Meet Christopher Arps, President of Americans for Citizens Voting

Doug talks to Christopher Arps, President of Americans for Citizens Voting and communication professional and strategist.Show more

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Doug Truax: Welcome to the First Right podcast, a weekly conservative news show brought to you by Restoration PAC. I'm Doug Truax, founder, and president of Restoration PAC. Today. We're blessed to have a first-time guest and partner. We are glad to work alongside Christopher Arps. He's well-known as afternoon drive host of St. Louis news talk 1 0 1 0.9 and heads up a group trying to make sure only legal citizens vote in America. And those are just a few of us ventures. Well, Hey Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show today,

Christopher Arps: Doug, Thank you for having me. This is a real honor.

Doug Truax: Awesome. So give our viewers, you know, in a nutshell of how you got to where you are, you're a really busy guy, you got a lot going on. It's always interesting to hear how things started to kind of build up to where you are today. You know?

Christopher Arps: I started like a lot of us did in politics at the grassroots level, I volunteered on a good friend state rep campaign and he ended up winning that he had ties to one of our senators who was running for election. At that time, I got a chance to work for United States Senator, later a presidential campaign, some local races. And after that, you know, I started my own consulting practice and somehow it ended up with me having a radio show. I knew Stan in St. Louis on Newstalk STL one-on-one 94 1, which I co-host from three thiry to six with the former Missouri speaker of the house, Tim Jones.

Doug Truax: Yeah, so let's go right to that. So a great show and you know, you're right there in middle America and there's like a lot of things going on right now. We've got immigration. We got COVID, we got inflation, we've got critical race theory, take your pick. So I would just be interested, you know, what do you, what do you think your listeners are most fixated on these days?

Christopher Arps: Well, I'll tell you one thing. That's a real hot issue in Missouri and really all across the country is the redistricting concerning congressional maps. Right now, Missouri has a six to a Republican majority in Congress, but there is a push among the conservative caucus in the state Senate to carve out a seven - one map, which would eliminate the democratic seat in Kansas city, Emanuel Cleaver. So there's a big kind of, in-house fighting among Republicans to get that map together. And so that's one thing our listeners are talking about, another thing which is happening in major cities all across the country is crime. St. Louis unfortunately is always number one or number two, when it comes to crime and murder statistics, we have a George Soros funded prosecutor, Kim Gardner, who thinks that our job is not to put criminals in jail, but to instead be a social worker. And I think the third thing is people are worried about the direction of their country and the president, Joe Biden. They're worried about his mental health, his physical health. And is he up to the job of leading the nation?

Doug Truax: Yeah, lots of be worried about there. And that's one of those things. I just, you know, every time I see him give a speech or, and you know, the media is not covering it. So you've got to go different places where, you know, we know where to go and, and watch the real clips of it. And I think too, from our standpoint is, you know, we need to, we need to project strength as a country. And I know it's good for our national security, good for our economy, all these things. And I just get most upset because what's happening now is that the rest of the world is looking at us and seeing a lot of weakness there. And I think it bleeds over into everything.

Christopher Arps: I think president Putin's actions and Ukraine and having military exercises and Belarus is a direct result of our hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaving citizens and people that helped us over there. I think that has emboldened Putin. I think it is in Bolden, the north Korean leader, he's shooting missiles now into, towards Japan again. And I think also it's emboldings our enemies in the middle east, like Iran who are the major state sponsors of terrorism in the world. So we need leadership and I'm hoping that 2022 will be the beginning of that when we see a Republican takeover of Congress

Doug Truax: And, you know, the Afghanistan thing, I think for me of the whole year, that was the most troubling to watch. And just being a former army guy, myself and knowing people that served over there, I didn't, I haven't been in for awhile, but you know, they served over there and all the sacrifice and then to just end it that way. I mean, Biden's just got a, an incredibly horrible track record of just terrible decisions. He's just a bad decision maker and a bad leader. And now he's got mad at, you know, health issues. It's just terrible. And a side note too. I saw last night, my, my classmate from west point, Chris Donnie, who's a, he's the, he's the division commander over at 82nd airborne. He was the last guy to get on the plane out of Afghanistan, which, you know, which, you know, for me personally kind of salvaged it a little bit like, well, that's, that's good. You know, Chris is leading the way, but gosh, what a terrible, terrible situation. So anyways, I, yeah, I'm with you, I'm just looking for a better day. And I think it's on the way, you know, everything's always changing, well,

Christopher Arps: It's almost like a parlor game now to watch the polls, just to see just how low can Joe Biden go. Right. You know, I heard this morning on our network radio news that the real clear politics composite poll has him at like 39%. So when five, five or six polls have you that low and especially, you know, right. Entering the second year of your presidency, that's pretty bad.

Doug Truax: Absolutely. And how many loyal Democrats are out there thinking they're going to vote for somebody else? And they won't tell a pollster that, so I don't know. It's just, yeah, it's crazy time. So, so you're a, you're a prominent African-American public figure. You know, we've got this moment where Trump was kind of like making a lot of headway in that community. And so, you know, what do you think has happened in there? Is there a, is there a break going on from your perspective of, of what you've seen over the years? I certainly hope there is, but I want to definitely, you know, get your take on it.

Christopher Arps: I think Donald Trump was a big part of the break that we're seeing from African-Americans is the democratic party. President Trump got 20% of the African male African-American male vote, which is incredible. He doubled his percentage of the African-American female vote, I think from a three to 6%, 7%, something like that. I think where you really see a lot of gains and I would love to see my African-American brothers and sisters catch up with these gains are in this Hispanic community. We see polls recently showing that more Hispanics associate themselves as the Republican party than they do the democratic party right now. And we saw during this 2020 election where a lot of Hispanics in the counties that border Mexico voted a good influence when it comes to African-Americans and other minorities taking a different look at the Republican party. I think when he said during the campaign, what the hell have you got to lose? I think a lot of African-Americans said, yeah, whatever we got to lose.

Doug Truax: That's right. Yeah. That's a, that's a good message. Cause they got to make a different choice at some point, and I've got 20 years now living in a Chicago suburbs. So, you know, you see all kinds of stuff when it comes to elections, when you live outside of Chicago and what goes on in the city and I give

Christopher Arps: You actually seen a dead person vote

Doug Truax: They're out there. Every, every election they're out there and I 

Christopher Arps: I guess zombies.

Doug Truax: Yeah. Right. Exactly. I get most disappointed too, just, you know, from, you know, from a Christian standpoint to there's there's not all, but there's a lot of pastors in the African-American community in the city, they will basically, you know, take favors in or however they're going to do that from the Democrat party and then endorse them, even though they know in their mind and their heart, it's not the right thing to do. There's better choices. I mean, the schools are a mess, the crime, everything else, but it's kind of this, just this machine that keeps moving. And I just, I do get a little disappointed with, like I said, obviously not all by any stretch, but there's a number of, of African-American pastors in, in Chicago that are kind of like a little bit, in my opinion, on the tape.

Christopher Arps: Yeah. Unfortunately in the African-American church has become an auxiliary of the democratic party. We really see that highlighted a, you know, a month or so before the elections, when the democratic politicians are in the churches at the pulpits, basically giving campaign speeches right from the pulpit. And we don't ever see any action from the IRS to take away any designations or anything like that. So I think a lot of people know that and I think that there are new breed of African-American pastors that are more traditional and adhere to conservative values. I think you're going to be hearing more of them in the coming months and years.

Doug Truax: Yeah. I certainly hope so. And I agree with that and I, that's a, that's a great sign and, and we need to get there. So, all right. So let's move on to this organization. You're president of Americans for Citizen Voting. So I think a lot of our viewers may or may not be surprised that a non non citizens vote. So why don't you talk about that organization and what's you're up to there

Christopher Arps: Well, I tell you, we started this organization in 2018, a friend of mine, good friend of mine, Paul Jacob said, Hey, did you know that there are, non-citizens voting in our country? And like 98% of Americans, 98% of Americans, I was like, you're crazy. You know, there's a, there's a constitution. There's no way that a non citizens are voting in our elections. And he showed me some examples of it. And from California to Maine and New Hampshire, where some of these municipalities were allowing noncitizens with green cards, they're here legally, but they are not citizens of our country yet. They're allowing them to vote in school board and municipal elections and me like many Americans out there think that it's wrong. We've done polling on this issue. And it's across the board, Republican Democrat, moderate, conservative, black, Hispanic, whatever it's overwhelmingly against non-citizens voting in elections.
And so we are a grassroots advocacy organization. We work in a number of states currently trying to work with state legislator and grassroots activists to amend their state constitution from saying not that only the only United States citizens can vote instead of every citizen can vote. And what's happening is a lot of the people that want this to happen are using that every citizen can vote as a loophole because it's not telling you who can't vote. So we would like to help amend of lot of all our state constitutions, really to say only the United States citizens can vote in our elections,

Doug Truax: Wait, so youre telling me the Democrats are using a loophole to gain an advantage in an election. I'm  shocked. So yeah, it's so difficult. Yeah. When I first heard this

Christopher Arps: And I hate to interrupt you, but I mean, it's not really a loophole. I mean, you know, you can, when it says every citizen can vote, most people with the IQ of a room temperature and with a little bit of common sense, knows that that probably pertains to American citizens and no one else. And the fact that we have to amend the constitution to say says that says a lot about the Democrats and how they really don't respect Americans common sense and their constitutional right to have only Americans voting in their election.

Doug Truax: Yeah, absolutely. It's that spirit of the law. I mean, everybody knows what that meant, but yeah, you're right. They just use it to their advantage. So, so, you know, we see more and more of that and you know, you and I are involved a lot of election integrity stuff and people were upset and still that's still going on. And so, and they've got all these issues now, and I don't want to get ahead of ourselves because we certainly know is as conservatives as Republicans, we can, we can definitely, you know, squander a victory on the way, but let's just, you know, say that in 23, we got the house and the Senate again, you know, what do you, what do you, what are you thinking? What do you, what are you looking for most from, from a majority like that? I mean, we're not going to the presidency obviously, but what, what are we going to, what do you want to see done at that point?

Christopher Arps: Why the first thing that I would like to see on day one is the shoveling of the January six committees and all their related committees, put them in the closet where they need to be. And let's get along with conducting the businesses of America. Second, I'd like to see our nation become a exporter of energy. Again, like we were under Donald Trump instead of going to OPEC cup in hand, asking them to please pump out more oil so we can have lower gas prices. And I just would like to see, because we don't have much leadership in the presidency right now. And if we were able to take over the Senate and the house, that's two out of the three branches of government, maybe we can get some things done. You know, the president still has to sign that legislation. But if that legislation is popular with the American people, and this is a, and we're pushing this, then that may put pressure on them to sign legislation that you may not done with his having his own majority.

Doug Truax: Yeah, that's right. And so it's a, it's a, it's a great thought to be able to get there, but you know, how, how it always is Chris. I mean, these guys will get there and they'll talk a good game. And one thing, what I always say around here too, is like, so if we have a candidate now who's been a politician. And they're saying all these things that they're going to do, you know, what have they done previously? It lead you to believe that they're actually going to execute on that thing when they get in. So, you know, with that being said, and we all know this happens, what do you see going forward? We take over, you know, how do we hold feet to the fire as conservatives, grassroots? What do we need to do right away to make sure they do everything they said they're going to do?

Christopher Arps: Well. I think one, once whoever is elected, we, we tell them we're going to hold you to your promises. We're going to hold your feet to the fire. And if you don't come through or we don't see you making significant strides and efforts to pass what the passing agenda that we support, then you're going to be booted out. I mean, we've seen that in a sense here, these last few election cycles that have been kind of middle of the road that have switched between Democrat and Republican and that are up for grabs currently. I think you're going to see that spread more around the country, that if you're not doing what we want, we're, we're going to vote you out. And I hope, I hope that's what happens.

Doug Truax: Yeah. We're all seeing, starting to see replays now, versions of, you know, January, 2017 where we're like, all right, we got everything. Let's make this happen. It's like, well, maybe Trump's a Russian spy. You know, everybody started getting weak-kneed and everything. I'm like, oh my God, let's do it. You know? So we'll see, we'll see what happens. So, but yeah, we'll, we'll definitely have you back on and we'll talk about how things are going and what you're doing and, and we'll, we'll all collectively hold their feet to the fire. Sound good. It sounds

Christopher Arps: Excellent. And can't wait to have you on our show real soon.

Doug Truax: Yeah. Very good. Thanks for coming on, Chris. Thank you. All right. That's our show for today. Thank you so much for tuning in and for supporting conservative media. Don't forget that by working together and staying diligent, we conservatives can bring our country back to true greatness. And so next week let's all keep praying that God will continue to bless America

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