The Texan Podcast - Interview: Rep. Jodey Arrington on Possible Biden Impeachment, Title 42 Expiration, Federal Budget

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/  Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX-19) joined The Texan’s reporter Matt Stringer to discuss federal issues facing Congress, including the recent referral of articles of impeachment, the how House Republicans plan to respond to the border crisis amid the expiration of Title 42, and negotiations over the budget as elected officials raised the debt ceiling again last month. “Two out of the three seats at the negotiating table were occupied by Democrats, and we still came out with a bill that would reduce spending for the first time in over a decade,” said Arrington. “That reduced discretionary spending year over year for the next two years. Now that’s not going to save the country from a debt crisis, but it’s stopping the bleeding.” Arrington also weighed in with his thoughts on the Republican presidential primary and the main candidates in the race. Enjoy this content? Be sure to subscribe for similar interviews and The Texan’s Weekly Roundup — a podcast released every Friday that brings you the latest news in Texas politics.

Republican Representative Jody Arrington was first elected to represent Texas' 19th congressional district in 2017 and has past experience working in the Bush administration as well as in education as vice chancellor of Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Since taking office, he has soared to the top of House leadership, most recently being named chairman of the Important House Budget Committee. His district includes a large section of West Texas and the Permian Basin, containing important oil and gas as well as agricultural industries. We sat down with Congressman Arrington for the first time to discuss a wide range of important issues facing his district, the state, and the nation. Thank you for joining us at the Texan, and we hope you enjoy this discussion. Congressman Arrington, thank you for joining us today for the first time on The Texan. We're excited to have you with us.

Tell us how things are going in Washington. Well, they're going better now that we have a Republican House to hold this president accountable. He's had a pass for two years, and there's a lot of incompetence and lawlessness at the border, the incompetence and feckless foreign policy that has made the world more dangerous and Americans less safe and free as a result. Some overreach, constitutional infringement. I could go on and on, but our founders set up a system of checks and balances. We have oversight, power, and responsibility, and we are applying that, I think, very effectively through Jim Jordan on the Judiciary Committee and my classmate Jamie Comer as the chair of the Oversight Committee. I think the other piece is that we have seen unbridled spending like we've

never experienced before, $11 trillion over the last two years. And that's resulted in record inflation, a rise in interest rates, an economy that's sliding backwards into sustained recession potentially. And then certainly it's made the looming threat of a debt crisis all the more imminent, which would affect our economy, our security, our way of life, our leadership in the world. And as chairman of the Budget Committee, I'm certainly very concerned about our unsustainable debt path that we're on as a country and what that would do to the next generation of Americans if we don't change course. So there's some good things going on, but there's a lot of self-inflicted crises that

we have to address that are impacting the American people, namely the cost of living crisis and the lawlessness that's affecting their safety and security. Speaking of checks and balances, Congressman, just as you came on, we had some breaking news this morning. The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 opinion led by Chief Justice John Roberts, I do believe, in the affirmative action case ruling that certain race-based admissions programs amongst public colleges and universities violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Could we get your reaction on the justices ruling this morning?

You bet. Let me say, first of all, that one of President Trump's greatest legacies, whether you liked him or don't like him or whether you think he's the right candidate for the future. He made the best judicial appointments, I think, in modern history for a Republican president and restored the sort of constitutionality of judicial review and not just more judicial activism. This is a clear-cut case, in my opinion, and certainly now in the court's opinion, that if you make decisions based on anything outside of merit, you're discriminating. Surprise, surprise. We've passed the Civil Rights Act. We've had precedent in the highest court in the land on not discriminating against individuals based on immutable characteristics like ethnicity and race.

And when you do that, and we've seen that in recent history, not just at universities, but in our federal government, I think it still exists, by the way, in the federal government. It's a disservice to those who you allow to get into school or higher, because then you have the perception that they weren't qualified in the first place. It's very divisive in this country, and we already have a divided nation. And it's, again, it's anti-American. It goes against our very creed that we're all created equally with equal protection under the law. It violates the Martin Luther King vision that we would judge people on character and confidence and not the color of their skin. All that to say, thank God the court got it right again, and that's on account of having the right judges who make decisions based on the law and the Constitution and not their opinion. Well, thank you for giving us your perspective and reaction on some major, also some major news going on in Washington, uh, the House of Representatives recently voted to refer articles of impeachment against Joe Biden

to a committee for, I believe, investigation and review. Can you tell us what House members are concerned about and what does the process look like? I think the majority of Republicans in the House are concerned. I think the majority of the American people are concerned that there's a lot of smoke where there may be at least some fire, if not a lot of fire, in terms of conflicts of interest at best and at worst, political corruption and crimes, and maybe a president who's compromised and is not fit for office. But here's the thing, Matt. We watched the Democrats just completely undermine due process. They levied a baseless impeachment claim on Russia collusion, which has been dispelled numerous times, most recently with the Durham report. And they weaponized the impeachment

process, just like we're watching them weaponize the justice system to politically persecute their political opponents. That's what the Castros did in Cuba. That's what they did in the former Soviet Union. That's what they do in banana republics. We have the power of subpoena. We have the responsibility to investigate. We're bringing to light these shell companies where the money is flowing from the likes of China and Romania and Ukraine to the Biden families. We're taking depositions from whistleblowers who say they couldn't investigate fairly and thoroughly Hunter Biden because of the Justice Department impeding those investigations. And then removing those IRS special agents who blew the whistle on them. I mean, there's just a number of things that are happening that Republicans have to get to the bottom of, bring to light, haul people up,

including Merrick Garland, and hold them accountable and expose any wrongdoing and then pursue impeachment as the facts lead us there. I suspect that's where we'll go, but I don't want to prejudice the outcome. We want to do this the right way as opposed to what we saw happen to President Trump over the last couple of years when he was in office. And it currently is ongoing from the Manhattan district attorney to Merrick Garland and their multiple felony charges on account of, quote, mishandling of confidential documents. Absolutely. And we will monitor that situation as the investigation continues and continues to develop. Turning to Texas and the southern

crisis at the southern border, Title 42, a tool that was used first by the Trump administration to expedite the deportation of illegal aliens, has expired. Many Texas Republicans, especially in the Texas legislature, say the Biden administration isn't doing its job to secure the southern border. Presently, what are congressional Republicans planning to do with regard to forcing the Biden administration to react on this issue? And can you kind of give us a reaction or perspective on what congressional plans are on that front? Well, number one, there's not been any oversight or accountability from

Secretary Mayorkas and this president, other than what the news media has covered, and the mainstream media doesn't cover much of it, it is a crisis. It's complete chaos. Border states like Texas are suffering the most, but we have the leading cause of death in the United States from ages 18 to 45, fentanyl. And 100% of that fentanyl is flowing with the help of precursor elements from China across the border via the drug cartels who this president has ceded operational control of the border to. So there is no doubt that this president has abdicated his chief responsibility of providing for the common defense and securing our sovereign border. There is no doubt that Mayorkas is failing to enforce the laws.

That will end up with the investigation is ongoing and the impeachment process, I suspect, will ensue. That's sort of exposing the lawlessness side of what we can do. We need to use the power of the purse and subpoena to change course, to close this wide open border and to ensure that we build the infrastructure, the wall, and other security measures that would support our law enforcement who are being hamstrung by this administration and their policies and close the loopholes and turn off the magnets that draw people here and that have caused this humanitarian crisis, which is also what this has become on account of the policies of this administration. All that to say, we have articulated all those elements in HR2,

which is the comprehensive border security legislation that passed the House a month or so ago. So we have contrasted the lawlessness of this administration with the solutions, most of which, by the way, Matt, are just reversing the bad policies of this administration and reinstating Trump-era policies that were working. I will end this response on the border crisis with this. States do not have to be a helpless, passive victim of a failed federal government. While we are doing the things to hold this president accountable and to change the policies and posture of this administration, the states, like Texas, and all states have the sovereign right of self-defense. Article 1, Section 10 and Article 4, Section 4 in the Constitution are very clear.

When the federal government fails in its most important job to defend our borders and our citizens, the states have the right to do that. And I think that's I think Texas has done things that have never been done before in that regard. And I give the governor credit for that. But we have to lock it down by by apprehending these individuals, by detaining them or deporting them and sending them back to their country of origin or turning them around at the border. But states, unfortunately, are going to be stuck with this responsibility because of the federal government's failure and this administration's failure. But that's no reason to throw up your hands and give up. We have to shut this thing down and not just hand these people over to the feds who will just put them on a bus or a plane and send them to somewhere in the other 49 states in the union. That's not going to solve anything. It's only going to make things worse because you're encouraging more of the lawlessness that we'll experience. A very important topic. Thank you, Congressman. Earlier, you mentioned you serve on the Budget

Committee in the House of Representatives. Turning towards the budget, which is a very contentious issue. Federal spending has continued to spiral to new heights every year. Some say the recent budget negotiations saw some wins, both policy-wise and see the ship beginning to, so to speak, turn ever so slightly. Can you give us your perspective on the most recently negotiated federal budget and kind of elaborate on those points? You bet. As budget chairman, I'm very proud that for the first time in over a decade, Republicans decided to fight on the debt ceiling front and say, look, we will pay our bills and we will protect the good faith and credit of the United States, but we will not give a blank check to this president or any politician to bankrupt the country. And that's the path we're on. We're at 123% debt to GDP.

It's the highest level of indebtedness in the history of our country, surpassing the indebtedness of our nation when we were fighting a world war against imperial Japan in one part of the world and Nazi Germany in another part. And things will only get exponentially worse. Matt, we will spend more in the next couple of years, every year, on interest payments alone than we spend on all of national defense in the United States of America. Just think about that. We don't get a single soldier or sailor. We don't get a single safety net for seniors or the solvency of those safety nets. We're just giving money to our creditors, China included, to basically fund this $1.5 trillion gap in the revenue we bring in and

the money it takes to fund this massive and growing government of ours. So we have to rein in the spending, right-size the bureaucracy, and we have to get after the mandatory spending in entitlement reforms because the health care and welfare programs are the ones that are really driving our debt. And I'm proud that we were able to get Republicans to push back on this president and Chuck Schumer, who said they wanted nothing to do with fiscal reforms. They wanted a clean debt ceiling. And that was their posture. And by the way, two out of the three seats at the negotiating table were occupied by Democrats. And we still came out with a bill that would reduce spending for the first time in over a decade, if not longer,

that reduced discretionary spending year over year for the next two years. Now, Matt, that's not going to save the country from a debt crisis, but it's stopping the bleeding. And now we can get to the Republican budget, the 10-year fiscal plan for saving the country from a debt crisis, for balancing the budget, and beginning to bend that debt curve and putting our nation on good financial footing and making sure our children don't inherit a country that is so deep in the hole and so indebted that they'll never be able to prosper and that they'll never have

the security and that they won't have a country that is the leader of the free world on account of our insatiable appetite to just give money away so that politicians can get reelected. We've got to have, at some point, Matt, we've got to have a forcing mechanism like a balanced budget amendment that will not just encourage, but force the federal government to do what state and local

governments do, and that's pay for things, balance their budget, and live within their means. And that's certainly not the case today. But I'm for us doing that in Congress. for a constitutional convention through Article 5 and imposing on this runaway Washington spending and this out-of-control Washington government, our central government, putting guardrails on us, reining that government in so that the states, you know, so the states have confidence and the people have confidence that their country won't be bankrupt on account of zero controls, zero accountability on the fiscal side. I think that if you allow this country to experience a sovereign debt crisis or a currency crisis where we cannot borrow money to pay for this government of ours, I think you're going to see China surpass our country in a new world order where they are the leaders and their values and their communist government system is the prevailing view. And that would be disastrous and maybe irreparable. So we've got a lot of work to do and I can't think of a more important issue than getting our fiscal house.

Thank you, Congressman. And one point of information for our viewers, Texas is one of the states that the state legislature has passed the resolution calling for a convention of states, as you mentioned. Following up on one aspect of this, we spoke with your neighboring congressman, Congressman August Pfluger from the 11th Congressional District in West Texas. And one thing that he liked to point out about the budget negotiations was some policy wins for oil and gas. As you know, your district is very close to Congressman Pfluger's, shares a large portion of the Permian Basin, which yours has a large share of oil and gas as well. Could you tell us a little bit, quickly recap some of the policy wins that are in the budget negotiations?

You bet. I'm so glad you brought that up because spending is one element of restoring fiscal sanity and responsibility. The other piece is, Matt, we've got to get our economy to start to get off high center. It's really not even on high center anymore. It's backsliding into recession. We saw the last three quarters, a reduction in GDP. We're just about at 1%. And the CBO just came out with a report that said over the next 30 years, we're going to see the longest sustained lack of growth, if you will, at 1.7% on average over the next 30 years. That's unacceptable. So not only do we have to reduce spending, we have to grow this economy, mainly by getting government out of the way and restoring economic freedom. process for building things, or in the case of oil and gas, for building pipelines or

terminals at ports where we can ship this freedom molecule to our allies. Look, what we did to put statutory reforms to reduce the time on account of environmental impact studies, which are basically used by this administration to stop all oil and gas, domestic oil and gas production. We have made some significant changes and they're real and they're statutory. They're not just, you know, a handshake and betting on the come. We are putting them in law, and our oil and gas industry will tell you that it might be the very lifeline that allows them to live, to produce America's energy and give us energy independence in the future. This administration has been horrible, had a whole of government assault on our energy production, our energy cost,

our energy independence, because of this climate alarmism and radical ideology of the Green New Deal, you know, religious zealots is what I call them. It is like a religion to them. And so I think that part of the debt ceiling that doesn't get as much attention, I'm glad, and I'm not surprised that my colleague August Fluger from the Great Oil Patch mentioned that to you, that could very well save trillions of dollars over the next 10-year budget window. So that's every bit as important. By the way, one last point on the budget and on balancing the budget. If we grow our economy by just 1% GDP on average over the next 10 years, that's $3 trillion in deficit reduction because that's revenue that we can pay our bills, that brings our

risks down, that brings our interest rate down. And that's one of the two parts of our strategy to restore physical health to this country. So I'm very pleased with that outcome. version of what we wanted in the debt ceiling deal, I filed that bill called the Limit Save Grow, and it reversed the 87,000 IRS agents. It repealed them. It reversed Biden's decision to bail out half a trillion dollars of student loans. I had a number of things in there. We had 217 Republicans sign on to it. But the reality was that was a starting point for us. We had to negotiate with the president, who's the most profligate spending politician we've ever seen, and with Chuck Schumer. I'm pleased with the outcome. It's a good step. It's a meaningful step in the right direction, but we've got a lot more work to do, no doubt. Some very interesting dynamics going on there. Thank you, Congressman. One issue that is closely related to oil and gas and industries in the Permian Basin

is infrastructure, particularly highway infrastructure. That's something that's always on the top mind of the Texas legislature, but isn't necessarily exclusive. I believe some areas of West Texas, including potentially your district, may be seeing new interstate and other infrastructure. Can you tell us about the project? Well, the I-14 project is, it will intersect this region of West Texas. I know August Pfluger's predecessor, Mike Connelly, did a lot of work on that in prior years. What I did when I came to Congress six years ago is I had a few things that I thought were important to give voice to this part of rural America, which is the food, fuel, and fiber capital of the world. It is the energy and ag production epicenter. And so to allow the nation to enjoy food security and energy independence,

we needed arteries of transportation to move that product around the country for our citizens into ports where we can then provide the best ag and energy to the world and to global markets. So we introduced a bill to designate I-27 as a four-lane federal highway from the largest inland port of Laredo, Texas, all the way up through the Panhandle. It's got some of Oklahoma and New Mexico and goes all the way up the backbone of America, which is the ag and energy corridor for the country in terms of production ag and energy. So I'm very pleased that we got that designation. We now have the second only north-south federal highway in Texas, and it's going to be good

for the country. We have funding last year. We'll get funding this year. It's a shared responsibility between the states and the feds. We look to the state to sort of drive the plans. But the feds are making that investment with our tax dollars on something that will not just give us tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 to 20 years of economic impact for rural West Texas and for the Lone Star State. But like I said, it will foster a more seamless and efficient way to move our ag and energy product, which is so critical

to our national security, not to mention to our quality of life as Americans. So I'm pleased. And it's one of the big accomplishments that we were able to achieve for the good people of the Lone Star State. And we did it with my friends, August Pfluger, Ronnie Jackson, Tony Gonzalez, and we continue to make great headway in that regard. So excited. An important issue for those industries and for those who travel through the regions of your district, you'll see that it is a agricultural heavy region seeing all of that farmland. So something very important to those farmers and that commerce as well. Turning back to Washington, how's it been working with Speaker McCarthy?

And can you kind of elaborate a little bit on what the dynamics have been navigating these policy issues while having to face a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Democratic controlled White House. Well, I would say that we had some very good and honest negotiations leading up to the Speaker's race and to Speaker McCarthy getting to gavel as the leader of the House and our party, because that's the only chamber that has a Republican majority. The negotiations were around fiscal matters. We wanted to make sure members of our conference wanted to make sure that we made restoring aid, restoring fiscal accountability, and addressing the massive imbalance in our budget and our growing and unsustainable debt at priority for our conference. Because too often, we get the gavel, we get the majority in the House, and Republicans don't act any differently than Democrats.

Or maybe they're just a lesser version of runaway spending than the Democrats. And so the negotiations were around restoring House rules that would hold our own members accountable for paying for things. They also included a commitment to a balanced budget, a commitment to negotiating the debt ceiling. So I would just say that we're on track with doing those things under Speaker McCarthy. He and I, just like a lot of other members, we don't agree on everything, but he is following through on what he said he would do. And I think we're in a better place as a country as a result of Republicans actually following through on their campaign promises

and actually living up to the policies, principles, and values that we espouse at every election. But we seem to fail in execution. And so I'm, you know, look, I see my role as chairman of the budget committee and as a budget hawk to hold everybody accountable, including the speaker, our members, and my committee, to doing the right thing by taxpayers and by our children. Because, you know, there are lobbyists running all over Washington. And some of them have a good cause, and there's mutual interest like agriculture or energy. But there's, you know, you could throw a rock and hit, skip it off of 10 heads of lobbyists

or trade association execs who are representing some business interest or some special interest. Where are our children's advocates? Where are those who represent the next generation of Americans? This $32 trillion of debt is a deferred tax on them. The bills will come due. There will be a payday someday, and it will be in the near future. We can't hand this country to our children, the next generation of Americans, this broken and this indebted. It's immoral to do it. So I just think we all have to up our game and our sense of urgency about it. And we have to eventually change the culture entirely of the United States Congress, both House and Senate, both Republican and Democrat, that we cannot live beyond our means and that we have to pay for the things that we claim that the American people want and need. I would suggest that there's a large part of our federal government that is not appropriate, unnecessary, unconstitutional, and the American

people don't want it for needing. But that's why you have elections, and that's the constant debate, and that's why we need, in 2024, in my opinion, we need people and leaders in both chambers and in the White House that will make this issue of reining in the spending and saving our country from a debt crisis a top issue. And that's what I'm going to be looking for and the leaders that I'll be working hand in hand with in the future. Congressman, we're almost out of time, but really quickly, I don't think we could wrap it up without quickly pointing to the 2024 presidential elections, which are well underway. Do you have any thoughts as campaigns continue to get underway? And could you give us quickly your perspective on it? Well, President Trump, I really enjoyed working with him in the four years that he was desperately needed to shake up the establishment on both sides of the aisle. Washington needed to be shaken up and turned on its head, and he certainly did that.

We needed a politician that had some business acumen and common sense. And he certainly did that with tax policies, passing the largest tax reform package in recent history, if not ever, certainly since the Reagan tax cuts. He negotiated America first trade deals. He put our country on a path of growth and prosperity. Again, we were experiencing an economic renaissance because of his economic policies. He also was taken seriously, unlike our current commander in chief, and the world was safer and more stable. And he supported our men and women in uniform. They weren't doing pronoun training. They were doing training on how to win wars and how to deter our adversaries. And it was successful.

He secured the border. We saw a plunge in the number of illegal crossings. And I could go on and on. President Trump did a great job. I think he's obviously the front runner in this election. We've got to beat Joe Biden. And I think that's the question probably people have in their mind when they think of the president, President Trump. You know, there are people that are just never going to support him, even Republicans, not because of his policies, but because of some of the

ancillary things that he brings from a stylistic point to the table. But you got Ron DeSantis, who has also done a fantastic job in the Sunshine State. He is a committed conservative, principled conservative, and he too has proven to be a fighter and someone that follows through on his commitments to our common cause of limited government and liberty. So I think those are really the two only viable candidates at this point. But you have a lot of talent down ballot, if you will, with Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo and Tim Scott of South Carolina, who's a wonderful person and a great messenger for the things that we believe are best for a safer and stronger America. So I'm looking forward to listening to the debate and listening to these candidates. It will make whoever gets

the nomination better and stronger. But that's kind of my analysis. I will tell you this, Matt, I'm looking for the fiscal plan and the strategies on policy to restore fiscal sanity in Washington. And I haven't seen that from any of the candidates at this point, but I want to see bold leadership in that way. I saw the President Trump do it in every other area, but I want to know what the plan is to reform entitlements that are driving the debt and to put our country on a path to prosperity and financial security. And we're way, way off the mark on that at this point. So that's what I'm going to be looking for in the upcoming months leading up to the primary march.

So many leaders and voters keeping an eye on those policies as they roll out and these campaigns continue. Congressman, last question. Do you have any fun plans for the Independence Day holiday weekend? Well, I can tell you this. I'll be celebrating with my family after seven years. It felt like seven years, seven consecutive weeks in Washington, D.C. Look, we're doing the people's business. The House has got a critical role, as I've mentioned, on accountability, on the spending, and all the craziness that's happened in the last few years. But I look forward to spending time with my family,

celebrating our nation's birthday and remembering that we had people that were willing to stand up to a central power to throw off the tyrannical government and to win our independence and give birth to the greatest nation in human history. I'm going to do that with my three kids and my wife, and I'm going to let her decide where we're going to do it, but we have a little ranch in Central Texas, and getting out there and fishing and going rocks and having good quality time with my kids. Well, Congressman, thank you so much. We enjoyed having you on the Texan for the first time, and we hope that you will be a regular visitor and that we hope to have you back in the future. I'm honored to be on the show and thanks for your time. God bless America, God bless Texas, and appreciate your time. Thank you, sir.