Congresswoman Katie Hill joined Ali Veshi to let everyone know that her constituents are absolutely NOT okay with missing a paycheck or three over Trump's imagined crisis at the U.S./Mexico border. He can say it as many times as he wants, but even the people who unfathomably still support him are not okay with going hungry, or becoming homeless. Even his fans are saying, "I mean, yeah, I want the wall, but don't make ME pay for it in any way."
Velshi asked her what she is hearing from her constituents, and she answered,
I've spoken to a number of federal employees. My district is full of them. Not a single one of them has told me they are happy with the shutdown, that they are fine with the shutdown. Every single one of them are terrified of missing their paychecks tomorrow. 80% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. It's no different for federal workers. There's national security at stake. This is a dangerous situation. The back bone of my district is aviation and aerospace. Deeply impacted industries. This is unacceptable.
The only way she envisions real progress being made is through the public letting their constituents know how unacceptable this situation is - MItch McConnell HAS to bring the CR to the floor for a vote. Senator Ben Cardin made a motion today for a vote and McConnell refused.
Yet, Rep. Hill insisted there is "a wide range of overlap" on issues between Democrats and Republicans in Congress on which they can and do agree. It is nearly guaranteed the government would re-open were it permitted to come to a vote if the wall funding were removed from the package. And yet...this scrot of a president and his spineless acolytes refuse to allow it to come to pass.
Velshi brought up Trump's attempt to hold California's FEMA funds hostage, blaming the state for its own wildfire disasters. Rep. Hill shut that down quickly, noting that the fires that started were on federally controlled land. Then they laughed cynically at Trump's notion that people suffering financially from his cruel shutdown could just appeal to their personal attorneys to help them forestall collection agencies and mortgage companies — as if federal workers making $40k/year keep personal attorneys on retainer. That's when Rep. Hill really brought the rhetorical fire.
No. No. No. So in my district we have a number of air traffic controllers, one actually came here from my district. Her name is Christie. She's a veteran. Mother of two. She told me about how she's, the stress that this is putting her family through. I have stories of people whose kids are trying to open up lemonade stands because they want to help their parents. We have people picking up second jobs. This is with air traffic controllers. Remember all the regulations around how many hours they're allowed to work. It's because of the safety that's needed. We have to have these people operating at 100% capacity and they are picking up second jobs just to be able to pay their rent or mortgage. Talking to lawyers? That's just not even an option. How are you going to pay them? It's just -- it really is a tragedy. This to me -- I know it's a strong word, but this is political terrorism.
Trump claims one of the reasons he's so adamant about this wall being built is to STOP terrorists from coming into the country. Rep. Katie Hill characterizes with sniper-like precision who the real terrorist is.
