Steele dossier and police reform

Congressman Greg Steube on how to improve police relations.

Steube interview transcript:

John Solomon  0:00  
Alright folks, welcome back from the commercial break. And as promised a very special guest, Congressman Greg Steube from the great state of Florida, Republican, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, who yesterday participated in those very powerful hearings, about the death of George Florida and how we're going to get relations between police and their communities back on track. Congressman, welcome to the show.

Greg Steube  0:21  
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

John Solomon  0:23  
Oh, it's our pleasure. It's a great honor to have you on. So you bring an amazing perspective to this whole debate over George Floyd and police relations and racial justice because you're a lawyer, you served in the jag, you served in Iraq with our army. And you come from a long line of law enforcement in your own family. Right. I think your dad was a sheriff?

Greg Steube  0:43  
Yeah, my dad was a sheriff in Manatee County, Florida and had served in the very same department for over 40 years. So he worked his way up as the lowest level deputy all the way to share from the same department which is pretty unheard of. That and brother is still at the same department. Both of them... My dad was the commander of SWAT team. My brother was on SWAT for 10 years. My brother is now a supervisor on the road.

John Solomon  1:08  
That's amazing. Well, God bless him for their service and you for the service. You provided your country in the military. I come from a family of long line of cops toom my dad was a police chief. My brother's still a detective. And it's an amazing life to grow up in a family of blue and understand the challenges and amazing things that police officers do every day. You had a really powerful speech yesterday. When you spoke in the in the House Judiciary Committee, what if you could talk a little bit about what it was like to have Miss Jacobs here, to have George Floyd's brother there, and to try to put this entire debate into the perspective that you did yesterday?

Greg Steube  1:45  
Well, I wanted to, you know, at the outset of my comments to make sure that I recognize Mr. Floyd and Mrs. Jacobs for their loss. I mean, nobody should have to watch their family member die in the manner in which they did for Mr. Floyd. And no one should have their family member targeted simply because they're a police officer. And so I wanted to try to relay to them my heartfelt sincere condolences for their loss. But then talk about the issue at hand, which is this bill, which there are some things in it that most people, if not all, can agree upon a federal law against lynching. There are things in there that I've already voted in support of, but there are also things that are tucked in there. And this is how Democrats work the process. And I came from the state legislature, I served eight years and we just didn't do things this way where bills are created by one party and secret, pushed out, and you just have an up or down vote, they're not going to take your amendments because they have the majority. And in fact, on the floor, they're going to invoke the rule that you can't even file amendments to the bill. So it's very frustrating because we as Republicans were not involved in crafting this despite the fact that you have a Republican Senate and a Republican administration, that if you really realistically wanted to get something done, honestly, on this issue, you would involve the minority in Republicans, because it's got to get through Mitch McConnell in the Senate. And it's got to get to the President. 

Greg Steube  3:13  
So right there, you see...

John Solomon  3:14  
Yeah, that's a great point. 

Greg Steube  3:16  
Yeah. I mean, right there, you see that they're not... this is completely political posturing. This is just them attempting to, you know, appease their base and quote, unquote, do something in response to what occurred. But there are some very dangerous things in there. And if I would've had a little bit more time, this whole issue of militarization of our police force is a very dangerous issue. And what the Democrats are attempting to do is say police shouldn't have AR-15s. Police shouldn't have quote, unquote, military style weapons. Police shouldn't have armored vehicles. Well, if they're able to sneak that in, and that is, in the bill, the demilitarization of our police force. Not only is that dangerous for our law enforcement because our bad guys are going to have AK-47s and AR-15s and all of these things, even if they obtained them illegally, because they're criminals, and that's what they do. But so not only is it dangerous for our law enforcement officers, but what they're trying to do is stepping to to attacking our Second Amendment rights. Because if they can take away AR-15s, and that type of equipment from our law enforcement and make it a federal mandate that law enforcement agencies can't carry that type of equipment, well, what do you think is going to be next? Next is going to be well as law enforcement aren't allowed to have AR-15s in semi automatic rifles, then you as a citizen shouldn't be able to either. So we're walking down a very dangerous, dangerous path by some of the things that are in this bill.

John Solomon  4:44  
As someone who's been in law enforcement been in the military, I imagine are talking about the scenario where a bad guy robs a bank like we saw in LA a few years ago where they had hundreds and hundreds of rounds of AR-15 ammunition and they're shooting at the police, and the cops only have nine millimeters or whatever they have... How do the democrats tried to describe that scenario that they leave the cops in a worse scenario than the bad guys that they're asked to apprehend?

Greg Steube  5:11  
Well look no further than Steve Gleason what happened a couple years ago on a baseball field for the congressional Republican baseball team. that exact scenario played out because there's this ridiculous law in DC that law enforcement officers can only carry one side arm with two 10 round magazines. So think about that for a second. Even the police in DC are limited to carrying two 10 round magazines. Well luckily, when the shooting occurred and the shooter had an AR-15 style weapon with 33 round magazines, and he started shooting, you had two officers thank God that were there, that started to engage the shooter. One of them completely ran out of ammo and was shot in the ankle and the other one had two rounds left in his second magazine before they were able to put the shooter down. That's the scenario, the dangerous scenario that you're putting law enforcement in, having to respond to a criminal and look no further than that incident has been very detailed and all the facts are out there for all the world to see. Leaders, police leaders talks about the incident all the time when gun issues come up. And how atrocious is it if we have law enforcement inhibited from using weapons that they can use to protect themselves in our community, that's their job, and they shouldn't be at a disadvantage there.

John Solomon  6:31  
It's a remarkable time because so many things that were actually done in Democratic administrations. I mean, it was Bill Clinton's administration that first helped police departments build up their arsenals to face, to confront that growing threat of weapons and bad guys' hands, but they're peeling back a lot of things at once. What are other things in this law that's being debated right now that concern you that Republicans are unlikely to embrace?

Greg Steube  6:58  
The other thing that deeply concerns me as the qualified immunity issue. So... there's completely changing the standard for qualified immunity. And just real quick for your listeners that don't know qualified immunity is if I'm a law enforcement officer, and I follow my training in protocol, and I am apprehending a suspect who's resisting arrest, but I am going through the things that I have been trained to do in responding to that escalation of force... If that person sues me or I get charged for excessive use of force, I can use a qualified immunity to defend myself because I used my training and my protocols that I was trained to do to apprehend the suspect. If you operate outside of your training and protocol, because it's only qualified immunity, you don't get the immunity. So for people that are over excessive use of force and don't use the training and protocols that they use, they're going to be charged with a crime and thier agencies are going to be sued. 

Greg Steube  7:56  
But if you're a law enforcement officer who is using your training, following the protocols, following the general orders of your agency, and then you get sued, if we take that away from our officers and apply a different standard, I don't know anybody out there that would want to be a law enforcement officer knowing that if you do everything that you were trained to do, you still can get personally sued. And they can come after you criminally. And I can't imagine what that would feel like in these jurisdictions where you have left leaning mayors and city commissioners and all sorts of things. So also a very dangerous issue. I can't imagine what our recruitment is like in our law enforcement agencies today. Take this bill out... with what's going on, I was talking to my brother who's a supervisor a couple of days ago, and he said he's had two of his officers in his unit quit just because of the threats and the looting and the things that are happening just here in a very you know, I wouldn't say rural, but a very small town community in in Florida. My district is not a big city area and we're seeing that type of activity here. If you start to peel back what type of weapons law enforcement can use, and what type of immunity they will have, if they are doing what they have been trained to do, that's going to be significantly problematic for our police force. And I think in five years, you're not going to have very many people, they're going to want to wear a badge.

John Solomon  9:19  
Yeah, that's a really scary part. And what you could really end up with. I want to ask you about this: do we... Are we moving to a scenario where communities that support law enforcement are going to have good police departments backed by the community and those who don't are going to have sort of a lawless sense where officers have one hand tied behind their back? Are we heading to that scenario of blue, red, divide between public safety?

Greg Steube  9:43  
Unfortunately, I think we are now in a district like mine, it's a very conservative district. I'm probably the biggest geographic district in Florida. Parts of my district are very, very rural, very, very agricultural. You're not going to see that in my district, but in this district, like in Minneapolis where the commission has said, we're going to disband the police department... I can't imagine what the officers that have always been law abiding has served 20 years in that department and have dedicated their life to public safety are thinking when their leaders are saying we're going to disband your entire livelihood and we're not gonna have a police force. And I would think if you're a small business owner in that community, the first thing you're doing is trying to figure out a place that you can move your business to because the moment you disband the police department, it's gonna look like what we have seen all across the country, where you have these rioters and looters. And all of this atrocity is occurring across our countries and our leaders in these big cities are sitting back and letting it happen. When three weeks ago they were arresting people for violating stay at homeowners and gathering ten or more in synagogues.

John Solomon  10:51  
It's It's a crazy time and I know most Americans are sitting back scratching their head trying to figure out the all these hypocritical double standards that we've watched played out over the last few months. When you look out at the issues because you spoke very passionately to to George Floyd's brother and to the sister of the slain police officer, when you look out what are some things that you know, from your own law enforcement background from being a jag in the army, what are some things that we can do to heal the divide, create greater trust between communities and police departments that often get torn apart by an episode like the tragedy of George Floyd?

Greg Steube  11:31  
Well, in areas like in my district in Florida, we for years have... because these are not new issues. We for years have done what's called community policing, where you have minority officers or officers of color, or you're integrating the officers into these minority communities so they become a part of the community. And there's agencies, agencies all across the country that have been doing that. There's things in the bill that I actually think are a great idea, creating a database, so a bad cop who gets fired from one agency, for whatever case it may be is in a national database so that if he moves from Florida to Illinois, that Illinois department is not going to hire him not knowing what things he's done in a different agency, I think that's an excellent idea to ensure that bad cops aren't just getting moved around between agencies. There's a lot of good things that are in the bill that I think can be a bipartisan bill. You know, you got Tim Scott in the Senate, working with the administration on a bill. We haven't seen the details of what that's going to look like. But there are things that we can do. But there are very dangerous things that are in the Democrat's bill right now that they just created behind closed doors without talking to anybody else. That would be very, very problematic for law enforcement.

John Solomon  12:45  
It's gonna be a long, hot summer as those issues work their way through. Do you think there's a chance for a compromise, or are the Democrats just holding out to appease their base and head into the election without real legislative action?

Greg Steube  12:58  
I think they'll do what they've done this entire time where they seize emotionally on a moment and they'll pass a bill. The question will then be if the Senate and the administration work out a bill that they believe is appropriate, if they'll amend the House bill and send it back to the H ouse for consideration, or if they'll send it to conference and try to work out some of these issues. I think there are a lot of places in here that we can all agree upon, would be good changes some of the things that I talked about. So I do think there is the possibility to do a bill that would address some of these issues. It's just going to be again, it's Nancy Pelosi in the house, she's gonna make everything political, so we'll have a markup next week. And the Judiciary Committee on the bill that we had a hearing on yesterday, and then the following week, though, voted out of the House. And if things don't change in this bill, you'll see a lot of Republicans against it. It'll go to the Senate and then I'll just sit there like all the other messaging bills that she sent, and then Scott and the other Republicans in the Senate hopefully will come up with something that Schumer in the Senate can get 60 votes on, and they'll probably send that back to the House. That's what I anticipate seeing happen. But there are things that I think we can get done on this on both sides of the aisle.

John Solomon  14:16  
And that would be good news for America, because we certainly want to fix the issues that are here and then move forward. Because that's the key to this whole moment. The best way to honor George Floyd is to fix what's there. And then to move forward. I want to pivot just for a second because you've also been an important voice on the Russia collusion, fiasco and all that we've learned about the FBI and its conduct. You sit on the Judiciary Committee that obviously has oversight over the FBI. What things concern you about what the Comey FBI did, and are you satisfied that the Wray FBI it has taken enough ownership to fix the problems that have been identified?

Greg Steube  14:56  
Well, you've heard me in the committee on some of these issues I mean, what has happened to a campaign and to a President in our nation's history cannot ever happen again. You had high level players and all this is public now, we've seen a lot of this information now and, and your listeners have probably seen a lot of this information now, where you had high level players without evidence, manipulating evidence, manipulating a court, a secret court, the FISA court, to the point where their own judges are admonishing the FBI for their conduct to get warrants to spy on a political opponent's campaign. And that is just... it's unA-merican. It's illegal in my opinion, it should be criminal. There are things on some reform bills that I would have liked to have seen on FISA which weren't included, which is why I voted against the last bill. Like one of the things that absolutely needs to be included in FISA reform is requiring any FBI agent who's swearing and attesting to these applications to the FISA court to surveil, they have, they should be able to swear an oath. And if anything that is failed to be submitted or misrepresented, they should be held criminally liable for that. And that currently isn't the case. And that's why I think I've seen so much time and investigation before you've seen anybody indicted, we know that the Durham investigation is going on. Well, that's some of the challenges is all these people who review these FISA applications and submitted this information, there wasn't a legal requirement or criminal requirement that if you misrepresented the FISA court, that something happened to you as an FBI agent. So I absolutely think that of the reforms for FISA that absolutely has to be part of it. So I do feel confident just by reading the news reports, and I'm sure you probably have more information than I do, that the Durham investigation is going to elicit some some indictments and some charges that are going to come from all of this, the less just going to label it as political which will be very unfortunate because this should never happen in our country. But just should be served because if justice is not served, the people in the FBI will know that you can do this and get away with it. And it won't stop any administration, whether Republican or Democrat from doing something like this again.

John Solomon  17:11  
That's the danger. Right? It really is a bipartisan issue, because if it happened to one it can happen to the other side just as quickly and fixing this seems to be a bipartisan goal. But one party has been very... as well as the media, has been very disinterested in what we found was you as you look out over the election to because Florida is always an important state. How do you see this election shaping up? What are the issues that are going to cause this election to pivot and how are Republicans and Trump doing in Florida right now?

Greg Steube  17:43  
Well, in Florida, I think we're doing great and innate nationally. I mean, look at the special elections in tough districts that Republicans have won a few weeks ago before all this craziness started. We won a district that Hillary Clinton won by six that the incumbent Democrat one by nine, we won that seat by 12 in California, of all states. So I think nationally, we're in a very good shape. There are 30 Democrats that sit and Trump one districts. So if we're able to pick up a district that Hillary Clinton Clinton won by six points by 12, I think we're in a very good political circumstance. I don't believe any of these polls that you read. The polls I was seeing in Florida was Hillary Clinton's gonna win by like 12 points over Donald Trump. And that just absolutely was not the case. Because I think there's a lot of what we know, there's a lot of Trump voters who didn't show up in the midterms. I think the numbers about 1.8 million Trump voters who didn't vote in the midterms, well, they're going to be out voting for the President. And I would contend you're going to have more people voting for the President that are disgusted by some of the things that the left has done over the last year. And I hope that's the case. I think in Florida, we're going to be in really good shape. And I think we keep the seats that we have that are Republican and I wouldn't be surprised if we pick up one or two. There's a seat down In Miami that we used to have as Republicans, it was Carlos Corbello seat. We have a really good candidate, the mayor of Miami Dade County who's running in that seat, we have a really good opportunity to pick up a seat here and there. That's not a Trump one district. So if we win just half of the districts that Trump won in 16 that currently are held by Democrats and pick up one or two in the nation. We've taken the 17 seats back that we need to get the majority.

John Solomon  19:27  
Remarkable. You still feel good about that, even after coronavirus and the George Ford stuff, the slate of candidates and the polling and sentiments that you see, you feel pretty good about about the election, don't you?

Greg Steube  19:40  
I do especially here in Florida. I'm out and about I unfortunately have to go to a funeral of a law enforcement officer today. He wasn't killed because of all the craziness that's going on. He just had a massive heart attack but somebody that's been a friend of the family for years, and so I'll get to talk to folks in the community there, but as I'm out and about talking to people in the community, they're fed up of the things that they're seeing. They're fed up of the things that the left is doing and the hypocrisy of the left. And I just think you're going to have a very strong outpouring of voters who don't typically vote like the Trump voters in 16, come out and support Republicans and support the President.

John Solomon  20:19  
That's going to be a dynamic we're all going to be watching over the next six, seven months. It's going to be fascinating. Well, Congressman, I know you've got a busy schedule ahead of you. I want to thank you for taking so much time today to talk to our listeners at John Solomon Reports, and we wish you well and hope to have you back on the show soon.

Greg Steube  20:34  
Thank you. I would love to be back. Thanks so much for your time.

John Solomon  20:37  
You too, sir. All right, folks. We'll be back after the commercial break to wrap things up.