[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 24, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H4238-H4242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPUBLICAN UPDATE
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Roy of
Texas was recognized for 30 minutes.)
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time here on the House floor.
As always, I wish it was a little more filled with my colleagues
involved in robust debate on the issues of our day and the issues that
present our work here in the House to solve problems for the American
people.
I want to say something quick that I think is really important as we
are having a lot of debates this week, and a lot of people are raising
questions about bills that we are bringing up and what we are moving
and what we are not moving, the President making a decision today. I
want to address where we are as a country because I think it is really
important for us to establish what we have accomplished under this
President over the last 18 months and under the leadership of this
House and this Senate.
I am going to get into some disagreements in a minute, and I am going
to get into some things that I think we ought to do. But let's be very
clear about the State of this country and how much we have improved the
State of our Nation over the last 18 months.
Mr. Speaker, 18 months ago, our borders were wide open. Eighteen
months ago, the people of Texas that I represent were in danger.
Eighteen months ago, we had criminals pouring into our communities in
Texas and fentanyl pouring in and destroying homes and families.
The President came in and didn't need changes to the law to do the
work of actually securing the border and did so. He did so with the
great men and women of ICE and Border Patrol and the leadership of Tom
Homan, the now two Secretaries of Homeland Security,
[[Page H4239]]
and other patriots who were working to secure the border, and they
brought it to a complete standstill.
That is one thing, one thing that had a measurable impact on the
people that I represent, the communities that I represent, and on this
entire Nation. We are no longer living in fear that more criminals are
coming across so that the Jocelyn Nungarays of the world get murdered
and taken from us as did Laken Riley in my friend's home State of
Georgia.
That is something we should celebrate and recognize and talk about
and remind the American people that you can't take it for granted. You
can't take good, strong leadership for granted. You can't take the fact
that we now have enlistments and people that are looking to join the
United States military at all-time highs. You are seeing people who
want to be a part of the military because the President has removed the
absurdity of the woke agenda and the DEI and all this stuff, taking
their eyes off the ball of becoming the best fighting force in the
world. Now people, young men and women, want to join the military
again.
I know. I know my colleagues know because they talk to the men and
women who want to go to the academies. They are proud to be in the
United States military again. That is this President. That is this
leadership. That is this Congress that is delivering that.
It is this President that took on the cartels and declared them as
the terrorist organizations that they are. It is this President that
took on Maduro and went after the change that needed to occur in
Venezuela so we no longer had that pressure point that was facilitating
our enemies in China and in Russia, that was reestablishing our
footprint in the Western Hemisphere and making clear that this is an
American hemisphere.
This President did that.
This President is reestablishing the faith in a government that
believes in making their Capital City safe and secure again, pretty
again--things you can be proud of as we celebrate our Nation's 250th
birthday.
We are reestablishing our position around the globe, making clear
that America is going to have a position. We are not going to engage in
endless wars, but we are, in fact, going to make sure that our enemies
know who we are, what we are doing, and that they are going to listen
and that they are going to come to the table.
These are all things that require actual leadership.
This country is immeasurably better because of the last 18 months of
this President, this Republican Congress, the Republican Senate,
despite some of our disagreements. Yes, we have the sausage getting
made where we have disagreements like we saw today. I am going to
highlight a few of those things and talk about some directions that I
think we ought to go.
But I want to be very clear. It is the Republicans in this body, in
particular, and the Senate that had to end-run Democrats who did not
want to fund ICE and Border Patrol. They preferred for political
purposes to endanger the people of the country. They refused to
appropriate money for the law enforcement agencies tasked with ensuring
our country is secure and required us to use the reconciliation process
to backdoor funding to ensure that ICE and Border Patrol would get
funded.
That is what we are having to do. That is what leadership looks like.
It is not the best way to do it. We should have just appropriated it
in January or February, but our Democrat colleagues refused to do it,
preferring instead to endanger the American people.
Republicans stopped that. Republicans united to stop that.
Republicans in both Chambers united to stop that, and I am proud of
that. And I am proud of the things that I talked about and our position
in the world and the secure border and the strong military. I am proud
that our economy is moving in the right direction and getting stronger
every day after the doldrums of the previous administration. These are
all things that we should be proud of and why this election season is
going to be so important.
This raises certain questions about what we do in our remaining 5 or
6 months before this election and the remaining 6 or 7 months in this
Congress.
Today, the President was supposed to come up here and have a bill
signing ceremony back here in the old House Chamber, and ultimately he
chose not to come. The President's rationale was that he believed that
rather than coming here and signing a housing bill that he wanted to
make sure that this body, the House, and the Senate knows that he
expects us to pass the SAVE America Act in order to secure our Nation's
elections.
You cannot have a Republic that the people believe in if they don't
believe in and trust their elections. That is what this is about. I
don't know whether we will get it across the finish line by the end of
this Congress or not. I was proud to author the bill 2 years ago here
in the House, my friend Mike Lee in the Senate. I am proud that we have
now passed it three times out of the House, and I am proud that we are
continuing to have this conversation because we need to have the
conversation. We need to have the fight. We need to have the
discussion. The Senate needs to be forced to debate it.
Democrats who refuse to pass it need to make clear to the American
people who is look blocking it, and it is not Republicans. It is not
Republicans. It is Democrats who refuse roundly in both Chambers to say
that very simply put, only American citizens should vote in American
elections.
That is the truth.
Now, look, I voted against the housing bill yesterday, and I am going
to explain why. I don't think we should be in the business of expanding
government programs.
{time} 1910
I don't think we should be in the business of expanding Section 8
housing. I don't think we should be in the business of telling local
governments what they must do. I don't think we should celebrate the
streamlining of permits, which are mostly on government-owned
properties and so forth.
There were things in the bill that I do think moved things in a
positive direction. I am glad that my good friend, French Hill, worked
hard to try to do that in this difficult body.
I think the Senate made the bill worse. I couldn't vote for it. I
couldn't support it. I have said why. I have a duty to my constituents
to explain why. I was one of 32 Republicans who voted against it.
I don't think the bill was good enough. I don't think it should have
included $200 million for an affordable housing pilot program from
Congresswoman Tlaib. I don't think it should have included some of the
grant programs, the PRICE program, the community enhancement for HUD,
which I think goes through NGOs, which I don't trust won't be layered
in fraud. That is not what I think this body should do in a limited
government.
Today, we were supposed to bring up another bill under a rule, along
with two appropriations bills, a veterans bill. I served on the
Veterans' Affairs Committee for two terms before I joined the Rules
Committee. I am proud to support and work to defend veterans.
We have gotten in the habit here of passing bills to say we did
something. I think this is another one of those. It is all well
intended.
I have groups of veterans coming to me that are for it and against
it. They don't like the way some of the pay-fors impact them, some of
the fees, some of the things that get transferred from one veteran to
another. This is going to have a significant amount of spending. That
is on top of the PACT Act, which we passed a few years ago.
I bring all that up simply to say that we have a habit here, when it
gets into election season, of just moving bills because you want to
check a box. I don't think we should do that. I don't think we should
be doing that for housing. I don't think we should be doing that for
veterans.
I think what has made this Congress successful is sticking to our job
of fiscal responsibility. Holding our spending in check, stop
increasing the debt, stop increasing the deficits, helping get interest
rates down by driving down the deficits as a percentage of our gross
domestic product, while the President drives up the economy,
strengthening our military, strengthening our borders, doing the core
constitutional functions of our Republic, that is what our job is.
[[Page H4240]]
My colleagues on this side of the aisle sometimes get frustrated. You
cannot dare criticize because, somehow, you are undermining the party
during election season.
I have been very clear that there is no comparison here between a
party that wants to side with the woke agenda that is destroying our
country, that wants open borders, that doesn't want to stand with our
military, and that wants to undermine our President at every turn.
There is no comparison of what this President and what this Republican
Party have been doing for the people of this country.
We need to do better. We need to finish strong over the next 6 months
of this Congress. Here are a couple of things that I think we need to
do.
Number one, this Congress needs to pass codification of the
President's successful border security provisions. We did so in the
previous Congress, under H.R. 2. It would solve the problem of the
abuses of parole, the abuses of asylum, and the catch and release
policies that were abused under Biden. We can pass that in this House.
We can send it to the Senate.
Yes, the Senate may sit on it, like they are doing with the SAVE Act.
That is up to the Senate. I don't like this phrase: It is not a
legislative exercise or a law-making exercise.
Yes, it is. We are supposed to do our job in the House. We should
send over the codification of what the President is doing, to address
what I saw today, a bunch of immigrants and migrants in Mexico who are
saying to the camera: We are going to wait till Trump is gone, and then
we are coming.
That is going to happen. If there is a Democrat in the White House
and if there is a weak Secretary of Homeland Security, like there was
under Mayorkas, then they will let people come into our country, and
then more Americans will die. There will be more Laken Rileys and more
Jocelyn Nungarays.
Number one, let's fix that. Let's codify border security. Let's call
the question. Let's have the vote. Let's do it here. Let's send it to
the Senate.
Let's end the magnets. Let's codify the end of free healthcare and
education under Plyler v. Doe and other taxpayer-subsidized public
benefits for illegal aliens.
Let's defund the sanctuary jurisdictions.
Let's hike remittance fees. We added 1 percent remittance fees on
illegal aliens last year, in the big, beautiful bill. Let's increase it
to 5 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent. Why should people who come here,
who are here illegally, not be paying a remittance fee, at least for
the time, while we are not getting them out of our country? Let's make
revenue on the fact that they are earning dollars here and not when
they are sending them overseas or sending them home. Let's collect that
for our purposes, because we have to spend a lot of money on this.
Let's increase those remittance fees.
Let's act as a body to end automatic birthright citizenship, even as
we are looking at what the Court does. The Court isn't the only one to
make these decisions. We can. There should not be birthright
citizenship for just being born on our dirt. There should be birthright
citizenship for being born to an American citizen, mother or father. It
is the right way to do things.
Let's reduce and reform legal immigration. Let's pass the PAUSE Act.
We have 53 million foreign-born people in the United States. That is 16
percent of the population. That is the highest percentage we have ever
had. We need to pause. We need to take a breather. We need to remove
certain people from this country, as the administration is doing. We
need to continue to do that.
We need to press pause on the legal immigration still bringing people
into our country until we have established who we are as a country and
have ensured we have the sovereignty and the cultural solidification of
who we are as a nation.
Let's halt the Islamic invasion. Let's pass legislation to ensure
that people who are coming here are vetted for their adherence to
sharia law, which is deeply contradictory to the 14th Amendment of the
Constitution and the rule of law here in the United States.
Let's pause H-1Bs. Let's review, reform, maybe even repeal H-1Bs, and
overhaul the entire system. They have been abused. They have been
fraudulent, certainly in Texas--I am sure also in Atlanta and other
places around the country. Let's formally end diversity visas and chain
migration.
What is all this to the average person? I am just telling you that
these are the things that are causing us to have imported 5 million
people from majority Muslim countries since 9/11. That does not sound
like the thing a country should do that wants to preserve and protect
itself after it was attacked, in the middle of what is now a multi-
decades-long war, cold and hot, of the Islamists against the West.
The imams and the Muslim Brotherhood will publicly state that they
are waging jihad against the West. America is the prize, and Texas is
the prize in America.
Let's do something about it. This body can do something about it.
Stop hiding behind the First Amendment. Stop hiding behind the touchy-
feely cultural stuff that we talk about in our schools, saying, oh,
that sounds hateful.
It is not hateful to say that we ought to preserve and protect this
country, and we should not allow people who are coming here to
undermine the rule of law, undermine the Constitution, and try to
Islamify a Judeo-Christian nation into something that it is not.
Let's do those things. Let's fight the rise of sharia law. Let's pass
legislation that clearly bans it. Let's ban the entry of and remove
foreign nationals who adhere to sharia law and undermine the rights of
women. That is occurring right here in this Nation, even as we speak.
Let's codify the elimination of foreign aid and expose the NGO
funding, which is typically hostile to our interests. We are not doing
enough of that. The administration is doing a great job. We have done
some of it here. We need to go further.
Let's exit and reform NATO. Let's exit and reform the United Nations.
Let's codify our exit from the World Health Organization that the
President unilaterally executed from the executive.
Let's end funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, which is
often abused against us and our allies. Let's stop foreign aid for
recalcitrant countries that refuse to take back illegal aliens.
These are all things we should be doing as the people's House. There
can be some debates and nuances about different pieces of these things.
I am not saying every one of these is something that you just decree
from on high. We are a republican form of government, of
representatives.
Let's have the debate. Let's do it. Let's talk about it because this
country did, in fact, pause immigration in the mid-20th century, and it
was good for our Nation for a bit. It was good for us to take stock. It
was good for us to ensure that we have people assimilating and becoming
a part of our country rather than trying to break down our country.
We must dismantle and destroy the Marxist and Islamic organizations
and networks undermining our safety and the rule of law, codify that
antifa is a domestic terrorist organization, codify that the Southern
Poverty Law Center is a domestic terrorist organization, and
investigate and cut off the funding that George Soros is putting
forward, often, we believe, illegally, an extension of DAs that are
putting criminals on our streets.
{time} 1920
Why are we allowing this to occur?
It is insane.
Let's fight for energy freedom. Let's kill the remainder of the
subsidies that are destroying our grid and undermining actual energy
freedom. Let's kill corporate cronyism, the grift and the regulations.
Let's end the renewable fuel standard crippling American refinery
production, but let's go ahead and allow year-round E15. I am good with
that, E20, E25, I don't care. Let the market figure it out, but get rid
of the renewable fuel standard.
Don't come in here and beg for an E15 year-round mandate because you
want to have a bailout for farmers, and then don't tell me: Texan, you
might want to have the refining capacity that we need.
Don't tell me that we shouldn't end the renewable fuel standard.
Let's work together and do that. I am happy to. I want our farmers in
Iowa, Minnesota, and places that want to have
[[Page H4241]]
E15, E20, whatever, year-round. Great. Let's get rid of that
regulation, but let's get rid of this other regulation too, Mr.
Speaker.
Let's rapidly develop nuclear power.
Let's pass strong permitting reform.
As we sit here now 2 weeks in the supposed darkness on the FISA 702
expiration, number one: I would like to take a bet from anybody about
whether they think our government is still conducting warrantless
surveillance even though FISA has expired. I assure you they are, Mr.
Speaker.
Number two: Shouldn't we continue to do something about it?
Let's protect Americans from warrantless surveillance in their
country and government and the corporate use of technology to target
and spy on Americans. Let's ensure warrant protections when we are
talking about FISA.
Ban government control of American citizen spending by banning any
central bank digital currency. If you don't know what that is, Mr.
Speaker, if you don't know what a CBDC, a central bank digital
currency, is, it is the government being able to monitor and control
your currency, your spending, and your dollars electronically and being
able to say: Oh, no, you can't buy that gas now. Oh, no, wait, we don't
like guns. No bullets, you can't buy bullets.
China does it all the time, and you don't think we are 5 seconds from
it happening right here in the United States of America, Mr. Speaker?
Of course, we are.
Let's ban government and corporate surveillance in our cars by
killing the kill switch where we have mandated technology going into
cars making them more expensive so they can monitor you and monitor
your face while you are driving, Mr. Speaker.
In what kind of world in America do we have surveillance in our
automobiles mandated by the government?
Ban the funding of block cameras and other government surveillance.
Let's stop it.
Mr. Speaker, I am a security, law and order guy. I was in the United
States Attorneys Office.
Do you know what makes my job easier as a prosecutor?
It is having all the information in the world and all the
surveillance data in the world to know exactly what everybody is doing
and be able to go put them in jail.
Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, do you know what I like?
It is freedom. I don't want the government monitoring everything we
are doing.
Let's not forget why we are sitting at $40 trillion in debt to reduce
deficits and debt. We did a great thing in the big, beautiful bill by
enforcing reforms to Medicaid and making sure that illegal aliens
couldn't get welfare benefits in Medicaid. We had significant
reductions in waste, fraud, and abuse. We did some good work, and we
held discretionary spending flat for 3 years.
I didn't mention that earlier as one of our great accomplishments.
Under this President and under this Congress, for 3 years we held
discretionary spending flat. I don't know when we have ever done that.
That is an extraordinary piece of work that we have done, but we are
not denting the debt yet. We are not denting the interest that is
piling up around the ears of our kids and our grandkids.
Let's continue to reduce or hold discretionary spending flat. Let's
eliminate programs plagued by fraud and let's have reforms to eliminate
fraud. Let's ensure any reconciliation package is actually deficit
reducing.
I sat in meetings today in the Speaker's Office talking about
reconciliation. My perspective is dollar for dollar, year for year,
spending pay-fors match the spending--no gimmicks, no games, no 10-year
out-year savings for up-year 1-year spending. That is not hard. It is
just something we ought to do.
Let's further reform welfare mandatory spending benefits. Let's pass
a balanced budget amendment. Let's do the work we need to do to get
spending down and keep it going in the right direction.
However, don't send up to me, White House, a supplemental spending
bill because of Iran for $87 billion with an E15 mandate in it. I am
not going to vote for that.
Are we going to pay for it?
How are we going to pay for it?
We used to pay for our wars. Yes, we racked up debt after World War
II, but we also did a lot of war bonds, we did a lot of rationing, and
we had a lot of tax increases to deal with the war. I am not for tax
increases.
What I am saying is: Let's work through what we need to do to pay for
$87 billion.
By the way, that doesn't even begin to do what we need to do to
modernize our defense and replenish our stockpiles. We should do all of
that, but we should pay for it. Guns and butter is a novel concept. We
have been doing a good job. Let's not break from it. Once we start
breaking from it, it gets real easy. We should hold the line.
Let's ban congressional stock trading. Oh, my gosh, oh, the wailing
and the gnashing of teeth.
Mr. Speaker, there are only 435 of us. If you don't like it, then
leave. I am going to be leaving at the end of the year after four
terms. I think this is supposed to be a body where you come up, you
serve, and you go home. I am not, by the way, trying to diminish
anybody who has been here for five, for six, or for eight terms. I
support term limits, but whatever.
My view is, though: Why are you here day trading and engaging in the
active trading of stocks when you are voting on the very thing you are
supposed to be doing for the American people and not yourself?
I am open to ideas on how. I am not open to it being an option. A
majority of this body wants to do it. We just haven't done it. It is
overwhelmingly popular with the American people, and I think it would
give great confidence that we are in this for the right reasons.
Let's make America healthy again. Let's provide real American
healthcare freedom. Employer-provided health subsidies should go to
health savings accounts. They shouldn't have to go to Aetna or
shouldn't have to go to Blue Cross. Let those employer-provided funds
go directly to you, Mr. Speaker, and allow you to go use those for
direct primary care or to health sharing ministries. Let's shake the
system up.
Let's break the back of the insurance companies and the great big
hospitals that are running this town. Seven times more is spent on
healthcare lobbying in this town than on defense. It is by far the
biggest industry in this town.
Mr. Speaker, do you want to know why we can't solve healthcare?
That is why. It is the money.
Let's stop subsidizing sugar drinks. We had a vote on this over here,
and we couldn't pass it.
Mr. Speaker, how can you not pass something saying: Stop subsidizing
sugar drinks?
I don't even know what the argument is against it. Drink water. It
was good enough for a millennia for human beings.
Why are we using taxpayer dollars to say you should drink a Coke?
Protect Americans from poison in our food, air and in the water.
Let's protect children. Let's defund abortion and Planned Parenthood
like we did in the big, beautiful bill and transgender surgeries.
Let's stop mifepristone and the pill that is going around killing
literally hundreds of thousands of unborn babies. Let's defund and
limit that mifepristone.
Let's then protect children from online abuses in AI, but let's do it
the right way.
Let's not empower government to police speech.
Let's not allow the Federal Government to set massive standards
preempting States. Let's ensure we protect our rights while we protect
our children. We have done it for every other scourge on our kids.
Let's do it on this disaster that is technology in the pockets of our
children. We can do that. It is not partisan. Let's just do it.
Let's protect American land and housing from foreign ownership, and
let's pass a constitutional amendment for term limits. If we can't pass
a constitutional amendment for term limits, then why don't we just say
we are not going to provide pay for Members after a certain period of
time?
Or why don't we limit people from leadership positions or committee
chairmanships after a certain period of time?
We don't need to amend the Constitution to do that. I introduced a
bill to do that.
[[Page H4242]]
I am not saying these are all 100 percent the right thing to do. I am
not saying my bill on banning congressional stock trading is the only
way or the right way. What I am saying is: Let's do it.
We sit around a lot, and we talk about these things. That is the
nature of a legislative body, but we have been talking about some of
these things for way too long.
We have been talking about passing a balanced budget amendment for a
long time. Let's do it.
We have talked about term limits for a long time. Let's do it by
means of an amendment or by statute.
We have talked about reducing spending. We are starting to do it a
little, but we haven't touched mandatory spending.
We have talked about what we need to do to secure our country and
secure our border. Let's codify it. Let's do it. Let's not just depend
on the President so that we are in this yo-yo every 4 years or every 8
years.
Let's make sure we have got abundant energy for the American people.
Let's not pick winners and losers. Let's stop subsidizing X over Y.
Let's have clean nuclear, and let's have clean natural gas.
{time} 1930
Let's have a strong military that has the tools that it needs. I am
100 percent on board for that, but you have to pay for it. Stop
pretending that you don't have to pay for things. Stop running around,
as Republicans, saying: Supply side, supply side, can't touch taxes,
but, man, I can sure spend a lot.
Great. I am for supply side and I want to cut taxes, but stop
spending.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. We, Republicans, can lead
this country. We can inspire them to show up and support us to
guarantee we have the strongest Congress, alongside this President, to
defend this country and to ensure that we carry forward in the right
way, but we have to do it.
I don't care if it is one or two or five or ten of those things, but
can we do any of those things?
Can we start with something like codifying border security? Can we
ban congressional stock trading? Can we tackle the issue of healthcare
and a Reconciliation 3.0 product? Can we fund defense, but pay for it?
These are all basic things the American people expect us to do. Let's
do it, and then let's carry forward this country for our kids and
grandkids.
Mr. Speaker, I don't know if I will get a chance to get back down on
the House floor next week before we celebrate our 250th birthday, but
that brings up two things for me to recount in my last 2 minutes.
One is to the great people of Kerrville, Texas, and to the Hill
Country that suffered under the devastating floods last year. You have
been an example to all.
Yes, there have been questions about what happened and looking at
what could be done differently and so forth, but the amount of money
that was raised under private dollars--almost $150 million--record
numbers that were given out and then distributed in a sober and
appropriate way, a community that rallied around their faith, stood up
and defended--they didn't come here.
I didn't have constituents coming here, begging: Chip, come introduce
a bill. We have got to have some big Federal Government bill to save
our bacon.
We did what we thought was right. FEMA was there. They helped, and
then we tried to do it the right way. I am so proud of that community.
I am praying for them. I am praying for those who lost their lives and
their families as they hit this 1-year mark. I ask the rest of this
Nation and the rest of my colleagues to do the same.
Finally, I remind us as we are celebrating the 250th birthday of this
country and all the sacrifice of all of our forefathers who bled, died,
and fought for it that we have an obligation to do the same for our
kids and grandkids, or we will lose it. That is the one thing that our
Founding Fathers understood better than anybody.
I remind people that we are not just celebrating our 250th birthday,
but we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of both
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on that July 4, 1826, when Adams died
saying Jefferson lives not knowing that Jefferson had passed away just
a few hours before.
If you don't believe in the divine intervention in this country's
founding, then think about that, that those two men died 50 years to
the day from July 4, 1776.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________