Taking on Trump Family Corruption with Rep. Robert Garcia

I actually grew up

reading comics.

That's actually how I learned English.

Superman is the ultimate immigrant, and that really, I think, I identified with that.

They'd probably send him to El Salvador.

They would right now.

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.

We've been talking a lot recently about the takeaways from the 2024 election and the future of the Democratic Party.

Today, I'm talking to California Congressman Robert Garcia.

Garcia was recently elected ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, one of the top jobs in Congress.

It was a bit of a coup, these positions usually go by seniority, and Garcia is only serving his second term in Congress.

But the person holding the position, Virginia Representative Jerry Connolly, died in May after beating out Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Democratic leadership seems to have gotten the message.

It's time for fresh faces on the dais.

Garcia is considered a rising star of the party.

He's 47, which seems old, but younger than the average member of Congress.

He's also Latino, openly gay, and Catholic.

Garcia came to the U.S.

with his parents from Peru when he was a child and became a naturalized citizen in his 20s.

Before he was elected to Congress, he was the youngest and first Latino mayor of Long Beach, California, and then a California state representative.

He was sworn into Congress on a picture of his parents, who he lost to COVID, his naturalization certificate, and an original copy of Superman 1 he borrowed from the Library of Congress.

I want to talk to Congressman Garcia about the spending bill that was just passed, which will not only have an impact on healthcare, but also give ICE more ammunition and real ammunition.

I want to hear his thoughts on the gerontocracy crisis in Congress and how Dems are positioning themselves ahead of the midterms.

And I want to hear hear what he plans to tackle in his new role on the oversight committee.

Our expert question today comes from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Inojosa, the anchor of Latino USA and the founder of the Futuro Media Group.

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Congressman Garcia, thanks for being on.

I appreciate it.

Yep, happy to.

Thank you.

So, I want to start with the tragic floods in Texas this past weekend, the death toll continues to rise.

At last count, at least 109 people were killed, including more than two dozen at an all-girls summer camp.

There's been a lot of finger-pointing and blame shifting to the National Weather Service, the state, local authorities.

I just want to get your takeaway from this horrible event.

I mean, first, it's a horrific tragedy.

Obviously, just watching the death toll rise the way it has, knowing that people are still missing.

I've been talking to not just friends in Texas, but some of the Texas delegation, congressional delegation, and everyone's just horrified.

And I think what's really important, obviously, at this moment is that we get all of the facts.

I think that's going to be critical.

I think, obviously, there's a lot of blame going around from certain folks.

And what is actually true and what the actual holes in the system were, I think we have a responsibility to find out.

I think that asking tough questions and certainly trying to get answers to ensure that this type of horrific tragedy doesn't happen again, I think is important.

Who does that now in this new environment?

Well, I think, look, I think obviously the agencies themselves are going to be responsible for getting a lot of information.

There's people on the ground.

There's going to be counties that are going to investigate the state.

And the federal government has a role.

I mean, that's the reason why our government has inspector generals.

That is why we have automated systems in place.

When the federal government responds, we should be able to know if that was an appropriate response or not.

And I think those are questions that have to be asked, regardless of whether Donald Trump or whoever is president.

And I imagine that once

the initial impact of this tragedy begins to settle just a bit, there is going to be an oversight role to ensure that everything was done correctly.

Right.

I'm going to get into in a minute what oversight means anymore, what it is, and what the accountability is.

But staying on this just for a second, President Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County in Texas.

He's also said he wants to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency and shift responsibility for disaster response to the states.

Before you were elected to Congress, you were mayor of Long Beach, California.

Talk about the impact of shrinking FEMA and other agencies like the U.S.

Forest Service will have on a local level.

And what are you telling your constituents as they prepare for this year's fire season, which is expected to be quite bad?

Well, first, let's be really clear.

I think eliminating FEMA and moving that to the states or somehow reducing the kind of national support to take on national emergencies and particularly ones that are related around climate, I think it would be a huge mistake.

I mean,

local governments, counties, states, cities depend on FEMA.

You'd have national disasters have greater impacts on communities.

I don't think it's something that would be supported by many mayors, for example, or county executives across the country.

And so I'm hopeful that Congress is able to push back on that.

I mean, tragedies don't happen in blue states only.

There are Republican conservative governors and members of Congress that are being impacted, not just by what happened in Texas, but other places.

And they've got to stand up and be loud as well that FEMA has an important role to play.

And minimizing its impact is the judgment of people's health and well-being and oftentimes lives.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: So, directly connected to that, the Supreme Court just ruled the Trump administration can move forward with its mass layoffs and plans to dismantle federal agency, even if the judges later determined they exceed presidential power.

They weren't ruling on legality.

They just said they can keep doing it until we decide whether it's illegal, which seems backwards.

Thoughts on this?

Look, I think the Supreme Court continues to do terrible things.

And overwhelmingly, they have sided with Donald Trump's warped vision for the country and this idea that somehow he has the power to decimate agencies, not take into account what Congress has actually put in place as far as budgets are concerned.

In my opinion, taking away, destroying the federal workforce doesn't just impact the moment.

We know he's put under hiring freeze, for example.

He's extended that now.

This will have lasting impacts for the next five, 10, 15 years.

You can't just replace people.

People say, oh, well, when we win the White House back, we'll just rebuild the government and rehire.

That's just not the way it works.

You're talking about losing people that have 20, 30 years of experience.

And I think our government in the long term is going to be much worse shape in the ability to respond, not just to a crisis, to a federal emergency, but just with the knowledge of actually how to make things better for people.

So it's very concerning.

So the big news, obviously, out of Washington this week is Trump's tax and spending bill,

emphasis on spending.

Democrats have been sounding the alarms on what this means through Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, all the while giving tax breaks to the very wealthy.

The final House vote came down along party lines.

Two Republicans joined Democrats in voting against it.

Did you have any conversations with colleagues on the Republican side that gave you hope that more of them would get on board?

Was there anything the Democrats could have done to block this bill?

I mean,

I did have some conversations, but honestly, I was never optimistic that we were going to have the votes to stop it.

I have seen absolutely zero courage.

There's been no

spine in some of these Republicans that have essentially, you know, done whatever Donald Trump has asked them to do and yet at the same time, claim that they're somehow moderate or they somehow care about Medicaid.

I mean, that has been

just, I think, the most difficult thing to see.

I mean, you take someone, for example, in my home state of California, David Valladeo.

He has more people on Medicaid, or as we call it, Medi-Cal in California, than any other member of Congress in California.

Yet he voted after saying he wouldn't, for months and months, he votes to cut their health care.

And so if someone like David Valadeo or Young Kim in Orange County, these kind of self-proclaimed, more moderate members, aren't going to stop the loss of health care for their own constituents.

I just don't have any hope that what they're saying is anything more than empty rhetoric.

They really have no interest in stopping the Trump agenda.

And I think they are more interested in their billionaire donors.

They're more interested in listening to the large corporations that direct a lot of what Donald Trump's agenda is.

And I think it's horrifying to think that less people are going to have health care, not more.

This is going to impact the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.

Food assistance, which has been traditionally kind of a bipartisan agenda across this country where young people, particularly kids in schools, should have reduced lunches, that we should feed kids that are low income, especially.

Kids are going to are going to lose their federal food assistance.

And so you're going to have school districts making the choice, the hard choice, of having to remove kids off of reduced lunch or free lunch at many of these schools.

Many of these kids, as we know, are low income and barely getting by.

And then you have in that same bill, not just this kind of redistribution of wealth, which is horrific.

You have agencies like ICE, which are being supercharged.

It's something you've been highlighting, the build out of ICE, you mean?

The build out of ICE.

People should be horrified.

I mean, ICE now is going to have more resources than the FBI.

If you take the FBI and some of our other, for example, federal law enforcement agencies, whether it's that do gun control or drug prevention, the ICE budget will now have more resources than all of those other federal law enforcement agencies put together.

And what I think Donald Trump is trying to do is it's not just his kind of mass deportation agenda, which is,

I believe, unconstitutional.

It's inhumane.

It's a bunch of things.

It is also Donald Trump building his own police force, his own national law enforcement agency that serves at his pleasure.

And he has always wanted to control the country.

He's always wanted to control

and assert his own fear and his authoritarian nature as he views himself, this type of dictator/slash king.

People need to realize is you've had law enforcement agencies across the country push back on this, right?

You've had the large cities, whether it's been New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, say, hey, our police force is not going to engage in federal immigration law.

And so what has Donald Trump done instead?

He said, okay, well, then I don't need your permission.

I'm going to create my own.

national kind of police force.

And it's one that he chooses to have them wear masks.

And it's one where they're carrying around rifles.

And it's one where they're in armored vehicles and gear.

I mean, it looks like a military unit, not any type of federal law enforcement agency.

And so I think people have got to be very concerned about the ICE piece of this bill.

It hasn't gotten as much attention as the others, but it's really concerning.

I think that he is going to turn the Department of Homeland Security into his own nationalized police force that he controls.

The bill allocates, allocates, as you noted, $170 billion for Homeland Security and immigration, including this $45 billion for detention centers, and that's 10 times the current budget.

You were part of a group of Democratic lawmakers that went down to El Salvador after Kilmar Abrego Garcia and a gay makeup artist, Andre Hernandez Romero, were deported.

Talk about what you saw there in the detention camps and what we could be looking at here, given the amount of money they have to build them out in the United States and not necessarily rely on El Salvador.

I mean, one, first, it's important that we, I think, as members of Congress, stand up for due process and for the Constitution.

And in Kilmer Brigo-Garcia's case, obviously, clearly, you had someone that the Supreme Court ordered to bring back to the United States, and Trump was defying that court order.

And these are people that are being sent, whether it's Andrew's case, which is, again, horrific, right?

Someone that shows up to his immigration appointment that we give him,

then he gets essentially kidnapped and taken to El Salvador, a country he's never been in, with no real evidence presented to a judge or any sort of ruling by a judge that he should be there.

And so this is happening over and over again.

And people of due process and their rights are being stripped.

We know that people in our country have the ability and have the right to due process, whether they are a citizen or non-citizen.

That is in our constitution, clear as day in writing.

And so, yeah, we went down there to bring awareness to what was happening to obviously Mr.

Brego Garcia and to others like Andrew Romero.

What we learned there is one is the Buquale government is incredibly disciplined in what they're doing, right?

They have they're terrorized their country and there are people that are on the ground that are trying to organize and bring attention to the fact that folks are getting sent down there without any due process and they're being treated in horrific conditions.

These are people that don't have access to an attorney.

And oftentimes they're being kept in horrific conditions, little access to water.

In Andrew's case, for example, we have had no proof of life, essentially.

We've asked for a basic proof of life now for months, and none has been given to us.

And people that are sent to these prisons oftentimes are never seen again or heard from ever again.

And so

the danger now of United States citizens in some cases or people that are here legally on some type of temporary work permit or something else are being sent without due process and to never be heard of again, essentially a kidnapping.

The entire country should should be outraged by that.

The inhumanity of how people are being treated and

the fear that has been installed in the public in El Salvador is the same type of fear that Donald Trump is trying to install here.

What did you see there and how do you expect it to unfold here?

I mean, mostly they're just making hats that say alligator alcatraz.

Yeah, tasteless.

I mean, look, we didn't go in.

They wouldn't allow us to actually go into the actual prison to see COD itself.

We've obviously seen images about what happens there, but we did talk to many people on the ground, family members, organizers, you know, kind of civil rights advocates that reaffirmed what the conditions were like in these prisons.

Because Seacott's just one of the facilities that is in El Salvador, that hosting folks, and that certainly has some of these horrific conditions.

But what we do know, and this is true, it's not just happening in El Salvador, it's happening here in this country.

Donald Trump just put a seven-day hold on members of Congress being able to visit a detention center here in the United States.

Prior to two weeks ago, the law is and has been that a member of Congress can show up to a detention center unannounced and enter that facility to inspect it.

That's been the case.

And multiple members of Congress have exercised that right now for years.

So as of one week ago, Donald Trump and Christian Noma put in a new rule.

Well, we have to give them a seven days notice.

Now, we're fighting that and we're going to be fighting that in the courts.

And certainly we're pushing that.

That is unconstitutional.

But we are now showing up to these detention centers and are being denied entry and are being told we need to give them a seven day notice.

So what are they hiding where we can't do these visits anymore?

And what we do know is in the prior visits that members have made, we have talked to people in these detention centers in the United States, not El Salvador, that are not well fed, they've had no access to an attorney, have had their due rights violated.

And they're scared that they're in there and afraid they're not going to get out and ever see their families again.

And in some cases, U.S.

citizens, we know have been sent to these places.

And so, this is what we're dealing with right now.

And I think more people need to understand that this horrific budget is, yes, going to do horrible things on healthcare and taxes.

What it does on the kind of detainment of people and the destruction of people's due rights process through the courts, I think is something just as scary and dangerous.

We'll be back in a minute.

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The Justice Department, as you know, is pushing to strip certain people of their citizenship using McCarthy area laws that targeted immigrants accused of being members of the Communist Party.

A.G.

Pambodi wants to be able to denaturalize Americans convicted of any number of crimes.

You were born in Peru and became a naturalized citizen in your 20s.

Are you worried they would use these draconian measures to go after political opponents like yourself?

They've already mentioned New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani.

Also Elon Musk.

They threatened Elon Musk of all people.

Talk about the impact this is having, because he's also a naturalized American citizen.

Yeah, I mean, look, this is this is this debate's been also difficult to

see and to watch and kind of play out.

I mean, I remember when Donald Trump, I had a friend saying, hey, do you think Donald Trump's going to, this was a few months ago, saying, do you think Donald Trump's going to go after a birthright citizenship?

And obviously,

you gained citizenship later in your life.

And I was like, I mean, I said, no way.

You can't.

I'm a U.S.

citizen.

Like,

there's no way that could happen.

And I think every day that goes by, you start to see how serious I think this actually is.

The Supreme Court, obviously,

has been giving him broad powers as it relates to his executive orders.

You're hearing what the Attorney General is saying, which you just mentioned just a minute ago.

So it is concerning, but it certainly isn't going to stop us.

And it's really not going to stop me from kind of pushing back and fighting and doing the oversight and the accountability work that we have to do.

I mean, I am a U.S.

citizen who earned my citizenship.

I raised my right hand.

I swore an oath to this country.

I take the Constitution seriously.

And I take my oath to this country incredibly seriously, unlike Donald Trump and most of his crew.

And so

I'm a member of the United States Congress.

And so for me, I'm less worried about me and more concerned about other folks who may not have the same protections or may not have the same megaphone that I might have as a member of Congress, who are going to be dealing with this exact question.

So if you're a new citizen,

you have every right, essentially, with the exception of running for president, you have almost every single right that any other U.S.

citizen has.

And so

Donald Trump cannot strip and denaturalize people.

And so this march towards trying to do that through the courts, it should be very concerning to all of us.

And it's being monitored, of course, very carefully.

And I can't imagine.

Are you worried yourself?

I'm not.

I mean, I mean, look, I should mom Domni be worried?

I think that we should, I think this country should be worried.

And

if you are an immigrant to this country, whether you're naturalized or

in any way or in the process, I think all immigrants are worried.

I mean,

I've got family members, nephews that are the sons of family members of mine who are also from immigrant families who are saying, Should I be carrying around my identification?

Do I need an ID?

I mean, people are scared,

but

I don't know that I'm scared for myself.

I think he's going to come after people, he's going to do what he does, but I am concerned for other people that don't have the same protections that I might have.

So, every episode we get an expert question from outside.

Here is yours: Congressman Gastier, it's Ariano Josa, Latino USA, from Pluto Media.

Given the historic role of Latinos and Latinas in the state of California and their engagement with political protest, not only electoral politics, but street politics, whether it's Polores, the United Armed Workers Boycott,

the

protests against Prop 187,

the early 2000s pro-immigrant rights demonstrations, now LA.

What is your message to Latinos and Latinas in California about their role in peaceful protest, the importance of it as a form of historic democratic engagement in the United States, and

your message to other Latinos across the United States who can safely protest.

What is your message to them and their role in this historic moment?

Thank you, Congressman Garcia.

No teballas.

Thank you.

Gracias.

Look, I think first

I think it's a complicated question because I think, you know, in a normal environment,

you'd tell someone, look, the government's here generally is going to protect you and it's going to do the right thing.

And you should go to your immigration appointment and you should check in with the immigration office and you should do all the things you're supposed to do in order to earn citizenship.

Now, I think we're in a place, and I think we have to be honest, where I can't even trust.

that the government is protecting our private and personal information in the right way.

I mean, I've had questions of folks saying, you know, should I show up to my immigration appointment?

Am I going to be safe?

I've had people

that don't want to fill out forms, like basic government forms,

because they are afraid that their information is going to be tracked.

I've had other immigrants that have, I mean, they're here, they have some type of documentation that don't want to even like engage with any law enforcement or that are scared to even go outside.

And so it is, it is, I think it's a heavy question because I wish I could say trust your government or trust the process and I can't.

And go to protests and go to public protests.

Exactly.

And I just don't think that we can do that.

I think the most important thing for what I've told people, particularly those that are maybe in some type of another, or maybe non-citizens, and whether it's their undocumented or they have some type of visa or some type of work permit or school permit, I said the most important thing is to protect yourself, your family, and to know your rights.

That is number one.

And to not put yourself in a position where you feel unsafe.

And, you know, reminding folks that they have rights if an agent tries to talk to them, if they come to their home or their place of work, knowing your rights and the work that immigration groups across the country are doing right now on that issue is to me the most important thing on day one.

And to not go to, whether it's a protest or an event or a place where you might feel unsafe or you feel you're going to be targeted, I think everyone has a right to protect themselves.

I think it is heartbreaking to drive around or visit some business districts in the Los Angeles area and see how empty they are.

I have seen images of some of these farmers markets, these kind of

markets where a lot of like Latino and immigrant families would gather and buy goods and sell flowers, and they're empty.

And small businesses are sharing how their sales have collapsed because folks aren't coming out.

So I think for those that are in a more secure place that are citizens or have some type of of naturalization, we have to be out there peacefully protesting and supporting, especially if you are Latino or come from an immigrant family.

And think about what's happening to people like your mom or your cousins or your Tia or your Abolita.

This is a direct attack.

on us.

Racism absolutely is a huge piece of this.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is a piece of this.

This is about getting rid of people that are different and about trying to install this different worldview of how our government should be and what the foundations of our country should be.

So I think to that question, I think all of us, especially other Latinos, have to be out there peacefully protesting and picking up that mantle.

And we should continue to push back and supporting our family members that can't.

So there are plenty of Latinos who voted for Trump, too, who are in favor of taking a tougher stance on immigration.

Do you think these raids will change their mind?

And what kind of conversations are you having?

I think it's absolutely having an impact.

I think one, first,

they were wrong.

And I've told a couple of members of my family, family,

very close to, that had voted differently.

And I think some of them recognize now and I've had conversations with them that what they've made a mistake.

They feel betrayed.

I've, you know, we've all seen those images and those videos.

What do they say?

What do they actually say?

They say, you know, and it's hard for me to listen to them because I tell them this is exactly what he said he was going to do and what we said he would do.

And they just didn't believe it.

And they thought, well, it can't happen to us.

So there's no way he's going to come, you know, to do this.

And in some ways, and I've told friends of mine, I'm like, it's a selfish worldview that, oh, it's not going to impact them, but it will impact others.

At the end of the day, like,

people are struggling through this.

And I'm glad that every day more Latinos, Latinas are waking up that supported Trump and realizing they made a mistake and that Donald Trump lied and that they did not

understand that this was actually going to be his plan all along.

And so I think more and more Latinos and Latinas, I've talked to some Trump supporting Latinos that don't agree with this and they think this is too far.

And so I'm glad.

Will they shift their votes?

I think a lot of them will.

I mean, like, obviously, I think, you know, Trump's not going to be on the ballot again, obviously.

I mean, we hope.

But

I think it will shift some of their votes.

And I hope that they've realized that the modern Republican Party is not the party of Ronald Reagan.

It's not the Ronald Reagan party that gave amnesty and a pathway to citizenship to so many families, including mine.

This is a warped, dark,

incredibly cruel MAGA party that wants nothing to do with immigrant families and will not support the Latino community in any way.

So you're like, good, come back.

Because you could easily say, sorry, you know, the expression leopardate your face, but

look, I'm.

Sorry about your lack of face.

I think these are.

These are family-to-family conversations that are happening, I think, at a lot of dinner tables and a lot of

family gatherings, and they're happening in my family and they're happening at other Latino families across the country right now.

And they're very hard because we feel betrayed.

I feel betrayed by members of my family

that have, that I know, voted for Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, it's not many, a vast majority did not.

But I do feel betrayed.

And I think a lot of Latinos feel the same way.

We'll be back in a minute.

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So, I want to switch gears a bit.

This spring, you were elected ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, one of the top posts in Congress.

And if Congress flips, you'll be in a very powerful position.

Congrats on that.

Thank you.

That makes you the first Democratic sophomore congressman to be a ranking member in the committee in over 100 years, which is about the age of many people in Congress.

The job was open because your predecessor, Virginia Congressman Jerry Connolly, passed away.

He was sick at the time.

I think he took the job.

He was one of the three Democratic congressmen who've died since the election.

Their seats are still open.

Talk about your win.

Is it a fluke or a sign that leadership knows this seniority system isn't working anymore?

And let me just note: 86 members of the current House are over 70 years old, and a majority of those are Democrats.

Do you think there should be term limits?

I do.

I'll put that out for committee appointments and even congressional seats.

Yeah.

So, okay, look, I think a couple of things.

So, one is I do think that

this election and that I've been given and the responsibility, I think, does signal a shift.

And when I went around talking to the caucus, I took this very seriously.

I thought, look, I

understand I've been in Congress for not even three years,

but I also understood that when we're going out to these town halls and going back to our constituents, people want change.

People want younger folks involved.

It's time for Democrats of this next generation to take leadership and be at the table.

And so I think that the not just the leadership of our caucus, but I think that all the members understood and understand that we have to expand the tent and that this election was an opportunity to do that.

And so I do think it does signal an absolute shift in the way we're going to approach these leadership elections when it relates to these committees.

It was very clear to me also when I started talking about this, the first folks I started talking to to were all the newer members.

And to newer members from my class or the, or the class that just came in,

they were clear.

They were like, seniority is not important to me.

I think what's more important is, are you prepared to do the job?

And what's your forward-looking vision for the committee?

And I was, you know, I obviously have experience in being a chief executive of a city, pretty large city, and I felt confident I could do the work.

And what I told folks is, look, I understand that seniority is an important part of our caucus.

It's always going to be.

I mean, it brings wisdom.

It brings the strength of

having had so much knowledge of the way things have worked for a long time.

So I don't want to diminish that.

But I think in looking forward, if we're going to build a party of the future, we've got to bring in new people.

And so I think that we have made a change.

As far as term limits, I mean, I'll tell you what I told the caucus members that asked me.

I actually favor term limits for like leaders of committees.

I would, it's something that I would support.

I would impose that on myself.

When I've been asked by members of our caucus, like, would you, do you think that ranking members or chairs, that there should be some type of limit like Republicans have?

I've said I would support that.

I mean, I don't know what the right answer is.

I mean, I think Republicans, for example, you can lead that committee for, what is it, three terms.

They have a limit that's pretty set.

And I think us having some type of limit that we can have new folks and new ideas, I think would be very healthy for us.

And so I would not be surprised.

if in the next kind of year or two, especially as we look towards winning the majority, you're going to start hearing conversations and debates within our caucus about how we're going to modernize ourselves.

And I think there's a group of us that believe that we've got to modernize Congress in a lot of ways.

I mean, look,

I mean, women and families and dads and people that have a new baby aren't allowed to take any time off after to vote by proxy.

I mean, moms have to rush back in the second they have a child because they get no ability to vote remotely.

I mean, these are the kinds of archaic rules that are set up

to not empower, I think, younger people.

And so I think working class people, younger folks, changing the system, I think all that's going to be on the table.

What about term limits for Congress itself?

Yeah, I think, look,

that's not something that I think I know what the right answer is.

I think, look, I don't mind term limits.

Term limit CEOs?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

I was term limited when I was mayor.

And again, I don't know that I oppose term limits per se for Congress.

I think I'd be open to that.

I do think that they work.

I mean, I was was term limited when I was mayor.

I think governors are term limited.

I've yet to be convinced how having term limits in Congress would actually damage the institution.

It wouldn't.

I think that, in fact, you would get more younger ideas and different perspectives into Congress.

I think anything

These types of ideas, obviously, and these types of reforms, I think, should be on the table to discuss.

So you've called President Trump the most corrupt president in American history.

I'm not missing any words.

You've said other things too.

As a ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee with a trifecta power on the Republican side right now, you said you're going to be investigating this administration.

Right now, they're doing an investigation into Biden's age, by the way.

That's one of their investigations.

Do you have power to do that?

And then, alternately, if Democrats were to take back the House in 2026, you would be running this.

What's the first thing on your list of investigations?

The cutter jet, the Trump meme coin, the Epstein list?

You have so much to choose.

Or is it a waste of time to do that?

No, it's not a waste of time.

It is not a waste of time.

I think not investigating the corruption would further damage our democracy by allowing these norms that Trump has created to continue.

And so it would not be a waste of time.

Look, a couple of things.

So just to move backwards, I mean, obviously, when we don't have the majority, we are limited in our investigations of what we can do and the information that we can get.

But we are still able to have investigations.

And so in the oversight committee now, we still have the power to seek information, get information back from agencies, ask tough questions.

Of course, while we don't control what hearings are in front of us, we can have our own kind of shadow hearings, which we plan on doing across the country.

And we can ensure that the hearings themselves, that we are bringing the right questions, the right energy, and that we're matching the Republicans as it relates to the way they play this game, which is they'll do anything it takes to get their agenda done.

We have to match that level of energy and intensity.

And so we are absolutely going to begin, and we have already looking at some of these huge grifts the president is engaged in, whether it's the foreign plane, whether, like you mentioned, this meme coin scandal, it is, we don't even know the depth.

I mean, it is likely he is making, I mean,

the amount of resources that are being poured in.

Hundreds of millions.

Hundreds of millions of dollars that are being poured in from foreign governments and oligarchs and who, God knows who, to directly benefit Trump and his family.

Yeah, I call him the coin-operated president.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

It is insane.

I mean, I can't believe that any American could support this man with his family after learning this.

And I don't understand how they do it because Trump has changed the game.

And so all of these issues we are going to be looking at, but will be limited.

And I think that's what's really important for people to understand.

We don't have subpoena power.

Why is the majority in the Congress important?

Because we don't have the power to subpoena Elon Musk.

We don't have the power to bring in.

members of the Trump organization.

We don't have the power to force the release of documents.

Musk might help you at this point, just so you know.

That is, that's actually, that's right.

He's tweeting all kinds of Epstein things.

Yes, I know.

That's a whole other very interesting turn of events.

But I think what we can and are doing, though, is we're beginning to lay the ground for what we're going to be asking the question.

We're going to see what information we get from agencies.

And the other thing that's important is we oftentimes, some of this corruption that the government is engaged with, they're engaged in this corruption with private companies.

And it might be one thing for the oversight community to send the Trump government a letter asking for information, and they might stonewall or not give it to us.

But if the oversight committee is sending a company or someone involved with these insane gifts that Trump is selling, whether it's the damn shoes or the fragrances now or all these other items, we're going to be also keeping corporations and those that are engaged in this corruption accountable as well.

And so I think that there is an opportunity for us to engage not just on the government side and ask tough questions, see what we get, but also on the private sector sector side.

By the way, have you tried Trump perfume?

I have not.

It smells like corruption.

It's probably terrible.

It smells like grift.

Yes, 100%.

Who knows?

It might smell okay.

But what would be on the top of your list if you get control of

Congress?

I mean, at the top of the list is going to be, well, first and foremost is going to be Donald Trump and his direct corruption with the White House.

And it's going to be focused on him essentially selling access to donors and foreign governments to the presidency.

And I think it centers not just around the issues around this kind of coin scheme, this crypto scheme that he's engaged with, but he's literally selling, I mean, tickets to events and to dinners at the White House, which he's raising money on.

So the actual selling of access.

I think has to be at the center of what we are doing in oversight when we're taking on Donald Trump's corruption.

That's got to be the critical.

And then how we set policy and laws to guard and to set up a system where this can't happen again.

Obviously, the investigation is one thing, but passing laws and strengthening the existing framework of laws that we have has to also be a piece of this.

And so, Donald Trump's corruption is going to be at the top.

And obviously, it ain't just going to be this scheme, but all the ways he is selling the White House for access has got to be at the center of what we do.

The Trump family is wealthier beyond their wildest dreams right now because they're using the White House to enrich themselves.

And that has to be not just stopped, but people need to be held accountable for that.

But first, Dems have to get back in power.

I want to finish up with the future of the Democratic Party.

One of Trump's biggest wins was getting low propensity voters to the polls, particularly young men.

We talked about Latino men switching sides.

Trump also pulled in more black men.

It's always Democrats in turmoil, essentially.

But how do you explain that?

And what do you think Democrats can do to win them back?

You switched from Republican to Democrat years ago, which is the opposite.

So how do you look at that?

And many people feel that Democrats have ventured too far into identity politics, even though Republicans were the ones putting up the they-them ads, for example.

I spoke to Congresswoman Sarah McBride recently, and she said that progressives shouldn't focus on purity politics, and in fact, said we need to embrace imperfect allies, which even though she is under attack, I think she's done a great job of decentering her identity in an interesting way.

She never abandons it, but definitely is focused on real issues for Delaware, the people she serves.

So talk a little bit about what you all have to do to return to power in that regard.

You can't be just because nobody likes him.

I mean, I think that's right.

I think, look, one thing that's going to be important in the oversight work, and you'd ask what we want to do first, I think, obviously taking on Trump's corruption, but we can't just be anti-Donald Trump.

And so I think whether it's the oversight committee or the broader work, we have to have a forward-looking agenda and actually engage and energize voters.

I think the party has an an immense amount of work to do in actually building a forward-looking agenda that people actually can relate to.

Right now, it's clear that we have disconnected ourselves from what people, working class people are facing every single day.

Those issues around lowering the costs of goods of what people are paying at the grocery store, at the pump.

Those issues actually really matter.

And we did not focus on them and we haven't for years.

We've continued to distance ourselves from our working class base.

And while I think it's been great that to see some of the shifts, as we know, in a lot of voters, whether it's been folks that have gone to college or voters that are more engaged, and we welcome those,

we have detached ourselves from our base of working class voters across this country.

Look at what just happened in New York, for example.

What Mandani has done, and what I credit his win to, is he actually had a forward-looking, simple agenda that resonated with people.

And he was able to get turnout dramatically up.

And I'm not convinced that had anything to do with his politics on the Middle East or his worldview that he's a democratic socialist.

I think that the post that I talked to, no one brought that up.

Like they didn't care about the mayor of New York has nothing to do with Israeli policy, but go ahead.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

And while I think that many in the media and others in political circles wanted to put all of their focus and make that the issue, that's not what the public actually cared about.

What they cared about is these kind of bold ideas, this idea of free transit.

This idea that he was actually going to, he was very clear.

I'm going to freeze the rent and stabilize apartments in New York City.

I'm going to work towards these kind of co-op grocery store models where I can actually, the government can kind of control pricing and lower prices across the city.

These are bold, big ideas that I think the Democratic Party can actually learn from.

He won because he had a forward-looking agenda that appealed to working class voters.

And I think we have to do that and replicate that agenda across the country.

And I think it's happening.

It could be different in different places, right?

It can have to be.

Absolutely.

It can be different.

But it's what he did, which was he took an agenda and then he took his ideas and he talked about them in the spaces where people are actually consuming their information.

I mean, not only was he kind of had that flood the zone approach where he was kind of everywhere, in digital spaces, he appeared to be everywhere.

And I think that's something that we have a lot to learn from.

And so I think we have to rebuild.

Well, you're pretty good at it.

2024, Politico named you most likely to trumpet his own thirsty award.

That's right.

A given to congressional attention seekers, which I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

You tweeted out a drag queen gift in a response, I'm parched.

That's right.

Talk about that because I've been advising a lot of congresspeople who asked me, I'm like, you need to be promiscuous and almost appalling, like near appalling or everywhere.

And ubiquity is, I say promiscuous, but it's the same difference.

Talk about your media strategy because it's very funny.

And sometimes those things can be, never work.

They can go viral and never have effect, effect, right?

That's right.

Mom Donnie shows they can go viral and have effect, for example, because he was at 1% and then suddenly was everywhere, essentially, all at once.

So talk a little bit about what Democrats can do there.

I think that the more authenticity that we show, that members of Congress or whoever are real people and that we have interests, I think it's actually the way.

And then taking yourself and putting it out there, I think is a way of getting to people that aren't following politics day to day.

Look, I'm a huge reality TV fan, for example.

I remember in a hearing in Oversight, I quoted a real housewives quote.

I mean, it went just incredibly viral.

I mean, it was everywhere.

It was, you know, it was on the Bravo shows at night and on the late night and everything else.

I remember talking to folks in that one instance and, you know, had in those different viral moments.

What really sold me on this is I had people that were not plugged into politics and were not plugged into kind of Donald Trump's corruption on the issue that I was talking about.

But that said, you know, I learned something because

what you said brought me in.

I saw it on late night TV.

I Googled it then.

And I actually learned you, because you use pop culture, I actually learned something about the government or the news that I would never have known before.

And so I think what's important in this kind of attention economy that everyone's kind of talking about right now is that we grab people's attention, but then use it.

Once we have the attention, we actually need to then take that attention and give them the information so that they can make an informed decision about whatever policy issue we're trying to promote.

Trump does that well.

Trump is a master.

People say, oh, he's a, you know, he's an idiot or he's this or he's that.

He's a master communicator.

I mean, one of the best that we've seen in the modern era.

He knows how to sell something that communicate in all the spaces.

In a genuine way.

We have a lot to learn from that.

We have to take our own authenticity, be funny, use pop culture, and we have to use pop culture to enter in spaces that we're not in and then communicate when we have that attention in that space.

Yeah, it's better than having conferences about young men.

They're all their conferences.

I'm like, no, I refuse to come to any of your

things.

But one of them is getting, you're from California, getting tech entrepreneurs who used to lean Democratic.

And I think still most of the employees do.

But do you think you should be fighting to get them back on board, like in Elon Musk or down from him or anything else?

There are some that I probably are willing to move back or certainly feel disaffected with Donald Trump.

At the same time, a lot of them just want to get what they want to get, whatever they happen to want to get from Trump.

I think we should work to get them back.

I think tech and innovation generally is about moving forward and about new ideas and

trying to improve humanity.

And so many folks in the tech space, and I know this, but I have a lot of friends in the tech space and folks in my generation, they want a better country and a better planet.

And they actually want to create ideas that actually help people.

And I think it's a mistake to just write folks in the tech sector off.

Oh, these are tech bros, just write them off.

I think it's so ironic when I talk to someone in tech and they might be a little bit more conservative, but then you ask them, oh, what do you think about AOC?

And they'll be like, oh, she's so cool.

Like

a lot of folks in tech still, you know, they want to be part of culture.

They still want to be in kind of spaces that are about the future and forward-looking.

And so I think there's an absolute opening.

We shouldn't write folks off.

How?

Look, I think when their ideas are bad or shitty, we should call it out.

And we shouldn't, you know, just roll over when they want to

take advantage of working folks or when their products are bad for consumption.

But if we're able to, I think we can.

I think we shouldn't be the automatic party of saying no to technology and advancement.

And I think right now we have allowed Republicans to become the party of efficiency.

And efficiency shouldn't just be about tearing things down.

I think efficiency can be how do you make things better, faster, use technology in a way that's smart, but putting in the guardrails, of course, to protect people.

And so, look, I don't have all the answers on this, but I do think that we can win some of these folks back into the party.

You know, I'm making a prediction here now.

I think I could see Muss giving money to AOC if she ran for president.

I could see it.

He could do it.

Honestly, I could see him also doing the same type of thing.

I think that's not out of the question.

You never know.

Yeah, you never know whatever he's attracted to.

Anyway, further down the line, I have just two more questions.

Key Republican leaders who actually have made inroads with tech people like J.D.

Vance are already jostling to become his heir apparent.

Do you see a potential 2028 candidate on the Democrat side that could beat Trumpism?

You were co-chair of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign in 2019, a longtime friend.

Are you backing anyone at this point?

And who do you see on the Republican side as problematic or promising for them or

likely?

I mean, look, I think on.

On the Democratic side, I mean, it's so early.

Obviously, we just had an election that we lost.

And so I think we have an incredible amount of talent on our side, and I think we're going to see who develops.

I think our priority and mine has to be winning first the House.

And so I'm not going to put any energy on who's going to be the next president on our side.

And we've got to win the House, win the majority, and slow down this Trump agenda.

That's going to be critical.

Look on the Republican side, I think what you're going to have is you're going to have Vance and Marco Rubio likely be two kind of MAGA world figures.

They're going to probably both look at fighting out who their nominee is.

And I think it'll be interesting to see if Donald Trump kind of anoints J.D.

Vance as a natural successor and he kind of creates a clear path for him.

No.

Or if he kind of does a Hunger Game style MAGA world.

Yes.

You're all on your own

and they all can fight it out amongst themselves about who the nominee will be.

So I just, I don't know.

What I do know is we have to, we have to fucking win.

Like we have to win.

How are the processes?

Because a lot of people feel that if the economy is okay, because a lot of these social cuts aren't going to happen until after the 2026 elections, if the economy is good, is that a sure thing from your, it looks like it, and it usually happens, but how are you feeling right now?

I think the midterms are looking good, but

we can't assume anything.

I think we have to fight every single day till we win.

And we shouldn't just make assumptions that, oh, well, we win when a president is in the midterm.

I think we got to throw all that out.

Trump's changed the game.

We keep going back to these norms that things have always been this way, and then Trump keeps breaking them.

I'm more concerned, is Trump going to try to create a crisis and interfere with the election?

What kind of rules will be working under?

Is he going to try to damage turnout?

That's what I worry about.

Like, I think Trump changes the game to benefit him.

And so that's what our focus has got to be there.

But I think we're going to have the right candidates and the right message.

And what I've encouraged the party and leaders is we have to have a forward-looking agenda, not just in the midterm, but they'll win the presidency.

It just cannot be that we are opposed to what Donald Trump is trying to do.

And

I think that's the pathway to win.

So final question.

A lot of Democratic voters are looking at how Trump administration has run roughshod over Congress and are losing hope.

And this is a rubber stamp Congress for him.

I mean, the GOP.

What would you tell these people?

And what, if anything, gives you hope in the future of democracy?

You know, I've been thinking a lot about this.

What's giving me hope right now is seeing the kind of organizing and the protests and the peaceful protests that are happening across the country.

I mean, every day that goes by, I feel like people are are more engaged with what's actually happening in DC and across the country.

I think people were really despondent when the election happened.

I think the first couple of months were really hard.

But now there is an energy that is building on the ground, new supporters, folks that are feeling betrayed, people that are now organized.

I think that are doing the work into building this new coalition that will defeat MAGA and Donald Trump.

And for me, I am seeing it every day.

And that is giving me hope, especially because

they are organizing around this idea where we have to also fight harder.

And it's the fight I see in them and the renewed kind of spirit of fight I'm seeing in more and more kind of, you know, Democrats and whether they're in state houses or Congress or wherever else, people are, I think, more invested and passionate about saving this country and our democracy.

And that's what's been hopeful for me.

Great.

And if you win, you will be one of the more powerful Congress people, correct?

I mean, I think that the Oversight Committee is a very powerful place to do a lot of public good.

As long as you return the original copy of Superman number one that you borrowed from the Library of Congress.

You did, didn't you?

I did.

I did this to get, I did swear in on that and a copy of the Constitution together.

Yeah, yeah, but you returned it, correct

to the American people.

Never, never went home with me, of course.

All right.

I really appreciate it, Congressman Garcia.

I'm excited to see what happens going forward.

Thank you so much.

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