Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) accused Republican lawmakers have become a “cult to the President Donald Trump’s personality,” adding they were unwilling to hold him accountable.
Hayes asked, “We’re in the midst of a pandemic. There have been documented systemic failures by the federal government at multiple points in this. And we just pushed out $2 plus trillion out the door in Congress for a rescue package, larger than anything we’ve seen in my life, with some oversight the Democrats fought for. And here the president has crossed out some of that oversight, saying we’re going to ignore it. And now removed the IG. What does that say to you about the status of oversight for what is the largest piece of spending legislation I’ve ever seen?”
Schiff said, “It gets back to something the president said when the Republicans first proposed the $500 billion fund with no oversight. He said I will be the oversight. That’s what President Trump wants. He wants the freedom to reward friends and punish enemies in industry. And this gives him basically a $500 billion hammer, or $500 billion pot of gold to distribute as he would like.”
He continued, “This is to save the jobs of people throughout the country, not to be used as a slush fund for President Trump or the first family. And so that oversight is critical. It’s critical to keeping people’s jobs. But the rest of the oversight is critical to making sure that the health care system continues to function as it should. Normally, Chris, you would have a situation where these ground truths would be important to a president because he may not be getting the straight scoop from his own agencies.”
He added, “Here the problem is, what happens when the president is the one who is not telling the truth? How do you hold that president accountable, and the answer in the past has been that Congress, on a bipartisan basis, would rise to defend the American people and their own institution? But here one of the parties has become a cult to the president’s personality, and in the wake of these bloodlettings, bloodletting of inspector generals, the response from the GOP in Congress has been nothing but silence. And silence in the face of this kind of incompetent response is really deadly, and the country needs to demand more of their representatives.”
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