Interviewing Page can sometimes feel like catching water with a butterfly net. Soliloquies spiral into tangents that eventually return to his favorite subjects—Trump or border security. Along the way, he might or might not answer your question.
An example: When I asked Page what issues he thought were important to voters in his Senate race, he talked about economic development and argued that Berger hadn’t done enough for his hometown.
But then:
“We’ve got a Purina dog food plant here. And in Reidsville, we got an Italian dog food plant. And I think we got a Chinese-owned plant that makes—it used to be an Israeli company, but now it’s a Chinese company. But the point of that is—that’s another thing. Are you keeping up on anything with the sale of property to the Chinese government or government businesses that are like Smithfield?
“Somebody got ahold of me the other day, yesterday, called me about some signs going up that’s got Phil Berger’s face on it. And it’s got, like—you know what I’m talking about?”
“No,” I said.
“I just heard about this. What it’s talking about is not selling farmland to the Chinese. I’ve got a problem with that myself. They don’t advocate for the U.S. I know they may be a trade partner, but they don’t advocate for the U.S. But we’re selling our food, our food operations, and stuff like this. So I’m just saying this: What other businesses are the Chinese investing in? And, you know, the concern was close to military installations. I mean, homeland security. National security. Think about this stuff.”
From there, Page segued into the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and the post-9/11 anthrax scare.
“And that’s why I like being sheriff,” he said, having spoken almost uninterrupted for eight minutes. “We come together, we make decisions about protecting our citizens, and we form a plan, and we do it. And I think we’ve done some great work here.
“I mean, those are just a few challenges. And then COVID comes in 2021, and you see what came with it.” He paused for three seconds. “I’ve had an interesting career. It’s not been boring. And I met President Clinton when he came here, campaigning for Hillary back in 2008. I met some interesting people being sheriff. But the most interesting was the roundtable with President Trump. That was cool stuff …”