Senate and House Democratic leadership, including myself and Leader Jeffries, sent legislative texts detailing the 10 items we outlined in our letter. which has been public since Thursday, for raining in ice. We sent them to our Republican counterparts.
So since Saturday, The ball has been in the Republicans' court. We have no idea of which of our proposals they will accept. and which they reject. And when I say that Democrats offered exceedingly reasonable proposals and have the support of the American people, I'm not exaggerating. Of course he's exaggerating.
Senator Schumer, you're going to tell me that everybody in this country, by the way, over 60 percent of the country want illegal immigrants out of the country. How they do it is where the rubber hits the road. But the 10 demands they have, at least six are non-starters, and he knows that. But he thinks it's to his political benefit to hold out either that or shut down.
So last night Senate GOP leaders were trying to lay the groundwork to pass another short-term DHS funding patch until they can get together on those 10 items, one of which is taking off the mask, another is judicial warrants before you go in, no wandering patrols, which I don't think either side should be doing.
So I think that's fine. But not having your name on your uniform is not going to work. The same party that goes out of their way to say if you see some an ICE agent, take out your phone and tape what they're doing and harassing them as they sleep in hotels. Congressman Tony Gonzalez from Texas's 23rd District joins us now. Congressman, welcome back.
Yeah, thanks for having me back on, Brian. Congressman, what do you think? Have the Democrats been very reasonable when it comes to the shutdown? They haven't. And I'll tell you why.
Just a few days ago, we had a bipartisan package that passed in the House. We had seven Democrats sign on board. It was well on its way. And then all of a sudden getting signed into law by the President. And then all of a sudden, now they want to hold people hostage.
And part of that holding the hostage is a Coast Guard that's doing great work. It's FEMA. It's our TSA agents. It's FAA. I mean, it's all these other parts of the government.
And it's surely it's solely based on politics, not policy.
So what uh of those demands, what do you think you'd be open to? You know, you mentioned the body cameras make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I think that, if anything, that gives a lot of protections to our law enforcement officers that essentially go, we don't allow some TikToker that takes a snippet of what happened and puts it on the internet and kind of like, oh, look at this terrible thing that happened. You have law enforcement that goes, hey, let me show you what happened yesterday, today, and the day after. That makes sense.
Hey, look, I'll trade you for a voter ID. Do you want to do a trade like that? That makes sense to me. What was the trade? I'm sorry, you were breaking up a little bit.
What was the trade? I would trade you identifying our law enforcement officers for voter IDs, for making sure making people that vote in this election have an ID when they come and vote. If you want to have a conversation on IDs, that's the conversation we need to be having. We'll see what what what real comes out of it. I think also communicating, having communication liaisons, just so that way there's no surprises in these local communities.
They know what's happening, they know where the operations are occurring. Ideally, they're a part of it. To me, that makes a lot of sense. That alleviates some of the anxiousness that these communities have. We can't let the left control this narrative of they're going out there and ICE is doing X, Y, or Z.
The more we can shine a light on transparency, I think undermines their narratives. What's with the mask? This is a party that wanted to put everyone on a mask, including two-year-olds. Wanted you to play soccer with a mask on. And now they say we want the masks off ice agents.
Yeah, it's insane. It's okay for the rioters to have masks, but this poor federal agent that's doing their job that is getting doxxed and their family is getting harassed and they're getting harassed. I mean, not to the verbal harassment. We're not talking about verbal harassment, Brian. We're talking about people shooting at them and trying to kill them.
Like, that's the level of threat they're under.
So, of course, they should protect themselves.
So, do you think you guys are going to come? The Senate's going to come to some type of an agreement on this? We have a few days to go. I do suspect there's going to be some negotiations and some conversations that should happen. I think it's really important that the Republican Party doesn't cave here.
We don't surrender. We hold the line and we essentially go, we worked really hard on this package. Are there opportunities for some things that make sense? Yes. I think going after the convicted criminal alien piece, that makes a lot of sense.
The transparency piece makes a lot of sense. But some of their demands are just completely absurd, and they know it. It's almost as if they're trying to do this on purpose, Brian.
So what do you think Republicans have been doing wrong? I know Tom Holman's going to be scaling back again this week in Minneapolis. What do you think they have been doing wrong that bothered you, a member of the Hispanic community who served our country as a congressman in a border district? The number one issue that I think can be improved is communicating with the local. Cities.
Just you don't have to change anything. You can keep your policies exactly the same. You can do your operations the same. You can have people that work with you or don't work with you. But you should be communicating with them.
And whether they want to hear it or not, almost forcing the conversation on it so that we go, look, this is what happened. This is who we apprehended. This is why we apprehended them. This is what's going on. To me, that undermines or that undercuts the narrative that.
Some of these cities are trying to portray these ICE agents demonizing them. If we do a better job of that, to me, that alleviates a lot of problems. This is Ainslie Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told.
Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah, I guess we're going to see what's going to happen. Do you think that the, I know Democrats want no more roving patrols looking for people that look like they're illegal and asking them for ID. Do you think the DHS is doing that? Number one, if they are, do you want them to stop?
The random going around doing stuff, in my experience in the military, that's how you get people killed. You know, you have to, operations have to be very specific. They have to be very detailed. You have to have lots of cooperation, very clean. And to me, I'm first thinking of the safety of the officers, and I'm thinking of the safety of the community.
Get them out of bad situations. The jails make a lot of sense. If we can go cell by cell instead of door by door, you're in a controlled environment.
Someone's convicted of a crime. That makes a lot of sense to me. Hey, go out and get me 10 people. To me, that creates a level that takes us down the wrong path.
So, what did you take from the state election that went to a Democrat that Donald Trump won by double figures? I think 17 points? Republicans have to take this serious. And, you know, it's not just in Texas, it's other places. We absolutely have to take this serious.
And, you know, I think everyone needs to step up, including those of us that are in the arena. We need to step up. The message, too, has to be on security and it has to be on the economy. I mean, those two things resonate anywhere you go throughout the country. If you stray off that, which I think has happened in some of these special elections, you lose a lot of people.
And this is once again where it's important on the security piece. We double down on the protecting of our agents. I've got a bill that focuses on bulletproof vehicles for our officers. Too many officers are under attack, real threats, and we've got to be the party of law and order. We got to be the party that goes out there in a humane and a just way, takes care of our law enforcement as well as keeping our community safe.
So, yeah, and by the way, so Congressman Gonzalez is our guest, and you're pushing for a bill, the bulletproof law enforcement. Vehicles Act, correct? That's right. Do you have bipartisan support in that? We don't yet, but I don't know why you wouldn't.
And we're going to push on this. Once again, if you're looking for something that makes sense, no one should want their law enforcement officers in their community executed. And this should be an area that we all get behind it. But once again, the left likes to talk about it. And then when the rubber hits the road, we know a lot of this movement is a defund the police 2.0 movement.
They just happen to have their target on ICE agents, not local PD this time. Do you believe that Senate race is something that the Republicans should just let all three of them fight it out, or do you think Trump should step in? That's up to the president. I will tell you, I mean, you have a lot of people in a lot of different camps in Texas. What we do need to make sure is whatever happens, whatever shakes out after the primary, that we all circle behind the winner and we make sure that we win that race because we shouldn't take anything for granted at all.
I also think we need to have viable candidates that can win. If we have more and more of these candidates that do well in a primary but are dead on arrival in a general, that is not going to bode well for us in the midterms. I want to know if you can get behind what Mike Lowe is proposing real quick. Let's listen. There's got to be a legal path forward, not a path to citizenship, but a legal path forward for people to come out of the shadows so that they can work legally, that they can pay their taxes, pay any back taxes owed, pay a fine, not collect government.
He calls it the Dignity Act. I'm sure you've heard of it. Can you get behind that? I think that to me, first off, any member who's willing to talk about immigration, we should listen to them, and they should have a seat at the table. I don't think the politics can support that right now.
I mean, right now, I'm looking at what about just the folks right now legally trying to go through the process. Those folks are getting left behind. And then, once again, how do we tackle all these millions of people that are in this country illegally? We have our plate full going down to what do we do with the tens of millions of people that are here illegally and get them out of the shadows. That's your focus.
Congressman Tony Gonzales, you have a lot of credibility in that area. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
