Death of the Surrender Caucus

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Death of the Surrender Caucus. Please welcome from North Carolina, Congressman Dan Bishop. From Georgia, Congressman Mike Collins. And your moderator, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Just the News, John Solomon. Hello, CPAC. Good to be here. We have a couple of soldiers on the front line of changing this town. This is going to be a fun conversation. We've been talking about the weaponization of government, the bloating of government for a long time. We now have a troop of leaders in Congress ready to make those changes. We're going to dive into that today. Congressman Dan Bishop, you've been here a long time. You've seen how this city has grown. You've seen how agencies have been turned against the American people. You're on, I think, one of the most consequential committees that we have right now, the Weaponization Subcommittee. Tell us what you're finding, what troubles you, how we fix it. John, it's the focus of my service in Congress. This term is the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Jim Jordan, under the Judiciary Committee, also led by Jim. And I can tell you that we're digging in. We're having a hearing this week on some of the revelations we've seen from the Twitter files. Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger will be there. What we see is, over and over and over, American federal government agencies have begun to act in ways that are incomprehensible, that do not respect the right relationship between people and the government. What we've seen, I think, is aptly described as the largest censorship operation in U.S. government history, among other things. And it is time for it to stop. And the way it stops is for us to dig into it and expose every single part of it. And that's what we're going to do. Let me just follow up real quickly, sir. You know, there's been a spin job. Well, the federal agencies really weren't pressuring social media to send things out. You don't believe that, do you? Pressuring? I mean, they were embedded with them. That's right. You had meetings every quarter and then every month and then every week. FBI agents, agents from the CIA, the Office of Director of National Intelligence, and then, of course, it extended in the public health sphere as well. And they are curating and managing the public conversation of the American people. And I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the role of the federal government. Absolutely. You are so right. Congressman Collins, I had the pleasure of chronicling your campaign last year. You were kind enough to come on our show a lot. You're new to the town, but I know you're as determined as anyone here to get things done. You ran a company, ran a very successful trucking company. You needed competence in your company every day. It doesn't seem like competence is a requirement of the federal government anymore. You have a very important focus on our transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. Does he belong in the job? No, he doesn't. We've, as a matter of fact, we're requesting that he resign immediately. Right. You know, John, coming from the private sector and running a business, I hire people based on their skills, what they can do and how they can advance our company. What we have here is an agency that has literally hired someone based on identity politics. You don't have to look any further. You can go back to even NOTAM. They were more focused on changing that acronym from Notice to Airmen to Notice to Air Missions. 176 page rule, thousands of dollars to change that acronym. Did it make it any safer? No. It was just more cultural advances and social agenda politics. You follow that all the way up through this latest that happened over in East Palestine where they blamed it on wheel bearings going hot. Well, if you look at Norfolk Southern's ESG report from late 2022, you'll see where the CEO states that it is utmost importance that they advance their DEI and cultivation of culture in their company. Instead of saying something like, hey, we need to hire the best mechanics, we're going to grease the fourth rail or the rail over here, the fourth branch of government, instead of hiring people to grease those wheel bearings. That's what's happening to these agencies and we've got to, you've got to cut the head off at the top and it's time for Pete Buttigieg to go. It's time to hire somebody with confidence up there that understands how to run a transportation department. Yeah, that'd be a welcome to a lot of people, I think. Congressman Bishop, I did a lot of work on the Russia collusion narrative. There were many great members of Congress that dug in and we all, we got the truth out. It took us three years, but an FBI agent at the very beginning when I started my journey said, if no one gets held responsible, if there isn't a true consequence, the temptation to do this will double in the years ahead. How do we start to get accountability to those federal bureaucrats that actually cheat at their jobs? It's exactly the question to ask, John, and I'll tell you, we've seen it over time. There was a, the church committee in the mid seventies dug in, discovered a lot of abuses that were going on in covert foreign operations as well as domestic intelligence. Attorney general guidelines resulted. They have a lot of guidelines governing undercover operations, confidential human source use, and they violate them over and over again. The FISA applications on Carter Page, we saw the FISA court said the FBI demonstrates a culture of lack of candor. It's got to change and all of the reforms that have been attempted haven't changed it. I'll tell you what I think is really honestly true. These agencies are too large. They are too well funded. They need to be gutted, seriously reduced and reform the FBI above all. And I think they've got to be more imbued into the heartland of America. I think the problem with the FBI in particular, it's decision-making has been centralized and you have a handful of executives. Well, I'm more than a handful of, I'm sorry to say, but a lot of people in Washington making terrible decisions, more and more politicized all the time. They've got to be run out. That's all there is to it. You've got to reduce their funding. Yeah, we do. And if I could chime in on that, you know, as Congressman Bishop and I were talking in the back, there's a, there's a bill out there right now to get rid of the Department of Education. It is time to remove, get rid of that department. I'm a co-sponsor and so are you. Yes, sir. How about that? Yes, sir. You know, we, we've passed a lot of bills over to the Senate and they're sitting there. I have no idea what they're doing over there. Maybe they're learning to play pickleball. I'm not sure, but there is one thing that we can do and what the Congress is doing. And that is we are holding oversight in every committee and that's good. But the other good thing about that is we're not just sitting in four walls up here in Washington, DC, as we hold oversight. We're taking these oversight hearings out across America. And when you do that, local media will pick that up because as you well know, media is stymieing and squashing a lot of what is going on in DC. But if we can get that out into rural America and as local news media picks it up, then your bigger news media picks it up and finally your national media will have to pick it up. We'll expose what's been going on up here because after 10 years of just omnibus bills, where you just package stuff up and throw it to agencies and say, spend it at will, I got it's time to find out what's been going on in this place up here. I think that's right. I agree with you. You know, John and Mike, I would add to that. One of the things that I think we've seen is we've sort of been willing to drift. It's a question of will. I was one of the 20 who in January believed we needed to have some discussion and reach some agreement on some important things before we elected. And it's just a question of whether we're going to exercise the will. I don't know how many times over the course of years I've seen in every time there's a showdown over a budget issue, Democrats have seemed to have won. And I think it's just Republicans have to finally say, no, you're not going to win every time. We've got important things to accomplish for the American people. You've screwed up just about everything you've touched. We are going to change some things and it starts now. Amen. And you know what's so great about that? Almost 70% of the makeup of the Republican caucus right now in the House are America First agenda people. It's a great caucus. It's a time that we can really band together, get things done. And we will get that done. Such important stuff. January 6, another area where accountability. I think we've got to get those videotapes first though, don't you think? Get those videotapes. Then we will know something about what happened. Gentlemen, I want to ask this. When I was growing up, my dad used to have me watch all those John Wayne movies and there was always that tragic scene where you hear the sound of retreat. Every time I hear the Republicans in the Senate, at least their leadership, it sounds like they're sounding the retreat. I hear from the Senate side, we're going to have to wait to 2025 to get anything done. I know both of you gentlemen, you're not waiting to 2025. What can the power of the purse do now to start to shrink this government, drain this swamp? Look, Republicans are going to be together. We're going to have 218 in support of a debt ceiling package coming up that is going to set priorities in the right direction. And the senators are going to want to skip all that and just go on with the old way of doing business. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. We are not going to permit that to happen. The change begins right now. This Congress, not when we have both chambers, not when we have both chambers in the presidency, now. And we can. We set the right priorities and go to the mat for it. We can prevail. And not only that, John, we haven't passed budgets. We haven't passed appropriation bills up here in years. It's been 50 years since we passed all the appropriation bills within the designated time. That doesn't make sense. I'm a small businessman, but thank God I can make better sense than that. But we need to start passing our budgets. We need to pass our appropriation bills. Get those over to the Senate. The debt ceiling, yeah, it's got to be dealt with, but it's not going to be a clean debt ceiling. We've got to have some cuts. 31 trillion dollars in debt. In counting. That's right. And then and then we'll start moving this needle in the right direction. The other thing that it'll do is set up for the next two years election. And I think with the American people is they are waking up and by God they're waking up every day. They are. You don't have to go any further than the nearest gas station to wake up to see what inflation and what's going on in this country and how wasteful spending has just created the dollar to where it's worthless now with the giveaway programs. So people are waking up. We've got and I think the next the next cycle of elections is going to be incredible. I know you're of just 435, but if it gets there because I've seen this game play out, they run the clock to the end and say we have a crisis. Are you willing to sit there and say we'll shut down the government if we don't get what the American people deserve? Absolutely. You are? No doubt about it. No doubt. There you go. That's an important point. You got to hold your guns. I want to wrap up here. A lot of times we look around and we think Washington and the rest of the world are disconnected. The rest of this country and they call us fly over country everywhere else. But at the end of the day, the American people can do a lot to support what you need to do. They've got to back you in the trenches in what is really an epic fight for the future of this country. I want to ask both of you this question. I'll start with you as the newest member of Congress here. What can these folks right here out here do to keep your back safe so that you can get the job done that they need? We need help on the Senate side. It's as simple as that. You can contact the Senate over there and make sure they understand that you know that bills are being sent over there and nothing's being done. We can send bills over there every day. But if they don't take them up and vote them up or down, whatever they want to do with them, then we're over here just handling oversight. And don't get me wrong, oversight's good. But that's one thing that we could really use the help on. Congressman Bishop? My observation, John, has been that the people, especially folks like the people in this room, are way ahead of Congress. I think they know what needs to be done. They realize that we've got to be prepared to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. There's been a lot of cosmetic stuff. They know that we as Republicans need to hold each other accountable in Washington. They know that some of the problems have been in the Republican Party and they know and they expect change. Here's one thing I'd say. Sometimes there's a sentiment out there I'm ready to give up because I think the elections are crooked and so forth. Do not give up. Make changes in Congress. Be in touch with your senator. Mike is right. Be in touch with your own House member when they screw up. Be in touch with me if I screw up. You hold us accountable. Tell us to hold each other accountable. And you will help us set this country back on the right track. The American people have the capacity to fix anything, anything at all, including this woke and weaponized government. We're going to get about it. I guarantee it. That's what I'm going to work on every day. Turns out Congress isn't as broken as we thought. We have two real leaders here. Gentlemen, it's been an honor to have with you. Yes, John. John, I cannot get up without saying one other thing. And that gentleman was exactly right. Speaker McCarthy released all those thousands of hours of tapes. But y'all, we have got to stand up. We got to demand justice for those political prisoners from January 6th. We can't have an unequal justice system. We cannot. Well, gentlemen, it's been an absolute honor. I know all these folks out here appreciate that you're on the front lines. You're really fighting for them. Great honor. We're going to have a rest and see back in a lot more conversation. God bless you, sir. Thank you. It's a great honor to be with you. Good to see y'all. Take care, guys.