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Government At Work
00:07:53
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| 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. | |
| We're in open forum. | |
| We will get to your calls shortly. | |
| But before that, we're going to talk to Representative Robin Kelly, a Democrat of Illinois. | |
| And she joins us from Cannon. | |
| Good morning, Representative Kelly. | |
| Good morning. | |
| How are you? | |
| And thank you for joining us this morning. | |
| Last week, you introduced a bill that included articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam. | |
| 100 House Democrats have signed on to it. | |
| Can you tell us why you made that move? | |
| Well, I'm proud to say it'll be at least 102 today, so people are adding their names every day. | |
| I made that move because she needs to be stopped. | |
| She's an incompetent leader. | |
| People are dying because of her leadership. | |
| She's really having a reign of terror around many cities in our country. | |
| And specifically, I mean, when you say that she's an incompetent leader, typically that's not grounds for impeachment. | |
| Are there high crimes and misdemeanors? | |
| Is there something specific that you're pointing to? | |
| Sure, she's definitely breaking the law. | |
| She's obstructing Congress. | |
| She's not letting us perform our oversight duties. | |
| She has prevented us from going to detention centers. | |
| My colleagues and I have followed what she said to the letter of the law. | |
| I know when we tried to go to Broadview in Illinois, we did what she said, and then she still prevented us from coming into the facility. | |
| And then she's violating the public trust, picking up people seemingly picked on based on what they look like. | |
| No warrants, no due process. | |
| She's definitely violating the public trust, just yanking people off the streets. | |
| They're taking people out of cars, and then self-dealing. | |
| She has spent $200 million of taxpayer money advertising for new ICE agents, and that money is going to a friend of hers. | |
| And so it seems like that friend just developed that agency a few days or less than a week before that grant money became available, $200 million of taxpayers' money. | |
| And we're still questioning who are the people behind the mask. | |
| Many of us think, I know I think, that at least some of them are the insurrectionists that Donald Trump let out of jail. | |
| Now, there are some of your Democratic colleagues oppose this move. | |
| Democratic Representative Bishop of Georgia said, he's quoted as saying, quote, we've got so many things that the Congress has yet to do, and I'd hate to see us get distracted with side issues. | |
| What's your response to that? | |
| Oh, I don't want to get distracted either. | |
| I know the main thing is affordability, and I know the main thing is health care. | |
| I'm very clear on that. | |
| But actually, when I think about what's happening in Chicago, it is affecting affordability and people's bottom line because so many people are afraid to go to work. | |
| So that hurts their bottom line. | |
| So many people are afraid to go shopping, afraid to go to restaurants. | |
| So that hurts the bottom line of the economics of a community because people are afraid to go out. | |
| They're even afraid, we've heard stories, afraid to go get health care when they're sick because they're afraid to be picked up. | |
| These are undocumented and American citizens that are saying that. | |
| So affordability is involved with Christy Noam and her reign of terror also. | |
| And switching topics now to Greenland, are you in favor of any kind of a resolution to limit the president's abilities to either try to purchase Greenland or to pursue military action there? | |
| Yes, we are filing an amendment so that he cannot either buy Greenland or attack Greenland. | |
| You know, as we just talked about, there's an affordability problem in this country, and he's talking about buying another country and then running another country when you speak about Venezuela. | |
| So we need to pay attention to this country because of the things happening here. | |
| And I mean, do you expect that to get very far in the House? | |
| Do you expect that to pass the Senate? | |
| I mean, it's probably not going to get very far, Congresswoman. | |
| Well, but you can't stay on the sidelines. | |
| You have to try. | |
| If we do nothing, then that guarantees it won't get very far. | |
| But I know a lot of my Democratic colleagues and Republican colleagues, it's been shown on the news, they don't want us to attack or buy Greenland. | |
| And as people have said, my colleagues on both sides, Greenland is not for sale. | |
| The Homeland Security Department's funding is up for discussion right now in the House. | |
| Can you tell us where that stands now and where you personally stand on that? | |
| Well, it is coming up for a vote, or it should be. | |
| You never know until it happens, but I will not be voting for any bill that gives ICE more money or Secretary Noam more money. | |
| I am against that. | |
| Do you fear that this could backfire politically and that it could be equated to a defund the police kind of a movement? | |
| What are your thoughts on that? | |
| No, I don't think it can be equated to that. | |
| And plus, you know, a big issue was made about defunding police, but very few members of Congress even mentioned that, but it got blown up more than was actually mentioned in my opinion. | |
| But no, I don't think the public is concerned about what ICE is doing and the money that they're receiving. | |
| So I think the public is on our side. | |
| They don't want to see our taxpayer money going to people attacking undocumented plus U.S. citizens. | |
| And then finally, on Venezuela, are you, what are your thoughts regarding Venezuela and any future action there? | |
| Well, I don't think that, you know, Maduro is a bad president. | |
| He shouldn't even have been the president. | |
| But I don't think we can become the world's police and take out every person we consider to be a bad president. | |
| A lot of people consider Donald Trump to be a bad president. | |
| I don't want people coming in yanking him out of office. | |
| You know, I don't think that was the right move. | |
| And there's other things that we could do. | |
| We've never seen any proof that the ships they bombed were actually carrying drugs. | |
| So I just think we cannot become the world's police, even though, yes, I totally agree that he was a bad guy. | |
| He wasn't doing the right thing. | |
| I feel very sorry for his people and sorry for the Venezuelans that felt like they had to leave their own country and let's help them. | |
|
Old North's Diverse Community
00:04:07
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| You know, those that are coming to the border, let's help them instead of going to the country for oil, I would add, not really for the right reasons that he, well, he didn't claim that. | |
| Said oil, and that we're going to run that country when we need to look at our own country and what's going on here. | |
| All right, that's Representative Robin Kelly, a Democrat of Illinois and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. | |
| Thanks so much for joining us today. | |
| Thank you for having me. | |
| C-SPAN, official media partner of the America 250 Commission, commemorating 250 years of American democracy. | |
| America 250 is traveling the country to honor the voices that define our nation. | |
| Stories of identity, service, and community. | |
| Here's one of them. | |
| The Old North Church was built in 1723 as the second Church of England. | |
| It is the oldest church building still standing here in Boston. | |
| It's 302 years old. | |
| And it was made famous for the role that it played in Paul Revere's ride. | |
| We see it as launching the revolution with his one if by land, two if by sea signal lanterns. | |
| However, with three centuries of history, we have a lot more stories that we tell here. | |
| My name is Emily Spence. | |
| I'm from Boston and I am the Director of Education here at the Old North Church. | |
| There has been a really diverse community that has worshipped here over the years. | |
| It has been home to wealthy merchants who own these pews, but also poorer families, children, black and indigenous people, both free and enslaved. | |
| Though this was a community that came together to worship and was united in their faith, you'll notice just even through the seating in this church, the box pews, the hierarchical seating with the balcony upstairs, that this was a space that was meant to separate people. | |
| Separate them by how much money they had, the class that they occupied, but also by their skin color, their perceived race at the time. | |
| I love being able to bring to life the stories of the Black and Indigenous people who sat in the North Gallery, whose stories for so long were left out and not considered important to the story of this church. | |
| Over the years, it has been an intentionality in both the historic site and in the congregation to create a more open and welcoming space here at Old North. | |
| When the church had to close during the revolution, these people lost their community. | |
| And I think so many of us today can relate to that, having lived through the COVID-19 pandemic. | |
| I look at the funeral and burial records, and there was so much death in these people's lives. | |
| I think having a place to come together, to feel united, and feel like there was at least a place to grapple with that uncertainty together with a community, that was a big draw for people. | |
| We hope that today, this church, which is seen as a symbol of freedom, people can come here and see their stories and also recognize how complicated and complex the story of this church is. | |
| One of my favorite times to be at Old North is in the evening, just after we've closed. | |
| It's a really beautiful, peaceful time, and the lighting in the church really just makes this space glow. | |
| That's when I can really feel the presence and the history that's here. | |
| I think about all of the people who have been here in this space. | |
| Some of them who I would love to meet, some of them who I know I would have some pretty heated debate with. | |
| But I think about all of their stories and the way that they hopefully love this place the way I do. | |