House Democratic Leaders Pete Aguilar and Ted Liu address the DHS shutdown, blaming Republican infighting for unpaid wages and inflation at 3.3%. They condemn Trump's attacks on the Pope and JD Vance's lies, while opposing a FISA extension due to Kash Patel's influence. Regarding ethics findings against Sheila McCormick and Eric Swalwell's assault allegations, they support resignations but await committee processes. Criticizing tax cuts for billionaires versus temporary relief for families, they demand ICE reforms like body cameras and judicial warrants, concluding that accountability structures are essential to end Congress's culture of misconduct. [Automatically generated summary]
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Trump Reaps What He Sows00:14:29
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House Democratic Representatives Pete Aguilar and Ted Liu, both from California, spoke about the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, tax policy, and affordability during a press conference on Capitol Hill.
They also expressed concern about extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for warrantless monitoring of some communications inside and outside of the United States.
This is about 20 minutes.
Good morning, everyone.
Welcome back.
It's going to be a busy week and a busy session.
Right before we adjourned, we saw the failure of Republican leadership on full display and their infighting reaching new heights.
As a result, Americans across this country have been paying higher prices.
It's because Republican incompetence that federal workers have been going without paychecks, that farmers can no longer afford fertilizer to grow our food, families can't afford to fill up their gas tanks, and today, as Americans file their taxes, many say that they're paying more than ever while the top 1% gets a tax cut.
This is because Speaker Johnson and House Republicans would rather put their efforts into supporting an unhinged president's reckless war of choice with Iran and not helping out their billionaire friends with their policies and betting market tips.
Since taking office, Trump and Republicans have made it abundantly clear where their priorities are, and it's not with the American people.
If they cared at all about the people that elected them, they would actually work with Democrats to make life better for people back at home and less expensive.
And Republicans have the opportunity to do just that this week.
In the coming days, Democrats will force a vote on the War Powers resolution to hold the Trump administration accountable and to put an end to this costly Middle East conflict.
Americans overwhelmingly want to see an immediate end to this war, yet the Trump administration keeps digging us in even deeper.
Hardworking families are watching as the Trump administration spends billions to bomb Iran, yet they can't seem to find any funding for health care, housing, or food for hungry children.
If Republicans can't condemn this war, the American people will remember that, and House Democrats won't let them forget.
Vice Chair Ted Liu.
Thank you, Chairman Aguilar.
We have a cost-of-living emergency.
Inflation is skyrocketing.
The most recent CPI report, the Consumer Price Index, shows that inflation surged to 3.3%, the highest monthly increase in over two years.
And then the recent producer price index report, the PPI report, shows that inflation increased 0.5% month to month and 4% year to year.
And what is Trump focused on?
Attacking the Pope.
We call on Republicans and Donald Trump to focus on the cost of living emergency and to stop doing stupid stuff like attacking the Pope.
Now, I happen to be Catholic.
I chose to get baptized in college.
Turns out when you do that, you have to take a whole series of courses on the Bible.
And it's very clear that when you look at the Bible, there's a lot of themes, but two of them are that you do not have false idols, and second, you do not mock God.
And so, Exodus 20:3-3-5 shows that, says, you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters below.
In addition to attacking the Pope, Donald Trump posted an image of himself like Jesus.
He should not be making a false idol of himself.
No one should be worshiping Donald Trump.
He needs to apologize for that deeply offensive post.
And then you got JD Vance going around, who just lies like water.
So he just lies all the time.
And so, when asked about Donald Trump's Jesus post, JD Vance says, oh, that was a joke.
Well, this is what the Bible says about that.
Galatians 6:7 says, Do not be deceived.
God cannot be mocked.
A man reaps what he sows.
So Donald Trump is going to reap what he sows.
And again, Trump needs to apologize for his deeply offensive image that is very offensive to many Christians and Catholics in the United States.
Thanks.
Questions?
Mave?
Thank you.
The FISA rule looks like it might be postponed, but probably will come up later today for 18 minutes of FISA.
We've heard some Democratic opposition to that rule.
I'm just curious what level of unanimity you expect in terms of Democratic opposition to the rule.
Do you think that the entire party will be on the same page?
Yeah, Democrats will oppose the rule.
Republicans can't count on Democrats to save them on a roll vote.
That's their obligation is the majority.
If they want to give up that obligation, if they want to give up the majority, we're happy to pass a rule on our own.
But this is their responsibility to pass a rule.
With respect to the underlying bill, we heard different perspectives from Ranking Member Jim Himes and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin in caucus this morning.
There are some various schools of thought with respect to the underlying bill, but I think we all have concerns about Donald Trump's FBI and an FBI run by Kash Patel to follow the law.
There were critical reforms within FISA that were initiated that I voted for under the prior administration.
But this is an administration that oftentimes plays by a different set of rules.
And so we understand that.
But if we get to an underlying bill, I would imagine that there are a good number of Democrats who will support a clean extension for 18 months.
But we'll see.
The main federal agency in charge of oversight over FISA is the Department of Justice.
And right now, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch is violating the congressional law to release the Epstein files.
He works in a building with a giant banner of Trump's face.
He did a press conference where he said to Trump, I love you, sir, and you want me to trust Todd Blanche to do oversight over FISA?
No freaking way.
He acts as Trump's stooge.
He's just going to be Trump's lawyer.
He is acting like Trump's lawyer.
I can't trust Todd Blanche to do any oversight over FISA.
I'm not going to give this immense authority to the President of the United States, who is doing all sorts of crazy things.
Max.
Well, with regards to Sheila Trafilis-McCormick, she has been found guilty by the House Ethics Committee Special Subpanel on 20 counts of wrongdoing.
I know there is that ethics committee meeting next week to determine what sanction they're recommending.
But my question to you is: do you think she should be expelled given she was found guilty by the ethics committee?
Can we need to see if the answer is no?
We'll see what the committee comes back with as a recommendation for the sanctions.
This is the continuation of their work product.
I trust the members on the ethics committee who have done the work and dug in here and respect their decision on this.
And we'll see what they produce from a sanctioned perspective next week.
I'm not going to prejudge what they're going to put forward.
We will react when they put something out, and we'll see what steps we take on the House floor after that.
But she has been found guilty.
It seems unlikely that the recommendation would be something positive for her.
No, it's not going to be anything positive, but there are different stages here.
There are different avenues that they can go while respecting that there is a court process and a DOJ process happening in Florida as well.
I'm not going to prejudge which route they take.
They have options before them.
I'll respect those options and reflect, and I'm sure we'll have a time to reflect and discuss that after they're rendered.
But I'm not going to get ahead of their process.
Nicole?
Thank you, Mr. Chair and Vice Chair.
Since you both are in leadership and also members of the California delegation, I'm just curious with respect to any rumors or whispers as well as the recent allegations of sexual assault against Eric Swalwell.
What did you know and when did you know it?
I found out when, personally, I found out when the articles published when the San Francisco Chronicle article was published on Friday and then shortly thereafter, I think, the CNN article.
Just shock and sad.
I felt for the accusers who absolutely need to be believed and just shocked and saddened for everybody involved.
Just deeply disturbing allegations, horrific in nature, and ultimately the right outcome here with multiple members of Congress leaving yesterday.
But just felt a sense of disgust, you know, quite honest, and I think that's the only way to say it.
I had no idea until I read the San Francisco Chronicle article when it was published, and I believe Representative Suarwo did the right thing by resigning.
Michael.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Today is tax day.
House Republicans are really out promoting what they call the working class provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was passed last year that really pumping up no tax on tax bills under Social Security provisions.
I know you all have been critical of those provisions as being temporary when the other tax cuts from 2017 were made permanent.
But on the merits, on the substance, do you think that those are good policies?
Are those policies that you all would look to pursue in a Democratic majority given they seem to be popular with the American people outside of the fact that they're not long-term like the other taxes?
We're interested in giving tax relief to working families.
That's who we are as Democrats.
Those are the strategies and the priorities and the policy agenda that we would lead if given an opportunity to be in the majority.
That's what you can expect out of Richie Neal and the Ways and Means Committee to put together those ideas.
But we would couple that, right?
Like relief for workers could mean many things, whether that's the child tax credit, whether that's further reductions in tax rates for working class communities.
That's what we prioritize as Democrats, and it's unfortunate that Republicans are touting temporary tax cuts that they've given to folks while they extend and make permanent tax cuts for billionaires and wealthy corporations who don't need it.
The American people are seeing their costs increase, even if they get a tiny bit of relief filing their taxes.
Every month they're paying more.
Housing costs, utility costs, gas costs, all of those costs continue to go up.
Tariffs driving this conversation that the president has unleashed on the American people.
It's shameful and it's awful, and they shouldn't hide behind temporary breaks that they're giving to a few people because we want to offer real relief to working class communities.
I want to follow up on Max's question.
It sounds like you're calling for a full ethics process to play out before weighing in on what consequences you'd support for Congresswoman Shaphylis McCormick.
Will that also be Democratic leadership's position on Congressman Corey Mills?
Or are you open to supporting his expulsion before the ethics process fully plays out?
If Republicans put forward expulsion resolutions for Representative Sheila Shafillis McCormick, then all options are on the table for Democrats.
I want to respect the process and the work that the ethics committee is doing.
They will render, they have rendered a decision.
They will render a recommendation for sanctions for this member in this case.
Corey Mills also has ethics process that is moving forward, but we reserve the right to respond based on how Republicans treat this.
If they want to treat this overly political, then we respect that and will respond to that.
But I'm respecting that the committee has some work and that it's just a matter of days before they render that sanction.
And then we will go from there.
And I'm happy to talk about it and give my perspective once the Ethics Committee finishes their work.
The role of the Ethics Committee is to look at allegations like this, but the process takes a really long time a lot of the time.
And members, when they resign or leave Congress, are no longer in the committee's jurisdiction.
Do you think that the committee needs to change anything with its processes for dealing with things like sexual misconduct?
Rejecting Unreasonable Demands00:04:57
So that way it's not the place where issues just go to die and there's accountability?
Yeah, I supported the letter that multiple members sent over the weekend to Speaker Johnson and Leader Jeffries asking for an expedited process for these incidents and for the allegations against former representatives.
So an expedited process I think is important and I would support that.
I don't know what that looks like.
I don't know if that means additional staff.
I don't know from a process perspective what that would mean, but I think many of us would be open to that if the ethics committee said we can handle this a different way or if there's an expedited route to do this.
The bottom line is bringing accountability and justice.
That's what the ethics committee is mandated to do.
And I look forward to supporting their work any way I can.
Reconciliation 2.0 is coming class with the House.
A few weeks ago, talks for ICE reforms fell apart.
There were some moderate revisions on the table of what could happen for ICE.
And now that reconciliation is here, and obviously there's no final framework yet, but what goes through will not need any votes from House Democrats.
Would you reflect differently on how negotiations went a few weeks ago?
Would you have tried to keep those going longer, knowing that the alternative is none of those reports?
No.
Look, I think this, I think Republicans have walked away from, first, an opportunity to provide real relief and reform to these agencies that have wrongfully detained U.S. citizens and killed U.S. citizens.
So they walked away from an opportunity to provide relief and to actually address that issue.
And then we offered, Rosa DeLoro offered and screamed from the top of her lungs that we want to fund everything except ICE and CBP.
And from the very early stages of that shutdown, we said we want to hold harmless FEMA, Coast Guard, TSA.
Like that was our plan and our strategy.
And you saw Leader Thune adopt that.
And it's his own internal politics with Speaker Johnson and House Republicans that prevent that from coming.
So people aren't getting paychecks as a result of Republican chaos and dysfunction.
That is unquestioned.
And we had a solution.
We had a fix for that.
And Republicans walked away.
And we're still waiting.
We're still waiting.
That item has been UC'd in the Senate.
It could be put on the House floor, and we can have a resolution on that.
That doesn't mean that ICE and CBP get away with anything.
It means we continue to have those conversations, and we're pushing for meaningful and lasting reforms for those agencies.
The Democratic position on this is really simple.
We just want ICE and Board of Patrol to follow the same standards as real police officers.
Real police officers wear body cameras and not masks.
Real police officers are trained to de-escalate, not to escalate.
And real police officers use judicial warrants and not fake administrative warrants.
These are very reasonable demands.
And if Republicans want to continue being unreasonable, we're not going to join them in being unreasonable.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Beyond Swalo and Tony Gonzalez, I think there are concerns about whether there is sort of a culture where this is more pervasive in the House and maybe in the Senate too.
And we've heard concerns from other members that there's not exactly an HR department for staff, for example, to come forward in real time.
Anecdotally, we've heard if there are situations like that, that's why we hear about these things after the fact.
Have you given any thought, has leadership given any thought to maybe a different kind of structure where if there are those kinds of concerns among staff or others, that they would be able to air those out, raise them with someone, some thing entity that doesn't exist right now?
Staff should have the ability to do that and to raise concerns that they experience, and members need to be held to the highest possible standard in any workplace, higher than a regular workplace.
That's our belief.
But I think we haven't had a conversation as a leadership team, but I'm open to whatever that might look like in a route.
We made specific changes to employees' abilities to receive counsel in prior Congresses.
That has continued currently.
Those measures are still available to employees, as I understand them, for a variety of workplace issues and would encourage employees to utilize those services.
Historic Lunar Mission Coverage00:01:32
Thank you.
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Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Garrett Watson.
He's Policy Analysis Director at the Tax Foundation, joining us to talk about the impact of the 2025 GOP tax law on taxes.