Speaker Paul Ryan On The Spending Bill, Paris Agreement, More

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Show

Wed, May 3, 2017  |  By Hugh Hewitt

 

 

Audio

 

HH: (laughing) Look, I tell people I’m going to judge Team Trump on the judges, and I’m very happy with Gorsuch and waiting for the other ones, on the military spending, on border security, on Obamacare and on the EPA, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services and the Army Corps of Engineers. I want to go back through those in reverse order on the spending bill. The left came out and said EPA got 99%, and there’s climate spending and all this. What did the budget agreement, the omnibus do on EPA and other environmental land grabs and issues like that?

PR: We, there are no funds for this grant to the climate front, so we have no funds going to the Green Climate Fund, which was kind of an Obama-era pet project. We reduced the EPA staffing levels to pre-Obama, back to 1989. So we knocked the staff down to what we had in 1989. So there are the people who I would argue are kicking out regulations that are harmful to the economy. This gets at that. There are things in the EPA that deal with infrastructure. Those things are maintained, because you know, their infrastructure things are important. But we defund, we zero out the Green Climate Fund, knock the employment levels back to 1989 levels.

 

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PR: It’s actually the biggest increase in border security in a decade. It gets spent by a whole number of things. Mick ran through it. They call it bollard fencing, which is what in many areas the border security thinks is the smartest way to go so you can see through it, so you can see what’s happening on the other side of the border. You want to, our border patrol, I was down there. They tell me that’s really helpful for them, to be able to see through it. It’s also cameras. It’s detention facilities. We have an increase in detention facilities so we can end catch and release. There are lots of things that are in here like this to help us get a huge down payment on border security. The administration, we met with the administration, and they said look, this is a five month continuing resolution. It’s a five month bill. And we’re, we don’t need the wall funding within the next five months. We need it for next year, for FY-2018, which starts in October. So the wall itself is going to be something that we’re going to be dealing with this summer. But in the meantime, we wanted to get a big down payment on border security itself, which is to prepare everything for that. That is fences, cameras, people, more ICE agents, more detention beds, those kinds of things.

 

HH: Is anything thinking about doing a before and after video of where the new fencing goes up, because that is effective. It works in San Diego. It works in parts of Arizona.

PR: Yeah.

HH: And we need to show people physically what’s happening.

PR: Absolutely. I’ve been down there. It really actually works. And so the San Diego one is a double-layer fence. There are some single, it’s these bollard fences, they call them. It’s, I wont’ get into the details. It would probably bore your listeners. But on the ground, circumstances sort of determine what they believe is necessary. In some cases, they want to be able to see through it, so they see what’s happening and what’s coming, and who’s trying. You also have to have technology. You have to have cameras. You have to have sensors. It’s all about delaying people illegally crossing so that your agents can get there in time to interdict. That is really what the deal here is, and so you’ve got to have what I call smart borders where you actually have the technology and the sensors so that you can see what’s happening and see what’s coming so that our agents can actually interdict.

 

 

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HH: Terrific. That’s terrific. Now let’s talk about Obamacare. The, I call it now Freedom Caucus care, because they derailed it, and I know you can’t say this, but they derailed it three weeks ago. Now, it’s, now they’re, they’ve got a poison pill in it for Fred Upton and others. Is this dead, Mr. Speaker?

PR: No, no, no. Fred Upton’s actually, his amendment that he’s working on is something that people, nobody has a problem with. And it’s actually helping. Fred Upton identified something that he thinks will make the bill better that is mutually agreed to by people from all parts of our conference. So what Fred Upton, who was the former chairman of the Commerce Committee, knows this issue really, really well, is trying to be constructive in improving this bill so that people who were currently undecided feel better about supporting this bill. There is not a problem. He’s, you know, Mark Meadows, who is the chair of this caucus you’re talking about, is very involved in this process, knows exactly what’s going on. So what we’re doing is listening to our members, finding where that sweet spot of consensus is, and driving there.

HH: Will you get there before you leave this week on a two week recess?

PR: I have a policy of not commenting on when we’re going to bring these votes up. We’re going to bring them up with we get the votes. We’re getting extremely close. We’re having very, very productive conversations with our members. The President’s having good conversations with our members. The Vice President is, his whole staff is involved. And so I feel very good about the progress we’re making, and we’ll make the announcement when we make the announcement. That’s the way I, that’s the way I handle these things.

HH: There’s a death watch in the media. I mean, I read the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post stories all on the air today. They all want to pronounce this thing DOA.

PR: They would love to do that. They would love to say, you know what? Obamacare’s here to stay. These guys aren’t going to get rid of Obamacare. Of course, and I, more and more these days, what I read in the newspaper, I’m like that’s wrong, this is wrong, that’s not correct, that’s half true. It’s just amazing to me.

HH: Okay, that’s great. So there is hope. There’s life and there’s hope.

 

 

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[Valin]

Mulvaney on the spending bill: The video

Scott Johnson

May 2 2017

 

At a press briefing yesterday OMB Director Mick Mulvaney defended the omnibus spending deal for the remainder of FY 2017 reached with Democrats to avert a so-called “government shutdown” (video below, about 7 minutes). Mulvaney made the same points I heard from White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short early Monday evening, but he responded in particular to the crowing of the Democrats about their victories in the deal. Mulvaney’s remarks — arguing points on which the administration prevailed — also respond to the complaints of conservatives regarding the deal.

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