[Blackwell:] It's 23 minutes after the hour now. The president is at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, starting a two and a half-week vacation. Congress is headed to break as well. And as they head to break, still the unfinished business of repealing and replacing Obamacare, but the vice president told the group last night, this ain't over. Watch.
[Mike Pence, Vice President Of The United States:] My fellow conservatives, let me be clear, this ain't over. This ain't over by a long shot. And President Trump are absolutely committed to keep our promise to the American people. We were not elected to save Obamacare. We were elected to repeal and replace it.
[Blackwell:] All right. Joining me now, Republican Congressman Francis Rooney from Florida. Congressman, good morning to you.
[Representative Francis Rooney , Florida:] Thanks for having me on.
[Blackwell:] Certainly, thanks for coming on. So, the movement in the House is with this problem solvers caucus trying to fix Obamacare. Mitch McConnell said it's time for them to move on to tax reform. How will Republicans fulfill that promise to repeal and replace, in this environment, considering the context?
[Rooney:] Well, first of all, the House of Representatives has done its part, we passed the AHCA which is a good conservative view of how to bring free enterprise patient-centric care back into the market for non-group insurance, and to reform Medicaid and turn it back to the states. I do not understand why it's so hard to do what we've been telling the American people we wanted to do for eight years.
[Blackwell:] So, I spoke with some of the candidates for Jeff Sessions former seat in Alabama this week, and two of them, Moore Brooks and Judge Roy Moore said that it's time for Mitch McConnell to go. And they believe that this inability to repeal Obamacare, they are not so much into a replacement, is part of the justification. Do you believe that Mitch McConnell, if he didn't hold to this promise, to push for repeal of Obamacare should go?
[Rooney:] Well, it wouldn't be my place to comment on the majority leader of the Senate. But I do think the American people expect better than what they've been getting from all of us, in terms of repealing and replacing Obamacare. I'm proud of my colleagues in the House and I wish the Senate would be able to focus on accomplishing what they've been telling the people they were going to do.
[Blackwell:] Could you get behind this effort to make some fixes, instead of a repeal?
[Rooney:] I think we need to repeal it. I think we told the American people we wanted to repeal it. They voted us in to repeal it. We need to repeal it.
[Blackwell:] All right, let's move on to another policy issue here. After the week of the president's January call with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto this week, you told my colleagues this about the president's promise to build a wall and that Mexico would pay for it. Let's watch together.
[Rooney:] I don't think anyone during the campaign seriously thought that Mexico would pay for that wall even though we all desperately believe the wall is a metaphor for border security.
[Blackwell:] Nobody believed Mexico would pay. The wall was a metaphor. Do you believe the crowds at President Trump's rallies believed when they were shouting build that wall, they were supporting a metaphor, instead of a traditional brick and mortar, cement wall?
[Rooney:] Well, there's an element in the border, where the wall brick and mortar wall is appropriate. There are also elements that need to be brought to bear on policing the border like technology. What I said during the campaign, and those very people you're talking about I think understood, that we need to combine a wall with technology and we need to do all that we can do to secure the border. There are areas where the Rio Grande, west of Brownsville is very narrow, that might support a wall better in places where it's wide. There's places where those private property, which don't lend itself to a wall right on the river, but lends itself to a wall where. And then across the land border through New Mexico and Arizona it lends itself to a wall all the way across.
[Blackwell:] True. And you know, what you're offering to this conversation is nuance, but we didn't hear that from the president. In fact, let's remind people of what the president said. We've heard you say that this was a metaphor. Here's what the president said the wall would be.
[Trump:] It's going to be a real wall. It's going to be a high wall. It's going to be beautiful It's going be made of hardened concrete and rebar and we're going to set them in nice heavy foundations. In order to get the wall started, Mexico will pay for the wall. On day one, we will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall and Mexico will pay for the wall. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.
[Blackwell:] And you know what, let's follow this up with your own promise to voters, when you ran for the seat you currently hold. You're in the construction business. You appeared in your own ad with a safety vest and a construction helmet there, a hat. Here's what you said about the wall.
[Rooney:] I'm Francis Rooney, I work in the construction industry, so I know a thing or two about building walls. In Congress, I'll fight to build a big one on our southern border.
[Blackwell:] So, this is metaphor talk just an excuse to get the wall started in the first six months?
[Rooney:] No, I think first of all, like I said, there are areas where a big wall will be part of the solution. There are also areas where we need something different than a wall, where we need a wall that's removed a bit from the Rio Grande. But the metaphor part is there's a broad-based feeling of frustration and insecurity all across our country over what's happened with terrorism and people crossing our border. And our broken visa system that half the people came in legally and overstayed that we need to fix. That's what I mean about the metaphor is a small wall for big problem, border security and individual security.
[Blackwell:] The president also has said before the inauguration and since the inauguration that Mexico will pay for the wall. Do you believe that?
[Rooney:] No, I don't think Mexico will pay for the wall. I think he was maybe speaking in a campaign hyperbole or whatever, but I don't think Mexico will pay for the wall.
[Blackwell:] He was speaking could you repeat that? He was speaking in what?
[Rooney:] It could be just campaign words, you know.
[Blackwell:] But campaign words are the basis for which on which voters selected Donald Trump. So, are we now supposed to dismiss the promise that Mexico will pay for the wall? That's why potentially some people voted for him?
[Rooney:] Well, I don't think if they voted for him because of who was going to pay for it or they voted for it because they wanted to see our border strengthened and bring security back to the American people. That's where I get back to the broader metaphor idea.
[Blackwell:] OK. Let's move on to another policy issue here quickly. The president supports a plan to cut legal immigration in half by the end of the decade, end of this term. In your district, Florida 19th, there is a construction labor shortage right now in the middle of a construction boom. Now Pew finds that 1 in 8 construction workers is a lawful immigrant. 1 in 5 and is also a farm laborer in the country is also a lawful immigrant. Is this reduction and prioritization of high-skilled workers really best for your district?
[Rep. Francis Rooney , Foreign Affairs Committee:] I think the idea in Senator Cotton's bill of shifting the concept of immigration from family to skilled is a good idea. Now when you get into exactly the formula and the type of skills that we need, I think we have to have employer input, because they're the people that are hiring the workers. But we have a broad-based problem with our workforce in America now. Part of it is the kind of immigrants that come in. And I'm all for ending chain immigration and going for skills. Part of it is the thing that you mentioned that we have a drastic need for a quad- skilled people. They got career and technical education. We need welders, carpenters, cement finishers.
[Blackwell:] But also some of the people who work on
[Rooney:] All of this country. Computer programmers.
[Blackwell:] these tomato farms in collier county in Calla County and Lee County that you represent, they don't have skills that match what you've just listed there. And those farms need
[Rooney:] Yes. I'm getting to that part, too.
[Blackwell:] Go ahead.
[Rooney:] After we talked about high school, and I did introduce a bill to reform h-1b program to make sure it is strictly high-skilled people, then we move in to talking about applied skilled people which are the traditional working America jobs that we still need to do in the era of globalization and technology. Then you move on to the low- skilled jobs and we don't have enough people to do them either. Our people in our district are crying for more H-2as.
[Blackwell:] Yes.
[Rooney:] To bring in temporary agricultural workers. We can't get the oranges picked without them.
[Blackwell:] All right. Republican Congressman Francis Rooney of Florida. Good to have you on
[New Day. Rooney:] Thank you very much.
[Blackwell:] Sure.
[Paul:] Well, a nationwide manhunt for a college professor and another university employee is over this morning. Both are now in custody facing charges in what police call a savage murder. We'll tell you how they were captured.
[Blackwell:] Plus the NAACP is warning minority travels of what they call looming dangers in the state of Missouri. What prompted them to issue its first state-wide travel advisory?