Transcript of DNC Chair Ken Martin Reacts to Trump’s Disaster Shutdown

Maga Mike had another meltdown during his morning press conference. As he continues this morning humiliation ritual, Donald Trump sends him out. He just talks about how tired he is, and then it just becomes this bizarre projection where he's really, I think, venting his frustration with Trump, but he's not communicating it that way with his words, but with his body language. He clearly is, Let me just show you. He goes, People keep coming to me and saying, Why are you so tired, Mike? Mike, why are you so tired? Here, play this clip.

Here in Washington, the work has gone on in earnest as well. People keep commenting to me, You look so tired on TV. I am so tired because we're not sleeping a lot. We're working overtime. Here in Washington, our house committees have continued the conference together.

You're literally not working. You've literally sent your members to go home on vacation. Then Maga Mike goes, But let me tell you what we're really tired about. We're tired of making making history. We have the longest government shutdown, the highest prices, the worst presidency, the lowest approval in history. Here's what he says. Let's play it.

We're in uncharded waters as a nation. As we say up here all the time, we're so tired of making history. I just want normal times, normal Congress again.

But the Biden administration- Those normal times, like when the Biden administration tore down the east wing of the White House. Remember that? Remember how wacky that was? And then Biden would wake up and he would post videos of himself taking diarrhea on peaceful protesters? You all remember those? Those were the crazy... I just want to get... What in the world is happening here? But then Maga Mike has asked a very important question. If you're able to find money to, I don't know, do other projects, why can't you find any types of money to help people who are about to lose Snap? 42 million Americans are about to lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program. You can't figure that one out, Maga Mike.

Let's play The White House is able to find money for military, for WEC, for farmers.

Should the White House now be able to find some money for the Snap program if they've done it wrong with the other one? They certainly tried. I mean, one of the reasons that this shutdown has not yet been as painful as it might otherwise have been is because the President is bent over backwards the administration. Think of it this way. The White House executive branch in a shutdown has a large control panel full of dials. Under the Obama administration, they turn those dials, pain dials, to 10 immediately. You remember it was so egregious to us.

They bring up Obama? And by the way, if you go back and just rewind the body language and the faces of Congresswoman Harriet Hinkman over there. She's the one who walks around the Capitol building with the lasso and the other people. It's like, I swear to you, it would be a Saturday Night Live skit if they weren't causing people so much pain. You couldn't script this thing this way. And then, MAGA Mike in the ultimate projection says, You can't allow a president to go around having unchecked power, to be unaccountable, because I think the big thing that MAGA wanted to roll out today is we need to focus on the autopen, and Biden uses autopens. What are you even What are you talking about? Here, play this clip.

To set the precedent, you can't allow a president to check out and have unelected, unaccountable, faceless people making massive decisions for the country.

Or this one right here where he starts attacking Biden again. Let's play it.

But the The Biden administration was unprecedented in so many ways, and the President was checked out of his job for quite some time, and everybody knows it. There was a cover up. The people around him who were using... They would give him scripts to follow. They would point him literally in the direction, Stand here, sir. Wave like this.

Okay, enough of that. Midas Touch has to make a quick video on that. Can we just play the video that we made? He just served us up a layup. Let's play it.

President was checked out of his job for quite some time, and everybody knows it. There was a cover up with people around him who were using... They would give him scripts to follow. They would point him literally in the direction, Stand here, sir. Wave like this. And he didn't know what he was signing. This is an executive order on flag burning. There's all sorts of just incredible implications. It sounds like a terrible novel or something, but this is reality. He pardoned categories of violent criminals and turned them loose on the streets.

He is pardoning some 1,500 January sixth rioters who have been convicted for participating in the attack in the capital four years ago. January sixth rioter who was pardoned by President Trump has been arrested in charge with making a credible death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffrey.

You can't allow a President to check out and have unelected, unaccountable faceless people making massive decisions for the country.

I want to bring in the chair of the DNC, Ken Martin. Ken, it's good to see. You saw the Midas Touch video, but the DNC social media accounts are getting in. I've noticed a big push on the digital side. Before asking you to comment, I just want to show, here's one of the videos that you all put up on TikTok about Mag and Mike. Let's play this.

The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of government. We aren't. Not in the Senate.

Guys, I've been doing such great rapid response, but what do you make of this moment?

Well, look, I mean, obviously, they're giving us a lot to work with between Trump And Mike Johnson, the rest of these clowns in the Republican Party, they keep serving it up. And to your point, here at the DNC, we've got a great mobilization team who's hitting it out of the park. And then folks like you, all of these folks in these different spaces, pushing back the right way and making sure we're doing it in real-time. I love the video you just showed that you guys put together. It's exactly right. I mean, these guys are just full of bullshit. They're a bunch of hypocrites. And every time we can and should, we need to be out there actually calling them out on this. And in real-time, like I said, to make sure the American people know exactly what's happening here. Now, they hope that no one's paying attention. We're now on 28 days of this shutdown. 17 million people have already lost health insurance in this country. 22 million families that are starving in this country are going to lose their nutrition assistance. We've got rural economies that are being completely destroyed as a result of these terrorists and these bad economic policies that Trump and his administration administration have pushed.

And Mike and the rest of these House Republicans, instead of being here trying to figure out how we actually solve this government shutdown, they're all on vacation. They're not even in their districts talking to their constituents. I don't know where the hell they are because they're hiding from their constituents. They're not here in Washington, DC. They're doing nothing to actually solve this government shutdown. And I think we all know why, right? The reality is, is they don't want to release the Epstein files, and they'd rather just selectively decide decide what parts of government they're going to actually keep open. And I thought the point you made earlier, by the way, was really important here, which is they can find money for everything else. $200 million for a Goddy ballroom that they're building, $130 million from some mysterious donor, some melon that no one's ever heard of who can pay the military. They've got $400 million for jets that they're finding, but they cannot find any money for starving families in this country. They cannot find money for the seniors who are going to be kicked out of the quarter of nursing homes that are going to close.

I mean, this is how depraved these guys are. And look, it's really painful for it right now in this country. But mark my words, all of this is going to come back to haunt them.

Let's talk about that. I mean, you see a lot of these candidates across the country. To me, a lot of these issues are not Democratic or Republican issues or independent issues We're talking about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. We're talking about health care for 42 million... We're talking about health care for 20 million Americans, Snap, which is for 42 million Americans. I mean, this is red state, blue state issues. And then the thing is with these Republicans, they refuse to do town halls. They refuse to actually speak to their constituents. And to me, that says it all. I mean, I've seen Democrats proudly holding town halls, standing with the people, And Republicans, there's a handful of people that do it. They usually get booed, and then they gaslight their audience. But to me, that dynamic says it all. Who's literally with the people showing up, taking tough questions, and who's in hiding right now?

Well, that's exactly right. And as you remember earlier this year, when Mike Johnson decided to be a coward, as is prone to his character, and say that he was going to cancel those town halls, I said, Well, you know what? If they're going to be cowardly and refuse to meet with their constituents and actually be held accountable to what's happening in this country will do their job for them. And we had Democrats all throughout the country not just do town halls in their districts, but we went out and held 150 town halls in Republican districts to make sure that constituents could be heard. Why weren't they holding those town halls? It's very important to realize that the reason they weren't holding those town halls was not just that they didn't want to be held accountable, but they did not want those stories of Americans whose lives were being destroyed and whose communities were being shattered to actually be amplified in any way, to actually get the attention that it deserves. They wanted to bury those stories of everyday Americans who are suffering under this administration and the reckless policies that Trump and Republicans continue to push.

So I said, to hell with it. We're going to do their job for them. We're going to go out there and hold those town halls, and we continue to do that. Look, you know what? I am absolutely convinced. We've got momentum him on our side. The reality is, since Trump was inaugurated, there's been 45 elections on the ballot, and the Democrats have actually overperformed to the tune of about 16 percentage points on average, which is a historic overperformance. There is huge wind at our back right now for sure. You have one of the most unpopular presidents ever in this country's history with the least popular piece of legislation in over a half a century that they just passed. I mean, for God's sake, this is the first time in our country's history we're actually taking health care away from people. First time ever. Usually we're expanding health care access. Usually we're bringing people more into those social safety nets. Instead, we're kicking people out. And as I mentioned, it's not just the insurance that's being taken away. It's the Nutrition Benefit programs. And it's also the fact that 300 hospitals are going to close across this country.

A quarter of nursing homes are going to close. And we know just in a matter of days, every American is going to get their health care renewal notices for next year, their insurance renewal notices, and almost everyone is going to see, on average, around a 30 % premium increase. That's all a result of this maniac in the White House and his complicit general in Mike Johnson, who's doing nothing but kissing this guy's ass because he's a sycophant.

We're seeing Democrats also fighting back against the unlawful gerrymandering in Trump's efforts to rig the midterms. We've seen Leader Jeffrey's go to Illinois. We've seen potentially Virginia finding a loophole based on Yunkin not adjoining a special session and focusing there. And so I think this is... I'm sure what you've heard a lot as you went into this job is people are saying, We want Democrats to fight, or, You're not fighting hard enough. Fight harder for me. Because as you know, when people are going to lose their health care or their Snap, this is life or death stuff. And so I think people are beginning to see, Okay, are they starting to fight for me now? So before we go, what can you give our audience confidence, though, that you, the Democrats in general, are going to be there for them to fight for them because you understand what their concerns are now. It is life or death for them, and they want fighters.

Yeah, well, that's exactly right. I'm proud of the Democrats in Congress for actually both in the Senate and the House or understanding right now, particularly with health care on the line for so many Americans that we need to stand up and fight right now. And make no mistake about this. This is the Republicans who've decided to shut government down because they want to make it harder for people to actually have the health care that they need and deserve in this country. And so I've always said, if you're not willing to fight like hell for the things you believe in, then do you really believe in them at all? And what we're finally seeing out of Democrats throughout this country is people willing to stand up and fight what they believe in. And let me say on the redistricting front, I was the first person on the ground in Texas the day after Greg Abbott decided to do this redistricting. And what I've been really booied about is the response from Democratic elected officials around the country who understand the assignment, which is, of course, this mid-cycle redistricting is unconstitutional. It's a craving power grab by Republicans who know they're likely to lose in 2026.

And so what are they doing? They're trying to cheat. They're trying to change the rules midstream and rig the maps so that they can stay in power. Well, we're not going to have any of that, right? At the end of the day, this is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather when we brought a pencil to a knife fight. We are bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. If you want to show down Republicans, we're going to give you a showdown. And what's happening in California in just one week is the first step for us, which is this is our counterpunch to what happened in Texas. It will level the playing field. And hopefully Really, it has a chilling effect on Republicans. If they try to do this in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Florida, or any other damn state, we're going to respond in kind in Virginia, in Illinois, in other Democratic States. And that's exactly what we'll do. And not because it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do to actually restore some balance in our democracy and save our goddamn Constitution, which is under assault every single day by this administration.

Ken, I want to thank you for joining us and sharing We're on the plan. We appreciate you as always.

Yeah. Let me just say one thing. If anyone wants to join us in this fight, by the way, it's really critical. We've got one week left. Critical elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, all over the country. We need your help getting out the vote right now. You can text Geotv to 43367 right now. Geotv to 43367 to join us in our organizing efforts to turn out every single vote. Help us build power and restore our democracy and save our Constitution.

Thank you for joining us. Ken Martin, Chair of the D&C. Appreciate you.

Thank you, man.

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