Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
s
sarah elfreth
rep/d14:26
Appearances
j
john mcardle
cspan03:04
?
Voice
Speaker
Time
Text
Debt Limit Debate00:07:51
unidentified
Rule one, the chair declares the house in recess subject to the call of the chair.
Today in the house, lawmakers are considering several small business related bills, including one that relocates small business administration offices out of so-called sanctuary cities.
Another measure limits the number of small business lending companies.
And on Friday, members will debate and vote on a bill that bars non-citizens from receiving small business loans.
Watch live coverage of the U.S. House when lawmakers return here on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
We're funded by these television companies and more, including Cox.
When connection is needed most, Cox is there to help.
Bringing affordable internet to families in need, new tech to boys and girls clubs, and support to veterans.
Whenever and wherever it matters most, we'll be there.
Cox supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
We want to talk first about Elon Musk, considering your federal employee-heavy district and his Doge cuts when it comes to the federal government.
I imagine you and he haven't agreed on much in your time in Congress, but do you agree with him this week when he described the One Big Beautiful bill as a pork-filled, disgusting abomination?
Listen, I wouldn't use that language in a typical day, but here I completely agree with him.
I have 44,000 federal employees in my district in Maryland, and about two to three times that in contractors.
And so we have been disproportionately and acutely impacted by Doge's sledgehammer, reckless sledgehammer.
I mean, there's been no strategy whatsoever, from what I can tell, as to who should stay and who should go, what services should remain for taxpayers.
But this week, I think he's hit the nail on the head.
This was never about fiscal responsibility.
This was never about fiscal conservatism.
This was about tax breaks for billionaires at the expense of the most vulnerable in our communities in terms of folks on Medicaid and folks who are hungry, receive SNAP benefits.
The role we're playing, you know, we fought really hard through the night, through two consecutive nights right before the bill was passed in the wee hours of the morning, 7 a.m.
I think the sun had just come up when we walked out.
What we are doing is talking to our Republican colleagues.
I was on a Codell last week and I spent the entire time trying to make sense of this, trying to understand my colleagues' perspectives in their districts and why they believe it's a big, beautiful bill when I believe it's going to, again, hurt the most vulnerable in my community.
And we're going to keep having those old-fashioned conversations.
That's what used to happen here in Washington.
It's frankly why I came to Washington, left my job at the state senate in Maryland to come and try to bring some semblance of diplomacy back to this place to have those conversations.
And that's what I've been doing really since I've got here.
So 44,000 direct federal employees, and then again about two to three times that in contractors and thousands of federal employees.
I've done 13 town halls in my first, almost six months in Congress, and I can't even go to the grocery store, let alone a town hall, without somebody coming up to me begging me to help get their job back.
We're talking about scientists at NOAA.
We're talking about folks who make sure our food is safe at FDA.
We're talking about folks at Social Security.
U.S. Naval Academy is in my district.
All of these people have been impacted.
And again, Elon Musk and the president cannot argue to me how they made these decisions.
It seemed to be arbitrary.
It seemed to be vitriolic.
Without regard for things like national security, I have the outskirts of Fort Meade where NSA and Cybercom live.
So all of those folks responsible for safety and security of this nation, you know, a lot of them were axed.
And a lot of them were fired in such a way that really gives me pause in terms of are we truly respecting people who have some of the hardest jobs in our country.
Well, I also have the privilege of serving on the Board of Visitors for the Naval Academy, and it's literally my backyard at home.
I thoroughly disagreed with that book ban.
Now, since then, and that, to be clear, I want folks at home to know, this came from the very top from Secretary Pete Hegseth.
And the fact that our Secretary of Defense is personally spending time, energy, and resources thinking about what midshipmen can or cannot read when they have banned Maya Angelou, I Know Bay of the Cage Bird Sings, but kept Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is ridiculous to me.
Now, thankfully, cooler heads have prevailed, and most of those books are now back in the library.
And again, we're training and teaching the future officers and leaders of our military.
We should be able to trust them to read the books that they feel they should read and prepare for that leadership role.
I would like to just give you a piece of advice, and I'm going to ask you a question, if John can mention it.
Now, I'm messaging when I talk about that.
The last year and a half of Trump's administration, but y'all never keep telling people about this.
We had massive shortages of everything.
We had long food lines.
We had massive evictions.
We had to the point that they had to do a moratorium on evictions.
Massive foreclosures.
Hospitals completely overrun with people sick with COVID to the point that they didn't even have the gear to wear the healthcare.
They were in trash bags and homemade masks to put on their faces to cover that.
All the people were dying so fast that they had to storm and freezer trucks.
This and massive unemployment.
You all never, the people, the people, the Republicans always say, how was your the last four years for you when Trump was in?
That's what he left.
That's what Trump left.
Now, Medicaid, let me get to that.
When you hear Republicans say Able Body, they're going to take Able Body off of Medicaid.
I want you to, but they would look up the meaning of able body.
I'm going to give it to you.
Fit, strong, healthy, not physically disabled.
They're not even using Medicaid if they have it because they're not sick.
The only way they can take that 850 building that they're talking about is from the seniors, the disabled, and the sick, because those people that they're saying they're going to do it are not sick.
And certainly the shortages of almost everything we're going to see in this country are only going to be worsened by the president's laxadaisical tariff strategy.
So I completely agree with you.
And we're talking about that as House Democrats.
And then on Medicaid, you've hit the nail on the head.
You know, Medicaid recipients aren't necessarily what people don't look like people think they look like.
We're talking about disproportionate children, seniors, folks with disabilities.
And when we've had these work requirements in the few southern states that have implemented them, we have seen drastic cuts to health coverage for those folks.
And let's be clear: it's not like those folks aren't going to get sick and go to the hospital.
And our hospitals and the rest of taxpayers are going to have to fund what's called uncompensated care.
We call that here in Maryland.
So one way or another, I think it's the best fiscal, most fiscally responsible for us to, you know, offset the cost of health coverage for the most vulnerable in our communities.
I completely agree, just taking the farmers' example when there's not a single loan officer within a 500-mile radius of a small farm in the middle of the country.
You know, that's of no help to food production here in this nation.
I just spoke on the floor yesterday about a program out of USDA that the president has cut.
It was, you know, it's hard.
I'm hard-pressed to think of a win-win-win in terms of public policy, but this program literally connected food banks, schools, and local farms.
And it's just such a beautiful idea of how we feed children and again, folks who are vulnerable and can't put food on the table, and connecting them to local farms so we have that through line in the market.
And yet the president cut that.
And that's just one example of what I think is just a short-sighted cut.
But to your point, you know, I represent a lot of folks who work at Social Security.
The president likes to talk all day long.
He's not going to cut that benefit.
But if you're cutting 7,000 employees at Social Security, when there's no one left in HR or IT, there's no one left to answer the phone, when he's closing down field offices across this country and phone lines are jammed.
That's a de facto cut to benefits.
I've been talking about it quite a bit because I have so many federal employees in my district.
We're going to see the cascading impacts of this divestment in public services for taxpayers, not just years down the line, but my fear is generations down the line.
Why would any young people want to go into public service if they're going to be treated like this, especially in those really hard to fill public service positions like cybersecurity where we're competing with the private sector?
I mean, this is incredibly short-sighted, I agree.
Less than 15 minutes left with Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith.
The committees that she's serving on in her freshman term in Congress include the Natural Resources Committees and Armed Services Committee on Armed Services.
We began our program today in the wake of that hearing yesterday, asking viewers what they thought of the Trump administration's impact so far in these first five months or so on the military and military readiness.
You know, we had the Secretary of the Army in front of us yesterday.
We had an in-depth conversation.
We talked a lot about this parade for the president's birthday that I just think is an incredible waste of money.
The good news is that recruitment is up, which is great, but it's also been up for two years.
And we've had a strategy and my colleagues on that committee have been really thoughtful about how do we incentivize people to join armed services.
But we also have a quality of life challenge.
We also have a real problem when, you know, I've toured, gosh, probably, you know, eight or ten different military installations just in my first six months on the committee.
And the challenges I see at mess halls, in rec rooms, in housing, child care for our service members, we have to do a much better job, not just at recruiting, but retaining, and that's a readiness issue.
Also a readiness issue is the very real threat of, I know the president doesn't believe in it, but climate change.
I represent, again, the U.S. Naval Academy.
Our friends down in Norfolk, Virginia, incredibly susceptible to sea level rise in bases that have billions of dollars of taxpayer infrastructure, and yet this president doesn't believe that they could go underwater.
And so I'm very concerned about readiness from that perspective.
I talk a lot about energy efficiency and resilience on our bases, the fact that they should be as energy independent as possible so they're not relying on the grid from 50 different states.
We have a lot of challenges when it comes to readiness.
I'm not convinced the president's focus on lethality accurately or strategically thinks through readiness, particularly as it relates to, well, we haven't even talked about Russia yet, but certainly China.
I'd love to talk about Russia, John, if we have time, because I don't think he's right on that one at all.
I'm really proud to be on armed services where we have a bipartisan commitment to the people of Ukraine, to standing with our democratic allies and standing against...
I have one colleague on the committee who never refers to Putin as Putin.
He calls him war criminal Putin, and I think it's just, he's a Republican and I love it every time he says it.
We have a bipartisan commitment on that committee to supporting Ukraine.
I'm really, I mean, disappointed doesn't even begin to explain my thoughts on how the president has approached Zelensky or Putin here.
I mean, our role is to help bring peace, but not at the expense of asking our Democratic allies to give more than they should.
Well, first of all, I know your name's not Chris, but let me just thank you.
And I know that you're not hearing that at all from this White House, but thank you for your decades of public service.
I know I can tell that no one really does it for the money.
You do it because you truly believe in public service.
And the fact that you went on to get more education to serve the American people is incredible.
So first of all, thank you.
Second of all, I could not agree with you more.
The fact that tens of thousands of federal employees are just sitting at home on administrative leave, not doing their jobs, not delivering services to the American people, is an abomination and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
And I don't quite understand why my Republican colleagues also don't see it that way.
And again, just the nonsensical, unstrategic way the president has gone about it.
I'm sure, Chris, you've also seen it at NOAA when they fired so many people in the National Weather Service and now frantically trying to rehire people who are not necessarily going to be as qualified as the folks that they fired at the beginning of hurricane season, which impacts you and I.
It also just happens to coincide somehow with the president's birthday.
And so, no, there's a plan for a military parade that's going to cost, I believe, upwards of $10 million and bringing in assets from across this nation into Washington.
And, you know, I just don't see how that's a good use of taxpayer dollars.
As you know, that is the site of the National Fighting Academy where firefighting units from all over the country are eligible, come for charge.
They just have to pay their own travel.
And they go and they get the most advanced firefighting techniques brought to them for free.
There's also the National Emergency Management Center where FEMA trains its people.
And those, as you know, shut down because of DOS with no warning.
They said online classes only from now on, which you can't teach firefighters online for crying out loud.
And what really got me, and I'm having a hard time with this, at the Athingon Memorial, I was sat down for a meal with a bunch of volunteers who were there as escorts for the family.
Now, this memorial brings families of fallen firefighters to Emmitsburg, Maryland for this service every year.
They receive a flag and are paid tribute by these firefighters.
It's a very moving ceremony.
And I got sat with these guys for lunch.
This guy told me his story.
I told him.
I was like, hey, it's sad this thing is shut down.
He's like, well, yeah.
A few weeks ago, he's a firefighter investigator.
He told me they had fired his friend with decades of experience.
His boss had a heart attack and died.
Two weeks before he died, he went to the doctor.
Because his wife said, hey, you got to go to the doctor.
I'm running short on time with the Congresswoman, and I want to make sure I get to your question.
Thank You for Bringing It Up00:03:17
unidentified
I just want to make, are these schools getting back open?
And what are we going to do for this guy?
They killed his boss.
They fired his trainer, and then they sent him off somewhere.
And Congresswoman, really quick, I know short of time.
What you said about them treating public servants like this, what they said to these people, you need to do something else.
You need to do something better with your life.
That is no way to treat firefighters and emergency workers and all the good people in Emmitsburg, Maryland at that academy that were doing that good work.
And one of my first speeches when I got to Congress, because I was also visited by my firefighters in Maryland who came to me incredibly concerned.
And you know, you started talking about this, the five-person investigative panel who literally spend their careers investigating every line of duty death of every firefighter in this nation and take sometimes years to build a report that has tangible, real-world examples of ways that firefighters can better improve the way that they respond, the way they run into burning buildings.
It has saved lives in Maryland.
And Doge cut that board from five to three, to two, forgive me.
And then the president's skinny budget sought to eliminate it entirely.
I have been fighting.
Thank you so much for bringing this up.
I talk about it at every town hall, this five-person board that saves countless lives in this country.
I gave that floor speech, and we have a motto in my office: make it more than just a floor speech.
I'm leading an effort to try to reinstate that five-person investigative group because, again, to your point, there are some things that need to be national.
There is what's lost in this whole Doge conversation is the public good.
I don't think Elon Musk knows what public good is, but to me, it's treating our first responders who save lives and run into burning buildings with the respect that they deserve.
They need to be reinstated, and frankly, that group needs to be doubled or tripled to meet the moment and meet the need for the American people.
Say, Sarah, do you support sending American troops to Ukraine to stop them from going all through Europe?
And do you think if Putin went into Europe, nuclear weapons would be used?
Of course they're not going into Europe.
I also wonder, Sarah, when you mention about the federal employees being fired, if you get a federal job, does that guarantee you a lifetime job then that you can't ever fire them?