Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Transcript: GOP and Democratic congressmen debate NRA boycott

Interview

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INGRAHAM: Well, I'm telling you this could be the beginning of a backlash that could be felt by other businesses in red state American and right into the midterm election cycle. Companies seething to this political pressure of the moment think they may have varnished their brands by pleasing the New York Times, The Washington Post, and pretty much all of Hollywood.

But they've also kicked a hornet's nest, offending millions of law-abiding peaceful Americans who support the Second Amendment and the NRA. And by the way, those people vote, too. And that's the angle.

Joining me now for reaction are two congressmen from the GOP, Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy, who is in Wonka, Wisconsin, and from the Democratic Party, California Congressman John Garamendi, who is in Sacramento. Great to see both of you on a Friday night.

Let's start with you, Congressman Duffy. This NRA boycott seems to miss the point of the red flags missed by the local authorities, federal authorities, and all the other factors that have clearly come into play. You say?

REP. SEAN DUFFY, R-WISCONSIN: There's a whole bunch of things we should look at. Let's look at what failings happened within local law enforcement, failings of FBI, the failings of the school that failed to protect these kids from Nikolas Cruz coming in and shooting them up.

But what you see happening across America is you have left-leaning media companies that are putting incredible pressure on companies to buy in to the liberal agenda. I think what they forget is these companies forget is, though, they might be headquartered in New York, California, or Chicago, they try to hock their wares all across Middle America and we support the Second Amendment.

And we've been a silent majority. We are silent all the way up until the Trump election when we came out in mass force and elected a new president. And I think though we might not sign petitions online to boycott, we might not come to rallies, you'll see Americans offended by what these companies are doing.

I'm going to spend my money with pro-Constitution company or one who stepped away from the NRA, I'm going to spend my money with companies that support my values. And I think you're going to see that affect the bottom line of companies all across America, which would be a good thing.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Garamendi, the New York governor, Andrew Coumo, is trying to lure Delta to New York, saying, come to New York, we'll treat you well. But New York is a nightmare still for businesses, even though they tried to bring more businesses back. What is your reaction to this concern from the NRA members and just regular Americans? This is all taking it a bit too far that the NRA is killing kids. Come on.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI, D-CALIFORNIA: Well, the reality is that boycotts for political and economic reasons are as old as this nation. If you remember the first Tea Party, I mean, the Boston Tea Party, that was a boycott. It goes on and on in this nation where people express their political or economic views by not involving themselves with one company or another.

For these companies, I think the words of the president of Delta Airlines probably is what we ought to look at. And that is that Delta, if I've heard him correctly, basically said that that company and that -- and he does not want to be involved in a political debate over issues that are not directly related to that company.

Now, with regard to the Georgia legislature, and I suppose the governor repealing that sales tax exemption, I've been down this road before where here in California there was a huge fight between the Bay Area airports and Los Angeles over sales tax for jet fuels. So, I think Delta will simply load its planes with fuel someplace elsewhere they can get a tax break.

INGRAHAM: I get it. But the problem here is that the members of the NRA had nothing to do with this shooting. They're not responsible for this and truth be told, I think they only had like 13 people get this Delta break on their airfare to the NRA conference. It's not that many people, but it's a message.

And it's the same message that Middle America has gotten from the elites for years, that you're stupid, you're obsessed with guns, you're a bunch of bible-thumping idiots. That's how they feel. Congressman Duffy, I know we've discussed this before --

GARAMENDI: I represent a very, very large agricultural district and there's nobody that I'm aware of in the California Democratic delegation that would even begin to describe my area and the people that I represent in the way you just did.

INGRAHAM: OK, well --

GARAMENDI: They have their views. Some are conservative, some of liberal, but all of them really believe that this is America and they have the opportunity to speak out and to

INGRAHAM: Congressman -- and I want Sean Duffy to get on this. If we're going to judge people based on an organization, blood spilled, well, I hope Planned Parenthood is going to lose all of its partnerships or affiliations, given the fact that we have about 57 million babies who never got to see the light of day.

There's a lot of medical waste that includes blood all over this country. And so, the vilify the NRA when we have 325,000 babies murdered in an abortion clinic, Planned Parenthood, every year, give me a break. Go ahead, Sean.

DUFFY: Laura, you hear the left-wing media talking about saving kids lives and you hear the kids talking about saving kids' lives. If you want to save kids' live, I would look to the Democratic Party and Planned Parenthood and the left-wing media.

Planned Parenthood killed 300 of the most defenseless, voiceless, little babies last year alone. If you want to save lives, take money away from Planned Parenthood and start attacking -- 300,000 right.

And if you want to go after guns, which a constitutional right. This is the greatest hypocrisy that ever existed on the face of the earth. They're not trying to save lives. Liberals want us to rely on government, whether it's our how is -- housing, healthcare, protection with the Second Amendment.

They want all reliance on government. This is one other step in a long line of things that take away individual rights and point us to a government to be responsible to everything that we'll ever need in your lives.

We believe as Republicans in individual responsibility and liberty. I want to defend my family in my home with my guns if someone comes (inaudible). I don't want to rely on law enforcement and liberals say they should provide everything to you.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Garamendi, go ahead.

GARAMENDI: Those are really good talking points, but what we're talking about here is really the safety in our communities. And there is an appropriate and a very good debate going on in America about what role guns have in our society and how we could best protect ourselves individually.

DUFFY: John, if you care about little kids -- do you care about children? How could you and your party support Planned Parenthood? You can't have it both ways.

INGRAHAM: OK, Sean. Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: We're out of time, guys. Yes.

GARAMENDI: Laura -- Planned Parenthood in some segue way that I missed. Let's get back to the issue at hand.

INGRAHAM: Let me tell you why we said it. I thought it was pretty clear, but I'll explain it again. We're talking about the blood of children, innocent children who were gunned down in that school and we're talking about the blood of the most innocent who are defenseless in the womb. The elderly, in the womb, and the disabled are the most defenseless in this country. That's why he brought it up. But go ahead.

GARAMENDI: Laura, if you could just slow down for a few moments, Planned Parenthood gets no money from the federal government.

INGRAHAM: Half a billion dollars, OK. They get no money? What are you talking about? They get half a billion dollars.

GARAMENDI: If you want to talk about the abortion issue, we can do that also. But we started this conversation --

INGRAHAM: It makes you uncomfortable that's why you don't want to talk about it. But go ahead.

GARAMENDI: Laura, please don't put words in my mouth.

INGRAHAM: I'm not. That's an opinion. But go ahead.

GARAMENDI: The reality is we have before us in Washington a very important issue. And that is how are we going to deal with the gun violence in our nation, whether by suicide in individual homes or whether it is by assault weapons as we saw at the schools. This is an important debate and we ought not move away from that debate onto other issues which are important also. So, let us go back to this issue. How are we going to deal with this?

INGRAHAM: OK. A lot of people want to take away gun rights. I get that. That's an old debate. But we had the FBI and local authorities and the school itself refusing to act on the obvious for a lot of different reasons and maybe it was malfeasance. Maybe it was a mistake or an oversight.

But those three factors alone combine together to allow this kid to go out and get these weapons. It wasn't the NRA who missed the red flag and the FBI were told the kid's going to shoot up the school and they don't stop them, and suddenly it's the NRA's problem. You've got to be kidding me. That's a lame argument. Congressman Duffy.

DUFFY: John, we've had guns in our society since our founding and kids weren't picking up guns and shooting other kids in schools. What's happened in the last 20, 30, 40 that's caused this phenomenon to take place? If you want to address this problem, you have to look at what's happening in (inaudible).

Fatherless homes, violence that comes from Hollywood in regard to movies and videogames. We have a slew of issues that have taken place that have undermined our faith and values. There is no faith and morality in our community, schools, and our families (inaudible).

You could look at a whole subset of issues that are addressing the anger that kids have right now that cause them to pick up guns. There's a detachment that we have from --

GARAMENDI: Sean, you're quite correct. There are, Sean, if I may --

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: Last words to Congressman Garamendi.

DUFFY: You've been driven for 20 years that will come up with each new shooting. The bottom line is we have a crisis in America and it's not guns. It's our culture and the way we're raising our kids.

GARAMENDI: Sean, you've raised a very valid point. And one of the things that we need to do is to use tools that are readily available and have been available for some time to be used in schools to deal with those precise issues that you raise.

That is the acting out, the loneliness that some people have and the isolation and bullying that does take place. Coming out of Columbine as well as Sandy Hook are two successful programs available in schools.

It is interesting to note that in the president's budget, he removed some $50 million that was precisely for the purpose of safe schools that is to make these programs available, to deal with those problems that you just described. So, we ought to get about doing that --

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: We're way over the segment but go ahead.

DUFFY: Let's take some of that $63 billion. We both agree we need school security. You might have different security for different communities, I want an armed law-abiding teacher who have specific training. Other communities might do something else, but we can agree to shore up schools. Let's focus on the things we can agree on.

INGRAHAM: That's a good note to end on.

GARAMENDI: Let's do that.

INGRAHAM: All right, guys. All right. I want to come to Congressman Garamendi's districts and to Sean Duffy's district and hang out for a while without politics involved. That's what we're going to do next time I'm in town. All right. Guys, thanks so much. Have a great weekend.

We're going to move from gun rights to the expression "In God We Trust." Now they want to remove our national motto from a government building? Yes, they do. We'll debate it next.

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