Trump, IVF, Iran, and Veterans at Risk: What Sen. Duckworth Wants You to Know

Senator Tammy Duckworth: What I say is stop trying to fire the trans service members who actually are qualified to do their jobs. Let's keep them and fire up. I hope that he's waking up to the realization that they're laughing at him, that they're using him. He thinks he's the leader and he's got their respect, but he doesn't. They laugh at him and they know him for what he is, which is a stuffed shirt with no real substance. I had a veteran come up to me on Memorial Day and say, Hey, they just postponed the operation I was supposed to have because the people who were supporting the operation were fired in Trump's Dodge cuts. I think he uses the military like we're his toy soldiers. The military is just something in his toolbox to help him stroke his own ego. And he doesn't really, truly care about military men and women or even the national security of this country. Yeah, I think he called himself the fertility president. I sent him a letter as soon as it was, as soon as he was elected and said, Hey, this is great. When are you going to make fertility treatments available to all? You said that the government would pay for it. Let's. Let's do it. I'm happy to help encourage that and advise you on that. And so, by the way, I haven't got a response to my letter yet.

Dan Koh: Senator Tammy Duckworth. Welcome to the People's Cabinet. Thanks.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: It's good to be on.

Dan Koh: And as a veteran, you've obviously seen a lot about Trump's pageantry around veterans and military issues, not just the parade, but the general try to projection of strength in support of the military. You know, the real deal. So I just want to give you the opportunity to talk about your perspective on what you've seen.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: I don't I don't think of it as pageantry or. Showing strength. I think he uses the military like we're his toy soldiers. Right? He rolls her eyes out when he wants to. Behind our backs and sometimes not behind our backs. He calls us suckers and losers. I think that the military is just something in his toolbox to help him stroke his own ego. And he doesn't really, really care about military men and women or even the national security of this country.

Dan Koh: And you peel back behind the layers, you see the proposals of 80,000 VA cuts, the freeze of 2 billion in contracts. You've seen the V.A. up close. What does that really mean for people? The stakes of that?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: It means people will die. It means that veterans waiting for care will die. And veterans who thought they had access to care are going to see that access to that care to be delayed or even taken away. So on Memorial Day, we just celebrate Memorial Day a couple a few weeks ago, and I had a veteran come up to me on Memorial Day and say, hey, they just postponed the operation I was supposed to have because the people who were supporting the operation were fired in Trump's Dodge cuts. That's already happening. And the 80 it's actually 83,000 VA employee go that they're looking to cut. Those are the people that were added because of the Pact Act, which was a bipartisan deal to provide benefits to veterans suffering from the effects of being exposed to burn pits. And so they're basically. They're basically gutting the pact act by getting rid of the people who are supposed to be there to take care of the veterans.

Dan Koh: And what do you think it will take for people to for people to actually realize what's behind the curtain? And on a larger point, I think there's been a kind of narrative that conservatives and the Republicans are more pro-military. And I want to make sure that our listeners understand the truth, but then also what they can do in their communities to help change that narrative.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Well, I think. What I'm doing is just focus on what is right for the military, what is right for the national security of this country, and what is right to support our veterans and calling them out when when they do so. And I think people are waking up to the fact that, oh, my gosh, I suddenly can't get my VA appointments. And, you know, I had folks who worked on a veterans crisis hotline call me and say I just got fired and we were able to get some of their jobs back. But that word is spreading. And I think the fact that people didn't come to the Army's birthday parade, which really was the Trump birthday parade, is an indication of people understand that this man is an empty dictator wannabe.

Dan Koh: And what do you think the implications of him and his leadership is for this current situation in the Middle East with Iran?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: I think he is the lead person drumming on the drums of war. I think Trump thinks this is a good thing. I think he wants to be seen as strong and wants to be seen. You know, he he wants to thump his chest and is itching to use America's military might somewhere around the world. And that is not in the interest of the United States. Now, do I think Israel has a right to defend herself? Yes. Do I think that Iran should not be pursuing a nuclear arsenal? I agree with that. But Trump is the guy that put us out of the Iran nuclear deal. So if we're here, it's because Trump did that. I also think that Netanyahu is a war criminal. And so it is a time in the Middle East that actually takes somebody who is skilled at diplomacy. And that is not what we have in Donald Trump. And frankly, I don't see Marco Rubio doing his job as secretary of state either.

Dan Koh: And what do you think the dynamic between Netanyahu and the president ends?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: I don't know. I mean, I think, you know, Trump loves a strong. Right. Trump. Trump loves Viktor Orban. He loves Putin. He loves Netanyahu. But I don't know. I hope that he's waking up to the realization that they're laughing at him, that they're using him. He thinks he's the leader and he's got their respect, but he doesn't. They laugh at him and they know him for what he is, which is a stuffed shirt with no real substance. And hopefully he wakes up to that realization before. It costs America a lot in terms of our treasure. And I mean that by America's treasure. I don't mean money. I mean our men and women in uniform.

Dan Koh: When I switch to another topic that I know you've been very outspoken on, that Trump has also made some assertions about reproductive rights. And we have the anniversary of Dobbs decision coming up. You've been very outspoken with your work on IVF. President Trump, during the campaign and otherwise has said he was a champion of IVF but has done little to take moves on it. So I want to give you the opportunity to talk about the work that you're doing there.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Yeah, I think he called himself the fertility president, which is. Interesting. Characters, interesting characterization. Well, I sent him a letter as soon as it was, as soon as he was elected and said, hey, this is great. When are you going to make fertility treatments available to all? You said that the government would pay for it. Let's. Let's do it. I'm happy to help encourage you that, encourage that and advise you on that. And so, by the way, I haven't got a response to my letter yet. I know this this is an agenda of the anti-choice organizations, the people who have been working literally for decades to end, Dobbs said. This is been their agenda, which is they oppose IVF and they oppose fertility treatments. If you look at, for example, Texas Right to Life, their webpage, they specifically say that they are opposed to IVF. Now they walk back that a little bit to say that, well, if people do use IVF and you have fertilized eggs out there, then every fertilized egg must be implanted. But their leader of Texas, right to life. Who were the people who wrote the Texas the bounty laws that says that, you know, if somebody seeks an abortion out of state, you can sue them for damages. He said he wants control of all the embryos. That is a dystopian Handmaid's Tale future that we don't need in this country. And the Dobbs decision is. Monumental not just for access to abortion care, but also access to fertility care. When I was going through my many rounds of IVF, one of them, and resulted in a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage and I had to have a D and C in order to prepare my uterus for the next round of IVF. If I had waited and by this point I was 49 years old, and if I had had to wait for my my body to naturally go through that process, we didn't know whether I would be able to carry another child anytime in the near future. And the clock was ticking. So I had to have the DNC because of Dobbs. That would no longer be allowable because I lost a baby at ten weeks.

Dan Koh: You can also talk about the larger work that you've done on new families paid family leave. You know, it feels like people are just so overwhelmed by the costs of having children. Meanwhile, on their side, you have Elon Musk criticizing people for not having enough kids. The richest person in the world, obviously, who doesn't have to deal with the implications of that. I think that's a lot of people are really afraid right now of it in politics in general. But new parents and new families are struggling to get by.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: They are. I mean, if you really want people to have more kids, then provide for universal childcare, make investments in Head Start programs, make investments in our public schools. Let's do that. Let's make sure that we put money into programs that help for pre and post-natal care and health insurance for children. But but these folks want to cut Medicaid. Right. And it's going to be devastating for families and especially families with young children. So you want people to have more children. You need to support them in that effort. You also need to have universal family leave so that people can take the time off to have their children and care for their families. And you don't see that happening. People in America spend upwards of 30 to 50% of their income on average on childcare. And so you have people who drop out of the workplace in order to be able to afford to take care of their kids, because it's not worth it to work when you're working to pay for childcare. You then make no money, bring no money home. And so then you lose that worker, that productivity out of our economy, which makes us less productive as a nation. So it's in the interest of all of us whether or not we have children to support people and who have children, because it actually when people have support, they can be more productive or they can stay in the workplace. And that helps our economy. That helps all of us and it helps our nation. And I think that's a shortsightedness of so many of these programs that really penalize parents and people who are struggling. Trump's tough tariff stuff that he's put out there, the hardest hit sector has been baby, baby supplies. And so parents are seeing upwards of spending a thousand or more dollars from the average middle income family because of the increase in prices for car seats, strollers, diapers. Things which used to be. They were not cheap to begin with and they're already more expensive.

Dan Koh: You talk a little bit about the kind of hidden costs and the impact long term of some of these policies. Another one that is under the crosshairs of Trump and as someone as myself, we've had personal experience with, I think, thoughtful diversity, equity inclusion is that topic. Trump has turned diversity into a weapon and has has demeaned it and made people feel othered by the practice of diversity, bringing diverse voices to the table, which, you know, has shown to be, you know, Fortune 500 companies and have diverse boards perform better. There's all kinds of studies on that. You have been a champion of diversity for a long time. I just want to get your reaction to this assault on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Yeah, it's there there assaulting diversity. But really, it's just a dog whistle for racism. These are racist policies. They're basically anti white people policies. And that is what this is. This is I mean, you've got a guy in the Pentagon, Secretary Hec Seth, who did not earn the job that he has because he's not qualified to have the job that he has. Who has a white supremacist tattoo? It was deemed by the National Guard to be too racist to guard the Capitol on January six. And yet Trump made him the secretary of defense, and he's made a cornerstone of his work as secretary of Defense to go after diversity, equity and inclusion. He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he fired for basically being black. And he fired the chief of naval operations for being a woman, a fired them without cause. And so they're getting away with this. And we need to not fall into the trap of talking about this as diversity, equity and inclusion, people getting promoted to jobs that they're not qualified for. When the people that are actually get into jobs that they're not qualified for are the white males who suck up to Trump and they're firing people who are actually qualified to do their jobs. And so we. Have to call it for what it is, which is racist policies that makes America weaker because diversity makes us more competitive on a global scale. It makes us more competitive economically. When you have hyphenated Americans who speak another language, who understands another culture, they can do the business deals right. They can form the partnerships and they can do the trade deals that that are much easier and make those investments that that helped grow our economy. When when you have people in the military who speak foreign languages as native speakers, you can have, for example, Filipino-American service members who went into parts of the Philippines and meld it in with the with the population and were able to fight Islamic extremists, terrorists in the Philippines. You want those native speakers who can speak those languages. And so diversity, equity and inclusion is important because you have diversity at the table. You can solve the problem more. You don't have this group think if you only have one, one, you know, type, if you only have one cohort at the at the decision making table, then you only get one answer. But if you have diversity at that at that table, you're more likely to get alternative strategies and hopefully then come up with the best strategy out of all of them. Instead of this is your one and only strategy because there's only one viewpoint.

Dan Koh: What is your reaction when you see someone literally who put her life on the line, literally shot down in a helicopter for this country? When you see Secretary Hagel spending his time trying to remove the Enola Gay name, Medgar Evers, Harvey Milk spending time on removing words, then actually supporting our men and women in combat.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Yeah, well, this is a guy who said that he was going to focus on lethality and the warrior ethos, and he spends all his time worried about people of color in the service. And, you know, what I say is, stop trying to fire the trans service members who actually are qualified to do their jobs. Let's keep them and fire Pete Hegseth. And that's probably what we need to be doing as a country.

Dan Koh: Do they he'll eventually fire himself?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Well, you know what? He is so bad at his job that he may actually eventually get fired by Trump. If Trump can get over the fact that firing Hicks, that would basically be an admission of Trump that he put somebody who was not qualified into office.

Dan Koh: So one of the things we try to do on this podcast is not just outline the issues with the current administration, but also present the positive alternative. You've alluded to some of the things like paid family leave policies, empowering veterans, but it's kind of a two part question. One, What lessons do you think we should learn from 2024 and the outcome of the election? And what is the positive vision in terms of messaging and in terms of some specific policies that are important to you that we should be out there talking about?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Yeah. So what I say is we as Democrats have to tell the American people what we stand for as opposed to what we are opposed to. Then there was a lot of if you vote for Trump Project 2025, what happened if you vote for Trump Dobbs? You know, I mean, these decisions were happen. And we didn't give people a vision for what? What do we stand for? We can't just be anti-Trump and we didn't provide an alternative. And so what do we stand for? We stand for making investments in America, investments in this country that will continue to make a strong and allow us to continue to lead the free world. And the way we do that and not be the country of we're all going to die anyway. So let's cut Medicaid is to be actually making investments in Medicaid, making investments in child care, making investments in providing an opportunity to have people to buy into Medicare, Medicare buy in. And you pay for it by not giving tax cuts to the very ultra rich billionaires in this country. The reason that they're making all of these cuts is because they have to find over a ten year period $4 trillion in tax cuts in order to fund tax cuts for Elon Musk and his buddies. These tax cuts are not going to get to the average American, not even to the top 1% of American business or the top upper upper one half of 1% of Americans. And so we need to say, listen, by making investments in research and in our universities, we're going to grow innovation in this country, because that is where innovation and and R&D happens. It comes out of our universities and then people go off to create and make companies. You know, with the research that they started in these universities, we're also going to make investments in early childhood education and in our educational system, because that is a crown jewel of America is our educational system. We need to talk about all of those things, but we can't just be the anti-Trump party.

Dan Koh: And when you think about if there were a magic wand and there was a Democratic president. If you think about a couple of policies that are most exciting to you that you think would really make a difference in people's lives that maybe aren't getting the attention it is right now amidst among all the craziness of these news cycles, what comes to mind?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Well, if there were a magic wand and there was a Democratic president, but also a Democratic House and Senate and a 68 the 60 vote threshold in the Senate, we would need to pass a Voting Rights Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We would need to pass gun control legislation. We would need to reaffirm a woman's right to choose. We would pass a right to IVF Act. All of those things I would like to see universal or universal early childhood education make those investments. And those are not just, you know, liberal fantasy dreams. Let me tell you why it's relevant in the military. The DOD has, for the last several years said that they can only recruit from 24% of the population of 18 to 24 year olds in this country, because 76% of the 18 to 24 year olds in this country cannot pass a basic entrance examination to be a private in the United States Army or Marines. And what do they fail? The number one thing that they fail is they either don't have a high school diploma or a GED, or even if they do, they can't pass a math and English test that's written at the eighth grade level. The second they fail thing that they fail is the health check. They either they usually have some sort of childhood health condition that went unchecked because they did not have access to adequate health care and that includes dental care. So untreated ADHD, childhood diabetes, obesity, that knocks out a bunch of the population. And then the third thing is criminal justice reform. They have some sort of a felony conviction, usually tied to the opioid epidemic or something like that. Early on, it was a lot of people for possession of marijuana. Those three things knock out 76% of the population of 18 to 24 year olds. So I asked you, our defense budget is 280, $225 billion. What's the point of buying a $100 million fighter jet if there's anybody who can fly it or fix it? What is the point? If we can't recruit the people that could actually read the manual to fix that Black Hawk helicopter, which, by the way, is written at the sixth grade level. So this is why we need to invest in health care, public education, all of those things. If you want America to be strong and have the greatest military on the face of the earth, if that's all you care about, then you should care about all of these other things that people argue is a liberal fantasy dream when it's really about investing in the foundational aspects of our society so that we can have the most effective economy possible in the world.

Dan Koh: Speaking of the foundations of our society, it used to be the case that Republicans and Democrats both were supportive of immigration. Ronald Reagan was was actually someone in one of his farewell speeches, very vocal about that. I ask you this in particular, because the president has targeted Illinois and Chicago with his ICE raids. You know, we're seeing even today, you know, massed ICE agents where people away due process being taken away. I just want to get your reaction to that, especially as someone who represents a state where this is.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: We are a sanctuary state and we're proud of it. Yeah. Donald Trump is politicizing this process. We had a deal. For immigration reform and a deal that we worked out here in the Senate with one of the most conservative members of the Republican Party, Jim Lankford, included doubling the number of Border Patrol agents, included significant money for border security to include electronic surveillance, even for building more walls. I'm all for all of that, but I'm also for humane, practical and fair immigration policies. And that means things like a guest worker program. That means things like allowing people to find some sort of a pathway to citizenship when you've been here illegally. You broke the laws to get here. You broke the law to stay here. Well, let's find a way for you to get right with the law. Maybe there's fees, fines, penalties you pay. Maybe you have to work for ten years to get towards it, but allow people to come out of the shadows, allow people who just want to work here for a season to be able to come here work, pay taxes, pay into Social Security, and then go home in the off season if that's what they want to do. Let's be realistic about what we need in this country. Our economy cannot operate without our undocumented workers. Furthermore, let's be humane about it. Let's be humane about it. People are people. America is is a country that that offers opportunity. And when we offer opportunity to the people who are here, we are better off for it as a nation. Whether or not you are a citizen, we all benefit. We can't be ripping away birthright citizenship. We can't be ripping away four year olds from their parents. We can't be pulling kids out of cancer treatment to deport them. Somewhere around 10%, according to Trump's own administration's documents. Only about 10% of the people that these ICE raids have deported have been violent criminals. Everybody else is are people who don't even have a conviction other than some trapped minor traffic violations. That's all he's going after. And why? Because he would instill fear into the people of this country. And he want to buttress himself with the white nationalists, a segment of his support base by going after black and brown people.

Dan Koh: And last question to you is, you know, there's a lot. We saw demonstrations with no kings, the purpose of the protests. A lot of people have risen up and shown how angry they are about the state of the country. But I think there's still a large population of people who feel hopeless, scared, disengaged, maybe even who had voted for Trump. But now we're regretting their decision. So I think what we ask every guest on this podcast is for our listeners, what is one message that you would give them to take to their communities for those disengaged or concerned people to get them reengaged in politics again?

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Speak up. They have to get engaged because by not getting engaged, we got Donald Trump. There were a lot of people that did not like Donald Trump, did not want to vote for him and didn't vote for him, but they also did not vote for the Democrat for the Democratic ticket. And that resulted in Donald Trump winning. They also need if you don't want to get involved in presidential politics, get involved in local politics, make it clear that you don't want books banned. You don't want Maya Angelou remove from the bookshelves of your local public library. Tell people that you don't want, you know, your local school board, you don't want ice to be able to come into the school and pull your you know, come into your elementary school classroom and terrify all those kids whose are going after one child in that classroom. Speak up. Be part of the process. Call your congressman. Call your senator. Call your local representative. It doesn't matter what political party they are from, you need to speak up. And that's what the No Kings rally did. And I'm so glad people turn out, but we got to take that the next step further and sustain it.

Dan Koh: Senator Tammy Duckworth, thank you for coming on the people's cabinet.

Senator Tammy Duckworth: Thanks for having me.

Dan Koh: We hope you enjoyed this episode of the People's Cabinet. If you did, please like subscribe. Ring that bell and put in the comments below. Who else you'd like to see sworn in? And stay tuned for new episodes every Tuesday. Let's go.