Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. We have with this Congressman Josh Ri Keen from Regional District too here in Oklahoma. It's been a busy, busy time in Washington, d C. And first of all, how are we doing as far as the big vote to keep the keep the nation open, as far as the money's concerned.
So I was in the Oval Office a few days ago with President Trump myself. It's about fifteen of us that are considered fiscal hawks, and the President was asking us, you know, can you support the cr And so almost all of us, you know, walked out of there saying, all right, we're willing to go with you on this. When I had a chance to speak to him individually, I related to him. I said, President Trump, thank you
for not backing off of what Doge is doing. It's because of you know Rubio, now is it this morning saying we're eliminating eighty five percent of USAID funding will roll the other remaining fifteen percent under Secretary of State's office, the ability of RUSS vote at omb former Freedom Cocus member with me, Dan Fisher or a Dan Bishop brother that works with RUSS. They were both in that meeting and to be able to say to President Trump, thank you for not pulling your foot off the gas pedal
on trying to find these efficiencies. And he said to me, is that's really the only reason you're willing to go to that said, Miss President, I can. I can stomach the cr because you've not taken your foot off of what Doze is doing. And and so the ability as I've been you know, on Budget Committee, and I've seen the hesitancy of Republicans to really go in and cut stuff, We've got the opportunity to do that now with Doge.
And if we can hold our budgets flat for four years, some of what we're kind of trying to do with this reconciliation build. I want to make this too confusing, but part of the agreement of this framework that we set up about six of us with the Speaker on the Budget Committee and said, if you'll let us adjust the dials, we have to have savings to be able to do the things on the ways and mean side.
When we cut that deal with the Speaker two weeks ago, with the Speaker that that big, one, big beautiful bill, we've got a minimum a two year freeze which to
see our plays into on the discretionary side. If we can do that for four years, we can return our non defense discretionary spending levels back to pre COVID tom and that's huge, you know for all of us that we're putting amendments up for the last couple of years on the appropriation bills and saddened by the fact we could only get eighty to one hundred our colleagues to support taking arts and humanity funding back to twenty nineteen
spending levels. There's a chance here, because you've got a gutsy president who's not taking his foot off of dose, that we're going to be able to accomplish some real spending reduction. And so that you know, again to have the ability to say, to encourage the president, just keep your foot hard pressed on this, and look, I think he sees it. You know that when he mentioned Elon at the State of the Union address, some of us
were making sure the applause continued. We want the president to know that, regardless of what you're hearing from everyone saying they're against this, some of us see this as the way we're going to have a chance to spare this country from his history of other countries who fail for loose fiscal policy.
Now, when we see some of these headlines, we see things of just really bizarre outlays of cash from USA that go to other countries for some of what seems to be pretty dark and silly and maybe even nonsensical. But we're also finding out that some of these things have a little bit of a oh well, let's call it a commission for somebody back home, usually someone who's tied to someone in Washington, d C. Maybe even a lawmaker. When are the names going to come out?
Look, there are these and creases, non government organizations that pass money around. And when Rubio, when Rubio was saying eighty five percent of what we were spending money on is nonsensical, there's a report I haven't confirmed it. It was floating around on substack. Someone sent me about how you got equities for Oklahoma, which is this group that's pushing
the LGBTQ stuff in Oklahoma. That it shows you the spider web of USAID funding going to different organizations who then are funneling that money to Oklahoma's for equity, and it appears again just needs We've got to get confirmation, but as appeers our tax dollars, when many of us thought some of these things were being pushed by private donations.
Are organizations tied into the left receiving tax money, federal tax money that was in in a spider web, usa ID being the component funneling to organizations who would then funnel in the organizations like Oklahoma's for equity and it wasn't private donors, right, and these things are pushing counter to the virtues of Oklahomas. People have to be infuriated with that.
Now with mister Musk doing his duty there with Doge, we've been hearing of people with eleven Social Security accounts. We've been hearing the people who are three hundred and twenty years old getting solid security money. And Social Security, of course wasn't around until like nineteen thirty five.
Can I clarify this because Eloon was with House members last week he please do so. When President Trump is going through the numbers of people going oh, it's not social Security, they're not getting those checks. What Elon said is you're missing what President Trump. He didn't say this. That's President Trump is describing that because they have a secret or Social Security number they're eligible for other programs. Doesn't mean they're getting the money through Social Security. It
means because they stay on Social Security. There's one example, eline pointy two where you've got three thousand, twenty one when the the COVID money was being dispensed, you have three thousand loans at the tune of three hundred and thirty million dollars going to people over one hundred and fifteen years of age because they had a Social Security number.
WHOA.
So the fact that solid security keeps them on their rolls. It might not be receiving Social Security benefits, but because so many other programs say you get a soci Security number, you're eligible for our programs. That's what's happening. These people are receiving government funding through other government programs because they're using their Social Security number to look balid.
Well, thanks for that clarification, because there are a lot of folks that kind of upset that you know we did. That's kind of gray and nebulus. I'm glad that you parse that out a little bit, cleared that up. Wonderful Now, a lot of things going on here too. Yeah, you were there, of course, and you mentioned at the President's speech. What was that like? Was that kind of surreal?
Yeah? I was actually in the back. I had lots of people from from Oklahoma staying where are you? We can't see you. I was in the back, and let me say this. People started at two o'clock taking their wallets, even taping them to their chairs so they could reserve a spot. I've been working on because I'm on the Budget Committee recommendation, I've been working on some things to try to show the President where there's more savings and cuts to be found to be able accomplish this one big,
beautiful bill. So I had my binder. I was in the back row studying before the State of the Union started because we were going to go into White House and meete with the President of the day the next day. I was with the speaker his staff relaying messages to Trump President Trump's staff. So I was actually preparing for the meeting with the president. So I was, you know, not in the best spot. I was having to stand as the speech started, stand up to be able to
watch it. It was surreal, man, you know the fancy word for weird. It was weird to watch, you know, to watch democrats not stand when You've got a young man who's gone through six surgeries because of brain canching. They can't stand for that. You know, when when law enforcement is touted for the heroic efforts, they won't stand for that. I mean, just common civility that you saw running just the opposite direct when al Green did what he did. I had a meeting with the Speaker on
the floor a couple of days ago. Some of us are saying it has to be more than just the censor. He raises money al Green. He raises money off of And I suggested to the speaker he delayed that al Green delayed an official proceeding. That is something that comes
up with criminality charges. And so I've got my staff kind of looking at what we can do for rules change, and the Speaker kind of nodded his head and said, look, you know, I can see some validity, you know, us doing something on the delay of an official proceeding in addition to just how stupid you know, and look he made he made the Democrats look bad, he did, and that alone speaks for itself.
My goodness. So it's been a bit since we've been conversed, and I know you've been very very busy, especially with this, you know, being a physcal hawk, I got to go back to this, you know, re faciliation bill. Did do you hear josh urkeeen and that in the same sentence. It almost takes your breath away. But like you said, everything has been put into motion to make it work for the people in this case.
Correct, look impoundment and recisions with russ vote and what Dose is doing and part of what we So just make sure I'm not confusing people. No president wants a c R for the twelve appropriation bills, an annual yearly funding for twenty five percent of the budget. Seventy five percent of our budget is for Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps. Those are locked away. Those are mandatory spending programs. That's what the Budget Committe's been working on on reconciliation. That's
the process. It doesn't require sixty votes in the Senate across fifty. Some of us are trying to show the President and his team and and this are other colleagues, here's how we get to real save to pay for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the things that President Trump is asking for, the ability to pay for tax on tips, and so that framework of reconciliation, we're going to plus up defense in that side, which is
usually done in the normal discretionary budget side. But the trade off for us with the Speaker and it's backs in our reconciliation package. The framework we put the gun out of Budget Committee is it says we will let a minimum hold the discretionary side flat for two years. If we could hold it flat for four years, we can get it speaked up with pending levels. But even
the two years, it's sizeable savings. It's hundreds of billions of dollars just on the discretionary side of the ledger, not not even to mention what we're trying to do on the mandatory side of the ledger.
Now, once this is passed, and I understand it's going to be kind of tricky in the Senate, but once this gets past, some of these folks are going to have to grow a little bit of will to keep from going back to old habits when two years are gone.
You got people right now that are trying to you know, protect the green new scalm, protect wind industry, trying to protect solar. So we put a framework together. The problem is we got people balking on it because they don't want to do what is going to have to happen to make sure Medicaid returns to what it was original mission, which was for the poor, the disabled, the elderly, pregnant, nursing mothers. We have grown the Medicaid population since twenty
twelve sixty percent. Because of this expansion population, Obama started to where now, Tom, you have more people that are above the poverty line on Medicaid than below the poverty line. And you've got people who aren't willing to come on board and say, we've got to make sure Medicaid is not displacing the poor and the disabled for the services
being provided, because that's what it's doing. The poor, the disabled, the elderly are having to compete for service providers for the able bodied guy who's able to work, who's living in his parents' basement and he's not out there hustling, and we are destroying this country. Our population is a country since twenty twenty twelve has only grown six percent. Yet since Obama and a Biden have expanded the mediciate population,
it's grown sixty percent the Medicaid population. Wow, So what you what you see is is we got socialized healthcare, and Medicaid is a tool to do it. And so you got colleagues and they're not wanting to do anything to right size Medicaid. You got polls even right now saying people as a majority support right size in Medicaid. And that's not even limited Republicans. And the other side of we've got some colleagues that are trying to protect a green new scam, protecting these these wind and solar
projects in their districts. I'm talking about some Republican colleagues. So I've been even this morning on the phone with an expert, Alex Epstein, trying to encourage us to do a letter to get the American people to understand if we don't roll back these green new scalm, even solar tax credits in this reconciliation process, we'll lose it. When President Trump said out he's committing in the Green New Scale, he was talking about the IRA Inflation Reduction actun put
all these things in. And so we've got to repeal this stuff or it's gonna be with us in perpetuity. And that is going to be the demise of jobs in Oklahoma, specifically because the electric grid is moving towards all the growth on the electric grid. Super majority of all the growth now, according to the Energy Information Administration, is on wind and solar that's displacing natural gas. And they're using taxpayer credits, taxpayer subsidies to compete with natural gas.
Oklahoma's the top five exporter on natural gas. This is stupidity that we're subsidizing industries that can't make it on their own, and we're moving our electric grid to be what the Energy Information Administration says in another twenty years to be a majority supported by wind and solar that are unreliable. I mean, we could be in a place where winter storms that we're on unreliable wind and solar. We'll be losing all and gas jobs in the process.
It's just plain stupidity. So why if you look at Europe now, they're pulling most of their energy supplies out of Russia. Got Europe who's trying to fight against Russia. Yet they are spending more pain for all and gas coming from Russia than they are aiding Ukraine, and and and so. But Alana has to do with their energy system is in a mess in Europe because they've tried to go to being in this Green New Deal and it's not working for them.
Josh, anything else you'd like to invite or tell folks about what's going on with you and how they can contact you.
Yeah, Probam. They can always reach out to our Clairemoor office. Always reach us in DC. We want to hear from them. We've got field reps that are out you know that being businesses that are gathering information, gathering data. They can always email us, find and encourage people to follow ourself some media page at Congressman Josh for Keen b R E C h T