Chairman Aguilar on Bloomberg: We're fighting for everyone—whether you're in a red state, a blue state or a purple state—we're fighting for your health care.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar appeared on Bloomberg’s Balance of Power with hosts Joe Mathieu and Julie Fine to discuss the Republican shutdown, the Trump Administration’s firings of federal workers and more. You can watch the full interview here and read a partial transcript of the Chairman’s interview below.
JOE MATHIEU: Joining us now with his perspective, live from Capitol Hill is Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar of California. He's Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, making his debut here on Bloomberg TV and radio. Mr. Chairman, welcome. It's great to have you as part of our conversation. I'm wondering what your thoughts are—we've really illustrated the arguments on both sides here. Speaker Johnson was with us as well as Leader Jeffries, just in the last week. I'm just curious, your thoughts on what appears to be this new position by Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to hunker down for the long term. The President finding workarounds for pay for military, pay for federal law enforcement, now funding the WIC program. Did he just remove all the potential off ramps here in the weeks ahead?
CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: It's pretty clear that he has removed some, and it's pretty clear that Republicans will do anything they can not to negotiate with Democrats. They're willing to go through all these steps, do all these things and the one thing that we're asking them to do is to come back to the table. Come back to the table. Let's talk about the importance of health care to the American people. That's what we've asked. We'll go anywhere. We'll talk to him in any format, in any setting. That's what Leader Jeffries has asked. And time and time again, the Speaker has said no. Just yesterday, he says he has ‘no strategy.’ His members have called it an embarrassment that they're not coming back to town. This is the third week in a row that Republicans have not been in session. To have a government shutdown and to not be here is pretty shameful. And I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle come to their senses and at least come to town and talk with us.
JOE MATHIEU: I know Hakeem Jeffries called everyone back to at least be present and have conversations like this. I don't know if you're having meetings behind the scenes or if you're all kind of looking at each other as Democrats in the House right now. Congressman, we got a pretty important ruling from a lower court, we were just discussing, blocking the President's attempt to fire thousands of federal workers who have been furloughed. That's only a two week temporary stay, if you will. Is there anything that Democrats plan to do to get involved in the firing of federal workers?
CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: We continue to support our federal workforce. We will, we have and we will continue to do that in the future. Obviously appreciate the judge stepping in here. But as your reporter mentioned, this is just temporary. This is just for a small amount of time here. But nothing has stopped Donald Trump from continuing the chaos over the last ten months when it comes to our federal workforce. He uses the federal workforce as pawns. 200,000 have left during DOGE. Over 50,000 have been fired already. So, this is nothing new to the workforce. They know that they're under attack, and it's unfortunate. These are folks who work at our airports, they work in our public lands and our public parks or they work for FEMA. I mean, all of these folks have a job to do, an important job for the American people, and it's sad that Donald Trump continues to use them as political pawns.
JULIE FINE: Congressman, as you saw earlier, the Speaker has not brought anybody back. So, are you having any trouble keeping the Caucus unified, or are they good with this strategy right now to essentially say, yeah, we'll be happy to meet anywhere, anytime, but yet, the Republicans are not meeting?
CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Democrats are here. We had a caucus meeting last night that I presided over. We had one earlier today as well that I presided over. Democrats are here. We're willing to work. We're willing to show the American people that we want Republicans to come back to the table. 25 days. The American public could not be home for 25 days, and yet House Republicans, that's their strategy. The number of days we've actually been in session since they passed their Big Ugly Law has been less than 20. I mean, so this is just really, you know, I agree with my Republican colleague from California who called it an embarrassment. It really is unfortunate that they don't even want to be here in town to have these discussions. But House Democrats are unified. We're talking about the importance of the American people, the importance of delivering health care for folks in our community. We know the stakes are big. We know that people are getting notices that their premiums are going up all over the country. Open enrollment starts for the Affordable Care Act. And oh, by the way, millions of Republicans, millions of people in Republican states, utilize the Affordable Care Act. We're fighting for everyone—whether you're in a red state, a blue state or a purple state—we're fighting for your health care. That's why House Democrats are here in town. That's what we're here talking about.
You can watch Chairman Aguilar's full interview on Bloomberg here.
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