Ruben Gallego Touts PELOSI Act: An 'Opportunity' To Rebuild 'Eroding' Trust With Voters

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4 months ago

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) spoke about the PELOSI Act.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Gallego.

00:02And in case anyone's wondering, I am not the billionaire on this committee.

00:06Quite the opposite. I think I actually might be the poorest senator.

00:09One thing I think that it's also for at least Democrats for us to keep in mind,

00:13this is a very, very strong executive that is consistently doing deals and side deals with individual companies.

00:21And some of us are privy to that information.

00:24So, you know, and that's my wife complaining right now, probably because I didn't answer.

00:32And so if we don't actually put some of these, you know, guardrails in,

00:37there will be members of Congress that are going to benefit from this, without a doubt.

00:41And there will be a further and further erosion in trust of both Democrats and Republicans,

00:46in trust in government.

00:47And, you know, I do feel for, you know, some of the arguments that's going to discourage people

00:54from serving their country, maybe some people in the business world.

00:59But there is, you know, lots of ways for us to really encourage them to join us.

01:04And, look, the president right now has multiple billionaires that have joined his administration,

01:11and he's clearly been able to track them.

01:13I think the same will be going in the future.

01:14I also appreciate, Senator Holley, that you said you're willing to continue to work on this,

01:19because there are some things that, you know, how would you deal with something that does have a liquid asset

01:23if they want to sell?

01:24Would the Ethics Committee be required to actually go after them?

01:26I'm sure there's some kind of compromise we've come up with in regards to that.

01:31But there's no way that we should try to stop this in its tracks right now

01:37when there's an opportunity for us to really rebuild that trust with voters.

01:42That has been eruding for quite a while, and it's not just a Republican problem.

01:46It is also a Democratic problem.

01:48And I think this is something that we could all work together on that we will be very proud of,

01:52and I yield back.

01:54Senator Gallego, I just want to point out that the bill that's currently written

01:57does not apply to any of those billionaires that surround Donald Trump.

02:00Even after a certain period of time, they wouldn't apply.

02:03It doesn't apply to – so really, he does have a lot of very wealthy people.

02:06I'm not against wealthy people.

02:08I think a lot of them are smart.

02:09Yeah, and Senator Chairman Paul –

02:10It does exclude them.

02:11In the context of what I was saying, like, for example,

02:14it's more along the lines of this president was able to attract those.

02:17Now, the way that he did it is that at the federal level,

02:21if you're a cabinet member, you can divest and not pay capital gains.

02:24That's the kind of things that we could also be doing here.

02:26So my point being, though, is –

02:27Because this bill won't apply to his cabinet and won't apply to any of these special –

02:30I absolutely understand that, Chairman, and hopefully someday we could fix that.

02:33But right now, I'm certainly not going to let that be the end-all, be-all.

02:37And I'd love to move forward with this

02:38and see what other changes we can make to straighten this bill.

02:42Senator Scott.

02:45So first off –

Ruben Gallego Touts PELOSI Act: An 'Opportunity' To Rebuild 'Eroding' Trust With Voters

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