Dem Judy Chu screwed up Congressional hearing (history quiz)

She holds several advanced degrees (PHD)? Wow. I wonder if she's going to redeem herself by going on Celebrity Jeopardy.

BTW, did you know that Woodrow Wilson was responsible for the Sedition Act of 1918. Never heard of? I'm not surprised. You were probably stoned for most of history class. During WWI it what essentially against the law to speak out against the war...a Federal offense. Sam Gompers the father of the American Labor Union was sentenced to 10 years in prison under that affront to civil rights.

I just wanted to demonstrate how intelligent I am and let you know I plan to run for Congress.

*Actually, Gompers was a racist who got released after Wilson left office. Probably did him a little good to be taken off the bully pulpit.

Judy Chu doesn’t know much about Woodrow Wilson — but here’s why you should

By Richie Greenberg, NY Post

Published June 4, 2026, 7:48 p.m. ET

Judy Chu, a Democrat who has been in Congress for 17 years, faced a straightforward question in the House Ways and Means Committee hearing this week: Who was the US president during World War I?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tossed her that softball amid talk of inflation and wartime economics under President Donald Trump.

Her reply, delivered with confidence: “I don’t know.”

The ensuing viral clip of the exchange between Chu and Bessent didn’t just sting politically; it also highlighted a deeper rot of political competence.

Judy Chu speaking at a news conference during the House Democrats 2026 Issues Conference.

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president (1913-21), isn’t some obscure, dusty footnote. He guided America into the Great War in 1917, wrestled with skyrocketing inflation, launched the Federal Reserve, championed women’s suffrage, and dreamed up the League of Nations.

These facts aren’t mere trivia for Jeopardy! contestants.

They are a key part of the story of how the US became a global player and how presidents have historically juggled global leadership and domestic needs — the very issues Chu was lecturing about moments earlier.

Yet there she sat, blank-faced. The timing made the fumble deliciously ironic.

Chu had been pressing concerns about rising costs of living — gasoline, electricity, airfare — tied to global tensions. Bessent politely referenced Wilson as a historical parallel under wartime leadership.

Instead of engaging, Chu offered the intellectual equivalent of the shrug emoji.

For a legislator who’s spent years positioning herself as a thoughtful progressive voice on everything from small business to veterans’ affairs, it was a spectacular own goal.

One wonders if her staff briefing packet skipped the part labeled “Basic American Presidents 101.”

Sure, everyone blanks under pressure. But let’s be real: This wasn’t a pop quiz on quantum physics. This was grade-school history.

Chu holds advanced degrees (a Ph. D.), has chaired caucuses, and has logged more time in Washington than most.

When a sitting member of Congress responsible for trillion-dollar budgets and national policy can’t summon Woodrow Wilson, it stops being a “senior moment” and starts looking like incompetence –– or systemic indifference to the country’s own story.

Wilson was also a key figure in the Democratic Party. He championed the progressive idea that the government should be run by experts to achieve desirable social outcomes.

He believed that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were just means to an end, at best. And he believed in a multilateral international order, led by global institutions.

These beliefs remain at the core of Democratic Party ideology.

Wilson was also a racist — which is why his name was taken off some public buildings and institutions during the woke frenzy of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Of course a member of Congress should know who Woodrow Wilson is.

Chu’s failure is the kind of moment that makes voters ask, “If they can’t handle this, what else are they winging?”

The fallout extends beyond one awkward exchange. Political debate runs on historical analogies — comparing today’s inflation fights to the 1970s, or modern alliances to Wilson’s internationalist vision.

When elected officials fumble the references, their arguments lose weight and their oversight role turns performative.

Chu’s record includes real work on AAPI issues and economic matters, yet none of that immunizes her from the expectation of knowing foundational facts.

Even Wilson, who served as a Princeton University president and professor, would probably raise an eyebrow at a successor who couldn’t place him in the timeline he himself helped define.

This gaffe is emblematic of a larger trend.

Years of educational fashion that prizes feelings and frameworks over hard chronology have produced leaders fluent in niche policy but strangely adrift on our nation’s greatest hits.

In an age of renewed superpower rivalry and economic whiplash, Americans deserve representatives who can intelligently invoke Wilson’s triumphs (wartime mobilization, progressive reforms) and failures (civil liberties crackdowns, racial policies) rather than stare into the void when prompted.

“I don’t know” might fly in casual conversation; it lands like a lead balloon when you’re shaping policy that affects more than 340 million people.

This will endure as a teachable moment — mostly for what not to do on live television.

Voters should expect more: leaders who treat American history as essential knowledge, not optional trivia.

Richie Greenberg is a political commentator based in San Francisco.