Ciscomani looks at Trump’s first 4 weeks

President Donald Trump’s first month of his

second term was marked by more than 70 executive orders that had some

Americans cheering and others predicting the demise of democracy. U.S.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, whose sprawling District 6 includes Green Valley,

part of Sahuarita and five counties, addressed some of those concerns as

well as goals he has for his own second term. Some questions and

answers are paraphrased and edited for space. The interview took place

Wednesday.

Q: Trump says Ukraine was responsible for starting the war with Russia. Do you agree with that?

A:

Ciscomani said he had not heard Trump’s full interview and didn’t know

the context of the comments, but said the president wants to end the

conflict as soon as possible, “and said from the beginning that it

wouldn’t have happened had he been in office.”

Q:

His quote was, “You should never have started it. You could have made a

deal.” If you can’t speak to his comments, what about you – do you

support Ukraine or did Biden have it wrong, and providing billions of

dollars to Ukraine was a mistake?

A:

Ciscomani said he voted for aid for Ukraine (as well as Taiwan and

Israel) “as I believed at the time that this was a national security

issue for us as well, and for the peace in that region. Also, we talked

about then that this didn’t need … for it to go that long as well. So

this wasn’t a blank check or just an ATM to the conflict, obviously. All

that needed to come with accountability, which it did at the time, and

that’s why I supported it. So I’ve been in favor of finding the best

solution for that region for Ukraine to be able to defend itself and for

us to find peace in that area. The new president now is working on it a

different way than Biden did. Throwing money at the problem with no

accountability just doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked and the president is

trying a different approach here – his style and his way.”

Q:

Trump’s style is that he is blaming Ukraine for starting a war that

clearly it did not start. You said you once considered this a national

security issue. Do you still think it’s a national security issue?

A:

“This is a terrible situation there and of course it impacts us,

especially since we have so much invested in this conflict already.”

Q: Do you think Ukraine had any role in starting the conflict?

A:

“From what I know, Ukraine didn’t strike first… Now we’re in this

conflict so it’s the responsibility of both sides at this point to want

to end it, which I think they do, so we just need to come up with a good

solution that works for everyone.”

Q:

If you do review the tape and discover that Trump indeed did say, “You

should never have started it,” then he would be wrong, correct?

A: “Why don’t I look at that interview then we can talk.”

Q:

Trump has issued a lot of executive orders in his first four weeks back

in office. Do you support all of those actions, or at least the ones

you’re aware of?

A:

Ciscomani said he has been tracking the executive orders dealing with

the border very closely as well as the one “protecting women in women’s

sports” (transgender issue) and attended the ceremony for the latter. He

said executive orders allow presidents to get off the ground quickly to

pursue their priorities and agendas “but then Congress has to come in

and codify a lot of this into law as well, especially in the House when

it has to do with the border or with funding mechanisms. I think these

are all things that we’re going to have a role to play here. A lot is

happening right now around the budget and around reconciliation and

around the appropriations process that is already starting for the next

budget. So there are a lot of those talks that I’m very involved with

along with the border. That’s mainly my role there.”

Q:

Speak to a few of the things President Trump has done thus far:

Reducing Pell grants for low-income students; rescinding the executive

order designed to lower prescription drug costs for Medicare/Medicaid

recipients; attempting to wipe out the Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau. Do you support all of those?

A:

Ciscomani said he has been clear on Pell Grants (he was a recipient as a

student) and that they should be expanded. “There are areas that we not

only need to protect but to strengthen in what federal government does

and that’s in my mind one of them.”

Ciscomani

also pointed out he has been a big supporter of expanding access to

Head Start, including getting teachers into the classroom even as they

worked toward certification. The more teachers there are, the more

students can be helped.

“When

we look at where the government is spending money, there is an

incredible amount of waste, no question about it. There are also areas

where things are working, in my mind. Can they be better? Absolutely,

they can be better. There is fraud and waste everywhere in the federal

government. It doesn’t mean you do away with everything, it means you go

in there and you work to make it more efficient. This is what everyone

runs on – everyone always says it, we need to make government more

efficient. Then you go in there and you start making changes, actual

changes, and some people get bothered by that. But the reality is this

is what we were elected to do, to make sure that the federal government

works in the best way possible for the taxpayers that are paying the

bills in there. Nobody wants their money to be wasted and I think that

is what the nature of the effort is.”

Q:

Everybody wants to root out waste, but are you comfortable with their

approach, which appears to be cut deep and assess later – we’re talking

FAA, VA, National Institutes of Health, Forest Service, National Nuclear

Security Administration – which they cut and then realized, “We need

these people back” – cancer researchers. All of this stuff has been

stopped. In the name of rooting out waste, is that really the way to go

about it?

A:

Ciscomani said he wouldn’t necessarily agree that everybody wants to

identify and cut waste. Then he brought up $10 billion in federal funds

the Government Accountability Office said is being spent on empty

government office space. (This first came up during the Biden

administration with new information coming out since Trump re-entered

office; DOGE – the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk –

is making plans to deal with it.)

Ciscomani

said there is an estimated $100 billion in improper payments to some

recipients of Medicare and Medicaid. “These are not payments to people

that actually need it, the ones we want to protect. The president has

actually been clear on saying we’re not going to be touching that, and I

fully support that, to not touch any of these programs (that meet

legitimate needs).”

Ciscomani

also said the federal government spends 80% of its $100 billion annual

IT budget maintaining outdated systems. “The list can go on. The amount

of waste that is going on everywhere, these things aren’t being talked

about.”

Q:

The nuclear scientists who were fired – getting rid of them then hiring

them back. Doesn’t that show there’s a flaw with how they’re going

about making cuts?

A:

“The fact that they hired them back is a sign that they know who’s

needed, who’s necessary and who’s there. I think people would have been a

lot more critical if these scientists would have just been let go and

not hired back to fill critical positions.”

Q:

That’s backward. They should have known ahead of time what these

scientists did and then say, “We don’t need you but we do need these

people,” and not ever let them go in the first place.

A:

“But the final result was a positive one where these people are where

they need to be. When you go in there and have to look at the largest

enterprise in the world, which is the United States federal government,

you have to go in there and you have to start shaving off in a way that

we (recognize we) have a $36 trillion debt.”

Ciscomani said trimming a little bit here and little bit there would take too long.

Ciscomani

serves on the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Appropriations

Committee, which he said gives him a close look at the VA from both

policy and fiscal responsibility perspectives.

“The

amount of waste and layers of bureaucracy the VA has, the dollars that

actually don’t reach our veterans is staggering… Our veterans deserve

better than for money to be dumped there only for bureaucrats to be

receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses, like the VA has

been doing. So when you look at every area, even an area as sensitive

and important as it is for veterans, we have to go in there and find all

the waste that’s going on.”

Q:

But when the administration goes in with a chainsaw and rips out a lot

of good going on, a lot of people and organizations are being hurt. Take

the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog for consumers,

what good is there in basically dismantling something like that?

A:

“We’re doing a lot of commentating on what the president is doing. He

was hired to be the executive, he was hired to be the president, and on

this agenda. This is not a secret to anyone, this is exactly what he ran

on, this is exactly what he said he was going to do. And the people in

Arizona, and in my district specifically, elected him to do that. And he

won Arizona, won my district, and when you talk to a majority of

people, they like what’s happening because nothing like this has ever

happened before where someone running – for that level of office – comes

in and actually delivers on the promise that is a very uncomfortable

promise to deliver on, which is to cut the waste that we see in the

federal government.”

Ciscomani

said he is not opposed to looking at the merit of programs and to be

careful not to do away with services people depend on.

“But do we need to reduce it? Yes. The federal government is known for growing and never reducing.”

Ciscomani said COVID brought a tremendous increase in government spending that has never stopped.

Q: Are there any decisions President Trump has made that you’re uncomfortable with?

A:

Ciscomani granted that Trump’s “style” isn’t for everybody, and doesn’t

mesh with his own. But people need to trust Trump with these decisions

just as they trusted him with their vote in November, and let it play

out. He added there is tremendous support for Trump’s actions and how

fast they are playing out.

When

it comes to Ciscomani’s role, “My job is not to comment on everything

the administration is doing. My job is to make sure that I do my role as

a congressman and representative and that is to promote the proper

legislation, like the bill that we passed last week for the Raul

Gonzalez Safety Officer Act, which is bipartisan – Democrats voted for

that, and I got it through in the first month of being back in my second

term.” (The bill would impose federal penalties on individuals who

engage in high-speed car chases with Customs and Border Protection

agents or law enforcement officers assisting CBP within 100 miles of the

border. Gonzalez was a Border Patrol agent killed in a high-speed chase

in 2022 in Texas. The bill now goes to the Senate.)

Q:

Trump’s style has made a lot of people nervous. For instance, when he

dismissed the inspectors general, he violated the law. So now we no

longer have a person in an oversight role over the Department of

Defense, Health and Human Services, Education, Veterans Affairs – he

just dismissed them illegally.

A:

“Presidents come in and change people who work for their teams…”

Ciscomani said the courts will decide whether Trump’s actions are legal.

Q:

Trump posted on social media Saturday, “He who saves his country does

not violate any law.” That sounds like he’s putting himself above the

law. What did you think when you heard he said that?

A:

“You’re going to have to ask him what he meant by that.” Ciscomani said

Trump’s doing what he was elected to do “and the courts are going to

make sure all of us – Congress and the White House – stay within the

law. That is the court’s duty so that’s their responsibility to

determine if any action out there is legal or not. And the decisions so

far have been that he is in the clear. That’s all I know, that’s what

the courts are there for…”

“The

comment is what it is, you can interpret it the way you want to

interpret it. What I’m telling you is that we have to make sure that

everything that we do is within the law and that is what the courts are

there for.”

Q: We have a president who’s potentially breaking the law and Congress appears to have been sidelined in all of this.

A:

“People look at me and say we hired you to do a job. We hired you to

provide funding for border security. We hired you to pass legislation

and manage reform that frees up permitting so that we can lower costs,

so that we can tackle this inflation. We hired you to listen to your

constituents and take the message back to Washington. We hired you to be

a good appropriator and make sure that we’re fiscally responsible with

our spending and our tax dollars. We hired you so that we can bring back

those tax dollars to Arizona and protect services and programs that are

important to our district. That’s what I was hired to do. I know my job

well, I’ve been elected twice because I’ve been very clear and up front

with my constituents what I wanted to do in this job. That’s my primary

job, that’s what I’m hired to do and that’s what I’m focusing on.”