Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) spoke with the press on Friday after the first presidential debate about the performances of the two candidates.
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NewsTranscript
00:00But Joe Biden has been destructive on his policies every day since January.
00:06Every day.
00:07The punishment has been terrible for the American people.
00:11All you reporters here today, it's been tough on y'all too.
00:14You buy products, you gotta figure out how to make ends meet, you pay rent.
00:17The American people are doing the same thing.
00:19You're struggling just like they're struggling.
00:21The immigration policy is man-made by Joe Biden.
00:24We know there are young girls sold into sex slavery.
00:27We know there are young girls who are being raped by coyotes and by drug cartels on the way to our southern border.
00:34That's horrendous.
00:36That's inhumane, but it's happened under Joe Biden.
00:39Ukraine was invaded under Joe Biden.
00:41Israel's been under attack under Joe Biden.
00:44Everything has gone wrong.
00:45We can talk about January 6th.
00:47And by the way, Donald Trump is 100% correct.
00:50Because on the oversight committee, before Nancy Pelosi shut down the oversight investigation in favor of her phony January 6th committee,
00:57we uncovered the truth that on January 4th, Donald Trump authorized 10,000 National Guard troops to be in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.
01:07He authorized those troops.
01:09It was Nancy Pelosi who did not allow them to be at the U.S. Capitol that day because the Speaker in the House is in charge of Capitol security.
01:16It was Muriel Bowser who wanted the National Guard spread all over D.C. on traffic duty.
01:21We got the letter to prove it.
01:23And the funny thing about that day is on January 6th, 2021, it was the height of COVID-19 in D.C.
01:29The whole city was shut down.
01:30So there was no traffic.
01:32It didn't have to be that way.
01:34But if the Democrats want to focus on January 6th instead of what's happened in the four years since that time and what's happened to the American people,
01:41it is no wonder they have lost the confidence of the American people.
01:44And that's why the American people want Donald Trump back in office.
01:47Congressman, good to see you, of course.
01:49Will Joe Biden still be the nominee for the Democrats?
01:51That's not my question to answer.
01:54I'm not going to get into that.
01:55I don't know if Gavin was over there holding his mega gavel auditioning or whatever he was doing.
02:00But let me be perfectly clear.
02:02Whether it's Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, it does not matter.
02:08The agenda remains the same.
02:10The only difference is maybe Gavin and Gretchen or Kamala won't look lost in front of the world.
02:16But other than that, they're going to do the same agenda.
02:19They're still going to chase this Green New Deal stuff, which, by the way, is only going to empower the Chinese and the Chinese economy to the judgment of Americans here at home.
02:27And they run around saying we're saving the planet.
02:29But the purchasing power of working families in America are going to suffer because electricity costs will skyrocket under their agenda.
02:37They're going to keep that.
02:38They're all going to keep the borders open.
02:40This is what the Democrat Party has wanted, not just Joe Biden.
02:43They're still going to go through heavy regulations, which are going to squeeze our businesses, and heavy taxation, which is going to bring down economic growth.
02:51That recipe does not work for the American people.
02:54It has been proven under Joe Biden's presidency.
02:57Just because you do a better job looking into the cameras and explaining it doesn't mean that the evidence has been better for America.
03:04During the debate, Trump gave a shout-out to Tim Scott.
03:07Thank you.
03:08He's a great vice president.
03:09Everybody on that list, I'll tell you that right now, everybody on that list, anybody would do a significantly better job than what's happening right now.
03:17President Trump, there were a few things, a few stretches or versions of the truth that he included.
03:26What do you say in terms of defending that, right, saying 18 million people crossed the border?
03:31That's not true.
03:3218 million people haven't.
03:33Many have, but what do you say in response to things like that?
03:36First of all, it's well over 10 million, and we don't know the amount of people that Border Patrol can't even account for.
03:42Let's be very clear on that.
03:44Number two, Joe Biden lied vehemently in that debate.
03:47He said at the beginning that no troops died under his watch.
03:50That is a lie.
03:51We lost 13 soldiers in the evacuation of Afghanistan through his dereliction of duty, through his weakness.
03:59It was a catastrophe what happened to our country.
04:01He lied about that to the entire world.
04:03We were all in the back room listening, like, wait a minute, did he just say no troops?
04:07Because that's a lie.
04:08We have to ask ourselves if that's what he said.
04:10At the end of the day, when you look at our immigration policy, we have more than 10 million people who are coming in here because Joe Biden wanted to.
04:18That's what he wanted to do.
04:20And now he wants to blame everybody else for comprehensive immigration reform not being asked to.
04:25Well, you know what?
04:27In the last Congress, that's inclusive, isn't it?
04:30What do you think of Joe Biden's performance tonight?
04:33Well, look, I think when it comes to black voters in America, I think Donald Trump has a great opportunity to get anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of the black vote.
04:42I truly believe that.
04:43It's going to be a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of effort from the campaign, from the Republican National Committee.
04:48And I know that that work is something that is going to happen in the conversations about how that's going to work.
04:52I'm fully confident we're going to do that.
04:54I think on a broader level, we have a serious question that must be asked.
05:00Can Joe Biden do this job for four more years?
05:03Listen, I was I was on Twitter, not with political people on Twitter, looking at normal people on Twitter and their comments.
05:10People were astounded by what they saw from Joe Biden.
05:18I think the Biden campaign came out and said something about how he had a cold.
05:21Come on, man.
05:22Everybody's had a cold.
05:24This is the big time.
05:26This is the big time.
05:28You knew Michael Jordan was that dude when he had the flu and still gave the Utah Japs the Utah Japs 45 points.
05:34When you're that dude, cold or not, you show up and you perform and you get the job done.
05:38That is not Joe Biden.
05:40And so I think black voters are looking at that.
05:42I think the American people are looking at that right now.
05:44They're saying, man, we can't continue this.
05:47But there is something that the black voters don't go out then if they're not having the pressure to go out.
05:52What do you say to those people?
05:54That's my first thing, but that's where you've got to have the get out the vote.