| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| At some point, you just have to put your cards on the table and say, we're going to do this. | ||
| And if the Senate doesn't want to pick it up, that's on the Senate. | ||
| But that is no excuse as to why we in the House aren't moving things that we know should be going along, like the USA Act, right? | ||
| I got an email today from a colleague who said, I can't sign on to this bill because I'm an appropriator and most of what we appropriate funds to is not authorized. | ||
| It would make my entire job really difficult. | ||
| That as an American makes my blood boil. | ||
| Like Congress should be going through and auditing programs and agencies. | ||
| Half of what we authorize or half of what we appropriate is not authorized. | ||
| $892 billion every single year we are spending in programs and agencies that Congress never greenlit. | ||
| Kind of crazy. | ||
| All right, Congresswoman Kat Kamek, it's good to see you. | ||
| You just mentioned your four-month-old baby is here in D.C. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Where now? | ||
| You're here. | ||
| I know. | ||
| You know where the child is? | ||
| The child is with dad and is supervised, but she's manning the office right now back on Capitol Hill. | ||
| So all things good. | ||
| And she's going to the voting floor with you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yes. | ||
| So she actually was the deciding vote on the releasing of the Epstein files. | ||
| She pushed the button. | ||
| She's in committee hearings. | ||
| She's on the floor voting with me. | ||
| She's in the tunnels in the Capitol. | ||
| She's doing all the things. | ||
| Well, I am very happy to see another Floridian. | ||
| I don't know how you do it coming to this freezing cold place. | ||
| You must miss Florida when you come here. | ||
| A little bit. | ||
| And we're missing right now the best part of Florida. | ||
| Well, I'm only here for a day, so I'll be back tonight. | ||
| Yes, this is the best time to be. | ||
| This is the best time to be in Florida, but you are here in D.C. right now. | ||
| You got like three days left before the whole shop closes down for a while. | ||
| I've been asking everybody sort of the same question, which is, do you think enough things will be tied up properly before you go home or is everything going to get punted to next year? | ||
| Where are you at? | ||
| Listen, even though I am the eternal optimist, I am disappointed. | ||
| I don't think that enough, there isn't enough that you could put on the schedule this week to make up for really, I think, a slower pace this year. | ||
| When I sat back and ran the numbers, we've only codified 87 executive orders and we've only made 23 bills law, Republican bills law. | ||
| Now, granted, there is a lot in those bills. | ||
| And I think that's fair to say. | ||
| But when we have the House, the Senate, and President Trump, who is an energizer bunny, has more energy than most humans, there's really no excuse. | ||
| There's no excuse for why we aren't banking a conservative win that we've campaigned on for decades every single month or week. | ||
| I mean, it's just, it's a little frustrating. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| So, one of the things that one of the words that's consistently come up from everyone that has sat in that chair today is codified. | ||
| So, why is it that, well, I understand why it is that so much is being done by the executive action pen, but why is it that you guys are seemingly unable to codify this stuff? | ||
| Because if it is not codified, it will all be reversed in approximately three years from now. | ||
| I will tell you, I believe that there are a lot of chicken shit politicians in Washington. | ||
| I actually campaigned on that, that we need to have the courage to do the thing that is right. | ||
| And in the Senate, you know, they would say, well, the filibuster, you need 60 votes. | ||
| And I hear often, well, is this a lawmaking exercise? | ||
| At some point, you just have to put your cards on the table and say, we're going to do this. | ||
| And if the Senate doesn't want to pick it up, that's on the Senate. | ||
| But that is no excuse as to why we in the House aren't moving things that we know should be going along, like the USA Act, right? | ||
| I got an email today from a colleague who said, I can't sign on to this bill because I'm an appropriator and most of what we appropriate funds to is not authorized. | ||
| It would make my entire job really difficult. | ||
| That as an American makes my blood boil. | ||
| Like Congress should be going through and auditing programs and agencies. | ||
| Half of what we authorize or half of what we appropriate is not authorized. | ||
| $892 billion every single year we are spending in programs and agencies that Congress never greenlit. | ||
| It's kind of crazy. | ||
| That is kind of crazy. | ||
| So what has to, if you were sitting with Trump right now and saying to him, okay, we're at the end of the year. | ||
| You've angled us in the right way, but we've got to kind of smack a few of these guys. | ||
| Like what is it you would tell him? | ||
| Or maybe what is it you have told him? | ||
| So I mean, I think the president's been very vocal about the filibuster. | ||
| So you're on board eliminating the filibuster. | ||
| Why? | ||
| While I despise the idea that we are going to break an institutional norm, I don't think for one second that the Dems would value that and honor the filibuster. | ||
| Not if, but when they ultimately get back in charge. | ||
| So at this point, it's, you know, it's a horrible decision to have to face. | ||
| It really is. | ||
| And I think as a constitutional conservative, which is what I consider myself, I hate to see the institution, the crafting, the framework be bent and broken in different ways. | ||
| But I see that it's going to happen. | ||
| So we should be playing by the same rules that our adversaries would. | ||
| So I think he needs to continue to push on that. | ||
| The other thing that I have been very much pushing for is regulatory reform, least sexy topic on the planet. | ||
| It does not get anyone's blood going. | ||
| No one's like, ooh, baby, yes. | ||
| It is probably the most boring topic on the planet. | ||
| But when we're talking about regulatory reform, if I was sitting here with President Trump, I would say, Mr. President, this is how you ensure an American renaissance. | ||
| This is how you ensure your legacy of returning the power back to the people. | ||
| The Reigns Act, our bill, it has seen many, many iterations. | ||
| It has been on the floor. | ||
| It's passed the House multiple times. | ||
| The importance of it is that it saves $2.5 trillion in the very first year because that's what we as Americans spend in enforcement and compliance of these regulations. | ||
| And so right there, you're looking at, okay, how do we start addressing deficits? | ||
| Boom, right there. | ||
| And when you think about regulatory reform, it's not so much about getting rid of the unelected, nameless, faceless bureaucrats, right? | ||
| That's draining the swamp in action. | ||
| But more importantly, it's about putting the power back in the hands of we the people. | ||
| Because at that point, you can hire and fire your Congress critter. | ||
| They become responsible for the regulatory regime, not people who are completely untouchable and unknown. | ||
| Does Congress seem more busted to you now than ever? | ||
| Or is this just a kind of continuation of what you've seen? | ||
| Or what your predecessors told you. | ||
| You know, I think much like Taylor Swift, we all live in eras, right? | ||
| And if we had to put a label on the era that I believe we're in, it's the entertainment era. | ||
| We are in the influencer politician era. | ||
| It is the, let me say something a little bit saucy, sassy, cringy, outrageous, just a little bit more than the person before me so I can get that click, that share, and that attention, because people have realized that the game of, well, if I pay my dues and I, you know, scratch your back and do this, that's not working so much anymore up here. | ||
| It's very much about the influence that a person brings to the table. | ||
| And a lot of that has to deal with social media. | ||
| And I think social media, as you know, more than most, is driven largely by this entertainment era we're in. | ||
| That's an interesting idea I'll use for the next year. | ||
| I'll credit you for it. | ||
| Well, this will be seen when I bring it up again because the idea that the old thing didn't work for a certain set of reasons, now we've ushered in a new thing, but there's obviously a lot of reasons that's not going to work too long term. | ||
| It can maybe work short term. | ||
| All right, so let's leave the stuff that's not working for a moment. | ||
| Let's talk about Florida because that is a place that things are working. | ||
| What are you excited about right now in Florida? | ||
| And what do you want to see change if anything has to change? | ||
| Or what are the kind of new places you're looking for? | ||
| Florida is a land of opportunity, right? | ||
| Because Florida gets it. | ||
| And for the longest time, we campaigned on Make America Florida. | ||
| And now you look at the White House, you look at Congress, you look at really all things in politics, Republican politics, it's Florida, baby, right? | ||
| It's that Florida blueprint. | ||
| Note, I still say Florida because I am from New York. | ||
| I can't say it the other way. | ||
| Yeah, you got that little, you got that little twing. | ||
| It is what it is. | ||
| It is what it is. | ||
| Do you ever have moments where it really comes out, the accent? | ||
| Well, I always feel it when I'm speaking in Florida because everyone's like, it's Florida. | ||
| But I also say orange juice, not orange juice. | ||
| It's just, I'm from Long Island. | ||
| It is what it is. | ||
| Is it like, what is it? | ||
| But I'm very conscious of it. | ||
| Like when I did the Sunshine Summit and I keep saying Florida over and over. | ||
| I don't really, I don't, I don't hear it as much, though. | ||
| Oh, it's Florida. | ||
| You say Florida. | ||
| Florida. | ||
| I say Florida. | ||
| Do you consider yourself a Florida man? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| That's what my Twitter bio says for years. | ||
| By the way, it's my four-year Florida anniversary tomorrow. | ||
| Is it really? | ||
| Okay, well, then we must celebrate. | ||
| They're burying me in the Everglades. | ||
| Well, you know, the Florida Man website every day has a new story. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you got to do something crazy, like take over a Burger King with an army of turtles or, you know, wrestle an alligator with a baby in its mouth and a cigar. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| But you got to have like the cutoff jeans and maybe, you know, I don't know, a sombrero or something. | ||
| Some brewers are hot right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| They're still hot, right? | ||
| So what do we have to do? | ||
| What else do we have to do in Florida? | ||
| What else is going on? | ||
| I mean, what do you think about the property tax situation? | ||
| That's a big one, obviously. | ||
| So I think everyone is very much in support of the property tax reforms. | ||
| And obviously so. | ||
| I mean, you look at, especially as a Floridian, we're like, man, can we catch a break? | ||
| It's our home insurance. | ||
| It's our auto insurance. | ||
| The property taxes are through the roof. | ||
| I live in Gainesville. | ||
| So I have GRU, which is like the worst of the worst. | ||
| And so I think it's a very, very exciting idea. | ||
| Now, rural parts of the state, which is a huge part of the state, they're very worried about it and rightfully so because they don't have the tax base to really ensure those critical services are going to be met. | ||
| So we have to look at a smart way of doing it. | ||
| I think it should be for primary residences. | ||
| I think that we should be making the homestead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| So basically taking the homestead route and saying, listen, if it's a secondary home, tough. | ||
| But I think for the primary residents, it's a huge opportunity for people to get some relief, especially while we're trying to address all of the insurance rates on our homes. | ||
| Because right now, I know people who their premiums are higher than their monthly mortgage. | ||
| And that's a problem. | ||
| What do you think can be done on the insurance side? | ||
| I mean, that's always the big one. | ||
| You know, fortunately, we haven't. | ||
| Now it's been, what, maybe two years since it's been less than two years since a massive hurricane. | ||
| We had, well, Helene and the other one. | ||
| Knock on. | ||
| No, I'm in Miami and we fortunately haven't had one since, but obviously the West Coast and the North has been hit really hard. | ||
| What can be done with that? | ||
| I mean, in my district, we took three hits in 13 months, direct hits in our district. | ||
| I think competition is really the answer for so many things, including the insurance debacle. | ||
| And what we've seen is through the ambulance chasers, all the people that were bad actors in the space, the trial attorneys, and remember the roofing companies that, I mean, that was driving up the costs everywhere. | ||
| I think that the legislature did an okay job. | ||
| I would like for them to have been more aggressive because some people, especially those on fixed incomes, they don't have time to wait for these companies to come back into the fold and for that to equalize out. | ||
| So I think there's more that can be done, but it has to, we have got to deal with the tort reform. | ||
| We have to deal with the regulatory reform. | ||
| That's going to be a huge part in bringing the competition back into the space and that'll ultimately bring down premiums. | ||
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| When you show your colleagues, I would say Democrat, but even some Republicans, the success of Florida, why are they not just replicating it across the board? | ||
| Well, it's a little philosophical, I think, the answer here. | ||
| Coming up to Washington, and I had been a chief of staff and now a member, you don't really have Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| You have the party of big government, and then you have the party of little government. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I think that there is something very intoxicating for people about big government. | ||
| And that's why I always, you know, people say, oh, you know, Nancy Pelosi is doing this or Hakeem Jeffries doing that. | ||
| And I'm like, it's not that one issue that they're hungry for. | ||
| It's always the agenda for the left has been dependency and control. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| You know, grow the size of government so that they, the big government advocates, stay in control. | ||
| Right. | ||
| They always say it's not, the issue is never the issue. | ||
| The revolution is always. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| Exactly. | ||
| And so I think when you're talking about why do blue states, you know, maybe balk at the success of Florida or maybe can't replicate it, it's because big government is, it's addictive. | ||
| And it's, you know, oh, well, government's going to take care of this one thing. | ||
| Well, maybe they can take care of another thing and then another thing. | ||
| And I think we need to make independence sexy again. | ||
| Because at the end of the day, that's what small government is about, right? | ||
| It's about that responsibility, independence, value of the individual. | ||
| And that is a cultural issue that we have to address. | ||
| How do you think we address that? | ||
| Because there does seem to be even growing on the right now more of a desire to have the government involved in things, where maybe 10 years ago, there was more of a libertarian streak. | ||
| I think that that's due to the rise of populism, right? | ||
| And populism without principles is a very dangerous thing. | ||
| Look no further than the French Revolution. | ||
| People started losing their heads. | ||
| You know, I think that that is part of the entertainment era that we're in. | ||
| It has given rise because conservatives, because Republicans have not done the things that they said that they would do, people get mad. | ||
| They get frustrated, rightfully so. | ||
| If I had somebody who kept promising, you know, all day long and making good on none of it, of course I'd be angry and I'd be looking for change. | ||
| And I think that's where this very strong populist streak has emerged from is that frustration. | ||
| But again, long term, you start to see the impacts of that when you have Republicans all of a sudden being like, yeah, I'm good with this idea. | ||
| And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. | ||
| I thought we were conservatives. | ||
| I thought we wanted less government. | ||
| When I have Republican colleagues that are talking about perpetuating Obamacare, holy shit, that's a sign that things are off the rails. | ||
| When you're talking about, okay, we're going to give $400 billion to big insurance companies to keep the sick care system in place, that's a problem. | ||
| And I think sometimes people are more worried about the next election than they are doing the right thing. | ||
| Then on that note, last question, paint me a positive vision for what will happen in 2026 to leave us with. | ||
| Gosh, I feel like I've been such a Debbie Downer. | ||
| No, no, you've been, I'd say out of the dozen or so people, you've been kind of right, right in the middle so far. | ||
| I've had a couple depressing ones, couple kind of over the top. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| So this will decide it right now. | ||
| Ooh, I will say, I do think that given the rise of, and there's good things that come with this populist streak, right? | ||
| The power of the people is amplified. | ||
| I think that members are listening more carefully to their base, to their constituents, which is a good thing. | ||
| So I am very optimistic that people who are hungry for change are getting out there and they're being heard in a more direct way. | ||
| So I think that's a good thing. | ||
| I am optimistic that we will have some more big reforms, hopefully in the healthcare space. | ||
| And I would love to see regulatory reform, but I would be remiss if as the resident disruptor in Congress, I didn't mention our effort to take on big tech. | ||
| I think we will see a bill to actually take on big tech for the first time in a long time hit the floor first quarter, second quarter. | ||
| And I do think that we have an opportunity to keep the House in the midterms if we make good on our promises. | ||
| Okay, well, then that was going to be my part two of the question. | ||
| You've done it. | ||
| Merry Christmas. | ||
| And I'll hopefully see you in Flux. | ||
| If you're craving more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics, check out our politics playlist right here. |