Mullin urges flood victims to report in, defends Trump in face of questioning

June 04-- Jun. 4--District 2 Congressman Markwayne Mullin held a telephone town hall Monday evening, during which he recommended that area residents report damages they've incurred during the recent flooding events.

Mullin, a Republican from Westville, also gave an update on tariffs to be imposed on Mexico by President Donald Trump, and spoke to a caller briefly about the Mueller Report.

While he said the water in portions of the state is receding, Mullin pointed out that residents still aren't able to return home.

"We have families that have lost everything; not just pictures on the wall, but they lost clothing, they lost bedding, they lost toiletries," he said. "They've lost literally everything they had."

Mullen said it's important to report damages, either online at damage.ok.gov, or reported by dialing 211 on the phone.

The president has threatened to impose 5 percent tariffs on all goods being shipped into the U.S. from Mexico, if the country does not help curb what Mullin called a "literally overwhelming amount of immigrants crossing our southern border."

Mullin said the Mexican government is not doing enough to stop immigrants from traveling through Mexico to the U.S. He also said the president, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, can regulate trade deals after declaring a national emergency in response to any "unusual or extraordinary threat" to national security.

"He's declared a national emergency on our southern border," said Mullin. "This warrants, obviously, an unusual and extraordinary threat, because of the type of individuals that are flooding our borders. And the president has the right to hold the Mexican government and Mexico accountable."

Tom Baker called in and asked Mullin if he had read the Mueller Report. Mullin claimed very few people have read it, but said he's almost finished reading it. When Mullin mentioned that evidence of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and the Russian government was the reasoning behind the special counsel investigation, Baker said the term "collusion" was improper, according to the legal definition.

Mullin responded that, while he was right, it's the term most people hear from media outlets.

"The thing is, 99.9 percent of the American people aren't going to read the Mueller Report," Mullin said. "They're going to get their information from the news that -- I don't care if you're listening to FOX, listening to MSNBC -- it's all going to be slanted."

Mullin added that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was given the task of determining whether there was any coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, not whether charges should be filed against him.

"Through the Mueller Report, it unequivocally said absolutely not," said Mullin. "Even though they had opportunities to do so, they didn't. But the Democrats up here -- they can't let that go. They're so focused on impeaching the president that that was their agenda when they started after the president -- immediately, the day after he won the election, and they're not going to let it go until after he wins re-election in November of 2020."

Baker said he doesn't believe impeachment is the proper action at this time.

However, he also said Trump has been "surrounded by people engaged in illegal activity," and that "a man who surrounds himself with criminals, may be guilty of something himself." He also added that the job of Mullin and others is to get to the bottom of the situation.

"To dismiss the idea of impeachment is improper," Baker said. "Now, I'm not in favor of it myself, but it is your job -- along with everyone else's who's been elected -- to look into this and find out the truth for all of it."

Mullin said Congress has looked into the allegations made against Trump, and that just because a politician surrounds himself with corrupt people doesn't make him corrupt by association.

"If you're guilty by association on everybody you're around in the political world, then, my lord, I don't know who I rub shoulders with every day," Mullin said. "I don't know their background. I have to take them for face value. You and I, in the public sector, we're used to taking people at their face value. That's what the president did. He took these individuals for their face value, because he's not familiar with politics. He's new, he was outside of it. And when he found out that they were, he quickly, quickly separated himself from them."

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