- We want all Americans to succeed but that can't happen in
an environment of lawless chaos.
We must restore integrity and the rule of law at our borders.
[applause]
- President Trump talking lawless chaos.
We check in now with the opposite side of the aisle
with Democratic U.S. Representative Mark Pocan.
He brought a college student to the address.
Lupe Salmeron immigrated to Wisconsin from Mexico 12 years
ago and is undocumented, but received deportation exception
under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Congressman Pocan joins us now.
Thanks very much for being here.
- Absolutely. Glad to be here.
- Why did you bring Lupe to the address?
- There's a lot of different angles you could go to try to
raise awareness but this is one issue where literally we're
tearing families apart who've been here for decades.
In Lupe's case, she's been here for a dozen years.
When we go and do what is starting the happen with the ICE
raids and deportations and building the wall, we're
starting to put a fake narrative out there about people who are
hard working in this country, want to be citizens and we had a
bipartisan bill a couple of sessions ago to do just that and
now we're going in a completely different direction based on
fear in order to kind of prove why he got elected.
I think that's not clear enough.
You can't destroy families just because it somehow addresses
your political narrative.
- Switching directions.
What is your reaction to Attorney General Sessions'
recusal?
- I'm glad that at minimum we're getting the recusal.
But honestly if you lie to the American people under oath,
you can be prosecuted if you're an individual.
At minimum he should be resigning.
This is something where you can't act like I didn't remember
this conversation.
Oh yeah, I did have this conversation.
He lied directly in testimony under sworn testimony to Al
Franken as he asked questions, a senator from Minnesota.
And more importantly I think is just this issue.
This is an issue that's not going away.
There's so much more coming out how the Russians interfered with
our elections.
I've read the classified report.
I've asked on the floor of Congress -- if they are so sure
there's nothing here, then declassify that report because I
know what I read.
And supposedly that's what the president's read.
There is more information there
and it's not the hacking at the DNC.
I could care less.
People wrote dumb things in email and that got out,
that's not what changes elections.
There's more things that have happened and I think it's very
disingenuous to the point of questionable why they would say
things like they're talking about lifting sanctions and
other things and now we're finding all these people had all
these meetings from the Trump Administration and the campaign
with Russian officials.
There's more than smoke.
There is a big forest fire here and we need to let the American
people know about it.
- President Trump calls this a political witch hunt.
- I would call it a political witch hunt if I was in the
middle of something like this as well.
He's trying to find subterfuge wherever he can
to try to confuse the issue.
The bottom line is 17 different intelligence agencies
came out with a unified report that said
the Russians interfered with our elections.
I've read that report.
There's far more even than has come out so far.
Then all this other information now is coming out that's not in
some of the various intelligence reports about his campaign
officials and his administrative officials having all these
connections with Russia and whether it be about the
interference in the election or the issue of sanctions or the
issue of the fact we haven't seen his tax returns we don't
know how much business involvement he has in Russia.
The American people just need to know the very basics about this
before we can even move on to things like the Affordable Care
Act and tax reform and other issues.
This is something that goes way deeper
than Democrat, Republican politics.
This is something that's --inside the beltway is one way.
I'm from Wisconsin. I'm not from inside the beltway.
Here if you lie, you lie.
It's not how-- what version of lying
is what they always debate about in D.C.
And when a country like Russia comes in, interferes
with our elections, that should bother everybody.
I give people like John McCain and others credit because
they're saying that.
But the fact that Donald Trump acts like nothing happened makes
me even more suspicious of how much he knows and when he knew
about it.
- What about other people across the aisle, your peers,
are they taking this as seriously as you are?
- More and more are as more information comes out.
So I think at first they also were told
there is nothing here to look at.
Nothing here to look at.
But now you find out the son-in-law of the president met
with Russian officials at the Trump Tower after having them
come in the back door.
You're finding out that Attorney General Sessions now suddenly
after explicitly saying he didn't meet with Russian
officials, oh yeah, he did.
We're starting to find this avalanche of information like
this.
Something's extremely suspicious by Wisconsin Midwestern
standards and I think that we have to get the truth for the
people.
- On the Affordable Care Act, I wonder if the time has come for
Democrats to kind of face the reality that this is being
repealed and they are working to replace it with President Trump
saying quote I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in the
Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding
Obamacare disaster.
- First of all I don't know if it's an imploding disaster.
They're trying to help create that narrative around it.
If you listened to the speech, yes he had a different tone but
he still said there is an immigrant around every corner
trying to attack you with the Affordable Care Act.
He watches too much Mad Max I think when he gave that clip you
played at the beginning of the interview.
We all know there has to be changes to the Affordable Care
Act.
The problem is they want to repeal it without really a
replacement.
And supposedly this week we're going to see some language.
But they won't have a hearing on it before the mark-up.
They're not going to do any kind of public exposure of the bill.
Again that is the wrong way to do it.
We had a lot of debate around the Affordable Care Act
when it came together.
And I would argue-- I wasn't there when it happened
and it wasn't a perfect process, but there was plenty of public
review and debate which we're not seeing on whatever they're
going to come up with next.
- Let me ask you about some of the prongs we're hearing about
and have heard about for a while.
Those include tax credits based on age versus these kind of
subsidies that Obamacare had, based on income.
What is your opinion of those kinds of tax credit?
- You have to have the money
to be able to afford health insurance
so the subsidies at least helps you buy it on a monthly basis.
Tax credits don't necessarily work in the same way and
it's not going to be as clear.
They're also talking about health savings account which are
great if you have lots of money.
But again it's not for the average middle class family or
someone trying to aspire to be in the middle class.
They talk about things like buying across state lines.
We know that's not proven to provide any savings.
My measurement is, is this going to provide -- protect the
healthcare that everyone has right now, provide increased
levels of healthcare and make it more affordable?
I don't think any of those levels right now are being
addressed by the plan they're roughly talking about.
- What happens to those in Wisconsin just over the poverty
line that were encouraged to sign up in the marketplace when
we didn't take expanded Medicaid in any of these kinds of
replacement plans?
- They're the ones that are going to fall through the holes
in this plan because there's not going to be a safety net for
them.
Even though they keep telling us people will have coverage, it's
going to be that they're offered a plan for coverage but not that
they're going to be covered.
We really need to have a thorough review of what they're
going to put out there.
And that's why when they're fast tracking this without any kind
of hearings or anything, again it just makes me suspicious.
My Wisconsin Midwest common sense is like ringing all sorts
of bells when they are trying to move it this fast when for six
years they've had no plan and now in one week they're going to
come up with a plan.
It just doesn't pass the smell test.
- All right, Representative Mark Pocan, thanks very much.
- Absolutely, thank you.