Live from Virginia Friday morning on The John Fredericks Show – live weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Live Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed (R) US Representative Rob Wittman to the show.
During the show Wittman talked about his warm reception and endorsement by Vice President Pence and President Trump last week in Newport News, Virginia. He later discussed China’s ship building progress and the President’s recent diagnosis with the coronavirus.
Fredericks: Joining us now, congressman, First District Republican. On his way to another victory, Rob Wittman. Congressman, great to have you.
Wittman:Â John great to be with you this morning. Thanks again for the opportunity.
Fredericks: Congressman Friday night in Newport News the president and the vice president showing Congressman Wittman the love man. Did you see that? It was like wow they love you man. Like Pence was like, here’s my my man Rob Wittman right there, man. I’ve been working with him for years. He’s our man, he’s our man, he’s the guy. He’s building our ships. And then the president gets up and he calls you out by name. That’s pretty good Rob Wittman.
Wittman: Well I’ll tell you, the vice president and I go back a ways. I got to serve with him in the house, and just just uh just a great guy. and the president uh the same and all the work that he’s doing. And and you know doing things like taking on China. And you know john being there in Newport News the one thing that ought to be just central in people’s minds is what president trump has done to rebuild our military.
And you know you talk about building ships. that’s incredibly important. And we have the best shipbuilders in the world right here in Newport News. But the president took us from a time where we were on the consequential side of the of the sequester and those in those reductions to our military and saying no. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to go ahead and rebuild the military. In fact the OMD director Russ Vought asked me to come into his office about a week ago and said, Rob I need to know from you what do we need to do to make sure we’re doing everything we can to continue the rebuilding of our navy?
Because we know how incredibly important that is especially in light of the recent report showing that China not only has more ships than we have but their ships are much more advanced. And at least we still have great ships but the Chinese are catching up. So the question we have is how do we make sure that we we stay ahead. All those efforts I think are incredibly important. So it’s great to have the vice president there.
I was very honored to have the vice president’s acknowledgement as well as the president’s acknowledgement there. It’s a great event. Lots of folks there. Lots of excitement. So a great, great, great time. Of course we had, as you saw, our other candidates there too. Scott Taylor came up and just gave a great speech. And so did Nick Freitas. Such a great, great, great evening there in Newport News.
Fredericks: Well you’re certainly showed an inordinate amount of love by both the president and the vice president. So you should feel very very good about that Rob Wittman. Tell us about the Rob Wittman campaign.
Wittman: Well John we’re very, very busy out there each and every day contacting voters. Making sure we’re getting information out to them. It’s as you know it’s a steady steady path. It’s a victory on November the third. But it really all is all about voter turnout. It’s knocking on doors. Getting information to people. Letting them know their options to be able to vote early. You know some people have questions about being able to go in in person early.
And you can do that in Virginia now without having to fill out a form with the reason as you’re going to vote early. You walk right in and show your ID. They check you off on the voter rolls and they give you your ballot you cast your vote. You go through the op-scan machine and you’re done. Also by mail. Listen, what we tell folks is to make sure that they are requesting a ballot themselves.
They can do that online or they can send a request in by mail. But to make sure that they immediately cast that ballot. And if they’re at least, I think the mail service can easily handle the ballots coming in. But if you have a question about that and afraid it might get lost, what we tell folks to do is to take it right to the bench room’s office you can hand it off to them.
If you have a question about the mail, just drop it in the mail call the registrar’s office one week later and ask them if they have received it and confirmation that they have received it. But make sure that you request your ballot early per chance it does get lost you can then ask for that ballot to be cancelled and then you can cast another ballot. But we tell people don’t cast another ballot without formally requesting the one that you’ve already sent in that may they may not have arrived. Make sure you ask for that one to be canceled. But I think that that’s the key. Getting folks out to vote making sure that that they know all the proper ways to be able to cast their vote.
Fredericks: John Frederick’s Radio Network. We’re with Republican Congressman Rob Wittman from the First District of Virginia running for re-election that’ll be decided November 3rd. He’s a big favorite there to win again. Rob, I just got to get a text here from Eugene in Chesterfield that is very interesting. He says, this is how much of a nothing burger the Trump-Melania COVID is.
I had completely forgotten that Ralph Northam and Pam Northam tested positive until you mentioned it. So it’s like they tested positive. They’re fine nothing happened. Nobody wrote anything about it and in two weeks that was that was over. Now they’re back doing what they do every day. So the president testing positive today with Melania, obviously we wish everybody the best that has this.
But I had Steve Bannon on earlier and he and I were in lockstep on this. I just think you go forward. Show resolve. Get through. It’s another day at the office. No need to panic. And you know people are gonna test positive. But our thing from the beginning is testing positive cases don’t mean anything. It’s like how many people in the hospital? How many people are dying? And the numbers continue to go down Rob.
Wittman:Â Well John it just goes to show that yes you have to take all the different precautions. And even if you do, you see like the governor like the President or like other elected officials, people are going to get the disease. I think what people ought to take away from this is that the virus through time has provided a very a very great opportunity for doctors and the medical community to learn how to effectively treat the virus.
So the therapeutics have advanced greatly. So you see with that you see the symptoms of the disease with the treatments that people receive are much less. You see too where we have made significant advancements. And you look at that as reflected not necessarily in the cases of the disease but in the number of people that have either severe symptoms or pass away from the disease. I think that’s the use of the advancements that we’ve made. People get the disease.
The protocols are pretty straight forward. You continue to be tested. Quarantine yourself. And then once you have two consecutive tests over 24 hours and come up negative then you are out of quarantine and then your back to the routine that you had before. That’s across the board for everyone. will be doing the same thing. As you said, you adjust. But when you are in quarantine you do things virtually. And you can do that. The President can do that.
We’ve seen that with other folks in official positions that have tested positive and continue to do the things that they would have done otherwise. They just do them differently. They do it virtually. They do it in another ways where they don’t contact people. You make adjustments. I know the white house doctors will monitor this very very carefully and make sure he received the proper therapeutics. I think you just continue on. You just a make few changes of how you do things. You won’t be able to do things live. But I think you continue to contact people and do the work at the White House as you would otherwise.
Listen to the full show here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjzFg6jPCGI&feature=youtu.be
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