| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Democracy Unfiltered. | |
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| Representative Suhas Subramanian joins us from Capitol Hill, Democrat from Virginia, a member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, and also a member of the Space Science and Technology Committee. | ||
| Representative, thank you for your time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| What has been your reaction to not only what occurred in Iran over the weekend by the United States, but what happens after that? | ||
| Yeah, a couple of things. | ||
| One, I think Congress should be a part of the decision-making process, and we should be consulting with Congress when it comes to declaring war and bombing nations like Iran. | ||
| Second, you know, we still haven't gotten a full intelligence briefing. | ||
| There's been a lot of conflicting information coming from the administration as to both the impetus for those attacks as well as the results of those attacks. | ||
| I mean, we saw reporting that it wasn't as effective as the president said. | ||
| And so we don't know what to trust anymore. | ||
| This feels a lot like the Iraq war in some ways when there was conflicting and sometimes intelligence that wasn't accurate. | ||
| And so we'd like to see the truth and we want that transparency to be afforded to the American people. | ||
| The House briefing on Iran that you referenced is happening later in the week. | ||
| What were you specifically told about why it didn't happen yesterday? | ||
| I was told nothing about why it didn't happen yesterday. | ||
| And a lot of us were speculating that it didn't happen because the administration wanted to get its ducks in a row because they had an inconsistent message. | ||
| I have a lot of questions about both why they decided to do this, when they did it, and the results of it. | ||
| Because again, they've given us conflicting information. | ||
| And I'm a member of Congress. | ||
| And I think every person in our community and our country deserves to know, not just me. | ||
| So I'm looking forward to at least getting a straight answer from this administration. | ||
| Your House Speaker yesterday pushed back on this idea of a passage by or an effort by some to pass a War Powers Act, putting more requirements on the president when he comes to military action. | ||
| To what degree do you support that? | ||
| And what do you think about the effort to pass such a thing? | ||
| I'm supportive of it because if it's such an urgent thing that will have the buy-in of the country, then come to Congress. | ||
| Make us come back early. | ||
| I don't mind coming in on a weekend or on an off week or a district work period and voting on it. | ||
| If it's an emergency, we'll vote on it same day. | ||
| But what shouldn't happen is the president deciding on a whim to do things without actionable intelligence. | ||
| And if he does have actionable intelligence, he needs to share that with Congress. | ||
| And so we've already seen this president infringe upon Congress's powers when it comes to the power of the purse. | ||
| And now we're seeing when it comes to war powers, him doing the same thing. | ||
| And again, this is not the right separation of powers. | ||
| It's not good for the American people. | ||
| It's not good when it comes to transparency and accountability to the American people. | ||
| There was an effort yesterday to offer impeachment articles against the president because of the acts in Iran. | ||
| Did you support that? | ||
| I didn't support that because I felt like that process, that should be a process that goes through the Congress. | ||
| And something like this, you know, I certainly believe that this was not legal and have real concerns, constitutional concerns about this. | ||
| But I think that we have to pick our battles as a party when it comes to impeachment. | ||
| This impeachment would never have gotten the votes to pass anyway. | ||
| And so this is a political process at this point. | ||
| And we need to make sure that we're not just trying to impeach the president every week for everything he does instead of picking our battles when it comes to that. | ||
| But I do think we need to hold this president accountable. | ||
| And as the ranking member on military and foreign affairs, I do plan to do that. | ||
| Our guests will be with us just shortly before the top of the hour. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| You can text us your questions or comments at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Representative, your specialty or one of your specialties is that of cybersecurity. | ||
| As far as a reaction from Iran, people think militarily, but is cybersecurity an option for Iran? | ||
| And to what degree are you concerned about that? | ||
| Yeah, you know, one of the concerns I've had is that we're having a lot of people in our federal workforce get fired who were probationary and had technology expertise. | ||
| We have a lot of cybersecurity experts at the Department of Defense who left because they were chased out by an administration that wants to traumatize our federal workforce. | ||
| So what does that mean when it comes to warfare? | ||
| It makes us less safe because Iran has top cybersecurity experts. | ||
| They have a great drone program. | ||
| They have a lot of military capabilities. | ||
| And we, you know, a lot of these wars now are not going to be fought with just tanks and guns. | ||
| They're going to be fought when it comes to cyberspace, when it comes to AI, and when it comes to infiltrating other countries. | ||
| And so the way we have to do this is have our top technology experts be ready for Iran attacks. | ||
| And I think this is going to continue. | ||
| Whether it's China, Iran, or any of our other adversaries, we have to be ready when it comes to cyber attacks. | ||
| And I want us to be more ready. | ||
| I'm not sure if we're as ready as we need to be. | ||
| Can you elaborate on that, especially in the nature of asymmetrical warfare? | ||
| Is it manpower? | ||
| Is it technological power? | ||
| Or where are we deficient? | ||
| It's all of the above. | ||
| Right now, we need more technology talent in the federal government. | ||
| You know, a lot of the talent in Silicon Valley or Northern Virginia, where I live, is ready and willing to serve our country. | ||
| But again, we're setting up a system in the federal government that's chasing out technology talent. | ||
| And so a lot of the best people that we recruited over the past four years who were listed as probationary were actually fired. | ||
| So that's bad for our country. | ||
| And so then when you have Iran, who sometimes even forces top technologists to work for them and help their military, when you have them as an adversary, we're at a disadvantage. | ||
| And so yes, it's people and it's the technology that they can build. | ||
| It's also the cybersecurity systems that we build. | ||
| We need to make sure that we're modernizing our cybersecurity and IT systems to be ready for attacks on them. | ||
| Let's hear from John in Virginia. | ||
| Democrats line for our guests. | ||
| John, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you for taking my call, Chair. | |
| I just want to ask the Congressman. | ||
| Congressman, I also respect the Democrat that we sent to make us law in Virginia. | ||
| We feel like we are not getting what we vote for it. | ||
| When you're running the election, you're telling us one thing. | ||
| When we elect the Democrats, they do different things. | ||
| Republicans, they believe something. | ||
| Whatever they believe, they want to make sure they pass their bills. | ||
| Why can we have Democrats who stand out what we believe and saying that this is not what my constituents send me here? | ||
| We don't need fight, we don't need argument, we need to compromise. | ||
| You can't be the only one who compromises every issue. | ||
| You need to stand up for the democratic values. | ||
| And I'm sure that you're talking about technology. | ||
| Some of these congressmen, they're not well trained for the technology today. | ||
| They don't even know how to use their phone, let alone anything else. | ||
| But what I'm saying to you is when the Republican proposed a bill, don't you just say, okay, give us a 60%, 40% we agree with you. | ||
| If the bill is not pushed for the current Medicaid, current social security, how you compromise something like that to the American people? | ||
| Okay, John and Virginia, thank you. | ||
| Yeah, I think, you know, obviously, like, you'll see sometimes that we have to compromise on certain things, but we should never compromise our values. | ||
| I think that's what the caller is saying, and I agree with that. | ||
| Certainly, there's times where you want to push things forward and you have to make incremental change, and it's frustrating because I don't like to make incremental change. | ||
| I like to make big changes. | ||
| But the caller is right that sometimes we also have to stand up for our values. | ||
| And if something is not where it needs to be, we have to vote against the bill. | ||
| And so that's why I voted against the big, ugly bill and the reconciliation is because any cuts to Medicaid are bad for a community. | ||
| And so we shouldn't be trying to say, oh, let's cut Medicaid for a lot of people, but not for others. | ||
| And we'll vote for the bill. | ||
| No, that's not how we're going to do this. | ||
| What we're going to do is stand up for our values. | ||
| And he's right. | ||
| We need more technology expertise in government. | ||
| We are trying to have more hearings right now and get technology experts to Congress to help inform our processes here as well as how we can make the government and our military ready for the 21st century. | ||
| Randy in Arizona, Republican line, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I would like to say that the congressman just said that, or the representative just said that he's getting conflicting information about the attack on Iran from the White House. | |
| And I don't believe that's true. | ||
| I believe the conflicting information is coming from the liberal media who is trying to spin it. | ||
| And I think it's a shame we have a representative that is also trying to spin that in front of the American people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, I think that's not true. | ||
| I mean, the president said that he totally bombed and completely destroyed Iran's program at a specific base. | ||
| And then we got reports that CNN reported that it was actually only a small portion of it. | ||
| We only set back Iran's nuclear capabilities by a few months when the president had implied years. | ||
| And so we are getting conflicting information, even the impetus for the bombings, that we've got conflicting information. | ||
| So yeah, you know, if there was a straight story, it'd be easier. | ||
| And, you know, I'd be able to weigh in one way or another. | ||
| But I'd like to know, and if there was no conflicting information, why would they cancel our briefing yesterday? | ||
| Why don't they go to the podium in the White House and just tell us exactly what happened? | ||
| And the Intel community backed that up. | ||
| But clearly, that's not happening, which is why we have concerns. | ||
| In New Jersey, Independent Line, Lewis, hello. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Congressman. | ||
| The only conflicting is CNN that is so you can't believe them at all. | ||
| I mean, you know, the laptop, the Russian gate, all this stuff. | ||
| They're the only ones that are making the conflict out of this. | ||
| And this administration is the most transparent administration since I've been alive. | ||
| Trump talks to you guys every day, talks to the press every day. | ||
| Every day. | ||
| Good day, sir. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| I mean, I appreciate Trump talking every day on Twitter and on the press podium. | ||
| But, you know, one of the things that I've noticed is that when he talks, it's not often true. | ||
| And so just because he's talking every day doesn't mean he's being transparent or he's being truthful. | ||
| And I haven't seen either of those things from this administration. | ||
| I respectfully disagree. | ||
| From Oregon, this is Bruce, Democrats line for our guest, Representative Suhas Subramanian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Congressman. | |
| Basically, a quick question for you is, okay, so if this big, ugly bill gets passed and the people are actually doing what they're supposed to do, okay, and then all of a sudden they're doing all the requirements, they're doing where they're supposed to go if they have to go to the Social Security, wherever they have to go and they do everything, and they come to find out maybe a week later, maybe a month later, they're cut off. | ||
| What are you guys going to do? | ||
| Because I'm on Medicaid and I take insulin and it costs thousands of dollars. | ||
| So if they cut that, I will not be able to afford to pay that. | ||
| So thank you, sir. | ||
| Have a great and wonderful day. | ||
| Yeah, well, right now we have to vote against this bill and we have to explain to the American people why they should demand that Republicans vote against it as well, because more and more people are going to lose Medicaid and they're going to lose their access to care. | ||
| Kids are going to lose their access to school lunches and snap. | ||
| It's going to be a disaster for our country and for so many people in our country. | ||
| And so we have to explain that now. | ||
| And then if the bill passes, like you mentioned, and people like you are having to be impacted by these cuts, we have to explain to the American people why that happened. | ||
| And that sounds like an obvious thing to do, but sometimes, whether it's this administration or other media outlets, they will spin it so that it's not the fault of this bill, but it's the fault of immigrants or other people, right? | ||
| And so I want to make sure that what's happening in D.C., all the bad things that are happening, impacting people like you at home, that we make it very clear why that happened. | ||
| And if we do that, I think, you know, people are going to get upset about this bill. | ||
| But we have to first try to kill this bill, and then we have to explain to people, if it does pass, all the bad things about this bill and how it's affecting people at home. | ||
| Several House Republicans have already said that if the Senate makes significant changes, brings it back to the House, they won't vote against it. | ||
| What are the chances that the bill, Republicans may do in the bill by themselves? | ||
| Yeah, you know, Republicans in the House have shown zero spine when it comes to standing up to this president. | ||
| Sounds like all he has to do is call them and threaten a primary, and then they'll get in line, even if it's things that are bad for their district or bad for our country. | ||
| And so, you know, I don't believe them. | ||
| I think that they'll get in line no matter what. | ||
| Our job is to help explain to them that they'll lose their jobs if they vote for this bill and stick with this president as much as they have already. | ||
| From Arizona, this is from Stephen. | ||
| Stephen joining us on our Republican line. | ||
| Hi, Stephen. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm calling in regards to when Obama was president. | |
| They called him the deporter-in-chief. | ||
| And he was on the same pace Trump's on for deporting. | ||
| He didn't have to deal with 12 million, 20 million people. | ||
| When I was working in 2010, I worked at a car lot. | ||
| They came in and deported a guy who was there for five years. | ||
| So you guys are hanging your head that, oh, he's going after people that have been here for 20 years. | ||
| No, he's going after. | ||
| And, you know, Obama didn't even say, I'm going after the worst of the worst. | ||
| He went after regular people who broke the law. | ||
| You can look it up on YouTube. | ||
| He gave a great speech that if you come in this country illegally, you have to go. | ||
| And the second thing, Clinton and Gore, they fired 400,000 federal workers to balance the budget, and that was okay. | ||
| Now you guys are against waste. | ||
| And that's why it's hard to hang our head on anything that your party says. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Stephen, Arizona, thank you. | ||
| Yeah, you know, two things. | ||
| I was in the Obama administration. | ||
| I was there in the second term. | ||
| First, when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse, we cut far more waste, fraud, and abuse than this administration's cutting. | ||
| What this administration did is they fired the very people in charge of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse and replaced them with people who have a background in history of fraud. | ||
| And then they've created more waste and more abuse in this administration already. | ||
| And, you know, the Secretary of Homeland Security wants a $50 million private plane. | ||
| Isn't that waste fraud and abuse? | ||
| They're doing $200 million in commercials. | ||
| This is just one agency, right? | ||
| And so look at all the agencies. | ||
| There's tons of waste, fraud, and abuse now. | ||
| I don't buy that Doge as anything but creating more waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| And I've done work to actually fix it. | ||
| This can be bipartisan. | ||
| It's not just a Democrat or Republican initiative. | ||
| And on deportations, yes, Obama, I was there. | ||
| We did deport a lot of people. | ||
| I'll say this, though, that we didn't have mass people going around to people that disagreed with the president and kidnapping them essentially and detaining them for what they said, right? | ||
| This administration, this administration is going after people who are here legally, right? | ||
| We had one resident in Manassas, Virginia, who was a Trump voter who got detained because he was Hispanic, basically. | ||
| They thought that he wasn't a citizen. | ||
| And so that's what's happening. | ||
| This administration has been incompetent when it comes to immigration enforcement. | ||
| Before we let you go, it was yesterday that Representative Robert Garcia of California now became the ranking member of the Oversight Committee. | ||
| What do you think of that move? | ||
| Robert Garcia, I know him well, and he's going to do a great job. | ||
| And the Oversight Committee is going to have real oversight over this president when we're back in the majority and Robert Garcia is the chair. | ||
| Were you part of the near-attended hearing yesterday? | ||
| And what did you think about that effort? | ||
| I was not part of the hearing. | ||
| I've only heard reports about it. | ||
| So I'm looking forward to hearing more because I know we have more interviews coming up with former Biden administration officials. | ||
| Representative Suhas Subramanian, a Democrat from Virginia, a member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committees. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Hope you come back for a longer visit with us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Democracy. | |
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| And now to remarks from Vice President JD Vance, who attended an Ohio Republican Party dinner in Lima, Ohio. | ||
| The Vice President spoke of some of the Trump administration's successes, among them border security. | ||
| He also talked about what it's like to be vice president. |