| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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people that are making decisions on the efficacy of vaccines for our children, for ourselves, and to protect us against smallpox, polio, COVID, based upon political decisions or a political agenda. | |
| That's just wrong. | ||
| And it goes to the heart of the credibility of the Center for Disease Control, the CDC, that has had respect throughout the world. | ||
| And I am very dismayed and frustrated, I think as many of my colleagues are, to see the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Kennedy, go as a lone cowboy promoting his own political agendas that are well known. | ||
| He's an anti-vaxxer. | ||
| He always has been. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That is Democratic Representative from California, Jim Costa. | ||
| He sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Agriculture Committee. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us today, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Good to be with you. | ||
| We're joined now by Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, and he sits on the Armed Services Committee. | ||
| Congressman, welcome to the program. | ||
| It's great to be back on. | ||
| How will you vote on that seven-week CR that the Republicans are proposing? | ||
| And it looks like there is a vote tomorrow. | ||
| That's what it's scheduled for tomorrow. | ||
| That's the schedule, okay. | ||
| How are you going to vote? | ||
| I'll vote yes. | ||
| I don't want a government shutdown. | ||
| I don't like continuing spending. | ||
| We're still working really off of Biden's budget from last year with these CRs, but it's better than a shutdown. | ||
| And I think it gives us time through November to work on an actual budget. | ||
| And we should modify the current spending with current priorities that we have. | ||
| But in the meantime, we need a little more time to do that. | ||
| And we've passed a lot of appropriations bills, the House and the Senate. | ||
| We've got to put them together and reconcile them. | ||
| And so that's the next task. | ||
| But I don't want a government shutdown. | ||
| And I think a clean CR that puts a little more money into security is a good bill to vote for. | ||
| What happens if there is a government shutdown? | ||
| Why do you think it's not a good idea? | ||
| Well, government shutdowns are, I just think it's poor governance. | ||
| And you're sending all these people home. | ||
| Some people aren't getting paid, right? | ||
| And for example, the military, unless we do a fix to it, they won't get paid. | ||
| So it's just not smart. | ||
| I don't think continuing resolutions are smart either. | ||
| But if you look at the lesser of the two evils, I'd rather do a CR through November than have a shutdown. | ||
| And by the way, I've been on the part of the party that has done shutdowns in the past, like in 2020. | ||
| Whatever party shuts down, government loses on this. | ||
| And so I think our Democrat colleagues should say that they will be blamed for a shutdown if 99% of the Republicans vote yes and 100% of them vote no. | ||
| Do you think that the Democrats would be blamed for this? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| If they overwhelmingly vote to not fund the government, yes. | ||
| I don't know if we'll get 100% of Republicans, but we'll see. | ||
| Now, Democrats are asking for an extension to the ACA enhanced premium tax credits. | ||
| They are saying that people will, if we lose that, which expires at the end of the year, then health care will become too expensive and people will lose their health care. | ||
| I think there's a compromise position in here on this. | ||
| So let's go backwards. | ||
| These tax credits weren't there when Obamacare was first passed. | ||
| These tax credits were added during COVID and they cost a lot of money. | ||
| But just to take them out, you know, just pull the plug on them, folks will see the premiums go up. | ||
| So I suggest that maybe stir-step them down. | ||
| If you earn over $150,000, the credits go down at $300,000 or $200,000, they go down further and stagger them down. | ||
| But I don't think you can just pull the plug either. | ||
| And so I think there's grounds for us to compromise with the Democrats on this and find a middle ground. | ||
| We could do this for the November bill, though, by the way. | ||
| It doesn't have to be done right now. | ||
| President Trump has said that he will investigate, and he's promising retribution to critics of Charlie Kirk and left-wing groups. | ||
| And Attorney General Pam Bondi has said, had made remarks about hate speech being prosecuted. | ||
| She has since walked that back. | ||
| What are your thoughts on retribution investigations of groups that have speech that and I understand crossing the line into inciting violence and calling for violence is something different. | ||
| But what are your thoughts on all this? | ||
| Well, some of the speech has been shameful. | ||
| I don't think government should be in the business of retribution on hate speech or shameful speech. | ||
| I do think you and I, though, have the right to say shame on you. | ||
| I'm not going to listen to you anymore. | ||
| We can call them out. | ||
| But it's different, though, when government's promising retribution on free speech. | ||
| I don't think it's right. | ||
| We have a First Amendment, and I think Pam Bondi did walk back her comments. | ||
| Her comments were wrong. | ||
| Hate speech is not a crime. | ||
| It should be shameful. | ||
| And we should say, hey, it's not, we don't accept it. | ||
| We reject it as a society. | ||
| But we don't have laws that go against that. | ||
| We don't fine people. | ||
| We don't prosecute based on that. | ||
| And I think the president should know, too, that he should be higher than that and better and bigger. | ||
| I wish he spoke to our better angels in these situations. | ||
| As I mentioned, he's a populist, so he generates anger, motivates him, and what he talks about. | ||
| But I wish we had a more unifying message here. | ||
| What do you think the message should have been? | ||
| What would you have wanted to hear President Trump say right after that assassination? | ||
| Well, we should realize there have been Democrats murdered in Minneapolis. | ||
| We had the governor from Pennsylvania, a Democrat was a victim of arson from an anti-Semitic person. | ||
| And then we've had Republicans murdered. | ||
| This is a problem that affects all of us. | ||
| And it's an evil in our society right now. | ||
| And instead of pointing the finger at different political spectrums, I think we'd be better saying, hey, this is all wrong. | ||
| And we're all victims of this. | ||
| I have a restraining order on someone back home. | ||
| Most everybody I know in Congress has had threats where they've had to have police protection. | ||
| Including yourself. | ||
| Including myself. | ||
| And so this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. | ||
| This is an American issue that we should be unified on. | ||
| And well, it's really easy to try to point fingers and say, okay, this is all the Democrats' fault or this is all the Republicans' fault. | ||
| And you see it. | ||
| And I think some of the speeches over the top, when the Democrats are calling us Nazis and fascists, I think most people see through that and say, okay, that's just political talk. | ||
| But there's like that one fraction of our society that incites them and gets them radicalized. | ||
| Now, ultimately, I blame the person who does the murders. | ||
| I don't want to blame, you know, the, I don't blame Nancy Pelosi for, you know, for what this guy did to Charlie Kirk. | ||
| I mean, in the end, it was the murderer's fault. | ||
| We should ultimately hold that person accountable. | ||
| He will be held accountable. | ||
| He'll be open to the death penalty, you know, potentially here. | ||
| But I think we could be more unifying and quit blaming each other. | ||
| And then you heard what happened with Kimmel. | ||
| I think it would have been better just to shame him because he was trying to say he was a MAGA guy, this color. | ||
| Well, you know, he had Republican parents, but he was actually radicalized on the left. | ||
| So what he said was not true. | ||
| But just to cancel a whole show over that, I don't know. | ||
| People have a right to listen to what they want if they don't like it, but listen to them, right? | ||
| But I get a little worried about the cancel culture that we have. | ||
| It used to be on the right, now we're seeing it, the right doing to the left. | ||
| We've been on the receiving end of this a lot in the past. | ||
| So what do you think about social media companies? | ||
| And is there something that can be done without infringing on free speech? | ||
| Well, I think these algorithms that push certain things in your screen, I get a lot of stuff from people that I don't even want to read, right? | ||
| I mean, I have, I follow 500 people on Twitter roughly. | ||
| I get thousands of other stuff that I don't want, don't ask for. | ||
| And I wish I would just get the 500 that or whatever they post, right? | ||
| And see, these algorithms are intended to push the discussion to more clicks. | ||
| And they don't sort of what I like, so you see more things that I like, but it also pushes people farther in their corner. | ||
| So I don't, why can't we just have social media? | ||
| I just want to read what the people that I'm friends with. | ||
| I don't want to read. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is there a role for conference in trying to get that? | |
| There could be, but I would rather push the social media companies to modify their behavior more than just legislate it. | ||
| So we could maybe get them at the table. | ||
| You can make more money if you push people to the edges. | ||
| Yeah, and that's right. | ||
| They're trying to drive up advertising and things like that. | ||
| But it's actually very toxic. | ||
| I mean, I find myself, last night when I got back from a dinner I was at, an interview I did, I'm reading on there, and it's just ugly stuff that's on there. | ||
| And it's people pointing their fingers at, okay, all the Democrats are bad and all the Republicans are bad. | ||
| And, you know, it's said, and people get caught. | ||
| Well, not just bad. | ||
| We're hearing the word evil a lot on this. | ||
| Like on our side, it's, you know, we're being called Nazis, fascists, and it's, and that's over-the-top talk, too. | ||
| But I don't want to say it's just them doing it. | ||
| I see both sides pandering to the most angry people in our parties. | ||
| And a lot of cable TV is based on this, too, just having that segment over here, angry as all. | ||
| And that's who's tuned in, and they're just throwing gas on the fire. | ||
| And I choose not to watch that stuff. | ||
| Just stick with C-SPAN. | ||
| You're very good. | ||
| We will take your calls for Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska. | ||
| He's a Republican. | ||
| You can give us a call on our lines by party. | ||
| So Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Switching topics, politico headline, first House Republican signs on to effort to force Russia sanctions vote. | ||
| That's you. | ||
| Tell us about that. | ||
| I think independent, free Ukraine is our national security interest. | ||
| It's very clear that Russia is the invader. | ||
| They're trying to make Ukraine a vassal state or a slave state, and the Ukrainian people don't want it. | ||
| They've lived for centuries under Russian dominance, and millions were murdered by the Russians. | ||
| And so they want their independence. | ||
| And it's clear to me that if Ukraine falls, Moldova will be next, probably Georgia. | ||
| True Petraeus recently said that Putin will invade the Baltics, even though they're NATO countries, and he's going to test our resolve. | ||
| This is what we're looking at. | ||
| And it's very important that we stand by Ukraine with the weapons they need and sanctions against Russia to maintain their independence. | ||
| And we got to remember they're a democracy. | ||
| They want free markets. | ||
| They want rule of law. | ||
| They want to be part of the EU. | ||
| They would love to be part of NATO. | ||
| And so I find the president's antics on this wrong. | ||
| He has failed in this area. | ||
| I support him on Iran. | ||
| There's other things I think he's done well. | ||
| When it comes to Ukraine, he's been a failure thus far. | ||
| And my job is to push him to do the right thing. | ||
| And so I want him to do sanctions, secondary sanctions on Russia. | ||
| And we should be sending high-end weapons to Ukraine. | ||
| And right now we're putting rules of engagement on them, just like Joe Biden did, making it very hard for them to use our weapons to target Russian military targets in Russia that are being used to attack Ukraine. | ||
| We criticize Biden for doing it. | ||
| Actually, President Trump criticized Biden for doing this. | ||
| Now, his own administration is doing it. | ||
| And so, I'm pushing him to do the right thing. | ||
| Now, Russia has been under sanctions since 2022 when they invaded. | ||
| Pretty weak sanctions, I would say. | ||
| But go ahead. | ||
| I was just going to say, Putin's actions have not changed. | ||
| His behavior has not changed. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's not. | |
| But what's not being sanctioned is China and India that's propping up their economy. | ||
| So I just had a briefing yesterday. | ||
| China economically is propping up Putin in a significant way and also giving him a lot of the military technology that he's using to bomb Ukraine with. | ||
| And so China should pay for that. | ||
| And also, India is a huge middleman in their oil and gas industry, sending Russian gas and helping further prop up the Russia's war economy. | ||
| So what we're looking at here is secondary sanctions on people who are doing business with Russia. | ||
| You said that you believe that President Trump has failed in his failure. | ||
| He's failing it. | ||
| Sorry, failing. | ||
| That is a distinction. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| In dealing with Russia. | ||
| How would you rate his defense team, the people around the president? | ||
| Not good. | ||
| He has an Under Secretary for Policy that has a 1930s worldview. | ||
| And it failed us then. | ||
| It will fail us now. | ||
| This is Elbridge Colby. | ||
| Okay, since you mentioned his name, yes. | ||
| But no, he has a view that we should withdraw out of NATO or at least really minimize our involvement in NATO. | ||
| So pulling out of Europe. | ||
| He's communicated to the Baltics that he would like to pull our financial support, our training, our presence in the Baltics, which is a no-go in Congress. | ||
| We just voted on it, was 100% support of the Baltics. | ||
| So he is way out of step with Congress on this. | ||
| He's also talking about minimizing our involvement in Asia with China and Taiwan. | ||
| And so he's talking about his whole goal is homeland security. | ||
|
unidentified
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We'll leave this now to take you to the House live here on C-SPAN. | |
| It failed us. |