EXCLUSIVE: Reps. Beth Van Duyne, Pat Fallon, and Harriet Hageman on why reconciliation must pass, DOGE and Elon Musk, and more

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R., Texas) hosted fellow Reps. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), and Harriet Hageman (R., Wyo.) on the Republican Study Committee’s “Right to the Point” podcast.

• In the episode exclusively obtained by the Reporter, the lawmakers talked about everything from budget reconciliation to American energy independence.

• Van Duyne, who chairs the RSC’s Budget Committee, noted that “if we don't have those extensions we do risk 90 percent of taxpayers paying more in their taxes than ever before in our nation's history.”

• Additionally, the House Republicans also discussed how President Joe Biden “demoniz[ed]” the energy sector, in Van Duyne’s words, how President Donald Trump is finally securing the border, and what their comfort foods are.

Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R., Texas) has had a front-row seat to budget reconciliation for over two years from her perch on the powerful Way and Means Committee. In the latest episode of the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) Right to the Point podcast — obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter — Van Duyne took the moderator’s chair and asked her fellow RSC members, Reps. Pat Fallon (R., Texas) and Harriet Hageman (R., Wyo.) for their thoughts on everything from reconciliation to American energy independence.

Van Duyne, who chairs the RSC’s Budget Committee, noted that “if we don't have those extensions we do risk 90 percent of taxpayers paying more in their taxes than ever before in our nation's history.”

“I think that is a horrible thing, considering we've got a new administration that was voted on in November to secure our border,” she said. Both Fallon and Hageman agreed with her that reconciliation must pass, and that it will pass.

“We're in the majority, we need to act like it. I'm very optimistic that we're going to come together and we're going to get that reconciliation bill passed because we have to,” Hageman said. “We don't have any option if not.”

Fallon added, “If we do nothing, then we will allow the largest tax increase in American history to occur, and ironically, under unified Republican governance.”

The trio also discussed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts, which all are supportive of. Fallon sits on the Oversight Committee’s DOGE Subcommittee, and he said he could play bingo with how predictable the Democrats on the subcommittee are.

“You cannot get through five minutes of your Democrat on the DOGE Subcommittee without saying billionaire, unelected billionaire oligarch, or Elon Musk,” he said. “They're full throttle with the demonization and villainization of Elon Musk.”

Hageman was even more strident in her criticisms.

“Keep in mind the that this was a money laundering operation,” she said. “They give all of this money to these NGOs, and NGOs are turning around and giving it right back to Democrats…I think the DOGE stuff is absolutely incredible.”

“I think that we ought to take every single thing he identifies, slap a preamble on it, say we are cutting every single agency by the amount that's identified in the attached report, and that they cannot fund any more programs like this ever,” Hageman continued.

Additionally, the House Republicans also discussed how President Joe Biden “demoniz[ed]” the energy sector, in Van Duyne’s words, how President Donald Trump is finally securing the border, and what their comfort foods are.

Below are highlights from the latest episode of the Right to the Point podcast, lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the latest episode, and all of the other ones, here.

Reconciliation:

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “We've been working on this on Ways and Means. And part of the discussion that we're having is is it going to be one big, beautiful bill? Is it going to be two bills? I heard Marsha Blackburn talk about three different reconciliation bills. I think every single time that we negotiate a bill, and you saw it this week, there's a little bit of political clout that gets spent, and we don't have that much. And I think the last thing you need to do is break it down. I mean, the last time you passed two reconciliation bills was under Newt Gingrich, back in 1997 we had almost a 40 member majority. Well, we don't have that right now. And I think in addition, you're talking about the importance of having the border bill part of that, and we passed a border bill. I think that's what some people are saying. You're putting too much in this, you're starting from scratch. Well, the fact is, no, we had a great border bill. To me, it didn't go far enough. I was actually very pleased. Then we're starting to go after the cartels directly and considering them foreign terrorist organizations. I think we need to be able to do that to use our military, but we need, being Texas reps, to have a very strong border bill. We also need to have a very strong energy bill. We already did that last session. We had HR1. So we already have these bills. But for people who are saying, ‘there's a lot of conversation around the tax bill, and we've got too much to do and too short of a time period,’ being on Ways and Means, as you guys know, I've been doing this for the last over two years, even putting this bill together, and we already have a framework with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That was a phenomenal framework. These are programs that were proven to be able to increase our economy, to be able to get businesses to repatriate back from overseas, back to America, to higher jobs. It's job and opportunities. They will be able to invest in their company's growth as well as invest in their employees. So I think this was an overall win. And if we don't have those extensions we do risk 90 percent of taxpayers paying more in their taxes than ever before in our nation's history. I think that is a horrible thing, considering we've got a new administration that was voted on in November, yes, to secure our border, but also to look at what's going on.”

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “Earlier this week, we voted on the budget bill, which is the first step in being able to move forward with reconciliation. And I'm by no means an expert on reconciliation. Boy, I've attended a lot of discussions and seminars and and meetings about it, and it's my understanding that what we will be doing now is the Senate and the House will be trying to mash together, to a certain extent, their budget bills, but really this is going to go back to the committees now, where the committees are assigned with responsibility either to raise revenue or cut spending, and in some cases, they're going to be spending more. I think Judiciary is one of those committees, because we have immigration within our jurisdiction, and we have to look at building the wall. We have to look at having additional officers. We have to have be able to pay for additional beds for for people while we're processing them or removing them from the country. So it is my understanding that over the next couple of weeks, we are going to be trying to take this one big, beautiful bill and address everything from energy policy in terms of budgeting, national security and what we're actually doing, and border security, and I think all of us are really excited that we finally seem to be moving forward in the process, because now we can have the committee hearings where we can talk about the specifics of where we go with reconciliation, and I'm excited, just because of some of the priorities that I have. We're in the majority, we need to act like it. I'm very optimistic that we're going to come together and we're going to get that reconciliation passed bill passed because we have to. We don't have any option if not.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “If we do nothing, then we will allow the largest tax increase in American history to occur, and ironically, under unified Republican governance. So we absolutely cannot do this. We have to get something done. And that's what it is, frustrating, and it is making sausage. When you have any kind of democratic process, but when you have the narrow majority that we have, which is essentially, we lose two Republicans, and we can't pass anything, that makes it difficult. It harkens me back to the days of the Texas Senate. When I was in the Texas Senate, we had 31 senators. 19 were Republican, and it was a deliberative body, so you needed 19 to consider any legislation. So in effect, every one of us had a de facto veto. But that was 19. That's not even two dozen. This is 10 dozen. Well, almost. It's ridiculous, how many folks, and you've got a lot of different personalities. You have some, let's just say, robust personalities and but what doesn't serve us well? And this is a little bit of inside baseball, but I’ll describe to people who we meet as a conference every week. And there should be, in theory, 219 of us there, somewhere in the neighborhood, 180 probably show up on average, but people get frustrated, and they get on those microphones, and everybody has one minute to speak, and they get angry at each other. And I get some of the reasons why, but we need to be more productive, because if we don't all sing from the same sheet of music, we get nothing done.”

DOGE and Elon Musk:

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “What we've heard all last week and this week from all of our hearings, is Democrats who are ranting on the DOGE efforts, ranting on Elon Musk, ranting on this, ranting on that, and God forbid, the cardinal sin: he actually asked federal workers last week to identify five things that they did. I don't know about you, but I guarantee you, because I know both of you as members, you actually probably have a newsletter where you tell your constituents, the people that you are accountable to, what you do. Every week, you tell who you're meeting with, Op-Ed pieces that you're writing, interviews where you talk about the hearings you're holding, bills that you're introducing, bills that you're co-sponsoring, they know exactly what you're doing, but all of a sudden we got federal employees, and they're told that that is somehow beneath them, and now you're having some of these federal employees who are actually quitting as a result. They're being asked what they're doing.”

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and all he's doing is shining light. The way that I describe the DOGE effort is that this is probably the closest thing we'll ever get to zero based budgeting in the history of the federal government. All he's doing is looking at these agencies line by line by line, and saying ‘hey, Congress, did you know that you were funding these ridiculous things in Peru or Guatemala or Kazakhstan or China or wherever it might be?’ And all of us are saying we didn't know we were funding that and if we did, we never would have funded that. But the other thing about exposing things like USAID is it showing how completely off the rails so many people in government and politics have become in terms of of really expert exporting toxic ideology, and that is what I think has potentially undermined America almost more than anything else that we could do. When you go into these countries, they love their families, even if we have different political climates, different political processes, these people love their families. They love their kids, they love their communities. And we're bringing things into them that are so foreign to anything that they ever could have possibly imagined. And we are forcing them upon this, upon them through these NGOs. I think the DOGE stuff is absolutely incredible. I think that we ought to take every single thing he identifies, slap a preamble on it, say we are cutting every single agency by the amount that's identified in the attached report, and they cannot fund any more programs like this ever.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “Big ship, little rudder. I'm on the DOGE Subcommittee on Oversight. We get a lot of attention because of the name and because Marjorie Taylor Greene's the subcommittee chair, and there are just cameras everywhere. The Democrats are ready to go nuts every single five minutes. The Democrats, you can play bingo with it. You cannot get through five minutes of your Democrat on the DOGE subcommittee without saying billionaire, unelected billionaire oligarch, or Elon Musk. And they're full throttle with demonization and villainization of Elon Musk. It reminds me of Ken Starr where Democrats were attacking the prosecutor, and they're attacking this fella. That's one of these geniuses who come along every couple hundred years, and he wants to work for the federal government for free to save hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money. I'm saying, ‘go for it, and if you can't justify to me your job and you can't tell me five things you did last week, and you refuse to, it's beneath you, you don't need to be working for us. Move on. Welcome to the private sector.’ I asked their witness, ‘do you think $2 million for gender reassignment surgery, also known as a sex change surgery, in Guatemala is a good use of taxpayer dollars? He was trying to say that, well, does it really happen? I'm like, I have the code right here that and this is from the U.S. government's website. So clearly, was spent. Is it a good use of taxpayer money? He tried to dodge it, and then he finally said, yes. So there it is. Ladies and gentlemen, in November, that's the toxic ideology out there.”

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “So in 2026, in November, please remember that the Democrats and their witnesses think that that's a good use of your money. Also keep in mind the that this was a money laundering operation. They give all of this money to these NGOs, and NGOs are turning around and giving it right back to Democrats.”

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “The biggest complaint is that he's unelected. Who are all these bureaucrats? Was Fauci elected? Is Bill Gates elected? And think about the influence that he's had. What about George Soros? Think about the influence that he's had, and who exactly it was, not the president, but who was the acting president the last four years? Are we even asking those questions? Elon Musk is working under the direct guidance of an elected president who is giving him these requests. Go find it, and then he's giving his advice, and that as an advisor, every president had an advisor. They're yelling at the messenger, but they're not saying anything about the message with specificity.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “Was Alejandro Mayorkas elected? Suddenly they're offended by that because they don't know what else to do. And they're thinking, ‘we're in the minority. We need to show our base we're doing something.’”

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “If they're so concerned about these federal government employees that are losing their jobs, where were they when you had Biden said you're fired if you don't take the vaccine?”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “We need to make sure that we mention that there are federal workers who do an incredible job. They are national treasures. This is anecdotal, but I was at Sheppard, as I mentioned, and there were seven civilians in my office that didn't do squat. There should have been probably one. They smoked a lot. They took a lot of smoke breaks, and they ate in the little cafeteria for hours on end. You can cut the excess. That's what we're all saying.”

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “I worked for the first Trump administration. I worked at Housing and Urban Development. I worked under Ben Carson, who is fantastic. So I've been in the belly of the swamp. And there we had, before COVID, three day a week teleworking. I was there for two and a half years. There were employees I never met because they figured out they never had to come to work. There were absolutely folks who I had great relationships with, who really were doing God's work in that job, but so often they were overlooked because you've got other people who were the bad apples, and they don't want them anymore.”

Immigration:

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “To give you an analogy, it's like the winds are at our back and the path is clear. We just don't need to trip and no one's going to trip us. We can trip ourselves. We don't have to trip over our own feet. When you look at the border and President Trump, one of the main planks of his campaign was ‘I'm going to secure the border, it is wide open right now, and there's going to be a difference.’ And boy, have we seen this. In a month, when you look at the worst, that just fascinates me, and a lot of people don't know, but for 25 years, we never had a month where we had over 200,000 illegal encounters until Joe Biden. We had 28 of those months, and really we had more than that, because they started fudging numbers and saying, ‘oh, these don't count.’ The worst month we ever had in our history was December of 2023 it was 304,000 illegal crossings. Today, to compare that this month of February, the entire month is going to be 10,000. That was a day. Now we turn that into a month that proves that you can actually secure the border, and you didn't need extra any extra money.”

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “Our governor, Greg Abbott, was actually securing our border. You had the federal government under Biden suing him and then taking credit for the work that Abbott was doing. Everybody kept telling us, ‘you're not passing this bipartisan bill,’ which was a terrible bill, right? There was not a good bill, but you didn't need another bill. All that failure had happened because of executive orders and because they were preventing their own agencies from doing the job.”

Energy:

• Rep Beth Van Duyne: “We just passed legislation eliminating the waste emissions charge. All of the regulations the Biden administration put on onto energy producers the last four years are the opposite of what we’re seeing now, which is helping our energy producers, as opposed to demonizing them. We had two hearings and just had a bill that talked about repealing Biden’s bans on gas stoves and on water heaters.”

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “Wyoming and Texas have a lot in common, because we're two of the largest energy producers in the nation. We're the largest coal producer. You guys are one of the largest oil and gas producers. We're the eighth largest oil and gas producer. We also have huge reserves of uranium, which I believe that Texas does as well. And the fact is that the demand for energy over the last four years did not decrease. What did decrease is domestic production of energy, whether it be oil and gas, coal, and other resources. So all we did is offshore the energy resources that we needed. And in the meantime, Iran sold $110 billion worth of oil and gas as a result of Biden lifting the sanctions against them. And what did that culminate in? October 7, 2023 they were been able to rebuild and fund terrorists, Hamas Hezbollah and the Houthis because of the money that we gave them. Iran. Energy security is national security. It is absolutely the linchpin in terms of our prosperity. It is the foundation of our prosperity. We should be using our domestic resources. We should be a net exporter. And under this administration, I believe we'll get there.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “Just to kind of piggyback on what Harriet was saying, energy is a national security issue. We need energy. We consume more than we produce now. We could get energy independent, and we were at one point, and we need to get back to that. And when you're talking about, if you're an environmentalist, you should want the United States to energy independent. I know that I'm preaching to the choir here, but who does it better than we do? We have over 180 years expertise in this industry. We have powerful environmental protections and we have an independent judiciary. We do it better than anybody else. So if you want to protect the environment, let the United States exploit those resources, not Venezuela, China. You want to talk about some dirty coal, talk about China.”

Foreign policy:

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “The Iranian leadership was absolutely on their knees prior to the Biden administration coming into the office, they most likely were going to have been overthrown by their own people. We need to stand with the Iranian people. They don't like their leadership either, but because of the Biden administration, that is why the terrorism in the Middle East has has increased the way that it has, and why October 7, 2023 happened. So what I often say that a that a strong America makes for a very safe world, but a weak America makes for a very unsafe world and domestic production of energy is absolutely one of the most the quickest ways that we can export good things around the world and try to stamp down some of the extremism that we've seen.”

Weaponized government:

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “We also had some cool headlines this week from the Judiciary Committee, which revealed that the Biden IRS leaked over taxpayer information for over 405,000 Americans. And yet they are arguing that Elon Musk has got to go because he's got information he's going to leak, but it's already been proven to happen under the Biden administration.”

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “One of the things that I believe that is very obvious over the last four years is that our federal government has been weaponized against us, and in my first term, I was fortunate enough to be on the select committee on Weaponization of the federal government, and we were looking at things like the IRS. I don't know if you're aware of this, but there was an undercover operation with a gentleman who worked for the IRS, and he has explained that by using AI, they're able to access every person's bank account in the entire United States. And he even went as far as to say that the reason Jim Jordan and I authored a letter to the IRS demanding that they disclose how in the world they are accessing every single person's information and how they could and would and why they are accessing people's private bank accounts. The 87,000 IRS agents that Biden put in place, they were allegedly to go after the big guys. They were supposed to go after the millionaires and the billionaires. This guy spilled the beans and said that they don't go after the millionaires and billionaires. You know why? Because they can fight back, because they have lawyers and accountants and financial planners and experts who can fight back. They target low income and middle income people because they are the ones who cannot fight back. So they are specifically targeting Middle America, this whole thing about leaking IRS documents, tax documents. This is a threat, and this is why our government has got to be brought to to heel, if you will, which is what President Trump is trying to do.”

Economy:

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “Pat, being from the state of Texas, you understand that policies matter, which is why we're seeing that one of the fastest growing states in the country is Texas, and this just this week, you saw that Apple now is investing $500 billion in the U.S. and U.S. jobs, and that's creating 20,000 new jobs in America.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “The Trump effect is tremendous, because businesses have certainty and stability, particularly if we don't trip over ourselves and our own feet and pass the extend those tax cuts, then they're really gonna have that certainty that they need to plan and invest, and there's trillions of dollars sitting on the sideline once that gets invested, that's gonna grow our revenue. And Democrats don't understand that when you cut taxes, you grow revenue. Well, just look at history and understand economics. People vote with their feet. They flow to liberty. Why is California with that beautiful topography and that weather bleeding jobs and opportunity? Illinois, New York, New Jersey too. What states are growing? Tennessee, Texas, Florida, we're growing. Why? Because people are flowing to liberty, and they're voting with their feet. And we see that. And then you talk about 87,000 new IRS agents. Well, maybe we needed 87,000 new border patrol agents for Joe Biden, but hell, we don't need more tyranny in this country. And that's why I find it funny that our greatest geopolitical competitor, of course, is China. They’ve got an immigration problem. Other than people in North Korea, there’s not one SOB in this world who wants to sneak into China. They want to get the hell out of there, because it's about liberty. That's why we we don't build walls to keep people in. We have to say, ‘hey, wait in line.’ And one thing, if we can just touch on this that no one ever talks about is, there are 4 million people in the world trying to get to the country legally. They're waiting in their home countries. They're respecting the laws and the rules of the country that they want to become a part of. Nobody ever talks about them. So when you allow like Joe Biden did, mass unlawful migration, those good people are waiting longer. Some of those people die waiting. Because the average time frame is about nine to 12 years.”

Fun facts:

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: : “I'm a proud member of the Republican Study Committee. I am from the state of Wyoming. Unlike all of you, there's only one of me. I represent the entire state. I often point out that I represent the largest district in the United States outside of the state of Alaska, but they get to fly everywhere. I have to drive everywhere. I'm very proud to represent Wyoming and I am an attorney by trade. I grew up on a ranch outside of a little town called Fort Laramie, Wyoming and I went to Casper College on a livestock judging scholarship. From there, I went to the University of Wyoming, where I received both my bachelor's and my law degree. Before coming to Congress, I practiced law as a trial attorney for 34 years, primarily water, natural resources and constitutional law. And I have done a lot of work over the years fighting back against the federal government, primarily the administrative agencies, the EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, USDA, Corps of Engineers, any one of those that were primarily in the resource area. I brought some of that expertise with me here. Fortunately, I'm on the Judiciary Committees and the Natural Resources Committees, which I enjoy. I am in my second term. I was elected in 2022.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “I represent the 4th Congressional District of Texas. I am also a proud member of the Republican Study Committee. My two favorite countries are America and Texas, and you saw all the credentials that Harriet was talking about. Well, I don't want to brag here, but I almost took my LSATs. That's about the extent of that, and I watched several episodes of Law and Order way back when. Seeing Harriet blossom has been wonderful, and she's just such a great member, and so is Beth. Beth and I knew each other when she was on the City Council of Irving, and I was on the City Council of Frisco, Texas, and then you were the mayor, then I was a state Rep. And now here we join up together now, but I grew up in Massachusetts, the People's Republic. I sought political asylum in the state of Texas in 1991. I was the in the Air Force, and they brought me down. Quick true story. I told a friend this, and he started laughing. I said, ‘I gotta tell this at town halls, and I do, and it gets a good laugh, but it's true.’ I was in Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, and I was 23 year old and a Second Lieutenant, and they were processing me, and they're asking a series of questions. And I go to accounting and finance, and she's right now in x and y and z, and she said, ‘what state would you like to claim residency in?’ And I don't know any better. I'm 23 and I stand up a little straighter. I said, ‘Massachusetts.’ And she puts her pen down. She goes, ‘well, the state of Massachusetts has a 5.6 percent income tax. The State of Texas does not have an income tax. What state would you like to call your residency?’ And I said ‘Texas.’ And that was 34 years ago. I’ve never looked back. I'll move forward.”

Hot takes:

• Rep. Beth Van Duyne: “I think the perfect comfort food is Häagen-Dazs chocolate chocolate chip ice cream. Prove me wrong.”

• Rep. Pat Fallon: “I like chicken parm with pepper jack. Bring it.”

• Rep. Harriet Hageman: “My go to is a rib eye.”