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Schatz Warns That Codifying DOGE Cuts Will Boomerang Once Democrats Retake Power · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
• 0:04
  Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
• 0:07
  the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
• 0:11
  Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
• 0:16
  Thank you, Chair Collins, Vice Chair Murray, members of the
• 0:18
  committee. This is the first time I've been
• 0:20
  on this side of the dais. I have to say the the altitude
• 0:23
  difference is, is affecting me a little bit.
• 0:26
  It really is an honor to be here to argue against this
• 0:30
  rescissions package on behalf of all of you, on behalf of all of
• 0:35
  you as appropriators. And now I want to be abundantly
• 0:37
  clear, I like Eric Schmidt a lot, but this is a very
• 0:40
  important point. And it's actually fatal to the
• 0:42
  rescissions package. Every single program that
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  Senator Schmidt just mentioned has already been cancelled.
• 0:51
  Every single program. And there's a longer list that
• 0:53
  was on a Fox News Chiron and Senator Graham and I have kind
• 0:57
  of gone over all of this. There are a bunch of different
• 0:59
  examples of of terrible sounding things.
• 1:03
  They are all done and they all belong in the previous federal
• 1:07
  fiscal year. So now that it's Marco Rubio's
• 1:11
  State Department and Marco Rubio's USAID agency, and now
• 1:17
  that it is Donald Trump's White House, none of these things are
• 1:20
  happening. This is a rescission of Trump's
• 1:25
  CR in the current federal fiscal year.
• 1:29
  And so if you have a problem with any of those programs, let
• 1:33
  Lindsay and I write a bill that prohibits the use of funds for
• 1:38
  any of those seemingly improper uses of funds.
• 1:43
  That's the way to do this. Colleagues are being asked on
• 1:48
  this committee to cut programs that I know each one of you have
• 1:53
  personally prioritized because we get the letters, whether
• 1:57
  you're a chair or the rancor of a subcommittee, you get a letter
• 2:00
  from your colleagues saying could you please prioritize XYZ
• 2:03
  program and many of the programs that at this, I mean, I'm
• 2:07
  talking about right now in the same time period we are
• 2:10
  receiving letters, please save this, please save that, please,
• 2:13
  plus up that. That's what we're cutting right
• 2:17
  now in this rescissions package. We do not have to spend foreign
• 2:27
  assistance dollars in the same way that we always have been
• 2:31
  spending foreign assistance dollars.
• 2:33
  There's plenty of room for reform.
• 2:35
  You're pushing on an open door and in fact, the administration
• 2:39
  hasn't until the end of next year.
• 2:40
  This is 2 year money. There's no rush on this.
• 2:43
  This is 2 year money to align this funding with with its new
• 2:47
  priorities, but we're being asked to rescind billions of
• 2:50
  dollars without even knowing which programs are being
• 2:53
  cancelled. Just so you understand how this
• 2:54
  legislation works. It's big baskets of money.
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  So you have no idea whether the program that you are
• 3:01
  prioritizing is going to be cut or not.
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  And they are not providing any clarity about that.
• 3:08
  You would think that if you're asking the Congress to use this
• 3:12
  extraordinary authority under statutory law that you would
• 3:15
  have a line by line. Here's what we're cutting,
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  here's what we're keeping. Here's what we're cutting,
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  here's what we're keeping. The answer that we are going to
• 3:22
  receive is let me take that under advisement or and get back
• 3:26
  to you or I don't know. That's none of your business or,
• 3:30
  or I'm not sure what it is. There is no reason not to have
• 3:35
  specificity other than the math doesn't add up.
• 3:38
  The things that you care about are being cut in here, and they
• 3:41
  don't want to specify it. And that brings me to what it is
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  definitely in this package, $900 million in cuts from global
• 3:50
  health programs, including PEPFAR and efforts to combat
• 3:54
  diseases like malaria, TB and polio. $1.3 billion in cuts to
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  humanitarian assistance, which save lives, provide food and
• 4:03
  shelter and water, and support victims of sexual assault.
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  And $4.6 billion in cuts to economic development assistance
• 4:10
  to key partners, whether it's Jordan increasing in with
• 4:14
  increasing regional tension, the Philippines as it counters
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  Chinese aggression, the Burmese opposition, or Ukraine.
• 4:23
  And gone is a billion dollars in support for organizations like
• 4:26
  UNICEF. Everybody that was opposed to
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  those things that were on that Fox chyron, everybody that found
• 4:33
  some of the things that Senator Schmidt talked about as
• 4:35
  objectionable also hastened to say, I don't want to cut UNICEF.
• 4:39
  I don't want to cut cut PEPFAR. I don't want to cut the World
• 4:42
  Food Program. Guess what is in this
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  rescissions package? All of those things are being
• 4:47
  cut. And none of the things that you
• 4:48
  object to, they've already been eliminated.
• 4:53
  This is not just a question of policy.
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  This is also a question of what this committee is even for.
• 5:01
  Being a Senate appropriator is an honor.
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  It means something. It means that the executive
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  branch proposes and the legislative branch disposes.
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  It means that we, as the Article 1 branch, hold the purse
• 5:14
  strings, that that is subject to cloture.
• 5:17
  So what's at stake here is more than the particular provisions
• 5:20
  of the rescissions package. It is whether we're going to
• 5:24
  willingly set up a situation where bipartisan negotiations
• 5:28
  are ripped up whenever there is a trifecta.
• 5:32
  If that's what you want, I think you should vote yes.
• 5:35
  But if you want to preserve your prerogative for yourself, for
• 5:38
  your home state, and for this institution, then this is not a
• 5:42
  particularly close call. Why be an appropriator and just
• 5:47
  turn around and surrender your authority?
• 5:50
  Because it is S fobs today, but it's going to be T Hut it's
• 5:55
  going to be AG, it's going to be labor H, it's going to be milk
• 6:00
  on VA, it's going to be CJS tomorrow.
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  So I encourage all of my colleagues on a bipartisan basis
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  to think hard about the precedent that we would be
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  setting if we voted yes on this package.
• 6:13
  Thank you very much. Thank you.
• 6:14
  Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
• 6:16
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• 6:18
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• 6:35
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