State of the Union Address

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to follow my friend from Virginia (Mr. Cline).

Mr. Speaker, last night when we heard the President of the United States address this Nation and this body in this Chamber as well as our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol in the Senate, you would think there was some sort of magic moment that the virus has suddenly left the Earth and now all of a sudden we are free here on the floor of the House of Representatives to be without masks.

It was just coincidentally timed--just coincidentally timed--when the State of the Union is upon us. A number of States have lifted their mandates--all suddenly coincidentally timed--around the State of the Union. And I was interested in watching the Speaker of the House suddenly saying: Well, it is a new moment in COVID.

I listened to my colleagues from Texas just a moment ago on the other side of the aisle talking about how we have had this great victory through the action of the genius of our Federal Government to free us from the perils of this virus.

Mr. Speaker, tell that to the children who have been sitting in the corners of classrooms wearing masks. Tell that to the members of our military and the members of our Border Patrol who are the so-called heroes. I say so-called because my Democratic colleagues a year ago were calling healthcare workers heroes, and now they are forcing them still to lose their job if they don't take a jab because of the wisdom of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that they know best. They know best.

The President stood there arrogantly in that posture preaching to the United States public and to this body yesterday and talked about how we are going to beat this virus and oh, by the way, suddenly magically we need to fund the police. Go back and look at every statement that has been made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle over the last 2 years talking about defunding the police. We know who is defunding the police across the country, and it sure as heck isn't Republicans. It is Democrats across this country.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know it. The President knows it, and the President is reading polls. The President knows that the approach to the virus has been devastating to the American people. Lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates are being rejected by the American people. The polls show it, so the magic moment has then arrived.

The President of the United States knows full well when he says the border should be secured that it is a lie. I just want to be very clear: when the President said last night that the border should be secure, it is a lie. He is lying to the American people.

I was in Del Rio just last week. One thousand people a day are coming across that river, and nobody gives a whit. And they don't give a whit about the 26 migrants who have died in the Rio Grande since October 1, since the cameras have left the Haitians sitting on the Rio Grande. They don't care that there are 26 dead migrants. They don't care about the 119 bodies in Brooks County where the sheriff has to bring a body trailer to Brooks County.

They don't care about the fences getting cut and the livestock getting out. The ranchers I met with last week in south Texas are in tears about their property. No. No. The President gets up, gives a speech, and declares the border secure and all is well.

Then he gets up and talks about the solidarity of the Ukrainian people, yet he refuses to unleash American oil and gas and refuses to unleash natural gas, liquified natural gas, that would change the world. He refuses to stop importing 600,000 barrels of Russian oil every single day because we won't unleash American oil and gas.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we are going to keep telling the truth about the border. We are going to keep telling the truth about vaccine mandates. We are going to keep telling the truth about the need for American energy. We are not going to bow down to the climate hysterics and the false lies about border security that are endangering the American people.

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