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Katie Britt of Alabama, Welcome. It's wonderful to see you.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it having me obviously being here and getting to be in front of your audience.
Well, for sure, we have a lot of questions for you. That was a big moment for you last night. I was if you want to reflect on that, because that was a big crowd. We keep hearing it's only weeks ago that you were on every short right to be Donald Trump's running mate. We now know it's Jade Vance. Clearly you're supporting him. He's being framed as the future of MAGA, the future of the Republican Party. Yeah, and the future of our To get that way as another young lawmaker, this agenda.
For so first off, when you talk about last night, what an electric moment, I mean to walk on that stage, to feel the energy and the arena people are coming together, not just our party, but you can feel people coming together across the nation. And so to get to be a part of that, to get to be a part of telling our party story, talking about the message, the message of helping hard working Americans, helping parents, putting them
back into the driver's seat. It was an honor and it was an amazing just it was an amazing evening for JD. I am so excited for JD. So we are freshman classmates, and in that Wesley and I are now not just only proud for me to be able to call JD a colleague, but proud to call he and Usha friends. So the freshmen get together once a month for dinner, and it has given us an opportunity not just to only talk you know, policy or procedure or even personnel issues, but to really get to know
each other as people. And when America hears his story, when they learned that he truly has lived the American dream, he pulled himself up. I mean, he fought through the unimaginable. When you look at his service to the nation, when you look at where he is, when you look at his vision for moving forward, the dynamic bringing he and Trump together is going to be incredible for the forgotten
men and women of America, for parents. I think he will bring a renewed energy to what we're doing, and it's going to be exciting to see this continue to move forward. Than when in November and then what we're able to do starting in January.
Well, as you speak of his vision moving forward, obviously you have a closer seat than most in getting some insight into his visions. You also sit with him on the Banking Committee.
Yes, we set shoulder to shoulder on the banking And a number.
Of policies that Jadevance has advocated for when we think about these kind of populist ideas, include things like higher tariffs and knowing that in the Banking Committee right now, you spend so much time talking about high inflation and the cost everyday people are struggling with how do you explain to voters the effect tariffs are going to have on those costs, knowing that they are likely going to drive them higher.
Well, look and every time, and you can go back and look at jd every time he is on the Banking Committee, every time he has an opportunity, he uses his five minutes to fight for hard working Americans. He drives it down to how is this affecting main street? How is this affecting workers? How is this affecting people trying to achieve the American dream? And the truth is we know that places like China, people like the Chinese Communist Party have undercut the American worker at every turn.
So whether it is Alabama shrimpers or steel manufacturers, whether it is stealing our intellectual property, what they're doing essentially stealing American wages and opportunity is real. And so we've seen this in the last Trump administration, I mean, looked at our agriculture industry as they allowed President Trump to work to create a fair playing field for them. And so I am excited to actually take policies then drive them down to like how do they affect America? How
do they affect opportunity? Here? Making sure that we're putting Americans, American manufacturing, American capability at the forefront of every conversation, because look, when you go back to COVID, if we learn nothing else, it's that we need to secure our supply chains. And part of that comes from making sure that we're strategic and that we're intentional. And I think you'll see that with JD and you'll see that obviously with President Trump.
And if the result of that is higher cost, that's a price that needs well.
I mean, I think you'll see wages rise, and I think that you'll see opportunity rise as well, and as we obviously work through all of these things, as we work to drive down inflation, as we work to create a better environment for workers, when we work to actually create higher pay for them. Obviously, those things, you know,
take a minute. But I have great confidence in the vision of President Trump and soon to be Vice President Vance and look forward to helping move policies forward to that effect.
We've had a lot of very credible economists join us here on Bloomberg TV and Radio to talk to us about the inflationary impacts of tariffs coupled with making the Trump tax cuts permanent. If Donald Trump is re elected, if Congress plays along, that's likely to happen as a big debate in Washington, I realize going on right now. But the question then becomes, ready get cut and without getting into the entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, which.
Trump has said he you will not.
So we're just kind of nibble around the edges here right There is the potential to add trillions to our death.
So look, we are thirty four point five trillion dollars in debt. In my personal opinion is that that's not only fiscally irresponsible, that's morally irresponsible, and so we've got to take a look at spending. We've got to take a look at how we do this all together. And I understand there are going to be pieces of this that we actually have to take a look at. So right now we're talking about ideas. When you put the plan on paper, that's when we need to take a
look at, like how do these things work together. I say continually, a lot of times, particularly in government, we don't take a look at how things overlap and then take a look at the triple down effect of those We must do that look. I am on the Appropriations Committee in addition to the Banking Committee. It is frustrating to me, you know, the Appropriations Committee, which is obviously our discretionary spending, is now only twenty eight percent of
what we spend. Mandatory spending has eaten it up. We're about I think seventy two percent mandatory spending. Eleven percent of that is actually interest on the debt, which is the first time it's actually been higher than what we spend on our defense capabilities. Any nation that has hit that point, as you know and have well read, begins a downclient. So we have to have a serious conversation
about all of these things. What we do know is that we've got to find a way to put America's America first, put American workers first, put American families first. We live in a global market. That is clear. That's something that is obviously important. But I don't think that we are taking time to drill down on these things independently. And to your point, you're right, we're going to have to look at how do these things overlap, and then
what do we do moving forward. Those are serious conversations we have to have. I have confidence that President Trump will put a good plan together and we'll be able to work diligently to get it through the House.
In the Senate, right, Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama. Great to see you here in Milwaukee. Hopefully we'll thank thank you for having me back in Washington. We appreciate it.