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Rep. Chip Roy: ‘The Senate should not convict President Trump’ on House Democrats’ ‘political’ and ‘dangerous’ impeachment articles

January 27, 2021

Representative Chip Roy (TX-21) appeared on One America News Network's After Hours with Alex Salvi earlier this week to discuss the Biden Administration's destructive actions on energy production and immigration, his opposition to the current impeachment effort against Donald Trump, and the current deployment of National Guardsmen to the United States Capitol.

A rough transcript of the appearance is below, and footage can be found here.

OANN Host Alex Salvi: Joining us now for a response on the Democratic agenda and how Republicans should respond is representative Chip Roy, the congressman serving the twenty first district of Texas. So, congressman we where just laying out for example the first five days of the Biden administration, and how many things said on the campaign trail that weren't pressed for example are now coming to light so when we look at what the Biden administration is doing and the way it's really taking shape, do you have concerns about the way it's going to govern.

Congressman Chip Roy: Well to say I have concerns is an understatement frankly. I mean we knew this was coming, but now seeing it in broad daylight, you know and the first week an assault on prosperity, an assault on the energy freedom that the United States lead by Texas which I'm proud to represent has been leading the world. A direct assault on fracking, a direct assault on our leading energy industry, and now what we're seeing at the border which is a complete travesty, wide open borders, empowering cartels, endangering Americans, endangering immigrants who seek to come here, all in the false name of compassion which pretty much classifies the Biden administration. I'm getting a little sick and tired of people saying well give them their honeymoon. I don't have any interest in giving someone their honeymoon to decimate my country and that's exactly what the Biden administration is doing right now. We're going to push back. I introduced legislation to defund the effort for the Biden administration to rejoin the Pairs agreement, which was a terrible agreement. We've out preformed the Paris Agreement because we've relied on innovation and the great work of Texans and Americans. So, we're going to keep fighting the fight for the United States and not let the Biden Administration roll over the people.

Salvi: You know even when you lay out all those subjects when you talk about fracking for example, we could talk about doing away with the Remaining in Mexico Policy, and really kind of giving a message to a lot of illegal immigrants that maybe now is the time to come into the country and we know what that does for wages for average Americans here, and I think when we look at all of these issues as well I think the media did a real dis-service to the working class American because they're not necessarily educated, or they didn't necessarily vet these candidates about these policies enough. I mean fracking was one for example where we were told time and time again that they wouldn't do away with it and day one we're looking at them really doing away with fracking on federal lands, a lot of things they promised they wouldn't do. So, did the media really do a lot of people a dis-service during the campaign.

Congressman Roy: Well I certainly think the media was part of it, there's a lot of. I think social media needs to do a better job of highlighting facts instead of noise. We all need to be better about that but look let's look at exactly what the Biden administration is doing. You mentioned fracking and you mentioned what's happening. You know what's going to happen to our jobs in Texas, what's going to happen to our jobs in the United States, what's going to happen to the price of oil and natural gas. The United States has driven CO2 levels down to 1990 levels. So, for all of you out there who run around clamoring CO2 is going to be the calamity of us, We the United States has driven down CO2 levels more than any body on the planet by using innovation. China, India, the rest of the world is pumping out CO2, they're pumping out disastrous, harmful actual pollutants into our atmosphere, and what are we doing we're going after a bunch of lefties, and the welfare state of Europe. Saying that we need to go feel good about ourselves in the Paris agreement so that I don't know John carry can go skiing in Davos or whatever the hell they do, and we need to actually focus on our job to protect the American people.

Salvi: And especially coming out of a pandemic to, I mean there are many Americans right now that are struggling, I think it's something like one in five small businesses are looking like they're going to close down for good. There are many things that, for example the American people want our elected leaders to act on, but I think it's worth pointing out right now to that many democrats are focused on impeaching a now private citizen Donald Trump. I know that you for example said that perhaps the president did commit impeachable offenses, but you ultimately voted against the articles of impeachment. Can you really lay out your argument and really how you think that congress should be responding from this point forward?

Congressman Roy: Yeah absolutely. I mean look if I where the united states senate and I was of course the Chief of Staff, Senator Ted Cruz, and I know the Senate very well. The sente should not convict President Trump. I think the articles of impeachment that where put forward by the House Democrats where political, they where flawed, there a danger of free speech, they're a danger to the Speech and Debate Clause that we have for members of Congress to be able to speak freely, and for politicians to be able to speak freely so we can have that free exchange of ideas. And I think that the articles of impeachment where flawed. Now I said publicly and I will say it here, I think the President of the United States, President Trump made a grave mistake when he was pressuring Vice President Pence to ignore his constitutional duty to count the electors to count the votes that are in front of him, that day in the United States Congress. I wish he hadn't done that. I think that that was something that did present impeachable offenses, but the bottom line is House Democrats do what they always do; they pursued something politically. They didn't slow down and have some discussion about what transpired on January 6th, and instead they're politicizing free speech. They're politicizing incitement. The president didn't incite anybody sitting down on the mall in Washington D.C. What the president did wrong was pressure the vice president to ignore his constitutional duty to count the electors. I think the president will know that in time, I think history will bear that out, but right now the Senate should move on, they shouldn't convict under these flawed articles of impeachment.

Salvi: And of course, using the same pretext of the January 6th, event. We've seen an influx of troops brought into Washington D.C, we've seen even some of them be treated rather poorly. There was reports of last week saying a lot of them where asked to sleep in a parking garage before that situation was eventually figured out, and I know that you wrote on this very subject. Could you break down really what your argument is when it comes to the use of the national guard troops and maybe even some of the hypocrisy when it comes to this issue?

Congressman Roy: Yeah sure, well first of all we look at the raw numbers brought in by Democrats into Washington D.C a lot of that was for show, they were trying to use that to make a political point. I wish they hadn't done that, they had numbers that far exceeded our numbers of military that we got in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what I wrote was that we're doing a disservice to our men and women in uniform. I mean putting them in the position of sleeping on concrete in garages. Which is an absolute travesty but let's look at what we're doing by not actually voting on the authorization of the use of military force. Congress needs to put its mouth where its money is. Stop funding endless wars, stop sending our men and women in uniform to just be constantly in the Middle East and in places where we don't do out job to actually stand up as a body, reflecting the American people, and stand up and vote on our authorization of force. There are men and women in uniform today who are enlisted who were not alive when we passed the authorization of force that they're operating under today. That is wrong, we need to do our job. I said this before the election. I'll say it after the election, and I'll say it on the floor of the House no matter who's in charge of it. We need to do our job.

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