Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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BISMARCK – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Budget Committee, joined Fox Business’ Kudlow to express concern over the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) unprecedented raid of President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. Senator Cramer also discussed the Inflation Enhancement Act, which Democrats rammed through the Senate over the weekend on a party-line vote. Excerpts and full video are below.
On the FBI Raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Home:
“First of all, I think that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is to be feared by every American and have [thought so] for a long time. I think the concentration of power that they have, the power they have even over individual agencies through their bank of lawyers, so once they take on a case the agency they’re supposed to be working for, loses all control. I’ve thought the DOJ should [have been] busted up a long, long time ago, but this raid, particularly in the context of the times we’re living in, is very concerning. Larry, they could clear a lot of it up with more transparency. I know that’s not a new argument, but show us the subpoena for crying out loud. This requires further explanation or else we’re left to presume the worst.”
“Here’s what sort of crazy and I’ve often wondered about the motives of Democrats when they do these things. It is very unlikely that anything they can come up with would prevent Donald Trump from running or being president. It looks to me like they’re driving him right into the arms of the American people, at which point all of this history they’re creating for themselves is not going to endear them anymore to the future and former president. I, for the life of me, don’t understand their strategy, other than they’re so fueled by hatred they can’t even let a former president enjoy his status as a retired president.”
On EPA Provisions in the Inflation Enhancement Act:
“There’s not a lot of ‘authority,’ per se, but there’s a lot of money and appropriations—a lot of it the EPA and the Department of Energy will oversee. Anytime you have money, you have power. As you recall last week when I and [former EPA Administrator Andrew] Wheeler [were] on with you, we pointed to very specific appropriations that were designed to regulate the power sector. For example, in certain parts of the [Clean Air Act] code which are absolutely contrary to the West Virginia v. EPA ruling. Ironically, Joe Manchin authors a bill that tries to give the EPA more power over West Virginia. That was all struck out. [Senator] Shelley Moore Capito and I both had amendments to directly address this. Before our amendments could even be voted on the Senate Parliamentarian ruled those areas out of order. From an authority standpoint, I think some decent work was done, but you just can’t take $369 billion and spread it over a few agencies and expect there not to be some mischief that goes along with that money.”
On Democrats’ Climate Change Hysteria:
“If the United States of America ceases to exist tomorrow, so there’s no more coal, no more traffic, no jet airplanes, no flatulent cattle, I mean, none of this awful [carbon dioxide] going into the air—first of all, the world would die of hunger—but beyond that, it would make a difference of 0.3% on the temperature forever. 0.3% if we didn’t even exist. Larry, we had a hearing last week in the [Senate] Banking Committee the Democrats put [on] called the economic impact of climate change. I [renamed] it the economic impact of climate change overreaction or climate hysteria. The real damage to the economy is the response to climate change. The reality is that the United States of America has been a leader in decarbonization. The best way to decarbonize or at least to reduce carbon [globally], remember this is a global issue, would be to produce more American energy and export more American energy because we do it so much cleaner and better than anyone else. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have another area of trade surplus rather than [have] a trade deficit with China and other countries? Food is one of the areas where we have a surplus. Energy should be another one of those areas where we have a trade surplus. That is good for the world, good for the United States, and certainly good for the free world.”