tennessee senator marsha blackburn was the keynote speaker over the weekend at a event by the -- hosted by the iowa faith and freedom -- in the morning -- des moines. [applause] >> thank you so very much. i love this. i think we have about 700 happy warrior freedom fighters in this room, i am decided to join with you this evening. i am so pleased to see, not only governor kim reynolds, isn't she doing a federalist job? -- fabulous job?

of course you've already heard from mary annette and ashley and the great job they are doing. we appreciate how they leading for life in the u.s. house of representatives. i think probably, you are all going to help them out this year and help them fire nancy pelosi. so. [applause] and of course chuck grassley. what a great job he does. what is so interesting to me, we would not know all we know about hunter biden except for the tenacity of chuck grassley leading this investigation into hunter biden. he has done such a great job there. and of course, joni ernst, who i

love serving within the senate. she does an unbelievable job. not only for republican senators , but defending our men and women in uniform and standing up for our nations military and our nations veterans. we appreciate so much. all of her leadership. that she brings their. whelp. joe and kamala have had a really quite a remarkable year. don't you think? i was making some notes as we were coming over here, here are some of the things they have pushed forward this year. covid with all of their lockdowns and mandates. cancel culture.

you have the green new deal. you have gas prices higher than ever before, shortages at the grocery store. inflation the highest it has been in 40 years, you have an open southern border, you have the debacle in afghanistan. you have what is going on with russia, ukraine, china, north korea, iran. can you believe they want a new ironic nuclear deal? and -- iran nuclear deal? they want to pack the courts, they want to federalize elections. they want to pack the courts so they can take away your free speech, your religious liberty, your second amendment rights. they are all about abortion.

that is what they have spent their year on. the way i look at it, they have an agenda. you know what we have? we have a vision. we have a vision that, if we focus on our founding principles, if we stay true to what this nation was founded on, if every day we are that happy warrior for faith, family, freedom, hope, opportunity for all, this great nation's best days are ahead of us. they are not behind us. [applause] sen. blackburn: that is one of the big differences between the democrats and their agenda, and

us and our agenda. so many times when i am at home in tennessee, and i am out and about, someone will come up to me and go through this agenda of everything that is going on. the issue of the day, the press is following the hot issue of the day. they say, "marsha, what are we going to do about this?" we've got to let people know what is really going on. if you take three issues out of this list, if you look at what is happening with russia and ukraine and the way this is putin's war, ukraine didn't do anything to cause this. this is putin's war. it is his war of choice.

it is up to us to make certain that people understand that. that he has done this. it is also up to us to make certain they understand russia is a big oil depot with an army with nuclear weapons. it is imperative that we, the united states of america, make certain that ukraine has everything they need to defend themselves and defeat vladimir putin. [applause] sen. blackburn: it is so important in protecting our freedoms. you know, there is a place that our national policy, all of this that is happening with russia, with ukraine, with iran, with the new nuclear deal, i cannot believe this administration

would have the russians negotiating an iran nuclear deal. that is why the u.s. senate needs to stop that from ever happening. [applause] sen. blackburn: the place we intersect, that foreign and domestic policy is at the southern border. that is why it is imperative that we do what president donald trump suggested and build the wall, and secure that southern border. [applause] sen. blackburn: until we do that, every town is a border town. every state is a border state. right now, as they are talking

about ending title 42, we know those cartels are working globally and are going to be pushing people across that southern border. last year, we had people from 160 different countries come across that southern border. we had people with names that matched names on the terrorist watchlist. 38 of them. we had 2 million people in total come across the border. we had an additional 600,000 got a ways that came across that border. it is time for us to secure our southern border and give our border patrol what they need to defend that border, and defend the citizens of this country. [applause]

sen. blackburn: just as we need to be busy defending our nation's border, we need to defend our nation's freedoms. we have got a little bit of a culture war going on. we have seen that play out in senate judiciary committee, with the nominees that the biden administration is sending us to go on to our federal district courts, our appellate courts, and our u.s. supreme court. we have just been through that process with the new supreme court justice. yes, indeed we made a little bit , of news there because i feel like anybody who is going to take a seat on the u.s. supreme court should be there to, first

of all, defend the constitution, this great nation, and the rule of law for this great nation. [applause] sen. blackburn: i believe that we should believe in 1776, and not the 1619 project. [applause] sen. blackburn: i believe that we should believe in the sanctity of life and protecting life at all stages of life. [applause] sen. blackburn: i certainly believe that anybody that is going to serve on the u.s. supreme court should stand against crt, should stand against woke education and woke

kindergarten curriculums. i believe they ought to know the difference between a man and a woman. [applause] sen. blackburn: one of the things that is most pressing in our country right now is what is happening in this nation's culture war. you know, as i said, we have got a vision for how we think better days can come. opportunity for all. of freedom for future generations. they have an agenda that says, let's put government in here between the family and the child. let's let government take control of making some of these

decisions. let's let government run your life, daylight to dark, 24/7, 365. that is not something we as conservatives believe in. we have a great message to give to people. it is time for freedom loving people to be the people, as we are instructed to be in our constitution, our founding documents. the declaration of independence is the aspirational document. we believe, we support, we hope, we dream, we aspire. life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. the constitution is the guarantee on which it stands. it is up to us to make this happen.

like ronald reagan says, we do not pass freedom along in the bloodstream. every generation has to fight for it and pass it on. it is going to be up to us to do this for our children, for our grandchildren. two quick stories before we go. one is about being the people. the other is about freedom. in tennessee, when i was in the state senate, we had a great example of the people standing up and being the people. we had a governor, my party, he decided he was going to offer a state income tax, which we did not have in tennessee. budgets were tight. he said, "you know, we need more money." i said, "i have always opposed that. you had opposed it, but i tell you what i'm going to do. i won't make it personal, but i

am going to lead the fight against the imposition of the state income tax." this was not a four hour or four day or four week or four month fight. it was a four year battle. we did not have state income tax. the people of the state did not want a state income tax. so, i led that fight against him and said, one of my fellow state senators was giving an interview. he was changing his mind. he was going to vote for that state income tax. the reporter asked him, "what about senator blackburn?" he said, "she is a caucus of one."

that hurt my feelings for about five minutes. [laughter] then i thought, sitting in that state senate chamber, i might have been a caucus of one. but, i was standing for what was right. i was doing what was right. when i walked outside that chamber, i had tens of thousands of tennesseans who were standing with me. they were all against imposition of that state income tax. because the people of my great state stood up and said, "no" to a state income tax, we defeated that state income tax. tennessee will never have a

state income tax because the people of tennessee vote so we will never have that state income tax. [applause] sen. blackburn: that is what happens when the people decide they are going to be the people and pushback on the left. pushback on the governmental entity that is supporting something that is not what the people want. that is individual liberties. that is using that strength. let's talk about freedom, which is what we are here to defend. back in the mid-1990's, i was asked to host a group of newly minted parliamentarians that were coming from the old soviet bloc, one of those countries. they were coming into nashville and going to watch our elections.

so, i said, "i will be more than happy to entertain them." i thought, you know, they are coming in to tennessee, i need to give them a little jack daniels, a little barbecue, and take them out to the grand ole opry. so, that is exactly what i did. they were having a great time. i took them backstage, let them meet grandpa john's and little jimmy dickens and little charlie daniels, let them sit on the stage and watch what was happening at the grand ole opry. out of the corner of my eye, i caught one of the guys in the shadows. he was down on his knees.

i went over and touched them, i said, "are you okay?" he said, "i am wonderful." here is what it was. when he was behind that iron curtain, he and his family were some of the lucky ones. they had a radio. when the electricity was good, radio was on, he could listen to the grand ole opry and country music. being there when he had no hope for freedom or better days and wondering what his life was going to be, he made himself a promise. he said, "if i ever get free, i

am going to go kiss the ground they walk on." that dancing, that was the sound of freedom. that was what he wanted. that is what he wanted to experience. when we look at the resiliency and resolve of the ukrainian people and we are amazed -- amazed at that, we see they have tasted that freedom. they have been free. they do not want to live under vladimir putin and russian rule. just like this guy that had been behind the iron curtain, he was able to get that freedom to grab it. to sit on that stage, to hear

that music and experience what free expression, what free speech really is all about. [applause] sen. blackburn: here is the challenge for each and every one of us. when you think about your kids and grandkids, is your vision for them being huddled around one radio, trying to hear sounds of freedom from across the globe ? or, is your vision for them being able to dream those big dreams and make those dreams come true? is your vision for them knowing

that they are going to live in a land filled with opportunity? filled with freedom? that is why it is so imperative that we show up, that we do our part, that we get ourselves organized and commit to having a fantastic 2022 election year. it really matters. so, are you with me? are you? are you ready for the fight? are you going to be our happy warrior freedom fighters this year? thank you all so much. god bless you. [applause]

>> look at this crowd. thank you for being here. thank you to senator ernst and senator blackburn. we will have an informal conversation. they gave me a few notes to keep me on task. i know everyone wants to hear directly from some of the things you are standing up for so strongly in d.c. as a conservative woman, you feel like you have to say double standards. would you like to talk about some of those? i think joni recently had an interesting exchange with a biden nominee. i love watching the twitter tweets. tell everyone about it. sen. ernst: talk about hypocrites out there. i had the opportunity to come face to face with a real live mean girl.

one of the biden nominees for the tennessee valley authority board came in front of my subcommittee at the environment public works committee. she did not know that i knew of a tweet that she had sent out about me in 2015. we pulled it up, put it on a big poster board. i surprised her with it in the committee. here is a woman who claimed in her opening remarks that she would operate with civility on the tba board. i asked her to reaffirm that when i first questioned her. she said, "i believe in treating everybody with dignity and

respect." i said, that must be a fairly new sentiment. i pulled up the tweet, put it up on the poster board, and yeah. we grilled her pretty good. i do not know how many retweets we have gotten. hundreds of thousands. i made the point, i heard a lot about tweets in the last administration. i said, look at the data on this tweet. 2015. do not blame it on anybody. i told her that was not iowa nice. i will not be supporting her nomination. yay. [applause] >> thank you for sharing that story. thank you both for radical link -- the opposition to her

nomination, we knew democrats had the vote to confirm her in court. what did we learn from her judicial philosophy through the hearings? >> we still do not know what her judicial philosophy is. i had asked her when she was up for the appellate court to talk to me about what she believed about court packing, could not get an answer. her judicial philosophy, could not get an answer. i actually, one of the things that i learned through the years is to use people's words, like joni is saying that she used a tweet from this nominee. to use their words and say, explain this to me. in her opening statement coming before us, she was talking about her methodology for making decisions. she said she started from a place of neutrality.

she looked at the facts of the case and finn would make a decision. i said, there is a problem with this because you should say, i look at the constitution and the rule of law. that should be where we go first. we were white -- we were quite concerned. she thought judges had personal hidden agendas. i asked her what her personal, hidden agenda would be, or if she had one. of course, i think there was a lot that was said about her opinion of overriding law. it was an immigration law we had passed in congress and said, it was sole and unreviewable. she did some legal gymnastics to

review it and issue a nationwide injunction against president trump's immigration policy. of course, she was overruled. this is one of the things that concerns me. when you talk about having people that are not constitutionalist on the bench, that is what we want to see. i do not want activist judges, whether they are from the left or right. i want somebody who is going to call balls and strikes, based on the u.s. constitution and the rule of law. [applause] >> senator ernst, does her confirmation make it easier for president biden to nominate radical committee members?

sen. ernst: it shouldn't be easier. that is what we see. we saw it with the case of this now confirmed justice. we have seen it at the lowest levels of federal government. just like this tba board nominee, is that really one we normally would think of as activists being engaged on? now, every one of those nominees, all of them had previous tweets or posts that were out there that were pretty darned to the far, far left. all of them have this climate agenda. not just, we want a clean environment, but radical stuff on their facebook pages, or

tweets. one of the nominees was really smart. she took down her page before she came in front of the committee, not before the committee staff had taken a bunch of screenshots. we see that at every level of nominees that is coming in front of us. you look at any of the federal agencies, what are they talking about? the top priority, even with the treasury department, is the climate agenda. it is their religion. climate is their god. whether it is usda, sorry to say, we have a former governor that has the agency, but it is the climate agenda. you go to treasury, it is the climate agenda. you go to any of these, even the dod, which is apartment of

defense, it is all about the climate agenda. when you have john kerry out there, when we are talking about the war in ukraine and russia and what he is worried about is that putin follows the climate agenda. are you kidding me? folks. pretty radical out there. he is going to keep appointing all of these radical people. we have to work really hard to make sure they are not advancing. unfortunately, i tell you what, every single day, i miss president donald trump. [applause] sen. ernst: good nominees who knew what they were doing. >> speaking of donald trump,

president biden's proposed budget would force people a base to fund abortions, strip doctors of their protections. biden's department of services is trying to get rid of trump's regulation protecting those religious rights. what can be done to protect those religious liberties from attacks? sen. blackburn: winning in november 2022. [applause] sen. blackburn: we are depending on iowa. first in the nation, right? [applause] >> iowa has got your back. let's talk about the russian invasion of ukraine. the entire world saw weakness. do you think this embodied russia and china to be more

aggressive in threatening their neighbors while trump was president? >> if watching in afghanistan is something that emboldened vladimir putin and xi jinping in china and the chinese communist party is intent on being globally dominant by the time we get to the midpoint of the century, that is why we have to push back. that is why giving ukraine what they need is so vitally important. i want all of you to know that, we as a senate armed sentences committee, and we as republican senators have looked at this standing firm, leading letters, pushing this administration to not only say they were going to do sanctions or get equipment,

but saying, "you tell me when that equipment is on the ground. it is your journey first, leading that fight." [applause] sen. blackburn: i am blessed to have so many great members that serve with me on the armed services committee, one of which is sitting beside me. marsha blackburn is on armed services as well as judiciary. we have in working every hard to make sure that we are attempting to force the president to show strength. it is exactly as marsha said. after the fall ff and -- of afghanistan, the world was watching. not only our adversaries, but when you look at putin and xi

jinping, we -- let's not forget iran. the president is working on a new iran nuclear deal negotiated by the russians. not only are they paying attention to the weakness shown by this administration, but our friends and allies took notice because we left afghanistan without letting them know. we left them high and dry. we left america behind. that should never, ever happen. the world saw what happened and our adversaries do not fear us. our allies do not trust us. we have a lot to make up on. i know what -- i believe what

rug and -- ronald reagan believed. we would have more peace in this world if we were showing a heck of a lot more strength. [applause] >> after spending trillions of dollars with an -- reduced inflation and telling us inflation would be minor, we are at a 7.9% inflation rate, the highest level record in 40 something years. the biden administration doesn't seem to be coherent about how they are going to address it. let's fast forward and talk about, what would republicans do when they retake the house and senate in november? sen. blackburn: we have got a list. you ran through a list of things they are doing bad at? what is that whole list. we can do better in any of those areas.

i do think focusing on our economy is so important. we have a great free market, free enterprise system in the united states if we give it the opportunity to thrive. what we have seen in this administration is an intent to raise taxes, they have the build back better plan which we call the tax and spend bill. they wanted to raise taxes. they obviously are moving ahead with a lot more restrictive regulations across the board. if you look at our supply chain, they are not helping in that area at all. we have got to make sure we are straightening out all of these areas. let's back off of the radical climate agenda, because we've got real climate alarmists that are out there that are pushing really radical ideas, which is costing consumers and our

taxpayers across the board. we need to focus on that, but marsha and i sitting on the armed services committee, we have a military that once again is being decimated by a democratic administration. when they are radically increasing domestic spending by double digits for wokeism, and you are holding the dod to a percentage of increase that is not even inflation? yeah. it is pretty bad. we are going to end up cutting the size of our army, and it is going back to pre-1940 manning levels. folks, this is bad. with the threats we have around the world, this is what is being focused on by this

administration. there is a lot of things we would do differently, and much better. sen. blackburn: let's start with the issue of energy and getting the price of gas down at the pump. build the keystone pipeline. it would have been finished by the end of the year if titan had stopped the keystone pipeline. if you want an infrastructure project, build the wall at the southern border. that is a great place to put energy. make certain that you fully fund the u.s. military. if you are a veteran and have served, i want you to stand up. wave your hands so we can say thank you. if you are in the audience and you are a veteran, thank you. [applause] sen. blackburn: fully fund our

military. the federal government keeps spending more money. what we need to do is put a freeze on some of this spending and reduce what the federal government is spending so the taxpayer has more money in their pocket at the end of the month. my presbyterian deacon husband likes to say, if 10% is good enough for god on sunday, it is good enough for the federal government on monday. [applause] >> i love it. >> see why i love marsha blackburn? if we were the chief mom is in charge of this u.s. government, all y'all would have more money

in your pocket at the end of the month. [applause] >> thank you. you are definitely a dynamic duo. this isn't a last question, it is a last plug. your home state is going to be hosting the national faith and freedom coalition road to the majority conference june 16, 17th and 18th in nashville. what would you like to say to these islands to encourage everyone in the room this evening to attend? sen. blackburn: nashville is a great place to live, work, rear your family. if you can't that, it is a wonderful place to visit. you are going to have great food, great music, great conversations. you are going to hear some of the best speakers that you have ever come. the good thing is, if you come and attend that conference, you

are going to be so filled with information that you are going to come home and say, "i have to get to work on this." i like to say, the most effective name in news, the most effective network is the while you -- the you. it is you and your circle of friends. you need to attend that conference and come back to iowa, help us send chuck grassley back, help us send your congressman back, pick up another seat. make certain that we fire nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. that is all. >> senator blackburn, it sounds like you and nashville are

promising everyone a good time. sen. blackburn: it is going to be a good, informational time. you do not want to miss it. >> unfortunately, our time is over. we are concluding the program soon. thank you both for all that you do. thank you for being with all of us in iowa tonight. we value you. sen. ern

i decided in my high heels to climb the fence. >> when i was being nominated people said that i was not smart enough to be on the supreme court. that hurt me. and i realized coming from princeton with the honors i received there, going to yale, doing fairly well, being a district court judge, it felt like what is enough and when is it enough. really the reality is for some people if you are a minority, particularly one from new york, they believe that affirmative action opened the door for you. they forget that you do not judge a person by who opens the door. you judge them by what they did when they went through the door. announcer: supreme court justice

amy coney barrett spoke about life in washington dc and public scrutiny during her confirmation hearings. then supreme court justice sonia set amaya discusses how justices interpret the law despite their differing views. watch both conversations tonight on c-span starting at 9:00 eastern. ♪ announcer: c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. stay current with the latest episodes at "washington journal and by -- find scheduling information for c-span. plus a variety of compelling blood gas. -- podcasts. c-span now is available.