This episode of IHIP News, hosted by Jennifer Welch and Josh Welch, reacts to President Trump's appointment of Stephen Miller as White House Chief of Staff after the recent elections. The hosts argue the move defies what voters asked for and discuss calls for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to step aside from congressional leadership.
They also cover possible Senate leadership bids, criticism of Democratic strategy, and demands for investigations into Trump and the Epstein files. Listeners hear clips from politicians and commentators, while the opinions expressed belong to the hosts and speakers who voice them.
In this episode Jennifer Welch, Josh Welch
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One of the most vile and disgusting men in the country, uh, who I believe—in my opinion—is a total sadist, freak, is Stephen Miller. And Donald Trump, um, as we've learned, autocrats do: they double down. They double down when they are cornered. He appoints Stephen Miller, the architect of these horrific, cruel, dehumanizing, murderous immigration raids. He appoints him to be White House Chief of Staff. And my God, am I so relieved that we just had the election, because now we have fighters.
Incoming Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed is asked about this. Let's play that clip.
In so many other states, and then he decides to hire the most broken man to continue to run the most dysfunctional White House that we've seen. I don't know what Stephen Miller has actually contributed to our culture, our society, in any real way, except for to make us more angry, to stoke the worst kind of fear and vitriol, to weaponize ICE in our streets to take American lives. The real question is: why appoint this man White House Chief of Staff if you want to have a productive relationship with the Congress that actually intends to deliver on the mandate that the American public has just given us?
And we'll wait to see.
Unfortunately.
Josh.
Well, I—I—it's hard to pick the worst cabinet member for Trump. I think it rotates, uh, once a day, maybe. Stephen Miller, um, his policies are the problem here. Everything he's done—I mean, we go back to all of these ICE raids, all of these ICE shootings, all the lives that were lost, and you can pin all of that on one man that's got control in the White House. The havoc that he's wreaked on the American people, the injustices, uh, and he likes it. There's something about him that enjoys that cruelty, obscene it.
And when you say he doubles down, he does. So does Trump. They double down on this stuff. Uh, this seems to be—his appointment seems to be at odds with what Trump said in an interview about trying to reach across party lines. But, but, I mean, this is Trump.
He's a liar.
Like, yeah, he doesn't—he—and they're in just kind of this grab-ass situation where they don't know what they're doing. They just got their ass handed to them. You're seeing a mass exodus at DOJ with a lot of their top brass. You're seeing a lot of people leaving, fleeing. You're seeing the Vice President write a—basically an op-ed piece saying, "I don't know what happened, but this war is awful," you know? And so they just don't know what they're doing. But as far as Stephen Miller, notice that he wants to keep him inside his circle so that he can claim executive privilege when he has to testify.
So being Chief of Staff, all of his conversations are going to be private. Um.
And I think these election results were a complete repudiation on Stephen Miller's policies. So Trump's appointment of Stephen Miller to be White House, uh, Chief of Staff is a fuck you to the electorate. But that doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me that Trump lies. It doesn't surprise me that Trump hangs out with losers. It doesn't surprise me that Trump said, "Who's the biggest loser in the United States of America?" Oh, Stephen Miller? Perfect. I want him to be my Chief of Staff. That is perfect. There has never been a more MAGA decision than this.
Yes.
This is—this is exactly what they do. This is exactly who they are. This is exactly what was repudiated. And good on Abdul El-Sayed for standing up, calling him broken, calling him exactly what he is, and, uh, and rightfully acknowledging that the American people just gave this incoming, uh, House and Senate a mandate to deliver for us.
And last thing I want to say about that: I saw in the comments somewhere that someone said, after this appointment of Stephen Miller, they said, "What are you doing, trying to turn Oklahoma blue?" I thought, that's perfect.
Honestly.
This is the biggest gift Democrats could have, him doing this stupid shit, because the voters just spoke. And so just keep doing it.
Texas is blue. If they continue doing this, Ted Cruz is gone. Keep—keep—keep Turning Point campaigning for people, because Turning Point, under 30, every state went blue. Every state went blue to voters under 30. So what they are doing is wrong. So if they intend to double and triple down, keep doing it. We will have the biggest majority ever to deliver FDR-style, um, for the American people, and the accountability will be Watergate level only.
This time, we need to send these MFers to The Hague. We need to send them to The Hague, where their presidential pardons do not matter. Okay. So as we shift gears, you know, Trump's doubling, tripling down on all of the stuff that everybody voted against. And I say, okay, keep doing that. That means 2028 is perfect for us. We'll grow our map. Um, a lot of people within our party are very disappointed in the way that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have dealt with their leadership positions the last two years.
I have been disappointed. The strongly worded letters, the, uh, Hakeem not whipping votes when he needed to really felt like a betrayal. Um, and there is a senator that is just incredible. And I had him on I've had it weekend a couple weekends ago, and his name is Chris Van Hallen. And I asked him about leadership, and this was before the election, and I asked him, you know, would you be interested? And he said no, because I want to open up the door to potentially 28. And now it sounds like he's changing his mind on this because he's getting flooded with calls from—from citizens that want him to run to replace Schumer in the Senate.
Pop this up. Uh, Adam Rinn is reporting new in Playbook DC, a person familiar with Senator Chris Van Hallen's thinking about running for majority leader told Playbook he's received an outpouring of calls and is now in active listening mode. The door is not shut. This is—this man is incorruptible. He, uh, is one of the only people in the United States Senate that has stood up and said, "The government of Israel has killed American citizens, and we haven't done anything about it."
And, uh, and this is in the West Bank and Gaza. And this man believes in universal human rights. This man, uh, uh, is—there's no prostitution politics with this man at all. I completely believe this, that this is the right move to go if he decides not to run for 28. But Charlamagne thy God, I stepped into this national conversation we're having about our party right now and the leaders that we deserve and the leaders that we need in this moment. And Charlamagne is calling for Schumer and Jeffries to be replaced.
Let's play the clip.
He's going to the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Your friendly neighborhood bad guy, Charlamagne thy God, has been telling you for well over a year that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries should step down. So it warms my cold heart to see so many people calling for the same thing now. Schumer and Jeffries simply do not get it. I need to know that when the interests of working-class Americans conflict with the interests of corporate America and powerful foreign policy lobbying organizations, the people leading this party, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, are prepared to put working Americans first.
And I don't think Schumer and Jeffries have answered that question.
Josh.
Well, it's interesting. He would say that about Hakeem Jeffries, who would, uh, be the first African American or Black speaker of the House. And so it shows you the opposition to him, that you have someone who's a voice of the Black culture like Charlamagne is. Um, but it's refreshing to see. It's refreshing to see that. And I think all of this, to me, means that these seats are up for debate. Like, this is not a foregone conclusion that we're going to have Jeffries and/or Schumer. And everything he said is spot on.
We have to have politicians in these positions that are going to take on MAGA and don't share donors with them, that are going to investigate, uh, these tech oligarchs, that are going to investigate what they've been doing to the algorithms, what they did with the Brazilian election. Uh, just a complete accountability. We need to return to the party of law and order, to being a country of law and order for everyone. And more than anything, the, uh, financial shift that Donald Trump and Republicans before him have ushered in led to this moment, led to this moment where, uh, we have incubated this full-blown fascist takeover by MAGA.
Um, but it's not just stopping there with Charlamagne thy God. We also have Alyssa Slotkin, and she says conversations about leadership are happening. Alyssa Slotkin is a senator from Michigan. Um, uh, let's listen to her.
I think we're quite literally on text chains right now, still counting the votes in Alaska and Mississippi, but I think this is like it's an open field. And I think those conversations are happening, um, rapidly, um, between, uh, Democrats—I mean, new Democrats who just won, Democrats in the sophomore class, the freshman class. I think there's quite a bit of upward pressure. I'm not going to have any big announcements.
I just—I think that the Senate is going to be doable, Josh. I—I would be shocked if Chuck Schumer ends up being the majority leader. I—I just think, you know, it's—I appreciate the work that he did for the Democratic Party. We're in a different era right now. This isn't glad-handing with Trump and cutting deals. This is a completely different beast, in my opinion. And it's not just my opinion. The voters want Schumer and Jeffries out. Pop this up.
Uh, House Dems inundated with calls and emails urging them not to elect Jeffries as speaker. One member told Axios they got 300 to 400 calls in two days. Another said over 500. A third said higher than 500. It's our number one issue, and it's not close. So this is—this is so important, in my opinion. We came out. It was too big to rig. The electorate understood the assignment. Texas is blue.
Kansas is blue. Iowa is blue. Florida almost. I mean, a couple of percentage points. The map for 28 is wide, wide, wide open for the Democrats to build even bigger majorities. And this shows that our party is not a cult. We were dissatisfied with the opposition that Jeffries and Schumer put forth the last two years. And it's okay for us to say, uh, my—my friend David Hogg, his—his PAC is called Leaders We Deserve.
And you may remember he was, uh, like, vice chair at the DNC, and they pushed him out. And this is a kid who, um, now he's a young man. I don't want to call him a kid now. But when he was a kid, he survived the Parkland shooting. And he has dedicated his life to electing politicians that will enact common-sense gun legislation, saying the leaders we deserve, the leaders that don't take money from the gun lobbyists and play patty cake with both sides. My critiques of them are based on their performance these two years, that we have been watching this regime kill people, state-sponsored violence, put people in concentration camps, send people to Sea Cot, bomb little girls in Iran, uh, kill fishermen, lie, gaslight, the grifting, all of it.
I have not been satisfied with the strongly worded letters. And it has nothing to do with Hakeem Jeffries' race or Chuck Schumer being Jewish. It has everything to do with their performance.
And I would have a little bit of a different take on that. I—I, for me, I would want someone to lead the Senate and/or the House who matches the will of what the American people voted for, whoever that person is, whether—whether you're progressive, whether you're a woman, whether you're a man. But it has to be someone who matches what the voters wanted. And they wanted change. And these corporate Democrats, these institutional Democrats that have been around a long time, they just don't get it. And I think the thing that I always go back to, I think of John Stewart laughing at Sam Cedar when he's listening to Chuck Schumer talk about the bricks on the wall.
And I thought about that like three or four or five times. Number one, it's so funny, but number two, it's so true. It's like, what just happened? You had this, uh, invigorated base of people that were enthusiastic, that went and did this, that voted that to create a change. We have more Democratic governors than we do Republican. And that's up and down the ticket, like, everywhere. And then you go back to, uh, Chuck Schumer giving an interview, and you're thinking, oh, shit, surely this guy is not taking back over. No, we didn't just go through all of that for that.
And so I think they give it a hard look in both—both houses, uh, the Senate and the House. And they have to—they have to do this. Like, they cannot disappoint, uh, the people that voted in droves and want change. They can't do that this time. That's not an option. And I think everybody knows that. And you can look at the outpouring and the opposition to this just within seven days of the election, six days of the election. It's massive.
That's why Robert Garcia popped off, Lawyer Up, because that was the energy of the electorate. And then Hakeem's first is, the American people aren't going to look even. And we're all like, what are you talking about? We want investigations. We want accountability. We want to restore the rule of law, because that is intricately connected to affordability and delivering for the American people. If we do not restore the rule of law and we merit garland this thing and we let the, uh, elites and the Epstein files that are actively trying to cover up child sex crimes, um, and we let the president of the United States who's involved in the Epstein files, who's grifting off the American public, um, and Pete Hegseth and the war crimes I believe he's committed, we can't let these people off the hook.
Absolutely. Positively. Non-negotiable. Not acceptable. Letting them off the hook before incubated this moment. He shouldn't be—Donald Trump should be in jail right now. He should not be in the Oval desecrating it with his horrific decorating. Horrific.
Yeah. And I don't think last week when I saw Schumer, I don't think I've been that mad since I saw Joe Biden in the debate with Trump. I mean, that's just how mad you get. Like, who are leading these Democrats? Who is in charge here? Because I'm just some guy in Oklahoma. Seriously, who's doing this stuff to us? So I'm—we're going to continue to raise hell about this issue.
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Stephen Miller is failing up again and New Dems want justice.
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