00:00Recognize the ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee, Jasmine Crawford.
00:04I apologize.
00:05No worries.
00:06I will absolutely give you some of your time back so that we can move on to these amazing witnesses.
00:12And I want to thank each and every one of the members that have opened and given a resuscitation of the hate that has taken place.
00:22I want to go a little bit further, though, since I can skip over some of my remarks about Nick Fuentes and about Elon and others.
00:34And I want to be clear that one of the things that is so hurtful to me that we have consistently discussed as I've been out on the road is the fact that there is a consistent rise in hate in general in this country.
00:47And I think that if we continue to allow people to divide us, then our country will continue to fall down this terrible rabbit hole that we've fallen down.
00:59The reality is that united we stand and divided we fall.
01:03And what we've got going on now is that people are saying if you like this type of person, then you've got to hate this kind of person and that kind of stuff.
01:11And frankly, I think that we need to have more hearings on hate overall.
01:14We need to be addressing racial hate, homophobic hate, and yes, even political hate.
01:23Unfortunately, we are seeing a rise of all of it.
01:27This hate is being directed at our neighbors, our community, and even members of Congress.
01:31The violence and death threats that people are experiencing, including some of my colleagues here today, because of their faith or their presumed faith or simply because of their political affiliation is unconscionable and needs to stop.
01:45You're not allowed to be different or you're allowed to be different.
01:48You're allowed to have your own faith.
01:50You're allowed to disagree.
01:51But what we won't allow is using these differences to justify threats and violence against people different than you.
01:57Everyone, including Congress and the president, needs to do all that we can to reject hate and violence in all forms.
02:04But to do that, then my colleagues need to be honest about what's allowed this behavior to flourish.
02:09That means confronting the fact that Donald Trump has played a significant role in emboldening this behavior by repeatedly legitimizing extremists who've continued to spread and promote anti-Semitism and religious hate.
02:24Growing up, we were told we need to lead by example, lead others in a way that you see the world or how you think it should be.
02:32For me, I lead by example by acknowledging what's right and what's wrong, by standing up for marginalized communities, by calling out and combating hate and finding the humanity in everyone and everything.
02:45But how does the man currently occupying the Oval Office choose to lead by example within the context of anti-Semitism?
02:53It's Trump who again invited Nick Fuentes.
02:56It's holding a press conference to say that there, quote, were some very fine people on both sides, end quote, after Charlottesville.
03:05And we know that the reason we have to talk about Charlottesville is because there were white supremacists who flocked to that city and held torches and Nazi flags chanting, you will not replace us.
03:18It's Trump refusing to condemn the January 6th insurrectionists who carried Nazi flags into these very halls of Congress.
03:27And then after all of that, deciding to pardon them, it's Trump who recruited Elon Musk.
03:34And we know that he not only did the Nazi salute on the inaugural stage, but he also told Germany two days before Holocaust Remembrance Day that, quote, there is too much focused on past guilt.
03:50It's allowing Musk and others to continue to enable religious hate groups to post hate and threats online.
03:58It's redirecting attorneys at the Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights, the primary office for enforcing discrimination laws, including religious discrimination, away from their work and placing them to work on immigration cases.
04:10It's Trump redirecting attorneys on the Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights, who are supposed to work on things such as religious hate.
04:24It's Trump having his Department of State ban the term racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism from classification and the style guide at the State Department.
04:37That is how Trump is supposedly leading by example here.
04:40Now, you'd think that an administration wanting to take this seriously would place highly qualified individuals in agency roles tasked with combating religious terrorist hate threats and violence.
04:51And yet Trump hasn't even cleared that low hurdle because we know that we ended up with Thomas.
04:59The guy that Trump currently has in charge of the Department of Homeland Security's Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships,
05:05the division tasked with working with state and local governments and other stakeholders to prevent terrorism, including religious terrorism,
05:11is just 23 years old with no experience in government, anti-terrorism or really anything else.
05:20The person Thomas took over for had over two decades of national security experience.
05:28But now, under Trump, we have an immature, incompetent, infantile person who barely even lived, who's barely even lived for two decades in charge of this important work.
05:42It's ridiculous, it's shameful, and it's dangerous.
05:44Allowing religious hate to thrive in one corner allows it to spread everywhere across all corners, all denominations, and all faiths.
05:51As members of Congress, we cannot allow another synagogue or, for that matter, another church or mosque or home risk being attacked or shot up by Nazis or extremists
06:05simply because elected officials don't have the courage and leadership to condemn them before they act.
06:10Trump's disgusting refusal to cut ties from Nazi supporters and sympathizers have given violent extremists
06:18both a figurative and literal get-out-of-jail-free card.
06:21It's signaling that these hateful beliefs and actions will be tolerated so long as they pledge their loyalty to Trump.
06:28We owe it to every American to condemn this behavior and fight back by confronting this intolerance with courage and leading from our hearts.
06:43Okay.
06:47Without objection, Mr. Goldman will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning witnesses
06:54if a member yields him time for that purpose.
