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Introducing A Community Leader
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May have closed it a little bit during his first term, but that border has been open for decades. | |
| It can't be blamed on Biden. | ||
| I remember 25 years ago, Ann Coulter was running around a Republican darling saying these illegal immigrants were taking jobs Americans did not want to do. | ||
| So back when the Chamber of Commerces were making a lot of money off of this cheap labor, no one had a problem. | ||
| Okay, David, David. | ||
| David, I apologize. | ||
| Thanks for calling David from Michigan. | ||
| That's it for our program today. | ||
| Another edition of Washington Journal comes your way at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. | ||
| We now take you to the House of Representatives. | ||
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unidentified
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The House will be in order. | |
| The prayer will be offered by our guest chaplain, Pastor Eli Laura of New Life Family Church in McAllen, Texas. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning, everyone, as we bow our heads and pray. | |
| Almighty God, we pause this moment to acknowledge your presence and to seek your blessing in this house. | ||
| Grant each member wisdom to discern the greater good courage to act with integrity and humility to listen with an open heart. | ||
| And these halls of government remind us that leadership is a trust and a service as a sacred duty. | ||
| Fill this chamber with the spirit of unity and purpose. | ||
| In moments of challenge, grant perseverance. | ||
| In moments of discord, grand understanding. | ||
| This house needs understanding, Lord, every day. | ||
| Remind us that the privilege of serve is also a call to integrity, accountability, and grace. | ||
| We seek your guidance as this house begins its work. | ||
| Grant each member wisdom beyond their own compassion that rises above division and strengthen to pursue what is good and just for all people. | ||
| Bless the families and communities our representatives serve. | ||
| Strengthen the resolve to uphold the values of liberty, equality, and peace. | ||
| We ask this in your mighty name. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| The chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the House the approval thereof. | ||
| Pursuant to clause one of Rule 1. | ||
| The journal stands approved. | ||
| The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by the gentleman from California, Mr. Correa. | ||
| Please face the flag and join me. | ||
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unidentified
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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, invisible, with liberty and justice for all. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman, gentlewoman, sorry, gentlewoman from Texas, Miss Dayla Cruz, is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give a heartfelt welcome to Pastor Eli Lada of McAllen, Texas, our guest chaplain this morning. | ||
| It is a special honor to introduce not only a respected pastor from my community, but also a mentor and a friend. | ||
| Pastor Lada was raised in a family of ministers and always had a desire to serve others through faith, even at a very young age. | ||
| He began his ministry in Florida before returning to South Texas to study theology. | ||
| Following his studies, the Lord called him to begin a small Bible study, which over the years grew into New Life Family Church, where he now serves as a lead pastor. | ||
| Pastor Lada is a true man of faith and a leader that has inspired many. | ||
| Through his preaching at schools, conferences, and camps nationwide, he has impacted countless lives while leading them to Christ. | ||
| Thank you, Pastor Lada, for continuing to bless our lives. | ||
| And we are so blessed to have you open today's session in prayer. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The chair will entertain up to five further requests for one minute speech on each side of the aisle. | ||
| What does the gentleman from Minnesota seek recognition? | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my request. | ||
| The gentleman Frankenmast. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 31-year career of my friend Captain Charles Chip Lemon and congratulate him on his well-deserved retirement from the Minnesota State Patrol. | ||
| Chip, a native of Duluth, Minnesota, was inspired to pursue a career in law enforcement after seeing the positive impact that his uncles and older brother had in their respective careers. | ||
| He knew that he wanted to serve a bigger purpose than self, which is why he joined the Minnesota State Patrol in 1994. | ||
| During his 31 years on the job, Chip served in many leadership roles and retired proudly as a captain. | ||
| While working for the State Patrol, Chip often came to the aid of folks involved in car crashes, and he often felt the significance of helping people who were experiencing their worst day. | ||
| As a fellow law enforcement officer, I know that our law enforcement communities have been under attack in recent years, but Chip never wavered under pressure. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I am proud to call Chip Lemon my friend, and the state of Minnesota thanks him for his decades of service. | ||
| I wish him a happy retirement spent with his lovely wife, Rhonda, and their five children. | ||
| And I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the representative from Delaware seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| The representative is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to condemn this administration's harmful and illegal efforts to gut the Institute of Museum and Library Services. | ||
| Let's be clear: this is a direct attack on rural families, veterans, caregivers, and children, including thousands of Delawareans who rely on local libraries not just for books, but for help with job applications, disability forms, and housing assistance. | ||
| In Dover, librarians are helping my neighbors navigate Social Security delays. | ||
| In Lewis, they're supporting unhoused job seekers. | ||
| In Harrington, they're guiding caregivers through pages of red tape just to access basic support. | ||
| This isn't just morally wrong. | ||
| It's a violation of the law. | ||
| Congress appropriated these funds. | ||
| The administration is not only defunding vital community programs, it's defying the will of the American people. | ||
| With just $1.93 million a year, Delaware libraries are able to preserve our history, strengthen our workforce, and meet people where they are to deliver critical services. | ||
| Cutting this lifeline isn't efficiency. | ||
| It's cruelty. | ||
| I urge the administration to reverse course, and I stand with my colleagues in demanding full funding for the services our communities need and deserve. | ||
| I yield back my time. | ||
| Representative yields back. | ||
| Well, purpose is the gentleman from Pennsylvania seek recognition. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, request unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise to recognize Junior R. Skip Baker for an incredible 70 years of service to the Genesee Township Volunteer Fire Department. | ||
| In 1955, Skip joined the Genesee Township Volunteer Fire Department and has been a steady presence through decades of change. | ||
| He served as fire police, EMT, and the fire warden for 25 years. | ||
| He even completed EMT training alongside his late wife, Dorothy, and son, Bill. | ||
| His sons, Bill and Steve, have both held leadership roles, and now his grandson, Christopher, continues the Baker legacy. | ||
| Skip has driven nearly every apparatus the department has owned and still runs the pumper and tanker with skill. | ||
| He played a major role in planning the current fire station, saving the department tens of thousands of dollars through smart cost-cutting. | ||
| Skip has been on the front lines of major incidents from the Kane tornado to floods, the barn fires, and even a military plane crash. | ||
| At age 94, he remains calm, capable, and committed. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Skip for his lifetime of service and his integral role he has played in ensuring his community safety. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman yields back to what purpose does the gentleman from Texas seek recognition? | ||
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unidentified
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Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to advise and extend my remarks. | |
| The gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Mr. Speaker, during this past district work period, I met with seniors across my district who are worried about losing the lifelines they depend on, Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. | ||
| At one event with our seniors, a social security worker told us that wait times are exploding. | ||
| He said that staff are being watched and pushed to quit every single day. | ||
| In some cities, offices are even closing. | ||
| These are the people who make sure the checks go out that our seniors depend on. | ||
| Trump and Elon Musk want them to quit. | ||
| The Social Security worker told us he felt that he had failed the American people. | ||
| Let's be clear. | ||
| He didn't fail us. | ||
| The Republicans did. | ||
| That's why I've been out there raising the alarm. | ||
| Seniors and their families deserve what's coming. | ||
| Seniors built this country. | ||
| They paid in. | ||
| They showed up. | ||
| And they earned these benefits. | ||
| If Republicans think they can slash these lifelines without a fight, they are dead wrong. | ||
| We put seniors over billionaires. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? | ||
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unidentified
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Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend our lines. | |
| Gentlemen, recognize for one minute. | ||
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unidentified
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the hundreds of young Hoosiers who just participated in our annual Special Olympics Indiana Youth Basketball Tournament. | |
| Basketball is a beloved tradition in my Hoosier State, and this tournament is amongst the largest in North America. | ||
| It's been hosted just two miles from my home at the University of Indianapolis since 2010. | ||
| This year's event brought together athletes from across our state to compete in five-on-five, three-on-three, and individual basketball skills. | ||
| Special Olympics Indiana transforms young lives through the power of sports, breaking down barriers while building up kids with intellectual disabilities. | ||
| It provides 19,000 Hoosier youth with an opportunity to fulfill their sporting ambitions and with the support of 10,000 volunteers and not one red cent of taxpayer money. | ||
| These special young athletes embody the spirit of perseverance on the court and in their lives. | ||
| They have bright futures ahead of them and we are proud. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Pennsylvania seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| The gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| This week marked a stunning milestone. | ||
| 100 days of chaos, cruelty, and lawlessness under the Trump administration. | ||
| We see it in our economy, in our homes, and in our relationships abroad. | ||
| Just 100 days ago, President Trump inherited a strong economy. | ||
| Yet our economy shrank in the first three months of this year. | ||
| He imposed punishing tariffs, then he didn't, wiping out $11 trillion in American wealth. | ||
| The price of gas, eggs, and other groceries is still too high. | ||
| The president handed an unelected, unqualified billionaire, Elon Musk, unfettered access to private data and indiscriminately fired devoted civil servants. | ||
| Services at Social Security and IRS have been slowed in the aftermath. | ||
| Because the president has aligned himself with dictators like Putin, our allies across the globe are now openly admitting they can't trust us. | ||
| This is not good governance. | ||
| It is not reform. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, history will not be kind to those who enabled this president through words or through their appalling silence. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentlelady yields back. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I seek to ask the House one minute or rise to my mark. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Northeast California, as in other parts of the country, we're seeing an introduction of a wolf population that is devastating not only to the beef industry and at least 200 spring calves, but also to the rest of the wildlife in the neighborhood. | ||
| Places like Sierra County, Siskiyou County, Modoc County, Lassen County, Plumas County are being devastated by this introduction of the gray wolf. | ||
| Now, this is somehow dressed up under the idea that it's endangered, yet there's been long-sought the delisting of the gray wolf in the United States, where you can find tens of thousands of them in upper Midwest states and lower Canada. | ||
| So, why is it that we have the logic that they have to have one in each county in each state to somehow be seen as not endangered anymore? | ||
| They're indigenous to a particular area. | ||
| They do not need to be introduced and devastating the landscape, devastating the people, where kids have to sit in cages at bus stops in order to be safe. | ||
| Just recently, an elk was chased right up onto a front porch of a constituent here in Northern California and killed and partially devoured right on the property, right next to the building there. | ||
| So, does this mean that we're getting a better quality environment because of that? | ||
| Does that mean that we're getting public safety? | ||
| No, it's getting worse. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker and members, I rise today to remember the life and legacy of my very good friend, Ed Arnold. | ||
|
Santana College Roots
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| He was born in Texarkano, Arkansas in 1939. | ||
| He was a homeless teenager. | ||
| He joined the Marines. | ||
| As a Marine, he was stationed in California. | ||
| We got a taste of sunshine, and we decided to stay in the Golden State. | ||
| He played football for Santa Ana College. | ||
| He played in the Dawn's 1961 Championship Eastern Division League. | ||
| At Santa Ana College, where he met the love of his life, Dixie. | ||
| Dixie and Arnold were voted as Santana College prom and queen, prom king and queen. | ||
| And Ed never forgot where he got his start, Santana College. | ||
| Santana College gave him his education. | ||
| Santana College introduced him to the love of his life, Dixie. | ||
| And Ed Arnold today is and was Santa Ana College. | ||
| My very good friend, Ed Arnold, we're going to miss you. | ||
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unidentified
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We love you. | |
| We will never forget you and your contributions to our community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Can I ask consent to address the House for one minute? | ||
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unidentified
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Please revise and extend my remarks. | |
| The gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, Pope Francis led by example. | ||
| He showed compassion and empathy to all. | ||
| He reminded us of our shared humanity, and he treated everyone with dignity and respect. | ||
| Pope Francis understood what it meant to care for one another. | ||
| Many of my Republican colleagues often talk about their Christian values. | ||
| They should practice what they preach. | ||
| Their reconciliation bill shows no compassion, no concern for the American people. | ||
| Their bill is predatory. | ||
| The latest proposal to place the so-called per capita caps on Medicaid funding would still jeopardize health care for millions. | ||
| This includes over 282,000 people in my district. | ||
| 103 children under the age of 19 and 37,000 seniors would have their care ripped away. | ||
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Farms vs. Reclamation Policies
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| I urge my Republican colleagues to stop with their empty platitudes, to stop catering to the cruel authority of President Trump, to stop putting billionaires over the American people. | ||
| I urge them to take Pope Francis' message of compassion, of respect, of moral courage to the heart. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman, seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 354, I call up HJ Res 78 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the joint resolution. | ||
| House Joint Resolution 78. | ||
| Joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United States Code of the rules submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to endangered and threatened wildlife and plants, endangered species status for the San Francisco Bay Delta Distinct Population Segment of the Long Finn Smelt. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 354, the joint resolution is considered read. | ||
| The joint resolution shall be debatable for one hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources or their respective designees. | ||
| The gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Westerman, and the gentleman from California, Mr. Huffman, each will control 30 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on HJ Res 78. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| I rise in support of HJ Resolution 78 offered by Representative LaMaltha from California, which would undo the listing of the Long Finn Smelt in the San Francisco Bay Delta Distinct Population Segment under the Endangered Species Act. | ||
| The listing was based on flawed science in response to an ESA-related lawsuit and adds yet another piece of regulatory red tape preventing water from reaching California's Central Valley and communities further south. | ||
| California's Central Valley is one of the most prolific agricultural regions in the world, growing hundreds of crops that feed millions of people. | ||
| However, this region faces continual water uncertainty due to drought and ESA-related regulations. | ||
| The Central Valley Project, or CVP, transports water from wetter areas in Northern California to drier areas further south, including the Central Valley. | ||
| It is subject to ESA biological opinions that mandate water that would otherwise go to communities and farms be diverted to the San Francisco Bay. | ||
| The effects of this can be seen at this very moment in California, where federal reservoirs are almost full, yet many farmers are only receiving half of their water allocations. | ||
| This is in large part due to restrictions imposed by the ESA, which will only be exacerbated by the listing of the long fin smelt. | ||
| Unfortunately, the rush to judgment that ensued from the lawsuit resulted in a listing based on flawed assumptions and bad science. | ||
| First, by solely focusing on the Bay Delta rather than the Long Finn Smelt's entire range, the service ignores the fact that the species have been found in dozens of locations, including in and around every tributary of the San Francisco Bay, meaning the long fin smelt is not at risk of extinction and does not meet the statutory definition of an endangered species. | ||
| Instead of being based on science, this listing comes from the Common Radical Environmental Playbook of suing for a predetermined outcome. | ||
| Radical groups have litigated for years trying to get the long fin smelt listed under the ESA, with a 2024 lawsuit compelling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make a listing decision being the latest example. | ||
| Unfortunately, as with many ESA-related lawsuits, the species is rarely the true motivation. | ||
| The leader of the organization that filed the lawsuit in question said the not-so-quiet part out loud when he said that protecting the long fin smelt going forward would require taking more water away from farmers. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support the CRA and roll back this misguided listing, and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The Gentleman Reserves General in California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| This resolution, House Joint Resolution 78, continues a very familiar pattern that we're seeing from this Republican majority. | ||
| Distractions and scapegoats instead of dealing with real crises, real problems, solutions to the challenges that are facing working families, including American farmers in rural communities all over this country. | ||
| So today they're bringing us a resolution that tries to blame an endangered fish, the Bay Delta Long Finn Smelt, for California's water problems and shortages. | ||
| They're doing that instead of addressing major problems that are actually impacting farmers and rural communities. | ||
| So let's be clear. | ||
| Removing protections for the long fin smelt will not make it rain. | ||
| It will not rebuild California's snowpack. | ||
| It won't refill our reservoirs. | ||
| Not even the reservoir that President Trump recently drained in a public relations stunt that had nothing to do with fighting fires or water supply. | ||
| California's water shortages are driven by climate change and also prolonged drought, aging, and outdated infrastructure and overallocation. | ||
| It's not the fault of some tiny fish. | ||
| Meanwhile, farmers, including those in my district, are grappling with worsening droughts, wildfires, floods, extreme weather, and now the fallout from President Trump's disastrous trade policies for agriculture. | ||
| All the while, Republicans won't talk about any of those things. | ||
| Instead, they bring us here to debate whether a small fish should be allowed to go extinct or be protected under the Endangered Species Act. | ||
| And all the while, the significant damage that their policies are causing continue to pile up in rural America, including President Trump's tariffs. | ||
| He's treating not just our adversaries, but some of our neighbors and our best friends in the world like their enemies. | ||
| He's turning them into adversaries. | ||
| Tariffs on key trading partners. | ||
| These have already cost farmers tens of billions of dollars in lost exports. | ||
| They're shrinking markets. | ||
| They are soaring input costs that are going to make it hard for farms to stay in business. | ||
| We see the sweeping budget cuts and mass layoffs at critical agencies like NOAA and the Bureau of Reclamation threatening the services that farmers depend on. | ||
| Water deliveries, weather forecasting, climate data, and much more. | ||
| Farmers need that stuff. | ||
| They don't want to go back to the farmer's almanac in order to make key business decisions. | ||
| We see hundreds of millions of dollars in water supply infrastructure projects suddenly in limbo because of Doge, while our colleagues across the aisle say nothing. | ||
| We see the entire rural health care safety net, including nursing home care, including services that anyone with a person with disabilities and their families depend on. | ||
| All of that in limbo as we brace for catastrophic cuts from Republicans as they try to fund their tax cuts for billionaires. | ||
| If this Republican majority were serious about helping farmers and rural communities, they'd be working to reverse these harmful policies. | ||
| They'd be standing up for rural America right now. | ||
| And instead, they're wasting our time. | ||
| Look, just because we are debating a three-inch fish today doesn't mean we need to think like one. | ||
| Now, about the impacts of these policies that my friends don't want to talk about. | ||
| You don't have to take my word for it. | ||
| You can listen to farmers across America. | ||
| Here's Caleb Raglan, a president of the American Soybean Association, who says, our grave concern is we could permanently lose another big chunk of our export market that we're dependent on for our production. | ||
| The U.S. farm economy is in a tough spot, and we just don't have any room for error right now. | ||
| Here's Chris Harner, owner of Harner Farm in Center County, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Quote, we got a letter from one of our suppliers that once the tariffs kick in, they will be passing on the costs. | ||
| Paul Kruger, a corn and soybean farmer from Bladen, Nebraska, says, quote, anytime our country gets involved with any sort of tariffs that affect the agriculture industry, every farmer just kind of groans. | ||
| We're powerless to do anything except take what comes out in the wash. | ||
| And here's Travis Johnson, who farms cotton, sorghum, and corn in Texas Rio Grande Valley. | ||
| He says, there's a lot of uncertainty around, and I hate to be used as a bargaining chip. | ||
| I'm definitely worried. | ||
| Moving to California, here's Ryan Talley, Vice President of Talley Farms in San Luis Obispo. | ||
| We don't have months to wait something out, he says. | ||
| We have to continue our operations at the intensity that we currently farm. | ||
| We're going to have to take those rising prices and deal with it the best we can. | ||
| This is what Republican agriculture policy is doing right now, losing export markets, raising costs, telling farmers to just deal with it. | ||
| They are complicit in the dismantling of rural health care, in the freezing of funding for rural infrastructure, in the threat to programs like SNAP that many families across rural America depend on. | ||
| And it gets worse. | ||
| President Trump, Elon Musk, and their enablers are gutting critical federal services that include scientists. | ||
| They're hollowing out NOAA and weakening the Bureau of Reclamation. | ||
| And, you know, they should listen to the people that these decisions are actually hurting. | ||
| I know I'm quoting a lot right now, Mr. Speaker, but I want to make sure my colleagues across the aisle are listening since they're not having any town halls these days. | ||
| But they need to hear from farmers and the folks in these rural communities that their policies are hurting. | ||
| So, in response to mass firings at NOAA and the National Weather Service, Andrea Young of Hidden Creek Farm in Farquhar County, Virginia, said this: I can't bring the animals to safety. | ||
| I can't cover up those tender plants. | ||
| I cannot know that a rainstorm is coming, and so I shouldn't water, she said. | ||
| I cannot function as a farmer in an indoor environment. | ||
| And the general manager of 14 California Central Valley Project irrigation districts, in a recent letter to the President about layoffs at the Bureau of Reclamation, said this: They say the elimination of reclamation staff will not further the goal of achieving significant cost savings to the American people. | ||
| In other words, they are harming the agency that these irrigators depend on, and they're not even saving money for the budget. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the damage from all of this is real. | ||
| Real farmers, real communities, real harm caused by failed leadership. | ||
| And while all that is happening, we're here debating whether to strip protections from an endangered fish. | ||
| They're turning a small fish into a very large scapegoat, pretending it will somehow provide real support to farmers. | ||
| The truth is, the listing of the Bay Delta longfin under the ESA is both scientifically and legally sound. | ||
| The longfin population has declined over 99 percent since the 1980s. | ||
| Think about that. | ||
| In just a few decades, only about 1 percent of the population is left. | ||
| That's like the number of environmentalists left in the Republican Party these days. | ||
| The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed the law, the data, and the science, just as Congress intended, just as a bipartisan Congress intended when they passed the ESA back in the 1970s, just as Republican President Richard Nixon intended when he signed it into law. | ||
| The system is supposed to work that way. | ||
| Protecting species like the longfin is not just about a single fish, it's about protecting the ecological health of the entire Bay Delta, the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas. | ||
| This Delta is the heart of California's water system. | ||
| Its health underpins clean drinking water for millions, healthy soil for agriculture, waterfowl populations that hunters depend on. | ||
| It is so important and it requires a broad ecological balance to sustain the farms, fisheries, entire ecosystems, and so many communities and millions of people that depend on it. | ||
| You can't destroy an ecosystem and expect farms, cities, and wildlife to just thrive. | ||
| These things rise or fall together. | ||
| This resolution takes us in the wrong direction. | ||
| Let's actually do something real for farmers instead of deflecting and debating distractions. | ||
| Let's repeal the mindless tariffs on our allies and top trading partners. | ||
| Let's protect the Bureau of Reclamation and NOAA from these disastrous sabotage cuts. | ||
| Let's protect rural families and communities by opposing cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution that merely distracts and deflects and scapegoats instead of solving the pressing challenges facing farmers and the rest of rural America. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman reserve, the gentleman in Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield five minutes to the gentleman from California, the sponsor of the CRA, Mr. LaMalfa. | ||
| The gentleman from California is recognized for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I appreciate the opportunity to present and to carry this Congressional Review Act, indeed, trying to keep some reality involved in the listing of species as well as the overall operations of government and its listing of species and forming of regulations. | ||
| So in support of HJ Res 78, we want to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's misguided decision to list the San Francisco Bay Delta population of the Longfin Smelt as being endangered. | ||
| Now, what we have is actual evidence. | ||
| A former director of Stanford Center of Conservation Biology wrote a piece on this listing, including these highlights. | ||
| The Fish and Wildlife Service abandoned its allegiance to using the best available scientific information. | ||
| The proposed listing ignores salient information gaps and shrugs off technical peer-reviewed criticisms that go to the heart of the argument for listing the species. | ||
| To list the species, the Fish and Wildlife Service employed unreliable data, presented results from analyses that cannot be justified, and made troubling predictions for the fate of the fish that are built on flawed assumptions akin to a house of cards. | ||
| Fish and Wildlife Service used piecemeal data to try and establish population trends and size of this using detection medicines not even designed for long fin smelt to justify this action. | ||
| Basically, no science, and this has long been sought by environmental groups since they've run out of the regular smelt after tens of millions of acre-feet of water have flowed out to the delta. | ||
| Indeed, they need to be looking more at the issues going on with the effluent coming out of Bay Area cities from underpowered sewer systems that has affected the delta so negatively, not some idea that farmers are getting too much water. | ||
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Farmers vs. Environmental Left
00:15:42
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| At a point where farmers are now just got bumped up to a 50% allocation here the other day by state and federal water managers, we're seeing that it's going to negatively affect the food supply not only for California and its production, but for the whole country. | ||
| Now, we have statistics that show that the amount of water flowing into the Delta is hardly being tapped. | ||
| Indeed, 80% of it goes right on out the delta into the Pacific Ocean. | ||
| So it's interesting to hear my colleague from the Central Coast, excuse me, the North Coast, talking about rebuilding infrastructure as part of a solution we should be talking about here. | ||
| Well, we talk about it a lot, and hopefully we can move the ball on it. | ||
| We have an opportunity to build sites reservoir, one and a half million acre-feet of new storage, raise Shasta Dam, 18 feet, 600,000 acre-feet of new storage. | ||
| If we would operate the pumps in the Delta, we would fill the San Luis Reservoir that would be available to the Central Valley. | ||
| It came up 200,000 acre-feet short this year, which is about the same amount as what they're predicting this listing will cause to short the Central Valley farmers down there if this listing is allowed to happen. | ||
| Instead, we get more and more water being demanded for environmental purpose, which really doesn't fulfill an environmental purpose. | ||
| Instead, the blame gets shifted to something else. | ||
| You know, talk about tariffs. | ||
| Well, we're tariffed so heavily, you know, almost 300% of our dairy products going into Canada. | ||
| Something needs to be done for a reset. | ||
| Rice into Japan, up to 700% at some point. | ||
| Tariffs need to be looked at, but that's not this conversation. | ||
| And using the Longfin smelt as the latest weapon to take water away from Farmers to take water away from people. | ||
| We grow some of the richest crops in the great Central Valley of California, and that will be denied to the whole country. | ||
| You know, tomatoes, pistachios, almonds that will not come from somewhere else unless we import them with lower quality standards, etc., etc. | ||
| So, we have indeed a lot going on here that is not really truthful. | ||
| It's sad to hear that my colleague from the North Coast, although we're in parallel districts, the first and the second, it seems like we're in parallel universes when I hear him starting to talk about defending agriculture because it's these policies, introduction of wolves, the tearing down of dams, not rebuilding water infrastructure, tearing down dams on the clamas that now cause people to be subject to flooding, the water allocation in the Scott and Shasta Valley being taken away by some emergency drought declaration at the same time as they're being flooded, | ||
| one thing after another taken away from farmers and instead given wolves. | ||
| And they want to introduce 1,700 new grizzly bears into California is one of their ideas, devastating livestock. | ||
| So the ideas are coming out of this building and the regulatory buildings here are the ones that are choking off agriculture, making food more expensive, making options for people to buy great California-grown products instead of having to import them. | ||
| It's coming from here. | ||
| It's certainly not the fault of what the Trump administration is trying to do in addition to building more water, having more water available for people. | ||
| You know, why was it that Delta pumps were able to build Phil San Luis Reservoir two years ago to bring to the full mark? | ||
| And they can't the last two years. | ||
| Gentlemen, it's time. | ||
| I'll give the gentleman one more minute. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Additional water flows that are demanded by the environmental left and certain representatives in this building. | ||
| And a lot of times they get them. | ||
| The courts are stacked, it seems, against farmers against this, but we have to fight back. | ||
| And this is one tool we have with this Resolution 78 to review what government does and hold it accountable for when it does last-minute, unscientific pronouncements. | ||
| In this case, yet another species that they use as a weapon against agriculture against people's needs. | ||
| So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time on this. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman from California yields back. | ||
| The gentleman from Arkansas Reserves. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the gentleman from California for all of his efforts on this. | ||
| He is a farmer. | ||
| He knows about agriculture. | ||
| He knows about the water issues in California. | ||
| And this is an issue that's important to our whole country. | ||
| It's not just important to California because most of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in this country are in the Central Valley of California. | ||
| Without water, you can't grow any of them. | ||
| So if we're taking water away from the Central Valley for unnecessary reasons, that means the rest of the country is going to suffer when we go to the grocery market. | ||
| And I think if truth be known, there's one reason why the long fin smelt got listed. | ||
| It's because it would divert water away from the Central Valley. | ||
| And I don't understand that. | ||
| I don't understand why groups would be so adamant to be taking water away from the breadbasket of our country and shifting it to a purpose that's not accomplishing anything. | ||
| There's a lot of myths about the long fin smelt. | ||
| There's a myth that if you list this, it will have no effect on the farmers in the Central Valley. | ||
| But the science director that was involved from the San Francisco Baykeepers, when the listing was finalized, I want to read a quote from him. | ||
| Preventing further decline and extension of long fin smelt will require reducing California's diversion of fresh water from the bay's watershed to supply unsustainable industrial agriculture. | ||
| You know, if you take water away from agriculture in the Central Valley, it is unsustainable. | ||
| You can't grow anything without water. | ||
| So we need to get back to the science, as Mr. Lamalfa stated. | ||
| And it's unfortunate that we have to do a CRA on an endangered species listing, but that's what happens when administrations make bad decisions. | ||
| And with that, I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The Gentleman Reserve, the General of California, is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| So the question has been posed about whether this ESA listing of the Long Finn Smelt is supported by science. | ||
| And I guess this Congress, in all of its infinite mastery of science, has decided to superimpose itself over the scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service who went through a very public and deliberative process to reach this determination. | ||
| And we're going to now get, I guess, a different scientific interpretation from the great minds across the aisle. | ||
| Look, the first Trump administration, back when there were still at least a few people around who followed the law and told the truth, they agreed that the Long Finn Smelt was a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act. | ||
| Now, because of politics, they slowwalked that listing. | ||
| That's why they got sued. | ||
| That's why the Biden administration had to comply with the law and follow through with that science-based process. | ||
| That's how we got a listing. | ||
| But let's not pretend that there's no scientific foundation for this listing. | ||
| Even my friends across the aisle know better than that. | ||
| Now, my friend from the Sacramento Valley has suggested we live in parallel universes. | ||
| Well, I tell you, if that's the case, I want to choose the universe where members of Congress face their constituents and answer hard questions instead of running off to Mar-a-Lago or other people's districts or having distractions about fish in the Delta, scapegoating them as the cause for all of our problems. | ||
| Answer some hard questions from constituents. | ||
| Talk about facts and reality of California water instead of all of this scapegoating. | ||
| You know, with California water, it's always a challenge not to break the fact check machine across the aisle. | ||
| It's been suggested that all of this water is wasted out to the ocean for fish. | ||
| And you have to re-explain how the Delta system works. | ||
| That water that flows out to the ocean, almost all of it, the vast majority of it, is for one reason. | ||
| To make sure that the saltwater in the Pacific Ocean does not intrude far enough into the estuary that the whole system that tens of millions of Californians depend on, that all the farmers in my friend's district depend on, doesn't salt up and cease to function. | ||
| And you don't have to believe me about it. | ||
| You don't have to choose between two parallel universes. | ||
| Ask any California water manager how this works. | ||
| This is basic stuff, but we've got to explain it over and over again because of the fog of political theater that we always hear across the aisle. | ||
| It's a little bit like the President of the United States right now who says that there is a magic spigot in the Northwest and in Canada. | ||
| That if we could get past all the radical environmentalists and just open up this spigot, unlimited water would flow to southern California and they'd always be able to fight fires. | ||
| It's absolute nonsense. | ||
| And then he pretended to open a magic spigot and he dumped and wasted a whole bunch of water a couple of months ago into a dry lake bed. | ||
| And our friends across the aisle retweeted all of these totally fake narratives, and now half the world, the world in that other parallel universe, believes this stuff. | ||
| So it's a constant challenge just to bring this subject back to facts and reality. | ||
| Talk to water managers. | ||
| Do a little bit of basic research. | ||
| This is how the California water system, and especially the Delta estuary, actually works. | ||
| And politics is a poor substitute for understanding basic hydrology and facts. | ||
| With that, I'm going to yield to a colleague who actually represents the amazing Delta region of our country, Mr. DeSaulnay from Northern California. | ||
| How much time does the gentleman yield? | ||
| I'd like to yield him as much time as he may consume. | ||
| Mr. Yield is given as much time as you may consume. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And thank you, Mr. Huffman, for yielding. | ||
| To the Chairman, welcome to California Water Wars. | ||
| Mark Twain famously once said, in California, whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting. | ||
| So welcome to the debate. | ||
| This is much more than just the Delta smelt. | ||
| And it is interesting listening to my two colleagues and friends from parallel universes. | ||
| I'm from a southern parallel universe. | ||
| Debate this because some time ago when we were in the legislature, and I'm looking at Mr. LaMalfa, we thought we had put a lot of this past us when we negotiated, in good faith, the building of those two reservoirs. | ||
| And part of it was to finally require the ag industry to get permits because they were depleting the aquifers so much that the water contractors were complaining, water contractors who historically have made a lot of money without providing much value. | ||
| So I say that in the context of this is an important discussion for the environment, appropriately for this committee, the chairman and the ranking member, but it's a bigger issue. | ||
| It's the issue about fairness, about subsidies. | ||
| Yes, the ag industry is important, as the chairman pointed out, in California, but we have given them a lot of support over the decades, including subsidies from the federal government. | ||
| So if we're looking at fiscal management, we should look at this resource in a larger sense, in my view, as somebody who's represented the Delta for decades. | ||
| The San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary, which I'm proud to represent a significant part of, provides economic benefits to the entire state of California, and as the chairman said, to larger areas, the West Coast and the country in many ways, provides clean water, recreation, and provides all of these benefits to a very large area. | ||
| The Longfeldt Smelt, one of the several native fish populations within the Delta, is an important indicator species for the health of this vital body of water and our economy. | ||
| It serves as a kind of red herring to help alert to habitat degradation across the Delta from poor water quality or diversion to too much water. | ||
| Unfortunately, the species population, as the ranking member has pointed out, has declined more than 99 percent from 1980 levels, putting us at risk of losing an important way we analyze the delta in a drought-prone region. | ||
| The San Francisco Bay Delta population of the Longfin Smelt was listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act after thorough scientific review, as has been mentioned, and public comment process. | ||
| This Congressional Review Act resolution casts aside the data for no apparent reason. | ||
| Decisions on whether to list the species as endangered should be based on science, as Congress intended under the Endangered Species Act, not on politics. | ||
| While I agree with my good friend from California that ensuring reliable water supply and storage is essential to Northern California, to both my friends from Northern California, disregarding experts is the wrong way to go about the analysis, obviously. | ||
| This debate in the whole supply of water supply and storage, as articulated by the ranking member, is essential to the West Coast. | ||
| Disregarding these experts and scientists and proper process for endangered species listing is not the way to do it. | ||
| Protecting endangered species and providing a stable water supply are not mutually exclusive. | ||
| They can be done in a way where both Delta communities and Delta species process and indeed the entire West Coast and the country prosper from protecting this endangered species. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from California Reserves, gentlemen from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I'm prepared to close and continue to reserve. | ||
| So the gentleman reserves, member from California is recognized. | ||
| And Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers. | ||
| I'm prepared to close too. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| So President Trump, Elon Musk, and Doge continue dismantling federal agencies, shredding constitutional norms, and meanwhile, House Republicans refuse to lift a finger to rein in rogue actors or defend the rule of law. | ||
| In the face of all of this, American farmers and rural America are paying the price for all of this chaos right now. | ||
| The real threats to rural America and to water security and the livelihoods of America's farmers are trade wars that are hammering agricultural exports. | ||
| It's not this endangered fish. | ||
| They are a shrinking, they face a shrinking federal workforce, hollowed out. | ||
| The very agencies responsible for permitting and delivering water to farmers and communities are being dismantled. | ||
| Congressional Republicans are threatening to rescind critical Inflation Reduction Act investments in drought resilience and water delivery. | ||
| And we also are facing this administration's efforts to block and cancel key funding that Congress has already approved to support drought resilience and repair vital water infrastructure, support that rural America needs right now in the face of extreme heat and weather from the climate crisis and from the burning of fossil fuels. | ||
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Deflecting From Real Problems
00:06:22
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| These are the urgent challenges that farmers and communities are actually facing, but instead of confronting them, House Republican leadership devoted this entire week to voting on performative Congressional Review Act resolutions that are meant to deflect and distract from the real problems created by this administration and the complicity of this Congress, and passing a rule to actually abdicate Congress's own oversight powers when it comes to our Article 1 Trade Authority. | ||
| the way through the rest of this fiscal year. | ||
| That is shameful. | ||
| Let's be honest. | ||
| The Long Finn Smelt didn't cause California's water challenges. | ||
| This resolution won't solve them. | ||
| It won't improve drought conditions. | ||
| It won't help farmers one bit. | ||
| But here we are debating a symbolic resolution that is designed to distract, deflect, and scapegoat rather than talking about and trying to solve real problems affecting farmers and rural communities. | ||
| This isn't legislating. | ||
| It's grievance politics. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution and I yield back. | ||
| The member of Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| First, I want to acknowledge and agree with my friends across the aisle. | ||
| Mark Twain was correct. | ||
| The more I learn about water, the further west you go, the more it's for fighting. | ||
| We can agree on that. | ||
| But I also want to try to help them solve the issue about parallel universes from an outsider's perspective. | ||
| And I would say that most people who live in states that are east of California, maybe some that are north and west of California, if you go to California, you realize it is a very beautiful state, a very blessed state, wonderful resources, beautiful beaches, beautiful forest. | ||
| the most productive farmland in the country, some of the most unique trees in the world. | ||
| Wonderful weather, everything nice, it seems like California has it. | ||
| Good fishing. | ||
| I think we all love California, but we all realize somehow it is kind of a different universe than the rest of the country that we live in. | ||
| And maybe they embrace that and like that, the good people of California. | ||
| But when we look at this legislation, HJ REST 78, it's a serious thing. | ||
| The ESA listing in question was based on incomplete and bad science and will further complicate the delivery of California of water in California communities. | ||
| It's already complicating the delivery of water. | ||
| Passing this resolution will further the priorities of President Trump, who has signed two executive orders aimed at removing unnecessary regulations that prevent water from being delivered to Southern California. | ||
| The current paradigm of having full reservoirs in California, while many farmers are only receiving half of the water they're supposed to be getting, is unacceptable and it's unsustainable. | ||
| And it takes away the myth that this is all due to drought conditions. | ||
| It's not drought conditions in California right now, yet farmers are still only getting half the amount of water they were promised to get. | ||
| This resolution is co-sponsored by the entire California Republican delegation. | ||
| I want to thank each member for standing up for their constituents and tirelessly fighting for additional water resources in the face of federal and state government overreach and radical decisions. | ||
| I yield back the balance of my time as I support this resolution. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| All time for debate has expired pursuant to House Resolution 354. | ||
| The previous questions ordered on the joint resolution. | ||
| The question is on engrossment third reading of the joint resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| Third reading. | ||
| Joint resolution provided for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to endangered and threatened wildlife and plants, endangered species status for the San Francisco Bay Delta Distinct Population Segment of the Longfin Smelt. | ||
| The question is on passage of the joint resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The joint resolution is passed, and that objection motion reconsiders laid on the table. | ||
| Requests the yays and nays. | ||
| The gentleman requests yeas and nays. | ||
| The yeas and nays are requested. | ||
| Those in favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. | ||
| Fishing number having risen. | ||
| The yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20, this 15-minute vote on passage of HJRES 78 will be followed by a five-minute vote on passage of HJRES 88. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
|
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And the House now voting on a bill that would repeal an Interior Department rule issued last year designating a fish in the San Francisco Bay Delta, the longfin smelt, as an endangered species. | |
| The regulation also added Longfin Smelt to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service list of endangered and threatened wildlife. | ||
| While we wait for members to come to the floor for this vote, we'll take a look at remarks by White House advisor Stephen Miller during the briefing just a short time ago. | ||
| I'm here with you and great to see so many familiar faces I've had a chance to get to know over a number of years as we gather this morning to continue our celebration of President Trump's unprecedented and historic first 100 days in office. | ||
| what are without doubt the greatest 100 days to begin any American presidency in the history of this nation. | ||
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Securing Cultural Values
00:09:04
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| This week you've heard about the historic actions President Trump has taken to secure our homeland, to secure our sovereignty, to secure our economy and our supply chains and our industrial base. | ||
| Today you're also going to hear from me about what President Trump has done to secure our values, our culture, and our way of life from the unwavering assault from the radical left and the communists and the Democrat Party. | ||
| One of the most significant crises that President Trump inherited upon taking office was the wave of racial discrimination, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that have taken over both public sector and private sector entities all across the United States of America. | ||
| Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is that our air traffic controllers were being hired and promoted based on race and gender, not their ability to conduct our nation's air traffic. | ||
| I would estimate that probably 90% of Americans would agree with the statement that airline safety should be based on your ability to keep airline safety jobs, should be based on your ability to keep planes landing and taking off and flying safely, not on what demographic box you check. | ||
| President Trump has ended across the entire federal government all hiring, recruiting, retention, promotion, and training based on race and sex. | ||
| This includes in our law enforcement agencies. | ||
| So again, when we took office, even in sensitive law enforcement, national security, and intelligence agencies, we were hiring individuals not on their ability to carry a weapon, not in their ability to keep Americans safe, not on their ability to conduct sensitive intelligence operations, but based upon race and sex. | ||
| And obviously, that is unacceptable. | ||
| It's going to be merit-based across the whole federal government. | ||
| But this wasn't just the federal government. | ||
| This was the private sector. | ||
| And this was also, of course, our entire university and education system. | ||
| So President Trump's Department of Justice, working with other departments and agencies, have made clear that this administration is going to fully enforce Title VI, Title VII, and Title IX of our federal civil rights code. | ||
| Discrimination based on race and sex is prohibited by law. | ||
| And this administration will vigorously enforce that. | ||
| And companies, small or large, that violate plain text of federal statutes will face appropriate financial and other penalties. | ||
| This administration is not going to let our society devolve into communist-woke DEI strangulation. | ||
| We are going to have a system of merit, which is not just a social and cultural issue, it's an economic issue. | ||
| When you hire, retain, and recruit based on merit, as President Trump has directed, you advance innovation, you advance growth, you advance investment, you advance job creation, you create the best and safest product for all Americans. | ||
| When a citizen goes to, say, a hospital in a medical emergency, they don't care what race or sex their doctor or their nurse is. | ||
| They want the best treatment they can get in that emergency. | ||
| When they are flying a plane or when they are on an aircraft, they want that pilot to be the best pilot, the safest pilot, not caring what that pilot's race or sex is. | ||
| This applies across the whole government. | ||
| In particular, looking at our university system, this administration has opened investigations into universities across the country for violating, and we talk a lot about Supreme Court rulings, universities across this country are in plain and direct violation of the Supreme Court's ruling that affirmative action, as in racial quotas and set-asides, are illegal. | ||
| Students must be admitted to universities on a colorblind basis. | ||
| But we have demonstrated through clear evidence that our university system, including our medical schools, and perhaps particularly our medical schools, are engaging in race-based discrimination, racial set-asides, racial quota schemes, and other efforts to evade the Supreme Court's ruling, and again, the plain text of federal statute. | ||
| So universities are on notice, and universities are already facing the financial consequences of their non-compliance with federal law. | ||
| The clearest example that we're all familiar with, of course, being Harvard, which is engaged in repeat, systemic, and sustained violations of federal civil rights law. | ||
| Another area of civil rights law that we talk about a lot, of course, is Title IX, sex-based discrimination. | ||
| And this administration ended the Biden administration's policy and the Democrat Party's policy of allowing men into women's sports, men into women's spaces. | ||
| We are using every single legal and financial tool we have at President Trump's direction to make it clear that schools and universities are and will lose federal funds, as you've seen in Maine, if you allow men to invade women's sports and women's spaces. | ||
| And this applies to our whole K-12 system. | ||
| The Department of Justice is also coordinating with state and local law enforcement to fight child abuse in our school systems. | ||
| It is child abuse to change a child's gender, particularly if you do not inform the parents. | ||
| In other words, if a five-year-old or a six-year-old goes to school, or a seven-year-old goes to school, and the teacher tries to turn the boy into a girl or the girl into a boy, that is child abuse. | ||
| And this administration is treating that as child abuse. | ||
| And it is a gross violation of parental rights. | ||
| This also includes the administration's message to our hospital systems that they cannot and will not be allowed to use taxpayer dollars to perform chemical castrations and sexual mutations of children. | ||
| Castration surgeries, castration drugs, sterilization treatments of children are barbaric. | ||
| They violate all sound medical ethics. | ||
| They are completely unwarranted. | ||
| They harm children for life irreversibly. | ||
| It is child torture. | ||
| It is child abuse. | ||
| It is medical malpractice. | ||
| And so the Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of Bobby Kennedy, as well as the Department of Justice and other departments of this government, are making clear to our medical providers and our hospital systems that you cannot use taxpayer dollars to perform these barbaric procedures on America's children. | ||
| NHHS has systematically updated, eliminated all of the junk, fake science that was produced under the Biden administration promoting sex changes on children, promoting the idea of sterilizing children. | ||
| That's been cleaned out, that's been removed, and new guidance is being issued to doctors and hospitals advising them that they cannot perform these horrifying procedures, these irreversible procedures, on our nation's children. | ||
| We are also making clear in our prison system, male prisoners will not be allowed into women's prisons. | ||
| The Biden administration promoted prison rape by putting men into female prisons. | ||
| That is obviously insane, cruel, and unacceptable. | ||
| And even though the Democrat Party and Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrat media continue to fight to put men into women's prisons, this administration will not allow that. | ||
| And we will not allow men, as well, in our K-12 system, into women's private spaces and restrooms. | ||
| We have seen horrifying example after example of young girls being sexually assaulted because school districts have allowed men into women's and girls' private spaces. | ||
| This administration, President Trump, is at the forefront of protecting women and protecting girls. | ||
| And nowhere is that clearer than when we are talking about fighting radical gender ideology. | ||
| This administration is also fighting to get critical race theory out of our school districts. | ||
| Children will be taught to love America. | ||
| Children will be taught to be patriots. | ||
| Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding. | ||
| So as we close the Department of Education and we provide funding to states, we are going to make sure that these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology. | ||
| For any nation to be successful, it cannot teach its children to hate themselves and to hate their country. | ||
| So these are a few of the areas in which President Trump has fought the cancerous communist woke culture that was destroying this country, where we were led to believe that men were women, that women were men, that racial discrimination was good, that merit was bad, and that safety and physical security matter less than the feelings of liberal ideologues. | ||
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Automakers Leverage US Market
00:12:17
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| The President has also fought to return the Department of Justice to its core mission of protecting public safety and locking up violent criminals instead of using the Department of Justice to target conservatives, to target Christians, to target people of faith. | ||
| The last administration cruelly and shamefully used the power of the Justice Department to go after law-abiding Americans, in particular Trump supporters, conservatives, and Christians. | ||
| That persecution has ended. | ||
| The Department of Justice and the FBI are back in the business of going after bad guys, of going after gangs, of going after criminals, and keeping Americans safe. | ||
| Let me just conclude before taking questions by noting that when you look at the sweep of the first 100 days, every single crisis that has afflicted America for years, sometimes decades, sometimes generations, this president has fought head on. | ||
| He has taken on every entrenched power structure and system all across this government, this swamp, this town. | ||
| That includes, of course, the Doge efforts to slash corrupt, wasteful government spending, graft, and corruption, and to stop billions of taxpayer dollars from going to radical left NGOs. | ||
| These are left-wing nonprofits, that are used to advance illegal immigration, to advance open borders, to advance gender ideology, and to advance all of this insanity that has been turning our country in the wrong direction for so many years. | ||
| President Trump took head-on the trade crisis afflicting this country with the destruction of our manufacturing and industrial base, the shameful betrayal of the American worker by Joe Biden and the globalists that sent all of our supply chains overseas. | ||
| He took head on the catastrophe of mass unlimited illegal immigration that was turning us into a failed third world state and achieved the lowest level of illegal immigration in recorded history without even a close second. | ||
| He took on the economic crisis afflicting this country by reopening American energy, by defeating inflation, by lowering gas prices, by ending the onslaught and reversing the onslaught of federal regulation by reopening coal, shale, oil, natural gas, and fighting now for the largest tax cut and reform and the largest deregulation reform and the largest energy reform in American history. | ||
| These are just some of the things that have ushered in the new golden age along with his fight to restore the peace that we had for four years under the previous administration before Joe Biden sunk this planet into bloodshed and war in the Middle East, in Europe, and rising tensions in Asia. | ||
| President Trump in every area of conflict around the globe has been fighting to restore peace, security, stability, harmony. | ||
| So he inherited an economic catastrophe, a border catastrophe, a public safety catastrophe, and a cultural catastrophe. | ||
| And in every case, he has reversed those catastrophes and brought America into the new golden age. | ||
| So I thank you for your time, and I look forward to any questions you have. | ||
|
unidentified
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Awesome. | |
| Thank you, Stephen. | ||
| And as always, we'll start with our new media C today, Chris Bedford from the Blaze Media. | ||
|
unidentified
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Why don't you kick us off? | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Stephen, what is the end goal of the China tariffs right now? | ||
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unidentified
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Is the idea to open up the Chinese markets through a deal to a better market for exporting American goods to China? | |
| Or is there a reconfiguration of global trade in a way that isolates China from free countries? | ||
| Go. | ||
| So China's unique situation, obviously. | ||
| The President has talked at length about what happened to us economically since China's entrance into the World Trade Organization and the trillions and trillions of dollars of trade deficits that we've racked up with China over the period of that time and what that's meant for our national security, what that's meant for our economic security, what that's meant for our supply chains. | ||
| Obviously, right now, the Secretary of the Treasury is in the process of developing a plan that will answer the questions that you're talking about. | ||
| But the President's goals have been very clear on these points, which is that he is not going to allow China to continue to steal our intellectual property, to continue to illegally dump and subsidize their goods in our markets, to manipulate their currency, to rack up an unsustainable trade deficit. | ||
| We need to have a trade relationship with China that does not do harm to our nation's economic and national security. | ||
| And that has to be the guidepost of any objective. | ||
| At the same time, tariffs will bring significant revenue into this country that will allow us to pursue our dramatic plan of tax cuts and reforms. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Awesome, great. | |
| Blueberg, go ahead. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| First and first of all, similar to my question, I'm curious, Kevin Housing when the CNCC this morning said that they were expecting some sort of news on tariffs by the end of the day at two meetings. | ||
| I need to address the President. | ||
| I don't want to get ahead of any announcement, but I'll just reiterate that right now, countries from all over the world, because of President Trump's leadership, are desperate and dying to make trade deals with the United States. | ||
| We're going to evaluate each of those deals, and President Trump is personally involved in making sure that these negotiations serve only one interest, which is the interests of the United States of America. | ||
| And we'll end up with a deal in these cases where, yes, the other countries, obviously, will have their own demands and their own interests, but nothing will go into effect that doesn't serve the interests of America and the American people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stephen, this morning, GM is putting a dollar figure on how much the president's tariffs will impact the company. | |
| The CEO says tariffs will cost GM between $4 and $5 billion this year. | ||
| The CEO of Ford says he can't commit to not raising prices because of tariffs. | ||
| Is the administration open to doing more to give automakers relief? | ||
| The question unfortunately misses the entire point, which is that U.S. automakers have announced dramatic investments and expansions inside the United States. | ||
| American auto plants are growing, they are expanding, they are opening new facilities, they are expanding existing facilities that are already in operation because it is now the case that for the first time in our lives that American cars receive preference in America's markets. | ||
| The U.S. auto industry used to control the entire world. | ||
| I believe the number during the heyday was that 70% of all cars in the world were made in Michigan. | ||
| And now, of course, we've become a tiny fraction of the global market. | ||
| And the reason for that is because the United States opened its markets to every single foreign cheater and every single foreign nation that subsidizes its goods on the face of the earth, and their markets have been closed to ours. | ||
| Japan closed their market to our cars. | ||
| The entire EU closed their market to our cars. | ||
| South Korea closed their market to our cars. | ||
| All of the countries I just mentioned have tens of billions of dollars of annual trade deficits in automobiles with the United States. | ||
| These are supposedly pure nations, nations that have at least a somewhat equivalent per capita GDP. | ||
| So it is impossible under the terms of fair trade, if you have two nations with similar per capita GDP, to have such uneven trade flows in automobiles. | ||
| What the president has done with his car tariff, we have the most desirable market in the world, is if you want to sell cars tariff-free, tax-free to our market, your plant has to operate in the United States. | ||
| The only alternative to that is to have no U.S. automobile industry whatsoever, which is where this was headed, to be clear. | ||
| If we stayed on this current path, within a few years, there would have been no U.S. automobile industry. | ||
| And what little was left of it would have been in Mexico. | ||
| Because U.S. auto companies have steadily been shifting their supply chains to Mexico, where they believe it is cheaper to make their products. | ||
| In reality, it'll be cheaper to make them here because there'll be no tariff for anything made in the United States, and we'll have the cheapest energy and the best regulatory environment in the face of the earth. | ||
| But in the meantime, while manufacturing ramps up, American consumers may pay more. | ||
| Do you agree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Not on cars they won't, because again, there's now a massive economic incentive for automobile producers to expand production in the United States. | ||
| And whatever they make here, there will be no tariff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll go to the back row. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Thank you, Caroline. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a letter to the Trump administration asking for small business tariff relief. | |
| They say that's necessary because in order to save small businesses and to stay off recession. | ||
| Stephen, is the administration considering small business tariff relief? | ||
| The relief for small businesses is going to come in the form of the largest tax cut in American history. | ||
| A tax cut, by the way, that every single Democrat is planning to vote against. | ||
| They're voting for a tax hike at every middle-class family of about $4,000. | ||
| The president has made clear that there will be 100% expensing for investment in the United States. | ||
| Companies that invest in the United States will be able to deduct 100% of that cost from their tax liability. | ||
| This will be the most pro-small business tax bill in American history. | ||
| And at the same time, this is what you have to understand about the plan: as they're able to do that, as they're able to reshore those supply chains, that also means they'll pay no tariff. | ||
| So you'll have the lowest tax environment and there'll be no tariff because their production and supply chains will be in the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's a no on tariff relief for small businesses in the short term? | |
| It's a yes on tax relief for small businesses. | ||
| And again, you only pay the tariff for products that are made outside the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks. | |
| So on the rare funeral deal that was signed last night, when can that deal be operationalized? | ||
| What's the time frame? | ||
| And what kind of leverage does that give Ukraine over Russia? | ||
| I think the more important point about the Ukraine deal, and I would hopefully have an update for you soon on how quickly it can be operationalized, but we'll be moving at full speed, not only on that mineral deal, by the way, but on every mineral deal that this president has been unleashing. | ||
| So we're opening up mines all across this country. | ||
| We're also pursuing energy and mineral deals all over the world. | ||
| Since the president issued his executive order also on deregulating coal, we've seen dramatic coal production increases already in the United States. | ||
| So we're taking advantage of the trillions of dollars in coal wealth and mineral wealth that exists in the United States. | ||
| We are a very mineral-rich country. | ||
| But with respect to that deal, we'll move it and operationalize it as fast as we possibly can. | ||
| But it's meant to pay back the United States. | ||
| This is the key point. | ||
| For the hundreds of billions of dollars that our taxpayers have spent subsidizing the war in Ukraine. | ||
| So it is repayment to the United States. | ||
| And that's one of the most important points to understand about. | ||
| What's the leverage? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Does it give? | |
| What kind of leverage does it give? | ||
| The President's goal, again, is to end the killing to achieve a peace settlement. | ||
| That remains, of course, the overriding objective. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much, Grammar. | |
| Thank you, Stephen. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This administration has stressed the need for price transparency for things like health care bills and concert tickets. | |
| So why is it a political and hostile act for Amazon to display price transparency on consumer goods? | ||
| Well, I think this is the wrong way of looking at it, which is why would, first of all, that proposal is gone now. | ||
| But why would Amazon, of all the different things that go into a theoretical price input, right? | ||
| For example, does Amazon list the cost of California's regulations on everything made in California? | ||
| Anything you make in California, you have a massive price increase because of the health care regulations that are unworkable in that state, because of the labor regulations that are unworkable in that state, because of the subsidies that go to illegal aliens in that state, because of all the bureaucracy. | ||
| So anything being produced in California has a massive built-in price hike. | ||
| So why wouldn't Amazon have a list saying if you purchase it in California instead of in Alabama, this is the premium that you pay? | ||
| This was a clear attempt by whoever proposed it originally. | ||
| I don't know, because Amazon says they were never going to do it, to try to undermine our trade negotiations with China. | ||
| I'll make another important point in this, which is that there's been many complaints about the fact that there are a lot of products that are sold on Amazon that are actually rip-offs of American products that are then stolen by China, and that they take RIP and they put them into products to try to undersell our manufacturers. | ||
| So to the extent that we are engaged in labeling issues on Amazon, I would say that would be the most significant one to fix, is making sure we're not undercutting American consumers. | ||
|
Administration Inquiry
00:06:00
|
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|
unidentified
|
And then one on Evrego Garcia, please. | |
| The administration is reportedly inquiring about his return. | ||
| Is that to check a box for compliance or does President Trump want him back on U.S. soil or both? | ||
| So as Secretary Rubio said yesterday in the cabinet meeting, this administration is not going to publicly discuss the inside details of our foreign policy and negotiations with a foreign country. | ||
| And in particular, we are not going to allow a district court judge to try to become the Secretary of State. | ||
| Secretary Rubio is the one who, under his leadership and direction at the State Department, is managing the day-to-day relationship with El Salvador. | ||
| Let's just take a moment, number one, to express our gratitude to El Salvador for agreeing to take some of the most dangerous terrorists off of America's streets and to put them into a safe environment where they cannot continue to engage in acts of terrorism or coordination with the Maduro regime. | ||
| You may have seen recently an FBI assessment that was unclassified that said that the Maduro regime is using and planning to use Train De Ragua terrorists to carry out assassination plus on American soil. | ||
| Now, very few in this room covered that. | ||
| I'll let you all ask yourselves why you didn't cover it and why your editors didn't assign that story to you. | ||
| Something I think you should think about on your own, but this is an earth-shattering piece of news. | ||
| The Biden administration imported the terrorist army that our own FBI assesses is planning assassination strikes on American soil against critics of the Maduro regime. | ||
| Those are the terrorists that President Trump is finding and apprehending that our Democrat judges and Democrat activists are trying to keep on U.S. soil. | ||
| Train De Aragua has the same legal status as Al-Qaeda. | ||
| and ISIS. | ||
| MS-13 has the same legal status as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. | ||
| These are foreign terrorists operating on our soil. | ||
| And our gratitude to El Salvador for agreeing to take custody of these terrorists is immense. | ||
| With respect to the case that you mentioned, there has not even been more evidence that has been made public of this person's violent, repeated threats and assaults against his spouse, someone who had repeated documented human trafficking and human smuggling offenses. | ||
| Somebody that has extensively documented membership in MS-13, a terrorist organization, and of course he had MS-13 tattooed on his knuckles. | ||
| This is a person that was a clear and present danger to the safety of the American people. | ||
| And it is a sad reflection on the state of our media and many of the outlets represented in this room that you obsessively try to shill for this MS-13 terrorist. | ||
| Well, no coverage occurred in your papers about any of the Americans that were raped and tortured and murdered by the illegals that Biden was importing into our country. | ||
| You know, you talk about due process. | ||
| The Biden administration made the decision to give extensive due process to two Train De Aragua terrorists that were apprehended at the border just a couple years ago. | ||
| They were two gentlemen. | ||
| They were from Venezuela. | ||
| They were members of Trained Nearagua. | ||
| The Biden administration Board of Patrol apprehended them and made the decision to provide them with extensive due process, put them onto a program known as supervised release, and put them on ankle monitors so that they could go through a lengthy legal, judicial determination as to whether these legal aliens who had just set foot on U.S. soil might want to live in the United States for the rest of their lives. | ||
| What was the result of that decision? | ||
| What was the result of that choice that was made? | ||
| Those two men kidnapped a young girl named Jocelyn Nungery from her family. | ||
| They beat her. | ||
| They sexually assaulted her. | ||
| They tortured her. | ||
| They stripped her. | ||
| They murdered her and they dumped her body. | ||
| That is what the Biden administration's policy was. | ||
| Most of your papers never covered her story when it happened. | ||
| To the extent that you covered it at all, it was because President Trump forced you to cover it by highlighting it repeatedly over and over again. | ||
| He had to shame you into covering it. | ||
| And each and every one of you that sides over and over again with these MS-13 terrorists, to the extent that you had the financial means to do so, you all choose to live in condos or homes or houses as far away from these kinds of gangbangers as you possibly can. | ||
| If I offered any one of you a rent-free home with no taxes to pay in any of these gang neighborhoods, and I said your neighbors are MS-13 terrorists or Mexican mafia or Sinaloa cartel or Train Diaragua, I couldn't pay you to live there. | ||
| But yet you, with your coverage, are trying to force innocent Americans to have these people as their neighbors and that one day their daughter may be abducted from their home and raped and murdered. | ||
| So you're not going to get an ounce of sympathy from this administration or President Trump for the terrorists who've invaded our homes and our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Pierre, we'll take a couple more questions. | ||
| Questions on Doge, of course, because that's a topic that you're here to speak about. | ||
| But I want to ask you one other question about the topic of prices. | ||
| We heard from the president on this just yesterday right now and prices and the risk that there could be some short-term, as he said, shortages. | ||
| He was referring specifically to dolls. | ||
| What do you tell Americans right now, Stephen, who say they can't afford to, in the president's words, be patient. | ||
| Americans who voted for President Trump on his promise that he would lower prices across the board on day one. | ||
| But he did lower prices across the board on day one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, grocery prices last month went up 0.4%, of course. | |
|
Representative Hillary Schulton Joins Us
00:15:44
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|
unidentified
|
So I mean across the board, not exclusively eggs. | |
| Inflation, as you would acknowledge, is down substantially. | ||
| Gas prices are down substantially. | ||
| The new GDP report showed a 22% record increase in investment in the United States of America. | ||
| So all of the, not even egg prices, of course, which was all you guys talked about for a few days, I think are down like 80%. | ||
| The reality is that we can either surrender economically to China or we can reclaim and reshore our manufacturing base and our industrial needs. | ||
| And it's not just China. | ||
| In the event of any national emergency... | ||
| The days are 195. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The joint resolution is passed. | |
| Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business, is a vote on passage of HJ 88, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the joint resolution. | ||
| House Joint Resolution 88, joint resolution providing congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United Nations Code, of the rules submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards. | ||
| Advance Clean Cars 2. | ||
| Waiver of Preemption. | ||
| Notice of decision. | ||
| The question is on the passage of the joint resolution. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And the second and last expected vote for the day underway now here in the House on repealing an EPA waiver granted in January that allows California to impose more stringent vehicle emission standards for light-duty passenger cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks than the national standards issued by EPA under the Clean Air Act. | ||
| While we wait for members to finish this vote, we'll take a look at some of today's Washington Journal with Congresswoman Hillary Shulton. | ||
| We're going to have a short chat with Representative Hillary Schulton, Democrat from Michigan. | ||
| She serves the third district, joining us from Capitol Hill, serves on the Small Business and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees. | ||
| Representative Schultz, thanks for your time. | ||
| Thanks so much for having me, Pedro. | ||
| I don't know if you heard the call, but we had a call on our Democrats line about Democrats not being forceful enough and pushing back against the Trump administration. | ||
| I wonder what you think about that sentiment. | ||
| You know, we just had a Transportation and Infrastructure Markup Committee hearing yesterday about budget reconciliation, and I can tell you we were pushing back pretty forcefully against drastic cuts that are going to harm everyday Americans by undercutting investments in our critical infrastructure. | ||
| You know, I hear those concerns and I take them seriously. | ||
| I've been doing town halls across my district, you know, once Republican stronghold. | ||
| I'm actually the first Democrat in a century to hold this seat. | ||
| And I'm hearing from people in my district, you know, that they still don't feel like it's enough. | ||
| And what's telling about that is, well, certainly people are frustrated with Democrats, they're frustrated with Democrats because they're not doing enough to stop actions by Republicans that they so strongly disagree with. | ||
| And Pedro, that's coming from Republicans in my district, some of whom even voted for Donald Trump. | ||
| And so as far as a strategy is concerned, particularly as negotiations go on legislative efforts by the House, Republicans, and the Senate Republicans, what's the strategy then? | ||
| Do not grow weary in doing good. | ||
| Continue to push back and continue to fight back. | ||
| You know, the Republicans in the House and in the Senate and the President of the United States won an election, free and fair, right? | ||
| That means that we're in the minority. | ||
| It's going to take more and all of us, frankly, to continue to push back and to stop their efforts. | ||
| One of the things that is so challenging about this moment in particular is that Democrats are committed to using the tools of democracy to defend our democracy. | ||
| Short of staging our own January 6th, which we are not going to do, we have to commit to the democratic process and using that process to stop Republican action that we feel is harming the American people. | ||
| That means pushing back in our committees. | ||
| Next week, we're going to have an opportunity. | ||
| The Energy and Commerce Committee is having a hearing on the budget about these proposed cuts that are making headlines everywhere. | ||
| $880 billion proposed in Medicaid cuts, and we're going to have an opportunity. | ||
| And it's up to Democrats and Congress to continue to push back, to use our critical oversight, but we also can't let Republicans off the hook as well, who seem to have almost completely forgotten that they have an oversight role to play as well against this president who continues to try to show that he's above the law. | ||
| And another thing, we need, we need engaged citizens across the country. | ||
| This moment, people who feel upset, who feel intimidated, who feel scared and vulnerable, we need them to find their voice. | ||
| If we find ourselves in these silos of silence, it enables the majority to continue doing what they're doing. | ||
| So it's up to the American people as well to make their voices heard. | ||
| You're from Michigan. | ||
| You are on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. | ||
| I wonder what you thought about the president's tariff policy, particularly to auto tariffs, somewhat of a softening on some aspect of them, but overall, how does it affect not only those who may depend on the auto industry in your state, but also where you serve on the Transportation Committee? | ||
| Well, I mean, these tariffs, the way that Trump has rolled them out, right, which is an important caveat, right, because not all tariffs are bad. | ||
| All presidents have used tariffs. | ||
| There is a use for tariffs, but the Trump tariffs have absolutely devastated the economy and Michigan is in an incredibly vulnerable position because of our auto industry, poised to be one of the worst and most detrimentally impacted. | ||
| It's no coincidence that Trump chose to go to Michigan on the anniversary of his 100 days, the commemoration of his first 100 days in office, as we get news that the GDP actually shrank. | ||
| The economy contracted during his first 100 days. | ||
| He was doing damage control in Michigan because his policies have harmed our economy so much. | ||
| And we're doing everything we can within the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to push back and as the Congress as a whole. | ||
| But again, it's going to take our Republicans who are in the majority to say, hey, wait a second, these tariffs, this is something that Congress, because Congress represents the American people, that the American people vis-a-vis Congress should have a say in, not one president. | ||
| And this, you know, Pedro, is really one area where I have continued to hear from constituents who might say, hey, I voted for Trump because I wanted big, bold action on the economy, but not like this, right? | ||
| We didn't want this type of unilateral action on tariffs that is going to throw our economy into turmoil. | ||
| These tariffs are poised to add between $2,000 and $3,000 annually to the average American family budget. | ||
| I know in a place like my district, that is way more than any family can afford. | ||
| You have a background in law, specifically in dealing and defending immigrants' rights. | ||
| I was wondering what your assessment is of the Trump administration when it comes to its current actions on immigration and deportation policy. | ||
| You know, I've worked on immigration for close to 20 years in my career, both, as you said, defending and protecting immigrants' rights, but also, notably, working at the Department of Justice, our nation's top law enforcement agency, enforcing our laws. | ||
| So not only do I know a lot about those rights and what needs to be defended, but I've also seen firsthand how you can legally and with justice and a core connection to our identity as a nation of immigrants, enforce our immigration laws in a just, fair, and humane way. | ||
| You know, I actually was working at the administration, at the Justice Department when the first Trump administration came in. | ||
| And I am not an overly partisan person. | ||
| In a place like West Michigan, you know, I am a deeply bipartisan individual and as an attorney, deeply nonpartisan. | ||
| I would have worked for a Republican or a Democrat, but when the Trump administration came in the first time, I saw firsthand how they did not have fidelity to the rule of law. | ||
| And we're seeing this on repeat in the second term as well. | ||
| You know, deporting U.S. citizens, children with cancer. | ||
| It's the type of cruelty, frankly, that caused so many people back home in West Michigan to say, enough is enough. | ||
| This is not what we want. | ||
| You were one of many Democrats who supported the Lake and Riley Act. | ||
| What led you to make that decision? | ||
| Well, again, you know, my background in enforcement, I think a lot of people don't understand. | ||
| You know, you can enforce our immigration laws in a just, fair, and humane way. | ||
| And one of the things about Lake and Riley, you know, our district was impacted by a situation just like this, an individual who came to the attention of law enforcement and then was released and later went on to kill a wonderful young woman in our community, Ruby Garcia. | ||
| And, you know, I think that there has to be a common sense approach to the way that we enforce our immigration laws. | ||
| And I think the American people spoke pretty loud and clear in the election that they wanted more done on immigration enforcement, but many people are speaking up very loudly saying that Trump has gone too far. | ||
| It's up to leaders right now in this moment to step up and push back and say, enough is enough. | ||
| We can have enforcement, but we can do it in a just, fair, and humane way. | ||
| And that is truly the call of this moment. | ||
| This is Representative Hillary Schulton joining us. | ||
| Democrat from Michigan. | ||
| She serves the third district on the Transportation and Information Infrastructure Committees in the small business. | ||
| One small aspect on that small business front, the president's tax policy, notwithstanding, Republicans want to extend it. | ||
| Would you say there's a case for extending that, or to what degree is there a case for extending those tax cuts? | ||
| Some of those tax cuts absolutely should be extended. | ||
| If you put the tax cuts and the tax incentives that help small businesses, that help middle-class Americans on the floor today, I'm standing right across the Capitol. | ||
| You put that on the House floor today, I guarantee it would pass perhaps 435 to zero. | ||
| There is broad bipartisan support for extending tax cuts that help the middle class and that help small businesses. | ||
| But the problem with the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is that it gave 99% of the benefits to the top 1% and added $7 trillion to the debt in the process. | ||
| And we just can't continue to say we're going to fund these tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the middle class, hardworking families, individuals who wind up needing Medicaid at a tough time in their lives. | ||
| Or, as we saw yesterday in the Infrastructure Committee markup, underfunding critical infrastructure in our Coast Guard, our roads, our bridges, and our Great Lakes. | ||
| Representative Hillary Sholton, thank you for your time and joining us today. | ||
| Thank you so much, Pedro. | ||
| Freshman member of Congress, first time on this show, Representative Jeff Heard joining us, Republican of Colorado. | ||
| He serves the 3rd District, serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure and Natural Resources Committee. | ||
| Thanks for your time and giving us your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Happy to join you, Pedro. | |
| Tell us a little bit about your district, the people you represent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, it's the most beautiful congressional district in the country, in my unbiased opinion. | ||
| It's Colorado's 3rd District. | ||
| It's basically western and southern Colorado. | ||
| It has a huge geographic footprint. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| It's actually larger than the state of Pennsylvania. | ||
| So it's where I grew up, where I'm raising my family, and I'm proud to represent it in Congress. | ||
| What drove you to run for Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I felt like rural Colorado is being left behind. | |
| We see our greatest export, our kids. | ||
| They grow up and they leave and they don't come back. | ||
| And my fundamental running, fundamental why for running for Congress is to create economic opportunities so that families in rural America can grow and thrive and stay. | ||
| What would you say then when it comes not only to your district but the larger matter of economics? | ||
| What are your concerns in the current day of where the economy is at? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, the economic climate is something that's really important. | |
| I think that's why people elected me. | ||
| Making sure that we grow our energy economy, keep prices low at the gas pump, grocery store, and in our electric utility bills, create opportunities so that businesses, particularly small businesses, can grow and thrive. | ||
| That's priorities for me in this Congress. | ||
|
Directionally Moving Forward
00:00:58
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| President Trump ran on those issues of improving the economy. | ||
| Where do you think he's at 100-plus days in? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'll tell you what, we've taken more than 100 votes in the House and we're moving in the right direction. | |
| I see a lot of progress when it comes to energy dominance, growing our energy economy, lowering those prices. | ||
| There's always going to be some bumps along the way, but fundamentally, directionally, I think we're in the right direction and we need to work hard to keep pressing forward and advancing that agenda. | ||
| Is tariff policy something that impacts those you represent? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, it's something I've heard from the people that I represent, and I've actually introduced legislation in the House that would restore Congress's authority under Article 1, Section 8 to have a say when it comes to tariffs. | |
| I support the President's goals of onshore and critical manufacturing, growing American jobs, making sure that we can sell American products in other economies overseas. | ||
|
Congressional Tariff Debate
00:03:06
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unidentified
|
But we need to make sure that we do it the right way, the way that the Constitution contemplates, and that's Article 1, Section 8. | |
| So I've got some legislation that would give Congress review authority with respect to tariffs. | ||
| And I think that's the right thing, both constitutionally and also it's what I promised the people of my district. | ||
| When you say that you want Congress to take more of a role, are you suggesting that Congress isn't stepping up to the plate and asserting itself when it comes to tariff policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think Congress should have a say in what happens with respect to tariffs. | |
| The legislation that we've introduced would give Congress a 60-day window within which it could review tariffs that were imposed by the executive branch and see whether or not they make sense and whether or not they're the right thing for our country, again, just as the Constitution would contemplate. | ||
| We saw on the Senate side a similar type of vote to restore authority on that front. | ||
| It didn't pass. | ||
| Do you think Republicans widespread have an appetite to circumvent the government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The yays are 246, the nays are 164. | |
| The joint resolution is passed. | ||
| Without objection, the motion is considered laid on the table. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, that it adjourn to meet at noon on Monday next for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The chair | |
| will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Arizona seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from Arizona is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| rise today to honor Kathy Herod. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman will suspend. | |
| That will be in order. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I rise today to honor Kathy Harrod, who recently retired from the Center for Arizona Policy after serving 20 years as president. | ||
|
Kathy's Legacy
00:15:49
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| Kathy dedicated her life's work to promoting and defending the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and families, and religious freedom. | ||
| She joined CAP in 1997. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, House, not in order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman is correct. | |
| The gentleman may proceed. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Kathy joined CAP in 1997, shortly after its founding as Legislative Council. | ||
| Upon retirement of CAPS founder Lynn Munsell in 2005, Kathy assumed the role of president and has since been a force for good at the Arizona Capitol. | ||
| Since CAPS founding, more than 200 pieces of CAP-sponsored legislation have been passed by the Arizona legislature, including many that protect the unborn and protect mothers. | ||
| Kathy has received numerous awards and distinctions for her work. | ||
| She was recognized by Arizona newspapers as one of the 10 most influential leaders at the Arizona Capitol. | ||
| She received the Family Champion Award from Focus on the Family and received the William Wilberforce Award from Students for Life America. | ||
| I'm grateful for the work of dedicated individuals like Kathy, who relentlessly strive to promote policies that protect the dignity of every Arizonan. | ||
| I wish Kathy well in her much-deserved retirement, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman yields back. | |
| For what purpose does a gentlewoman from North Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| To address the House for one minute and revise the next 10 months. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentlewoman from North Carolina will be recognized for one minute. | |
| I rise today to join millions of American women in condemning Trump's attempt to gut funding for women's health research. | ||
| The Trump administration has rescinded women's research projects at an alarming rate. | ||
| These projects include life-saving research on early breast cancer detection and so much more. | ||
| Trump even shut down the Women's Health Initiative, our nation's largest and most consequential women's health study. | ||
| Millions of women's lives are at stake. | ||
| That's why I led my Democratic Women's Caucus colleagues in demanding that Trump immediately reverse course. | ||
| I'm relieved to announce that the administration heeded our call and the heartfelt appeals of our constituents and restored this crucial funding. | ||
| But this fight is far from over. | ||
| The Trump administration is waging a war on science and on women. | ||
| We must stay vigilant and we will fight back. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlewoman from North Carolina yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Georgia seek recognition? | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman from Georgia is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Ms. Joan Quarterman, a remarkable woman who has dedicated 52 years of service to the city of Savannah. | ||
| As a longtime employee of the Leisure Services Bureau, she played a vital role in shaping the lives of countless children and families. | ||
| For decades, she was a beloved figure at Hull Park, leading summer programs that provided a safe, welcoming space for young people to learn, grow, and have fun. | ||
| Through games, activities, and free lunches, she ensured that every child felt valued and supported regardless of their background. | ||
| Ms. Quarterman was more than just a city employee. | ||
| She was a mentor. | ||
| She was a role model and a constant presence in the life of many. | ||
| Her kindness, her patience, and dedication left a lasting imprint on our community, and her impact will be felt for generations to come. | ||
| Her work reflects the very best of public service, selflessness, commitment, and unwavering devotion to others. | ||
| Today, we congratulate Ms. Quarterman on her well-earned retirement and thank her for more than five decades of service. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Georgia yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentlewoman from Michigan is recognized for one minute. | |
| I want to honor the incredible life and legacy of my dear friend George Saba, who served Metro Detroit's immigrant community for over four decades as a Board of Immigration Appeals accredited representative. | ||
| George would walk in a room with his big smile, and everyone, everyone would smile back. | ||
| George dedicated his life to reuniting thousands of families, first at the International Institute of Metro Detroit and later at Access, always bringing compassion, warmth, and unwavering commitment. | ||
| He was born in Ramullah, and George was proud of being Palestinian and his heritage, and actively was involved with the American Federation of Ramullah, working to preserve and pass on his culture to future generations. | ||
| His work transformed lives, and his presence brought comfort and strength to so many. | ||
| On behalf of the 12th Congressional District, we extend our deepest sympathies to his beloved wife, and to Del, his children, Paul, and his daughter, Janan, and his late, dear son, M. Jed, and his entire family and friends. | ||
| May his legacy live on and his memory continue to be a blessing and a source of strength. | ||
| Aleramo. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| The gentleman from Michigan yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask Unanimous consent to address the House one minute revised day, Samara Morris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman from South Carolina will now be recognized for one minute. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Last night, the United States and Ukraine signed the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. | ||
| Underscoring the alliance of our countries, the agreement provides Ukraine a credible deterrence. | ||
| David Zimmerman and National Review reported the agreement gives the U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals for a promised security guarantee to protect Kiev from future Russian aggression, signaling President Donald Trump's commitment to ending the war. | ||
| Treasury Secretary Scott Besson elaborated, quote, this agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. | ||
| In conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues. | ||
| Open borders for dictators puts all Americans at risk of more 9-11 attacks imminent, as warned by the FBI. | ||
| Trump is reinstituting existing laws to protect American families with peace through strength, revealing war criminal Putin lies as he insults President Truth with fake ceasefire murdering civilians yesterday in Odessa. | ||
| Congratulations, Ambassador Warren Stevens, on being sworn in as America's ambassador to the United Kingdom. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
With that, the gentleman from South Carolina yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from North Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| Ms. Speaker Grass for unanimous one minute to advise me. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from North Carolina will be recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the talented artists of North Carolina's first congressional district who participated in the 2025 Congressional Art Competition. | ||
| I was honored to host a ceremony recognizing over 30 dynamic talented high school artists. | ||
| I especially congratulate our first place winner, Valerie Jacobson of Martin County, for her piece, The Unbothered Sister, inspired by her sister. | ||
| I also applaud our second and third place winners, Addison Rich of Nash County and Reagan Green of Greene County. | ||
| And a special thanks goes to every participant for their involvement in an extremely competitive competition. | ||
| Their artwork reminded me that the future is bright and colorful in eastern North Carolina. | ||
| These young artists are a true reflection of the heart and spirit of the East. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from North Carolina yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| I request to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman from Michigan will be recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life, service, and memory of Staff Sergeant Troy Smith Knudson Collins. | ||
| On April 1st, a month ago today, Staff Sergeant Knudson Collins tragically lost his life during a tactical training exercise in Lithuania that also killed three other members of the 3rd Infantry Battalion. | ||
| Troy was born and raised in Battle Creek, Michigan, graduating from Harper Creek High School in 2015. | ||
| And Troy had many hobbies, including woodworking and football and gaming. | ||
| After graduating high school, he actually played semi-pro football before he enlisted in the Army at age 20, where he served as an artillery mechanic. | ||
| Staff Sergeant Troy Smith Knudson Collins was deployed to Korea twice and was serving in Lithuania when tragedy struck. | ||
| In honor of his service, he will be returning back home to Battle Creek and be buried at the Fort Custer National Cemetery tomorrow on Friday. | ||
| Troy is survived by his wife and five children, along with his parents, Robert and Tasha Collins, and six siblings. | ||
| So, Mr. Speaker, I ask that we may all rise and honor the memory of Staff Sergeant Troy Smith Knudson Collins with a moment of silence. | ||
| Rest well, soldier. | ||
| Rest well. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Michigan yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from Virginia is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to recognize the recent Valor Award winners and honorees from Fauquier County, individuals who embody courage and service. | ||
| Sponsored by the Fauquier Chamber of Commerce, the Valor Awards highlight the critical work local law enforcement and first responders do every day to keep our communities safe. | ||
| And among this year's Lifetime Achievement Awards was Warrington Police Chief Tim Carter, a native of Fauquier County. | ||
| Chief Carter has served his hometown as a police officer, a corporal, detective sergeant, lieutenant, and deputy chief before becoming police chief in 2023. | ||
| Also recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award was retired Fire Chief Dale Coughlin. | ||
| Chief Coughlin served the Warrington Volunteer Fire Company for 62 years, first joining when he was only 14 years old. | ||
| Another award went to Sergeant John Larson, who donated a portion of his liver to a child after screening said that he was a good match. | ||
| And George Shulin was honored for his courageous service as a platoon leader in the Army. | ||
| To the Valor Award winners and honorees and to those who work to keep our communities safe every day, thank you for your service. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Virginia yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from Indiana is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, President Trump, Indiana Governor Braun, and House Republicans in our first 100 days have worked in unison to make our communities safer, our citizens healthier, and our country wealthier. | ||
| It has started at the border. | ||
| The Trump administration's swift and strong actions have caused illegal aliens to simply give up on crossing our borders illegally, proven by the 94% drop in apprehensions since March of 2024. | ||
| These efforts have only been strengthened by Governor Braun sending the Indiana National Guard to the border and the House passage of the SAVE Act. | ||
| Governor Braun has made Indiana healthier by signing nine health-related executive orders, one of which addresses the same harmful food dyes and artificial ingredients that President Trump and the administration banned this past week. | ||
| This was accomplished while the House literally saved lives by securing medical protection for babies that survived attempted abortions. | ||
| Finally, the three have worked in unison in making our country wealthier by both executives implementing their own Doge initiatives and the House working overtime to codify those cuts. | ||
| There is so much more I can mention, but the best of all of this is that it's just beginning. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I'll yield back. | ||
| The gentleman from Indiana yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman from Virginia is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize May 2nd as non-ketotic hyperglycinemia awareness day. | ||
| NKH is a rare genetic disorder, and there are only 500 kids in the world living with it. | ||
| Four of them call the Commonwealth of Virginia home. | ||
| Today, I'm proud to be joined by one of these incredible kids. | ||
| My constituent Luca and his family, Jackie and her dad, Eddie, are also important advocates in Virginia dealing with this disease. | ||
| At one of my town halls, Luca's mom shared their story with me. | ||
| It was a story where Medicaid was at the center. | ||
| Without reliable Medicaid, Luca would not receive his 18 daily medications, at-home care, and other resources he needs. | ||
| His mom and dad, Shannon and Chris, work full-time jobs and Medicaid as a backup insurance. | ||
| By establishing May 2nd as NKH Awareness Day, we raise awareness for this devastating disease and recommit to fighting for reliable Medicaid because every family should be focused on spending time with their loved ones, not worrying about health care. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Virginia yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Oregon seek recognition? | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I request unanimous consent to address the House Chamber and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentlewoman from Oregon is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, the emergency isn't coming. | ||
| It's here. | ||
| Donald Trump is abducting American children. | ||
|
Critical Care Crisis
00:08:27
|
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| He's detaining judges. | ||
| He's disappearing people into foreign prisons. | ||
| This is authoritarianism in full view. | ||
| I didn't come to Congress to sit back while democracy is dismantled. | ||
| To the contrary, I will use every tool at my disposal to protect our democracy. | ||
| When the people of Gresham, Hood River, and Portland demanded action, I went to El Salvador because we have to stand up for due process. | ||
| And as a critical care physician, I am trained to act. | ||
| I am trained to do everything in my power to address the crisis in front of me. | ||
| When we sat down with the U.S. Embassy, one thing was chillingly clear. | ||
| Donald Trump has done nothing, not one thing, to bring Kilmara Brego Garcia or any of the detainees home. | ||
| Their families haven't heard a word, no calls, no updates, no proof of life, just silence. | ||
| But here's what gives me hope. | ||
| Yesterday, Mohsen Madawi, a detained Columbia student, was released on bail, and he said something we all need to hold close. | ||
| We must believe in the inevitability of justice. | ||
| I will stand for justice. | ||
| I encourage my colleagues to stand for justice. | ||
| And I look forward to the fight ahead. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlewoman from Oregon yields her time. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personal personalities towards the president. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| I request unanimous consent to address the House and to extend and revise my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentlewoman from Ohio is recognized for one minute. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Today I rise to recognize Adeline Ferguson as Ohio's 13th Congressional District Champion of the Week. | ||
| Adeline is a junior from Portage Lakes Career Center in Uniontown, Ohio, and out of nearly 50 participants, she took home the first place prize for this year's congressional art competition in Ohio's 13th district. | ||
| I had the opportunity to see Adeline's winning piece shown here and present her with the first place prize at a community art show in Akron last week. | ||
| I can truly say that her piece titled Lollipop is a captivating and creative portrait of Adeline's beloved grandmother, Annette. | ||
| I had the pleasure of meeting Adeline and Annette and as you can see Adeline uses bright colours, bright exciting colours that showcase her grandmother's beauty and bright smile. | ||
| As the winner of our district's congressional art competition, Adeline's artwork will be proudly displayed on the walls of the Capitol where visitors from across the United States and the world can see our community's artistic and creative talent. | ||
| I personally can't wait to see Annette's smiling face each time I walk to vote on the House floor. | ||
| In addition to recognizing her exceptional artistic talent, I'd also like to thank Amy Ebal, Adeline's art teacher at Portish Lakes Career Center. | ||
| Art teachers like Amy's inspire and support young artists and students like Adeline each day, and we are grateful for their dedication and hard work in the classroom. | ||
| Congratulations again to Adeline on being the winner of Ohio's 13th Congressional District Art Competition and this week's Champion of the Week. | ||
| I look forward to seeing what Adeline and other talented student artists in our district create next. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlewoman from Ohio yields back. | |
| For what purpose does a gentleman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I ask for unanimous consent to adjust the House for one minute, revise, and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from Ohio is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to share a story of a constituent and a friend, Shane. | ||
| Shane has a rare and painful disorder that makes the skin incredibly fragile and there's no cure. | ||
| Thanks to breakthrough gene therapy, one Shane helped to test, he and others finally have hope, but that hope is diminishing. | ||
| At Trump's urging, Congressional Republicans are proposing a nearly $1 trillion cut in health care and have already slashed rare disease funding by over a billion dollars. | ||
| They're blocking a policy that would allow Medicaid to cover out-of-state care essential for families with children or loved ones with this rare condition, especially since so few hospitals specialize in rare diseases. | ||
| Shane lives in Cincinnati, so he has Cincinnati's Children's Hospital. | ||
| But with these cuts, services at children's will be undermined. | ||
| Shane told me recently I want to use whatever time I have left to help others with this and other rare diseases. | ||
| I just wanted to come to the floor today to say thank you, Shane. | ||
| We're fighting for you. | ||
| We're fighting with you and every family that's facing these terrible decisions with these health care cuts. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman from Ohio yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Illinois seek recognition? | ||
| Address the House for one minute and revise and extend. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman from Illinois is recognized for one minute. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to bring attention to yet another decision by the Trump administration that puts Americans' lives at risk. | ||
| On April 1st, 2025, almost the entire Division of Blood Disorders and Public Health Genomics, a department of the CDC established to combat blood infections in the wake of the AIDS epidemic, was placed on administrative leave. | ||
| This decision to eliminate this division was, of course, made by the Elon Musk Department of Government Efficiency, or DOE. | ||
| Now, people with blood disorders across the United States will have to worry about contaminated blood transfusions. | ||
| They will also be left wondering whether critical research to prevent and treat their conditions will be abandoned. | ||
| And they will have to reckon with the fact that the same government that swore to help them turned its back on them, all so that Republicans can find more money to give billionaires new tax breaks. | ||
| Vital programs like the Division of Blood Disorders should not be subject to political games, and those suffering from blood disorders should not have to fear that a blood transfusion will kill them. | ||
| Defunding the CDC puts lives at risk, and staff put on administrative leave should be reinstated immediately. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield back. | |
| The gentleman from Illinois yields back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from California is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support California's right to clean air. | ||
| Growing up in Southern California in the 1980s, smog alerts were a regular part of life. | ||
| A lap around the track at school and your chest would burn. | ||
| We can't go back to those days. | ||
| When President Richard Nixon signed the Federal Clean Air Act in 1970, California, under Governor Ronald Reagan, was given a waiver letting us set stricter air pollution rules than the federal government. | ||
| Over the years, Republican and Democratic leaders alike, from Governors Reagan to Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, stood together to protect California's right to clean up our air. | ||
| But now House Republicans are trying to strip away California's ability to set our own air pollution standards. | ||
| So much for states' rights. | ||
| After all the progress we've made, they want to turn back the clock and do the bidding of the big polluters. | ||
| Clean air is not a partisan issue. | ||
| It is a public health issue, and I will never, never stop fighting to protect it. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from California yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| Anthony Gannon's consent to address the House for one minute to remind some extended remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentlewoman from Ohio is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise with immense joy and gratitude to celebrate the upcoming grand opening of the new Wayman-Palmer YMCA in Toledo, Ohio. | ||
|
Beacon for Enjoyment
00:10:00
|
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| The event dedication will take place on May 12th. | ||
| This new facility is more than a building. | ||
| It's a beacon for enjoyment, a hub of our community, and a promise to our children, families, and neighbors that community life thrives in the heart of Toledo. | ||
| For decades, the Wayman-Palmer YMCA has been a pillar of the Warren-Sherman neighborhood. | ||
| And with this new state-of-the-art facility, where federal funds attracted local funds. | ||
| I thank Mayor Kapsikiewicz for joining in this great effort. | ||
| The YMCA will reaffirm our commitment to the health, wellness, and future of the heart of our community. | ||
| This center will not only offer world-class fitness and recreation, it will also provide vital programs for youth development, mentorship, and enrichment. | ||
| Every child who walks through those doors knows they are welcome. | ||
| I congratulate the city of Toledo and feel greatly honored to be able to join with all of the council members and citizens for the upcoming groundbreaking. | ||
| It will bring renewed hope with the dawn of spring, and I hope to be a party to planting new trees around the region and to celebrate the beginning of spring 2025. | ||
| Congratulations to all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlewoman from Ohio yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Rhode Island seek recognition? | ||
| I asked to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman from Rhode Island is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise for the third time to call for funding for global emergency food aid to be restored. | ||
| For years, U.S. AID funded the production of ready-to-use therapeutic foods at Odisha Nutrition in my district. | ||
| The food that was manufactured there had been shipped across the developing world, saving the lives of 25 million children since 2010, until funding for new orders was halted by the Trump administration earlier this year. | ||
| But this is not just about saving lives. | ||
| This food aid has also strengthened America's national security and commercial interests. | ||
| In the same country where this ready-to-use food has saved the lives of children, the United States relies on cooperation on a range of issues from counterterrorism to access to critical minerals. | ||
| When the administration pulled back on this food aid, China and our other adversaries were happy to swoop in to win hearts and minds across the developing world. | ||
| Our nation is safer and more competitive as a result of our goodwill toward others. | ||
| And so I rise for the third time to urge the White House and my colleagues in Congress to restore funding to protect America's leadership. | ||
| And I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Rhode Island yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my report. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from New York is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| New federal economic data came out yesterday, and it showed that in the last three months, the U.S. economy shrank by 0.3 percent. | ||
| This is a sharp reversal from the 2.4 percent growth the economy experienced in the last quarter of 2024. | ||
| This now is the worst economy that a president has had in their first 100 days since President Nixon. | ||
| Despite promises, candidate Trump made that he would lower costs on day one, prices remain high, and in fact, it's expected that prices can rise by 6.5 percent by year's end. | ||
| Trump policies are why prices remain high, even though he's tried to pin this on former President Biden. | ||
| The red light, green light, tariff policies have caused uncertainty in all sectors of our economy and internationally. | ||
| Wall Street and Main Street alike have been sending signals for weeks that they do not like or trust those economic plans. | ||
| The stock market has dropped almost 9 percent and lost 4.5 trillion dollars in wealth. | ||
| This is hurting everyday Americans, including people in Westchester and the Bronx. | ||
| President Trump, you are the president now. | ||
| This is your economy. | ||
| Own it, fix it. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from New York yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Illinois seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman from Illinois is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I rise today to honor the victims of the horrific car crash that occurred in Chatham, Illinois on Monday afternoon. | ||
| Alma Bruner Kempe, Catherine Corley, Ainslie Johnson, and Riley Britton. | ||
| As we mourn the four children killed in this unthinkable tragedy, it is hard to find the words to describe the magnitude of our grief. | ||
| It is a loss that no parent, no family should ever have to endure. | ||
| Please join me in praying for them and for the swift recovery of those that were injured. | ||
| I'm grateful to the first responders who rushed to the scene and for the school staff, faith leaders, and volunteers who have stepped up to assist our community in the aftermath. | ||
| As we struggle to come to terms with this loss in the days and weeks ahead, I pray that our community can continue to lean on each other and begin to heal. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlewoman from Illinois yields back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| I seek to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks as needed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentlewoman from Michigan will be recognized for one minute. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to recognize an incredible individual who was taken from this world far too soon. | ||
| My dear friend, Molly McGovern, the daughter of Congressman my colleague, our colleague, Jim McGovern, and his beautiful wife, Lisa, and the sister of her very delightful brother, Patrick. | ||
| I love all the McGoverns, but Molly was special, and Molly was very much my friend and someone who I loved watching live life. | ||
| Despite a very rare cancer diagnosis, Molly's light just shined so bright. | ||
| She made me, even as a member of Congress, feel special. | ||
| I watched her go abroad. | ||
| I let her push me to do fun things, spending every single night of the Democratic Convention with her and her parents. | ||
| Molly, you're going to be so messed. | ||
| But your memory and your impact and who you are as an individual will live on. | ||
| We will take care of your brother. | ||
| We will watch out for your parents. | ||
| And my friend, I will continue to toast you with an apple sprets. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman, the gentlewoman from Michigan, yields back. | |
| The chair now lays before the house a communication. | ||
| The Honorable Speaker, House of Representatives, sir, pursuant to Section 4703B of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence and Education Act 20 USC 4703, I am pleased to appoint the following member to the Board of Trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, Representative John B. Larson of Connecticut, signed sincerely, Hakeem Jefferies, | ||
| Democratic Leader. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, is now recognized for 60 minutes as a designee of the Minority Leader of the House. | |
| And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And still I rise with my cane in hand. | ||
| So feared this cane by many of my colleagues across the aisle. | ||
| Feared to the extent that they would conclude that it might be more than a cane. | ||
| But that's simply what it is, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And I rise with my cane in hand because it is the staff and rod that comforts me. | ||
|
Fidelity to Sycophancy
00:15:30
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| I rise with my cane in hand because, quite frankly, I just believe I have the right to have a cane. | ||
| So I rise today to speak on several different topics. | ||
| And as a result, I will move from one podium to another to present these various topics. | ||
| I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to address the issue of fidelity to sycophancy emanating from the presidency. | ||
| Fidelity to sycophancy emanating from the presidency. | ||
| I just recently saw, and many of you saw it as well, members of the cabinet, persons meeting with the president in the Oval Office. | ||
| I never thought I would see persons holding such high and lofty positions pledging fealty, not to the presidency as much as to sycophancy. | ||
| Fealty. | ||
| It was just unbelievable. | ||
| The only time I saw anything similar to this was when I was in communist China and I was with a group of very young children, babies, maybe five, six years old at most, and they were all seated in a line. | ||
| And they all behaved in a similar fashion when called upon. | ||
| I saw persons with lofty positions, each of them there, I thought, to give the president a report about conditions related to their various areas of expertise and the departments that they are associated with. | ||
| That's what I thought. | ||
| Silly me. | ||
| They were there to pledge their fealty on national TV to the president of the United States of America. | ||
| It was a sad sight to see each person telling the president how great you are. | ||
| Dear brothers and sisters, and I say brothers and sisters because I think we're all related, one race to human race. | ||
| But dear friends, Mr. Secretary of State, Madam Attorney General, don't let him steal your self-respect. | ||
| Don't let him take your decency as it relates to your humanity from you. | ||
| You are allowing him to reduce you to a less than. | ||
| I will speak for you. | ||
| Mr. President, you are demeaning the humanity of the people who are in service to this country. | ||
| And I will speak for them and tell you that if I were in that room, I would walk out. | ||
| I would not sit there and allow you to demean me in that fashion. | ||
| At some point, you've got to grow the spine. | ||
| Those of you who are in that room, grow the spine, grow the will, grow the determination to stand up, be the person your family expects you to be. | ||
| Be the person the country wants you to be and needs you to be. | ||
| Don't become a rubber stamp for this president. | ||
| He doesn't deserve that level of loyalty. | ||
| And finally, on this topic, at some point, each of you in that room will have to account for what you have done. | ||
| I don't mean in a violent way. | ||
| I just mean that at some point on the infinite continuum that we call time, you're going to have to account for those times. | ||
| And the question won't be how loyal were you to the president. | ||
| It will be whether you stood on principle when you had an opportunity to deal with the great issues of your time related to this country. | ||
| There will be a day of reckoning for you, not in terms of harm to you physically, but in terms of your reputational risk being codified so that those who look through the vista of time will see what you did and did not do at this time. | ||
| And still I rise, Mr. Speaker, proud to have this opportunity to speak in this almost sacred place. | ||
| Proud to have the opportunity to address a topic of paramount importance to the American people. | ||
| Proud to acknowledge a colleague who has taken a very bold stand, a colleague who has engaged in a form of protestation Will not always be received initially with the kind of respect that it merits. | ||
| But as I have said before, dear friends, when you engage in protestation, when you protest and you get in the way, as the Honorable John Lewis put it, when you protest and you get in the way, there will be consequences. | ||
| So you must be prepared to suffer the consequences when you get in the way, when you protest. | ||
| You must. | ||
| Now you don't have to like the consequences, but you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences when you get in the way. | ||
| So today I want to acknowledge my colleague, a member of Congress who filed articles of impeachment. | ||
| I am proud of him. | ||
| I salute him. | ||
| I applaud him for what he has done. | ||
| He too is laying the groundwork for impeachment. | ||
| I said some time ago now that this president would be impeached again. | ||
| I said some time ago that I was going to bring articles of impeachment. | ||
| And I'm proud to know that there are others who are now joining in this effort to impeach this president. | ||
| I am very proud of what this congressperson has done. | ||
| Trelanda, your articles of impeachment, HRES 353, are historic. | ||
| I'm going to mention them as such because do not expect the networks, maybe there might be one or two that'll say something positive and bring you on, but don't expect it because they give you all of the rationale for impeachment, but they don't want to see it happen. | ||
| Unfortunately, there are people like you who have to put principle above politics. | ||
| I have your articles in my hand. | ||
| Principle above politics. | ||
| And understand, my dear brother, that when you put principle above politics, you're doing what the American people want you to do. | ||
| Because the American people, at this time, when we are confronting a crisis related to our democracy, the hue and cry is not for you to always win. | ||
| For those who believe that you only fight when you win, you're not going to win the hearts and minds of the American people. | ||
| The American people want to know if you will fight even though you may not win. | ||
| Will you fight? | ||
| Will you fight and put everything on the line? | ||
| That's what the American people are interested in when we hold these positions of public trust. | ||
| So don't despair when people say to you, this is not the time. | ||
| The time is always right to do what is right. | ||
| That's Dr. King talking. | ||
| The time is always right to do what is right. | ||
| You did the right thing. | ||
| And because I'm confident and believe in what you've done, I'm signing on to your articles of impeachment. | ||
| Add my name to your articles of impeachment. | ||
| I'm proud of what you have done, because you have put principle above politics. | ||
| And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And I rise at this moment in time to preview my articles of impeachment. | ||
| To preview, not to present, but to preview my articles of impeachment. | ||
| And before giving this preview, I'd like to thank a couple of people. | ||
| There are many that I should thank, but there are a couple that I will thank. | ||
| I'd like to thank a couple of people for what they have done in assisting me with these articles of impeachment. | ||
| My dear friend John Boniface, who has been with me from the genesis of this, when we brought articles of impeachment against President Trump previously, laid the foundation for it, when people said it can only be done if certain things exist, and then later on retracted all of that when they were ready to move forward or had to move forward, to be quite candid with you, | ||
| because the momentum have shifted and it built up to the extent that you had notables like the Honorable John Lewis supporting the Articles of Impeachment that I drafted and placed before this House and other members who were holding positions of leadership in the House of Representatives signed on to the Articles of Impeachment. | ||
| So the tide had turned and there was little choice but to go along with what the people wanted, not what we were doing at the time, but what the people wanted and the people were demanding. | ||
| So I'm very proud to thank John for what he has done to assist. | ||
| But there's also another person who provided me with some very sage advice, someone that I have great respect for and have admired over the decades. | ||
| Ralph Nader. | ||
| Many of you may not know the name, but Mr. Nader was a crusader for justice of the highest magnitude. | ||
| He took stands when others wouldn't even speak the words that he stood on. | ||
| And I'm proud to thank him for what he has done to assist in helping me to draw conclusions about these articles of impeachment. | ||
| So let's preview the impeachment process and the articles that I intend to introduce. | ||
| I said I would and I will. | ||
| First, let's start with what is impeachment. | ||
| I think that because this is something that people hear about and a good many people will conclude that articles of impeachment must contain something related to a constitutional crisis. | ||
| There is no necessity for a constitutional crisis to impeach. | ||
|
unidentified
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None. | |
| You can, but most of the articles of impeachment have not related to a constitutional crisis. | ||
| The first person to ever have been impeached was a judge. | ||
| And it wasn't because there was a constitutional crisis, it was because of his behavior on the bench. | ||
| And because he was consuming alcohol at a time when he should have been taking his lofty position and adjudicating appropriately. | ||
| No constitutional crisis. | ||
| Not only do you not need a constitutional crisis, you don't have to be convicted of a crime. | ||
| And that doesn't have to be a criminal, a codified criminal statute that has been violated. | ||
| None of that is necessary for impeachment. | ||
| No need to commit a crime. | ||
| Best example, my colleague who used to sit right over there on this row at the end of this row. | ||
| My colleague who sat there, I was here with him for more than a decade, the Honorable Alce Hastings. | ||
| He was a federal judge. | ||
| He was tried and found not guilty of alleged offenses. | ||
| After he was tried and found not guilty of alleged offenses, his colleagues put together a committee and they drew a different conclusion about his behavior. | ||
| They took their conclusion to the Senate of the United States of America, to the House of Representatives, and my dear friend and brother was impeached. | ||
| Impeached and removed from office. | ||
| But because I am a believer, I often say there is a God. | ||
| He was thereafter elected to the Congress of the United States of America. | ||
| The point is, however, notwithstanding him having been found not guilty, the Senate found reason to impeach him. | ||
| And he was impeached for something that he had been found not guilty of by a jury of his peers, pursuant to the Constitution of the United States of America. | ||
|
Impeachment Without Due Process
00:15:15
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| You don't have to be found guilty of a crime to be impeached. | ||
| Now, along this very line, I would say this, in terms of being found guilty. | ||
| That means that if you have been found guilty of crimes, you can be brought before this body if you fall within what the Constitution allows for impeachment. | ||
| You can be brought before this body by way of impeachment. | ||
| You can be brought before the Congress if you have committed 34 felonies. | ||
| If you've committed 34 felonies, you can be brought before the Congress for impeachment if you happen to hold one of the offices presented to us by way of the Constitution of the United States of America, such that you might be impeached. | ||
| 34 felonies. | ||
| Yeah, you can be impeached for that. | ||
| But I'm not going to talk about those felonies today. | ||
| I want you to understand something that Gerald Ford said about impeachment, former President of the United States of America. | ||
| Because there are some people who have read the Federalist Papers. | ||
| I've read them. | ||
| I've read the words of Hamilton, the words of Jay, the words of Madison. | ||
| I've read them. | ||
| And they now have come to these lofty conclusions about what impeachment is. | ||
| Well, I'm going to tell you the truth about what it is, and I defy any one of these constitutional scholars to contradict with evidence that supports something antithetical to what I'm saying. | ||
| Gerald Ford got it right, president. | ||
|
unidentified
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Got it right. | |
| He said impeachment, and I'm paraphrasing, these are not his exact words. | ||
| He said, Impeachment is whatever a given Congress, whenever they vote for 218 majority vote of a given Congress, | ||
| whenever a given Congress will vote in the majority for articles of impeachment on a given day, that will be an impeached person because impeachment is whatever a majority of Congress says it is on a given day. | ||
| Now, that was more close to what he said. | ||
| Whatever a given Congress says it is on a given day, and a given Congress would mean a majority of the people voting for impeachment. | ||
| There is no appeal. | ||
| It is a political question by definition. | ||
| And as a political question by definition, it doesn't go to another court if someone differs or the Supreme Court. | ||
| It goes to the Senate. | ||
| And the Senate has the trial. | ||
| This is why Andrew Johnson could be impeached in 1868, Article 10 of the Articles of Impeachment against him for speaking ill of Congress. | ||
| You can be impeached for saying bad things about Congress. | ||
| Andrew Johnson was. | ||
| So let's get one thing straight. | ||
| All of you constitutional scholars who want to convince people that there is some lofty definition that you have studied for some number of years and now you've come to conclusions that most people can't understand. | ||
| My dear brothers and sisters, impeachment is whatever a majority of Congress says it is on a given time, on a given day. | ||
| That's impeachment. | ||
| So if Congress chooses to impeach because of the tie that you're wearing at a given time, I wear this tie. | ||
| There's some people who don't appreciate it as much as I do. | ||
| Be impeached. | ||
| Now, members of Congress cannot be impeached. | ||
| We're not included in the definition of persons who may be impeached. | ||
| So now let's talk about impeachment that I plan to file. | ||
| These impeachment articles have been drafted. | ||
| I have gone over them. | ||
| They've been in my hand for now some time, time that exceeds the finished product, was actually in my hands for probably a week or so. | ||
| But I wanted to do some additional things, so I checked and I've changed and added a few things. | ||
| But I've had these impeachment articles, and there's a target-rich environment when dealing with this president when it comes to impeachment. | ||
| So knowing where to start is the issue. | ||
| Not is there a place to start, but knowing where to start is the issue. | ||
| So I'll be introducing these articles of impeachment. | ||
| And I'm just going to go straight to one of the articles or maybe the article. | ||
| I've got options. | ||
| I may delete some things when I introduce. | ||
| But I want to just mention this option because it's the one that people talk about in words other than what I would present. | ||
| They talk about this impeachment. | ||
| They say that he's a threat to democracy. | ||
| They say that he disrespects the Constitution. | ||
| They say these things, but I'm not sure that everybody who says these things is truly interested in the consequences related to what the president should suffer for doing these things. | ||
| I'm not sure that they want to see the consequences. | ||
| I think that there are some people who literally just enjoy saying the president is destroying democracy. | ||
| The president does not honor the constitutional provision related to respecting a person's right to a trial, fair trial, which brings along with it the whole notion that you just can't pick a person up off the street, send them to a foreign country with an indefinite sentence. | ||
| Just lock them up, pick them up off the street, take them to a foreign country, lock them up. | ||
| Indefinite amount of time. | ||
| There has to be some sense of reality associated with what we do, and I want to talk about that sense of reality. | ||
| This president is defying court orders, including orders from the Supreme Court of the United States of America. | ||
| He is defying. | ||
| You've heard him say now in two venues. | ||
| I'm going to speak about both of them briefly in just a moment. | ||
| But he said in two venues that he's not going to honor the necessity for a person to have what we call due process. | ||
| Two venues. | ||
| He said it. | ||
| Now, the president didn't come out and say, I'm not going to honor due process. | ||
| No. | ||
| But he has said what a reasonable and prudent person can conclude as his indication of not going to honor due process of the law, which is something the Constitution requires if you are going to take life or liberty or property from a person. | ||
| Person has to have due process. | ||
| It's got to be able to say if you're going to take a person and lock them up, they've got to be able to say, hey, you got the wrong guy. | ||
| And they ought to be able to say it to someone other than the arresting person. | ||
| They ought to be able to say it to someone who has authority over the arresting person. | ||
| You ought to be able to go to a disinterested third party. | ||
| We call that the judiciary in this country. | ||
| Some member of the judiciary or some judge go before a judge and say, judge, you got the wrong person. | ||
| You ought to be able to use the great writ of habeas corpus to get yourself before a judge. | ||
| You ought not be taken out of the country before you have that opportunity. | ||
| And then if you are out of the country, the Supreme Court can tell you that you ought to facilitate the return of that person. | ||
| That's what the Supreme Court has said. | ||
| And that's what this president is refusing to do, refusing to honor the Supreme Court's order. | ||
| I call that in Article 1 of my articles of impeachment, devolving democracy within the United States into a dictatorship with himself as a de facto dictator, a de facto dictator. | ||
| My friends, truth be told, we are now into a de facto dictatorship with a de facto dictator. | ||
| Not a dictatorship that has been declared by some official body. | ||
| But when the president of the United States declines to honor orders of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, he becomes the person who decides not only that a person should be pursued under the authority of the executive branch, | ||
| he has now disregarded the separation of powers and he's now encroached upon the supremacy of the judiciary, a co-equal branch of government. | ||
| He dispenses with the necessity for the judiciary to perform its functions. | ||
| And in so doing, he has become a de facto dictator, a de facto dictator. | ||
| Now, this is not in my impeachment orders, but I have to bring this up because of the impact that he's having. | ||
| I'll talk more about what's in my articles in just a moment. | ||
| But I want to mention this. | ||
| Could be in, but I want to mention this. | ||
| As a de facto dictator, the president is engaging in de facto ethnic cleansing. | ||
| The removal without due process. | ||
| Oh, I know it's not the kind of ethnic cleansing that most people are acclimated to. | ||
| Yes, I understand that this is a nouveau ethnic cleansing. | ||
| Nouveau de facto ethnic cleansing. | ||
| Removing people without due process to another country without the person being able to go before some disinterested third party and saying, you got the wrong person making the allegation that the person is a part of some gang of thugs. | ||
| Well, a federal judge addressed that. | ||
| A federal judge addressed that. | ||
| And here's what the federal judge said. | ||
| I've got it right here. | ||
| I have it here. | ||
| Here's what the federal judge said. | ||
| So what? | ||
| So what? | ||
| You're a member of a gang, so now you're not entitled to due process? | ||
| Due process is accorded you not because you are a person who is living the high life, wining and dining with the billionaire class, living in the sweets of life, having your galas, engaging in the various cocktail events, | ||
| known to all of the people as an honorable person. | ||
| Yes, that person deserves due process, but also every person in this country deserves due process if you're going to deprive them of life, liberty, or property. | ||
| They are required due process under the Constitution of the United States of America. | ||
| Now, if you don't respect the Constitution, well then you can make these decisions, which is what the President does. | ||
| If you don't respect the Constitution, you can decide that if you're a member of some gang, I can deport you to some other country. | ||
| Let's just say El Salvador. | ||
| Some other country. | ||
| I can deport you to that country without due process because you're a gang member. | ||
| Well, it won't be long before some person who's not a gang member gets deported. | ||
| So this federal judge got it right. | ||
| And in essence, he said, so what? | ||
| If this person is a gang member, still entitled to due process. | ||
| I almost admire to some extent the way this president can persuade people to believe this level of inanity. | ||
| This level of inanity. | ||
| Not insanity, inanity. | ||
| How he's able to do this, because he's able to convince people that it's more who you are as opposed to what you've done is more important. | ||
| If you're associated with a gang, then you've lost your constitutional rights. | ||
| That's what he's inculcating in our society. | ||
| He wants to make that normal. | ||
| If you allow this to be normal, if we allow this to be normal, if I allow this to be normal, we are deserving the people in my case that I represent. | ||
| The Constitution doesn't allow this, but this president thinks he's above the law. | ||
| So he says, a member of a gang did some other dastardly deeds. | ||
| As a result, he makes the case, this is what people elected me to do, violate the 13th Amendment. | ||
| Just get them out of the country. | ||
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Latino Community in Fear
00:05:57
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| My friends, if you have noticed, most of the people who are being removed from the country, unfortunately, are Latinos. | ||
| So now I take a stand for the Latino community because, Mr. President, you, sir, have caused Latinos to become suspect. | ||
| I lived at a time when I was suspect in this country, when just being black in America made you a suspect. | ||
| The Latino community, now I've talked to people who have no reason to be in fear, but they are, because they see what's happening, and they see who is happening to with a great degree of regularity. | ||
| And because they see it, they are fearful of what can happen to them. | ||
| And they are fearful that if they are not careful, they can be picked up, taken away to another country without due process. | ||
| People are paying attention. | ||
| If you can do this to one person, why can't you do it to another? | ||
| And it looks like you're trying to get a certain group of people out of the country. | ||
| Some of the evidence to support what I say, well, how about this? | ||
| President wants to give people thousands of dollars to bring new birth to America. | ||
| New lives, to birth babies, thousands of dollars. | ||
| When you've got people who are already here, people who are already participating, paying into the taxes, tax system, persons who are abiding by the law. | ||
| And now you have literally concluded that either they will leave by way of some of the things that you're doing that are antithetical to the Constitution, or you're going to force them to self-deport. | ||
| Yes, I have many people in my congressional district that are Latinos. | ||
| And yes, the president is trying his level best to get them to self-deport. | ||
| So it's not just the people who've committed crimes that he's after. | ||
| You don't have to have studied his behavior very long to see that it is people who are not of a certain ethnicity, not of a certain race, that he's concerned with. | ||
| If he were true to what he says, he wouldn't be saying we've got to have more babies and then wanting to put millions of people out of this country who are law-abiding. | ||
| Many of them, we call dreamers, who came here not of their own volition, came here, made a life here, didn't decide to come, but they're here, made a life. | ||
| I've had to go across the border to bring people back that were deported improperly. | ||
| But bring, have these people here in this country making America a better country by their very presence in the country. | ||
| Not everybody's going to invent something to make America great, work hard, treat people right. | ||
| You can be a good citizen and make America great. | ||
| You don't have to do the things that are going to be written across the pages of time. | ||
| You can do the simple things. | ||
| And these people are doing these things. | ||
| They made our lives better. | ||
| So you want to kick them out, some by accusing them of crimes, never convicting them, sending a person never convicted to prison in another country, but others by bullying them out, using your bully pulpit and your agents, all of whom now speak with such a degree of disdain for people. | ||
| It's just remarkable to hear them, the way they address the issues. | ||
| That you have developed cohorts who have all become little bullies. | ||
| They want to emulate you and your aggressive behavior in indicating what they're going to do to people. | ||
| Okay, well, what you give, you shall receive. | ||
| It'll come back to you. | ||
| But the point is, you are removing people simply because of who they are, and you want to now increase the population by giving women money, people, that's husband and wife, or two people, money, I suppose to. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| The way I've heard it, I think it just sounds like he's expecting the one gender to carry this load. | ||
| And it is a, you know, it's a challenge if you're doing it just to get money. | ||
| I would hope that people wouldn't say, well, I'm going to have a child because I can get $5,000. | ||
| Probably there are very few people who will. | ||
| But you're changing the dynamics or desire to when you already have people here. | ||
|
Articles of Impeachment
00:15:23
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| I wanted to mention this because this is a form of nouveau, de facto ethnic cleansing that the president is engaging in. | ||
| Now, to the articles of impeachment, these articles have two places wherein, maybe three, wherein the president has confessed. | ||
| One place where the president has confessed. | ||
| How much time do I have left, Mr. Speaker? | ||
|
unidentified
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The gentleman has 24 minutes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| One place wherein the president has left is, pardon me, has expressed concerns that ought to cause all Americans who want to see some change to see him have to be dealt with for what he said and what he's doing. | ||
| I have in my hand a passage styled President Trump Meets with President of El Salvador. | ||
| So there are three different things that I'll call to your attention related to impeachment. | ||
| The first is this meeting in the Oval Office. | ||
| Now I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN, by C-SPAN. | ||
| If you want the details, you can go to the actual event on C-SPAN and see what I'm telling you. | ||
| So this is no secret. | ||
| Some of the news media has picked up on it as of late and they're talking about it. | ||
| So here's what it says. | ||
| Here's how it reads. | ||
| Here's what it states. | ||
| During an Oval Office meeting, and I'm going to paraphrase some of this with the president of El Salvador, President Donald Trump and members of his administration argued that they were not required to return deported Salvador citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia. | ||
| Some things bear repeating. | ||
| I say this quite often. | ||
| Seems like there's a lot that bears repeating. | ||
| Not required to return this Salvador citizen to the United States in spite of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of facilitating his return. | ||
| Supreme Court of the United States of America, co-equal branch of the government, separation of powers. | ||
| Not required to return him. | ||
| Not facilitating it. | ||
| That's what the president thinks. | ||
| Not required to do it. | ||
| Doesn't have to facilitate his return. | ||
| And note that they said facilitate. | ||
| There's a judge that has explained it in great detail what facilitate means. | ||
| It's a beautifully written opinion. | ||
| It goes on to say that the president, and our paraphrasing, of El Salvador, that he said he was not authorized to return Mr. Garcia. | ||
| Now they're sitting in the same room, president of El Salvador, United States president seated next to each other, juxtaposed right there next to each other for all the world to see, on C-SPAN if you want to see it. | ||
| And so he says he's not authorized to return Mr. Garcia, who was legally present in the U.S. before being deported in March. | ||
| That's what C-SPAN says. | ||
|
unidentified
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Legally present in the U.S. Legally present. | |
| Deported to El Salvador without due process. | ||
| C-SPAN doesn't have due process right here, but that's what happened. | ||
| Goes on to say, the Trump administration alleged that he was a member of the MS-13 gang. | ||
| Well, I already covered that. | ||
| Allege all you want about his behavior. | ||
| It does not negate his right to due process under the law. | ||
| I only regret that you're not sitting and standing right there right now, Mr. President, so that you could hear me say it to you to your face. | ||
| He's entitled to due process of the law. | ||
| Member of MS-13? | ||
| Look, if he is and he's committed a crime, try him. | ||
| Convict him. | ||
| Nobody wants to defend members of MS-13. | ||
| But being a member of a gang does not deprive one of due process of the law. | ||
| And it goes on to indicate here, but previously admitted that the deportation was an administrative error. | ||
| Talk about adding insult to injury. | ||
| The administration says we deported this person, not to demean him, Mr. Garcia, deported him by way of an administrative error. | ||
| Made a mistake. | ||
| Deported him by mistake, administrative error. | ||
| But still you refuse to facilitate his return. | ||
| What is wrong with you? | ||
| Have you no respect for the Constitution? | ||
| You don't have to respect Mr. Garcia. | ||
| You don't have to respect me. | ||
| But I want you to respect my constitutional rights. | ||
| And I want you to respect his constitutional rights because the minute I decide that it's okay for you to disrespect his constitutional rights, I've decided it's okay for you to disrespect my constitutional rights. | ||
| Respect constitutional rights. | ||
| Mr. Garcia merits that level of respect. | ||
| But I also indicate in the Articles of Impeachment that this president demeans the judiciary. | ||
| And I think there's much evidence to support my position. | ||
| But what I'd like to do is give you what I see as some of the, well, a piece of the best evidence. | ||
| Now, I believe this to be the best evidence. | ||
| This is on Truth Social. | ||
| I'm told that Mr. Trump is either the owner or one of the owners of Truth Social. | ||
| And this is a tweet that bears the name Donald J. Trump. | ||
| I don't think he's ever denied making this tweet. | ||
| And here's what it says in part. | ||
| It says, and he's talking about a federal judge now, this radical left lunatic of a judge. | ||
| He's notorious for calling people lunatics. | ||
| I was at home looking at TV. | ||
| I'd been escorted out of the chamber. | ||
| I was seated right over there. | ||
| And when I made my comments about the president not having a mandate to cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Speaker did what was required of him. | ||
| Officers did what was required. | ||
| I'm not mad at any of them. | ||
| When you protest, be prepared to suffer the consequences. | ||
| You don't have to like them, and I don't. | ||
| But I wasn't here, so I was at home. | ||
| But he uses that word lunatic, and he used it against people sitting right here on this side of the aisle. | ||
| Called the members of the Democratic Party lunatics from that podium. | ||
| Lunatics. | ||
| He's never been reprimanded. | ||
| He's never been sanctioned. | ||
| This House could issue a resolution of reprimand if we had the guts, if we had the intestinal fortitude. | ||
| To quote someone that I have learned to respect over the years, Malcolm X. If you just had the chindlings, you could reprimand him for it. | ||
| Let him know that there are some lines that he can't cross. | ||
| Let him know that he can't come in our house and call members of the Democratic Party lunatics or call a member of the said Pocahontas. | ||
| Let him know that there are boundaries. | ||
| You can still get elected. | ||
| So he uses the word lunatic here, and I'm going to read it again. | ||
| This radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker, an agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama was not elected president. | ||
| That's the preamble. | ||
| Now let's go down to the heart of it. | ||
| He says, this judge, like many of the crooked judges, I have to say it again, some things bear repeating. | ||
| This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, 34 felony convictions. | ||
| 34. | ||
| That's not here, so I'll read it all again. | ||
| This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached. | ||
| The president of the United States calling for the impeachment of a judge because he doesn't like the decision of the court. | ||
| What about respect for a co-equal branch of government? | ||
| What about separation of powers? | ||
| What about honoring the law that you've sworn to uphold? | ||
| This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached. | ||
| We don't want vicious, violent, demented criminals, many of them deranged murderers in our country. | ||
| Make America great again. | ||
| This is from the President of the United States of America. | ||
| You know, it would be hard to convince a reasonable and prudent person who hasn't been through all of this that the president would say such a thing. | ||
| The justice of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, took issue with the president. | ||
| The Chief Justice took issue with him. | ||
| He sent a message indicating that we don't impeach judges because we differ with them. | ||
| We appeal. | ||
| But he's defying the orders of federal courts and of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. | ||
| That's what he's doing. | ||
| How much time, Mr. Speaker? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman has 11 minutes. | |
| 11 minutes? | ||
| Did I hear 11, Mr. Speaker? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, the gentleman has 11 minutes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your kindness. | ||
| So he's defying the federal courts. | ||
| Once you do this, you become a de facto dictator. | ||
| You reduce the country to a de facto dictatorship. | ||
| And for this, you must be impeached. | ||
| The articles will go into many other aspects of this, but for these things, you must be impeached. | ||
| These articles of impeachment I shall bring. | ||
| I have said that I would and I will. | ||
| But I want to give everybody notice right now, right now, take note of this. | ||
| They will not be the only articles of impeachment because the president has done various things that merit impeachment. | ||
| And at least I'm going to build a record so that posterity will know how some of us stood during this time of crisis when the president was violating the Constitution. | ||
| So I'll be bringing at least one additional occurrence where there will be articles of impeachment presented to this House, maybe more than one more, but I'm not going to allow this Congress to escape having a record of what this president is doing. | ||
| So yes, I'm going to bring my articles of impeachment. | ||
| And I know that the president, once he hears the things that I've said, he'll try to find some way to weasel out. | ||
| Oh, I call that pickpocket politics. | ||
| When you catch the pickpocket trying to lift something from your person, and then you decide, oh, well, I really wasn't taking that. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Just bumped into you. | ||
| Well, the president always tries to retract. | ||
| And what I am amazed at is that the media will allow him to take the last thing he says as what he really meant. | ||
| You'd never do that for Barack Obama. | ||
| You'd never do that for, God bless him, the last president of the United States, the Honorable Joe Biden. | ||
| You'd never do that. | ||
| But you take the last thing this president says, regardless as of what else he says about how he's going to enforce his tariffs and what he's going to do with them, once he sees that it's not working and he starts to retreat, he starts to meander back, to crawl back, then you take that, oh, well, the president really meant this. | ||
| What he was saying before was to acquire a bargaining position. | ||
| Well, Canada didn't think so. | ||
| Canada didn't think it was just a bargaining position when he said he wanted to make Canada the 51st state. | ||
| Greenland didn't think so. | ||
| Why do we want to think that what this man says last is what he meant at first when what he said at first totally contradicts what he said at last? | ||
| It makes no sense. | ||
| So, Mr. President, you shall have articles of impeachment presented by Al Green, member of Congress, because I'll be fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to do so. | ||
|
Proud Ancestors' Sacrifice
00:00:56
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||
| And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Proud to be an American with great respect for the country I love. | ||
| And I ought to be proud of it. | ||
| Proud to be associated with it. | ||
| Proud because my ancestors were sacrificed for more than 240 years to lay the foundation for the greatness of this country, the economic foundation. | ||
|
Slavery Remembrance Day
00:02:22
|
||
| They were sacrificed. | ||
| They were enslaved. | ||
| They have never been given the honor and respect that they merit. | ||
| We have respected days in this country that I appreciate and respect. | ||
| We respect Pearl Harbor with a Pearl Harbor remembrance. | ||
| We respect 9-11 with a 9-11 remembrance. | ||
| We respect the Holocaust. | ||
| We have a Holocaust remembrance. | ||
| We need a slavery remembrance day to give honor and respect to people who were brought here in chains, kept in bondage for more than two centuries to lay the economic foundation for this country. | ||
| They had a hand in building this Capitol, a hand in building the White House, built roads and bridges, planted the seeds, harvested the crops. | ||
| These are the people who laid the economic foundation. | ||
| They're the economic foundational mothers and fathers of the United States of America. | ||
| I'm proud to be a descendant, a scion of the economic foundational mothers and fathers. | ||
| So I hold this. | ||
| I hold this because there are people who would silence me if they could. | ||
| Censured, but not silenced. | ||
| My voice is going to be here as long as there's a breath of life in me and I'm a member of this body. | ||
| I plan to make sure that history records the truth about what's happening during these times. | ||
| And there'll be many of you who will want to read what is now my manuscript, but will become my book of the times. | ||
| The challenging times we live in. | ||
| Censured, but not silenced. | ||
| People assumed that I was going to walk out in shame. | ||
|
Debt Ceiling Scare
00:15:28
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||
| But I know this. | ||
| Dr. King went to jail for his protestation. | ||
| He didn't want to go to jail. | ||
| He was censured, incarcerated, but not silenced. | ||
| Rosa Parks took a seat in a racist southern town, taken to jail for simply sitting on a seat on the bus that was vacant. | ||
| Taken to jail. | ||
| She didn't want to go to jail. | ||
| Rosa Parks, censured in a sense, imprisoned, put in jail, but not silenced. | ||
| There are some people, I don't claim to be a Rosa Parks, I don't claim to be a Dr. King, but I do claim to be one of the many people who will be willing to be censured, who are willing to have to suffer. | ||
| But I won't be silent. | ||
| I will continue this fight. | ||
| People expect us to fight even when we can't win. | ||
| It's not a question of whether you're going to win. | ||
| It's will you take a principled stand? | ||
| That's what the times require. | ||
| A principled stand. | ||
| Yes, there may be consequences. | ||
| Don't hurt anyone. | ||
| Don't destroy any property. | ||
| Get in the way, as John Lewis put it, the Honorable John Lewis, whom I got to know well. | ||
| Yes, get in the way. | ||
| You may get in the way and you may have to suffer the consequences. | ||
| You don't have to like them, but there are times when we have to suffer the consequences for the good that we would do. | ||
| The Honorable John Lewis called it good trouble. | ||
| I am honored to engage and to have engaged in this good trouble. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I proudly yield back the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Texas yields his time. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities towards the president of the United States. | ||
| Under the speaker's announcement policy, January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Schweikert, is now recognized for 60 minutes as the destiny of the majority leader. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Pro Tem. | ||
| And as always, I apologize to the board staff who I will try not to speak like a machine gun. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we're going to do basically three things. | ||
| I'm going to make fun of us. | ||
| I'm going to actually walk through some debt deficit numbers, interest, those things that are scaring my economists, myself, half to death. | ||
| And then I'm going to touch on some of the, and it's a technical economics term, the bedwetting in regards to the reconciliation budget, how people are making things up. | ||
| So let's have at it. | ||
| Because I sit in an airplane 10 hours a week and I have some weird reading habits, I actually came across a paper written last year, published just recently. | ||
| It's in nature-human behavior. | ||
| So one of those quirky, excuse me, those academic. | ||
| But it actually, what they did is they went back to the late 1800s and they took all of our congressional speeches up till 2022 and they ran a data set on them. | ||
| They ran AI and could you believe, Mr. Speaker, can you believe it? | ||
| They figured out that our congressional speeches have become less and less and less based in facts. | ||
| I know this is hard for us to believe, but apparently the quality of idiots, I mean people like me getting up in front of these mics and doing presentations and walking through our job has crashed in quality, in facts. | ||
| Matter of fact, they used the word intuition. | ||
| I basically say we make public policy now by our feelings because God forbid we go to our voters and tell them the truth about the math. | ||
| So it made me feel better because I have mocked us for years about how much in the way of public policy we now make on feelings because it's great television. | ||
| It gets you followers on social media. | ||
| You get a hit on cable television tonight if you're willing to make crap up but do it with passion and feelings. | ||
| But if you actually want to talk about the math of what's going on in this country, turns out it's how we're rewarded now as elected officials. | ||
| Now what was interesting is they had the curve actually starting to fall in 1970 and it's just gotten steeper. | ||
| So part of it and part of my conclusion is television, then moving to cable news and then moving to social media. | ||
| We have crashed the diet of robust facts in our speeches. | ||
| So now that we're going to make fun of ourselves, let's go on to the next thing. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, and for anyone that asks, we've been running the current data on how much we're borrowing. | ||
| What would you guess we borrow per second right now? | ||
| Where right now it looks like we're burning $72,000 every second. | ||
| We're borrowing $72,000 every second. | ||
| My best guess right now is we will borrow 7.37% of the entire economy this year. | ||
| And try to keep that number in your head because we're going to come back to that in some charts and explain why that's so devastating. | ||
| It's like we just don't care about people's retirement, our kids, the next generation, and how the hell they're going to actually cover any of the scale of debt. | ||
| And then we lie about what drives the debt. | ||
| And Mr. Speaker, our best guess is we go from that $72,000 a second this year to maybe about $82,000 a second next year. | ||
| And this is hard for people to want to accept, but it's the math. | ||
| Over the next 10 years, the baseline borrowing was about $22 trillion. | ||
| Now we have what we're trying to do in figuring out how to extend the expiring tax provisions. | ||
| We have the requests from the White House. | ||
| We have other disasters, other things we're trying to cover. | ||
| We're basically right now looking at, and I'm going to show this multiple times, the United States, what it took us from the day we were elected, Mr. Speaker, how much debt? | ||
| We will double it. | ||
| We will double 240 years of borrowing in this 10-year period. | ||
| The majority of that borrowing over the next 10 years is interest and Medicare. | ||
| But God forbid, you know, we're not allowed to tell people the truth. | ||
| Most of the debt, debts, deficits, and demographics, is demographic. | ||
| It's the fact we got old. | ||
| We stopped having children. | ||
| We have a shortage of young people in the country. | ||
| And we're terrified to tell our brothers and sisters the truth about the math. | ||
| So let's have at it. | ||
| For anyone out there that's paying any attention, and this number actually probably right now is a little bit worse. | ||
| We now think it's actually about 75% of federal spending is on autopilot. | ||
| So you become a member of Congress. | ||
| What you get to vote on, everything is borrowed. | ||
| When you vote on non-defense discretionary, when you vote on defense, every dime of that's borrowed. | ||
| And about $400 billion of what is mandatory spending, which means formulae, you work so many quarters, you get your benefits. | ||
| You served in the military, you get your benefits. | ||
| You're part of a certain tribal group, part of our treaty obligation. | ||
| You have certain things coming to you. | ||
| But the things we vote on and the things we try to balance the budget over, okay, well, we need more money for defense. | ||
| We have threats in the world. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You get down to we're trying to balance the budget on about 13% of our spending because we're terrified to talk about everything else. | ||
| You can't touch interest. | ||
| I'm going to show you a slide here in a moment. | ||
| This one should scare the crap out of people. | ||
| And I know my language is becoming more and more inflammatory, but I can't seem to break through. | ||
| This is from something called Moody's Analytics. | ||
| Okay, it's one of those fancy subscription services. | ||
| They have a bunch of economists. | ||
| They collect data. | ||
| They have us, in nine budget years, 30% of U.S. tax collections go just to interest. | ||
| So you pay your dollar in taxes, 30 cents of that in 2035 go just for interest. | ||
| Does that not scare anyone when the interest growth is bigger than everything we're talking about and trying to say by multiples, by multiples? | ||
| We calculate this year, this fiscal year, one we're living in right this second, we can spend a trillion one, trillion two, and just interest. | ||
| There's a data set that if we do some of the things, if we were to do the Senate's reconciliation budget with almost none of the pay-for it in 10 years, interest could be a couple trillion dollars a year. | ||
| The annual deficit will be $3 plus trillion a year. | ||
| We're probably going to be, what, $2.3 this year? | ||
| Last year, for every dollar we took in in tax collections, take a guess. | ||
| What did we actually spend? | ||
| Took a dollar in tax collections last year. | ||
| What did we spend? | ||
| We spent $1.39. | ||
| We take in a dollar, we spent $1.39. | ||
| This year was supposed to be better. | ||
| We were only going to spend, I think, $1.36. | ||
| I mean, it was supposed to get slight. | ||
| We have a small problem. | ||
| With some of the GDP growth numbers, just that adjustment, we may have just lost $200 billion in tax receipts in this fiscal year, you know, into September between now and then. | ||
| It just shows you how fragile we are when small movements of interest, you know, when you have to refinance $9 trillion. | ||
| Thank you for hanging out with us. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| But think about this. | ||
| A single point of interest on U.S. debt, and it takes years for it to roll in because of how much we have to refinance. | ||
| So we'll take about $9 trillion to market this year and refinance. | ||
| We'll issue a couple trillion new this year. | ||
| A single point of interest over 10 years costs you $3 trillion. | ||
| Why does this not scare the crap? | ||
| Why do we not have people coming behind these microphones? | ||
| But we're better off getting behind these microphones and telling passionate stories, anecdotes, those things, because that's what gets us on social media. | ||
| That's what gets people's dopamine hitting. | ||
| But at some point, the math is going to win. | ||
| And when we have the really smart analytic firms coming and saying they're scared about U.S. sovereign debt, you see things happening around the world that make me very nervous, the appetite for going on the long end of the curve. | ||
| Look, the United States sells very short-term debt, and then we have two years and five years and ten years and 20 years and 30s. | ||
| But we're having real trouble selling the debt on the long end of the curve. | ||
| And do not pay attention to some of the debt markets over the last month or two. | ||
| You want to know why? | ||
| Because we're in extraordinary measures. | ||
| We're up against the debt ceiling. | ||
| We're not issuing new debt. | ||
| We're only issuing refinance. | ||
| And what comes due within the cap? | ||
| What happens a couple months from now when we all raise the debt ceiling? | ||
| And I love the brain trust that goes, don't raise the debt ceiling. | ||
| Did I just mention last year we borrowed for every dollar we took and we borrowed we spent $1.39? | ||
| Just tell me what 39% of the federal spending you want us to stop doing. | ||
| Because when you don't raise the debt ceiling, we've got to end all that. | ||
| So more than a third of all of our spending is functionally borrowed. | ||
| Just tell me, happy to do it? | ||
| Just tell me which third you want us to stop financing. | ||
| And those are the very people filling up these hallways demanding we give them more money. | ||
| What happens when we raise that debt ceiling, Mr. Speaker, and we have to come to market, Treasury has to come to market with $500, $600 billion in functionality to catch up, refund all the accounts they've been borrowing from. | ||
| That's what you do in extraordinary measures. | ||
| You grab every account, use that cash, now you've got to refund it, and you take that much to market. | ||
| We have one analyst who's saying you will see a pop in U.S. interest rates maybe on the 10-year hitting five. | ||
| Just boom. | ||
| Because suddenly you're grabbing so much of the world's capital to finance what we've been borrowing internally that now we've got to pay back. | ||
| So just be prepared. | ||
| These aren't surprises. | ||
| We all know it. | ||
| But no one reads the damn documents because it's math. | ||
| And it turns out telling the truth, remember our story here? | ||
|
Policies to Grow Wages
00:15:39
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| That fact-based discussions on this floor no longer get you elected, no longer are listened to, no one cares about, just make things up because feelings is now how we make legislation. | ||
| And this board is almost a year old, but it was to try to make a point to our brothers and sisters, particularly on the left, that keep coming to us, just tax rich people more. | ||
| And you show them, and we're going to show the slide here, but I'm going to probably have to say it two or three times so it sinks in. | ||
| We have a report, detailed report, that sort of walks through every tax hike the left has proposed. | ||
| And look, we're guilty on our side, every cut we've actually proposed, but you take every tax hike and then you do the economic data on it and you get about 1.5% of GDP. | ||
| Okay, our cuts come out to about 1% of GDP. | ||
| If I can do that math, that's 2.5%. | ||
| Do you remember in the beginning of this? | ||
| We're borrowing 7.3%. | ||
| So the next time you get a politician saying, well, just raise taxes on rich people, and then you show them that it's a fraction of a fraction of what we even borrow every single day. | ||
| Great rhetorical use of language. | ||
| Horrible math, completely fraudulent math. | ||
| Remember, it's demographics, but we're not allowed to tell people that because it means we as a society have to do hard things. | ||
| So look, I have this chart here, and I was just trying to make a point. | ||
| How Washington finances 366 days of spending in 2024. | ||
| The top 20% of earners covered 201 days. | ||
| The next quartile down. | ||
| The next 20% covered 41 days. | ||
| The middle earners, so the middle 20%, they paid for 17 days of government spending. | ||
| The bottom 40% pay for four days of government spending. | ||
| And then 103 days we finance by just borrowing it. | ||
| We have, I think we are now tied for the most progressive income tax system in the industrialized world. | ||
| When we redid, when we modernized the tax code in 2017, the United States income tax system actually became more progressive. | ||
| But yet, how many times have you heard members around saying, well, they gave money to the rich? | ||
| The rich after 2017 were paying more of the federal income taxes. | ||
| At some point, we're going to have to have this really uncomfortable discussion. | ||
| Is it on the tax side or the spending side? | ||
| Because I've done entire presentations here on the floor where I've shown you, go back the last 65, 75 years. | ||
| Here's a time of very high marginal tax rates. | ||
| We take in about mid-17% of the economy in tax collections. | ||
| Very low marginal tax rates. | ||
| We take in about mid-17% of federal taxes. | ||
| It's sort of you go up, the actual economy slows down. | ||
| This is what you take in. | ||
| So the secret is how do you adopt regulation and modernize it? | ||
| How do you adopt tax policy that incentivizes productivity? | ||
| How do you do the whole thing and get them to interact so you maximize economic growth and that growth becomes your tax collection stability and gets you to the top of the total dollar amounts? | ||
| But you're probably going to still constantly fall back into that mean of the percentage of the economy. | ||
| So have a bigger economy. | ||
| It's not that complicated. | ||
| But you constantly, you know, so upper-income taxpayers overwhelmingly finance the federal government. | ||
| Okay, I know this isn't good politics. | ||
| People like me are so sad. | ||
| Yeah, the rich need to pay their fair share. | ||
| Okay, top 25%, excuse me, the top 20% of earners pay 25.2%. | ||
| The next quartile pays 15.8%. | ||
| The middle covers 11%. | ||
| The fourth quartile down, so the next one down covers 5.5%. | ||
| Bottom 20% of income earners, we send them money. | ||
| Remember, we have sort of this negative income tax system, earned income tax credit, those things. | ||
| So if you're in the 20%, the bottom quartile, we send you money. | ||
| Matter of fact, we have a whole data, I didn't bring the chart, that shows functionally for in America if you're in the bottom half of income earners. | ||
| Look, post-inflation, your life is miserable because wages haven't gone up as fast as inflation did. | ||
| But that inflation was substantially created by stupid policies from the previous White House and the Democrats who spent like crazy and we financed, we dumped that much cash into society, you set off inflation. | ||
| It's your high school economics class. | ||
| And here we are a couple years later and the poor are still poor because we still haven't gotten wages growing faster yet. | ||
| And what scares the crap out of me is I'm now seeing some data saying we may have a year where inflation could be hovering around 4% by the end of the year. | ||
| We got to do policies to get those wages growing. | ||
| But I have a chart that will show you the bottom 50% pay about 4% of the income tax, but the bottom third actually get money. | ||
| And in some ways, that's just being compassionate. | ||
| But we have the data from post-2017 when we did tax reform, when we had the miracle of income inequality starting to really shrink. | ||
| We had three years there where the poor were getting dramatically less poor. | ||
| Why isn't that moral? | ||
| Why isn't a good regulatory policy, good tax policy, maximizes that velocity? | ||
| So let's really annoy some of our leftist brothers and sisters. | ||
| This is a, There's an article on the Manhattan Institute written by, I believe, Jessica Riedel. | ||
| It's now about a year, year and a half old. | ||
| But what they did is they went through basically all the proposals the left has on raising taxes. | ||
| And step by step, did the here's the tax raise, here's the economic effects, here's what you actually take in. | ||
| Remember our rules about size of the economy, 17.1 or mid-17% of the GDP. | ||
| Individual income tax, investment tax, raising the corporate taxes, raising the state taxes. | ||
| When you got to the end, you functionally were getting about 1.5% of new tax receipts for the economy. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I look forward to the Democrats actually proposing this and actually being willing to vote on it because they throw these things out, they get them scored. | ||
| They controlled everything here a year ago, well, a couple years ago. | ||
| Do you notice they never did them? | ||
| But pretending this solves the problem, so you get 1.5%, you will have stagnated the economy. | ||
| You already hear the discussions of how close are you to stagflation, which is partially driven because of the economics. | ||
| And remember, at the end of the decade or with nine years or so, 22, 23% of the population is 65 and up. | ||
| We have a demographic issue for productivity. | ||
| The point of showing this chart is the solutions you will hear if, God forbid, you go on left-wing cable television, sometimes even right-wing. | ||
| They're mathematical lies. | ||
| We're borrowing 7.3% of the economy this year. | ||
| Are we willing to engage in a revolution of using technology, modernization? | ||
| How many businesses still run themselves as if it's still the 1990s? | ||
| Government does. | ||
| I had someone bring me just the other day a health piece, a healthcare paperwork. | ||
| I think it might have been from the Indian Health Services. | ||
| It was a three-part NCR paper for a purchase order for a health care procedure that you fill out, and I think you faxed it in. | ||
| Have we lost our minds yet? | ||
| You get protesters from the left saying, don't use technology. | ||
| You've seen the article after article of the five major databases the United States have. | ||
| None of them talk to each other. | ||
| If you're willing to actually read, you saw the stories of small business administration having, what was it, 3,300 people that had taken out loans, except the small problem is all of them were 114 years and up, meaning they were onto their rewards. | ||
| They weren't with us anymore. | ||
| Turns out those $300 million in loans had no one had paid a dime back, but the small business administration didn't have the ability to bounce off the Social Security mortality or death file. | ||
| We've designed these walls to functionally, it's as if the fraudsters designed our data systems here in the federal government. | ||
| Let's go fill out things, let's go get money, let's steal the taxpayers' money, but we're going to make sure that there's no way to check the data that's being filled out because we want to protect the privacy. | ||
| Some of that's not privacy. | ||
| You're asking for a government-insured loan over here, and you can't check the death file. | ||
| What idiots allow this to happen? | ||
| And yet you get protesters in front of your congressional offices saying, don't let Doge and Does actually make the system work. | ||
| I'm sorry you're scared of change. | ||
| Did I mention to you we borrow $72,000 a second? | ||
| How do you convince our brothers and sisters across the country, we as members of Congress, the administration, the bureaucracy are taking it seriously if you're not even willing to make the data talk to each other. | ||
| And so back to one of the things that has just annoyed the crap out of me. | ||
| I used this board a handful of times for some of my left-wing protesters the last couple weeks. | ||
| And to the credit, some of them were actually shockingly intellectually honest saying, oh, that's not part of our talking notes. | ||
| No one told them the truth. | ||
| Guys, it's on the internet. | ||
| Trust me, I'm not that bright. | ||
| I just looked it up. | ||
| It's there. | ||
| You can find it. | ||
| The baseline of the next 10 years, we were going to spend, the federal government baseline was spending $86 trillion over the next 10 years. | ||
| $86 trillion. | ||
| All we're talking about in trying to modernize and change spending in this reconciliation budget, if you did the high-end, so the house full all-in high-end, which please, God, let us get there. | ||
| But the high-end is $2 trillion. | ||
| $86. | ||
| We're trying to get to. | ||
| That's 2.3%. | ||
| And that's creating the bedwedding. | ||
| Did they really love their money, this spending? | ||
| But remember, if you don't want tax hikes, I don't want tax hikes. | ||
| Borrowing is a tax hike. | ||
| It's just paid for in the future with interest. | ||
| Stop thinking borrowing is free. | ||
| My wife and I, we've adopted a couple kids. | ||
| I have a two-and-a-half-year-old. | ||
| We're incredibly blessed. | ||
| It looks like he's going to be fine. | ||
| He's going to be normal. | ||
| He's absolutely a joy. | ||
| When he's 22 or so, just to maintain baseline spending in the United States, you have to double every single tax. | ||
| That's the morality of this place. | ||
| For the lobbyists, for the groups that are walking our halls saying, we want more spending, don't do this horrible, devastating 2% cut in spending over the next 10 years. | ||
| Thank you for screwing over my two-year-old. | ||
| Your absolute immorality. | ||
| If you're going to walk into our office and demand more spending, tell us what you think where we can modernize, where we can change the cost of government. | ||
| We've come here and done presentations that the single biggest expense we have in government turns out it's obesity. | ||
| We did a whole model for the last couple years, huge amounts. | ||
| Remember, I chair the Joint Economic Committee, so I have like five PhD economists. | ||
| We did the data, $9.1 trillion additional health care costs. | ||
| Turns out the morality, if you'd help our brothers and sisters be healthier, but you've got to do through the farm bill. | ||
| You got to do through nutrition support. | ||
| You're not going to have to decide, are we going to have access to glutites and other things, but are we going to use technology, the wearables, the other things? | ||
| I have one of those data rings on. | ||
| What would happen if one of the most powerful things you can do for U.S. sovereign debt stabilization is a healthier society? | ||
| And somehow that becomes a fringe conversation around here because people make money off of our brothers and sisters being sick. | ||
| It's absolutely perverse. | ||
| If you actually go, I think it was a year or so ago, I think it was Goldman Sachs did this huge report on GLP1s, blue tights, and somewhere in one of the footnotes was sent to me, and it had this line, a couple lines, saying if there was wide adoption and the United States actually became much healthier, much less morbid obesity, that there would be health care systems that would go bankrupt because they wouldn't have enough multi-chronic sick people to pay their bonds. | ||
|
Days of Borrowing Temporarily
00:15:48
|
||
| Think about that. | ||
| Everything's about the money here, not about the morality of having a society that's growing and prospering. | ||
| Prosperity, I would argue, Mr. Speaker, is moral. | ||
| How much of the crap we do here is not just satiating today's Twitter sphere screaming at us or something that's completely made up, but actually building a plan saying, here's the prosperity we're going to build for the future. | ||
| Sorry, I probably have already had too much coffee today. | ||
| And this is just to make a point, and this is more to mock the Senate. | ||
| And I was talking to one of the senators last night who also is concerned like I am. | ||
| Maybe they hear our voices. | ||
| So, Tax Cut and Jobs Act, and these are just the base numbers when they were first scored. | ||
| This number actually came in half that. | ||
| No interest is attached to it, but we stole this from someone else, but it was to make a point. | ||
| Democrats complained about that. | ||
| CARES Act, we complained about the excess of spending. | ||
| The American Rescue Plan, we complained about. | ||
| Then you add in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. | ||
| It wasn't that bipartisan. | ||
| I think they had just a handful of Republicans who wanted projects in their district. | ||
| But you add it all up. | ||
| All the things we have fretted over over the last decade, and they don't even add up to the amount of borrowing that's in the Senate reconciliation budget. | ||
| Because it's so much easier here just to spend and just borrow it. | ||
| There's this attitude here, give it to me now. | ||
| Oh, you guys will figure out something in the future. | ||
| And for anyone out there who's look, I've actually worked with some of the Doge folks because I have the economists, but go on their official website right now. | ||
| They think next year, 2026 fiscal year, we can save $160 billion. | ||
| That's real money. | ||
| But it's only if we borrow $6 billion a day, what? | ||
| 24, 23 days of borrowing. | ||
| That's everything we've gotten. | ||
| There's this inability for members of Congress, our staff, the public, to understand the scale, the scale of what we're up against. | ||
| This basically just reiterates what I'm going to show a couple times here just because I need it to sink in. | ||
| We do the Senate reconciliation budget with our baseline. | ||
| We double U.S. debt in 10 years. | ||
| I'm going to say it a couple times so it sinks in. | ||
| Debt held by the public, and they're using 2034. | ||
| We prefer to use 2035 because that's more of an honest budget window. | ||
| But you start to look at what the Senate, the Senate resolution, this was baseline debt. | ||
| They add another 32.7% to the debt. | ||
| And if we do what the Senate put out in their budget reconciliation, we functionally double publicly held debt in the United States. | ||
| What took us 240 years to do, bless us, we can do in 10 because we're good at borrowing money, handing things out, telling people there's no consequences, making crap up, saying, it's health care for illegals. | ||
| Okay, we shouldn't do that. | ||
| But it's only a couple days of borrowing over a year. | ||
| You've got to do lots and lots and lots of difficult things. | ||
| And we've done entire presentations where we've shown you could revolutionize the cost of health care. | ||
| We've actually looked at one data set, and we've been studying this now for months. | ||
| If I came to you, Mr. Speaker, and said, just in Medicare, duplicative MRI scans, PET scans, x-rays, ultrasounds could be as much as $25 billion a year. | ||
| Duplicative scans. | ||
| What if you got your knee scanned and you just attach it to this thing so it's portable with you? | ||
| That's a quarter trillion dollars over 10 years. | ||
| Is that a cut? | ||
| No. | ||
| It's just a simple use of almost a free technology that's out there where you can load them on this and it's portable with you. | ||
| We get lobbyists who don't like that idea because apparently they make money on the duplications. | ||
| The inefficiencies, the frauds, those things are a business model now. | ||
| When government controls functionally a quarter of all the spending in the United States, of all the GDP, and a big chunk of that is functionally waste and fraud and misallocations, bad design, give it whatever anachronism you want or title you want. | ||
| Many of the lobbyists that are walking these hallways are here to stop us from modernizing the system and bringing it into this century and just using the technology. | ||
| You walk around with a supercomputer in your pocket. | ||
| This could crash the price of health care, make you healthier, give you access, all these things. | ||
| And there's an army of people trying to stop us. | ||
| Remember, telehealth here was an absolute war. | ||
| There were millions being spent to stop it because it screwed up people's business models. | ||
| And I'm going to do this a couple more times, and then we're going to do one more example. | ||
| If we do what's being planned right now, you finish the next decade. | ||
| Either $73.7 trillion of debt, or our other chart actually gets it up to $74 trillion of debt. | ||
| So when you hear a member on the Democrat side, Republican side running for office, I care about the debt, but I'm more afraid of telling you the truth of what drives the debt. | ||
| And the fact of the matter is the people walking the hallways here, often our own constituents, are screaming at us for more spending. | ||
| Don't they have kids? | ||
| Don't they even care about their own retirements? | ||
| The absolute vacuousness of immorality. | ||
| So I grabbed this from the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| So I can't imagine anyone here has had protesters and people showing up in their office about Medicaid, which is supposed to be our safety net for indigents and the poor. | ||
| I have some old experience with that. | ||
| For a short time, I actually chaired the health care committee in the Arizona state legislature when I was a child. | ||
| For a while, I actually worked on the Access Budgets, which is the Arizona Medicaid system. | ||
| We do something unique. | ||
| We functionally buy managed care HMO policies for our poor people. | ||
| It's actually shockingly efficient. | ||
| Matter of fact, if you took the rest of the country and adopted the Arizona model, you could save hundreds of billions of dollars over those 10 years. | ||
| But the Wall Street Journal did us a favor. | ||
| They actually took the Arizona system, which actually has a shockingly high satisfaction rate, good outcomes. | ||
| We can make it much better. | ||
| But the punchline here is they're showing something called a provider tax. | ||
| This was a scam scheme. | ||
| And I have to openly admit, on part of it, which was the disproportionate share, this is geeky stuff. | ||
| I was actually part of managing that many years ago. | ||
| You know, I was county treasurer, I managed money, and we were part of the swap. | ||
| But part of the scam out there is raise the cost of health care, create a tax, capture that tax, and because you raise the price, you also capture more money from the federal government in their percentage match. | ||
| What the Wall Street Journal did was brilliant. | ||
| They just produced this chart that says, do you know the Arizona government, and this is most state governments, actually use this provider tax washing machine. | ||
| They make money. | ||
| They actually take in more money. | ||
| They're not meeting their obligation of, it was supposed to be a partnership. | ||
| It was supposed to be a match. | ||
| Is this a cut? | ||
| It's just saying, look, there was a deal made in the late 60s that we were going to share some of the risk and some of the cost with our poor on providing health care. | ||
| Then when Obama came in, they did this expansion and 90-10%, even though it was going to people who are still work eligible and those things. | ||
| But then states, and this, we all knew this was going on, but it was supposed to be temporary. | ||
| It was supposed to be when coming out of a major recession, we were going to go back to normality. | ||
| And instead, it's padding for state budgets. | ||
| That cash isn't going into health care. | ||
| It's financing everything and raising the U.S. debt because this is borrowed money. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would the gentleman yield? | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| I'm going to be having sheer time on the time that I have afterwards. | ||
| Gentleman from Arizona, I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona for his steadfast devotion to highlighting for the American people the state of our fiscal health, which is not good, and the extent to which we're complicit in it. | ||
| And I want to just point out that this thing that the general from Arizona is talking about is so central to everything we're trying to deal with right here, right now in Congress. | ||
| And if we don't fix that, then we will have failed. | ||
| I want to be clear to my Republican colleagues. | ||
| If we do not fix this scheme, this scam, the gentleman didn't misspeak, it is a scam. | ||
| If we don't fix that, we will have failed. | ||
| Let me just ask the gentleman a couple of questions. | ||
| True. | ||
| Prior to the existence of Medicaid, there was no federal subsidy at all. | ||
| This scheme couldn't have possibly existed. | ||
| In this way. | ||
| Most of this was designed in the late 60s. | ||
| My state only, I have this weird history. | ||
| I was a child, excuse me, I was early 20s. | ||
| I was a page at the state, a temporary page at the state legislature. | ||
| Arizona was the last state to enter Medicaid. | ||
| It was bankrupting our counties because up to that point in the early 80s, the counties were actually the provider of health care. | ||
| So we entered this, but we created a really crazy system saying we're going to do managed care to drive the price down. | ||
| But yes, you. | ||
| And so Medicaid was created, and Medicaid was created to ostensibly provide an avenue for health care for the poor and vulnerable, right? | ||
| It's a broad statement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that true? | |
| The actual language was for indigents. | ||
| It was mostly for women and children. | ||
| And it was supposed to then be a shared arrangement between the state and the federal government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| And in the early days, it was like a 50-50, not 100%. | ||
| And so now fast forward, and the current vulnerable population, okay, what we call the vulnerable population, the indigent, the poor, those who need it, single moms, people who are sick, the frail, that population, even under today's law, gets a federal, we'll call it match, it's really a formula, a match of 50 to 70 percent, depending on the jurisdiction. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| It's yeah, it blends out closer to the 70. | ||
| And now talk about the expansion population. | ||
| And so then now let's fast forward. | ||
| What we're really talking about, for everybody at home watching C-SPAN, all 14 of you, we have a situation where Obamacare expanded the Medicaid population and it expanded it massively to a population that is much bigger and much more able-bodied, i.e. healthier. | ||
| So now you would think, well, I don't know, is that good or bad? | ||
| I have my problems with it facially. | ||
| But even if you were going to do it, would you then say, as it does, that that population, the healthier able-bodied population, should get 90% match from the federal government? | ||
| Because that's what's happening. | ||
| They get a 90% rate for that expanded population. | ||
| Then layer on top of that, and this is how yield back. | ||
| This is what you're now dealing with. | ||
| The gentleman's chart that the Wall Street Journal did, where you have the provider taxes, you have this high rate that they are able to collect, and they're juicing it using the provider taxes. | ||
| They get this 90% federal dollars, and then they're openly, California, for example, has stated they are gaming the system to get federal dollars to use that to subsidize illegal aliens and to people who are not the vulnerable population and frankly to put it in their general budget. | ||
| That's what the gentleman's talking about. | ||
| That's the current state of affairs. | ||
| I yield back to the gentleman's mayor. | ||
| And Mr. Roy, it goes further. | ||
| So as we all get the paid for, have you had the occasion yet, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Roy, where a group comes into your office, somehow they were put on a plane, put in a hotel, those things here. | ||
| They have no understanding of the math, the mechanics, but somehow there were Medicaid providers in your state that had plenty of cash laying around to fly people out to come lobby. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And then, so we did this. | ||
| We pulled open, here's another Wall Street Journal article from a week or two ago talking about how many in the Medicaid systems here in the United States are enrolled in multiple states. | ||
| So you actually have billions and billions and billions of dollars here. | ||
| They're enrolled in multiple states. | ||
| And even the discussion of could we just match data? | ||
| And you actually get objections to this because the fraud is part of the profit model. | ||
| So, for I'm not, I'm on ways and means. | ||
| This is something energy and commerce is going to, it gets to their primary jurisdictions. | ||
| They're working through it. | ||
| But if you just stack up the cheating, the misuse of the vacuousness, the absence of data to try to deal with the multiple enrollment of populations, if you actually start to stack these things up, how dare you call those cuts? | ||
| How dare you? | ||
| And why don't you care about the future of this government, the future of this society? | ||
|
Rising Medicare Costs Warning
00:15:42
|
||
| We cannot handle the stacking of debt. | ||
| Did I mention the $72,000 we borrow every second? | ||
| And it only goes up. | ||
| We have a model that says in the 10-year window, we're up somewhere in the mid-90s per second in borrowing. | ||
| And we're terrified to tell the truth. | ||
| Well, Ms. Roy, you may not want to be in the room for this one because this is the stuff that gets you attacked at home. | ||
| But it's math. | ||
| It's the truth. | ||
| It's the CBO numbers. | ||
| Rising Social Security and Medicare shortfalls nearly drive the entire 2019 to 2033 deficit. | ||
| This board is a couple years old, but the facts are the facts. | ||
| We're terrified to tell the public the truth. | ||
| The primary driver of debt is demographics. | ||
| Go to CBO, and this board is actually today, we're waiting for the update, but we've done some back-of-the-board math. | ||
| The math is much uglier because interest rates are up substantially from when we calculated this two years ago. | ||
| But you functionally have a country that, and so this one's from two years ago, the 30-year debt, we were going to borrow $124 trillion. | ||
| If you remove Social Security and its finance costs, Medicare and its finance costs, the rest of the federal government actually grew slower than tax receipts. | ||
| These numbers, and we'll probably have the update on this from CBO in the next couple months with the higher interest rates, the higher running debt. | ||
| We have models now that say over the 30 years we're going to be at 200% of debt to GDP. | ||
| That that number is no longer $124 trillion, maybe $170 trillion of borrowing. | ||
| I don't know how many of you plan to still be alive over the next 30 years. | ||
| Do you really think the world financial markets are going to finance our debt? | ||
| You have Ray Dalio-Dilio, the multi-billionaire hedge fund who's now retired, who's actually been coming here to Congress saying, warning, warning, | ||
| the entire world's capital markets, because what China's borrowing, what Japan's borrowing, now Germany is going back into the debt markets, there's not enough capital in the world when the United States is consuming 30 to 40 percent of all the money that goes to sovereigns, to governments. | ||
| So what happens when there's a shortage of savings in the world to finance? | ||
| Well, we can print money. | ||
| Of course, that will set off inflation, so your life just becomes more miserable. | ||
| And because so many of our benefits are all inflation indexed, you can't inflate yourself away from it because they go up. | ||
| Or we can just pay the higher interest rates. | ||
| Well, now you already saw the beginning chart that Moody says in nine budget years, 30% of our tax collections is interest. | ||
| We have a model that shows a 1% increase rolled into our refinancing in 10 years, 45% of all U.S. tax collections. | ||
| All of it is interest. | ||
| Mr. Roy, Mr. Speaker, yet you have members here running around saying, I need more money for salt. | ||
| I want actually more money for this program. | ||
| I want more money for this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Bring us ideas of how we modernize spending, how we can reduce costs by technology, by better systems, by a healthier society. | ||
| But stop showing up at my door demanding more spending. | ||
| There's no more money. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would the gentleman yield to a marshal? | |
| Please. | ||
| And I don't want to take away any of his thunder. | ||
| No, no, it's because you actually just stopped me from cursing, so you did good. | ||
| The question I have for the gentleman, when I first, when I graduated from law school, the University of Texas in 2003, the national debt was somewhere in the $6 trillion range, $6.5 trillion. | ||
| When I came to Congress, when I was campaigning to come to Congress, it was just over $20 trillion. | ||
| That was 2018. | ||
| Today, we are pushing $37 trillion. | ||
| Is that roughly correct? | ||
| Yeah, if you add in internally financed, the CBO says we will end this year at about 37 to my number is 37.3. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| So, now I bring that up because nobody at home understands that. | ||
| You're doing a good job trying to put it in context, trying to explain it about the amount of money we're borrowing per family or taxpayer per second. | ||
| But to put it in stark terms, what we're talking about with the debt and the deficits, what it really means is the inability to afford a house for the average American, right? | ||
| Because the impact that flows from it is, as you alluded to, higher interest rates, a inability for the Fed and for Congress to continue to borrow and print money because of what you're describing worldwide, the ability to have people to buy our debt goes down. | ||
| The cost of debt is going to go up. | ||
| The interests are going up. | ||
| Inflation is going up. | ||
| And the average American family is going to take it on the chin. | ||
| That's what we're talking about. | ||
| And the reason I bring that up is because our colleagues, as you point out, run around here saying, ah, I need more money for the program. | ||
| I need more money for fill-in-the-blank. | ||
| I need more money for Medicaid. | ||
| I need more money for salt. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because they feel like they've got a political interest in doing so. | ||
| I'm sure the gentleman had, like I did yesterday, the Farm Bureau coming into your office and needing help. | ||
| Guess what? | ||
| I understand why they need help because we, the federal government, have messed up their lives quite vociferously. | ||
| We distort. | ||
| And we distort, and so they want help. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| But then what do I do? | ||
| Vote for food stamps? | ||
| I'm a cancer survivor. | ||
| You know that. | ||
| And I have cancer groups coming in asking for money. | ||
| I look at them and I say, well, can you go find some way to pay for it? | ||
| And a lot of my colleagues don't want to do that. | ||
| And I'll close with this. | ||
| President Reagan had a great quote on the Johnny Carson show, a late night show in the 70s before he was president, in which he said, every program that a politician brings forward should have to come with a tax increase attached to it. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Was President Reagan pro-tax increases? | ||
| I know the gentleman from Arizona knows that not to be true. | ||
| President Reagan believed in tax cuts and more money in the pockets of Americans to create wealth, to create economic growth. | ||
| But why he said that was because we promise things we can't deliver. | ||
| We promise things that we deliver that are fake because we're doling out money, printing money to pay for programs. | ||
| And then on the other side of the ledger, we never want to say we need a tax increase to pay for it because we rightly understand tax increases constrain the economy. | ||
| In other words, in short, we put ourselves in the box we've created. | ||
| Mr. Roy, I yield to you. | ||
| I want to try to, we use the term socialize. | ||
| How do I get it part of our folklore, our use of language? | ||
| Borrowing money is a tax hike. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| You've got to understand, okay, you're not going to raise taxes. | ||
| I despise raising taxes. | ||
| I want as much velocity in the economy. | ||
| A classic free market economist. | ||
| But borrowing money is a tax hike. | ||
| And it's a tax hike with interest on it. | ||
| It's just to be paid at a future date. | ||
| But because the curve is now steepening, remember, I just showed you some charts that says we made double U.S. debt this decade. | ||
| The curve is like this. | ||
| You don't think we're not going to reach in and take some of your retirement? | ||
| This is no longer about your grandkids. | ||
| It's no longer about your kids. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's you. | |
| But I believe the political class has lied their backsides off for so long, or we play this game. | ||
| You will see some people on social media, you could save a million dollars doing this. | ||
| Okay, you borrow a quarter billion dollars an hour. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| $250 million every hour is the borrow. | ||
| Watch out for the scam artists who play the game. | ||
| They give you something. | ||
| It's outrageous. | ||
| Okay, get rid of it. | ||
| But sometimes the things we will debate for hours here are minutes or sometimes seconds of borrowing. | ||
| But the big stuff, because there's so many lobbyists and constituencies that live off that money, you're not allowed to talk about that. | ||
| And look, Ms. Roy, look, I'm blessed. | ||
| I have Phoenix and Scotts. | ||
| I have one of the best educated districts in America. | ||
| I have them fairly prosperous. | ||
| They tolerate me. | ||
| They sometimes aren't happy with what I say. | ||
| But at least they know my math is good. | ||
| Would the gentleman yield on that? | ||
| One of the things that I've been saying in this building for the last several months is this debate about what we call, I think, somewhat wrongly and incorrectly, mandatory spending, because it's not mandatory. | ||
| We've just chosen to put it on autopilot. | ||
| It's automatic spending. | ||
| It's not really mandatory. | ||
| That's a better name. | ||
| And so I've been saying in this building repeatedly that the math has to math. | ||
| The math has to add up. | ||
| And is that, would the gentleman agree, the fundamental and core problem in this town when we're talking about the state of affairs? | ||
| So for example, we in this process have taken Medicare off the table politically. | ||
| The president has asked us to take Medicare off the table. | ||
| We have taken Social Security off the table because by law we are not allowed to touch Social Security in the reconciliation process. | ||
| And then interest is off the table because you got to pay it. | ||
| You can't just magically not pay the interest. | ||
| So that adds up to what? | ||
| About 47% of the total frigging budget. | ||
| Half the budget. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And just understand, in reconciliation, which is the one time we're allowed to talk about mandatory spending, the majority of mandatory spending we're not allowed to touch. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Because if you do Social Security and interest, that's probably 54, 55% of all mandatory. | ||
| Sorry, it's a weird way I remember numbers. | ||
| But I can give you, so let's actually, let's risk our political careers. | ||
| How many of you have read the Wall Street Journal articles from the last year? | ||
| I think they've done five or six major, major exposés on something we call Medicare Part C. | ||
| It's the Medicare Advantage. | ||
| It was the sort of managed care version within Medicare option that was developed by Republicans in 2005. | ||
| One of their articles basically says they identified about $63 billion of waste fraud misalignment a year. | ||
| A year. | ||
| A year. | ||
| The MedPAC report, because I'm the only idiot who came here to the floor with the MedPAC, but it's partially my responsibility being Ways and Means. | ||
| The MedPAC report all highlighted and we showed the MedPAC report says Medicare Advantage, the Part C, is coming in at 120% of fee-for-service. | ||
| Just that delta from where it was supposed to be at 95%. | ||
| I know there's a lot of numbers. | ||
| When we designed Medicare Advantage long before you and I got here, it was supposed to come at 95% of fee-for-service. | ||
| That 25% delta is $100 billion a year. | ||
| And if you do the curve because of the growth of the program, it's expected, that's a trillion and a half dollars over 10 years, just putting it back to what it was supposed to be. | ||
| It's equal to everything we're talking about trying to reform in our reconciliation packages. | ||
| How many conversations have we been willing to have saying, hey, you do realize we could modernize Medicare Advantage so the incentive for the providers is to have populations be healthier than running around and scoring them as sicker? | ||
| Just align the incentives. | ||
| I just found you a trillion dollars. | ||
| Why can't we have conversations like this where we're trying to preserve the programs and the future at the same time? | ||
| The gentleman was asking a rhetorical question. | ||
| And you don't have to answer that because the moment you answer, there will be an army of paid lobbyists, people running ads in your district, probably now beating the crap out of me on social media because when it's that sort of money, you know they're going to. | ||
| And you also saw the articles three weeks ago on Wall Street Journal. | ||
| There's criminal investigations now going on. | ||
| Justice Department now is diving into these folks. | ||
| So there's more going on here. | ||
| I will argue, Mr. Roy, and some of our friends who are fiscal conservatives but also want to modernize the delivery of services. | ||
| Help me. | ||
| We have spent almost a year diving into the data. | ||
| What would happen if fixing these misalignments, the waste and fraud, actually, it doesn't get us where we need to be, but it starts moving us the right direction. | ||
| Ms. Roy, I think I'm actually against my time, so I'm going to do that moment. | ||
| I'm going to first apologize to the folks that had to try to take our words down for talking too fast, for the poor speaker that had to sit here and listen to this, and to my staff that's now going to have to write lots of apology letters for all the people like just hurt their feelings. | ||
| But with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Arizona yields back. | |
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy, for 30 minutes. | ||
| I thank the Speaker, and I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona. | ||
| We'd engage in a colloquy on his time. | ||
| I'm going to start my 30 minutes. | ||
| He, of course, is welcome to stick around a little bit if he wants. | ||
| And I'm going to just jump off from where he started, or I'm going to start from where he left off. | ||
|
Every Year We Vote for More Debt
00:15:20
|
||
| And that is to talk about what we're debating on the floor right now, which is the reconciliation bills that we are debating in the House and in the Senate as we speak. | ||
| Now, for the average viewer out there, you don't understand what we're talking about. | ||
| Let me put it in basic terms. | ||
| The reconciliation process is a part of the Budget Control Act, which basically gives us the ability to reconcile current policies with what we're dealing with with respect to our spending debt deficits, right? | ||
| We have to make that all add up. | ||
| And we're supposed to do that in a way that would yield deficit neutrality or deficit reduction. | ||
| That's the general purpose of why we have reconciliation. | ||
| Reconciliation, though, because there is a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, and that means certain policies that the majority wants to get in place in the House and the Senate, if they control both chambers, often hit resistance by the minority party in the Senate, that then reconciliation is used to end run what we call the filibuster, even though it's really just a 60-vote threshold, end-run that in order to get policy, even though we're supposedly not doing policy on reconciliation. | ||
| That is how stupid your Congress is, America. | ||
| That's how you're developing policy, through a bunch of arcane procedures, some of which are great and designed to have cooling effects, some of which are really stupid. | ||
| But what we are doing is trying to find every which way possible to avoid accountability and responsibility. | ||
| And that is, as I've been putting it around here to reporters and getting reported out, to do basic math. | ||
| Because that is, in fact, our obligation, is to do basic math. | ||
| And unfortunately, a whole bunch of my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle and a whole bunch of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle refuse to do basic math. | ||
| They want to say that through magic fairy dust and through money trees, they can just wish away the reality that we're going to have certain amount of inflows and a certain amount of outflows every year. | ||
| And you want to know why we're $37 trillion in debt or soon to be? | ||
| That's why. | ||
| Now, we're having a big debate, America, on what we should do in this so-called reconciliation process. | ||
| We are going to have tax policy in there that's going to affect our tax revenues for the government, but more importantly, affect the tax bill you receive. | ||
| Let me stipulate for the record when I am attacked a lot in the coming weeks for saying allegedly I want to have tax cuts go up or have taxes go up. | ||
| I am emphatically for cutting taxes. | ||
| I would like to zero out the tax code, eliminate the income tax, get rid of the IRS. | ||
| I would like to do all of those things, and I have legislation to do it. | ||
| And I will vote for tax cuts, but I refuse to ignore math. | ||
| If you're going to do a certain amount of tax cuts, which will create a certain amount of economic growth, yes, you still have to model how much revenue will come into the Treasury versus how much you're spending. | ||
| Because my Republican colleagues love to spend. | ||
| They campaign on tax cuts. | ||
| They deliver on most of the tax cuts. | ||
| They campaign on balancing the budget and cutting spending and never do it. | ||
| Ever. | ||
| In the history of ever, with the possible exception of the late 1990s, when the Gingrich Republicans combined with Clinton and, by the way, a dot-com economic explosion to deliver us a balanced budget. | ||
| And they did it through welfare reform and through some spending constraint. | ||
| And that is the only time in modern history where we've done it. | ||
| Here's the problem: this chart shows you what we're dealing with. | ||
| A whole lot of people are saying, well, Chip, you and all these fiscal hawks, these fiscal conservatives, you guys want to do all these massive cuts and we can't do it. | ||
| And it's crazy what you want to do. | ||
| Let me be clear what we're talking about. | ||
| We're currently running close to $2 trillion deficits. | ||
| If we do all of the crazy stuff we're trying to do, we will be running what? | ||
| Close to $2 trillion deficits. | ||
| That's the truth. | ||
| That's what the models show. | ||
| That's what we know. | ||
| So look here. | ||
| These are the projections of the way things will be if we do nothing. | ||
| The blue line, we do nothing this year. | ||
| We let the tax cuts expire, taxes go up. | ||
| Let me repeat, I'm against that. | ||
| Taxes go up, revenues are projected to do what they do, and we will have the amount of debt over the next 10 years you see here growing from almost $30 something trillion dollars, growing all the way up to $50 trillion. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Now, what do these other lines represent? | ||
| The orange lines, those lines are the House bill. | ||
| The red lines were the Senate bill. | ||
| Well, we just did a thing where we combined the House and the Senate bill into one budget. | ||
| We're now negotiating that, and this is all yet to be determined. | ||
| Why am I saying all this? | ||
| No one wants to read all this. | ||
| Nobody's going to pay attention to a chart. | ||
| All my staff, everybody says don't use charts on the floor. | ||
| Just go down and say things that will get clipped and sent around. | ||
| Well, let me try to say something that will get clipped and sent around. | ||
| Even if the House Republicans are successful in working with the President and the Senate to achieve the $1.5 to $2 trillion in spending restraint over the 10-year budget window, which is a mere $150 to $200 billion a year, even if we're successful, we're going to massively increase the debt in the United States all the way to well over pushing $50 trillion by the end of this budget window. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| If we fail, if we fail, then that will go up a little higher. | ||
| We have an obligation to do better. | ||
| Everything we're fighting for right now in the House is for crumbs. | ||
| I haven't decided whether I'll vote for it or not vote for it. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because I'm one vote out of 220 Republicans. | ||
| I'm one vote, and I got to figure out how we build a majority and how the Senate builds a majority and then work with the White House to get a bill signed. | ||
| I recognize that. | ||
| But there is a limit that I can accept. | ||
| And so somebody asked me, I just want the whole world to tell me: should I vote for a bill if we're successful at fighting for what we're fighting for on Medicaid reforms, on unwinding the student loans, on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, on finding savings and fees on illegal aliens here so that we can pay for continued enforcement of the law at the border. | ||
| If we're successful in all of those things in terms of revenues and expenses, I'm still going to burden my kids and grandkids with over $50 trillion in debt. | ||
| All right, what does that mean? | ||
| Well, it means more interest. | ||
| It means likely higher inflation. | ||
| Because at some point we can't afford this. | ||
| That's the fundamental question. | ||
| Now, I've got a bunch of my colleagues, to the point of the gentleman from Arizona, running around saying, well, we can't touch Medicaid. | ||
| Well, why can't we? | ||
| Medicaid was expanded under Obamacare, which we all opposed. | ||
| And the Medicaid expansion was a big reason why we opposed it. | ||
| So why can we now not demand reforms to the broken pieces of Obamacare that expanded Medicaid such that we are giving 90% federal match to the able-bodied, the people who are not the most vulnerable, compared to the vulnerable population who only get 50 to 60 to 70 percent? | ||
| Why would we do that? | ||
| Why would we give more to Medicaid recipients than Medicare recipients, which we often do? | ||
| Why would we continue to allow states like California and other states to game the system to get federal dollars sent back in a money laundering scheme, as has been reported widely by the Wall Street Journal and others, they're openly and knowingly doing it. | ||
| Why wouldn't we fix that? | ||
| Why wouldn't we apply eligibility rules and work requirements combined with lowering that abusive federal match rate, subsidizing blue states to game the system when they're using federal borrowed money to prop up their weak state budget? | ||
| Why wouldn't we fix that? | ||
| I don't have a single constituent I know who thinks we ought to continue doing that. | ||
| And even more so, let me see this chart. | ||
| My colleagues are running around saying, well, they give into these arguments that we're somehow cutting Medicaid. | ||
| That's a lie. | ||
| Now, we could have a debate about whether we should actually reduce Medicaid and give more money in other places or free up the states to provide better service or empower Americans to go get the doctor of their choice and be able to afford health care without having an employer or government-provided insurance-run bureaucratic system enriching insurance bureaucrats and pharma and hospitals because that's what we have. | ||
| We don't have free health care anywhere in this country. | ||
| The freest country in the world. | ||
| You do not have the freedom to go to the doctor of your choice. | ||
| You don't. | ||
| The average family in this country is paying $25,000 a year to go to insurance bureaucrats to tell you what handful of doctors you can go to, what lousy deductible you get, what ridiculous copay you have. | ||
| And I've got a constituent who died from cancer last year who couldn't go to MD Anderson because she was covered on MD Anderson. | ||
| I mean, covered on Obamacare. | ||
| Think about that. | ||
| Covered on Obamacare. | ||
| Sick with cancer, can't go to the best cancer hospital in the world two hours from her house. | ||
| That's your health care system. | ||
| And we won't touch Medicaid. | ||
| Our budget contemplates Medicaid going up 25%. | ||
| I'm not going to say whether that's good or bad, but can we at least just have the backbone as a Republican Party to not allow our colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the media to say that we're cutting Medicaid when we're increasing Medicaid spending? | ||
| I mean, it is mind-boggling that we allow that narrative to set in on a program that is broken, that has a trillion dollars of improper payments, that is ripe with abuse. | ||
| What are we here for? | ||
| I mean, that'd be my question for my Republican colleagues. | ||
| Why did you run for office? | ||
| Because I don't recall Republicans running on a big platform of the government is the solution to all your problems. | ||
| I don't remember growing up as a child of the 80s listening to Ronald Reagan or frankly listening to President Trump's speeches saying, oh yeah, man, we really love government bureaucracy and all the great things it does for the people. | ||
| Nobody runs on that. | ||
| Not a single Republican has run on increasing deficits. | ||
| Every single Republican has run on balancing the budget. | ||
| Yet every year we vote for more spending. | ||
| Every year we vote for more debt. | ||
| Every year we increase deficits and add to the debt every single year. | ||
| Yet, and I want to get right to the chase here because for the last two months, some of us have been willing to walk out and say that we will not vote for the tax cut extensions if we don't get spending restraint. | ||
| And I'm getting lots of Republicans around town who like to stir the pot and going and say, well, you're going to vote for a tax increase, are you, Chip? | ||
| Oh, we're going to hit you hard. | ||
| We will come after you for being for voting for tax increases. | ||
| But they won't say a thing about voting for the inflation tax increase on every American family while they run to the hills on spending restraint because they won't do it. | ||
| That's the truth. | ||
| I didn't come to this town for more of the same. | ||
| The men and women who walked into a wall of bullets in Normandy, they didn't do it so that we could have $50 trillion of debt and destroy our own country from within. | ||
| That's what's happening. | ||
| This country is weaker because the very individuals entrusted to defend her, defend the Constitution, and be responsible stewards of the Treasury have failed them and continue to fail them. | ||
| And let me be very clear about the budget we're talking about right now. | ||
| Let's put that back up real quick if we don't mind. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You see what happens to the debt under our budgets? | ||
| They go way up. | ||
| But I'm not accounting for the other things. | ||
| What are those other things? | ||
| Well, this budget, the House budget, it assumes that we're able to figure out how to hold what we call discretionary spending flat. | ||
| I don't know if the speaker is the only other person in the chamber with me, believes that we'll hold discretionary spending flat, but history would say we wouldn't. | ||
| But our budget assumes that we hold discretionary spending flat. | ||
| That's defense, DOJ, DHS, all of the spending on all of the various programs in commerce and go down the list. | ||
| Okay, well, what else? | ||
| I read a story yesterday that because of tariff policy, and by the way, I support the president using tariff policy to isolate China and restructure our worldwide trade that has been being abused by friend and foe. | ||
| But I just read a story yesterday that they're planning on how to bail out farmers from tariffs. | ||
| Well, remember, seven years ago, we had to spend $25 to $30, $35 billion to bail out farmers for tariffs. | ||
|
Begging for Crumbs
00:09:36
|
||
| This last December, we spent, I don't know, $30 billion or something in a supplemental bailing out farmers. | ||
| All right, well, what happens when, oh, well, we need more money for California wildfires? | ||
| Or what happens when there's a hurricane that hits Florida or, you know, apparently North Carolina, Tennessee? | ||
| Is that $5 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion, $50 billion? | ||
| You see, Congress does not have the ability to say no to spending. | ||
| So let's bring it all back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Should I vote for a reconciliation package that will almost certainly guarantee a trillion and a half to two trillion dollars of deficit spending because I'm getting certain crumbs in cuts in certain committees, and the only reason that I've gotten said crumbs was because we threatened to stop the extension of the tax cuts in order to force the question on spending. | |
| Look, I want to absolutely applaud the great work of a whole lot of committee chairs and my Republican colleagues for the work that they've done to identify spending restraint and savings. | ||
| Education, they found a bunch of savings. | ||
| I go through committee by committee. | ||
| Last night we added a lot of fees to pay for border security and stuff in the Judiciary Committee. | ||
| There are other things we could do. | ||
| But the math is still going to have to be math. | ||
| We are going to spend about another $300 billion in this bill for defense and border security. | ||
| That's another $300 billion. | ||
| We're going to find savings of allegedly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. | ||
| So that's $150 billion a year. | ||
| What that means is we're already in the hole. | ||
| We're already in the hole. | ||
| By 2035, the United States will be spending more on interest per year than all federal programs aside from Social Security. | ||
| Right now, federal debt is so large, 40% of all personal income taxes go to paying interest on the federal debt. | ||
| Think about that. | ||
| We have over a trillion dollars a year in interest. | ||
| Spending drives inflation. | ||
| In 2024, the typical American family needed an extra $17,000 a year to maintain the same standard of living as January 2021. | ||
| We have increased spending, our budget, our federal budget, from roughly $3.6 trillion or so in 2015 to almost $7 trillion now. | ||
| That's an 80% increase. | ||
| Does anybody alive think that we can sustain this? | ||
| Do any of my colleagues, Republican or Democrat, think that we can sustain this? | ||
| Does anybody alive right now in the chamber, if you're in the complex and you haven't hopped on a plane to fly home because we had our final vote on a Thursday morning and we're going to come back on a Monday night in our usual way of doing things in the swamp? | ||
| Not doing what we should do. | ||
| Does anybody believe that this is going to save the fiscal health of America? | ||
| Like I said, I haven't decided if I'm going to vote for it or against it. | ||
| That depends on a lot of variables. | ||
| Does the Inflation Reduction Act actually repeal the ridiculous subsidizing that are enriching the Chinese and enriching billion-dollar corporations and undermining our energy security? | ||
| Do we have the resources necessary to secure the border and the fees to pay for it? | ||
| Are we putting in the provisions that we ought to be putting in there to guarantee that we're going to have the president be able to carry out his campaign promises to remove aliens? | ||
| Are we going to have transformational reform to Medicaid so that we eliminate the 90% ridiculous subsidy of the able-bodied while we're giving a much lower rate of 50 to 70 percent to the vulnerable population? | ||
| Are we going to continue to allow the provider taxes and the gaming of the system, the money laundering that is allowing money to go to California to be gamed and to be doled out to illegal aliens and put in their general budget as they openly brag? | ||
| Or are we going to fix that? | ||
| Are we going to fix the debacle that is the higher education system? | ||
| Are we going to restrain their ability to abuse federal grants, student loan subsidies? | ||
| Or are we going to continue to subsidize Harvard, Yale, Cal, Berkeley, University of Texas, Austin, University of Virginia, both my alma mater? | ||
| I don't care, I'd cut them off. | ||
| Take away their money. | ||
| Are we going to continue to do as I heard, which is to provide, create additional taxes on cars? | ||
| Or are we going to fix it? | ||
| Literally, in order to pay for the Coast Guard and air traffic control, I heard that the TNI committee were poised to put a vehicle tax on every vehicle in America. | ||
| Limited government, constitutional Republicans, were going to tax your car. | ||
| Well, we fought and said, well, that's a bad idea. | ||
| So they got rid of the tax, the $50 tax or $20 tax, whatever it was, on internal combustion engine cars, which, by the way, we are subsidizing EVs and hybrids and so forth in order to get the internal combustion engine off the street. | ||
| But now we're going to tax the EVs that we're subsidizing unless we repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. | ||
| These are the tangled webs that we weave in a government in which politicians promise to give away free stuff. | ||
| As I've said before, we're not the United States House of Free stuff. | ||
| You can't just print money and give it to people and say, oh, we'll take care of your problems. | ||
| Yet that's what we do. | ||
| Our best case scenario, if we pass this reconciliation package, is still $50 trillion in debt in 10 years. | ||
| Like, that's literally the best case scenario. | ||
| I think it's much worse, especially if our interest is going up and we'll refinance our debt at higher rates, which seems likely. | ||
| But here we are, just nibbling around the edges, begging for crumbs. | ||
| Please, oh, please, please give me $150 billion a year in savings on a $7 trillion annual budget, up almost twice in a decade. | ||
| bloated and expanded under COVID, bloated and expanded under both Democrat and Republican regimes. | ||
| We've had an extraordinary first 100 days. | ||
| The president has turned around the ship. | ||
| We're securing borders. | ||
| Apprehensions are down 94%. | ||
| We're resetting our position in the world stage diplomatically, economically. | ||
| We're rebuilding our military, which is being decimated by the previous administration, unwinding DEI, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government, firing bureaucrats, identifying all the things that ought to be cut, and that is a good thing. | ||
| And Congress, my colleagues, are doing some good things. | ||
| We've passed some good bills that are hitting a wall in the Senate. | ||
| The SAVE Act, the Injunctions Bill, a bunch of CRAs to undo the damage of the Biden administration. | ||
| We passed five this week to undo the damage of the EV mandates. | ||
| We got to stay on offense and we can, and we're doing a lot of great things, but this reconciliation bill, at a bare minimum, can do no harm. | ||
| And literally, that is what we're begging for, ladies and gentlemen, when we're trying to fight for $1.5 trillion in spending reductions, not even cuts. | ||
| I want to be clear. | ||
| I want to remind everybody about Medicaid. | ||
| Medicaid, there it is. | ||
| It's going up 25% in our budget for better or worse. | ||
| I can make arguments, but just it's going up. | ||
| So can we at least speak truth that it's going up and that we're begging for crumbs to get a trillion and a half in reductions over 10 years? | ||
| We're going to spend $86 trillion over the next 10 years. | ||
| We're just trying to save a trillion and a half of that massive increase for crumbs to have $50 trillion of debt at the end of that rainbow. | ||
| I hope we'll come together. | ||
| I hope we'll unite to deliver a product that is worthy of support. | ||
| I have not decided whether I'll be able to support it. | ||
| We will find out whether it has what is needed. | ||
|
Diana's Legacy
00:04:14
|
||
| I do want to take one second before I yield to my friend from California to honor a dear friend of mine who passed away a couple of weeks ago. | ||
| Diana Denman, often called the godmother of the Texas Republican Party. | ||
| She passed away on April 17th at the age of 91. | ||
| And I don't do a lot of the floor speeches on individuals because I feel like if I do them for one or two and I don't do them for everybody that I represent, that gets tough. | ||
| Obviously, veterans, police officers, there are things that rise to the occasion. | ||
| Diana was a legendary mentor, not just to me, but to many of my friends, many of the people that work for me, many of my staff. | ||
| She played a major role in the political evolution in Texas, where Texas went from a historic Southern Democrat state to a bastion of conservative Republican politics and a warrior for freedom across the globe. | ||
| I was proud to have her support, but more importantly, I was proud to have her friendship. | ||
| She worked closely with some of my dear friends in politics and former bosses like Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Rick Perry, both of whom are dear friends of mine. | ||
| She led a storied life. | ||
| She rode her horse into the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. | ||
| She acted in Hollywood, where she would go on to meet future President Reagan when she was in Hollywood in that golden age. | ||
| She held many positions in the Reagan administration of the 1980s, and she stood strong against the Soviet Union and the Soviet aggression around the globe. | ||
| She was truly one of the last cold warriors, and I mean that in all of the right and good ways. | ||
| As a child of the 80s, I consider myself a proud Cold Warrior and believe very much that we need to stand against aggression in the same way President Reagan stood against that aggression and stood for freedom and as a beacon of hope around the world. | ||
| But I think we could learn from that era, as I learned from Diana, about doing things through peace, through strength. | ||
| I will miss Diana, and she'll be remembered for her fierce patriotism and her strong convictions. | ||
| She was feisty. | ||
| She was committed. | ||
| She loved her country. | ||
| I want to thank her for her steadfast commitment to the conservative movement, to the United States, to defending our country, and in service of the Lord Almighty. | ||
| I'll keep fighting to live free, and I'll remember Diana through those actions. | ||
| And I will miss her dearly, as will many of my staff who counted her as a mentor. | ||
| But when I think of the people who have devoted their life to the cause, and they come and then they go and they pass, and I'm reminded that we're here for these fleeting moments. | ||
| What will be our legacy? | ||
| What will be the legacy of this generation? | ||
| Are we going to put this country back on a sustainable path? | ||
| Are we going to actually honor our constitutional commitment to have a limited government in which people can live free? | ||
| Are we going to constrain the appetite for unchecked spending and the racking up of debt and the deficits and the interest that are killing our economy, our country, and frankly, the futures of our own children? | ||
| Or are we going to choose the harder path? | ||
| Right? | ||
| As President Reagan said in 1964, it was a time for choosing. | ||
| Frankly, we didn't actually heed his call. | ||
| We chose poorly. | ||
| We chose the path of a massive bureaucratic tyrannical state. | ||
| We've empowered government. | ||
| We haven't reduced it. | ||
| We have increased spending. | ||
| We haven't reduced it. | ||
| We should actually honor that time for choosing. | ||
| And in the memory of my good friend who served with President Reagan, let's reignite that call for time for choosing, to choose that path, to choose the path of the Constitution of limited government, of freedom, of responsible spending, and turning over this country to our children better than we inherited it. | ||
|
Good News, Bad Prices
00:03:29
|
||
| With that, I will yield back. | ||
| The gentleman from Texas yields back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, for 30 minutes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| There's good news for Americans when it comes to gas prices. | ||
| They're down, about 50 cents since last year. | ||
| But unfortunately, this good news does not extend to Californians. | ||
| As you can see here, we remain a stark outlier with by far the highest gas prices in the country. | ||
| As of just a couple days ago, gas prices in California are 29 cents higher than second place Hawaii, an island state. | ||
| Third place is Washington. | ||
| Our gas prices are 52 cents higher than Washington. | ||
| They're 88 cents higher than fourth place Oregon, 94 cents higher than 5th place Nevada, $1.16 higher than sixth place Alaska. | ||
| This is truly astounding and is one of the main reasons why it's become so hard for people to get by in our state. | ||
| Now it's no mystery why this is so. | ||
| California has by far the highest gas tax in the country. | ||
| Our cap and trade program adds a huge amount to the price of each gallon, as well as the requirements of our fuel blend in California. | ||
| All of these taxes and regulations combine to give California by far the highest gas prices in the country already. | ||
| And now we've just learned that another refinery is closing. | ||
| So, two refineries have announced they are shutting down in California thanks to our insane energy policies. | ||
| This certainly is not going to help matters. | ||
| It is time for Governor Newsom and the California legislature to restore just a little bit of common sense when it comes to our energy policies because we cannot afford for these trends to continue. | ||
| Indeed, it's one of the main reasons that people have been leaving our state in record numbers over the last several years. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I wanted to provide an update on the non-existent high-speed rail project in California. | ||
| As I've noted on this floor before, I've introduced a resolution or legislation to cut off all future federal funding for California high-speed rail. | ||
|
High-Speed Rail Hurdles
00:04:06
|
||
| I was with Secretary Duffy when he announced an investigation into where the recent federal funding has actually gone. | ||
| And I have called upon the FBI, Director Kash Patel, to launch an investigation into what happened to the $17 billion that has already been spent. | ||
| At this point, the cost of the project is estimated to be about $100 billion more than it was initially sold to the public. | ||
| But we did get some news this week. | ||
| And maybe I've been a little too unkind to high-speed rail. | ||
| The new CEO, and by the way, this is the fifth CEO, so there have been five more CEOs than there have been riders. | ||
| Five CEOs, zero riders. | ||
| The new CEO came out with some exciting news. | ||
| He announced that he has a goal by the year 2045 of completing the line going from Palmdale to Gilroy. | ||
| So let's parse that statement. | ||
| A goal of 2045 going from Gilroy, Palmdale, to Gilroy. | ||
| Well, 2045 is, of course, 20 years from now. | ||
| I'll note that when the project was passed in 2008, it was supposed to be done, the entire thing, by 2020. | ||
| So the whole thing was supposed to be done five years ago, but now the CEO is saying, I've got an exciting, ambitious plan. | ||
| We're going to have Palmdale to Gilroy completed in 20 years. | ||
| And this is just the goal. | ||
| There have been a number of goals in the past in the tortured 17-year history of this project, and they've blown right past them, missing deadline after deadline with more cost overruns than we can even keep track of. | ||
| And then finally, when you look at what his goal, which is very unlikely to actually be reached, is it's to go from Palmdale to Gilroy. | ||
| So where are these places? | ||
| Remember, the initial project, it's supposed to ultimately go from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the two main population hubs of California. | ||
| Well, Palmdale is a ways away from LA. | ||
| It's about 37 miles northeast of Los Angeles. | ||
| So if traffic is good, it'll take you an hour in your car, or two hours if you're using existing public transportation. | ||
| So think about this. | ||
| You're taking our high-speed rail, which by the way, isn't going to be that fast. | ||
| It'll probably be the slowest high-speed rail system in the world if it even gets built. | ||
| And then you get out at Gilroy and you have to somehow have a car there and drive another hour or you hop on public transit for another two hours of travel just to get into LA. | ||
| And it's similarly on the north part of it. | ||
| Gilroy is 70 miles from San Francisco and you'd be going for at least another hour, probably more. | ||
| You'd certainly be driving more than an hour after hopping off there if you actually wanted to get into the city. | ||
| So of course I'm being facetious when I say that this is an exciting, ambitious plan. | ||
| It is just another example of why we need to end this project once and for all. | ||
| There is absolutely no reason that state or federal taxpayers should continue to fund a project that is going absolutely nowhere, especially when our roads are in such bad shape, among the worst in the entire world. | ||
|
CalMatters Reveals Health Tracker Abuse
00:04:19
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| It's time to redirect this spending towards transportation needs that will actually improve the quality of life for Californians. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, an investigation by CalMatters has revealed something extremely disturbing when it comes to the personal health information of Californians. | ||
| It's been revealed that Covered California, which is the state's Obamacare exchange, its website had a tracker that was collecting the personal health information of Californians and then transmitting that information for marketing purposes. | ||
| Specifically, the CalMatters investigation discovered that trackers on the website of Covered California collected and sent personal information to LinkedIn through one of the company's trackers called an insight tag. | ||
| This information included very personal health information, whether the individual was blind, disabled, pregnant, whether they used prescription drugs, their gender identity, whether they're a victim of domestic abuse, how often they sought care at in or outpatient facilities. | ||
| A spokesperson for Covered California even admitted they installed these trackers as part of a marketing campaign. | ||
| And the trackers, by the way, were not removed until this CalMatters report was published. | ||
| This illegal action was undertaken despite the fact that LinkedIn has publicly advised on their website that the insight tags, quote, should not be installed on web pages that collect or contain sensitive data, and that pages offering specific health-related or financial services or products to consumers that should not be there either. | ||
| But despite these warnings, Covered California proceeded, and I believe this raises a serious issue under HIPAA, a law designed to protect the privacy of individuals' personal health information. | ||
| So I have written to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy to ask for an investigation into what happened in California, into how this was allowed to happen, and to any legal violations that may have occurred. | ||
| Specifically, I'm asking Secretary Kennedy to investigate whether Covered California violated HIPAA or any other laws. | ||
| Who authorized the use of the trackers? | ||
| What controls exist to protect privacy in California's Affordable Care Act exchange? | ||
| How did Covered California evade those controls? | ||
| How many people have been impacted? | ||
| Have they been notified? | ||
| Has there been any restitution? | ||
| Why did Covered California use the trackers contrary to LinkedIn's explicit guidance? | ||
| And I am asking how this sort of violation can be prevented in the future. | ||
| This is truly unacceptable, and I look forward to getting some answers from this investigation. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take a moment today to commemorate John Adams Academy for its inaugural Servant Leadership Award Gala, which is taking place this weekend. | ||
| Now, John Adams is an exceptional school in my district. | ||
| As a matter of fact, they have three schools now in Roseville, in El Dorado Hills, and in Lincoln, and there are hundreds of families on the waiting list. | ||
|
Servant Leadership Philosophy
00:04:52
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| This is a charter school, and the school is so popular that there are hundreds of families who want to go there as well. | ||
| If you walk through one of their campuses, you'll see quotes from the founding fathers on the walls, and you'll see all signs of the classical education philosophy that guides the school's instruction. | ||
| I've had the chance to work with John Adams over the years in many ways. | ||
| I've judged the Constitution Bowl at their school. | ||
| I've been to their ceremonies for veterans. | ||
| I've met with their student council and participated and helped judge debates that they were part of. | ||
| It is truly a special place, and this servant leadership award really embodies the spirit of the institution. | ||
| John Adams was founded by Dr. Dean Foreman, and he is spearheading this servant leadership award, which will be awarded this weekend. | ||
| The inaugural recipient will be Mark and Marcus Haney. | ||
| Mark Haney runs the Growth Factory in Rockland, which helps early-stage entrepreneurs build startup businesses. | ||
| They work with them to build the funding case and leadership capacity to attract the capital and team needed to support scaling a high-growth company. | ||
| And then his son, Marcus Haney, started Allegiant Vets, which is a way to provide a bridge for veterans leaving military service to be integrated into jobs in their local communities. | ||
| Mark Haney, his father, says, We've imagined the impact that the most resourceful regional leaders could have if united to help one promising entrepreneur. | ||
| The growth factory is the realization of that vision multiplied by 100. | ||
| I'm a little biased in this respect because I have seen the impact that the Haney family has had on our community in so many different ways. | ||
| And in fact, I honored Marcus Haney with the Veteran of the Year Award when I was a member of the state legislature. | ||
| But I wanted to also give you a description that Dr. Foreman has given for what a servant leader is, because I think it's a timely reminder in these times, in many ways, of what we should aspire to in public service or in other forms of community leadership. | ||
| So, the description is as follows: of a servant leader. | ||
| Robert K. Greenleaf said, The great leader is seen as servant first. | ||
| A servant leader is a servant first, driven by an inner compass of virtues or core values, with a natural desire to serve and empower others. | ||
| This is not about being subservient, but about sincerely wanting to help others by identifying and meeting needs. | ||
| A servant leader has the gift of persuasion through moral authority, the principled use of natural virtues unique to them for the benefit of others, and also positional authority. | ||
| Titles, credentials, and degrees give only the opportunity to lead, but it is the actions on behalf of others that can command, inspire, and motivate change and moral behavior in others. | ||
| A servant leader has submitted himself to his higher nature and asks, what is wanted of me? | ||
| A servant leader has vision. | ||
| He or she has knowledge of the past, recognizes what is needed to improve one's life, family, community, and world, and acts to bring about a better future for others. | ||
| A servant leader applies true principles such as public and private virtue, natural law, liberty, life, personal responsibility, etc. | ||
| A servant leader has the ability to build coalitions and inspire others to follow as first among equals. | ||
| They see where things are in their condition as well as where they should be, and then they insert themselves to voluntarily move self and others toward the ideal. | ||
| They model what they teach. | ||
| They become leaders because of their examples and influence. | ||
| A servant leader understands that life is not just a quest for pleasure or power, but of meaning. | ||
| Meaning and happiness are found when one is dedicated to a cause greater than oneself. | ||
| The servant nature is not bestowed and cannot be taken away. | ||
| It is when one is deep, it is one that is deep inside. | ||
| Once this is recognized, the servant intentionally chooses to lead. | ||
| Servant leadership is about becoming. | ||
| So I want to just say thank you to Dr. Foreman and John Adams Academy for providing this tremendous recognition. | ||
|
Call for Secure Rural Schools Funding
00:04:58
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| I'll look forward to seeing the award promote this idea of servant leadership in the years to come. | ||
| And congratulations to Mark and Marcus Haney on being the inaugural recipients. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, today I am calling on the House of Representatives to act with urgency to reauthorize secure rural schools. | ||
| The program, unfortunately, because of the House's lack of action, has been allowed to expire. | ||
| Even though the Senate did pass it last year, the House failed to do so. | ||
| Secure Rural Schools provides critical funding for a number of counties in my district and across the country. | ||
| It was enacted in the year 2000, and it compensates counties with large amounts of national forest land for lost revenue due to declining federal timber sales. | ||
| The funds support local schools, roads, and essential public services. | ||
| Congress reauthorized the program through fiscal year 2023, but as I mentioned, the authorization expired in September 30, 2023, and final payments were made in April of 2024. | ||
| So Congress must reauthorize this to avoid critical funding shortfalls. | ||
| For example, in some of the counties of my district, Plumas County relies on secure rural schools for $3.7 million, Sierra County for $942,000, Yuba County for $122,000, Nevada County for $393,000, Placer County for $839,000, El Dorado County for $2.1 million, and Alpine County for $493,000. | ||
| Many of those counties are small counties. | ||
| This provides critical funding that they need because they have a large amount of federal land and don't have a large tax base. | ||
| And so I'm calling on House leadership and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to act with urgency to get this measure passed and make sure that these communities receive the funding that they need and that they rely upon. | ||
| With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| Does the gentleman have a motion? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn. | ||
| The question is on the motion to adjourn. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those opposed, no. | |
| The ayes have it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The motion is adopted. | |
| Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until noon on Monday next for morning hour debate. | ||
| The House finishing its legislative work for the week. | ||
| Today, members approved a measure to repeal the designation of the long fin smelt fish as an endangered species in the San Francisco Bay Delta area, as well as a bill to repeal the approval for the state of California to impose more stringent car emissions standards. | ||
| Stay tuned for more live coverage of the House here on C-SPAN when members return next week. | ||
| Looking to contact your members of Congress? | ||
| Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory. | ||
| Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. | ||
| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress. | ||
| Contact information on congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. | ||
| The congressional directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C-SPAN's non-profit operations. | ||
| Scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to order your copy today. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
| We are still at our core a democracy. | ||
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
|
Economy Hits Snag
00:15:36
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|
unidentified
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And we'll get a live look here inside the State Department briefing room as we wait for spokeswoman Tammy Bruce to speak to reporters who are gathered. | |
| Earlier today, she was asked about reports that White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would be leaving his post. | ||
| She said, quote, I'm not going to get ahead of what the president may or may not say later today. | ||
| I do know the talent bench for this government is deep. | ||
| The news comes after Mr. Waltz reportedly added a journalist by mistake to a group chat in which top officials discussed military plans to strike Yemen. | ||
| Also in the news today, the U.S. and Ukraine signing a deal that will give America preferential access to Ukrainian natural resources, including oil, natural gas, and minerals. | ||
| Again, just waiting for the State Department briefing to begin. | ||
| And in the meantime, we'll show you some of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| All the major papers are taking a look at that news yesterday released about the gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2025. | ||
| The Washington Post, with their headline, tariffs sapping economy already, highlighting that decline, also adding that imports surge as firms move up their purchases. | ||
| That's the Post. | ||
| USA Today with their headline. | ||
| On day 101 for Trump, economy hits a snag. | ||
| Markets teeter as data shows first contraction since 2022 is how they report on it. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal this morning, this is their headline. | ||
| Economy shrinks as tariffs take toll. | ||
| And they write this. | ||
| Consumer spending, the economy's main engine, rose at a 1.8% pace in the first quarter, the smallest increase since mid-2023. | ||
| Spending by the federal government fell as the Department of Government Efficiency cut jobs and contracts. | ||
| But the main driver of the first quarter contraction was President Trump's trade war. | ||
| Net exports, the difference between what the U.S. imports and exports subtracted nearly five percentage points from the headline GDP. | ||
| That was the biggest quarterly drag from net exports on record, dating back to 1947 is how the Wall Street Journal plays it out this morning. | ||
| So on the larger issues of actions on the economy, if you think that the president's actions are making things better or worse, call and let us know. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001, Republicans, Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| This is the headline from the Washington Times as they report on the economic matters this morning. | ||
| Trump blames, quote, overhang for recession fears. | ||
| And that subhead, economy shrinks in the first quarter, leaving blemish on the first 100 days. | ||
| That overhang statement came during back and forth with reporters during the president's cabinet meeting that you can still see on C-SPAN yesterday, but from yesterday. | ||
| But here's a portion of that in which he talks about matters of the economy. | ||
| I don't view the stock market as the end of it. | ||
| It's an indicator. | ||
| But what the stock market really tells you and what you, when you look at the stock market in this case, is it says how bad a situation we inherited. | ||
| I took place, this is a quarter that we looked at today. | ||
| And we took all of us together. | ||
| We came in on January 20th. | ||
| So this is Biden. | ||
| And you can even say the next quarter is sort of Biden because it doesn't just happen on a daily or an hourly basis. | ||
| But we're turning it around. | ||
| It's a big shift to turn around. | ||
| And we're going to have the greatest country financially in the history of the world, I believe. | ||
| I think we're going to do things that, and we had to do it. | ||
| We reset the table. | ||
| We were being ripped off by every single country with just about without exception. | ||
| I'd have to really think hard for who hasn't taken advantage. | ||
| And I don't even blame those countries. | ||
| I blame the person that was sitting right here where I am for allowing it to happen where our country was ripped off on trade hundreds of billions of dollars. | ||
| And now we're doing better than we've done in a long time. | ||
| You know, we were losing four to five to even six billion dollars a day on trade with Biden. | ||
| And now we have it down to a very manageable number. | ||
| And the tariffs, for the most part, haven't even kicked in yet. | ||
| So that's the way stock markets to me are an indication. | ||
| But the big indication is what's happening. | ||
| And the people around the table know what's happening. | ||
| The president from yesterday, you can still see that on our website at C-SPAN.org, our free video app at C-SPAN now. | ||
| The actions of the Trump administration, if it's making the economy better or worse. | ||
| Let's hear from Mitchell in New Jersey. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| Your first up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| The economy is a disaster. | ||
| And it's going to be a disaster, I should say. | ||
| And everything that the president has been saying is just ludicrous. | ||
| The whole planning makes absolutely no sense. | ||
| It isn't just the tariffs. | ||
| I mean, the tariffs are certainly going to accelerate the problems. | ||
| But the whole theory that the whole Republican theory that we need to find money to deal with the debt and then passing massive tax cuts makes no sense. | ||
| And Trump is just oblivious to the effects that the economy, what he's doing to the economy. | ||
| And then the American public is not really going to feel this for a couple of months because it's going to take a while for the supply line to catch up with this policy. | ||
| But, you know, I watched a lot of these Sunday shows this past week and his cabinet was all over the place describing what was going on. | ||
| And then we have a potential cut, gigantic cut cutting in Medicaid. | ||
| This country is going to be reeling, reeling by Labor Day. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mitchell in New Jersey, let's hear from Frank in Maryland, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, I just want to say that I believe what President is doing, I think he's got to stop China from ripping us off. | |
| There's going to be no pain, no gain. | ||
| You know, that's just what I think. | ||
| But as far as the actions themselves overall with the economy, better or worse at this point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd say it's better. | |
| I think it's better since the first day he walked into office. | ||
| Biden was destroying the country. | ||
| That's just what I believe. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Frank in Maryland. | ||
| Reginald joins us from Grand Rapids, Iowa. | ||
| Independent line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Reginald? | ||
| Yep, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm a little indifferent with what Trump is doing because honestly, people are really, really upset with the economy. | |
| He's taking bold actions. | ||
| Do I agree with it all? | ||
| Not necessarily. | ||
| But at least he's drawing a line in the sand where we can either agree or disagree with it. | ||
| And this is on us. | ||
| If we're all so upset about it and we're doing nothing about it, at least he's making it known. | ||
| If I may ask, what actions don't you agree with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A lot of the tariffs, because he's going back and forth on electronics, and our whole economy has shifted to almost an app-based economy where it's all digital information. | |
| A lot of us are not receiving the benefits. | ||
| It's not a job we could necessarily take. | ||
| And it's a whole different economy, and we're all very upset about it. | ||
| In Iowa, there, what's the economic? | ||
| Are there indicators, if you go to the store, other things you'll look at when you measure these, the state of the economy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're left with Walmart and Target. | |
| There's so many retail stores where we necessarily could have a job, and they've all closed because of our online economy with Amazon. | ||
| And it's not necessarily that I'm against this, but it's a changing economy. | ||
| And we're all very not happy about it because it's cutting out jobs with automases with artificial intelligence. | ||
| And it has completely changed. | ||
| And the one thing I do respect about our president is he is drawing a line in the sand. | ||
| Okay, that's Reginald there in Iowa. | ||
| Eddie is up next. | ||
| Eddie's in Georgia. | ||
| Democrats line the actions of the Trump administration when it comes to the economy, making things better or worse. | ||
| Good morning, Eddie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's in between. | |
| In between, making it, It's worse. | ||
| He's making it worse. | ||
| He's trying to make it worse. | ||
| He, you know, just like his first term. | ||
| He didn't do nothing in his first term. | ||
| But this term, oh, I'm just thinking he's making it worse because he's hurting everybody now. | ||
| Everybody he got a dattle with. | ||
| Everybody he got something agenda to. | ||
| And he don't tell, like we say, he don't tell nothing about himself. | ||
| Look what he did to Ukraine. | ||
| Well, let's go back. | ||
| Well, let's go back to matters of the economy. | ||
| You started out saying in between, then you said he's trying to make it worse, and then you said he's making it worse. | ||
| How do you determine that in your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's making it worse because he don't know what he's doing. | |
| They put him in this office, not want to work with the Democrats. | ||
| We've never seen him had no meeting with the Democrats. | ||
| No meeting with the, he just tried to have meeting with people that he think going to praise him. | ||
| You see how you get on TV? | ||
| Oh, I'm the best president. | ||
| Oh, this economy is so good. | ||
| I'm doing a great job. | ||
| Everything I'm doing is great. | ||
| You know, messing with people lives, killing kids, killing people, hiring other countries to take people away. | ||
| It's not good. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Eddie and Georgia there. | ||
| Joel is up next in Arkansas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Republican Leonardo. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Go ahead, Joel. | ||
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Better or worse. | ||
| Right now, it's not good. | ||
| But what is the world doing? | ||
| That should be the question. | ||
| How is the whole world? | ||
| I see China is closing their factories down. | ||
| I see everything is upside down right now. | ||
| We're only looking at the USA. | ||
| Now, it depends on your income. | ||
| I'm 83 years old. | ||
| I've saved my money. | ||
| I've worked several, several jobs. | ||
| So it's bad now. | ||
| I have to agree. | ||
| But I agree with what President Trump is doing and accomplished for the American people. | ||
| When you say it's bad now, but you agree with it, how do you square that against each other? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, when you want to turn an ocean aligner around out in the ocean, you don't turn it on a dime. | |
| Now, he's only been in office 101 days. | ||
| So it takes time. | ||
| Joel there in Arkansas. | ||
| Several of you already giving us on the phones. | ||
| If you want to make your phone and thoughts known on the phones, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| It was in the Senate yesterday where the Senate took a vote when it came to President Trump's tariffs policies, Fox News reporting on it, saying that the Senate failed Wednesday to pass a resolution rejecting President Trump's Liberation Day tariff agenda. | ||
| As several Republicans signaled beforehand, they favored halting the relatively new levies. | ||
| And Vice President JD Vance was called in to break an ensuing procedural tie. | ||
| The disapproval resolution failed 49 to 49 with three Republicans joining all Democrats present in attempting to throw a wrench in Mr. Trump's tariffs plans. | ||
| After that, Senate Majority Leader John Thune put forward a motion to reconsider the resolution, then move to table or kill the initial motion, which procedurally would prevent Democrats from forcing such a vote again. | ||
| That vote also deadlocked. | ||
| But after 80 minutes, Vice President Vance cast a tiebreaking vote in his dual role as president of the Senate. | ||
| Let's hear from Donna and Donna joins us from Pennsylvania Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi, thank you Trump. | |
| I just want to say it's horrible. | ||
| It's worse. | ||
| It doesn't make no sense how the economy's down, the stock market's down, people are losing plenty of money. | ||
| The only thing good that Donald Trump did was the border, and he half-ass did that. | ||
| You know, I went into the store the other day to get some cat food fancy feats for my cats, and the shelves were empty, empty, didn't have none in it. | ||
| So I went to the bigger giant eagles that we have here in Pittsburgh, and that was empty. | ||
| And so I said, Well, what's going on here? | ||
| So I went to the pet store, and I asked the lady, What's going on with the fancy feats? | ||
| She said, Well, they're going to not be getting it in like they used to get it in, but they'll stock the stores, the pet stores, before they stock the main stores. | ||
| So we're in for a fall. | ||
| And yesterday, when they sat around at their cabinet meeting and praised Donald Trump as if this was his nine-year-old birthday party, and he sat there with a smile on his face because they're and Pam Blondie, oh, you're the greatest, you're the greatest president we ever had. | ||
| I guess he is, because your pockets are full of money. | ||
| All of y'all. | ||
| You're sort of ripping the dag on American people off, and your pockets are full of money. | ||
| And you Republicans are going to sit up here and say how great he is, and he's doing a good job. | ||
| Oh, we just got to wait. | ||
| Okay, Donna there in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Let's go to Antoine in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you? | |
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Good. | ||
| Well, before the tariffs, most households in America allegedly were two paychecks away from being homeless. | ||
| Where are they now? | ||
| I think the economy is worse. | ||
| According to Gavin Newton in the state of California, and I believe other 14 other states are joining in with California to sue the Trump administration because they had figured out their budget in May and the money that they are going to lose as a result of these tariffs. | ||
| People that experience the fires in Southern California perhaps will not be able to rebuild due to the lumber all coming out of Canada. | ||
|
Fixed Incomes and Hurricanes
00:00:54
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|
unidentified
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On an individual basis, Florida is the senior citizen capital of the world. | |
| We're dealing with a lot of fixed incomes, and those fixed incomes end up feeding everybody else working in the state of Florida. | ||
| The homeowners insurance has skyrocketed as a result of the hurricanes, which has increased. | ||
| Better put my phones on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do not disturb. | |
| Hi, Matt. | ||
| Hey. | ||
| Happy Thursday. | ||
| Happy 101st day. | ||
| Happy May Day. | ||
| Happy the beginning of the second 100 days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| I'm sorry, ma'am. | ||
| Started with a blast. | ||
| It did, didn't it? | ||