During Thursday's town hall in Pittsburgh, PA, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) discussed Elon Musk's role in DOGE and his relationship with the president.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The Elon Musk thing is the most bizarre situation that I've ever experienced in my entire life.
00:30I can tell you that as an American and a student of history, not even I could have conceptualized that we would ever be in a position like we are right now.
00:39And when I talk about like, I think we've been underreacting, the moment I realized that we had been grossly underreacting is funny enough when I saw Elon Musk in the Oval Office with his kid.
00:50Like that's just an imagery that you have never seen in the three United States of America.
00:55And it was startling and it should be startling to you.
00:58Because we don't have, and I know a lot of people disagree with the words oligarch or things of that nature, but this is what that is.
01:04A government where people are able to buy their way into power and into influence.
01:10And that's what he's been doing. He has been purchasing his way into the White House.
01:14And we saw him do it step by step, but not just into the White House, he also purchases ways into your phone and onto your TVs.
01:21Losing Twitter, losing social media is one of the deepest cuts that we, that Democrats, that anybody who is for democracy or respective of their political affiliation have experienced.
01:33And we're going to have to address that and we're going to have to find ways of counteracting that.
01:37I have a bill, what we're working on right now, I don't think I'm allowed to say I have a bill.
01:40We have a bill that we are working on right now, for instance, because money in politics is really important to me.
01:44I think that if you care about environmental justice or you care about common sense gun control or you care about equitable funding for education or whatever it may be that brings you to your politics, then money in politics should be the most important thing to you.
01:58Because right now we are seeing historic levels of spending and every election cycle we are seeing it harder and harder for people, every voter, one person, one vote, that concept is being thrown away.
02:10We saw last year in two primaries the most expensive House primaries in the history of the country.
02:16And every year they spend more and more, over $20 million in primaries, hundreds of millions of dollars in general elections.
02:24We saw a candidate for president raise a billion dollars and still lost.
02:29So that type of money is corrupting.
02:33And had we not had Citizens United in the first place, had we bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans all stood up together and said we don't want the influence of that money in our politics, we wouldn't be where we are today.
02:46So one of the bills that we are looking, we have a couple actually that we're about to roll out, but one of them, for instance, specifically for Elon Musk, that you should not be able to spend money on a candidate and then also buy yourself a job in the White House.
03:02That is a bill that we are looking to introduce.
03:08And yeah, we understand money is speech, yeah, but there are limits on everything.
03:13And right now where somebody was able to spend $100 million and then find himself in the Oval Office is unconscionable.
03:19And we can't put a stop to that.
03:21We also want to make sure that we're overturning Citizens United.
03:24Corporations are not people.
03:26Corporations are not people.
03:28And they should not have more of a voice than you do.
03:29I am somebody who has been on the receiving end of millions and millions and millions of dollars.
03:35And they don't have to vet, they don't have to tell the truth.
03:38They can distort the truth, but they can get into your living rooms, they can get onto your phones.
03:43If you remember my first election, you probably remember it.
03:45You couldn't escape the ads because of how much money was spent.
03:49But there is no fact check that comes with a campaign ad, right?
03:53There's no fact check that comes with any of the mailers that come onto your house.
03:56So we have to make it harder for people to buy our politics.
04:01And we know that the districts that are easiest to do it in are the poorest ones.
04:05Poor districts, working class districts.
04:07If we want to have a representative democracy, then we have to be serious about getting that sort of campaign dollars, those dollars out of our politics.
04:14And that's why that is the number one issue for me.
04:16Not that I don't care about racial justice or economic justice.
04:18Not that I don't care about the price of eggs.
04:20I absolutely care about the price of eggs.
04:22And I know that we're not changing that until we get them out of our politics.
04:24I love it.