Congressman Doug Collins spoke with Brian Kilmeade about Congressman Joaquin Castro publicly posting names of Trump donors, Chairman Nadler lying about the House currently pursuing an impeachment inquiry and not being notified by Speaker Pelosi to return to DC to work on gun legislation.
Watch here:
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: How does Congressman Doug Collins feel, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican out of Georgia? Congressman, are you as offended as I am about Castro’s antics?
REP. DOUG COLLINS, (R-GA): I am disgusted with it. It is just — look, here’s the interesting thing and — and we made a comment about this on social media. And some people said, well, all they’re doing is public information.
Well, that’s true. Everybody’s donors are public information if people go to the websites, because we’re one of the most regulated industries in the world when it comes to political contribution, especially to — to Canada.
But what he’s doing is not simply giving out information. He’s doing it with a vindictive motive. And I think what is disturbing to me here is he’s not — you know, it’s doing it for a political hit. He’s doing it for political self-aggrandizement, basically trying to say look at me.
And in doing so, putting people’s lives — you know, and putting people in jeopardy because he is rallying up a visceral, frankly, hate against those that — and trying to give impure motives to those who’ve simply participated in our political process.
Think about this just for a second. What if someone from an organization that is — an extremist organization started calling out those that they didn’t like? Say it was white nationalist group started posting Jewish donors, or African-American donors, or others, do you think he would have the same affiliation with that? No, he would call it out for what it was; it’s wrong.
He needs to put back — he needs to pull it back. And he needs to, you know, to realize that this is not the way should operate in this time.
KILMEADE: Congressman, I know he’s a Republican president, and you’re a Republican, and I know you’re both conservative. But if you thought the president was racist, sexist, a white nationalist, would you even back him? Would you even — would you spend any time looking after his policies if you thought he had these character flaws?
COLLINS: No, I would not. And I think this is — this is the problem I’m having now, Brian. You’re seeing this all along. We’re seeing it on — in — therein, is if I don’t agree with somebody then it becomes two things.
If I don’t agree with you then either you are evil, you have evil intent or evil motives, or you’re — or something we’ll call a racist — we’ll call something this is inflammatory. Instead of having ideas put in the marketplace and say whose ideas are best and why are they best or why do they need to — they’ve resorted to the lowest common denominator of saying, simply, if you don’t agree with me, you’re evil, you’re wrong.
And that is what is driving this to the lowest common denominator. That kind of rhetoric from the left, which has been going on now for last, especially the last three years, is — and again, is terrifying, no matter whose side it’s on. But lately this has just been — again, there’s no rational to what they’re doing.
KILMEADE: There isn’t. There’s no rationale in what Beto O’Rourke’s doing, especially what he says. He now calls the president a white nationalist. So I believe that’s worse than a white supremacist.
He’s gone every way. And he — and he said the president should not have visited. When you’re hearing this — I mean, I know he wants to be president and I know he never he will be, he can’t get over two percent — are you concerned this is going to help him?
COLLINS: No. I think it’s going to show him for who exactly he is, a desperate beaten candidate who couldn’t win the Senate race, who now is — who is properly vetted and pumped up by the liberal press on the front cover of a magazine to say that he was the next big thing for the Democratic Party. And now, he’s realized that popular opinion is about as long lasting as the front cover of a magazine.
And that he is now desperately trying to find relevance. He’s desperately trying to find out and to prove to himself, I guess, that he wasn’t the flash in pan that he seems to be at this point. But you win people’s ideas. You win the presidency on a vision. You win the presidency on a vision of something better.
As Republicans or as Democrats, you know, when I want to see someone who leads this country such as the president or others, I want to see what their vision is for us. I don’t — I don’t want to hear what they don’t like about somebody else. Those are all parts of the political game.
But there’s got to be an element of your message that says here’s where I want to take our country. Here’s what I want to lift up. You know, and I go back to what was said — and it was said earlier when you played the clip where it says if you give to these candidates you’re supporting this.
Well, I want to remind everyone that people — you know, if they want to talk about this, they’re bringing their base down to a point of where — you know, look people who support Democrats are in favor of killing babies. I mean, is this where we’re wanting to go with this?
It’s policy that has to be discussed here. And we can have opinions on policies and the people can vote on policies. Look, I’m tired of Beto O’Rourke — Robert Francis, you know, deciding that he’s trying to make his two percent on the back of the president.
KILMEADE: We’re talking to Congressman Doug Collins.
Congressman, I want to get what Jerry Nadler’s up to on your committee, but I also want to get you to this. There’s a big push now for Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell to reconvene congress, break up the six-week break and do something on guns.
You are as horrified, I imagine, as everybody is about what took place over the last — over the last weekend. What would you like to see done?
COLLINS: Well, I think what we’re looking at right now is — is there’s always the discussion. If they bring us back in, my questions is what are you wanting to do and how does it actually effect what actually happened? I made the statement on the floor of the House many times that says that what makes you feel good doesn’t often heal you.
And right now, there’s a rush to feel good. There’s a rush to bills that would not affect — we’ve had this, basically a very bad bill H.R. 8 that passed out of the House and sitting in the Senate that they say would fix it.
There’s nothing, zero, in that bill that would point to fixing the thing that happened and, frankly, in El Paso or Dayton or much less anywhere else that we’re seeing, like in like Chicago this past weekend or other places.
What we’ve got to do is actually begin to look at how we deal with it. And make sure that people who present problems — or maybe the areas that we need to look at or say, if we know someone is having issues, we know there’s a problem, if there’s due process that it’s protected. If we make sure that those things — maybe the extreme — you know, the risk protection — or the red flag, as they are called, those are the things we can look at.
But simply coming back to the two things I’ve heard most from Democrats and that is, quote, expanding background checks, which is personal or private sales and, number two, to ban assault weapons — or to ban a certain type of weapon are not going to fix the problems. They’re simple making themselves feel better and trying to convince the American people of that as well.
KILMEADE: But I mean if, for example, this 17-year-old ends up being a — 17-year-old threat ends up being a 24-year-old killer, would you be open to expanding background checks for basic gun purchases and not allowing that juvenile record to be plowed over because he turns 18?
COLLINS: Well, I think those are definitely things that we can look at and things that have been –you know, that are — that are — that are out there. The other thing is that he is — you know, the thing that had — had promulgated (ph) with him was that we knew there was a threat here. We knew that there was something to be — you know, to watch.
And I think that’s where you got to find — you know, we have a proposal that we put out many months ago, the Mass Violence Prevention Act, which actually gets the federal government into like a fusion center. Where, people can take and give information, such as the Parkland shooters and others. And say, instead of having it fall on deaf ears of local law enforcement, to say here’s a way that we can make sure that these people are looked at.
If they’re making threats if they’re acting in a way that is harmful to themselves or others, then this is the way we can look at this going forward and those simplistic — simple things that can be done without going into the, you know, simple knee-jerk reaction of, you know, gun control and other things.
KILMEADE: Congressman, now Jerry Nadler is pushing to get the records of Brett Kavanaugh when he worked in the Bush administration. This is Brett Kavanaugh, who’s now a Supreme Court Justice.
Now, it’s up for the president, many people said just put a stop to this. George Washington stopped at when a House had a similar inquiry back in our first presidential term ever. What is Nadler up to?
COLLINS: My chairman is desperate. He is desperate. He’s shown over the past seven months that he, you know, frankly has an inability to properly run a committee. The committee has divulged and — and — and just, you know, festered into a press release, public show kind of spectacle because we have no agenda. We have nothing else out there.
Now, he’s going after a properly confirmed member of the Supreme Court, simply because it plays well with a press release or his base. I am sick of it. I’m tired of it. I’ve — I’ve expressed this as many times as I’ve can. I have laid out for my chairman many things that we could be working on, from criminal justice reform to — to immigration reform.
If we would simply — if we would just come to the table and do that, instead he’s trying to, again, focus attention away from things that we don’t need to be focused on. He’s trying to waste taxpayer dollars on fishing expeditions that are going nowhere.
This is a travesty. This is so far beyond the pale of oversight in the House Judiciary Committee. It — it is harassment. And I’m calling on him to figure out, you know, what does he want to actually do as a committee chairman, instead of just simply issue press releases on past issues to prop his own primary campaign up in New York City?
KILMEADE: So now we have him also looking as though, within a few weeks when you guys get back, he’s going to start pushing for impeachment. What makes you think that he’s going to make progress in that direction? Because many political experts think there’s no doubt, this fall, he puts that forward.
COLLINS: Yes. Well, if he wants to put it forward — listen, he cannot continue to, frankly, be disingenuous or lie to the American people. They’ve not started an impeachment inquiry. They have not started, you know, the impeachment process.
They want to let everybody think that. Last week was the most comical thing you ever want (ph), too. They run to every press event he had and said, oh, we’ve started an inquiry. And it’s the same as an inquiry.
No, it’s not. And it’s not because — you know, and if anybody wants to go, they can go to our sites and talk to us. An impeachment inquiry has to be part of the House. It’s a House function, not a committee function. It functions in the committee but it has to come to the House.
So my question is, is folks like our committee, Lucy McBath, Mr. Stanton and others who are not in favor, are they going to put them in the position of having to go to the floor and vote for an impeachment inquiry? It plays well in liberal circles who hate this president — have hated him from day one that they want to continue this out there.
And for some of them, it’s been very easy for them to come out and say I’m in favor of impeachment. Well, if Mr. Nadler wants to do that, then he knows how to do it. His people know how to do it. But he’s too scared because wants to — he wants to protect his members, while at the same time having a show trial of the president and continue these investigations.
Don’t buy it, Brian. Don’t let anybody buy it. He’s trying to protect the — his — their vulnerable Democrats, while at the same time projecting to their liberal base that they’re actually doing something. If he wants to do it, you know, that’s something that the majority is capable of doing. But there’s nothing here at this point.
We’ve already had the Mueller flop. We’ve had everything else that — it just went south on them while trying to find a reason for impeachment. In fact, the numbers are going the opposite way in polls on people who don’t want (ph) him to look at impeachment.
So if they want to waste their majority list (ph), then fine. We’re going to go out, and we’re going to campaign of the American people. And we’re going to flip this majority next year and bring it back to getting —
(CROSSTALK)
KILMEADE: I know your hope for that, Congressman. But you’ve had 12 or 13 retirements already. Isn’t that a fatal blow to Republicans winning back the House?
COLLINS: No, I don’t think so. I mean, we’ve had a couple of retirements and districts that’ll be tougher to fight. Many of the retirements we’ve had are going to be in safe Republican districts that we’ll win back again.
I mean, the case of Will Hurd and some others make it — Will is an excellent congressman. He’s a great part of our party and has fought for many ideas, and that district will — you know, just over time will be harder to hold. But we’ll find a candidate we’ll run.
The — at this point in time, what we need to look for is just beginning to point back to what happened the first two years, looking at the economy, looking at the things that we can do and then look at the total circus that has happened in the last seven months. I mean, after seven months you have nothing to point to except a failed parade, in our committee anyway and in the other committees as well, a failed parade of do-nothing and show hearings that have ended up with more press releases than anything else.
KILMEADE: And as we let you go, Congressman, have you been notified by the Speaker to be on guard that you might be coming back to Washington in August?
COLLINS: No, we have not. I think that’s — again, they’re just — at this point, if they want to, they’ll call it. But it — they’re still, you know, they don’t really know what they want to do. And I think that’s the issue that’s, you know, coming forward.
And again, there’s other things, you know, that would actually put them on the spot of actually having to do something. And if they fail in it, that’s even worse.
KILMEADE: Congressman, always great to talk to you. You are a lawmaker of consequence. We appreciate your insight. Thanks.
COLLINS: Brian, thanks so much. Take care. Bye-bye.
