Libertarian Senate Candidate Kyle Austin
Podcast Transcript
Tom Schultz
It is a primary campaign season. We will continue our coverage going on here. As I mentioned, later on this week, Al Olszewski will be in studio. Kurt Almay will stop in next week. Kyle Austin is in studio here today. He, group in Montana, Highline guy, egg chops. He’s got egg chops, pharmacist, small business owner, owns Farm 406 as well. Got a lot of ideas about health care, about our economy, and about some of the problems and some of the solutions. I think Kyle’s a kind of a solution guy. So we’ve got open phones here for this as well as we will talk with libertarian candidate, 4th generation Montanan, Kyle Austin today on Voices of Montana. You get around this guy, you can tell that he’s a Montanan who can have himself a good time even in today’s circumstances. Good morning, Kyle. How are you?
Kyle Austin
Good morning, Tom. How are you?
Tom Schultz
Hanging in there. Hanging in there. You know, I’d like to say we’re rocking it, but not exactly yet, right?
Kyle Austin
We’ll get into it.
Tom Schultz
Thank you guys for being here too. Two decades strong, working on three. It’s from Montana for Montana, place to come. And get some, you know, we talk about the issues. And there’s a lot on the plate when we look at our campaign season. And Kyle Austin, again in studio here today. Kyle, it’s good to see you, really. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for throwing your hat in the ring here. Libertarian candidate, we’ll talk about that transition. Did run as a Republican. In fact, you say it on your website. And oh, it is. Thank you, Cody, for pulling it up here. KyleAustinMT.com. You say you grew up as a Republican all your life.
Kyle Austin
Absolutely. My grandfather was a hardcore Republican, supported the Republican Party. I grew up as a Republican and has always been a Republican until this year. I made that switch to Libertarian Party. And there’s a cool story behind that whenever you’re ready for it, Tom.
Tom Schultz
But tell us.
Kyle Austin
Yeah, all right.
Tom Schultz
This is story time, man.
Kyle Austin
Basically, you know what? With what’s going on with our country right now, with what the Republicans have been doing, the name-calling, I mean, you got these Republicans out there that won’t take ownership in their decisions, but they want to blame the other Republicans and call them RINOs. And then you have, you know, the party like Senator Daines that have dropped out of the race and he’s handpicking candidates. Well, that’s not Montana picking a candidate. That is, That is our Washington, D.C. picking the leadership of Montana for them. And as a fourth generation Montana, I completely disagree with that. And so I signed up as a libertarian. And the reason is, is I have conservative values, okay? I believe in small government. I believe in gun rights. I believe in defending the United States and protecting our liberty out there. But I can do that as a libertarian still. Okay. And so I’m not giving up a whole lot. I can still represent Montana. I can still represent the Republicans. I can still represent the Democrats out there in the state of Montana running as a libertarian. And I do believe that this is the year that a third party will shine. I do believe voters out there are happy that there’s a third party, a candidate because they want choice. They don’t want the typical left right garbage. They don’t want the typical right right side garbage. They want to go out, vote for a person that’s going to represent all Montanans and not the party.
Tom Schultz
The Libertarian Party has a lot of principles that mirror conservative principles as well, but there are a number of places where it differs, and I think healthcare is one of them. And you being a pharmacist, again, University of Montana, You’ve got pharmacies in Billings, where else? Butte, is it? Miles City.
Kyle Austin
Billings and Butte.
Tom Schultz
Billings and Butte, yeah.
Kyle Austin
Billings and Butte, I opened a second location. And so that’s one of the big things that’s going to resonate with a lot of Montanans. I mean, if you’re a farmer or rancher, you’re a small business owner. If you out, a lot of individuals in Montana also own their own small business. And what they’re running into is high taxes, high payroll, a lot of government overreach, where it’s like the Department of Labor and Industry trying to regulate your business. business and tell you how to do business, we’re tired of it. And small business owners are going to come out, they’re going to support Kyle Lawson for United States Senate because they’re tired of the government overreach. And that’s a libertarian value. It is time we cut the wasteful spending, we cut the government overreach, and we return the money back to the working people.
Tom Schultz
Let’s talk about some of the serious problems that you feel that we have in this country and then in the state of Montana as well. I’ve got a list myself. It’s not a real long list. I mean, immigration spending, and inefficiencies all over the place, so to speak. I don’t have to go too much farther than that. But healthcare is an issue, and education is an issue, and taxes are an issue as well. There’s a lot of things down the road. What do you see as some of the big things that bring you to this race, Kyle?
Kyle Austin
Well, I mean, you mentioned a lot of it, and a lot of it’s in my education background, healthcare. I am the only candidate running for United States Senate that has an education background. I have a doctorate of pharmacy degree. I’ve been practicing pharmacy for 18 years. Who knows healthcare better than anybody else? Who knows the problems with healthcare better than anybody else? That is why I am the better candidate to go to Washington, D.C. to fix our healthcare issues. the second thing, agriculture. agriculture has always had problems, ongoing problems, whether it’s with trade, tariffs, exports. Who better out of all the candidates running for United States Senate will understand agriculture and what we need to do to fix it? You know, two things. We need to build a fertilizer production facility in the state of Montana. We need to stop being dependent upon Canadian fertilizer. We need to stop allowing tariffs to increase those costs for our farmers and ranchers. So the only way around it is to have our government relax the regulations to allow a fertilizer production facility to be built here. and be privately owned, not owned by the government.
Tom Schultz
Then isn’t the government picking winners and losers then? That’s something that the Libertarian Party says we need to back away from. If that plan, and again, I think throw some things out there on the table and let’s talk about them. But how do you initiate that plan? How do you get the government to essentially subsidize the creation of this fertilizer plant without subsidizing the creation of this fertilizer plant?
Kyle Austin
Well, a lot of it is just to pave the way so private industry can get it done. What we’re seeing is with all this big government, all this big government overreach, all the red tape out there, private industry’s not flourishing. farmers, ranchers, you’re not flourishing because there’s too much government overreach, And so that’s what we have to do. That’s step one is to get the government out of the way, but also pave the way. Now, if we have to redirect some resources for infrastructure, such as railways, highways, great, let’s do that, because that’s where the federal government works very well is to help with infrastructure. But we got to pave the way for private industry so our economy will grow. You know, the second thing is 0 tariff policies. We need to do these the opposite of what Trump has been doing. We need to go to our allies. And if they agree to our trade policies, it’s a zero tariff policy both ways. This will lower the cost of our goods to consumers. It’ll increase competition. It’ll increase exports, but it’ll also increase imports. Our economies will flourish. Trust me, if you go do economy 101, economics 101, and you look at doing a zero tariff policy, the economy will grow. The economy people do great, inflation will also go down.
Tom Schultz
Isn’t that, and I like that. I mean, one of the things that you’re trying to address when we ask the question about challenges in ag is costs overall. And so fertilizer is a huge one. And you feel like, having grown up in the industry a little bit, that’s a must-have. in today’s society, so to speak.
Kyle Austin
Yeah, the farmers out there have to have fertilizer. I mean, you could go plant without fertilizer, but what do you do if you plant without fertilizer? You’re falling back on your ARC and your PLC plans and you’re collecting an insurance check to pay the bills. You have to have fertilizer to get the yields. You have to have high yields at these low commodity prices to pay the bills. And if you’re not going to get the yields because you don’t have fertilizer, well, you’re probably giving your farm to the bank is what you’re doing.
Tom Schultz
So back to the zero tariff policy. wasn’t the, NAFTA agreement or NAFTA 2.0 an attempt to create that zero tariff policy? Some of these other multinational agreements are also similar attempts to not only create some policy, but do you feel like that America has not been competing on a level playing field? As the president would say, and we’re being taken advantage of in a lot of our trade agreements. How do you respond to that?
Kyle Austin
No, I do agree that we’ve been taken advantage because it’s not a fair trade. And that’s why I said, if we go to our allies and we put a trade deal together where it’s equal trade, we export you our agricultural commodities, we will import this from you. China, I mean, they might, China’s communist, but guess what? They want to be part of our trade deals. They want to sell their garbage to Americas and America wants to buy it. Well, if we make a great deal where we We trade with them on a 0 tariff, but we export all of our egg commodities to China. It is a win-win for both countries.
Tom Schultz
Kyle Austin with us in studio. He is a libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate seat, which is now an open race as Senator Daines has elected not to run again. Kyle, as I mentioned, grew up on a farm. It was west of Havre, right?
Kyle Austin
Yep, west of Havre.
Tom Schultz
I bet you love having Highline chops, don’t you?
Kyle Austin
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, I grew up right there by Fresno Reservoir. And so the Milk River and all that means a lot.
Tom Schultz
Let’s talk, I’m gonna switch this over to healthcare because as a pharmacist, and you’re correct, you know, we can call you Dr. Austin because that, or Dr., yeah, Dr. Austin, sorry. You got two first names, so forgive me. We could call you Dr. Austin technically because that is a doctorate. Healthcare, you have got some really interesting plans. We had Ryan Bussey in here is running for the Western House seat. He mentioned his solution is universal healthcare for government funded all the way through healthcare. You’ve got a different plan. Let’s go into that.
Kyle Austin
Yeah, it’s a big plan. It’s something I’ve been working on for about four or five years now. It’s called Healthcare 2.0. Basically what we have to go in, there’s no fixing our healthcare system right now. It needs a complete overhaul. And the starting point is to create a nonprofit organization that’s owned by the taxpayers called the United States Health healthcare corporation. And so that way it’s not a government agency, it’s a nonprofit, so they’re not there to profiteer off of people’s healthcare, but it also consolidates all of our government programs, such as the VA, TRICARE, Medicare, Medicaid. It improves them, it makes them more efficient, and it allows the billing and the reimbursement for providers to be transparent as well. As what we’re seeing in all these government programs is there’s a lot of corruption, as you saw in Minnesota, and it’s not It’s not just going on in Minnesota. I can tell you right now, it’s going on in the state of Montana. And so we have to take control of that because if we don’t, our healthcare’s just gonna keep going in the gutter, okay? The other thing with healthcare that’s a problem is the insurance companies and the PBMs, the pharmacy benefit managers out there, they’re not in it to take care of the people. They are in it for the money, they’re profiteering off of everybody. So we have to rein in on that as well. Okay, so the United States Healthcare Corporation will offer a competitive plan for businesses and individuals out there to take. Now, are they going to be the best plans out there? No, but they’re going to have a reasonable… premium. They’re going to have no annual deductibles, which is a big corrupt thing because guess what? When you hit your deductible in December, what happens January 1st? Your deductible starts all over again. Well, the insurance companies have it figured out to where they just continue collecting your $500 to $1,000 a month premium, but they don’t pay anything. And then when it comes to the providers sending a bill to the insurance company, they have to fight tooth and nail to get payment. So there’s a huge problem there. By creating competition through the non-profit United States Healthcare Corporation, people can get a plan with a low monthly premium, no annual deductible, but they have a copay every time they utilize service. And then there will be a catastrophic coverage because that’s a big concern that a lot of people have is they can afford to go to the doctor, they can afford to go to the pharmacy, but they have the fear of a catastrophic issue. Am I in an accident? Do I get cancer? How do I afford that without leaving my family in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt? And so if we If you build that catastrophic coverage in there, Americans not only are taken care of, but they have the coverage that they need, and it creates the competition in the private sector.
Tom Schultz
How much will this cost? And I know that’s kind of hard to figure out, and I know the ball is continually moving when it comes to healthcare costs. I mean, insurance, you talk about the middleman and pharmacy benefit managers, insurance is a huge middleman, sometimes necessary as you talk about the catastrophic coverage in that regard. How do we get away? I mean, Montana, we’re expending, including federal dollars, $2 billion a year on subsidizing our health care. How do we cleanly get away from that?
Kyle Austin
Well, my projection is, that we can do this without increasing the cost. And then once we get it rolling, I can guarantee you, once we start running efficiently, it’s going to cut the costs of health care to the taxpayer on a national level, which might even open the door for more people to qualify for that coverage as well. But my goal is to use the money that we have, start there, and then trim it back.
Tom Schultz
Have you talked to others in the industry? I’m going to assume you have, because you’ve been working on this plan for quite some time. What is their response to something like this?
Kyle Austin
You know, you talk to, you know, even if it’s a big animals like Billings Clinic or St. V’s, or you talk to individual practitioners out there, you know, they’re tired of the insurance corruption. They’re tired of the poor reimbursement. They’re tired of the 60-year-old Medicare system that’s still a paper billing system that companies like Noridian is profiteering off of the paper process when we could move it to an electronic billing system and cut that money, that wasted money out of it. I mean, you look at Medicaid. How much money, how much taxpayer money is paying for all these Medicaid offices in every state? Well, if we consolidate that and get rid of the waste and move it to one office, the United States Healthcare Corporation, we’re eliminating all that wasteful spending. And that money is now gonna be available for people to access and improve healthcare in our country.
Tom Schultz
And it’s not a small amount. The amount of money it costs to administer programs sometimes is even more so, and that’s corruption in government too, but sometimes it’s even more than gets out there to the benefit of the populace as well.
Kyle Austin
Right, right, what we need to do is get the money that’s directly to the care of the person and get away from the wasted money that is between the taxpayer and actually health care. I mean, look at the VA program. I mean, the veterans have a program out there, but look at how much money the taxpayers paying for all these VA facilities around the country and all the health care. Do they need it? No. Let’s take the money, let’s consolidate it. Let’s give every veteran a card where they can pick their provider, they can pick the health care that they want and get the health care that they deserve without limitations to access.
Tom Schultz
Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate today in studio is Kyle Austin with us here. Grew up in the Havre area, west of Havre with the family farm there, University of Montana, where he got his doctorate degree for pharmacy and then began practicing pharmacy about some 18 years ago. Small business owner as well. Running as a libertarian, Kyle, you know, and I can appreciate it. You talked about it earlier. Just feeling that there’s been just how you put it, I mean, there’s just a lot of name calling and not a lot of grown up activity when it comes to the Republican Party in Montana, in my mind, too. So do you catch flack for that? I mean, if you say that they claimed that you’re a RINO, well, by being a libertarian candidate, you just proved them right. What do people say about running as a libertarian when they felt that you have been a Republican all your life?
Kyle Austin
Well, I mean, they got the RHINO names out there. And what you see is the, like I said, the people that are the strong Christians out there that have taken over the Republican Party are calling the non-Christians or RHINO. Or if they’re not following in line and they’re not voting with the party, they’re a RHINO. Well, no, the people are voting the way they should be. They’re following their heart. They’re doing what’s right for Montanans. And just because you’re calling him a rhino doesn’t make him a bad person. And so me calling him out, basically it’s a wake-up call. It’s like, look, we’re tired of the garbage that you guys have been manufacturing. It’s time Montanans stand up and we actually take care of Montanans and stop the party garbage. I mean, it’s going on in the Republican Party. It’s going on in the Democrat Party. And that’s why I said, I don’t want anything to do with your drama. I’m going to be an adult. I’m going to step, I’m going to put my right foot forward and I’m going to join the Libertarian Party so I can represent Montanans and hopefully make a difference for an entire country.
Tom Schultz
Do the Libertarians feel like, you’re just coming over now for your own purposes?
Kyle Austin
You know, the Libertarians are, you know, they’re warming up to me. Let’s just say that. They’re getting to know me, but they’ve never had a strong candidate, and a lot of them have actually warmed up already, like, we’re glad you came over. We need a strong candidate. We need someone that relates to a lot of Montanans, and we’re not afraid to campaign. A lot of libertarians will just put their name on a ballot and not do anything. I’m out there campaigning, folks. I’m fundraising. I’m going to events. I’m talking to people. I got a website. I got a radio talk show called My Fellow Montanans every Sunday at 7 P.m., which is very unique. There’s not any other candidate out there that has a weekly radio show. There’s not.
Tom Schultz
It’s paid for. So you can run because, and if anybody else out there as a candidate wants to buy, you know, that hour of airtime, they can certainly do that too, because that’s the rule. So yeah, congratulations on that. I think that’s pretty cool. What have you learned? learn from that? I mean, when you’ve got really cool guests on there at times as well, and when you start talking about policies, new ideas come to mind, right? And then it starts filling in some blanks, maybe that… What have you learned? How has that helped you be somebody who you say is going to be a better public servant?
Kyle Austin
Well, I started this year ago because I saw my vision of running for United States Senate, and it’s actually helped a lot to develop ideas. It’s allowed followers out there to get to know me better, Because no other politician will do that because they’re afraid. They’re afraid of if they can’t hide behind a edited radio ad or an edited television ad or something that’s cropped, they don’t do it. And so I’m doing something unique where people actually can get to know me a lot better. I’ve had interesting candidates on there from former Congressman Denny Rehberg, where we go into discussions and we debate. I’ve had people like Jonathan Nazarian, which was a high-profile public investigator for a lot of high-profile movie stars and artists out there. That’s in Montana. Brad Monar’s been on there with the Public Service Commission. I’ve had people from the public in there. I’ve had Senator Zolkanoff in there. a lot of interesting conversations and that’s what people need to understand is that it’s not a radio show for me to shove my garbage down your throat. Okay, it’s there for me to actually learn from these people as well. It’s a conversation. as far as challenging the other candidates, I actually put a challenge out to every federal candidate running this election to come in and debate me. And it’s called the Wild West Debate Show. And I’ve only had one candidate take me up on it so far, Brian Miller.
Tom Schultz
You’re going to be the moderator as well as one of the key debaters.
Kyle Austin
Exactly, but it’s the way debate should be because it’s an entire hour where we can dive into it and have that conversation on the topics and balance it out. And so this coming Sunday at 7 P.m. is the first Wild West debate with Brian Monar, or no, not Brian Monar, Brian Miller, which is a very good debate, and I encourage listeners to tune into that.
Tom Schultz
Yeah, you can catch that. They’re streaming it. It’s KGHL locally in Billings here, and that’s got a huge signal all over the place. 790 AM or 94.7 FM, but it’s also online. I think the mighty790.com, I guess we’ll look that up.
Kyle Austin
But Tom, the other reason that, the other reason that I did the Wild West debates is because a lot of candidates put their name on a ballot and they’re not serious. if they’re not serious and they’re not coming out to the debates, even if it’s my debate, they’re a weak candidate and it says something to the voters out there that, should we really be voting for someone like Almi?
Tom Schultz
And our election system, I think, is forcing us to rethink. this our campaign seasons. It seems like there is so much money spent on kind of you hit on it a little bit messaging and careful positioning and rollouts and events. And it is a huge multi-million dollar industry to get elected. But it’s not a multi-million dollar industry to tell the truth, so to speak. And that’s, so what’s your sense about, our elections? I don’t have, I got like a minute now, and then we can pick it up later on too. It’s sort of like the meaning of life with 60 seconds on the clock. What’s your sense of elections today?
Kyle Austin
Well, we need to secure our election security, okay? We need to pass a SAVE Act. We need to make sure that it’s only registered voters, American citizens that are voting. We need to protect our election integrity. We also need to make sure that people that are getting elected are true Montanans that represent the values of Montana.
Tom Schultz
That’s, and there’s a lot to that too. You have talked, like immigration is a huge thing on my plate this year because I just feel like we were lied to about it. I feel like the purpose behind it was, it wasn’t just incompetence. I think there was a nefarious purpose behind it. And we’ll pick that up on the other side. But there are changes. How do we get changes through a tight Congress like this?
Kyle Austin
We need strong candidates like myself. We need someone that’s not afraid to speak the truth and actually come out and say, look, folks, We need to go to a 0 immigration policy until we figure this out. That is exactly what we need to do. And we also need to start charging people that come into our country an entry fee to pay for our immigration policy.
Tom Schultz
Kyle Austin is in studio here. Kyle, based in Billings, he is running as a libertarian candidate for the office of U.S. Senate, has run most recently, I think it was the 2024 House race, which is a pretty crowded field for the Eastern District, practicing pharmacist, 18 years, owner farm 406 and Billings and a store in Butte, Montana and comes out of as a as a Griz, the University of Montana. Kyle, good to have you in student. Are you are you full on Griz?
Kyle Austin
No, I actually wanted to go to Bozeman and be a cat, but the only pharmacy program in the state of Montana was in Missoula. So I had to suck it up being a Republican to go over there with those tree hugging people in the Missoula Valley. So I was glad when when I graduated to get the heck out of there.
Tom Schultz
You’re disappointing some people here, Kyle. And even some in the studio right now at the moment. Yeah. Go Cats. Well, these questions are going to get 10 times harder now.
Kyle Austin
Bring it on.
Tom Schultz
Bring it on, Tom. Yeah. All right. So you’re not a trivia guy. So I’ve got a whole list of trivia questions we’re going to throw out at him. No, I’m just kidding.
Kyle Austin
The answer is vote. Kyle lost in the United States Senate. Simple.
Tom Schultz
406 is why we got some trivia. It’s 406 day, right? April 6, 406 in Montana is the only, one of the few states that has only one area code. So that’s where we’re at. Montana is bigger than Germany. Did you know that?
Kyle Austin
Yes.
Tom Schultz
Yeah. Huge state.
Kyle Austin
Yeah, we’re the 4th largest state in the lower 48.
Tom Schultz
Right. Yeah. Our population, just 1 million people. I might share some of that a bit later on. Skip is listening in Hamilton. We’ll just take that call right now. I’ve got immigration on the plate. So I’ll make sure we get to that because it’s one of those things that has stuck in my craw with what I think the Democratic Party has allowed to happen, has done it purposely in this state, in this country. Skip in Hamilton, KLYQ. Good morning, Skip. You’re on here with Kyle Austin.
Speaker 3
Good morning, Tom. And thank you, Kyle, for coming on. I had a couple of questions that would be just educational answer type things for everybody. And I do hope everybody had a wonderful Easter. Tom, sometime you might want to have Cody tell his little Easter story about his baby.
Tom Schultz
And it costs money to have Cody talk.
Speaker 3
So oh, well, he’s probably worth it, though.
Tom Schultz
Well, we’ll be this we’ll be the judge. of that later. But go ahead.
Speaker 3
Meanwhile, I wanted to ask your guest, are you going to be traveling around the state or, you know, the district to give talks so people can ask you questions about specifics? And then where are we going to find you on a ballot? We have a Republican or Democrat choice when you go to a primary to pull a ballot. and meanwhile are you going to be on both or do you have to wait until these are things that most people don’t even realize what happens when when they when they go to a primary it’s uh that they might have wanted to vote for one person and find out if they do they might have to cross over uh things like that but would you please explain where you are in the process. And are you going to be like, I’m in Ravalli County. Are you coming down here to have some get togethers so we can listen to your ideas?
Kyle Austin
Yeah, Skipping Hamilton, thanks for the questions. You know, I’ve been running around the state for the last few years and last week I was up in Superior for a nonpartisan debate that I drove all the way from Billings to Superior. for that. And there’s one coming up in Drummond, but, it’s running as a libertarian. There’s not a lot of events out there. Like the Republicans have the Lincoln-Reagan dinners and they don’t want libertarians there. They don’t want Democrats there. So if you know at an event that you want me to come out and speak at, and this goes to anybody in the state of Montana, if you want to put something together and you want me to come out, send me an e-mail and I’ll come out, okay? Every invite I’m getting right now, I’m going. So tonight I’m heading to Bozeman. I’m going to be Bozeman tonight and tomorrow meeting people there, but definitely reach out to me. Now, when it comes to the ballot, believe it or not, Libertarians are a valid party in the state of Montana. And so this primary election, individuals will get the choice. They can vote on the Republican ballot, they can vote on the Libertarian ballot, or they can vote on the Democrat ballot. So when you get your absentee ballots, you’re going to have to go pull the Libertarian ballot. You’re going to check the box that says Kyle Austin for United States Senate. You’re going to send that ballot back in, and that’ll get me past the primary. And then And in the general election, you get one ballot and you can vote for the best person. And so that will have the Republican, the Libertarian, and the Democrat candidate on it.
Tom Schultz
Do you like, thanks, Skip, for the question. Do you like the tiered system that’s been proposed? I think the party, the Republican Party in Montana was opposed to it. Others across the country have passed it with mixed results, I think.
Kyle Austin
You know, I do agree with that. You know, we had it as an initiative two years ago, I believe, with the top four is what it was called. I do agree with that because, and I agree with it more on the aspect of saving the taxpayers money, because now all the candidates go on to 1 ballot, everybody gets one ballot, and the top four people that gets the most votes proceed on to the general election. And I think it would save a lot of money in our election process and eliminate a lot of confusion. And I do believe we need to go back to voting for the person, not the party.
Tom Schultz
And so doing away with those party primary ballots as well. And there’s a lot of people that are rethinking things. So there’s opportunity, I think, now to move in some of these directions. Kyle, how do you do it? How do you get, like, if you’re going to pass, as you noted, the US Healthcare Corporation, nonprofit corporation, you’re gonna need probably, well, at least 50 votes in the Senate, at least 60 nowadays in the Senate. So do you think that the nuclear option is something that needs to be done away with? And then if so, why don’t we do it now for the SAVE Act?
Kyle Austin
We can’t get rid of the nuclear option until the world gets rid of their nuclear options. And so I don’t see that going anywhere. It could be a topic of discussion like abortion. It’s just going to be an ongoing topic of discussion. It’s never going to happen. When it goes to the SAVE America Act, yes, we need to pass that because we have an issue where people that are non-American citizens are voting and they’re influencing our government. And when it comes down to Muslims, Muslims have been coming in, colonizing, and putting their people into our elected office, and they’re bringing their Sahari law with them and instilling it into our liberties here and violating our constitutional rights. And so that’s why we have to have stronger immigration rules. We have to stop immigration. And that’s why we even need to eliminate birthright citizenship, because we have a problem in America and we have to fix it.
Tom Schultz
Do you think it’s constitutional to do so?
Kyle Austin
You know, here’s the thing, is the Constitution, it’s there, and we do have to back the Constitution. But the birthright citizenship clause in there was put in place back when we had slavery. Okay, times have changed. Congress, though, has what they call Section 8, Article 1, which allows Congress to regulate immigration. And so Congress can come in and they can put stipulations on birthright citizenship. What birthright citizenship will we allow, which ones we won’t. So If mother and father come here and they just come in on a plane just to have their baby, no, that is not going to be birthright citizenship. You can have your kid and you go right back home where you came from. If you cross the border illegally to have your kid, nope, you pack your kid up and you go right back where you came from. Now, if you came here for other reasons that might be acceptable, and that’s something Congress is going to have to figure out, then we accept birthright citizenship. So you go back to slavery, we brought these people here. Okay, we brought them here, we put them to work on our farms, and they had a kid. Okay, that’s why that person becomes a United States citizen. But when they come here, like the Muslims, they’re coming here on an airplane, 70,000 of them a day, and they’re having kids at the expense of a taxpayer in our healthcare system for free, and then that kid becomes a United States citizen, but then mom’s like, well, my kid’s a United States citizen, I have a right to stay here. They’re using the Constitution against us. And that’s the wake up and smell the coffee talks that we have to have with the American people, that they’re using the Constitution against us. It’s time that we defend our Constitution and what America was built on.
Tom Schultz
Right, and a lot of those people coming in do not have that cultural connection to this country whatsoever. Their cultural connection is still to the ways that they were escaping. And so They don’t have the same kind of care about securing the vote. They don’t, I think, have the same kind of care about right-sizing our government so that we have freedoms unhindered, so to speak, and we have opportunity unhindered. And your suggestion there is to just to stop it all right now. Do you feel that, let me ask this because it’s personal to me, Do you feel that wide open border policy under the Biden administration was done purposely or as somebody had said last week, it’s just incompetence?
Kyle Austin
You know, I don’t think it’s just the Biden. I think it’s been slowly progressing. I believe immigration has always been a problem, but it hasn’t gotten as bad as it was until the Biden administration. And I really don’t want to blame the Biden administration because it’s a culture war. It’s what I keep telling people, terrorism doesn’t have to be done with bombs. It doesn’t have to be done with guns. It doesn’t have to be done with stealing, hijacking airplanes and flying them into the Twin Towers. What the Muslims have figured out from Iran is that they can quietly use our Constitution against us, immigrate into the United States, and slowly take over our government. And the argument that the Democrats have that, oh, they’re coming here for a better way of life, folks, it’s garbage. That’s a garbage argument. If they came here for a better way of life, they’re going to dress They’re not going to practice their religion. They’re not going to be rolling their rugs out in New York City and praying and stopping traffic in Arabic. And they’re not going to be electing people like a Muslim mayor. So this is a prime example of them taking over the government from within. And that’s the war and that’s what’s going on right now, folks. That is why we need stronger immigration policy and we need to put our foot down on it. That is why we are going to Iran and taking the fight back to that cultural.
Tom Schultz
Kyle Lawson again in studio wrapping it up here. He is running as a libertarian for the U.S. Senate. Kyle, appreciate that. Again, I appreciate you throwing your hat in the ring. Appreciate all the stuff. And again, he does a live show and then he’s got a podcast for it too. My Fellow Montanans.
Kyle Austin
It’s called My Fellow Montanans. It’s every Sunday here on KGHL at 7 P.m. And it’s also on youtube.com if you want to go back and watch the video and audio. It’s not edited on there, but you can look for My Follow Montanans on there as well. But you’re talking about your guest tomorrow about voting for the PSC or should it be appointed. And I’m going to tell you right now, I interviewed with Brad Monar, which knows a lot about it. And he will tell you it needs to be elected. They need to be elected officials because what’s going to happen is these energy companies are going to come in and they’re going to influence the governor by giving the governor millions of dollars to appoint people that are pro-energy, that are going to raise the rates of consumers. And so if it’s an appointed position, consumers have no protection over it anymore. So you might as well just get rid of the PSC at that point. And so we need to keep the public service commissioners as being elected. And that is to protect the people and what the purpose of the PSC is going to be. So leading into that, Tom, I want to, you know, talking about the energy and Energy is a huge thing for Montana, and what we’re seeing is climate change. And so one of my proposals is to open the doors up for hydroelectricity for the simple reason, one, we need to improve our water retention strategies in our country as we fight climate change. So we need to build more dams to retain water. By doing that, we can also generate hydroelectricity. Yeah, it’s going to be expensive, folks, but what isn’t expensive these days? And so if we open the door for more hydroelectric, it’s a win-win for our farmers and ranchers. out there with water retention, are sportsmen out there, more fishing access, more water out there for the fish, more water for the wildlife, recreation. But then at the same time, we’re generating electricity, which can now feed the future of AI. Now, a lot of people are confused out there with AI because they’re like, man, it’s going to raise our electric rates. It’s going to use our water. Folks, no, those are garbage excuses. Get off those bunny trails. What we need to do with AI, and it’s actually more for national security. We need the AI for our national security and in this huge AI race. A lot of people don’t know about it, but President Donald Trump signed an executive order last November called Operation Genesis, the Genesis Mission. And it is put under the Department of Energy, which is actually where the Manhattan Project was for nuclear fusion. This is a huge national defense initiative. So it’s just like having the nuclear warheads in Montana. We have to have AI for our national defense. It is there for us to manufacture a good here in the state of Montana and sell it to the world.
Tom Schultz
I’m not going to have enough time. I’d like to ask this question. Maybe you can give me a quick response on it. Why are you running? What is your call to public service, Kyle?
Kyle Austin
You know, the itch started back when I was 18 years old when I worked up a bill with Senator Jon Tester when he was at the state legislature. And it was actually my goodwill that changed the weight limits for all farmers and ranchers out there. So instead of the 6% where you got a ticket, it got raised to 10%. That was my good doing. And at that point, I realized that someday I wanted to put my hard work and sweat representing all Montanans, including our Native American friends and neighbors.
Tom Schultz
Find out more. It’s KyleAustinMT.com. Appreciate you coming in. Yeah, thank you, Tom. Thanks for joining us for the podcast and join us weekdays live from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. for more Voices of Montana on great radio stations all across our Treasure State.
