Brad Knott on Border Security, National Debt, and His Congressional Campaign

Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] For those that don’t understand, Social Security right now is paying more out than it’s bringing in. Because people are living longer and we have fewer workers. Some of that’s due to COVID, some of that’s due to just people living longer and the number of people in the workforce. mean, What can we do to keep it from going and solve it?

Brad Knott: Another problem that we don’t talk about, is people leaders borrow from the trust fund. So, it’s the dollars, the dollars aren’t exclusively left alone for Social Security. And that’s a violation of all, I would say, of all the decent promises we make to workers. But, that’s one of those sacred cows in Washington, D.C. Just like all the other entitlements.

And again, the math doesn’t lie. Serious leadership requires serious discussions and serious acknowledgements. That the math does not work with the trajectory that we’re currently going on.

Narrator: Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by Breeden Law Office. Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. [00:01:00] Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this unique community.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today, we have with us congressional candidate, Brad Knott from Raleigh. We’re going to talk to him about his thoughts on some of his biographical background. A lot of people in Johnston County may not know about him and they’ve seen, I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials.

We’re going to talk to him a little bit about the border, Israel, the national debt, some of the things he’s going to be dealing with, if he gets elected to be our Congressman at the end of this year. But before we do that, I want to encourage everybody, if this is the first time you’ve listened to or seen this podcast, to like, follow or subscribe to this podcast. Wherever you’re seeing it, whether it be on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TikTok, LinkedIn or any of the other social media pages of The Best of Johnston County podcast. So that you’ll be aware of future episodes of The Best of [00:02:00] Johnston County podcast. The Best of Johnston County podcast comes out every Monday and we’ve had a lot of great guests so far and we’re going to have even more great guests coming on.

So if you’ve not listened before, go back and listen. We’ve had County Commissioner, Patrick Harris, State House Member, Donna White, Local Dentist, Tim Sims, Miss Teen America, Hanley House and a lot of other great guests. So anyway, thank you, Brad, for coming on.

Brad Knott: So

Jonathan Breeden: It’s first time I had a chance to meet you, I’ve seen the commercials and I don’t know a little bit about you. But, tell the people who you are, where you’re from?

Brad Knott: Yeah, absolutely. Brad Knott, I’m a lifelong North Carolinian, proud father of two little girls, proud husband of my highschool sweetheart. Grew up in Raleigh, in Eastern Wake County is where my roots are. And was by trade, a lawyer, had to quit. Like, we just talked about when I decided to run for office but was a federal prosecutor, which is a pretty, it’s like a DA with no borders. My focus was organized crime, we went all over the country with the cases because, you can’t really confine organized crime to one [00:03:00] specific area. All my cases touched North Carolina, went all over the country.

And that was really my professional dream. It was cops and robbers on steroids. It was a lot of very stimulating and sobering activity at the same time and just love this part of the state, love East North Carolina and first time candidate. We decided at the end of last year to get involved in this race. And through a lot of good fortune, miracles and luck, we made it here. So, here we are.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s awesome. Yeah, so where’d you go to college?

Brad Knott: Grew up going to high school in Raleigh. Went to Baylor University down in Texas. Oh, Texas, okay. And then came back and went to Wake Forest Law School.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Brad Knott: And private practice for a short time. Came back to Raleigh and then shortly after that was a US Attorney.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay, cool. So when did you get outta law school?

Brad Knott: We finished, let’s see, I graduated in law school in ’12.

Jonathan Breeden: 2012? Okay, Yeah. cool. So you ended up going to work with the justice department, with the US Attorney’s Office, when Trump was president. And I don’t know, who was the US Attorney then? it was For a while, it was George Holding and then he became a congressman and he probably wasn’t [00:04:00] still there when you were there.

Brad Knott: No. So, I started in ’16 when Barack Obama’s US Attorney had resigned and this is very in the weeds but when I first started, it was a term position. So someone had left and the justice department allowed that spot to be filled. Until they came back, they went overseas somewhere for a detail or something like that. And if I was not appointed to be permanent, my time would have expired after that two year runway. And that was, I think, spring of ’16 started work right away, did great.

President Trump gets elected. And because of the work we were able to do, I had some success. Trump’s US Attorney was a guy named, Bobby Higdon. Bobby Higdon was appointed by Trump, confirmed by the Senate. And then shortly after I would say, in 2017 or ’18. Higdon hired me to a full time spot or a permanent spot of formal justice.

Jonathan Breeden: I got you.

Brad Knott: And worked there until, like I said, the end of last year is when we stopped.

Jonathan Breeden: So the end of 2023?

Brad Knott: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: Cause you can’t run for office and be a federal [00:05:00] prosecutor. Yeah, so what made you want to be a prosecutor? I, I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor. I worked in these office one summer and I just kept thinking of the defense strategies. And I was like, I can’t be a prosecutor. I gotta be a defense attorney, it’s just a mindset.

Brad Knott: It is a mindset and I’m very competitive. And I love the adversarial process of criminal court. Civil court has basically been relegated to discovery practice. And there are far fewer trials, I love the courtroom. Just knew if I was going to be in the practice of law, that’s what I wanted to do. And there’s really no better place to do that in federal court. You have a longer runway for investigations. You get great agents, you get to work with everybody a DA works with.

you know, Police officers, sheriffs, deputies, everybody, all the federal level, the federal agencies. It was, in terms of fulfilling and satisfying. It was better than I ever could have imagined. It was the best job, rewarding grab me. I had cases right here, Selma Smithfield, The full Gamut, Clayton, I mean, cases that we did touched all over this [00:06:00] district, all over this county.

And I loved having the time to really focus on the worst offenders. We could really pour resources and creative energy into figuring out not just the easy targets, but where is it coming from? And figuring out how to climb that ladder and get the big fish was something I really.

well, That’s cool. And I know, they’ve had several big federal drug bust where the feds have taken, they got one group out of Selma and the main guy got, oh my gosh, basically the rest of his life. I think that was done in the last 12 to 24 months. I’m not sure if you were on that case but I remember when I was doing criminal defense, it seemed like the worst cases.

Jonathan Breeden: The feds would come and take and the person would get a much longer sentence in federal court than they were going to get in state court. And that was frustrating to me as a defense attorney. Because, I may have worked it out with the DA locally, where they could get 3 to 5 years and then we go to federal court.

And because it was a gun and there were aggravators, they might get 10 or 15 years. And as a defense attorney, I thought, man, why can’t this just stay in state court? [00:07:00] Let them take the 3 to 5 years. Right. But you know, They wouldn’t have done it. They wouldn’t have been going to prison and that’s how it goes.

Brad Knott: That’s right. And usually in my experience, at least, if it was resolved at the state level, we would stay out of it by and large. There are exceptions, but we would really try to identify the people before they were charged. That’s when you got the most runway in these investigations. You could approach them, you could pull them in, you could talk to him, you try to get them to cooperate. And if you could get a cooperator, that’s when the case really take off.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s true. And I, represented a few people that ended up being cooperators and it worked out better for them. Basically putting their lives on the line. It’s a bad world out there, And I don’t, and I don’t think people. I’m not trying to be negative, it’s a positive podcast. But I don’t think everybody realizes just how bad actors are out there. I mean, From organized crime, I knew he did a lot of organized crime to drug dealers, to human trafficking. That is real, I’ve dealt with it in my practice over the last 24 years. You prosecuted it for 5 or 6 years. And I’m not telling people to be scared or worry [00:08:00] but just know like it’s there.

It’s real and it’s there. And we have I-95 and I-40 meeting in this county. And we’re about halfway between Miami and New York and it’s a lot goes through this area. a lot. Up and down that interstate every day and we’re very fortunate to have the sheriff’s department. We have with Steve Bizzell and his team and Bengie Gaddis, they do a great job as do the local police departments along I-95 and Clayton as well.

And so, Johnston County is very fortunate to have the law enforcement. The professionalism of law enforcement we have, that makes your job either easier when you were a federal prosecutor. That’s how y’all were able to get these long sentences on these guys and that’s good. So I guess the next question is, why would you want to leave being a federal prosecutor to run for congress?

Brad Knott: You know, It’s a great question and there are really two reasons. One of them was a very broad, life impact that I’ve had for my grandfather. My grandfather on my dad’s side was someone who really embodied the American Dream. He’s still alive, he was a World War II vet. He was born just across the Johnston County border in Eastern Wake County. [00:09:00] He worked that farm his whole life. He went to high school, could not play any sports.

He had to come back and work on the farm. My grandfather was the primary worker, provider, sustainer of his family from an early age. He graduates high school. He goes to Europe, World War II as an 18 year old, he is shot by Nazis. Almost dies over there.

The war ends, he comes back and he starts various businesses. He maintains his farm.

everything from a farm supply store, added a fuel station to it. various housing developments and so forth. And he always told me growing up, he always had the same lines. If I was starting over today, I could not do anything that I did. And he is certainly not a vastly wealthy man but he’s a prosperous person. He was successful, great family, wonderful faith involved in his local community. And it always stuck with me, You know, here, Amanda, you look up to say, if I was starting over, I couldn’t have done anything. And as I got older, it clicks, he’s right.

It’s a lot more costly now than it was back then. All my grandfather [00:10:00] had was energy, creativity and the willingness to work hard. And through that, the country enabled him to really achieve success. Again, not vast riches but he was independent, he had small businesses and the opportunities that he was able to give his son, my dad and his daughters. It was the American dream and he came from nothing and gave a ton. That country doesn’t exist anymore. And as I’ve gotten older, it’s been a real source of concern for me, especially now I’ve got two girls. What kind of opportunities are we going to give them? The second motivation which I had much more of a hands on approach with was, law enforcement. And the effects that I was able to experience firsthand really from January 2021 until today.

Which is the open border and the policies that are bringing it about with Joe Biden. I don’t know if it was personal animus, purely political calculus or some other nefarious intent. I have no idea. But when he got elected, the policies that were [00:11:00] effective under Trump we’re immediately rescinded. And the data is overwhelming in terms of, why this is all a bad idea. The amount of crime that’s being imported, the number of people who are coming over, the strain on our resources, some people say it’s more than 10 million people. Even if it’s the low end of the estimates, let’s say seven and a half, 8 million people. The amount of strain that puts on schools, hospitals, first responders, police departments, you name it, it stretches everything.

But I saw the dark side of it. You mentioned earlier, the human trafficking, the quantities of drugs, the potency of drugs, there’s no restraint at the border. And you know, we saw that as an example, when I started at the US Attorney’s Office, an ounce of methamphetamine was $1,300. A kilogram of cocaine was probably $50,000. Now, we’re seeing ounces of methamphetamine, when I left the Attorney’s Office, $200 to $300 and it’s more potent, it’s more addictive. Kilograms of cocaine right now, $15,000. And it’s [00:12:00] not because the drugs are less potent. It’s not because they’re cheaper to make, it is strictly supply.

So 25 20 25 years ago, you had your dime bag dealers on the street corner. Well now, those dime bag dealers have hundreds of ounces at a time that they can just disperse into communities. And you extrapolate that out. Not only with deaths, we are all familiar with the vast uptick of deaths. But the amount of violence that comes from that, the amount of families dealing with addiction and the costs that go with addiction.

I mean, Every time there’s someone who’s addicted to these drugs, that is a bright light for this community that gets snuffed out. They’re going to battle that the rest of their lives and they may overcome it, but it’s going to be a battle the rest of their lives. You know, Drugs show up in schools, to a degree that no one really wants to address. But the likelihood of your young children and my young children being exposed to hard drugs, is vastly higher than it was 20 years ago. Despite all these problems, there was zero willingness to take the border and illegal immigration seriously from Washington. And if it [00:13:00] continues to go unchecked, regardless of where we are politically, it’s going to affect everybody, I would say a much more serious way than we realize.

And just a brief anecdote, the thing that really showed me just how silly this is and dangerous this is, we have military conflicts all over the world and I worked with law enforcement who were assigned to the border for brief stints. They were essentially told, you can’t arrest anybody, you can’t lay hands on anybody, you basically just shuffle people through, to the various processing portals.

And these folks, the majority of these agents that I’m referring to, they’re former military. And their accounts of what took place at the border, what’s happening right now at the border is harrowing. They say, most people assume it’s folks from Latin America coming up here to find a better life. There may be some of that. There probably is some of that. Again, I would argue they didn’t do that legally, not illegally but a huge and growing percentage of the people coming across the border are from overseas. And disproportionately military age men. I’m talking China, Northern Africa, Eastern [00:14:00] Europe, Middle Eastern, et cetera, with very scant verifications or record, whatever, scrutiny.

That’s national suicide. What are we doing? We have 130,000 people being killed every year from fentanyl, welcoming people in across the border. We have military conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, all over the globe, welcoming people in. It’s something that as I sat there and time moved forward. It became, I would say, I got encouraged to think about serving, quit complaining, throw your hat in the ring. And that ultimately is what we did and here we are.

Jonathan Breeden: And I completely understand it. You tell a story of, my cousin is a US Air Marshal. And instead of patrolling the skies of America, he has been assigned to the border. And at the border, he has seen some of the things you’re talking about, including seeing children coming through and it’s the same kids over and over. And he began to recognize them and so they’re coming over and somebody’s standing there saying, this is [00:15:00] my son, it’s not their son. And then three days later, the same kid is back. And here’s somebody saying, this is my son.

The cartels were trafficking this 10 year old back across the border on like a carousel. Because it was better to come accompanied by a minor. And the minors just kept coming with different people. there’s really nothing they could do, because that’s what this administration wants. And that’s what they wanted to do and I think ultimately. Somewhere, not that I know what Joe Biden thinks, but my guess is, maybe they can find a way to give these people amnesty and they become voters. I’m not sure.

Brad Knott: I don’t know.

Jonathan Breeden: But it’s not good. It’s not a good situation.

Brad Knott: We’re the only country in the world dealing with that, it doesn’t have to be that way. And until we get ahead of the incentives, the only reason why they do it is they know they’re going to get away with it and they know they can. And as a country, the foremost job of the government is to protect its citizens. With an open border, you can’t do that.

Jonathan Breeden: And the Trump administration, I mean, would you support the remain in Mexico policy that president Trump [00:16:00] had?

Brad Knott: Absolutely. One thing that was frustrating looking back is regardless of what you think about Trump, he identified a real problem with the border. And calling a spade, it’s worse now than it’s ever been in my lifetime. But with the exception of Trump, we’ve had an open border my entire life. The Southern border has been essentially a vow for illegal immigration my entire life and it needs just as a practical matter, it needs to be taken seriously. Trump had to work alone. The Republican legislature, Paul Ryan and the Senate both had Republican majorities. For whatever reason, they refused to play ball back then and address this problem. And so Trump’s policies where they were not passing the law. They were executive actions and they were, again, very effective. But to really tackle this problem, we gotta go beyond just the executive policies.

We need to finish the wall where it applies. We need to have tough enforcement on the border. And we’ve got to learn how to say no. We can’t be the dumping ground for anybody who shows up on the southern border. [00:17:00] We have to say, if you’re not here legally, I’m sorry. And so far we have not had the appetite to do that, but we’ve got to do it.

Well, And I think President Trump did a pretty good job of pressuring Mexico to try to stem some of the flow of people 100 and ask that people apply for asylum in Mexico, we’re the first country that they came to versus trying to come to America to ask for asylum. And I know President Biden has not done that. I don’t know who’s going to win the presidency but I think that, putting pressure on Mexico, I think would probably help some too.

No question about it.

Jonathan Breeden: Because they know these people are coming through.

Brad Knott: Yeah. They’re benefiting in large part, they get a lot of money sent back from illegal immigrants who work here. I’ve, again, my cases, it’s hard to unwind how interwoven this is but you’ve got criminals, you’ve got people who are here illegally, you’ve got people who have 9 to 5 jobs and there’s a lot of cross current between those two worlds.

And a lot of money gets sent back to Mexico, whether it’s earned or in the criminal context. So, they benefit from it and we’ve got to figure out a way to remove that [00:18:00] incentive.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

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Brad Knott: Well, Let’s change topics. We border, Should we continue supporting Ukraine and Israel in their wars?

Interesting question. You know, 34 trillion dollars in debt, that’s a big umbrella. And as a blanket statement, we should support our allies. I would put Israel in a category above Ukraine in that respects. But that being said, I understand the theory of logistically and pragmatically, why we need to support Ukraine. I just think that the administration is not doing a very good job executing that. One example is, I believe it was September of last year. The Biden administration canceled leases all over federal properties that have been issued and [00:19:00] agreed to under the Trump administration for oil and gas exploration and extraction.

They were canceled because, there’s a very vibrant green lobby in the Biden White House. And regardless what you think about it, canceling those leases, suppressing future exploration and output, it caused oil futures to go a lot higher. When Biden took over, oil was around $50 a barrel, gas was around $1.90 a gallon. Since that point, pressures on an upward scale have gone. And we’re paying both sides of the war. We’re sending Ukraine money and we’re hampering our own ability to explore and put downward pressure on the price of oil. And he’s enriching Vladimir Putin because of it.

The sanctions aren’t doing a whole lot. He is printing money because of the high price of oil. And if we were very serious about defeating Putin in this conflict, I think we could be doing a better job at it. And if we’re not going to be doing it seriously, I’d rather spend it, use a hundred billion dollars elsewhere.

Jonathan Breeden: What would you like to see done? If when you get to Congress about trying to deal with this debt, this up to [00:20:00] 32, 33, 34 trillion dollars. I personally don’t believe it can be dealt with until we deal with the entitlements, which are 75, 80% of the budget. What would you do to try to deal with this deficit?

You know, 34 trillion is just staggering. It goes up a trillion dollars roughly every hundred days. If interest rates continue to remain high, there’s the interest on the debt alone is going to surpass the defense budget of the United States. Regardless of what you think about it pragmatically, from a mathematic standpoint.

Brad Knott: It’s going to deal with us if we don’t deal with it. And as a very broad brush, I think the federal government has got to find out and figure out a way to reduce its balance sheet. Entitlements without question, you have to deal with those. You’ve got to cut the vast, I would say administrative agencies. An easy example, the department of education, do you know what the budget is in the department of education?

Jonathan Breeden: I do not.

Brad Knott: It’s around,

It’s close to 80 billion dollars a year. Astounding. The department of education came around after we won two world wars and we’re the undisputed superpower in the world, economically, military, et cetera.

We were doing [00:21:00] just fine before the department of education. Shut the thing down, send the money back to the states. Right now, we take money out of Johnston County, fund a huge bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. And then we send the crumbs back with strings attached. To the states and counties just like Johnston County do away with it.

They just do away with it. Let the counties, states, et cetera. Educate their children without federal interference. That’s a hundred billion dollars basically off the books. We need to start thinking about policies like that not just parsing back but really getting aggressive and smart, handing back to the states what we need to, getting departments like the department of education off the books and getting aggressive. And cutting and streamlining and getting this debt under control.

Well, Yeah. And they’ve recently announced, as we’re recording this and in May of 2024, that Social Security now will not go bankrupt. The trust fund will not go bankrupt till maybe 3035, 3036. But it’s still headed towards insolvency, which will cut the benefits You know, anywhere from 12 [00:22:00] to 20%.

Jonathan Breeden: And for those that don’t understand, Social Security right now is paying more out than it’s bringing in. Because people are living longer and we have fewer workers. Some of that’s due to COVID, some of that’s due to just people living longer and the number of people in the workforce. What can we do to keep it from going and solve it?

Brad Knott: Another problem that we don’t talk about, is people leaders borrow from the trust fund. So, it’s the dollars aren’t exclusively left alone for Social Security. And that’s a violation of all, I would say, of all the decent promises we make to workers. But, that’s one of those sacred cows in Washington, D.C. Just like all the other entitlements.

And again, the math doesn’t lie. Serious leadership requires serious discussions and serious acknowledgements. That the math does not work with the trajectory that we’re currently going on. And we need to protect Social Security, we need to protect the workers, we need to do all that we can to make it solvent, to keep it solvent.

And again, my approach would be first, shut down all the unnecessary [00:23:00] spending that Washington does. Send responsibility back to the states in a big way. And shore up these things like social security first. And then if we need to make additional measures, then we need to have those discussions.

But right now, there’s no area of life the federal government is not involved in and that should change. We can’t afford that, with 34 trillion dollars and it is astounding, the math.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, you hear that number of people have no idea what that is. If you think about the state budget in North Carolina is about 30 billion dollars of a B and I mean, I don’t know how you get to a trillion. But like you think about, it’s a thousand billions to get to a trillion. Right. And I’m not a math person, which is why I went to law school. But you think about it, all the things that happens in North Carolina, from the schools to the roads, to the teachers, to everything that the state of North Carolina provides.

And I think does a pretty good job, is 30 billion and the deficit is more than 30 trillion. And the budget is, it’s about 4 trillion a year, I guess?

Brad Knott: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: You can’t,

Brad Knott: It’s so big that [00:24:00] you can’t tax your way out of it. If you confiscated all the wealth of the top 1%, it wouldn’t do it. you know, We’re at a point now where, if we don’t get spending under control, we’re going to be in a world of hurt and nobody’s talking about it. And that’s one of the reasons why if we get to Congress and if we win this race. I hope to be someone who will.

Well, I tell you what, it’s a lot up there. I mean, And you got tight margins on both sides and people that don’t agree and that kind of stuff. So what other things, we’ve talked about Social Security a little bit, we’ve talked about the defense budget. We have problems but we’re still flying like, you know, bombers from World War II.

Jonathan Breeden: We’re a little behind on some of our technology and our military. What are your thoughts on trying to get the military more ready and getting more people into it? Because we’re having recruiting issues with the military, stuff like that.

Brad Knott: It’s a great question. And you know, there’s very few things that the federal government does well. And I would say, we have the best military in the world and it needs to stay that way. And one thing that I was able to see as a federal prosecutor is, we gotta see a lot of various agencies and divisions and the inner workings [00:25:00] of these various departments of the federal government.

There’s waste everywhere. There’s a lot of unaccountable employees everywhere. And the department of defense is no different in that respect. If there, which I know there is. Bureaucracies, dollars that go to various outlets that aren’t mission focused on having the most readily prepared lethal fighting force in the world, that should be cut or redirected.

The Department of Defense has its hands in a lot of other areas besides promoting a strong military and those dollars must be to recruiting, training, and research and development, that’s it. Focus, streamline, reinvest, et cetera. That’s the mantra for the Department of Defense that it needs to follow, in my opinion.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, yeah, I mean, I think, they’re going to need to do something. Cause we’re flying some outdated planes, you know we just are. And China is not flying outdated planes all the time. You know what I mean? I think, that’s the other thing is, I’ve been fortunate as you have to travel around the world and you begin to see, how many people dislike America. That’s one thing that was always surprising to me as I travel around [00:26:00] the world. But like, these other countries, their militaries are rising fast.

And if you end up in a fight, I want to hope that we’re still the superior power. And I don’t know that right now, I guess you won’t know unless you’re in a fight, I do worry about that.

Well,

Brad Knott: If we’re the superior power, I think we can deter a lot of fights. And that’s why it’s imperative that we do maintain that role in the world is the superior military authority. I agree with you.

Jonathan Breeden: So what do you think you can do as a Congressman, if you’re elected? To help with the overall economy? GDP is slowing inflation is what it is. What would you like to see Congress do when you’re there to try to help the economy slow the inflation?

Brad Knott: Yeah. The inflation and the budget and the deficit, I think go hand in hand. We all feel the pain of the interest rates. But the dollars coming out of Washington, D.C. Have accelerated since COVID. And inflation is caused by an oversupply. And until Washington can just quit its addiction to printing and spending money, inflationary pressures are going to be here. [00:27:00] And when you look at the jobs numbers, for instance, how many of these jobs are government jobs?

It’s an astounding percentage. Again, we just talked about the government is involved in far too much in everybody’s life. And when you look at economic models to follow, Johnston County is a great one. You have in many respects, a free market approach, responsible growth and the government should stay out of it.

Maintain courts, maintain very clear rules, but get the hands and tentacles away. And in my opinion, the free market is the best vehicle to re accelerate and to sustain economic growth. If we’re going to get this debt under control, we have to have that. And if we can get the red tape out, if we can get the rules and the regulatory agencies removed. That’ll be as advantageous to businesses as anything.

I was talking to a farmer the other day and he said, farming, I can deal with the weather, I cannot deal with the government. Because I was like that, if that’s not a line, it just stuck with me. He was like, we get inspected by state, we get inspected by the feds, we get [00:28:00] everybody. And he was like, sometimes they say, move the road over there.

Sometimes I say, these guys are working too much. Stay out of it and that, needs to be the approach going forward, I think.

Jonathan Breeden: You better not file a claim on your crop insurance. So they’re going to be taking pictures of your farm from a satellite every two weeks to see whether your water in the crop.

That’s a mess. Crop insurance is a great thing, but man, if you file a claim and they’re going to be on you like, white on rice. I could talk to you all day and we’ll definitely probably have you come back after you probably win in November. But we’ll talk some more as you get up there as some of the things you’re actually doing.

But I guess the last question for you for this episode is, you’ve started campaigning in Johnston County. I know you’ve had some families, had some businesses out here. What do you love most about Johnston County?

Brad Knott: I alluded to it earlier. Johnston County is one of those places I would say, unfortunately, Raleigh and Wake County is losing its North Carolina roots and flavor.

It is becoming more of a national, even international City, County, et cetera. When you’re in Johnston County you remind, this is North Carolina. East North Carolina roots really great influence in terms of it’s a family friendly place. [00:29:00] It’s a free marketplace. There’s been a great amount of growth in a healthy way, I would say, but you still have phenomenal agribusiness, you’ve got farming communities that are thriving. And you’ve got just the best of all worlds right here in Johnston County. And it’s family friendly, it’s business friendly and the values that are represented and protected here. It’s worth fighting for.

well, That’s great. So, if anybody wants to know more about your campaign by the time this episode airs, the primary will be over. You’re going to be the Republican nominee. There is a Democrat, Frank Pierce, who’s running in November. So, you will have an opponent in November. It’s going to probably air in June.

Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: So anyway, but probably June, maybe July. So you’ll have an opponent come on the November ballot. How could people find more about you and your campaign? Well,

Brad Knott: The website’s the easiest, you know, BradKnottForCongress.com, just one word. And we are very receptive to anybody who sends in a request. I love meeting with folks, I just met with 3 deputies in Harnett County, right before I came here. Whether it’s 2 or 3 people or [00:30:00] 50 to a hundred people, I love getting out, shaking hands, putting faces with names and being in the district. So, feel free to reach out.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s great and then that’s how you’re going to learn how to take, because I mean, it is a representative government. You’re going to go there to represent Johnston County in Congress, if you’re elected. And the only way to know what this is as long as you go out and talk to him That’s right. and that’s great. All right. Well, we would like to thank Brad Knott for coming on to The Best of Johnston County podcast today.

Like we said earlier, if it’s your first time listening, watching or following. Please subscribe, like or follow this podcast wherever you’re seeing it. So you’ll be made aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnston County podcast. Until next time, I’m your host, Jonathan Breed.

That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the legal aspects [00:31:00] highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.