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I'm Joel Heitkamp.

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Welcome to the hot dish comfort food for rural America.

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Heid had to go to it.

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It's not like she's doing community service or anything like that.

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Heidi, she had to go to a meeting.

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So, you know, I get the keys.

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I get the keys all to myself, which has got me pretty pumped because I've been anxious uh
to to meet and to visit with our guests today.

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You've asked us for a couple of things here on the hot dish.

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You want to know those swing districts.

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You want to know who we're going to have from our side of the aisle on the Democratic side
of the aisle in those swing districts.

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It's going to bring Democrats to Congress.

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Well, you're about to find one of them.

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So a couple of goals.

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Number one, so that you you meet Jamie here.

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Number two, at the end you grab yourself a pen and you find a way to make sure you go to
his website and donate to him.

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That's a goal of mine.

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Because it seems to me if individuals like him are gonna win, it's gonna take money to do
it.

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And so with that, Jamie Ager is, well, he's a businessman.

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He's a farmer.

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He's running for Congress in the 11th district of North Carolina.

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And let's bring him in.

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Jamie, good to have you on the hot dish.

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Thanks for doing this.

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Thanks for having me Joel, excited to speak to your audience today.

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Now I went through and it looks like there's a little history in your family from from
grandpa to dad to you.

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Give us a little background in your family.

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Sure thing, yeah.

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So I'm fourth generation here at Hickory Nut Gap Farm.

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My kids are fifth generation.

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My family's been here since 1916, so a pretty good while here in Western North Carolina.

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My great grandparents moved here.

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My great grandfather was a Presbyterian minister who came down to Western North Carolina
and uh basically started a farmers cooperative here called the Farmers Federation.

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And, uh you know, it's kind of a neat history because in 1916, Western North Carolina was
still sort of an economic doldrums of the post-Civil War South.

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And so uh they started a farmers' co-op to really sort of bring economic opportunity to
the region.

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And it was very successful.

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They had uh feed and seeds all over the region.

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They were sort of trying to develop markets.

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That was the early era here in Western North Carolina.

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Tobacco, Burley tobacco.

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was an important part of the agricultural economy around here, uh as well as small scale
dairies and stuff like that.

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so uh my family has a history in agriculture here in the region and really sort of service
and leadership as well.

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So uh I tell people I'm uh idealistic about making the future a better place.

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And I come by it honestly, because I come from a family of people that believe the future
can be better than the way it is right now.

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Yeah, but you truly do know what it's like to have family serve in the United States
Congress and you knew and know what it's like to have family serve in the legislature,

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which means, you know what, nobody gets rich doing that.

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It means they're not on the farm doing that.

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know, so it isn't like you don't know what you're getting into, I guess is what I'm
building up to.

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Yeah, my family's been involved in public service for a long time.

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I also have two brothers that served in the military for a couple of years.

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And so for a number of years, my brother Eric retired from the Navy.

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And so to serve things bigger than yourselves has certainly been a big part of it.

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My grandfather was in the US House back in the 80s.

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And so as a child, sort of was, you know, witnessed all that activity and dealt with all
that.

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And so yeah, we definitely have some family legacy around service to a bigger cause than
ourselves.

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So before we get into what you're going to do with the job after you get it, I want to
make sure that people know that that foundation.

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I want to make sure they know about the farm.

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And most importantly to me, when I was reading some of your background about the people
that rely on you.

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I mean, you've got you've got 25 people, which means 50 families, which means even more
people if you start adding in kids.

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mean, this farm matters to a lot of people, Jamie.

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Yeah, yeah, we, you know, the farm here at our home farm here in Fairview, uh we had a
dairy, we grew some Burley tobacco.

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We were a pretty typical small farm for Western North Carolina with Burley tobacco, with,
you know, we had about a 50 cow dairy that was really sort of an economic opportunity for

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so much rural America, as well as Western North Carolina, you know, through the
post-Civil, post-World War II up till about the 80s.

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And then in the

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In the late 80s, we sold the dairy here and most of the farm here was, uh the function of
it was to keep me and my brothers out of trouble.

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uh And then, then that sort of worked.

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uh But, you know, I went to college and got some ideas about, you know, pasture-based
agriculture, direct marketing, that type of thing.

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And so my wife and I, our senior year of college,

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Well, I was dating her at the time, but now my wife of almost 25 years, we put a business
plan together to come back to the farm and direct market grass-fed beef and pasture-raised

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uh poultry and pigs.

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And so I always sort of joke, we were young and idealistic about coming back to the family
farm.

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now it's been 25 years and we've raised three boys right here on the farm and built a
little...

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not only a farming operation, but we've got a little farm store that we sell out of, as
well as a wholesale meat company.

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You know, I realized pretty quick that if you're in agriculture and you're selling calves,
you know, it's a lot easier just to sell a big potload of calves and get them off the farm

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and get a big check.

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But if you're in the meat business, you got to have meat flowing all the time.

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Restaurants and retailers can't just have one load at a time.

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They need to be consistently providing that meat to their customers.

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And so I realized that we needed to start putting together a little program.

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And I took some ag leadership classes through NC State.

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um And so I met a bunch of other farmers and kind of put together a support.

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We've been, you know, for 25 years, we basically in putting together a little supply chain
for pasture based, you know, regenerative grass fed beef and pasture raised pork, cetera.

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So it's been a real journey.

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And, and for me, it's been a journey from, you know, farming all the time myself.

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to really um learning how to build a team of people to go execute a vision around our
mission.

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What we call our mission at Hickory Nut Gap is to build community through agriculture.

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And that's been going for many, many years.

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And really at the core of that mission is sort of this corporate language around
stakeholder model, stakeholder engagement, or conscious capitalism, where we wanna really

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build a great company and a great brand that

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uh does what um we think is valuable to people, which is to help farmers make a living and
to help customers get a good product, to take good care of our employees, and ultimately

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build an agriculture that's good for the environment on the farm as well.

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So it's good for the animals, good for the land, and good for the people involved, and
really sort of build a brand with that value proposition that goes all the way through.

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And you know, it's an imperfect...

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uh but we work at it hard every day and we've got a good group of about 25 employees
dedicated to that activity.

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Yeah, well, I'm not going to lie to you.

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You got me thinking about an inch and a quarter of ribeye.

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About 16 ounces of it.

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Yeah.

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So I want to I want to talk a little bit about, what, you know, what brought you to that?

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Once you started, I mean, you could have stayed home.

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I mean, you could have stayed home.

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There was plenty of work to do there, you know, but you chose to go off and study uh
environmental studies with a concentration on.

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uh agriculture.

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A lot of those worlds came together.

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I mean you and your family, you fought through and went through a hurricane.

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And I think it's important that people know, you know, how you pulled your boots up and
how you worked with your neighbors and speak to me about Hurricane Haleem.

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Yeah, we, September 27th, 2024, we got hit with a Hurricane Helene right here in Western
North Carolina.

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And I, we, you know, we've had a few hurricanes come through Western North Carolina, maybe
every 10 years or so, but Helene was different.

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And it ripped so much of the infrastructure all over Western North Carolina, roads,
bridges.

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uh People ask me,

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If you'd asked me two years ago, if we have mudslides here in Western North Carolina, I'd
said, no, not really.

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And we have five of them right here on the farm right now.

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And so, big ones.

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And so um that weather event really uh shook this region to the core in a way that in some
ways we all lost power for about three weeks.

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There was no internet service um and

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the communities all over Western North Carolina, because the geographic region that was
affected was pretty big, you know, all the way from basically, you know, Haywood County,

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Jackson County a little bit, all the way up into Avery County and up into Watauga County,
and all the way east, all the way to really Burke County in that way.

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And, you know, the effect of that storm was that

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So many people in our communities came together.

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We had to rely on one another and uh start rebuilding.

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And not only did we lose a lot of infrastructure and a lot of roads and bridges and fence
lines here at the farm, but we lost our friends and neighbors, which was devastating on

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sort of this emotional level.

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so, yeah, it's been, this was one of the reasons that I kind of decided to run for
Congress was because we...

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We had some politicians come into Western North Carolina and to Swannanoa and make big
pronouncements about the fact that we were going to get built back right and there was

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going to be plenty of funding and a big hoopla about that.

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And here we are a year and a half later and we've still got folks living in campers, all
kinds of funds that we were promised haven't come.

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We've got a lot of families still waiting on money to get their life rebuilt.

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And not only that,

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But we have uh a situation where um so many small businesses that, the storm hit us in
September and Western North Carolina is basically a service driven economy here with

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Asheville and the mountains.

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And October, November, December is just the strongest revenue for so many businesses all
over Western North Carolina.

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And, you know, we basically didn't have any business for several months while we got our
feet back under us.

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And folks are still, you know, revenues down 23 % year over year, even still as folks are
scared to come back to the region and that type of thing.

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um we're hurting.

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Western North Carolina is in rough shape.

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My brother has a solar company.

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He lost about a million dollars of solar panels down the Swannanoa River.

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And, you know, there's been very little support for him through that whole process.

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um I just, you know, a lot of folks here in Western will kind of feel frustrated in our
current Congressman Chuck Edwards.

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has failed us in getting the money, because they have all the political clout he should
need to go get the money.

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But he's not advocating for the people.

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I think he's scared of the administration to go ask for too much.

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And then emotionally speaking, part of good leadership is being available for people on
the ground and showing up in communities and having empathy and trying to be helpful in

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those ways.

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And he just has been tone deaf.

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m

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and unhelpful for folks in so many ways.

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And so there's just a lot of frustration around here.

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And I don't consider myself a super partisan person.

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I've never really, um you know, in business and in farming operations and all that, I stay
focused on what we're up to, but this sort of level of um frustration kind of caused me to

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feel like we needed to get in here and do something about it.

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And if there's anything I know about business and building a business and entrepreneurship
is you got to go find the person.

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who makes the decision and you gotta go to let him know that you need to get the business
or in this scenario, he needs to be over at Kristi Noem's desk every day and being like,

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where's the money?

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Where's the money?

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Go sign this, we gotta get this done.

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And he just hasn't been very aggressive in making all that happen.

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So it gets frustrating.

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you know, we're still sitting here without a farm bill.

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I mean, even before the hurricane, we're sitting here without the game plan, the rules
that you have to live by and your brother has to live by and others have to live by.

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So trust me, uh even though we didn't get hit with a hurricane, our people are ripping
their hair out, too, when it comes to.

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what ag policy is for this nation because nobody wants to take the lead.

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And it's just so frustrating with this majority.

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uh Do people get it?

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I've seen some of the poll numbers that show me things that make me very happy.

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you know, that isn't necessarily the poll numbers don't mean what you're hearing in the
parking lot at church or what you're hearing at the Seneca store.

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I mean, are people getting the fact that

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People on the federal government threw on some jeans, came out and talked to you, but
didn't do anything.

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Yeah, I hear about it quite a bit.

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mean, especially specific people that are affected by this are are annoyed and it's
holding up, you know, the ricochet effects throughout everything uh get felt.

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And so I definitely hear about this on a very regular basis.

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And it's almost like a loss of trust in the entire system, right?

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Because FEMA is the organization that kind of manages a lot of this activity.

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And was FEMA

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equipped to manage this disaster well.

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I think we can all agree that they didn't do a great job coming in here and helping us out
and fixing things up.

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And so it creates a lot of mistrust in the ability for the government to do things.

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And uh that's an understandable frustration because they didn't, they failed us.

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And when you look at why they've cut so many positions up there now over the past year,
and there's essentially no one to even talk to about it.

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And so so many folks feel very frustrated about the whole process and discouraged that the
government can execute any kind of help, which I think is um generally frustrating.

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As a father of three boys, I want to see um these kids grow up in a country that does hard
things, can do things like solve healthcare and solve immigration reform, et cetera.

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And right now our government just isn't functioning well.

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Well, and that's the next place I was going to go.

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You know, obviously that's a mountain to climb and a commitment that was made that that
you as a congressman are are going to focus on making sure that they do what they said

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they're going to do.

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But I want to go a little bit to where we're at just in general.

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uh The exchange health insurance, where this country is at when it comes to it.

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I don't know.

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in Western North Carolina in District 11, Congressional District 11.

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I know this.

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My buddies use the exchange.

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They use it in many ways.

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You know, they might just have five farm employees, whatever, but that exchange has been
very, very important to them.

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You know, on your website, you talk about that.

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You talk about the need for healthcare in the rural areas.

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You talk about the need for housing in rural areas.

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How you shouldn't be 40 when you get your first house.

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uh You know, do you think people understand that if we want

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people living off the land.

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The folks in DC get the fact that you need healthcare.

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You need need housing.

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Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of uh frustration around our healthcare system and the tearing
down of the system, but not replacing it with anything.

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with the recent, big, what I call the big, beautiful bill for billionaires really sort of
took a lot of Medicaid funding away from a lot of rural areas.

203
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Western North Carolina, we've got 16 counties in Western North Carolina.

204
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And I was talking to some folks recently over in Macon County.

205
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And you you'd think that adding work requirements to the language around folks that
receive Medicaid is good news just because it creates some rigor around it.

206
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But the reality is that it forces, it doesn't fund anybody to administer and ensure that's
happening.

207
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So it forces these rural counties to have to figure out these work requirements, which put
a huge bureaucratic burden.

208
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and financial burden on these rural places and essentially makes it so that people don't
end up getting Medicaid when they actually should.

209
00:17:48,711 --> 00:18:02,496
And so we've got situations here where the health care, sick care model that we have in
this country is just dysfunctional to the max and we don't see any hope in the future.

210
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And we really need a healthcare system.

211
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When I think about healthcare, like what does winning look like in healthcare?

212
00:18:09,298 --> 00:18:11,539
We need a good primary care system.

213
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where people know and trust their doctor and they're willing to go to their doctor and
they can have honest conversations there.

214
00:18:19,282 --> 00:18:31,417
We need to have the reality be that um the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United
States isn't healthcare bills, that people can get their prescription drugs without

215
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breaking the bank, and that rural hospitals aren't going out of business, which a lot of
this activity from that same bill is creating that outcome.

216
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We're seeing a situation where healthcare is going in the absolutely wrong direction in so
many examples.

217
00:18:48,020 --> 00:19:03,051
And to me, um know, we've got to, I don't feel like the subsidies for the, you know, for
people was a very successful scenario and that insurance companies were getting, making a

218
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ton of money on it, but we've got to have some type of relief.

219
00:19:06,023 --> 00:19:09,243
So we need to extend those subsidies, at least for a period of time.

220
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until we can get our act together and actually pass meaningful healthcare reform in this
country that covers people in a way that we described earlier.

221
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And we've got to have support for all these rural hospitals so they don't go out of
business.

222
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And we end up with folks feeling abandoned out here in rural America.

223
00:19:24,691 --> 00:19:33,671
Yeah, in the four or five towns around me, I'm talking about, you know, 2000 person towns,
know, small towns, places like you and I grew up around.

224
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The largest employer is the nursing home.

225
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You know, it's folks that, you know, you want them to live out the rest of their life
close to their family.

226
00:19:43,931 --> 00:19:46,251
And and we're lucky to have them.

227
00:19:46,251 --> 00:19:51,411
And, you know, the big, beautiful bill for billionaires, as you call it, and I think
rightfully so.

228
00:19:51,536 --> 00:19:52,677
blows it up.

229
00:19:52,677 --> 00:20:00,340
I mean we're gonna lose our real nursing homes unless people like you ended up putting on
those suits and ties and fix it.

230
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And so I wonder if people get that because they put all of that out.

231
00:20:06,629 --> 00:20:09,791
They didn't have the guts to just show it in the beginning.

232
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uh You know the pain's gonna come.

233
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It's gonna come in just a little bit here but they don't want to take the blame for it.

234
00:20:18,863 --> 00:20:22,497
And I don't know if your folks are as nervous about that as mine are.

235
00:20:23,155 --> 00:20:30,235
I hear about it every single day, especially since January when these subsidies expired
and it really hits people's wallets.

236
00:20:30,235 --> 00:20:32,295
It's pretty demoralizing.

237
00:20:32,295 --> 00:20:33,615
And housing's another issue.

238
00:20:33,615 --> 00:20:44,515
You mentioned it and the ability to afford a home for a starter family is just getting
harder and harder and out of reach.

239
00:20:45,635 --> 00:20:50,855
And that's as a father of boys who are, I've got a 21 year old.

240
00:20:50,897 --> 00:20:53,548
an 18 year old and a 16 year old.

241
00:20:53,628 --> 00:20:59,100
And I would love for them to be able to come back home and live in this community with us.

242
00:20:59,100 --> 00:21:01,732
And I want some grandkids around, you know?

243
00:21:01,732 --> 00:21:16,628
And I just worry that the inability to afford your home on uh a salary of a young person
is discouraging on so many levels.

244
00:21:16,628 --> 00:21:18,559
think I heard recently that...

245
00:21:18,559 --> 00:21:19,339
uh

246
00:21:20,743 --> 00:21:25,123
a starter home in Jackson County, which is two counties over from us.

247
00:21:25,523 --> 00:21:31,923
You'd have to be making close to $150,000 a year to afford a starter home in these rural
counties.

248
00:21:31,923 --> 00:21:35,703
And that's just terrifically expensive and discouraging.

249
00:21:35,703 --> 00:21:44,603
And I feel like, you know, with healthcare going crazy and out the roof and people having
to pay all their paycheck for healthcare and they pay it all for housing.

250
00:21:44,603 --> 00:21:46,843
And then we're seeing groceries climb.

251
00:21:46,843 --> 00:21:47,676
We're seeing...

252
00:21:47,676 --> 00:21:50,576
Utilities go up 40 % over the last five years.

253
00:21:50,576 --> 00:21:55,938
I mean, we've got some real um structural problems with our economic system.

254
00:21:55,938 --> 00:22:06,220
And I think when we see that all the sort of like stock market looks good and all these
kinds of economic metrics look good, but people can't afford to buy the things they need

255
00:22:06,220 --> 00:22:15,332
to do to get ahead, like we've got some structural problems in our economic system and how
the money gets into the communities that we all live in.

256
00:22:15,332 --> 00:22:17,767
so, um and then whenever you start

257
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feeling like you can't get ahead because you're working 40 hours and you're playing by the
rules and you just can't get ahead.

258
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Then you start feeling like the system's rigged a little bit.

259
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And to me, that's where we have work to do to fix the whole system.

260
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It's a lot of work.

261
00:22:32,798 --> 00:22:33,959
It's ambitious.

262
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But I think I'm a patriot.

263
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I care about our country.

264
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And I think in America, we do big things.

265
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We have to do great things.

266
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And to me, that's something that I think.

267
00:22:45,125 --> 00:22:46,537
is on us to help solve.

268
00:22:46,537 --> 00:22:48,118
And I'm not partisan with any of that.

269
00:22:48,118 --> 00:22:52,633
I'm just practical and want to just be helpful.

270
00:22:52,687 --> 00:23:03,406
No, you sound like that the guy that that uses the word I'm about to give you because if
you go, you know, on your website and I did and read up about you and your family, which,

271
00:23:03,406 --> 00:23:08,980
by the way, Cyrus, Nolan and Levi, they're not going to have a hard time finding somebody
to have those grandkids with.

272
00:23:08,980 --> 00:23:11,903
My assistant was like, boy, those are handsome young men.

273
00:23:11,903 --> 00:23:20,870
Anyway, you know, but you use the word on your website that jumped out at me because I've
read a lot and seen a lot of different candidates.

274
00:23:20,870 --> 00:23:22,341
And this word

275
00:23:22,769 --> 00:23:27,905
that you use doesn't get used a lot, but you use the word curious.

276
00:23:28,146 --> 00:23:35,355
That what you're going to bring to DC when you head there is curiosity.

277
00:23:35,355 --> 00:23:41,703
Explain to the people that are listening and watching here on the podcast what you meant
by that.

278
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,300
Well, um I tell a story.

279
00:23:45,300 --> 00:23:47,703
You know, there's a, he's almost 90 now.

280
00:23:47,703 --> 00:23:51,945
One of my best friends is Bass Hyatt down in Clay County, North Carolina.

281
00:23:51,945 --> 00:23:59,949
And Bass helped me sort of introduce me to some farmers we worked with over the years and
we'd ride around and go to visit farms.

282
00:23:59,949 --> 00:24:11,015
And one thing I always enjoyed about spending time with my friend Bass is that he was just
always so curious.

283
00:24:11,239 --> 00:24:18,961
even as an older man and asking questions and just had such a boyish way about him.

284
00:24:18,961 --> 00:24:29,515
And I just really admired that trait and it was more fun to live life when you don't know
all the answers and you're just always trying to learn stuff.

285
00:24:29,515 --> 00:24:32,326
And man, he was just always learning all the time.

286
00:24:32,326 --> 00:24:37,617
And to me, that inspired me to really face problems.

287
00:24:37,683 --> 00:24:48,723
because I feel like the reality is that the ability to solve hard problems is the ability
to ask good questions as opposed to have all the answers.

288
00:24:48,883 --> 00:24:56,803
And so, and to me, that's just kind of become a way that I approach a lot of problems on
the farm here, a lot of problems in business.

289
00:24:56,803 --> 00:25:03,523
And know, at Hickory Nut Gap, we're ambitious about sort of rethinking how agriculture
works.

290
00:25:03,523 --> 00:25:05,743
You know, I feel like in capitalism,

291
00:25:06,085 --> 00:25:18,072
So often what you see is businesses win when they externalize costs onto others, whether
that's the land, whether that's poor treatment of animals, whether that's poor treatment

292
00:25:18,072 --> 00:25:19,763
of employees, et cetera.

293
00:25:19,763 --> 00:25:22,784
And so our job here is not to do that.

294
00:25:23,225 --> 00:25:32,090
But then trying to sort of change things at that level does require a lot of curiosity and
learning.

295
00:25:32,090 --> 00:25:34,311
And I don't feel like curiosity

296
00:25:34,924 --> 00:25:37,886
is something that is very ideological.

297
00:25:37,886 --> 00:25:41,588
And I don't think anybody has all the good ideas out there.

298
00:25:41,588 --> 00:25:56,025
And I see a big difference between, I think one of the um challenges I have for my fellow
party Democrats is I see a lot of idealism, but the ability to execute the idealism is a

299
00:25:56,025 --> 00:25:58,596
lot different than just having a big idea.

300
00:25:58,596 --> 00:26:03,975
And so to me, um that takes a lot of curiosity, that takes a lot of learning.

301
00:26:03,975 --> 00:26:12,020
That takes a lot of relationship building with people you might disagree with to learn
their perspective and make sure you fully understand their perspective so that you can

302
00:26:12,020 --> 00:26:15,262
incorporate good ideas that might be out there.

303
00:26:15,343 --> 00:26:26,630
so, um yeah, that curiosity is something that I think is a, my wife says when we were
trying to decide whether or not to run for Congress or not, we deliberated on it quite a

304
00:26:26,630 --> 00:26:27,071
bit.

305
00:26:27,071 --> 00:26:33,855
And uh at the end, she looked at me and she said, you're just too curious not to want to
go do this.

306
00:26:34,345 --> 00:26:50,759
Well, the word jumps out and great explanation because in a great tie in to people on our
side of the aisle, who I think that the comment that you made about you can have all the

307
00:26:50,759 --> 00:26:58,004
bold ideas, but unless you know how to implement them, unless you can work through that
and be curious enough to do that, doesn't matter diddly.

308
00:26:58,004 --> 00:27:00,166
And so I couldn't agree more.

309
00:27:01,695 --> 00:27:14,780
If and when you win and you head to DC and you're one of those, you're going to be
somebody that's got to push a button to fund DHS, uh to fund ICE.

310
00:27:14,961 --> 00:27:25,065
I don't think it would be fair to you to have people listen to this without being able to
comment on what you've seen in my home area.

311
00:27:25,065 --> 00:27:31,167
I live three hours from downtown Minneapolis and uh you know, I want to know

312
00:27:31,203 --> 00:27:34,202
what you think about what you've seen.

313
00:27:36,908 --> 00:27:38,399
we haven't seen ICE as much.

314
00:27:38,399 --> 00:27:47,933
They've been in North Carolina a little bit, but certainly not to the degree that they
have up in, you know, the Midwest up there.

315
00:27:48,033 --> 00:28:02,439
And, uh, you know, to me, this, this latest episode over the past weekend, really, uh,
made me terribly sad for our country that we don't have better leadership that brings

316
00:28:02,439 --> 00:28:03,749
people together.

317
00:28:03,813 --> 00:28:07,745
as opposed to just trying to do whatever they can to tear us apart.

318
00:28:07,845 --> 00:28:13,879
And to me, that's terrible leadership and inexcusable and unconstitutional besides all
that, right?

319
00:28:13,879 --> 00:28:15,370
Which we know is terrible.

320
00:28:15,370 --> 00:28:26,466
um And I think that as we look at that and look at the role of the leaders in the
administration who are accountable to this, we need to have some level of accountability

321
00:28:26,466 --> 00:28:28,723
like Kristi Noem's got to go.

322
00:28:29,298 --> 00:28:30,819
we do need, mean, I'm...

323
00:28:30,929 --> 00:28:32,430
I'm in favor of law and order.

324
00:28:32,430 --> 00:28:35,433
We need a good law and order in this country.

325
00:28:35,433 --> 00:28:37,184
We were a nation of laws.

326
00:28:37,184 --> 00:28:42,168
um To think we can't enforce those laws is not going to work.

327
00:28:42,168 --> 00:28:51,016
But to have uh masked, unmarked cars, et cetera, m is over the top and unacceptable.

328
00:28:51,016 --> 00:28:57,741
And now that we're seeing folks die due to incompetence is inexcusable.

329
00:28:57,741 --> 00:29:00,503
And we got to have some accountability here.

330
00:29:01,316 --> 00:29:04,299
So uh how do they get in touch?

331
00:29:04,299 --> 00:29:05,320
How do they donate?

332
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:06,701
How do they do all the things?

333
00:29:06,701 --> 00:29:13,748
Because I'll guarantee you there's some people that have watched this that think that's
the kind of candidate we need in these swing districts.

334
00:29:13,748 --> 00:29:16,370
So where can they find out more about you?

335
00:29:16,701 --> 00:29:20,224
So the website is agerforcongress.com.

336
00:29:20,224 --> 00:29:21,855
You can check that out.

337
00:29:22,015 --> 00:29:25,178
We have a Facebook and Instagram.

338
00:29:25,178 --> 00:29:27,650
All the social media stuff is going as well.

339
00:29:27,650 --> 00:29:30,042
So you can check all that out.

340
00:29:30,042 --> 00:29:38,749
Ager for, I can't remember all the different handles, but I'm sure if you Google it all or
go to the website and then click on the little Instagram link or whatever, you'll find all

341
00:29:38,749 --> 00:29:39,319
that stuff.

342
00:29:39,319 --> 00:29:42,392
But yeah, no, I really appreciate it, Joel.

343
00:29:42,392 --> 00:29:45,514
We're super excited about going and getting this campaign.

344
00:29:45,514 --> 00:29:46,750
I'm a hard worker.

345
00:29:46,750 --> 00:29:49,281
I got a farm background, so I know how to work hard.

346
00:29:49,281 --> 00:29:55,405
And I'm not scared to have hard conversations with people and uh dig in and learn.

347
00:29:55,405 --> 00:29:58,700
Because I think that uh we have a lot, we have a great country.

348
00:29:58,700 --> 00:30:02,589
I love our country and I want to see our country do great things.

349
00:30:02,589 --> 00:30:14,285
And so my hope is that as a member of the United States House of Representatives, I can um
help make our country a better place and ultimately um make my kids' lives better.

350
00:30:14,503 --> 00:30:15,524
Well, we need you.

351
00:30:15,524 --> 00:30:22,352
Thanks for running oh as somebody who's gone door to door a lot in his life, both for
myself and for Heidi.

352
00:30:22,352 --> 00:30:25,095
Just remember, it's the little dogs that bite.

353
00:30:25,095 --> 00:30:28,689
The big ones got the bark, but it's the little ones that bite.

354
00:30:28,689 --> 00:30:30,081
So, Jamie, thanks.

355
00:30:30,081 --> 00:30:31,722
Thanks for coming on the hot dish, man.

356
00:30:31,722 --> 00:30:32,843
Appreciate it.

357
00:30:32,967 --> 00:30:33,728
Thanks, Joel.

358
00:30:33,728 --> 00:30:35,070
Thanks for your time.

359
00:30:36,214 --> 00:30:36,544
Yep.

360
00:30:36,544 --> 00:30:37,051
Thank you.

361
00:30:39,902 --> 00:30:47,442
I want to talk about Alex Pretti and I'm not trying to avoid talking about Renee Goode
because both of those two individuals are heroes.

362
00:30:47,442 --> 00:30:48,922
They really are.

363
00:30:49,002 --> 00:31:01,202
Maybe it's because in Alex's case, I connect with it a little bit more just simply because
I own guns and they use guns as the excuse to kill him.

364
00:31:01,202 --> 00:31:09,340
Alex went to be seen, maybe seen is the wrong word to use, to just basically

365
00:31:09,340 --> 00:31:11,811
be there with three things.

366
00:31:11,811 --> 00:31:12,201
He did.

367
00:31:12,201 --> 00:31:13,471
He went with three things.

368
00:31:13,471 --> 00:31:21,393
He went with a phone, which is the most dangerous thing to ICE because they hate being
recorded and shown to be exactly who they are and what they do.

369
00:31:21,393 --> 00:31:25,365
ah He went with a gun, which is his legal right to go.

370
00:31:25,365 --> 00:31:28,295
And he was licensed to do it.

371
00:31:28,395 --> 00:31:30,476
He had a concealed permit.

372
00:31:30,636 --> 00:31:32,096
So, yeah, he went with a gun.

373
00:31:32,096 --> 00:31:37,998
uh The other thing he went with that I think is the one that got him killed was
compassion.

374
00:31:38,352 --> 00:31:40,443
And I want to explain that.

375
00:31:40,443 --> 00:31:48,927
First off, I don't know how if you live down there and you're the type of person that Alex
clearly was, you stay away.

376
00:31:48,927 --> 00:31:52,389
So I don't want to hear the crap from people saying, well, you should have never been
there.

377
00:31:52,389 --> 00:31:54,310
Yeah, OK, it's his street.

378
00:31:54,310 --> 00:31:55,100
It's his town.

379
00:31:55,100 --> 00:31:55,890
It's his community.

380
00:31:55,890 --> 00:31:56,601
It's his people.

381
00:31:56,601 --> 00:31:59,672
He can be anywhere he wants to be.

382
00:31:59,672 --> 00:32:01,453
So don't give me that crap.

383
00:32:01,493 --> 00:32:03,566
Also, he carried a gun.

384
00:32:03,566 --> 00:32:06,198
my God, what did he take a gun to a protest for?

385
00:32:06,198 --> 00:32:08,669
We heard a treasury secretary say that.

386
00:32:08,669 --> 00:32:18,154
We heard our Homeland Security say, we heard the head of the FBI say that as they tried to
turn him into and actually used words like domestic terrorists.

387
00:32:18,154 --> 00:32:19,354
Shame on them.

388
00:32:19,935 --> 00:32:22,236
Shame on them.

389
00:32:22,497 --> 00:32:31,271
You know, to take his life and then blame him for it and then have his family see that
splattered all over media.

390
00:32:31,271 --> 00:32:33,122
Shame on them for doing that.

391
00:32:33,390 --> 00:32:34,870
But you know what?

392
00:32:35,011 --> 00:32:44,094
Alex got involved not just by videotaping, Alex got videotaping, it shows you how old I
am, but Alex got involved because of compassion.

393
00:32:44,375 --> 00:32:53,298
A woman got thrown to the ground by ICE and he went over to help her up and see if she was
okay.

394
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:56,139
And that's when ICE kicked in on him.

395
00:32:56,660 --> 00:32:58,150
That's when ICE kicked in on him.

396
00:32:58,150 --> 00:33:00,461
He didn't pull his gun, ladies and gentlemen.

397
00:33:00,461 --> 00:33:02,402
Let's be clear about that.

398
00:33:02,608 --> 00:33:13,201
And so the people that normally are out there screaming Second Amendment, Second
Amendment, and people like me who own guns say, you know what, we don't just sit there and

399
00:33:13,201 --> 00:33:16,362
wear it on our sleeve and say, my God, we're gun owners.

400
00:33:16,682 --> 00:33:23,144
You know, people like us are the ones who I think truly support the Second Amendment.

401
00:33:23,385 --> 00:33:28,726
And so the administration, they lost the moral higher ground.

402
00:33:28,868 --> 00:33:35,321
in so many ways, not just in how they're treating Americans through ICE, but you know
what?

403
00:33:35,562 --> 00:33:42,426
None of them and anybody who supports them better talk to me about the Second Amendment
again.

404
00:33:43,386 --> 00:33:46,428
Thanks folks, thanks for hearing at least my side of it out.

405
00:33:47,149 --> 00:33:56,014
And I want to thank you for joining us today on The Hot Dish brought to you by One Country
Project, making sure the voices of us are heard in Washington.

406
00:33:56,014 --> 00:33:56,890
Learn more.

407
00:33:56,890 --> 00:33:58,881
at onecountryproject.org.

408
00:33:58,881 --> 00:34:01,043
That's onecountryproject.org.

409
00:34:01,043 --> 00:34:04,805
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We'll be back next week with more hot dish comfort food for rural America.