IHIP News - Senate Dems Pull All-Nighter to FIGHT MAGA and Project 2025 Part 3

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Jen and Pump's are joined by 4 senators currently filibustering the Trump's OMB Nominee. In this episode they are joined by Senator Baldwin to discuss what needs to be done. Pre-order our new book, join our Patreon Cult, and more by clicking here: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've had it. We're only two and a half weeks in to convicted felon Donald Trump's second term. It is a nightmare, but today we are going to listen to the resistance. Let's welcome Senator Tammy Baldwin. So great to join you. Thanks for having me. Yes, we understand you guys have been doing an all-nighter, looking for good trouble, standing up to Project 2025 author and OMB nominee. Are you guys committed to voting no to every single remaining nominee that Trump has, considering what we've seen in these first two and a half weeks. Look, we have so many nominees in front of us who have said one thing in their one-on-one

interviews with us and then in front of the panel. Would you stand up against an illegal, unlawful order or directive and seen them fold. And it is so incredibly disappointing. And I think we have to show the American public who Donald Trump is selecting for these various positions. I took to the floor last night to speak out against Russell Vogt. Russell Vogt was one of the architects of Project 2025. And President Trump during the campaign said, oh, I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I don't know anything about it. And then he selects Russell Vogt, one of the primary architects, to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget. This is a role that can devastate and can implement Project 2025, which the president then said he had nothing to do with. This is really frightening stuff. And we're seeing it

unfold in real time, whether it's the OMB directive last week to pause and freeze federal funding, or whether it's things like the plans to shutter the Department of Education. And that's in Project 2025, that they want to eliminate the Department of Education. And I talked a lot about that on the floor last night because, you know, in Wisconsin, we rely on partnerships between local school districts, the state government and the Federal Department of Education to make our public schools run and work. And so this is very, very frightening. And we've got to be unified against Russell Vote. And that's what we plan on doing. That's why we held the floor all night. In fact, there's still people speaking on the floor this morning against Russell Vogt. Angie, what do you think the with the speed with which this is happening? Does that surprise you? Because even though I knew Trump would do all of these, excuse me,

would do all of these things and be petty and malicious against the American people. I have been surprised at the speed with which he has done it. And at the same time, do nothing about inflation. So I'm wondering, was that a surprise to you in your position? So I had heard Steve Miller, one of his top advisors and somebody who's a holdover from the last Trump administration, say that their strategy was to flood the zone. And we are seeing them do just that. And for the resistance, we have to be very mindful. We can't fight every single solitary thing they do, but we have to fight the big stuff, right? And so we've seen, you know, action after action, announcement after

announcement. It is, they're clearly flooding the zone. But we've got to stand up against those things that are unconstitutional, those things that are unlawful, and those things that may be lawful but awful, as I have been known to say in these recent days. And we're finding our footing in doing that. But they are definitely flooding the zone, and they told us they would. Steve Miller was very clear publicly that they would flood the zone. You know, the things that have stood out are the funding freeze that was announced a week ago, Monday, in the middle of the night. And our phones just rang off the hook starting the next day. And they've done so steadily throughout the days to follow as people try to get clarity over whether Medicaid would be shut off, whether Head Start programs would have to close. And by the way, several programs in Wisconsin did close temporarily.

Whether boys and girls clubs would get their federal grant funding. I heard from police chiefs and fire chiefs about federal grants that were supporting firefighters in their district and wondering whether they would be able to keep them on payroll or have to lay them off. And the panic and chaos is quite intentional. Steve Miller was not kidding, and he knew that the results of these actions would be panic and chaos. And beyond that, we've seen really frightening things like the Elon Musk's Doge team taking over the Treasury Department's payment system, which contains data about not every, not only every federal grant recipient organization, but all of us. You know, they process our taxes, our tax refunds. They process Social Security payments, Medicare payments, Medicaid payments. They have

data on all of us. And this is frightening for all Americans that a private citizen, the richest man on earth, Elon Musk, now has access to all this data. of personnel and management about a fork in the road and asking federal employees to quit and be paid through the end of September. This is a questionable legality by the way, and whether the administration has any authority to do that is so questionable, but they're looking at hollowing out, gutting the federal workforce. And yesterday, that extended to security agencies, including the CIA. This is frightening,

and we do have to stand up. But you know, what's heartening to me is how engaged the people of Wisconsin have become. And their stories are stories that I elevated last night when I took to the floor. I read comments that were emailed to me and questions and concerns aloud on the floor from all over the state. And that is how we fight back. It's the voices of all of us combined. And I think that we need to hear from a united Senate, meaning all of the Democratic senators, that you guys are going to fight tough and have fangs and say no, no, no, and run down every way to obstruct their plans that you possibly can. But in that same vein, I want to talk about Susan Collins. She has always been, as a woman, a complete disappointment to me, to put it frankly,

that she actually said she thought Donald Trump had learned his lesson, that that's a normal thing to say about somebody who is president of the United States. She normalized and sane-washed his immoral and horrific behavior the first time around. Considering that she's from a blue state and she is a woman, do you think that you have some pull there to get her to vote no against some of these horrific nominees like Tulsi Gabbard, this Heritage Foundation guy that undoubtedly they're coming for a federal abortion ban? We all know that's coming. And do you think Murkowski, do you think that you can get some of these Republicans to be the skunks at the garden party that we need so that we can hold the line to midterms? So I will tell you that already we have seen them join Democrats, particularly against the odious nominee,

Pete Hegseth. We had three Republicans join all Democrats in opposing Pete Hegseth for DOD secretary, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and interestingly, Mitch McConnell, not from a bluish state, not from a purplish state, but from a deep red state who stood for principle on that particular nominee. We're obviously working as hard as we can to pull support from across the party aisle to stand up against these nominees. I mean, we have RFK Jr. coming up. I was so disappointed when the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Cassidy from Louisiana, a doctor who has such a concern about vaccination programs, I was so disappointed when he decided to vote to advance RFK Jr. out of committee this past week because he knows how dangerous RFK Jr. is. But we fight every day to reach across the party line and say, join us.

And I'm going to I've been saying aloud, you know, where is your line, Republicans? Where is your line in the sand beyond which you won't go? And clearly this funding freeze is unconstitutional. If you've read the Constitution, it's Article 1 that talks about the duty of Congress to pass budgets, to pass appropriations bills, to pass policy bills. And it's the duty of the administration to implement and administer those laws. And there's no place in the Constitution that says that the administration or the president gets to substitute their judgment for Congress's. They can try to influence policy moving forward, and I know they will, but they can't undo what's been passed already. And so I look to my Republican colleagues.

Does any of do any of them in the Congress care about the Congress being relevant? Right. This is their own power that they are abdicating to the president and to the administration. But beyond just calling on my Republican colleagues, I'm calling upon Democratic, independent and Republican citizens across this country and in my great state of Wisconsin to speak up. And they're beginning to do that. And that the voice of the people is still incredibly important. We know during the first Trump administration that people organizing together to fight against, for example, repeal of the Affordable Care Act was instrumental in making sure that he was not successful in doing away with protections that Americans now count on. Senator, thank you so much for joining us.

And hold the line. Do not let these MFers see daylight. We are counting on you guys. We need you guys to fire us up. We're able to be motivated when we see you guys fight. They're really, really connected. Thank you so much again. Thank you for having me.