‘It’s A Good Day For America,’ And ‘A Safer Nation’ Now, Colorado Trump Surrogates Insist

Ryan Warner: This is Colorado Matters, from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. Donald Trump did not win Colorado's electoral votes, but took the presidency with strong support from white voters and backing from women, that was better than expected, and Trump got help from our first guests. Former State Representative B.J. Nikkel was part of his campaign's outreach to women in Colorado, and former State Senator Greg Brophy led Trump's agricultural coalition here. Welcome to you both.

B.J. Nikkel: Thank you.

Greg Brophy: It's good to be here.

RW: You both volunteered to help spread Donald Trump's message in Colorado. What does his victory mean to each of you personally? Greg?

GB: I'm happy, I'm really happy. It means to me that we are going to have a Supreme Court that upholds the Constitution. It means that we can finally repeal Obamacare. People are being crushed by these ridiculous rates for insurance that doesn't cover a darn thing because your out of pocket expense is now so high you might as well not have insurance at all. We can finally do something about Dodd-Frank and get community banking back on track. We can reduce the regulatory burden that's faced by Americans. I mean part of his Gettysburg address was to repeal two regs for every new regulation offered and we can reform our tax code, bring overseas money back here and simplify things. It's a good day for America. 

RW: B.J., what does this mean to you personally? 

BN: Well, Greg said it very well and I think especially for women, I think the national security issue was such a big deal and I think that really helped bring a lot more women on than I think what the general public thought would, and so I think it means a safer country, a safer nation, a place where we can raise our families and our children and know that somebody is there. We have a new popular leader who brought in grassroots support from across the nation in places where people never dreamed that we would bring it in, from Minnesota to Wisconsin and even Pennsylvania. 

RW: Why do you think the nation will be safer? 

BN: Well I believe that he will take care to try to secure our borders. He's going to do a lot to fix a broken immigration system, so that people can try to come into the country in a legal means rather than, you know, we have a bottleneck currently within the immigration system, which is broken. He plans to fix that and allow people to come in legally, and I think that he will plan to really do what he has said he would do in terms of stopping people from coming into the country that should not be here. 

RW: Do you think the wall is literal that he wants to build? 

BN: I think he does. I think he really wants to do that, but obviously, and even he has said this, that it's not possible to do that in places, but in some places, mountainous regions and such, but I believe that he really wants to try to enact some type of border that will actually stop the influx of illegals. 

RW: I want to go back to Obamacare. Hundreds of thousands more Coloradans are insured because of it. It is also open enrollment at the moment and insurance rates are increasing. So are subsidies. Trump, like Republicans in Congress, wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but hasn't been clear on exactly what he'd replace it with. Do you think that Republicans will move to do that day one, Greg? 

GB: Yes, I do. I do. We may not be able to get it through the Senate, so they may have to wait until they can go through the reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes in the United States Senate. They have shown in the past that they can repeal all of Obamacare through the reconciliation process. 

RW: Would you expect them to ... 

GB: While you say people have insurance, that's technically true, but if your deductible is $8,000 and you only have a thousand dollars in your savings account, you don't really have any kind of coverage. You have this theoretical insurance against a catastrophe, but you have a catastrophe if something happens. 

RW: Let's talk about trade. One of Trump's priorities is to renegotiate trade deals that he says hurt America, and first among them is NAFTA. Colorado exported about $2.5 billion of goods to Canada and Mexico in 2015. They are the States' two largest trading partners. Do you think trade deals have been, on balance, good for Colorado, and will you advocate for them being renegotiated once Trump becomes President in January? Interested in the rural perspective on that, Greg. In particular, agriculture. 

GB: Yeah, well, after 15 years, finally agriculture got some sort of relief through NAFTA. I'm probably one of a handful of Americans who's actually read almost all of TPP, for instance, and then I had CRS, Congressional Research Service, compare it to previous trade deals, and I've got to tell you, the American trade representatives have been more interested in exporting our environmental standards and our labor standards than they have been our beef, our milk and our grains. Agriculture is always treated as a third class citizen. Insurance companies and banks are treated better by far than agriculture ever is in any trade deal. Donald Trump has said he's pro free trade, but he wants bilateral trade agreements and he wants them to be beneficial to Americans. The problem that we have is, again, if we put environmental standards and labor standards at the top of our list of negotiating items with foreign countries on trade agreements and then never, ever enforce those rules, we don't have a real trade agreement that benefits America and Americans. We have a trade agreement that benefits all these other countries. 

RW: Isn't Colorado beef exported all over the world in droves? 

GB: Ask yourself this question. Why is it that Japan has been able to send an unlimited number of cars to America but they won't buy beef or rice or milk from America? Yeah. That's what I always thought. There's no answer for that, and it's because the trade representatives don't care about agriculture. Donald Trump does. 

RW: There is still a significant number of Coloradans who did not vote for Trump, and it appears he actually lost the popular vote nationally. Last night, Trump talked about bringing people together in a way that he hadn't really in the campaign. 

Donald Trump: I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, and this is so important to me. 

RW: B.J., I think it's fair to say that a lot of people in Colorado are more interested in what Trump has said throughout the campaign, including the comments about women. The Access Hollywood video, for instance. The things he said about Fox News host Megyn Kelly. How did you come to terms with those comments, as a woman? 

BN: First, let's go back to the fact that you say that he really didn't talk about bringing people together throughout the campaign and that he only did so last night. He has done so, throughout the entire campaign. It's just that was not really aired as much on the mainstream news media as the more caustic comments that he made at various times, and certainly Hillary Clinton did a lot of the same thing, and that's just not talked about. That was not aired on TV to the extent that it was with Donald Trump. As a woman, I like Donald Trump. I trust him, that he is going to do the right thing for America. I think that women obviously trust him as well. He did a lot better with women, as you even said, than what he thought, than what people thought he would do, and so people say things. We all say things. I'm sure you do too. I do, and we move past it. 

RW: I want to thank you both for being with us. 

GB: Thanks for having us. 

BN: Thank you so much. 

RW: You heard there Greg Brophy, former State Senator, who led Donald Trump's agricultural coalition in Colorado. B.J. Nikkel co-led Trump's outreach to women in the state. We talked about what Trump's victory means to them and what they believe it will mean for Colorado.