continuing resolution to keep this government open, and what does that mean for the wide open border? no, i m not in agreement with this spending bill. i m not even in agreement on the continuing resolution. we have a massive problem at our southern border. it must be done now. it must be fixed now. and if you give the democrats money to fund the government, they will continue to ignore the problem. maria, when joe biden first came into office, encounters at the southern border were a little over 92,000. last month it was well over 330,000 encounters. and the deal that came off the senate was for 150,000 encounters a month? that s a bad deal. the democrats are not serious on this. so in my view, secure the border. if the border is not secured, this government does not deserve to be funded. we will fund the department of defense, we ll pay our troopses, we ll take care of our veterans and v.a., we ll even make sure our border agents are paid to have some semblance of security,
services where we have veterans clinics around the country. i ve got charities in florida that train service dogs to be able to help veterans who have symptoms of post traumatic stress. the suicide rate goes down. maybe it s something as simple as somebody who lives in the neighborhood that is part of this portal, they say that this veteran is having a tough time, maybe they just go to his home and say you know what? i just want to see if you re okay. can i take you out to lunch? that can be something. just to show that you care, that can be enough to avoid a suicide right there. but the bureaucracy is not going to save us. we need to use the v.a. as a conduit for all these other great resources, because in every part of iowa and in every part of florida, and i think most parts of this united states, people value the service of these veterans, and they want to help. we just got to link the veteran to all the services that can be utilized and all the services that are out there. gover
country. people did multiple deployments, marines, army, special forces. that is not normal to be deploying that much. you are going to come back, people are going to have invisible wounds of war. we do good about seeing if somebody has a physical wound. we haven t done as well about those invisible wounds. how do you deal with it? the v.a. ultimately is not going to be able to solve this problem by itself. it s too big a bureaucracy. it s too cumbersome. i m going to fire a lot of people in the v.a. we need accountability. we re going to do like we did in florida. we re going to take a model and apply to veterans benefits, something like a care portal. a veteran goes in. maybe they have post traumatic stress. the v.a. can do what they want. but they put that in this portal, we re going to invite veterans groups, charities, church, businesses, individual volunteers, people that want to help the veterans, it s going to go out. guess what you re going to see? you re going to see these fo
healthcare at no cost to them. and that seems like a big deal. it is a big deal. i am pleased to say that i authored the bill and got it signed into law by president trump in 2020 arched i give the biden administration a lot of credit for also implementing the law and making sure that the 988 number is funded and as chairman bost said, if you are a veteran having an emergency or emeasure jent mental health episode, you are going through suicidal throughout call 9 # 8. you can be connected to mental health care whether it s inpatient or outpatient and you won t have to worry about a bill. if you have served our country and you are a veteran weather enrolled in v.a. or not. don t worry about the bill. just call that number to get help. bret: i was saying you all worked on it together. common ground element of the veterans affairs that is now law