- 5/13/2025
Senate Democrats hold a press briefing call for answers on cuts to World Trade Center Health Program.
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00:00Excellent partnership. I also want to recognize all the advocates and leaders that are standing
00:04here. First and foremost, John Feal for his undying commitment to our first responders
00:09and family members. Tom Hart, our President of Citizens for the Extension of the Zadroga
00:14and President of Local 9 for International Union of Operating Engineers. Andrew Ansbrough,
00:20the President of the Uniformed Firefighters Association. Mariama James, our 9-11 survivor,
00:25to speak on behalf of other survivors. Michael McGuire with the Laborers International Union
00:29of North America and the other responders and advocates that stand with us today.
00:35So to those of us, to those of you who are with us today, I want you to look at all these people
00:39behind me. They are our firefighters, our police officers, our emergency workers, our mothers,
00:45our fathers, ordinary Americans who have faced extraordinary hardship, who are just asking
00:51Congress to do their job. On 9-11, many of them raced up these towers when everyone else was running
00:57for safety and coming down. Others returned home covered in white soot, toxins that were emitted
01:05when these towers fell. Still more breathed poisonous fumes at Ground Zero for weeks.
01:11They faced unspeakable horrors and suffering unimaginable torment because of these toxins
01:17and because of the unbelievable grave loss of life that day. Today, we are facing a secretary,
01:24RFK Jr., who unfortunately is tormenting them once again. In his first full day in office,
01:30Secretary Kennedy fired 20% of the staff at the World Trade Center Health Program,
01:35which Congress created to provide basic health care to these 9-11 first responders and the survivors
01:40that lived at Ground Zero. Then, he fired thousands of employees at the CDC and NIOSH,
01:47the agencies that make the work of the World Trade Center Health Program possible. They are the
01:52ones who do the administration. They are the ones who do the epidemiology. They are the ones who review
01:58patient files. They're the ones who make sure the health care that is needed is covered, including in
02:04the people that are fired with John Howard and 16 members of the program staff. Now, we've raised our
02:10voices. We have fought back. And now the Trump administration says they've reinstated Dr. Howard
02:16and those who were fired. But it's unclear what that actually means. Are they fully reinstated? For how
02:23long? How can we trust anything this administration says? Because they keep firing the people who are
02:28doing the work that keep our first responders alive. They say John Howard has been reinstated,
02:33but we have no confirmation that he's been reinstated. And we don't know if he's reinstated
02:37continually or just until June 2nd. That is what we are up against, chaos and confusion. Even if Dr.
02:44Howard has been reinstated, the staff at NIOSH and the CDC are still fired. As a result, we know the
02:51World Trade Center Health Program stopped approving new cases. It stopped enrolling new patients and it had
02:57to turn at least three sick patients away. HHS reversed course again and began approving new
03:04enrollments and those patients are now receiving care. But again, for how long? We actually asked those
03:09patients to join us today. Unfortunately, they were too sick to come. One has a life-threatening
03:16pancreatic cancer. And while he and the other two patients are now getting treatment, the truth is they
03:20shouldn't have been turned away in the first place. For people as sick as they are, care delayed is the
03:26same as care denied. Meanwhile, we have Secretary Kennedy lying on Fox News saying that he hasn't
03:32cut the program. We know that is not true. He doesn't even seem to understand what the program
03:37is called. It's an outrage and it's absurd. Tomorrow, Secretary Kennedy will appear before the Senate
03:43Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and we need to hold him accountable. I'm working with
03:49my colleagues in the Senate to demand answers. And I'm working, I'm also sending a letter to
03:53Secretary Kennedy's office requesting the basic information that we need. What is Dr. Howard's
03:59employment status? Whether the program is enrolling new patients and members certifying new treatments?
04:05How many staff critical to the work of the World Trade Center program remain? These are basic questions
04:10that he has to answer. September 11, 2001 was one of the worst days in America's history. And the traumas that
04:18so many Americans endured as a result live on in those communities and in those families today.
04:24It's why the American people made this solemn promise to never forget, to never forget the
04:29sacrifices of our first responders and why we created the World Trade Center Health Program in
04:36the first place to give them care. So we will not waste any more time fighting for our first
04:40responders and family members. We are demanding answers and we're demanding them now. Senator Schumer.
04:45Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. And thank you for your great leadership here. I want to thank our
04:51advocates as well. John Field, Thomas Hart, Andrew Ansborough, Mariana James, and so many others.
04:56Now we're here today because of our sacred promise. Never forget. And that sacred promise is under
05:04attack. Ever since he was confirmed, Robert Kennedy Jr. has tried to gut, gut the World Trade Center
05:13Health Program. Not trim, not tweak, not fix, but gut. Just look at the chaos that's been swirling
05:23over the last few weeks. Doctors and staff who manage and provide care to our sick 9-11 first responders
05:29fired. Some rehired. Others fired again. Total, total chaos. And this is the last place on earth where there
05:38should be chaos because people are sick and people are dying and people need their health care.
05:43The firefighters and heroes who work the pile helping rebuild after the darkest hours in America
05:48are sick with cancer from the toxic air they breathe and other illnesses as well.
05:55Many are dying. Is this how you treat their health care? Up to 800 first responders. Up to 800
06:03have had their enrollments halted. As many as 1,200 written treatment approvals have been
06:09stopped. Stopped. These are approvals that are needed. Whether it's for a medicine or a treatment
06:15at a hospital. Stopped. And people get sicker. And people are less likely to live when that happens.
06:24As Kirsten said, Dr. John Howard, the great director, was sent packing. Then he was supposedly
06:29reinstated for how long. Nobody knows he doesn't know. Now, this infuriates me. I met with Senator
06:37Kennedy before his confirmation. I asked him would he protect the World Trade Center program.
06:44Kennedy looked me in the eye and committed to protecting the World Trade Center health program.
06:51He lied. Kennedy lied. He has broken that commitment. And now he'll have to answer for it
06:59because I know there will be questions asked of him at the committee tomorrow.
07:05Kennedy told me he had friends, acquaintances, who died on 9-11. Well, has he forgotten them?
07:11What about those people? He looked me in the eye and said, I remember those people.
07:19Democrats are going to hold Senator Kennedy's feet to the fire.
07:22We're going to demand answers about his betrayal. Betrayal of 9-11 heroes.
07:28We'll demand answers about the cuts and the firing. We'll demand answers about the chaos, confusion, and uncertainty.
07:34No more broken promises. No more empty statements from Kennedy. We need the truth.
07:40We need the truth. We need the truth on what happened and what they're doing at the World Trade Center health program.
07:48We need them to firmly commit and publicly to never cut this program again.
07:52Never cut it again.
07:55To never cut the health care or the workforce of this program again.
07:58My message to Secretary Kennedy and to President Trump is this.
08:04If you think you can quietly gut the World Trade Center health program without a fight, you are dead wrong.
08:11Senator Gillibrand and I, and all the advocates here today, will never let up.
08:16The health care of our 9-11 first responders is not government waste, Mr. Musk, Mr. Vogt, Mr. Doge.
08:27It's sacred human life.
08:31Gutting the World Trade Center health program is not efficiency.
08:36What it is is a different word. Cruelty.
08:39Meanness.
08:41Anti-American.
08:42The World Trade Center health program, because of the people here, many of them took years to build.
08:49It took the courage of many folks.
08:51Some of the folks are here today.
08:52Some of them are gone.
08:54Who walked the halls.
08:56And are now gone.
08:57Succumbed to the illnesses they acquired on 9-11.
09:00But because of the work of those people and the people here, it's the law.
09:05Not a whim.
09:06Not a maybe.
09:08Not if I want to.
09:09A law.
09:10And now Kennedy is trying to take that all away in the blink of an eye.
09:16The chaos and confusion that this administration has created will not blind us to the reality.
09:23What they are doing is not never forget.
09:26What they are doing is screw you.
09:28That's a total betrayal, and it won't happen on our watch.
09:34John Field.
09:37Thank you, Chuck.
09:38Sir.
09:41Yes, sir.
09:44I'm just going to say what everybody else is thinking.
09:47Kennedy, you're a fucking liar.
09:50It's that simple.
09:51The secretary is disingenuous.
09:55The secretary is uniquely unqualified to hold any government position.
09:59But what are we here, what are we doing today?
10:04Are we talking about a bill we've been walking the halls of Congress to get passed that they took off the table in December?
10:10Are we talking about Dr. Howard losing his job and the 15 doctors being fired?
10:15Are we talking about restoring NIOSH?
10:18What are we here for?
10:21This is 20 years of bullshit that you guys keep putting in front of us that we have to fight.
10:29You know, nobody apologized after 9-11.
10:32Nobody.
10:33Nobody said sorry for making him sick, him sick, heart sick, him sick.
10:37Instead, we created the World Trade Center Health Program.
10:40That was their apology.
10:45Create the World Trade Center Health Program, give them free care, health care.
10:49Then make us walk the halls of Congress and get it extended to 2090.
10:54And then to gut it?
10:56You took your own apology away from us.
11:00So what are we talking about today?
11:03You know, if Dr. Howard was an illegal alien, we'd know his fucking status.
11:11Serious.
11:12What's Dr. Howard's status?
11:14What happens on June 3rd?
11:16See, when they gutted NIOSH and Dr. Howard got fired, a fragile fraternity of 140,000 people were up in arms.
11:25The health care stopped.
11:26Now they're all wondering what happens June 3rd.
11:30So we stand here today, we have to go back and worry about those 140,000 people who don't know their future.
11:41So what are we doing today?
11:43I mean, I want to talk about, we'll be back here next week having 30-plus meetings for H.R. 1410 and S. 739.
11:52So, is Kennedy going to come out and make a public announcement before tomorrow's hearing when he gets a new one ripped?
11:59Because Senator Cain, Senator Kim, I want to thank them because I know they've been watching this.
12:05So is he going to come out and publicly say, Dr. Howard is permanently reinstated?
12:12Are those doctors permanently reinstated?
12:15Those doctors that ensure the enrollment and the certification process rolls?
12:19Is Kennedy going to come out and say, he's not going to mess with us anymore?
12:24Is Kennedy going to come out and say, you know what?
12:26I support H.R. 1410 and S. 739.
12:30Is the administration going to support H.R. 1410?
12:34Because the administration can just say, hey, everybody in Congress, support H.R. 1410.
12:40You know what?
12:42There's a thing, that reconciliation that they're doing right now.
12:45They can slip us in there.
12:46We can all be gone.
12:47And John Peele doesn't have to curse in front of everybody.
12:50But today, we're here.
12:52And what are we doing?
12:54We're fighting the boogeyman.
12:56Who's our enemy?
12:57Kennedy?
12:58He's an idiot.
12:59Again, ungrossly unqualified to hold any position in the United States federal government.
13:05What an incompetent, arrogant, dumb, stupid, repulsive fool to recklessly, recklessly, without any humanity, hurt 140,000 people.
13:21If you're not angry, then you're not human.
13:24Have a good one.
13:26Thank you, everybody.
13:27Thanks, Chuck.
13:28I'd now like to invite up Thomas Hart, our president of Citizens for Extension of the Droga Act, and president of Local 94, International Union of Operating Engineers.
13:37Thank you, Senator Schumer.
13:39Thank you, Senator Gilbride.
13:41John, today we're here for two things.
13:43We're here to say thank you to the people who have continued to support our fight and our effort from day one.
13:48Listen, these people behind me and the people that have gone before you, people that have gotten sick, the people that have been shut down, have risen from the ashes and the chaos and the confusion.
13:58We know about chaos, confusion, dark times.
14:03These people answered the bell.
14:06They were there for it.
14:08Chaos and confusion are nothing new to us.
14:12We're pros at it.
14:13What's going on today is an atrocity.
14:15We're here today also, John, to hold people accountable for the things that they're doing.
14:22That's what's got to come out of today, tomorrow and every day forward.
14:26People need to be held accountable for what they're doing.
14:29I hope that people have the courage to ask those questions tomorrow when he's sitting on that floor because he is not qualified to do the things he does.
14:38John Howard came into a time of chaos, confusion, and probably produced one of the most successful programs that this country has ever seen coming out of this Capitol building.
14:51The man is a hero.
14:54The way he's being treated is completely disrespectful.
14:56Think about being diagnosed with cancer when you answered the bell 15, 17, 18, 20 years later, you come down in the gestation period with cancer because in the deepest, darkest times of our country, in my city, the city of New York, it hit close to home.
15:16Now they're being told that they're not going to have anybody there for them.
15:21Nobody wants to talk about the mental health aspect of what we're dealing with.
15:26Think about that.
15:27If that was your aunt, your uncle.
15:30Think about what they're thinking about.
15:32There's nowhere to turn.
15:34They're scared to death.
15:36The only thing facing them is death because we turned our backs on them.
15:40Never forget.
15:43I know in my local, we will never, ever forget.
15:45These folks here, they're never going to forget.
15:48And guess what?
15:49We're never going away.
15:50So tomorrow, please, have your colleagues have the courage to stand up the same way these people have, and we'll continue the fight.
15:59Now I'd like to invite up Andy Ansborough, the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association for Local 94 IAF FAA.
16:05Thank you, Senator Gilbert and Senator Schumer for having us here, and everyone for coming back down again for this important work that we do.
16:14I come here representing 20,000 active and retired New York City firefighters, including all of the 9-11 first responders that are still alive, myself included.
16:23But I'm also down here this week for Police Memorial Week to represent my father, who he and I both survived the collapse on 9-11, and just almost two years ago, he lost his life to 9-11-related cancer.
16:36He suffered for about eight years before the cancer finally took him.
16:41My family watched him waste away.
16:42And it was very heartbreaking to watch a loved one die, but we never had the worry that his health care wouldn't be taken care of, that he wouldn't be able to see the great doctors that we have in New York City.
16:54They wouldn't get the best care.
16:56Since Secretary Kennedy took the job, he's thrown chaos into this system.
17:02We have members that have received cancer diagnosis that had their cancer treatment delayed.
17:08Delaying people's cancer treatment is putting them closer to death.
17:11I've had friends, young men, die four months after their diagnosis.
17:17Everyone that gets cancer has a line in the sand where they get treatment if they're on the right side, if they live on the right side, if they die.
17:24Delaying it a day could be pushing someone over that line and killing them.
17:27But the mental anguish you're causing to all those people that are being treated, or people like myself, that unfortunately do not have a fatal cancer lurking in our bodies that I know of,
17:38it's still an uncertainty that what's going to happen with this program, is it going to be put back together the way that we were told it was going to be put back together?
17:46We're not talking about a mistake that was made yesterday.
17:48This mistake was made months ago.
17:50It was made several times.
17:52And it was also done, they did this program dirty when they took the funding piece out of the legislation at the end of December.
17:59That has never been restored.
18:00So for an administration and a president that ran on Never Forget and I'll Always Take Care, you really hired a guy who can't get his shit together and take care of business and do what he was supposed to do.
18:11In his job, I would think he would have something along a Hippocratic Oath where at first, do no harm.
18:16And on day one, to cut all those jobs without knowing what you were doing and not restoring them is a disgrace.
18:23And we'll hold you accountable for it.
18:25And you better get it together because we're not going away.
18:28Thank you all for your time.
18:29Unfortunately, I won't be here tomorrow.
18:30My nephew is graduating from the academy, carrying on my father's name in the FDNY.
18:35But I know John and the rest of the group here will hold Kennedy accountable tomorrow.
18:40Our next speaker is Mariama James, our 9-11 survivor.
18:46Hi, my name is Mariama James, and I am a survivor of the 9-11 terrorist attack.
18:52I live about four blocks east of where Tower 1-1 stood.
18:56And I've been in this fight along with the responders since day one, coming here in 2009, getting the bill passed in 2010,
19:06coming back in 2015 to get the bill reauthorized in 2016, coming back in 2019, I think, for I don't even remember what now,
19:18and then again in 2023 to expand, and then several times in between.
19:24And this is all while none of us are in the health to really be doing this.
19:30In 2015, I got laid off from my job, and I made the choice not to look for another one.
19:37And I've been a perpetual volunteer since because I was too ill to look for another job
19:42and be committed to going there every day and working.
19:44I lost both of my parents to 9-11 cancer, innocent people just living and or working in the area.
19:57My father was babysitting for me, so he was at my home.
20:01My mother worked at Deutsche Bank, so even though she lived, you know, not downtown, she lived in Harlem,
20:06she developed cancer from 9-11.
20:09And there are a number of other people that I've known along the way and been close to along the way that are no longer here.
20:17It's like they're trying to wait us out, you know, wait for us to all be gone.
20:22I had been in this photo spread back in 2006 that was, like, the first iteration of this remembering 9-11 heroes.
20:32And James Adroga was in that same spread.
20:37The dust cloud lady was in that spread, you know, and others.
20:40And my family, my father and my three kids and I.
20:44And everybody in the spread but my children and I, including my own father, is gone now.
20:49But those of us that are still here, keep using the energy that we have, the will, the strength, to continue to fight.
21:00Because people like my children and responders that were 18 on the day are now part of our youth cohort.
21:10And they're going to need the care also.
21:13But they don't remember the history.
21:16They don't have the institutional knowledge that the rest of us have developed.
21:20Some of them don't even know their own stories.
21:22They need their parents.
21:22But guess what?
21:23Their parents are dead.
21:25That's what happens in my neighborhood.
21:26There's nobody for them to ask.
21:29They don't have their school records.
21:31They don't have stuff they need to prove that they're due treatment.
21:35So we're helping them fight also to make sure that they can be included in the program.
21:40Because it's important to get the care.
21:42My mother's not here because during the pandemic she was stuck in a nursing home.
21:46So she could not get to the World Trade Center Clinic.
21:49She could not get the care, the specialized care that she needed.
21:52By the time she did get out and get to go to a hospital, her cancer had come back.
21:57That's why she's gone.
21:58So I'm here with these brothers today to ask that the funding gap finally be once and for all resolved, restored, passed, passed the bill, the Correction Act, and don't have us come here anymore.
22:20None of us want to come here anymore.
22:26Our last speaker is Michael McGuire, the Laborers of International Media of North America.
22:33Everybody shivers as I take a big wad of papers out, but they're just notes.
22:36So, you know, I'm not going to rehash that day.
22:41I was in Manhattan that morning.
22:43Our office was on 18th Street, not too far north of the towers.
22:47And what I saw that morning was hundreds of thousands of people streaming north in Manhattan, going up the island, trying to get away from the hell that became ground zero.
22:57But what I also saw were tens of thousands of first responders, our firefighters, our police officers, our EMTs, our medical personnel, heading downtown towards the danger.
23:08The other group I saw going downtown towards that danger was building trades.
23:12The building trades responded immediately.
23:15There was a famous story.
23:16There was a tower going up in the East 90s.
23:19And the guys who were up on the tower, they saw the first tower come down.
23:25And at that point, there was no broadcast.
23:26TV was out, radio was out, all the radio antennas were all shut down, everything else.
23:30So nobody knew what was going on.
23:32The men and women on that job site of the unionized building trades in New York City streamed off of that job, commandeered a New York City bus to take them down to ground zero so they could get working on the rescue and recovery as soon as possible.
23:45So, you know, it was these sort of actions that were seen all over Manhattan that day, time and time again.
23:52You know, they were under no obligation to go down there.
23:55They just knew that their skill sets were needed and they could help, so they went.
23:58My union was part of that, the Laborers International Union of North America.
24:04We had upwards of 4,000 members down on the pile and on the rescue and recovery effort during the whole process.
24:11Demolition experts from Local 79, environmental hazard remediation technicians, Local 78, a 3,000-member local.
24:19Almost every member of that local was down in the neighborhood trying to clean and clear things up.
24:23But it wasn't just us, literally every laborers local in the tri-state area had people there.
24:28Nobody called them, they just went.
24:32100,000 tons of debris was removed in the first two weeks, right?
24:38The pile continued to burn for 100 days.
24:40I don't know if people remember this.
24:42It was December 20th when the fires finally went out.
24:45You know, the trades alongside of the uniforms, they worked tirelessly on the rescue and recovery and the subsequent cleanup of the pile.
24:53At the end of the day, the work was completed three months ahead of schedule and three-quarters of a billion dollars under budget.
24:59But here's the thing.
25:01In those early days, in those first two weeks, when 200 million pounds of toxic smoldering debris was removed, no one compelled the trades to be there.
25:13Contracts weren't even signed for the cleanup of the pile for months.
25:18It was actually in 2002 when the contracts got signed.
25:24So the trades were there because it was the right thing to do.
25:26There was work to be done.
25:27There was no, not to steal a page from John, but there was no time for bureaucratic bullshit.
25:33So here it is now, almost a quarter of a century later, and ironically, it's precisely bureaucratic BS that's forcing these heroic citizens to suffer and die.
25:43Slashing and burning this vital program, not based on efficiency or facts or need, but rather on political posturing and crackpot conspiracy theories, is an absolute disgrace.
25:55It's based on the fever dreams of a delusional despot who, at the end of the day, will be responsible for the deaths of thousands of more Americans than were killed that morning in September of 2001.
26:08But it doesn't have to be that way.
26:09Reinstate Dr. Howard to his full power and position.
26:15Reinstate all staff of NIOSH that were working on the World Trade Center health-related issues.
26:23And frankly, Secretary Kennedy, resign.
26:27Reinstate the care standards and the ability to admit new patients to the program.
26:33We need that vitally. We're still getting 30 to 50 new referrals of new cancers every month at this point.
26:39If we do all those things as soon as possible, maybe the administration of this iteration of HHS will go down in history as saviors and not as the unnecessary cause of the deaths of more American citizens than any administration in history.
26:56If all the personnel are reinstated, if they're reinstated permanently, if Dr. Howard is reinstated permanently,
27:17and if he's going to support the full authorization of all the resources the 9-11 health bill needs until the end of the lives of every 9-11 first responder.
27:27We need to know where he stands.
27:28Like Senator Schumer, I had long conversations with him before his confirmation, and he assured me he would support the program.
27:36So this is intolerable and unacceptable.
27:40Go ahead.
27:40The president is a Native New Yorker, and I know he's dealt with many of you on this issue,
27:46and he was there at the Rose Garden when he was trying to explain.
27:50And I'm just wondering whether there's any communication with the White House with the president directly.
27:55So if you don't see him, you know, that this is a program that, you know, this is going to be really important.
28:00There has been.
28:01There's been a lot of bipartisan discussions directly with the White House with members of the New York delegation.
28:06The president's going into law, the VCF, the attention of the compensation side.
28:14This is the health care side.
28:16His comments were, he did it in his first term so we can all live a great life.
28:21If you call coming back to D.C. over and over again a great life, then your heart's not in it as a human being.
28:29Because if he really cared, he would tell Speaker Johnson to put our bill on the floor as a standalone or attach us in the continuum resolution.
28:39Yeah.
28:39I mean.
28:41In the reconciliation bill.
28:42This administration is silly.
28:44This is run by a bunch of silly people.
28:46Come speak in front of the mic.
28:47The mics they have.
28:49Did you hear all of that?
28:50You can say it again.
28:51Who didn't hear it?
28:53Take it from the top.
28:54Take it from the top.
28:55Yeah.
28:56President Trump.
28:57If President Trump really cared, he would have Speaker Johnson put us in reconciliation on the continuum resolution.
29:05If he really cared, he would have stopped the madness before it started.
29:09He claimed that he helped us in his first term by extending the victim's compensation fund.
29:16We're here for the health care.
29:17You can't spend money when you're dead.
29:19You can't spend money when you're bedridden.
29:21You can't spend money when you can't leave your house.
29:25Well, you guess you can.
29:26You can go on Amazon.
29:27But the point is, he did not help us completely.
29:32If he really, truly wants to help us, then help us right now.
29:35Today.
29:36Today.
29:36He can help us.
29:37And he has it.
29:38So, I put him in the same boat as Kennedy.
29:40Yeah, it's about a three, it's about a $3 billion shortfall.
29:56We're trying to put it in any must-pass legislation.
30:09We would put it in the reconciliation.
30:11We'd put it in the next CR.
30:12We'd put it in any budget bill that is moving.
30:15And that's what we've consistently asked for the White House to do, as well as our Republican colleagues.
30:19Should have been in any bill at any time.
30:25We've been asking for bipartisan support for this forever.
30:28And so, we just need them to do their part and Congress to do its job.
30:32In 2010, the original statute for the bill caused for 138 people to be staffed under NIOSH to administrate the World Trade Center Health Program.
30:42We were at 93.
30:43If that bill would have got attached in December, we would have met the 138 criteria.
30:48There would have been no backlog on enrollment and certification.
30:53So, they're doing double whammy and hurting the 9-11 community.
31:03To the first gentleman that asked the question over here.
31:07Yes, to the right.
31:08Sorry.
31:10One of the things that I would like for those who attend the hearing and the senator to ask is for the communication gap to be lifted.
31:18There's some sort of pause on communication.
31:21So, those of us who are members of groups like the Survivor Steering Committee or the Responder Steering Committee, both of which are required under the bill to exist.
31:31We can't even communicate with NIOSH or members of the program or the CDC since this communication has been paused.
31:40And, again, we're bodies that were created as part of the bill to make sure that it's being implemented properly.
31:48So, that would be something that I would ask to change.
31:53Again, this is more far reaching than anything.
31:57The agenda here is very clear.
31:59All right?
31:59I'm a labor representative.
32:02All right?
32:03Department of Labor has been torn apart.
32:06All right?
32:07The actions of our secretary in HHS, NIOSH, OSHA, OSHA was born before half of you people in this room.
32:17It's been shredded.
32:19It protects working men and women, whether you're union or non-union.
32:23It's been torn apart for no rhyme or reason.
32:27It's time to hold the administration accountable for every move.
32:31I spoke at a town hearing meeting, a town hall meeting, Thursday evening.
32:36I was excited because people are turning out.
32:41They're waking up.
32:43It didn't matter what their issue was.
32:45There were a lot of issues that went around that room.
32:48People are pissed off.
32:50It's time to hold people accountable.
32:52What questions?
32:55Any question that is related to any of the moves that they've made, all of them are knee-jerk reactions.
33:01Nothing has been thought out.
33:03Nothing.
33:04You have sick people.
33:06Sick people when she says she can't get somebody on the phone or an email because they're not there.
33:13They've been taken away.
33:15The safety net.
33:17So just imagine, and I'm going to go back to the mental health issue again.
33:21Just imagine what that guy is thinking about sitting in his living room in his chair when he can't get up and he can't go get his treatment or he can't get his meds.
33:30He's going back to those dark times, the things that we saw, the things that we share as a community.
33:36The law enforcement folks, they're trained to a certain degree.
33:39The building trades guys, that's not shit that we're supposed to see.
33:44And we don't know how to function with it.
33:45But we carry it every day.
33:48And now we're being told no.
33:50We're being told no.
33:52Think about that.
33:53If you have a family or a relative, it hits close to home.
33:58So please, hold everybody accountable.
34:00We'll be there.
34:11Thank you all.
34:12Thank you for coming.
34:13Thank you, guys.
34:14Thank you so much.
34:16Thank you so much for being here.
34:17Thank you again.