Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for our interview we do monthly here with Congressman Josh Rickeen and Congressman very busy as of late. First of all, thank you for returning our folks from the Turks and k Coast Island. Tell us a little bit about that. That wasn't an easy thing. Well, great outcome.
You know, that's my first in this position member of Congress, opportunity to take a codell and to go as a member of you know, a five person congressional teams led by Senator Mullen, and to go and advocate for Ryan Watson from Oklahoma and four others from all over the country. I know. Told Center Mullen, I guess many weeks ago I had heard, even though Ryan Watson was not from our congressional district, I had heard that he was
leaning in. I heard through back channels that Center Mullen, you know, the United States senator has much more potency when it comes to diplomacy, and so I just thanked him for being aggressive from what I was hearing from my
chief of staff and others. That conversation yielded him saying to me, would you be interested in taking a trip, and I was, and to go and be there for a day and a half to meet the families and then to represent them to the government officials to the age of Dutch and Kikos. You know, it was ultimately the age who we pushed on pretty heavily in that meeting that suggested to their legislature to change their law. And then Ryan, of course was released, as many others have been, with Serida Greer
as the exceptions still waiting her sentencing, but the trip paid dividends. They're
going to change the law, which is something I was adamant about. I hope their a g I looked at her and expressed, along with the governor and the premiere, that I had been there fifteen years before, and then my advice to my wife is not to return because of the fear over a few bullets could land you with a twelve year minimum sentence, and reminded them what we knew about how much of their economy has dependent super majority of their
economy has depended upon your US tourism and also the imports that come from the United States. And so look, the trip paid dividends and I'm glad for Ryan and the four others. Sharita Greer from Florida is the last to face sentencing. The others have been released on what has been fined and time served. It never should have happened. They never should have been required to stay there for months on end. They never should have faced the fear of a
twelve year minimum Senate. And so hopefully American people, when they see what this new law changes results in, will have confidence they can go to Turks and Caicos. That's the hope. Now we've got the presidential debate coming up here very very shortly. I'd like for you to weigh in on that.
Well. I expect there to be pretty easy means of the president delivering contrasting message his four years on the border, here's four years on the economy, his four years regarding the international peace compared to the chaos on those three elements that we've seen under this administration. And I think if he leads us at and talks about words a meaningless actions are where your vote needs to do come from, I think that there's no way he can can lose this debate.
And then I'm expecting the hilarity of Donald Trump to also be a part of this. As I've told many people in the years that I walked away from state government at the United State government and starting a small business, many times I would come home and want to turn on the TV, not to watch the news, but to see what Donald Trump has said. That's a part
of his appeal. You know, there's a part of you know, people that may not like his tweets, but there's some of us that, you know, love seeing someone that's just not so canned that they don't speak from their art and those unforgettable moments in twenty sixteen in his debates. I think many people will watch the debate just you know, for the hilarity element. Well, there's a lot going on that that ain't funny, and I know
that you continue to really sound the alarm on it. And the alarm, of course, is our economy and just the runaway spending we have in Washington, d C. Yeah, Look, we ended up. I think I landed a scorecard from a group that looks at constitutional Inherenents adherents along with Chip Roy Mike Lee landed him. You know, after my first year and a half with a with a being in the top one percent on costitutional inhereness because
of my voting records, and I'm proud of that tall. I think so many people have run for office and and they're not serious about upholding the constitution, not serious about making sure that their votes reflect a limited government perspective and everything else left to the states and individuals for self governance. And we've been serious about that, and the voting record proves that. And of course,
you know, the border issues continue, but not without a fight. You're you've been a very strong voice in Washington, d C. Trying to get something moving. Yeah. I mean sadly though the leverage to get something moving
has been lost because of the appropriations fight. I was sad months ago when you know, the budget deal came together without my support and because we didn't reduce spending to the levels that I wanted us to do, and then then the supplemental with another place we could have held up some hats and leverage rather on the border, but we lost that opportunity as well because what happened in Ukraine. So it is now a battle headed into a president who hopefully will
get serious about doing away with the sixty five different executive orders. That Joe Biden is put in place that have undermined more security. That's the react goodness. Different executive orders since he took office to undermine the success under Trump. Trump had a forty and forty five year low, a forty year low, one year forty five year low between twenty seventeen twenty nineteen loas of illegal immigration,
and then Biden just totally undermines that with different executive orders. And we did pass HR two when I first got into the Congress, within a matter of four or five months being there, came through the committee I served on Homeland Security. We had a partial play in that bill, and that bill has languished on the Senate side. They've not picked it up, and they do not. On the Senate side, led by Democrats, they do not want to see a return to Trump air policies, or they would have picked
up HR two. Okay, this is the part where I say, get on your soapbox and tell us something we don't already know what's happening with you. Should we be looking out for you here in the next several days and weeks, Well, we were going to finish the appropriations bills. Hopefully that that is being led by Republican only Republican vote, and which means we're not putting up with the nonsense of woke and weaponized government spending. So my hope
is we'll actually get the appropriation bills done this year. The likelihood of the Senate will put the take up. We're able to pull that us and punt this thing under a Trump term. If we'll punt to early under a Trump administration and a hopefully a Senate led by Republicans, then we can do what was done to me my first year. They took away the power of the
person away from my freshman class because the Democrats did appropriation. And so what I'm hoping we will do is is still the opportunity for the Democrat and to form governments, and then we'll do what nobody really wants to do, but get a continued resolution to pus this thing into March, and then we could come back in with different ideology and do a fiscal year twenty five appropriations bill
that is reflective of conservative ideology, not Democrat ideology. Very good, Once again, thank you very much for being with us today.