Continues. Host joining us for his first visit to the washington journal is illinois Democrat Eric sorensen a freshman serving on the Agricultural Science Committee in 118th congress congress. Job prepare you for this job on capitol hill . Guest i realize that i has spent nearly 20 years of my career in the district i now serve. My hometown of rockford illinois. When my congresswoman announced that she was not going to run for reelection it was the news anchors on the others to the studio and they pointed to me is that you need to do that. I said, no, i am not a politician. But what happened after that were many sleepless nights where i would toss and turn and i talk to myself wait a minute, maybe my hometown does not need a politician, they may be meet someone theyve already been able to trust. I think i took that for granted being on local news for so long was what was the value of the trusts i had gained with the viewers . There 99 of the days but 1 of the days when there were lifethreatening. Also someone talking about climate from the scientific point of view because it always bothered me that politics invaded this science space. I talked about it and i realize i was connecting now people driving the toyota previous is already but the farmers who are change in western illinois. Host youre the Agriculture Committee now. What canou bring to those committees . What are priorities . Guest as you work forward, especially in the science committees, where working on permitting reform. It is not sound like a sexy thing to anybody who is out in rural or medical america but it is going to give us the ability to move the power from where the study that sent me to where it is cloudy, where it is windy to calm. With the rethink electric grid. In my district is making sure we think about smallscale nuclear because i believe that is a solution we need to look at and we have eight Nuclear Power plant and we need to keep the Power Generation going. It is utilizing the science data and values of the decision. Host can we talk about why it is so hazy on capitol hill today and around washington dc . Guest i woke up this morning and said it smells like something is burning and i realize the haze we are seeing in the air smoke is now making its way down to the surface. It is an unusual site here. He saw the pictures on the baseball game in nyc, we are seeing from the wildfire in quebec in eastern canada. I do not think about the connection to climate per se. I think about what is this mean for the health risk of people with asthma and cancer because this is a real problem we have to face here today. Here in d. C. Yesterday in nyc and wherever the smoke is going to be. Host the problems were facing last week in in d. C. Was the debt limit deadline. You are a guest on the debt limit bill became together. Why was it a good deal . Guest there are things that harder for me to digest. Im not a fan of work requirements for Food Security however i believe in our intent to make divided government work. There has to be a giveandtake. This is one of those examples to giveandtake and i do not represent myself when i make a decision. Represent my community. I think about my neighborhood. The people across the street that are republicans. At the make a that are best for them and for the democrats across the street. Host eric source and is our eric source and is our guest this morning. With us until the bottom of the hour. You can join the conversation. Democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents, 2027488002. As a move forward into the appropriation process, are there ways for you to address some of your concerns you have with this agreement . Are there ways to undo some of the concerns . Guest certainly. Look at Food Security and it is the majority of the farm bill. Being on the Agriculture Committee, it means i would advocate for Food Security, not just because that is when is needed in urban areas but understanding that families in rural areas in west illinois need this Food Security. Our farmers want to make sure they are providing for their communities. We will have a pretty good debate in Agriculture Committee coming up later today. Concerning staff benefits. Host explain what is happening in the committee. Guest it is the only time will be able to argue the case of where these cuts need to take place. Look at the farm bill and three quarters of it has to do with Food Security and feeding the nation. As extreme republicans want to make cuts, they would try to make it wherever they can but they are at Food Security. Were coming out of a pandemic and i hear from so many people in my district that are barely making ends meet. To be able to take away the ability for their families to be fed i talk to single mothers who are working 25 hours out of the week for the childcare. They only have that much time left to work to be able to pay for food. That is we cannot be be taken out of this people who are struggling. Where to make the cuts elsewhere. Host gabriel in ohio, republican line. You are on with congressman eric source and. Caller good morning. I just wanted to say i completely agree with you 100 that work requirements are just it is ridiculous to me. If you need food we need to make her do some work first. It sounds crazy to me but the one thing i wanted to ask was why do you think biden has shifted right and been very collapsing to the debt ceiling deal and the student debt all the promises he made but i am worried about how is he going to run again when all the promises he made he has just collapsed on. Why doesnt mr. Frisk are, your governor, why does he not run . I think you will be fantastic. Host were you on the republican line . Caller im a lifeline republican. But they are crazy. Host you are a midwesterner and you can see what is happening today with the Republican Party as it is going extreme. It is leaving the people in the center out. Not to give too much away here to my colleagues across the aisle, but we in the midwest, we are not extremists but we do believe in living within our means. Im a Firm Believer that government should be doing that. We need to find where that is and take that away. As far as our governor im a big fan of our governor of illinois and i think he is on the right track but with the president we have to understand the president has been so effective look at the last congress, one to 17 congress, three essential bills that came through the legislative branch that cap dark economy afloat. Looking at that kept our economy afloat. Looking at where he was with the state of the union been able to take Social Security out of the table, he did that with a microphone standing in the house of representatives at the state of the union. When i looked up on president day and he was in ukraine. These are things a leader does. We should make sure our leaders are working to bring cars us together and i divide us. Host democrats caught in called in to say they wish would be a one term president and make way for a new leader in the party. What are your thoughts . Guest that is up to the president. But i have a deep understanding in congress that it is not just the president that is making these decisions. Look at how large the executive branches. Sometimes i think of the executive branch being that one person or the president and the vice president. Understanding that through all of the secretaries and the people that work underneath in the hierarchy, there are experts here come all across the government. They are helping to make decisions to put us on the right path. It is not just the president. I think we sometimes fail to look back at what President Biden has done in his career service, how long he has been here in washington doing the right thing, and i think more of us should be supporting him. Host silver spring, maryland. This is doug. An independent. Caller i would like to go back to the budget deficit and increasing the revenue. To see what you speakr thinks about rolling back the trump and bush tax cuts . I believe 2019 before the pandemic from trump tax cut because the budget deficit to go from 600 billion to 1 trillion in 2019 before the pandemic. The deficit spending was not because simply by the pandemic. It was the trump tax cuts and continue now. Guest i think that is a valid question. You have to look at where these tax cuts for the super wealthy, did they allow the economy to grow as those were planned by the Previous Administration . I do not believe so. Now we have tax cuts and then we had a pandemic we needed to spend four and it did not work right. Today we need to make sure we do and i am grateful we have the debt ceiling bill that made it through congress to the president s desk that we did not go off this cliff. Who knows where our economy would have gone two who knows what the rest of the world would think about america . We had to make sure the debt was done that was done and it is also looking forward to how can we make sure the revenue we are bringing in, via taxes spent in the right way. We do need to look to where mismanaged money whether his government wastes. Where there is government waste. Host we talked about your background as a weatherman. More on your personal life. First openly gay member in the state of illinois and cochair of the congressional Equality Caucus. Guest the Equality Caucus is the largest caucus in house of representatives today. It is a group of mostly of democrats but we welcome republicans as well. For me and for people in middle america, i welcome into peoples homes as the meteorologist. People have always known that i was different. They know my partners name is sean and my viewers back home and i my constituents they know the names of our dogs. Pt and oliver. Theyre are the best dogs ever. I had people that would call in or email to me my viewers that was say my granddaughter came out to meet. I do not know what to say to her. But does it mean that my grandson thinks he is trans . There was shot to me. They reached out to me. Why . I was only person they knew and they trusted me. I could connect them with the executive director at our Lgbtq Resource Center and help them make good decisions and figure out how to talk about these things. Then to run for congress not realizing illinois had never elected an lgbtq member in congress before. This past saturday when i stood at pride in rock island, illinois to state this is the very first pride weve ever had with a representative like you. I would never be able to say that again because next year pride is going to be the second. Host Human Rights Campaign issuing a statement, National State of emergency for lgbtq people. Lgbtq pete plus ams living in a state of emergency multiplying threats facing millions in our community not just perceived, they are real tangible, and dangerous and many cases resulting in violence in ogt lgbtq people forcing families to leave their homes putting the safety of each and every one of us at risk. Guest it is human nature to be scared of what we do not know. I sit at a restaurant across my partner and anyone can assume accurately that there is a gay couple. The problem we have today is if you have a trans couple sitting at the same table no one is going to realize. If it like a straight couple they looked like a straight couple. I did not think society realizes we have trans people around us all the time. There is not a problem here. It is a manufacturing problem by extremists in our government. We have to understand that. A recent study shows the antitrans legislation in tennessee is going to affect one student. Why was the money and time and effort and stress spent on this issue . If it did not solve the problem. The American People need to understand where the problem is and understand who are the people in our government today that are going to solve the real problems versus the made up once. Host os are grappling with on this topic he thinks draws a lot of attention. Transgender athletes in sports and how to handle that. Youth toe therapies or other therapies to change their bodies to become. Number two, Health Care Decisions the government should not be making decisions on health care. Whether that is womens reproductive rights or how the family is going to seek out and get gender affirming care for their kid. Just yesterday here on the hill, i listened to family members of lgbtq kids, parents there is a parent and the child from alabama and a trans girl who says what happens when my family has to move . They are thinking about moving but one of the children is also in the armed forces. Literally where the parent is going to have to stay in alabama because when their children serves our country and the other one is going to have to move to a different state with a different child so they can seek medical care the child needs. That is absolutely wrong. Everybody should be standing up against that. Host the argument upon its will make is that there are other things we restrict until they turn 18. Why are we allowing them access to hormones and things that could change their bodies . Why cant we say can make a decision we become an adult . Guest because we have to understand that the understanding of a child as they are growing into an adult. Does not happen at arbitrary 18 year mark. It happens at as a youngster. I knew i was growing up different. When i was probably eight or nine or 10 years old. I did everything. I was going to a catholic school. I was trying everything i could to live my life differently. There is no way for me to change there is no way for these trans kids to change. The problem we have today is if we do not allow families to make the right decisions for their kids, were going to have to many of these kids they give up on their life. Who is going to have that in their legacy . It is not going to be me. Host a few more calls for Eric Sorensen democratic illinois. Gary in new jersey. Good morning. Caller i have two questions for you as a democrat. I was listening on cspan talking about the situation everybody would because he complaining about it. President biden went to saudi arabia for oil to try to increase their output for oil. Nobody had a problem with that. I do not understand it. If you could explain that to me. The other question i have why are the democrats, like eric, sanctuary cities complaining about now getting Illegal Immigrants . Can you please explain that to me. Guest looking at where we are with respect to our energy needs in the country and where we are on the global stage, we need to make sure there is the policy where we can find it. We do need to make sure that there is diplomacy in the persian gulf. It is not just what our needs are as a country, it is how the world is balancing itself out. That is quite important. It is important for our country to be energy independent. We are still net exporter. We need to make sure as we move towards a new economy, which will be a green economy, we need to make sure we are making the logical steps forward. With your second question, i think it is appalling when we talk about moving Illegal Immigrants around that we fail to think of these people as people. These are family members that are just being bus around the country. We have to have an understanding and compassion for people. A lot of these people where seeking a better life for their families. Im all for strength of the border. Im all for making sure we as a country understand everybody who coming in across the border. We have to do that. Rented make sure people are able to do it legally we have to make sure people are able to do it legally. We have to make sure we start taking care compassionately. Just moving them to a city or maybe some politicians saying theyre not going to be able to handle them in the city, i think is a giant failure and a miscalculation because we need to think of these people as people. Host brenda and pennsylvania on the line for democrats. Caller you and john were having an excellent conversation on transgenders but i did not think there should be any conversation about transgenders without bringing up the fact that there is a congenital birth defect. It causes babies to be born with both male and female body parts. There are so many people who are not aware of this. So they think it is a matter of you are born a boy, just be a boy. You are born a girl, just be a girl. It is not that simple. There should not be any conversation about transgender is him transgenderism unless people are educated. Guest these are decisions and conversations that should be happening in a family unit, a doctors office, and i do not think it is right for us to have a conversation or be able to make decisions about Peoples Health care. We need to make sure the Health Care Decisions are right where they need to be in a doctors office. I think we need to find a way to normalize this phrase i do not know enough to have an opinion on that. Im going to tell you, i do not know enough to have an opinion on that, which means i cannot be legislating on that. Host how often have you heard that said by member of congress in Committee Hearing . Individual discussions . Guest i look at either the conversations i have had in congress on the hill, these are secondary to the conversations i have in my district. That is why i focus on the issues from the people back home. Host daniel in virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just want to say that what were talking about transgender issue it seems like what we are dealing with is you have people who are saying the end saying they identify as this gender but we know scientifically what constitutes a male and female. But what we are dealing with is rejection of objective truth in reality. That is a problem. If you can identify a different gender, what can you not identify as sciacca identify as . Guest identify as being gay. Identify as identify as being gay. I identify as being a more michael is more masculine person. To say there are certain people who did not deserve rights, i think that is a dangerous place to be. We need to pump the brakes and make sure decisions are made at the family level and not the government level. Host last call for you mary lou from new jersey, independent. Caller good morning, john and mr. Sorsesen. I want to make comments about illegal immigration. I think i have a solution to the problem but youre not going to like it. I think everybody in congress should sponsor an illegal alien family, one or more, and to take care of them from cradletograve breed that would not be a Financial Hardship on the american taxpayer because you all did not get what i hardship this is to the american taxpayer. The following comment, this is the last one, involves transgenderism god left out of the equation preet made two sexes and what is going on here is a travesty because when you talk about kids under the age of 18 being able to decide their sexual status, these children are not qualified or competent to do it at such a young age. Host congressman, the final minute. Guest i did not think the 535 members of congress by bringing illegal immigration to our homes will solve the problem or open my eyes. I look at the plight of people. I look at the value that i have as being an american and being one of the 12,000 americans that is ever been given to the ability to work in that Capitol Building and i want to do what is best for my country with respect to the transgender community, i appreciate your comments. I think you got it wrong. My god is an all loving god. My god does not hate anyone. My god does not hate a transgender kid. My god does not give transgender kids the thought that they are unworthy or they should take their life. That is not what my god is saying. I hope you have interest to say what is my god doing . Because it should not be about legislating whether or not people are able to live. Host congressman Eric Sorensen from