House Democratic Leadership's Weekly Press Conference

Good morning. It's become increasingly clear that the Trump administration's incompetence is jeopardizing our national security, crashing the American economy and dismantling social security, secretary of defense. Hegseth must resign for his role in sharing classified war plans. This is a scandal that feels a little more like the onion than the Atlantic, but he should be fired, but the white house is careless and not ice and not isolated to our national security. It's also having a negative impact on our economy. This carelessness and recklessness of Donald Trump is moving next to imposing tariffs, which have suggested now that there are 40% chance that the economy crashes into a recession next year. According to Moody's, they've not taken a single step toward bringing down the high cost of living. In fact, the president of the United States said he couldn't care less if prices go up. Now the stock market is crashing and inflation is rising. Hardworking Americans just want a little breathing room and some stability in their busy lives, but what they've received from Donald Trump is chaos, confusion, and corruption. Later today, house Democrats will hold a hearing on how Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling social security services are being cut. And for the first time in our nation's history, there is a very real concern that Americans won't receive the benefits on time that they have paid into. And despite what the commerce secretary says, seniors aren't fraudsters. If they get mad, they've earned those benefits. They're doing all of this to help pay for tax giveaways for billionaires and Elon Musk. This isn't about rooting out phrase, waste, fraud, and abuse. This is about upending the status quo. And these are unserious people looking out for themselves, their allies, and their political donors. If the president doesn't fix this incompetence, the consequences for our national security, our economic security will be devastating. Now yield to the ranking member on intelligence. Oh, I'm sorry. The ranking member on intelligence, Jim Himes. Thanks, Pete. And good morning. Um, the PR the white house press secretary's efforts, not withstanding to sweep this scandal under the carpet, there is a lot of work yet to be done since we learned about the disclosures from Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic. Uh, the story has of course, gotten larger. We hear press reports that an allied country provided targeting information and that they were pretty upset about the disclosure of that information. That is something that we need to follow up on. And we still, at this point, as the entity charged with oversight of these things have no accounting, uh, of the breach other than what we've gotten from Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic. Now, uh, I know, uh, that Mr. Goldberg was being very, very careful in what information he put out there. So at this moment, we don't even know what information was in the signal chat. So again, the white house press secretary's efforts, not withstanding, um, the law requires the director of national intelligence to undertake an investigation and to report that investigation, the results of that investigation to the Senate and the house intelligence committees, needless to say, we have seen nothing. Um, uh, we, the Democrats on the house intelligence committee issued a letter yesterday, uh, asking those questions and asking for an investigation, a real investigation, not something that the white house press secretary cooks up out of, uh, thin air, uh, with those results reported to the intelligence committees as the law would dictate. And I'll just point out before, uh, uh, handing this over to the ranking member of the house armed services committee, it's not just the law. It's what anyone else associated with the department of defense or with the intelligence community, uh, would see done if they, in fact, were putting it's extremely sensitive information that, that, that, that should have been classified. If it was not, uh, on an unclassified, uh, signal chat here, there would have been a stand down. There would have been a full investigation. Uh, the results and the damage of that, of that, uh, act would have been reported and there would have been accountability. This administration has dodged every single one of those steps, starting with an attack on Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic who didn't even ask to be put on the signal chat. So, um, the message being sent by this, both inside the Pentagon from four star officers down to privates or inside the intelligence community from the senior intelligence service, right on down to the recruit is that you have to play by one set of rules, but our senior most people play by an entirely different set of rules. And that is not something that we can tolerate in either the DOD or in the intelligence community. So we will be following up here to make sure that this story is reported to the Congress, that the full, uh, damage or potential damage associated with this, uh, signal chat is out there and that accountability, uh, is ultimately visited. Uh, with that, let me hand over to a ranking member Smith at the house armed services committee. Thank you very much. I completely agree with everything Jim just said. I'll just add three quick points. One big concern we have on the armed services committee. What is the policy going forward? Uh, cause obviously the action on the signal chat is bad in a thousand different ways that Jim outlined fairly well. But worse is the fact that the secretary of defense and everybody else associated is saying, there's nothing to see here, there's nothing wrong, which clearly implies that they're just going to keep doing it this way. So what we really want to know is what happened, how did you screw up and how are you going to fix it? Cause make no mistake about it. This is a very, very dangerous thing to do, to be giving out attack plans, the, the time, the weapons you're going to use and the targets you're going to hit in advance of that attack. I don't know why we're having a conversation about why that is bad. What are they going to do to fix it right now? The answer is nothing. So I still think that the house armed services committee and the Senate armed services committee should have a hearing. Ideally secretary Hanks, I should come over and talk to us, uh, but somebody from DOD should come over and explain what they're going to do to make sure that, that OPSEC actually is something that they care about and that they're going to fix going forward. Second, this speaks to a larger problem of the overall competence and experience of the national security team. Just about anyone who's ever been involved in an operation like this would have said, why are we having this conversation on a signal chat? But the people on that signal chat, none of them have really had that experience with the possible exception of Mike Waltz. Also worth noting, no senior uniform was on that call. That's what happens when you fire the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and you don't have one. So we're really concerned about the overall competence of the national security team. The third point that has been lost in all of this, one of the justifications offered by secretary Hanks, then by Mr. Waltz was, Hey, but the mission was a spectacular success. So what are we looking at? Was the mission spectacular success? We don't even really know at this point, and this is an ongoing campaign. We are now 17, 18 days into the bombing campaign. And please understand the mission wasn't to blow some things up and kill a bunch of Houthis. The mission is to reopen the Red Sea to shipping. And the Red Sea is no more open today than it was 18 days ago when this campaign started. So again, getting to the competence of the national security team, if they think the mission has been accomplished, then it appears they don't even know what the mission is. So we should start asking some questions about what they're trying to accomplish in Yemen going forward. With that, I'm pleased to yield to member of the armed service committee and the intelligence committee, uh, Ms. Houlihan. Um, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you about this very important issue. I want to pause for a moment and imagine a world where the director of the FBI yells at a member of Congress that his organization is the one that calls balls and strikes, defying Congress's constitutional obligation for oversight and in the process also refusing to investigate. Imagine a world where the director of the central intelligence agency berates members of Congress, specifically Democrats, that they don't care about national security because they dared to ask him questions about a significant leak of information, a significant breach of classified data. Imagine a world where the secretary of defense shares information on an unclassified channel that was arguably top secret information and had to do, as the chairman said, with targeting information with timing and with weaponry. This is a channel that his own agency said should not be used because it was compromised or possibly compromised. So the problem is with this, we don't have to imagine because this is reality. This is an unimaginable world that we are in, but it is the reality that we have found ourselves in today. And the only hope that I have, which I echo the chairman who have spoken before me, is that in this world that the director of national intelligence has committed to following the law, which would allow opening an investigation into this so that we can imagine a world where people are contrite, where people are nonpartisan, where people work for the people, where people are true leaders and have the same rules that the people that they lead have and where they hold themselves accountable. So this is the world that I hope that we can live in. And this is the world that we demand because it's the only world in which we will be safe. So today, as many of my colleagues have already done, I call once again on the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to fulfill that commitment that she made to me last Wednesday, a commitment to follow the law and to conduct an independent investigation into what is a significant, unauthorized disclosure of compromised and compromised information. I want them to stop gaslighting us in the American public. I want them to stop distracting us and the American public and to stop playing us for fools and hoping that Americans don't catch on. Follow the law. Do your job. Uphold the oath that we uphold as well that we took to this nation, the world. And we are watching. And I thank the opportunity to speak. And I turn back over to the chairman for any questions that you might have. Thank you, Representative Hohen and ranking members Smith and Himes. Questions, Brian. This is my press conference, right? What are you doing? What are you doing? Adam Smith will handle all of the now. I just want to trust for you. There is an independent there's an acting inspector general right now. Obviously, you know, overhaul and that investigation I do not. First of all, I mean, President Trump fired all of the inspector generals, as we know, including the one at D. O. D. And I think he made it very clear what he expected out of them. Now, will the inspector general's office uphold their integrity? I hope so. But clearly there's pressure there. I mean, you can analogize this a little bit to the Eric Adams case where I forget how many Department of Justice people quit rather than carry out the order to drop the charges against Eric Adams until they found someone who was willing to comply. Is the inspector general's process going to be legitimate in light of the Trump administration's clear effort to fire people who don't give them the answers they want? I think the answer that question is is highly in doubt. Number one. Number two, inspector general's process. They take time. Even when it's working properly, it takes time. This is an ongoing threat. As I said, if they keep doing operational security in this manner, we are in jeopardy, which is why the quicker thing to do would be for the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee to bring D.O.D. in and have that conversation, preferably in public. But if they don't feel like they want to have the public conversation, do something classified so that we can begin to get an idea of how they're fixing the problem, which is a long way of saying I think the I.G. process is highly in doubt because of what Trump has done to it and because in the best of times, it takes more time than the urgency of this matter, I think, demands. What it tells me still is that House Democrats will overwhelmingly oppose the SAVE Act because some of the provisions have not changed within this bill. But we know current law already says individuals that are not citizens do not have a right to vote. This bill puts in jeopardy the ability of women to be able to register and vote. Having to register in person compromises the ability of military members serving abroad who may not be able to register or cast their ballot. Not having a real I.D., many Americans do not have a real I.D. or a passport. Those jeopardize the ability of people exercising their franchise to vote, but especially the fact that women, their identification card may not line up with their birth certificate creates uncertainty that has not been fixed in the bill. And that puts sixty nine million women at risk who do not have the name that is on their birth certificate. That's a concern that the Democratic caucus has. And you'll see our members overwhelmingly oppose this bill. Jim and then Adam. Yeah, not yet. The HPSE letter went out at the end of the day yesterday, so I wouldn't necessarily have anticipated that we would get a response by now, but we will be making sure that there is a response to that letter. Same answer. Basically, no, we have not received that response except to add one thing. I am concerned about the lack of respect that the executive branch is showing for the legislative branch. This has been an ongoing problem now for the last couple of months in terms of their responsiveness to our requests. It's much slower, much less responsive than at any point in my career. And that's even the whole Democrat Republican thing. They are not honoring our oversight in the way that previous administrations of both parties have. Maybe that's because they haven't got enough people in position yet. We'll see. But I'm concerned about that aspect of it as well. Well, what it means is Republicans should stop lecturing people on being pro family when they're opposing this uniformly. What it means is Democrats and Republicans look, our members are looking for opportunities to legislate and to work with their colleagues on the other side of the aisle. And I appreciate Brittany Pedersen in good faith working with Representative Luna in order to to get this done for the first time in a hundred years that the discharge petition has existed. The majority would seek to turn it off in a rule. It's unprecedented and it's shameful and terrible. Our members will oppose these efforts. Our hope is that Republicans, reasonable Republicans who have worked with us on these issues will oppose this effort, too. But it's clear that Speaker Johnson is doing everything he can to undermine the will of the House. The majority of the members in the House of Representatives would support this piece of legislation. And Democrats under the leadership of what will be Chairman McGovern will have those conversations with our members on on what's reasonable in the next Congress. We'll go the other way. Adam and then Jim. I am concerned about that. And I've had we have a great bipartisan committee. Mike Rodgers is a tremendous partner. We've worked very closely together. I don't think the response, as I have said, has been robust enough to the situation. And I contrast it when Secretary Austin went into the hospital and didn't tell anyone. This became an issue in a bipartisan way. He came over and he testified and we investigated that issue. I think the same thing should happen here. There have been concerns expressed. I think it's been inadequate to say, well, the I.G. report is fine. And Secretary Hegseth is coming in. I think it's like five weeks to do his normal posture here. I don't believe that that is an adequate response. I do still have a very good bipartisan relationship with Mike Rodgers, but I disagree with how the committee is handling this particular issue. Yeah, you saw in the open hearing sort of the level of interest that my Republican colleagues had in this particular issue. And when we went into closed session, the first thing I did was remind them of the apocalyptic hellfire that would have been loosed had this signal chat been undertaken by the senior people of the Biden administration, the Obama administration. So I think you saw in the open hearing what I would characterize as a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil approach that they have taken. I will say, echoing to some extent Adam Smith, I'm a refugee of the era when HPSE for 18 months became an investigative body and was really badly broken by the Ukraine investigation and by the actions of then Chairman Devin Nunes. And so I am extremely committed and I repeat this to I did with then Chairman Turner before he was fired and now with Chairman Crawford, which is that we will do our oversight here and we're going to be very strong in that oversight in the way they would have been had this occurred under the Biden administration. But we are nonetheless committed to doing all that we can to make sure that the committee is never compromised from doing the oversight that it absolutely must do of the intelligence community at any time, but particularly at this time when we're seeing people like Elon Musk and the president trying to bend these apparatuses to their will. Questions? We're seeing women's immigration process as well. What's your understanding of whether or not Congress has the authority to limit drug use? My understanding, and we'll follow the guidance of Jamie Raskin and the Judiciary Committee here, but this is just yet another way in which House Republicans are bending over backwards to exercise the will that Donald Trump wants. They had no problem with district court rulings that attacked women's reproductive freedom and Memphis Pristone with a judge in rural Texas. They had no problem with that. Yet they have a problem with nationwide injunctions now when it doesn't suit their interests. That's the issue that the American public will see. That posture of House Republicans, that they want to have it both ways. Chairman Jordan is going to do what Chairman Jordan does. He's never bound by goodwill or what the right thing to do is. But we're going to continue to hold them accountable because we believe in a free and fair judiciary that should be able to make decisions that exercise justice. That's exactly what is happening in the court system time and time again. The Trump administration is losing in the courts, and that's why you are seeing House Republicans attack an independent judiciary. Last one. It's incredibly dangerous, but Donald Trump knew what he was doing when he called into that show. It's not a coincidence that he is trying to distract the American public. He wants all of you to write these articles. He wants all of us to talk about them because our national security is at risk with the people he has placed in the national security apparatus, because he is attacking Social Security. And House Democrats will have a hearing about that this afternoon. And because his tariffs are going to raise just care less about. Those are the important issues that affect families in this country. And the fact that Donald Trump is throwing this out and trying to wish cast it so House Republicans can can talk about it and can talk about him in a loving and caring way. He does not love and care for Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. He only cares about his own political self-interest. But House Republicans are signing up to that vanity project when we should be talking about the costs that Americans are facing. And those will continue to go up because of Donald Trump's carelessness and his policies that they're implementing this week. Thank you so much.