Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Is Being Interviewed About House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans' Plan To Avoid Government Shutdown;

Interview

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You know, I'm not sure at this point. You know, he had an appropriations bill that was on the floor earlier this week.

He had to pull it on -- before the vote for final passage. So, apparently, he didn't have the votes within his caucus to continue moving forward.

So, it looks like the honeymoon might be over for him already, even though he's only been in the position for, you know, I guess a couple of weeks at this point.

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Yes, you know, it's not been an auspicious debut for this. I mean, the supplemental package that the administration set, you know, he decided to break out the Israel -- the Israeli supplemental piece, and then, link it to IRS funding, which has nothing to do with any of the emergency issues that we've got going.

It's instead it was sort of a bone, I guess, to his right flank there, even though everybody knew it was going to be dead on arrival when it got to the Senate.

So, I'm not sure -- I'm not exactly sure how he's going to play this, but he's not off to a great start.

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I mean, they'd be extremely impactful with respect to not just government workers, who would be at risk, you know, if they're deemed not essential, not getting paid for the work that they're doing. Essential personnel, even though they will get paid eventually, wouldn't get their checks right away. So, for people that have to pay rent right away, they'd be pressed into, you know, financial, dire straits, potentially.

The impact across the country could be significant for -- as well. For example, TSA, the Border Patrol, military, people getting veterans benefits. Ironically, today, Social Security benefits, even though most of the benefits are guaranteed to continue moving, not all services will be continued to be provided.

So, all of those, you know, could have a bad ripple effect. And the bigger piece too, I think from a macroeconomic standpoint is, you know, the economic world, Wall Street and the like, are already concerned that Washington's dysfunctional and putting the economy at risk.

This is a yet another bad sign. I think with respect to that issue.

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Well, we think all of the supplemental pieces should move forward that would include humanitarian aid as well. The issue is going to be for some reason, many Republicans have decided that they don't necessarily want to continue to provide support for Ukraine. And I think that's part of why the Speaker broke that out, you know, before the Israel supplemental vote that he took a few weeks ago. So, I'm not sure what he's going to do at this point. The challenge, though, is, there is a lot to get done in the next few days. They don't -- there doesn't seem to be a real sense of urgency. I mean, they sent us home two days early, basically where we could be working Friday, Saturday, and through the weekend, if necessarily. But they don't seem to be concerned enough to push us into service in that way.

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Well, I was really disappointed with the FBI director's attack on that civil servant, even though I think he basically acknowledged there was no evidence of conflict of interest or any kind of misconduct.

So, you do want wrote wonder why he would raise that kind of red herring.

But at the end of the day on the merits, the site that was selected in Maryland, saves American taxpayers between $1 billion and $1.5 billion. Metro access, the subway was one of the factors. The Greenbelt site is in walking distance, the site in Virginia you would need a shuttle to get back and forth.

The Greenbelt site is shovel ready. We could get started on that almost immediately. The site in Virginia is encumbered with buildings that are already occupied. So, they they'd have to clear the buildings out of the workers, tear the buildings down, and then clear the sites could delay everything by a year or two.

So, it seems pretty clear to me that on the merits, the Greenbelt site was the right one to pick going away.

I understand that there are people who would rather have it be in Virginia, especially folks who are in Virginia. But I think from the taxpayer standpoint, and from the federal government standpoint, this was the right selection.

And one last point, the building in D.C. is currently, the chunks of it falling down, putting pedestrians at risk, putting employees at risk. I think it's dangerous for FBI employees to delay this unnecessarily, when the decision to put it in Greenbelt is right on the merits, and we should move forward immediately.

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Thank you.

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