During her town hall on Saturday, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) spoke about the Trump Administration's proposed spending cuts.
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00:00You are a star, as far as I'm concerned.
00:03I'm so glad.
00:08Well, thank you, Gwen.
00:09I want to say to you guys, I was very lucky when I picked up Novi.
00:13Gwen was one of the very first people that I met.
00:17And she has taught me.
00:21One of the things that's going on right now is there's so much happening.
00:28It's total chaos.
00:30And you don't know where to focus, and you don't know how to be effective.
00:34And there are a thousand things that are impacting what you care about every day.
00:41And you've got to figure out how to be smart, understand what the issues are,
00:45to fight for the people you represent, what matters the most, and be effective.
00:51And Gwen was in Washington, and she brought up the municipal violence issue.
00:55And I had people tell me that's not important.
00:58And I'm like, yes, it is.
01:00It matters to my local people.
01:02And it's how we're going to finance.
01:04And you've got to make it a priority.
01:06And that's what happens when we all communicate on a regular basis at the federal, state, and local level.
01:15So I want to just tell you how glad I am to be here with everybody.
01:22Rosemary's been at the most town halls meetings with me of anybody.
01:27And a lot of these town halls have had, we've had ones with thousands of people.
01:35We've had hundreds at almost all of them because people really, really care.
01:41And, you know, yesterday I was speaking at something, and I told everybody, okay, I'm going to end on Friday feeling hopeful.
01:52We had two kind of, I mean, you can't take a win for more than an hour because you're not sure if it's going to be what's true this hour will be true on Monday.
02:02But having said that, you know, the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, community colleges are in this district.
02:12And we've had a significant number of international students who had their student visas polled.
02:20They don't, I did a letter with all of the Democrats from the Michigan delegation because it impacted every college and university in the state.
02:31And, one, they don't even notify people when it's happening.
02:37They don't notify the school.
02:38The school has to go to the list and pull it down.
02:41They don't know what it means.
02:42They're getting these, they're finding out in this bizarre way three weeks before graduation.
02:48Some were supposed to graduate.
02:50Some, they, it's total chaos.
02:52And you can't figure, to everybody's knowledge, and I've talked to all the colleges and universities, not that it would be a reason.
03:02Free speech is one of the most fundamental rights that we have in this country.
03:07But, from what we have seen, none of them were connected to Gaza.
03:17I mean, it, one woman had nothing on her record, but had been the victim of domestic assault.
03:24So, she had had, and that's just plain immorally wrong.
03:27You know, when a woman in Van Buren went to the police because she had been assaulted, she got by ice.
03:35But, the students' visas yesterday in the courts were restored for the moment.
03:41And then, one of the things that I was very upset about, too, and I was actually speaking on Women's Health, a Women's Health Symposium at Michigan,
03:52is something that I fought long and hard for before I ever got elected to Congress in the 80s and the 90s,
03:58was to have, believe it or not, women, because we had hormones, we are more than 50% of the population.
04:07But, in the 80s until the early 90s, we're not included in any federally funded research, because we had hormones.
04:18And, yeah, I know.
04:20And, Bernadine Healy started a Women's Health Initiative, and they announced that they were stopping it
04:26and eliminating all the funding at the beginning of the week.
04:29And, the Secretary of HHS restored that and said that that wouldn't happen.
04:34So, you've got to take your wins every day and know that you've got to be focused.
04:42You've got to know what you're fighting for.
04:45You've got to, it's everybody, and I want to hear what you think.
04:48We've been listening to everybody, and they're worried, and they're scared,
04:53and they want to know who the leaders are and who's out there fighting.
04:56It's the collective we.
04:58And, I could go through what the last months have been like when grants got frozen.
05:07First, the DEI grants, and I met with an NIH researcher who had been fired for her drug study
05:15because her description of the population that was to be included included the phrase reflect about the population,
05:23including African Americans.
05:25She was fired because that was the description of that study.
05:29That happened over the weekend.
05:31They froze all grants where Head Start and SNAP and many other programs were impacted.
05:38And the collective we made enough noise across the country, those grants began to be put.
05:45Any government grants that had been were restored.
05:49Now, there's a lot that we are fighting for.
05:52These EO orders are scary.
05:55Money that we voted for in appropriations is, even though we have appropriated it, isn't being spent.
06:03And DOGE is the most outrageous violation of people's privacy, and too many it is.
06:13And I'll tell you something.
06:15There's a decided generational difference between young people who give out everything
06:22and don't care who has their information
06:24and have no idea how their information is being weaponized in a thousand different ways.
06:31And it's going to come.
06:32We've got to protect people's privacy.
06:35So it's the collective we that's going to keep fighting every single day.
06:40And the current, so when I return to Washington, I've been home for two weeks.
06:46I've done a lot of town halls with, it's the last town hall for two weeks,
06:51but we'll do another one when we're home next weekend.
06:56We'll begin the reconciliation process.
06:59And as we begin, we pass the budget.
07:02We is not the word I should use because I and every Democrat in the House of Representatives voted against it.
07:11We should.
07:16And they're going to have a very hard time meeting this budget,
07:19and that's what the reconciliation process is.
07:22So how are you going to meet that?
07:24And they are going to try to cut Medicaid.
07:27President Trump says,
07:29I'm not going to cut Social Security.
07:33I'm not going to cut Medicare.
07:35I'm not going to cut Medicaid.
07:37Well, let's start with Social Security.
07:38When you close 1,000 offices, fire 7,000 people,
07:43make it impossible or difficult for a senior to go to a senior Social Security office
07:49or get a telephone call answered.
07:51When the acting secretary of Social Security says,
07:55I'm going to shut the agency down,
07:57and when the secretary of commerce says,
07:59my mother can afford a billionaire,
08:02my mother can afford to miss a Social Security check,
08:05and anybody who complains is fraudulent,
08:07shows you what bullshit it is
08:09and how this administration doesn't understand
08:12how seniors live day to day
08:14and that they are cutting Social Security,
08:17they are impacting Social Security,
08:19and that we must fight back.
08:22And so when we go back,
08:30I'm on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
08:32It is my committee that is going to be leading this fight.
08:36I'm going to be one of the leaders.
08:38They, the Republicans,
08:40have told the Energy and Commerce Committee
08:43that they have to cut $880 billion out of Medicaid.
08:50Well, you know what?
08:52They can't do it and not impact Medicaid.
08:54So the president says he's not going to hurt Medicaid.
08:57He is.
08:58And that is what we need to be the loudest about right now.
09:03So I'm going to take four votes from the Republican side.
09:08There have been about a dozen Republicans
09:09that have said that they won't.
09:11But our rural hospitals aren't going to exist.
09:15They will go out of business.
09:17Seventy-five percent of the children at Children's Hospital in Detroit
09:21are on Medicaid.
09:23I was at the asthma doctor in Ann Arbor,
09:27and a mother with a child in a wheelchair
09:29just burst into tears with me
09:31and said,
09:33if they cut Medicaid,
09:35will I still be able to bring my child
09:37to get medical care?
09:38I was at Michigan yesterday,
09:40and I told David Miller, the head of it,
09:42I said I promised that Michigan would still take care of you, David,
09:46because we can't let a mother down like that.
09:49Nursing homes,
09:50the largest payer of long-term care in this country
09:54is Medicaid.
09:55Are we going to kick seniors out on the street
09:58from nursing homes?
09:59We're not.
10:00And all of us and my colleagues
10:03are going to fight like hell
10:04to protect Social Security,
10:07Medicare, and Medicaid.
10:08That's where the focus needs to be
10:10for the next couple of weeks
10:12as we go into these budget battles.
10:14And we need it,
10:15and we all know it,
10:16and we're going to all fight like hell.
10:19Yeah.
10:22That's all there is it.
10:25So who's got the mic?
10:27Alexa's got the mic.
10:28Some people with questions,
10:29come on up.
10:35Will Medicaid be part of reconciliation,
10:39and can they cut it without the 60, 70, 40 votes?
10:43That's a couple of questions.
10:45Medicaid will be part of reconciliation,
10:47which is why we're fighting it Tuesday now.
10:50It starts at E&C,
10:51and then it'll go to the House.
10:52Reconciliation is the one process
10:56that is not subject to culture or to...
11:01So we're going to have to worry
11:03about how we handle it.
11:05What we've got to do,
11:06if any of you have friends in districts
11:10that may not have somebody like me
11:12as your representative,
11:14you need to be going and talking to them.
11:16You need to put the human face
11:18on who is going to be hurt,
11:22and we're going to...
11:22We should not and cannot accept it.
11:27They keep saying they're not going to cut it.
11:29Well, let's see what's going to happen.
11:31But the target for the Energy and Commerce Committee,
11:34given by leadership,
11:35the only way it can happen is to cut Medicaid,
11:38and we will fight tooth and nail to let that happen,
11:41and I will be doing amendments
11:43that put every Republican on record
11:46about what they're willing to cut
11:48to their constituents to not do.
11:54Just to be sure you know,
11:56it's $880 billion in the reconciliation budget.