Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
We are talking with Congressman Josh bra Keen. And Josh, you've been
quite busy in Washington, DC, but you're also busy back home. First
things first, you got a town hall meeting here in Bartlesville coming up really
soon. Yeah, we're excited. Within a couple of weeks. Well,
I think we've got almost fifteen town halls within a series of three days,
so that when we get back and are doing that step, it's going to
be a number of lives halls before, do you know, meeting with people
of the Bartlesville area, And you've done about sixty of these so far,
and these all worked out pretty darn well. Well, it's a chance for
us to, you know, face the voter and have them tell us where
they agree or disagree with us. Thomas, It's important that I have the
humility to recognize what I don't know, and have the wisdom to know to
listen to others and balanced all that you know, and being guided by my
convictions constitutionally and biblically. We're we're trying to trying to use wisdom and what
position we've been allowed to have here. Well, one of the things that's
happening in the news is something that is something you ran on, which is
fiscal responsibility, and we're to a government funding fight right now. Tell us
a little bit about it and how this is all you know going down.
Well, the Freedom Caucus I'm a part of is right in the middle of
this. You know, as of yesterday, there's some discussion about Freedom Caucus
leaning in with our concerns about making sure that border security and fiscal restraint is
a part of this. In fact, I just got off a call with
someone with Win leadership who is asking me my position, and you know,
I'm trying to do what I committed to the voters of the second Congressional District
to use their voice, their level to turn our country around. Where I
can and where I can have the influence with others, just the highlight that
we're going bankrupt as a nation. That's where we're headed, and and we
have got to see the financial crisis ahead, not just concerns about short term
problems. We've we've had government shutdowns in the past. We had the longest
one on nation's history, winner of twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen for thirty five
days, five billion over the border, and this guy didn't follow. Most
people, if you ask them, they don't even remember that that occurred.
And I'm not making light of furloughs, people you know, having a you
know, federal workers having a delay. Just federal workers. We're not talking
about you know, checks and the mail will still happen if we get into
a government shutdown for veterans, for military, for soul security, for medicare,
for medicaid. What people remember the history of these governments shut down.
You may have a national park that may get temporarily closed, and people you
know privately have to band together to take the trash out of the national park
and movement somewhere. But it's not the sky is falling scenario that the media
likes to hype it up to be. What it is is a chance for
us to reset and really get serious about what is our government not doing and
what is our government spending at the expense of our kids and our grandkids.
Three point two trillions our new numbers this year, because of rising interest rates
and because of just a sensationable appetite to spend outside of our means, our
new deficit numbers. It just came out a couple of weeks ago, gonna
be two point two trillion. That is one year we're gonna overspend that amount.
And that's unbelievable. That we did not get one trillion e gross national
debt until nineteen eighty. Took us two hundred years of government. Nineteen eighty
our sum total aggregation of a total debt by nineteen eighty we tripped a one
trillion dollars threshold and we'll spend that twice over this year when it took us
two hundred years to accumulate. Wow, that's just shocking when you think about
that, it's just absolutely shocking. And the you know, the look of
freedom concusses the little group of us is driving in saying and what can we
get the rest of these Maybe not, they don't fit the same way to
do, but what the same way that we do, but to inspire them
to come on, when you've got two trillion dollars of deficit, we have
got to finally get serious about this. This is incredible. And Josh I
want to ask you this too. How does the whole situation with the with
the border fit into this equation too? Because we're spending a lot of money
with folks who are coming in here on the cheap. Yeah, and and
you know the report there's a lieutenant colonel who's on Ducker Carls's show a few
weeks ago, and and I was talking about the twenty checks that they're sending
out. And so we're diving into that, you know, committee wise and
others to figure out how much is this administration hiding and what they're actually spending,
not just the expensive hospitals and and jail sales and education and state government
in this valley tore picking up the Tab four, but also the federal government
camouflaging this administration camouflaging them, you know, giving money to those that are
coming in this country illegally, and it's not being the full public disclosure about
it. You know. I was, I was assounded at the at the
border at these processing facilities. They sued the federal government. The illegals had
had advocates sued the federal government because when this first started, they were giving
them food at the border with these assistant centers, and a lot of it
was the cultural top food, inclusive of burritos. Well, they got sued.
The I don't as a clue or what. The entity sued the federal
government, and the settled federal government capitulated and is now providing RB type sandwiches
because of the contention there was not enough fiber in the free meals it would
be handed out in these attention centers. Well, that's predible because you're you're
giving cultural food to the folks of a certain culture and suddenly they one the
American food and that that's that's kind of on its head. But it's just
the expense, I mean, the expense of that. And what's crazy because
I've introduced the bill to change you know, eighty percent of any farm mill
right now as food stamps, eighty percent of total dollar of any farm doll's
food stamps. Twenty percent of us going to to jump. Twenty percent of
the food stamp allocation is going to jump food, dessert, and and and
yet you know you got the border. We're gonna make sure you get Arby
sandwiches. But on our food stamps, we're going to continue to allow ice
cream to feed our young adults, and and soda pop ten percent of our
total you know, food expenditure is just going to the water diabetes. Well,
yeah, you're you see, it's just the just the hypocrisy in the
insanity it is. And then at the other end of the spectrum, what
you're giving way for that kind of food gives way to higher bills for medicare
and medicaid down the road. And it's something that you know could really if
they paid attention to, maybe what you're advocating here could save a lot of
money in the long run and save a lot of lives too. As people
know, I'll talk about disc responsibility absolutely. Yeah. Every time that you're
getting a young adult on foot stamps fixated to jump food, then you're just
show us that they will be less productivity over their last time as they reach
to the stage of obesity. And it also is going to steal from them
in the long run. The longevity of life predisposition to cancer and heart disease
and diabetes and all the things that come associated with unhealthy habits goodness, and
if that fairs have to pick up the tab through medicare and medicaid. To
your point many times, indeed, now we've got the city halls that are
town hall read that are coming up here in the short run, and of
course you're going to do a telephone town hall here shortly too, and that's
for folks who really can't get out and can't make it to the other ones.
This is kind of neat. I've participated in a couple of ones that
are similar, but this one's gonna be a little bit different. It's not
going to be one where only the media gets to talk to you. This
is the one where everybody gets to talk to you. Correct. Yeah,
yeah, And look, we're gonna have agreement and disagreement, and we welcome
that. To be able to be, you know, able to give a
position statement and listen to those who disagree, and and be able to lay
out rationally why they disagree, and you know, or be challenged to the
point where if they can show me costitionly that I'm wrong, be able to
be humble enough to change a position, if they can show me constitutions that
I'm wrong. And we'll have the telephone lines and everything else with this story
here at Bartlesville Radio dot com with the news story we're going to be doing
on this. I want to get back to Washington, DC. Uh.
There's talk of impeachment inquiry with this president, mister Biden. Where are we
and what's the stage of this. Well, people may or may not remember.
You know, I was not paying attention was before my time, when
Nixon's in the left office, And that all is a derivative of an impeachment
inquiry, where it was things that were that came after an inpeachment inquiry was
begun that showed that he booked the law. And and so this is just
another tool in toolbox to make sure we can get further access into bank records.
And Tom, I'm already there. I believe that this president has cross
cost suits boundaries. I believe he is violated the Constitution, which is the
grounds for impeachment. I've talked about the border, specifically Article four, Sections
four, which guarantees every state of public called him of government and secto states
against an invasion. And when you have a direction of this administration, the
Congress, the will of Congress that was putting border barriers physical barriers up and
he by executive order takes that away when Congress had appropriated that under the rule
of law, Congress is the one who's to determine the power of the first
Yet twenty days, thirty days into office, he shuts that down. Two
hundred and fifty mile border wall. And then he has directed and been a
consult with this Secretary of Homeland Security and has allowed a perversion of what parole
process was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a case by case
and they turned it into thirty thousand a month. It's it is a violation
of constitutional authority to enforce the law. That's what the construct of Article two.
That's the job of this president is to enforce the law. And when
Congress votes on something and signing the law, it's that president's job to enforcement.
So I'm already there believing that that eachman is already curved with with the
actions that our impeachment grounds has already occurred on the border. But I also
contend that this bribery scheme the Foreign the Corrupt Forign Practices Act, which is
a federal statute passed in the seventies, was modified in the nineties. It
decries that you, as an elected officeholder, don't have to be the one
that is received personal benefit. It's if your family members received personal benefit.
And so you can take that in KNDOM with the three elements of the Constitution
that lay out what is grounds for impeachment. High crimes in thisdemeanors treason and
bribery. Three specific elements that are laid out. Treason is actually defined in
the Constitution, Bribery is not. But we have a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
actually lays out bribery and it says, if your family members are recipient,
and so we know that you know Hunter Biden, and we know that he
was not only given what they'll contend is he's given the illusion of access.
It was an illusion of access Hunter Bidens get the phone getting direct access to
his father, business partner two hundred Biden. Devin Archer, who's already said
that wasn't the illusion of access, there was access. Wow, this is
a incredible times we're living in and not for the best, and it seems
that it just keeps getting deeper and deeper each and every day. And I'm
sure there's going to be a lot of people at the town hall here in
Bartleville coming up that'll be asking a lot of the same questions we're going over
right now, and probably then I know the big word around here is i
as an inflation. And like you said, we've got to get a We've
got to get a control on what we're spending and how we're spending it as
a nation in order to give folks at the power of the dollar back to
them. No, the average person today, average family of four, will
spend eleven hundred dollars more per month about the exact same goods and services as
compared to January or twenty twenty one when it Stration took office. It's a
it's a both the Republican and a Democrat created problem over the last forty years.
But we have seen hyper inflation because of success of spending in the last
two years to a gred leven will ever have and and and so everyone has
to look in the mirror and say, what am I doing to give my
kids in my grandkids the future? And the impatist for what's costing the average
family. What's costing you more right now? What's costing you more right now?
The amount of government you're getting, an amount of government's spending past its
means of revenue. Inflation is because of devaluation of our currency caused by relate
federal spending. It's costing every family member, every person right now. Josh
rakein, how can people get ahold of few of they can't see at a
town hall, and by golly, folks who have been over sixty of them.
Yeah, they can get a hold of us at Burkin dot house dot
gov. They can cause More Office nine one two three six two six two,
Rakine b R E H E and Burkine dot house dot gov. And
we've got office staff at Claremore Office. It will help them on casework and
of course policy related issues. They can call our DC office