Louis Capozzi | Exclusive interview with Rep. Lou Barletta

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Congressman Lou Barletta represents the Pennsylvania 11th Congressional District, which includes the cities of Hazelton, Carlisle, and Shippensburg. After serving as Mayor of Hazelton, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. Since then, he has been one of the chief voices in the GOP on immigration. He was one of the earliest members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump in the GOP Primary, and The Washington Post named him one of Trump’s most trusted advisors in Congress. Opinion columnist Louis Capozzi sat down with Congressman Barletta at the RNC in Cleveland for an exclusive interview about Donald Trump.

Louis Capozzi: You were one of the earliest congressional endorsers of Donald Trump. What made you support him over the other Republican candidates?

Lou Barletta: I like that Donald Trump said what a lot of people were saying. He says things as he sees them, whether people always like what he’s saying or not. And I believe honestly, when you read The Art of the Deal, he’s much smarter than people are giving him credit for. When negotiating any deal, you never ask for what you want. You always talk about a little bit more, you go a little bit further than you know anyone’s willing to go, and they become uncomfortable. And then, at the end of it, you come down to somewhere where you can settle. When you look at the things that he said, he gets everyone’s attention by saying something outrageous, but then people are talking about the issue, having discussions about issues we haven’t talked about in a long time.

So I don’t believe that’s the real Donald Trump talking the way he’s been talking. I think he did what he had to do to win the Primary. What we’re going to see now is the real Donald Trump, the businessman Donald Trump, the executive Donald Trump, the boardroom Donald Trump, and the family man. We’ll talk about the human side of him, the dad, the father. And that’s what I hope the American people get to see, the real Donald Trump. Not the one that helped him win the Primary, but the real person who he is.

LC: On immigration then, and this is a big issue for you, you’re one of the main voices in the GOP on immigration. What does a “real Donald Trump” presidency look like on immigration?

LB: It looks like immediately sealing the borders. And he’s talked about this, You can’t have a country without borders. He’s already done so much on this issue. Nobody would be talking about this if it wasn’t for Trump. When he talked about building the wall and having Mexico pay for it, people laughed at him and thought it was outrageous, but what he was able to accomplish is, regardless of whether people think Mexico’s going to pay for it or not, he’s gotten everyone to admit that we need a wall. And we haven’t been there before. So he’s already successful and the first thing to stopping illegal immigration is stopping people from illegally coming in.

LC: One of Donald Trump’s current stances is that the people who are currently here illegally are going to need to be deported before they can come back in. He currently wants to deport people that are here illegally. Do you think he’ll actually do this?

LB: I think he’s certainly going to deport anyone who is here illegally and commits a crime. That’s a given that Donald Trump will do that. That’s non-negotiable. If you’re here illegally and commit a crime, you have to go. How many times have we seen that happen, where someone’s let go and they end up killing somebody and taking the life of an innocent American and the person shouldn’t have been here in the first place. That’s where I believe it will start.

LC: What about the Dreamers?

LB: This is another issue where we need to have this discussion? How do you know the background of people. That’s where the debate will come, having proper documentation and knowing whether or not what that person is telling you is true. So I believe there has to be face-to-face interviews and that’s gonna take a long time to begin with, but again it’s very important than anything we do on immigration there has to be proper screening and proper background because we know that ISIS, terrorists that want to kill Americans, are they are using our broken immigration system as a tool to come here. Again, we have to make sure we’re doing proper screening before we allow anyone to stay.

LC: But you don’t necessarily want to deport all illegal immigrants?

LB: Again, this becomes a good discussion. When you say what you’re going to do while the borders are open, you’re giving people a free pass to come here. So if you say, well we’re not going to deport people, and our borders are open, if you were thinking of coming here illegally, you just got a green light to hurry up and get here before they secure the borders. So talking about your policy here is putting the cart before the horse and I think it’s counterproductive to dealing with the issue. It’s a way to get politicians nervous but does it makes sense to tell someone what you’re going to do while our borders are still open?

LC: The media is widely presenting the Republican Party as divided over whether to support Trump. How serious do you think the divide is and do you think the Party will unite?

LB: “No I don’t think it’s divided at all. I’m seeing great unity with the Party. Because a few have decided not to come and not support the American people, and that’s what it comes down to, the American people have made this choice and in a record number. So some politicians are not supporting the American people, I don’t think that’s a division, I think that’s their own choice and the Party could not be more unified, because at the head of the Party is not politicians, it’s the American people that are taking back their government. They are rejecting the establishment. This is a movement both on the Republican side and the Democratic side with Bernie Sanders, with what he was able to do. The American people are rejecting the establishment and politics as usual and they’re taking their government back. “

LC: A recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll of young people has Hillary Clinton leading 44-23 with voters under the age of 30. Speaking directly to my mostly student readers, why should they vote for Donald Trump?

LB: The first main priority of your government is to keep you safe so you can have an opportunity to make a good living and have the freedoms that we all want. And the fact Hillary Clinton cannot keep us safe, all around the world whether it be in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, I can go on and on. Watching it come right across our borders right into our own towns, Americans being killed. I don’t know if any future can be secure without security. Donald Trump will make us secure and give people that opportunity.

And also, Donald Trump will bring our jobs back that are going to China and to Mexico. How many college students have come out of college with great debt and can’t find a job? At the same time, all the foreign workers! We bring in more foreign workers a month than the number of jobs we create. So you figure out who’s losing jobs, who’s on the losing end. Watching our jobs go to China and Mexico, it seems pretty clear to me, if I were a young person looking to my future, I wouldn’t support the status quo, I would want to support Donald Trump.

LC: If Donald Trump wins this fall and he were to ask you to serve in his Cabinet, would you be willing to serve?

LB: I would have to give that thought depending upon what the ask was to do. To serve in the Cabinet is obviously a great honor to be able to do that. But I’m not looking that far ahead. The fact that I’ve been able to be so helpful to Donald Trump in his campaign, that will allow me to help PA more, being able to go the White House and having that relationship will enable me to work on issues that are important to Pennsylvania. That can only make it better for us in PA to have a strong relationship with the next President of the United States.

LC: Do you think Donald Trump will win PA this fall?

LB: I believe Donald Trump will win and I don’t believe it will be as close as the experts are saying.