OKLAHOMA CITY (KSWO) – Oklahoma Senator James Lankford held a live Q&A on social media on July 30, answering questions directly from Oklahomans.
During the Facebook Live, Lankford discussed a variety of pressing issues, including the Epstein files, hold-ups on federal education grants, the impact of the Trump Administration’s recently passed Big Beautiful Bill on rural hospitals, and more.
On the question of Education for Oklahomans, Lankford stated that education is a state issue, not a federal issue, with education holding very little connection to the federal government.
“The Federal Government does some grants, does a lot of the nutrition programs that come out there, but the federal government doesn’t run education,” Lankford said. “In-fact, several years ago, you might remember George W. Bush passed a bill called ‘No Child Left Behind’ that federalized all education across the country. I was actually a part of the group that took that out and said that we do not need to have federal control over all education.“
Lankford also discussed his work on the Soils Act, which he states will prevent foreign countries from buying up Oklahoma farmland.
“I have a bill called the Soils Act,” Lankford said. ”I’m trying to get into the last part of our farm bill that we’re trying to be able to do at the end of this year. A lot of the farm bill we passed in the one big beautiful bill, well, we still do have some policy areas we still need to do, we couldn’t do in the first bill, so we wanna be able to get into a larger farm bill.“
Lankford also spoke on an issue that’s critical for countless residents: the matter of rural health, and the impact of the recently passed budget bill.
“We actually added a $50 billion with a ‘B’ $50 billion rural hospital fund because rural hospitals are the most vulnerable,” Lankford said. “They have a lower patient count they don’t have as many people but they have all the same expenses doctors administrative all those things so we want to make sure while states were making their change we want to make sure for protecting those rural hospitals so that was included in the bill the focus was State Fair park federal government airport because start bringing the deficit down available balance things out.”
Lankford was also asked about the the Epstein files and says the files need to be released because it’s hard to tell fact from fiction and because there are conspiracy theories surrounding them.
“I have some folks on the left that are saying Trump is secretly hiding all this information,” Lankford said. “That makes me laugh, honestly because if there was something about President Trump in there, do you think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would not have released it out in a heartbeat during the campaign.”
He says that he thinks this is a legal normal procedure that has to go through the process.
Copyright 2025 KSWO. All rights reserved.
link
