CNN Newsroom: Interview With Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)

Interview

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Yes, I mean, listen, I think first Congress is being briefed regularly and I trust the Biden administration, I trust that our Defense officials, certainly our Security officials are doing what needs to get done for the security of the American people, in this case, also our allies in Canada.

And so I'm looking at more information in the days ahead. We had a good classified briefing just a couple of days ago on the first balloon incident, and so I expect the next day or two, we'll have a lot more information, but I also very much trust the administration in what we're doing.

And so we still need to give ourselves a little bit of time to get a little bit more information. We shouldn't be jumping the gun in which a lot of us had over what has happened the last week.

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Well, I'm going to think, anytime there is something in our airspace that's not identified, there should be some concern. I mean, I think there was concern about what happened last week, a little prior to that, there should be concerned about what is in our airspace now, it's in our allies airspace.

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And so -- but I think before we jump to conclusions, I think that we should just give the administration some time. We will be briefed, Congress will be briefed as well, to understand exactly what is happening. But of course, there is always concern and questions about exactly what is in our airspace.

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Well, I think first, we've got to make the statement very clear. I mean, George Santos is a huge fraud. He's a serial liar, whether it's around 9/11, or the Holocaust, his career, his education, the post massacre for the LGBTQ+ community. He should not be in Congress.

And I think that we have made it very clear, given him plenty of time to resign, his own colleagues, particularly those in New York on the Republican side have asked him to resign and he has chosen to make a mockery of the Congress, and really the last straw was him getting access to classified information.

And so, this is someone we don't know who exactly he is. He has clearly committed also, financial crimes, which is all going to catch up to him. And so a lot of us felt it was time to take that next step. The next step is to send this to House Ethics for an official expulsion.

Some Republicans have already indicated that they'd be interested in possibly voting on this expulsion, and so I think this is going to gain some steam in the weeks ahead. George Santos should not be in Congress.

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I do. I mean, look, we wouldn't have introduced it, we didn't think there was a chance, but it's going to take some work. I think we're going to learn a lot more about George Santos in the weeks ahead. Everything that we learned gets worse and worse and worse, and so we want to make it clear that he deserves to be expelled.

We also want to get to a point and the next step is to elevate this to ensure that we actually force a vote, Republicans should be on the record on whether or not they think that this person, whoever this person is, should actually be in Congress and should actually have access to classified information.

And so I think that's a debate that we welcome. George Santos needs to resign immediately, and he needs to also pay for clearly all the crimes he has committed as well.

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Thank you.

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