Lee Warns Her Constituents: Trump Wants You To Believe He Has The Ability To ‘Cut Whatever He Wants’

yesterday

During Thursday's town hall in Pittsburgh, PA, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) discussed President Trump's federal funding cuts and the importance of a fair and balanced government.

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Transcript

00:00So, just really quickly, I want to know how many of you all are someone who stands

00:04to lose your benefits or know someone who has lost their benefits?

00:07Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Veterans Affairs.

00:13How many of you are a federal worker or know a federal worker who may have lost their jobs?

00:19Know someone who has benefited from cancer research?

00:26The Trump administration wants you to think that he has a mandate to do these things.

00:30He wants you to believe that because of an election result that he has the power or he

00:34has the ability to go through and slash and cut whatever he wants.

00:38And what he is counting on is that there will be no pushback.

00:41He's counting on the fact that even with all three branches of government, the House, the

00:45Senate, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court, that there is nobody who will stand

00:50in his pathway to stop him on his journey to erode and to claw back and to cut back

00:56everything that we care about and that we love.

00:58Why we're having this is because we're here to say that that is not true, that there is

01:02still, that there is still on today, the final failsafe in our democracy.

01:09It is the people.

01:10It is the people.

01:11We're here today to talk through this town hall, not just to give you information to

01:14take your questions, but to also to remind you all where power still lies in this system.

01:19What we've seen over the last couple of months has been irresponsible.

01:22It's been chaotic.

01:24It's been cruel on purpose.

01:26Don't believe that just because something is cruel that it can't also be incompetent

01:29at the same time.

01:30Just that because something seems to be wrong that they can't also not know what they're doing.

01:35Of the thousands of federal cuts we saw, we have also saw things that have happened to

01:40turn it back.

01:41So when people, I know one of the questions you all are going to ask is, what are we doing?

01:45What is happening?

01:46How are we fighting back?

01:47Well, listen, legislative is one way.

01:49We know that there aren't going to be many bills that are going to put a check on Donald

01:53Trump's power that he's going to sign into law.

01:56And we recognize that.

01:57And it will not stop us, and it cannot stop us.

01:59We also know that throughout history, history tells us that where we see movement in our

02:04government, whether it's the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act or women's suffrage

02:08or rights for queer and trans people, whatever it has been, it has always come from the people.

02:14It has always come from organized people, an educated electorate, and an empowered voting

02:19electorate.

02:20And that's why we are spending the time to make sure that you all have every tool that

02:23you need and that I have every tool that I need.

Lee Warns Her Constituents: Trump Wants You To Believe He Has The Ability To ‘Cut Whatever He Wants’

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