CSPAN - Rep. Suhas Subramanyam Holds Town Hall

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April 12, 2025 20:16-21:57 - CSPAN

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Rep. Suhas Subramanyam Holds Town Hall

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rick steves ▲ ● ▼		To avoid culture shock.
		To me, Culture Shock is constructive.
		It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective.
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		Next, Congressman Suha Subramaniam holds a constituent town hall in his district in Fairfax County, Virginia.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, everyone, for coming today.
		Sorry about the parking.
		Apparently, people are still trying to find their way through.
		Apparently, there's parking spots in between the school buses and the schools.
		So that's where they're finding parking now.
		But I really appreciate y'all being here today.
		I think this is day 98 for me, almost 100 days.
		And it's been a very long 100 days to say the least.
		A lot's happened.
		But I'll say that a lot of people have asked me if I regret going to Congress.
		And I've told them that if I wasn't in Congress, I'd be at home yelling at the TV.
		So I'm glad to be yelling at Congress instead.
		But either way, I'm glad to be here.
		But thank you, Senator Pokarski, for being here.
		We have other elected officials that serve you who couldn't make it today, like Delegate Delaney, but they are serving you really well.
		We have great local government here in Fairfax County.
		I have a little bit of Fairfax County, but I wanted to make sure I came to every county I represent.
		And certainly, you know, Fairfax, like Loudon, where I'm from, and Arlington and other surrounding areas in this area, we have a lot of federal workers.
		So I want to get a show of hands.
		Does anyone here a federal worker or contractor or no one?
		Or yeah, I would say almost everyone is tied to the federal government in this community in some way.
		And so that's why I've found that it's both devastating to our community to see what's happened to the federal workforce and to these federal agencies, not just because of what's going on to our economy, but also how important the work is that's being done in federal government and how it makes every American safer, healthier, and more prosperous.
		And so, you know, I get those stories, though.
		I've gotten almost 20,000 emails now to our office in the first 100 days.
		We've responded to pretty much all of them.
		But one of the things we do is before I go into a hearing, before I go speak on the floor, I ask my team, you got a story about HHS, you got a story about this agency, and we always seem to have one.
		And those stories seem to have an impact on my colleagues as well.
		And the other thing we try to do with your stories is we try to sell them to the press.
		And so I've noticed that as a freshman member of Congress in the minority, I don't have a lot of legislative power.
		But what I can do is make some of the worst offenses happening in federal government right now famous.
		And so, you know, our first town hall was in Loudoun County, and we got a lot of really good stories.
		One of them was actually about the fact that Doge was sleeping in some of the federal buildings.
		And so I actually pitched that story to many outlets.
		And I even did a skid on TikTok of me trying to break in and sleep in some of the agencies myself.
		They wouldn't let me in.
		But what's nice about that is we just have a lot of really amazing people in this community who do great work.
		And even the ones that haven't been fired have told me how dysfunctional some of their work has become.
		I think that's a shame, but it's also an opportunity.
		This is the same community that's going to get us back on the right track, whether it's within the agencies, the people already working there, whether it's the people who are fired who can talk about what happened.
		And in some cases, we've even been able to get people their jobs back.
		There are some cases, I don't want to promise you you'll get your jobs back, but in some cases, you know, folks at the VA who are fired, we made a big deal out of that.
		A lot of articles were written, and we made a lot of calls.
		And within a week, a lot of the people I was calling, especially the probationary employees, were getting their jobs back.
		And so I just think that this is a time not to feel powerless, but to actually feel like if you speak up and you put the pressure, that's the best way to see results.
		It's not always working, but that's certainly the times when the administration is backtracked on things, the times when the administration has admitted fault or mistake, is when we have put pressure on them.
		That's been my experience at least.
		And so, yes, I'm the guy with the suit on, but you all have a lot of power, and it's my job to empower you.
		That's the way I look at this.
		And so I wanted to talk about a couple things before I hear from you.
		I'm here for you.
		So we're here to talk about what you want to talk about.
		But I've got these handy posters.
		They're very nice.
		And the first one is the question I get asked the most is like, you know, what am I doing about it?
		What are we doing about it?
		There's a lot of things that we've tried to do here.
		There's a lot of numbers here.
		I'll let you read it, but the long story short is, you know, it's been a very busy first hundred days.
		But again, the one I want to pay you to pay attention to is 5,000 calls, 18,000 letters.
		I even get a report when you call me.
		It's usually an intern you're talking to, but they write down what you have to say.
		And I often, you know, go through and get a report at the end of the week of what you've been saying.
		And sometimes I'll even call you back if you said something interesting.
		I think a few of you may have gotten those calls.
	But then the emails, too, I've actually read out entire emails during committee hearings.
	And I found that even my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have found those to be very powerful.
	When the stuff happened with Signal, I actually had many military families reach out and say how upset they were that their lives were in peril because folks in the administration were using Signal to talk about war plans.
	And I just read their emails and I had a member afterwards on the other side of the aisle say how powerful that was to him.
	And so just keep telling your stories because you have really good ones, especially in this area.
	The second thing I want to note is the economy.
	And this is a very simple graph showing what's going on.
	We've got the stock market, it's down, consumer confidence down, retirement funds down, costs are up, tariffs are up.
	Actually, even with the tariff fix, it's actually because of the increased tariffs on China, they actually made tariffs worse by rolling them back.
	But what this means for our community is that I've talked to a lot of businesses.
	I had a small business before I got into Congress.
	I know many others have as well, Senator Pukarski too.
	And it's hard to predict the future already when you're a small business.
	You don't know what's going to happen three to six months down the line.
	And so when you put on top of that tariffs or even just general economic conditions, I had one builder who talked about how they used to have lumber quotes open for 30 days.
	And now they won't keep them open for more than a day or two because lumber prices keep going up day by day.
	And so they can't predict how much it's going to cost to build a house in 30 to 60 days.
	It's hard for them to even justify building homes at a time when we have a housing shortage here in Northern Virginia, right?
	So just one example.
	Take that across hundreds of sectors.
	And what you have is it's not just about the rising costs.
	That's certainly a part of it.
	But it's about the unpredictability of what's going on.
	And there's not a lot of data behind the actions that are happening.
	The administration talked about the art of the deal a lot this past week.
	And so I was actually going through the art of the deal, the book.
	And there's this quote there that said, I don't have a lot of number crunchers.
	I don't trust fancy marketing surveys.
	I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.
	And that to me is a little dangerous because what that means is we're not doing evidence-based things.
	And that's going to hurt a lot of businesses and hurt a lot of people in our community.
	And so I don't know.
	I'm a little afraid to read the rest of the book, but at least it gives us a window into kind of what's going on.
	And then last thing, a couple of things that you may not have heard of.
	There's stuff going on in immigration.
	First, just to say, even if you don't agree with what someone has to say, people do not deserve to be deported, detained for what they said.
	That is just not, that's against free speech.
	It's against what our country stands for.
	And then the second is people deserve due process.
	And so what I mean is even if they are, even if you suspect that they committed a crime, they deserve their day in front of an immigration judge, in front of a court, to at least be told what they did.
	And that's not happening.
	And finally, if the courts rule something, the administration needs to follow it.
	And that didn't quite happen this last couple weeks in one or two cases.
	And so one last thing, too, sorry, before we go on, is we had a bill that I think is very interesting and really bad.
	It's called a SAVE Act, and we had a vote on it.
	And then we had another one, the No Rogue Rulings Act, which you may not have heard of as much.
	So the No Rogue Rulings Act basically says all these nationwide injunctions are not allowed.
	And so that injunction on some of these firings, the injunction on birthright citizenship, for instance, basically they wanted, they don't like the rulings, and so they're trying to one, impeach the judges or else stop them from stopping the unconstitutional stuff that's happening.
	And so I think that's dead on arrival in the Senate, but I just want to let you know that that passed the House on party lines.
	And then the second one was the SAVE Act, which basically requires you to have a passport or federal ID to vote.
	And I think that's very dangerous because I think it's almost 40% of Virginians don't have a passport.
	And it's not easy to get a passport.
	It costs quite a bit of money.
	It's quite a bit of time.
	It's very inconvenient to get one.
	And so not everyone travels abroad and doesn't see the need.
	And to force everyone to get a passport is not easy.
	It disenfranchises a lot of people.
	And then on top of that, if you're a woman and you got married and have a different last name than your birth certificate, then that's a problem for you as well.
	You have to find, you have to prove that you're a citizen now.
	And so we looked back, my staff looked back 20 years in Virginia, and guess how many instances of non-citizens we found voting?
	Zero.
	And how many instances of voter fraud we found was not very much either.
	And in fact, it was actually more Republicans committing voter fraud.
	And there are a couple instances.
	Someone told me this, so I'm trying to verify it.
	Some of the instances were actually Republicans trying to prove that there was voter fraud, the instances of voting fraud that I'm talking about.
	And so we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist by creating a whole new problem, which is disenfranchising people.
	And I don't want to drop the SAVE Act and let that kind of go unheard because if they're going to flood the zone at me, I want to flood the zone right back.
	And that means talking about every single thing that's happening that's wrong.
	But again, you're not powerless in this fight.
	Let's continue to speak up.
	Even if you disagree with me, I want to hear from you.
	And that's why I'm here today.
	So thank you for showing up.
	And I look forward to your questions and your comments.
	So thank you for joining us.
	And the mic's right there.
	And I hope you step up.
	But thank you for being here.
	appreciate it who's the bold person that's going to go first we'll help you We'll help you out.
	Yeah.
unidentified		So I have two questions, actually.
		I attended the hands-on rally in DC last weekend, and Al Green mentioned that Al Green mentioned that impeachment papers were going to be filed within 30 days.
		Wasn't sure if you were aware of that.
		He said it to like thousands of people.
		Okay.
		And then my second question was: even though you brought it up, and I appreciated that, the signal chats seem to have fallen off the radar for a lot of people.
		And I am a DOD employee, and I would get fired for that.
		So I'm really curious on what's actually going on there.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a good question.
		Yeah, and Al Green, I'm curious to see what the impeachment reasoning is.
		I think certainly there's a lot to choose from.
		But I want to remind everyone, though, impeachment is not just a legal process, it's a political process, right?
		So, you know, having the votes is just as important.
		That's why Trump wasn't impeached the first time.
		But I'll certainly keep an eye out on that.
		So thanks for bringing that up.
		The second thing, the signal chats.
		We had a hearing, they won't have a hearing on this in the oversight committee where I serve.
		I'm the ranking member on military and foreign affairs.
		A great place to have a hearing on this.
		But instead, so they had a hearing on cybersecurity a couple weeks ago.
		And all I did was talk about this.
		And the reason why is because we can't, you know, they're talking about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in America, and that is a cybersecurity vulnerability, right?
		And so we need to have them, we need to have both sides coming together because this was a total screw-up, and this doesn't need to be a partisan thing.
		And what I'm finding is that there's some folks on the other side of the aisle who are scared of criticizing the president, even when he does things that are completely wrong, that everyone can agree are wrong.
		And in this case, this was the Secretary of Defense and putting war plans in a signal chat.
		That is completely wrong, right?
		And so we need to call that out.
		I call on him to resign.
		I called on Mike Waltz to resign as well for even having signal chats in the first place.
		And we can't let this go.
		We cannot let them plan really strategic, important, sensitive things on Signal at all.
		It is a vulnerability.
		And the last thing is Signal is encrypted, yes, but you can still get into the chats.
		I explained in my committee how a phone works because I don't know if they know how a phone works.
		But it's not just about the app you use, it's about the phone itself and so many other things.
		And so there's a lot of reasons why that was really bad.
		And thank you for bringing it up because I'm not going to let that go either.
unidentified		It's really important.
		Thank you.
		Anything like we can do to help keep that going to make sure that it's not going to be available.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		So, it's on the Senate side, they're doing.
		I know there is an investigation happening, and I know the White House is doing its own investigation.
		Don't really trust that one.
		But I know the Senate has not dropped, there's bipartisan support for continuing to probe this, and I want to make sure that we continue on the House side.
		None of that is happening.
		So, you know, we'll be doing our own sort of inquiries and keep putting on the pressure.
		But, like everything else, keep putting the pressure on, and I think you'll start to see some blowback and response.
unidentified		Okay, thank you.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you for letting me speak today.
		My name is Marnie Madiak.
		I'm from Manassas, but I'm born and bred in Fairfax County.
		I went to Fairfax County Public Schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, and I taught for 32 years for the district.
		I currently tutor students online in Title I schools in Milwaukee and Oakland, which is kind of cool.
		So, I stand before you not just as an educator but as a passionate advocate.
		Fairfax County Public Schools was always an example of diversity, inclusivity, and inclusivity.
		However, I'm deeply concerned about the troubling trends we're witnessing across the country-trends that threaten the very foundation of our educational system.
		In many states, we're seeing teachers being fired for simply honoring the names and identities of their students.
		Teachers have been forced to take down welcome signs because they are seeing some see them as political.
		And as you walk out, take a look at everything in the hallways because all of that would not be hung up in some other states.
		Okay, this is not a matter of policy, it's a fundamental right of every child to feel seen, respected, and welcomed in their classroom.
		As educators, we have a sacred responsibility to hold safe spaces where all children can express themselves freely and learn without fear of discrimination or exclusion.
		Moreover, I'm alarmed by the recent decision made by institutions like my alma mater, James Madison University, to get rid of their diversity, equity, and inclusion program.
		These initiatives are crucial in recruiting teachers from diverse backgrounds.
		Our students need to see themselves and their teachers.
		Stripping away DEI efforts sends a clear message that diversity is not valued and that the unique identities of our teachers and students do not matter.
		Programs like Head Start and Title I, which provide essential support for our most vulnerable students, are also at risk.
		If we allow funding cuts or policy changes to jeopardize these resources, we are failing not only our students but our society as a whole.
		As an educator whose livelihood depends on district funding, I fear for my job and my well-being of my students.
		The loss of support for diversity and inclusion initiatives would not only impact me personally, but would also ripple through the entire educational system, diminishing the quality of learning for countless children.
		Please continue to stand with us in advocating for policies that uphold the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our education.
		And thank you for your time.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Good afternoon.
		My name is Kelly.
		In December 2023, after many years of education working as a contractor, I became a civil servant.
		I love helping people and working within the challenges of budget and security restrictions the government provides.
		Working for the FDA was a dream come true.
		I'm a bit of a nerd.
		Even before joining the agency, I had read all about its history, about Dr. Wiley, the poison squad, the fight to make her food and drugs safe.
		I was so proud to work for them.
		I absolutely love creating procedures and systems that make things operate efficiently.
		Again, I'm a nerd.
		In August 2024, my world changed.
		I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer.
		I was facing multiple surgeries, but I was more worried about missing work.
		The day after my surgery, I tried going back.
		My boss knew I would do it and actually texted me first thing in the morning to say, don't even think about it.
		I did return two weeks earlier than expected because I left my job.
		In January, I had a second surgery.
		It was more serious.
		I had a week after getting out of ICU, a week after, I received a letter from HHS saying I was being let go for not meeting probationary standards.
		It horrified me.
		My performance was exceptional.
		I won awards.
		I had even been promoted.
		With my supervisor's support, I appealed immediately, and eventually the termination was rescinded.
		I pushed myself to return to work early again.
		I was exhausted and in pain, but I loved the FDA more than that.
		In April 1st, barely a month after I returned, my entire team was let go.
		Again, I was without work.
		I had worked so hard.
		I'd fought cancer.
		I had done everything I could to keep serving the American people, and I was discarded again.
		And for what?
		Not because of performance, not because of budget, but because of politics, because of the whims of Doge and RFK.
		These people aren't saving money.
		They're not trying to make America healthy again.
		What they're doing will harm the American people.
		Our food and drug supply will be less safe.
		Our workforce, made up of people who care deeply, who work long hours for less pay, is being broken.
		Federal employees are not the enemy.
		We are the people who make this country run.
		And now we're being turned into scapegoats for political gain.
		We can't let this continue.
		We have to stand up for ourselves, for each other, and for the future of public service.
		We need to fight back before it's too late.
		Thank you for your time.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for sharing your story.
		Just one thing I want to reiterate that you said was a couple things.
		One is this is not about waste, fraud, and abuse for making government efficient.
		A lot of this seems to be about loyalty tests or about ideology, and it's hurting every American in the process.
		The FDA does incredibly important work.
		It keeps us safe, keeps us away from infectious disease.
		And thank you for your service, and thank you for sharing your story, and we've got your back.
		I've got your back, certainly.
		So thank you.
		go ahead.
unidentified		My name is Ernie Barreto here from Centerville.
		Thank you for being here today.
		I read with great alarm this morning about possible enormous cuts to NASA budgets in the proposed budget by the President.
		And that's on top of very alarming cuts to science in general, the NIH cap on indirect funds, for example.
		Who knows what's coming for the National Science Foundation.
		I'm the chair of physics and astronomy at George Mason University.
		I'm greatly concerned.
		A lot of our faculty work with NASA Goddard, for example, which I guess the rumors are going to zero that out entirely.
		I don't know.
		And I'm greatly concerned about our students.
		We have a lot of students on J-1 visas, H-1B visas.
		It's very alarming what this administration is doing to them, and I don't know how to protect them.
		What can you do to protect science funding, NASA, National Science Foundation, NIH, National Institutes of Health?
		How can we help you protect that funding and support universities and our immigrant students?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a really good question.
		And I grew up next to Johnson Space Center.
		I'm on the science committee that includes space.
		And I completely understand how important NASA is.
		Even when we're privatizing spaceflight, NASA does so much for a country.
		A dollar in NASA and another science and technology fields is the best investment we can make.
		It's the best return on investment in our government.
		And a couple things are happening that are really concerning me.
		One is the Doge folks are trying to take control over all the grants that go out right now.
		And so that's another thing that's come up recently.
		And so there's going to be folks filing a lawsuit on that and on many of the others' cuts as well.
		The second part is just trying to let people, there's the courts and then there's the court of public opinion.
		And I think trying to let people know that the work you do impacts every American.
		This is not just a Virginia problem.
		This is not just a federal worker problem and a jobs problem here.
		It's a problem for every American when we're not investing in science.
		And, you know, even if you cut funding to a lab for a couple months, it takes many, many months.
		Sometimes you lose that research completely.
		And so some of the cuts we've made already, or some of the firings that have already happened, are irreversible, unfortunately.
		But there's a lot that's not.
		The FDA, going back to the previous person, for instance, they already said that a lot of the firings that they made were big mistakes.
		They already admitted to that, but they haven't reinstated the people yet.
		And they're hoping that we don't pay attention to those types of cuts.
		So we have to continue to bring attention to them, tell the stories, make them famous.
		And I think that and only then will we actually make a huge difference.
		And every American needs to know about what's going on.
		So thank you.
unidentified		Appreciate it.
		Thank you.
		Good afternoon.
		My name is Chuck Martello.
		I live here in Virginia-Run.
		Thank you for taking the time to come out and listen to your constituents.
		I have a simple question with no or a hard answer.
		You know, several million people showed up last weekend protesting what's going on.
		Yet, a week later, more outrageous and illegal activity happens with this administration every day.
		What can we do?
		I mean, you know, here we've voted Democratic, but there doesn't seem to be any checks and balances in our constitutional form of government any longer.
		And people are rolling over to this dictator illegally.
		And, you know, the frustration level is obvious here among the voters.
		What can we do to fight back?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a good question.
		I'll say that first, if you look at stuff that happens, stuff will happen.
		And then three or four weeks later, either the administration will admit it was a mistake or roll it back or they'll back down a little bit, maybe reinstate some people.
		I'm not saying things are going well.
		You know, things are not going well.
		But I'll say that when we have actually put pressure on the administration, we have gotten some results.
		Not enough, but we've gotten some results.
		I think the energy is seen and heard, even in the halls of Capitol Hill.
		And I think what I'd like to see in the House of Representatives is we have slim margins, right?
		The Republicans, even with the special election wins, only have a couple of votes on us.
		And they have at least three or four members in districts that Trump did not win.
		And I'd like to see them start to pull on our side.
		Right now, there's no sort of incentive in their minds, or really in the minds of any Republican, to divert from the president.
		In fact, the incentive is to celebrate the president.
		We have a bill to put him on Mount Rushmore.
		We have a bill to rename Dulles Airport Trump Airport.
		That's a real bill.
unidentified		And we have the birthday parade.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		We have a bill to make his birthday a federal holiday.
		And so these are real bills, and the intent of them is to essentially pander to the president and be in his good graces.
		I think the more pressure we put, the more they may feel like that's not a good idea.
		That's my hope.
		And in the meantime, we have to use every tool at our disposal, and we certainly cannot be fearful.
		We certainly cannot back down from a fight.
		I was a little disappointed in the CR, to be honest, and what the Senate did there.
		And we have to use every bit of leverage that we have to put them in a difficult spot.
		So maybe I've fell short on some of the votes, but every committee hearing that I've seen and done and been in, I bring up all this stuff that we're talking about, even if it's not the subject of the hearing, because I think it's important that we continue to put the pressure on.
		So I know it's frustrating.
		I'm with you, but we got to keep fighting, even if we don't win every single fight.
		So thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Hi, Congressman Suhas.
		I'm Kevin.
		I'm a son of a veteran, and I just wanted to read the statement.
		I want to talk to you about something that's been weighing heavy on my heart, not just as a citizen, but as a human being.
		What our current administration is doing is disgraceful, and it should not be taken lightly.
		We're watching mass firings across the country.
		Vital programs that middle and lower class Americans rely on are being gutted by billionaires that somehow need more money.
		And on top of that, there's open inside trading being bragged about, the kind that's destroying our retirement savings and leaving our people in the dust.
		There is something I want to bring up today as well, and that is the genocide happening in Palestine.
		And our government is being explicit in it.
		There are no words to fully describe the horror of what's happening right now.
		Israel has bombed schools, flattened hospitals, targeted refugee camps, and yes, even open fired on ambulances full of medics last week.
		All of this, while claiming, is defending itself.
		Let me ask you: how is it defense when you target children?
		How is it defense when every hospital in Gaza has been bombed?
		How is it defense when just last week you shoot up paramedics, then try to bury the trucks, the bodies, the truth?
		Israel is spreading lies, death, and destruction, and I don't want my country to be a part of it.
		How could the U.S. be supporting this with our tax dollars, with our weapons, with our silence?
		Until Prime Minister Netanyahu and those responsible are held accountable for their crimes, until Israel ends its apartheid and pro-settler agenda, we should not be sending them another nickel, not another dime, not one more dollar.
		Thank you.
		It terrifies me, terrifies me to know my money is being used to fund violence, remove people from their land.
		Again, that is not defense.
		It is occupation, it is ethnic cleansing, it is a genocide.
		We need to follow the lead of people like Senator Tim Kaine, Senator Bernie Sanders, and who had the courage to stand up to this foreign government, one that seems to have far too much influence over our own.
		Even now, students in college campuses who are here legally are being kidnapped, deported by our own very government for speaking out against a genocide.
		We need to follow what will happen when they target us next.
		And I'm not just asking, I'm demanding that we stop supporting the terrorist state, Israel.
		Because this isn't about a purity test.
		This is about right and wrong.
		Thank you.
		Thank you for meeting with us today, Representative.
		Earlier, when referring to the kidnappings of political dissidents, you said people deserve due process.
		And the room, I'm proud to say, my fellow constituents of CD-10 erupted in applause because that's what this country is all about, is due process.
		Unfortunately, in the first month that you were representing the people of CD-10, you voted for the Lake and Riley Act, which, among other things, requires the detention of undocumented migrants if they are even charged with a crime, exempting a particularly marginalized group from the due process that we hold sacred in this country.
		In the interim, since that act was passed, our sheriff's office in Loudoun County signed a 287G agreement pledging to cooperate with immigration and customs enforcement.
		They signed this agreement after the fact that we, after these slew of political kidnappings and disappearances of American political dissidents.
		What do you, my question is briefly threefold.
		First, what do you say to a constituent who sees your vote in support for the Lake and Riley Act and Democrat concessions on these issues in general as having contributed to this process, contributed to this tendency where we're now seeing people detained for their political beliefs?
		Urgently, I'll ask you how, what are you doing to help the threatened groups among your constituency, undocumented migrants and Palestinian Americans in particular?
		And considering that your, the final question is, considering that your top campaign contributor in 2023 to 2024 was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at $37,250, can you pledge to not take any more money from them if and when you run for re-election?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the third one is simply not true.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		So I don't know where you're getting that number from.
unidentified		OpenSecrets.org.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		OpenSecrets.org.
		Well, that's not true.
		So anyway, the second one and the first one.
		So I want to tell you the difference between the Lake and Riley Act and what's happening, because at least the Lake and Riley Act does give an immigration judge the ability to hear and let the person know what's going on.
		They're at least charged with the crime and at least know what the crime is, and they at least have the opportunity to have a deportation proceeding.
		What's actually happening right now is there are people who are being picked up without even being told why they're being picked up.
		They're being sent to El Salvador out of our jurisdiction, and then the administration is telling people we can't get them back, right?
		That is completely different.
		This isn't the debate.
		Let me finish at least, and I'll let you ask another question.
		But the concern that I have right now is that even if you two things.
		One, even if you disagree with someone's stance on an issue, to call them a foreign threat to our foreign affairs and a threat to our country because you disagree with what they're saying, that's not right to detain someone based on that issue.
		The people being detained had green cards.
		They were here legally.
		A lot of people had TPS status, for instance.
		And so they're very different situations.
		We can still be for the rule of law.
		We can still be for making sure that people have there's consequences for crimes, but not do what's happening now, which where there's absolutely no communication.
		We had a third grader in New York that was picked up and detained and put in a prison, right?
		Had no idea what was going on.
		He did nothing wrong, right?
		So that is not that, right?
		And so I disagree with a lot of your premises, actually.
		And we'll agree to disagree on that.
		But I just don't think that what's going on today in our country is anywhere near the goal of trying to at least make sure our communities are safe.
unidentified		Okay, then I'm aware that these arrests are not within the purview of Lake and Riley, but what I'm referring to is when you spoke to LCDC in Loudoun County a couple months ago, You provided the reasoning for your support for the Lake And Riley Act as wanting to demonstrate a realism for the other side of the aisle on these issues.
		That you well.
		Then, you can rephrase it however you'd like, but can you at least answer how much money you have taken from the from APAC?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		I have zero money taken from.
		The APAC has not sent me any money.
		If you look back at our campaign finance reports, they have a portal where they, where people can donate, right.
		So that's might be what you're seeing, but even then it's.
		I've gotten far more money from people who oppose Israel, but it's not even about that.
		My money, my vote, is not bought in any sort of way.
		I vote based on my community, based on the facts, based on what's best for a country, and so I know I disagree with your premises and I don't know where you got that number from.
		I disagree with that as well.
		So, but I appreciate you coming here today.
unidentified		Okay, good afternoon, Congressman.
		My name is Mac McNeill.
		I was part of the Ukrainian delegation that met with you on Wednesday of this week, and I want to speak about Ukraine, but just wanted to say that all of us very much appreciated your taking your personal time to to meet with us.
		That was.
		That was very good.
		A couple of things have happened since then that I've observed in the news.
		The Trump administration's envoy to Ukraine, General Kellogg, has just released a Statement about Ukraine being partitioned in the way Germany was after World War II.
		I think it is likely, although I disagree with it, but I think it's likely that the ultimate solution is going to be that the Russians are going to remain in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
		That's not right, but I think the real red line here is that the United States should not, in any event, recognize those territories as being Russian.
		That's what the Russians, Putin, Lavrov, and all of those folks are pushing for.
		And I think we have to take a strong stand against that.
		We all want the killing to stop, but not at the cost of putting Europe at risk of further aggression by Russia.
		You know, that's what happened at the Munich conference in 1938 when the British Prime Minister acquiesced to Hitler's demands for the Sudetenland.
		That was then leading to World War II.
		And we want to ensure that as in our national interest, that we don't let that kind of situation happen again.
		So thank you very much.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		I have no idea why this president feels a desire and needs to be allies with Russia, but I do feel it, that they seem to think that Russia is a natural ally.
		And so it frustrates me that we're in this position where we're not sure who our allies are anymore.
		We're taxing and tariffing and putting sanctions on some of our allies.
		And we're rewarding.
		If you note on the tariffs, the one country that doesn't have a tariff is Russia.
		And so the reasoning was because they apparently were in the middle of negotiations with them.
		But isn't Ukraine in the middle of that negotiation too, right?
		So why isn't Ukraine exempt from the tariffs then, if you're concerned about the negotiation?
		I would imagine we're in negotiations with dozens of countries about all sorts of things, right?
		So why is the negotiation with Russia any different?
		It's just the foreign policy of this administration really baffles me sometimes, and I think it baffles House Republicans as well.
		And it's what I'm really concerned about, though, is we've got four more years of this, right?
		What is going to happen to our strategic alliances long term?
		What's going to happen to our country?
		What's going to happen to our own safety, security, or the stability of all these regions?
		I don't know, right?
		And so all we can do is be very loud voices in our community and on the Hill and everywhere else we go.
		So thank you.
		I appreciate it.
unidentified		Thank you for your support.
		It terrifies me.
		Hey, Congressman, good afternoon, and thank you very much for being with us.
		I don't have a question, but I have a request and I would like to explain you the situation, what I am right now, and thousands of constituents in your constituency are being in the same situation.
		I'm on an H-1B visa right now, and I've been in this country for 17 years.
		I'm holding a master's degree and working with one of the best wireless operators who is running 5G and working for 6G right now.
		It's been 17 years, and since I'm coming from India, my born is in India.
		I will not treat equally.
		Anyone who is born outside of India get a green card within six months to one year.
		But because there is a per-country cap, these rules have been there in Andes Presley, somewhere I can say, that has never changed.
		And because of that cap, I will not get green card another 10 years.
		So imagine I'm being legally in this country, paying all the taxes, holding master's degree, doing research work, and I have to wait for 27 years.
		And my other colleagues who came after me from another country, they already got a green card in one year.
		So we already passed the bill in previous Congress for this issue.
		And we are in some congressmen are working from our party on the same issue.
		So I request you to reach out to Premila Jaipal and Rajakrishnamurthy on this issue to work with them and please bring the bill again in this Congress and remove this country cap.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've already committed to signing on to the bill and will likely do so.
		I just want to look at the language when it comes out.
		When my parents came in the late 70s, they got their green card at the airport, at Dulles Airport.
		They arrived and went through customs and got their green card.
		Some people are saying, wow, because I'm sure you know it, it takes some families 10, 20 years now to even get a green card appointment.
		And it's so frustrating.
		And what we're doing is the breasts and brightest want to come to America and we're saying, no, go back.
		Exactly.
		Right?
		And we're losing so much talent.
		And a lot of sectors, you want to know how to expand manufacturing in America.
		How about having an expand business in America?
		How about having a great workforce?
		And immigration is part of that great workforce for rural communities, for tech communities, for our community here in Fairfax and Loudoun.
		And that's a better strategy than tariffs is actually having a great workforce and training up the folks that we have in our country now.
		And so instead, we have this system where we have shortages in different sectors.
		And I've talked to countries who want to bring manufacturing to the U.S. and want to bring business, but they're like, we don't know where to put it.
		We don't know where the workforce is.
		And when we try to have an immigration program, it doesn't work anymore because programs like the H-1B program, we're scared it's going to go away or get you know they're going to get rid of it.
		So thank you for bringing that up.
		Thank you for what you're doing.
		I hope we can at least work in a bipartisan way to fix this.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Hi, my name is Robert.
		I'm from Ashburn and I'm a federal retiree.
		And as such, I am concerned about my two sources of income are my pension and Social Security and I'm thinking sooner or later they're going to come after those.
		But I don't have so much a question about a specific issue as I have a question to you, which is, you know, why was Donald Trump put in the office in the first place?
		And I think it's because people are sick and tired of the same old, same old.
		And the Democrats have represented the same old, same old for a long, long time.
		And they are not willing to get down in the dirt and fight the good fight for their people.
		And that's how people like Donald Trump get into office.
		So you are a first-time congressperson and you have a potential very nice political career ahead of you.
		So what are you going to do with it?
		Are you going to make sure that you keep it above all else?
		Or are you going to do whatever it takes, even if it means your career?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		No, I appreciate that.
		I do think we need to look at more creative ways, is one way of putting it, of how we're going to push back and how we're going to get things done.
		One of the reasons, for instance, Doge has been an initiative and maybe more popular is that we could have done more to make the federal government work better for people.
		The federal government, though, takes on a very difficult task, but there's more we could have done and more we can do still.
		That's one example.
		But I mean, to your point, I feel like I'm playing with house money.
		There's not very many Suha Supermundiums in Congress, right?
		And so I feel like I'm lucky to even be here.
		And so I've tried to use this platform in a way that I would have wanted someone who was representing me to use it, which is to have a, allow every citizen to have a voice and allow people to share their stories in a way where people around the country will listen.
		If there's things that I can do better, please let me know.
		And that's why we take all the calls and emails.
unidentified		I don't mean to throw you to the bus.
unidentified		I just want to, you know, I mean, I appreciate what you're saying.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		No, no, but I take that really seriously.
		Because as soon as I start voting for self-preservation, just get me out of here.
		I shouldn't need to do it anymore.
		So I appreciate it.
unidentified		Good evening.
		My name is Jackie, and I am a veteran's spouse.
		But I'm going to be talking about something else very briefly.
		About a month ago, my 22-year-old daughter called me crying on the phone because she had heard that funding was being cut at the NIH and that funding would be cut for breast cancer research.
		And she was very upset because her mom, me, has metastatic breast cancer.
		And the reason that I'm alive today is only because of research.
		I'm very, very fortunate because I was given two years and I've been alive now for eight.
		And I just can't stress enough how important out-of-the-box research is that the NIH, for example, does.
		And one of the questions I was going to ask you is, how is this going to be somehow addressed?
		And also, will you be signing on to the dear colleague letter to approve funding for the DOD breast cancer research program?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		On the letter, our team will look into it.
		I was told not to say yes to things until we've looked into it.
		We get surprised by some of these letters that are very well intended.
		But we'll continue.
		We'll definitely look into that.
		It sounds like something I'd love to sign on to.
		I get really frustrated by some of these cuts to science and research because I think the only way we can, it's hard to tell the story of science because you don't know what you've lost sometimes.
		Like the internet came from science investments that our country made.
		How would we have known that we lost that, right?
		There's so many other instances of that cell phone technology.
		Every technology really have, you know, the initial kind of investment often needed to come from federal government investment in science and research.
		And so it's hard for me to, thank you for telling your story.
		It's really hard for me to see how We have to do something to stop it, otherwise a lot of people are going to die.
		And so I don't want a lot of people to have to die for the American public to realize what they've missed.
		And certainly that means we have to tell the stories, stories like yours.
		So I appreciate you saying that.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Well, thank you.
		Hi, my name is Ellie.
		I am from Manassas, Virginia, and I attend George Mason University.
		You are calling for a national data center plan and caution against unlimited data center expansion.
		However, you are also supported by pro-cryptocurrency packs such as Protect Progress, which also has ties to a conservative counterpart, who in 2024 spent $4 million to influence Virginia elections.
		I received an ad from a cryptocurrency group congratulating you for your support of crypto in Congress.
		Both crypto and AI, which you advocate for, are similar to data centers in that they consume huge amounts of energy and rely on fossil fuels.
		Why do you see regulation as a tool to stem data center developments, or at least its rapid expansion?
		Let's see.
		While seeing regulation as a way to help the crypto industry establish itself and expand.
		Is it just because the damages of data center expansion are more visible to us in Virginia?
		Because it's not like AI and crypto aren't making their mark in our economy.
		I have seen George Mason go really hard into promoting AI, and I can only imagine that this is because of its funding issues that it is getting, et cetera.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, thank you.
		So a couple of things.
		First, on the campaign finance side, that is true that Standwood Crypto did support my campaign through a super PAC.
		They gave, I think, $100,000 in the general election, quite a bit of money, right?
		They also spent $5 million against me two months before that.
		So I don't know how Standwood Crypto, how I should be beholden to them, but I think the reason they supported me is because I do think that we do, maybe not all crypto, like Trump coin, for instance, is good.
		A lot of it is kind of scammy, but there's a lot of it that's good.
		For instance, I think there's a place for stablecoins, and we're pushing stablecoin legislation through.
		There's also a place to have regulatory framework for crypto products so that consumers can be protected from them.
		But as far as data centers, which is the second part of your question, you know, I think you can be for emerging technologies and also not want to have data centers all put in the same community and stress our region's energy infrastructure and stress our region's land values, for instance, and things like that.
		I think that's why I wanted a national data center strategy is because we're putting them all in one community.
		We're hurting our rural regions.
		We're hurting our communities here.
		We're building power lines through homes.
		There's one now that might go through the high school in my region, right?
		And that's hurting us a lot.
		And so I think we need to be a little smarter about the way we deploy data centers.
		There's also, there's groups out there.
		I don't want to say their names and promote them necessarily, but there's groups out there that are also looking at ways where we can have data storage in a way that's not just the data center model, for instance.
		And so I'd like to see us look more into that.
		But I do think we're going to need data centers moving forward.
		It's just we don't need to put them all in one place.
		Let's find a way where we can put them in brownfields, places that already have the energy infrastructure, where we don't have to build new power lines.
		And let's also see ways we can power them in a sustainable way, right, so we can still meet our clean energy goals.
		One of the things about the data centers here is one, we're building them in a way that is actually going to double everyone's energy prices in the next five to ten years.
		Double it.
		So your utility bill is going to double because of the data centers alone to pay for their power infrastructure.
		That's completely unfair.
		Second part of that is that then we're also building it in regions that didn't ask for it.
		People had already put their communities there, right?
		And we're building the infrastructure through their regions without any sort of community import, right?
		So those are the things that we need to address and we need to keep in mind.
		And finally, we have clean energy goals in Virginia, and this completely implodes those.
		There's no way we can reach our clean energy goals for building power lines to cold country in West Virginia to power our data centers.
		So hopefully that answers your question.
		Thank you.
unidentified		I would say largely, I would just very quick follow up, if I can.
		I mean, AI and AI and crypto also have like these real, like energy intensive yeah, and like they are also in Virginia, along with the data centers.
		It's part of like this.
		We are a tech focused region and I think like we really need to address look at the economic impact, the environmental impact of that we do, but we don't need to build all the data centers right here, right?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		No, I agree, a data center can go.
		People in Europe have their internet go through our region, right.
		So it's like the data center doesn't need to.
		They don't all need to be built here, right?
		We can have a great tech sector here without having all the data centers here.
		I get why they came here in the first place, but I'm just saying that we need to at least put a pause or at least revisit why we're putting all of them in this one region.
		It's really hurting our power infrastructure.
		So I appreciate the question, though.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Hi, I'm now my name's John.
		Thank you for being here.
		A couple things.
		One thing about the data center.
		I know someone that works for Amazon.
		Do you know?
		They abandoned the data centers in five years abandon them because they don't have enough power.
		So you're building that using all the environment stuff and then they're gone and they move into other data centers something you might want to look into, and that comes from someone who works there, not rumors, things like that.
		The other thing is, I'm a little lost in where the Democratic Party stands.
		I truly appreciate you being here, but you see Trump out there with this fictional ad out there of all these great things going on.
		Where's the Democrat National Committee on an ad that says, here are the facts.
		Let me tell you like recently they just said that the Republicans have spent 150 million dollars more than Biden did in the previous year.
		So where's efficiency and cost savings if they've already spent more money?
		None.
		So that's what I'm saying.
		Where are you guys?
		Why not put out nationwide ads?
		You got money.
		What's it doing?
		I really don't know where you.
		I see where you stand.
		Like I said, I truly appreciate you being here because the cowards on the other side of the Aisle have refused to do town halls.
		Now right, I mean they've been told by the House, do not do a town hall because you're paying us to be here.
		Is what they say.
		So are you gonna, I mean, can you encourage the committee to say, let's put out a nationwide ad and base it up on facts.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so one of the problems we have in politics today is that anyone can stroke a check.
		We just heard a couple of criticisms of me of campaign donations that helped me or supposedly helped me.
		But I would just say that if Elon Musk went up to Wisconsin and stroked a giant check, right, to try to buy an election, he lost, right?
		But a lot of the money that's being spent on these ads is coming from these big groups, special interest groups that can spend the money, and they're spending it in a way that are trying to sell the Trump agenda so they can curry favor with him.
		And that's really hard to fight back when you don't have the money.
		I mean, I don't have the money to fight that back, for instance.
		But what we can do is use our platforms to fight back.
		And what I've always said when it comes to these campaigns is that it's not about who has the most money necessarily, but you just have to have enough.
		And you have to also use the platforms you have right now.
		And so in Wisconsin, you know, small dollar donors helped that Supreme Court woman win her race.
		And so all we need to do is just get enough money and then just run on the issues and run on how what's happening in this administration is hurting people.
		And so this isn't a political event, so I can't really say more, but when it comes to campaign finance, there's certainly a lot we need to do.
		And I understand how frustrating it is to see those commercials because I see them all the time as well.
		Sometimes I'll actually be on that cable network during a commercial before my interview.
		I see the freaking ad and I'm like, oh my gosh, another one.
		So I see how frustrating it is, but I'll just say, you know, if we don't have the billionaires stroking the checks, right, like they do, we can at least have the everyday people who can do whatever they can to speak out.
		And I think our strategy will be better for the American people and certainly successful longer term.
unidentified		I hope so, but I doubt anybody hears MAGA.
		So the trouble is they're not hearing us, and that's the reason why I want to see the ads.
		But I truly appreciate you being here.
		Thank you.
		Hello, Congressman.
		Monty Zimmerman from Manassas, and you may remember me from Joint Leadership Council at the state legislature working on VMEzDEP.
		I truly thank you for being here and all your thoughtful responses and how hard you're working on our behalf.
		Three real quick points and maybe question is George Mason University.
		I'm a PhD student who's advanced to candidacy and I'm working on water pollution in heavy metals and surface water.
		And the problem right now is all my NIH and EPA websites are now all blocked that are dealing with all of this.
		And I don't know if you are aware of that, but I don't know if we can work to get those sites back up.
		And, you know, you can't trust whether or not a site is going to be there for Department of Transportation.
		And I don't know if you are aware of that, but I don't know if you are aware of that, but I don't know if you are aware of that.
		or for anything, and so it's getting to be really scary to see if you're trying to get research or information on and from the federal government, from the agencies, Do you have a comment on that?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Do you still have access to your email?
unidentified		I do.
		Okay.
		Yeah.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Can you get us more information on that?
unidentified		Okay.
		I'm real close friends with Anthony, so I'll communicate through Anthony if that's okay with you.
		Thank you.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Please do.
unidentified		Okay.
		Second, on the weather service cuts, the governor of Kentucky said the 20 people that died last week probably didn't have to.
		I don't know if you're aware that one-third to one-half of all weather balloons have been cut mainly in the central United States.
		And regular forecasting you see on your local TV comes from that source.
		Flying airplanes kind of matters about weather.
		And the insurance industry for your auto insurance and for housing insurance.
		And I don't know if you have anything tied to anywhere where you can put input into issues tied to National Weather Service or NOAA.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, it's a good question.
		I'm on the science committee.
		We've written a letter about NOAA, a couple letters.
		We're trying to get answers.
		We're also trying to rally some Republicans to at least understand and also speak out, even if it's privately.
		a lot of this comes from the fact that i'm sorry did you have another question or yeah but this that's like okay no i'm a lot of people ask me why the weather service has been targeted It's obviously a very efficient, very cost-effective, and high-roi program.
		So why would you, just like many of the other programs that are being targeted, I think there's this notion that a weather prediction and weather service should be privatized.
		But we have done that before, and it was not very successful.
		And the fact is it takes a lot of upfront investment.
		And the best, the most successful private enterprises have actually been started through federal grants anyway.
		So I just don't, I think this is really ill-informed and it's going to be really bad for a lot of different sectors like the ones you mentioned, for instance.
		And if we get really bad at predicting the weather, that's not very good given, you know, climate change is here and we're going to have more and more unpredictable weather events.
		And so this is just making a bad problem much worse.
unidentified		Well, I appreciate that you're already engaged in that, so thank you so much.
		And I said I put these two first for my last one because this is not polarized, but I'm a retired deportation officer, supervisory detention deportation officer.
		I've written 6,000 orders of deportation in West Texas, but every single person that I wrote a order to, I've personally interviewed, personally ensured that their due processes were met, personally ensured that they didn't have a right to stay here.
		And in the process of meeting with 6,000 people, I found five with Nexus to citizenship because they were military service, and one who was a U.S. citizen and didn't know it.
		And so I kind of wanted to share this.
		I talked to some people on the Hill the other day about this, and they were shocked that somebody cared and was trying to be a good human being while being an enforcement officer for deportation.
		But I'm very, very upset about the El Salvador movement because I'm very upset that they didn't have any due process.
		And I'm very upset for people that are possibly there innocent going through the hell that they're going through.
		And again, I don't know if there's anything you can do about that, but I can communicate through Anthony if you need any more information from me.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		Thank you for explaining that to folks as well.
		And we actually had a gentleman in Manassas who was arrested and detained, who was a citizen and who voted for Trump.
		And so that's the kind of system that they're running right now.
		And I think some of it is for headlines, but I think what's going on right now is terrible and we need to do everything we can to speak up about it.
		We can't let this fade into the background either.
		So thank you.
unidentified		Just a full disclosure, I am a paid Republican operative, so I'm just kidding.
		Congressman, thank you for being here.
		My name is Chris.
		I live in Sterling.
		If you'll indulge me for a minute, I wanted to read part of a speech by Abraham Lincoln, and then I have a short question after that.
		He gave this speech in 1938 to the Young Men's Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois.
		Some of you may be familiar with parts of the speech.
		Sorry.
		Sorry, did I say 1938?
		1838.
		Thank you.
		I think he was only 28 when he wrote this or gave this speech.
		It was pretty remarkable.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		A lot of fact-checkers here.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
unidentified		Thank you.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I appreciate that.
unidentified		And in this speech, he's talking sort of about the permanence of our democracy.
		At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?
		By what means shall we fortify against it?
		Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow?
		Never.
		All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
		At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?
		I answer: if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us.
		It cannot come from abroad.
		If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
		As a nation of free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide.
		Further on in the speech, he goes on, I hope I am over-wary, but if I am not, there is even now something of ill omen amongst us.
		I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country, the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice.
		This disposition is awfully fearful in any community, and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny.
		Pretty scary.
		He wrote this, what, almost 200 years ago.
		So, my question to you, Congressman, and maybe this is sort of echoes what the gentleman, two people in front of me was talking about.
		And I know you said you can't really talk about politics.
		Maybe let's be more of a statement than a question.
		But, you know, your poster you have up here, this is wonderful, right?
		But it's meaningless.
		And I don't mean to belittle your work.
		Thank you for your work.
		But what did the Democrats plan to do to win the midterm elections and in 2028?
		You know, our governing institutions are broken.
		Our political process is broken.
		You know, it's time to take the gloves off and get dirty.
		Okay.
		For years, I think the Democrats wanted to maintain the higher ground, maintain decency.
		It hasn't worked.
		And the Democratic Party, I feel for several years, has been in a shambles and not responding to this threat that we're facing.
		So what do we do?
		And I don't know what take the gloves off means.
		I'm not advocating violence.
		But I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in five months because I don't know what that means and I don't know what to do.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thank you for that.
		It's a good question.
		It's something I think about every day.
		Someone actually asked me, can you throw chairs at each other in Congress?
		We unfortunately have benches.
unidentified		I think only in South Korea they do that.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		But if you have ideas, let me know.
		But what I've tried to do is any opportunity I have to just speak up about things.
		So again, these hearings, usually the decorum is to stay within the subject and the topic that's being presented.
		But I just bring up the stuff that's been happening that's tangentially related because people need to hear it.
		We had a hearing on FDA and it's specifically on cannabis and vaping, which is important.
		But then I brought up the FDA cuts, for instance, and how it's going to hurt every single American and told the stories of people in our community.
		But I've heard what you just said many, many times.
		I've taken it to heart.
		And I've tried to figure out ways that I can do it that are both respectful and also not respectful at times too, because I think it's important.
		And without getting into the details of politics, I'll just say that we had a special election in Pennsylvania, we had an election in Wisconsin, even a couple in Florida that show that people are paying attention to what's going on.
		But that's not enough.
		I think the other thing I feel a need to do is not just fight back, be loud, and be aggressive, but also to be welcoming to people who maybe voted for the other side last time and maybe feel like they made a mistake or maybe are second-guessing things or maybe making excuses for the president right now that maybe they might come over and make a different decision in the future.
		I think it's important to have a positive vision for the future too, and in addition to being aggressive and fighting too.
		And so I'm trying to navigate that and do both.
		But what you brought up is a very good point.
		And someone asked me once, what are you going to do if he stops listening to the courts?
		And I'm like, take to the streets, right?
		And people clapped and they like that answer.
		But my wife heard it.
		She was like, what does take to the streets actually mean?
		And sometimes I'm trying to figure out what that means too, to be honest.
		And there's protests, right?
		But we've had protests.
		There's what Al Green did, right?
		And impeachment proceedings hasn't stopped, bad stuff from happening yet, right?
		I think the one thing that has slowed down bad things from happening is speaking out and putting pressure on the administration, especially putting pressure on folks that support the administration, making them feel like they need to talk to the administration because even they disagree with what's going on, right?
		And making the case to them as well.
		So I continue to wonder what I can do better, and that's why I need your feedback, and I'm going to continue to take every opportunity to fight the way I can fight.
unidentified		Thank you so much.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you. We have 15 minutes left.
		So if you're in line, stay in line.
		But we'll be done in 15 minutes.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Okay, I will try not to be fast.
		And I'll try to be slow.
		But my name is Emily, and I'm currently writing a book about the American church and its toxic relationship with politics.
		I'm going to try really hard to get through this, but I need you to understand where I'm coming from.
		I was raised in the southern evangelical fundamentalist women do not have rights.
		They are taught from a young age that their body is the problem, their mind is the problem, their voice is the problem.
		And I have seen the antithesis of all of that because loud, strong, highly educated women change the world.
		So the rest I'm going to just read so I stay on topic.
		Like I said, I'm writing a book about the American church, but I'm the head pastor's daughter.
		To be here, to be speaking the things I'm about to say, in this book, I'm going to be asking really big questions that I know every single person in the United States of America and even some of the ones in MAGA that are scared to say anything.
		The hard questions I'm going to be asking is not the only thing that I'm writing about.
		I shared on TikTok that I'm writing this book, asking the hard questions of are we actually separate of church and state?
		Because we now have a faith task force of a woman who has called Donald Trump God and that following his words are the exact words of following God.
		So what's going to stop a politician from doing what happens behind pulpits of God told me this, so this must happen.
		And that I've literally watched it.
		I've seen the upper echelon in front and behind the scenes, making sure that women don't have a voice.
		There have been other people, the gentleman literally in front of me and the one I put ahead on of saying, of what are we doing, the gloves comes off, is I would like to request go live with me on TikTok.
		Let's talk about the fact about religion and women's rights.
		Go live with me, not only one, so that I can show that there are men out there fighting for women's rights.
		They just ain't got the microphone.
		And I want to make sure we have a microphone.
		There are over 100,000, like it's going viral right now, so my phone is like burning up in my hand.
		Because the comments are insane of, I don't even want to repeat them because I'll never make it through.
		They're going to break your heart.
		They're going to devastate you, but it's going to give you power to take off the gloves because Senator Booker quoted John Lewis, who said, let's get into good trouble, and I want to get into good trouble with you.
		There could be people in here who are Christians.
		I was literally raised as one, but that doesn't make my religion better or deserve more protection than someone else.
		Everyone in here who has already mentioned about stop funding people who are blowing up children, what are we going to do when it happens here?
		I don't want that to happen.
		And every day, I don't know if anyone else feels this way, which is the whole point of the book, is I feel like we're all living in the just before.
		Am I going to be at the grocery store when the bomb goes off?
		Am I going to be at the doctor's office with my kids?
		But all this to say is when religion is in bed with politics, women's rights are stripped away.
		And I can confidently say that every woman in here, because there's women that are older than me, it's only been 51 years since women could have their own bank account.
		Women in 1994 were told they could wear pants in Congress.
		Have men had to do anything?
		Are men lining up worrying that they're going to have to get a passport to prove that they have a voice?
		What happens when I'm not allowed through the doors at the town hall because I wasn't born a rich white man in the United States?
		It's exhausting.
		And so in order for us to take off the gloves or go to the streets is first I'd say I know you can't get into apologies because then forgive me it's my first time up here to the microphone.
		But what are you wanting to do?
		And maybe it's a one-on-one conversation together and if that's so I'd love to do that.
		But I have over 40,000 people that want to share their story about the dangers of religion and politics.
		To the point that there are some people who are now threatening to murder me.
		There are men in my comment section that say that my body is their choice.
		I can give you screenshots.
		I can give you so much, but I'm not the only one it's happening to.
		And so to me, good trouble is Democrats willing to let's put on a pair of jeans and a hoodie and walk around on TikTok and ask people how they feel because that's where people my age, I'm 33 years old, it's where we're getting our news.
		And it's why Donnie, who can't even blend his own foundation, has the audacity to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about because I wasn't born with male genitalia.
		Has another thing in common because women are powerful if you would just give us an inch and I'm done.
		Wow.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		I have a lot to say.
		Let's talk offline.
		Yeah, I have a lot to say.
		Thank you so much for speaking up.
unidentified		So what's the TikTok?
		Oh, God.
		Just know that I also post about my cats in Disney World sometimes.
		We like cats.
		My name on TikTok, if you want to support me, it's Emily, E-M-I-L-Y dot Henderson, H-E-N-D-E-R-S-O-N dot one.
		So you can follow along.
		I post about the journey of the book.
		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		Well, I don't know how I can compete against that.
		All right.
		Look, there's been, my name is Jason.
		I live in Ashburn.
		And there's been so many great eloquent speakers here today.
		I can't believe it.
		This is amazing.
		I want to talk about two quick things.
		First of all, just the self-own that we've gone through with the economy here, with Doge.
		I hate saying that name.
		I'll just say it's Elon's fault.
		And all these supposed savings that we are getting from their efforts, I mean, the Republicans have already signaled that they're going to use all of that and more, much, much more, to give more tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, to increase defense spending even more than it already is.
		And it's once again increasing the burden on the young and those people who cannot afford it the most yet again.
		For example, my friend, he has a young son.
		He's about nine years old.
		He has seizures multiple times per week.
		He has a very, very just rare genetic disorder.
		And he has drug trials that are ongoing.
		He has no idea if those are going to continue.
		He has no idea if he's going to be able to take his kid to the doctor anymore because he's on Medicaid.
		He's a tech industry worker.
		He makes good money.
		But he needs Medicaid because in order to take care of his sick son, he has no choice because of the medical industrial complex here, because of all of the costs that are involved.
		And yet we're looking at cutting the health and human services budget by $880 billion.
		And where does that money come from?
		It has to come from somewhere.
		It comes from Medicaid, nowhere else.
		The second thing I'm going to say real quick is about the centralization of all of our data and all of the work that Elon and his minions are doing to try and collect all of the 300 plus disseparate points of data about each and every one of us into one centralized location.
		And it doesn't take much thought to figure out that all of that leads to one place, which is a social credit score for every single American.
		This is not a place for freedom-loving people to be.
		The last thing I'm going to say is that as a party, as a group of people, we need to embrace and take back the imagery of patriotism.
		We are the true patriots here.
		We all believe.
		Yes.
		We believe in a strong country.
		I'm so glad to be here.
		This is the first town hall I have ever attended in my entire life.
		And I'm very happy that you are a congressman.
		Thank you very much.
		Thank you.
		Two more.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		We're going to do a couple more.
		And if you're in line, I'm happy to talk to you when I want afterwards.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for being here today.
		First, I think most of us are aware of How vulnerable populations have been targeted by this administration, and we really need to fight back against that because it has consequences for everybody.
		We see already how the targeting of trans people, for example, has affected everyone.
		We have people who are accused of it and getting harassed in public restrooms because of all of the transphobia, for example.
		We have every single attack on any group, no matter how small, is going to have consequences for everybody.
		And before I get into something else, I have a quick question.
		On your website, under the LGBT resources, there is a link to the Virginia DOH page for resources on for trans people.
		And that link has since not working anymore.
		Is that because of the, do you know if that's because of the administration's purges of the letting us know about the broken language?
		Yeah, I had mentioned it in like the question that I submitted, but I wanted to make sure that was addressed here.
		And it's not just that, too.
		I know most people are probably aware of RFK Jr.'s policies and how he wants to get rid of vaccines.
		Just the other day, he said that he wants to, he needs to address the autism epidemic.
		And that sounds like eugenics.
		And so much of this sounds like eugenics.
		And it's going to affect everybody.
		Now, I'm an educator.
		I tutor students, most of whom are neurodivergent.
		Many of my students have various disabilities.
		I work with a lot of autistic kids.
		And I am so scared for my students, for all of the students who have even fewer people who might be trying to keep them safe.
		In the area that I work in, it's fairly progressive, and I know that the students are fairly privileged, but I'm still scared for their safety.
		And the students in even more vulnerable places, all of the kids, like anybody who's part of a vulnerable group, I'm scared for their safety.
		Is there anything that can be done, especially in like in our social institutions, like in healthcare and education, where we have influence, like the departments that have been asked to purge information about vulnerable groups?
		Is there anything that can be done to protect people in those contexts?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a good question.
		Obviously, there's all the stuff I've been talking about about speaking out.
		Just keep an eye, keeping an eye on these budgets that you've seen the news getting past the $800 billion number that was mentioned earlier.
		There's like these instructions now to cut Medicaid funding, essentially, also snap funding so kids be able to get school lunches, for instance.
		And so I know that there's Republicans that don't like that bill for one reason or another.
		Some Republicans think it doesn't cut enough funding.
		Other Republicans think it's a bad idea.
		But again, right now they feel like it's political suicide to do anything against the president.
		I feel like the more people that speak out, tell the stories, put the pressure on, it not only affects the administration, it affects Republicans that are legislating.
		So thank you.
unidentified		Yeah, thanks.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Last question.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		I'll get to the office.
unidentified		Good evening.
		My name is Kimya.
		Sorry, it's a bit stressful for me to speak here.
		I know there are many people with serious problems and they are citizens of this country, but I'm not.
		I'm a refugee.
		I just want to say that being a refugee feels like being an adopted child who was abused in their first home.
		And this country became a second home account and caring mother to me.
		But sadly, it doesn't feel kind anymore.
		When I was accepted as a refugee, I wasn't allowed to come with my husband.
		And we are both members of Bahifes, and it's our country, Iran.
		That alone is treatment like a crime, simply because we are not Muslims.
		We have no rights there even going to university.
		That's why we had to leave and why we still can go back.
		And it's funny because people like my husband banned from coming here because they all come from the Muslim country.
		Anyway, the last time we saw each other was August 2023.
		I applied for him and it's unhuman to separate families.
		No one should be forced to live apart for their spouse for years.
		I can leave the country to see him and he can't come here.
		The only answer I keep getting from USCIS is we don't know and that's the hardest part living with no clear answer.
		Sometimes it feels like the new political approach sees refugees as criminals, not human beings.
		But please believe me, no one choose this path unless they have no other choice.
		We don't leave our families, our home and everything behind because we want to do it because we want to survive.
		I don't even know what exactly I'm asking, but I need to share how unsafe, uncertain, and painful all this feels.
		And also I want to thank you because you were one of the only people who responds to my emails.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		We're going to take one more.
		I'll just say that I just Googled refugees in American history.
		Got Albert Einstein, our own Madeline Albright, Gloria Estefan, Sergei Bren, the co-founder of Google.
		I mean, refugees have done a lot of great things for our country.
		So hopefully people can keep that in mind when they're talking about refugees and these programs, in addition to the conditions they face in their country, many of which were caused by our country, right?
		So last one, and then I'm happy to talk to people one-on-one.
unidentified		All right, thank you.
		I'm glad to be here.
		The reason I am here is because five years ago, I was on the double lung transplant list with 18% lung function.
		I was on the way out five years ago.
		That's it.
		And January of 2020, a new drug in partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals and the NIH came out.
		It's called a gene modulator.
		What this does, it actually changes my DNA.
		It goes to the mutated protein in my chromosome and gets it to function properly.
		This totally changed my entire outlook.
		My life expectancy was 30 years old from my cystic fibrosis when I was born.
		Now it is over 80.
		In five years.
		Five years.
		That's it.
		Now, cystic fibrosis is one of those drugs that is not a money maker for insurance companies, okay?
		So that's why we needed that funding from the NIH as an incentive for these pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs like these.
		Without the NIH, where is that funding going to come from?
		Is the only drugs that are going to be developed going to be for high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity?
		Like, what happens?
		And what's going to happen when they break down the whole NIH?
		How is it going to be rebuilt?
		What's it going to look like in five years?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		I think about that every day.
		And I'm so glad you shared that story.
		We have to do something about these science cuts again.
		This is a great place to end, which is that this is going to hurt every single American.
		We won't even know all the lives we could have saved, right?
unidentified		That's the sick.
unidentified		Sick people are quiet.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		The cancer trials that are going to be canceled, the funding to solve some of these hardest problems in healthcare.
		It is horrible what could happen, what will happen to so many people.
		Some of the damage we've done is going to be hard to reverse already.
		And we just have to continue to speak up because unfortunately, the only thing, if this keeps going, then what will happen is we'll see people die.
		And then we won't, we'll realize that what we miss, right?
		And then we'll want to get it all back.
		We'll try to buy the scientists, rehire them, start all these programs again that took sometimes decades to create.
		It's a horrible thing to happen and we have to stop it.
unidentified		What's it going to take to lure some of these people back from the private sector where they'd probably be making more money?
		And with the instability going on, like who knows?
		Like people need to be able to plan for their futures.
		Like what if the next administration comes in and just does the same thing over again?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I'll just end by saying thank you for your story.
		It used to be government was the place for stability, right?
		In the science field and health field, often people come because they don't care about the money.
		They're here.
		They get a PhD.
		They can make a lot of money in the private sector.
		They come to do good work, right?
		Exactly.
		They come to do good work and they want to save lives, right?
		And this is one place to do it.
		And unfortunately, if they're not welcomed, a lot of people won't even go into the science field in the first place.
		We're starting to hear stories of PhD candidates just dropping out and saying, I'm going to go to Wall Street or I'm going to go do something else.
		That is a shame.
		Yeah, it's a shame.
		And so I do not want our country to quit on science, right?
		We have to continue to push this and make this a story.
		So thank you so much for that.
unidentified		Thank you.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you everyone who joined us today.
		I'm going to stay after for about an hour to talk to everyone one-on-one, but I really appreciate you coming.
		Apologies if you were in line, you couldn't get better awareness.
unidentified		Thank you.
		One is no match that one.
		Over the past many years, we have power of 5,000 low-income and precious immigrants to access Obamacare.
		Many of them with limited language capacity, limited computer literacy, and mental health issues, they cannot access and benefit from the market directly.
		So, non-profits receive funding to help them.
		Now, the Trump administration has decided drastically that the company could not profit.
		Without the non-profits' help, the most vulnerable and vulnerable people will be out of Okama.
		So, please pay attention to that.
		The second issue is transnational.
		And as a non-profit organization, we also operate overseas in Thailand, helping refugees, rescuing victims of human trafficking, defending communities in Southeast Asia against religious persecution.
		And earlier this year, we co-organized the fifth international religious freedom summit, attended by 1700 people coming from all over the places.
		You might have heard of that.
		And even Vice President Vance spoke at that summit.
		Five days later, Communist Vietnam attacked the summit as a form for hostile forces to lambest governments, including the Vietnamese government.
		And four days later, they labeled our organization as a terrorist organization.
		And they labeled me as just terrorist individual.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
unidentified		I need your help because that is an extreme form of transnational repression.
		Our team on their way out, you should get your info as well.
		There are a few things you can do, please.
		And I feel being threatened and in danger right now as an American.
		Thank you so much.
		Thank you.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		I told my son just a very quick question.
unidentified		These people have a long, but we can just quickly ask you that.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Sorry, guys.
		It looks like I'm interested in content and stuff.
		How can I get involved in your office or talk to you?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Talk to our office.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		They have internships, fellowships, lots of things.
unidentified		We should be involved.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		People at the table.
		Yeah, and then they'll refer you to the right people.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you so much.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Hey, how are you doing?
		Good to see you guys.
		Thanks for having me.
unidentified		I don't remember.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
		I've seen you.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Is this still yourself?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Yep.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Hey, how are you doing?
		Thanks for coming.
unidentified		Appreciate it.
		Thank you so much.
		For listening.
		So I just have a quick question.
		I moved here in 2016 with an asylum case.
		I got my, so initially, when they registered me in their system, apparently they had my last name or burn wrong.
		So I had to fight like six years before the schedule, my initial USCIS hearing.
		Which country?
		From Armenia.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Armenia?
unidentified		Okay.
		So anyways, I was happy when I got my first interview with the USCIS.
		Apparently it was rejected by the USCIS officer.
		But while I had all the evidences and I have like everything is legit, websites and everything.
		And then on November 2024, I had the individual hearing.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I heard about this from our team.
		So our team can help you reapply, right?
		So have you talked to our team about opening a case?
		Monica and her team can help you.
unidentified		Okay, so it's not about reapplying, it's about like, I'm currently in a BIA approach.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you are, okay.
unidentified		I'm trying to see if it's your team that can give you some insights or like is there anything else?
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		I would talk to Monica, I think.
		She's the one with short hair and glasses.
		And she can help you, of course, sort of get into the right spot.
		We'll write letters, do whatever.
		We want to help you.
		All right, so thank you.
		Thanks, sorry, for your ordeal.
		I appreciate it.
		Hi bye.
		Sorry, one second partner.
unidentified		I know how you long.
		I'm talking to Anthony.
		Okay, I'm a commander in MBA.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Amazing.
unidentified		But I've also been in the Intel community for 1998.
unidentified		There's a couple things I do want to talk to you about to make you aware.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Let us know.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Public might not be aware.
unidentified		Thank you.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I appreciate all you do.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Hi, Suez.
		My name is Ed Shrong.
		My father.
		My brother.
		So I came here because I've been married for about seven and a half years.
		I actually got married back in 2018.
		I did the whole immigration process with the Embassy of Islamabad.
		And I wanted to bring this issue because, I mean, seven and a half years is a long time for my wife to not come here.
		And I haven't been able to visit her for education purposes and career and everything.
		So that being said, I understand that we had the travel ban and then we had COVID-19.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Not yet.
unidentified		Well, no, before 2020, the ban two years.
		And then what happened was when I filed for her in 2018, in 2020 of June 25th, they accepted her documents, but the week after they did the ban, which, of course, led to delay.
		And then we finally got an update in December of 2023 that in January 18 we can do her interview.
		So after like three, like, no, five years, we got an interview date, which was last January, 2024, January 18th.
		And she went in to do her interview, and I submitted everything as they requested in a timely manner.
		But at the end of the interview, they gave her a refusal document saying, hey, please submit a few more documents from us for us.
		We need to do what's called an administrative processing, 221G.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Terrible system, yeah.
unidentified		Terrible system.
unidentified		So within three hours, I submitted everything for them, and I was thinking, you know, I did a lot of research on forms and stuff.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		How can I help now?
unidentified		That's what I'm wondering because at this point, I've asked help in many cases.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, why don't you open a case with us?
unidentified		I actually did.
		I also did it with Jennifer Wexland, too.
		So I guess.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		Keep us posted.
unidentified		Yeah, the issue is like I'm asking.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		If I can write a letter, make a call, whatever.
unidentified		That's what I'm wondering: like, what more can we do?
unidentified		Because I think your office has been a little bit more difficult.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		This is a really hard time right now.
		That's the unfortunate part.
		A really hard time.
		But we're going to do what we can.
		But to be honest, it's like a lot of people.
unidentified		I already got a response too, though.
		You guys did a quick turnaround.
		Jennifer Wexland, actually, right before you also did two or three inquiries for us.
suhas subramanyam ▲ ● ▼		It's just frustrating right now, the immigration system, and it's gotten worse.
unidentified		So, what do you think we can do other than?
		I even filed a lawsuit in December, and like, my 60 days is Monday.
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