BIG COUNTRY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — In this week’s Big Country Politics, Senator Ted Cruz (R) and Congressman Colin Allred (D) cover issues facing the United States and Texas, including the economy, illegal immigration, and student protests.

The Biden administration has said that we are on an economic comeback, touting low unemployment and GDP growth surpassing expectations. But when you go to the grocery store and look at interest rates, you see another ballgame.

“I was raised by a single mom, who was a public school teacher in Dallas, and we don’t pay our teachers enough. So you know, growing up, times were tough at times… I recognize that any increase in costs impacts our most vulnerable Texans first and foremost,” Allred said. “That’s why I’ve always been so focused on trying to lower fixed costs in every single way that I can, particularly around healthcare costs and the cost of prescription drugs. I’m really proud that I voted to help cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for folks who are on Medicare. Unfortunately, Ted Cruz voted against that. We were trying to cap the cost of insulin for everyone. I’m trying to find ways, whether it’s in child care, whether it’s in health care, to try and make sure that we can control costs as much as possible for working folks and make it easier for them as we continue to recover from this pandemic.”

“I’m very, very concerned; Bidenomics has been a disaster. I think working people are really hurting. We see it in every aspect of life; when you go to the grocery store, what you’re paying is a whole lot more. When you’re paying rent, or you’re paying your mortgage, when you’re paying for electricity or health care. Certainly when you’re filling up your gas tank,” Cruz said.

According to Cruz, the reason for the increase is due to the spending by Democrats.

“They’ve risen like crazy, number one because Joe Biden and the Democrats have gone on a wild spending spree; they spent trillions of dollars that we don’t have. What they did was run the printing presses, and they borrowed that money from China. When they were doing it, I and many others said if you do this, you’re going to drive inflation. And they dismissed that. They said no, that’s not a problem. We’re not worried about it at all. Well, it turns out it is now a real problem that is impacting Texans severely,” Cruz shared. “They compounded it with a really foolish war on energy and a war on oil and gas. The Biden administration is going after the state of Texas and is slamming American energy production. So, the rise in gas prices is the outcome they want. They want to make it painful. When you go and fill up your pickup truck, or you fill up your minivan. They want to make it hurt because they want you to sell that truck and go buy a little electric vehicle. And I think it’s a really cynical view. I think it’s a view that Texans and Americans across the country are really hurting as a result.”

In December, border crossings reached an all-time high when border agents came upon more than 300,000 migrants who were attempting to enter the country. It has declined since then, but many GOP congressmen and senators like Cruz continue to express concern about the border.

“It is an absolute crisis at the border in the entire history of our country. It has never been remotely this bad. In three and a half years under Joe Biden, over 11 million people have crossed illegally into this country, and Texas is paying the biggest price… I spent a lot of time on the border. When you’re down at the border, nobody can see what’s happening and defend it. You cannot see the dead bodies every day. You can’t see the children who are brutalized. You can’t see the women who’ve been sexually assaulted. You can’t see the drug overdoses and the crimes that are happening because of this. Nobody who sees this can defend it,” Cruz said.

Allred also considers this a crisis and was part of a failed bipartisan bill to address it.

“I recognize that when we have these surges of migrants, it’s our border communities that bear the brunt of that, and I’ve seen it myself. I think this is a crisis that we have to respond to. The numbers have come down from the record high that we had in December, where we had 300,000 crossings, 10,000 a day; they have come down significantly. I think there’s some good policy work there to try and work with Mexico to help reduce that because we shouldn’t always be playing defense on our one-yard line,” Allred. “However, we need to make some fundamental changes to our immigration system as well as more resources to address the issue, which really largely revolves around asylum. A lot of these migrants are coming here and claiming asylum 90% of them are going to be rejected, but it’s going to take 5, 6, 7, sometimes eight years for them to get that process. First, we had a bill in the Senate, a bipartisan bill, to try and rush resources to this for more immigration judges to change the asylum process itself. More CBP personnel and more administrative personnel would have helped us solve this issue. No state would have benefited more than Texas and Ted Cruz took it down, not because he disagreed with the policy, but because he wants to have this issue run on in November, I actually want to secure the border, I’ll do it consistent with our values. I won’t play politics with this issue.”

Cruz added that he believes this is a man-made issue that can be corrected.

“The good news is we can and will fix it, I believe, in January of 2025. This is a man made problem Joe Biden, the Democrats created it deliberately. When Biden came into office, he inherited the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years; I worked hand in hand with President Trump, and we had achieved incredible success securing the border. All Biden had to do was nothing, just not screw it up. Instead, he deliberately broke the system,” Cruz stated.

Cruz attributes the increase in border crossings to three decisions made by President Biden: halting border construction, ending the Remain in Mexico agreement, and implementing a catch-and-release policy.

“He made three choices that caused this crisis. Number one is first week in office, he immediately halted construction of the border wall. Number two, he reinstated the disastrous policy of catch and release, where they released the illegal immigrants and let them stay in the United States. And number three, he pulled out of the incredibly successful Remain in Mexico agreement, which had lowered the rates to historic lows,” Cruz explained. “You ask what can we do if President Trump is reelected, which I think he will be? I am confident that during the first week in office, he will reverse those three decisions, and we will see the numbers plummet. What we need is a president willing to enforce the law, and what we need is a Congress with a Republican majority willing to fight to secure the border and to keep our country and our citizens safe.”

Allred believes that the Mexican government will not agree to a ‘Remain in Mexico’ type agreement again and is looking for other ways to reach a conclusion.

“The Mexican government has already said that they’re not going to agree to that policy again, and they’re going to have their own elections coming up. And we’ll see how that changes. But the fundamental issue here is that we have not addressed immigration at the federal level since the Reagan era. We have to have a comprehensive approach to our immigration reform to our immigration system and to reform it to make it work better.” Allred shared. “We know what those kind of legs of that stool look like. But we just need to have leaders in place who actually will do it instead of folks like Ted Cruz, who just want to have this as a political issue. And so when I’m in the Senate, we will get something done on immigration; we have a comprehensive reform that will both help our economy by better matching our immigration system for the needs of our economy that will secure our border. That can help our folks who are here who are documented, come out of the shadows, folks who have followed along and done the right things.”

Allred said that one of the issues he’d like to address is abortion rights.

“It’s a huge concern across so many different levels that we’re only really beginning to experience. It’s incredibly traumatic for the women and the families who are impacted by this law. When you have the Houston Chronicle reported that 26,000 Texas women had been forced to give birth to their rapist’s children, you know that there was a very serious problem. You hear stories like Kate Cox, who’s from my area in Dallas, a mother of two who had a much wanted third pregnancy, who had got the news that the pregnancy wasn’t viable. She had to go to the emergency room four times, and her doctor said she needed a medically necessary abortion,” Allred explained. “Her state said that she couldn’t get that close to home. In fact, they threatened her with criminal prosecution along with her doctor and her hospital. This is a real crisis for us in our state. It’s also going to impact every other aspect of our lives, from our universities and our medical schools to who’s actually able to practice medicine in Texas who wants to be an OBGYN in Texas; it’s going to impact our business economy; there’s gonna be so many downstream impacts. Also, it makes us seem like we are in an extreme state, which I know that we’re not. But it makes it seem that this is the story of success that we’ve had here, which is put at risk by extreme policies like this that Ted Cruz has championed.”

The Israel-Hamas war has sparked a number of protests across the country, including here in Texas at UT Austin.

“It’s heartbreaking what is happening at college campuses, and you watch these anti-Israel, these anti-semitic protests that are blatantly pro-Hamas. If you look at Columbia University, the protesters there were chanting We love Hamas. We support Hamas. The Hamas terrorists, on October 7, committed an utterly unspeakable and inhuman set of trial cities. They murdered over 1,200 civilians. They murdered women and children. They raped women and children. I have seen the videos of what happened on October 7; I will tell you, it is the most horrific thing I have ever been forced to look at,” Cruz shared.

Cruz went on to describe what he has seen at universities outside of Texas and how it compares to protests in the state.

“The Hamas terrorists are evil, genocidal murderers; in my opinion, my view, I stand with Israel. I think the people of Texas, the people of America, stand with Israel unequivocally. I look at these campuses and it really is a sign of how our universities are broken. So many of them are poisoning our young people to stand with terrorists who are committing murders. They are openly racist and anti-semitic. At the University of Washington, they were chanting to Jewish students to go back to the gas chambers. That is sick and twisted and wrong, and we need to unequivocally condemn it,” Cruz said. “I will say I’m glad. In Texas, you see very different policies. Yes, we had protests at the University of Texas, but thankfully, the governor and leadership there sent in the police and said if you commit acts of violence, if you threaten other students, you will be arrested. And I’ll tell you something amazing. So earlier this week, and one day at UT, we had 77 arrests. Of those 77 arrests, 46 of them were not UT students. Many of these people going on to campuses are not even students. They are outside agitators that are being paid for by left-wing operations that are trying to foment dissent. I think that’s deeply disturbing. In Texas, at least, we’re going to enforce the law, and we’re going to protect every student from threats of violence.”

Allred, who is challenging Ted Cruz in the 2024 Senate election, said he is not trying to ‘turn the state blue,’ but wants to give Texans “a Senator who actually cares about them.”

“This is about giving to 30 million Texans, a Senator who actually cares about them. Ted Cruz only cares about himself, and we’ve seen that over the course of his time in the United States Senate. You can abandon us when 30 million Texans are freezing in the dark and go to Cancun because you’re really only in it if it’s something that helps you or that gets your attention. That’s why he’s podcasting three to five times a week. That’s why whenever there’s a serious attempt to pass legislation, like we just passed recently, with our national security package, you see all the serious folks end up coming together and finding a way to get that done on a bipartisan basis. You see folks like Ted Cruz who never voted for it. He’s only out for himself. So, as Texans get to know me and get to know me, I’m confident that this will be an incredibly close race and that in the end, on November 5, we’re going to go in a different direction to make sure that 30 million Texans get a senator hears about them,” Allred expressed.

Allred shared that he sees himself not as a career politician but as a bipartisan.

“I think it’s interesting that Ted Cruz was saying that he wanted term limits; that would have ended up that he’d be term-limited now for this election. But I guess he’s changed his mind, and now he’s obviously running for reelection. I recognize that there’s a lot of frustration with our system, and that’s what I see when I see folks talk about term limits and frustration that people feel that the folks who are there, who are not getting the job done, they’re not finding a way to come together and actually solve problems for them,” Allred shared. “That’s why I’m proud to be the most bipartisan member of the entire Texas congressional delegation of all 38 of us. I’m the most bipartisan; I’m proud of trying to work across the aisle to help our veterans, to invest in our infrastructure, to help our economy by passing a trade deal with the Trump administration, the USMCA. These are efforts that I think show that when you have folks who are in it for the right reasons, they can get things done, and that will actually help you and your family. That’s what I think folks are really talking about when we get into the term limit conversation: how do we get rid of these folks who really aren’t in it for the right reasons?”