| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Say, I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | |
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
| I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
| I've watched every morning and it is unbiased. | ||
| And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
| You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | ||
| In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together. | ||
| According to a new MAGIN research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced: 28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate. | ||
| Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides. | ||
| Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source. | ||
| No commentary, no agenda, just democracy. | ||
| Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Up next, House Republican leaders speaking to reporters following their weekly policy meeting. | ||
| They answered questions on the recent ICE-Involved fatal shooting in Minneapolis, the Justice Department's investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and President Trump's proposal to cap credit card interest rates. | ||
| Well, good morning, everybody. | ||
| Hope you're having a nice day on this nice, bright, sunshiny day. | ||
| House Republicans made a promise, and it was simple: lower costs and bigger paychecks. | ||
| This week, we are delivering again. | ||
| We are passing five more bills to actually boost American paychecks and expanding benefits for working families. | ||
| This builds on the working families tax cut, which is raising take-home pay for all middle-class families, delivering historic tax relief for seniors, and giving relief to workers by ending taxes on tips and overtime, and expanding the child tax care credit so parents can actually keep more of what they earn and take care of their loved ones. | ||
| That's real relief for real working-class families, and that's real results for the American people. | ||
| Now, we're even going further. | ||
| We're making it easier for workers to gain new skills and encouraging employers to offer better benefits. | ||
| These are common sense reforms that will actually improve people's lives. | ||
| But we aren't just growing paychecks and boosting benefits. | ||
| We're doing a lot more. | ||
| We're finally fixing the broken way Washington spends your money. | ||
| Following the strong passage of three funding bills last week, which no one thought we could get done, we are moving two more major appropriation bills forward this week to advance President Trump's agenda and vision of a golden age defined by security and growth. | ||
| Gone are the days of bloated backroom deals. | ||
| We are actually delivering full-year funding through a transparent process that actually guts bureaucracy, wasteful spending, and puts America first. | ||
| You'd think Democrats would support that, right? | ||
| Gut the waste, fraud, and abuse, right? | ||
| You'd think the Democrats would support these pro-worker bills that better the lives of America, but they won't. | ||
| Watch the floor this week. | ||
| Democrats will vote against bigger paychecks and better benefits for Americans. | ||
| They will, as usual, side with bloated government. | ||
| They encourage the waste, fraud, and abuse, and they are on the side of the criminals. | ||
| Just like they voted against the largest tax cut and relief for middle-class families when every single Democrat voted against the working families tax cut. | ||
| Every single Democrat voted to raise all Americans' taxes. | ||
| I don't know why we aren't covering that. | ||
| Every single Democrat voted to raise Americans' taxes. | ||
| Could we cover that a little bit? | ||
| It's frustrating. | ||
| Not because these ideas don't work. | ||
| So ask yourself, why don't the Democrats vote for common sense solutions? | ||
| I'll tell you why. | ||
| It's because Republicans are delivering and they don't like that. | ||
| Instead of helping working families, Democrats will be busy running interference for a massive multi-billion dollar fraud scandal in Minnesota, which I'm sure our whip will talk about. | ||
| And they will be fighting the law enforcement who are there to actually keep Americans safe, stop the scams, and uphold the rule of law. | ||
| That's not compassion. | ||
| That's corruption. | ||
| And what Democrats are doing is wrong, it's reckless, and it's un-American. | ||
| Here's the difference. | ||
| Republicans stand with law enforcement. | ||
| We stand with making sure that the American people are safe. | ||
| Republicans protect your hard-earned dollars and make sure that the money is going for good causes and making sure that we are getting value for our dollar. | ||
| And Republicans will keep fighting to grow paychecks, lower costs, and build a stronger America for this generation and the generations to come. | ||
| And with that, I'm going to yield to my fellow colleague Mark Messmer, who will be leading a bill to actually empower companies to help their employees with child care and elder care. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mark? | |
| Thank you, Lisa. | ||
| H.R. 2270 is the Empowering Employer, Child, and Elder Care Solutions Act. | ||
| America is at a crossroads. | ||
| After terrible leadership of the last administration, Republicans are finally in a place to deliver change, and we can waste no time in providing more financial relief to the American people. | ||
| Bureaucratic red tape and expensive mandates are costing businesses and employees valuable money, and it's important that we get government out of the way. | ||
| I have introduced the Empowering Employer, Child, and Elder Care Solutions Act to give businesses the flexibility they need to pass on this important benefit to their workers. | ||
| Current mandates of the Fair Labor Standards Act related to dependent care drive up the cost of businesses through unreasonable pay calculations. | ||
| These expensive requirements naturally remove the incentive for companies to provide this service at no cost to their employees. | ||
| In fact, these mandates are so outdated, they were enacted in 1938 when nobody used daycare for their kids, and elderly parents live with their adult children until death. | ||
| In these modern times, we must get rid of red tape and let our businesses invest in the needs of their employees without punishing the company for doing just that. | ||
| Hoosiers and all Americans must not be forced to choose between caring for a loved one and working outside the home. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Businesses deserve to be profitable, and they are also entitled to have the most qualified workers to support their company's growth. | |
| They should be rewarded, not punished, for making this critical pro-family business benefit available, which in turn helps them recruit the brightest and best to the workforce. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm grateful for my Republican leaders, who, along with the Trump administration, are dedicated to turning the economy around and making America more profitable again. | |
| The Empowering Employer, Child, and Elder Care Solutions Act contributes to our goal of returning affordability to the American people and the U.S. workforce. | ||
| The American taxpayer needs our help now more than ever to get our economy back on track, and this bill will be one small step in making that dream a reality. | ||
| Thank you. Just gonna beat you to it. | ||
| It's hurtful time. | ||
| Well, I'm just trying to help the speaker. | ||
| He was going to have to do it anyway. | ||
| I want to begin by thanking President Trump and his all-star cabinet and federal law enforcement who have been working around the clock in my home state of Minnesota to combat rampant fraud and remove criminal, illegal aliens from our communities. | ||
| The worst of the worst are coming off our streets thanks to the immigration and customs enforcement officers. | ||
| This includes murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and pedophiles. | ||
| Yet, you wouldn't know about this because our worthless paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, doesn't report the truth. | ||
| Law enforcement officers are repeatedly harassed, assaulted, and demonized by paid agitators and failed and corrupt politicians who care more about scoring points with the radicals in their party than enforcing the rule of law and keeping Minnesota safe. | ||
| Minnesota's so-called leaders, like Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Mayor Jacob Fry, would rather go to war with the Trump administration than get criminal, illegal aliens out of our communities and expose the fraud that's been allowed to run rampant on their watch. | ||
| Once again, the Democrats have shown their true colors. | ||
| Look no further than their ridiculous lawsuit yesterday to protect horrific criminals over law-abiding Minnesotans, and they're using your taxpayer dollars to do it. | ||
| Thankfully, President Trump is once again stepping up where Tim Walz and Minnesota Democrats have failed. | ||
| By sending in additional officers and ending temporary protected status for Somalia, the Trump administration is putting the safety and security of Minnesotans first. | ||
| Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner announced yesterday that under Joe Biden, the department likely paid $84 million in ineligible assistance, including assistance to over 500 dead tenants. | ||
| And that was in his final year in office. | ||
| Accountability is finally coming, and Minnesotans are getting the answers they deserve. | ||
| With that, I'm going to turn it over to our leader, Steve Scalise. | ||
| Thank you, Whip. | ||
| We have another busy week on the House floor addressing problems that were created under Joe Biden, dealing with cost of living. | ||
| As our conference chair, Lisa McClain talked about, we have brought so many bills to start unraveling the damage that Joe Biden created that led to all these costs increases in so many areas to finally start bringing them down so we could put more money in the pockets of hardworking Americans. | ||
| You look at a great housing package last week to lower housing costs, bills that came out of French Hills Committee to address some of those problems. | ||
| We have some more bills coming out of the Financial Services Committee to address that problem. | ||
| This week we're bringing a number of bills that came out of the education and workforce to help workers, to help small business owners, to address some of the rules and regulations that added so much to the cost of things when you go buy things all across the spectrum. | ||
| Why are prices so high under Joe Biden? | ||
| But it's really interesting when you hear Democrats yelling and screaming about the cost of things. | ||
| My question is: where were those Democrats when they were jacking up all those costs on families for four years under Joe Biden? | ||
| Did Democrats forget, and do they think voters are going to forget, that under Joe Biden for four years, gas prices doubled? | ||
| Yes, doubled. | ||
| Did they forget that under Joe Biden for four years, mortgage rates doubled? | ||
| Where were the Democrats who are complaining now then when they were jacking up with all their spending and their corruption that they supported? | ||
| And then those mortgage rates affected hardworking families under Democrat control here in Washington. | ||
| Inflation under Joe Biden hit its highest level in 40 years. | ||
| Where were those Democrats that are talking about it now as it's finally going down? | ||
| Where were they when they were jacking it up? | ||
| Interest rates reached their highest level in 22 years. | ||
| Oh, and by the way, under Joe Biden and Democrats, when they were running this town, real take-home pay by workers had decreased under Biden by $3,000. | ||
| Less money in your pockets under Joe Biden and not a word, crickets from Democrats in Washington. | ||
| And now, when you hear them, what they're really complaining about is the fact that Donald Trump is working with a Republican president to finally mop up the mess they created, to lower those costs. | ||
| Think about this. | ||
| Gas prices at their lowest level in five years. | ||
| Five years. | ||
| And by the way, it wasn't just magic and pixie dust that did that. | ||
| It was real policies that every Democrat voted no on to lower gas prices. | ||
| We Republicans lowered gas prices. | ||
| Every Democrat voted no. | ||
| Not most of them, not some of them. | ||
| Every single one of them. | ||
| We brought a bill to lower health care costs. | ||
| You've heard a lot about that from Democrats, right? | ||
| There was a bill on the House floor just a few weeks ago to lower health care costs by 11%, according to CBO. | ||
| Every single Democrat voted no on that bill. | ||
| Core inflation is at its lowest level today in five years. | ||
| Five years. | ||
| And Democrats voted against all the bills that we passed to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, which had a lot to do with lowering inflation. | ||
| Everybody knows when you saw Democrats go on this crazy spending spree for four years, trillions of dollars in new spending, jacking up inflation, we finally said we're going to get control over spending. | ||
| And not only that, we're going to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| Every Democrat voted no on those bills. | ||
| And by the way, what is the ultimate result for families? | ||
| And we're just getting started, by the way. | ||
| We're not even at one year of President Trump's first term and next term in office. | ||
| Real wages, that's money in your pockets. | ||
| It was down $3,000 under Joe Biden. | ||
| Under just the first year of Donald Trump, real wages are up, up $1,200. | ||
| More money, real money, in the pockets of hardworking families, and every Democrat voted no. | ||
| I can see why they're yelling and screaming. | ||
| They don't want the American people to know not only what's happening to finally unravel and mop up the mess they created after four years, they don't want the American people to know that they have voted no every step of the way to fix the mess they created. | ||
| And we're just getting started and leading us in this effort to unravel the mess, working with President Trump as our Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Leader. | ||
| We are, you can tell, we're excited this morning about the resurgence of the U.S. economy and American strength again, and this is because of our policies. | ||
| And you've heard the leadership team talking a little bit about that already. | ||
| And I just want to echo it. | ||
| As 2026 begins, one of the reasons we're so excited is that we know that all the provisions of the big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, will be implemented. | ||
| And so all boats will rise. | ||
| As Treasury Secretary Besson said a couple weeks ago, he said 2025 was setting the table, and the banquet and the feast will be in 2026. | ||
| And it begins in earnest now. | ||
| Americans will start filing their tax returns after January 26th, and they'll begin to see immediately the real effects of the legislation that we brought and all the great things that have been done. | ||
| Our Working Families Tax Cut, of course, prevented the largest tax hike in U.S. history. | ||
| It would have been a crushing blow to the U.S. economy and every hardworking family. | ||
| But we not only prevented that disaster, we also went forward. | ||
| We made permanent the tax cuts of the first Trump administration, and then we went even further than that. | ||
| We removed taxes on tips, and over time, we reduced the tax burden on seniors and so many different categories of American workers, hundreds of pro-growth policies that were in the legislation that we passed last year, and everybody's going to be feeling that America First pro-growth policy result now. | ||
| A reminder, you've heard it said here a few times, it cannot be forgotten that Democrats voted against every bit of this. | ||
| There's no way they can take any credit for any of it because they're on record and that voting record can't be changed. | ||
| They give lip service to this new term they've coined, affordability, but we were all talking about the price, the prices that were too high and the cost of living for a long, long time. | ||
| And everybody in this room knows that. | ||
| Our aim in drafting the Working Families Tax Cut was very simple. | ||
| We wanted to make life more affordable again for American families. | ||
| We wanted to reduce that cost of living, particularly lower and middle-class earners who really did take it on the chin over the four years of the Biden administration. | ||
| Bidenomics, that they tried to tell us, is so great for everyone. | ||
| Everyone knew is exactly the opposite. | ||
| And the results are already bearing out. | ||
| So as of today, you've heard it referenced today. | ||
| 43 of 50 U.S. states, just look at one metric, gas prices. | ||
| We now have under $3 per gallon. | ||
| In fact, the average national average right now is $2.79 a gallon for gasoline. | ||
| You've got 19 states where you can buy gasoline for less than $2 a gallon. | ||
| And that's a result of good policy. | ||
| Now, contrast that just on the gas prices, one metric. | ||
| Contrast that with what we were all experiencing under the Biden administration, okay? | ||
| Despite their draining the strategic petroleum reserve to deflate prices artificially, which was a disastrous policy idea in its own, right? | ||
| Gas prices still reached record highs. | ||
| And the national average for a gallon of gasoline was more than $5 a gallon under Biden. | ||
| Now it's under $3. | ||
| And under the Biden years, it cost Americans more than $60 just to fill up a Honda Civic or a Toyota Camry. | ||
| And now everybody is buying the big trucks again. | ||
| Thanks to sound economic and energy policy that has restored American energy dominance, those days of the Biden years are over, and we are going into overdrive. | ||
| And we are not going backwards. | ||
| This is not some talking point. | ||
| This is real economic data. | ||
| It proves that Trump policies, Republican policies, achieve better economic outcomes for all of our constituents. | ||
| and they will reverse the Democrats' cost of living crisis. | ||
| And you heard the leader mention some of these other metrics, and you are all seeing them pile up now. | ||
| Inflation is down. | ||
| Interest rates are down on housing. | ||
| I think that will continue to go in a positive direction. | ||
| Certainly as we change over Fed chairs in early summer and all the rest. | ||
| And then you saw the economic growth numbers. | ||
| I mean, they are really exceeding every expectation. | ||
| In Q2 of last year, it was about 3.8 percent GDP, the growth. | ||
| And then it went to 4.1 percent in Q3. | ||
| And the latest estimates from the Fed right now, the working number, is 5.1 percent economic growth in Q4. | ||
| I mean, that's incredible. | ||
| And it took a little while because we had to reverse the Biden administration policies, but the policies of this administration and this Republican Congress are working for the American people. | ||
| It's no secret as we look to the action in Congress this week and next week, the public's trust in Congress has waned over time. | ||
| A lot of reasons for that. | ||
| And if you poll visitors in the CVC, for example, you probably receive a variety of answers on what the theory is on why. | ||
| Social media doesn't help, of course, because everybody can go online every two seconds and say what they're disgruntled about, and Congress takes it on the chin. | ||
| But every member of this institution has a personal duty to do their part to restore the trust of the Congress, particularly as we begin our 250th year as a nation. | ||
| And I think this is a really important theme. | ||
| But along that line, Republicans are going to take an important step in our efforts to restore the people's faith in Congress. | ||
| And one of those big issues is the Stop Inside Trading Act. | ||
| Now, I want to tip my hat to Congressman Brian Style. | ||
| He's the chairman of our House Administration Committee, and he's done an excellent job navigating through the various provisions of this and all the members and making sure everybody is on board. | ||
| Everybody wants to block and stop nefarious activity in insider trading, but it needed to be done in a thoughtful manner. | ||
| And Brian Style has done a great job. | ||
| So members of our House Republican Conference have worked on this issue for years, and the result is a bill that I think we will be able to pass with, I hope, a wide bipartisan margin. | ||
| And it is the direct result of all that advocacy. | ||
| And, of course, outside groups and online watchdogs who have advocated for this kind of thing for some time. | ||
| Obviously, members of Congress should not be allowed to profit from insider trading. | ||
| Obviously, doing so abuses the office and diminishes trust here in Congress, and it flies in the face of the oath that we all took before beginning our service here. | ||
| And we won't be able to change public opinion overnight. | ||
| But I think with strides like this, the American people can begin to recognize, again, that Congress can be trusted. | ||
| And we're working hard, Republicans are, to earn back that trust. | ||
| Lastly, on the FY26 appropriations, this will be the second consecutive week that House Republicans will advance another set of FY26 approach bills. | ||
| And I just want to say, I told you so. | ||
| So many people in this room thought we would never do this again. | ||
| And a lot of members didn't believe it either. | ||
| They didn't believe we could actually break the end-of-year Christmas omnibus fever and all that. | ||
| And we are so proud that that work has come to fruition. | ||
| And so this week you'll see passage of the National Security and Related Programs Funding Bill as well as the Financial Services and General Government Funding Bill. | ||
| There's no omnibus, there's no CR. | ||
| We really do believe we'll be able to prevent that. | ||
| And a lot of hard work has gone in. | ||
| And I'll say on both sides of the aisle among the appropriators who have done a really good job. | ||
| Congress is reclaiming the power of the purse, and these two bills are a big step in that. | ||
| We've already, of course, passed six appropriation bills, and we'll be at eight by the end of this week. | ||
| And next week, the final four, the final four measures, we're very optimistic. | ||
| We put in that last bill, and we will get that over the line and get it to the President's desk for signature. | ||
| This is how appropriations is supposed to work. | ||
| This is how the process is supposed to work. | ||
| It's a little late, but we're rebuilding that muscle memory, and you all see that. | ||
| Passing annual appropriate bills helps Congress exercise our Article I authority, of course, and it helps Republicans implement our policies and things that are aligned with the Administration. | ||
| We cannot govern by CR or omnibus. | ||
| And when we do that, it also loses Congress's opportunity and credibility. | ||
| And so we are really proud about rebuilding this muscle memory. | ||
| I promised when I became Speaker to jumpstart this, it's taken a while, but we are finally moving that boulder uphill, as I always say. | ||
| Fixing the process along the way, and that's a really important thing that everybody can take a lot of pride in. | ||
| We look forward to sending these bills to the President's desk and to finishing this process this week. | ||
| And I want to thank Congressman Mesmer for being here and doing all the thoughtful work that he has been involved in for his legislation. | ||
| There's much more of this to come in the new year, and we're excited, and that's why we're in a good mood today. | ||
| So, questions? | ||
| With the pending probe of Fed Chair General Powell, given that inflation actually is looking pretty good, how can the American people trust and how can markets trust that the Fed is truly independent if it looks like there's a criminal investigation into the Fed chair for not complying with the President's wishes? | ||
| Just that the President posted about Powell lowering it. | ||
| Yeah, look, I don't Chairman Powell is an individual. | ||
| He is not the Fed. | ||
| He is the chair of the Fed, okay? | ||
| And it is a serious allegation if he was not truthful in testimony to Congress. | ||
| That is not a congressional investigation. | ||
| That's a DOJ investigation, and we have to let that play out. | ||
| I mean, we don't play favorites or favoritism here. | ||
| The DOJ can't. | ||
| If there's a credible allegation or concern that someone's lied to Congress, then the DOJ should investigate. | ||
| I mean, across the board, no matter who it is, no one is immune from that. | ||
| If he's innocent, as he says, then that will come out in the investigation. | ||
| And all of us need to reserve judgment and wait for that to happen. | ||
| Meanwhile, the Fed is continuing to do its work. | ||
| And, you know, I mentioned their estimate on the economic growth number, I mean, 5.1 percent GDP. | ||
| Maybe it's higher than that. | ||
| We don't know. | ||
| They're still doing the calculations. | ||
| But the Fed will continue to operate. | ||
| There will be a new chairman come May, and we will go forward. | ||
| But I'm going to reserve judgment on it, as I suspect all of you should do as well. | ||
| I recommend you do as well. | ||
| Let's see what happens. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, do you think the President and his team at the White House should state explicitly that the concept of a military takeover of Greenland is off the table? | |
| I don't think anybody is considering that. | ||
| I mean, it's not been in any briefing I've been in, and I go to all of them. | ||
| I think this is a media narrative that has been created. | ||
| I do. | ||
| We've been very clear. | ||
| I mean, the Article I branch is clear. | ||
| There's no declaration of war pending for Greenland. | ||
| It's just not a thing. | ||
| I don't anticipate any boots on the ground anywhere anytime soon. | ||
| And look, there are negotiations. | ||
| There is interest in Greenland for U.S. interests, America's first interest. | ||
| It has to do with national security and critical minerals and many other reasons. | ||
| And we have long acknowledged that. | ||
| I mean, it goes back to the, I think, the Truman administration was the first president who expressed a direct interest in being involved there. | ||
| We've had military operations there over the years. | ||
| Some of it has been dormant in recent years, but it's a serious area on the globe. | ||
| With regard to our competition with China and Russia and some of our other people we would regard as adversaries on many of these issues, Greenland is of strategic importance. | ||
| It is geography and everything else. | ||
| So, look, again, you have to wait for that to play out. | ||
| I'm going to leave it to the administration to articulate it how they will. | ||
| But I think what the President is articulating is something that everybody objectively has to acknowledge, that Greenland has strategic significance to us and also to other countries around the world, so we need to play that very seriously. | ||
|
unidentified
|
DHS and White House officials have repeatedly referred to Renee Goode as a domestic terrorist, even as the government is actively investigating her killing. | |
| Are you concerned that the administration is using too broad a definition of domestic terrorism here? | ||
| Doesn't it open the door for this admin or a future one to cast an equally broad net to criminalize or surveil American citizens? | ||
| I'm going to be intellectually consistent and say, you know, this is my way. | ||
| I try to reserve judgment on these things until the investigation is borne out. | ||
| The difference between this and the Fed chairman investigation is, I mean, with this, there's, what, six different camera angles on this terrible tragedy that occurred there in Minneapolis, and we have all seen it. | ||
| Everybody draws their own conclusions. | ||
| It's interesting that you can get two people to look at the same video and they draw two different conclusions. | ||
| This is why we have investigations, and I'm confident that that will go through. | ||
| I think the Fed's, the State should definitely cooperate with the Federal investigators. | ||
| That's how these things work. | ||
| And we'll find this out. | ||
| What I saw, the angle that I saw, was this woman was taunting ICE officers. | ||
| She was impeding law enforcement. | ||
| She was violating a number of laws in doing so. | ||
| They were very patient and asked her multiple times to remove her vehicle and stop impeding their operation, and she refused. | ||
| Her partner, whoever that was, was taunting the officer. | ||
| It was a crazy set of circumstances. | ||
| And from the angle I saw, this is my view. | ||
| I am not the investigator and I am not the judge and jury. | ||
| But I will tell you what I saw is that the vehicle, she revved, she hit the accelerator and hit the ICE officer, and he reacted in a split second. | ||
| And it will be up to the investigators and everyone else to determine the outcome of that. | ||
| But I think everybody should reserve judgment on it. | ||
| And I'm going to keep saying the same thing. | ||
| Yes, yes, yes. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, President Trump is proposing a 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates as a part of an affordability push. | |
| How much support is in your caucus for that? | ||
| I talked with him about it briefly yesterday, and the President is the ideas guy. | ||
| And what he is doggedly determined to do and laser-focused upon doing is the same thing that we are, and that is reducing the cost of living, bringing down prices for the American people. | ||
| And he is looking at every idea under the sun to do that. | ||
| It is one of a large menu of ideas that have been proposed as something we ought to think about and investigate. | ||
| Since I had the conversation with him, I have talked to a number of colleagues about that and what that would mean. | ||
| And are there unintended consequences of that? | ||
| And it is a complicated area. | ||
| So I don't know. | ||
| Like everything else, you would need legislation to do something like that. | ||
| And we'd have a lot of work to build consensus around it. | ||
| But you've got to be very careful if you go forward in that. | ||
| In our zeal to bring down costs, you don't want to have negative secondary effects of that. | ||
| So, for example, one of the things that the President probably had not thought through and others at first glance, it sounds great, we should bring down interest rates to 10 percent. | ||
| It would help everybody, all borrowers. | ||
| There's a lot of Americans who have a lot of credit card debt. | ||
| But then, you know, what some of the experts have said is, well, but the problem is if you do that, then the credit card companies, the negative secondary effect is that, is that they would just stop lending money and maybe they cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount. | ||
| And then that would have a negative effect on a lot of people who work on revolving credit. | ||
| So it's something that we got to be very deliberate about. | ||
| The President understands that. | ||
| He wants us to do the right thing by Americans. | ||
| When he says America first, it comes from a sincere place in his heart in all of us. | ||
| And what I love about this President is he's willing to think outside the box and propose ideas for us to work through to see if it will actually achieve the desired objective. |