be able to join you. we're going to start with christina. before we do the first question let's do the broadest one. which is tell us very briefly your top priorities in taking this gavel. why did you want the chairmanship and what do you intend to do with it? >> well, i looked at the republican study committee and because of its size and its passion and the qual of its membership, it seemed to me that it would be the organization to have the greatest influence in terms of being able to excute the things that are most important to the american people particularly in

light of the fact that the republicans will control the senate in the 114th congress beginning in january. it just seemed like this would be a great way to be able to put conservative fingerprints on the policies that hard-working american families need to be able to better themselves at this point. >> we should explain to our audience what the republican study committee actually is. i have often described it as sort of a think tank for conservative ideas inside the congress. is that fairly accurate? >> yes. that's partially correct. it is a think tank. but it's also an organization whose mission is to promote conservative policies. and its goal is to adhere to a constitutionally limited government to protect property rights, to foster economic opportunity for all americans, to promote a strong national defense and to protect traditional american family values. >> congressman, the republican study committee started out as

a pretty small group of the most conservative members. over time it's ballooned into nearly three quarters of the the house republican conference. these days what distinguishes an rsc member from any other house republican? guest: i would say that the mean conservative ideology of a republican study committee ember is more to the right than the mean ideology of the republican conference as a whole. now, what's happened over the last three election sikesles particularly in 2010 and again in 2014 is that we have elected large numbers of conservatives to the u.s. house. and as a result of that, the republican study committee -- these are people that naturally have a shared value system with the republican study committee. so our size has grown substantially. and as part of the process we pulled the mean conservative ideology score, if you will, of the house well to the right of

where it was let's say ten years ago. >> does that apply to issues across the board or is that primarily on fiscal issues? >> well, no. i can't say that it's across the board. because if you look at our membership from a mission standpoint, it's fairly diverse from let's say from a thought process. we have some people that are fiscal hawks, we have people defense hawks, we've got large libertarian element, we've got folks that identify as some of each. and you've got -- we've got a strong base of social conservatives as well. so the challenge is the chair -- as the chair is to be able to get as many of what i think will be 185 members in our -- on our roster to come to a common set of ideals as we move forward in the next congress. >> congressman, i just want to ask you. obviously there was a lot of talk in your campaign that you

would be a shill for leadership. how do you balance that desire? obviously you stated that you would want to work with leadership. how do you balance that desire to be collaborative and work with leadership but also push leadership toward a more conservative vision? >> it was unfortunate that the -- that folks thought that i was somehow aligned with leadership. let me say this. what i said is that to the extent that we have differences with our leadership. rather than airing those differences in public, we will keep those private. now, the reason for that temperament that i have is because i spent 30 years in the real world in the private sector before i came to congress. and the companies that i worked with were successful because we had better ideas, we had harder working teams, we had smarter working teams, and we won because of that. we didn't win because we were making insidry statements in the media or we were putting out incindiary press releases. we did it because we were

paying attention to our mission and blocking and tackling. that's the style. it doesn't mean i'm not pushy. it just means we're going to do it in a different way more like the way steve scalise delt with his differences as the chairman earlier this congress. so we're going to see more of that. >> it doesn't mean we're going to be align though. wlar do you say to the members who want to see a leader who really pushing the conversation even in public and not just a behind closed doors sort of thing? they want to see those comments out in the media and be a force for that conservative vision? >> here's the deal. that's not in our mission statement. now, if the membership of the republican study committee wants to change the mission statement to say that parts of our mission is to be publicly pushy with our leadership, i'm willing to fulfill the mission statement. i signed on as chair to fulfill the mission statement, whatever it is. but the mission statement today

is the -- what i said earlier when susan opened this conversation. it's not to be pushy with leadership or to be banging on our leadership, if you will. it doesn't mean we're not going to be. we're going to come up with policy solutions, positive conservative achieveable policy solutions and we're going to put those in frond of your leadership and we're going to ask them to push as hard as they can to get to those. the quid pro quo if you will is if they do that they'll get the bulk of our membership votes as these things come to our floor whatever the number is the. we'll never have all of us behind the same policy. but that's one of the thing that is our leadership will need as they're trying to get to 218 votes on the house floor. so by working with us to advance positive conservative solutions, they will be able to achieve the things that they want to get done as well. there's a pretty good alignment of missions i think, if you will, between republican leadership and the republican

study committee. we want to address the problems that are occurring in this country. if you look at what's happened to a hard-working american tax paying family their income is flat, their health care costs are up. their food costs are up, their energy costs are up. so they're feeling this huge squeeze. and it's all because the head winds that were imposed on them in the 2009-2010 congress and on the regulatory winds coming out of the white house today. so we need to create an environment where we're producing more jobs and better paychecks. second thing we need to do the united states is in an ever increasingly volatile world. and our defense department has been squeezed. so we need to rebuild our national defense and we need to adopt ronald reagan style of peace through strength. washington is still a fiscal train wreck. we've got to balance the budget. we've got to address the drivers of our debt.

and then lastly we have strong commitments to social values. we need to take care of those as well. so there's a pretty good alignment. not perfect alignment between what our leadership wants to do and what the republican study committee wants to do. so our goal is to put forth the most positive achieveable solutions and ask our leadership to do that. we'll be pushy. i just don't intend to do it in the public forum unless our membership desires that we do that publicry. >> congressman, you mentioned the department of defense being squeezed. next year the sequester cuts return the croost the board spending can you tell us. do you think that the cuts need to be milt gated to the defense budget or is that fair game along with everywhere else? >> i think the defense cuts need to be mitigated. we're in the process under this president's leadership -- remember the sequester was his idea. and it has hollowed out our miltrifment now, i think our military is still doing a reasonably good job and in an

environment that's increasingly more dangerous to americans around the world. but none theless i think we need to go back to the reagan vision of peace through strength. and i think if you build a strong defense department it's not because you want to go to war, it's because you want to mainlt peace at home and abroad. so that's my vision for moving forward. and this is the vision of most of the folks in the republican study committee and most in the republican conference, quite frankly, and i think we have a lot of democrats who feel the same way. >> but i've heard some conservatives say that the defense budget could be trimmed along with other parts of the budget and there should be no sacred cows when it comes to whittling down spending. what's your response to folks in your caucus who say that? >> i would say that i agree. there should be no sacred cows anywhere in the federal government. and the defense department is one place where individual members of congress or groups of members of congress have had sacred cows. so that's one of the things that we are going to have to

look deep within our own party and also the democrats are going to have to do the same and begin to quit funding the sacred cows so that we could fund the greater good of a strong and robust defense department. >> congressman, i want to ask you about this sort of relationship with these outside conservative groups. obviously the republican study committee has been in the middle of that. it's been a tenuous relationship with these groups that sort of sum nated with the executive director being fired for passing information to these groups and obviously mr. teller is now the chief of staff for ted cruz. i want to know how you envision working with these outside groups and how do you balance that they've been sort of a flame-throwing against leadership. again the mission statement doesn't say anything about working with the outside groups. now, i think the outside groups on the conservative side and the conservative spectrum are

doing great work for the country. but in some ways i think that they are some of them i believe have other missions and that is to raise money. they have missions to primary republicans. they have missions to -- and some of them have more purist missions and that is to advance the conservative cause. so i would like to work with them as much as i can. but everybody's got to remember that my primary responsibility is as the chair next year will be to work with our membership, not to work with the outside groups. and so i hope to foster a positive and collaborative relationship with the outside groups. but at the same time i don't want to discount my obligation to represent the membersship of the republican study committee and to try to advance the conservative cause as much as beck. >> have these groups been a force for good in republican leadership and in republicans in congress? have they been good overall for republicans? >> i think it varies by the

group. and then sometimes they have and sometimes i think they've been less hem helpful. so in a per workt world you would by say to say our goal to balance the budget in ten years for instance and we ought to all get behind that and we ought to have similar messaging so that we're covering not only the members of congress to make sure they're on board but to make sure that the grassroots and the rest of america son board. that would be the perfect world to work together to advance those causes instead of saying ok well let's say we as members of congress want to balance in ten years and the outside groups say five years and then they decide they're going to attack those members of congress that don't want to balance it in ten years. i don't think we ought to get in that sort of a hostile relationship. i would like to see us as the republican study committee advance what we think is the most achieveable solution, and then have the outside groups take a look at it and hopefully

come on board with us. but at the end of the day my obligation is to the republican study committee and our obligation as a whole is to the people we represent in this country so that we can help hard-working american families and to rebuild our defense department, protect property rights and to advance traditional family values. >> congressman, the president's executive action on the immigration seems to really angered republicans. but you're also a congressman from texas and the texas lawmakers have had more nuanced views of how immigration should be approached and how the system should be fixed. are you worried at all that the republican reaction could provoke a backlash with hispanic voters? >> well, i'm hoping that all of us as republicans and as conservatives can be thoughtful in our response to the president. ow, in my role as the incoming rsc chair, i think it's probably inappropriate for me to express my personal views because they will somehow become ascribed to the rsc as a

whole. but let me say this. with respect to immigration, i think -- i don't know exactly what the president ss going to propose tonight but first of all it is unlawful, it is unconstitutional. and if you go back to his speeches that he made as recently as 2009 he admilingts the same. the other thing is think about the impact on again what we're here for. these hard working american families who are going to have 5 million new people competing for their jobs and driving their wages down. think about how that takes the has ze that this president posed and continues to ratchet them down. think about the impact of the people who have been standing in line and trying to become legal in the right way and follow the law and suddenly they have 5 million people jump in line in front of them. that's not fair to the people and families. if you look at the polling that came out in the "wall street journal" this morning, over

half the americans don't want the president to do this. and so i think it is a bad policy decision, i think it is an unlawful action. and from a political standpoint i think he is making a big mistake. so we as republicans should not do something that causes the spotlight to move from his unlawful actions to our bad behavior. >> congressman, i just want to follow up on that. if it is unlawful, if it is unconstitutional don't republicans have an obligation to move forward with impeachment proceedings if the president does in fact go ahead with his executive action? >> i don't think impeachment is a good solution. i think it's inappropriate to bring that solution up at this point in time. it will depend on what he does actually and it will depend on what the sense of the whole congress is. but it's not worth talking about. that said, we do have a number of errors in our quiver -- arrows in our quiver as lawmakers under article 1 of our constitution to deal with

this president. we can use an appropriations process, the recission process, we can block appointments. we still have considerable power. and so i think it's incumbent upon us as republicans and as conservatives to be thoughtful and to be very clear in our messaging to the american people about what we are going to do and why we are going to do it in order to stop this unlawful action that is unfair to hard-working american families and it is unfair to the millions of people that are trying to become legal through the proper process r. so you don't think this rises to the level of impeachment? >> i'm not saying it does or doesn't. i think it's inappropriate to bring that part of the discussion up today when we have several other arrows in our quiver that we can use before that. >> we have nine minutes left. let me just go back to the explanation to the public. many people within your own party acknowledge the need for the republicans to reach out more to an increasingly diverse

american populous. how do you thread the needle as it were with your position on the whole immigration policy issue and still reach out to the growing hispanic population in the united states? >> i do it the same way i do it at home. my district is 44% nonwhite and i have a substantial percentage of their votes and i got it because i talk about the things important to them. economic opportunities for families, opportunities to be able to have the right kind of health care rather than a big government solution of health care. i talk about the opportunities to protect their liberty and their freedom and to have -- allow them to choose the schools that they want. i talk about the opportunities to reduce the head winds coming out of washington. i talk about the need for the federal government to perform its constitutional role to protect them from dangers. both at home and abroad. i talk about the need to protect our border. and these things resonate

across every different demographic group and every different gender group and every different age group. so i think that we as republicans need to stay focused on that. if we talk about the opportunities that we are trying to promote for hard-working american families, irrespective of their background, we will win this argument. >> congressman, we have heard a lot of republican lawmakers recently say that there is a new appetite to bring immigration bills to the house floor, they mentioned a border bill as their top priority. we have been hearing that for a while though. so what likelihood would you give that we actually see a border bill come to the house floor and when do you think that might happen? >> well, i hesitate to talk about where our leadership is. and i cannedly don't know where the republican study committee is on this. but i think where we are is hat we are all just -- 90 plus pernts ready to have a border -- percent ready to have a

border bill that is actionable and enforceable and have that come to the floor and i think it will pass the house easily with probably with democratic support. it's hard to see how a democrat could be against border security. i think it could pass the senate. and then the president is going to have a decision to make. he talks about wanting to use his pen all the time so i would hope he would use his pen to do the thing that is are positive for american families. and one of those is border security because it is a -- of high concern to hard-working americans. >> given that there's such concensus among republicans on this issue why hasn't such a bill come to the floor yet? >> you know, i really don't know. i -- this is one of the areas where i disagree with our leadership and i would push back. and that is we should have done this at the beginning of my first term in congress and the 112th congress in 2011 we should have done it again in 2013. again in 2014. i don't know.

i just don't see the need to have kept this off the table. now, i will tell you this. some people think that if we did it that the senate might decide to marry it up with their comprehensive immigration bill and then we would be sitting and looking at having to voted on a comprehensive immigration bill that has embedded flaws. and so i think that was probably the struct ral reason why it didn't come to the floor. i don't know. that would have been a risk i'm willing to take but i'm not in leadership. so i hope that when we control the senate beginning in january that we will bring a comprehensive -- excuse me not a comprehensive. let me make that perfectly clear. we will bring a border security bill to the floor. and then we need to look at entry and exit visa entry and exit tracking and enforcement. we need to consider maybe changing the legal immigration system so that guest worker program is different. and then you can just go down the line of the menu of options

available for immigration. >> congressman, i want to get one point that obviously the rsc is quite a large organization. it's now roughly three fourths of the entire republican conference. how do you distinguish a group that size from the overall conference if it is just 170 members, 180 members of a conference that is currently 230-some odd and close to 250 come the next congress? >> let's say this. it is -- it's harder to distinguish because as the republican study committee has gotten so large the mean ideology of the house republicans as a whole has come over to the right. so the gap, if you will, between what it used to be and today is smaller. so there are fewer differses. but i do think that the areas where i would say that there are differences. we believe in balancing the budget quicker on average than

the house republicans as a whole. i think we are likely to be more aggressive in addressing the drivers of our debt. i think we're more aggressive in terms of trying to dial back the regulatory head winds coming out of washington. we're certainly more aggressive on social values. we're more aggressive on defense. so i -- and when it comes to adhering to the constitution and trying to get the federal government back to its original limit of scope i think we're more aggressive on those issues. >> but you've emphasized achieveable solution thrussout this interview. so you're going to need to put policy solutions forward that will appeal to those that are not within your caucus. >> that's correct. we will. >> i want to ask one other question. you talked about approaching immigration essentially from a menu of options. when you look at the affordable care law, will your approach be again not comprehensively? in other words repeal and replace. but to look at aspects of the law that you would like to

tackle? >> well, let me say this. i'm talking as bill flowers in this. representive from texas district 17. i'm not talking about this as the chair incoming chair of the republican study committee. i think that we need to do -- well, three things really. one is repeal obamacare. we need to come up with our replacement solution so that we can go to america and talk about what we're for. and then the third thing is i think we need to do is because this law is so destructive and we know the president will veto the first two options that we -- or the first two action that is we do. i think it's incumbent upon us to try to remove as many of the bad things from the law as we can. the law is going to fail because it is actuarial ub sound, it is operationly unsound. they can't even build a website. because of that it will fail. but i think it's incumbent upon us to try to remove as many of the bad thing that is we can

where the president will sign it. there probably aren't many of those options. but then in 2017 depending on what happens in the presidential elections we'll have another bite at the apple. so again three things. repeal, replace. those will get vetoed by the president. if he really cared about american families he would approve them. but he will veto them. he will side with washington bureaucrats. and then thirdly is we need to try to do what we can to remove the economic damage that this is doing to hardworking american families. >> final question. >> as you're going through that process of trying to make the health care law better, how important will it be for house republicans to think about what can pass in snat where they will still need some democratic votes? >> let me clarify what i said before because i didn't say make the law better. i said make it less worse because it is a horrible law. and all we're doing is taking it from making it just ten on a scale of bad to making it seven

or eight. it's still bad. it is a bad law that is hurting american families. it is -- it has been terrible to the cost structure of businesses it has been terrible to the coverage of american families. so going back to your question now. we will have to work hard to make sure that whatever we do in the house can pass the senate. and so the good news is that we have severalrnc members that will be in the senate in 2016 and i have already talked to every one of them and i said if you don't mind i would like to cox over and work together so -- come over and work together so when we work are in the house and coming up with these positive conservative achieveable solution that is we find the ones that will pass the house but will also pass the senate. so in some cases that may mean not only be pushy with the house leadership but the senate and the senate leadership. but i think we will have

opportunities for great success in all of those areas where we're pushing. >> thank you very much for being with us this week. the incoming chair of the republican study committee. thanks for your time. >> thank you very much. i've enjoyed it. on ristina, our guest "newsmakers." let me start with the discussion that you had with the congressman about his relationship or his intended relationship with the house leadership. sparnse's problems often -- speaker boehner's were often in his own conference. i'm wondering what you think about what you heard from him and his approach to be behind closed doors in his negotiations with leadership. what does that mean for mr. boehner and the new entire leadership team? >> it's certainly good news for speaker boehner. i think that leadership whether or not they were actually pushing for votes they do have a stake in the election and the rsc really is a voice pushing the republican conference more to the right. that -- the new incoming

chairman says i want to have these fights behind closed doors and not in the public. that's significant. whether or not that will actually drive the conversation more to the right that remains to be seen but it's certainly a major point that he made. so yeah. >> the speaker might be breathing a little easier with the results of this election? >> i think that this is good news for leadership. i do think that this is always the stated goal to have the fights just within the family. that isn't always what happens with house republicans. and i think that congressman flowers is establishing a less confrontational approach but the rest of the rsc may not feel the same way. so even though the tone he is setting may be a little more conciliatory, i'm not sure if that will actually translate into what we see nesk year. >> mind you he did run on that message though. he won this election on being the voice that will say we're not going to have those fights in public and my rsc won't be the flame thrower one that we've seen in the past. and he won that election on

that message. so there is maybe a majority in that republican study committee that believes in that and that may be a reflection of the size of the actual rsc where it is now so much a reflection of the overall conference. >> the fact that immigration is going to be first out of the box and enormous passions around this issue put a test to best laid plans? >> absolutely. that will be true not just in the rsc but in the house republican conference writ large. this is a huge test for republican leadership in the house and senate to see if they can successfully push back against the president's executive action without shutting down the government or as congressman floweres put it shifting the spotlight to their action when they want to keep it trained on the president. >> you saw the incoming chairman trying to thread the needle there where he wants to say it's an unlawful action yet he doesn't want to go down that impeachment road. so republicans do have a lot of options. they do have a lot of arrows in the quiver. however that phrase goes.

but as the congressman said, it's just whether or not they can continue with that line of rhetoric the whole way through in this executive action especially with some voices who are very far to the right on this and actually do believe that the president is acting well beyond his executive bounds. >> so if the study committee has been a pressure point on the leadership you asked a que about the outside conservative groups that have been in fact a pressure point object on the study committee and on leadership as well. what did you learn from the congressman about his intended approach in working with these outside groups as he said they're varied but nonetheless they do in fact exert considerable pressure from time to time. >> i think effs very carible about that. the rsc's positions on many of these bills has aligned with these conserve ti outside groups. but republicans have been frustrated over the past year by these outside groups who have gone after some of their peers ipr