State of the Union: Interview With Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX)

Interview

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Dana, thank you for having me. And happy Easter from San Antonio.

A special shout-out to a happy birthday to Jackie (ph), my 4-year-old. He's our Easter baby.

On this ruling -- I have six children. I am a prolific pro-lifer, and I think it's important that we protect the sanctity of life. I believe in state rights. Here in Texas, we have a heart bill -- heartbeat bill that was passed. And I think it's important that states dictate their futures.

And we have to have the courts uphold these. I mean, it's very dangerous when you have the administration, the Biden administration, coming out and saying they may not uphold a ruling. As an appropriator on the House Republican side, I look at it, the House Republicans have the power of the purse.

And if the administration wants to not lead this ruling -- not live up to this ruling, then we're going to have a problem. And it may be -- come a point where House Republicans on the appropriation side have to defund FDA programs that don't make sense.

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Well, the states started this. The states had their ruling, and now the federal government is coming in and dictating theirs. I think it's important that we have to get back and allow our institutions to lead. We can't undermine them when we don't agree with things that are there, whether it's on the state level. Look, I'm from Texas. We don't have marijuana here. Marijuana is in California and other places.

If those are the kind of things that your community wants, then work it through your state, work it through the federal level. But we have to uphold our institutions. It's dangerous when we erode them.

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No, I think it's important that we take care of women and we -- it's important that we have real discussions on women's health care and get off the abortion. Get off the abortion conversation.

Women have a whole lot more other issues than just abortion. Let's have those real conversations, and let's talk about -- let's talk about the other things that are happening in this world. I have got a picture of Emily -- Emilia and Maria. They recently passed away three weeks ago due to a smuggler in my district.

What does that mean? That means there's all these other things happening in the world, especially in my district. I have got a district that's turned upside down due to this border crisis. There's everyday people that are impacted on this crisis, to include the Tambungas.

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What I'm seeing is, both parties want to fight and they want to blame each other for everything that is wrong.

Let's get away with the labels. Done with the labels. Let's get real problems and real solutions to real problems for people that are impacted every single day. When a school shooting happens, it doesn't kill Democrat kids or Republican kids. It kills our kids. How do we come together?

I was proud to support the Safer Communities Act. I would continue to do that. Nobody's talking about this, but after the Safer Communities Act was passed into law, there's been at least a dozen cases in which a similar Uvalde-type shooting was prevented. I think it's a start.

We have to do more. One of the issues that I'm seeing is, I'm having a problem with DOJ getting funding through these stop -- stop school violence grants and cops grants. So what you see in Washington is oftentimes these people fight one another or they give pats on the back. Until that money reaches our schools, like here in San Antonio, nobody is safe.

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These shootings continue to happen everywhere.

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Yes, bipartisan -- it's tough to work with colleagues in today's environment.

You want to demonize one another. That doesn't help us move the ball forward. We have to look beyond that. Going -- going back to kind of what's happening in Tennessee, we have to have an area where people can have nonviolent protests. I think that's important to democracy. I think it's important to our republic that we have those speak out, be vocal in a nonviolent way.

Once it turns into a violent aspect of it, we have to -- we have to cut that out. It has to be at a point where, how do we come together? How do we bring this country together for the betterment of everybody, to include keeping our kids safe in school?

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President Trump is a U.S. citizen. He is a former president, and he is innocent until proven guilty in this country.

And what you're seeing is so many people, because of their political affiliation, are demonizing one another. We have to get back -- we got to get away from that. We got to get back to allowing things to take hold. Once again, I will go back to it. Yes, it's like watching a novella, a Spanish soap opera. You can't look away. I get it. I want to know what Trump had for breakfast just as much as the next person. But, back in my district, we have real problems. We have Emily and the -- Emily and Maria that were killed.

This is what -- this is what the border crisis looks like. Imagine you're a grandmother that picks up your 7-year-old daughter and takes her to a playdate. On your way home, you get killed by a smuggler that is going 100 miles an hour on Facebook Living himself.

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This is what my district is feeling.

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So, yes, it's important what Trump is doing and all these things, but how do we solve real problems?

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I want to see law enforcement empowered.

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I want to see law enforcement have greater training, have greater equipment, and a closer bond with their communities.

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Thank you. Thank you.

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