The Daily Signal - #465: This Congresswoman Warns High Schoolers About Socialism

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., joins The Daily Signal to discuss the disconnect between her constituents in Washington state and Washington, D.C. Plus, she speaks about her efforts to reach out to high schoolers, social media, and the booming economy. We also cover these stories in the podcast:•U.S.-Iran tensions continue to simmer.•Ford announces it's slashing 7,000 jobs.•State officials in Colorado and Maryland are banning government employees from traveling to Alabama for work purposes.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

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, May 21st. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, for six years, Kathy McMorce Rogers was the most powerful woman in the House of Representatives, serving as chair of the House Republican Conference. Things changed after Democrats took back control of the House, but the power shift seems to have confirmed her insights on the issues that divide Congress, things like capitalism versus socialism, the dignity of human life, free speech, and more.

Our executive editor, Rob Bluie, recently caught up with McClure. Morris Rogers, and today we'll bring you that interview. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. While Iran is upping its nuclear enrichment amid growing tensions with the U.S. On Monday, two semi-official Iranian news agencies reported that Iran has quadrupled its production of enriched uranium, pushing Iran close to the limit allowed under the 2015 nuclear equipment. The U.S. withdrew from that accord last year, but Iran technically remains party to it.

The news came just hours after President Trump warned Iran not to threaten the United States, tweeting, quote, if Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Senator Lindsey Graham issued a similar warning on Monday, tweeting, quote, It is clear that over the last several weeks, Iran has attacked pipelines and ships in other nations and created threat streams against American interests in Iraq. fault lies with the Iranians, not the United States or any other nation. If the Iranian threats against American personnel and interests are activated, we must deliver an overwhelming military response. Stand firm, Mr. President. End quote. The vehicle company Ford will be slashing

7,000 jobs, all white-collar type jobs salaried by August, according to a letter by Ford's CEO Jim Hackett obtained by CNBC. According to CNBC, the jobs loss will mostly be overseas, although the 2300 will be in the U.S. Of those 2300, 1500 are reportedly voluntary buyouts according to an unnamed Ford spokesperson. Right now, Ford has around

199,000 employees. Well, California, Senator Kamala Harris, has a new plan to tackle the so-called gender pay gap. The plan would punish companies for failing to meet pay equity standards determined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her plan would create what's called an

equal pay certification, essentially, the federal government's stamp of approval, which every company would have to apply for. Companies would have to prove to the federal government that they pay men and women equally, and if they fail to do so, the company would be fined 1% of their profits for every percent more that men were paid over women. Harris estimates that within the first 10 years, her plan would raise $180 billion from fines. An unnamed 16-year-old young man from Guatemala died Monday in the custody of Border Patrol. The teen, who was processed May 13th after crossing the border, was found unresponsive in a welfare check, and the cause of death is unknown.

Acting Commissioner John Sanders of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement, the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are saddened by the tragic loss of this young man and our condolences are with his family. CBP is committed to the health, safety, and humane treatment of those in our custody. There is now a review going on to examine. what occurred. Well, state Democrats are issuing their own kind of travel ban. Late last week, in response to Alabama's new pro-life law, state officials in Colorado and Maryland banned government employees from traveling to Alabama for work purposes. Maryland comptroller Peter Franchot banned 1,100 staffers from visiting Alabama on business and took steps to divest Maryland's

$52 billion pension fund of all Alabama-based companies. He called Alabama lawmakers' thocratic and extremist. Likewise, in Colorado, Secretary of State Jenna Griswold said she won't be sending her staffer to the Auburn-based Election Center, which hosts instructional seminars. She called on other state and local leaders to join her in the boycott. Students at Morehouse College, a historically black institution, got a fun surprise during their graduation this weekend. Speaker and billionaire Robert F. Smith made this announcement. This is my class, 2019. And my family. is making a grant to eliminate their student loans. According to student loan hero, quote,

among the class of 2018, 69% of college students took out student loans, and they graduated with an average debt of 29,800, including both private and federal debt. Up next, Rob Bluey's exclusive interview with Congresswoman Kathy McMorris-Rogers. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6-20.

or email us at Letters at DailySignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. We're joined at the Daily Signal now by Congresswoman Kathy McMorris-Rogers of Washington State. Thanks for being with us. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. You have spent this time back home in the district talking to a lot of your constituents. Tell us what is on there might.

It's so interesting for those of us in Washington to hear what's going on in the rest of the country. Sure. Well, it's always good to get around to the counties of eastern Washington and hold town halls, invite people to come and ask questions. I'm also visiting all the high schools. So I've been to several high schools over the last couple of weeks. I represent several colleges and universities and going on campus. At the town halls, what I like to talk about and where I always lead is

just that this is representative government and just how much I cherish representative government. and being, you know, what an honor it is to serve in the house, the people's house, the battle of ideas that takes place. I always like to highlight the economy. And in eastern Washington, our economy is good, just like it is all over the country. And we have, if anything, we have a shortage of skilled workers and the affordable housing.

We need more plumbers and pipe fitters and welders. But the questions that I've been asked more just the last few days, I usually get asked about the cost of health care. That continues to be a big challenge, especially for families, small businesses, those that are in the individual market, rising premiums, co-pays, the deductibles. That continues to be a question that they ask. Those on the left, there seems to be, you know, quite an organized effort to show up and ask about the Green New Deal. So there's usually one or two or maybe even more that will ask, you know, so what about the Green New Deal? Which when you explain that at least what we've seen to date, we're talking $93 trillion in cost on this country.

It quickly changes that conversation. I bet, yes. And I bet there are issues that you're not hearing about as well. I mean, that are really different from what it seems some in Washington want to focus on. And I mean the Mueller report and impeachment and everything else that comes along with that. I have not been asked about that once. Wow. As I have been in these town meetings at the schools, I have not been asked about it once.

And yet that dominates the news, obviously. It certainly does. So when you're meeting with high school students, what's on their mind? And what do they think about this move by some in Congress to give 16-year-olds the opportunity? opportunity to vote. It's been fun to ask them directly that question. So I've been to several high schools, and I remember the first time I asked that question. I wasn't sure.

I wasn't sure. How would they respond? The teacher had said, well, Kathy, can you ask them a question maybe on something that's going on right now in Congress? And it was days after we had taken that vote in the House, whether or not to allow 16-year-olds to vote. So I asked them the question, not one in that class raised their hand. And then I said, well, you know, over 100 representatives in the House voted yes. Over 300 voted no, so it failed.

But I've continued to ask that question. And, you know, I might get one or two, but a large, large majority of them say, no, probably not the best idea. You mentioned the economy earlier. I know that that's important for people young, people who are working, and really everybody, whether it's in eastern Washington or all across this country. What would you say about what's fueling this economic growth? I mean, we continue to see it, whether it's the S&P and NASDAQ hitting new records or the GDP surpassing expectations.

What does that mean for your constituents in eastern Washington? What that means is that the people that I represent in eastern Washington have more opportunities because the job is the opportunity. and we celebrate America as this land of opportunity. It starts with a job, right? You get that first job, and then you get a better paying job. So when we're celebrating a record economic growth and record jobs, the fact that we have more job openings than people seeking jobs,

we're celebrating people that are coming off the sidelines, those that had given up on finding a job, are now getting back into the workforce. That means people have more opportunities. People in eastern Washington, for the longest time, we would talk about, you know, that we would lose our young people that, you know, I live in a great corner of the world. We have a great quality of life. And yet so often, after high school, young people would feel like they had to leave, you know,

or even if they stayed to go to one of our colleges or universities, they would leave after that to find the good paying job. And when there's more announcements, we had 9,000 new jobs in Spokane County in the last year. I mean, that is great news, and that means that they can stay. They can stay in Spokane, stay in eastern Washington, live this great quality of life, raise their family, start a business. You know what else that means? It means that people have freedom to take those ideas and do something with it. That is what freedom and free markets has meant.

America has led the world in innovation and breakthroughs, and I'm always inspired by those stories of the individual that started in their basement or their kitchen with an idea and then built a company, manufacturing, or a new service, a new product. And when we have a good economy, it means that there's more opportunities for that. Well, it certainly is, and I appreciate your passion for it. I know you come from a family that had a small business. And so that is certainly an area where, whether it's passing tax cuts or working on regulatory issues, certainly Republicans in Congress made a significant impact in the first two years of the Trump administration.

That was our priority. That's absolutely. You know, it was to get our economy growing. You remember President Barack Obama? He was talking about the new normal. That, you know, this record low economic growth and record of the, you know, coming out of the great research. session, right? He said, well, this is just a new normal. And as the Republican majority, along with our president, Donald Trump, you know, have taken on eliminating those regulations and lifting the

regulatory stranglehold and the tax burden, we've seen just an amazing response within our economy. And, you know, small businesses are the engine of our economy. And I'm grateful to have been raised on an orchard, that we had a fruit stand. You know, it's a very family-owned and operated. Grateful for that foundation, but we want to keep that going. And so that economic growth means that the engine of our economy and especially small businesses can do better. Well, certainly, certainly.

You are also known as somebody who has a care and compassion for children. You yourself are a mother of three, and somebody who's spoken out very directly about the impact that they've had on your life in such a positive way. I want to ask you, though, about some of the debates that we're seeing play out in other states around the country, whether it be New York passing a law that allows abortion right up until birth or the Virginia governor stating publicly his belief in infanticide

and things of that nature. What does that say about our culture and how can we go about changing that and bringing more value to the sanctity of life? Right, right. Oh, I so want a culture that values life, that celebrates life, celebrates every life, and that potential, the dignity and the value of every life. And boy, when I heard what New York had done, the law that they had passed, and the governor

of Virginia and his state, I was shocked first and foremost at the idea that a baby who had survived an abortion outside the womb would not be given health care. And so we have immediately gone to work on the born alive legislation. And it has been more difficult than it should be. In my mind, this should be a no-brainer. And especially today with the life-saving treatments and technology that we have. And our health care system is one that is about saving lives. about, you know, we want, we do a lot. We lead the world in saving lives. And yet this idea

that somehow a baby that's born alive would not be given health care, it's really a shocking commentary on our culture and the devaluing of life. And in our Declaration of Independence, it says it so well. You just go back to our foundation. And it is one, and, you know, this is a country where we're based upon a pursuit. It's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And life is pretty fundamental. And we need to make sure that we're celebrating that life either before the life is born or after it's born. And certainly the born alive legislation should be something that we can pass. Absolutely. Well, it's currently a discharge petition, which means Republicans have signed it. And you've had a few Democrats who have

I've also put their name on it, but you need more Democrats in order for it to get to that number 218 to have a vote on the House floor. I want to ask you about what you've experienced in terms of the difference now that the Democrats are in control of the House. So Republicans seem to have, you know, thrown a few curveballs at them with motions to recommit and forcing votes that they might not have wanted to take. But what is it like in your own experience having gone from Republicans being in the majority to now Democrats controlling Congress? It's night and day. It's very different. We were just talking about the born alive legislation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to bring that up for a vote in the House of Representatives.

So that means that our only recourse to force that vote is the discharge petition. And it means that we have to file it. We have to get 218 signatures in order to get it release from Speaker Pelosi. and then you have to wait for a certain amount of time before you can have the vote. But when you're in the majority, you are setting the agenda. You are setting the calendar.

And for the last eight years, the Republicans had been in the majority in the House. So we had been setting the agenda, which meant we led on tax reform. We led on a whole series of bills that were lifting the regulatory burden. And now that's all being done by Speaker Polic. And it's just a very different agenda.

And unfortunately, it appears that she's more interested in the presidential race and votes of, you know, just basically show votes. We've done more resolutions this year. I mean, they're not putting forward legislative solutions. They're just putting forward resolutions. It's more just they just want to be able to grandstand and talk about an issue. rather than really sit down and do the tough work of legislating. Yeah, getting things done.

No, absolutely, absolutely. You have a couple of political celebrities in this new class. I'm talking about the congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, who've made a lot of news themselves. Have you had much interaction with them? As somebody who's served in Congress, how do you get back to avoiding these headlines and actually getting things done on behalf of the American people? Right.

It seems that they're more interested in headlines. I term them celebrity politicians, right? They're not about actually building relationships or doing the hard work of legislating. And what is most frightening is that they are openly promoting a socialist agenda for America. And this is the first time that I've ever seen it quite at this level. And I'm reminding the high school students that I visit and colleges that socialism and human rights do not co-executive. exist. You just look at the history.

Socialism doesn't celebrate every person, individual rights, and human rights and make sure that their potential is being reached. Socialism is a few people. They get to make the decisions for the rest of the country. We were talking about the growing economy. If you look at Heritage's own economic freedom

index, you see the socialism countries don't provide that freedom for the people who live in places like Venezuela or North Korea. And the countries that do are those who are the most economically free. So glad to hear you're telling the high school students about that. Well, yes, it's free markets, capitalism, freedom that allows you to take that idea that you have. We're a creative people, right? We have ideas. We're always in search of that more perfect union and we're always coming up with new ideas to improve our lives. We're lives and in a free market society that you can actually do something with that idea.

You don't have to ask permission of the government. And yet socialism, it is all controlled by a few. And so that's where America has led the world in break. You think about health care and all the breakthroughs, in new innovations. I mean, we have led the world and we need to really look. We've lifted more people out of poverty. We've raised the standard of living higher than any other country in the world, and it's because we are a free people.

You know, one of the other things that comes with economic freedom often is trade, and I've heard you talk about the importance of trade, particularly to Washington State and how reliant Washington State is on having a free trade. So we have an opportunity here coming up, perhaps, with the U.S., Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which the president has negotiated. What can you tell us about that, or what prospects? there might be in this Congress to take some action on trade and really help the economy grow even more. 95% of the consumers live outside of the United States of America. So my vision is that America is a

country that grows, that manufactures, that produces, innovates, and then sells it to the rest of the world, right? And in Washington state, we are. We are the most trade-dependent state in the country. So it's estimated one out of three, or yeah, one out of every three jobs is dependent upon trade. And that is the fact that we export so much of our agriculture, apples and potatoes and wheat. We export Boeing airplanes. We export Microsoft and Amazon products and we sell it to people all over the world.

The USMCA is really important. I'm on the whip team. This is a modernization of NAFTA that the Trump administration has led And getting USMCA approved is going to be very important. I was just down at the White House a few weeks ago. We were strategizing on how to get it done. Part of USMCA is calling for some labor reforms in Mexico. We hope that Mexico will do that by the end of April, right?

So the clock is ticking there. And then ITC has issued its recommendations. Once that's in place, then the administration plans to send USMCA, MCA up to Congress and the clock will start ticking so we'll have 60 days to get it done. My hope is that we'll get that done by August and then we can move on to other important trade agreements with Japan and others. But I also want to just express appreciation to our president for what he's doing with China and being tough on China. And no other administration has been willing to do that. And China has not been a good actor.

China has not been honoring intellectual property rights or playing by the rules of the road. And this administration is holding China accountable. And that's very important so that China isn't the one that's setting the trade agenda, but that it will be an agenda that driven by freedom-loving countries. We appreciate your interest in that issue. And I'm glad to learn a little bit about Washington State myself. And I did not realize some of that. that information you shared. You know, finally I want to ask you a question about some people

that you've tried to hold accountable, and that is the big tech companies. You have been an outspoken advocate on behalf of conservatives to make sure that their content isn't suppressed, there's not censorship. Why is that issue so important to you? Well, this is, it's pretty fundamental. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, the, freedom of speech and that this is you know the the the public square today a lot of the debate takes place on these platforms these giant platforms and it is so important that we are protecting that freedom of speech and that there's conservative voices are not being stifled and that we have a real freedom of that debate within the public square on the tech platforms and

So I am, I'm also looking at privacy, how we make sure that as individuals, our private information, that we have transparency around what's actually being collected, how it's being used. You know, there's been too many surprises recently about information that's being used in ways that no one was aware of. Congresswoman Kathy McMorris-Rogers, thanks so much for spending time with the Daily Signal. Great to be with you. Thank you. Do you own an Amazon Echo? You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily Alexa Flash briefing.

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