Politics
Sen. Tammy Duckworth on the Epstein Files, Public Broadcasting and Midterm Elections
President Donald Trump is facing backlash from his supporters over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The fallout comes following congressional Republicans’ success in clawing back funds from foreign aid and public media and the passage of the president’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”
But Democrats are sounding the alarm on the impact of the spending cuts.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) weighed in on a few key topics in an interview with WTTW News’ “Chicago Tonight” on Tuesday.
On the Jeffrey Epstein files:
“House Republicans are literally canceling votes this week and running away until September to help Trump sweep this under the rug, protect abusers and avoid delivering the transparency that he promised the American people on the campaign trail,” Duckworth said. “I don’t know why they’re acting so afraid over these files that supposedly don’t contain anything damning like Trump has claimed. So if there’s nothing there, go ahead and release them.”
During a sit-down with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday morning, Trump answered questions about a potential conflict of interest with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. When asked if he had any concerns, the president deflected the question and without evidence accused former President Barack Obama, former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of rigging the 2020 election.
Obama’s office responded in a statement, “Our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intel Cmte., led by Marco Rubio.”
On the rescission bill:
“We are already seeing the PRC, the Communist Chinese government, step in to fund former USAID programs that we were funding, like President Bush’s PEPFAR program,” Duckworth said. “... But I’m even more worried about the billion dollars that they took away from public radio and public broadcast. These are programs that people all across Illinois rely on, for weather, for disaster declarations, for … tornado warnings, all of that, and public radio, public television funding has been drastically cut as a result of that bill.”
On U.S. Department of State layoffs:
“It’s an absolute incompetence about how they’re going about doing this that is critically important to know for the American people,” Duckworth said. “I have voted for improving the system so that we can fire people who don’t do their jobs, so that we make sure that the government can be more reactive, that we can get rid of people who don’t really want to be here, who don’t really want to serve the American people, but going through and firing people at the VA, … then cutting people at the EPA, making sure that there are no longer support services for seniors, that’s not what the American people want, and yet, that’s what Donald Trump is doing.”
On 2026 midterm elections:
“If we (Democrats) take our message to the American people, I think they will vote to protect themselves and their family members,” Duckworth said. “And there is a real possibility that we can flip the House, perhaps flip the Senate as well. We have several gubernatorial races around the country that are critically important in places like Virginia, for example. The best thing that Democrats can do is our job, standing up for the American people, standing up for the middle class, and then let the voters decide.”
On potential Democratic presidential candidates:
“I think that we have lots of great candidates, and I would love a Midwest governor to be the next president of the United States,” Duckworth said. “I think that having somebody from the Midwest that’s going to look at how to compromise, how to work across the aisles, how to fix problems the way Gov. Pritzker has, I think would be fantastic.”
