In this episode, we interview Republican Congressman Eric Burleson of Missouri, who has been a long-time supporter of the administration's anti-drug smuggling efforts outside of Venezuela. He joins us to discuss what he thinks about the current administration's approach to combating drug smuggling, and what Congress should do about it.
00:08:21.000But I did want to also get your reaction to what the president's response to this was,
00:08:24.000and it was generally to clamp down on immigration from so-called third-world countries.
00:08:28.000And I think he said he wanted to pause all visas from Afghanistan in particular.
00:08:31.000In a Truth Social post, he said, I will permanently pause migration from all third-world countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.
00:08:38.000Only reverse migration can fully cure this situation.
00:08:42.000Do you agree with the president on that?
00:08:44.000I think that we need to recognize that we have a lot of people that are coming here that cannot sustain, cannot support themselves.
00:08:52.000And we are, as a nation, you know, American people are having a hard time even going paying their grocery bills.
00:09:30.000I also understand there's something like 700,000 H1B visa holders here who are here legally, but that Americans still believe undercut American workers and, you know, are still taking space here.
00:09:40.000What do you think about that in the party base?
00:09:43.000I think it's something that we have to address.
00:09:45.000And I looked into this, and one of the things that disturbs me is that a lot of visa holders, for example, are not required to pay FICA tax.
00:10:13.000Because now the argument is they're not going to get Social Security, and that's fine.
00:10:17.000But at the end of the day, they should be paying a tax that would make them at least financially the equivalent of a U.S. worker at the minimum.
00:10:27.000I worked in the IT space and saw entire teams laid off and replaced by H1B visa holders.
00:10:36.000And that is not something that we want to see in America.
00:10:39.000I mean, I think that there's a place and argument to say that there are certain places where there's no amount of work that you can do.
00:10:50.000There is no American worker that can meet those needs.
00:10:53.000But if that's the case, pay the taxes and let them benefit the nation as a whole.
00:11:32.000The doors should not be completely wide open and we don't want to let our culture change rapidly.
00:11:37.000So we need to do it in a thorough, in a slow process.
00:11:43.000So I would be for reducing the number of people that are coming here legally and certainly eliminating and zeroing out the people that are coming here illegally.
00:12:05.000And sadly, the left has been fighting us on this.
00:12:10.000And I was glad to see that the president gave a directive that when people are throwing bricks and rocks and assaulting our ICE agents or Homeland Security, arrest these people.
00:12:26.000We need to return to kind of a form of civility.
00:12:28.000And the fact that they're really willing to, you know, take arms and fight against, you know, law enforcement officials over this, you know, protecting the people that are here illegally, it's absurd.
00:12:42.000I want to shift gears and quickly hit on one last topic, and it's a little bit of congressional politics.
00:12:47.000So one of the most important things in the one big, beautiful bill that barely passed here was that they tripled, I believe, the funding towards ICE.
00:12:54.000But there was one Republican who postured against it, Representative Thomas Massie, who the president was very upset with.
00:13:01.000There was also recently, I believe, a handful of Republicans who forced the vote on the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files, including Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie.
00:13:10.000They've drawn the ire of the president as a result of their actions here.
00:13:13.000What do you think about how all of that stuff played out, and how should we think of these Republicans when you guys do have such a slim majority in the House?
00:13:20.000I have a lot of respect for Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and I think that our party can't afford to be acting in a way where we're expelling people from the party.
00:13:31.000And they have a place, they have a highly intelligent position that most of the time I agree with.
00:13:38.000I mean, I'm mostly, I'm very close ideologically with Thomas Massie, and I was a co-sponsor of the bill to release the Epstein files.
00:13:47.000I didn't, I wasn't going to sign the discharge petition until, unless I saw that in the oversight process, which I'm on, the oversight committee,
00:13:57.000I saw if the administration was blocking information deliberately from the subpoenas that we were issuing,
00:14:04.000then to me that would be the last step is to do the discharge petition.
00:14:09.000But, I mean, I support the release of all of the Epstein information so long as it doesn't harm a victim.
00:14:16.000I don't mean to cynically harp on this too much, but the president did call this a hoax and a huge distraction.
00:14:22.000And then also, Representative Massie very cynically said, you know, those who are voting against this, I believe he said, are protecting pedophiles.
00:14:29.000And he was saying, making that accusation of most of the Republican caucus at the time.
00:14:36.000Well, ultimately, nearly every person voted for it when it came to the vote.
00:14:42.000And whenever I had opportunities and oversight to vote to subpoena the files, subpoena the Epstein estate, I voted for those and have been a part of that process.
00:14:56.000And so, I think most all Republicans were supportive of releasing the files.
00:15:02.000And a lot of us were really kind of puzzled with some of Trump's rhetoric.
00:15:08.000The only explanation I've been given that makes sense is that Trump has gone down this road with disclosure of other things like the JFK files, the RFK files,
00:15:20.000and really has discovered that it's one thing to say it and another thing to deliver it when you have an intelligence community that's fighting you tooth and nail.
00:15:29.000Right. And so, you can say, if you're Trump, you know, I can try to release the files.
00:15:36.000But at the end of the day, the American people, there's always going to be more that needs to be released.
00:15:41.000And the American people will always suspect something.
00:15:43.000Absolutely. Just, this will be my last follow up here, because I feel like it's extremely pertinent.
00:15:47.000As a result of her posturing Marjorie Taylor Greene, she drew the ire of the president.
00:15:51.000He said he would endorse a primary opponent.
00:15:53.000And she ended up actually stepping down, as I understand, largely as a result of this.
00:15:58.000This leaves the House of Republicans with an even slimmer majority.
00:16:03.000It feels like a middle finger to Mike Johnson and the Republican voters who put her in office.
00:16:07.000What do you think about her resigning and leaving Republicans in an even more vulnerable position?
00:16:12.000And this is, of course, coming off the heels of the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, which the president already thought put him in the compromising position.
00:16:17.000Look, I mean, serving in this role, a lot of times people don't, it's not exactly a glamorous role.