The following is a transcript of an interview with Rep. French Hill, Republican of Arkansas on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” airing December 22, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We now go to Little Rock, Arkansas and Republican Congressman French Hill. Good morning, sir.
REP. FRENCH HILL: Good morning, Margaret. Merry christmas.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And a Merry Christmas to you too. It’s been quite a journey to get you back home and to get lawmakers to wrap up their business this past week. Not a single Democrat voted against this measure to keep the government open, but 34 Republicans did. Doesn’t this show that Republicans really have trouble governing when they pass things along party lines. Won’t they have to work with the Democrats in this new Congress?
REP. HILL: Well, I think it’s very, very important that Speaker Johnson and the new Majority Leader Thune have a firm plan together to work with the new Trump administration to prioritize the president’s priorities, our priorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. on the same page. Because we have to work together with a narrow majority, and that is crucial. And I think this past week has shown that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you’re going to have a divided conference, a narrow majority. Marc Short, director of legislative affairs in the first Trump administration, said this chaos shows how difficult it will be to address border and tax policy in 2025. campaigned?
REP. HILL: Well, I think Chairman Johnson and again Majority Leader Thune, working with President Trump, want to take advantage of the budget reconciliation process that is still being discussed as to what exactly that process will be. But I actually believe that Republicans on both sides of the Hill agree that we want to unleash American energy for future manufacturing and an all-of-the-above energy strategy. We want to secure the border. We want to fight inflation through regulatory reforms on the supply side. We want to roll back regulations that restrict markets and private companies that have access to capital. So I think we’re on the same page, and I think budget reconciliation will be a way to start that process and also rein in the unsustainable $2 trillion deficits.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but you can have a party-line vote there in the Senate with the Republicans, but can you really get 218 Republicans to vote in the same direction when it was such a struggle just to keep the lights on?
REP. HILL: I think we can. I think we demonstrated that year when we put together the most expansive Republican vote on border security last year in the last Congress, for an all of the aforementioned energy strategy. Those are two priorities that President Trump campaigned on. We agree on those strategies, and I think we can get those priorities into the House of Representatives, as I say, and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on the American economy and small businesses to help combat climate change. inflation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, one of the things that was cut from the initial bipartisan deal that Speaker Johnson struck was a restriction on American investment in China. It would have reaffirmed presidential authority to impose sanctions on advanced technologies. Your Democratic colleague Rosa DeLauro publicly insinuated that Elon Musk spoke out against this because his real motivation was his extensive business ties with China. Do you share her concerns, and will this be passed on?
REP. HILL: Look, President Biden had an executive order that regulated outward investments. We’ve had a debate in Congress between the House of Representatives and the Senate about the best way to do that. We all want to limit U.S. investment in dangerous, I would say, dual-use technologies that could be turned around and harm U.S. national security, but striking that balance has been difficult, but I don’t think on the face of it was the case. core of the 1,500 page problem. I think the people, a majority of the members, clearly wanted a simple, straightforward, ongoing solution, and not what turned into a big omnibus issue on top of a CR. So I think the President, I mean, Speaker Johnson, has done a good job of turning back from that focus on disaster relief to the hurricane-affected states in the Southeast, agricultural relief for those farmers, and having a clean CR with an agreement with the president. Trump, with Majority Leader Thune, on how we would approach reconciliation to cut spending in the next Congress.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You will be the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in the new Congress. It is one of 17 committees. Patrick McHenry, the outgoing chairman of House Financial Services, was asked whether it matters that the Republican Party only elects male leaders. Listen.
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REP. PATRICK MCHENRY: The fact that we don’t have women committee chairmen is a big mistake and actually an unfortunate thing because we have powerful, smart, capable and tenacious Republican women who are able to lead big committees and do important things.
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MARGARET BRENNAN: Why hasn’t the Republican Party elected women leaders?
REP. HILL: Well, that’s a decision of our steering committee, but I’m glad on the House Financial Services Committee that we have strong, very passionate, successful Republican women like Ann Wagner of Missouri, Young Kim of California, Monica de la Cruz of Texas , and we are very pleased to have Lisa McClain from Michigan as our conference chair, as well as Maria Salazar from South Florida, who is joining our committee. They will be active leaders in financial services policy making.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Quick. I know you tried to restrict captagon, this amphetamine drug that the Assad regime sold to support the dictatorship. Our teams in Syria filmed factories full of this stuff. What’s going to happen now?
FRENCH HILL: Well, we need the United States to work very actively with partners to support a free and democratic Syria. Secondly, we must document the war crimes committed by the Assad regime, as it concerns all the people murdered, killed in prison, tortured by the regime, and also track down the networks that produced captagon. We will have support from the Kingdom of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to do that, but this must be stopped. But I’m proud of the work we did to ban Captagon and cut off its funding, because I think it absolutely contributed to the end of the Assad regime, and that’s something to celebrate.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’ll follow what happens with that. Before I let you go, I want to ask you too. A source familiar with the investigation tells CBS News that the work of the House Ethics Committee, in which former Congressman Matt Gaetz is investigating alleged sexual misconduct and drug use, will be released tomorrow. last month you said on this program: ‘It’s up to that committee, but we don’t want to set a precedent where we won’t release documents from that committee under any circumstances.’ Do you still object?
FRENCH HILL: That’s not – well, I don’t know if that’s how I would characterize what I said. I said it’s up to that committee. I think so. They’ve released documents before, but I think they have to do that with great caution because you’re opening a Pandora’s box of a lot of other investigations that have been done by that committee over many, many years. But once they’ve thought about it, looked at the material and made that decision, that’s their decision.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Congressman French Hill, thank you and Merry Christmas. We’ll be right back.
