AMNA NAWAZ: House Republicans have been busy on Capitol Hill, launching into some of their top agenda items of the year.

Just this week, they kicked off committee hearings into the Biden administration's handling of the Southern border and have been navigating talks with the White House on addressing the debt limit.

To dive more into the GOP Conference's top priorities.

I'm joined by Republican Congressman from Texas Chip Roy.

Congressman, welcome, and thanks for joining us.

Let's start off with that debt ceiling conversation.

As you well know, the U.S. is at risk of defaulting on its debt if Congress doesn't vote to raise the debt ceiling for money that's already been spent, we should point out.

You said you won't vote for that unless you get spending cuts.

Now, we saw Speaker McCarthy leave the White House after his meeting with President Biden and say there is common ground to work from.

Have you talked to Speaker McCarthy about that?

Where do you think the common ground is?

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): Look, what's happening right now is what should happen.

The president of the United States is actually sitting down and negotiating, despite what he said, because, of course, he is.

We're a coequal branch of government, and he has to sit down.

The fact is, about 65 percent of Americans said they don't want to see a so-called clean debt ceiling increase.

They want to see actual changes, structural reforms, if we're going to go ahead and lift the credit card of the United States government.

They want to see those changes.

And, importantly, a similar percentage of Americans, 60-something percent, believe that we ought to constrain government.

They see government as the problem that it is.

And so Speaker McCarthy is doing the right thing.

He's telling the president that, yes, you are going to sit down and negotiate.

Yes, we are going to change the system, stop spending money we don't have without getting constraints in place, and that we're going to do that.

And we're not going to play games with the debt ceiling with respect to the debt markets.

And if you're going to actually say that you think you're going to default on the debt, that's on you, Mr. President.

You have the choice.

We're sitting here in January, now February, telling you where we need to go.

So sit down with us, and we will we will try to solve the problem.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, I should point out the White House says that the debt ceiling is not up for negotiation.

The president has said he wants to see a budget from Speaker McCarthy.

But, in the past, Republicans have voted to raise the debt ceiling, right, most recently three times under President Trump.

Was that a mistake, in your view?

REP. CHIP ROY: Well, I will tell you, I voted against those debt ceiling increases.

And I was pretty critical of President Trump, because I thought we should have gone further in terms of the kinds of spending restraint that needed to be put in place.

Look, I'm an equal opportunity basher of big spenders in Washington.

I'm not a party guy when it comes to that.

What I am is a believer that we should stand up for the American people who sent us here to change the place and not just say, hey, we're going to just lift the dead ceiling.

You don't get to do that at home.

I don't get to do that at home.

The American businessman or businesswoman right now watching this don't get to do that.

So why don't we do it?

We ought to change the way things work around here.

That was part of what the speaker's debate was about in early January.

Now we're doing that.

AMNA NAWAZ: So you have brought forward an immigration bill that Speaker McCarthy says is one of several bills being considered.

Our Lisa Desjardins has been reporting on this, says you don't have the votes for your bill to move forward just yet.

But everyone agrees the immigration system is broken.

Congress needs to act to fix it.

So what is your plan?

How can you fix it?

REP. CHIP ROY: Yes, so we have H.R.29.

It's a bill I introduced last Congress and the Border Safety and Security Act.

And, look, the purpose of the bill is pretty simple.

And there's been a lot of misinformation out there, a lot of people saying that, oh, somehow this bans asylum.

Some people have used terms like un-Christian-like ban of asylum.

Let me set the record straight.

This legislation does one thing, enforce current law to say that we have to detain for the entirety of the duration of an adjudication of a claim, an asylum claim, or turn away, like we do under current Title 42 law during a pandemic.

What does that mean in practice?

It means you won't release... AMNA NAWAZ: Well, Congressman, if you don't mind.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

I know our time is limited.

REP. CHIP ROY: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: I have the bill in front of me here.

The language literally says "the authority to suspend entry of aliens at borders of the United States," giving powers to the secretary of homeland security to essentially bar all entries, which even your fellow Republican Tony Gonzales has called un-American.

REP. CHIP ROY: Yes, well, Tony ought to read the bill and read current law.

The fact of the matter is, what you're doing by giving the secretary the power, not just the power, but requiring the secretary to enforce the law to detain is, you're saying, just like Title 42, which Tony supports and campaigned on and which every Republican supports and campaigned on, the same kind of power to say you can turn away, if you don't have detention space, means you would actually enforce current law.

You would still make asylum claims.

Every single asylum claim would still be able to be claimed, but you just have to be detained while that's being adjudicated.

Today, we're releasing into the United States.

That's causing a flood.

That's causing migrants to die.

That's causing Americans to die with fentanyl pouring into our communities.

It's empowering cartels.

And just yesterday in our Judiciary Committee hearing, I had somebody from the county I live in.

I had Brandon Dunn there because his son died from fentanyl last August.

I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of people dying in Texas from fentanyl poisonings.

I'm tired of the almost 1,000 dead migrants along the Rio Grande.

I'm tired of the 53 migrants who died in a tractor trailer in San Antonio.

And I'm tired of Republicans campaigning on securing the border and then running away from the fight and then accusing other Republicans of doing what we think is right to protect migrants and Americans with a commonsense bill that enforces the law.

AMNA NAWAZ: Obviously, fentanyl is a huge problem.

But the majority of the fentanyl coming across the border comes at legal ports of entry.

Secretary of Homeland Security Ali Mayorkas and I spoke this morning, and he said there is actually no evidence that it's pouring in between ports of entry.

REP. CHIP ROY: Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed.

You don't know what's coming in between the ports of entry.

What I do know is that fentanyl is pouring into our schools in our communities and is the number one killer for people 18 to age 45.

The fact... AMNA NAWAZ: Yes, but, Congressman, the people that are coming between the ports of entry, linking them to carrying fentanyl is inac -- there's no evidence of that.

REP. CHIP ROY: Well, you know what the dad who said in the hearing yesterday?

He said, you know what, it only takes one pill to kill my son, and you can fit one pill in a backpack on one immigrant coming in between the ports of entry.

And, by the way, the Border Patrol agents can't check every car at the ports of entry.

AMNA NAWAZ: While I have you, Congressman, you just voted to oust Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee today for her comments on Israel years ago, for which she apologized.

You have said this is -- this is raw politics.

Those are your words, that, since Democrats pushed to remove two Republican lawmakers for violent videos and conspiracy theories, some of which were antisemitic, "We have got to respond."

That sounds like retribution.

So I guess my question is, where does that end?

REP. CHIP ROY: Yes, well, I hope it ends with us all agreeing that, going forward in the next Congress, we're just going to let the managers of the teams pick the players they're going to put on the committees.

That's the way it ought to be.

You hit one of our guys, we're going to hit back.

That's raw politics.

That's actually, I think, appropriate.

Now let's sit down and figure out how we're going to change this going forward.

But just like Harry Reid opened up the filibuster, and guess what's now on the Supreme Court, they opened the door last time by playing this game.

We told them it was a mistake.

Now they're feeling the consequences of that mistake.

AMNA NAWAZ: Republican Congressman from Texas Chip Roy joining us tonight.

Congressman Roy, thank you for your time.

REP. CHIP ROY: Thanks, Amna.