| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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Does Jerome Powell Vote?
00:15:23
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|
unidentified
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On the map, the Huber family has built a business that supports local agriculture, creates jobs, and showcases what family-run enterprises in rural Indiana can achieve on the world stage. | |
| I'm proud to represent the Huber family and the many hardworking people behind Starlight Distillery. | ||
| Their success is a testament to the strength of family businesses and the communities that support them. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the House in recess until noon today. | ||
| The U.S. House now in recess. | ||
| Members are expected to return later today for legislative business. | ||
| Today, the House is expected to consider a rule covering legislation on labor standards and investment savings. | ||
| Off the floor, talks continue between both sides of the aisle on how to fund the federal government past the January 30th deadline to avoid a government shutdown. | ||
| When the House reconvenes, be sure to follow our live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| And a very good Tuesday morning to you. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in now. | ||
| Here's the headline on this topic from the front page of the New York Times today: the Federal Reserve Chairman facing a fiercer attack is fighting back. | ||
| Jerome Powell drops cautious ways. | ||
| They say agency independence is now at stake amid the criminal investigation. | ||
| This topic, a subject of conversation around Washington yesterday, including with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, was asked about this investigation during an interview at the National Press Club. | ||
| This is what she had to say. | ||
| He's saying, I want to put my hand on the dials on monetary policy. | ||
| And Jerome Powell and some of the Fed have resisted him and said very calmly that they are going to continue to look at the economic data and that they are going to make decisions based on what the economic data say. | ||
| And that's just not only not good enough for Donald Trump, it's a challenge to who Donald Trump is. | ||
| It's a challenge to somebody who thinks he's supposed to run everything. | ||
| And so Donald Trump just stays after it. | ||
| And now, this is a question about weaponizing the Department of Justice right out in plain view in order for Donald Trump to try to have a chance to take over the Fed as quickly as possible so that he can make political decisions that he thinks will help him rolling into the 2026 election, | ||
| even if it has disastrous long-term consequences for our economy and also for our economic structure. | ||
| And you know, I just want to add one more point to this. | ||
| What Trump is trying to do is terrible for our economy, but it undermines America all around the world. | ||
| People rely on the American economic system, and I'm saying this at a writ large, that it's a Fed that's independent, it's making decisions based on data. | ||
| You may like them, you may not like them. | ||
| I've often not liked them and disagreed on the data, but that it's making its decisions based on its best understanding of the data. | ||
| The Fed has been the gold standard for that kind of monetary policy decision-making. | ||
| And Donald Trump is just burning that to the ground. | ||
| And that's going to be costly for the United States and all of our global markets. | ||
| It's going to be costly for the United States over a very long arc if Trump gets away with this. | ||
| Senator Elizabeth Warren, that was yesterday at the National Press Club here in Washington, D.C. Also yesterday at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, this was a topic of conversation. | ||
| Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked about the investigation, said that Donald Trump is not directing this investigation. | ||
| Here's that interview. | ||
|
unidentified
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Did the president ever direct DOJ officials to open an investigation into Powell? | |
| No. | ||
| And can you reassure the American public that his long-standing criticisms and public comments about Powell had nothing to do with the investigation? | ||
| Look, the president has every right to criticize the Fed chair. | ||
| He has a First Amendment right, just like all of you do. | ||
| And one thing for sure, the President's made it quite clear is Jerome Powell is bad at his job. | ||
| As for whether or not Jerome Powell is a criminal, that's an answer the Department of Justice is going to have to find out. | ||
| And it looks like they intend to find that out. | ||
| Caroline Levitt yesterday at the White House, this investigation being led by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Washington, D.C., that would be Janine Pirro. | ||
| She took to X last night to post about this investigation, a three-paragraph post. | ||
| This is what she said. | ||
| The United States Attorney's Office contacted the Federal Reserve on multiple occasions to discuss cost overruns in the chairman's congressional testimony, but we were ignored, necessitating the use of legal process, which is not a threat. | ||
| The word indictment has come out of Mr. Powell's mouth and no one else's. | ||
| None of this would have happened, she said, if they had just responded to our outreach. | ||
| This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less. | ||
| We agree with the chairman of the Federal Reserve that no one is above the law, and that is why we expect his full cooperation. | ||
| Janine Pirrow there, quoting Jerome Powell from his statement on Sunday night. | ||
| That was the statement released by the Federal Reserve, the statement that revealed this investigation was happening. | ||
| The Justice Department contacting the Federal Reserve on Friday about this investigation related to testimony that Jerome Powell gave last year before the Senate. | ||
| And here we are this morning. | ||
| We're asking for your view of that probe of Jerome Powell. | ||
| Do you see it as political pressure? | ||
| The Trump administration trying to influence monetary policy decisions. | ||
| 202748-8000 is the number to call. | ||
| Do you see this as a legitimate investigation? | ||
| 202-748-8001. | ||
| Do you see it as something else? | ||
| 202-748-8002 is that number. | ||
| Color's already on the line. | ||
| This is Daniel out of Louisiana on that third line. | ||
| Go ahead, Daniel. | ||
|
unidentified
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How you doing? | |
| I'm doing well. | ||
| What do you think about this investigation? | ||
| Well, what I think, I think the Federal Reserve's a whole Ponzi scheme from 1913 when it started. | ||
| Pretty much, if you know who runs the Federal Reserve, it's the Roth trials. | ||
| And the whole global cabal is being taken down as we speak. | ||
|
unidentified
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There's like $9 trillion missing. | |
| All right, that's Daniel out of Louisiana. | ||
| This investigation centering on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman. | ||
| His term is up later this spring. | ||
| The most likely person to replace him, the National Economic Council director for President Trump, Kevin Hassett, he was asked about this investigation also yesterday at the White House. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
| I would expect that the markets would be happy to see that there's more transparency with the Fed. | ||
| It's something that people have been calling for for quite a long time. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you worried that the probe undermines the independence of the central bank and could destabilize the markets? | |
| I guess the question is, if you think the building costs $20 billion or $10 billion, do you think at some point that it's appropriate for the federal government to investigate? | ||
| And it seems like the Justice Department has decided that they want to see what's going on over there with this building that's massively more expensive than any building in the history of Washington. | ||
| And if I were Fed chair, I would want them to do that. | ||
| I think that it's really important to understand where the taxpayer money goes and to understand why it goes this way or that. | ||
| Do you think Mr. Chance Powell will stay on as a governor on the board even after his term as chair? | ||
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unidentified
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I'm not sure about that. | |
| I've not talked to Jay about that. | ||
| He's a good person. | ||
| If he wants to continue government service, he'll make that call when the time comes. | ||
| You think that that would be something the next Fed chair, whether it's yourself or someone else, could live with? | ||
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unidentified
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You know, we'd have to see how it goes. | |
| But Jay's a good person. | ||
| That was Kevin Hassett yesterday at the White House being asked about this investigation. | ||
| He, too, referencing the topic of this investigation, the chairman Jerome Powell's testimony before the United States Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee that happened last June, June the 25th of 2025. | ||
| They were talking about renovations for the Federal Reserve and federal appropriations and the cost overruns of those renovations. | ||
| I want to take you back to June 25th of 2025 to show you one of the key moments that focuses on the topic of cover runs and what has very much become the topic of today's discussion. | ||
| Page 129 of the final plans reflected rooftop garden terraces. | ||
| The page 127 and 129 were where we found the ornate water features and final plans. | ||
| The new elevators that dropped board members off at the VIP dining suite was page 37 of the final plans. | ||
| The white marble was pages 40, 41, 65 of the final plans. | ||
| I would welcome your staff coming in to walk my staff through what is happening there, as opposed to what we have only read in the New York Post, not only in the Wall Street Journal, but also at the National Capital Planning Commission's website. | ||
| So we would welcome that opportunity to have a Can I just quickly say some of those are just flatly misleading. | ||
| The idea of elevators, you know, it's the same elevator. | ||
| It's been there since the building was built. | ||
| So that's a mischaracterization. | ||
| And some of those are no longer in the plans. | ||
| That's earlier. | ||
| The plans have continued to evolve. | ||
| That was June 25th of last year. | ||
| Today, there is an active criminal probe of Jerome Powell relating to his testimony before the United States Senate and House. | ||
| And here we are with this investigation. | ||
| We're asking for your view of that criminal probe: 202748-8000, if you see this as an attempt to apply political pressure to the Federal Reserve and Jerome Powell. | ||
| 202-748-8001, if you see it as a legitimate investigation by the Justice Department. | ||
| 202-748-8002, if you see it as something else. | ||
| Roger in Florida, up next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead, Roger. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Yes, I think it's a legitimate investigation. | ||
| The Justice Department has every right, and the president has every right to question what they feel is anything that is wasting taxpayers' money. | ||
| Now, it may turn out that it's not true. | ||
| And if it's not true, then that will come to light and we'll move on. | ||
| But if the investigation proves that there has been waste of taxpayers' money, then we need to make changes. | ||
| And it's just, to my mind, just that simple. | ||
| All the rest of this is just people choosing sides on whether they like this person or that person. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's all I have to say on the subject. | |
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| That's Roger in Florida. | ||
| Thank you for the call. | ||
| The Speaker of the United States House weighing in on this investigation. | ||
| Melanie Zenona, a congressional reporter, has this to say on the speaker's reaction. | ||
| He called the allegations, quote, serious and says, quote, if the investigation is warranted, then they'll have to play that out. | ||
| He was asked on Capitol Hill if he personally thinks it's warranted. | ||
| He says he hasn't reviewed the testimony yet. | ||
| This is very much the topic of conversation on Capitol Hill yesterday. | ||
| It's the topic of conversation for our first 30 minutes of the Washington Journal this morning, and we're taking your phone calls asking how you view this investigation. | ||
| Is it political pressure? | ||
| Is it a legitimate investigation? | ||
| Is it something else? | ||
| Phone numbers for all of those responses. | ||
| This is Mac, who sees it as political pressure. | ||
| Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is political pressure because of the nature of the president's trying to interfere with the interest rates. | |
| Just like yesterday, when he said that the whole stock market went down. | ||
| You can't create that kind of pressure on a person that's supposed to be independent. | ||
| He needs to check his 34 felons. | ||
| Is that all you want to say, Mac? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, that's it. | |
| That's Mac in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Don in Miami. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
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Morning. | |
| What are your thoughts about this investigation? | ||
| It's a criminal probe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, John. | |
| On a lighter side, Happy New Year. | ||
| And all weekend, I've been hearing how glamorous the ladies are on the show. | ||
| They've been getting all these compliments. | ||
| So I just want to say you're good looking too, John. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Thanks, Don. | ||
| What's your thoughts on this? | ||
|
unidentified
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Political pressure. | |
| Why? | ||
| I'm on the wrong line, but well, lower interest rates, it looks good for the president. | ||
| But I don't think it helps the economy. | ||
| Do you think if it's political pressure, do you think it's smart political pressure? | ||
| Does this get Jerome Powell to get the Federal Reserve Board to vote for lower interest rates before his term is out in the next couple months? | ||
| Do you see it as something that would work? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I just think it's a lot of job owning. | |
| So, what's the end result here? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I don't know. | |
| How do they say that? | ||
| Wait and see. | ||
| That's Don in Miami. | ||
| Appreciate the call. | ||
| Don, this is what the Wall Street Journal editorial board calls this move law fair for dummies. | ||
| That's the headline of their lead editorial today. | ||
| They write: In the annals of political lawfare, there's dumb, and then there's the criminal subpoena and federal prosecution delivered Friday to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. | ||
| They go on to say, whatever you think of Mr. Powell or the central bank independence, the way to change the Fed's legal status is through legislation, not a criminal persecution of dubious merit. | ||
| They end by saying America elected Mr. Trump to reduce inflation, and he and Republicans have 10 months until the election to show progress. | ||
| Picking a fight with the Fed and the bond market over an issue that voters will find confusing and irrelevant is lawfare for dummies. | ||
|
Voting Record Debate
00:02:45
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| Steve, Massachusetts, what do you think? | ||
| Hi, Fanny. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Thank you for taking the call. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| I can, Steve. | ||
| Okay, yeah, and I think there's something different going on here. | ||
| Powell lowered the rates right in September, right before the election. | ||
| For that basis, he should have lowered the rates right after the election, but he didn't. | ||
| I believe the American people, we, not people in Washington, D.C., we don't care about this issue. | ||
| We would like for you to, the government, to stop spending our money. | ||
| And I'd like to make a point on Elizabeth Warren as well. | ||
| She was put in charge of the TARP money by Harry Reid many, many years ago. | ||
| And when $60 million came up missing, all of a sudden she had $45 million in a bank account to run for the Senate of Massachusetts, who the Democrats think that was Teddy Kennedy's seat, and Scott Brown stole it. | ||
| And look, we, the American people, Democrats and Republicans, we love our country. | ||
| You people, not you yourself, but people that live in Washington, D.C., you don't love our country. | ||
| You are not Americans. | ||
| You don't vote for the president. | ||
| Your voting record goes against what the American people. | ||
| Nixon won 49 states. | ||
| He didn't even get 70% of the vote in Washington, D.C. That's Steve in Massachusetts. | ||
| I don't know what else to say. | ||
| That's Steve. | ||
| This is Joan in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Okay, well, Trump's just following his economic plan. | ||
|
unidentified
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He had on the campaign trail. | |
| He wanted to ignore the deficit, bash the Fed, trashed the dollar, cut back on labor supply by rounding up the immigrants and sending them home, put massive tariffs on so businesses will have trouble getting parts that they need. | ||
| And he said all that in the campaign trail when he was running. | ||
| And also, he also said, quote, about devaluing the dollar and politicizing the Fed because he knows best. | ||
| He has the best gut feeling ever. | ||
| How many businesses did he bankrupt? | ||
|
unidentified
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Isn't anybody worried about us? | |
| We're going to be bankrupt. | ||
|
Background On Interest Rates
00:04:12
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| We'll have no money. | ||
|
unidentified
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What's going to happen? | |
| This is like a three-bit banana republic when they take over that. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's Argentina, Venezuela. | |
| He is a debt dictator. | ||
| That's Joan in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Just a couple pieces of background information relevant to this conversation since the revelation of this criminal probe and the accusations that this is about political pressure over lowering interest rates. | ||
| Here's where the interest rates are right now. | ||
| The New York Times noting that the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates just gradually, reducing them by 0.75 percentage points since September to a new range of 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent. | ||
| They note that President Trump has demanded rates as low as 1 percent, calling Mr. Powell a numbskull and a stubborn mule, quote unquote, for refusing to concede. | ||
| The New York Times also going into the cost overruns of the Federal Reserve buildings that are being renovated, the subject of that congressional hearing that we just played you the clip from. | ||
| Friday's subpoenas relate to renovations that began in 2022 at the Federal Reserve's headquarters in Washington, D.C. | ||
| The project set to be completed in 2027 is $700 million over budget and expected to cost roughly $2.5 billion. | ||
| You'll remember that it was last summer after that congressional hearing that President Trump went to the Federal Reserve building here in Washington, D.C. Tim Scott, who was questioning Jerome Powell in that Senate clip that we showed you, joined Jerome Powell and President Trump on that tour of the renovations and they had that testy exchange. | ||
| This is July the 24th of last year. | ||
| So we're taking a look and it looks like it's about 3.1 billion. | ||
| It went up a little bit. | ||
| Or a lot. | ||
| So the 2.7 is now 3.1. | ||
| I'm not aware of the. | ||
| Yeah, it just came out. | ||
| I haven't heard that from anybody at the Fed. | ||
| Yeah, it just came back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Aren't those Fed at about 3.1 as well? | |
| 3.1.1, 3.2. | ||
| This came from us. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I don't know who does that. | ||
| You're including the Martin renovation. | ||
| You just added it. | ||
| Yeah, you just added in a third building, is what that is. | ||
| That's a third building. | ||
| It's a building that's being built. | ||
| No, it's been, it was built five years ago. | ||
| We finished Martin five years ago. | ||
| It was over as part of the overall work. | ||
| So that exchange again at the site of the renovations at the Federal Reserve. | ||
| That was last July. | ||
| Here we are today, this probe being revealed on Sunday. | ||
| The Federal Reserve Chairman was contacted on Friday about it, apparently worked over the weekend before releasing that statement on Sunday that made the rest of the country aware of this criminal probe. | ||
| We're asking for your view of that investigation. | ||
| Another 10 or 15 minutes here for this conversation, and then we'll open the phones up for any public policy that you want to talk about, including this. | ||
| But we'll stay on this topic for about 15 more minutes. | ||
| This is Ronald in Jericho, New York. | ||
| Ronald, what do you think? | ||
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| I think that the investigation is valid. | ||
| However, far beyond that, I would like to say that I happened to hear a very prolonged discussion and explanation of the Federal Reserve itself. | ||
| And the major point that was made is that this is only to benefit the banks, not the citizens of the United States, and that hypothetically, if the Federal Reserve were eliminated altogether, that that alone could eliminate the federal debt entirely. | ||
|
Questions for Accountability
00:05:08
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| Quite a remarkable thing to say, but I urge people to get more information about this and really look into it themselves and find out what the Federal Reserve has been doing to. | ||
| Ronald, how would eliminating the Federal Reserve wipe away nearly $40 trillion in U.S. debt? | ||
| Well, it's an excellent question. | ||
|
unidentified
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I urge you. | |
| Hey, we continue our live coverage now from Capitol Hill, taking you to House Leaders speaking to reporters after their weekly policy meeting. | ||
| We join this in progress live here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Most consequential decision: life or death decisions that forever change the course of our history. | ||
| So I'm grateful to be standing alongside you today. | ||
| And I'm proud to turn it over to my friend and colleague, and who I'm delighted to be leading this task force alongside, together with Congressman Crowe, Congressman Derek Tran. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I want to thank Chair Aguilar and Vice Chair Liu for gathering us for this important discussion that we're having. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm Representative Derek Tran. | |
| I'm an Army veteran, and I am a proud co-chair of the House Democratic National Security Task Force. | ||
|
unidentified
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Most importantly, though, I represent the people of Orange and LA counties in California's 45th district. | |
| In the 10 days since President Trump took unilateral military action in Venezuela without consulting Congress, we have been left with more questions than answers. | ||
| What does this mean for our troops at home and abroad? | ||
| Can we maintain the international alliances that help keep our service members safe? | ||
| Is the Trump administration? | ||
| I'm sorry, is the Trump administration more concerned with the needs of oil companies than the American people? | ||
|
unidentified
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Look, when I enlisted in the Army Reserve when I was 18 years old, I did so because I'm a proud American. | |
| When my president sends my brothers and sisters into harm's way, we have to trust that he's acting in the best interests of the American people. | ||
| Not for oil profits, not for big donors, not for the next election. | ||
| What my families in my district is begging for is relief at the grocery store. | ||
| They need child care that doesn't break the bank. | ||
| They are begging for houses that they can afford and health care that does not drain their life savings. | ||
| The people on this stage is ready to get to work. | ||
| House Democrats are ready to get to work. | ||
| We're not going to stand for another costly forever war while our constituents struggle to pay their bills. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much, and I yield to the chairman for questions. | |
| Thank you, Derek. | ||
| Questions? | ||
| Nick. | ||
|
unidentified
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I want to ask about THS funding. | |
| What is the posture of the Republicans now towards a year-long TR and DHS funding versus putting conditions somehow through negotiation? | ||
| Well, we like passing appropriations bills, but the appropriations bills have to be fair. | ||
| They have to have reasonable allocations. | ||
| Democrats put additional language forward to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. | ||
| It's not language that they could support. | ||
| And so ultimately, the Homeland Bill fell out of the package that we have in front of us this week. | ||
| We want accountability and oversight. | ||
| I know Donald Trump and Christy Noam and their friends do not want accountability and oversight, but House Democrats want accountability and oversight to ICE. | ||
| They should have to notify Congress. | ||
| They should have to come to Congress. | ||
| They should have to continue to testify to Congress as to what they are doing. | ||
| But more importantly, they need to look out for the American people. | ||
| Right now, they are terrorizing people in the streets of this country. | ||
| They are hurting innocent individuals. | ||
| They are detaining U.S. citizens. | ||
| They are killing people. | ||
| That's what House Democrats want answers to. | ||
| And if DHS isn't willing to provide those answers, Democrats will continue to use every tool we can in order to push for them. | ||
| So it is not part of the package. | ||
| It could be in front of us in future packages. | ||
| That's a decision for Rosa Deloro and Tom Cole. | ||
| Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chair. | |
| President Trump will be in Detroit today speaking on the economy. | ||
| I wanted to get your reaction to the fact that he's now kind of turning his attention away from all of the international affairs that he's been focused on for most of the last year and will now be trying to focus on the economy and put forward a lot of affordability proposals that he believes the House Republicans as you wanted to get started. | ||
|
Democrats Ready to Discuss Costs
00:01:49
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| Yeah, I think we'll see, Michael. | ||
| He tends to distract himself when he starts talking about affordability. | ||
| But if he wants to talk about how we lower the costs that people face, whether that's credit costs or housing costs, Democrats are all ears. | ||
| Pleased that he picked up the phone and called Elizabeth Warren after her speech yesterday. | ||
| If he wants to meet with House Democrats or Senate Democrats, I would imagine he knows how to find us. | ||
| And we will carry forward our focus and our mission on lowering the costs that people face. | ||
| But if he is set on using the Department of Justice to weaponize, to go after the Fed, to go after the Fed chair, we're not in for that. | ||
| And so the problem is he continues to distract himself and we'll see what this speech is about. | ||
| It is likely a speech about affordability and then who knows what he says or posts once he gets back on Air Force One. | ||
| That uncertainty is what's wrong for the American people. | ||
| That uncertainty means we aren't talking about affordability. | ||
| We aren't talking about real solutions. | ||
| And that's the concern that House Democrats have. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Vice Chair. | ||
| Donald Trump lies all the time. | ||
| He just recently said he doesn't remember saying he was going to give $2,000 stimulus checks to all Americans, which he did say, by the way. | ||
| Now he's backtracking on that. | ||
| And then he's going to go to Detroit. | ||
| I don't know why we would take what he says seriously, because it's his policies that are jacking up prices. | ||
| His tariffs have increased the prices on cars. | ||
| His tariffs have increased the prices on food. | ||
| His tariffs have increases the prices on a number of items people brought during the holidays. | ||
| So unless he reverses his policies, these prices are going to keep on increasing and increasing and increasing. | ||