Here's what Rick Perry has said about his potential future colleagues on Capitol Hill

If former Texas Gov. Rick Perry heads to Washington as Donald Trump's energy secretary, he’ll have to reconcile his new gig with his past comments on D.C., the federal government, and of course, Trump himself. 

Here are some of the things Perry has said about his potential future colleagues on Capitol Hill.

On the Department of Energy:

• During the now-infamous 2011 "oops" debate, Perry forgot the name of the third federal agency he wanted to shutter — the Department of Energy.  “I will tell you, it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education and — what's the third one there? Let's see ... The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."

• During a November speech that year in Iowa, Perry called the energy department redundant: “We’ll eliminate agencies that perform redundant functions. Get rid of the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy.”

On Trump:

• Perry called Trump’s candidacy “a cancer on conservatism,” and accused him of offering "empty platitudes and promises.” 

• He called Trump out for "wrongly demonizing Mexican-Americans for political sport,” and said he is "the modern-day incarnation of the Know-Nothing movement."

• In a 2015 speech in Washington, Perry said "Donald Trump was born into privilege. He received deferments to avoid service in Vietnam ... He breathes the free air thousands of heroes died protecting. And he couldn’t have endured for five minutes what John McCain endured for five and a half years.”

On the federal government:

• In his 2010 book “Fed Up,” Perry argued U.S. citizens are “in the control of an increasingly powerful and oppressive national government – a government run by people who simply do not share our values or our beliefs and blatantly ignore its limits.”

• “The idea that they’re telling us how to educate our children or how to deliver health care or how to, for that matter, clean our air is really nonsense,” he said on Glenn Beck’s show in 2011.

• “We have a culture in Washington, D.C., where these corporate lobbyists have these cozy relationships with the people that they’re regulating,” he said on CNBC in 2011.

On Congress:

• “Washington doesn’t need a new coat of paint. It needs a complete overhaul,” he said of Congress during his presidential bid in 2011.

• “An armed populace can do more to deter crime than a thousand laws passed by Congress,” he said in a 2012 Facebook post following a speech at a National Rifle Association conference in St. Louis.

• “Congress certainly can't be trusted to watch our money,” Perry said in a 2011 Facebook post.

Read related Tribune coverage:

• With President-elect Donald Trump set to tap former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the department of energy, here's a closer look at the energy legacy of the state's longest-serving governor.
• If confirmed as energy secretary, Perry will oversee American energy policy and its ramifications on the economy, environment and national security.