Morning Wire XX
[0] The so -called government shutdown deadline is coming at the end of the month.
[1] Congress must pass a continuing resolution or new funding bill or else some federal spending will come to a halt.
[2] With this deadline fast approaching, Republicans are working to get conservative priorities passed, including securing the southern border, pushing back on what they say is Justice Department weaponization, and reducing federal spending.
[3] In this episode, we talk with U .S. Congressman Chip Roy of Texas about the Republican debate over how to fund the government while advancing a conservative agenda.
[4] I'm DailyWire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[5] It's Saturday, September 23rd, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire.
[6] Joining us now is Texas Congressman Chip Roy.
[7] Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.
[8] Happy to.
[9] So you're demanding action on the border, among other priorities.
[10] What specific actions do you want to see in order to support funding?
[11] Well, first of all, it is our duty in Congress to use the power of the purse as the founders gave us to check an out -of -control executive branch.
[12] That's the fundamental issue that we all have to remember.
[13] So when people get all, you know, hand -wringing about a shutdown or whatever, we have a duty to force the president to the table to extract change.
[14] We can't just sit back and keep funding a government that is effectively at war with the American people in terms of their freedom, in terms of their security, in terms of their prosperity, in terms of the economy.
[15] So these are things we need to address.
[16] Yes, I believe the border is the tip of the spear of the things that we need to change.
[17] I say that as a Texan.
[18] I say that as an American.
[19] I say that as someone who saw 2 ,000 people flooding across the Eagle Pass.
[20] People sitting in train cars coming through Mexico heading to the United States, a Darien Gap that's filled with thousands of people, thousands crossing, something like 20 ,000 on the Southwest border this weekend alone.
[21] We've got all the people who died from fentanyl poisoning, all the migrants who are dying, all the little girls getting sold the sex trafficking trade, that needs to stop.
[22] I don't know how it's to say it.
[23] That's our job.
[24] And so my belief is we, in Congress, the Republican -led House, needs to lead, put forward a proposal and advance it out of the House and send it to the Senate that stands on a wall.
[25] And that wall ought to be that we're constraining the spending of the federal bureaucracy while forcing the Biden administration to secure the border of the United States, among other things.
[26] We have a proposal that would do that.
[27] For 30 days, it would fund government, cutting it 8 % to the federal bureaucracy while funding our troops, passing a defense bill that would ratchet back wholeness and would force them to accept HR2, the great border security bill that we passed this spring through a conservative house.
[28] Unfortunately, there are some colleagues of mine who would rather rattle about what we're not getting and things we need to go do otherwise rather than taking a step right now to force Senate Democrats and the president to answer to their wildly out of control and dangerous open border when we have the power to do it.
[29] Now, you've mentioned some of the people that are standing in the way of this.
[30] Can you explain who the various factions are within the GOP and what each group is proposing in the situation?
[31] For the most part, we have overwhelming agreement that we should and can pass legislation like I just described.
[32] We have agreement between the Freedom Caucus and Main Street caucus and others and different individuals throughout this, but we have a, frankly, I'm going to be honest, a block in the conservative wing of the party who wants to say that it doesn't do enough.
[33] Well, I agree, but it is also a 30 -day funding, a 30 -day funding in order to perpetuate H .R .2, the strongest border security bill we've ever moved.
[34] So far, there don't appear to be enough votes.
[35] Do you think there will eventually be enough support for this?
[36] Right now, I'm not sure.
[37] I think that's a shame.
[38] I think that we can move something that would advance our first priority, which is securing this nation, for the first time fundamentally altering the landscape on the border, and we would do so in the context of cutting the bureaucracy at any level that it has never occurred, ever, in the history of our country.
[39] And yet I've got members of the supposedly conservative block in the House and certain outside groups who like to raise money on this sort of thing, who are out there calling this, you know, quote, malpractice.
[40] Well, the only malpractice that would exist is if Republicans walk into a shutdown without a concerted message.
[41] that we can explain to the American people as to what we're doing, that will unify this country, and I believe that trying to force this administration to their knees on what they're doing with respect to the border is that mission.
[42] Now, you've proposed an 8 % cut in funding.
[43] Are there specific departments that would see more cuts than others?
[44] So we are continuing to try to move through whatever we can with respect to appropriations, but what this would do is say an 8 % across the board, board cut for the non -defense non -veteran bureaucracy.
[45] It would leave in place veteran funding flat and the defense levels that were in the so -called Fiscal Responsibility Act, which I opposed, but it would be consistent with those spending levels in total.
[46] It would represent an across -the -board cut, across all of government, I think about 1 % in change, and an 8 % cut to the non -defense bureaucracy, all while advancing a strong border bill.
[47] And by the way, alongside a Department of defense bill that would stop funding abortion tourism, stop funding transgender surgery, stop funding cheap diversity officers, stop funding critical race theory.
[48] Connected to the discussion on national security is the issue of Ukraine.
[49] Where does the Republican Party now stand on continuing funding for Ukraine?
[50] There's been a lot of internal division over that.
[51] What's the trend there?
[52] Well, first of all, there's general agreement among a large block of Republicans.
[53] I do not know the number that we should not be advancing a. supplemental funding for Ukraine, either at all, or certainly without forcing the European Union to pay its share and making sure we get an accounting for that which we've already spent and that we have a plan for what we're actually going to accomplish in Ukraine.
[54] In the bill we're talking about in terms of funding, the only thing that would be in there for Ukraine is what's in the defense operations.
[55] And I think it's about $300 million with an M, 300 million that we already authorized, by the way, as the House and the National Defense Authorization, Act, but does not include a Ukraine supplemental.
[56] I do think that there's a growing concern that continued funding of Ukraine without a plan is not in the best interest of the United States, especially in light of our lack of doing their job at the border and so forth.
[57] But look, there's far from agreement on that.
[58] I mean, there's still probably, at least last vote in July, there was still a majority of the conference that were still in favor of continuing to advance some funding and support for Ukraine.
[59] But we're still working through that, and I hope we'll hold the line to force accountability and not go down that road.
[60] You started off saying the border is a priority and you've promoted the secure the border act.
[61] Can you give us a little bit more detail in terms of what's in that bill?
[62] In terms of the border specifically, we in the HR2 bill that we passed in the spring, we had provisions in there that would specifically empower and frankly require DHS to stop releasing people into the United States to use return to Mexico micro protection protocols, to change the laws that have been exploited, to stop the use of parole as a blanket mechanism for releasing people into the United States, undo some past bad judicial opinions that have been limiting our ability to keep families together and return children safely to their home countries.
[63] It changes all of that, but in the short version, it stops releases.
[64] That's what it really does.
[65] And it forces the hand on the administration.
[66] They would have to blatantly disregard the plain text of a newly passed law by Congress to say, you shall not release into the United States.
[67] And there are very, very narrow criteria for making determinations about actual asylum claims and how those are adjudicated and that you wait in Mexico or be held in detention, not released.
[68] Because right now, we're just dumping people out of the United States under so -called parole, and we're dumping people out of the United States with so -called notices to appear, which often don't happen.
[69] And therefore, we are flooding the zone.
[70] And then you end up with situations like this guy in Pennsylvania who stabbed his girlfriend 28 times and then broke out of jail.
[71] You have this kid who's 11 years old in Ohio who died on the first day of school when a person who'd been released by the Biden administration ran into the school bus.
[72] There are thousands of these stories.
[73] There's many in Texas.
[74] And it's something that needs to end.
[75] Final question on impeachment.
[76] McCarthy has announced a formal impeachment inquiry.
[77] What's the latest on that move?
[78] And do you support it?
[79] I very much support an impeachment inquiry, and I have publicly said so now for some period of time.
[80] I wish we'd started it a little bit earlier, but I want to give a lot of credit to Jamie Comer, in particular, in the Oversight Committee and what they've done to go investigate and get facts because it's not an easy dance to do when the Department of Justice is not standing behind you and helping you with the investigative tools that the DOJ has.
[81] So you have to go get the information without getting locked out.
[82] And so we were able to get information, obviously, from these whistleblowers and from Devin Archer and getting a full understanding and a picture about what President Biden knew about Hunter Biden's business associates, watching the dollars that flowed.
[83] And so now we're trying to figure out in need to look at bank records to see where that money landed, how much of it landed with Hunter, how much of it flowed on to President Biden or anybody else.
[84] But what is 100 % clear is that there was clear abuse of the office in terms of using President Biden or then vice president Biden, and perhaps subsequent to that, Hunter Biden using him to be able to demonstrate access and have dollars flowing to him from foreign governments.
[85] And so we need to keep exploring and further.
[86] And the impeachment inquiry gives us the tools to do that.
[87] Well, Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.
[88] Hey, thank you all.
[89] I appreciate being on.
[90] That was Texas Congressman Chip Roy, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.