federal workers. 83-16.ate-passed measure 11 republicans and north carolina richard burr did not vote. now that the bill has passed the senate, the house will take it with a final vote at 9:00 p.m. and follow the house right here on c-span when they gavel back in. 4 people against genocide? >> that is always the position of the united states. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: this is representative chip roy, republican of texas. he is here to talk about, among many issues, border security. good morning. what should republicans do with the border security deal being reported on? guest: were i advising the president and making the decision myself, i would say we

should do a two week cr. i think the folks who worked on the deal, the compromise, should get back in the room and come up with a solution that actually secures the border. i don't believe this is going to take the steps needed to get the job done. more importantly, it is an 1169 page bill which i just got a link to about 30 minutes ago. this is the swamp in action. we are going to get this long bill and have to pour over it over the next 24 hours before a vote is called, if a vote isn't called tonight or tomorrow. i don't care what your view is on the merits of the bill, we should take at least a week or two to make sure we are getting it right and doing our job. i certainly believe we ought to have more resources for building physical infrastructure. more beds, more judges, and all of the things to deal with the actual crisis at the border. i spent some time in the rio grande valley, where i saw 400,000 -- i'm sorry, a couple hundred people coming across the

river, and was told by border patrol we have 400,000 people coming through the rio grande valley sector, of whom 200,000 will not be branded, and 90% will be captured and released. there was a stash house in houston with 54 people in it young held hostage to pay ransom to the cartels, the gulf cartel, which has operational control of our border. the state right across the river is a level four state. that means it is a no travel zone. it is more dangerous than under us, guatemala, some of the countries -- then honduras, guatemala, some of the countries where people are traveling to the united states from. we should have a safe, legal way for people to come to the united states. we need to push back on the cartels and secure our border. host: the current bill, is it the dollar figure that concerns you? guest: that is one of the concerns. i think one of the bigger concerns is we are looking at a 1200 page bill to see is their

funding and therefore beds -- is fore funding in there beds? athink the $1.7 billion is far cry from what we need to build structures on the border. that was the baseline number in the 2018 funding, by the way. that is less than what was on. the table in december. i'm not sure what we've been doing over the last 45 days if that's the deal we want to cut. host: you said you advocate for a two week cr. should be go another shutdown route? guest: i think we should do a clean two week cr and go back and look at it. we never should have shut it down. we should have just had a clean cr. host: did you vote for shutdown last time? guest: i voted to fund the government when we had bills that would have funded the government right way instead of with priorities that would not have gotten the job done. we are not going to do something that doesn't secure the border. we can do crs while we continue

to have a robust debate. i don't understand why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle feel they should not be doing their job to secure the border and put the physical infrastructure in place. judges, beds. this is the basic duty of a sovereign nation. i think the gop is winning. i think we are winning the narrative of the american people that we need to secure the border, and this is better for our american citizens. jared vargas was murdered last july and my home district, or near my home district. 's family is a beautiful family. i was with them yesterday in the capital. they are up here with angel moms and angel families. there are real impacts to real people, including the migrants coming to hear. the two little girls i talked to in my very broken spanish on the rio grande river 10 days ago, it is heartbreaking. the travel here from honduras by themselves with no parents. andnow 1/3 of these girls women are being abused along the way.

it is absolutely unconscionable that the united states of america is allowing this to be the state of our border. host: chip roy serves as a republican. you can join us on the lines this morning. for republicans, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. if you live in a border state, (202) 748-8003. what are using would change of the president decided to take that route? guest: we would have a chance to look at the bill and see what is in it, which is a novel concept in washington, d.c. you think how money pages a minute you have to read over the next 24 hours just to read the whole bill. first of all we would have time. second, i think they should be forced to go back in the room and answer how this is actually going to solve the problem. this bill, to me, takes a step

back because if we don't address the asylum in the issue with respect to the mandatory catch and release that judges have created, the so-called florez decision, if you don't address that and have judges in place, beds in place to be with family so we can figure out how to process, right now we literally have people streaming across. i saw it with my own eyes. streaming across, getting on buses. we have border patrol taking them to a processing center, where in 43 hours they are processed, sent back out, and released into the united states. that is only half of the people who are caught. how is that remotely a solution? this bill will do virtually nothing to solve that problem other than begin the process of continuing to build some infrastructure, which i support, but we need immediate action. if it is an emergency, let's go. host: first call comes from a viewer in arizona.

johnny, you are first up for representative chip roy of texas. caller: you all call that place up there the hill, and i believe that all you politicians have your head in the sand like ostriches. i would never go up there. i would never bring my children there. you can't play baseball in the park. you get shot. i've never heard anything about that person. host: caller, do you have a specific question for our guest? caller: i just think that you politicians are in denial. host: ok. guest: well, i understand why the american people are frustrated. i would be, too. when you look at what happens in washington, we are living it. in 1169 page bill dropped at 7:30 in the morning, and now we are expected to vote on it within 24 hours. of course the american people are frustrated.

they are frustrated at $3 trillion in spending we are facing this year. health-care costs are going up because government is not doing what it needs to do to get out of the way and allow lower health care prices. of course the american people are frustrated. i understand it, and that's why i came to washington. texasd rather be back in on valentine's day, but i'm happy to be here fighting for freedom. assistant attorney general of texas, senior advisor to former governor rick perry, from illinois, joe is next. caller: good morning, pedro. i've got a question for the congressman. you are a member of the greedy old party, which i call the gop. why don't we take the subsidies you are giving to big oil, tobacco growers?

here in illinois, the government pays you for it. take all those billions of dollars and build your wall and be happy instead of taking our taxpayers after mexico was supposed to pay for this wall. it is all greed, and he republicans, all you want to do is fatten your wallets. guest: thanks for the question. look, i think there's significant resources we could deploy to secure the border, which is our fundamental constitutional duty. i believe this is part of national security. i agree that there are way too many subsidies flying around this town in all directions both parties. i think that should end. we should allow the markets to work. i think we should have low tax rates, low regulation. allow that to create wealth, opportunity, jobs. allow you end americans to do

what they do best, which is go out and create jobs, opportunity, and drive this economy. all washington does is get in the way of that. we need to address some of the subsidy issues, but right now today we need to fund border security, and then get busy balancing the budget, which nobody in this town has any real interest in talking about doing. you rarely hear that conversation. host: what did you think of senator cruz's idea to take money from el chapo to apply to the wall? guest: i think that is great. i have no problem taking all or from a hardened criminal like that to do what we need to do to secure the border. most importantly, this isn't a question about the resources. we are talking about $3 billion to $5 billion on what the president asked for. this is a political fight.

host: john yarmuth said there is no way to balance the best budget. guest: that is pure washington talk. the american people have to balance their budget. states like texas have to balance their budget. washington, d.c. likes to spend other peoples money without respect to whether or not we should maintain fiscal sanity and order. that needs to change. of course we can balance the budget. you've got to constrain discretionary spending and mentor spending. that is not just social -- made a tory spending. -- mandatory spending. it is not just social security and medicare. it is the form subsidies.

it is food stamps. caps, which really put us on a path to restricting spending and getting to the chance of balance. what have they been doing the last two or three years? by the way, both parties. they blew past the gaps for two consecutive years by about $140 or $150 billion. i would love to have a suburban to drive around and come up but i have a much smaller car because that's all i can afford. that's what the american people do. we look at our budget, figure out what you have, and act accordingly. washington needs to do that. host: this is from connecticut, independent line. milo. caller: good morning. i've just got to go against everything this guy just said because he just blamed the food stamps. basically he blamed all the poor

people for the troubles america has. 2.3 president just gave trillion dollars tax cuts to the rich. together that your giving $1 million to every single american in tax credit like $350 only billion. what did he do with the rest? guest: cbo did a study last spring which showed the tax cuts put in place largely had already paid for themselves. we are heading right down the path where the economic growth generated by putting more money in the pockets of the american people is paying for itself. time will tell, and we will look at that. that is the kind of economic growth that is going to get us out of the fiscal situation we are in.

languishing in economic growth during the obama years. that is no way to be able to have jobs, wealth, opportunity. what i am going to say is that is money that should stay in the economy. it is not about who it is being given to. it is about dollars that are able to fly around the country, creating restaurants and many if we really did that in health care, the economy would take off like never before. we have a historically low unemployment rate. we have a low unemployment rate among minorities. everything that is so good about the economy right now, we can make better. host: host: what do you do with the $2 trillion debt that's $22 trillion debt?

guest: the cbo said we are already paying for that. the issue here is where should the money sit? it should sit with the american people and create economic growth, creating more opportunity and growth in the economy. we do not have an income problem in washington. we have a spending problem. we need to be spending a serious amount of discretionary spending. these guys will not do their job to restrain spending. we saw that just last year. $150 billion over the caps. this year, we have the opportunity. if we follow the caps, we can constrain spending. deals will be cut based on wanting to have defense spending and deals will be cut on nondefense discretionary. we should hold the line on the caps. the american people deserve that.

host: from south dakota, democrats line. dennis, hello. they are goinge to build the wall along belongs to private citizens. i used to live in california. they took our property to widen the street. my son worked there for 14 years. you purchase a property first, sir. vietnam veterans -- i'm considered one. they brought all these people home after the vietnam war. they were refugees. i understand that. -- youve little saigon people seem to think we can take everyone in. president trump hires illegal immigrants for his golf courses. guest: i appreciate the question.

could not agree more. we worked really hard to fight back against the egregious key takingcision, government it and not using it for public use. that is absolutely important. sum of five friends in the house -- some of my friends in the house, we are working on we are asking border patrol agents right now to go down to the river in laredo and the rio grande valley, often times they are down in the river, you have an agent down by himself, it's dark, you cannot see the river because of the cane, you cannot drive laterally because there's no road there and you don't have a physical barrier to funnel people who are coming illegally.

some people coming illegally wish us no harm. some do. are ms 13 and who gang members. any rancher who doesn't agree, we should work with and figure out proper property rights. a fair market value and do it with minimal impact, allow farmers to have access to the river and rio grande valley. we just need to do our job to secure the border so that migrants are safe and american citizens are safe. host: from columbus station, ohio. ed, good morning. caller: this is not rocket science. president trump -- i'm a conservative. sat on his hands, president trump won the primaries against every other

republican on securing the border. i was 30 years in the military. this will get pushed around by the liberal media -- they have everything against them. they have their heads in the sand. i've never missed an election in my life. that's aublican newcomer, i'm voting for them. this should have been done a year and a half ago. guest: i appreciate your passion. this is why iran for congress last year. -- why i ran for congress last year. i'm frustrated with the republican party just as much as i'm frustrated with the democrat party.

is fundamentally broken on both sides of the aisle. i'm happy to stand with the president on border security. i'm not happy to continue to do the same kind of deals here in washington that keep sticking it to the american people and not doing our job. they keep spending money we don't have. and go out toals the american people and pretended to good deal when it's not. host: our guest serves on the budget committee and oversight and reform committee. representative chip roy of texas. the change would allow staff of house committees to conduct depositions without any lawmakers present. your committee would be involved in that. what do you think of that change? guest: there was some discussion with that. some agreement within the

committee, the chairman was accommodative to our concerns, making sure members would be present for depositions. it was not agreed to as a hard rule. i wish it had been. members ought to be present. if we are going to be asking american citizens to come before a committee, then members ought to be responsible for ensuring that is conducted fairly and appropriately. toy ought to take the time be there for the depositions. i felt strongly about that. congressman jordan pushed that issue pretty hard. promisesman made some that we would ensure to have members there -- it should have been a rule. oversight is important. the whole reason we have an oversight and government reform is to make sure that

the article one function of congress is doing its job to check and look at and review what is happening in our government as a whole, including article one. i take that response ability very seriously. runaway,n't have a politically motivated agenda in a committee that is there for -- we should be looking at how money is spent and how regulations are getting propagated. we should be looking at the size and growth of the executive branch and looking at things whether there are concerns about any wrongdoing. not politically motivated vendettas, which is oftentimes what drives the agenda in d.c. host: phoenix, arizona. glenn, go ahead. caller: thank you for hearing what i have to say. i wanted to say that i am a

.onstruction worker in arizona i work with a lot of illegals. i know that. is an unfortunate amount of fear mongering going on over the issue. i don't necessarily see these people as criminals. they are here for a better life because where they come from sucks. crime andrugs and gangs. , the onlyget here crime they do is they cross the border because they cannot afford the fees and the time it takes to go through immigration. when they get here, they try to be americans. they learn english. i teach many of them english. they work hard. most of these company's want to hire the most qualified employees. a lot of times, the most

qualified employees are illegals. guest: i appreciate that call. i represent texas, the 21st district. are a significant number of people present who are here illegally. other than crossing the border illegally and the stealing of --uments for identity besides that part, the vast majority of people coming here are seeking a better life. i do not begrudge any person who wants to do that. i don't begrudge the families seeking to come here. i do begrudge the extent to politicians like to pat themselves on the back for allowing a broken system to continue that endangers american citizens when some come through

who are dangerous, that empowers cartels, which endangers our border, which endangers citizens to the flow of drugs at ports of entry and between and endangers the migrants you're talking about. the 54 people i discussed earlier who are paying ransom to the cartels, huo their lives -- who owe their life like indentured servitude. we need to have compassion in how we deal with all of this, but dealing with this through an open border is bad for our country and bad for the economy. host: derek from maryland. democrats line. guest: this guy is a piece of work. host: you're on with him. go ahead. that's whytax cuts,

we are in so much terrible debt right now. trump is running around talking wast how great the economy when everybody knows the economy was already great when he got to it. all the mess he's in -- look at the mess you started. anybody would have been and have the same result with the economy. republicans do what they do best -- give tax cuts to the rich and corporations. that's how you get your big national debt. guest: i appreciate you watching c-span and for turning in and for your passion. i always think it's interesting when people think history started in december of 2017. the tax cuts will

save us from a lot of the problems we did inherit through massive spending with languishing economic growth for eight years under obama. in the united states history, prior to 2008, we had a trillion dollars in total national debt. we double that. -- $8 trillion in total national debt. economic growth languished. it was often in the 1-2% area. history, we've had 3-4% economic growth. we need to return to that and make sure we have money back in the economy. corporations are these esoteric entities. they are human beings who own them. people who have ownership in stock and equity, whether it is a savings account or retirement account, the american people

have ownership over these companies. we want to make sure those companies can create more wealth, more jobs, more opportunity to grow the economy. that's what we believe works. the american experiment has literally changed the world. people pulled out of poverty, both being lifted, lifespans increasing around the world following the example of the model of what freedom and opportunity represent in this country. that's how we should govern. host: bridget in north carolina. caller: how you doing? guest: how are you? caller: i'm fine. --onder where the money where did that money come from? i don't understand where the money is coming from now with the bill you are talking about. guest: thank you for that

question. if you are talking about the money we related to the order secured a bill -- border security bill, what is on the isle in this 200 page bill funding for the rest of government that was not currently funded to date through september. i think it busts the caps by another $2 billion in non-border related spending. with moredealing spending for dhs and for trying to deal with the border. where that money comes from, right now, it comes from taxpayer money and the debt we keep racking up. by perpetually blowing past the caps, we are adding to the debt. it's coming from borrowing and coming from taxpayer dollars. as we look ahead to the 2020 fiscal year, we ought to get

serious about balancing the budget and concerning the spending. dust constraining the spending. host: you are eventually going to have to vote for the bill. guest: we shouldn't be forced to do this. .e should pass a cr i don't believe it doesn't up to secure the border. the funding level is basically where we were in the previous fiscal year, 2018 levels. it's not as good as the deals that were being discussed in december. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and issues that affect you. stephen on friday,

moore. from the heritage foundation. also congressman john larson of connecticut. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern friday morning. join the discussion. >> u.s. house still in recess, we expect members to return shortly now that the rules committee has finished its work. they'll gavel in and debate the house-senate compromise for the rest of the budget year. the measure includes nearly $1.4 billion for 55 miles of new barriers along the u.s. southern border and funding for nine federal departments as well as a nearly 2% pay raise for federal workers. the senate passed the measure earlier today. the house must take up the measure with a final vote

possible this evening. follow the house live here on c-span when they gavel back. in until then, a conversation with supreme court justice sonia sotomayor on her life and career and the differents in work og on the district court and supreme court. >> this room is so beautiful. it's just a beautiful room. >> i have the privilege of asking the first question. [laughter] >> he pulled rank.

>> justice sotomayor, a few years ago, you wrote the best-selling "my beloved world" which is widely acclaimed, available in paperback, required reading in school districts across the country. in the past year you've published two more books. this time for younger readers. one called "turning pages," and the other called "the beloved sotomayor."ia -off done this while also having a busy, important day job. what motivated you to write the books? ms. sotomayor: i should tell the story of "my beloved world." the publishing department called me up and said we really should do this event. and i