During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) spoke about congressional Republicans' support for President Trump's agenda.
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00:00Remember to make an opening statement.
00:02Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
00:05Mr. Chairman, we're here today because President Trump has one goal,
00:10to pass massive tax cuts and giveaways for billionaires on the backs of hard-working Americans.
00:18Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans are hell-bent on helping him do it.
00:23The extreme Trump legislative agenda provides $7 trillion in giveaways to billionaires and big corporations
00:33while cutting $880 billion from Medicaid, hurting tens of millions of Americans,
00:41and taking food from veterans, seniors, and kids.
00:45It would also blow a $14 trillion hole in the national debt.
00:50Americans know the President's scheme don't benefit anyone but himself and his cronies.
00:57Trump's reconciliation bill is a big, beautiful bill for his billionaire buddies like Elon Musk,
01:05but a terrible deal for everyone else.
01:08This disastrous Republican plan puts Americans' health care in jeopardy.
01:13Mr. Chairman, in your congressional district alone, nearly 140,000 of your constituents receiving Medicaid
01:22are at risk of losing their health care, including over 82,000 children and 14,000 seniors.
01:31That's why so many Republican members spent the recent congressional recess telling their constituents
01:37they'd fight to defend against cuts to the very programs their party's budget resolution would decimate.
01:46Fortunately, the American people aren't buying these Republican lives.
01:51Three polls released this past Sunday show Trump's approval rating at a 70-year low
01:56for any president in its first 100 days in office.
02:01These pitiful approval ratings are of the President's own making.
02:07Americans witnessed Trump's crash, our economy, in real time.
02:11They watched him break promises about lowering prices.
02:15And now Republicans want to take health care and food from kids and seniors to help the likes of Elon Musk.
02:23Democrats refuse to be complicit in this Republican scheme.
02:27The President's plummeting poll numbers and the tanking economy make supporting this reconciliation package
02:34more complicated for my friends on the other side of the aisle.
02:40That's why House Republican leadership is putting lipstick on a pig of reconciliation package
02:46by pretending it's about border security.
02:49But the border measure we are considering today is nothing more than window dressing
02:54designed to help moderate Republicans' cruel cuts to Medicaid and distract Americans
03:02from the fact that Trump is taking a chainsaw to federal services they rely on.
03:08This reconciliation package isn't about securing the border.
03:13It is and has never been.
03:15If Republicans were serious about border security,
03:18they would have taken up the bipartisan border package last year.
03:22But they were too busy doing Trump's bidding then,
03:26and they are too busy doing Trump's bidding now.
03:29If they are serious about border security,
03:32they'd have had the Secretary of Homeland Security testify before this committee
03:38to make the case for more funding for the department.
03:42But while Secretary Nong travels the world for countless photo ops,
03:46she's appeared before the department's Committee of Jurisdiction despite repeated requests
03:53from committee Democrats.
03:55And yet Republicans are ready to turn over tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money to her.
04:02At the end of the day, reconciliation is about lining billionaires' pockets on the backs of ordinary Americans.
04:09I know it's hard to defend the indefensible,
04:13but at some point my colleagues on the other side will have to face the music.
04:17The fact is, most Republicans voted to start this reconciliation process
04:23when all they knew about it was a concept of a plan.
04:27As their constituents have learned more about it
04:30and watched every Trump administration priority implode,
04:35publicity defending reconciliation or anything associated with the president
04:41has become very uncomfortable.
04:44But reconciliation won't distract Americans
04:47from the fact that their grocery bills are higher,
04:50their bank account balances are lower,
04:53and there isn't a Republican Congress or anyone in the White House who cares.
04:59I urge my colleagues to oppose this Republican reconciliation scheme.
05:04I yield back.
05:05The gentleman yields.
05:07Other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record.
05:15Pursuant to notice, I now call up Committee Print 119A.
05:19The text was circulated in advance and printed copies are available.
05:22The clerk shall designate the committee print.
05:24Committee Print 119A, providing for recon...