At Hearing, Warren Presses Trump Admin Nominees on Housing Discrimination and National Security Risks from the President’s Chip Deals
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee gave opening remarks and questioned nominees at a hearing on five Trump Administration nominees: Ben DeMarzo, to be Assistant Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Craig Trainor, to be Assistant Secretary, HUD; John Jovanovic, to be Chairman, Export-Import Bank; Francis Brooke, to be Assistant Secretary, Department of the Treasury; and David Peters, to be Assistant Secretary, Department of Commerce.
Ranking Member Warren focused her questioning on Trainor’s civil rights record and Peters’s willingness to put in safeguards to stop the UAE from handing U.S. chips to China.
Below is the transcript of Ranking Member Warren’s questioning:
Ranking Member Warren: Thank you Mr. Chairman. So Mr. Trainor, if you are confirmed, you will be responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws barring discrimination in housing. HUD’s website says that the office you would lead, the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, “works to eliminate housing discrimination and promote civil rights and economic opportunity through housing.” Last year, there were more than 34,000 complaints to the Fair Housing office, the most on record in history. That suggests to me there is a problem nationally with housing discrimination.
Mr. Trainor, you describe yourself as a civil rights lawyer, so I just want to go through your record on civil rights.
In 2021, you authored a book review entitled, “George Floyd and the Rise of the Rival Constitution,” where you appeared to agree with arguments that our civil rights laws contributed to the rise of a (quote) “rival Constitution” that threatens our actual Constitution.
In a 2022 report to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on racial disparities in evictions in New York State, you wrote that while you (quote) “do not doubt good faith views that racial discrimination many decades in the past somehow reveals itself today in New York’s rental market…I do not share this view.”
In your current civil rights enforcement role at the Department of Education, you are being sued by the NAACP and other civil rights groups for advancing a (quote) “legally flawed and unsupported interpretation” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Mr. Trainor, given your record, why should we trust that you will fulfill the explicit mission of HUD’s Fair Housing office to “eliminate housing discrimination and promote civil rights?”
Craig Trainor, Assistant Secretary-Designate, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, HUD: Senator, thank you for that question. I’d look at my career, as a civil rights attorney who has represented hundreds upon hundreds of vulnerable New Yorkers in the worst time of their lives as being often times the only person they can talk to to help them navigate a deeply complex and at times unfair system and that is exactly what I intend to do is to take that experience and to evaluate complaints that come in, investigate that, and vigorously enforce the law if we find violations.
Warren: Well, that’s the problem I’m trying to probe here, Mr. Trainor. You’re currently being sued by civil rights groups. You seem to have come to the conclusion that housing discrimination in New York’s rental market does not exist. You’ve raised questions about the constitutionality of our civil rights laws. Your record is not indicative of someone who will faithfully uphold the civil rights laws. Instead, it reads like somebody who is hostile to the fundamental premise of civil rights. That makes me think you are just not a serious person for this job.
So Mr. Peters, I’d like to turn to you. As the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, you would be on the front lines enforcing our export controls. Now, export controls are a crucial tool for ensuring that countries like China cannot access our most sensitive technologies and use them, ultimately use them against us.
In February, Senator Hawley and I wrote to the Commerce Department to express our concern that BIS hadn’t closed loopholes allowing PRC to acquire millions of advanced AI chips. Last month, Senator Banks and I wrote to Nvidia to emphasize our concerns that its new R&D facility in Shanghai could lead to the diversion of advanced chips.
Mr. Peters, do you agree that we need to impose robust safeguards to ensure that countries like Saudi Arabia and the United, UAE do not simply take our chips and pass them along to China?
David Peters, Assistant Secretary-Designate, Export Enforcement at Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS): Senator Warren, thank you for your question and I appreciated the opportunity to meet with members of your staff in anticipation of this hearing. As I’m sure you’re aware, you know, BIS essentially is divided into two components. There’s the enforcement side which I hope to lead, there’s also the administrative side, which has the primary responsibility for rulemaking and policy. I view my role, should I be confirmed, as committed to the aggressive enforcement of—
Warren: Okay, I’m sorry, but I had a very specific question here. Do you agree that we need to impose robust safeguards to ensure that countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE don’t simply take our chips and then pass them along to China?
Peters: I agree, Senator Warren, that we need to be committed to vigorous enforcement of export control laws.
Warren: Is that a yes, or is that a no?
Peters: It - Senator Warren, I believe vigorously—
Warren: Is that a yes, or is that a no?
Peters: Senator Warren, I understand why you would like to reduce this to a yes or no issue—
Warren: Yeah, it’s actually pretty simple that we need to worry about countries like Saudi Arabia passing, taking the chips from us and then passing them along to China. I get that we don’t send the chips directly to China but I’m very concerned about handing them to a country that in turn hands them to China and I just want to know if you’re worried about that as well.
Peters: We – Senator Warren, transshipment of technologies is already part of our enforcement mechanism—
Warren: I understand that, so can you answer this question then with a yes?
Peters: I can answer that I would be vigorously—
Warren: Oh jeez.
Peters: – that I will aggressively enforce the law.
Warren: Alright. I think that I’m not going to get an answer here.
Below are Ranking Member Warren’s opening remarks as prepared for delivery:
Mr. Chairman, we have five nominees from four different agencies at today’s hearing, so I want to get right to the point.
I’ll start with housing.
President Trump ran for office on a big promise to the American people: that he would bring down the cost of living. He has not fulfilled that promise – particularly when it comes to the cost of housing.
His chaotic tariff policy has created uncertainty for homebuilders, homebuyers, and renters. Tariffs have increased the cost of lumber, steel, and everything else needed to build or fix up a house. Since the President’s tariffs began to kick into effect in March, interest rates on mortgages have gone up by nearly a quarter point. For the average family buying a new home, that means about $600 a year in extra costs.
And the costs keep piling up. Home insurance rates are going through the roof. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that energy bills will go up by 4% compared to last summer.
The last thing Americans need is for the Trump Administration to make housing even more expensive. But that is exactly what they are doing.
The President’s budget proposal calls for the complete elimination of federal programs that help communities build new housing. It calls for tens of billions of cuts to federal housing investments. Meanwhile, the President’s “Big Beautiful Bill” allows companies to continue jacking up rents using illegal AI schemes.
All of this while the Administration begins to trickle out plans to hastily reprivatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the government sponsored enterprises that were created to provide liquidity and stability to the mortgage market. This is an effort that seems designed to reward President Trump’s billionaire friends, even as economists tell us that it will push mortgage rates for families even higher.
It’s one disaster after another for homeowners and renters.
And now, if Mr. Trainor is confirmed as HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, he would be responsible for enforcing the nation’s housing anti-discrimination laws. Already, bad actors accused of discrimination are literally walking away from legal negotiations because they know this administration will do nothing to stop them. We know Trainor’s record: he has led the Department of Education’s efforts to declare Diversity Equity and Inclusion unlawful and pause the Department’s civil rights investigations. And I’m concerned he intends to bring that same hostile approach to HUD.
Next I want to turn my attention to Mr. Peters, the nominee to be the Commerce Department’s Assistant Secretary of Expert Enforcement in the Bureau of Industry and Security. It’s a critical national security job: you would be responsible for enforcing our nation’s export control laws and ensuring that our adversaries cannot get ahold of our cutting-edge chips and other critical technologies.
But I’m worried that by the time you get there, Mr. Peters, your job will be to close the barn door after the horse has escaped. Again and again, the President and his gang of Silicon Valley tech bros have made questionable deals that weaken our national security. It needs to be cleaned up – and I hope, Mr. Peters, that you are up to the job.
I will have questions for the record for our other witnesses.
Mr. Yo-von-o-vich, the Export-Import Bank that you would lead has escaped years of attacks to kill the agency. I will want to hear how we can reform EX-IM to better help American small businesses sell their products abroad, especially amid President Trump’s foolish trade war. Mr. Brooke, I want to hear whether you’ll give the President honest advice that his on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again tariffs are hurting American businesses and families. And Mr. DeMarzo, I will need your commitment to provide timely responses to requests from me and my staff and get us the information we need from HUD.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
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