Rep.
The top Democrat on the committee since 2010, Smith has served as a critical voice for the party amid concerns over some of President Donald Trump’s latest foreign policy moves, including the war in Iran and his administration’s military involvement in Latin America.
Should Democrats win the House in November, Smith is signaling a period of more intense oversight that could define the remainder of Trump’s term as questions grow over the direction of the Iran war, as well as other issues including the US’ involvement in Europe.
“We do have to do more effective oversight of the most corrupt administration in the history of the country,” Smith said in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Government, when asked about how he would use the committee in a Democrat-controlled House. “We should have more transparency on what the Pentagon is up to, more transparency on what the war plans are in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and with the boat strikes. I just think we need to get busier on that.”
Smith’s comments come amid a tumultuous time in US foreign policy. The administration currently finds itself locked in an ongoing conflict with Iran after launching strikes on the country in late February. The ranking member has pressed defense officials, including Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, on the reasons for starting the war.
The conflict comes as the administration steps up pressure on Cuba’s regime, months after it launched a series of strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and oversaw the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Those actions have been widely criticized by Democrats.
Democrats Divided
Asked how his party could effectively counter the Trump administration on issues pertaining to national security, Smith said Democrats face unique challenges.
“Well, effectively it would be a matter of building a reasonably cohesive coalition of forces that want to do something different than Trump,” Smith said. “But we struggle with that because within that broad coalition, there are a lot of differences of opinion about how to handle that.”
He said that right now, “you don’t even have a desire to build that coalition,” arguing that some within the party “want to smash the existing Democratic Party so that they can take it over and run it the way they want to run it.”
“I come at it from a fairly progressive perspective,” he added. “I support Medicare for all. I support more taxes on the wealthy and corporations, but I don’t support the idea that we need to smash capitalism and we need to hate all businesses and all rich people. I just think we need to effectively tax and regulate them.”
Acquisition Reform
Smith said his other priority for this year and going forward is to focus on acquisition reform, which he sums up as “innovate faster at scale.”
“A couple ideas that came out just this morning were basically to set up competitive munitions programs basically for whatever munition we have,” Smith said, referring to components of the draft defense authorization bill released Tuesday. “Let’s mandate the whole low-cost alternative be generated so we can do any more of that; more quick decisions that move away from programs of record and excessive requirements and focus more on solutions.”
He also pushed back on the White House’s $1.5 trillion budget request for the Pentagon, calling the number “unrealistic.”
“In a world where we’re coming up on a $40 trillion debt and we’re over a hundred percent of debt to GDP ratio and we are completely unwilling to raise taxes, I think it is disastrous,” he said. “I think it contributes to a fiscal catastrophe that will weaken us far more than having one too few battleships.”
That budget request ties into what Smith says is the “confused and overly ambitious” state of US national security at the moment. He sees the prevailing strategy as too focused on trying to “dominate” different parts of the world, leading to calls for more spending as a possible solution.
“The other possibility is that the national security strategy is unrealistic and should develop a different strategy that isn’t based on global domination, but is based on a more realistic way that we can be strong enough to deter our adversaries and meet our national security objectives,” Smith said.