In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAZETTE) takes on Joe Biden and his call to close the border with Mexico. Rep. Gaetz has been a long-time critic of Joe Biden's immigration policies.
00:02:52.180We should be making sure we change the circumstance, as we did, why they would leave in the first place.
00:02:58.460And those who come seeking asylum, we should immediately have the capacity to absorb them,
00:03:05.180keep them safe until they can be heard.
00:03:06.980A 15 second, if you could, if you wish to answer. Should someone who is here without documents, and that is his only offense, should that person be deported?
00:03:17.880That person should not be the focus of deportation. We should fundamentally change the way we deal with them.
00:03:23.360A lot of you have been talking tonight about these government health care plans that you've proposed in one form or another.
00:03:30.000This is a show of hands question, and hold them up for a moment so people can see.
00:03:35.080Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.
00:03:39.720There it is. There's your Democratic Party, all raising their hand to give free health care to illegal immigrants.
00:03:53.500Like, when you see that, do you even blame the illegal immigrants for coming?
00:03:56.380But you have to know what they ruined and what they destroyed.
00:03:59.860They destroyed a system that was working, instituted by President Trump. Take a listen.
00:04:06.400How do their records on the border compare?
00:04:09.200Well, under President Biden, each year, there have been more and more border crossings.
00:04:14.140According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, there are around 2.46 million encounters by Border Patrol agents in the Southwest in fiscal year 2023.
00:04:23.480In 2022, there were 2.34 million encounters.
00:09:08.980This is actually what your own agency is reporting.
00:09:11.840So do you think that it just might be the case that one reason that we will encounter the highest number of illegal immigrations in our nation's history this month and next month?
00:09:22.920Because everybody knows that even if they come here, even if they go through the removal procedures, even if a judge issues a final order, you still think there might be more due process and you have no plan to remove them.
00:09:34.940And then when I ask you what the plan is, you say, oh, well, resources, I've got to make finite decisions.
00:12:38.480They're getting their butts kicked up and down by their constituents from New York to Texas, all the way out to, you know, throughout the entire country.
00:12:46.360They're seeing the reality of what's happening on the ground, and Republicans will be a total and complete failure, a failure, if we do not hold the line and demand that President Biden come to the table, sit down with us, and pass legislation that will no longer fund a Department of Homeland Security at war with the American people.
00:13:27.020Speaker Mike Johnson today led a delegation of some 60 GOP House members to Eagle Pass, Texas, where the crisis, again, is at a breaking point.
00:13:37.380And there are five Republican House members who are kind of branching off and doing their own thing here in Eagle Pass today, away from the Speaker's event.
00:13:44.420They include Matt Goetz, Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Eli Crane, and Matt Rosendale.
00:13:49.160They spoke to me about an hour ago telling me they are willing to shut this government down if this border isn't fixed.
00:14:09.300There's a national security issue that is being taken place here on the southern border, and that's what it's going to take to hold this administration accountable.
00:14:19.380That was Matt Rosendale, Andy Biggs, and Chip Roy making what was a pretty solid argument.
00:14:26.840I joined them in that perspective and, indeed, in that trip.
00:14:31.740Instead of getting demands on the border, instead of stopping the flow, instead of making Joe Biden reverse course on the demolition of the Trump policies that were working, we got this.
00:14:55.640Yeah, Jim, Angie, the winter weather expected in D.C. tomorrow likely added to the pressure to hold a vote today ahead of Friday's deadline.
00:15:04.200Congress took the crucial step earlier this evening, voting to pass a short-term spending bill to President Biden.
00:15:10.320If signed by the president, the measure will keep agencies open.
00:15:13.520And again, this is just temporary until March 1st, which is now the new shutdown deadline.
00:15:18.260About half of House Republicans joined Democrats today in passing this stopgap measure.
00:15:23.140But some on the far right are still skeptical of using the temporary measure again for the third time.
00:15:28.160In just moments, I have to go to the House floor and I have to vote against this turd sandwich of a continuing resolution.
00:15:36.740This thing's apparently going to March 1, March 8.
00:15:44.900It's not what the House of Representatives should be doing.
00:15:46.840So we surrendered the leverage and the advantage that we had at that time by unlocking all of Joe Biden's spending ambitions in the absence of that downward pressure on the border.
00:16:04.440We talked about the Lankford bill a ton.
00:16:06.140That was the bill that said, well, we're going to do the executive actions to shut down the border, but only after 5,000 people come in each day.
00:16:19.740A bipartisan bill would be good for America and help fix our broken immigration system and allow speedy access for those who deserve to be here.
00:16:30.920President Biden on Saturday making a lofty promise to lawmakers if they can get a deal done on immigration.
00:16:37.560If that bill were the law today, I'd shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.
00:16:41.520The White House has been working with a bipartisan group of senators for weeks to reach an agreement on the first major overhaul of the country's immigration system since the 1990s.
00:16:51.900Among the changes, it would reportedly give the White House the authority to deny asylum seekers when migrant crossings surpass a certain number.
00:17:00.460When we can no longer detain and deport, when we can't process the people and actually make a decision right there at the border,
00:17:07.240then we'll actually turn those folks back around to Mexico and say we can no longer do this.
00:17:11.520While I have people from around the country and back home that say do a Republican-only bill, just get all of our priorities and none of them, none of theirs,
00:17:20.520I smile at them and say, welcome to governance.
00:17:25.100We understood from the beginning we're not going to solve everything.
00:17:29.620We knew from the beginning it's not going to be perfect.
00:17:33.120But we also knew the status quo is untenable.
00:17:35.980The National Border Patrol Council gave this statement.
00:17:38.640The Border Patrol Act of 2024 will give the United States Border Patrol agents authorities codified in law that we have not had in the past.
00:17:48.240While not perfect, and I'll agree with him on that, the Border Patrol Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and it is far better than the current status quo.
00:17:57.900Governance, Senator Langford lectures us.
00:18:05.440Well, as House conservatives, we knew what that governance could look like.
00:18:10.100It didn't have to look like some compromise with Chuck Schumer.
00:18:13.240We just had to put pressure on Biden to not do the things he did by executive order when he first came in that he promised on his campaign.
00:18:19.280And no one made the argument better than Mike Johnson.
00:18:25.460And it's important to point out, and I want to make this very clear, the president's statement on Friday, he falsely claimed, it was a false claim, that he needs Congress to pass a new law to allow him to close the southern border.
00:19:09.820I read the president of the United States, the law, the black letter law, on the phone about two and a half weeks ago.
00:19:15.700I said, Mr. President, it says very clearly, you have all the tools and the executive authority necessary to reverse the catastrophe that you have created.
00:19:24.960He has those tools right now, and he has since day one.
00:19:28.540The Immigration and Nationality Act, for example, coupled with recent Supreme Court president,
00:19:33.980give the president, quote, ample authority to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens or impose any restrictions he may deem appropriate.
00:19:46.140That's the broadest authority that Congress probably has ever given a president, and it's been there for a long, long time.
00:19:52.640In fact, the very provision that I just read you was used by the Obama administration more than 19 times.
00:19:58.720It's been used, I think, 69 times by presidents since 1980, but not by President Biden.