We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Dashinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.
Also make sure to subscribe to the premium version of our website and wherever you
download your podcasts as well. We're joined today by Congresswoman Mary Miller, who
represents the fifteenth district of Illinois, was elected back in twenty twenty one.
Congresswoman Miller, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you
for having me. It's a privilege and I appreciate the work you're all doing
to get information out to the public. You know, whoever controls information controls
the people. That is so true. Now, I'm really curious about your
background. First, your remember of the Freedom Caucus, and we'll get into
that a little bit, but tell us about why you decided to run for
Congress. My understanding is that you've been running a grain and a cattle farm
with your husband. That sounds like a wonderful life and a career. Why
did you want to run for Congress? Sure, First of all, for
those of you that have seen if you're old enough to have seen the black
and white movie, mister Smith goes to Washington, they need to do a
remake. Missus Miller went to Washington because I am an unlikely member of Congress.
I'm not a politician and I so I haven't served in the Illinois House
or anything, and I'm not a lawyer. My husband and I run a
grain and cattle farm. We raised corn cattle and kids, had seven children
and we have twenty grandchildren. Now. I home. I'm an educator,
so I ended up having an epiphany once in a public school that our children
and belong there. And this was decades ago. The reason at that time
wasn't what was in public school, it was what was missing. And I
ended up home educating my children. I did pod groups, we called them
co op groups before COVID. But so most of our children have stayed close
to the farm, built homes there, even if they don't farm with us,
and we go to church together and we still have old fashioned Sunday dinners.
And about eight years ago, at dinner, some of our kids were
a very close family told us that they had realtors working for them and they
were going to join the exodus of a million people out of Illinois, and
that shocked my husband and myself into the reality of how bad things were in
Illinois. So my husband ran for the House in Illinois where he serves now,
and he's also chairman of the House Freedom Caucus in Illinois, and I
was alongside of him when Congressman John Shimkis decided to retire, and he'd been
in for twenty four years, and I had I was not happy over the
omnibus bills that were being passed. So I was on my little farm in
Illinois, raising a family, stewing over these kitchen sink bills that included everything,
and I was mad. And one day I didn't really mean it seriously.
I said I was going to run for Congress. But long story short,
people encouraged me to run. I got a lot of local support.
I won big the first time we got redistricted. I ran against probably the
most popular member of Congress who was in leadership. Again, I won big
in the primary. I ran on policies, and I say that, like
the scriptures say a tree is known by its fruit, a politician can be
known by their votes. And that's what I did. That's how I won.
My opponent had one of the most liberal voting records in Congress and wanted
to represent one of the most deep red conservative districts in the United States.
So here I am, and I'm look at it as a privilege and an
honor to serve the people in the Illinois fifteen. So interesting and especially the
timing of your run, giving your background and farming. This is coming as
your President Trump had really tried to and with the support of so many farmers.
The media expected to go into Middle America and hear farmers that were upset
about the tariffs. But farmers, you would tell the media, we are
we're sticking it out. We understand all of this. And as somebody who
had been in the industry for so long, can you talk a little bit
about how you sort of interpreted or how you experienced President Trump's approach to farming
and to terriffs and maybe how that inspired you to get involved too. Oh
sure, well, President Trump is beloved in my district and in most of
Illinois. As a whole. Illinois we might, you know, elect a
far left governor, but as a whole, if you look at a map,
Illinois is dark red and people appreciated President Trump because his politicies impacted regular
Americans in such a positive way. Also, they appreciated how authentic he was.
And I don't even remember the last time we have had a politician who
made it a priority to fulfill his promises. And the people in our district
appreciated that. In light of agriculture, he was very supportive of the farmers
and he did make a way for farmers to have a safety net while we
kind of had some tumultuous, you know, issues with tariffs and this and
that. But I think the bottom line is President Trump would say, why
are we doing it this way when it's hurting American people so bad or hurting
the American farmer? Why are we entering into trade agreements bad trade agreements?
And he used every bit of leverage that he had to negotiate better trade agreements
for US and then stand up to the Chinese, who definitely want to take
over the role of the world's superpower and they have a terrible human rights record.
So I can tell you the farmers and my district are very supportive of
President Trump, and we are longing for the day when he's back in office.
And this is another thing that's actually kind of interesting about the So what
you were talking about with kitchen sink bills, omnibus bills. You guys you're
in the egg committee, and you guys are talking right now about the farm
bill, Yes, and how that could possibly get to the center of some
negotiation. Actually, just in the next month, can you give us an
update on negotiations over the farm bill? Do you expect to see movement in
the next few weeks on that? Well, let me just say I hope
to see movement. I don't know that I would actually say I expect to
see movement. But we did pass an extension so farmers can be assured of
their having their risk management tools available. And you know, the other thing
I want to tell your listeners is the farm bill is on the verge of
not even being able to be called the farm bill. Eighty five percent of
the farm bill is for the snap food stamp program and only fifteen percent of
it actually goes to agriculture producers, trade, research and development. So not
good. Yeah, and that gives me to another question I want to ask
you about. Is I'm sure you were well of the giant omnibus farm bill.
You know before you ran for Congress. Being in Congress, is it
even have you found the kind of corruption and the incompetence which is often to
blame even more than corruption. Yes, have you found it to be worse?
Is it just about what you expected? Tell us about you sort of
being new in Congress and looking around. Well, the government is just way
too big. It's way out of control. We need and I President Trump
understood that, so, you know, he wanted to shrink the federal government,
return power back to the people, to parents, to small businesses,
to the states. I know it's pine the sky wish, but we should
shut the federal Department of Education, return the power or you know, return
all that back to the state and local authorities to run our schools. He
wanted to move agencies like the Bag Department out into the heartland. So we
the government is just too big for oversight. That's why we have corruption,
and we just need to defund most of the federal government. I wanted to
talk about the border, and this is a big issue for you. That's
a good place to start. Is just you know, hitting you with the
criticism the left loves to lean on really heavily. Or I think some of
them are genuinely confused about it. They say, you know, why do
people in the interior of the country care about the border. Why do people
in Illinois? Why are they so fixated on what's happening in Texas? Can
you address that a little bit, Congresswoman, Well, Number one, they
need to become aware that we are under invasion and the numbers are massive,
so they've there's been polling done, and people that agree that the border should
be secured, they have no understanding of how big this invasion is. They're
thinking like a tenth of what it actually is. So Illinois is a sanctuary
state, Chicago's a sanctuary city. Rah Rah for open borders until Governor Abbott
wisely started sending buses to these states and cities. And I'm glad that he
did because they're the ones that are promoting open borders. Americans have every right
to know who's coming into our country and what their intentions are. We have
immigration laws. The entire world wants to come here, and there are great
people waiting line to come here that appreciate our country, want to obey our
laws, and want to come here legally. This is outrageous. What is
happening. The fentanyl coming over the border. We know over one hundred thousand
young people died last year of drug overdoses, mainly fentanyl. China scenting it
over. It is human trafficking. When I was down there recently, they
was shocking. They told us that they that the Biden administration has lost over
one hundred thousand minor children. They don't know where they are. It's basically
modern day slavery. I was told by border patrol that the cartels that the
people coming over, if they don't pay ahead of time, they owe the
cartels. The cartels know where they are once they come here and are transferred
into the interior of the country. Don't ask me how, but they know.
You know, Biden doesn't know. But they know where these people are
and they want paid. And these people make payments for eight to eleven years.
It's like indentured servant hood or slavery, whatever you want to call it.
Not to mention they are bringing diseases in and just you know, criminals
are coming over the border and terraces. I mean, Ron definitely is sending
terrorists over the border. And the Biden administration that has this catch and release
program. They have caught people that are on terrists watch lists and let them
go. They are here, and I don't think it's if it's when they're
going to strike her country. It is so bad, and it's I know
that we've got the impeachment of my orcas. He should be impeached. He
is. He's guilty of treason, as Joe Biden is. But there's someone
behind Joe Biden. There's a wizard behind the curtain. He's not pulling the
strings. This is a Democrat agenda and people need to remember that when they
go to the polls next fall. That invasion is a Democrat agenda to fundamentally
transform our country. And let's get into the impeachment of majorcus. I wanted
to ask about so Jonathan Turtley, for example, who's been pretty supportive of
Donald Trump, against the law fair and impeachment efforts and all the nonsense.
He said, basically, the case for impeach Ma Yorkis is kind of constitutionally
weak. His quote is that it lacks a cognizable basis for impeachment. But
I wanted to put it this way to you, does it risk does an
impeachment of New Yorkist risk fur the devaluating constitutional tools like impeachment or is it
a necessary rebuttal to the left's weaponization of those tools for years, especially against
Donald Trump. Okay, well, I disagree with him. I know Chairman
Mark Green was very concerned about it. That's why they have waited so long
to do it, because you know the constitutionality of it, and and that
that does matter to us. But you are not We are not a country
if you don't have borders, and and this is this is such an it's
hard to come up with the adjectives to describe how bad this invasion is.
I mean, they're talking ten million people have come over the border already,
and the border patrol even told us they expect it to amp up before the
next election, and we could have fifteen million come over the border by the
time Biden's term is done. It's just so unbelievable. So I disagree with
them. I think we should proceed with it, and we are. Well,
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Has there been resistance, and I asked this in the context of the
Senate Republicans last week you had Senate leadership Mitch McConnell, and you know,
more centrist people like James Langford just acting absurdly and trying to blame Donald Trump
for killing the horrible bill they were working on because he was interest about politics
and about elections over the country, when if you care about the country,
that was an idiotic bill. Do you experience on the House side any problems
because HR two passed the House. It is a good bill. It would
have been bipartisan, you know, ten years ago on the House side,
do you experience any of those similar problems with kind of centrist Republicans being uncomfortable
with shutting the border down basically and with getting rid of open borders. I
would say no. I think there were two no votes on HR two,
and I'm not exactly sure why two Republican no votes. Every single Democrat voted
against HR two. This is a partisan issue. The Democrats want the border
open and the Republicans want the border closed. The Republican senators are part of
a unit party and people need to sit up and pay attention and fire the
frauds. We need to flip get rid of these people in the next election.
Republicans that are going along with Democrat policies to destroy our nation. And
yeah, the deal that was being struck last week. I mean, I
shouldn't say it's strange because it was pretty predictable. But can you give us
some reaction just to how Senate Republicans we're trying to undermine the people that put
them in power, basically by striking a deal with Democrats that would have allowed
somewhere around two million people to come in on pretty pretty dubious asylum claims every
single year. Right. Well, I mean, I don't know what to
say, but if these same people, if you look at their voting records,
the hurricanes need to pay attention to what these people are doing. The
Senators that are promoting this are frauds. They are part of the uniparty destroying
our nation. They're part of the group that hates President Trump. Trump is
pro United States America first. These people are part of the UNI Party.
They're globalists and they want to destroy our nation. And how have you found
now, Speaker Mike Johnson. I know there have been, you know,
some frustrations. You re a member of the Freedom caucusts, and I know
that there have been some frustrations with him, especially among HFC folks along the
way, but also there's been some support for him throughout this process, and
part of that is negotiation and politics. But personally, how have you felt
Mike johnson speakership has gone. You know, we're about a month into it.
Well, I mean, personally, he's my friend. I want him
to be successful. But even Kevin McCarthy, I was one of the twenty
that didn't vote to for him to be speaker until we secured some big policy
wins. But afterward I went to him and I said, I'm praying for
you. I want you to go down in history as the most successful we've
ever had because if you're successful, America will do better. And I feel
the same way with Mike Johnson. But Mike Johnson, I feel for him.
He was popped in the position. He didn't have staff, he had
to hurry and hire staff, and he didn't have runway for you know,
passing the rest of our propriations bills, and we have such a slim majority.
We're now down to one, and we have people serving in the House,
just like in the Senate, that are basically Democrats, and they don't
go along with the party platform or conservative things. So you know, I
feel for Mike. I don't think he should put important bills, big bills
on suspension. I oppose that, and you know I've been voting no.
I voted no in the CR. I want him to be successful, but
I'm not going to go along with anything he does that isn't going to help
the American people. I interviewed Representative Bob Good obviously, who's heading up the
Freedom Caucus now recently, and again I'm speaking of somebody who's generally very supportive
of the Freedom Caucus and the Freedom Caucus to be successful, and he sort
of went off on Marjorie Tailly Green and all of that, and I just
wanted to pose this general question to you, which is is the Freedom Caucus,
you know, do you feel that it's in a good, good enough
shape to really be making a difference. Are those is the kind of internal
palace intrigue and drama between members? Is it? Is it harming the Freedom
Caucus's ability to sort of act as a united force in the way we often
see the squad? Do are you happy with where HFC is right now?
So? I am thrilled. I'm so happy to belong to HFC. I
think that they play an integral role here to pull the House and the party
back to the Constitution and to the party platform. We have a lot of
vigorous discourse among each other and sometimes disagreements. It's not true that if you
belong to the House Freedom Caucus you have to vote a certain way. But
there's no other group, in my opinion, that is influential in the House
as the as the House Freedom Caucus. And you know, obviously I have
seven children, and I understand when you get a lot of humans together,
you have differences of opinion. You sometimes you know, have self centeredness.
Well a lot of times you do our pride whatever, and you got to
work through those things. But the House Freedom Caucus is united in their desire
to get the best bills possible for the American people. Well, yeah,
that's good to hear because those you know, personal dramas and all that can
just be so hard to get things done. Sometimes if those bog them down.
But another thing that Freedom Caucus has been really strong on is Ukraine.
And that's what I know. There have been some points of tension with Speaker
Johnson over Ukraine. Could you know you've actually taken some really I think brave
bold sands, you know, whether it's Sweden, Uh, Sweden's ascension to
NATO, whether it's the AUMF. I mean, all of these things are
are really important, and they're so different than where the mainstream Republican you know,
blob in Washington was just ten years ago. Can you talk about why
Ukraine funding at this point, why you're adamant against it at this point?
Right, Well, I'll go back to originally and you know some of the
first votes when we started sending them billions of dollars, and I was the
only member in Illinois voting no against funding to Ukraine. And my number one
problem with it was that we are funding both sides of the war. On
day one, when Joe Biden began his attack on American energy independence, he
allowed Putin. He enriched Putin by shutting our energy down and allowing Putin then
to have the money to go into Ukraine and attack Ukraine number one, and
then we turn around and send them one hundred billion dollars. So we're funding
both sides of the war. And also if the biggest threat to the world
is if America goes down, if the US is strong, the world will
be safer and better off. And other people around the world that I meet
and from different countries. They understand it. China is breathing down our neck.
They want to be the next superpower, and so that we need to
make United States strong in the world, and so we need to pay attention
our own energy independent, securing our own border. But also I am so
grieved that we have funded Putin's ability to go into Ukraine. They have lost
so many lives over there, and even young people. They're soldiers that have
lost limbs. I think I heard five hundred thousand dead, fifty thousand have
lost limbs. The average age of a soldier there now is forty two.
That grieves me. And we are partially responsible. Joe Biden is responsible for
allowing Putin to be enriched, and now Joe Biden has enriched Iran. Joe
Biden now is to me responsible for these terrorist attacks in the Middle East because
Iran then turned around with the money we allowed them to get and funded the
terrorists. And there again, we're gonna then come in and help Israel,
which I want to do, but we're funding both sides of that war.
Now, let's flip to the danger we have in the world, which is
China's potential attack on Taiwan. Well, we've enriched China through this green bed
deal, and you know all these batteries and windmill solar panels shutting down our
energy, and they can out manufacture us because they open a coal fire plant
every week. I mean, our policies are horrible, and then so we
enrich China, they go tack Taiwan, and then we come in and defend
Taiwan. So now we have three pending world wars and we have funded both
sides of them. It's terrible. Joe Biden's policies are terrible. He can
do nothing but create chaos. He is a chaos creator. The Watched Out
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on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and I know you're
in a tight schedule. I want to follow up on that just by asking,
again from the perspective of somebody who has relatively fresh eyes in Washington,
why is it that, for all the reasons you just outlined, you have
the average age of soldiers now in Ukraine forty two years old. There have
been, as far as we know from reporting, scuttled peace talks and all
of that. Why is it that even some Republicans whose constituents understand this,
insist on doing otherwise and sort of cling to Ukraine funding and all of that,
even though you know, actually Kevin McCarthy was somebody who was decent on
this because he was reading the tea leaves and he kind of understood where voters
were. But why is it, you, just again with your fresh eyes
here in Washington, that people are clinging to Ukraine funding so desperately. Well,
I would not. I can't judge what people's motives are. I think
there's some people that like our old school military and you know, we need
to be the least around the world and get involved in all these conflicts,
So I can't really judge what their motives are, but I do want to
say there are people Democrats and Republicans that are funded by the military complex,
and I think it could skew their judgment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well my last question is maybe my most important one, which is Joe Biden's
economy is really tough for a whole lot of people. Even if you know
Paul Krugman and others at the New York Times and then the media complex,
media industrial complex don't understand that. What do your constituents tell you when you're
back home, when you're in the district. What's front of mind for them
right now? I mean we're heading into an election year, so that's especially
relevant. But when you talk to them, what are they concerned about Trump
getting re elected? They hate the Green Bad Deal, they can see right
through that that it's tutulitarian communism. They're concerned about China and their soldiers coming
over the border, very concerned about the border being secured. But also,
you know, just in everyday Americans pocketbooks are trying to run a business or
buying inputs for the farm. Inflation is killing people, and you know you
can't just create all these dollars out of thin air and not think it's not
going to amp up inflation. And Joe Biden has and the Democrats, it's
not just him. I want to remind people because we can get rid of
Joe Biden if we have Democrats in control. These are their policies. They
they're reckless with the American dollar, the green everything goes back to energy,
and for Joe Biden and his people to shut down our energy independence is a
really cruel thing to do the American people. Congresswoman Mary Miller represents Illinois fifteenth
District. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining the show. Well,
you're welcome, have a great day. Thank you you too. Bye.
You do another edition of The Federalist or radio hour. I'm on La Tishinski,
culture editor. Here to the Federalist. We'll be back. Stick with
Born until then, you lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend