WASHINGTON, DC – Republican Policy Committee Chairman Kevin Hern (OK-01) joined CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning to discuss President Trump’s economic agenda and the work Congress will be doing in the first 100 days. 

You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Excerpts: 

“We have been given the gift of the opportunity to be in this place to pass a reconciliation bill and do things like extend the tax cuts, secure the Southern border, and get our energy dominance back to what it was four years ago. But what we’ve not been given is the gift of time. We have to get these tax cuts extended by the end of the year or every single American, every single business, will see a rise in costs… The fastest way to get that done in the House is one bill, as President Trump says ‘one, big beautiful bill’.”

“A lot of the money you saw the Biden Administration spend on illegal immigration, with President Trump’s border policies, that will slow down or even stop. [There are] a lot of spending cuts that we can pull in to help offset some of the cost of extending the tax cuts.”

“This is important, this should be a bipartisan process. The Democrats should not want the American people to have tax increases.”

“Right now, we are very dependent on the Congo for cobalt, and China for processing that cobalt and other rare minerals. So, if we don’t use our balance sheet in the United States, we’re going to be continuously dependent on China, which is not a good place to be when you have two superpowers competing for world dominance.”

“I want to look at this and see what the opportunities are [with regards to the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland]. The influence of China in South America and Central America is incredible. Taiwan has been pushed out and for all intents and purposes, America has been pushed out. If you go back and look at 2000, we were the dominant trading partner in South America, where we had influence, and today it’s China. The President knows this and he wants to make sure we don’t get encircled, whether it be Greenland and Canada or whether it be the Panama Canal, and make sure that we have national security. One of the things we have the most important role to do in Congress is to protect this great nation.”

###