Congressman Jim Jordan

[0:00] We redo in what we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. We simply do not begin to understand the incredible depth of your love that was bestowed upon us when you sent your own Son into this world to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

[0:21] We rejoice in the truth of being in Christ and enjoying the freedom, the liberty, the assurance of eternity, and all that comes with it.

[0:32] We must confess our own unworthiness, but you have made us worthy and accepted in your beloved Son, and we are so thankful. We ask that as Congressman Jordan comes and shares what's on his heart and fields questions that you may ask, that you will give him clarity of mind and thought and enable him to speak freely, knowing that he is amongst those who love, love, and care for him.

[1:01] Thank you for his presence and for that of his wife, Polly, for what they have in their relationship to each other and to you. So this morning, in the balance of it, whatever it holds, we deliver to you with great thanksgiving in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[1:17] Amen. Well, every now and then, we pry Jim out of one of those seats back there and make him come up here to the pulpit. And we have always appreciated his and Polly's presence with us over the past many, many years.

[1:32] When they're not in D.C. or when Jim isn't caring for his constituency in some other part of his district, but he is with us this morning. And needless to say, the last 30 days in Washington have really been something.

[1:47] Wow. I don't know if you knew what you were getting into when you were in for office, but you are fully immersed in it now. And we are glad that you are. So I won't take any more time.

[1:59] And I'm not even going to introduce him because he doesn't need an introduction. Okay. Thank you, Jim. The last 30 days have been something. The next 30 days is exactly what we have until the election.

[2:12] Polly couldn't be here today. We've been, I've been traveling like crazy, but she's in North Carolina. She's going to North Carolina here in about an hour. She gets on a plane to help a, hopefully a future colleague of ours in an open seat just outside of Charlotte, Mark Harris, a pastor who's running.

[2:31] I was down helping him on Friday in North Carolina, and Polly's heading down women for Harris bus tour the next few days. So she says hello. And of course, she's had to listen to me speak a few times, so I don't think she necessarily was too concerned about not hearing me talk.

[2:45] Let me, there's already been some questions submitted, so let me talk for a few minutes, and then we'll turn this into a Grace Bible Town Hall. And you'll get to ask any, I say this every time, you can ask any question you want. You can disagree with me.

[2:58] You can yell at me. That's how it's supposed to work in this great country. But let me start with this. I said this Friday night when I was speaking in North Carolina. The left has gone crazy.

[3:09] There is simply no other way to say it. They have, the American left today, I did a tweet the other day, I said, today's left, applaud Kaepernick, destroy Kavanaugh. I mean, think about it.

[3:21] It is scary what is going on. You know, they applaud Kaepernick when he disrespects the flag. They embrace Governor Cuomo when he says, America was never that great.

[3:31] And they cheer on Maxine Waters when she says, go harass anyone who supports the president. That is today's left. And they are out to do one thing, take away your liberty. And I don't mean that to sound too strong, and I've talked about this with you before, where I talk about freedom is under attack.

[3:46] It is, and it's worse than I've ever seen. And I'm frankly more nervous than I've ever been. And it is really scary. And I think you can frame this campaign up, and I'll try not to get too partisan here, but you can frame this next 30 days up real simple.

[4:02] The left is, as I said, Kaepernick, Cuomo, and Waters, and all their crazy beliefs, and that's where they want to take the country, versus what's happened in 20 months under the leadership of the president.

[4:14] I mean, it's really that, I think that is how we have to frame it. And if we do that, the party I belong to, I think we'll do fine if we don't, and try to run these kind of localized races around the country in a different kind of, the typical cookie-cutter, consultant-driven campaigns that we've seen over the last several cycles, then I think we may lose.

[4:33] But if we do it the right way, I think we're going to win. We, I'm talking about the party I belong to, but I think that's how we have to frame it. And it has been an amazing 20 months. I said this the other day as well, I think this election's about one guy, one guy whose name's not even on the ballot, right?

[4:48] I think it's about the president. And think about the last 20 months. And I put this list together a while back, but it's true. Regulations have been reduced. Taxes have been cut. Economy growing at 4.2%.

[4:58] Lowest unemployment in 20 years. Gorsuch on the court. Kavanaugh now on the court. We're out of the Iran deal. The embassy is, in fact, in Jerusalem, and the hostages have been returned from North Korea. That is amazing.

[5:10] You could add, you could add a lot more to it. You could add a lot more to it. The, I will tell you that, that's an amazing term. That's an amazing presidency, but that's happened in 20, 21 months.

[5:23] You can add to the NAFTA agreement, the new NAFTA agreement, and a host of other things. But that's how I think you have to frame it up. And so, you know, look, as I said, we've got 30 days to, I think, do that.

[5:35] I've been going all over the place. I was in, I forget how those track records. I've been to Iowa. I've been to Chicago. Last weekend I was in Texas. Yesterday I was in, or two days ago, excuse me, I was in North Carolina.

[5:47] Tomorrow I'm going to Florida. And then we've got to be in Washington some too. But it's that important, and I think we just have to understand that. And so, first of all, let me say thanks. Some churches don't get involved in the citizenship issue as much, and I appreciate what you all do.

[6:07] I know I've said this to you before, and I say this probably every single speech I give. I learned a long time ago that good things in life typically don't just happen, not just by accident that good things happen.

[6:19] Typically to accomplish anything of meaning, anything of significance, anything of lasting and real value, it takes work, it takes effort, it takes sacrifice, and most importantly, it takes a willingness to get off the sidelines and get in the game and assume the risk associated with trying to accomplish something that's real.

[6:39] There is always risk associated with it. I used to see this back in my days competing and coaching. You had a lot of athletes who would, some of them, even work pretty hard in practice and seem like they were committed to the goal, but they would never fully commit.

[6:54] Because if you fully commit and then you fall short, it hurts. It hurts when you fail. But you have to be willing to risk it and risk failure if you're ever going to accomplish anything of meaning and significance.

[7:06] And that includes defending this great country, the greatest nation ever, and the values and principles that made it the greatest nation ever. So I thank you for doing that. And frankly, we need more people willing to do that today, I think, who come from the perspective that all of you come from.

[7:23] When you do it, you get attacked. Sometimes it's not pleasant. Sometimes it's friends and family who don't like the positions you're taking, the things you're defending. Certainly all the institutions in this country don't like it.

[7:35] Particularly the mainstream press, Japers. I don't know how that feels. Right? It's, but frankly, you think about it, it's, almost every institution today in the country has moved to the left.

[7:48] Just the people haven't yet, thank goodness. Right? Hollywood's there, academia's there, big business, big corporate America. You can go down, certainly the mainstream press.

[7:59] I tell my colleagues, we have this group we formed called the Freedom Caucus, and I tell my buddies in there, I said, if the press doesn't say anything bad about you, you're not doing anything any good. It's just the way it works.

[8:11] And it's not fun. Look, I had a worse, actually talked to Judge Kavanaugh a couple days ago. Called him, well, called him a week ago. And then I met him, the only time I met Judge Kavanaugh was actually at a social, at a wedding.

[8:25] My, one of my best buddies in college, Dave Goodspeed, one of my best friends, trained with him all the time. He's an orthopedic surgeon up in Madison, Wisconsin. And his daughter is just one of these geniuses.

[8:36] She clerked for Judge Kavanaugh. She clerked for Judge Kavanaugh and Judge Roberts. I don't know if there's anyone that's ever done that. Morgan's amazing. Well, at her wedding, Judge Kavanaugh flew from D.C.

[8:46] to Madison, Wisconsin. That's the kind of guy he is. And that's where I got to visit with him and call him last Sunday because I said, Judge, I had the same thing happen to me this summer. You're just getting it ten times worse than I did.

[8:58] And he's a good guy. And it was great to see what happened yesterday. But the press is unbelievable. I know I shared this line with you, but I think it's worth repeating. Have you ever read Cal Thomas?

[9:10] Syndicated columnist and he talks about normal people, how normal people see things and how the elite national press views things. You know, the New York Times, the Washington Post. And Cal Thomas says, I get up every morning, I read my Bible in the New York Times so I can see what each side's up to.

[9:26] So you guys got to keep that in mind. And sometimes humor is good. I know another story I've shared with you, but I love that. I shared this the other night when I was down in North Carolina. You know the movie 1776, right? Have you ever seen it?

[9:37] If you haven't watched it, watch it. We made our kids, we made all of them, all four of them watch it. And it's one of their favorite shows. But it chronicles, you know, 1776 when it all started.

[9:48] The movie came out in the Bicentennial. So 42 years ago now is when the movie was, musical was put together. And you follow these guys who did something that had never been done.

[9:59] They actually were willing to declare to the world why it was appropriate to commit treason. Right? There's been people who committed treason before in history, but no one ever written it down and said why it was actually justified and actually the right and proper thing to do in the defense of liberty and starting a place where freedom was going to mean something.

[10:16] And Adams is the driving force behind getting, he wants to get this thing written and signed and he wants to get gone. And the scene I like the best is it's near the end.

[10:30] Jefferson has written the document and listed all the grievances and declared why it's actually appropriate and written the declaration. Now they're doing what Congresses and legislatures do. They're marking it up. They're going to amend it and change it and do all the things you do in a Congress.

[10:44] And one guy stands up and he says, we need to change this section because when King George sees this, it's just too hard hitting. We need to tone this down.

[10:56] Adams rolls his eyes. Pretty soon another member stands up and he says, well in this particular paragraph we're going to have to change this as well because when the Parliament sees this, it's a little too strong and we need to tone that one down.

[11:08] Also Adams rolls his eyes. Third member stands up and says, we've got to get rid of this section altogether because this could jeopardize our deep sea fishing rights off the coast of New England. And Adams can't take it any longer and he stands up and says, it's a revolution, dang it, we're going to have to offend somebody.

[11:25] And the point is, the point is, our job is not to offend, but it is to defend the principles that matter and not be shy about it.

[11:37] Do it with a smile on her face. Vice President has a great line. He says, I'm a conservative and I'm not mad about it. Right? And that's the attitude we need to have. When you've got the truth on your side, go defend it.

[11:48] And understand, you're going to get, the arrows will be coming, but it's worth doing when you think about this country and what it has always offered its citizens, what it has always offered people who share the principles and values that I think, again, made us special in the first place.

[12:05] But freedom is under attack. I'm going to go through a number of things to demonstrate this. And then, like I said, we already got, someone submitted three questions already and I'm sure there'll be more. So I'll try to get to those as quickly as possible.

[12:17] Jefferson said this, when the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Think about that statement and ask yourself, which direction are we trending? It's kind of scary.

[12:31] And so, maybe this, maybe this whole Kavanaugh thing is sort of a wake-up call for the country. I've seen a number of things over the past several years and frankly several months that scare me.

[12:42] The first one was this, what we're now witnessing with the power that these big social media companies have, right? Whether it's Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, it's unbelievable.

[12:54] And this is something we are going to have to address because these are, they're private sector companies, which I get, but the influence and impact they can have on what happens in our nation is very concerning.

[13:07] And I didn't really follow this as close as I have the last few months. We, we, I didn't know what this term meant. Shadow ban. Anybody ever heard of the term shadow ban? Like all the young people are nodding their heads, the rest of us are like, well, I never heard about it.

[13:21] Our staff had. And they told me back in the middle of the summer that our Twitter account was being shadow banned. I'm like, what the heck does that mean? I learned that it's like when you do the Google search, it's fine, but once you're in Twitter, there's a Dropbox search, search box you have there.

[13:36] And that if you were searching for Jim Jordan Twitter, it was going to be tougher for you to find it. In fact, you couldn't find it if you were already on Twitter and looking for a particular account, in this case, our account. And we learned that, you know, there are 435 members of Congress, 100 members in the United States Senate, so 535.

[13:53] And 4 members were being shadow banned. Matt Gaetz, Mark Meadows, Devin Nunes, and Jim Jordan. And kind of interesting the 4 that were shadow bans.

[14:05] It's happening for the individuals most active on the FBI DOJ investigation. The host of them all happened to be 4 conservatives. Of course, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, his response was, this is just a problem, just a glitch with our algorithm.

[14:18] And I said, well, what did you put in the algorithm? The names Gates, Meadows, Nunes, and Jordan. I mean, come on. It can't be that easy of an excuse for the folks.

[14:30] But this is serious. And if Google can, you know, when you do a search on Google, if it can have certain things always appear near the top of the search and other things be depressed and pushed down further, that's serious.

[14:42] So I don't know the answer. I do know right now we're at a situation where we do need to highlight this. And we may, in fact, have to say, look, you're either a neutral social media platform or you're a newspaper.

[14:54] And if you're a newspaper with editorial decisions being made, there are a different set of laws that apply to you than if you're simply a neutral social media platform. We may also have to look at potentially breaking them up.

[15:06] Not in the past. When you're a monopoly, monopolies aren't good. Monopolies limit choice. Monopolies just aren't what you want in basic economics and basic free markets. So we may have to look at that as well.

[15:17] But there's that issue. We've had a series of hearings to highlight. Maybe I shared this. I can't remember if I shared this the last time I was with you or not. But we've done a number of hearings where we look at attacks on the First Amendment.

[15:33] And my best friend in Congress is Mark Meadows from Carolina. And Mark chairs one subcommittee as part of the Oversight Committee. I chair a different one. So we do these joint hearings on infringements on the First Amendment.

[15:47] Particularly your free speech rights. The very first one was on the Johnson Amendment. The idea that pastors should be able to stand here every Sunday and preach what he thinks his congregation needs, what God's Word says, and not have the IRS jeopardize the tax exempt status that the church has.

[16:04] And that was a good hearing. We had a number of good folks talk to us. We had a second one where we had Ben Shapiro and Adam Carolla. Adam Carolla was hilarious.

[16:15] Maybe if you want to watch something funny watch his opening statement in that hearing. He was hilarious. And Shapiro was just I think one of the sharpest guys going out there today. So it was good. We had a third one though.

[16:25] This is several months ago. And we had a number of professors come in and talk about what's going on on these campuses. Whether it's have you heard about this safe spaces and free speech zones?

[16:39] You heard about this on college campuses? Yeah. Maybe I should. If I have, bear with me. But safe spaces, free speech zones, you have this other term called bias response teams. Like bias response teams are like a group of tattletales running around the campus.

[16:52] And if you say something politically incorrect, you can get in trouble for it. Go on your official record, you may have to write some paper. I mean, you have to appear in front of some board. It's crazy.

[17:03] You know? I mean, think back to when we were all younger in high school and college age. You know, it seemed like the goal in college was to say things that were politically incorrect. Right? Now you get in trouble for it.

[17:13] It's like, it's crazy. So we had these professors in there and I said to this one professor near the end of the hearing, I asked him, I said, professor, on a college campus can a safe space and a free speech zone be at the same location?

[17:28] I'm thinking about it. It's kind of weird, right? It's absurd that you have to ask the question. I said, or is it like a Venn diagram where there's a little bit of overlap and you can have one foot in a safe space, one foot in a free speech zone and there's only a little bit in between where it's like you can do, you can be both.

[17:41] I mean, this is the absurdity we are now, we are now approaching in America. I mean, where's the free speech zone supposed to be? Everywhere, right?

[17:53] It's called the First Amendment for goodness sake. So, this is scary stuff. The final question I asked was to this professor from, he was the Democrats' witness, he was a liberal from UCLA and I said, professor, in a safe space zone on a college campus could I say this statement?

[18:14] Donald Trump is president. He said, well, it depends. So, I cut him off, I cut him off, which I like to do sometimes if I think people are saying something stupid and I said, it's a fact.

[18:31] He got elected on November 8, 2016, he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Electoral College, he got the most votes there, he is in fact president of the United States of America, there is no it depends about it. But that is the crazy, that's where, that's where left thinking and attacks on freedom and the absurdity, that's where it all leads you to.

[18:51] That you can't even state a fact on, again, these are institutions that your tax dollars support, your tax dollars finance, and we have a professor who's supposed to be imparting knowledge to the next generation saying it depends when asked about if you can say Donald Trump is president of the United States.

[19:10] So, this is scary. when I talk about how crazy they are, it is, Polly and I got the treatment first time. Two days after Maxine Water does her rant clear back in June.

[19:23] Remember when she did the very first rant, you go harass him at the gas station, at the restaurant. Remember that? Right? Two days later, first time we've ever went to the theater in D.C., Polly and I are at the theater. First time we ever went.

[19:34] And we're in there, got our tickets out, a bunch of people were working our way up this ramp. I'm just looking for the lady in the red coat to tell me where to go, which door to go in, where our seats are.

[19:45] And all of a sudden I hear behind me, Jim Jordan. Just the way this lady said it, I'm like, oh no. And I didn't want to look up, you know, because someone's always got a camera and they always got their phone out.

[19:57] So I just did the quick little glance back and then she just ramped it up. It was Jim Jordan. Evil. Shame. You started the whole routine and I'm like, now I'm really looking for the lady in the red coat.

[20:12] And she starts getting loud and all, and Polly was the best. Polly just kind of turned around and said, please stop. And she goes, I can't believe you're married to this man. I told Polly later, you should have said, I can't believe you.

[20:26] You believe this guy. I could have done a lot better than this guy. So then it's almost like a physical thing with some of the folks on the left because she got real emotional, put her hands on, got right up in your face, started saying shame, shame.

[20:42] And then she started saying the Lord's Prayer, which was interesting. Our father, she starts doing it. And right then we see the lady, the lady tells us where we're going to go. And Polly had to get the last word in, so she turns to her and says, thanks for praying.

[20:57] But yeah, it's crazy. We would never do that. We would never do that to anyone who had a different viewpoint than us. but it's being encouraged by elected officials. And you saw it this past weekend with the protests of the United States Senate.

[21:12] Scary stuff. And then think about this. Add to all that what we have witnessed from your government, from actually people who work for you and are paid for.

[21:23] Their salaries are paid by all of you. And I know I've spent time on this, so I won't go into detail, but just a few years ago, the IRS, an agency that has some power and influence over Americans, systematically, and for a sustained period of time, targeted people for their political beliefs.

[21:46] Went right after them. If you were conservative, if you were part of the so-called Tea Party groups, you got harassed. You didn't get your tax exempt status the same way people who go on the left were applying for that tax exempt status.

[21:58] Got it. All kinds of ridiculous questions, asking all kinds of ridiculous things about you or your organization. They ran a lady, I mean, the full force of the government came down on a lady in Texas, Catherine Engelbrecht, who ran King Street Patriots, and another group.

[22:14] It was sad to see what took place there. Again, what were they attacking? Think about the First Amendment. First Amendment, we got a number of important liberties there.

[22:25] Our right to do what we're doing today, practice our faith the way we think the good Lord wants us to, your right to assemble, your right to petition the government, freedom of the press. But under the First Amendment, what is the most basic liberty we have under the First Amendment?

[22:37] Your right to speak. Your right to speak out. And when the founders put together the Constitution, in particular the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, and they were talking about your free speech rights, what were they most concerned that you had the right to speak out about?

[22:50] Politics and government. Your political speech is critical speech. And what was the IRS targeting? Your political speech. They went right after the most fundamental liberty we have as Americans.

[23:03] And it is scary to think, now, thank goodness we caught them. And it really started with a group of, it's funny how the good Lord works and how it all plays out. We had a group, a tea party group in Shelby County, Ohio, Sydney, Ohio, who told me, he said, Jim, we think we're getting harassed.

[23:19] And I'm like, really? I didn't really believe it. And so, our staff, we had, he's now our chief of staff, but one of our staff members was doing our oversight committee work and some of the members from the, some of the staff members from the oversight committee called in Lois Lerner, had a meeting with her.

[23:35] I wasn't even at the meeting. They had a meeting with her and she lied to their face. She said, no, we're not doing anything. Nothing out of the ordinary. And they're like, well, okay. Some of them believed her, some of them didn't. So we just decided, Darrell Eisner, and I said, we're going to call for an audit from the inspector general of the treasury department to look into this.

[23:50] A year later, he discovered, yes, in fact, they were targeting people. So it's serious and now it's moved, it's beyond that too. When you think about freedom being under attack, I had the privilege of serving on the Benghazi committee.

[24:03] When freedom is under attack, what you also see is government officials not being square with the citizens. And we saw that plainly, clearly, with what happened after the tragedy on 9-11-2012 where four Americans gave their life for their country.

[24:19] And what did the government do? What did our government do just days after, actually the day up, they started to try to mislead the American people and blame a terrorist attack on a video.

[24:32] Remember this? This is scary. So I remember, because we had this hearing with Secretary Clinton, I prepared more for that 10-minute question, first 10-minute round with Secretary Clinton and I didn't get prepared for any speech or hearing in my life, maybe all of the others combined, because I knew it was going to be pretty serious stuff.

[24:56] And I remember saying that, I said, at 10-08 that night, while Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty are still on the roof of the annex, fighting for their lives and defending their fellow citizens, the Secretary of State was issuing the official statement of our government.

[25:09] And she said this, some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet. She was blaming it on a video before the fight was even over. And she knew at the time, knew at the time it was a planned terrorist attack.

[25:23] Because the next day she told the Egyptian Prime Minister, we know the film had nothing to do with it, it was a planned attack, not a protest. So privately they were telling one thing to foreign heads of state, publicly they were telling the people they are supposed to be representing and working for something that was not true.

[25:43] So it seems like my anger just keeps getting worse because I saw the IRS thing, then you see what they did in the aftermath of this.

[25:55] And Polly's got to know Tyrone Woods, Dorothy Woods got to know his widow. She's a wonderful lady. And you think about what they were doing. They're fighting there while our government is not being squared with the citizens that they're supposed to serve.

[26:12] And again, it's just as wrong as it gets. And then finally, I will get to your questions, but I know we want to save time for that. Finally, again, I thought nothing could be worse than the IRS.

[26:25] And then, well, maybe the fact that the Secretary of State and the President of the United States and the National Security Advisor Susan Rice went on a TV show just days after five different shows and said the same thing, that it was a video, not a terrorist attack.

[26:42] I said nothing could be worse than that until I saw what the FBI did in connection with the Trump campaign and this whole dossier issue. This is the worst.

[26:54] This is the worst thing because think about this now. And I know this is right and frankly we learned some more information just Wednesday when Jim Baker, the former chief counsel for the FBI came in and we had a deposition with him.

[27:10] It was cut short unfortunately because he could only stay at 2 o'clock because we had a lot more questions to ask him but we learned some amazing things there. But think about this fact pattern. You had the Clinton campaign, the Democrat National Committee pay the law firm Perkins Cooley who paid this opposition research outfit called Fusion GPS who then hired a foreigner Christopher Steele who then talked to Russians to put together a document that is not true is not credible and they used that document dressed it all up made it look like legitimate intelligence took it to a secret court no adversarial relationship at all exists in that court just a secret court where one side gets presented the government presents the evidence and the court signs off on the warrant or not took all that information to a secret court to get a warrant citizen associated with the other party's campaign so they could spy on the other campaign our government did that I mean the department justice and the FBI did that that is scary let me ask you this have you ever seen in all your time observing the federal government have you ever seen an agency where this has happened

[28:13] Director Comey fired Deputy Director Andy McCade lied three times under oath faces a criminal referral fired Chief Counsel Jim Baker demoted then left the FBI Lisa Page FBI counsel demoted then left the FBI Peter struck Deputy Head of Counterintelligence demoted and then fired five of the top people at the FBI demoted or fired never seen that happen with any federal agency in history and oh by the way these weren't just any people these were the top people who ran the Clinton investigation all those are the key players in the Clinton investigation and then the same people started and ran the Trump Russia investigation before the special counsel Bob Mueller took over May 17th 2017 and now runs that investigation investigation so we've never seen anything like this and so again I guess I come back to the statement when we talk about freedom being attacked it is and it is important that we as citizens understand it and continue to step up and fight it two other things I'll mention every single day when I'm out and about across the fourth district of Ohio or traveling around the country the one thing I hear over and over again from people when they're concerned about the federal government the one thing I hear is they are sick and tired of the double standard they're tired of one set of rules for all us regular folk but a different set if your name is

[29:33] Clinton Comey Lynch Lerner Strzok Page McCabe they're tired of that and that is what another sign another scary sign that things aren't like they should be because it's supposed to be what equal treatment under the law for every single one of us doesn't matter from the wealthiest individual to the poorest individual the highest official in government doesn't matter supposed to be and when that begins to break down that's scary and what what goes along with that is when that begins when people see that there's no longer equal treatment under the law and that there's now a double standard then you also have this phenomenon I think and we're seeing this creep into our government where the unelected people are as important as the elected people so think about it Rod Rosenstein is a guy I believe running the Justice Department today I don't believe it I know it he's in charge of the Justice Department he and I have not seen eye to eye been in his office he's got mad at me in his office but look

[30:37] I want certain information I think we're entitled to get to do the oversight that you as the citizens deserve to know what's happening in your government and I think he's the guy making it tough for us to get that information those documents that we're supposed to be able to get access to as a separate and equal branch of government but I come back to the fact when did Rod Rosenstein ever put his name on the ballot this is what's the way our country is supposed to work is every two years the founders back up a second the founders in their wisdom they did amazing things but one of the things they wanted was the House of Representatives to be the body closest to the people and that's why every two years you get a chance to throw me out that's a good thing that keeps you honest that keeps you focused keeps you coming back talking to the people you get the privilege of representing Rod Rosenstein his name never goes on a ballot the idea that he's keeping information from the people who have to stand in front of the elected people have to stand in front of the people for an election every two years that drives me that is wrong it is not supposed to work that way and you're seeing this whole and I don't necessarily like the term but I think there's a lot of accuracy to it this whole deep state concept where people who are not elected but are in positions of influence and importance in the higher levels of the bureaucracy who have so much impact and again aren't directly accountable to we the people that's scary as well let me just finish with maybe just finish with this and then like I said

[32:16] I'll take your questions I get my pastor two more things and then I'll take your questions whatever pastor does it it's good you might not think the same for me but let me do two things one is I know I've shared this with you before but through the sport of wrestling I've been able to travel to all kinds of places but two that I always remember went to the Soviet Union in 1987 and went to Cuba in 1988 and 1990 and I always tell folks you go to places like that you thank the good Lord you live here I was in Moscow in February Moscow in February it's like 400 below zero and the food was terrible and Cuba in 1988 1990 they were driving 1959 Chevys and my guess is in 2018 in Cuba they're driving 1959 Chevys and that is what restrictions on liberty and on free markets and on freedom do and it's not about the people people are people we're all just you know all need

[33:25] God's grace people are people it's about the system and when you have systems that restrict limit and just don't allow freedom free expression and free enterprise bad things happen we're seeing it in Venezuela right now just a few years ago that place was wealthy with the oil boom down there and then they went socialist and it is terrible people are fleeing that is what happens so we have to I forget who said it maybe Reagan said it you know each generation has to defend it and pass it on to the next and it is it's not easy it's about being a citizen and what worries me is if we don't halt what we're seeing and get it refocused on the values and principles that the founders understood and that this country has always had it could get tough here and we might not be able to you know one of the things I always say about this country that makes it so special is this family structure and the idea that families moms and dads will make sacrifices for their kids so that they can have life better than they did and then they in turn become parents and they do it for the next group and that's and then we get this thing called America where the greatest standard of living in human history that could be in jeopardy as well when you start seeing these things happen my favorite statement and I will stop here is the baseball player pitched for the Dodgers

[35:01] Hershiser calling the bulldog didn't have the best fastball just was tough knew how to pitch knew how to win and he led him to a world series championship back in the late 80s I believe wrote a book I read his book like the guy early in the book he says this great things can happen to ordinary people who are willing to work hard and never give up great things can happen to ordinary people who work hard and never give up and my favorite word in the statement is the word ordinary stop and think about it we're all just ordinary people nobody's better than anybody else we're all in need of God's grace but in this country ordinary people don't have to do ordinary things they can do extraordinary things they can do great things if they're willing to work hard and never quit and that statement is sort of the hallmark and the attitude that this country has always had but if you restrict freedom if you greatly reduce freedom you are going to make it tougher for regular ordinary people regular ordinary families to achieve great things you will and that is really what's at stake and so you know like I say we got 30 days

[36:16] I know what I'm going to try to take this message except I'll be in Florida tomorrow I think it's that basic and alright I wasn't too awful bad I left 23 minutes for questions so your chance to fire away if not I can go with the few that are in here the gentleman in the back is recognized can you tell us the status of the wall when it's going to be funded what's going to what's happening now what's going to happen the Democrats win will never happen to be honest biggest failure we've had as a congress I listed that list of accomplishments under the president's leadership a whole bunch of that happened without the help of congress some of it did I don't want to downplay reducing the tax burden and the impact that I believe that has had on the 4.2 percent economic growth rate markets at record high so I do think there was an impact there in addition the reduction in the regulatory burden placed on free enterprise and job creators has been positive as well but my biggest disappointment is that we didn't fight harder for things we told the

[37:39] American people we're going to do what were the two biggest promises made in the 2016 campaign two biggest things that we were going to do build the border security wall replace Obamacare neither got done and that is six United States senators on the Republican side critical of our party as well six U.S.

[37:57] senators voted against the very legislation they had voted for two years prior I don't know how you go home and do that I don't know how you go home and face the people who elected you and that is the frustration the American people see I think what happened with the election of President Trump in 2016 was a culmination of a number of things that started 10 years ago last month 10 years ago last month is when the United States Congress and President Bush signed legislation that took your tax dollars and bailed out big banks on Wall Street and when John McCain came back and voted for it I think he lost the election that's what gave us President Obama it started with that then it was the Obama stimulus package which was the highest level of discretionary spending largest spending increase in domestic spending increase discretionary spending increase in American history then Obamacare in the 2010 election things didn't change 2014 we won the Senate things didn't change and finally in 2016 the American people said we're going to make a guy president that everybody said couldn't win and the two things that he focused on that campaign were border security wall and replacing

[39:07] Obamacare so we blew our chance I still think we still got to do it but we blew our chance to fundamentally change Congress back in March of this year if you all remember this bill funded things we said we would like the border security wall was the second largest discretionary spending increase second only to the stimulus package in American history 2232 page bill that we had 15 hours to look at one hour to debate freedom caucus we took a number of amendments to the rules committee they wouldn't make our amendments in order and the reason they wouldn't make them in order is because they might pass that's sort of the point right you know but well but it wouldn't pass the Senate this crazy Senate 60 vote rule has got to change has got to change so we missed our opportunity because if you remember maybe I've shared this with you prior but if you remember six weeks prior to the vote on the omnibus spending bill we had done a short term funding bill funded the government for three weeks and we passed it in the

[40:17] House sent it to the Senate and Chuck Schumer shut down the government remember that that short because this is when the amnesty dock is real big and so Senator Schumer shuts down the government because he says amnesty is more important than funding the troops to the government and the American people said you're crazy right remember that so two days later he said shazam I'm going to open the government back up right he saw what happened politically so he opens that was the framework that was the backdrop jump ahead six weeks to this omnibus we were poised to win in fact we had argued in within our Republican conference a number of us we had argued when we had the conference on our position which was increase defense spending hold the line on non-defense spending and break the pattern that developed under Obama and Harry Reid where Republicans want to do more for national defense because after all that's where we're supposed to spend your tax dollars and Democrats would never let that bill pass supposed to be a separate piece of legislation they would never let that bill pass they would hold that bill up and say if you want a dollar for defense we get a dollar for big government non-defense welfare social all this stuff and they basically hold the troops hostage to get the money they want we were poised to break that pattern because

[41:31] Schumer had just shut the government down the American people said you're crazy let's fund defense let's not grow the rest of government and let's do what we need to do on the border security wall and win and if you remember that's the position we were pushing we thought we were making good progress but our leadership goes over to Mitch McConnell and they say nope we're going to do what the swamp always does we're just going to spend more on everything and they did and then when the bill went to the president if you remember that morning the president threatened to veto it Mark and I we called him we tried to get him we didn't get through to him I think people kept him he called it back later in the afternoon but he should have vetoed it and even if we had just changed it a little bit can you imagine if the Republican president vetoes the first big spending bill government funding bill from a Republican led house Republican led Senate it would change the town and even if we had come back and just changed one comma it would have a new dynamic and we would be much better positioned to do the things we said we were going to do it would have fundamentally changed the place and instead the swamp kind of won and now it's going to maybe if you could address for a second

[43:07] I'm very concerned about our national debt and what we're doing to reduce it if anything and the long-term ramifications of that yep on the spending side we're not doing a darn thing and that's scary what I just described we would have saved 63 billion dollars we felt that made sense because instead of growing non-defense spending like the bill did we would have saved that money and we would have begun to make sort of a down payment on this historic debt we have the one thing we are doing that's helpful is we got phenomenal economic growth so if you can grow you can carry debt as long as you're growing you can obviously carry debt plus we're the United States we're the biggest kid on the block we're the greatest country greatest economy so it's not that some debt is a problem but big debt is a big problem and what we're seeing now is the Fed is beginning to relax and let interest rates return to some level of normalcy our interest payments are getting big so for 10 years when

[44:17] Obama comes into office the national debt is around 10 trillion when he leaves it's at 19 the interest payments when he came into office to service the debt at 10 were 230 billion when he leaves the interest payments on 19 trillion the interest payments to service that debt almost twice the size were 230 billion and the reason was because the feds drove interest rates so low they allowed the politicians to spend and not really have to suffer any real consequences for it now rates are because they have to come up at some point you're making it tougher on older Americans and savings so the rates are coming back up and so now interest payments this year have moved to the high mid 300 billion so we're 120 some billion more in interest payments and rates still aren't what I think many would define as normal so if interest rates continue to creep up which they have to we're going to get to 400 500 billion in interest and at some point if they get a little higher we're going to be spending as much on interest as we do on national defense which sort begs the obvious question if you're spending as much on debt service as you are to defend yourself you're in big trouble so it's serious the growth is helping but we do have to get a handle on it until we're willing to break the pattern like

[45:39] I described in the last answer I'm not sure we're going to address it if we can't address non-defense discretionary spending at a time when our economy is growing like it is how in the world are we going to deal with long term concerns in Medicaid Medicare to protect those programs and fix those programs so that's that's the scary part we had one in the back and then I'll go to the ones that were submitted I think yes sir I praise god that you're here you're kind lots of liberals disagree with you I'll tell you that amen brother I am astonished at what I have witnessed over the last several minutes being in God's house and seeing you here and hearing what I'm hearing I have been on fire with the question I'm about to ask you for many years now I've addressed it to many many people to pastors to associate pastors to clergy and

[46:47] I come here and I see the answer that I've been seeking the question is why does the church as a whole not educate God's people precisely how you are educating God's people right now people don't understand the importance and the criticality of their role in participating in a free market economy doing God's work to not only help and assist and fund godliness but to deny funding and I'm not talking about boycotts and not buying potato chips you're not buying chevies I'm talking about people the church is not educating

[47:49] God's people on how they use and participate in a free market economy to defund the big demonization of our society of righteousness of honor of godliness like you said it's all being B big D demonized and nobody understands that they are actually funding well that work yeah there are some there are some people who I know aren't buying as much Nike sports gear I know some of that's happening well we are fortunate in the pastor we have here who has never shied away from just speaking the truth whether it's from scripture or talking about politics and I appreciate that I know all of you do as well and it's interesting there's that scene too many movie scenes here maybe we love that the other movie we love when the boys were growing up with Patriot with Mel

[48:56] Gibson you know that movie because you know boys there's a fight every second in that movie boys like it right so but there is that one scene where Mel Gibson's son comes back to the church and says we're forming the militia and the pastor puts on his hat and goes in and enlisted in the fight so that was part of I think our tradition early on the other thing I would say is I think it probably wasn't as crucial in generations past because so much of what basic civics I think actually got taught in our school system and I don't know that it does at least not to the degree I think it should particularly when you think about the bill of rights and the constitution and some of those so I think that's all a concern again I think again just emphasizing why it's so important we stay involved and push for the things that matter let me go through these the ones that were yeah I want to do a follow up to this gentleman's question and he was talking about the free market that right now that is being demonized in college campuses right now they're absolutely against any kind of capitalism it's already going down into the high schools and even in some of our elementary you said we're going to be protected by the next generation the next generation is being brainwashed by the left all this is evil they're at their protest at their protest shouting down capitalism as they film it with their iphone which is like come on people yeah

[50:35] I mean we're supporting these these camps and all these and we're paying them to teach against what made us where we are so in the end it's I mean look the answer in the end is it's a lack of political will particularly from folks that you all that we elect to congress and senate because people ask me what's it going to take the I said political will you just got the will to do it there has to be enough members of the United States congress willing to say for example if you're a city getting federal funds you can't be a sanctuary city right it's just it's like that's just a matter of political will and saying Mitch McConnell we don't care that the rules of the senate require 60 votes to pass something that's not in the constitution it shouldn't take 60 votes here's a great example so what was one of the other big issues in the 2016 campaign remember when Obama nominated President Obama nominates Merrick Garland for supreme court the open seat and Mitch McConnell to his credit said nope we're not going to do it we're not going to take up that confirmation hearing back in 16 because we're in the midst of a presidential election we're going to let the

[51:40] American people decide who will the next nominee for the supreme court be based on who gets elected president it was the right call and President Trump wins so can you imagine then President Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch and Mitch McConnell says you know what on second thought we're going to stick with the 60 vote rule because they have the 60 vote rule for everything in the senate except judges right because they changed that a few years ago when Harry Reed was running the place so can you imagine if Mitch McConnell would have said no second thought we're going to go back to the 60 vote rule and require 60 votes before Neil Gorsuch can get confirmed and put on the supreme court right the American people would have went crazy they said what we just had an election where that was a key issue you promised us you held off on Mary Garland and now you're going to go to the 60 vote rule and have eight democrats have veto power over the kind of justice we want on the supreme court it went crazy so what we have to create in order to get rid of the 60 vote threshold threshold in the senate for spending so we can actually address some of the spending issues and begin to deal with the debt is we have to create the same kind of political dynamic so Mitch

[52:44] McConnell says whoa I better go with 60 votes on spending bills I better get rid of that and go with a simple majority that kind of political and then frankly if we lose if Lisa Murkowski decides that she doesn't want to cut any spending doesn't want to build the border security wall and we lose 51-49 or we lose a close vote at least everyone knows at least the folks in Alaska know that's how it should work that's how it's supposed to work and then you know what that's why we have elections and that's why you stay in front of the people they get to decide who's going to represent so that's the kind of thing that has to happen I think if we're going to address some of these big problems in the long term so someone submitted some questions so before we're going to tell them to do this I've heard the term identity politics but have never heard what that actually means definition please so identity politics is not about ideals not about principles not about Americans it's about African Americans and gay Americans and white Americans it's all based on group

[53:51] I used to call it group politics and I think that's now frankly we'll sound partisan here I think that's what the Democrat Party has become it's this group so they're pro-choice voters and it's all about certain segments of the population instead of just saying we're all Americans here's the ideals I think here's the policy positions I'm for in a campaign and based decisions on that second question was what are the consequences of being held in contempt of Congress Eric Holder was held in contempt with seemingly no consequences yeah there aren't any consequences unfortunately you get held in contempt you get held in contempt and you know he was the attorney general so it wasn't exactly like he was going to do anything to himself as head of the justice department when Congress holds him in contempt I guess in years past like

[54:53] I mean way back there was a time where if the individual held in contempt of Congress shows up on Capitol Hill they would actually arrest him with you know what today would be Capitol Hill police or the sergeant of arms I guess would probably be more accurate but that was hundreds of years ago again this fits into what I talked about earlier just this double standard so it's unfortunate right now my concern with the justice department is Rod Rosenstein is running it Jeff Sessions is a good man but I think a bad attorney general and frankly doesn't he's just not in charge not even close to being in charge Mr. Rosenstein is so a final question is if the house oversight committee is supposed to have oversight that sounds like a position of some authority yet the committee was unable to even get the documents they demanded now how is it possible to exercise oversight does the committee have any teeth to accomplish oversight are not these departments of government supposedly subject to oversight obligation response yeah I mean a good point and this is the frustration we feel you issue subpoenas well first you always start with you request documents and then you typically have to follow up with some kind of subpoena but in this particular time where we're focused on the FBI and the

[56:20] Justice Department it's sort of weird because you're subpoenaing you're trying to get documents from the very agency and government that's supposed to be enforcing the law and it's sort of a strange deal I've been frustrated but we continue to push and the thing that's helped us even though there's only a handful of them this is why the founders were so sharp there are folks in the press who've been great and then there are folks who sue through the courts to get information as well like Judicial Watch Tom Fitton and his group so that is helpful as well as we're trying to get information to get to the bottom of what actually happened but it's interesting there's only about half a dozen reporters who care they're good John Solomon Sarah Carter Molly Hemingway with the Federalist Kim Strassel with the Wall Street Journal Byron York with the Examiner and Chuck Ross with the Daily Caller are really the only ones who kind of focus on this but that's helpful as well yeah we thought he was going to two weeks ago a number of us

[57:27] Ron DeSantis and Mark sent a letter in the spring asking him to declassify and give a certain piece of information that we followed up with a resolution or actually we just did a press event Mr.

[57:43] Zeldin and a number of us saying declassify these certain things certain parts of the FISA application that went to the court for Carter Page certain conversations that Bruce Orr without getting into all the details Bruce Orr is a top Justice Department official who was giving information directly to the FBI after he would talk with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson Christopher Steele of course is the foreign agent who wrote the dossier Glenn Simpson is the guy who hired Christopher Steele so every time that Mr.

[58:13] Orr would meet with Simpson and or Steele he would have shortly thereafter typically the day after each of those meetings or conversations he would go have a meeting with someone from the FBI and they would take down notes and everything about what Mr.

[58:32] Orr said to the other individual so we asked for those to be declassified and given to Congress and then certain information that's given to what's called the gang of eight these are the top people in Congress the chairman and the ranking member of the two intelligence committees the one in the House and the Senate and the respective leadership in the House and Senate both parties so we wanted that information as well the president initially said three weeks ago that he would do that early in the week he subsequently changed later in the week and said he was going to run that information through the inspector general at the justice department a gentleman named Michael Horowitz I wish he hadn't done that but I appreciated what he said early in the week and I wish he would have stuck with that he modified it but yeah if that all gets public that will help and I think some of the things we learned from Mr.

[59:22] Baker Jim Baker the former chief counsel this week will give more weight towards moving in the first direction declassifying it all alright we got time for one more Gary I know that you're going at least at this point it looks like that you if congress is still republican you're going to run for speaker and I have to applaud you for being willing to do that because I would think it's bad enough the way it is much less being a speaker most people think that's crazy sometimes well that's kind of what a lot of us in this church think wondering what in the world is he up to the other I mean you talk about that principle that you're facing and then thinking about the next person who may want to try to be not who they may try to nominate for the court that's going to keep a lot of good people

[60:28] I have to applaud you because we all feel like you're one of the good people and that you're willing to take that on and we appreciate it but I guess we wonder there seems to be a fear of the freedom caucus by the establishment what kind of a chance do you think you have of winning that so a couple things I'll say yeah I mean look I'm not even close to being the favorite for the speaker's race and this is probably the first maybe the first time it's ever been tried where by announcing for speaker early we're trying to nationalize a student council election because in the end it's truly a student council election if we maintain the majority it's going to be approximately 230 Republicans majority is 218 or more so let's say we have 230 you got to get 116 out of the 230 to win the nomination then you got to go to the floor of the house in January the start of the next congress and you got to get a majority of the full body so you got to get 218 out of 435 we're not the favorite but the grassroots support has been tremendous the every major almost every major conservative organization in the country is supporting us many of them have surveyed their members it's been overwhelming club for growth was 95 to 5 freedom works was 99.2 to 0.8 we got 99.2

[61:52] Mr. McCarthy got 0.8 Tea Party Patriots is 98 to 2 so grassroots support has been good some key people in the grassroots movement Sean Hannity Mark Levin Lou Dobbs have all endorsed us so that's all positive but probably the most positive news is the number four person in house leadership is Lady Kathy McMorris Rogers from the state of Washington she's our conference chairperson she was asked over the August recess back in her home district who she supports for speaker and she said she hasn't decided yet well the fact that she's in current house leadership and she's not already for McCarthy is big news so there's a chance but again we're not favored I should say to your question about the freedom caucus yeah a lot of the town doesn't like us just like a lot of the town doesn't like the president if you're there trying to shake things up you know they just it's not always appreciated in that town but I like I said

[63:01] Polly's down helping Mark Harris Pastor Harris is running we got some good candidates we got a lady running in New Mexico Yvette Harrell one of the things we've done is and this is helping us tremendously is we formed an outside PAC it's now run by the guy he used to be our chief of staff he's been with me for 20 years in politics but he now runs the outside house freedom fund we've raised over 6 million dollars in the last 20 months around the country from conservative supporters for helping conservative candidates win in primaries and then helping him in the general so we have four of our current members who are in tough races Dave Bratt remember Dave Bratt's the guy who beat Eric Cantor a few years ago he's got a tough race in suburban Richmond in Virginia Scott Perry General Perry one of my best friends from Harrisburg Yorktown Gettysburg area Pennsylvania he's got a tough race he's a great guy Rod Blum in Dubuque Cedar Rapids area of Iowa he's got a tough race as well and then Ted Budd another guy in North Carolina these are all good solid Christian fighters so we're trying to help them and then some of these open races but it's the first time that a conservative group in the house has actually put together an outside political operation with the resources you need to help so I spend a lot of time in that endeavor as well so alrighty

[64:25] I probably shouldn't talk about that in church but I'll talk to you I'll talk to you afterwards yeah yeah I probably pushed it a little bit when I was talking about that thank you all for giving Polly and I a chance to spend so much good time with you we appreciate all of you we certainly appreciate the pastor and his leadership here and if you got questions I think many of you some of you were down and did the tour when Polly got a chance to take you to the Museum of the Bible mom and dad were just down a couple weeks ago let us know if you're coming down there and of course like I said we got 30 days to go out there and talk about the things that matter and if we do that we'll be just fine God bless you thank you machinery is not behind you but in politics as well as in a lot of other things all kinds of things can happen in a very short period of time so we don't know I do know this I do know that Jim Jordan being elected speaker of the House of Representatives would definitely be our best opportunity for getting away from doing business as usual so and you know we've being a pastor in the church sometimes we are in a delicate position regarding politics and such and we've received some criticism for being political but let me explain my politics

[66:01] I wouldn't have a bit of problem not a bit of problem of putting democrats on the supreme court I don't have any problem with that provided provided they are strict constitutionalists and they have a high regard for the freedom and liberties that we enjoy in this country and they would be defenders of the constitution would not bother me a bit if they were democrats because democrats have some good people too solid people too and as far as politics is concerned with the church I've often expressed this before and I'll say it again all laws all legislation all enactments that come from congress or from city government or state government all of those laws are inevitably based on someone's idea of right and wrong someone's idea of morality and this is where Christians have not only a wide open door but a responsibility to be involved when there are important moral issues at stake and whether a democrat or republican doesn't make any difference that's to me that's the dividing line and I would

[67:32] I have no problem in promoting that well thank you so much for being here and Jim I cannot tell you how grateful we are that you're on the job and we will be remembering you in prayer pray with me if you would please father we recognize that these are really solemn and important times that we are living in and in the flesh we are no more sufficient for this than anybody else but aided by your spirit and directed by the principles set forth in your word we believe that righteousness can prevail sin is a reproach to any people and righteousness exalts the nation and we look forward to there being a genuine kind of moral and spiritual revival that can turn this nation back to the roots that it enjoyed so long ago we know that it's possible and we commit the responsibility for that not only to you but to each of us as believers we want to be involved in whatever we can do in preserving the freedoms and liberties of this great nation thank you again for the marvelous government that you've given us that has sustained us for over 240 years with all of its flaws and problems still best government in the world and we are grateful for it so thank you for your presence for Jim's message to us and for the presence of each one here today in Christ's name amen thanks to