During a House Democratic leadership press briefing on Wednesday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) spoke about President Trump recently accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar.
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00:01Thank you, Chairman Aguilar.
00:03Omaha, Nebraska is the sixth largest city in America led by a Republican.
00:09And last night, in a stunning upset, Democrats flipped that seat from red to blue.
00:14I want to congratulate Marilette John Ewing, Jr., who's going to be the new mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.
00:21We also know that voters are very angry at Republicans who continue to enable Donald Trump's harmful policies.
00:28And the Republican mayor, in this case, aligned herself completely with Donald Trump.
00:33And the voters spoke out in Omaha, and now we have a Democratic mayor who left.
00:40I also want to talk about now the Katori Luxury Palace in the Sky gift to Donald Trump.
00:47There is no such thing as a free palace in the sky.
00:51What do foreign countries want when they give massive amounts of money and other gifts to the President?
00:58Donald Trump should reject this gift of the luxury palace in the sky, Boeing 747, completely and righteously.
01:07Because we are the United States of America. We don't need gifts from foreign countries.
01:12We can build our own very impressive Air Force One. We don't need to fly a Qatari plane around as our Air Force One.
01:20That's also un-American.
01:22I also want to note, new reporting came out showing that to retrofit this Qatari 747 would take perhaps up to a billion dollars.
01:30Because you can't just fly a palace in the sky from a foreign country. You have to actually make it safe and secure.
01:37You have to make this plane ready to launch nuclear weapons. You can't have people eavesdropping on it.
01:42And so it's going to cost way more money to do it this way.
01:45And again, people need to ask, why is a foreign country trying to give this massive gift to Donald Trump?
01:51And think about a precedent it would set.
01:54Would it be okay if Brunei gifted a luxury 757 to J.D. Vance for Air Force Two?
02:01Would it be okay if Germany gave a Porsche SUV to Senator Thun as his official car?
02:08Would it be okay if Italy gave a bunch of expensive Armani suits to Speaker Johnson for his official duties?
02:15No, it wouldn't be okay.
02:16Also because the Constitution says you can't do this.
02:19It requires congressional approval for the President to accept a gift of this size.
02:25And we urge the Republicans in Congress to stand up, speak out, and call for a vote if Donald Trump were to accept this essential bribe from a foreign government.
02:34And then let me now conclude on Medicaid.
02:37We now know that the Republicans lied when they said that they weren't going to cut Medicaid.
02:42They're cutting Medicaid by a massive amount of money.
02:46One of the largest cuts in U.S. history, over 13.7 million people will be kicked off Medicaid.
02:53I also know that two-thirds of Medicaid, two-thirds of nursing home patients rely on Medicaid.
02:59This is also going to close down rural hospitals.
03:02It's going to make it so that health care for all of us becomes more expensive.
03:05Because if you don't have health care under Medicaid, you're still going to get treated.
03:09You just walk into the emergency room and it costs even more money for all of us.
03:12So we urge the Republicans to reject this massive Medicaid cut.
03:16And I just want to say, we told you so.
03:18We told you that Republicans were going to cut Medicaid.
03:21And now we know that they are doing it.
03:22So if they mind, we told the truth again.