During Wednesday's Senate Small Business Committee hearing, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) questioned Trump's Small Business Association nominees about President Trump's agenda.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Mulligan, the Office of Advocacy sits within the SBA, but
00:07the Chief Counsel is statutorily independent from the SBA administrator. Your work is by
00:16statute not permitted to be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget or to any
00:24other federal agency or any executive office. That includes, again, OMB. You can't share
00:35information with OMB. You expressed to my staff that you take that independence seriously.
00:40However, we know that Elon Musk's minions have already had conversations with leadership
00:47at the Office of Advocacy. Can you commit to the committee that you will refuse to take
00:53instruction from DOJ or from the administration so that you are in compliance with the statutory
01:02mandate? Thank you for your question, Senator. I support
01:09President Trump's goal of making government more efficient. He won a mandate in the election
01:14to do exactly that. But he did not win a mandate to violate statutes.
01:20He said he was going to follow the law. The law says that you cannot share information.
01:26Are you going to abide by that law? If you look at advocacy's charter statute
01:34and how it's changed over time, it's clear that, number one, advocacy has a special hiring
01:39authority, as you said, and, number two, as you said, the authority lies with the Chief
01:42Counsel. Again, I'm going to read you the statute again.
01:47Your work is by statute not permitted to be submitted, quote, to the Office of Management
01:53and Budget or to any other federal agency or any executive office. Do you agree to abide
02:00by that law? Will you abide by that law? All the statutes related to the office, I
02:06will abide by. So you will not share that information with
02:09any other agency? Is that what you're saying? That's correct. The reports are according
02:14to statute and would be my practice to do is submit it to the Congress and to the President.
02:22What do you believe is your role in ensuring that congressional mandates are followed regardless
02:26of executive directives? Do congressional mandates take primacy if they're there as
02:32the abiding law? Thank you for your question. I'm not sure
02:38I understand the question. Are you referring to executive orders?
02:43The question is, do you believe that statutes that have been put on the books by House and
02:48Senate votes and signed by Presidents take precedence over executive directives?
02:55I'm confused by the question because I served in the first Trump administration and I followed
03:01the second one, and there are lots of executive orders. Every single one I've looked at, the
03:07primary instruction in those executive orders is for the people reading it to follow the
03:12laws of the United States. So you're saying that if there is a statute,
03:19that you will abide by that statute and not allow for an executive order?
03:25Yes, I would do that. I would expect, as President Trump has done almost 300 times in the past,
03:29to tell me to follow the laws of the United States.
03:34You do believe statutes then are at a higher order than executive orders in terms of what
03:41you must obey?
03:42I'm confused because the executive orders themselves say to follow the laws of the United
03:46States. So I don't see the conflict.
03:49All right. Well, sometimes Presidents, when they're making executive orders, believe that
03:54they are the law, even though there's a statute which is very clear as to what the law is.
04:01So that's the point that I'm making to you, and I will be holding you to that standard.
04:08Will you use loyalty tests, Mr. Mulligan, or any other criteria unrelated to an employee's
04:13work product when making hiring or firing decisions?
04:18Thank you for your question. The advocacy officers we created, and if I were confirmed,
04:25would be my goal as well, to be an independent voice for small business in Washington. So
04:31the hiring decisions, procurement decisions, all the decisions will be around how can we
04:35better be an independent voice for small business with the agencies here in Washington.
04:41Have you met with the team at advocacy yet?
04:44I have not been in the building. They have a, I think we call it a Sherpa, who's helped
04:49me find my way to your office and the different Senators' offices for the meetings. But I
04:54have not met the staff yet.
04:56We've heard stories of specific industries meeting at Mar-a-Lago and getting special
05:01treatment from the administration. Do you agree that that creates market distortions
05:10when special treatment is handed out and it's not an even-handed application of the law?
05:16I'm a little confused by the question. I haven't been to Mar-a-Lago. I'm not sure what businesses
05:20are going there, what conversations are had. I'd be glad to look in detail at what you're
05:25referring to. But in the abstract, I don't really understand the question.
05:29It's very clear that if someone visits Mar-a-Lago and then the President says give special treatment
05:36to one particular company, that that would obviously begin to create a market distortion
05:43because it would not be an equal application of the law that the SBA is supposed to be
05:50discharging.
05:51I'm also confused by that. I apologize. I'm confused by that question. You gave legal
05:57terms in there and economic terms like market distortion. I'm not quite sure the connection.
06:02I'm not a lawyer. I do understand the idea of market distortions. I've read many, many
06:08articles about market distortions. I'm not quite sure how they apply in the situation
06:13you're describing.
06:14Thank you, Mr. Chairman.