'Simply A Half-A—ed Attempt To Paint Democrats As Soft On Crime': McGovern Rips GOP Crime Bills

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]With that, I now yield to the ranking member, Mr. McGovern, for any comments he wishes to make. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Um today we are considering the military construction and Veterans Affairs funding bill, as well as a package of bills that Republicans are advancing that pays lip service to law enforcement, but does nothing to address their actual concerns.

[00:00:21]These bills are simply a half-assed attempt to paint Democrats as soft on crime while advancing lousy legislation that will not make our cities and our towns safer.

[00:00:32]Now, here's how you know that this is all political theater. There is a resolution on the floor right now to honor law enforcement officers and commemorate those killed in the line of duty.

[00:00:45]It has broad bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans.

[00:00:50]But that is not the resolution we're considering here in the Rules Committee tonight because apparently, for the radical right, it wasn't good enough to honor the police in a bipartisan way.

[00:01:01]So, now we also have to advance a separate partisan resolution filled with lies attacking Democrats.

[00:01:08]That's the resolution that's before the Rules Committee right now.

[00:01:12]And I think that just says so much about what this place has turned into.

[00:01:16]Partisanship for the sake of partisanship. It's pathetic.

[00:01:20]And I would just say to my friends on the other side, people don't like it when you use them.

[00:01:26]And that is exactly what Republicans have turned Police Week into. You drag out support for law enforcement once a year. You use the police like props, and then you discard them once you're you've done with all the photo ops and the press conferences.

[00:01:41]Nothing in these bills, not a thing, will actually address the public safety concerns that I hear about back home, like more funding for cities and towns to hire more cops.

[00:01:52]You guys want to spend a billion dollars on a ballroom, and you come up here talking about supporting the police and you come up with a bunch of bills that do nothing to actually support the police, no additional funding uh to hire police or to provide uh communities with the funding to be able to get uh state-of-the-art equipment.

[00:02:16]Let me tell you something, talk is cheap.

[00:02:19]And nothing in these bills deals with the number one thing I hear about back home, and that is the issue of affordability.

[00:02:26]Just this morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that inflation is rising thanks to Trump's policies, the highest rate in 3 years because of the tariffs and because of the war.

[00:02:39]I had a town hall meeting this weekend and people are pissed off about inflation.

[00:02:43]They come up to me at event after event to talk about it. And I tell them to call the White House and call Speaker Mike Johnson's office to complain because that's who's to blame for gas and food prices going up because of the tariffs and because of this illegal war.

[00:02:59]Now, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on here.

[00:03:02]The economy is great for billionaires, the price gougers, and giant corporations. They're all doing great.

[00:03:09]But it's not working for the people who actually keep this country running. It's not working for families struggling to make ends meet or the parents who have to pick between gas and groceries before the next paycheck comes in.

[00:03:23]And instead of trying to bring down the cost of living, instead of fighting inflation, Republicans are doing the opposite.

[00:03:29]They're making it worse.

[00:03:31]They ripped health care from millions, cut food assistance for kids, veterans, and seniors, and raised the price of everything from utilities to groceries all to give tax breaks to their billionaire donors and rubber stamp every one of Trump's stupid ideas, including his tariffs his war, and now his billion-dollar ballroom.

[00:03:54]One other thing that I would like to point out, Madam Chair, we are apparently also going to consider a rule today to detach an E15 provision from the farm bill. A provision that would cost billions because it handed over uh taxpayer dollars to, you guessed it, the oil industry. But just remember, Speaker Johnson told one group of Republicans that E15 would get its own vote, and he added and he and be added to the farm bill. And then he told another group the exact opposite.

[00:04:25]What a great strategy. The problem with making multiple shady backroom deals is that sometimes the people in the different shady backrooms actually talk to each other.

[00:04:36]So now, after all the all that time wasted coming up with a rule that combined E15 with the farm bill, we are now going to waste more time on a new rule to separate it out again.

[00:04:49]And I'm surprised, quite frankly, that Midwestern Republicans are supporting this new strategy from the speaker because it really is just a way to ensure that the Senate never, ever, ever takes it up. But that's your problem now.

[00:05:02]Uh but that's how this place works, thanks to Republicans. Promises made, promises broken. Republicans break promises to their own members. They break promises to the American people.

[00:05:13]They cannot govern. They cannot keep their word, and while they stumble from one internal meltdown to the next, the rest of us keep paying the price. And with that, I yield back.