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Jan. 5, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
40:40
Border Is Failing - January 4th, Hour 2
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What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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And I'm Ted Cruz.
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Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
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Well, we're coming to your city.
And so we get it.
We get that folk.
It's going to take a little bit of time for folks to feel what the Binomics has been able to do.
I guess when I'm, I just feel good that the American people got up.
They've been through a rough time with pandemic, but now we're coming back.
They're back.
Final NBC poll had him at just 40% approval, 57% disapproval.
That's the lowest.
That's the lowest in an NBC poll for an incumbent facing a re-election here.
Freedom is back in style.
Welcome to the revolution.
Yeah, we're coming to your center.
Going to play our guitars and sing you a country song.
Sean Hannity.
The new Sean Hannity Show.
More behind the scenes information on breaking news and more bold, inspired solutions for America.
All right.
Thank you, Scott Shannon.
And our two Sean Hannity show.
Thank you for being with us.
I'll be honest, I've been pretty shocked at the amount of coverage over the fact that I announced on Tuesday that I am no longer a New York resident.
I am a full-time resident of the free state of Florida.
I stated the obvious reasons and the reason why so many other people have given for wanting to be in a state that has less bureaucracy, more freedom, lower taxes, a better way, better way of living.
There's so many good reasons.
And frankly, for the first time in my adult life, I have a governor that I'm proud to say is my governor and senators that I'm proud to say are my senators and representatives that I actually respect.
Anyway, Governor Ron DeSantis is with us now.
Governor, I'm proud to say that you are now my governor.
Oh, you've got your own Southern Command now down there in sunny South Florida.
And I know Rush didn't regret the move and I know you won't either.
So I'm glad that you're there.
You and I have been talking about this for years.
I know it's not that easy to just pick up and leave when you got a lot of obligations, but we knew this day would come.
And so welcome.
Well, I really appreciate it.
It's so funny because I think the last time I had mentioned it to you that it's real this time, you rolled your eyes.
I'm like, I'll believe it when I see it.
But I've been saying it for the longest time that I wanted to.
I've had a residence in Florida for over 25, 30 years, at least somewhere.
I'm glad I made the move, and I'm glad to be living in, I think, the freest state in the country at this point.
Let me play something for you because this got interesting.
What's up?
So just to put in perspective, though, New York, Florida.
So New York, now New York has millions fewer people than we do in Florida.
And yet our budget is half the size of New York's.
We have the lowest number of state workers per capita in the country.
And yet, when people move from New York to Florida, they tell me our infrastructure is better, our services are more efficient, and our schools are better.
So what are you getting for all the taxes you're paying in there?
We're doing better at half the cost, servicing even more people.
So they're just doing it wrong, and they're in a vicious cycle where they keep wanting to tax people more.
And this mass migration out of states like California and New York and New Jersey and Illinois and Michigan just continues.
I mean, people are leaving with their feet.
By the way, there wasn't, when I was on vacation, there wasn't a single day that went by that people weren't talking about the debate with you and Gavin Newsome.
Did you get the same reaction?
It's been good.
I think that, I mean, you and I talked about how many people watched.
And when you count streaming and all this other stuff, that I think you think it was in excess of 10 million people.
So that is probably more than just about any Republican debate.
Maybe the first Fox debate, primary debate had more.
But I think people appreciated to be able to see a very sharp contrast.
And, you know, people appreciated, oh, you know, you did well.
They tell me, you know, you really handled him.
And look, I think a lot of it is just because conservative policies work and leftism doesn't.
And so he was at a big disadvantage because he's defending the indefensible.
And he did his best to just try to gaslight everybody.
But it was interesting, Sean.
I was in Northwest Iowa about a week after we did the debate and a gentleman came up to me and he's just like, you really did a number on Gavin Newsom.
And then he just paused and he said, nobody believes that California has lower taxes than Florida.
Nobody believes that.
He's lying.
I think that if you try to gaslight people, like Sean, we know people have fled California because of the crime problem.
We know they have a homeless problem.
We know they have a tax problem.
Like we know that.
So for him to try to say that what people have been seeing all these years isn't true, it just lost credibility.
And, you know, it was a good, good opportunity.
So I had fun doing it.
And, you know, he had said he would do within 24 hours to you.
Then you came to me.
I accepted.
And it was like pulling teeth to get him to finally show up.
And I'm glad that he finally did.
No, I am too.
And actually, if you look at people that saw at least some part of the debate, well over 20 million when you factor in online viewing.
Let me play one thing for you and then we can talk about presidential politics.
Because this was now said by the last two governors in New York.
We'll start with the current governor, and that's Kathy Hochul.
And then I'll play comments by then-Governor Cuomo, because I think they're really revealing.
They're actually telling conservatives to leave.
And finally, I just said, okay, I get the hint.
I'm not liked.
You don't want me here.
I'll take my business elsewhere.
And I'm proud to bring it down here to the great state of Florida.
But I just want to get your reaction to the things they say here.
And we're here to say that the era of Trump and Zeldon and Molinaro, just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay?
Get out of town.
Get out of town.
Because you don't represent our values.
You are not New Yorkers.
Their problem is not me and the Democrats.
Their problem is themselves.
Is that who they are?
Because if that's who they are, and if they are the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York.
Because that's not who New Yorkers are.
We have one of the most progressive tax codes in the United States, which is a good thing, which means the richer you are, the more you pay.
However, that presents a very fragile economy because then you are relying on a very small number of people for the vast amount of your tax dollars.
1% of the taxpayers pay nearly half of all the taxes.
1% pay nearly half of all those taxes.
Those 1% are the richest people in the state.
They're the richest people in the country, and they are the most mobile people in the country.
And you see the chart on the bottom.
Top 1%, about 46%.
Top 5%, 63% of all the revenue.
Top 10%, 74% of all the revenue.
Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich.
We did.
Now, God forbid, the rich leave.
I just want to get your reaction to that.
Is that not breathtaking to you?
I'll tell you, I remember when Hochul was telling people to go to Florida.
And, you know, it just shows what they want on the left.
They just want a one-party state.
They don't want dissent.
And even though their policies are failing, they think that they are entitled to continue to impose them on people.
But when you're talking about how you have mobile people, okay, well, what's the response to that?
If you want to have a lot of investment and a lot of a good tax base in your state, don't push people away with confiscatory taxes.
What they will do, they will double down on the policies that cause people to flee.
And then what they'll do is they'll hire revenue agents to surveil people to see how many days they're in New York versus Florida or wherever.
And so they put all this energy into trying to prop up the failed system that they have rather than just try to do different policies.
But I will tell you this, Sean, because there is, and when high-profile people move who are wealthy, that does make news.
But I run into folks every day, you know, as governor who these are middle-class folks.
These are folks that would be, you know, FDNY for 25 years or NYPD or teachers or small business people.
They have been pushed out.
It is not just the uber wealthy who have been pushed out.
They've been pushed out because education's gotten bad, crime has gotten bad.
The government, COVID was a disaster, how they handled that.
So there are all these different reasons why people have fled to Florida in record numbers.
And we're still the number one state in net immigration, you know, all these years now that I've been governor.
So yes, we've done it right in Florida.
But I do tell people, part of what we do is we're the refuge.
Anytime a blue state does dumb things, we're the state that people want to flee to.
I mean, the numbers really speak volumes.
But I mean, I used to, I got very close to Rick Perry, your predecessor, Senator, now Senator Scott, Bobby Jendal.
They were up in New York all the time.
And they'd always come in and do radio or radio or TV with me.
And so I got to know them really well.
They were there and they were incentivizing businesses and telling them to move to their states.
It was like a competition between the three of them.
All right.
We're 11 days out of Iowa.
How do you assess the race?
I always look at Iowa as a state that is really very unpredictable to me because it's a caucus state.
And New Hampshire has this funky system where people that are independent can vote either in the Republican primary or Democratic primary.
So those first two contests, to me, are a little unpredictable, more unpredictable than people think.
I think the caucus, typically the polling hasn't done a good job of showing the caucus results ahead of time because a lot of this is about turnout.
You have to turn out your people, and it's a process where they're going to be there for a couple hours.
People can give a speech about each candidate.
They discuss.
People actually change their minds at the caucus site.
And so we've really worked hard on saying, okay, what's worked in these caucuses before?
Organization.
We have there's 1,630 precincts around Iowa.
We have over 1,500 precinct captains that are going to be there manning it.
We're adding more every day.
We have all 99 counties organized.
And so that ultimately, I think, is what we have tens of thousands of people that have committed to caucus for us already.
And so I think the weather is going to be very cold.
It's not going to be a cup of tea to just go to this.
So that's going to be the real committed people.
And I think we have people that are supporting us that are very committed, that they participate in this caucus.
This is something that they believe in and that they're going to show up.
But really, it's the name of the game of doing that, of getting people to show up.
And look, part of what you have to do is show up to their communities and talk to them, take questions.
And I've been doing that.
I don't know if you saw Nikki Haley was in New Hampshire yesterday, and she said to a group of New Hampshire voters, she said, Iowa starts it, but New Hampshire, quote, corrects it.
And so I think Iowa voters don't believe that they need to be, quote, corrected.
I think they see themselves as being conservative with conservative values that the Republican Party is supposed to stand for.
So I've appreciated the Iowans that I've been able to meet along the way.
These are hardworking folks, patriotic, God-fearing, really the backbone of this country.
And I think for her to dismiss them like that, I think was a huge mistake.
But I do think it's indicative of her approach to the Iowa caucus.
You know, she's raising money from like liberal Democrats on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, and they're spending ungodly amounts of money in Iowa.
But that typically doesn't end up working because Iowans want to see you.
They want to shake your hand.
They want to be able to ask you the questions.
And I've been the one put in the work.
Let me ask you this.
How do you assess, you know, do you believe the poll numbers?
And you're going to have an opportunity to debate Nikki Haley one-on-one next week.
What do you suspect happens there?
Look, I think the one-on-one debate is great because, I mean, you saw it with the new sum.
You just get more time to be able to put out your views and to respond and have memorable moments.
When you have eight candidates like the first debate and seven like the next, it's almost like dueling press conferences.
So this will be good.
I think it'll be a good exchange.
There'll definitely be a sharp contrast in terms of us as candidates.
I mean, you have people like me as governor that have delivered on all the things conservatives have asked for for years.
Governor Reynolds here in Iowa who's endorsed me.
She's delivered.
You know, Nikki Haley does not deliver.
That's just not what she did.
She was about bringing Chinese companies into South Carolina, and that's what she focused on.
We've been focusing on the people's issues.
So I think people will be able to see that.
We're also going to be doing, I'm doing a town hall tonight in Iowa on CNN, and I'm doing a town hall with Fox on Tuesday with Brett Baer and Martha McCallum.
And then we'll have the debate on January 10th.
And then we've already committed to a town hall in New Hampshire, a debate in New Hampshire.
And I know you and I, I've mentioned to you, I'm game, whatever you want to do.
You know, let's do something in New Hampshire.
I think it'll be fun.
Yeah, I was trying to set up a debate.
How do you analyze you and President Trump were once very close.
And I know he's gone hard at you.
I asked him the question, what happened once from your perspective, what happened?
Oh, what happened was I was doing well as governor.
And so he started attacking me because he viewed me as a threat to his popularity.
He attacked me before the midterm elections.
And then I won a resounding victory, the biggest victory in the history of Florida for a governor's race.
And then he just kept attacking me.
Then they started spending money attacking me on TV, millions and millions of dollars.
And I was just down in Florida doing my job.
And so that's fine.
But I think, look, I mean, I'm happy to see Republicans do well, other governors.
I think most Republicans around the country were very happy to see our leadership in Florida.
He was not.
And I think it's more because he views it through the lens of what's best for him.
And a lot of it is about his issues.
That's not how I roll.
I'm a vessel for the issues of the people.
I've got to stand and deliver for them going forward.
But, you know, look, I would like to see him on the debate stage.
I think he owes it to the voters to do it.
I don't think, obviously, he's not going to do one in Iowa.
We'll see if Iowa, you know, if he underperforms in Iowa, maybe he'll feel like he has to do one in New Hampshire or South Carolina.
But I mean, I'm game for all of those.
I think we need to do it.
But I do think this primary does boil down to Donald Trump is running on his issues.
Nikki Haley's running on her donors' issues.
I'm running on your issues, your family's issues, and the country's issues.
That's my sole focus.
It's not about me.
I'm the leader, but it's not about entertainment or anything delivering results.
We're just running out of time, but 11 days to go and the games begin.
Thank you for your warm welcome, Governor.
It's great to be in your state, and we'll be watching the primaries closely.
And yeah, we're working on a couple of events that we'll have announcements to come.
Thank you, sir.
Okay, 800.
Thanks, Sean.
All right, 800-941-Sean, our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, we have a lot of ground to cover.
When we come back, we're going to check in.
I mean, this battle over the border, it is now a clear, real clear and present danger for every American.
We'll get into the very latest.
Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, this impeachment inquiry into Mayorkas is real.
By the way, would it be applicable to Joe Biden if you want my humble legal opinion?
He's not upholding his pledge, his oath to our Constitution, and that is to uphold our laws.
Also, we'll have the latest on this Epstein list and what it means.
Arthur Idala represents the appeal of Giselle Maxwell and also representing Alan Dershowitz.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
You're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith political warfare and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Napok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down a Verdict with Ted Cruz Now, wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith political warfare and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Nayfak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So download Verdict with Ted Cruz Now, wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
Toll-free.
Our number is 800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Listen, everybody needs a safety and security plan.
These are really dangerous times, especially in big cities, but also small towns.
You know, in this madness of defund, dismantle, no-bail laws, reimagining the police.
You've got to think about safety for you, and you've got to think about safety for your family.
And you got to think about, uh-oh, what if somebody one day wants to break into your house or your business and bring harm to you and to your family, your employees, whatever it happens to be.
Now, I've always been a big believer in the Second Amendment.
I remain a big believer in the Second Amendment.
I've had a right to carry my entire adult life.
However, I'm looking at new technology that's frankly blowing me away.
And that's where the company Burner comes in.
B-Y-R-N-A.com is their website/slash Hannity.
And what's amazing about Burner is they have come up with a non-lethal alternative to deal with perpetrators if, God forbid, they break into your home or business.
And literally, with their pistol, I can hit a target 50 feet away with ease, and it releases two pepper sprays and tear gas, and it will incapacitate even the largest perpetrator that could ever break into your house.
It works.
That gives you time to get away, and that gives you time to bring in help the police, etc.
But it just works.
It is, for me, it is now a big part of my personal security strategies.
I think every American needs to look at this technology.
I think law enforcement needs to look at this technology and include it because guess what?
If you make that ultimate decision to use lethal force, then in a lot of cases, in a lot of states, you have to prove your innocence.
It's crazy.
Anyway, check out their videos for yourself and see if you're not as blown away as I am.
And I've ended up buying a whole bunch of burners for people over the holidays, friends of mine.
Everybody loves it.
They're fun to use.
The Missile 4, which is the new rifle that they have, is unbelievable.
I think you'll like that as well.
Burner.com, B-Y-R-N-A.com/slash Hannity.
Burner.com, B-Y-R-N-A.com/slash Hannity.
So, you know, we've been watching, monitoring, you know, a lot of lies told by the administration about the border, how the border's closed, how the border's secure, how the border's closed, how the border is secure.
And I'm going to play this for you in a second here.
And the whole time they've been lying to us, and now that the Republicans in the House are considering an impeachment inquiry into the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, oh, now all of a sudden he's testifying yesterday and saying, well, it's really a result of climate change.
It's really a result of the Trump administration, even blaming, believe it or not, Greg Abbott, who's had to bear the brunt of their open border policies, their unwillingness to enforce the laws of our land, and their willingness to aid and abet in lawbreaking.
But here's all the times we've been lied to.
Sounds to most folks like a crisis.
Well, look, it's way down now.
We've now gotten control.
Precisely that.
The border is closed, nor could I have been clearer and continued to be so, which is the border is closed.
The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.
The border, we are working to make the border more secure.
You're confident this border is secure.
We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration.
We agree that the border is secure.
So yesterday he's testifying and he's asked and then dodges issues involving the Biden administration on the issue of simply why did they end catch and release.
And also, remember, this is a guy that can't give us a number.
What is the number of illegal immigrants that have come into this country?
Now, by all the estimates we have, we're at 8.3 million unvetted illegal immigrants that Joe Biden has allowed into the country.
Hundreds from the number one state sponsor of terror, Iran, hundreds from their satellite state, Syria.
We have 3,000 plus, 3,400 from Egypt, home of the Muslim Brotherhood.
You've got Afghanistan, over 6,000, home of al-Qaeda.
And we had direct threats to New York City by al-Qaeda just in the last week.
Then, of course, 12,000 from Russia, our number two geopolitical foe, and over 26,000 from China.
Well, I'm not really believing that all these people showing up from all these countries at our southern border are coming here because they want a better life for themselves and their families.
I'm not buying it at all.
But here's Mayorkis dodging the issue of the Biden administration and why did they end catch and release?
People are coming.
The numbers have gone up tremendously, and nothing in the White House's plan addresses what Republicans are saying is so important.
Catch and release, a phrase you hear.
What that means is people come across the border, they claim asylum, and then they're allowed to stay in this country for years while they wait for that process to play out.
Years and years and years.
People know that's the game.
They know the bar for asylum is low.
The claim bar is low.
And so they come.
Are you doing anything?
Are you willing to do anything to stop the flow in that way?
Allow me to finish my answer.
On the first day in office, President Biden sent a legislative proposal to Congress to fix what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system.
I have dealt with the immigration system first as a prosecutor in the 1990s and then as an administrator beginning in 2009.
And the years-long process that you describe has been a problem in the immigration system ever since I've worked in it.
And everyone agrees that the system is broken.
And what we are doing is enforcing our laws.
We are enforcing our criminal laws, our immigration laws, and that includes our asylum laws.
And when people come to the United States at the border, they are placed in immigration enforcement proceedings.
And those proceedings take many years because our system is broken and it is also underfunded.
Unbelievable, because those policies worked.
We did not have this problem under President Trump.
Anyway, Congresswoman Debbie Lesko is with us.
She's in Arizona's 8th congressional district.
She sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Border Security Caucus as the Republican majority now moves towards impeachment inquiry and impeachment inquiry into Maorcas.
Congresswoman, great to have you back.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me, Sean, and happy new year to you and your listeners.
Thank you.
Happy New Year to you.
Now, in states like yours, a border state like Arizona, like a border state like Texas, you have been bearing the brunt of Joe Biden's open border policies.
For those people that don't completely comprehend how bad it is, can you describe what you have been seeing with your own eyes?
Oh, my goodness.
It's beyond insanity what is happening at our southern border.
I visited the border in Arizona numerous times, and in the Tucson sector, it's actually the worst in the nation right now and has been for a few months as far as the number of illegal crossings that are going on.
And you've pegged it.
I mean, last month alone, December, 302,000 people that we know of were encountered at the southern border.
That's more than the entire population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in one single month.
And Biden does nothing.
In fact, he wants to incentivize more people to come over.
The fact that, look at what California just did.
Now they're going to pay for health care for illegal immigrants, which is insanity to me.
I mean, what I'm having a hard time understanding is why they have now simply decided that it's okay to only enforce the laws that they want to enforce.
Because this is now their policy.
It's obviously been their policy.
They're allowing unvetted people into this country.
And I would argue probably as a result of these policies, we know people on the terror watch list have been caught.
How many on that watch list were not caught?
How many people coming from enemy countries are setting up terror cells here for another 9-11 or another or an October 7th or maybe something worse?
And I suspect that's probably happened.
I'd even bet 100% that I'm right, and I pray that I'm wrong.
Do you believe that's a strong possibility as I do?
Well, I do believe it's a strong possibility.
And, you know, these policies were under Obama, too.
I was in the state legislature in Arizona at the time, and I was a co-sponsor of SB 1070.
And the courts threw most of it out because we were trying to enforce the laws that the federal government was not.
Well, now Biden has just made it much, much worse.
And that's what Texas is trying to do now is they say, listen, Biden, you're not enforcing the law.
You're not protecting our citizens.
So we're going to do it ourselves.
And then, of course, the Biden administration is suing them.
And they'll do nothing.
They just continue to incentivize people to come across the border from, what, 170 different countries?
This is total insanity.
And that's why Republicans passed a bill in the House to stop this insanity by changing the border security policies.
And that's why we're pushing for it and connecting to funding for the government and for any supplemental funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
I watched yesterday, you know, I saw Speaker Johnson, I saw Jim Jordan, about 60 Republicans down at the border.
And all the media says, how many of you raise your hand?
We're willing to shut down the government.
Republicans don't want to shut down the government.
However, we've got, this is now a top national security issue to me.
And I don't have a problem with Republicans saying we'll make a deal, but we've got to get something in return as well.
Well, I totally agree with you, Sean.
I mean, these are the priorities that Speaker Mike Johnson has put forward.
We need to secure the border, and we need to get our federal government spending under control because, as you know, our interest payment on our national debt is soon going to exceed our entire budget for the Department of Defense.
And that is also a national security threat.
I mean, Biden is just, by the way, it's right now 11% of our spending is just paying off a trillion dollars in debt every year.
How do we possibly survive as a country doing that?
We can't survive.
We can't survive with an open border, and we can't survive with unlimited government spending.
And unfortunately, Republicans have been fighting this, fighting this, fighting this, but the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats and a Democrat President Biden, don't agree with us.
So we will keep pushing.
We will keep pushing.
And we're going to try to hold some leverage over them on border security and government spending.
And I'm glad that Mike Johnson is drawing the line.
Well, I'm glad all of you are drawing the line.
And I guess you got these two deadlines, and you don't want another continuing resolution.
How do you think that's going to end up in terms of a deal?
Is there any hope that one will happen?
Is there any constructive discussions going on?
Or Democrats are saying it's our way of the highway?
Well, I hope there's constructive negotiations going on.
I mean, Kirsten Sinema is one of our state senators here in Arizona, and she's part of the group that's negotiating in the Senate.
Now, I served with Kirsten Sinema in the state legislature.
She was very liberal back then, but she does understand border security.
But in the House, we're going to stand firm.
We need border security, and we need to rein in government spending.
Now, Mike Johnson has a tough road.
There's only two votes he can afford to lose if it's all Republican.
So it's going to be a rough road, but we're going to stand up for what we believe in.
Well, we really appreciate what you're doing.
Great to check in with you.
Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, Arizona's 8th Congressional District.
Thank you for being with us.
We appreciate it.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back.
We'll hit the phones when we come back.
800-941-Sean, our number as we continue.
And more of your calls also coming up.
Final half hour of the program.
All right, let's hit our busy phones.
Let's say hi to Eric.
He's in the free state of Florida, our new broadcasting home.
What's up, Eric?
How are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Oh, thank you, Sean.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
I'd like to share some arithmetic regarding the border and just thinking about, I keep seeing on TV that it's costing about $450 billion a year in order to deal with the border crisis.
Is that the figure that sounds accurate to you?
It's roughly in that neighborhood, $450 billion to take care of everybody.
You've read the right figure.
I've seen it, but I've also seen higher estimates when you factor everything in.
But yeah, you know, it's close to, I mean, that is a massive amount of money.
Now, think of it this way, too.
What about all the states now that have to provide free health care because people are not going to be turned away from public hospitals?
What about the impact on our educational system and education?
Those costs alone, we're talking about billions of dollars.
Then you add housing and food and supplies.
I mean, we can't afford this.
That's right.
If you take $450 billion and you divide it by approximately the number of individual taxpayers that filed the tax return last year, I looked it up on Google.
It's about 165 million people filed a tax return.
Take $450 billion divided by $165 million.
You get about $2,700 per person that you could be getting back as a refund every year.
And for me, that's 27 trips to the grocery store.
That's a lot of money.
That's a ton of money, and especially your trips to the grocery store, thanks to Joe Biden's horrific Bidenomics.
You know, we're making on an average, you know, $2,000 less a year, and costs have gone up precipitously because of his inflation and high interest rates and everything else that he's done wrong.
So add it all together, and it's not a pretty picture for we, the American people.
But securing our border, first and foremost, it's about national security.
You cannot convince me that people coming from Iran and Syria and China and Russia and Afghanistan and Egypt are all coming here because they want a better opportunity and a better life.
I'm not convinced of that.
And I'd say the odds that I'm 100% correct that there are people with nefarious intentions, people with terrorist intentions entering our country and setting up shop, waiting for the day that they're going to act.
I think I'm 100% accurate.
I hope to God I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
Anyway, thanks for a good call.
Appreciate it.
Eric, 800-941-Sean, our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
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