The Daily Signal - #392: Amid Allegations Against Democrat, 'Believe All Women' Ends

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

Now that a woman, Vanessa Tyson, is accusing Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, of sexual assault, the left's calls to "believe all women" have abruptly stopped. Amy Swearer, a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, joins us to discuss that and how as a culture we should respond when a woman puts forward a claim of sexual assault. Plus: Rob Bluey interviews Reps. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., about infanticide, the wall, and much more. We also cover these stories:•Virginia attorney general Mark Herring, a Democrat, says he wore blackface while in college. •President Trump announces he’s nominating David Malpass to be the next president of the World Bank. •House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump's State of the Union speech, saying, "Presidents should not bring threats to the floor of the House.”The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feeling festive. Catch classic holiday favorites, like Home Alone, the Santa Claus, and Die Hard, along with holiday episodes from Family Guy, Abbott Elementary, and more with Hulu on Disney Plus. From festive Disney flicks to binge-worthy Hulu originals, Hulu on Disney Plus is your home for the holidays. Celebrate the season with Hulu, available on Disney Plus in Canada. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, February 7th. I'm Kate Tranko. And I'm Daniel Davis.

Well, another week, another powerful man accused of sexual assault. Virginia's lieutenant governor is on the defensive from an accuser, but some have noticed that Democrats aren't responding quite as decisively as they did with Brett Kavanaugh. Heritage legal analyst Amy Swearer will join us to discuss the discrepancies and what the proper response needs to be. Plus, our editor-in-chief Rob Bowie sits down with top House conservatives to discuss immigration, the wall, and more. But first, we'll cover a few of the top.

headlines. So the Democratic Attorney General of Virginia, Mark Herring, admitted Wednesday he had worn blackface in 1980. Quote, in 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Curtis Blow and perform a song. It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes, and because we did not have an appreciation for the experience, and perspective of others. We dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup. He added, it was really a minimization of both people of color

and a minimization of a horrific history I knew well even then. Herring's revelation comes just days after it was discovered that Governor Ralph Northam, also a Democrat, admitted he had worn blackface after his medical school yearbook surfaced. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax of Virginia is facing an allegation. of sexual assault which he denies. But the bottom line is currently all three of the top lawmakers in Virginia, all of whom our Democrats are embroiled in scandals right now. Well, President Trump announced Wednesday that he's nominating David Malpass to be the next

president of the World Bank. Malpass has been a critic of the World Bank, which exists to fund economic development projects in poor and developing countries. Malpass is currently a top Treasury Department official. Trump called him highly respected. brilliant, and a very special man. Did President Trump knock it out of the park with his State of the Union speech? One instant CNN poll had quite the favorable result.

59% said their view of the speech was very positive, while another 17% had a somewhat positive view. CNN did caution, however, their poll was of people watching the speech, and it was more likely Trump fans rather than Trump detractors, were watching. A CBS news poll, meanwhile, found that 76% of speech, Watchers approved and only 24% disapproved. Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing back on one aspect of the President's State of the Union address. The President criticized endless investigations, saying, quote,

An economic miracle is taking place in the United States, and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, and ridiculous partisan investigations, end quote. Well, Pelosi on Wednesday responded, saying, that was a threat. Presidents should not bring threats to the floor of the House. Well, threat or not, Democrats don't seem very deterred. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intel Committee, says his panel will expand its Russia probe into Trump, as well as whether the Kremlin wields leverage over the president. Pentagon announced Wednesday it would be sending about 250 military members to the border, specifically to ports of entry in Texas. These troops are currently on the border in Arizona.

Earlier this week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten, New York. Nielsen said in the statement, approximately 2,000 aliens have arrived in northern Mexico as part of a caravan seeking across our southern border into Texas. Illegal entry will not be tolerated and we stand ready to prevent it. Well, up next we talk to Amy Swearer about the turmoil surrounding Virginia politicians. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? Then subscribe to Scotus 101, a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. The woman accusing Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax of sexual assault,

whose name is Vanessa Tyson, released a statement Wednesday through the same law firm Christine Blazy Ford used, Katz, Marshall, and Banks. Tyson revealed more details on the alleged assault. I don't want to get too much into the details here because we do try to be a family outlet, but essentially Tyson is adamant that she was forced into a sexual act with fair. Fairfax, who is the lieutenant governor of Virginia, forcibly holding her. This attack would have occurred, I believe, in 2004. Tyson states, what began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault, end quote,

and adds, I cannot believe, given my obvious distress, that Mr. Fairfax thought this forced sexual act was consensual, end quote. Fairfax, to be clear, has adamantly denied he is guilty of assault. Joining us today to discuss is Amy Swearer, a legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Amy, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Okay, so you'll remember, of course, that we confronted similar issues to these during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. And during that time, Amy wrote a thoughtful op-ed for the Daily Signal, headlined, Don't believe me just because I'm a woman.

So, Amy, what are your thoughts on this latest sexual assault allegation and how should we be handling it? Well, it's, I mean, it really is putting a lot of people who said things during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in a very difficult position. You have a lot of people who were adamant during that time that we have to believe all women, regardless of the strength of their evidence, you know, the strength of their character testimony. And yet a lot of these same people now are staying rather quiet with regard to these new allegations. and suddenly believe all women doesn't sound like such a great idea, and now we have to weigh evidence, and, you know, take into account other sorts of things. And I think this is where it's important to go back to what conservatives were largely saying during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, which is, it doesn't matter who the accused person is, what political party they're from, how famous they are or aren't, whether it's politically expedient. none of that matters. What we really have to get back to is treating every single allegation according to the individual circumstances and weighing the individual evidence and witness

credibility and witness motive and taking all of that together and making a reserved, you know, thoughtful judgment about it and not just jumping to conclusions and assuming that every allegation is true. And none of that changes now. I think that is still exactly the route that needs to be taken here with Justin Fairfax. So the accuser released a statement recently about giving her her accusations. What do we know so far about those allegations and any kind of corroboration? Well, right now it's actually just very eerily similar to the way allegations played out against Brett Kavanaugh.

According to this new accuser against Justin Fairfax, this incident happened quite a of years ago in 2004, so not quite as long ago as we saw with Brett Kavanaugh with those accusations. But just like with Dr. Ford in that incident, you have a woman who didn't speak to anyone about the incident up until the time when the accused man, in this case, Justin Fairfax, came to the political spotlight. And she, you know, according to her testimony, felt compelled to bring forth this allegation and to talk about it for the first time. We know that both women went on to become highly successful. They both have PhDs and are professionals. And in fact, they've both hired the same law firm. So there's just a lot of similarities in that timeline.

But according to this recent allegation, this happened when they were both working at the Democratic, I believe the National Convention. And that during this time, Justin Fairfax invited Vanessa Tyson back to his hotel room to helping carry some papers. And her allegation is that during that time is when he forced her to complete the sex act. It's my understanding that he has not denied that they both went back to the hotel room, but denies that it was forced in any way. So that's where you kind of see a bit of a dissimilarity between that and the Kavanaugh allegation. But other than that, it is very similar just in terms of how the allegations have played out.

Yeah, and as you mentioned, of course, there just seem to be some pretty rampant hypocrisy here and that a lot of the crowd that, you know, shouted, believe all women during Kavanaugh does not appear to be shouting that now. Henry Rogers, a reporter for the Daily Color News Foundation, has tried to get Democratic senators on the record. There was a quite interesting clip of him trying to get Senator Bernie Sanders to speak on it, which did not go well. But, you know, I think for me, I feel, you know, in some ways this is such a, an unsatisfactory issue because you just feel like it's so hard to get justice and know what's right. And I guess that's just sort of the end here. But I mean, the reality is, you know, with Justin Fairfax, it sounds like, you know, my understanding is we're coming down to a

situation in a hotel room where there is no witness, no footage. And it's a he said, she said. And I don't know how we as a culture deal with these when someone is willing to put their name on the allegation, but also they're not. didn't file charges at the time. Yeah, I mean, it is hard. And it's one of the reasons I think we'd all encourage anyone who has suffered a sexual assault to go to the police, to go to the authorities, to tell someone as soon as possible afterward and get it on the record. So that some of that physical evidence and corroborating evidence can be collected.

There are still ways that this story could play out. I mean, there might be corroborating evidence that hasn't come forward. There might be evidence of his character or if he has a history of doing similar acts. So it'll be interesting to see what details come out in terms of what's verifiable and what's not. But it is unfortunate that at the moment it disappeared to be a he said, she said. You know, of course, we're not, the court of public opinion is not a criminal court. And we don't make decisions based on beyond a reasonable doubt. But I do think if the Kavanaugh hearings have taught us anything, it's wherever the

that line is it has to be somewhere above, well, he might have done it, or he has to prove his innocence, which both of those are just absurd lines to draw. To me, it tends to come, you know, is it more likely than not that he committed this crime based on the evidence? And it's, you know, there's just not a whole lot of verifiable evidence right now. And so it is very difficult. Well, I guess one difference from the Kavanaugh example is that his job is a bit more stable than Kavanaugh was at the time. Obviously, Kavanaugh had like a matter of days to get this in order, get his ducks in a row so he could be confirmed. So we'll have to see how this plays out in the courts.

Just a little bit of broader context here. A remarkable few days in Virginia. We've had Governor Northam, I guess really all started last week with his comments on abortion and what seemed pretty clearly like infanticide. And then the picture from his yearbook that was a racist. picture that he, you know, acknowledged, but then walked back. And then now the lieutenant governor, this accusation. And then on Wednesday, hearing a new allegation that the Attorney General of Virginia, who's also a Democrat, also acknowledged that he wore blackface once in the 1980s. So this is all happening in a matter of days. And it's really put Virginia in a lot of turmoil.

Yeah. And you live in Virginia. How do you feel as a resident? Yeah. I was actually just joking that the, the, way this is playing out, I could well be governor by the end of the week. We're going to get down like a dog catcher or somebody. I might be the only woman left standing. So we'll see it. I mean, it certainly hasn't been a great week for the leadership in Virginia. But I mean, when you're talking about killing, literally living, born human beings and wearing blackface, I mean, there's not a whole lot of good routes you can go when you're talking about those things. So it's been an unfortunate week for Virginia in a number of respects. And for the Virginia Democratic Party in particular.

Right. And I think that's where, well, of course, I should note that the president of the Heritage Foundation, K. Coles, James wrote an op-ed that we published over the weekend in the Daily Signal where she called for Governor Northam to resign, you know, and just, you know, talked. I think, you know, Mrs. James herself, if you're not familiar with her story, actually was one of the African-American students who came to a school that had been segregated and personally suffered racism. It's a really dramatic story. And so she does very much understand Virginia's tragic and, you know, very problematic history in this area. But I think, I don't know, I think the thing I just keep returning to with this is the hypocrisy. I mean, we all know, you know, if these

had been Republican or right-leading people. We wouldn't be talking about it. We might have postponed the state of the union address to talk about it. Right. And the whole narrative would be, you know, conservative ideas are inherently racist. This is not too bad people who made bad decisions when they were younger. It's always that these are conservatives and that conservative ideology played into them doing bad things. Right.

And it's completely related. It is not an accident that they did this. And I just, it is so infuriating. trending on Twitter, which apparently none of these stories have been. Yeah. And it's just crazy that here it's just like, oh, well, these guys did bad things, but that doesn't say anything about the Democratic Party's policies. And of course, you know, as we've discussed, believe all women has suddenly fallen by the wayside. And, you know, this is a topic we touch on a lot on this podcast, but I think it's important to just acknowledge this double standard.

Right. No, it really is. You know, unfortunately, the media has been rather silent on that double standard. It seems like the response has been muted. And when other Democratic lawmakers don't want to talk about it, we just pretend we never ask them that question. But I think people are noticing. I think the general swath of America that at least has some rationality left in it is noticing just how quickly this change took place from believe all women to believe some women when they can provide evidence and verifiable information and when it doesn't hurt Democrats. Right. And then also I think on the media thing, one thing I just have to point out is I saw a New York Times headline about the revelation that the Attorney General Mark

Herring, in which he admitted himself he had worn blackface, in which the headline didn't use the word blackface. It said something like, Herring has worn dark makeup. Yes. Admitz to wearing dark makeup. It was like, okay, I've picked the wrong foundation color too. This is not what he did. This is, I mean, it's just, just admit that you're a liberal activist news outlet. Yeah. Well, I guess I'm kind of concerned that the believe all women line could actually end up hurting women who have, you know, legitimate claims to make about sexual assault. I don't know. I just feel like it's such a kind of a, you know, one side or the other kind of a tug of war thing where you're either believing all women or you're rejecting, you know, people, you're reacting against that and saying.

saying, well, you know, it's not really, it's not, who can know. You know, does that, are you concerned about that? I mean, that the believe all women could kind of push people the other way and, and cause them not to really think that looking into these things is really feasible. Oh, absolutely. And I think you even saw that happen during the Kavanaugh hearings. You know, it was this sort of feeling of, well, if we're going to believe all women and there's no evidence.

Right. then how many women are we believing that are just not telling the truth? And it kind of led to this backlash of, you know, do we believe any women? You know, at what point do they have to prove things? And all women are lying. And I don't think that is really taken hold in a meaningful way, but there were definitely strands of it that came out on social media. And it really does. Anytime you have a false allegation or at least an allegation that appears,

appears fishy and kind of undercuts the truthfulness of the woman involved, you know, it reflects poorly on other allegations in it and it causes people to kind of take a step back and say, well, hold on, we jumped the gun on this other one. So, you know, we're going to be kind of extra cautious here, which really can harm women who, for whatever reason, don't have a whole lot of physical corroborating evidence, but who really did have something outrageous just happened to them. And so it really hurts everyone involved. And it certainly hurts sort of the public conversation about how we deal with these allegations. Yeah. And I think one thing that I think is very important is that, you know, I think we're using the wrong words here. I don't think it should

be believe all women, but I would agree with, you know, take all women seriously. If a woman goes on the record, you know, uses her full name, which of course makes her vulnerable to all kinds of attacks and publicity that she probably doesn't want and details and attack. I think, you know, we need to take it seriously. Of course, we need to give the, you know, the alleged assault or a chance to respond. And, you know, I think in some cases, obviously we're never going to know. But, yeah, I think it's finding that balance, which I think actually in the Kavanaugh hearings, we did have that balance. You know, the Senate Judiciary Committee allowed Dr. Ford to testify. They looked into it. They took it seriously. They didn't just say,

Kavanaugh denies it, so big deal. They took it seriously from a structural standpoint. I think it was very clear that there were some senators who were convinced of Kavanaugh's guilt from the very beginning. Sure. Where, you know, believe all women and we're going to go through this process, but we know what conclusion we're going to come to and nothing can change our mind. And again, like, it just hurts that conversation because that's not what it means to take women seriously. You don't take women seriously by just believing everything they say. You take them seriously by treating them the same way you would men making an allegation,

which is to say, okay, you clearly believe this, but tell me what happened. You know, what does he say happen? How do we weigh the actual evidence? You take it seriously by investigating it the same way that you would any other claim or allegation against another person and by not taking their gender into account. Well, hopefully by the end of this we'll all learn that due process and the rule of law is good for all of us. Yes, it is suddenly in vogue again. All right, Amy, Swearer, thanks so much for being back and joining us.

Thank you for having me. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. Each Tuesday in the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to it. our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Okay, and now we're going to play part of the interview that our editor

in chief, Rob Bluey, did with Representative Warren Davidson, Republican of Ohio, and Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, as part of the conversations with conservatives, a monthly gathering with lawmakers that the Heritage Foundation puts on. I want to ask first about another phrase, Congressman Davidson, you raised this, on infanticide. The president made a clear case for the sanctity of human life, and it just came days after Senate Democrats blocked a measure that would have protected babies who are born after a botched abortion. Again, an issue that should a stark contrast between conservatives and liberals on this issue,

your reactions to his comments. I mean, you're talking post-term abortions. I mean, this is, you know, you can dress it up. This is killing babies. It's no longer attached to mom at all. The baby breathing oxygen, every definition, it's already passed through the magic birth canal that converts it from fetal tissue to a human being in the far-left ideology. So I think, A, we absolutely have to get fourth-term abortions ended, and we have to, you know,

go much further, in my opinion. I think, you know, we should at least get to the heartbeat bill. Yeah, and I agree with one. The Harvey bill is where we need to begin. But, I mean, I don't think we should be surprised at how radical the left the Democrats have come. I mean, this is something from Peter Singer, who is an Ivy League philosopher who's got some kind of following. But he said that the rational next step from abortion is infanticide. I mean, and so I don't think we can really say we're surprised at it.

We can be outraged at it, which I think most of America really is. but I was glad the president stood up for that, but I'm with Warren. We need to go much, much further to protect the unborn. Based on what you heard last night, what do you see as the legislative agenda here that Republicans and conservatives should be pursuing in Congress? You know, I think he was sincere and genuine and desiring that the country would work together

that we could pursue greatness instead of gridlock. I don't think those were just cliches. I think he really wants that to happen. And I think even the most divisive issue of the moment, which is securing our border, he has compromised. I mean, when you remember back to the campaign, he was talking about a big, beautiful wall from sea to shining sea, 40 foot high, but with a door, right? I mean, he's backed way off of that. He's not even asking for all of the 17 priority areas that Homeland Security wants to secure. He's compromised and say, let's do it to top 10.

We'll do 10 of the 17 priority areas Border Patrol once. So that seems like a compromise, right? And so then you'd say, well, maybe we're in the realm of, I don't know, seven priority areas, eight priority areas instead of ten. That would be a rational negotiation involving compromise, but the Democrats have held at zero. And I think he could have done a little better job verbalizing how much he's been willing to move and how little they have.

He really put the bonus on them. They haven't moved. Right, and I agree with that. I mean, look, when you consider that he was asking just a few months ago for $25 billion, And now we're talking $5.7 billion, and I think he's willing to drop down a little bit to that to Warren's point of going to just a few select areas. And we're not talking right now any more than a net effective about 115 miles of wall because he wants to double fence to about 234 miles of fence. That's what he's asking for. I think he's made incredible compromises.

I think he needs to lay the case out there, and I think he needs to make the argument. on why the Democrats have become so locked in. It's no longer, quite frankly, about policy. This is about politics and actually they're animus towards this particular president. And I think that's important to point out constantly. Over and over again, we need defense. We need it, you know, for those of us who live down in Arizona

or on other borders, we need that. And I think that there's so much. to be said about the issue, and hopefully he'll keep driving that issue. Well, Congressman Biggs, you see the issue up close in Arizona, obviously, a border state. I want to ask you a question that comes from Sarah Ferris with Politico. And by the way, before I ask that question, I'll just remind our viewers that you can ask a question by tweeting to At Conversations on Twitter or using the hashtag CWC-116. Sarah Ferris of Politico asks whether there is any concern that a national emergency,

which the president didn't declare in the speech last night, to build the wall, would get caught up in the courts and maybe get ultimately blocked. What's your view on this, Congressman Biggs? Let's talk about a couple things. Number one, he has the authority and is not unique. We know that, for instance, there's been almost 60, in the last 25, 30 years, has been almost 60 emergency declarations by presidents, and I think the number is 30-some-odd that are still in force.

President Obama even used it to declare swine flu as a national emergency. So this is not without precedent, number one. Number two, what you see on the border really is a crisis, and it is worsening. Just talked to Border Patrol agents yesterday, and today they tell me it's actually worsening, the amount of drugs that's coming across the human problem, the humanitarian problem, as well as the human souls that are sneaking in the country. So I think he's got the authority. I think I'm not going to speak for Warren,

but I know I'm always leery about seeing the executive take action when I would prefer that to be legislative, but actually Congress has delegated this authority to the president. Title 10, Section 284, says if there's an active drug trafficking corridor, It isn't even the president. The Secretary of Defense could go in and say, we're going to build fences, walls, roads, other infrastructure lighting. That's really what we're getting at.

And I think that I don't think we're going to see Congress come together. And just think of this. We're apprehending, according to the agents I was talking to today, we're apprehending about 2,000 people a day at the border. They think they're getting maybe half of the people coming in. They're only getting 15% of the drugs that are coming in. in. Now, if we wait another 10 days, that's another 20,000 people that we're going to get into this country, and who knows how many more drugs you're going to see coming across the country,

I think it's time to do something. Yeah, I'd just like to draw a distinction. I mean, so 10, USC, 274, 284 are in statute. So they don't require an emergency declaration. I think the president could do that. It's already in statute. It doesn't require an emergency declaration. My own view is that emergency declarations should be rare. This should be when Congress can't convene and you should move with a greater sense of urgency than it's possible, do the legislative calendar, for example. If you look at, you know, after 9-11,

I think we'd be very clear that there was a sense of emergency. And, you know, George Bush didn't launch strikes immediately after 9-11. Congress convened three days later in authorized combat. Frankly, we're still on that. but it shows you should take time to think through it. But the reality is when it's an emergency, it's clear it's an emergency. Here, I don't think we've built a consensus that everyone sees that it's an emergency,

and I think for that reason, it'll do exactly what emergencies are supposed to not do, which is get bogged down in court. It's supposed to be that the country goes, yeah, that's an emergency, we've got to do that. And I don't think there's a path that this wouldn't get bogged down in the courts. I think there's no way it could get bogged down in the courts if he uses 10 U.S.C. 274-284 because they're clear in statute. Yeah, can I just dovetail on that for a second? I think Warren's right.

That's why I mentioned 284. I think that's the cleanest way to do this. I think there's going to be lawsuits brought, and I would suggest that even if Congress were to pass a piece of legislation, I guarantee you that there will be lawsuits brought to enjoin enforcement. So it isn't even the mechanism that's used, whether it's Congress and emergency declaration or 10 U.S.C. 284, It is ultimately that the NGOs, the pro-open borders wing of the Democratic Party, they are going to bring a lawsuit regardless of how we get it done.

Yeah, that's a fair point. And when you look at the situation, who's winning with the status quo? I mean, the cartels. The cartels love the status quo. They're making billions of dollars every year on drug trafficking, human trafficking, sex trafficking. And meanwhile, the people in Central America and Mexico are fleeing the cartels. and then they charge for the fee of smuggling them. Meanwhile, they exploit the people that they're charged with safe passage to the U.S.

A third of them are women and girls are raped, and many of the people in that find themselves in trafficking, whether it's for labor, sex, or any number of other things. So the cartels own the black market at the border, and if we think that the caravans are somehow passing up through there without paying the toll, I think we really need to look harder at the illicit finance angle on this. Well, of course, members of Congress do have an opportunity

with this conference committee that's been set up after the government shutdown was ended. But the time is running short. There's only so many days. February 15th is the next deadline. What are your expectations? Are you hopeful that this conference committee will come present the president with something

that he might consider signing or are you pessimistic about what it could turn into? Well, I think my view is that they're not going to produce anything that the president will sign. That's my personal view, which means that that we'll either be stuck looking at another two-week, three-week short-term spinnibular CR, or,

quite frankly, the president's going to have to come in and encourage the Secretary of Defense to take that action, because I just don't think we're going to see a legislative fix out of this anytime soon. Yeah, I mean, I'm hopeful, but the reality is we've been given little cause for hope from Speaker Pelosi. I mean, she's out

outright said we're not doing that and so we'll we'll see whether there are people in our party that are part of the conference committee that are willing to frankly defy speaker Pelosi we saw last night they've pretty well followed commands when she said sit down they sat down when she said stand up they stood up when she said be quiet they were quiet and we'll see whether the conferees actually act on their own accord and represent their districts instead of speaker Pelosi I think lastly you know you're right 10 USC he could do and I think you should do that even ahead of February of head of February 15th. I mean, you should do that today. I was hoping he'd do it last night because,

irregardless of whether we spend 5.7, you could use DOD to do this. We're already moving troops there. And I'd say the last thing, the president should be patient. He will win on this. He should simply say, we're not going to move forward on any spending until we resolve this. And we know from everything that the Democrats have already put on the floor, they want to spend more money and they want to change the terms and conditions. And so I think he'll win if he's patient. As you talk to your own constituents, how do you talk about this issue of border security? And what is their reaction to both the president's comments and the situation that we're seeing here in Washington? I mean, largely, you know, incredibly popular in the 8th District of Ohio.

You know, we've, you know, two to one, better than two to one, feedback to support the president, even during the shutdown. People were sad about the shutdown. No one really supported the shutdown as a tactic. I didn't support it. My view is we should have done two-year CR that said, hey, the whole rest of the presidency, I'm not wanting to shut the government down, but we're just not going to fund anything else until we get this done. My hope is we could still do that, and we can do it three weeks at a time or the whole rest of the administration, and I think that would be a win, because ultimately the most bipartisan thing on Capitol Hill is apparently bankrupting the country.

The desire to spend money is voracious, and it's on both sides. So I think if he leverages that, he can win. I would say that in my district, there's really strong support for building that wall. There's a strong support for doing other mechanisms, whether there's asylum, you know, working, reworking the asylum laws, but they want the border wall. And that's where we are. And I'm like Warren, I think that at some point the president's going to have to do a couple things to take it off the table. either do a long-term CR so where no one can come out.

Or you say, we're just going to do CRs every two, three weeks, whatever. But we're not moving forward until we're taking care of this issue. And my own belief is if we believe it's an emergency and a crisis, we ought to handle it and treat it like it is the emergency in crisis. We see it. Members of Congress often make a statement in who they bring as a guest to the State of the Union. Can you share with our listeners who you brought? I brought Art del Quetto, who is the,

Vice Chairman of the National Board of Patrol Association. And he's in Arizona. He's worked the border in Arizona. And he just led, when I took eight congressmen down to the border two weeks ago, he spent some time taking us to different sites, including a place which, five days after we left, the Border Patrol rounded up 70, illegal aliens crossing at the very poor, very port, not port, but the very part of the non-fence we were at.

I brought Chief Rodney Muterspaw from Middletown. He's Chief of Police in Middletown. And you talk, there is no international border between Middletown and California or Arizona. And, you know, Middletown's been hard hit by the opioid crisis. Chief has led a great response. Engaged the entire community in that. It's definitely reorienting some of that work to do positive things throughout the community and making the most out of it.

leasing effort, community-wide support, and a lot of desire to focus on human trafficking, another cartel business. And so just highlights, you know, as I spoke with him, the importance of dealing with who's actually driving this, and it's transnational groups exploiting our border and the broken laws that facilitate the status quo. Let's talk about some issues here in the House. The House Oversight Committee is having a hearing on H.R. 1, which would make significant changes to voting rights and campaign finance law.

What are your thoughts on this legislation? It seems to be, given its name, HR1, top priority of House Democrats. Yeah, it's called the Democratic Majority Bill, I think, which is really all it's about is whatever it takes to help them. I mean, you could call it the Soros Fund Act or something else. I mean, this is a complete restriction on free speech in America. It's a destruction of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It, frankly, destroys the concept of citizenship and helps facilitate illegal voting. No accountability for voting.

We should be working on voter identity. And frankly, one of the big reforms we should be working on is citizenship. We talk about it at the census. People don't really want to get there, but the reality is states like California have three to five extra members of Congress because they count total population for apportionment. And we should only count citizens for apportionment. And of course, Democrats are also working to restrict every way possible

to do a census that draws that distinction. Yeah, and I would say, it's important to understand that there's really only two lines between an absolute nationalization of our government and the idea of federalism. And those two lines are the electoral college, which there is a concerted effort to try to attack. But in HR1, the dividing up of these districts that we, Warren was just talking about the apportionment process, well, they're going to take that away from the states. They want to remove that from the states so that, for instance, Arizona does our apportionment, are districting by an independent redistricting commission.

Our commission was voted on and created by the voters of Arizona. They will take that away and it's going to come to some non-elected judges right here in the District of Columbia who will design those districts. And if you think those districts are going to work to make things either fairer or behalf of the Republicans, then you're sadly mistaken. It's going to be designed to increase the number of Democrats. in Congress. We talked about socialism earlier, and some of your colleagues here in the House are pushing

proposals like the Green New Deal and Medicare for all. We might actually see them perhaps come on to the House floor for a vote. It seems that they're making their way through committees. What do you have, what message do you have for conservatives as they counter some of these quite radical proposals that would transform our country? Well, I think the message I would have is probably two or three things. Number one, it's incumbent on conservatives in Congress to use every avenue that we have to try to slow these down and maybe blow them up before they get to the floor.

When I say that, I mean, you know, there's some procedural avenues that we can use. But the second thing is it is critical that the voters of America who really care about these things, be vigilant, that they participate. I mean, what you guys are doing at Heritage, I know what Warren does, with outreach, what Freedom Caucus does outreach, what we do with outreach, we need to hear from them, but they also need to let others hear the people in the Republican conference. And maybe in some of these areas where it was close, I think of Dave Bratzell district, which I think is Virginia 6 and I think Virginia 5, some of these close districts that we

might have won or lost, it is important that they let whoever's sitting there know that they're watching, that they're concerned, and that they're going to be voting based on. on how some of these bills turn out. Yeah, I think that's a great message. I mean, the reality is, unfortunately, we lost control of the House. You know, people can analyze why, but the reality is one of the pieces of analysis, only about 80,000 votes decided who has the majority. Only about 80,000 across the entire country.

So take the bigger split across. If we had 80,000 flipped in the right districts, we would still have control of the House. So everyone's participation in engagement really does matter, and you go back to the founding. I mean, what had been Franklin said, out of the Constitutional Convention, a republic, if you can keep it. If who can keep it? The Congress?

No, they hadn't even started meeting yet. He's talking to the people. If the people can keep it, and they're only going to keep it. Frankly, we're going to get the government that our people tolerate. So our people have to say, we're not going to tolerate that. Just like, that's why it was such a good marker that the president threw down that says, you know, we were born free and we will stay free. America will never be a socialist country.

That's right. Well, you know, working class voters were so critical to President Trump, Trump's election in 2016. As conservatives, how are you reaching out to them and what message do you have to them that would make them vote for a conservative in Congress or the White House? Well, just prior to coming to Congress, I mean, I owned a group of manufacturing companies. We had plenty of blue-collar workers there. And, you know, they're small mid-market companies. I mean, I'm heavily involved day-to-day in the shop floor of some aspect of the business for, you know, 15 years prior to coming here. So you look like trade policy. You know, I experienced

bad trade policy firsthand. In American workers, particularly in manufacturing, were disgusted with the way that our trade policy was handled. Donald Trump didn't just talk about it. He's been about it. He came to office. He's been very serious about fixing our broken trade deals, and he's actually delivered on wins on that. You look at 600,000 new manufacturing jobs in the U.S., largely blue-collar jobs, some of them white-collar jobs, some of them are in R&D, but the entire economy benefits from these wins. And so it's just another thing. Deeds not words. The president delivered on the deeds. Yeah, I think it's our job as members of Congress to get out, which I do in my district,

and talk to business owners and manufacturers and really try to get what they're coming at. And the problem that we have, and I think what President Trump was emphasizing last night is, we're going to have to play some defense here because I think our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to stomp on some of the tax reform. They would like to roll back some of the regulatory reforms we've done. I think they would like to, I mean, they've said they would like to increase taxes instead, including estate tax, which will penalize small businesses and small family concerns. So we've got it, again, it's outreach, it's communication,

it's doing all that we can to get the message out because that's, you know, our message is the right message, if you like freedom, if you like prosperity. That's our message. Our message simply sometimes gets obscured because we don't talk about, you know, I could start talking about Steve Utsy, who wants to bring back 600 jobs to my district, but the tax policy doesn't work for him, but he can't keep his manufacturing plant in shining. He doesn't want to keep it there. He wants to bring him back.

We need to talk about individuals and their lives, and we don't do that enough. We're graded numbers and logic. I'd say one other thing on that. When you look at markets, you know, we need to make markets work. And, you know, the core of the socialist ideas, we don't need markets. We just need smart central planners, you know. And the reality is markets work. And we have markets that are broken in the United States.

The health care market is non-functioning. It's heavily distorted by subsidies and price controls from the federal government. And so as we look at making health care more affordable, including prescription drugs, the approach that we do, including with the, administration's leadership on prescription drug pricing, for example, is important. We need to do it in a way that really makes markets work that does protect intellectual property rights. Because when we make markets work instead of just distorting it with new subsidies, then we're

doing what actually made America great in the first place. You can get tempted to say, oh, but we're winning by just doing this federal subsidy or things like that, but that's a very short-sighted approach. And of course, Bostiak covered that with what's seen versus what's not seen. It's a little three-card money thing here. So we need to make the health care markets work. We need to make the labor markets work. We don't make labor markets work by federal minimum wages

or mandatory caps on hours work for overtime or every person shall buy this product, even if it's defective policies. We need to make the markets work. And for many of our markets, we have some non-functioning activity that would be nice to see even the Justice Department engage in. Well, I appreciate that answer. And Congressman Biggs, I'd like to take you, up and hear more about that story. I think I agree with you. It's so critically important that

conservatives tell stories and in personal terms, yes, focusing on the facts and the logic is important, but it's one of the reasons we created the Daily Signal and Heritage to get those types of stories out there because, frankly, the left tends to do a better job of it, even though the truth isn't on their side many times. Right. So here's another example. I was at an opening of a fast food restaurant. And this guy basically has created. He has created, I think it's like 500, 600 jobs in Arizona by opening up a series of these fast food restaurants. But when we start talking about mandatory minimum wage that, I mean, they're talking 15, 20,

25 bucks an hour, these restaurant chains are now already going to these kiosk type of ordering mechanisms so they can let go of people. And they're developing robotics to do some of the cooking. you will see almost two-thirds of the labor force drop out as you raise the minimum wage. And, I mean, I started working at a fast food restaurant when I was a kid. I needed that job. I won't tell you how old I am, but the minimum wage was $2.10 an hour when I was a kid. Yeah, and you look at those stories.

I mean, we heard them all the time during the health care debate. You know, people that found themselves needing to work two part-time jobs, and you look at the service sector that happened to a lot of people, because, well, Obamacare had a mandate that said if you work more than this many hours, your employer shall offer XYZ. But you had businesses in the service sector that had really built their entire business model at that point on having a program where they didn't offer some benefits that other industries did. And so, you know, that's a motivator for some people to switch out of that sector to another sector.

But it had worked for a number of people. They had their own insurance programs and were buying in the individual market. ObamaCare was supposed to fix that, but the reality is with some of the heavy-handed price control mandate policies like shall offer, everyone has to do it this way, people found themselves not able to get the same kind of hours or have the same stability in the workforce. Congressman, I want to thank you both for joining us today. Do you have any closing words you want to share with our listeners? Well, we just can't give up. I mean, it's time for us to stand up and lead, and that's why I like working with Warren. I like working with Heritage. I like work with the Freedom Caucus. We've got great people. people who are trying to get stuff done. And that's what we have to do. Just keep fighting. Absolutely. There's no substitute for victory. The stakes couldn't be higher. We've got a republic to keep. Congressman Warren Davidson, Congressman Andy Biggs, thanks so much for joining

conversations with conservatives. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa lash briefing. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.