Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Republican congressman representing Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District to discuss his visit at the border, AOC’s word recognition prolems, and the HR1 bill.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line by our good friend, Congressman Mark Green. Congressman Green, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.
Green: Well, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Leahy: How are you holding up there? (Laughter) That’s my first question. How are you holding up in Nancy Pelosi’s crazy out of control, House of Representatives?
Green: Well, I haven’t snapped yet, but it’s enough to drive a man to it. I mean, some of the stuff that’s just being proposed is absolutely absurd. And you look at stuff that Fox News blew up from an interview from the border with me where I talked about AOC. I don’t know if you saw any of that.
Leahy: I saw that. So tell our listening audience about that.
Green: Well, she had heard people talking about the surge at the border and thought that we were calling the children coming across the border insurgents because we used the word surge. No, surge means a high volume over a short period of time.
Leahy: Did you spell it out? Congresswoman Cortez, surge means a high volume.
Green: It has nothing to do with people attempting to overgrow government. They like to throw that word around, by the way, inappropriately many times. But anyway, I digress.
Carmichael: Question for you, Mark, this is Crom. HR1 passed the House. I know you all couldn’t do anything to stop that from happening. It’s now in the Senate. What’s your prediction on what’s going to happen there?
Green: Yeah. It comes down to Joe Manchin. I’m hopeful that he bears the pressure. It’s going to be incredible on him from his own party. But he has now said that there are parts of the bill that he could support. So the Biden administration and Chuck Schumer said we’ll split the bill up. Now, that means it has to come back over to the House unless they trim down and amend out the parts that he doesn’t like and then attempt to pass that.
Carmichael: But don’t they have to break the filibuster to pass anything that’s not budget-related?
Green: They do. But if he gets a bill that he’s willing to support, then that will support doing it under reconciliation or some other mechanism.
Carmichael: How? Then the filibuster must not matter on anything if an election bill can be passed under reconciliation, then nothing can’t be passed under reconciliation.
Green: That’s basically what Schumer is saying. He said that he’s going to do this reconciliation process many more times than has been done in the past. That’s exactly what he has said.
Carmichael: Okay, well, then I guess Mitch McConnell’s only response is to tell 50 Republican senators don’t enter the chamber ever, and then he doesn’t even have a quorum. So if he doesn’t have a quorum, he can’t conduct business unless he decides to redefine a quorum.
Green: These guys are doing everything they can to rewrite rules and the laws and they totally disregard the Constitution. HR1 is unconstitutional. So I don’t think they care about that.
Leahy: I don’t think they care at all about that. That makes your job very frustrating. And then when you’re dealing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez misunderstanding words.
Carmichael: She doesn’t misunderstand it. This is what the Democrats do.
Leahy: Tell us more about how that border story blew up and the pushback against you on that Congressman Green.
Green: She was suggesting that everybody who notes the increase in the border, the surge that we’re racist. And that seems to be the mantra these days from the left. Anyone who points out, in fact, is a racist. They’re pouring across the Southern border. I’m standing there looking at 600 plus young girls in a small pod built for 33 and pointing out what’s going on because Joe Biden made ridiculous both foreign policy decisions and defense of our country, homeland security decisions that have resulted in this. This doesn’t make you a racist.
And them continually playing that racist card negates or lessens the chance that when real racism happens, we’re going to be able to spot it. And we don’t want to numb people to this word. That’s a very powerful and tragic thing when racism happens, and you should never abuse a term just for a political win. And that’s exactly what the left is doing these days. So if you’re a conservative, you’re racist and that’s inflammatory, frustrating, ridiculous. All the adjectives and you can come up with, but that’s the world we live in right now in politics.
Leahy: How can a legislative body function properly if every time the Republican Party says anything, the leadership of the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, and the Big Tech all say, well, that’s racist. How can you have any serious dialogue about important issues?
Green: Thanks for bringing up the big companies. I guess I’m going to go up to the Delta counter now and say sorry, I don’t have a photo ID. I thought I could fly on your airline without a photo ID. Delta Airlines is pushing back against the Georgia law.
Leahy: A great law, by the way, a common-sense law. Voter ID to get an absentee ballot.
Green: It’s common sense. But that word is exclusive these days from certain Democrat leaders. Basically, we get up there and we message and we fight to take back the House.
Leahy: Well, I think you’re right. What are the prospects for taking back the House? We have 30 seconds left here Congressman Green.
Green: We have a tremendous opportunity here. We just need folks to help out, but we can take back the House. We are basically six seats away right now. We’ve got a special that’s coming up. We’ll win one of those, at least, maybe two. Then we’re going to need four seats. We can do that in just 19 months with everybody’s help.
Leahy: And that’s the key point. Everybody’s help.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
