Today's guest is Rep. Chip Roy (R–Texas), a fiscal hawk whose commitment to balancing the budget has led President Donald Trump to call for primary challenges against him.

Nick Gillespie sits down with Roy to talk about why he ultimately voted for the president's budget-busting One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), whether the controversial redistricting plan going on in Texas is legit, the expansion of the federal government under both major parties, and where libertarians and conservatives can work together to reduce the size, scope, and spending of the state.

0:00 —Intro

0:41 —Why we must control government spending

4:20 —The OBBBA and the national debt

6:30 —Facing off with Trump

9:25 —The Federal Reserve's existence and independence

11:00 —Reforming the health care system

14:21 —Victories from the OBBBA

19:16 —The influence of Ron Paul

24:51 —Immigration, labor, and assimilation

35:17 —Is there a new GOP consensus on foreign policy?

41:50 —Texas redistricting

44:28 —Cultural identity of Texas

Upcoming events:

The Soho Forum Debate: Melanie Thompson vs. Kaytlin Bailey, September 15

Transcript

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Nick Gillespie: Chip Roy, thanks for talking to Reason.

Chip Roy: Happy to do it, Nick. Appreciate you guys.

You are a rare voice of fiscal shrinking in Hollywood.

Hollywood for ugly people.

In Hollywood, yeah. In Washington, D.C. That has put you in the crosshairs with [President] Donald Trump in particular. You don't want to raise the debt ceiling unless there's a reduction in spending. You pushed back against the Big Beautiful Bill, although you did cave and supported it.

We'll come back to the word cave, but OK.

Well, you voted for it.

Sure.

Talk a little bit about your general philosophy. Why is it so important that government spending be either held constant or reduced?

First of all, my view is that the power of the purse is the central power of Congress, and we've abdicated it for as long as I can remember. If you don't constrain that power of the purse, then you're funding the very bureaucracy that was predicted by the founders and has proven to be true to be at odds with our liberty. You fund the bureaucrats that are then turned on us.

Why has Congress…to say they're asleep at the switch is an understatement. What's going on? You came into office in 2019, but this has been going on for at least 20 years before.

Or more, yeah.

My observation over time is that we're actually at a moment where more members of Congress get it than I've ever seen in the past, that's the good news. But the bad news is, it's still a woefully inadequate group of people to change it.

I think, really, at the end of the day, members of Congress believe that they get more popularity in votes by spending money. I actually just disagree with that. I'm a cancer survivor. I have cancer groups who come in and they ask me for money. I say, "God bless you. I know what you're trying to do. Research is great. But do you have a pay for that?" No. Well, then I can't support it. Farm Bureau comes in. I love the farmers. I want to protect small farmers against corporate [agriculture] and all those things, and we try to do that. But they come in and they want their money on the Farm Bill. I'm like, "Well, are we fixing the food stamps?" Well, no. Well, then I can't support it. They get that. And you know what, at the end of the day, they end up appreciating it. They appreciate that you're coming in and doing that. Look, I think to answer your question, the reason it's important is to not fund the tyranny that's turned on us.

I think more people are seeing that now in ways that they didn't in the past. Whether you're the bureaucrats that have been unloaded on the people, through education and DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and all these things, or whether it's just the weaponization of the Department of Justice [DOJ] against people. Targeting of parents back when parents were trying to do things in the DOJ under [President Joe] Biden and those guys were targeting people, etc., etc. WOTUS [Waters of the United States] has turned on people and farms. Our mutual friend [Rep.] Thomas Massie [R–Ky.] talks about that a lot. I think people are just understanding, "Well, crap, you're building up and funding all this stuff." Now, we just got to get a Congress that will understand that and peel it back.

Going to the heart of the Big Beautiful Bill debate. Setting up last year, I was trying to work with the OMB [Office of Management and Budget], with [OMB Director] Russell Vought, and others inside the administration and the incoming administration, a framework to hold everything back. We were told in January, "You're not going to touch anything in Medicaid or any kind of healthcare." Well, we got a trillion dollars of Medicaid. We were told we weren't going to be able to do much on the green new scam subsidies, and all this stuff going out. We were able to get three, or four, or $500 billion worth of cutbacks to those. Did we get everything we need? No. We can debate.

There's no question that the Big Beautiful Bill is going to increase the debt. There's no realistic scenario where it doesn't, if spending doesn't ramp up, we're digging a deeper hole for ourselves.

I think that is likely the case based on the following facts. Medicare was not touched. Social Security was not touched. Interest payments are going up.

But understand that part of the agreement, and we got to deliver the agreement, was holding discretionary flat or lower. That was a part of the deal, which by the way, will pay dividends if we do it—yet to be determined.

That's a part of the "deal," which I'm going to hold to fight for. And also, remember that tax cuts, look, we can debate them. But I had libertarian friends who were like, "Hey, I love the no tax on tips." Well, OK, but what about no tax on the guys in the back of the restaurant? These are debatable policies that we all want lower taxes. You, I, every person who wants a limited government.

I want lower spending.

But you want lower spending to go along with that. What I would argue is we fought to get lower spending at levels on things that people never thought we could get.

Medicaid being huge among those. Parity on Medicaid and Medicare rates, a lot of pieces in this that people don't even understand that we were able to achieve. Is it enough? No.

No.

Is it likely going to create front-loaded deficits? Yes. I showed those curves and worked with people, and I put those charts out.

The problem is it's always going to cause short-term deficits, but then in a year…

Long-term savings.

5,000…it comes pretty close to balanced.

I put all those charts out there in good faith. Why? Nick, to push the narrative over. Then figure out what we could get.

First, I want to ask you a little bit about total spending levels, since they're bonkers.

Yeah, they're bonkers.

I'm not saying you're responsible, but since you showed up, spending has gone up a lot.

I agree.

On the debt ceiling bill, you took a lot of heat from Trump. He was calling you out by name. And then in the Big Beautiful Bill, also you got leaned on.

What is it like when you have Donald Trump, the President of the United States, a guy who, whatever else you can say about him, has the power to destroy the political careers of politicians who are very popular in their districts when he says, "What the hell are you doing? You better get on the line?"

I view it this way: I view it slightly differently because I don't actually worry about whether I'm in office or not, so I don't actually care. Come after me, it's fine.

What I do care about is what can we do in this window of time when we have some people in the administration willing, clunkily, not always what you and I and others who are fiscal stewards, Thomas Massie, what we would do.

What are you going to do when you've got that opportunity? I view it that way. "All right, Mr. President, you're saying you're going to do X, Y, Z." Well, actually he's doing X. Whatever he's doing, he's taking on this, or scaling back some of the spending at the Pentagon, or taking on some cuts and getting the $9 billion of the rescissions package. There are things that are in process. Are they peanuts and crumbs? Kind of. But are they trending in the right direction? So far. Did we get material changes on the spending? Yes. The political influence, it is what it is. Look, you sit at the table in the White House, let's say you have some rather robust conversations.

The night of the Big Beautiful Bill, I was with Thomas, I was with other mutual friends. The president's calling and we're talking. The political pressures don'