Congressman Warren Davidson (OH-08) recently sat down with Craig McKee in Cincinnati to talk issues President Trump will be addressing in his first State of the Union address. In his interview, Representative Davidson reflected on the need for a deal concerning DACA, optimism for a border wall with Mexico to stop the illegal flow of drugs and human trafficking crossing into America, and support for free trade.

 

Watch the full interview here.

 

In case you missed it:

 

 

The Need for a DACA Deal

"...DACA is deferred action. It is an action and there is no law that made it this way. There’s no money that’s been appropriated by congress for DACA. This was an action taken by Executive Order by President Obama, and President Trump basically said “Hey I’m going to follow the law, so if you guys want me to follow the law, I’m going to give you six months. I’m not going to start following the law immediately, I’m going to start following it on March 5th.” So he did put that deadline out there. He did put Congress on a deadline. He deferred the law. The law says that as the executive, he is supposed to enforce our law and so he’s put pressure on Congress to find a way to get a solution."

 

Stop the Illegal Flow of Drugs, Stop Human Traffickers

"... when you look at “why does it (a wall) matter?” let’s look at Ohio. Unfortunately, Ohio is at the top of the country in overdose fatalities. When we get the stats in for 2016, what we’ll see is that more people died of overdoses than any other accidental cause of death. We’re also ranked high on human trafficking. Who controls that trade? Largely Mexican drug cartels. Over 80 percent of the stuff on our streets is coming across the Mexican border."

 

Support for Free Trade

"... I’m a free trade guy so I don’t like tariffs. I like free trade. And what’s gone on, one of the things that the President railed against was trade laws that have handicapped Americans. If you look at our interaction in the World Trade Organization, I’m for the free trade and I’m for the context of working together to trade. But the current system is essentially like watching basketball where there’s no fouls called and no free throws. Would that change the sport? Absolutely it would and that’s what’s been going on with respect to many aspects of our trading environment. So while I had hoped that we would be able to respond to this in a different way without the tariffs, I am happy that the President is doing something about it."

 

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