In this compelling episode of The Jenny Beth Show, former Georgia State Representative Vernon Jones shares his transformative journey from a lifelong Democrat to a prominent Republican leader. Known for his bold endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election, Jones discusses his reasons for switching parties, emphasizing his commitment to conservative values and election integrity. He delves into critical issues such as cancel culture, illegal immigration, and the importance of school choice, offering insights based on his extensive political career. Tune in to hear Vernon Jones' passionate advocacy for America First policies and his unwavering dedication to preserving the core principles of the United States. Don't miss this powerful conversation with Vernon Jones, Fmr. GA State Rep.
In this compelling episode of The Jenny Beth Show, former Georgia State Representative Vernon Jones shares his transformative journey from a lifelong Democrat to a prominent Republican leader. Known for his bold endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election, Jones discusses his reasons for switching parties, emphasizing his commitment to conservative values and election integrity. He delves into critical issues such as cancel culture, illegal immigration, and the importance of school choice, offering insights based on his extensive political career. Tune in to hear Vernon Jones' passionate advocacy for America First policies and his unwavering dedication to preserving the core principles of the United States. Don't miss this powerful conversation with Vernon Jones, Fmr. GA State Rep.
Twitter/X: @VernonForGA | @jennybethm
Email: friendsofvernonJones@gmail.com
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Vernon Jones (00:00):
I saw that the Democrat party their mind. No. This party values identify politics
Narrator (00:24):
Keeping our republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she is most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:56):
Today we are excited to have Vernon Jones on as our guest Vernon, a former state representative and Democrat gain national attention by endorsing Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and speaking at the Republican National Convention. He officially joined the GOP in 2021 and has become a key leader in the America first movement. Vernon has served in the Georgia House of Representatives and a CEO of DeKalb County, Georgia. He is a strong advocate for conservative values and is committed to fighting for election integrity and against cancel culture. Let's dive into our conversation with Vernon Jones. Vernon, thank you so much for joining me today.
Vernon Jones (01:36):
Thank you for having me. Jean,
Jenny Beth Martin (01:38):
We met for the first time on John Frederick's radio show when Georgia reopened back in 2020. And at the time you were a Democrat, I, I believe you had an endorsed Trump or you had just endorsed Trump and now you are a Republican and you've been an elected official, a state rep, CEO of DeKalb County, and you've had quite a political journey. How did this all happen?
Vernon Jones (02:05):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me on your show and thank you for all you all do for election integrity among many other things. I've always been a conservative. I was raised that way. I was educated that way. My values has always been who Vernon Jones is. Thank God for my parents. The Democratic Party of yesterday is not the party it is today. And I've said on countless times I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me and I chose not to go off that cliff because of where they were going with social issues, with fiscal conservative issues among many others. I was a sitting Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives. I saw President Trump. I evaluated him what his message was, what his position was on issues. And I compare that to Joe Biden and I had maybe much more of a longer record to look at Joe Biden. He had been in office all those years. But when I looked at his record, when I looked at the position that he was taken and I heard what President Trump had to say, it was a no brainer.
Vernon Jones (03:13):
It was just easy. It's like I cannot go and just tow the party line just because I'm a Democrat and it's a conflict with my values. And so I came out for President Trump and you would've thought all hell broke a loose. Ironically though, I didn't get the same treatment as Zell Miller got when Zell Miller came out for President George W. Bush, the Democrat party didn't Brier beat him. He could think independence. As a matter of fact, independent Democrats were you heard of the Reagan Democrats. But I was treated much differently. And I think we all know why is because as Joe Biden said, because I'm black, I'm supposed to vote Democrat, which is stupid in itself. But President Trump had a strong message. Then I came out and supported him. And then when I saw that the Democrat party just lost their minds, I just said, I can no longer identify with this party.
Vernon Jones (04:11):
They don't identify with my values. They don't identify with my politics. They don't identify with being fiscal conservative and having, there's no limits on an abortion up until the day a child is born. They want to educate young children in school that they're more than one, more than two genders supporting and pushing transgender operations for minors. And what do they know without parental knowledge in school that this has being encouraged? And so that among look at the border, the border, just know I'm all for immigration. Let me be clear about that. But we are country of rules and laws. We're a sovereign nation. We have borders. We have on the books that you cannot come in this country illegally and it's always been there, but enforcing it and Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, they just welcome them without having them go through a process of coming to this country. So that among many other issues with the Democrat Party, I couldn't stomach it any longer. And I feel comfortable with the jersey that I have on. Not that a Republican party is a perfect party, but it's like anything else. We are a party that we can be different and have different ideas and views about things, but our core values remain the same, and that's what keep us there. And so I came back to the grand old party, the party of Lincoln, bringing new ideas and new people and new opportunities.
Jenny Beth Martin (05:46):
I think it's great that you have done that. When you talk about fiscal conservatism, I'd like to know what you mean by that. And I think it's interesting that you mentioned that a few times. It's something that the Tea Party cares about greatly. But when we were at the John Fredericks radio interview, that's part of why we were there because the state was opening and Kemp was trying to make sure that people still were able to earn their livelihood.
Vernon Jones (06:16):
Yeah, well, I was a former legislator obviously, and I helped write the law, but I was also a county executive. I was elected twice and I had to run a government. I've been a chief executive. I had to balance the budget. I had to be responsible for various departments and agencies and personnel and policies. And so what I mean by fiscal responsibility, I try to treat the government's bank account. I treat my bank account. I can't spend what I don't have. We have to forecast as best as we can, but we have to make sure that revenues are there to cover the operation, to cover the expenses. But we don't just go with an open checkbook spending taxpayers dollars. And so making sure that they get the best bang for their buck, that their dollar goes as far as it can and not raising taxes, not having wasteful spending in government, just growing government for the heck of it.
Vernon Jones (07:11):
That's not good policy. So it's not always the size of government, but it's the efficiency in government. And so when I see a lot, including some, let's be honest on the Republican side that have been a little on that spending side, but our core foundation is less government being able to make sure we are mindful of taxpayers dollars that we are for free enterprise, less regulations. Government can be overbearing. I saw myself, I had to catch myself at times having to see, well, wait a minute in my passing a new policy that's going to really hinder or stipend business, am I overregulating with public policy? So I had to look at and examine myself. What if I were out there, what would be the impact on the rules and regulations that I pass or policy? How's it going to happen? How's it going to have an impact on the actual person that's going to have to deal with that policy?
Vernon Jones (08:09):
And so many times we just out there passing public policy, but we don't know the ripple effect. We are not there. We don't feel that. I always said one time too that I would, if I were back in as a chief executive and responsible for planning and permitting, I would never hire a student out of college who's in urban planning. Let me hire the person who's had to stand in line and apply for a permit and see all the bureaucracy and how time consuming it is and how it's impacting their pocketbook. Time is money. And so government, we need to be thinking about the actual people who are having to be of subject or be subjected to these rules and regulations. Then when you look at the Republican party, the Democrat party is regulation after regulation. Look how long it takes to build a road.
Vernon Jones (08:58):
When I was county exec, I had to build a road, but when I saw and experienced all the rules and regulation, environmental regulations, I understand and I'm for safe environment, but sometimes it's just too much. It's overregulation and it's harmful. It's punitive, and that's not the type of regulation we need. Look at drilling right now. The environmentalist has Joe Biden out there on a limb where he stopped drilling on American soil. Oh, look, fish don't have to go to work. People do. We can drill and we can drill safely, safely be energy independent. And understanding the fact that we can energy all costs I guess is driven by energy costs, that we can reduce the cost of goods and reduce the cost of services. We can be independent with our own drilling, our own or energy, not relying on foreign countries who are just jacking up the prices at will and putting that burden back on the average American family like yours and mine. And so you can regulate to the point where it becomes punitive and not good for the American people.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:04):
And that is part I think of why the tea party movement started. The regulations can be crushing to small business owners and especially to medium-sized business owners. If you strikeout on your own and you're a small business owner and a solo entrepreneur, you usually can do okay, but as you start to grow and you move into a medium-sized business, a lot of those regulations kick in and they apply to medium and to large businesses. And a large business normally has more money coming in to be able to handle the regulations. It makes it really tough for the medium businesses who are trying to become large. It's crushing. And then they may not even make it because the cost of being able to keep up with the government eats so much into their profit.
Vernon Jones (10:58):
And as you know, small businesses and medium businesses create the bulk of the jobs. That's right. And so if you punitive on them, what are you doing? You're hurting that small local business person who's employing people, who's depending on those wages for their kids to go through school and college to pay their mortgage, to pay their connotes, to pay their taxes. And so when you hurt that small business, what is the ripple effect? He can't give that employee as many hours as he was giving them before. And so we should be looking at how we can incentivize and grow small businesses keeping in mind that they are the backbone of the job, of the job community. And so when you look at those who are in public policy or who make public policy, public officials, many of them have never met a payroll. You look at Joe Biden, he's been getting a check from the government for 50 plus years.
Vernon Jones (11:59):
Does he really know what it's like out here for the average person who doesn't have a guaranteed check from the government, guaranteed health insurance from the government. And so that's why when you look at his policy, when you look at the Democrat party's policies, it is really counterproductive to American families. And I'm not talking about the 1%, I'm talking about the 99%. They have abandoned the middle class. They meaning the Democrat party has abandoned the middle class. They have abandoned those just average blue collar workers. They don't feel like they're being listened to anymore, and they don't feel like that their needs are being met. And so unfortunately, we're in a state now with President Joe Biden, we cannot tolerate another four years. And you were saying something earlier about when Covid was here, you look at a lot of local governments just towing the Democrat party line and their talking points.
Vernon Jones (12:56):
They became so punitive. They started demanding that businesses can only have X amount of people in there at a time. Although those local businesses stood more of a chance of being arrested if they had more than 10 people, for example, than all those rioters who were rioting. The streets ravaging our streets, destroying personal and government properties and those regulations in school, they shut down schools. How do you shut down schools? Look in those rural areas where kids, they don't have access to internet, so how are they going to go online and do their homework? Many of them really, they don't get a good meal until they go to school. I hate to say it, but many of them, they rely on those meals. The other thing, look at how many of them who were impacted that were subjected to domestic violence.
Vernon Jones (13:52):
Now at home, there's nobody watching that kid or able to see what is happening with that child. And then what did it do academically? It just set those kids back and when in fact, even what the six feet rule, it was just a lie. They just grabbed it and pulled it out of the air. They went back and forth on the mask. There were people who literally lost their jobs because they would not take the covid shot. I didn't take it. I was fortunate enough, I write my own way, but many of them lost their jobs. My nephew called me. He was about to graduate from nursing school at North Carolina Central University, and he was told he had to take the covid shot or else he would remain in school. And so it was just punitive and it was all based on a big lie.
Vernon Jones (14:34):
It was false information that a lot of us created by Dr. Falsy. I call him himself and the CDC, again, all these regulations they just came out of nowhere with, and it just destroyed businesses. It destroyed communities, destroyed education. I was talking to some of my friends who live in Florida. They were saying that Andrew Cuomo, who was a governor of New York, was the best real estate agent that Florida had because he was so punitive, so many regulations up there requiring people to have a validation, have literally a card saying that I got a covid shop before they can enter some businesses. That was crazy. So a lot of people left and went to Florida where it was open like you said, because they went too far with it.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:18):
They did go too far. And a couple things about that. First I kept saying all these people who are making these rules, whether it's on Capitol Hill or locally, although thankfully where I lived in Cherokee County, Georgia, we didn't have to worry about that locally, but around the country locally, they were making all these rules and they didn't even understand the consequences of what they were doing. And I kept saying, you mentioned the paychecks that Biden has been on the government payroll his whole life. These are people who've never had to make payroll. They don't understand that if you don't sell something, you don't bring money in. And if you don't bring money in, you can't pay the employees. And they, they're completely disconnected from it because they're just used to tax money coming in. And if the tax money isn't there, the government just prints more money.
Jenny Beth Martin (16:09):
So one way or the other at the federal level, they have the money that they think that they need. And then there was this circular firing squad, but no one was ever in charge. So Fauci would make a rule or a recommendation, and then he would say, oh no, but it was just my recommendation. And the CDC would make recommendations and school districts and school boards would follow what the CDC said were the recommendations. And the CDC would say, well, we didn't tell them what they had to do. But then the local government was saying, we can't change it until the CDC recommends something different. And so you had no way to get anything changed in many places around this country because nobody was in charge. It was all just people making these vague recommendations that impacted everyone's life. And they weren't based on fact.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:02):
They weren't constitutional. The day, the court, I think it was the Supreme Court who ultimately ruled on the mask on planes, or maybe it was an appeals court, I don't remember, but the ruling came out. I got on the phone with Delta. As soon as I saw the alert on my phone, I called the one 800 number and it said, I'm not calling about making a reservation today. I want to know when are the masks going off the planes? And they said, well, we have to do it because the government said, I said, no, no, no. A court just ruled you don't have to. When are they going off? And the next day I was in the airport and there were signs saying you didn't have to wear a mask anymore. I was taking photos going, thank goodness that part is done, but it should
Vernon Jones (17:42):
Well, look at the airlines. They were following what falsely was saying. They were following what CC was saying. And when you mentioned CDC, there was the head of the teacher's union there. She was having back channel communications with the head of CDC, and it was political because they were using it as leverage to negotiate more or better contracts, I guess, for teachers. And they were just coming up with their own rules in a very clandestine way. And so at the end of the day, now that the public is seeing what the government did, the government lied to it to them. What would happen if something came along, another series issue like this? Will the people now really feel like the government is telling them the truth when it could be telling them the truth, but now we don't know because they lied to us before.
Vernon Jones (18:33):
So the public trust, and that's so important. Public trust has been impacted by the government at the government's highest levels. It was almost like I remember seeing when President Trump put into place operation warp speed to find some type of vaccination. There were the liberal media from Joe Reed to Rachel Matto and others. We would never take the shot. We would never take the shot. How can you get a shot developed within less than three a year? The FDA normally requires five years. Well, lo and behold, when President Trump was no longer office and Joe Biden comes in, then here they are. They're pushing and demanding and criticizing, ostracizing those who won't take the same shot that they said no one should take. So the politics, well, maybe it was politics got involved and in the meantime, the average person, the average American worker, the average small business, the average student, they were profoundly impacted in a very negative way all in the name of a big lie for political purposes. And it is just extraordinary to me how they were literally willing to lock people up if they didn't follow these fate rules or to throw people out of colleges and universities or even lose your job because you didn't get the jab sad. It
Jenny Beth Martin (20:02):
Really is sad. Then high school seniors from 2020, they graduated, most of them graduated from college this year in 2024, so they didn't have high school graduation. And then they get to 2024, and if they went to an elite school, especially on the west coast, they didn't get a graduation. Again because of the Hamas, the pro Hamas supporters protesting on college campuses. They were robbed out of both graduations. If I were their parents, I would be livid, but then if I were their parents, it wouldn't have been at a school that would've done that because I made sure my kids were at a school where they weren't going to have to have vaccine and they weren't completely locked down. And we visited the campus and went in classrooms where people were meeting instead of virtual school.
Vernon Jones (20:56):
Well, you had a couple of different groups impacted by that. You had those primary students, little kids who went to school for the first time, their first day in school, they had a mask. They went a whole year, year and a half, some cases, two years with a mask. They couldn't even see each other's faces. I mean, can you imagine that? Then as you mentioned about the high schools where those high school students didn't get their graduation and then four years later here they already to graduate from college. And because of these, like you said, these so-called elite universities with these huge endowment funds, they're allowing these students to literally take over campus, forget about free speech, intimidate and attack those based on them being of the Jewish faith. And at the same time, they're carrying Hom terrorist flags. They're saying literally they're so angry and with the threats that they made against their fellow student just because they were Jewish and these universities just sat back and allowed to happen and was too afraid to come up and say, look, this is wrong.
Vernon Jones (22:05):
We are not going to tolerate this. I just got back from Israel. I had opportunity to meet with the delegation and a number of individuals from the Prime Minister's office as well as the IDF. And when I also had opportunity to tour Nova Park where that festival was, where those people were shot down and tour one of the neighborhoods or communities, the kabuki community, and saw those houses where they were burned. And then the most egregious part about it I saw where they had raw footage of body cams from the terrorists, from hummus. They were wearing body cams as they were shooting people down in real time, men, women and children setting on fire people's homes, burning people up inside of those homes. I actually witnessed the beheading, including a Israel soldier where they held his head up and they were on the speakerphone with their commando, and they were just shouting Allah and bragging about it while they were holding this man's head up that I just saw them chop off shooting people in their cars. There was a in front of their children,
Jenny Beth Martin (23:13):
Seen in front of their children. The same video with the two boys.
Vernon Jones (23:15):
Yeah, the two little boys running out there and the dead. Yeah, it was amazing. The cemetery of cars, you had over 200 plus cars like a cemetery where you can, they had examine each car for the DNA because the blood and body parts and all this stuff that they were gathering. And when I see these students protesting with showing all this anti-Semitic behavior, and when I see the L-G-B-T-Q community screaming and promus, I'm saying, do you know what they would do to you if you were over there? Either be thrown off a building or if you're in the military just shot? I mean really, do you know? But they just don't know. No, they alright. Because when you look at their professors, when you look at what they're being taught now, they're literally being indoctrinated with antisemitic behavior and it is allowed from the, I should say the palace of the office, of the president of the university and college used to be one place that you can go to, even if you had a difference, you can express those differences. But now if you don't have that far radical left liberal ideology, you're not allowed to say anything on campus. You're kept from coming on campus. What has happened, Jean Beth, what has happening for our eyes just so unbelievable.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:40):
And it's like these college, especially the college age students who are doing this, they've forgotten our past or they never were taught our past. They don't understand that even in America, it didn't happen in my lifetime because I was born at the very end of segregation. But in my parents' lifetime certainly there was segregation, there was overt racism, and they're doing the very things right now that lead to that kind of segregation and overt racism and they don't even understand and not even going back to World War ii, just looking at the things that have happened in this country that they would be so opposed to. They're leading to it. I've heard of college campuses where they're saying, well, black people are going to be over here and white people are going to be over here. And I'm like, I grew up in DeKalb County. I grew up in DeKalb County during desegregation. That is what they were trying to get rid of. I had a friend who bused into my elementary school and he had to be on buses, I think an hour or 45 minutes one way every day. And his parents did that so that he was in a school where he was a minority and getting a better education. It makes me ill.
Vernon Jones (26:00):
Well, what's frightening though, these college students coming from these Ivy League schools are going to end up with the Department of Justice. They're going to end up on the bench, they, they're going to end up being in charge of major universities, presidents of major universities, corporate CEOs. What do you think is going to happen then? What kind of environment they're going to breathe in? So that is what's so frightening. And then when I see some of them try to compare these protests to the protests from the Civil Rights movement, wait a minute, Dr. King didn't want you to be a part of any of his protesting if it was in name of violence. That's right. It was nonviolent in these cases. No, it's violent. So don't even try to invoke Dr. King's name and try to run a comparison. There is no comparison. There's no parallel there.
Vernon Jones (26:49):
And you're right, you talk about busing, it's kind of ironic. I remember the debate in the primary between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden when Kamala Harris was talking about when she was this little girl and how Joe Biden was so anti busing and he didn't want his kids going to school in a racial jungle. And I hear all that rhetoric and then they want to come back as if Joe Joe Biden is a saint in the African-American community, which is really the contrary, not only from his positions and who his associations were ranging from Senator Robert Bird in Virginia who was the Grand POF for the state of West Virginia on down to him liking that black, the reason why black businesses aren't successful is because they don't have accountants and attorneys to, if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. I mean, what an insult. Now would he say that to the Jewish community? Would he say that to the LGBT community? Will he say that to whites? Can you imagine Joe Biden saying to white people, if you don't vote for me, you're not white. But he feels that comfortable and feel like black people are so much beneath him that he can literally make a statement like that.
Jenny Beth Martin (28:11):
It's just it's crazy. Yes. And now we've seen the debate and how he was in the debate and as we're filming this, we're 16 weeks out from the election and it will air a little bit later, so I'm not sure who's going to be at the top of the ticket at that point. But these democrats who claim to be for democracy and protecting democracy have hidden this man and his very clear mental decline from the world. Who's making the decisions? He's the one whose hand was on the Bible who swore the oath of office. He's the one who was the president and he's the one who was elected. And we can debate the 2020 election and you and I both could go there for hours, but the fact is he's the one who was the president, not the unelected people who aren't even sworn in. That's not democracy.
Vernon Jones (29:10):
It's bizarre.
Jenny Beth Martin (29:10):
It's so crazy to me
Vernon Jones (29:12):
When I hear them talk about democracy, but then I see them seek to keep President Trump off the ballot. I see them trying to keep Robert F. Kennedy off the ballot. To me that's not only candidate suppression is voter suppression. They can't even vote for a candidate they like to vote for. They hijack the primaries, they hijack everything. They keep others out. A few group of people that's not in the name of democracy. No. Again, to me that is election interference is voter suppression. It's candidate suppression. It is things that they should be investigated for. If you and I challenge the elections based on just wanting transparency and wanting free and fair elections and they come after you and I just, we just want to make sure things are counted and counted accurately. But here are people literally moving forward to try to keep people off the ballot.
Vernon Jones (30:11):
They're moving forward trying to just keep anybody from competing. The congressman who was trying to challenge President Biden that they did everything they could to keep him off the ballot or out of the primary. He said it best and he kind of went against the grain that the people need to have a choice that Joe Biden mentally, he's not there. I think it's Philip Philip, I can't remember the congressman name, but he was trying to give the people a voice or a choice and a voice, and they sought to smother and cover him as if he read the Waffle House smother cover. You know how they do that? They kept him away. They kept him down, kept him out. And so when I hear people say, well, now they're talking about, well, we need to try to find another candidate. Well, when you had opportunity to find another candidate, it didn't fit your narrative.
Vernon Jones (31:04):
Matter of fact, you've suppressed other candidates from being out and showing that they can either do a better job or as good of a job or just give the American people a choice. In the Democrat primary President Trump, to the opposite, he had a crowded feel. He went through a primary, anybody who wanted to run, he didn't try to keep 'em off the ballot. He didn't try to keep 'em out of the way. He allowed the people to have an opportunity to vote. But Democrats and Joe Biden, they didn't do that. And so when I look at the whole landscape when they talk about in the name of democracy, I'm like, what democracy are they referring to? The hypocrisy of them using the term democracy.
Jenny Beth Martin (31:46):
It is an absolute insult. And then they're saying the way that they, well, we don't know when this errors, what we're saying right now may be outdated, but some of what is being reported right now this week as we record this is that they're going to have a quick primary, they're going to get Biden off the ballot and then have a quick primary. It's the voters aren't voting in the primary. It's a delegates to the convention who are not voted on in most cases from a ballot at all. They're voted on from convention processes. So that's not,
Vernon Jones (32:20):
Weren't the democracy
Jenny Beth Martin (32:21):
There. That's not democracy that's actually much closer to representative democracy or republic. And they never even want to use the word republic. But that took away the choice from all the voters during the primary. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tried to run as a Democrat, the congressman who you mentioned other people, and they just stopped all of that. And now they just want to pick whoever they think is the most likely to
Vernon Jones (32:45):
Win about 4,000 people who are the delegates and the establishment. They're going to get into a room and they're going to pick who the nominee is. And isn't that voter suppression where the voters didn't get a chance to vote for a candidate of their choice? To me it is voter suppression. And so it's interesting, but heat not a fire is so hot for your fo that you burn yourself. Someone once said, so here they are now they're in that circle of firing squad and they don't know what to do and they're having a meltdown and they want to blame it on everybody but themselves. And then there's the media who play who just as big of a culprit as anyone. The liberal media
Jenny Beth Martin (33:27):
Democracy dies in darkness. When they don't ask questions, it certainly die. But
Vernon Jones (33:31):
They didn't want to ask question because they were so Joe Biden, it was called like anybody but Trump, a BT, anybody but Trump. So they're willing to turn their head and see that Joe Biden was not the person in any way that can really be fit for public office at his age now. And it's not so much at his age because Bernie Sanders is older and much sharper. I give the credit to Maxine Walter. That's not probably the only thing. I give her credit, she's 85, she's older than Joe Biden, but it's where her mind is. It's where some of the others minds are. Bernie Sanders mind is unlike Joe Biden. Joe Biden is just him at 81. He's having cognitive issues at 81. So there's some 81 year olds obviously that have more cognitively, cognitively alert. But when you look at Joe Biden, they knew it.
Vernon Jones (34:31):
They covered it up. Kareem Jean Pierre just gallaway whatever she wanted to, she didn't have to answer any questions. If you did ask questions, you were ostracized, you were taken off the list even by the White House press court. They looked at you like, oh, you're a troublemaker. But now here it is, they're finally asking some questions and now I'm seeing the liberals. All of a sudden they're attacking the liberal media and I'm saying to myself, give me some more popcorn. I want to continue to watch this. This is just, it's gone off the chain.
Jenny Beth Martin (35:05):
It really has gone off the chain. Let's go to one other issues that you care a lot about, and that is immigration and legal immigration. You have a real problem with illegal immigration, don't you? Isn't that one of the things that attracted you to Trump back in 2020? Well,
Vernon Jones (35:23):
Sure. Listen, is un-American to not support immigration, but it's equally un-American to support illegal immigration. We don't mind. Look, many of us came to this country, we're immigrants. The natives were here, so others came in. So it's not that we have a problem with people coming to this country, but we have to do it in a orderly fashion. We have to do it by the rules. If I go out right now and I run a red light, the rules say that and the police catch me, they're going to write me a ticket and I'm subjected possibly to go to court. You come across our borders illegally and we catch you. The law says that we supposed to return you back to where you came from. But what has happened, Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, their belief is that let's allow all of these illegals to come in because we telling them to come in.
Vernon Jones (36:28):
These are going to be new votes for us. They're coming in under the auspices of we are fleeing because of what's going on in our country. It's like, wait a minute. So asylum seekers, you live in a bad neighborhood, so now you want to come and claim asylum. No, it's not for those who are coming from a bad neighborhood. It's when your government is against you, your government is doing something to you. So the drug dealers are literally telling them what they need to say before they were trying not to be caught. When they come across the border, now they come across the border. They want you to catch them because what are you going to do? You're going to bring them in. You're going to, regardless of their background, you're going to give 'em a phone. You're going to give 'em a hotel, free education, free medical, a laptop and a debit card, a cash debit card.
Vernon Jones (37:22):
Who wouldn't come over here? And your court date, by the way, is so far out do you actually think they're going to show up for court? And so when we catch you years later who you didn't show up for court, but now you have kids, oh, don't send me back home because my kids, my kids were born over here. They're anchor babies. We are just repeating that Joe Biden just opened the case. How can anybody in their right mind not see when President Trump was in office that our borders were under control? I know I went down, I visited the borders, I visited with local law enforcement, I visited with the border patrols. They were saying when President Trump was in office that they were able to be on the offense in terms of catching these illegals. But now they're on the defense. They're now a welcoming committee.
Vernon Jones (38:12):
They just, well, you in here, sign up. Let's get you settled in, put you on a bus, send you somewhere or fly you in the middle of the night to various countries. And so it's like it's nobody in control. And when I hear them say that the board is secure, and then they give a simple job to Kamala Harris to be the so-called border patrol senior agent. She didn't want to do that job. I guess that was beneath her. She never even cared about the border she wanted. She just wanted to be president. So she wanted the job, but she doesn't want to do the job and the Secretary of Homeland Security, he's a disaster. And to sit there and see him lie before Congress that the borders are secured, does he think that we are that big of a fool that we cannot see what's happening at the borders?
Vernon Jones (39:04):
And then you see at the borders who are controlling the borders. Now the cartels, the cartels are making money now. The cartels are bringing in drugs, they're conducting human trafficking, they're in charge of the borders and they're getting paid. It's like what in the world is going on? Maybe now close to eight or 9 million people have come in in just three and a little over half years under the Biden administration. The numbers are just soared really. But we are supposed to, it's like, oh, so we are homophobic and xenophobic and we are racist because we want our borders protected, really. And then they're coming in and they're picking which neighborhoods to drop them off in and they're taking resources from those local communities. They're taking over their schools, they're taking over their playgrounds, they're taking over hotels.
Vernon Jones (39:54):
They're finding millions of dollars to take care of them. In the meantime, you have veterans living under bridges with mental issues we should be helping. There are communities, schools who could be repaired or rebuilt. It's like, look how much money we've spent just on Joe Biden not securing the board or just maintaining what President Trump had in place. He went and dismantled what President Trump had in place. And so when I think about it, it's like it's a disaster. Everything Joe Biden touches really turns to, I can't use the word, but I think, you know what I'm saying?
Jenny Beth Martin (40:27):
It is not pretty. Yeah, it's not pretty. It's definitely not pretty. Right. What are you doing these days? So you are no longer an elected official. What is it that you do now? Yeah,
Vernon Jones (40:40):
Lemme tell you. I want to be clear. I'm working as hard as I can to save America, to make America great again. I am crisscrossing the state and crisscrossing the country, speaking to as many people as I can about the importance of election integrity, the importance of getting Joe Biden out there, the importance of changing the house or increasing our numbers in the house to save the house and to take the Senate so we can get some judges on the bench. We can get some secretaries in these various cabinet positions and middle management so we can go and rescue and save our borders so we can start to rebuild our military so we can make sure we are energy independent now. And so it can drive down the cost of living. We can see interest rates come back to some level of normalcy. So I am speaking to everybody everywhere I can possibly about the importance of getting out and reelecting President Trump building our numbers on the house side, taking over the Senate so we can right this ship because we're definitely going in the wrong direction.
Vernon Jones (41:48):
And obviously I'm going to every community, including minority communities because historically in the past 60 years, you haven't seen minorities like me out there just drum beating and showing people of color. Listen, for 60 years you've been voting for Democrats for 60 years. You've been voting for policies that's been counterproductive to you wake up and smell the coffee. And in doing so, I've had to take on the liberal media who has a target on me because I'm not supposed to be who I am telling black people to leave the Democrat party plantation because they survived. Democrats. White Democrats survive off the black votes and in turn the minute election's over, they throw 'em off the bus and they're putting illegals ahead of them. They're putting forth public policy. They keep them in victim hood positions. They keep them on crutches. They're not growing their businesses, they're not creating jobs.
Vernon Jones (42:44):
They're not supporting quality education. When I mentioned education, school choice, I am a big proponent of school choice. I would much rather see our kids in performing schools as opposed to failing schools. And right now, the Democrats, they want you to think, oh, if you take your kids out of public schools, public schools are going to fail. Well let them fail because they're not producing a quality education. And as a matter of fact, I actually think that public schools would become more competitive when they didn't know they have a blank check and they're going to get endless funding. And it should be a parents should have the right on whether or not that their child receive a quality education. If that means having the money to support that child by putting that child in a private school, that they know that school is performing, what is wrong with that? It should be left up to the parents, not Democrats who determine a child's education. When you look at many parents, if you live in a particular district, your kids are forced to go to that failing school. Why are they forced to go to that failing school? It's horrible. It doesn't make any sense. And so this is about what's best for the child, not what's best for the political party, what's best for that child.
Jenny Beth Martin (43:58):
When I was mentioning earlier that I grew up during desegregation in DeKalb County, Georgia, they had minority to majority program to help with desegregation. So if you were a minority in a school, you could choose any other school in the entire county to go and to attend at that school as long as you would wind up if you were a majority. So it was majority to minority. I got it backwards. So if you were a majority, then you could go and make yourself a minority in the school. And so a lot of the black parents were picking schools like the elementary school that I went to. They wanted their kids to go there because it was a really good elementary school. So they were making all sorts of sacrifices in terms of time to get their children to that school. And then the schools that were majority white, I found they were competing with one another. And so there was a bit of school choice. It isn't pure school choice, but it helped. It did. You would see that those schools where the majority wanted to go and be the minority, they were competing with one another. The high schools were trying to be better than one another, the elementary schools, and we need more of that.
Vernon Jones (45:14):
But Mary Beth, if your neighborhood school is a performing school, there's no reason to bust your child across town. That's right. That is right. So the issue is every community should have a performing school. If that school is not performing, if it's failing, then that kid should not be stuck in that trap, that kid and that kid's parents should be able to be in a position. They can put their kid in a performing school. But what if there's a performing school that happens to be a private school in that neighborhood, then let them take their kid to that private school in that neighborhood, let their money follow the child. But you have for political purposes, and these unions, these teachers unions, oh, it's about saving their jobs. Well, you know what? I'm not trying to save someone's job. What I'm trying to do is save kids' quality education.
Vernon Jones (46:03):
That's the most important thing. But if teachers are performing these private schools, they want performing teachers. They don't mind going to public schools and getting 'em. If that teacher has a track record, that teacher is making a difference. That teacher shouldn't have a problem getting a job. That teacher shouldn't have a problem of finding a school or working in a school where they can be in a productive environment where that school is safe, that school is about learning. The parents are engaged and involved, and it's a win-win for everybody. And so going back to your original question, what am I doing? These are the issues that I'm advocating on behalf and I like working with organizations like yours and others who are promoting the same type of issues that are really a big beneficial to every community. It doesn't matter what your race are, it doesn't matter what your gender is, where you live geographically, it's about getting back to the basics.
Vernon Jones (47:00):
Quality, education, free and fair, transparent elections, freedom of speech, the freedom to bear arms, the Second Amendment, but the Constitution itself, embracing the Constitution. That is probably one of the better instruments other than the Bible, the Constitution, those framers of the Constitution, those men, they didn't have a laptop, they didn't have a digital network, but they got there with some ink and a feather and they used their God-given brain. And what they did back then, what they wrote out has lasted all this time. And it's still probably better drafting of papers on how we govern ourselves better than any country in the world. And so as I see the Constitution being eroded, as I see quality of education being eroded, as I see free and fair, transparent elections being eroded, eroding, I am not going to sit idly by and be a part of the problem. I want to be a part of solution. And so from the highest tree, from the lowest valley, the highest mountain, the widest river, I am going to be vocal. This election is so critical. We just cannot take four more years of Joe Biden destroying this country at every level and becoming a laughingstock around the world. I mean, he's literally, when they say asleep at the wheel, he's literally asleep at the wheel.
Jenny Beth Martin (48:24):
Where can people find you?
Vernon Jones (48:26):
They can always go to my social media network. If you go to Twitter, I'm at Vernon, F-O-R-G-A, Vernon, F-O-R-G-A. If you go to my Instagram representative, REP rep Vernon Jones, also on Facebook and those who want to just reach out and send me an email, you can always go to friends of vernonJones@gmail.com and lemme know what your thoughts are and how I can help you or those people contact me, get in touch with organization like yours. We recruiting what thousands of people to make sure we're watching the polls, keeping an eye happened on election day, how that's important.
Vernon Jones (49:07):
Organizations. The
Vernon Jones (49:08):
Good thing about it's we have
Vernon Jones (49:11):
Organizations so much for joining me today.
Narrator (49:32):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mohan and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:52):
If you like this episode, let me know by hitting the light button or leaving a comment or a five star review. And if you want to be the first to know, every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on. If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow and I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.