LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi of New York introduced a bill last month with Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania to block the president's fund. He's been listening with us, and he joins me now. Good morning, Congressman.
TOM SUOZZI: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So when the Justice Department came out and said, OK, we don't agree with it, but we're going to abide by the court ruling and pause this $1.8 billion fund, what was your reaction?
SUOZZI: Well, my reaction to it is, you know, that's a good thing, but it's not enough. I mean, we're happy that the administration is saying that they're going to abide by the court ruling. Obviously, a lot of people in our country - a lot of elected officials, Democrats and Republicans - don't like this fund, and the courts are now saying they don't like this fund. And the administration is trying to find a way to back off it a little bit, because of the political issues - but we have to make sure it's blocked permanently because it's just a bad idea.
FADEL: Now, we actually heard that from some Republican senators yesterday, following the Justice Department saying we're going to abide by this, that the president needs to come out and say if he's ready to abandon the fund. Does that surprise you?
SUOZZI: Well, I'm happily surprised. I mean, we need more Republicans to come out and join Democrats to say that this is just bad for our country. This is an abuse of discretion by the administration. The administration is not allowed to spend money the way it wants, whatever it wants. It has to go to the Congress to get authorization for spending money - and they're trying to use existing law regarding settlements. You know, when the administration settles a slip and fall case or some sort of regular tort against the federal government, they have discretion to set up a settlement for that and pay for it without going to Congress for a new vote on that. But this is an abuse of that discretion, and we have to block this from happening. So I think that there are going to be enough Republicans - or I hope there are going to be enough Republicans to join Democrats to block this from happening.
FADEL: Lay out for me the things you see as abuse. I mean, a lot of Americans seem to agree with you.
SUOZZI: Yeah. Well, it's just very, very clear about this idea of abuse of discretion. But the thing that really makes my blood boil is when they talk about this fund being used for January 6 criminals, I really get very upset. I was there on January 6. I was one of the last people to get out of the chamber. This was a real dangerous, violent activity. And one story that really gets me going is a story of a police officer on the ground being beaten up, everybody saying, kill him, kill him, kill him. And there's this one guy, Daniel Rodriguez, takes a taser, sticks it in the police officer's neck, and tases him. Police officer has a heart attack, has brain damage because of that. And the guy goes on his social media feed and says, I just tased the you know what, out of the blue, and I got away with it.
Well, he didn't get away with it. He got prosecuted. He ended up pleading guilty. He got a 12-year sentence for his attack on this police officer, and President Trump pardoned that guy. Now this fund could potentially be used to give him money because he was unfairly prosecuted by the federal government. That's just crazy.
FADEL: Are there any indications that the president is leaning toward dropping this whole idea altogether, given the political pressure?
SUOZZI: I think it will only be the political pressure. I mean, that's how the system is supposed to work. It hasn't worked as much as we would like during this administration, but you're seeing the people upset. You're seeing elected officials upset. You're seeing the court take action. The president should drop this action, but we're going to have to make sure that we pass some legislation to prevent this from happening in the future, as well - this type of abuse of discretion.
FADEL: So, are you still pursuing your bill?
SUOZZI: We're absolutely going to continue to pursue it. The key is we need enough Republicans to join Democrats. We need, like, all the Democrats and a few Republicans to join us to do what's called a discharge petition so that we can get a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, even if the speaker of the House doesn't want to do it.
FADEL: And so, would that bill block future presidents from trying to do the same thing?
SUOZZI: This bill that we have currently would block this fund, say you can't use any money for this particular fund. But we're also looking at legislation to look at the original statute that was set up back in the 1950s to say, we've got to stop this from happening in the future. We understand we can't have Congress vote on every single time there's a slip and fall case and you make a settlement, but we can't extend that discretion to involve big matters like this that just would change U.S. policy.
FADEL: Is it clear to you what happens to the other part of Trump's settlement with the government, in which the Justice Department signed a memo giving the president, his family and his businesses immunity from audits or past tax returns?
SUOZZI: Well, we've got to block that, as well. I mean, that's another abuse of discretion. And we have to make sure that the Republicans join the Democrats to actually work together to stop this and get our country back, and stop people from abusing the administration's power.
FADEL: Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi of New York, thank you for being on the program, once again.
SUOZZI: Yeah, thank you.
FADEL: NPR also reached out to multiple Republican lawmakers to discuss this. Those invitations remain open. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
