Minnesota, a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1972, is emerging as a swing state this election. Rep. Tom Emmer (R., Minn.), the state’s highest-profile Republican and the House GOP’s Whip, is capitalizing on this moment.

Emmer discussed with the Washington Reporter his fascination with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the banking industry, the 2024 elections, and the possibility that his governor (Tim Walz, probable Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’s potential running mate) could be vice president.

Although Emmer doesn’t “actually own Bitcoin,” he said, he sees the industry as the latest evolution in the battle between big-government Keynesians and free market Hayekians.

“Now the Keynesians have become the modern monetary theorists. They believe that if a central government has its own fiat currency that it controls, it can print and spend as much as it wants without any consequences,” Emmer said. Emmer previously detailed the stakes of this election with regards to cryptocurrency in a Reporter op-ed.

Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R., Ohio), thrilled Emmer, who said that he recently told Vance “‘you’re going to be the first vice presidential candidate or presidential candidate in our country’s history who has owned Bitcoin.’” Emmer is confident that a Trump-Vance administration will both roll back anti-growth policies of Biden and promote the crypto industry; this past weekend, Trump headlined a bitcoin conference before hosting a rally in Minnesota.

Emmer criticized the current Biden-Harris administration for being staffed with left-wing activists, and warned that some of those staffers might enter a potential Harris administration. Emmer pointed to Gary Gensler, the Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who he said “is more than just disingenuous. I think he’s dishonest.” While Gensler’s job is to protect American investors, Emmer cautioned that he is “advancing the Gary Gensler agenda of how you literally stifle innovation and opportunity for Americans.”

Gensler has “been driving this digital assets business off our shores,” while at the SEC, Emmer said. “He’s been bringing lawsuits all over the place — and losing all over the place. That time’s past. Gary Gensler needs to move on. His career in government should be over.” One of the most harmful SEC regulations, according to Emmer, has been Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121, which he called a “dishonest rule.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) could also be in line for a promotion to Treasury Secretary if Harris wins in November, in part because Harris doesn’t have too many confidants that Emmer has observed. But “Gary Gensler, you know that he’s going to advocate for it,” he said. 

Harris “should not be elected to any office,” Emmer said — but if she is, he all but dared her to pick Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, as her vice president. “At best, Tim Walz is a broken down mule. The guy’s an empty suit.” A Harris-Walz ticket would be “just a loser of a ticket.” 

Harris’s candidacy “is better for us. Joe Biden, as pathetic as he was, he was very sympathetic too,” Emmer said, even though she is “a radical lefty.” While her rollout has been smooth, her 2020 rollout was smooth as well, and it collapsed when “she started talking,” he noted.

Emmer, a two-time chair of the House Republicans’ campaign committee, sees the current vice president’s candidacy as one that is “going to be detrimental [for Democrats] as it goes forward.” Emmer also sees downballot Democrats giving the GOP opportunities to break apart the Democratic Party’s coalition. Last week, approximately half of congressional Democrats boycotted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, which said “that these guys are more interested in politics, power and self preservation…these guys are siding with evil. They’re siding with terrorists.”

Emmer is particularly excited about the candidacies of Austin Theriault in Maine, George Logan in Connecticut, Derrick Merrin and Kevin Coughlin in Ohio, Tom Barrett, who is “going to win” in Michigan, Mayra Flores in Texas, Caroleene Dobson in Alabama, Yvette Herrell in New Mexico, and more. California, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania alone are states where he predicted multiple potential GOP pickups.

But a takeaway from 2022 still applies to 2024: “do not measure the drapes,” he cautioned.

Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Tom Emmer, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:
One of your priorities in Congress has been oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and its chairman, Gary Gensler. You recently said that if Kamala Harris wins in November, she might pick Gensler or Sen. Elizabeth Warren to be her Treasury Secretary. Why would Gensler be so destructive?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
You can’t rule it out at all. Kamala Harris has no confidants whatsoever. How do you ever expect she’s going to go outside of the people who have been closest to her for the last three and a half years? And even before that, because she was elected after the 2016 cycle. And she doesn’t know what she’s doing. So, Gary Gensler, you know that he’s going to advocate for it. And Elizabeth Warren? I don’t know. She has a pretty dark view of our financial system.

Washington Reporter:
What has been the most surprising thing that you’ve found with Gensler in being on the Financial Services Committee that the Senate should pay attention to in a hypothetical confirmation hearing for him?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
I think Gary Gensler is more than just disingenuous. I think he’s dishonest. He’s over there, and he’s got on a mission to protect American investors. What he’s doing is advancing the Gary Gensler agenda of how you literally stifle innovation and opportunity for Americans. He’s been driving this digital assets business off our shores. He’s been bringing lawsuits all over the place — and losing all over the place. That time’s past. Gary Gensler needs to move on. His career in government should be over. 

Washington Reporter:
How’d you get into Bitcoin? You’ve been its foremost advocate in Congress. What’s the origin story? 

Rep. Tom Emmer:
It’s pretty wild. I don’t actually own Bitcoin. This is one of the reasons I like JD Vance. I recently said to him “JD, you’re going to be the first vice presidential candidate or presidential candidate in our country’s history who has owned Bitcoin.” He said, “I didn’t realize that,” but it’s true. It’s really funny. My family just welcomed a new grandson, and I have a whole bunch of kids, the oldest is 33. The youngest is turning 23. It forces you to stay connected to what they’re doing. And when I got here, almost 10 years ago now, one of my staffers who’s at the age of one of my kids, a guy from Minnesota, gave me a book called The Age of Cryptocurrency. 

I didn’t know anything about it until I read the book. And it just lit it up. I grew up with the Keynesians and the Hayekians. We have people who believe in money that is backed up by something and we have people who believe that government needs to drive economic growth. And by the way, they need your money to do that. 

It turned into Ron Paul versus the Keynesians in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is where the Audit the Fed came out of. And then when I read this book, I realized it’s the same groups, but they have now evolved. Now the Keynesians have become the modern monetary theorists. They believe that if a central government has its own fiat currency that it controls, it can print and spend as much as it wants without any consequences. And then, of course, you still have the Hayek side of the equation that says value doesn’t float, it’s something more stable than that. And then Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, writes a white paper. And it’s in response to mismanagement of our monetary system for 30 years. And I swear I just got hooked into it because then I started going to blockchain meetings. Back then there were four people or five people who would go. The only one who’s still here is Rep. David Schweikert. He doesn’t go to meetings anymore though, but he’s written code. It just lit me up because I look at it as decentralized finance is one thing, but this is actually the next iteration of the web, which is a decentralized world where you and I, we can do business together without a middle man. We don’t need an intermediary in the new world. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to have intermediaries. Maybe we’re buying and selling a piece of real estate. You and I might both want to have somebody that we pay, or more than one person who we pay, and we know what the value is, to help us with that transaction. But we get to decide. It isn’t forced on us. I see so much promise in this thing and it’s well beyond finance. 

Washington Reporter:
What areas of partnership on crypto do you envision with Trump and Vance if they win?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
Well, I already know Vance is gonna be favorable, but I gotta tell you, President Trump is the one who decides and he’s already there. He’s made the statement, which I’m very grateful for, that he will not allow a central bank digital currency unless and until it can emulate cash, open permissionless and private with a capital P. 

Washington Reporter:
What about the threat from China on crypto, Bitcoin, and on digital assets — do you think Congress should be proactive?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
Well remember that one of the main things that was responsible for something known as the boom economy — 25 years of the greatest wealth creation the world has ever seen — back in the late 80s, and 90s was the development of something called the Internet, right here in this country. We did not put dramatic restrictions on it, we let it grow. We figured out what the issues were. We’re still figuring out negative issues and positive issues and we can deal with them as we go on. In this case what the central government folks have been doing is they’ve been trying to stop that because they could potentially lose their power if you and I are able to live and coexist together and work on things together without needing them. 

You’re gonna need some form of government but not the huge centralized top-down thing that we’ve got right now.

In the future, I see this happening with or without us. What the federal government, what we should do, in Congress, is we should put in some guardrails. I think we need stablecoin legislation but I think it should be dollar-backed stable coins that can be created anywhere as long as they meet the requirements of the dollar reserve. I don’t care who produces them. Imagine if dollars, through stablecoins, were being traded all around the world. People want business in dollars. That would not only strengthen our position as the reserve currency in the world, but it would have a lot of other impacts for countries that are not being responsible with their monetary system. And it gives access and inclusion to people around the world that right now don’t have access. There’s all kinds of potential. 

Washington Reporter:
Could this Congress or a second Trump administration that could rein in some of the Biden administration’s banking policies? 

Rep. Tom Emmer:
Classic, Gary Gensler, SAB 121. That is a dishonest rule. It says that banks can’t custody digital assets. Why? They can, but it says if they’re going to custody them, even if they are not lending against them, and they’re just holding, much like they might hold bearer bonds or stocks or whatever it is. You got them in your safety deposit box, if they’re holding that in a bank, SAB 121 says you’ve got to list it as a liability on your balance sheet. So it’s a disincentive for them to bank digital assets. Stuff like that will go away under the Trump administration. What I really think we should be doing is, and this is why it’s imperative Congress be involved, and soon, is that the issue is allowing this disruptive and potentially destructive decentralization technology to grow and flourish in this country. It will create all kinds of growth in our economy, while at the same time protecting the existing legacy two tier banking system. And when I say not protecting in the traditional term, that would be “oh, I want to protect my market share.” No. Protect them so they can’t be destroyed. Allow them the opportunity to grow into the 21st century. They got to catch up, right? You’ve got this technology that’s just whizzing out here and it’s creating all kinds of things. Traditional banks, credit unions, big banks, other different investment things. They can’t keep up right now with the pace of the digital asset world. So you have to allow them, you can’t protect them and say “you get to stay forever and people can’t do things. You’re going to have to move into the 21st century,” but we got to give them a little time to do that. 

Washington Reporter:
What do you think it says about Democrats versus Republicans that so many Democrats skipped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech? Where do you see the parties going on Israel?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
Well, there’s only one pro-Israel party and that’s the Republican Party. And for my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle to suggest “well, that’s not fair because that’s not all of us.” Well, you’re not standing up and speaking up and making sure that you let people know that this is not acceptable. Antisemitism is not acceptable in this country. Israel is not just our ally. Israel is literally defending Western democracies right now. Because if you listen to what Netanyahu said today, I could not agree more. I’ve been talking about this for a while. This is much bigger than Israel. This is literally about Western democracy. And he really focused it down on Iran. This has been the goal since the Ayatollah took over after the Revolution in 1979. Their goal is to spread radical Islam around the globe. And guess who stands in the way? It starts with Israel, and then it’s America. As Bibi said today: we’re actually defending you at the same time. 

It says that these guys are more interested in politics, power and self preservation. They’re trying to qualify their positions, so that they can make everybody happy. The problem is, that’s not the way this works. This is a time for choosing. There’s good and there’s evil. There are terrorists, and there are patriots. These guys are siding with evil. They’re siding with terrorists. That’s not acceptable. And I think they’re going to pay for it at the ballot box because I think the great majority of this country still believes in the Jewish state, still sees them as our strongest ally, not just in their part of the world but around the globe. And there’s a lot of American connections as well.

Washington Reporter:
Your home state’s governor, Tim Walz, is a potential dark horse running mate for Kamala Harris. How do you think Minnesota is looking this year? And would he be a good pick for her?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
At best, Tim Walz is a broken down mule. The guy’s an empty suit. It’s not surprising that they would be referring to him because he has worked very hard over the last six years to turn our wonderful state of Minnesota into Kamala Harris’s broken California. This guy blew through almost $20 billion in surplus. He allowed, under his watch, a legislature that’s whacked out to the left to literally pass an additional $9.5, almost $10 billion in new taxes and fees after they blew $20 billion in surplus. And guess what? He’s put Minnesota on a road to some economic trouble. That fits Kamala. She needs another loser to go in there with her. This guy is a gym teacher, who is pretending to be a CEO, and I told people the other day: a CEO represents all of the company’s customers. Yeah, he got elected as a Democrat, but he represents Minnesota and all of Minnesota. What is that guy doing? During the RNC, our CEO is out like a gym teacher that he was, protesting in front of the RNC. He needed to get his butt back in his chair at home and do the work that Minnesotans hired him for.

But he’s been doing everything but that now for six years and it’s no wonder because these Democrats are so detached from Main Street and reality, but this is the kind of garbage they support. They are tone-deaf, they do not listen to anybody in America. They tell you and me “you are not very smart. We are. We’ll tell you what you see,” like this Bidenflation? By the way, Kamala Harris owns that. She’s been there the whole time. We haven’t heard her say “yeah, this isn’t working very well.” She doesn’t give a damn. She doesn’t give a damn about the regular people in this country who are suffering every day because there’s 20 percent inflation in the last three and a half years, because you’re spending, on average, $1,000 a month more because of these guys. Tim Walz, if they take him, it fits. It’s just a loser of a ticket and it’s a lack of leadership, but I don’t think they’re going to. I think at best, he’s a broken down mule.

Washington Reporter:
How do you think law and order matters in Minnesota specifically given that the bail fund that Republicans are reminding voters that Kamala Harris supported was so closely tied to your state?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
We still have significant problems in the Twin Cities, but it’s not being reported. Carjackings, assaults. We have a news media in the Twin Cities that doesn’t even hide its liberal, progressive, leanings. 

When one of the outlets there needed a new CEO, they hired Tim Walz’s Commerce Secretary. They’re telling you exactly who they are and they don’t report this stuff. So the average Minnesotan, we’ve got to get the message to them. But I can tell you, a lot of the people that I know don’t even go down to Minneapolis anymore, because they say it’s too dangerous. You’ve got a police force that they disrespected regularly. 

You’re always gonna have a bad employee, right? But that bad employee shouldn’t be smeared all over all the good ones, and that’s what they’ve done to our police officers. Kamala Harris should not be elected to any office. That Freedom Fund that she supported, and by the way, if you check their website, I bet you’re gonna find that she still supports it. You talk about releasing these people. No, no, no. Criminals. These are people who were arrested for trespassing, criminal destruction of property, rioting. This is what they were doing; breaking things and putting people at risk, massive theft out of these stores. And they’re criminals, and she was advocating for the criminals to be out on the street. And she succeeded in some cases and two of them actually committed murder after she helped, I’m going to argue, get them out of jail. She should not be running anything.

Washington Reporter:
What advice would you have to both your colleagues and to candidates about running against Kamala Harris instead of running against Joe Biden? 

Rep. Tom Emmer:
I actually think this is better for us. Joe Biden, as pathetic as he was, he was very sympathetic too, and he had a lot of goodwill across the country from the left. And he never did anything, really, in his career. But she has made it very clear that she is way to the left of Joe Biden. And what people don’t remember, at least not yet, is that when Kamala Harris ran for president the last time she had the same beginning: big spike, lots of money. “Oh, this California senator is on the way.” And then she started talking. I want somebody to ask her, and I think President Trump will, “Kamala, how do you stimulate economic growth?” I want to ask him to ask her: “how would you seal the border since that was your job the last three years you haven’t done it?” I want to see her go into Pennsylvania, where there is oil and gas, fracking etc., and try to explain why she’s trying to shut that industry down. The list goes on and on. She is a radical lefty. And as soon as she starts talking and being held to her actual positions, it’s gonna be a good November for Republicans.

Washington Reporter:
Do you think that this is opening up districts in America that Republicans wouldn’t have necessarily been able to win because of Harris’s liabilities?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
I do think it’s going to be detrimental as it goes forward. Yes, we have the shortest amount of time in history to define someone if it is indeed her, which I know the overwhelming number of Democrats have endorsed her, but there are several who haven’t. We want them to have an open convention. This is going to be really interesting to see how it goes, and we are writing history in real time. But she’s going to be a liability to them. There’s no doubt in my mind, depending on the place. In my state, we will publish over and over that she worked to get criminals out of jail at a really difficult time in Minnesota. And those criminals went on to commit other heinous acts including murder. That’s on her hands. That’s not what we want running this country and that’s why Donald Trump is gonna win overwhelmingly in November.

Washington Reporter:
How do you ensure that the GOP doesn’t get in over its skis ahead and get too complacent? 

Rep. Tom Emmer:
On some levels she’s worse than Biden. She giggles uncontrollably. She uses the same phrases over and over again that are inane, and don’t mean anything. She can’t string a sentence together, let alone a paragraph. But, when it comes to managing expectations, people don’t want to remember that we were telling everyone at the beginning of the last cycle, “do not measure the drapes. This is not going to be an election like you’ve ever had before.” Why? It was a redistricting year. And then we got hit with the abortion decision, the Dobbs decision months later — we couldn’t even have expected that. It all impacted that race and people bought into the garbage that the media was writing about “there’s going to be a red wave.” And of course, we had some on our side who jumped on that train, which didn’t help manage expectations. Fact of the matter was, I thought the low watermark last election was probably 228. I was off by six seats. I thought the high watermark was probably in the 230s. And I’ll tell you why. If you look under last decade’s maps, we had 85 swing seats and a large majority was over 240. I think our biggest was 247. Now, you’re down to 51 swing seats. So it would only make sense, that 230+ would be that large majority. 

Now, the Republicans, by the way, are the only ones who have a chance to grow that because my grandfather’s Democratic Party has gone off the rails to the left and as they have done that they have left traditional Democratic voters, black voters, Hispanic voters, Asian voters, and I would argue now liberal Jews, they have left them standing on the curb without a party. They’re not Republicans. They’re former Democrats because they can’t support the nonsense that these guys are advocating for: open borders, they don’t object to men playing women’s sports. The list goes on and on. So what do we do? The Republicans have the opportunity to grow our party by running people who look and sound more like the districts that they’re trying to represent and who can go out and solicit those votes, because a lot of those people, once they’re introduced to someone who’s credible to them, that has the credibility of living in their district and being from their culture, that environment, guess what? A lot of them find out: “oh, I actually agree with the Republican platform.” I think that’s our growth opportunity for the future. But right now, a large majority is probably 230+, that’s just how divided we are. People should manage their expectations and understand what a win looks like. A win is 218 or more. And the question right now is will it be 218 to 225? Or will it be 226 to 235?

Washington Reporter:
You spent two cycles at the NRCC. How has that helped you in your current job as Whip?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
It prepared me because, I would argue, there’s no one who knows the districts better than I do. I’ve gotten to know almost every single district and all the people in these districts, because that’s what I was doing. My colleagues who’ve been doing this for a while, they have a lot of information, but we have minutiae around the country, and I worked with a lot of these people in these swing districts that we just worked so hard the last two cycles to win, which gave us the majority. And I haven’t stopped. That’s what put me here. My colleagues know we know how to build a team, we know how to run an operation, and more importantly, we know how to respect every single person who has an election certificate. We know how to listen to them, we know how to understand that whether we agree or disagree, it doesn’t matter. Whether we like someone or we dislike someone, it doesn’t matter. What can they do? What can’t they do? What will they do? What won’t they do? Their job is to answer to the people who put them here, not to Washington. Our job is to make sure that they’re able to do that, and if they can, then you can be part of our team. And the campaign side? Do I miss it? I think Richard Hudson is doing a great job, but I haven’t stopped. I respect his leadership, he’s doing a great job, but I am still heavily involved in campaigns all across the country, not only for incumbents, but for challengers. 

Washington Reporter:
Which of those districts and candidates stand out to you?

Rep. Tom Emmer:
First off, there are 26 — I mean, there are more than this — but I’ve got 26 swing district Republicans who literally do make our majority. They’re in New York, they’re in New Jersey, they’re in Iowa, they’re in Happy Valley, Oregon, they’re in Tucson, Arizona. We worked incredibly hard, and these people are the right candidates. The least expensive seat to win is one you already won. It’s too easy to just say Kamala Harris. I’ve made a point over the last five years — and this is what we changed at the NRCC — this is not a U.S. Senate race, this is not a presidential race or a gubernatorial race, which is a statewide affair. These are 435 unique pieces of ground that all have different demographics, and you need to figure out, in that district, what you’re selling. It’s the candidate, the message is different, I tell people all the time: remember in 2020, we were told we were going to lose as many as 24 seats, and we won 15 — I give President Trump a ton of credit for that, because he works all the time. You ask him to do a telephone town hall with a candidate, boom he’s on it. I’ve never seen anybody in an executive position weigh in more as part of a team trying to help the team, it’s just amazing. Those seats were won because of a target marketing approach. If you look at Oklahoma City, we were told we were never going to win that seat, we got the right candidate, Stephanie Bice, and what was the message? The Biden-Harris administration is going to kill your energy jobs. They are literally on a jihad against the fossil fuel industry. We won. You go to south Miami. The seats held by Maria Salazar and Carlos Gimenez were D+7, D+8. We were told we were never going to get those. We had the right candidates in Maria and Carlos. They look and sound like the districts that they were seeking to represent. And their message was socialism. There happens to be a lot of people who live there who know what socialism is firsthand and that it doesn’t end well. I’ll never forget that Rep. Donna Shalala did an interview about two weeks before her loss to Maria Salazar. At that time, polls that I was shown had Maria down by five points. And Shalala does an interview and one of the questions was “are you a socialist?” and she said “I am a pragmatic socialist.” Two weeks later, she loses. I’ll stop with Staten Island. Nicole Malliotakis against Max Rose, that was Defund the Police. Little Max took a sign out and walked in a parade with a couple of these Defund the Police idiots, and they spent $15 to $20 million to try and save him? But that one picture with that Defund the Police sign, with all the crime and all the pain that they feel in New York, was enough, and Nicole is now here. 

Washington Reporter:
All of those seats you just mentioned are now safe for the GOP.

Rep. Tom Emmer:
Well, I think they are competitive, but I think these candidates have locked them down because they are so good. If one of them left tomorrow, I wouldn’t say that those are guaranteed. But there are some that have been locked down and I think you’re right. There are seats that we have a chance to pick up this time that are pretty impressive. I think Maine’s 2nd District is one. Rep. Jared Golden may be one of the best incumbents they have, but it’s a Trump seat. I think Trump in polls I’ve seen is up by 11 points there right now in that district, he’s going to crush it. We’ve got a great candidate, a guy named Austin Theriault, who’s born and raised there, and he’s a retired NASCAR driver and a state Representative. Trump’s going to crush that district. If you’re going to get Jared, this could be the one. George Logan, in Connecticut’s 5th District, closest race in the country last cycle, less than 1,000 votes. The only thing that’s changed in that race, it’s a rematch, is that George Logan, our candidate, is raising all of this money earlier and he’s an even better candidate than he was before, and Rep. Jahana Hayes has not gotten any better, the stories, we’ll just leave it at that. And then if you start going west, you’ve got one or two in Ohio, the Toledo seat, Ohio’s 9th District, Rep. Marcy Kaptur has been in that seat for a long time, that’s a Republican seat. We’ve got Derek Merrin, a state senator, came through the primary. Trump’s going to do well in Ohio, and he’s got a running mate who happens to be from Ohio. We’ve got another on with Kevin Coughlin up north, he could potentially beat Rep. Emilia Sykes. If you go to Michigan, you’ve got a couple there. Tom Barrett’s going to win that open seat that Rep. Elissa Slotkin vacated, I believe he’s going to win, and that Flint, Michigan seat, very interesting. We’ve got to wait and see what happens in the primary. We’ve got some good people there, including Paul Junge, who ran in the seat the last couple of times, and the good news for whoever it is, whether it’s Paul or Mary Draves, is that that Flint-centered district has been trending our way for a while. Trump is going to do well in Michigan. Minnesota has one, Illinois’s 17th District is another. I believe Alaska, we’re going to win this time. We had two Republicans splitting 60 percent of the vote in the last two elections. We have a lady, a Native Alaska, Rep. Mary Peltola, in Congress, which is fine, but she only got 40 percent of the vote. I believe this time, we’ll have a single Republican candidate and that’ll be corrected. You have 1-3 that you can pick up in California, and I’m not going to rule out others, because I think that California might be one of those really interesting places where you have these anomalies. There are some funky things going on in California with people getting frustrated by the poor governance. Their cities are a mess. The homelessness, the crime. Oakland is a great example. In-N-Out Burger moved out of Oakland. In New Mexico’s 2nd District, you’ve got Yvette Herrell, I think she wins this time. That one was drawn more blue to keep her from getting there. She almost won that seat last time, you’ll remember. What’s changed in the last two years? The border is worse. I think she wins it this time. Her opponent, Rep. Gabe Vasquez, is a criminal. Rep. Mayra Flores is looking strong in her comeback bid in Texas, and look at Pennsylvania. There’s 1-3 seats there that we can get. I’d take a close look at Alabama’s 2nd District, with Caroleene Dobson. Trump’s going to do well there. And in North Carolina, we’re going to get three for sure there, maybe four.

Washington Reporter:
Congressman Emmer, thanks so much for your time.

Rep. Tom Emmer:
Always.