BREAKING NEWS: Freedom Caucus Members Issue Blunt Warning To Speaker Johnson About Spending Bills

Forbes Breaking News

2 years ago

House Freedom Caucus members issue a warning to Speaker Johnson about government spending.

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00:00 first. He can, but I want to let the print reporters get some time.

00:03 All right, so you saw today that the rule for CJS failed to garner the votes to pass.

00:11 We want the message to be clear to the American people and to our leadership. We are done

00:16 with the failure theater here. We're not going to pass bills that don't address the problems

00:21 that America faces. Nothing in here to defund the new FBI headquarters, nothing to defund

00:28 the unconstitutional gun registry. The bill is very, very weak. And also, I must say,

00:38 the closed rule on Iran, with the president out there offering Iran $10 billion in the

00:45 light of what just happened in Israel, is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to have a

00:49 closed rule where we can't actually get the legislation that will deny the president's

00:54 ability to send that money to Iran and embolden our enemies and have American citizens paying

01:01 both sides of that war. So we've had enough. We're sending a shot across the bow. We do

01:06 this in good faith. We want to see these bills move. We want to see good, righteous policy,

01:11 but we're not going to be part of the failure theater anymore. I want to turn to Andy Biggs,

01:15 if he's here, and then Chip Roy.

01:17 Yeah, thanks. Ditto with what the chairman said. And I would also throw in continued

01:24 funding for the FBI headquarters. Killing that amendment was ridiculous. But I want

01:29 to point out, I want to talk about something else. We had an amendment on the floor today

01:33 to defund the office that has misplaced over 100,000 unaccompanied children. We don't know

01:41 where they are, but we do know many of them have been placed with pedophiles. There's

01:44 been no vetting. And then I put vetting because this administration changed the vetting and

01:49 Republicans killed that amendment. That is unacceptable. We have got to hold this administration

01:57 accountable. We have to hold our fellow Republicans who allow this kind of tyranny to go forward,

02:02 and we should not be funding that. So I'm going to turn it over to Chip Roy.

02:06 Yeah, look, I agree with Scott. I agree with Andy. Let's be very clear about what's going

02:09 on. We set out this year to change the way this place works. We wanted to change the

02:14 rules. We wanted to restore regular order. We wanted to get to the place where the people's

02:17 voice can be heard, regardless of whether you're in leadership or not. Our election

02:20 certificates are every bit as valuable as somebody who has the title speaker or chairman.

02:24 The fact of the matter is what we saw yesterday unfold by passing by suspension of the rules

02:30 $400 billion of continuing resolution of Pelosi's priorities and Pelosi's spending levels. That

02:35 is unacceptable. Today, they tried to pass a closed rule on Iran, which while it was

02:40 a bill that was targeted towards the $6 billion, it paled in comparison to amendments that

02:45 we had that would have actually checked Iran the way they need to be checked. But getting

02:49 rid of the waiver authority that this administration is abusing to side with Iran over Israel.

02:54 What on earth is going on? Israel is under attack, and we're funding through the CR

02:59 yesterday, Hamas, through dollars that go to the United Nations through UNRWA. That

03:03 is unacceptable. We can't do that. We can't have a closed rule and not have a full-throated

03:07 debate about checking Iran. This is not why Republican voters send Republicans to Washington.

03:13 So we're standing up and we said no today. And the speaker has now 10 days to work it

03:18 out and get Republicans to actually stand up and fight when we get back. He's promising

03:21 a fight. So we're sending a message right now. We expect that fight when we get back

03:26 from Thanksgiving. We need a plan to reduce spending overall for 23 to 24, pay for any

03:31 supplemental spending, stop spending blank check money to Ukraine, stand with Israel,

03:36 hold the Senate in check, and do what we need to do to secure the southern border. That's

03:40 what the voters expect us to do. And that's the message we wanted to send today going

03:44 home for Thanksgiving.

03:45 I would just add on the heels of this CR that kept in place all the Biden, Pelosi, Schumer

03:50 policies and spending levels that are destroying the country, you have, if any bill we should

03:54 be cutting spending on, it would be this bill, the rogue Department of Justice, a rogue FBI.

03:58 And we're actually increasing that spending and doing very little in the way of correcting

04:04 a federal government that's weaponized against its citizens, abusing its power. And so we

04:09 sent a major statement to that effect today. And we're not going to continue to do business

04:12 as usual here in Washington. We want to support our speaker and bringing the change that needs

04:16 to be brought on behalf of the American people.

04:20 I was just going to say, going back to what Representative Biggs said, you know, if it

04:23 was these members' children, I can guarantee you they wouldn't have supported that bill.

04:28 So to put it in perspective, you know, we're up here. There is a moral aspect to this fight.

04:31 And frankly, I mean, to include what happened with the FBI and the weaponized DOJ, we have

04:36 the ability to make change. A lot of people will go on television and tell you one thing,

04:40 but they're doing another thing when it comes to votes and behind closed doors. And we're

04:42 going to be holding them accountable to include this speaker. We like him a lot. He's a nice

04:46 guy, but we're going to make sure that he follows through on what he said he was going

04:49 to do.

04:50 Michael, hold on.

04:51 Yeah, I sit on the Approach Committee too. And one of the big issues I had is that this

04:54 bill really skipped the approach process. And so there are a number of conservative

04:58 amendments that we wanted to offer that did not get into the bill. And, you know, amendments

05:04 like there were two amendments that I had offered that had to deal with how DOJ collects

05:09 information. And so they're not supposed to be able to get this kind of information on

05:11 American citizens or financial data, other kind of data without getting a warrant. And

05:15 so what they've done instead of going through the due diligence of getting a warrant, they

05:19 just go ahead and go to data aggregators and purchase this kind of information to build

05:23 their databases. One of the big issues that the chairman mentioned was the ATF database

05:27 that we found out there's over a billion gun records that they've collected on American

05:31 citizens. Now, that's supposed to be illegal and they know it's supposed to be illegal.

05:34 They just call it something else other than a gun registry. There's a number of other

05:38 issues. One, they were, we found out through a whistleblower, they're giving bonuses to

05:42 agents based on domestic violent extremist cases. And so the issue with that, of course,

05:48 is what we've seen the DOJ label people as. So we've had parents at school board meetings,

05:54 we've seen Catholics, traditional Catholics targeted. You know, these are not the people

05:58 that should be, that agents should be incentivized financially to go after. We want proper due

06:05 diligence. And so if amendments like that aren't going to make it into basic conservative

06:10 bills, then we need to stop this and rethink about the process.

06:13 And so,

06:14 It's not even going to be heard, right?

06:15 Yeah. And so the process got us surfed in this process. And so we need to make sure

06:21 we're doing what's right for the American people.

06:23 Well, part of what happened to in January was to not have closed rules, as they mentioned,

06:29 to be able to have amendments. This didn't happen on this bill. And the only way we're

06:32 going to change the culture here is cut the money off. That's the only way we're going

06:36 to do it. And everybody made a big deal of it. And this isn't against Mike Johnson. He's

06:41 been on the job 20 days. He's a good man. So it's not about Mike Johnson. But this country

06:47 is in financial trouble. The only way we're going to change it is start cutting the funding.

06:51 And this is the only process that we have. But the closed rule was not right. The amendments

06:56 that Michael and everybody else talked about was not right. We should have been able to

06:59 offer that. And talk about Iran that Chip talked about. We're funding them through oil

07:05 money. We're funding them through oil money. This is a spittance. The 10 million or the

07:11 6 billion. So this is the first of a lot of them that we're going to do this on.

07:18 That makes you all confident that you can actually be able to pass a number of appropriation

07:23 bills given the fact that you all obviously have certain concerns on spending. Some of

07:28 your own Republican colleagues are saying no we're already cutting way too much. We

07:31 shouldn't be cutting anymore. They're also already being critical of you all saying that

07:35 you all are holding hostage your own process, your own appropriation process.

07:39 The appropriators are holding the process hostage. The appropriators. They are ganging

07:45 up against the amendments. The amendments that are allowed on the floor. It's essentially

07:48 a kill list. They put them on the floor to act like you're getting your voice knowing

07:53 that they're all going to vote against them. That is what I characterize as fail your theater.

07:57 It looks like it's supposed to be good. You're supposed to be having a voice speaking on

08:01 behalf of your constituents. Each one of us, three quarters of a million people that's

08:06 designed to fail. We're done with that.

08:08 This is important. We've passed seven appropriation bills. When was the last time any of these

08:13 chambers did that on an individual basis? We have three that are sitting there ready

08:17 to be passed, including what the one we're working through right now in labor age. And

08:20 we can work through some of the issues that you rightly recognize. That would be 10. There's

08:25 a couple more that I have issues that we're trying to work through. Obviously, CJS got

08:28 caught up in what happened today with the rule. We can bring it back up the week after.

08:31 The issue here is what is going to be the top line spending level. Appropriators don't

08:35 want to adhere to the FRA. They want to adhere to what you saw in the exchange with me and

08:40 Congresswoman DeLauro in the rules committee night before last, where what you saw her

08:45 admit were side deals where they could plus up all the spending using the kinds of slush

08:49 funds sitting in the Commerce Department right now that they've set up because the appropriators

08:54 want to keep spending money to increase programs. They want to tell the American people one

08:57 thing and then do something different. That's got to change.

09:00 So are you confident that you all will be able to avoid a government shutdown, fund

09:05 a number of those bills by that January 9th, that first deadline January 9th?

09:09 We're not going to shut the government down. If the Senate chooses to do that because we

09:13 send something over to them that is reasonable, the American people can understand that actually

09:18 gets our funding towards a trajectory that doesn't bankrupt America, that's going to

09:22 be on them, not us.

09:23 The Speaker has said he won't do another CR. We're going to hold him to that. We're going

09:27 to take him at his word to that effect. That means we've got to pass the remaining five

09:31 bills as my colleagues have said. That puts us in the strongest negotiating position.

09:34 But then the conference needs to support the Speaker in the negotiations with the Senate.

09:39 And we cannot fear a government shutdown above all else. What we've got to fear is exacerbating

09:45 our debt situation, which is the greatest fiscal crisis the country has ever faced.

09:49 The Republican Party needs to meet the moment and support the Speaker.

09:52 Are there any tenable differences between Speaker Johnson and ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy

09:58 in terms of the policy that they are actually putting on the floor?

10:02 What the difference is is the time frame. Speaker Johnson came in, if you characterize

10:07 it as a football game, at the end of overtime, down three touchdowns, right? That's when

10:12 Johnson came in and you're trying to say, do you hold this quarterback to the same standard

10:16 as the quarterback that got us to that point? No, we do not.

10:19 But if he's going to have another CR, would you hold it to that standard?

10:24 Julie.

10:25 They're heading to the step.

10:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]

BREAKING NEWS: Freedom Caucus Members Issue Blunt Warning To Speaker Johnson About Spending Bills

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