00:00Good morning. Let me begin by saying that our caucus heard an update on the situation in Boulder,
00:10Colorado, and the horrendous attack that injured 12 innocent people. Anti-Semitism has no place
00:16in American life, and we stand with the Jewish community in this difficult hour and always.
00:23Republicans in Congress don't care if your health care is too expensive, and they don't care if you
00:31can't afford your medical bills. They voted for what Elon Musk called a disgusting abomination,
00:37a Republican budget that throws millions of Americans off of their health insurance.
00:43Republicans don't care if your tariffs, if their tariffs are raising your prices
00:48across the board and making it harder to make ends meet. They voted to take away food assistance
00:54for families, seniors, veterans, and they'll continue to reward billionaire donors who keep
01:04them in office with tax breaks so they can hold on to power. They're getting rich off of the stock
01:11trades while working people worry about losing their jobs. When confronted with the truth,
01:19they often just lie. Or they show their true colors, like one Republican senator did by dismissing
01:24concerns that Medicaid cuts might lead to unnecessary deaths as a result of their disgusting abomination,
01:32kicking millions off of their health care. We're all going to die, she said. That is the Republican
01:39health care plan in a nutshell. And that's why Republicans can't be trusted to make your health
01:44care or anything else more affordable for working families. Vice Chair Ted Lute.
01:51Thank you, Chairman Aguilar. I also condemn their horrific terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado.
01:58About a dozen people were burned, some critically, because of a terrorist who threw essentially
02:04molotov cocktails at a group of Jewish Americans. And let me just be clear. Hamas is a genocidal,
02:13homicidal, extreme terrorist organization who attacked Israel, not the other way around.
02:19And now Jewish Americans in America are fearing for their safety because of folks who are committing
02:26brazen acts of anti-Semitism. We need to call it out when we see it. And I urge that the person be
02:33prosecuted to the fullest extent of law who committed this heinous terrorist attack. I'd like to now
02:39talk about Senator Joni Ernst's statement that we all are going to die. She is correct that we all are going
02:48to die, but it shouldn't be at the hands of Republican legislation. And the Republicans' big, ugly bill
02:55is going to cause unnecessary death. So then Senator Ernst doubled down on her statement and did a video
03:02of herself walking through a cemetery, again talking about what she said. And then she ended
03:09by citing Jesus. So I'm just a simple Catholic. But let me just tell you, I actually read the Gospels
03:16and Jesus goes around healing people. That's what he does, right? He heals a woman who was blind. He
03:24heals a person who had leprosy. He heals a person who was paralyzed. 41 acts of healing in the Gospels.
03:31That's what Jesus did in terms of acts. So it's exactly the opposite of what Senator Ernst is saying.
03:38And come the old fashioned, but I think the goal of government is not to hasten the deaths of
03:43Americans. It is to make the lives of Americans better. And clearly this big, ugly bill is not
03:49going to do that. And now we see some Republican members who are opposed to it because guess what?
03:56They didn't read the bill. So Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday opposes a provision which is a 10-year
04:02moratorium on states regulating artificial intelligence. So I agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene
04:09once every 100 years. This is that time. I agree that this 10-year provision is extreme.
04:17It's going to cause unnecessary harm. And look, I think the federal government is fine doing preemption.
04:24When we preempt with something, you can't just preempt with nothing. And this is a bad provision.
04:30And I hope the Senate will take out this 10-year moratorium.
04:33Thank you, Ted. Questions?
04:39A couple of your ranking members, Congresswoman Craig and Congressman Krishnamoorthy,
04:43as well as some fairly senior members, are leaving the House to run for higher office.
04:47I'm just curious if you see this as an opportunity for any sort of sea change in the House or just
04:53opportunities for kind of ambitious House members who maybe haven't had them.
04:57You know, I think Vice Chair Lou and I have had the privilege of serving with a lot of members who have
05:04moved on to other jobs within public service, whether that's our former colleague and the Attorney General,
05:12Javier Becerra, to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. Members are going to seek opportunities to serve their
05:21constituents in different ways. That's the blessing of being a House member, is folks will take
05:28opportunities. And then last cycle, obviously, we saw different opportunities with now Senator Andy Kim
05:36and Senator Gallego, Senator Slotkin, all coming from Lisa Blunt Rochester, all coming from the House.
05:43We take a lot of pride in that, the fact that we have some friends over there who used to be House members.
05:49So we take it as an opportunity for renewal, to hear from the perspectives of new members, those new
05:58members who replaced our former colleagues. But then personally, it's a point of pride that we now have
06:06the ability to bounce ideas off of folks in the other chamber. I said other chamber, not upper chamber,
06:13by the way, when we talk about the U.S. Senate. So this is an opportunity for us to continue to benefit
06:20from new ideas of those new members and build on existing relationships for those folks who have
06:26moved on to other jobs. Mike? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's a debate in the Senate right now over
06:33Russia's sanctions package. Lindsey Graham, Richard Blumenthal are trying to push Leader Thune to bring that
06:41particular bill to the floor. I wanted to get the caucus's thoughts on imposing additional sanctions on Russia.
06:47And what do you make of the President's shift in tone towards Vladimir Putin? He's put out some recent, I guess,
06:55truth social posts saying that he's surprised by, you know, Putin's unwillingness to engage in good faith peace talks.
07:04I want to get your thoughts on that. I think many of us in Capitol Hill warned him in dealing with Vladimir Putin.
07:12And I think that you're seeing that now. This seems like the upside down, right? Donald Trump's former friends
07:17and Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk are now being, are now not besties. I don't know. I can't keep track of it anymore.
07:24But Russia is a threat. We have voted for sanctions for Russia previously. We continue to view it through
07:33the lens of national security. And we will be willing and ready to make deliberations and votes if there
07:43are packages and proposals. But I think right now the effort that the Senate is undertaking is more of an
07:48effort to get Donald Trump to be supportive of Russian sanctions than it is to get the House of
07:54Representatives to be supportive of of Russian sanctions. They clearly are trying to work Donald
08:00Trump to get to to this position. And we'll see what happens in the in the weeks to come.
08:08Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Ukraine is a part of Russia and Putin attacked Ukraine, Crimea.
08:16And then when there was not a good response from the West, he attacked again Ukraine a second time.
08:24And my view is Putin will not stop until his troops are defeated on the battlefield.
08:30And I urge the Trump administration to understand that fact. And I believe the best way to get Putin to
08:37the negotiating table is to apply maximum pressure in terms of sanctions, give Ukraine what they need
08:44to defeat Russian troops on the battlefield. And then we'll get Putin to the negotiating table.
08:50Nick?
08:51There's a number of your members who are speaking at this welcome fest this week, kind of blue dog types.
08:58Is it helpful to your party trying to come together for these folks to be going so far on an ideological limb?
09:06It's helpful for members of our party to meet with outside voices to talk about an agenda that puts working families first.
09:17And that's how I viewed those discussions, which is what is our strategy as a party to put working families first?
09:25First, how we lower the costs that people face. Clearly, we're united against this one, you know, ugly bill that House Republicans passed that is now over in the Senate.
09:36And we will clearly work on different items to lower the costs that people face.
09:43We've talked often about those child tax credit, low income housing credit, all of these pieces that are so instrumental in helping working families get forward.
09:55So I think that that's always important to huddle with with colleagues and friends and stakeholders to make sure that we're on the same page.
10:02And that's how that's how I viewed the conference. But I wasn't there.
10:07Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The Republicans were just in here.
10:10They blamed Democrats and immigration policies for the the attack in Boulder, specifically because this individual was was here illegally.
10:24Do you wish that Democrats over the last four years had handled the immigration issue differently?
10:30I think right now we're thinking about the 12 people who have injuries as a result of the of the attack.
10:36I'm sure there will be opportunities to dig deeper on the status of the individual who perpetrated this this heinous act.
10:46I don't think it was hours before Republicans were already sounding the alarm about immigration policies closely tying it to to this attack.
10:59There will be opportunities to to dig deeper in his status.
11:05Obviously, we believe that it's not OK to overstay a visa.
11:10But let's get the let's let's understand the facts before we make declarations.
11:15And let's think about the folks, including one or two that are in critical condition before we start injecting the Republican talking points on the political side.
11:25Thank you. So coming up, you have the oversight ranking member race that's going to be a big deal in the Democratic caucus.
11:34And it's kind of another pivotal moment for the party to determine who's going to be the next leader of this powerful committee and whether they go with somebody younger who's eager and has a lot of energy versus someone who has a lot of experience.
11:44And I know you've talked before about the caucus weighing several different things when you're picking a new member.
11:50What are things that the caucus is going to be looking at and what should what do you think should be the quality of the next ranking member?
11:56The caucus will have the opportunity to to weigh that and vote.
12:01The vice chair and I noticed the election for three weeks from now at our regularly scheduled caucus meetings.
12:10Our expectation is that the four candidates will make their way to to meet with members and this will give them ample opportunity to do that.
12:19I think members, any member will view that race through the lens of experience, a willingness to do the hard work of oversight.
12:32The important portfolio that oversight contains within the federal workforce, I think, is also incredibly important.
12:39As we've said before, seniority and length of tenure is is always a factor, but it is one of many factors that that members consider and members will arrive at their own at their own decisions and and make a pick for the ranking member position.
12:55That's our expectation. The vice chair and I are tasked with presiding over the election.
13:01So our job is to just make sure that it's done in a in a fair way and to make sure that the members hear directly from the candidates.
13:06I just want to say that just because someone's a senior member, it doesn't mean they have less energy.
13:15One point of fact, Speaker Pelosi had and continues to have more energy than most human beings that I know.
