‘The American People Are Watching’: Katherine Clark Warns GOP Of Public Scrutiny Amid Budget Talks

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Democratic press briefing, Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) slammed the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill, which ultimately passed early Thursday morning.

Transcript

00:00Democratic Whip, Catherine Clark.

00:07All right, some of us started out this day together.

00:11Who is there in front of the Capitol at 1 a.m.?

00:14We see you, okay?

00:16And you are the perfect antidote for what we have going on behind me.

00:22So we're going to have no more hearings in the middle of the night,

00:26and we're not going to have a government of, by, and for the billionaires.

00:31We're going to bring a little people power here to D.C.

00:36So when you try and sneak a billionaire tax scam past the American people,

00:42you try to yada yada over the details.

00:45You know, details like 14 million people getting kicked off of Medicaid.

00:5214 million people.

00:54It gets worse.

00:5742 million people, kids, seniors, working people,

01:03having their SNAP benefits reduced.

01:0642 million people.

01:09And now we found out, as Brendan Boyle told us,

01:13Medicare, which just yesterday the president was across the street and he said,

01:20we will never touch Medicare.

01:22Well, $500 million, a billion dollars, half a trillion dollars,

01:29sure feels like you're hurting Medicare to me.

01:32And what are they hoping?

01:35That we're not going to notice?

01:37That we are just going to somehow wake up and not have health care, not be feeding hungry people in our communities?

01:46Well, you're here to tell them the American people are watching.

01:50And this movement is fighting back.

01:53And we'll meet them in the rain.

01:55We'll meet them in the shine.

01:57We'll meet them at 1 a.m. or 1 p.m.

02:00We'll be there.

02:01And they have shown their hand to us.

02:05They have shown us how they prioritize you.

02:10And they proved once again that they work for the billionaire class.

02:15Elon gave them $277 million in campaign funds.

02:21He expects a return on his investment.

02:26And they're going to pay for it by cutting women's health care, cutting children's health care,

02:32taking groceries away from families and seniors and disabled Americans.

02:39And I see a lot of Planned Parenthood shirts out here.

02:44So let's talk about that because that's something else they stuck in there.

02:49They know they know that we have had the Hyde Amendment for decades,

02:54that no federal money goes to abortion care.

02:58But that didn't stop them.

03:00They went in this bill and said they're going to take every single penny of federal funding,

03:06Medicaid funding, all the federal funding from Planned Parenthood.

03:10You know what that does?

03:12It translates into 600 clinics around this country that will close, that serve 2 million patients.

03:22While we have an OBGYN crisis in this country, we don't have enough places for rural people and underserved communities to go get primary care.

03:33And they're trying to tell us that they are going to end big abortion and defund Planned Parenthood.

03:40We are going to say not on our watch, not on our watch.

03:44So they think we aren't paying attention.

03:47And then they're counting on us forgetting about this between now and the midterms.

03:53But I know that each and every one of us is going to remind them every single day.

03:58They work for us.

04:00This is our democracy.

04:03Health care in this country should be a right and not a privilege.

04:07And we are going to ensure that we hold them accountable.

04:12I couldn't be happier to be in this fight with you.

04:15Thank you so much for being here.

04:17You have the power to make the change we need.

04:23The people united will never be divided.

04:27The people united will never be divided.

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