Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Helping to run the US House of Representatives is no easy task, especially when it is closely divided, as is the case currently. Today we're joined by Representative Tom Emmer, who serves as the House Majority Whip and represents the 6th district of Minnesota. I am Patrick Gilles, National President of the Fraternal Water Police, and this is the Blueview. Well, Representative, thank you. I know that you've got a very busy schedule. There's a lot going on on Hill today, and we appreciate you taking a little time to come, you know, visit us here in our studio and talk about some of the more important issues that are going on in the country right now. Shutdown's over, so now we plan to try to play a little catch up.
First, what I'd like for you to do, if you could just share with our viewers and our listeners a little bit about yourself.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Well, I am the Majority Whip in Congress. That's the number three position in the House speakers, in control of the grounds, the agenda, etc.
The majority leader number two is in charge of the scheduling, the House floor, the calendar, working with chairs of different committees, and when things are ready to come to the floor. And I say, I always say I got the best job because those guys can't be successful unless we perform by getting them the 218 votes that they need to move this stuff ahead to the Senate. So that's the whip. Some people, Pat, would say this is the guy who herds the cats. And I usually correct him and say, I wish they were all cats.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: You wish it were that simple. Now, Yeah. I will tell you that, you know, in every organization and, you know, in Congress is the same.
There are those that, that, that do their job and then those that make things happen.
You've, you've obviously taken a step and said, you know what, I would be more than just a representative for my, for my district. I'm going to make things work here in Washington. I appreciate, I appreciate that. Leadership, not everyone, you know, organizational dynamics. You got those who talk about how they would have done it different. Only a handful actually do it. Right. That's true. So thank you for taking, taking that, that leadership role. So, and, and, and the challenge that you have with it, you know, I'm going to dive right into it. There are, there are a number of bills, some that you've been a big part of. We'll start off with that one with those. But before we get into that, just tell me, look, we came back from, from a shutdown. Obviously, we're coming up into another new year. So I know the calendar is coming out. We've got a, we got a lot of things on the horizon. What do you see on the horizon in the houses, on a house's agenda for the next maybe, you know, three to three, six months.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: So you're correct. I mean we lost 43 days.
It was ridiculous, never should have happened. But now it's behind us.
We're back.
You will see us working late tonight. I think It'll be our third session on the floor. I think it'll begin at 8:15 tonight. We'll do the same thing tomorrow. They've added a day because we usually, they try to make it family friendly. So it's usually a four day week. Right. And then you spend three in your district.
We've gone to five day weeks. We've gone to full days of voting nights voting to move things, to try and make up. And as our majority leader told our conference this morning, we're going to do this as long as it takes to catch up. You know, we're not going to interrupt Thanksgiving. So people will leave on Friday.
They can enjoy working in their district and their families on Thanksgiving. And then we're coming right back. That following week's going to be much like this one and so on. And I think the focus that you will see is not only stuff that you and I are going to talk about, pent up bills that need to move through the House floor and over to the Senate, but you're going to see the appropriations process pick up at a faster pace.
We passed three appropriations bills into law when we opened the government up again, which was a great success.
We're going to try and get the other nine done in short order. I think they're pretty teed up on anywhere from three to six and we got to get that done before that new January 30th date. I'd love to see us be done before the end of December. All that aside, one that they're working on right now is the annual National Defense Authorization act, the NDAA as it's called, that has passed the House and the Senate. They had a little different version from one chamber to the other. So currently it's in conference and I understand it's moving rather quick. We could see that ndaa, the conference report by the first week of December.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Great, great. And that's not far off. No, so that's great, great. You know, in Congress you've been one of the earliest to, to really dive into cryptocurrency, you know, so there's A lot going on with cryptocurrency. A lot of people don't truly understand it.
Anything that's, you know, especially cops, you know, the two things we hate the most are change in status quo. So here we are, we have a whole new currency now, you know, a whole new new platform here. And, and Congress obviously has to play a big part of that as well. There, there are a couple acts that you've been part of, the genius act, and then also the, the, you know, we're looking for both the genius act and the clarity act. Well, how do those things help us understand why they're important?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Well, first I got involved in this space digital assets crypto, more than a decade ago when I first came to Congress.
Why? Because it wasn't about crypto. I don't even own any. What it was about is the next iteration of the web. This is the third iteration.
The kids would call it the ownership economy. What does that mean? It means you will not need intermediaries. I mean right now, even in the current version of the web, let's say you're an aspiring singer and you want to put a song that you produce and sing yourself out in the public square. Well, you got to use a platform like YouTube, right? That's going to be your, your intermediary to get to the public you're trying to reach.
That's fine. You can sell ads too, by the way. You can monetize it by selling ads directly to your site. But you've got to do that in this new web. If you are that same person, you can create a token that literally is your content, your material. You can put that out there and people for pennies, I mean if viral people for pennies are going to be accessing your, your content, that money's going directly to you. That's the next phase of the Internet where you and I can do business together. We don't necessarily have to have a middleman now. That's what got me interested in here's how far we've come. Everybody talked about this as being where all the bad guys hang out is on the Internet. Which is why I love that you say police.
Like don't like two things, status quo and change. That makes a lot of sense. But, but keep in mind, even among your ranks, you've got young officers that are coming up through the ranks right now. They're not like a 64 year old member of Congress. I didn't have a computer that I was working on when I was in high school. Right.
I didn't consume my information from streaming services. I didn't have a phone in my hand that could go with me wherever I wanted. These kids, these young people, I should say young adults have grown up with this since they can remember.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Well look, my VCR still flashes 12 o'. Clock. I'll tell you something right there.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: That's why I had seven kids. So one of them could fix that.
The point is we are moving into the 21st century and you've got officers. I've got one in my, my district.
He's phenomenal. He understands this inside out. He's teaching others because do bad guys. Is this where they all hang out? Look, cash is still king when it comes to fraud and illicit funds moving illicit funds.
Why? Because everything that is involved in cryptocurrency is open and visible to the public that understands how to read code. You may not know who's doing it, but you can see the transactions in real time. A lot of people don't remember the pipeline case, the southern pipeline that was taken hostage by some eastern European something.
They shut it down for like a weekend and held it hostage for bitcoin. Well guess what?
The bitcoin was all recovered because the authorities were able to follow it through the transactional phase and they, they ultimately recovered it all. But that doesn't mean you don't have some bad guys.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: So no question.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: So they've got to. You got to keep training these guys. For me I, it's empowerment of the individual. It goes back to the beginning. The genius act is a. The guidelines for something called stablecoins. What we have done is with the Senate created a guidelines I guess where you can create a dollar back stablecoin. Now think about how important that is. This dollar backed stablecoin I think ultimately will be used domestically. But initially you got to think of examples like the cab driver in Brazil that would love to do business in dollars today, but he can't guess what, with a dollar backed stablecoin he can now do business in dollars. Think about that young lady in Africa that doesn't even have access to the financial system. Guess what? With dollar backed stablecoins she can now have access to the, to the system. The Clarity act is the other side of that coin. You can't have stable coins having, being stable and then have chaos for the rest of the digital assets market. So that piece right now is scheduled to be marked up, the clarity piece which is the rules of the road. The guidelines for everything outside of stablecoins. The market structure Bill is what people would call it. This is so entrepreneur, entrepreneurs and investors, they, we want them to make the investment in this country. So if you have a law that they can look at and say, oh, I see, under these circumstances, I'm going to be considered cash and I'll deal with the Treasury. Under these circumstances, I'm going to be considered a commodity and I'll deal with the cftc. Under these circumstances, I will be a security and my regulator will be the sec.
Once we have that in place, I think you're going to see the whole area just, just grow and hopefully they're going to get marked up, I'm told, in the Senate Thanksgiving, which I think now is a little. They must be having a hearing this week because I haven't followed it since I got back on Monday.
But the goal is to mark it up in the Senate and have it ready to go by the end of the year.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah, you look at the advancement of technology, AI and all these other. One of the things that's always been kind of a stickler for us is when you look at technology, the way it evolves, our laws and our ability to be able to investigate and to follow those crimes are all hampered because we're not keeping up with the pace with the change in technology.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah, but Pat, think about, think about the tools that your members are going to have with AI.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: No, exactly. I mean, financial crimes, the reverse side of that is so do the criminals. So this is constantly a moving target. You know, AI is going to empower us to be much more effective, but it's also going to give the tools to them as well. That's one of the concerns, especially when you come to look at drug laws. You know, we're just not, we. It's difficult for us to maintain the pace. We need to stay at that cutting edge, to give us the tools we need. So this, you know, obviously we need, we need stability. This, this is the new battleground here. This is new playground. It's the new everything.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: It's. It's the new world.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: It's. It is a new world and finding a way to play nice in it and give us the rules and give the rules in order, the tools in order to be able to regulate it.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: You and I are living through the technology age. Our predecessors lived through the industrial age. They lived through the agrarian age. I mean, the Stone age. We are now in the technology, no doubt.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: So I want to shift gears a little bit and I want to talk about something that is so vitally important to our members and that is The Protect and Serve Act. And I want to, I want to set this up by saying, look, you know, this is not, this is not a suggestion that we have a problem in this country. I will argue with you that we have an epidemic. That epidemic is that law enforcement officers are being attacked simply because of the job that they do. And let's just simply look at the numbers so far this year. We're at 299 officers to date. And we still have another month, month and a half to go into this year. 298 officers have been shot in a line of duty. Of that, 41 have died. Probably the most disturbing is 60 of those were ambush attacks.
Well, 60 were shot in 30 separate ambush attacks. These numbers are thankfully a little low than they have been in previous years, where they're in half of what they were before. Point I'm trying to make is, is that as a law enforcement officer, we have never had.
I can give you nine years of empirical data to show that we have an epidemic in this country. Law enforcement officers are being attacked at a percentage that is far greater in occupational hazards than any other industry.
Let me just put it in perspective.
If there was a cave in at a coal mine, and this is nothing against coal miners because everyone has a, should have the right to be able to go to work and have certain standards put in place that can make the job as safe as they possibly can. But if we have a cave in at a coal mine, there will be congressional hearings within a week about the safety of occupational safety of those coal mines. Yet I can show you that We've had almost 300 officers so far this year have been shot in the line of duty. 60 have been shot in ambush attacks. And those numbers for nine years, seven years since we've been recording this data, have been consistent, showing that they have been really, just really damning to our profession. We have a right to be able to come to work, do the job that we do, and go home to our families at the end of those shifts. And all we need is for Congress to recognize that they could give us the tools. When you look at prosecutors in this country who do not value law enforcement officers and give more credibility to the criminals and make them victims, what happens to the law enforcement officers? What happens to people who attack law enforcement officers? And we go in these cities where they refuse to prosecute, until we do that, we're going to continue to see law enforcement officers shot to a level. So by passing a protective serve act, it would simply give the tool of the ability, if a local prosecutor is not going to move forward with these charges, then it would give the federal government ability to be able to come in and do it again. Could you please help me understand why Congress, when they see the data, they see the headlines, they see the carnage, why we can't get them to move on this bill. It is so important to my members.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Well, you know, the Protect and Serve Act, Pat, has been a big priority.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Of mine and it has and I thank you. You have, I should have, should have started by that.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: No, it's, it's all right.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: I wasn't lecturing to you. I was talking to our members so they can understand and I didn't take it that way.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: I mean, I appreciate the passion and it's, it's right to have that kind of passion and I would say anger because this.
So for me it's a little bit more personal because I represented cops when I was a lawyer and I represented them in alleged excessive force claims. I know why qualified immunity is so important and I know why our peace officers, which I prefer to call them, I know why our peace officers are so important to our communities. We, the problem we have in our society is we've got leaders, so called leaders, worthless politicos like Ilhan Omar who are saying it's almost justified that you should be able to challenge law enforcement. You know, these raids or these. I got a governor who referred to ICE agents as the Gestapo. I mean, he's making a Nazi reference. These guys are, They've gone way over the line and they, I would argue, Pat, the people like that, I don't care what your party persuasion is. That's not what I'm arguing about here. I'm not going to say good or bad people who will not stand up for law enforcement. The people that get up every morning and put the uniform on and take the chance because they're protecting me and you of not coming home at night to their family.
Your first priority should be to protect the officers that are protecting us. And so for me it's been a priority. It's enhanced penalties for attacks.
And by the way, you said attacks. No, they've been targeted and attacked. It's just amazing. And they've been targeted because of idiots like Tim Walls and Ilhan Omar and a legal system that wants to benefit criminals instead of tax paying, law abiding citizens. It's. The world is a little upside down now and we've got to put it back together. This bill to me makes a lot of sense. You ask Me, what have we run into?
You don't run into people on, at least on my side of the aisle. Remember, I don't whip the Democrats, so I'm not over there asking them my side of the aisle. The thing that we've run into is not, oh, this is a bad idea from a policy standpoint that people should pay the ultimate price if they're targeting and attacking peace officers. Right.
But there is an argument about federalism that we have to overcome with some of our members.
You know, these are, it's a principled place where they're arguing that, well, you know, this is a state function. But to your point, this is why I disagree with him. To your point, when you have local prosecutors refusing to prosecute crimes that are on the books, I do believe there should be some federal trigger that comes into play because we can't have that anymore. I mean, everybody wants to complain about these woke prosecutors, but we got to do something about it. All right? Especially in, in my state, the People's Republic of Minnesota with the failed leadership of people like Timmy Wal and Ilhan Omar and Keith Ellison.
These people are not leaders, they're followers. And they're following the criminals that are literally the ones causing our peace officers and our communities all the trouble.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: You know, when it comes to laws, look, we know what the laws are. They're black and white. That's it. It's when we blur the lines that it makes it hard for people to follow. So that's when you see the decay. That's when you see all of the attacks on law enforcement attacked on authority. The reality is anytime a law enforcement officer is attacked, that is an attack on a community because it is a very fabric of the community. If they're going to attack a law enforcement officer, that tells you how much respect they have for the people within those communities.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Well, and I don't think it creates, I'm going to change yours a little bit because yes, it creates confusion, but I think anyone can understand the difference between right and wrong.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: No doubt.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: And you know what? All it does is give someone an excuse when Ilhan Omar says it's justified. You've been oppressed and you know, this is whatever has something to do with race, whatever it is, when she does that, she gives someone who would prefer not to obey the law the excuse why they're not going to obey the law. And then when you got an idiot like Mary Moriarty, who's the prosecutor in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when you've got a 28 some year old kid that's a state. An employee of the state who goes and vandalizes. I forget how many Teslas. But very public vandal damage. A lot of damage.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: She decides not to prosecute because it.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: Had nothing to do with the crime. It had to do with a political statement. Yeah, but that's really. I mean that's, that's. It really is. That's why we have laws. It's supposed to be blind justice. You expect law enforcement officers to follow it. But then you're going to change the rules for, for criminals which are basically doing. Empowering. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna go a step further. A law enforcement officer, when they're attacked, they are a victim. They're a victim in.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: So is their expected.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Exactly. And, and there should be an expectation that there, that there's justice for them as well. If you have a prosecutor. I've heard the argument on a Republican side. I've heard the argument about the federalism, about I don't want to give more power to the Department of Justice. I'm going to argue that by not giving power or the ability for the federal. For the Department of Justice to come in in these unique situations where prosecutors refuse to do their job, you are empowering the very people that we claim that we have a problem with, and that is those who won't want to prosecute the law.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: So could not agree with you more.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: It is a very frustrating thing for our members because they're the ones caught the crosshair of it. You know, here's the problem and this is the. I guess the most disturbing for me and the reason why I'm so passionate about it. We see a law enforcement officer getting shot in a line of duty. We get to see a law enforcement officer die in a line of duty. And there'll be a couple. Oh, man, that's a shame. I'm sorry to see that happen. But we get desensitized to it because it's. It's like we, we go to work and we're expected to put ourselves in this position and that we, we signed up for that. I don't know about any other law enforcement officers. Officer, but I'm pretty sure that I could speak for them. And when I tell you that I didn't sign up for this job to get killed, I can't. I stand up for this job to make a difference. And making a difference, I recognize that there is. There is a danger associated with it and I freely do it. And if I'm going to do it and others in law enforcement are going to do it, then there should be some expectation that there's an appreciation for it and that their families will get justice and protection that should the worst happen. Amen. So, please, let's, let's do what we can to get this passed through Congress.
I think my members have a right to, to see a vote. They want to see how people vote on it. This is a matter between right and wrong. We wouldn't, we wouldn't tolerate this with any other profession. Law enforcement officers are voters. They're citizens and they're entitled to the same rights and privileges as everyone else.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: We're going to keep pushing it back.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: I appreciate that.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Thank you. So let's, let's, let's wrap this up, talk about new things that, other things that you see coming in this next Congress that we should be focused on.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Well, really, I think you and your members.
Why don't I do this, Pat? Because I could go all day about what we're doing in Congress and all the good things that we're trying to accomplish with Donald J. Trump. By the way, before I go into the. I want to just give a call to your membership about being involved and knowing that you've got a lot of friends in Congress.
But I just reminded myself, as I said, Donald J. Trump, your biggest fan, is in the White House.
Donald J. Trump is probably the biggest supporter of the blue that we have ever had. It's just like everything else he does right.
Talk about black and white, talk about knowing right from wrong.
This president understands how important our peace officers are in all of the different jobs, not just walking the beat in our local communities, not just serving on our state patrols, but our Border Patrol, our ICE agents, everybody who is engaged in law enforcement, for goodness sakes, the Capitol Police that were working without a paycheck for the last 30 some days.
First, know that you got a friend. Second, it's the topics that Pat has brought up today, like the Protect and Serve Act. You gotta talk to your representatives. You gotta, you gotta help Pat. Help you by making sure that those guys are lit up and understand how important this is to you and your family, that it gets done.
Because for some of us, you can talk about us getting desensitized, maybe as a country, but it certainly doesn't feel that way to me. Every time I see one of these tragic news reports, it just, it makes my blood boil because we need to be celebrating everyone who supports and defends the rule of law in this country. That's what we've Been losing.
It's really important. You will see the National Police Week is like a huge deal for us. I hope your members consider coming out next year for National Police Week. If you do, you're going to see the whip's office lit up in blue, which we've done every year and we're going to continue to do because it's, it's incredibly important. And when you talk about enhanced penalties for attacks on police officers, I, I'd love a different one that we haven't talked about. That's.
I saw this in Minnesota that we had a certain high profile case that the officers were alleged to have gone over the line and what did they do? The local paper published the address of one of the officers.
That's his family, no doubt. And, and this, that should be a crime of itself.
You don't.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: They're usually the first ones to step out and, and defend a victim's rights.
In this case. Not necessarily. No, no, absolutely. Look, you're right. Police Week for us is important. 45 years ago, the fraternal lawyer police said, you know what? We need to have a memorial service to recognize our fallen across this country. And we held the very first memorial service here in Washington. It's on the front lawn of the Capitol. Our first one we had had about 140 people attending. And of that hundred bigger now, huh? Well, that 140 was a boy Scout troop that was happened to be on a field trip and saw what was going on and came became part of it. That is, that is rolled into an event now that is 20, 30, 30,000 people on front lawn at a Capitol. And more often than not, the president is our keynote speaker. And something we owe it, we owe it as a free society to recognize the sacrifice of not only our fallen, but the surviving families leave behind. So appreciate, appreciate your recognition.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: It's the profession.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Absolutely. This is, you know, look, there are those. We started our segment off talking about how there are those who, who talk about they would, what they would have done. Well, we all know that there's only a handful that actually step up and do the jobs and, and get their hands dirty. And so that's what law enforcement officers are. I appreciate that recognition of it as well. I want to. Again, thank you. I know there's a lot going on here at the Hill. I know, I know you're playing catch up. I appreciate you spending some time with us just to catch up on these things. I'd love to have you back again. Let's talk about these issues that are important. Let's get some things done. It's time to get back on a track, cut some common sense legislation, fix some real problems here in this country. Before we go, if you could just share with our, our viewers and our listeners a little bit about, if they want to know more about you, what would be the best place to do it?
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Well, there's three different places and you know this, this 21st century representative has emmer.house.gov or you can go to our Twitter, I guess it's called X now. That's GOP Majority Whip.
Or you can find us on Facebook at reptomer. All one word.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Well, again, thank you for what you do. Thank you for the leadership. Your leadership, your support of law enforcement and your support of law enforcement has been around for quite some time. So with that, I want to, I want to thank our viewers and listeners that are tuning into the blueview podcast while we talk about the issues that are so vitally important to the men and women who suit up and show up every day in communities across this country and make a difference in the lives of those they serve. Thank you.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else to get your podcasts. To get the latest from the national fop, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, LFOP and on Instagram opnational. Thanks again. We'll see you next time.
