Let me tell you a tale that begins with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin suggesting a Congresswoman familiarize herself with a Supreme Court decision, and ends with said Congresswoman suggesting Zeldin drink weed killer.
The EPA Administrator attended the Monday hearing to answer questions regarding the agency’s 2027 budget request.
Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro began her line of questioning by likening the EPA Director’s budget proposal to a “climate change denier’s manifesto” before accusing the agency of abandoning its duty to protect Americans from climate change.
While this accusation would go unchallenged at a No Kings protest in New Haven or on a CNN panel, Zeldin wasn’t about to let it slide.
He calmly asked DeLauro where, in the Clean Air Act, it states anything about combating global climate change.
When DeLauro failed to provide even a semblance of an answer, Zeldin did the unthinkable: He asked her more questions!
“Loper Bright, Supreme Court Case, are you familiar with it?”
What happened next was amazing. Through a series of extremely basic questions, Zeldin exposed DeLauro’s extreme ignorance. She was unaware of the major Supreme Court decisions regarding the EPA’s climate authority limits.
“The Major Questions Doctrine?”
“Michigan v. EPA?”
“West Virginia v. EPA?”
Nada!
The best DeLauro could manage was sputtering out the words climate change a few times before wrapping up her self-implosion with a suggestion that Zeldin try drinking a cup of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup weed killer).
Even DeLauro’s fellow Democrat committee members appeared frozen in horror as they watched her mortifying performance unfold.
Rosa DeLauro is 83 years old and is one of the longest-serving Democrats in the House of Representatives. She has represented Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District since 1991. So why, with all of her experience, would she show up to a hearing so woefully unprepared?
It isn’t all her fault.
The media has coddled and protected progressives like DeLauro at every turn. The only requirement for them to sail through a debate or a town hall is to be ready with some version of their tried and true “Orange Man is Hitler” stock answer.
Tip O’Neill once famously said, “All politics is local.” These days Tip’s party seems to abide by a different maxim (as coined by Matthew Continetti): “All politics is Trump.”
The result of this is mollification is a group of stunningly lazy, arrogant and ill-prepared lawmakers who can easily be caught flat-footed.
If DeLauro were smart, she would heed the valuable advice Zeldin offered her during their exchange: “What you should do for your constituents is actually read statutes.”
Zeldin understands that the “Ranking Rizzler” Rosa DeLauro and her ilk would never deign to suffer through something as mundane as reading statutes or doing their homework for a hearing.
As he told the unhinged Congresswoman, “You’re just somebody who likes to have the microphone on.”
Trudging through thick binders of material about Supreme Court decisions and EPA policies would cut into DeLauro’s valuable grandstanding time.
Democrats need those precious hours to film fire TikToks about Trump or to sit for softball interviews on cable news shows about Trump or to send out profanity-filled fundraising emails about Trump.
While this dust-up between DeLauro and Zeldin emphasizes the left’s all-sizzle-no-steak approach to politics, it is certainly not confined to Washington.
Here in the Cradle of Liberty, the Boston City Council would much rather hold hearings on resistance politics and anti-Trump resolutions than audit the city’s books.
Last March, Mayor Wu, during a hearing on Boston’s sanctuary city status, told Florida Congressman Byron Donalds that the city doesn’t keep track of how much money it spends on illegal aliens.
The exchange perfectly illustrated the contrast between a Florida politician and a Massachusetts politician as a gobsmacked Donalds replied, “You don’t ask about how much money the city of Boston has spent on illegal immigration? Are you out of your mind?”
Perhaps Wu’s lack of oversight explains why last month it was revealed that the city — which is currently grappling with a $48.4 million budget deficit — could not afford baseball hats for a South Boston high school varsity team. Or why Boston firehouses were told that due to the budget cuts they could no longer distribute plastic fire hats for kids. (They have since reversed this cut after the swift backlash.)
These local politicians don’t care about balancing budget books or buying high school baseball hats or even doing the most basic preparation for a committee hearing. They have No Kings resolutions to pass and Somali flag-raising ceremonies to attend and microphones to scream into.
Civility has been tossed out the window with the cup of weed killer and it took the nuts and bolts of politics with it.
