Transcript: Rep. Tony Gonzales on “Face the Nation,” May 26, 2024

The following is a transcript of an interview with Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, on “Face the Nation” that aired May 26, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales. Good morning to you.

REP. TONY GONZALES: Good morning. Thanks for receiving me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to start at the border, this is your district. How do the agents you represent explain abandonment at crossings?

REP. GONZALES: I think a big part of this – well, first of all, it doesn’t have to do with what Joe Biden did. We are on track for 1.3 million people to come illegally. The numbers fell. The explanation is Mexico. Many people don’t realize that Mexico will have elections next month for its presidency, nine governments and its Congress. So in many cases, those operating on security platforms keep numbers low, but cartels are like businesses. So, they are taking losses in the first and second quarter to increase volume in the third and fourth quarter. So if anything, in many ways it’s just Mexico carrying Biden for a few rounds. Now that Joe Biden wants to guarantee this in the long term, I think he needs to stop looking for a solution in the Senate and look to the House.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean by that? What are you proposing?

REP. GONZALES: I think there are opportunities. Look, RH 2 is a good start, but it’s just a conversation…

MARGARET BRENNAN: –That’s impossible–

REP. GONZALES: –Let’s just talk. The President did not have any real conversations with anyone in the House. The Senate, yes. They sat down, they had these conversations. But in the Chamber they did not give him oxygen. This is a different Congress than previous years. The Chamber is where I believe you start if you really want to solve the problem. Now, if you want to talk about politics and just blame someone else, then you do that in the Senate and say we’re trying, we’re doing the best we can. But meanwhile, Americans are dying from fentanyl, the numbers are heading towards 1.3 million. Insane.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, there are a lot of policies to discuss with you on this and other topics. We’re going to have to take a break here, so stick with me, and we’ll get to it on the other side. We’ll be back in a moment.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face The Nation. We now return to our conversation with Texas Republican Tony Gonzales. It’s great to have you here in person. You know, Uvalde, Texas, that’s your district. Nineteen children and two adults were killed at Robb Elementary about two years ago and that horrific anniversary was last week. How is your community now?

REP. GONZALES: It’s still healing. It’s still very raw, two years later, in many cases, you are constantly victimized over and over again. The other part is also that a lot has changed, a lot hasn’t changed. Everyone talks about Robb, you know what happened at Robb, everyone talks about the new elementary school, Uvalde elementary school. But there are nine other schools in Uvalde that in many cases are still in the same situation. Yes, yes, they put up some fences. But how do we protect our children in the long term? And one of the things I did, I mean, I’m in the middle of a runoff, fighting for my life there politically, I held a bipartisan safety meeting – Bipartisan School Safety Caucus, where we brought together all these different partners to have discussions about how do we fix the things. I have the superintendent of Uvalde, I have the new police chief of Uvalde. There are a lot of changes happening in Uvalde. One of the things that came out of that was $10 million for school safety, not just for Robb and Uvalde elementary schools, but for all the other elementary schools.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you mentioned the runoff in this primary challenger that you faced, it’s the 28th. At first, you get 45% of the vote in the primary, just under the 50% threshold. I want to ask because last March you were censured by the Texas Republican Party and you linked that to the votes you took to help pass the bipartisan Safer Communities Act in Congress. Do you think some of the challenges you face now are because of the work you did after those students were killed?

REP. GONZALES: You know, Margaret, you can’t be afraid to do what you think is right. You will never get it perfect. But you have to fight for the things that are important to us, keeping our children safe from being murdered by crazy people, that should be important to all of us. They shouldn’t just be talking points. We couldn’t, we shouldn’t blame someone else. We shouldn’t just talk about mental health. In fact, we should do something about it to keep ourselves safe. The Safer Communities Act has prevented more than 500 school shootings from occurring. But this is just the beginning, we have to do much, much more. Part of this is why isn’t there a national standard for school safety? Why are all schools isolated when it comes to combating some of these things? And we have to give them the resources. We passed this law, but a lot of the money didn’t go back to schools. I’m not afraid of this vote. I’m not afraid of this second round. I ran hard to win this election. And I will continue to deliver for my district.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it sounds like you’re saying yes, that this vote hurt your prospects in your district?

REP. GONZALES: I’m in the second round for a reason. Part of it was that vote and you know what I knew at the time. When someone arrives, but I like to call him the devil. When the devil comes and visits you and says, hey, Tony, you’re going to do this or else. And you tell the devil to go pack sand, you better be ready for a fight.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Who is the devil?

REP. GONZALES: The devil has many faces and many names.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.

REP. GONZALES: And so what ends up happening is that people – then – there are no more debates in Washington. Everyone is defending positions that are already defined for them. We need to get back to having debates, real conversations that help real people. It can’t just be this, you know, this cosplay. It has to be real people doing real things. You started the segment with the For Country Caucus. It’s a great segment of bipartisanship –

MARGARET BRENNAN: -You’re part of this.

REP. GONZALES: I’m part of it. I am the co-chair of the For Country Caucus. That almost didn’t happen. And the reason it hasn’t happened is because everyone is fighting with each other. And no one wants to be seen with each other, more or less doing things together. It took a member of Congress named Jim Baird. He is one of the last surviving Vietnam veterans serving in Congress. I don’t like sharing private member conversations. But he basically told everyone at the convention, he said, here’s a deal, someday, someone will be there to honor his memorial. And I hope you take the time to show up. And I’ll tell you what, it hit everyone really hard. And everyone put aside and put aside our differences and put it all together. But this is a bigger thing that’s happening. You know, they’re working together is almost a bad thing in Washington. We have to react against this. Let’s have debates. Let’s make things right. Let’s solve real problems for real people.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And- I think a lot of Americans would like to see that. We just showed a video of Jim Baird. From what you say, though, you know, Donald Trump is on the campaign trail saying he’s going to lift all of Joe Biden’s restrictions on guns. There weren’t many restrictions on guns in this community – Safer Community Act. But you’re telling Republicans “don’t repeal this.” You’re telling Donald Trump “don’t revoke the work he did.”

REP. GONZALES: I would say there were no restrictions on guns in this bill. This was a mental health bill that was presented as a gun control bill to the different, you know, advocates so they could campaign for or against it. What it did – what it did was provide mental health resources and background checks on minors. I’m fine with background checks. Americans should accept background checks. We need to do more to keep our children safe at school. My kids go to school with a bulletproof backpack. You should think about sending your kids to school with bulletproof backpacks. Is not fair. It’s not the world we grew up in. But something has to change. And it can’t just be words, and it can’t just be pointing out blame. We have to solve real problems. We have to debate the issue. And we have to solve real problems by bringing money back. In one of my community projects, I brought $5 million to the Northeast Independent School District in San Antonio for a quick reaction force, essentially a SWAT team for the local ISD.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s a lot to unpack there. But thanks. We will be back soon and thank you for your service.