Healthcare is absurdly overpriced, Trump is bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela, and the Justice Department refuses to release the Epstein files. Throughout all these issues, there’s one big question on all our minds: Where is Congress?
Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) joins Jen to discuss the abdication pandemic currently contaminating Congress. Whether it’s Senate Democrats siding with Republicans over the government shutdown battle or Republicans flat-out refusing to deny Trump his biding, the legislative branch is in need of some serious reworking.
Congressman Jake Auchincloss is serving his third term representing the Massachusetts Fourth. In addition to his work on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, his areas of focus include healthcare, clean energy, gun violence, and building a strong middle class.
The following transcript has been editing for formatting.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back with us Representative Jake Auchincloss from the 4th District of Massachusetts. Welcome!
Jake Auchincloss
Thanks for having me back on.
Jen Rubin
First of all, thank you for your service. You are a Marine vet, and I believe still in the Marine Reserves, so thank you for your service on this Veterans Week.
Jake Auchincloss
Semper Fidelis.
Jen Rubin
So, we had the end of the shutdown this week. What did you think of the measure that came back from the Senate, and why did you vote against it?
Jake Auchincloss
I voted against it because we didn’t get a win on cost of living for the middle class. That was my aim before the shutdown, when I sent to the Speaker, along with several other Democrats, a series of pathways to yes on this negotiation. I was not fixated exclusively on an open-ended extension of the ACA enhanced subsidies. I raised the question of tariffs, I raised the question of reversing the worst of the Medicaid cuts.
The key for me was, after 10 months in which the middle class has experienced the biggest tax hike in American history and the biggest healthcare cut in American history, that before it is asked to then fund this government, it gets some cost-of-living relief that didn’t happen.
Jen Rubin
Now, there is, of course, the promise, at least in the Senate, of some kind of vote. Speaker Johnson has not promised that there, would be a vote. Do you see any potential deal with the Republicans that might involve, either adjustments of the caps, or some anti-fraud provisions that they’re looking for? Or do you think this is, something that they’re just adamantly opposed to, since they have never accepted, really, the Affordable Care Act?
Jake Auchincloss
I’m skeptical, because for the last 15 years, Republicans have been complaining about the Affordable Care Act. They have yet to offer a proposal for how to make it better. I think President Trump just hates it because it’s called Obamacare. I literally think that’s the extent of his policy disagreements.
He’s not exactly a wonk on healthcare issues. And I think there are Republican senators, in fact, I know there are, who would like to be thoughtful on this issue. I’m sure there are some House Republicans as well who would like to be thoughtful on this issue. Certainly, I found partners across the aisle on specific healthcare issues, like drug pricing, for example, and taking on the pharmacy benefit managers, but regrettably, they just… none of them will stand up to Donald Trump and his really scathing hatred of the ACA exchanges, which is a shame, because there are bipartisan ways to make this better. We can use the, you know, individual contribution accounts from employers to help surge employees onto the ACA exchanges. That does make the ACA exchanges more robust.
It’s a better way of lowering premiums than just subsidies. We could expand direct primary care arrangements, we could expand use of flexible savings accounts, we could enforce more price transparency and site neutrality in hospital spending, like Medicare Advantage upcoding is an issue that Republicans have worked on, so it’s not like the threads aren’t there for us to tie together into some kind of coherent healthcare policy to lower costs, but they just won’t move on it. And when they had a chance to do it this summer, they just chose to take 10 million people off Medicaid and raise at-home costs and home premiums and health insurance premiums for everybody.
Jen Rubin
You wrote a really interesting, piece recently about, your colleague, Mr. Golden, who is going to be retiring, from the main district that he represents, and you made, really, a plea for the big tent, that, many folks have echoed in trying to put together a big, democracy, movement and a big democratic party. What prompted you to write that? Are there things that you see that are troubling signs, or did the elections, last week provide some encouragement that there is a sense of a larger tent in the Democratic Party?
Jake Auchincloss
Jared Golden has won… What is it? Four times now, a Trump-plus-9 congressional district in northern Maine, a district that Donald Trump won 3 times. Jared Golden is unique amongst the Democratic Party. I think he might literally be the only Democrat in America who could win that seat. He also happens to be a terrific legislator, super smart, very thoughtful, hardworking, authentic connection to his district, and my roommate. We’ve lived for 5 years together in a basement apartment in Washington, D.C. We’re both former infantry Marines, we’re both, dads to young families back home in New England, and we’ve become close. And every morning, over coffee, as we’ve been on this 5-year political rollercoaster, he and I have been holding a two-man legislative hearing. We’ve been discussing everything from tariffs and drug pricing policy to MAGA and guns and immigration and what I really have come to appreciate is just how much better of a legislator and a representative it makes me to constantly be challenging my own assumptions and to hear from other people’s perspective.
And the same that is true for me is true for the broader Democratic Party. We need to be embracing, more of these types of blue dog candidates. And I’m not a blue dog, Jen. There’s a lot of policies I don’t agree with. That’s okay. We share a lot of core convictions, and certainly if we’re gonna win a generational majority, but also if we’re gonna deliver policy that resonates with the exhausted majority of Americans, we need people in Jared Golden’s template.
Jen Rubin
Now, it works both ways. You know, Mr. Mamdani won in New York City, and there were some Democrats who said, no, he’s a Democrat socialist, we’re not going to support him, even though he’s a nominee. Should it work both ways? Should, more centrist, if you will, for lack of a better term, Democrats, embrace someone who is the nominee, who is talking about affordability and other issues?
Jake Auchincloss
It should work both ways. There also needs to be through lines of coherence within our party, right? People sometimes say, oh, you know, you can’t have litmus tests, no litmus tests. Well, hang on. a political party does need to have a sense of itself, right? Which does require some kind of core tests about who we are and what we stand for. I think the Democratic Party can stand broadly for the rule of law. We can stand broadly for a big middle class that does not require a college degree to enter or to stay into. We can stand broadly for a United States that supports public safety and national security in ways that are productive and not cruel. I think these can be big themes of a Democratic Party with lots of different geographic and ideological variations within there. So there’s a tension always between hanging together as a party, that people understand what they’re subscribing to, and also, you know, a country of 340 million people, where there’s gonna be lots of folks from different walks of life.
Jen Rubin
Let me go back to your service and, bring you back to another issue that really has maybe gone under the radar a bit, because we’ve been very focused on the shutdown on healthcare, and that is what the administration is doing in the Caribbean. They, say they are taking out drug smugglers, we don’t know if that’s the case. They are not seeking to interdict. They’re blowing these boats up. There’s some information that we have that, at least some of them are not, drug smugglers. And Congress really has not weighed in, has not authorized force. How concerned are you that we’re headed down some slippery slope, and Congress is not upholding its part of the checks and balances and the process that normally determines whether we put young men and women in harm’s way?
Jake Auchincloss
Well, the slippery slope began in the 1970s. We are well down that slippery slope now with the War Powers Act that granted way too much war-making prerogative to the executive at the expense of Congress. The Constitution’s pretty darn clear on this. Article 1 has control over the ability to declare war.
The president’s the commander-in-Chief in consultation with commanders decides, tactics, strategy, operations, as it should be, because, you know, I was in the Marines, you can’t have tactics by committee. You gotta make, bold and decisive action, but the American people deserve to see their representatives vote to strike and to make war upon other people or other nations. Now, I’ve reviewed the president’s claimed legal authority to do it, I think it’s absolute nonsense. Congress needs to insert itself and declare that he can’t just decide that he is gonna make war on these presumed narco-traffickers, and just have us trust that they’re doing pre-strike reviews in concert with the law of armed combat. I have no trust.
Jen Rubin
Last question for you. Obviously, we’ve seen a little bit of, what’s behind, the Epstein files, and some disturbing revelations that came from House Oversight. This is more than some salacious scandal. First of all, it goes to the victims, but there’s also an issue of a cover-up and whether the Justice Department and the President has been candid with the American people. How important an issue is it, and, what do you think is, the most important aspect of it, or what, troubles you the most?
Jake Auchincloss
It’s all grotesque. The abuse, the cavalier attitude of so many individuals involved in the abuse, either directly or indirectly. The clear abuse of power to protect those complicit, including the president, but Jen, you know, I think Americans have made up their mind about whether Donald Trump is a creep or not. I think there’s some… I think there’s a big chunk of Americans who think he’s a creep. And, candidly, some of those people voted for him anyway in 2024.
And then there’s some group of Americans that don’t and won’t believe anything. And I think the question that Democrats need to ask ourselves is, is it the most productive line of argument for us to continue to bang the table and say, this guy’s a creep? And I think most Americans have made up their minds one way or the other, I certainly have. And instead, Democrats need to be telling Americans not who we’re against and why, but what we’re for and how we’re gonna get it done. And in particular, on the cost of living and affordability. That’s what Americans want to hear from Democrats, is, if we entrust you with governance. How are we gonna keep housing, healthcare, and utilities from devouring the middle class?
Jen Rubin
And do you think, though, that even if the public is not always interested, or some of them… a lot of people have made up their mind that there is a role for Congress in getting to the bottom of, really, a predatory scheme that, involved a lot of people, and for which there has no been… not been yet accountability. Is that a proper role for Congress to be doing?
Jake Auchincloss
The entire oversight and investigations muscle of Congress has atrophied. Of course we should be doing this. By the way, we should be doing significant investigations on RFK and how they are plundering Health and Human Services for their own grift factory. People like Calley Means and Brad Smith. You poke over into the Department of Defense and Pete Hegseth and how he’s running that shop.
There is no end of oversight and investigations that Congress should be doing. The Republicans don’t do any of it, obviously, they would never dare disturb the dear leader. But, you know, candidly, Jen, even when Democrats have been in charge of Congress over the last decade or two, we have allowed this role of Congress, I think, to weaken. Back in the 90s, when you had people like John Dingell or Henry Waxman in charge of energy and commerce, which is the committee that I’m on.
Boy, like, they had, like, 30 to 40 tough lawyers and investigators on committee staff. And Democrat or Republican, they were holding feet to the fire. We gotta get back to that. In general, across the board. Whether it’s, you know, emergency powers declared over tariffs, whether it’s misuse of military force in the Caribbean, whether it’s the declarations of posse comitatus, or I should say the violations of posse comitatus to deploy the military domestically, whether it’s you know, actions about defunding federal agencies and firing independent commissioners.
The common thread across all of this is where is Congress? What is Congress doing? And the answer is, Speaker Johnson has purposefully sidelined Article 1 of the Constitution. That has been the most frustrating thing for me. It’s not that I disagree with Mike Johnson on any given policy, it’s that he doesn’t even think it’s his job to weigh in on the policy. He thinks of himself as, like, the chairman of a board of advisors to the CEO, and it’s just complete… it’s a complete abdication of the role entrusted to us by the American public. And the number one thing that’s gonna be different, if Democrats take back the House, it’s not necessarily any one policy, it’s that Congress is going to be back in action.
Jen Rubin
That would be a refreshing return to the Founders’ vision and to perhaps functional government. Thanks so much for joining us, Congressman, and for what you’re doing to try to revive the first branch of government, which seems like a good idea. Thanks so much, we’ll look forward to speaking to you soon.
Jake Auchincloss
Take care, Jen.
