On the other side of the aisle, Wisconsin Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore, who represents Milwaukee,
joins us for her take of the quick action on the part of President Trump and Congresswoman
Moore, thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for having me, Frederica. Happy New Year.
You too. How do you regard the newly installed Trump administration?
Well, I'll tell you, there really aren't any great surprises. He's sort of campaigned
on these things. A lot of people said, oh, he wouldn't do that. Oh, he's just exaggerating.
But he is really focusing on some of the things that he promised, like sort of trying
to suspend a birthright citizenship, which, of course, is a constitutional provision,
which is already brought, you know, I think 22 states to the table with regard to litigating
that, including our own Attorney General, Josh Call in Wisconsin. He said that he would
put tariffs on our neighbors to the north and south, you know, usurping the U.S. Treaty
with Canada in Mexico, which, of course, he executed. And of course, that will be very
disruptive, particularly to our farm community. And I think that he maybe plans to backfill
that with general appropriations to farmers. But I do think that it will be very disruptive
to our economy. You know, he's talked about increasing sort of trade wars and so on with
China, really using some IRS revisions that have never been used before. So I just think
that it's going to create a lot of chaos. And hopefully, the very narrow margins that are
in the House and in the Senate will force Congress to bring some cooler heads to the table to really
examine the outsized portions of this. I'm thinking of what happened in the transportation space,
just a couple of days ago, where there was some sort of disruptions in states with complaining
about some transportation policies that he put out. So hopefully, we'll be able to see
the Senate stand up to him even if the House can.
So, as you said, the president is making good on his campaign promises. What's your reaction to
his pardons of the January 6th defendants, including 11 of them from Wisconsin?
I can tell you, Frederica, maybe I'm cowardly, but I'm terrified. One of my staffers said that
you went to the cafeteria in this building and one of the January 6th people were there.
And I do know that most of the non-violent, you know, little old ladies that had handmade signs
were not the people who were indicted in jail. The people who were indicted in jail, I mean, they
attacked police officers. They directed people to be violent. They had caddies of,
I'm terrified. And my staff, I mean, they were actually in this building. And I'm scared of them.
And I do think that we have seen Republicans here, you know, who are very, they're very, very careful
not to criticize Trump. But we have seen them stumbling over their words as they have been
stunned by this. I think they thought that there would be a little bit more cursing and
this one and that one. But these 1,500 commutations and releases are absolutely stunning. And I think
that it's going to be very difficult to talk about law enforcement and initiatives in this
government when we have let all these lawless people out. And I, you know, I agree with some other
analysts and critics to say, we can bet that we're going to see some of these people again.
There are very few of them that are going to just learn their lesson and take their pardon and
just go back into society. Hopefully some of them will. But we're going to see some of these
jokers again and that is very terrifying. As to pardons. What do you think of Joe Biden's pardons
to his own family and members of the January 6 committee? You know, I think some of the January
6 committee members didn't necessarily think they had done anything wrong. And I don't think they
did anything wrong. But I think Joe Biden was thinking, you know, when you just think about Trump's
entire inaugural day, he spent complaining and whining about how badly he was treating and all
the people, you know, so I do think that even though they did nothing wrong, I think that it
would spare them from hiring law lawyers and protecting themselves against nothing.
So that probably was a sage thing to do. I don't know why he thought that he had to pardon his
family or anything like that. But you know, we've seen, you know, Trump promised that he would have
an administration focusing on revenge. And I think he wanted to spare his family that
including the January 6 investigators. In terms of Hunter Biden, I didn't necessarily think that
he would pardon him. And I bet anything he would not have pardoned Hunter if he thought that there
was a justice department that was going to be fair to his son. What I have heard, I'm not a
lawyer, but what I have heard is that any other person with the same set of crimes would not have
been in jail or had a case brought against them at all. And in terms of signing some document
saying, are you on drugs or something before you can get by a weapon?
And honestly, has that is that enforced by anybody? You know, no telling how many alcoholics or
former drug addicts or whatever have had weapons. I certainly would love to see the numbers of weapons
decrease in this country. But I do think that he was trying to protect his son from extreme
vindictiveness. Back to immigration policy, Donald Trump's new executive orders effectively
shut the border and asylum. And as we've discussed, call to end birthright citizenship. What are
your constituents saying to you about this? Again, not unexpected news?
Well, you know, one of the things that I think is that, you know, nobody wants violent criminals,
you know, the in their community. And I think the to the extent that Trump is focusing on
getting violent criminals out, this is something that probably has widespread support. Nobody
thought that abuela who's been here for 40 years and hasn't bothered anybody was going to become
one of the victims of this. And so I think that if he is enabled to go further than that,
people will be concerned like the dreamers, for example, you know, 78 80% last time I checked
if Americans think that the dreamers should have a path to citizenship. After all, these are our
children. They speak English. They've benefited from having a public education. They're talented.
We don't have it. We have a worker shortage in this country. And there's no reason to send our
kids back to some country that they don't even know about. And I think that if he, you know,
he picks on the dreamers, we might see some rising up from from the electorate.
It depends on how he executes this. But immigration was one of the issues, getting control of the
border was one of was one of the issues he campaigned on. But I do think that
our Constitution still provides the ability for people to seek asylum. So we might find a lot
of litigation with regard to how he specifically administers as it were these executive orders.
So we asked Senator Johnson about Donald Trump's rescinding of Biden's order on the cost of
prescription drugs. And he said he just didn't think that that would make a big difference.
What do you think? Well, I'll tell you this. We capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month.
I have no idea why insulin has been costing people something is upwards $500 a month
for all of the medication. The paraphernalia that goes around it. But I mean, if he does that
again, there is not anybody who doesn't have a relative who who's not a diabetic. Diabetes is one
of the the the costliest disease in America, not just to institutions and the medical field,
generally, but to individuals. And I think that, you know, this is this $35 a month cap has been a
relief to Americans in all sectors of our society. And I think that there will be consequences
if this is rescinded. So also, the administration is aggressively, as you know, dismantling DEI
programs and efforts within the federal government. How does that sit with you?
Well, I can tell you that the military is certainly going to push back hard against
the DEI programs. They need DEI. I mean, if they're trying to recruit, you know, some spies to go
into some of these, you know, Muslim countries, they can't very well send some white man over there,
you know, if they if they the military really relies on DEI, the CIA, the FBI, to complete their
missions. This will undermine their operations tremendously. And so I think that that the push
back you're going to get is from the military in particular. They're not they just cannot function
without DEI. You know, some other things that he's talking about the inflation reduction act was
so funny. I'm the vice, the vice ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee this cycle.
And so yesterday we listened to testimony from members of Congress and I mean Republican after
Republican after Republican came and sat before us and talked about how the IRA, which is where
the prescription drug provisions came from, talked about how it was partisan, but pleaded
with the panel Republicans to take a scaffold to this and not and not a big knife or sword
because they said that these these energy related legislation EV things are creating
great investment in our country. And prescription drug, I think, item is all part of that. So we
have Republican after Republican after Republican, begging the Republican leadership,
you know, not to totally dismantle everything in the Biden administration's IRA bill.
That being the inflation reduction act. That's right. So from your perspective,
what will the next four years look like and and what can those in opposition of of many of these
things like yourself do about it? Well, we're not talking about four years. We're really
talking about two years. I think that if the Republican Party overreaches on some of these items,
like, for example, trying to get rid of the premiums, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare
premiums, like they tried to destroy the ACA and you had John McCain doing his thumbs down,
it is so popular and so important that if they try to overreach on items like that
in two years, it will subject them, I think, to lose in the House of Representatives for sure
and maybe even flip in the Senate. And then you'd have Donald Trump in the White House
with that particular configuration of the legislature. I mean, we still, you know,
Trump wants to take over all of the institutions of government. And I think that if he overreaches
as he's already starting to do, that he will pay a price because the American people,
the American people will, they will react. I mean, there are 85 million eligible voters
that didn't vote. So this notion that he has some sort of mandate, just anything he wants to
is not the case. Some of those 85 million people will react. You know, one of the things they want
to do is to block Grant Medicaid. And I think that if they do that, seniors in nursing homes,
in particular, are going to catch it. They will find themselves in nursing homes with severe
staff shortages because Medicaid won't be there. Their loved ones will be maltreated.
And this, I think, you know, they'll pay a price for that.
All right. Congresswoman Gwen Moore, thanks very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you. We took a bunch of extra time, which I really appreciate it. I could have
asked more questions, but it started.