Congressman Guest on WMXI

Michael Pol
Welcome to DAYBREAK with Ted Tibbett and Michael Pol. If you have a comment, you can call us now at 2610898 or # 981. On any C Spire device. Our e-mail is newsradiomornings@gmail.com.
 

Ted Tibbett
And we wish you a very pleasant Wednesday morning. 7:16, 16 minutes after the hour. At WMXI, WFOR and we're on or we've got two Michael's in the house. Michael Paul and Congressman Michael Guest. Good morning, Congressman.


Congressman Guest
Good morning, gentlemen. How are ya’ll today?
 

Ted Tibbett
Very well. The studio audience is excited that you are finally back with us. We haven't talked to you in I don't know, a couple of months, I guess. So, we’re glad to have you back. Congress is about to start. You've been on your break. Anything you want to report to us about things going on in the district before we get into the legislative priorities?


Congressman Guest
Well, you know, it's been great to be home the last several weeks to be out of Washington, to be back in Mississippi, you know, connecting with people and throughout the district. I know one thing that I've done, and Congressman Ezell has done a great deal also, while we've been home, we've, you know, traveled to the district, meeting with elected officials, business leaders, community leaders, just making sure that we have a good pulse on our district.

And that is vitally important. We go to Washington. We are representing the interest only by statement of particularly our district. And you can't do that if you're not out there in the community meeting with people. So that's something that we have prioritized since I've been elected to congress. I enjoy that. That's one of my favorite parts of the job. I enjoyed being out of the district much more than being in Washington, D.C., but we've done a great deal of that.

We're going to continue that through the end of this week. I'll be traveling to Starkville tonight, spending a couple of days in the northern part of my district before we travel back to D.C. early next week. And then we've got a lot of things that are on our plate that we've got to tackle between now and the end of the year.


Ted Tibbett
Yeah, legislative priorities. That's what I wanted to know. You know what’s- what's on your mind as far as those priorities coming up?

Congressman Guest
You know, just kind of looking ahead as to the things that we can complete as quickly as possible. Of course, the thing that everybody's really looking forward- or are looking for are the appropriations bills and keeping the government funded. There are 12 different bills which Congress must pass every year to fund the government in its entirety, and the government funding runs out at the end of September.

We've got just a short three weeks when we get back to either pass government funding bills or pass some sort of legislation to keep the government funded for a brief period of time as we continue to work toward passing those bills. That's known as a continuing resolution, basically keeping the government funded as Congress continues to work out the details of the funding bill.

And so I do expect that leadership will offer a continuing resolution to keep the government funded probably through the end of November, is what I'm hearing. You know, the question becomes for many members, including myself, you know, what's attached to that legislation? Is it just a plain resolution that would keep the government funded at existing levels. Is there some attempt to add additional priorities to that?

You know, I think one thing that would be very difficult for members of Congress, including myself and would really be a no starter for me is if they try to package some sort of motion to fund the government along with the motion to provide additional aid for Ukraine. So those are going to be our top priorities.

But we've also had several other pieces of legislation that are vitally important that we've passed out of the House that must be reconciled with the Senate. The National Defense Authorization Act, the FAA reauthorization. We've got a farm bill that we've got to get passed at some point, which is vitally important to the people of Mississippi. And we've seen that we may very well have a vote sometime in September to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

So huge pieces of legislation that impact all Americans that we will be dealing with and taking up as soon as we return back to Washington next week.

Ted Tibbett
You know, and I'm trying to connect the dots here, and maybe Congress is doing this as well. You know, when you look at all the money that's going over to the Ukraine, I mean, we have we have sent them billions of dollars. I mean, I'm not sure what the final number will be, but it's a lot. And you got to wonder when you've got a president who has shown a propensity to take money from foreign countries and a son that obviously has... You know, I mean, is there any dots to connect there with Ukraine?

Is their money coming back to the Bidens personally for this, or do we know that.

Congressman Guest
No, we don't know that. And that's one thing that Republicans that we really push for is transparency, is to make sure that we are following the money, to make sure that any money that has been appropriated to Ukraine has been spent appropriately and that there has not been waste, fraud or abuse or any money coming back, potentially being returned back to the United States in some shape, form or fashion.

I think that you're beginning to see that many people, including myself, are very skeptical of continuing additional funding to Ukraine. You know, when Ukraine was first invaded, I think we saw widespread support from both members- both parties in Congress to support Ukraine during that initial defense as they're trying to push back this war of aggression by Russia.

We have sent them hundreds of billions of dollars now, we see a war that is now has reached a stalemate. And I believe that people are tiring of us continuing to send our treasury, of continuing to send our top military equipment to Ukraine and really seeing no return on that investment. And so that's going to be if the administration pushes for additional Ukrainian funding sometime between now and the end of the year, you're going to see that that is going to be an issue, that Congress is going to be very divided over.

And you're going to see many members like myself and I know Mike Ezell, based on some his prior statements, are going to be very reluctant to support additional funding to the Ukraine because, again, I think that we've got needs at home, that we've got needs and it’s better that that money be spent here than to be spent overseas.

Ted Tibbett
You know, 100% agree with you. And one of the things that I hear and of course, you know, I've talked to folks, too, just like you do, and we get those messages and phone calls here at the radio station. People are concerned about our border and they say, you know, what are we doing sending all this money over there when we could be using it to secure our border?

Why are they selling off the materials that were bought and paid for by the United States government - pennies on the dollar when we could be putting some money to that, too, to actually continue the border wall. I mean, people are just frustrated, and I don't think that people would be so upset if you send money to Ukraine, if, in fact, we were doing the things here at home that we're supposed to be doing.

Congressman Guest
And people are correct to be upset about those things. And you know, Congress, not just in Ukraine, but in other places, you know, we have funded border security for other countries. But here in the United States, we have no border security. You know, and I think the border is no border. And we truly have an open border along the southwest border.

And you made a great point. You know, we say this president is now selling off wall material that is currently sitting at the border waiting to be installed for pennies on the dollar. So, when President Trump was in office, Congress appropriated money to build sections of the wall, the materials were purchased. When Biden comes in and he uses executive order to stop construction and now to make it harder for that construction to be restarted, you see that this administration is now selling off the materials that we bought and they're selling those materials off, as you mentioned, for pennies on the dollar.

And so this is just another example of how this administration is unwilling to secure the border. They want an open border, and they support open border policies. And they have created a humanitarian disaster along the southwest border as people continue to flow into the country each and every day.

Ted Tibbett
Does it sometimes when you see the news about New York and Chicago and, you know, Los Angeles, in some places where a lot of these migrants are ending up either by their choice or by, you know, some other reason, how they get there? Now they're screaming and hollering about how we got to secure our border. And of course, they're their sanctuary cities.

I get a little bit of a tickled feeling in my heart to hear these people, you know, griping and moaning now. The things that we have been seeing in the South for a long, long time now, they're starting to see it in some of these northern communities. And I just wonder what your thoughts were on that.

Congressman Guest
Well, you know, and what they're complaining about, I mean, they're seeing only really a fraction, a small fraction of what our border states are seeing. The influx that we're seeing in Texas and Arizona. I mean, it dwarfs the small number of immigrants that make it to New York or San Francisco. But it is ironic, if you will, that you're seeing that now these sanctuary cities, which were promoting, “if we want immigrants to come into the country, we want immigrants to come to our city, we will welcome you with open arms.”

Now they're seeing that they're not able to have the infrastructure in place to assimilate the large numbers of people coming into the country. And I think that this is going to be the only thing that could potentially get the Biden administration's attention, that if these liberal blue cities began to complain loud enough, that it may force the Biden administration to change their policies, because clearly, we see that they don't care what Texas thinks about it.

They don't care what Arizona thinks, that these Republican cities and these Republican States, they're going to ignore them. And so maybe by the fact that you've got New York and San Francisco and some of the other... Washington, DC, some of the other blue cities are actually now having and trying to engage in a dialog. Maybe this would be the one thing that would wake this administration up and change them from their open border policy they've pursued since day one.

Ted Tibbett
Yeah, and we can only hope that that's the way it turns out. There's one other thing. We got a couple of minutes left that I wanted to talk to you about. You know, Senator Tuberville has been blocking military promotions because of policies of the United States military, which include this gender reassignment care and abortion and things like that.

Tell me what's going on with that and what your thoughts are.

Congressman Guest
You know, I support what Senator Tuberville is doing. You know, while- while I don't want it to have a negative impact on our military readiness, I'm not receiving reports that I've seen anything that it is having a detrimental effect. I think, you know what Republicans are going to have to do if we're going to force change, particularly since, you know, we control only one half of one third of government.

We're going to have to use the power of the purse. We're going to have to use things such as the appointment process if we're going to be able to force the administration to do anything. Now, what the Democrats don't talk about and then trying to put all the blame on Senator Tuberville is the Democrats in the Senate could hold hearings on these nominations, and these nominations could actually have hearings go to the floor.

And so he is only able to slow the process down. But Chuck Schumer and the Democrats don't want to take the time necessary to have the hearings and to actually take these up either one at a time or to batch these nominations together. And so I think Senator Tuberville is kind of getting a bum rap, if you will, because while he has put a hold on, he said, I'm not going to approve these by unanimous consent and allow this to go through without regular order.

There is a process that these appointees could have their ability to have a confirmation hearing and be voted on in the Senate. But the Democrats don't want to take the time to do that. But Republicans have to use, I believe, at this point, every tool in our toolbox to push back against some of the social policies that we see that are being forced upon the American people by this administration.

Ted Tibbett
I got you. So we got less than 30 seconds left. Anything you'd like to add?

Congressman Guest
Look, I just want to tell everybody, enjoy this time of year. To me, this is the best time of year in Mississippi, Fall. We got football. All of our football teams won this Saturday, Southern state, Ole Miss. So, I'm looking forward to a great football season, and looking forward to getting back to D.C. and getting back in the fight next week.

Ted Tibbett
All right. Well, that's fantastic. We thank you so much for joining us and we always appreciate that. And we're looking forward to seeing you again. Thank you.

Congressman Guest
Yes, sir. Thank you, Ted. And have a great day.

Michael Pol
Boy, what a great guest there, Congressman Michael Guest, the third District of Mississippi. It is 7:30. Bottom of the hour. Good interview there, Michael, Michael and Michael. Coming up next is a Fox News break. Good morning.