- I spoke with Senator Johnson earlier today.
Now to the Democratic side of the aisle, and for that we
welcome Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Senator, thanks very much for being here.
- It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- So we know that the GOP is moving quickly to try to repeal
at least parts of the Affordable Care Act, but what happens to
that law if the subsidies go away and the individual mandate
and even expanded Medicaid?
- Yeah.
So, you know, the people of Wisconsin did not send me to the
United States Senate to take away people's health care and
that's exactly what they are proposing to do right out of the
box, starting this first week of the new session.
They have vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has
implications also on Medicare and Medicaid, has so many
implications for all Americans who have health insurance
because of the protections that are part of that.
And even though the Republican establishment in Washington has
said for seven years that they want to have some sort of
replacement, they have nothing to show for it at this point.
And in fact it's apparent on Capitol Hill that there are huge
disagreements even within their own party about whether it's
repeal but delay that repeal, repeal and replace, when that
will happen, how that will happen.
The bottom line right now is that they are organizing to take
people's health care away, and that is something worth fighting
tooth and nail against.
- So what can you tell the more than 230,000 people in Wisconsin
that are covered by Obamacare?
- You know, several things.
One is I have no information to share with them about what the
Republican establishment plans to do to replace it, because
they have no replacement plan.
That is scary and therefore it is absolutely irresponsible for
them to undertake the repeal of the current protections for
Wisconsinites and, you know, coverage for well over 200,000
Wisconsinites.
But I also think it's really important that they speak out.
That they ask those questions to their members of Congress, to
those of us in the Senate, and have their voices heard.
I mean, if you think about this recent election, it was a lot
about people feeling that they didn't have a voice, that the
system was rigged, that hard-working people were
struggling to get ahead.
Well, isn't our health security and health care coverage a huge
piece of that?
They need to continue to speak out even beyond having
participated in the election.
- A lot of people are also, of course, worried about Medicare.
And what happens to Medicare if the surcharge on the high-income
earners goes away as any part of this repeal of the ACA?
- Well, first of all, there's lots of implications on Medicare
if one -- if they truly go ahead with the repeal of the
Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
The passage of the Affordable Care Act extended the solvency
of Medicare multiple years, and so we will be immediately
dealing with that very significant concern.
We have to understand that they have no plan right now to
replace this, and it's why we absolutely have to fight right
now to prevent them from carrying out this undertaking.
- What's your response to Speaker Paul Ryan saying he'd
like to defund Planned Parenthood again as part of this
repeal?
- I think about the millions of Americans, women and men, who
receive needed preventive and primary care through Planned
Parenthood.
The impact of defunding, as they call it,
is going to further impact people's health.
You know, some have likened this endeavor on the part of the
Republicans in Washington as make America sick again,
playing off Trump's motto.
That is going to be the consequence.
There is real harm that will befall Wisconsinites and
Americans with this multi-pronged attack
on health care.
- Now, you wrote a letter to the president-elect Trump soon
after the election saying that you hoped that he would appoint
strong, independent-minded staff to police the financial sector
during his administration.
Now that you've seen some of his cabinet picks, do you think he
followed your advice?
- Oh, my goodness.
I have a lot of concern.
And of course we're about to undertake the confirmation
hearings, which will give the American public a greater sense
of who these individuals are.
But there's two things I want to note.
One is that most of Trump's nominees have not yet done the
financial disclosures, the ethics disclosures, the tax
return disclosures that are required during the confirmation
process.
So we at this point are going to be hindered in seeing where
there might be conflicts of interest.
Where they might be more loyal to their former corporate ties
than they are to the American people.
And we need to be sure that when people enter government service,
that they are serving the people of the United States, not their
former corporations.
Also, as you know, I've been a leader on reform that would sort
of end this revolving door between Wall Street and
Washington, where you put the fox in charge of the henhouse.
And I'd like to see the principles in my legislation
adopted as we examine these nominees.
- Moving just quickly to the Russian hacking, you've called
for a Senate investigation into that.
The president-elect seems to reject the intelligence reports
coming in.
Although today he had the briefing and he did praise the
intelligence apparatus.
But what do you make of his response kind of going through
this?
- Well, several observations.
One is he doesn't seem to take what we now know seriously.
We're talking about Russian interference with our democracy,
something that we prize, something that any patriotic
American should be defending at all costs.
The idea that there was not only hacking, but, you know,
involvement in this phenomenon of fake news, is deeply
disturbing to me.
And I feel like our president-elect needs to take
this much more seriously.
Then the added element of his deciding to trust Julian Assange
of WikiLeaks and Vladimir Putin of Russia over the intelligence
agencies that serve this country and protect our security against
cyber espionage?
That has been just, you know, again, deeply disturbing.
And I think we have to hold this president-elect accountable,
and, you know, I believe that's more than ever a reason why we
should move forward with a select committee to get to the
bottom of this.
It needs to be bipartisan
and the American people need that transparency.
- All right. We leave it there. - Thank you.
- Senator Tammy Baldwin, thanks very much.