We always use our time with Senator Chris Van Hollen wisely and this sit down at MACo in Ocean City covered all things federal money, Key Bridge, housing costs, AI realities and who is paying for Trump’s illegal war in Iran. Democracy and the future of the United States is always front and center when Nestor gets time with our representative in Washington, D.C. to ask hard questions.
The discussion focused on how federal policy under the Trump administration is affecting Maryland infrastructure, housing, energy, AI, war powers, and democratic accountability.
Federal Funding
- Nestor asked about replacement funding for the Key Bridge and whether Maryland could be deprioritized politically.
- Chris said he and Cardin passed legislation requiring 100% federal funding for the bridge replacement and said that remains in place. He added that any state recovery through litigation would offset federal costs.
- He said Maryland is being disadvantaged in other federal grant areas, including clean energy, and warned the administration is trying to rewrite grant rules in a politicized way.
- A specific blocker is a frozen $34 million FEMA BRIC resilience grant for Crisfield flood protection.
Housing Costs
- Chris said Maryland has a severe affordable housing shortage and needs a major increase in supply.
- He cited the bipartisan Global Housing Act as a limited but useful step that became law without Trump signing it.
- Proposed supply options included building above post offices and reusing malls, schools, churches, and fire stations. An open question is how quickly federal, state, and local governments can unlock more public land and zoning capacity.
- He also argued tariffs have raised housing input costs such as lumber and added about $1,700 in average household costs.
AI Power
- Nestor and Chris agreed AI is not going away and should be governed rather than ignored.
- Chris said he uses ChatGPT and raised three concerns: safety risks, worker displacement, and electricity demand from data centers.
- He promoted Power for the People, a bill that would favor clean-powered data centers and prevent residents in the PJM region from subsidizing them. He said ratepayers are projected to absorb $28 billion over two years for data center planning and interconnection.
War Oversight
- Chris argued Congress, Republican senators, and the Supreme Court are failing to check presidential power, tying current corruption concerns to Citizens United, outside spending, and donors including Elon Musk and AIPAC-linked spending in Democratic primaries.
- On Iran, he said the president entered an illegal war, ignored a concurrent war powers resolution, and should not receive additional funding for it. He said Iran was not on an active path to a nuclear weapon and contrasted current policy with the verification system under JCPOA.
- He also criticized the handling of Epstein-related records and urged continued public turnout and voting ahead of the midterms.
Key Bridge and Grants
- Nestor asked about federal funding for the Key Bridge replacement and whether Maryland could be penalized politically.
- Chris said legislation he passed with Cardin secured 100% federal replacement funding.
- He said litigation recoveries by the state would offset federal costs.
- He warned that other federal grants are being redirected away from Democratic states and that grant rules may be rewritten politically.
- He cited a frozen $34 million FEMA BRIC grant for Crisfield flood resilience.
Housing and Tariffs
- Chris described a major shortage of affordable housing in Maryland.
- He pointed to the bipartisan Global Housing Act as a partial step to increase supply.
- Discussion covered housing development above post offices and reuse of malls and other public or obsolete sites.
- He said tariffs are increasing building costs, including lumber, and raising household expenses by about $1,700 on average.
AI and Energy
- Nestor framed AI as unavoidable and asked how policymakers should respond.
- Chris said he uses ChatGPT and sees AI as useful but in need of regulation.
- Main concerns were safety, biological misuse, worker displacement, and the energy load of data centers.
- He promoted Power for the People to prioritize clean energy use and prevent PJM ratepayers from covering data center costs.
Democracy and War
- Chris said presidential corruption, weak congressional oversight, and Citizens United are degrading democratic accountability.
- He cited heavy outside spending in elections, including support from Elon Musk, AIPAC-linked spending, and crypto industry money.
- On Iran, he said the war is illegal, the president is ignoring congressional war powers action, and no more funding should be provided.
- He said the earlier JCPOA verification framework was more effective than current policy.
- The conversation closed on Epstein-related records, treatment of survivors, public protest, and the importance of voting in the midterms.
Nestor Aparicio 0:00
With them all, we are WNST AM 1570 Tass of Baltimore. We’re Baltimore positive, positively here at Mako on behalf of our friends at Maryland Lottery in conjunction with GBMC and our partners at Farnham and Derm. And I, Dermer, I am more comfortable here than I usually am. We appreciate them and appreciate Senator Chris Van Hollen for returning once again. I think last year we were talking about journalists and ICE and social issues. I want to talk about money with you this year a little bit. When I
Senator Chris Van Hollen 0:28
we can talk cash. I
Nestor Aparicio 0:29
want to talk about federal. Federal. It’s always good to see you, and I appreciate you making time as always. I vote for you, so it’s nice when you come by when I when I vote for people. I
Senator Chris Van Hollen 0:38
hope you do that early, and I won’t say often.
8
Nestor Aparicio 0:40
Well, as often as I’m allowed, by by law, federal money in the Key Bridge. I mean, I keep going to Key Bridge, Key Bridge, Key Bridge, because I live in Towson. I am stunned. I never in my mind thought what would happen after the bridge went down to traffic, transportation, money getting rebuilt, where it’s coming from, all of the nonsense that went into it, other than just the fact that every day it’s not there and it’s affecting things. Let’s start with that with federal money because it feels like blue state racist president, black governor, black mayor. We’re last in line on all this stuff, and I’m worried about it. And I know you’re on the front line trying to fight with people who don’t want to help us. Quite frankly,
Senator Chris Van Hollen 1:20
well, that’s true. I will say that there’s a whole lot of bad news, but the federal funding for the Key Bridge is a little ray of sunshine because when Senator Cardin and I passed the legislation to require full 100% federal funding for the replacement of the bridge, it passed, and that remains the log land as we speak. And all of us know that there’s been a big issue with the contract. Size of the contract’s gone up. I’m glad that the governor is working with folks at the U.S. Department of Transportation on the as part of the rebid. But so far, so far, and we will fight like hell to keep it this way. The federal funds are secured. It’s also important to understand, Nestor, that any monies recovered by the state as part of litigation will go into the federal fund, and so federal federal government will be offset in terms of the cost.
Nestor Aparicio 2:19
Well, I mean, think that it’s a state bridge. It’s not, right? I mean, it’s just not in regard to transportation. I guess the other part is: does it get used against us in some way to say we did that for you, but we’re not going to do this for you, or is it not? I see it as petty from the outside as a citizen, but you got to tell me you’re in there. Look, I mean,
Senator Chris Van Hollen 2:35
there are a whole lot of other areas when it comes to federal grants where this administration is playing all sorts of games with Maryland and other Democratic states. I mean, they’ve been quite obvious about when it came to some of their clean energy grants, for example. They redirected them away from states like Maryland and other Democratic states. I mean, there’s ongoing litigation, as you can imagine, on a lot of this. And as we speak, they’re in the process of trying to rewrite the rules for all federal grants, I mean transportation, agriculture, you name it, all federal grants would be subject to this political crony. Kiss
Nestor Aparicio 3:13
my ring, or you don’t get the money. We are
Senator Chris Van Hollen 3:15
fighting that right now. But this provision regarding the key bridge, it’s not a grant per se. It was part of a larger program where we are, we the state of Maryland are have secured our place in the land.
Nestor Aparicio 3:29
Corruption at the top of it, the biggest problem I have with Trump in 1615 anywhere where this is not an honest man. Like let’s just start with that, and from that, the corruption seems to be so pervasive, and the social issues that sit in front of it with the red hats, that the reality of are we making our country better or making our I don’t see anything on that side that really speaks to making the bigger pot better. Do you feel that that when you’re there, do you feel my citizen feel on that?
8Senator Chris Van Hollen 4:04
I feel you. I mean, the only pot that matters to this president is personal money, and this is the most corrupt administration in our history. And Donald Trump has literally turned the Oval Office into a pay-to-play casino. Whether it’s his crypto money, whether it’s different contracts, whether it’s selling pardons, how the hell did he get us into a war since the last time I saw high heaven? And and the guy who ran on a platform of keeping us out of war is now dragged us into a senseless illegal war. The guy who said he was going to focus on keeping prices down as them going up and up and up, especially gas prices. I bought a
Nestor Aparicio 4:45
box of cereal the other day. It was $6.29, Craig. It was a $3.59 cent product for the last 20 years.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 4:53
It’s absolutely insane to see these prices going up, and you know they went up some, of course, during COVID. But this is a president. Who said he was going to tackle that issue, and instead he’s done exactly the opposite. Why does when does the bill come through this race? As you know, that just puts upward pressure on everyone putting pressures in the context.
Nestor Aparicio 5:13
I would think that when we elect people, that they’re open-minded to issues when they get there. It feels like, do you talk to Republican people across the aisle? I mean, there’s only 100 of them, right? I mean, literally, right? So, I mean, yeah. At this point, what when you go and have a meal or have a coffee, where where do you meet in the middle? Because I try that all the time. I have, you know, I have Republican mayor here today. I I try, but on the level of corruption, to not see that part of it, that that is the blindness to me.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 5:44
Well, there are 54 senators, Republican senators, and 46 Democrats, and I talk to Republican senators all the time. And you’ve got those who you know are see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That they just put their head in the sand and they don’t want to know. Most of them, I think, don’t know. And the scary thing about this is they’ve decided to gag themselves and they’ve decided to give this president a blank check. And the result is this dear leader symbol. They are scared of Donald Trump, especially Donald Trump weighing in Republican primaries to defeat them, and so they just salute and say, “Yes, dear leader, this is a very dangerous time.
Nestor Aparicio 6:31
Can anybody have seen this coming in regard to forefathers and the way laws were written and thoughts about this country 250 years ago now to say that we did a bad job of setting this up, I don’t think so. This worked for a good 240 years. It’s just been the last 10 years where I would go to Citizens United and I would talk about corrupt. Just the fact that Elon Musk says I’m spending hundreds of million dollars to turn American elections-that I don’t think anyone has seen that coming for a long time, or we thought we had walls built up, firewalls to keep that out. That’s all over with, and that’s the obvious part of how the Republicans are funded for me.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 7:08
Yeah, so I I think that they got the architecture right over framers, but they counted on Congress, for example, trying to defend its institutional progress, like Republicans and Democrats both saying we’ve got to be a check on this executive branch. We’ve got to be a check on presidential power. Instead, Republicans are like a parliamentary system, and whatever their prime minister, dear leader Donald Trump says, they roll over and do it. Then there’s the Supreme Court. I mean, this is a Trump-packed Supreme Court. Lots of bad decisions. Of course, one of the worst decisions that the Supreme Court ever predated this court. It’s the Citizens United case, and we are reaping the consequences of that terrible decision right now. Literally, not just hundreds of billions of dollars, but billions of dollars of money flooding into elections. I mentioned Elon Musk. He spent 2630 billion last time around. Now he’s already announced he’s going to spend 135 whatever million it was, and this is really rotting our political system. Newman is corrupting our political system. I was just in Michigan a few weeks ago as part of the Senate Democratic Climate, and Abdul Al Sayed, who’s the guy who won the nomination, I was campaigning with him. $60 million of outside money being spent against him to try to defeat him. Unfortunately, he overcame that, but we’re seeing that again and again. And
8Nestor Aparicio 8:35
this has nothing to do with the state, right? Like this money’s not coming from Dearborn. Oh no, right? That’s what I’m saying. This
Senator Chris Van Hollen 8:41
money is coming from outside of the state of Michigan. It’s coming from a lot of special interest sources that are trying to use their money to elect people who, when they get into office, will do the bidding of these special interests. Well, many of foreign rich groups of their
Nestor Aparicio 8:58
of their constituents. But there’s there’s no saying this is domestic money at all. This is
Senator Chris Van Hollen 9:03
well, it’s illegal for a foreign government or foreign entities to spend money in these races. So this is money that’s collected domestically, but it is being but you have, for example, a lot of Republicans spending money in these super PACs to try to interfere in Senate Democrat. So, for example, I mean, in Michigan, there was 60 million bucks. 30 million of it was from a group called AIPAC, which essentially says that they support unconditional American taxpayer money going to the government of Israel. They spent 30 million to try to elect their candidate as primary, a lot of that money came from Republicans contributing to mess around in the Democratic Party. That’s just one example in Minnesota, where I just was. You had the crypto industry spending a lot of money to try to elect their favorite candidate. Now the good news is, voters. How can
Nestor Aparicio 9:58
anyone vote for Mike? How is that possible?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 10:01
Nestor, the good news first on this is that both in Minnesota and in Michigan, voters went for the people over the past. They went for the many over the many. Now, the pillow guy is that the pillow guy. The pillow guy. Okay. So the pillow guy obviously lost.
Nestor Aparicio 10:20
We had a president this time. Chris Van Hollen is here. Here’s our great senator from the state of Maryland. We’re trying to break down where the money goes and all that. So, federal and then like housing in Maryland and where we are for federal money. What would you give me a couple of things that you’d think this is? We’re really getting shorted here. These are a couple of places where, in a normal administration, we would get more relief, and what you’re fighting for federally, what are the the top money you’re fighting for?
8Senator Chris Van Hollen 10:48
So, just very quickly, the good news and the bad news. But and the good news is not as a result of the Trump administration. The good news is as a result of those of us on the Senate Recreation Committee Democrats being actually able to work with Republicans on the committee. So, for example, the Chesapeake Bay. Okay. We’re here on the Eastern Shore. The Chesapeake Bay is to our west some ways, but this is a this is funding that we’ve been able to protect. Again, in Congress, even when this administration wants to zero it out or near zero it out as they did in the past, we’ve been able to preserve it. This time, we convinced them to ask for it. So there are some good news examples, but now on the bad news side. So let’s talk about FEMA money. This is money to try to help communities that are at risk.
Nestor Aparicio 11:38
Western Maryland floods where we
Senator Chris Van Hollen 11:40
did not get our own decentralized. And everyone out there voted for him too. That’s the crazy part. Here on the eastern shore, let me give you an example. There’s a town of Chrisfield, which is right there on the bay. It is very at risk for flooding. They flood a lot. So in FEMA, we had what’s called a brick program. These are federal resiliency grants to help communities like Chrisfield protect against them, right? So they don’t have to wait to be smart and figure themselves out and try to prevent it.
Nestor Aparicio 12:11
Well, Ellicott City would be one of those things. Yeah.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 12:15
But in Chrisfield, 34 million dollars has been frozen by the Trump administration that should be flowing already to Chris
Nestor Aparicio 12:24
in a town that probably voted 85% probably Chrisfield
Senator Chris Van Hollen 12:27
very likely.
8Nestor Aparicio 12:28
For for housing and for Baltimore and for every time I talk to somebody in state, it’s flight. It’s we’re leaving the state. We’re going to Pennsylvania. We’re leaving our county in some cases, housing and where we-that’s a unique issue for me because I haven’t went to buy a house in a while or whatever. I talk to real estate people and just the lack of housing and the fact that jobs in Maryland that you have to have schools, tax base, all of that, but a place to live in Maryland-I-I find that to be an issue when I talk to politicians at the top, local politicians especially. Well, I
Senator Chris Van Hollen 13:05
mean, it needs to be because we have a huge change of housing, which means a huge shortage of affordable housing. We need to dramatically increase the supply of housing. I would say the one bill, big bill, that passed the Congress on a bipartisan basis was called the Global Housing Act. This is far from an overall solution, but it’s a step in the right direction. This is the bill you may remember that Donald Trump was scheduled to come down and sign at the Capitol, and Republicans were waiting for this show of bipartisan unity. And the president came down and refused to sign it. He never signed it, but he didn’t veto it. So it went into law despite Donald Trump, but it does create more sort of federal incentives for more housing supply. This is an area I’m doing a lot of work in right now. We should use our public spaces, like right now, just one example, post offices. Yeah, post offices in a lot of communities. They should be able to build up above the post office. Think about it: the federal government and the post office could use those air rights above post offices in certain communities, their field rezoning, to increase the supply of housing. The state of Maryland is doing that now. Cities are doing that very well. We need to be really focused nester on this. Rents going up, mortgages are going up, housing supply has to go.
Nestor Aparicio 14:26
Well, we’ve turned to fire stations, churches, and the livable former schools, right? Malls. I mean, you know, I I’ve sat out in front of White Marsh Mall or Security Mall, East Point Mall, my mall of my child that’s closing this month, the end of the month, and we’re like, “What’s it going to be? What’s it going to be? These are spaces that can be rethought in different ways. Huge spaces, right? Huge parcels around to build housing, right?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 14:50
Absolutely. I mean, again, there’s a huge demand, and that’s why it costs so much right now. So there’s no doubt that this is a case where. The shortage of supply is really much difficult. I will say, when the inputs to housing, those costs go up, of course, drives the cost of housing up. So, for example, the Trump tariffs have really increased the costs of much lumber and other supplies that go into building the house. So, if you’re building a house, you have to have a very nice recovery cost. The
Nestor Aparicio 15:30
notion that the tariffs that the other countries were ever going to pay for it was just-it was absurd to the understanding of what a tariff is. Correct? It
Senator Chris Van Hollen 15:38
is absurd. I mean, it is a tax, and this is the Supreme Court, as you know, struck down the first round of across-the-board tariffs. And many of the companies that paid those tariffs when the courts came into their courts are being refunded. People who are not being refunded are you and the households across Maryland, which on average, is about 1700 bucks. In other words, on average, households paid another 1700 bucks in the truck. So, we’ve got a proposal to require that those refunds not just travel down to the suppliers, because the suppliers pass those costs on to you and me and everybody else. So here’s our move.
Nestor Aparicio 16:24
Senator Chris Van Hollen is our guest here in Baltimore. Positive, brought to you by our friends at Maryland Lottery, GVMC, and of course Farnham and Derma. AI. Two years ago we wouldn’t talk about it. Five years ago we certainly would have talked about it. We get together every year. Not my community. We’re not going to turn East Point Mall into an AI center, and it’s amazing. Look, I’m pretty far on the left. You’re pretty far on the left. I have left people in my life who I love, who hate Trump and all of that stuff, and I get into fights with them about me using ChatGPT to look something up because they think AI is going to destroy America in some way, or the world, or the universe? And I keep thinking to myself, this is the latest thing to come along. And if you’re a progressive person, you better embrace it and figure out how to make it work. Because when you put the genie bag in the bottle, AI and what you hear about it with data centers and it destroying the universe, and how much is Senator Chris Van Hollen using artificial intelligence when he has plenty of his own.
8Senator Chris Van Hollen 17:22
Well, I appreciate that, but yeah, I definitely have my supplement, and I use I do use AI. I use ChatGPT. There’s Quad. There are others. These are very, very useful tools. And when you say where do we go with AI, it’s obviously a huge question because there’s the safety dimension. I mean, as the creators of AI have told us, at least many of them. I mean, this stuff can create really terrible things like biological weapons. If you unleash them on the world would be devastating, and so this is why it is important to test these programs in advance of unleashing them on the world. Then there’s the issue of the huge amount of energy that needs to go into the data centers that are necessary to have all the world’s knowledge. But isn’t this our responsibility
Nestor Aparicio 18:11
to make it cost neutral? Is let’s use the sun and the water and the re? Isn’t there just it doesn’t need to wreck the
Senator Chris Van Hollen 18:17
earth? So let me just say it does not, and I am going to take this opportunity to plug a piece of legislation, which I hope will become bipartisan. It’s called Power for the People, and essentially, what it does is exactly what you said. It says, if you’re talking about different data centers, you’re going to preference the one that is using the clean. The other core part of this bill is you and I and anyone listening should not have to pay higher electricity bills to subsidize the cost of data centers for the richest companies on the planet. Right? I mean, we’re talking about the richest companies. Do you know how much we’re in the PJM grid in Maryland? It’s a regional electricity company. Do you know how much we paid in the next two years to subsidize data centers collectively. No idea. $28 billion. In other words, collectively, people in that grid area, have paid $28 billion for the costs of planning for data centers and then connecting certain data centers. We should not have to pay anyone nothing with this. You know, I always hear, you know, people talking about socialism. This is socialism for the richest countries on the planet, paid for by you and me and everybody listening.
Nestor Aparicio 19:31
Chris, I’m a football guy. We pay for it all. My county just paid for hot tubs out in Owens Mills for billionaires, for millionaires to sit in billionaires out there, like I’m a sports guy. I pimped for this a long time ago. No mas, and I’m a liberal. But like, come on here. You know what I mean? Like
Senator Chris Van Hollen 19:48
my first bill in the state legislature was called “Schools People for Stadiums. It was like, yes, we can pay our public taxpayer dollars for schools for kids, not to build stadiums for billionaires.
Nestor Aparicio 19:59
I’ve come. Long way on that issue since they banned me as a media member. Chris Van Hollen is here on the AI thing. The grander scale is it’s not going away. We’re I’m counting on you and someone in political positions to make sure that we get this. It’s a really important thing to get right. I think right.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 20:18
It’s critical. There’s the safety issue. There’s the issue of worker displacement. I mean, we don’t know yet the full impact of it, but we should plan ahead. We shouldn’t wait till the train hits us in the face. And there are a number of proposals I’m putting forward on exactly that because we don’t want workers to be displaced. And you know we saw during the debates over trade that temporary band-aids of trade adjustment assistance based upon really don’t. In other words, when a community is hollowed out because, say, a lot of factory moves overseas,
8Nestor Aparicio 21:00
let’s say Dundalk.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 21:01
Yeah, let’s see Dundalk. Yeah, yeah, Bethlehem Steel or Dundalk, whatever. And GM and GM and GM. Yeah. So the idea that you’re going to be able to immediately retrain everybody for a future that was prosperous for their families before has not worked. So we need much more thinking into this. And you know, my view is that if you’re looking for a job and you want to work, we need to make sure that we provide you with that opportunity, right? And that is going to become even more important things if we see people displace by now. There’s a big debate about to what extent that’s going to take away jobs in some areas, add jobs. What I think we need to do.
Nestor Aparicio 21:45
I think in a normal world, if we were at war and the Strait of Hormuz is closed and gas is at $5 a gallon, and my 50 bucks didn’t even fill up my tank yesterday on the way down here, that if my senator came here and said, “What the hell’s going on over there? Like we’re at war. It’s your fault. It’s literally right. Or when you ran for office to become senator, and all these years of schoolhouse rocking, I always thought like you would at least feel responsible being in this position. That like if we go to war, you’d at least have a vote. I’d at least be able to say to you, “Hey, man, which way? Let me see the name on the scoreboard. There, did you go for or against, and why? I can’t hold you responsible, but I have to hold you, the entity, responsible. Explain this to me. Well, it’s a insane
Senator Chris Van Hollen 22:31
situation right now, and I have used my vote, and I vote many times now to invoke what’s called the War Powers Resolution, which would at least require the president to bring our troops home after 60 days. Now, this was an illegal war, even under the War Powers Resolution. This was going to be the start, but at least by invoking that provision, we would bring our folks home. Now, it gets a little complicated here, Nestor. The House and the Senate both have passed a what’s called a concurrent war powers resolution, which doesn’t have to go to the president for a signature. So he is right now continuing to engage in an illegal war. He’s ignoring our resolution. Now, really, what the next step is is to make it clear that you know we’re not going to provide him a penny for this illegal war. They’ve asked for over 60 billion hours, and I’ve said, you know, I’m not going to vote for money to fund an illegal war, and I’m not going to pay you back for an illegal war. If I do that, you’ll just start more evil.
Nestor Aparicio 23:34
Were you convinced that Iran was trying to have nuclear weapons to destroy us? Are you are you of that mindset that they were, in any way, on any sort of pathway? You’re in all these meetings. The rest of the world doesn’t believe that that was the case at all.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 23:50
Well, they were not on the pathway, and it’s not just the rest of the world. Both President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hexa told the country last year that we had, and I’m quoting, obliterated their ability to create nuclear weapons. Okay, this is a statement from PEC to the country last year after the so-called 12-day warning. Then the administration, Tulsi Gabbard, the former head of director of national intelligence, testified in the intelligence community that it was their assessment that Iran was not trying to get was not embarked on the program, and then you have the Iranians themselves, who Donald Trump got himself very proud and said, you know, as part of that ceasefire deal, they’ve agreed that they’re not going to pursue a nuclear weapon. Well, newsflash from President Trump: the Iranians have always said that they are not trying to develop the nuclear weapon. They have had a nuclear enrichment program, so we should be clear about that. That’s why Obama signed the JCPOA. This was the agreement to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapon and cut off all their packets to obtaining enough enriched material to build a nuclear weapon. And I’ll close with this on this piece. It had the most transparent, aggressive verification issue. It was monitored, yes, sure. So that if we could, if we noticed they were cheating, we could catch them right away, and then we could take action. So this is all BS by by President Trump, and he essentially sat down with Prime Minister Netanyahu this week. Prime Minister Netanyahu persuaded him that they could achieve regime change in Iran in a very short period of time.
Nestor Aparicio 25:29
Well, they didn’t kill the leader.
8Senator Chris Van Hollen 25:30
They they got rid of that leader, but now, of course, the new leader, the new regime part two, is even more militant than the earlier regime because they’ve empowered a group called the IRGC. This is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. So they’ve now empowered them even more. So yes, they had a change in leadership. They got an even more military. Strait of Hormuz was opened the day before the war started. It is now closed. They have achieved none of their goals. They have killed American soldiers, injured American soldiers. We’ve seen 1000s of civilians killed, and prices are going up. Period.
Nestor Aparicio 26:12
I’m Venezuelan. Where’s Maduro? I mean, I mean, I’m just being what happened to him. I don’t know.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 26:19
We don’t know. I mean, last we saw it was up in New York, right? I don’t know what the latest steps.
Nestor Aparicio 26:25
I don’t. I I don’t care, but I care in a general sense because what’s going on in Venezuela? That’s happened since the last time we got. Yeah. Well, it’s been a hell of a year, Chris. You and me. You know, I’ve even gotten to the No Kings rally at Battle Sports,
Senator Chris Van Hollen 26:37
but let me just say with Venezuela, what we know, Nestor, is it was all about the oil, and Donald Trump has said so. I mean, he said so time and again when he talks about invading Greenland. It’s also to get you know critical minerals for his rich buddies. So he’s willing to put American forces in arm’s way for oil deals for his rich bodies, and and that is just a betrayal of the American people.
Nestor Aparicio 27:06
Epstein, anything?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 27:08
Well, they continue to hide many of the files in violation of orders and subpoenas.
8Nestor Aparicio 27:15
Not to mention in violation of these ladies.
Senator Chris Van Hollen 27:18
Complete violation of these ladies. In fact, I I do want to tell you a story here because you know we had Todd Blanche in front of the Appropriations Committee, honest fellow subcommittee that I yeah correct. So I I first I asked him about his outrageous slush fund for people who’ve been convicted of uniting themselves at Capitol Hill, and he said yeah, it’s possible they could get that kind of slush fund. But then on the Epstein files, you know, we’ve been in touch regularly with the survivors of Epstein’s, and they’ve been trying to meet with Todd Blanche. And so at this hearing, I asked Todd Blanche if he would commit to meeting with these survivors, different. high connectivity. So Senator Patty, and he said yes, and then he refused to meet them for a very long time. Not until he was up for confirmation to the Attorney General and the Republican senators in the judiciary, said that they would not support any lessening of the survivors that he finally made, even though he previously made these promises. Then, when they met, and this is from the survivors who were there, it was pro forma incredibly short and pert and condescending.
Nestor Aparicio 28:44
These are women have been raped. I mean, what do you do?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 28:46
They walked out of there saying that he completely disrespected
Nestor Aparicio 28:51
her. Well, Pam Bondi did as well, right?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 28:54
Yes. Prior to yes, she refused to even turn around and acknowledge that they were in a hearing when she was asked. So look, this is a attorney general who, despite his title, is still acting as the president for secret attorney. I would just ask everybody, you know, go online. Look at the Department of Justice band. Above the doorway, you don’t have like the scales of creating justice. We have this huge banner, huge banner of Donald Trump hanging in front of the Justice Department, both the front door and the back. So everybody who goes through there is supposed to think that their job is to look after the guy in the middle, not after our rights and our Constitution. This is a complete betrayal of what this country stands for.
Nestor Aparicio 29:44
It’s it’s South Korea or North Korea. It’s it’s dear leader. And last thing for you, no Kings Rally. I put my F Trump shirt on. You know, I I went down to Patterson Park. I saw you in the bowl there. All the people there, I felt good. There were dogs. There were people. There was unity among. What can I do, man? I mean, other than what I’m doing, what can I do? Let
8Senator Chris Van Hollen 30:11
me just say that is important. It’s not important because by getting together in Patterson Park, we’re going to somehow change Donald Trump’s mind. Here is why it’s important. But Donald Trump wants more than anything is for all of us to shut up and to go away. He wants to intimidate people into being with him instead of standing up for our Constitution, our country. And so, when 1000s and millions of us around the country gather, we actually are providing solidarity to one another, which is important. We saw this in in Minneapolis, right? When ice came down on Minneapolis, they killed two Americans, May Good and Alex Freddie. And I I just actually went to their laborious, their makeshift memorials there last weekend, but what we saw was, despite the outrage from ICE, was Americans coming together, whether in Minneapolis or North Kansas, and what we’re doing is saying we’re not going to steal their numbers, we’re not going to let them steal our country, and look, the midterm elections are coming up. No, please vote. We may move slowly accountability, but this is our next chance to put a check on this out of control president, Waldus president. But imagine, imagine if nobody showed up to him tonight. Let’s see about it that way. That would tell Donald Trump like a
Nestor Aparicio 31:40
250th rally in D.C. I was down there that day, by the way, on that Saturday morning. Just unwittingly, I had a friend doing some some things down, and I I drove down and I literally walked through in the morning, and it was an amazing. It was a Saturday morning. It was it was beautiful out, and I walked through, and I’m like, nobody’s coming. There was no trap. There was there was nobody that was going to show up. So, hey, we’re on the right side of justice here. Showing
Senator Chris Van Hollen 32:03
up, I mean, think about it. If no one had showed up in Minneapolis, Trump would have said, “Hey, man, this is popular. But people are showing up. So keep showing up. Show up for the ballot box. You know, love our country as we all do. Patriots will get out there.
Nestor Aparicio 32:20
Well, 365 days from now, we’ll get together again, probably right here at Mako in Ocean City, and we’ll have the world fixed by then. I’m sure we’ll have nothing to talk about. It’s a deal. Senator Chris Van Hollen, our guy here from Maryland, please go vote, everybody. We’re down here at Mako. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery in conjunction with GBMC and Farnin and Durham. We’re back for more from the beach. It’s Baltimore positive. It won’t be this good, but it’ll be okay. Back for more right after this.
