let's welcome south carolina
congresswoman nancy mace along with the
people's convoy organizer maureen steele
congresswoman good to be with you
tonight i want to start with you first
because of course we're dealing with a
very tense situation on the ground and
this really is about mandates but it's
also about freedom and of course you've
got the canadian prime minister invoking
this act and cracking down on protesters
saying he's not stepping on their
freedom but a lot of people say he
actually is
right and he is i mean this is an
authoritarian decision when you start
arresting people for peacefully
protesting uh freezing their bank
accounts this is about freedom and 90 of
the truckers in canada they're they're
vaccinated and that should be good
enough but these mandates whether it's
vaccine mandates or mass mandates they
are authoritarian it has affected our
supply chain and just look what happened
with the uh the blockade on the
ambassador bridge that that cost 250
billion dollars in the auto industry um
i i just you know this has to be
resolved uh and he's not they're not
acting and protecting their freedom of
the people in their country and when you
look at the relationship between the us
and canada uh this is the second largest
trade relationship in the world and uh
we get we we get twice as many exports
out of canada than we do china and 76 of
canada's exports are bought by americans
and this is a really big deal and should
have been resolved days ago right and um
maureen i want to get to you because you
are one of the organizers of the freedom
convoy and i want to read this tweet
from the ottawa police
and this is essentially what they said
to the demonstrators you must leave you
must cease further unlawful activity and
immediately remove your vehicle and or
property from all unlawful protest sites
anyone within the unlawful protest site
may be arrested and of course they did
arrest people maureen um and so you had
some folks today saying look
we're being peaceful we're gonna leave
with honor where do we stand right now
oh well as far as the canadians go
they absolutely can walk away with honor
i mean they they won they wanted the
mandates lifted and uh i think all but
one of the provinces has done so so
what what they set out to do they
achieved and um it's just a shame that
you know we're seeing the colors of the
government up there with the freezing of
funds and the you know the tyranny
that's going on
but but
well done to our canadian neighbors for
certain
and i'm so sorry i i did i do want to
correct myself you actually are an
organizer of the people's convoy and so
i just wanted to correct that um and
talk about the kind of movement that
we're seeing here maureen because this
isn't just about the truckers in canada
it's not just about the mandates it's
about so much more and there are people
in this country as well um that are
essentially just fed up with what we're
dealing with here too
oh yes
you know that is what our convoy is
about it's about our freedom our liberty
um it's about accountability and it's
about the devastation um that this
coca-19 pandemic and the and the
handling of it has caused financially um
to the truckers and to you know
middle-class americans um you know they
felt it the hardest it has been
devastating small businesses have been
lost um all of that it has crushed it
has crushed the little guy and um you
know we we need that rectified we need
accountability
and congresswoman i want to come to you
on that because um when it comes to
washington when it comes to congress
there are a lot of conflicting views on
on this obviously the administration
president biden dr fauci they'd like to
keep us masked and shooting up vaccines
for
eternity essentially um but there are so
many in this country who are saying it's
been two years of pandemic it's just
time to move on now
it is time it's time for us to make
healthy decisions for ourselves our kids
our families and how we operate at work
and let's face it proven 19's been hard
enough for two years let alone with all
these mandates and what the biden
administration has done requiring the
mandates on the businesses of 100
employees or more
as they did last year that's
unconstitutional
we've got to move our economy forward
the supply chain was hit hard enough um
pre all these mandates and uh it's only
going to exacerbate the situation i go
to the grocery store every weekend with
my kids i see the empty grocery shelves
when i fill up my truck at the gas
station i see that gas cost me 50 more
today than it did a year ago and we're
in a heck of a situation and we've got
to work together to get through it but
that also means protecting our freedoms
and allowing us to go to work in school
uh to the best of our ability and deal
with this uh and the best way that we
can my kids have suffered i gotta tell
you the last two years my kids have
suffered in school um it's heartbreaking
to watch as a mom and i see it at
families across the country but i do
wanna commend what was going on with the
protests in canada i would love to see a
convoy go down to our southern border
imagine what we could do if we had that
kind of energy blockading uh the two
million illegal immigrants that tried to
come over our border last year right our
border patrol needs help you're right
and one of our reporters jeff flock was
up there and he was interviewing the
truckers um and maureen they were saying
things like you know we're not here to
cause a ruckus we're just here to um
peacefully assert our right to protest
and we want people to understand that
we're fighting for freedom we're against
these mandates you know but this um
emergencies act that the prime minister
invoked he can do things like arrest
them to away the trucks he can also
suspend their driver driving licenses
which is is really the key to their
living
and even go as far as freeze bank
accounts and you see this kind of action
happening in canada and you start to
think to yourself you know my god this
pandemic has essentially brought us to a
place where these kinds of restrictions
are being put in place could that happen
here i mean i think that's what the
people's convoy is a little worried
about
oh absolutely it happened here i mean
it's happening here i mean you can look
at california look at what happened in
michigan look at new york city um you
know it's it's happening all over the
place the social passports you know
getting a social rating um
go to certain restaurants in california
without uh wearing a mask or being
vaccinated so uh it is happening here
and we need to stop it i mean this is
it is an absolute violation of our
constitution and
if we stop it now
we'll never stop it i mean this is
they're they're just gonna keep going
you know they've taken our freedoms an
inch of the time and then all of a
sudden we all stop and we look and it's
like they've come 10 miles and
everyone's shocked um we we've got to
stop this we've got to push this back
and um back to a reasonable
government again um you know like like
we used to have
and what's interesting to me
congresswoman um and i'll pose the final
question to you is that uh going into
the state of the union going into the
midterm elections all of a sudden the
mass mandates might be relaxed a little
bit and all of a sudden we may not be as
harsh because the administration does
realize that you know it could
potentially be facing a huge red wave
here and that a lot of these policies
are just unpopular and that it needs to
ease up at least in appearance um it's
interesting to see that you know
happening but you realize that
essentially some of this stuff was all
political weapon
weeks away from midterm election all of
a sudden these mandates are unnecessary
and what we do now realize is that uh
the left has been following a political
science rather than medical science
right uh and it's just wrong and it's
hurt our kids it's hurt our businesses
it's her industry i i was just uh in new
york a few weeks ago and
i gotta tell you to go have a cup of
coffee i have you have shown id and
proof of vaccination to sit and have a
cup of coffee it's crazy to me the same
thing in dc and you're seeing it all
across the country but now democrats
realize it's bad for the election and
they're reversing course now yeah
congresswoman nancy mace maureen steele
wonderful to see you tonight have a
wonderful weekend ladies great to see
you thank you