Transcripts For CSPAN Texas Tribune Festival 20240714 : vima

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 outofstate 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 coauthor 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 im 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 righthand 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 cardcarrying 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, heres the democrats 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 prebaked 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 youre 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 president s 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. Im 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 redactions. 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 im 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 backandforth 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 Bidenjoe biden connection. I dont deny that. I think most americans won that, unless joe biden is their nominee. If that is their picket, they dont 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 dont we release transcripts of jill joens conversation bidens 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 dont see anything wrong with that. I think when americans read that, they dont 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 wasnt 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 dont make 50,000 in a year. A look at that factor and our light, that doesnt 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 ill say it now. The president doesnt 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 guys 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. Im 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 chainlink 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 30second 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