| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
History. | |
| Louisiana State University journalism professor John Maxwell Hamilton talks about the U.S. government propaganda efforts during World War I. Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Members of the House Democratic Women's Caucus held a news conference on Capitol Hill where they spoke out against the Trump administration's freezing of federal funds and discussed how it impacts women. | ||
| California Congresswoman Judy Chu shared how she and Wisconsin Congresswoman Gwen Moore walked into Speaker Mike Johnson's office to demand answers about Elon Musk's access to the Treasury Department's payment system. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for joining us. | |
| Before I sort of officially launch in here, I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge that our chair, Teresa Elizer Fernandez, couldn't be with us here today because her brother unfortunately suffered a heart attack and passed away this week. | ||
| And Teresa rushed to his side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The women in this country are disproportionately the caretakers and the tenders of their family. | |
| And that's exactly what our chair is doing right now for her family. | ||
| I'm Congresswoman Hilary Schulton, proudly representing Michigan's third congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. | ||
| I'm the first woman and mother in West Michigan history to represent our community, our part of the country in Congress. | ||
| It is such an honor to stand for my community at this particular time when the rights of women and girls in this country and indeed around the world are under attack. | ||
| I stand here with incredible leaders from across our caucus and across the country. | ||
| For the past few weeks, women and families across America have borne the brunt of a chaotic start to President Trump's second term. | ||
| President Trump, along with Elon Musk, an unelected, unaccountable businessman, have sown chaos that is keeping Americans, particularly women and children, from accessing the critical resources and information that our communities rely on every single day. | ||
| Make no mistake and don't believe the hype, Democrats have been hard at work trying to stop the chaos and help the individuals on the ground who are bearing the brunt of this trauma. | ||
| I know my team has been hard at work helping Head Start programs access the funding that they need to provide critical early childhood education, help families have access to the child care that they need. | ||
| Just a little over a week ago, every single Medicaid portal in this country was shut down. | ||
| Republicans did that. | ||
| And Republicans in Congress are doing nothing to stop this chaos. | ||
| They bear the responsibility of what is happening. | ||
| The Democratic Women's Caucus is here to tell our neighbors back home and across the country that we are united in our fight for you and your families here in Congress. | ||
| Let's make one thing crystal clear: the chaos of this administration does nothing to help women and working families across the country. | ||
| They think that by freezing federal funding and seizing independent agencies, taking money that was democratically allocated through Congress to help working families, that they are going to somehow help working families. | ||
| They will distract us from the fact that they're nominating cabinet picks who believe that women don't belong in the workforce, in voting booths, or military uniforms. | ||
| But we're paying attention. | ||
| We see them and we are calling out the injustice. | ||
| We know that these actions come at a real cost to women and families. | ||
| In the most populated county in my district, federal funding freezes have hamstrung child care and education providers like Head Start. | ||
| If they can't access their federal funding soon, they won't be able to provide critical services in our community, including preschool, daycare, and family support visits. | ||
| That means 77 preschool classrooms, 13 infant and toddler classrooms, and nine home visiting classrooms will have to shut their doors to the families they serve. | ||
| Just think about the impact, not only on those families, but on our workforce and our economy at large. | ||
| That's just one county within our entire nation. | ||
| To think about the scale of the damage of this funding freeze and what it has caused is truly mind-boggling. | ||
| The women and children in my community and in this country deserve better. | ||
| We all deserve better. | ||
| The Democratic Women's Caucus remains committed to protecting our rights and enabling women and families to thrive. | ||
| We are working with community members like the folks at Head Start to help them navigate these reckless policies, and we are working together to hold the Republican majority in Congress accountable for sitting idly by while the leader of their party continues to attack the very systems that help American families stay healthy and happy. | ||
| There's a reason Trump is not bringing these policies through Congress. | ||
| They wouldn't pass. | ||
| They're unpopular with the American people, and they would not allow their Democratically elected representatives to vote for them. | ||
| As the first woman and mother to represent my district, I know too well how families across the country might be feeling right now. | ||
| I can't imagine as a young working mom what would happen if my child care suddenly froze one day. | ||
| To all the working moms, to all the women across the country, we see you and we will not stop fighting for you. | ||
| It is now my honor to introduce Congresswoman Lois Frankel, Chair Emerita of the Democratic Women's Caucus. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Old chair. | ||
| Old chair. | ||
| Chair forever. | ||
| I'm the old chair. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Lois Frankl. | ||
| I'm a member of Congress from Palm Beach County, but most importantly and first, I am the mother of a United States Marine War veteran who fought in two wars, the joyful grandmother of two little boys, and blessedly the daughter of a 99-year-old mother. | ||
| And what I'm going to talk about will affect them deeply. | ||
| Hillary, thanks for your leadership and to my colleagues here. | ||
| Sadly and alarmingly, the disregard for women's rights and dangerous policies targeting women do not stop at our borders. | ||
| Just days after taking office, Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders that, if not reversed, will lead to devastating consequences for women and their families around the world. | ||
| And let me tell you, it's going to affect us too. | ||
| His foreign aid funding freeze has cut off funding for family planned services that 46 million women around the globe rely on. | ||
| His reinstatement of the global gag rule has silenced doctors and nurses and health care workers, barring them from giving patients truthful information. | ||
| And his deep cuts to the U.S. aid workers, now 15,000, 14,000 to now less than 300, proposed. | ||
| It's shocking, really. | ||
| But this is going to sideline programs all over the world that provide women and girls with access to education, to economic opportunities. | ||
| It's going to halt the anti-traffic efforts. | ||
| And all of this is being done without the consent of Congress, led by an unelected billionaire. | ||
| And what's this going to do? | ||
| It's going to result in fewer health clinics, more preventable deaths, more spread of disease, more poverty, more despair. | ||
| And really, when I think about it, millions of women are going to see their children starve to death. | ||
| But the facts are undeniable. | ||
| When we empower women, entire communities thrive. | ||
| No woman, no matter where she lives, no matter where she lives, should be denied the ability to make her own health care decisions or denied access to the jobs and the education she needs to feed her children. | ||
| And at a time when the women around the world are facing unprecedented threats, especially in conflict areas where sexual assault has become a weapon of war, this is the last thing we should be doing is cutting off their services. | ||
| But listen, these policies don't just cost lives abroad, they put us all at risk. | ||
| Global health programs prevent the next deadly outbreak in our shores. | ||
| Poverty and desperation fuel instability and terrorism that threaten our security. | ||
| And when we leave the world stage, it gives it to Russia and China. | ||
| So let's be clear. | ||
| These anti-woman draconian policies do nothing to lower the costs for American families. | ||
| They don't make health care more affordable here. | ||
| They don't create jobs or strengthen our economy. | ||
| Instead, they weaken our global standing, undermining life-saving programs, endangering women and girls without making life better for one person in this country, and in fact, endangering everybody. | ||
| And I'll just conclude by saying something that we all know and we all believe, and I believe the American people know this: that when women succeed, families and communities succeed and the world succeeds. | ||
| And with that, I turn it back over to Chantel Brown. | ||
| Thanks, Chair Meredith. | ||
| Thank you, Chair Franco. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| I'm Congresswoman Chantel Brown of Ohio's 11th Congressional District, and I just want to let folks know that I am the daughter of parents who are seniors. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am the proud aunt of six, a great aunt of two. | |
| My siblings, one has a child care center, and one is an aspiring entrepreneur, but also a labor union worker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I say all that because I think it's important to know who we are and how these policies are impacting people across the country. | |
| I am proud to be here with my Women's Caucus colleagues to call out Donald Trump and Elon Musk and their all-out assault on women and families across America. | ||
| So what's really going on here? | ||
| They claim that all of this chaos and confusion is about finding waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| Elon Musk isn't finding waste. | ||
| He's blocking spending he doesn't personally agree with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Elon Musk isn't finding fraud. | |
| He is recklessly assessing sensitive payment systems and our personal data. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Elon Musk isn't finding abuse. | |
| He's blatantly breaking laws with no transparency or accountability. | ||
| And dare I would say he is acting out abuse. | ||
| So this really isn't about waste, fraud, and abuse, is it? | ||
| How do I know for sure? | ||
| Well, I'm glad you asked. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because when we tried to subpoena Musk this week, Republicans on the Oversight Committee blocked it. | |
| Now, why don't they want us to hear about all the great things he's doing? | ||
| Because this is a power grab, and I am especially worried about what it means for communities like mine. | ||
| In my district, 21%, that's one in five, 21% of people live below the poverty line, including 30% of children. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But it's not just them. | |
| It's hardworking families, single moms and seniors who are struggling to keep up with rising costs. | ||
| These are people who will be hurt the most if Republicans slash programs to keep up with rising costs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
These are the people who will be hurt the most. | |
| They don't see Medicaid and Medicare as waste. | ||
| They see them as lifelines. | ||
| They don't see funding for early childhood education and kids with disabilities as fraud. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They see them as essential. | |
| And they don't see meal programs like SNAP and school lunches as abuse. | ||
| They see them as a hand up. | ||
| But it's not just about the big safety net programs. | ||
| Last week, I visited the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center in Glenville, a neighborhood that is 90% black. | ||
| This center has long received federal funds to protect survivors, including victims of human trafficking. | ||
| So the center has made sure their services can be responsive to their needs as well as the needs of human trafficking survivors. | ||
| What's going to happen to their funding? | ||
| These are real people we're talking about. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But rest assured, the women you see here, we are going to fight this agenda, bill by bill, amendment by amendment, order by order to stop Republicans from cutting taxes for the rich while sticking it to working families and women and children to pay the bill. | |
| And I'm going to keep fighting for Northeast Ohio and places just like it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So with that, I'd like to thank Teresa for organizing this again, and I'd like to turn it over to our DWC Policy Task Force co-chair. | |
| The gentlelady from North Carolina, Deborah Ross. | ||
| Thank you, Chantelle. | ||
| I'm Congresswoman Deborah Ross from the 2nd Congressional District in North Carolina, the proud daughter of two parents in their 80s who are doing well now, but boy, my heart goes out to people who are providing that caregiving to their parents. | ||
| And I have six nieces and nephews under the age of 30. | ||
| And when I go to work every day, it's my job to take care of their future. | ||
| When Donald Trump was a candidate for president, he talked about lowering prices over and over and over again. | ||
| And now that he's actually in office, Trump is doing anything. | ||
| He is doing nothing to cut costs for American families. | ||
| In fact, he's doing the opposite. | ||
| He even admitted that his tariff plan would cause some pain. | ||
| He's right about the pain, but he's wrong about how much. | ||
| Trump was forced to back down, and he's been backing down a lot lately because we've kept the pressure on. | ||
| He backed down at the last minute with Canada and Mexico, but the fight is far from over. | ||
| Trump's war on our closest trading partners threatens to raise the cost of household basics for every American family. | ||
| Trump cares about his bank account, not yours. | ||
| He's focused on his family grievances, but not your family's grocery bills. | ||
| The Trump administration could ensure that every child in this country has a healthy lunch and a positive learning environment. | ||
| Instead, they're working to illegally shutter the Department of Education. | ||
| They could expand access to health insurance. | ||
| Instead, Trump and his buddies in Congress are trying to cut funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, threatening life-saving care for millions of children and families. | ||
| They could make supporting and protecting vulnerable women a priority. | ||
| But instead, they tried to freeze funding for women's shelters and survivors of abuse in my home state of North Carolina. | ||
| In short, they've done almost nothing to promote the security and well-being of American women and families while initiating power grabs to make things more difficult for all of our working people. | ||
| But I didn't come here just to talk about Donald Trump and Elon Musk. | ||
| I'm here because Democrats, and particularly the Democratic Women's Caucus, are fighting for the economy and fighting for one that works for women and families. | ||
| We're fighting to protect Medicaid so that every woman and child has quality health insurance and seniors can have nursing home care. | ||
| We're pushing to increase our investments in quality, affordable child care so that every child has a chance to succeed. | ||
| We're working hard for policies that will ensure that women earn a fair wage, workers have access to paid family leave, and that parents can afford child care. | ||
| We're willing to work with anyone, especially our Republican female counterparts, to improve the lives of women in America. | ||
| But that is not what this administration has done in its first two weeks. | ||
| Thank you again to Chair Leisure Fernandez for your leadership. | ||
| We're carrying the torch for you today. | ||
| And I want to make one thing clear as I close to the women across America. | ||
| We are understandably anxious, all of us. | ||
| We don't know what the future holds. | ||
| But the House Democratic Women's Caucus will not abandon you. | ||
| We will fight for you. | ||
| We will listen to you. | ||
| We will tell your stories. | ||
| And we will not be silent when the president and his rich friends move to take our country backward. | ||
| Now I am thrilled to introduce our whip, Nakema Williams from the great state of Georgia. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| It's okay to say good morning. | ||
| I'm Southern, y'all. | ||
| We need a little call and response here. | ||
| Y'all, I am Congresswoman Nakima Williams and I proudly represent Georgia's fighting fifth congressional district and I have a feeling for the next four years we're going to be doing a lot of fighting here for the women and families that we represent across this country. | ||
| I also am proud to serve as the chief whip of the Democratic Women's Caucus. | ||
| Y'all, first of all, it's been a long 19 days. | ||
| It's hard to imagine that it's only been 19 days. | ||
| But every day, every woman up here and every woman of the Democratic Women's Caucus has taken on this fight to stand up for the women and families in this country. | ||
| But we've taken on fights long before, and I know that this won't be our last. | ||
| The Trump administration is attacking us at every opportunity. | ||
| Just two days ago, the unconstitutional, not congressionally appropriated Doge took on an unprompted and illegal field trip to the CDC, a public health organization that is centered in my district. | ||
| In the midst of their attack on our Constitution, they're attacking our public health institutions. | ||
| My office is getting hundreds of calls from constituents worried about these fundamental health centers like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NIH, and so many others. | ||
| I heard from one constituent that she is afraid that her son will literally die because of Elon Musk's attempt to take away Medicaid funds. | ||
| She called the office in tears because she didn't know what would happen if her son, who receives SSI and Medicaid, is not able to continue to get the life-saving treatments that he gets every month. | ||
| I've even received reports that maternal and child health centers of excellence across the country have received letters to cease and desist all activities. | ||
| Imagine that. | ||
| In the midst of the maternal health crisis in this country, and in particular my home state of Georgia, where we continually rank 50th out of every state, they're trying to close frontline support centers. | ||
| Y'all, Georgia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in this country, with black women being three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than any of our counterparts. | ||
| This administration is sending a loud and clear message. | ||
| They want to take away our reproductive freedoms, and even more than they already have, they don't care how it affects our health or our lives. | ||
| They've removed reproductive health resources from the Health and Human Services webpage, and Trump pardoned people who had illegally blockaded a reproductive health clinic, telling America that it's okay to harass people seeking the care that they need and deserve. | ||
| And they've supported legislation that will prosecute health care workers for providing vital treatment to mothers. | ||
| Y'all, I worked for Planned Parenthood for over a decade before I came to Congress, and it's the stories and experiences of the women that I served during that time that I carry with me each and every day, and those conversations guide my work as a member of Congress. | ||
| As we see an assault on all forms of reproductive freedom, the need for full and equitable access to contraception is at an all-time high. | ||
| That's why I'm proud to co-lead the Right to Contraception Act that we just reintroduced this week, because until Congress passes legislation protecting access to contraception, our work is not done. | ||
| The power to make decisions about our health, our bodies, and our futures must be ours and ours alone, not Donald Trump's, and definitely not an unelected billionaire like Elon Musk. | ||
| Without the interference of any politician, especially those unelected. | ||
| And now I am proud to turn it over to one of the newest members of the Democratic Women's Caucus who is in this fight with us, Representative April McLean Delaney. | ||
| So good morning. | ||
| Thank you for being here today as we stand up for women and families in the face of these unconstitutional, mean-spirited, and corrosive attacks on our government agencies, our experienced federal workforce, on vital food, security, and health programs for families, and most importantly, on esteemed clinical research programs, including cutting-edge cancer research, medical trials, and those impacting women's health. | ||
| It is my honor to represent Maryland's 6th District and to be here with these incredible women. | ||
| I am a new member of Congress, but I will say I am the mother of four daughters, 31 to 17, and a brand new grandmama of a one-month-old baby Charlie. | ||
| And that is the reason why I ran for Congress for their future and for their health and well-being. | ||
| I am on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, but I also live in Maryland, and Maryland is home to some of the world's most esteemed research institutions in the world, including NIST, our nation's jewel in research, tech, and innovation policy, the National Institute of Health, NIH, and its National Cancer Institute, as well as Fort Dietrich and NOAA. | ||
| The work of these institutions and their highly trained government-funded scientists, engineers, and doctors result in medical breakthroughs which save lives and further technical innovation, which, by the way, contributes to U.S. competitiveness and national security. | ||
| But this administration, whether it be Trump or Elon Musk or Doge, has engaged in nonsensical and partisan budget attacks, which will cut short all of this and alert not only the health of women and families, but also our U.S. businesses, which actually depend on basic research, which is and truly only can be done by federal funding. | ||
| But let's just humanize this. | ||
| Why is federal funding of this research so very, very important? | ||
| A few miles away from here is NIH and the esteemed National Cancer Institute, the world's largest funded biomedical and behavioral science institution. | ||
| So these institutions have saved millions of Americans' lives and they will continue to do so. | ||
| Just a few things. | ||
| For the women here, the most common cancer is breast cancer. | ||
| 300,000 women are diagnosed each year with this disease. | ||
| These women have the highest chance of survival due to a lot of clinical research was first pioneered at NIH. | ||
| Moreover, NIH is known for their incredible work on immune therapy and blood cancers. | ||
| And in fact, in my district, Kite Pharma actually is capitalizing on that and has T-cell therapy, which is actually revolutionary across the world, giving the best of public and private together. | ||
| But Trump's proposed cuts threaten this research and current medical trials. | ||
| And in fact, I heard from a constituent about a young mother who was about to undergo medical trials, and the freezing of these funds unfortunately jeopardized that. | ||
| She was in tears. | ||
| Now that's just mean. | ||
| But moreover, let's just do two more things. | ||
| Cervical cancer impacts 11,000 women every year. | ||
| In the late 1990s, NIH and NIC found the cancer-causing agent gene and was able in the HBV virus to find that and actually help in developing a vaccine which now has cut HBV infections by 64%. | ||
| That's pretty incredible, isn't it? | ||
| And it really impacts my daughters and those moving forward. | ||
| And then let's talk about heart disease. | ||
| Heart disease is the leading killer in this country, but it's the leading cause of death in the U.S. | ||
| And February is heart month. | ||
| My own mother, Laurel McLean, died of a heart attack five years ago. | ||
| In FY23, NIH dedicated $2.88 billion to cardiovascular research to move the needle on this disease and how many more women and daughters are helped. | ||
| You see, research saves lives, not only here, but across the world. | ||
| So, in closing, I'm going to say yesterday, as I was watching TV, I saw White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt speak to Doge and increasing the efficiency of government and how it should operate more like a business. | ||
| Well, I beg to differ. | ||
| There are things called public and private partnerships, but the public sector, government is not a business. | ||
| It is supposed to focus on the health and well-being of our citizens and to further their prosperity and health. | ||
| Our federal government and its trained, highly experienced, decades of experienced civil servants do things that businesses cannot or will not do. | ||
| There are better ways to improve efficiency, but jeopardizing research and innovation and the lives of mothers, daughters, sisters, and even my grandbaby Charlie is not one of them. | ||
| So, today and every day, I'm going to stand with these women and for the women of America and for their families because I believe investing in our health and well-being and security is what government and the public sector is supposed to do. | ||
| And our federal workforce is an incredible, talented workforce of public agents, public servants. | ||
| So I thank you, and I now think I'm handing it over to Congresswoman Chu. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Congressmember Delaney. | |
| The phones in my offices have been ringing off the hooks. | ||
| I'm Congressmember Judy Chu, and I represent the California cities of Al Tadena and Pasadena, which have burned to the ground. | ||
| My constituents are devastated and worried, and now they have another huge worry, and that is that their most sensitive data and the systems that control their taxpayer dollars have been handed over to an unelected billionaire, the billionaire who is President Trump's biggest political donor. | ||
| And because of that, it has been handed over to unvetted lackeys. | ||
| I am a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which is the committee that protects taxpayer dollars. | ||
| Over the weekend, we learned that Elon Musk had unfettered access to the Treasury Department systems that disperse nearly all federal funds. | ||
| That means he can see your Social Security number and bank information. | ||
| He can see your confidential protected tax information. | ||
| He might even be able to turn off your Social Security payments. | ||
| And he's already bragged about canceling funds that Congress, through the legislative process, has appropriated. | ||
| This is, of course, completely illegal, but Republicans in Congress have done nothing. | ||
| Speaker Johnson even invited Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, the very person who granted Elon Musk this unprecedented access to the Capitol Wednesday to plot how big their tax cuts for the wealthy would be and what programs they got to fund them. | ||
| Programs that real people rely on, such as Medicaid, SNAP, and more. | ||
| So when I heard about this meeting, Congressmember Gwen Moore, who's a fellow member of the Ways and Means Committee, and I walked straight to the Speaker's office to demand to speak with the Secretary. | ||
| This isn't business as usual. | ||
| That's why we did it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they put the Speaker in the room to talk to us and then put the Treasury Secretary off through another door to avoid us. | |
| So we spoke to Speaker Johnson, and what we learned was shocking. | ||
| The Speaker admitted that he did not know if Musk's actions were even legal or what information his team had access to and was manipulating. | ||
| But he still refused to take action to stop him. | ||
| Fortunately, a federal court order has ordered Musk out of the Treasury systems, at least in terms of manipulating it, but not in terms of reading it. | ||
| The danger certainly has not passed. | ||
| If he remains in our government systems, he could unilaterally freeze federal funds for programs that women and families rely on. | ||
| He may have already stolen women's private personal data, including sensitive health information. | ||
| He could turn off funding for new mothers to help feed their babies, funding designated for community health clinics that provide a full range of reproductive care to women, funding for SNAP benefits and school lunches that feed hungry kids. | ||
| We will not stop until we get answers. | ||
| Women across America are relying on us to stand up for their rights, their benefits, and their privacy. | ||
| And now I hand it back to Vice Chair Hillary Sculton for Q ⁇ A. | ||
| Oh, Julia Brown. | ||
| I'm sorry, Julia Brownlee. | ||
| I was about to say we're fortunate to have Julia Brownlee here with us today who's going to address us for a few minutes and then I'll take QA. | ||
| I came just to support all these women and certainly to support women across our country given these times. | ||
| But I'm Julia Brownlee. | ||
| I represent California's 26th district. | ||
| I've served on the Veteran Affairs Committee for 12 years in Congress. | ||
| So I wanted to speak just very, very briefly on the issues of women in the military and our women veterans across our country. | ||
| Women every single day in the military are putting their lives on the line for our country. | ||
| And trust me, without women in the military, our national security, our mission readiness is at severe, severe risk. | ||
| Women in the military, women veterans are the largest growing cohort within the military and within the VA community. | ||
| Women in the military, women in the VA want everything else that women across our country want and need. | ||
| Equity, diversity, inclusion, access is so critically important for our military today as the largest cohort within the military. | ||
| These are fighter pilots. | ||
| They are nuclear engineers. | ||
| They are captains of ships. | ||
| We will not be ready for any kind of national crisis without our women in the military. | ||
| So it is critically important. | ||
| And I know right now when we speak of the VA, the objective and the mission of the federal government, and mind you, the DOD and the VA are the two largest agencies within the federal government, but they want to privatize the veteran administration. | ||
| They want to get rid of the Veterans Administration as we know it, privatize it. | ||
| And believe me, the women and the men who have served our country and who become our nation's veterans, they want to receive their health care from the VA and not go out into the community, a community of great physicians, but physicians and medical support that don't understand their experiences that they have had in the military. | ||
| So I just want to be clear. | ||
| We are here also to stand for the women who have served our country and continue to serve our country and to put their lives on the line. | ||
| And we need to fight for them. | ||
| And with that, I will hand it back to our chairwoman. | ||
| Thank you so much, Julia. | ||
| We are the home of the free because of the brave, including so many of our women who bear the uniform of our U.S. military. | ||
| And thank you for championing them. | ||
| We're happy to take a few questions. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Sorry, hand first. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| My condolences to your colleague, Amalaska Brother. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to ask you about taxes. | |
| I know there's talk about Republicans, whether it be a short-term bill or trying to permanently extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| What are your thoughts on this? | ||
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
| And oh, did Judy leave? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was going to hand it over to our Ways and Means Committee member. | |
| The Democratic Women's Caucus, one of the very first things that we did was send a letter to President Trump extending an invitation, a truly genuine invitation, to talk to him about the ways in which we can work together. | ||
| You know, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a mixed bag, and especially for women, including women entrepreneurs. | ||
| I serve on the House Small Business Committee. | ||
| I know that some of the tax cuts that were included in the TCIJ, they want them to extend. | ||
| We want to have a sit-down conversation with Trump and talk about the ways that we can work together. | ||
| The Democratic Women's Caucus is a powerful caucus within Congress, and we're ready to work with our leadership and help deliver the votes that we might need to get a budget bill and a tax deal done this year if it works for women and families. | ||
| I want to make sure we can get to enough questions. | ||
| We had quite a few. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I was just wondering, Democratic women were a large part of the response against President Trump's first term. | ||
| Do you see any changes in how you guys are messaging this time around or lessons learned from the Bruce administration? | ||
| Anything like that? | ||
| You know, I see a unity that exists on the ground, but for some reason is not necessarily breaking through into the national conversation. | ||
| You know, a lot of people say, you know, Democrats have struggled to find their footing, yet, you know, this time around, you've seen members of our caucus who have walked into a meeting with the Speaker and the Treasury Secretary demanding answers for the American people. | ||
| You know, about a dozen bills have been introduced this week holding the Republican leadership accountable. | ||
| And there's been noticeably absent fire on Republicans this time who are standing by and allowing this to happen despite outcry from women in their district, despite outcry from women around the country over what they feel is an unconstitutional takeover of our federal government. | ||
| Women are united with the rest of the country in the fact that we know that there need to be reforms to the way that we tax and spend in this country, but you do that through a congressional process. | ||
| It is literally Congress's number one job to allocate funding to decide how we're going to tax and spend those taxpayer dollars. | ||
| And Trump is choosing to do this exclusively through an unelected businessman who has serious conflicts of interest in the work that he's doing and not bringing it through Congress. | ||
| So I will just reiterate that we feel a strong unity in opposition to what he's doing, and accountability needs to be placed at the feet of the Republicans. | ||
| Sorry, your hand. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Democrats will have a couple of leverage points coming up with the government funding in March and the debt ceiling. | ||
| Does the caucus, do you view that as an opportunity to secure some priorities that are important to the caucus given that Republicans won't be able to do either of those without Democratic support? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They have a three-seat majority, and they are, I have said since the election, they might have a technical majority. | |
| They do not have a governing majority. | ||
| They need Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
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They need Democratic women to vote with them in order to accomplish what they need to accomplish. | |
| The people of West Michigan sent me here for a reason, sent my colleagues here for a reason. | ||
| And we're here to stand up for our constituents. | ||
| And it is an incredible leverage point for us not only to accomplish those objectives for our district, but the objectives that we laid out here today. | ||
| And I think we have made clear throughout this week that we're not going to just roll over without some serious concessions from the Republicans. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yesterday there was a report from the Wall Street Journal that President Trump is going to cut thousands of workers from the Department of Health and Human Services. | ||
| I wondered what the Democratic Women's Caucus plans to do about this, if they think. | ||
| We are continuing to hold the administration accountable. | ||
| Again, we've sent a letter to the president. | ||
| We've asked for a meeting to talk about things like this. | ||
| Yesterday, I, along with Chantel Brown on the Oversight Committee, introduced a bill called the CLEAR Act, which clarifies that Doge is subject to FOIA. | ||
| We want to see the emails that talk about why they're doing this and who they're cutting. | ||
| We want to see all those internal communications. | ||
| I imagine many people in this room also would as well. | ||
| You heard my colleague Chantel Brown talk about how the Oversight Committee had asked, subpoenaed Elon Musk to try to come before them and testify. | ||
| We're doing everything we can to push the Republican majority to hold these unelected individuals that are operating Doge accountable. | ||
| That's where this is coming from. | ||
| And we're hearing the American outcry. | ||
| Democrats are bringing it to the forefront, and Republicans need to answer. | ||
| Are they okay with this? | ||
| What are they saying about the use and purpose of Congress if they're allowing all of these things not only just to happen through the executive branch, but specifically through a temporary quasi-governmental organization through an individual that was not elected, not confirmed by the Senate, and has very, very little accountability. | ||
| Republicans need to answer that. | ||
| I'm sorry, we do have to go. | ||
| We're a little bit over time, but thank you all so much. | ||
| Erin from my comms team is here, and the DWC comms people are here too. | ||
| We're happy to answer anything else offline that you might want. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Thank you, guys. | ||
| Cool. | ||
| Thank you. |