- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Republican candidate for District 9, Brent Taylor, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Brent Taylor.

He's the Republican candidate for US House District 9.

Thanks for being here again.

- Glad to be here, Eric, Bill.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

Before we get started with our conversation with Brent Taylor, I'll note that we're moving toward the federal elections.

Early voting begins October 14th.

The election day is November 3rd.

We're working to do one-on-one interviews with all the candidates for key races in those races.

We, last week, had Jerri Green, Democratic candidate for governor.

We've reached out to Marsha Blackburn, the Republican candidate, and hope to get her on soon.

We have Brent's opponent, Justin Pearson, the Democratic candidate for District 9 coming up soon.

Chaz Molder in District 5 is scheduled.

We hope to get his opponent, Charlie Hatcher, the Republican, on as well.

And then we'll start working on District 8.

I think the remaining one there that now covers parts of Memphis, so.

But we are here with Brent Taylor.

Thank you.

Congratulations on your primary win.

You've talked about your endorsement from Donald Trump, President Donald Trump.

Are there any policies, when you look at his first term in office and his current, coming up on a year and a half, that you disagree with?

- Well, you know, one is, and it's not necessarily a disagreement, but I would like to see the war in Iran, I would like to see him get that to completion.

And I know it's been going on now for a couple of months.

And we have the capacity to end that, and do it in a way it's not a repeat of Iraq where we have to go and set up a government.

I think we have to take those folks out over there.

And tell the Iranian people, "Look, when you put in a government "that is willing to be a good neighbor in a bad neighborhood "and you're willing to work with peace-loving folks "around the world, then we will support you.

But if you don't, we'll be back."

And the president, I would like to see him end that sooner rather than later.

- Have the costs so far, and ending it, I assume you mean a military end, the billions of dollars spent, the billions in damage to bases around the Middle East, the hundred plus, you know, US service members who died.

To go farther military would mean more costs, more death of US service members, presumably.

Certainly, the risk of it.

And costs are up.

Oil is up.

It affects fertilizer.

It affects all kinds.

I mean, are those costs worth it for a country whose nuclear program has been, to some degree or another, harmed quite a bit?

- Well, the nuclear program.

We should end the war when the nuclear program is completely... - At any cost?

- At any cost.

Because we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

We see what they would do with conventional weapons.

You can only imagine them holding the world hostage with a nuclear weapon.

And so whatever the cost is, to ensure that they don't have a nuclear weapon will be far less than if they have a nuclear weapon and, God forbid, were ever using it.

- Do you see, I mean, critics of the president will say there's not a consistency.

I mean, even this week, he was talking somewhat glowingly about Kim Jong Un, the president of North Korea, which has 60 nuclear missiles, has ballistic missiles that could reach the United States.

You know, President Trump was deriding South Korea, which has been a long time ally.

I mean, is that consistent with what you're saying about the threat of Iran?

- It is because you see how the president has to treat North Korea differently than we have been able to treat Iran.

And if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon, suddenly, we have to treat them much more differently and probably in a way much more similar to the way he's treating North Korea.

We just cannot allow these rogue nations to become nuclear powers because they will begin to hold the world hostage.

And we can't allow that.

- Let's bring it, Bill.

- Should President Trump have gone to Congress or should he go to Congress to invoke the War Powers Act?

- Well, he may be operating under War Powers Acts that were previously authorized.

But, again, as a commander-in-chief, he has the responsibility to keep Americans safe.

And there's no better way to keep America safe than to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.

- Congress also has oversight power when it comes to that.

Should Congress use it?

- Well, look.

Anytime the Congress has an oversight power over the administration, whether it is this, or whether it's regulatory matters, Congress should have oversight over the administration.

One of the things I've learned, Bill, in this whole process of running for Congress, is a common thread I have found through all this is that Congress doesn't act anymore legislatively.

They allow what should be done with legislation is now being done by rulemaking in the administrative branch.

The administration.

And what happens is you've got businesses and others who have this whiplash from one administration to the next, based on how the rules are interpreted.

And I fear what's going to happen is that we're going to lose.

America's always had an edge when it comes to innovation.

And I'm afraid we're going to lose that innovative edge because people who would invest in innovation will no longer do so because to invest billions of dollars only to have the rule interpreted a different way with the incoming administration is a way that they don't want to spend their money.

And it may allow other countries then to become innovators that we've always occupied that space.

So that is something that Congress should always do, is to ensure that they have oversight over the administration.

But, also, they need to get back to legislating and delegate the authority to do what they should be doing legislatively.

Do it in rulemaking.

We've done that in Tennessee.

We have a government operations committee and oversight committee.

And we exercise oversight over the administration.

And there is consistency to ensure that rules are interpreted the same regardless of the administration.

- One of the criticism from Democrats has been that, with Republican majorities in Congress, the House and the Senate, that Republicans have largely been absent from serving as a check and balance in its relationship with the Republican president.

Is that accurate?

- That's not a serious question, I hope.

- It is.

- Because if you look at the Biden administration, there was no one that was holding the Biden administration accountable during those Biden years.

Look at Democratic presidents.

The Democrat majorities.

When they've had Democrat president with Democrat majorities, they never provide that oversight.

I think Republicans are much more likely to do so than Democrats.

- Do you think they have done so, so far, two years into this administration?

- Republicans?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

If you look at the first Trump term, one reason there was not a lot of oversight is because the Democrats had control of the House.

And they were able to impeach the president.

And that's the fear.

That's why it's so critically important that this seat in Tennessee flip to Republican and we can get other seats around the country to flip to Republican.

Because if the Democrats get control of Congress, they will impeach the President.

And for the next two years, he will be fighting impeachment and will not be implementing the America First agenda that Americans sent President Trump back into office to implement.

And that's why it's important that we win this election.

- One other impact to the war that has frustrated some of his supporters, because you mentioned the America First agenda, has been, you know, the rising costs at home.

And so, you know, that plus the tariffs.

Interest rates are up.

Inflation has been up since COVID, you know.

I'm not saying that that started when he was elected.

When you're, you know, the district, we'll bring up a district map here in a second.

It stretches from Shelby County to just, you know, south of Nashville through a lot of rural areas, urban areas, suburban areas.

Is there an affordability crisis?

Is there an affordability problem that you hear from your potential constituents?

- Yeah, so look.

During the campaign, I talked to the voters of District 9.

And I affectionately refer to them as Tennessee Niners.

The Tennessee Niners have told me that, yes, they feel the pressure of higher prices when they go to the grocery store.

When they go to the gas pumps.

But there are a lot of contributing factors to that.

Number one, inflation was high from the Biden years.

But, to me, one of the largest contributors to the higher prices and the reason wages have not been able to catch up with the higher prices is because of this mass migration.

And a lot of it has to do with illegal immigration.

And the president has made that a central theme of his first term and the second term.

But when you have millions upon millions of people who are in the country illegally, they depress wages because they have to have jobs.

They depress wages.

They have to have a place to live.

They're increasing housing costs.

And when you go to the hospital, or you go to the grocery store, or you go anywhere, particularly the hospital, if you go to the hospital, and it takes three hours to be seen by a doctor, it's because they are taxed because there are people here illegally who are in those hospitals and clinics.

And when they go to the grocery store, they're buying groceries that were intended or that drives up the cost because we have more people trying to buy those groceries and even energy cost.

So if we want to lower cost for Tennessee Niners and people across the country, we have to deal with this mass migration.

The illegal immigrants need to go back to where they came from.

And I will go further.

We need to have a pause on legal immigration to allow those that are here legally time to assimilate and become Americans.

And when we do reopen immigration, it needs to match the workforce shortages that we have and not just allow anybody to come in.

- Will naturalized Americans, legal Americans, do the jobs that many of the immigrants do?

I mean, a lot of business owners say they won't.

I mean, in the food processing, in agriculture, in construction, the fear for a lot of business owners, separate from the politics of it, is simply that they won't have the labor.

They're going to have to pay people more.

So that's only going to feed or arguably is already feeding inflation and rising costs.

I mean, isn't that a risk with getting rid of people who, for the most part, I mean, overwhelmingly, are working and paying taxes?

- Well, that was the same argument in the 1850s when they were dealing with slavery.

Like, who's going to do the work if we end slavery?

That worked out for the better for everyone.

And I believe we don't know whether Americans will take those jobs or not because they're being undercut by the illegal immigrants that are here that are taking those jobs.

- Has there been overreach?

Before I go back to Bill.

Has there been overreach on the part of ICE and Homeland Security in terms of roundups?

I mean, the most famous would be, or the most prominent would be, you know, the shooting of two protestors up in Minneapolis.

There have been people who have green cards who've been taken to deportation centers.

Has the whole effort that you support, has it had moments where it went too far?

- Well, if you think it wouldn't have to go too far in your, to use your term, if local law enforcement would just simply cooperate with the federal immigration authorities.

The reason those shootings happened up in Minnesota was because the illegal aliens, when they're arrested on other charges, they're let right back out.

Rather than having ICE come to the jail facility where they can take the person into custody safely, the local law enforcement was releasing them right back out into the community.

So ICE has to then go track them down in a public setting.

And that's where you increase the danger.

That's why I sponsored legislation here in Tennessee that requires local law enforcement, that when they have an illegal immigrant in custody from committing another crime, that they have to notify ICE, number one.

Number two, they have to hold the illegal immigrant for a total of 48 hours, which is the maximum amount of time in the immigration detainer, to give ICE ample time to get there and get the immigrant picked up.

- Fair.

But does there need to be more oversight?

I mean, do there need to be investigations of the Homeland Security, ICE folks who shot, on camera, the protestors in Minneapolis?

I mean, there hasn't been much investigation.

Other situations where people, who are here legally with green cards, who've been taken to deportation centers.

Does there need to be more, back to oversight, more oversight of the effort to get illegal immigrants, from your point of view, out of the country?

- No, I do.

There have been investigations.

And anytime there are shootings where there's law enforcement involved, shootings or not, those are investigated.

And if charges are warranted, charges will be brought.

But, again, look, all of this, Eric, it looks messy.

But if we were talking about people who committed murder, and the police are arresting those people, and you had cameras out on the street, we wouldn't have the same concern about that.

But, again, these illegal immigrants are in the country illegally.

It's against the law.

And, sometimes, law enforcement is messy business.

- About halfway through.

I'll remind everyone.

If you join us late, we have Brent Taylor's opponent, Democrat Justin Pearson, coming on the show soon.

We recently had other candidates on.

All those will be available at wkno.org as we move through all the key races that we can get to before election day, November 3rd.

But I'll go back to Bill.

- Senator, the mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, says this city does not have an immigration problem.

That, in fact, the immigrant population here contributes to the city's growth and the city's economy.

What do you say about that?

- I would disagree with the mayor.

And I have a lot of respect for Mayor Young.

I saw him last night.

I would disagree.

Again, if somebody is here illegally, they are depressing wages because they are taking a job from an American and doing it for less money.

So Americans' wages can't catch up with the inflation that we have seen.

And they have to live somewhere.

So they're competing for housing, which drives up housing costs.

When they go to the store and purchase products, they're purchasing products, creating a greater demand, which increases the price for everything.

I believe we do have an immigration problem.

And, again, I think, more importantly, whether it's Memphis or any great American city, when you have people who come here who do not believe that they are Americans, they are here to take advantage of America, but they don't want to become Americans, I think that is a danger because it changes the culture of our Western values.

They don't understand self-governance.

That's why I think we need a pause on all immigration until we can give those that are here legally time to assimilate.

And this is not unheard of.

We did the same thing in the early 1900s with the Irish and Italian immigrants that came in.

They came in in great numbers.

And they paused immigration that lasted up until about the 1950s to give the Irish and Italians time to assimilate into America.

And they are now part of the fabric of America.

We have more foreign-born nationals today than we've ever had in our country's history.

America needs some me time to give those folks time to assimilate and become Americans so we can protect our American culture.

- If the people you're talking about are citizens, should they have to undergo some kind of check on that status?

Or is that status in danger, going forward?

- Well, if they're here legally, then there's no check necessary.

They're here legally.

- But the president wants to end birthright citizenship.

- Well, I agree with him.

We should end birthright citizenship.

Because no other country in the civilized world does what we do with just because you were born here, you become a citizen.

We're the only country that does that.

And it causes a lot of problems.

Birth tourism.

Anchor immigration.

And it causes a lot of problems.

And I think we ought to end it.

Either the president thinks he can do it through executive action.

I think the Supreme Court has disagreed with that.

But I would support even a constitutional amendment in that, if we need to, to finally put a stop to birthright citizenship.

- So what would happen then with people who are citizens now, who were born here, of parents who were not citizens at the time, possibly here on a work permit?

- Well, I mean, that'll be up for the courts to decide that under our current immigration scheme.

But if we were to change the constitution, which it appears the Supreme Court has said if you want to end birthright citizenship, it needs to be through a constitutional amendment, those are the types of things that would go into how that amendment would be written to try to account for those that were born here when their parents were here on work visas.

But, look, we have to do something.

We cannot continue what we're doing.

We're going to lose our nation if we don't do something about this immigration.

I mean, we can't allow all of South and Central America just to flood our borders and come here.

We can't afford that.

And it harms Americans.

And it harms Tennesseans.

And that's why I support the President's effort on immigration.

- And we also have other immigration agencies that deal specifically with the border.

Should that be focused on the border?

Because it sounds to me like all of our problems, by your view, can be traced back to immigration, legal or illegal.

Is that accurate?

- It's largely accurate.

And I will tell you, it's not just the border.

More people come into the country that are illegal aliens who come in legally.

They overstay their visas and won't go home.

That's why I sponsor legislation in the state Senate that allows legal immigrants to get a driver's license.

But the term of that license, where you and I have about a five-year term on a license, their term has to match their visa.

Because we need to make it difficult for them to be able to function in America, function in Tennessee when their visa expires to try to force them to go back to their home country.

And if they want to come, be Americans, but look, all of us, you know, we want to support people who want to come here legally and become Americans.

But a lot of these people aren't interested in being Americans.

They're interested in taking advantage of America.

And that's what we have to put aside.

- But it doesn't sound like we want people to come here legally when we talk about, but we might pass a law a couple of years down the road that hauls you into court to see if we still want to keep you.

- Well, if they're here illegally, I hope they haul them into court and they find out whether or not they're here legally.

And if they're not, they need to go back.

I mean, look, the immigration issue is harming Americans.

And the other side wants to act as if we're doing, how compassionate we are and empathetic by letting all these people come to our nation.

We won't be a nation if we continue to allow all these people to come into our country.

We have to be sensible about our immigration.

And we have tens of millions of people in this country who probably shouldn't be here.

And it's harming America.

And it's gonna damage our culture.

Our Western way of life.

Look at what's happened over in some of the European countries.

Look at what happened in Great Britain.

They've allowed immigration just to overrun them.

And we don't need that here.

- But your side of the discussion seems to blame every problem we have on immigrants who are here, legally or illegally.

Increasingly, your side of the discussion is not making a distinction between legal and illegal.

- Then I don't think you've listened to what I said earlier, Bill.

I said we need to stop illegal immigration.

Those that are here illegally need to go back.

We need a pause on our legal immigration system to give those that are here legally.

Did you hear that part earlier?

- And end birthright citizenship.

- That were here legally and to give them time- To give them time to assimilate to become Americans.

I saw Vice President Vance make a comment the other day and said that there was an American citizen, who somebody was here legally, was now a naturalized American citizen, was chastising the Trump administration for ending foreign aid back to that person's home country.

And they said, "My country needs that aid.

And you shouldn't stop it."

This guy was an American citizen.

But he didn't view himself as an American citizen.

He still viewed himself as a citizen of the country from which he came and wanted America to keep sending money there.

- And we have to have laws to punish someone who says that?

Is that your point?

- No, he's welcome to say whatever he wants to.

What I'm saying is that just because people come here even legally and become legal citizens, that they still don't view themselves as Americans.

That's why we need a pause on immigration, legal immigration, to give the people who are here legally an opportunity and time to assimilate.

America needs some me time.

- All right, we got three minutes left here.

Let me run through some other issues.

Obviously, immigration and immigration crackdowns have been a priority of the Trump administration.

Another big priority though has been sort of rebuilding a ballroom.

Possibly building a big arch.

Do you support that sort of spending, which looks to be in the billions of dollars on monuments and renaming of, you know, potentially the Kennedy Center with Trump's name?

Do you support those priorities?

- Well, it's my understanding the ballroom's being built with private funds.

- They're asking money from Congress.

Would you vote to fund that?

- Well, again, until you just said that, I assumed it was being built with private funds, so- - Yeah, they need to go to Congress to fill in the gap.

- We'll look at that when legislation's presented.

But, initially, the ballroom is going to be built with private funds.

- To fill out a bunch of the stuff, they're looking for public money.

Another big priority of a lot of the supporters of President Trump was releasing all the Epstein files.

And he promised to do so.

There's millions of documents of the Epstein files that have not been released.

Would you vote to release those documents?

- I would vote to release them.

But I will also say, I just saw a congressional hearing the other day that there were millions of documents that were released, all of which were in the scope of Congress's order, and that there were none that had not been released, pursuant to Congress's order.

But I would have no problem voting to release the Epstein files.

- We talked about law enforcement.

You've obviously been very pro law enforcement in your career in the state senate and locally.

Should all of the January 6th rioters been pardoned, including those who assaulted police officers at the Capitol?

Should they have been pardoned by President Trump?

- Well, the reason they were pardoned, Eric, is because they didn't receive due process.

They were put in jail and did not receive due process.

And that's why they were pardoned.

But as it relates to law enforcement, I will hope, when you have my opponent on here, that you will ask him about getting up off the House floor, going up into the gallery where state troopers were attempting to arrest his brother for violating House rules and creating a ruckus in the gallery.

He went up there and stood nose to nose with law enforcement and called him an MF boy.

I hope you'll ask him about that.

Because you're right.

I have supported law enforcement.

And my opponent has not.

And that will be a key deciding factor in this election.

- One more, we have 30 seconds here.

One more question that's a weird one that comes up is, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

- The 2020 election was in 2020.

He was elected president this last term.

And he has two more years left in his term as president.

I'm going to support him.

And that's why I'm-- - But did he win in 2020?

- Look, I think there were irregularities.

Particularly, in those states like Arizona.

And, if you look, where there were issues were where they have those handmarked paper ballots in Pennsylvania and Arizona where the Democrats continue- - So he maybe didn't win, from your point of view.

Or maybe Joe Biden maybe did not win.

- Yeah, I think if you look where those 80 million votes that Joe Biden, we've never had that kind of turnout.

And I think it's shady.

- Okay, we are out of time.

Thank you, Brent Taylor, for being here.

Thank you, Bill.

If you missed any of the show, you can get the full episode online at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian, or YouTube.

We'll have Justin Pearson, Brent Taylor's opponent, on.

Coming up soon.

And that is all the time we have this week.

Join us again next week.

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