| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
SBA Reform Priorities
00:15:24
|
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|
unidentified
|
Only four years, so they can make it seem cheaper in a 10-year scoring window. | |
| Right? | ||
| If it's only four years, it looks like it's 40% as expensive, but actually, it's just 40% as long. | ||
| So, let's back up perhaps. | ||
| Explain the difference between debt and deficit, and why, when we're talking about the cost of this thing, why are we talking about a 10-year scoring? | ||
| Why are we talking 10 years down the road? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so 10-year is the typical convention that we use for scorekeeping. | |
| It's not perfect. | ||
| There's no magic over 10 years versus 9 years or 11. | ||
| But I think the thinking is it's long enough that you capture all the policies having gone to effect. | ||
| Because policies sometimes take a while to implement, but it's not so long that it's ridiculous. | ||
| Like, who knows what's going to happen 50 years from now? | ||
| We'll all have flying cars or something. | ||
| And when we look at this, we look at you're watching live coverage on C-SPAN. | ||
| So, already we are running 2023. | ||
| The motion to recommit H.R. 2987 and passage of H.R. 2987 if ordered. | ||
| The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business is the motion on agreeing to the I'm sorry, the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the motion to recommit on H.R. 2931 offered by the gentleman from California, Mr. Cisinaros, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | ||
| The clerk will designate the motion. | ||
| Motion to recommit H.R. 2931, offered by Mr. Cisneros of California. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The question is on agreeing to the motion to recommit. | |
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
| And this is the first and only series of votes in the House today. | ||
| Right now, a procedural vote on a bill to relocate small business administration offices out of so-called sanctuary cities. | ||
| The SBA has 68 district offices and 10 regional offices nationwide. | ||
| Of those 10 regional offices, six are located in cities with sanctuary policies, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and New York City. | ||
| While members are voting, we'll show some of the floor debate on the bill from earlier. | ||
| I rise today in support of H.R. 2931, the Save SBA from Sanctuary Cities Act of 2025, introduced by Representative Finstead. | ||
| This legislation does exactly what is necessary to ensure SBA employees are safe. | ||
| Despite inheriting one of the most secure borders in American history, President Biden relaxed border policies, and today communities continue to deal with these consequences. | ||
| I'm talking about everything from crime against small businesses forced to close their storefronts to the death of innocent Americans, and it hasn't stopped, as evidenced by the tragedy in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this week. | ||
| Thankfully, President Trump is taking action to restore the rule of law with executive orders that stop the federal subsidiary of areas that refuse to comply with immigration laws. | ||
| This legislation, in part, codifies those efforts and the work already done at the SBA. | ||
| Under Administrator Loeffler's leadership, the regional offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York City, and Seattle will be moved to safer communities within those states. | ||
| But there are more other cities that we must reach. | ||
| Under this bill, the SBA administrator will make determinations on what offices will be moved and will make those decisions public to ensure transparency. | ||
| It is important to note that SBA services to small businesses nationwide will not be interrupted by passing this legislation. | ||
| When a small business in any jurisdiction needs assistance, they can still go to their local SBA development center or their community lender. | ||
| But we cannot let the previous administration's border crisis put the safety of small businesses who go to the SBA offices and the SBA employees who work in those offices at risk. | ||
| My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to argue that Republicans are working to close SBA offices. | ||
| This bill simply relocates these offices. | ||
| As I said before, lending and counseling services for small businesses will still be provided to constituents. | ||
| I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill to make Main Street safe again. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Texas Reserves, the gentlewoman from New York, is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I give myself as much time as I may consume. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlewoman is recognized. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2931. | ||
| This bill is not about improving the SBA or expanding support for small businesses. | ||
| It is about punishing cities for their politics and dragging a vital agency into another culture war. | ||
| Earlier this year, the SBA administrator abruptly announced that six regional offices located in cities like New York, Chicago, and Seattle will be relocated. | ||
| These are some of the most diverse, economically important cities in the country. | ||
| They are also home to thousands of small businesses that rely on these offices for support. | ||
| The decision was made without consultation, without any clear plan, and without even a basic briefing to Congress. | ||
| In fact, 24 of my colleagues and I sent a letter to the administrator demanding answers. | ||
| We still haven't received an adequate response, just rhetoric. | ||
| Now, this bill will lock in that same reckless approach and expand on it. | ||
| It strips regional, district, and local SBA offices out of so-called sanctuary cities, despite there being no legal definition and no justification for such a move. | ||
| This isn't about immigration enforcement. | ||
| It's about politics. | ||
| This administration wants to punish some of our larger cities because they have the nerve to vote Democratic. | ||
| And it is important to note, all these cities comply with the federal laws. | ||
| And who will this bill hurt? | ||
| Not politicians, not city officials. | ||
| It is the small business owners and their employees who will suddenly have to navigate SBA programs without the support they have relied on for years. | ||
| At the same time, the SBA is already in crisis. | ||
| Huge numbers of staff have been fired or forced out. | ||
| Customer service has plummeted. | ||
| Small business owners are calling and no one is there to answer. | ||
| And now, in the middle of all that, we're talking about uprooting even more offices. | ||
| This bill doesn't fix anything. | ||
| It adds more confusion and disruption for the people we are supposed to be helping. | ||
| It wastes taxpayers' dollars to carry out a political agenda, and it ignores the real economic challenges small businesses are facing. | ||
| Let's not forget, entrepreneurs across the country are already dealing with higher prices caused by tariffs. | ||
| That is a direct result of this administration's trade policies. | ||
| These added costs are squeezing margins and making it harder for small businesses to stay afloat. | ||
| The last thing they need is less support from the very agency that is supposed to help them. | ||
| They also don't need to be spending hours traveling to offices to get assistance. | ||
| If we really wanted to support small businesses, we will be talking about access to capital. | ||
| We will be looking at how to rebuild SBA capacity, not guard it further. | ||
| We would be focused on lowering costs, expanding outreach, and getting more entrepreneurs the tools they need to grow. | ||
| Or just maybe we could stop playing games and pass a bill exempting small businesses from the pain of this administration on again, off-again tariffs. | ||
| But instead, here we are debating a bill that makes things worse. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, stand up for small business owners in every zip code, and restore the SBA mission as a non-partisan advocate for America's entrepreneur. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from New York Reserves. | |
| The gentleman from Texas is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield to Representative Alford from the great state of Missouri such time as he may consume. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Alford, is recognized for as much time as he may consume. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman, for this important piece of legislation. | ||
| Thank you to our ranking member for your passion and your concern for small businesses in America. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2931, the Save SBA from Sanctuary Cities Act, championed by my good friend Congressman Finstad. | ||
| Look, Mr. Speaker, this is not about a culture war in America. | ||
| This is about putting American small business owners first, while ensuring lawless sanctuary cities do not reap the benefits of hosting SBA offices. | ||
| It's pretty simple, folks. | ||
| This is all about protecting American small businesses and making sure that federal taxpayer dollars are not funneled into lawless sanctuary cities that put illegal aliens ahead of their own citizens. | ||
| Why should hardworking American entrepreneurs and law-abiding communities be second in line to support from their own government? | ||
| They shouldn't be. | ||
| This bill will relocate SBA regional offices from sanctuary jurisdictions to communities that actually respect the rule of law, that actually put American citizens first. | ||
| And that is not controversial. | ||
| It's just common sense. | ||
| President Biden's open border policies let in millions, millions of illegal aliens, unvetted illegal aliens, including dangerous, violent criminals. | ||
| The woke policies of Democrat-run sanctuary cities fueled by woke politics have become magnets for chaos, stretching public resources to the brink and crowding out citizens who actually follow the law. | ||
| And what happens? | ||
| Well, it often depletes the public resources meant for U.S. citizens. | ||
| Moving SBA offices into non-sanctuary jurisdictions is a step in the right direction. | ||
| Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| The federal government should not reward sanctuary cities with permanent SBA infrastructure. | ||
| It's just wrong. | ||
| And it's not wrong and, quite frankly, insulting to every law-abiding taxpayer and every small business owner struggling to stay afloat. | ||
| We've got to move these offices. | ||
| This legislation is another example of House Republicans working to codify President Trump's executive orders. | ||
| In March, SBA Administrator Loffler announced a series of actions to put Americans first, including moving SBA regional offices out of sanctuary cities. | ||
| This bill makes it law, backs that up. | ||
| This common sense legislation, as well as others we are voting on this week, put Americans and American small businesses first, puts Main Street first. | ||
| But Mr. Speaker, we can't stop there. | ||
| There are many cities that share the same lawless woke policies as sanctuary cities. | ||
| They're soft on crime, even if they don't wear the sanctuary label outright. | ||
| Kansas City is one of those. | ||
| Just one example. | ||
| It's not officially designated as a sanctuary city, but it might as well be a first cousin of one. | ||
| That's exactly why I've asked Administrator Loffler to relocate the SBA regional office from Kansas City in Missouri's 5th congressional district down to our district in the 4th. | ||
| Because at the end of the day, American citizens and small businesses should not be the ones being served by SBA offices, not illegal aliens in sanctuary cities. | ||
| Let's get serious. | ||
| Let's put America first. | ||
| Like we had the mandate to do in November. | ||
| The America First Agenda led by President Donald J. Trump. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support and vote yes for H.R. 2931. | ||
| And Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reserve. | |
| The gentleman from Texas Reserves, the gentlewoman from New York is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to a gentlelady from New Jersey, Ms. McIver. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentlelady from New Jersey is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to my ranking member. | ||
| To my colleague across the aisle, obviously he wants us to be sleep because that's the opposite of being woke. | ||
| I guess we should introduce sleepy policies and be sleep at the job. | ||
| I rise to voice my strong opposition to the efforts to undermine American small businesses by the very agency tasked with fueling them. | ||
| Because let me be clear, this is what H.R. 2931 would do. | ||
| Allow the small business administration to gut punch the small businesses it is supposed to serve, just to punish cities that embrace their immigrant communities. | ||
| Targeting sanctuary cities as this bill does is beyond the scope of the SBA's duties. | ||
| And it flies in the face of what the SBA is supposed to do, lift up small businesses in communities across the country, no matter what city they are located in or what party they belong to. | ||
| Rather than driving economic growth, this legislation would strip essential resources from some of our nation's most vibrant and diverse communities. | ||
| This would hurt the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of business owners. | ||
| If the New York office was to close, the effects would spill over into my own community. | ||
| The SBA office in Nork services over 800,000 small businesses in New Jersey alone. | ||
| Cutting SBA offices from these areas will stall growth and jeopardize jobs. | ||
| It will displace employees and disrupt critical services that local businesses rely on. | ||
|
El Paso's Dilemma
00:17:08
|
||
| It will burden nearby offices and stretch resources very thin. | ||
| And it will make it harder for business owners to get the help they need when they need it. | ||
| Nork's office would be overwhelmed if the New York City office closes. | ||
| This bill weaponizes federal resources to hurt cities that have made the choice to protect immigrant communities. | ||
| This is unjust. | ||
| I have worked closely with my Democratic colleagues to raise these concerns directly with the SBA administrator through multiple letters, outreach, and even in Small Business Committee yesterday. | ||
| SBA's response, if any, have been dismissive. | ||
| I stand firmly against using the SBA as a tool to penalize cities based on their immigration policies. | ||
| I hope my colleagues will stand with me. | ||
| I urge you to vote no on the Save SBA from Sanctuary Cities Act to protect the SBA's mission and vibrant economies for all of our cities. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
| I research. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from New York Reserves, the gentleman from Texas, is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield to Representative Crank from the great state of Colorado such time as he may consume. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from Colorado is recognized. | |
| Mr. Speaker, thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2931. | ||
| We've allowed sanctuary cities to openly defy federal immigration law for far too long. | ||
| There must be real consequences for it. | ||
| And I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota, Representative Finstad, for introducing this important piece of legislation. | ||
| I'm also grateful to Chairman Williams of the Small Business Committee for working with me to ensure that my community, El Paso County and Colorado Springs, isn't swept up in the radical sanctuary policies coming out of Denver, Colorado. | ||
| Specifically, I want to thank him for accepting our amendment to ensure communities like mine that are fighting back against criminal coddling politicians remain eligible locations for SBA offices. | ||
| You know, we've heard a lot of folks who are opposed to this bill say things like it's undermining small business or it's creating a culture war. | ||
| This is about the rule of law. | ||
| This is about thumbing their nose, cities thumbing their noses at taxpayers. | ||
| You aren't entitled to federal funds in America. | ||
| There's a way, by the way, to keep these offices in these cities. | ||
| Stop being sanctuary cities. | ||
| Comply with the law. | ||
| When did that become something that was optional in America to comply with the federal law? | ||
| It's incredible. | ||
| As we hold sanctuary jurisdictions accountable, we must recognize that not every community in a sanctuary state is part of the problem. | ||
| And I believe the amended bill draws that line distinctly and it recognizes districts like Colorado 5 that I represent that have been bravely pushing back on their own. | ||
| When the Biden administration opened our borders and over 8 million or more crossed into our country illegally, 300 migrants per day rolled into Colorado because cities like Denver welcomed them with our taxpayer dollars. | ||
| Migrants with connections to dangerous gangs like Trende Aragua didn't just stay in Denver but they moved to nearby communities and they took over apartment complexes that were owned by individuals. | ||
| El Paso County, my county, recognized the threat but with zero support from the Colorado legislature who also at the same time passed more laws to make it worse. | ||
| The Colorado legislature passed laws prohibiting law enforcement from honoring ICE detainers. | ||
| The Colorado legislature restricting data sharing with federal immigration agencies, and the legislature passing a law that banned contracts for immigration detention centers. | ||
| This is lawlessness, and this body should recognize it as such. | ||
| In 2024, my good friend Sheriff Joe Roybal of El Paso County and other county leaders filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that these laws are unconstitutional and that they hamper public safety. | ||
| Now contrast that with cities like Denver, which have exacerbated their housing crisis and they continue to support illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants, going so far as to bar city employees from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. | ||
| You talk about playing politics. | ||
| That's playing politics. | ||
| They passed laws in Denver to create a legal defense fund for illegal immigrants. | ||
| And they passed a law to spend more than $180 million a year on related services, all while hosting the SBA regional office and laughing at the American taxpayers while doing it. | ||
| This is unacceptable. | ||
| Sanctuary cities should not be rewarded with federal offices and resources. | ||
| That's why I wrote to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler urging her to move the regional office to Colorado Springs, where we cooperate with federal authorities and support small business, and we uphold law and order for our citizens. | ||
| While President Trump has delivered on his promise to regain operational control of the border, the fight isn't over. | ||
| We need full cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement. | ||
| But it's unfortunate that Colorado's leadership is still going in the wrong direction. | ||
| Despite Governor Polis saying in January he was open to work with the Trump administration, he instead signed new legislation in May that expands protections for illegal immigrants, even after local officials raised serious concerns. | ||
| My community, meanwhile, is doing the work El Paso County and the Colorado Springs Police Department are partnering with ICE and the DEA. | ||
| And in April, they led a nightclub raid that resulted in over 100 illegal immigrants being detained for human and drug trafficking. | ||
| This is something that we're going to support with lawlessness, not in my community. | ||
| In May, they turned over 13 illegal immigrants to ICE custody. | ||
| And we understand the real consequences of sanctuary policies. | ||
| Colorado has become a haven for illegal immigration. | ||
| And in one tragic case that we all now know about this week, an illegal immigrant who overstayed his visa launched Molotov cocktails at innocent Boulder residents in what was a hateful racial attack. | ||
| Despite the state knowing that that person was already illegally in our country, and the state of Colorado gave him a driver's license. | ||
| We can't let sanctuary jurisdictions defy federal law and endanger public safety. | ||
| Let me be clear. | ||
| El Paso County, my county, is not a sanctuary jurisdiction. | ||
| Despite the policies from Denver, we're committed to working with federal immigration authorities and protecting our communities. | ||
| Again, I want to thank Chairman Williams and his staff for working with me, for working with my county. | ||
| And El Paso County is ready and willing to host the SBA office. | ||
| I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 2931. | ||
| And with that, I thank you and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker. | |
| Reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from Texas Reserves, the gentleman from New York is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| It's quite rich to come to the House and talk about rule of law. | ||
| At least on this side of the aisle, we don't have anyone who pardons 1,500 felons. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Lattimer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from New York is recognized for three minutes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Ranker. | ||
| My district has over 30,000 small businesses, from restaurants and small grocery stores in New Rochelle to construction companies in Yonkers. | ||
| Every day, I hear from business owners that they need certainty to run their businesses. | ||
| They rely on an immigration system that ensures their employees won't be targeted and unjustly detained on their way to work. | ||
| They rely on trade policies that keep the cost of their products stable. | ||
| And they rely on federal partners who will be there when they need assistance. | ||
| Since taking office, President Trump and SBA Administrator Loeffler have outlined an agenda that will harm small businesses. | ||
| Proposals such as cutting the SBA workforce by 43 percent, relocating SBA offices away from New York City, the center of that region, and firing an independent inspector general does not represent anything that looks like America First. | ||
| It is an ideological agenda, and it's imposed upon the majority of this country that functions differently and requires tailored policies. | ||
| In addition, last week, my home county of Westchester was branded a sanctuary jurisdiction by the Department of Homeland Security completely inaccurately. | ||
| Westchester is not and has never been a sanctuary jurisdiction, and in the last seven years, we've reduced violent crime and we have brought economic strength over a period of time that rivals any county in this nation. | ||
| Westchester County cooperates with federal immigration law. | ||
| County law, however, requires that no administrative police can circumvent due process. | ||
| We do this to ensure that all residents will cooperate with local law enforcement. | ||
| Westchester rejects the deep state police that appear masked without badges and proper identification. | ||
| This bill represents an attempt by House Republicans to enact retribution on places because this administration wants to impose its view of law enforcement, deep state authority, not subject to judicial review. | ||
| The result of penny and punitive motives of this bill is that small businesses will suffer. | ||
| You would think that when you offer support for this president's tariff strategy, reckless as it is, it's damaging small businesses, its international goods, components, and supplies. | ||
| They would instead be working to stimulate that, but this bill could not be further from that goal. | ||
| If this bill is passed, SBA offices will be relocated as political payback away from public access in major cities. | ||
| In fact, that is the point, to reduce programs that help small businesses access to capital, professional services, and predictable tariff policies. | ||
| That is why I introduced an amendment to prohibit SBA from relocating an office if the next closest office is more than 50 miles from the communities that were relocated. | ||
| We should be debating legislation that will help small businesses tackle what they identify as their biggest needs, workforce development, stability, and access to counsel. | ||
| That is not what we're doing. | ||
| If we continue on this irrational path, American businesses will suffer. | ||
| The mistakes we are making in this Congress, bill after bill after bill. | ||
| I yield another minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman is recognized. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| The mistakes we are making in this Congress, bill after bill after bill, will damage this nation's strength at a time when we need unity and strength more than ever before. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back my time. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman reserves. | |
| The gentleman from Texas is recognized. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from Texas Reserves, the gentleman from New York is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record two news articles about DHA's sanctuary jurisdiction list removed from the website, given the fact that their local sheriffs were opposed to the list. | ||
| And as well as a third-way article highlighting red state murder rates at 33% higher than blue states' ones. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. Cisnero. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman from California is recognized for three minutes. | |
| I want to thank the ranking member for her leadership on this issue and in the committee. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not actually address the safety of the SBA, workers, or small businesses. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The motion is not adopted. | |
| The question is on passage of the bill. | ||
| Those in favor, please say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, say no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The bill is not passed. | ||
| And without objection, for what purpose is the gentleman? | ||
| I ask for the yeas and nays. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentlelady seek recognition? | |
| Madam Speaker, I ask for the yeas and nays. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The yeas and nays have been crested. | |
| Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
10 Regional Offices Debate
00:00:56
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|
unidentified
|
Lawmakers are voting on final passage of H.R. 2931, a bill that relocates small business administration offices out of so-called sanctuary cities. | |
| The SBA has 68 district offices and 10 regional offices nationwide. | ||
| Of the 10 regional offices, six are located in cities with sanctuary policies, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and New York City. | ||
| Well, while members are voting, we'll show some of the State Department briefing from earlier. | ||
| Hello, everybody. | ||
|
U.S. Stands Firm Against Terrorists
00:03:50
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|
unidentified
|
Let's pick up the sound. | |
| All right, my name is Tommy Piggott. | ||
| I'm the principal deputy spokesperson here at the State Department, and today for spokesperson Tammy Bruce. | ||
| To begin, I just have a few comments up top, and then I'll be happy to take some questions. | ||
| So, this week, the United States demonstrated once again that American leadership matters. | ||
| Driven by the clear vision of President Trump and Secretary Rubio, the United States is standing firm on the world stage and delivering real results for the American people. | ||
| The United States vetoed a counterproductive United Nations Security Council resolution that targeted Israel and failed to condemn Hamas. | ||
| The resolution created a false equivalency between a sovereign nation and a terrorist group and would have undermined meaningful diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire. | ||
| As President Trump has made clear, we will not support any resolution that fails to demand Hamas disarm, leave Gaza, and release all hostages, including the remains of two murdered Americans. | ||
| The United States will continue supporting the delivery of aid to the people of Gaza and will work to ensure that Hamas and other terrorist organizations cannot continue to exist. | ||
| This is the first Security Council veto of the Trump administration, and we are proud to use our veto on such an important issue. | ||
| It's time the UN returned to its founding purpose: promoting peace and security and stopping these performative actions. | ||
| Earlier today, Israeli forces recovered the remains of Judy Weinstein and God Hagai in Gaza. | ||
| Judy and God were kidnapped and brutally murdered by terrorists on October 7th. | ||
| Their fate remained a mystery for months. | ||
| Even after the worst was confirmed, their families were denied the dignity of a proper burial for more than 600 days. | ||
| We hope their families can now find some measure of peace. | ||
| At the same time, we are acutely aware of the anguish 56 families continue to endure, including those of Americans Omer Nutra and Itay Chen. | ||
| Every single hostage must be released immediately. | ||
| To further safeguard the American people, President Trump has signed a new directive restricting the entry of foreign nationals from specific countries to protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats. | ||
| This action reinforces the administration's unwavering commitment to protecting our borders and ensuring that those who wish to do us harm are denied access. | ||
| This administration will continue to use every tool at its disposal to defend our homeland, dismantle terrorist networks, and deny entry. | ||
| Mr. Swalwell. | ||
| Between President Trump and Putin. | ||
| Nothing further to add besides what's already been publicly said. | ||
| Okay, and then President Trump said today that Putin told him he had no choice but to attack Ukraine following Kyiv's latest attacks. | ||
| Trump said he told Putin not to do it. | ||
| The bill is passed. | ||
| Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the motion to recommit on H.R. 2987, offered by the gentleman from New York, Mr. Velazquez. | ||
| Ms. Velasquez, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will designate the motion. | ||
| Motion to recommit H.R. 2987, offered by Ms. Velazquez of New York. | ||
|
Vetting Procedures for Visa Holders
00:15:18
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|
unidentified
|
The question is on agreeing to the motion to recommit. | |
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
| A procedural vote now on H.R. 2987, a bill requiring the Small Business Administrator to limit for-profit small business lending companies making SBA loans at any time to 16. | ||
| While members are voting, we'll show you remarks by Senate Democratic leaders on a Republican provision in their tax and spending bill to limit judges' authority. | ||
| And while members are voting, we'll show some more of the State Department briefing. | ||
| Afghanistan is not safe, so it is on the list of states for which immigration is banned. | ||
| So we're talking about two dynamics here. | ||
| When it comes to the specific of TPS, temporary being the operative word here, I refer you to DHS for more details, but it was always a temporary benefit, a temporary protection that's in the name itself. | ||
| So we have that dynamic, and people that are here, people that were here on temporary protected status, have had opportunities to apply for permanent residence here in the United States. | ||
| So you have that dynamic of a temporary protected status that was temporary, versus a second dynamic of the ability to vet people entering this country. | ||
| The ability to ensure people coming into this country on a visa are properly vetted. | ||
| So without getting into specifics of individual countries, the White House has put out a fact sheet on this that I would refer you to for more specifics. | ||
| But the idea of people coming into this country, the ability to properly vet is a separate dynamic. | ||
| And we have to have confidence that we can vet people properly. | ||
| And I think the American people would expect us to have that. | ||
| So what we're looking at here is, can we vet people properly? | ||
| Are there terrorist concerns? | ||
| Do we see visa overstays in regards to some of these countries? | ||
| Those are some of the driving purposes here. | ||
| So we have those two separate dynamics when it comes to Afghanistan. | ||
| Just to follow up, there are large numbers of American veterans, those who have fought in Afghanistan, and also including State Department personnel, CIA personnel, others who have worked with the U.S. government, who feel very strongly that many Afghanistan refugees are at risk if they go back because of their connections to the United States in the past, in the present time, | ||
| and that going back, particularly for women, is of high risk as well. | ||
| And they are asking why it is not a different case, why Afghanistan is being treated this way after the Afghans worked so hard to try to help us during a war. | ||
| Well, the temporary protected status is only one dynamic when it comes to the many different ways that people from Afghanistan have come to this country. | ||
| And again, I'd refer you to DHS on the specifics of that TPS announcement. | ||
| But I think those two separate dynamics are important, again, to stress the temporary protected status, which is always meant as a temporary protection, versus the ability to vet people that are entering this country. | ||
| And I think we have to have that realistic approach to say, are we able to vet people that are coming into this country? | ||
| And the American people, I believe, want to see us be able to say that we can when we're looking at these visas. | ||
| And this is part of a broader action, a broader emphasis from this administration with this action and other actions regarding visas to make sure we have that proper vetting in place. | ||
| Do you think that we are violating a trust, a sacred trust, with many of these people who have put their lives on the line for the United States of America? | ||
| Well, look, I think when it comes to this, again, the TPS is one dynamic of the many ways that people from Afghanistan have come to this country. | ||
| Especially immigrant visas, for example, exceptions related to that are in the proclamation itself when it comes to the proclamation we saw yesterday. | ||
| So I think, again, we're looking at two different dynamics. | ||
| A temporary protected status that, again, was always meant to be temporary. | ||
| There was the opportunity for those that were here on TPS to apply for permanent residence, while then also having the secondary part of it, which says, are we able to vet people coming into this country? | ||
| And I think those are two separate dynamics. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Can I continue with Andrea's question a bit? | ||
| When it comes to the travel restrictions, I mean, there are a number of countries that were taken quite a bit by surprise by this. | ||
| Just Chad right now said that they're going to retaliate. | ||
| Not that in Americans, I realize there are probably that many Americans clamoring to go to Chad. | ||
| But nonetheless, you look at Iran, for example, it's no secret that many Iranians are not very keen on the Islamic Republic, the diaspora, as many critics. | ||
| Is there a sense more broadly that the United States is losing the proverbial hearts and minds by blanketly saying that all these people just purely on basis of nationality have no right to come in rather than seeing them as individuals? | ||
| Well, look, this is a national security imperative. | ||
| What we are seeing is can we have trust that, first of all, that we're vetting people properly? | ||
| There in some of these countries, and I'm not going to go country by country again, refer you to the White House fact sheet for more information, which they've made publicly available. | ||
| But do we have the ability to vet people coming in? | ||
| And this, again, has been that priority from the beginning of this administration. | ||
| Can we say with confidence that people coming to the United States have been properly vetted? | ||
| Is there a central authority in these countries that can confirm that? | ||
| Can we trust what they're telling us? | ||
| A whole host of different issues that are important to figure out here. | ||
| And I think another part of this is we're in constant communication with countries around the world to try to determine ways that we can have that be the case where we can have proper vetting procedures, where we can have confidence with who's coming into this country. | ||
| But again, it's part of that broader action from this administration on a whole host of visa issues to say we're going to properly vet people coming into the United States. | ||
| Then people that are here, if they take actions that are contrary to what their visa reported when they apply for that visa or broke our laws, they may see that visa revoked. | ||
| It's about making sure we're enforcing our laws, have confidence in who we're letting into this country. | ||
| And I believe the American people expect that. | ||
| I think a lot of Americans watching at home would want to make sure we have that confidence. | ||
| And again, I want to stress that this is a country-by-country basis, but that each person that applies for visa is also case-by-case. | ||
| So we have that country-by-country basis. | ||
| We have those concerns, but then there's also exceptions that are listed in the proclamation, and each visa determination is a case-by-case determination. | ||
| Just a couple things on that. | ||
| The motion is not adopted. | ||
| The question is on passage of the bill. | ||
| Those in favor, please say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, please say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the... | ||
| I ask for the yeas and nays. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from New York seek recognition? | ||
| Say it again. | ||
| Madam Speaker, I ask for the yes and nays. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The yeas and nays are requested. | |
| Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
| Lawmakers are voting now on final passage of H.R. 2987, a bill requiring the Small Business Administrator to limit for-profit small business lending companies making SBA loans at any time to 16. | ||
| This is the last vote of the day here in the House. | ||
| And while members are voting, we'll show you more of the State Department briefing from earlier. | ||
| Of course, it's coming up and at the Olympics after that. | ||
| The United States sets a FIFA. | ||
| That basically obviously people will be welcome here. | ||
| The Secretary himself said that the U.S. will be welcoming in soccer fans to come see the World Cup kids that are here. | ||
| Iran is among the countries that has qualified. | ||
| Will there be special consideration there, soccer fans coming in for a FIFA? | ||
| Well, in the proclamation itself, there are exceptions that were listed regarding coaches and players and the like that I would for you to those the proclamation for well I think both people that are coming and Americans would hope that we can have confidence that when people come to the United States when they come that they are properly vetted I think this goes to the exact same consideration I think this is part of what it means to host an event of this magnitude to make sure that we can have that confidence. | ||
| And again, we're in constant communication with countries about ways that we can see the vetting process we need to see, have that collaboration, make sure that we're having those security concerns addressed. | ||
| So this is part of what it means to host an event. | ||
| And I believe people coming from all around the world, Americans going to these events, would want to see actions like this. | ||
| We take security concerns extremely seriously. | ||
| We want people to be able to go to the World Cup and do so safely. | ||
| Sorry, can I just, if there was a two-minute warning, I missed it. | ||
| Oh, no worries. | ||
| It's all right. | ||
| There was, though I heard it may have gotten lost in the ether. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| This is just in your first response to Sean, you talked about some of these countries lacking a central authority to vet. | ||
| You're saying that you want other countries to vet people for U.S. visas? | ||
| No, this is just a concern we have. | ||
| Can we ensure that people coming from these countries are properly vetted? | ||
| What does a central authority in a foreign country have to do with your vetting process, which is done entirely by the U.S. government? | ||
| Well, there's whole ideas of documents provided by people applying for a visa. | ||
| There's this whole idea of people providing passports or other types of documents in order to be vetted. | ||
| So you're saying that these countries don't have the, you have no way, you have no trust in the viability or the authenticity of well what I can say is that there are security concerns of our ability to properly vet people coming for a visa. | ||
| That's what I can say. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And then will anybody who currently has a visa lose that, have it revoked under this proclamation? | ||
| Well, this proclamation is about entry. | ||
| So that's what this proclamation is focused on. | ||
| It's about visas. | ||
| Well, it's about entries in terms of visas. | ||
| And as you're well aware, just having a visa doesn't mean you get into the country. | ||
| Yeah, no way. | ||
| Defend yourself at the border. | ||
| So you're saying people here, correct, if I understood your question correctly? | ||
| No, I'm saying people either here or who happen to be in, I don't know, Australia or something, but they have a visa and they are from one of these countries. | ||
| Will their visas be revoked? | ||
| Will anyone be? | ||
| Well, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals at this point in terms of that. | ||
| What I can say again is that this proclamation is about a national security imperative. | ||
| And visa determinations are a case-by-case determination. | ||
| So we see that constantly when it comes to visas. | ||
| What we're saying here on a country-by-country basis is that we have concerns about visa overstays. | ||
| We have concerns about countries accepting nationals that have overstayed their visa. | ||
| The bottom line is that you do not know if anyone who currently has a visa, who is either in the United States or outside of the United States, but holds a passport from one of these countries, will have their visa review. | ||
| Well, I'm not going to speculate on the specifics. | ||
| I'm not asking you to speculate on anything specific. | ||
| I'm asking, if you don't know the answer, then it is clear that no, this wasn't really thought through that way. | ||
| I think it was thought through. | ||
| What we're seeing here is concerns about certain security. | ||
| So what happens? | ||
| So what happens? | ||
| Again, it's a case-by-case basis. | ||
| You're asking me a hypothetical situation. | ||
| It's a case-by-case basis. | ||
| What are the instructions that have been sent out to embassies and how to deal with that? | ||
| Well, I'm not going to talk about our internal communications. | ||
| This is ultimately, fundamentally, a national security concern. | ||
| These determinations are made on a case-by-case basis. | ||
| addressed that I think we're gonna yes I have one more about China, though. | ||
| Yeah, green jacket. | ||
| Oh, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Although there are a lot of questions and explanations, I believe there are still some doubts among citizens from the seven countries that are with restrictions on this travel ban. | |
| So in a general matter, if you could explain what those restrictions mean for those citizens. | ||
| Sorry, one more time. | ||
| On the travel ban for the countries that are in the list with a partial restriction, the seven countries, including Cuba and Venezuela, for example, I believe many citizens that are still doubt what means this restriction. | ||
| So what does it mean? | ||
| Yeah, when it comes to those, the White House has put out a fact sheet talking about those countries, the partial restrictions. | ||
| I would refer you to that fact sheet for more information. | ||
| It's available on their website there. | ||
| Perspective from the State Department, what this means from those who are not here and for those who are here in the country and might want to leave and then come back. | ||
| Well, again, it's a case-by-case basis, and we have concerns that we want to see addressed, and that's what this is part of addressing. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Premier. | ||
| I have two occasions. | ||
| First question: Sergei Shoig, head of Russia State Security Council, and Kim Jong-un, North Korean leader, met in Kyongyang today and agreed that the North Korean treaty. | ||
| The bill is passed. | ||
| Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
|
Tragedy Strikes Wenatchee
00:04:00
|
||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Washington seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House out of order for one minute. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today alongside my colleagues in the Washington delegation, devastated at the tragic loss of Peyton Evelyn, devastated at the tragic loss of Peyton, Evelyn, and Olivia Decker from Wenatchee, Washington. | ||
| Last weekend, these little girls, ages 9, 8, and 5, were reported missing when their father failed to bring them home following a scheduled visit. | ||
| And over the next few days, we all hoped and prayed for the best, that they would be found safe and well and returned to their mother. | ||
| But then we all learned the horrific news that they had been murdered. | ||
| And like so many, and I just heard it out there, I was heartbroken. | ||
| These girls had their whole lives ahead of them with so many possibilities, and we've all lived full lives. | ||
| And those pictures were taken from them. | ||
| So on Tuesday, hundreds and hundreds of people came to a vigil in Wenatchee to remember these girls, to grieve with their family and with the entire community. | ||
| And these young girls had brought so much joy to their classrooms and their family and their community. | ||
| And this is just an unspeakable tragedy for the city of Wenatchee. | ||
| But I mean, really, it's for everybody standing in this room, including my Washington delegation. | ||
| So all of our hearts are with their mother and the community and their family and loved ones. | ||
| And so my sincere thoughts and prayers, all of ours, are with them during this incredibly difficult time. | ||
| I'm going to yield to my less cheery colleague, my Congresswoman, Congressman, excuse me, Dan Newhouse. | ||
| Thank you, Ms. Schreier, for yielding. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And thank you to all my friends and colleagues here in the chamber of the House today. | ||
| As you just heard, tragedy and sorrow fell on Wenatchee, Washington this week with the loss of three beautiful young girls, Evelyn, Peyton, and Olivia Decker. | ||
| I can't believe that many of us here can truly understand the pain that comes to loved ones living through something like this. | ||
| My colleagues, thank you because we are here to send our most sincere condolences to their family, to the community, the people of Wenatchee, Washington, as they all mourn this tremendous loss. | ||
| Today we join the outpouring of support. | ||
| It truly is amazing that what's happening that we are seeing back home as community members pay their respects to these three young ladies. | ||
| And we support law enforcement who have committed to employing any resource necessary to bring those responsible to justice for this tragedy. | ||
| So with that, I yield back to Ms. Schreier. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I ask for a moment of silence. | ||
|
Pride and Safety
00:15:22
|
||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Texas seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Golden, be removed as a co-sponsor from H.R. 3464. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks. | |
| The chair will now entertain requests for one minute speeches. | ||
| In order, gentlemen from Pennsylvania. | ||
| For what purposes gentlemen from Pennsylvania seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, with the question Andrew's consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | |
| The gentleman suspended. | ||
| The house will be in order. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 100th anniversary of Bradford Area High School in Bradford, Pennsylvania, a century of shaping minds, building character, and strengthening community. | ||
| Since its founding, BAHS has educated generations of families, grandparents, parents, and now children walking the same halls, learning from the same dedicated teachers who often return to serve their own alma mater. | ||
| It's not just school, it's a legacy. | ||
| Recently, the community came together to celebrate this proud history. | ||
| Alumni joined current students in the auditorium to perform the school's fight song, Bridging the Past and Present in Harmony. | ||
| Displays throughout the school showcase 100 years of photos, uniforms, and memories, alongside a 1926 time capsule containing a Bible, a local newspaper, and a silver peace dollar. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, Bradford Area High School is more than just a structure. | ||
| It's a pillar of the community, and it will continue to shape future generations for the next 100 years. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, has unanimous consent to address the House for one minute, arise and extend my remarks if necessary. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| I recognize the 50th anniversary of the Santa Cruz Pride Parade, one of the oldest Pride events in the nation and the first of any small American city. | ||
| Since 1975, Santa Cruz Pride embodies the spirit of resistance and persistence. | ||
| And even though it was California, back then it was just a small gathering of a few brave and determined people standing in solidarity. | ||
| Today, like we saw this past weekend, Santa Cruz Pride is a multi-day community-wide event that brings together thousands in the celebration of Pride. | ||
| But as we celebrate, we also appreciate and commemorate that we stand on the shoulders of those who got us here. | ||
| And it is with that realization that we are reinvigorated in our push for equal rights. | ||
| See, we in Santa Cruz and throughout the 19th Congressional District of California understand that Pride is more than just about flags and parades. | ||
| It's also about creating policies, putting in place protections, and the persistence of a community to achieve equality. | ||
| Yes, we are proud of the past 50 years of Santa Cruz Pride, but we are also now determined now, more than ever, to continue our march forward. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor the life of my friend John Thrasher, who passed away May 30th, 1920-25. | |
| John was a decorated veteran, devoted family man, and a great public servant. | ||
| Few have given more to Florida. | ||
| From Clay County School Board to Speaker of the House to serving in the state Senate and president of Florida State University, he was a leader and he was known for it. | ||
| After Republicans gained control of the Florida House after 122 years of nothing, we ushered in a new era of common sense, principled leadership. | ||
| And that legacy lives on today through the lives he touched, the institutions he strengthened, and the honors he earned. | ||
| John Thrasher is a life that's a testament to the spirit, principle, service, patriotism. | ||
| He will be missed. | ||
| Yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from North Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the exceptional sheriffs of North Carolina's first congressional district. | ||
| It was a privilege to engage with such dedicated leaders as we address the pressing issues facing eastern North Carolina. | ||
| Our discussion on automatic license plate recognition cameras and innovative strategies for recruitment and retention in rural communities were both insightful and inspiring. | ||
| We are confronted with significant challenges, including the threat of illegal drugs, outdated detention centers, and issues facing juveniles. | ||
| The sheriffs underscored the importance of regional collaboration, emphasizing how sharing resources, intelligence, and support across county lines can enhance community safety. | ||
| I extend my sincere gratitude to Sheriff Curtis Brain of Vance County, Sheriff Robert Fountain Jr. of Granville County, Sheriff John Branch of Warren County, and Sheriff Cleo Atkinson Jr. of Edgecombe County for their participation. | ||
| We also acknowledge the invaluable leadership and partnership of all of our sheriffs. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Oklahoma seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ask me, Ms. Kinson, to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today to celebrate the Western Conference champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder. | ||
| The season has been nothing short of meteoric, making this Thunder team the youngest in NBA history to reach the finals. | ||
| They are led by their coach, Mark Dagnall, and all-star players like this year's most valuable player, Shagaligas Alexander, Chud Holgren, and Jalen Williams. | ||
| The Thunders' historic season, the best in franchise history, also featured 54 games being won by double digits, the most in NBA history. | ||
| The ownership team and general manager Sam Pressy have done a remarkable job of putting together a group of superstars who are focused on winning together as a team. | ||
| In the words of Kobe Bryant, the job's not finished. | ||
| Let's bring the Larry O'Brien Trophy to Oklahoma City. | ||
| I know I speak for the entire state of Oklahoma when I say thunder up. | ||
| With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Gun violence is a scourge that has plagued the United States for far too long. | ||
| We have witnessed tragedy after tragedy, and the only thing that ever seems to happen is gun restrictions are loosened even further. | ||
| Six years ago in my home state of Ohio, there was a mass shooting at a bar in Dayton. | ||
| Nearly 30 people were injured and 10 were killed by a man with a gun that he was able to legally modify through loopholes in our gun laws. | ||
| Hundreds of people attended a vigil for the victims of this deadly attack and demanded we do something. | ||
| In response, the governor of Ohio signed a permitless carry legislation allowing individuals to carry concealed firearms without a permit. | ||
| Last year, 25-year-old Megan Kelman, a young woman in my district, was shot and killed in a Taco Bell drive-through. | ||
| She was picking up dinner for her family. | ||
| Why did Megan Kellman have to die that day? | ||
| The system failed her. | ||
| The killer should have never had a gun. | ||
| So again, why did Megan Kellman have to die that day? | ||
| She didn't. | ||
| And maybe if there were less cowardly people in office, Megan would be alive living out her path to serve and help other people. | ||
| Her family is working to make sure that there is change and to secure her legacy. | ||
| But we have a duty as public servants to keep our communities safe. | ||
| But the inaction on gun violence is killing innocent Americans. | ||
| We can and must pass common sense gun safety legislation to bolster background checks and ban dangerous assault weapons. | ||
| The people of Ohio's 13th congressional district sent me here to do something about gun violence in our communities, and that's exactly what I tend to do. | ||
| This is Gun Violence Awareness Month, and this month and every other day, I mourn the lives of the countless people who have lost their lives to senseless gun violence and those that they have left behind. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I will yield back. | ||
| Gentleman from Pennsylvania, for what purpose does the gentleman from Pennsylvania seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I request 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. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, over the last four years, every American has felt the pain of inflation, and this financial strain has hit working families particularly hard. | |
| Large price increases set back millions of parents, forcing them to dig into their savings and even go into debt sometimes just to pay their bills. | ||
| That's why, as a part of budget reconciliation, we passed legislative language to permanently increase the child tax credit, index it to inflation, and add a $500 increase, bringing the total tax credit to $2,500. | ||
| Changes to the tax code, including expanding the child tax credit, will help save the average family more than $1,300 a year. | ||
| It's time to deliver real tax relief for working families that they so desperately need. | ||
| I call on my colleagues in the Senate to protect these provisions, to make sure that we're helping working families, and after four years of rising costs, finally deliver parents the relief that they deserve. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Missouri seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, if you stood outside the St. Louis Job Corps Center last week, you saw what happens when cruelty becomes policy. | |
| You saw students being escorted off campus, bags in hand, dreams on hold. | ||
| Grandparents crying because their grandkids had finally found something that gave them a shot, and now it's gone. | ||
| In St. Louis, that's over 200 students who were impacted. | ||
| JobCorp is exactly the kind of program we should all agree on. | ||
| It gives young people the tools to succeed, real skills, real credentials, real jobs. | ||
| It reduces crime, increases employment, and pays off for taxpayers in the long run. | ||
| This wasn't a budget choice. | ||
| This was a values choice. | ||
| And it tells our young people your future doesn't matter. | ||
| Not if you're working class, not if you're black or brown, not if you come from a zip code that doesn't matter. | ||
| But I rise today because JobCorp works. | ||
| It changes lives, and there's no defense, none at all for ripping that away from students. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Question is permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks as necessary. | |
| Without objection, gentlemen is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today to recognize a truly outstanding man, a man who served all of the people of Florida honorably, with wisdom, and admirable class. | ||
| My dear friend John Thrasher passed away on May 30th at the age of 81. | ||
| John Thrasher was a highly decorated soldier, Speaker of the Florida House, a Florida senator, president of Florida State University, father of the Florida State University Medical School, and one of the most gifted men I ever worked with. | ||
| Most importantly, he was an honorable man who made it his life's mission to serve others. | ||
| It was he who introduced me to the importance of advocacy in Washington and in Tallahassee. | ||
| He exemplified great leadership and great service to all around him. | ||
| He was loved and respected throughout Florida, and we will all miss his wisdom and his company. | ||
| It was an honor to know John, and as we mourn his loss, I'd like you to keep his wife, Jean, and their family in our prayers. | ||
| May he rest in peace. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purposes the gentleman from New Hampshire seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today because the Republicans' budget scheme pushed through in the middle of the night last month is putting school meals for hungry kids and food assistance for working families at risk. | ||
| A constituent of mine, Martha from Summersworth, is raising her 15-year-old grandson and battling breast cancer while living on a fixed income. | ||
| Without SNAP, she wouldn't be able to keep food on the table. | ||
| Another constituent, Catherine, is a veteran from Manchester who has type 2 diabetes. | ||
| She wouldn't be able to afford the diet she needs to keep herself healthy without SNAP and fears losing her benefits could put her life at risk if she's unable to manage her blood sugar. | ||
| And people across my district from Newmarket to Guilford tell me they wouldn't be able to afford groceries without some help. | ||
|
Honor Sergeant Stephan Wiggins
00:14:58
|
||
|
unidentified
|
It's a betrayal of working families for Republicans to take away food so they can give tax breaks to billionaires. | |
| We must continue speaking out against these cuts and doing everything we can to stop a reckless, cruel budget from moving forward. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purposes the gentleman from Colorado seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the victory of the Grand Junction High School Knowledge Bowl team in the 2025 Colorado State Championship. | |
| This marks the school's 26th state title and its second consecutive win of the Governor's Cup. | ||
| Competing against 60 teams from across Colorado, the team earned top honors in both the 4-A classification and the overall Governor's Cup. | ||
| This accomplishment confirms Grand Junction High School's standing as the leading academic team in the state of Colorado. | ||
| As a former member of this team, I can speak to the dedication, teamwork, and intellectual discipline required to succeed in this competition. | ||
| The Knowledge Bowl challenges students in a broad range of subjects, including mathematics, science, literature, and history. | ||
| It demands academic skill, focus, collaboration, and resilience. | ||
| The team members and their coaches have achieved something exceptional. | ||
| Their success reflects the strength of their preparation and sets a powerful example of academic excellence for communities across Colorado. | ||
| Congratulations, GJHS Tigers. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Purposes, gentlemen from New York, seek recognition. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Speaker, I ask unanimous percentage of this House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, gentlemen is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| Tomorrow marks the 81st anniversary of D-Day, a unique mission that took months of planning and turned the tide of World War II. | ||
| America's military, working with Canada and our European allies, made the difference that day, beginning the liberation of France. | ||
| 81 years later, another European country is fighting off an invasion by an aggressor. | ||
| The Ukrainians have fought valiantly, with thousands giving their lives to protect freedom and democracy. | ||
| They have proven to be strong fighters, creative in the art of war. | ||
| The assault over the weekend on Russia's bombing fleet is a modern marvel. | ||
| They are capable of defeating Russian aggression and remaining a free nation only if they have sufficient support from their allies. | ||
| It is all the more concerning that today President Trump said it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia fight for a while before pulling them apart like children in a schoolyard. | ||
| Ukraine and its people don't have that time. | ||
| This war must end. | ||
| With D-Day on our mind, we must commit more assistance to Ukraine and defend democracy before it is too late. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Georgia seek recognition? | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, gentlemen is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 65th anniversary of the Mills-On-Wills program led by Senior Citizens Inc. in Savannah, Georgia. | ||
| For 65 years, this program has provided thousands of nutritious meals and vital daily contact with elderly, homebound adults. | ||
| This year, to celebrate the milestone, Senior Citizens Inc. partnered with local chefs, including James Beard Award winner Chef Bailey. | ||
| Chef Bailey assisted in crafting special gourmet meals as a tribute to the people they serve. | ||
| Mills-on-Wheels delivers care, compassion, and peace of mind to families in Savannah and beyond. | ||
| The partnership reflects the power of community engagement and shows what is possible when local organizations and volunteers work together to lift others. | ||
| I thank Senior Citizens Inc., Mills-on-Wills, and Chef Bailey for their initiative and congratulate them on the anniversary of this most important service. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, gentlemen is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, since its founding, the Valavan Tamil Academy, or VTA, has played a vital role in teaching the Tamil language to children in Virginia. | ||
| Tamil, one of the world's oldest languages, is spoken by over 80 million people globally, including 360,000 Americans. | ||
| And this past weekend marked a major milestone, the VTA's 15th annual day celebration. | ||
| I was honored to join students, families, and community leaders to celebrate and recognize the work that has been done to educate the next generation on Tamil history. | ||
| So congratulations to the Valevan Tamil Academy and thank you for all that you do for our community in Virginia. | ||
| I'm looking forward to working together for many years to come. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield back. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| I just saw you there. | ||
| Sorry, Mike missed you. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, gentlemen is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Sergeant Stephan Wiggins, a Vero Beach native and Vietnam hero, who was recently awarded the Army Commendation Medal for his past service this past Memorial Day, 57 years after making the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation. | ||
| In 1967, Sergeant Wiggins was drafted into the United States Army and quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant and Tank Commander. | ||
| Sergeant Wiggins was a leading combat control during the Tet Offenses when his unit encountered an obstacle. | ||
| Acting quickly, he directed his track through a nearby gap, exposing a hidden enemy ambush and drawing heavy fire. | ||
| The four-hour firefight claimed 10 American lives, including Wiggins, whose bravery saved many others. | ||
| I'm proud to be a part of a recent ceremony honoring his legacy and his bravery to the American public. | ||
| And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to place in today's congressional record the virtuous life of a truly beloved woman and patriotic citizen of Toledo, Ohio, Mrs. Teresa Nauman. | ||
| What an exemplary life she embodied. | ||
| Teresa was a treasured family friend, and her son Jimmy, who preceded her in death, was a baseball buddy and classmate of my dear brother, Steve. | ||
| She enjoyed numerous friends and held tight to memories of those precious days of youth when her husband Bill was the team coach of the Little Flower baseball team. | ||
| Jimmy hit the line drives as my pitcher brother, Steve, sported the number nine. | ||
| What a legacy Teresa built as a dedicated wife, mother, sister, working woman for General Mills, a joyous grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, and friend. | ||
| At 94, having survived the death of her beloved husband for whom she cared religiously, she remained beautiful, gracious, kind, intelligent, involved, and devout. | ||
| A woman whose smile lit up the room. | ||
| She drew people to her with her welcoming manner. | ||
| She and her Marine veteran husband, William, were married for 67 years until his passing, and they nurtured youth in their church, Little Flower Roman Catholic Church, in Toledo, Ohio. | ||
| Always generous, she requested, in lieu of flowers, memorial donations be made to the James E. Nauman Athletic Fund at Little Flower Church or to a charity of the donor's choice. | ||
| Teresa's presence will never be forgotten for the thousands of good deeds she did as a matter of daily life. | ||
| Our nation needs more lives modeled on that of Teresa Nauman. | ||
| Kind, constructive, joyous, and persevering. | ||
| May the angels carry her to a place of comfort and joy. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Missouri seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I request to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of a dear friend and true trailblazer, Robert S. Crampton, who passed away peacefully at the age of 95. | ||
| Robert was a man of wisdom, quiet strength, and action. | ||
| He served in the U.S. Army, worked with the Austin Police Department, and spent his life building up the people and communities around him. | ||
| He helped construct satellite stations during the space race. | ||
| He taught generations of students in Guam and here in the United States as well. | ||
| And quite literally, he blazed trails across southwest Missouri. | ||
| Through the nonprofit that he co-founded, Volunteers for Outdoor Missouri, Robert led volunteers in building and maintaining hiking trails that thousands now enjoy, including the nature trail at Lake Springfield. | ||
| He believed in community, hard work, and the power of education to change lives. | ||
| Robert lived his life by a simple but powerful truth: it is a choice to have a good day. | ||
| And he made that choice every day, serving others with humility, humor, and heart. | ||
| To his wife Ann and the Crampton family, thank you for sharing Robert with us. | ||
| His legacy lives on in every step that we take down the paths that he forged. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, Gentlewoman is recognized. | ||
| I thank the Speaker for recognizing me to ask unanimous consent that additional extraneous materials be placed in the record the obituary of Mrs. Naumann. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Gentlewoman from Hawaii. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from Hawaii 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. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today in strong opposition to the Trump administration's abrupt, unjustified attempt to close Job Corps centers nationwide. | ||
| I've been to the Job Corps graduation on Maui. | ||
| I've looked into the eyes of students whose lives were changed. | ||
| I've walked the grounds of the Waimanalo campus, where young people, many of whom had nowhere else to turn, found a path to a good job and a better life. | ||
| These are not statistics. | ||
| These are real people, and they deserve better than to be abandoned by a system that was supposed to lift them up. | ||
| A mother in Hilo wrote to me and shared that no amount of mental health help was able to save her son. | ||
| Only JobCorp, she told me. | ||
| Please save my son. | ||
| Please help save JobCorps. | ||
| Today, I rise not just for policy, but for people. | ||
| Every young person in Hawaii and across this country just needs a chance. | ||
| We must not turn our backs on them now. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of Baldwin Park Police Officer Samuel Riveros, who lost his life in the line of duty while attempting to rescue a fellow officer. | ||
| Known for his infectious smile, love of the Dodgers, and snowboarding, Officer Riveros served in the Baldwin Park Police Department for over eight years and was a member of the SWAT team. | ||
| Officer Riveros' absence leaves a wake of grief that will only be tempered by time, never to subside. | ||
| However, amidst our sorrow, may we find solace in his courage, character, and the oath he kept until the end. | ||
| Officer Riveros' legacy as a hero will live on in the hearts and minds of the Baldwin Park community and the 31st Congressional District. | ||
| This devastating event also claimed the life of Darius Wong, a resident of Hacienda Heights and a beloved son, brother, husband, and father. | ||
| Both of these men should still be here, and it breaks my heart that their lives were cut so short from this disgusting act of cruelty. | ||
| Let us keep them and their families in our thoughts. | ||
| May they rest in peace. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New Jersey seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I request unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to arise and extend it. | |
| objection. | ||
| Gentlemen, recognize for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today because we are witnessing a tragic breakup between a Nazi saluting billionaire and the President of the United States. | ||
| Elon Musk has decided to call it quits after President Trump and Congressional Republicans moved to eliminate a tax credit that would have benefited Musk under the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill. | ||
| To be completely honest, I agree with both sides on this. | ||
| I agree that Trump should start to question Elon's federal contracts, and I agree with Musk that the Big, Beautiful Bill is an abomination. | ||
| I'm curious to see who my Republican colleagues will choose in this breakup, because unfortunately for them, they have pledged undying allegiance either directly or indirectly to both of these men. | ||
| They turned a blind eye as Musk was handed the keys to the government, enabling him to disable, or rather dismantle, probably both, programs everyday Americans depend on. | ||
| They stood by Trump through everything he's done, and now we'll see if that support falters. | ||
| The American people deserve much better than the drama playing out between these two men, and it's time my Republican colleagues recognize this. | ||
| And at long last, let's work together to focus on the real issues facing our beloved nation. | ||
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. | ||
| First of all, due to when I was pushed back to start this, my speech will go a little less than 10 minutes if anybody's planning around it. | ||
|
Press Attention Needed
00:09:27
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| I'd like to talk a little bit about the big bill that we just passed and some provisions that should be monitored as we work our way not only through the big reconciliation bill, but through the appropriation bills as well. | ||
| First of all, I think it's important that the public and the press corps pay attention to what becomes of the low-income housing tax credits in this bill. | ||
| I was currently brought to my attention, the low-income tax credits, when I attended part of a seminar in which the Speaker was bragging about how much money developers could make off these low-income housing tax credits. | ||
| The credits give a developer 10% of their value of their project over a nine-year period. | ||
| There's a time value of money, but even taking into account the time value of money, it means the government pays for 70% of the cost of a project. | ||
| If we felt there was a shortage of anything else in this society, we would never say the answer is to give a business 70% of the cost of their products so that they would produce more. | ||
| Then, in a related comment on the low-income tax credit, once you say the government is going to pay for 70% of these housing projects, it results in overspending on the part of the developer. | ||
| These projects have in California sometimes cost $800,000 or almost $900,000 per unit. | ||
| That's not the norm, but think of it. | ||
| The government pays somebody 70% of the cost of a building. | ||
| Is it surprising that these people don't put marble countertops in? | ||
| Is it even surprising that it costs $800,000 or $900,000 per unit? | ||
| How in the world, under any circumstances, in a budget in which the government is borrowing 26 percent of the amount of federal spending, could we, under any circumstances, allow this program to continue? | ||
| Nevertheless, it not only continues, but the House of Representatives, for some reason, decided to increase the amount of money in these credits. | ||
| I also think it encourages a little bit of questionable behavior there because, of course, there's always going to be more demand for these credits because so much money can be made off them. | ||
| And because there's so much demand, I think sometimes on a state level when they dole out these credits, the credits go to a politically favored class. | ||
| It obviously encourages developers to curry flavor with politicians who may directly or indirectly determine who gets these projects. | ||
| I hope our sleeping press corps pays attention as to what becomes of this program as it works its way through the process. | ||
| Right now, we are spending about $12.5 billion a year on low-income housing tax credits. | ||
| I want to point out that low-income is in the title, but well over half the people who live in these buildings are not sub to low-income qualifications. | ||
| And even if you are technically low-income, you could have unlimited assets as well. | ||
| So in any event, I really think in all my year in public life, the most questionable program I've ever come across is the low-income housing tax credit. | ||
| Politicians are, the press corps likes to run down politicians. | ||
| Here's something they ought to be run down for. | ||
| So I hope they pay a little more attention. | ||
| The next thing I'd like to point out is what the Republicans do with assault deduction. | ||
| There are a variety of changes in the tax code that we could make that would affect people's behavior. | ||
| Because tax rates are so high, any change in the tax code affects people's behavior. | ||
| Some people feel we ought to make reductions to encourage more research and development. | ||
| Other people feel that we ought to, I feel, we ought to increase the personal exemption to give a special benefit to people that have more children. | ||
| Some people just feel we should have an across-the-board cut and not influence one behavior or other. | ||
| But there is a small group of people in this building who apparently feel the number one problem we have is that state and local taxes are not high enough. | ||
| And they want to bring back a deduction for state and local taxes. | ||
| Now, right now we have a low deduction in there, so they're aiming things at not the poor or middle class. | ||
| They're really aiming things at the well-off people and encouraging governments like California and especially New York to raise their taxes. | ||
| I recently on the radio was listening to a guy who I believe is running for governor there, and he wants to raise the income tax in New York to 11 percent. | ||
| Well, it's not surprising then, I'm sure that people like this person who wants to dramatically increase the income tax taxes in New York would want those taxes to be tax deductible. | ||
| Why a Republican would want to do that, I'm not sure, but I think it's something we wanted to talk a little bit more about. | ||
| The next area that's going to be working its way that is affected indirectly by the Great Big Beautiful bill, but will be more directly impacted by the appropriation bills that follow is what happens with the Department of Defense. | ||
| Right now, we have close to 900,000 employees who are not uniformed in the Department of Defense, 900,000. | ||
| I think one of the great things DOGE did is exposed how hard or not hard some of those employees are working. | ||
| We will see what happens with the overall defense budget and whether Congress is willing to take the step forward and say maybe we don't need 900,000 employees in the Department of Defense who are non-uniformed. | ||
| The other thing in the Department of Defense we can look at is Pete Hedspith, who I think is going to be a great Secretary of Defense, has pointed out that he feels in today's world aircraft carriers are maybe not entirely obsolete, but are not as valuable as they were 30 years ago. | ||
| And that should be obvious from what happened over the weekend when Ukraine used drones to wipe out some aircraft thousands of miles away in the Soviet Union, showing that the nature of warfare is changing rapidly. | ||
| Our defense budget should change rapidly with it. | ||
| Mr. Hedsmith has said we're going to use less combat troops and we certainly need a lot less non-combat troops, but he has implied that he feels aircraft carriers are becoming a little bit obsolete. | ||
| We right now have 11 aircraft carriers. | ||
| We have three more under construction to replace the current aircraft carriers. | ||
| I think we have to protect our electric grid. | ||
| I think we have to protect ourselves against hypersonic missiles. | ||
| I think Israel is doing a good job at that. | ||
| But we have to prepare for the next war, not prepare to refight World War II. | ||
| And I think it's important for our press corps to publicize people who talk about the new type of munitions, the new type of armaments we're going to need in a new war. | ||
| And given that we are so entirely broke and that 26 percent of our budget is borrowed, we have to make sure now more than ever that our defense dollars are spent wisely and not on things that, to a certain extent, are a little bit outdated. | ||
| I hope the press covers this, covers as to whether we still need 11 aircraft carriers, and asks Pete Hedsmith if he still believes that they are overrated, because in today's world with hypersonic missiles and with drones, as the Russians found out, big stationary things, even temporary stationary things, are sitting ducks. | ||
| Looking at the clock here, I think I should probably not deal with my other issues. | ||
| So I will stop speaking. | ||
| I believe we have somebody else ready to go. | ||
|
Elon Musk's Unauthorized Impoundments
00:11:01
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| So thank you. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from California, Mr. Minn, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, thank you for the recognition to speak tonight. | ||
| Before I begin, I ask for unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to submit extraneous material into the record. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I rise today to speak about Elon Musk and the Department of Government efficiency or Doge and the deadly and devastating consequences of their illegal actions, which will reverberate long after they are gone. | ||
| And the theme of today's special order hour is that the musk is gone, but the stench remains. | ||
| Elon Musk supposedly has left federal government. | ||
| I just want to remind people that when President Trump issued his executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency or Doge and appointing Elon Musk in the role related to Doge, Doge was created as a temporary organization and Elon Musk was appointed as a special government employee. | ||
| And this was to avoid having any kind of Senate confirmation of either this congressional creation of the agency or any confirmation of Elon Musk. | ||
| And I want to remind folks that this entire time that Elon Musk was in office or as a federal employee, he was in fact exercising powers that were far greater than any special government employee would be allowed to have, exercising powers that would be at the highest levels of government, higher than an agency or department head, and in fact, exerting powers that even the president himself does not hold. | ||
| He violated the law every single day he was in Congress. | ||
| I'm sorry, he violated the law every single day he was a special government employee. | ||
| Doge employees continue to remain today. | ||
| So even though Elon Musk is gone, there are something like 100 or more Doge, special governmental employees and other employees scattered around the federal government that are in position to continue the wreckage that Elon Musk created. | ||
| Now, I know that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have created a lot of news with their cat fighting earlier today, but I just want to remind folks again that the damage Elon Musk did is going to take a long time to repair. | ||
| And what he did essentially was try to upend the Constitution. | ||
| Elon Musk, as a special government employee, purported to be able to undo acts of Congress to impound, illegally impound funds that Congress had appropriated to undo laws we had created to undo agencies we'd created. | ||
| And there's a long list of stuff that he did that Doge did, including illegally deleting or ending the Department of Education, ditto with the U.S. AID, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. | ||
| Importantly, most of these were institutions created through acts of Congress, funded with appropriations authorized by Congress. | ||
| And even my children know that the Constitution is clear on this point. | ||
| Congress and only Congress has the power to enact laws. | ||
| Congress and only Congress has the power to appropriate funds. | ||
| It's very clear in our Article I authorities. | ||
| And so the President does not have the authority to try to undo our laws or to impound funds that we've appropriated. | ||
| And certainly a special government employee like Elon Musk does not have that authority. | ||
| And so this was about a core tenet of the Constitution of the United States that every single one of us in Congress swears to support and defend when we take office. | ||
| And yet too many on the other side of the aisle during this entire time pretended like this wasn't happening, pretended like Elon Musk was not violating the law every single day. | ||
| So now he's apparently gone from the federal government. | ||
| But the immass amount of wreckage that he did during his time with Doge is something that we're going to have to analyze and understand because there's been a complete lack of oversight from Congress, including from the Oversight Committee that I sit on, over these past few months. | ||
| There have been reports that Elon Musk and Doge were given complete god-level access to the federal government's top systems, including private and sensitive data for all Americans, classified information, budget information, payment systems, etc. | ||
| From a conflict of interest standpoint, Elon Musk has vacuumed up many billions of dollars in federal contracts for his companies and enriched himself. | ||
| Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink have all profited under Musk's time as a federal employee. | ||
| At the same time, he went out of his way to kill several enforcement actions that were underway by different federal agencies against his businesses, allowing his companies and himself to evade oversight. | ||
| He was able to help place key personnel and agencies that now are looking to benefit his companies financially. | ||
| Going back to the data privacy point, Elon Musk and Doge have allegedly used Musk's AI chatbot, GROK, within federal agencies. | ||
| This model has likely been trained on non-public data by incompetent Doge workers, and Doge has also sought access to sensitive government data for millions and millions of Americans, likely violating the Privacy Act of 1974 repeatedly. | ||
| This is not just a matter of our information being out there, potentially being used by Musk's AI systems in violation of all laws. | ||
| It's also a major national security concern. | ||
| Bad actors will now have a much easier time siphoning off U.S. data due to the cybersecurity vulnerabilities that Elon Musk has created. | ||
| Now, earlier this morning, the Oversight Committee held a hearing on how artificial intelligence has been integrated into the federal government by Elon Musk and Doge. | ||
| Entrusting Doge with our personal data is not only a terrifying thought, but one that will have terrible consequences for Americans throughout the country. | ||
| Trying to automate the federal government through AI without a true plan or any data privacy safeguards, while firing ad hoc and haphazardly many of the technology support workers who understood those systems is going to have a massive negative impact on Americans. | ||
| And I see here that I have here with me a fellow member. | ||
| I'll concede in just a few moments. | ||
| But just wanted to continue by saying that many of my constituents right now are complaining about some of the effects we're already seeing from the haphazard and again illegal cuts to personnel made by Elon Musk and Doge, including many who are complaining now that they are having difficulty accessing their Social Security benefits because of the mass cuts in SSA. | ||
| These are real people that are not getting their benefits. | ||
| They can't get anyone on the phone when they try to call Social Security. | ||
| And the reality is that Elon Musk again illegally fired a bunch of workers even though he had no such authority to do so. | ||
| And again, I want to emphasize that this body, Congress, has refused to engage in any oversight to date over Elon Musk. | ||
| And the only reason that we may be about to do some right now is because Elon Musk apparently is in a tit-for-tat with Donald Trump. | ||
| And so I suspect some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will finally wake up to some of the wrongdoing, some of the illegal actions that Elon Musk has been engaged in since January 20th. | ||
| I also want to point out that this has never been about waste, fraud, and abuse, certainly never been about efficiency. | ||
| You don't eliminate entire agencies and departments as Elon Musk has done. | ||
| You don't get rid of 50% of the personnel at Social Security or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency if you're simply trying to improve efficiency and get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| This was always about finding enough cuts to try to partially pay for the massive $7 trillion tax cut for billionaires that House Republicans and Donald Trump and Senate Republicans want to pass right now. | ||
| That is what this is about. | ||
| And so there was a slash and burn attitude to firing many thousands of federal employees. | ||
| Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have attempted, they've attempted to fire, including those at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Labor, and other critical agencies. | ||
| And we've seen this firing be so haphazard that they've had to hire some of them back, including the decision to fire all the National Nuclear Security Administration personnel responsible for overseeing our U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and then having to rehire them once they'd realized who they'd actually fired. | ||
| Firing key scientists, pandemic experts as well, and repeatedly miscalculating and misrepresenting the savings that Doge cuts had made to our budget. | ||
| They've also made the federal government much more bureaucratic and less efficient. | ||
| I have a burgeoning life sciences industry in my district, lots of companies doing medical devices, innovative drugs, and they have all reported to me that they're deeply concerned about the massive cuts to the Federal Drug Administration, or Food and Drug Administration, because those cuts mean that they can't get anyone on the phone, they can't find people to try to prove their drugs and devices, and that this has created additional red tape and hurdles that have just made it very difficult. | ||
| A lot of uncertainty right now. | ||
| And these are companies that, again, are creating thousands and thousands of jobs, providing billions of dollars in collective impact to the Southern California area. | ||
| And we're seeing this story writ large across the board right now. | ||
| With that, I want to yield. | ||
| I guess I will not yield just yet to my colleague, but I want to talk some more about the enormity of Doge's illegal cuts as well as how they fared in the legal system. | ||
| Since Doge was stood up by President Trump and Elon Musk, it has cut something like $6.5 billion for the U.S. Agency for International Development, $502 million for the Department of Education, $232 million from the Social Security Administration, $192 million from the General Services Administration, $173 million from the Department of Agriculture, $152 million from the Department of Health and Human Services, | ||
| $133 million from the Department of Transportation, $119 million from the Department of Commerce. | ||
| Now, again, these were not, we didn't have any transparency into what these cuts were justified on, what they were meant to do. | ||
| These were in addition to the attempts to shutter USAID, the Department of Education, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and many other critical agencies, departments, and programs. | ||
| And I will note that the courts have continued to find that these cuts were, by and large, illegal. | ||
| That Elon Musk did not have any authority to undo acts of Congress. | ||
|
Last Several Days Drama
00:15:46
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| That Congress and only Congress can shut down agencies that we've created. | ||
| Congress and only Congress can defund agencies from funds that we had previously appropriated. | ||
| But with that, I see my colleague, Congresswoman Stansbury, here, and so I will yield to the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, Ms. Stansberry. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, I want to say thank you to Mr. Minn for convening this special order hour. | ||
| And as we're getting set up here, I know that we've got a poster that we want to get up here. | ||
| So let me just start out. | ||
| Do we have a poster here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Mr. Speaker, breakups are hard. | |
| They're really, really hard. | ||
| And, you know, they're especially hard when they play out in the public eye. | ||
| And I think anyone would understand that who is online right now and watching the very public breakup of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. | ||
| I mean, if you've watched over the last several days, it's really been an epic breakup for the ages. | ||
| In fact, I think it's fit for the real housewives if you've been watching what's unfolded, even just in the last several hours. | ||
| In fact, just a couple of hours ago, Elon Musk affirmed a statement about actually impeaching the president. | ||
| I mean, who would have thought that we'd end up here? | ||
| Because literally less than a week ago, they were having a bromance in the Oval Office. | ||
| So it's really just incredible to think about what's happened over the last 72 hours when you think about it. | ||
| But I think it's important to understand. | ||
| I mean, you know, Donald Trump is in office as the most powerful human on planet Earth as the President of the United States. | ||
| And rather than thinking about balancing the budget, addressing economic free fall, trying to figure out what to do with our foreign adversaries, how to help you, the American people, engaging on the debate on how to save health care for millions of Americans or making sure our children are fed in the United States and across the world. | ||
| Instead, he's been so embroiled in the breakup of his bromance with Elon Musk, they've been going hard at each other all day long. | ||
| So I wanted to take this opportunity while we had it, honestly, to share the tea with all of you. | ||
| Because I think, I mean, we all kind of knew this was coming, right? | ||
| I mean, we've kind of seen the signs for the last few days, especially the last few weeks. | ||
| But I don't think that many of us thought it would come in such a dramatic form. | ||
| So I want to kind of break down and put in the congressional record what's actually transpired over the last 72 hours. | ||
| Now, I think many of us were shocked when we saw just a couple of days ago, when on Tuesday at 1.30, Elon Musk tweeted the following. | ||
| He said, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. | ||
| This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. | ||
| Shame on those of you who voted for it. | ||
| You know you did wrong. | ||
| You know it. | ||
| I mean, really, we were quite shocked. | ||
| I mean, let's be clear, all 215 Democrats have been saying this for weeks, but obviously, things really boiled over for Mr. Musk on Tuesday. | ||
| Then, just a few minutes later, he followed up with another shot at Donald Trump where he says, it will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to 2.5 trillion, exclamation point, and burden America's citizens with crushing, unsustainable debt. | ||
| He went on in the following hours to literally accuse Republicans of making Americans debt slaves. | ||
| I mean, this is actually what's been unfolding on the internet for the last several days. | ||
| But this bromance is so messy, you guys. | ||
| Like, this breakup is messy as all hell. | ||
| Let me tell you. | ||
| So, okay, y'all know that Thomas Massey, who is a true fiscal conservative, who is pretty much the only Republican in this chamber who stands by his convictions and is not willing to sell out his soul for politics and power, voted against this bill because he read the CBO report and he was not going to go and toll the line for the Republican Party. | ||
| He knew that Speaker Johnson was not telling the truth about deficit spending. | ||
| He knew that Donald Trump and his sales pitch was not selling the truth. | ||
| He knew it was going to cost $2.5 trillion at least, at least. | ||
| We don't even know what the final cost is going to be. | ||
| But this love triangle got even messier because both Thomas Massey and Senator Ram Paul got in on the mess here. | ||
| So we have Thomas Massey here, retweeted Elon Musk, and he says, he's right. | ||
| And we saw just around that same timeframe, Senator Ram Paul also got involved. | ||
| But then, oh my gosh, well, Elon Musk, in a fit of passion, I'm sure, I mean, he dialed it up even further. | ||
| And he said later in the day here, it looks like it was about 3.32 p.m. on X, it looks like Elon Musk was retweeting what other people were saying about his attacks on the president and this big abomination of a bill. | ||
| And Elon Musk says, in November of next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people. | ||
| I mean, you guys, we cannot make this up. | ||
| This is like the real tea that is going on on the internet. | ||
| So, you know, Elon Musk, he dumped almost $300 million on Donald Trump's election. | ||
| And he even weighed in and was like, yo, bro, you wouldn't even be president and wouldn't have the majority if I hadn't dropped all my dollars on you. | ||
| And then Elon Musk, we were actually, this was yesterday afternoon because this went on all night, right? | ||
| Like we were all watching it unfold in real time. | ||
| And even just a couple hours ago here on this floor, we were all like glued to our phones. | ||
| We're like, oh man, this lovers quarrel is getting messy. | ||
| And Elon Musk around 2.50 p.m. yesterday afternoon, we were in the Doge subcommittee when it happened. | ||
| He tweeted this. | ||
| Elon Musk tweets, call your senator, call your congressman. | ||
| Bankrupting America is all caps not okay. | ||
| Kill the bill. | ||
| And, you know, I appreciate I'm a 90s kid. | ||
| He also tweeted a picture of Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino reference. | ||
| You know, we all know where you're coming from, Elon. | ||
| Now, I want to be clear. | ||
| I'm not a fan. | ||
| I think we all know that. | ||
| We've tried to subpoena you several times to come testify in front of the oversight committee. | ||
| You've been giving yourself billions of dollars in contracts. | ||
| You've been stealing American data. | ||
| You've been breaking the law with impunity. | ||
| You know, a couple of people asked me earlier how I felt about what was going on in this lovers quarrel. | ||
| And I'm like, you know what? | ||
| Like, you get mixed up with messy people. | ||
| You get a messy outcome. | ||
| And it's very clear that that's exactly what's going on. | ||
| Now, I think we've all been hearing the rumors here in Washington, the breakup rumors. | ||
| In fact, I think many of us, even on this floor, on both the Democratic and the Republican side, have heard the rumors that Donald Trump was getting frustrated with Elon, that he wanted to be on the helicopter all the time. | ||
| And, you know, he was like following him around, going to Mar-a-Lago, and showing up to these cabinet meetings and throwing all his money around and all that stuff. | ||
| And in fact, in response to all the drama, Donald Trump fired back on True Social. | ||
| Elon was wearing thin. | ||
| I asked him to leave. | ||
| I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted, that he knew for months I was going to do. | ||
| Exclamation point. | ||
| And he just went, all caps crazy. | ||
| I mean, you guys, this is getting out of hand. | ||
| This is really, really, really getting out of hand. | ||
| So then Donald Trump, I mean, really this is just the tip of the iceberg because what else does like the leader of the free world have to do all day? | ||
| I mean, he could try to end wars in the Middle East. | ||
| He could try to negotiate peace deals in Europe. | ||
| Oh, wait, no, actually, he's cutting funding for NATO. | ||
| Sorry, I forgot about that. | ||
| But in fact, he just spent his entire day attacking his aggrieved lover. | ||
| So Donald Trump, let's see here. | ||
| This is June 5th, 237 on True Social says, the easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. | ||
| I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it. | ||
| I mean, you know, there's not a lot that Mr. Trump and I agree on, but I mean, I'm totally with you, Mr. President. | ||
| If you want to go after Elon Musk's contracts, like, we are here for the fight, bro. | ||
| Like, give me a ring, like, for real. | ||
| We can get this across the finish line. | ||
| Because, I mean, obviously, I know you guys were feeling like the feelings for the first 130 days. | ||
| And, you know, there's always like a honeymoon period, especially after like you go through a big thing together, like an election. | ||
| And I know he helped you win your election, but obviously now the honeymoon is worn off. | ||
| But I mean, if you really want to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, I mean, even Donald Trump is saying it, you guys. | ||
| I mean, Donald Trump, apparently, even this week asked his own staff if the entire Doge effort was bullshit. | ||
| And I'm not trying, I know we're on the floor of the House of Representatives. | ||
| So to all of you monitoring, that's a direct quote of the President of the United States. | ||
| Let me just be clear on that. | ||
| But yeah, I mean, obviously Donald Trump, I mean, these guys know a lot about each other. | ||
| They've spent a lot, a lot of time with each other over the last few months. | ||
| So, I mean, they actually know what's going on. | ||
| But the battle continued today. | ||
| You know, in response to Donald Trump's comments about Elon wearing thin, someone, the autism capital account, I don't know quite what that is, says, Trump fires back at Elon. | ||
| The online battle begins. | ||
| Popcorn emoji. | ||
| And Elon Musk says, such an obvious lie. | ||
| So sad. | ||
| I mean, we're all sad, right? | ||
| Like, it's always sad when a relationship ends. | ||
| But I think, like, this is when things really got heated. | ||
| And this is why things are really hard when you're having a breakup and there's like a love triangle with the GOP, these guys over here. | ||
| I mean, there's nobody here anymore, just in case you're wondering. | ||
| No Republicans except for the acting pro tem here. | ||
| But I mean, like, the thing that's so crazy, right? | ||
| Like, we all get wrapped up in our friends and their relationships. | ||
| And the Republicans were like, okay, Mr. Trump, like, Elon's obviously your bestie, and he spent all this money, so we'll go along with it, even though apparently the cabinet and Republicans were really unhappy about it. | ||
| And they're like, okay, fine. | ||
| But then, like, we're going scorched earth here now. | ||
| And it was, it was actually really interesting to me earlier here on the House floor because I was like, well, how are Republicans dealing with it? | ||
| I've never, honestly, I haven't seen you guys cheerful in quite a few months. | ||
| So clearly something's about to happen. | ||
| So Elon Musk at where are we at here on the time frame here? | ||
| This was actually shortly before I came to the floor this afternoon. | ||
| Tweets, time to drop the really big bomb at Donald Real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. | ||
| That is the real reason they have not been made public. | ||
| And then he says cheerfully, have a nice day, Donald Trump. | ||
| I mean, we all know what happens in breakups. | ||
| But obviously, like you guys, they got the T on each other. | ||
| And this is like a no-holds bar breakup fight happening right now. | ||
| But finally, like this was like the mic drop of all mic drops. | ||
| Just as I was walking onto the floor this afternoon, Elon Musk tweets, yes, in response to some other person who I don't know who tweeted, President versus Elon, who wins, Trump should be impeached. | ||
| Now, we've all been through really hard breakups, but I don't know if you guys remember, but like 140 days ago or so, like it was a love fest. | ||
| They were here in the Capitol. | ||
| It was so good. | ||
| Elon Musk was like, yo, President, I'm going to like save the government from debt slavery, which is his words, and the deficit. | ||
| And like these bros were on the helicopter every day. | ||
| They're going down to Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| And now Elon Musk is calling for the freaking impeachment of Donald Trump, you guys. | ||
| I mean, that is some serious, serious business. | ||
| So what does this all mean in reality? | ||
| I mean, it's happening in real time. | ||
| I haven't even checked my phone since I started this conversation. | ||
| There might be more drama going down just since we started this very conversation on the floor. | ||
| But the reality of the situation is y'all both got what you paid for. | ||
| Mr. Musk, you spent almost $300 million in dark money to pay for your friend, Mr. Trump, to become the president and to win this Republican majority who is trying to send our country into the largest deficit spend in American history. | ||
| And Mr. Trump, I mean, this is what happens when you sell your soul. | ||
|
Opposing Wealth and Immorality
00:07:01
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| I mean, you see what happens. | ||
| So I have a lot of love in my heart for people who are going through hard times. | ||
| And I know that, you know, both you guys are having a hard time. | ||
| But I just have to say, for the sake of democracy, for the sake of the American people, and frankly, for the global security and safety of people all over the planet, y'all need to cut this drama out. | ||
| I mean, we need to take care of our people. | ||
| So I'm with Musk on this one. | ||
| I don't mean to take sides, Mr. President, but I'm going to say it. | ||
| Kill the bill. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Congresswoman Stansbury. | ||
| I appreciate your comments. | ||
| And it has indeed been a messy day. | ||
| I think that prices are getting too high at this moment in time. | ||
| But Elon Musk is, I believe, really inflating the price of popcorn right now. | ||
| And that's something that is going to affect my household. | ||
| I wanted to continue back to Elon Musk, because whatever side you take in this debate, we cannot forget that Elon Musk, again, repeatedly violated the law, made illegal spending cuts, tried to eliminate agencies created by Congress. | ||
| This was not jaywalking. | ||
| We're talking about serious crimes against the Constitution of the United States. | ||
| And his actions were characterized not only by their illegality, but also by their immorality and incompetence. | ||
| The three eyes and the immorality we saw as you continue to cut programs that were meant to help our poorest and most vulnerable. | ||
| I'll call it Social Security, which is a lifeline program for all the seniors around the country, including the ones in the district I represent, called it a Ponzi scheme and cut so much of the workforce that, again, I've had many constituents now complaining they can't get access to their benefits. | ||
| They can't get anyone on the phone when there's been a mistake. | ||
| This seems like deliberate in its scope, and they've been incompetent. | ||
| I mentioned some of the things they've done as far as firing the nuclear inspectors, miscalculating Doge's savings, granting a Doge staffer access to edit sensitive treasury systems, prompting an internal forensic investigation, gutting the CFPB only to unsuspend staffers and uncancel contracts after it became apparent that CFPB could no longer perform its legally mandated functions, | ||
| inadvertently canceling funding for Ebola prevention, uncanceling lease terminations after agency and congressional pushback. | ||
| This could go on and on and on. | ||
| But the point here is that this, again, was never about efficiency. | ||
| It was never about finding waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| That was always the big lie. | ||
| What Elon Musk was trying to do was reshape government illegally against the express will of Congress. | ||
| And unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle failed to stand up to this abuse of law, this direct attack on our Constitution and our authorities. | ||
| The courts, thankfully, have stepped up. | ||
| And right now, the Trump administration and Doge are embroiled in over 252 lawsuits. | ||
| They have lost almost all of these at various stages at the district court and appellate level, including several in the Supreme Court. | ||
| And they're continuing trying to appeal to appeal. | ||
| But even as this has happened, many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, rather than stand up for Congress's authorities under the Constitution, they have tried to go after judges. | ||
| They have threatened judges, tried to take away some of their authority. | ||
| And we saw that most recently in the Big Beautiful Bill, which I think Republicans are now realizing was actually a monstrosity, a Frankenstein-level monstrosity of extreme provisions that many of them did not realize were in there, such as the one in that bill that would effectively neuter the judiciary's power to hold any administration official in contempt. | ||
| This provision is a little wonky, but in essence, it prohibits federal courts from enforcing contempt citations which a judge can issue for non-compliance of a court order. | ||
| Now, what this would do is effectively shield the Trump administration from wrongdoing, that no judge could enforce any penalties against the Trump administration for failing to respond to court orders for failing to obey the Constitution or the law. | ||
| And what is concerning about this is that we have found an increasing number of Republicans who are publicly admitting now they didn't realize that this provision was in the quote big beautiful bill that they passed. | ||
| And of course, we all remember just a couple weeks back, this bill was pushed through in the dark of night after 1 a.m. | ||
| And it was clear that it was rushed through so quickly that most of our colleagues did not have time to read it, did not understand what was in it, did not have time to have their staffs review what was in it. | ||
| This was an unconscionable process that is leading to outrageous results. | ||
| We're also seeing other examples of provisions that my Republican colleagues were not aware was in the bill. | ||
| Just earlier this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I serve with on the Oversight Committee, noted that she did not realize that there was a 10-year moratorium on AI regulations created as part of this big beautiful bill and said explicitly that she would oppose it. | ||
| Well, she had a chance to oppose it when the bill was on the floor, but didn't read it. | ||
| I would suggest to my Republican colleagues that maybe reading the bills that we are passing is a good idea before you decide to vote for them, particularly when you are rushing it through on a partisan line vote. | ||
| Now look, I come from a legal background. | ||
| I started my career turning down Wall Street to go work at the SEC to crack down on corporate fraud, to uphold the rule of law. | ||
| I've continued fighting for the rule of law my whole career, including as a law professor at UC Irvine. | ||
| And what we are seeing right now is deeply offensive to the rule of law. | ||
| That what we saw this last election cycle was Elon Musk spending $290 million on behalf of Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. | ||
| $290 million. | ||
| A lot of money. | ||
| But that has paid off very well. | ||
| Very good return on investment for Elon Musk because his wealth has gone up $100 billion with a B since he took office. | ||
| Despite all the disasters we've seen, despite the massively declining sales of Tesla, his net wealth has gone way the hell up. | ||
| And that's because he uniquely, even as other spending gets cut, willy-nilly, because a 21-year-old coder named Big Balls decides to delete a line of code, Elon Musk is getting massive new government contracts, including an $8.5 billion contract for Tesla from the GSA for electric vehicles, a $2.4 billion contract for Spacelink, which was originally meant for Verizon but which was canceled and mysteriously then transferred over to SpaceX, | ||
|
Enforcing the Rule of Law
00:05:43
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| which happens to be conveniently owned by Elon Musk, and on and on and on. | ||
| Now this looks like a quid pro quo. | ||
| This looks like something that should not be allowed to exist, particularly when you have a man who is repeatedly, flagrantly, and knowingly violating the law every single day, upending the Constitution. | ||
| And the damage to this country that we're going to see over the next several decades from that we're seeing already happen right now is going to be devastating. | ||
| Just earlier last week, I had a town hall at UC Irvine, which I represent. | ||
| And as many people around the country are beginning to realize, a lot of what's happening right now is threatening our economic present but also our economic future. | ||
| The massive cuts to science and research funding for universities has long been, which have long been the basis for our innovation economy. | ||
| Whether in California, Boston, Atlanta, around the country, we know that high-end research creates jobs. | ||
| It leads to innovations, that leads to new companies. | ||
| It's what has made America great over time. | ||
| And yet right now, those cuts are massive. | ||
| Right now we have seen NSA, NIH, and other agencies in the Trump administration illegally refuse to spend and allocate research funding that Congress has appropriated. | ||
| That in turn has led already to the firing of many grad students of programs, innovations. | ||
| But also concerningly, we are starting to see the compounding effects of the attacks on legal immigrants here, people here on student visas. | ||
| Now you may recall that just a few weeks back, the Trump administration announced that they would be rounding up a whole posse of students who had minor run-ins with the law. | ||
| In California, in the University of California system alone, there were something like 165 students here on valid student visas who had been arrested with no due process, put into deportation proceedings. | ||
| In one case, it was because they ran a stop sign. | ||
| In another case, it was because they were in a domestic dispute. | ||
| Their partner called the police. | ||
| When the police arrived, they actually found that the immigrant, the person here on student visa, was not the abuser, but actually probably had been abused. | ||
| They decided to not proceed with this. | ||
| But because there was a police report, even one that falsely accused this immigrant, that immigrant was put into deportation proceedings. | ||
| Now, the Trump administration did reverse that policy after a public outcry, but we've seen foreign students, the best and brightest, that have traditionally come to this country to places like Harvard and MIT and UC, San Francisco and Stanford. | ||
| They are not coming here. | ||
| They are going to other countries right now. | ||
| And that accumulated effect is draining our future right now. | ||
| We are talking about entire industries predicated on technology, on research, on life sciences that we expect to see massive declines in in 10, 15, 20 years. | ||
| We are robbing our future right now. | ||
| And for what, I don't know, to give Elon Musk a little bit more. | ||
| So the damage is going to be incalculable across the board. | ||
| But I think the biggest damage that we're going to see is to our public's trust in our institutions. | ||
| Right now, we're seeing corruption on a scale we have never seen before in the history of this country. | ||
| A $400 million Qatari gift of a palace in the sky to Donald Trump was just the thing that made the news. | ||
| But meanwhile, he's having dinners with massive donors who are giving billions and billions of dollars to his meme coin. | ||
| We're seeing bribes happen across the board. | ||
| We're seeing emoluments over and over and over to the president and his family. | ||
| And yes, we're seeing Elon Musk getting a ransom from the federal government as far as new contracts that has personally benefited him to no end. | ||
| We have to start enforcing the rule of law in this country. | ||
| As someone who has always believed in the rule of law, who stood closely side by side with our law enforcement officers, with our prosecutors, with those who are trying to uphold the rule of law in this country and the Constitution, I would urge my colleagues on the other side of the room to start thinking about that oath that we took when we took this office to support and defend the Constitution. | ||
| Those are not just words. | ||
| They are the foundation of what it means to serve in Congress, of what it means to serve in the federal government, of what it means to be a patriotic American if you are not enforcing the Constitution of the United States, if you are not enforcing the rule of law and standing up for the authorities of Congress, which is a co-equal branch of government, not a lackey of the President, what do we stand for? | ||
| What are we doing here? | ||
| I know that many of my colleagues on the other side are scared of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, frankly, too. | ||
| But that should be no excuse for standing up and doing what is right. | ||
| And we have to stand up and have an accounting of all the damage that Elon Musk did during his time at Doge, again, as a special government employee who never disclosed his conflicts of interest, who illegally exerted authority that SGE should never have, that the President of the United States does not have. | ||
| We need a real accounting of what happened, the damage that has been done, as well as all of the laws and constitutional provisions that he and every other member of Doge has done. | ||
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One Table, Two Leaders, One Goal
00:02:58
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| This is the time to do it. | ||
| I would urge my colleagues to actually start stepping up for the Constitution. | ||
| And with that, I would yield the rest of my time. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And with that, I would also move that the House adjourn. | ||
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President and to direct their remarks to the Chair and not to the perceived viewing audience. | ||
| The question is on the motion to adjourn. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
|
unidentified
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Aye. | |
| Aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
|
unidentified
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The ayes have it. | |
| The motion is adopted. | ||
| Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until 9 a.m. tomorrow. | ||
|
unidentified
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Today, House lawmakers worked on two 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. | ||
| You can watch a live coverage of the House when lawmakers return here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Yesterday, Democratic candidates for New York City mayor participated in the first debate before their party's primary later this month. | ||
| Nine candidates, including former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Progressive State Assemblyman Zorhan Mamdani, and city controller Brad Lander, all took the debate stage. | ||
| Watch the debate tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity, this fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins in a town where partisan fighting prevails. | ||
| One table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. | ||
| This fall, ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides, only 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, building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. | ||
|
Germany's Defense Mandate
00:13:47
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|
unidentified
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Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | |
| Coming up, remarks by President Trump and German Chancellor Frederick Mertz from the Oval Office. | ||
| They answer reporters' questions on a range of topics, including the Russia-Ukraine war, President Trump's phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Elon Musk's criticism of a GOP tax and spending cuts bill. | ||
| This is about 45 minutes. | ||
| So to let you know, this is the birth certificate of Donald Trump's grandfather, born in 1869, close to Pat Gurkheim, right? | ||
| That's called his Christian name was Fridlich, right? | ||
| That's serious Germany. | ||
| Serious journalist. | ||
|
unidentified
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Serious German. | |
| But I want to thank you very much for, first of all, I want to thank you for that. | ||
| That's beautiful. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you again. | |
| Fantastic. | ||
| We'll put it up in a place of honor. | ||
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unidentified
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I don't know. | |
| Maybe we can, let's see. | ||
| We have to put it up there someplace. | ||
| It's an honor to have you. | ||
| As you know, the Chancellor just won a great election, very, very strong election. | ||
| Very respected man. | ||
| I can tell you, we've been on the phone many times talking about some of the problems of the world outside of Germany. | ||
| And it's very sad what's going on. | ||
| We both feel that way. | ||
| What's going on with Russia, Ukraine, and other things we talk about, but Russia-Ukraine in particular. | ||
| I'd like to see it end and maybe it'll end. | ||
| But we get some news, there'll be some fighting. | ||
| Something happened a couple of days ago, and now they do a return, and you know, here it goes. | ||
| It's not good. | ||
| He's unhappy about it. | ||
| I'm unhappy about it. | ||
| But I think eventually we're going to be successful in stopping the bloodshed. | ||
| It's pure bloodshed. | ||
| 5,000, 6,000 young soldiers a week are being killed. | ||
| You know, there's numbers. | ||
| We know the numbers. | ||
| They're staggering, the staggering numbers. | ||
| But Chancellor, I just want to congratulate you and I want to welcome you to the Oval Office. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's an Oval Office that's in very good shape. | ||
| We like fixing things up and having them tippy-top like they have in Germany. | ||
| They do that in Germany very much. | ||
| And we do it here. | ||
| We're having a very good run. | ||
| I also had a great election, great win, won everything. | ||
| Won the popular vote, all seven swing states, which is a big deal. | ||
| It's pretty unusual to do that. | ||
| And we have a great mandate from the people. | ||
| And part of our mandate is we're going to have a great relationship with your country. | ||
| So I just want to thank you very much for being here. | ||
| And if you'd like to say a few words. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So thank you, first of all, Mr. President, for your kind invitation to come to Washington, D.C. | ||
| I was in this building the first time ever in 1982. | ||
| I told you when former President Ronald Reagan was in office. | ||
| So I'm very happy to be here again and to offer our close cooperation with the United States of America. | ||
| We are having so much in common, our history. | ||
| We owe the Americans a lot. | ||
| We will never forget about that. | ||
| And so with your German provenance, I think this is a very good basis for close cooperation between America and Germany. | ||
| So again, thank you. | ||
| Thank you for the hospitality and thank you for having your guest house for a night. | ||
| This is a great place. | ||
| Great place. | ||
| Many thanks for that. | ||
| I really enjoyed it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's a wonderful place. | ||
| It's a landmark also. | ||
| And Blair House is a nice place to stay. | ||
| Thank you very much for saying that. | ||
| Would you have any questions, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, on your new travel ban, why now? | |
| And if the boulder attack was part of your reasoning, why not include Egypt on that list where the suspect is from? | ||
| Well, because Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. | ||
| They have things under control. | ||
| The countries that we have don't have things under control. | ||
| And why now? | ||
| I can say that it can't come soon enough, frankly. | ||
| We want to keep bad people out of our country. | ||
| The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people, and we're getting them out one by one. | ||
| We're not stopping until we get them out. | ||
| We have thousands of murderers. | ||
| I even hate to say this in front of the Chancellor. | ||
| Of course, you have a little problem, too, with some of the people that were allowed in this country. | ||
| It's not your fault. | ||
| It's not your fault. | ||
| It shouldn't have happened. | ||
| I told her it shouldn't have happened what she did. | ||
| But you have your own difficulty with that. | ||
| And we do, and we're moving them out, and we're moving them out very strongly. | ||
| But it can't come fast enough. | ||
| We want to get them out. | ||
| We want to get them out now. | ||
| We don't want to have other bad people coming into our country. | ||
| But using the word bad, I'm being nice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, you put out on Truth Social a post regarding your conversation with President Xi. | |
| Can you talk about whether or not you feel that trade talks, trade relations are back on track after appearing to be a little bit off track last week? | ||
| A little bit off track. | ||
| It was only the complexity. | ||
| It's pretty complex stuff. | ||
| We had a very good conversation with President Xi a little while ago, just before your arrival. | ||
| In fact, we just hung up and they said, you're here. | ||
| I said, that's pretty good. | ||
| Two great leaders of the world in a very short period of time. | ||
| We had a very good talk, and we've straightened out any complexity. | ||
| It's very complex stuff, and we straighten it out. | ||
| The agreement was we're going to have Scott and Howard and Jamieson will be going and meeting with their top people and continue it forward. | ||
| But no, I think we have everything. | ||
| I think we're in very good shape with China and the trade deal. | ||
| We have a deal with China, as you know, but we were straightening out some of the points, having to do mostly with rare earth magnets and some other things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those reduced trade tariff rates, they remain in effect? | |
| We have the deal. | ||
| I mean, we've had a deal. | ||
| We announced the deal. | ||
| And we'll be, I guess you could say, I wouldn't even say finalizing it up, Scott. | ||
| I would say we have a deal, and we're going to just make sure that everybody understands what the deal is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| We had a really good conversation. | ||
| By the way, he invited me to China and I invited him here. | ||
| We've both accepted. | ||
| So I'll be going there with the First Lady at a certain point and he'll be coming here hopefully with the First Lady of China. | ||
| What do you expect from Germany? | ||
| Did you talk about the Chinese students? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you allowing them to come to the US? | |
| Chinese students are coming. | ||
| No problem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No problem. | |
| It's our honor to have them, frankly. | ||
| Look, we want to have foreign students, but we want them to be checked. | ||
| You know, in the case of Harvard and Colombia and others, all we want to do is see their list. | ||
| There's no problem with that. | ||
| This is anybody outside of our country, international students. | ||
| Because when we see some of the people that we've been watching, we say, where do these people come from? | ||
| How is that possible? | ||
| No, we want to have foreign students come. | ||
| We're very honored by it, but we want to see their list. | ||
| Harvard didn't want to give us the list. | ||
| They're going to be giving us the list now. | ||
| I think they're starting to behave, actually, if you want to know the truth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On Russia, are you willing to put more pressure on Putin to end the war by imposing new sanctions on Russia and also on China? | |
| Well, remember, I'm the one that ended Nord Stream 2. | ||
| Going to a place called Germany, come to think of it. | ||
| I'm sorry I did that. | ||
| But I ended Nord Stream 2. | ||
| Nobody else did. | ||
| And then when Biden came in, he immediately approved it. | ||
| That's the largest, essentially the largest pipeline in the world, going to Germany and other countries. | ||
| And by the way, we have so much oil and gas, you will not be able to buy it all. | ||
| I mean, you literally, we have so much, and I hope we're going to make that a part of our trade deal because we have more than anybody else. | ||
| We have actually the most, by far in the world, probably double what anyone else has. | ||
| So we'll work on that. | ||
| I'm sure that's something we'll discuss today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, what do you expect from Germany and what do you expect from the Chancellor? | |
| Well, first of all, I'm glad to meet because I've been dealing with the Chancellor and he's a very good man to deal with. | ||
| He's difficult, I would say. | ||
| Can I say that? | ||
| It's so positive. | ||
| You wouldn't want me to say you're easy, right? | ||
| He's a very great representative of Germany. | ||
| I think all we want is just going to have a good relationship. | ||
| The rest will just sort of follow very easily. | ||
| We'll have a good trade deal. | ||
| I mean, I guess that will be mostly determined by the European Union, but you're a very big part of that. | ||
| So you'll be involved. | ||
| But we'll end up hopefully with a trade deal or we'll do something. | ||
| We'll do the tariffs. | ||
| I mean, I'm okay with the tariffs, or we make a deal with the trade, and I guess that's what we're discussing now. | ||
| Please go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, is Germany doing enough on defense, Mr. President? | |
| Is Germany doing enough on defense? | ||
| Defense spending. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is Germany doing enough on defense? | |
| The Chancellor wants to spend enough on the street. | ||
| I want to spend 3.5? | ||
| Well, I don't know. | ||
| I mean, I haven't discussed it very much. | ||
| I know that you're spending more money on defense now and quite a bit more money. | ||
| That's a positive thing. | ||
| I'm not sure that General MacArthur would have said it's positive. | ||
| He wouldn't like it, but I sort of think it's good. | ||
| You understand what I mean by that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I totally understand. | |
| He made a statement, never let Germany rearm. | ||
| And I said, I always think about that when he says, sir, we're spending more money on defense. | ||
| They say, ooh, is that a good thing or a bad thing? | ||
| I think it's a good thing. | ||
| But, you know, at least to a certain point, there'll be a point when I'll say, please don't arm anymore if you don't mind. | ||
| We'll be watching that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President Biden, Mr. President? | |
| Yeah, Biden. | ||
| Your predecessor dismissed your AutoCAD investigation. | ||
| He said he made all the decisions during his presidency. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm curious the reaction to his dismissal. | |
| Well, look, the AutoPen, I think, is the big scandal outside of the rigged election of 2020. | ||
| I think the biggest scandal of the last many years is the AutoPen. | ||
| And who's using it? | ||
| I happen to think I know, okay, because I'm here. | ||
| And I'm not a big AutoPen person, fortunately. | ||
| I'm glad. | ||
| I'm very glad. | ||
| It's an easy way out. | ||
| But it's a very bad thing, very dangerous. | ||
| You know, I sign important documents. | ||
| Usually when they put documents in front of you, they're important. | ||
| Even if you're signing ambassadorships or any consider that important, I think it's inappropriate. | ||
| You have somebody that's devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador. | ||
| I think you really deserve, that person deserves to get a real signature, not an AutoPen signature. | ||
| And I can tell AutoPen easily. | ||
| I can look at it like two little pinholes from pulling the paper, right? | ||
| You only see the pinholes. | ||
| It's real easy to tell about Autopen. | ||
| I think it's very disrespectful to people when they get an AutoPen signature. | ||
| Outside, AutoPen to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country and you want to get them back. | ||
| And, you know, people use AutoPens for that. | ||
| To send a little signature at the bottom of a letter, where you have thousands of them. | ||
| We get thousands of letters a week. | ||
| And it's not possible to, you know, do, I'd like to do it myself, but you can't do it. | ||
| To me, that's where AutoPens start and stop. | ||
| But I don't think, I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things. | ||
| Look, he was never for open borders. | ||
| He was never for transgender for everybody. | ||
| He was never for men playing in women's sports. | ||
| I mean, he changed. | ||
| I mean, all of these things that changed so radically, I don't think he had any idea that what was, frankly, I said it during the debate, and I say it now. | ||
| He didn't have much of an idea what was going on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, you shouldn't be. | |
| I mean, essentially, whoever used the AutoPen was the president. | ||
| And that is wrong. | ||
| It's illegal. | ||
| It's so bad. | ||
| And it's so disrespectful to our country. | ||
| Mr. President. | ||
| Mr. President, will you leave your troops in Germany? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And if I may ask a question to the Chancellor to answer in German for the German audience, how is your first encounter in the answer is yes. | |
| We'll talk about that. | ||
| But if they'd like to have them there, you know, we have a lot of them, about 45,000. | ||
| It's a lot of troops. | ||
| It's a city. | ||
| When you think about it, that's good economic development. | ||
| They're highly paid troops, and they spend a lot of money in Germany. | ||
| But the relationship with Germany is very important. | ||
| Yeah, we'll be doing that, no problem. | ||
| May I say a few words in German? | ||
| Yes, please. | ||
| So, thank you for the question. | ||
| We are here in the White House, and I thank the President for the very friendly experience in the Oval Office, in this world-known space. | ||
|
Big Beautiful Bill
00:03:53
|
||
| I'm very happy to be here, and we're bringing a deepening of our cooperation. | ||
| I'm very happy to be here. | ||
| Mr. President, you've made... | ||
| Do you speak English because you speak such good English? | ||
| Is it as good as your German, would you say? | ||
| No. | ||
| Do you feel more comfortable? | ||
| No, it's not my mother tongue, but I try to understand almost everything and to speak as good as I can. | ||
| Very good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, you've made it. | |
| It's an achievement, actually. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. President. | |
| The criticism that I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen, regarding Elon Musk and your big, beautiful bill. | ||
| What's your reaction to that? | ||
| Do you think it in any way hurts passage in the Senate, which of course what is your seeking? | ||
| Well, look, you know, I've always liked Elon, and it's always very surprised. | ||
| You saw the words he had for me, the words of, and he hasn't said anything about me that's bad. | ||
| I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill, because the bill is incredible. | ||
| It's the biggest cut in the history of our country. | ||
| We've never cut. | ||
| It's about $1.6 trillion in cuts. | ||
| It's the biggest tax cut. | ||
| Tax, you would say people's taxes will go way down, but it's the biggest tax cut in history. | ||
| We are doing things in that bill that are unbelievable. | ||
| And when you look at what we're doing for small businesses, for people, for middle-income people, all of the things that we're doing, nobody's ever seen anything like it. | ||
| And, you know, Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles. | ||
| And, you know, they're having a hard time, the electric vehicles. | ||
| And they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. | ||
| And, you know, Elon knew this from the beginning. | ||
| He knew it for a long time ago. | ||
| That's been in there. | ||
| That's been, I would say, JD, that hasn't changed. | ||
| That's been right from the beginning. | ||
| I think, Mr. Secretary, that hasn't changed at all right from the beginning. | ||
| But I know that disturbed him. | ||
| He wanted, and rightfully, you know, he recommended somebody that he, I guess, knew very well. | ||
| I'm sure he respected him, but to run NASA. | ||
| And I didn't think it was appropriate. | ||
| And he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat. | ||
| And I say, you know, look, we won. | ||
| We get certain privileges. | ||
| And one of the privileges, we don't have to appoint a Democrat. | ||
| NASA is very important. | ||
| We have great people. | ||
| General Cain is going to be picking somebody with our, we'll be checking him out and seeing, but he wanted that person, a certain person, and we said no. | ||
| And, you know, I can understand why he's upset. | ||
| Remember, he was here for a long time. | ||
| You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval Desk. | ||
| And even with the black eye, I said, do you want a little makeup? | ||
| We'll get you a little makeup. | ||
| But he said, no, I don't think so, which is interesting and very nice. | ||
| He wants to be who he is, so you could make that statement too, I guess. | ||
| Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. | ||
| I don't know if we're well anymore. | ||
| I was surprised because you were here. | ||
| Everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send-off. | ||
| He said wonderful things about me. | ||
| You couldn't have nicer. | ||
| Said the best thing. | ||
| He's worn the hat. | ||
| Trump was right about everything. | ||
| And I am right about the great, big, beautiful bill. | ||
| We call it a great, big, beautiful bill because that's what it is. | ||
| And again, biggest tax cuts in history, biggest economic development moves anywhere. | ||
| We've never done anything like it. | ||
|
Eggs, Gasoline, and Inflation
00:06:32
|
||
| Business is spurred. | ||
| And I don't know if you've seen the numbers, but the numbers came out. | ||
| Even the CBO, which is run by Democrats, said that we're going to be doing, you know, I'd like you to discuss it, the $2.8 trillion that CBO. | ||
| This is a group of people that are Democrats. | ||
| They're very hostile to us. | ||
| They just came out with phenomenal numbers, what it does. | ||
| You want to mention that, Scott? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| So what we've seen is we keep hearing from the CBO that there's going to be a large deficit from the bill, which we disagree with, but using the CBO scoring, they came out and scored the tariff revenue. | ||
| We think it'll be the minimum of $2.8 trillion over the 10-year window, which actually puts the bill in surplus if you include the tariff revenue, which they won't do. | ||
| It gives you a tremendous surplus, but we're not allowed to use that. | ||
| For some reason, they say scoring. | ||
| Nobody knows what scoring means. | ||
| Maybe a couple of people, but nobody. | ||
| Somebody sits in the background, they say, well, we're not going to allow that. | ||
| They're not allowing other things that we have that are tremendously profitable for our country. | ||
| But if you saw the other day, CNBC, they came out with numbers, and the people on the show, very good people. | ||
| I've watched them for a long time. | ||
| They couldn't believe the numbers, how good they are. | ||
| The numbers were incredible. | ||
| And that was personal income and also very low inflation. | ||
| We have very low inflation. | ||
| We're down to 2% now. | ||
| And maybe even lower than that. | ||
| And when I took it over, it was a mess. | ||
| Remember, we had the worst inflation probably in the history of our country. | ||
| They say 48 years, but let's say that's, I think it's worse than that. | ||
| So we had the worst inflation in the history of our country under the Biden administration. | ||
| Now we're down to a beautiful number, 2%. | ||
| You'd actually like to keep it there. | ||
| Better than zero is 2%. | ||
| It's going down maybe to 1, and 1% is like perfect. | ||
| That's perfect. | ||
| You don't want to have zero for certain reasons that nobody is very interested to listen to. | ||
| But we have almost perfect inflation. | ||
| Grocery prices are down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everything. | |
| Remember, eggs, eggs, we weren't going to buy another egg for the next 20 years. | ||
| It was so expensive, right? | ||
| Remember, you guys all hit me about eggs. | ||
| Eggs have come down 400%. | ||
| Everybody has eggs now. | ||
| They're having eggs for breakfast again. | ||
| But if you look at gasoline, very important. | ||
| I think Bo is the most important because it's the energy is the biggest factor. | ||
| That's what happened. | ||
| He screwed up our energy policy and everything went up because energy went up. | ||
| But now energy is way down and they have states where you're at $1.98 a gallon for gasoline. | ||
| So the costs have come way down. | ||
| And one of the things I ran on was that. | ||
| I ran on the border. | ||
| We have the best border in the history of our country, 99.99%. | ||
| It was last week. | ||
| Three people came in, two of them for medical reasons. | ||
| We let them in because one of them had a heart attack. | ||
| I think it was a nice thing to do, and one of them had something else. | ||
| So we've never had, I had very good numbers for four years, but we really topped it. | ||
| And I want to thank Christy and Tom Holman. | ||
| They've done a fantastic job. | ||
| But nobody mentions that anymore. | ||
| Remember, a few months ago, the border was a total disaster. | ||
| People were coming in by the hundreds of thousands of people a day, a week, a month. | ||
| I mean, we had a month, two million people came in in one month. | ||
| The border was being overrun, and a lot of bad people, criminals, murderers, drug dealers. | ||
| We had some of the worst people in the world coming in from all over the world. | ||
| It's totally closed. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| People are coming into our country, but they're coming in legally. | ||
| So we've done a great job. | ||
| Elon knew that. | ||
| Elon endorsed me very strongly. | ||
| He actually went up and campaigned for me. | ||
| I think I would have won. | ||
| Susie would say I would have won Pennsylvania easily anyway, even if the governor ran, the real governor, not the governor from Minnesota, who's, I mean, he's a sick puppy, that guy. | ||
| That poor guy, I feel sorry for him. | ||
| But they made a bad choice with him. | ||
| But if you pick Shapiro or anybody else, I spoke to him recently about his, you know, his house being set on fire, which was terrible. | ||
| But if they picked him, I would have won Pennsylvania. | ||
| I want to buy a lot. | ||
| But I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. | ||
| He knew everything about it. | ||
| He had no problem with it. | ||
| All of a sudden he had a problem. | ||
| And he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate because that's billions and billions of dollars. | ||
| And it really is unfair. | ||
| We want to have cars of all types. | ||
| Electric, we want to have electric, but we want to have gasoline, combustion. | ||
| We want to have different, we want to have hybrids, we want to have all, we want to be able to sell everything. | ||
| And when that was cut, and Congress wanted to cut it, he became a little bit different. | ||
| And I can understand that. | ||
| But he knew every aspect of this bill. | ||
| He knew it better than almost anybody. | ||
| And he never had a problem until right after he left. | ||
| And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. | ||
| He said the most beautiful things about me. | ||
| And he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. | ||
| But I'm very disappointed in Elon. | ||
| I've helped Elon a lot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to clarify: did he raise any of these concerns with you privately before he raised them publicly? | |
| And this is the guy you put in charge of cutting spending. | ||
| Should people not take him seriously about spending now? | ||
| Are you saying this is all sour grazing? | ||
| No, he worked hard and he did a good job. | ||
| And I'll be honest, I think he misses the place. | ||
| I think he got out there and all of a sudden he wasn't in this beautiful Oval Office and he's got nice offices too. | ||
| But there's something about this when I was telling the Chancellor, this is where it is. | ||
| People come in here, even from Germany. | ||
| They come in and they go into the Oval Office and it's just a special place. | ||
| World War I, it started and it ended here. | ||
| And World War II and so many other things, everything big comes right from this beautiful space. | ||
|
Things That Would Never Happen
00:03:37
|
||
| It's now much more beautiful than it was six months ago. | ||
| A lot of good things are happening in this room. | ||
| And I'll tell you, he's not the first. | ||
| People leave my administration and they love us. | ||
| And then at some point they miss it so badly. | ||
| And some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile. | ||
| I don't know what it is. | ||
| It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it. | ||
| But we have it with others too. | ||
| They leave and they wake up in the morning and the glamour is gone. | ||
| The whole world is different and they become hostile. | ||
| I don't know what it is. | ||
| Someday you'll write a book about it and you'll let us know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, speaking of ending wars in this room, you were very critical of Vladimir Putin a couple of days ago. | |
| What kind of play is he playing from your perspective? | ||
| What are you saying? | ||
| Well, look, he got hit. | ||
| He's been doing hitting, so I understand it. | ||
| But he got hit hard. | ||
| And I don't think he's playing games. | ||
| I think he, I've always said he wanted the whole thing. | ||
| I thought he wanted the entire everything having to do with Ukraine. | ||
| That's something that would have never happened if I were president. | ||
| The election was rigged. | ||
| I didn't get to be president, but I got to be president now. | ||
| And I think it's a much more important presidency other than a couple of things like that. | ||
| The war would have never happened. | ||
| The war with Ukraine, with Putin, would have never happened, ever, not even a chance. | ||
| And it didn't happen for four years. | ||
| And it wasn't thought of. | ||
| I used to talk to him about Ukraine a lot. | ||
| It was the apple of his eye, but he would have never done what he did. | ||
| And I think mistakes were made by him, but I think mistakes were made by other people. | ||
| The president should have never allowed that war. | ||
| Biden should have never allowed that war to happen. | ||
| If you had the right guy in here, that war would have never happened. | ||
| Israel would have never happened with Hamas. | ||
| That would have never happened. | ||
| The attack on Israel would have never happened because Iran was broke. | ||
| They had no money. | ||
| They had no money to give to Hamas or Hezbollah or anybody else. | ||
| And all of that would have never happened. | ||
| Inflation wouldn't have happened. | ||
| It was caused mostly by energy. | ||
| And the Biden administration messed up my great energy policy. | ||
| We were down into the $190 a gallon. | ||
| And it would have never happened. | ||
| It was caused by energy and their bad spending on the Green News scam and other things that they spent on. | ||
| But all of those things would have never happened. | ||
| But maybe most importantly, the war, Chancellor, with Russia would never have happened with Ukraine. | ||
| It was something that would have, you know, I dealt with Putin a lot. | ||
| There was no chance, zero. | ||
| And you know, a lot of people say, how do you know? | ||
| For four years it didn't happen. | ||
| There was never a chance of it happening. | ||
| And he understood the consequences. | ||
| Now, it's a shame. | ||
| And when you see all of those people, they came out with a report today that millions of people, millions of people have died, much more than people thought. | ||
| And I've been saying that for a long time. | ||
| The amount of death in that war is far greater than the news has been reporting, or that, frankly, that either side has been reporting. | ||
| It's a very sad thing. | ||
|
Tough Questions About War
00:15:41
|
||
| And I can tell you, just speaking for the Chancellor, because we speak about it, he feels the same way. | ||
| He wants to see it ended. | ||
| Would you like to say this? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| And I'm here, Mr. President, to talk with you later on on how we could contribute to that goal. | ||
| And we all are looking for measures and for instruments to bring this terrible war to an end. | ||
| And may I remind you that we are having June 6th tomorrow. | ||
| This is the day anniversary when the Americans once ended a war in Europe. | ||
| And I think this is in your hand in specific, in ours. | ||
| That was not a pleasant day for you. | ||
| No, that was not a pleasant day. | ||
| In the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| And we know what we owe you. | ||
| But this is the reason why I'm saying that America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. | ||
| So let's talk about what we can do jointly, and we are ready to do what we can. | ||
| And you know that we gave support to Ukraine and that we are looking for more pressure on Russia. | ||
| The European Union did, and we should talk about that. | ||
| We will talk about it. | ||
| And, you know, it's good timing. | ||
| The numbers for our country are through the roof, the economic numbers, because of the election and because of tariffs and other things, a lot of things. | ||
| But we've had some of the best numbers we've ever had. | ||
| They were reported yesterday, the day before, and even today. | ||
| Our country is doing really well. | ||
| I think that one of the things you'd be most interested in is that six months ago we were having a hard time getting anybody to join our military. | ||
| I mean, they just couldn't do it. | ||
| The numbers were record low. | ||
| We couldn't get people to join the military. | ||
| It wasn't me. | ||
| This is before I got there, the past administration. | ||
| But six months ago, a year ago, the numbers were record low. | ||
| You couldn't get them to join. | ||
| That included the police. | ||
| And you couldn't get them to join. | ||
| Now, we just hit the highest number in the history of our country, we think, but very close, but the highest in the history of our country, recruitment. | ||
| Joining the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, police forces all over the country. | ||
| What did you do for that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What was the reason? | |
| Spirit. | ||
| They love our country again. | ||
| You're going to do the same thing. | ||
| Spirit. | ||
| Mr. President. | ||
| We have great spirit is back in our country. | ||
| And it's very simple. | ||
| You know, it was only, Susie, six months ago, right, that you got reports. | ||
| You're the one that released them that you couldn't get anybody to join the military. | ||
| And now we're stopped. | ||
| Every service now is packed. | ||
| And we have waiting lists of people trying to get in. | ||
| As good as we've ever had in the history of our country. | ||
| So that's an honor. | ||
| That's a great honor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, on the war. | |
| You've asked. | ||
| You've had enough. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Mr. President, so would you consider to put more sanctions on Russia? | ||
| Because this discussion is going on now for weeks and months, and you tweeted about it once, but then nothing happens. | ||
| Yeah, when I see the moment when we're not going to make a deal, when this thing won't stop, at that moment, yeah, it's in my brain, the deadline. | ||
| When I see the moment where it's not going to stop, and I'm sure you're going to do the same thing. | ||
| will be very, very tough. | ||
| And it could be on both countries, to be honest. | ||
| You know, it takes two to tango. | ||
| But we're going to be very tough. | ||
| Whether it's Russia or anybody else, we're going to be very tough. | ||
| That's a bloodbath that's going on over there. | ||
| And when I see the moment where I say, well, they're going to just keep fighting. | ||
| You know, I gave the analogy yesterday when I spoke to President Putin. | ||
| I had a two-hour and 15-minute call with him. | ||
| Sometimes, and this is me speaking maybe in a negative sense, but sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. | ||
| They hate each other and they're fighting in a park. | ||
| And you try and pull them apart. | ||
| They don't want to be pulled. | ||
| Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart. | ||
| And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday. | ||
| I said, President, maybe you're going to have to keep fighting and suffering a lot because both sides are suffering before you pull them apart, before they're able to be pulled apart. | ||
| But it's a pretty known analogy. | ||
| You have two kids, they fight, fight, fight. | ||
| Sometimes you let them fight for a little while. | ||
| You see it in hockey. | ||
| You see it in sports. | ||
| The referees, let them go for a couple of seconds. | ||
| Let them go for a little while before you pull them apart. | ||
| And maybe, maybe, and I said it, and maybe that's a negative because we're saying go, but a lot of bad blood. | ||
| There's some bad blood between the two. | ||
| I have to deal with it, and the chancellor has to deal with it. | ||
| It's incredible. | ||
| The level of, there's a great hatred between those two, between those two men, but between the warring parties. | ||
| Great hatred. | ||
| You say and believe, apparently, that there's no immediate peace. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What? | |
| That there's no immediate peace. | ||
| Well, I can't. | ||
| I'd love to have immediate if I could. | ||
| If I could, but we don't have immediate. | ||
| It's like I'd love to have that. | ||
| I'd like it to start. | ||
| Right now, we would leave a room. | ||
| If we knew the work of that, we'd say, forget about you guys, forget about trade, right? | ||
| We'd say, let's go settle it. | ||
| There's some additional fighting that's going to go on. | ||
| You know, he attacked, and they attacked pretty harshly. | ||
| They went deep into Russia. | ||
| And he actually told me, I mean, I made it very clear. | ||
| He said, we have no choice but to attack based on that. | ||
| And it's probably not going to be pretty. | ||
| I don't like it. | ||
| I said, don't do it. | ||
| You shouldn't do it. | ||
| You should stop it. | ||
| But again, there's a lot of hatred. | ||
| And, you know, I'm very proud of the fact that with India and Pakistan, I was able to stop that. | ||
| And those are nuclear powers. | ||
| That would have really, that was getting close to being out of hand. | ||
| And I spoke to some very talented people on both sides, very good people on both sides. | ||
| And I said, you know, we're dealing with you and trade, Pakistan and India right now. | ||
| I said, we're not going to deal with you and trade if you're going to go shooting each other and whipping out nuclear weapons that maybe even affect us. | ||
| Because, you know, that nuclear dust blows across oceans very quickly. | ||
| It affects us. | ||
| And I said, if you're going to do that, we're not going to do any trade deals. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| I got that war stopped. | ||
| Now, I hope we don't go back and we find out that they started, but I don't think they will. | ||
| They were both good. | ||
| They were well represented. | ||
| I want to congratulate both countries because as you know, the leader of India, who's a great guy, was here a few weeks ago. | ||
| We had some great talks. | ||
| We're doing a trade deal. | ||
| And Pakistan, likewise, they have very, very strong leadership. | ||
| Some people won't like when I say that, but you know, it is what it is. | ||
| And they stopped that war. | ||
| Now, am I going to get credit? | ||
| I'll never get credit for anything. | ||
| They don't give me credit for anything. | ||
| But nobody else could have done it. | ||
| I stopped it. | ||
| I was very proud of that. | ||
| I wish we could do the same thing with Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| And at some point, it'll happen. | ||
| I believe that. | ||
| And if it doesn't happen, or if I see somebody's out of line, if Russia's out of line, we'll be, you'll be amazed how tough. | ||
| Remember this. | ||
| They like to say that I'm friends with Russia. | ||
| I'm not friends with anybody. | ||
| I'm friends with you. | ||
| I'm not friends with any. | ||
| I want the right thing to happen for our country, for everybody, for humanity. | ||
| But I'm the one that stopped the pipeline. | ||
| It's called Nord Stream 2. | ||
| Until I came along, nobody ever heard, not one person in this room ever heard of Nord Stream 2. | ||
| You probably did because it went to Germany. | ||
| He's the only one. | ||
| This was a mistake. | ||
| But I stopped it. | ||
| I stopped it. | ||
| Yeah, and you've said that openly. | ||
| It was a mistake. | ||
| And I used to go with Angela. | ||
| I'd say, well, wait a minute. | ||
| We're spending all this money to defend you against Russia, and then you're giving Russia billions of dollars a month. | ||
| What kind of a deal is that? | ||
| You know, which was, but you said it better than anybody else. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| But I'm the one that stopped it. | ||
| And that was the biggest economic development job, if you want to call it that, in the history. | ||
| Think of it. | ||
| In the history of Russia. | ||
| That was a massive, it's the biggest pipeline in the world. | ||
| Going to go all over Europe, not only to Germany. | ||
| You know, they're Germany, but then they were branching off all over to Europe. | ||
| Nobody ever heard of, not one person of you heard of it. | ||
| And I stopped it. | ||
| It was dead. | ||
| And then they say, I'm friends with Putin. | ||
| I got along with him. | ||
| He respected me. | ||
| I respected him. | ||
| It would have never happened. | ||
| But I stopped Nord Stream 2. | ||
| When Biden came in, almost the first week, he approved it. | ||
| He let it be built. | ||
| And then they say that I wasn't tough on Russia. | ||
| Putin said to me, you know, you're not tough on Russia. | ||
| You stopped the biggest, most important job we've ever done. | ||
| You stopped it. | ||
| And Biden came in and he let it be built. | ||
| And I'll tell you what, I'll never forget the day. | ||
| I had it totally stopped. | ||
| They weren't building. | ||
| They gave up on it. | ||
| They weren't able to. | ||
| And then Biden came in and he let him build. | ||
| I couldn't believe it. | ||
| Okay, one or two questions more, please. | ||
| Any questions? | ||
| Any questions for the Chancellor? | ||
| Go ahead for the Chancellor. | ||
| That would be wonderful. | ||
| I like his answers much better. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would you continue to support Ukraine? | |
| Yeah, I'm with Ukraine. | ||
| We just signed a big deal on rare earth with Ukraine. | ||
| And we wanted, I want to, you know what, I'm for stopping killing, really. | ||
| That's what I'm for. | ||
| Again, a war that would have never started, should have never started. | ||
| I want to see the killing stuff. | ||
| We spent $350 billion, much more than Europe, but Europe spent a lot also. | ||
| I mean, they spent way over $100 billion. | ||
| So you're talking about close to $500 billion went into that whole thing. | ||
| And it's not even the money. | ||
| And I know with you too, it's a lot of money. | ||
| But it's the death that's being caused. | ||
| We went to the Middle East. | ||
| I went last week to the Middle East. | ||
| We took in $5.1 trillion. | ||
| That's many, many times. | ||
| That's 30, 40 times, 50 times more than what we're talking about. | ||
| It's 5 points, think of that, $5.1 trillion of investment with one trip that lasted four days. | ||
| So it's not the money. | ||
| It's a little bit of money, but not the money, the big thing. | ||
| The big thing is the death. | ||
| The death of and really the decimation, you've lost a whole culture. | ||
| You know, Ukraine had the most beautiful turrets, they call them turrets, little towers, beautiful towers, the most beautiful in the world. | ||
| They're all now laying on their side, blown to smithereens. | ||
| It'll never happen again. | ||
| They've taken away the culture of a country. | ||
| They've taken away the heritage of a country. | ||
| It's a terrible thing. | ||
| But most importantly, again, is the death. | ||
| 5,000 plus people a week, soldiers, are being killed. | ||
| He doesn't want that, and I don't want that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, do you support the Graham Bill on putting high tariffs on China? | |
| I've looked at it, but they'll be guided by me. | ||
| That's the way it's supposed to be. | ||
| They're going to be guided by me. | ||
| No, I haven't looked at it. | ||
| It's a bill on sanctions, etc. | ||
| I'm a very quick study. | ||
| At the right time, I'll do what I want to do. | ||
| But it could very well be okay. | ||
| I'll have to see. | ||
| But they're waiting for me to decide on what to do. | ||
| And I'll know. | ||
| Maybe very soon. | ||
| It's a harsh bill. | ||
| Yeah, very harsh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to have a question to the Chancellor as well. | |
| Because do you agree with the analogy the President made on the war between Russia and Ukraine as being a fight between two kids? | ||
| Is that how you view that as well? | ||
| And what do you actually want the U.S. President to do in this? | ||
| Well, I think we both agree on this war and how terrible this war is going on. | ||
| And we are both looking for ways to stop it very soon. | ||
| And I told the President before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia. | ||
| And we will have this debate later on again, how we can proceed jointly between the Europeans and the Americans. | ||
| And I think we are all in, we are having the duty to do something on that now to stop it after three and a half years, which is really terrible. | ||
| Look at the kids, the kids which were kidnapped from Ukraine to Russia. | ||
| This is all terrible. | ||
| And so we are talking about instruments, measures, what we can do. | ||
| And my personal view is clear on that. | ||
| We are on the side of Ukraine, and we are trying to get them stronger and stronger just to make Putin stop this war. | ||
| And this is our approach. | ||
| We get satellite pictures of the warfield, and you don't even like to look at them, right? | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| It's so bodies, arms, heads, legs, all over the place. | ||
| You've never seen anything like it. | ||
| It's so ridiculous. | ||
| And this is only by Russian weapons against Ukraine. | ||
| This had never happened with Ukraine weapons against Russia. | ||
| Never. | ||
| Ukraine is only targeting military targets, not civilians, not private, not energy infrastructure. | ||
| So this is the difference, and that's the reason why we are trying to do more on Russia, how to stop this war. | ||
| Well, in this case, I'm talking about the battlefield, you know, the soldiers on soldiers. | ||
| But you could also say that, too, with the cities. | ||
| The cities are being hit also. | ||
| So it's a terrible, terrible thing. | ||
| Somebody said autopenn. | ||
| Did I hear the word autopen? | ||
| I'm just curious. | ||
| Because I think it's the biggest scandal, maybe in the last hundred years in this country. | ||
| So when I hear that word, I think it has to be discussed because the fake news will try and hide it, and we can't do that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But go ahead. | |
| Have you uncovered any evidence that anything specific was signed without President Biden's knowledge or by other people in the administration acting illegally? | ||
| Well, I don't think Biden would know whether or not he signed it. | ||
| No, but I've uncovered, you know, the human mind. | ||
| I was in a debate with the human mind, and I didn't think he knew what the hell he was doing. | ||
| So, you know, it's just one of those things, one of those problems. | ||
| We can't ever allow that to happen to our country. | ||
| The danger our country was in. | ||
| And I know some of the people that worked with him, radical left, horrible people. | ||
| And I could give you the name of some of the people that use the AutoPen because I'm here. | ||
| And I ask questions about people that were here also. | ||
| There are a lot of people that were here when that happened, and they're here right now. | ||
| And they'll answer your question very accurately. | ||
| But I know some of the people that use that AutoPen, and those are not the people that had the same ideology as Joe Biden. | ||
|
C-SPAN: Democracy Unfiltered
00:15:20
|
||
| These were radical left lunatics that used that. | ||
| And they didn't get elected. | ||
| He didn't get elected either, actually. | ||
| Thank you very much, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Earlier today, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified on Capitol Hill about his department's 2026 budget request before a House Appropriations Subcommittee. | |
| Watch the full hearing tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| It's also available on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including MediaCom. | ||
| This is binging, that's buffering. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a meetup. | |
| That's a freeze-up. | ||
| Power home, power struggle, security detection, no protection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can have this or you can have that. | |
| This is MediaCom, and this is where it's at. | ||
| MediaCom supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Mr. President, no doubt about it. | ||
| This is today's historic in many ways. | ||
| The proceedings of the United States Senate are being broadcast to the nation on television for the first time. | ||
| This week, we mark the 39th anniversary of the U.S. Senate's first live television broadcast on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| Join us as senators take to the floor to reflect on this landmark moment in American democracy. | ||
| Thanks to C-SPAN2, this public service allows our constituents to see the swearing in of newly elected members, watching all-night sessions during Votoramas, and tune in to history being made. | ||
| That's why on its 39th birthday, Senator Grassy and I wanted to highlight how important it is for all television providers, including major streaming services like YouTube TV owned by Google and Hulu Plus Live TV owned by Disney, to provide the American public with C-SPAN and the opportunity to see their government work on the Senate floor. | ||
| C-SPAN does not receive one penny of taxpayer dollars. | ||
| It's funded primarily from satellite and cable providers. | ||
| We're at a different stage in our history and a lot of people are seeing their news this way, so we need to expand it and make sure we're on all of those platforms as well as the ones we already are on. | ||
| So thank you again to Senator Grassley for working with me to highlight C-SPAN's critical role and thanks to everyone who has had a hand in C-SPAN's success. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Happy birthday. | |
| C-SPAN 2, 39 years of bringing the U.S. Senate live into homes across the country. | ||
| Thanks to the support of our cable partners. | ||
| Together, we bring you Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| This show and C-SPAN is one of the few places left in America where you actually have left and right coming together to talk and argue. | ||
| And you guys do a great service in that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love C-SPAN too. | |
| That's why I'm here today. | ||
| Answer questions all day, every day. | ||
| Sometimes I get to do fun things like go on C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN is, I think, one of the very few places that Americans can still go. | |
| C-SPAN has such a distinguished and honorable and important mandate and mission in this country. | ||
| I love this show. | ||
| This is my favorite show to do of all shows because I actually get to hear what the American people care about. | ||
| American people have access to their government in ways that they did not before the cable industry provided C-SPAN access. | ||
| That's why I like to come on C-SPAN is because this is one of the last places where people are actually having conversations, even people who disagree. | ||
| Shows that you can have a television network that can try to be objective. | ||
| Thank C-SPAN for all you do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's one of the reasons why this program is so valuable because it does bring people together where dissenting voices are heard, where hard questions are asked, and where people have to answer to them. | |
| Now to a roundtable discussion President Trump held with law enforcement officials, specifically leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police. | ||
| They talked about the importance of law enforcement officers, and the president touted his administration's support of police. | ||
| National Fraternal Order of Police Executive Board, representing nearly 400,000 officers nationwide, and they were with me right from the beginning, and we appreciate it. | ||
| We won't forget. | ||
| Your members are the backbone of American law enforcement, and we're deeply grateful for your service, and you have done great service indeed. | ||
| We're also joined by our great Attorney General Pam Bondi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Pam. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Being here. | ||
| For generations, this institution has served as a powerful voice for the brave men and women who risk their lives to protect communities all over our country, and they do it as well as anybody or better. | ||
| I was delighted to earn your endorsement in every one of my presidential campaigns where we did very well, the record-setting well, and I'm proud to stand with you today as the most police president, I would say, without question, in the history of America. | ||
| I don't think anybody's been more for the police than I am. | ||
| In recent years, far-left radicals have vilified and targeted our nation's police with Marxist prosecutors and soft-on-crime politicians, making it impossible for you to do your jobs and do them the way you want to do them, and only you know how to do them. | ||
| Under the Trump administration, those days are over. | ||
| We're backing the men in blue, and we're back in the blue. | ||
| Very honestly, we have some of the greatest people in the country sitting right around this table. | ||
| We've ended the use of lawfare against police officers and terminated unjustified federal consent decrees. | ||
| I signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to provide legal protection and financial support for officers targeted by very frivolous lawsuits. | ||
| Oh, I know about frivolous lawsuits better than you do. | ||
| I can tell you I had my share of them. | ||
| I ordered other federal agencies to boost funding for police recruitment, retention, and pay. | ||
| And I've asked Attorney General Bondi to pursue the death penalty for anyone convicted of killing a police officer, which is very appropriate. | ||
| Upon taking office, I declared a national emergency on our southern border, and we reduced the number of illegal border crossers released into the United States by 99.999%. | ||
| You can't do much better than that. | ||
| We've removed thousands of violent criminal, illegal aliens from our communities as part of the largest deportation effort in American history. | ||
| And just a few months into office, the national murder rate has plummeted by 28%. | ||
| It's going down because of, largely because of what you're doing. | ||
| I'm also deeply grateful to the National Fraternal Order of Police for its resounding endorsement of the one big, beautiful bill, which is moving along very nicely. | ||
| Great support. | ||
| It's a great bill. | ||
| It's a bill that's going to cut taxes more than any bill we've ever put in the history of our country. | ||
| It's going to cut costs and expenses by $1.6 trillion, which is the biggest cut in expenses ever. | ||
| And it's going to do so many other things. | ||
| You know, our country is doing record business right now. | ||
| Record investment is coming in. | ||
| Close to $15 trillion is already committed to come in for building new plants and factories. | ||
| AI is big. | ||
| Apple's investing $500 billion plus. | ||
| They're all coming in. | ||
| It also includes the largest investment in border security in our nation's history, equipping law enforcement with the tools to stop the invasion. | ||
| I built a lot of wall, hundreds of miles of wall. | ||
| Now we're going to build some additional wall where we feel we probably should build it after a little trial and error. | ||
| And we're going to end up building more wall than even I built, and we built a lot. | ||
| So I want to thank you for your support. | ||
| And now let's get the bill passed. | ||
| We want to get it passed through Congress without delay. | ||
| In everything we do, we will give our police the respect and the protection and all of the resources that you need. | ||
| I did that, as you know, nobody wanted to do it before me, where I gave you the military equipment that was excess. | ||
| They called it excess military equipment. | ||
| You know that very well. | ||
| I think every one of you benefited by that. | ||
| It was in warehouses, billions of dollars worth in warehouses all over the country. | ||
| And other presidents didn't want to give it to you. | ||
| I did. | ||
| And we gave it to you, and it helped out a lot and saved a lot of police officers' lives. | ||
| I'd now like to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to say a few words, followed by FOP National President Patrick Yose, and then Washington, D.C. FOP Trustee Greg Pemberton, and Vice President of the Fraternal Order of Police, Joe Gamaldi, all great people. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Pam, thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you, President, and thank you to the Fraternal Order of Police for being an unwavering voice for America's law enforcement. | ||
| We all know there is no ordinary day in the life of a police officer. | ||
| Each day, you leave your homes with complete uncertainty as to who you will encounter and what happens each day. | ||
| You also stand on the front lines against cartels and foreign terrorist organizations while fighting the horrors of illegal drug and human trafficking. | ||
| I was just in Poland this morning and arrived back not even two hours ago. | ||
| And you have the respect of the entire world of law enforcement around this world. | ||
| They respect all of you so much. | ||
| Thank you for making all of us so proud on the worldwide stage. | ||
| President Trump's Justice Department will do everything to protect you And to support all men and women who wear the badge in this country. | ||
| We are fully committed to ensuring our local law enforcement officers have access to the resources, tools, and manpower you need to do your jobs. | ||
| That means boosting recruitment and retention. | ||
| We want the best and brightest to join your ranks just like you, and we want them to stay in your ranks. | ||
| Last month, we announced $150 million million dollars in grant money available for law enforcement agencies to hire police officers. | ||
| Through this funding, we anticipate nearly 1,200 new officers will be hired around the country. | ||
| We're helping to pay for police officers overtime and supporting President Trump's no tax on overtime. | ||
| We've also made millions of dollars available for mental health and wellness programs for you around this country. | ||
| We know how important that is. | ||
| We're aggressively prosecuting criminals who assault law enforcement officers. | ||
| We will not tolerate attacks on police officers. | ||
| Since January, the department has brought 138 cases in 33 states against defendants who have assaulted our officers. | ||
| Additionally, the DOJ will no longer target police departments with bogus lawsuits and bogus investigations. | ||
| We are dismissing lawsuits filed by the Biden DOJ against police departments in Louisville, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, and more. | ||
| We're ending meritless investigations into Phoenix, Trenton, New York City, Oklahoma, and elsewhere. | ||
| We're also ending consent decrees that take control away from you, destroy morale, and increase violence. | ||
| Instead, we're working with local law enforcement to give you the tools that you need to make our streets safer. | ||
| We believe in backing the blue, not just in word, but in action. | ||
| The Biden administration slandered you, defunded you, and undermined your service. | ||
| But we stand with you, we honor you, and we will not abandon you. | ||
| Thank you on behalf of President Trump, the Department of Justice. | ||
| We are 100% committed to standing with our nation's law enforcement. | ||
| God bless you and God bless America. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thanks, Pamela. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, first, thank you. | |
| Thank you for not only your support for law enforcement as the 45th president, but also your support as the 47th president and all the years in between. | ||
| You've always been a steadfast supporter of the Fraternal Water Police and law enforcement across this country. | ||
| I want you to know on behalf of our nearly 400,000 members, we appreciate all that you do for us. | ||
| With us today is the members of our executive board. | ||
| We also have members of FOP unions in major cities across this country, which have some very serious problems that we're working with. | ||
| And we appreciate the opportunity to share with you some of our views and work together on this. | ||
| You made a promise to us, and I want to start by saying this. | ||
| You made a promise that you were going to address overtime, tax on overtime, and that was a promise made in a new big bill, one big new bill is certainly making good on that promise. | ||
| We thank you for that. | ||
| You know, law enforcement officers, we find ourselves in a very difficult position where we're having a serious problem with recruiting and retention, as you pointed out. | ||
| The problem is that people who are working right now are working so many hours and they're forced to work overtime, and now they have to tax liabilities that are associated with being pushed into different tax brackets because of being forced to work. | ||
| Not only that, they're not getting to keep the money they earn. | ||
| So, you, in a recruiting and retention standpoint, you show appreciation for what we do, recognize what we do in the community, and I want you to know that we're proud to support the bill. | ||
|
Revitalizing Washington's Safety
00:05:24
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unidentified
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This is something that needs to be happening. | |
| Promise that you made, and we appreciate you carrying through with it and know that we're a partner in it. | ||
| You also made a number of other promises to us and promises made that we appreciate. | ||
| I want to start with one of our first people I'd like to recognize. | ||
| You promised, and here we are in our nation's capital, of revitalizing the city and making it safe again. | ||
| And no one knows that better than the person who lives it every day and leads the officers in the Metropolitan Police Department and our labor union and Greg Pemberton. | ||
| And I'll ask Greg to say a few words. | ||
| Thank you, Pat, and thank you, Mr. President, for having us. | ||
| My name is Greg Pemberton. | ||
| I represent 3,000 police officers that work here for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. | ||
| The crisis that we're facing, which frankly is more of a calamity, is a staffing crisis. | ||
| We are authorized to have 4,000 sworn police officers here in the nation's capital. | ||
| Unfortunately, as of today, we only have 3,190, over 800 vacancies that we have here for this Metropolitan Police Department. | ||
| And the worst part is that over the past five years, we've lost, we've had a net loss of 600 police officers who've just left this agency in a mass exodus. | ||
| And the reason for that is that our city council here in the District of Columbia has passed layers and layers and layers of legislation that prohibits our officers from being able to do their job. | ||
| It exposes our members to administrative, civil, and even criminal liability, even when they go out and do their job properly. | ||
| It has also stripped our members of their labor protections to fight off these frivolous complaints and these erroneous allegations of misconduct. | ||
| It all makes for an environment that is almost impossible to keep these staffing levels what they need to be. | ||
| Frankly, Mr. President, I think the nation's capital, the District of Columbia, is not just a city of 700,000 residents. | ||
| This is the nation's capital, and it belongs to everybody. | ||
| It belongs to every American. | ||
| It should be a safe city. | ||
| It should be a pinnacle of American society. | ||
| It should represent the freedom and democracy that we all cherish so much. | ||
| And anybody should be free to come here and experience that and see what it is that we are here in this country. | ||
| And the sanctity and safety of the District of Columbia shouldn't be left in the hands of a city council that subscribes to these radical ideologies that we all know are failed and that we have the empirical data that it doesn't work. | ||
| It only increases crime and makes cities more dangerous. | ||
| I want to thank you for creating the Make DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force. | ||
| I've met with Orville Greene. | ||
| I find him to be phenomenally qualified to help us out of this mess. | ||
| I also want to thank you for the appointment of Janine Pirro for the USAO position of DC. | ||
| I've met with her recently and I found her plan to solve and tackle a number of these problems very promising and very optimistic. | ||
| So the 3,000 police officers stand at the ready, Mr. President, to help you make DC great again. | ||
| And hopefully we can solve some of these problems and fix crime here in the nation's capital. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Greg. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, the topic of the day, pretty much every day now is the unmitigated disaster that has created in cities across this country with the open borders. | |
| And all the problems that it has done for quality of life, it's done for our safety within our community, safety of the officers of work in the communities. | ||
| And you've been a big great advocate of putting us back together. | ||
| And I'll ask our Vice President, Joe Gamaldi, to touch on. | ||
| President Trump, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't start by saying thank you. | ||
| Thank you for the incredible efforts by you and your administration to deport these people who have come to our country illegally and then refused to follow the very laws that we hold so sacred. | ||
| Our officers, especially in sanctuary cities, are tired of arresting the same people over and over again who never should have been here in the first place. | ||
| We have lost friends, co-workers, unimaginable trauma to American citizens and families. | ||
| And the most frustrating part from a law enforcement perspective, when it was 100% avoidable. | ||
| And now we have judges who are standing up for gang members, murderers, robbers, rapists, blocking deportations, obstructing the very will of the American people. | ||
| It's a disgrace. | ||
| And if they had a shred of integrity, which I assume they don't, they would resign in shame for what they're doing right now. | ||
| But I would just ask that you continue to work with us, continue to support with us, so that we can partner with all of our great federal agencies out there, continue to carry out this mission. | ||
| And again, thank you for securing the border and once again, making our country one of law and order. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Very nice. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| We're going to have a little discussion now. | ||
| Very private. | ||
| And I just want to thank you all for being here. | ||
| And thank you very much, media. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. President. | |
| Nice to see you. | ||
| Nice to see you. | ||
| Good job. | ||
| As Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
|
Kenneth Rogoff's Dollar Problem
00:03:08
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| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
|
unidentified
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I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | |
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
| Kenneth Rogoff is professor of economics at Harvard University and former International Monetary Fund chief economist. | ||
| In his most recent book, Our Dollar, Your Problem, he argues that America's currency might have reached today's lofty pinnacle without a certain amount of good luck. | ||
| However, as Professor Rogoff nears the end of his 345-page book, he writes, If rapidly rising debt is left unchecked and there seems to be little political appetite to rein in massive deficits, the United States and the entire world is in for a substantial period of global financial volatility, marked by higher average real interest rates and inflation, unquote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Harvard University professor of economics and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Kenneth Rogoff with his most recent book, Our Dollar Your Problem, on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Next, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer speaking with reporters outside the Capitol building about President Trump's tax and spending cuts. | ||
| Senator Schumer and other Democratic leaders also field questions on the court rulings against the president's policies. | ||
|
Assault On The Rule Of Law
00:15:22
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unidentified
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Okay. | |
| Come on, everybody. | ||
| Sheldon, Dick, Maisie, Judge Gertner. | ||
| Your Honor. | ||
| Hi, Judge. | ||
| Your Honor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mr. Henry. | |
| And Mike, I know I saw Mike here already. | ||
| Okay, good. | ||
| We're all here. | ||
| Okay, well, thank you all for coming. | ||
| And to my great colleagues, great Judiciary Committee members, Durbin and White House and Hirono. | ||
| So, we all know that Donald Trump sees himself as a king more than a president. | ||
| Trump is not a king. | ||
| The Republican so-called Big Beautiful bill will effectively place a crown on Donald Trump's head. | ||
| Buried deep in the Republican bill is a really nasty provision that would strip federal judges of one of their most critical powers, the ability to force their own rulings. | ||
| In other words, Republicans want to codify into law Donald Trump's attacks on our judicial system. | ||
| They want to gut our federal courts until they're utterly powerless. | ||
| They want to buck the Constitution and bulldoze the rule of law. | ||
| This is dangerous. | ||
| It's reckless. | ||
| It's un-American. | ||
| And it isn't just a policy difference. | ||
| This is an assault. | ||
| An assault on the rule of law. | ||
| An assault on the independence of the judiciary and on the very checks and balances that have defined this country since its inception. | ||
| So today, I'm announcing that Democrats will fight with every tool we have to stop this provision from becoming law, this evil, un-American provision that flies in the total face, in the face of the Constitution completely. | ||
| This provision, as I said, is one of the most direct assaults on the separation of powers in recent memory. | ||
| It essentially hands the government officials, it essentially hands government officials, including Donald Trump, the license to ignore any ruling from a federal judge that they don't like. | ||
| And it strips the courts of any power to hold people accountable if they violate court orders, including the Supreme Court. | ||
| Shame on the House of Representatives putting this in, on the Republicans in the House of Representatives. | ||
| Shame. | ||
| This is so bad. | ||
| It's beyond the pale. | ||
| So, as we all know, one of the most essential things that the judiciary has, its ability to enforce its own orders. | ||
| That's the authority we've given the judiciary. | ||
| And this proposal would effectively render judicial rulings meaningless. | ||
| Just words on paper with no power to hold anyone accountable. | ||
| Let's call it for what it is. | ||
| It's the get-out-of-jail free card for Donald Trump. | ||
| This is the get-out-of-jail free card for Donald Trump. | ||
| Now, let's see here. | ||
| This is also a death sentence for judicial independence in America. | ||
| It's not democracy. | ||
| It's authoritarianism. | ||
| It's a move ripped right straight from a playbook of a dictator. | ||
| And we all know Donald Trump is a would-be dictator. | ||
| So, you have to ask yourself, why now? | ||
| Why is he doing it now? | ||
| Well, Donald Trump's losing in court over and over and over again. | ||
| Our analysis showed that just in the last month, the Trump administration lost a whopping 97% of rulings in federal district courts. | ||
| And this came from judges across the political spectrum. | ||
| Many of them were Trump appointees or Bush appointees, including judges that Donald Trump appointed have ruled against him. | ||
| It drives him crazy that the judges he appointed are actually following the law instead of following his whim, his wish, his desire to be a dictator. | ||
| So, rather than respect these rulings, as any president before would have done, Trump and his allies want to rewrite the rules to make himself untouchable. | ||
| And so, congressional Republicans, sadly, in a great tragic day for democracy, are trying to bend their knees and bend the Constitution and bail Donald Trump out by letting him ignore the courts and all these court rulings that have been against him. | ||
| And listen to this one: one House Republican even admitted at a town hall meeting in his district that he didn't know this provision was in the bill when he voted for it. | ||
| What about all the other Republicans who voted for it? | ||
| Republicans in Congress have been happy to roll over and hand the keys of the House and Senate to Donald Trump and unelected billionaires like Elon Musk. | ||
| And they're allowing them to run this country in the ground, into the ground. | ||
| They're allowing the whole sinew, the whole fabric of what America is all about to be ripped apart and upended in a way we have never ever seen before. | ||
| The Republicans in the House were so eager to rubber stamp Donald Trump's monstrosity of a bill that they didn't even read all of it. | ||
| Or worse, some of them read it and then didn't care. | ||
| Because protecting Trump matters more to them than protecting our democracy, than protecting the rule of law, than protecting the Constitution. | ||
| Because whether it's Trump or Musk or any other corrupt official, Republicans are trying to create a world in which powerful people face no consequences, no matter what they do. | ||
| That's not democracy. | ||
| That's oligarchy. | ||
| No one, not Donald Trump, not Elon Musk, not any crooked politician or billionaire, is above the law. | ||
| And if Republicans think they can pull a fast one on the American people by slipping this provision into their bill, they've got another thing coming. | ||
| So we Democrats are here to sound the alarm. | ||
| We're united. | ||
| We'll fight like hell using every tool in our toolbox to stop this provision from becoming law. | ||
| Next is Senator Durbin. | ||
| Let me just take all my papers here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Richard. | |
| Yeah, I got it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep, I'll leave it. | |
| Thanks, Chuck Schumer. | ||
| I want to say a kind word about my colleagues from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse and Maisie Harano. | ||
| Something interesting has happened in that committee in recent times. | ||
| I've been on the committee long enough to have considered literally hundreds, if not thousands, of nominees. | ||
| And I kind of know the line of questioning that'll be asked of each of the nominee candidates. | ||
| That's changed. | ||
| It changed this year. | ||
| The questions that are being asked are more fundamental to the Constitution. | ||
| Basic questions like, do you believe the executive is bound by court orders? | ||
| I wouldn't have thought to ask that in previous years, but I had to ask it this year because the question is whether or not, given a court order, Donald Trump or his administration will feel bound to follow it as a rule of law. | ||
| The questions are asked and the answers are all over the park. | ||
| The uncertainty of these nominees as to what the president would do when pushed to the limit where the court is saying to him, you have to stop doing this or you have to start doing this or you'll be found in contempt. | ||
| Donald Trump doesn't like to lose. | ||
| We know that. | ||
| He said it over and over again. | ||
| And he's been losing one court case after another because of his outrageous executive orders. | ||
| 97%, according to Chuck Schumer, and I don't doubt it, have found against him in the courts and what he's been trying to do. | ||
| And when he loses, what does he say about the judges? | ||
| Lunatics, communists. | ||
| These people hate America. | ||
| Even the judges that he appointed, for goodness sakes. | ||
| He's turned on Leonard Leo, his patron, for so many years, and called him a sleazebag. | ||
| You can't keep up with this president when it comes to hurling these invectives. | ||
| But there's one thing that they did, and they didn't want to make as public a show of it, and that's the provision we're talking about today. | ||
| In a thousand-page bill on the budget, they put in a provision to try to make sure that in many cases, Donald Trump can't lose. | ||
| How do they do this? | ||
| Well, they say rather, if you want to enforce a court order as a plaintiff, enforcing it, for example, a contempt citation, there has to be a security bond filed. | ||
| Well, of course, what that means is if you didn't put the money up front when you filed the case, when it comes to enforcement of the order, they're able to challenge it on this basis. | ||
| This is another provision by the Trump administration to avoid responsibility, avoid accountability, avoid transparency, and avoid losing. | ||
| Well, that's no surprise, but why is it important? | ||
| It's important because it goes to the heart of the Constitution. | ||
| Article III courts are the last recourse when it comes to challenging the executive branch, even the congressional branch. | ||
| They have to have the power of the Constitution behind them to stand for their decisions and to make those decisions without fear of favor. | ||
| If this provision is included in here, and I hope it won't be included, it's going to make it extremely difficult to enforce the law, enforce court orders. | ||
| That's what it's all about. | ||
| Trump doesn't want to lose, and he's been losing consistently. | ||
| He hates these judges, but he can't remove them. | ||
| They're in for life. | ||
| And now he's decided to change the procedures of the court so that he can't be forced to enforce court orders. | ||
| That is unacceptable, and it goes to the heart of our constitutional democracy. | ||
| It's now my pleasure to introduce Judge Gertner. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Judge Nancy Gertner. | ||
| She's a retired federal district judge and board member of the Democracy Defenders Fund. | ||
| Welcome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you for coming out and coming back here. | ||
| The sign's not blowing away. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, right. | |
| Unaccustomed as I am to speaking, which of course is not remotely true. | ||
| I was a federal judge for 17 years. | ||
| I was a judge at a very different time. | ||
| I enforced a $100,000 damage award against the FBI. | ||
| I ruled in favor of plaintiffs and I ruled against the government or I ruled in favor of the government. | ||
| It depended on the case and it depended on the context. | ||
| I felt free to do that, the kind of freedom that this democracy gives to independent judges. | ||
| If I were wrong, I would be appealed. | ||
| If I were even wronger, if there's such a word, I would be appealed to the Supreme Court. | ||
| That's the system. | ||
| Why is Trump proposing, why are the House Republicans proposing this bill now? | ||
| It's not because the courts are not doing their job. | ||
| It's not because of the comments about a nationwide injunction. | ||
| This has nothing to do with nationwide injunctions. | ||
| As has been discussed, this has everything to do with the stage that numbers of the cases against Trump are at. | ||
| Judge Zinnis in Maryland, Judge Boesberg in D.C., Judge Murphy in Boston are on the cusp of contempt proceedings. | ||
| They have ordered the government to do to return Abrego Garcia. | ||
| They've ordered the government not to deport people without due process. | ||
| And they get dissembling, misrepresentations, ducking, and they are on the cusp of contempt. | ||
| That's the reason why we're here. | ||
| The judges, by the way, who have ruled against Trump, it has to be said over and over again. | ||
| It doesn't matter what party who appointed you, what president appointed you. | ||
| What Trump has been doing is so far from legal, that's the explanation for his losing record. | ||
| So this comes at a time when numbers of cases, as I said, are on the cusp of contempt. | ||
| The contempt power, as the Supreme Court said in 1924, is really essential to the judicial power. | ||
| If all a judge could do was say, well, this is wrong, thank you very much, and that's it, essentially the third branch would be without any power. | ||
| The third branch would be an empty branch. | ||
| The power of contempt is central to that and is exercised very carefully. | ||
| This provision, first of all, would require that plaintiffs who are seeking injunctions post a bond, require it. | ||
| That means, go back to the desegregation cases, it would mean that the poor plaintiffs who were bringing cases against school boards who were segregating would have to post a bond way beyond their means. | ||
| It would mean it would basically limit access to this very important institution, namely the courts. | ||
| So this would require a bond. | ||
| They would require a bond retroactively. | ||
| So think about the body of civil rights and institutional cases that have been brought that now would be in jeopardy if a retroactive bill were passed. | ||
| What judges do now is they have the possibility of appointing Rule 65 allows them to post a bond, to require people to post a bond if there's substantial damages in the offing. | ||
| But typically judges do not do it in constitutional cases where the individual plaintiffs are, as I have described. | ||
| The provision is, as I said, a direct hit on the court. | ||
| You cannot use appropriated funds, it says, to enforce your orders. | ||
| You can't use the marshals to enforce your orders. | ||
| You can't use your not clear law clerks to enforce your orders. | ||
| Essentially, it would leave the courts with it as an empty shell. | ||
| It also, as I said, required a bond, which would wipe out much of the civil rights and civil liberties litigation that we have seen. | ||
| If courts can't compel compliance, there is no justice. | ||
| There's a famous story about how, you know, if courts have enforced it, let them, courts have come up with this ruling, let them enforce it. | ||
|
Contempt Power Critical
00:00:58
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unidentified
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They don't have an army. | |
| They don't have the means of going out and enforcing it directly. | ||
| The contempt power is that means. | ||
| And what this provision would do would be to try to gut it. | ||
| I've watched my colleagues, as they say, go up to the moment of contempt with great care, trying to get the government to do what the law requires, what the rules that have been appealed and have been supported. | ||
| And so now we're at a moment where the contempt power is critical. | ||
| Small wonder that it is being attacked. | ||
| I think that if this bill is not defeated, this branch will have been transformed, and that would be a tragedy. | ||
|
Campaign of Threats and Intimidation
00:15:23
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| Thank you, Judge. | ||
| The head of our ranking member of our court subcommittee and a great leader on this issue, Sheldon Whitehouse. | ||
| Thank you, Chuck. | ||
| It's a great honor to follow Judge Gertner to this podium. | ||
| My message is that this provision in the reconciliation bill has to be understood in the context of a campaign, an orchestrated and coordinated campaign of threats and intimidation against the federal judiciary. | ||
| This is just one thread of that campaign. | ||
| If you look at what congressional Republicans are up to, it's not just this bill. | ||
| It's wanted posters outside their offices with judges' names and faces. | ||
| It's articles of impeachment filed against judges for decisions they disagree with. | ||
| It's a hearing called District Judges versus Trump, designed to whip up anti-judiciary enemas. | ||
| It's a bill calling federal judges judicial insurrectionists. | ||
| And it's echoed over at the White House by Trump's commentary. | ||
| Trump's attacks include calling judges USA hating, calling them monsters, calling them communists, calling them radical left lunatics who could, quoting him again, very well lead to the destruction of our country. | ||
| And then for good measure, his White House throws in an official statement calling judges leftist, crazy, unconstitutional people. | ||
| The third wing of this attack on the judges comes through MAGA, through Elon Musk, and through Laura Loomer and the X platform, which posts information about judges, posts information about their families. | ||
| They seem to particularly like to post judges' daughters in order to create attacks on those individual judges. | ||
| Musk has called them corrupt. | ||
| He's called them radical. | ||
| He's called them evil. | ||
| At the moment, one of the tricks of this campaign of threat and intimidation is to send to judges and to their families unsolicited pizza deliveries, often in the name of the murdered son of a federal judge, saying to them, we know where you live. | ||
| This is about intimidating you, and we are capable of violence. | ||
| X has curated over years a horde of what I call flying monkeys. | ||
| Disordered people who, when provoked and triggered by Musk, by Loomer, by X, will do the job of delivering vile and violent threats against the target. | ||
| And that has caused the judges to have to take this far more seriously. | ||
| Justice Roberts had to make an uncharacteristic public statement saying, if you think we're wrong, appeal, don't threaten impeachment. | ||
| He did that because he was getting pressure from district judges who were feeling left hung out to dry in this atmosphere of threat and intimidation. | ||
| The judges through the conference have had to create a judicial security and independence task force to deal with this campaign of threats. | ||
| And the question we're about to face is whether the MAGA Attorney General, Pam Bondi, in the face of this campaign of threat and intimidation, will allow the Marshall Service to do its work of investigating those crimes. | ||
| Not only investigating those crimes, but investigating those who are orchestrating and coordinating that campaign of threats. | ||
| If, in fact, as all the evidence suggests, that campaign leads back to MAGA, then Bondi has every incentive to squelch these investigations. | ||
| So keep a sharp eye out for her. | ||
| We're up to 162 threats now. | ||
| If that's not a campaign, if that's not predication for these investigations, I do not know what is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And now we have Mr. Zamour. | ||
| Mike Zamor from the ACLU. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, everyone. | |
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| I'm Mike Zamor from the American Civil Liberties Union. | ||
| For over 100 years, our organization has stood against presidents of both parties to defend the constitutional rights of everyone in this country. | ||
| And that's because the freedom that all of us count on depends on the government being bound by the law. | ||
| But now the majority in the House, as we've heard, has snuck a provision in this bill that they quite literally pulled together in the middle of the night that includes, as Senator Schumer said, a get out of jail free card in some cases to allow the government to ignore courts' orders that are intended to stop them from violating the laws and our constitutional rights. | ||
| One of the very first actions that President Trump took on January 20th after being sworn in was to sign an executive order purporting to edit out of the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship. | ||
| Within hours, we were in court and won in an injunction ensuring that our newest citizens would not have their constitutional rights stripped from them as their very first experience in this life. | ||
| But the get out of jail free card in this bill would mean that unless plaintiffs have enough money to post a bond, Trump and his cronies could blatantly ignore that injunction and deport newborn babies out of this country. | ||
| Babies who are U.S. citizens under the words of our Constitution. | ||
| And they would face no consequences. | ||
| So maybe the billionaires who infest this administration don't get it, but our constitutional rights do not come with a price tag. | ||
| Trump and his allies may well be frustrated that we keep beating them in court, as do so many others, but they should think really carefully about this step. | ||
| Because conservatives were all for courts clipping the wings of administrations and overzealous federal government in other circumstances, say to limit COVID vaccine mandates and other things. | ||
| The ACLU has sued the Trump administration dozens of times already this year, but we've also sued the Biden administration. | ||
| We sued the Obama administration. | ||
| We sued the Clinton administration. | ||
| We have sued every single administration because governments need to be bound by the law, regardless of what party the president is in. | ||
| This is not a Democrat issue. | ||
| It's not a Republican issue. | ||
| This is a democracy issue, as Senator Schumer said. | ||
| We cannot stand and will not stand for a government that can impose its priorities on the people instead of the other way around. | ||
| Senate needs to kill off this provision and ensure that the four words carved over the edifice on that building right across the street, the Supreme Court, maintain their meaning. | ||
| Equal justice under law. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And now another great member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hirono. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I'm glad to be here with everyone to point out yet another atrocity that the Republicans have sneaked into this 1,000-plus page bill. | ||
| The fact is, we have a president who does not believe that the rule of law applies to him. | ||
| He is governing by executive order. | ||
| Most of them, I would say, are illegal, leading to over 200 lawsuits filed to stop his illegality. | ||
| The only thing that's standing between him and his illegality are the courts. | ||
| Thank goodness. | ||
| Thank goodness. | ||
| And judges who were appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike have put the question to this administration. | ||
| You know, judges like things like evidence, facts. | ||
| They're not just going to roll over and give the president whatever he wants. | ||
| So, of course, there are dozens and dozens of findings and orders that stymie this president and stop him from continuing his illegality. | ||
| And of course, the president doesn't like it. | ||
| So what do his minions do in the House? | ||
| They insert a provision that will make it that much harder for these injunctions and other court orders to be enforced. | ||
| What is the point of holding this administration or this regime accountable if you can't enforce those orders, which is exactly what this provision is meant to do? | ||
| We can't let him get away with it. | ||
| We can't let the Republicans get away with it. | ||
| In their continuing desire to get patted on the head by this president, they will insert a provision that has absolutely nothing to do with the budget. | ||
| So we need to get this provision out of the bill. | ||
| But, you know, just people, people should understand this is the kind of thing that this president wants to have done on his behalf. | ||
| He will attack anybody who can stand up to him, whether they're law firms, whether they're corporations, whether they're colleges and universities. | ||
| His modus operandas is to attack and try to stymie anybody that stands up to him. | ||
| And that is why this provision is in this bill to stop the courts from preventing him from continuing in his illegality. | ||
| Glad to be here with all of you. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Girono. | ||
| Questions on this subject? | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I obviously don't agree with the president on this bill, but there was some unique bipartisanship this week with Senator Warren and President Trump. | |
| They want to scrap the debt limit. | ||
| I know you've had discussions with him in the past about potentially doing that. | ||
| Would you help Republicans do that if the president wanted to? | ||
| I'm not going to gauge in hypotheticals. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Suzanne with Bloomberg Law. | |
| Thanks for doing this. | ||
| You mentioned wanting to use every tool that you guys have at your disposal to block this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Could you be elaborate a little bit more on that? | |
| Yeah, let me just say, let me be clear. | ||
| If the Senate Republicans go along and include this toxic provision, Senate Democrats will fight to knock it out in the Byrd process. | ||
| Our message to Republicans is: bring it on. | ||
| We're going to use every tool in our toolbox to stop it. | ||
| Last one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is there any concern on your part in the Byrd process? | |
| I mean, Thune has shown that he's willing to sort of overrule the parliamentarian on some things. | ||
| Are you concerned that if there's a ruling that the other side won't go along with that ruling in the Senate? | ||
| We believe that they ought to abide by the parliamentarian as had been done by Democratic and Republican leaders for decades. | ||
| Thank you, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for joining. | |
| Yeah, thanks for the final head. | ||
| Thank you, John. | ||
| Elon Musk is continuing to comment on the Republican tax and spending cuts bill passed by the House and being considered by the Senate. | ||
| He responded to comments by President Trump, who claimed that the former head of Doge had seen the bill previously and had no problem with it until he was informed of the cuts to the electric vehicle mandate. | ||
| In a post, Mr. Musk claimed, false, this bill was never shown to me, even once, and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could read it. | ||
| In regards to the electric vehicle cuts, Mr. Musk said, whatever. | ||
| Keep the EV solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched. | ||
| Very unfair. | ||
| But ditch the mountain of disgusting pork in the bill. | ||
| In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that is both big and beautiful. | ||
| He later responded to more of President Trump's comments, saying, Without me, Trump would have lost the election. | ||
| Democrats would control the House, and Republicans would be 51 to 49 in the Senate. | ||
| Such ingratitude. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| You think this is just a community censor? | ||
| No, it's way more than that. | ||
| Comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create Wi-Fi-enabled lifts so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy, from Washington to across the country. | ||
| Coming up Friday morning, Wisconsin Republican Congressman Glenn Grothman, a member of the Budget and Oversight Committees, on the One Big Beautiful bill and Republicans' efforts to advance President Trump's agenda. | ||
| Then, California Democratic Congresswoman Judy Chu, a member of the Budget and Ways and Means Committees, discusses the GOP tax cuts and spending bill and Democrats' strategy to counter President Trump's agenda. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Friday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Utah Republican Mike Kendi, he represents the Beehive State's third congressional district. | ||
| Congressman, welcome to you. | ||
| John, good to see you. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| The one big beautiful bill. | ||
| You voted for the bill last month. | ||
| Since then, we find out from the Congressional Budget Office this week that they expected to add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. | ||
| Elon Musk has called this now a pork-filled abomination. | ||
| Is this still a bill that you support? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| The reality is with this aircraft carrier that we call the United States of America is we got to get it heading in the right direction. | ||
| And with all due deference to Elon Musk, who's obviously an intelligent person, is we are making steps in the right direction. | ||
| This bill is going to cut our deficit by $1.5 trillion with economic growth estimated at 1.8% by the CBO. | ||
| The reality is they're not factoring in the dynamic aspects of cutting taxes on the American people. | ||
| And I'm proud to be a part of supporting this bill. | ||
| Explain that a little bit more for people who are hearing these numbers. | ||
| 2.4 adding to the deficit, 1.5 in savings that you're saying. | ||
|
Why Medicaid Changes Matter
00:05:59
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| Explain how we get to the number that you're talking about. | ||
| The Congressional Budget Office has been wrong over and over again. | ||
| And the reality is that when we cut taxes, they count that as a deficit. | ||
| It increases the deficit. | ||
| The reality is when we're cutting taxes on working class people, people that are working overtime, people that are actually getting tips, so these are the working class Americans that my family comes from. | ||
| And the reality is we're cutting taxes on those people, but the CBO counts that as a deficit increase rather than a deficit decrease. | ||
| When people have more money in their pocket, when their tips aren't taxed, when their overtime isn't taxed, what are they going to do with that money, John? | ||
| They're going to actually go out in the economy and they're going to spend money. | ||
| They're going to buy things. | ||
| And if they own a small business, if they have a side business, a side hustle, which many people do, the reality is they're going to invest in their business. | ||
| They're going to build our economy and actually we're going to see our economy grow. | ||
| And then what happens, John, and for you and your listeners, they're going to pay more taxes as a result of that because they're buying items. | ||
| So they pay the taxes associated with those purchases. | ||
| They invest in their business. | ||
| Their business grows. | ||
| They have more customers. | ||
| They pay more taxes because they're more successful. | ||
| So this bill does the exact opposite of what they're suggesting in the media. | ||
| And I understand the media wants to tear this bill down. | ||
| They hate to see Republicans successful because most of them are not supportive of the Republican Party. | ||
| But I believe we are moving this aircraft carry in the right direction. | ||
| And we need to continue to move this thing forward. | ||
| What is your view of what's going to happen in the Senate? | ||
| How different do you expect the bill to be when they finish with this bill and you have to come back and agree on a final product here? | ||
| I've served as a state House of Representatives member and a state senator. | ||
| The reality is as a state senator, when the representatives in my state, Utah, sent over a bill to the Senate, we would have our way with it. | ||
| We're going to make changes. | ||
| The Senate usually thinks itself, the House of the Lords is what it came from in England. | ||
| And the reality is they're going to have their way with it. | ||
| And actually, I invite that. | ||
| No product that Washington produces is perfect. | ||
| So for the senators to weigh in, for the Byrd Rule, which I heard some of your previous discussion talking about the Byrd Rule, we need to have it go through that process. | ||
| The Senate parliamentarian is also going to determine if these are actually budget reconciliation pieces or policy pieces. | ||
| And there's a process between now and when this thing ultimately gets to President Trump's desk. | ||
| And I invite that. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because our Constitution and our founders, they set it up this way. | ||
| People complain, why aren't you moving faster? | ||
| Why aren't you doing more? | ||
| The reality is we have 435 reps, 100 senators, and a president. | ||
| Everybody should weigh in on this for the good of the American people. | ||
| Before you took this job, you were a physician in family practice. | ||
| Explain the changes in Medicaid that this bill makes and why you think they're needed. | ||
| Thank you for being clear on that because Medicaid and Medicare, if you went out there and asked 100 people, including in this House of Representatives and our senators, and if you asked them the difference between Medicaid and Medicare, many of them would not be able to tell you. | ||
| And I'm sad about that fact. | ||
| So I want to be clear. | ||
| Medicare and Social Security are not part of this. | ||
| Medicare is, and I heard some of your listeners before, talking about Medicare, like this bill does something with Medicare. | ||
| It doesn't do anything with Medicare. | ||
| It doesn't do anything with Social Security. | ||
| In fact, the Byrd Rule mandates that we can't do anything with that. | ||
| Medicaid is a program, and this is where, as a doctor, for 25 years, I've taken care of people. | ||
| I know people by name. | ||
| I have taken care of them for decades, and they are on Medicaid. | ||
| They need Medicaid. | ||
| Frankly, my family has been on Medicaid before. | ||
| And the idea that a doctor like me and many of us in the House of Representatives would damage the system we call Medicaid is laughable and actually disturbing. | ||
| And many people, it's outright lies. | ||
| They're saying Medicare and Medicaid, and they're conflating those two things. | ||
| Medicaid is a program for pregnant women, indigent people, and the disabled. | ||
| It is not for illegal immigrants. | ||
| John, the reality right now, and you're looking at states like California and New York who don't like this bill, why? | ||
| They have registered illegal aliens on Medicaid. | ||
| They are using the Medicaid system. | ||
| They're going to break the Medicaid system. | ||
| In fact, they are breaking the Medicaid system, which is for pregnant women. | ||
| So we need to make sure we preserve Medicaid. | ||
| And the 1.4 million illegal immigrants that are on Medicaid right now, I'm sorry to say they're not going to get health care. | ||
| And if you call that a health care cut, that American citizens are not going to get health care through Medicaid because we're serving illegal aliens, then I guess you can call it a cut. | ||
| But what I call that is right-sizing of a program that is in desperate need for indigent people, the disabled, as well as pregnant women. | ||
| And we're trying to preserve that. | ||
| And actually, we're going to save money with that, which actually preserves Medicaid. | ||
| I'm a big fan of this. | ||
| The other piece about the Medicaid reforms that we're doing, we are asking people, and it's an important step in the right direction because I've been working since I was 12 years old. | ||
| An individual on Medicaid that's able-bodied and no dependents, if you have children or you're disabled, this requirement does not apply to you. | ||
| Is that you need to go out for 20 hours a week, which that's pretty nominal, actually. | ||
| I've worked diligently since I was 12 years old. | ||
| 20-hour work week doesn't sound bad, but you need to go out and try to find a job. | ||
| You need to try to find training for a job. | ||
| You can do this virtually. | ||
| Or you need to be in a school program to learn so that you can get a better job. | ||
| So the work requirements are part of this. | ||
| And frankly, work has been a great benefit in my life. | ||
| I'm really grateful since I was a kid that I was able to work, cutting grass and busing tables. | ||
| I was a janitor. | ||
| I've been a box handler at United Parcel Service. | ||
| The reality is work is a great thing. | ||
| And if you're going to be able-bodied without dependence adult, then you need to spend 20 hours a week trying to find a job. | ||
|
Why Support Ukraine Cautiously
00:05:10
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| And I think that that's a positive step in the right direction with this big, beautiful bill. | ||
| Congressman Mike Kennedy, Republican of Utah, with us until the top of the hour at 8 a.m. Eastern, taking your phone calls, lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents as usual. | ||
| And there are plenty for you already, Congressman. | ||
| This is Earl in Seneca Falls, New York, Republican. | ||
| Earl, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| With your permission, I'm going to be a little long-winded. | ||
| Well, Earl, I'm short on time, and I've got a lot of calls. | ||
| Yeah, good to talk to you, Earl. | ||
| How you been? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd like to know why this administration wants to put the people of Ukraine back under a Soviet/slash Russian government-controlled government. | |
| We don't want to do that. | ||
| We want to support the good people of Ukraine wherever we can, but this is Europe's war, and Europe needs to back them up. | ||
| The United States of America, I'm not going to support sending our young men and young women off to Ukraine. | ||
| But when we can sell them weapons, then we should sell them weapons and they should pay for them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, that's a false statement. | |
| Why is that, Earl? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because it's one of those gotcha lines that the Republicans are. | |
| I'm a big fan of freedom-loving people, and the Ukrainians want to support themselves. | ||
| In fact, I got neighbors that are Ukrainians. | ||
| They've come over here since the war, and I want to see Ukraine strong. | ||
| The reality is, Russia is not the United States of America's friend, and I stand with Ukraine. | ||
| The reality also is that we need to make sure that we're not sending our young men and young women over there. | ||
| But Ukraine, if they can't pay for the weapons and supplies that they need, then we should put it on a tab and they'll pay for it later. | ||
| And that's where this critical minerals deal that President Trump's working with Ukraine on is, I think, a vital part of this. | ||
| Let's do a deal with Ukraine so that if they can't pay for it, then they provide critical minerals for us, which is an important need for the United States of America. | ||
| There's ways to make this work, and we want peace. | ||
| As a Republican Party, President Trump, he wants peace. | ||
| Vladimir Putin is playing hardball, and we understand that. | ||
| The guy's a dictator. | ||
| So I think we need more sanctions on Russia. | ||
| How do you see this war ending? | ||
| Do you think Ukraine is going to have to give up some of its territory to end this war? | ||
| The reality is it's complicated, and Ukraine and Russia are going to have to sort this out with the assistance of the United States of America. | ||
| But this is Europe's problem. | ||
| This is their back door. | ||
| And Europe needs to step up. | ||
| They've for ages stood down while the United States of America and our taxpayers are the police officers for the world. | ||
| And it's not appropriate. | ||
| We can't health care the world. | ||
| We can't police officer the world. | ||
| We can't feed and clothe the whole world. | ||
| We need to make sure we're taking care of United States of America interests. | ||
| And I'm entirely supportive of freedom-loving people, and we will sell weapons to Ukraine. | ||
| But when it comes to Russia, Russia's never been a sincere, they don't deal sincerely with these issues. | ||
| Russia is a war, war-happy country. | ||
| Vladimir Putin wants to propagate war. | ||
| And President Trump's promoting peace. | ||
| So when it comes to this, we need to be very skeptical of the intentions of our Russian and our Chinese Communist Party adversaries. | ||
| These people do not look out for the interests of the American people. | ||
| And I'll just promise you, on my part, as well as President Trump, I know that President Trump is working to put the American people first. | ||
| So am I. We'll make sure that the world is as safe as possible, recognizing it's a dangerous place. | ||
| There's a lot of problems out there, and we can't fix all the world's problems. | ||
| Europe needs to step up, and President Trump's demanding that. | ||
| Alan, Texas, Gary, Independent, good morning. | ||
| You are next with Congressman Mike Kennedy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First, I'd like to find out since 1980, we've been hearing that we were going to get a trickle-down benefit from the Republican tax cut. | |
| Now we're being told that it's going to, the trickle-down or the tax cuts are going to be beneficiary and actually pay us out of our national debt. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| Every time the Republicans come up with a tax cut, our national debt blows up even bigger. | ||
| President Reagan and President Bush, for 12 years, we had, and I was a young fella at the time, but we saw when was the budget balanced? | ||
| It was after President Reagan and President Bush during the Clinton administration. | ||
| And I'll just tell you, it wasn't the Clinton administration that did it. | ||
| It was the tax and economic benefits associated with Republican policies. | ||
| For 12 years, it translated the last time our budget was balanced. | ||
| And I'm happy to say that those policies actually have impacted my life in a significant fashion. | ||
|
Cutting Taxes, Keeping Money In Your Pocket
00:08:11
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| So when it comes to cutting taxes, my question to the people that are listening: do you want the government to have money in their pocket that they've taken from you, or would you prefer to have it in your pocket to use as you see fit? | ||
| For those who want to see increased taxes, then fight against the Big Beautiful bill because every American taxpayer, every family is going to pay $1,700 more dollars in taxes. | ||
| So we're trying to cut the taxes, keep money in your pocket instead of the government's pocket. | ||
| And I'm a big fan of that as a state legislator. | ||
| I saw over and over again that when we made sure that money was in the pockets of the people, that they used it more responsibly and the economy grew. | ||
| And I saw that during my young man's lifetime is when the Republicans were in charge, President Reagan as well as President Bush, there were economic, it was an explosive economic benefit that came to the people. | ||
| And this big, beautiful bill gets us moving in that same direction. | ||
| They're calling all the way from Hawaii for you, Congressman. | ||
| This is Alan in Halewa. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey. | |
| Hi, John. | ||
| Yeah, that's actually Hali Eva. | ||
| Hali Iwa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Love it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hali Eva. | |
| I think really importantly is the big, beautiful bill may harm the solar industry immensely, which requires, you know, it's going to take all the incentives away. | ||
| And the problem is that solar is a really big part of our energy mix and growing faster. | ||
| And a lot of Republican advocates are talking about that we need it for AI, data centers, all kinds of stuff. | ||
| Do you really want to make solar die on the vine by doing that? | ||
| That's a great point. | ||
| Thanks for bringing that up, and especially from a sun-happy state, and God bless you in Hawaii, it's a great place. | ||
| And actually, Arizona, and I'm from the West, so I'm from Utah, which is a very sun-happy place as well, is solar is a significant energy generator. | ||
| And I'm a big fan of solar. | ||
| So what has happened with this bill? | ||
| And I'll just say we, because of Democrat amendments, this bill was passed in the early morning a couple of weeks ago, actually, and they had made changes, meaning leadership in conjunction with some negotiations have made changes where solar was put on the chopping block. | ||
| And my state is a heavy residential solar state, and I'm a big fan of what they do. | ||
| So we're actually working with the Senate to see those provisions altered in a way that the solar industry is not damaged. | ||
| The reality, I'll say this too, is every industry that is on the take where the taxpayers are subsidizing them, we need to get off that process. | ||
| We need to make sure that actually people stand on their own two feet. | ||
| Everybody needs to put on their big boy and big girl pants. | ||
| And when it comes to this, I'm not a fan of government taxpayer subsidies for many of the things that we subsidize. | ||
| But when we for over 20 years have been subsidizing solar and it cut the feet out from under these people, I don't think that's appropriate. | ||
| We need a glide path down and I'm working with my Senate colleagues to make sure that that happens for solar because it's a viable version of energy. | ||
| But let's be honest, we need to move into the nuclear world. | ||
| We need to make sure that we have strong energy resources to build the information infrastructure that we need. | ||
| So artificial intelligence, we can win that race against our adversaries across the globe. | ||
| You mentioned you're from a sun-happy state. | ||
| What should viewers know about the 3rd Congressional District of Utah? | ||
| Love the place, man. | ||
| It's the southeastern Utah part. | ||
| Arches National Park is part of it. | ||
| And come to Utah, people. | ||
| So I was born and raised in Michigan, and the Great Lakes are amazing. | ||
| Moved out west to go to school, raise my family, and it's been a great place, business-friendly as well. | ||
| And in the state of Utah, you got the Delicate Arch, which we were just there last week. | ||
| And if you want to see an amazing structure that man did not make, actually, it's God-made structures. | ||
| It's remarkable to walk through these beautiful, vast lands that we have. | ||
| And we can use our lands in a functional fashion and not abuse them. | ||
| And I'm a big fan of the West. | ||
| There's great power in the West and many fronts. | ||
| And it's a privilege to represent those good people. | ||
| A question from Teresa in Arkansas via text message. | ||
| Do you support the selling of public lands, federal lands in Utah? | ||
| Teresa, the reality, and thank you for that important question, is we have a housing crisis, not just in Utah, but throughout the West and particularly throughout the country. | ||
| And if we can sell small tracts of lands, which Senator Mike Lee has proposed that contiguous to, if there's a city or county with contiguous federal lands, meaning right next to the city or county, and they're going to actually take small acreage and build houses on that, I am entirely supportive of using small tracts of public lands for necessary needs. | ||
| The reality in the state of Utah is over 60% of our land in the state of Utah is locked up in federal lands, which we love our national parks, and we actually love to be in our national parks and we invite the world to our national parks. | ||
| But when it comes to housing crisis and the fact that my children can't live in my area because houses are so hard to find and also so expensive, is we need to open that up so that people have an opportunity to actually have houses. | ||
| So small tracts of federal land, absolutely, I think we can use those in a responsible fashion. | ||
| Line for Democrats, Michelle Toma, Wisconsin. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on with Congressman Mike Kennedy. | ||
| Hi, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is about the ACA and the subsidies. | ||
| I've been working my whole life, like you. | ||
| I started my job at 12, and I've been working my whole life. | ||
| And my employer that I've been with for the last 10 years, and I'm in health care, and my employer does not offer health insurances. | ||
| So I rely on the ACA on my health insurance. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| And I rely on those subsidies. | ||
| Yes, a lot of people do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I will be 64, and I will continue to work as long as my health will allow me to. | |
| But however, the reason why I rely on the ACA and the subsidies is because I have COPD, stage 3, and I also have a liver deficiency called Alpha One anti-tritis. | ||
| Oh, yeah, that's a devastating trouble. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sorry. | |
| So if they were to do anything as far as cuts or the subsidies or anything, I will be royally screwed. | ||
| Michelle, you got a good point. | ||
| Thank you, Michelle. | ||
| We want to make sure we're supportive of that too. | ||
| Also, when it comes to Medicaid, and in this case, the Affordable Care Act, which it is what it is, I'm stepping into this, and there's a bunch of things that have happened before that translate into what Michelle is talking about: we need to make sure that people have access to affordable health care. | ||
| Medicare is, if you're almost 64, Michelle, if I heard you right, is you're almost on Medicare, so in that case, you'll have access to great insurance through that. | ||
| But we need to make sure we're supporting access to high-quality health care in an affordable fashion. | ||
| And those premium subsidies that are part of the Affordable Care Act, it's an important thing for us to look carefully at because we don't want to damage people's access to health care. | ||
| Thanks, Michelle. | ||
| Let me go to the Peace Garden State. | ||
| This is Margaret in North Dakota. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was wondering, whatever happened to the International War Crimes Bureau that is supposed to arrest someone like Putin. | ||
| Hello, Margaret, and thanks for bringing that up. | ||
| I think it's very clear that Putin is an international war criminal. | ||
| And the fact that he invaded Ukraine unprovoked, trying to take over territory. | ||
|
Promoting Legislation
00:14:19
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| The reality behind any international conflict like that is somebody would have to go into Russia and try to extract Vladimir Putin and bring him to justice. | ||
| And that's called a war. | ||
| If somebody's going to go in and actually try to take Vladimir Putin out, that's going to start an international war. | ||
| And you kind of don't see Vladimir Putin traveling a whole lot. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because the man knows that if he travels, he's going to be vulnerable. | ||
| And so there are international complaints and efforts that way. | ||
| But Vladimir Putin stays in the country that practically he owns along with his oligarchs. | ||
| And that's why for us in the United States of America, we need to make sure we sanction and use every tool available to us to push back and to fight vigorously with those that are our adversaries. | ||
| And in this case, I think we need more sanctions on Russia. | ||
| Russia is not, they're not interested in peace. | ||
| They're warmongers the way that Vladimir Putin is acting. | ||
| And we need to make sure we vigorously fight. | ||
| Once again, this is Europe and Ukraine's issue, and we want to be supportive, but it is not our conflict. | ||
| And it's not our responsibility to police office the world. | ||
| So in that case, I think we can use economic sanctions to push back on Vladimir Putin and the terrible things that he's doing. | ||
| Just about five minutes left with Congressman Mike Kennedy this morning. | ||
| You are just over five months into your congressional career. | ||
| First time on the Washington Journal. | ||
| You had a chance in those five months to introduce legislation, and if so, what about? | ||
| Yeah, thanks, John, for asking. | ||
| The reality is we didn't just introduce, but we passed off the House floor a bill to protect our critical research from the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| They are not our friends, and I'll tell you, John, proudly, we passed that within our first 100 days. | ||
| The reality behind the Republican Party is we are moving the agenda forward, and I'm proud to be a sponsor of internationally important legislation that's actually protecting our critical research from the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| John, you and your listeners know, and it's shocking to see, and I've seen it actually in the course of my lifetime as a state legislator. | ||
| Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our state governments and also our institutions of learning. | ||
| Harvard and Columbia, there are many, we're here in numbers, 300,000 Chinese citizens are part of our higher education system. | ||
| And by the way, my dad is an immigrant. | ||
| I'm a big fan of immigrants, and our country is better when we bring people that are honest and they want to learn to this country. | ||
| And we learn from them and they learn from us. | ||
| But if they're going to steal our secrets and bring it back to the Chinese Communist Party to our detriment, we will push back vigorously on that. | ||
| And these people need to be deported if they're affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| So, those kind of investigations need to be done. | ||
| But I'm proud to actually have sponsored and passed my first bill off the House floor. | ||
| John, you and your listeners know I need 60 votes in the Senate. | ||
| And actually, I think I can get it, but the Senate has been so occupied by a variety of things that they're slow to take our things up. | ||
| And this reconciliation package is actually the biggest thing that they need to work on right now. | ||
| So, God bless the Senate. | ||
| We're looking forward to them to move my bill and many other bills off the Senate floor so that we can actually get it to President Trump's desk. | ||
| But, yeah, we've sponsored many pieces of legislation. | ||
| Here's another one that we're sponsoring: methadone is a narcotic. | ||
| It's a strong narcotic with a fairly unusual distribution in a person's body. | ||
| And I have a friend who actually gave another medicine that could suppress breathing to a patient, didn't know this individual was on methadone because of federal law that prohibits methadone from being disclosed to a practitioner data bank. | ||
| And this person ended up overdosing and dying because the doctor didn't know that the patient was on another medicine. | ||
| So, I'm sponsoring a bill actually to open that up so that actually states can disclose to doctors that the patient is on methadone. | ||
| Right now, the federal law prohibits that, and I think we need to change that to promote life and well-being of our citizens and better health care from our doctors. | ||
| You mentioned there that your father was an immigrant. | ||
| Where did he immigrate from? | ||
| And what does he say that process was like? | ||
| Yeah, it's actually, so this is back in the 80s. | ||
| Ronald Reagan, my dad, many years ago, came from Canada to Michigan, and that's where he met my mother. | ||
| I was number two out of seven in my family. | ||
| I'm proud of that fact. | ||
| The reality is, United States of America, all over the world, people want to come here. | ||
| It's a place for people to prosper under liberty and freedom and economic opportunities that are unheralded throughout, unparalleled throughout the world. | ||
| So, I'm a big fan of the United States of America. | ||
| The process back then was easier, I believe, than it is now. | ||
| And part of it is that there's a lot of people. | ||
| I mean, Joe Biden let 10 to 15 million illegal immigrants cross the border. | ||
| We have a big problem in our country with open borders, and President Trump has done a great job. | ||
| We didn't need a new law to protect our border. | ||
| What we needed was a president that actually cared about the border, and we've got one. | ||
| I've been to the border, and nobody's coming across the border that doesn't have a compelling need. | ||
| And in that case, we want people to come. | ||
| But I'm sponsoring a bill, and I've asked my staff to start working on this. | ||
| We need to promote legal immigration. | ||
| I want people to be able to come here that want to come here and do good. | ||
| But if you're a gang member, if you're a human trafficker, you stay out of this country. | ||
| We will not let you in. | ||
| And if you're in this country, we will throw you out and you're going to make sure that you're going to pay for your crimes. | ||
| Last minute, last call. | ||
| This is Dalton from Killeen, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Dalton. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd just like to make a couple comments. | |
| One, I think that there should be more term limits on all elected officials. | ||
| This thing of people like, you know, being up there for 50, 60 years is a little bit too long. | ||
| Dave homesteaded it too long. | ||
| The other thing is I think our health care system and the cost of living for the everyday average people in this country is way too high for some people that they can't hardly put food on their table, clothes on their children, and things like that. | ||
| And the competition of dressing a child for school today is just so outrageously high priced. | ||
| It's a big problem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They need a break. | |
| Dalton, let me take those because there's a lot there and we're in our final minute. | ||
| Those are great. | ||
| Thank you very much for those points. | ||
| And the reality is the inflationary trends associated with the Biden spending spree as well as Congress, it actually created inflation and made everything more expensive. | ||
| We need government to take less money and spend less money. | ||
| We're working on doing that with this big, beautiful bill. | ||
| And I'm a big proponent of that effort. | ||
| I saw Jerome Powell during the inflationary pressures associated with COVID. | ||
| Oh, this is just transitory inflation. | ||
| He knew what was happening. | ||
| And Joe Biden and the effectless Biden administration did the inflationary trends to us. | ||
| And we're trying to rein that in with this big, beautiful bill. | ||
| And John, I'm grateful to be here with you and promote something that's really important that's happening in the United States Congress. | ||
| And we appreciate your time. | ||
| That caller had mentioned term limits. | ||
| Do you have an idea on how many terms you'd like to serve? | ||
| I know you're going to first. | ||
| Term limits. | ||
| I believe senators and congressmen ought to be on term limits, but we need to term limit bureaucrats as well. | ||
| Everybody that serves the federal government, whatever position they're in, bureaucrats should also be on term limits because we don't want them to sit here forever and just wait till the term limited representative or senator leaves. | ||
| So yeah, actually, if we can get bureaucrats on a term limit of 10 years, congressmen and senators 10 to 12 years, absolutely go back and get a job. | ||
| For you to sit here forever, I don't think it's healthy for the United States of America. | ||
| Mike Kennedy is a freshman from the 3rd District of Utah Republican. | ||
| Appreciate your time. | ||
| Hope to talk to you again down the road. | ||
| Great to be with you. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
| I 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 and receive snap benefits. | ||
| So yeah, hell has frozen over. | ||
| I agree with Elon Musk on this one. | ||
| What role can House Democrats play at this point in the process to influence this bill? | ||
| 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 CODEL 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 believed 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. | ||
| I came here about 153 very long days ago. | ||
| And I want to talk about your work in that time, but let me come back to strange bedfellows for a second. | ||
| Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren. | ||
| Donald Trump, the president, saying on his true social page that he agreed with her on the need for an elimination of the debt limit. | ||
| Where do you stand on debt limit? | ||
| Oh, wow. | ||
| I do not follow the president. | ||
| I'm not even on Truth Social, so I didn't see that one this morning. | ||
| You know, the debt limit is a responsible check on all of us to have those meaningful debates every few years about how we spend taxpayer money. | ||
| And so it's interesting that this president, a Republican, seems to want to just spend freely without regard for that debt limit. | ||
| I happen to disagree with that. | ||
| I come from, before I came to Congress, I mentioned I was in the state Senate. | ||
| I had to balance the budget every year. | ||
| We don't have to do that here, but the way that we handle things of just writing blank checks. | ||
| And traditionally, as you know, it's been Republican presidents who increase our debt as opposed to Democratic presidents. | ||
| So I'm going to disagree with my colleague in the Senate and the president on this one. | ||
| Should we have to balance the budget here on Capitol Hill every year? | ||
| It would be an interesting conversation. | ||
| It would be very, very difficult to do, but I think it would ground some of our policies more in reality. | ||
| Let me come back to that 150-some days or so. | ||
| We started talking about Doge cuts. | ||
| What has actually the impact been in your district? | ||
| How many federal employees are in your district? | ||
| How many lost their jobs over the past five months or so? | ||
| 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. | ||
| So disproportionately impacted in my district. | ||
| Congresswoman Sarah Elforth is with us until the bottom of the hour at 9.30 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Here to take your phone calls. | ||
| It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| As folks are calling in, you mentioned the U.S. Naval Academy. | ||
| What should viewers know about the Naval Academy and book bans? | ||
| 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. | ||
| Plenty of colors for you already. | ||
| This is Dorothy in Baltimore, Maryland. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, John. | |
| Give me a chance to speak to my Democrat representative. | ||
| She might not be from my state, but she's still a Democrat. | ||
|
Challenges in Readiness
00:15:19
|
||
| She's from your state. | ||
| Dorothy, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, she is? | |
| Okay, well, I'm from Dorothy. | ||
| I'm from Annapolis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, wonderful. | |
| Then you're not too far from me. | ||
| I would like to just give you a piece of advice, and I'm going to ask you a question if John gave me a chance. | ||
| 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. | ||
| 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, 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. | ||
| They don't have no health care from. | ||
| Dorothy, let me get the Congresswoman to jump in on Medicaid and Trump One. | ||
| Yeah, Dorothy, I completely agree with you. | ||
| 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 offset the cost of health coverage for the most vulnerable in our communities. | ||
| I completely agree. | ||
| Out to the Golden State, this is Miyoshi in Beverly Hills, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Sarah. | |
| I have a huge huge treaty request of you. | ||
| I really, really hope that you hear what a lot of us are afraid of. | ||
| How Trump has dismantled the federal government, pulled back entitlements for us, the working class. | ||
| We're going to go hungry. | ||
| If you guys could speak in terms of the future of what's going to happen a year, two years down the road, take it, take it, case the point. | ||
| Farmers, if farmers can't sell their crops to Canada overseas, it's just going to rot. | ||
| So what are we going to eat? | ||
| They don't have the help to pick their crops. | ||
| That's going to be a very dangerous, critical situation for us down the road. | ||
| Congresswoman. | ||
| I completely agree, just taking the farmer's 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. | ||
| How would you answer that question? | ||
| 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. | ||
| What do you think the most likely outcome here is in the war between Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| You know, I hope better angels prevail. | ||
| 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 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. | ||
| And his approach to Putin is disturbing. | ||
| What should Ukraine give? | ||
| What should Ukraine give? | ||
| Ukraine should get back the territory that it's lost. | ||
| I mean, let's be clear, they were attacked without provocation. | ||
| They have lost untold civilian lives in this fight for their own independence and ability to self-govern. | ||
| And I think it's really clear that if Putin gets an inch, he's going to take a mile. | ||
| I mean, he's not going to stop with Ukraine. | ||
| And I think that's something I'm not quite sure the president appreciates. | ||
| Springfield, Virginia, Chris, Democrat, good morning. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Congresswoman. | |
| I'm a neighbor, I guess, since you're in Annapolis. | ||
| I'm concerned, I'm a federal employee that has worked for the federal government for 35 years continuously. | ||
| Actually, I did some work before that, too, for the federal government under contract. | ||
| But my job was rift in a mass rift this year. | ||
| And I've been on administrative leave since March, late March, not doing my job. | ||
| Okay, so the government is paying for me not to do my job, and now it's going to get extended because of injunctions. | ||
| And at a certain point, I really feel like I need to report what I consider waste. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, they talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. | |
| I mean, this is extremely inefficient. | ||
| We have statutorily required requirements. | ||
| We have Congress, you know, reporting to Congress that we're supposed to do every year that can't be done because they fired virtually all of us. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And now, what, you know, I'm just like left. | ||
| We're all left wondering how this is all going to play out. | ||
| Chris, do you mind me asking what agency that you work for? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I kind of don't want to say I'm actually calling under a pseudonym because of this whole not being resolved crisis. | |
| But just to let you know, I work in statistics and mathematics. | ||
| Gotcha. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm like a mathematician. | |
| I have graduate degrees and everything. | ||
| I got extra schooling to continue to do my job as best as I could do. | ||
| I spent five more years at the University of Maryland, for instance. | ||
| So, Mike, my point about all of this, and I keep trying to bring this up, is I just don't see that this makes any sense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Fine. | ||
| Well, Congressman, let me let you jump in. | ||
| 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 you don't, 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. | ||
| This could be catastrophic. | ||
| And it's, again, it's an abomination. | ||
| Pasadena, Maryland, I think, is in your congressional campaign. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is. | |
| Debbie is on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Debbie, you're on with your Congresswoman. | ||
| Hey, Debbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, how are you? | |
| Good. | ||
| You said something, excuse me, about Trump and his parade. | ||
| Wasn't that parade set up long before Trump got back in office? | ||
| I do not believe so. | ||
| It's going to be the Army's 250th anniversary. | ||
| I believe it's next week or the week following. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Some estimates have it as $25 to $45 million, depending on the parade and the cleanup. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Jay, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congresswoman, thank you for C-SPAN. | |
| Good morning, Congresswoman. | ||
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| Thank you for being around this morning. | ||
| I have a really quick story to tell you. | ||
| I'm a TV cameraman. | ||
| I travel all over for mostly live sports events. | ||
| And one of the events I work every year is the National Firefighters Memorial in Emmitsburg, Maryland. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| As you know, that is the site of the National Fighting Academy where firefighting units all over the country are eligible, come for charge. | ||
| They just have to pay their own travel 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 DOSH 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 Athne 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. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
His friend with decades of experience. | |
| Yep. | ||
| His boss had a heart attack and died. | ||
| Two weeks before he died, he went to the doctor. | ||
| Because his wife said, hey, I've got to go to the doctor. | ||
| You wake up in the middle of the night. | ||
| You can't breathe. | ||
| And the doctor. | ||
| I'm running short on time with the Congresswoman, and I want to make sure I get to your question. | ||
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I just want to make, are these schools getting back open? | |
| And what are we going to do for this guy? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
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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. | ||
| I couldn't agree with you more. | ||
| 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, you know, 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Thank you so much for bringing this up. | ||
| I'm also a little lit up about it, too. | ||
| Just a minute or two left. | ||
| Let me try to get in. | ||
| Terry in Rogers, Minnesota, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
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Good morning. | |
| 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? | ||
| Is that what you're saying? | ||
| Let me give you the final two minutes, Congresswoman. | ||
| Yeah, I don't think I ever said that. | ||
| So let me rephrase what I said was that we should be strategic about how we approach our federal workforce. | ||
| I don't think any Democrat on the Hill is here to defend that, you know, you get a job out of college and you deserve to be there until retirement. | ||
| We are here to say that services need to be delivered to the American people that you are paying for as a taxpayer. | ||
| And that's not happening right now because of the lack of strategy and thoughtfulness and respect being delivered from Doge. | ||
| So I'm not sure I said what you think I said. | ||
| My point here was that as a taxpayer, you and I deserve to have certain services delivered for us. | ||
| Those services are not being delivered under this lack of strategy. | ||
| And that's what deeply, deeply concerns me. | ||
| To your point about Ukraine, I'm not sure what would stop Putin from encroaching further and further into Europe if Ukraine hadn't put up and isn't putting up such an incredible fight. | ||
| I mean, the fact that civilians have been engaged in this, the fact that Zelensky is, you know, pulling and holding together all of the allies to support this effort again for self-governance, it is an incredible feat and deserves, again, as a Democratic ally, deserves the American support. | ||
| Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith is in her first district serving the 3rd District of Maryland, a Democrat out of central Maryland. | ||
| And we appreciate your time on the Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll see you again down the road. | ||
| Thanks, John. | ||
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Tonight on C-SPAN, Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick testifies on his department's 2026 budget request and takes questions on President Trump's tariffs. | |
| Then, an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and German Chancellor Mertz, where the two leaders talk about the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
|
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Discussion
00:00:36
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President Trump was asked about Elon Musk's criticism of the GOP tax and spending cuts bill. | |
| After that, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer holds a news conference and criticizes that GOP bill, which would limit judicial authority. | ||
| And later tonight, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus discuss their recent visit to immigration detention centers across the U.S. C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy. | ||