Rep. Rosa DeLauro on Congressional Chaos

Summary

The Al Franken Podcast

Episode: Rep. Rosa DeLauro on Congressional Chaos
Date: May 10, 2026
Guest Host: Norm Ornstein
Guest: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)

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Episode Overview

This episode, guest-hosted by leading congressional scholar Norm Ornstein in Al Franken's absence, features a candid, deeply informed conversation with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the Dean of Connecticut’s House delegation and an influential appropriator in Congress. The discussion covers the current chaos in Congress and public policy, particularly under the ongoing Trump administration and its war in Iran, highlighting institutional breakdowns, the War Powers Act, appropriations fights, impact on the economy and public, the threat to democracy and voting rights, and the role of misinformation from figures like RFK Jr. The tone is passionate and urgent, mixing policy expertise with frustration at the dysfunction gripping Washington.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Chaos of Trump’s Military Action in Iran

Timestamps: 03:24 – 11:29

• Norm Ornstein opens by highlighting Trump’s direct personal grifting and conflicts of interest, lamenting the “amazing” levels of corruption and the Justice Department's compromised state.
• War in Iran: Ornstein notes confusion over war status (“pause,” “still at war”) and the administration “desperate to strike a deal,” calling it a “war of choice” (06:00).
• DeLauro describes the administration's erratic and reactive posture:

  “He wakes up in the morning and whatever is on his mind, he acts on... There’s no plan to leave, no offering.” (06:51)

• There’s bipartisan unity among Democrats to block further escalation, but a lack of Republican courage:

  “A Howard Baker on the Republican side would march down... say, enough, it’s done... But we don’t have anyone... they’re just too frightened and scared of him.” (08:18)

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2. Congressional Tools & the War Powers Act

Timestamps: 07:37 – 09:11

• DeLauro laments the near-passage of the War Powers Act and advocates for relentless re-introduction and votes to force change:

  “I would continue to bring up the War Powers Act at every opportunity we can in both bodies... keep voting on it and voting on it...” (08:31)

• Norm highlights mixed and often contradictory claims from the administration on success in Iran, with DeLauro adding there’s “no rhyme or reason... just underestimating Iran and then moving from one place to another.” (09:37)
• Critique of Trump’s reliance on poorly qualified negotiators like Kushner and Witkoff (“grifters”) in contrast with the professionals who crafted the JCPOA.

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3. Economic Fallout of the War: Gas, Food, Inflation, and More

Timestamps: 11:29 – 17:46

• DeLauro details skyrocketing costs—
  • “We can’t get any numbers [on war spending]... I have asked the Secretary of Defense over and over, what have we spent to date?... no answers.” (11:49)
  • Military budgets have ballooned into the trillions, with little transparency or accountability.
• Ornstein defines the administration as “American Kakistocracy: government among the worst and most inept and corrupt among us” (13:03)
• They trace the war’s effects to every facet of American life:
  • Gas prices and home heating oil spikes
  • Fishermen and farmers squeezed by diesel and fertilizer shortages
  • Airlines raising prices, cutting service
  • Everyday Americans “cannot afford it... cost of living and affordability.” (15:50)

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4. Appropriations, Reconciliation, and Congressional Power Struggles

Timestamps: 23:08 – 28:16

• Concern that the administration would bypass Congress’s “power of the purse” through reconciliation, undermining the appropriations process.
• DeLauro vows:

  “I will fight it out loud... We are not going to allow the appropriations process to be eviscerated.” (24:36)

• Discussion about her working partnership with Tom Cole, despite his shift to MAGA-ism, and how the appropriations process is one of the last bipartisan bulwarks against executive overreach.

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5. Threats to Democracy: Voting Rights, Redistricting, and the Supreme Court

Timestamps: 28:16 – 38:24

• Fearful that Republicans will use reconciliation to pass the “Save America Act” (voter suppression) and override Senate rules, empowered by a partisan Supreme Court:

  “With a Supreme Court that is utterly partisan and contemptuous of the role of Congress, reforming the court is a high priority...” (33:43)

• DeLauro predicts a wave Democratic victory in November, contending public backlash is mounting and asserting,

  “The public is beginning to understand what the hell the consequences are.” (32:06)

• Both agree: radical court reform is needed; DeLauro advocates for term limits.

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6. Weaponized Disinformation, RFK Jr., and Public Health

Timestamps: 45:20 – 51:37

• ProPublica reveals rising rejection of Vitamin K shots by parents, partly traced to RFK Jr.’s anti-science messaging as HHS secretary.
• DeLauro details her congressional oversight:

  “We need better messengers, quite frankly, sometimes rather than the Congress. It needs to be that medical profession, the scientific profession that is out there.” (47:33)

• Ornstein presses for an impeachment process to “highlight the outrageous things he has done... the spreading of misinformation and disinformation.” (48:52)
• DeLauro focuses on accountability via appropriations, expressing deep frustration at lack of bipartisan outrage.

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7. Cabinet Catastrophes: Rubio, Doge, EPA, and Administration-Wide Damage

Timestamps: 51:37 – 54:01

• DeLauro and Ornstein call out catastrophic policy failures across cabinet departments:
  • Rubio’s role in collapsing USAID, causing upwards of a million unnecessary deaths.
  • Collins destroying Veterans Healthcare.
  • EPA as “climate denier.”

• “He wants to be the nominee in 2028. And so he is doing everything that he knows is immoral, evil, sadistic, illegal. It's disgraceful.” (53:46 - Ornstein) “He has to go. He's either a knave or a fool.” (53:43 - DeLauro)

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8. Defending Congressional Oversight and Appropriations

Timestamps: 42:22 – 44:36

• DeLauro outlines new guardrails to prevent executive branch from shifting appropriated money and steps to restore transparency.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Norm Ornstein (03:24):

  "The level of corruption is amazing."

• Rosa DeLauro (06:51):

  “He wakes up in the morning and whatever is on his mind, he acts on..."

• Norm Ornstein (13:03):

  "This is kakistocracy to the limit."

• Rosa DeLauro (15:50):

  "It is having an unbelievably devastating effect overall on the economy."

• Norm Ornstein (24:36):

  "I am very worried about how far they will go with reconciliation."

• Rosa DeLauro (32:06):

  “The public is beginning to understand what the hell the consequences are.”

• Norm Ornstein (33:43):

  “With a Supreme Court that is utterly partisan and contemptuous of the role of Congress, reforming the court is a high priority...”

• Rosa DeLauro (37:42):

  “Look, they are creatures. And loyalty, you know, to the president here and what he wants to do... I think there ought to be term limits for these folks.”

• Norm Ornstein (48:52):

  "It's a privilege resolution. It has to come to the floor. It has to be debated. And you lay out in different articles the outrageous things that he has done..."

• Rosa DeLauro (53:43):

  “He has to go. He's either a knave or a fool.”

• Norm Ornstein (53:46):

  "He wants to be the nominee in 2028. And so he is doing everything that he knows is immoral, evil, sadistic, illegal. It's disgraceful."

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Important Timestamps

• 03:24: Ornstein highlights Trump admin's grift and policy confusion
• 06:00: DeLauro on war in Iran as "war of choice," drama in Congress
• 08:18: DeLauro on absence of GOP courage ("A Howard Baker... would say, enough. But we don't have anyone.")
• 13:03: Ornstein on "American Kakistocracy"
• 15:50: DeLauro on economic pain for Americans
• 24:36: DeLauro's vow to defend appropriations process
• 32:06: DeLauro predicts Democratic wave
• 33:43: Ornstein on urgent need for Supreme Court reform
• 45:20: DeLauro & Ornstein discuss RFK Jr., health misinformation, and calls for impeachment or public embarrassment
• 51:37: Broad critique of Cabinet, calls for accountability
• 53:43: Rubio’s failures and the toll in human lives

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Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is a sobering, sometimes darkly humorous deep-dive into the contemporary breakdown of Congressional process and oversight, the dangers of authoritarianism, and the costs of corruption and incompetence on real lives — from economic pain to public health to the literal lives lost due to mismanagement and anti-science zealotry. DeLauro offers policy expertise and institutional memory but refuses to hide her outrage, while Ornstein lends scholarship and context, not hiding his alarm at how far standards and norms have fallen.

For listeners: This episode provides a vivid portrait of Congressional chaos, the brave but beleaguered efforts to preserve checks and balances, and the critical stakes for American democracy and everyday life.

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Summary excludes all advertisements, sponsor messages, and unrelated promotional content as per request.

Transcript

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[Al Franken]

Hey everybody, we've got a great one today, you know, for a change because this one is guest hosted by my friend and friend of the show, Norm Ornstein. You see, I'm taking a little break from the podcast. I've been doing this show for seven years and deserve it and you know, nothing is happening. Well, Norm can tell you more about that now. You might remember Norm from his many appearances on the show, maybe more than any other guest. We really should keep track of this stuff, but in case you forgot, I'll tell you why Norm is so great. We we grew up in the same suburb of Minneapolis, St. Louis park, about a mile apart. But we didn't meet until the 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta and became fast friends. At the time, Norm was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, which is considered a conservative think tank. Norm was a moderate. He says the Republican Party moved to the right, but truth be told, Norm has also moved to the left. Norm is one of the most respected scholars of Congress, but more than that, a great friend. He officiated my daughter's wedding and the bris of my grandson. Norm is one of my favorite folks to have on the show. And today Norm Ornistine hosts the Al Franken Podcast. I can guarantee that this is going to be a great one, you know, for a change. So Norm, take it away.

[Norm Ornstein]

Welcome everybody to the Al Franken Podcast. I'm Norm Ornstein, Al's longtime friend and collaborator, taking over for him this week and what a joy to have as our guest, Rosa DeLauro, another longtime friend. Rosa has represented her home of New Haven, Connecticut since 1990. She is the dean of the Connecticut Congressional delegation. She was the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and God willing will be chair again next year. Now is the ranking member and of course of the best ever in Congress.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Thank you, thank you Norm.

[Norm Ornstein]

So we got a lot to talk about.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Amen. Amen.

[Norm Ornstein]

I have to say I woke up this morning to reading the latest truth social post from Trump, followed by one other. And I just want to mention these just because the outrageous grift continues on. The one this morning was I had a casino in Atlantic City and I closed it. But my colleague or friend, Steve, meaning Steve Chung, his deputy press secretary, has now done an online version using the name. I want you all to go to it. And here is a special from me. Use this link. So he's got a White House official and using his own social media, which he says is his official pronouncements, not just to promote it, but to take a cut out of it. The level of corruption is amazing. And the other story is the Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to allow it to intervene in the judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll rape case. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump as a public official or as president. And it's another example of the utter corruption in the Justice Department under both Pam Bondi and now Todd Blanche. We can talk about that more. But after all, we have a war. We have prices soaring. We have turmoil out there. We have a war that at 60 day mark, when Congress had to act or not or to stop the military intervention under the War Powers act, the administration said the war is over because we have a ceasefire. And then the next day, Trump said we're still at war. And now we have a presumed pause. And Trump notifying the Iranians that he wants to allow some ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz. But we have continuing conflict. And it sure seems to me as if he is desperate to strike a deal, which, of course, will be a terrible deal. So tell me, Rosa, what your colleagues and you think of this folly and whether Congress is going to be able to play any role in curbing this military adventure or what you can do about it, where you think we're going?

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yeah, well, first of all, let me just say first, I'm delighted to be here with you, Norm. This is very, very exciting. And I would just say, you know, there's no one who understands the institution that I work in here, you know, down to, you know, the minutiae of everything that we do. And thank you for being a, not just a strong voice, but a loud voice, but taking your knowledge and helping us to translate how you deal with the institution and create some momentum in these unbelievably troubled times. They are truly troubled times. Look, we all concur this is a war of choice. It was no war of necessity. I can recall at the outset of it where he first said that this was about regime change. Then he moved it to a nuclear effort, then it was a missile, and then it was navy. And then he encouraged the Iranian people to stand up and to fight. God help them if they thought that he was going to be their ally in all of this. And it's kind of the. He wakes up in the morning and whatever is on his mind, he acts on. Now we have this pause. You got Secretary of State 24 hours ago up there saying, you know, epic fury is gone. We're now to project freedom. And 20 minutes later, they know that the rug is pulled out from under him. I don't know how. I don't know how he functions. I don't know, you know, what he.

[Norm Ornstein]

I don't know how he looks at himself in the mirror every morning.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Amen. I agree. Well, look, we lost the War Powers act in the House by one vote, you know, but we do have the War Powers act, which is what we need to, you know, to focus our attention on and to get that passed. But I also think there's overwhelming disapproval of what is going on with the public. And I think that that needs can give the Congress strength to take a look at this and to see what other opportunities that we have to, you know, thwart whatever the hell he is doing. I mean, it is. I don't have to tell you, it is diffic looking at what our opportunities are. And clearly there is unity on the Democratic side. You know, at this juncture, I think about this, and you could verify this, a Howard Baker on the Republic side would march down to the White House and say, enough, it's done. You can't go on this way. But we don't have anyone on the Republican side. They're just too frightened and scared of him to stand up and to make a fight. I mean, I think we have the courts, which we can look to, to try to do about this. I, for one, would continue to bring up the War Powers Act. I would do it at every opportunity we can in both bodies and keep voting on it and keep voting on it and voting on it in the midst of the chaos, that maybe we can get one or two people to come aboard or enough people to leave the chamber to allow us a win on this.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah. So just to take it back a little bit, we bombed Iran many weeks ago, and Trump said, their nuclear capability is obliterated. Right then it was just the other Day, they were two weeks away from destroying us. And then we had Marco Rubio say, we've accomplished our goals, which included the nuclear side.

[Rosa DeLauro]

No, there's no. There's no rhyme or reason. No, there is no. There was no way of getting. And I will just say this, he had a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, and I have been in enough meetings with the Prime Minister to understand that he had been looking for a willing partner in the United States, a willing US President to move forward on this. And Donald Trump did, without any thought of the intensity of what would happen. He was almost speechless. Just underestimating Iran and then moving from one place to another. There's no reason why. And there's no plan to leave, no offering. And we've got negotiators there who are looking. I mean, Kushner is trying to strike a deal, you know.

[Norm Ornstein]

Well, so is Witkoff. Yeah, both of them. They're grifters.

[Rosa DeLauro]

You know, I can recall the jcpoa.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah.

[Rosa DeLauro]

I'll be honest with you. The Congress, we were not there at the outset, a lot of skepticism. But Ernie Moniz came in, we had almost seminars with the folks and the caliber and John Kerry and Wendy Sherman, the caliber of the negotiating team, who had background in diplomacy and understanding the region. From whatever point of view, these people have no idea what they are doing. And at grave risk, at grave risk to the United States. And what they have done with our partners in this effort, our allies, is. It is going to take years to repair what they have done with the US Reputation here.

[Norm Ornstein]

And even beyond that, we have satellite imagery now that shows that the administration lied about the damage to our own bases in the region, which means many, many billions and a whole lot of time to reconstruct all of that.

[Rosa DeLauro]

And let me just talk about the cost. You know, look, obviously it didn't come to the Congress for approval. Okay, that's, that's, that. That's an insider debate, the cost of this war. And it is. We can't get any numbers. I have asked the Secretary of Defense over and over, what have we spent to date? What has it been spent on? And I take this from the appropriation side of the equation. What are they spending this on? What are you going to need? For what? We can get no answers. The supplemental, it's gone from 250, 280, somewhere in. And there is no idea. And given that the Department of Defense has a trillion dollars, this budget, over 800 billion from the regular appropriations, another 20 from military construction and appropriations, and then with the beautiful new bill, $150 billion. So. And now they're looking at somewhere $200 billion more. To do what?

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah. And, you know, back in 2017, I wrote a piece early in the first Trump administration called American Kakistocracy. And I revived the term, which goes back many centuries, and it's basically about government. Among the worst and most inept and corrupt among us. It comes from the root is kaka, which means what you think it means. So here we have two real estate guys who are only interested in their own deals, who don't bring along experts. And, you know, to go back, you talked about Ernie Moniz, who was the Secretary of Energy and knew nuclear inside out. We don't have them. I am. I actually think we know from the Omani foreign minister who was the intermediary in the early talks that the Iranians put forward a proposal that was actually a terrific proposal from the American perspective, and desperately tried to get to the White House to say, we got to do something about this. This is great. And the White House, the president ignored it and then went on to bomb. And I think there are two possibilities here, Rosa. One is that Kushner and Wyckoff had no understanding of what was being offered. The second is that they went to Trump and said, you know, this is not a bad deal. And he talked to Bibi Netanyahu, who said, you're the greatest ever. Look what you did in Venezuela. We can do the same thing. 24 hours, you bomb, we'll give you the sights, we'll take out Khomeini. We're wired into the opposition. The government will fall. You'll win multiple peace prizes. And, of course, what we also know is every war game, every analysis of what would happen if we went to war with Iran, started with, they'll close the Strait of Hormuz. And it's likely that nobody told Trump, who then said afterward nobody knew that this would happen. This is kakistocracy to the limit. And of course, we're paying the price and talking about paying the price. Rosa, let's talk about what the costs are to the American people beyond the direct cost to taxpayers of this war, which are far greater than, as you say, Pete Hegseth or others have admitted. But we've got gas prices. We have fishermen unable to go out there because of diesel fuel. We have the helium which we need for chips. We have fertilizer.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Fertilizer for farmers. Right. Yeah. Prices are going up, but it is having an unbelievably devastating Effect overall on the economy. You know, you got, as I say, airlines who are having difficulty with the fuel. They're raising prices. That means that less people are traveling. I was at dinner the other night at a restaurant. The young woman who was a waitress says, my son went to gas up the car, almost a hundred dollars. And then she said, we are seeing less people coming in here because they can't afford to take the car out and do this. So it is a reverberating declined overall. I met with people who are dealing with overall in terms of the energy effort. Home heating oil is going up and people can't afford it. The nonprofits can't deal with the demand that is coming through the door because those programs have been cut. So it is really escalating. The impact, the negative impact overall on the economy is really unbelievable. And they have, you know, when the president can say, or as a cabinet member say, well, this is a blip. You know, this is, this is very serious economic consequences that they have. And it's people who are going to pay the price. And they are, and they cannot afford it. I don't have to tell you, this is all about cost of living and affordability. The American people before this were suffering with grocery prices, utilities, housing, health care prices, and now you add the gas prices. But that has really mushroomed into much, much more overall.

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[Norm Ornstein]

So, you know, let's unpack that just a little bit. Let's, you know, start with the airlines with the jet fuel prices that have gone up so much. We know that Spirit Airlines, which just went out of business and MAGA people are saying it's because the Biden administration opposed the merger with JetBlue, which is bleeding red ink as well. Spirit itself said it was because of soaring jet fuel prices.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Right.

[Norm Ornstein]

At the same time, Delta Airlines, one of the more prominent big ones, just announced that they will no longer serve beverages or snacks on flights of 350 miles or less. Why are they doing that? Because their costs are going up. Talk a little bit about food prices because when you have fertilizer that's either unavailable or skyrocketing in price at the height of the planting season, the global impact on food supplies is going to be substantial. And this is going to have worldwide reverberations. We're going to see food shortages and more starvation abroad while we have cut out completely our ability or willingness to help people in troubled countries and here at home where we know that fishermen say we can't possibly go out in our boats that use diesel fuel because it's not cost effective, it costs us more than the fish we're bringing and we're going to have shortages and higher prices of fish. So I want you to reflect on that a little bit, but also as you talk privately to your Republican colleagues, how upset are they? None of them are going to speak out, particularly after the election results in Indiana last night, which we may talk about a little bit, where Trump intervened and managed to defeat a number of incumbents because of one vote rock rib conservatives. But they wouldn't go through with this outrageous mid cycle redistricting. So they're all scared of Trump still.

[Rosa DeLauro]

They are.

[Norm Ornstein]

But privately they must be distraught about the war, about affordability and inflation, about what their own constituents are telling them.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Well, the private conversations even that they're guarded, Norm, to be very honest, they are very, very guarded. They may, you know, joke or they say, you know, we're not getting anything done, we can't get done. This is. But they are not going to even privately display either their anger, their discontent or, you know, their frustration. We had people in the past who, you know, rose to the occasion and said we can't go down this road, but that is not going to happen.

[Norm Ornstein]

That is fascinating because what it tells us is how powerful this cult is and how much this culture of fear has seeped through, that they won't even discuss privately what we know. They actually, many of them are actually feeling right, but they all go along with it. So I saw that the Senate is noodling around a reconciliation bill to try and bypass the appropriations process and jam through unfettered spending for ICE and the Border Patrol. And I think would be a worrisome thing that they may try and use that process to undo some of your bipartisan efforts on discretionary domestic spending.

[Rosa DeLauro]

That is worrisome to me. And I've had conversations about that, conversations with Tom Cole about that. You know, how I view the appropriations process as the kind of central nerve center of the government. It is the only piece of legislation that unless you do have bipartisan, bicameral support, get a bill to the president and he either signs it or it's not going to happen and then the government shuts down, down. So you have to come to some, you know, to some agreement. But I think this, and this is why I was pleased with how we came out of 2026, because Russ Vogt, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, the president knows nothing about budget or the appropriation process, but Russ Vogt does. And what he is trying to do is to circumvent the Congress and abrogate the power of the purse, which is in the Constitution. He just wants to be done with that, just, you know, go around it, go to a reconciliation process. So we've got to fight that. And I think I, you know, I will fight it out loud. And it's my hope that we will get, you know, some help and the Republicans to fight on that. And what we came out with, if we did not pass, we passed 11 of 12 appropriations. If that had not happened, the appropriation process would be gone. He would have succeeded. And I know in my mind and as well as in Cole's mind, that cannot be. We are not going to allow the appropriations process to be eviscerated. What we need to do. And I replied on both sides, you know, we did reconciliation as well with the, you know, American rescue plan, et cetera. I think it is a bad way to govern. And I would fight any president, Democratic or Republican or any administration that wants to go that route. We have to really fight back. I'm looking at ways in which we can try to do that. What is it that we might be able to say? Is there anything that can be said in a bipartisan way that gives an indication that Congress is not going to allow them abrogate the appropriations process and the way that they're, you know, trying to do it? But it was in my mind and I and in Tom Cole's mind, that had we not done these appropriations bills, and that still is in our mind as we move to 2027, that they are not going to assert the appropriations process.

[Norm Ornstein]

So there are a couple of things that flow from that. I want to talk a little bit about Tom Cole, just from my perspective. I've known him for a very long time. Some of my dearest friends went to Grinnell College, which was where he went, and I used to see him a lot. And if we go back 20 some years, I would have said, you know, if the Republicans want a speaker or a minority leader who actually cares about the institution, is smart and thoughtful, that would be the guy you would want.

[Rosa DeLauro]

That would be cool.

[Norm Ornstein]

He's gone, but he's gone full maga and down to a level where here's a man with an American Indian heritage saying and doing nothing. As ICE and the Trump administration go after Native Americans, they want to take away their birthright citizenship, they want to deport them. What greater irony could you have than trying to deport the people who were here originally and their ancestors? And he says nothing. So I'm glad that he is supportive of the appropriations process, but I worry when the pressure comes, which side he comes down on. Now, you don't have to respond to that if you don't want to.

[Rosa DeLauro]

No, but look he has been a good partner and someone who keeps his word on the issues that we've done. And I think he believes that about me and what he can do, what he does behind the scenes, I don't know, and so forth. I just know what these deliberations have been fruitful in terms of our trying to move the process forward. And I appreciate what you're saying.

[Norm Ornstein]

The second point here is I am very worried about how far they will go with reconciliation. You know, John Thune does not want to change directly the filibuster rule, even though he's under enormous pressure. And Trump continues to pressure him because he wants this Save America act, which is a voter suppression bill, which cannot pass otherwise. What I worry about now is they might try and do that in reconciliation. And of course, it's completely against their own rules and against the law, the Budget and Empowerment Control Act. But they'll have a parliamentarian. And we know what happens in the Senate. Every time that we get a set of provisions pushed forward. Under reconciliation, the Senate parliamentarian has to rule on whether they fit or don't fit. And in the past, even when it's painful, the parties in the Senate have swallowed hard and gone along. But this is just a parliamentarian proposal, and it can be challenged on the Senate floor with an appeal of the ruling of the chair, which is what the parliamentarian evocation does, and a simple majority can overrule it. And let's face it, if the Senate put something like the Voter Suppression Save America act through under reconciliation, despite the fact that it violates the law and the rules, do we expect that the Supreme Court is going to intervene? Of course not. They'll just say, this is a dispute between the branches, it's not our problem. So I'm very worried that we're going to see a further distortion. And the reason is they're desperate now because the war, inflation, the disruptions in the economy, what's happening to the economy because of their outrageous immigration and deportation policies? Tom Homan the other day said, we're going to mass deportations. You haven't seen anything yet. And what does that do to the restaurant industry, to the food production industry, the meat packing, the findings and the like, and farming, it is devastating. And people are ups, are understandably upset. You know, along with the elections in Indiana yesterday, where Trump managed to defeat these Republicans, which sent a shockwave through the rest of Republicans, they're, they're cowardly. But we also saw in a Michigan state Senate race, one the Democrats won by six points. The last time, a competitive race, they won by 20 this time. So Republicans know that they're in a world of hurt when it comes to an election. If it's a real and fair election. And they've already tilted the scales, thanks to their partisan hacks on the Supreme Court, devastating the rest of the Voting Rights act and then violating their own principles to push it forward so that it would take effect now, this close to the election. But they're going to go further.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yeah, I think, you know, there's a couple pieces in there on the elections we are going to win in November. They are going to continue to deal with redistricting, and I think we need to fight fire with fire if they're going to do what they're going to do. My view is let's go where we can and get the seats that we need. But I think that, I think it's going to be a wave election. I mean, we've seen what's happened in elections already. You know, where we're looking at 16 Democrats winning by plus 16, you know, these votes, the public is beginning to understand what the hell the consequences are. So I think despite what they try to do with the redistricting, I think we're going to overcome that. In November, though, we have, and I had a hearing here, Joe Morelli with House administration, Jim Himes and myself on election security. We brought people in, our Secretary of the State, Miles Rapoport, you know, Professor Ackrove, you know, to talk about the kinds of things that we need to do to secure the election. So there's a strategy on our side to deal with what they might try to do with the elections. And Morelli is going all over the country with these shadow hearings on this stuff, you know, to arm people and educating people about what's happening. You know, I think, look, and I believe that the elections are key to us being able to hold them back. And I think we can win the Senate as well. If there is a huge turnout and a wave election, we can take the Senate back. And that, I think, is, you know, where we have the opportunity to try to right things, to get them back on track. And that includes, well, we have to have an agreement that on both sides, that reconciliation isn't the way in which we govern.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yes.

[Rosa DeLauro]

You know, I mean, I think we have to take a look at where Democrats have been on this issue. It was a way for us to get around it. So that's why we need to deal with the filibuster piece here.

[Norm Ornstein]

Well, you know, with A Supreme Court that is utterly partisan and contemptuous of the role of Congress. Reforming the court is a high priority, and it can't be done without changing the rules in the Senate. And I'm afraid it's going to get worse on that front before it gets better as well.

[Rosa DeLauro]

When it has come to the tariff issue, I think where it is on, you know, like race or DEI or those efforts, I think they're going with the president. But I think on the tariff issue, on overturning some of the overreach, on the power of the purse, I understand what you're saying, but I think that there are some places here in which there looks like there is a different track. I think we just have to, you know, where we think we can deal with the court on some of this stuff.

[Norm Ornstein]

Well, so I would say, you know, until there is reform of the court system, you're absolutely right. We have to push where we can to bring some restraint. I'm more skeptical, Rosa. I think what they did on tariffs was as much because the corporate world told those justices, save us from this folly of the president. And of course, it would have been very hard, given the plain language of the Constitution, to say, you can do whatever you want on tariffs. So I think there's a more cynical interpretation of that one, how much restraint they're going to be willing to apply to this president. I'm doubtful that there will be a lot more. But I will tell you that I am absolutely certain that if we have this court and we get a Democratic president in 2029, this court is going to say, oops, we went too far. Now we're going to put real restraints on the president. So we have a court. You know, back not long after she was confirmed, eight days before the presidential election, Amy Coney Barrett went to Kentucky and stood next to her benefactor Mitch McConnell, who's the one who broke every norm, jamming through the confirmation. And she said, I'm here to tell you that we're not just a bunch of partisan hacks. They are a bunch of partisan hacks. This was projection. And we've seen this, certainly with elections, with campaign finance reform. It's not just the decision that was done on the Voting Rights act effectively blowing up Section two. It's that in every previous case where we were somewhere within striking distance of an election and you had an unconstitutional district because Republicans had tilted it towards whites, they said, no, we can't change their unconstitutional district. We have something called the Purcell Principle. It's too close to the election. And in this case, where there's almost always more than a month after a decision is made before it's actually implemented to give time for appeals, they went right away and violated a second time they'd done it. And when Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out the cynicism of this approach because they'd taken the same tack otherwise, Sam Alito and two of his colleagues viciously attacked her personally. So I have no use for this court, even if every once in a

[Rosa DeLauro]

while they make a. I'm of the same view. I think I try to look at it in some nuanced way, but look, they are creatures. And loyalty, you know, to the president here and what he wants to do, I think in terms of reform, I don't know where you are on that. You know, I think there ought to be term limits for these folks. You know, I don't think it should be a lifetime appointment. You know, I'm sure there are others who have ideas about, you know, what can get done, you know, or what we can do, what it will bear. So. But I think that last week's ruling is really gutting the Voting Rights Act. That's why I say on the redistricting side of this, we need to fight fire with fire.

[Norm Ornstein]

I'm glad that we have Morelli going around the country because we have also seen a complete politicization of the FBI, and they're now trying to get the names of election officials in Georgia just to intimidate them. The FBI is just gone after another journalist and tried to seize, you know, devices and go into those. It's.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yeah. Tulsi Gabbard, who was.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah.

[Rosa DeLauro]

You know, I mean.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah, we're going to need protection at polling places from the FBI, which is.

[Rosa DeLauro]

That's right. And this is. Honestly, some of this was discussed here, and there's a real concern. I mean, I understand that, but this is to really try to make the public aware of where dealing with the FBI. Jim Himes spoke about the foreign interference and that side of the coin mail in voting. We need to educate the public. We need to deal with investments. They have cut back the funding. So when we're looking at what's coming up in terms of the election security and the Election Assistance Commissions, et cetera, which work with the local governments. It's where we have to put in that investment. And that's something that I'm very conscious of in terms of appropriations and trying to get that, you know, get that done. And my hope is, is that we have. We'll have information to you know, to make that fight when we're, when we are in conference, whatever that means these days, in conference and going back and forth to increase the investment. And we need to, we're going to need to have people at polling places. The court, you know, doesn't come up before the Appropriations Committee. I said, and I talked to, I talked to. I got a call from Chief Justice Kagan about their security and money for their security. Now, I don't have any problem. Members of Congress need to be secure. I worry about their security as well. And I just said, I want to help you, but you have to come to us and tell you, I'm not going to talk to you about your cases. That's not what it is. But you have to come and let us know what you. What, what are you doing with the money? We give you what, you know, what do you want to do all. All of those things, like every other. So forth. She said, I'll get back to you. She did. Later in the day, she said she talked to the chief justice, and he said he agreed with that. So now I am, you know, I just said to the staff, they've got to come, you know, they've got to come before us. I, you know, I want to give them the security money. There's no question. They shouldn't, you know, physically be at risk the same way members of Congress can.

[Norm Ornstein]

No. And I actually, we got to take the task.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yeah.

[Norm Ornstein]

Along with that, they're protected by the U.S. marshals, which are run by the executive branch. And Trump replaced the head of the Marshals Service. You worry. This is not right. You do not want a president who can basically try to intimidate judges by saying, you know what, the marshals may be on lunch break when something happens to you. I'm sorry. So one of the other things we need to consider is giving the judiciary control over their own security. That's an aside. I will say that my own views on court reform start with term limits.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yeah.

[Norm Ornstein]

They go to enlarging the court, but they also include taking away a lot of their jurisdiction. They were not meant to be this powerful. They were not meant to be the first branch among the three. They were meant to be the third. And to be passive. And we need to be aggressive on that.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yeah. I want to figure out how we deal with this Shadow, you know, DOC is here, and I don't know. I'm not an attorney. I'm not a lawyer.

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[Norm Ornstein]

But it's. It's outrageous.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Outrageous. I just wanted to say one other Thing that we did do in appropriations, it's important, because you are a historian in this regard, is with the power of the purse, you know, that they tried to abrogate that, go around the process. Well, they've tried to. As well as rescissions and pounding funds, et cetera. We were able to build back in a small way in the bills. You know, an example, the VA Secretary was moving money around, billions of dollars around, etc. We said no, only 1% of the money. They squawked like hell, they were freaked out. But we managed to get that back into the 27 bills as well. We built into, you know, obviously when we appropriate, we have all the lines that say this goes to this program, this goes to this program, this. And they were just taking money from everywhere and moving it around. We now have those tables by law are in the bill so that RFK Jr. Can't just say, you know, take money from this and go from there. So we've tried to build in some, some guardrails and we also, when they lay out the monies that the agencies have to spend, they took down, you know, what apportionments are, but the rest of the country doesn't. So they took that website down, the courts overturned that. And we have Patty Murray and I just introduced an amicus brief to deal with, you know, substantiating the ruling of the district court in that way so that they cannot not tell us, you know, what is being spent by what agencies at what time. So, you know, that's an internal process which the public, you know, the big issue is here, what's the consequences of what they're doing with the money which we talk about, but internally, for your purposes, to know some of the things that we are trying to, to accomplish.

[Norm Ornstein]

Well, the other area on this front is the administration bleeding money out of blue states and blue areas and giving even more to red states, which is of course itself illegal.

[Rosa DeLauro]

It's illegal.

[Norm Ornstein]

Constitutional.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Yes, illegal.

[Norm Ornstein]

Blatantly illegal.

[Rosa DeLauro]

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[Norm Ornstein]

So this one other area that I wanted to discuss with you is, you know, people ought to know, if they don't, that Rosa DeLauro created and is the mother of the child tax credit because she cares about kids. So we have a new news story today from ProPublica that thanks to the misinformation and disinformation, including that perpetrated by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. More and more new parents are saying, no, we don't want our newborn to get the vitamin K shot that they give right after birth, which prevents brain bleeds and deaths. And apparently we're seeing more of those now. You put that together with the news that multiple studies that showed that vaccines for Covid and other ailments are effective and are keeping people out of hospitals or from dying, and they refuse to let those studies be published. You know, among the horrors in the cabinet, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Stands out a serial liar and somebody who is actually endangering the lives of many, many people. What can we do about that? And how about impeaching him?

[Rosa DeLauro]

We need to focus on how we fight back on the policies. If we start to engage in impeachment, the House, what will it do? They're not going to do that. Dammit. You got Cassidy, who should have known better. He should have known better. Do you think so? One house does one thing, another house, he gets exonerated. I want to spend my time trying to unravel what he's trying to do. So, look, I'd like to see him resign. Let's put him in a position that we did with what's her face with Noem so that she resigns. That's the direction I would take with him, Norman. I'm going down that road because this is Health and Human Services, which is totally under my jurisdiction on appropriations, and I'm trying to fight him as often as I can. You know, every day I'm doing something with regard to the raw milk, we've had this outbreak where, you know, there have been deaths. His own FDA said that unpasteurized milk is a danger to your health. And he will not say that. He will not say it. We need the scientists, we need the doctors, we need the professionals. When Rosa DeLauro says this, they say, yeah, here, she's a partisan. We need better messengers, quite frankly, sometimes rather than the Congress. It needs to be that medical profession, the scientific profession that is out there. And engaging with the public, because public outcry while we have the courts, which have been our friends and, you know, we can't sue. We have legislation, but we can't win it because we're in the minority. But we can win on public outcry north. And it can turn things around.

[Norm Ornstein]

So I would say two things about that in response, Rosa. The first is it makes it even more important that you take the majority where then you can use the appropriations process to put some constraints.

[Rosa DeLauro]

That's my goal.

[Norm Ornstein]

Lies and behavior. The second is impeachment is not because you're actually going to remove him from office. It is to do exactly what you're talking about. It's a privilege resolution. It has to come to the floor. It has to be debated. And you lay out in different articles the outrageous things that he has done. The lies, the suppressing of evidence, the deaths that have been caused, the spreading of misinformation and disinformation. And either you manage to get a few Republicans who understand this so that the House impeaches him, it's not going nowhere in the Senate. But you're highlighting what he's done in a way that doesn't come across as much now because there's so much else going on. And if none of them go along with it, it means that they're endorsing all that he is doing. So I would make a case for it, but I understand, and I wish

[Rosa DeLauro]

to God they would stand up. There was no one when he came before our committee. No one on the other side of the aisle. All nothing but praise and going after, you know, again, abuse in the system. You know, that is the frustration of. But I hear you. I understand what you're saying, but we need to find the places where we can lay out the arguments. And that's my view of what we need to do. I just find him. He epitomizes for me the. The level of incompetence that is rampant in this. In this administration.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah, but it's malign incompetence. It's not just that they're stupid. He's not stupid. It's not just that they misunderstand themselves what's happening. He willfully refuses to accept any evidence other than what he says is gold standard science, which is quackery.

[Rosa DeLauro]

We have a measles outbreak.

[Norm Ornstein]

Yeah. And we'll have a polio one before we're done with. But, you know, the fact is, you cannot find a single one of these cabinet members who is in any way positive. Doug Burgum the Secretary of the Interior, now saying he wants to wipe out what remains of the bison population by taking away their ability to eat. You look at. You talked about the va. You know, Doug Collins has destroyed veterans health care, and we're getting more suicides because they've taken away the ability of veterans to get the treatment and help that they need.

[Rosa DeLauro]

You got Zelda, that the EPA has now become a climate denier.

[Norm Ornstein]

Well, I want to add just one last impeachment prospect, which to me is Marco Rubio. I'm, you know, I'm digging more deeply now, talking to a number of people about what happened at aid. Doge came in within four days. They blown up the agency and put in stop work orders and, and then destroyed the payment system so that contractors didn't get paid for the work they'd already done, but it made it impossible to bring them back. Rubio said, I'm issuing an order because he was made the acting administrator.

[Rosa DeLauro]

Right.

[Norm Ornstein]

That life saving programs are exempt from all of this. Well, the Doge people then apparently searched for the term Googled life saving, which of course are not in the programs. None of them were restored. Even those that they wanted to restore, they couldn't because they had no payment system. And what we know is that under Rubio's watch, 700,000 people at least died unnecessarily, including more than 400,000 children. It continues to reverberate. He cannot argue that he was asleep at the switch. He had too many responsibilities. He was secretary of state, head of aid. They threw many other things on him because they responded the State Department to a new book called in the Wood Chipper, which looks in detail at what these idiots knew. Nothing at Doge did. And they said Secretary Rubio was on top of it all and he stood by every cut that was made. He's responsible for what may end up being a million deaths. How many people in history are responsible for unnecessary deaths of innocence? This man is a catastrophe. And his epitaph will read, I was only following orders. He knows better.

[Rosa DeLauro]

You know, he has to go. He's either a knave or a fool.

[Norm Ornstein]

He wants to be the nominee in 2028. And so he is doing everything that he knows is immoral, evil, sadistic, illegal. It's disgraceful.

[Rosa DeLauro]

No, I mean, I was glad he was embarrassed yesterday. He's out there talking about, you know, and he was one of the first people. It was so interesting. Again, he was when. And he said it publicly. So I'm not disclosing anything. There was any classified information. He said, well, Israel, you know, attacked and so that we had to attack, you know, and, and then he said it publicly to the press, you know, and, and then the president said, that's not true. I made the decision, you know, to do it. I mean, you know, I've characterized it what happens on the floor of the House, it's the gang that couldn't shoot straight that, that book a long time ago. But what your point is, and I take this very, very seriously, Norm, we have a great responsibility. It's not lots is happening in roads and bridges and helicopters and so forth, but when you get to what's going on in the war and the killing of people, when you get to what's going on in health care, our job, and we can do it, is to save lives. And through what is happening at hhs, we are, people are dying. People are going to die. And that has happened with usaid. And it's consuming. It's consuming for you. It is consuming for me to say, what is it that I take it personally? What is it that can be done to turn this around? And I'm trying every which way that I can to stop what we can stop them from doing, especially as it has to do with kids with people's lives. That's not why we came to the Congress.

[Norm Ornstein]

Well, thank goodness you're there, Rosa, and fighting the good fight. And let's hope that at some point we, we're prevailing with these fights.

[Rosa DeLauro]

We will prevail.

[Norm Ornstein]

I promise you, we will prevail. And we're very grateful that you joined us on this podcast. And I'll see you soon.

[Rosa DeLauro]

This will do. Thank you so much. Take care, my dear.

[Al Franken]

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kotke, the great Leo Kotke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.

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