Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee joining us this morning talk about domestic and foreign issues.
Representative, thanks for your time this morning.
It's always a pleasure.
Thank you all for having me.
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?
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.
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 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, what do you think about the effort to pass such a thing?
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.
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.
Right now, we need more technology talent in the federal government.
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 it'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.
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 or 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, 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.
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.
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.
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 DC, 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.
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.
First, when it comes to waste fraud and abuse, we cut far more waste fraud and abuse than this administration is 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 and 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.
Representative Suhas Subramanian, a Democrat from Virginia, a member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committees.
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Coming up Thursday morning, the American Enterprise Institute's Philip Wallach talks about Congress and the War Powers Act, a Nixon-era law that limits the president's power to unilaterally wage war.
Then, Utah Republican Congressman Blake Moore on U.S. military action against Iran and the president's big beautiful bill.
And Washington State Congressman Adam Smith, a top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, discusses U.S. military action against Iran and Trump administration defense policies.
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The book by Claire Hoffman is called Sister Center: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson.
FSG, the publisher, further emphasizes that the story is: quote, the dramatic rise, disappearance, and near fall of a woman called Sister Amy, who changed the world.
Author Claire Hoffman, who has a master's in religion from the University of Chicago, says Amy Semple McPherson may not be known to many today, but she was a global star at the inception of global media.
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Claire Hoffman with her book, Sister Center: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
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World leaders participated in the NATO family photo at the Defense Bloc's 2025 summit in the Hague.