During debate on the House floor, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) tore into a GOP-backed rules package, while slamming Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' and the GOP Lawmakers who have criticized aspects of the bill after voting to pass it.
00:00The gentleman from Minnesota reserves. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized.
00:03Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota for yielding me the customary 30 minutes,
00:09and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
00:12Mr. Speaker, last time we were here, House Republicans rammed through their latest GOP tax scam,
00:20a bill that would rip health care away from over 15 million Americans by slashing Medicaid,
00:26and let's be honest, likely Medicare.
00:28And I'm sorry the gentlelady doesn't think that that's in the interest of the American people,
00:34but we on the Democratic side do.
00:36We think when you're taking away people's health care in this country, it's a big deal.
00:42This bill, this tax scam bill, would literally take food out of the mouths of kids,
00:47takes nutritious food from senior citizens and veterans, and for what?
00:52To give massive tax breaks to billionaires and to add trillions, trillions of dollars to our national debt.
01:00Mr. Speaker, their ugly big bill is a disgrace, and it does not serve working people.
01:08It serves the GOP's donors.
01:11It is a scam, a handout to the rich paid for by nickel and diming moms and dads who are just trying to get by.
01:19And even Elon Musk, even Elon Musk, one of Donald Trump's top advisors,
01:26called the Republican bill, quote, a disgusting abomination.
01:32Let me repeat that, a disgusting abomination.
01:35He said, quote, shame on those who voted for it.
01:39You know you did wrong.
01:42Now let that sink in.
01:43Let that sink in.
01:44Elon Musk, the man who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect Donald Trump and other Republicans,
01:51is now saying members should be ashamed of themselves for voting for this disgusting bill.
01:57Remember when Republicans were falling all over themselves, calling Elon a genius?
02:03He could do no wrong?
02:04I've got to be honest, Mr. Speaker, it gives me whiplash.
02:07I think I need a neck brace to deal with all these contrary quotations coming in.
02:14You know, and the icing on the cake, Mr. Speaker, is the number of Republicans who are now publicly claiming buyer's remorse for voting for this bill.
02:23This is a tweet from one of the Republican colleagues from Georgia.
02:27You're going to love this.
02:28She says, quote, full transparency.
02:31I did not know about this section on pages 278 to 279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.
02:44I adamantly opposed, I'm adamantly opposed to this, and it is a violation of states' rights, and I would have voted no if I had known this was in there.
02:54This needs to be stripped out of the bill, end quote.
02:57Mr. Speaker, this takes my breath away.
03:02I mean, all my colleague from Georgia needed to do was to read the bill.
03:08I mean, I know that's a tough thing to ask members of Congress to do, but read the damn bill.
03:13And if she wasn't going to do that, if she was like our president, who doesn't like to read and only gets his information from the TV, she could have tuned in to the Rules Committee meeting, where for 20 hours, beginning at 1 a.m.,
03:28beginning at 1 a.m., we debated not only this bill, but even this policy that she was concerned about.
03:33In fact, I offered an amendment to strike the awful AI provisions from this bill.
03:39We had a debate on it, and every single one of her Republican colleagues in the Rules Committee, every single one of them voted against it.
03:47And get this, and get this.
03:49According to this article in the New York Times entitled, After Muscling Their Bill Through the House, Some Republicans Have Regrets,
03:56Our colleague from Georgia wasn't the only Republican who didn't read the bill before voting to pass it.
04:04Another one of our conservative colleagues from Nebraska admitted he did not know the bill makes it harder for the courts to hold the Trump administration officials in contempt for defying a court order.
04:15And get this.
04:16He claims he would have voted against the bill had he known it was in the bill.
04:20I mean, you can't make this stuff up.
04:22And we had another conservative Republican colleague from Pennsylvania tweet, quote,
04:28So Elon Musk is right to call out the House leadership.
04:32I wish I had a nickel for every time the Freedom Caucus sounded the alarm and nobody listened, only to find out the hard way that we were right all along, end quote.
04:42Right all along?
04:43I mean, from what he just said, you would have thought that he voted against the bill, or that the entire Freedom Caucus voted against the bill.
04:51But he voted for it, and so did the Freedom Caucus.
04:56I think every Republican but one voted for the bill.
05:00So here's the deal.
05:02Republicans are really good about making statements and speeches.
05:06But that's about it.
05:09But where is their backbone?
05:13And if they believe some of this stuff is bad, why didn't they vote against the bill?
05:18I mean, one by one, they caved.
05:21The budget hawks wanted a bill that wouldn't add to the debt.
05:25Well, this bill adds trillions to the debt, and they caved.
05:29Moderates who said they wouldn't vote for a bill that slashes Medicaid and threw people off of health care.
05:33Well, this bill did that, and guess what?
05:36They folded.
05:37They folded.
05:38Now, where I'm from in Massachusetts, that's what we call a cheap date.
05:42Republicans from across the ideological spectrum caved and got nothing, and they listened to Donald Trump.
05:49They closed their eyes, and they just voted for it without reading it, without a CBO analysis.
05:55Whatever Trump wants, Trump gets.
05:57And, Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, it's embarrassing.
06:01It's embarrassing for this institution, and it's embarrassing for our country.
06:06It is making a mockery of this House of Representatives.
06:10Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.
06:12I thought all of us ran for Congress, regardless of party, to try to help people.
06:16And what Republicans did a little over a week ago was about not only hurting people, but screwing them over.
06:23And that's sad.
06:25And then, look at today.
06:28Some of the bills at one time were bipartisan.
06:32I mean, H.R. 2483 reauthorizes funding for programs that help communities fight the opiate crisis,
06:39something I support, something I voted for in the past.
06:42You know, Mr. Speaker, over 20,000 lives have been lost in my home state of Massachusetts alone
06:47to this crisis over the past decade.
06:49But in Massachusetts, we actually saw a 33 percent drop in fatal overdoses for the first time last year,
06:58showing that public investments that we all voted for, public investments in treatment and in prevention,
07:03are actually starting to make a real difference.
07:05And so I am, like, horrified and I am outraged that Trump is actively dismantling our ability to respond to the opiate crisis moving forward.
07:15The administration recently sent over more details about Trump's, quote, skinny budget,
07:20which proposes very large cuts to health programs that American families rely on.
07:27And these include eliminating programs of regional and national significance at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
07:34otherwise known as SAMHSA, which encompass nearly all programs aimed at substance use and mental health,
07:41including the ones in the bill before us today.
07:45I mean, it is hard to take Republicans seriously when they are actively dismantling the very programs and the very agencies
07:53that this bill is trying to reauthorize.
07:57I mean, if they were serious about this crisis, they would stop undermining the solutions.
08:03I mean, I guess maybe the rationale for Republicans bringing this bill to the floor is to have some cover
08:10as Trump basically undoes all the programs that are authorized under this bill.
08:16But what a cynical thing to do.
08:18And it's going to cost lives.
08:21I mean, this isn't a game we're playing, you know,
08:24and this really, at this point, shouldn't be about pleasing the guy in the Oval Office.
08:29This should be about serving your constituents, you know, and supporting what is already working and showing some promise.
08:37And then Republicans claim the other three bills in this rule support small businesses.
08:41But you know what?
08:43No surprise.
08:44They do the exact opposite.
08:46Doge already shuttered an SB office in my district in Massachusetts,
08:51forcing a lot of rural small business owners have to drive hours to get to the office in Boston.
08:58Now, under this bill, if Republicans force the closure of the Boston office out of political spite,
09:03which they seem to be really good at,
09:05it will leave small businesses in Massachusetts with nowhere to turn.
09:10But it's not just Massachusetts.
09:11It's a whole bunch of other states that will fall under these cuts.
09:16It will also have a disastrous long-term consequences for the rural entrepreneurs
09:21and working-class families in my home state who rely on the SBA to navigate federal assistance
09:27and recover from economic setbacks,
09:29like the increased costs they're facing because of Trump's reckless trade war.
09:34I mean, while we're having this debate and Trump's having tantrums day in and day out
09:39and tariffs this and tariffs that, you know who's paying the price?
09:44Small businesses.
09:45You know what's happening in this country?
09:46People are beginning to get laid off.
09:48And again, silence.
09:50Silence from the other side.
09:51Because let's be clear, Trump's tariff chaos does, in fact, punish small businesses the most.
09:57And unlike the mega-donors who bankroll Republican campaigns,
10:00small business owners can't hedge against the kind of volatility that we see playing out in the economy right now.
10:09And every time Trump throws another tantrum on trade,
10:12Republicans are tossing small businesses into a tailspin
10:15with no warning, no help, and frankly, no concern.
10:19But maybe that's the point.
10:20Republicans don't care about new small business entrepreneurs
10:24or those struggling or those people struggling with opiate addiction.
10:27If they did, they would uplift successful programs and agencies like SBA or SAMHSA,
10:34not gutting them.
10:36And unless you're a mega-donor or a loyal MAGA mouthpiece,
10:39you do not matter to this Republican majority.
10:43And what is happening here isn't just irresponsible.
