Interview With Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI)
Interview
"You know, I will take it all under consideration, for sure.
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No, listen, I mean, there are some serious trust issues here.
Speaker McCarthy...
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With McCarthy, of course.
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He made a promise back in May about how we were going to fund this government. And he took us to the 11th hour, jeopardizing American jobs, women, infants and children via the WIC program, and finally came to his senses.
But how can we trust these guarantees going forward? We're going to need some concrete guidelines in place if he's going to want Democrats to come to the table and help save his speakership.
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And I would say too, there are two choices, right?
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I mean, listen, I'm just saying, that's out there.
But we need to have some concessions in place. I think that there are plenty of moderate Democrats who saw Speaker McCarthy come to his senses and do the right thing that we had been asking him to do for months. And if we can have some kind of guarantees in place that that's the type of leadership that will be seen going forward, I think there are some of us who are open to considering that.
But we're not just going to come...
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To saving his speakership.
But, at the same time, we're not just going to come out and say...
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Listen, I'm open to it, because, if people...
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Well, that he's not going to go back on his word, like he has before.
I mean, we have some real trust issues.
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Solidified vis-a-vis rules.
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I mean, I think there are some negotiations to be had, but we're not just going to take his word for it again.
But we need...
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Yes.
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I will say the chaos that I have seen over the last month has left a moderate Democrat like me saying, let's consider all options.
We have 45 days to fund this government...
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... and get the work done for the American people.
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This is the exact type of extremism, cruelty that is eroding the foundations of our democracy and that Americans are rejecting, that I am rejecting, that we ran against in 2022, wholesalely rejected for the first time in West Michigan history.
And Americans are rejecting it across the board, and they're going to reject it again.
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We saw this week that there is a vast majority of this Congress that is willing to come together on these issues.
There are moderate Democrats who are clamoring to do something about border security, about immigration. I ran ads saying, Democrats, stop the spending. We have to lower costs for everyday Americans."
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