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When Chip Roy was a top staffer for Ted Cruz, he was an architect of the Texas senator’s strategy to shut down the government over Obamacare.
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Now, in all likelihood, he’s heading for Congress with a House seat of his own, and top Republicans worry he’s going to make Cruz look like a squishy moderate.
Roy is ready to play hardball with GOP leaders in Congress. He has pledged to support House Freedom Caucus founding chairman Jim Jordan for speaker, and is expected to quickly establish himself as one of the House GOP’s most outspoken and combative members.
As with so many conservatives, however, Roy is treading lightly when it comes to Donald Trump. Once a fierce critic—described by friends as a committed “Never Trump” advocate in 2016, when he was working in support of Cruz’s presidential campaign—the congressional hopeful now talks fondly of the president, praising his assault on “the swamp” and sharing his concern about a “deep state” acting as a shadow government.
And while most Republicans campaigning for Congress this November are touting the accomplishments of President Trump and his GOP majorities: tax reform, regulatory relief and a soaring number of federal judicial appointments. In the deep-red 21st congressional district of Texas, Roy is running on a different message: Republicans haven’t done nearly enough.
“If there is a thousand miles to go, we’ve gone maybe 50 miles,” Roy tells POLITICO’S “Off Message” podcast. “So now, we’ve got to focus on the things that the people really want to see done. We’ve got to have health care freedom, we’ve got to balance the budget and we’ve got to secure the border.”
In San Antonio, we discussed all of this—as well as the border wall, the Cruz-O’Rourke Senate race and the state’s demographic future—for this week’s edition of “Off Message.”
This transcript has been edited for length, readability and clarity.
Alberta: You were the ghostwriter for former Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Book, “Fed Up!,” which served as the springboard for his 2012 presidential campaign. A controversial passage in that book was about Social Security and comparing it to a Ponzi scheme. There was a time Republicans prioritized entitlement reform. And yet today, with a unified Republican government, there has been no meaningful action. Why do you think that is?
Roy: What has changed is the willingness of Republicans to do the hard work of governing and focusing on the very central issues that they need to and roll their sleeves up and work. And one of the reasons, I think, is that both parties have gotten so focused on retaining power.
That reference in the book was recognizing that you’ve got a system structured like a Ponzi scheme—where you’ve got all the money coming into it now from those who aren’t retiring to fund those who are retiring, and when you get upside down with the baby boomer generation, you don’t [have] the resources to do it. The math just doesn’t add up. Now, we’ve got unfortunately, Republicans who, what did they just do in September? Passed a massive spending bill; it’s going to be upwards of $800 billion, $750 billion of deficit spending and we’re heading to trillion-dollar deficit spending again. This is the party that six years ago, was campaigning against the president [saying], “We need fiscal responsibility. We need to reduce deficits.”
Alberta: In 2010, when that Tea Party wave first came to Washington—and then two years later when that second Tea Party wave came, with your former boss, Ted Cruz—the message was clear and very urgent: America was in danger of going over the cliff if something was not done dramatically to change course. But President Trump has made little mention of reducing the debt, reducing the deficit, cutting spending. He talked during the campaign about it being a great time to borrow. He is not someone who has ever campaigned on this idea of fiscal responsibility that seemed fundamental to what Republicans stood for.
Roy: I think if you take a step back and see what’s been accomplished in the last 20 months, we’ve seen things that make us happy. But you are rightfully pointing out that some of these core issues that drive not just [the] conservative base—not just Obamacare repeal, but health care freedom, border security, other issues where we have not seen them get it across the finish line. I am basically of the belief that this is it. If Republicans are given another chance this November, I’m hopeful that we will still be in the majority and have the chance to do the right thing. If we’re given that responsibility and fail, woe is us, because I don’t think we’re going to get any more bites at the apple.
Alberta: In many ways, Trump’s rise could be pegged to the failure of the Republican Party to deliver on many of its promises during the previous five or six years of the Obama administration, since 2010.
Roy: Sure, that’s right.
Alberta: What would you say is the difference today between conservatism and Trumpism?
Roy: Conservatism, at its core, is a belief in the Constitution, limited government, and giving people the ability to live their lives unfettered by government interferences so that we preserve and protect the liberties that God gave us. And we believe that generates wealth and opportunity and—importantly—empowers people at communities and the state level to be able to do the things we want to do to help one another.
Whether it’s the Christian principles of wanting to help your neighbor and do unto others or whatever it might be driving your morality, we believe in doing good, helping people through charities, through community action, through churches, through Boy Scouts or groups and organizations. That is the conservative ethos, and unfortunately, the actions in Washington get everything focused on Washington action to “solve problems,” [which] seeps into the supposedly conservative mindset and rhetoric. And they feel like, “Well, we’ve got to go do something.” And that results in more government spending and more programs and takes us farther away from our core constitutional values.
I’m not sure I can define—or even want to try to define—Trumpism versus conservatism. What we see right now is that the swamp or the establishment or the status quo or whatever you want to call the inner workings of Washington, D.C.—which were not working—needed to be challenged. And that challenge began years ago.
It began when Mike Lee was elected instead of Bob Bennett, Ted Cruz instead of David Dewhurst, Rand Paul instead of Trey Grayson in Kentucky, Marco Rubio instead of Charlie Crist in Florida. Those were tectonic shifts in the party, and we saw the rise of the Freedom Caucus. You’ve now got a block of people in Washington saying, “I’m going to represent the people and the conservative values that the people sent me here to represent.” And that’s at odds with the power brokers [who] want to maintain control at all costs.
Alberta: But it seems that Trump has very successfully not just remade the party in his image, but coalesced the party behind him. And I’m wondering, as a guy who is going to join the House Freedom Caucus, is that a source of concern for you when you think about runaway spending, when you think more broadly about Article One? We heard so much about Article One during the Obama years from conservatives on the Hill. You don’t hear much about it anymore.
Roy: Well, you’ll hear me use the phrase “Make Article One great again,” which I’ve said is really important no matter who is in the White House. The job of Congress [is] to check the executive branch no matter who is there. Whether it’s free-trade issues, NAFTA, whatever it might be.
If you look at the last 20 months, a lot of great things have occurred. We’re stronger on the international stage; people are respecting us. Judges are in place, regulations, taxes, leaving more money in the hands of the people, 4 percent economic growth. But there is much to be done. If there [are] a thousand miles to go, we’ve gone maybe 50 miles. So now, we’ve got to focus on the things that the people really want to see done. We’ve got to have health care freedom, we’ve got to balance the budget and we’ve got to secure the border.
To your point, the Freedom Caucus is representing the interests of the people who sent them there. Jim Jordan’s race for speaker—what’s his mantra? “Do what we said we would do.” I agree with that; I don’t think it’s that hard. What the leadership tried to do with the health care bill last year was look at the American people and say, “We’re passing [an] Obamacare repeal,” when it did no such thing. It was false. Don’t do that anymore. Honor your commitment to repeal Obamacare and don’t hide behind Senate rules when you do it. They had the opportunity to pass full Obamacare repeal, but ran away from it.
Alberta: You mentioned the concept of checks and balances. I think over the last 21 months on Capitol Hill, many Republicans will acknowledge that they have not been sufficiently aggressive in checking the Trump administration—certainly as far as oversight is concerned. Do you share that concern? For instance, there are concerns about Trump’s financial interests in foreign countries. Do you believe that the president should release his tax returns? Or if not, that the legislative branch should compel him to do so?
Roy: I think we should have a robust debate in the Congress and decide if it’s in the interests of the country to have every president release every tax return. Is Congress going to release every tax return? Every member of Congress, every member that’s being brought up for confirmation? If Congress wants to look at that, fine. But where are we in actually solving the problems that people right here at home are concerned about?
Alberta: Let’s talk about Texas. There are many Republicans in the delegation who feel that President Trump’s concept of a border wall is not feasible and that it would not be effective. And there is some conversation coming out of the White House that he has begun to understand that his initial vision is not something that’s really executable. If you, Chip Roy, were placed in charge of securing the border—as it relates to the issue of a physical barrier—what would you like to see?
Roy: I was just down in Laredo, down with the Border Patrol. And of the 72 miles of the Laredo sector, how many miles do you think has not a fence, not a wall, but even a road that allows you to navigate parallel to the Rio Grande? Two miles. They can only navigate two miles of that whole sector. Cartels have operational control of the other side of the river. [Border Patrol has] no cell signal often. They often don’t have a radio signal, and they’re being asked to man our border and to secure it.
The result is that MS-13 has strengthened. The result is that cartels choose who comes across the river, and if you try to come across yourself through a coyote, you are at the mercy of the cartels. We’ve allowed that to be the case: Women getting sold and children getting sold into the sex trafficking business; children riding on the top of train cars.
We’ve allowed that to become a broken system that is bad for immigrants and bad for our sovereignty. So what do you do to fix it? Of course you need physical barriers. In Southern California in the mid-1990s, there was no real fencing on a good chunk of the border, and we had over 600,000 apprehensions per year in Southern California. Now, we have triple-layer fencing in Southern California. Those apprehensions are down to the 30,000 range. Now, people say, “Well, it didn’t work: People have migrated to Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.” That indicates it actually worked.
Texas has unique features. We’ve got ranchers [who] need access to the Rio Grande. We’ve got Big Bend National Park, where you’ve got a lot of beautiful vistas. Fine, you know what? Start down in the Gulf of Mexico, start down in Brownsville, start down in the valley working up the river. Build fences, clear the cane, make sure that [Border Patrol agents] have the resources they need—cameras and radios and better cell signals. When you get to a rancher and that rancher says, “Well, I need access to the river.” “Awesome. We’re going to give you a 100-yard opening or a 500-yard opening or whatever you need, and then we’ll put cameras and we’ll make sure there’s a Border Patrol person manning that post.”
Alberta: If, in fact, you go to Congress, describe to me your mentality coming in. Obviously, you worked as chief of staff for Sen. Cruz, and he—and you along with him—developed reputations as sort of sharp-elbowed operators in those first couple of years when he was on the Hill. Most famously with the government shutdown in 2013.
I’ve talked to some folks in town, and some of the leadership folks and their allies are a little nervous about Chip Roy—“This guy is going to be to the right of the Freedom Caucus.” And then I talk to folks in the conservative movement who are thrilled. They think that they’re getting a needed reinforcement and a guy who, quite frankly, might not go weak at the knees the way that some of the other so-called conservatives in Washington have. How do you view your role in today’s Republican Party if you arrive in Congress next year?
Roy: My job is to set the baseline. I don’t want to have a discussion about health care freedom or repealing Obamacare that starts with the false notion that somehow pre-existing conditions governs how you establish insurance and structure it—we’re viewing through the lens of insurance coverage instead of making sure that people have access to doctors and can afford health care.
So you reset the baseline. It’s the same thing with spending. We should walk in there and say, “We’re not going to pass anything until we’ve passed a five-year balanced budget.”
Alberta: But institutions are slaves to the status quo. You know this from having come up to Capitol Hill with Ted Cruz. Even in that moment, in that era of the Tea Party being ascendant, while there were some gains made, ultimately, the things you’re talking about—balanced budget amendment and cutting spending—were not realized. So would it require some sort of dramatic change in the leadership of Congress or in the processes of Congress for these things to happen?
Roy: It might, and we’ll see what happens. But I’ll tell you, process does matter. That’s kind of what I’m getting at. We ought to think about this differently. We shouldn’t be thinking about it in terms of all of the discussions that happen behind closed doors and then come together and say, “OK.” The leadership drops the bill and says, “This is the bill.”
Alberta: I know from your time with Ted Cruz that you were not always a fan of Donald Trump, that you had been sort of vocally opposed to him at various points. I dug up this tweet from February 2016—in the heat of primary season—where you said, “@RealDonaldTrump Supports Planned Parenthood, which kills babies and puts them in a freezer, government funding of healthcare and Palestine.” Has your thinking evolved on Trump?
Roy: We should all be extremely critical and circumspect of anybody running for office. That’s our job as Americans. Whether it’s Ted Cruz, whether it’s Donald Trump, whether it’s somebody in the Congress, whether it’s me, we should all be looking at it through the eye of, “Are you doing what you said you would do? Are you representing me the way I think you should? Are you following the Constitution?” I was viewing it through that lens, and I think it was reasonable for Americans to go, “Well, wait a minute. Who are you and what are you about?” I knew what Senator Cruz was about. I had prayed alongside him. I had worked side by side with him. I knew where he was.
So we saw the campaign unfold and I did my job to push back and try to make sure that we got Senator Cruz elected. On May 3rd of 2016, that went a different way, and I think that the president should be viewed through the lens of what he’s doing for the country. I don’t always agree with him on every way he tweets or everything he says, but if you look through what we’ve accomplished, it is truly hard to be critical from a conservative perspective on a lot of fronts. I’d like [the Trump administration] to be better on spending, but I really think that if you look through what we’ve accomplished on regulatory relief, on tax relief, on judges, on the embassy in Jerusalem, on taking on the swamp and truly changing the game in Washington from that perspective, it’s hard to argue with those results, even if I might have an issue with one or two things. You don’t agree with everybody, as they say.
Alberta: As you campaign on the ground in your congressional district, what strikes you about the Beto O’Rourke campaign? Have you seen anything that gives you concern that he could stage a historic upset over Ted Cruz?
Roy: No. I expect Senator Cruz to win, and I believe that [it] will be a sound victory. But we’ll see. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’re working hard to make sure that happens for him and for others up and down the ticket.
In terms of the Beto-mania, if you spend $4 million and blanket the state with signs so that there’s a bunch of cool hipster black signs all over the state of Texas, people get the sense of enthusiasm. But on the ground, the response has been almost inverted. Republicans are going, “Wait a minute? Why are those signs everywhere? Well, we need to show up to vote.”
Alberta: In fairness, he has had a number of rallies where tens of thousands of people have come out. So there does seem to be quite a bit of organic enthusiasm.
Roy: Sure, but you look at those rallies and you start looking at who is there and why they’re there, right? There was this rally in Austin with Willie Nelson. And I’m a big fan of Willie Nelson. My wife’s and my first date was a Willie Nelson concert at Stubb’s Barbecue in Austin. My cocker spaniel is named Nelson. But Willie is a known liberal, right? This is not surprising. They have a concert down on the lake in Austin and you’ve got tens of thousands of people that show up. That’s Austin. There should be no real surprise. Governor Perry, remember the line he used to use: “The blueberry in the tomato soup”? That is Austin, Texas.
Alberta: We’ve heard for years about the changing demographics and the state gradually shifting from red to purple and purple to blue. You have some Republicans looking long term—Will Hurd has talked about the future of Texas elections of being won between the 40-yard lines. But that would seem to run counter to the approach taken by Ted Cruz, taken by Attorney General [Ken] Paxton, Lt. Gov. [Dan] Patrick. I’m curious whether you view the demographic changes in Texas as precipitating an evolution within the Republican Party in Texas?
Roy: A number of thoughts. First is this assumption by too many on the left—and frankly, even, the right or center-right—that Hispanic voters will vote monolithically and in bloc for Democrats. I don’t believe that the evidence backs that up. And I think that is particularly true as we’re seeing strong economic growth and opportunity for Hispanic business owners and low unemployment rates for Hispanics and blacks throughout the country.
I go back to my rhetoric and my philosophical belief that we have got to unite our country again around the idea of we can agree to disagree, and then let Texas figure out what’s in its best interests and let California do the same. If you do that, you de-escalate politics. You lower the heat on all of the discussion and the divisiveness and all of the rhetoric. Because people aren’t fighting over every single issue. Let Texas do what we want to do. If California wants to ban straws, have at it. If we want to have a debate in Texas about the right gun policies and what we think works, great. I think that’s the future of the country. That’s the future of Texas.
Alberta: One thing you talk about in your campaign is this idea of a “deep state” that is in some sense acting as a shadow government—unchecked and out of control. It’s interesting because often, the most damaging leaks to President Trump have come from within his West Wing from folks close to him. When you talk about the deep state, what exactly do you mean and what is your real concern?
Roy: Well, first of all, I think a lot of those leaks kind of dissipated once they established some order. But if you look at what’s happened throughout the administration, you’ve seen the pushback from deep within the bowels of each of the agencies. I don’t want to name names, but people I know are working in different agencies. There are very specific, very direct stories of people [who] are entrenched bureaucrat[s] who hide something from the political decision-makers who have been empowered by the duly elected president of the United States to make something happen contrary to what the president or the secretary might want to do.
This is not a partisan issue. If, for example, Secretary [Betsy] DeVos at the Department of Education wants to try to push school choice, and there’s some bureaucrat that she’s hired who is a conservative school-choice advocate, if a future president comes in and a secretary of Education doesn’t want to advance that policy, that policy shouldn’t be being advanced by an unelected person deep within the Department of Education. This is why I believe a lot of that needs to be thinned out so that we don’t have those issues. Why do we have these massive entities up there that are largely unchecked?
Alberta: You’ve brought us full circle from talking about Rick Perry and his “oops” moment. If you were king for a day, would you eliminate any of these departments or agencies?
Roy: I think so, but it’s kind of like talking about the wall. I don’t want to refer to it as metaphorical as much as I just want the power eliminated and the number of people making these decisions unchecked reduced. I want spending reduced on all these things. The number of agencies is almost academic. Fine, eliminate one of them. Could you take some of the pieces of the Department of Energy, with all due respect to my former boss who is currently the secretary, and put it at the Department of Defense because it’s nuclear-related? It’s like a corporate reorganization. You can reorganize all you want; the question is where’s the decision-making occurring? How many bureaucrats are there doing it? How much of that should be being done in Washington or not?
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