Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) Says Trump’s Scarborough Tweets: “Makes It Harder” To Make The Case To Independent & Women Voters Come The Fall

Congressman Will Hurd (R-TX) talked with Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson about the Democrats attempt to push through “Proxy Voting” amid the Coronavirus outbreak. Rep. Hurd also poked criticism at President Trump’s Tweets targeting MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. Saying that this is something, “I’m not following” but “It takes away from highlighting some of the good things that are happening. And it makes it harder. When it comes time in November to make a case to independent voters, too women with a college degree in the suburbs.”

Listen To The Full Interview Below:

Full Transcript:

Guy Benson: Final hour on the Guy Benson show midway through this week. Hope you’re having a good Wednesday. Thank you for being here. Guy Benson show dot com. Our Web site. One stop shop guy Benson show dot com. Podcast is always free and also available on Spotify and I tunes. We are pleased to welcome back to the show. Congressman will hurt a Republican from Texas representing the Twenty Third District in the Lone Star State. He joins me now. Congressman, great to have you back.

Rep.Hurd: Guy, it’s a pleasure to be back with you, man.

Guy Benson: I want to ask you first about a controversy in the House of Representatives involving this new process for voting that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats are ushering in. It is voting for members by proxy. So if you’d explain what this looks like logistically and then why it is that you and really unified Republicans are opposed to it.

Rep.Hurd: Sure. So when we were here, I think was two weeks ago, there was a vote on this proxy vote. And what it said is that one member of Congress can vote for up to 10 other members of Congress. And there were some rules that were put in, like you had to notify the clerk that you were requesting a proxy and say who it was. Right. Now, there was a uniform. There was uniform opposition to this for a number of reasons. Now, let me start with as a as a person who’s been Zolf in technology all my life, Congress should be adapting technology to provide better digital facing services to make our work more efficient and all those things right. I do believe we should be doing better at that. But ultimately, what the Democrats did in this in this change of the House rules, which know said that you don’t have to physically be here now, the Constitution Article one, Section five says that Congress has the ability to do a quorum and a quorum is a majority. So a quorum means physical presence is to say you have to to show up. Right. And so the Democrats are basically saying that for two hundred thirty one years, even though, you know, when during the Civil War, Congress still met during the World War of 1812 in Washington, D.C., was on fire. Congress was still meeting during the the the the Spanish flu. And, you know, in the nineteen early nineteen hundreds. Congress was still meeting, saying that now you can’t meet. And most of my Republican colleagues and I believe that at the millions of Americans that have been going and doing their job since all of this started. So, too can Congress, especially now as many places and states are, are reopening. And so now there’s a legal challenge.

Guy Benson: Right. Right. And I saw Speaker Pelosi just blasted it, saying it’s a sad stunt by Republicans. But I feel like it probably is worth really thinking very hard about changing the way in which members of Congress cast their votes. If there’s a big change like that happening, there should probably be bipartisan Buy-In rather than just the majority railroading the thing through, which is what they are doing up to this point. And Congressman, I’ve said on this show many times, especially when we are really in the thick of Corona virus and there were big consequential votes involving trillions of dollars happening. I thought that maybe looking at remote voting, secure remote voting was something that was worthwhile. It seemed like leadership in both chambers, Republican and Democrat, weren’t interested in that. Certainly Pelosi and McConnell together were not. I’m just trying to understand, why would Pelosi be dead set against each member casting their votes securely from home, but be okay with this proxy’s scheme where you have one member coming in and saying, well, he wants to vote, yay, she wants to vote nay. This seems a lot more complicated.

Rep.Hurd: It is. And and then what is ultimately next? Right. And so so my friends on the other side will say, you know, the House has the ability to establish the House rules. Right. Which is which is true by a majority vote. However, you can’t change the Constitution. You can’t do something that is unconstitutional. And the Constitution clearly state says a quorum is a majority of the body. Right. And a quorum means physical presence. And so. So what? What. So if you can do any rule, then you can say, OK. Guess what? If you’re from these states, your vote only counts for half. But if you’re from other states, it counts twice like this. This is some of the similar logic that if you say you can make any rules that you want and there’s a broader question and I have a more philosophical question, because the details of a remote voting is not hard. Right? This is a public vote. This is not like this is a secret. This is something that as soon as I do it, it is published on C-SPAN. And all these other locations. My concern is that if you remove the let’s say we do remote voting now, then. And we get out of this. We get back to some, you know, whatever normal means there was that we did it before. Let’s just keep doing that. Yeah. There’s no reason to go up to Washington, D.C. and there’s no reason for us to actually be in a room together. And so it actually makes could potentially make this body, which is incredibly partizan as it is now, even more partizan. And nothing would ever get done. Right. And so those that’s that’s a long term consequence for me of this particular issue, along with the constitutional argument about being a majority is, you know, a majority of this body is 218.

Guy Benson: See And I think, Congressman, what my perspective is on this is let’s say we went with some form of remote voting that was secure but temporary because of everything that you just mentioned and not just the complexities, but maybe some of the risks about the new normal being established in a way that would be harmful. I would be in favor of passing something that would have to be overwhelmingly bipartisan. That said, it is temporary with a sunset clause that says in order to revamp this, it would need to be agreed to by, let’s say, two thirds majority of the House, which would be a very high bar to achieve. That’s something I would be open to. That’s not what they’ve done here. So I think.

Rep.Hurd: They literally have done the exact opposite of what you just described. All right. And so. So, yeah. Look, the only way big things get done up here is doing it in a in a bipartisan manner. Right. And that’s why that’s how we were able to get those first four stimulus bills done, because they were negotiated in a bipartisan, bicameral way and we were able to get these big things on it. All of those things ultimately helped the American people in many different ways. And so some people are like, man, this is a really arcane, you know, inside the Beltway arguments. Right. But but I think there are going to be some some consequences because, look, if your represent there’s somebody in I think like a quarter of the California Democrat California delegation is not coming back. Right. And they’re being represented by one person. And and so it’s is that concept. And if the folks that are stocking our shelves and and getting supplies from point A to point B and doctors and nurses are ever to operate. And, you know, now a lot of places in Texas and get your hair cut. And, you know, go to restaurants if those folks are working. And we should work to it because I actually do believe we’re essential and we should be working on it.

Guy Benson: It just seems it seems strange to me that you could have people who are just party line voters conceivably never show up, sit at home in the district and fundraise for two years and just, you know, salute whatever leadership wants them to do and tell someone to go cast the vote for them. I’m not sure that’s something that a lot of Americans would support, certainly longer term. But that’s why you have to be careful even about temporary measures, because sometimes people get used to things that get comfortable and then temporary becomes not so temporary. You so what? Congressman, I want to shift to a letter that you sent to the diplomatic delegations here in D.C. of all World Health Organization member nations regarding that organization. What was the purpose of your letter?

Rep.Hurd: So the purpose was was twofold. One, organizations, international organizations like the World Health Organization WTO are important. Right. These these organizations were designed for all of us work together on these global issues. Right. Getting rid of of HIV AIDS and TB and malaria. Dealing with things like the global pandemic we’re dealing with now in Cauvin 19. And if as an appropriator know, I hope make decisions on on on dollars, federal dollars that go to minutos organizations. Right. And I spent I spent a decade of my career overseas as undercover officer in the CIA. But I my cover was working in the State Department. So I actually know very well versed in the diplomatic corps as well, too. And but there are some very like for us to be able to use these international organizations, we have to trust the leadership of them. And and there are just some some basic questions that have gone unanswered by the WHL leadership, which which threatens the credibility. We know that the president pushed a pause on some additional funds going to WHL. Look, we’ve already spent 400 million dollars and sent that to the W8 show for this year. These were additional funds that were going to for these review. And I believe that we should be strengthening our alliances, not weakening them. And that’s why I went to the heads of the missions in the United States as member. Of the WHo, their member nations within WHL saying here are a set of questions that we believe that the WHo leadership needs to answer. And can you help us in advocating for those questions to WHL leadership as well? And a basic thing.

Guy Benson: So give us like maybe like the top one or two questions.

Rep.Hurd: Why has China still refused to participate in sample sharing? So even today, what the rest of the world community has done. Any any samples around COBA 19? We’re sharing it among all of our scientists and researchers. Chinese have not participate. Why has the WHL pressure the Chinese to do that? No answers to what is the Chinese response on some of these Chinese researchers that have gone missing? These are people that helped us first line about the Cauvin 19th. And no WHL leadership has been silent on all,.

Guy Benson: Not just not just that, it’s been worse. They’ve they’ve broadly praise Tedros, who’s not a medical doctor, but he’s the leader of WHL. This guy, Tedros, who is Chinese, who is China’s handpicked leader of WHL, who prevailed in that election process. He has gone out of his way to praise the transparency of China during this process, which is kind of just a sick joke. Given what you just described and everything else we know about the behavior of the Chinese Communist Party in this mess, it’s outrageous. And so so here’s what we’re finding. Right. And so so the responses that we have gotten back several dozen. We’re with ya. We get it. We’re we’re moving forward and go to openly ask these questions. And also, earlier this week, the WHL had a vote on doing a review of Cauvin 19 and WHL response. This was initially, you know, the Chinese fight against this. And then they didn’t want to be the only one, you know, voting against this. And so there was a vote at the WHL for that transparency. Now, the question is when, where, who’s going to be involved?

Guy Benson: And then will they actually cooperate when the rubber meets the road? A few question marks about that, certainly one hundred percent. And so so but these are all good signs that this is not that this is not just the United States of America that asking these questions. And we have gotten responses back from from all the other continents. Good. And and it’s a mix of of of countries that think we get it. We share some the same concerns. And we’re outraged, too, because, again, the WHL is an important organization that can help us. That was created to deal with this exact issue we’re in now.

Guy Benson: Yeah, but not if there is corruption or Rhod at the very top. And I think that this is an important letter. And I think some of these questions demand answers. Congressman, I want to ask you this, and I. I sometimes hate it. And I think the media plays this game too often where they get a Republican on the record and then they want their comment on whatever the latest thing. President Trump has tweeted about. And I think it’s sort of silly and inane. However, I did several segments on my show yesterday. There are some I can’t just sort of shrug off and ignore. And the president over Memorial Day weekend and still continuing even this morning, tweeting this completely insane conspiracy theory about the death of a young woman in 2001 in Joe Scarborough’s old office back in Florida while he was Washington, D.C.. And the implication very heavily from the president over and over again is that Scarbro may have had something to do with her death, even though that has been disproven by the medical examiner. The family of this woman, including her husband in particular, has effectively begged for this to stop because it has no basis. In fact, the president has shrugged that off. He said yesterday at the press conference that he held that the husband, just like the president, they both want to get to the bottom of this, which is the opposite of what the husband said, the husband said. We’ve gotten to the bottom of this. There’s nothing here. It’s a closed case, not a cold case. And yet the president persists because he’s got a problem with Scarbro and the editorial line on that MSNBC show. As a member of Congress, I know you’re on the verge of retirement, but you are a Republican member of Congress. When you see that type of tweeting, is it different than some of the other stuff? Do you have a reaction to it or do you just think it’s sort of par for the course with Trump?

Rep.Hurd: Well, so one, you know, you shouldn’t be tweeting about things like that that are actually cold. You know, the cases that are closed. Right. And and to be honest, this is one of those things that I’m not following. This is not something that I know the nuance of other than the fact that, you know, I don’t know. No. The old case. And this is this is something that I think it takes away from our ability to communicate a message. Right. It takes away from highlighting some of the good things that are happening. And it makes it harder. When it comes time in November to make a case to independent voters, two women with a college degree in the suburbs.

Guy Benson: Well, not just and you know about you know about winning a very tough district. And when you’re trying to say and the Republican Party, the White House is trying to say, we are focused like a laser on this global pandemic that’s killed nearly a hundred thousand Americans. And then you see tweet after tweet after tweet about a 2001 debunked conspiracy theory. It’s it’s, to me, quite frustrating. I know you said your piece and we’ve got to leave it there anyway. Congressman Will heart of Texas. There are twenty 3rd District in the Lone Star State, a Republican congressman. Thank you so much for your time today.

Rep.Hurd: Always a pleasure to be on. We’ll talk to you soon.

Guy Benson: Sounds great. We’ll be right back.