Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jim Jordan

Interview

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HANNITY: Joining us now Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan has announced he is running to the next speaker of the house. How are you, sir? Welcome to a rare in studio appearance.

REP. JIM JORDAN, R-OHIO: Thank you for having me.

HANNITY: We are 101 days now outside of the midterm elections. I'm calling it the most important midterm in our lifetime.

JORDAN: Yes. Right. They want to impeach the president if they win. We got to win.

HANNITY: Which point?

JORDAN: Well, if the Democrats get in office they will go after President Trump because they went so far left with the social progressive Democratic, you know, agenda they have. So this is why it's so critical.

And here's what's at stake. Think about the last year and a half. Regulations reduced. Taxes have been lowered. Unemployment is at lowest in 20 years. Economy is just humming along. Gorsuch is on the court. Kavanaugh is on deck.

HANNITY: GDP (Inaudible).

JORDAN: Embassy is back in Jerusalem. We're out of the crazy Iran deal and the hostages come home from North Korea. And I'm forgetting a few things. By anyone's definition that is amazing a year and a half. But what's amazing about that list as well is Congress only helped a little bit of that. The regulation and the taxes.

Congress has to do a better job. And that's why I want to be the next speaker of the house. We've got to focus on doing what we told the American people we were going to do. Deliver on healthcare, delivering on the border security and on immigration--

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HANNITY: How did it happen?

JORDAN: And all of those other issues.

HANNITY: How did it happen in the middle of the healthcare debate we discovered that there were about 100 House Republicans and certainly seven Senate House -- sorry -- Senate Republicans that voted to repeal ObamaCare in 2015.

JORDAN: Same bill.

HANNITY: Same bill and they changed when it mattered.

JORDAN: Six Republicans senators voted against the exact same legislation they supported before after telling the Americans -- after getting elected in '10, after getting elected and taking the Senate in '14. After winning the White House in '16 on that issue. And then not to deliver on that.

We haven't delivered on healthcare reform repealing ObamaCare, haven't delivered on welfare reform work requirements for able-bodied people, and haven't delivered on immigration policy and border security well, and certainly haven't delivered on holding and controlling spending.

That's what we got to do because that's what we told the American people we were going to do if they gave us the privilege to serve.

HANNITY: OK. But the president on his own, as you pointed out has accomplished a lot.

JORDAN: He's doing it.

HANNITY: And why is there this reluctance among some Republicans, is that the president is not the conventional establishment figure? He is iconic class. I think he's bold. He tweets, he says, you know, calls it out fake news. What is it that some Republicans don't like?

JORDAN: It's the town. It's Washington. The swamp is the swamp. They don't like someone like Donald Trump coming in here and changing the swamp and changing the way that town works. There is just this reluctance to ever change.

Even though the American people said in 2010 we're going to put you in charge to Congress to go and change things. Even though in 2014 they gave us the Senate to say go change things. And even though in 2016 they gave us the White House to go change things.

There are still this reluctance. And the president feels this every stinking day. Because he is bound and determined to do what he told the American people he was going to do what he ran out the mandate we got from that election and the House needs to do the same. We've done some good things but not near enough. The reform that we need to do like the president himself doing--

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HANNITY: And by the way, in fairness to Paul Ryan, the House has been better than the Senate.

JORDAN: It sure has.

HANNITY: A lot better. Let's go through this. So we have 14 states record low unemployment. Record low unemployment for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and women in the workplace.

JORDAN: Yes.

HANNITY: And then take it from there. We have nothing but huge massive economic, great economic news one after the other. You mentioned the foreign policy successes. And I'm thinking there is a track record to run on.

JORDAN: Of course. Let's go campaign on it and let's also tell the American people you put us back in power in the House of Representatives, we will do what we said. We will help President Trump accomplish what you told us you wanted accomplished on 2016, what we ran on--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: How are you, if you become the speaker, and look, I will support you for speaker. Because I think the Freedom Caucus has been the most committed to fighting to keep their promises and literally the single biggest group fighting to defend the things that are conservative in the country and have helped the president the most.

JORDAN: Yes. We talk about when we formed our group three years ago. We talked about the countless number of Americans who feel like Washington has forgotten them and left them behind. We want to go fight for those people, do the things we told them we were going to do.

I say this all the time and I say it because I believe it. We make the job of being a member of Congress way too complicated. It's pretty simple. What did you tell the people you're going to do when they gave you the chance to go serve them their family and their business? What did you tell them you're going to do, go do that and be willing to stand up and have the debate?

All too often we forfeit even before the debate even happened, before the referee even blows the whistle. We just say we're going to forfeit the match, we're going to forfeit the game. Let's have it, let's play the game, let's wrestle the match, let's make it happen doing what we told--

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HANNITY: How will you be different?

JORDAN: That's simple. Here is a great example. The omnibus spending bill we were so poised to win that debate and hold spending down on non-defense spending, do what needs to be done for our troops but hold it down on everything else because Chuck Schumer had shut down, remember he shut the government down on Friday. And over the weekend the American people said you are crazy!

So, on Monday, he says, I'm going to open the government back up. Because he was losing in the political and the public relations world. So he opens the government back up.

A few weeks later, we had a chance on that big spending bill to treat our troops the way they deserve to be treated for defending our country and hold the line on everything else. And what do we do? What the swamp always does. We said, no, we won't even have the debate.

Even though we got a guy in the White House who was great at debating, great at taking the message to the people. Even though we had all that we said let's just do what we always do. Let's spend more money on everything and the deficit goes up, the debt goes up and the ban placed on the same old, same old--

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JORDAN: Yes. Have we seen into that bill?

HANNITY: All right. Jim Jordan, good luck. We're going to watch this very closely. Do we know when Ryan is leaving?

JORDAN: We do not. He said he is going to stay so I take him on his word.

HANNITY: All right. Thanks for being with us.

JORDAN: You bet. Thank you.

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