Transcript of Rep. Chris Pappas Discusses Trump’s Disaster Shutdown

These MAGA Republican leaders are spiraling out of control in the House, in the Senate, Trump's cabinet members, just trying to justify the cruelty, the incompetence, and trying to make sense of Trump's plummeting approval as Americans blame Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, rightfully so, for this disastrous government shutdown. Let me give you a case in point. You have MAGA Republican Congresswoman McClane. I'm not even sure what the purpose of this is. I'm not sure who her intended audience is. I like to think when I do videos, who's my intended audience? Ask yourself, who's her intended audience for this? Here, play this clip.

Just so you're clear, and let's remember, they did it and let make sure that we don't forget, and let's make sure we remind them who voted to keep food on the table and who voted to take food off the table. Because at some point in time, they're going to reverse what they're talking about and do what they normally do, and that's try and blame us. But let's hold them accountable for once to the votes that they've taken.

I can assure you, I will. I think the audience, we know who it is. It's Donald Trump, because I like to craft my arguments around logic and facts, and I like to bring receipts. When you know there's six billion dollars or so sitting in a contingency fund to make sure that you can pay people their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program while the government is giving $40 billion to Argentina. I like to lead with just the data and the facts versus just whatever the hell that was. And then you have a Trump cabinet member, you have Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent out here saying, I just want everybody to know, promise is made, promise is kept, Wall Street's doing amazing. He goes, The workers, next year is your year. We got you next year. Didn't Donald Trump say on day one? Here, play this clip.

Because what's really happened here is the low-end consumer has gotten killed. And President Trump has made promises, kept on his campaign promises. And it's going to start flowing through to working Americans next year. We're going to have Wall Street's done great, and Main Street can do great also. So I think we're going to have parallel prosperity next year.

Parallel prosperity. Maybe the 22 trillion fake dollars that Donald Trump talks about bringing in. It'll just trickle down. Maybe the billionaires will just trickle down their breadcrumbs on all of us. Wouldn't that be great? But he's got a big deal he wants to announce. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson says, Donald Trump, he went to Asia and he brought back something big. 25 million tons per year of soybeans. But should we look at the fact that the year before Scott Besson, that China was purchasing 27 metric tons of soybeans? So the deal you did was to sacrifice America's AI high superiority in technology in order to have China buy less strawberries. That's the art of the deal. Here, play this clue.

Maria, one of the big parts of this agreement, and I'm going to break the news here on your story is the massive amount of agriculture purchases that the Chinese are going to be doing in this agreement. So the Chinese have agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans during this season, right now, between now and the, it should be January. And then for the next three years, they're going to be buying a minimum of 25 million metric tons per annum for the next three years.

So it's less. That's the art of your deal. And then finally, you have Dr. Oz and you have RFK Jr. Being asked about people's premiums rising because the Affordable Care Act subsidies are not being extended. And here's what they say, it's only going to be $50. They said it's only going to increase $50 like we're stupid here. Play this quote. You mentioned at the top that you want medications to be affordable, effective, and safe for Americans. We're speaking today on the day that window shopping began in the Affordable Care Act program on those marketplaces. And that shows that unless those tax credits are extended, those subsidies, the average plan will increase for Americans by somewhere around 115 %. Do you believe that Congress should extend those subsidies so that most Americans do not receive significant increases in their premiums? Where did you get that 115 % number from?

Kaiser Family Foundation. They retracted that.

That data was run inappropriately. They changed the messaging on it. Go back and look at the website.

Here's the truth.

The window shopping is already revealing that the average American who's on the ACA between 100 and 400 % of poverty level is going to pay $50 total next year. $50? That seems to be different than the notices that people are getting, which shows that some families are going to pay $24,000 more. I guess the only data that we can trust, according to the Trump regime, is Donald Trump's lies. Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Chris Pappas, who's running for the Senate seat there in New Hampshire. Last time we did the interview with you was back in April. You and I were talking before this one. The Trump regime continues to lie and lie and lie in inflecting pain in New Hampshire and across the country. Then you just see what I just showed you there, which is it's not even weakness masquerading as strength. It's weakness and fraud, so obviously and transparently, fraudy. What do you make of all of this?

Well, it's lies, it's incompetence, and it's not meeting the moment for the people that I represent here in the state of New Hampshire. I mean, take the healthcare issue alone. People can now in New Hampshire go online and compare plans on the ACA marketplace from 2025 and 2026. If you're a family of four that earns about $64,000 a year, your premium is going to triple. This is reality. I don't know what the administration is talking about or cite here, but this is one of the reasons why Democrats are continuing to fight to make sure that health care is affordable and within reach to families, including the estimated 22 million that could see on average a 75% increase in their premiums as a result of the expiration of these credits. So this is incredibly important. We're talking about the health and well-being of our constituents. Nothing could be more important. And we need responsible leadership in Washington. We're getting anything but that out of this administration. As you mentioned, there is funding literally sitting in the account that could help go to pay the benefits to people who need food assistance who are struggling to put food on the table right now.

That's 75,000 families in my state alone, and they won't do it. And that's just incredibly cruel. We need to figure out how we address this, whether it's pushing Speaker Mike Johnson to come back into session so we can pass a bill, or whether it's more pressure on the administration to do the right thing by the American people. They are missing the mark at a time where people are struggling out there, whether it's health care, whether it's food. Democrats are speaking out loudly and clearly, and we need cooperation.

But Mike just wants to be a happy warrior, he says. I want to be happy warrior Maga Mike. And he goes, Now I'm very mad. And he said, Did you see Senator Thun? Senator Thun got angry. Like, Yo, we don't care about Maga Mike if you're a happy warrior or not. I don't even know what this guy talks about at his press conferences. It's like Americans are suffering. It's not a talking point that Americans are terrified about losing their health care, losing supplement and nutrition assistance program. Donald Trump can say a thousand times that we're in a golden age right now and that he's defeated inflation. But anybody knows when you go to the grocery store, when you go and buy clothing, whatever it is, and you hear at the register, beep, beep, beep, it feels like a heart monitor because you're like, I don't know how I can afford this. So when they go, Oh, everything's great, it's not. And they keep on pushing it. And I think that's what just adds insult to injury. How do the people of New Hampshire feel? Do they feel that Trump has created the golden age and inflation is defeated?

No one feels that. No one feels that out there because the reality is things are getting more expensive. This President promised to end inflation. He even did a victory lap a few weeks ago and said, Inflation has been defeated. But people recognize that costs continue to go up. Whether that is your grocery bill, whether it's the premium for your health care, whether it's your rent or your mortgage, you pay all of that out of your same pocket. Families are financially stressed right now. We have to make sure that we are advocating for them because Republicans in Washington feel like they're not accountable to the people of this country. Mike Johnson, he's a footnote in terms of how this government is operating because he only wants to carry the water of the administration. He's not standing up for the institution of the House. He's not having us there on the job working, relaying the concerns that we are hearing in real time from our constituents so that we can figure out how we translate that into good policy and progress on the issues including the affordability crisis. So when power is centralized in one administration, as we have seen during this chapter in our history, it means that the people's voice is left out.

It makes it harder for us to advocate for our constituents and bring their real stories to bear. So we're going to continue fighting. But the fact that Speaker Johnson has kept the house closed since September 19th means that the people's house hasn't been able to reflect what real people are experiencing out there right now. That's not how you get a functional government that solves problems.

I've heard you say, I couldn't agree more with you, functional government, responsible behavior. I just remember in fifth grade, Schoolhouse Rocks or my fifth grade government class, the way this whole thing works, this government, the parties have to speak to each other. That's it. You could be political adversaries, but you got You got to negotiate. You got to figure out solutions, and you got to come together. I just think the American people are saying, I see the Democrats. They show up to the House. They say, We're here to talk. These are issues that matter to me, like health care and Snap and things like that. The Republicans are on vacation. I think same thing with town halls. If you look at it, Democrats hold town halls. They meet with their people. They're speaking in front of a large crowds. They're taking hard questions. And by and large, 97% of MAGA Republicans right now are not holding town halls, and they're running from their constituents. So to me, sometimes, if you pull back and just look at who wants to do this in front of the public, who wants this to be transparent, and who keeps hiding, I think you come to an answer of who's just behaving like, responsibly, like grownups, like adults.

Well, it's a big tell that Republicans are trying to gerrymander their way into a permanent majority in the House of Representatives because they understand how historically unpopular their ideas are, whether it's closing rural hospitals and kicking people off their health insurance, making health care more expensive, taking food away from hungry families. No one asked for that. No one voted for that in the last election. And so they're estranged from your everyday voter out there that's hungry for action, hungry for attention on affordability, really looking for ways that we can work together to build a fair economy. But the House and Senate, they're considered the world's greatest deliberative body. But But if they're not even deliberating, then people are left behind. And so that's what Democrats have to continue to fight for, to reflect what we're hearing out there across the country, to demand better. And look, if at the end of the day, Republicans won't work with us in a year from now, there's going to be an election where they're going to be held accountable by the people of this country. We've got to make sure while we focus on the issues that matter now and try to take the fight directly to Republicans in Washington, that we're also working incredibly hard to reestablish the checks and balances that are just missing right now.

There's no one in the Republican Party who's standing up to this administration when they're wrong, regardless of how painful the result is for their constituents back home. Washington needs a reality check.

Speaking of that election coming up, when you and I spoke last, it was your announcement that you were running for that United States Senate seat, that seat that will be vacant in the Democratic seat right there. Tell us, how's the campaign going? What should we know about it? What should people of New Hampshire know?

Well, look, this is going to be an incredibly tough race because New Hampshire is a very purple state. We're the closest state that voted for Kamala Harris in the last election. Republicans have a trifecta at the state level and a voter registration advantage over Democrats that's been growing. Now, Republicans have landed one of their top recruits here, former US Senator John E. Sunnu. They actually have two former Republican senators who are in the race. The other one is Scott Brown. So they're looking to the past. They're putting up failed candidates who represent failed ideas that help create some of the very problems that we're facing today. And with respect to John Sunnu, when he was defeated 17 years ago, by Jean Sheehan, he sold out, earned millions of dollars, shilling for corporations and special interests, and supporting initiatives that run contrary to how we create a fairer economy and what our communities in New Hampshire need. When he was in the Senate, he voted for anti-choice Supreme Court justices. He voted to privatize Social Security, voted against lowering the cost of prescription drugs. There's a lot we can talk about in this campaign, and I'm going to talk about the future, how we can inspire some hope, how we can bring people together to ensure that we're putting our state and our country on the right path for the future.

So that's what this campaign is going to be about. It's going to be a tough road over the next year. This is one of just a handful of battleground states that will to determine whether or not Democrats can take back the majorities in the House and Senate, which is absolutely essential if we're going to put up some guardrails that are meaningful against the Trump administration. I just know, based on the independent voters that I've been talking to in New Hampshire, they don't want to reward the behavior of this administration. They don't want to give them more votes to be able to continue moving forward, to continue to move forward on an agenda that's going to restrict access to health care, raise costs, divide our country in so many ways. They want new leadership. That's what we're going to try to bring to bear for the people of New Hampshire.

Where can people find out more about the campaign?

Well, you can go to chrispappas. Org. We'd appreciate any support out there. Chime in, find us on social media. We're on all the channels. This is one of just a handful of Senate races that will really determine what the midterm election environment looks like. We're going to be working incredibly hard here. I hope folks will continue to stay plugged into our race.

We'd appreciate any Well, we need a system of checks and balances, and we need a system with people who are fighting for real people out there like you. So thank you for joining us, Congress member Chris Pappas. We appreciate seeing you again.

Thanks, Ben. Great to see you.

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