Jamie Raskin: 'Donald Trump Received Millions Of Dollars From The Chinese Government'

last year

At a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about defending America from the CCP.

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Transcript

00:00Welcome to our witnesses.

00:02The majority has convened a hearing on

00:04defending America from the Chinese Communist Party's political warfare.

00:08This is paradoxical because our colleagues have spent the last 18 months spreading

00:14disinformation from Alexander Smirnoff that Moscow and Beijing have clearly used as

00:19political warfare against America as part of their collapsed impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

00:26All over the world,

00:28from the autocrats in Moscow to the communist bureaucrats in mainland China to the theocrats in Saudi Arabia,

00:34the enemies of constitutional democracy and freedom seek to destabilize the American government.

00:39The tyrants of the world are targeting Joe Biden and promoting Donald Trump, who has

00:45fawningly described President Xi as a brilliant man,

00:49who has called Vladimir Putin a genius, and who has said he fell in love with Kim Jong-un.

00:55While Donald Trump has described President Xi as a very good man, China is in fact an

01:01authoritarian police state and violator of the human rights and civil liberties of hundreds of millions of people.

01:07President Xi has persecuted,

01:10incarcerated, and oppressed the Tibetans, the Uyghurs, and the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

01:16Xi has made common cause with his fellow tyrants, forming a no-limits alliance

01:22with Putin's Russia just a few weeks before Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine in

01:292022.

01:30Beijing maintains a defense treaty with Pyongyang and is a key ally to Kim Jong-un, a

01:36third-generation dictator and communist monarch who presides over a

01:42totalitarian dungeon for his people. At our last hearing on the CCP's political warfare,

01:47Professor Tim Snyder explained how Chinese propaganda ploys have succeeded because certain American officials,

01:54including sadly some members of this committee, have parroted Russian and

01:59Chinese state disinformation. In The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum describes how the CCP's political propaganda

02:06against the U.S. both undermines

02:08American faith in our own political institutions and helps to

02:12consolidate domestic

02:14repression in China. As she puts it,

02:17quote, if people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom,

02:23then those concepts have to be poisoned. That requires more than surveillance, more than close observation of the population,

02:31more than a political system that defends against liberal ideas. It also requires an offensive plan, a

02:38narrative that damages both the idea of

02:41democracy everywhere in the world and the tools to deliver it. Far from opposing these autocrats,

02:47Donald Trump has joined them in attacking our democracy by promoting utterly debunked claims of election fraud and

02:55orchestrating a lawless and violent campaign to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020

03:01presidential election. He has openly stated his desire to pardon

03:05criminal insurrectionists and to rule as a dictator,

03:08using government not for the common good, but to pursue his political enemies and to enrich himself and his family. As

03:15President Donald Trump received millions of dollars from the Chinese government and state-owned companies to say nothing of the valuable trademarks

03:23Chinese authorities rushed to grant him and his family. In exchange, he opposed sanctions

03:28against Chinese telecom companies and banks, even when they threatened our national security.

03:33He assured President Xi that sending Uyghurs to forced labor camps was, quote,

03:38exactly the right thing to do, and that violently cracking down on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong was acting very responsibly.

03:46He even tried to cancel

03:49military exercises with Japan and South Korea because China complained about it.

03:54While Donald Trump has proclaimed that he and Xi love each other, the Biden-Harris administration has responded forcefully

04:00to the political security and economic challenges posed by the CCP. As Secretary

04:05Blinken put it, the U.S. relationship with China is the biggest geopolitical test of this century.

04:11The Biden administration has shored up our democratic institutions to withstand attacks from autocrats and

04:17strengthen our alliances with democracies both in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

04:21While Trump has said he would encourage Russia to, quote, do whatever the hell they want to any NATO member country that doesn't meet

04:28spending guidelines on defense,

04:30President Biden has established AUKUS, a security pact with Australia, the UK, and the U.S. to help sustain peace in the Indo-Pacific.

04:39Domestically, bills championed by

04:41congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Biden,

04:44including the Inflation Reduction Act, the

04:47Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Chips and Signs Act are investing in American workers in innovation, creating hundreds of thousands of

04:54manufacturing jobs here, and establishing domestic supply chains in strategic

05:00industries. These are big wins not just for our economy, but for our national security.

05:05President Trump has idolized and emulated dictators like Xi and Putin and worked to move our country

05:11towards authoritarianism and away from democracy and the rule of law. In stark contrast, the Biden-Harris administration

05:17recognizes the key to out-competing the People's Republic of China lies in defending the extraordinary journey of American democracy,

05:25the enduring strength of our international relationships, and the revitalization of our economic competitiveness.

05:30I look forward to exploring these themes with our expert witnesses, including our distinguished former colleague Tom Malinowski.

05:37Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Jamie Raskin: 'Donald Trump Received Millions Of Dollars From The Chinese Government'

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