| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Chance for questions. | ||
| I'd like to thank you and my fellow committee members for a very thoughtful conversation and thank you especially for being here. | ||
| For any senators who wish to ask additional questions, questions for the record will be due June 17th. | ||
| The hearing record will remain open. | ||
| Until then, for members who wish to submit additional materials for the record. | ||
| At this point, the subcommittee will stand in recess and many thanks to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And a count of two balls and one strike. | |
| And a swing of base shit left field. | ||
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| Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Harriet Hageman joins us now. | ||
| She's a former trial attorney, current member of the Judiciary Committee. | ||
| Congresswoman, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to start in Los Angeles and get your sense of the situation out there, what you're hearing as a member of Congress, and your concerns as a member of the Judiciary Committee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think what we're seeing is outrageous. | |
| I'm finding it incredibly disconcerting that we have political leaders in California that are taking the side of the rioters rather than the side of the citizens. | ||
| It is stunning to me that they think that this is the exercise of the First Amendment right to be torching cars and burning things to the ground and destroying property. | ||
| That clearly is not the case. | ||
| I can't believe that they don't have more regard for one of the historically great cities in this country that they are going to allow this to happen. | ||
| And as far as the sentiment here in Washington, D.C., we simply cannot allow these kinds of things to continue. | ||
| We saw what happened in the summer of 2020, over $2 billion in damage, people murdered. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We just can't allow this kind of rioting to get out of control the way that they're allowing it in California. | |
| Do you agree with President Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard here? | ||
| And what do you make of Gavin Newsom's suing the president over that decision? | ||
| I think Gavin Newsom, pretty much every decision he makes is the wrong one. | ||
| I think that that's how you know what is the right decision to make is to do the opposite of what he does. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Again, it is stunning to me that he would take the side of the rioters rather than the side of law and order. | |
| I don't think that his lawsuit is going to go anywhere. | ||
| And I think absolutely, if they're not going to protect the federal offices, then they're not going to allow our ICE agents to conduct the operations that they should be conducting. | ||
| If they're not going to protect them, then we're going to have to call in the National Guard to do it. | ||
| It really is surprising to me that we have people who are waving flags from a foreign country and burning ones here while they're claiming that they don't want to be deported to the country that they're waving the flags of, yet they claim to hate America. | ||
| None of this makes sense, and it tells you that this is not an organic movement, that this is just part of the ongoing effort to undermine America. | ||
| Do you believe there's reason here to arrest Gavin Newsom, as President Trump has suggested he would do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not going to go that far. | |
| I don't think that that's what is necessary, but I think that it is incredibly important that we restore law and order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that we saw more of that last night. | |
| We saw rioting, but I think that you're seeing it quelled much more quickly than we saw again over the weekend as well as during 2020. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We cannot allow the anarchists to control law and order in this country. | |
| We just can't. | ||
| You mentioned ICE agents need to have the ability to do their jobs. | ||
| A topic that has come up during what's happened out in Los Angeles is the ability of sitting members of Congress to go into federal facilities, jails, to check on those who have been arrested. | ||
| What actual authorities do members of Congress have on that front? | ||
| What's your understanding about what you're allowed and not allowed to do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have the ability to make appointments so that we can go in and see what's going on. | |
| But I think that you're probably talking about Representative Waters. | ||
| That was all for show. | ||
| She knew it was all for show. | ||
| She knew that she was going to be turned away. | ||
| You don't just show up on the front door of a facility like that, especially under the circumstances, and demand to be let in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She knew that she was going to be exactly what was going to happen, and they've turned her away, and they should have. | |
| She wants to make an appointment to tour the facility. | ||
| She's more than welcome to do so, just like any other sitting member is. | ||
| Do they have to grant your ability to tour a facility? | ||
| What is the law that applies here for a member of Congress? | ||
| What are the special privileges? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know that it's special privileges. | |
| I don't know that we're talking about a specific law that says that members of Congress can go into any federal building. | ||
| I don't think that that's the point. | ||
| I think the point is it's a matter of courtesy and it's a matter of actually accomplishing what you're attempting to do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can go into federal buildings. | |
| I do it all the time. | ||
| I was in the USDA yesterday, but I made an appointment to go and meet with people, which was the appropriate protocol to follow. | ||
| Congresswoman Harriet Hegeman with us until the top of the hour at 9 a.m. Eastern, and she's taking your phone calls. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Republicans, Democrats, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Congresswoman, as folks are calling in, I want to switch gears to the one big, beautiful bill. | ||
| As has been the discussion for weeks now, the path of that legislation. | ||
| How different do you think the bill will be once the Senate is done with it from the one that you voted on and supported when it passed the House last month? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that there will be some changes, some targeted changes, but I think for the most part it's going to remain intact. | |
| I think people need to understand that the President, the Speaker of the House, and John Thune in the Senate, they were all engaged throughout the entire process. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Senate didn't receive a bill out of the blue. | |
| We have been talking to our colleagues on the other side. | ||
| We have been working with them. | ||
| We have been addressing issues. | ||
| That's why it took us a period of time for the House to be able to put this together. | ||
| This is a very well-thought-out piece of legislation. | ||
| There were negotiations that went on from the various players involved, including myself. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I had issues that I wanted to make sure were addressed in this bill. | |
| And I've been working with my colleagues, my Senate colleagues on the other side to ensure that we get those provisions in the bill. | ||
| So I think that there will be some changes. | ||
| I think we expect some changes. | ||
| I don't think you're going to see a wholesale rewrite by any sense of the imagination. | ||
| What are some of those changes specifically that you were working with your Senate colleagues to make sure in this bill? | ||
| And would it be a deal breaker if this bill came back from the Senate and they weren't there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the big issues that I was focusing on was obviously border security being on the Judiciary Committee. | |
| We want to make sure that we have sufficient funds to build the wall. | ||
| What's happening in Los Angeles I think makes this even more pressing that we get this bill passed right away and get it signed into law. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're providing additional resources for the Border Patrol. | |
| We're providing additional resources for more immigration judges, more beds, again construction of the wall. | ||
| The other area that was very important to me was unleashing America's energy and energy independence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I was focusing on our ability to explore and do additional oil and gas exploration and production. | |
| The same with coal. | ||
| We're reducing the royalties on coal to pre-pandemic levels. | ||
| We're getting rid of a lot of the Green New Deal nonsense that was included in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act or IRA. | ||
| And we are moving forward with better energy policies. | ||
| So those were some of the things that I focused on that are very important not just to Wyoming but to the United States as a whole. | ||
| Where are you on state and local tax deductions and how big they should be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well obviously that's something that I wasn't very pleased about. | |
| But again, we're going to have to negotiate and work with our colleagues so that they also can get some of their priorities done as well. | ||
| One of the things that I've learned about being in Congress is that we kind of get to where we have certain areas of expertise. | ||
| And I hope that people and my colleagues will come to me when it comes to energy policy issues and regulatory policy issues. | ||
| And sometimes I have to go to them on the issues that are important to them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not as much of an expert on health care, for example. | |
| As far as the state and local taxes, you know, I think that what it represents is that some of our bigger states, some of our blue states, are definitely run by your tax and spend Democrats. | ||
| I don't like the idea of being able to deduct the state and local taxes, especially at the high level that we're talking about. | ||
| But at the same time, I'm going to have to be able to work with my colleagues so that they can get some of their priorities done as well. | ||
| It's not taking away from the fact that this is an incredible piece of legislation and we need to get it passed. | ||
| You're talking about those big states run by Democrats. | ||
| I'm assuming you're talking about New York and California, but it's Republicans in those states that are threatening to walk on this bill if the salt deductions aren't included to a certain level. | ||
| What's your conversation been like with those individuals? | ||
| And do you feel like they've been too unwilling to negotiate on this issue? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm not going to be critical of any of my colleagues in that regard. | |
| What I would say is that they're representing their constituents. | ||
| They're doing what they think is in the best interest of their constituents. | ||
| And also, many of us believe that we're overtaxed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that you would have Republicans who would be advocating for reducing taxes. | |
| The difference here is, and the battle that we have, is should that be borne by all of us federally, or should that be borne by these states that are the high-tax states, Illinois, New York, California, Connecticut? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those are your high-tax states. | |
| Those are your blue states. | ||
| And so, again, that's the debate that we're having. | ||
| And the many benefits of this bill outweigh the things that I disagree with, and that's why I supported it. | ||
| Let me let you chat with some callers. | ||
| This is Stephen Waiting in Connecticut, Independent. | ||
| Stephen, good morning. | ||
| You're on with Congresswoman Hegeman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey, good morning. | ||
| I actually called to talk about the LA riots. | ||
| But just on the tax thing, remember for 250 years, Connecticut's been subsidizing the Red States. | ||
| So, you know, we're the ones paying for the big, beautiful bill. | ||
| And you are raising the deficit. | ||
| But let's just skip to the L.A. riots. | ||
| I'm working with Wyoming. | ||
| So I would disagree with your premise. | ||
| I don't think that you subsidize Wyoming. | ||
| We're one of the largest energy producing states in the nation. | ||
| And as a result, we send massive amounts of money to the federal treasury through royalty payments with coal and oil and gas and uranium, tronomining, that sort of thing, cattle grazing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I don't think that Connecticut subsidizes Wyoming in any way whatsoever. | |
| We subsidize other states while also providing very important resources for the country as a whole. | ||
| Stephen, did you want to finish the second part of your question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, let's table that. | |
| The LA riots, putting in troops is the fear of the absurd. | ||
| It's just wrong. | ||
| I've worked around large crowds all my life. | ||
| They never do it that way. | ||
| Doing it that way is the Roman legion way. | ||
| It's going to end up in somebody's getting hurt. | ||
| Somebody's going to get maybe even hurt to death. | ||
| They always come in with small groups. | ||
| They never do it with large groups with the classical Roman Legion way. | ||
| I mean, this is just the wrong way to do it. | ||
| Stephen, got your point, Congresswoman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think that what you're saying is that we have to ask permission of the people who are rioting as to how we respond to the riots, which to me seems utterly and completely absurd. | |
| If you're breaking the law, if you're burning cars, if you're destroying property, I don't think that we ask the rioters how they want us to respond to that. | ||
| And I think that's what people are advocating here. | ||
| I do apologize. | ||
| There's a lot of noise in the attenda today, so it's a bit difficult to hear. | ||
| But I think that what you're suggesting is that we have to tiptoe around the idea that people are burning vehicles. | ||
| They ordered the Waymo vehicles and set them on fire, creating a horrific, horrific environmental degradation in those areas because these are electric vehicles. | ||
| So I guess that I am not going to buy into the idea that the rioters get to determine what our response is. | ||
| What is your understanding of the Insurrection Act, what it would allow in this situation, and when should the Insurrection Act be invoked? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I don't think that the I'm not sure that the Insurrection Act itself has actually been invoked other than calling out the National Guard. | |
| And what the National Guard does, and I'm paraphrasing, but what it does, is they are protecting the federal buildings and the federal activities that are going on, which the federal government has the absolute right to do. | ||
| So when you see people throwing concrete blocks and frozen water bottles and rocks and different things at federal vehicles as they're hauling away illegal aliens, that's not the right reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's illegal. | |
| What you're talking about is illegal. | ||
| And whatever we need to do to quell those activities is perfectly appropriate. | ||
| I'm never going to buy into the idea that it's okay to take cinder blocks and take a hammer, break them into smaller pieces and throw them into the windshield of federal vehicles and then say that that's a First Amendment right and they shouldn't have responded with the National Guard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm just not going to buy into it. | |
| I think that we saw what happened when you don't respond forcefully to this kind of illegal activity. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And they're going to have to address this. | |
| What I have seen with the LA riots, I don't have any sympathy for the people who are torching vehicles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just don't. | |
| To Helen in Toledo, Ohio, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on with Congresswoman Higgeman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| My concern is the double standards that our government is using with the American people. | ||
| Where were the National Guards on January the 6th? | ||
| I'll tell you where the National Guard was. | ||
| Donald Trump offered 10,000 National Guard to both Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington, D.C., and they rejected it. | ||
| He's not entitled to call out the National Guard in Washington, D.C. That's the one city he can't call out the National Guard. | ||
| So when you say, where was the National Guard on January 6th? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He offered it. | |
| He offered 10,000 troops. | ||
| But the Speaker of the House and the Mayor of D.C. are the ones that are required to approve it. | ||
| He couldn't unilaterally do that. | ||
| He also had the military on standby, and he called soon after 2 o'clock in the afternoon and asked to have them deployed so that they could come to the Capitol. | ||
| The head of the military at that time told him to stand down until after 5 p.m. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you have an absolutely legitimate question. | |
| I agree with your question. | ||
| The problem is that it wasn't the Republicans, it wasn't Donald Trump that failed to deploy the necessary assets that were needed at the U.S. Capitol. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And again, we're not going to allow that to happen in Los Angeles. | |
| I think that you probably then must agree with the actions that he's taken in Los Angeles if you think that the National Guard should have been called out on January 6th. | ||
| On January 6th, what was your feeling about pardoning those who had been convicted of crimes related to January 6th? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it was absolutely appropriate because under the Equal Protection Clause of both the 5th and 14th Amendment, it's clear that they were being treated differently than other people. | |
| And again, I'm going to go back to the summer of the so-called summer of love of 2020, the people who were burning buildings who were over $2 billion in damages. | ||
| There's really no comparison as to what happened in 2020 and what happened on January 6th. | ||
| Yet the people on January 6th were treated very, very differently. | ||
| One of the absolute linchpins of our republic, of our constitutional foundation, is equal protection, which means that people who are similarly situated must be treated similarly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that is not the circumstance of what happened with the people with January 6th. | |
| We also know that they were using a law that was never, ever intended to be used the way that it was. | ||
| In fact, the Supreme Court reduced many of the sentences of the people whose sentences were enhanced because of this so-called destruction of government property statute that was passed during the Enron era. | ||
| It was designed to go after accounting records, that if you started destroying accounting records, they could enhance your sentence for destruction of government property. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So they attempted to use that against the people on January 6th. | |
| The Supreme Court said that was never the intent of that law, and many people were immediately released from prison. | ||
| So what happened is that the people who rioted and misbehaved and destroyed property on January 6th should have been prosecuted, but they should have been treated the same as anybody else would. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I look at what happened in Portland during that era of 2020 where they were attempting to burn down a federal courthouse. | |
| We had days on end, nights on end, people using fireworks and projectiles and attacking our federal employees out there, and there were no prosecutions whatsoever. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The fastest way to destroy our republic is to treat people differently when they're similarly situated. | |
| So I thought it was absolutely appropriate that everybody associated with January 6th was pardoned. | ||
| It's the Democrats and the radical prosecutors and judges who put the president in that position. | ||
| They're the ones that are to blame for that because they overcharged and they overprosecuted and they persecuted people over that and he ultimately pardoned them as a result of it. | ||
| About 10 minutes left with Congresswoman Harriet Hegeman of Wyoming. | ||
| Let me take you home to Wyoming to Cheyenne. | ||
| This is Mark, Republican Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Just want to say I support the big beautiful bill and thank you, Congresswoman, for representing us, the people here in our great beautiful state. | ||
| I just wanted to be sure that we're going to stop these ridiculous green energy subsidies because we see how it's negatively impacting not just here in Laramie County, but across the whole state of Wyoming. | ||
| I agree with you, and that is part of what is in it. | ||
| They are going to be phased out. | ||
| There are some that end sooner than others. | ||
| I would have liked to have seen all of them taken out immediately again with the IRA. | ||
| We know that many of the projects that were being funded through the IRA are not feasible and they don't produce energy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's one of the major problems with them. | |
| The green boo doggle, as I guess what you would call it. | ||
| So they are going to be phased out, and we're going to get back to producing affordable and reliable energy, which is what we should be focusing on. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Beyond the Big Beautiful, one big beautiful bill. | ||
| I want to ask you about a different piece of legislation moving through Congress. | ||
| What is Connor's Law? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't hear you. | |
| What is Connor's? | ||
| What is Connor's Law? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, Connor's Law. | |
| Well, so what has happened is that we've always had a regulation that required English language proficiency for our truck drivers. | ||
| And under the Obama administration, through guidance documents, they reversed that and said that our truck drivers do not have to be English language proficient. | ||
| Well, I come from the state of Wyoming, and Mark was just mentioning here in Laramie County. | ||
| Between Laramie County and Albany County, you drive over 8,000 feet in elevation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That road is closed on a regular basis because of snow and ice and horrible weather. | |
| We can have very treacherous weather in Wyoming, and we have a lot of signs that are warning people of that. | ||
| We've had a dramatic uptick in truck accidents after the Obama guidance document, making it so that our truckers do not have to be English language proficient. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so I wrote to the President of the United States. | |
| I pointed this out. | ||
| I asked him to reinstate the requirement that there has to be English language proficiency. | ||
| We have a lot of drivers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania. | ||
| They can't read our signs. | ||
| Now, it's one thing if you can read the stop sign, but another thing is we have digital signs across Wyoming, especially I-80, that give warnings about weather conditions and road conditions. | ||
| And if people can't read those, it's a very dangerous circumstance. | ||
| So he issued an executive order requiring English language proficiency. | ||
| And Connor's Law is named after a young boy who was killed with a trucking accident where the gentleman who was driving the truck could not speak English. | ||
| And so I am a co-sponsor of that bill to make it a requirement that our truck drivers be English language proficient in order to get a CDL or a commercial driver's license. | ||
| Back to the phone calls. | ||
| This is William in Rural Hall, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I heard the Congressman from Wyoming, which really stated some really unfounded things. | ||
| I'm a veteran. | ||
| My family are many veterans. | ||
| I've had family members that have passed away because of the war. | ||
| I don't understand how you can justify January 6th. | ||
| I didn't justify January 6th. | ||
| I just said that if you're going to prosecute people, you need to prosecute them for the same crimes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So if you're going to prosecute them for trespass, go ahead and prosecute them for trespass. | |
| Go ahead and prosecute them for destroying property. | ||
| But don't treat them. | ||
| Don't try to send them to jail for 5, 10, 15, 20 years when you've got people in New York and California and Minnesota and Chicago and Washington, D.C. We'll take you live now to the U.S. House to begin debate on four bills. | ||
| Of them would repeal laws in the District of Columbia, including one that would bar non-citizens from voting. |