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Senators caught on hot mic: 'Donald Trump is crazy. I'm worried'
Representatives Jack Reed and Susan Collins also overheard discussing Texas counterpart Blake Farenthold's threat to challenge the latter to a duel over Obamacare
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At the end of a Senate subcommittee hearing on Tuesday morning, Chairman Susan Collins, Republican-Maine, didn't switch off her microphone. Apparently speaking to Senator Jack Reed, Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat of the committee, Collins discussed the federal budget - and President Donald Trump's lack of familiarity with the details of governing.
After Reed praises Collins' handling of the hearing, held by the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she laments the administration's handling of spending.
“I swear, [the Office of Management and Budget] just went through and whenever there was 'grant,' they just X it out,” Collins says. “With no measurement, no thinking about it, no metrics, no nothing. It's just incredibly irresponsible.”
“Yes,” Reed replies. “I think - I think he's crazy,” apparently referring to the president. “I mean, I don't say that lightly and as a kind of a goofy guy.”
“I'm worried,” Collins replies.
“Oof,” Reed continues. “You know, this thing - if we don't get a budget deal, we're going to be paralysed.”
“I know,” Collins replies.
“[Department of Defence] is going to be paralysed, everybody is going to be paralysed,” Reed says.
“I don't think he knows there is a [Budget Control Act] or anything,” Collins says, referring to a 2011 law that defines the budget process.
“He was down at the Ford commissioning,” Reed says, referring to President Trump's weekend event launching a new aircraft carrier, “saying, 'I want them to pass my budget.' Okay, so we give him $54 billion and then we take it away across the board which would cause chaos.”
“Right,” Collins replies.
“It's just - and he hasn't - not one word about the budget. Not one word about the debt ceiling,” Reed says.
“You've got [Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney saying we're going to put in all sorts of stuff like a border wall. Then you've got [Treasury Secretary Steve] Mnuchin saying it's got to be clean,” Reed continues. “We're going to be back in September, and, you know, you're going to have crazy people in the House.”
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