Rep. Andy Biggs on the Election, Disaster on Border

BUCK: We’ve got our friend Congressman Andy Biggs with us now to talk about that and more. He’s from Arizona, of course. Congressman, thanks for being with us.

REP. BIGGS: Hey, thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

BUCK: I want to get you with updates on the border, the 450,000 per individual within a family that’s separated at the border under Trump, all those big immigration stories. But we do have to just have you tell us your biggest takeaway from last night and also where does it actually impact with and affect how the Congress is gonna go from here on out into the midterms?

REP. BIGGS: Well, I thought it was a pretty big bellwether election, to be honest with you. I think it tells us directionally. I think as important as Youngkin was, the down ballots in Virginia was also important because, you know, it changed the governing structure in Virginia. But also, I was intrigued and haven’t heard the outcome fully of the New Jersey election.

I think we were looking at something like 12 to 20% in favor of Murphy, but it’s so much closer than that, at least right now, anyway, as far as I know. So, the real question is what will Democrats do? And, in my opinion, they’re going to double down. They’re not going to take a lesson and say, “Maybe we should derad-ify it,” if that’s a word, you know, be —

BUCK: Radicalize, yeah, deradicalize.

REP. BIGGS: Yeah, deradicalize. There we go. They want to be less radical. And I don’t think that they do, and I think that very strongly in the impression I’m getting from this morning’s hearings I’ve been at and talking around they’re dug in and they’re gonna double down.

CLAY: You… Thanks for coming on with us, Representative Biggs. You’ve known Kyrsten Sinema for a while, I would imagine. She is one of the major, I would say, voices of sanity at least to some extent in the Democratic Party right now. What do you think her reaction is going to be, if at all, to this election, and what sort of expectations do you have for her as it comes to her response to Joe Biden’s budget plan?

REP. BIGGS: I would suspect that you’re gonna have Kyrsten and Joe Manchin are going to basically… They’re in a stronger position today than they were 48 hours ago, and they’re gonna say, “Look, you know, we’re willing to give you something on that infrastructure package, but we’re not gonna go for that budget reconciliation package, that spending package.” That’s what I think is gonna happen.

And based on what I’m hearing from the progressives over in the House, they’re dug in on they still have to get that massive spending reconciliation package in order to support the transportation infrastructure package. And nobody wants the Republicans’ alternatives because they’re all paid for and they don’t have the goofy policies attached to ’em. I think Kyrsten and Manchin kind of hang on because they’re put in a stronger position today than they were earlier.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona. Congressman Biggs, you are a representative from a major border state. And we all know the southern border ’cause people on this show are hearing us talk about it day in and day out. The southern border is the most open it has been in at least 30 years, maybe all time, and it seems to be increasingly by design.

In fact, we just have breaking today the following. This is from CBS. “The Biden administration revoked Trump era rules that allowed U.S. authorities to limit the number of asylum seekers who can be processed at official border crossings. Through a memo, the Troy Miller, the interim head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, rescinded several guidelines from the Trump administration that upheld the so-called metering practice at land ports of entry, restricting the number of migrants who could illegally ask for humanitarian protection.” How is this not just, “We’re opening the floodgates even more”? They’re already open, but we’re just gonna make sure that the doors squeak even louder and even wider open?

REP. BIGGS: Yeah, well, it’s open already. It’s almost impossible to open it any more. But what they’re doing with that processing, repealing of the Trump era metering, et cetera, they are effectuating de facto amnesty. That’s what they’re doing. So they’re pouring literally hundreds of thousands of people here into this country illegally. They’re not going to have them back in our court system, in the immigration court system.

They’re basically going to turn them loose into the country. We’re going to transport them wherever they want to go. You’re seeing it up in New York. You’ve got the school issues that you’ve got there, other places around the country have school issues. They’ve got work issues, they’ve got drug issues, they’ve got all the issues that are attached to illegal migration. And so that’s really what’s happening is they’re gonna actually provide amnesty nasty provisions.

CLAY: This is something — the border failure, inflation, CRT in schools, all of this — is leading to a mass migration, it appears, in particular of suburban women into the Republican camp. Do you think that Nancy Pelosi, for instance, is going to see these results in 2021 and contemplate retirement even more seriously than before? You’re in Congress. You also interact with senators.

What kind of message do you think the 2021 results are sending in terms of who even runs for the Democratic Party in 2022 in what is always going to be a difficult midterm challenge, but we’re talking about potentially a 1994-level red wave that right now looks like it could sweep over the Democratic Party across the entire nation.

REP. BIGGS: Yeah, I think that Nancy Pelosi will probably retire. I’d be surprised if she didn’t. But I also think she’s gonna be joined by a lot of long-term, left-wing Democrats in our body as well. I think that you’re gonna see more retirements because not only do you have this — what we saw last night in elections — but also you’ve got the redistricting and all the dynamics of redistricting. And I think that’s gonna push some of them out as well.

And then the fact is — and you guys are exactly right — when you start talking about suburban women and you speak generically, they didn’t like the tone perhaps of President Trump. But one thing that they know is, they’re certain of now is, they don’t like the inflation, they don’t like the high crime, and they don’t like the unsafe borders of the Biden policy.

And so they have to make a judgment whether they support the policies that Trump put in that gave them safety, gave them a stable economy, and basically allowed them to live their lives the way they wanted to live them. They didn’t have to worry about the CRT stuff in schools. They get that choice, and I think it’s a choice where they can say, “Well, we won’t have Trump at least for a couple more years no matter what.” So I think they look at it that way. My own opinion is that Trump helped Youngkin substantially win in Virginia. But, I mean, we’re talking policies here that appeal to suburban women. That’s the limited focus that I give you that answer. (crosstalk)

BUCK: Congressman Biggs, we appreciate it, sir. Thanks for being with us.

REP. BIGGS: Thanks.

CLAY: Thanks, man.