Brandon Gill is the President of the 27th congressional district of Texas, a freshman Republican Congressman who was first elected in 2004 and served in the House of Representatives from Texas from 2004 to 2017. In this episode, Brandon talks about his experience as a freshman in Congress, what it's like to be the president of a new congressional class, and what it means for the future of the country.
00:02:33.640The first part of that seems obvious to me.
00:02:35.760The class is fully on board with Trump in a way that you did not see in 2016, 2017.
00:02:41.300Is the rest of the GOP conference, some of the older members, some of the perhaps more establishment members, for any Republican Speaker of the House, I have such pity for Mike Johnson.
00:03:24.280And there are very distinct ideological strains within the Republican Party, as we've talked about before.
00:03:29.540There's the paleoconservatives and the neoconservatives and the Reaganite fusionists.
00:03:35.160And then there's everything – the libertarians.
00:03:37.760And then there's everything in between.
00:03:39.960So coalescing all of these disparate ideological groups into a single political body to get an agenda passed is extraordinarily difficult.
00:03:50.300So, you know, I do not envy Speaker Johnson at all.
00:03:55.100But I think that everybody realizes that, too.
00:03:57.800I think that there's a broad recognition that we were elected with a mandate from the president, but that we've got one shot to execute here.
00:04:06.360That if in two years we go back to our districts and we say, I ran on securing the border, I ran on extending the Trump tax cuts, I ran on fighting against this weird, woke trans agenda, and we didn't do any of it, we're not going to keep the majority.
00:04:22.860So I think that we realize that we have to come together.
00:04:26.780It's more an issue of necessity than anything else.
00:04:29.840Well, tell me a little bit about that, what you're seeing down the line in two years, because it seems to me that this mandate, this new coalition that you've got, brings with it new kinds of policies, new ways of looking at politics.
00:04:44.340I wonder, if you go back to your district in two years and you say, hey, I did exactly what every other Republican congressman has ever done.
00:05:04.220Do you think that you will be reelected?
00:05:06.300Or do you think that the new class of Congress brought in by this new coalition is demanding something different than you saw during the Bush era or during the other Bush era or even during the Reagan era?
00:05:17.680Is this, what does it mean to be a new kind of Republican?
00:06:37.100They see that it's going to require a more muscular conservatism, more fight on our side to actually get us back to the country that we know and love and want to live in.
00:06:54.520Now, do you think there is a divide in not just the electeds, but in the people around the electeds?
00:07:02.260Meaning, I'm seeing demands from GOP voters that are maybe at odds with demands from GOP donors or GOP institutions or GOP nonprofit organizations or whatever.
00:07:16.920How are you going to work that conflict?
00:07:21.060Yeah, and I think a really good example of that, right, is immigration.
00:07:26.940And that's been one of the driving factors.
00:07:29.440You know, for a very long time, there's been this sort of Faustian bargain between Republicans and Democrats.
00:07:36.940And Democrats wanted to open the borders because they wanted to flood the country with illegals who they believed would be voting for them in the future.
00:07:43.860And historically, that's been a pretty good bet, actually.
00:07:48.740And Republicans knew what was going on, I think, whether they wanted to say it or not.
00:07:53.040But they went along with it because there was a massive cheap labor lobby.
00:07:57.140And there was this libertarian notion that we need to embrace not only the free flow of capital across international boundaries, but the free flow of labor as well.
00:08:08.120And that that would create – that would be pro-growth economic policy that would – and that was sort of the only end that we were looking towards.
00:08:46.120We're looking towards the same route to the same destination.
00:08:47.660And that is, let's undermine our culture, our society, all of the things that are bedrock American principles that our economy sits on top of.
00:09:00.760So we enjoy this amazing free enterprise system that's created an enormous amount of prosperity for our country.
00:09:08.520And it's been great for wealthy Americans, for working class Americans, for everybody in between.
00:09:14.960But that sits upon a certain amount of cultural principles, you know, a certain degree of cultural homogeneity.
00:09:23.340You know, we all worship the same God.
00:09:25.520We all have the same, generally speaking, moral principles.
00:09:29.060And obviously there's some diversity, but I mean –
00:09:31.260The Founding Fathers wrote about this.
00:09:32.440The Framers of the Constitution wrote about this.
00:09:34.120Of course, but by and large we all have the same cultural principles and that creates social trust.
00:09:40.980That creates an environment that's much more conducive to the type of robust American capitalism that we've gotten to enjoy.
00:09:49.080Mass migration, I think more than anything, undermines that.
00:09:52.760You see a federal government that seems explicitly almost to pursue the interests of foreigners over American citizens, you know, at our expense in so many different ways.
00:10:05.560So I think, long story short, I think that we're recognizing that we've got to move in that direction.
00:10:11.120We've got to realize that we have to represent our voters.
00:10:14.500And I think that, you know, the donors and everybody else will realize that long term.
00:10:20.000I think it doesn't need to be a terrible, all-out, bloody conflict between the voters and the donors because, you know, without the donors, the voters are going to have a hard time getting their messages out in campaigns.
00:10:32.460But without the voters, the donors are just setting their money on fire, you know.
00:10:35.940I mean, I don't think that donors who are maybe stuck in an outdated and now disproven ideological fantasy that open borders, you know, so long as they're legal open borders or something, can lead to American prosperity and solidarity.
00:10:52.020You know, they can't redefine reality and said no amount of money is going to let them redefine reality.
00:10:58.000So I think there is a way that both groups need to recognize their interests are aligned, you know, in significant ways.
00:11:24.720Well, I think for migration first, if you think of what issue touches every single other issue, you know, whether it's housing prices, ultimately the size and scope of the welfare state, which impacts taxation, education, health care.
00:11:40.720I mean, every single political issue is touched by mass migration because that impacts the – that is the makeup of the country.
00:15:09.360Ted Cruz had been running on migration mostly, and then toward the end of the campaign, there was that great ad where Colin Allred, the football player tackles a little girl on the football field.
00:15:19.620He was taking on men and women's sports, and I think that really, really pushed Senator Cruz over the finish line.
00:15:26.940And I think it's because, it reminds me of the line in Orwell's 1984, where it was, the party told you not to believe the evidence of your eyes and ears.
00:15:35.640That was their last and most final command.
00:15:37.580And I think whenever the Democrat Party's entire messaging is contrary to what you know is common sense, it's contrary to basic reasoning, it's contrary to everything you can see in the world, that just doesn't work politically.
00:15:52.620Nobody wants to live in a world where boys are going in girls' bathrooms or their locker rooms or playing on their sports fields.
00:16:00.400There's something so obviously disordered about that, and you don't have to have a philosophical foundation.
00:16:11.840Some people can give you all the profound philosophical or theological reasons as to why this is wrong, but some people think it's just kind of gross and yucky.
00:16:26.780And I think that we've got to, there's a level of common sense that we have to embrace, and we have to embrace it because it's common sense.
00:17:34.420It was 158 who voted against the Lake and Riley Act, which would have told DHS to apprehend illegal aliens who are committing burglary and theft on American soil.
00:17:44.580So illegal aliens who are pillaging American citizens on our territory would have told DHS to apprehend them.
00:17:53.280Is it because they just are true believers, ideologues, and they think we need to let illegals commit crimes and we need to let fellows into the girls' room?
00:18:01.820Or is it some stick and carrot of funding?
00:18:07.800So, and I'll give you one more example and then I'll answer your question.
00:18:11.000We just walked off the House floor today and we voted on one of Nancy Mace's bills, which would have declared rape and domestic violence a deportable offense.
00:18:21.320So if you're not currently a deportable offense, if you're an illegal alien on American territory right now and you rape an American citizen, this bill would have said you need to be deported.
00:18:31.560And if you had committed that in your home country, you shouldn't be allowed into our country.
00:18:35.460And that bill had a majority of Democrats vote against it.
00:18:40.560And it raises the question, I think, for the Democrat Party, which is, do you represent the interests of American citizens who are here, who are law-abiding?
00:18:51.780Or do you represent the interests of rapist illegal aliens?
00:18:55.740And their voting record suggests the latter.
00:18:58.000You're not even being needlessly provocative.
00:19:09.620So, but to your question, why are they doing this?
00:19:14.560And I think that there are sort of two answers.
00:19:17.780One of them is what we alluded to earlier, which is the electoral consequences of open borders and creating chaos.
00:19:24.780So, Democrats know that you bring in massive amounts of people, which effectively disenfranchises American citizens, right, once you allow illegal aliens to vote.
00:19:34.580And Democrats are pushing to allow illegal aliens to vote.
00:19:37.240And in municipal elections, you see that in San Francisco and in parts of New York, that is the direction they're going.
00:19:42.920Chuck Schumer has said that the goal is amnesty for illegal aliens, which, of course, gives them voting rights.
00:19:49.700So, that changes the political composition of, obviously, where they're voting.
00:19:55.100But there's also the question of the electoral count.
00:19:59.480So, mass migration increases the population in blue states, particularly like New York and California.
00:20:35.640Because we have birthright citizenship, their kids vote, their grandkids vote, and their kids and grandkids are overwhelmingly likely to vote for Democrats.
00:20:56.500We're in a political environment right now where neither party is likely to have a major majority in the House, whether it's Republicans or Democrats.
00:21:05.040Right now, we've got a two- to four-seat majority, depending on who's in and out, right?
00:21:09.120So, whenever you're talking about flooding, you know, 10 million-plus illegal aliens into the country, that has a major impact, potentially, on the balance of power in the House of Representatives in Washington.
00:21:25.060To say nothing about the fact that the Electoral College also relates to that kind of apportionment, too.
00:21:30.060I mean, every four years, whenever we think about who's going to win the electoral vote, we're talking about are they going to get 270, or are they going to get 272, 280?
00:21:40.220I mean, it's rare that you see these big landslides like President Trump just got.
00:21:46.900So, these are major, major political changes.
00:21:49.520But I do think there's another angle here, which is illegal aliens, libertarians notwithstanding, they do commit crimes at higher rates than American citizens do.
00:22:02.680They do undermine our cultural fabric.
00:22:06.120They do create – they do reduce social trust.
00:22:08.800I mean, there is a lot of serious cultural problems and social problems with the mass influx of illegal aliens.
00:22:15.400You mix that on top of what you see the left doing in cities where Soros-backed prosecutors are refusing, absolutely refusing to prosecute crimes.
00:22:58.000And you often find that it's the same people committing hundreds and hundreds of crimes and prosecutors refuse to – and local DAs refuse to throw them in jail.
00:23:06.700So you ask yourself, why is the left creating an environment that is inherently destabilizing for American citizens?
00:23:13.680And you can think about it as what is the type of citizen that is beneficial electorally to Republicans versus the type of citizen that is good for Democrats?
00:23:23.480And what is the social environment that is good for either political party?
00:23:28.440And I think that whenever you turn society upside down, you create an environment where the law is not enforced, either at the border or within the country.
00:23:36.920That creates a level of chaos that is much more conducive to big government solutions.
00:23:42.400You know, the Democrat mantra for a long time has been never let a good crisis go to waste.
00:23:47.720And I think the next step is if there's not a good crisis, create one and then use it to your political advantage.
00:23:53.940Sometimes you hear the phrase anarcho-tyranny.
00:24:10.500We've just got to have the courage to stand up against it.
00:24:13.640So, okay, in the remaining moments that I have you here, what are the odds that the White House can do – it can fix these problems on its own?
00:24:23.160The White House has substantial power on its own, especially through the agencies.
00:24:26.840And what are the odds that Congress will be able to support the White House and even advance its own agenda?
00:24:32.380And, you know, any president, certainly any Congress in a two-year period has a very limited number of things that it can actually get over the finish line.
00:24:41.700And that's when – before you even consider herding cats and whipping votes among Republicans.
00:24:46.220So how many things can you really get done – at least I didn't say two years – and what are the odds you get them done?
00:24:52.140Right. I think that – well, I can tell you we're going to fight to get as much as we possibly can done.
00:24:57.340Now, the biggest priorities, if you were to rank them, I think, for Congress would be border security, energy, taxes.
00:25:05.420Maybe not exactly in that order, but those would be sort of the top priorities.
00:25:09.320There is a recognition that we have to get this done to save the country, that we don't have a choice.
00:25:16.300President Trump is going to come in and he's going to institute the massive variety of executive orders.
00:27:38.620They tried to put him off the ballot so people wouldn't even have the chance to vote for him.
00:27:43.000The liberals were openly campaigning on destroying the Supreme Court to give themselves a permanent majority to do whatever they want with our law.
00:27:51.040They were openly campaigning on getting rid of the filibuster so they could ram through whatever kind of legislation they wanted.
00:27:56.380They were openly talking about giving millions, possibly tens of millions of people amnesty, fundamentally change the electorate of America, give themselves a permanent majority forever.
00:28:05.320That's what Elon Musk was calling attention to.
00:28:09.540And because Trump so thoroughly destroyed Kamala Harris in the ballot box, and even this president, Joe Biden, who allegedly has dementia, so they have to get him out and put this woman in.
00:28:21.040Because of all of these implausible events, we got a reprieve and an opportunity, maybe a slim opportunity, to fix the country before the Democrats deal the death blow.
00:28:33.260That's a big charge that you and your colleagues have in the House.
00:28:35.800It's a huge charge, and I think we recognize that it's almost like a second chance.
00:28:56.760We've got to have the courage to secure the border.
00:28:59.540We're going to get attacked like crazy whenever we do it.
00:29:01.860Whenever we start deporting illegal aliens and actually taking this country back, the leftist media is going to come after us.
00:29:07.960Like the business lobby, the cheap labor lobby is going to attack us.
00:29:13.180Whenever we start drilling on American land like we should be, the green energy activists are going to start coming after us.
00:29:19.940Whenever we stop boys from going in girls' bathrooms, the transgender activists are going to come after us.
00:29:25.980My point is we're going to be attacked from every single conceivable angle, and we've got to have the backbone to withstand that and carry out the agenda that voters told us they want in this country.
00:29:40.180We want to be able to recognize the country that we grew up in.
00:29:43.800We want to be able to live in a normal, common-sense nation where we can get a good job, get married early, have lots of kids, provide for our families without the welfare state.
00:29:54.560That's the America that everybody wants to live in.
00:29:58.400We've got to execute, but we've got to have the backbone to do it, and I think we do.
00:30:01.700So true, and your point on courage, it's not just one virtue.
00:30:05.020It's the prerequisite for all the other virtues because there have been plenty of members of Congress who have known all the right things and who could write probably a pretty good essay about all the right things, but they just, you know, it takes a spine and a few other anatomical features to actually do it.
00:30:20.540You know, and they couldn't be bothered, but you've got to do it because if we look back two years, four years, and we've squandered this opportunity, it could feel – we might wish that we hadn't even won.