Sen. Johnson says he has sympathy for ICE officers amid protests and funding battle

Geoff Bennett:

Well, for a Republican perspective on all of this, I spoke earlier with Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin before the latest announcement of a deal.

Senator Ron Johnson, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI):

Thanks for having me on.

Geoff Bennett:

President Trump sounded positive today about the possibility of avoiding a government shutdown, saying that he's engaged in talks with Democrats. You were among the Republicans who joined with Democrats in voting to block the funding legislation from advancing. Why?

Sen. Ron Johnson:

Well, I'm just basically thoroughly disgusted with the process.

I have been here 15 years. We should have passed in that time frame 180 appropriation bills on time before the start of the fiscal year in which they were funding. We have passed six. That's a 96.7 percent failure rate.

To address that, I propose and we voted on the Eliminate Shutdown Act. We get rid of this dysfunction for all time. Pretty simple bill, just rolling a 14-day automatic appropriations until the appropriators can come to agreement to pass appropriation bills, short of that, the Shutdown Fairness Act.

Let's at least pay these people. We're going to do it after the fact. Let's pay them on time. Neither bill has been passed yet. Throw on top of that this package, in order to get it passed, includes $14.3 billion worth of earmarks. I'm part of the Republican Senate Conference.

We have a resolution against earmarks. We're in charge. We have got the chairmanship of the committee and we're going to allow $14.3 billion of earmarks when we're approaching $39 trillion in debt. So, by and large, I'm just disgusted by the process. Other people can pass it. I'm not going to participate.

Geoff Bennett:

Why isn't there a greater will on Capitol Hill to avoid governing by brinksmanship?

Sen. Ron Johnson:

Because this is the way it's been done. This dysfunction is accepted. The uniparty appropriators like the fact they have these government shutdowns to create leverage for their passing of bills that we can't afford.

Again, let me -- we're approaching $39 trillion in debt. Now, I realize discretionary spending is only about a quarter of all spending, but earmarks are the gateway drug. When I first got here in 2011, this was a big debate between Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, the two senators from Oklahoma.

And Senator Inhofe made some good points. You can't let all the spending decisions up to just the president. But I sided with Tom Coburn that these earmarks are literally the gateway drug that greases the skids. We were $14 trillion in debt back in 2011. Now we're approaching $39 trillion.

The system is completely out of control, completely broken. Somebody got to stand up here and point that out and just vote no every now and again.

Geoff Bennett:

Democrats in these talks are calling for reforms to the way that ICE operates. They're calling for the wearing of body cameras, no wearing masks, tightening the use of warrants.

Are any of those things that you can support?

Sen. Ron Johnson:

Well, first of all, they're trying to basically take the focus off of the root cause of problem, which is their open border policy, the fact we flooded millions of people into this country, a significant number of murderers and rapists and gang members, members of transnational criminal organizations, drug human and sex traffickers.

They concentrate on the martyrs that they have created by encouraging their supporters to go out and obstruct justice, resulting in the tragic deaths of two individuals in Minnesota. So they don't want people to take a look at the real problem, which is the massive problem they caused with their open borders.

They want to focus now on DHS and blame DHS, the very people that are charged with trying to clean up their enormous mess.

Geoff Bennett:

But even the administration is taking a different view. You had Tom Homan today. He publicly acknowledged that federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, in his words, hasn't been perfect and that certain improvements could and should be made to how ICE and federal agents are operating there.

At the same time, there's a new FOX News poll that shows 59 percent of registered voters now say that ICE's deportation efforts have been too aggressive. So, given that, isn't there an acknowledgement, even within the administration, that more needs to be done to balance immigration enforcement and public safety?

Sen. Ron Johnson:

Well, again, I know I want -- I know you want to focus on the problems that we have had trying to clean up the mess.

But I, for one, have a great deal of sympathy for an ICE officer. How would you like to be somebody conducting legal law enforcement activity, and you have got the lieutenant governor of the state of Minnesota managing a Signal chat so they're encouraging their protesters to surround ICE officers?

They're under threat. They're being doxxed. They're having their vehicles rammed by these peaceful protesters' vehicles. So, yes, ICE officers are under hair-trigger alert, which has resulted in those tragic deaths. So I have got a great deal of sympathy for the ICE officers who are being put in this position.

They're trying to keep America safe. They're trying to keep Minneapolis safe. And they're being frustrated and obstructed in those efforts.

Geoff Bennett:

Some of your Republican colleagues, to include Senator Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, they're now calling for the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to step down.

The president notably did not call on her at today's Cabinet meeting when he was going around the table. You said that she got over her skis in her initial comments about the shooting death of Alex Pretti. Drawing on your experience as the former chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, do you believe that she deserves to stay in the job?

Sen. Ron Johnson:

I believe that's the president's call. I will leave it up to him.

Geoff Bennett:

You don't have a view on it?

Sen. Ron Johnson:

I will leave it up to the president. Again, they serve at his pleasure, and that's his call.

Geoff Bennett:

Senator Ron Johnson, thanks for your time.

Sen. Ron Johnson:

Have a good evening.