Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time now for our interview we do monthly here with Congressman Josh Rickeen
and Congressman very busy as of late. First of all, thank you for
returning our folks from the Turks and k Coast Island. Tell us a little
bit about that. That wasn't an easy thing. Well, great outcome.
You know, that's my first in this position member of Congress, opportunity to
take a codell and to go as a member of you know, a five
person congressional teams led by Senator Mullen, and to go and advocate for Ryan
Watson from Oklahoma and four others from all over the country. I know.
Told Center Mullen, I guess many weeks ago I had heard, even though
Ryan Watson was not from our congressional district, I had heard that he was
leaning in. I heard through back channels that Center Mullen, you know,
the United States senator has much more potency when it comes to diplomacy, and
so I just thanked him for being aggressive from what I was hearing from my
chief of staff and others. That conversation yielded him saying to me, would
you be interested in taking a trip, and I was, and to go
and be there for a day and a half to meet the families and then
to represent them to the government officials to the age of Dutch and Kikos.
You know, it was ultimately the age who we pushed on pretty heavily in
that meeting that suggested to their legislature to change their law. And then Ryan,
of course was released, as many others have been, with Serida Greer
as the exceptions still waiting her sentencing, but the trip paid dividends. They're
going to change the law, which is something I was adamant about. I
hope their a g I looked at her and expressed, along with the governor
and the premiere, that I had been there fifteen years before, and then
my advice to my wife is not to return because of the fear over a
few bullets could land you with a twelve year minimum sentence, and reminded them
what we knew about how much of their economy has dependent super majority of their
economy has depended upon your US tourism and also the imports that come from the
United States. And so look, the trip paid dividends and I'm glad for
Ryan and the four others. Sharita Greer from Florida is the last to face
sentencing. The others have been released on what has been fined and time served.
It never should have happened. They never should have been required to stay
there for months on end. They never should have faced the fear of a
twelve year minimum Senate. And so hopefully American people, when they see what
this new law changes results in, will have confidence they can go to Turks
and Caicos. That's the hope. Now we've got the presidential debate coming up
here very very shortly. I'd like for you to weigh in on that.
Well. I expect there to be pretty easy means of the president delivering contrasting
message his four years on the border, here's four years on the economy,
his four years regarding the international peace compared to the chaos on those three elements
that we've seen under this administration. And I think if he leads us at
and talks about words a meaningless actions are where your vote needs to do come
from, I think that there's no way he can can lose this debate.
And then I'm expecting the hilarity of Donald Trump to also be a part of
this. As I've told many people in the years that I walked away from
state government at the United State government and starting a small business, many times
I would come home and want to turn on the TV, not to watch
the news, but to see what Donald Trump has said. That's a part
of his appeal. You know, there's a part of you know, people
that may not like his tweets, but there's some of us that, you
know, love seeing someone that's just not so canned that they don't speak from
their art and those unforgettable moments in twenty sixteen in his debates. I think
many people will watch the debate just you know, for the hilarity element.
Well, there's a lot going on that that ain't funny, and I know
that you continue to really sound the alarm on it. And the alarm,
of course, is our economy and just the runaway spending we have in Washington,
d C. Yeah, Look, we ended up. I think I
landed a scorecard from a group that looks at constitutional Inherenents adherents along with Chip
Roy Mike Lee landed him. You know, after my first year and a
half with a with a being in the top one percent on costitutional inhereness because
of my voting records, and I'm proud of that tall. I think so
many people have run for office and and they're not serious about upholding the constitution,
not serious about making sure that their votes reflect a limited government perspective and
everything else left to the states and individuals for self governance. And we've been
serious about that, and the voting record proves that. And of course,
you know, the border issues continue, but not without a fight. You're
you've been a very strong voice in Washington, d C. Trying to get
something moving. Yeah. I mean sadly though the leverage to get something moving
has been lost because of the appropriations fight. I was sad months ago when
you know, the budget deal came together without my support and because we didn't
reduce spending to the levels that I wanted us to do, and then then
the supplemental with another place we could have held up some hats and leverage rather
on the border, but we lost that opportunity as well because what happened in
Ukraine. So it is now a battle headed into a president who hopefully will
get serious about doing away with the sixty five different executive orders. That Joe
Biden is put in place that have undermined more security. That's the react goodness.
Different executive orders since he took office to undermine the success under Trump.
Trump had a forty and forty five year low, a forty year low,
one year forty five year low between twenty seventeen twenty nineteen loas of illegal immigration,
and then Biden just totally undermines that with different executive orders. And we
did pass HR two when I first got into the Congress, within a matter
of four or five months being there, came through the committee I served on
Homeland Security. We had a partial play in that bill, and that bill
has languished on the Senate side. They've not picked it up, and they
do not. On the Senate side, led by Democrats, they do not
want to see a return to Trump air policies, or they would have picked
up HR two. Okay, this is the part where I say, get
on your soapbox and tell us something we don't already know what's happening with you.
Should we be looking out for you here in the next several days and
weeks, Well, we were going to finish the appropriations bills. Hopefully that
that is being led by Republican only Republican vote, and which means we're not
putting up with the nonsense of woke and weaponized government spending. So my hope
is we'll actually get the appropriation bills done this year. The likelihood of the
Senate will put the take up. We're able to pull that us and punt
this thing under a Trump term. If we'll punt to early under a Trump
administration and a hopefully a Senate led by Republicans, then we can do what
was done to me my first year. They took away the power of the
person away from my freshman class because the Democrats did appropriation. And so what
I'm hoping we will do is is still the opportunity for the Democrat and to
form governments, and then we'll do what nobody really wants to do, but
get a continued resolution to pus this thing into March, and then we could
come back in with different ideology and do a fiscal year twenty five appropriations bill
that is reflective of conservative ideology, not Democrat ideology. Very good, Once
again, thank you very much for being with us today.