Transcript of Rep. Beyer Responds to MAGA Mike’s Massive GOP Cover Up

Maggie Mike Johnson is fearful, I think, of losing his job if he doesn't beautifully follow the orders from Donald Trump. The orders from Donald Trump are, make sure you don't speak with Democrats, yet alone even negotiate with Democrats. It's an interesting development about what's going on in the United States Senate, because there are some discussions actually taking place to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies and possibly push forward three of the 2026 Appropriation Bill. There is some discussion taking place among senators to figure out how to protect Americans health care, some bipartisan conversations taking place. The issue, though, is that Maggie Mike Johnson has said, under no circumstance will he even entertain any bipartisan solutions in the Senate that protect the Affordable Care Act subsidies? And Maggie Mikes told his members, Do not even show up. If you see a Democrat, you don't talk to them at all because Donald Trump, Maggie Mikes' dad, he says, You don't talk to them and you don't even negotiate with them. So that's the status. You have Democrats in the Senate trying to work. You have some Republicans in the Senate trying to figure out a solution right now.

You've got Democrats in the House saying, Let's try to figure this out. Let's talk in a public. Remember fifth-grade government? You know how the parties are supposed to talk to each other? That's the way government's supposed to work. No Kings. And then Mike is like, No, we've got a king. Whatever Donald Trump says, goes. Donald Trump says, We can't talk to you. So you have Maga Mike out there, going in front of the press and just saying some of the weirdest stuff. Maga Mike went out today. He starts talking about how he hates the no king's protests. And he goes, This is the Marxist, pro-Hamas, pro-Antifa types, whatever the hell that means. You just know how outrageous these statements are from these people. The most heinous statements while Americans are suffering. You have Maga Mike out there leading a press conference about health care being taken away from 20 million Americans. And what Maga... Well, by the way, $20 billion is going to bail out Argentina. And this is what Maga Mike saying. It's ridiculous. Here, play this clip.

The contrast between these parties could not be any more stark. And I encourage you to watch. We call it the hate America rally that will happen Saturday. Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you see pro-Hamas supporters. I bet you see Antifa types. I bet you see the Marxist in full display, the people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this Republic, and we do. That's what we're here doing every single day.

If you're standing up for the foundational truths, you really don't need to go there. I'm standing up. Usually, those are the people you worry about most, and it just looks at this dystopian movie. I don't even know what I'm even watching there as he spews lie after lie. Then the press figures, Okay, well, we've got Maggie Mike up here. He's talking a bunch of nonsense. To their credit, the press today was like, Let's ask him a real question. So, Maggie Mike, what do you think about one of the people in your caucus, Cory Mills, a Maga Republican, who was accused of beating his girlfriend and stolen valor? Does that make you In any way concerned, to which Mag and Mike says, I don't want to talk about that. Let's talk about serious things. I don't think that's a serious thing. Here, play this clip.

It's been reported for a while. Cory Mills was accused of beating a girlfriend in his DC Department, he was accused of stolen valor by the people that he claimed to have saved on the battlefield that have been on the record, said that he did not save them. This has been happening since the beginning of the year. Are you concerned about these allegations against Cory Mills?

Look, you have to ask Representative Mills about that. He's been a faithful colleague here. I know his work on the Hill. I don't know all the details of all the individual allegations and what he's doing in his outside life. You have to ask him about that. Let's talk about the things that are really serious background.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

Said, I don't know the details. This follows yesterday where he said, I don't have a strategy regarding the strategy. Remember, they never have details about... I don't know what Donald Trump wrote. I don't know what this person thought. I don't know what this person did. But I am going to go speak a bunch of nonsense about the peaceful no, King's protest coming up. I want to bring in Democratic Congress member, Don Byer. Great to see a Congress member, Byer represents Virginia's eighth Congressional district, the most federal employees in the country live in Congressman Byer's district. I I want you to first just respond to the distraction, deflection, destruction by Maggie Mike. And then let's talk about what's going on here, as it does seem that the Senate's trying now, at least they're talking. That's good. Baby steps, talking. But Maga Mike saying, We ain't talking. So what do you make of all of us?

Well, thanks for playing those Maga Mike clips. That was so disappointing. First of all, saying that the millions and millions, probably tens of millions of Americans who show up on Saturday for the Kings Rally are leftists, Antifa, Marxist, Hamas supporters, is incredibly insulting and stupid. He needs to come out and see what happens in Washington, DC, in the jurisdictions I represent, Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church. But the average age is probably 62. They are overwhelmingly professional. They are moderate. They are really good people who love their country, and they're coming out to protest because they love their country. It's the opposite of what Mike Johnson suggests. And then to suggest that he doesn't know the details on Cory Mills. Come on. Everybody here knows the details of Cory Mills. It's been written about extensively. You know he's paid attention to that. He's just afraid to say anything because the margin is so thin. It's very, very disappointing. And just the notion that if the Senate Republicans are making progress with Democrats on finding a way out of this, do extending the Affordable Care Act tax incentives for a couple of years or longer, making them permanent, Mike Johnson says he won't bring it back because he's afraid of his own people.

I I don't like to do it a hominem of tax. I've served with four different speakers. This is the fifth one, by far the weakest speaker, I think, in American history.

Well, he's not even talking. The strangest part about this whole thing, and I've talked to lots of people who have been with other government shutdown. They're like, look, in the past, you'd be trying to work together, come up with solutions, the way, as I said at the outset, in your fifth grade government class, your first time you learn, it's like, yes, when the parties need each other's votes, you have to talk to each other and have conversations and try to build consensus. But I remember with former President Biden, you would have McCarthy show up frequently in the way, What do you need? What do you need? All right, let's do this. Let's do that. Everybody take it. People are a little upset about this, a little happy, but deals are made. Right now, they're not even like, can you even explain what it's like? They're not even talking these Republicans. They're not talking to Democrats, and Democrats are showing up to work. Republicans, they do that press conference, and then they leave for the day. Then they go on Fox, they say their lies, and then it's like, All right, rinse and repeat.

Absolutely right. I'm here in the Capitol right now, and I'm surrounded by lots of my Democratic friends. I haven't seen a single Republican here. The halls are largely empty. What Hakeem Jeffrey's, Katherine Clarke, say again and again is, We're here, we're willing to negotiate, we want to talk. There's nobody to talk to. They've shut down in conversation conversation and discussion. And so, hey, they have the White House, the Senate, and the House. They think they can do anything they want. Open the government. You're in power.

Talk to us about your Congressional district. It's Arlington, Alexander, Falls Church. I went to school at GW, Georgetown. I know those areas. I know those areas well. I go out there to restaurants, come back. Friends would go there. Friends who lived in the areas and apartments in those areas would travel to DC. Being hit and impacted the most. I know that you're going to be going to food banks and clinics after. People are really being hit by this. Republicans are treating it like they've got their talking points. We're going to say, pro-Hamas, pro-terrorists. They almost are like, Well, the Democrat talking point is we have to help Americans and just help people. They're almost treating, say, people people's health care. They're almost treating it because everything they do is phony. These are talking points for Democrats about protecting people's health care. I think the thing is it's not talking points. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or an independent, if your ACA subsidies are extinguished, you're going to have to pay a lot more money. If you're being laid off by either because of what Trump's done to the economy or a government worker, you may have to go to a food clinic in order to get food.

You don't have medical services. So talk about that.

Well, Ben, first, I represent the Congressional district that has the most federal employees. It's also the most politically sophisticated and the best educated. And so we've gotten hit really, really hard by all the rifts, by the fork in the road. When they shut down USAID, it seemed like every US-based USAID contractor lived near my home. And yet, we did a quick survey yesterday, of the last 1,000 incoming calls, 90 % have been stick with the shutdown. Stand up for America, stand up health care for every American. So they're really brutalized by it. Our largest food bank in Arlington, Arlington Food Assistance, whatever, their number of people they're serving is the largest ever, 50% higher than COVID, which had been the largest ever. So people are really hurting, but they're also willing to stand up because they love their country.

So, congressman, where do you think this goes next? What happens after? I mean, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for this government shutdown, given the Mike and Mike position, the Trump position, do not talk, do not have discussions. And I saw Congresswoman McClane. After Mag and Mike goes, Congresswoman McClane, she does a thing where she just like, yields, where she holds up. She goes, just Sign the damn thing. Just sign in. It's like, that's not how you actually deal with negotiation. So what happens next?

I go back to the Abraham Lincoln who said, public sentiment drives everything. That's a paraphrase. He's more eloquent. And so let's see how public sentiment evolves over the shutdown. So far, the public is very much on the side of avoiding the 100%, 200%, 300% increases in Affordable Care Act premiums. They're against the 20 million people whose health insurance is being stripped away through the big ugly bill. As long as that happens and Donald Trump's numbers continue to go down, eventually the Republicans are going to realize that they just need to do the right thing. And Ben, the amazing The interesting part is they're going to get creamed in the 2026 elections unless they fix health care. It affects their people way more than it affects our voters. And so the chance for us to pick up 40 or 50 Republican seats is out there if they don't fix it. And That's not what they want. So we are offering a win-win situation. They just have shut their ears to it.

And then finally, I want to talk about this while I've got you on, because your career before getting into politics, running a successful business, having lots of employees and predictability, certainty, direction. It seems everything that we don't see right now with this current administration, and not just mix messages they're sending to the business community, but in many cases, outright hostility. Frankly, is the government going to say, We want to take over your business the way they have before and implemented those types of on certain businesses. It just seems every day you could wake up and Donald Trump could make a social media post about China one day, and then the markets have a strong reaction. Then the next day, he says, Actually, we're friends. Then it has another reaction. Some people in that period of time are just getting completely wiped out as well, though, before he sends his next social media post. I just wonder your reaction wearing both your political hat and business hat at just what you're seeing every day here, because these Republicans like to brand themselves as being, Oh, we're the ones who know about business. But all of their actions, to me, seem as reckless as can be from a business and political perspective.

Yeah. And Ben, we've seen that from the beginning of the year. What businesses love is certainty. If I'm going to go out and borrow some money, or I'm going to convince some friend to invest money in my business, they need to know, and I need to know, that There's a future there, that the market will be there, that the regulations will be straightforward, that the terrorists aren't going to kill us. I saw an interesting thing this morning. The National Federation of Independent Business, all the small businesses across the country do a survey every month. The number of people that responded was less than 8% of their memberships, the lowest ever. What you're finding out is these businesses, they don't even know how to respond to a survey because they're so afraid and uncertain.

I appreciate you coming on, congressman We'll keep on following your work on committees, your floor speeches, and we hope you come back soon.

Thank you, Ben, very much. Good luck. Thanks for keeping us informed.

Absolutely. Congress member, Don Byer, Virginia's eighth Congressional district. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at mitisplus. Com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at mitisplus. Com.