Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed State Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-Kingsport) to the newsmaker line to talk about Speaker Pelosi’s lack of communication with Republicans in Congress and her own actions to hold President Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas responsible for the invasion at the southern border.
Leahy: We are joined on the line by Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger from the 1st Congressional District in Tennessee. Good morning, Congressman Harshbarger.
Harshbarger: Well, good morning, Michael.
Leahy: So how is everything up in East Tennessee today?
Harshbarger: Oh, it’s beautiful after you do five different parades and you get to meet so many fine people in East Tennessee. It’s been a good week.
Leahy: Tell our listeners what the current dimensions of the current boundaries now in the 2022 election are for the 1st Congressional District of Tennessee that you currently represent.
Harshbarger: Well, absolutely. We represent 12 counties, and now it goes to most of Jefferson County all the way down to Knox County. So I picked up over 45,000 constituents that I call friends and family, Michael.
I have most of Jefferson County. I think the only thing I do not represent is Strawberry Plains, and that’s my good friend Tim Burchett’s district.
Leahy: Now, are you in Tennessee today or are you up in Washington, D.C.?
Harshbarger: No, I’m out of town doing some other things today, but I’ll be back in D.C. on Tuesday.
Leahy: Does anything happen in the House of Representatives in July?
Harshbarger: Well, we’re there for the next three weeks, so we’ll see if anything happens. They do have legislation coming up that we need to vote on, but it’s whatever Speaker Pelosi wants to throw at us at the last minute. It’s what we have to look at and make decisions on.
Leahy: Speaking of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, did you see pictures of her out strolling on the Italian beach the other day? Did you see that?
Harshbarger: I haven’t seen pictures. I heard that she took an Italian vacation, but she probably went over to order some more exquisite clothing and things like that. They say that she’d be better served being an ambassador to Italy than anything else, so I probably would agree. Get her out of our hair and let her do whatever she wants to do.
Leahy: (Laughs) She sounds like a very difficult and unpleasant person to deal with, at least this one, it looks like to me. Her father was sort of a Tammany Hall type political boss in Baltimore way back when. She seems to have that style of “my way or the highway.” What kind of interactions have you had with Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi?
Harshbarger: If she ever came on the Republican side, we might have a chance to talk to her, but she never does. The only time you ever see the woman is when she comes to the floor to gavel a bill that she has presented that, of course, passed, which means that they’re going to push their woke ideology down the American people’s throats.
So that’s the only time you see her. I’ll tell you what was really fun to watch is when she had to swear in Mayra Flores from Texas down at the Rio Grande Valley sector.
She had to do it. And she had that little halfway grin on her face as Mayra was sworn in as a representative, and there hasn’t been a Republican to serve that area in way over 100 years.
It was such a delight to see her, and I got to sit there with her children. But she wouldn’t let her husband on the floor, which I thought was pretty pathetic.
But I love that part because she had to do it. She didn’t want to do it, but that was her job as Speaker, is to swear in the first position.
Leahy: And of course, that famous video showed the daughter, sitting on her right. She elbowed her out of the picture. That was crazy.
Harshbarger: That’s her style, Michael, she’s that kind of woman. You’re right. It’s her way or the highway.
Leahy: All odds suggest that the Republicans will take over the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections. Are you in line to be the chairman of any committee when the new Congress convenes if you’re re-elected in 2022? And what will your agenda be in the new Congress?
Harshbarger: I’ll tell you this. I currently serve on the Department of Homeland Security and on the Department of Education and Labor, and I’m a freshman.
So there are many people ahead to be ranking members or members of committees. But my goal is to honestly be on one of the most powerful committees in Congress that covers and touches anything and everything that is the Department of Energy and Commerce.
And there’s a healthcare component to that. There’s no restriction component to that. It conveys everything that I want to touch, and I want to touch a lot of things, Michael, that helps our district in this country go forward.
Leahy: Absolutely.
Harshbarger: I’m on a lot of good things right now: the China Task Force; I’m in the Doctors Caucus. I’m in a position, well, to do so many things that would push our district, our state, and our country forward.
But Energy and Commerce is the committee that has its hands in everything. And that’s my goal. As the ranking member has said, we want you on there. And I’m methodically going through the process to be placed on that committee. I could do a whole lot of good things.
Leahy: If you are re-elected and if the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives and you’re sworn in in January 2023 to the new Congress, will you introduce and support articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, for failure to enforce our immigration laws?
Harshbarger: Yes, I’m already on articles of impeachment now for President Biden. But Mayorkas, you cannot sit back and let over three million people – and a lot of the unaccompanied adults are fighting-age young men into this country – without knowing their intent.
And this is unacceptable. You could fix it overnight. And I’ve talked to different members. There are plans that you could put in place that would stop this invasion, and it is an invasion, Michael. There is no doubt about it.
And you can do that overnight if you just built the wall and you held the people that are shipping these people and making multi-million dollars a week like the cartels accountable for what they’re doing.
We’re going to lose the whole generation to drug overdoses, mainly fentanyl. I could list the things that this president and his administration have done that are detrimental to the safety and the sovereignty of our nation. You can’t make this stuff up that is going on. It’s unbelievable.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
