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Unknown A
It's great to welcome to the program today, Democratic Congressman Tom Swazi, representing New York's third Congressional District. A Congressman, it's great to have you on. You know, we were just talking with the audience and with our team about just the last two weeks with regard to Ukraine and Russia. So many of your counterparts on the other side of the aisle refusing to even acknowledge that Russia was the aggressor when asked, well, what will Russia give up in the negotiations? Things like they've given up a lot already. You know, they've lost people in this war that they, they started. Tell me what's happening behind the scenes in terms of do your Republican colleagues genuinely seem to be buying into the narrative that's coming down from the Oval Office, or do they have a different view on the aggressor and what should happen there?
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Unknown B
Well, one size doesn't fit all. You know, one of the things that's, that screwed us up in our country is people say the Republicans, you know, the Democrats, a one size fits all thing. There are some members of Congress on the Republican side that have stood up and said Trump is wrong. It's clear that Putin is the dictator and Zelenskyy was democratically elected by 73% of the vote in Ukraine in an election that was certified by the commission in Europe. That certifies that you have a free and fair election. So, you know, that one's obvious to many of us, but it has to be repeated often, that Putin is the dictator and Zelenskyy was democratically elected. Secondly, Putin and Russia invaded Ukraine and so they're trying to play these games with, you know, that Ukraine caused the war by taking certain actions, saying they wanna be in NATO and things like that.
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Unknown B
And, and that's what forced Russia to go kill and murder and rape and take tens of thousands of children as kidnapped, kidnapped do abductees into Russia. I mean, it's awful. I'm going a little off topic, but I mean, the Russians literally abduct children from Ukraine because their parents are working at the power plant and they want the parents to keep working and to keep the parents working. They say, we've got your children. If you don't keep working, who knows what will happen to your children? I, it's just awful. So a lot of Republicans are coming around to recognize or not, I don'tnn say a lot. Some Republicans are coming around to recognize that we cannot reward Russia or Putin for this evil action that they have taken. And to do so would send the worst possible message, not only to the Ukrainians and to Poland, but to the little neighboring countries of Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia and Moldova that are all terrified of what Putin's going to do next because he's already sending disinformation campaigns in there.
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Unknown B
And it would send a terrible message to China. It would send a terrible it send a terrible message to our allies that we've abandoned our historic commitment to democracy and our allies.
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Unknown A
What do you think underlies this attitude in the sense of it has always seemed as though to a degree, Donald Trump is really impressed by these authoritarians. He's impressed with the way in which they ignore public opinion and sort of social benefit. He's impressed by the way in which in China you are very quickly executed after dealing drugs, as he has told the story many times at rallies. So it seems that there's sort of a personal kind of thing there. Others believe that it's more nefarious with regard to business interests or whatever the case may be. What do you make of the underlying kind of motivation here? Speake?
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Unknown B
Yeah, I don't know what the underlying motivation is. I feel like he does not have an appreciation for history. I think he doesn't have an appreciation for, you know, what it took for our country to get to this point. I don't think. And I think, unfortunately, sadly, too many Americans don't realize what a great country this really is, that we have this wonderful democracy and this y plurural bazun amount of many one. I mean, I've just seen so many countries that people that are minority populations are just treated so terribly and the autocrats go after religious minorities. I mean, what the Chinese are doing to the Uyghurs, what they've done it to Tibetans with, they're doing to the Hong Kong students, what they're threatening to do to Taiwan. Mean, it's not's just say it's all over the world. So I don't think that Trump has an appreciation for our history.
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Unknown B
I think that he, you know, came of age. I'm 62 years old myself. You know, he's older than I am, obviously. But I think, you know, he really started paying attention to politics under Reagan and, you know, loves the idea of trying to be a tough guy, but Reagan was a tough guy. In the context of great love and respect for democracy and freedom, Trump is tries to act like he's the tough guy. I really don't think he wants to be in confrontation. He wants to try and use bluster, and he'll back off whenever he gets challenged he's like a bully that, you know, when you're a kid, you know, you fight back with a bully, you punch him in the face and then they don't bully you anymore. I think that he's kind of like that and he doesn't have a, I don't think he has a great respect for our history or you know, I was with a Republican at, at one point, I can't remember when it was exactly, but I said to him, I said, you know, if we appease Putin will be just like Neville Chamberlain.
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Unknown B
And the Republican who's the chairman of a committee and I'm not going toa tell you who it is. The chairman of a committee, very powerful committee responded to me. Who's Neville Chamberlain? I's like, what case? People don't know. Neville Chamberlain was Britain who appeased Hitler to have peace in our time. And in reality, Hitler just took advantage of that settlement and then went on to Czechoslovakia, to other places, all the way through Paris and into England.
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Unknown A
Congressman, you wrote a New York Times op ed a few weeks before Donald Trump took office and you talked in it about the importance of working together when possible and kind of acting in good faith bipartisanship, et cetera. I spoke to your colleague Ro Connor recently who had a similar approach before the inauguration, and he said that seems increasingly implausible and impossible given what we have seen during these first five weeks of this administration. Has, has your view on the plausibility of that good faith bipartisanship also shifted in the last five weeks?
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Unknown B
Well, there's no question that it's very difficult, but I'm not shifting in my belief that I believe the only way forward for our country is to move beyond this divided sense that we have. We have to figure out how to work together. So I'm choosing, for example, in the case of Ukraine to highlight Brian Fitzpatrick who has come out very strongly in favor of Ukraine against Russia disagreeing with the President. I'm choosing to highlight Joe Wilson, who's one of the chair co chairs of the Ukrainian Caucus or Republican who's come out very strongly in favor of Ukraine and talking about how this is legacy defining and we have to support Ukraine. I'm choosing in the case of Doge and the case of the cuts that are being proposed to highlight Republicans like a fellow problem solver. I'll talk about the problem solvers caucus later if you want me to, but Don Bacon from Nebraska, who is one as a Republican in a Harris District who came out and said the President's gotta follow the Law.
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Unknown B
The law is the law. You have to follow the law. What you're doing is not right. You have to come to Congress. A guy named Mario Diazbart, who's a Republican from Florida, who came out and said, listen, I'm on the Appropriations Committee, and Congress is responsible for the power of the purse, and I'm gonna zealously defend it. Even a Freedom Caucus guy, Gary Palmer, an evangelical from Alabama, came out and said, you can't eliminate the Department of Education by executive order. You have to come to Congress to do that. So, you know, there are some bright lights out there that we need to, you know, fan those flames and try and make them get stronger. It's not easy to stand up to your own party. Historically, that's the hardest thing to do in politics. John F. Kennedy wrote the book Profiles and Courage. It was after 175 years of American history, and it was about people who stood up against their party for something they thought was right.
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Unknown B
But despite it was after 175 years of American history, there were only eight people in that book. So it's not easy to stand up to your party. And we need to highlight those Republicans that are standing up to their party or to the president, certainly, and to try and encourage bipartisan common ground, especially on those things that are basic American fundamental principles that we could share in common.
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Unknown A
When it comes to taxes, we are in an interesting situation right now where some of the elements of the 2017 tax plan passed under Trump are now up for either being extended or will expire this year. And this includes potentially the salt cap is back on the table, qualified business interest deduction, and a whole bunch of other things. On the one hand, it seems that when Republicans control the House, Senate and the White House, they're just going to get what they want as far as the taxes go. On the other hand, there's also, I mean, listen, the salt cap hit people in blue states disproportionately who before were able to benefit at the federal level from the sometimes higher taxes that they paid at the state level. And so, in a way, the salt cap was a punishment to blue staters on average. Right.
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Unknown B
I m. There's no question about that.
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Unknown A
When it comes to your approach, given the realism that on the one hand, Democrats don't control anything right now. On the other hand, that Trump has said we might do something on the salt cap. Is your approach going in? We can't stop everything, but we're going to push hard to get the salt cap up or we're going to try to prevent them from passing this thing at all. Like, what are you thinking?
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Unknown B
Well, right now we're out count on the Republicans that are in these Democratic areas. There's like at least 10 of them, you know, from New York and from California and some other states that have high state and local tax. People shouldn understand what the state and local tax deduction is. SALT is state and local tax deduction. It was the first deduction put into the federal income tax code when they first adopted the idea of a federal income tax, you know, just about over 100 years ago. And when they first proposed the idea, the governors and mayors came out and said, hey, we don't want to raiseising tax at the federal level, we wanna do it at the local level. You're gonna screw us up if you collect them at the federal level, right? Said, no, don't worry. The first deduction you're gonna get is a state and local tax deduction.
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Unknown B
Anything you payid to your state or local governments will be deducted from your income. So you don't have to pay tax on the taxes you've already paid. So that was in place for 100 years. Trump and the Republicans took it away in 2017 and capped the deduction of $10,000. So I'm from New York, I think you're from Massachusetts. There are other people from high tax states with high local, state and local taxes. Their property taxes, school taxes, state income taxes. They're much more than $10,000 in these places. And so it was a punishment. In fact, they asked Trump, they said, you know, Mr. President is going to hurt your, what was then his home state. This is going to hurt the people in your home state of New York. He says, didn't vote for me anyway, so he did it on purpose. So I'm counting on the Republicans that are in these tough seats that need to get this back for them to fight.
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Unknown B
And they are fighting. They're saying, we will not vote for the tax bill unless you give us relief from this cap of $10,000. Now that's illustrative of all these issues. The reason we're going to get Republicans to come to see the light is because they're going to see problems with national security, problems with the economy and problem their constituents telling them, we don't like these cuts. I was with a Republican last night. He says, I'm getting these crazy calls about all these people that areare that Medicaid is gonna be cut. 71 million Americans are on Medicaid because it was used through the Affordable Care Act. People who are in nursing homes are on Medicaid. So people are getting you. We see these veterans that are all Getting fired by Doge. 5% of the workforce in America's veterans, 26% of the workforce in the federal government are veterans.
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Unknown B
So veterans are being disproportionately fired right now under doage. The more Republicans hear from the effects from their constituents where Medicaid is getting cut or SNAP is getting cut or head starts getting closed down or the local research given to your local college or university or scientific institution is being cut, the more they hear about this stuff, the more the constituents are going to complain to their members of Congress, the more're going toa see the Republicans say push back the way that they need toake.
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Unknown A
How long do you and your colleagues. Colleagues think Elon Musk will last in his current role? Until the conflicting egos just inevitably explode and he's.
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Unknown B
I don't know. We all thought that was gonna happen relatively quickly. Seems that they're both kind of in on the joke a little bit that they're both kind of like running into the idea of that people are counting on them to bust up because of their egos. But it seems like, like President Trump is actually taking some sort of a subordinate role to Musk in certain ways. It's kind of weird and it'kind of the whole thing's kind of odd. And the way that they're doing it, the DOGE cuts don't make any sense. I mean, I'm all for disrupting federal government's way too big and there's a lot of waste, fraud, abuse. I agree with that. But the way they're doing it I think is going toa end up costing more money to the federal government in the long run because they'reake.
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Unknown A
Although I do want to jump in with one thing you mentioned. There's a lot of waste, fraud and abuse. I have not found a single dollar in actual fraud that they've identified so far. I mean, a lot of the stuff that Caroline Levitt holds up, it's programs they don't like. But I think, I think we want to make sure that we don't give them that. Like, maybe there isn't as much fraud as. As they claim.
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Unknown B
No, no, there is a lot of fraud. There is waste, fraud, group and abuse in the federal government. There's no.
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Unknown A
Give us an example of the fraud though.
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Unknown B
People who are ripping off, applying for benefits when they're not entitled to them. Contractors in the Pentagon that are overcharging or doing add ons. Spe the overcharging?
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Unknown A
Yeah, I think we need to find it and be specific. The people who don't deserve the benefits. I mean, I don't know, you know the problem I have with that Congress.
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Unknown B
People who don't deserve the benefits, people that are like using phony Social Security numbers and things like that, that type of stuff takes place.
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Unknown A
I mean, yeah, I guess, I wonder, you know. So here's the thing. Any large system will have some of that. I would never deny that.
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Unknown B
Absolutely.
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Unknown A
And also the risk of granting them that it's an epidemic is that people say, see, this is why we shouldn't have these programs to begin with. I want to make them fight to convince us that this is really happening. Like intellectually I know it must be to some degree, but let's make them prove it. Right?
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Unknown B
No, you're absolutely right about that. That's why the way they're doing this is absurd.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
The idea that they said let's lay off all these people willy nilly across all these departments and they realized all of a sudden we're laying off people who are responsible for guarding the nuclear stockpile. Oh gosh, we got toa bring them back. They try to bring them back, but they've been knocked off their government emails so now they can't contact them. There's a bird flu taking place. There's a measles epidemic taking place in Texas. But they're firing the employees that are responsible for overseeing fighting those different types of epidemics you've got. They come out and they say, we're gonna give you a buyout if you leave early. We're gonna give you a payoff if you leave early. But if you're in the IRs, you can't take advantage of the buy off until after the tax season. So the people don't take advantage of the tax.
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Unknown B
Then they get laid off in the middle of the tax season when people are trying to get their refunds and people are trying to to file their taxes. It doesn't make any sense. You should not be going after the low wage probationary employees that have just been hired. You should wait until people retire and then not refill those positions. People retire from the high level salaries and then just don't refill those positions. And you technology and consolidation. There's a way to manage this. Right now it's so chaotic and I think that both Trump, who was not in government before other than serving as president, but was never did the nuts and bolts of government and musk who's only been in the private sector and is not really. They have no respect for the complexity of this organization that provides life saving services to people. So it's almost like they have a disdain for government and some of these programs are essential.
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Unknown B
This whole stuff of giving these 20 something year old tech guys access to people's private information is what callves me more than anything. Know there's people who, let's say you have somebody in your family who's got a mental health illness and then they got a prescription drug or somebody who's got some sort of got AIDS or somebody who's something that you don't want these kids snooping around on people's personal data. The access to people's bank accounts. Who knows what their keystrokes that they're making that they're changing and what they're doing with the information that they have access to. There's a reason that people have to go through confirmation hearings or get security clearances or go through background checks because want, you want a high level of security that people's personal data is gonna be secure and they're just giving it away to these young kidsaker one.
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Unknown A
Yeah. No. They both seem temperamentally unsuited to the tasks at hand. We have been speaking with Democratic Congressman Tom Swazi from New York. Thank you so much for talking to us today. Really appreciate your time. Speake.
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Unknown B
Thank you David, really appreciate you keep up the good work.