Chairman Aguilar: House Democrats are ready to roll up our sleeves, drive down costs for the American people

Chairman Aguilar: House Democrats are ready to roll up our sleeves, drive down costs for the American people

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Tonight, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar appeared on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes to discuss priorities for the 119th Congress and standing up to Republican extremism.

HAYES: From your perspective, obviously, these races aren't called. How are you and your colleagues, at least in Leadership, talking about what this House will look like with, I think it's fair to say, a pretty slim majority along the lines of what the last Republican majority had?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: This is poised to be one of the slimmest majorities in American history, and if House Republicans continue to have an extreme agenda, then we know what that means for the American public. And they can't continue to do that and expect to have success in 2026. So, our job is to hold them accountable. We will work with them wherever and whenever we can find common ground. This will be a very slim majority for them.

We are making progress in California. We have had amazing pickups in California and in New York, in the Pacific Northwest. Our members held their ground in really, really tough seats in Maine and Ohio and in New Mexico. We were able to have some success in spite of some pressures at the top of the ticket that were difficult, and we've been honest about that, But this is a group that is ready to work, ready to roll up our sleeves and ready to help drive down costs for the American people.

HAYES: So, the last Congress, which started with the longest speakership vote in I think about a century. Kevin McCarthy was elected. He was then dumped because of essentially a no confidence vote, a kind of putsch that was started by Matt Gaetz, earning him the ire and contempt of most of his fellow Republicans, though, now apparently Trump's pick to run the Justice Department. I guess, if you're a Republican, the best case scenario is that the chaos of the last Congress was due to not having the Presidency of Donald Trump telling people what to do. And this time, there'll be a guy in charge, Donald Trump, telling him what to do, and it's all going to go smoothly this time. Do you think they're going to run that smoothly?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Well, all evidence is to the contrary. I mean, this is a group that suffered through, put us all through those speaker votes. This is a group that has not been able to fund government the way they want to fund government. We have had to continue to put up votes to avoid the debt ceiling, to fund government, to provide aid to Ukraine and our allies, that's exactly what we have done. So, all evidence points to them continuing to have difficulties rounding up their members for anything that isn't just the most extreme.

HAYES: So, how do you understand what's this next year is going to be? And I want to ask specifically about this: the Trump folks and Elon Musk, his co-President, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who I guess is sort of a little bit of a third wheel, to be honest, but I think he's still riding in the car. They say they're going to put this outside commission together and unilaterally cut the federal budget by completely, historically unprecedented amounts -trillions of dollars- and they're going to do it unilaterally, without Congressional approval, because the 1974 Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional and Congress doesn't actually have power of the purse, it turns out. What do you think of that?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Well, I think that they need to re-read Article One of the Constitution, which says that Congress is a co-equal branch of government. And I would be very curious at what Senate Republicans and House Republicans think about that statement. If they think that they can completely sideline an appropriations process and our ability to exercise our rights on behalf of our constituents, to guide the federal purse strings, then I hope that there will be pushback. But this is a party that has been co-opted by Donald Trump, so nothing surprises me at this point. However, as an appropriator and someone who works with Republicans in the House of Representatives, I think better of them than that. My belief is that they will push back in some ways and uphold our ability to guide federal resources. But we'll see, and we will hold out hope and continue to push to make progress, to drive down costs and to make sure we keep the rails on this government during this presidency.

HAYES: Final question for you concerns your former colleague, Matt Gaetz, who's no longer a member of Congress. I guess, does he resign again when the new Congress comes back. Do you know how that works?

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: His resignation letter indicated that he would not take the oath. So, we will see what he does on January 3rd, when we all take that oath, but he was duly elected by the people in Florida. And so, we will see. All we have is the resignation letter that he sent resigning this Congress, the 118th, but he did indicate that he did not plan to take his oath. So, we will see. This would not be the first time that Matt Gaetz and House Republicans have backed away from what they indicated, but we'll just have to wait and see.

HAYES: Yeah, I'm a little curious about where this goes. Congressman Pete Aguilar, thank you very much.

Video of the full interview can be viewed here.

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