Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, who turned Kansas red for Democrats, said Sunday he hopes to prioritize cutting costs for his constituents in the next Congress and will be “deeply disappointed” to spend two years investigating members of the Trump administration.
“The biggest priority for me, and I think for most people in America, especially those who live paycheck to paycheck, is ‘please help us pay the cost of living,'” Hamilton told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Specifically, he said the new Congress should immediately focus on ending the war in Iran and “recovering tariff policies.”
“If I spent the next two years – my first two years in the Senate – investigating, I would be deeply disappointed. I want to get to work helping the people in my state and helping people across the country,” Hamilton said.
After Democrats’ landslide victories Tuesday gave them control of the House and Senate in the next Congress, newly elected and re-elected leaders are turning their attention to their priorities for the next two years.
Many are calling on their colleagues to focus on an affordability agenda, but some top leaders have said they will also prioritize monitoring and investigating possible corruption by President Donald Trump and his allies.
“Every time Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court and entangle him in legislative barbed wire,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Wednesday.
Several Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, who was responsible for one of Trump’s impeachments during his first term, have proposed potentially impeaching the president for a third time.
“I’m not as interested in impeachment as I am in putting safeguards in place,” Hamilton said Sunday, while adding: “I understand that decision and the desire to do it.”
The senator-elect also warned others in his party against focusing too much on investigations and oversight aimed at making life more affordable for Americans.
“Let’s focus on helping the American people,” he said. “And I’ll tell you, Democrats, if they don’t do it, if we don’t understand this and get to work helping people, it’s going to be kind of a blue wave.”
Appearing later on the show, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., agreed with Hamilton.
“I think Senator-elect Hamilton made a good point,” Sanders told “Meet the Press,” adding, “we can’t spend all our time investigating Trump. We need to stand up for working-class families, make a real difference in their lives.”
With Democrats winning 54 Senate seats and two other Senate elections in Alaska and Mississippi still uncalled, Schumer could be poised to lead the Senate majority in the next Congress if a majority of the Senate’s Democratic members vote in favor of him.
Hamilton said he had no plans to support Schumer’s bid for majority leader.
On Sunday, he said he had “no disrespect toward Chuck Schumer,” but “I really don’t want him (to want him as majority leader), and I told him that, too.”
The senator-elect cited the volume of television ads during the campaign linking him to Schumer, which he said were in response to the fact that “a lot of people in Kansas feel, who maybe don’t know Chuck Schumer personally, who don’t know him personally, but you know they perceive him as being more to the left and as someone who is a divisive figure.” »
He demurred when asked who he might support against Schumer, saying, “I probably know 10 senators personally, and even those I only know through brief conversations. So, you know, I’m not in a place where I can tell you, ‘these are, this is my short list.'”
Hamilton added: “I think there are a handful of people who, you know, probably lead more from the center, but I don’t know enough yet to be able to say, ‘those are the people I would support.’
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