All right. How are you feeling?
Well, I'll tell you what.
It's exciting to see this many
people here to celebrate and so many
calls from all over the country.
Matter of fact.
But we've worked long and hard for this.
The people have spoken.
We're honored to be the
congressman elect from the 5th
Congressional District of Alabama.
President Donald Trump tonight,
I've heard from him.
Yes, I have heard from the 45th
President of the United States.
It was a great. It was a great conversation.
Many other people who are in
Congress or we're running a
lot of them, somewhere around
25 to 27 calls before I came out,
everything from freshman to folks
that are currently leadership, so.
The people in the leadership have
been there a while, excitement.
The big thing is we've got
a large task ahead of us.
They understand that we've solved a lot
of problems and I think that that's
what we're going to be asked to do.
There's two, two or three committees
that they're considering.
For me, both of them are tier one.
We're excited about that and we're
just ready to execute and continue the
calls tomorrow because those committee
assignments are critical not only for
North Alabama but for all of our country.
But I'm excited.
Where we are, it's been a,
a, a long 18 months.
People have been gracious from Jackson County
to Lauderdale and everywhere in between,
and we're excited about the numbers,
especially tonight.
But this job starts.
It's actually it started tonight,
building relationships and we
will all benefit from that.
How does it feel?
We have Madison County Commission
meeting tomorrow knowing
that you'll be leaving.
But we've accomplished a lot of things there.
I've got some great commissioners there.
You think about it,
10 years ago when we took over,
we had a 9% unemployment rate.
We were in financial ruins,
and we went to work.
We downsized local government,
helped recruit through a team effort,
regional approach,
more than 30,000 new jobs to this community.
Those are some of the same things that
we've got to work on in Washington,
bringing not only the Republican
Party together or the House.
We've got to bring the house
and the Senate together.
And people that understand
energy independence,
America's Got to have that.
You look at this southern border,
doesn't matter what community I was in,
people are concerned about this southern
border where we've got somewhere
between 3 and 10 million people that
have come into our country illegally.
So a lot of work to be done,
but I think this was a huge hurdle tonight.
We're going to enjoy this for an hour or two.
But I'm telling you,
I'm excited for the process
that we've gone through.
Our Republic is alive and well.
Replacing Mel Brooks,
member of the Freedom Caucus.
You mentioned his committee
assignments that you're thinking about.
Are you looking to replace
him both in committees like,
you know, space and uncertain
as well as the Freedom Caucus?
Well, I'm actually shooting for house
Armed Services and Homeland Security.
I think my background and things
that we've got here at Redstone
Arsenal that that will also help.
But again, we'll find out
closer to January the 3rd.
But it's been a great run at Madison County.
And when I say Madison County,
it's all of North Alabama because we could
not have reached this fullest potential
without everybody working together.
Doesn't matter what county it's in.
Our labor shed is from 17 counties in
North Alabama and southern Tennessee,
but that's the thing I'm excited about of
what I will be leaving in a matter of months.
You've heard from former President Trump.
Have you heard from Representative
Brooks and and other other folks from the
previous Congress that might give you some
words of advice or anything like that?
I can tell you right now I've got about 75
calls that I hadn't been able to get to.
I've answered some at this point,
but again, tomorrow's another day.
We've got a 10:00 O'clock Commission
meeting that I will be presiding over.
And I can assure you after that
it's going to be a lot of phone
calls throughout this country.
We've got a lot of people
that are just like me,
very comfortable in what they were doing.
But we thought.
And felt that we needed
to do more for America.
And I'm meeting some great Americans
that wanna wanna help correct some
things that are going on right now.
So real quick, are you looking to join the
Freedom Caucus as well or is that we're
going to evaluate?
But it's interesting.
They spent about $700,000 to
beat me and I'm as conservative
as anybody in North Alabama.
But again, I'm one of these things.
I want to do what's best for America.
And if that's adjoining Freedom Caucus,
I'm definitely going to be working
with members of Freedom Caucus.
But again,
if you look at the financial reports,
you'll see that they didn't support
me. And and what do you say to maybe
the Democratic voters, the libertarian
voters and the non registered voters?
You, you are their representative too.
You better believe it.
We're their representative and
anybody that wants to solve to make
America more energy independent is
concerned about national security,
is concerned about inflation.
I promise you will be fighting for them too.
We've got a great community,
a great district,
a very diverse district.
But I'm telling you right now,
I'll be fighting for everybody in America.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you guys. Thank you.