BREAKING NEWS: Yvette Clarke Says She Backs Impeachment Of Pete Hegseth, Slams Stephen Miller

0:02Yvette Clarke: Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. Congresswoman, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me, Brittany. Great to be with you. It's great to be speaking with you, especially on the heels of a big week that Democrats had last week. Polls underestimated just how big your party would win in the midterms. They flipped both chambers of Congress and Democrats won in races and places where President Trump won by double digits two years ago. You decisively won reelection. Democrats will have a majority in the House next session.

0:39Yvette Clarke: So I'm curious to start off the conversation. What are your priorities next term? Right. Well, I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives, and I'm seeking to head up a subcommittee there, Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, where all things technology -based, things that have a need for consumer protections are legislated and or given oversight. I'm looking forward to doing that work. In addition to that, with respect to my own district, comprehensive immigration reform is a major, major issue for my communities that I represent. and of course, housing, the affordability crisis.

1:33Many of the themes that you heard throughout the electoral cycle really have had a profound impact on the people of the 9th District of New York.

1:46Yvette Clarke: Some of the things you just mentioned, President Trump in the days after the midterms said he'd be willing to work with Democrats on. He said immigration. You said technology that needs some sort of guardrail. That's AI. He said he would work with Democrats on AI, too. He said Democrats did a good job and fought hard, but he retains veto power. What would it look like to you to work with the Trump administration? And do you think he will work with Democrats? It's so hard to tell because he hasn't been willing to work with Democrats thus far. If passed his prologue, I don't expect that he will.

2:26He's made a number of pronouncements about no need to regulate AI. And unfortunately, you know, that's not something that I feel that I can agree with him on. We've got to do much more to establish rules of the road right now. our technology space is the wild, wild west. And unfortunately, consumers are the targets of a lot of the harm that is resident in the deployment of these tools and the use of these platforms. And so I think that there's some really important work that needs to be done in that space. And I'm looking forward to getting that work done, whether Donald Trump signs it into law or not.

3:20Yvette Clarke: Let's talk a little bit more about that work because you've introduced AI-related legislation now for the past couple of years. I know you're saying that will be a priority for you in this next session. Do you think Republicans are more open to working with you, your colleagues in the House, do you think they're more open to working with you? And what areas do you think need to have guardrails and post on them the quickest? Well, let me say this. We're going to be going into a new Congress with new members. My goal is to be able to find who I can on the other side of the aisle that agrees to the need to establish these guardrails around the deployment of artificial intelligence.

4:07My goal is to be able to find common cause with colleagues on the other side of the aisle who recognize that we need to protect children online. My goal is to make sure that we are identifying key members on the other side of the aisle who recognize that civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy are really hallmarks of who we are as a civil society, and that has been breached by surveillance technology and a whole host of ways in which we've found that algorithms can be biased and can be harmful. And so I, with me, hope springs eternal. And I hope that I'll be able to find colleagues of like mind or similar mind or congruent mind that will see the necessity and the urgency in getting this work legislated and passed.

5:09Yvette Clarke: Were you surprised at just how big of an issue AI was this election cycle? Because the majority of voters don't like data centers. They are apprehensive about AI, to say the least. They're concerned about safety regulations around it. They're concerned, will this steal my job? Will this kill us all? I mean, what do you make of that being a major concern this election cycle? Well, it had reached a peak. We've witnessed parents coming in and testifying before the Energy and Commerce Committee how their children were harmed. Some even lost their lives due to the influence that they encountered online.

5:59You know, these are not mythical stories. These are real life situations. And we're all encountering scams and other ways in which consumers are being harmed. And so it was bound to happen that the American people would recognize that this is an unregulated intrusion into the lives of the American people. while we use it as a tool, those tools can also be very harmful. And we need to be able to rein that in and create the best practices in the use of and deployment of these technologies.

6:45Yvette Clarke: I know you said also that one of your priorities is going to be immigration reform. And I'm curious about what you think of President Trump's recent staff shakeup. In the wake of the midterms, his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is out. Stephen Miller is in, now serving as chief of staff, and he has been largely considered the architect of President Trump's deportation and immigration policies. And President Trump, in a recent interview on 60 Minutes, he even said that he thought his deportation policy went a little too far. It was too tough, is what he said. What do you make of that hire, and do you think you could work with Stephen Miller, especially when it comes to immigration reform?

7:24Well, all of those actions are extremely contradictory. So we'll have to cross those bridges when we get to it. As a legislature, we have a responsibility and an obligation to finally complete the work around immigration reform. We're seeing families torn apart. We're seeing law-abiding immigrants being deported to third-party countries. I mean, families just being separated. Our industries are all suffering as a result of the ways in which this administration has gone about its immigration policy. And so there's no doubt in my mind, and certainly a lot of the returns on the election of last week indicated that people were fed up with seeing this horrendous behavior that is being done in the name of the American people through the Department of Homeland Security, the cruelty and the violent ways in which they have approached immigrants, because I don't call that immigration reform.

8:47That is just the hunting of humanity that we must move with all deliberate speed to protect as many families as possible and to right the ship where immigration is concerned. And hopefully, you know, Donald Trump will remember that he said on 60 Minutes that he needed to shift his immigration policy. But we'll see.

9:15Yvette Clarke: Do you think with Stephen Miller at the table as in this new position, he will remember because he has described the Democratic Party as a domestic extremist organization. Is that someone you think you can sit down with and have an honest, good faith conversation, especially when when it comes to immigration? Well, if he's gonna be inflammatory like that, no. There are no indications through his words, his thoughts, his deeds, that that's something that Stephen Miller is interested in doing. So, we'll cross those bridges when we get to him, but as a legislative body, we have a responsibility and an obligation to speak on behalf of the American people.

10:03They have spoken loud and clear about their priorities. And so it is now our responsibility to bring that to fruition.

10:13Yvette Clarke: Seemed like one of the priorities of the American voter, especially on Tuesday night, was that they were not happy with the war against Iran. And there's been a larger conversation on what's next for Defense Secretary Hegseth. And I know your colleague, Congressman Thomas Massey, he just reintroduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth right before you and I jumped on this call. I'm curious, what do you make of that? Is that something you support? Absolutely. I support it. What Secretary Hegseth has done is made the United States less safe than it was before this administration came into office.

10:56The purging of the upper echelons of the military where all of the years of knowledge, strategy, and no wherewithal has really put us at a severe disadvantage. And certainly his ideological philosophy, which has begun to sort of take up all of the oxygen in our armed forces, makes for a weakened military, in my humble estimation. So this is not what the American people deserve. And let me just say this, the response to what is taking place in this war has to do with the fact that Donald Trump said that he would not engage in wars. And not only did he engage and establish this war, he did it without the authorization of Congress.

12:08And that has led to a whole cascade of things that have made life more harmful, more dangerous, more expensive for the American people. So there's a direct correlation between what these two men have done and the outrage that Americans feel on the cost of living just escalating exponentially over the past two years.

12:43Yvette Clarke: My last question to you is that ever since the midterms, this moment we're in has been described as a new political era, a new political landscape for both parties, right? There's been the question, is this the end of MAGA? Is this the end of Trump? Are we in a post-Trump America or Republican Party? But when you think about the Democrats and the Democratic Party, what do you think's next for your party? Because progressives won, moderates won all over the country. What do you think is next for the Democratic brand, especially knowing polling suggests it's still not a popular brand? It's a little more popular than Republicans and President Trump, of course, but still the favorability is underwater.

13:26Yvette Clarke: So what's next for the Democratic Party? Yeah, we have to demonstrate our unity. We have to come together around common cause. As you rightly stated, there's a broad spectrum of, you know, a philosophy of ideology within the Democratic Party itself. But there's a sweet spot. And in that sweet spot is common cause to advance the interest of Americans, to make their lives better, to attack this affordability crisis, to make sure that their health care is accessible to them, to protect them against, you know, all manner of hazardous and harmful practices that have been allowed to go uninterrupted in the past two years.

14:17We have an obligation and responsibility, and we have to be extremely adult about making that happen and intentional, and I'm looking forward to doing that work.

14:29Yvette Clarke: Congresswoman Yvette Clark, thank you so much for the time today. A big congrats to you, and you're welcome back anytime. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

14:52Thank you.