‘The Republicans Are In Disarray’: Frank Pallone Says GOP Knows Budget Will Harm Their Constituents

During a House Democratic press briefing on Tuesday, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) spoke about the Republicans' budget resolution.

Transcript

00:00Energy and Commerce Committee, Frank Pallone.

00:02Thank you, Brendan, and thanks to all our leadership and ANG and all of us involved here today.

00:10I'm going to take a cue from you.

00:12You said that you just need one or two from the Philadelphia area.

00:17On the other side of the river, I have three.

00:19And we could just use those three and maybe one more from Philadelphia, and we'd be there with the four.

00:25And believe me, I'm trying to get them.

00:27I don't know how easy that's going to be.

00:30Look, I think it's clear to most of you that the Republicans are in disarray on our way over.

00:36They were meeting this morning trying to figure out what to do in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

00:40I saw one of them leave the room as we were on our way over here.

00:44And they're in disarray because many of them know that their constituents would be negatively impacted by these Medicaid cuts,

00:52whether it's in nursing homes or it's people who just lose their health insurance or people with disabilities.

00:58All of these things they're very well aware of are going to have an incredibly negative impact on their constituents' health care.

01:06But they all voted for this reconciliation bill that, as far as the Energy and Commerce Committee is concerned,

01:13says that we have to cut $880 billion.

01:16And there's no way to reach that.

01:19The CBO has told us there's no way to reach that without most of it coming from Medicaid.

01:25And, you know, all three of my New Jersey guys have said at some point that they don't want to cut Medicaid.

01:32And so what we're saying is, great, here's the opportunity.

01:37You just go down there and you sign this discharge petition,

01:40and it'll make sure that Medicaid and SNAP is not included in the reconciliation bill.

01:46But, of course, they're probably not going to do that because they know that the reconciliation bill requires these cuts

01:52in order to achieve the tax cuts that they want to do for the very wealthy, for billionaires,

01:57and for large corporate interests, and so they're in a dilemma.

02:02We're going to make their dilemma easier by saying just sign this discharge petition, and we'll be fine.

02:08Medicaid will be fine.

02:10SNAP will be fine.

02:11And it's kind of like, you know, throwing down the glove.

02:14Here's your opportunity.

02:16Take it.

02:17And then we will believe what you've been saying.

02:20So I'm just, you know, we're just going to keep this up until we get there

02:25because we do not want to see these Medicaid cuts or these SNAP cuts that are so – would be so devastating.

02:31And with that, we yield now to the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee who's going to talk about the SNAP cuts.