ICYMI: Congressman Chris Pappas Joins Raging Moderates Podcast to Discuss Key Issues and Senate Campaign
MANCHESTER, NH — In case you missed it, Congressman Chris Pappas joined Jessica Tarlov, co-host of the Raging Moderates podcast, for a wide-ranging conversation about his campaign for U.S. Senate, the latest national headlines, and the Puritan’s chicken tenders.
Watch the full episode here and read key excerpts below:
ICE Overreach Undermines Community Trust & Public Safety
- PAPPAS: “We have to be trusting local officials. And I think whether it’s the governor, the mayor, the local police chief in Minneapolis, other members of law enforcement, they know their communities better than anyone else here. And so I think their voice in terms of this conversation around what ICE has been doing to run roughshod over local communities, to break the trust that law enforcement has worked so hard to build with communities, especially in a place like Minneapolis, that’s the damage that ICE is doing, which goes well beyond individual operations.”
An Agency Out of Control Requires Congressional Oversight & Guardrails
- PAPPAS: “This is really a serious question here, and it goes well beyond whether [Secretary Noem] was qualified for this job in the first place, which I don’t believe she was, and don’t believe she ever should have been confirmed by the Senate. But it goes to the kind of leadership and transparency she hasn’t shown, the way that she has spewed propaganda in the wake of these shootings, as she basically lies to the American public about what has transpired. It’s not conducting investigations. It’s not providing Congress with the information that it needs.”
Accountability, Not Blank Checks
- PAPPAS: “We need serious accountability measures in the [DHS] bill and we didn’t get that in the bill that was presented to the House last week. That’s why I voted no. There was this notion that, well, we’ll give them some more funding and they might be able to procure some body cameras. That isn’t good enough.”
- PAPPAS: “They have plenty of funding right now. They had $75 billion that they received in the reconciliation bill last year that they could use for all sorts of good standards and better training, and all the things that our local departments are doing to better equip our officers for the 21st Century, to focus on the community and to keep our country safe. So we need to spell that out in the bill.”
Trump’s Celebrity Politics Distracts From Rising Costs
- PAPPAS: “Well, they have so few cultural icons to be able to latch on to… Donald Trump just loves being in the presence of people who are famous in their own right, and he feels like that rubs off on him, and he doesn’t really care who it is or what they’ve said about him in the past.”
- PAPPAS: “I think the American people have really just had it with this administration. I mean, you know, he can dress it up with celebrity visits, you know, he can roll out all these pronouncements, but at the end of the day, he’s not getting at the core of what people truly care about right now, and it’s an economy that just isn’t fair. Isn’t working for people, costs that are far too high.”
- PAPPAS: “I think people feel like his [Trump’s] attention is anywhere but the things that they’re talking about around their kitchen tables. So I don’t know how this all plays, but certainly, Donald Trump has always been about celebrity, and I guess it appears that MAGA has at least one in their camp.”
Reckless Military Action in Venezuela & Returning to Values-Driven Foreign Policy
- PAPPAS: “It seems like the administration is creating this open-ended commitment. It doesn’t appear that we’ve been learning lessons from what has transpired over the last few decades, the loss that we have endured in terms of our troops and service members […] I hope we can get back to a foreign policy that’s guided by values, about making sure that we’re strengthening our alliances, that we’re defending democracy, that we’re speaking out for human rights.”
- PAPPAS: “The foreign policy of this administration is not national security-based. It’s not about strengthening democracy. It’s about what Donald Trump feels like… whether that’s Greenland, whether that’s Panama, whether that’s Cuba or Venezuela. We’ve got to be smarter about how we use U.S. power, about how we truly make the world safer and protect our national security interests. Shooting from the hip like this is not smart foreign policy.”
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