CNN’s Tapper Presses Sen. Banks on His Viral Exchange with Fired HHS Employee: ‘Do You Have Any Evidence that He‘s a Left-Wing Activist?’

TAPPER: “I want to ask you about this exchange you had yesterday in the halls of the Senate, an exchange with a former federal employee from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who approached you. The exchange went viral. Here’s a little bit of it.”

[Clip starts]

SCHROEDER: “Hi. I was a worker at HHS. I was fired illegally on February 14th. There are many people who are not getting social service programs, especially people with disabilities. Are you going to do anything to stop what’s happening?”

BANKS: “You probably deserved it.”

SCHROEDER: “I deserved it?”

BANKS: “You probably deserved it.”

SCHROEDER: “I deserved it. Wow.”

UNKNOWN: “Oh, dude, that’s rude. It’s bad.”

SCHROEDER: “Yeah, that’s great to hear. Why — why did I deserve it?”

BANKS: “Because you seem like a clown.”

[Clip ends]

TAPPER: “So, in a statement to CNN, asked about it, you said, ‘I have no sympathy for left-wing activists who have been let go from overpaid positions that should have never existed. I do have sympathy for the hard-working Hoosiers whose tax dollars have been wasted on bankrolling those positions.’ This former federal employee was on CNN a little bit earlier today. Listen to what he had to say.”

[Clip starts]

SCHROEDER: “I was just asking, what are you doing about the social services that are being cut, specifically for people with disabilities? And his response was just that I deserved to get fired. In response to the piece about left-wing activism, as a federal employee, much like other civil servants, I am non-partisan.”

[Clip ends]

TAPPER: “Do you have any evidence that he’s a left-wing activist? Do you — do you have any idea what kind of work he was doing at HHS?”

BANKS: “Yeah. Here’s what I know, Jake. He’s an instigator. He’s in the hallways of the Senate office buildings every day chasing down Republicans like me and cheering for Democrats who walk through the hallway. So it doesn’t take a whole lot here to deduce from that, he is a left-wing activist. And what I have no tolerance for is anyone who believes they are entitled to a taxpayer-funded job. In this case, we know that he made between somewhere $85,000 or $100,000 a year for a job that he can’t even explain what he was doing. It was a job that wasted taxpayer dollars. I have no sympathy for that. But I do care about those factory workers, those teachers, the police officers in Indiana who work hard every day and pay taxes to fund a job like that. They shouldn’t belong in the federal government, to begin with. So, that was my point. I’m not going to shy away or back down or apologize for what I had to say yesterday. This was a calculated instigator activist in the hallways of the Senate, and I don’t have a lot of tolerance for it.”

TAPPER: “Do you feel that way about every federal employee that’s been laid off in all these massive job cuts that DOGE and President Trump have been doing?”

BANKS: “Look, this guy was chasing me and other Republican senators through the hallways. Of course — of course not. My comments were directed at this fellow, again, who can’t even explain what his job was. It was a woke job that wasted taxpayer dollars, and I’m thankful that President Trump eliminated that job to save tax dollars at a time when we have a $37 trillion national debt. That’s what we’re getting at, cut wasteful spending, save those tax dollars. No hard-working family in Indiana deserves to pay the salary of someone like that.”

TAPPER: “I’m genuinely asking, how do you know what job he has? Or had?”

BANKS: “He can’t explain it. I’ve read online what he had to say about his job. It doesn’t make sense. He couldn’t even explain it on CNN earlier today when you had him on the — on your station, exactly what he did do, which is why he was a probationary short-term employee who lost his job because President Trump and DOGE determined there was a job that we didn’t need in the federal government to begin with. That’s the heart of the matter.”