Robert Garcia Torches GOP For Holding DOGE Hearing And Ignoring Markets Crashing From Tariffs

2 days ago

At a House DOGE Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-TX) spoke about President Trump's tariffs.

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Transcript

00:00Gentleman Yields, I now recognize Mr. Garcia from California for five minutes.

00:06Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you to our witnesses. I think we're again here at another

00:10hearing where House Republicans are trying to help Elon Musk get cover for looting our federal

00:16government. Doge and so far this committee has not been about efficiency or better services.

00:21It's been attack on programs that we rely on from public health to Medicaid to the Department of

00:26Education and of course now to office space and we all know that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are

00:31attacking all the safeguards designed to make sure they just can't sell our government assets to their

00:36own companies but they can also sell them to their friends. Our committee is ignoring the biggest

00:41threat from the Trump administration so far and that is a horrific economic plan, Magonomics.

00:48Now Mr. Kendall, we've been hearing testimony complaining that the federal government spent

00:524.6 billion dollars on furniture since 2021. Do you know how much the U.S. businesses will pay

01:00every year in tariffs under Donald Trump's plan? Any idea? No, sir, I do not. Okay, well the U.S.

01:06businesses will be paying 654 billion dollars a year and that number will rise and that's just in one

01:13year. That number of course is enormously much larger than anything that we ever spend in furniture.

01:19We're looking at the biggest tax increase in over 50 years. Now Mr. Kendall, the total value of all

01:25property held by the federal government is about 330 billion as stated. Is that correct?

01:32I have no basis to challenge that number. Okay, great. So do you know how much wealth has been wiped

01:36out from the stock market in just two days after Donald Trump's tariff announcement? Any idea,

01:41Mr. Kendall? It's in the trillions but I don't know. Around 6.6 trillion dollars. So I want to make sure what

01:46people should be understanding here. Last week we had the largest two-day stock market fall

01:52in history. We're talking about furniture and office space while people are losing their retirement

01:58accounts, while the stock market is crashing, while Medicaid is under attack, while health care costs

02:05are going up. We know that retirement accounts are being wiped out right now as we are holding this

02:10hearing. Companies, many of them, are no longer able to invest. People are losing their jobs and we're

02:16here talking about furniture while Donald Trump is destroying the economy. We also know that predicting

02:23a recession, which many are now doing, is looking more and more likely, which we hope of course doesn't

02:29actually happen. And while all this was happening and Donald Trump was imposing his tariffs plan

02:34and the prices of almost everything, groceries, housing, clothing, computers can be expected to go

02:40up, Donald Trump of course the next day left to go play golf. Now Mr. Kendall, were you aware that as

02:47the markets were crashing, Donald Trump the next day went out to play a few rounds of golf?

02:53I do read the paper so I didn't know that. And perhaps maybe instead he should have been working

02:58with world leaders or allies to actually work on the tariff crisis, but instead of course,

03:04he was of course on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, which is a very conservative paper

03:08as we know. I think it's clear that Donald Trump could care less about the harm he's doing,

03:13doesn't care about American workers or the community, and unfortunately Republicans in Congress

03:18want to debate office space and furniture while the president torches our own American economy

03:24and the global economy. We have businesses right now back in my district and across the country

03:30that are getting hammered and suffering and firing employees, but instead we're continuing to have

03:36these really unfortunate I think hearings. It's crazy, it's cowardly, we should stop the tariffs now and

03:42with that I yield back.

Robert Garcia Torches GOP For Holding DOGE Hearing And Ignoring Markets Crashing From Tariffs

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