Good morning, Good morning, good morning, and we are talking with our
US Congressman joshper Keene. Welcome back, welcome back. You've got some more
of these city halls coming up, and you've got one of live and one
of them that everybody can participate in. You talk them about today, We've
got one at four thirty in the Claremore area, and so Harvey Baptist Church,
I believe is the location. And so I encourage people at four thirty
today Harvey Baptist Church, Claremore or the Vertigers town Hall. Encourage people to
show up tom if if they're able, and let us hear what's important to
them, what they see that we're doing wrong and right on the federal level
and could be informed better. Let's get right into it. Then. We
just had a nice little vote about the death feeling. Yes, I like
to get your perspective on that, so I voted no. Congressman Hearn,
who used to you know, cover Bartlezville was also another no vote. And
I think it's important to point out that there were more Democrats that supported that
on the floor of the House of Representatives than than Republicans. I think it's
important people to know if they're evaluating, was it really a good deal for
for our nation? I can tell you I was not convinced that it was
a good deal for the American people. And the greatest measurement I would do
it quantitatively, by the math, by the numbers. A month ago we
passed limits Saved Grow, which was an extension of the debt with a nine
hundred billion dollars in cuts Year one significant. That was the largest cuts that
had ever happened in the past. The House of Representatives ever some total year
one cuts nine hundred billion. This deal where they're talking about the cuts,
Heritage will tell you it's twelve billion, which you know, in for anybody
who's listening, millions billions. What is twelve billion? In contrast though,
to nine hundred billion dollars that we passed, it's three weeks ago. It's
only one percent. And so in Washington say, theyve played this game for
a lot of years, whereas we'll always do the cuts in year two,
three, four, or five, and those cuts never materialize. So it's
a way to get you to chase you know, don't look behind the curtain
at the guy pulling levers and spinning wheels. That's the way has Washington has
got us into this debt cycle that we're in. And so when the House
Republicans voted for three weeks ago a Limit Saving Grow Act that included eight different
policy reforms, and then just year one cuts that were nine hundred billion,
and now this deal, the Biden McCarthy agreement, is a one percent of
the cuts that we passed out of the House of Representatives year one cuts.
Some of us said, that's not a concession far enough that to change the
trajectory for this nation. Within five years, we're going to have a trillion
dollars that we're going to spend just to service the interest payments on our debt
in five years. That happens to us, and so we're losing this country
in terms of miles, and we're making millimeter adjustments, and we don't have
the time for that anymore. We are kicking the can down the road.
And in addition to not getting the year one cuts that we thought we thought
we should be there, Ronald Reagan said, if somebody agrees with you seventy
eighty percent, then take the seventy eighty percent, come back and get the
rest one percent of what we passed three weeks ago is not seventy or eighty
percent. It's not even fifty percent. Many of us wanted that White House
and the Senate Democrats to come to the table and be able to find a
solution, and even in divided government, I led one more things again,
eight different policy reforms that were part of that we passed three weeks ago.
One of those work requirements, we were going to get able bodied people back
to work. Then this deal, according to the Congressional Budget Office, now
it's going to cost two billion more in what we're going to do for TANF
and SNAP. There were some minor tweaks, but there were also adjustments that
were going to be permanent. And the sum total on the quote work requirement
reforms is the CBO says it'll cost US two billion dollars more over the ten
year window, and it's going to add eighty thousand people more to the Tanneth
and SNAP rials. How is that reform true reform for our able body people
that are able to work at are you know, on the dependency of the
of the federal government. We're talking with Congressman Josh Purckem and Josh, you're
part of the tenacious twenty. How does this reflect on the speaker? Well,
um, so there's something that happens on a vote that you have a
rule vote, which is where it sets the structure of what that vote is
going to look like. And so they were about twenty plus about another nine
who voted not only against the bill but also against the rule. That was
one of them. And I went and had a conversation with the speakers,
one of those you know, key staffers afterwards, and it's one of those
things that you're told in Washington, DC when you first get up there,
that do not vote against the rule. But as thus shared with him,
I believe that's the if i'm my yes is yes and my no is no.
If I'm really against something, I'm really against it. And that didn't
want to have hypocrisy. And so we almost stymied by stopping the rule.
There was a place just before the true vote on the bill. We almost
stopped the bill. But then you all of a sudden, after a stalemate,
you said, about forty or fifty Democrats start making their way to the
floor and flipping their votes. And according to the reports that we're getting,
they were offered earmarks to be able to quote give them earmark parody. So
that's again, look what I learned from Tom Coburn when I was on the
staff years ago, is earmarks or the gateway drugged overspending. So they flipped
Democrats according to their premiument their reports to be able to get them to support
the rule on this deal because offering earmarks to make them look good back in
their districts. And that's that's sad, Tom, That's that's swamp. That
swamp is them. And so for many of us, I do want I
do not want to be a person as I shared this with the Speaker staff
in gentleness, because I believe in being gentle and having hardstands. I said,
look, this wasn't designed to um, you know, thumb you in
the eye. It was designed to say, we expect this this conference to
start pulling to the right, to have in those negotiations, to have true
conservative ideology, that is, pull into the right, not pill pastel that
the Republicans for so long have been have been, you know, moving trying
to play defense all the time, and we never go on the offense to
turn this country around. We are losing this nation, not only financially but
also in this that the woke ideology that's taken us hard left. The time
for half measures is no more. I'm speaking of the nation and protecting it.
Protecting the borders is another big thing that you've been working on too.
You've been druggling a lot of big issues. Yeah. Um, Look,
one of the things that's breaking. I don't know how much is getting on
the national front. I'm on the Homeland Security Committee, and of course Secretary
of my workers, you know, is over the Homeland Security Department for the
United States under him, over the nineteen thousand border patrol agents is a gentleman
by the name of Roel Ortiz. About a month ago at a hearing,
maybe a little more than a month ago, I asked him the same day
that he responded truthfully, he serves the Biden administration. He responded to Mark
Greene that we do not have operational control. To his integrity, he said,
we do not have operational control of that border, which contrast with Secretary
my Orcas has been saying. And then I asked him within an hour,
do you disagree with President Biden's decision? When he used to support when he
was edith senator, he used to support physical bearers. Do you disagree with
his decision on day twenty thirty to buy his executive order by his pen shutting
down those physical barriers that in two thousand and six as US Senator, he
voted for physical barriers fencing, saying, quote in two thousand and six,
the reason why I support fencing is because of the illegal drugs. At a
point through, I said, do you disagree with President Biden's decision to shut
down the two hundred and fifty mile of border wall that's a Congress appropriated funds
for and him by one stroke of his pen shutting it down. And he
responded yes, sir, saying he made national news. Fox News picked it
up. So we learned two days ago he has turned in his resignation,
so that you know details to be forthcoming. Was he forced out because he's
chosen to stand up for truth even at his own detriment. But we need
more people like that that are willing to put their country's best interest first.
We started off talking about your town hall and the verdicts, but you've got
a telephone town hall. How does that work? Well? Um this is
something that um as I went back in the free market years ago. I
wasn't really aware of these until I got elected to Congress. How these are
often utilized. We're also doing the live town halls. We've done thirty five
live town halls in this first four or five six months. And but we're
also doing teleone telephone town halls where it gives the opportunity for people to be
able to get on a phone call and by people asking a question, submit
a question, then we'll discuss that on air and and so that's something we've
done once. This will be our second one. I leave. It's June
sixth at seven pm and UH and so we encourage people to go to Burking
dot house dot gov b R E C H, E E N if they'd
like to participate, and they can call and we'll have a good discussion