 All right, joining me now from Washington is Virginia Congressman Dave Brat. And Congressman, it's great to have you here. I know you just voted for the Financial Choice Act. President Trump tweeting just now, a congratulations for the House vote, and then he wrote in all capital letters, growth. So Congressman, this bill would repeal the Volcker rule, which prevents banks from making risky trades with depositor money. Don't you worry, though, that this increases the risk for consumers and the broader banking system? I mean, even Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is for keeping the Volcker rule. Yeah, I'm a free market guy. So I mean, I think we'll get it all right. In the long run, it basically does come down. I mean, it's kind of buyer beware. And I'd rather have individuals making their decisions out of use in their common sense rather than the federal government. The reason we're doing all this, eight years ago, we had a financial crisis that was, I don't think there's any debate where it started in the housing sector due to brilliant policy on Fannie and Freddie. And we told the bankers they could no longer assess risk. And the federal government took it over and did liar loans and no income loans and all that. And then we repackaged them and it went viral into the financial markets. And so I'd rather go back to the old days of letting the individuals go to their bankers and do mortgages and let the free market operate. Nothing's perfect. Right now, DC is not running many of their programs too well. And to your point on buyer beware, the Choice Act is also going to deflate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up to protect consumers. I mean, do you think buyer beware is a good lingo, especially in the wake of the Wells Fargo bank account scandal last year? I mean, is this a good time now to be gutting the CFPB? Well, we just need to do a better job of educating our kids in the first place, right? In economics for 20 years at the college level, kids coming out of high school don't know what a price or a cost or a profit or a business or an entrepreneur is. And so I don't like the buyer beware piece, but I don't know of any systematically better way to run an economy, right? If you're going to put the federal government in charge of running and regulating everything and the CFPB, there were major oversight problems with that. And so I want to move back to letting individuals have as much latitude as possible. You want common sense regulations and reforms in. And do you think it will pass the Senate where Republicans have a slim majority? That's going to be tough, right? So we're doing health care and the tax bill through reconciliation, which only require 51 votes. And I heard we're going to try to put some of the choice act pieces through on reconciliation, but the rest will have to hit the 60 threshold. That's harder. And the Democrats, I spent with Wall Street and et cetera, are going to message against us on this bill. But it is worth noting the big banks do not like this bill. It puts some capital restrictions on them, which they don't like. But I think we're losing one community bank a day right now. And so I think we've got to restore the momentum back to the small guy. So you do have that diversity and true choice across the board. Although the big banks also like that they may have to go through fewer stress tests under the choice act. But I do want to shift and talk about former FBI Director James Comey and his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday. What was your reaction? Well, everyone is just waiting to see if there's a smoking gun. Mark Warner, my senator out of Virginia, said there's smoke all over. There's smoke all over the place and almost kind of in a leading way. And he said there is no smoking gun. Yesterday kind of just made that more clear that I think the best test of my heart was Alan Dershowitz a couple of weeks ago, he said, look, you're innocent until proven guilty and no one can name any statute that's been violated, right? So he said he's unapologetic voter for Hillary and he's clearly on the Democrats side of the ledger. But he's a civil libertarian and he's a smart guy. And so that's the criterion, right? It show me the statute that's been violated. The Democrats the day after Trump won, that was a shocker, right? And they were going to impeach him from day one. And so the gloves have been off and it's just it's too much politics. And the American people voted. I mean they voted for there was huge energy on the Trump side and on the Bernie side. The one thing the nation's unified on is draining the swamp, right? And trying to fix some of these problems. Medicare and Social Security are insolvent in 2034. We got 100 trillion in unfunded liabilities that consume 75% of the budget right now. In 15 years all federal revenues will go to only mandatory spending. There won't be any money at all for military, transportation, education, etc. We'll have to deficit finance the entire discretionary budget in about 15 or 20 years. And so the American people know they haven't in two or since the wheels have fallen off, they are. And we got to start solving some of these problems. And Trump came in, he's trying to drain the swamp and then he starts tweeting. And so he energizes that partisan energy. So we need to calm that down and just start doing a little bit more economics and good policy. Alright, and then two more questions on Comey. Do you think Trump obstructed justice? And did Comey break the law by leaking a memo about his conversation with President Trump? I think it's a no on both of those. I mean there's, if you could name the statute or the law that was broken, believe me over the last six months the Democrats would be naming that statute. The fact that they can't do that tells you all you need to know. And on Comey I don't think violated the law either from what I've heard from the lawyers that are reputable. He'd leak, but I don't think that's a criminal charge. Alright, now earlier you alluded to budget issues, tax reform, health care. We also of course talked about financial regulation. Obviously this Comey situation has been a distraction for Trump's policy agenda. Do you think President Trump will be able to pass legislation before the August Congressional recess? I hope so. That's up to the Senate. Just a week ago Mitch McConnell was saying, well I don't know if we have the votes. And that language is just pretty cynical in my book, right? I mean it makes it sound like it's about protecting the senators. We don't have the votes to get there. Well what about the country and health care is one-fifth of the economy? What about one-fifth? What are we going to do, right? And so I voted on it Bill. I wasn't particularly in love with a new federal program of health care. I'm a free market guy so we made it better. We had a few amendments we offered that at least let states opt out of some of the regulations to bring the price down. The prices are going through the roof, right? I think the latest data on since Obamacare 105% increases in premiums. The bronze product has an $11,000 deductible. The average American has $600 in savings. That doesn't work out too well. And so the system right now is collapsing. There's no doubt about it. And so we put in at least a replacement that will help stabilize the insurance markets and get things back to some resemblance of normality. But we need to, in my view, get the government out of a lot of this. But the Senate now is saying we don't have a bill at all. And I think they want to make an even richer federal deal. And so we'll see. But now in the last couple days, Cornyn and a couple other senators have messaged that things may be turning. They're working on a product. So that's good news. But yeah, it's on the Senate. They need to pass a health care bill. Then we can get together in conference. And then the tax bill, that's got to be done. I mean, we all need that for politics and for the country. We had explosive growth back in the 20s after the tax cuts. And then JFK, it's bipartisan. We had 5% real growth. And then Reagan, real growth for a decade. And we need that. I taught college, the kids can't find jobs. They're coming out of college because we don't have growth. And so a lot of goods hinge on that economic growth. And it's anemic, right? Last quarter was whatever, 0.7 or something that fall apart. Yeah, it's a little over 1% growth. So it is anemic. But I just wanted to follow up on something you said about health care. I mean, there is worry, though, that your bill, the GOP House bill, has a waiver in it to allow states to charge someone a higher premium if they have a preexisting condition that basically insurance companies could get a pass on this. You think that's what's holding senators up here? No, no, no. And the misinformation on that amendment is so terrible. The law, Obamacare, is the regulations. And so the basic question is, am I worried that we're going to allow people to get out of some of the regulations? And by the way, it's not preexisting conditions. That stays in the law. And so states can choose to opt out of some regs, but not that one. But what about the fact that it would make the premiums unaffordable if you have a preexisting? You've got to jump through about five if statements to get there. Only the press is able to connect so many if statements in a row. But if it only applies to people who lose their coverage, and then we have hundreds of billions of dollars in high-risk pools that are also required for exactly those folks, the issue with preexisting conditions, it's not an insurance problem. They can't get insurance. So we want to fix that piece and do a good job of it and not distort the rest of the market for 300 million people, 175 million employer provided. And so that's just politics and the left of the media making stuff up. But if you go in detail through that bill, you have to connect about five if statements, and then there's $135 billion to protect the people, even there, with that provision specifically in mind. So not too nervy on that one at all. All right, we'll be watching how that one plays out. And Congressman, before I let you go, I want to also talk about your book, American Underdog Proof that Principles Matters came out last June. The odds were stacked against you when you unceded former Congressman Eric Cantor. What was the key to your victory? Well, I mean, it was kind of the tide that's been coming in that I just mentioned all the way from Trump all the way over to Bernie Sanders. It's basically a tide movement against DC. Everybody knows the fundamental programs are insolvent at the highest level. The labor market is still in a mess. We're building buildings up here in DC. There's cranes everywhere you look, right? All the money's up here in DC. We dole out $4 trillion to all the special interests. Last year, we had a $600 billion deficit. And you just start relaying the basic economic numbers to the average person. They go, what are you guys doing about it? Well, I ran on that. And not on the status quo. I ran on a few other things as well. And I think it was just time for change in DC. We haven't been solving these big problems. We won't even talk about the problems, right? And then you put in a balanced budget amendment that gets 50 votes. You put in a term limit bill, which I did. It only gets 50 votes. And everybody, when they run, they say they're in favor of all these ideas. But when it comes time to vote, you don't see the same reality. And so I ran on those issues. I take them seriously. I got a PhD in economics. I went to seminary. And the book basically just says three pillars, three foundational pieces made this country great. The Judeo-Christian tradition leads into the rule of law. And then you get James Madison and Jefferson from Virginia in my district. Madison writes the Constitution. He went to Princeton Seminary where I went and studied Hebrew for kicks when he was done. And the Hebrew scripture doesn't take too long for the walk. Wheels to fall off, right? Human nature falls in a couple of chapters. And if you take that worldview seriously, which kind of separates conservatives from liberals, you construct a government on those principles. You divide power, federal, state, local, executive, judicial, legislative in every way you can. And we're not following those principles. Not all of the power right now. Everybody comes to D.C. to get their little line in the budget and get a billion dollars. And it's broken. We cannot function that way. And then the third pillar at the end, if you're really lucky, you get Adam Smith and Free Markets and Milton Friedman that made us the wealthiest nation on the earth. And the evidence is fairly clear. I worked at the World Bank, Cross Country, Economic Road, et cetera. Europe is kind of going in the wrong direction, slowing down. And we have to retain these three foundational principles or we're going to slow down and join Europe sooner rather than later. All right. Again, the book is American Underdog Proof that Principles Matter. Congressman Dave Ratt of Virginia. It was a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey, thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. All right. I'm Scott Gamm and you're watching The Street.