DPCC Co-Chair Bustos: Trump's Actions Are Disgraceful
WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on Hardball with Chris Mathews on MSNBC to discuss how President Trump is undermining Americans' faith in the electoral system and in the press. Bustos, a former investigative reporter, referred to his actions on both these fronts as "disgraceful." Democrats are fighting for the people and will focus on restoring faith in our democracy, lowering the cost of health care and increasing wages by rebuilding America. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click here to watch the video.
"You nailed it, Chris. But let's look at what's going on right now. We've got the servicemen and women who have voted, who have sent in their ballots and President Trump is saying we've got to put this to a stop right now [and] let's not count anymore ballots. I mean, what does that say? We're, what, one day past Veteran's Day. What does that say about these men and women in uniform –who have gone through the effort to vote and he's saying, let's stop this now. You know, President Trump used the word "disgraceful." He is acting in a disgraceful manner to say anything other than that we should get to the truth. We should count every last ballot. We should make sure we restore the integrity in this process rather than interfering with the process. And, that's exactly what he's doing right now."
"Trump is a master distractor. I mean, everybody knows that. But look what he's doing to the press. For how long has he been talking about, the press is the enemy of the people. Chris, you and I have talked about this before, I'm a former reporter. That's what I did for a living for almost two decades. And, I can tell you that we went into the newsroom every single day, just as you do, to get to the truth. And, if we need to expose corruption, we expose corruption. If we need to talk about families that are doing great things, then we'll talk about families that are doing great things. But Donald Trump, to call the press the enemy of the people, to interfere with the election process, to try to undermine Americans' faith in the electoral system, that is what is disgraceful."
"You brought up 2020. It is imperative that we do everything we can to be successful in 2020. We just had a very good election cycle. It looks like in the House, we could pick up as many as 39 seats. We still have some that are in play, which is a very strong number. We won in districts where we didn't even think we were going to even have a shot at winning."
"I'm running for Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and should I be successful in that, I want to make sure that we hang on to these tough districts. And, these ones that we barely lost, places like central Illinois, where Betsy Dirksen Londrigan only lost by a very slight margin, that we get these people to run great campaigns again and we're successful in 2020."
"We're going to be sworn in in the majority on January 3rd. One of the first things we're going to do is address the fact that we've got a problem with making sure that we invest in…that our polling places are safe. That we take a look at the money in politics. That we've got a whole reform package to make sure that things are working in Washington the way they should work. And so, you know, we're ready to go on day one. Not just with that, but also, not to bring in another topic…but we've got to address rebuilding our country again. You know, one of our competitive advantages we've always had as Americans is we've been able to move our goods to market better than any other country. So we're going to have a $1 trillion rebuilding America package and we're going to bring down the costs of prescription drugs and health care. So, those are our three top priorities, including restoring faith in democracy, because of what the President has done over these last several years, before he was even President."