UFOs and the Pentagon’s Ridiculous Need for Secrecy with Rep. Tim Burchett

Julia: Welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox. I’m your host, Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation. Today’s guest is Tim Burchett, our best congressman in the whole state of Tennessee and possibly in the country, if you’re lucky enough to know Tim Burchett. Today, you’re going to find out, if you don’t know him. Tim, thank you for being here today.

Tim: Thanks for having me on, Julia. It’s an honor.

Julia: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s an honor to have you, buddy. Honor to have you. So, let’s start out, you know, this is a Knoxville-based podcast; we talk about all things Knoxville. People from all over the country have started downloading it just to find out who’s who, so that’s really exciting to share. So, let’s introduce you, talk about your family history in Knoxville, and what people need to know about how you ended up in the position you’re in today.

Tim: Well, I got fortunate. Some people don’t have one good parent. I ended up having two. Mom and Daddy were, I guess, what you call it, college sweethearts, and then the second world war broke out. Mama was from Cheatham county, didn’t have electricity till she was a senior in high school, and Daddy was from the big city of Clarksville.

And my Mom’s dad was a rural letter carrier, and then they farmed. And there were seven kids and an uncle that came to visit him for the weekend and ended up staying for I think 13 years till he died. And then, Daddy was the oldest of three in Clarksville. And, like I say, his daddy was a banker, didn’t own the bank but just worked in the bank. Pat Summitt was one of my granddad’s—her family was—they did their banking through my daddy.

And he was pretty—he didn’t have a lot of money, but he was very well known and very well respected. And then Mom and Daddy, Mama during the war, she actually flew an airplane. I got a cool picture of her right here. If I can show that. You can see that.

Julia: Oh, that’s neat.

Tim: Yeah, that’s her and her airplane. And she, you know, she’s… she was a very cool lady. And she taught school and Daddy worked at the University of Tennessee and was Dean of Student Conduct over there. And he was at UT I think almost over 40 years. So yeah, was [unintelligible 00:02:27] over 40 years.

And he—but you know, he was in the Marine Corps in the Pacific. He was in the mess of it. That flag behind me is a 48-star flag that was on my mom’s brother’s casket. He died fighting the Nazis. And then mom went and flew airplanes and stuff. And so, they got married, ended up in Knoxville. GI Bill, UT, and the rest of it, I guess, is history.

And then here I came along, and I’m the youngest of three. I was a weird kid. I got involved in organic gardening, which was kind of weird, I guess, for a kid. But, you know, I rode my bicycle and hunted and fished and played in the creeks like everybody else, but I got involved in that. I would plant these huge gardens and they were very successful.

And I was looking for organic matter, and I stopped a truck one time, and it had a bunch of chips in the back of it. I was like, “What are you going to do with that stuff?” And they said, “We take it to the landfill.” And I said, “How much they pay you for it?” “They don’t.” He said, “We pay them to take it.” And the wheels started turning, and I thought, “Wow, that’s going to be a business.”

And then fast-forward, graduate from college, I come up with an idea to take all the city’s yard waste, about—it turned out to be 30,000 tons, and it made me very wealthy, and at a very young age. I was still living at home. And I got accused of taking toxic waste. All my political friends jumped ship on me. And the EPA came in and, you know, it just—it crushed me, really. Took everything I had, all the money I had to fight. You know, they were accusing me of a felony.

And then I lost—ended up losing the business. I think there was 17 front-page articles above the fold. It was very—I got hacked, I got butchered really bad by the local paper. And it really just created a martyr. I think you and I agree that people in Tennessee, specifically East Tennessee, are very independent thinkers.

And they’ve got—God gave them pretty good minds, and they can separate the wheat from the chaff pretty quick, and they realized it was a hatchet job. And my head—the head of UT’s microbiology department even ate some of my mulch one time on the six o’clock news. Or on the—it was 11 o’clock or 11:30 news, and I remember thinking. “Lord, please don’t let him have a heart attack this weekend.” Anyway, I lost the business, and I remember the day after I closed up, the EPA wrote a report—issued a report—and it cleared me of any wrongdoing. It was just, they were—it was just all bogus, basically, and it was a hatchet job.

Ended up running for office. Had to do something with all that frustration [unintelligible 00:05:20] could sit on a barstool down here at Toddy’s Back Door Tavern, but I don’t drink, so that would have been short-lived. And I was entitled to do that as an American because I’d really gotten raked over the coals, all the local politicians, and they were pretty gutless. And then, you know, I ran for office. Knocked on over 6000 doors—you’ve been there—got sunburned, lost 20 pounds, got bit by two dogs.

Julia: Yeah [laugh].

Tim: —you know, and I was the only incumbent to beat a—I was the only in a primary in the whole state of Tennessee. Ninety-nine House races that year, as you know, I was the only person to beat an incumbent in a primary. It was a big upset. And I spent four years in the State House and then I—the state senator, actually I’d helped get elected, one of his campaign workers decided not to run again, [Bud Gilbert 00:06:12]. And then I ran, and I spent 12 years in the State Senate. And then eight years as county mayor. And then I’ve been, I guess, I’m in my fifth year of Congress now. So, but—

Julia: Wow.

Tim: So, that’s—and I, you know, divorced, married, got a wonderful wife and a beautiful, beautiful daughter. And my wife’s beautiful and I love her. We have a crazy fun life. We got a little horse, and my daughter’s a barrel racer. And my wife, she always says—you know, when I’m out here doing the Congressman stuff—she says—I say, “What about this deal with Isabel?” She goes, “I got this baby. You keep doing what you’re doing.”

And so, we have a pretty cool life. And so, I’m very fortunate. Like I say, we’ve got a little farm and Isabel just—I got to brag on Isabel. She got hurt in a barrel ra—she got hurt, run over by her horse, Albert, this—

Julia: Oh, my.

Tim: This year, li—this year at this time. And you remember she was in the hospital and broke five ribs, and her wrist, and her—knocked her [braces 00:07:24] out, spleen, pancreas, and then she had—she was in ICU, and then they did surgery and repaired her. And then she just won the world championship on that very horse that ran her over. So, I’m pretty proud of her and her [crosstalk 00:07:39]—

Julia: That’s the way to do it. Just get back up and keep going.

Tim: Yeah, she gets that from her mama. Her mom is tough. She’s been through a lot, and every time she does something good, I say I always try to take credit for it, but I adopted her, so genetically, I don’t have much to say for it. But every time she does something bad for some reason, Kelly always says that’s your doing, not mine [laugh].

Julia: [laugh].

Tim: You know [laugh]. No, but we got to—that’s me. I’m sorry, I went too long, but that’s my life.

Julia: No, not at all. Not at all. It’s good for people to know. People really don’t know the whole backstory on who is representing them and why these things are important. I mean, I definitely understand getting attacked on the front of the fold, so it’s tough to be in leadership when the people behind you, you turn around, and they’re gone.

Tim: That’s right.

Julia: So, just keep pushing because it’s needed. One of the biggest things I think that people don’t do that you do for us is every time you leave the congressional floor, whether it’s, you know, one o’clock in the morning, or 9 a.m. you give a live video of what’s happened, why it’s happened. It’s not scripted like some of the Congressman we see now—

Tim: [laugh]. Yeah.

Julia: You know, with their entire staff in their videos. I mean, you literally come off the floor and say, “This is what happened. This is why this didn’t pass,” or, “This was what somebody tried to hide in this bill.” And I think that those are things that people don’t know about because we’re fed consistent MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, whatever, so we don’t know what’s really going on. And you do that for us, and that has actually gotten you quite a bit of attention nationally. And then of course, telling the story [laugh] of the speaker’s race, everybody in Tennessee is glued to it. I was like, is that… is that Tim?

Tim: Yeah, I was right there. I was with Matt Gaetz. He and I are pretty close. We come from, I guess pretty different backgrounds, but similar in some respects and, you know, he’s been a good friend and he’s got an incredible brain. And [unintelligible 00:09:36]—I went in our UFO hearings, he came in and somebody said, “Is Matt mad at us?”

And I said, “Matt’s got his game face on.” I said, [unintelligible 00:09:46]. When was his turn, he just—it was… you know, I’m always an amazement. I watch his video—I watch a lot of those guys because you know you see the Jim Jordans and the Matt Gaetzes and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all of them, and I know them all very well. I call them and talk to them on the phone regularly when we’re not in Congress.

But it’s interesting their different styles they have. And some of those guys really have a photographic memory. I mean, they write down what they’re going to say, and you see him looking at it, and they’re reading it. Then when the lights turn on, man they are on go. I just—I don’t have that ability. I have to—I’ll make some notes, and if I got it down on a piece of paper in front of me, I end up reading it, so I don’t want to do that. So, it’s—I guess we’re just all given different gifts, and that’s definitely not my gift. But they’re—it’s pretty cool.

Julia: Well, you’re relatable. I think that one of the biggest things that people don’t understand about Tennessee—and of course, we’ve grown. I want to say, you know, Knoxville will double in the next five years, you know? We’re growing exponentially. People from all over the country want to be here because of the values that people like you have put into place in Washington, DC, to make the state of Tennessee exactly what it is.

Our state legislators have done the same. And people flock here for that same reason. But they don’t understand that when you’re here, it’s different. I mean, everybody has their own space. Some people are very focused on fast talk, get that news clip, get something going, and I think the difference in what you offer not just us, but the whole country is you take it do you take a beat.

It’s like, let’s slow this conversation down, let’s really break down what’s going on, let’s talk about it in a way that’s relatable, and only stay on one topic. Let’s not move all over until we resolve one issue. This is the issue, and we need to talk about it methodically and come up with a plan. And I think that people in larger cities, New York, Miami, LA, they’re just like, go, go, go, and the country sees such a stark contrast. But here in Tennessee, what you offer us is a conversation until we have the solution.

And one of the things that you gave a speech on the other day at Senator Hagerty’s event was, again—and you’ve been on this, and you’ve been on it, and you’ve been on it, is the UFO situation. And people all over the country think it’s just absolutely crazy that this is your—this is what you’re on. And it makes so much sense when you actually go through it. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tim: Yeah. And thank you for bringing that up. You know, I didn’t pick that issue; it picked me. I was just walking down the street and the fella that does the camera work for TMZ, [Blackfell 00:12:33], he’s a buddy of mine, took him to lunch the other day. We had a—because he’s transitioning into another thing, and I just wanted to encourage him because he’s always been kind to me, but he asked me, he said, “Hey, have you seen that UFO report?” And I said, “I don’t need to see it, you know?” I said, “It’s going to have more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese. It’s not going to say anything.” I said, “They’re just covering this thing up.”

And so—and then I said those magic words. I said, “More people believe in UFOs than believe in Congress.” I ended up putting it on a t-shirt that I sell on my website, which sells [laugh] pretty good, actually. I guess I should have copyrighted it. But the—and so, I just started getting calls from people then started all over the—you know, the people you see on the History Channel and Discovery Channel and all these things, and all these specials, you know, the guys from Skinwalker Ranch, you know, Luis Elizondo, you just name them, and they’re friends of mine now. They call me and we talk about the issue.

And so, you know, it just kind of evolved into that. And then I started looking into it and, you know, we have a meeting of the Intelligence Committee—I’m not on it, and they’re secret. You can’t—members can’t go in unless you’re a member of that committee. And so, which is kind of—I guess, you know, I guess that’s why they make it secret, you know? It’s kind of an elite thing, which I—which really isn’t elite. It’s just people that can raise the most money. And it’s a plum committee assignment because I get to travel, and I could care less about traveling. You’re a target when you’re overseas anyway, especially in Congress because they know who you are.

But in the Pentagon, you know, it’s stated forever these things don’t exist, and then all of a sudden, this tape comes out called the Tic Tac video. Tic Tac as in—you know, my daughter said, “No, it’s TikTok, boomer.” And I said—

Julia: [laugh].

Tim: “Well, I [look up 00:14:32] boomer, but it’s Tic Tac, like the candy, like the breath mint,” I said, “Not TikTok, like the Chinese Communist propaganda media outlet.” And she rolls her eyes and looks at and said, “Hey, you’re right, Dad.” And I said, “I know I was right.” But anyway, so I started looking into this thing, and the Pentagon says they don’t exist, since 1947, Since the incident at Roswell, New Mexico. Well, you fast-forward and these Navy pilots get this tape out, and then they say the, “Well, the tape’s a fake.”

So, okay. You see a lot of fakes. AI is out there and they can fake stuff. And then they get the audio, and you hear these pilots. And then they say, “Well, what the heck?” And they go—and then they find these pilots, and they say, in fact, “Yes, that’s us,” and they describe it. And then all of a sudden, you got the Pentagon saying, “Well, they do exist. Now, give us some money so we can study them.”

And the Pentagon, you know, they lose billions of dollars every year. At one time, 60% of their assets were unaccounted for. They’ve never ever… Julia, passed an audit, if you can imagine that. You—

Julia: I can.

Tim: —you and your business, anything else, a church, synagogue, temple, whatever—charity—if you didn’t pass an audit, you’d be in trouble. Secretary of State’s office would be on your butt, and they should be. So, you know, and then we reward them every year with more money. And I just refuse to vote for those packages that, you know, they’re just expanding our wars, they’re not going to be like, my daddy’s and my uncle’s war, and my mama’s war. They were not—the Japanese aren’t going to bomb Pearl Harbor and then six months, we’re going to roll out, start rolling across the Pacific.

It’s going to be done with drones, it’s going to be done electronically, and it’ll be over very fast. The next world war. And it’ll be nuclear and then, you know, and then we’ll have to—we’ll start over like cavemen, I guess. So, you’ve got a—and now you got a Pentagon that just—and they’re war pimps. That’s all they are.

You look at Ukraine. A hundred and fourteen billion unchecked dollars. We ended up—we gave them our missile defense system. So, by rule, we have to replenish our missile system, and guess who owns stock in that missile system? Congressmen on both sides of the aisle, and they made a fortune.

And it’s just, before any of the American public knew about it, they were already talking about it. And it’s just a—you know, and that’s why I call it the Pentagon war pimps. Because their business is war, and they’re Johns of the American people, and they just get Americans killed. And they—just look at what happened to Afghanistan, the withdrawal, just the whole thing. We left billions of dollars worth of stuff on the ground, and guess what? We got to replenish them. And the war pimps make their money.

So, fast-forward, you’ve got these Tic Tac videos. They show no heat signature [clear throat], these craft, whatever they are, they defy everything we know. I mean, the pilots told us in testimony, sworn testimony, open to the public that, in fact, no one, our adversaries or our friends or enemies, anybody has this kind of technology. And we don’t.

So, that leaves you with a couple of options: either it is some craft that we’ve recovered, and we’ve reverse-engineered it, or it is something from outer space. Either way, the American public needs to know what the heck’s going on. And in the Pentagon now, through Chuck Schumer, I know you and I probably both trust him—not [laugh] but—

Julia: I don’t know, I might be able to pick him up and throw him about an inch [laugh].

Tim: Yeah. About as far as you can throw him. But you—now he has a bill that say if the Pentagon says, in fact, they know they have this information, we know they have this information, now we’re going to pay them to set up a department that will go between you and me—when I say you and me, I mean you and me being the public—and these elitists at the Pentagon, and decide which information can come out and which can’t. So, here we are, we’re overpaying the Pentagon already, now we’re going to give them more money to decide over an issue they said didn’t even exist up until just a couple of years—just, like, this past year they’ve come out and said, “Yeah, this is going on.”

So, [clear throat] I just don’t trust the whole thing. You know, they’ve got a—these things have some sort of energy source that if we were to get a hold of this—I mean, it would put all the big oil companies out of business. It would—we wouldn’t be fighting in these worthless wars. And so, I submit to you there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye. It is a—it’s just—I just turn loose the information.

Now, why wouldn’t they do that? It’s whatever: I think it’s greed, it’s power, it’s all those things that run Washington. But think about this. They won’t release the files on the Kennedy assassination. They’ve released a lot of them, but not all of them. Why won’t they do that?

Every person involved in that has been dead over 60 years. I mean, this thing happened over 60 years ago, so nobody’s alive that’s even mentioned in those files. And so, you know, there you got power and influence, once again. So, it’s a complex issue. I just think that it, government needs to trust the American people that they can handle it.

I don’t—I’m not—I don’t fear any of this. I worry about something that flies around in our airspace with our 100-million dollar aircraft and our brave American men and women flying these cra—or airplanes, that—and we’ve had—and it’s been documented. It was in testimony, I think it was 13 or 14 near misses with these, whatever they are. So, that’s it. I’m sorry, it’s a long explanation. It’s a little longer you allow me—

Julia: No, I think that it’s perfect.

Tim: To talk a little more, but it’s something that needs to come out.

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Julia: It’s something that needs to be talked about. If it’s something that’s been—I mean, just the Kennedy assassination. We can go as far back as Abraham Lincoln, right? It’s whatever our government’s doing, there’s always an entity that has control. It doesn’t matter if it’s our government, somebody else’s government, whatever it is.

We’re all aware of that as the American people. We’re aware that there are complex issues that I’m not an expert on that somebody else might be an expert on. I’m not a full-time defense person, and I’m sure that they are things that they need to hide or talk about or work on until they figure out the answer. But the situation becomes when we’re inundated, as the American people, with so many things to consider or talk about that affect us in a negative way, when one thing that we have claimed as a country said didn’t exist for 60 years, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, “Oh, they’re real, but we’re not going to tell you anything about them,” there are probably a thousand other things that are real that you’re not telling us anything about, and—when it was just in one ear and out the other. It was like, “Oh, UFOs exist,” and everybody in the country, 24 hours later, just completely forgot about it.

And it seems like the American people are so overwhelmed with information. It’s just so much like a fire hydrant that having one Congressperson, you know, just there to beat one drum. I want one solution to one problem. Can we just talk about this one thing? And people think that’s interesting, but I think that it’s necessary.

Tim: Yeah. Well, it’s a function of government, you know, to—I don’t believe it’s a function of government to hide things. I just, you know, even though they do it continuously, it seems. It’s just everything. It’s a—and I’ve had a running… battle, if you will, with the Pentagon, just because yeah, my daddy fought in the war in [unintelligible 00:23:07].

You know, military intelligence, I’ve said, is a whole lot like congressional ethics. It just doesn’t exist. He was on an island called [Peleliu 00:23:15] and it’s the bloodiest island in the Pacific—maybe one of the bloodiest battles in the entire war—it was supposed to have been a three-day clean-up, mop-up according to military intelligence. Look at Ukraine. It was supposed to be a—they were—Russia was going to roll over them in five days.

Look at Afghanistan, you know? Trillions of dollars, thousands of Americans died, and just recently, Ryan Knauss from Corryton, out where I live, certified as the last American to die in Afghanistan. And you know, the military intelligence, they had that sniper, [unintelligible 00:23:51] the Marine Corps sniper, I asked him in committee—this is his own testimony; you can go back and watch it; I did a video on it—you know, he had the bomber in his sights, but was told by military intelligence—all the way back to the Pentagon—“No, you cannot take this guy out.” I mean, you know, what? Why are we trusting these people? Why do we give them an unlimited budget? It’s just beyond me.

And the problem, too, let’s get down to the real basics of why these guys and gals don’t do something. They are compromised, I think. You know, the Russians had this thing called honey pots where you’d go into you know, motel and your—back then it was just man, but now I guess it’s women—and you know, they’d research you, they’d know what, you know, what you’re attracted to, whether it be, whatever, and then they’d get you on tape, you know? Some person would be laughing at your jokes and then all of a sudden, you know, you end up in a motel room with them and guess what? They got your ass on camera and they own you.

And then they—somebody comes in whispers in your ear, “Hey man, we can you help us on this?” “Well, I don’t know.” And then they’d say, “Well, you know, I’d hate to—those tapes come out about you and whatever in room 432 over in Istanbul.” You know? They go—we travel on these trips all the time. And I think at some point—and there’s other things, too. You know, there’s illegal activity that could go on, and everybody’s on tape, you know? These crazy cell phones. I mean, it’s just—it’s… you just better not think anything anymore, almost because it’s going to me—

Julia: [laugh].

Tim: [crosstalk 00:25:35].

Julia: I always say that [unintelligible 00:25:36] daughter [crosstalk 00:25:38] not say it.

Tim: Yeah. And you know as well as I do, everything you say is going to be taken out of context, if you’ve been an elected official—

Julia: A hundred percent.

Tim: —you understand it, multiple times. And everything you say is going to be taken out of context. So, these folks are compromised. That’s why you see—I think you see—good conservatives, vote for huge liberal spending bills and good—and frankly, not—good, honest liberals, they believe it and they’ll vote for something else, and you’ll think, “What in the world? Why would they do that?”

And I think at some level, that’s what happens on a lot of this stuff. And I—you know, I know you—you have to—I think about how to sell your soul and move up the chain in leadership. I’ve said this many times, if Peyton Manning was in Congress—or if the NFL was Congress, Peyton Manning would still be waiting to get in because you have [unintelligible 00:26:30] so much. They literally issue you a bill when you enter Congress, and they say—and both parties do it—and they write it down on paper; they’re very bold about it—how much money you need to raise to pay your dues, they say, for the conference. And then, you know, it’s just—and I’ve—and people have written a big check and become chairman, literally.

I mean, they’re rich, they’re wealthy people, and they’re very fortunate, and yet, they can write a check, and then they move up this chain—this, you know, and I do—you know me. I don’t come from money, I don’t have money, I’m actually the poorest member of Congress from Tennessee. I’m not crying about it. It’s no big deal. I’m kind of proud of where I came from and what I’ve been able to accomplish.

But you know, it’s just the world we live in. And people need to get a dose of reality, and maybe I give them that in those videos I give. And you’re right, people—I see people now are doing them, but I watch them do it, and they have, like, they have a Twi—they call it—some of them have a ‘Twitter Team,’ if you can believe it. I guess it’s X Team now. I mean, they have a group that does that stuff for them. And I’m just like, “What in the world?”

I mean, it’s my shaky thing. It’s up my nose, it’s [over 00:27:44] my hair, my hair is not—you know? I just come off the floor, and I’m ticked off, and I think people need to hear that stuff, though, Julia. I think you’re right. And that’s—and I get responses from all over the world when I do that.

And you know, I get the haters. And I get that. A lot of them are paid, they don’t have a real name down there, and they’re angry about something else, so they’re acting tough, you know? It’s like they throw a rock over the fence and run back home behind their mama’s skirt. And that, you know, that’s how they can do it in Twitter. You know, they go to their basement and their mom makes some hot pockets again, I guess. But—

Julia: [laugh].

Tim: —so you know, that stuff [crosstalk 00:28:23]—

Julia: [crosstalk 00:28:23] is I came from nothing. I have something, but I can go back to nothing just fine because I’m aware of how to live there. So, I’m not for sale. Let’s get done what we need to get done.

Tim: Yeah.

Julia: Let’s go on with our day.

Tim: Yep. And I’m [standing 00:28:39] in the middle of my wardrobe right now, you know [laugh]? I’ve got a couple of suits and I need to—I’m hoping John H. Daniel throws their Big Whopper sale, so I can get over there because they look pretty good. But anyway, I rambled a little bit. I—you know, I worry about our country, I worry about where we come from, I worry about my community. It’s changing. You know, you’ve got this homeless problem which we—

Julia: Yeah, Knoxville’s got a big problem right now.

Tim: —magnetized it. And we’ve got a gang problem with drugs. People aren’t dealing with that. I was with a surrounding county sheriff this past week, and he said, “You know, we used to worry about the cartels from Mexico. Now, we’re worried about the, you know, the drugs are flowing through the gangs in Knoxville.” So, you know, it’s a real problem.

And, you know, more social programs aren’t going to cure it. We’ve got to have somebody tough in Washington making some tough decisions because we—I had—one of your former colleagues in the state legislature sent me a message this morning and asked me how I was doing. I said, “Yeah, I’m a little down, and I’m worried about us losing our country.” The deaths to fentanyl. I mean, you know, the—

Julia: Yeah.

Tim: —and we just—and it’s just coming right over that border. And yeah, it’s coming in through our ports of entry, too, but the mass of it’s coming over the border, and it’s going through China. And why in the world do we not have a leader in Washington that just says, “China, hey, cut it out, or we’re going to start putting some heavy tariffs on your stuff.” And the same way these people live and kids across our border. I do not understand that at all.

If I was the president, I’d—honestly, I’d call a press conference and say, “I’m bringing a bill to Congress. It says if you—if, if—I’ll name the countries, and say ‘if you did not stop this, with—I’ll give you one month. If you don’t stop it, it’s over.’ We are going to”—and I’d say, “I want to clean bill, and I’d name the Congressm—I’d talk to the congressmen and senators, some young firebrands, and say this is the bill. I want you to do it, and I’m going to fund it.” And then I’d say, and I’d say, “I want a clean bill to Congress in a month.”

And then I would tell them, “If they vote against it, I’ll come to your district.” Because, you know, where in the world—you know, you and I both know, the legislature. And I remembered I had some bills, I’d go after the child molesters and some of the child porn people and I just dared people to vote against it. And you know, it’s funny, the inner city, black folks, were the most repulsed by that stuff, and they were the ones that gave me my strongest support. And, you know, me being a Republican and all that was—they had no base to stand on.

And I just—I think you multiply it across the country, and I just, I get very disgusted with what’s going on. And it’s very gutless, and it’s about money, and it’s about power and influence, you know? And I get distract—don’t get distracted, I get discouraged. But I—you know, we got to keep fighting, or we will lose our country.

Julia: Mm-hm. I think so. I think that we’re on that—we’re definitely on the trajectory if we don’t get it together. Something’s got to change, so—well, all I know is I’ve learned more from watching your thirty-second Twitters than I do watch any news station or reading up on anything. It’s just easy to understand what’s going on when somebody’s willing to talk about the true conversations that are happening and not wait for their staff to make a TikTok for them.

So, I know that everybody in your district appreciates that because it is honest, it is open, it is quick, it is informative, and truly, you know, we’re not—well, I’m—most people aren’t politicians. Most people aren’t doing this for decades, and it’s very hard to understand the nuances of it, and you make it very clear and concise for us, and we really do appreciate that. Before I let you go, we’re going to swing it back to Knoxville because I love to ask this question of everybody. When you’re here and people not from here who have never visited Knoxville, where’s the first place you take them?

Tim: Well, I used to take them to Wright’s Cafeteria. I had a group of r—a lady at the paper would bring in a group of reporters from overseas, it’s something through the State Department—and I would take them to Wright’s. And I always remembered one—and you’ve been there with me multiple times; you know how it is—and you go—of course, Covid ended that and I hate it. David Wright is still a dear friend of mine, but he just couldn’t—it couldn’t go because Covid and all the stupid restrictions they put on him. But, you know, people would—I remember one guy put ketchup on his tray and it just—and then he said, “Can I have water?” And they said, “Well, sure.” He said, “Can I have warm water?”

And the guy—and they’re like—the girl’s—you know, they, “Yeah sure, honey,” you know? And they’d give him a warm water. And then—and you know, and I brought a bunch of Muslims in there and I had to point out what was pork and what wasn’t. I explained to them—you know, to David—they couldn’t eat pork, and so he would point out, and they just, as my daddy said, it was like a jackass going through [salt 00:33:49] briars. I mean, they ate like crazy.

And you know—I mean, I don’t take them there anymore. So, I’m trying to take them places, you know, because everybody wants to take somebody to a fancy restaurant. You know, you’re bringing in a multimillionaire or maybe a billionaire, and you know, they’ve been to every freaking fancy restaurant in the world. Quit trying to be something you’re not. I take them now to Vol Market because I want them to see people that are—or if they want to sit-down meal I’ll take them to Litton’s. They want a Pizza, I’ll take them out to the Pizza Palace out on Magnolia, you know?

But I get… yeah, I get sometimes I get a little ticked off when people do these things because they want to try to impress somebody, and you need to show them our best asset and our best assets are people, the people actually work for a dadgum living in this community. As they say, do the living and dying and have their name on their shirt. And they got 45 minutes for lunch, they’re going to say hello to you, and then they’re out the door. And—because those are the people that are going to be working with them or for them, you know?

I remember Lifetime Plastics. They’re basically a group of Mormons and they’re very straight-laced people. When they come out here though, they loved it. They loved the people, they loved the work ethic, you know, these guys, these very straight-laced Mormons in their suits, you know, just very similar to me, and dadgum it, you know, these guys out there got tattoos, these bikers that, you know, guys I’ve rode motorcycles with, known them for years, and they’re the welders and stuff, and they love them. And they love them because of their work ethic, and they tell him what they think, and maybe they’re not as polished, and not—and they’re a little rough around the edges, but that’s all right.

Julia: That’s all right. Knoxville is a big small town where you can do some of the—some of best food I’ve ever had is right here in Knoxville—

Tim: Sure.

Julia: Made by the local [unintelligible 00:35:41] local. And I love that. I love the Vol Market. I love that idea. So, I’m going to start taking people down to Vol Market if I can get away with that. I usually take them to Sam and Andy’s because I’m on the whole other side of Knoxville.

Tim: Yeah, I love Sam and Andy’s. They’re my folks, too. They’ve been great friends of mine for years.

Julia: Yeah. That’s one of my—it’s closer to my house, so hitting up Sam and Andy’s for that one [unintelligible 00:36:01] burger [laugh].

Tim: Well, I can see [Ritchie and Alan 00:36:03] in about five minutes from my office, so that’s generally—and it’s—and I like things to be the same. I like it very much. When the UN came out against hot dogs—believe it or not, they came out against hot dogs; all the things going on in the world—I went over there that day. I usually eat two chili dogs, but in protest, I ate three chili dogs that day. So.

Julia: [laugh]. I love it. Tim, I’m going a little over 30 minutes, and I appreciate you spending that much time with us. I love talking with you. As always, if there’s anything that any of us can ever do, here back at home while you’re fighting the good fight in DC, you let us know. We really appreciate you so much. If anybody wanted to get in touch with you. How would they do that?

Tim: Just call me on the dadgum phone: 865-523-3772. Make sure I got that right. Three-seven-seven-two.

Julia: [laugh].

Tim: [crosstalk 00:36:54] give out one number off. But yeah, please, I’m a—just call me. You’ll get me. We’ll get together. I—you know, email, it’s such a crap shoot. It’s so bogus now, you just get thousands and thousands of things from overseas, and you don’t know where they’re from. And I mean, we go through them, and we do them, but if you want to talk to me, just call me on the dadgum phone. And call me one day, we’ll meet for lunch.

Julia: I love that. Well, I will see you very soon. You tell Kelly I said hello, please.

Tim: I will.

Julia: Hug Michael, hug the staff, and we’ll see you back in Knoxville very soon. Again, everybody, this was Congressman Tim Burchett. If you need him, the phone number is right here. We’ll put his [links 00:37:42] and his email and his website and all the other things for you to be able to find him in this podcast. And we really—again, we really appreciate you being here.

Tim: Thank you, Julia.

Julia: Bye everybody. Thanks for visiting.

Julia: Thank you for tuning into the show. Make sure to like and subscribe, leave a five-star review on your podcast player of choice, and if you would like information on moving to Knoxville, send me a private message. As always, this is Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.