| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Baird. | |
| Pursuant to clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the House in recess until noon today. | ||
| Today, lawmakers are considering legislation to reauthorize funding for the Coast Guard through fiscal year 2029 and create a new Coast Guard secretary position like other military branches. | ||
| This is the last legislative session in the House before the scheduled August recess. | ||
| Members will then return on September 2nd for votes. | ||
| Watch live coverage when the House gavels back in, here on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN. | ||
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| Nevada Democrat Dina Titus joins us from Capitol Hill. | ||
| She serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. | ||
| Congresswoman, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you for having me. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Joining us on the last day, workday, before the House heads home for the August recess, what is the message you're going to be bringing back to your constituents in Nevada this August recess? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm going to be all over the district. | |
| I'm not going off on any Codells. | ||
| I'm going to be there at home, even though we're anticipating 120-degree temperatures in the desert there in Las Vegas. | ||
| But we're going to be having some town halls, meeting with different groups, just doing a couple of protests in front of Social Security offices, talking about what this big, beautiful BS bill is going to do to the people of my district. | ||
| And it's not going to be pretty. | ||
| What is the bill going to do to the people of your district? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it hurts us in a number of ways. | |
| One, cutting back on health insurance. | ||
| You know, Las Vegas is a big service economy. | ||
| A lot of people work two part-time jobs, don't have health insurance. | ||
| They depend on Medicaid or they depend on Obamacare. | ||
| So that cut back will put people in a situation where they won't be able to afford insurance. | ||
| And if you have it, your rates will go up. | ||
| Number of people in my district rely on food stamps and nourishment assistance. | ||
| That will be gone. | ||
| We have the greatest investment in renewable energy solar in Nevada. | ||
| We're the sunniest state in the country. | ||
| All those provisions have been cut back and that created a lot of jobs. | ||
| So that's going to have an impact both on employment and in cost of electricity. | ||
| Plus all the things that have been going on have impacted our tourism economy. | ||
| Tourism is down and of course that's the big employer. | ||
| How much do the people of your district there in Nevada hear about Jeffrey Epstein? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh well, you know, Nevada loves a scandal and so we hear a lot about that. | |
| We're waiting to see what the Las Vegas connection is going to be because there usually always is one, but those pictures haven't come out yet. | ||
| But also Nevadans are pretty straightforward regardless of what party you belong to. | ||
| They just want government to tell them like it is and get out of the way. | ||
| So if they think you're hiding something or covering up something, they're not going to like it. | ||
| How much are you planning to talk about Jeffrey Epstein in the coming six weeks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well we'll talk about it, but it's not going to be the number one theme. | |
| I mean the number one theme is the economic impact of the recent policies that have been put forth by Trump and the Republicans in Congress. | ||
| James Carville in the pages of today's New York Times writes this about Democrats and messaging going into this August recess and ahead of the midterms. | ||
| This is what he writes: There's plenty of tantalizing political scandals surrounding the president right now, but issues of moral or ethical concern are almost always more powerful when they're self-inflicted. | ||
| Let President Trump rope a dope with MAGA on the Jeffrey Epstein case and don't get in the way. | ||
| Instead, the midterms will, like all elections, be decided largely based on issues that affect Americans' everyday lives. | ||
| He said, Our midterm march starts with the simple phrase every candidate can blast on every screen and stage. | ||
| We demand a repeal. | ||
| A repeal of Mr. Trump's spending law is the one word that should define the midterms. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's right, and that's what Democrats have been talking about. | |
| Every way that we can, we want to roll back those provisions. | ||
| Now, some of them don't go into effect until after the election, so people won't feel them immediately, but that gives us a little time to perhaps make some progress either through the appropriations process, through the amendment process, through the regulatory process, some way that we can undo some of the damage that has been done. | ||
| So I think repeal is fine. | ||
| But I think the Democrats need to stop focusing on messaging. | ||
| We don't need to play the same game that the Republicans are playing. | ||
| We need to get back to what we do best and talk about solutions. | ||
| Congressman Dina Titus with us until the House comes in at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| It's about 22 minutes from now. | ||
| And we'll, of course, go there live for gavital gavel coverage when they do come in. | ||
| You can join us with your phone calls on phone lines for Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| As folks are calling in, Congresswoman, I know you were listening in to the end of that last conversation on USAID and foreign service abroad. | ||
| What will be the impact of cuts to USAID from your perch on the Foreign Service Committee? | ||
| How do you see this impacting America's position abroad? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it's the most short-sighted thing that we could do because everywhere we pull back, China is ready to go in there in a second. | |
| And this is such a small investment. | ||
| Less than 1% of the budget goes into foreign aid, despite people thinking it's larger than that. | ||
| And we buy so much with so little in terms of goodwill, whether it's health programs in Africa, nutrition programs. | ||
| And you know, those nutrition programs help the people not only there with little children who are malnourished, but back here at home, because it's our farmers that grow the peanuts that go into making that high-protein substance that we are able to give to children. | ||
| And so, if we're not there to have some goodwill to be the leader of the world like we have been in the past, China will be only too ready to step in. | ||
| And we need some friends around the world, and we're losing them pretty fast. | ||
| Here's another foreign affairs news story. | ||
| This is from the Associated Press today. | ||
| The Trump administration announced yesterday that it will once again withdraw from the UN Cultural Agency, UNESCO, and move that the U.S. shows the U.S. further retreating from the international organization. | ||
| The State Department spokeswoman said in a statement that the withdrawal was linked to UNESCO's perceived agenda to advance diverse social and cultural causes. | ||
| She says she goes on to say that UNESCO's decision in 2011 to admit the state of Palestine as a member state is highly problematic and contrary to U.S. policy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, this is so in keeping with Trump's agenda on many fronts. | |
| He did this when he was in office before, and then we got back in under President Biden's administration. | ||
| Preserving the historic sites around the world should just be a no-brainer. | ||
| Why would that become politicized? | ||
| And you know, he's so anti-diversity that it fits. | ||
| He's so anti-culture. | ||
| He's erasing museums. | ||
| He's going after Smithsonian, going after the Kennedy Center, even going after the zoo because he thinks something about that. | ||
| Maybe the pandas, I don't know, don't fit with his agenda. | ||
| And Palestine is already an observer in the UN, so you're just going to pull out of the UN altogether. | ||
| Once again, it's just this kind of isolationist America first, but it's really America alone. | ||
| And it's not surprising, but I think it's a big mistake. | ||
| Let me let you chat with a few callers here. | ||
| Aileana is in Michigan, line for Democrats up first. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was listening to you earlier speak about in terms of pushing back on Trump's new policies that have been entering the House. | ||
| And a big issue that we've been seeing, especially for Democrats, is the fact that there's been a lot of messaging going on rather than, like you mentioned. | ||
| And I was wondering, like, what kind of solutions or like ideas do you have in mind to push back? | ||
| Well, we're doing everything that we can. | ||
| You know, we're in the minority in both houses. | ||
| He has the presidency and the administration, controls the courts, and many state legislatures are also falling in line with his agenda. | ||
| Universities are caving to his pressure. | ||
| Big churches, big corporations are pulling back from some of their longtime diversity policies. | ||
| So we're facing it on all fronts. | ||
| But we have introduced bills, we've introduced resolutions, we've signed on to amicus briefs, we've tried to get things brought to the floor for discharge petitions. | ||
| We have attended rallies. | ||
| We are holding town hall meetings in our own districts and in red districts where those Republicans won't face their voters because they know what they're going to hear. | ||
| And we're encouraging our constituents to write in, call in, keep the message going. | ||
| And I think that's being pretty successful. |