This is later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what
you here weekday afternoon is on the Drive, joined now by our good friend
Senator James Lankford who is in Washington, DC and Senator I wanted to start
right away with this government shutdown. You know, it seems three things happen
this time of the year. The weather gets a little cool, we go
back to school, and a threat of a government shutdown. It is as
predictable as it getting cooler in the fall. It is so good to get
a chance of visit with you again. We should not ever want to get
a government shut down, to the chaos of it. I actually have a
bill that I started working on six years ago that we have worked on,
worked on and trying to be able to build a coalition around this. This
is a non partisan, not just bipartisan, nonpartisan bill. I have Democrats,
have some of the independents in the Senate on this, I have lots
of Republicans on it. It's a very straightforward bill that ends the possible ability
a government shutdown, but keeps us actually debating on the budget issues. That's
the real thing we need to do. There are lots of folks that try
to use a government shutdown to say, well we need to force a conversation
on the hard things. Well, we do need to force a conversation on
hard things. But when you do a government shutdown, government employees don't get
a check during that time period. They will eventually get paid, but they
don't get a check time period. That means a lot of folks that live
paycheck to paycheck, whether it be Border patrol, whether it be people working
for HUD, whether it be people working for FAA, all those folks,
if they live paycheck to paycheck, are suddenly struggling to be able to make
it because Congress is having a fight. That's a dumb thing, and all
of the people that are calling the federal government with a question or a permit,
need or whatever can't get it. And every time we do it,
it actually costs more to do it. So literally shutdowns cost us money,
cost consternation across the whole fruited plane, and then also cause a lot of
people that are really serving their neighbors as federal employees to really struggle during that
time period. So my simple plan on this league, we should be able
to say let's keep the debate going. We'll keep the government open at the
current levels of what it was last year. But members of Congress and our
staff, we're in session seven days a week. We can't move to bills
other than the appropriation bills. That's the only thing that's pending that we can
actually debate and talk about. And we can't travel. There is no additional
funds that are allocated for travel. So we're stuck here looking at each other
seven days a week, working on appropriation bills till we get it done.
It's the equivalent of if you didn't finish your homework, you got to stay
after school. That's all it is. Oh, Senator, what a Chuck
Schumer gonna do? What is Adam Schiff going to do? I mean,
this is their big weapon of the fall. This is what they threaten Republican.
They threatened Republicans when Republicans are in control, and then they hold Republicans
hostage when when they're in control. That's one hundred percent years. Remember several
years Chuck Schumer got mad about immigration and so he did a government shutdown and
locked it all up. But you just ignored that shutdown. So anytime there's
a shutdown, they always blame republic. It's all one hundred percent. So
here's the problem. My bill has wide bipartisan support on it. The reason
we've not been able to pass it is because Chuck Schumer doesn't want to put
on the floor, and quite frankly, Mitch McConnell didn't want to put on
the floor either. It is a powerful weapon for leadership to get to the
edge of a government shutdown, to try to create a moment to be able
to say, if you don't vote for this bad bill, then then we're
gonna have a government shutdown. So vote for this bad bill. It's leverage
for leadership on both sides of the aisle. We've got to end that,
and so we're pushing to be able to find a moment to say this is
the time where we can actually get this bill in there and to actually end
the possibility of government shutdowns and all the chaos. No one likes to see
the CNN countdown clock in the corner screen, like anyone watch the CNN,
But if you were to happen to watch that, to be able to watch
the countdown clock coming for the next government shutdown, that just doesn't help us
as an economy. It doesn't help us in the world stage, and it
doesn't help us to be able to hire really good folks to work on the
federal workforce. If we tell somebody if they're hired, hey we may or
may not pay you in October, that just doesn't work. So we do
need to solve this. But quite frankly, we do need to have the
fights on debt and deficits. So let's have the fight. Let's just hold
our bails harmless while we're having the fight. So can you conceivably get it
on the floor and voted upon before this next threatened shut down? Or would
this have to wait till next year? We are looking for every opportunity to
get it in that is pending that it would be what's called germane to be
able to get in and to be able to get a vote on that.
But yes, we are actually I actually had a meeting on that just earlier
today to be able to talk through what are the ways that we could actually
get this on the floor, because again, we've got the support to get
it. If it gets on the floor, it's going to be hard for
people to say no, I want more government shutdowns. People will vote and
say let's stop this. But we've got to be able to get it actually
to the floor and find a method to get it there. Senator, I
didn't know Germans had anything to do with it, but okay, whatever it
takes. Let's shift gears for just a minute. We recently caught this Brazilian
national that was fulfilling his own version of the fugitive but he was here across
our border, presumably fleeing charges in Brazil. And I can't help but think
of this as more evidence of how porous our border is. What can we
do about this? Yeah, Ultimately, Biden administration has got to actually enforce
American law. And the second thing we've got to do is Congress has to
create a better definition for the word asylum. Right now we have this is
a crazy stat on this, but as of last week, we have over
six million people that have illegally crossed into our country just during the less than
three years of the Biden administration. To put that in context, six million
people equals the same number is both terms of the Obama administration and the Trump
administration combined. We've had as many people illegally crossed into our country in less
than three years than the previous twelve years combined. That puts in context just
how bad this is. So my focus is getting the Biden administration to enforce
the law, and they have capabilities to do that, but also to get
a change in the asylum definition. Right now, we've got this year,
for instance, ten thousand people from Mauritania have come illegally across our border.
They've been released into the country under the quote unquote asylum definition. Folks from
Mauritania probably across through eight different countries before they get here and then demand asylum.
That's not what asylum is supposed to be. Asylum is supposed to be
you move to the next safe country. Most Americans wouldn't even be able to
find Mauritania on a map. On it Yeah, it's West Africa, but
it's also that area is the hotbed for al Qaida. Now Moli Mauritania,
all that area, that's where al Qaida is quickly growing. We've got ten
some people that crossed our border that we have no idea of their background.
There's no criminal record for them, we have no relationship to be able to
get criminal records with Mauritania, and so they were just released in the country,
and we have no idea if their terrorists or not. And they just
gave them asylum request and release them in the country. When they release them
in the country, they sign up for when their hearing date's going to be,
and often that hearing date is seven to ten years in the future.
But we have no tracking on those individuals. We don't know where they are,
we have no idea. It's just a huge mess that the Biden team
is created for this. So my focus is solve the asylum definition. That's
going to involve talking on both sides of the aisle. And I know I
have some of my conservative brethren say don't talk to the people on the other
side of the aisle. If you're going to pass legislation, I've got to
have sixty on legislation to be able to pass it. So that involves talking
through, trying to solve hard problems, sitting down and working through the issues.
And so I've spent months sitting down with some of my colleagues, have
found some Democrat colleagues that are willing to have a serious conversation about solving the
asylum issue. Because this doesn't get better just by ignoring it. It gets
worse and they know it. Senator James Lankford. I've had that argument with
a listener earlier this week about what I call polite discourse, and it's something
we have to restore. We have to. We can't. The biggest weaknesses
in American history have always been when we were unable to come to a polite
discord on an issue. Yeah, just nasally. Yeah, it is one
of our biggest issues right now. And I have people that catch me all
the time and say that people in Washington, DC are so angry. Everybody's
yelling at each other. And I usually laugh and say, tell me what
Thanksgiving was like at your house last year, And a lot of folks we
don't even get together for Thanksgiving anymore because everybody's yelling at everybody. And I
was like, that's exactly right, because it's not just a DC issue,
it's the national issues right now. For me, I'm a follower Jesus Christ,
and as a Christian, there's some basic principles that Jesus laid down.
They're pretty radical, like love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.
Tied us. Chapter three challenges people in their relationship with government to set
an example and to do what is good even at that time, and he's
writing about the Caesars who were murdering Christians to be able to say set the
example for them and do it a very different way on that it's a radical
concept, but quite frankly, I really believe that Jesus method works in engaging
on difficult, hard issues. Is I'm not going to win an argument by
out screaming somebody. That may make somebody feel good that I yelled loud,
but it doesn't solve the problem. At the end of the day, I've
got to sit down with someone understand that person's also created the image of God.
They have value and worth. They're wrong on an issue, but they
have value and worth, and we're going to sit down and talk about an
issue and try to be able to figure out a way to be able to
resolve it, because at the end of the day, that's what we have
to do, is we have to solve issues, not just yell about him.
Senator James Lankford, I know you're pressed for time, but I did
want to ask you about seeming infiltration of Chinese both into ownership of our land
and they too are coming across the southern border, so the two related.
The two issues are related. They've infiltrated our Oklahoma marijuana industry and they've infiltrated
other industries as well. Absolutely one percent have. When I talked to the
Oklahoma Beer of Narcotics, one of the key statements they'll say is most of
these folks that are working these illegal marijuana grow operations all across the state,
many of them are Chinese. They crossed the border illegally. They were trafficked
into this area. They're working off some debt for some family member or some
individual to the cartels that they're doing. So there's a partnership between Mexican cartels
Chinese criminal organizations. These individuals are literally moved around from place to place.
They don't even know what city or community they're in. They're just moved around
to be able to work these marijuana farms constantly. There's lots of criminal activity
that's going on around it. That's Chinese criminal organizations with Chinese government that's also
looking the other way when fintonol precursors are being shipped over to Mexico or to
the United States, and they know full well what that's doing to American citizens.
We've also got Chinese individuals are there connect to the Chinese government that are
driving on the military basis now and just saying hey, I was trying to
get to the McDonald's on this base, and what they're really doing is testing
out the security perimeter and trying to be able to track that. And then
we have these confucious institutes in our schools. We have Chinese outreach right now
to a lot of communities saying hey, we want to do sister cities and
we want to send some people over to your community and just develop relationships on
this. The Chinese Communist Party is being very active right now and trying to
gather intelligence, gather information and data, trying to probe the United States for
weaknesses, and this is something we should just pay attention to. I'm not
a conspiracy theory guy, but I am on the Intelligence Committee, and I
would tell you the Chinese are active right now trying to find areas to be
able to exploit the United States our intellectual property and to be able to find
vulnerable ways to be able to attack us. So we should just pay attention
on that. I do think our kids in our communities should learn about China,
but we should also learn about the communism that's in China, the human
rights violations, and be attentive to what they are trying to do the United
States. Well, Senator Langford, Yeah, I too feel the same way.
In the rep portage that I have read, it's not a conspiracy.
It's out there in black and white, and the Chinese are all but curling
about it. Thank you for joining us, And I'm going to keep track
of the of the Act that you're working on right now, the Government Shutdowns
Act. Remember that. Yeah, yep, we'll hopefully get that solved,
and that would be nice to take that off the table. Then we can
have the fight over the real issue, not whether we're gonna have a shutdown,
but how we're going to solve our debt and deficit. Senator Langford,
thank you for joining us. You bad. Thanks Thanks for listening to Later
with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The
Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and Ihearts Media Presentation