head of the goldwater institute, a wonderful think tank. he wrote a book called "the consciousness of a conservative." auntie is out of politics prints.he offended the i do not think so. he was a cheerful malcontent. thatsay, he proved that adjective goes together. you can be a malcontent but cheerful about it. i like to think i am. i think barry goldwater, some people say he lost the 1964 election because he lost 44 states. i stay -- he won and it took 16 years to count the votes. mentioned "the consciousness of the conservative," it seems that you are today.

on would you anoint to carry that responsibility? >> thanks you for being here, i am evan smith. i am spending time today walking around and saying hello to folks in the audience at sessions that we consider to be fundamental to the success of this event and are the best aligned with the mission. we worked really hard all year long to get representative andds -- roy, georgia -- meadows to have an a diversity of ideas and have folks from all sides. we won people in every room to talk and listen to people they agree within disagree with because we think texas and this country will be better if all of us are at a conversation at the parties of our state and country on all sides. we are honored by the presence of our out-of-state guests, representative meadows and jordan.

we are pleased that representative roy, although he is not technically in his district. no, this is in your district. you are just pandering, right? ok. representative roy has come home doing constituent service. seriously, the secondly i want to say is the politico 10. thing forain, a huge this festival and for texas. our partner spent in a morris amount of time planning an amazing day, they are investing in you and in this event -- in this invent, and we should invest in them. please give them a big hand. [applause] that all of our partners at this festival are our favorite and best partners and i am saying that in all of the tents. let our panelists come up and

join the stage. please enjoy the festival. >> hello. good morning. thank you for that wonderful introduction. i am the co-author of "the politico playbook," and i am joined by jake sherman. thank you all for joining us in austin in this bracing heat to have a great discussion. for those of you who might not byw, it is a newsletter political operatives and professionals. we tell you what we really need to know and what is happening around the world in politics. it is a combination of walter cronkite and gossip girl. 86 --n text pb to we are joined by members of the house freedom caucus, and i would like to send you a special thanks to our partners for

hosting us here and to our sponsor for supporting the tent today. jake: i'm going to introduce our guests. thank you for the applause. i will go down the line, and they are very far because they do not like a question and it means that they cannot attack us. you notice that they are on the right-hand side of the stage. -- from ourht perspective i guess. from our -- this is jim jordan from ohio, the freedom caucus founding chairman. representative meadows who is the chairman. two more days, so he speaks for the freedom caucus, and shift roy, who is on the freedom caucus and he has a card-carrying member. is there a card? >> we have a visa card. jake: that is right. you have a passport to come into

office. >> this is my first time in austin. thank you, i appreciate you turning on the air conditioning. jake: we wrote a book about congress in which mr. roy escapes, mr. meadows and jordan were in the book and i went through old interview transcripts and things that were not in the book. in january 2018i was in ohio with mr. jordan and he said, "i think our base will keep us in power, because if they do not they will impeach the president." and he actually suggested in a meeting that the election message for your party should be keep us in power or the president will get impeached. mr. meadows, you told us in november 2017, if we are in the minority we are toast, the

president will be impeach. here we are. anna: you are in the minority. jake: and the president is being preached -- is being impeached. let us start, obviously wrote since lastight, and night more stuff has come out. i am curious if you could tell has thehe president -- president done anything wrong? >> read the transcript. clear, remember, here's the democrat's take, some bureaucrat who does not like the president. jake: we do not know. inspector general bias,f some political that means that guy hates trump. distraction --e description of the peter strzok text messages. if you think he is a fan of the

president then perhaps you cannot make the conclusion. we have seen this before. like thet does not president and files a complaint and he was on -- not on the telephone call. white house does something that never had been done before. we read the transcript and nothing is there. the democrats say that we will impeach, because i do not think they care about the truth, because if they did, nancy pelosi would not have done the press conference and said that we were going to impeach. they would have waited for some evidence. not got the evidence it was there. our prediction was exactly it. they will do this regardless of truth and fact. jake: asking for help digging up dirt on a domestic political rival, is that right or wrong? rep. roy: when i looked through this i looked through the lens, and let me first say, i am glad that this is occurring in the

district i represent. the district line is literally that street, 10th street, so we are at the north end of the district. i am glad that the tribune put this on and allows a variety of opinion. this is the fifth year in a row that i have participated. i recognize faces in the crowd and some that agree with me and some that do not. jake: the wind kicks up when you start talking. >> i hope you keep talking. -- water isd splashing down. any of you know that i served as the first assistant attorney general. i view all of this through the lens of a prosecutorial lens. you will have seen i have not been out there much on the subject. it is not because -- it is not my nature. i want to look at the facts and see what is there. i do not have the luxury i have when i was a prosecutor to do

the investigation myself and work with law enforcement and local police. there were cases that i worked on and go look at the facts and talk to people. in this case, look at what we have in terms of allegations in we form of hearsay, which recognize the document was presented with hearsay. now, we go and find people who have a direct argument. ok, i saw this, and find and talk to the witnesses. we saw that the president compliant and -- he offered and put forward the transcript. so we have looked at the transcript. is the extenterns to which this sort of pre-baked by virtue of putting out something with hearsay. and then making a decision to go full steam ahead on an inquiry rather than the oversight

committee, and as many know, i have broken with my party and the president several times. in no -- in noteworthy on seeking information via subpoena for the child separation policy. --re are other situations and i view this through the lens objectively, i have got to look at the facts. i am waiting to see what is presented to any other committee. it looks like it is going through intel, and then i can make a value judgment. i think we ought to recognize from a political context as well and what the speaker is doing by moving out quickly before we have seen the facts, and you would normally -- and before you normally would. >> all three of us are on the oversight committee we deal with more complaints than any committee in congress. when a whistleblower comes forward you look at two things when you're trying to determine if it is credible. do they have firsthand knowledge

and what is their motivation, do they have a bias? this individual has concerns on both accounts. they had no firsthand knowledge, and we know they had political but -- political bias, i think that factors in. the idea that the speaker of the united states house of representatives, the day before she sees the firsthand account is already saying they are moving towards impeachment, that tells us everything. anna: why do you think if he has not done anything wrong, why do you think the president felt the need to hide this communication? not to handle it the way that other presidents have done before? report inate did a the first five months of the trunk administration, there were more leaks about foreign policy and in every -- any other administration. -- i'm not saying

that, but there was a guy who worked at the fbi who ran the clinton investigation and ran the rush investigation and not 100 toump should lose zero, that is bias. the inspector general said he should not be leading the investigation. i think they should be putting everything on the server. you have that many leaks happening when you are trying to conduct foreign policy, i think that you put them all on that server. >> i think he took the unprecedented -- i know there was debate back and forth on whether he should release the transcripts, and typically, in the past i know we have asked her transcript before, and generally they do not get released. that is an unprecedented action on any executive, whether it is present for barack obama or george w. bush or this president, releasing transcripts like this as a -- has a chilling

effect on leaders, where they cannot have these conversations. -- i was onolicy or a foreign policy foreign affairs committee. i get concerned when we do that. i think this is the only document, and i have seen thousands of pages, it is the only document that i have ever seen that actually came to me on redacted. normally it has lots of redaction's. angela merkel, there were some stuff that we for the first time, the american people are getting judgments on. i want to digress a second, because i did not say what all of these folks need to know. a -- and anna are real good reporters. they do not let us the hook when they see things. the other is with politico, i get up every morning and i read

a twitter feed first, and then i read politico. goingfind out what we are to be talking about on the day. listen, you guys cover congress more than anybody, and you know that there are talking points that both sides run to, and when you look at this, the one thing that i think is key, and everybody starts talking about joe biden being the political rival of the president. honestly, i think he is the jeb bush on the democrat party. he has the front runner, but his political rivals are 18 other democrats, some of which are at this festival. damage thatk at the might be done because of a ukraine nexus, it is not just joe biden, it is a number of other things

i'm and i probably have read so many documents, and i will not get into the weeds, but i can tell you in may of 2016, so about the time president trump drops out, ted cruz after indiana, -- >> that is may 3. >> may 3, you might know that. and most of the folks from texas know that. 2016, theret may of was great interaction on behalf of the d&c, the hillary clinton campaign in terms of a back-and-forth between ukraine, looking for information on paul

manafort. the crowd strike is one part of it. there are ledgers, but if you look at the nexus of that investigation, it was really all about can we find dirt on paul manafort? that started in may 2016. that is some of the damaging stuff that could come out that is probably more problematic than the biden aspect. >> he clearly wanted from the transcript, it shows he was interested in the hunter biden-joe biden connection. >> i don't deny that. i think most americans won that, unless joe biden is their nominee. if that is their picket, they don't want that, but if you are for elizabeth warren you wanted to come out. i promise you. >> the president spent two years, however long, saying he never asked a foreign government to help out in any way. he is asking for foreign government to help him dig up dirt on a political rival.

is there anything wrong with that? was askingwhat he was really about a cooperation. of this, rudy giuliani side of this was all about looking at a defense, and trying to get rid ita narrative where he knew was not accurate from his standpoint of the collusion narrative, and so when you look it ist he was asking for, certainly asking for cooperation. from a proper investigation standpoint, i am all about releasing transcripts, why don't we release transcripts of jill joen's conversation -- biden's conversation. they are a good arbiter of truth, and i think that would be a good day for everybody. >> go ahead. asked to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 election interference.

that is where the portion of the transcript talks about the favor. do me a favor, i want to find out about what they were talking about a few minutes ago. then mr. zielinski brings up mr. giuliani and the corruption issue, and then the president says, oh, by the way, there is a biden issue, as well. i don't see anything wrong with that. i think when americans read that, they don't see anything wrong with it , but they think,wow, so you had the vice president son get a job that paid $50,000 a month. is a bigger number than congress. >> only people who write books make that kind of money. he gets $50,000 a month. and the company pays some 50,000 dollars a month -- and the company paying him $50,000 a month is under investigation, says,e vice president look into the company that pays

think $50,000 a month, i americans think that probably is not how it is supposed to work. this,s is a key part of the entire international community wanted this prosecutor fired. the eu, the united states, all of the big major world powers were pushing for this. it wasn't like joe biden got in there and said, get rid of this guy alone. the entire international community and any members of your party at that time were pushing for this and had just on making $50,000. >> no question about that. others in the international community were saying, for my understanding, it was the vice president of the united states doing that. the folks i get the representation -- the folks i get the privilege of representing, many don't make $50,000 in a year. a look at that factor and our light, that doesn't seem quite right. somehow, the mainstream press and democrats say that is not a

problem. i kind of think it is. thate of the things strikes me. i am a freshman, right, so i have had eight months of this. >> eight months of hell. >> the extent to which we are in this sort of try ballistic state, right, cannot be -- this try ballistic --tribalistic state, right, they are going in and looking at this like what on earth? look, i havere is, said this campaigning since i was a member and i'll say it now. the president doesn't say things or do things the way i would do it. that goes without question and without saying. that is true for everybody. day, myhe end of the concern here is that if right now if we knew the fact patterns were exactly the same or a democrat in the white house, a large group of republicans would

be calling for that guy's head. the fact pattern with the same for republican joe biden and hunter, then democrats would be calling for their head. >> probably. >> that is the reality in d.c. i'm trying to navigate as a freshman and say, this is -- what is a high crime of misdemeanor? i would get 50 different answers because there is no standard. there is no definition in the constitution. district,through the whether it is downtown austin, where i might get fewer votes than those who would be against me, -- >> they would have to register while you are there. antonio,rville or san whatever. what i hear about his school issues, a border where we have 1500 to 2000 people coming over right now today.

people willto 2000 cross our southern border. fentanyl will cross our border. cartels will may not. and of our border. the order. secretary johnson was a part of administration and was trying to work and stop the problem. we talk about the kids in cages. we have chain-link fences put up over secretary johnson and president obama. a real crisis. we can talk about these issues that i know everybody i talk too here cares about. this is my concern here, we are going down this road for clearly heightened political purposes. it is not to say we should not, on oversight, or whoever takes jurisdiction of this, it is not to say we should not look at the facts and defend the constitutional rule of law. -- this is allg barreling toward something where

if i ask all of the democrats who will ultimately vote for impeachment, which we all recognize is likely to occur, what is their definition of a high crime misdemeanor, why they got there? and it will wildly vary in that standard will not be something that is sad. i wish we were having a conversation about what do we think is the standard and are we going to turn impeachment into a recall election? if that is where we are headed as a country, then this tribalism is going to continue to heighten and get to a place where we are not dealing with $100 million of debt per hour, so that our we are sitting here, another $100 million a day, 2.4 billion dollars today of debt is for your grandkids. when are we going to address that problem? it will hang around the next of our children and grandchildren. that is what i want to know. >> the question we have been talking about is what is your role, right? is it to defend the president, is that what you have to do? or do you sit back and let this play out because it will play out no matter what? our role tois not

defend the president. i think many of the people here is what we do, and yet, i can tell you that when we look at the documents, i have probably signed more bipartisan letters of inquiry under this administration than any other republican member because oversight and transparency is a good thing. it is good medicine for everybody. regardless of the administration. that being said, i think what happens is where everything gets 30-second sound bites, they are hoping there is a soundbite that can go viral, soher on msnbc, or cnn, and -- >> so go ahead and make news. >> right, but here is where -- jim and i have probably looked

at so many documents as it relates to this whole russia investigation that has been going on. when adam schiff is up there saying, listen, we have evidence, it is coming, it is coming, we are looking at a set of facts that we know does not support that renovation. you have to be really cautious in this business, just like you bringing back what i told you a long time ago, saying, we are going to be toast because we are going to be impeached. i wish you would not have kept those notes. you have them all. but what you have to do is not make allegations that you cannot act up by the facts. both sides do it, but where we have to really get to this is we have to seek the truth, and the truth on all of this is it was improper motivations within the bureaucracy of washington, d.c., that would be good to purge for both sides. >> let me ask you a question.

someone who has bias could still witness something that they find troubling and reported, and if it is true, that is problem addict. person isstance, this saying, and the ig has acted up, and found it credible, winning the ig has done an investigation and said, yeah, i found the same thing you have, i think this is credible, and on the political motivation thing, what the ig question of political motivation did not change the outcome for the facts in the situation, so can someone who has a bias still be a trustworthy person, whether they like donald trump or not, they could still witness something factual and reported. >> this guy did not witness anything. that is a problem. >> he was not a whistleblower in your definition? [whistleblowing] >> that is a whistleblower.

>> we have theatrics here today. >> go ahead. where is the will be cushion? -- where is the whoopie cushion? if we look at this, it'll teeny things start to bug me. if you look at the whistleblower changed? is it typically, whistleblowers are supposed to be firsthand knowledge of what happened during the course of your visit. we do now know that the form revised. put forth was why was it revised? it was revised to take out the firsthand knowledge so the complaint could move forward. when did that happen? you could go down a rabbit trail. the fact of the matter is what jim is talking about. the deeper you can get to it -- and we have got a guest out there that says, would you like to come up?

we could actually help you. you are on the hot seat. let s, and ask questions if we could. think where wei run with most of this is it is critical that what is observed and is backed up i facts, and i think right now, because we jumped into this impeachment mode, there is a whole lot of people talking about facts on both sides where they are not facts. let's let them way out, and that is hopeful -- weight out. we will get to hear from the craney and ambassador who got fired, -- the ukrainian ambassador who got fired who was part of this whistleblower complaint. jim and i will have to go back to d.c. because adam schiff is on a fast track to get this done. somebody has not made up their mind. [laughter] theou are talking about ukrainian ambassador and people

testifying, orders rudy giuliani doing, the president's personal lawyer, conducting diplomacy on behalf of the president? it is unusual by any estimation. >> and you have -- and you guys would be all over obama if he did that. >> i will get to that, but i want to go back to where we were earlier. our job is to get to the truth. >> we will answer the question, i promise. >> our job is to get to the truth and you ask about defining the president. heck, yeah, i will defend the president when i think he is getting a raw deal and that has happened from day one. when this congress started, they said maybe the day she is sworn in, she will impeach the guy. right, so they have been on this quest. and disagree a little bit

we invest -- i was on the benghazi committee. i think the message they sent to the american people was so wrong. i think what they did at the irs when they targeted conservative people was so wrong. we never once called for the impeachment of president obama, but we did hard investigations ended the oversight you are supposed to do. these folks on the democrat side have already said they are going to impeach but we have had 2.5 years, where the president was falsely accused of coordinating with russian elections. james comey did a 10 month investigation and after 10 months, they had nothing because when we depose mr. comey, he said we did not have a thing. didn't matter. after two years, robert mueller told us we don't have anything. doesn't matter, democrats keep going. they are going to go after this president, regardless of truths or facts, so our job is truth and facts, and that is what we are going focus on. when i think that is not the focus of the investigation, you can bet on i am defending

the president. isrudy giuliani asked if it ours to actually defend the president, it is actually rudy giuliani's job to do that. >> but it is different if it is diplomacy in a foreign country. rudy you are suggesting giuliani is shuttling diplomacy, come on. when you areis looking to defend the president, whether it is rudy giuliani or anybody else, they are paying to defend the president. you have to go where the evidence is. part of that evidence is in ukraine. i am here to tell you, a lot of the evidence is in ukraine when you look at some of the documents that have been passed back and forth. that is his job. is it his job to prosecute joe biden? it is not his job. it is the ag's job and the international community. when it comes to that, that would be more appropriate for thatbi or ag or other like

who are there. it is our job to hopefully be the counterbalance in terms of what we have seen and read and to be able to articulate the documents we have seen and viewed. >> let me ask one more question on this topic. on the substance, i know you guys don't appreciate the leak is givinge president things to the press, but the washington post this morning reported the president in that two russianh s officials, he said, he is not really worried about interference because america does it all over the world. wasnd h.r. mcmaster's, who fired by his president, came out and said that is not accurate. >> no, no conversation on if it was appropriate but he did not say that did not happen. reporting you look at

prese companyn -- present company excluded, and i have lots of friends who i don't necessarily like to read what they write that the same time, i respect their journalistic integrity. you get to complete with bloggers that all they have been doing is trying to get clicked, and you have a journalistic standard you have to go to. but here's what we do know over the last week. they were supposedly eight mentions of biden in a transcript that did not happen. it was supposedly quick quote pro that did not happen -- create co-pro that did not happen, and whether it be the new york times or the washington post, and all of that was false. skeptical when we start to see people with thirdhand knowledge reporting on

a different source. i can say this president -- and you know i don't normally comment on my conversation with the president. but this president consistently, each and every time i have talked to him has one motivation and that is about america and america first and he continues to do that. and i tell him we have hillary voters here. >> let me just add one pointed out. it matters. i want to be clear and referencing something jim was referencing. when i talk about the tribalism that causes the time we spend on these things, that is not to say i don't make a value judgment about the nature of the political fights that you are referring to. we could sit here and talk an hour about libya and a lot of things in my opinion are troubling in the previous administration. very troubling. but at some point, right, you have to make a decision. if you look at something that is

troubling, whatever that might be, and go, ok, what are we going to do it that as it relates to the country? what are we going to spend our time focusing on? whether you agree or disagree, my observation is, right now, the motivations behind trying to drive down these various paths is a singular motivation of taking the president down, and it is a purposeful motivation. at some point, you have to decide, look, we are going to have an election in 13 months, we had 13 years ago, what are we doing over the next year for the future of our country? have the humans for the president, we want him gone no matter once, they will seek that but what will that do for your kids or grandkids? when i'm trying to say is literally, as we speak, we are mortgaging their future. literally as we speak, we are

broken, orders to be health-care prices escalate with no serious discussion about different discussions and those issues are not addressed. i think it is bad for the help of the republic that we are in this state. >> let's dial down on that because you have mentioned a couple of times that deficit. that was the religion of republicans, the tea party and the freedom caucus. era, in trump's republican he has said he does not care about that. >> curious. >> can you explain that shift? answer. an >> go ahead. >> in response to the 1.4 choi in dollar deficit in 2010, -- one point $4 trillion deficit in 2010, the response to that was

trying to hold spending in check. that did not touch -- you ok, ma'am? did not touch mandatory spending, right? what did it touch? discretionary spending with across-the-board cuts with which whacked dot significantly and we saw the negative impact. ask any men and women on readiness and their resources. so what does the president want to do? restore that. my disagreement, and i voted against it and i believe my friends did, as well, the cap increases with 140 republicans who voted against what the president wanted on that front. i think that was the right to vote because i think we ought to have a discussion about spending and figuring out how to get a balance instead of blowing the caps. when we talk about debt, it is before the $120 increase. for those who will invariably

rave, oh, but the corporate tax decreases, ok, let's talk about what revenue losses occurred from those tax cuts. first of all, what was the debt before december 2017? massive and growing. why? because if you look at the math income $6.4 trillion of of veterans affairs and dhs and $1.4 trillion in social security and $7.4 million on medical interest, if you add that up you are at almost zero. and i have not even talked about the department of justice, the department of labor, the department of education. i have not talked about food stamps, farms. that is the reality of our fiscal situation. you can tax the ever living crud out of corporations and you will

not close that gap. we can have a conversation with democratic colleagues, who will i will -- who i will not mention the name because i don't want them to respond to what i say, but there is a great conversation on the floor about tackling that problem. and should we talk about whether a tax increase could be on the table so people could invest capital and have economic growth, but if you put it on a spreadsheet, any of you business people, put it in a spreadsheet and look at the numbers. you have to have 4% to 6% economic growth and you have to hold spending in check as it is now if you want to have a prayer --growing out of the $22,000 $22 million in debt. -- 22 trillion dollars in debt. that is how big 22 trillion dollars is. we have to address it. >> is donald trump a small government conservative? , it is, i mean, look

tough when nancy pelosi is in not throwand we did government like the democrats had in this latest budget -- >> the democrats and the presidents. >> i understand and the president talked about in the second term, he does -- as just described, this is a huge problem and we know it. almost every member of the freedom caucus voted against the most recent budget deals because we get how serious it is. >> and with the administration pushing back. the disagreements we had with speaker ryan and before that, speaker boehner. i think he wrote a book about that. to hit on the not dial. >> let me jump in. there are two groups of people who love to spend more money and

washington, d.c., democrats and republicans. and the real problem with that is when you talk about debt, if you pull that, more people are worried about jobs, health care, immigration, a lot of things, but they are not worried about debt because most people think of debt in the way they have it on their home. i have a 30 year mortgage, i've paid up over time, we can't pay this off over time. in this administration, and no one has pushed back harder with the president of the united states on spending. i have been in the room with him where i said, mr. president, this is not a win, and there are others on our side of the aisle saying, this is a win, we need to go ahead and come together and spend more money. i wish it were not that way, but that is the way it is. to make itre we have

matter to the american people on both sides of the aisle. until it does, and i'm not talking about just chip and maybe a small group of people, but until it is the most important thing, congress is going to continue to spend money until we bankrupt our country. i haveme add one point, spent a number of times visiting with the military leaders in , with the army command to block some here. sanave forts in houston and antonio -- we have fort saint houston in san antonio. the extent to which the impact -- in 2012 and t to 2016 were very real. we have less than 1% of the population going out and defending the united states abroad and they are feeling the impact of that. that is what motivated the president. going back to your original question, i can tell you from

conversations they are making sure men and women have the tools to do what we are asking. i don't begrudge that at all. town and begrudge is a swamp that is so consumed with democrats and republicans saying they would have a blank check that we end up with 22 trillion and counting and racking up 100 toy you dollars in debt and counting. $100 trillion in debt and counting. districtst more in and across-the-board and reduce the people at the pentagon by 200,000 people. that would be small government and that is what we need to do. by the way, your cousin just came in. probably one of the smartest guys on health care the audience. >> and you repealed there replaced health care, so you are good. [laughter] this, wely, i will say have had a number of

conversations are not only health care but on how you modify and make sure we do two things. cover pre-existing conditions and bring down premiums. that is the primary goal for me, but you are going to see some of his handiwork on a prescription drug plan. if you want to make news here today, i believe within weeks, we will have a prescription drug plan that ultimately will be based a whole lot on some of his input but with emmett kratz and republicans coming together, where we lower prescription drug prices. our goal is to lower them by 30% in the next fiscal year, or which is a hefty lift, but i do think you will see policies that work to do that. we have got to do it. >> on that note since you brought it up, the president told us, when we interviewed him, and has said it subsequently a million times, he is not interested in working with democrats while they are investigating him. do you anticipate he is going to

want to do things -- >> go ahead. thismean, to chip's point, is the principal opportunity cost, and the democrats are focused on getting rid of the president the american people elected, it is tough to deal with the prescription drug plan that would help families and people and bring down the cost of prescription drugs. it is to help to address the border issue. it is tough to do those things when you have a singular focus that started before anyone saw any facts. that is the part that i think fathers all of us. gears at to shift little bit. >> please. >> the first two years of the trump presidency, we described their freedom caucus in our book as some of the most powerful people in washington. explain where your power came from and how you are exerting power now that you are the minority because it is a different name. >> listen, i will let the chairman go first and then the

newest member will go after that, how about that? >> listen, when we started the freedom caucus, it came out of losing on a boat where jordan voted one way and i voted another. i said, if i'm going to lose, i want to lose in an organized fashion. it was also looking at coalition. if you are going to form coalitions, how do you do that? when we had the majority, the power was you cannot get to 218 without coming through the 30 or 40 people we had. there are probably another 20 to 25 we have influence with that are not part of the caucus and do not wear their freedom caucus jacket, so it is 60-65. we knew if it was a republican only bill, there was no way without our additions and input it was going to get to 218. when you go against the president of the united states,

which jim and i were one of three members of congress that had actually been tweeted at by a negative fashion i the president of the united states, it is not fun. my phone lou up today that he twe -- my phone blew up the day he tweeted at me and it was horrible, but it is the leverage of being able to do that. to your second part, it is having the fortitude to do that. now we have had to really look at coalition. i am working with elijah cummings on prescription drug prices. i am in the senate working with senators. you have to wake them up from their naps to do that, but we are over there working and actually, what they want is something that as a conservative, if they vote for, they don't get it up back home. essentially now, we provide that maureen that says -- that ooring that gives a

little comfort for some and the tougher district. you --do you think if why did you lose the majority? >> we did not do what we said. little more conceptual there, two things drive their freedom caucus. one, doing what you told the voters were going to do. it is a contract every two years in the context of an election. you stand for certain things, they give you a majority, go do what you said. what happens in washington is people say one thing at election time and come up with one million reasons why they cannot do what they said or what they were elected to do. the second thing is there is a reason we picked the word freedom. there is a reason that is the name of the caucus. some may not appreciate some of this, but i think freedom is under attack today from all kinds of things. you look at what they government

is doing and you look at college campuses. you are a conservative and you want to go and you have got to go to a safe base and free speech zones, so there is a reason we pick the word freedom. we find people all over the country resonate to individuals who are willing to go to the swamp, do it they said, and stand up for freedom. that is what drives this, and the tactical way we do that is what mark said. when you are in the majority, you have to block the votes and you can stop anything unless they move things more in a direction which is in a direction on what we were elected to do. in the minority, and is the power of speaking out. >> for direct advocacy, i want to make clear, direct advocacy with the administration. if there is anyone who understands the trump voter, it is our districts. the president -- north carolina is a swing state. than any district more

other district. it was the west and east of north carolina, so i understand those people who came out, which a lot of them were democrats who voted for a republican. some of them for the first time. so it is articulating that and letting him know. joined theshman who supreme party, i campaigned saying i would unapologetically, and i have known these guys, and my time working with senator cruz, and then before the freedom caucus existed, there were still a lot of people working together that ultimately led to freedom caucus. i knew it as the entity and it is named freedom for a reason, it is the entity that is most focused on taking down the swamp before the swamp was a defined thing by the president and his campaign. and it existed specifically to do that, to challenge the status quo and order in washington. when i was on the floor in june demanding votes because we were

not getting supplemental when the president asked for it -- >> give it a little context. foreading up to in june, five months, we had said there was a crisis at our border. i believe secretary johnson -- >> you are putting him on the hotspot. >> i will, but there was a crisis at our border and we kept saying there was. there were literally thousands of people coming across the border with no place to put them. this is a real situation. how do you get the kids processed and make sure they are not harmed? how do you get them to be cared for? how do you deal with people coming across the border and you don't know they are the child of a particular parent? you talk to a kid at the border and you know they spent the night in the park at reynosa and paid to come across the river, and then you talk about the women abused on the journey, and

people held for ransom, and the videos you see from intelligence officers where men are beat up and that video is extent for ransom. this goes on on a daily basis. the cartel is at war right now this is the state of our border. you have bipartisan agreement on that. for five months, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said there was no crisis and it was manufactured crisis. you get to june and what happened? we had a situation where the president asked for $4 billion. why? so we could have beds to move kids out of facilities. we needed it. we had nowhere to put them. needly, we said, we action. what did i want? i wanted more funding, affixes on border patrol, and various asylum roles causing crisis, which by the way, the obama administration set up the same asylum,for affixes to

and so we went to the floor of the house and objected to unanimous consent and request during an appropriation bill. we have a limited number of tools, the minority, and i objected all those. a few colleagues going to and it caused 60 votes one night into the 3:00 and 4:00 morning range. that was a lot of bipartisan hate directed towards me for interrupting dinners, fundraisers, and going to bed, and you say, look, heaven for bid we vote on all of these amendments getting past the house but one happened? nancy's staff comes to who? lee, mark? they said, what do we need to end the pain? our members are getting restless. give us a vote on the supplemental. i told him, i am going to vote against it because if you don't have funding for isis and anywhere for people to be moved, but we got 4 billion to move

kids into facilities and it passed but it took a fighting to do that. caucusink the freedom exists to challenge the order in the swamp in washington, and that is like i'm proud to be part of it. >> we have a couple minutes left and we want to get the questions about politics in the future. >> how do you see the 2020 election plane out right now? do you think republicans will have a shot at taking back the majority in the house? >> yes. i think there is the potential president trump wins big. ohio is viewed as the battleground state because we have big cities, small towns, agricultural manufacturing and a good mix of the country. the president won by 8.5 last election and i think he will win it by more than half today. our state is giving us a good indication. if he wins big, we can take back the house. >> what is his message in 2020? >> the bumper sticker message has to be continued with the

economy, continue to create go, keep i guess they america great, the bumper sticker, but what i'm saying is actually continuing to grow jobs, continuing to make sure we remember the forgotten man and woman. in terms of winning the majority, it runs through orange county, california. if we don't take back the receipts or four seats in california, there is no way to win it. we will not know whether we have taken back the house unless you have polling that would suggest we are going to take four seats in california so you will start to see that. being challenged by wendy davis, quite well known in your parts. does she have a chance? >> no. i will tell you why. -- there will be some

disagreement -- i believe there is a significant amount of irrational exuberance about people moving to texas and shipping places in terms of the electorate. when i go around 21, and i've done it a lot, i am traveling the district, and the response that i get -- you know how many people who come up to me who moved here and say, god bless you, i moved here because i'm seeking refuge from some other place? it has happened three times walking up the street. it has happened in kerrville, austin, san antonio. people move here from california, new york, who are seeking refuge from high tax and regulation jurisdictions to come to a place where you get $1000 a day being created. asiew this election of 2020 doing what jim said, doing what we said we would do and moving forward with an agenda that will reset where we think we want to

go and working towards doing that. i ran on making sure we had fiscal responsibility. we had 140 republicans who did that. democrats were not there. i will run on securing the border. what happened july 2018? there was a bill on the floor of the house that had security and measures in place to deal with asylum problems, and it had status. there were two different bills. there were bills to status to citizenship. one for daca. how many went through? zero. i think we make the case that we are for commonsense border security, immigration, fiscal responsibility, and can sure we have strong economic growth. and a health care plan that will actually benefit our people by getting prices down, ensuring everybody is able to get the care that they need, and we can do that with the plans we talk about. >> last question i think three >> three minutes left.

should we one in the audience? >> i guess we don't have much time. i will let someone else call in. >> she has been here the whole time. . >> how about upfront? let me ask one question before the audience, is this the president's party for good? is this his party forever? yeah, i think it will. it is no accident that the freedom caucus together at the same time because there was this feeling where we are sick of how that operates and we want something different. it is no accident that they coincided and how they developed in the timing of it all. >> it is more of a nontraditional populist conservative movement. if i were a democrat, what would scare me to death is that

hard-working union democrat voter in the rust belt and other places are shifting. they are shifting in big ways. what you are seeing is as that shifts, it will forever be a change, and donald trump drop that in. >> on that point, i gave a speech friday before the election last fall in youngstown, ohio. i did not think there were 500 republicans in youngstown, ohio. that dynamic is good. isthe idea that i think pervasive among democrats and said, well, we are never going to win the hispanic vote, and they view that as monolithic and challenge, i disagree. the contributions that i see coming in texas and around the country, from hispanic citizens, when i talk to friends of mine and border patrol, and people

who are watching what is happening at the border, the vitriol, the anger, the disgusting hatred directed towards the men and border patrol and ice doing their job every day, it is turning people off, turning off the hispanic population, the population who believes the role -- the rules matter. it is bad for the sovereignty of the united states of america. >> mine is a laundry list. >> well, why don't you get to the question instead of the commentary before? >> stop me when we get to a constitutional topic you are unwilling to defend with their oath of office for the common good of all americans: freedom of religion for all, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of peace of all assembly, freedom of government for redress grievances, freedom from -- >> i get it, you're going to go down them all?

>> no, but due process for all persons in the united states. all persons in the united states. freedom from excessive bail, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, freedom reserved for the state, freedoms for citizens to vote, freedoms from the president serving more than two years, two terms, freedom for the united states -- house, and the senate to vote on the bills that are presented before them -- you are still defending? good. regulation of commerce by regulations of congress. >> that is a little awkward. i will stop you right there. that is where we disagree. i guess -- so your point is, are we going to defend the constitution? >> or not defending.

>> i am defending the constitution. i would disagree with you. as a son who was a constitutional lawyer, who went to school as a conservative to be a constitutional lawyer, listen, i raised my hand to defend the constitution every day, but with all due respect, what i do pales in comparison to our military men and women who put their lives on the line each and every day, so they will continue to get my support, as is this president. the hearing. >> you can google it. it was just the other day. you will see, i am an expert on that. >> thank you. we really appreciate it. ok. we really appreciate it.

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atthat concludes this panel the texas tribune festival. in 45 minutes, our live coverage continues with the montana

governor, discussing potential ways to improve u.s. political discourse. until then, a panel of political strategist discuss politics, impeachment inquiry, president trump, and predictions for the 2020 presidential election from yesterday's coverage of the texas tribune festival. >>