Speaking with the press on Thursday, Rep. Nick Lalota (R-NY) vowed to try and expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) again after the first vote failed.
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00:00 Can I stop you at the pool table now, please?
00:02 Sure.
00:03 Do you think you'll bring up the Santos expulsion resolution again?
00:05 Yes, and I think that'll be likely to be right after the Ethics Committee publishes their
00:10 findings, which we've been told it's going to be on or before November 17th.
00:14 Do you think that there will be more support at that point from Republicans, the two-thirds
00:18 majority?
00:19 Heck yeah.
00:20 A lot of my colleagues I had private conversations with, they wanted to hang their hat on something.
00:24 They wanted to hang their hat on a guilty plea, a guilty finding of a jury or a judge,
00:29 or an Ethics Committee finding.
00:31 So I would expect the number of Republicans to increase from 24, like it was yesterday,
00:36 and I expect the number of Democrat no's to decrease from 31, that was yesterday.
00:40 Why do you think Democrats voted to bail out Santos?
00:43 It's a great question for them, for you to ask them, but I would suspect they love the
00:47 politics of this.
00:48 They love not talking about the border, they love not talking about the budget, they love
00:52 talking about George Santos, and their political priorities are probably misaligned there.
00:56 Can we just ask you one quick question on the Israel bill that's coming to the floor
00:59 later today?
01:00 You have the White House saying that the President would just veto this.
01:03 You have Democrats in the Senate that say they're not going to take this seriously.
01:07 Is this the best way forward?
01:08 I hope they're bluffing.
01:09 I hope that the President wouldn't veto the House's funding towards America's closest
01:14 ally in Israel.
01:15 Those who chant "Death to America" are the same ones who want to wipe Israel off the
01:19 map.
01:20 We have a common enemy.
01:21 We should help Israel defeat that common enemy.
01:23 I hope the President is bluffing or not in his full faculties when he says he would veto
01:27 that bill.
01:28 What about attaching the offsets to it, the IRS offsets the CBO found would actually add
01:33 to the deficit?
01:34 I can get there either way.
01:35 I can either vote them with the offsets or without.
01:36 I think it's paramount that Congress focus on funding Israel.
01:40 Do you believe that that was a political poison pill, essentially, for so many Democrats who
01:44 do want to support it?
01:45 No, it's not a poison pill for me.
01:47 I hope it passes the House.
01:49 Did the Speaker talk about Ukraine funding in there, his plans for that?
01:54 Yeah, it wasn't quite clear.
01:55 I think he's coupling it right now with the southern border.
01:58 There seems to be dissent from members on coupling those issues.
02:01 I think they ought to be brought as independent bills we should talk about and debate Israel
02:05 funding independently.
02:06 I expect there to be 90 percent of the House or so to agree on funding Israel.
02:10 We should have a discussion on Ukraine.
02:12 There seems to be two camps of folks who have Israel funding, the blank check camp, folks
02:18 who can't spend enough there.
02:19 There's another camp who doesn't want to spend one dollar.
02:22 There's a lot of folks in the middle who want some reasonable approaches to it, audits on
02:26 the money, a battle plan from the Secretary of Defense that what is this money going to?
02:30 We certainly don't have the money, but if we're going to shell out billions, tens of
02:33 billions, Congress, the American people should be privy to what the administration's war
02:37 plan is and certainly an auditing of American taxpayer dollars going overseas.
02:42 Just one last question, just to be clear, because it may end up heading that direction
02:45 where the cuts to the IRS budget end up being stripped out of that bill in order to get
02:49 Democratic support, you would still be behind that?
02:51 I think we have to support Israel at all costs.
02:55 It is a matter of their sovereignty, their independence, their religious freedom.
02:59 When we as members of Congress say Israel is our closest ally, we must put our money
03:03 where our mouths are.
03:04 Thank you.
03:05 Thank you so much for stopping.
03:05 Thank you so much for stopping.