Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time now to visit with Congressman Josh mc keene. And you've been
very busy a recent vote on that TikTok situation. That kind of break that
down for us and then tell us you know how you went on that.
Yeah, Tom, it was truly a tough decision. It's tough because people
were ascribing First Amendment rights to this, and so I want to just decide
for that. And so that's that's not what was going on. This was
not about content. You've got Supreme Court cases that will you know, verify
that when it's about the conduct. And I'll give you an analogy. I
think it's actually a Supreme Court case. I think it covers a library.
It is either a library or a bookstore where a man came in and robbed
the store and and something along that effect. And what they what, what
the lawsuit intended was this illicted activity. May it may not have been a
theft of somebody stealing out of the store, It may have been embezzlement.
But nonetheless, whatever the crime was, they contended and said you can't do
it then, because they're the first Amendment right, and we're peddling information.
So they tried to use the excuse of the first Amendment was in play in
you know, surrounding the illicted conduct. And so the Supreme Court ultimately said,
look that the conduct, not the content of what's going on in the
business enterprise is what matters here. So it's the same thing with with what's
happening with TikTok is their conduct of espionage. Of since twenty seventeen, China
passed the law no business that has nationals ties anybody that's in ownership citizenship in
China can hold proprietary information. It has to be subject to the CCP.
And so we know that this information is not safe. So what this bill
simply said was if you want access to the market of the United States,
then you're going to have to go in this US entities and control of it
because of what you know your gun store purchases. So but there's that element.
Then there's also the element of the influence pedaling. And Article one,
section eight is Congress the authority of its at enemerated powers the opportunity to regulate
commerce. And so when we have influence peddling that is stiming what information comes
in. If you were to type in the Chinese virus and on TikTok bill
totally defraud you on that term. Whereas you look at any other information source
Chinese virus that will come up, they're purposely not providing true information, which
you know, of the course of one generation and another is going to lead
people to an understanding it's not truth. So Congress has authority to regular commerce
is you will divest if you want access to this market. And so ultimately,
you know, Chip Roy, myself, a number of conservatives that were
you know, right at the wire, really concerned about how this thing would
would would be implemented, ultimately felt like that the greater good was a yes
vote on it. Thanks for very much for explaining it, because a lot
of folks were thinking, oh my gosh, you gonna take my toy away
off my phone, and that wasn't the case at all, and that what
again was coming from TikTok I believe it or not, a lot of we
also know that people say, well, you take this away, you're gonna
you know, take away the authority of people to have information. Number one,
there's a high propensity that people have TikTok also have Facebook and Instagram and
all these other social media platforms, so they're already using these other platform I
would say that to begin with. But the second thing is it's gonna be
somebody that's going to purchase TikTok's US market, and so there's not going to
be an infringement of of access to TikTok. It'll just be a matter of
who has control of the information, who has stroll over influenced peddling. Very
good. Uh. Now, money it seems to be one of those things
that you can't do without, and it seems like we're when we talk about
our nation's budget, we're doing a lot without real money. Wow, it
seems to be a sore spot with you, and it's a smart spot with
a lot of our listeners. Our nation's budget or lack thereof one. Yeah,
Look, I I was a no a couple of weeks ago on the
one point six five trillion dollars. It's gonna spend more than we had under
Nancy Pelosi's discretionary budget. The broker deal with the Democrats after two crs three
crs, and yet this week they'll complete that with a sick appropriation bills that
are left, and I'll be know on that. I believe the better play
was to do what Thomas Massey had made sure was a part of the FRA
of last summer, which was a one percent cut. And I'm one of
those that believes across all discretionary portions that we could live with the one percent
cut at least as a as a retraining of people. There's such a a
a bad habit in Congress whi's always increasing spending. In members of Congress,
they don't know how to say no. They don't know how to go back
home and defend a no vote because of increased spending. So even as small
as the one percent across the board cut, to start giving members with leadership
saying come on, we've got to start doing this to training making it a
habit because one hundred percent of our discretionary budget has borrowed money. One hundred
percent of what we're spending twelve months debating is stolen from our kids. There's
not a dime of it. It's not borrowed from our from our kids.
And so to have leadership it says we can't continue this. That's what real
leadership, I think got to look like I'm gonna be a no. And
there's only about eighty to one hundred and twenty Republicans out of the full two
hundred and twenty moments of those who probably will vote no. It just shows
you we've got a real problem in the Republican conference of those who will not
support spending cuts. That's the reality we would be doing the one percent across
the board cut. Look, you've got Democrats who are saying, why can't
you guys just agree on a one percent cut? Do it every year for
a while, and as long as it takes, people just eventually would think
that the lines would cross of revenue to restraining government spending. You got Democrats
that are even saying this. Yeah, We've got Republicans that going about twenty
Republicans on consistently it won't go that pathway, and it's going to take an
outcry for their constituents otherwise we're going to be up against what I continue to
talk about a sovereign sovereign debt crosses. Either we choose how we respond to
the debt crossis is looming, or it's gonna be forced upon how we on
us how we respond. I would rather control that. Indeed, we're talking
with Congressman Josh Rockeen, and Josh, I understand you're going to be back
home doing what you do and have been really kind of famous for not only
here, but even the New York Times takes interest in your town hall live
town hall meetings. How dare somebody in a representative republic go out and ask
people real questions and seek their opinions in person and live. We're going to
be covering the southern half of the second Congressional district, of course, the
second this is the lower half of it south of a forty rather and we'll
be doing fourteen town halls, you know, in a little over a week.
Wow, and and so yeah, Palm, look, that's it just
goes to show you that, you know, people are aren't doing these things.
Part of it's because technology has made it easier to interact, but there's
nothing that can replace face to face interaction. I don't care, you know,
we do the telephone town halls also, it's a good place for us
to get our message out, to get some questions for constituents in but you
know the course of our town hall, our telephone town halls, we don't
get the kind of questions. People can't read your body language. They can't,
you know, decipher whether or not you're genuine or if you're you know,
operating the theatric town halls are a place for your constituency to examine you.
That's the value and so then to put you on the spot. And
so we're going to continue to do those. Yeah, you had I encourage
them. I encourage them too. I love them. You had a reporter
from the New York Times one of the times you were here in Bartlesfield for
a town hall, following you around because there was some sort of disbelief that
this actually could take place and somebody would actually do this. Yeah, people
have stopped doing it. You know, out of the four hundred and thirty
five members of the House, I'm not sure talking about nationwide. I know
that there's a few I've heard of that are continuing to do a strong number
of town halls, but most most of that has dissipated over the last end
of fifteen years. So I of course, like many overstaffers of Tom Kober
and got to see him do this, continue to do it, and you
know, I'll watched people stand up these downhall meetings with him, and it
happens with us. People will disagree with us. We've tried to em Besides,
we do it civilly so that we can, you know, hear from
each other and really hear from each other. You know, a moment somebody
starts yelling at you, you're not really gonna hear. They don't really hear,
you don't hear. All it does is, you know, cause discontent
in the room. But we encourage civility people to their great credit. Out
of the seventy to eighty of these things we've done since last year, I'm
know about seventy to eighty live town halls, we've had great civility people come
in. They may disagree with me, people are are kind and how they
do it, and I respond in the same way. And if people give
people a chance to really, you know, make sure are you really listening
to all sides? Are you so locked into a framework that you can't hear
other sides? And so I want to be teachable tom and and I tell
people often if you can tell me constitutionally how what I'm doing is wrong,
then you got my ear. And so that's my challenge to anybody in there
and by the way I'm representing them, show me constitutionally how I'm doing this
different than what uh the founders would demand. And uh and you promise you
You've got an attentive year, and I will hear you out and try to
do everything I can to respond in accordance with fixing where I've aired. And
if folks have a question or comment, you have both a website and you
know email that the folks can get a hold of you that way. Imagine
yeah, that's yeah, So they can get hold of our Clairemore office.
And nine to one eight two eight three six two six two is our phone
number. I call the Claymore office. So they can find that number on
our website at www dot Rourkeen the r E C H E and Burkeen dot
house dot g O V. They can also call our Washington DC number.
Actually read those call reports that come in to hear also how people are voicing
their opinions and that number in d C two O two two two five seven
zero one. Thank you once again, Josh Burkeen, our god. We's
been here from a congressional district too in Oklahoma. Appreciate it and hopefully we'll
see you on the road here pretty soon. Thanks Tom, appreciate you having
us back on