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On your screen this morning is Congressman Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, member of the Budget Committee in Energy and Commerce as well.
Sir, let's begin.
The Associated Press yesterday calling the House for Republicans after all the television networks had done so in earlier days.
Republicans yesterday in Washington, the leadership saying, we have a mandate.
Do you agree?
And if so, what is it?
We do think we have a mandate, and the mandate is from the American people, and it is quite clear.
You know, the economy is a mess.
Inflation over the last four years has increased over 20.5% cumulatively.
Yeah, it's at 2.7 or whatever right now, but you have to take it from a perspective of how much it has increased over the last four years.
People are hurting.
I can tell you, people in my district in South Georgia are hurting.
They're having to make a decision now between groceries and gas, and that's not good.
They're also concerned about the southern border.
That mandate for us is that we've got to secure that border and we've got to do something about illegal immigration.
We've got to do something about the drug problem that is a result of that border being so porous.
We've also got to do something about being respected on the world stage.
And the people understand that.
They want to make sure that we're respected on the world stage.
We were not respected during the Biden-Harris administration.
And they want to do something about crime in our cities.
That's certainly important.
People want to make sure that they feel safe and they want to make sure that their family members are safe.
And right now, under this administration, they're not.
So the mandate for us in Congress is to address those issues, those issues that are so important to the American people.
When it comes to inflation, what can Congress do to bring down inflation?
Isn't that the job of the Federal Reserve, the independent Federal Reserve?
Well, let's look at the root cause of inflation.
The root cause of inflation started day one of the Biden-Harris administration when they declared war on fossil fuels, resulting in higher gas prices, resulting in higher grocery prices as a result of higher fertilizer prices and transportation costs.
All of that is a result of the war on fossil fuels that this administration undertook day one in office.
And we have passed H.R. 1, which is lowering energy costs, and we can do that.
Now, look, I believe in all of the above energy strategy, a best of the above energy strategy, if you will.
And that's what we need to do.
We can bring down the cost of groceries.
We can bring down the cost of gas.
We can have energy independence in this country, but only if we utilize all the resources that are available to us in this country.
And we need to do something about that.
That's the way that we can help inflation.
On immigration, would you support mass deportation?
Well, let's see what it looks like.
You know, that's a very general term, just mass deportation.
I can tell you, Greta, one of the greatest experiences that I've had as a member of Congress is to be able to attend a naturalization ceremony.
And I did that a couple of weeks ago down in Glenn County in Brunswick, Georgia.
And Judge Lisa Wood was kind enough to invite me to that and allow me to speak.
We had 32 people from 16 different countries who came into and be citizens of our country.
And I can tell you, what a great, great day.
I was so proud to be there, so proud of those people.
They were so happy.
They were becoming American citizens.
And certainly that's something that is valuable now.
And if you want to talk about illegal immigration, talk to those people.
You know, it's not an easy process to become a citizen here in the United States.
It's not an inexpensive process either.
They really are to be congratulated.
And we are so happy there are people citizens of our country now.
If not mass deportation, then what would Republicans do to address the situation at the border?
Well, what we can do is we can secure that border.
We can continue with the fence and the offense that Barack Obama started, that Donald Trump continued, and that Joe Biden stopped.
That would be one way, is to secure that border.
The Remain in Mexico policy is another way that we can make sure implementing that.
The Supreme Court has already said you need to be doing that and you should be doing that.
The Biden administration has pretty much just ignored it.
The Trump administration, during his previous administration, we had one of the most secure borders we've ever had.
And I'm very confident that he's going to continue on with that.
So, yeah, and Tom Holman, by the way, what a great choice is borders are.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tom Holman, and I think he's going to do an outstanding job.
And Christy Nom as Homeland Security Director, I think she's going to do an outstanding job as well.
So I'm very excited about what's going to happen at that border.
And I hope that I feel like it will result in a decrease in the amount of illegal drugs that are coming across that border now and the amount of illegal immigrants who are coming across that border.
Do you endorse your colleague Matt Gaetz as Attorney General?
You know, Matt Gaetz is a, I've served with Matt for about eight years now, one of the smartest guys that I know, and certainly a firebrand.
And I think that's what the president is wanting to do here.
He's wanting to shake things up.
Let's face it, the Department of Justice has been weaponized by this administration, by the Biden-Harris administration.
People don't have confidence in our justice system anymore.
And I think that's the message that the president is sending with this choice of Matt Gates, is that we're going to shake this up.
We're going to make sure that the people have trust in the Department of Justice and make sure that they're doing their job and that they're not being weaponized.
The Wall Street Journal believes that the nomination of Matt Gaetz sends the opposite message, that people won't trust his decisions.
They'll think he's out for political revenge because of his personality, because of what you were just saying.
Well, look, again, I think the intent Of the nomination is to send a message, a strong message that, look, the Department of Justice is out of control and they've been out of control for the last four years during the Biden-Harris administration.
And the American people don't have faith in that.
The American people fear the Department of Justice to a certain extent.
And that's not the way that we are supposed to be living here in this country.
So, you know, the nomination of a firebrand like Matt Gates, I think, sends a clear message of what this president hopes to achieve in the way of reforming the Department of Justice and the FBI and all the other agencies.
The Congress still needs to pass full-year spending bills for the current fiscal year or extend the continuing resolution to keep the government funded past December 20th.
What do you support?
Another short-term spending resolution, or should they address spending levels and pass appropriations bills?
A lot of that will be dictated by what this incoming administration would like for us to do.
If they want us to do another continuing resolution to get it into the first of the year so that they can put their fingerprints on this budget, then certainly we'll be accommodating them with that.
But if they want us to go ahead and take care of it, then certainly I think that we ought to be cutting back.
I mean, you know, I can tell you in our conference meeting yesterday, the overwhelming theme was we've got to do something about our deficit is just out of control.
The second highest line item in our budget right now is the interest on our debt.
We can't sustain that.
Even our military leaders have told us the greatest threat to our country right now is our debt.
We've got to address that, and we can only address it through the budget process.
And I'm excited about getting started with that and excited about it.
We've actually been starting on it in the budget committee that I serve on.
We've actually proposed a 10-year plan to get to a balanced budget.
And if we would follow that, then we could achieve our goal.
How will you do that, though, if there is a push by the president-elect to renew the 2017 tax package?
The Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan, has estimated that continuing all of the expiring provisions would cost roughly $4 trillion over a decade.
Well, there are offsets, then, and you have to keep in mind in this country, we don't have a revenue problem.
In this country, we've got a spending problem.
We've got to cut back on the spending.
And we've got to address the majority of what is causing our budget and is entailed in our budget.
70%, almost 72% of our budget is Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare.
Social Security can be fixed without cutting benefits to those who are getting it now or who will be getting it in the near future.
And if we don't fix Social Security, young people is not going to be there for them.
We are being irresponsible if we don't do something about Social Security.
And I will say that it can only be done in a bipartisan fashion.
It would be political suicide for one party, whether it be Republican or a Democrat, to try to do it by themselves.
We need to do that in a bipartisan fashion.
And when you talk about Medicaid and Medicare, that's the fastest growing area in our budget.
And that needs to be addressed.
We've got an aging population.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.
That's going to be tough.
Medicaid and Medicare is going to be tough, but it can be done.
It can be done, and we should do it again in a bipartisan fashion.
After all, when it comes to health care, everyone wants the same thing, whether you're Republican or Democrat or Independent.
You want accessible, affordable, quality health care.
Let's go to calls.
Evie in Georgia, Independent.
Hi, Evie.
Yes, good morning.
And good morning to the Congressman.
I am a physician and also I teach academics and part of the pharmacy college.
So I'm calling because I'm in the Albany, Georgia area now.
I was up in the Virginia and Northeast region and I've come back to take care of a 90-year-old.
So the topics that you're talking about, now you, Albany, of course, as you know, buttresses to the southeast coast of Brunswick Sea Island with the in-between rural counties, Albany, Georgia being the southwest bridge.
Are you understanding where I'm speaking of?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So let's talk about the economy and the health offering and the future investment that now the new Congress has to come in and provide.
Brunswick, particularly, is what, about 15,000 residents in Brunswick.
It's a very small rural town.
Is that where your district is primarily?
It is.
It is.
The entire coast of Georgia.
I was just there, actually, at the cluster, Sea Island, which is a private island.
Then you go up to your district, I think, to what, Chatham, which is Savannah?
That's correct.
So Savannah is about $147,000.
That is the economic structure of your district.
Is that not correct?
Being that it's the port city.
It is the largest economic hand with the structures of the district.
And then you come to my region, but the thing with— Evie, we have others waiting.
Could you get to your question?
Well, you were speaking of we needed to create border security.
Well, the small regions of the rural towns where we see the brown people who are doing farming, 70% of the workers in construction, in farm workers, in Tysons, meatpacking, Kagle, those are brown people.
Those are not black and white people who are the traditional residents of your district, sir.
So what would the farmers do with this?
Also, the Medicaid and Medicare.
Medicaid, as we know, is in fact a federal funded program, and the states with the match.
So therefore, the states are not having the burden of this.
It is the federal government that bridges us also with residents.
Okay, Evie, I'm going to just take those two issues for the Congressman.
Thank you.
Right, right.
Well, she makes a very, very good point.
And look, we often say in the state of Georgia, there are two Georgias.
There's Atlanta and there's everywhere else.
And I represent everywhere else.
South Georgia is different from the Atlanta area.
Now, the Atlanta area has got their challenges as well, and particularly in health care.
But health care is different in South Georgia and rural Georgia.
And it has to be addressed that way.
The first thing that we've got to do in order to address health care costs in this country is to have transparency.
We need to see where the money's being spent.
We can't see that now.
That's why I'm calling on Congress to pass the Lower Cost, More Transparency Act.
It has been passed out of the House.
It's sitting in the Senate now.
My hope is that during the lame duck session, we can get that passed.
That will help us to address health care costs if we have more transparency and we can see where the money is being spent and where we need to address issues.
But she's absolutely right.
Now, the other point she makes about immigration and about the workers, the H-2B program, the H-2A program, all of those are extremely important for the two reasons that she mentioned.
Ag is the number one industry in the state of Georgia and also in my district, the coast of Georgia, and tourism.
We need that program.
We need those workers.
So yes, that needs to be addressed.
There's no question about that.
Jim Englewood, Ohio, Republican.
Let's hear from you, Jim.
Good morning and thank you for taking my call.
My comment and my question is, will we be going after all the illegal immigrants that have committed crimes in this country?
And when I watch and listen to the news and I understand how the laws have been flipped upside down,
that We do not level the laws against illegal immigrants, and yet we go after our politicians and people like Donald Trump that have had hoop after hoop to jump through for forever now.
And I pray and hope that this next four years is a path of unity.
And instead of upside down, right side up.
Thank you for taking my call.
God bless.
Congressman.
Bretta, as you know, and as our listeners know, we've really struggled in the state of Georgia with the illegal immigration and particularly in the tragedy that happened at our flagship university at the University of Georgia with Lake and Riley.
That should have never happened.
Lake and Riley should be here today.
It should have never happened with this immigrant who came across that border illegally, was detained in New York, and then was released and went down to Athens and killed an aspiring nursing student who was going to serve people and help people.
And to that family, I just extend my condolences.
And all of us are still remembering that.
You know, you hear different numbers about how many illegal immigrants there are in this country, whether it be 16 million or 21 million.
Regardless, it would be naive of us to think that some of those aren't here with the intent of causing harm to us, that some of those are criminals, and they are.
They need to be deported.
And that's why we pass in the House the Lake and Riley Act.
If there is someone who is detained and it's because of theft or some other reason, that they have to be deported.
And the Lake and Riley Act has passed the House.
It's over in the Senate now.
And I call on the Senate to pass that law.
We need that law to be addressed.
But the caller is absolutely right.
We've got to do something about those who are over here.
If they're going to be over here in our country, if they're going to be here legally or illegally, they better follow the laws of this country.
We'll go to Mark who's in New York.
Democratic caller.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
I just want to say what the Republicans' real aim is while they have control of our government.
They want to give more tax cuts to the billionaires, and then they want to say, oh, the deficit's out of control.
We have to cut Social Security and Medicare.
This is what they're going to do.
All right, Mark, let's have the congressman respond to that.
Absolutely not.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Look, billionaires pay more taxes than anybody pays.
And that's just such an easy out to say, oh, you need to tax the billionaires more.
You need to do this or do that.
That is far from the truth.
What we want in the Republican Party is to make sure that we are delivering, and we're going to do that.
Look at the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed during the Trump administration.
That had our economy humming.
We were really doing well during that time.
And if we would continue on with that and cut our spending, yes, we need to cut.
And as I said earlier, I am not proposing that we cut Social Security to anyone who's currently getting in or will be getting in the future.
But if we don't address it, it's not going to be there for our children and our grandchildren, and that's irresponsible.
That's why we need to address it.
We need to address Medicaid and Medicare as well.
We need to address health care costs in this country so that we can deliver affordable, accessible, quality health care.
Congressman Buddy Carter, let's talk to Marie next in Baltimore, Independent.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Sir, you made a statement about America needs to be respected on the world stage again.
I'm trying to figure out how is the United States going to be respected on the world stage again?
And you're going to have to try to send representatives from the United States to foreign countries on sexual assault.
And we now have a president who's committed sexual assault, not rape, but sexual assault.
Can you explain that to me, please?
Thank you.
Look, when Donald Trump was in office in his previous administration, we didn't have the problem in Ukraine.
We didn't have the problem in the Middle East.
All that started under the Biden-Harris administration.
And the fiasco, one of the worst public relations debacles in the history of this country, the withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in 13 American soldiers being, 13 American citizens being killed, all of that is a result of the disrespect and the lack of respect of America on the world stage.
Donald Trump is going to bring that back, and I'm very glad of that.
I'm so happy he has appointed Elise Stefanik for the United Nations.
She will do an outstanding job.
Elise and I came into Congress together.
I have an enormous amount of respect for her and her abilities.
And I'm looking forward to her representing us at the United Nations.
But I will tell you, we are not respected on the world stage.
And I look forward to Donald Trump being president again so that he'll get the attention of Ukraine.
He'll get the attention of Russia.
He'll get the attention of Iran.
And he's not going to send billions of dollars to Iran so that they can fund terrorists like the Biden-Harris administration did.
Front page of the Washington Post this morning, Congressman, features the incoming president's cabinet picks so far.
You mentioned Elise Stefanik.
You also talked about Christy Noam, Matt Gates, Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.
John Ratcliffe to go back to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Tulsi Gabbert, the Director of National Intelligence, Lee Zeldon, heading up the Environmental Protection Agency.
Do you think that Senate Republicans should use recess appointments to fill out the president's cabinet?
Or should they follow precedent and have hearings and have senators vote on who will serve in the president's cabinet?
There are certainly, first of all, let me address the picks.
Outstanding.
Look, Lee Zeldin and I came in together.
Lee is sharp as a tack.
I just can't say enough good things about Lee Zeldon.
You talk about Tulsi Gobberg.
Tulsi and I served together as well.
I think she's a great pick.
I think that Marco Rubio, wow, he hit it out of the part with that.
I mean, I'm just so excited about Marco.
And I just think thus far, the president's made some outstanding picks for his leadership team.
And look, management's not hard to figure out.
I did it for 32 years in my own pharmacy.
I've done it in my office here.
You surround yourself with good people and you let them go at it.
And that's what the president is doing right now.
Now, as far as recess appointments and whether they should be voted on or not, I think to a certain extent it depends on the office.
And another extent, that's up to the Senate.
They're the ones who have to make that decision.
If I were in the Senate, I'd want to have a vote on it.
But, you know, if they find it necessary to use their recess appointments, then that'll be up to them.
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Coming up Friday morning, South Carolina Republican Congressman Ralph Norman joins us to discuss the incoming Trump administration's agenda and House Republican priorities.
And then Illinois Democratic Congressman Brad Schneider gives his thoughts on the new administration, U.S. foreign policy, and other congressional news.
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As President-elect Donald Trump continues to fill out his cabinet, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the latest pick.
He'd lead the Department of Health and Human Services.