FITTON Rep. Clyde: Defund Abuse of Trump Censorship!

➡ The discussion revolves around the ongoing debate in Washington about the budget, with conservatives seeking to change the cycle of simply increasing spending annually. The conservatives, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, are committed to opposing a clean continuing resolution that would perpetuate existing policies and spending levels. Their aim is to institute significant reforms and challenge the existing conventions. Their proposals include protecting the borders, defunding the prosecutions of Trump, protection of elections, stopping child mutilation, among others. They argue that the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, risks the Republican majority and his own position if he works with Democrats to advance Joe Biden’s agenda.

So the timing of this people kind of yawn when they hear the word budget, and I don’t blame them, especially in Washington, since really nothing seems to change every year. They just fund what they funded the last year, plus a little bit extra, or more recently, a lot extra. And you’re trying to change that. Members of the House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives on the Hill are trying to change that and kind of address the timing of this writer, this appropriations amendment that you’re talking about and why it is that there’s maybe a leverage point that otherwise may not be available at another time of the year.

Well, that’s what the speaker fight in January was all about. And that was to fundamentally change the way Congress operates so that we’re not doing, like you said, the same thing all over again, just continuing to add the same amount of money plus a little extra or a lot extra and doing exactly the same thing. That’s not why the people of this great country gave us the majority.

They wanted to see Congress be changed. And that’s what we did in January and to change the process. And now we’re implementing that process, which is why an unqualified or a blind or a clean cr, whatever you want to call it, is simply not going to work. So they need by the end of October what’s the deadline these days? Is it October? It’s 31st. Midnight. 31st. Sorry, it’s midnight on the 30 September, not the 1 October.

So this is a DC classic. Let’s go on vacation for seven weeks and come back to an emergency budget issue that we’ve created because we’ve been on vacation in part for seven weeks. So unless there’s a, quote, a continuing resolution, parts of the government will shut down. Of course, we can pick and choose what parts to shut down, but that’s another debate. And the argument from you and others is conservatives on the Hill, that a clean continuing resolution, which is business as usual, is unacceptable.

We need to take steps now to defund the prosecutions of Trump and to protect our elections, defund censorship, protect our border, stop mutilating children. Whatever the federal funding issue is, we’re just not going to continue. This is an opportunity for us to say no. What do you think is going to be the outcome? Where do you see President, excuse me, Mr. McCarthy, in terms of this big fight? Because it really is about what Speaker McCarthy supports is willing to endorse, isn’t it? Well, I will tell you, there are many conservatives that are absolutely committed to not supporting a clean Cr, and I’m one of them.

Because to do that would simply further not just the spending levels, but the policy of Speaker Pelosi. And if we’re going to do that, we’re no different than the Democrats, but we’re not. We’re conservative Republicans. And we’re going to fight to make sure that that doesn’t happen. So there has to be. So every bad thing that you, as every listener or viewer, hates about the Biden administration or DC spending generally, some of it predates Biden is about to be funded in full by the Republican Congress unless these amendments are passed that restrain it or correct it as within reason.

Not nearly enough, but within reason to address some of the more critical issues out there, like trying to jail everyone who opposes Biden or censor tens of millions of Americans. Other minor issues like that. Yeah, exactly. So we are not going to continue the policies of our Democrat predecessors. We are going to secure our borders. We’re going to defund the radical weaponized federal government. We have to deal with issues like that or we will fail.

And we can’t fail. This is not an area where we can fail. So let me play devil’s advocate. Sure. These kind of emergency fights we never win. We being conservatives, they’re going to get what they want and we just want to move this along and we’re going to fight it in the regular process with these appropriation bills when we pass them individually in the beginning of next year.

Right. Am I fairly characterizing their argument? Well, that was the statement back when we had the debt ceiling fight. Right, okay. That’s the statement they make every time. Exactly. And I’m on the Appropriations Committee, I’m committed to twelve individual appropriations. Right. We’ve got ten of them through the Appropriations Committee so far. We’ve got two more, arguably two of the most important one being Commerce, Justice Science, the Justice Department and addressing the weaponization of the Justice Department.

And then we’ve got of the ten that are available to come to the House floor, one has already been passed that’s MILCON VA. We’ve got nine more that we could be addressing right now and I think Defense is going to come up this week. But we need to be honestly Tom, we need to stay here until we get all of those appropriations done. That’s what we promised the American people and I believe in upholding my promises and I will work relentlessly to make that happen.

So how does that intersect with the issue of the continuing resolution? You’re suggesting that a continuing resolution for months is inappropriate in that regardless of what regardless of whether it’s clean or has significant reforms attached to it, how does that work with the appropriations process? A clean resolution, a clean cr a continuing resolution is absolutely inappropriate. 100%. And I think that Speaker McCarthy would have to go to a significant, probably well over 100 Democrats for their support to get that in the House.

And if he does, then in my humble opinion, I think he risks the Republican majority and he risks his position as speaker as well. So the American people would simply not give us the majority again because we’d be no. So the point is that McCarthy will end up governing with a minority of Republicans, working with Democrats to advance Joe Biden’s agenda policy. Right. And that is a recipe for disaster and failure.

Do you think he’ll do that? I sure hope he doesn’t. You sure? Well, we’re not paying you to hope. We want the benefit of your three years experience on Capitol Hill. Working with the Speaker, I will make sure, to the best of my ability, that he want to before we move on. You’ve been talking to constituents, and my impression is that your colleagues, no matter where they are, hearing a lot on these corruption issues that you’re talking about and the establishment would have you believe that talking to your members of Congress and calling doesn’t make a difference.

And I know that’s not the case. It’s not. And so I guess my point is you’ve got to call your member of Congress and share your views on this. And I’m not going to presume to tell you what to say other than to be polite and professional. And maybe you don’t agree with anything we’re talking about. You still should call your members of Congress. And if they don’t pick up the phone, believe me, they notice how much the phones are ringing, even if they can’t get to the so if you don’t want Speaker McCarthy to do what know typically done in the past, which has a record, having done very recently in a debt ceiling fight, I think it’s to say that was the same.

He sees himself as the head of a parliament at times where he works in coalition with parties as opposed to governing, as opposed to being the head of the Republicans through the House speakership. It’s really incredible. .