Representative Brian Fitzpatrick
Appearances
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Yeah. I don't, I mean, I think navigate, John, I honest to God, I mean, every time I've run and I've, I've been, I've run five times now I was an FBI agent before I was in Congress and I'd never run for anything before. And I've been primaried every, every single time I've run, I've been primary by the far right every single time. So I'm used to that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Because they're so ridiculous. I mean, they're just ideological purists, and that's just not how life works. I ask them all the time. I just marvel. I'll find them on the house floor, and they're rattling sabers, and they're mocking their fellow American on the other side of the aisle. And I just ask them, is this how you function at home, right?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Could you imagine if we took the attitude towards our spouses or our partners that if you don't agree with me 100% of the time, you're a stupid and a bad person? That's just ridiculous. And yet you have a lot of adults acting like children here that conduct themselves that way. I'm a term limits believer, John. It's the first bill I introduce to every single Congress.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I think it's so important that this not be a career, that this be a temporary public service. And I think a lot of good things flow from that because if you're not trying to stay here and become a committee chair or build up your little political fiefdom or whatever you want to call it, it changes the way you approach the job. And I'm a huge term limits believer.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I think the biggest problem in Congress are the people that have been here 20, 30, 40 years. It's never meant to be that. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I don't remember who it was, Tom. Maybe you can remind me. But there was a celebration of somebody recently who broke the record for the longest serving House Republican. And they threw a party for him. And I'm like, what a perverse incentive that is, right? We're celebrating someone who's been here for 55, 60 years. That's an embarrassment, I think. Was the guy from Alaska? Was it?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Was it Don Young?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
People rightly get so frustrated when they see Congress function.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Right. Yeah. John, an illuminating example is when you came and joined me and Tom and many others fighting for the PACT Act and the 9-11 Heroes Fund. And, you know, there are people dying literally every week. And Mitch McConnell said, well, we'll get to it when we get to it kind of thing. And you threw up your arms in a committee hearing.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
It's a moment I'll never forget because it sort of illuminated to me You're thinking like the average person out there, right? Like, why can't they just fix this? There's real people that are losing their lives. And you have this disconnected person that's been in Congress forever saying, oh, well, we'll put it on the docket and we got to schedule floor time.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I know, I know.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
But that moment really was so illuminating to the disconnect that exists between how the public thinks, which is what you were reflecting and sort of this inside the beltway, completely disconnected mentality. But I will say this, there are certain institutional impediments that prevent so many things from happening
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Number one is the construct in the house right now, John, is if you get 218 votes on the floor, you get everything. If you get 217 votes, you get nothing.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And yet a 218 to 217 breakdown is reflective of a very divided public, right? Who probably want us to compromise. So I am a huge believer in a coalition government. I don't like this all or nothing, zero sum concept. because it just creates more division.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I'm also a big believer in something that myself and my Democrat colleague, Jared Golden, are advancing to open up primaries to allow independents to vote. Primary used to be a now, now it's a verb. Now it's something you do to somebody.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And I cannot tell you how many of my colleagues go on the floor, we call them the vote no hope yes crowd, where they know voting for something is the right thing to do, For Democrats, it's border security. For Republicans, it's Ukraine. Take your pick on issues. And because they're worried about their primary, they vote no on a bill that they know is the right thing to do.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Because in a lot of these states, I believe over half, if you dare to register independent, you are told in one out of two elections, you're not welcome to vote in the primary. So envision this scenario.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
You could be a 98-year-old World War II veteran who stormed the beaches of Normandy and saved civilization, and you register independent in a country that was founded on independence, and you go to the polls, and you're told in one out of every two elections, you're not welcome here. That is insane.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And I think not only is it, well, curing injustice, but allowing independents to vote in primaries will allow more moderates to emerge from the primaries and not these extremists. All these are creating problems that Tom and I see. Right. that are jamming up the system.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Yeah. Swazi taps out.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
John, there is a lot of people in Congress, including in the Republican conference, that are very concerned about the tariff situation. I think if you took a poll amongst the majority of the conference, the majority of people that have not taken action yet are people that want to give a limited runway for the president to do that, which he said he was going to do, which is to recalibrate
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
and have reciprocal tariffs on countries. Tariffs in many ways are a remnant of World War II and our effort to help Europe reconstruct after World War II. So listen, we are all hearing it back home about the impact of economic policies that both hurt and help businesses. We heard it in the last administration with inflation. We're hearing it now with tariffs.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And it's only a matter of time before enough of my colleagues actually step up and do something. So I will tell you this, myself, Don Bacon, have pending legislation that we were set to introduce. Once the president put that 90-day pause, we paused the introduction of it, but we're prepared to go on it because I sit on the Ways and Means Committee. A tariff is a tax. Taxes go before our committee.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Again, as I said at the outset, I think this is an example of the president testing the boundaries of Article II authority, expecting to be challenged in the courts to provide clarity about what they can and can't do because they're going to get away with as much as they can get away with legally.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Oh, yeah, which is why I think open primaries and term limits would solve 80% of the problem. I'm convinced of it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
So how about this? If we can't get enough of our colleagues to do the right thing and vote against their own self-interest, how about we grandfather in the ones that are sitting? And that way, at least organically over time, we get back to a citizen legislature. There's a number of ways we can do this. I like that.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Listen, the 22nd Amendment, George Washington, amongst many of his great qualities, set the tradition for term limits. All he wanted to do was go back home to his farm in Mount Vernon, live under the laws he helped pass, make way for a new generation of leadership. They talked him into a second term. He said, no more.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
It's a tradition that every president honored up until FDR, who obviously served four terms and died in office, at which point Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. But true to form, the 22nd Amendment, they applied it to the executive, they didn't apply it to themselves.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
So if we can all agree that term limits make sense for the executive, why pray tell wouldn't it make sense for the legislature or the judiciary for that matter? if we believe that we want new blood coming in through the system, that that's an essential ingredient to democracy, why wouldn't we support that across the board?
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Quite a few, but not too many that are actually like real legitimate caucuses. With Honor is great, the for country caucus. That's a problem solvers version, but there are people that served in the military. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
No doubt, John. I mentioned before I was in Congress, I was an FBI agent. I ran the FBI's corruption unit here at headquarters in D.C. And not only was there a correlation, there was a direct linear correlation between the length of time in office and the instances of corruption.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Because what we found was that the most principled, well-intended backbone people that come into the system, when all you see all day, every day is people flaunting those lines, that becomes the new normal. And then that becomes the normal way to conduct oneself. So you are absolutely right that the lobbyists are way, way too powerful.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
pharmaceutical industry is probably notoriously at the top of that list, right? We have the most absurd laws when it comes to drug pricing, drug advertising on television. I mean, it's insane.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
John, way back in 1993, there was this Bill Clinton. As soon as he got elected, he started, created what they call the re-embedding government initiative. And they, I believe, downsized the federal workforce by 280,000. And they did it in a normal, humane manner.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And if you want to make government more efficient, a good starting point is to go to the agency head and say, hey, can you find 10%, 12%? of your budget that you can trim in a responsible manner. What we're seeing now is the Silicon Valley approach where you walk into the library, you dump all the books off the bookshelf onto the floor. That's interesting.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And you pick each book back up one at a time that you think is relevant. It does not work. I'm a huge advocate of PEPFAR, of combating HIV AIDS in Africa. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
That George Bush started. Right, right. That George Bush started. Yeah, George Bush and Bono. This is one of their legacy items.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
They are.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And the brain drain too. I mean, the people that we're losing in Africa, you can't replace that kind of knowledge. These are lifelong missionaries that have spent their life doing this. Moreover, John, once you take these kids, some adults, but mostly kids off these antivirals, the virus comes racing back. Oftentimes, if you reapply the antiviral, it doesn't work as well.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And we have basically really contained HIV AIDS. We could easily find ourselves back in 1980s footing again if we're not careful about it. Right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Congressman Fitzpatrick. So it's going to start, John, next month with the appropriations process, where there are 12 different appropriations bills that have an open amendment process where Democrats, Republicans, anyone can offer any amendment they like. And we are going to have to write these appropriations in a much more specific way that limit executive branch discretion.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
What we are experiencing now, all of that is with prior year appropriations. We've never had a situation, John, where the executive branch is sending money back to the legislative branch saying we don't need it. Normally, these agencies are spending every last dime they have, even if they don't need to, to sit to advocate for more money in the following budget year. So this is unprecedented.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
We've never really had this situation before. So we're really going to have to button up the appropriations process this coming next month to write it in a way that really curtails. To protect these kinds of things. Yes, yes.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Yeah, I'd say the most recent one would be the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Joe Biden ironically touted that as his greatest legislative success of his presidency. And that was a bill, John, that passed that got across the finish line because there were enough Republicans that overcame the bleed of the Democrats in the squad. who voted against it. So the Democrats in the squad voted no.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
There were me and 12 of my colleagues that voted yes to get across finish line, a major, major investment in our US infrastructure. That was exhibit A of how our group can be effective. What are we keying in on now? Immigration, the biggest failure of our country is our failure to get our immigration system right.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
We have the ability to bring the best and brightest people from all over the world that wanna come here. And it's the biggest advantage we have in this country. Nobody wants to move to our adversary's countries. Nobody's looking to move to China or Iran or North Korea or Russia. Everybody wants to come here. That's a huge demographic and economic security problem. advantage we have.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And we can secure the border. Tom and I want to work together on that. Permitting reform. We got to streamline this absurd permitting process to yield the benefits of a lot of our local natural energy. And then lastly is debt and deficit. It is not hard to figure out how to solve this. We don't have enough people with the courage to do what it takes to
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
to put everything on the table, just like we do in our family budgets. You look at revenues, you look at expenses, you figure out where you can button up expenses, where you can raise more revenue and solve this debt crisis.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I think it's only too hot when border security is not part of the conversation. I think as long as border security is part of the conversation, you know.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
I supported the Lankford bill. I put a statement out. I wanted it to come to the House. I would have voted for it happily. But I think that, you know, to Tom's point, if we can start focusing, when you have groups like the Chamber of Commerce, right, typically a right-leaning group.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
that are all in for the DREAM Act, I voted for the DREAM Act, are viewing immigration as a positive, as long as it's coupled with law and order, border security, we should view that as an economic driver in this country. All of our adversaries, John, Russia, North Korea, China, have massive demographic problems.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
They have a low birth rate, they have aging populations, and nobody wants to move there. That's the biggest threat they have to their economy is demographics. We have an endless labor supply in this country. It's the biggest economic benefit we have. And if we can get this right, Tom and I are very eager to work on this together.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
For sure. Tom and I actually came in together. We lost him for a brief stint when he ran for governor, but Tom and I came in together the same year.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And then Suozzi came back. But to answer your question, John- Big upgrade.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Yeah, to answer your question, I've never been a fan of executive orders, and I think we're seeing them abused more and more, where we're seeing presidents come in and really testing the boundaries of their Article 2 authority. I think they're doing so in expectation of getting challenged by the judiciary to rein them in.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
We've seen that with the AUMF, the Authorized Use of Military Force previously. We're seeing it now with tariffs and the like, the Alien Enemies Act with immigration. But As far as has Congress lost its ability to oversee, no. I mean, the budget still has to go through us, right? I mean, we're going to be voting on multiple budgets. We're going to be voting on appropriations.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
It's all got to go through us. The only exception to that is executive orders. And many executive orders that President signed do exceed the boundaries of Article II authority, and that's when they get smacked down by the courts.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
It is. It is. If you want to join, you have to find someone from the opposite party to join with you.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Yeah, we're about 25 and 25 right now. And yes, it's actually 75%. So for the caucus to endorse a bill, 75% of the overall group and at least 50% of the members of each party need to say yes. Now, if 75% of the group says yes, the 25% that do not, if it comes to the floor, they still have to support it because it's been endorsed by the group.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Yeah. So keep in mind, the only thing that's accepted from the 60-vote filibuster is reconciliation. So literally everything else will require bipartisanship because it can't garner 60 votes in the Senate without it.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Well, I think it's important to note that in order for – so you've heard this term called the Byrd Rule, named after former Senator Byrd. That's right. That basically requires that for anything to fall under the Rules of Reconciliation – which is a once a year thing, only under certain scenarios, that it's got to be budgetary in nature.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
So there's a lot of things they call, it gets birdbathed or birded out. So I'm not sure what you're referring to in terms of regulations. There's going to be a lot included.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
Oh, you may be talking about, yes, I think it's called the REINS Act. That's correct. So basically what that idea suggests is that any regulation that has over a $100 million impact on the economy- has to be revisited. So the criticism is that the Code of Federal Regulations is this cumulative Bible. It gets added to every year, but nothing ever gets taken away.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
And regulations that might have been passed in the 50s or 60s that are no longer germane or relevant are still in the books. So it would force an automatic sunset unless affirmatively renewed by Congress. Now, you raise a good question, John. It is unclear whether that would even qualify.
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
Are You There, Congress? with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Tom Suozzi
The Senate parliamentarian. Senate parliamentarian. Because the Byrd rule only applies to the Senate, not to the House.