CLAY: We’ve got Senator Marsha Blackburn with us now. Senator, so much going on. Thanks for taking the time for us here, and I want to start with this question. What have you heard, if anything, from Joe Manchin — a lot of breaking news as we started the show — that he may not be supporting the Build Back Better bill or even voting to allow it to come to the floor? Have you heard anything today about those details?

SEN. BLACKBURN: What we are hearing is that he does not want this to come forward. And I call it “Build Back Broke,” because that’s what we’re all going to be if they pass this thing. He has some serious concerns about several provisions in the bill. And, you know, it’s not only Manchin and Sinema, but you’ve got some other Democrats that have tough races this year, and they have a lot of serious concerns about this bill.

And, of course, the bill would double the cost of child care for a lot of working families. In essence, what they’re trying to do is take one vote — and in that one vote, they want the government to take control of your children; take control of education, of your bank account, of your small business. They want to be able to change election law and implement the Green New Deal. They’re just trying to roll it all into this bill.

But the more people know about Build Back Broke, the less they like it, because they’re realizing you would have 10 years of taxes and it would pay for one year of programs that they’re putting on the books. The taxes are going to be permanent. The programs are going to be permanent. And the CBO says if you make that assumption that these programs remain on the books for the 10-year life of this legislation, that you are going to have minimum of $3 trillion in new debt — $3 trillion — and that it’s not a $1.75 trillion bill, it’s actually a $5 trillion bill.

BUCK: Senator Blackburn, it’s Buck. I’ve just been wondering about your expectations for the political fallout from this and how it will go in 2022. Is Manchin possibly going to, in your opinion…? I’m sure you know Senator Manchin well. Is he gonna hold the line on this entirely, meaning there may not even be a Build Back Broke — as you put it — bill passed at all, or is your expectation that something will be passed that they’ll put under that headline of the BBB; it just will be a dramatically scaled-down version and that Manchin would vote for it? What are your expectations?

SEN. BLACKBURN: Well, the window is going to run out on this budget reconciliation. And with that happening, I think what may be more likely is that they will. After the window closes on reconciliation, they’re going to have to divide this bill up and try to pass these things one at a time. Now, getting Democrats in the House and the Senate on the record on these different pieces of legislation? That is a really good thing for us in the ’22 midterms.

CLAY: That is what I was gonna build on, Senator Blackburn. What is your expectation for what the Senate calendar might look like for 2022 as we get closer to the midterms? Will you guys basically shut things down, do you think, in the summer? What should we expect in terms of what could come out of Capitol Hill and what could get passed or not passed as we move closer and closer to the midterms?

SEN. BLACKBURN: You know, Clay, one of the things they’re going to focus on is trying to put judges on the bench and put people into the federal government. Get some of these “executive appointments,” as they are called — people that are running Department of State, Department of Commerce, some of their leftists — so that they can change the rules in a lot of these different departments. So that is going to be a big part of their focus.

And, of course, they want to pack the court. Because if you’re going to get liberal, leftist decisions out of the court, you’ve gotta put some liberal, leftist judges. So moderate Democrat judges who are at retirement age, they are basically telling these judges, “You vacate your position and let us put a young activist in your place so that they’re going to be on the bench for the next 30 years.”

BUCK: We’re speaking to Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Senator, how do you think we’re shaping up for possible Republican Senate control being reestablished next fall? What do you see as the primary…? You are going to be, obviously, a part of the messaging on this. What do you think should be the focus and how well is the GOP positioned?

SEN. BLACKBURN: I think the GOP is positioned very well. We’ve got a lot of security moms out there. The immigration and border issues are at the top of their list. They don’t want crime in the streets. They don’t like gangs. They’re tired of defund the police. They don’t like what is happening with covid and mandates, and the way their children are being taught in school.

They are tired of inflation and out-of-control spending. Every bit of that bodes well for us, and when you put all of that in place and then at the domestic issues, and then you look at these foreign policy issues… We just today have passed the Defense Authorization Act to fund the military. It’s the latest we’ve ever been in getting that passed. And of course, Joe Biden wanted to cut spending to the military. And then you have the debacle in Afghanistan.

You have China on the rise. Look at the bad actions by the Chinese Communist Party. You have Russia conducting a buildup on the Ukrainian border, and you have all this destabilization on the global front. So their domestic agenda, they’re upside down. Jen Psaki yesterday could not even name one foreign policy achievement of the president. And, of course, he kept saying, “Oh, you know, these are all my old buddies, old friends!

“I’m going to get in here and I’m going to put us back on the right track. You know, they love me, man,” and that was the way he went through the campaign. And it is just not true. And people are looking at this, and they’re astounded, whether it is Iran and Israel or Afghanistan or China or Russia or Ukraine, they’re looking at the mess that this administration has made. And they’re saying, “All right. We tried it. It doesn’t work.”

CLAY: Senator Blackburn, one of the things that’s got Buck and I both super fired up is the disaster at the border. I know you’ve paid a lot of attention to it. It’s not just the disaster at our southern border. It’s that while Joe Biden is trying to mandate vaccines for American citizens, they’re letting people just come across our border with no covid testing hardly going on at all. Of all the things that Biden has done wrong — and there’s certainly a lot of them — it seems that the American public is rating right now the border as the worst of them. Can it get better? What are you seeing from your perspective?

SEN. BLACKBURN: Oh, my goodness. I hear about the border everywhere I go — and, Clay, you’re exactly right. This is what people are talking about because when you look at the fact we’re going to have two million individuals from probably 160 different countries that will have illegally entered this country and then have been processed into the United States.

Now, then you’re going to have somewhere between a half million and 1.5 million of people that are the got-aways. Many of these people are coming from countries that have incredibly low vaccine rates — like 1% or 2% of the population has been vaccinated. You have Omicron strain of coronavirus that is now on the march.

And people are going, “Wait a minute. We’ve got crime in the street. We’ve got human traffic, sex trafficking like we have never had. You had all of these smash-and-grab crimes carried out. You have grandmothers going to the local mall during the daytime, and then you have somebody when they’re heading to their car trying to grab their packages and their purse.”

And people are going, “Wait a minute! We’ve never had crime like this,” and then you know what they’re finding out? A lot of this is done by gangs. It’s carried out by gangs, and it is making our communities less safe. It hurts our economy. It hurts individuals. And so people are looking very closely at what is happening. They’re also looking the health issues. The spread of coronavirus and other infections and diseases.

They’re looking at the impact on their community of individuals that are coming into these. They’re looking at what is happening with human trafficking and how these traffickers are beginning to use social media to actually recruit people to work as drug traffickers and sex traffickers! So they’re just… These issues all find a connection to the border and to illegal immigration.

BUCK: Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Senator, always appreciate you coming by to hang with us. Thanks so much.

SEN. BLACKBURN: Good talking to you! Merry Christmas!

BUCK: Merry Christmas.

CLAY: Indeed. Have a good Christmas.