00:00Senator, thanks for talking to me.
00:02These kids of these fired federal workers have been coming to offices for the last several weeks,
00:08trying to put a personal story behind these firings.
00:13What's been your reaction seeing these kids up here lobbying for their parents?
00:17It's been very moving, right, to see kids coming up here.
00:20It also shows just how poorly treated their parents were.
00:25And it shows that the whole family experiences the pain of being a loyal federal civil servant,
00:32only to be thrown aside by the Trump administration.
00:37So I think the kids are having to experience this with their parents.
00:43They're also, I hope, learning about democracy and the lessons of how you try to fight back.
00:48Do you think this is having any impact right now, particularly among some of your Republican colleagues
00:54who are aligned with Donald Trump's handling of the firing of federal employees?
01:00Well, I hope it will break through.
01:02I mean, so far it hasn't.
01:03But I do think that if families show up, not just here in Washington,
01:08but federal employees live in every state in the country,
01:11and if they're also showing up and trying to meet with their senators back home in their states
01:16or their House of Representatives members, that that can begin to have an impact.
01:22And, you know, one of the things that families always do is,
01:25in addition to talking about, you know, their experience and the fact that, you know,
01:30they were unfairly treated, they're really talking about how the American people are the big losers,
01:35because whether they're working for the Department of Education or the National Weather Service,
01:41they were doing important work on behalf of the American people.
01:44And the pain of the loss of those services will increasingly be felt across the country.
01:53Do you think that Democrats have been making a big enough issue out of this,
01:57given everything else that's going on, that this has been enough of a focus for your party?
02:03Well, I think we've focused for sure on the fact that, you know,
02:07the Republicans have prioritized tax cuts for billionaires and very wealthy people
02:11at the expense of everybody else in the country, whether that was cutting Medicaid
02:15or whether it's cutting services for emergency relief.
02:21I mean, we had the terrible flooding in Texas that took so many lives,
02:25and there were all sorts of failures in the system.
02:28And it's people, it's federal employees that help make that system work better.
02:34So when you fire them, you're not only hurting their families, you're hurting the American people.
02:40Should you guys be pushing that issue harder, do you think, as a party?
02:43I think we should continue to push.
02:44I mean, again, we are working to point out that Republican priorities are pretty clear,
02:50tax cuts for billionaires at the expense of everybody else.
02:53And I do think we need to bring home very clearly the stories, the direct stories of the federal employees
03:01who have essentially been thrown out on the streets despite their patriotic service
03:07and the consequences of the American people losing the benefit of the work those federal employees were doing.
03:12What kind of impact is this going to have on the economy?
03:14I mean, we've seen economic numbers today were positive.
03:17But I'm wondering what you think about the impact, not just in the D.C. economy, but more nationally.
03:23Well, I think it's cumulative, right?
03:25It's not just these cuts to federal employees.
03:29It's also the withholding of funds for important purposes around the country.
03:35And layered on top of that, you've got the Trump tariffs.
03:37I mean, we've just begun to see the pain and increased costs due to those Trump tariffs.
03:43So for somebody who ran on a platform of bringing down prices day one, we're going to see the opposite as a result of his actions.
03:52How bad is it, particularly in your state, with so many federal workers?
03:56How much is it, you're specifically on Maryland, is Maryland being hit by these cuts, federal employee firings?
04:01Oh, there's no doubt that Maryland is feeling the pain.
04:06Of course, you know, 80 percent of federal employees live outside of the Washington area, but we have a lot of amazing patriotic federal employees here.
04:14So there's no doubt that the layoffs, the riffing, the firing of so many federal employees has had some impact.
04:25And we are fighting hard through the courts and in Congress to help them get back on their feet.
04:31I mean, ultimately, hopefully get their jobs back.
04:34But we're doing everything we can to provide resources to help them.
04:37Before I let you go, you were one of the first people here to really push on the Democratic side to push for the release of these Epstein files.
04:45We saw the Justice Department today saying they were not going to comply with the Senate Democratic request to release these files.
04:51What recourse do you guys have now that the Justice Department is saying they're not going to go along with this?
04:56Well, first of all, I offered an amendment in the appropriations bill that funds the Department of Justice that requires the Attorney General to provide these documents.
05:05It was supported by every Republican on the committee.
05:08It was unanimous.
05:10So we do have other tools we can use to push the administration.
05:13And, of course, most of all, look, the public, by overwhelming numbers and across party lines, wants transparency.
05:21They want accountability.
05:23So this issue is not going away.
05:25Donald Trump said that they were going to be transparent, that they were going to release these files.
05:29They just haven't done it yet.
05:31Here they are saying that Democrats are slowing down their nominations here in the United States Senate.
05:37Well, they are not even slowing down.
05:40They're just stonewalling every effort to get to the bottom of the Epstein case and the Epstein files.
05:45Do you think it's a risk for Democrats to push too hard on this and it'll look like you're trying to gain partisan advantage on this?
05:51I think this is an issue that's important to the American people across the board.
05:55This is an issue that Republicans said they cared about.
05:59Ron Wyden has been doing a multi-year investigation into the finances, sort of in the background of some of the Epstein cases.
06:08So, look, I think this is an issue important to people across party lines.
06:12All right.
06:13I'll let you go.
06:13Thanks for taking the shot.
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