Fox News "The Story" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Andy Biggs

Interview

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MACCALLUM: You bet.

So as I mentioned, my next guest has introduced a measure to censure Maxine Waters. Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs is a Republican and a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Sir, good to have you here this evening.

SEN. ANDY BIGGS, R-ARIZ., SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Good evening.

MACCALLUM: So, how far do you going to -- are you going to push this with Maxine Waters?

BIGGS: Well, I think we need to have a floor vote on this, unfortunately. But the reality is, I don't have anything personal against Miss Waters. I just think that her discourse was actually discredit to the House of Representatives, and that's the measure of whether somebody should be censured. I think she should be responsible for what she said and maybe that would be the measure that said, we've had some discipline and maybe now we can set aside some of the overly hot rhetoric that goes back and forth between us.

MACCALLUM: What do you say to those who say that this starts at the top of the Republican Party? And that the president is, you know like to say whatever he thinks about individuals and that that's where this started. What do you say to that?

BIGGS: Well, I don't know where it all started, but I know that he didn't call for people who disagreed with him to be harassed 24 hours, seven days a week wherever they go to have people protest outside their houses so they can't get any sleep. Having people say you're not welcome anywhere in this country anymore. I don't think he said that but that's what Representative Waters was saying.

MACCALLUM: Yes, It's hard to imagine if you know, it -- I always feel like in order to look at these things, you have to put them in a -- in a completely opposite spectrum, you know. Imagine if we were in the middle of the Obama administration and they were calls by a Republican member of Congress to harass cabinet members in the Obama administration everywhere they went, and try to make it so that they weren't -- they couldn't go anywhere safely. What do you think the reaction to that would have been?

BIGGS: Well, it wouldn't have been a censure motion, it would have been an expulsion motion that's what would have happened. And they probably would have gotten it, because it is outrageous -- it's an outrageous statement, and it puts a lot of people in danger.

Look at the situation that we have where you have a Florida congressman's kids were threatened with kidnapping, a man was arrested and charged with that. You have the shooting of Steve Scalise last year. We're in a tinderbox and I think that you can't be too careful.

I mean, I'm all for passion, I'm all for commitment to your principles and in debate and discourse. And sometimes it won't be fully civil but to actually openly ask people to get out and harass people and make sure that they don't feel safe and comfortable simply because they disagree with you on policy, that's wrong.

MACCALLUM: You know, it seems like grown-ups need to stand up and help solve this problem. And the sort of in excess of the most recent round of this that has escalated to such a frightening degree as you just pointed out, seems to be what's going on in the border. And I would imagine it's going to be quickly followed suit by the travel ban issue.

Can members of Congress get together and come up with something that makes our borders safe and also allows -- you know, perhaps, the number that the president suggested DACA children to be able to stay here. Why isn't there some way to solve this immigration problem once and for all so that there's a process that works at the border?

BIGGS: Well, it's obviously a complex issue because we've been fighting with it for the last 100 years. But my -- what I see as a big problem is that we tend to put things in these huge bills where maybe we get Andy to vote for it if we put this in, but if we do that, you know, Joe, over here is going to say no, I can't come on for that.

And maybe if we took these at a slice at a time and said, you know we all tend to agree that we need border security. We need more boots on the ground, we need -- we need a fence in places, we need border technology, we need to end the diversity lottery. Maybe if we did some of those things one -- at one-off bills, you might be able to see us get some -- in my opinion, some real movement to resolve this very vexing and troublesome issue.

MACCALLUM: Yes. That's why you're all there. So, we hope that some headway can be made. Thank you very much, congressman, good to see you tonight.

BIGGS: Thanks, Martha. Thank you.

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