Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Transcript: Interview with Jim Banks

Interview

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INGRAHAM: Joining us now Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana who was blocked by Speaker Pelosi for the January 6 Committee, Congressman Officer Dunn who testified today previously defended the violent and deadly George Floyd riots in Kenosha. Isn't that part of the double standard you and your colleagues are trying to get at?

REP. JIM BANKS (R-IN): Yes, Laura, he also attacked you a year ago on Twitter. He later deleted his tweet. He is obviously has very strong partisan feelings. And you got to see that on full display today. Everything that you saw today was carefully scripted, by Speaker Pelosi and her staff.

Even the statements that these police officers read, you could tell at times, they didn't write the statements they were merely reading them, as they stumbled over some of the words that they weren't familiar with as they were reading.

This was carefully scripted even that, obviously, the members of Congress who were selected to be in the room were picked Republicans, including Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger. By the way, those two do not want Republicans to win back the majority next year. They want Democrats to remain in control.

And the American people should keep that in mind, especially Republicans, in their states and in their districts knowing that these two would rather Nancy Pelosi stay in charge. And the radical Democrats advanced their socialist agenda, then Republicans winning back the majority to save our country so this was a political stunt by the Democrats. It's clear to the American people; they're not falling for it.

INGRAHAM: Yes, Tucker made the point earlier, I think it was well put that these were hand-picked officers who were going to say a certain thing, and they're phenomenal people out there and the Capitol Police, we all know that.

But they came across as political actors. That doesn't help anything. I mean, we want the police to be just the police. I mean, not picking and choosing. I thought that was the whole point of what they were saying last year, that the police had to be even handed now we have to have the police making political statements.

BANKS: It's so true. That's why last week, Laura, I called on the Chairman of this Committee, Bennie Thompson to bring the head of the Capitol Police Union. I thought Democrats were pro union. In this case, they refused to hear from the Capitol Police Union Chief who would have come before this committee and spoke on behalf of every single rank and file member of the United States Capitol Police.

The heroes who show up every day to protect me to protect my staff to protect my family when they're on Capitol Hill and he would have provided a different perspective than what these four police officers provided today.

He would have told the members of Congress and the American people if he was allowed to testify that on January 6th, they weren't prepared for what was going to happen that day, even though they had intelligence reports that were provided to the highest levels of the Capitol Police three weeks before January 6th, there's something dangerous was going to happen.

They weren't trained for what was going to happen that day. And they weren't equipped for what was going to happen that day. In fact, he said that the rioters had better equipment than the Capitol Police officers did. And they knew it.

They knew it heading into that day that they lacked the equipment that they needed would have been a whole different story if the leadership of the Capitol Police would have done their job and if those responsible with Capitol Police officer would have provided as well.

INGRAHAM: Let's get to the bottom. Democrats want to try to take Trump out off the table before 2024. They impeached him twice. Maybe this is the third bite of the apple. This is really about, this is a lot about Trump here. They didn't think it was a real attempt to stop the government from ever working again, or like fur-boy was going to, what, come up against the U.S. military and take over the government? Do they really blink believe that Congressman? Yes or no.

BANKS: They don't want to talk about what's going on in the country today, from inflation, the crimewaves to the border crisis. They don't want to talk about that. They want to talk about this.

INGRAHAM: January 6th all the way to 2022. Congressman, good to see you.

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