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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. John Steinbeck's last novel was titled The winter of our discontent. But to hear from many parties, especially those having to react to the actions from the Trump administration, we could certainly term our current season as the summer of our discontent. Indeed, if you're a Democrat or an organization that's trying to preserve funding and support from the federal government, discontent is actually an understatement. Today on the show, you'll hear a conversation with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who, along with his caucus, is trying to thwart massive cuts and massively questionable legal moves from the Trump White House. Then in the second part of the show, you'll hear from an Oregon organization desperately trying to save SNAP benefit funding for the growing number of people in the state who don't have enough to eat.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
SENATOR MERKLEY: It's a pleasure to be with you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Before I get into anything else. I just wanted to get your read on what we're seeing in Los Angeles with the ICE raids and the protests and the Trump administration response.
SENATOR MERKLEY: When Trump decided to send in the National Guard without the request from the Governor, you really went to a place that no president has gone since the Civil Rights Movement, and that's when governors were blocking fair access to voting for our African American citizens. So, this is really without precedent in this context, and it's wrong and then to send in Marines, what he's trying to do is distract attention from his so called Big Beautiful Bill, the bill that will leave 4 million children hungry to finance tax breaks for billionaires, the bill that will wipe out health insurance for 16 million Americans to fund tax breaks for billionaires. In other words, it's the families losing billionaires win bill, and he's trying to distract the nation's attention from that bill while it goes through Senate consideration. So I'm encouraging everyone to respond by paying a whole lot of attention to his big, beautiful bill that has nothing beautiful about it.
MICHAEL DUNNE: As you know, the bill narrowly passed the house, it's now gone to the Senate, and I know where you and your colleagues are looking at it. Give us an update on where the bill stands and what you're trying to do with regard to that budget package?
SENATOR MERKLEY: This bill has special status. It's called a reconciliation bill, which means it gets expedited consideration in the Senate with no possibility for a filibuster, so a fast track, and the whole idea of that was to be only for deficit reduction, but this bill doesn't reduce the deficit. That, in fact, increases our national debt by some $3 trillion over 10 years and an estimated $50 trillion over 30 years, all to fund tax breaks for the very richest Americans. So, a massive debt bill, it has all kinds of policies that were inserted into it, which is not supposed to be in the bill either. So, we're using what's called the bird bath by rd, for the West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, that has a rule for this type of bill that says policy measures cannot be inserted into it, so we'll be working to strip out those policy measures on the Senate side.
MICHAEL DUNNE: What's your guess on you know, what's going to happen with this?
SENATOR MERKLEY: Well, we will see over the next two weeks, lots of arguments before the parliamentarian about what can be in the bill and not in the bill, and then Trump will be putting on an all-highest pressure possible to break as many arms as possible. I've got a lot of colleagues who do not want to vote for this bill, who are on the Republican side of the aisle. They don't want to wipe out health care for 16 million, they don't want to leave millions of children hungry to fund tax breaks for billionaires. But this is a great betrayal. I mean, Trump campaigned on fighting for families, but in the end, what was he really all about? He was about running a government by and for billionaires. You saw it at the inauguration when he had the billionaires lined up behind him, and that's this entire bill is all about sacrificing the foundations for families in health care, housing, education to fund even more wealth for the richest Americans. It is completely wrong.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And certainly, there has been much written and talked about with regard to the slashing of programs, and certainly the, you know, the so-called Doge committee and whatnot. I did want to get you to read, because I know you're pushing back against some cuts that the Department of Labor has been making with regard to the Job Corps here in Oregon. Talk about that.
SENATOR MERKLEY: Yeah, so this is in the context of the fact that we have a separation of powers. Congress writes a bill and says, Hey, these are the things that are supposed to be funded. If a president signs that bill, it becomes law, which it has been law, and now we have a president saying, I'm going to disregard that law. I'm going to dismantle agencies that are funded by law. I'm going to defund agencies despite them being funded by law. And in this case, it's the labor secretary, or Chavez de Reimer who is proceeding to say, I'm going to shut down all the Job Corps across America despite the fact they're funded by law. So, it's both a violation of law and a violation of our constitutional separation of powers. There is a court action which has stopped her efforts to destroy the job course. I'm a big supporter of these job courts. You know, kids who are young adults, 16 through 24 who are trying to get their feedback on the ground, they're trying to get their high school degree and get a skill that will enable them to live a life and contribute to society. And if you think about, yes, the programs, they cost quite a bit per person, but then it's a lifetime of somebody contributing back to society and having a foundation for themselves and their families and so it's a worthwhile investment.
MICHAEL DUNNE: If these cuts go through, what detrimental impacts could this have?
SENATOR MERKLEY: Well, those Job Corps currently have about 400 students in the middle of programs. These are programs that just all expire at the end of May, so you're shutting down the programs in the middle of what these youth have signed up for. And so, it's really going to be a shock, a betrayal. A number of them live on site, so they're suddenly not only without the program, they're without housing, and they're back on the street, and that is going to hurt a whole lot of folks for decades to come. So, I'm hoping that the court, having stayed this as an illegal program cut, will prevail as it goes up through the court system. But I have lobbied, and Senator Wyden has lobbied for the Secretary of Labor to reverse this horrific action.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Moving on from sort of something meat and potatoes, like Job Corps, to something a bit more futuristic, but also rife with some real challenges, is sort of, perhaps the somewhat unregulated landscape of cryptocurrency. And I wanted to talk to you because I know you have legislation. I think it's called the End Crypto Corruption Act. Talk about that, because I think that, you know, many people don't really understand what crypto is, or what it could be. Talk about your piece of legislation and what you're trying to do.
SENATOR MERKLEY: Well, this is specifically about stopping federal elected officials from essentially pocketing money in exchange for nothing except access and influence that we're selling, selling government. And President Trump is doing this in two different ways. He's selling a meme coin, which is like a digital baseball card. He's saying, Give me your money and you will own an ephemeral bunch of electrons that have no value. Basically. I mean, it's just like saying, hand me a bag of cash and your proposal for some regulation or some policy will get better consideration. It's corruption. It's the Mount Everest of corruption. And then he has a second type of coin that is used in transactions. And the fancy term for this is a stable coin. But this also is corrupt. He's saying, for example, a company associated with the government of the United Arab Emirates. In fact, the head of the company is the National Security Director of the UAE. Is giving Trump $2 billion to invest, and Trump gets to keep the proceeds of that investment, and what the company gets is a digital coin it can use to invest in another company called “binance.” And what this all amounts to is this toll transaction be done in dollars. It's being done in Trump's digital coins, because the Trump family profits fabulously off it being done in this fashion. Otherwise. This is a straight across bribe, they said. UAE said, Hey, we want advanced AI chips in March. And then they proceeded to announce that they're going to, through this company, MGX, they're going to buy $2 billion worth of coins. And voila. When Trump went to the Middle East, he said, You know what, let's give you advanced AI chips and create an advanced AI center in the Emirates, specifically in Abu Dhabi. So, this is the sale of our government policy, and my bill and the amendment that I'm hoping to get up to be voted on will end this corruption for all electors, not just for the president vice president, but for senior Cabinet officials, also for members of Congress, is good for president is good for us. None of us should be selling ephemeral products to enrich ourselves by selling access to the US government policy.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You know, while I have you here, I did want to ask you about sort of the rescission package. And obviously, you know, I'm speaking to you from a national public radio affiliate. I wanted to get your read on what the federal government is trying to do with regard to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
SENATOR MERKLEY: Yes,, so the President has a fast track for asking for something that's previously been funded by law to be defunded. That's the fancy term, rescission sends a message to Congress, and it's a fast track to the floor. It can be put up by any member, and then we vote on it, and if we vote to undo what we previously did, that funding is killed. In this case, the President specifically has a whole list of things, including dismantling the US assistance International Development, which is just another tragic story that so many have died because we cut these programs off in the middle, but also to attack public broadcasting Americans. So value public broadcasting as an independent, neutral, nonpartisan source of news about the world where there's so much disinformation floating around, we can count on a fair story, good information coming from public broadcasting. But the President sees that as really, and is, in my opinion, sees it as a threat to the disinformation that he wants to get across to Americans. So, he's proposing defunding it. I'm certainly hopeful that Democrats and Republicans together will defend our public broadcasting networks.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Are Democrats more emboldened now since perhaps even the last time we spoke about fighting against the Trump agenda. And do you feel as though sort of Democrats, both in the House and the Senate and just everywhere, are more coalesced around the urgency with regard to action against, you know, executive orders or other types of things that many people term as overreach?
SENATOR MERKLEY: I think elected Democrats are very buoyed up by the amount of energies we see at the grassroots level. As you know, I do a town hall in every county each year, and that's 36 counties in Oregon. Last year, an election year, I had about 3500 people come to those town halls. So, you know, just about 100 at each event. This year, over 15,000 people in person came out. That's the type of energy we're seeing. I see it in my phone calls. I see it in my emails, and so people are coming and saying, Yes, we're concerned about the economy. We're concerned about this massive increase in costs that the Trump tariffs are going to create. We're very concerned about discouraging investment in the US because of the unstable environment with tariffs going up and down. We're concerned about the possibility of a coming Trump recession because of this chaos. But you know what I'm hearing far more about. We are concerned about the integrity and survival of our democratic institutions, our Constitution, the checks and balances and the separation of powers. So people understand that we have an authoritarian leader trying to slide this country into a strong man state, and they want us to do everything we can to stop it, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, always appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on and chatting with us.
SENATOR MERKLEY: A pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: SNAP benefits are vitally important throughout the nation, and here in Oregon right now, we talk with an organization trying to preserve it here in our state. Alex Aghdaei, the snap policy analyst and Outreach Coordinator for partners for a Hunger Free Oregon. Thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.
ALEX AGHDAEI: Of course, thanks for having me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Why don't you sort of give us the overall picture in Oregon for the need for something like the SNAP program?
ALEX AGHDAEI: Yeah, it's pretty immense. In Oregon, there's around 770,000 people that utilize snap and there's a whole host more that are eligible or could really use it, but aren't able to access it for whatever reason, food insecurity is. Pretty extreme in Oregon, and people rely on these benefits in order to live their daily lives.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Why don't you talk about the threats to snap?
ALEX AGHDAEI: Yeah, yeah. I will say that there have been attacks on SNAP for decades at this point, but the reconciliation bill, the big, beautiful bill, as they like to call it, is the most serious and most severe that we've seen in a really long time. And what it essentially breaks down to is the federal government is trying its best to shift the cost to pay for the program from themselves and to the state governments. So, they're asking Oregon to step up and say, to pay a billion dollars out of our budget every two years in order to continue funding the existing program. But what this really is is an attempt to cut the program and get people off of it and stop helping them, without it coming straight back to them. They're forcing our state into a bunch of really difficult decisions about who can and cannot receive benefits by cutting the funding that they're providing and have provided for decades.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know this may be a challenge, but I'm wondering if that were to happen, right? What would we see?
ALEX AGHDAEI: I can tell you right off the bat that a lot of folks would lose access to snap. I think the latest numbers I saw were around 100,000 people across the state would no longer be able to access that benefit whatsoever. And then for the folks that are on it, there are a number of cuts that would reduce the amount of money that they would receive. For example, The Heat and Eat program helps people pay their utility bills during the cold months so that they can heat up the food and eat it. Of course, some of the changes they're making there would drop, I think, around $56 a month from that program, from that person's benefits that are just essential. So what this all spells out to is 1000s of people losing that benefit, and 1000s of people going hungry, children, elderly folks, veterans, disabled folks that have no other, you know, source of income, and it would truly be devastating, and that's the human impact. But the economic impact is just as big, if not bigger, actually, since all of those snap dollars are going into our businesses, you know, we're talking about, like, hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the program's, you know, lifetime, more than that, and 3500 grocery stores across the state and farmers that you know rely on the snap dollars being spent, especially in rural areas, to run their businesses that would likely struggle to be able to stay open.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You brought up an excellent point that I don't think many people sort of internalize, is the fact that, you know, yeah, there are a lot of grocery stores, there's a lot of farms, there's a lot of people who aren't on or need SNAP benefits, but they need that economic engine.
ALEX AGHDAEI: Yeah, absolutely. Oregon is actually pretty unique in how we use some of our snap dollars as well. For example, we're one of the only states that gets fish consistently in food banks. Or, you know, there are a lot of local economies that really depend on these folks being able to put money in and invest in their local, local grocery stores.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Certainly, you know, there have been a lot of people who oppose SNAP. They talk about giving somebody something, as opposed to, like, having a work requirement or something. Talk a little bit about the people who need SNAP, but also, you know, perhaps do a little myth busting, because I think that there is this sort of, you know, kind of mythology around people who need some help.
ALEX AGHDAEI: The truth is, it is largely myth welfare queen and whatnot. It's just simply not true. In reality, when you look at the folks that are on SNAP, first of all, the overwhelming majority of SNAP users have worked at some point within the year that they're receiving SNAP, if they're able to, I think the number is around 85-90% something like that. Not all of them will be employed at the time they're receiving SNAP, and that's where a lot of the numbers are being pulled from that Republicans are throwing in our face. But that's often because they're in between jobs, or maybe they're a farm worker, and they have seasonal work and they need, you know, they grow the food that then gets used in the program, and then, you know, have to rely on benefits to pay their way through the rest of the year. And. Um, so it's just simply not represented in reality. And in fact, snap helps a lot of people get on their feet again, folks that are out of work, that are looking to try and find a job and contribute to our society. This is one way that, you know, we can help them and get them in there.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And then, sort of my last question for you, Alex, is, in addition to what you just talked about, in terms of, you know, contacting your legislators and letting them know how important it is to someone. Are there other things? Are there other things that the General citizen can do to help support snap or support the ability to get this kind of funding, you know, where it's where it needs to go?
ALEX AGHDAEI: I will once again say, you know, tell your members of Congress, they are the ones that hold the power in this moment. And we've got two really great senators that are fighting really hard right now in the Senate to try and blunt this attack, but they need to hear more from us and make sure that, you know, they're well supported at home. In addition to that, the legislative session isn't over yet. We've got, you know, a week or two left, depending on how long, you know, we'll see if we actually hit the deadline they've targeted. But there's still a lot of opportunity for the state to shore up its investments in, you know, our work onions, and we've got a few bills that we're pushing right now to expand, you know, basic needs support for college students and support food pantries, expand school meals for all students, and ensure that every child born in Oregon or wherever they're born is able to access the benefits that we're describing. So, talk to your state reps too. Talk to your leaders and make sure that they know that this is important to you.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Alex Aghdaei, who is the snap policy analyst and Outreach Coordinator for the partners for Hunger Free Oregon. Really appreciate you coming in and talking about this very important subject.
ALEX AGHDAEI: Thank you for having me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. On Monday, you'll hear a conversation with an Oregon State Representative and sponsor of a bill that would prohibit schools and libraries from removing books on the basis of being by or about members of a protected class. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On The Record from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
