E55: Rep. Greg Pence (IN-06) | Veteran, Business Leader, & Advocate for Hoosier Values in Congress

Introduction from Washington DC to the heart of America welcome to Mark alford's America I'm freshman Congressman Mark Alford from Missouri and I believe in America I believe in you and most importantly I believe that our greatest days are still ahead you know each week we take you behind the scenes to share the stories the legislation the news of the day but we also get to meet the great folks I work with helping shape our great nation one of those remarkable individuals is Congressman Greg Pence who proudly serves Indiana's sixth congressional district he had a pretty big career in the private sector working in the energy distribution sector Greg Pence was sworn into office on January 3rd of 2019 his journey reflects his deep commitment to service leadership and the people of Indiana rig's Story begins in Columbus Indiana he would grew up there later returned to rear his family there and is a former Marine Corps officer small businessmen lifelong public servants he really brings a a unique perspective to Congress his leadership is rooted in Indiana values we'll get into that Greg right now serves on the house Energy and Commerce Committee uh he tackles some of the biggest issues of our time including energy security Economic Development and really he's dedicated to protecting conservative values we're excited to be in his office today in Canon office building Congressman Greg Pence thank you for letting us in your office the Popcorn machine in the office first thing I noticed when I walked in is your popcorn machine the first office I I've seen with a popcorn machine well that's uh thanks for having me uh uh thanks for coming to my office Mark yeah well every one of my predecessors has had uh who's your popcorn and that's what we serve here once we start popping it all my peers come down the hall and and get a bag or two Indiana definitely known for its popcorn yes um I want to Brother of Vice President Mike Pence get the first thing out of the way you are the brother of Mike Pence I happen to uh occupy Mike Pence's uh freshman office office uh in the neighboring building there uh are you older or younger than Mike I'm the oldest of six he's number three huh four boys and two girls and Mike had before you got into politics he was a a radio host wasn't he was he ran for congress in uh 88 and 90 lost both times and then he went and was on the biggest radio station in Indiana for about a decade and then he got the call people said hey why don't you run for this District that I now serve in and he did he served for 12 years and then then he got tapped to run for governor and then of course we know he became vice president my predecessor Luke Messer uh served for six years when he decided he was going to run for Senate um people said to me why don't you run for this seat and and I decided Well okay I would and people said well you're just running on your brother's name and I said yeah and it's working real good okay so I committed to 6 to8 years uh you know to kind of dispel the idea that I was just going to do it while he was vice president and here I am it's been Running for Congress great there had to be a deeper reason though why you wanted to run this is not an easy job so yeah so true right uh how many hours you know 155 nights in in some years that we're out here which means about half the year you're out in DC flying back and forth I go home every week uh that I can uh I was semi-retired uh I've been on uh Seminary boards uh chamber boards Community boards Church all kinds of different boards had moved on from that and when this call came to help other people at my age I'll be 68 uh just made a lot of sense of another way I could give back and serve because we are representatives and as you and I both know constituent Services is everything so I've actually been able to do what I wanted to do when I heard that call you know there's really uh this is really three or four jobs rolled into one of course you're always running for re-election we're up every two years again up this year you're you're raising money that's like a full-time job to pay for the TV ads and radio ads um you're you're up here dealing with legislation your committee work but I think the District work biggest I don't know about you but the biggest most rewarding part for me is when I'm back in the district and even when our staff is there helping people because the federal agencies are not doing their job in helping constituents who are owed money who are owed Services uh it's disgusting to me that the attitude of these agencies up here don't treat our constituents like clients well of course in the buildings are 30% occupied so they're not even in work you know and what a shame yeah we do so much of that on a typical gear will be contacted 30,000 times not all are require response not all we have to follow up on uh but yeah the number of inquiries we get and you know every time I I do radio at home uh I and I I focus on call us if you have problems with Social Security veterans all these different things IRS and it I'm always surprised that our constituents don't know that we're here to help and we can light a fire under the agencies here in Washington DC and it it's amazing uh it it takes one call from our office to these agencies and they move that problem from the bottom of the stack to the top of the stack and people don't realize well it's a shame it has to be that way it is but our offices every Congressional member's office can really help people with their Federal issues they can and and you and I have both seen it many times yeah so let's Energy sector career talk a little bit about about your background you grew up in the energy sector how did you get involved with that family was in it uh we were in gas stations and bulk plants this goes way back and petroleum Trucking so I grew up in that joined Marine Corps uh got a graduate undergraduate and graduate degree um philosophy and theology undergraduate uh Finance MBA and then I went into the oil industry went and worked for a couple major oil companies uh then came back to Indiana and worked in the distribution business uh and then I my last job in that was a national director of fuels for Circle K oh yeah which is the second largest convenience store chain in the world and uh and then one day I I I actually built my own real estate company and finally retired from the oil industry uh and uh then here I am and this is my I'm a former realtor as well I don't know if you knew that I started a real estate caucus here if you're not then we need you in it I'll be done there's a lot of things there's a federal uh uh jury in Kansas City that I think made the wrong uh uh decision uh last year on buyers agencies agreement that's going to be a whole another segment we'll do but uh we need you in the real estate caucus all right uh back Biden’s war on fossil fuels to energy um this current Administration before they even got into office signaled that they were going to have a war on fossil fuels I grew up in bayt Texas Home of Umble oil and refining company that started in 1913 now Exxon uh my family was in uh the refinery worked in refineries and things like that but how much damage has President Biden and this Administration done to our economy and to our farmers and producers uh which I know you and I are both concerned within our states big a States how much damage have they done to America because of their war on fossil fuels well we can't even calculate it yet I will say when uh when the electrification of the transportation industry first started uh they they didn't know what they wanted but they know when they knew when they wanted it done by 2030 2035 I think the administration and and my peers on the other side of the aisle in in Congress understand that we can't get where they wanted to go by then but in the meantime Mark they've wasted enormous sums of money in Grants uh funding companies that have since closed up and gone bankrupt uh the whole EV automobile industry we've had some companies go broke although they got in the business with federal funds from the inflation reduction act and other grants and we the amount of money that has been wasted in pursuing something that was not well thought out uh we just won't be able to calculate because there's no accountability in this well in fact the inflation reduction act which is really uh the inflation expansion act it did nothing to lower inflation uh in encapsulated in that I did not vote on that I think you did you were here um was the green new scam as president Trump calls it um a scam on the and and now Biden has admitted that it it had very little to do with inflation reduction and more to get this green new scam uh through and the money out there to to promulgate and promote this false idea uh that the climate cult in America is trying to pull over on the American people right uh and you know it's uh this is almost going to be bipartisan to you but we had an awful lot of uh large major corporations that were behind that as well okay the automobile industry I I'll pick on them uh they wanted to get into the EV business and they wanted another bailout and they wanted more government money because I'd like to ask this question people how many cars they sell in the United States I'll answer my own question for you automobiles 16 million dollar million cars every year how many automobiles do they sell in Europe every year8 million how many car uh cars they sell in China every year which is going 100% electric 28 million so our automobile industry went to the US government said hey we've got a whole Market here larger than ours in Europe combined and we need help getting into the electrification industry here's what the fallacy of that and here's where the Biden Administration said okay we're going to bail you out because they want to be socialist uh socialist country right they gave them the money necessary to convert their own plants but there's no demand here in the United States they tried to create demand here in the US by forcing Supply and that's failed so the carbon industry is coming back they they can't get around it I think you're going to see a lot more hybrids out of the automobile and manufacturers and there's egg on the face of this Administration for bailing out the Auto industry one more time well and I talked to local auto dealers uh friends of mine in our our district in our listing area and they tell me the manufacturers are trying to force on them to carry these EVS on their floor plan and pay this interest on this floor plan and they can't sell them people do not want uh to drive a golf cart to work now I wouldn't mind having one to run around town maybe but don't force it on I'm not against against EVS at all uh but you can't force Demand by creating Supply forcing Supply you can't do that and that's happened and the car dealerships are having trouble but there's another element of that and you know I'm getting into probably things that are that are more than people consider the automobile manufacturers like to have the Tesla Model where they don't have car dealerships anymore you just go and exchange your battery or you don't you don't get your car fixed like you do with uh a conventional Auto yeah we're talking with Greg Pence uh congressman from Indiana we have lots more to talk about here on Mark alers America I want to get into the debate that happened this week where we are head yeah there was a debate this week uh I want to talk about uh the upcoming presidential election are we going to hang on to the uh majority in the house I certainly hope so where we where are we headed as a nation we're talking with a great Patriot Greg pence from Indiana you're listening to Mark alfreds America we'll be right back welcome back to Mark alfords America where we give you a behind the scenes look each week in Washington DC sometimes in the district introducing you to some of the great folks we work with today we're talking with Congressman Greg Pence of Indiana a proud marine officer businessman and an advocate for Indiana's sixth congressional district uh Greg you you Remember the fallen: Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon were in the Marines um once a marine always a marine thank you for your service by the way you were actually in beut Lebanon tell me about that experience I was uh thanks Mark uh I've done a lot since I've been in in Congress trying to remember 40 it be 41 years ago uh October 23rd of this year last year was 40th we did a uh we went to Camp Le June and did a commemorative Memorial with secretaries of the Navy and the common Marine Corps and some other dignitaries folks that had been there I was a liaison officer between two battalions I spent time there by the grace of God I got to leave a few days before they came and drove a truck in and blew up uh the Barra which was a was a Hilton that was 44 years ago 41 41 wow um uh that was the largest loss of marine lives behind eima since then and while yesterday we had a uh Congressional uh medal gold medal uh for the 13 uh service men that lost their lives in Afghanistan I'm going to continue to fight for the 280 Marines uh that lost their lives on that day what are you going what what do you I'd like a uh commemorative day uh Remembrance Day to be uh put in the Congressional why do that not happened before that's a it's a little bit of a heavy lift um you know they they only do so many of those but I've got a lot of support and have had a lot of support I had an Ur ra bill so the Marines out there know what that that is and that went after Iran it froze 6 billion of their dollars over in Europe uh and uh TR we tried to shut down Hezbollah and Hamas and here they are again 41 years later it's the same characters doing the same thing Iran funding hezb and Hamas Visa Lebanon well it doesn't help when President Biden frees up $6.5 Billion that does not help right right when you look I know this guy's our president Congressional Gold Medals: 13 servicemembers killed in Kabul, Afghanistan uh we respect the office of the presidency but when you saw those families yesterday in the Rotunda these 13 gold star families and 13 service members many of them Marines one of them from Kansas uh from Missouri uh Lance corporal schmidtz um in the Marine Corps when this President abandoned Afghanistan the way he did and left 13 service members there to die and then they check in his watch see what time it is when their bodies come home what goes through your mind he is toned down never served has no idea um is insensitive uh but we did the right thing here in the house uh speaker Johnson did the right thing yesterday and all of the other leadership showed up and we remember those and we just need to keep remembering so it doesn't happen again for the first time they got an apology it was not from kamla Harris it was not from Joe Biden it was from Mike Johnson the speaker of the house right what do you think that meant to the families to get that apolog well we were both there uh watching their tears knowing that that was going to help them put this loss behind uh help them put uh the loss of their loved ones behind them and be be remembered and uh it is the right thing to do of course in the debate uh on uh was there a debate when was that this this earlier this week I don't know if you saw it but K aay ask her uh did did you support uh the president's decision on Afghanistan and she had said previously that she was the last person in the room trying to give herself some credibility that she actually had a voice in in this decision and maybe she did or maybe she didn't but she did not admit to any mistakes in that flawed decision to pull out and go against Trump's uh proposal his pull out uh he wanted to leave 2500 troops there uh he he did not want to leave billions of dollars worth of equipment there uh it was going to be totally different but Joe Biden was insistent on uh a zero occupation Force as they called it from the US government to get uh just leave on the anniversary of 91 be out before then um what do you make of KLA Harris well uh having had a brother was vice president of the United States you know I'm not real sure that uh she certainly has to continue to support her president as she serves as vice president as best she can and so it's not I'm giving her a pass on her statement uh because I'm not giving a pass on the administration for what they did but her saying that she supported what the president did is that I think that's fair L political and fairly standard how consequential is this upcoming presidential election and for that matter uh the house elections all over the country and the uh Senate those are up for Senate reelection well is it the only way we're going to turn this around I I believe is make sure that we hold the house regardless of what happens in the White House and when which there's a higher probability winning the Senate you know we can't we can't you and I in the house where we sit right now can't lose sight of the fact that we need to hold or grow the House of Representatives and that's our job our job is not to get the Senate elected the house elected and a governor in Indiana or Missouri elected we need to focus on our job our peers our party here our conference Greg Pence what do you love about America oh the people right might even put Indiana at the top of that list right course you you got some other affiliation no I just it's great people I've I have actually lived in a number of different places in the world and nobody's better than us no economy is better our values maybe maybe not New York I won't I won't pick on New York but certainly we care about other people uh every Community has organizations helping other people to feed them to house them to close them to care for them I don't think you find that to the extent as you do in the rest of the world well Greg thank you so much for sharing your time with us today thank you folks for listening to Mark Alfred's America we'll talk again next week until then remember I believe in you I believe that our best days are still ahead of us and Greg Pitts I believe in America thank you Mark thank you