The Daily Signal - Kamala Harris ‘Owns It as Much as Anybody,’ Texas Lawmaker Says of Border Crisis

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Regardless of what federal courts say, Texas needs to remove illegal immigrants allowed into the country by the Biden-Harris administration, Rep. Chip Roy says. “We had six kids who died from fentanyl poisoning in the school district in which my family resides, southwest of Austin, Texas,” the Texas Republican told The Daily Signal at Erick Erickson's The Gathering conference in Atlanta over the weekend. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, August 14th. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell and I sat down with Representative Chip Roy of Texas at the Gathering Conference in Atlanta. Stay tuned for my conversation with Representative Roy after this. Conservative women are problematic women. Why? Because we don't adhere to the agenda of the radical left. Every Thursday morning on the Problematic Women podcast, Kristen I, Cammer, Lauren Evans, and me, Virginia Allen, are joined by, I, other conservative women to break down the big issues and news you care about. Whether you're interested in hot takes and conversations on pop culture or what Congress is up to, problematic women has you covered. We sort through the news to keep you up to date on the issues that are

of particular interest to conservative leaning, that is problematic women. Find problematic women wherever you like to listen to podcasts and follow the show on Instagram. You suggested it might be time to defund the Secret Service after the shooting of President Trump. Are you satisfied by the resignation of Kimberly Cheatel and should anything be done next regarding the Secret Service? Well, look, I mean, obviously we still need to maintain the force of the Secret Service to do its job, but when you've got something that has been run so incompetently and or potentially with such willful blindness that you ended up have happened. I mean, again, I should probably pause and think about this. The former president of the United States and the current Republican nominee was shot about a month ago.

That is extraordinary. And that is a level of incompetence that, yeah, Chita needed to go. But how far deep is either the incompetence or the corruption that led to the willful blindness such that it exists or worse? When you look at the videos, when you see what happened, when you look at the questions, we haven't even begun, I think, to scratch the surface. Now, I think the task force, the House created, the Senate, and the investigation, need to speed up. I think they need to be done quickly. American people deserve answers. I'm working with my friends Eli Crane, Corey Mills, a couple of others. They were both snipers in the United States military. They've been looking at this and looking at what's going on.

We're talking to friends like Dan Bongino and Eric Prince and others. Mark Morgan, former FBI and Border Patrol guy, and trying to look and follow the truth wherever it may lead. But we need to do that. And to the extent that we're funding it, it needs to be doing its job. As I said, in an event that I'm at today with Eric Erickson, you know, you need the government to do its core responsibility of securing the country, whether that's the military, the border, or yes, the Secret Service and law enforcement. You've introduced a number of bills focused on supporting veterans. Kamala Harris's vice president pick, Tim Walz, is a veteran, but he's faced some allegations of stolen valor regarding his military career. What's your take on this? So I tend to, on questions like this, try to defer to those who wore the uniform. I did not.

And so stolen valor means a lot to them because of the sacrifices they made. And so I'm deferring a lot to them. But when I'm talking to the people that I know that did in fact serve, they are more than frustrated. They are, frankly, really taken aback by some of the abuses, stretching of the truth, which the campaign, by the way, is already acknowledged, right? So they've already acknowledged that he wasn't forthright. And the question is, is to what degree in terms of his, you know, rank in terms of how he handled the question about, quote, carrying weapons of war during war, right? Those kinds of things.

And so he was, he's been at least under the scrutiny and been being told that he's, you know, not been truthful by the campaign operatives in the Kamala Harris campaign. So we'll see how far it goes. It's highly problematic for those who serve, and I think we just need to know the truth. Follow the truth wherever it may lead. Absolutely. And Democrats, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have attempted to brand walls as a moderate Midwesterner. We know he's a Midwesterner, but is he moderate? Yeah, I mean, it's so laughable.

I mean, frankly, I know very few members of the current Democrat Party who can in any way, shape or form credibly claim the title moderate or the term moderate. I mean, you know, even Joe Manchin, right, who like to go around saying, oh, look at me, I'm the moderate one. He still voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which was not good for West Virginia, which was not good for American energy. He knew it and he did it anyway. And the fact is Tim Walts is basically the poster child of the radical progressive Democrat left. That's what he is, right on abortion, on the allowing Minneapolis to burn to the ground during the BLM riots and being an apologist for the BLM riots, open borders, allowing, not only allowing it, you know, encouraging that they

have, you know, they're trying to have illegal aliens be able to have identification. And, you know, his statement about providing ladders for illegal aliens to get over the wall. I mean, I can just keep going down the list, every single issue that matters to the American people, the transgender issue and movement, the legislation that he signed, find one issue, one that he could credibly claim that he's a moderate, much less, you know, conservative. Absolutely. And because we haven't seen a lot of Kamal Harris lately, her policy platform is up to speculation. What do you expect to see from that platform once we find out what it is? I'm not sure she'll lay out a platform in any meaningful way because, you know, they're stuck here trying to mobilize their base without giving away the game.

Basically, it's going to be continuation of what's been going on. It's not like Joe Biden's been the one leading the White House. It's been a cabal around Joe Biden, who, by the way, where is he? Right? I mean, they put him off in a nursing home somewhere and, like the, you know, like, where is Joe Biden? He's the president of the United States. He's commander in chief. I don't even know where he is.

You've had a group around him who have been propping. up the radical progressive policies using him as the vehicle to do it. And Kamala Harris would just be an extension of that. We know that. We know that she would continue the policies of open borders. Why? Well, she was supposedly the borders are, and she completely dropped the ball there. You know, we know that she would advance a radical agenda on all the culture issues on life

and all the transgender movement, the woke policies. You know, she basically went on, was it one of those stupid shows that I don't watch and the view or something and said, you know, we should all be woke, right? We should be proud of being woke. She would advance the most radical agenda in the history of the United States. And that's saying something on the back of the Biden regime and, frankly, the Obama regime before Trump. And as a Texas representative, you've experienced the border crisis up close. It directly affects your constituents. So what is your response to recent media efforts to erase Kamala Harris' role as borders are?

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, in announcing her role, was specifically, that her role would be active. She's trying to run away and say, oh, well, I wasn't given the title borders are. I mean, whatever. You were claiming your active involvement in trying to engage with Central American countries and deal with Mexico in order to deal with, quote, the root causes, the purpose of which was to diminish the flow and decrease the pressure, and she did the opposite. Kamala Harris wants open borders. She has basically said so. They want people to be released into the United States. She's still refused and has not met with the current Border Patrol Chief. She never met with the preceding Border Patrol Chief. She only went to the border once, and that was

to El Paso for a photo op at the fence en route to doing a fundraiser in California. So she's, I think, been trying to hide from the failures of the Biden administration by not trying to put herself out owning it, when she, in fact, owns it as much as anybody, with the possible exception of Secretary of Majorcas, whom we impeached. Absolutely. And how does the border crisis affect Texans, particularly those closer to the border on an everyday level? Well, we had six kids who died from fentanyl poisoning in the school district in which my family

resides, southwest of Austin, Texas. I've talked to countless moms, countless dads, who've lost their children, lost loved ones. We've tried to do public service announcements with schools trying to educate communities on the dangers of fentanyl and how it's killing our kids. That's just one piece of the puzzle, but they've been releasing violent criminals into the streets of the United States. We've had dozens of examples that we know of, probably hundreds, if you really peel it back, of individual Americans who are dead, whether it's Lake and Riley here in Georgia, where we are right now, or whether it's Elizabeth Medell. Dina in Texas or whether it's Rachel Morin in Maryland and Kayla Hamilton in the same county in Maryland. I can go through list after list after list. And we've now had this report this last

week of the terrorist watch list individuals released in the United States. But in Texas, we're taking it on the chin. Kenny County, Texas, which is in along the border, has a really small sliver of the border and kind of stretches up north and towards San Antonio. Well, Kenny County, they had, I can't remember the exact numbers right in front of me, but basically before the Biden world, right? They had something like 150 prosecutions a year in terms of, you know, dealing with criminal elements in the county and Kenny County. And now they've got thousands, literally thousands that they have to deal with because they've got so many numbers and so much illegality happening. I'm not even talking about just the illegal presence. I'm talking about

illegal behavior, illegal acts, drugs and traffic stops and bailouts and all of those sorts of So it's having a direct impact. And the state of Texas had to spend almost $13 billion for Operation Loans started to do the job the federal government refuses to do. And the American economy appears to be on the verge of a recession. You've been maybe one of the most vocal opponents of big government spending in the House. So what should the government do differently to avoid potential financial crisis going forward? Number one, stop spending money we don't have, which is driving up inflation and expanding the size of the government undermining the prosperity of the American people by racking.

up debt. We're $35 trillion in debt. We're now spending more on interest than we're on our entire national defense. We're racking up a trillion dollars of interest a year. We're racking up another trillion dollars of debt every three months. We should probably stop that. Number two, we should enact massive regulatory cutting regime, starting with the abusive climate-driven policies of this administration, which are going to restrain the ability for people to have affordable transportation, affordable energy, which is, I think, the number one hindrance to economic growth in the United States, and it should be our number one asset. And then you've got to deconstruct the regulatory state beyond just the energy issue. That would be my second thing. And then the third thing is

is to have a tax policy, which will produce economic growth. But let's make sure it's growth centric, and it helps the average family. You know, I'm not all that interested in tax policy that will increase the debt, providing very little economic bank for the government. the buck. But if you can combine all of that stuff, then you can get to the place where you can actually turn it back over to the American people and allow them to produce economic growth and prosperity. You said in your speech at the gathering on Saturday that a lot of your colleagues in the House have supported measures that contribute to big government spending and some even supported the Inflation Reduction Act. Why do you think that is? So Republicans run on a overall

Republican platform, but they are unwilling to do the hard work often, some of them, of undoing the damage of Democrats and then actually doing what they said they would do. Now, some credit, I mean, some of my Republican colleagues are actually saying this before the election. They just signed a letter, 18 of them, saying that we should not actually repeal all of the Inflation and Reduction Act. I think that's foolish. I think that's a mistake. And I think you've got a lot of Republicans who give lip service to spending restraint. You know, there's, you know, there's, you. If you're not willing to, you know, walk away from your pet project, right, then you're never going to be able to do across the board cuts. Like, everybody's going to have to feel the pain.

You're never going to be able to drive spending down and shrink the size of government. By the way, if you're funding it, then you're funding the bureaucrats who are at war with us. That's what's happening. You can never end the tyranny being exercised against the American people if you don't stop continuing to recognize. the debt and the funding that's funding it. So we're going to keep hammering that message. I think some Republicans are feeling the pain of that if we hit that message hard, and they need to feel the pain of that. And look, I want Republicans to win up and down the ballot between now and November. But, you know, when I wake up on November 6th,

I'm going to be holding Republicans' feet to the fire again. I'm sick of it. And this time, you know, we're going to have to do it with a little bit more force. Because last time, we got a lot of good things done. We got HR2 pass. We got Limitsave Grow pass. We got a some appropriations bills moving. We got some other good bills passed, but we fundamentally failed on the spending restraint. So, you know, we're going to have to hold Republicans' feet to the fire. And on Thursday in his press conference, former President Donald Trump said that he has agreed to debate Kamala Harris on three channels. How do you expect this face off to go? So, you know, we'll see what happens with what Kamala Harris agrees to. I haven't seen what

her response was to all, whether she's agreed to some or all. But, you know, the bottom line is, I believe this generally, the American people deserve to see, you know, the people that are vying for the jobs, commander, chief. I think if President Trump is the President Trump we saw in the debate in June, then he will be in really strong shape. And I think that will shine. I think if Kamala Harris shows up, you're going to see out of her the radical progressive Democrat that she is.

There's no way to hide from it. If the moderators even do kind of a halfway decent job, right? She has said over and over and over again policies that are indefensibly radical. And so I think that will shine in the context of debates. But the last point I'll make is President Trump,

Republicans generally, we've got to run on something. other than Kamalabad. We've got to run on what we believe our vision is for this country. My vision is pretty simple. I just want a free country operating with the smallest government humanly possible and to allow people, allow Americans to go do what they do best and create wealth and opportunity to live free for their kids and grandkids. And I believe that vision can sell. I believe you can sell that you want to make sure that our country is secure. You want our streets to be safe.

You want our borders to be secure. I want our military to be strong but sparingly used. You want health care to be affordable. You want to create jobs and wealth and opportunity. You want more Americans to be able to keep that wealth and opportunity. And you want to stop all of this divvying us up by race. You want to stop all of this open borders nonsense, this destruction on Western civilization. And I think if we run on those things, you know, we want to protect our kids from the radical transgender movement.

I think we can win. And you've said that one of the biggest areas we can cut spending is in climate regulations. You also said in your speech that America is spending too much on foreign wars. What should the role of America in the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine be, in your opinion? Well, look, I believe it is in our national security interests to support Israel and to support our allies when they're on the front lines against the march of tyranny, or in this case the march of radical Islam in the form of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran backing all of them. that is, I think, decidedly in our national security interest. That being said, whether you're talking about Israel or Ukraine or anything else,

we've got to pay for this stuff. And this is something I'm going to keep raising with my Republican colleagues that we've got to pay for it. And frankly, some of my donors who are saying that are out there, oh, Chip, what are you doing? What about Ukraine? And I said this at the gathering. Like, okay, you want to pay a war tax?

You want to pay higher taxes to go fund Ukraine? Be my guest. Or you go write the check. You go raise the money. But we shouldn't rack up debt to do it. And we shouldn't be continually engaged in endless wars and conflict like we were in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years. And what did Iraq just vote to do? Allow a nine-year-old, right?

A nine-year-old to be put into, you know, marriage. I had to word that carefully. But what I say, she's not agreeing to marry at nine years old, right? So she's being forced into a marriage at nine years old. So we went over there and fought for what? We deposed Saddam Hussein and then we have our guys sitting over there for another 17 years under a 20-year-old authorization of the use of military force. Our military is stretched thin, overused, it's too woke.

We've got hardware that's crumbling because we've been spending so much to be out there on the front lines now for two decades. That's no way to win. You want to win, have a strong military sparingly used with the best assets and the best trained individuals. They need to be, in my opinion, a smaller, nimble, fighting force. I think we need to have a really strong and robust Navy and have the best tools that we need to have at our disposal. But again, sparingly use, stop the endless wars, save that money and make sure we've got the best assets to do it and get our country focused on what it's supposed to be, including, by the way, securing the border of the United States. We need to actually

remove the people that have been dumped in here by the Harris Biden administration. That's not going to be easy. We've got to do it. What border policies would make your constituents in Texas feel safe again? Secure the border. Actually stop the flow. Stop the releases. Like literally stop it. Like all of it.

This is not a difficult question, right? Yes, build the wall. Stop parole and asylum releases into the country. Immediately deport the people who have been released in here illegally. Send a message to the world. It's not going to happen anymore. And if the federal government won't do it, Texas should fully. And I mean that.

I don't care what the courts say. Texas should just remove people and stop messing around with the federal government that is endangering the people of Texas. And what effect does that foreign spending with the money you said America does not have have on people back in America? Well, again, you know, it's one thing to have the debate about, okay, was it meritorious for us to send another $17 billion to Israel in, you know, May? And my answer would be, if that would have been a clean bill paid for, I would have voted for it. I probably would have voted for that one even unpaid for, because we voted for one that was paid for last November, because of how important it is that Israel will be able to hold the line against Hamas and Hezbollah, and importantly, Iran. But the truth of the matter is, when we keep sending money abroad to fund other people's wars while we're $35 trillion in debt,

and we don't ever have to make the tough decisions, well, then those wars continue and they perpetuate, and the people are back home or left going. well, wait a minute. Like, I'm struggling to make ends meet. Why did we just send $175 billion to Ukraine over the last two years? And so I think those are the kinds of things that I think our people need to, in leadership, need to wrestle with, that the average American is sick and tired of not being able to pay the bills, achieve the American dream, afford a house, send their kids to school without them being indoctrinated. They're worried about, you know, the safety on the streets and wide open borders. And meanwhile, we're sending hundreds of bills. billions of dollars around the world in foreign aid, funding the United Nations, funding Ukraine, and even including funding Israel, which I generally support doing. Thank you so much. Appreciate y'all. Thanks.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Daily Signal podcast, where I sat down with Representative Chip Roy. If you haven't gotten the chance, be sure to also tune in tonight to our evening show in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, please subscribe to the Daily. Signal wherever you get your podcasts. Help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback.

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