicans in the House saying
that our baseline will be one point five trillion dollars
in cuts. We are still spending at pre COVID pandemic levels.
(11:18):
There's nothing closer to eternity here on earth than a
government program. Everyone wants to justify the spending, but we
have got to get this over. Almost thirty seven trillion
dollars in debt. It is a moral, unsustainable, unjustifiable, and unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Okay, So just one quick follow up, because we only
got about a minute. So you know, I talked about
the budget cutters, the fiscal hawks, and again i'd say
I think that includes you. You can correct me if
you think it doesn't. But I wonder then on the
other side of the Republican Party, and usually Mike Lawler
is the poster boy for this, and I don't dislike
the guy, but Mike Lawler is a Republican from New
(11:55):
York who is in a swing district or even a
light blue district. And there's a few people like this,
Republicans who are in districts that maybe Biden won the
first time and when Biden ran, and they're going to
have a hard time going along with as much spending
cutting as you want. So if they won't go along,
I mean you guys can't be in a position where
(12:16):
you need Democratic votes because then we're all totally hosed.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Correct, Democrats are not going to sign on to this,
and America is about to get a crash course on
budget reconciliation. The beautiful part of it is we can
do budget reconciliation as many times as we need. If
we need seven beautiful bills, we can do seven of them.
It's the only thing that does not require the filibuster
in the Senate, where it only takes a simple majority
(12:42):
to pass the legislation and have President Trump sign that
into law. So it may be one big, beautiful bill,
but there's a chance that we could end up with
several before we get to actual agreement. We've got to
have border fundings, we've got to have cuts, and President
Trump has a prompt significant tax cuts, no tax on tips,
no tax on social Security, no tax on overtime, and
(13:05):
we have got to find a way to balance that
and reconcile that so we aren't going further into debt.
This is our number one priority and it's going to
get really exciting when we go back to DC next week.
Is this is the thing we will be working on
until it passes, and maybe even more if we pass
(13:26):
more budget reconciliation.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
I will ask you to just check with your staff.
I believe that it is not correct to say you
can pass as many reconciliation bills as you want. I'm
pretty sure there is a limit on the number of
reconciliation bills that can go through in any one year,
So go check that. But I agree with you on
everything else.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
We're talking with the Speaker on that, and it's highly debated,
and yes, there is an avenue and a mechanism to
pass multiple we don't want to pass seven. We would
like to keep it down to two, maybe even three,
or if we get it right the first round, just
the one.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Lauren Bobert is a good Republican congresswoman representing the fourth
Congressional District. Thanks for your time. As always, Lauren appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Thanks ro
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