| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
Garcia Defends Democracy
00:12:36
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| Session of Congress called the Democrats lunatics. | ||
| Now, I had been removed, but I do want to believe that if he had said that while I was there, I would have stood up and said, Mr. President, you can't come into our house and call us lunatics. | ||
| I just don't think that we can allow him to do this. | ||
| He uses his incivility that persons will applaud against our civility, which means we have to sit back and allow him to say these things and to do the dastardly deeds that he's committing. | ||
| I refuse to be silent when I see democracy at risk. | ||
| He's disobeying court orders. | ||
| He disrespects the notion that we have a Fifth Amendment to the Constitution that requires due process. | ||
| He would, if he could, cause persons who are American citizens to be sent to foreign prisoners if he could. | ||
| He said as much, and he said as much that he could bring Mr. Garcia back, Ibergo Garcia back, but he has declined to do it. | ||
| And that's Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| We will take you over to the House set to gavel in momentarily. | ||
| Thanks for watching, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just waiting for the House here, the members to come through the doors today, considering a bill to permanently rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. | |
| That introduced by Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, it would codify President Trump's executive order into law. | ||
| The measure directing the Interior Secretary to update the Gulf's name on all federal documents and maps. | ||
| And off the floor, the House committees continue work on their portions of the GOP budget reconciliation package. | ||
| Speaker Johnson saying that he hopes to have floor action on that package by Memorial Day. | ||
| just waiting for the house to gavel in. | ||
| The house will be in order, and the prayer will be offered by our guest chaplain, Reverend Dr. Charles B. Jackson Sr., Brooklyn Baptist Church, West Columbia, South Carolina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let us pray. | |
| Eternal God, our Heavenly Father, we acknowledge you as the Lord of all life, the fountain of all goodness, and the source of all truth. | ||
| Thankful we are for our great nation and the responsibility entrusted to those who serve within these walls. | ||
| We ask, dear God, that you would impart your wisdom to guide the deliberations of those who serve in this body. | ||
| We pray in the name of Jesus Christ that each representative is granted clarity of mind, integrity of heart, courage of conviction to serve not for personal gain but for the well-being of all people. | ||
| We would, their service, dear God, reflect who you are as the God of love, justice, mercy, compassion, and the common good. | ||
| Help our nation, dear Lord, by showing us the way to unity and diversity and hope in adversity. | ||
| May all who serve our country do so with humility and a deep sense of duty to their fellow citizens. | ||
| Our prayer is to the end that your will is done. | ||
| In the savior name of Jesus our Christ, amen. | ||
| And thank God. | ||
| 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 Texas, Ms. Garcia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Clyburn, is recognized for one minute. | ||
| I request permission to address the House for one minute. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I am pleased to rise today to welcome to these chambers and to this well a good friend and a personal, I would say, savior to a multitude of South Carolinians. | ||
| Reverend Charles B. Jackson has been serving as pastor of Brookland Baptist Church for now 54 years, having been installed at the age of 18. | ||
| I first met him about two or three years into his pastorate when he was still a student at Benedict College in Columbia. | ||
| He graduated from the Mohawk School of Divinity in Atlanta and has served not only as a pastor of that church, but as a great leader in South Carolina. | ||
| He serves to make true the words of James when he wrote in his epistle, faith without works is dead. | ||
| His work is a living monument to the people of South Carolina and these United States of America, and I'm pleased to welcome him here today. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The chair will entertain up to five further requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Arkansas seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, this Sunday across America, families will gather to honor our mothers. | ||
| Today, I rise to honor a mother and a dedicated member of my staff as she closes out her time on Capitol Hill. | ||
| Rebecca Hoshiko joined my staff in 2019 and has been a vital member of my team, serving in various capacities and currently as communications director at the Committee on Natural Resources. | ||
| We are grateful for her exemplary service and she will be missed. | ||
| Rebecca is departing Capitol Hill to embrace the noble job of full-time mom to her two young boys, Judah and James. | ||
| Wishing her and her family all the best, I hope to encourage Rebecca and all mothers with the lyrics of a 4th District Arkansan Glenn Campbell song. | ||
| There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas, creation's most unique and precious pearls. | ||
| And heaven help us always to remember the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Voice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Texas seek recognition? | |
| Mr. Speaker, I ask Megan Mr. Sim to address the House for one minute and to advise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate Mother's Day this weekend, I'm reminded of a visit that Donald Trump had with Howard Stern, and they were talking about marriage and having children. | ||
| And Howard Stern said something like, why do you need the headache? | ||
| And he said, oh, I won't do anything to take care of them. | ||
| I'll supply funds and she'll take care of the kids. | ||
| That's what he thinks of motherhood. | ||
| That explains why he's offering a one-time $5,000 bonus check to encourage women to have babies. | ||
| But what good is that when he's cutting maternal health care, trashing Medicaid, which pays for four in 10 births in our country, and letting children, child care costs force moms out of work? | ||
| Let me be clear. | ||
| Women want to be moms, but don't want to go broke having to raise this child, risk their life with a pregnancy, or lose their child to gun violence. | ||
| If we're serious about celebrating Mother's Day, let's cut it with the bonus check and bring back the full tax credit and work to expand opportunities and protections for all mothers, not just this Sunday, but every day. | ||
| Happy Mother's Day to all mothers. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? | |
| Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Hoosier basketball star Braylon Mullins of Greenfield, Indiana. | ||
| Braylon has distinguished himself not only as the best high school basketball player in my home state, but as one of the best players in the nation. | ||
| This past season, he led his high school, Greenfield Central, to its best season in school history, finishing 23-4. | ||
| On the court, Braylon averaged an incredible 33 points per game, seven rebounds, four assists, and four steals. | ||
| He shattered school records, setting the highest point total for the season with 887 points and setting a single game scoring record of 52 points. | ||
| For his incredible achievement, Braylon earned the title of Indiana's Gatorade Player of the Year, McDonald's All-American, and most importantly, Indiana's Mr. Basketball. | ||
| Although he's leaving the Hoosier State to work to begin his collegiate career at UConn, we will never forget the great accomplishments of Braden, and that's what he's brought to our state. | ||
| Braden, you're one of our own. | ||
| You've made us proud, and we wish you the very best as you take this next step in your athletic career. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Rhode Island seek recognition? | ||
| I ask you to ask consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today for the seventh time to call on the Trump administration to restore funding for life-saving food aid for malnourished children. | ||
| Rhode Island's Adesia Nutrition has helped save 25 million lives with this ready-to-use therapeutic food manufactured in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, supported by USAID. | ||
|
Impact Of Funding Freeze
00:03:25
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| But now that work is in jeopardy. | ||
| Three months into the Trump administration, funding is still cut off, throwing Adesia's operations into chaos. | ||
| Now, I've already spoken on this floor about the gut-wrenching impact to children around the world who are suffering from starvation, but I want to talk today about the impact on American lives that this funding freeze is wreaking. | ||
| Adesia has had to lay off staff at the factory, is unable to make long-term decisions. | ||
| American farmers, factory workers, and transportation workers that produce this product have had their lives thrown into disarray. | ||
| Every day of uncertainty puts more children's lives at risk and costs American workers their livelihoods. | ||
| I will speak on this floor every single day until funding for ready-to-use therapeutic food is restored, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman's time has expired. | |
| The chair lays before the house the following joint resolution. | ||
| House Joint Resolution 61. | ||
| Joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants, rubber tire manufacturing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentleman from Arkansas seek recognition? | |
| Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 377, I'll call up H.R. 276 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The clerk will report the title of the bill. | |
| Union calendar number 60, H.R. 276, a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico as a Gulf of America. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pursuant to House Resolution 377, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Natural Resources printed in the bill is adopted and the bill as amended is considered read. | |
| The bill as amended 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 H.R. 276. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman is recognized. | |
| I rise in support of H.R. 276, sponsored by Congresswoman Greene of Georgia. | ||
| Throughout the history of the United States, the executive branch has renamed our public lands and waters. | ||
|
Renaming the Gulf
00:15:36
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| This legislation codifies a portion of President Trump's Executive Order 14172, which directed the Board on Geographic Names to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. | ||
| President Trump signed this executive order on his first day in office. | ||
| Enacting this legislation will help make President Trump's historic action permanent and ensure consistency in references to laws, maps, regulations, and records of the United States. | ||
| The Gulf of America is critical to the United States because of its energy resources and ecological significance. | ||
| This renaming symbolizes Republicans' commitment to putting America first and honors the Gulf of America's important role in unleashing American energy and our nation's return to greatness. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman Reserves. | |
| Gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| When I call this a deeply unserious bill, I think I'm probably being charitable. | ||
| It is unserious, and it comes from a Republican majority that is either unable or unwilling to do the real work of Congress. | ||
| In the first disastrous hundred days of President Trump's second term in office, we have seen him sow chaos and distraction in every direction. | ||
| This deeply corrupt and unhinged leader has put his biggest campaign donor and the wealthiest man in the world in charge of slashing programs that millions of Americans depend on, from food assistance to nuclear safety to disaster response, all in the name of quote-unquote efficiency. | ||
| They have indiscriminately fired thousands of federal workers like this is some dystopian reboot of the apprentice, except in this episode, they're filling the government with unqualified sycophants and they're running around firing meteorologists and health experts and emergency responders, people who keep our government running. | ||
| And today, in the face of all of that, all of this chaos that our Republican colleagues don't want to talk about, at least we're hearing them engage in some debate over this unserious bill about renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which I suppose is an improvement because for the past couple of weeks in the markup hearings on their disastrous budget reconciliation bill, they've been unwilling to debate it all. | ||
| It's just been silence from our Republicans as they move through one of the most reckless bills in American history, the same silence as they duck their constituents by canceling town halls and avoiding media inquiries. | ||
| So instead of debating that very important and destructive legislation, they are speaking up today about this deeply unserious bill to rename a body of water. | ||
| We wish that our Republican colleagues would join us in asking the question that's on more and more Americans' mind. | ||
| What the heck is going on? | ||
| This administration is not draining the swamp. | ||
| They're torching the country. | ||
| The global economy is in chaos. | ||
| We are teetering on the brink of recession. | ||
| Administration officials are telling us we should perhaps prepare to ration dolls and toys this Christmas, and yet they want to debate renaming the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| You know, Congress that more and more appears to just be a joke is now advancing a bill that literally started off as a joke. | ||
| That's right, the first person to publicly suggest the name change was not Donald Trump or the author of this bill. | ||
| It was comedian Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. | ||
| It was a joke back when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was happening. | ||
| And you remember, folks, that 11 people died in that disaster. | ||
| Entire ecosystems collapsed. | ||
| The Louisiana coast was wrecked, along with industries and livelihoods that depend on that Gulf Coast ecosystem, all devastated. | ||
| And Colbert used the fake name Gulf of America to satirize the absurdity of oil-soaked nationalism. | ||
| And now here we are, 15 years later, in a Congress that apparently thinks they have no real work to do, turning a late-night punchline into the legislative business of the United States House. | ||
| Look, I would love to say this is just a one-off, but it fits a disturbing trend. | ||
| Again and again, this majority keeps replacing science with slogans, governance with grievance, and policymaking with cheap performance art. | ||
| The truth is this bill won't fix a single problem. | ||
| It does absolutely nothing to help the Gulf Coast. | ||
| It won't create a single job. | ||
| It's not going to fix our climate crisis. | ||
| It's just dumb. | ||
| The only thing this bill will do is waste time and your taxpayer dollars to stroke the ego of a guy who sharpied a hurricane map on live TV. | ||
| Now, in committee, I offered an amendment that would actually advance the value of efficiency. | ||
| Because, you know, if this is all about stroking the ego of one man, if it's all about cultish sycophancy, why do it in a piecemeal way with all these individual bills to put his face on Mount Rushmore and on the $100 bill? | ||
| We actually have legislation from folks across the aisle to do all these things, to rename Dulles Airport, to do national holidays. | ||
| Why not go all the way? | ||
| We know that's where this is all heading anyway, since everything is in service of one man's fragile ego. | ||
| So why not rename the entire planet Planet Trump? | ||
| At least that would be efficient. | ||
| We would hurry up and get to the inevitable outcome of where this Republican Congress is taking us. | ||
| But look, if you like this unserious bill, there's another deal for you because Eric and Don Jr. are selling Gulf of America hats on their website for $50 a pop. | ||
| One hat even says Gulf of America, yet another Trump development. | ||
| And the sales pitch for one includes, and I quote, as seen on President Donald J. Trump. | ||
| And get your meme coin while you're at it. | ||
| And remember, all of these griffs are for a limited time. | ||
| They won't last much longer. | ||
| The American people deserve much, much better, folks. | ||
| A recent Fox News poll, yes, Fox, showed that a big majority opposes the name change for the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| 67%. | ||
| Americans know a joke when they see one, even if this Republican Congress doesn't. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reserves. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president. | ||
| The gentleman from Arkansas. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia, the lead sponsor of this legislation, Ms. Green. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlewoman from Georgia is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I'm honored to be here today in front of the American people as we debate the merits of the Gulf of America Act. | ||
| This would rename the body of water formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. | ||
| This is such an important thing to do for the American people. | ||
| The American people deserve pride in their country and they deserve pride in the waters that we own, that we protect with our military and our Coast Guard and all of the businesses that prosper along these waters. | ||
| But Democrats today are outraged. | ||
| They're outraged because they love the cartels more than any other people in the world, more than the American people. | ||
| They spent the past four years funding and voting for policies that ripped our borders open and allowed our country to be invaded by millions and millions of people. | ||
| Drugs and fentanyl that murdered over 300 Americans every single day. | ||
| Human trafficking, child sex trafficking, terrorists, and millions of people that we have no idea where they are in the interior of this country. | ||
| Democrats are outraged today because they are America last and they hate anything that would give the American people pride. | ||
| The Gulf of America is one of the most important things that we can do this Congress. | ||
| This is an executive order written by the President of the United States, which, by the way, is president today because the American people rose up and voted against a Democrat Party that was completely America last. | ||
| Section one of the executive order lays out the purpose and policy and directive stating, it is the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. | ||
| The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation's rich past. | ||
| Americans have watched Congress week in and week out rename post offices. | ||
| Democrats vote for it all the time. | ||
| Democrats aren't afraid to rename anything. | ||
| They've been renaming military bases because they hate our history and hate our heritage. | ||
| This is also the same Democrat Party that cheered when their ground troops, Antifa, and radical rioters went throughout American cities and tore down statues like Lincoln and Washington. | ||
| The Democrat Party doesn't want to preserve America's rich history or promote pride in our country, our lands, our people, our businesses, and yes, our waters, the Gulf of America. | ||
| The Democrat Party wants to remain the best business partner to the cartels that they've ever had. | ||
| It's the cartels that have been enriched by tens of billions of dollars because of Democrat policies, and they'll continue to protect them and fight for them. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
General from Arkansas. | |
| High Reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman of Reserves, Gentleman of California. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Well, the gentlelady from Georgia is right about one thing. | ||
| Democrats are outraged. | ||
| Because as this president is crashing the global economy, careening us into recession, destroying retirement plans and 401ks, driving up costs for American families on everything from cars to eggs to now us being told we may have to ration toys and dolls this Christmas, as all of that is happening. | ||
| He's using Congress's Article I Trade and Commerce Authority to do it. | ||
| And what do you hear from Republicans across the aisle about this thing that is wrecking the lives of so many American families? | ||
| Nothing, worse than nothing. | ||
| They've tied their own hands with a gimmicky bill that they passed to create a false legislative day that never ends so that they can't even invoke Congress's Article I trade authority and put some sensible sideboards on this trade and tariff policy. | ||
| It is madness. | ||
| So the gentlelady is right. | ||
| We are outraged. | ||
| And I would like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, Stenning Hoyers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Talk about it. | |
| The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for three minutes. | ||
| Live from Washington, D.C., Saturday Night Live. | ||
| You can't make this up. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in perplexion. | ||
| I first want to say how much respect I have for Mr. Westerman. | ||
| He is my dear friend and one of our best members. | ||
| My, my, my. | ||
| Doing a lot of work this time, Bruce. | ||
| Is this infantile bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico really this House's top priority? | ||
| I heard the gentlelady say it's going to solve all the problems, of course, if we name it the Gulf of America. | ||
| Golly day, why didn't we think of that? | ||
| The economy is shrinking for the first time since COVID-19. | ||
| Costs are going up. | ||
| I think Saturday Night Live just called me. | ||
| They won me on. | ||
| Costs are going up. | ||
| Small businesses are going under. | ||
| American families are worried they won't be able to keep the lights on, keep food on the table, and keep the roof on their head. | ||
| They're happy about, of course, Gulf of America. | ||
| That'll do it. | ||
| Millions of Americans risk losing their health insurance if Republicans' Medicaid cuts go through. | ||
| Yet Republicans think this juvenile legislation is the best use of this House's time. | ||
| This is the only thing we're doing today, folks. | ||
| What a sick joke this is. | ||
| Republicans worry about 400-year-old words on a map. | ||
| I worry about families in every community in America who are struggling to get by. | ||
| This bill is obviously a distraction, a joke. | ||
| Where is Trump's one big, beautiful bill that we keep hearing so much about? | ||
| The one that cuts taxes for the wealthiest among us, threatens health care for millions, and pulls the rug out from underworking Americans. | ||
| The majority still hasn't been able to put it on the floor. | ||
| That's how divided, dysfunctional, and divisive they are. | ||
| My dear friend, the late Elijah Cummings, with whom some of you serve, said, we're better than this. | ||
| The American people are counting on us to be better than this. | ||
| We ought to be debating legislation to bring down costs, to pay our debts, to fix our broken immigration system. | ||
| Instead, MAGA Republicans waste our time with this childish drivel. | ||
| Not only that, they give it a prime spot on the floor schedule. | ||
| This is the only thing we're doing for America today, renaming the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| May I have one more minute? | ||
| I'll yield the gentleman a minute. | ||
| Renaming the Gulf of Mexico, as if that's going to solve the problems. | ||
| Very frankly, my self-confidence in America does not need that. | ||
|
Reserves on Renaming Effort
00:15:42
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||
| I don't need Canada to be the 51st state. | ||
| I don't need to invade Greenland. | ||
| And I don't need the Gulf of America to have confidence in the greatest country on earth. | ||
| Are we so small? | ||
| Do we feel so Belittled by the rest of the world that we have to do this silly, silly, silly step. | ||
| We are made smaller. | ||
| Hear me. | ||
| We are made smaller by this effort. | ||
| Vote rationally. | ||
| That'll be a no. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman Reserves. | |
| Gentlemen from Arkansas. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman Reserves. | |
| Gentleman from California. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield now two minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida who represents the Gulf and may have some wisdom to share with us about this subject. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlewoman from Florida is recognized. | |
| Well, I thank the Ranking Member for yielding the time, and I rise in opposition to this farcical bill, and I thought I'd share what I'm hearing from my neighbors across the Gulf Coast. | ||
| They want policymakers in Washington, D.C. to tackle the cost of living. | ||
| And during this Congress, the Republican-led Congress, there has not been one bill brought to the floor of the House, and here we are in May to lower the cost of living for families along the Gulf Coast and all across America. | ||
| In fact, what the Republicans have been focusing on is a massive tax giveaway to billionaires like Elon Musk while they rip away health care from millions of Americans. | ||
| And in Florida, we have about 4.6 million Floridians that rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health care, and about 3.9 million Floridians who rely on Medicaid. | ||
| These are the family members we love the most. | ||
| Kids with complex conditions, seniors in skilled nursing, seniors that want to live in dignity in their homes with home health aid. | ||
| But their priority is it to make people's lives easier, to make people's lives better? | ||
| No, it's been totally focused on how you rip that away, make people's lives more expensive. | ||
| It also means for the Gulf Coast, we are still reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, just like other parts of the country in Georgia and North Carolina. | ||
| We don't need Elon Musk creating turmoil and firing civil servants and public servants who are helping us rebuild. | ||
| We do not need the Trump administration making people's lives harder to rebuild and to afford to stay in their homes. | ||
| We're preparing for another hurricane season, and folks along the Gulf Coast need a national weather service that is functional, that can warn us about the threats ahead. | ||
| We need the hurricane hunters out in the Gulf telling us how severe the storms are going to be. | ||
| But the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress seem to be turning away from the people along the Gulf Coast and all across America to understand the threats of a warming climate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman's time has expired. | |
| Yield the gentlelady 30 seconds. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Huffman. | ||
| Because you started this with saying that Gulf of America started as a joke. | ||
| This is not a joke to the people I represent. | ||
| They want help. | ||
| They want help with the cost of living, and it seems like the Republicans are doing the last, that's the last priority on their list. | ||
| Instead, they want to give a massive tax giveaway to the wealthy and the well-connected, while people really need help with their pocketbooks. | ||
| They need help. | ||
| They want to retain their health care. | ||
| They want to make sure that the ocean waters are free of pollution. | ||
| The EPA and all of the Trump administration initiatives are to take the gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| Please vote no and focus on what's important. | ||
| Thank the gentlelady and the gentleman from California Reserves, gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, just earlier this week, this very committee spent 14 hours in a markup on our reconciliation plans that are part of the big beautiful bill. | ||
| 14 hours to make America energy dominant. | ||
| 14 hours to unleash American resources and American jobs. | ||
| Those 14 hours were mainly spent hearing 121 Democrat amendments to undermine that bill. | ||
| 121 times they wanted to undermine America's energy. | ||
| They wanted to undermine America's ability to mine our own products. | ||
| They wanted to undermine America's ability to manage our forests and our resources and take care of this country. | ||
| Now, there are a lot of bills that come to this floor to rename things, and they may not be the most important bills, but usually they go on a suspension vote because both sides agree that we can do renaming. | ||
| But this one, it got elevated to a much higher level, so here we are under a rule bill debating whether or not we call the Gulf of current Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America or if we leave it as it is. | ||
| Our friends across the aisle want to, they have one objective, to undermine everything, everything we want to do to make America first, and this is no exception. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from California is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield three minutes to the gentlelady from Southern California, Ms. Rivas. | ||
| The gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member, for yielding to me. | ||
| There are many issues that we could be talking about today, like lowering the cost of living, protecting Medicaid and Social Security, protecting immigrant communities. | ||
| But no, House Republicans are prioritizing Trump's vanity project, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, like that's going to help Americans with their cost of living. | ||
| Millions of Americans are struggling because of Trump's policies that are tanking our economy and raising the cost of living. | ||
| And the Republicans in this chamber have yet to put forth anything that addresses their issues. | ||
| I'm disappointed that House Republicans blocked my amendment to this bill that would actually help working families across the country. | ||
| My amendment would require the official name change to not take effect until the Department of Interior can prove that this bill would lower food prices, including the price of eggs, spurn economic growth, create jobs, and lower the unemployment rate. | ||
| But the Republicans voted it down in committee and blocked it from getting to the floor today. | ||
| That shows where their priorities are. | ||
| It was not just the House Republicans who opposed helping working families. | ||
| The Trump White House also hated this amendment and sent out a statement of opposition. | ||
| They went to Fox News to complain that we're doing our job to serve the people. | ||
| Call me crazy, but I believe that the work we do in Congress should improve the lives of the American people. | ||
| As the Congresswoman proudly representing the San Fernando Valley in California, I believe that the true test of how we are as a country is how we treat our most vulnerable. | ||
| And this bill fails that test. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to vote no on this ridiculous bill. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from California Reserves, the gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, our friends across the aisle want to talk about being serious, but when we marked up this legislation in committee, here are some of the serious amendments that they put out. | ||
| Number one, they wanted to rename it not the Gulf of America, but the Gulf of Helene after a hurricane. | ||
| That wasn't good enough, so they decided to file an amendment to name it the Gulf of America Should Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. | ||
| That's real serious. | ||
| And they also, as my friend already mentioned, they wanted to take this bill, and it was obviously not germane. | ||
| They wanted to rename the planet Planet Trump. | ||
| So that's how serious they are in their debate. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Arkansas Reserves, gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. McZiner. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we're here today debating and wasting time on a ridiculous bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico when the American people want us to be focused on real issues that impact their lives. | ||
| Prices are still too high. | ||
| Donald Trump's tariffs are making it worse. | ||
| The stock market is tanking. | ||
| People are losing their savings. | ||
| And in the midst of all of this, the Republican majority isn't focused on trying to solve the problems that everyday people care about. | ||
| Instead, they are focused on stroking the ego of one man, Donald Trump, the man who they would make king. | ||
| And so we are wasting time today, an entire legislative day where this is the only bill that's being debated so that our Republican colleagues can get up and show their fealty to Donald Trump instead of the voters who elected us who expect us to be focused on them. | ||
| But there's another reason that Republicans are wasting time on this bill, which by the way, 70% of the American people oppose, it's because they want to distract us from what else they are trying to do. | ||
| They are working on a bill right now that would give trillions of dollars of tax cuts to billionaires like Elon Musk by cutting health care for working people. | ||
| They don't want to talk about that. | ||
| That part they only talk about behind closed doors while they distract the media, the American people, and their own members with this nonsense bill about the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the American people are smarter than this. | ||
| They are smarter than our Republican colleagues give them credit for. | ||
| 70% of the American people reject this nonsense bill, and this Congress should as well. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from California Reserves, the gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I left out one of the other amendments my colleagues across the aisle filed. | ||
| They wanted to rename the Gulf the Gulf of Ignorance. | ||
| Now, I don't know where they came up with that one. | ||
| I know they oppose offshore oil and gas production. | ||
| I know they oppose American energy independence. | ||
| I know they have a special affinity for fish that aren't in the Gulf and attack recreational fishermen in their endeavor to go out and spend time with their family and catch fish. | ||
| But I don't know what part of the Gulf that they think is so ignorant that they wanted to rename the Gulf the Gulf of Ignorance. | ||
| But you can look it up. | ||
| They filed that amendment and we obviously voted it down. | ||
| You know, they had no problem renaming the Cannon Caucus Room the Nancy Pelosi Caucus Room. | ||
| It's not like this is the first thing that's ever been renamed in this Congress, but we will go ahead and have our debate and they can vent their frustration on the Republicans and really on our country as they can continue. | ||
| But I will reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentlemen from Arkansas Reserves, gentlemen from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. Cisneros. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much to my generous colleague for allowing me to speak today. | ||
| You know, as members of Congress, we are elected to champion the voices of our people and pass legislation to make their lives better. | ||
| Instead, House Republicans are using this position to introduce a nonsense bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| The Gulf has been known as the Gulf of Mexico since the 16th century. | ||
| Why are they making a big deal out of this now? | ||
| Because they want to stroke the ego of Donald Trump. | ||
| Back home in California, my constituents are concerned about putting food on the table. | ||
| They're feeling crushed by high rent and afraid that they won't be able to buy a home one day. | ||
| They're worried about how they can afford how they can afford health care once these Medicaid cuts take effect. | ||
| Seniors are scared their Social Security checks are going to dry up. | ||
| But Republicans want to focus on renaming a body of water thousands of miles away from where we are today. | ||
| Instead of addressing the things that actually matter to people back home, House Republicans are trying to distract us from the harmful policies they are forcing on all of us. | ||
| This does nothing to improve the lives of our constituents. | ||
| It does nothing to make our country safer, lower cost, help parents feed their kids, or give our seniors the support they deserve. | ||
| This is a waste of time and it's a disgrace to the people who elected us to serve in this body. | ||
| So thank you very much and I yield the balance of my time. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from California Reserves, gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentlelady from Georgia. | ||
| Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| It's so important for the American people to hear this debate back and forth between what Democrats have to say and what Republicans have to say. | ||
| The American people rose up in a historic election in November of 2024 and they told Washington, D.C. they have had enough of the Democrat embrace and love affair of the cartels in Mexico. | ||
| But Democrats today are fighting to keep the Gulf of America named the Gulf of Mexico because the cartels are their business partners. | ||
| They fight for the cartels so much that they call an MS-13 gang member that had two deportation orders that was deported to El Salvador, the country of his citizenship, they call him a Maryland man and they fight for him so hard that they sent senators and House members went down to fight for him, not for the American people. | ||
| The drug crisis in America is the fault of the open border policies and the love affair between Democrats and cartels. | ||
| Drug trafficking across the Gulf of America is a serious issue. | ||
| The Gulf serves as a maritime corridor of trafficking operations with drugs like cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl, a poison that murders Americans, methamphetamine, and heroin being transported via fishing boats, private vessels, and commercial maritime routes. | ||
| It's our great United States Coast Guard that defends the waters of the Gulf of America. | ||
| Since January 20th, 2025, the U.S. Coast Guard has seized 101,415 pounds of cocaine, 10,743 pounds of marijuana, and operations targeting maritime drug trafficking, including in the Gulf of America. | ||
|
Democrats And The Cartel Crisis
00:01:44
|
||
| On April 30th, 2025, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tampa offloaded pounds of cocaine and marijuana worth an estimated $12.3 million at Port Everglades, Florida, seized during operations in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of America. | ||
| It's the cartels that use the Gulf of America to invade our country with drugs, human trafficking, and child sex trafficking. | ||
| It's our great Coast Guard and our Navy that defend the land, our people's land, our states, our businesses, and our country from the cartels. | ||
| You would think this would be the easiest vote that the United States House of Representatives could take, because after all, everybody in here swore an oath to defend our Constitution and to defend our laws and our land. | ||
| Oh, but no, the Democrats can't do it because we had four years of Democrat control where our borders were wide open and the American people are fed up with it. | ||
| The American people are tired of being torn down and served by America-last policies and politicians that absolutely hate the American people and love the cartels. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| The gentleman from Arkansas Reserves, the gentleman from California, is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| You know, the most encouraging thing so far in the debate on this bill is that the only speaker in support that the Republicans have offered is the gentlelady from Georgia. | ||
|
An Insult to Congress
00:15:32
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||
| That's it. | ||
| And that, I think, is hopeful because it suggests that maybe there's still a little bit of dignity somewhere in the Republican conference. | ||
| I guess we'll see in a few minutes when we start voting on this bill that is an insult to any serious member of Congress, certainly an insult to the American people, and a giant middle finger to the rest of the world. | ||
| With that, I yield a magic minute to our fantastic Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I also thank the distinguished gentleman, my good friend from the great state of California for his tremendous leadership and for pushing back against this bill. | ||
| I urge a strong no against this silly, small-minded, and sycophantic piece of legislation. | ||
| When the American people woke up this morning, they could reasonably ask the question: what are their elected representatives on the floor of the House of Representatives going to be debating? | ||
| In an environment where the Trump tariffs are costing them thousands of dollars more per year, Republicans are crashing the economy in real time, costs are being raised on hardworking American taxpayers, and Republicans are driving us toward a painful recession. | ||
| What might members of Congress under this temporary Republican majority be debating on the floor today? | ||
| Would it be legislation about the economy, something about health care, anything about Social Security, perhaps something on public safety, maybe national security matters, anything to bring to life the American dream for hardworking American taxpayers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| What Republicans have decided to spend this entire legislative day doing is to debate a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| Now, in some ways, I guess the American people can be thankful because this week, what Republicans were going to try and do was visit upon the American people the largest Medicaid cut in American history. | ||
| And because Republicans are on the run, they were forced to take that hearing down. | ||
| That battle's not over. | ||
| So, in the absence of their ability to actually jam up hardworking American taxpayers, instead of focusing on things that would make a difference in the lives of the American people, we are here on the House floor, more than 400 years after the fact, debating legislation to rename the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| And it turns out there's a lot more foolishness than this particular bill. | ||
| Apparently, it's not enough simply to try to rename the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| Republicans have introduced an act of Congress to express support for the designation of the first ever Gulf of America Day. | ||
| That ingenious piece of legislation was introduced by Representative Mark Alfred of Missouri. | ||
| At a time when Americans are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck, when we are grappling with the high cost of living, don't worry, Republicans have a solution. | ||
| Congressman Brandon Gale of Texas has your back with a bill to require the $100 note to include a portrait of Donald J. Trump. | ||
| No thank you. | ||
| Not to be outdone. | ||
| Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina has the Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Hard pass. | ||
| Flight travel has become more dangerous. | ||
| We have an air traffic control crisis ongoing this week at a major airport in the Northeast, central to a lot of the commerce and the functioning of the economy, an economy that Republicans are breaking in real time. | ||
| What would be the Republican response to the situation in our skies? | ||
| Representative Addison McDowell of the great state of North Carolina has a bill to designate Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia as the Donald J. Trump International Airport. | ||
| Did Virginia even vote for Donald Trump? | ||
| Families are confronting thousands of dollars more per year in higher costs thanks to Donald Trump's reckless tariffs. | ||
| And instead of pushing back the president and Congress asserting our constitutional authority as it relates to tariffs and trade in the best interest of the American people, no, Republicans have a different approach. | ||
| Here's this gem from Representative Anna Paulina Luna of the great state of Florida. | ||
| She's got legislation to arrange for the carving of the figure of President Donald J. Trump on Mount Rushmore. | ||
| Are we living in the times of King Nebuchadnezzar? | ||
| What are we doing, folks? | ||
| There are serious issues that the American people want us to confront. | ||
| From the very beginning of this Congress, Democrats have said We will work with anyone to lower the high cost of living, to secure the border, to fix our broken immigration system, to protect communities, to stand up for the health care, the safety, the well-being, the national security of the American people. | ||
| Republicans have no agenda other than the toxic agenda connected to their big, ugly bill that they are trying to jam down the throats of the American people. | ||
| And so, when they have to run away from that and push it back, this is what we're left with: renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which 70% of the American people reject. | ||
| That's according to Fox News, that bastion of progressive politics. | ||
| And so I'm here strongly urging a no vote against this small-minded, silly, and sycophantic bill. | ||
| And I can say without hesitation, reservation, or need for clarification that America is not down with MTG. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman from California Reserves, gentlemen from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, a lot of accusations have been made about serious legislation, about working, about the things that have happened since this new administration has come into office. | ||
| But I would like to recap some of the things that have happened since this new administration has come into office. | ||
| Number one, they've spent a lot of time reversing a lot of bad executive orders that the previous administration put in place, executive orders that did put America last. | ||
| Now we have an administration that's working every day to put America first. | ||
| We've also seen Congress take many actions on Congressional Review Acts to undo bad rules that the previous administration put in place. | ||
| And don't believe the accusation that Republicans aren't working. | ||
| We have 11 committees that have reconciliation instructions, and eight of those committees have marked up those instructions already. | ||
| Instructions on a big, beautiful bill to put America first and to create national security, to use our resources at home, to allow people in America to have a job and a career where they can raise families and grow communities. | ||
| We're working on policies where to avoid a $4 to $5 trillion tax increase on every American. | ||
| There's a lot of work taking place. | ||
| And I'm afraid, or I'm not really afraid, I believe my friends across the aisle are concerned about a piece of legislation that's going to make a huge difference. | ||
| A piece of legislation that's going to reverse the destructive policies that their party has put in place over many years. | ||
| A piece of legislation that's going to focus on getting our fiscal house in order, on letting Americans keep more of their hard-earned income, on letting us develop our resources here at home to become less dependent on China, less dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and all those things that over the years have been eroded away from our American economy and from Americans. | ||
| So if they want to complain about renaming the Gulf the Gulf of America, they can complain about that all day. | ||
| But it gives them something to do other than to talk to Americans about the real policies that Republicans are looking at putting in place rather than making up scare tactics, which is their normal playbook, to take anything that happens and say, oh, they're going to cut Social Security, they're going to cut Medicare. | ||
| You can't even touch Social Security and budget reconciliation. | ||
| They know that. | ||
| They know that can't happen in budget reconciliation, yet they still put those scare tactics out. | ||
| They talk about what bills are going to do before bill text has been released. | ||
| It's because they're on the defensive to protect the big government that Democrats have created over time, while Republicans want to put government back closer to the people, take power out of Washington, D.C., and truly put America first. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Arkansas Reserves, gentlemen from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield two minutes from the gentlelady to the gentlelady from Oregon, Dr. Dexter. | ||
| Gentlelady is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today in strong opposition to this ridiculous bill. | ||
| Let's be honest. | ||
| This bill, along with the executive order it reinforces, is absurd. | ||
| It's unserious, ineffective, and beneath the dignity of this institution. | ||
| Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico won't change the fact to the world that they will keep calling it exactly what it is, the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| But this isn't just about a name. | ||
| It's about an administration using the power of the federal government to bully the press, going so far as to ban reporters from the Oval Office for refusing to go along with this charade. | ||
| So then let's call that for what it is, an assault on free speech. | ||
| Our courts have stood up against these attacks, but we can't ignore the chilling message this sends to journalists everywhere. | ||
| If you don't fall in line, you'll be punished. | ||
| That, my friends, is a page right out of the authoritarian playbook. | ||
| Americans didn't ask for this, and they didn't vote for this. | ||
| They are struggling with real challenges, putting food on the table, accessing health care, rebuilding after disasters. | ||
| And yet here we are, wasting time on political theater instead of working to actually help them. | ||
| In the United States, we're constitutionally guaranteed the right to challenge power, to speak truth to it, and to laugh when our leaders make ridiculous claims. | ||
| That's not disrespect. | ||
| It's critical for a healthy democracy. | ||
| That's why I offered an amendment to this bill, an amendment Republicans refused to even take up. | ||
| My amendment would have made it absolutely clear that nothing in this bill could be used to censor the press or authorize retaliation against news organizations for using accurate names. | ||
| This administration may have no regard for the Constitution, but Congress must. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to remember this and to vote against this bill. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield back. | |
| I thank the gentlelady and Reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman reserves. | |
| The gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentlelady from Georgia, Ms. Green, for three minutes. | ||
| The gentlelady is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Names matter, and the Democrats know that. | ||
| Parents take a lot of time when they think about what to name a child that they're happy to welcome in the world because they have pride and they're proud to welcome their new baby in the world, and that's why they take pride in the name that they name their child. | ||
| And as we rename the Gulf the Gulf of America, we are also taking pride in those waters. | ||
| There are an estimated half a million businesses operating along the Gulf Coast. | ||
| The Gulf is a major economic hub, particularly for oil and gas production. | ||
| And as the people of Spain woke up in darkness for the second time this week because of the climate hoax and the climate agenda, it's the Democrats that pursued those same policies the past four years. | ||
| They hate oil and gas. | ||
| They want America to be plunged into darkness just like Spain has been because of those lies. | ||
| The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management reports that the Gulf is the nation's primary source for oil and gas, generating about 97% of all U.S. OCS oil and gas production. | ||
| Other significant industries include water transportation and leisure, hospitality. | ||
| Offshore drilling also plays a crucial role in that region, contributing to about 14.6% of the nation's crude oil and 2.3% of its gas. | ||
|
Renaming the Gulf?
00:15:16
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| And it's our great U.S. Coast Guard Navy that defend these waters. | ||
| You see, the American people aren't afraid of renaming the Gulf the Gulf of America because the American people want to take pride in our land and our waters once again. | ||
| And as Democrats feign an outrage today at the President and his executive order and our great audacity to rename the Gulf the Gulf of America, it was the Democrats who first tried to rename an institution after Donald Trump. | ||
| In 2024, Rep Connolly tried to rename a prison after Donald Trump. | ||
| And that happened while the Democrats were waging lawfare like this country has never seen before and should never see again as they were trying to lock up President Donald Trump and put him in prison for the rest of his life for lies and attacks and purely for politics. | ||
| You see, it's the Democrats that are constantly feigning outrage over everything the Republicans are trying to do for the American people, and the American people will no longer tolerate. | ||
| And they told us that in November of 2024. | ||
| It's a great honor to rename the Gulf the Gulf of America. | ||
| This is an honor not only here in Congress, but for the President of the United States and for the American people. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from Arkansas Reserves, the gentleman from California, is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I have no further requests for time, and we're prepared to close. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reserves. | |
| The gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| I have no further requests for Tom, and we're prepared to close our reserve. | ||
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| You know, I think it says a lot that as we have wasted the last hour of Congress's time on a deeply unserious bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico, Republicans have offered just one speaker in support of this preposterous piece of legislation, this monumental disaster, this insult to the American people and this giant middle finger to the rest of the world. | ||
| The only speaker to speak in support of this was a gentlelady from Georgia. | ||
| And I think that just tells us an awful lot today. | ||
| You know, the American people think that Congress should do real work, and there's plenty of real work to be done. | ||
| Americans are watching their 401ks in free fall from this president's reckless tariff games, tariff chaos that is happening by using Congress's Article I Trade and Commerce Authority. | ||
| And what is this Congress doing about it? | ||
| Worse than nothing, they've tied their own hands because in their government funding bill, they created the gimmick of a never-ending legislative day to prevent them from using their emergency authorities to put some sensible sideboards on Donald Trump's tariff madness. | ||
| In the district right next to mine in Napa County, the Trump administration abruptly canceled a $50 million wildfire prevention grant just four months after one of the deadliest wildfires in California history. | ||
| And that's been the story throughout the West. | ||
| Critical funding, a critical need for firefighters and for projects that make us safer from wildfire in total chaos or canceled because of this madness with Elon Musk and Doge and an unhinged president. | ||
| And what do we hear from our colleagues across the aisle? | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| We get bills like this to rename the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| Tribal communities are being hammered around the country. | ||
| Food insecurity programs are being defunded. | ||
| Education programs frozen. | ||
| Health care resources slashed. | ||
| And all the while, the administration continues to fire essential agency scientists, public servants, en masse, and this Republican Congress shrugs. | ||
| The majority is wasting time on an ego-driven rebrand, a performative stunt rooted in President Trump's imperial edict absurdly titled, Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness. | ||
| You know, this is so obviously what authoritarians through history have done. | ||
| They do things like call for parades on their own birthday or rename things or do other stunts to distract the American people from the way they're lining their own pockets and taking away fundamental rights. | ||
| And this Republican Congress appears to be perfectly fine with that. | ||
| You know, a new CNN national poll shows the majority of Americans believe Congress is not doing enough to check this president's actions. | ||
| Nearly half say the current administration is weakening our democracy, our economy, and our global standing. | ||
| And this bill really is exhibit A. We're not just renaming a Gulf, we're drowning public trust in what this institution is supposed to do, serve the people, solve problems, defend democracy. | ||
| And yes, this bill has been called a joke more than once in committee. | ||
| I even offered an amendment to rename the entire planet Trump just to underscore the absurdity of their sycophantic bootlicking. | ||
| But now, after seeing this bill advance not only through committee, but all the way through to the House floor for a final vote, it's getting a little bit harder to laugh because it's not a joke anymore. | ||
| It's a case study in misplaced priorities. | ||
| When you start erasing or changing phrases like climate change, equity, or disadvantaged communities from government websites, when you Ban them from scientific reports. | ||
| You're not just playing word games, you're dismantling our capacity to even name the problems we face, let alone fix them. | ||
| But we're renaming bodies of water. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we're about to open the roll. | ||
| And as we watch the red and green light up on the big board, I think it's going to be a pretty good proxy for which members of Congress still think that we should be doing serious work, that we should be reclaiming our Article I responsibilities under the Constitution, that we should have a little bit of dignity in the face of a deeply unserious bill that has wasted our time, | ||
| and which members of Congress are simply bending the knee to Donald Trump and stroking one man's ego in everything they do. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities towards the President. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | |
| Mr. Speaker, as we wrap up this so-called debate today, I want to remind everyone of something that you're not seeing on the news every day like you were several months ago, and that's hordes coming across our southern border. | ||
| I want to remind people of how much the illegal drugs and human trafficking have stopped on our southern border. | ||
| And I remind people of that because it was just a few weeks ago that President Trump stood in this chamber, he addressed a joint session of Congress, and he said something that I think was the most important thing he said that night. | ||
| He said, come to find out, we didn't really need different laws, we just needed a different leadership. | ||
| And this debate, as my friends would maybe like to call it debate, has been nothing but an attack on President Trump. | ||
| They're using this piece of legislation to go at President Trump. | ||
| And I want to remind everybody of something President Trump has said many times. | ||
| He said, they're coming after me because I'm standing up for you. | ||
| And that's exactly what's happening today. | ||
| They're coming after this piece of legislation, equating it to President Trump because he's standing up for the American people. | ||
| This legislation before us simply follows through on a day one executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. | ||
| I thank Congresswoman Green for advancing it. | ||
| And I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentlemen yields. | ||
| All time for debate has expired. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 377, the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended. | ||
| The question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| Opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| Third reading. | ||
| Bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk. | ||
| The clerk will report the motion. | ||
| Mr. Huffman of California moves to recommit the bill, H.R. 276, to the Committee on Natural Resources. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 2B of Rule 19, the previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit. | ||
| The question is on the motion. | ||
| All those in favor say aye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Aye. | |
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The no's have it. | ||
| The motion is not agreed to. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I request the yays and nays. | ||
| The yeas and nays are requested. | ||
| Those favoring a vote by the yays and nays will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20, the chair will reduce to five minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of passage of the bill if ordered. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And here in the House this morning, a procedural vote now on a bill to permanently rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. | |
| Introduced by Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, it would codify President Trump's executive order into law. | ||
| The measure directs the Interior Secretary, acting through the chair of the Board on Geographic Names, to update the name of the Gulf on all federal documents and maps. | ||
| While members are voting, we'll show debate on the bill from a short time ago. | ||
| I rise in support of H.R. 276, sponsored by Congresswoman Greene of Georgia. | ||
| Throughout the history of the United States, the executive branch has renamed our public lands and waters. | ||
| This legislation codifies a portion of President Trump's Executive Order 14172, which directed the Board on Geographic Names to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. | ||
| President Trump signed this executive order on his first day in office. | ||
| Enacting this legislation will help make President Trump's historic action permanent and ensure consistency in references to laws, maps, regulations, and records of the United States. | ||
| The Gulf of America is critical to the United States because of its energy resources and ecological significance. | ||
| This renaming symbolizes Republicans' commitment to putting America first and honors the Gulf of America's important role in unleashing American energy and our nation's return to greatness. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman Reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| When I call this a deeply unserious bill, I think I'm probably being charitable. | ||
| It is unserious, and it comes from a Republican majority that is either unable or unwilling to do the real work of Congress. | ||
| In the first disastrous hundred days of President Trump's second term in office, we have seen him sow chaos and distraction in every direction. | ||
| This deeply corrupt and unhinged leader has put his biggest campaign donor and the wealthiest man in the world in charge of slashing programs that millions of Americans depend on, from food assistance to nuclear safety to disaster response, all in the name of quote-unquote efficiency. | ||
| They have indiscriminately fired thousands of federal workers like this is some dystopian reboot of the apprentice, except in this episode, they're filling the government with unqualified sycophants and they're running around firing meteorologists and health experts and emergency responders, people who keep our government running. | ||
| And today, in the face of all of that, all of this chaos that our Republican colleagues don't want to talk about, at least we're hearing them engage in some debate over this unserious bill about renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which I suppose is an improvement because for the past couple of weeks in the markup hearings on their disastrous budget reconciliation bill, they've been unwilling to debate it all. | ||
| It's just been silence from our Republicans as they move through one of the most reckless bills in American history, the same silence as they duck their constituents by canceling town halls and avoiding media inquiries. | ||
| So instead of debating that very important and destructive legislation, they are speaking up today about this deeply unserious bill to rename a body of water. | ||
| We wish that our Republican colleagues would join us in asking the question that's on more and more Americans' mind. | ||
| What the heck is going on? | ||
| This administration is not draining the swamp. | ||
| They're torching the country. | ||
| The global economy is in chaos. | ||
| We are teetering on the brink of recession. | ||
| Administration officials are telling us we should perhaps prepare to ration dolls and toys this Christmas, and yet they want to debate renaming the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| You know, a Congress that more and more appears to just be a joke is now advancing a bill that literally started off as a joke. | ||
| That's right, the first person to publicly suggest the name change was not Donald Trump or the author of this bill. | ||
| It was comedian Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. | ||
| It was a joke back when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was happening. | ||
|
Renaming the Gulf?
00:15:31
|
||
| And you remember, folks, that 11 people died in that disaster. | ||
| Entire ecosystems collapsed. | ||
| The Louisiana coast was wrecked along with industries and livelihoods that depend on that Gulf Coast ecosystem, all devastated. | ||
| And Colbert used the fake name Gulf of America to satirize the absurdity of oil-soaked nationalism. | ||
| And now here we are, 15 years later, in a Congress that apparently thinks they have no real work to do, turning a late-night punchline into the legislative business of the United States House. | ||
| Look, I would love to say this is just a one-off, but it fits a disturbing trend. | ||
| Again and again, this majority keeps replacing science with slogans, governance with grievance, and policymaking with cheap performance art. | ||
| The truth is, this bill won't fix a single problem. | ||
| It does absolutely nothing to help the Gulf Coast. | ||
| It won't create a single job. | ||
| It's not going to fix our climate crisis. | ||
| It's just dumb. | ||
| The only thing this bill will do is waste time and your taxpayer dollars to stroke the ego of a guy who sharpied a hurricane map on live TV. | ||
| Now, in committee, I offered an amendment that would actually advance the value of efficiency. | ||
| Because, you know, if this is all about stroking the ego of one man, if it's all about cultish sycophancy, why do it in a piecemeal way with all these individual bills to put his face on Mount Rushmore and on the $100 bill? | ||
| We actually have legislation from folks across the aisle to do all these things, to rename Dulles Airport, to do national holidays. | ||
| Why not go all the way? | ||
| We know that's where this is all heading anyway, since everything is in service of one man's fragile ego. | ||
| So why not rename the entire planet Planet Trump? | ||
| At least that would be efficient. | ||
| We would hurry up and get to the inevitable outcome of where this Republican Congress is taking us. | ||
| But look, if you like this unserious bill, there's another deal for you because Eric and Don Jr. are selling Gulf of America hats on their website for 50 bucks a pop. | ||
| One hat even says Gulf of America, yet another Trump development. | ||
| And the sales pitch for one includes, and I quote, as seen on President Donald J. Trump. | ||
| And get your meme coin while you're at it. | ||
| And remember, all of these griffs are for a limited time. | ||
| They won't last much longer. | ||
| The American people deserve much, much better, folks. | ||
| A recent Fox News poll, yes, Fox, showed that a big majority opposes the name change for the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| 67%. | ||
| Americans know a joke when they see one, even if this Republican Congress doesn't. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reserves. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Arkansas. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia, the lead sponsor of this legislation is green. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlewoman from Georgia is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I'm honored to be here today in front of the American people as we debate the merits of the Gulf of America Act. | ||
| This would rename the body of water formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. | ||
| This is such an important thing to do for the American people. | ||
| The American people deserve pride in their country and they deserve pride in the waters that we own, that we protect with our military and our Coast Guard, and all of the businesses that prosper along these waters. | ||
| But Democrats today are outraged. | ||
| They're outraged because they love the cartels more than any other people in the world, more than the American people. | ||
| They spent the past four years funding and voting for policies that ripped our borders open and allowed our country to be invaded by millions and millions of people. | ||
| Drugs and fentanyl that murdered over 300 Americans every single day, human trafficking, child sex trafficking, terrorists, and millions of people that we have no idea where they are in the interior of this country. | ||
| Democrats are outraged today because they are America last and they hate anything that would give the American people pride. | ||
| The Gulf of America is one of the most important things that we can do this Congress. | ||
| This is an executive order written by the President of the United States, which, by the way, is president today because the American people rose up and voted against a Democrat Party that was completely America last. | ||
| Section one of the executive order lays out the purpose and policy and directive stating it is the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. | ||
| The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation's rich past. | ||
| Americans have watched Congress week in and week out rename post offices. | ||
| Democrats vote for it all the time. | ||
| Democrats aren't afraid to rename anything. | ||
| They've been renaming military bases because they hate our history and hate our heritage. | ||
| This is also the same Democrat Party that cheered when their ground troops, Antifa, and radical rioters went throughout American cities and tore down statues like Lincoln and Washington. | ||
| The Democrat Party doesn't want to preserve America's rich history or promote pride in our country, our lands, our people, our businesses, and yes, our waters, the Gulf of America. | ||
| The Democrat Party wants to remain the best business partner to the cartels that they've ever had. | ||
| It's the cartels that have been enriched by tens of billions of dollars because of Democrat policies, and they'll continue to protect them and fight for them. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlemen from Arkansas. | |
| I reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman Reserves, gentlemen from California. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Well, the gentlelady from Georgia is right about one thing. | ||
| Democrats are outraged because as this president is crashing the global economy, careening us into recession, destroying retirement plans and 401ks, driving up costs for American families on everything from cars to eggs to now us being told we may have to ration toys and dolls this Christmas, as all of that is happening. | ||
| He's using Congress's Article I Trade and Commerce Authority to do it. | ||
| And what do you hear from Republicans across the aisle about this thing that is wrecking the lives of so many American families? | ||
| Nothing, worse than nothing. | ||
| They've tied their own hands with a gimmicky bill that they passed to create a false legislative day that never ends so that they can't even invoke Congress's Article I trade authority and put some sensible sideboards on this trade and tariff policy. | ||
| It is madness. | ||
| So the gentlelady is right. | ||
| We are outraged. | ||
| And I would like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, Stenny Hoyer, to talk about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for three minutes. | |
| Live from Washington, D.C., Saturday Night Live. | ||
| You can't make this up. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in perplexion. | ||
| I first want to say how much respect I have for Mr. Westerman. | ||
| He is my dear friend and one of our best members. | ||
| My, my, my. | ||
| Doing a lot of work this time, Bruce. | ||
| Is this infantile bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico really this House's top priority? | ||
| I heard the gentlelady say it's going to solve all the problems, of course, if we name it the Gulf of America. | ||
| Golly day, why didn't we think of that? | ||
| The economy is shrinking for the first time since COVID-19. | ||
| Costs are going up. | ||
| I think Saturday Night Live just called me. | ||
| They won me on. | ||
| Costs are going up. | ||
| Small businesses are going under. | ||
| American families are worried they won't be able to keep the lights on, keep food on the table, and keep the roof on their head. | ||
| They're happy about, of course, Gulf of America. | ||
| That'll do it. | ||
| Millions of Americans risk losing their health insurance if Republicans' Medicaid cuts go through. | ||
| Yet Republicans think this juvenile legislation is the best use of this House's time. | ||
| This is the only thing we're doing today, folks. | ||
| What a sick joke this is. | ||
| Republicans worry about 400-year-old words on a map. | ||
| I worry about families in every community in America who's struggling to get by. | ||
| This bill is obviously a distraction, a joke. | ||
| Where is Trump's one big, beautiful bill that we keep hearing so much about, the one that cuts taxes for the wealthiest among us, threatens health care for millions, and pulls the rug out from underworking Americans? | ||
| The majority still hasn't been able to put it on the floor. | ||
| That's how divided, dysfunctional, and divisive they are. | ||
| My dear friend, the late Elijah Cummings, with whom some of you serve, said, we're better than this. | ||
| The American people are counting on us to be better than this. | ||
| We ought to be debating legislation to bring down costs, to pay our debts, to fix our broken immigration system. | ||
| Instead, MAGA Republicans waste our time with this childish dribble. | ||
| Not only that, they give it a prime spot on the floor schedule. | ||
| This is the only thing we're doing for America today, renaming the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| May I have one more minute? | ||
| I'll yield the gentleman a minute. | ||
| Renaming the Gulf of Mexico, as if that's going to solve the problems. | ||
| Very frankly, my self-confidence in America does not need that. | ||
| I don't need Canada to be the 51st state. | ||
| I don't need to invade Greenland. | ||
| And I don't need the Gulf of America to have confidence in the greatest country on earth. | ||
| Are we so small? | ||
| Do we feel so belittled by the rest of the world that we have to do this silly, silly, silly step? | ||
| We are made smaller. | ||
| Hear me. | ||
| We are made smaller by this effort. | ||
| Vote rationally. | ||
| That'll be a no. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I reserve. | |
| Gentleman Reserves. | ||
| Gentlemen from Markans. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman Reserves. | |
| Gentleman from California. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield now two minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida who represents the Gulf and may have some wisdom to share with us about this subject. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlewoman from Florida is recognized. | |
| Well, I thank the Ranking Member for yielding the time, and I rise in opposition to this farcical bill, and I thought I'd share what I'm hearing from my neighbors across the Gulf Coast. | ||
| They want policymakers in Washington, D.C. to tackle the cost of living. | ||
| And during this Congress, the Republican-led Congress, there has not been one bill brought to the floor of the House, and here we are in May to lower the cost of living for families along the Gulf Coast and all across America. | ||
| In fact, what the Republicans have been focusing on is a massive tax giveaway to billionaires like Elon Musk while they rip away health care from millions of Americans. | ||
| And in Florida, we have about 4.6 million Floridians that rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health care, and about 3.9 million Floridians who rely on Medicaid. | ||
| These are the family members we love the most, kids with complex conditions, seniors in skilled nursing, seniors that want to live in dignity in their homes with a home health aid. | ||
| But their priority is it to make people's lives easier, to make people's lives better? | ||
| No, it's been totally focused on how you rip that away, make people's lives more expensive. | ||
| It also means for the Gulf Coast, we are still reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, just like other parts of the country, in Georgia and North Carolina. | ||
| We don't need Elon Musk creating turmoil and firing civil servants and public servants who are helping us rebuild. | ||
| We do not need the Trump administration making people's lives harder to rebuild and to afford to stay in their homes. | ||
| We're preparing for another hurricane season, and folks along the Gulf Coast need a national weather service that is functional, that can warn us about the threats ahead. | ||
| We need the hurricane hunters out in the Gulf telling us how severe the storms are going to be. | ||
| But the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress seem to be turning away from the people along the Gulf Coast and all across America to understand the threats of a warming climate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman's time has expired. | |
| Yield the gentlelady 30 seconds. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Huffman. | ||
| Mr. Mr. President, because you started this with saying that Gulf of America started as a joke, this is not a joke to the people I represent. | ||
| They want help. | ||
| They want help with the cost of living, and it seems like the Republicans are doing the last, that's the last priority on their list. | ||
| Instead, they want to give a massive tax giveaway to the wealthy and the well-connected, while people really need help with their pocketbooks. | ||
| They need help. | ||
| They want to retain their health care. | ||
| They want to make sure that the ocean waters are free of pollution. | ||
| The EPA and all of the Trump administration initiatives are to take the gentleman's time has expired. | ||
|
Republicans Distract With Water Renaming
00:11:01
|
||
| Please vote no and focus on what's important. | ||
| Thank the gentlelady and the gentleman from California Reserves, gentlemen from Arkansas, is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, just earlier this week, this very committee spent 14 hours in a markup on our reconciliation plans that are part of the big, beautiful bill. | ||
| 14 hours to make America energy dominant, 14 hours to unleash American resources and American jobs. | ||
| Those 14 hours were mainly spent hearing 121 Democrat amendments to undermine that bill. | ||
| 121 times, they wanted to undermine America's energy. | ||
| They wanted to undermine America's ability to mine our own products. | ||
| They wanted to undermine America's ability to manage our forests and our resources and take care of this country. | ||
| Now, there are a lot of bills that come to this floor to rename things, and they may not be the most important bills, but usually they go on a suspension vote because both sides agree that we can do renaming. | ||
| But this one, it got elevated to a much higher level, so here we are under a rule bill debating whether or not we call the Gulf of Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America or if we leave it as it is. | ||
| Our friends across the aisle have one objective: to undermine everything, everything we want to do to make America first, and this is no exception. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from California is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield three minutes to the gentlelady from Southern California, Ms. Revis. | ||
| The gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member, for yielding to me. | ||
| There are many issues that we could be talking about today, like lowering the cost of living, protecting Medicaid and Social Security, protecting immigrant communities. | ||
| But no, House Republicans are prioritizing Trump's vanity project, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, like that's going to help Americans with their cost of living. | ||
| Millions of Americans are struggling because of Trump's policies that are tanking our economy and raising the cost of living. | ||
| And the Republicans in this chamber have yet to put forth anything that addresses their issues. | ||
| I'm disappointed that House Republicans blocked my amendment to this bill that would actually help working families across the country. | ||
| My amendment would require the official name change to not take effect until the Department of Interior can prove that this bill would lower food prices, including the price of eggs, spurn economic growth, create jobs, and lower the unemployment rate. | ||
| But the Republicans voted it down in committee and blocked it from getting to the floor today. | ||
| That shows where their priorities are. | ||
| It was not just the House Republicans who opposed helping working families. | ||
| The Trump White House also hated this amendment and sent out a statement of opposition. | ||
| They went to Fox News to complain that we're doing our job to serve the people. | ||
| Call me crazy, but I believe that the work we do in Congress should improve the lives of the American people. | ||
| As the Congresswoman proudly representing the San Fernando Valley in California, I believe that the true test of how we are as a country is how we treat our most vulnerable. | ||
| And this bill fails that test. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to vote no on this ridiculous bill. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from California Reserves, the gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, our friends across the aisle want to talk about being serious, but when we marked up this legislation in committee, here are some of the serious amendments that they put out. | ||
| Number one, they wanted to rename it not the Gulf of America, but the Gulf of Helene after a hurricane. | ||
| The yays are 203, the nays are 213, the zero answer voting present. | ||
| The motion is not adopted. | ||
| The question is on the question is on the passage of the bill. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The bill is passed, and without objection, motion reconsiders laid on the table. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Request a recorded vote. | |
| A recorded vote is requested. | ||
| Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, a recorded vote is ordered. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In a final passage, vote now on permanently renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. | |
| Introduced by Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, it would codify President Trump's executive order into law. | ||
| The measure directs the Interior Secretary, acting through the chair of the Board on Geographic Names, to update the Gulf's name on all federal documents and maps. | ||
| While members are voting, we'll show more of the debate on the bill from earlier. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote and the last one expected this week. | ||
| Republican colleagues can get up and show their fealty to Donald Trump instead of the voters who elected us who expect us to be focused on them. | ||
| But there's another reason that Republicans are wasting time on this bill, which, by the way, 70% of the American people oppose, is because they want to distract us from what else they are trying to do. | ||
| They are working on a bill right now that would give trillions of dollars of tax cuts to billionaires like Elon Musk by cutting health care for working people. | ||
| They don't want to talk about that. | ||
| That part they only talk about behind closed doors while they distract the media, the American people, and their own members with this nonsense bill about the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the American people are smarter than this. | ||
| They are smarter than our Republican colleagues give them credit for. | ||
| 70% of the American people reject this nonsense bill, and this Congress should as well. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reserve. | |
| Gentleman from California Reserves, the gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I left out one of the other amendments my colleagues across the aisle filed. | ||
| They wanted to rename the Gulf the Gulf of Ignorance. | ||
| Now, I don't know where they came up with that one. | ||
| I know they oppose offshore oil and gas production. | ||
| I know they oppose American energy independence. | ||
| I know they have a special affinity for fish that aren't in the Gulf and attack recreational fishermen in their endeavor to go out and spend time with their family and catch fish. | ||
| But I don't know what part of the Gulf that they think is so ignorant that they wanted to rename the Gulf the Gulf of Ignorance. | ||
| But you can look it up. | ||
| They filed that amendment and we obviously voted it down. | ||
| You know, they had no problem renaming the Canning Caucus Room the Nancy Pelosi Caucus Room. | ||
| It's not like this is the first thing that's ever been renamed in this Congress, but we will go ahead and have our debate and they can vent their frustration on the Republicans and really on our country as they can continue. | ||
| But I will reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Arkansas Reserves, gentlemen from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. Cisneros. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much to my generous colleague for allowing me to speak today. | |
| You know, as members of Congress, we are elected to champion the voices of our people and pass legislation to make their lives better. | ||
| Instead, House Republicans are using their position to introduce a nonsense bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico. | ||
| The Gulf has been known as the Gulf of Mexico since the 16th century. | ||
| Why are they making a big deal out of this now? | ||
| Because they want to stroke the ego of Donald Trump. | ||
| Back home in California, my constituents are concerned about putting food on the table. | ||
| They're feeling crushed by high rent and afraid that they won't be able to buy a home one day. | ||
| They're worried about how they can afford how they can afford health care once these Medicaid cuts take effect. | ||
| Seniors are scared their Social Security checks are going to dry up. | ||
| But Republicans want to focus on renaming a body of water thousands of miles away from where we are today. | ||
| Instead of addressing the things that actually matter to people back home, House Republicans are trying to distract us from the harmful policies they are forcing on all of us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This does nothing to improve the lives of our constituents. | |
| It does nothing to make our country safer, lower cost, help parents feed their kids, or give our seniors the support they deserve. | ||
| This is a waste of time, and it's a disgrace to the people who elected us to serve in this body. | ||
| So thank you very much, and I yield the balance of my time. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from California Reserves, gentleman from Arkansas is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentlelady from Georgia. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| It's so important for the American people to hear this debate back and forth between what Democrats have to say and what Republicans have to say. | ||
| The American people rose up in a historic election in November of 2024, and they told Washington, D.C. they have had enough of the Democrat embrace and love affair of the cartels in Mexico. | ||
| But Democrats today are fighting to keep the Gulf of America named the Gulf of Mexico because the cartels are their business partners. | ||
| They fight for the cartels so much that they call an MS-13 gang member that had two deportation orders that was deported to El Salvador, the country of his citizenship. | ||
| They call him a Maryland man, and they fight for him so hard that they sent senators and House members went down to fight for him, not for the American people. | ||
|
Motion to Reconsider
00:05:42
|
||
| The drug crisis in America is the fault of the open border policies and the love affair between Democrats and cartels. | ||
| Drug trafficking across the Gulf of America is a serious issue. | ||
| The Gulf serves as a maritime corridor of trafficking operations with drugs like cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl, a poison that murders Americans, methamphetamine, and heroin being transported via fishing boats, private vessels, and commercial maritime routes. | ||
| It's our great United States Coast Guard that defends the waters of the Gulf of America. | ||
| Since January 20, 2025, the U.S. Coast Guard has seized 101,415 pounds of cocaine, 10,743 pounds of marijuana, and operations. | ||
| The yays are 211, the nays are 206. | ||
| The bill is passed. | ||
| Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Does the | |
| gentleman from Wisconsin seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourned to meet at 1 p.m. tomorrow. | ||
| And further, when the House adjourns that day, it adjourned to meet at noon on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, for morning hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business. | ||
|
unidentified
|
objection. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Wisconsin seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table, table S-Con Res 12 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. | |
| Senate concurrent resolution 12. | ||
| Concurrent resolution authorizing the use of Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center for a ceremony to present the Congressional Gold Medal collectively to the United States Army Rangers Veterans of World War II. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is there objection to the consideration of the concurrent resolution? | |
| Without objection, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to remove the gentleman from Florida, Representative Scott Franklin, as a co-sponsor of H.R. 1637. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| The chair will now entertain requests for one minute speeches. | ||
| Purpose is a gentleman from Pennsylvania seek recognition. | ||
| House is not in order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House will be in order. | |
|
Honor of Educators
00:15:43
|
||
| Madam Speaker, I request unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| Madam Speaker, I rise today in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week. | ||
| This week, we thank extraordinary educators who shaped the next generation. | ||
| Across America, communities are celebrating teachers, not just as instructors, but as mentors, leaders, and role models. | ||
| Every one of us can recall a teacher who made a lasting impact. | ||
| For many, it was someone who believed in us before we believed in ourselves. | ||
| Teachers inspire curiosity, nurture dreams, and help students persevere through challenges, both academic and personal. | ||
| Their work is vital, and their influence extends beyond the classroom. | ||
| This year, Pennsylvania has special reason to celebrate. | ||
| Ashley Crossan, an English teacher at Mifflin County High School, has been named the 2025 National Teacher of the Year. | ||
| A first-generation college student, Ms. Crossan earned degrees from Susquehanna and Penn State and previously taught in Belfont near my hometown. | ||
| Her dedication, especially through her journalism program, has shaped students into future writers, editors, and leaders. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate Ms. Crossan and thank all educators for their dedication to helping our students succeed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
thank you madam speaker and i yield back to the balance of my thank you for what purpose does a gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition extend my remarks with Without objection. | |
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Haytai Heritage Center in Durham, which has been at the forefront of advancing the heritage of the historic Haytai and the African American experience. | ||
| Through dance, music, and culture, this center has continued to uplift and enrich the vibrancy and spirit of our city in immeasurable ways. | ||
| The history of Durham cannot be separated from the history of Durham's Black Wall Street and Haytai, a thriving cultural and business hub for black Americans and the Haytai Heritage Center's steadfast commitment to preserving this rich heritage is a profound gift to our community. | ||
| Now more than ever, as we see efforts to rewrite our nation's past, the work of centers like these which promote cultural understanding through community events are more critical than ever. | ||
| And it is truly an honor to represent a district that is home to such a remarkable institution. | ||
| The impact you have had on generations of our community cannot be understated. | ||
| Congratulations on this momentous milestone. | ||
| And I look forward to seeing you all and the meaningful work and achievements that lie ahead. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Montana seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to extend and revise my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Madam Speaker, today I rise in recognition of Military Appreciation Month. | ||
| You know, being an Air Force veteran myself, I understand the sacrifices made every day by this nation's men and women who serve in our armed forces. | ||
| Now, these sacrifices aren't just borne by our service members, but also by their families who support them and by their children left home while we send them in harm's way to defend this great country and all she represents. | ||
| To my brothers and sisters in arms in Montana and across this great nation, thank you. | ||
| Thank you for taking the watch. | ||
| Thank you for defending this nation. | ||
| Thank you for protecting us. | ||
| You bring honor upon yourselves. | ||
| You bring honor upon your families, onto your communities, and to these great United States of America. | ||
| Madam Chair, I yield. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| I also address the House unanimous consent to address the House Professor Longman and I sent to revise my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to celebrate the grand opening of the Tree of Life's new Ashburn location. | ||
| This nonprofit provides critical services to our community, including weekly meals and grocery deliveries, ESOL classes and job search assistance, free clothing and transitional housing support, free health education and vaccine clinics and activities for seniors and individuals with disabilities, and the opening, which I thank the Tree of Life and nonprofits across our region for the critical work they do to serve those in need. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Garrett Stanfield. | ||
| Garrett is from Manchester, Ohio, and won the Young Cattleman of the Year Award at the Ohio Cattlemen's Association annual meeting and awards banquet this past February. | ||
| This award recognizes individuals or couples who show leadership and have been successful in the beef operation industry. | ||
| Garrett has demonstrated this through his graduation from the Ohio State University's animal science program and his work to effectively use genetic and reproductive science on the farm. | ||
| Garrett is a lifelong cattleman. | ||
| He was raised on Stanfield Farms, which has been operated for generations by the Stanfield family in southern Ohio. | ||
| America's cattlemen, farmers, and ranchers are the backbone of our country. | ||
| It is a great honor to advocate for them in Congress, and it is my sincere hope that we can pass a full farm bill on their behalf. | ||
| Currently, working with Trans Ovagenetics on innovative breeding processes, Garrett will participate in the upcoming National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Young Cattlemen's Conference and as representative from Ohio Cattlemen's Association. | ||
| Garrett, Ohio is so proud of you and thankful for all you do and your fellow farmers do for America. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does a gentlewoman from Vermont seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, it has been five days since President Trump told the reporter, I don't know, when asked if he had to uphold the Constitution. | ||
| It has been five days of silence from my Republican colleagues. | ||
| I keep waiting to see if a single Republican will speak up about this and denounce this horrifying remark. | ||
| My Republican colleagues, what has happened to you? | ||
| You know that if Obama or Clinton or Biden had said such an outrageous thing, you would be tripping over yourselves to get in front of the cameras. | ||
| And yet now in this moment, you say nothing, you do nothing. | ||
| I was at the inauguration. | ||
| I saw all of you. | ||
| We sat together and watched the president swear his oath of office to uphold the Constitution. | ||
| I am pleading with you. | ||
| Speak up. | ||
| Your fear is keeping you so small, and it is to the detriment of our country and our constitutional democracy. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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I want to remind members to direct remarks to the chair. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Washington seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| objection. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the Pullman High School Science Bowl team for their outstanding performance in the US Department of Energy's National Science Bowl held in Washington DC on April 28th. | ||
| Representing Eastern Washington, these exceptional students, Sahil Ganjail, Jack Carper, Leon Liu, Kevin Chi, and Nathan Kostenko, earned their spot at nationals by winning the Inland Northwest Regional Science Bowl this spring. | ||
| At the competition, they joined 63 other top high school teams from across the country to compete in one of the most prestigious science competitions in the nation. | ||
| This team from Pullman not only showcased their talent on the national stage, they reminded us why it matters to invest in STEM education and to recognize young people who are willing to push themselves, think deeply, and work together in the pursuit of excellence. | ||
| They've made their fellow Pullman Greyhounds proud, including myself, which includes their families in all of eastern Washington. | ||
| I offer my heartfelt congratulations and encourage them to keep reaching higher. | ||
| Their future and ours is bright. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| You meant unanimous consent to address the House for one minute. | ||
| Revise and extend my remarks as necessary. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend students across California's 19th congressional district who participate in the Day of Silence. | ||
| This is a day in which we highlight discrimination and harassment of LGBTQ students in our schools all across the country. | ||
| This year, I want to feature the leadership of Bryce Grossman, an eighth grader from Santa Cruz who founded and organized the We Will Not Be Erased walk on March 13th. | ||
| A demonstration to defend and remind us about the rights of the LGBTQ community. | ||
| With encouragement from his parents, Amy and Kevin, Bryce is furthering our democracy by stepping up and speaking up. | ||
| As Bryce said, we will be loud. | ||
| We will be proud for our rights for our families and for the LGBTQ community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the actions of Bryce and all students and allies on the Day of Silence demonstrate that our youth understand that when we engage, that's how we endure as a community, as a country, and most importantly, as a democracy based on liberty, justice, and equality for all. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The Chair will receive a message. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, a message from the President of the United States. | ||
| Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Secretary. | ||
| I am directed by the President of the United States to deliver to the House of Representatives a message in writing. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from South Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, as we approach Law Enforcement Week, I rise today to honor a young man whose story reminds us not only of courage, but of God's grace. | ||
| Nearly two years ago, Deputy Lucas Watts of Oconee County was shot in the line of duty during a traffic stop. | ||
| At just the age of 27 years old, he came face to face with death. | ||
| And by every account, it is nothing short of a miracle that he survived. | ||
| Thanks to the quick action of his fellow deputies, the prayers of an entire community, and the healing hand of the Lord, Deputy Watts is still with us today. | ||
| He is a devoted husband, a loving father, and a faithful public servant. | ||
| And last year, he was named Deputy of the Year by the South Carolina Sheriffs Association. | ||
| Through hardship and healing, Deputy Watts has reminded a powerful example of faith. | ||
| He has remained a powerful example of faith, perseverance, and service. | ||
| To Deputy Watts, to his family, and to every law enforcement officer who puts their life on the line each day, we thank you. | ||
| We see you, and we lift you up in prayer. | ||
| May God continue to bless Deputy Watts and all who wear the badge, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Oregon seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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Without objection. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, House Republicans' all-out attack on Medicaid is morally indefensible. | ||
| In my district alone, over 255,000 Oregonians, including 59% of our children, rely on Medicaid for life-saving care. | ||
| These aren't just numbers. | ||
| They're the cancer patients fighting for their lives, children with disabilities getting essential support, and seniors reliant on long-term care. | ||
| Republicans want to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from the Medicaid Committee, gutting health care for the most vulnerable, while billionaires and corporations get another payday. | ||
| As a critical care physician, I know what this means. | ||
| Without Medicaid, patients go without preventative care. | ||
| They get sicker. | ||
| They defer life-saving medications, and too often they don't survive. | ||
| Medicaid is not a handout. | ||
| It is a lifeline. | ||
| Cutting it to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy is unconscionable because health care is a human right. | ||
| It's not a bargaining chip. | ||
| Oregon won't stand for these cuts, and neither will I. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose? | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Georgia seek recognition? | ||
| Ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate Sue Adler, whose leadership at the Historic Savannah Foundation has left a permanent mark on our city's preservation efforts. | ||
| After six years at the helm, we reflect on her unwavering commitment to preserving Savannah's architectural treasures and historical narratives. | ||
| Under Ms. Adler's guidance, HSF has flourished. | ||
| Ms. Adler's work includes repurposing the historic Kennedy Pharmacy as the Davenport House Museum shop, ensuring that Savannah's rich past remains alive for future generations. | ||
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Supporting Military Families
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| Ms. Adler's leadership has helped preserve the buildings, stories, and communities that define Savannah. | ||
| As she transitions to her new role at the Savannah Historic Initiatives, we thank her for her service. | ||
| Her legacy will undoubtedly continue to shape our city's preservation journey, and we look forward to the continued success of historic Savannah Foundation as it moves into the future. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Oregon seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I stand to rise the alarm about the Trump administration's reported plans to fire nearly 7,000 workers in the U.S. Forest Service. | ||
| These illegal firings could have devastating consequences for Oregon. | ||
| Wildfire season is just around the corner, and there's concern that the Forest Service won't actually have enough staff and resources to fight these deadly blazes, putting countless Oregonians at risk. | ||
| Fewer workers also means less people to care for our public lands and less money coming into our local economies. | ||
| And yes, it means taxpayer dollars whose dollars go to recruit and train these highly skilled individuals will lose out on their investment. | ||
| That's why my colleagues and I sent a letter to Secretary Rollins and President Trump demanding the reinstatement of all Forest Service personnel who have been illegally fired. | ||
| Luckily, our letter resulted in some workers being reinstated, but the threat of more terminations remain. | ||
|
unidentified
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Our public servants deserve better. | |
| The American people deserve better. | ||
| I won't be silent as the administration continues to wreak havoc on our country, on our forests, and on our people. | ||
|
unidentified
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With or without my Republican colleagues, I will continue to fight for our vulnerable communities. | |
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I rise to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Today, I rise to recognize and thank my Operations Director, Alex Kalisian, for his four years of service in the House of Representatives. | ||
| And this is Alex's son, Anthony. | ||
| His dedicated work ethic and sharp sense of humor have made him an integral part of our team, keeping me and my office on track, smiling and teaching us Armenian history along the way. | ||
| While he was working around the clock in my office during the past four years, he has also been a part of a part-time law school student and has been a devoted husband, father, and a dear friend. | ||
| My team will not be the same without you, Alex. | ||
| But we are excited for you as you embark on this next chapter in your career as a lawyer back home in Los Angeles, and I know I will continue to see you. | ||
| So we'll be cheering for you every step of the way. | ||
| Shanor Hover Alex, thank you and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from North Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to rise off. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Mamie Hoffer and Jason Frutrell of Hoffer Flow Controls in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the United States Small Business Administration's Small Business Persons of the Year for North Carolina. | ||
| During National Small Business Week, we're honored to recognize incredible entrepreneurs such as Mamie and Jason, whose company Hoffer Flow Controls exemplifies innovation and resilience, demonstrating positive economic impact in an economically distressed region. | ||
| Hoffer Flow Controls, a world-class manufacturing of industrial turbine flow meters and measuring liquids and gases, has been a pillar for northeastern North Carolina for more than 50 years. | ||
| Their flow control solutions are used in industries like aerospace, defense, power, cryogenics, and more. | ||
| Hoffer Flow's success is a testament to what small businesses can achieve with vision, hard work, and a commitment to excellence. | ||
| Mamie and Jason are commended for their well-deserved honor and for perfecting the art of measurement. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Indiana seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise today in celebration of National Small Business Week, a time to recognize the hardworking men and women who are the engines of our economy. | ||
| As a former small business owner myself, I know the long hours, the risks, and the deep sense of responsibility that comes with signing both sides of a paycheck. | ||
| Small businesses are more than storefronts. | ||
| They're job creators, community anchors, and the heart of America. | ||
| In the 9th District, small businesses like Lakes Clothing and Shoes, Brownstown Electric, and Litchke Motors are strengthening our community's one investment, one hire, and one customer at a time. | ||
| That's why I'm committed to cutting government red tape, lowering taxes, and fighting for pro-growth policies that empower our entrepreneurs to thrive, not just survive. | ||
| To every small business owner out there, thank you. | ||
| This week and every week, we're here for you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | |
| I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Madam Speaker, this week, Small Business Week, it's my honor to recognize Joe Klotz on his receipt of the John L. Stanley Award from the Orange County Chamber of Commerce. | ||
| This award is given to those who are committed to going above and beyond to support Orange County's business community. | ||
| Through Joe's business providing critical electrical services to the residents of Orange, he has built a legacy of hard work. | ||
| But what makes him so deserving of this award is not just what he does at work. | ||
| It's the time and energy he devotes to strengthening our community. | ||
| He has helped grow local business and create new opportunities for the people of Orange County. | ||
| During Small Business Week, I am honored to congratulate you on this well-earned award and recognize you as this week's constituent of the week. | ||
| Congratulations, Joe, and best wishes to you on continued success. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Mississippi seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask to address the House for one minute to advise me in my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to recognize two exceptional members of the United States Coast Guard from Port Security Unit 308 in Gulfport, Mississippi. | ||
| Boatsman's mate, First Class Bradley Walker, has been awarded the Commander Ray Evans Outstanding Coaching Trophy, one of the highest honors given to a Coast Guard boat operator. | ||
| His leadership, skill, and commitment to the mission excellence represent the very best in service. | ||
| Alongside him, machinery technician First Class James Lang has earned the Fireman First Class Paul Clark Outstanding Engineer Award, a national recognition of his outstanding technical expertise and dedication to keeping his unit mission ready. | ||
| These two Mississippians embody the core values of the Coast Guard, honor, respect, and devotion to duty. | ||
| I'm incredibly proud to represent them and PSU 308 in Congress. | ||
| Their service makes our nation stronger and our Gulf Coast proud. | ||
| Congratulations to BM1 Walker and MK1 Lang, and thank you for your service. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask unmissed consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak for my constituents, Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez. | ||
| 35 years ago, they came to the United States from Columbia in search of a better life. | ||
| They tried to file for asylum, but received bad legal advice from a now disbarred attorney. | ||
| They raised three daughters in Laguna Niguille, California, worked hard, paid taxes, and never got so much as a traffic ticket. | ||
| For decades, they checked in with ICE voluntarily and were allowed to stay in the country. | ||
| But this past February, while at their ICE appointment, they were detained, separated, and deported. | ||
| Why was a family with no criminal history, no gang affiliation, three children, a new grandchild, why were they a priority for deportation? | ||
| We should be using our resources to remove dangerous individuals, not those contributing positively to our society and to our economy, not people like Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez. | ||
| I am all for a secure border, but what we're seeing today is not the America that I know. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Guam seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I'm requesting unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and regard against the Michael Guangzhou. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I rise today to support the Mill FMLA Act, legislation that honors the sacrifice of our military families and veterans by ensuring they receive the family and medical leave protection they deserve. | ||
| I'm honored to co-lead this bipartisan legislation with Congresswoman McLean Delaney. | ||
| Too often, the loved ones of our service members are left behind without adequate support when duty calls. | ||
| Mill FMLA Act fixes this by extending the family and medical leave benefits to family members of the National Guard and the Reserve Troops, recognizing the unique burdens they bear when their loved ones are deployed. | ||
| This act also extends these same protections to our veterans and their families, ensuring they can take the time they need to care for their health without fear of losing their jobs. | ||
| This is not just about fairness. | ||
| It's about readiness. | ||
| When families are supported at home, our service members can focus on the mission. | ||
|
unidentified
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As a proud representative of Guam, where service to our nation runs deep, I urge my colleagues to stand with our military families and pass this bill without delay. | |
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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I yield back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Washington seek recognition? | ||
| For unanimous consent to address the House of Owen. | ||
|
unidentified
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Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Madam Speaker, I rise today to encourage the House to take up and pass my bill, the Purchased and Referred Care Improvement Act. | ||
| This bill works to correct an all-too-common occurrence, which is that tribal members are referred to collections agencies because the Indian Health Service failed to pay its bills. | ||
| Sometimes tribal members utilizing the Indian Health Service will be referred to an outside specialist or another provider, and this is what is known as purchased and referred care. | ||
| IHS is still responsible for the payment for this care, but all too often fails to follow through on that obligation. | ||
| And so these unpaid bills often lead to tribal members paying those themselves, being saddled with medical debt that they should never have incurred in the first place. | ||
| So Chairman Jared Erickson and members of the Colville Tribe came and visited my office. | ||
| We talked about this and they brought it to my attention. | ||
| And Colville tribal members have been hounded by debt collection agencies for bills that the Indian Health Service failed to pay. | ||
| This bill would ensure that this never happens again and that tribal members will not be burdened with IHS's debts or saddled with medical debt. | ||
| So I want to thank Chairman Erickson and the Colville Tribe for their tireless advocacy and I encourage the House to pass this bill. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yield. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Seek unanimous consent to address the House one minute and revise the 10th of the evening. | ||
| Madam Speaker. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| In California, we have this high-speed rail project. | ||
| I call it high-cost rail because it's become a symbol of runaway spending and is indeed a complete boondoggle. | ||
| Back when the original bond was passed in 2008 by a narrow margin by the voters of California about a $9 billion bond, the rail was supposed to be a total cost of $33 billion from San Francisco to LA. | ||
| That has ballooned up to $130 billion of projected costs, and that was 17 years ago. | ||
| And so far, there's hardly any infrastructure has been built. | ||
| So what do you have? | ||
| Over 17 years, they've managed to raise about $17 billion from cap and trade tax in California and two different disbursements from the Democrat presidencies. | ||
| So in 17 years, check this, raised $17 billion. | ||
| They're short $110 billion to complete the project. | ||
| Not only that, they're at least 25 years behind. | ||
| It's supposed to have been done by 2020. | ||
| And now they project, oh, maybe we'll have the first segment from Merced to a town called Shafter somewhere near Bakersfield done by maybe 2035 or 2040. | ||
| I mean, and they're going to come back to DC for more money. | ||
| Not a chance. | ||
| This thing needs to be stopped and put it into infrastructure people need, like freeways and stuff like that. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| 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. | ||
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unidentified
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Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| Today I rise to recognize the Matrix M3 Indoor Percussion Ensemble as Ohio's 13th congressional district champions of the week. | ||
| Last month, the M3 Percussion Ensemble performed at the WGI World Championships and after their preliminary performance left them just two points in the lead, M3 gave it their all in their finals, securing the first place prize. | ||
| They are now world champions in the Scholastic Independent Division after earning a final and near-perfect score. | ||
| The WGI Championship was the final competition in the Matrix M3 Percussion Ensemble's busy season after competing in seven different contests, seven different contests across the Midwest. | ||
| The group is a perfect example of why Ohio's 13th congressional district is known as the birthplace of champions, and I look forward to seeing all that they accomplish in the future. | ||
| Once again, I'd like to congratulate the Matrix M3 Indoor Percussion Ensemble for bringing home this gold medal. | ||
| Our community is so very proud of you and your hard work and incredible talent. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
|
unidentified
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For what purpose does the gentlewoman from California seek recognition? | |
| Madam Speaker, I request unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Madam Speaker, today I rise to address the House to celebrate my constituent, W. Kamau Bell, who won Celebrity Jeopardy! | ||
| It's a pretty cool thing. | ||
| Not only did he win Celebrity Jeopardy, as a constituent who's lived in my district in Oakland, California, since the 1990s, he's consistently given back philanthropically to young people and underserved communities. | ||
| Again, for almost 30 years, after winning Celebrity Jeopardy, just recently, he gave a million dollars, the full winnings, back to community, specifically to the school district in Oakland, California. | ||
| His donation has supported over 200 projects in Oakland schools, including Castlemont High School. | ||
| Just recently, I visited Castlemont High School and met with these amazing students who are full of potential. | ||
| These students are not only the future, they are the now. | ||
| Many teachers across our school districts in my district and throughout the country are going out of their own pockets to buy support services for students and their own supplies. | ||
| Kamal's philanthropic spirit will reduce that reality for our teachers, and I am so proud to call him not only my constituent, but a leading voice in the United States. | ||
| Thank you so much, Kamal. | ||
| And I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Ohio seek recognition? | |
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight a bipartisan resolution introduced alongside my Northwest Ohio colleague Bob Latta. | ||
| It proclaims May 9th to May 18th this year, 2025, as National American Birding Week. | ||
| Each spring, 3.5 billion birds from over 350 million species migrate through the United States to their breeding grounds. | ||
| They stop along the shores of our Great Lakes flyway before continuing their journey to Canada and beyond. | ||
| They don't have to pay any tariffs. | ||
| Birding in our abundant freshwater kingdom draws environmental stewards from around the globe. | ||
| Nationwide, 95 million birders generate over $90 billion annually for our economy. | ||
| The biggest week in American birding is sponsored by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory in Oak Harbor, Ohio. | ||
| And this event leverages public-private partnerships to promote conservation of migratory bird populations and promote millions of dollars of economic development through nature tourism, research, education, and outreach. | ||
| Ohio is proud to host our guests from near and far. | ||
| We welcome everyone during America's Birding Week. | ||
| Let this continue for generations to come. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from New Mexico seek recognition? | ||
| Good afternoon, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise to hear of the House on the Castrie AIS present to revise and extend my prayer rights. | ||
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Attacking Freedom
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unidentified
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Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Madam Speaker, in Donald Trump's America, not even Elmo is safe. | ||
| Because over the last 100 days, we've seen an unprecedented attack on the media and especially our public media. | ||
| So let me say this. | ||
| The freedom of the press and freedom of speech are not a privilege. | ||
| They are enshrined in the United States Constitution, vital to our democracy and to accountability. | ||
| But we've seen attack after attack, threats on the media and communications companies, outlets replaced in the Pentagon, an order attacking PBS and NPR just this very week, and an attempt to throw the AP out of the White House for daring to tell the truth. | ||
| These attacks are not just an outrage, they are an attack on our freedom, on our democracy, on our rights as Americans, which is why I rise today to stand for and to fight for a free and fair press, because it is vital to our democracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield back. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Oregon seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| Two days ago, I got a text from a firefighter in my district saying, get a rare blood cancer and find out there's no firefighter cancer registry. | ||
| The cancer registry is hosted by NIOSH. | ||
| And on April 1st and last week, the agency was gutted in Gresham, Oregon. | ||
| There was an investigation because we had a firefighter who spent months in the hospital after surviving a flash fire. | ||
| The investigators were fired in the middle of the investigation. | ||
| I come from a family of firefighters, one of whom just got diagnosed with Parkinson's after spending months at the World Trade Center. | ||
| The fact of the matter is on 9-11, my Republican colleagues will fall over themselves to thank firefighters and to say how they'll never forget. | ||
| Well, I'll tell you something. | ||
| We're going to never forget the deafening silence and the inaction as these investigators and protections for firefighters who put their lives on the line. | ||
| They did nothing and let them die. | ||
| We will never forget. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? | |
| I ask for unanimous consent, Madam Speaker, to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my information. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| Allow me to paint a picture of a country. | ||
| Threats to the media to control the flow of information to the citizenry. | ||
| Cutting funds to childhood education, higher education, and the arts to limit free and independent thought. | ||
| Telling families it's time to tighten their wallets for the greater good. | ||
| A focus on investing in prisons. | ||
| Members of the judiciary jailed for following the law. | ||
| Military parades that celebrate the leader. | ||
| When Americans hear this, we associate them with the likes of Lukashenko of Belarus or Kim Jong-un of North Korea. | ||
| But these are all examples of our country, the United States of America, in the last three months and what is planned. | ||
| Fear. | ||
| Fear is the ultimate goal of leaders like this. | ||
| We need to stand up for freedom and democracy, or we may lose them forever. | ||
| This Congress must stop being a rubber stamp for this president and perform its constitutional duty as a check and a balance. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Speaker. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? | ||
| Speaker, I ask McNanner's consent to address the House for whatever. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my support for the court-appointed special advocates program, also known as the CASA program, through the Department of Justice. | ||
| As a prior township trustee in Northwest Indiana, I was involved in a program that went into the schools to assist children who experienced abuse and sexual harm. | ||
| Survivors having someone in their corner through the CASA began their lifeline through that painful experience. | ||
| A family friend became a survivor at just four years old. | ||
| Today, as a college student, she volunteers for CASA. | ||
| Driven by the advocacy who once stood by her, she's proof that hope creates change. | ||
| She asked me to fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is a painful truth that the administration has moved to eliminate funding for this critical program. | |
| As a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Justice, I believe that our nation's values and policies are shown by how we direct funds. | ||
| And turning our backs on children's survivors in order to justify massive tax cuts for the wealthy is both shameful and bad policy. | ||
| I stand ready to work with all of my colleagues to ensure that children and survivors in Northwest Indiana and across our nation have access to resources and trusted advocates they need to lead their best lives. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Maryland seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask McNanison's consent to address the House for one home. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| 14.3 million Americans serve as caregivers for our nation's injured service members and veterans. | ||
| Unfortunately, the Family and Medical Leave Act does not meet the challenges faced by today's service members, vets, and their families. | ||
| The FMLA excludes military caregiver benefits for domestic partners and extended family members. | ||
|
Introducing The Mila Act
00:02:38
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| The FMLA does not have a defined benefit for veterans who need to leave to address severe injuries related to their service. | ||
| In fact, many of our nation's heroes and their loved ones cannot access basic leave benefits without risking their job. | ||
| That's why my military caregiver acts why during Military Caregiver Month, I am proud to introduce the MILA Act with Congressman Moylan. | ||
| This bipartisan legislation removes arbitrary restrictions on who can be a military caregiver and covers domestic deployments when National Guard members respond to natural disasters. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to co-sponsor the MIL FMLA Act. | ||
| And thank you, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| The chair lays before the House a message to the Congress of the United States. | ||
| Section 202D of the National Emergencies Act, 15 United States Code 1622D, provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. | ||
| In accordance with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register for Publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency declared with respect to Yemen in Executive Order 13611 of May 16, 2012, is to continue in effect beyond May 16, 2025. | ||
| The actions and policy of Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, continue to threaten Yemen's peace, security, and stability. | ||
| These actions include obstructing the political process in Yemen and blocking the implementation of the agreement of November 23, 2011, between the government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provided for a peaceful transition of power that meets the legitimate demands of the aspirations of the Yemeni people. | ||
| Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency, declare an executive order 13611 with respect to Yemen. | ||
| Signed, Donald J. Trump, the White House, May 7th, 2025. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered printed. | |
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. | ||
|
Chaos At Home, Chaos Abroad
00:15:25
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| Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise today to further discuss with our members and this country the situation that we find ourselves in, the chaotic situation that has so many people confused, this chaotic situation that is causing trauma and harm to the people of this country. | ||
| And so, I know much of what I'm going to say today perhaps have been said by others before, but we need to talk about this situation over and over and over again and daily so that people can understand what is going on and how our democracy is being challenged. | ||
| Last year, Trump denied knowing anything about Project 2025, the radical right-wing plan to reshape the federal government. | ||
| Of Project 2025, Trump said, and I quote, I don't know anything about it. | ||
| I don't want to know anything about it, quote, unquote. | ||
| But now, Trump, Elon Musk, and his appointees are following the Project 2025 playbook. | ||
| They are recklessly gutting federal agencies and governments' capacity. | ||
| Elon Musk has said the government should privatize everything, I quote, he said, everything we possibly can, quote, unquote. | ||
| They're laying off or pushing into retirement tens of thousands of federal employees. | ||
| The cruelty is the point. | ||
| Rochelle Vault, Office of Management and Budget Director and Project 2025 architect have said of federal employees, and I quote, we want to put them in a trauma. | ||
| It has been over 100 days since President Trump was inaugurated. | ||
| Since then, the President of the United States has questioned his role to uphold the Constitution, an oath he made when he was sworn into office. | ||
| He's also questioned whether Americans are entitled to due process of foundational civil protection, and he has endlessly flouted the rule of law. | ||
| As a matter of fact, the American Civil Liberties Union has called the Trump administration's action, quote, one of the most abusive and aggressive assaults on human rights in United States presidential history. | ||
| In carrying out their pro-billionaire agenda, Republicans have also gutted programs and agencies that serve as critical lifelines to American families, many of which include their very own constituents. | ||
| The international leadership from which Americans benefit greatly and built for decades is now destabilized by Trump's trade war against our allies. | ||
| In just a few months, Trump has introduced chaos in the stock market and undermined confidence for consumers, investors, and small businesses, many of which have cautioned that they will have to close due to Trump's untenable tariffs, which act as a tax on Americans and their businesses. | ||
| At the same time, as families struggle, Trump has increased his wealth by billions since taking office, which is a slap in the face to American families struggling to put food on the table. | ||
| Just last week, alarming new information came to light regarding foreign governments making business deals using Trump's crypto. | ||
| A $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm's stablecoins with the fund backed by Abu Dhabi was announced at a conference in Dubai. | ||
| This arrangement represents a significant contribution by a foreign government to President Trump's private crypto business that will abundantly grow the Trump family's wealth. | ||
| While Trump and his billionaire insiders' wealth catapults, Americans are bracing themselves for layoffs, shortages, and higher prices in a Trump-engineered recession. | ||
| While Trump and his family continue to land billions of dollars in deals and investments with American companies and foreign entities, Trump has asked Americans to withstand the pain. | ||
| I quote, that's what he said, just withstand the pain. | ||
| And so, this is from his economic policies. | ||
| While Trump worked hard to make room for $7 trillion in tax cuts for American oligarchs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, Republicans are cutting $880 billion in funding for Medicaid food stamps for Americans who rely on this help. | ||
| This is how Donald Trump has improved the lives of American families by damaging their retirement plans, jobs, and social society safety nets. | ||
| It is clear that there's no such thing as business as usual anymore. | ||
| This is why this week I took a stand against Trump's actions. | ||
| For several years, I've led the effort in Congress to advance common sense crypto legislation to protect American investors and consumers from fraud and from scams while supporting crypto capital formation. | ||
| After years of good faith, bipartisan negotiation and collaboration with regulators and stakeholders last Congress, former Chair McHenry and I even drafted payment stablecoin legislation that would create a strong federal framework and put consumer protection front and center. | ||
| My bill would foster innovation while properly addressing the concerns I've long held about safeguarding our nation's consumers from scams that inundated the crypto industry. | ||
| Our bill also addressed national security concerns that adversaries and criminal organizations could use stablecoins for their very harmful purposes. | ||
| While we are talking about crypto, I think it is important for me to just let the people know that crypto is a digital form of private cash. | ||
| And it's very important that people understand that and what we're trying to share and the information that we are trying to make sure they understand about this digital form of private cash. | ||
| However, we live in a different world now and many of these risks have only increased since the inauguration of President Trump. | ||
| President Trump's actions have drastically altered the crypto landscape in ways that are far more dangerous than what we could ever imagine. | ||
| And he has gutted the financial regulators task with protecting Americans. | ||
| So, ahead of the scheduled joint hearing between the Financial Services Committee and the Agriculture Committee on Crypto Market Structure Legislation, I presented a straightforward, acceptable, and basic request to the Republicans. | ||
| I told the chair of the Financial Services Committee that I would only give my consent to this hearing if Republicans would include provisions to block Trump or any sitting president and his family, as well as members of Congress, from further profiting of crypto at the expense of American families in this crypto legislation. | ||
| That's all I asked for. | ||
| Unlike other hearings in Congress, this one was different. | ||
| It required every member, Democrat and Republican, to agree on holding this hearing. | ||
| Well, I had to think whether I could agree to this hearing if there wasn't a commitment to address the corruption I and many across this country are recognizing. | ||
| Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, any member of Congress that intends to protect the public from the exploitation of government power, you should stand by these foundational principles of our democracy. | ||
| Regrettably, Republicans rejected my request. | ||
| In fact, rather than post my legislation to stop corruption, they decided to not even post their legislation. | ||
| And then, when I asked for a commitment to include a prohibition on owning crypto by the public officials writing the laws and rules governing crypto, that was rejected as well. | ||
| And because the joint hearing needed the consent of every member, and I could not in good faith agree to such hearings. | ||
| You see, through this legislation, Republicans are legitimizing Trump's and his family's efforts to enrich themselves on the back of average Americans. | ||
| Through this crypto business, Trump has created a pathway to circumvent our country's national security and anti-corruption laws. | ||
| This approach allows adversaries like China and Russia to curry favor, even blatantly or anonymously, through transfers of money to him and his inner circle. | ||
| This week, we saw new reports that insiders nearly made rather nearly $100 million on Melania's meme coin. | ||
| Public officials being able to sell access using crypto undermine our democracy and free market system. | ||
| Let's look at this for what it is. | ||
| This is how authentarian regimes do business. | ||
| Trump has turned the office of the presidency into a personal money-making machine. | ||
| And we must speak truth to power to the Americans we took an oath to protect. | ||
| Let's take a look at the timeline of this, shall we? | ||
| As a Republican presidential nominee, Trump launched his family's crypto venture called World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance crypto platform. | ||
| The Trump family now has a claim on 75% of net revenues from token sales and 60% from World Liberty operations. | ||
| Concerning crypto industry data also shows that many investors into World Liberties crypto are based abroad in countries like Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| Because this company was launched during Trump's campaign, it gave a new to possibly circumvent federal laws that make it illegal for foreigners to donate to presidential campaigns or inaugural funds. | ||
| After the election and just before his inauguration, President Trump and the First Lady, Melania Trump, kicked off his president with the launch of their own meme coins, which have reportedly lost the investors trusting their president. | ||
| They lost $2 billion, and guess what? | ||
| The president and his family made at least $350 million. | ||
| Then in March, President Trump's World Liberty Financial announced the launch of his stablecoin, conveniently named USD-1, USD-1, just before our Financial Services Committee was scheduled to vote on legislation, regulatable coin market. | ||
| Stablecoins are a type of crypto that claim to maintain a constant or quote stable value and are used in most crypto transactions today. | ||
| In May, World Liberty Financial announced the firm would be making a $2 billion business deal with a fund backed by Abu Dhabi using the Trump firm's stablecoins. | ||
| This deal also included Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. | ||
| Recently, Binance's founder has been seeking a pardon from the Trump administration after he pleaded guilty to money laundering and spent four months in federal prison. | ||
| Nevertheless, Republican stablecoin bill did nothing to address Trump's conflict and instead vowed to hand Crump the authority to write the rules over his and his competitors' stable coins. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Traditionally, our federal financial regulators were intentionally created by Congress to be independent from the White House in order to put the stability of our financial markets above politics. | ||
| Trump has undermined that independence by making these independent agencies now clear all of the rules with the White House. | ||
| So, if stablecoin legislation is passed, agencies would draft rules that would be sent straight to Trump in the White House, and he would directly make edits that would benefit his own stablecoin business. | ||
| His business could also make adjustments to their operations, knowing the rules before their competitors. | ||
|
Regulating Risk? Trump's Crypto Agenda
00:10:11
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| Later in March, Trump's sons launched their own Bitcoin company called American Bitcoin. | ||
| President Trump had conveniently already instructed the Treasury to create a Bitcoin reserve and a digital asset strategic reserve, a move that would boost the value of the Bitcoin and he and his cabinet members' own using taxpayer resources. | ||
| And leading up to the White House's first crypto summit, World Liberty purchased $20 million in crypto tokens, some of which include those Trump picked for the strategic cryptocurrency reserve. | ||
| I found out recently that last month, President Trump is venturing deeper into crypto with even a new project. | ||
| This very own, that should be his very own video game that uses crypto. | ||
| The video game is supposed to resemble Monopoly Go. | ||
| Players travel around a board and earn money for constructing buildings in a digital city. | ||
| You heard that's right. | ||
| Trump is producing video games that involve crypto to model his own real estate business, which went bankrupt. | ||
| Who do you think is helping him launch this video game? | ||
| The same person that helped launch his meme coin, this longtime pal. | ||
| This is his longtime pal, Bill Zanker. | ||
| Other Trump companies like Trump Media and Technology Group, which is the parent company of Truth Social, are also leveraging the office of the president by partnering with major crypto platforms like CryptoCom, | ||
| promising to purchase $250 million in crypto, initiating plans to launch a crypto exchange traded funds, ETFs, and more. | ||
| Trump is gearing up to host a May 22nd dinner for top Trump meme coins holders. | ||
| What this means is the more of his crypto that people buy, the higher their chances of getting access to Trump. | ||
| We don't know everyone who's buying his crypto assets. | ||
| It could be foreign governments or individuals of special interest looking to directly influence presidential decisions. | ||
| Trump ran on a campaign to put more money in the pockets of Americans. | ||
| Turns out, he just meant his pockets and those of his cronies. | ||
| The first 100 days of the Trump administration were filled with failures, chaos, and incompetence. | ||
| The United States' role and reputation globally has been severely damaged, and many Americans are worried they will no longer receive their social security checks and Medicaid they need. | ||
| Now, congressional representatives who are Republicans, the congressional Republicans, insist on pushing forward crypto market structure legislation without addressing any of the corruption I have mentioned here today. | ||
| So I ask members to keep in mind all of this is occurring against this unprecedented backdrop. | ||
| Every day congressional Republicans refuse to stand up for their constituents. | ||
| They diminish their power and Congresses and damage the country's democratic future. | ||
| At the same time, Trump has undone Congress's decades-long ethics rules and enforcement laws. | ||
| In doing so, he has removed many of the institutions and watchdogs that would serve as a check on his own self-profiteering. | ||
| He has gutted the Corporate Transparency Act, frozen endorsement for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and disbanded the Department of Justice's national cryptocurrency enforcement team. | ||
| Trump has also been extremely clear about taking control of independent agencies, even issuing executive orders, making sure they're no longer independent from the whims of politics. | ||
| And the Securities and Exchange Commission has suspended several ongoing cases for Trump donors and Trump crypto investors. | ||
| For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently suspended its enforcement action against Justin Sun, founder of the Trone Foundation. | ||
| The SEC's own complaint details how Sun sold unregistered crypto asset securities, manipulated trading to artificially inflate the prices of the tokens he issued, and secretly paid celebrities to tout his tokens, all in violation of well-established and widely recognized securities laws. | ||
| The timing also raises significant concerns and it aligns with Sun's $25 million investment in Trump's world liberty financial. | ||
| We do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past with a new risky financial product. | ||
| We can integrate the lessons of the past for a future that spearheads responsible innovation and growth. | ||
| Remember the predatory mortgages from the financial crisis? | ||
| Those were also sold as innovative products without difficult and sufficient guardwells. | ||
| Instead, they cause millions of people to lose their jobs, their homes, their savings, reversing and worsening any gains that have been made in black and Latino home ownership and wealth. | ||
| The collapse of the housing market during this time displaced approximately 10 million Americans. | ||
| So, as Trump wreaks chaos on the stock market and broader economy, he's also injecting additional risk to our financial system, ultimately putting the country on track for a recession and financial crisis. | ||
| Let's start with Trump's deregulatory agenda. | ||
| Trump has shuttered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. | ||
| Republicans are paving for ways for a reality, paving way for reality where the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is dismantled. | ||
| And the economy is no longer guided by independent regulators. | ||
| Instead, regulators are being manipulated to serve the political and financial interests of the president and his billionaire insiders. | ||
| In this context, light-touch crypto legislation would have real risk for all. | ||
| Trump has undone critical enforcement mechanisms that make our marketplace safer for consumers and hold bad actors accountable. | ||
| The Trump administration is also integrating unnecessary risk and volatility into agencies. | ||
| For example, according to recent reports, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, is attempting to experiment with crypto in their operations, including by paying grantees in stablecoin or crypto. | ||
| And one of Trump's executive orders leaves the door wide open for Trump to require the use of his stablecoins and meme coins in order to pay taxes or enter into other arrangements with the government. | ||
| This would be just another in a string of this administration's egregious conflicts of interest. | ||
| During the 2008 financial crisis, we saw how poorly regulated money market funds needed to be bailed out by Treasury Secretary using the Exchange Stabilization Fund. | ||
| We also saw how the Federal Reserve used its emergency lending authority to provide a bailout for American International Group. | ||
| When we step back and view all of these factors, it is clear Trump is socializing risk to American families that are not engaging with the crypto ecosystem. | ||
| I'm deeply concerned that as President, Trump will transfer the risk from his venues and sponsorship of the crypto industry to the American taxpayer. | ||
| And so, as members of Congress, we must legislate every day, then try to shutter the CBFB. | ||
| They are trying to shutter the CFPB every day. | ||
| We are fighting, whether it's in agency headquarters or in the court. | ||
|
Shining Light on DEI
00:05:53
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| As members of Congress, we have the serious duty to protect and defend the American public. | ||
| And since the Republican majority refuses to do its job, I'm determined to shed light on these critical issues. | ||
| And now, moving from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the diversity, equality, and inclusion that he has made a top priority in his administration, there is a continuancy legacy of racism, sexism, and discrimination in our society. | ||
| Bias and discrimination has contributed to the exclusion of qualified women and people of color, LGBT, and persons, persons without disability, who have with disabilities and veterans. | ||
| Diversity, equity, and inclusion policies are not about mandates and quotas. | ||
| On the contrary, DEI is about eliminating bias, opening doors, and giving everyone, no matter what they look like or who they love, or just giving a fair opportunity for employment, promotion, and access to capital. | ||
| DEI is about understanding and knowing what these differences are and doing everything that can be done, both in government and in corporations, to just let those who wish to have a promotion, many of whom have worked for 25 and 30 years, have a chance to interview, | ||
| to see if their talents are understood and that they will have the opportunity to move up. | ||
| Well, he has made DEI a very, very vocal point. | ||
| He started out talking about getting rid of that. | ||
| He sent memories around to all of the nonprofits and agencies telling them if they dare to have anything that looks like DEI, which he doesn't have a definition for, that they are going to be shut down, that they are going to be penalized. | ||
| Trump and Musk are targeting any institution that displays a focus toward diversity, equity, and inclusion. | ||
| When I became the first black and the first woman chair of the House Financial Services Committee back in 2019, I established Congress's first ever diversity and inclusion subcommittee chaired by Representative Jorce Beatty. | ||
| The Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion held 18 hearings, released three major reports, and brought along overdue scrutiny to the ways in which systemic barriers in our financial system disadvantage entire communities. | ||
| We exposed inequities in hiring and promotion. | ||
| We shined a light on the racial wealth gap. | ||
| And we demanded that corporate America take diversity seriously, not as a talking point, but as a matter of policy, accountability, and economic justice. | ||
| We know the numbers. | ||
| Women make up more than 50% of the population. | ||
| People of color, over 40%. | ||
| And yet, in the financial services industry, representation of these groups drops dramatically, especially for women of color at every level of leadership. | ||
| We're not dealing with a pipeline problem. | ||
| We're dealing with an access problem, a power problem. | ||
| But I want to be clear: my commitment to DEI did not start there. | ||
| Back in 2010, I helped to create the Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion at our nation's top financial regulators. | ||
| These offices were designed to embed DEI into the DNA of the financial system, from hiring and contracting to how institutions supervise the banks they regulate. | ||
| These offices are now under assault despite its legal mandate and critical role in promoting equity in hiring, contracting, and oversight across the financial system. | ||
| Let me be clear: DEI is about more than just checking a box. | ||
| It's about upward mobility. | ||
| It's about making sure women and people of color aren't just in the room, but they're also at the head of the table. | ||
| And so, also serving on boards, making investment decisions, building wealth that lasts. | ||
| That's why I fought to pass the Minority Business Resiliency Act, now law, and secured $600 billion, $600 billion for community development financial institutions and minority depository institutions during the pandemic. | ||
| And that's why I'm continuing to support the Minority Business Development Agency, which is now being defunded and dismantled, even though it has provided critical support to businesses all around the country. | ||
|
Affordable Housing Crisis
00:11:28
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| Let me just continue on. | ||
| You know, it is absolutely disturbing and upsetting to walk through what is happening in our country under President Trump and his entire administration. | ||
| Let me be absolutely clear. | ||
| We're in the midst of a full-blown affordable housing, homelessness crisis, with over 771 people experiencing homeless on any given night in this country. | ||
| Rents and home prices are surging, and families are being priced out of their communities. | ||
| Housing supply is not keeping up with demand. | ||
| As a result, more and more families are pushed out onto the streets or forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries. | ||
| Across the country, renters and homeowners alike are spending well over 30 and even 50 percent of their income on housing. | ||
| That's why I will soon reintroduce my legislation, housing package, to address the housing and homelessness crisis head-on, which many of you are familiar with. | ||
| My Housing Crisis Response Act, Ending Homelessness Act, and Down Payment Toward Equity Act. | ||
| This will help increase the supply of housing, bring down costs, and revive the dream of home ownership for all. | ||
| While Democrats are fighting to deliver real relief to families across this country, President Trump, along with co-President Elon Musk and Secretary Scott Turner, are working to decimate HUD from the inside out. | ||
| Since January, this administration has halted critical agency operations unlawfully, put staff on leave or fire staff, terminated programs that are key to ending housing discrimination, | ||
| such as affirmatively furthering fair housing and the equal access rules, compromise American sensitive data by granting Elon Musk's so-called doge personnel with the agency exposing victims of domestic violence and assault, | ||
| reported plans to launch dangerous blockchain and crypto experiments with HUD and begun planning to shut down HUD-filled offices all over the country. | ||
| Make no mistake, this agency isn't a luxury. | ||
| It's a necessity. | ||
| This agency helps our veterans, our seniors, people with disabilities, and families struggling to stay afloat. | ||
| When I saw the harmful impact of this administration, I quickly took action and hand-delivered a letter to Secretary Turner signed by 122 Democratic colleagues demanding answers. | ||
| Now, I'm talking about Secretary Turner, who's been appointed to dismantle HUD by President Trump. | ||
| What is equally concerning to me in Congress is that Republican members continue their push to slash federal investments in housing, which represent less than 1% of all federal spending. | ||
| In their latest fiscal year 2025 budget, they slashed housing by more than $500 million, which will put at least 32 million households at risk of eviction and homelessness. | ||
| And just this week, Trump released a heartless fiscal year 2026 budget that cuts $26 billion from rental assistance programs, including public housing, housing choice vouchers, project-based rental assistance, and housing for seniors and people with disabilities. | ||
| He's turning these lifetime programs into state block grants and imposing a cruel two-year cap on aid for able-bodied adults. | ||
| It doesn't stop there. | ||
| His budget also calls for the obliteration of critical community development programs like the Community Development Block Grant and Home and Fair Housing Grant. | ||
| These are the very programs that help create affordable housing, revitalize disadvantaged neighborhoods, and protect families from housing discrimination. | ||
| Eliminating these programs will devastate our communities, displace families who are already on the brink of homelessness, and destroy the programs made to ensure every person in our nation has access to safe, stable, and affordable housing. | ||
| So despite all the chaos, I will not give up. | ||
| I will not stand by. | ||
| I will continue to fight against Trump's sabotage, defend the agency, and stand up for the families who depend on the agency to keep a roof over their heads. | ||
| I fought too long and too hard to let this administration tear it down. | ||
| And I will not stop until our nation's affordable housing and homelessness crisis ends once and for all. | ||
| But that's not all. | ||
| Let's take a look at Social Security. | ||
| Trump promised repeatedly not to cut Social Security. | ||
| Under his administration, he said, quote, Social Security will not be touched. | ||
| It will only be strengthened, quote, unquote. | ||
| But listen, listen carefully to what Trump's billionaire appointees are saying. | ||
| Elon Musk called Social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, quote unquote. | ||
| Let me say it again. | ||
| The co-president, not elected by anybody, appointed by Trump, Elon Musk, called Social Security, quote, the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, quote, unquote. | ||
| And Como Secretary Howard Lutnick said only a froster, a foster, would complain about a missed Social Security check. | ||
| He's saying, seniors, if you didn't get your Social Security check, don't complain, because if you complain, you must be about fraud. | ||
| You must be about something else rather than getting your check. | ||
| I don't know who this Lutnick is, but I only know that he is too a billionaire. | ||
| What the heck does he care about Social Security? | ||
| What did he care about a missed Social Security check? | ||
| Not a darn thing. | ||
| Trump, Musk, and Dodge are undermining the infrastructure of Social Security by planning to cut 7,000 employees at the Social Security Administration. | ||
| They're planning to take away the option to use the phone to file for benefits, requiring seniors to visit a failed office if they could not use the internet. | ||
| Trump has put these plans on hold for now, but we know this administration will continue to make life harder for seniors. | ||
| Now Trump is adding Social Security numbers to the Social Security death wish to force immigrants to leave the country. | ||
| People who have their Social Security numbers placed on the death list by mistake can have their homes foreclosed on or bank accounts closed. | ||
| These actions would violate data privacy laws. | ||
| Those who end up on the death list report that mistakes can take months to fix. | ||
| Trump is risking seniors' ability to receive benefits they've earned. | ||
| Now, I want you to be very clear about this. | ||
| He said he would not cut Social Security, but he's destroying the infrastructure of Social Security so people can't have their questions answered. | ||
| They can't get into a Social Security office that's been closed down. | ||
| They can't get any answers by phone. | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
| And I'm so afraid for what is happening to those who depend on Social Security. | ||
| I'm so afraid that seniors with limited amounts of Social Security are going to end up hungry. | ||
| Of course, they won't be able to pay any rent unless they're getting subsidized by HUD in some way. | ||
| Let's go to Medicaid. | ||
| And just like with Social Security, Trump and the Republicans are playing games with the people's lives because now they're coming for Medicaid through his dangerous reconciliation bill. | ||
| But Congress's nonpartisan scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, just confirmed the truth. | ||
| 5.5 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage if Republicans cut the federal match for expansion states. | ||
| 3.3 million more would lose coverage if they cap federal Medicaid spending in those same states. | ||
| 2.3 million people, mostly low-income seniors and people with disabilities, would lose coverage if Republicans repeal Biden's enrollment rule. | ||
| And a staggering 8.6 million Americans would be pushed off Medicaid if Republicans limit states' ability to fund the program through provider taxes. | ||
| Here's what that means in real life. | ||
| Seniors losing, nursing home care, children losing access to basic checkups, cancer patients cut off in the middle of treatment, families forced to choose between a doctor's visit and rent. | ||
| Republicans say these cuts about, quote, cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| But Americans know what this really is. | ||
| It's an attack on the most vulnerable to pay for the wealthy and the well-connected. | ||
| These cuts would not just shrink the deficit, they would shrink the life expectancy of millions. | ||
| They would drive up hospital costs, emergency room visits, and medical bankruptcies. | ||
| They would drive up hospital costs, emergency room visits, and medical bankruptcies. | ||
| These proposals would leave entire communities, especially communities of color, black Latino, and rural population, without a health care safety net. | ||
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Skepticism In Steel Country
00:06:51
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| But Republicans don't care as long as the Billionaires Boys Club can pad their pockets. | ||
| It's a stark reminder of whose interests they are really serving. | ||
| One month into a sweeping new tariff regime that President Trump vowed would bring jobs and factories roaring back, quote unquote. | ||
| a Pennsylvania manufacturing hub is full of skepticism. | ||
| Trump once told reporters here in the Lehigh Valley that they know, quote, better than almost any place in the country, quote unquote, how global trade has, quote, outsourced their industries, quote, unquote, and quote, wiped out their steel mills, quote, unquote. | ||
| Now, even in one of the communities the president suggested would benefit most from his tariffs. | ||
| His economic overhaul is disrupting lives and testing some voters' patients in an election deciding swing state. | ||
| Now, new hires at a local truck-making plant has just started on the shop floor last month when their company announced an abrupt change, layoffs that would hit more than 10% of the workforce that the company blamed on tariffs and other economic uncertainty. | ||
| Even Trump's fans sometimes grimace at his plans to remake the world economy, worried about higher costs in a politically competitive era, still scattered with lawn signs that read, Trump, low prices, Kamala, high prices. | ||
| Oh, he had these signs all over America, promising low prices. | ||
| Almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of tariffs, and a lasting backlash could be especially consequential for Republicans in areas such as the Lehigh Valley, a permanent rust-belt battleground where Trump's campaign pitched, resonated with many voters. | ||
| They believed him. | ||
| Trump's tariffs have put pressure on some of the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents in Congress, including local congressman, freshman Ryan McKenzie, as they try to defend agendas while also acknowledging their constituents' concerns. | ||
| Officials here are doubtful that any tariffs, no matter how drastic, can recreate the economy of the past. | ||
| When one steel company's facilities in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania alone employed 30,000 people, manufacturing is still the biggest industry in the Lehigh Valley, with investment booming in recent years. | ||
| At the same time, leaders are proud that they managed to diversify their economy after Bethlehem Steel collapsed decades ago. | ||
| Brian Higgins, a longtime Republican commissioner in Lohr, I think it is in McCuny Township, home to truck plant, said it's hard to imagine manufacturing rebounding to where it was decades ago. | ||
| I don't think anybody thinks that you could bring the Lehigh Valley back to what it was, Higgins said, and I quote, that's what he said. | ||
| And he said, could we bring some manufacturing back here? | ||
| Probably, but not to the extent that people believe. | ||
| Quote unquote. | ||
| Quote, I just think it's going to cost more money and it's going to hurt us with retaliatory tariffs, said Higgins, a self-described Reagan Republican who could not bring himself to vote for Trump. | ||
| Trump argues that levying tariffs on imports will give him leverage for trade deals and ultimately compel companies to ramp up production in the United States. | ||
| Critics say the strategy will raise costs for consumers and destabilize the economy while leaving businesses too uncertain about the failure to make plans. | ||
| Here, let me just share with you what was on an article from the Washington Post. | ||
| Trump's tariffs are causing untold harm to America. | ||
| Let me read another story. | ||
| This story is from the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| The dumbest trade war in history. | ||
| Wall Street Journal said that. | ||
| President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries, Mexico and Canada. | ||
| They'll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. | ||
| This remains, reminds us rather, of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it's risky to be America's enemy, but it can be fatal to be its friend. | ||
| Leaving China aside, Mr. Trump's justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense. | ||
| While House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt said, they're enabled, I quote, enabled illegal drugs to pour into our country, quote, unquote. | ||
| But drugs have flowed into the United States for decades and will continue to do so as long as Americans keep using them. | ||
| Neither country can stop it. | ||
| Drugs may be an excuse since Mr. Trump has made clear he lacks tariffs for their own sake. | ||
| He doesn't need the products they have. | ||
| Mr. Trump said on Thursday, quote, we have all the all you need. | ||
| We have all the trees you need. | ||
| Remember, well, he was meaning the lumber, quote unquote. | ||
| Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the United States shouldn't import anything at all. | ||
| That America can be a perfectly closed economy, making everything at home. | ||
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North American Automotive Web
00:03:34
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| This is called autarky. | ||
| This isn't the world we live in or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out. | ||
| Take the U.S. auto industry, which is really a North American industry, because supply chains in the three countries are highly integrated. | ||
| In 2024, Canada supplied almost 13% of U.S. imports of auto parts and Mexico nearly 42%. | ||
| Industry experts say a vehicle made on the continent goes back and forth across borders a half dozen times or more as companies source components and add value in the most cost-effective ways. | ||
| And everyone benefits. | ||
| The Office of the U.S. Trade representatives said that in 2023, the industry added more than $809 billion to the U.S. economy or about 11.2% of total U.S. manufacturing output, supporting 9.7 million direct and indirect jobs, quote unquote. | ||
| In 2022, the U.S. exported $75. billion in vehicles and parts to Canada and Mexico. | ||
| That number jumped 14% in 2023 to 86.2 billion, according to the American Automotive Policy Council. | ||
| American car makers would be much less competitive without this trade. | ||
| Regional integration is now an industry-wide manufacturing strategy, also employed in Japan, Korea, and Europe, aimed at using a variety of high-skilled and low-cost labor markets to source components, software, and assembly. | ||
| The result has been that the United States industrial capacity in autos has grown alongside an increase in imported motor vehicles, engines, and parts. | ||
| From 1995 to 2019, imports of automobiles, engines, and parts rose by 169%, while the U.S. industrial capacity in autos, engines, and parts rose 71%. | ||
| As the Cato Institute's Scott Lincoln puts it, the data show that as imports go up, U.S. production goes up. | ||
| Thousands of good-paying auto jobs in Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan owe their competitiveness to this ecosystem relying heavily on suppliers in Mexico and Canada. | ||
| Tariffs will also cause mayhem in the cross-border trade in farm goods. | ||
| In fiscal year 2024, Mexican food exports made up about 23% of total U.S. agricultural imports, while Canada supplied some 20%. | ||
| Many top U.S. growers have moved to Mexico because limits on legal immigration have made it hard to find workers in the United States. | ||
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Mexico's Targeted Retaliation
00:05:04
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| Mexico now supplies 90% of avocados sold in the United States. | ||
| Is Mr. Trump now an avocado nationalist? | ||
| Well, then there's the prospect of retaliation, which Canada and Mexico have shown they know how to do for maximum political impact. | ||
| In 2009, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats ended a pilot program that allowed Mexican long-haul truckers into the United States as stipulated in NAFTA. | ||
| Mexico responded with targeted retaliation on 90 U.S. goods to pressure industries in key congressional districts. | ||
| These included California grapes and wine, Oregon Christmas trees and cherries, jams and jellies from Ohio and North Dakota soy. | ||
| When Mr. Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018, Mexico got results using the same tactic, putting tariffs on steel, pork products, fresh cheese, and bourbon. | ||
| Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to respond to U.S. tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis. | ||
| Canada would suffer a large DDP hit since the economy is so much smaller, but American consumers will feel the bite of higher costs on many goods. | ||
| None of this is supposed to happen under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated and signed in his first term. | ||
| The United States' willingness to ignore its treaty obligations, even with friends, don't make other countries eager to do deals. | ||
| Maybe Mr. Trump will claim victory and pull back if he wins some token concessions. | ||
| But if an American, North American trade war persists, it will qualify as one of the dumbest in the history. | ||
| Self-described Reagan Republican who would bring himself, who could not bring himself to vote for Trump. | ||
| Trump argues that levying tariffs on imports will give him leverage for trade deals and ultimately compel companies to ramp up production in the United States. | ||
| Critics say strategy will raise costs for consumers and destabilize the economy while leaving businesses too uncertain about the future to make plans. | ||
| The Trump administration's policies are delivering much-needed economic relief for everyday Americans while laying the groundwork for a long-term restoration of greatness, quote, unquote. | ||
| That was White House spokesman Cush Desai said in a statement noting that inflation cooled in March and that gross private domestic investment increased by 22% in the first quarter of 2025. | ||
| Employers added 177,000 jobs last month, a strong showing despite the upheaval from Trump's tariffs announced April 2nd. | ||
| In interviews, Lehigh Valley voters who had heard about the MAC layoffs often brushed them off as routine. | ||
| The company has downsized before or said they weren't sure they believe the firm's explanation. | ||
| But many, including Trump's voters, also said they're bracing for economic pain in the valley, which spans two counties, Lehigh, which Democrat Kamala Harris won by less than three percentage points in the fall, and Northampton, a bellwether that frequently backs the winners of presidential elections and went narrowly for Trump. | ||
| Adrian Reinheimer, 51, said he's building a house and might push back her timeline if prices get too high. | ||
| Retiree Rick John Coe has mostly, he was at one time, mostly supportive of the president's agenda, but rolled his eyes at claims that terrorists will bring manufacturing back. | ||
| Like Reimheimer, the cast, he cast his ballot for Trump last year. | ||
| And so, with the short time left, I just want to say that I came to the floor to talk about the harm being caused by the Trump administration, the corruption in crypto, the harm to people just trying to live their lives. | ||
|
Time Undermining Democracy
00:03:05
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| Trump's regime is going after the supports government providers to help Americans live in safe homes, put food on the table, and take care of the health of their kids. | ||
| His parents, his tariffs leading to a recession and raising costs of food, cars, and housing. | ||
| And so, the consistent and cruel policies are not just harming our pocketbook, they're going after our democracy. | ||
| And so, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the time that I've been afforded on the floor today to give light to and transparency to what is happening in this administration. | ||
| I know that it's hard to believe. | ||
| I know that people could not believe that the President of the United States is undermining our democracy. | ||
| But this is a president who has no care, no concern, no respect. | ||
| This is a president who dresses himself up like the Pope and invites photographers to come and take a look. | ||
| When I talk about disrespect, this president disrespects everybody but his money. | ||
| This is a democracy that is under fire. | ||
| This is a democracy that is at risk. | ||
| This is a democracy that Democrats and Republicans alike should be concerned about, who will be willing to fight for. | ||
| It was at one point in time that we thought those on the opposite side of the aisle were so patriotic. | ||
| Where is their patriotism now? | ||
| Where will they stand up when the democracy is at stake? | ||
| This is a time when we thought that they were so concerned about law and order. | ||
| They've got the biggest crook in the history of this country, having been convicted 34 times. | ||
| And they cannot say one word about what's wrong and about what he's doing and how he has no respect for the law. | ||
| And so I call on the Republicans: why don't you prove who you say you are instead of being afraid of the President of the United States who you think will primary you? | ||
| Why is it you keep your mouth shut because you don't stand up for the people in your district because you're afraid that President Trump will be angry with you. | ||
| Enough said. | ||
| Thank you all so very much for affording me this opportunity. | ||
| With that, I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
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The gentlelady yields back. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president. | ||
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Gas Prices Soar to $8+
00:04:25
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|
unidentified
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Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. | |
| Mr. Speaker, Californians could soon be paying over $8 a gallon for gasoline. | ||
| That is the result of the disastrous policies that have been imposed by Gavin Newsom and the California legislature's supermajority. | ||
| The most recent news is that there are two refineries that are closing operations in California. | ||
| The Phillips 66 refinery in LA by the end of 2025 and the Valero refinery by April 2026. | ||
| These two facilities, according to a letter from Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones in California, these two facilities produce about 20% of California's in-state gasoline supply. | ||
| Now, according to a recent study by USC Professor Michael Meese, the effect of this is going to be an increase in gas prices in California of up to 75% by April of 2026. | ||
| The projections estimate a 33.6% increase just by April of 2025. | ||
| And by next year, by 2026, we could see prices rising as high as $8.43 per gallon by the end of 2026. | ||
| This is because we're going to see a severe decline in in-state production. | ||
| Indeed, it could fall from over 34 million gallons per day in 2023 to just 27 million gallons by the end of 2026. | ||
| Then you factor in the higher transportation costs. | ||
| You're going to see Californians not only paying these astronomical prices at the gas station, but it's going to increase the cost of goods and services throughout the economy. | ||
| Not to mention, it's going to lead to the loss of hundreds of jobs for the folks that were working at these refineries. | ||
| And the gas that we're now going to have to import from other states or other countries is not only going to cost a lot more, but it's going to be way worse for the environment, releasing way more emissions. | ||
| The fact is, California already has by far the highest gas prices in the country. | ||
| We pay over 30 cents more than second place Hawaii, which is an island state. | ||
| And this is because of nonsensical regulations, including the new fuel standard that was just recently imposed by the Air Resources Board, as well as a slew of other regulations related to the fuel mix and other factors, as well as having the highest gas tax of any state in the country. | ||
| By the way, you'd think we have the highest tax, we must have great roads as a result. | ||
| Nope, that's not the case either. | ||
| We have just about the worst roads of any state in the country. | ||
| How does that work? | ||
| Highest taxes, deepest potholes. | ||
| It is a stark illustration of our state government's utter inability to provide effective service to our citizens. | ||
| So I am calling on Governor Newsom and the state legislature to take immediate action to prevent Californians from having to pay over $8 a gallon for gas by the end of next year. | ||
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Investigating California's Education Fraud
00:06:36
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| We need immediate action to overturn regulations and to restore common sense in our state. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I have sent a letter along with several of my colleagues in the California delegation to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking them to investigate a simple question. | ||
| Why is it so stunningly easy to commit fraud against the state of California? | ||
| During the COVID era, we saw fraud unlike we had ever seen when $32 billion in unemployment benefits were purloined from fraudsters, international criminal syndicates, who were easily able to defraud Gavin Newsom's unemployment department. | ||
| And now, the latest example that we've learned is that over a third of community college applications in the state were fraudulent. | ||
| These were not real people, not real students actually seeking a spot at one of our community colleges. | ||
| What they were instead were scams, were individuals who were trying and succeeding in committing financial aid fraud, siphoning more than $10 million in federal funds and millions more in state aid, according to the California Community Chancellor's own office. | ||
| So we have asked the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education to look into this matter and see why California has not been able to stop this from happening. | ||
| We know that with respect to the EDD fraud in the COVID era, the governor's office failed to take the basic common sense steps that other states took that the federal government had advised. | ||
| For example, cross-checking applications for unemployment against the prison rules, something that almost every other state did, and California didn't do. | ||
| And I would not be surprised to learn that there were similar oversights here with respect to the community college fraud. | ||
| So we look forward to getting back the results of this investigation and we urge the state to take immediate action to make sure that millions more in taxpayer dollars aren't lost. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend the Trump administration and specifically Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez de Reamer for its decision to not enforce the independent contractor rule propounded by the Biden administration. | ||
| Now, this rule was based upon one of the worst laws ever to pass in the state of California, AB5, which effectively banned freelancing, independent contracting, self-employment, being your own boss for many, many people. | ||
| After this law went into effect, we saw thousands upon thousands of Californians lose their livelihood, lose their right to earn a living because of this edict issued by the government. | ||
| It received bipartisan criticism, and no other state followed California's lead in enacting such a law. | ||
| But that did not stop the Biden administration from deciding that this law would be its inspiration for national labor policy. | ||
| The Biden administration, using the regulatory process because it couldn't get it through Congress, enacted an independent contractor rule modeled on California's law AB5. | ||
| And not only that, but the administration brought in the very person who was the architect of AB5 in California and its chief enforcer, Gavin Newsom's Secretary of Labor, Julie Sue, to be his Secretary of Labor. | ||
| And to enforce it just as aggressively and ruthlessly as she had in California. | ||
| The problem was this track record was so disastrous that Ms. Sue's nomination stalled in the Senate. | ||
| She received bipartisan opposition, was never confirmed, and somehow the Biden administration, President Biden, decided to keep her there anyway. | ||
| It was a very novel theory that Senate confirmation was now optional for cabinet-level officials, and she shattered all records for the longest acting secretary in the history of our country. | ||
| But at the end of the day, that rule, which by the way was tied up in court because there was a lot of reasons why it did not pass legal muster, is no longer being enforced and the right to earn a living of millions of independent contractors across our country is no longer threatened. | ||
| I particularly applaud Secretary Chavez-DeReamer when she met with the truckers recently, with a number of truckers, the Trucking Association, for saying that we have your back because it's the independent ownered operators, tens of thousands of truckers across the country who were one of the many groups that were threatened by this regulation for consequences for the entire U.S. economy. | ||
| Now, while this regulatory relief is extremely positive and important, we need to get the definition of independent contracting and protections for freelancers into statute so we don't have the standard continue to change from one administration to the next. | ||
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Unprecedented Threat to Medi-Cal
00:04:48
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| That's why I've introduced the Modern Worker Empowerment Act that will put into statute the standard common law definition of what it means to be an independent contractor. | ||
| And I'm hopeful that we can get that passed with bipartisan support this Congress. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to let folks in California and across the country know that Medi-Cal, our version of Medicaid, is facing an unprecedented threat. | ||
| Its very solvency, its sustainability, its ability to provide coverage for Californians is being threatened by a completely reckless policy enacted by Governor Gavin Newsom that does not exist in any of the other 49 states in our country. | ||
| And because of this reckless policy, Newsom has just had to ask the legislature for a bailout of Medicaid, $2.8 billion, which the legislature provided. | ||
| Now, of course, what I'm referring to is the policy of providing free, full-scope, comprehensive Medi-Cal coverage to all illegal immigrants in the state who meet the income eligibility requirements. | ||
| This, again, is a policy that is singular to California. | ||
| No other state has it. | ||
| It was initially estimated to cost $3.1 billion. | ||
| Since that time, the cost just for the first year of coverage, just the first year, has exploded to $9.5 billion. | ||
| As a result, Governor Newsom, number one, took out a $3.44 billion loan from the state's general fund. | ||
| That is the maximum allowed by law. | ||
| But of course, that wasn't enough to close the gap. | ||
| So then he had to go and ask for a bailout of the program to stave off insolvency. | ||
| Now, you would think that this would compel Newsom and the legislature to immediately roll back this disastrous experiment. | ||
| And yet, when Governor Newsom was asked, he said that rolling back this policy was, quote, not on my docket. | ||
| So let's be very clear that saving Medicaid in California is not on Governor Newsom's docket. | ||
| Fortunately, we are fighting back and looking to take measures here that will assure that tax dollars of Californians are reserved to provide Medi-Cal coverage for people who are in our state legally. | ||
| When you think about this cost, $9.5 billion just in the first year, a cost that is basically triple what was originally projected, think what that's going to look like over the next 10 years. | ||
| We're talking about potentially hundreds of billions of dollars that could be going towards Medi-Cal for our own residents that is instead going towards a reckless policy that exists nowhere else in the country that is only going to entice more people who are here illegally to come to California, thereby increasing the costs even more. | ||
| And by the way, because we're adding all of these additional people to the Medi-Cal roles, that's making it more difficult for Californians who rely on the program to actually get access to health care. | ||
| It is extremely difficult to get a doctor's appointment if you're on Medi-Cal in California. | ||
| It's actually very difficult in some cases if you're on private insurance to get a doctor's appointment in California. | ||
| And the governor's reckless policy is a big reason why. | ||
| So we are going to do everything we possibly can here to fight for Californians, to fight for Medicaid in California, and I will do everything I can to protect this program against the governor and legislature's reckless policy. | ||
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Teach for America's Impact
00:14:46
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| Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take a few moments today to share with folks here in D.C. and across the country a little bit about a program that I am an alumnus of called Teach for America and to share why I think this is an extremely important program for us to protect and to support right now and in the years ahead. | ||
| Right now we see our schools across this country in a state of crisis. | ||
| The nation's report card that recently came out revealed truly shocking declines in student achievement. | ||
| But one bright spot in this otherwise very troubling picture has been Teach for America, otherwise known as TFA. | ||
| What TFA does is recruits recent college graduates to go and teach in the toughest schools, in schools in low-income communities. | ||
| It's a very selective program. | ||
| In some years, the acceptance rate for those who apply to be TFA teachers is as low as 11%. | ||
| That is as selective as many of the most elite colleges in the country. | ||
| So I was a teacher through TFA in Los Angeles. | ||
| I taught 10th grade English. | ||
| I had students who were on average at a fourth or fifth grade reading level when they came to my classroom, but I had a tremendous experience. | ||
| My students achieved significant academic gains as part of my classes. | ||
| I chaired the English department while I was there. | ||
| I even started an award-winning speech and debate program that provided opportunities to go and compete for students who otherwise wouldn't have had that experience or had that opportunity. | ||
| So I want to first, in underlining the importance of this program, speak to my Republican colleagues here in the House. | ||
| That if you need any one reason why you should support Teach for America, it is that the radical Democrat supermajority in California actually tried to ban the program from our state. | ||
| That is not an exaggeration. | ||
| In 2019, this is from a Politico article. | ||
| Backed by powerful teachers unions, Democrats are pushing to ban Teach for America from California amid a wave of teacher strikes and a heated debate over charter schools in the nation's most popular state. | ||
| The article goes on to say that the national nonprofit and its recruits, promising college grads eager to teach in poor communities, were in the crosshairs of the state's supermajority Democratic legislature. | ||
| So why in the world would the Democrat supermajority in California target TFA? | ||
| I was there in the legislature at the time, and I helped to kill that bill on the state assembly floor. | ||
| But it did pass the state assembly's education committee. | ||
| Unbelievably enough, what could possibly have motivated this attack? | ||
| After all, TFA's mission, its entire purpose, is to close the achievement gaps that exist in this country so that every child, no matter where they were born, no matter what their zip code, will have access to an excellent education. | ||
| Well, the issue is that in California, the governing majority and the education establishment there have a model of keeping kids trapped in failing schools. | ||
| And that is what, that has been the effect of the policies that have governed the state year after year after year. | ||
| And so organizations like TFA, that, for example, provided alternative pathways to get promising teachers into the classroom, or worst of all, from the perspective of those who ran the legislature, place almost half of their teachers in charter schools, that simply couldn't be tolerated. | ||
| Indeed, at the time, in 2019, Gavin Newsom, who had just taken office, had declared a war on charter schools. | ||
| Now, charters, which are public schools that have a high level of flexibility as to how they run their school, but in turn are held to a greater standard of accountability, have gotten tremendous results. | ||
| Studies consistently show that they outperform traditional public schools, and they have a lot of students who are on their wait list. | ||
| However, the teachers at those schools are not automatically unionized as a matter of default. | ||
| So that's what inspired Gavin Newsom and his enablers to try to enact and indeed to succeed in enacting an anti-charter school agenda. | ||
| And because TFA placed almost 50% of its teachers in charter schools, they got caught up in it. | ||
| Now, fortunately, that bill did not pass. | ||
| TFA has continued to serve thousands of kids in California. | ||
| And indeed, throughout its history, TFA has placed some 65,000 teachers into classrooms. | ||
| And this attack in California was truly an aberration. | ||
| It really speaks to the character of the supermajority in our state specifically that is out of step even with many reasonable Democrats, especially on the issue of education. | ||
| But there are a couple things that I want to emphasize about the program. | ||
| Number one is that TFA places teachers in areas that need teachers. | ||
| It helps to combat the teacher shortage that is particularly acute in particular districts and particular subjects. | ||
| TFA partners with school districts facing persistent vacancies, especially in low-income urban and rural areas. | ||
| The districts, they request TFA core members for hard-to-staff subjects like STEM, special education, bilingual education. | ||
| And in fact, in this last school year, over 75% of TFA teachers serve in Title I schools. | ||
| So the organization is recruiting motivated and talented young people to go and teach in areas where they have a hard time getting teachers. | ||
| But how do they do once they're there? | ||
| Well, that's the second thing I want to emphasize, is that TFA teachers have an outstanding track record. | ||
| Last year, there was a comprehensive study by the American Institutes for Research published. | ||
| It was a meta-analysis that actually spanned, they looked at 23 pre-existing studies of TFA's impact across 24 years. | ||
| And so included in that was 63,134 teachers who taught 5 million students. | ||
| So what did this comprehensive meta-analysis find? | ||
| That TFA teachers have had a consistent and significant impact on students' academic achievement. | ||
| On average, students of TFA teachers perform better in math, in science, in reading. | ||
| Some studies have found that having a TFA teacher adds up to 50 additional days of learning. | ||
| And beyond that, by the way, many TFA alums go on to found schools. | ||
| For example, the founders of tremendous charter school networks, KIPP, IDEA, and YesPrep, are TFA alums. | ||
| Personally, one of the main reasons I decided to run for public office first in the legislature and then for Congress was my experience as a classroom teacher. | ||
| And it motivated me to become the vice chair of the State Assembly Education Committee and now here in the House, the chair of the K-12 Education Subcommittee. | ||
| Now, TFA is an AmeriCorps program. | ||
| It is one of the professional core programs for AmeriCorps. | ||
| So what that means is that the teachers who are part of TFA, they are employees of a particular school district or of a charter school. | ||
| So for example, I was an employee of the Los Angeles Unified School District, but they also receive a Seagull AmeriCorps Education Award. | ||
| And the reason that that is vital is because TFA is providing an alternative pathway into the classroom where you can start teaching soon after graduating college. | ||
| They have a intensive summer program where students do summer school and receive training. | ||
| They continue to receive support from TFA as an organization throughout their time teaching. | ||
| And then they're also simultaneously pursuing a teaching credential. | ||
| Sometimes that takes the form of a master's of education, which is what I received. | ||
| So for example, when I was teaching 10th grade English, one day a week after spending the whole day teaching, I would then drive across town to a local college or grad school where I sat in class for five or six hours on that particular day working towards my credential. | ||
| And so the Education Award helps students or the TFA teachers to pay for that degree or for that credential. | ||
| And it would be very hard for many of them to actually be part of the program without this award. | ||
| And so I have heard reports recently that there have been some of these grants that are in jeopardy or maybe have been lost already, putting several thousand current teachers and several thousand more future teachers in a state of uncertainty. | ||
| And while I have personal experience with this particular AmeriCorps program, I know that there are many others that fill similarly critical needs in different sectors of society. | ||
| In fact, AmeriCorps' own definition of a professional core program recognizes that the placements are a strategic response to long-standing workforce gaps. | ||
| So it's not simply service programs. | ||
| They're workforce solutions. | ||
| So that's why I have respectfully requested in a letter that I'm sending today that the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittee on labor, health, and human services provide robust funding for AmeriCorps in the coming fiscal year. | ||
| And I'm urging my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together in support of TFA and these other critical programs. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, at this moment, we have an opportunity to catalyze a school choice revolution across America. | ||
| And one has never been more desperately needed. | ||
| The nation's report card recently came out and the verdict was clear. | ||
| Our public education system is failing. | ||
| The National Assessment of Education Progress show one-third of students are unable to read at the basic level for their age group and math scores are down 9% since 2018. | ||
| Now the Biden administration's response was to continue to shovel more money into a failing system. | ||
| They threw $200 billion in tax dollars into the same failed system with absolutely nothing to show for it. | ||
| In fact, things got worse. | ||
| You can put this on a graph. | ||
| The level of funding has gone up. | ||
| Student achievement has gone down. | ||
| It's been a negative return on investment. | ||
| But right now, we can change that with reforms that will actually work in expanding opportunity, giving choices to millions of families, and providing a healthy sense of drive towards improvement in our public education system generally. | ||
| And that is through two pieces of legislation that I am sponsoring and that can also be included as part of the budget reconciliation process. | ||
| The first is the Educational Choice for Children Act, which will provide a tax credit for charitable contributions that enable scholarships to attend private, parochial, and independent schools. | ||
| This could potentially expand private school choice to millions of families in this country. | ||
| And then secondly, along with Representative Claudia Tenney and others, I've introduced the High Quality Charter Schools Act, which will significantly expand access to charter schools across the country. | ||
| It uses a similar mechanism, leveraging the tax code through an innovative federal tax credit that will allow the nation's most effective charter networks to create new high-quality seats. | ||
| In particular, it will provide a tax credit to cover startup costs for expanding charter schools that already have a track record of success. | ||
| This is very important because you have a lot of families who are on waiting lists for charters. | ||
| And we estimate that this measure could potentially triple the number of students across the country who receive this particular form of school choice, of charter schools, which have a tremendous track record in advancing student achievement. | ||
| I'll give you one example. | ||
| Success Academy, which was founded in New York City, manages 57 schools serving 22,000 inner city children. | ||
| They are 93% non-white, 72% low-income, with phenomenal results at impressive scale. | ||
| For eight years in a row, success has a 100% four-year college acceptance rate. | ||
| Its students routinely outperform more affluent school districts, and 14 of New York City's top 25 schools in math are success academies. | ||
| Think about that. | ||
| Over half of the top schools in New York City in math are success academy campuses. | ||
| That's why there is so much demand to attend these schools. | ||
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Priority in Education
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| The number of families that apply is 10 times the number of available seats. | ||
| So they have to lottery them off. | ||
| There's so much demand. | ||
| You have to enter the lottery and you have a 10% chance of winning that lottery. | ||
| This bill would allow them to expand more campuses and other successful charter schools across the country to expand their campuses. | ||
| So between these two measures, the Educational Choice for Children Act and the High Quality Charter School Act, we could expand meaningful school choice, meaningful options to millions and millions of families in every community across the country, which would benefit those families and it would also reach the critical mass of school choice in many areas that would compel improvements in traditional school districts as well. | ||
| So this is really a moment when we need to ask ourselves what our priorities are. | ||
| Because, and this isn't true of all of them, but in general, the Biden administration and Democratic majorities have moved our education system in the wrong direction. | ||
| They've had the wrong policies. | ||
| I believe Republicans have generally had the right policies, but the question is, what kind of priority are we going to place on those policies? | ||
| What kind of priority are we going to give education? | ||
| What kind of priority are we and sense of urgency are we going to bring to the fact that our schools across this country are failing far too many of our kids? | ||
| Now is the time to show that our commitment to education and reform and school choice goes beyond just slogans, goes beyond political arguments, but is a real commitment to advancing the education and the life prospects for kids all across America. | ||
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Cap-to-Cap Program Advocacy
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| We have a chance to do that right now by assuring these measures are enacted into law. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce and the well over 450 people who joined the chamber's cap-to-cap program to visit Washington. | ||
| D.C. this week. | ||
| This was the 53rd annual capital to capital or cap-to-cap program where people, community leaders from the Sacramento region come here to D.C. to participate in programming and to advocate for our region to lawmakers. | ||
| I had the chance to be part of this in many different ways. | ||
| We had a bipartisan discussion that I was part of with Representative Ami Berra and I met with well over 100, probably closer to 200 Cap to Cap leaders throughout the week to discuss issues of importance to them and to the communities, the industries, the sectors that they lead. | ||
| I had very productive discussions with a number of actionable items about public safety, wildfire prevention, natural resources, transportation infrastructure, and California water, issues that are so important to our region and our communities. | ||
| And I am so grateful that so many leaders in the Sacramento area came here to discuss these matters. | ||
| So I wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time out of your busy schedule to come here. | ||
| It has, I think, allowed in the past this program to enable our region to punch above its weight. | ||
| Indeed, this is the biggest chamber trip I understand to DC that exists anywhere in the country. | ||
| And it really underscores the tremendous spirit of collaboration that exists in our region. | ||
| That we have so many people who it crosses party lines, it crosses different communities, different zip codes, who are working together, who are all rowing in the same direction for the benefit of our region. | ||
| We've been able to achieve tremendous things because of that. | ||
| We've been able to maintain a quality of life for the folks that we represent so that our region remains a great place to live, to work, to raise a family, to retire. | ||
| The Cap to Cap program has been a very big part of allowing that to continue, of giving our region a cohesive identity. | ||
| and I look forward to the 54th annual trip next year. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and recognize the 25th graduating class of Leadership Rockland. | ||
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Hebert Insurance's 75-Year Anniversary
00:03:26
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| This prestigious program is run by the Rockland Area Chamber of Commerce and provides an opportunity for participants to build upon their leadership skills while developing meaningful relationships with community and local business leaders. | ||
| The areas of learning for this program include leadership skills and theory, education, volunteerism and community service, Rockland Civics, public safety, transportation, health and human services, economic development, the history of Rockland, and much more. | ||
| Leadership Rockland holds high esteem in the community and is recognized by leaders as an important way to repair those who wish to further serve and learn about their community. | ||
| I commend the participants for their dedication to civic engagement and their commitment to leadership development. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of California's 3rd Congressional District and the United States House of Representatives, I am proud to congratulate this year's Leadership Rockland graduating class. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and recognize Hebert Insurance Solutions for their 75-year anniversary. | ||
| Hebert Insurance Solutions is a family-owned, independent insurance agency in Loomis, California, a town located in Placer County. | ||
| Christine Hebert Summers, who began working for the family business at an early age, is the third generation owner. | ||
| Her grandfather, Roy, started the business back in 1950. | ||
| Roy would take Christine to the office back when she was in kindergarten. | ||
| At the time, she would help around the office in exchange for a toy and some candy at the main drugstore. | ||
| Christine's father, Roy Jr., managed the business until 2003 when Christine officially purchased the business from him. | ||
| For more than seven decades, the Hebert Insurance team has been committed to working closely with their clients to help them make important and informed decisions relating to their protection and future. | ||
| They prioritize customer service and are committed to treating their customers like family. | ||
| Hebert Insurance continues to be a staple in Placer County and surrounding communities. | ||
| In addition to providing exceptional services, they are tremendously involved in their community. | ||
| They're often seen volunteering with local organizations such as the Seroptimus International Loomis Basin, taking leadership roles at the local Chamber of Commerce, serving at the Senior Center, and contributing to multiple youth programs. | ||
| It is an honor to represent exemplary businesses such as Hebert Insurance Solutions in Congress. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of California's 3rd Congressional District and the United States House of Representatives, it is my honor and privilege to congratulate them on their 75-year anniversary. | ||
| Congratulations. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in recognition of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wanted to take an opportunity to highlight the service of some of the truly amazing educators in California's 3rd Congressional District. | ||
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Honoring Dedicated Educators
00:15:43
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| In his 1988 proclamation, Ronald Reagan said, our country's great teachers often make many sacrifices as they fulfill their countless responsibilities. | ||
| They have earned and truly deserve the utmost gratitude and esteem of students, parents, and community members. | ||
| It is in that spirit that I rise today and recognize 15 individual teachers from throughout California's 3rd Congressional District for their exceptional dedication to their roles, students, schools, and communities. | ||
| With representing almost 70 school districts and close to 300 K-12 schools, these teachers stand out among their colleagues and have made an indelible mark on their students and communities. | ||
| As a former educator myself, I understand the unique challenges our educators face and the passion and dedication it takes to enable our students to succeed. | ||
| A great teacher can help shape and transform the trajectory of a student's life and their perspective on learning. | ||
| As such, we are quite fortunate to have truly exceptional schools teachers and administrators educating and supporting the next generation in California's 3rd Congressional District. | ||
| Therefore, I'd like to extend my gratitude to all of our community's teachers this week and to thank them for their tireless devotion to promoting academic achievement, student success, and educational opportunities. | ||
| And if you are an educator, I encourage you to reach out to my office or visit kylie.house.gov for federal resources and services available to local teachers and students. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I'd like to take a moment to recognize Mrs. Janice Rowe, a kindergarten teacher in the Pleasant Ridge School District at Cottage Hill Elementary School. | ||
| For 40 years, Mrs. Rowe has been teaching the kindergarten grade level. | ||
| Her commitment to her students, colleagues, and district is unmatched. | ||
| Mrs. Rowe not only instills a strong literary and mathematical foundation for young learners, but also creates a safe and caring environment where students can thrive and their love for learning is ignited. | ||
| She is instrumental towards establishing new academic programs, standards, and expectations for all kindergarten students, leading the continued development of the district's kindergarten programs. | ||
| She's often known for enrolling in classes, programs, and workshops to further develop her professional skills, and for working late to prepare a special and hands-on learning experience for her students. | ||
| Not only does Mrs. Rowe demonstrate a care and commitment to her students, but she is also relied upon by her colleagues to provide help, mentorship, and collaboration. | ||
| Mrs. Rowe has shaped the high standards of excellence that the community has come to expect of the school and school district. | ||
| Mrs. Rowe's four decades of commitment to teaching kindergarten students has provided a lasting benefit for students' introduction to public schools and foundational growth. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers such as Mrs. Rowe in the United States House of Representatives. | ||
| Therefore, in honor of her passion, dedication, her belief in the transformative power of education, and her commitment to our students' success, it is my privilege to recognize Mrs. Janice Rowe in celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Week. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I'd like to take a moment to recognize Mr. Dominic Albano, a fourth-grade teacher with 30 years in the profession at Union Hill Elementary School. | ||
| Since 1996, Mr. Albano has been an extraordinary educator, teacher, and mentor whose legacy has touched thousands of lives. | ||
| His commitment to bringing history alive for his fourth grade students is unparalleled, blending rigorous academics with immersive, unforgettable experiences. | ||
| His passion for California's gold country, the 49er gold rush, and Wild West history has created traditions that are now woven into the very fabric of Union Hill's culture. | ||
| Students of Mr. Albano receive a living, breathing understanding of history and our nation's story. | ||
| Beyond his dynamic and integrative teaching style, Mr. Albano is also a beloved coach who has grown Union Hill's cross-country and track and field programs into teams of nearly 90 students. | ||
| That's in a school of just 700. | ||
| A tribute to the magnetism of his leadership. | ||
| He inspires students not only to learn, but to believe in themselves, which is instrumental towards shaping their future. | ||
| Not only does Mr. Albano make a meaningful difference in his students' lives, but he plays an instrumental role in mentoring student teachers and collaborating with his colleagues. | ||
| Mr. Albano is known by others for being a Union Hill legend, a builder of traditions, and a cultivator of character. | ||
| He is treasured by his school and community for his reliability, kindness, positivity, and generosity. | ||
| I am confident that the impact of his contributions will be felt for generations to come. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers like Mr. Albano in the United States House of Representatives. | ||
| Therefore, in honor of his dedication to serving his students and community with passion, humility, and excellence, it is my privilege to recognize Mr. Dominic Albano in celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Week. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I'd like to take a moment to recognize Mrs. Miranda Prukish, a special education teacher in the Sierra Plumas Joint Unified School District at Loyalton Elementary School. | ||
| Mrs. Prukish is an exceptional educator whose unwavering commitment to student success has made a profound impact within the Sierra Plumas Joint Unified School District. | ||
| As a leader in special education with a decade of experience, Mrs. Prukish has continually developed and refined her program to meet the diverse needs of her students, demonstrating innovation, adaptability, and a deep sense of care. | ||
| Serving in a rural community where educational challenges are often magnified, she has gone above and beyond to ensure that every student receives personalized support and opportunities to thrive. | ||
| She is a tireless champion for her students, ensuring their needs are represented and addressed with compassion and integrity. | ||
| Her collaborative spirit and willingness to work alongside general education colleagues fosters inclusive and equitable and inclusive and equitable learning environment. | ||
| Mrs. Prukish's creativity, professionalism, and genuine devotion to her students make her a role model for other educators. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers such as Mrs. Prukish in the United States House of Representatives. | ||
| Therefore, in honor of the outstanding contributions to her school and the difference she continues to make in students' lives every day, it is my privilege to recognize Mrs. Miranda Prukish in celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Week. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to highlight Mr. Steve Holland, whose 29 years of dedicated service and education exceeds standards throughout the Bishop Unified School District. | ||
| Mr. Holland began teaching in the Bishop Unified School District in 1996 as a middle school teacher and more recently has been teaching the fourth grade. | ||
| Known for his kindness, calm demeanor, and unwavering dedication, Mr. Holland has consistently gone above and beyond to support learning both academically and emotionally. | ||
| Through his innovative teaching methods, he continues to keep students engaged and inspired. | ||
| In addition to his deep commitment to student achievement, he has also served as a coach and grade level leader, providing mentorship to his fellow educators and leaving a legacy of impact, integrity, and inspiration. | ||
| Mr. Holland has left an indelible mark on countless students, colleagues, and families within his community. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am pleased to recognize Mr. Steve Holland for his substantial contributions to the Bishop Unified School District and the students of the Bishop community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to take a moment to recognize an outstanding middle school math educator in California's 3rd Congressional District, Mrs. Brandy Rost. | ||
| During her 29 years of dedicated service to the Lone Pine Unified School District, she has taught thousands of students, transforming their view of math from an intimidating subject to one that is exciting and achievable. | ||
| Mrs. Ross is known for her creative instructional style, integrating hands-on activities, technology, and real-world applications, instilling engagement from students, and empowering every student to succeed. | ||
| Perhaps most remarkable is the academic transformation Mrs. Ross has led since the COVID pandemic. | ||
| In the wake of prolonged school closures, Oyola Elementary School saw its math scores drop to new lows, with just 20% of students meeting or exceeding standards. | ||
| Recognizing this challenge, Mrs. Ross spearheaded an extraordinary resolve. | ||
| She retooled her instruction, built targeted interventions, and created a classroom culture where growth and math became not just a goal, but an expectation. | ||
| Each year since the pandemic, her students' performance has climbed significantly. | ||
| In the most recent testing, over 70% of her students met or exceeded the math standard, a score that doesn't just surpass local benchmarks, but also substantially outperforms the state average. | ||
| The story of Mrs. Brandy Ross is one of resilience, excellence, and impact. | ||
| Her dedicated efforts not only recovered learning loss, but also illustrated what success in rural education can look like. | ||
| Alongside these momentous achievements and beyond her classroom, Mrs. Ross is a mentor to new students, a trusted colleague, and a favorite among families. | ||
| Her impact spans generations in the Lone Pine community, where former students now bring their own children to her class with pride and gratitude. | ||
| On behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize Educator Mrs. Brandi Rost as an example of what it means to teach with passion, purpose, and heart. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to recognize an outstanding and prominent educator in California's 3rd Congressional District. | ||
| I'd like to highlight, in particular, a teacher from the Roseville Joint Union High School District, Brandon Del Ordo, who has dedicated 35 years to educating the students of our community. | ||
| Mr. Del Ordo is a passionate historian and a mentor. | ||
| He spent most of his career teaching AP U.S. history, IB History of the Americas, military history, and world history at Granabay High School. | ||
| Not only does Mr. Del Ordo have a deep understanding of these subjects, but he also knows how to bring historical events to life. | ||
| His integrative and engaging teaching style fosters student success while inspiring a lasting passion for history. | ||
| Beyond the classroom, he's even been recognized by the Daughters of the American Revolution and Founding Forward for his excellence in teaching and ability to foster a deep appreciation of American history and civic responsibility among his students. | ||
| Mr. Delordo is an exceptional educator, and he continues to make a strong impact in the educational journey of his students. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers like him in Congress, and I commend Mr. Delordo for his more than three decades of unwavering dedication to education and promoting student success and academic achievement. | ||
| And I will say, as actually a former student of Mr. Delordo myself, he is one of the truly best teachers that I have ever had, and that goes for high school, college, law school. | ||
| He's truly one of a kind and you will rarely, rarely see someone who has such a palpable passion for the subject matter that he's teaching and an ability to inspire that same love of learning in his students. | ||
| And I really credit his class in many ways for inspiring my own love for American history. | ||
| So on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, it's really an honor to recognize Mr. Brandon Del Ordo for his significant contributions to Roseville Joint Union High School District and to the students of the Roseville community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to take a moment to recognize a teacher from the Forest Hill Union School District, Ann Jones, who has dedicated 35 years of her career to educating the students of her community. | ||
| Mrs. Jones has been a devoted and passionate first-grade teacher and she's inspired generations of the community's young scholars with her warmth, patience, and with her clear passion for education. | ||
| She goes beyond teaching her students the fundamentals of reading and math and also instills values in them that are invaluable for the learning community, the values of kindness, gratitude, and creativity. | ||
| She brings joy and cheer to the classroom and creates an environment in which students feel emboldened to explore their ideas and express themselves, which helps facilitate their academic and personal growth. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers in Congress, and I commend Mrs. Ann Jones for her more than three decades of dedication to education and to promoting student success and academic achievement. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am pleased to recognize Mrs. Ann Jones for her significant contributions to Forest Hill Union School District and to the students of the Forest Hill community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to take a moment to highlight a teacher from the Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District, Samantha Harvey, who has dedicated nine years of her career to educating the students of her community. | ||
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Building Supportive Classrooms
00:06:39
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| Mrs. Harvey serves as a fifth grade level leader. | ||
| Within her role, she consistently demonstrates traits of a natural leader, such as the ability to lead by example, motivate colleagues, facilitate collaboration, and so much more. | ||
| She has built an educational environment to ensure that students and teachers alike feel valued, supported, and heard. | ||
| As the positive behavioral intervention and supports lead, Mrs. Harvey's efforts in providing a variety of differentiated strategies and ensuring students have the necessary tools for success while maintaining a positive environment have been instrumental in shaping school culture. | ||
| Mrs. Harvey also develops student athletes through her role as a cross-country coach and helps young athletes learn the important lifelong skills of perseverance, teamwork, and resilience, while leading them to excel in competition. | ||
| Furthermore, as check-in and check-out coordinator, Mrs. Harvey ensures that students have the structure and support they need to thrive in school. | ||
| She mentors students and provides accountability to help them stay on track both academically and socially. | ||
| Behind the scenes, Mrs. Harvey is valued by her colleagues as she displays a commitment to teamwork, collaboration, and a continual willingness to lend a helping hand. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers like her in Congress, and I commend Mrs. Samantha Harvey for her tireless devotion to education and to promoting student success and academic achievement. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am pleased to recognize Mrs. Samantha Harvey for her significant contributions to Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District and to the students of the Roseville community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to take a moment to recognize a teacher from the Loomis Union School District, Samantha Mashinshi, who has dedicated 15 years of her career to educating the students of her community. | ||
| Currently, she teaches fifth grade in an international baccalaureate school and has consistently demonstrated an unwavering devotion to fostering growth and excellence for her students. | ||
| She nurtures the natural curiosity of her students with a global perspective. | ||
| In doing so, she helps equip them with the skills needed to thrive in an interconnected world. | ||
| Mrs. Mashinshi has consistently demonstrated leadership and a passion for her role, working tirelessly to help each student reach their full potential. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers like her in Congress, and I commend her for her tireless devotion to education and dedication to promoting student success and academic achievement. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am pleased to recognize Mrs. Samantha Mashinshi for her significant contributions to Loomis Union School District and to the students of the Loomis community. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to highlight a teacher from Placer County, Tina Angel, who has dedicated the past eight years of her career to educating the students of her community. | ||
| Ms. Angel owned and operated her own business before going to work for the Placer County Office of Education. | ||
| She then obtained her career technical education credential, focusing on business and information and communication technology pathways. | ||
| Ms. Angel taught in this capacity for a few years and then once again decided to obtain an additional credential in special education so she could support students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. | ||
| Ms. Angel also provides students with a special opportunity by being qualified to teach dual enrollment classes through a partnership with a local college in my district, Sierra College. | ||
| Ms. Angel is known for being an exceptional teacher and a lifelong learner. | ||
| She provides real-life applications in her classroom and strives to prepare high school students for college and future career opportunities. | ||
| Her engaging and integrative teaching style, which is accompanied by her passion for teaching and for her students, inspires those in her class to reach their full potential. | ||
| It is a true honor to represent exemplary teachers like her in Congress, and I commend Ms. Angel for her dedication to education and to promoting student success and academic achievement. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am pleased to recognize Miss Tina Angel for her significant contributions to the students of Placer County. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I wish to take a moment to recognize a teacher from Rockland Unified School District, Holly Gotwals, who has dedicated 24 years of her career to educating the students of her community. | ||
| Mrs. Gottwalds, a graduate of Sacramento State, showcases innovation, compassion, and dedication in her classroom. | ||
| She teaches a special education adult transition class for students who are 18 to 22 years old with moderate to severe needs and did not receive a high school diploma. | ||
| Mrs. Gottwalds focuses her class on teaching her students functional English and math, current events, independent living, and vocational skills, cooking, fitness, and nutrition, how to be involved in their community, mobility training, social skills, self-advocacy, and career awareness. | ||
| In a remarkable manner, Mrs. Gottwalds tailors each lesson to each individual student. | ||
| She goes as far as to work closely with local community businesses to secure job training opportunities for her students that match their interests and skills. | ||
| She looks to the future of her students, and some go on to other educational institutions, such as the UC Davis SEED program, while others are able to secure jobs locally in our community. | ||
| Mrs. Gottwalds fosters a sense of independence and confidence in the classroom. | ||
| She is not just an educator, as she has proven to be a strong advocate and role model for her students. | ||
| Her tireless devotion to her students brings out their unique potential and prepares them for opportunities to fulfill their dreams. | ||
| It is an honor to represent exemplary educators like her in Congress, and I commend Mrs. Holly Gottwald for her exceptional dedication to education and to promoting student successes and academic achievement. | ||
| Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I'm pleased to recognize Mrs. Holly Gottwald for her significant contributions to Rockland Unified School District and to the students of the Rockland community. | ||
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Call for Impeachment Votes
00:15:11
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| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman yields. | |
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, for 30 minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and most feared by President Donald John Trump. | ||
| Most feared because the President recently tweeted that he would have me removed from Congress because I have indicated that I would bring articles of impeachment. | ||
| This is a president who has caused us to understand that the norms of society mean very little to him. | ||
| This is a president who seems to think that he can rule by executive order. | ||
| But Mr. Speaker, I would have you and all who can hear this and see what I'm saying to know that the day of decision is near. | ||
| And I believe that as a person who is armed with the acts of truth, not afraid to slam it into the tree of circumstance and let the chips fall wherever they may. | ||
| I believe that as such a person, I am duty bound to bring articles of impeachment to the floor of the House of Representatives. | ||
| I will do so because I believed what I said before he was elected this time. | ||
| I believe what I said then, and I believe it now. | ||
| This president is a threat to our democracy. | ||
| He has done things that would cause us to conclude, those of us who have observed closely, that he disrespects the Constitution. | ||
| He took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. | ||
| He disrespects the Constitution. | ||
| He disrespects the notion that a person should have the right to say, you have the wrong person, to say to the authorities by way of the great writ, you have the wrong person, to say to the authorities by way of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, no person deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. | ||
| He has not honored that Constitution in those words. | ||
| This president does not honor Marlbury versus Madison. | ||
| Judicial review, time honored. | ||
| He dishonors it because he dishonors the decisions of the court. | ||
| He believes that judges who would rule against him should be impeached. | ||
| He does not respect the fact that there is a separation of powers. | ||
| He believes that he is the power, but he's not. | ||
| And he must. | ||
| He must be brought before this House. | ||
| He must be brought before this House because if he disrespects the court, if he refuses to honor the April 10th order requiring him to facilitate the return or the release of a person who was taken from this country to another country, Supreme Court mandate. | ||
| He has said that he can do it, but he hasn't. | ||
| If he refuses to honor the Supreme Court in federal courts and demeans the judges, calls for their impeachment, if my colleagues across the aisle decline to bring him into some sense of order as it relates to obeying the orders of courts, if they decline to do so, then what is left? | ||
| Impeachment. | ||
| Whether anyone else agrees with me or not, I want my record to show that at a time when democracy was at risk, I brought impeachment to the attention of the Congress. | ||
| You can do it for two reasons at least, maybe others, but two that I will call to your attention. | ||
| One, to remove a president. | ||
| To remove a president. | ||
| I don't know that that will happen this time. | ||
| I plan to bring impeachment more than once. | ||
| I did it before, and it led to the impeachment of the president, and he lost an election as a result of that, I believe. | ||
| But I plan to bring these articles of impeachment. | ||
| Removal is a possibility. | ||
| But then there is also the deterrent effect of articles of impeachment. | ||
| They can be used to say to a president, if you don't behave, If you don't cease and desist with what you're doing, then you can be removed from office. | ||
| I trust that this will become the message that the president will receive. | ||
| However, knowing what I know about him, I doubt that he will receive the message as intended. | ||
| I think that it will cause him to become a greater bully and to do more and say more things that are unacceptable to try to normalize his dictatorial behavior. | ||
| Dictatorial in that he believes that the law should be followed when he sees the law on his side and that it should be somehow avoided when it's not. | ||
| Dictatorial behavior. | ||
| The kind of behavior that you see emanating from dictators. | ||
| I believe that this dictatorial behavior has to be put in check because we have a president who preaches law and order, but he doesn't mean law and order. | ||
| He means order and law. | ||
| He means allow me to do whatever I choose and then you find some law to justify my behavior. | ||
| That's not law and order. | ||
| That's order and law. | ||
| And that's what he believes. | ||
| I believe that we have to do what I am about to do. | ||
| And I trust that there will be others who will join in. | ||
| But if no one else does, I want you to know that while I am censured, I'm not silenced. | ||
| That this is only the genesis of this process. | ||
| The revelations are yet to come. | ||
| And in the revelations, I assure you, we will come to conclusions that will cause this president to be removed. | ||
| We are now into the countdown for impeachment. | ||
| This countdown will manifest itself in articles being brought to the floor of the House of Representatives next week. | ||
| I fully intend to do so. | ||
| And for edification purposes, that means that I will first notify my colleagues by way of written word that these are my intentionalities. | ||
| And thereafter, I will come to the House and I will read the Articles of Impeachment. | ||
| After they have been read, some time will pass before they will come back to the floor for a second reading. | ||
| Two legislative days. | ||
| At that time, the articles will be read again. | ||
| I will call for a vote on the Articles of Impeachment. | ||
| Those who will vote for it will be known as persons who have supported what I believe to be the last effort that we have to prevent this president from becoming a full-blown dictator. | ||
| He is right now a de facto dictator. | ||
| He has the potential to becoming full-blown. | ||
| What do I mean by de facto? | ||
| Because we're in the nascency of his dictatorship. | ||
| Yes, someone someday will write about the first 100 days of his dictatorship. | ||
| So we're into the nascency of it. | ||
| He is testing to see if there are people who have the courage to put him in check. | ||
| And if he doesn't see that, then we'll go on to another stage of it. | ||
| So I'm going to come to the floor, read him, read these articles. | ||
| Then they will be read again a second time. | ||
| I will ask for the vote. | ||
| There will probably be a motion to table. | ||
| The motion to table means that if it prevails, the articles will not go forward and have the debate and proceed to the possibility of a vote on the actual articles. | ||
| A motion to table. | ||
| This is what has happened in the past. | ||
| Those who vote for the motion to table will oppose the articles of impeachment. | ||
| Those who vote against the motion of table will be sending a message to the world that they want this to proceed and that these articles ought to be given a fair hearing before this House of Representatives. | ||
| That's what the motion to table will ultimately bring us to a decision that we will have to consider. | ||
| It will be a moment of truth, an hour of decision, but I believe we have to do this. | ||
| I believe we have to do it because if we're going to wait until there are tanks rolling into major cities at the capitals of cities, it'll be too late. | ||
| If we're going to wait until you read and hear about it in some major newspaper that President has metamorphosed into a dictator, it will be too late. | ||
| We have to stop him as soon as possible. | ||
| As soon as possible is a means of doing it by way of impeachment. | ||
| I believe that he will be impeached again, but I also know this. | ||
| If we don't, and if he continues in the vein and the methodology that he has been proceeding with, if he does this, then there is one other last word, and that would be we the people. | ||
| We the people, with our voices, with our movement, with our peaceful protest, we the people will make that change. | ||
| This country will not tolerate a de facto dictator, and it surely will not tolerate and should not tolerate a full-blown dictator. | ||
| De facto dictator, because in fact he is a dictator, not announced, but that's what he is, ruling by executive order. | ||
| This country was not designed by the framers of the Constitution to be ruled by executive order, such that the president would just ignore those orders, let things go all the way to the Supreme Court, knowing that he has lawyers with unlimited resources, and those who would challenge him are limited in resources. | ||
| So his dictatorial character says to him, you can let that go on to the Supreme Court and you can ignore the court, flout the orders of the court. | ||
| Don't have to worry about that. | ||
| You've got the Treasury of the United States of America backing you. | ||
| You've got an Attorney General who knows nothing but, yes, no way to say to you, Mr. President, reconsider. | ||
| Your Secretary of State is going to do a similar thing. | ||
| No one around you is going to challenge you and say to you that this is not the appropriate thing to do. | ||
| So yes, he has the characteristics of a de facto Democrat, de facto dictator with dictatorial behavior being exhibited. | ||
| And as a result, the moment of truth is upon us. | ||
| Next week, we shall have the opportunity to stand on the principles that I believe were exhibited when we were campaigning, when we were saying this president would harm our democracy, that he was a threat. | ||
| This would be our opportunity. | ||
| I pray that every person will vote your conscience. | ||
| I'm not asking anybody to vote a certain way. | ||
| I'm telling you how I will vote. | ||
| I speak for no one but myself and those who agree with me. | ||
| But I assure you that there will be at least one vote to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States. | ||
| I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman yields back. | |
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President. | ||
| Under the speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 30 minutes. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We are heading into what many people hope is the finishing stretch of our legislature putting through what Donald Trump calls the Big Beautiful Bill. | ||
| There are a lot of issues yet to be decided, and I'd like to address some of those issues today. | ||
|
Tax Credits Controversy
00:13:46
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| The first issue I have talked about once already, but it seems to be a major holdup, the rumors are in negotiation. | ||
| There are clearly going to be some tax cuts in this budget. | ||
| Our goal will be to continue with tax cuts that were put in place in 2017, but add some others. | ||
| As we hear rumors of what tax cuts will be added, we have to remember that taxes in the United States are so high that every tax provision affects our behavior. | ||
| Some people want taxes, and I'm one of them, to be lower on manufacturers because manufacturers have to compete with other countries. | ||
| And a good way to make sure we have good manufacturing jobs as well as to make sure we get more research on manufacturing in this country is to aim our tax cuts at manufacturers. | ||
| Some of them specifically aim at research and development. | ||
| They feel the most important thing in manufacturing is research and development. | ||
| Others are made to encourage savings. | ||
| And in the past year, we have passed tax cuts to encourage people to put more money in their IRAs or 401ks. | ||
| We have a problem in this country that not enough people are having children. | ||
| And that's not only a problem for the country, it's a problem for individuals who I think I am told, many of which regret when they're 35 or 40, not having children when they're younger. | ||
| And people want to use the tax code to incentivize people to have more children. | ||
| There are a variety of ways you could do that. | ||
| President Trump floated a balloon just to give people a large check. | ||
| I think that's a big mistake because we do not want to have people having children just to get a large check. | ||
| But if you want to make it easier to raise children, maybe raising the personal exemption to $5,000 would be a good way to favor parents. | ||
| But one thing that concerns me, unlike people who want to encourage more manufacturing, encourage more work, encourage more overtime, encourage more children, there are people who want to change the tax code to encourage local governments and state governments to raise taxes. | ||
| There's a provision called the SALT provision in which they want to make tax deductible state and local taxes. | ||
| They're already to a degree tax deductible, but there are people who want to help the wealthier people deduct their state and local income taxes as well. | ||
| I have talked to both my state legislators and last weekend I talked to a county executive and they both gave me the same story. | ||
| They were both conservative people. | ||
| They said they were shocked that there were Republicans who want to increase the tax deduction for state and local taxes because what does that incentivize? | ||
| It doesn't incentivize more children. | ||
| It doesn't incentivize more research and development. | ||
| It doesn't incentivize more manufacturing. | ||
| What it does is it incentivizes state and local governments to raise taxes and spend more money. | ||
| I had to explain to my state legislatures, these were Republicans who wanted that. | ||
| He found it hard to believe. | ||
| It sounds like the tax provision that you'd be more likely to hear Democrat legislators wanting. | ||
| But in any event, I think we have to follow the negotiations that are what are going on, and we have to see whether within the Republican Party we wind up with a product to encourage more work, encourage families, or whether we wind up with a bill designed to encourage state governments to raise the income tax or sales tax or encourage local governments to raise their property tax. | ||
| I think that would be very disappointing. | ||
| It would certainly be a defeat for, I guess, what I'll call traditional Republicans such as myself. | ||
| But that is one of the negotiations going on behind closed doors. | ||
| There is another provision that they're going to use the IRS code in, which concerns me a little because there are rumors that this may be out there as well. | ||
| And quite frankly, I have a suggestion how we could cut taxes and put ourselves in a stronger position. | ||
| Right now, there is a provision in the tax called code low-income housing tax credits. | ||
| And what it means is that if a developer wants to build a new development, they would get a credit equal to 10% of the cost of the building over nine years, which right off the bat sounds like the government is paying for 90% of the value of the building. | ||
| That's not quite right because there is a time value to money. | ||
| And if you're getting, say, a building that you paid $10 million for, if you get a credit worth $1 million 10 years out, you've got to wait for that credit and there's a time value of money. | ||
| But nevertheless, even taking into account the time value of money, a potential developer has the government, through tax credits, pay for 70% of the cost of a building. | ||
| Now, this is not open-ended. | ||
| Usually these credits go to politically well-connected developers picked by state agencies or state organizations. | ||
| I think personally of all the tax cuts, particularly people complain about tax cuts for the rich, of all the provisions in the Internal Revenue Code, I can think of no provision more questionable than having the Internal Revenue Service reduce somebody's taxes so that you get 70% of the value of your project paid for. | ||
| Now, people do not earn enough income to take care to use, say in a case of $100 million building, they don't have enough credits to offset $70 million in taxes, so they have to sell the credits to somebody else. | ||
| This means getting, what do we say, getting lawyers, experts in LITAC involved so that these credits can be transferred. | ||
| A significant number of these credits go to some of the largest banks in the country. | ||
| And of course, the largest banks in the country, I'm sure, would love to have Congress change the provisions so that they were able to use still more tax credits. | ||
| Why, at a time when we can do so many other good things, we would do that, I don't know, but they have been very active in this building, and they are looking to get more tax credits. | ||
| The next thing to remember about this is there are some units, but not all units, which have restrictions on the amount of rent that can be charged. | ||
| But quite frankly, there's no guarantee that any of these rents will be below market rate. | ||
| And in fact, some of the people who live in these projects will be able to use vouchers, what we call Section 8 vouchers. | ||
| So the government, first of all, sets aside money for somebody to get free rent, and then the vouchers are given to a property developer or a syndicate that's going to wind up owning the building, and they wind up with a voucher as well. | ||
| It's kind of hard to believe it's developed that way, but it has developed that way. | ||
| I had always wondered before hearing about these things why sometimes low-income housing developments look nicer or more elaborate than regular old apartments. | ||
| Part of that is they are newer, and of course newer buildings are usually nice, but a lot of it is we're paying these developers 70% of their cost of their building. | ||
| And just like if you at home were building a new house and the government said, we'll give you 70% of the cost of that new house, if a developer is building something new and the government says, we will pay for 70% of the cost of your apartment building, of course the building becomes more lavish, which of course makes the property developer wealthy as well. | ||
| And you can begin to see as we work our way through here that the developer is the big beneficiary here. | ||
| Then what happens is the building is sold to a syndicate of a variety of wealthy people who Get the tax benefits of depreciation for about 15 years, and then eventually it is returned to the original developer. | ||
| So there are many people making money here. | ||
| Certainly the banks are making money. | ||
| Above all, the developers are making money. | ||
| The lawyers are making money as they have to constantly draft documents between the banks and the syndicate and the developer. | ||
| And like I said, the syndicate itself, which is made up of a variety of wealthy individuals or wealthy limited partnerships, is able to get money here as well. | ||
| When I think of all the things we can, well, to digress, and again, the developer who gets this is determined by a state agency. | ||
| It is naive to think anything other than that these developers are politically well-connected people. | ||
| I do not know why, if we think it is the federal government's business to provide housing from people, but of course it is not, we would set up a system in which a private developer gets such a large chunk of money that the federal government is laying out. | ||
| And right now, as a matter of fact, the money is so great, even though new projects are spread out or the tax credits are spread over nine years, we are spending over $13 billion a year on this method of so-called creating workforce housing or low-income housing. | ||
| I will also point out that there are some people who would say this is necessary because nobody builds any housing anymore. | ||
| Well, I'm from Wisconsin, which is not a, we normally consider a booming state. | ||
| It's not like Florida, it's not like Texas. | ||
| As I get around my district, everywhere I look, there's new housing, new single-family housing, new apartments, for a variety of reasons. | ||
| It is grotesquely expensive, and we can deal with that by working our way towards a more of a balanced budget so interest rates are not so high. | ||
| As the cost of energy goes down, it will lower the cost of anything and lower inflation on other goods as well. | ||
| But anybody who remotely believes in the free market believes there will always be a market for new housing. | ||
| There are apparently some places around the country where it's hard to build new housing, but that in general is because there are state governments and local governments which are hostile to business in general and hostile to developers in particular, and people then don't want to do more building in this city or that city. | ||
| But in any event, as we work our way through the process, I hope the negotiators who are meeting in unknown rooms in this building, if they need to balance the budget, | ||
| think about getting rid of the low-income housing tax credits and use the $13 billion a year that is primarily benefiting some well-connected and wealthy property developers and use it somewhere else. | ||
| I think that's one other thing that we have to look at carefully. | ||
| There was another topic I wanted to take up Because I've been talking to some people who wonder why we have demonstrations in this country hostile to Israel and even more bizarre, demonstrations favorable to Hamas and people who live in the Gaza Strip. | ||
|
Bizarre Positions Revealed
00:09:15
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| It has been my belief, and I give this conversation privately to people, but I should make my case more public, that when people take bizarre positions, in other words, when they see Hamas invade Israel and kill over a million people with pride, not even embarrassingly and hiding it, but taking pictures of it. | ||
| And their sympathy goes towards the people killing the thousand people, including young children, one has to wonder if something psychological is going on here. | ||
| And my belief is that anybody who is hostile to Israel in this conflict and is demonstrating in favor of Hamas has some sort of psychological problem. | ||
| And I will refer to this psychological problem as we will name it after the young girl who was obsessed with global warming in Sweden and in Sweden. | ||
| And we'll call it Thurnberger syndrome. | ||
| You all remember the little girl whose father said she was depressed and unhappy, but then she read about global warming and decided to obsess over it. | ||
| And she all of a sudden became happy because she could run around and had a purpose in life. | ||
| And prior to that time, like a lot of wealthy people in the West, she really didn't have a good purpose. | ||
| But it gave her a purpose. | ||
| And like I said, she could run around, she could give speeches and feel she was saving the world. | ||
| Greta Thornberg, and of course eventually Greta Thornberg also wound up siding with the Palestinians who had killed the Israelis against the Israelis. | ||
| And I think it was for the same reason. | ||
| She wanted to adopt a cause to feel she had a purpose in life. | ||
| And when particularly one has kind of a spoiled life, the people you want to help are people who are kind of opposed to the successful society we have here in the West, be it America, be it Europe. | ||
| And there are certain hierarchy of needs that everybody has, right? | ||
| We need food, we want safety, but once you take care of food and safety, you also need a purpose in life. | ||
| And there are sadly many, many people in America and Western Europe who don't have that purpose. | ||
| I think this is particularly a problem for people who may not have a family to devote time to. | ||
| They may not have children to devote time to. | ||
| They may be financially well enough off. | ||
| You very rarely see Thurnberger syndrome on somebody who has three jobs. | ||
| They're busy with their life. | ||
| They're going from job to job and working all the time. | ||
| You'd rarely see Thurnberger syndrome in, say, somebody with four kids, because four kids is very time consuming. | ||
| You have to earn money to take care of the kids, spend time with the kids. | ||
| That's a purpose in life. | ||
| But I think as we have more and more young single people not having children in the West, you have more and more people looking for a purpose in life. | ||
| And for whatever psychological reason, they want that purpose to be hostile to the West in general. | ||
| If they're in the United States, they frequently want that purpose to be anti-American. | ||
| And of course, when Greta Thurnberg wants to get involved in foreign affairs, it's not surprising that she picks global warming because then her enemy is the West and the factories and the cars. | ||
| It's interesting that when people have Thurnberg syndrome, they do not get mad at things done by what used to be called third world countries, right? | ||
| People who have Thurnberg syndrome, while they may object to a new clean power plant in the United States, they never worry about the plethora of new coal plants going up in Red China or going up in India. | ||
| And that's because those aren't Western countries. | ||
| So there, miraculously, they don't care. | ||
| When it comes to the attacks on the Jews in Israel put out there by the Palestinians, they will purport to care about the Palestinians who lose their life when the Israeli army inevitably had to go back into Gaza. | ||
| But they don't care about Muslims who are dying in other wars. | ||
| They don't care that many, many Muslims are dying in Syria. | ||
| That's because those people are being killed by other Syrians and it doesn't fit the narrative of I want to hate the West. | ||
| They don't care about a civil war going on in Ethiopia. | ||
| They don't care about the conflicts currently going on in Iraq. | ||
| They don't care at all about all the suffering of the Muslims in Western China, the Uyghurs. | ||
| Why doesn't the left or why don't these demonstrators care about all the Uyghurs being killed or persecuted in the western part of China? | ||
| Because it doesn't solve their psychological need to hate the West. | ||
| And I think more research should be done on Thurnberg syndrome to see how we can prevent it from growing. | ||
| Because inevitably the United States and the West will fall if a significant number of their populace winds up for some psychological reason adopting causes that are hostile to the West. | ||
| And that is what is going on right now, be it in global warming, be it in the Palestinian situation, Be it the bizarre, bizarre opinions that President Biden had about the United States being such a racist community. | ||
| I mean, here you have a country, the wealthiest people are Indian Americans, the second wealthiest are Filipino Americans. | ||
| People come here from Cuba and do so fantastically well. | ||
| But another cause adopted by these people with Thurnberg Syndrome, despite the fact that anybody can open their eyes and see the wild success of people from all around the world coming to the United States, these people have decided to adapt an ideology in which they have to fight this imaginary racism in the United States with people like Joe Biden or other opportunistic politicians egging them on. | ||
| So I strongly encourage this body, or if not this body, some universities, to look at people who have these bizarre opinions that will inevitably destroy this country. | ||
| They hate wealth production. | ||
| They certainly hate energy production, even when it is new energy that is fantastically clean, so much cleaner than it was when I was a children, when I was a child. | ||
| And they hate it when Western countries wind up in armed conflict with horrific opponents like Hamas is. | ||
| But for psychological reasons, they side with Hamas. | ||
| So those are some of the issues that I think we ought to be paying attention to over the weekend. | ||
| And I think I've used up enough of my time. | ||
| So I will don't know whether I have to ask to adjourn. | ||
| So with that, I'd like to ask the chair to adjourn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Question is on the motion to adjourn. | |
| Those in favor, say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The motion is adopted. | ||
|
Gulf Renamed: Democracy Unfiltered
00:03:09
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unidentified
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Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until 1 p.m. tomorrow. | |
| Today, the House passed legislation permanently renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. | ||
| Introduced by Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, it codifies President Trump's executive order into law. | ||
| The measure directs the Interior Secretary to update the Gulf's name on all federal documents and maps. | ||
| The final vote was 211 to 206. | ||
| Off-the-floor House committees continue work on their portions of the GOP budget reconciliation package. | ||
| Speaker Johnson has indicated he hopes to have floor action on the package by Memorial Day. | ||
| Watch live coverage of the House when lawmakers return here on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Charter Communications. | ||
| Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers. | ||
| And we're just getting started. | ||
|
unidentified
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Building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. | |
| Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| A live look now at Vatican City, where Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was named the new pontiff to succeed the late Pope Francis. | ||
| He has taken the name Leo XIV and becomes the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. | ||
| Cardinal Prevost spent his career ministering in Peru and has led the Vatican's Office of Bishops. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Coming up, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries making remarks about the impact of proposed federal spending cuts on health care and food programs for low-income families. | ||
| Following his address, Leader Jeffries fields questions from reporters about lifting the cap on the state and local tax federal deduction. | ||
|
Costs Are Rising
00:04:37
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unidentified
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Heads up? | |
| Heads up. | ||
| Morning, everyone. | ||
| Economy is collapsing. | ||
| Trump tariffs are raising costs on hardworking American taxpayers. | ||
| Small businesses are closing. | ||
| Businesses and corporations are unable to invest and hire people. | ||
| And Republicans are driving us toward a painful recession. | ||
| Donald Trump and House Republicans promised the American people last year that they were going to lower costs on day one. | ||
| But costs aren't going down, they're going up. | ||
| Inflation is going up. | ||
| And life is getting more expensive in the United States of America. | ||
| The House Republican majority has been a complete and utter failure. | ||
| They've now had the opportunity to govern for 125 days, and we haven't seen a single bill that actually has moved to the floor that is designed to make life more affordable. | ||
| Instead, what House Republicans are doing is trying to jam this extreme budget down the throats of the American people that would visit the largest cut. | ||
|
unidentified
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to leave this, take you live to the Oval Office for remarks by President Trump. | |
| But we are doing so many different things right now that we couldn't be really focused on it. | ||
|
unidentified
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He's a wonderful guy. | |
| He's going to have a great future. | ||
| Maybe with us. | ||
| Oh, are you guys on it? | ||
| Posted on social media. | ||
| Rest as the form. | ||
| What's next? | ||
| Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President. | ||
| What is that? | ||
| They have already spoken to us, and we'll see what happens. | ||
| But again, to have the vote from the United States of America, that's a great honor. | ||
| That's a great honor. | ||
| Mr. President, you're not going to ask me. | ||
| I'm watching. | ||
| And they said, he's from America. | ||
| And they said, that's great. | ||
| Very, very good. | ||
| Catching remarks there by President Trump after a new pope was elected at the Vatican today. | ||
| Take you back now to remarks by Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| I mean, I haven't heard. | ||
| Actually, I hope not. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. President, we're not going to show you $100 a year for people all across the country, including in New York. | ||
| Donald Trump, House Republicans, and Senate Republicans. | ||
| Let's be clear: not a single Democrat supported capping the state and local tax deduction. | ||
| That was done by Republicans when they enacted the GOP tax scam. | ||
| They crashed the car and want to pretend now that they're on a rescue operation. | ||
| Give me a break. | ||
| If nothing happens, if there is nothing done with respect to the state and local tax deduction cap by the end of the year, you know what happens? | ||
| It goes away. | ||
| So anything that Republicans are doing that relates to a cap actually will increase taxes on the American people, not lower taxes. | ||
| Let's be clear about that. | ||
| This whole tax cap situation is phony. | ||