The Daily Signal - Rep. Michael Cloud Weighs in On Spending Package

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas sat down with "The Daily Signal Podcast" at the State Freedom Caucus Summit to discuss his Dismantle DEI Act, the SAVE Act, and the upcoming vote on the continuing resolution to fund the federal government. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast on Wednesday, September 11th. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell, and I sat down with Representative Michael Cloud to discuss the Save Act, which House Republicans successfully attached to the spending bill, which is going for a vote today, according to reports. Stay tuned for my conversation with Representative Cloud after this. The Heritage Foundation is the most effective conservative policy organization in the country. Every semester, our interns are a vital part of that mission. We pay competitively.

We develop talent, and we give our interns access to some of the sharpest minds in the country. We're going on offense. So join us. To learn more about the Young Leaders Program here at the Heritage Foundation, please go to heritage.org slash intern. I'm in Dallas, Texas at the Freedom Caucus Summit with Representative Michael Cloud. You sponsored the DEMTEDEI Act. Several corporations have recently announced that they are cutting DEI initiatives from company operations.

This includes Coors, Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Lowe's, Ford, and others. What do you think drove these decisions? A lot of it has to do with the market. They're realizing that they're trying to force something onto the American people that the people don't want. They want good quality products. They want good quality service. know, and when we're putting these sort of initiatives, especially in industries that, you know, safety's a big issue. Like the airline industry, you know, people want to know that their airline is safe.

And so it's good to see that happening and hopefully it'll continue. What kind of effect does DEI have on businesses and in higher education? Yeah, well, you know, it's, you know, I think about Martin Luther King Jr., of course, and he talked about that we should judge people in the content of her character, you know, and we should have a society where you can get ahead based on your work ethic and your work and these kind of things. And when race or other demographic data becomes the first defining characteristic, and whether you should be evaluated for a job or promotion or any sort of thing or your personal relationships, that's just not a society that's healthier, one that we should live in. And so when you see that kind of thing put forth in education, you know, it's actually retrograding,

on a lot of the progress we've made as a country over the last several generations and not the direction we need to go. What do you think is the biggest problem with DEI? Oh, gosh, the biggest problem. I think it just doesn't evaluate people for who they are, you know, who they are, the content of their character, you know. There's a lot of pragmatic issues of what it does in the workplace, you know, again, from a safety issue or just from a quality control issue, you know, and even. in people who do very well that are in certain demographic data. You don't want other people

wondering if they got a certain role because of certain demographics or whatever. And so, you know, the way to go is for us to see past all those things and, again, just get to know people for who they are and build that kind of society. Besides your dismantled DEI Act, what else needs to be done to bring down diversity, the equity inclusion initiatives throughout American society? Well, our act does, you know, what we've seen, of course, is them trying to force feed this through the federal government, whether that's through all the positions that they put in different agencies,

you know, what we've seen, how they force-fed this through government contracting or government grants to kind of require this to be in certain organizations or entities. You know, so our act, works to strip all that out. It just shows you a lot of this as being forced fed by a politicized federal government. And so our act works to strip that out. And I think we'll see the natural reaction to that too when people feel like they don't have to in order to get a contract from the federal government participate in that kind of sort of nonsense. Congress is reconvening this week and you and other House Republicans have said you

hope to attach the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act to the spending package. Why is this? It's so important. We've all been in our districts the last few weeks, and everywhere you go, people want to show up, they want to participate, they want to be involved, but they also want to know that the elections are secure. And, you know, it's very important. This is not a partisan issue. The only place this is a partisan issue is in Congress on the floor, you know. Across America, This is just common sense. Of course we should ensure that, you know, only American citizens are voting in our elections. You know, and especially as we've seen 10 million people who are in our country illegally right now,

you know, it's very important that we just have American citizens voting in elections. Is Speaker Mike Johnson on board with attaching the SAVE Act to the continuing resolution? It seems as so. This week they released Bill Text and the bill text does have the SAVE Act in it. So that's good news. We'll see how that plays out here in the first week. How do you expect that to affect getting the CR passed by the deadline? Yeah, well, right now we see the Senate kind of balking at it, which doesn't make sense.

You know, and it's something that the American people need to know. If our Senate is, and certainly the Democrats in the Senate, are willing to shut down the government in order for them to be able to be able to. to allow illegal aliens to vote in our elections, you know, that's a problem. And that's a problem the American people should know about. And it's a problem they should know about before November. You recently published an op-ed arguing that Republicans need to resist the Biden-Harris omnibus trap. Can you explain what the omnibus trap consists of and how should Republicans resist?

Sure. You know, it's sad, but heading, you know, now that we're in September, we find ourselves in the same place we find ourselves every September. Every September, we come to the funding deadline for the government, which is September 30th. We all know it's September 30th, but Congress acts completely shocked and surprised every time it comes around. And we kind of throw up arms and you hear all these chicken little stories about the sky is going to fall, the economy's going to crumble, all these bad things will happen. And so what happens is oftentimes is a continuing resolution or a CR gets passed that kind of kicks the government funding down.

It could be a few weeks or a couple months. But eventually you come to this massive omnibus bill, which the government is supposed to be funded through what's called appropriation bills where there's 12 separate appropriation bills that fund different sections of the federal government, and they're each evaluated independently. Instead, what the omnibus does is it throws everything into one massive bill. Usually it passes on Christmas Eve or the day before Christmas Eve or something like that. it's thousands of pages long, and especially in the context of when we're looking at a potential President Trump administration, no doubt those thousands of pages would contain different writers or provisions in that would tie the hands of a president who's coming in to make the necessary changes we need to save our country.

What are some requirements for you to vote for the CR? Oh, gosh. You know, I'm not a CR fan. What we should be doing is passing appropriation bills. but realizing where we are right now to where we can either pass this massive omnibus bill that happens with Biden Pelosi or we can basically extend the funding into a potential Trump administration so that they can have the opportunity to begin the good work of reining in our federal government. So that's really the goal right now.

So something that would get us into the Trump administration, something that has the Save Act on it, that would also secure our elections is what we're looking at. Right now, we are at the State Freedom Caucus Summit. Does meeting members of state legislatures who are part of freedom caucuses like you are in the House give you hope for the country and do you hope to see some of them join you in U.S. Congress one day? Well, I can tell you yes and no. I'm sure some of them would make great members of Congress. But, you know, in our federalist republic, the states are extremely important. And so there's a limited role of what we're supposed to be doing.

in Congress at the federal level, but the vast majority of the good work needs to be done at the state level. And so we've got to have good people who are in it, who understand the different roles of the federal government and the state government, who are willing to put our states back on strong fiscal footing, who are willing to stand for conservative values at the state level as well, because ultimately we need states to be standing strong in doing the role that the state is supposed to be doing while we work to limit what the federal government is doing. back to constitutional restraints.

What are some issues you hope to see states passing legislation on this year? You know, that's going to be a lot different in every state, you know, and so it's kind of hard to speak to that, and a lot of our policy work is, you know, at least what our time is spent, is working on the Constitution principles and restoring the federal government. But I can tell you, you know, there's a lot of state governments that are bloated. You know, they're fiscal, they're out of control, and then, you know, a lot of issues with securing elections in different states. And some of the issues that we're experiencing at the federal level are happening at the state level as well.

But then there's a whole host of other issues of how you fund and deal with education and those sorts of things that we need a good conservative voices evaluating those at the state level. Thanks so much for sitting down with me today. Sure. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Daily Signal podcast bonus edition where I sat down with Representative Michael Cloud. in Dallas, Texas at the State Freedom Caucus Summit. Be sure to tune in every day at 5 o'clock for our top news of the day where we break down the day's headlines.

Also, tune in the morning for our interview edition where we sit down with more lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Thanks so much for listening and have a wonderful rest of your day. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Louis and Katrina Trinko, Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph Von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.