John Garamendi: “He intends to hold Puerto Rico hostage, along with South Carolina; Houston, Texas; and southern California, the Ventura…”

“He intends to hold Puerto Rico hostage, along with South Carolina; Houston, Texas; and southern California, the Ventura area, all of which have incurred a natural disaster and, in this case, a dam breaking in Puerto Rico. In the case of Paradise, California--the great fire that occurred there and the wipeout of a community of 30,000 people--it is now being held hostage for the border wall. So not only do we have the U.S. Government hostage--and the American economy with 800,000 employees who are not getting paid--we are now using the supplemental disaster recovery, some $12 billion that would go to recover these communities that have been wiped out that are now being held hostage. So the gentleman said earlier that there is something immoral about this, that to use people's lives and their ability to recover, their ability to sustain their family, to get a paycheck, to work for the American Government to keep this economy moving, to be held hostage somehow is terribly, terribly wrong. But that is what the President is doing. And, apparently, that is what Senator McConnell wants to do with this new bill that he intends to introduce that would hold the disaster recovery program hostage for a $5.7 billion wall somewhere on the border, undefined. Something is terribly, terribly wrong here. Now, there is an alternative, and I think Mr. Costa mentioned it.…”