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Joining us now with Insight Life from Capitol Hill. Democratic Congressman Gregory Weeks of New York. He's ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, member of House Financial Services Committee, and so we have a lot to talk about. Congressman, it's great to see you. Thanks for being with us here on Bloomberg TV and radio. You heard what Eric was just telling us here. It looks like we are
going to go over the cliff. Should our viewers and listeners, people who are actually on these plans, these Obamacare plans, should they expect this to be their new reality?
It looks like it. I mean, Democrats have been trying to bring the alarm for a long period of time, and almost for the last fifteen years. The Republicans have said that they had an alternative plan. Yet no one has seen them produce anything. And this is something that should have been talked about. We've been advocating for it. We've been talking about an extension, if nothing else, to the tax credit for the Affordable Care Act so that it can be figured out or we have more time.
Republicans have refused to do that. So it just seems that they, as we've been saying all along, are in complete disarray, and as a result, it's going to hurt millions of American citizens when they see their healthcare sometime, some of them will double. And this is what we were talking about before, and now it's going to become reality.
So the affordability crisis that we have been talking about and President calls a Democrat hoax, it's about to get worse. Right if we look at this through a wider frame, this feeds into higher costs that people are facing across the board.
Congressman, there's no question, I mean the American people, and as we saw when the President was in Pennsylvania just recently talking about this is a Democratic hoax, and everyone that was spoken with when they left said this is not a hoax because they know what their pockets feel like, they know what their insurance plans are looking like, so that they will soon have to make a choice, many of them, of whether they continue health care or not
because they may not be able to afford it. And so the crisis is here now that's caused by the President of the United States, and unfortunately the President is also the facto speaker of the House. So the deputy speaker follows the speaker who happens to be the president, and nothing has been done, and nothing has been at least talked about to be for an agreement in a bipartisan way. And so now we're at on a cliff, no conversation, and guess what, January thirtieth is not that far behind.
Also, well, you know, we just were talking about the possibility of another shutdown, and I don't know if anyone has the appetite for that, but I just want to ask you quickly about one of the options that is under consideration in the House of Representatives, realizing these both failed today. In the Senate, there's a discharge petition that's been put up by Brian Fitzpatrick. It's also got a Democrat on this as well. It's Brian Fitzpatrick, as I mentioned,
on the Republican side. If there are enough votes here, this could be forced to the floor, Congressman, and it would extend the Obamacare subsidies by a couple of years, but also would add eligibility requirements. Is that something that you would vote for if you had the chance.
Well, I haven't seen it. I would have to see it. Another there's something that they've tried to put together at the last second. You know, I think that again here we should have had the opportunity to have a dialogue and a conversation, a negotiation, as opposed to what's taking place right now. So I would have to, you know, before we get out of here next week, is to look at it to make a determination. But you can see how Congress is currently operating with this Republican leadership.
Everything seems to have to be done by a motion to discharge. We cannot get anything on the floor so that we can vote in regular order. It is such craziness that's going on now. I've been in Washington for a long time, a member of Congress for twenty seven years, and I've never seen anything like this. And so though I believe a number of votes if we had the opportunity to vote for them on the floor, the Speaker
and the President has blocked them. And so the only recourse that members are having is to try to work with motions to discharge and get two hundred and eighteen votes. That's what took place with the Epstein vote.
Congress, when I want you to put on your foreign relations cap here and talk to US about what's happening off the coast of Venezuela. Because the United States has decided to seize an oil tanker. The President says that we will probably keep the oil. There are questions about what happens to the crew and whether more of these are about to happen. The US has just sanctioned six more of these. The way things work now in the Caribbean, well.
Look, they are illegal in the way that it's working now. I think that number one, you know, you first heard that the president was down off the coast of Venezuela because of drugs. Clearly, by taking this oil tanker, it's not about drugs, And clearly you could you should have seen if you could take an oil tanker in the way that they have that you don't have to shoot down boats in the way and kill people in the way that they have. So it is not about drugs.
It's about regime change to one degree and taking access to Venezuelan oil. Those seem to be the main motivations of the President of the United States. And this is not the way that we generally have historically operated in the United States. This is really how Russia operates, and so we are losing our values, as we've seen from the National Security report that came out that says, you know, Russia, China, and the United States forget about our friends and allies
and how do we work with them. So all of this is coming to a head right now. So I strongly disagree, and I think the American people disagree. The President should be comingto Congress if this is a war that he's trying to get us into. That's why I do have a bill dealing with a War Powers Act, so that the demand is that the President comes and talk to Congress and stop trying to work around Congress to avoid us, so that we can do our oversight responsibility in appropriate way.
When does that go to the floor, Congressman, and will you get a single Republican vote?
Well, I think that we would get it. We're working diligent now talking to other members. And that's why the Speaker refuses to allow the bill on the floor because he knows if it reaches the floor, we would have a strong bipartisan vote, and so that's why they try to block it and make rules that will not allow bill to come to the floor at the appropriate time.
You know, you mentioned Russia. Vladimir Putin is on the phone with with Maduro expressing solidarity today. In fact, they went back to this strategic treaty that was signed in May to talk about how this can be exploited more, confirming their commitment to joint projects and trade the economy, energy and other areas. Is Vladimir Putin about to make this more complicated?
Well, he is. I mean, look, and there's some reason why the President of the United States, you know, we see that Russia's already killing Ukrainians on a daily basis, just about Russia is now joining hands with Nicholas Maduro, and why the President of the United States is not standing strong and making sure that you know, you talk about using power, you know, to control the situation. Yet he just seems to bow down to the will of Russia and whatever Russia says. And Russia can do whatever
they want. And it's okay with this administration, but it's not okay with the American people. It's not okay with Democrats in the House and the Senate. And we're going to make sure that we have those voices. And I would hope that some of my Republican colleagues would finally join us and stand with us to hold this president accountable and make sure that we keep the highest standards and moral that we have with our European allies and others.
I don't know if that'll cover the seizure of oil tankers like we saw a congressmen, But if this did in fact come from a shadow fleet, if this boat was operating illegally, do we owe that oil back to somebody and what happens to the crew?
Well, look, I will tell you generally, in all of the time that I've been in Congress before, before this is done, there is at least with the Intelligence Committee, sometimes with the Armed Services Committee, and sometimes with the Florid and Affairs Committee, and sometimes in a combination thereof, and definitely with both Democrat and Republican leadership in the House,
there is a dialogue in conversation. They go in the skiff or go down to the White House and they have a dialogue and they talk and they plan and at least indicate what they intent on doing. And in this situation is just chaos where you have a president who's just running a monk, doing whatever he wants to do and oftentimes violating the normal States, and I believe also violating the rules of law.
I want to ask you about the invest Act while you're with us, Congressman, because you've got a lot of small business owners who are watching and listening right now. And I just talked about the state of small business with the head of the SBA, Kelly Leffler. Here's what she told us.
Between tax cuts, deregulation, fair trade, we see jobs and opportunities coming back to America and then eighteen trillion dollars of investment coming in. A lot of that's going to play out on main street and that's why small business optimism, according to the US Chamber, is at all time highs. And you've got consumer confidence on the rise again, so consumers know that the best is yet to come first.
What she told us argues with a lot of the data that we're seeing, Congressmen. The invest Acts, cuts red tape, expands access to capital. Will that helps small business owners get their own high prices.
But that's what we want to do because we know that the policies that the president's putting forward now, for example with his tariffs, if you spoke to any small business, you know the cost to the small businesses have steadily increased, it's not decreased, their increased causing them problems. The instability and the uncertainty of the president's policies is costing small
businesses a lot of money. They don't not know, they can't you know, get the right inventory, They don't know how much to buy because how much is going to cost going up. So as I speak to small businesses, this administration's policies have been devastating to them and devastating
to the American consumer. And so that's why I was glad to be able to work with some of our Republican colleagues on the Financial Services Committee so that we can do something for small businesses get access to help them get access to capital, and for those individuals also who have four to one k's or iras for helping them with their retirements. And so we're trying to make sure that we are reaching to the small business and the average everyday worker, like sixty two percent of them
who are invested in the markets. So it's not just the super rich friends of the president that having benefits, but it is the working people of America. And that's what we're trying to do there because clearly the president's policies are not working.
Well, I know it's a bipart is an effort. Right now, I'd like to stay in touch with you on that. Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York, We thank you so much.