Interview: Rep. Tom Cole on the Continuing Resolution, Trump cabinet picks, and how to save college football
Rep. Tom Cole blamed Senate Democrats for the "almost unsolvable dilemma" that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans are in, praised the Trump cabinet, and rolled out college football solutions.
Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) has weathered many continuing resolution fights — and he predicted that, while he’d like to see this congress’s spending package go through, he thinks it will ultimately go under suspension.
Cole has been involved with shepherding hundreds of billions of dollars in discretionary spending through his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee. With a potential, but unlikely, government shutdown impending, Cole told the Washington Reporter that Senate Democrats are to blame for the holdup.
“The Democrats in the Senate did not get all their bills out of committee, did not get any of them across the floor,” Cole said. Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), and all House Republicans, now have “an almost unsolvable dilemma.” In contrast with Democrats in the Senate, who are soon to be in the minority, “we got about 72 percent of federal spending through the House,” he said.
For Cole, the top priority is “keeping [the] government open until March 14, so that we can then negotiate all the FY25 bills…I think we have a good chance of doing that.” Cole and others want to see the end of year spending package that includes a continuing resolution through March 14 package passed so that President Donald Trump can begin his term with a unified government.
“They have not tried to interfere in this disaster relief stuff in any way, shape or form,” Cole said of the incoming Republican administration.
Due to a near-monopoly by left-wing media outlets on Capitol Hill that are fueled by progressive billionaires, woke corporations, and Republicans taking pot shots at each other in their pages, however, Senate Democrats have gotten a near free pass, senior Hill staffers have noted to the Reporter.
At issue towards the close of the Congress is whether the House and Senate can agree on an end of year spending package that includes a continuing resolution through March 14, disaster relief, aid for the agriculture industry, health care reform that could decimate the oft-maligned pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and regulation on outbound investments to China.
Allies of Johnson note that, despite some on the right derisively labeling this as an omnibus, that it definitionally is no such thing.
Cole, who predicted the current strife in a July interview with the Reporter, wants to see the package go through as a rule, but has a feeling that won’t happen. “I would like it to go under a rule for a couple of reasons,” he explained. “The first is because it lowers the number of votes needed to pass it from two-thirds down to 50 plus one. Number two, if people have ideas for the offset money, at least they have a shot to have an amendment.”
However, he “suspect[s]” that it will go under suspension, which means that “it’s not amendable. It's in the current form that it is. I would always prefer a rule. I think that's what a majority should do.” He also defended a series of some of the controversial positions as wins for Republicans and for their constituents.
While predicting that “we'll have the disaster relief we need,” Cole noted that what “started as a $115 billion package [we] lowered that to right around $100 billion, then there is $10 billion to the Ag community, which is heavily Republican,” he noted. “Most of the arable acres in the United States are actually represented by Republicans, like 92 percent. This is something Democrats don't care a lot about.”
Despite the anger over the CR and some of its content, Cole said that Trump will be better served without having to deal with a possible government shutdown so soon into his second term. Cole also said he is excited about seeing several of his current or former colleagues elevated to new heights in Trump’s cabinet.
“I’m very excited about Elise Stefanik,” he said. “I just think she is super smart, very tough, very able, policy person, I first met her when she was coaching Paul Ryan for the vice presidential debates. I mean, she’s a super star. Michael Waltz, the guy is a national security expert, I think the president will get great advice from him, I love his Green Beret background, and he’s a great communicator. You see him on television again, super, super smart. The president will make the final decision, but I think we'll get excellent, excellent advice.”
Cole praised Trump’s selections of some former House Republicans. “I served with Doug Collins, he is one of the best legislators I’ve served with, he’s going to do a great job at the VA, which is an important constituency,” he said. “John Ratcliffe, my old colleague, did a great job serving the president as Director of National Intelligence. While that title sounds more important than CIA Director, most people in intelligence would say the assets and the personnel there make it more important. I'm sure John had his choice, and I suspect he picked the right one; he’ll do a great job.”
Trump is assembling a cabinet of “disruptors,” Cole said. He “like[s] everything I see” about Marco Rubio, said that Linda McMahon is an “unusual choice” but an exciting one to run the Department of Education, and said that while he doesn’t know Scott Bessent, he has heard rave reviews about the Treasury Department pick.
Looking to the next Congress, Cole is eager to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While he expects some “friction” with the pair, whose initial plans include slashing $2 trillion in government spending, he sees plenty of opportunities for cooperation. “These two are smart guys,” he said. “I think DOGE is going to help us do a number of things. One of the worst things we do is we are paying people we shouldn't be paying. I think they'll help us identify how to save money in that way. Number two, I think Elon Musk launches rockets cheaper than NASA does, the guy knows something about getting stuff done at a cheaper cost. I think we'll do a lot of good things like that. I also hope that their charge really is not to look at mandatory spending. But I think if they look at spending overall, they'll recognize what the driver is, and while we can do our job better in ways to save money, and number two, you might not want to save money, but we could spend a lot more efficiently.”
There are other reforms that Cole, a high school and college football veteran, wants to see enacted. “Disaster and Oklahoma football go hand in hand,” he lamented. And both federal employees and college athletes need to show up for the work they’re paid to do.
One proposal would shake up the entire college football landscape: allowing players to sign multi-year deals. “I would also give them the ability to contract over multiple years. One of the reasons why Army and Navy are as good as they are is because those players can’t go anywhere, they’re there for four years,” he said. “I don’t know how you coach that way or build a team or create a culture over time. Barry Switzer, a legendary Oklahoma football coach, is a good friend of mine, and he told me over dinner last year ‘I don’t know if I would coach today.’”
Another reform is an ambitious one “to fix the system itself” by delaying the transfer portal until after bowl season is over. “You have all of these players leaving through the portals and Army which, despite the bad game last week, had an amazing season,” he said. “Those kids aren’t going to go to a bowl game because Marshall lost 25 players to the transfer portal and they canceled the game. To me, it’s ‘if you sign up, that runs through bowl season.’ The season should be the season. The portal should be after the bowl games. We’re paying these people now. If you get paid for a job, you need to show up and finish the contract.”
While Cole is optimistic about Oklahoma’s football next year, he’s not devastated to see Bill Belichick head elsewhere in the collegiate coaching ranks.
“I’m sad Oklahoma didn’t play well,” he said.
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Tom Cole, lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
This is not your first continuing resolution; you in fact predicted in our July interview exactly how this CR battle would play out. Is this the same thing that you see every time we have a continuing resolution? Is there anything different here with Democrats on the way out?
Rep. Tom Cole:
There are a few things that are unique to this continuing resolution. The total bill is going to be a little over 1,500 pages long, and it’s got three parts. The first in the CR, that’s 90 pages, that’s all. It’s current funding levels, with a few anomalies. We’re going to extend the Farm Bill, then there's about an 80-odd page section that is all disaster relief, and that’s a huge part of the bill. The remaining 1,400, 1,500 pages almost has about 500 pages that deal with health care reforms, everything from reforms of the PBMs and other items like that. We’re not involved in negotiating that on the Appropriations Committee side. And then the reauthorization of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), that’s basically Virginia Foxx’s bill that reauthorizes those programs, and then a bunch of cats and dogs. Then there is tens of billions of dollars in aid to American farmers. The package started as a $115 billion package. We lowered that to right around $100 billion, then there is $10 billion to the Ag community, which is heavily Republican; most of the arable acres in the United States are actually represented by Republicans, like 92 percent. This is something Democrats don't care a lot about, so that’s new, but that’s something that none of us thought at the beginning of this that would be in it. Democrats, because they don't care a lot about that, they're extracting concessions. That’s above my paygrade. The Speaker is working on that. But if it all comes together, as opposed to today, which it sounds like it will be now, then we'll have the disaster relief we need. We stripped things out of there that were not directly related; Democrats wanted some money for legal services. They wanted some money for Head Start. They wanted some money for AmeriCorps, things like that. And you can argue one way or the other. Our main thing was we want to put infrastructure, asphalt, concrete, get roads rebuilt, get sewer systems back in their original stream bed, that kind of stuff and a couple other flashpoint issues that are important to us look like they're going to make it. The federal government should have the ability to help on private roads. We have lots of little mountain communities in the Carolinas that are connected to main public roads by little private roads. These communities are isolated. So that's our main focus on this: keeping government open until March 14, so that we can then negotiate all the FY25 bills this year. I think we have a good chance of doing that. All those bills were written. They were all out of committee. Five of them passed the floor. The Democrats in the Senate did not get all their bills out of committee, did not get any of them across the floor. We got about 72 percent of federal spending through the House. But we'll have to do those. And probably the other thing that will help us the most is if we don't get this done by April 1, you'll have cuts of 1 percent across the board, including a cut in defense, which would be billions of dollars, and it would actually be an increase in spending, because you go to the previous year, so complex deal, but an incentive for each side to get a bill, get the FY25 bills done. So that's our number one objective, after taking care of everybody, and by the time we’ve finished the rest of the bills, then this Ag thing just came up brewing. There's been legislation to deal with it, and it hasn't moved. We haven’t been able to get the votes, and Democrats don’t care about it, but I'd say the majority of Republicans do and the Speaker made a decision, I think, a good one, saying ‘let's add that in there.’ A number of our members aren’t going to vote for it without it and there were some who wanted to rewrite the $21 billion slice of the Biden proposal that dealt with agriculture in the affected areas and rewrite some of that, redirecting more broadly. Several of these provisions come at no cost. It costs nothing to reauthorize WIOA, there’s no cost to health care reform to try and get savings to consumers, that doesn’t cost us anything. There’s a lot of must-pass legislation.
Washington Reporter:
You were talking about the two buckets of disaster relief to disasters and to farmers, and we spoke in the past about your desire to reform disaster aid in general and how that works. Do you think it would be helpful to take those two bucks and say ‘this is now one bucket in the CR and you're gonna have to have an up or down vote on that,’ or should they remain as these separate tranches?
Rep. Tom Cole:
They’re separate legislation but they’re all linked together in one giant bill. There are some people who won’t vote for this because the spending is too much or it's not offset someplace else. One member said in discussion, ‘why aren't we budgeting for this stuff?’ But we actually do. When we pass the FEMA budget or the Small Business Administration budget, we set aside money in there for disaster relief, emergency loans, all that. It’s just that the demand has been so great this year. So a lot of this is actually replenishing an existing account where there's just no money left for people who lost a small business or to give loans to people to get their houses back together. We recently had a good, informal roundtable hearing with the director of SBA and the director of FEMA, and they said to us ‘these are the number of applications we have that are legitimate, that we can't fund until we get more money.’ Everybody's focused on Hurricane Helene. We had an unusually active tornado season this year, all through the Midwest, Iowa, Nebraska, towns in and around my district had an that were badly damaged. One lost a hospital, the entire downtown was damaged. That's been replicated in lots of other states. A lot of this is replenishing the existing account.
Washington Reporter:
I was going to end with this, but I'll ask it now. Have you seen Twisters 2 yet? When we last spoke, you hadn't.
Rep. Tom Cole:
I have not.
Washington Reporter:
Is it on the Christmas agenda for you?
Rep. Tom Cole:
Yeah, I’d love to see it. That and Gladiator II.
Washington Reporter:
No plans to see Wicked?
Rep. Tom Cole:
No plans.
Washington Reporter:
Has Trump been helpful? He's been weighing in on everything from drones flying over the eastern seaboard to foreign policy. Where do you want him to help you this Congress, this has been
Rep. Tom Cole:
I think he wants this dealt with before he shows up. To be fair, these are all disasters that happened this year during this Congress and this administration, so their business is planning the future, their own budget. We're going to end up pushing the budget for the opening months into his term. We shouldn't have done that, but we’re going to have to. The government should have been funded through September 30 by September 30 of this year, and it’s not. think he'd like to not have to deal with this. That's my opinion. As far as I know, the incoming administration has not contacted us, they have not contacted me, and I don't think they contacted the Speaker's office. It's just, ‘hey, do what you need to do. Give these people the hell.’ They have not tried to interfere in this disaster relief stuff in any way, shape or form. I think a lot of people would like them to, because they assume the president would offset this by spending in some other area. He might, or he might not. I have no idea, but it's certainly not his responsibility to have to do that. This should be taken care of right now.
Washington Reporter:
Do you feel like Democrats almost abdicated their job and are trying to have you piece together all of this?
Rep. Tom Cole:
They’re involved in negotiations. We've got, at least at the committee level, our work done, and we've got quite a bit across the floor. We could have gotten more were it not for some on own team, we have a very narrow majority. They're not passing their legislation and that impacts our ability. It's like, ‘well, why are we doing this? Why are we casting all these tough votes when they're not moving any product over there, and they’re not bringing it to the floor?’ It leaves Speaker Johnson with an almost unsolvable dilemma of working with Democrats now. That’s one of the arguments for the CR in March. Anything that passes now has to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate. Trump isn’t showing up until January 20.
Washington Reporter:
You're controlling the Appropriations Committee now, but you’ve spent no shortage of time on the Rules Committee. Do you think or want this to go under a rule?
Rep. Tom Cole:
I would like it to go under a rule for a couple of reasons. The first is because it lowers the number of votes needed to pass it from two-thirds down to 50 plus one. Number two, if people have ideas for the offset money, at least they have a shot to have an amendment. If it goes under suspension, as I suspect it will, it’s not amendable. It's in the current form that it is. I would always prefer a rule. I think that's what a majority should do. You control what comes to the floor. You control what amendments are offered. You shape the battlefield. But to do that, we need full GOP support, and we don’t have that right now.
Washington Reporter:
How do you think the Department of Government Efficiency will work with you on the Appropriations Committee side to identify wasteful spending well in advance of next year's budget fights?
Rep. Tom Cole:
These two are smart guys. If you look at the amount of the budget that we appropriate, it’s a much smaller amount than it was years ago. When Hal Rogers arrived to Congress, our longest serving member, in 1981, we appropriated 45 percent of the budget and 9.88 percent of our Gross National Product. Today, we appropriate 26.8 percent of the budget and about 6.4 percent of GDP. Real growth in government spending relative to the size of the economy has been in the entitlement growth and because of accumulating debt and rising interest rates last year over on that side of the ledger. But I think DOGE is going to help us do a number of things. One of the worst things we do is we are paying people we shouldn't be paying. I think they'll help us identify how to save money in that way. Number two, I think Elon Musk launches rockets cheaper than NASA does, the guy knows something about getting stuff done at a cheaper cost. I think we'll do a lot of good things like that. I also hope that their charge really is not to look at mandatory spending. But I think if they look at spending overall, they'll recognize what the driver is, and while we can do our job better in ways to save money, and number two, you might not want to save money, but we could spend a lot more efficiently. Some of our weapon systems are incredibly expensive; they might help us find ways to not only cut spending, but to take the spending that we have and make it more efficient to cover more stuff, I think they will be incredibly helpful. And I think the more we talk about the budget and the deficit, sooner or later, people come to the entitlements areas. Let me make one thing abundantly clear: I'm not for cutting Social Security, but these programs have got to be looked at. Again, when I was much younger, they raised the age of Social Security. I didn't get it the same age my father and grandfather did. And frankly, they made it taxable which it wasn't if you had income other than Social Security; if you're only living on Social Security, don't tax it, but they can tax up 85 percent of us, if you have additional income coming in. I'm a pretty good example that. I have a Social Security check now, but I also have outside income, I have my congressional salary. I have an IRA. I have 401k, so I have other things, and it didn't bother me when Ronald Reagan, Tip O'Neill, and Howard Baker came up with the commission that put all these reforms in when they did it in 1983. Social Security was three months away from an across the board cut, they extended live down to the early 2030 someplace. Another thing is that the United States invests all of this money, Social Security, in government securities. Look at Norway, which invests, not all, but some, in the Norwegian equivalent of the S&P 500 and they’ve done a lot better. I have a lot of ideas on what we should do, and I’m not on the committee of jurisdiction, but if we think about the deficit, my initial reaction is where can we save money on the discretionary side, that's perfectly fine. We should do that, but sooner or later, we're going to figure out that 72 percent of the money is over here, and a lot of the people who are getting things, whether it's health care providers that are getting paid, or Social Security is being sent to someone who should not be getting it, what are the inefficiencies over here to save a lot of money for the American taxpayer? We just can't balance the budget on discretionary spending. Again, it's only 26 percent and roughly half of that's defense. I don’t think anybody can look at the world today and say that we shouldn’t be spending a lot on defense. You might say you’re wasting money, and that's a fair point to make, the Pentagon just failed seven straight audits. Ronald Reagan was spending 6 percent of the GDP on defense and winning the Cold War. We're spending about 3 percent today. At the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we were spending 9 percent of Gross National Product on defense. So defense from a percentage of federal spending has come down fairly dramatically since the early 1990s when the old Soviet Union ceased existing. We're now entering an era where China is emerging as a power. Russia is obviously aggressive. Threats like North Korea and Iran are here too. You might want a more robust defense budget, but if you do, you still want to spend a heck of a lot more efficiently than we're spending today. And again, I think DOGE is going to be helpful. Do I expect some friction? Yeah, I remember one of the initial figures tossed out was that we were going to save $2 trillion a year. I'd love to do that, because it means we're looking at entitlement reform. The entire discretionary budget of the country is $1.7 trillion. Some of this usually requires a combination of reform and sometimes of revenue. Most Americans, 80 some odd percent of Americans, pay Social Security taxes on every dime that they make. So perhaps others, again, this will be a big debate to have, but if really want to balance the budget, particularly the size of the deficit now, you have to look at where you're spending almost three quarters of money. That's not discretionary spending.
Washington Reporter:
You can't vote on these Trump cabinet picks, but you served with several of them in the House. Is there anyone who you're particularly excited about?
Rep. Tom Cole:
I’m very excited about Elise Stefanik. I just think she is super smart, very tough, very able, policy person, I first met her when she was coaching Paul Ryan for the vice presidential debates. She’s a super star. Michael Waltz, the guy is a national security expert, I think the president will get great advice from him, I love his Green Beret background, and he’s a great communicator. You see him on television again, super, super smart. The president will make the final decision, but I think we'll get excellent, excellent advice. Marco Rubio, I know a little bit, not a lot. We haven’t worked a lot together, but I certainly like everything I see. He's done a great job on Intelligence. I'm intrigued. I don't know Scott Bessent, he thinks about things very interestingly. I was looking at his three, three, and three plan: we’re going to lower the deficit from 6 percent of the GDP down to three and have a 3 percent growth rate. Everybody I know called him super, super smart, so I'm looking forward to that. I served with Doug Collins, he is one of the best legislators I’ve served with, he’s going to do a great job at the VA, which is an important constituency. Most Americans don't realize it. After the Pentagon, the VA is one of the biggest government agencies. I have a military-heavy district, lots of veterans, and I know Doug will do a great job, and will be very focused on their wellbeing. And we have an all volunteer force, and our opponents don't; it's expensive to maintain. I'm interested in what Linda McMahon will do at the Department of Education, that's a very unusual choice, and there's no agency I think need more shaking up. There's a lot of bloat, there's a lot of waste, a lot of discussion about maybe we should just get out of this business, block grant the money to the states, and go on from there. She’ll have to take on the educational establishment, which is very bureaucratic, leans left, and she did a great job at the SBA in the first Trump administration. John Ratcliffe, my old colleague, did a great job serving the president as Director of National Intelligence. While that title sounds more important than CIA Director, most people in intelligence would say the assets and the personnel there make it more important. I'm sure John had his choice, and I suspect he picked the right one; he’ll do a great job. It’s a pretty exciting group, people around the president, and you read about this common theme that Trump wants disruptors. Well, the federal government needs disruptors, and I like that.
Washington Reporter:
You mentioned that disaster and Oklahoma football go hand in hand. I want to get your thoughts more broadly on that, but I thought of a potential solution. Alan Bowman, the OSU quarterback, is almost as old as I am, and they were pretty bad this year. You played high school and college football. You might, under these rules, be eligible to return to college football at your age. Would you have any interest in going back?
Rep. Tom Cole:
No, I think my playing days are definitely behind me, and I was never good enough to play at that kind of level. I’ll tell you a funny story. I was a pretty good high school guard, and at Oklahoma State University used to have this form that they’d give to players and one of the questions was ‘who's the best player you play against that we don't know anything about?’ And my name popped up three times. And so the then coach at Oklahoma State called my high school. ‘Hey, who is this kid? These are really good players we are recruiting who are putting his name down.’ And my coach called me to tell the story. He’d tell them ‘oh, nobody works harder. Nobody uses what they have more. Now, I have to tell you, he's 170 pounds, and about the third slowest guy,’ so they sort of lost interest. ‘But you should know your adversaries think you are pretty good,’ he told me. It was fun. If I had to choose life as a football player at a major university and go on play pro or be a politician, I’d opt for football. Jon Runyan, an NFL all-pro player who served in Congress for four years from New Jersey, told me once that someone said to him that he played in the toughest business ever while in football, and he said ‘that wasn’t the toughest business. Politics is tougher than that; in the pros, the only people who hit you are the guys in the other uniform.’ That is a perfect description of some of the free for alls that go on in our conference. ‘Hey guys, the other team is on the other side of the aisle, they’re not over here,’ and we have some people who forget that sometimes. I’m not interested in intramural athletics, our real opponents are to the left of us and are across the aisle from us.
Washington Reporter:
Does Oklahoma football need DOGE to help them turn around?
Rep. Tom Cole:
First of all, I’d like to fix the system itself. Think about what just happened, you have all of these players leaving through the portals and Army which, despite the bad game last week, had an amazing season. Those kids aren’t going to go to a bowl game because Marshall lost 25 players to the transfer portal and they canceled the game. To me, it’s ‘if you sign up, that runs through bowl season.’ The season should be the season. The portal should be after the bowl games. We’re paying these people now. If you get paid for a job, you need to show up and finish the contract. I would also give them the ability to contract over multiple years. One of the reasons why Army and Navy are as good as they are is because those players can’t go anywhere, they’re there for four years. Some schools will have players say ‘I’m 19 years old, I don’t get to start, I’m going to go off to another school.’ I don’t know how you coach that way or build a team or create a culture over time. Barry Switzer, a legendary Oklahoma football coach, is a good friend of mine, and he told me over dinner last year ‘I don’t know if I would coach today,’ now coaches have to recruit their own players while they’re out recruiting other players. There’s enough money here that I have no problem with players getting compensated, but there needs to be some reciprocity, some loyalty to the institution, some willingness to finish the season.
Washington Reporter:
Are you sad that Oklahoma missed out on the Bill Belichick sweepstakes with him going to the University of North Carolina?
Rep. Tom Cole:
I’m sad Oklahoma didn’t play well. They’ve gone through bad stretches before but I’ll guarantee you this. They’re determined to be good, they have the resources, they’re not afraid to fire coaches; I’m not suggesting they should, Lincoln Riley left us in a really awful situation, took not only our best players, but he took a lot of the players who were going to come to Oklahoma, and he brought them to USC, so that disrupted the program. We’re not used to being 6-6, and we won’t stay there. Brent Venables made a tough decision and fired Seth Littrell, their offensive coordinator, who was a guy I liked, but he wasn’t getting the job done. I think he made the right call doing that. He’s got a new one coming in who’s bringing a quarterback with him. They demand excellence in their program.
Washington Reporter:
Thanks so much for chatting. I think you are the first person to compare college athletes to federal workers in how both need to show up in order to get paid.