‘We’re Really Seeing The Trump Effect In Action’: Jerry Nadler Lays Into The President's Policies

Forbes Breaking News

During Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) spoke about President Trump's first 100 days back in office.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Chairman, Donald Trump was narrowly voted into office on the strength of a number of

00:10promises. He told us, quote, starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America

00:16affordable again to bring down the prices of all goods. He said of the war in Ukraine,

00:20quote, they're dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying and I'll have that done.

00:26I'll have that done in 24 hours. He even said, quote, I will get it settled before I even become

00:32president. And shortly before his inauguration, he bragged that the stock market had surged because

00:37of his election. He called it, quote, the Trump effect. Well, here we are a hundred days later

00:42and we're really seeing the Trump effect in action. The stock market has plunged because of

00:48of his chaotic and catastrophic tariffs. The middle class is struggling to stay afloat as prices remain

00:54high and war still rages in Ukraine. With the economy teetering on the brink of collapse,

01:00our international alliance is fraying and wars tearing apart, tearing nations apart across the

01:06globe. This country is facing serious challenges that require serious solutions. So what the House

01:12Republicans think our country most needs right now? Big surprise. Tax cuts for billionaires. It is

01:18their tried and true answer for everything. Although their plan would add trillions of dollars in debt,

01:24which would put to rest once and for all the fiction that they actually care about the deficit,

01:29their plan also cuts one and a half trillion dollars in vital programs that Americans rely on.

01:35They want to gut Medicaid, which would deprive seniors, children, people with disabilities and

01:39working families of needed health care services. They want to cut student loan programs and they want

01:45to slash SNAP and other nutrition assistance programs for the most vulnerable among us. These cuts would be

01:51on top of the near dismantling of the government currently being carried out by Elon Musk and his

01:57merry band of teenage hackers. While Doge is busy tearing apart government agencies, firing workers

02:03in mass, slashing the basic medical and other basic research that provides the foundation of our future

02:10economic prosperity and slashing services for the American people, the world's richest man stands to reap billions of

02:17dollars in government contracts and massive tax cuts from a grateful Republican Congress.

02:23That tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of our Republican colleagues.

02:28The Judiciary Committee's contribution to this boondoggle for billionaires includes a

02:33hodgepodge of items that have been on the Republican wish list for years, such as a slate of anti-regulatory bills

02:43and other measures that are little more than giveaways to big business at the expense of individuals,

02:48families, small businesses and states. But the lion's share of this proposal would devote tens of

02:53billions of dollars to promoting the Trump administration's cruel, inhumane and lawless immigration

03:00policies. In just a hundred days, the administration has shredded fundamental notions of due process,

03:05attempted to rewrite the 14th Amendment and defied courts that are holding the administration to

03:11account. It is a breathtaking assault on the Constitution, and the Republican Congress has

03:16done nothing but cheer them on from the sidelines. But now they want to get in on the action,

03:21helping the White House to turbocharge its extreme anti-immigrant agenda. Instead of spending $45

03:28billion on warehousing immigrants in detention facilities, as this bill would do, we could be

03:33shoring up Medicaid student loans and SNAP. Instead of enabling the administration's illegal and

03:39unconstitutional mass deportation scheme, we could be holding hearings on why U.S. citizens as young

03:44as two years old are being deported with no meaningful due process, or why a four-year-old citizen

03:49with stage four metastatic cancer was deported without medication or the ability to contact

03:54their doctor. Instead of spending tens of billions of dollars on a reckless, chaotic and unconstitutional

04:00immigration enforcement regime, we could be working to restore more than $800 million in grants

04:05that the administration recently cut from the Department of Justice. These are funds to provide

04:11assistance to victims of domestic violence, trafficking, and violent crime, to support efforts

04:16to reduce recidivism, and to provide support for local police departments and correctional facilities,

04:21among other grants. But here we are instead, providing massive funds to help the Trump administration

04:28continue to separate families, decimate our economy, and strike fear in our communities. I urge my

04:34colleagues to oppose this dangerous legislation.

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