WASHINGTON — Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks sat down with The Daily Iowan and discussed the impacts of the budget reconciliation process to Medicaid and SNAP.

The congresswoman also spoke about the Trump administration pausing funds to refugee resettlement services, her assessment of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and how tariffs will impact Iowa farmers.

Miller-Meeks also spoke about the historic commissioning of the USS Iowa over the weekend, of which she was in attendance and responded to criticisms from her constituents of a lack of town halls.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Daily Iowan: The USS Iowa was commissioned over the weekend, and you were there. What was it like to be a part of such a historic event for our state?

 U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks: Well, first and foremost, you’re correct, it was a historic event. As we know, the USS Iowa has a very storied legacy and legend, so you had the battleship Iowa, then USS Iowa. That was the only ship I think that was in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters. And then it was also in Korea and the Gulf War, and then it was decommissioned.

And so to have, and its name was the Gray Ghost because it was so silent, careful, cautious, and deadly, that it has this legend that precedes it.

So, to be there, number one, to be part of having gotten us more both ships and submarines, which our Navy desperately needs, and we also need more aircraft in our Air Force. So to be there, to be able to see the ship, to be part of the commissioning ceremony as a veteran, it was very cool.

I’ve never been part of a commissioning ceremony before, but it’s also an amazing vessel in and of itself. So, you have the history of the USS Iowa, this legacy and legend that’s going to go forward on a submarine that is indefatigable, undetectable, undeterred, and will be unstoppable.

So, we just reminded the crew to be Iowa nice, but for our adversaries, fear the Ghost.

The Trump administration paused funding for refugee resettlement services, and as you know, Iowa has a strong tradition and history of supporting refugee resettlement. Do you think this pause aligns with the state’s values?

 I think that it aligns with the state’s values. We’re not going to stop in our welcoming of immigrants to our state. However, when you look at what’s happened over the past four years of the Biden administration, where refugees became anybody who came across our country, especially our southern borders, had almost 10 million people with the known got-aways, people on the terror watch list, untold amounts of fentanyl coming across, enough to kill every person in the United States.

I think that there needed to be some restructuring and some pause so that we have a handle on what’s a refugee and their true refugee status.

If you recall, in the Biden administration, there was not proper vetting that went on. People came across. There were people on the terror watch list that came into our country, people in gangs, as we know the most famous, of course, the Tren de Aragua Gang.

So, I think, to have knowledge and vetting of who’s coming into our country, and then also to have cities that don’t want to enforce federal law and be sanctuary cities. This is a notice to them as well, too, that they’re not going to be funded to take money away from providing for their citizens, for the people within their cities and states, in order to fund or house illegal immigrants and that.

I think a proper pause, and then I think one of the things that people don’t know, I’m from Texas originally. I’ve been in Iowa almost 40 years now but came from Texas, so there’s always been some illegal immigration.

But what was happening at the border, and the times I went down to the border, made four trips to the border, I can tell you, our border patrol agents would tell us that people were not being vetted, that they were babysitting, that the cartels had operational control. They would send a large group of people that would bring drugs or other people on the other side of the border, and so there wasn’t the proper vetting and processing going on.

Their morale was low. And then, additionally, as a former public health director, in April of 2021, where we were at the border, and I specifically asked if they were testing for COVID, if they were testing for measles.

We had measles outbreaks at facilities where children were being housed, and we’ve already seen numbers where infectious diseases that we don’t typically see in the United States have increased. Most notable, of course, is tuberculosis, which is an extraordinarily hard disease to treat and to cure, and it’s also contagious as well as dengue fever and some other diseases.

I do think a pause is appropriate, and I don’t think that’s going to affect how we as Iowans perceive people who come to our state and how we welcome people such as the Vietnamese boat people. We’ve got other refugees. We’ve got Afghanistan refugees that are true refugees that are here.

Opponents to DOGE say that it could impact services of Iowans. What are your responses to some of those criticisms?

Well, first and foremost, how do you argue with some of the funding that was going out, especially through USAID?

I mean, when you see where funding was going to what was being funded, and I can tell you, having traveled to some of these nations, they don’t necessarily want the things they were asked or they received funding for. But in order to get funding for things that they need, whether it’s energy, whether it’s clean water, whether it’s septic, whether it’s basic health care, foisted upon them was funding for other things, which they didn’t agree with.

It was not unusual for someone in a ministry to tell me, we don’t exactly agree with this ethically or religiously, but yet, it was part and parcel of getting funding.

You can’t argue with some of the things, I don’t think, that have been uncovered, that we were funding with taxpayer money, and which a lot of Americans didn’t agree with. So, part of being in the DOGE caucus is that I think that there are efficiencies that we can look for in government.

We’ve already found some of those. But we also need the government to be effective. So we want to restore trust and faith in the federal government, but we want the government to be effective.

When you’re asking people to go to work, earn a salary, pay taxes, they want to know that their taxpayer money is used wisely, and I think by having a federal government that works more effectively and more efficiently, that’s going to further allow our economy to grow, which then increases the amount of  revenue that comes into the federal government.

So, I think those things are important. And people largely elected President Trump: one looking at how the government spends money.

And you’re young people. We’re almost $37 trillion in debt, and that debt is a cost to you. It is a cost on your future earnings.

It’s a cost to you on what you’ll be able to receive in Social Security benefits that you’re paying into for your entire life. So, you know, my first job that I paid into Social Security was when I was 16 years old.

So, I’ve been paying into Social Security and Medicare, as well as the federal government, since I was 16 years old. I want to make sure that for young people, we know that if you’re paying into this system, you can have some expectation that the money you have paid into Social Security for Medicare will come back to you when you get to retirement age.

Many opponents, Democrats and anti-hunger coalitions, worry that the budget reconciliation process would cut Medicaid and SNAP, which hundreds of thousands of Iowans rely on. How do you feel that this would impact those lower-income Iowans who rely on those services?

Well, first and foremost, growing the economy, helping people to access better paying jobs, higher wages, better working conditions. I think that’s going to positively impact their lives.

Second, the biggest threat to any of our programs at the federal government level is the amount of deficit and the amount of debt that we have. So, under the Biden administration, we had four years of spending in excess of $1.7 trillion per year, greater than what revenues we were bringing in. So, I think that that’s problematic.

As we look at what we’re doing, we know that the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, that that’s critically important for reauthorization. Why? Because people at the lowest income levels have tax breaks.

They had a reduction in their income tax bracket, so if it’s not reauthorized, their take-home pay immediately decreases.

The doubling of the child care tax credit that’s in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, that goes away. So, immediately they’re going to have less take-home pay.

So, I think those things are important.

We’re looking at what policy changes can we make that allow small businesses, which are treated differently than large businesses in the Affordable Care Act. Are there policy changes that we can make that allows them to get insurance through a small business or employer?

So, we’re looking at both the regulatory side, the administrative side. The things that we’re looking at in Medicaid are trying to reach consensus so that they affect the least number of people.

So, under the Biden administration, if you were ineligible for Medicaid, a state wasn’t allowed to take you off their Medicaid rolls. Do you think people that are ineligible for Medicaid should be on Medicaid? If you were a legal immigrant and you were covered on Medicaid, illegal immigrants should not be there.

Have not been eligible for Medicaid, under the Biden administration, they were. And then able-bodied adults 18 to 55 to work 80 hours a month.

I think that’s something that the majority of Americans agree with, those types of policies.

There was a huge expansion of the people on SNAP and food assistance benefits under the Biden administration. It first started under President Trump with COVID, continued under the Biden administration, and people weren’t removed from those roles. So, there is some reordering and restructuring, I think.

But most importantly, we want people to do better. We want a better economy, a better economy that people are getting paid more and that prices are less. So, working on lowering prices so that their quality of life, ​​what they earn, goes further.

I think all of that is part of what’s happening with DOGE, with looking at Tax Cut and Jobs Act and the reconciliation package. So, it’s not just one thing, but I do think that we have to be very mindful and have that consideration.

I’ve met with Governor Reynolds and Director Garcia looking at, are there policy changes that we can make that allow states to to better implement what they do with Medicaid and what they do with SNAP?

And so we’ve looked at those policy changes. Now, they’re not going to happen in the reconciliation because they’re policy, but there are things that we certainly can do.

States would love to have more flexibility under the 1115 waivers. So, I think it’s important that we look at both of those components.

And as I’ve talked with groups that work with individuals within these spaces, one of the things that they consistently tell me is that relaxing federal regulations or removing the administrative burden will allow them to be more effective and to reach more people. And so they’re actually giving us suggestions on things that we could look at as the federal government that would make it better for them.

I’ll also put to rest the myth that there is no waste fraud and abuse in the federal government.

There is absolutely waste fraud and abuse within the federal government. I have a bill, the Medicaid Improvement Act, which is to have states verify people’s addresses. So if you’re on Medicaid in one state, and you’re moving to another state, you’re supposed to let the state know that you’re moving out of the state. And so we have, and this has been documented.

Wall Street Journal has recently done some exposés on this, where multiple states are being paid. Now, if you’re a state that has Medicaid-managed care and it’s per member per month, this is especially problematic if two states are being paid per member per month, and the insurance company doesn’t know what state. They only know that they have a person who’s applied in one state, but they have an address in another state. So, it’s getting states to verify the addresses.

The Government Accountability Office, the GAO, has a 2023 study that said there’s over $100 billion in improper payments in Medicare and in Medicaid. So, looking at improper payments, where are they going out?

For Medicare and Medicaid to both use AI for fraud detection, as do private insurers, I think, is something that, again, allows access, allows benefits, but makes the system more efficient.

There’s been a lot of controversy over the last couple days over President Trump’s tariffs plan and its effect on the economy, specifically for farmers. What are your reactions to that?

 We met with farmers. Just last Monday, we were with Secretary Rollins in Iowa. We made several stops, we met with a lot of farmers.

Most farmers are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

I can tell you, it was over a decade ago. Farmers were the ones that told me about the egregious, unfair trading practices of other nations, of nations accepting beef or pork and then letting them stay on the ship until they became ransom then refusing them.

I had a farmer in Corydon, Iowa, talking to me about China’s currency manipulation. So, they’re very aware of the trade practices in other countries that disadvantage them or where their farmers are subsidized, but our farmers are not subsidized. So, you have this unequal playing field, how we do indirect land use and how that helps farmers in Brazil versus in the United States.

Those are all things that farmers have you know they’ve suffered under. So, they are looking at better, more fair trading practices. They know that there will be some effect on the tariffs, but they also see what Secretary Rollins is doing.

After four years of no movement on trade at all, Secretary Rollins is going to six countries in six months looking at trying to establish trade practices.

New markets for farmers are just as important as any effect that the tariffs may have. Certainly, you would expect when you have changes to the infrastructure that there is going to be a reaction in the stock market.

If you’re not selling, you haven’t lost. So, there are paper losses.

I’m going to tell you I’m at retirement age. There are real losses that you know people perceive. It creates a great deal of anxiety. But people also know that we need to have fair trade as well as free trade, but it has to be trade that is also fair to those in the United States.

I have family members, so my husband’s family is from North Carolina. They all lost their jobs when NAFTA occurred. They all lost their jobs in the textile mills. They were all without jobs, without training, with nowhere to go, no industries in the small town they grew up in.

It’s a real-life thing that hurts people when jobs move overseas, when companies relocate overseas, because either less labor market, or what China does is skirts around other countries to avoid tariffs or trade limitations.

So, we wanted to have on-shoring. We’ve talked about that, even President Biden talked about that, but didn’t do it. We want on-shoring, friend-shoring, near-shoring, but we do want there to be a robust middle class and a robust manufacturing sector in the United States.

Iowa has a great model for that, and we want to see that continue.

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There was a protest in Iowa City due to people feeling as if there’s a lack of town halls from yourself and from other Congress members. What’s your response to that?

 Our response is, I fully support people’s right to freedom of association and freedom of speech, and so I’m glad that they felt comfortable.

When we’ve heard people say that there are threats to our democracy, and you see people out being able to protest, being able to contest what they think that their government is doing, I think that shows you much more willingness than what I saw under the Biden administration with forcing private companies to do censorship, deep-platforming people, canceling people.

I’m glad to see that the democratic process is alive and well.

Every year, we do town halls and listening posts. We will do them again this year. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to do the job we have done here in Congress, meeting with people as we’re meeting with you.

I’ve got a full schedule all of this week, and then I’ve got a full schedule when I go back into the district meeting with people, so we’ve never not met with people, even if they show up in our office unannounced without an appointment. If we have time, we meet with them in that regard, too.

So, we’re going to continue to do that to be accessible to people throughout the district, and when they come to Washington, D.C.