Senator Tammy Baldwin on Trump Cabinet Disaster Hearings

0:00Some more powerful cross-examination by Democratic senators at the various hearings. I want to talk about a particularly powerful moment where Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin was questioning RFK Jr., who leads Donald Trump's health and human services. But as you remember from last week, he said, don't take my advice on anything medical related. I shouldn't be asked questions about this anyway. Here's what he said under questioning by Democratic Senator Baldwin. Let's play it. Any life saving research? Is it DOGE reviewing NIH funding opportunity announcements? Is it DOGE reviewing NIH grant award?

0:40We've got administrators. We're cutting waste. We're cutting duplicative programs. And you're funding$3 billion less in biomedical research than you did a year prior. We're spending less on administration of those programs. 3 ,200 fewer grants. Many of the grants were terminated because they were grants that were not advanced. These are grants terminated. These are grants not awarded because the panels weren't convened. We spend 70 % of the world's biomedical research out of NIH. 70 % and we're the sickest country in the world. $18 billion or 40 % from the NIH budget slow the development of new treatments.

1:26And we are the sickest country in the world. So that money has not been well spent. We've had a 38 percent increase in our agency growth in our agency over the past four years. I'll ask you is, is funding for Alzheimer's disease research centers, DEI, because you're holding up$65 million for 14 of those centers in nine states, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison? Is funding for cancer centers, DEI, because you're holding up$47 million in cancer center support grants at nine cancer centers in eight states? Is funding for rare disease research DEI because you're holding up$55 million for 11 rare disease clinical research network grants in eight states?

2:17These are just a few examples, and the list goes on and on, Secretary Kennedy. I've run out of time. I yield back. Thank you. This is a fun game we're playing. Mr. Secretary, let's talk. this is a fun game that we are playing. I also want to show Democratic Congresswoman Berrigan. She was asking Lee Zeldin, who leads the Environmental Protection Agency. I'm not sure if leads the appropriate word, but she said, look, you're out there on Fox saying that there is criminality taking place that you've uncovered, but there's no criminal charges being filed. Why are you grandstanding? Just tell the truth and level with the American people.

3:00Let's play this clip. You just mentioned two examples. Have you or EPA lawyers actually given that to the court or use that, cited that as fraud or criminality? Well, first off, the standard. It's a yes or no. Have you? You're a lawyer. Yes. They have mentioned this. Which hearing was it at? Because I don't see it in the transcript that happened in the United Climate conversation. As a matter of fact, I'm going to read to you the court transcript. Can you proffer any evidence that there was illegal or evidence of abuse or fraud, that any of this was improper or lawful, EPA lawyer, I'm certainly not suggesting any of that was illegal or improper.

3:40Just yesterday, an EPA lawyer at the hearing suggested, we're not accusing anybody of fraud. Did you understand that the evidence for EPA is not to establish criminality at the agency? Well, you're alleging criminality. You did so in a Fox News interview. You said that's what this greenhouse reduction fund was. You shouldn't be doing that if you cannot pro-offer the evidence. But Congresswoman... This is not Fox News. We're not going to just allow you to just make allegations here without that evidence. Well, if this isn't a media interview, you should allow me to go through the entire list rather than just going through...

4:13Well, unfortunately, I only have five minutes and I don't have time for you to filibuster. If you're truly interested in the entire list of all the evidence... I'm acting for a very specific fraud. ...cutting me off and allow me to get through the list. Jen, ladies, time has expired. Time has expired. Are you kidding me? Let's bring in Senator Tammy Baldwin right now. We showed that cross-exam by you of RFK Jr. at the beginning. Walk us through that line of questioning and really the devastation that you're seeing in your state of Wisconsin and elsewhere. So that line of questioning, one of many that I engaged in, really relates to their just slashing funding for National Institutes of Health research.

4:58And, you know, he was talking about going after fraud, waste and abuse, but he's absolutely ill informed about what's happened in his own department. Since the beginning of Trump's term, they have failed to convene the very panels that make the grant awards. They are so far behind that this year they have failed to allocate about$3 billion of money that at this time last year was already out backing up groundbreaking research, looking for cures and treatments for things like diabetes and Alzheimer's and cancer. And we have seen, in addition, a budget proposal which is scant on details, but what we do know is that there's an$18 billion proposed cut to NIH, which is about 40 % of its budget.

5:59We are the world's leader in biomedical research, but that all the work in building that up has come to sort of a screeching halt in just the first 100 days of the Trump administration. You know, this was a budget hearing. This was the Appropriations Committee, the subcommittee that funds HHS, trying to get information from the department. I asked about NIH and their plans there, but there's so many other divisions that without even waiting for us to act on next year's budget, they're already dismantling, firing staff, closing regional offices. And we're really worried that there will be irreparable harm before we even get to fiscal year 2026.

6:49I mean, we saw a MAGA Republican senator, Josh Hawley, at a separate point with another hearing with Kristi Noem, literally like begging her, we need FEMA in our state. you're not sending fema here from the people of missouri please just send fema here because some of the most basic things that we expect federal government to do whether it's issues like health nih whether it's issues like fema after horrific storms which by the way donald trump has not even mentioned once 28 people dead we haven't even heard him mentioned let me just show you josh Hawley, and then get your response. Let's play.

7:33Commit to helping for those three major disaster declaration requests that are pending. Will you help expedite those, Secretary Noem, and get those in front of the president, get those approved? We are desperate for the assistance in Missouri. Yes, absolutely. Make sure the application gets to the White House as soon as possible. Fantastic. Thank you. And can I also have your commitment that if and when the president approves a major disaster declaration for this storm that just happened on Friday in St. Louis, will you expedite as much as possible FEMA individual assistance for those who qualify for it in the St.

8:05Louis area? Yes. And I want to tell you just how important that is because as I toured these streets and walked and talked to the residents, what I heard over and over is many of these folks don't have insurance. Yeah. You know, many of these folks, they either got their homes from a family member or they bought them from a family member so they don't have a mortgage on the property and therefore they don't have homeowner's insurance. So, as you know, having been a governor in many instances, FEMA assistance is going to be the only assistance that there. And Senator, she previously testified last week that she wants to get rid of FEMA.

8:39And they fired the FEMA administrator, who was a MAGA guy, because he said that he thinks that it should still exist. They fired him in 24 hours. I saw that. And, you know, I have an example from our hearing in front with Secretary Kennedy. And that is the elimination functionally of the lead poisoning mitigation office in the CDC. So in Milwaukee, we have a crisis right now. We have six schools that have had tested presence for lead. We have children within those schools that have lead poisoning. They have been the displacement of 1 ,800 school children in the Milwaukee public school system because of this lead crisis.

9:26But Secretary Kennedy has fired every expert in that agency within CDC that addresses and helps communities mitigate lead exposure. And while he testified last week when I asked him about this, that he has no intent to shutter this office, he's fired everyone who worked there. let's talk finally about the reconciliation no we still don't know what the house is going to do trump showed up yelled at people cursed at people seem to push certain people further away from it although you know who knows with what the house is going to do but we've seen a lot of republican senators basically say whatever they're doing there is dead on arrival here whether that's true or not, but we saw Ron Johnson from your state.

10:22He's been consistently saying, I ain't supporting this. We've seen Josh Hawley say that. We've seen Rand Paul say that. Let me just show you a clip of some of them who have said that, just because I'm trying to figure out now, where is this going? And aren't we going to be hitting a debt ceiling issue soon anyway? Aren't we going to have government funding running out in September? MAGA Mike Johnson said that this would all be sorted out by Memorial Day, which doesn't seem to be realistic, but who knows? This is what some of the Republican senators have said to explain. I don't think, I don't think people who voted for President Trump thought that we would continue spending at President Biden's levels.

10:59My objection is still raising the debt ceiling by either four or five trillion dollars. I think what that does is basically show that conservatives and Republicans aren't concerned with the deficit. As you know, I've been very wary of cutting Medicaid. It is wrong to cut health care for the working poor. And that's what we're talking about here with Medicaid. My state is a Medicaid expansion state. And you kind of in there have different people saying different reasons why they oppose it. Right. So what do you make of all that? Well, certainly you have the Senate Republicans who sound a little bit like the House Freedom Caucus.

11:39It's like we're not going to pass this until there are as many cuts as there are increases in spending for tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations. That's what my counterpart, Ron Johnson, was saying in that. Then you have others who have genuine concern for the impact of the drastic cuts in Medicaid and nutrition programs and others that are being proposed in the House budget reconciliation bill. You know, in our House, we need to count votes. This is the reason they use budget reconciliation is to get around the typical 60 vote margin that's required. So we just need a handful of Republicans to stick with us and reject this horrible assembly of policies.

12:34And we'll be counting very carefully. And, you know, sometimes they say politics makes strange bedfellows. On this particular vote, I will welcome a deficit hawk to join us as much as I will welcome somebody who deeply cares about the impact that Medicaid cuts and SNAP cuts will have on their constituency. Senator, anything else that you're focused on that you're not being asked about? Whenever I have a senator like you on, I like to ask the question because lots of people in the media, they want to have their narrative and their questions. But you see things that we don't see. Anything we should be focused on that you think is not good?

13:16Well, I hinted at it earlier, but I guess I want to put an exclamation point on it. You know, right now we're in the early stages of looking at the budget for 2026 fiscal year. But in the meantime, not just in Health and Human Services under Secretary Kennedy's watch, but in EPA, in Interior, in so many other agencies, education, they're dismantling the agencies and certain programs within their purview before we even talk about what funding level they should have. And in fact, it is Congress that makes the laws and sets the budget. But they are working without congressional authorization. Sometimes it is probably going to be found to be impoundment, which is illegal.

14:14But in many other ways, they are trying to totally restructure agencies without congressional oversight. And I worry so much that some of these programs will be so harmed, so dismantled, that by the time we set the budget for 2026, it'll be too late. And our constituents are the ones who will bear the brunt of that. Senator Tammy Baldwin, thanks for joining us. Thank you. All right, everybody, hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.