Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time now to check in with US Senator James Langford. How are
you doing today, sir, I am doing very well. Actually, good
morning to you. We got a lot on the table today and a lot
of things going on. One hits a lot of people, especially right here.
Well I guess it hits them everywhere. How long do I have to
wait for my passport? It seems like it's taking forever. It is taking
forever. This administration's had a hard time getting a lot of things done,
and a lot of just basic government functions they've really struggled to do. Passports
is on that list as well. Passports used to take six weeks. Now
they're taking fifteen to eight. And I honestly when people call and say how
long does it take to get a passport now, I tell them, get
your passport first, book your travel later. Because of this administration is so
bad at getting passports done. I actually wrote a bill working with the State
Department to say how do we actually get fixed and unwound where it would take
less than twelve weeks to be able to get a passport that twice as long
as it should but keep that as a maximum that I could ever take.
And then to also have a setup to say where people could be able to
track where their passport is in the process. What people call my office and
say, I requested passport four months ago, I have no idea I've been
coming tomorrow, or if it's coming at all, or if they've even got
it. And it's amazing. You can deliver a package from Walmart and you
know exactly where it is in the process of getting to you. But if
you order a passport, you have no idea. The government just doesn't even
tell you. So trying to be able to fix that as well, so
we get some transparencyings process. Wow, wait, this is this is crazy.
So you got you got the bill ready to rock and roll here and
let's get this thing taken care of. Yeah. I fully agree that this
is not a part is an issue, that's just a good government issue.
Government should be able to take care of basic functions like passports, and for
this administration, they've struggled with just basic things. And so let's get that
fixed and get that turned around. Very good. Now, I understand that
you're making sure that NATO countries contribute their pair share. This sounds like something
that President Trump has started. But it's kind of the interest I guess from
the wine house kind of waned here a little bit. Yeah, it is.
This isn't a basic agreement. If you're going to be in NATO and
part of that agreement, that security alliance, you have to do at least
two percent of your GDP going towards defense. That's not a big number,
but just to say you've got to do at least that. So what we're
looking for is other countries can just depend on somebody else to be able to
defend in saying on the NATO alliance and now don't have to do anything it
that have to say, everybody pulls your weight. Everybody's standing up and defending
not only their own country, but the countries are around them on it.
Several of the NATO countries, fect the majority of the NATO countries are not
doing that. So before President and left out for the NATO summit, I
sent a letter in to say this should be a priority part of the conversation
and NATO is pulling its own weight. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine is
not a big enough wake up called the NATO to say you need to be
well prepared. I don't know what it would be, but some of the
nations still have not done it. Others, by the way, half they've
actually stepped up and they're actually doing more for their defense. Good. They
need to get there, But we still have some NATO countries not pulling their
own weight. Well, wow, that's incredible. You'd think that things are
happening in their own backyard they be a little bit more ready to participate.
But that's the way it's going. It appears. Yeah, well some of
them are. Some of them are engaging what the UK is doing, Germany
is doing. There's quite a few nations that stepped up, Sweden, Finland
that they've stepped up in significant ways to say, hey, we're going to
do national defense and we're going to make sure that we're ready to be able
to knowledge defend ourselves but our neighbors. But it is not enough for a
few others. How about that. There you go a couple of things that
the economy seems that you know, a few senators were on TV taking victory
lapse last night saying, oh, the economy is getting better. Well it
grouped by well, the inflation went up, by three percent, and that's
not including food, which by the way, rose even high in price.
YEP, that is true, and it is amazing. A three percent inflation
rate is still a pretty good rate on it, and I want to see
that higher. That just means the prices are last years and three percent.
So if you didn't get a raise bigger than three percent, then you're not
keeping up with it. So what I'm looking for is to be able to
get rid of inflation. This inflation. No question that we've dealt with this
spiraling inflations because of the massive overspending the Biden administration. What they came in
just dumped trillions of dollars on the economy and that here's free money, and
everybody's like, great, I'd love free money. But free money has a
consequence not only in massive debt, but also in massive inflation. And so
that's been a major problem during the time of COVID when we're trying to stabilize
and just keep everyone alive. That's different are coming out of COVID and the
administration to start pouring money out there. That's really what sparked this. So
we're still dealing with the consequences if you're trying to buy a home right now.
The mortgage rates are sky high, buying a car, so many other
things on credit and debt. Those are all the direct consequences. And for
people to stand up and say, look, three percent in places, great,
everyone's gonna say great. But it's still almost eight percent to get a
home loan now, so that's dramatically slow in the economy. Down, Senator,
anything else you'd like to share with us while we have you, No,
I'll tell you. I'll tell folks all the time, keep working,
keep praying. This is not a time that we need to be able to
just sit back and say it's terrible. Nothing can be done. Lots can
be done. Number One, We're Americans. We fixed broken things. If
something's broken, then we actually fix it, not just it back and complain
about it. And the second thing is none of this is bigger than God.
So let's pray, let's get to work, and let's just keep going.
There are a lot of good things that are still happening, but it
is up to us and our families to be able to get it done.
Senator, thanks for being with us today.