Transcript of Rep. Auchincloss Responds to the Trump Shutdown Mess

These are obviously very serious times with the Donald Trump government shutdown inflicting real pain on the American people. And so all of the MAGA Republicans are in lockstep with the Trump regime's decision to treat these, I guess, negotiations, if you want to even call what Donald Trump is doing by posting AI memes of alien technology from outer space and constantly posting images of Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffrey, wearing sombreros and AI manipulating relating the voices of Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. You have MAGA Republican Congress member Carlos Jimenez says, You're going to see a lot more of this. This is what we're doing. So if you want to be a politician, you got to develop a thick skin because this is how we're going to handle things in the Republican Party. These people are ridiculous. Here, play this clip.

One of the things that's happened in this negotiation is the administration is celebrating this AI meme of Hakeem Jeffrey in a sombrero with a mustache Vice President Vance says he thinks it's funny. There are a lot of people look at this and say it's just flat out racist. How does this help with the negotiations, congressman?

Look, I think it's just making fun of Hakeem Jeffrey's, I think everybody needs to chill out a little bit, okay? And you're going to see more of these things happen. And so people need to develop a little bit thicker skin. And it comes with the territory when you are a politician. So I would expect the meme to come out of me. And so if you complain about it, you're just going to get more of it. And so I saw it. Okay, I chuckled, and then we move on.

No one would ever meme you, congressman. But I do wonder what with the thousands of furlough. I do wonder what the thousands of furloughed federal workers think and how they think this is helping them right now.

And that's exactly the point. I mean, look, obviously, politicians should have thick skin. Obviously, humor is something that we should all embrace. I think I like a good joke. I like comedy. But there's also a time and a place for things. And also this is coming from the oval office AI Images, during an issue where tens of millions of Americans can lose their health care and die die, the serious stuff. The serious stuff and the behavior here. I go back to that California governor, Gavin Newsom, Marie Antoinette photo. The behavior is not just like eat your cake. It's treating the American people like we're the joke, like our lives and our family and our children are the freaking punchline here. And that's the part that upsets me here. You have Maggie Mike talking about that as well. Here, play this clip.

Many of you asked me this morning about sombreros and memes and why Hakeem Jeffrey is all alarmed by that. But look, these are games. These are sideshows. People are getting caught up in battles over social media memes. We've got to keep the... This is not a game. We got to keep the government open for the people. I don't know why this is so complicated. To my friend Hakeim, who I was asked about, Man, just ignore it. I mean, Gavin Newsom was trolling me last night. He painted me like a Minion. He painted me yellow with big glasses and overalls. I thought it was hilarious. You don't respond to it. For all my friends, for all my friends-Governor Newsom is mocking the way that Donald Trump is behaving like a petulent little baby.

Again, the gaslighting here is just next level. Donald Trump ordered all of the Republicans, do not even talk to Democrats, yet alone negotiate with Democrats. Then the message from the White House in response to Democrats saying, Look, we want to make sure we extend these Affordable Care Act subsidies. Last week, the White House literally said, I hate to curse, but this is what they said, Go fuck yourself, was the official statement from the White House spokesperson. It was an official statement that was given. I want to bring in Democratic Congress member Jake Elkencloss here. Congress member Elkencloss, great to see you again. I mean, look, I try to bring humor to the show. I like to laugh. I like all of that. This is serious stuff. And to me, beyond the Democrat, Republican, blue, red, purple, it's leadership. And it's just acting like freaking grownups and having principles and values. That, to me, is what frustrates me about this whole charade coming out of the White House. What about you?

Yes, and the hypocrisy always is galling. Donald Trump famously can take a joke about himself, right? And Donald Trump has very thick skin and never gets upset or ruffled by barbs thrown at him online or through the court system. This is one of the most petulent, thin-skinned cry babies in American political history, trying to claim that everyone else should be able to take a joke. When has Donald Trump ever laughed at himself? When has he ever had that amount of self-awareness to do that? I mean, my goodness, he tried to get a comedian fired for making a joke at his expense.

Going after Stan of comedians, canceled the White House correspondence dinner because he didn't want to be wasted. But let's talk about the real issue right here, which is, American people are scared. So a Washington Post poll 71% of Americans understand what's up. They rely on these subsidies. And their 71% of Americans say, We need to extend these Affordable Care Act subsidies because you see the data. Family making $85,000, their premiums are going to go up to potentially $24,000 a year. We can't afford this stuff. People can't afford this stuff. And when Donald Trump's doing his whole, Let's blame transgender people and let's blame illegal immigrants. I don't know. I just think that this is a little bit different for the American people. It's like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm on an Affordable Care Act plan. I need this. I need this. Do you think this is different? Because this is the same playbook they always try to use.

I think what you're seeing in that Washington Post poll is that the middle class has had a bad 2025. They came into this year really suffering from the cost disease that afflicks housing, health health care and utilities, particularly, where their rent payments, their insurance payments are going up two, three times as fast as their wages. And they came into 2025 worried about growing instability throughout the world, at home and abroad. And since then, what have they seen? They have seen that housing, that utilities, and that health care have continued to inflate at double-digit rates. And they've seen that this President is picking a fight with Canada and Los Angeles while rolling out the red carpet for Russia. This is not an America that they recognize, and what they want are some wins. They want some wins for the middle class. So before this shutdown, well before this shutdown, I led a group in laying out some starting conditions that the Republicans should meet us at, not expecting to get everything that we want. That's not how Congress works when you're grownups, but at least starting a negotiation on reversing the worst of the Medicaid cuts that are going to raise the cost of long term care for the middle class, on refunding the COPS grants that the GOP has gouged that's going to make it harder to hire and train local law enforcement, releasing the Epstein files as a way to build back some public trust, giving Congress a vote on the tariffs that are inflationary across the country.

These are all things that have a super-majority support across the country. They're not actually particularly partisan, if you look at the data. And I don't know why the GOP would rather drown the federal government than just help the middle class stay afloat.

Congressman Alkencloss You're a Marine, you're a veteran, trained at Quantico. I got to get your reaction to what you observed when Donald Trump went to Quantico. You had all those generals and admirals there who were basically silent the entire time. And lots of people are saying that their silence actually spoke volumes to the clown show that Donald Trump and Pete Hegsith were doing there. You and I often talk beyond just the politics of it, just leadership, service, What'd you observe there? I would love to get your take on that.

The first thing an officer candidate learns in Quantico is leadership by example. It's literally emblaisoned upon the statue at the entrance. And so the irony of Pete Hegsat lecturing a bunch of four-star admirals and generals who have a combined tens of thousands of years of combat experience on high standards when this guy has driven multiple nonprofits into the ground through malfeasance and poor leadership when his own personal conduct has been laid bare before the American public and found wanting, I think is quite galling. The standards of the United States military should be the standards of lethality that makes us no better friend and no worse enemy. If the standards are failing, then fix them. Fine. But the biggest challenge that the American military has right now is that the Commander in Chief doesn't know who the friend and the enemy are. He thinks Los Angeles is the enemy and Russia is the friend. Fix that and then go tell us about what you're going to do with PFTs.

Now, congress, you run a sub stack right now called Simple But Not Easy. Tell us about that because it's not just what we're against, it's what Democrats are for and what a forward-facing agenda looks like. So talk to us about what you want the American people to know if Democrats were to take control of the House, what does that agenda look like in an ideal world?

Yeah, I write weekly. It's called Simple But Not Easy on And at its core, it's about big ideas for 2028, because Democrats have spent the last decade telling Americans who we are against. We now have to tell them what we are for. So I've written specific ideas about financial freedom, about treating cost disease, about improving education, about taking on the social media corporations, about enhancing law and order, about fixing our appropriations process. And I am working now on these ideas with a group called Majority Democrats. It's a group of 32 of us, mayors, soon to be governors, members of Congress, and we are defining the new center of American political life. The debate right now between the center and the left, the center and the right, it's a stale debate because politics has realigned, and the opportunity is to define a new center that draws upon the best ideas across American ideological life. The faction that is able to define that new center controls the terms of debate and can uplift that exhausted majority of Americans who feel like politics has become so sophomoreic and so irrelevant to their life that they can't bear to tune in.

Now, before we go, I often ask you this question because you're out there not just in your home state of Massachusetts, but you're also speaking to people across the country right there, as you mentioned for the Substack, just getting ideas of what democratic leadership looks like in the future. Are there any issues that you see right now in this country that you think are just not getting enough attention out there in the press who are focused on a lot of other things, but that you're like, I really wish that I could bring this up. We have 6 million subscribers here. So I often like to ask a question like that just so I could learn something new before I wrap up these interviews.

I think there are three themes that are particularly resonant right now: cost disease, corruption in classrooms. And briefly in all three, and again, that's simple but not easy, I'm writing about them. On classrooms, candidly, neither party is putting forward a bold agenda on education at a time when American students are behind on reading and writing and arithmetic, and when the school closures have proven catastrophic for our educational readiness. We need to be surging one-on-one tutoring. We need to build a thousand trade schools, and we should make the social media corporations who have been treating our children like products pay for that entire educational infrastructure. On cost disease, in particular, housing and health care, Democrats need to be the doctors of cost disease. We have got to cut regulations where they're holding back productivity. We've got to adopt technology where it can help. And we got to take on a special interest like the health insurance corporations that are artificially keeping costs high. And then I'll close with corruption. I think this one is obvious to every American. Corruption is directly threatening the American dream. It's endemic in this administration, but we have to be willing to take it on wherever it exists.

That means banning stock trading by members of Congress and executive branch officials That means fixing our electoral system so that every election is competitive every November.

Congress member Jake Oakencloss, thanks for joining us. Everybody, check out his Substack, Simple but not easy on Substack. Thanks, Jake.

Be well.

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