Bennie Thompson: 'The Only Way' Democrats Can Stop DOGE, Trump Admin. Is Through Midterm Elections

Forbes Breaking News

During a town hall on Tuesday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) was asked about how the Democrats can stop DOGE from gaining access to federal agencies and unilaterally blocking congressionally appropriated funding.

Transcript

00:01I'm ready for you.

00:03Oh, okay.

00:06This is Leslie Novak.

00:07Most people, if you've worked around Natchez, you know me.

00:11My question is, how do I word this?

00:16The United States, as United States citizens,

00:19one thing that our country has that you don't find all over the world

00:24is the value of life.

00:26And while, yes, it seems very scary that China has,

00:32we're putting such great tariffs on China,

00:35that does seem scary because it does mean for a certain amount of time things go up.

00:41But if you live here in Natchez,

00:44I know that several of y'all own a small business.

00:48And China selling everything to us so cheap

00:53cuts down on our people being able to make something.

01:00Like when you need a birthday shirt for an event,

01:03you can go on Etsy now and get them, with whatever image you want,

01:07three bucks a piece.

01:08So that cuts out our home small businesses.

01:11And I speak to you as an American citizen,

01:14not a Republican to a Democrat or a Democrat to a Democrat.

01:18As a United States citizen,

01:21don't you think that all of the greatest leaps that have happened in our country,

01:27before that leap got to happen and we got to the good,

01:31there was a strain.

01:32But I feel like as an American citizen,

01:35don't you think we should stand against children over in China

01:40working all day for a bowl of rice

01:43so that we get our iPhone $800 cheaper?

01:47As an American citizen, don't you think that that matters too,

01:52of how we treat others?

01:54Well, look, if you talk about human rights as a public policy,

02:02then there are a lot of countries around the world

02:06who don't treat their people right.

02:09This country is one of those countries that didn't treat its citizens right.

02:15But in time, we worked it out.

02:17So I don't want to put a bar on China

02:25that in many instances we didn't do here in our country.

02:31But I want to work on that.

02:33But you can't put a tariff on China

02:36and think it's going to hurt China.

02:39Because it's not.

02:40I tell you, the Chinese government runs the companies.

02:44And so if we are trying to help small business,

02:50I have always voted for the Small Business Administration.

02:56I have always voted for incentives for people to go into business.

03:01I've always voted for tax credits

03:03to incentivize people to come and look to this area.

03:09But it's not a level playing field.

03:11So I can't punish China with a tariff

03:14because they're just going to do less for the Chinese people

03:19and still send the T-shirts here, the caps here, and everything else.

03:24That's not good public policy.

03:27Good public policy is I've got to get you in a room

03:30and we've got to talk this thing out.

03:33And over time, we can work it out.

03:35But a tariff is going to only penalize the people that people say they want to help.

03:47Our farmers.

03:50If we put a tariff on Mexico,

03:53then our farmers in Mississippi and Louisiana

03:56are the ones that are going to get hurt.

03:59Because Mexico is going to put a tariff on everything they send here

04:04and it's going to cost more.

04:06So I encourage us to look at the bigger picture

04:11and not try to make it just a simplistic picture

04:17because it's much larger than that.

04:19And the other thing about small businesses

04:22is every time I've tried to create incentives

04:27so that small business can get a piece of the federal contract,

04:31the Republican administration goes against it.

04:35And so I can't even help the small business to say,

04:40look, 10%, 20% of this contract got to go to small business.

04:44No, the American way is we just need to let everybody compete.

04:49That small business is not going to get it

04:51because you don't have the capacity to compete.

04:54So small business, I want you to compete against your equals

04:59and not compete against the big boys

05:02because you're going to lose every time.

05:04And this administration has done away with all those programs.

05:09So you don't have to worry about small business

05:11because they won't survive

05:12because there's no incentives for that to happen.

05:16I hope this president changes his mind,

05:20but I'm not optimistic given what I see occur.

05:24I'll continue to vote for those incentives for small businesses

05:28because we don't have level playing fields.

05:32Other businesses have access to capital

05:35that small businesses don't.

05:38And so I'll continue to work for that.

05:41But if there are small businesses

05:44who can take advantage of the current program,

05:48my office will be more than happy to work with you.

05:50Hey, Mr. Congressman, thanks for being here.

05:58I'm over here behind you.

06:00Oh, okay.

06:01I want to thank you for being here, first of all, for coming down.

06:05I'm a citizen of Adams County.

06:07I did vote for you.

06:08And first of all, I want to thank you for what you did with the post office for me.

06:13I called your office and you took care of that.

06:15And second of all, I want to thank you for reinstating Jackie Malsall, which is my friend.

06:19But she always fussing at me.

06:21We're always giving it to her, but she's good people.

06:24She's good people.

06:26But you asked a lot of my questions about Social Security that I came in for, I was concerned about.

06:32I worked all my life.

06:34I put in Social Security about 41 years.

06:37And I got disabled while I can't work.

06:40So that money belongs to me.

06:41That's my money.

06:42I put that money in there.

06:44So my question to you is, Doge, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump going into the Social Security office,

06:55getting our information, doing God knows what with it.

06:58Is it Democrats?

07:00Are you leading it, doing anything in the court to stop us from doing that?

07:04Yes.

07:04Yes, we are in court trying to prevent them from doing it, but they're still doing it.

07:11We also, look, the reality is the only way we can really fix this problem is with elections next year.

07:22Next November, you can either start putting some people in office who are sensitive to the issue of Social Security, sensitive to that.

07:33Now, the only other reason is we've got to go to court.

07:38And we are winning in court.

07:42It just takes time.

07:43And, again, they're trying to make it as complicated as possible because they want to impeach the judges.

07:52They say they're not going to follow it.

07:54Elon Musk is not elected.

07:57You know, now he's supposed to, under his status, be gone in June.

08:01And we'll see whether or not that happens.

08:05I think he will be.

08:07But we'll just, it remains to be seen.

08:10I appreciate all your work, and that's that retirement and disability program that I talked about.

08:18You shouldn't have to sweat that.

08:20And I promise you, as long as I'm here, I'll fight for all the programs that keep us, as a people, healthy and alive.

08:32It's so important.

08:34You know, you can't be, number one, being a Grinch.

08:38You know, you've got to say, I want to make a difference.

08:43And so that's what we are trying to do.

08:45And we'll continue to do it.

08:47Sure, it costs money to take care of people.

08:50But, you know, if we can send folk to the moon, bring them back, you know, we ought to make sure that they're not hungry,

08:57that if there's health care, there's health care available.

09:00You know, those are some of the basic essentials that a democracy like ours ought to do.

09:08USAID.

09:08Now, folks say, well, why are we feeding people in Africa?

09:13Why are we feeding people in all those foreign countries?

09:16Well, if we don't feed them, somebody else is going to feed them.

09:22And those folks are our enemies.

09:26And if I'm a hungry country and you offer me food, I'm going to start listening to you.

09:33And so it's to our political advantage to use butter as diplomacy in working with those countries.

09:43So what's happened is this administration saw who was getting the food and they, oh, no, we're going to cut it out.

09:52But they missed something that was so important.

09:55They forgot who was raising the food, all right?

09:59The rice from USAID that feed hungry people all around the world comes from Louisiana and Mississippi.

10:10So now they're saying, oh, we didn't intend to hurt y'all, but you're the rice farmers.

10:18So now the rice farmers are coming to my office saying, you need to help us.

10:25I said, oh, what you mean?

10:28He said, well, you know that USAID budget.

10:31Our money is off in there.

10:35Catfish research.

10:37This district is a second leading producer of catfish in the country.

10:47The research is done in Stoneville right out from Leland, Mississippi.

10:53The research for catfish is in the USAID budget.

11:00And Mississippi State gets a lot of that money to help rid the research.

11:05And so now I have people coming to the office saying, we got to save that USAID money.

11:13You know, you know, I said, well, I'm with you.

11:17He said, but you got to raise your voice.

11:19You know, coming, telling me, pastor's like preaching to the choir, right?

11:26You need to tell some of them folk that's out there in the street that this is a good budget

11:31because it takes care of not just hungry people, but it feeds farmers, it feeds students,

11:39it feeds business people, everything.

11:42And so I'm convinced that there's a shot that we might be able to say that.

11:48Because believe me, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are going to provide food to those countries

11:58because they are our enemies.

12:01And if we let our enemies start feeding our allies, that means our influence gets smaller and smaller

12:09around the world.

12:10And so that's why we got to be more than just the arrogant Americans.

12:16We got to look at people and say it's all about us.

12:20And when I hear our president say he doesn't like people and all that kind of thing,

12:25that is not who we are.

12:27You know, we are a better country than that.

12:30And so when you start making public policy based on who you like and who you don't like,

12:36we're in trouble, you know.

12:41You know, a lot of you heard that Willie Lynch theory.

12:45You know, you keep folk divided.

12:48You know, the left-hand people don't like the right-hand people.

12:51The short people don't like the tall people.

12:54You know, all that kind of stuff.

12:56That keeps us divided as a country.

12:58And so normally a president's role in a democracy is to provide leadership and stability for that term in office.

13:12Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you have to provide that.

13:16And we're not getting that, in my opinion, at this point.

13:19And that's why people are so upset with what they see going on, because they say, I know we're better than that.

13:30You know?

13:30So, so...

Category

Transcript

Recommended