Um, but, you know, just big picture, um, what do you think, and I know this is a really, really kind of loaded question, and you don't need to go through every single element, but what was the one thing, uh, one reason why it didn't get over the finish line in the end?

Oh, my goodness.

Well, um, well, let me just say first about all of it.

You've mentioned a couple of things I just wanna go back to.

Um, you talked about the fact that I was a French- freshman and I was there.

Um, I do wanna mention that of my freshman class, I was the only person in that class who didn't come from the House.

I was the only person in the group who was an executive.

Uh, how optimistic are you for the Democrats will take the Senate?

How do you rate his leadership of HHS so far?

Well, I think his leadership has been absolutely disastrous.

And I didn't start saying this.

I said this over a year ago and said that he would make us not only sicker, but he's made people die.

I think this is unfortunately literally been true.

We've seen the highest incidence of measles that we've seen in our country in over 30 years.

And I think we can be clear our country had achieved elimination status, which means that no person, especially no child, should die in the United States of America of measles yet under his leadership we've seen not only measles escalate we've seen the poor leadership that is also we had Ebola internationally that we had really worked to reduce we've seen that increase so his leadership has been disastrous and you know what I think the gross the thing that is so gross about his leadership is there are mothers in the Maha movement I'm a mother so I understand that all of us want the same things for our children for them to be healthy, to be free of disease, to have healthy foods.

What do you think of that strategy? And do you agree that there is some parts of the Maha movement that make sense?

So let's start with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership overall.

Your thoughts.

Well, I mean, we can start with words like a train wreck.

And what we recognize, you talked about the Centers for Disease Control.

The Centers for Disease Control in the United States has been a global leader.

We have trained scientists around the world Yet under RFK Jr., what we've seen over the last year is a 30 percent reduction in those scientists, the ones who have helped us to focus on things like swine flu and other epidemics, the ones who helped us to reduce Ebola around the world.

And instead, what we've seen is this quackery.

you know, aren't clear what the right thing to do is to take care of their health and their children's health.

What is your opinion? Is this meaningful? Is this campaign posturing to basically just save face with unhappy voters by politicians who continue to vote with the president time and time again?

Well, let me say, you know what? I only wish that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had the moral fortitude to have reached this decision a long time ago.

I mean, what is abundantly clear is this president is incapable of delivering for the American people.

Everything we think about his character, that's a conversation that we ought to have as well.

But when we look at the cost of gas, the cost of utilities, our health care cuts.

This could have all been avoided had my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had the moral fortitude to have stood up to a person they empowered, who has single-handedly destroyed so much in our country.

So it's almost a little too late, but you know what? The midterms are coming.

They just don't get it, do they?

when you all do that, what happens?

Well, you know what? You made the point.

It is when we take it back.

Because you know what? The other side has already played their hand.

And America's been able to see now exactly what they intended for us.

And even for some of the people who didn't think they were talking about them, well, their cost of living has suffered as well.

We're taking it back.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

What are Democrats doing about AI right now? How much time do we need before there's some real action on this issue?

Well, first of all, I mean, what we just saw was so alarming, right? Not only having a president who lives in an alternative universe who's saying that we don't need to regulate what is obvious, even to the leaders who have created AI, who are urging us now to slow it down.

Lawmakers have a profound responsibility in this moment.

to make sure that we are regulating an industry that we all agree innovation is important, but the United States of America ought to always be in a place where we teach the rest of the world how to do so responsibly.

I think we can do that.

The Senate has an obligation.

I am going to lean in.

Why wouldn't this serve as a good stimulus plan?

Uh, a lot going on, but focusing on the midterms tonight, uh, what is the message of, of your party, uh, going forward here?

Well, you know, I think the, the message is clear.

Um, Americans, first of all, in these midterm elections, uh, will decide that Republicans should absolutely lose their jobs.

After seeing escalating costs, uh, the cost of groceries, the cost of housing, the cost of utilities, the cost of gas, uh, the incredible corruption of this president, uh, whose term has been an unmitigated disaster.

The only people who have benefited, uh, from this president's time in office have been his family and friends.

Uh, for the rest of the country, we have seen now the cost of living and the quality of life, uh, of so many Americans declining, and because of that, Americans have said now, I believe they're going to say in these midterms, that Republicans should lose their jobs, uh, that they can no longer lead, uh, and that we need to get back to a time where we're focused not only on the affordability, uh, for Americans, but focused on as well the fact that we ought to be each other's neighbors across our country, that we should all be concerned about healthcare, making sure that-

Uh, we've sort of hit this point where you don't even know where to begin, but w- what is your response to that? How do you bring that back in? And if the Democrats are in charge, um, do you use the impeachment powers against the cabinets? You investigate the f- the family? Do you go after all this stuff even as we're hearing some people say, "Oh, well, you can't be t- too focused on Trump if you, if you win the midterms"?

midterms"?Well, you know, what we need to be focused on, again, are the American people, the ones who expect for us to do everything in our power to bring down the gas cost, to bring down the cost of housing, groceries, to get them healthcare, for crying out loud.

Do state officials know why they were unvaccinated, and are they all from a particular concentrated community?

Well, what we know is that we're seeing a, a serious surge in these measles cases.

Uh, this is something I've been discussing since last year, when we've seen the outbreak of measles across our country now going from 285 cases just in 2024 to over 2,777 cases, and we can tie it directly to the horrific leadership of Secretary, uh, Kennedy.

What we have seen is disinformation, misinformation, the conspiracy theories that have frightened families and, and parents who are making decisions for their children.

And so we have a large number of unvaccinated individuals, including, as you've mentioned, children, who are dying from a disease that we had eliminated.

We put on an elimination status as of 2000 in our country.

... including in your state.

Well, you're right.

Um, do you think that, that Dr. Fauci, because of that preemptive pardon, should have answered questions before Congress?

No, I think Dr. Fauci did the right thing.

He understood that there was there the hope that they would entrap him in a lie of some sort.

And again, remember that the focus of this shouldn't be Dr. Fauci.

Uh, the, the focus ought to be on RFK Jr., the person they empowered, uh, to harm Americans, uh, who is full of conspiracy theories, uh, who has, uh, again, overseen the highest rate of measles in 35 years, cyclospora, because they have released and, and reduced, uh, the monitoring systems that allow us to find foodborne illnesses.

We are now literally sicker, uh, because of this administration.

And because they know that Americans understand this as midterm elections approach, they decided to, to dig out Dr. Fauci and maybe accuse him of something, uh, from six years ago.

But, but what do you think, if we'd known then what we know now, could've, could and should've been done differently?

Will you be hammering down on the fact that it's working people, ordinary Americans, who are bearing the brunt of all of this chaos while the president and his family gets rich?

Well, you know what? I mean, it's a fact that is inescapable now, um, that, that Americans are suffering, that n- that we are not better off, in fact, than we were at the time that he took office, and nothing he said has come true.

He said, for example, that he would on day one bring down the cost of groceries.

Um, and none of that has happened.

And, you know, I've been in Georgia.

Uh, I was in Mississippi this past weekend, and I was there, uh, campaigning for Scott, uh, Column, and, Colome, and, and what I heard from Mississippians is they've lost their healthcare.

Uh, I talked to a middle-aged woman who said she's lost her healthcare.

How much is the party willing to take on going into these midterms?

How could a Democrat-led Senate possibly rein this in?

Well, you know, you're right in that these projects, these are all these vanity projects that have absolutely nothing to do with improving the quality of life or the affordability for the American people.

These are all vanity projects.

And it is, again, as to you, as you pointed out, it's really going to be important.

that we regain control, that we're going to see.

This is why I think we're going to be very successful in these midterm elections.

And in fact, you know, right now I'm here in Mississippi on the ground fighting hard for Scott Colon, because from Mississippi to Maryland, I was in Georgia last weekend.

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So where do things stand with an ethics compromise, and do you feel any level of confidence that you'll be able to reach an ethics compromise that's acceptable?

Well, you know what? I stand by, um, that position, that I will not vote on the floor for the CLARITY Act unless we address, there are a number of issues that are still outstanding.

Ethics is one, uh, of the major issues.

Uh, we also have illicit finance that has been negotiated very aggressively, aggressively by Catherine Cortez Masto.

Uh, we also have to reach a bipartisan product in the Agriculture Committee.

So, uh, what I voted on that day was to continue negotiating.

I believe that we had very, uh, we had very aggressively negotiated in a bipartisan fashion.

Um, how do you see the passage of the CLARITY Act positively impacting your consti- constituents or those like them who've accessed crypto because they didn't have access otherwise to the traditional financial system?

[gentle music] There's mounting pressure on lawmakers to get the government open.

It's not just Democrats.

Republicans are suffering, too.

We ought to come together and negotiate.

And so at this town hall last night, I asked the senator, "So how does this end?"

I think that the pain that has been allowed to grow impacts all of us.

It's not just Democrats.

Republicans are suffering, too, and I think some of my colleagues will soon find out that their constituents are suffering as well, and that we ought to come together and negotiate.