California Assemblyman and candidate for U.S Congress Kevin Kiley spoke with Breitbart News about the need to “return us to those policies of the Trump era that were moving our country in the right direction” if Republicans regain control of the House after the midterms.
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Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle began the interview highlighting Kiley’s proposal to suspend California’s gas tax in light of record-high gas prices that ultimately failed to pass the Democrat-controlled supermajority State Assembly.
Kiley, who represents the assembly district where Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) lives, called out Newsom for not supporting the proposed gas tax.
“So I have a measure to suspend the gas tax. I put it up for a vote in the legislature on Monday, and the Democrats rejected it. The supermajority, in a party line vote, and Newsom even put out statement about it, saying this,” Kiley said.
“He called it, the Republicans proposal, would just you know, enrich oil companies, and Petro dictatorships, as he called it, and it was very embarrassing for him,” Kiley said.
Kiley then discussed his plans to bring the gas tax back on the assembly floor for another vote. Kiley said, “This is the first time in five years in the legislature I’ve ever seen any interest from anyone in the super majority wanting to do tax relief of any kind,” speaking about the Democrats’ proposal to pass a $400 gas rebate instead of the gas tax.
“We’ve got a so-called surplus in California, give the money back to taxpayers,” Kiley added.
Kiley, who is running for U.S. Congress in California’s third congressional district, talked about how his experience battling the Democrat supermajority in the state assembly is “the best possible preparation for serving in Congress.”
“I was elected the same year as Trump, and immediately the supermajority, and the leader was Jerry Brown at the time, sort of declared California to be home of the resistance to the Trump administration,” Kiley said.
He added, “the leader of the assembly said, ‘this is not a time for healing, this is a time to fight.’ And they set out in every way possible to undermine the Trump agenda and to essentially block the prosperity and gains that the rest of the country was seeing.”
Kiley highlighted an example from 2017 where he forced the state assembly to end a contract with former Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder after the Democrats hired him for $25,000 per month to draft the statewide “sanctuary state” bill.
“I had to be pretty creative. When you’re in the superminority, as we call it, I challenge Eric Holder’s hiring on legal grounds. I found the provision that the state constitution violated in the Assembly did eventually have to sever their contract with him,” Kiley said.
After that, Boyle asked Kiley what he plans to do first if elected to U.S. Congress. Kiley emphasized Congress’s oversight powers and said he’ll use them to keep President Joe Biden’s administration accountable.
Kiley said:
It’s going to be extremely important over the next two years that we exercise the full investigatory and oversight function of the Congress in order to hold him and his administration accountable and to minimize the damage that they’re able to do for the next couple years. And so you know, that’s something that I have a lot of experience with, being able to, you know, use my position as part of as a member of the legislature to demand accountability, to get corrupt officials fired who have been appointed here in California, Eric Holder being an example of that.
Kiley also emphasized the need to return to former President Donald Trump’s policies if the Republicans regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
He said:
If we get the majority in Congress, we’re going to need to actually put forward legislation that would return us to those policies of the Trump era, that were moving our country in the right direction to try to actually get our economy going again, to try to return security to our border, to lower taxes.
Kiley concluded the interview by calling out California’s failed coronavirus response, noting that “California has literally been the worst state, 50 out of 50, when it comes to business shutdowns, church shutdowns, school shutdowns. When it comes to mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports.”
“Each and every step of the way, California has been the worst state and our citizens have suffered in incalculable ways as a result,” he said.
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.