The Great America Show - REP. LUNA SAYS GOP DEBATE AND NEGOTIATIONS WERE NEVER PERSONAL, ALL ABOUT CONGRESSIONAL REFORMS, TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs. Welcome to The Great America Show. And yes, the 118th Congress

00:00:05.760 is now open for business. And it looks as though we won't have to wait long before the Marxist 0.71

00:00:11.520 dims erupt at the new management of the House of Representatives. Their hair is already on fire, 1.00

00:00:17.280 and they're already throwing fits because the Republican reforms mean members and the public

00:00:23.000 will have 72 hours to read proposed legislation before the bill can be voted on.

00:00:28.440 The days of the Democrats ramming bills through that members didn't have a chance to read,

00:00:33.980 let alone offer an amendment, are ended. The Republican Congress will be transparent.

00:00:39.760 The representatives will be accountable. All of the reforms, the result of hard bargaining led by

00:00:45.940 Congressman Andy Biggs and his band of reformers, made up of Freedom Caucus members and new Speaker

00:00:52.460 Kevin McCarthy. And the Marxist dims are screaming like stuck pigs because now they're 0.99

00:00:58.320 accountable. Power and responsibility has been distributed through the committees, 0.99

00:01:03.000 and the Speaker of the House is more limited in his ability to make decisions. His power diminished.

00:01:09.140 The power of the members enlarged. All of this because 21 Republicans wanted to change the status

00:01:16.120 quo and roll back the swamp. One of those members is our guest today. She's Representative Anna Paulina Luna

00:01:23.600 from the 13th Congressional District of Florida, also an Air Force veteran. And welcome to the Great

00:01:30.060 America Show, Representative Luna. Congratulations on your election, and how does it feel to have your

00:01:35.320 name attached to the Congress of the United States? It is pretty surreal and also, too, very exciting,

00:01:42.280 especially after what we accomplished this past week. Well, let's turn to that because that was a

00:01:48.080 moment for the history books, and I am being quite literal. It is what you all accomplished, the Freedom

00:01:56.880 Caucus under the leadership of Congressman Andy Biggs. You guys stood tall. You bargained for the right

00:02:05.480 things for the American people, for the institution, and you prevailed. I just want to say congratulations.

00:02:11.440 I want to say thank you for what you've done for the Republic, because I truly believe that week and

00:02:20.020 what you all stood up for and achieved will help save this Republic without question.

00:02:28.100 Absolutely. You know, at the time when we were going through it, you know, even in leading up to

00:02:33.120 really January 3rd, you know, there was a list of things that we really wanted to see change within

00:02:39.900 this institution, and we realized that for far too long, I think especially after what happened

00:02:45.820 recently with COVID, you know, a lot of people, instead of having these conversations, they just

00:02:51.460 weren't doing it, and so these negotiations had been in place well before January. In fact, I think that

00:02:57.900 they began actually in summertime, and then when I won my election in November, when I came up here for

00:03:05.180 orientation, these were still being discussed, and what I want the American people to know

00:03:10.780 is that regardless of what the mainstream media tried to say initially, that these discussions,

00:03:16.300 this debate, it wasn't done in an effort to be personal with anyone. It was done on behalf of the

00:03:23.660 American people. If we don't change it now, when are we going to change it, right? And so some of the 0.98

00:03:27.660 things that are in play that we were able to actually get concessions on from now Speaker McCarthy,

00:03:34.540 for example, the Jeffersonian motion to vacate the chair, that allows us as a member and as a

00:03:40.860 conference to hold the speaker accountable. It's something that existed for over 200 years was put

00:03:45.980 in place by Thomas Jefferson and ultimately was removed by Nancy Pelosi, but that's a huge accountability

00:03:51.100 mechanism. We're going to be voting on term limits. We have single subject bills, meaning that they can't

00:03:56.860 load all this irrelevant nonsense into some of these bills that the Democrats love doing.

00:04:02.300 These are just a few items of this massive negotiation we engaged in. And I really hope that

00:04:08.860 people understand that we were fighting for the American people. We had them on their mind the

00:04:12.940 entire time. And I also know that the entire Republican conference, now that they see the rules,

00:04:17.500 are actually from what I'm hearing very supportive. Well, I would think they would be because

00:04:22.220 the fact of the matter is you all have made it possible for Kevin McCarthy to be one of the most

00:04:31.660 effective speakers of the House in modern history. You really have. I mean, the rules will create

00:04:38.460 transparency. They create accountability. They create at least an atmosphere of honesty that has

00:04:46.540 certainly not been in place in the Congress for at least, I'm going to say at least a couple of

00:04:52.540 decades, honestly, going back to about 1994. The Congress has been in deep need of reform and 21

00:05:01.340 reformers stood up and got the job done. And again, I think the American people need to understand fully

00:05:09.180 how courageous it was of Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona to stand up as almost a solitary figure.

00:05:17.420 He had three or four people at the outset who would stand with him, maybe six or seven by the time this

00:05:23.820 was underway that grew to 21. He did this in the quietest, most unpretentious and selfless way that

00:05:32.140 one can imagine on issues that are so important. You've mentioned the motion to vacate. You've mentioned

00:05:37.660 single subject bills. And importantly, I think the people of this country learned something about

00:05:45.260 their Congress. There has been indolence prevailing within that conference because Congress people

00:05:54.220 couldn't even begin to know what they were voting on because bills would be dropped. Massive,

00:06:00.060 omnibus bills like the $1.7 trillion bill at the beginning of the year. It is at the end of the

00:06:08.220 year. It is just remarkable what you all achieved. What has been the feedback from your from your

00:06:14.060 district? So initially, I think people were just really wondering what was happening because when we

00:06:20.300 first stood up and said, you know, no, we had a lot of people that that didn't quite understand. And so

00:06:27.260 the spin against us really, I think by more mainstream media, it was it was a lot to go

00:06:33.180 through initially, right? So it was a pressure cooker. But then as people heard more and more

00:06:37.420 about the negotiations taking place, and then the American people started tuning in and watching what

00:06:42.140 was actually happening on the floor on C-SPAN, they saw these discussions taking place and going down.

00:06:48.140 And then they realized what we were negotiating for. I mean, I on my way flying up here this morning,

00:06:52.540 Lou, I actually got stopped twice by people. And they just said, I just wanted to thank you for

00:06:57.100 what you did. You've made a difference. We were very frustrated right now with with Congress and

00:07:02.940 what's happening in the federal government. And we just want to let you know that you kind of gave us

00:07:06.540 some hope back. But more importantly, I will say this. I did happen to have a private conversation

00:07:13.260 and actually wrote now Speaker McCarthy a letter back in November. And one thing that I shared with him is

00:07:19.340 I said, you know, Abraham Lincoln had so many people that had differing opinions and they even

00:07:24.540 worked against him. But when he became president, he brought all those people on board and had one of

00:07:29.340 the most effective governments in US history and really did something incredible. He abolished slavery.

00:07:35.100 And I was like the speaker that embraces the motion to vacate the chair, the Jeffersonian motion,

00:07:40.140 and that can do that by bringing on conservatives to have a voice at the table, especially in regards to

00:07:45.340 the legislation that's hitting the House floor. That is the speaker that will earn my vote. And to his

00:07:49.820 credit, you know, when negotiations, he embraced that. And so I obviously am looking forward to what

00:07:56.300 we will be able to collect what collectively do as a conference. That's great news. And I and I really

00:08:03.340 have the sense that what you all did get accomplished, including, by the way, and importantly,

00:08:09.340 it's all important. But to move that that subcommittee to investigate ongoing criminal

00:08:17.660 investigations by the federal government is so critically important because the American people

00:08:23.900 need to know what has what has happened to their government. The weaponization of the Department

00:08:30.300 of Justice, the FBI, we know the intelligence agencies, nearly all of them have been weaponized in some

00:08:37.180 fashion or other. These are critical, critical issues. Your thoughts?

00:08:44.220 Oh, yes, absolutely. So what you're referencing is the church style committee. And I think for far

00:08:49.580 too long, especially with what's happened recently, the FBI is and has been caught on a number of

00:08:56.060 occasions. We're even seeing it right now being exposed to the American people with Elon Musk Twitter file

00:09:01.340 dumps. Whether it is suppressing information about COVID or what was happening with election integrity,

00:09:09.340 these are all things that the FBI should not be doing, right? They are a taxpayer funded organization.

00:09:14.380 They should be going after people that are trying to hurt American citizens, not mothers who are showing 1.00

00:09:19.100 up to school board meetings, not Americans that are simply having a differing opinion than the woke

00:09:24.220 ideologies of the left. And so that is incredibly important. The FBI is an institution that we

00:09:30.140 should have faith in. We shouldn't fear them. And in no way, shape or form is it ever publicly

00:09:34.700 acceptable for them to be weaponized against the American people. So this committee is very special.

00:09:39.500 From what I'm hearing, it's actually going to be placed under House Judiciary. And if anything is

00:09:44.140 found to be bad, we are going to elevate those issues and I believe take punitive action as we should.

00:09:50.060 Uh, absolutely. And as I understand it, at least at this point, uh, not only will it be under

00:09:56.700 judiciary, but Jim Jordan, the chairman of the, to be of the judiciary committee will be directly

00:10:03.420 chairing the subcommittee, which I, I personally, I think is a grand idea. He is one of the most

00:10:10.540 effective and I believe, uh, patriotic Americans in the entire Congress. And it's, that is going to be a

00:10:17.340 place for the, uh, I think that will be well served by having, uh, Congressman Jordan's personal

00:10:25.420 engagement and involvement. Uh, your thoughts. I, I mean, I, as you saw on the floor, I voted for Jim

00:10:32.860 a few times, so I have the exact same opinion. Representative Jordan, as you know, was a founding

00:10:38.700 member of the Freedom Caucus of which now I'm a part of, and I do have the utmost respect. I think not

00:10:44.300 only has he been able to show through, through the impeachment trials against President Trump,

00:10:48.940 that he really does have a titanium spine. But right now, I think the American people need to know

00:10:54.940 that although we might have had, you know, our disagreements on the floor, uh, but that we are,

00:11:01.260 there's a group of people now that are willing to hold even our fellow colleagues. Um, we, we want

00:11:07.100 to hold them to be accountable. And I think representative Jordan has shown the American people that he's the

00:11:12.540 the right man for the job, right place, right time. And I do think that we will see that there will be

00:11:17.900 people brought to justice. Just because someone is a part of the FBI doesn't mean that they shouldn't

00:11:23.100 be subject to the same justice that you and I would face if we broke the law. And so I am interested in

00:11:28.300 finding out what is going to happen with that. I have requested, uh, if I can, to be a member of the

00:11:33.900 church committee so that I can help run some of those investigations and really bring faith back to the

00:11:38.700 American people that we can fix the broken system. And as you saw over the last couple of days,

00:11:44.140 you know, the 20 of us working together now working with our colleagues are going to do some great

00:11:47.820 things for the American people. Uh, we just got word, uh, that, uh, House Freedom Caucus member, uh, Congressman

00:11:56.060 Mark Green has won, uh, the race to be chair of the Homeland Security Committee, defeating, uh, Congressman

00:12:04.220 Dan Crenshaw. Uh, also Mike Rogers, the man who lunged, uh, at Congressman Matt Gates in the heat

00:12:13.180 of the evening Friday has announced that he is stepping down from the, uh, from the steering

00:12:18.940 committee. Uh, do you know what the, uh, situation is there? Um, I can't tell you firsthand because I

00:12:25.580 just flew in this, uh, this afternoon, but what I will tell you is the one thing that I've appreciated

00:12:30.060 that both representative Rogers and also representative Crenshaw has done is they both

00:12:35.980 issued public apologies to us. And I will say that with everything that kind of happened, obviously

00:12:41.660 there were, there were tempers that were high, but I've accepted Dan's apology. I know representative

00:12:46.780 Gates has accepted, um, representative Rogers apology. And I think moving forward, you know,

00:12:52.060 these individuals, um, I don't think that they fully understood what was happening in the back end

00:12:56.620 negotiations of this entire thing, but moving forward, I hope that we can kind of aim our,

00:13:01.100 our metaphorical cannons at the left and really stop some of the corruption as well as some of

00:13:06.140 the woke ideologies we're seeing out of the left. And I think that you're going to see that,

00:13:09.420 you know, when you have Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell attacking us because of the, um, the rules

00:13:14.220 package that we got or that we will get passed, you know, that you're on the right side of history.

00:13:17.900 Absolutely. Uh, I, I, those are two of the most embarrassing people in Congress. I, I, I'm not,

00:13:25.500 I'm not given, uh, uh, uh, represent representative to, uh, to, uh, to nuance and subtlety here. Uh, I,

00:13:33.260 I, I find them absolutely, uh, an embarrassment for the American people to have them even in the,

00:13:38.860 uh, represented the house of representatives. It's just, uh, to me, an obscenity. Uh, let's turn to

00:13:46.220 further your personal, uh, uh, ambitions, if I can put it that way, what you want to accomplish,

00:13:53.380 uh, in your first term, uh, in the house of representatives, uh, give us a sense of what

00:14:00.000 is most important to you on the, on the Republican agenda. Well, actually interesting that you brought

00:14:06.200 that up because I was just meeting with my, my legislative director and I was going over with

00:14:12.020 her on some of the existing legislation that's out there on what happened to the service members

00:14:17.540 that were kicked out of the military due to not taking the COVID-19 vaccine. And so, as you know,

00:14:23.800 I'm a veteran and my husband was actually also one of those service members that in December of last

00:14:29.540 year, for religious reasons, did not want to take the vaccine. And so he was discharged after 12 years

00:14:34.640 in service. And what I'm finding is, although we're moving forward with the Republican majority,

00:14:40.320 we cannot forget those service members that really sacrificed a lot for our country. And ultimately,

00:14:45.440 because of the Biden's agenda, we're really kicked, kicked out into the cold. And so I would like to

00:14:51.040 co-sponsor legislation to take care of those service members after their fact, make sure that

00:14:55.860 their service record is corrected so that they're not receiving anything other than an honorable

00:15:00.580 discharge and potentially giving them the opportunity to either rejoin the military and or

00:15:05.860 receive sometimes their retirements if they were kicked out prematurely.

00:15:10.520 You mean to tell me they didn't receive honorable discharges?

00:15:14.360 From what I was hearing initially early on, there are some members that were discharged with other

00:15:19.840 than honorable discharges, which means that it's not considered a dishonorable discharge, but it's coded

00:15:24.980 differently. And sometimes that coding can have an effect on employment. Sometimes it can have an effect

00:15:30.420 on benefits. And either way, any service member that was kicked out because of that, it's not right,

00:15:36.500 right? We see now that there has been a lift on the COVID-19 mandates. And the one thing that always

00:15:42.320 frustrated me is why is it that service members were kicked out, but some of the same congressmen and

00:15:48.020 women that were fighting for this mandatory vaccine, they were actually exempt because of the way that 0.99

00:15:52.980 Congress taught the rules. And so that to me is infuriating. A lot of these service members, you know,

00:15:58.460 sometimes the military is the only thing that they had. And so we took that from them and we need to

00:16:02.680 make sure that we're taking care of them after the fact. So I will be actively engaged in that.

00:16:06.620 And then also focusing on fighting right now, what's happening with the rise of China.

00:16:10.940 I think that we are in the biggest economic warfare with them that we're going to see in my lifetime.

00:16:15.620 And so I'm hoping to really do everything that we can to get back to American energy independence and

00:16:21.080 also decoupling from China in every way, shape or form.

00:16:23.460 Well, good for you. And going back to those service members who were separated with other

00:16:31.360 than an honorable discharge because of their reasons, whatever those reasons were to not

00:16:37.320 be vaccinated is an outrage. First of all, the Biden administration itself had to accede to the

00:16:45.460 fact that it was a very stupid move. Our service members, we can't recruit enough service members 0.99

00:16:51.900 right now for any branch of our military. And to have the temerity to do that without a vote of

00:16:58.740 the Congress, without a vote of the Senate, the representation of the people's will is just 0.99

00:17:05.980 ignorant. And I just want to congratulate you for taking that on. And we will be following you and 0.88

00:17:13.240 your efforts to make that happen. It's just too important to those patriots who are serving this

00:17:18.600 country in uniform. It's outrageous. Thank you very much. And I can tell you that there's been

00:17:23.500 a lot of people that have reached out that have asked specifically that we do remember them and

00:17:29.080 that we continue that fight. So if they are listening, don't worry. I want to let you know

00:17:33.040 that there are good people. We're going to be fighting for you and we're going to get it done

00:17:37.000 because right now, especially, I think the American people realize if there's one thing that this

00:17:41.500 administration has shown us is that, you know, they're going to make a lot of mistakes,

00:17:45.560 but we can help kind of fix it as best as we can. And so I hope to do that with my Republican

00:17:51.900 colleagues of the 118th Congress. Great. I want to turn to one last question here. The House is

00:17:58.000 expected to vote soon on a $70 billion cut in the Internal Revenue Service budget to fulfill the

00:18:06.260 Speaker McCarthy's promise when he won the gavel to make sure that those 87,000 new IRS

00:18:15.540 agents don't have the money to carry out new audits on American citizens. We just found out,

00:18:22.300 by the way, that the most aggressive audits were against those people who are at the lowest pay

00:18:26.980 levels. This IRS, this administration is an affront to American values, to the American people,

00:18:36.880 and everything that you all can do in the 118th Congress to roll back these totalitarians who call

00:18:45.140 themselves Democrats, will be much appreciated, and the Republic depended on the outcome. I just want

00:18:51.700 to ask you here, as we conclude, what your thoughts are on that legislation and all of the promises made

00:19:01.880 in the first week, first order of business here. Do you think it's all going to move forward

00:19:07.140 successfully? Absolutely. I can tell you that I am looking forward to voting yes on that repeal of

00:19:13.800 those 87,000 IRS agents and the funding going along with it. But more importantly, I think that you will

00:19:19.760 also see the Republican Conference adopting that rules package that we fought so hard for. And I'd be

00:19:25.920 really interested to see what members of Congress vote to keep the IRS agents. I think that'll be an

00:19:30.980 interesting vote. I think you're exactly right. We always give our guests here, Representative Luna,

00:19:38.560 we always give our guests the last word. And if you will, your concluding thoughts.

00:19:45.720 Yeah, just keep faith. Thank you for all your support. And if you want to follow us on the trail and see

00:19:51.500 what we're doing up here in Washington, you can always head over to my official Twitter account

00:19:55.980 at Rep Luna or follow me on my personal at Real Anna Paulina. Okay. And we'll put that out as well

00:20:02.540 on our social media. We appreciate you being with us, Representative Luna. Again, good talking with

00:20:08.320 you. I wish you all the very best. Thanks so much. And God bless you. Thank you. God bless you.

00:20:13.660 Representative Anna Luna, our guests coming up on The Great America Show include Congressman James

00:20:19.380 Comer, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Brent Bozell, conservative activist and head of the Media

00:20:25.220 Research Center, Congressman Matt Rosendale, one of the Freedom Caucus members who stood tall in the

00:20:30.840 congressional reform negotiations, and Scott Perry, chair of the Freedom Caucus, and of course,

00:20:36.260 a stalwart in the reform talks as well. Please be sure to be with us all week. Thanks. God bless you.

00:20:42.120 And may God bless America.

The Great America Show - January 10, 2023

REP. LUNA SAYS GOP DEBATE AND NEGOTIATIONS WERE NEVER PERSONAL, ALL ABOUT CONGRESSIONAL REFORMS, TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

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