In this episode, I discuss some agenda items that have been discussed among different members of the Republican conference, from moderates, centrists, MAGA, America First, and Libertarians, that could unite Republicans in a slim majority going forward.
00:00:57.000We are live broadcasting out of the Longworth office building on the Capitol complex in Washington, D.C.
00:01:03.000And the best way to know when we're going live, have those notifications turned on.
00:01:08.000That makes you the first person to get the news, to get the tea on what's going on in the Capitol.
00:01:14.000So, in this episode, I'm going to be going over some agenda items that have been discussed among different members of the Republican conference,
00:01:23.000from moderates, centrists, MAGA, America First, Libertarian, different things that we're all talking about that are 80-20 issues,
00:01:31.000that could unite Republicans in a very slim majority going forward.
00:01:36.000But if you want to change the game, you've got to change the rules of the game.
00:01:41.000And in the swamp of Washington, D.C., far too often those rules reward the corrupt and the sellouts.
00:01:47.000And I've got some ideas how we can work across the aisle, across the ideological spectrum,
00:01:52.000work with our fellow Republicans in the majority to have rules that open up the legislative process
00:07:21.000We did resolve some other leadership elections yesterday.
00:07:25.000And we'll get back to the Speaker's race in a moment.
00:07:27.000But I do want to make note that we elected Steve Scalise to be our majority leader.
00:07:32.000I remember when I first came into Congress and I received the news early one morning that Steve Scalise had been shot at Republican baseball practice.
00:07:41.000We later learned that it was one of these very dangerous and radicalized ideological liberals who thought that it was their duty to kill Republicans.
00:07:51.000And he went there with a list of Republicans to kill at our baseball practice.
00:07:57.000And fortunately, by the grace of God, no one was killed.
00:08:01.000And I watched him personally go through an excruciating recovery, painful.
00:08:06.000And this man would push himself with drive.
00:08:09.000And when his body was emaciated, when he couldn't stand without crutches or a cane, he was just so strident to get the most out of every single day.
00:08:20.000And probably the best moment in the House of Representatives, the most uplifting in a place that often drags you down was Steve Scalise's return to the House of Representatives after his medical leave, after having been shot.
00:08:40.000Look, we all know the United States is the leader of the free world.
00:08:43.000It's something that we've frankly had the honor as a country to hold as a distinction for generations.
00:08:50.000And yet, when you look at that title, what it really means is that there are people all around the world that want freedom, maybe that have freedom,
00:08:58.000but they know the United States being strong is critical to the rest of the world having the opportunity for freedom.
00:09:06.000But that's why I'm so excited to be back, because as we're fighting through the issues of the day, let's just keep in mind that we rise above the challenges of the day,
00:09:35.000and understand that it's not just us and our constituents and the country, the United States, that's counting on us being successful.
00:09:42.000People all around the world that believe in freedom are counting on us as well.
00:10:42.000And our conference would certainly trust you.
00:10:44.000We also elected the House whip for the Republicans.
00:10:49.000This is the person that counts the votes, that provides feedback up to the leadership team, really viewed as a central figure in the leadership team.
00:10:58.000Steve Scalise had been the whip prior to now this election as the majority leader elect.
00:11:04.000And there was a race between Drew Ferguson of Georgia, Jim Banks of Indiana, and Tom Emmer of Minnesota.
00:11:11.000And interestingly, in the first ballot, Jim Banks actually had the most votes, but he did not have 50% plus one.
00:11:19.000And so that meant that all the votes that had been cast for Mr. Ferguson, he would be falling off the ballot for the next round.
00:11:26.000He had a subsequent vote, and it looks like a lot of the votes from Drew Ferguson went to Tom Emmer.
00:11:31.000And so Tom Emmer will be the whip of the House.
00:11:33.000I can honestly say he spends time with and communicates with the moderates, the centrists, the Freedom Caucus, the Libertarians,
00:11:41.000and don't always see eye to eye on everything, but can honestly say that Tom Emmer is free to share his viewpoint
00:11:47.000and is someone who listens to the viewpoints of people that he doesn't always agree with.
00:11:51.000And that is a key core competency for the whip.
00:11:55.000Tom Emmer has had some of his own spicy moments on the floor of the House of Representatives.
00:11:59.000Here is your incoming Republican whip.
00:12:02.000I rise in opposition to the previous question so that we can immediately consider H.R. 5586.
00:12:10.000This bill will kill a Biden administration proposal that would allow IRS agents to comb through the bank accounts of any American who spends more than $10,000 a year.
00:12:21.000To put that in perspective, $10,000 a year equates to just $28 a day, $850 a month, or half of the average Minnesota household mortgage payment.
00:12:34.000In other words, the Biden administration wants the IRS to be able to spy on tens of millions of Americans.
00:12:41.000So don't be mistaken. This proposal does not just target the 1% as the President sometimes likes to claim.
00:12:47.000Instead, it is pointed directly at working American families.
00:12:51.000Today, I led a letter with more than 200 of my colleagues urging Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to scrap this proposal to spy on American citizens.
00:13:02.000We must protect Americans' right to privacy and stop this proposed intrusive, unnecessary Biden financial reporting requirements, and I yield back.
00:13:13.000Give me more of that energy as whip, Tom Emmer.
00:13:16.000It's absolutely right that elements of the Biden government have been weaponized against us.
00:13:21.000That is eroding privacy rights, constitutional rights, political association rights, First Amendment rights.
00:13:27.000And so if Tom Emmer is going to take the fight to these bureaucratic agencies, then he'll have a friend in me, and I'll work right alongside him to get that job done.
00:13:35.000And you know what? We're not China, but increasingly, these liberals and Woketopians want all of us to have a social credit score, whether it's for the loan we want to get for our business, whether it's for the Facebook page or social media site we want to set up, or whether it's even the commerce we want to engage in.
00:13:53.000Increasingly, that is being strangled by woke leftism. Tom Emmer seems to get the absolute fight we are in in those remarks, and I look forward to working with him.
00:14:05.000So those are resolved. We've got our incoming whip, we've got our incoming majority leader, and yet the speaker's race, as we've been discussing, is unresolved.
00:14:13.000Now, there was some breaking news in Politico that I want everyone to get a taste of, and I'm putting it up on the screen now.
00:14:21.000Now, for those listening, the Politico title is, McCarthy allies, press Cuellar to switch parties.
00:14:28.840And then in the lead, it says, when Gates asked the GOP leader if he would solicit Democratic votes, McCarthy said no.
00:14:38.100So already, we are seeing Kevin McCarthy deviate from a promise he made. He had to present himself at a leadership forum.
00:14:45.160I asked what I thought was a reasonable question and a slim majority. I said, Leader McCarthy, are you going to solicit or accept the votes of Democrats in pursuit of the speaker's gavel?
00:14:56.380And he, unequivocally to his credit, said he never had, he never would.
00:15:00.480And now, in Politico, the school newspaper, we see that McCarthy allies are reportedly out there trying to get Democrats to change parties so that they can change the result.
00:15:14.760You know what? If the result of all this is that we get an additional Republican in Henry Cuellar, that might be a good thing.
00:15:20.760Cuellar is a pro-life Democrat. He supports a wall on the border.
00:15:25.260He supports border control. He actually thinks people who are not here legally should be deported.
00:15:31.640He understands that not every person who claims that they're in fear as they break our laws and enter into our country is a legitimate asylum seeker.
00:15:40.080Who knows? Henry Cuellar may make a great Republican, but Henry, if you come on board, vote with us, baby.
00:15:46.200We're the ones that are pushing back against some of the excesses that you seem to be having concerns with on the left.
00:15:53.880So I'm all here for the recruitment of Henry Cuellar.
00:15:56.680I even won't hold it against Leader McCarthy if he's able to get him to come and join.
00:16:00.840But if this is what he's doing now, think of what's going to happen on January 3rd.
00:16:06.120Because the only time where we get a vote to elect a Speaker of the House is January 3rd.
00:16:12.620It's not yesterday. It's not next week. January 3rd is the day.
00:16:18.340And on that day, Kevin McCarthy is not going to have the votes to be Speaker.
00:16:22.280But it's not just a question of what person is in the position.
00:16:26.980It's also about the rules of Congress that are so fundamentally broken.
00:16:32.200And by the way, a lot of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, realize that this is a system perfectly created to empower the few at the expense of the representatives at large,
00:16:46.000who in turn are there to be a voice for the people of our country.
00:16:49.680And so recently at a FreedomWorks forum hosted by Congressman Andy Biggs,
00:16:55.380I made the case for bipartisan reforms to our rules so that we had more open, honest, ethical government.
00:17:02.640And what you'll notice is right after that, President Trump in his announcement speech last night.
00:17:10.340Well, I'll let you listen to his remarks after hearing mine and wonder whether or not maybe we had a little influence on the content of that policy.
00:17:20.880I believe that no member of Congress by House rule should be allowed to accept a donation for their campaign from a federal lobbyist or a federal political action committee.
00:17:33.340And I will ask for a permanent ban on taxpayer funding of campaigns.
00:17:37.480The second thing I would suggest is that if someone is a member of Congress, they should be prohibited from lobbying for life.
00:17:44.640Why is it so hard to say that you should choose one side or the other to be on?
00:17:48.980You're either in the lawmaking game or you're in the influence peddling game.
00:17:52.940A lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and cabinet members.
00:17:58.300I will also introduce an amendment to have a ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks.
00:18:05.060How can we say that that is not something that dilutes our trust in markets and in governance
00:18:11.360when people are essentially able to bet on the outcomes that they have an ability to somewhat control?
00:18:17.620We want a ban on members of Congress getting rich by trading stocks with insider information.
00:18:22.060And many of our great members agree with that.
00:18:34.160Good ideas going directly from a think tank where we're discussing them and honing them into ideas for public policy.
00:18:44.060And that's really what those remarks were all about.
00:18:46.440Policy changes that we need to affect the operations of the House of Representatives and the government of the United States for our people.
00:18:54.260On the live stream, we've got a lot of recommendations for Speaker.
00:18:57.600On Rumble, folks are wondering, how about Trump for Speaker?
00:19:54.320Paul Ryan was backing Kevin McCarthy, too, before he became Speaker.
00:19:57.680But there's sort of a moment in the progression of Kevin McCarthy's Speaker campaigns where everyone realizes that he's not going to have the votes to get there.
00:20:06.020And usually then someone emerges out of the McCarthy camp that is more broadly acceptable.
00:20:26.440I probably wouldn't get very many votes.
00:20:28.040I don't have a lot of friends around here.
00:20:29.700But I'm okay with that because I'm on the team for Northwest Floridians who send me here and for my fellow Americans who feel like we actually need patriotic service that puts the people of our country first.
00:20:41.080Not the lobbyists, not the special interests, not the leadership, and certainly not Mark Levin.
00:20:47.080To do these things, we also have to think about an agenda, and that's what I want to focus on for this next segment of our show today.
00:20:55.200So, look, I mean, just as we saw Joe Manchin function as a limiting factor on what Chuck Schumer could do, any group of five in the House is going to be able to function as a limiting factor on just about anything.
00:21:09.500So, during this last week, I have worked very hard to reach out to more moderate and more centrist members of our caucus and ask them, like, what are your ideas?
00:21:19.660What are the things that, if there was no Freedom Caucus, if there was no, you know, Massey Gates Libertarian wing, if there was no Marjorie Taylor Greene-led America First wing of our conference, what would some of the moderates and centrists want to do?
00:21:33.880And I've just pulled together kind of an amalgamation of those ideas. Go ahead and put them up on the screen right now.
00:21:39.620So, just think about a Congress where these are the first ten bills we pass, in no particular order.
00:21:47.760Codifying the Heller decision, giving a major, major win to gun owners.
00:21:53.820Create term limits for Congress. Pass the Born Alive Act.
00:21:57.580Make Democrats vote against the Born Alive Act if they want to use abortion as a political cudgel.
00:22:02.280Codify Title IX so that we don't have these men participating in women's sports.
00:22:12.500Finish the wall. Finish the Keystone Pipeline. Open the Keystone Pipeline.
00:22:18.120Ensure that we support free speech on college campuses.
00:22:21.800Challenge big tech by eliminating their immunities.
00:22:25.580And then creating reasonable work requirements.
00:22:28.440We hear from so many of our small businesses that getting people to work is increasingly difficult while the American government is paying able-bodied people to sit at home.
00:22:40.440Gosh, if these were the first ten things we did, if we geared up for the big spending fights later,
00:22:46.220because we're totally going to get screwed during this lame duck Congress by Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer.
00:22:51.620So we probably won't have a big spending fight for the first year on an appropriations package.
00:23:22.320That's not necessarily a vote on the House floor.
00:23:24.800That is showcasing to the American people how the pain they are feeling is directly connected to the corrupt actions of the Biden government.
00:23:32.740So we're going to have really a wide array of members joining me on the show.
00:23:37.320Well, I want to get some of these new members elect who are going to be in Congress on the show in the coming weeks
00:23:42.360because they've got a perspective that will be very important.
00:23:45.560They're very close to the voters having just won their first races in many circumstances.
00:23:50.320And when we do that, we're going to change the rules.