June 21, 2023

Chairman Aguilar: House Democrats are focused on kitchen table issues that will grow the middle class

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu held a leadership press conference on House Democrats’ work to grow the middle class while House Republicans waste time on conspiracy theories and defending the twice-impeached, twice-indicted former President.

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Thank you so much for being here. Good morning. House Democrats are focused on kitchen table issues that will grow the middle class. We continue to talk about these issues because that’s what the American people have asked us to do.

We are not going to be distracted this week by election deniers trying to settle partisan scores, COVID conspiracy theorists with famous last names or even former Presidents admitting that they committed crimes on television. 

The American people asked us to work on lowering costs, creating jobs and defending reproductive freedom. And they want us to push back on the policies that threaten the economic recovery under President Biden. 

House Republicans—when they aren’t appeasing the Conspiracy Caucus or defending the twice-impeached leader of their party—have rolled out a three-part economic plan that would make life harder for middle-class families: ending social security as we know it; tax cuts for billionaires and the wealthiest corporations; and devastating cuts to things like veterans’ health care, Head Start and cancer research. And later this week, House Republicans will once again have a chance to show their constituents they are not beholden to the extremists in their party by joining Democrats in our efforts to defend abortion and pass the Women’s Health Protection Act. 

They need to show the American people that they’re focused on the most pressing issues facing the American public instead of putting extremists ahead of the middle class. 

VICE CHAIR LIEU: Thank you, Chairman Aguilar. When Democrats were in control, we put People Over Politics and passed laws to grow our economy. We passed the American Rescue Plan to create good jobs. We passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to rebuild your roads and bridges and highways. We passed the Inflation Reduction Act to fund renewable energy projects and to reduce the deficit. 

What are Republicans doing? Well, in Judiciary Committee, where I sit, they are having a wasteful hearing on a wasteful John Durham report that after four years, over $6 million dollars, and thousands of employee hours, essentially found that the FBI, in fact, had enough information to open a preliminary investigation into the Trump campaign. And thank goodness the FBI did that because multiple Trump associates were convicted of federal crimes. 

What the Judiciary Committee really should be doing is focusing on a democratic bill to pass an ethics law for the Supreme Court, because we've learned today that it wasn't just Justice Clarence Thomas that got lavish gifts from a conservative billionaire and failed to disclose it. It was also Samuel Alito, who got lavish gifts from a conservative billionaire and failed to disclose that. In addition, both justices violated federal law when they did not disclose their private jet travel and they did not recuse themselves even though both of these conservative billionaires had interests before the U.S. Supreme Court. One of them, and in the Justice Clarence's case, Thomas' case, sat on the board of an organization that files briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. And it is simply outrageous that you now have Supreme Court Justices who are violating all sorts of ethical rules that every other federal judge has to comply with. 

Video of the full press conference and Q&A can be viewed here.