The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mark Green Breakdown Greatest Foreign and Domestic Threats Facing America

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

President Joe Biden does not understand the threat China poses to America, according to Sen. Rick Scott.  “He pacifies [Chinese President Xi Jinping] all the time,” Scott, R-Fla., says of Biden��s relationship with the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.  “China and Russia pose a threat to American freedom, Scott says, because “both of them don't like us." "Both of them don't want America to lead the world. They don't like democracy. They don't like freedom. They don't like liberty,” the Florida lawmaker says. With concerns over ties between China and Russia growing stronger, America has to “assume the worst,” the senator says. If a third world war does break out, “it's because we have a weak president," Scott says.  Scott joined “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss growing geopolitical tensions and what the Biden administration could be doing to secure American freedom. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., also joins today's show to discuss the crisis on the southern border. 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 Monday, March 6th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Samantha Sherris. And on today's show, we are sitting down with two prominent lawmakers at the conservative political action conference just outside Washington, D.C. First, I'm talking with Senator Rick Scott of Florida about the reality of the threat China poses to America, a threat that Senator Scott says the Biden administration does not comprehend. Scott goes so far as to say that if World War three breaks out, it will be because we have a weak president. Scott also explains what we know about China's relationship with Russia right now. And after we hear from Senator Scott, I am sitting down with Tennessee Congressman Mark Green to discuss a letter he recently sent to CDC director

Rochelle Wulinski demanding updated data on drug overdose deaths from fentanyl, fentanyl-related substances, and synthetic opioids by March 31st. the Biden administration's handling of the fentanyl crisis and his recent trip to El Paso, Texas for border boot camp. Stay tuned for our conversations with Senator Scott and Representative Green after this. Hi, I'm John Carlo Canaparo. And I'm Zach Smith. And we host Scotus 101. It's a podcast where you'll get a breakdown of top cases in the highest court in the land.

Hear from some of the greatest legal minds. And of course, get a healthy dose of Supreme Court trivia. Want to listen? Find us wherever you get your podcasts or just head to heritage.org slash podcasts. It is my pleasure today to be joined by Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Senator, thank you so much for your time today. It's great to be here. Senator, you serve on the committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

And wow, it feels like just within the past couple of weeks, the heat has really been turned up on geopolitics and we're watching the world. Just so much tension. It really feels like everywhere you look. So I want to talk about a number of these tensions that are growing internationally, starting with China. China recently sent balloons with surveillance technology over America. What do you think China's view of America is right now? I think they think Joe Biden's weak.

I think they, I don't understand why he doesn't stand up. But look, it's not just the balloons. They've got drones all over this country. The federal governments buys drones. You've got TikTok. every Chinese app surveils us. You've got, they're sending what, all the fentanyl across the southern border, 70,000 Americans die of fintinol overdose each and every year.

It's really just fintill poison. They steal our jobs, they steal our technology. I mean, they're building military to defeat us. They don't weigh out like our way of life. They've taken over the basic rights of Hong Kong citizens. They threaten in Taiwan. I mean, Americans need to wake up. Don't buy anything that's built in China.

with any Chinese apps, get rid of all these things. And our governments all have to do the exact same thing. We've got a decouple from China. American businesses should not be doing business in China. They want to demolish our way of life. Does the Biden administration understand the threat that China poses to America? No. If they do, they're sure not.

I mean, look, here's the deal. Either he doesn't read the paper. He doesn't watch the news. Or somehow he's got another problem where he's somehow compromised. It doesn't make sense. He's doing nothing. He pacifies Xi all the time. Let's talk about COVID for a minute.

Recently, the Department of Energy concluded that COVID likely came from a lab leak, from a Chinese lab. Shocking. Is that the first time you believe that? I've heard it a couple times before, you know, once or twice. The FBI, they have said the same. What does accountability of China look like in this instance related to COVID and their responsibility there? Well, they ought to pay for it. They did it.

They covered it up. They caused it. They covered it up. Think about this. It's not just causing it. They covered it up. So they ought to pay for all the damage to our economy. I mean, they've got to be, you know, if you do damage like this, you're held accountable. Why aren't they held accountable? But the first thing what Americans are to do is realize they are out to destroy our way of life.

I don't get why anybody would ever buy a product from China. I don't know why anybody would get on TikTok. TikTok. I don't know why anybody would buy a Chinese anything, a drone, anything. And I don't understand why our government does business with China. Let's talk for a moment about the relationship that China and Russia have. There's a lot of concerns right now relating to that as we're seeing increasing conversations appear to be happening between the Chinese and the Russians. What do we know about the relationship of China and Russia right now?

Well, first off, we know both of them don't like our way of life. Both of them don't like us. both of them don't want America to lead the world. They don't like democracy. They don't like freedom. They don't like liberty. So, I mean, you have to assume the worst. You have to assume they're going to

cooperate. And so every freedom-loving person, every freedom-loving nation, the world is going to have to start showing up and realize that we're in a war. Now it might be a military war yet with China, but we clearly have an issue with

Russia, with all the money we've had to invest in Ukraine. Yeah. Yeah, you bring up Ukraine. We obviously have just passed that one-year mark of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The United States has sent billions of dollars to Ukraine. Are we being strategic enough in the aid that we are providing Ukraine? Well, first off, the Biden administration has been slow on aid.

I don't know why they don't want the Ukrainians to win. They need to give the lethal weapons that Ukraine needs to be to defend their. freedom and they need to do it now. They need to quit being so slow about it. So we've clearly provided a lot of aid. Germany and every other freedom-loving nation in the country has got to show up. And then on top of that, there can't be any corruption in the Ukraine. We've been seeing that obviously recently Russia pulled out back to out of the New START Nuclear Arms Treaty with America. What is Russia doing here? Are they just trying to make America a little bit nervous by doing this? Or do you think there's real threat that Russia

would use a nuclear weapon, whether against Ukraine or anybody else? You know, you assume the worst, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. So, you know, you have to take Putin for what he's saying. He wants to reestablish the Soviet Union. So if that's what he wants to do, let's all decide, is it important to us that he not? Then what do we do to stop it? We need to have a, you know, Biden needs to be a leader, needs to get freedom-loving nations all to show up. If we do, we'll be able to stop them.

If we don't, we won't. Yeah. Well, speaking of preparation, I think just a lot of people are nervous about what's happening across the world right now. Not that we take Twitter too seriously, but we did see last month that the hashtag World War III was trending on Twitter. How likely do you think it is that we are going to see war breakout

in a large scale within, the coming years? If it does, it's because we have a weak president. Weakness brings out the wolves. Weakness brings wars. The world needs a strong America. If America does not have a strong leadership, that's how you end up with an unsafe world. So if we want to have a strong America and a strong, you know, safe, and peaceful globe,

we've got to have a stronger America. Yeah. And what does that look like? What are the practical steps that should be taking? and that yourself as a Republican in the Senate is advocating be taken so that we are that stronger America on the world stage. Well, first of all you have to balance a budget. We've got to get ourselves out of all this debt. We've got to build a military that we can't be defeated.

We have to have a military that scares the crap out of everybody. We've got to have a work. We've got to get our country back to work. So you can't help somebody else if you don't help yourself. And what the Democrats have done, and some Republican leaders have helped, This unbelievable spending has put us in a precarious position financially. This has got to stop. Senator, thank you so much for your time today.

We really appreciate it. Okay. Nice to see you. Bye-bye. And now let's get to my conversation with Representative Green. Representative Mark Green is joining us today. He's the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and represents Tennessee's 7th Congressional District.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be on, Samantha. Of course. So, you know, the southern border crisis is both unrelenting and unending. And as you know and our listeners know from previous interviews we've done and just frankly from watching the news, fentanyl is pouring into this country and it's killing our fellow Americans. Now, you recently sent a letter to CDC director, Michelle Wollinsky,

demanding an update for data on drug overdoses deaths from fentanyl, fentanyl-related substances and synthetic opioids by March 31st. the end of this month. Can you tell us a little bit more about this letter? And why do you think there isn't updated data on fentanyl overdoses to begin with? Yeah, you know, we live in an age where you can you can dial up anything on Netflix and watch it anytime you want. You know, we basically have pretty much everything on demand. Why it takes five months to get the numbers from fiscal year 2022 makes no sense to me whatsoever. And so we need real time, well, honestly, we need real time information to make good decisions. So I think what we're going to do is write some legislation

that demands they post the numbers at the end of a month or something like that, but at least give us 2022. Tell us what's going on. And my guess is it's really bad so they don't want to make the administration look bad. But there's a delay right now. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about the Biden administration's role in this. And what have they been doing to address the fentanyl crisis? Well, what they have been doing is actually making the fentanyl crisis worse, right? So they did away with 89 Trump-era policies that decreased flow across our southern border. And what's happened is with so many people being able to come in, word gets back to those countries, more people come. The drug cartels are taking advantage of the situation, so they take a coyote paid individual, many of them,

to the crossing sites. They overwhelm the crossing sites, and that requires CBP to thin the lines in the rural areas, and the fentanyl comes pouring across the country. I've seen video after video of camouflage wearing, backpack wearing, carpet shoe wearing, just file after file of people coming into the country with drugs. And, you know, that's where it's coming from. And so what they're doing is actually making the problem much, much worse. And they're either stupid or, you know, intentional because they'll say, oh, well, we've captured more fentanyl at the crossing sites. Well, great. Good job, right?

But we know that the price of fentanyl in the country's gone, at least according to the sheriffs in Tennessee, from $95 to $28. That's supply demand. It's because fentanyl is poured into the country, and it's their policies that have done it. Can you speak to what more the Biden administration should be doing from your perspective as the chairman of the homeless. Well, first, if they just enforced the policies on the books, enforce the loss of the land. You know, the detention piece is a big deterrent to people coming to the country. If you're going to break the law, you should be detained. And it should be a process should happen that way.

When they do that, people actually stop coming. But when you grant automatic asylum and parole, well, that's the problem. The remain in Mexico, the migrant protection protocols, all those things worked. And it decreased the incentives. people stayed home. It's a foreign policy issue too because Guatemala is losing a generation of workers. I mean, how's that country going to function if all of its employees, you know, leave their country and come to the United States. Now, I want to talk about something that you recently did. You took a group of freshman members of the Homeland Security Committee to the

border for a border boot camp. Border boot camp. So first and foremost, can you describe, you know, a little bit about this boot camp? You know, what is the state of the border and the purpose of this boot camp? So the status of the border is basically what we've been talking about. It's an open border that the control of which has been seized by the drug cartels. But I wanted my freshman to understand it, to get a bird's eye view. And they literally did. We put them in a helicopter and flew them over the border as one of the things they got to do, which was really cool for some of them. I, you know, spent 24 years in the Army. And I was in the United States Army's special operations aviation unit. So for me, getting in a helicopter is no big deal. But for some of them, it was

really cool. But they got to see the border, and now they're informed and can make good decisions on the policies we need to implement, the laws we need to implement, to get to get Majorcas to do his job. When you were down there, what was the most shocking or surprising thing that you saw during their trip. I think shocking would be of course images of the dead migrants.

When you see the image of a woman who... Because what the cartels do is when they sneak people in they put them in stash houses and then to pay the cartel back, those people have to commit crimes in the United States, basically sell or traffic drugs or people.

Well, if you refuse to do that, you wind up dead. And this one woman did and she was raped, scout, and dropped at an elementary school in the United States. I mean, that's how horrible these people are, but it's also how horrible the dereliction of duty of Mayorkas. That's probably the most shocking thing that I saw while I was there. Now, just looking ahead, you actually have a field hearing coming up on March 15th. I believe it's in McAllen. Can you preview what we can expect at this hearing? Yeah, so we're going to do three different things when we're down there.

Hearing number one will be just Chief Ortiz, the head of the Customs and Border Patrol, and he's going to come in and testify. And then we'll have a second round of non-government folks, so the Texas DPS and the Texas National Guard and other people impacted by this unbelievable tragedy. And then we're going to go into a closed session. and it's no media just a presenter who will describe what's going on

and it'll be open questions so that you know it's not about saying things you have to you know because some of the I'm hopeful that some of the Democrats will be real in there and say you know this is because the cameras are off they'll own this at least behind because sometimes in the halls you know they'll whisper yeah I know it's a crisis

but they won't admit it on TV so hopefully Hopefully in a closed session, we can have a real dialogue about what's going on and get stuff done. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, great to meet you, Samantha.

Have a good day. Yeah, thank you. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed, where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get. your podcast and help us reach more listeners by taking just a moment to leave a five-star rating

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