U.S. Rep. Eli Crane [R-District 2] spoke at the Mingus Mountain Republican Club meeting on Feb. 20.
“The reason I ran for this office was because like many of you, I was watching what was going on in this country,” Crane said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
He said that within one year, he has become one of the top targets that both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to take out.
Crane sits on the Homeland Security Committee, Small Business Committee and Veterans Affairs Committee.
“The Homeland Security Committee, I think, is one of the most important committees in the entire U.S. Congress because of the border crisis that we have,” Crane said. “If we had leadership and understood leverage and understood that the entire government runs off into funding that we control in the House where we have the majority, we could have done a better job. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues on our side of the aisle don’t understand leverage, and even those that do often don’t have the backbone to take on the difficult fight.”
Crane is also on the board of directors of the House Freedom Caucus and said that the Republican Party won’t even let a member of the House Freedom Caucus on the Intelligence Committee.
“I’m pretty sick and tired of the Republican Party,” Crane said. “Democrats are going to destroy the country, we all know that, but we’re supposed to be the ones stopping them.”
Crane said that there is corruption, greed, stupidity and arrogance on both sides of the political aisle and said he is realistic rather than pessimistic.
Crane said his goals are to stop spending money the U.S. doesn’t have, to expose as much corruption as he possibly can, to close the southern border and to fight for an “America first” agenda.
Audience Questions
During a question and answer session, one audience member asked Crane about his thoughts on the war in Ukraine.
“I haven’t voted for any of it,” Crane said. “The reason I haven’t voted for any of it isn’t because I want to see Ukrainian civilians have their apartment complexes blown up — it’s because I think this idea that the United States is some global policeman, and we can ignore our own citizens and our own border and protect our own people, and prioritize a country that most people can’t even point out on a map.”
“We have to be very, very careful with the most precious treasure that we have and that’s American blood and resources,” Crane said.
Another audience member asked about his thoughts on the Department of Education and photo identification for voting. Crane said he supports abolishing the Department of Education, saying that its standards and performance are abysmal, but he doesn’t foresee this happening. He added that he believes photo identification for voting should be required.
“I think it’s one of the most precious rights that we have,” Crane said.
Another audience member asked about Crane’s thoughts on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Crane replied that he is torn on this issue, but said that he thought Israel was one of, if not the best, ally the U.S. has and that the government shares a great deal of intelligence with them.
“I don’t put my faith in government and I don’t think anybody should,” Crane said.
