54 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Late Summer 2018 TheCoastalBend.com Coastal Bend Community soil before reaching a wall. It’s hard to fault Rep. Cloud for not having an answer. No one does, including the president, not that anyone in the media has ever asked this simple question about the most basic logistical aspect of building a border wall. I promise, ten seconds, I’m sure you can clear this up. You’re a smart man. You have a river bank on one side, and you have a river bank on the other side… I’m not going to speak to every specific stop along the border. I’ll tell you what I think needs to be done. If a proposal comes through would you answer that question? I’ve been through the immigration process myself, so I have some personal experi- ence as well, so I understand the need to streamline the process, I understand the need for a good worker program. I understand the need to secure the border. Rep. Cloud was referring to the immigration process that he experienced with his wife, who emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. The Cloud’s have three young children who are American citizens. So maybe immigration reform is in our future? A guest worker program? Im- migration is something that I…in my short time there I have already begun those discussions of getting that conversation back on the table because it’s certainly an issue that we need to stop kicking down the road. Rep. Cloud released a statement during the special election campaign opposing the Trump Administration’s practice of separating parents from their children when ap- prehended at the border. He later said that he was pleased that families are being reunited, even if in custody, and, “We have to be careful as we go about the process to make sure that children truly are protected, and they’re getting back with their fam- ily.” Once again, however, we see Rep. Cloud ride the fence on the immigration topic, struggling between what must be his sense of right of wrong—after all his he is mar- ried to an immigrant from Mexico and has three mixed-race children—and his politi- cal need to appeal to the Trump base. In May, Cloud said, “They’re coming here for a reason, and they’re coming for free goods and services, and too often our illegal aliens get better treatment and better services than some of our veterans do.” Eric Holguin, Democratic Nominee for U.S. Congress, District 27 The Coastal Bend Magazine: What do you consider the dominant issue of the November election? Holguin: It’s about the bread and butter issues. Jobs, whether those jobs bring in enough for families without having to struggle to make ends meet. Infrastructure, more than roads and bridges. We hear left and right, pipelines are busting…enough is not being invested here to keep businesses here. Healthcare is the big one also. I believe that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Under the Republican president and congress, the economy is good, and unem- ployment is at a historic low. What is the economic argument for electing you and other Democrats to congress this year? I don’t think that it should be lost that the unemployment rate—that Trump had a lot to do with that. That’s something that, basically, Obama pulled us down to. There’s a difference between the unemployment rate and the underemployment rate. Because someone has a job at Walmart doesn’t mean that they don’t need government assistance to make ends meet. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of the most fiercely independent depart- ments of the government, compiles and reports employment data for the country. The “official” unemployment rate is referred to as “U3,” and is the lowest rate based on unemployment insurance claims and household surveys. The “underemployment” rate is referred to as “U6” and adds to the U3 people who have fallen out of the workforce as well as those who desire to work full-time, but can only find part-time employment. At the end of the last recession, unemployment peaked at 10% (U3) in October 2009, when the U6 rate was 17.1%, a gap of 7.1%. At the time of the presidential election in November 2016, the U3 official unemployment rate was 4.5% (a number Donald Trump referred to as “phony”) and the U6 rate was 9.3%, a gap of 4.8%, which is considered a great improvement. In July 2018, the official rate was 3.9% (U3), with a U6 rate of 7.5%, a gap of 3.6%, and a further improvement since President Trump was elected. With Black and Hispanic unemployment at record lows, Democrats like Hol- guin have little argument that electing them with further improve the jobs situation. What is your view of the drug war in Mexico, how it affects the U.S. and what to do about it? I support legalization of marijuana. I don’t smoke, I never have, and I never will. I will send you a hair right now. Why do you say that, why do you point that out? It’s just a personal preference. Do you believe voters will look at you negatively if they think they you smoke marijuana, because you support its legalization? No, I don’t believe so. Considering that 90% of the news cycle involves the president, what is your view of Donald Trump and his actions in office? Overall, I do not support Presi- dent Trump. I think he’s doing a terrible job. I think he is ruining our democracy; he’s ruining a lot of the institutions that our country values. With that being said, me running a campaign against President Trump is not the priority. I don’t agree with what he’s doing. I constantly follow the child separation issue. But if I ran my campaign with the news cycle then I wouldn’t be able to focus on what is actually affecting people’s daily lives. Cloud ran a series of commercials on how Trump needs him, and Cloud is a Trump loyalist and that’s who he wants to serve. He’s never given the impression that he wants to serve constituents. I called Cloud out again on [the Putin/Trump issue] and [he] did not say that he disagrees with Trump’s comments. Cloud is just running on Trump’s coattails. Do you view yourself as running against the Trump agenda? People want to know how I’m going to combat Trump. Do you think there is a case for impeachment against the president? I want to say yes. I believe there can be a case. They found a case against Bill Clinton for crying out loud. There’s something there, but for some reason it’s just not happening. What do you think it would take for Republicans to go to the president to urge him to quit, as they did with Richard Nixon? It’s hard for me to say because Republicans back then were very different than Republicans now. [They] back then had a sense of integrity and they cared about the country. What we see now is that Republicans keep moving that line. It’s hard to say, “What will it take?” because we thought that being caught on video suggesting that he sexu- ally assaulted a woman would be the downfall of his campaign, but Republicans just keep allowing Trump to do whatever he wants. It will take getting Republicans out of office to hold him accountable. “[Trump is] ruining a lot of the institutions that our country values. With that being said, me running a campaign against President Trump is not the priority.”— Eric Holguin President Trump visiting Corpus Christi in the weeks following Hurricane Harvey. Republican Rep. Michael Cloud has distanced him- self from the president on family separations at the border, and he has accepted intelligence conclu- sions that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. While Rep. Cloud has expressed support for a border wall, he will not say whether one should be built along the Rio Grande River in South Texas.