Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi
speaker
221 appearances
16 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard May 2025
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Vance and Elon Musk are starting to set up. But the reason they're doing it is to build the case to defy court orders. And among all of the terrible things that have been going on during the first three weeks, Ben, that would be a true constitutional crisis that we have never faced before.
Well, there are a number of different things that we are trying to do. Really, all of them are directed at putting pressure on the Republicans. I understand everyone's frustration. Certainly we are incredibly frustrated. That doesn't even begin to describe the emotions that I feel about what's going on.
And we are out there holding press conferences, gaining attention, amplifying the lawlessness that's going on, the true effort by Elon Musk and Donald Trump to dismantle and overtake our government, undermine Congress and our power at the purse. Ultimately, Donald Trump doesn't have another election. Elon Musk is not an elected official.
They care far less about public outcry than a Republican senator or a Republican member of Congress who does have an election coming up. And ultimately, a lot of what we're doing in the courts is to stop or at least slow down everything that's going on so that we can figure out what is going on. Part of the reason why all these judges are ruling against the Trump administration
is no one has any idea what Musk is doing with his teenage minions behind the scenes. And we get little bits and pieces of, oh, it's only their access to our entire federal government pay system is only access only. But we have no idea whether that's true and what that means. We don't know what the national security implications are here.
We don't know whether personal information data is going to be used by Musk, you know, for his X to his algorithm through AI to target Americans with specific ways. I mean, there's so many different things that could happen and we don't know.
But ultimately, it is incumbent upon the congressional Republicans to make a decision as to whether or not they want Congress to continue as a legitimate branch of the federal government. Are they willing to neutralize, to eliminate their own power in fealty to Donald Trump.
And so a lot of what we are doing is working with all those on the outside, building opposition, making our voices heard, because that will have an impact on Republicans in Congress, even if it doesn't have as much of an impact on Donald Trump. And at some point, these Republicans are going to see the poll numbers going down for Trump, going down for their party, going down for themselves.
And they're going to have to make a decision. Am I going to continue to be a spineless wimp and just do whatever Donald Trump says to me, even though that's against the authority that I have right now? It undermines that authority. Or do I want to get reelected? And for a lot of my colleagues, reelection is a big motivator. And so that's really where our efforts are geared to make them stand up.
And Speaker Johnson referenced yesterday that, you know, we have a process, we have a court, there's an appeal process that they can go through, but that we do need to make sure that the rule of law continues and that's by respecting court opinions.
I think it's important for your viewers to understand that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act targets effectively bribery of international governments by businesses that do business as well in the United States.
It would lead to complete lawlessness and it would allow the larger corporations to have an advantage economically over smaller businesses, both here and elsewhere in countries around the world. It would completely eviscerate the sort of equality that our economy is founded on, that business is founded on. It is a very, very important statute that levels the playing field, that stops corruption.
And it should be no surprise to any of us now that Donald Trump is trying to dismantle all forms of accountability against corruption. Taking out the FCPA is one. Firing all the inspectors general is another. He fired yesterday the director of the Office of Government Ethics. He has consistently been he's fired all sorts of prosecutors and FBI agents who have tried to hold him accountable.
He actually said yesterday that the January 6th defendants were victims of an attack by law enforcement. that they were not the ones who actually assaulted law enforcement. He is literally trying to whitewash history and to convince Americans that what they see with their own eyes is not what they're really seeing. And of course, we all know what that's for, Ben, and why he's doing that.
As he is installing Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, people who have made already representations and sworn to do his dirty work. He does not want there to be any accountability for their efforts at revenge and retribution to allow him to effectively take full control of the federal government. That is what this process is setting up. And it is very clear that's where he's going.
Yeah, there are actual signs of hope. And I don't want everybody to be too discouraged. Your voice matters. Our voices matter. You look at what happened with the freeze of the Office of Management and Budget and all federal funding being frozen.
There was an uproar from everyday Americans all across the spectrum when their Social Security payments were stopped, when their SNAP food benefits were stopped, when the Medicare and Medicaid portals were not available. when every single nonprofit organization that depends on already promised government funding stopped receiving it. And they rescinded that memo.
So that is yet another example of how our voices can matter. The courts so far are encouraging, and I hope they hold. And then, you know, we have a budget coming up. We have government funding is expiring March 14th. And traditionally the Republicans have been unable to pass a budget themselves, even though they're in the majority.
And so if they do come to us to seek our help to fund, you know, to get this budget across, they're going to have to be open to putting some of our priorities in there. And so at that point, we get to have some leverage to take some corrective action against all of these lawless efforts.
Well, thanks for having me, Ben. It's always great to be with you. And thanks to all your subscribers for being engaged. How we save our democracy is everybody leaning in a little bit more. Don't put your head under the pillow as tempting as it is. We've got to fight back and we've got to fight back hard.
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