Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) joined Forbes senior editor Maggie McGrath to talk about Trump administration cuts to USAID, the risk these cuts pose to female students from Afghanistan studying abroad, and why she's calling for members of Congress to have security training.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everyone. I'm Maggie McGrath, Senior Editor at Forbes. Trump administration cuts
00:07to the U.S. Agency for International Development are putting Afghan female students studying
00:12abroad on U.S. scholarships at risk for being returned to the Taliban-controlled country.
00:18Last week, those students were told they would have the scholarships until June 30, but their
00:22future after that is in question. Joining us now to discuss this issue is U.S. Congresswoman
00:28Chrissy Houlihan. She represents Pennsylvania's 6th District and is an Air Force veteran.
00:33Representative, welcome.
00:34Thank you. Thanks for having me.
00:36So as I said, there's been a temporary State Department extension on some of these cuts
00:40until June 30th, but there are students studying abroad on scholarships. What happens after
00:46June 30th to these Afghan women?
00:49You know, I think you and I are not necessarily qualified to guess that, given sort of the
00:56erratic nature of this administration and the haphazard approach that they've taken
01:01to a lot of things, this included in terms of having, you know, a hundred and some Afghan
01:08students who happen to be women who are subject to the whims of this administration. And it's
01:15confounding, to be honest. And it's also in this particular case, it's dangerous as well.
01:20So if those young women are sent back at whatever date they're sent back, it's not only at,
01:26you know, the detriment of their education and their advancement, but it's also in some
01:29cases physically dangerous to them to return to what amounts to an apartheid state for
01:35women.
01:38You have a lot of policy goals. Where does this factor in for you and what do your efforts
01:43on this issue look like?
01:45So this kind of hits on almost everything that I work on here in Washington. I do work
01:50a lot on women and girls and STEM and STEAM education in particular. I'm a former educator
01:56myself. I taught high school chemistry. I also am an engineer myself. And so the value
02:02of a good and strong education, particularly for women and girls, is very, very important
02:07to me personally. In fact, just about an hour ago, we passed a piece of legislation on the
02:11House floor, unanimously about mathematical and statistical modeling for K-12 education.
02:18It was a passion project of mine. I'm also a veteran. I come from a military family,
02:23and it is fully appreciated the importance of that region, of the world, and the fact
02:28that we've had a 20 or so year war, including for some of that, that I was active duty during
02:35Desert Storm. And so I think the sort of fate of the Afghani people and the Afghan women
02:42is an important one to me personally, and also from a national security perspective.
02:48And then of course, just the general, as I mentioned, kind of erratic decision-making
02:55process in the early days of this new administration is something that I spend a great deal of
03:00time on. I just got off the phone with one of the largest mushroom producers in the world.
03:05My district is the mushroom capital of the world, and we were having a conversation about
03:10tariffs and their effect on agriculture on again, off again, on again, off again, in
03:15the same way that these young women are experiencing it in the case of the mushroom industry, costing
03:19them hundreds of thousands of dollars every day with on again, off again, you know, policies.
03:24And in this case with women and their education, as I mentioned, the stakes are sometimes their
03:29lives.
03:31We will have to have a separate conversation about mushroom tariffs because the back and
03:35forth on that issue has been incredibly frustrating to say the least, I think, to a number of
03:40business owners. But when you look at the cuts to USAID, I'm wondering, is there any
03:45merit to what the Trump administration is doing? Does it feel like there's a broader
03:50thesis that will benefit America here?
03:53It's really hard to find a thesis that holds any sort of water here, any sort of hypothesis
03:59of why some of the best money that we can possibly spend, the most effective money that
04:04we can possibly spend, is on the front end of a crisis, crises.
04:10And instead of doing that, which has been tried and true throughout our history, we've
04:15had 80 or so years of peace through this kind of diplomacy and this sort of humanitarian
04:20aid, as well as, of course, a strong military to back it up as well.
04:24The idea that we would unravel USAID, you know, in a matter of weeks and months and
04:32without any sort of real comprehensive look across the landscape and trying to figure
04:37out, you know, what is worthy of cutting back on and what isn't, you're seeing it in
04:44kind of the opportunities that I think China, in particular, is seeing coming out of
04:50this, coming right into where we're leaving and we're leaving a vacuum and they're
04:54coming in. So, no, I can't really find any hypothesis that makes any sense other than a
05:00real understanding that the American people feel as though they would like to make
05:05sure that we're focused internally on us and that we would like to be responsible to
05:10the taxpayer, make sure that there is no fraud, waste and abuse in any area.
05:16And that I understand.
05:18I really do genuinely understand that it's my responsibility and the responsibility of
05:22our government to be here and make important and smart decisions on behalf of the
05:27American people for their domestic tranquility and their national security as well.
05:32And that's, in fact, what has happened.
05:34That's, I think, what the frustrating part for me as a lawmaker is, is it these aren't
05:38haphazard decisions of where USAID, you know, is or isn't.
05:42This isn't haphazard decisions over the VA or DOD or USDA or FDA or any of those other
05:49places. That's what we do here in Congress.
05:52And that's what the agencies do over time with their appropriated funding and to come
05:57in and have what appears to be a singular group of unqualified humans come in and just,
06:03you know, hack away at these and then redo and undo them is just it's it's honestly
06:09it's fraud, waste and abuse.
06:10You're watching it happen.
06:12I spoke to the CEO of a global organization that works with refugee resettlements
06:17earlier, and her comment was that it's a threat to national security, effectively,
06:23because our partners around the world look to see if America keeps its promises when
06:28working with people like in Afghanistan.
06:30As a veteran, as a congresswoman, what is your perspective on that statement?
06:35Absolutely the same. I had a chance to be at the Munich Security Conference a few weeks
06:40ago when I was in the audience when Vice President Vance gave a excoriating speech
06:47about the EU and NATO.
06:50And you could have heard a pin drop and the repercussions felt around the world for our
06:55NATO allies, for those who we are forming alliances with in the Indo-Pacific, for those
07:00who may or may not choose to join us in alliances in Africa or other or other nations.
07:06What they heard, what I heard was that America can't be counted on.
07:11And that is absolutely a threat to national security because we have to be good to our
07:17word, good for our word.
07:20And you can bet that what people heard coming from J.D.
07:22Vance's, from Vice President Vance's speech in Munich was heard in Asia, was heard by
07:28President Xi, was heard by Taiwan and the Taiwanese government.
07:33All of those kinds of things.
07:35The world is very, very small and they have huge implications.
07:39Now, a little bit earlier, you mentioned the V.A.
07:41and you recently wrote on social media that our country owes a great debt to those who
07:46have served in our armed forces.
07:48Unfortunately, the Trump administration is turning its back on our veterans by stripping
07:53away essential resources from the V.A.
07:55What are you seeing specifically in your district and what needs to be done to
08:00counteract these measures?
08:02So I don't think we've seen the final shoe drop on this.
08:06There has been the beginning indications of, I think, what will be a pretty massive loss
08:11of jobs. And remember that many of the jobs who serve veterans are held by veterans.
08:16So it's estimated that about one in four people who hold a job with the V.A.
08:20are veterans themselves.
08:22Let's assume that those cuts that we're hearing that are coming, 80,000 or so people
08:28will come. They will come right out of the opportunities for good health and good lives
08:34that my veterans in Coatesville experience.
08:36I have a V.A. hospital right in Coatesville that is one of the nation's oldest,
08:41actually. And what we've already seen, even before this final shoe drops, is we've
08:47already seen some degradation in care.
08:50And let me give you some specifics.
08:52Some people have been asked who are in the mental health space to return to office.
08:57What does that mean? They return to offices that can't accommodate them in spaces that
09:03are too small for all of them.
09:05These are mental health professionals and they are now being told that they have to
09:08return to their office, to an office where they're sitting in banks of phones, where
09:13they're providing mental health counseling to veterans, sometimes by phone, sometimes
09:19as we're speaking to one another.
09:22And the idea that a veteran will consider his or her case secure and private when
09:29there is a phone bank of people who are sitting on card tables in some cases, you
09:34know, processing calls, it's false.
09:38You know, I can firsthand say that it's really important that people feel as though
09:43when they call in or they dial in that they have a private conversation with somebody.
09:48And so these consequences of return to work with no thought to where work is, is
09:53insane, especially in the mental health space.
09:56What will it take to give those workers enough space or provide the resources that the
10:04VA needs, in your opinion?
10:07Well, this gets back to kind of the beginning of our conversation with these with these
10:11young students from Afghanistan.
10:14Why are we making these kinds of choices in such a haphazard kind of a method,
10:20methodology?
10:22Why are we having a conversation after the fact about unwinding a decision that was
10:27made rather than making a deliberate decision and thinking hard about it?
10:32And that's been the case with the VA as well.
10:35Only, you know, this is it's really easy, I think, for Americans to kind of think, well,
10:40those are 100 women far away getting an education from a country that isn't the
10:45United States.
10:47We don't need to worry about that.
10:48But you can bet the minute that our veterans are being affected, there will be all kinds
10:54of people crying out for, you know, change.
10:58And that's why I really just want to prevent that from happening to begin with.
11:01You know, why why is this an OK process that we're going through?
11:05It's absolutely an untenable process.
11:07And as I mentioned, this is what our jobs are here in Congress.
11:11You know, my job on the Armed Services Committee is to go through a very painful
11:15appropriations process and a painful approval process of what our budget will look like
11:21for the military every year and where the money is going to go for the military every
11:25year. There's the same conversation that happens for the VA every year.
11:29And so we we have to be able to have our government work.
11:32And that doesn't mean that we have people coming kind of swooping in from the outside
11:37telling us what what we got wrong.
11:39And I think this is why I understand the American people and their American
11:44people's anxiety.
11:47People are, you know, approach me and say things like, well, I just don't understand.
11:51This is OK. We're just putting a pause on it for 90 days.
11:54We're just taking a look at what's happening and how we're spending things.
11:58And if that were true, I would understand that, that that's not indeed what's been
12:02happening. These are programs that in many cases have taken years.
12:05This is the third time that mathematical and statistical modeling bill that just passed
12:09today has passed in the House.
12:12And so hopefully this year it'll be the first time it passes in the Senate and it'll
12:16become a law. And so this is not, you know, some sort of overnight process where we can
12:20just undo all of the work that we've done.
12:23And I think that's one of the things I'm most worried about, particularly with our
12:26vets.
12:27There's the Silicon Valley move fast and break things thesis is being applied to the
12:33federal government right now that I think we're seeing the real time ramifications.
12:38Turning slightly, though, it kind of does relate overall to national security, which has
12:42been a theme of this conversation earlier today.
12:45You reiterated a call to have all government employees better trained on classified
12:51material. Can you explain why you put that letter out in the open today?
12:56Sure. And this is actually a specific call for our members of Congress to have security
13:01training. As a member of Congress, I get awarded, granted a top secret claim
13:07clearance just by being elected.
13:10There is no background check.
13:12There is no training process.
13:14And I come from a military background and I actually come from a background where I
13:18held a TSSCI clearance, as did my father, as did my mother, as did generations of my
13:24family. And that is something that I don't take for granted.
13:27Sometimes it takes as much as two years for somebody to go through the vetting process
13:31and then even more time to go through the sort of training process of what it means to
13:35hold some of the nation's most secret information in your hands and how you need to
13:39manage it so that people don't die.
13:42And so what I've been trying to accomplish here in Congress is, OK, I give up on us
13:47going through background checks.
13:48I've tried to get that as a requirement.
13:50But at a minimum, when we come to Congress, we should have annual training that tells
13:56us how to manage classified information and also who we can share it with and how we can
14:00share it. That's at a minimum, you know, bare minimum what we should be doing.
14:04And as you've seen today with the news coming out of the administration and coming out of
14:09some people who ought to know better and their background is significant enough that they
14:14do know better, that they have broken some of those laws.
14:18They have broken the trust and faith of the American people.
14:20And they have given information that in people's hands is deadly, deadly to Americans.
14:26And in my opinion, they ought to resign.
14:30Is there anyone specific that you would call to resign?
14:35You know, I'm still in the process of weeding through all of these exchanges.
14:39Literally, it's right in front of me to try to understand, you know, who to aim my
14:45hire at. But, you know, I do.
14:48I come from this family of service where if you do something like this and you know what
14:54you've done is wrong, you know, you you resign.
14:58And so I I don't know that I'm at this point ready to to name names because it looks as
15:03though there's more than a couple who ought to know better than that.
15:08Final question, you've referenced the concerns of your constituents and the American
15:13people throughout this conversation, and I'm just wondering if you've had any town hall
15:17town halls recently or anything else that you've been hearing from them that might.
15:21I know it's early, but you know that we might hear about in the midterms or just even
15:25over the course of this year.
15:26Anything that's popping to the top of your mind?
15:28Yes, I've been in office now for six years and we've held a town hall about every month,
15:34three to four weeks in between.
15:37We have held almost 100 town halls and our most recent in-person one was attended by
15:42700 people.
15:43And we also had to turn away what we estimated was four to six hundred more people
15:47because there weren't enough seats in the theater that we that we held it in.
15:52What I'm hearing from people is what I think you've heard in this conversation.
15:55There is definitely a group of people who understandably want to make sure that our
16:00government is working for them.
16:02I do, too. You know, want to make sure that people who are in this in this position are
16:05being good representatives and good leaders.
16:08I do, too. And there are also a lot of people who are very, very concerned with what
16:13they're seeing happening right now, particularly with Musk and his behavior, with the
16:20behavior of the Doge and with kind of the disconnectedness that you're seeing between the
16:25administration and Doge and their efforts.
16:27You know, we recently saw a piece of news that came out that said that that Elon was
16:35going to be briefed on the war plans for China.
16:38Like that makes no sense.
16:39Well, it turns out it made no sense for the administration either.
16:42But the fact that there was no communication or seemed to be no communication between
16:46Doge and the president is pretty darn alarming and auto alarm people.
16:51The idea that we will somehow clean this up afterwards.
16:54When I was at Munich, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of my colleagues on the other
16:58side of the aisle and ask them, you know, how how are you listening to your community
17:02who are worried about what's happening and and, you know, adjusting for the fact that
17:06people are losing their jobs, you know, in the V.A.
17:09or people are are not getting services at the national parks.
17:12And they said, well, we just figure it'll all work itself out that that Musk will get
17:17tired of Trump or Trump will get tired of Musk.
17:20You know that those things that are wrong will get unwound and you know that that
17:24Secretary Rubio will make it all better, you know, in the end.
17:27And if that's the way we're going to run the government, that's that's some pretty crazy
17:31stuff. And so I think that that's what the people in the town halls that I'm holding
17:36are also telling me is this is not how we run a government.
17:41And so I think it's really important that I that I do my best to as we've been doing in
17:45this conversation to learn and research and respond to the things as fast as they're
17:51happening to us all and try to make sure that we still have a republic at the end of all
17:56of this.
17:58Representative Chrissy Hohen, thank you so much for sitting down with Forbes today.
18:02We so appreciate your time and your insight.
18:04Thank you for having me.