(lively music) - Welcome to "At Issue."

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The War in Ukraine, the debt ceiling, the US banking crisis, there's a lot to talk about on the national and international level, and to have that conversation, we've invited Congressman Darin LaHood to give some insight into that and much more.

Congressman, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you, H. Great to be with you and your viewers.

- And when I introduce you, I need to remember, I'm so used to saying 18th Congressional District, but you're the Republican representing the 16th district, which is?

- Well, as some of your viewers may know, we lost population and so in the redistricting, we no longer have an 18th congressional district because we're down to 17 congressional districts in Illinois.

So in the gerrymandering process, I have a new district, which is the 16th.

The good news is I keep most of the Peoria area which of course I live in, the Bloomington normal area, but my district now goes to the Wisconsin border.

So I pick up cities of Princeton and Dixon and Rockford and Freeport and Galena and go all the way over to East Dubuque.

So it's all a part of 21 counties across central and northwestern Illinois.

- Let's start the conversation with the debt ceiling and the national debt.

First, the national debt component, 31.6 trillion.

About a quarter, just almost a quarter of that is held by foreign countries.

How do we go about controlling the growth?

I don't know that we can reduce it right now but how do we go about controlling the growth of the national debt?

- Well, it is an existential threat to our country.

If you go back just in the last 10 or so years here, when President Obama got elected in 2008, our debt was roughly around eight or 9 trillion.

Today it's at close to 32 trillion.

And so what I would tell you is both parties are at blame here in terms of adding to the debt.

During COVID, we added roughly 6 1/2 trillion dollars to the debt.

And so you look at where we're at today.

The scary part, H is if you pull the country, it doesn't even register in the top 10 list of things people are concerned about because it doesn't affect people on a daily basis.

But when you think about that debt, what it does is it's caused us to spend a lot more in terms of interest on the debt and people buying our treasury bonds.

We have not had the ability in Washington D.C. to get our spending under control.

And so that has to change.

The other thing that I think people need to be aware of is you look at our federal budget on a yearly basis, now roughly close to 69% is spent on mandatory programs.

Social security, Medicare, Medicaid and that continues to grow.

And so we have to have a conversation about a couple things.

One is how do we fix social security?

'Cause it's gonna run outta money in roughly 10 years.

It's gonna stop.

And how do we fix these runaway programs in the federal government that we haven't had the ability in a bipartisan way to address?

'Cause we're not gonna have any money left for discretionary spending.

- The debt ceiling, will we default on our budget?

Can the two parties get together on this?

This is critical.

- Well, of course, it is.

What I've said is we cannot default on our obligations.

It would have a devastating effect on the economy of the United States.

And so that is not an option from my point of view.

But what I would say is you have to have a companion conversation about bringing down spending.

I mentioned to you the debt in this country.

We have to have a conversation about how we get our spending under control.

And what I've said is everything needs to be on the table.

Defense spending needs to be on the table, which many of my colleagues have not had the ability to look critically at defense spending.

But we have to figure out, even if it's freezing the spending that we've done at the levels a year ago or two years ago, we need to think about doing that.

But if we have a conversation, we talk about spending reductions I think that will help us get over the hump of the debt ceiling raising the debt ceiling.

But the problem is, the Biden administration has said, "We're not gonna have any conversation about spending reductions," which I think you cannot do that.

Every president from President Obama to President Trump to Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have always negotiated on spending cuts as a part of the debt ceiling, we need to do that here.

- Let's turn our attention to the banking system.

All of a sudden, we're worried about what we thought was a solid banking system.

SVB, Signature Bank in New York.

Now Credit Suisse over in Europe.

Do we need more regulation in the banking system?

- Well, a couple things.

First of all, we need to figure out and get to the bottom of what happened with the Silicon Valley Bank.

I'm not sure we know all the details of what occurred there.

I'm not one that thinks you're gonna go in and bail out billionaires and others if they were not doing things the correct way.

So I think we need to find that out.

That's number one.

Number two, I'm not in favor of federalizing our banking system.

I think you still have to have diversity in the banking system when it comes to that.

But there's no doubt over the last week to 10 days, this has raised alarm bells on lax regulation, not having oversight on what's supposed to be being done.

The banks that I associate with here in my district, they do things the right way.

They follow the rules, they follow the structure, they follow the proper regulations.

I wanna make sure that's being done and where it's not being done, we need to hold them accountable.

Congress will play a role in that.

I think we'll have a number of hearings here coming up in the next month, the six weeks, with an investigation.

And if people did violate the law, you need to prosecute them through the US Department of Justice to hold them accountable.

- Let's turn our attention to Ukraine.

Two issues before we get into the war.

An SU27 Russian fighter dropped fuel on a Reaper drone, a US Reaper drone, and then whether intentional or not, it clipped the propeller of that drone and then the US ditched it into the bottom of the Black Sea.

What concerns do you have over Russian interference in international airspace?

- Well, clearly, they violated international airspace by intercepting or we're still finding out the details but taking down our drone.

There needs to be, again a review of that and find out exactly what happened.

But as we get further into this conflict and to hold the Russians accountable for their what I believe is an illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, there's gonna continue to be instances like this where there is gonna be confrontations between US military power and the Russians.

But again, I go back to what Putin has engaged in here.

Putin, in my view, is a brutal dictator.

He is an authoritarian.

He had no justification or legality for the invasion of Ukraine.

And I've generally supported aid for Ukraine and military support.

I did not support the last tranche because we haven't had a proper audit.

This is a lot of federal taxpayer money that we've been giving you the Ukrainians.

And we gotta make sure that we know where that money is being spent, how that money is being spent.

So we're gonna continue to look at that and have proper oversight in the Congress.

- Just this week, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Slovenia, all committed to supplying various military aid to Ukraine.

Are you suggesting that we might pull back some of our support?

- I think it has to be a combination of things.

One is we do need more support from our like-minded allies in the European theater.

Those include the Germans, the English, you mentioned the the Swedes and the Finnish, and a number of those others.

They have much more at stake than we do.

So I think it has to be a concerted effort with our allies to support them more.

Secondly, I am in favor of helping the Ukrainians and helping Zelensky, but it cannot be a blank check.

We have to make sure we know where every nickel and dime is spent of us taxpayer money and is being spent wisely and the proper way there.

But there is no doubt that, let's also remember who Putin's number one ally is here.

It's Xi Jinping in China.

He talks about an unbreakable bond between the Chinese and Putin.

Again, we gotta keep that in mind.

And then who is the other ally that Putin has?

It's the Iranians.

The largest state sponsor of terrorism supplying them drones right now.

I mean, I believe in this conflict, the world is isolated against Putin here.

But we gotta make sure we win because the Chinese wanna see us defeated there, and so do the Russians - Turning to the border on the south with Mexico.

President Biden in early January instituted some more strict regulations and illegal crossings dropped by about 40% by February.

Do you believe that we need, and he wants to create more regulations to make it more strict.

In fact he wants to replace Title 42.

Do you support such a move?

- Well, I don't think the Biden administration has done hardly anything on the border.

If you look at the fact that in the first two years of the Biden administration, he never went there once until about six weeks ago after the Republicans took over in the house, he made his first trip to El Paso.

It's unfortunate, H. We've had almost 4 million people come across the border in the last two years illegally.

That's just unacceptable.

We have to support the rule of law.

Now what I've said is we we ought to have legal immigration reform, which I support but it has to be tied to the southern border.

We are a country of laws, we are a country of rules.

I don't think the Biden administration, and I'm not one that says we ought to go out and impeach members of the Biden administration but Secretary Mayorkas has not done anything in terms of securing our border.

And so for the first time, now that we have the majority, we're gonna bring him up, we're gonna put him under oath, and we need answers to these questions on what's being done.

If you look back under the Trump administration a couple things that they did well there is they worked with the Mexican government so that we stopped most of these illegal immigrants on the Mexican side.

We worked with their military, we worked with their security apparatus.

So they were stopped there.

Now they could apply for asylum.

They could apply to become US citizens.

They could go through the process but it was done on the Mexican side.

We just saw in the last couple days here, we had a rush of over a thousand illegal migrants that tried to cross the border.

The last point that I would make is we're finding out now that many of these people trying to cross are not from Central America or Mexico.

We just had 12 Uzbekistan citizens try to cross into the United States.

We have many from South America that are coming.

We have Russians that are trying to come across the border.

And then you couple that with fentanyl that continues to come across our border, those are things that are very concerning.

- Do you support an expansion of building more wall?

- Listen, there are sec.

What I've done, H, is I listen to the people at the border.

Those are the border patrol agents.

I think there are sections of the border where a wall or some type of barrier can work.

I also think technology can work along the border but we're not clearly gonna have a wall along the entire southern border.

But we ought to listen to the border patrol agents.

They are extremely frustrated right now with what's happening at the border.

- We continue to have mass shootings defined as four or more not including the the shooter being killed or injured.

Do you have preferences as to how we address this issue?

And if you would please, address the question of mental health assault rifles and red flag laws.

- Well, we've had way too many tragic shootings in this country, mass shootings.

Whether involving schools in Uvalde whether they're involving a nightclub, whether they've involved other family settings.

And so way too many- - In Illinois Highland Park - Highland Park, exactly, on 4th of July.

But what's the common denominator with most of these shootings is mental illness or behavioral health with people that commit these shootings.

And so, listen, I've been very, very supported in Congress in the last seven and a half years for more funding for mental health, more funding for behavioral health.

I just helped secure over $2 million for the new facility we're building here at Heddington Oaks in Peoria.

We need to have more funding for mental health and behavioral health.

That's the bottom line.

Number two, if you look at the laws that we have on the books right now, federally, if you're a convicted felon, you can't have a weapon.

If you've been diagnosed or been designated with mental illness, you can't possess a weapon.

If you've been convicted of domestic violence, either at the misdemeanor or federal level, you can't have a weapon.

We are not properly enforcing the rules of law that we have on the books.

We need more prosecutors, we need more law enforcement, we need the Department of Justice to prosecute people more for the laws that we have on the books.

That's number two.

Red flag laws.

I'm in favor of states implementing those red flag laws.

Florida just implemented one that's been somewhat effective there.

Other states have good examples of where those have been effective.

Illinois at the state level has proposed a number of those also.

So I'm a proponent of states implementing red flag logs in their own jurisdictions.

- Let's look at, there's several acts and laws that are expiring this year.

The farm bill, every five years, the farm bill comes up for renewal.

And for the audience's benefit 80% of that is for snap, but it still affects farmers.

You used to be on the agricultural committee.

What's your take on what we should do with the farm law, which I think expires in September?

- So we reauthorize the farm bill every five years.

It will expire at the end of this year.

I like to remind people, H, in the state of Illinois, the number one industry in our state is agriculture.

I have one of the largest ag districts in the country in terms of corn and soybean production.

We continue to lead the nation.

This last year, it was the 10th out of 11 years we've led the nation in soybean production.

This year, we led the nation in corn production.

We beat Iowa this year for the first time in five years.

I reminded Senator Grassley of that, that we beat them.

Actually, Iowa had a little bit of a drought in the western part of their, but we beat them this year.

But the point is agriculture, good farm policy is important for the country.

And so I take this role very seriously, being a member of Congress and having a say in the farm bill.

So crop insurance becomes very important for our farmers.

Environmental policy becomes important.

RFS, the renew renewable fuel standard that we use ethanol for becomes important.

And lastly, in the trade space, creating more markets and more opportunities for our farmers to get products around the world.

- One concern might be Mexico.

We've been exporting, we're the number one importer of US corn.

They originally said January, 2024, that they would stop taking genetically modified corn.

They appear to have extended that to January, 2025.

But nonetheless, that could be a huge impact on central Illinois farmers, all farmers in terms of exporting corn.

- Yeah, well a couple things on that.

The USMCA trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that was implemented under the Trump administration but was passed in a bipartisan way in the Congress, as I review that trade agreement, what the Mexicans are trying to do now in banning GMO corn I think is a violation of that.

So this week actually, there's a delegation of US trade negotiators that are in Mexico City talking about this very issue here.

We believe there are ramifications of violating that trade agreement that could be put in place as far as penalties.

I hope we don't get to that.

We're trying to negotiate and convince the Mexicans that they're wrong on this.

And we hope to have a resolution on that.

If for some reason that doesn't happen.

I think we're looking at our options.

- We know that we've had problems with on-time performance of airlines.

Pilot shortage equipment, any number of issues.

The FAA authorization expires I believe in September of this year.

What might Congress do in reauthorizing this to improve plane service?

- It's an important reauthorization.

The FAA reauthorization.

And I'm not on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is in charge of that.

But we've had a number of near misses this year that have happened.

We've had a number of of unfortunate occasion that has raised awareness to a level that we need to be focused.

We had the incident with Southwest Airlines where a lot of people are left stranded over the holidays and has caused people to really question a number of the airlines and their policies.

FAA plays an important role with oversight, making sure that the airline system is run efficiently, effectively, and is accountable to the passengers.

This FAA reauthorization that we now have an opportunity, I think we're gonna look at those things.

I'm not always in favor of regulation by the federal government, but when airlines and the private sector can't self-regulate themselves or they're putting passengers in jeopardy, safety wise, then we have to step in and do that.

I think we're prepared to do that and they're gonna be looking at lots of different opportunities to be involved in that reauthorization.

- The congressman, the pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration authorization expires later this year.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe CO2 pipelines are in that administration right now.

We've got a proposal for a CO2 pipeline coming through Central Illinois.

What can Congress do to make sure that we address safety issues, not just of CO2 pipelines, which would be a fluid running through the pipeline, but all fluids?

- Well, I think it's not exactly on point, but when we saw the hazardous chemicals that unfortunately were part of the train access accident in East Palestine, I think it's raised awareness for all of us.

'Cause that was a rural area.

We have trains that run throughout central Illinois.

But to your point, as it relates to those chemicals and the effect that they could have on a rural area or many of our small towns, I think there's added pressure on members of Congress and attention on this issue to make sure that, again, we're all in favor of the free market system and having access to to these products that can help in our lives whether that's on the energy side, whether that's on the pharmaceutical side or many other things.

But you gotta make sure that there is proper regulation and proper oversight.

So there are not accidents that occur.

And I think this will be under a heightened scrutiny and there'll be a tighter lens put on this.

- I wanna talk about an issue, it's a national issue, but it affected you, apparently.

You revealed recently that the FBI was investigating the name Darin LaHood.

And that's under FISA, the Federal Surveillance Act.

What do you know so far and why did this happen?

- So I raised this with the FBI director in a public hearing last week.

I serve on the House Intelligence Committee.

I'm a former federal prosecutor.

The FISA law, which stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was put in, was passed by the Congress post 9-11 as a way to make sure that our foreign adversaries, terrorists bad people overseas aren't trying to hurt Americans.

Generally, the law has worked fairly well but there have been instances where FISA has been abused.

Violation of civil liberties with American citizens, violation of privacy rights of American citizens.

And there are many examples of that.

Every five years we have to reauthorize and relook whether FISA's working appropriately.

We also saw FISA was abused under the Carter page investigation that involved the search warrant under FISA for the Russian collusion and investigating President Trump.

And what we found out there, H, was there was blatant violations by the FBI.

So what happened last week is I raised that and I also raised that it was my opinion that my name had been put in as a query in 2017 and 2018.

The FBI director, who I had in front of me, admitted that there were many mistakes made through FBI agents in their not complying with the law.

So we raised that.

What the FBI director said is they have now changed their protocols as of 2021 to make sure those type of things don't happen.

That they cannot query people's names unless they have a valid reason for doing that.

So they have implemented changes on that.

Now remember, we have to reauthorize FSA by the end of this year.

I'm the chair of that working group.

What we wanna make sure is we put in safeguards, we put in protections, we put in revisions to the law to make sure that people's civil liberties and privacy is protected.

So how are we doing that?

In our working group, we're working in a bipartisan way to address this issue.

What I say all the time, H, is 85% of FISA works very effectively.

We help to stop terrorist attacks on this country, we help to protect our troops, we help our intelligence community.

But the 15% or maybe 10% that hasn't worked appropriately, we need to fix it.

And that's what we're working on everything from the makeup of the FISA court to the oversight that the Congress should have on of these rogue FBI agents on how we hold them accountable - On a tangential issue, how do we go about monitoring and limiting the impact that domestic terrorism groups have?

- Well, essentially, FISA doesn't deal with that unless there's a foreign nexus on that.

So the issue you're talking about on domestic terrorism, and unfortunately, we've seen it from extremist groups we've seen it from environmental groups, and different hate groups that we've seen in this country.

And so FBI has a domestic terrorism organization that they has oversight over this.

So we have jurisdiction over that.

And so, I think the FBI would tell you that there's still some work that needs to be done there and spying on Americans, there has been somewhat of an issue there and we've seen that in a number of instances there.

So I think there's still some work to be done there.

But it's a tricky situation because again, these are US citizens and the FBI has an obligation responsibility to go to a federal judge to make sure there's probable cause before they go too far.

- Real quickly.

What issue do you want do you feel is most important to address next?

- Well, I think our economy is very important.

We just came out of COVID obviously.

It was very challenging, very disruptive.

The economy has been uncertain in a lot of ways.

We have high inflation, can't find a lot of workers depending on what business you're in.

And we have run out of control spending.

Getting the economy back on track I think is super important.

Trade can play a big role in that.

I don't think we've done enough to expand our trade footprint.

Secondly, I serve on the select committee on China.

China is an existential threat to this country.

We need to wake up to that.

I say this not lightly.

China has a plan to replace us, H, and they're working at it every single day.

We need to be bipartisan in our approach to taking on China.

- And with that, we are out of our half hour of time.

But thank you so much, Congressman Darin LaHood.

Republican of the new 16th Congressional District.

Thank you for being with us on that issue.

- Thank you, H. - We hope that you continue the conversation in your home.

We hope this was, (crackling drowns out speaker).

I'll be back next time with another edition of "At Issue" when we talk to the president of the Illinois Farm Bureau.

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