Transcript of Rep. Brandon Gill’s town hall on October 21, 2025

Question 1: Pat, from Flower Mound, female

I have a daughter that's in the U.S. Army and they were just told that be prepared they were not going to be getting paid. She is upset because she has house payments and all of that stuff. She was wondering, what are we doing for our military?

Gill: This is exactly why we don't want to be in a government shutdown because if this goes on there is a risk that our military loses a paycheck - and they will get back pay- but let me tell you what's happened. The first pay period, which was on the 15th of this month, President Trump made sure that there was funds to pay for the paychecks of our troops. Thank you so much for your family's service. We all appreciate that. President Trump made sure that happened. He was able to divert funds from other areas of essential services to make sure our troops got paid. But remember, House republicans voted for a bill that would fund the federal government, that would fund troop pay. And it was the continuing resolution that we passed September 19. The democrats in the Senate killed over ridiculous demands. So, we're working to get the government re-opened. We're hoping that happens as soon as possible. There is legislation that is being discussed right now to provide funding for our troops even in a shutdown. I fully and wholeheartedly support that because the last thing we want is for our troops to not get paid. So we're here working actively on that. I think the best way is to get out of the shutdown, but there are other things we are working on as well. Let me also mention that during this shutdown, I myself will not be getting paid. We sent a letter in to the federal government a few weeks ago saying I will not get paid until the federal government opens up. So we're with you on that. Thank you for your question.

Question 2: Taylor, from Flower Mound, male

Hey Congressman Gill. Thank you for the time. You know, I just have a growing concern of the Muslim population growing within Texas and somewhat the lack of assimilation. Wanting their own private communities, gated communities, gated churches. Again, lack of assimilation. But also, you see videos and rhetoric online of these behind closed door meetings of, you know, wanting to implement Sharia Law. What is the government doing to monitor that? That is a major concern and I want to know what the government is doing, what some of our agencies are doing to monitor this situation?

Gill: First of all, thank you for the question. I get asked that quite a bit. You're not the only person who is concerned. I'll tell you first and foremost: I agree with you that we have an immigration system but it depends on assimilation. Assimilation is the primary principal that undergirds legal immigration into the United States. I do not believe anybody from anywhere on the globe should come into our country if they will not assimilate. That is the first thing that I'll say. I think there are a variety of issues that we could discuss with regards to illegal and legal immigration, but I'll leave it at that, the importance of assimilation.

With regards to Sharia Law specifically, I recently co-sponsored a bill that would ban Sharia Law in the United States. That was a bill introduced by my friend and colleague Randy Fine from Florida. It's an excellent bill. We're going to be pushing to get that on the floor as soon as the federal government is reopened because, to be clear, Sharia Law has no place in the United States. It is fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional order and it should not be practiced anywhere. So we're looking into this. We're fighting to stop Sharia Law from coming into the United States. But I think there's a broader conversation that we're working on with assimilation being a key principal, returning our country to focusing on assimilation being a key principal of immigration.

Question 3: Christopher, from Copper Canyon, male

Uh, yes, congressman, I was just wanting to express my concern about the mistreatment of Christians, the murder of Christians, on the West Bank by Israel and their settlers that are really close to Benjamin Netanyahu. In particular, I'm talking about the town of Taybeh. This is unacceptable that Christians are being murdered and burned out and persecuted by Israeli settlers. What are your views and what can we do and why are we supporting a country that's doing this to Christian people. It's simply unacceptable. I've written to you about this and I'm going to continue to write to you and I'm going to send you a link so you can have it in full context. Please address this issue. It's a point of great concern to me as a Christian American and I'm sick of my tax dollars killing people who are my co-religionists in that part of the world. I find it unacceptable and I want you to address it. Can you do that please?

Gill: Yes, and thank you for the question there. The specifics of that are something that we're happy to go into this specific incident that you're referencing. I will say, broadly speaking, is that President Trump and Vice President Vance and Marco Rubio have been very clear that we want to see an end in the conflict in Gaza and in the Middle East, more broadly. That I don't think it's in anybody's interest for the war there to prolong, to last any longer. We'd like to see both parties to come to the table to honor the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas and build a region that is peaceful and prosperous. That is directly in the United States' geopolitical interest. So I will have to look into the specifics of the incidents you're referencing here. But I myself am a Christian as well and we are horrified to hear about Christians anywhere being persecuted or killed.

Question 4: Jeffrey, from Lewisville, male

My question is not really a question. I'm from Old Town Lewisville and we are so proud of what you're doing in congress. We all voted for it. A small group of business owners in Lewisville, and we cannot believe how you're handling congress. It's amazing to watch you. It is so proud to have a congressman like you in Washington. That's all I really wanted to let you know. That we are so proud of you, how you're handling things, how you talk to people. You're straight up. You tell like it is, kinda like I am, like Trump. You tell it like it is and that's it. It's over. Anyway, we're very proud of you, congressman. We're so proud of you. Thank you so much.

Gill: Jeffrey, that's extremely kind of you. So thank you so much. You know, I think we've got a very productive congress this year, getting the biggest tax cut bill passed in American history, the biggest welfare reform in American history. A recissions bill which I hope to be the first of many. We've gotten a lot accomplished and we have a lot more to do, but thank you very much. It means a lot. I appreciate it.

Question 5: Leroy, from Denton, male

Hi, Congressman Gill. I have a question, I guess. I'm concerned that I may have significant healthcare premiums next year and I also may lose my Medicare coverage. Is there some way to stop this from happening?

Gill: thank you for your question. I'm happy to get my team involved into specifically what we can to do to help you in particular. I'll tell you a few things. We've been working on shoring up Medicare to ensure that it is viable long-term, that Medicare can provide the services that it was designed to provide, which is healthcare services for those who need it and those who are eligible. One of the things we did earlier this year is we ensured that illegal aliens were not on any form of welfare, whether that be food stamps or Medicare or Medicaid or any other aid programs. That is something that will help shore up the viability of Medicare as a program long term so it can continue to provide the services that it was designed to provide. So I'm happy to get my team involved if there's any specific questions that you have or concerns you have about your coverage in particular - because that's somewhere we can help - but that's what we're fighting to do. We're fighting waste, fraud, and abuse in the program and make sure that we don't use our taxpayer dollars to pay for healthcare for illegal aliens.

Question 6: Ryan from Haslet, male

Hi congressman, thank you for talking to us tonight. I wanted to ask a question about the money that the democrats are asking for. The $200 billion they want to use to pay for illegal alien healthcare. If that were to happen, what is the plan for that money? Is it for them to have a health plan to pay for, like, insurance? Or is it going out to hospitals and emergency care centers to pay for those people when they show up at their door? Where would that money go exactly? What are they proposing?

Gill: That's a great question. Let me just lay out how this works. In the working family tax bill that we passed earlier this summer, we had a variety of provisions in that bill that would stop any federal tax dollars to pay for illegal aliens healthcare. That is a provision that democrats explicitly, as a part of their continuing resolution, want to strike out. It's literally on page 57 of the bill text that the democrats are proposing. Now, how would that do it? It's all of the above of what you mentioned. It would provide Medicaid funding for illegal aliens and for a variety of categories of non-citizens. There's what is called a California loophole that's got about $35 billion of federal spending for healthcare for illegal aliens. It would be in Medicare funding. That's about another $5 billion. There's some Obamacare funding that's almost $100 billion in Obamacare subsidies and healthcare plans that would go to  illegal aliens, as well as subsidies that would go to hospitals that provide coverage for illegal aliens. It's really across the board funding for illegal aliens. I can run you through all the specific numbers. But it's in total about $200 billion. It's a substantial amount of money.

Question 7: Raymond, from Fort Worth, male

Good evening, congressman. Just a delight to talk to you. I'm an old guy, was born in 1951, so you can imagine what my perspective is on a lot of this stuff. While the congress is in recess, can Donald Trump get some of these appointments out of the way? Some of these judges, district attorneys, etc. Considering it's not a real recess.

Gill: Let me say a couple of things about that. One is appointments for the executive branch are confirmed by the Senate, not the House, so that's something that is dealt with on the Senate side. The president is not making recess appointments. What we have seen is the Senate change the rules so they can consider large groups of nominees en bloc, meaning all at once. They do that so they can save time, so you're not having multiple hours of debate for potentially hundreds of potential nominees. So that's something they have been working on to speed that up so they can get those appointments through. Again, that's going to happen on the Senate side and that's something they've been pushing pretty hard on recently.

Raymond: Can the congress come to a regular order at this time? Where you don't have to have 60 votes in the Senate?

Gill: So what I think you're referring to is the rule to invoke cloture in the Senate, which is the threshold to end debate and move legislation forward in the Senate. That's a much broader debate, and again, that's something that happens on the Senate side rather than the House side. I think there are a lot of detailed discussions as to whether it makes sense to do what's called the nuclear option so we can fund the government right now. That's something that they've been thinking through, the pros and cons, and what it means going forward.

Question 8: Jim, from Lake Dallas, male

Congressman, first I'd like to thank you for providing this forum for voters to express opinions. Secondly, I'd like to thank you for the job you've done. You make me to have voted for you and all the rest of the Republicans. Don't you dare let our Medicare money and our federal tax dollars go to illegal immigrants in any way, shape, or form. Unless it's a plane ticket home. Now that being said, the question I have is, even though I realize you're a first term congressman, is there any contact that you can make to the Democrat senators that are holding up this legislation? Can you work any kind of thing, I don’t know what they call it, behind the scenes type of deal where you might be able to provide some information or be a liaison that bridges this gap and gets the democrats to help pass this continuing resolution? Or is it too much divided along party lines.

Gill: Thank you for the kind words, Jim, and first of all, you're exactly right. We're not going to use taxpayer dollars to pay for illegal aliens, for people who entered our country illegally, broke our laws, and shouldn't be here to begin with. We're just not going to do that. We were elected to secure the border and end waste, fraud, and abuse just like this. Let me tell you something about that. Democrats have discussed how can they try to make their case and I think, if you've noticed, Democrats don't talk a whole lot about healthcare for illegal aliens because they know it's incredibly unpopular with Americans. They know it's a ridiculous demand, but there are political reasons they've been pushing that.

Now to your question about acting as a sort of liaison, that's something that I'd love to do. I think there's a political reality here. Remember, democrats voted for this exact, same continuing resolution in March of this year. It wasn't even that long ago. They voted for the same continuing resolution 13 times in the past, on top of that. The reason the democrats are holding up federal funding to shut the government down is because Chuck Schumer in the Senate is worried that if he doesn't show that he can work in opposition to Republicans and in opposition to President Trump, that he's going to get primaried by AOC, who has teased a primary run to oust him. He's terrified for his political future. This is purely, purely a political calculus by democrats in the Senate and in particular, Chuck Schumer. There's nothing more to it than that. Now, the problem is it's a political calculus at the expense of the American people, at the expense of our troops who may not get paid, at the expense of infrastructure projects that may not get funded. At the expense of federal programs that may not get funded, that benefit the American people. That's the problem with this. Let me frame it one more way for you. For the past 9-10 months since I've been in office. Look at all of the things the president has accomplished. Look at all the things the House republicans have done. Major tax cut bill, major welfare reform, major recissions bill. President Trump secured the border basically immediately after taking office just a few weeks. He's been doing all of the things he said he was going to do on the campaign trail and we have executed in Congress. That's what republicans have been working on. That's what we've done. What have democrats done over the past 9 to 10 months? What do they have to show for themselves? Nothing. Nothing but a government shutdown to go back home to their voters and say that they've accomplished. That's another way of saying they have accomplished nothing. And this is a hail mary political play for them. So I would love to be a backdoor liaison, but this is a political calculus right now.

Question 9, Patricia, from Highland Village, female

I too, and my husband, are so proud of your record in congress, Congressman Gill. We love you and are glad we elected you. Can you hear me?

Gill: Yes, I can, and thank you so much, Patricia. That's extremely kind of you.

Patricia: OK, my husband's listening with me and he has this question. Um, first of all, is the DOGE department still in operation, and if they are, doesn't that give President Trump the ability to shut down and eliminate the democratic programs that DOGE uncovers? It's wasting our tax dollars.

Gill: The short answer is yes, DOGE is still in effect. Now there are two different DOGE operations right now. There's the one happening in the executive branch, and that's the one that was formerly headed by Elon Musk. That is still in operation. They're still looking for waste, fraud, and abuse to end. There's also the DOGE in the congress and I work on the House DOGE committee. We're working nonstop and we're still working to identify waste, fraud, and abuse. That's how we led the effort to pass the first recissions bill that was passed earlier this summer that defunded NPR and PBS and large portions of USAID, you know the transgender surgeries in foreign countries, things like that. We're continuing to do that work. One thing that I'm working on, and have been working on is I introduced a bill to abolish funding for the [indistinguishable] and Fogarty International Centers, which are fraught with waste and they're duplicitous services, things that most Americans don’t want anything to do with. We are continuing to do that effort and we're going to continue to do that effort.

Question 10: Carolyn, from Lewisville, female

Good evening, Congressman Gill

Gill: Hi, Carolyn

Carolyn: Hi. My question is I need to better understand what the issue is going on with PBS. As I was telling one of your assistants, my kids grew up on PBS, my grandkids are growing up on PBS. They've got great programs. I enjoy their programs. I go, "What is it that I don't really know about that money is going to because the programming that they offer for my grandkids, for myself, for my grown kids, the programming is great.” So it's like, OK, I'm missing something. What is it?

Gill: Thank you for the question. I appreciate that a lot. That's something I spent a lot of time on, which is to defund both NPR and PBS. Let me give you two different reasons here. The first is we spend about $535 million every single year on both of those outlets and both of them, both in their news and in their non-news programming are decidedly left-leaning. In fact, they're very, very far left. NPR, for instance, runs articles about fat-phobia and transgender dinosaurs. There was a study done for the NPR news agency based in Washington, D.C. that covers Washington, D.C. politics and every single editor there, every single writer was a democrat. Not a single one was a republican working there. PBS has run documentaries making the case for reparations, giving clearly one-sided news coverage. They've run children's programs with drag queens and other left-wing social agendas baked in. This has been happening for quite some time. That is just the political bias of these outlets. What I've always said is that, you know, if any news outlet came to me, whether it be liberal or conservative, whether it be Fox News or Newsmax or talk radio or any left-leaning outlet, if they came to me and asked for federal tax dollars, I'd say no because I don't think that's an appropriate use of your tax dollars. I think that is wasteful spending. These programs can exist on their own without us having to pay for them, whether they're liberal or conservative. But I'm certainly not going to vote to continue funding left-leaning news outlets that make it their mission to attack Republicans and run cover for Democrats. I think these are outlets that have gone out of their way to give one-sided political coverage and push left-wing social agendas, not only on the American people but on young children. That's why we voted to defund them. These are outlets that we've talked about for a long time of defunding, for decades. And we finally did it. And I'm really proud we did. NPR and PBS, I believe, are still running. They're still active. There are still shows their putting out there, news or otherwise, they're just not receiving tax dollars anymore. They're doing it on their own dime.

Question 11: Shane, from Gainesville, male

Yes, thank you for taking the time to do this. I think it's really awesome. I want to applaud you for not taking your salary during this time. I wanted to know if there is anything you can do to present to congress and Senate to have that something that every senator and congressman to have happen until the government gets running again?

Gill: Shane, thanks for that. I'll say two things, one is that as far as I know, every republican that I'm aware of has stated that they will not receive a salary while the government is shut down. I don't think that is the case on the democrat's side. But every republican, at least that I'm aware of, has done that. That's the first thing. You're exactly right. There's a piece of legislation that we've been working on that would say that going forward, while we're in shutdown, no member of congress would get a salary. I think that is common sense. We're not doing our job, clearly, or democrats, right now, aren't doing their job and shouldn't get paid. I think that there's other things that we're working on that the troops continue getting paid whether we're in a shutdown or not and that other federal workers are getting paid as well.

Question 12: Gloria, from Lewisville, female

Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm going to try to not be long-winded and be clear enough. But, you know, I know that there's so much concern about illegal immigration. I'm wondering if there's just as much concern about legal immigration. Just to give you an example of something that happened within our family. My brother, he's good now, but he got laid off recently from a company, from a company that he's been working for for about 5 years, because his job got outsourced to India. He actually saw this coming, because one by one, a lot of people were getting fired because they were getting replaced by either international students that were willing to work for basically nothing or those jobs were sent to India.

Another example. We're in our 20s. My husband is wanting to get an engineering degree, but he's having second thoughts because the job market for engineers is not great right now. It has one of the highest unemployment rates when you’re looking at recent college grads. So that's one issue, which is that there's a jobs issue. A lot of Americans are losing their jobs. They're having to train their replacements, their H1B replacements.

The second issue is the cultural issue. I will say that I'm not anti-immigration. I'm actually a child of immigrants. I'm brown. I'm not anti-race. I'm not anti a particular race. But the cultural issue is of importance to me because being born here, being raised here, the America that I remember the 1990s being is not the America I'm seeing here in Dallas-Fort Worth. I really value the fact that the founders of our country were Christian and they wanted the nation to be, basically, a city on a hill dedicated to God. I know this is kind of controversial, but this is originally founded on Christian values. Historically, when you're looking at specifics of immigrants and children of immigrants, they tend to vote, um, Democrat. I know that you're a congressman of republicans and democrats, but they're not going to be exactly for 2A. I'm not anti-immigration. I'm going to shorten my question here. I'm not anti-immigration. Obviously, I'm a child of brown immigrants, but I also believe that immigration should be limited and that the native population should not be overwhelmed by immigrants so that we can keep our culture. So that we can make sure our 2A rights are not in the future going to be done away with. Not just 2A. A lot of other things. So, I think you get the idea. Number one, jobs. Number two, culture. I'm afraid the real [indistinguishable] lose Texas in the future. Honestly. That's my question.

Gill: Thank you for the question. I've heard countless stories similar to that of companies not only shipping jobs overseas but replacing workers in America with people that they're importing from foreign countries, with foreign workers that are brought into the United States specifically to undercut American wages. That's a huge problem.

There are two issues to this and I'll start with the jobs issue. I do not believe that our immigration system should be such that we are bringing in people to undercut American wages. I mean, there's a reason that working class wages in the United States have been stagnant largely for a very long time in the United States and that is because we have legally brought in a large number of foreign workers that work for significantly cheaper than Americans do, or are willing to. I think that’s a problem. It reduces opportunities for the Americans who are here, for the people who are here, for the people who the immigration system should benefit. Remember, the purpose of legal immigration is not to benefit foreigners, it is to benefit Americans.

You're right, this has nothing to do with disliking immigrants in any way. My father in law is an immigrant. My wife's father is an immigrant into this country. If it weren't for that [cuts out]. The purpose of the system should be to benefit our people and nobody else. Right now, our legal immigration system it basically randomly chooses who we're going to allow into the country legally, as opposed to deciding, "Who do we want to come into our country?" Those should be people who benefit us economically. Not by undercutting American wages, but in other ways. That's the first thing I'll say. I'm completely with you. The H1B1 program has been an absolute mess and it has been used to undercut American wages. I think the H1B1 program should be drastically curtailed, if not abolished outright. The president has just recently instituted a $100,000 fee for businesses that bring in H1B1 workers. That is something I fully support and that's something we're working on legislation to fully codify that and to make that permanent because I think that would be good for the American people.

The second thing is about culture, and you're spot on. You're exactly right. We've seen American communities just fundamentally transformed. You're right. The America that you grew up in is being transformed. And the problem is immigration without assimilation. Remember, immigration without assimilation amounts to cultural colonialism. That is something that we are going to working on something that I am adamantly against. I don't think anybody should come into the country if they're not willing, specifically, to fully assimilate into American culture. I think that is one of the reasons we're seeing some of these Epic Cities pop up across the state. These cities, they're Islamic cities that are designed specifically and advertised specifically to foreigners in foreign countries. They advertise and they say, "You can come to America and you don't have to assimilate. You don’t have to become American in any way. You can bring your entire world view, it doesn't need to change. You can just keep it in this Islamic city." That's a problem. That's going to create significant problems in our country going forward. It is transforming our country. It does mean our children are going to grow up in a very different America than we did. You're exactly right about that. These are all issues that are very important to me that I've been working on.

Question 13: Brad, from Argyle, male

Hi Brandon, this is Brad Book. I had a question. I play racquetball and pickleball with retired air traffic controllers. They brought up that one thing in the past shutdowns, they continued to work even though they weren't getting paid till later. However, they kinda had an ill-feeling for several that did not work and were reimbursed full pay. I was wondering if y'all had thought into that and what you think?

Gill: Yeah, I agree with you, Brad, and thank you for the question. For background, during a government shutdown, some workers are essential and some are not. Some are paid and some don't, they get back pay. Those two categories don't often line up evenly. In other words, you can have people who are going to work every day for the federal government for whatever capacity, including air traffic control, that don't get a paycheck, and then those that are furloughed, meaning they are not working but they still get a paycheck. There's a problem here and that's the kind of thing we're working on to fix with legislation hopefully we're not in a government shutdown in the future, but if we are, to fix this system because I agree. I think it's a huge problem. It's a big deal that air traffic controllers may be missing paychecks and that's something we've gotta fix.

But let me tell you one other thing, Brad. We voted on a bill, again, last month that would pay air traffic controllers, that would pay our troops, that would pay federal workers and that was the continuing resolution that the Democrats voted down because they want our tax dollars to fund healthcare for illegal aliens, left-wing state-sponsored media and various left-wing social programs. That's where we're at right now.

Question 14: Carolyn, from Roanoke, female

Hi, congressman. Really good to talk to you. I appreciate you talking to us tonight. I was reading recently about the number of injunctions that federal judges had put on past presidents and the past presidents besides Trump only had a handful. Most were less than 10, I believe, and that included Obama and his two terms. It's my understanding that Congress is the only body that can impeach a federal judge. I hope I'm understanding that right. Is there anything in the works right now to start impeachment process on these judges that are overreaching and trying to take over the presidency?

Gill: Carolyn, thank you for your question. I can talk a long time about this, but I'm going to try to be brief here. You're exactly right. We’ve seen a surge in federal courts, particularly lower courts, issuing either nationwide injunctions against things the president is lawfully doing to either secure our border or make our military better or to rationalize the federal workforce, which operates under the president. There are a few things we can do. This is coming from a long history of left-wing jurisprudence and judges who are explicitly politicizing their courts in order to try to thwart the president. Lawlessly.

There are a couple of things we can do. One of them is impeachment, as you mentioned. Back in March, I filed articles of impeachment against Judge James Joseburg (CHECK) who is a district court judge out of Washington, D.C. who demanded the president turn around in mid-air a plane full of Tren de Aragua illegal alien terrorists that he was deporting. That is something that is just and proper. It's a just and proper remedy for a flagrant and lawless politicization of the courts. That's one route we can take. Another one is passing, which we did pass, a bill called the No Rogue Rulings Act. The No Rogue Rulings Act passed the House a few months ago. What it would do is it would stop district court judges, which, remember, are the lowest rung of the federal judicial system. The rung that congress has wide latitude and has always had wide latitude of supervision over. What it would do is it would stop district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. In other words, injunctions that have, in effect, nationwide, not just in their court or area or jurisdiction. It would stop left-wing, radical left-wing activist district judges from, for instance, demanding that President Trump, you know, dictating where President Trump move troops abroad in foreign countries, things like that. I'm completely with you. These are things we've been working on, that I've been working on since being elected. One of these is a bill that we've already passed out of the House and we're hoping to get it in the Senate.