Excellent job by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA10) yesterday on NewsNation; see below for video and highlights (bolding added by me for emphasis).
- [On the Epstein fiasco] “I guess the president speaks in conspiracy theory, because he made it a central component of his campaign last year that he would release the files. And then the FBI director and deputy director made it a central component of their pitch for the president. And part of the reason why they got their jobs, right? And then you’ve got others in the administration who like Pam Bondi who said that they had the files, right? And it was on her desk ready to be released. And so either someone’s lying, they’re all lying, or they’re hiding something. But either way, you know, when Elon Musk tweeted about this, saying that, you know, the reason it hasn’t been released is Trump is in the files. I just sent a simple letter to Pam Bondi asking her to release it and and asking why does Elon Musk have special knowledge of this document, but the American people don’t. And so I’d like to see some answers.”
- [More on the Epstein fiasco/coverup] “Imagine if Joe Biden or Barack Obama gave that excuse. What would Republicans say? Right. I don’t buy it at all. The reality is either they’re lying or they’re hiding something. Those are really the only two situations happening here. And if they want to quell some of the criticism and concerns, just release everything you’ve got and stop stonewalling people. I mean, I’ve never seen a president say, ‘Please start talking about something else.'”
- [On the Big Ugly Bill] “First of all, it’s an L for the American people, the whole bill. I mean, you know, this is not something I want to be campaigning about, because I wish we could keep Medicaid and preserve food benefits and food access. With that said, it’s a really bad bill. It’s historically unpopular. It’s the largest cut to health benefits in American history. The largest cut to food assistance in American history and increases the deficit by five the debt by $5 trillion or more. Some one said $6 trillion. All for tax cuts to the very wealthiest corporations who continue to offshore a lot of jobs. And so what we’re actually going to see is not growth necessarily, but we’re going to see a historic amount of people’s premiums for health care go up even if you’re not on Medicaid. There’s going to be so many other issues with this bill. And then locally in Virginia and in the DMV, I mean, there are so many things attacking federal workers. They even took our space shuttle, the Smithsonian, down to Texas as a handout to the Texas senators. I mean, there’s so many bad things in this bill, and I think all we need to do is educate people about it and promise them that we will have our own beautiful bill that involves repealing this thing and actually expanding access to healthcare and not rescinding it to people who need it most.”
- [More on the Big Ugly Bill] “Those were those were breadcrumbs, though. Let’s be honest here. The taxes on tips and no taxes on tips, there’s a cap on it of $25,000 and it’s temporary. Same with the other popular provisions that they they’re talking about so much, those were a drop in the bucket in this bill. What they could have done is made those things permanent. What they could have done is actually make more middle class tax cuts and more access to health care for people. That’s what would have helped people. But instead, they spent $5 trillion of our debt in the future plus the interest we’ll pay on it for tax cuts to the very wealthiest corporations who didn’t need it.”
- [On a possible government shutdown] “I say it’s time to to stand up for the American people. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican. And again, I’m hearing from both sides that they’re fed up with this administration and they want to see some changes, not just in this administration, but even in the Democratic party. And so, yes, absolutely. The time to fight was yesterday. And we need to continue to make sure that when we do have leverage, the few times we do have leverage, we have to use it and we have to strike a hard bargain and not just fold in the last minute. And so, I do think that we should fight…[Federal workers in Loudoun County are] saying that they’re shutting down the government anyway and that what they’re doing is undermining the entire federal workforce in ways where they want us to fight. And so that’s the message I’ve gotten from my constituents on both sides of the aisle and I think we need to continue to fight.”